September 27, 2015, 18th Sunday After Pentecost

Mark 9:38-41  (The Message)

38 John spoke up, "Teacher, we saw a man using your name to expel demons and we stopped him because he wasn't in our group." 39 Jesus wasn't pleased. "Don't stop him. No one can use my name to do something good and powerful, and in the next breath cut me down. 40 If he's not an enemy, he's an ally. 41 Why, anyone by just giving you a cup of water in my name is on our side. Count on it that God will notice.

No one can bottle God up and keep God contained.  God manifests God’s self in unexpected places and people;  God’s spirit blows where it will and we know not where it comes from or where it goes.

Any effort on our part to try contain God is futile.  God is with those who know not God as well as those who claim to be for God.  In fact, they may well be some of God’s best servants!

This is part of the mystery and miracle of God’s spirit at work in our world.  We can be astonished by the irregularity of God.  It is not ours to judge others; it is ours to recognize the love of Jesus at work where ever it happens in whom ever it comes.


 

“It has been my experience that what
 makes us the saints of  God is not our
ability to be saintly but rather God’s
ability to work through sinners.”
         Nadia Bolz-Weber











Prayer thought for the week:  “Lord, help me to remember that there is something of Scrooge in me too, and you can still use me in ways beyond my daring to believe.”

September 20, 2015 17h Sunday After Pentecost

Mark 9:33-35 (The Message)

33 They came to Capernaum. When he was safe at home, he (Jesus) asked them, "What were you discussing on the road?" 34 The silence was deafening - they had been arguing with one another over who among them was greatest. 35 He sat down and summoned the Twelve. "So you want first place? Then take the last place. Be the servant of all."

 We all have a desire hidden within us to be a celebrity.  We would like to do our thing in a big way.  Yet it is as a servant that we have been called, to do our thing in a small way, often unnoticed but by God, and maybe those who are on the receiving end of our serving.

We are called to be servants and to get lost in doing good, without keeping score.  

To be a servant is to place oneself last and not worry about what I am going to get out of it.
It is to be like Jesus who “did not count equality with God something to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant.”
Phil. 2:6,7

Prayer thought for the week:  "Lord, help me to get myself out of the center of life so
I can be a servant, with you at the center."

Sept. 13, 2015 16th Sunday after Pentecost

Mark 9:14-29  (The Message)

14 When they came back down the mountain to the other disciples, they saw a huge crowd around them, and the religion scholars cross-examining them. 15 As soon as the people in the crowd saw Jesus, admiring excitement stirred them. They ran and greeted him. 16 He asked, "What's going on? What's all the commotion?" 17 A man out of the crowd answered, "Teacher, I brought my mute son, made speechless by a demon, to you. 18 Whenever it seizes him, it throws him to the ground. He foams at the mouth, grinds his teeth, and goes stiff as a board. I told your disciples, hoping they could deliver him, but they couldn't." 19 Jesus said, "What a generation! No sense of God! How many times do I have to go over these things? How much longer do I have to put up with this? Bring the boy here." 20 They brought him. When the demon saw Jesus, it threw the boy into a seizure, causing him to writhe on the ground and foam at the mouth. 21 He asked the boy's father, "How long has this been going on?" 22 Many times it pitches him into fire or the river to do away with him. If you can do anything, do it. Have a heart and help us!" 23 Jesus said, "If? There are no 'ifs' among believers. Anything can happen." 24 No sooner were the words out of his mouth than the father cried, "Then I believe. Help me with my doubts!" 25 Seeing that the crowd was forming fast, Jesus gave the vile spirit its marching orders: "Dumb and deaf spirit, I command you - Out of him, and stay out!" 26 Screaming, and with much thrashing about, it left. The boy was pale as a corpse, so people started saying, "He's dead." 27 But Jesus, taking his hand, raised him. The boy stood up.

This is one of my favorite confessions in the New Testament:  the farther of the boy who says honestly, out of the depths of his heart, “I believe; help mine unbelief!”

