Feb 2, 2020 Fourth Sunday after Epiphany

Micah 6:8  (The Promise)

“But he’s already made it plain how to live, what to do,
    what God is looking for in men and women.
It’s quite simple: Do what is fair and just to your neighbor,
    be compassionate and loyal in your love,
And don’t take yourself too seriously—
    take God seriously.”

Micah’s words are clear, concise, compelling; reminding us of the way of true religion.
To be religious is to be doing non religious things, more than religious things.
It is to be outside the church more than inside the church.

To walk humbly with God is to be strong enough to be weak;
         smart enough to be foolish;
         confident enough to not have to be right;
         secure enough to be sensitive to the insecurities of others,
         and honest enough to leave room for mistakes.

Humility is something which comes as we walk by grace through faith and trust not to our own religious goodness.

Prayer thought for the week:  “Lord, keep me humble so I can be YOUR servant in all my living…acting justly and loving mercy!’

January 26, 2020 Third Sunday after Epiphany

Matthew 4:12-17  (The Promise)

12 When Jesus got word that John had been arrested, he returned to Galilee. 13 He moved from his hometown, Nazareth, to the lakeside village Capernaum, nestled at the base of the Zebulun and Naphtali hills. 14 This move completed Isaiah's sermon: 15 Land of Zebulun, land of Naphtali, road to the sea, over Jordan, Galilee, crossroads for the nations. 16 People sitting out their lives in the dark saw a huge light; Sitting in that dark, dark country of death, they watched the sun come up. 17 This Isaiah-prophesied sermon came to life in Galilee the moment Jesus started preaching. He picked up where John left off: “(Repent) Change your life. God's kingdom is here."

Repent!  Be open to change.  Be open to the light shining in the darkness.  Be open to God’s grace working God’s will through you.

This is the first positive step in the journey of faith.  It signals that I am open to something happening which has never happened before.  And it doesn’t just happen once.
It happens over and over and over again as I struggle to get it right and so much gets in
the way.  My prejudices, my jealousies, my biases, my thinking which is based more on what is good for me then what is good for my neighbor.

Even my religion needs repentance, lest it blind me to the darkness hidden within me.
It is not a mark of a strong faith to say, “God said it; I believe it: that settles it.”  For the implied end to this faith is that I am right and I have God on my side, so I don’t have to change anything. When the truth is that we all have to change a lot if we are ever going to get to the truth that with God love is the only thing which counts.







“When I live without repentance I sit in darkness -
the darkness of my own prejudice; my own failure
to see my own sin.  No matter how religious I am;
I need repentance, often.”
Pastor Larry









Prayer thought for the week:  “Lord, keep me humble enough to be open to the changes you would have in my life; and bold enough to both repent and act with a new heart and mind.”

January 19, 2020 Second Sunday after Epiphany

John 1:35-39, 41-42  (The Promise)
    35 The next day John was there again with two of his disciples. 36 When he saw Jesus passing by, he said, “Look, the Lamb of God!”
   37 When the two disciples heard him say this, they followed Jesus. 38 Turning around, Jesus saw them following and asked, “What do you want?”
   They said, “Rabbi” (which means “Teacher”), “where are you staying?”
   39 “Come,” he replied, “and you will see.”
  41 The first thing Andrew did was to find his brother Simon and tell him, “We have found the Messiah” (that is, the Christ). 42 And he brought him to Jesus.

It is not always clear what God would have us do, and when we set about doing what it is we think God has called us to do, it does not always end up as we expected it to be.

We easily can identify with Isaiah, “I have worked, but how hopeless it is!  I have used up my strength, but have accomplished nothing.” Is. 49:4

How can I know what is God’s calling for me, God’s will, purpose in the here and now as well as tomorrow?

Dr. Martin Marty offers this advice: “The call of God is always to witness and witness means to be at risk.”

To be a disciple is to live with a faith which goes beyond our comprehension and it is to risk living as if this is certainly true.  It is to take risks - risks in forgiving others, helping others, even telling others about our Lord, - our hopes and dreams all the way to eternity.






Martin Niemoeller reminds us
in succinct words what can happen
when we don’t take faith risks in
our discipleship.












Prayer thought for the week:  “Lord, give me the courage to take risks, when my heart,
touched by your love, tells me to do so.”

January 12, 2020 Baptism of Our Lord

Matt.  3:13-17  (The Promise)

13 Jesus then appeared, arriving at the Jordan River from Galilee. He wanted John to baptize him. 14 John objected, "I'm the one who needs to be baptized, not you!" 15 But Jesus insisted. "Do it. God's work, putting things right all these centuries, is coming together right now in this baptism." So John did it. 16 The moment Jesus came up out of the baptismal waters, the skies opened up and he saw God's Spirit - it looked like a dove - descending and landing on him. 17 And along with the Spirit, a voice: "This is my Son, chosen and marked by my love, delight of my life."

By his baptism Jesus, “ who was like us in all ways except without sin” ,
chooses sides.  “He chooses to be identified with the sinful crowd, with the insiders who are really outsiders, rather than with the self-righteous Pharisees and Sadducees.  He does not surrender his identify as the sinless one, but he makes an identification with sinners.  He accepts their corruption, their sinfulness as his own.  He is, In Bonhoeffer’s memorable phrase, ‘The Man For Others.’”  Proclamation 2A Epiphany, p. 17

 In his Baptism Jesus boldly lets the world know where he stands and where God stands too!  God has chosen to be on our side and sent His Son to so identify with us that there can be no mistake about it.

