First Parish Church of Newbury

First Parish Church of Newbury Our church celebrated its 385th in 2020! As a small church, we’re big on community and helping neighbors bless their neighbors. (a) Call1-929-205-6099.

Welcome to First Parish Church of Newbury, a United Church of Christ congregation with a traditional worship service and dynamic mission programs that serve hundreds in our community. That includes worshiping and witnessing God in spirit and truth as we follow Jesus Christ's teachings. Currently our services are held both in person and remotely via Zoom. If you attend in person, masks are required

at all times.
*Worship: 10 am Sunday mornings
*Bible study: via Zoom at 7:00 pm on the 2nd & 4th Monday of the month.
*Food pantry: 3 to 5 pm on Fridays

To join use the following Zoom meeting entry information:

First Parish Church of Newbury has a permanent zoom address: bit.ly/fpcnworship

If you do not have computer access, you can still worship with us. (b) When prompted, enter: 82647115553 # (c) When asked for another number or just # -- just put in # (d) If all this doesn't work, just hang up and try it again. (*6 to mute or unmute).

09/05/2026

Pastor's Thought for Today:
Psalm 92:1 It is good to give thanks to the LORD, to sing praises to your name, O Most High; 2 to declare your steadfast love in the morning, and your faithfulness by night, 3 to the music of the lute and the harp, to the melody of the lyre.
Luke 15:25 "Now his elder son was in the field; and when he came and approached the house, he heard music and dancing.
Ephesians 5:18 Do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery; but be filled with the Spirit, 19 as you sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs among yourselves, singing and making melody to the Lord in your hearts,

For some reason, I awoke this morning thinking about music. Maybe because Greta has been listening lately on our smart home assistant to some of the music from our youth? Johnny Mathis, Nat King Cole, romantic tunes from our past. Maybe not, because the music I heard in my mind this morning was not very romantic. I was hearing bagpipes skirl "Scotland the Brave" and the thundering, heart-stirring blast of “Richard Wagner’s famous orchestral prelude “Ride of the Valkyries,” composed between 1851 and 1856 as part of Act III of his opera Die Walküre in the Ring cycle.” (Copilot Search)
For many of us, music plays an important role in our lives, irrespective of our musical talents, abilities or lack thereof. We listen to music when we are happy, when we are sad, when we seek to soothe our frazzled nerves and when we wish to stir our hearts and infuse them with valor.
Our language includes favored quotes about music, e.g. "Music hath charms to soothe the savage breast." (William Congreve, 1697, Copilot Search) "Where words fail, music speaks." (Hans Christian Andersen, Copilot Search) "Without music, life would be a mistake." (Friedrich Nietzsche, Copilot Search) "Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything."(Plato, Copilot Search) "Music is the universal language of mankind." (Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Copilot Search)
Maybe the most famous saying about music is one many of us heard from our fathers, “The music you kids listen to is just loud noise” or some similar disparagement. Ironically, most of our fathers heard some version of that from their fathers who heard some version of that from their fathers, etc. ad Infinitum. That memory leads me to wonder to what music Jesus and his disciples might have listened. Scripture does attest to music as a part of life and a part of worship throughout the ages. Archaeology has unearthed ancient instruments, written music and even images of musicians playing. “The idea that the Book of Psalms is “God’s hymnbook” is not the result of a single person’s statement, but rather a long standing theological and historical view held by many Christian traditions. This concept is rooted in the Psalms’ role as the earliest and most central collection of sacred songs in the Bible.” (Copilot Search)
Did Jesus and the 12 hear the psalms chanted in the Temple or in their synagogues accompanied by “the music of the lute and the harp, to the melody of the lyre?” We’ll probably never know. What we do know, however, is the central role of music and song in most modern Christian worship. Some faith traditions eschew instrumental music and only sing a ca****la. Our congregation does not. We incorporate both organ and piano regularly as accompaniment to our singing. On special occasions we invite and incorporate other instruments, notably a professional oboist. Maybe some day we will even rise to incorporating a piper in our service.
Jesus probably never listened to music like my generation’s music from the 1950s. I have no idea whether or not Jesus would have enjoyed hearing Johnny Mathis, Nat King Cole, Buddy Holly, Jerry Lee Lewis or any of my teenage musical heroes. Would he have approved of the Statler Brothers, the Oak Ridge Boys, the Kingston Trio? Would he have found such music as jarring and discordant as did my own father? Maybe.
I do suspect, however, were Jesus to attend worship tomorrow at First Parish Church of Newbury, he would appreciate the songs we sing. Jesus might even join in with our choir, singing joyous praise to our Father in heaven. Was Jesus a bass, tenor, alto? We’ll never know. I do know, irrespective of whether or not he had ever heard the specific hymns we will sing, he would approve of our making “Psalm 98:4 . . . a joyful noise to the LORD.”

