church

Trans-formation

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My column for The Antelope County News 4.14.2021

I wrote this column in response to the recent column by a ministerial colleague from the Missouri Synod Lutheran Church in town. In his column he warned our county of the evil of “transgenderism.” I gave him a call and let him know I was submitting a counter-point. He was gracious. Here’s my column:

It was a Holy Spirit moving; God is in this place, make me an instrument of your peace, bona fide miracle. God worked all things together for good and, I was one of the ones who needed some work before God could get it done.

Years ago, my administrative assistant and I chatted about how our minds have changed over time about different issues. Homosexuality was one. I’d come to see that God’s love is so much wider and deeper than mine. Before I knew Gay Christians, I didn’t think one could be both. Over time I learned how wrong I was. I said, “One thing I still can’t wrap my head around is transgender. I just don’t get it.”

“I have a terrific autobiography by a trans man you can read. It’ll give you some perspective.” She said.

Reading the book opened my eyes. It was a gut-wrenching, brave story of a man, born with a woman’s anatomy, who knew, just as surely as I know I’m left-handed, that he was a man. Reading one book didn’t clear up all my questions about transgender, but it was a start.

Five weeks later, the book was still on the backseat of my car as I went into a local therapist’s office. The therapist made the appointment with me, saying one of my parishioners was her patient and they would like to talk with me together. “Can you tell me what this is about?” I asked. “Let’s talk about it then.” She said.

“Lori has something she wants you to know about her, but she’s concerned once you do, you won’t let her stay in your church. She loves God and your church. She hopes she can stay. But she needs you to know who she is.”  

I looked at Lori. Her eyes were downcast, her shoulders rolled. She was sad-looking, vulnerable. My mind raced. Is she a sex offender? Has she murdered someone? Has she been in jail for some horrendous crime?

“Lori has been told not to come back to several other churches and was evicted from senior housing. It is difficult for her to tell you. That’s why she wanted us to meet together–so I can help her in the aftermath of our conversation today if need be.”

I looked at Lori again. “Whatever it is, you can tell me,” I said.

“I’m transgender, well, I’m intersex,” Lori said. “I was born with indeterminate genitalia. My parents wanted a boy, so the doctor and my parents decided I was a boy. That’s how they raised me but, that’s not who I am. I am a woman. May I please keep coming to church?”

Do you see what God did? Do you remember that book on the backseat of my car? I had chills up and down my spine. Surely, surely, God was in that place! God prepared me for this moment. (Six weeks earlier, I would have hesitated and stammered and hemmed and hawed). Without hesitation, I said, “Oh, Lori! You are a precious child of God. You are loved. Of course, you are still welcome in the church.”

What business of mine was the “equipment” under Lori’s skirts? My business was helping Lori know how broad and how deep God’s love is for all of us.

Nothing grieves me more deeply than when it is Christ’s church that wounds God’s beautifully unique, mysteriously made, created in love, children. If you are gay, straight, bi, intersex, trans, non-binary, green, purple, or blue, make no mistake, any church that says you don’t belong is wrong. God loves you.

It is time to Repent

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My Column for The Elgin Review was rejected this week by the paper. In fact, the opportunity to continue writing a column for The Elgin Review has been revoked. The editor wrote today saying,

“Rebecca, First, let me say thank you for your past column submissions. We have made a decision this week to go in a different direction. As a result, we will no longer be publishing your column.

Sincerely,

Dennis Morgan, Owner/Publisher”

I am publishing my column for this week here on my blog. I invite you to follow my blog, and share it widely as my voice is being silenced locally.

There was nothing of Jesus in what took place at the US Capitol on Epiphany. In amongst the “don’t tread on me” banners and Confederate and Trump flags, there were also crosses and banners and signs carrying Jesus’ name, but he was not there. Not with the zealots who stormed our Citadel of Democracy equipped with zip ties for restraining our elected representatives, not with the hooligans who smeared feces and peed in its historic hallways, not with the mob chanting to hang the Vice President and not with the deluded dopes who have been so brain-washed by years of Breitbart and Fox and church leaders who long ago climbed into bed with crooked politicians, that they mistakenly and naively believed they were being “patriots” promoting a righteous cause that day.