It’s like it is too much to swallow so fast yet it is so vital to his deepest needs that he lets Jesus know that he does have faith, even though he still has questions.

Don’t we all!

Faith is always accompanied by doubt, questioning, wondering, speculating, even uncertainty.
Contrary to the Message translation of the text, there are “ifs’” among believers.  That’s being human which is something none of us can shake.

I think this is the most honest expression of faith in the New Testament!  And much more true to the human condition then blind certainty can ever be.  Listen to these words from Ellie Wiesel, who lived through the fanaticism of the Holocaust born of the blind belief in the superiority of the Arian race.

 “I turn away from persons who declare that they know better than anyone else the only true road to God....My experience is that the fanatic hides from true debate...He is afraid of pluralism and diversity; he abhors learning.  He knows how to speak in monologues only...The fanatic never rests and never quits; the more he conquers, the more he seeks new conquests....A fanatic has answers, not questions; certainties, not hesitations,(and ) as the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche expressed it, (it’s) ‘Madness is the result not of uncertainty but certainty’.”
                                               Parade Magazine, April 19,1992

Something to wonder about as we wander out under the stars.




‘Madness is the result not of uncertainty
but certainty’.” Friedrich Nietzsche








Prayer thought for the week:  “Lord, I believe….with lots of uncertainty.  With the leap of faith (and love) I confess more then I can ever understand or be certain about.  Walk with me and love me with all my uncertainties.”

September 6 2015 15th Sunday After Pentecost

Mark 7:31-37  (The Message)

31 Then he left the region of Tyre, went through Sidon back to Galilee Lake and over to the district of the Ten Towns. 32 Some people brought a man who could neither hear nor speak and asked Jesus to lay a healing hand on him. 33 He took the man off by himself, put his fingers in the man's ears and some spit on the man's tongue. 34 Then Jesus looked up in prayer, groaned mightily, and commanded, "Ephphatha! - Open up!" 35 And it happened. The man's hearing was clear and his speech plain - just like that. 36 Jesus urged them to keep it quiet, but they talked it up all the more, 37 beside themselves with excitement. "He's done it all and done it well. He gives hearing to the deaf, speech to the speechless."

They couldn’t keep quiet about it; but they didn’t say all there was to say..

They missed the most important point - that these miracles, as with all miracles, means that salvation has come to our earth!  God has come to dwell with us in human from, in the man Jesus to heal ALL our infirmities, not just of the body but of the spirit as well!

There is a healing and a wholeness which is deeper then the physical.  He has come that all might be saved (be made whole from within) and come to the knowledge of the truth.

To be so saved is to be open to God’s love moving in our lives and through our lives into our world.  It  is to be able to smile, no matter what, and to be a beautiful, healing person for others.  Physical handicaps cannot keep a ‘whole person’ down.  They simply radiate joy and love, and bring healing into living.  This is Christ in us, the love of God making us whole!

“It isn't easy, but I believe that God
is in all of this.  With every obstacle,
a way has opened up to provide what
I have needed through this entire ordeal.
God keeps amazing me! “
                 A cancer patient







Prayer thought for the week:  “Lord, help me to see your love in all that happens to me, not always in ways  I like, but in ways which keep amazing me.”

Aug 30, 2015 14th Sunday After Pentecost

Mark 7:6,7

6 He (Jesus) replied, “Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites;
as it is written:
“‘These people honor me with their lips, 
  
          but their hearts are far from me. 

          7 They worship me in vain; 
  
          their teachings are merely human rules.’"


No one sets out to be a hypocrite.  We too easily become one when we let our greed, jealousy, pride, folly keep us from being congruent from the inside out.

Maybe the best way to be religious is to not try to be religious.  Be spiritual! Open, loving, sensitive, kind, gentle, compassionate, etc.  To be religious is to be a warm caring human being who lifts life up for others.  It is to have a secret - God loves me and everyone - and it is to live out that secret in the ordinary affairs of life.





