September 26, 2021, 18th Sunday After Pentecost

Mark 9:38-41  (The Message)

38 John spoke up, "Teacher, we saw a man using your name to expel demons and we stopped him because he wasn't in our group." 39 Jesus wasn't pleased. "Don't stop him. No one can use my name to do something good and powerful, and in the next breath cut me down. 40 If he's not an enemy, he's an ally. 41 Why, anyone by just giving you a cup of water in my name is on our side. Count on it that God will notice.

No one can bottle God up and keep God contained.  God manifests God’s self in unexpected places and people;  God’s spirit blows where it will and we know not where it comes from or where it goes.

Any effort on our part to try contain God is futile.  God is with those who know not God as well as those who claim to be for God.  In fact, they may well be some of God’s best servants!

This is part of the mystery and miracle of God’s spirit at work in our world.  We can be  astonished by the irregularity of God.  It is not ours to judge others; it is ours to recognize the love of Jesus at work where ever it happens in whom ever it comes.  

  

“It has been my experience that what     

 makes us the saints of  God is not our 

ability to be saintly but rather God’s 

ability to work through sinners.”  

         Nadia Bolz-Weber

Prayer thought for the week:  “Lord, help me to remember that there is something of Scrooge in me too, and you can still use me in ways beyond my daring to believe.”

September 19, 2021 17th Sunday After Pentecost

Mark 9:33-35 (The Message)

33 They came to Capernaum. When he was safe at home, he (Jesus) asked them, "What were you discussing on the road?" 34 The silence was deafening - they had been arguing with one another over who among them was greatest. 35 He sat down and summoned the Twelve. "So you want first place? Then take the last place. Be the servant of all."

 We all have a desire hidden within us to be a celebrity.  We would like to do our thing in a big way.  Yet it is as a servant that we have been called, to do our thing in a small way, often unnoticed but by God, and maybe those who are on the receiving end of our serving.

We are called to be servants and to get lost in doing good, without keeping score.  It isn’t easy.  It doesn’t come naturally.  It is almost contrary to our basic nature - self-preservation, taking care of #1.

Yet it is what Jesus reminds us we are to be.

To be a servant is to place oneself last and not worry about what I am going to get out of it.

It is to be like Jesus who “did not count equality with God something to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant.”  Phil. 2:6,7 

Prayer thought for the week: “Lord, help me be a servant of your love and get lost in doing good.”  Amen

Sept. 12, 2021 16th Sunday After Pentecost

Mark 8:27-33

27 Jesus and his disciples headed out for the villages around Caesarea Philippi. As they walked, he asked, “Who do the people say I am?”

28 “Some say ‘John the Baptizer,’” they said. “Others say ‘Elijah.’ Still others say ‘one of the prophets.’”

29 He then asked, “And you—what are you saying about me? Who am I?”

Peter gave the answer: “You are the Christ, the Messiah.”

30-32 Jesus warned them to keep it quiet, not to breathe a word of it to anyone. He then began explaining things to them: “It is necessary that the Son of Man proceed to an ordeal of suffering, be tried and found guilty by the elders, high priests, and religion scholars, be killed, and after three days rise up alive.” He said this simply and clearly so they couldn’t miss it.

32-33 But Peter grabbed him in protest. Turning and seeing his disciples wavering, wondering what to believe, Jesus confronted Peter. “Peter, get out of my way! Satan, get lost! You have no idea how God works.”

34-37 Calling the crowd to join his disciples, he said, “Anyone who intends to come with me has to let me lead. You’re not in the driver’s seat; I am. Don’t run from suffering; embrace it. Follow me and I’ll show you how. Self-help is no help at all. Self-sacrifice is the way, my way, to saving yourself, your true self. What good would it do to get everything you want and lose you, the real you? What could you ever trade your soul for?

Peter blew it as soon as he made it.  He didn’t have in mind the things of God.

His vision fell short of what God intended when he sent his Son to call us to live in his kingdom.

What do we have in mind in when you go to church?

To be comforted or disturbed?

sedated or shaken?

assured or challenged?

Are we open to what God wants for us or just what we want?

Too be sure God seeks to comfort us, quiet us in our fears, and assure us of God’s amazing grace.  

Jesus, speaking on behalf of God, also calls us to a life of servitude not self satisfaction; sacrifice not comfort.  And the mystery is,  we find our true selves as we serve and even sacrifice.

Life is not found in consumption; it is found in denying oneself, taking up the cross and following Jesus. 

To pray and actually mean        

“Thy Kingdom come,” we 

must also be able to say 

“my kingdoms go.” 

Richard Rohr 

Prayer for the week:  “Lord, may your kingdom come indeed on earth as we strive for peace among all people. Open our eyes to see that our kingdoms may well have to go so your kingdom of love can come.  Amen

Sept. 5, 2021 15th Sunday After Pentecost

Mark 7:31-37 ( The Message)

31-35 Then he left the region of Tyre, went through Sidon back to Galilee Lake and over to the district of the Ten Towns. Some people brought a man who could neither hear nor speak and asked Jesus to lay a healing hand on him. He took the man off by himself, put his fingers in the man’s ears and some spit on the man’s tongue. Then Jesus looked up in prayer, groaned mightily, and commanded, “Ephphatha!—Open up!” And it happened. The man’s hearing was clear and his speech plain—just like that.

36-37 Jesus urged them to keep it quiet, but they talked it up all the more, beside themselves with excitement. “He’s done it all and done it well. He gives hearing to the deaf, speech to the speechless.”

They couldn’t keep quiet about it; but they didn’t say all there was to say about it.

They missed the most important point - that this miracle, as with all miracles, means that salvation has come to our earth!  God has come to dwell with us in human from, in the man Jesus to heal ALL our infirmities, not just of the body but of the spirit as well!

There is a healing and a wholeness which is deeper then the physical.  Jesus has come that all might be saved (be made whole from within) and come to the knowledge of the truth.

To be so saved is to be open to God’s love moving in our lives and through our lives into our world.  It  is to be able to smile, no matter what, and to be a beautiful, healing person for others.  Physical handicaps cannot keep a ‘whole person’ down.  They simply radiate joy and love, and bring healing into living.  This is Christ in us, the love of God making us whole! 

God has come to dwell with us                    

in human from, in the man Jesus;

 to heal ALL our infirmities, 

not just of the body but of the spirit as well!

Prayer thought for the week:  “Lord, help me too radiate joy and love, and bring healing into my living.”