Yesterday was a day of travel for many of our General Assembly Commissioners.

Early that morning the assembly hall was filled with people wearing red badges and black badges like me – red being those worn by General Assembly staff and support, and black badges worn by presbytery staff and support.  The stream of travelers coming in was endless, the registration booth almost always busy, and by the end of the day the hall was filled with folks wearing blue badges, the voting commissioners, including our own Joe Meinhart and Melissa Gill.

Joe is an OCU sociology professor living in OKC and pastor at Davenport.  Melissa is an attorney living in Norman and a ruling elder at Memorial Presbyterian Church in Norman.

While official business has not begun yet, and committees are not meeting yet, going to many of the pre-assembly events one can already get a sense of the “lay of the land” and a sense of what is coming.

Talk at my table at the Welcome Reception at 5pm yesterday was quickly filled with “What are your thoughts on all this talk of fossil fuel divestment?” and “What exactly would it look like for Presbyterian to truly care for creation?”

The picture above is the last reception of the day I attended, that of the Covenant Network and More Light Presbyterian Reception.  We heard from Bruce Reyes-Chow and Clifton Kirkpatrick, former moderator and stated clerk of the GA.

All 6 of those running for co-moderators were also there, introduced themselves, and spoke of what their leadership would look like (and yes, there was some politicking involved too!).  The Covenant Network is committed to LGBTQ advocacy, and I think it is fair to say all 6 candidates are a support of the work of the Covenant Network.  Brian Ellison is their executive director and a good friend of mine.  I am thankful for his leadership.  The More Light Presbyterians is a network of churches committed to the same advocacy.

In the picture you see all of us joining in laying on of hands and praying for those running for the highest office in the Presbyterian Church.

And so while this day prior to the assembly may seem like a lot of fun and togetherness, there are moments of seriousness, and already one of the major issues of the assembly is coming before us – choosing leadership of co-moderators and those who will speak for the denomination in the coming 2 years.

Today will be Opening Worship, and then one of the major tasks – selecting those co-moderators.  Committees will also get formally oriented, before they move into committee work for a couple days.

I hope you can join us for the Live Streaming of Opening Worship at 11am Central, and also the selection of co-moderators at 7pm.  I have seen the bulletin and ate dinner with some singing in the choir.  By all accounts it will be a moving worship experience.  I encourage you to join us:

Live Streaming: https://ga-pcusa.org/

Today I am off to St. Louis and to General Assembly!

I barely got away too.  Last night I was surrounded by standing water, stopped drains, and a plumber.  AAhh, the joys of home ownership!  But off I go, with good friends in charge of Bentley and the house.  Be praying for them!!! Between the cursed house and the crazy dog, I pray they don’t have their hands full.

So my Morning Reflections take a turn, and as I mentioned a couple posts ago, I will be providing some highlights of our assembly here as part of my Morning Reflections.

The 223rd meeting of the General Assembly will take place Saturday, June 16 through Saturday, June 23.  There are several resources a person can use to stay connected to all that is happening at GA.

The first is THIS BLOG of mine, which will provide a firsthand account from me and other presbytery leadership.  It will be a little bit of DAILY HIGHLIGHTS, a little bit of firsthand BEHIND THE SCENES, and I hope lifting up some of the extraordinary and wonderful things that our denomination is involved with, well past what may get splashed on the front page of a paper.

GA NEWSPAPER

• The GA 223 newspaper can be received electronically this year.  Sign up here.

LIVESTREAMING

• Opening Worship – Saturday, June 16, 11am (Central time)
• Moderator Election – Saturday, June 16, 7pm (Central time)
• Information here

OTHER OUTLETS

• News at the Presbyterian Outlook
• For the real GA junkie, go to: ga-pcusa.org and pc-biz.org which is how the commissioners connect to all the business of the assembly.

See you in St. Louis!

-Matt

Eccles. 8:14-9:10; Gal. 4:21-31; Matt. 15:29-39

Today in Matthew, Jesus cures many and feeds many more.   We follow a God who stood in our midst and doled out grace.

These stories go well beyond Jesus showing compassion for the people around him.  They testify to the fact that, for we Christians, God is not far away and aloof from us. God stands with us, beside us in our broken and troubled and suffering world.  Paul reminds us that nothing in existence can ever separate us from the love of God, revealed in Christ.

