For Sunday, May 3, 2026 Our Scripture Lesson is John 14: 1-14

 https://youtu.be/JLY4sw79xbk

In addition to this as our passage, this Sunday is also Communion Sunday at our church.  All who know Jesus as your own are invited to come and join us.  Communion carries much loving weight in our faith.

It is the act of sharing in that which Jesus accomplished for us on the cross, opening the way to new life and eternal life in Him.

It is a command of our Lord Jesus, a sacrament that we are commanded to do in remembrance of Him.

It is the opportunity for all the whole family of faith to gather together to worship Jesus for what He has done for us.

It is the moment for any of us who have been pulled, been torn, been tossed, been drained, been broken, been separated from our Lord Jesus to come back to Him in sorrow, in repentance, in hope, in joy, but most powerfully in the sure and certain knowledge of the faithfulness of Christ Jesus.

If it's been awhile, take this opportunity to renew the most amazing acquaintance we have in this life and the next.

Peace,
Pastor Pete

https://youtu.be/JLY4sw79xbk

Dreaming the Possibilities and Walking Its Edges

            As many of you know, I walk for my health.  Each week, I push a little further, extending the possibilities.  This week, the push is out to four miles a day.  Final goal, somewhere between 5 miles (the proverbial '10,000 steps' a day-the 'gold' standard of the Walking for Health literature?) and 7 miles (Biblically inspired as the distance between Jerusalem and Emmaus).

            The first part of the journey is on familiar ground.  Right up Centre Street through Merchantville.  I appreciate how “Centre” is spelled the ‘Canadian’ way.   Most days, my walking takes me along a portion of  Merchantville’s ‘main drag’.  This time, it was out to Cove Road and then Rt. 130.  I will often take this time to argue with God to sort out some of the finer bits of my understanding of God, the Bible, ministry, and everything. 

            What does a pastor argue with God about?  Well, deeply pastor-nerd things like: "Are the passages in the Bible where God reveals God’s nature to us meant to be ‘descriptive’, descriptions of the divine in the language of the fallen human, or ‘prescriptive’, prescriptions for how we must define and understand God?"  Like I said, deeply pastor-nerd.  

            Took Cove out to Rt. 130, placed my life in God’s hands as I dared to cross at the light, and continued on up to Westfield Avenue in Pennsauken.  Again, very familiar ground.  This is how we drive home from 73, 295, the Turnpike, and when coming south on 130.  On the corner at the top of the hill is a tavern that advertises good burgers.  One of these days, they will move from my ‘gunna try’ list to my ‘did try’ list. 

I took the left onto Westfield Avenue into the ‘downtown’ of Pennsauken.  It’s not really a downtown in the way Centre Street runs as Merchantville’s ‘downtown’, but it is a central corridor through the community that is NOT a highway.  It’s a bit different, more spread out, different economic and residential mix, a more diverse community.  But it is FPC’s Neighborhood.  There isn’t another Presbyterian Church in town. 

So, now my thoughts toward the Lord are more conversational, more interventionist in nature.  This is a drift from the nerdy to the necessary.  How do we reach out most effectively to this part of the neighborhood?  What is different and what does Pennsauken have in common with Merchantville?  Intercessory prayer-asking for God’s intervention-lead to intercessory prayer.  So, God lead us to serve Pennsauken led to a reflection of our Healing Service yesterday.  General intercession to more immediate needs.  For me, any pastoral care ‘list’ begins with intercessions to enter the lives of our people from the Lord.

So I’ve been up on Westfield Avenue before, and the question becomes, when pushing the loop, where to cross back over Rt. 130.  I’ve come back across at Merchantville Road, by the Pennsauken Library and the Starbucks.  I’ve come back across Browning, passing the Dunkin’ (can you sense a theme?) .

