March 13, 2016 Fifth Sunday in Lent

Luke 20:9-19  (The Message)


9-12 Jesus told another story to the people: “A man planted a vineyard. He handed it over to farmhands and went off on a trip. He was gone a long time. In time he sent a servant back to the farmhands to collect the profits, but they beat him up and sent him off empty-handed. He decided to try again and sent another servant. That one they beat black-and-blue, and sent him off empty-handed. He tried a third time. They worked that servant over from head to foot and dumped him in the street.
13 “Then the owner of the vineyard said, ‘I know what I’ll do: I’ll send my beloved son. They’re bound to respect my son.’
14-15 “But when the farmhands saw him coming, they quickly put their heads together. ‘This is our chance—this is the heir! Let’s kill him and have it all to ourselves.’ They killed him and threw him over the fence.
15-16 “What do you think the owner of the vineyard will do? Right. He’ll come and clean house. Then he’ll assign the care of the vineyard to others.”
Those who were listening said, “Oh, no! He’d never do that!”
17-18 But Jesus didn’t back down. “Why, then, do you think this was written:
That stone the masons threw out—
It’s now the cornerstone!?
“Anyone falling over that stone will break every bone in his body; if the stone falls on anyone, it will be a total smashup.”
19 The religion scholars and high priests wanted to lynch him on the spot, but they were intimidated by public opinion. They knew the story was about them.

The story was about them…and us!
It is a wake up call to all who would follow Jesus.

We can’t have it our way!
We can’t take and take and take, thinking we can have it all.
For when we do, we end up with nothing!

We are mortals with feet of clay, yet molded in the image of God.

We are to live as servants, not masters and seek to imitate Christ,
who “though he was in the form of God…emptied himself, taking the form of a slave…
and became obedient to the point of death…”  Phil. 2:6
That is, we are to give life not take it and discover how good it is and how full life becomes.





“That which is
given away
is not wasted."
City of Joy







Prayer thought for the week:  “Lord, keep me mindful that I am not the ‘captain of my ship’;
that there is more to life then taking all I can get.  For to give
is a joy far greater.”

March 6, 2016 Fourth Sunday in Lent

Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32  (The Message)

15 1-3 By this time a lot of men and women of doubtful reputation were hanging around Jesus, listening intently. The Pharisees and religion scholars were not pleased, not at all pleased. They growled, “He takes in sinners and eats meals with them, treating them like old friends.” Their grumbling triggered this story.
11-12 Then he said, “There was once a man who had two sons. The younger said to his father, ‘Father, I want right now what’s coming to me.’
12-16 “So the father divided the property between them. It wasn’t long before the younger son packed his bags and left for a distant country. There, undisciplined and dissipated, he wasted everything he had. After he had gone through all his money, there was a bad famine all through that country and he began to hurt. He signed on with a citizen there who assigned him to his fields to slop the pigs. He was so hungry he would have eaten the corncobs in the pig slop, but no one would give him any.
17-20 “That brought him to his senses. He said, ‘All those farmhands working for my father sit down to three meals a day, and here I am starving to death. I’m going back to my father. I’ll say to him, Father, I’ve sinned against God, I’ve sinned before you; I don’t deserve to be called your son. Take me on as a hired hand.’ He got right up and went home to his father.
20-21 “When he was still a long way off, his father saw him. His heart pounding, he ran out, embraced him, and kissed him. The son started his speech: ‘Father, I’ve sinned against God, I’ve sinned before you; I don’t deserve to be called your son ever again.’
22-24 “But the father wasn’t listening. He was calling to the servants, ‘Quick. Bring a clean set of clothes and dress him. Put the family ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Then get a grain-fed heifer and roast it. We’re going to feast! We’re going to have a wonderful time! My son is here—given up for dead and now alive! Given up for lost and now found!’ And they began to have a wonderful time.
25-27 “All this time his older son was out in the field. When the day’s work was done he came in. As he approached the house, he heard the music and dancing. Calling over one of the houseboys, he asked what was going on. He told him, ‘Your brother came home. Your father has ordered a feast—barbecued beef!—because he has him home safe and sound.’
28-30 “The older brother stalked off in an angry sulk and refused to join in. His father came out and tried to talk to him, but he wouldn’t listen. The son said, ‘Look how many years I’ve stayed here serving you, never giving you one moment of grief, but have you ever thrown a party for me and my friends? Then this son of yours who has thrown away your money on whores shows up and you go all out with a feast!’
31-32 “His father said, ‘Son, you don’t understand. You’re with me all the time, and everything that is mine is yours—but this is a wonderful time, and we had to celebrate. This brother of yours was dead, and he’s alive! He was lost, and he’s found!’”