There is nothing of Jesus in the frenzied waving of flags bearing one man’s name. There is nothing of Jesus and nothing pro-life about a politician and his minions who whip-up a crowd in a rally and then point them in the direction of the Capitol where five people lost their lives in the violence, including a police officer. Do not be deceived, Jesus was not any part of that. His name has been desecrated just as clearly as our nation’s Capitol has been desecrated. Those who participated in Wednesday’s despicable debacle were called “special people” by our President who has curried the favor of racists and bigots and extremists throughout the four years of his term in office. He was wrong. He has been wrong all along. They are not special. They are wrong. They are certainly loved by God, but they are wrong, and what they did was sin. Those who continue to support President Trump after this are not special, either. They too, are wrong, they too—though loved by God, are sinning.  

The majority of voters in our state voted in November in support of President Trump. It is time for the scales to fall from the eyes of any among us who sincerely seek to follow Jesus. The direction in which the President and his people are going does not point the way to the reign of God. It misses the mark. Like the wise men from the east who turned their backs against Herod and went home by a different way after paying homage to the baby Jesus, it is past time for those who love Jesus to turn away from this madness and seek a more excellent way. It is past time for those who love God and have supported this president to repent. To repent means to make a one-hundred-and-eighty-degree turn. There is nothing of Jesus in what has become of this man’s presidency. Turn away.

“Not by might and not by power, but by my spirit, says the Lord of Hosts”—Zechariah 4:6 (NRSV). Jesus was not part of the mob last Wednesday. Jesus’ law is love. Jesus’ gospel is peace.

**

I am the Pastor of Park Congregational United Church of Christ west of Elgin and First Congregational Church in Neligh. What I write in my columns, and what I preach from those pulpits may be views that are not fully shared by all the members of those congregations. I appreciate that they grant me freedom of the pulpit to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ as I, through years of study and faithful service, understand it. 

The Way Things Are Done

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My Column for The Elgin Review

June 10, 2020

In 1989 we hung our baby’s cloth diapers on a clothesline in our backyard on laundry day. Without fail, when Adam’s diapers hung in the sun, our neighbors across the alley lit their trash on fire in a barrel they kept on their side of the alley. Burn barrels were against federal and state laws inside city limits by that time, but in the small, county-seat town a lot of people still used them. “We’ve always done it this way.”

We walked around the block to ring our neighbor’s doorbell to introduce ourselves. They knew who we were. (It was a small town. Everyone knew we were the preachers). Kindly, we asked if they minded not using their burn barrel while the baby’s laundry hung on the line 30 feet away. They said they minded. They burned trash whenever there was trash to burn. They’d “always done it that way.”

The only air-conditioning in our big old house was two window units on the first floor. One hot day our windows were open while Adam napped in his crib in the nursery. The smoke detector went off in his room. A gray stench and haze from the neighbor’s burn barrel filled his room.

“Could we set up a schedule?” We asked when we visited them again. “Would you burn your trash on Wednesday afternoons and evenings and on Sunday mornings when all three of us are at the church?” “No.” they said. “We’ve always burned trash whenever we want to. We’re not going to change how we do things now.”

A call to the police to ask if anything could be done was answered with, “It may be against the law, but it’s the way we’ve always done things.” Attending a city council meeting with a dozen church members who were also tired of burn barrels in town received the same response, “we’ve always done it this way.”

That’s when hang-up calls started in the middle of every night. We had to answer. We were pastors– people expected to reach us in an emergency at all hours. After two long weeks of that, the police called us at 2:30 one morning. Could I meet them at the church? Something seemed amiss. They saw a light flicker inside the building. I dressed, drove to the church, walked around the outside of the building with the officers, unlocked the doors and did a complete walk through with them. Nothing was amiss.

It turned out, one of the policemen working the night shift was our back-alley neighbor’s son. It was the way things were done.

I believe our black, brown and indigenous neighbors who tell us of abuses of power by police in their towns and cities. I believe it is the way things are done. Not everywhere and not all the time, but, when police power was mis-used against me years ago, I lost sleep. Protestors across our country and around the globe are testifying in the court of public opinion telling us that when police power is mis-used against black, brown and indigenous people, far too often, they lose their lives. Too often it is the way things are done and it needs to stop.

Scripture warns against those “who speak peace with their neighbors, while mischief is in their hearts.” (Psalm 28:3b). Those who are sworn “to protect and to serve,” must pay attention to what is in their hearts. Ours will be a better world when that’s the way things are done.

**

Park Church is worshipping outdoors during the month of June. You are welcome to join us on the church lawn at 9:15 am wearing a mask. I love to hear from you. Beckyzmcneil@gmail.com and 402.540.5615.