Listen to the music, sing songs of praise and thanksgiving, trust God,
Pastor Ray

09/04/2026

Pastor's Thought for Today:
Job 33:23 Then, if there should be for one of them an angel, a mediator, one of a thousand, one who declares a person upright, 24 and he is gracious to that person, and says, 'Deliver him from going down into the Pit; I have found a ransom;
1 Timothy 2:5 For there is one God; there is also one mediator between God and humankind, Christ Jesus, himself human,
Hebrews 8:6 But Jesus has now obtained a more excellent ministry, and to that degree he is the mediator of a better covenant, which has been enacted through better promises.

The theme this week in "These Days" has been “The Goodness of God Revealed.” Several of the daily devotionals have focused on verses from Psalm 119, the longest psalm in the Bible. “Psalm 119 is in an alphabet acrostic. There are 22 stanzas or paragraphs in this Psalm, one for each of the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet in order. Each of the stanzas has 8 verses which also begin with the same letter. That makes 22x8 = exactly 176 verses.” (www.biblegateway.com)
This morning, as I began my devotional routine, I read in "Coffee with Calvin" a devotional titled “Christ the Mediator.” It is based on “Now it was of the greatest importance for us that he who was to be our Mediator be both true God and true man . . . His task was so to restore us to God’s grace as to make of the children of men, children of God; of the heirs of Gehenna, heirs of the Heavenly Kingdom. ("Institutes" 2.12.1.2)"
The devotional in Coffee begins with “Jesus Christ stands at the center of our Christian faith.” That certainly should be the case. It seems so obvious as to almost be trite; however, I wonder how often in our lives Jesus Christs stands at the center of the lives we live. For any of those of us who self-identify as Christians how often during the course of your day do you or I consciously think about Jesus the Christ? Is the answer different for me as a minister of word and sacrament than for those who are congregants? Should it be?
Much of our daily lives is consumed with the minutia of living. We eat, we sleep. We go through the habits and duties of daily life. Do I think about Jesus when I am shaving? When I am eating? Do any of us think about God as we are driving? Some at least do seem to be calling out to God as they deal with the frustrations of traffic! Do we share every aspect of our daily living with Jesus and with God? Should we? Are we more prone to think about Jesus and God during times of duress and difficulty?
In church, in sermons and in Sunday School lessons we talk about Jesus’ being fully human and fully divine. We sometimes use titles such as Mediator to refer to Jesus. How often do we consciously and deliberately think about the ramifications of that title, the implications of Jesus’ dual nature?
As I have read my devotionals, I am constantly reminded of what I understand about the goodness of God and how it has been revealed in our world. Hopefully, it is no surprise when I say that the first thing which comes into my own mind is, “John 3:16 ‘For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. 17 Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.’”
I believe the gospel truth of those verses and that for Jesus to me the Mediator of our salvation, corporately and individually, it was essential for Jesus to be both fully human and fully divine. It is essential for us to understand that our Creator God loves God’s Creation so much that God lived among us as fully one of us. “2 Corinthians 5:21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” Jesus understands our temptations; Jesus was tempted. But, because Jesus “knew no sin,” we know that we too can resist temptation. Because of Jesus, his incarnation, crucifixion and resurrection, we know and understand the truth of the gospel message of God’s unmerited and infinite love.
“Ephesians 2:8 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God—” Our personal relationship with Jesus, the Christ, our faith in Jesus reveals to us the truth of God’s salvific grace. We know the goodness of God and Jesus does stand at the center of our Christian faith.

Believe in Jesus, accept God’s gift, trust God,
Pastor Ray

09/03/2026

Pastor's Thought for Today:
Exodus 3:16 Go and assemble the elders of Israel, and say to them, 'The LORD, the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, has appeared to me, saying: I have given heed to you and to what has been done to you in Egypt.
Exodus 20:12 Honor your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the LORD your God is giving you.
Matthew 15:2 "Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands before they eat."
Luke 22:52 Then Jesus said to the chief priests, the officers of the temple police, and the elders who had come for him, "Have you come out with swords and clubs as if I were a bandit?

