Here’s my letter to the Congregation in our newsletter, The Reporter, on Sunday, September 25, 2011.

One of my great joys each week is selecting the scriptures for the Sunday worship service. As has been the tradition of our church, I turn to the Revised Common Lectionary as my primary source and have found the readings well coordinated and thoughtful. My greatest difficulty is choosing two out of the four or six scriptures recommended for a given week.

You may have noticed by now that my general preference is to select one passage from the Old Testament (the Hebrew Bible) and the Gospel lection. As often happens, I found all of the readings incredibly inspiring this week, but had to prayerfully choose two on which to focus my sermon. The one I had the hardest time leaving out was Philippians 2:1-13. It begins:

“If then there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy, make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord
and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. Let the same mind be
in you that was in Christ Jesus…”

I encourage you to read further. This scripture is a tremendous gift to us. Take out “Philippians” and insert “West Medfordians.” Let us be of one mind, the same love, being in full accord. Let us forgo selfish ambition and, instead, in humility regard others highly. Let us open our eyes to the needs of others and the needs of the church as a whole. Let us strive through prayer to let the mind of Christ be in us.

Being a Christian takes work. It requires constant prayerful watchfulness. It demands humility that defeats selfish ambition. Yet all this work is worth it when we ponder the rewards of our labors.