Prayer for Ukraine

If the Transfiguration Happened Today

Dear Hyde Park Family,

For today’s Midweek Message, I’m resurrecting (pun intended) a message from 2018, in which I playfully contemplate what the transfiguration of Jesus, observed by Christians this Sunday, might look like in today’s social media world.

 

 

See you Sunday!

Magrey

 

THIS SUNDAY: DIANA BUTLER BASS!

We are excited to welcome noted author and speaker Diana Butler Bass this Sunday, Feb. 27. She will preach our morning sermon, then offer a lecture on the subject of gratitude from 4-6 p.m. in the Harnish Center. It will include a book signing, where you can purchase a copy of “Grateful: the Subversive Art of Giving Thanks.” To register for the event, click here.

RECEIVE DAILY WORDS OF ENCOURAGEMENT THIS LENT

March 6 begins the season of Lent, with a worship series titled “Overflowing.” Our journey will be one of self-emptying and surrender, so that we can be filled to overflowing with the love and grace of God. Our journey will feature daily text messages that you can receive to give you brief insights and words of encouragement along the way. To sign up, click here.

The Two Questions

3 Tips for Giving Thanks

Wires Crossed

Dear Hyde Park Family,

“AHHHH-LEX-AHHHHH … STOP!”

I have discovered the joys of teaching my elderly parents how to use the Alexa app on their Amazon Echo. I purchased it for them a few weeks ago to give them a way of playing Filipino music by their favorite artists.

The lessons have gone as you might expect. It’s Alexa, not Amanda. Yes, it should understand your accent. No, you don’t have to yell. Don’t forget to start with Alexa; simply saying “Play Rey Valera” won’t do.

I will give them credit. After a few days, they figured it out. “Oh, Magrey,” my Mom told me a few days ago, “this is the best gift. We are listening to it all the time.” And then she recounts for me all the artists, all the albums, and all the songs they have listened to, most of which I’ve never heard of and can’t pronounce. My Dad, more the pragmatist, wonders how Amazon makes money allowing access to all this music. Oh, they make their money, we decided.

Then last Monday night, I had probably the best laugh I’ve had in months.

My older daughter Grace, a student at San Diego State University, reached out to let me know that apparently, my parents’ Amazon Echo had somehow logged into her Spotify music streaming service. Grace was on Spotify on her computer, and suddenly it started playing whatever my parents were listening to.

Now, you need to know that Grace is not a pretentious person by nature. But when it comes to her Spotify music, she can be fiercely protective. She has carefully curated her music selections to provide ready access to whatever playlist fits her mood and activity in the moment. She has her classical music, her Broadway showtunes, her pop hits, her select artists, albums, and genres, ready to go, literally at the push of a button. And given Spotify’s carefully crafted algorithms, she is even particular about the music that Spotify recommends for her to listen to.

This is all to say that since figuring out how to use their newly beloved Amazon Echo, my parents have been interjecting music into Grace’s Spotify account. This prompted this hilariously frantic text message from her to me last Monday:

“Okay. Yes, please fix it, because it keeps cutting out what I’m listening to, and playing songs in Tagalog, And now I’m getting recommendations for Tagalog songs, too. It is quite jarring to go from “Pictures at an Exhibition” to “Saang Linggong Pag-Ibig.”

This is easily my favorite text message of the whole year.

I called my parents, while still texting Grace, to figure out what to do. I explained to my mother that somehow, Grace was hearing whatever songs they were listening to. “Oh,” my mother said, half-concerned, “Grace would love Celine Dion.”

Uh, huh.

But here is where the story goes from merely comical, to a whole new stratosphere of hilarity. Grace discovered this problem while at work, at the tutoring center on campus where she is employed by the university. It was her night to provide background music for the center, and she had hooked up her computer to the public sound system.

So, you guessed it. All the students in the room were being treated to spontaneous musical interruptions by certain Filipino artists, along with Celine Dion, Kenny Rogers, Dolly Parton, and Barry Manilow.

Grace was mortified.

I fell asleep laughing Monday night, and woke up Tuesday morning laughing all over again.

I don’t know what to do with this story; all I know is that writing it out and archiving it as a Midweek Message helps me preserve it for future use. Maybe someday it will become a sermon illustration. Perhaps you can resonate with the challenges of being in the middle generation, parenting your children, while also caring for your parents.

Or, maybe, you just needed a good laugh. I did, and for that reason, I’m grateful. And as one of my Facebook friends said afterwards, it is a sign of good parenthood that I can still find a way to embarrass my child 3000 miles away.

Alas, my only regret is that this was all unintentional.

Grace and Peace,

Magrey

COMMITMENT SUNDAY

There’s no suitable segue into this, but this Sunday is Commitment Sunday. Thank you for filling out your Estimate of Giving Card, which you can fill out online. Our Finance Committee plans all its funding for ministries and programs based on your giving estimates, so every card goes a long way toward making a big difference. Join us this Sunday for worship as we celebrate God’s goodness and claim the bright future God has for us. See you Sunday!

Two Pockets: Healthy, Faithful Perspective

Most of the time, I have to figure out what to write for my Midweek Message. This week’s message practically fell into my lap.

