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Dear Minooka UMC Found Family,
I suspect that if you’ve participated in, say, two or more of our worship experiences, you have likely heard me quote The Princess Bride. It is one of my all time favorites—with good reason! It is basically the perfect movie: funny, sweet, adventurous, subversive, great actors offering great performances, and eminently quotable. Plus, I was in high school when it was first released. I can still picture seeing it in the theater with my friend Dan and his sister, Tricia.
This week I found myself thinking over and over about one particular scene; a scene that is, perhaps, not among the most famous and frequently quoted.
The moment I have in mind focuses on Inigo Montoya (played by Mandy Patinkin) after he loses his fight with The Man in Black. (N.B. not Johnny Cash, at least in this case.) We find Montoya despairing. He has lost his way and doesn’t know what to do. So, he declares he is going “back to the beginning.” The beginning being somewhere familiar—but it is not the same as it was for him before. Previously, he was just looking for a job. Now he is longing for redemption.
This week, as I promised on Easter, we are going back to the beginning of the Bible for the first wave of a deep dive into Genesis—starting with chapter one. I don’t know what you’ve been taught about the creation stories in Genesis. But there is so much more to them than the silly, sophomoric scrimmage against science that the loudest voices in US Christianity proclaim!
We’ll read the first creation story in its entirety and consider what it could mean for 21st Century people such as ourselves to name God as Creator. How might this ancient story help us better understand God; better understand our spiritual ancestors; better understand how to be a disciple of Jesus today?
Turns out, the writers of the story we know as chapter 1 were in a situation not that dissimilar to good ol’ Inigo Montoya. What do I mean by that? To find out, join us this Sunday, April 26 at 9:30am for my sermon Stories That Matter: Back to the Beginning!
Whether in person or online, all are invited to our welcoming and affirming congregation.
Plotting Goodness,
Pastor Dave
Photo by Greg Rakozy on Unsplash
