Letter from Greg, January 31, 2026
Dear Friends, Members, and Guests,
There's a limit to the efficacy of Rituals. We can see this plainly in passages like Micah 6:1-8 where—through the prophet's voice—God makes it clear: the symbolic and ritualistic acts of sacrifice matter only if or when accompanied by actions that back them up. God would rather have justice and mercy exercised by his people than the sacrifices of animals to atone for injustice and the lack of empathy.
So while I stand behind the journey we've been on so far this year, exploring rituals as a means to transformation, we all need to be clear: lighting a candle for a sick person and saying a prayer for healing may have a certain efficacy and mindfulness, but it is not the same thing as visiting that person, cooking food and feeding that person, or doing their laundry. It's not shopping for meds or taking time to drive to the doctor's office or urgent care center. it's not redressing wounds, or staying up the night to apply cold or heat where needed. It's not a ministry of presence. It's a symbolic act of mindful care.
In the season just past, we celebrated that God had become flesh, and dwelt among us. That's God's wisdom, not human. Christ was not only flesh, but experienced the worst of maligning and most tortuous of violences. That's God's strength, not human power in action.
What 1 Corinthians 1 helps us see is that "Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to gentiles" is "the power of God and the wisdom of God. For God's foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God's weakness is stronger than human strength. God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to abolish things that are so that no one might boast in the presence of God."
In other words, the path of justice, mercy, grace, wisdom, truth, beauty, hope, peace, joy, love, and true power doesn't lie in blustery rhetoric, merciless assaults, strength in numbers, exercises in violence, lies and misrepresentations, slander and libel, wealth and glamour, position or nobility. The path of righteousness is subversive. It takes the values of our world and like the tables of the money changers in the temple, upends them. The very people who live by the sword (violence), die by it also.
Ritual reminds, ritual bends our hearts and minds towards..., ritual enacts. And so engaging symbolic gestures toward peace and freedom are needed now more than ever. But so are those willing to acknowledge that the kingdom of heaven will not be legislated. The kingdom comes when the valleys are raised up, and the mountains made low. The kingdom of God and of His Christ is realized when the wisdom and power of this world have been taken over by the wisdom and power of Christ.
May those who have ears hear what the Spirit is saying to the church today.
Grace and Peace,
Pr Greg
1 Corinthians 1:18-31 (NIV)
18 For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 19 For it is written:
“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.”
20 Where is the wise person? Where is the teacher of the law? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 21 For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. 22 Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, 23 but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, 24 but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25 For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.
26 Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. 27 But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. 28 God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, 29 so that no one may boast before him. 30 It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. 31 Therefore, as it is written: “Let the one who boasts boast in the Lord.”