The 2025 Empire Grove Camp Meeting began in earnest for me at Sunday Morning worship on July 27. Reverend Matthias Tanner, a retired Methodist minister and a long time resident of the Grove, led a service of Word and Table that featured Jesus’ parable about a pearl of great price that a person found in a field. The person sold everything they owned to purchase the field and to recover and claim the treasure it held as their own. Matthias, who had in recent years “rechristened” himself after the apostle selected to restore the group of twelve early in Acts (many of his long time friends still call him by his familiar name “Stan”). Matthias linked these familiar parables of Jesus about our lives in God as a search for our heart’s treasures, to our current commitment to seek to grow closer to God in our camp meeting week together. He encouraged us to view the upcoming week as an opportunity to rediscover our "God treasures". He urged us to seek what our hearts desire most deeply and to be aware of the pearls that are "hidden in plain sight" all around us. Matthias highlighted several sacred spaces where we have often encountered God before and will likely do so again if only we choose to stop, look, and listen.
Later that day and again the next morning, retired pastors Catherine and Raymond Anderson echoed this theme by inviting us to be alert to and aware of “Emmaus moments”: those times when in the sharing of the scriptures and the breaking of the bread, we have those exceptionally intense realizations that Jesus has been among us. If they had had Facebook, Snapchat, or texting back in the day, Clopas and his companion (possibly his wife who had stood with the Marys under the cross as Jesus was dying) would have messaged the disciples they had just left back in Jerusalem, “OMG! You’ll never guess who we ran into on our hike today!”🙏❤️🔥🥰 #heartsonfire #itistheLord!
Matthias explained that these God glimpses could be in the faces of loved ones, in the laughter we share, or in the joy of children playing or riding the train. Our encounters with God might also occur during our morning Bible studies, or in the natural world—perhaps in a bird's song or the sunlight filtering through the trees. It could even be in a quiet moment when we feel a sense of belonging and become aware of God's presence. God might also appear in our memories, even those tinged with sadness for loved ones who have passed. Yet, through our traditions and memories of Empire Grove, we realize that what we love isn’t truly lost. Our worship services, where we listen to God's word and share in the body and blood of Christ, are another moment where God reveals Himself. Similarly, God is present as we share meals together.
This message resonated deeply with me as I prepared to discuss Paul's teachings during vespers during the week. The witness of Matthias, Catherine, and Raymond, and again throughout the week with Heather, Stuart, and many other ministers of the Word, echoes the message that God has never really left us. Paul, like Jesus and all of the prophets, taught that God has never abandoned us, has from the very beginning, never turned his back and walked away. God is as close to us as our own breath. We need only to trust, stop, turn around and then wait, listen, and look.
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