1

The Saturday morning Bible study just ended, and I am reflecting on the conversations. While Bible studies have reputations for being stodgy, the ones at ASUMC, which are held on Monday evenings from 6:30 to 8:00 PM and on Saturday mornings from 8:30 to 10:00 AM, have energy. Why the energy? Maybe because people cultivate new dimensions of our faith when we read the Bible and realize that it does not behave as we expect it to behave. Many of us have read the Bible at various stages of our lives, and we might feel like Jonathan Kirsch, who wrote The Har-lot by the Side of the Road. When he attempted to read the Bible from cover to cover, he familiarized himself with the accounts of Adam and Eve, Noah’s Ark and the Tower of Babel, and he slogged through a few genealogies. When he read how Isaac responded to Jacob and Esau, his sense of fairness was offended, and he could not find much value in the story of Judah and Tamar, especially since he was reading it to his children. Like many people who believe the Bible is the source of chil-dren’s stories, he concluded that the Bible was full of stories about adul-tery, seduction, incest, rape, assassination, torture, sacrifice, murder, war, etc., etc.,---and he was only 2/3’s of the way through the first of six-ty-six books.

Why Attend a Bible Study? Bruce Bradshaw

Inside this issue: Page

A message from Bruce

Bradshaw, Pastor

1-2

Join Us for Our Roast

Beef Public Supper!

2

2017-2018 Public Sup-

per Schedule

3

Save The Date: Crop

Hunger Walk 2017

4

Confirmation Class 5

Membership An-

nouncement

5

Musings on Love, Bruce

Bradshaw

6-7

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017

Arlington Street UMC

63 Arlington Street

Nashua, NH 03060

Rev. Bruce Bradshaw, Pastor

Pastor’s Cell: (603) 546-8294

bbasumc@gmail.com

Hilltopper

The Bible did not behave as Jonathan Kirsch expected it to behave; he learned that it was not chil-dren’s literature and wondered how it could be sacred or holy. He did not consider that the sacred and holy nature of life emerges from the messiness of living. The Good News is that the Bible does not behave as we expect it to behave; it contains the drama of human life, and life does not always—if ever—conform to our expectations. But God works through people in the messiness of life. If the Bible behaved as we want it to behave, it would be flat and boring. Yet Bible studies are exciting when we unpack the dramas of life that the Bible contains. Many of us struggle with the Bible because the truths of the Bible are stranger than the fictions that we want to impose on it. But truth is always stranger than fiction, which is why lies and half-truths in both personal and public discourse are so appealing. However, when we read the Bible, we read blatantly honest accounts of the lives of real people, living in real places, in real times; we read about people like us, who are dealing with the genuine struggles of life, and some, but not all, are attempting to live faithfully. The Saturday morning Bible study for the foreseeable future is informed by the book The Bible Tells Me So: Why Defending Scripture Has Made Us Unable to Read It by Peter Enns. Peter is not afraid to ask the tough questions of life and faith, such as: “Why doesn’t God make up his mind?” or “Why do the writers of the Bible get so cranky?”, but his major concern is how we engage the content of the Bible to develop the faith and moral maturity to become the people who God is calling us to be.

2

The Tuesday evening Bible study is informed by What is the Bible? by Rob Bell. Rob is one of the most provocative writers of our time, probably because the church was not ready for him. The title of the first chapter is: “Moses and His Moisture.” When I read that chapter title, I thought, “Rob, did you have to start there?” To which he would have responded, “Yes; the Bible is about life, and with-out moisture, there is no life; don’t let your defense of the Bible prevent you from reading it; let the Bible liberate you to become the person who God is calling you to be.” Without the stories of life, including the moisture of Moses, the Bible would be flat and boring; instead it contains all the tex-tures of life. Everyone at ASUMC is encouraged to participate in one or both of the Bible studies; they will en-hance your faith, if not change your life.

3

ARLINGTON STREET UNITED METHODIST CHURCH

Fellowship Hall

63 Arlington Street, Nashua, NH 03060

Handicapped Accessible

Telephone: 603-882-4663 www: asumc-nh.org

2017/2018 PUBLIC SUPPER SCHEDULE

SATURDAYS

4:30 PM – 6:00 PM

SEPTEMBER 16 ROAST BEEF

Mashed potato, carrots, string beans

OCTOBER 21 *CORNED BEEF & CABBAGE

Boiled potato, turnip, carrots

NOVEMBER 18 ROAST PORK

Potato, carrots, green beans, applesauce

MARCH 17 *CORNED BEEF & CABBAGE

Boiled potato, turnip, carrots

APRIL 21 ROAST PORK

Potato, carrots, green beans, applesauce

MAY 19 ROAST BEEF

Mashed potato, carrots, string beans

SERVED FAMILY STYLE

All suppers include bread, beverage and dessert

Adults $10, Seniors $9, Children $6, Under 5 free

* Corned Beef & Cabbage Supper- Adults $11, Seniors $10, Children $6, Under 5 free

4

This year’s Crop Hunger Walk is October 29.