This is the best of Jesus stories.
It is all we need to know about God and grace; this God who “will not let us go, will not let us down, will not let us off.”

It’s a story about a love and grace which is willing to die in order to give life.
It’s about death and resurrection and the grace which comes to those who are dead and know it (the Younger Son, the sinner), as well as those who are dead and don’t know it. (The Elder Son, the self righteous)
 
And what is it’s message?

Nobody will be refused because they are not good enough.
Nobody will enter because they are good enough.
Nobody will be an disowned by God.  Rejected.  Cast out.
God doesn’t close his heart to anyone - ever!

It is by grace that we are saved - all of us- the righteous and the unrighteous.
Nothing can stand in God’s way of being a God of grace, and of celebrating that grace!






“So let us all - seek consolation
in that love which never dies
and find peace in the dazzling
grace that always is.”
          William Sloane Coffin









Prayer thought for the week:  “Lord, thank you for grace - amazing, dazzling grace! Without it I would have no joy beyond the moment and no peace which passes understanding.  There would be little to celebrate.”

February 28, 2016 Third Sunday in Lent

Luke 13: 6-9  (The Message)

    6-7 Then he told them a story: “A man had an apple tree planted in his front yard. He came to it expecting to find apples, but there weren’t any. He said to his gardener, ‘What’s going on here? For three years now I’ve come to this tree expecting apples and not one apple have I found. Chop it down! Why waste good ground with it any longer?’

8-9 “The gardener said, ‘Let’s give it another year. I’ll dig around it and fertilize, and maybe it will produce next year; if it doesn’t, then chop it down.’”

Whatever else this parable is about, it is about grace - God’s grace.

We have only once place to stand in this parable - we are the barren fig tree.  And the meaning is that no matter what, God is first, last and always a God of grace; “whose love will over rule his anger and whose mercy is stronger then her logic.”

"Praise God!  Everything doesn't happen for a reason.  Shout hallelujah!  What goes around doesn't come around.  The holy gardener looks on the unfruitfulness of the church and the unfruitfulness of the world and says,
it's not a lost case yet.  Let's give it another chance.”  E. Susan Bond

Amen!  And again I say, AMEN!



“God never lets us go;
God never lets us down;
God never lets us off.”
        John A. Redhead'











Prayer thought for the week:  “Lord, thanks for giving me another chance,
and another, and another, until by your grace I do get it right.”

Feb. 21, 2016 Second Sunday in Lent

Luke 13:34 (The Message)

“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, killer of prophets, abuser of the messengers of God!  How often I’ve longed to gather your children, gather your children like a hen,  Her brood safe under her wings—
but you refused and turned away!”

Jesus wept over Jerusalem because they would not let him love them as God would love them.  Jesus weeps today for all of us who don’t want to be loved that much.

God wants to love us more then we want to be loved.
God wants his love to be a living power and passion in our lives, sustaining us when we are down, challenging us when we are off course, directing us when we are confused and loving us into joyful obedience and hopeful servant hood, no matter what.

We don’t want that!
It is scary to be loved by God that much, for it “demands our life our soul our all.”  It means I can no longer play at being religious; I have to mean it.



