August 20, 2017  11
th of Pentecost

Matthew 15:21-28  (The Message)

21 From there Jesus took a trip to Tyre and Sidon. 22 They had hardly arrived when a Canaanite woman came down from the hills and pleaded, "Mercy, Master, Son of David! My daughter is cruelly afflicted by an evil spirit." 23 Jesus ignored her. The disciples came and complained, "Now she's bothering us. Would you please take care of her? She's driving us crazy." 24 Jesus refused, telling them, "I've got my hands full dealing with the lost sheep of Israel." 25 Then the woman came back to Jesus, went to her knees, and begged. "Master, help me." 26 He said, "It's not right to take bread out of children's mouths and throw it to dogs." 27 She was quick: "You're right, Master, but beggar dogs do get scraps from the master's table." 28 Jesus gave in. "Oh, woman, your faith is something else. What you want is what you get!" Right then her daughter became well.

“Great Is Your Faith”

The Canaanite woman wanted something of the goodness of God’s grace in her life too.
She persisted until she got it.  She took the rebuke, came back for more, and hung in there until Jesus could only do what he came to do - bless her.

It is often our vulnerability, our deep needs, which lead us into the arms of a loving, gracious God.  It is also our persistence - our faith which will not give up - which sees the worst in life redeemed and turned into blessing.

Expect to have something of the goodness of God’s grace in your life - and don’t give up until it happens!

"Never, never, never give up!"
~ Winston Churchill










Prayer thoughts for the week.

Lord, help me to not give up even when all is dark.
         Help me to persist until it all becomes a blessing.
         Give me the faith of the Canaanite woman.

August 13, 2014 10th of Pentecost

Matthew 14:22-23  (The Message)

22 As soon as the meal was finished, he insisted that the disciples get in the boat and go on ahead to the other side while he dismissed the people. 23 With the crowd dispersed, he climbed the mountain so he could be by himself and pray. He stayed there alone, late into the night.

Jesus finally is alone.  Finally he has a moment to catch his breath, gather his wits about him, and just be with God in silence, praying.

This is no game he is playing.  He needs this time away in prayer.
It takes silence to ‘see who we are’, for it is in silence we touch the deepest part of our humanity as well as God’s divinity.

Thomas Szasz, an American psychiatrist has said;
“(Humans) cannot long survive without air, water, and sleep.  Next in importance comes food.  And close on its heels, solitude.”

Faith cannot exist without solitude either.

“Only in silence, in the space between noise, speech,  and activity, is there room for a person to become focused, to achieve gravity and centeredness.  Only in waiting before the mystery of existence itself, in brooding upon the world and eternity, does one become endowed with true worldliness and true everlastingness.”   John Killinger

“(Humans) cannot long survive without
air, water, and sleep.
Next in importance comes food.
And close on its heels, solitude.”
Thomas Szasz








Prayer thoughts for the week:
Lord,
      …help me to find the “sound of silence” in my daily noisy life.
      …give me “spaces in my togetherness” where I can be still, and find solitude.
      …help me to remember that You often speak in a still small voice which can only be heard by being quiet and listening.

Aug 6, 2017 9th of Pentecost

 Matthew 14:13-21 (The Message)

13 When Jesus got the news, he slipped away by boat to an out-of-the-way place by himself. But unsuccessfully - someone saw him and the word got around. Soon a lot of people from the nearby villages walked around the lake to where he was. 14 When he saw them coming, he was overcome with pity and healed their sick. 15 Toward evening the disciples approached him. "We're out in the country and it's getting late. Dismiss the people so they can go to the villages and get some supper." 16 But Jesus said, "There is no need to dismiss them. You give them supper." 17 "All we have are five loaves of bread and two fish," they said. 18 Jesus said, "Bring them here." 19 Then he had the people sit on the grass. He took the five loaves and two fish, lifted his face to heaven in prayer, blessed, broke, and gave the bread to the disciples. The disciples then gave the food to the congregation. 20 They all ate their fill. They gathered twelve baskets of leftovers. 21 About five thousand were fed.

