March 25, 2018 Palm/Passion Sunday

Mark 11:1-11  (The Message)

1 When they were nearing Jerusalem, at Bethphage and Bethany on Mount Olives, he sent off two of the disciples with instructions: 2 "Go to the village across from you. As soon as you enter, you'll find a colt tethered, one that has never yet been ridden. Untie it and bring it. 3 If anyone asks, 'What are you doing?' say, 'The Master needs him, and will return him right away.'" 4 They went and found a colt tied to a door at the street corner and untied it. 5 Some of those standing there said, "What are you doing untying that colt?" 6 The disciples replied exactly as Jesus had instructed them, and the people let them alone. 7 They brought the colt to Jesus, spread their coats on it, and he mounted. 8 The people gave him a wonderful welcome, some throwing their coats on the street, others spreading out rushes they had cut in the fields. 9 Running ahead and following after, they were calling out, Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in God's name! 10 Blessed the coming kingdom of our father David! Hosanna in highest heaven! 11 He entered Jerusalem, then entered the Temple. He looked around, taking it all in. But by now it was late, so he went back to Bethany with the Twelve.
 The Passion Story - Mark 14:1-15:47

“Not What Was Expected”
Jesus was not what was expected by the people of Israel who had waited so long for their promised Messiah so they crucified Him within the same week they hailed him as King.

They were looking at Him as their great political Messiah; he was coming as a King whose kingdom was not of this world.

In His kingdom peace (“would that you know the things which make for peace”)  comes not by being the most powerful but by loving enough to suffer for others.  (Phil 2:8)
It is to serve rather then be served and to give one’s life as a ransom for many.
The disciples (nor the crowd) didn’t understand that the Messiah must die.  The thought is both repulsive and enraging for them; this is not what they expected: a king riding into Jerusalem on a donkey!

God , the incomprehensible God, did things not necessary or expected of God.
He took exception to our way of doing things and sent his Son to be a servant,
”to humble himself and become obedient unto death, even death on a cross.”  (Phil 2:8)


                                                                             

Prayer thought for the week:  “Lord, may your passion make me passionate in serving
rather then being served.”
                                                                                     

March 18. 2018 Fifth Sunday of Lent

Mark 10:42-45 (The Message)

42 Jesus called them (disciples) together and said, “You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. 43 Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, 44 and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. 45 For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

Being a servant is more in step with Jesus then being a mighty one.
Servant means lowly in our world.  In God’s Kingdom it is the highest office one can hold.

To be great in the Kingdom is to be a servant.
To be first is to be last.
To really live is to lose oneself in life in serving Jesus Christ.
Don’t ask what you can get, but what you can give.

Greatness, honor, deep meaning and fulfillment in life comes, in Jesus terms, ”...not in self-seeking, but in solidarity....not in accruing status, but in benefiting others…not in hoarding, but in giving...not in ruling, but in serving.”





"A servant is one who
“finds grace to help in
time of need.”
           Hebrews 4:16







Prayer thought for the week:  “Lord, keep me humble and use me as a
servant.  Help me to help others.”

March 11, 2018 Fourth Sunday in Lent

John 3:14-17  (The Message)

14 Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, 15 that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.”16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. 1
One of the most difficult truths for us to handle is that it is...”by grace that we have been saved through faith; and this is not our own doing, it is the gift of God...There is nothing here to boast of, since it is not the result of our own efforts.”  Ephesians 2:8,9

We like to boast of how we have God in our control, as one ‘good’ Christian said,  “God doesn’t hear Jewish prayers” - as if we know and control who God listens too!

When God becomes predictable, God also becomes impotent!

Grace means that God loves the person who first said, “God is dead.”
God has compassion for the person who rejects him.
For God’s primary concern is that we allow God to love us, to save us, to touch our hearts and change our living; to rescue us from our ability to self-destruct!

God wants us so badly that if we just give him the least little excuse, God will shower his grace upon us and call us his own!  God is the waiting father/mother!

God also trusts that once this gift of grace hits home, things will start happening in our lives.
The person who truly lives by grace is the last person who can be judgmental towards others.  That is simply a contradiction which leads to hypocrisy of the worst kind.

The line God draws is not a judgment line, but a grace line.  To cross that live is to live in love and forgiveness.  Faith is crossing that line.







The person who truly lives by grace
is the last person who can be
judgmental towards others.









Prayer thought for the week:  “Lord, keep me amazed by your amazing grace so I can be amazingly open to all your creation.”

March 4, 2018 Third Sunday in Lent

John 2:13-22  (The Message)

13 When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 14 In the temple courts he found people selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money. 15 So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple courts, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. 16 To those who sold doves he said, “Get these out of here! Stop turning my Father’s house into a market!” 17 His disciples remembered that it is written: “Zeal for your house will consume me.”
Jesus had two faces.  He was “meek and lowly in heart”;  and  “he looked at them with anger”.  (Mk 5:5)  He was gentle but not anemic,  as when he called Herod a “fool” or told Peter “Get behind me, Satan!”

Nor was He anemic when he cleansed the temple.  He was a violent intruder, disrupting their comfortable little set up.  It must have been a wild scene!  The disciples must have been stunned, even embarrassed.  The people likewise.

Jesus was not always an easy person to be with.  For example, when he said:
“Leave the dead to bury their own dead; for as for you,
go and proclaim the kingdom of God.”       Lk. 9:60

“No own who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”  Lk. 9:62

“He who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and he who loves son or       daughter more than me is not worthy of me.”  Mt. 10:37, 38

This may sound harsh and in some ways it is.  It is also an expression of God’s awesome love which will not let us off easy, but expresses itself even in punishment for sin.  It is as Luther prayed, “Ah, God, punish us, we pray Thee...but be not silent...toward us.”

