July 19, 2020 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,






"God has invited us to gather
 rather than to judge…”  Richard 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 12, 2020 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 God is trying to plant a seed and who knows what will happen then.  For it is God’s intent that His Word live in us , with us, through us;  so we can be a part of God’s Word living in our day and age.




It is God’s intent that His Word
 live in us, with us, through us;
so we can be a part of God’s Word
living in our day and age.







Prayer thought for the week:  “Lord, help me live in your Word so I can be your Word
in our world of need.”

July 5, 2020 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.”

June 28, 2020 Pentecost 4

Matthew 10:40-42  (The Message)

 40 "We are intimately linked in this harvest work. Anyone who accepts what you do, accepts me, the One who sent you. Anyone who accepts what I do accepts my Father, who sent me. 41 Accepting a messenger of God is as good as being God's messenger. Accepting someone's help is as good as giving someone help.

This is a large work I've called you into, but don't be overwhelmed by it. It's best to start small. 42 Give a cool cup of water to someone who is thirsty, for instance. The smallest act of giving or receiving makes you a true apprentice. You won't lose out on a thing."

Most of the time it is the small things which make a big difference.
Unnoticed by most, unheralded by the media, not even posted on Facebook.
Just an anonymous act of kindness which brighteners someone's life and lifts their spirit.
When this happens God smiles and says "way to go!  Keep it up.  You too will be blessed by your kindness.”

We are seeing a lot of this in these difficult times.  Our news which is mostly bad, often ends with what is called ‘soft’ news.  Someone doing something small which amounts to a lot in someone else’s life.  This is the blessing hidden in the face of struggle and it is what God calls us all to do.  As Mother Teresa said,  do “small things with great love!





“We do not know the limits
of the redeeming power
of the small.
Perhaps there are none.”
Walter Wink







Prayer thought for the week:  “Lord, help me to remember that little things
are big to you…and make a difference in your Kingdom on earth.”

June 21, 2020 3rd Sunday After Pentecost

 Matthew 10:24

“A disciple is not above the teacher, nor a slave above the master.  It is enough for the disciple to be like the teacher, and the slave like the master.”

“What would Jesus do?” may sound like an over simplified question to direct our life of faith.
Yet it isn’t.  It is right on.  For as those who seek to follow Jesus we are to be his presence in the hear and now.

We are not to run away from doing justice when it is dangerous.
We are not to quit caring when it seems hopeless.
We are not to give up when hope seems beyond our reach.

We are to be Jesus when no one wants Jesus around.

Like the young man down south in the days of our struggles with integration who was interviewed by the Psychiatrist  Robert Coles as to why he was marching for the blacks in his community.    He replied:  (And he was rejected by his family because of this.)

“I don’t know why I put myself on the line.
I don’t know why I said no to segregation.
I’m just another white Southerner,
and I wasn’t brought up to love integration.
But I was brought up to love Jesus Christ,
and when I saw the police of this city
use dogs on people,
I asked myself what Jesus Christ would have
thought and He would have done
- and that’s all I know about how I CAME TO BE HERE,
 ON THE FIRING LINE.”

Indeed, to follow Jesus will take us to the firing line of justice, compassion, and acceptance of that which we never thought possible.  For “The process of signing on with Jesus consists of relinquishing what is old and treasured and receiving what is promised in the goodness of God.”
               Dr. Walter Brueggemann, OT Theologian




“All sports records will inevitable be broken,
 but the day after they are, the world won’t
have changed.  But every day you speak up
about injustice, the next day the world may
be just a little better for someone.”
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar





Prayer thought for the week:  “Lord, may someone be even just a little better off because I seek to follow you.”

June 14,2020 2nd Sunday After Pentecost

  Matthew 9:36
 “When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.”

Early in his ministry Jesus set the tone for all that he was to be.  He was to be compassionate!  For he came to represent a God who is compassionate.

Compassionate!  What a powerful word.

We know God best and we know the best about God through the word compassion.  For the most and the best that we can say about God...the first and the last word about God is, as the Psalmist repeats over and over and over again, that God “is gracious and merciful, (that is full of compassion) slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love… The Lord is good to all, and his compassion is over all that he has made.”  Ps. 145:8,9

Is this not the heart of the scriptures testimony about God?
That God is not against us but for us;
God is not indifferent to our suffering, but is in it with us;
God is not angry with us because God delights in being angry, but because God loves us too much to not be angry.  And God will not remain angry for ever; for God’s anger is preceded as well as followed by compassion.  Even in moments of wrath, God’s love remains alive and primary!

We struggle to try put life into perspective.  To try see what it means beyond what it seems to mean.  To find something of God’s goodness in everything and dare believe that to walk with God is to walk with compassion at the center of our lives.

Even in a time of uncertainty - the pandemic we are now experiencing - we trust that God will not forsake us for God is in this with us.  God didn’t cause it to punish us.  God can use it to call us to live our lives with more compassion for others, for nature, and for all that is.

Where would we be in the end of the 21st century if compassion was more a part of our living and our being?  It is a question worth asking and struggling with as we walk through these days and determine how tomorrow will be.

Will we be like sheep without a shepherd or will we be like sheep who know a shepherd  who says, “Be merciful (compassionate) as your heavenly father is merciful (compassionate).”  Luke 6:36

Prayer thought for the week:  “Lord, as you are compassionate toward all, help me to be compassionate in my words and deeds, following in your footsteps.”

June 7, 2020 The Holy Trinity

Matthew 28:16-20  (The Message)

16 Meanwhile, the eleven disciples were on their way to Galilee, headed for the mountain Jesus had set for their reunion. 17 The moment they saw him they worshiped him. Some, though, held back, not sure about worship, about risking themselves totally. 18 Jesus, undeterred, went right ahead and gave his charge: "God authorized and commanded me to commission you: 19 Go out and train everyone you meet, far and near, in this way of life, marking them by baptism in the threefold name: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. 20 Then instruct them in the practice of all I have commanded you. I'll be with you as you do this, day after day after day, right up to the end of the age.”

The Holy Trinity is a mystery.  After all is said and done to help us try understand it,
the mystery still remains.  Which is the way it should be.

Without mystery God becomes something less then God.
Without mystery life looses something deep and beautiful.

On Holy Trinity Sunday we celebrate this mystery as we worship God the Father, creator of all things; God the Son, Redeemer of all humankind, and God the Holy Spirit, Sanctifier of all who believe.  (And maybe even those who don’t seem to believe.)
“Great indeed…is the mystery of our religion.”  I Tim 3:16




“I didn't need to understand the
hypostatic unity of the Trinity;
I just needed to turn my life over
to whoever came up with redwood trees.”
― Anne Lamott,







Prayer thought for the week:  “Lord, the mystery is great;  the mystery is beautiful;  keep me in awe and alive to mystery.”