“A miracle is any event, natural or supernatural, in which one sees a revelation of God.”
The miracle here could have been that once the people saw what Jesus was going to do with a small boys small lunch, they opened their hearts and their lunches for all to share.

If this is how it happened, it is still a miracle!  In fact, this would be the a more difficult miracle for it meant many hearts being changed, opened to sharing.

“Jesus risked his entire ministry on the sufficiency of the infinitesimal.”
“Every social change can be traced to a few determined individuals.”
Walter Wink, “The Power Of The Small”




“When God seeks to turn the world around,
one person is usually enough.”  Walter Wink







Prayer thoughts for the week:

Lord:    keep me humble so I can be helpful.
help me be a miracle in ways I never dreamed possible.
open my eyes to see how much you can do with so little.
help me do what I can to make life better for someone.

July 30, 2017 8th of Pentecost

Matthew 13:31-33; 44-46  (The Message)

31 Another story. "God's kingdom is like a pine nut that a farmer plants. 32 It is quite small as seeds go, but in the course of years it grows into a huge pine tree, and eagles build nests in it." 33 Another story. "God's kingdom is like yeast that a woman works into the dough for dozens of loaves of barley bread - and waits while the dough rises."

44 "God's kingdom is like a treasure hidden in a field for years and then accidentally found by a trespasser. The finder is ecstatic - what a find! - and proceeds to sell everything he owns to raise money and buy that field. 45 "Or, God's kingdom is like a jewel merchant on the hunt for excellent pearls. 46 Finding one that is flawless, he immediately sells everything and buys it.

God’s Kingdom is too big a concept to grasp with logic.  It has to be discovered in a story, a parable.  A parable is a story you can’t get unless it first gets you.  It is a story designed to “pull another story out of the listener”.  The end result is that “more happens in the mind of the listener than in the mouth of the teller.”

Our parables today tell us that the Kingdom of God starts small and becomes big, like a seed..  It only takes a little to make a big difference, like yeast.  It may be found accidentally or after a long hunt, like a hidden treasure or an excellent pearl, but once it is found it demands a total response, with great joy and anticipation.  Indeed, God’s Kingdom is priceless!
There are not enough words to say all that an be said about it  Yet one word captures it best - grace.  It is a Kingdom of amazing grace!





The parables of Jesus are about
"a passionately, desperately,
insanely forgiving God."
Andrew Greeley







Painting “Gift of Grace”
by Ravae Luckhart

Prayer thought for the week:

Your kingdom come on earth…
 to me…
    through me…
      in spite of me…
        for all…
in your dazzling grace and endless love.
Open my eyes and heart to get a glimpse of it in human form."

‘’…for not with swords loud clashing, nor roll of stirring drums,
but deeds of love and mercy the heavenly kingdom comes.”
Lead On, O King Eternal

July 23, 2017 7th Sunday of Pentecost

Matthew 13:24-30
24 He told another story. "God's kingdom is like a farmer who planted good seed in his field. 25 That night, while his hired men were asleep, his enemy sowed thistles all through the wheat and slipped away before dawn. 26 When the first green shoots appeared and the grain began to form, the thistles showed up, too. 27 "The farmhands came to the farmer and said, 'Master, that was clean seed you planted, wasn't it? Where did these thistles come from?' 28 "He answered, 'Some enemy did this.' "The farmhands asked, 'Should we weed out the thistles?' 29 "He said, 'No, if you weed the thistles, you'll pull up the wheat, too. 30 Let them grow together until harvest time. Then I'll instruct the harvesters to pull up the thistles and tie them in bundles for the fire, then gather the wheat and put it in the barn.'"

Judgment is not in our hands.  We are not to separate the wheat from the weeds, the sacred from the secular, the holy from the unholy.  This is God’s doing - God who is “gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love”.

Our task is to live faithfully, as those who are both wheat and weeds - we are not as pure as we would like to be.  As Wm. Saloan Coffin has said, “Remember what history teaches, never do people so cheerfully do evil as when they do it from religious conviction.”

