March 6, 2022 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

Prayer thought for the week:  "Lord, when I face the temptations of life, help me to keep my mind and heart focused on what really counts - doing justice, loving kindness and walking humbly with You."  Amen

Feb. 27, 2022 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.”

Epiphany 7 February 20, 2022

Luke 6:27-36 (The Message)

27-30 “To you who are ready for the truth, I say this: Love your enemies. Let them bring out the best in you, not the worst. When someone gives you a hard time, respond with the energies of prayer for that person. If someone slaps you in the face, stand there and take it. If someone grabs your shirt, gift wrap your best coat and make a present of it. If someone takes unfair advantage of you, use the occasion to practice the servant life. No more tit-for-tat stuff. Live generously.

31-34 “Here is a simple rule of thumb for behavior: Ask yourself what you want people to do for you; then grab the initiative and do it for them! If you only love the lovable, do you expect a pat on the back? Run-of-the-mill sinners do that. If you only help those who help you, do you expect a medal? Garden-variety sinners do that. If you only give for what you hope to get out of it, do you think that’s charity? The stingiest of pawnbrokers does that.

35-36 “I tell you, love your enemies. Help and give without expecting a return. You’ll never—I promise—regret it. Live out this God-created identity the way our Father lives toward us, generously and graciously, even when we’re at our worst. Our Father is kind; you be kind.

(Or as other versions have v. 36: “Be compassionate , even as your Father is compassionate .”)

We may not want to hear what Jesus is saying.  We may not want to be caught and convicted, challenged and changed by this Word.  We would rather hear a word which comforts, soothes, reassures us that we can have it our way and still be doing it God’s way.  We don’t like to be disturbed by our religion; we like to be appeased.

Jesus words are a simple and profound reversal of the values we live by and a challenge to dramatically change how we look at life and how we act as those who seek, as Luther said, “to live in his kingdom and serve him with prayer, praise and thanksgiving.”

It all hinges on the word merciful..compassionate.

To be compassionate is to be the best we can be.  It means a willingness to suffer with, to undergo with, to share solidarity with...those who are without, ungrateful, and even our enemies.  It means we are to live so that love not judgement is at the center of our lives, directing our words and actions.  

Even when we act in judgment we must do it as those who are struggling to be compassionate.  Judgment must never be the last word nor is it ever the best word!

It is a sign we have failed; we have given up.  Compassion does not give up!

 

We are to “live obsessed with 

passion for compassion”.

Ellie Wiesel

Prayer thought for the week:  “Lord, help me to be the best I can be…compassionate!”

Epiphany 6 February 13, 2022

Luke 6:17-21 (The Message)

Coming down off the mountain with them, he stood on a plain surrounded by disciples, and was soon joined by a huge congregation from all over Judea and Jerusalem, even from the seaside towns of Tyre and Sidon. They had come both to hear him and to be cured of their ailments. Those disturbed by evil spirits were healed. Everyone was trying to touch him—so much energy surging from him, so many people healed! Then he spoke:

You’re blessed when you’ve lost it all.

God’s kingdom is there for the finding.

You’re blessed when you’re ravenously hungry.

Then you’re ready for the Messianic meal.

You’re blessed when the tears flow freely.

Joy comes with the morning.

“The Great Reversal”

Jesus reverses how it is with us - we think we can find life by taking it.  Jesus says we find life by loosing it.  It is in of the depths of life’s struggles that we discover life.  It is when we are poor that we learn to trust; hungry that we learn to appreciate and be thankful; weep that we discover the joy which cannot be taken away.

Life is not found in being rich; it is found in being needy and then having someone fill that need for us.  Then we discover what friendship and love really are all about.

 

Life is not found in being full;    

it is found in being hungry 

for the deeper things of life, 

even hungry for God’s love.

Prayer thought for the week:  “Lord help me to be hungry for the deeper things of life.  Be with me in the depths so I can know the joy which comes in the morning.”  

February 6, 2022 Firth Sunday After Epiphany

Luke 5:4-11 (The Message)

4 When he finished teaching, he said to Simon, “Push out into deep water and let your nets out for a catch.”

5-7 Simon said, “Master, we’ve been fishing hard all night and haven’t caught even a minnow. But if you say so, I’ll let out the nets.” It was no sooner said than done—a huge haul of fish, straining the nets past capacity. They waved to their partners in the other boat to come help them. They filled both boats, nearly swamping them with the catch.

8-10 Simon Peter, when he saw it, fell to his knees before Jesus. “Master, leave. I’m a sinner and can’t handle this holiness. Leave me to myself.” When they pulled in that catch of fish, awe overwhelmed Simon and everyone with him. It was the same with James and John, Zebedee’s sons, coworkers with Simon.

10-11 Jesus said to Simon, “There is nothing to fear. From now on you’ll be fishing for men and women.” They pulled their boats up on the beach, left them, nets and all, and followed him.

The Danish theologian, Soren Kierkegaard, related a homely parable about a flock of geese that milled around in a filthy barnyard imprisoned by a high fence.  One day a preaching goose came into their midst.  He stood on an old crate and admonished the geese for being content with this confined, earthbound existence.  He recounted the exploits of their forefathers who spread their wings and flew the trackless wastes of the sky.  He spoke of the goodness of the Creator who had given geese the urge to migrate and the wings to fly.  This pleased the geese.  They nodded their heads and marveled at these things and applauded the eloquence of the preaching goose.  All this they did.  But one thing they never did.  They didn’t fly.  They went back to their waiting dinner, for the corn was good and the barnyard secure. 

It is not easy to risk; to risk rejection in order to discover friendship; failure in order to discover success; security in order to discover something new; faith in order to discover God.

The call to follow Jesus is a call to risk.

To risk is to come alive; it is to find life by loosing it; it is to discover what otherwise remains hidden.  And as Albert Schweitzer said, as an ”ineffable mystery” out of the risk of following Jesus “we shall learn who He is”,  and who we are!

 

“The disciple is dragged out of his relative 

security into a life of absolute insecurity, 

from a life which is observable and calculable 

into a life where everything is unobservable 

and fortuitous, out of the realm of finite and 

into the realm of infinite possibilities.”

Bonhoeffer,  The Cost Of Discipleship

Prayer thought for the week: “Lord, help me to risk being your discipleship even if the risk is great.  Help me to come alive to who you are and who I am called to be - your disciple!”  Amen

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.”