Jan 30, 2022 Fourth Sunday After Epiphany

 Luke 4:22-30  (The Message) 

22 All who were there, watching and listening, were surprised at how well he (Jesus) spoke. But they also said, “Isn’t this Joseph’s son, the one we’ve known since he was a youngster?”

23-27 He answered, “I suppose you’re going to quote the proverb, ‘Doctor, go heal yourself. Do here in your hometown what we heard you did in Capernaum.’ Well, let me tell you something: No prophet is ever welcomed in his hometown. Isn’t it a fact that there were many widows in Israel at the time of Elijah during that three and a half years of drought when famine devastated the land, but the only widow to whom Elijah was sent was in Sarepta in Sidon? And there were many lepers in Israel at the time of the prophet Elisha but the only one cleansed was Naaman the Syrian.”

28-30 That set everyone in the meeting place seething with anger. They threw him out, banishing him from the village, then took him to a mountain cliff at the edge of the village to throw him to his doom, but he gave them the slip and was on his way.

Jesus ‘blew’ his first sermon in his home synagogue.  He really blew it!  He said some things which he could have left unsaid.  More then just nice sounding words which we like to hear.  He told them they were way off base, and he, Joseph son, was here to set them straight.

So what was he saying?

He was saying that God’s goodness and mercy does not limit itself to a chosen few; it goes out to all, even strangers and aliens.  We can reject God’s goodness but we can not stop it.  It will find a receptive heart and there it will do its work. For with God there are no outsiders!

Jesus began his ministry with this clear message, and we still find it hard to swallow.

 

“Jesus was ‘a reject who           

rejected rejection’"   

       Virgilio Eliizando

Prayer thought for the week:  “Lord, help me remember that you do not reject those I reject.  Your love is beyond my understanding or control!”

Jan 23, 2022 Third Sunday After Epiphany

 Luke 4:14-21 (The Message) 

14-15 Jesus returned to Galilee powerful in the Spirit. News that he was back spread through the countryside. He taught in their meeting places to everyone’s acclaim and pleasure.

16-21 He came to Nazareth where he had been raised. As he always did on the Sabbath, he went to the meeting place. When he stood up to read, he was handed the scroll of the prophet Isaiah. Unrolling the scroll, he found the place where it was written,

God’s Spirit is on me;

    he’s chosen me to preach the Message of good news to the poor,

Sent me to announce pardon to prisoners and

    recovery of sight to the blind,

To set the burdened and battered free,

    to announce, “This is God’s time to shine!”

He rolled up the scroll, handed it back to the assistant, and sat down. Every eye in the place was on him, intent. Then he started in, “You’ve just heard Scripture make history. It came true just now in this place.” Or as the RSV puts it, “TODAY this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

“TODAY: This Scripture is Fulfilled”

Jesus is letting the secret out in his first sermon, in his home congregation, and it is too much for them to hear or believe.  They didn’t take him seriously and rejected what he said.

We do that too.    We hear only what we want to hear and believe only what we want to believe.  We take from a sermon only what fits our belief system - not what challenges us to a new belief system.  Religion can even become something which keeps us from living the Gospel, and changing our ways so they more closely alien with God’s ways. (i.e.exclusive judgement of all who are outside Christianity.) 

The bite, in our text,  comes with the word ‘today’.  Had Jesus  said ‘someday’ it would have been easier to take.  For we live in the somedays more than today.

Yet we are called to be today people: fulfilling the scripture today!

We are to make a difference today.  Martin Luther King did.  Mother Teresa did.  We can.  Someday is not enough.  Today something of God’s love and Jesus compassion would be fulfilled in us, through us,  in our world.  Make what you can of that - Today!

 

                                   

                                                        

Prayer thought for the week:  “Lord, show me what I can do TODAY to make a difference in someone’s life.  So your compassion can be present through me.”

Jan 16, 2022 Second Sunday After Epiphany

 

John 2:1-11 (The Message)

1-3 Three days later there was a wedding in the village of Cana in Galilee. Jesus’ mother was there. Jesus and his disciples were guests also. When they started running low on wine at the wedding banquet, Jesus’ mother told him, “They’re just about out of wine.”