From the church side, I have also gone up Maple Avenue as far as and over the pedestrian bridge on Rt. 130.  So, today, looking at the map, it seemed right to close the loop.  That means taking Westfield Avenue out to Federal, and taking the left.  Because Maple Avenue, from the church, turns into Federal on the other side of Rt. 130.

Somewhere along Westfield Avenue, this means crossing from Pennsauken into Camden.  I knew I was in Camden for sure when, along Westfield Avenue, I passed a Spanish-speaking church that used to be one of the Presbyterian congregations serving Camden.  I recognized it from the orientation to Camden I received from my brother in the Lord, the Reverend Floyd White, who, in retirement, continues to provide pastoral leadership to the last remaining Presbyterian church in Camden (on the other side of the City) as well as being a community organizer, social advocate, missions organizer, and outreach specialist in this community.  And this does not even begin to touch on the work and support that his wife offers to the community.

            In Camden, the housing stock is different, more connected housing and ‘row homes’.  Pennsauken has homes that were built as single family homes that are often divided into smaller units in the present day.  A little history to consider here.  After World War 2, we praised the GI bill that paid for higher education and bought homes for generations of returning soldiers.  The mandate for the homes were single family homes.  Urban housing ‘stock’ in cities like Camden was ineligible for this aid precisely because they were connected.  Urban paid the price for ‘suburban’ expansion.

            In addition there are more boarded up locations, everything has the tighter feel of a 'real city', there is a lot of ‘urban armor’ in place, grills over a lot of windows and doors.  One streetside exit to the former Presbyterian church has a whole armored cage built around it.  But even so, beauty exists.  The corner unit on one length of connected housing had serious urban armor, grills over the window and front door, but also beautiful hanging baskets hanging in a row along the porch.

Took some time to realize that I wasn’t talking to God anymore as I walked.  I was in a state of what my police chaplain education identified as ‘hyperawareness’.  What is going on around me?  Who is coming close?  Where is there a blind corner?  Is this space dangerous?  Who is coming toward me?  It was during this time, when I wasn’t talking, that God had a moment to enter the conversation (It was a realization too that shutting up can be an excellent thing in times of contemplative prayer).

It was just two reminders.  The first, that here, like on Centre Street in Merchantville, like on Westfield Avenue in Pennsauken, like at the Starbucks or the Dunkin’ or the Station (old train station downtown Merchantville), that here, in Camden, every face I see is the face of Jesus, if I have eyes to see.  

The second is that this too is our neighborhood.

I took Westfield Avenue out to Federal Street and took the left.  Federal Street is Maple Avenue, depending what side of Rt. 130 you are on.  And instead of the game of chicken that crossing a light on 130 feels like, there is a pedestrian bridge (but after three plus miles, its a whole new game of making the knees bend to the steps...).

Walk along Federal Street toward Rt. 130 and you will see what God’s work in Camden looks like.  I passed by the Urban Promise Campus, school to aid to community garden and Brittin Village, a housing community of Volunteers of America, built on the old Army Reserve Center. 

This is our Neighborhood.  Or part of it, the parts to the north and west of our location.  And that’s on the earthly side.  There is another Neighborhood that we are called to be, that is a Neighborhood in the Kingdom of God.  That is a way of thinking about church that came to me early on in my ministry. 

As many of you know, I walk for my health.  Some days it is simply to enjoy God’s creation.  Some days it is just to clear my mind and sweep out the unnecessary.  Some days it is time to ‘get into it’, whatever ‘it’ might be, with the Lord and see where it leads.  Sometimes it just about dreaming the possibilities.

Pastor Pete

Our Scripture Lessons for our Healing Service on Sunday, April 26, 2026

 https://youtu.be/3bEyJA4UM_s

Our Scripture Lesson for our Healing Service on Apr. 26, 2026 is John 10: 1-10.  Follow the link for more details about the service and the sharing of our Scripture from four versions of Scripture to offer up a wider understanding of the Biblical passage translated into English.