Jesus, would be an Intruder in our lives, harsh though it may seen, to awaken in us our need for a Savior, and then Jesus would be the Savior we need.




“Ah, God, punish us, we pray Thee…
but be not silent...toward us.”
           Martin Luther












Prayer though for the week:  “Lord, open my heart to your ‘tough love’ and help me change who I am to who you would have me be.”

February 25, 2018 Second Sunday in Lent

Mark 8:34- 35
34 Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 35 For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it.

When I try to find life I end up loosing it.  When I give up trying to find it or save it and simply lose myself in it, I find it.
This is also true of faith .
It is not the purpose of faith to take all the uncertainty out of life.  To have all the answers; to save life from its human experience of surprise, shock, disillusionment, fear, doubt, perplexity, confusion and all the rest of the uncertainties which come our way.  To do so would be to destroy the human experience of life.
For it is in the face of the uncertainties of life that we discover the truth that life is to be found by getting lost - lost in something bigger then ourselves.  Lost in living as one who is following Jesus.








“He who would take all the uncertainty
out of life, will lose it.  He who would
live with uncertainty, in faith, will find it.”













Prayer thought for the week: “Lord, help me to get lost in something bigger
than my self, so I can find life and live it.  Help me get lost in being a servant of love,
following Jesus.”

Feb. 18. 2018 First Sunday in Lent

Mark 1:12-15  (The Message)

12 At once, this same Spirit pushed Jesus out into the wild. 13 For forty wilderness days and nights he was tested by Satan. Wild animals were his companions, and angels took care of him. 14 After John was arrested, Jesus went to Galilee preaching the Message of God: 15 "Time's up! God's kingdom is here. Change your life (REPENT) and believe the Message.”

Mark keeps Jesus temptation in the wilderness short and simple- “he was tested by Satan”.  Sounds easy.  Matthew & Luke add more details but make it sound like just a quick quote of scripture and the devil is on the run.  But really, was it that easy for Jesus?  Is it that easy for us?

Or is Nikos Kazantzokis closer to the truth when he depicts Jesus temptation ending with this  struggle and cry:

“Jesus fell on his face.  His mouth, nostrils and eyes filled with sand.  His mind was blank.  Forgetting his hunger and thirst, he wept - wept as though his wife and all his children had died, as though his whole life had been ruined.
“’Lord, Lord’, he murmured, biting the sand, ‘Father, have you no mercy?  Your will be done: how many times have I said this to you until now, how many times shall I say it in the future?  All my life I shall quiver, resist and say it: Your will be done!’”
The Last Temptation of Christ, p.252

This is no casual thing which is happening.  It is the beginning of a life of testing and staying true to the will of God for his life.  It was necessary for Jesus to be tempted for only when he could say no to God was he free to say yes.

Temptation is not something to be eliminated from our lives.  For to be so pure we are not temptable, probably means we are also so anemic, so passionless, so flat and cautious that nothing exciting and alive can touch us either.

Sometimes we have to get it wrong - and repent - change direction - before we can get it right.
As Alan Jones says in “Soul Making’:

“I wander far from my Trinitarian and communal home and this wandering can be very important because it is the only way I ever learn anything - by getting it wrong.”

When we do get it right we are with Jesus on the road to discovering the joy of living with God in God’s Kingdom, being servants rather than masters.  All the time being loved beyond our wildest dreams and being asked to do more then we ever dreamed possible.




“I wander far from my Trinitarian
and communal home and this wandering
can be very important
because it is the only way I ever
learn anything - by getting it wrong.”
                      Alan Jones








Prayer thought for the week:  “Lord, be patient with me.  I get it wrong a lot.
Help me to keep trying until I get it right.  Your will be done.”

Feb. 11. 2018 The Transfiguration of Our Lord

Mark 9:2-9  (The Message)

2 Six days later, three of them did see it. Jesus took Peter, James, and John and led them up a high mountain. His appearance changed from the inside out, right before their eyes. 3 His clothes shimmered, glistening white, whiter than any bleach could make them. 4 Elijah, along with Moses, came into view, in deep conversation with Jesus. 5 Peter interrupted, "Rabbi, this is a great moment! Let's build three memorials - one for you, one for Moses, one for Elijah." 6 He blurted this out without thinking, stunned as they all were by what they were seeing. 7 Just then a light-radiant cloud enveloped them, and from deep in the cloud, a voice: "This is my Son, marked by my love. Listen to him." 8 The next minute the disciples were looking around, rubbing their eyes, seeing nothing but Jesus, only Jesus. 9 Coming down the mountain, Jesus swore them to secrecy. "Don't tell a soul what you saw. After the Son of Man rises from the dead, you're free to talk.”

There are some things too precious and holy to shout from the mountain tops.   First there has to be a relationship and an experience through which this special moment can be understood.  For Peter, James and John, that relationship was with Jesus and the experience which would make sense of the mystical experience of the transfiguration was the resurrection.

They are to tell no one, just stay with Jesus and listen to Him.  Later they can tell the whole story, in word and deeds.

We are called to be bold in our witness to the transforming power of God in Jesus Christ.
We cannot always shout it out, but we can and are empowered by that which we cannot tell to do that which is very telling -  which causes people to recognize that we have been with Jesus.

To have had a transforming experience, is to have a spirit within which empowers us to live as those who know we are loved by God.  And that means someone else is going to be better off!




"It is no use walking anywhere to preach
unless our walking is our preaching."      
St.  Francis of Assisi










Prayer thought for the week:  “Lord help me to live so that my living is the telling of your love and grace.”