January 9, 2022 Newsletter

 

O Lord, give strength to your people;

give them, O Lord, the blessings of peace.

~Psalm 29:11

 

Final 2021 Update for Food for Toledo
by Mary Schneider

Drum roll please! The final amount of food collected for the Aldersgate United Methodist Church’s food pantry was……5600 pounds! Thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone who made this possible.

I am still available on Monday mornings from 9 – noon at church to take food that will be delivered to Aldersgate or items can be placed in the Giving Room when you are at church. Food items that are needed are jelly, pasta, spaghetti sauce, canned fruit and vegetables, soup, canned tuna or chicken, cereal, juice, minute rice, canned beans, and condiments.

If you would have any questions regarding this ministry, please feel free to contact me at 419.262.0730.

 

It’s a 2022 and new year!

That means it’s time for you to schedule your group and committee meetings so we can properly reserve the rooms and get the meetings on the calendar.  You can get a form from Cathy in the office or email me a request and I’ll send the form back to you, Rick Sharp, Facilities Use Ministry, rfssylvan@gmail.com

 

Hold that date! 

Grace first of the year Blood Drive!

Wednesday January 12^th 11-600pm.

 

The need is huge! Please consider donating and asking family friends, neighbors and co-workers to donate.

You may sign up on the Red Cross website or call Gretchen Hiatt and she will work on an appointment time for you.

 

When peace like a river attendeth my way
When sorrows like sea billows roll
Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say
It is well, it is well with my soul

It is well (it is well)
With my soul (with my soul)
It is well, it is well with my soul

 

A Note on the Sunday Gospels  

                  Submitted by Pastor Howard

Many foods have the same ingredients as other dishes, but in different proportions, and processed differently. Consider Reese’s Cups and Peanut M&M’s. (I hope it’s not too much of a stretch to call them “foods.”) Both have lots of sugar.  Both contain chocolate. Both have peanuts. But there’s no way you could mistake one for the other.  In the Reese’s Cups, the peanuts have been ground into peanut butter. Some of the sugar in the M&M’s is used to make a hard shell that encloses the chocolate and an unground peanut. Very similar contents, very different arrangements.

So it is with the four Gospels in our New Testament. All present Jesus, a First Century rabbi who gathered a band of disciples, taught them and others, and did things that are impossible for an ordinary person to do. In all four, he offended those who held political and religious power, and they tried to get rid of him by  killing him.  All four Gospels proclaim the good news that God gets the last word: Jesus is raised from the dead, and is now alive forever, and Jesus invites us to share in his resurrected life.

The four Gospels have different arrangements, different emphases. So, at the   beginning of the Church Year, our Sunday morning Gospel readings go back and forth between Luke and John. In Luke, we first see Jesus as a baby, and it’s    easier to see him throughout the Gospel as a real human, with real human features. In John, Jesus arrives full-grown, and is presented as the eternal Word, One who was with God before the beginning, and who played an active part in the creation. To help keep it clear in our heads that Jesus is both fully human and fully God, we use both Luke and John in December and January: On December 26, we read from Luke. On January 2, from John. On January 9, back to Luke. January 16, John again. Then back to Luke on January 23, and we stay with Luke almost entirely until next Advent.

Is Jesus’ full humanity missing from John’s Gospel? Not at all. It’s not as obvious as his deity, but it is visible there. In Chapter 4, for instance, after walking all  morning in hilly country, Jesus is tired, and he has to sit down to rest. So, the One who is fully God is limited in strength, and is subject to fatigue, as we are? Yes  indeed.

Is Jesus’ deity missing in Luke? Nope. It is not as obvious as his humanity, but it shows up clearly from time to time. In Luke 7, Jesus learns of someone who is sick a few miles away from where he is. He heals him. So, the One who is fully human is able to treat a sick person without touching him, without even being close enough to him to see him? Yes, he is. He also tells a thunderstorm to pipe down, and it obeys him. Can you do that?

The same message is presented in different ways.

I think it’s good that we have both Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and Peanut M&M’s. I think it’s a thousand times better that we have both the Gospel of Luke and the Gospel of John. (And also Matthew and Mark.)

What do you think?

 

 

This is the day the Lord has made.

Let us rejoice and be glad in it!

~Psalm 118:24