Message From the Pastor - Visible, Not Neutral: Seeking Our Way Together

February brings us again to Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount—and to an unavoidable truth: faith is never neutral. In this sermon, Jesus names salt and light as public realities. They are meant to be seen. They change what they touch. They do their work only when they are mixed into the world. 

From there, we move quickly toward Ash Wednesday and into Lent with the theme Seeking: Honest Questions for Deeper Faith, including one guiding question: Who will you listen to? We are living in a time when our neighbors are experiencing real harm— through immigration enforcement that fractures families, racialized suspicion that polices bodies, laws and policies that control bodies, and words that erode human dignity. This is not a theoretical spiritual question. It is a question with real consequences. 

We are seeking God in a particular place and moment. Ice covers our sidewalks in Minnesota, making vulnerability visible. At the same time, many in our community live on far thinner ice every day—as they are under pressure to remain unseen. As Cole Arthur Riley reminds us, oppression thrives when we are convinced that the suffering of others is unrelated to us. Jesus’ teaching refuses that separation. 

Ash Wednesday grounds us in reality. Isaiah insists that the fast God chooses loosens the bonds of injustice and repairs what has been broken. Lent calls us toward faith that is embodied and public: neighbors helping neighbors, choosing protection over indifference, and resisting the claim that the gospel can remain private when harm is public. 

Later in Lent, we will share more about our shared direction and the next faithful steps ahead. We’ll also continue to welcome the gifts and leadership of our interns, Izel and Jayne. 

Lent does not promise comfort. It promises clarity. And we trust that God meets us on the way—even when the ground is unstable, even when faith asks something real of us. 

Shalom, 

Donna