Last Tuesday, during our staff chapel, as we were preparing to pray for the joys and concerns submitted by the congregation last Sunday, our Business Administrator Meagan Kempton led our morning devotional with a piece she found online.  It turns out that it was written by a clergy colleague of mine, Rev. Lisa Ann Moss Degrenia, of Coronado Community UMC in New Smyrna Beach. Rev. Degrenia gave me permission to share this remarkably profound and timely message with you:

TWO POCKETS: HEALTHY, FAITHFUL PERSPECTIVE

A well respected and beloved Polish Rabbi named Simcha Bunim used to say, “Every person should have two pockets. In one, there should be a note that says: 

• ‘For my sake was the world created.’
• In the second, there should be a note that says, ‘I am dust and ashes.’” 

Rabbi Bunim went on to say one must know how to use the notes, each one in its proper place and at the right time. He knows us well. When misused, we hunker down in one pocket and make a home. We use a note to justify, judge and deflect self-examination. 

“For my sake the world was created – I’m all that and a bag of chips.”

“I am dust and ashes – Eeyore is my best buddy.” 

But, when we open to the wisdom of the notes, we accept we are not one or the other. We realize we are both notes. Both pockets. We see the wisdom of the notes in the wisdom of God’s Word which goes back and forth, naming us and reminding us who we are – beloved and dust. We are both and we need both. 

“I am dust and ashes” 

When we are too proud, too entitled, too full of ourselves, too self-sufficient, we reach in a pocket and remember “anokhi afar va’efer,” I am dust and ashes. 

• I am small
• I am worthless
• I am mortal
• I am unclean
• I miss the mark, I stray from the path – that’s what the word sin literally means in Greek
• I am like everyone else who has ever lived and who will live
• I need a savior

Psalm 90:3 NRSV: You turn us back to dust, and say, “Turn back, you mortals.” 

Ecclesiastes 3:20b NIV: All come from dust, and to dust all return. 

Luke 9:41 NRSV: “O unbelieving and perverse generation,” Jesus replied, “how long shall I stay with you and put up with you?” 

In Luke 3, John the Baptist is right to remind us we are a “brood of vipers” and of our need of repentance, to turn back to God’s path, not just with our words but our actions. 

“For my sake was the world created” 

Then, when we are discouraged, overwhelmed and losing faith (when we feel like dirt) we reach in the other pocket and remember bishvili nivra ha’olam, for my sake was the world created. 

I am a unique and beloved child of the King of kings

• Christ loved me enough to die for me and raise me to new life
• I am fearfully and wonderfully made
• I am called
• I am gifted
• I am empowered by the Holy Spirit to do great things for God
• God is using me in the salvation and transformation of the world 

Psalm 8:4-8 NRSV: What are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them? Yet you have made them a little lower than God, and crowned them with glory and honor. You have given them dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under their feet, all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field, the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the seas. 

Psalm 139:14 NRSV: I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; that I know very well. 

We stand with Jesus in our baptism, water washed, anointed with the fiery dove of the Holy Spirit, named and claimed by God as beloved children. 

Jesus stepped into the water not out of his need but of ours. To remind us of our great need – I am dust and ashes. To remind us who we are in Him- For my sake the world was created. 

PRAYER FOR PERSPECTIVE 

And then, Rev. Degrenia offers this powerful prayer, which I invite you to pray with me: 

Eternal and Beautiful God,

The One who births us and names us

Grant us perspective

A holy centering

of truth, humility and our belovedness

 Not too high that we fall away from you

our need of you

our need of others

Not too low that we fail to trust

to reach out for you

to reach out with you

In you, with you, for you we are

humble and powerful

unique and alike

common and regal

priceless and dust

Grant us perspective, Merciful One

A holy centering

Let no voice be too loud

Or too soft

So we may persevere in faith

in hope

in following

in becoming

Amen

Grace and Peace,

Magrey

THIS SUNDAY: MISSIONS CELEBRATION

Join us Sunday for our annual Mission Celebration. Our guest preacher is Derrick Scott. He is the Executive Director and United Methodist Campus Minister for the Campus to City Wesley Foundation in Jacksonville and St. Augustine, Fl. He has been leading ministry to college students and young adults for more than 18 years. He is passionate about raising up a new generation of leaders and laborers who will live as disciples of Jesus Christ to transform the world. Our Celebration also showcases the many ministries in our city, state and around the world that Hyde Park supports financially and through our volunteers.

Growing Deeper

Dear Hyde Park Family,

It’s harvest season in the fields and farms across the country, and a time of year I gained an appreciation for during my eight years serving in Iowa. Farmers are in their combines, reaping the benefits of their risk: planting last spring, waiting over the summer, watching as nature ran its unpredictable course.

Don and Jeanne Blackstone were members of my church in Cherokee, Iowa, and they invited me one day to ride the combine on their farm. Don told me it had been a good growing season that year, with the corn stalks surpassing that fabled standard of “Knee-high by the Fourth of July.”

