ST. MICHAEL'S 
Pastor's Message

Please feel free to contact our Pastor Rev. Denise at Griebler at: dgriebler@sbcglobal.net

A Note from Pastor Denise

It was time to eat but the chili was about 20 minutes away from hot enough. Most everyone had brought a game to share. Welcome to St. Michael’s game night!
Apples to Apples, The Farming Game, Monopoly, Memory, and more lined the marble counter in the fellowship room. But how to begin? Jenga . . . Hmm. Maybe that would be a quick game while the chili warmed . . . maybe there’s a way to play as two teams. Sure . . . why not? I’m making this up even as I state the rules for this sort of play. The ten others in the room (some of whom actually know how the game is supposed to be played) buy into the made-up team rules, and before you know it we’re count-ing off by twos and everybody’s in the game.
Do you know Jenga? Kathy Hummel tells us it’s an African game. And she goes on to say that African games are notorious for teaching, build-ing and celebrating community. We have struck gold.
Jenga begins as a 3 x 3” square, 10 inch-tall tower. It’s constructed out of rows of 3
1 x 3” wooden planks that stack one on top of another. The first row is 3 planks verti-cally side by side, the next row of three lies atop horizontally, the next vertically, the next horizontally and so on about 20 rows high. Can you picture this?  Players take turns removing one plank from somewhere within the tower. They place that just-removed plank just atop the tower to make a new row. The tower gets taller and taller, and wobblier and wobblier.
The game is over when the tower falls. Which it did not do for a very long time. We kept taking turns removing one plank and then another, building much higher and wob-blier than any of us would have predicted. We were all holding our breaths and cheering one another on. Even though one team was supposedly competing against the other.
Of course in the end it came toppling down. But all of us being in on the game – minds, bodies, spirits engaged – that’s the memory I’ll savor. I want to do this again!
Ash Wednesday is coming. February 22nd to be exact, and begins the season of Lent. It’s a game changer. In the beginning, it was relatively easy for Jesus as he gathered his disciples and started teaching, preaching, healing and multiplying loaves and fishes. But at a certain point, the level of difficulty gets ratcheted up a notch.
Mark’s gospel notes the game-changing moment: Jesus sets his face toward Jerusalem. No more hiding out in the Galilean country-side. They take the game (which is all about teaching, building and celebrating the com-munity of God’s Reign on earth) to where the powers and principalities preside. This is a tricky, even dangerous, path. The scribes and the Pharisees hound and try to entrap him. Every move entails risk. Jesus and his disciples just keep playing by the Kingdom rules, which ex-posed the ways that the political, social and religious rules were rigged to favor some and ex-clude so many others. Things get more precarious as the powers collude to bring him down. Each move called for deeper discernment, prayer, courage and camaraderie. After the march on Jerusalem and the Temple action, he’s arrested and tried in a kangaroo court, tortured and executed. A life toppled.
The other night, when the Jenga tower fell, the game may have ended, but the community lived on. The way we had encouraged and cheered one another, the way each person had stepped up to take his turn and risk ruin or glory, witnessing each person’s discerning eye, her gentle, skilled touch and willing spirit, none of that was lost when the swaying tower finally fell.
Game night was a very good idea. Thanks to Bryan Kelsey for dreaming it up. Thanks to Sara Phalen for bringing the chilly chili that got us play-ing Jenga. Maybe we’ll do it again. It’s so good to spend time together - to get to know and appreciate one another, and to cheer each other on. Jenga, chili and Apples to Apples were ways into the gift of community. Which is indeed a precious gift when the Way gets difficult or even when life
comes crashing down. Sometimes it’s not all that far from Jenga to Jerusalem.
Join us for worship on Ash Wednesday and for the Sundays of Lent.  And watch for future game nights!

Love and prayers,

Denise