Epiphany 7 February 24, 2019

Luke 6:27-36 (The Message)

27-30 “To you who are ready for the truth, I say this: Love your enemies. Let them bring out the best in you, not the worst. When someone gives you a hard time, respond with the energies of prayer for that person. If someone slaps you in the face, stand there and take it. If someone grabs your shirt, gift wrap your best coat and make a present of it. If someone takes unfair advantage of you, use the occasion to practice the servant life. No more tit-for-tat stuff. Live generously.
31-34 “Here is a simple rule of thumb for behavior: Ask yourself what you want people to do for you; then grab the initiative and do it for them! If you only love the lovable, do you expect a pat on the back? Run-of-the-mill sinners do that. If you only help those who help you, do you expect a medal? Garden-variety sinners do that. If you only give for what you hope to get out of it, do you think that’s charity? The stingiest of pawnbrokers does that.
35-36 “I tell you, love your enemies. Help and give without expecting a return. You’ll never—I promise—regret it. Live out this God-created identity the way our Father lives toward us, generously and graciously, even when we’re at our worst. Our Father is kind; you be kind.

(Or as other versions have v. 36: “Be compassionate, even as your Father is compassionate.”)

We may not want to hear what Jesus is saying.  We may not want to be caught and convicted, challenged and changed by this Word.  We would rather hear a word which comforts, soothes, reassures us that we can have it our way and still be doing it God’s way.  We don’t like to be disturbed by our religion; we like to be appeased.

Jesus words are a simple and profound reversal of the values we live by and a challenge to dramatically change how we look at life and how we act as those who seek, as Luther said, “to live in his kingdom and serve him with prayer, praise and thanksgiving.”

It all hinges on the word merciful..compassionate.

To be compassionate is to be the best we can be.  It means a willingness to suffer with, to undergo with, to share solidarity with...those who are without, ungrateful, and even our enemies.  It means we are to live so that love not judgement is at the center of our lives, directing our words and actions.

Even when we act in judgment we must do it as those who are struggling to be compassionate.  Judgment must never be the last word nor is it ever the best word!
It is a sign we have failed; we have given up.  Compassion does not give up!





We are to “live obsessed with
passion for compassion”.
Ellie Wiesel










Prayer thought for the week:  “Lord, help me to be the best I can be…compassionate!”

Epiphany 6 February 17, 2019

Luke 6:17-21 (The Message)

Coming down off the mountain with them, he stood on a plain surrounded by disciples, and was soon joined by a huge congregation from all over Judea and Jerusalem, even from the seaside towns of Tyre and Sidon. They had come both to hear him and to be cured of their ailments. Those disturbed by evil spirits were healed. Everyone was trying to touch him—so much energy surging from him, so many people healed! Then he spoke:
You’re blessed when you’ve lost it all.
God’s kingdom is there for the finding.
You’re blessed when you’re ravenously hungry.
Then you’re ready for the Messianic meal.
You’re blessed when the tears flow freely.
Joy comes with the morning.

“The Great Reversal”

Jesus reverses how it is with us - we think we can find life by taking it.  Jesus says we find life by loosing it.  It is out of the depths of life that we discover life.  It is when we are poor that we learn to trust; hungry that we learn to appreciate and be thankful; weep that we discover the joy which cannot be taken away.

Life is not found in being rich; it is found in being needy and then having someone fill that need for us.  Then we discover what friendship and love really are all about.




Life is not found in being full;
it is found in being hungry
for the deeper things of life,
even hungry for God’s love.









Prayer thought for the week:  “Lord help me to be hungry for the deeper things of life.  Be with me in the depths so I can know the joy which comes in the morning.”