“πρεσβύτερος . . . (2) as a substantive; (a) as denoting previous generations οἱ πρεσβύτεροι forefathers, ancestors, people who lived long ago; (b) as designating honorable officials in local councils, synagogues, etc. elder” (Friberg, "Analytical Greek Lexicon")

That Greek word, πρεσβύτερος, pronounced ‘presbuteros,’ is the root word for Presbyterian. It is often translated as elder. In the PCUSA, there are 2 different types of elders, Ruling Elders and Teaching Elders. The latter are sometimes also called Ministers of Word and Sacrament. I have been ordained as each. I was ordained as a Ruling Elder in my early thirties, at an age which now seems very young to me. I was ordained as a Teaching Elder many years later.
I thought about all of this, especially about “the tradition of the elders” yesterday as I wrote about laws, statutes, ordinances, regulations and commandments. I thought about this as I wondered, if we cannot achieve the Kingdom of God through laws, statutes, ordinances, regulations or commandments, how do we achieve a society comprised of lives reflecting justice, kindness, humility or love?
As Christians, we are committed to and pray for a world where God’s will is done on earth as it is in heaven. Christians have prayed for that world for 2026 years. Christians have paid at least ‘lip-service’ to that idea for the same 2026 years. How’re we doing on our alleged commitment? How effective have our prayers been? Have we taken any discernable steps toward achieving our goal?
As a young boy, I believed that the whole answer lay in perfect obedience to the 10 Commandments. Then I read the 5th chapter of Matthew’s gospel. That is the chapter of the Beatitudes and of that series of “"You have heard that it was said . . . But I say to you . . .” in verses 5:22-5:44.
I must admit that each year as I age, I keep looking for Jesus’ having said, "You have heard that it was said, ‘Honor your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the LORD your God is giving you’, But I say to you extol them, hang on their every word.” I’m still looking.
Certainly that idea of listening to our elders is the basis for all those words about elders which we read in scripture! Of course, that idea does bring to light the obvious question of how I could have been a Ruling Elder in my early thirties. Is age, in and of itself, a qualification for wisdom or discernment? Is age, in and of itself, a disqualification for wisdom or discernment?
In our political world during my own lifetime, I have seen both arguments. The current contest (war?) between our aging congressional representation nationwide and the young trying to supplant them is nothing new. “Ecclesiastes 1:9 What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done; there is nothing new under the sun.” Qoheleth may have been prone to overstatements, but the generational wars have been waged throughout human history. Those who lived during the ‘60s or who have read about them should see echoes of the past in our current conflict.
How do we balance in politics, in religion, in life, the fresh, new ideas of youth against the wisdom and experience of elders? Must they always be at odds with each other? Must one or the other always be in ascendance while the other is in decline? As the clock on our wall relentlessly ticks away each hour, as I celebrate each succeeding birthday, I wonder.

Listen to the wisdom of age, be energized by the vibrance of youth, trust God,
Pastor Ray

09/02/2026

Pastor's Thought for Today:
Psalm 119:33 Teach me, O LORD, the way of your statutes, and I will observe it to the end.
Micah 6:8 He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?
Luke 10:25 Just then a lawyer stood up to test Jesus. "Teacher," he said, "what must I do to inherit eternal life?" 26 He said to him, "What is written in the law? What do you read there?" 27 He answered, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself." 28 And he said to him, "You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live."