A man once said to Mother Teresa,
“I wouldn’t do what you do for a million dollars.”
To which she replied, “Neither would I,
but I will for the love of God!”










Prayer thought for the week:  “Lord, help me to not be so heavenly minded (religious)
that I am no earthly good.  Give me strength to live what I believe -
and help me to believe that You love me and everyone.”

Aug 23, 2015 13th Sunday After Pentecost

Mark 7:1-8 (The Message)

1 The Pharisees, along with some religion scholars who had come from Jerusalem, gathered around him. 2 They noticed that some of his disciples weren't being careful with ritual washings before meals. 3 The Pharisees - Jews in general, in fact - would never eat a meal without going through the motions of a ritual hand-washing, 4 with an especially vigorous scrubbing if they had just come from the market (to say nothing of the scourings they'd give jugs and pots and pans). 5 The Pharisees and religion scholars asked, "Why do your disciples flout the rules, showing up at meals without washing their hands?" 6 Jesus answered, "Isaiah was right about frauds like you, hit the bull's-eye in fact: These people make a big show of saying the right thing, but their heart isn't in it. 7 They act like they are worshiping me, but they don't mean it. They just use me as a cover for teaching whatever suits their fancy, 8 Ditching God's command and taking up the latest fads."

“The most apparent meaning of this (text) could be summarized as a criticism of surface things and a call for deep things.” (Source unknown)

Religion is not meant to be something we play at; it is not meant to be superficial, mechanical, ritualistic. It is meant to be something which comes from the heart - a heart touched by the love and grace of God.
Observing the traditions of the elders is not what is important.
Living as one who has been touched by the love of God is.

We have enough religion
to make us hate,
but not enough to make
us love one another."
Jonathan Swift (1667-1745)



Prayer thought for the week:  “Lord, help me to not be so heavenly minded (religious) that I am no earthly good.  Help me to love, even when it flies against my religious certainties.”

August 16 2015 12th Sunday After Pentecost

John 6:51-58  (The Message)

51 I am the Bread - living Bread! - who came down out of heaven. Anyone who eats this Bread will live - and forever! The Bread that I present to the world so that it can eat and live is myself, this flesh-and-blood self." 52 At this, the Jews started fighting among themselves: "How can this man serve up his flesh for a meal?" 53 But Jesus didn't give an inch. "Only insofar as you eat and drink flesh and blood, the flesh and blood of the Son of Man, do you have life within you. 54 The one who brings a hearty appetite to this eating and drinking has eternal life and will be fit and ready for the Final Day. 55 My flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. 56 By eating my flesh and drinking my blood you enter into me and I into you. 57 In the same way that the fully alive Father sent me here and I live because of him, so the one who makes a meal of me lives because of me. 58 This is the Bread from heaven. Your ancestors ate bread and later died. Whoever eats this Bread will live always."

This is a troublesome text.  As one theologian said of it -
“The language in this text is raw and probably ought to shock our sensibilities.”

What ever we do with these words, we dare not take them literal - for then we will miss the point of what Jesus is saying - as is often the case when the Bible is take literally.  We end up with a distorted, disconnected message which leads to distorted and disconnected living.

So what is it Jesus is trying to say to us today?

Robert Kyser, a Biblical scholar of today makes a good point as to what Jesus might be getting at here, in his book “Preaching John”.  He suggests that Jesus is telling the hearers that they literally need to take Jesus into themselves, make him “part of their essence”

Too which another theologian, adds:  “No arm’s-length relationship here, no safe distance between us.  As (those) who long for the abundant life, we have no other way to such a life except by taking Jesus in, having him become so intermingled with our own being that we cannot separate one from the other. “  Adele Resmer

Then we will no longer be able to live indifferent to the urging of the spirit to place faith, hope, and love at the center of our living and let nothing push in aside.







Faith is  “a power and passion in authority
 among the powers and passions of life”
P.T. Forsythe,














Prayer thought for the week:  “Lord, help me to be passionate about faith and life, empowered by your love to do good no matter what.”