 

White Flags

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My Monthly Column in The Antelope County News

June 10, 2020.

Rev. Dr. Rebecca Z. McNeil

“Somebody’s father, somebody’s mother, somebody’s brother, somebody’s daughter, somebody’s child, somebody’s grandpa, somebody’s lover, somebody’s best friend, somebody’s coffee-drinking pal, somebody’s fishing buddy, somebody’s co-worker, somebody’s aunt—” For every white flag planted in front of First Congregational Church the past month, I have said, out loud, “somebody’s someone.”

Covid 19 memorial

I do not know the names or the stories of the Nebraskans who have died from COVID-19 this spring but I know they were loved and I know they are missed by somebody who is our neighbor.

When we started our memorial in front of our church building on May 6th, we planted ninety-one flags for ninety-one Nebraskans who died too soon and quite possibly alone, apart from their families in an isolation unit in a hospital cared for by heroic nurses and physicians. As I write today, one month later, there are one hundred ninety-six flags whipping in the wind in front of the church building.

On Friday afternoons at 3:00 pm, we’ve been ringing our church bell. It tolls once for every Nebraska life lost to this dread disease. Last Friday it took over twenty minutes to toll our bell that many times. We toll the bell at 3:00 pm on Fridays because it was at 3:00 pm on a Friday when Jesus drew his last breath and died. Though we may not know them, according to our Christian faith, those who have died are to be like Christ to us.

All of us are tired of social distancing. All of us are uncomfortable wearing masks. All of us just want life to get back to normal, but for one hundred and ninety-six Nebraska families and counting, their new normal includes a gaping hole of grief where once was somebody special. We owe it to them and to their loved-ones’ memory and to our own loved-ones, to remain diligent and careful so we can stop planting white flags in the church yard.

 

When Times are Tough and Hope is Lagging, Look UP!

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My Column for The Elgin Review, April 1, 2020

In my experience, sometimes manna from heaven looks more like a roll of toilet paper sailing over four stalls, trailing a beautiful white train behind it, than like some sort of bread miraculously provided for the people of Israel wandering out in the desert. If you aren’t familiar with the story of manna for the people of Israel, it’s in the book of Exodus in the Bible. It’s a story about God providing what God’s children need when times are tough and hope is lagging.

When I was a brand-new young missionary in Zaire, I’d been in our home for a week or so when I decided one of the things that I really needed was some fabric to make curtains for our windows. Pastor Efefe and the school’s driver agreed to take me to the city ten miles from our village where I could do some shopping. I’d selected my fabrics and was standing in a long line waiting to pay for my purchases when my gut clenched. Zairian food was not something I was yet accustomed to and my GI system was in full revolt. My need was urgent.

Bashfulness and modesty be damned, I turned to Pastor Efefe and asked in French “where is the restroom?” His eyes widened to match mine and he said, “we have to go to the church offices here in the capitol.” Grabbing the driver by the arm, we made quite a scene leaving the store. The clerk hollered from behind the counter, “Hey, where are you going? We’ve already cut the foreign woman’s fabric” And Pastor Efefe yelled in a loud, clear voice, “She’s got the runs! We’ll be back later.”

This is how bad my situation was; I wasn’t even humiliated.

We made it to the church offices, and Pastor Efefe pointed down the hall to the rest room. Never in all my days, neither before or since, have I ever been so thankful for a toilet. Sweet, sweet relief quickly turned to horror however, when I realized there was no toilet paper in the stall. There was nothing, and there was no one else in the restroom to ask for help. Minutes ticked by. I was contemplating tearing my cotton dress off a few inches above the hem and using that instead of paper when Pastor Efefe’s voice rang out from the hallway outside the restroom door. “Madame Le Pasteur” he hollered while opening the door, “en haut!” which means “up!” And there, like manna from heaven came that most blessed roll of toilet paper sailing through the air above me. I was saved.

It’s a funny story that came back to my mind because of the current toilet paper hoarding that’s going on due to Covid-19. Remembering the story now reminds me that God is always at work finding a way to provide us with what we need. Even when what we need is humbling and oh, so very human.

My friends, look up. We won’t always be in this situation. A day will dawn when this crisis is past and a brighter future is ahead of us. Look up! God’s help is on its’ way.

Park Congregational Church is worshipping by Zoom these days. Contact me at beckyzmmcneil@gmail.com and I’ll help you connect with us for worship.

 

Love, a Country Church and Covid-19

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My Column for The Elgin Review March 25, 2020.