Peace,
Pastor Pete Hofstra

https://youtu.be/3bEyJA4UM_s

Jesus appears to All the Disciples, Except Thomas...then Thomas...the World's Best Known Doubter

 To You Who Are Beloved of our Lord Jesus Christ,                                

 This Sunday, we share Jesus’ post-resurrection appearance to his disciples from the gospel of John.  John 20: 19-31: 

  ¹⁹ When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors were locked where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” ²⁰ After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. ²¹ Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” ²² When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. ²³ If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”

²⁴ But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. ²⁵ So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.”

²⁶ A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” ²⁷ Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.” ²⁸ Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” ²⁹ Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”

³⁰ Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples that are not written in this book. ³¹ But these are written so that you may continue to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.

          I did it again.  In reading over this passage, I spend so much time on the story of Doubting Thomas (D.T.), I found myself blowing past the larger context.  Jesus appears to all the disciples (except D.T.) first time out and there is a post-Resurrection, pre-Pentecost event located here.  Jesus puffs on the disciples to grant first access to the Holy Spirit.

          And he leaves them great power and responsibility.  “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”  At first glance, does that look like Jesus has granted them permission to turn on and turn off the free gift of salvation that Jesus gave his life for us to receive?  There are ‘power brokers’ today in the church who presume that is exactly the authority they have.

          How terrifying is that?  That the Holy Spirit, the very presence of Jesus within us, can make we who are Jesus’ disciples wise enough and authoritative enough to know a person’s heart?

          But maybe, just maybe the story of Doubting Thomas is to illustrate what this great power and responsibility look like?  Thomas is like “No Way” to Jesus’ resurrection.  The disciples are like “Way…”  Then Thomas spouts off about putting his fingers in the wounds before he will believe.  Which is exactly how Jesus calls him out. 

          Imagine Jesus holding up his holed hands and wiggling his fingers, pulling up his shirt to reveal the previously wounded side.

          Now, what if that is what Jesus means to ‘forgive’ and ‘retain’ sins.  That this measure is made in the demonstration of the truth of Jesus to the people the disciples will come to?  Thomas believed and was forgiven.  But what if he walked away?  He would have retained his sin of doubt and disbelief.

          But note what Jesus did.  I played with the image, Jesus holding up his wounded hands.  But what Jesus did was to come to Thomas in love.  Come and see.  Here is the truth of the matter.  “Do not doubt but believe.”  And Thomas believed.    

“Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe”, Jesus goes on to say.  Therein is the power of sins forgiven.  Therein is the centerpiece of the Holy Spirit upon the disciples.  Therein is the work we are called to do in Jesus’ Name.

 

Pastor Pete

John 20: 19-31. The Scripture Lesson for Sunday, April 12, 2026, the Second Sunday in Easter

 Please click this link to go to the video:

https://youtu.be/ODhcsx7wdcc

The story this Sunday is Jesus appearing to his disciples, then having to RE-appear to satisfy the doubts of Thomas the Twin.

https://youtu.be/ODhcsx7wdcc

Pastor Pete

Healing and Prayer: Finding Serenity When Facing the Hard Portions of God's Will

Being the Fourth Sunday of March, this past Sunday was our Healing Service.  The Scripture passage was the story of the Raising of Lazarus from John 11.  The sermon is going to be shared below but there are two prayers that I want to highlight that were integral to writing this sermon.

The first is The Prayer That Never Fails.  Yes, there is one.  It goes as simply as, “Lord, Your Will Be Done”.  To share the prayer is one thing, to live into the results is something else. 

The second is the Serenity Prayer,

"God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,

Courage to change the things I can,

And wisdom to know the difference"

The first line of the Serenity Prayer is a very human response and follow-up to the Prayer That Never Fails.  We are on the cusp of Easter, where Jesus dies for us in a more horrible fashion, to be raised again For Us.  The power of the story of the Raising of Lazarus is, in part, how deeply the grace and the grief of our Lord Jesus extends into the life of all God’s Children.

