July 8, 2018 7th Sunday After Pentecost

Mark 6:1-6  (The Message)

1 He left there and returned to his hometown. His disciples came along. 2 On the Sabbath, he gave a lecture in the meeting place. He made a real hit, impressing everyone. "We had no idea he was this good!" they said. "How did he get so wise all of a sudden, get such ability?" 3 But in the next breath they were cutting him down: "He's just a carpenter - Mary's boy. We've known him since he was a kid. We know his brothers, James, Justus, Jude, and Simon, and his sisters. (And they took offense at him.)  Who does he think he is?" They tripped over what little they knew about him and fell, sprawling. And they never got any further. 4 Jesus told them, "A prophet has little honor in his hometown, among his relatives, on the streets he played in as a child." 5 Jesus wasn't able to do much of anything there - he laid hands on a few sick people and healed them, that's all. 6 He couldn't get over their stubbornness.”


When God comes to us in too human a way (Jesus) and challenges us to change our ways, we too “take offense at Him”.
We like to keep God boxed up in our rituals where we are in control.
But God will not let us do that.  God is not a rabbits foot, a good luck charm, an easy way out of the difficulties of life.
God desires to enter into the changes and chances of life with us, and there make a difference,
not by offering new power or easy answers which eliminates all the bad and protects us from suffering, but offering a power make perfect in weakness - the power of love…of grace which is sufficient for all our needs.





                                                                                                                             
“God desires to enter into the changes
and chances of life and make a difference”









Prayer thought for the week:  “Lord, be with me in the ‘changes and chances’ of this week and
help me make a difference in someone’s life.”

June 24, 2018 5th Sunday After Pentecost

Mark 4:35-41  (The Message)

35 Late that day he said to them, "Let's go across to the other side." 36 They took him in the boat as he was. Other boats came along. 37 A huge storm came up. Waves poured into the boat, threatening to sink it. 38 And Jesus was in the stern, head on a pillow, sleeping! They roused him, saying, "Teacher, is it nothing to you that we're going down?" 39 Awake now, he told the wind to pipe down and said to the sea, "Quiet! Settle down!" The wind ran out of breath; the sea became smooth as glass. 40 Jesus reprimanded the disciples: "Why are you such cowards? Don't you have any faith at all?" 41 They were in absolute awe, staggered. "Who is this, anyway?" they asked. "Wind and sea at his beck and call!"

We look for signs of God caring for us by how God uses his power for us - in miraculous ways.  Perhaps we need to look again at how God cares for us, not in miracles, but in the miracle of our faith.

What if the disciples had fought the storm rather then wake Jesus, trusting that they could do it? What if they had made the miracle happen (getting through the storm) by trusting that Jesus did care about them and trusting their own God given strength to overcome?  It would still have been a miracle!

This is not to diminish the uniqueness of what Jesus did; and the sign it is for who he is!
It is to say that there are miracles of God in the ordinary, not just the extraordinary things of life.

Jesus calls for the faith which empowers one to believe strong enough to create one’s own miracle, by not letting fear immobilize and paralyze; by daring to believe against all odds that God is for us, not against us. always!
Don’t wait for God to do it for you.  Ask God to do it with you and see what miracles can be created when you dare to believe that asleep or awake, God does care for you.






“There are miracles of God
in the ordinary, not just the
extraordinary things of life.”










Prayer though for the week:  “Lord, help me be a miracle this week, in ordinary ways which help get through the storms of life.”

June 17, 2018 4rd Sunday After Pentecost

Mark 4:30-32  (The Message)

30 "How can we picture God's kingdom? What kind of story can we use? 31 It's like a pine nut. When it lands on the ground it is quite small as seeds go, 32 yet once it is planted it grows into a huge pine tree with thick branches. Eagles nest in it.”

The Kingdom of God seems terribly insignificant and insufficient in the affairs of the world, yet it has the dynamic that can make the difference even in our world.

That dynamic is the love of God as known in Jesus Christ.  A love which is individual and universal.  “If Christianity doesn’t begin with the individual it doesn’t begin; but if it ends with the individual, it ends.”

The parable of the “pine nut” (mustard) seed reminds us that God often works God’s purposes out through the insignificant.  In the Kingdom of God, it is not bigness which counts, but making a difference in someone’s life.



"All gestures of love,
however small they be,
in favor of the poor and
the unwanted, are
important to Jesus."
               Mother Teresa




Prayer thought for the week:  “Lord, it sometimes seems like it is too small to make a difference -my smile, my kind word, my gift.  Help me remember
that no matter how small, it counts in your eyes, and makes a difference.”

June 10, 2018  Pentecost 3

 Mark 3:28-30

28-30 “Listen to this carefully. I’m warning you. There’s nothing done or said that can’t be forgiven. But if you persist in your slanders against God’s Holy Spirit, you are repudiating the very One who forgives, sawing off the branch on which you’re sitting, severing by your own perversity all connection with the One who forgives.” He gave this warning because they were accusing him of being in league with Evil.”  The Promise

28 "Truly I tell you, people will be forgiven for their sins and whatever blasphemies they utter; 29 but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit can never have forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin"— 30 for they had said, "He has an unclean spirit.” NRSV

What ever Jesus means about blasphemy against the Holy Spirit - a sin which cannot be forgiven -  this is for sure: anyone who fears they have committed it haven’t.
It is a sin which happens when we believe we are right so strongly that we are not open to any other thought or any other possibility. We are not even open to the Holy Spirit having something different to say to us and through us. It is not letting anything – even the spirit of God which blows over us and through us like the wind - change our closed mind and heart.