In our Core Foundations class on Sunday, and in the coming weeks we will continue to explore that our faith is not one of easy answers and unrealistic solutions.  Jesus entered life and died on the cross for us, showing us that in whatever we experience, in whatever may trouble us, in whatever distress or threat we feel, we need not fear because God is in it with us. God will lift up in our midst what we need to make it through, because God is good.

I encourage you to join us for more weeks of studying BEING PRESBYTERIAN IN THE BIBLE BELT.  Sundays.  9:30am.

What we learn in today’s story is that in whatever crisis or issue we face in life, in whatever trouble may come our way, the power of God’s love will provide what we need.  From the midst of the Body of Christ, God will lift up the resources to accomplish his loving purposes.

These stories are reminders.  We pray in the Lord’s Prayer that God may give us daily bread.  We learn in these stories that it is we who are to be involved in, not only the receiving of daily bread, but in the giving of it too.

A good image of this is in the context of the Lord’s Supper, especially when we pass the bread around in a circle, or when we serve each other in the pew.  In that image of receiving bread and then turning to share bread with the person to our other side is the reality of God’s gracious action within the meal: each person is fed solely through God’s grace, but each person also plays an important role in making sure God’s grace continues with the others gathered there.

May these stories of curing and feeding enrich and enliven your day.  May they also be reminders that you play a part in God’s inbreaking kingdom.

-Matt

As many of you know, General Assembly is coming!  This is the every other year meeting of the national church governing body, called the General Assembly.

As a mid-council leader, and the only one here in Indian Nations Presbytery, it is my duty to attend and support the work of the committees and commissioners.

As a pastor as well as a mid-council leader, it is my deep desire to connect the work of the General Assembly with every Oklahoma Presbyterian, to see the church at work, and see how the work of the presbytery, synods, and General Assembly filter into our lives together.

And so these Morning Reflections will take a pivot.  I will most likely turn into a social media butterfly, and through Twitter mainly provide daily reporting from the floor of General Assembly.  Sometimes the news media picks up on the weirdest things.  I hope to provide a little bit more realistic reporting than the national media, and tie you in to work of the Assembly that may not get splashed on the front page of a newspaper, but is highly important for our lives together, from new denominational leadership to world issues like creation care will all be under consideration.  There will also be a daily Morning Reflection of the daily highlights.

Feel free to follow me here for the daily summary through your subscription to Morning Reflections.

Follow me on Twittter: @mattmeinke

You may also want to look for news at the Presbyterian Outlook: pres-outlook.org

If you are a real GA junkie, you can always go to: ga-pcusa.org and pc-biz.org which is how the commissioners connect to all the business of the assembly.  There will be a live-stream of floor debate as well.

I will leave Friday.  Be praying for me, and all those involved in our General Assembly.

-Matt

Eccles. 2:1-15; Gal. 1:1-17; Matt. 13:44-52

Vanity, vanity, all is vanity.  So states the writer of Ecclesiastes.

Often in my Morning Reflections I have alluded to Proverbs and its place in the Wisdom literature.  But rarely do we encounter Ecclesiastes in our line up of readings.  Along with Job and Proverbs, Ecclesiastes joins the ranks of Wisdom literature, and certainly one that provides a different voice.

Often referred to as the Teacher, the writer of Ecclesiastes, gets down to the nitty-gritty, speaking of the futility and folly of success and ambition.  Just as it is futile to seek wisdom, so it is futile to seek after success.   All the wine in the world, all the possessions, all the land, all the singers, or men, or women, nothing can compare to the stark reality that none of this leads to God.  He goes further to declare that NOT doing these things was equal folly, and got him no closer to Wisdom.

In the end it is, “All was vanity and a chasing after wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun.”

“So I turned to consider wisdom and madness and folly; for what can the one do who comes after the king?  Only what has already been done.  Then I saw that wisdom excels folly as light excels darkness.”  It turns out that the only thing of worth for the Teacher is to seek after Wisdom, and God’s way.

I look out my window this morning and it is turning out to be a beautiful day, and it is hard to believe that God wants us to avoid all pleasure, and that I should shut my blinds and stew in the darkness, seeking after Wisdom.  And I don’t think that is what the Teacher is trying to say.  To find Wisdom and joy is to give oneself to pleasing God.  Certainly one can do both!

