4 Therefore, as a prisoner for the Lord, I encourage you to live as people worthy of the call you received from God. 2 Conduct yourselves with all humility, gentleness, and patience. Accept each other with love, 3 and make an effort to preserve the unity of the Spirit with the peace that ties you together. 4 You are one body and one spirit, just as God also called you in one hope. 5 There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism, 6 and one God and Father of all, who is over all, through all, and in all.
~ Ephesians 4:1-6

There were quite a few things that happened this week- a cross country food drive (which we raised 80 pounds of the 74,044 pounds from Eastern PA and Greater New Jersey), a controversial Superbowl ad, continued acts of racism, war, natural disasters, and another school shooting. This is one of those moments where I stand here speechless… also knowing that silence is not an option.

This Sunday in worship, I shared a story of how I participated in “a system of racism- a system where others were not made to feel welcome because of who they were and found themselves in a space where they needed to conform to something different.”[1] And I asked, “where do you see yourself participating in systems that cause harm?” Where do you see yourself standing in silence when we are called to speak?

My original intention for this week’s article was to continue our Discovery conversation… but to not draw our attention to all the evil, injustice, and oppression in this world would be a failure to live into our Baptismal Covenant together. Because just like the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus created a new world order that does not know the barriers of class, gender-identity, or race, our calling and this discovery conversation goes beyond the boundaries of race. It may be where our focus is in worship and small group, but we are:

made in the image of God, and therefore we all reflect God into the world for good or for bad, no matter where we’ve come from, no matter what we look like, no matter where we’ve been… we are called to accept each other with love because we are bonded by the grace and love of God which means that all things that make up who we are and the cultures that we are part of are to be welcome in the spaces we live… it means that we act according to the ways that Jesus calls us to.[2]

My dear sisters and brothers in Christ, there are people who are hurting. Not just those who look different than us, but the world at large. As salt-seasonings that are called to bring out the God-flavors of this earth, I think the question before us in this moment is simple: Where are you seeing sisters and brothers in Christ who are hurting? How might you go about relieving some of that hurt?

The food drive did a big thing; people are hungry and we helped to relieve some of that hurt by giving them food. Natural disasters happen and we respond by giving resources to the teams that go in to help recovery happen. We work towards ending the sin of racism by having conversations about our own role in it. We stand with families as they grieve over the deaths of young people, taken by violence, begging those who have the power to do something.

We act as one body and one spirit, made in the image of God, loving as God first loved us.

Let us be followers of Jesus who do this in every moment of every day, regardless of the circumstances around us.

Blessings friends,
Pastor Nicole

[1] Rev. Nicole Hamilton, Facebook Live Recording of worship from February 12, 2023, at St. Paul’s Bay Head, NJ (33:34 - 34:56) https://www.facebook.com/stpaulsbayhead/videos/1350402202418223/

[2] Rev. Nicole Hamilton, Facebook Live Recording of worship from February 12, 2023, at St. Paul’s Bay Head, NJ (35:35 – 36:03) https://www.facebook.com/stpaulsbayhead/videos/1350402202418223/