We love our little country church. We love its bell tower and bell—Its rope recently repaired by Jon Grothe so Norman could ring it first to call us to worship on his confirmation day last spring. We love the timelessness of the church’s clean prairie design. We love how it sits proud, nestled in a grove of trees atop the little rise across from our graveyard, next to our playground, neighbor to Kinney cattle and Currie family fields. We love the church’s interior, the warmth of the well-worn walnut pews, the banners made by the Reddings hanging neatly, demarking the seasons of the church year, the burgundy curtains over the age rippled windows. We love the pretty old piano that Joann Anderson wakens from its weekday slumbers into full-voiced praise on Sunday mornings.  We love the cross that lights up above our chancel and the brass vases on the altar lovingly filled with flowers by Sharon Wilkinson. We love the plaque at the back of the sanctuary bearing the names of our congregation’s charter members, names that include Clarks and Kinneys and Curries, descendants of whom are still among our members today. We love our little country church.

But what we love more than all those truly lovely things, is each other. Sunday morning in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic we loved each other so much we kept away from each other and didn’t find our way to our little church on the top of the rise ½ mile south of HWY 70. Instead, we traveled a new way to find each other via Zoom, the online meeting application. Gwen Kinney connected with Zoom by landline while on speaker phone with her mother-in-law, Phyllis at The Willows in Neligh. Barb Henery and Sharon Wilkinson mastered new tricks of technology and video-conferenced in from the comfort of their homes in Elgin. Others called in on cell phones and landlines while Mike and I attended from the comfort of the parsonage in Neligh.

Our worship service wasn’t what we are used to. We didn’t sing hymns because they lag badly on Zoom. When we prayed the Lord’s prayer it wasn’t exactly in unison—our voices were like echoes and descants of each other’s. I shared scripture and some thoughts about the story and we passed Christ’s peace to each other, not by shaking hands, but by listening as each took a turn “checking in,” sharing how we are doing in the midst of social distancing and news about the pandemic. We prayed for each other and for our neighbors and when I’d given the benediction at the end of the service, I had tears in my eyes as I clicked the button on my computer to end our Zoom session for the day. God was truly with us.

Park Church isn’t our building, as lovely as it is. Park Church is people who love God, each other, and you, our neighbors. If you find yourself lonely, longing for community and connection during this challenging season, you are welcome here. For now, our services will be on Zoom. E-mail me at beckyzmcneil@gmail.com  or call me at 402.540.5615 and I’ll give you the link and instructions for meeting with us. If you’re having difficulty during this time, give me a call or send a text. I’ll try to help. God is with us. God is always with us.

A Very Present Help

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My column for The Elgin Review, March 17, 202

God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change, though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea; though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble with its tumult. The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge. (Psalm 46:1-3,7 NRSV)

What a strange and disquieting thing it is to live on the front side of a silent, invisible disaster. Last spring, when the floods came to northeast Nebraska, the waters roared and foamed, the ice creaked and cracked in our rivers and our eyes could see the devastation unfolding around us. There was evidence of the danger at hand.

This spring Covid 19 threatens to roar over us like a world-wide flood, not of waters, but of disease and we cannot yet see it. Trucks whir past our houses down the highway. Children laugh and goof around on the sidewalks. Calves frolic in the fields. Everything feels so normal, and yet not. I don’t know about you, but the pit of my stomach feels funny.

Here in Antelope county, life around us goes on almost like normal for now. For my kids, living in other places, the spread of the virus and its threat is more real.

My son in New York City has been working from home since last week. He texted us his current fear is catching cabin fever. Usually he works on the 39th floor of one of the World Trade Center buildings. Now, his “office” is his large computer monitor in his very small bedroom in his small apartment shared with two roommates. He may be working from there for the rest of the spring.

My daughter-in-law just started working from home in Minneapolis instead of in the big corporate office where she usually writes software.

My son in Pittsburgh, PA drives Lyft for a living. He wonders how long he will be able to or want to continue to drive in close quarters with strangers who may be carrying the disease. He doesn’t want to get sick, but even more urgently he doesn’t want to become a vector for the spread of Covid-19. What if he gets it from one of his passengers, and before he knows he’s sick, spreads it around the city by driving people where they need to go? But, what will he do without income?

Last spring, when Nebraska flooded, we knew what to do. We looked out for our neighbors. We did what it took to rescue strangers. People worked hard to help each other out of harm’s way, and when the devastation was done, people helped with the clean-up, comforted those who grieved and helped each other get back on their feet.

