August 16, 2020 11th of Pentecost

 Matthew 15:21-28  (The Message)

21 From there Jesus took a trip to Tyre and Sidon. 22 They had hardly arrived when a Canaanite woman came down from the hills and pleaded, "Mercy, Master, Son of David! My daughter is cruelly afflicted by an evil spirit." 23 Jesus ignored her.  The disciples came and complained, "Now she's bothering us. Would you please take care of her? She's driving us crazy." 24 Jesus refused, telling them, "I've got my hands full dealing with the lost sheep of Israel." 25 Then the woman came back to Jesus, went to her knees, and begged. "Master, help me." 26 He said, "It's not right to take bread out of children's mouths and throw it to dogs." 27 She was quick: "You're right, Master, but beggar dogs do get scraps from the master's table." 28 Jesus gave in. "Oh, woman, your faith is something else. What you want is what you get!" Right then her daughter became well.

Jesus ignored her.  She was a Canaanite, a nobody.  How unlike Jesus that is.  How unlike the God who came to be among us.  But she did not let this push her away.  She hung in there - with the silence, perhaps waiting, hoping for a different answer.

When the disciples put on pressure to get rid of her she took action.

She put on her own one person protest as to the unfairness of what Jesus was saying, for even the lowliest get some scraps, some attention, some goodness.  And He heard her - blessed her - and fulfilled her quest for the healing of her daughter.  She got the full doss of goodness and grace!

Sometimes protest works.  We are seeing a lot of it in our country today and it is mostly good people asking for goodness in their lives too.  Asking that they be treated as a part of those who have been created equal and deserve the same inalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

We who seek to walk with Jesus are called to help fulfill their dream and show the same fairness as Jesus did.  This is our calling.  We are not to continue to send them away again, and again, and again as the disciples wanted to do with the Canaanite woman.  We are to welcome them with open arms as Jesus did, and included them as equal with us in all things!  All things!  

For indeed, ALL LIVES MATTER!      

Prayer thought for the week:  “Lord, give me the courage to follow you even if it means I have to repent of my lack of caring for the ‘Canaanite woman’ in my midst.”

August 9, 2020 10th of Pentecost

 Matthew 14:22-23  (The Message)

22 As soon as the meal was finished, he insisted that the disciples get in the boat and go on ahead to the other side while he dismissed the people. 23 With the crowd dispersed, he climbed the mountain so he could be by himself and pray. He stayed there alone, late into the night.

Jesus finally is alone.  Finally he has a moment to catch his breath, gather his wits about him, and just be with God in silence, praying.

This is no game he is playing.  He needs this time away in prayer.

It takes silence to ‘see who we are’, for it is in silence we touch the deepest part of our humanity as well as God’s divinity.

Thomas Szasz, an American psychiatrist has said; 

“(Humans) cannot long survive without air, water, and sleep.  Next in importance comes food.  And close on its heels, solitude.”

Faith cannot exist without solitude either.

“Only in silence, in the space between noise, speech,  and activity, is there room for a person to become focused, to achieve gravity and centeredness.  Only in waiting before the mystery of existence itself, in brooding upon the world and eternity, does one become endowed with true worldliness and true everlastingness.”   John Killinger

“(Humans) cannot long survive without air, water, and sleep.  Next in importance comes food.  And close on its heels, solitude.”  Thomas Szasz

Prayer thoughts for the week:

Lord,  …help me to find the “sound of silence” in my daily noisy life.

           …give me “spaces in my togetherness” where I can be still, and find solitude.

   …help me to remember that You often speak in a still small voice which can only            

be heard by being quiet and listening.

Aug 2, 2020 9th of Pentecost

Matthew 14:13-21 (The Message)

13 When Jesus got the news, he slipped away by boat to an out-of-the-way place by himself. But unsuccessfully - someone saw him and the word got around. Soon a lot of people from the nearby villages walked around the lake to where he was. 14 When he saw them coming, he was overcome with pity and healed their sick. 15 Toward evening the disciples approached him. "We're out in the country and it's getting late. Dismiss the people so they can go to the villages and get some supper." 16 But Jesus said, "There is no need to dismiss them. You give them supper." 17 "All we have are five loaves of bread and two fish," they said. 18 Jesus said, "Bring them here." 19 Then he had the people sit on the grass. He took the five loaves and two fish, lifted his face to heaven in prayer, blessed, broke, and gave the bread to the disciples. The disciples then gave the food to the congregation. 20 They all ate their fill. They gathered twelve baskets of leftovers. 21 About five thousand were fed.

