Meet our Pastor - Tuckahoe United Methodist Church

Pastor Fred Marz and his wife Peggy began their ministry at Tuckahoe UMC this summer. You can reach Pastor Fred directly at pastorfred@tuckahoeumc.org. We welcome Fred and Peggy to our Tuckahoe church family!

Weekly Message

“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. Matthew 5:8

Dear Church Family,

We have just completed a sermon series centered on a reflection each week of the Sermon on the Mount. Each Sunday, we heard from Jesus as he proclaimed to us the way to kingdom living. Each attribute attached to a blessing required an out of the ordinary way of living, each though gifted and empowered by the Holy Spirit.

A beatitude that I skipped can be found in the heading of this letter from Matthew 5:8 – Blessed are the pure in heart. Dietrich Bonhoeffer explains what that means, “Who is pure in heart? Only those who have surrendered their hearts completely to Jesus that he may reign in them alone”. He does not mean in only “their hearts”, he means that only Jesus does. Pure in heart is all about a single-minded devotion to God, it is about having an undivided heart as cried out for in Psalm 86, (give me an undivided heart to revere your name; v.11). Purity of heart does not allow the great enemy, (pride), to get in the way of the blessings we are meant to have.

I do not know anyone who is not fatigued, frustrated, or wearied by the restrictions brought on by the pandemic we have faced since March. But I never witnessed our nation so divided when it should be unified in meeting the crisis caused by this virus. In the past, when our nation was confronted by a great threat, Americans joined together in defeating the threat it was facing. Today the crisis has divided us more greatly than before it arrived. I even see it as we strive to make the right decision on to how we open our churches safely, for the least of these, (in this case it is those most vulnerable to dying from the Corona virus).

Let us join together in Jesus as we follow the example of Jesus, and as we heed the message of the Sermon on the Mount. That example includes selfless love, grace and a servant’s heart. It means having the heart of the one who provided a lesson by washing the feet of his disciples, (disciples whose pride prevented them from that very chore). Let us continue to love one another as directed and taught by our Lord. Let us be unified in that love, while pure in heart.

God bless you all,

Pastor Fred