Online Archives

Dear Friends,

Since he first penned the words, “It was the best of times and it was the worst of times. It was the age of wisdom. It was the age of foolishness,” people have adopted Charles Dickens’ words to describe the season through which they’re living. Celebrating the light while at the same time lamenting the darkness is part of the human story.

Some recent statistics in local newspapers give us all cause for concern.  For example:

• There are 2,300 homeless children in the D.C. public school system. My heart grieves for each one.
• In addition to the 20 children killed in Newtown, 71 children were killed by deliberate gunfire in 2012. In January, police reported 25 murders in Baltimore City. These senseless deaths and the recent shooting at the Mall in Columbia make me deeply question our culture’s glorifying violence.
• Last summer, Sesame Street  added a new character to whom  2.7 million children can now relate. The show introduced, Alex, a child whose father is in prison. One-in-28 American children (3.6%) have an incarcerated parent. Just 25 years ago, the number was 1-in-125.
• Our political and justice systems cannot effectively figure out how to address the 11.7 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S. and the at least 50,000 more trying to enter every month; about 1,000 of whom are deported each day.
• The recent chemical spill in West Virginia contaminated drinking water for thousands of people.

Living in the midst of these realities, it’s easy to feel like we’re in the worst of times. But we are resurrection people. Our hope runs deep and we claim God’s power for transformation.

We have a conference with good clergy and laity who are becoming fully alive in Christ and making a difference in a diverse and ever-changing world. And so, we find ourselves celebrating possibilities when we consider things like:

• More than 6,000 youth and their leaders, who represented the astonishing diversity of our region, gathered recently for fellowship and worship at ROCK 2014 in Ocean City. More than 1,000 of them began a relationship with Christ and thousands of others grew deeper in their faith.
• Most of our 642 congregations have become Prayer Stations; people are inviting persons to come and see how through their local church they can be in ministry together; and many of our churches have adopted a local school in their ZIP code. 
• The people in our pulpits and pews are giving generously and embracing the initiative to Imagine No Malaria and defeat death and suffering from this preventable and treatable disease.

As a people of God, we are awake in the Gospel. We walk in the way of the cross. This awakening to God’s call and living together as the household of God will be the theme of the upcoming Lenten Day Apart with Clergy.

On Tuesday, March 4, from 9:30 to 12:30 p.m. all the clergy of the Baltimore-Washington Conference are invited to gather at Glen Mar UMC in Ellicott City. The guest speaker that morning will be the Rev. Harold Recinos, an Elder from our Conference who is serving as a professor of Church and Society at the Perkins School of Theology. His prophetic remarks will inspire and challenge us all as we prepare our minds and hearts for the Lenten journey toward the cross.

The registration deadline for the Clergy Day Apart is Friday, Feb. 28. I strongly encourage you all to attend. Online registration is available on the conference website at www.bwcumc.org/events/2014LentenDayApart.

In addition to writing the prologue to “A Tale of Two Cities,” Dickens also wrote: “There is wisdom of the head, and a wisdom of the heart.” Today, and into Lent, we are called to discover and live them both -- wise in the knowledge that we are loved by God, and called to make disciples and serve the world in both the best and the worst of times.

Grace and Peace,

Bishop Marcus Matthews