“God has invited us to gather rather than to judge, to get together and learn to live with one another, weeds and wheat alike.  There is wheat within each of us as well as those all-too-visible weeds.  From this patchy crop God can fashion a miraculous bread, transforming each of us by the pure wheat of this holy offering, making us into beings shaped by hope.”   Richard I Pervo,

Prayer thought for the week:  “Lord, help me to remember that it is not my job to judge.
You will take care of that.  Help me to be merciful, as You are to me and to all.”

July 16, 2017 6th Sunday of Pentecost

Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23  (The Message)

1 At about that same time Jesus left the house and sat on the beach. 2 In no time at all a crowd gathered along the shoreline, forcing him to get into a boat. 3 Using the boat as a pulpit, he addressed his congregation, telling stories. (about a man planting seeds.)  4 As he scattered the seed, some of it fell on the road, and birds ate it. 5 Some fell in the gravel; it sprouted quickly but didn't put down roots, 6 so when the sun came up it withered just as quickly. 7 Some fell in the weeds; as it came up, it was strangled by the weeds. 8 Some fell on good earth, and produced a harvest beyond his wildest dreams. 9 "Are you listening to this? Really listening?" 18 "Study this story of the farmer planting seed. 19 When anyone hears news of the kingdom and doesn't take it in, it just remains on the surface, and so the Evil One comes along and plucks it right out of that person's heart. This is the seed the farmer scatters on the road. 20 "The seed cast in the gravel - this is the person who hears and instantly responds with enthusiasm. 21 But there is no soil of character, and so when the emotions wear off and some difficulty arrives, there is nothing to show for it. 22 "The seed cast in the weeds is the person who hears the kingdom news, but weeds of worry and illusions about getting more and wanting everything under the sun strangle what was heard, and nothing comes of it. 23 "The seed cast on good earth is the person who hears and takes in the News, and then produces a harvest beyond his wildest dreams."

The seed is good; it is the soil which has the problem.  We are the soil - all 4 kinds of soil!  We are not always receptive to what God’s Word has to say.  We run hot and cold when we listen to God’s Word.    We have goodness choked out by our indifference.  And we do hear and respond - doing that which pleases God.  And God takes what comes from the good soil of our hearts and makes more of it than we ever could have dreamed possible.

A good discipline for reading or listening to God's Word is to listen carefully FOR what you don’t want to hear and then listen carefully TO what you don’t want to hear; then risk acting on it.  It just may be where God is trying to plant a seed and who knows what will happen then.





The seed is good; it is the soil
which is the problem.  And we are the soil -
 all 4 kinds of soil!








Prayer thought for the week:  “Lord, help me be good soil - open to what You have to say to me and willing to listen - so your seed can grow beyond my wildest dreams.”

July 9, 2017 5th Sunday after Pentecost

Matthew 11:28-30   (The Message)

28 "Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you'll recover your life. I'll show you how to take a real rest. 29 Walk with me and work with me - watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won't lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. 30 Keep company with me and you'll learn to live freely and lightly.”

 (The New RSV)

 28 “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

 “My Yoke Is Easy”

Catchy slogans are not necessarily true - just catchy.
These words of Jesus sound like a catchy slogan - but their not.

Like the slogan from Boy’s Town - “He ain’t heavy Father, he’s my brother.”  they remind us that the yoke which is easy and the burden which is light is so NOT because little is demanded, but because much is first given.

The yoke of Jesus is the commitment to love; it is the call to be kind, loving, good, merciful, just as we have received mercy.  It is discovering the “unforced rhythms of grace”.

Bearing one another's burdens in love is light!  No matter how heavy it gets!  To do this we first have to know we are loved.  For only the loved can so love.  God first loves us; then God demands much from us.  And the much is easy, for it is given in love.  This is the yoke which is easy and the burden which is light.





Bearing one another’s
burdens in love is light!
No matter how heavy it gets!













Prayer thought for the week:  “ Help me to be a bearer of burdens in love, no matter how heavy it gets.”