Aug 29, 2021 14th 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 best way to be religious is to not try to be religious.  The best way to be religious is to be spiritual:  more 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. 

“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 22, 2021 13th Sunday After Pentecost

John 6:66-69 (The Message)

66-67 After this, many of his disciples left. They no longer wanted to be associated with him. Then Jesus gave the Twelve their chance: “Do you also want to leave?”

68-69 Peter replied, “Master, to whom would we go? You have the words of real life, eternal life. We’ve already committed ourselves, confident that you are the Holy One of God.”

Jesus Christ could be an offensive person.  For he came to create change in our lives;  changing us from living for ourselves to living for others - living a life of the Spirit, a life full of “compassion (that) produces a harvest of good deeds; free from prejudice and hypocrisy...” as James says. (3:17)

This is no easy task!  Especially if we are religious!

For it is easy to get locked into our beliefs and refuse to open our eyes to anything which may challenge us to change the way we see things.  

Such as these words from Brian McLaren which identifies what it means to

change the emphasis of our following Jesus from what we believe to what we live.

“More than ever before in our history, we need a new kind of personal and social fuel. Not fear, but love. Not prejudice, but openness. Not supremacy, but service. Not inferiority, but equality. Not resentment, but reconciliation. Not isolation, but connection. Not the spirit of hostility, but the holy Spirit of hospitality….

Old markers of gender, religion, culture, and class must recede: “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” [Galatians 3:28] . . . [and] “the only thing that counts is faith working through love” [Galatians 5:6]. Where the Spirit is, love is. Where the Spirit teaches, people learn love.                

Will we also go away?

Or are we open to Jesus way as our way, because he was and is indeed the Holy One of God!

Not fear, but love.  

Not prejudice, but openness. 

Not supremacy, but service. 

Not inferiority, but equality. 

Not resentment, but reconciliation. 

Not isolation, but connection. 

Not the spirit of hostility, 

but the holy Spirit of hospitality….

Prayer thought for the week: 

“Lord help me to remember that it is not enough to believe that you are my Savior, unless I also believe that you want me to be your Servant in your Kingdom on earth. “

August 15 2021 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 i
s 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.”

August 8, 2021 11th Sunday After Pentecost

John 6:35,36,41,42 (The Message)

35 Jesus said, "I am the Bread of Life. The person who aligns with me hungers no more and thirsts no more, ever. 36 I have told you this explicitly because even though you have seen me in action, you don't really believe me…. 41 At this, because he said, "I am the Bread that came down from heaven," the Jews started arguing over him: 42 "Isn't this the son of Joseph? Don't we know his father? Don't we know his mother? How can he now say, 'I came down out of heaven' and expect anyone to believe him?"

Jesus was too human for the people of his day.  He was Joseph’s son who lived in their midst.  He was too human, too real, too common for them to believe he was God’s Son.

We also struggle with things of God being too human.  The truth is, the most spiritual (God like) things we can do are often the most human.  We dare not be afraid to be human for that is the essence of what it means to be spiritual (eat of the Bread of Life).  

Every time we touch intimately, lovingly, compassionately in the midst of the pain and joy of being human, God is there with life giving bread to impart eternal life.  This is how  human God is!

”To be human is to be spiritual; 

to be spiritual is to be human.”  

Ron Hinrichs

Prayer thought for the week:  “Lord, you created me ‘human’, with your spark of life

in me.  Help me to discover the joy of being human.  And discover how spiritual it is

to lovingly bring joy to others in our human journey. “

Aug. 1 2021 10th Sunday After Pentecost

John 6:26,27,35  (The Message)

26 Jesus answered, "You've come looking for me not because you saw God in my actions but because I fed you, filled your stomachs - and for free. 27 "Don't waste your energy striving for perishable food like that. Work for the food that sticks with you, food that nourishes your lasting life, food the Son of Man provides. He and what he does are guaranteed by God the Father to last."35 Jesus said, “I am the Bread of Life. The person who aligns with me hungers no more and thirsts no more, ever. 

The people in our text were looking for the easy way out.  They had a free meal (the feeding of the 5000) and they wanted more  free meals;  a life without difficulty, pain, suffering.  They came to Jesus for the wrong thing.

They wanted Jesus “not because (they) saw signs, but because (they) ate their fill of the loaves.”

They wanted Jesus for the wrong reason - and so often do we.

We come not because we want to be “renewed in our spirit”.    

We come because we want to have our bases covered. 

We want Jesus as an insurance policy against bad things happening to us.

But this is not how it is with Jesus.  God did not send Jesus to dwell among us so life could be a bed of roses.  God sent Jesus to dwell among us so that life could be different - strangely, powerfully, eternally different!  For strange as it may sound it is true:  “The person who aligns with me hungers no more and thirsts no more, ever.” 

“I am the Bread of Life.               

The person who aligns with me 

hungers no more and thirsts no 

more, ever. “  Jesus

Prayer thought for the week:  “Lord, feed me with your eternal love so I hunger or thirst no more, ever.”