February 10, 2019 Firth Sunday After Epiphany

Luke 5:1-11 (The Message)

1-3 Once when he was standing on the shore of Lake Gennesaret, the crowd was pushing in on him to better hear the Word of God. He noticed two boats tied up. The fishermen had just left them and were out scrubbing their nets. He climbed into the boat that was Simon’s and asked him to put out a little from the shore. Sitting there, using the boat for a pulpit, he taught the crowd.
4 When he finished teaching, he said to Simon, “Push out into deep water and let your nets out for a catch.”
5-7 Simon said, “Master, we’ve been fishing hard all night and haven’t caught even a minnow. But if you say so, I’ll let out the nets.” It was no sooner said than done—a huge haul of fish, straining the nets past capacity. They waved to their partners in the other boat to come help them. They filled both boats, nearly swamping them with the catch.
8-10 Simon Peter, when he saw it, fell to his knees before Jesus. “Master, leave. I’m a sinner and can’t handle this holiness. Leave me to myself.” When they pulled in that catch of fish, awe overwhelmed Simon and everyone with him. It was the same with James and John, Zebedee’s sons, coworkers with Simon.
10-11 Jesus said to Simon, “There is nothing to fear. From now on you’ll be fishing for men and women.” They pulled their boats up on the beach, left them, nets and all, and followed him.

The Danish theologian, Soren Kierkegaard, related a homely parable about a flock of geese that milled around in a filthy barnyard imprisoned by a high fence.  One day a preaching goose came into their midst.  He stood on an old crate and admonished the geese for being content with this confined, earthbound existence.  He recounted the exploits of their forefathers who spread their wings and flew the trackless wastes of the sky.  He spoke of the goodness of the Creator who had given geese the urge to migrate and the wings to fly.  This pleased the geese.  They nodded their heads and marveled at these things and applauded the eloquence of the preaching goose.  All this they did.  But one thing they never did.  They didn’t fly.  They went back to their waiting dinner, for the corn was good and the barnyard secure.

It is not easy to risk; to risk rejection in order to discover friendship; failure in order to discover success; security in order to discover something new; faith in order to discover God.

The call to follow Jesus is a call to risk.

To risk is to come alive; it is to find life by loosing it; it is to discover what otherwise remains hidden.  As Albert Schweitzer said, as an” ineffable mystery” out of the risk of following Jesus “we shall learn who He is”,  and who we are!

“The disciple is dragged out of his relative
security into a life of absolute insecurity,
from a life which is observable and calculable
into a life where everything is unobservable
and fortuitous, out of the realm of finite and
into the realm of infinite possibilities.”

Bonhoeffer,  The Cost Of Discipleship




Prayer thought for the week: “Lord, help me to risk being your discipleship even if the risk is great.  Help me to come alive too who you are and who I am called to be - your disciple!”   Amen

February 3, 2019 4th Sunday of Epiphany

Luke 4:33-37 (The Message)

33-34 In the meeting place that day there was a man demonically disturbed. He screamed, “Ho! What business do you have here with us, Jesus? Nazarene! I know what you’re up to. You’re the Holy One of God and you’ve come to destroy us!”
35 Jesus shut him up: “Quiet! Get out of him!” The demonic spirit threw the man down in front of them all and left. The demon didn’t hurt him.
36-37 That set everyone back on their heels, whispering and wondering, “What’s going on here? Someone whose words make things happen? Someone who orders demonic spirits to get out and they go?” Jesus was the talk of the town.

There are two places do see ourselves in this text:  With the people who were amazed or with the man possessed by an evil spirit, who experienced the power of Jesus Words.

We probably see ourselves with the first choice - for we are not demon possessed!  Yet it is the demonic who goes home with something.  So what might it mean if we stood with him?

It would mean we have our own demons which need to be recognized and confessed.  Obvious ones: alcohol, drugs, tobacco, caffeine, money,; less obvious: greed, pride, selfishness, dishonesty, lust for power and prestige.  We need to be exorcised, cleansed, changed if we are to “put on the new nature”, that is, if we are to put on “compassion, kindness, lowliness, meekness, and patience, for bearing one another, and forgiving each other, ...putting on love…”  Ephesians. 3:12-14




When we confess our demons
and seek healing, they can be
“cast out” and not hurt us anymore.
Then we are free to become loving,
caring people.





Prayer thought for the week:  “Lord, help me too see my demons and with your help,
cast them out.  So I can care and love, much.”