With faith in God, and trust in our neighbors, we weathered the 2020 floods.

I’m confident we’ll do the same with Covid-19. Wash your hands. Keep your distance. Cancel your gatherings and trips and celebrations. Prepare but don’t hoard. Check in on your older neighbors. Hunker down at home. It won’t be forever, but forever God is with us.

If you’re feeling unsettled by this pandemic, if social isolation leaves you feeling sad, know that your neighbors at Park Congregational United Church of Christ stand ready to care for you. You can reach out to me at beckyzmcneil@gmail.com.

Walking with Jesus

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My Column for The Elgin Review 3.4.2020

For the first 199, 900 years of human history, give or take a few, we humans traveled, at our fastest, behind good carriage horses, about twelve miles per hour. Or, when walking, somewhere around five miles per hour. It’s only been in the past 120 years since the proliferation of the automobile that traveling sixty-five or seventy miles per hour is normal.

Think of how much more information we are asking our brains to take in and process now than humans ever had to process for almost all of human history before us.

And, for the first 199,950 years of human history, give or take a few, we humans saw and took in only what was around us in the natural world, or what we read on scrolls, or, after the invention of the printing press on a printed page. It wasn’t until the 1950s that we began watching moving images every day on tv, and not until the 1990s that we began to take into our brains mega pixels of information, sometimes for hours at a time, on our computers and smart phones.

Is it any wonder so many of us feel unsettled, harried and stressed much of the time? Is it any wonder Attention Deficit Disorder is rampant in our kids? Maybe in another hundred years our human brains will have time to adapt to the amount of information now being thrown at us, but right now, our evolution hasn’t really been given much time to catch up with our inventions.

For the past 1700 years, give or take, Christians have taken forty days before Easter to give something up in order to open room in our lives to reflect on how we’re doing in relationship with God and to make whatever adjustments we recognize we need to make. This season, called Lent, seems all the more important in our modern, media driven, fast paced age.

At Park Congregational Church our theme for Lent this year is “Walking with Jesus.” In our worship services we are thinking about where Jesus walked and what Jesus did in his ministry. In addition, we are actually walking. Every week I am suggesting different ways of walking our prayers during the week.  I am encouraging folks to give up some of our hurry and our information overload to slow and notice all the things we can see and appreciate at three or four miles per hour that we miss when we’re going somewhere between twenty-five and seventy miles per hour.

Whoever you are, wherever you are on life’s journey, I encourage you to take some time every day to get away from the steady stream of information overload. I encourage you to walk somewhere, noticing as you go things you cannot notice when you’re traveling at your usual pace. If you are a follower of Jesus, I encourage you to wonder as you walk what Jesus might notice or point out to you were he walking right there with you.

You are welcome to join us in worship, as always. Last week we “walked with Jesus into the wilderness of temptation.” This coming Sunday we’ll “walk with Jesus up a mountain of encouragement.” Worship is at 9:15, ten miles west of Elgin on Hwy 70 and ½ mile south.

 

Peace on Earth

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My Column for the Elgin Review 12.18.19

For two or three weeks before Christmas, little Libby, a precocious three-year-old whose parents were directors at the YMCA, answered as her parents taught her to every time she was asked by people at the Y, “What do you want for Christmas, Libby?”

“Peace on earth” was her constant, quick reply.

Word spread throughout the Y, “ask Libby what she wants for Christmas, she’s just the cutest little thing!” And so, a gazillion times, Libby responded saying all she wanted for Christmas was peace on earth, until, she was asked the gazillion-tenth time. Libby didn’t answer right away, but looked at her mother and said,

“Mommy, I don’t want peace on earth for Christmas anymore. I want toys!”

Peace on earth is a lot to ask for, isn’t it? And, truly wanting peace requires sacrifices we aren’t all that interested in making once we find out what they are. I mean, who doesn’t like shiny new toys? Who doesn’t want some nice new thing chosen just for us, wrapped up in a bow? Wanting stuff is easy. Giving and receiving gifts is fun. Peace, on the other hand, makes demands on us. If our prayer is, “Let there be peace on earth” we know the next stanza of the old song is, “and let it begin with me.”

Wanting peace on earth means sharing earth’s resources fairly so everybody gets clean air to breathe and fresh water to drink. Wanting peace on earth means protecting the planet’s resources, not pillaging them to fuel our latest desire for gizmos and high-tech gadgets and the profit-driven desires of big business.

