From the Pastor

January 2010

Each year, expert wordsmiths get together and look at all the new words which have found their way into English in the past twelve months. Which words have become a part of the general public’s vocabulary?

The "biggest" new word of 2009 was "un-friend." The word came into being through the social networking site Facebook, which allows you to connect with others online. They can then send you messages and pictures, keep you updated on their daily lives (sometimes their hourly lives), and comment on the "status" updates that you might place on the site. These updates are news about how you are feeling, what you are up to, what irritates you or makes you happy, etc. If you decide you no longer want someone to be a part of this aspect of your life, you can "un-friend" them just as easily as you "friended" them—simply by pushing a button.

I have a Facebook account. I like that it enables me to keep in touch with old and new friends, and I even like that it gives me the chance to try to be witty on occasion. No one has unfriend-ed me yet, and for that, I am grateful!

But what if they do? What if I am no longer good enough to be someone’s Facebook friend? If that happens to me, I feel sure I will feel slighted and hurt. After all, I would hate to think I had done something to force someone to take the step to un-friend me. What did I say? What did I not say? What did I do or not do? How could I have been a better friend?

I would hate to think someone might dump me just by pushing a button. I would not go so far as to say I lie awake at night fretting about this, but I do know it would bother me if it happened. I would also hate to know that all my other Facebook friends could now see that my number of friends has decreased. Just knowing that someone could un-friend me makes me nervous.

How blessed we are, however, to know that we have no such worries with God. Yes, we can disappoint God when we fail to be all that we were created to be. We can sadden our Creator when we are not attentive to the Word and to the life it calls to in God’s name. But we are so loved by our God that God sent Jesus Christ to die for us. We are so cherished that God reaches out to us again and again and again … even when we sin and fall short of the glory of God. We may be unkind to others. We may be uncomfortable with living out our faith every day. We may be uncompassionate, unforgiving, and yes, we may un-friend people and even institutions or denominations from time to time.

But there is still grace for us and for our world. We will never be "un" anything by our God: not un-friended, not un-forgiven, and certainly not unloved. God will continue to stick with us, despite disappointment in our failures and our hardheadedness. It takes effort to be in a relationship (any relationship) and to make it work, and God surely knows that. Knowing that God keeps working at a relationship with us, perhaps we can all strive to be better friends to one another in the name of the One who loves us all so well, and so unconditionally.

In Christ,
Pastor Brenda