If it is all so simple, why does it seem to be so difficult to accomplish? Look at the world in which we live. How much progress toward doing justice, loving kindness or loving each other have we (humanity) made since Cain smashed his brother Abel with a rock? How much evidence do we present of our love of God or each other in our wars, in our violence against each other and against nature, in our pollution and destruction of God’s Creation or even in our attitudes toward each other.
Here in Massachusetts, this morning we are hearing of the results of yesterday’s party primary elections. Throughout our nation we are facing the onset of the mid-term elections. From now until November, we will face an onslaught, a seemingly constant barrage of political advertisements. Listen and watch carefully. Irrespective of party affiliation or any personal bias, honestly ask yourself whether or not you can discern any evidence of justice, kindness, humility or love in anything you see or hear.
I very strongly support and believe in separation of church and state. I do not want government at any level attempting to control or regulate what I believe, how I worship or how anyone else worships. I also very strongly wish, however, that I could discern any element of justice, kindness, humility or love motivating anything I see or hear in the political machinations of government at any level. I honestly wonder how long any candidate or office holder could survive at any level of government were that person to evince such radical motivations as justice, kindness, humility and/or love.
“Scripture guides us to a deeper relationship with God, revealing God’s love, compassion, judgment, and forgiveness.” ("These Days," September 2, 2026) As a Christian, I could not agree more. As a Christian, however, I have read the Bible enough to recognize the honest truth in the psalmist’s words above. That verse speaks to ‘statutes,’ in Greek, “δικαίωμα, ατος, τό (1) of God's requirements ordinance, regulation, commandment” (Friberg, "Analytical Greek Lexicon")
One of the primary items of contention among Jesus and the scribes, Pharisees and Sadducees was the issue of righteousness, “Biblically the term embraces a number of dimensions relating to God’s actions in establishing and maintaining right relationships. Ethically it is a state of moral purity or doing that which is right.” (Westminster Dictionary of Theological Terms, pg. 242) The scribes, Pharisees and Sadducees looked to perfect obedience of the Law as expressed in the Torah.
In the Lukan passage above, Jesus refocuses the issues of righteousness and salvation from perfect obedience of the Law to the gospel message of love. Living, temporally and eternally, is a matter of loving God and of loving each other.
The apostle Paul phrases it a bit differently in Ephesians, “2:8 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God—” For Christians, our salvation, achieved through our righteousness, which is based on our faith in Jesus as the Christ, allows us to recognize and accept God’s freely given gift. I believe that God offers that gift to all, but, Christians recognize and accept God’s gift because we have had a personal encounter with Jesus, God’s Son.
I do not believe that laws, statutes, ordinances, regulations or commandments, be they civil or scriptural, can bring about lives reflecting justice, kindness, humility or love. Irrespective of any promises of any candidate or office holder, the Kingdom of God, the environment in which God’s will is done on earth as it is in heaven, can never be brought about through laws, statutes, ordinances, regulations or commandments, be they civil or scriptural. The Kingdom of God will only be fully realized when we love the Lord our God with all our heart, and with all our soul, and with all our strength, and with all our mind; and our neighbors as yourselves.

Love fully, love extravagantly, trust God,
Pastor Ray

09/01/2026

Pastor's Thought for Today:
Proverbs 18:16 A gift opens doors; it gives access to the great.
Ecclesiastes 3:13 moreover, it is God's gift that all should eat and drink and take pleasure in all their toil.
Ecclesiastes 5:19 Likewise all to whom God gives wealth and possessions and whom he enables to enjoy them, and to accept their lot and find enjoyment in their toil-- this is the gift of God.
John 4:10 Jesus answered her, "If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, 'Give me a drink,' you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water."
Ephesians 2:8 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God--

