Aug. 25, 2019, 11th Sunday After Pentecost

Luke 13:10-17  (The Message)

10-13 He (Jesus) was teaching in one of the meeting places on the Sabbath. There was a woman present, so twisted and bent over with arthritis that she couldn’t even look up. She had been afflicted with this for eighteen years. When Jesus saw her, he called her over. “Woman, you’re free!” He laid hands on her and suddenly she was standing straight and tall, giving glory to God.
14 The meeting-place president, furious because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, said to the congregation, “Six days have been defined as work days. Come on one of the six if you want to be healed, but not on the seventh, the Sabbath.”
15-16 But Jesus shot back, “You frauds! Each Sabbath every one of you regularly unties your cow or donkey from its stall, leads it out for water, and thinks nothing of it. So why isn’t it all right for me to untie this daughter of Abraham and lead her from the stall where Satan has had her tied these eighteen years?”
17 When he put it that way, his critics were left looking quite silly and red-faced. The congregation was delighted and cheered him on.

Two haunting questions raised by this text:
First:  “Do we hide behind obscure biblical passages and ancient prejudices as a way of avoiding the call to be a healing presence in the world?”  Lisa W. Davison

Consider homosexuality as one example.  Do we hide behind the few verses of Scripture which seem to condemn homosexuality, so we don’t have to face the many verses of Scripture which call us to be “gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.” (Ps. 103:8) as Jesus was!  Thus being a healing presence in the world.
Second: How do we keep the Sabbath today?

Weekly worship is still with us, yet few of us worship weekly.
Sunday is still a “special” day yet it is full of that which happens the rest of the week.  As the NFL official said, “Sunday once belonged to God, but now it belongs to us.”

Reflect on these words from Gary E. Pelukso-Verdend, a United Methodist pastor at Phillips Theological Seminary inTulsa, OK.

“Keeping Sabbath is also a weekly reminder of God’s household economics in which economic justice is a foundational virtue of any society and in which the value of liberation for the bound takes precedence over normal prohibitions.  In today's 24/7/365 globalized and commercialized economy, keeping Sabbath thus understood will involve striving that rises to the level of agony.  We Christians have little external support for Sabbath stewardship.  It is not easy to be a good steward of time, money, energy, and attention in a world that never sleeps or rests, in which faith in the global economy sometimes crosses over into idolatry.”

In the light of all of this remember:

“When God is up to something,
prepare to be unbound:
whether from confining diseases,
or social norms about persons
with disabilities, or even holy pieties.”
David Jacobsen





Prayer thought for the week:  "Lord, unbind me from that which keeps me from being a healing presence in my world."

Aug. 18, 2019, 10th Sunday After Pentecost

Luke 12:49-53  (The Message)
“I’ve come to start a fire on this earth—how I wish it were blazing right now! I’ve come to change everything, turn everything rightside up—how I long for it to be finished! Do you think I came to smooth things over and make everything nice? Not so. I’ve come to disrupt and confront!”

There are things we do not want to hear.  Even in God’s Word!  The Prophet Jeremiah (and other prophets) got in trouble because they said what God wanted them to say, not what the people wanted to hear.

God’s word is not only a word of peace; it is also a word of challenge which brings unrest  It is not just to comfort the afflicted; it is also to afflict the comfortable!

It does create division among people between those who hear and those who don’t want to hear. (And sometimes those who won’t hear are those who appear to be the most religious.  At least the most set in their ways.)  This is true because God’s Word is fire.  It challenges our hypocrisy and our religious closed mindedness as it seeks to create a dangerous spirit in us.  The spirit of love!  The kind of love which brings God’s kingdom to this world in ways which make it a different and better place for all.

 To live as God’s chosen people is to live as radicals who dare believe in love as the most powerful and most important power in all of life.
.





“Some minds are like concrete,
thoroughly mixed up and
permanently set."











Prayer thought for the week:  “Lord, help me to hear what I don’t want to hear and dare believe more than I dare believe.  Help me get my head out of the sand!”

Aug. , 2019 9th Sunday After Pentecost

Luke 12:32-40
32"Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom. 33 Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will not be exhausted, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. 34 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

What we live for is what we become.  I will end up - my heart will end up - where I put my energy and hope.  We become possessed by what we set out to possess.

Because this is more true than we would like to admit, we need to be reminded often  that life is a gift not a possession; and so is the Kingdom of God.
To lose life is to find it; to be possessed by the gift of the Kingdom is to become a servant in the work of the Kingdom.  It is not just ours to have.  It is ours to give.
And this means we will do strange things, even surprise ourselves.

For God’s Kingdom, freely given, joyfully received, becomes not a possession we have but a possession which has us!


“I don’t know why I put myself on the line.
I don’t know why I said no to segregation.
I’m just another white Southerner,
and I wasn’t brought up to love integration.
But I was brought up to love Jesus Christ,
and when I saw the police of this city
use dogs on people, I asked myself what
Jesus Christ would have thought and He
would have done and that’s all I know about
how I CAME TO BE HERE, ON THE FIRING LINE.”
(White youth standing up for blacks in 60’s)




Prayer thought for the week: “Lord, possess me with love and thankfulness, so I can be a servant in your Kingdom.”

august 4, 2019 8th
Sunday After Pentecost

Luke 12:15-21  (The Message)
15 Speaking to the people, he (Jesus) went on, “Take care! Protect yourself against the least bit of greed. Life is not defined by what you have, even when you have a lot.”
16-19 Then he told them this story: “The farm of a certain rich man produced a terrific crop. He talked to himself: ‘What can I do? My barn isn’t big enough for this harvest.’ Then he said, ‘Here’s what I’ll do: I’ll tear down my barns and build bigger ones. Then I’ll gather in all my grain and goods, and I’ll say to myself, Self, you’ve done well! You’ve got it made and can now retire. Take it easy and have the time of your life!’
20 “Just then God showed up and said, ‘Fool! Tonight you die. And your barnful of goods—who gets it?’
21 “That’s what happens when you fill your barn with Self and not with God.”

You can, to a large degree,  determine a person’s theology by the pronouns they use.  For pronouns give direction to life.  They point to what is important in one’s life.  Mine...yours...ours...Thine.

What a difference it makes when we are able to look at our possessions and say “Thine”.  Then our possessions fall into their rightful place in life.  Then they are not ours in a selfish way, but ours to use in a redemptive way.  And we get out of the trap of thinking they are all that matters, when so often they can do so little to satisfy our deepest needs.  For we were created for more then just abundance.  We were created to know and be known by God.  Our spiritual needs cannot be satisfied with material goods - no matter how hard we try.

“Ah, there is only one problem, only one in all the world.  How can we restore to man a spiritual significance, a spiritual discontent;  let something descend upon them like the dew of a Gregorian chant...don’t you see, we cannot live any longer on refrigerators, politics, balance-sheets, and crossword puzzles.  We simply cannot.”   Author unknown



“When you have everything,
something is missing.”
Jewish proverb







Prayer thought for the week:  “Lord, help me to love what is worth loving and treasure
what is precious in your sight.  Help me to be redemptive in my living.”