“How often I’ve longed to gather
your children, gather your
children like a hen,  Her
brood safe under her wings.”
Jesus

Feb. 14, 2016 First Sunday in Lent

Luke 4:1-13  (The Message)

 1-2 Now Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, left the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wild. For forty wilderness days and nights he was tested by the Devil. He ate nothing during those days, and when the time was up he was hungry.
3 The Devil, playing on his hunger, gave the first test: “Since you’re God’s Son, command this stone to turn into a loaf of bread.”
4 Jesus answered by quoting Deuteronomy: “It takes more than bread to really live.”  5-7 For the second test he led him up and spread out all the kingdoms of the earth on display at once. Then the Devil said, “They’re yours in all their splendor to serve your pleasure. I’m in charge of them all and can turn them over to whomever I wish. Worship me and they’re yours, the whole works.”
8 Jesus refused, again backing his refusal with Deuteronomy: “Worship the Lord your God and only the Lord your God. Serve him with absolute single-heartedness.”  9-11 For the third test the Devil took him to Jerusalem and put him on top of the Temple. He said, “If you are God’s Son, jump. It’s written, isn’t it, that ‘he has placed you in the care of angels to protect you; they will catch you; you won’t so much as stub your toe on a stone’?”
12 “Yes,” said Jesus, “and it’s also written, ‘Don’t you dare tempt the Lord your God.’”
13 That completed the testing. The Devil retreated temporarily, lying in wait for another opportunity.l

Jesus is ready to take on the world and all that needs changing therein.  He knew God better then any mortal before him, and was more ready to do God’s will then anyone had ever been.

And yet, he is still temptable.
The battle with evil begins at the moment he is sure he is the One sent of God.

It is the temptation to take the easy way out.  To sell his soul for a bite of bread.
We too are tempted to think that we can live by bread alone.

It is the temptation to believe that the end does justify the means - idolatry is okay if it is for the right reason. I can keep my faith separate from the rest of my life, bowing to God on Sunday and doing what I have to do to make it the rest of the time.

It is the temptation to prove God’s goodness by trying to control what God does - by thinking we can be in charge of God’s miracles.

No!  No! No!  Our faith is to lead us to do justice, love kindness and walk humbly with our God”   (Micah 6:8)  Nothing less is enough.

“The greatest temptations are not those
that solicit our consent to obvious sin,
but those that offer us great evils
masking as the greatest goods.”
Thomas Merton

Feb. 7, 2016. Transfiguration Sunday

Feb. 7, 2016 Transfiguration Sunday

Luke 9:29-36  (The Message)

28-31 About eight days after saying this, he climbed the mountain to pray, taking Peter, John, and James along. While he was in prayer, the appearance of his face changed and his clothes became blinding white. At once two men were there talking with him. They turned out to be Moses and Elijah—and what a glorious appearance they made! They talked over his exodus, the one Jesus was about to complete in Jerusalem.
32-33 Meanwhile, Peter and those with him were slumped over in sleep. When they came to, rubbing their eyes, they saw Jesus in his glory and the two men standing with him. When Moses and Elijah had left, Peter said to Jesus, “Master, this is a great moment! Let’s build three memorials: one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” He blurted this out without thinking.
34-35 While he was babbling on like this, a light-radiant cloud enveloped them. As they found themselves buried in the cloud, they became deeply aware of God. Then there was a voice out of the cloud: “This is my Son, the Chosen! Listen to him.”
36 When the sound of the voice died away, they saw Jesus there alone. They were speechless. And they continued speechless, said not one thing to anyone during those days of what they had seen.

It was a mystical, spiritual, psychic, weird, crazy, spooky experience; too big, too powerful, too unreal for them to talk about.  It couldn’t be communicated with words.  Words could not contain it, describe it, pass it on.  So they said nothing.

Such moments- holy moments -  are not so much to be talked about as lived out.  And we all have them if we will only stop and see them.

They also are not to be lived in; we can’t stop the world and just stay in the holy moment.  This would make an idol of that experience.  Rather they are to be windows through which we see more clearly the road we are to travel and the presence of a loving God for our journey.



"After enlightenment,
the laundry.”
                  A Zen proverb







Prayer thought:  “Thank you Lord, for those moments of enlightenment
which show the way I am to go.  And be with me after they are over and I am back to the mundane.”

January 31, 2016 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.”