As we struggle with faith, hope, and love in our lives we need the encouragement which comes from the promise of forgiveness, not the threat of condemnation. The God (Jesus) I meet in the New Testament is a God who would rather forgive then condemn, and doesn't like the unforgivable sin any more than we do.

 





“It is a reminder that a totally
closed mind and heart are
headed on a dead end street.”










Prayer thought for the week:  “Lord, open my mind and heart to what Your Spirit wants me to hear, believe, and do.”  Amen

June 3, 2018 2nd Sunday After Pentecost

Mark 3:24-26  (The Message)

“24-26   A constantly squabbling family disintegrates. If Satan were fighting Satan, there soon wouldn't be any Satan left.”

Revised Standard Version
“24 If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. 25 If a house is divided against itself, that house cannot stand. 26 And if Satan opposes himself and is divided, he cannot stand; his end has come.

A divided Kingdom is sure to fail.  A true Kingdom is one where all are brothers and sisters.

Dare we say it?  Jesus words regarding a divided kingdom remind us of what is happening in our country and world right now.  This is no way to live in our earthly kingdom and it no way to live in the Kingdom of God.

We are called to live in harmony, letting the spirit of goodness, mercy and respect lead us to decisions which must be made for the good of all.  For we are family!  And only as we live as family will we be able to stand, and standing,  be a blessing to others.



“Hatred paralyzes life;
love releases it.
Hatred confuses life;
love harmonizes it.
Hatred darkens life;
love illumines it.”
Martin Luther King










Prayer thought for the week:  “Lord, help me live for more than myself.  Make me a loving
instrument of your love, and be a blessing even to those I know not.”

May 27, 2018 Trinity Sunday

John 3:1-8  (The Message)

1 There was a man of the Pharisee sect, Nicodemus, a prominent leader among the Jews. 2 Late one night he visited Jesus and said, "Rabbi, we all know you're a teacher straight from God. No one could do all the God-pointing, God-revealing acts you do if God weren't in on it." 3 Jesus said, "You're absolutely right. Take it from me: Unless a person is born from above, it's not possible to see what I'm pointing to - to God's kingdom." 4 "How can anyone," said Nicodemus, "be born who has already been born and grown up? You can't re-enter your mother's womb and be born again. What are you saying with this 'born-from-above' talk?" 5 Jesus said, "You're not listening. Let me say it again. Unless a person submits to this original creation - the 'wind hovering over the water' creation, the invisible moving the visible, a baptism into a new life - it's not possible to enter God's kingdom. 6 When you look at a baby, it's just that: a body you can look at and touch. But the person who takes shape within is formed by something you can't see and touch - the Spirit - and becomes a living spirit. 7 "So don't be so surprised when I tell you that you have to be 'born from above' - out of this world, so to speak. 8 You know well enough how the wind blows this way and that. You hear it rustling through the trees, but you have no idea where it comes from or where it's headed next. That's the way it is with everyone 'born from above' by the wind of God, the Spirit of God.

"Nicodemus wanted to believe Jesus,
but his head got in the way of his heart.

His heart said, “Go for it!”
“Follow Him!”
“This is the One!”
but his head asked, “How can these things be?”

He tried his best but he couldn't figure Jesus out.
Not yet anyway.  He did become a secret believer and he was with Joseph of Arimathea when Jesus body was buried.  But today he is wondering what it is all about, and asking “How can these things be?”

 How can it be that we have to be born again...and again...and again...and again?
Born from above;  of the Spirit;  of the one God sent?

It can be because we do not make it be.  God does!
And because we never get it all at the first time, or the second, or third.
We have to be born many times, over and over again as it slowly sinks in that God’s “love never ends and dazzling grace always is’.  And it is for all!  All!
In religion, Issues of the heart are deeper and more powerful than of the head.  We don’t think our way into faith;  we are captured by that which penetrates into the depths of our souls and there creates peace, joy, love, and hope, enabling us to say, “Lord I believe;  help mine unbelief.”

It was with the heart more than the head that the unknown person spoke when it was written on the wall of a cellar in Cologne Germany during World War II -

“I believe in the sun
even when it is not shining.
I believe in love,
even when I feel it not.
I believe in God,
even when He is silent.”
                  Unknown











Prayer thought for the week:  “Lord, let my heart take me where my head cannot go.  And believe against all odds!”

May 20, 2018 The Day Of Pentecost

John 15:26-27
26 "When the Friend I plan to send you from the Father comes - the Spirit of Truth issuing from the Father - he will confirm everything about me. 27 You, too, from your side must give your confirming evidence, since you are in this with me from the start.”

The Holy Spirit is about power.  Power to believe; power to show mercy and kindness; power to live in hope.  Power to change and be changed.  It is an energizing power.

God gives us his Spirit to be creatively alive, creatively different (sometimes disturbingly so) and creatively compassionate.

This is what is needed in our world today - revolutionary and redemptive activity!

Forging a new humanity in Jesus name.
A humanity which erases distinctions between people. which regards none from the human point of view, but Jesus’ point of view where forgiveness is paramount.

“To think of changing the world
by changing the people in it
may be an act of great faith;
to talk of changing the world
without changing the people
in it is an act of lunacy.”
Lord Eustace Percy








Prayer thought for the week:  “Lord, empower me with your Spirit that I might be creatively compassionate in all…yes all…that I do.  And forgive me when I am not, so I can try again.”