“A miracle is any event, natural or supernatural, in which one sees a revelation of God.”
The miracle here could have been that once the people saw what Jesus was going to do with a small boys small lunch, they opened their hearts and their lunches for all to share.

If this is how it happened, it is still a miracle!  In fact, this would be the a more difficult miracle for it meant many hearts being changed, opened to sharing.

“Jesus risked his entire ministry on the sufficiency of the infinitesimal.”
“Every social change can be traced to a few determined individuals.”
Walter Wink, “The Power Of The Small”




“When God seeks to turn      
the world around,
one person is usually enough.”
Walter Wink







Prayer thoughts for the week:
                 Lord: keep me humble so I can be helpful.
help me be a miracle in ways I never dreamed possible.
open my eyes to see how much you can do with so little.
help me do what I can to make life better for someone.

July 26, 2020 8th of Pentecost

July 26, 2020 8th of Pentecost
Matthew 13: 44-46  (The Message)

44 "God's kingdom is like a treasure hidden in a field for years and then accidentally found by a trespasser. The finder is ecstatic - what a find! - and proceeds to sell everything he owns to raise money and buy that field. 45 "Or, God's kingdom is like a jewel merchant on the hunt for excellent pearls. 46 Finding one that is flawless, he immediately sells everything and buys it.”

The Kingdom of God seems terribly insignificant and insufficient in the affairs of the world,
yet it has the dynamics that can make the difference even in our world.
That dynamic is the love of God as known in Jesus Christ.  A love which is individual and universal.  “If Christianity doesn’t begin with the individual it doesn’t begin; but if it ends with the individual, it ends.”

An illustration of how insignificant the Kingdom can seem to be comes from Dr. Thielicke, a German theologian in the WWII years:

“When I became a pastor and conducted my first Bible study hour I went into it with the determination to trust in Jesus’ saying, ‘All power is given unto me in heaven and earth.’
I said those words to myself in order to assure myself that even Hitler, who was then in the saddle, and his dreadful power machine were merely puppets hanging by strings in the hands of this mighty Lord.  And in this Bible study hour I was faced with two very old ladies and a still older organist.  Outside marched the battalions of youth who were subject to an altogether different lord.  This was what God had to set before me on that evening.  What did God have to offer anyway?  And if it really were nothing more than this--then isn’t God refuted by this utterly miserable response?”  p.62  The Waiting Father

It seems so, and yet today Nazi Germany is a thing of the past and God’s kingdom is still very much a part of the dynamics of our lives and our world.  And we are called to put it first in our lives.  Which means, in the words of the Prophet Micah to “do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with our God.”  6:8

A timely message for us today!  A strong reminder that it is ‘’… not with swords loud clashing, nor roll of stirring drums, but deeds of love and mercy the heavenly kingdom comes.”
(Hymn:Lead On, O King Eternal)

And it comes as we cherish the kingdom of God enough to put it first in our lives.
In our actions which speak louder than words.  In our waking and our sleeping and all that happens between!  Even in our voting, which has much to do with how the kingdom of God comes in our world!



“If Christianity doesn’t begin with the
individual it doesn’t begin;
but if it ends with the individual, it ends.”







Prayer thought for the week:  “Lord, ‘Thy Kingdom come on earth…’ and let it come through me.”

July 19, 2020 7th Sunday of Pentecost

Matthew 13:24-30
24 He told another story. "God's kingdom is like a farmer who planted good seed in his field. 25 That night, while his hired men were asleep, his enemy sowed thistles all through the wheat and slipped away before dawn. 26 When the first green shoots appeared and the grain began to form, the thistles showed up, too. 27 "The farmhands came to the farmer and said, 'Master, that was clean seed you planted, wasn't it? Where did these thistles come from?' 28 "He answered, 'Some enemy did this.' "The farmhands asked, 'Should we weed out the thistles?' 29 "He said, 'No, if you weed the thistles, you'll pull up the wheat, too. 30 Let them grow together until harvest time. Then I'll instruct the harvesters to pull up the thistles and tie them in bundles for the fire, then gather the wheat and put it in the barn.'"