He came to show and tell us about a God who’s compassion is greater than his anger - always - a God who is abounding in steadfast love.







Jesus baptism marked him for
a ministry of mercy -
which is our ministry too.
He was a “man for others “ and we are too!






Prayer thought for the week:  “Lord, help me to more compassionate and steadfast in kindness.”

January 5, 2020 2nd Sunday of Christmas

Luke 2:41-52  (The Message)

41-45 Every year Jesus’ parents traveled to Jerusalem for the Feast of Passover. When he was twelve years old, they went up as they always did for the Feast. When it was over and they left for home, the child Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but his parents didn’t know it. Thinking he was somewhere in the company of pilgrims, they journeyed for a whole day and then began looking for him among relatives and neighbors. When they didn’t find him, they went back to Jerusalem looking for him.
46-48 The next day they found him in the Temple seated among the teachers, listening to them and asking questions. The teachers were all quite taken with him, impressed with the sharpness of his answers. But his parents were not impressed; they were upset and hurt.
His mother said, “Young man, why have you done this to us? Your father and I have been half out of our minds looking for you.”
49-50 He said, “Why were you looking for me? Didn’t you know that I had to be here, dealing with the things of my Father?” But they had no idea what he was talking about.
51-52 So he went back to Nazareth with them, and lived obediently with them. His mother held these things dearly, deep within herself. And Jesus matured, growing up in both body and spirit, blessed by both God and people.

 He had to grow up like any other person.  He grew physically, mentally, spiritually.  He was not a super-boy; he was a human boy.
Development is a part of God’s creation.  We have to become who we were created to be. This does not happen quickly, nor perfectly; it does include faith, and the confession of sin.  Perfection begins with the confession of our inability to be perfect.  And our trust that Jesus was perfect for us.

No one is too bad to be a child of God and no one is too good to not be in need of Christ’s grace and forgiveness.  Luther:  “ I am at the same time sinner and saint.”




As Jesus grew in his
consciousness of who he
was as the Son of God,
 we too have to grow in
our consciousness
of who we are as sons
and daughters of God.





Prayer thought for the week:  “Lord, open my heart to be who you would have me be.  Amen”

December 29, 2019 Christmas 1

Matt 2:13-15, 19-21 (The Promise)

13 After the scholars were gone, God's angel showed up again in Joseph's dream and commanded, "Get up. Take the child and his mother and flee to Egypt. Stay until further notice. Herod is on the hunt for this child, and wants to kill him." 14 Joseph obeyed. He got up, took the child and his mother under cover of darkness. They were out of town and well on their way by daylight. 15 They lived in Egypt until Herod's death.. ..19 Later, when Herod died, God's angel appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt: 20 "Up, take the child and his mother and return to Israel. All those out to murder the child are dead." 21 Joseph obeyed. He got up, took the child and his mother, and reentered Israel.

Without the human drama this story doesn’t touch our lives.  It sounds like a fairy tale which might have happened once, but which could never happen again to or with us.

Joseph makes real for us the struggle of God coming to us - and asking us to do something we would never do by ourselves.  God touches us in ways which require risk.  It is when we risk that we discover God’s will for us.

Often this means that we follow our feelings; that deep urging from within.

For faith, as P.T. Forsythe defined it, “is a power and passion in authority among the powers and passions of life”.  It is one of the strongest challenges  in our lives.  It turns us on to the spirit of God who is trying to get us to ‘go to Egypt’...to risk our lives in order that we might really find our purpose, and really live!

“Faith is a kind of knowing that        
doesn’t need to know for certain…”
Fr. Richard Rohr







Prayer though for the week:  “Lord, help me to live by faith and risk loving you in all I say and do.”

Dec 22, 2019 Advent 4

Matt.1:18-25  (The Promise)

18 The birth of Jesus took place like this. His mother, Mary, was engaged to be married to Joseph. Before they came to the marriage bed, Joseph discovered she was pregnant. (It was by the Holy Spirit, but he didn't know that.) 19 Joseph, chagrined but noble, determined to take care of things quietly so Mary would not be disgraced. 20 While he was trying to figure a way out, he had a dream. God's angel spoke in the dream: "Joseph, son of David, don't hesitate to get married. Mary's pregnancy is Spirit-conceived. God's Holy Spirit has made her pregnant. 21 She will bring a son to birth, and when she does, you, Joseph, will name him Jesus - 'God saves' - because he will save his people from their sins." 22 This would bring the prophet's embryonic sermon to full term: 23 Watch for this - a virgin will get pregnant and bear a son; They will name him Emmanuel (Hebrew for "God is with us"). 24 Then Joseph woke up. He did exactly what God's angel commanded in the dream: He married Mary. 25 But he did not consummate the marriage until she had the baby. He named the baby Jesus.


The Christmas story as told by Matthew is a reminder that all things were not easy for Joseph or Mary.  It is no small thing to believe that “that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit.”

Joseph was a special sort of person who risked much on a dream and on a willingness to be used by God.

He did not reject Mary openly; he did not even “put her away secretly”, but took her as his wife and became a part of the greatest drama to ever happen - the birth of  Immanuel - God with us!

As we celebrate Christmas the question looms - Is it possible God would do something through us, like God did through Joseph, if we only dared dream enough and risk enough?




“It is Christmas every time you
let God love others through you... yes,
it is Christmas every time you smile at
your brother and offer him your hand."  
Mother Teresa





Prayer thought for the week:  “Lord, let Christmas come through me,
hidden ‘in, under, and with’ my words and actions this week, and every week.”