4 Jesus said, “Is that any of our business, Mother—yours or mine? This isn’t my time. Don’t push me.”

5 She went ahead anyway, telling the servants, “Whatever he tells you, do it.”

6-7 Six stoneware water pots were there, used by the Jews for ritual washings. Each held twenty to thirty gallons. Jesus ordered the servants, “Fill the pots with water.” And they filled them to the brim.

8 “Now fill your pitchers and take them to the host,” Jesus said, and they did.

9-10 When the host tasted the water that had become wine (he didn’t know what had just happened but the servants, of course, knew), he called out to the bridegroom, “Everybody I know begins with their finest wines and after the guests have had their fill brings in the cheap stuff. But you’ve saved the best till now!”

11 This act in Cana of Galilee was the first sign Jesus gave, the first glimpse of his glory. And his disciples believed in him.

This miracle tells us what Jesus is all about.  Gospel not law, grace not demands, love not wrath, laughter not somberness.  The God Jesus came to reveal was not a God hung up on shoulds, oughts, or musts, but a God hung up on love, grace and forgiveness.

Turning the water into wine was a delightful opportunity of grace for Jesus.  It set the stage for what he was all about and what we are to be all about - to love and laugh our way into the Kingdom of God on earth as it is in heaven and let its grace flow through us into virtually everything. 

"The God of Jesus is a God so deeply 

in love with his creatures that if humans 

should behave the same way, 

they would be deemed crazy."

Andrew Greeley

Prayer thought for the week:  “Lord, help me too love and laugh my way into

the Kingdom of God on earth.  Let grace flow through me every way possible.”

Jan 9, 2022 Baptism of Our Lord Sunday

 Luke 3:15-22  (The Message)

21-22 After all the people were baptized, Jesus was baptized. As he was praying, the sky opened up and the Holy Spirit, like a dove descending, came down on him. And along with the Spirit, a voice: “You are my Son, chosen and marked by my love, pride of my life.”

Jesus baptism was a powerful moment for him.  He needed this moment, this experience, this voice, this assurance to even dare begin to walk this earth as the Son of God.

There was struggle for Jesus in knowing his divine call.  For he was going to have to walk as a stranger among his own kin and an outsider among his own people.  He would be hated, despised, rejected, “a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief”.  Yet as one in whom God delights.  He was to bring a new brand of justice which was directed by compassion.

His baptism set him apart for servanthood.  And so does ours!  To ‘walk wet’ means we cannot be indifferent to injustice and must bring mercy, compassion and kindness into our world through who we are and how we are. 

It was no small thing for Jesus to be baptized.  It is no small thing for us either!  It does not mark us as God’s favorites; it does commission us as  God’s servants!

Prayer thought for the week: “ Lord help me to remember that Your Baptism  and mine, set us apart for servanthood.  Doing what we can to make this a

better place to be.”

Jan. 2, 2122 Christmas 2

John 1:14

14 And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.

 Christmas is past; and the celebration which begins earlier each year, will soon be over.  Yet Christmas is never over.  It never ends.  It is hidden in every day, every word, every deed of our lives.

As we celebrate the Word which became flesh and lived among us, we also celebrate the Word becoming flesh - our flesh - and living still in our midst.

We are to live our words and live The Word so that even our flesh becomes a presence of the God who became human and dwelt among us in Jesus.

For God’s living word - God’s best word to us - is seen before it is heard. felt before it is known, experienced before it is understood, lived before it can be spoken. 

God became flesh and lived among us so we could best know God in the most human way possible.   And that is also how we share God - by living God’s word of love.

 “The most important question for me is not, ‘How do I touch people?’  but, ‘How do I live the word I am speaking?”  Henri Nouwen 

Indeed, Christmas is not just once a year.  It is never over.  It is yesterday, today, and forever, as the Word becomes flesh - in us -  and lives among us.  Indeed, Christmas is every day!

 

Prayer thought for the week:  “Lord, help me keep Christmas all year long, with joy and thankfulness.”