He then corrected my misunderstanding of what constituted a “good harvest.” I had always thought that the taller a corn stalk gets, the more ears of corn grow on them. Not so, it turns out.

No matter how tall a corn stalk gets, it will never have more than two ears of corn. The difference between a good and bad yield is not found in the number of ears per stalk, but in the number of kernels per ear. It’s not about the quantity of the ears per stalk. It’s about the quality of the ears themselves.

As a city kid, my mind was blown.

GROWING DEEPER

This discovery on the Blackstone’s farm has since served as a helpful reminder to me of what constitutes a healthy spiritual life. We might have the false assumption that spiritual maturity is defined only as doing more and more things for God: more works of piety and more holy deeds, like notches in our belt or check marks on a to-do list.

But it’s less about the quantity of our actions and more about the quality and depth of our actions. It’s less about growing more impressive in the eyes of others, and more about growing deeper in our heart, soul, mind, and strength.

35-DAYS OF LOVING GOD WITH ALL WE’VE GOT

As our worship series “All In” draws to a close, our 35 days of daily activities are coming to an end. I would love to hear from you how these cards have been helpful to you.

Moving forward, here’s how these cards can help. You might repeat the 35-day journey during seasons of your spiritual life when you need to recharge. You can even shuffle the cards and go in a different order, to discover new patterns in your journey.

But in the spirit of “growing deeper,” you might choose to identify the handful of cards that were particularly meaningful for you over the last five weeks. Those activities that spoke to you and resonated with you may be an indication from the Spirit. You might choose to incorporate the activities on those cards on a more regular basis – daily or weekly – and make them a regular part of your spiritual disciplines.

Doing so would lead you to creating a unique “rule of life” that you can use to frame your spiritual practices. Like planks on a trellis, those select activities, practiced regularly, could become the structure upon which your harried and chaotic life can begin to bloom and produce the beauty of God’s love.

God may be calling you into a season of bountiful harvest in your life. A season of abundance, fruitfulness, and beauty. If so, it is less about growing more impressive in the eyes of others, and more faithful in the practices that will help you blossom.

See you Sunday as we conclude our series, and happy harvesting!

Grace and Peace,

Magrey

A Little House in Hyde Park

Dear Hyde Park Family,

One of the joys of offering our online service every Sunday is the new sense of connection we have with people around the country. For the last several months, a couple from Virginia named Claudette and David Collins have not only been joining us online, but Claudette has been singing in our choir. Through the wonders of technology, our Director of Traditional Worship Michael Dougherty has been able to include her in a number of our virtual choir selections. Last week, David and Claudette made the trip to Tampa and joined us for in person worship last Sunday. It was a joy to meet them, and afterwards they went out to lunch with Michael.

This is where the story gets really good.

Over the course of the lunch, they revealed that they were related to a woman named Mary Collins, who was born in 1827. She was born in Decatur, Georgia, but eventually moved to Tampa and lived in a little house in the Hyde Park area.

It was in that home – the very home of Mary Collins – where a small group of Christians began to meet to form a community that would eventually become Hyde Park United Methodist Church. That little house sat on the very property where 122 years later, God’s love is being made real each and every Sunday.

This is a portion of the newspaper clipping from 1913 containing Mary’s obituary:

“Born in Decatur County, Georgia, Mrs. Collins drove thirty-seven years ago through the country in a covered wagon to Tampa. Her husband, W.B. Collins, died soon after the Confederate war of consumption. Settling here she went to live in a little house in what is now Hyde Park, but which then was a native wilderness. Ever since she was twelve years old, she has been a devout member of the Methodist church. Before a Methodist church was organized in this city, services were held in her Hyde Park home. When the Hyde Park Methodist church was dedicated, she was one of its first members.”

Needless to say, when we heard this story from the Collins’, we were awestruck

THE FUTURE OF OUR CAMPUS MASTER PLANS

Little could Mary Collins have imagined how her property would evolve into the dynamic campus that we have today. Ever since her time, generations of Hyde Park members have been stewards of the properties and facilities of this church. And today, we have the opportunity to exercise that same faithfulness for the future.

When our recent visioning process concluded last year, it ended prior to our acquisition of the Women’s Clinic last June. Now that we have acquired the entire DeLeon block, it is time to update the campus master plans of both the Hyde Park and Portico campuses. The last time our master plans were updated was over twenty years ago.

So, last Tuesday, the Ministry Leadership Council approved the start of a discernment process, which will have the following objectives:

• Cast the net wide throughout the congregation for input, discernment, and buy-in;
• Engage key constituents;
• Develop a prioritized and time-phased set of recommendations relative to Hyde Park properties and facilities, including improvements, divestures, purchases, and usage;
• Recommendations will be consistent with Hyde Park’s vision and mission and represent good stewardship of resources that is sustainable over the long term;
• Final recommendations will be delivered to the Ministry Leadership Council for approval by the end of June 2022.

If you would like to be a part of this process, we would love for you to let us know by sending an email to questions@hydeparkumc.org.

Let us live out the example of our ancestral pioneers like Mary Collins, and carve out a future that will be claimed by future generations of this church.

Grace and Peace,

Magrey