Maybe it was the gentle pitter-patter of the (much needed) rain falling on our roof, but for some reason, I woke up this morning thinking about gifts. September does forebode the approach of winter, but, in our family, it does not have any particular association with giving or receiving gifts.
Maybe it is the realization that I have referenced Ephesians 2:8 very often this year, 34 times since January. Paul’s words portend two of the primary elements of the Protestant Reformation, sola gratia, the fact that Christians are saved by the grace of God and sola fides, the truth that Christians are saved through our faith in Jesus as the Christ.
As I thought about that I realized that I most often reflect on grace and faith and neglect Paul’s affirmation that our salvation itself is a gift of God. I cannot ever remember hearing or giving a Bible Study lesson or sermon on gifts. Yet, as a child, as a parent, and now a grandparent, I know the importance and value of both giving and receiving gifts.
Some years ago, one of the characters in one of my favorite television shows hated the entire concept of gifts and giving. He viewed gifts as a social contract containing an implied quid pro quo, an obligation imposed on the gift recipient by the giver. The obligation was the demand of reciprocity, i.e., the recipient was socially obligated to respond to the giver with a comparable gift. That idea was an ongoing trope for that comedic show. In our society, does gift giving imply a social contract of reciprocity? I was not raised to understand it that way.
Paul is not the only one in the Bible to mention gifts and gift giving. Certainly, reciprocity is at the heart of the Proverb above. We see echoes of that idea in politics still today. Gifts and donations often do give access to the great. One does not have to be a cynic to recognize that fact.
The Prophet does mention the gifts of God. Behind his words, I see a sort of prosperity gospel linking wealth and success with God’s blessing and approval. However, Jesus reminds us “Matthew 5:44 But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,55 so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous.”
The Bible does often seem to imply favorable or unfavorable weather phenomena as being linked to God’s approval or disapproval. I do not concur, although I must admit that we left Texas during a long drought that was broken after we left. And, since we arrived in New England, northern Massachusetts has experienced a significant period of drought. Surely those are merely coincidental.
I do believe that God has given us all a wealth of gifts. Creation itself is a gift. Life is a gift of God, “Genesis 2:7 then the LORD God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being.”
I believe Paul’s words above and John 3:16-17 both recognize God’s greatest gift to God’s Creation. When God’s children proved through our failure that we could not do it all on our own, God sent Jesus to lead us. God did so as proof of God’s love.
Do I believe that only Christians are saved? I am not nearly presumptuous enough to tell God whom God may or may not save, “for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous.” I may ultimately be surprised at who I see in eternity; I just need to live here and now so that they will not be surprised to see me arrive.

Accept God’s gifts, use them wisely, trust God,
Pastor Ray

08/31/2026

Pastor's Thought for Today:
Exodus 1:8 Now a new king arose over Egypt, who did not know Joseph.
1 Samuel 8:4 Then all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah, 5 and said to him, "You are old and your sons do not follow in your ways; appoint for us, then, a king to govern us, like other nations."
Luke 19:38 . . . "Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest heaven!"
Luke 20:25 He said to them, "Then give to the emperor the things that are the emperor's, and to God the things that are God's."

Two things were on my mind this morning. Since tomorrow, September 1, is state primary voting day in Massachusetts, I decided that writing about having a favorite number can wait for another day. Tomorrow is a very important day for all citizens of our state. All election days in all states are very important. Christian or not, all citizens have an obligation, a duty and a privilege in our electoral process. Christians also have a spiritual obligation to give to the emperor . . . Of course, part of our Christian duty is to clearly delineate between the things that are the emperor’s and those that are God’s.
Sadly, “• The overall turnout rate of eligible voters in Massachusetts in the 2024 presidential general election was 68.0%. The national average for the same year was 64.1%. • The overall turnout rate of eligible voters in Massachusetts in the 2022 midterm general election was 48.8%. The national average for the same year was 46.2%.• From 2002 to 2024, the average voter turnout rate of eligible voters in Massachusetts was 58.5%. The national average voter turnout rate of eligible voters for this same period was 52.4%.” (Ballotpedia.org/Voter_turnout_in_Massachusetts)
I try to eschew writing about partisan politics in these Thoughts and in the sermons I deliver. My personal political ideas and opinions are merely that, my own personal ideas and opinions. I do have ideas and some very strong opinions about politics and politicians in the U.S.A. But they are ideas and opinions based on and influenced by many factors, only some of which are relevant to my being a pastor. I know that there are those within my family of faith with different ideas and opinions. We are all united within that family of faith by our faith, our belief in Jesus as the Christ, the Son of God. We worship together and support each other because of our faith, not for any partisan political beliefs.
Irrespective of our commonalities of faith or politics, however, we should all find those quoted statistics an embarrassment. The truth is that whether we vote or do not vote, we get the government we deserve. If we do not vote, we fail to obey the word of Jesus in our not having given to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s.
It is t rue that kings and emperors have a very checkered past in scripture. It is true that in the U.S.A., despite the media obsession with the royalty of other nations and despite the desire of some politicians, we have neither kings nor emperors.
The word used in that verse above from Luke is, “Καῖσαρ, αρος, ἡ Caesar; originally a surname of Julius Caesar, later taken as a title by the chief Roman ruler emperor.” (Friberg, "Analytical Greek Lexicon") Recent (?) world history is replete with Caesars, Kaisers and Tsars. Most nations and/or empires today have presidents, chairmen or leaders with some other euphemistic title. Jesus was not addressing the issue of titles; Jesus was addressing the obvious fact that God’s children live in societies where civil and spiritual rules, laws, commandments and obligations coexist and overlap. Jesus was and is telling us that we must get our priorities in order. We must understand and organize our lives to give to God the things that are God’s.
Thankfully our Founding Fathers left for us a nation governed by a Constitution. That Constitution wisely organizes our governance into 3 coequal branches of government, prohibits all 3 from interfering with or assisting with our exercise of religion or apostacy and guarantees our right to elect our government officials.
I believe it is my duty as a Christian to exercise my right to vote. If you are wondering, I have already voted by mail, but only after researching the candidates and carefully praying about my choices. I hope you either have done the same or will do so tomorrow. If you live outside Massachusetts, I pray you will vote in your own state’s primary. Wherever you live, I pray you will vote on November 3, 2026, in the mid-term elections.

