forest hill Musings -- weekly reflections on Scripture
Musings -- weekly reflections on Scripture
I began writing these short essays for our weekly e-newsletter. They served two purposes: First, they gave me an initial run at the Scripture that I would be preaching on -- an opportunity to start thinking about the spiritual and life questions that the sermon might address. Second, they serve as advertising; an invitation to folks to join us on Sunday morning and see how my thinking has developed between the first take on my questions and the final sermon that gets delivered.
We've started collecting these at this website so that people who aren't already subscribed to our newsletter can get a sense of what's coming up in worship. Feel free to check back weekly to see the reflection for the week, or click here to subscribe to our email newsletter and have these delivered into your inbox every Friday
Rev. Stephen Fetter
November 9, 2025
Twenty-second Sunday after Pentecost
Remembrance Day Observations
Celebration of Holy Communion
"Keep Calm and Carry On"
“Keep Calm and Carry On” is a slogan that was originally written in 1939 and never used. The British government’s Ministry of Information printed 2.45 million posters with the slogan but they planned to release it only if there were a full-scale invasion or a serious escalation of the war. Things never got that bad, and the posters were pulped in 1940, to help with a paper shortage. The slogan didn’t even become public until 2000 when a single surviving poster was discovered. Since then, of course, it’s become a powerful Internet meme and appears on coffee mugs, t-shirts and hoodies throughout the English-speaking world.
I suspect it’s become so popular because those five words capture a sense of how to endure dire things. We humans are a lot stronger than we sometimes imagine; we can indeed face adversity with grit even when hope seems irrational. That grit is part of what we acknowledge on Remembrance Day; it’s also important life-advice for the other times in our lives when adversity seems to overwhelm possibility. When hope vanishes, act hopefully anyway.
When Paul was writing to the Thessalonians in this week’s Scripture reading, he offered a strikingly similar message. They were living with persecution; they were expecting wars and conflicts; they were concerned that some of their church members had even died before the Second Coming of Jesus would set things right and rescue them; they wondered whether the adversity meant that God had given up on them.
With 2000 years of hindsight, we can scoff at their belief that Jesus would return immanently to set things right. The Second Coming that so many expected in the first generation of Christianity simply didn’t happen, and eventually we evolved new ways to understand what God is doing to set the world to rights. Clearly swooping in with an army of angels to punish the bad guys didn’t happen! It still hasn’t. And still, people live with adversity: global societal crises that kill or maim thousands, and personal devastating tragedies that degrade or destroy human lives.
Whether we’re trying to make sense of intractable wars or the impact of Alzheimer’s on a family, we need ways to cope with the worst that can happen. And we all wonder about how and whether the God we trust in could make a difference to us when everything falls apart.
Paul’s advice to his flock is still just as relevant today: give up on the notion that being Christian protects us from times adversity. It doesn’t. There were always devastating times, and there continue to be. Wars and rumours of war are part of the human condition. But even when rational hope fails, we have resources in our traditions that help us to move forward. They help us to “keep calm and carry on.” And so, says Paul, plumb the depths of that tradition. Saturate yourself in the ways that our ancestors found God even as the world fell apart around them. Trust that when all else fails, still God is there to pick up the pieces and inspire new life, new growth, new joy, new wonder.
In 1939 when that slogan was coined, no one knew what the outcome of the war would be. No one knew how bad things would get. No one knew whether they would survive the catastrophe. But the world is still here; life continues; joy is possible; hope is still a reasonable option. We remember this week … and we also give thanks for all that emerges when we follow Paul’s advice to, “stand firm and hold fast to the traditions that you were taught by us” (2 Thess. 2:15)
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6f/Keep-calm-and-carry-on-scan.jpg
November 2, 2025
Twenty-first Sunday after Pentecost
Commemoration of the Departed
"A Time to Party"
Yet another story about a tax collector this week! The parallels between this story and the one we read last week are striking. Once again, a hated government official is the recipient of Jesus’ grace. What’s Jesus doing, fraternizing with the folks that everybody hates?
Once again, the crowd grumbles. Tax collectors in Roman-occupied Israel are not the sorts of people we expect Jesus to hang out with. These are the sorts of people who made life unpleasant for Jesus’ friends. They had a reputation of enforcing the rule of the unjust occupiers, and feathering their own nests by overcharging the peasants in the process. And unlike last week’s story, which was clearly a parable (a fictional story about fictional characters, told as a teaching device), this one appears to be a real-life story about a real-life encounter. Apparently Jesus not only talked a good line; he actually followed his own advice!
October 26, 2025
Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost
"A Time to Pray"
What if God loves sinners as much as saints? What if our heroes – the ones who do everything right and go the second (or even third!) mile aren’t the only ones to win the prize? What if, in Jesus’ kingdom, even the people we hate are welcome, and beloved?
Would you want to live in a Kingdom like that?
October 19, 2025
Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost
"A Time to Act"
“Rosie the Rivetter” is a popular image from World War 2 era United States, representing the working-class women who rolled up their sleeves to toil in factories and shipyards while the men were off fighting in Europe and the Pacific. She’s typically portrayed in this pose with a curled fist, and the slogan “We can do it.” I found this image of the Virgin Mary in the same pose, when I was looking for graphics for this week’s Biblical story, and it really tickled my fancy.
The real-life “Rosies” were working-class; poorly paid; essential to the economy and the war-effort, but never really given the respect they were due. Millions of them filled heavy-labour jobs that the soldiers had done prior to the war; and millions of them were displaced from the workforce again once the soldiers came home. Somehow the fierceness and determination of those female workers never translated into respect, or decent pay! It feels like the graphic artist here wants us to imagine the strength and the struggles of peasant women like Mary in the same light.
October 12, 2025
Thanksgiving Sunday
"A Time to Eat"
It’s hard to imagine a festival without food! Every culture does it. We know a day is special because we mark it with a feast – with friends, with family, and with food reserved for the occasion.