From the Lord’s Day, Sunday, March 22, 2026:

John 11: 1-45

SERMON    “All For The Glory of God”

In our faith, we have the prayer that never fails.  Simply put, it goes, “Lord, Thy Will Be Done.”  Having prayed this prayer, know that it can disappoint us, confuse us, back us into a corner, make us afraid, as well as liberate us, grant us courage, grant us peace, and align our souls with the Will of our Lord.  Because the Lord’s will is not our own.  I have seen most faithful Christians who have to painfully put their trust in Jesus afresh when struggling with this.  I have also seen tentative Christians whose lives of faith have deepened in aligning to God’s Will.

God’s Will Be Done, that might lead us to conclude that we ought to, anyone know this tune? “Sit back, relax, and let yourself go with the flow…”, because it’s God’s flow.

Which is nice, a comfortable sentiment, let God take the next steps.  But might that make us little more than passive?  I think perhaps the Serenity Prayer is a better guide if we are truly going to dare to entrust ourselves God’s Will.  You know the prayer, "God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, Courage to change the things I can, And wisdom to know the difference"

I find both these prayers, the Serenity Prayer and the Prayer That Never Fails find roots in the story of the raising of Lazarus. 

Is the story a familiar one to us?  There are three siblings, Martha and Mary and Lazarus.  We’ve met the sisters before, but not Lazarus.  He is ill.  Word is sent to Jesus, to summon Him.  Already, there is evidence of ‘courage to change the things I can’…send for the Healer.  But Jesus delays, intentionally.  His words, “This illness does not lead to death, rather it is for God’s glory, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.”

And then we have Jesus’ followers.  The Clueless.  Also known as the Disciples.  In the musical, Jesus Christ Superstar, I remember they have a recurring theme.  They are in the background singing “What’s the buzz, tell me what’s a happening, what’s the buzz, tell me what’s a happening…”  And they live into that role today.  First, well…if Lazarus is sleeping, like Jesus said, he’ll just wake up, right?  And it was Jesus who, maybe through gritted teeth, “No, you beloved morons…metaphor…sleep, death, sleep, death.  YES, HE DIED!  But that’s what is going to change.”

And second, they are fixated (with good reason) that the authorities are out to get Jesus.  To go to Lazarus is to go to Bethany, two miles from Jerusalem, the viper’s nest.  Where they are now is across the Jordan, a day’s journey minimum, after the events of the last chapter.  That is where the minds of the disciples are.  It is Thomas the Twin (the doubter) who says, “Okay, Jesus is going to die, lets go die too.”

When Jesus arrives, Lazarus has been in the tomb four days.  Jesus comes to each sister in turn.  To Martha, the “practical” one, He knows she understands she will see her brother again at the Second Coming.  But there is a caveat.  “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”

Then Jesus speaks some of the most powerful words in the Bible, “I am the resurrection and the life.  Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.”  This Martha believes.

Then Martha goes on ahead to alert Mary and Mary meets Jesus at the tomb.  Mary is the “contemplative” one.  “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”  But if Martha spoke in regret, Mary is speaking through her tears.  And Jesus does not try to explain himself, or his Messianic role, or the Hope of the Future.  Those are all true but useless in the face of the moment.  She’s lost her brother.  What she needed from her Lord were not words but presence.  And Jesus wept alongside her.

Some appreciated His presence, but others were nattering on the edges, “He healed the blind man, could he not have healed Lazarus?”  Or, where were you Jesus?

When Jesus, broken hearted, ordered the tomb to be opened, it was Martha, the practical one, who introduces that bit of humor, as inappropriate as it may feel, but how often do we suddenly find a moment of laughter in our own grief? 

Martha says, “Jesus, really? Its been four days.”  To quote her words from the King James Version, “By this time he stinketh.”  But Jesus replied, “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?