This year, more than ever, we need to show our support of each other in our Interfaith Community, and as a large and visible group, raise money to help those suffering from hunger and poverty as well as refugees from natural or man-made disasters. Let’s show New Hampshire that Nashua has hearts and “soles”! Why should I participate? The Greater Nashua Area Crop Hunger Walk has taken place each fall in Nashua for 33 years. Over those years we have raised well over 1 million dollars for hunger and poverty relief locally and world-wide. We are the second largest Crop Hunger Walk in New England! The walk is under the auspices of the Nashua Area In-terfaith Council. Monies raised primarily go to Church World Service for their work internationally and in the US, but 25% stays locally to support the Nashua Soup Kitchen, the local Salvation Army, the Corpus Christie Food Pantry and the St John Neumann Food Pantry. Church World Service is always present and part of international disaster relief, most recently in Texas and Louisiana. But they also provide education, teach health and hygiene, help communities to dig wells, train women to use sustainable farming techniques, advocate for land rights and much more. CWS helps thousands of refugees to resettle and begin a new life in the United States. They also serve refugees where they are, helping them find safety in urban and camp locations around the world. They work to create a safe space, free from fears of persecution for LGBTI persons. Visit their website cwsglobal.org for more about the work they do. How can I help? For details about this year’s Nashua Crop Hunger Walk, visit our blog www.nashuacropwalk.blogspot.com. Participate with your faith community, bring your friends, or start a team from your workplace and join with hundreds of other committed local families for our walk. Watch for more announcements in your bulletin or “like” us on Facebook to keep up with our campaign. To walk and raise money, check with your local recruit-er, or you can register on line and send sponsor requests to friends and family from your contacts. Click on the stop sign on the right side of our blog opening page and you’ll be directed to the CWS website to register for on line fundraising. After the walk, which is 4.2 miles and starts mid-day on October 29, join our BBQ meal and celebration with music from the Raymond St Klezmer band, the New Fellowship Baptist Gospel Choir, and the Nashua Com-munity Interfaith Choir. Questions? Contact Becky Green at nashuacropwalk@gmail.com.

5

Confirmation Class

A few people have asked about a confirmation class at ASUMC, which we would like to hold from October 2017 to June 2018. The time will be determined according to the availability of the people who are par-ticipating in the class. In the United Methodist Church, confirmation is open to all people who have been baptized, particularly younger people, and who, by their own volition, want to commit themselves to following Jesus Christ and

participate in the life of the church. Throughout the history of the church, confirmation has been called “The Sacrament of Christian Maturity;” we, in the United Methodist Church, do not con-sider confirmation a sacrament, but we do want to respect the responsibility of young people to decide whether they are ready to be confirmed. If you, or your son or daughter, want to be a candidate for confirmation, the candidate should call or email Bruce Bradshaw at 603-546-8294 or bbasumc@gmail.com.

Membership Matters

If you worship with us regularly, you are encouraged to become a member of this congregation. While you can participate in the church without being a member, membership is a commitment to participate in the fullness of congregational life. It confirms our commitment to each other in re-lationship to Jesus Christ, and to the particularities of the United Methodist Church. If you want to be a member, contact Bruce Bradshaw at bbasumc@gmail.com.

6

Musings on Love and Agreement Bruce Bradshaw

Have you ever wondered how many times pastors have heard statements like: “I don’t agree with the church,” or more particularly, “I don’t agree with the teachings of the church,” or “I don’t agree with what somebody in the church said or did.” I have heard these statements often enough to consider whether we believe agreement is the medium through which we participate in congregational life or whether it is the basis of our faith. These statements tempt me to wonder whether Jesus said:

“As the Father has agreed with me, I agreed with you. Now remain in agreement. If you keep my commands, you will remain in agreement, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and agree with him. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. My commandment is this: agree with each other as I have agreed with you.”

The Good News is that Jesus did not live, die and resurrect for us to agree with each other. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is about love, particularly the self-giving, sacrificial love that is embod-ied in the Greek word “agape.” It means living for the good of the other person, realizing that our self-interests are invested in other people. Love, rather than agreement, keeps the church, as the body of Christ, together. For this reason, Jesus prayed for his disciples to love each oth-er, and to remain in love. Through love, our joy in Christ is complete. Now, I realize that all human relationships embody some tensions between love and agree-ment. To some extent, in all relationships, disagreements bend and break the bonds of love, and they cause relationships to disintegrate. However, my central concern is the amount of power we give our disagreements. Why do disa-greements have the power to erode our basic commitment to love each other, especially be-yond our disagreements? The answers to that question are both long and short. A short answer is the extent to which we frame disagreement as a virtue. We have probably all done it at some time. We might want to believe that our disagreements are expressions of some profound truth or a moral principle that we cannot negotiate. However, if we examine ourselves honestly, we might realize, or admit, that we are protecting a personal preference, if not a selfish one. When we engage the tension between love and agreement, we might consider whether we are attempting to turn our selfishness into a virtue, and refusing to realize that we, in the church, have invested our self-interests in each other. At such times, we are tempted to feast on our disagreements, especially if they are camouflaged as virtues, but we might heed the words of Frederick Buechner, who wrote pithy observations about life. To paraphrase him and apply his writing to disagreements, he wrote:

7

we lick our wounds…we smack our lips over disagreements...we savor, to the last toothsome morsel, the pain we have been given and the pain we want to give back-- in many ways it is a feast fit for a king, but the chief drawback is that we are wolfing down ourselves. When the feast is finished, the skeletons that remain are ours.

The challenge of living in community, especially as a congregation, is to manage disagree-ments in the context of love. Disagreements are unavoidable, but they do not have to be de-structive. If we examine ourselves in the presence of God, if not the presence of each other, we can find that disagreements reveal the values that put us in relationship with God and with each other, and invite us to embrace the moral challenge of loving people whose values con-trast with our values. This is my command: Love each other as I have loved you. (John 15:12)