The beginning of one of our Presbyterian Confessions, the Westminster Shorter Catechism, begins with the question “What is the chief end of man?”  The answer? To glorify God and enjoy God forever.  And similarly, the Teacher urges that the goal is not to hate life or love life, for “life’s” sake, but to love God, sucking all the marrow of life through a lens of love of God.

May joy and life and Wisdom fill your day!

-Matt

Prov. 21:30-22:6; 1 Tim. 4:1-16; Matt. 13:24-30

This may sound strange to those of us who grew up in the USA, but it really is hard to tell the difference between the sheep and goats in Israel.  There are different breeds than we are used to.  When I was studying there, and taking a class on the parables of Jesus with a professor who loved to take field trips, often out of the school van window he would see a herd of sheep and goats and dare us to separate them in our minds.  We could not.  Until you get up close to them, you cannot tell the difference.

There is a similar strain of thought with the weeds and the wheat, which fill today’s passage.  The instruction is to not pull the weeds, “…for in gathering the weeds you would uproot the wheat along with them.  Let both of them grow together until the harvest; and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, collect the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.”

The ideas of selection and separation are common in Jesus’ parables.  While sometimes it is difficult to spot the difference between who is good and evil on looks alone, there are definitely good intentions and right paths – and the implication is that we best spend some time making sure we are doing what is right, for the sake of the kingdom.

I have been in church work for many years now, and I have worked with a lot of wheat, and a fair amount of weeds too.  And I can attest, first hand, that sometimes the weeds are hard to spot.  But after a while, they show their true colors.  And I have also experienced first hand that God eventually binds up the weeds.

Interestingly enough, most of the wheat I encounter spend a good bit of time worrying about if they are good wheat or bad weeds.  It is often the weeds who are convinced of their own goodness, and march around declaring others to be weeds, proclaiming their own wheatie-ness.  This is the first sign of trouble!

I always have to remind myself that this parable refers to the kingdom of heaven – in fact to the sower himself.  So the kingdom of heaven has great hopes to be full of nourishing wheat and an abundant harvest.  The kingdom of heaven is intending for a barn that is overflowing with goodness and produce.

We must all strive to live into this gracious goal.  May abundance reign in our hearts.  And may we always be alert enough to see the abundant harvest and live into that each day.

And let’s let God handle the weeds.

-Matt

Prov. 15:16-33; 1 Tim. 1:18-2:8; Matt. 12:33-42

Well another Memorial Day weekend is behind us.  We head back to work.  We put away the grill, and the flags hanging.  We remember.  We often spend time with friends and family, or visiting the cemetery.  We get back to our regular routine.

And what a routine it is.  It is a challenging world out there.  This “adulting” thing is really for the birds.  Is it just me or are things getting harder?  Not easy to make ends meet.  Not easy to be faithful to the promises we have made.  Just not easy.

The storm clouds to Jesus’ ministry are beginning to gather, and things are getting dicey for Jesus.  In Matthew’s passage today, Jesus invokes the name of Jonah, drawing a parallel to his life.  He is speaking to the scribes and Pharisees, who are demanding a sign from Jesus.  He says, “No sign will be given…except the sign of the prophet Jonah.  For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the sea monster, so for three days and three nights the Son of Man will be in the heart of the earth.”

To speak of Jonah is to really rub the Pharisees raw.  Jesus had just spoken about how perplexed he was that the words and deeds of the Pharisees did not match.  He warned them, called them names, and spoke of the day of judgment.  Now he turns to Jonah, whose half-hearted preaching turned an entire city to repent.  To repent at the words of Jonah is one thing.  To have evil in the midst of folks who claim to be so great is another thing.

But Jesus goes further, declaring that “something greater than Jonah is here,” and later “something greater than Solomon is here!”  He speaks of himself as this greatness.

It is no wonder the teachers of the Law turned against him.  He threatened their authority and questioned their authenticity.  But lest we turn our hearts to stone for the Pharisees, we must remember that it is easy for us – we have the perspective of seeing him die on a cross and rise again.  The Pharisees are simply reminders to us of the difficulty and strength it will take to believe and follow Christ.

These are not easy times.  Challenges are all around us.  Being a Christian is arguably harder today that it has been in recent history.  And we must struggle every day for our words and deeds to match.

-Matt