Then the tomb is open and Jesus calls for Lazarus to come out.  And the way Jesus says, “Unbind him, and let him go…”  This is another moment of humor for me.  I always pictured Lazarus wrapped up like the Mummy from a Univeral’s 1950’s monster movies.

Up to now, the heart of this passage has always been the exposed heart of Jesus weeping alongside Mary and the others.  Despite His God-powers, our pain is His pain.  But here’s the piece that niggled at me this time around.  This was all for the glory of God.  Jesus says so at the beginning and says so again to Martha at the graveside.  And that bothered me.

Because we are going to torture this family, put the sisters through the grieving process, kill Lazarus outright, so that Jesus can make an example of resurrecting him?  For the glory of God?  That Jesus could have been there, could have done exactly as both Mary and Martha pointed out, healed him before he ever got to the point of death? 

The prayer goes, ‘Lord, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change.”  Neither sister was serene in the moment.  We don’t see it explicitly, but each sister in turn greets Jesus the same way.  “Lord, if you had been here…”  It’s normally read with a certain basic respect for Jesus as the Son of God.  But what if Martha was speaking through clenched teeth, no ‘hello’, but “If you had been here, my brother would NOT have died!!”  And Mary, it says she was weeping, but what if she were beating her fists on Jesus’ chest as she greeted him with, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother Would Not Have Died.”

Lord, Thy Will be done…sure, but if you had been here…that’s not just a voice of two sisters, that’s a voice among of the community of the grieving.  Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change…  That comes at the end of the process we call grief.  In the moment, the idea of this being done for the glory of God?  For God’s will to be done?  God’s will was to take my beloved?  In the moment of death, that can feel a mockery. 

The Serenity prayer goes on, an ask of God for the courage to change the things that I can.  We see Martha already moving in that direction.  She’s ready for the acknowledgement that she will see her brother at the Resurrection, the Second Coming.  She is ready to hear that Jesus is the resurrection and the life, she says it, “I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.”  Jesus does not press Mary on that, she’s not there yet.

It takes courage to grieve, to move into this painful process of healing.  And it is really only in the abstract that I can say grieving is a healing gift.  Because in the moment, it sounds like pandering.

The third piece is wisdom, to know the difference of what I can do and cannot do.  And knowing that which I cannot do, I have serenity in releasing for God to do.  Thy Will be done.  But this wisdom is not, like the song, to ‘sit back, relax, and let yourself go with the flow’.  Courage to do what I can is a call to action, to do what and everything I can.  We, people of faith, know that grief is not a pit but a process, not to be avoided, not to be denied, but to be journeyed through.

It may feel like we are endlessly reliving the pain of the moment, but there is more to it than that.  Every time we care to tell the story, in our pain, every time we begin to draw out the emotional poison of good and amazing memories of someone who is now in Jesus’ hands. 

I say this in funeral sermons, the Peace of Christ in times of death is of two sorts.  The first is the sure and certain knowledge of eternal life of Jesus’ own.  The second is that Jesus is with us every step of the way as we walk through the valley of the shadow of death.  That is the glory of God that Jesus is trying to get across to the Clueless, I mean the Disciples, at the beginning of this passage. 

God’s will WILL be done, whether we pray for it or not.  And, at the beginning, it can disappoint us, confuse us, back us into a corner, make us afraid, but if we can surrender to God what God can do, if we can embrace the courage to do everything that we can do, if we find the wisdom to understand where those are distinct from one another, God will liberate us, grant us courage, grant us peace, and align our souls with the Will of our Lord. 

Amen.

 

Pastor pete

Scripture Reading for the Lord's Day, Sunday, March 22, 2026 John 11: 1-45: The Raising of Lazarus

 This is the passage for Sunday, shared in the NRVS, the KJV, the Pirates Bible, and the Message Remix versions of the Scriptures:

https://youtu.be/3WORXa5JnF4

Pastor pete