Wanting peace on earth means doing the hard work of going beyond charity like providing food in back packs of school children for the weekend, to figuring out why so many families are too poor to buy their kids food, and then doing something about it. Wanting peace on earth means going beyond putting plastic toys into a shoebox for children across the globe, to finding out why those children die of cholera or have so little hope for living healthy, productive lives.

Wanting peace on earth means being willing to give up some of our comfortable homogeneity to make room for people fleeing persecution or hardship where they come from. Wanting peace on earth requires us to be brave enough to say, “this is wrong” to those in power when what they are doing makes life harder for people whose lives are already hard. Peace requires of us the willingness to sacrifice things we want for a greater good, for the collective good of all people.

God did not send Jesus into the world so we can have picture perfect celebrations with our families around lighted-trees each year, even though our celebrations are wonderful and good. God did not send Jesus into the world so we could be a thousand dollars in debt and ten pounds heavier come January 1st even though the gift giving and delicious indulging feels worth it at the time.

God sent Jesus into the world, a baby, a refugee, a small-town boy from an occupied land, to teach us the way to peace. God sent Jesus into the world to be the Prince of Peace, a Messiah who saves us, not through power and not through might, but through self-sacrificing love. A Savior who died, not to make us feel good, but to show us the way to make the world good, as it was in the beginning, as it is in God’s holy imagination, as it is in heaven.

What do we want for Christmas this year? What are we willing to give up in order to receive it?

Join us at Park Church for worship this Sunday. Worship is at 9:15 am ten miles west of Elgin on HWY 70 and ½ mile south. On Christmas Eve you are welcome to worship by candlelight at 7:00 pm followed by refreshments in the fellowship hall.

Bad God/Good God

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My Column for The Elgin Review, Elgin, NE

June 18, 2019

I was ten or eleven when my older brother mustered the courage to ask the question every kid on the Vacation Bible School bus was dying to know the answer to. “Hey, so what happened to your hand?” Our bus driver was also the preacher at our Grandma’s little church. The convenience of the bus pick-up service meant my brother and a bunch of our neighborhood friends and I all went to Grandma’s church’s VBS instead going to our own churches scattered across the city. When John asked, the bus driver stopped the bus, turned around in his seat and held up his right claw-like thumb and pinky of a hand. “Children, I’m so glad one of you asked. God did this to me.”

His story was God wanted him to be a preacher, but he didn’t want to be a preacher, so he ran away from God and went to work in a lumber yard.  God cut off his fingers so he couldn’t work there anymore, and he gave in to God’s call on his life and became a preacher. Moral to the story? —don’t mess with God or God will get you.

That’s some messed up theology!

I was just a kid, but I knew the preacher’s story about God didn’t sound at all like God who loves us. Love doesn’t chop off fingers.

Later that week my best friend, Carla and I were scooping ice cream in her kitchen and I told her about my day at Bible School. I’d been “saved” because if you got “saved” you got to go to the stage and pick out a prize. My prize was a short chapter book about a girl who was kidnapped, but because she loved Jesus, she was able to escape from the back of the trunk where she had been stuffed. Carla’s mom was in the kitchen. She said, “Becky, I don’t think that’s a good way to think about God. God doesn’t scare us into loving him. God loves us into loving him.” (God doesn’t bribe us with prizes, either).

Carla’s mom that day in her kitchen was my first theology teacher. I had good Sunday School teachers since pre-school, but Mrs. Acker was the first person who taught me to think critically about what was being said about God rather than simply absorbing a story and believing it hook, line and sinker solely because it was about God. Theology means to study, to think about the nature of God. (“Theos” –Greek for “God” and “ology”—the study of something). Theology requires of us some wrestling with God (like Jacob in the Old Testament and like Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane).

Bad theology does a lot of damage. Bad theology keeps women in abusive relationships. Bad theology causes gay kids to commit suicide. Bad theology fuels racism. Bad theology combined with nationalism fuels wars. Bad theology denies science and skews priorities.

Humans are spiritual beings.  We all need to nurture our spirits. We benefit from being in relationship with God and from gathering with others to practice being together in loving community. We also owe it to God and to our neighbors to think, to wrestle with our ideas about God so that what we claim in God’s name does good instead of harm.

You are always welcome to join us at Park Congregational United Church of Christ ten miles west of Elgin and ½ mile south off of Highway 70. Worship begins at 9:15 am on Sundays.

I would love to hear from you. My email address is beckyzmcneil@gmail.com.