March 2008 Archives

From Darkness to Light

At the Graveside

John 11:1-45

March 9, 2008

Rev. Nancy Pfaltzgraf

At the graveside -a place we'd rather not find ourselves, because, if we are at the graveside then, more often than not, someone we love and care about has died. And if we are at the graveside, if we have ever been at graveside, we know in a deep inexplicable way the pain Mary and Martha felt that day. We also know the feelings that prompted their initial words to Jesus when each of them met him at the graveside:

"If you had been here Lazarus would still be alive!"

"We sent for you! Why didn't you come?"

"We prayed; why wasn't he healed?"

"We cried out; why didn't you answer?"

"If you had only been here....."

Yes, we know, all too well, what it's like at the graveside! We also know that we stand at many gravesides throughout our lives; not just the graves that mark the death of a loved one, but the graves that mark the death of our dreams, the death of relationship, the death of who we thought we were, the death of our physical ability that comes with the diagnosis of a life-altering illness, the death of a career, the death of ....; yes, like it or not, we stand at many gravesides and sometimes we wonder is there truly any light to be found in the darkness of grief and loss?

From Darkness to Light

On the Highway

John 9:1-41

4^th Sunday in Lent

Foods Resource Bank Kick-off Sunday

Rev. Nancy Pfaltzgraf

Sometime around 1985 or so, I first heard a song that evoked tears then and every time I heard it, because it resonated so deeply with my own experience as a woman struggling to find my place in a profession that was, at the time, open mostly to men. It was written in 1974 by Carol Etzler:

Sometimes I wish my eyes hadn't been opened

Sometimes I wish I could no longer see

All of the pain and the hurt and the longing of my

Sisters and me as we try to be free

Sometimes I wish my eyes hadn't been opened,

Just for an hour, how sweet it would be

Not to be struggling, not to be striving,

But just sleep securely in our slavery.