Vote, vote wisely and prayerfully, trust God,
Pastor Ray

08/29/2026

Pastor's Thought for Today:
Genesis 2:16 And the LORD God commanded the man, "You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; 17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die."
Genesis 25:29 Once when Jacob was cooking a stew, Esau came in from the field, and he was famished. 30 Esau said to Jacob, "Let me eat some of that red stuff, for I am famished!" (Therefore he was called Edom.) 31 Jacob said, "First sell me your birthright."
Mark 6:41 Taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them to his disciples to set before the people; and he divided the two fish among them all.
John 21:12 Jesus said to them, "Come and have breakfast." Now none of the disciples dared to ask him, "Who are you?" because they knew it was the Lord.

I got up early this morning to put one of our favorite recipes in our slow cooker. It is our version of what is known as a guisada, a stew with meat, tomato, cumin and flour. Our original recipe was for beef, but now we also sometimes use chicken or pork and we have added more vegetables to the recipe. It is truly delicious. It does, however, require a certain amount of chopping and dicing.
As I wielded my knife against the cutting board this morning, I began to think about food and the important role it plays in our lives and in our faith. Most of us who are ‘of an age’ have received voluminous amounts of information from our primary care doctors about our diets and proper nutrition. Many in our age group are on medications to also ensure we maintain the proper blood pressure, cholesterol levels, etc.
If you read newspapers, magazines, watch television or access social media platforms, you are surely aware of the plethora of different ‘miracle’ diets. Over the decades, we have been assured that the grapefruit diet, the no-fat diet, the Adkins diet, the paleo diet, the Mediterranean diet or some other diet will prevent all disease, will provide weight loss without exercise and will ensure our total and complete health. Almost every time I open my web browser, I am confronted with a suggestion that I click on a link about what will happen if I just “eat this one thing.” Ironically, however, every time I ask any doctor about weight loss, blood pressure or cholesterol I receive the same answer: Exercise more, eat a balanced diet based on small portions of lean meat, vegetables, fruits and nuts.
I have encountered advertisements for diet and nutrition books allegedly based on the Bible. My Bible software cannot find the words ‘diet’ or ‘recipe’ anywhere in scripture. I have heard the book of Psalms described as the Bible’s hymnal. I have never seen any suggestion that any book is the Bible’s cookbook.
Food does, however, play a significant role in many Bible stories, from Genesis to the conflict between Jacob and Esau. Food in the form of manna and quail was provided to the wandering Israelites in the Negev following the Exodus. Most Christians are aware that the Last Supper was almost assuredly a Passover Seder. When we read about the feeding of the 5.000 with 5 dinner rolls and 2 sardines, food is central to the miracle itself.
We know that God provided the bounty of Creation to sustain our God-given life. We know that Adam was told by God, "You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die." Sadly, we know how that turned out. We know that neither Jacob nor Esau came out of their food encounter looking too good.
We also know, however, those words of Micah, “6:8 He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” Micah did not suggest that God requires us to have a BMI “between 18.5 and 24.9 kg/m2” (Copilot Search) Neither did Jesus suggest, when asked about the most important commandments suggest that diet was preeminent.
Proper diet and nutrition are important for our physical health. Our mental and spiritual health are equally important. They both require a diet of love, of prayer, and of being in relationship with our Creator God, the one who also provided those trees of the garden. All of God’s children need to be careful and prudent in monitoring and maintaining their physical, mental and spiritual health.

Eat well, pray often, love extravagantly, trust God,
Pastor Ray

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20 High Road
Newbury, MA
01951

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