Judgment is not in our hands.  We are not to separate the wheat from the weeds, the sacred from the secular, the holy from the unholy.  This is God’s doing - God who is “gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love”.

Our task is to live faithfully, as those who are both wheat and weeds - we are not as pure as we would like to be.  As Wm. Saloan Coffin has said, “Remember what history teaches, never do people so cheerfully do evil as when they do it from religious conviction.”

“God has invited us to gather rather than to judge, to get together and learn to live with one another, weeds and wheat alike.  There is wheat within each of us as well as those all-too-visible weeds.  From this patchy crop God can fashion a miraculous bread, transforming each of us by the pure wheat of this holy offering, making us into beings shaped by hope.”   Richard I Pervo,






"God has invited us to gather
 rather than to judge…”  Richard Pervo









Prayer thought for the week:  “Lord, help me to remember that it is not my job to judge.
You will take care of that.  Help me to be merciful, as You are to me and to all.”

July 12, 2020 6th Sunday of Pentecost

Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23  (The Message)

1 At about that same time Jesus left the house and sat on the beach. 2 In no time at all a crowd gathered along the shoreline, forcing him to get into a boat. 3 Using the boat as a pulpit, he addressed his congregation, telling stories. (about a man planting seeds.)  4 As he scattered the seed, some of it fell on the road, and birds ate it. 5 Some fell in the gravel; it sprouted quickly but didn't put down roots, 6 so when the sun came up it withered just as quickly. 7 Some fell in the weeds; as it came up, it was strangled by the weeds. 8 Some fell on good earth, and produced a harvest beyond his wildest dreams. 9 "Are you listening to this? Really listening?" 18 "Study this story of the farmer planting seed. 19 When anyone hears news of the kingdom and doesn't take it in, it just remains on the surface, and so the Evil One comes along and plucks it right out of that person's heart. This is the seed the farmer scatters on the road. 20 "The seed cast in the gravel - this is the person who hears and instantly responds with enthusiasm. 21 But there is no soil of character, and so when the emotions wear off and some difficulty arrives, there is nothing to show for it. 22 "The seed cast in the weeds is the person who hears the kingdom news, but weeds of worry and illusions about getting more and wanting everything under the sun strangle what was heard, and nothing comes of it. 23 "The seed cast on good earth is the person who hears and takes in the News, and then produces a harvest beyond his wildest dreams."

The seed is good; it is the soil which has the problem.  We are the soil - all 4 kinds of soil!  We are not always receptive to what God’s Word has to say.  We run hot and cold when we listen to God’s Word.    We have goodness choked out by our indifference.  And we do hear and respond - doing that which pleases God.  And God takes what comes from the good soil of our hearts and makes more of it than we ever could have dreamed possible.

A good discipline for reading or listening to God's Word is to listen carefully FOR what you don’t want to hear and then listen carefully TO what you don’t want to hear; then risk acting on it.  It just may be God is trying to plant a seed and who knows what will happen then.  For it is God’s intent that His Word live in us , with us, through us;  so we can be a part of God’s Word living in our day and age.




It is God’s intent that His Word
 live in us, with us, through us;
so we can be a part of God’s Word
living in our day and age.







Prayer thought for the week:  “Lord, help me live in your Word so I can be your Word
in our world of need.”

July 5, 2020 5th Sunday after Pentecost

Matthew 11:28-30   (The Message)

28 "Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you'll recover your life. I'll show you how to take a real rest. 29 Walk with me and work with me - watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won't lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. 30 Keep company with me and you'll learn to live freely and lightly.”

 (The New RSV)

 28 “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

 “My Yoke Is Easy”

Catchy slogans are not necessarily true - just catchy.
These words of Jesus sound like a catchy slogan - but their not.

Like the slogan from Boy’s Town - “He ain’t heavy Father, he’s my brother.”  they remind us that the yoke which is easy and the burden which is light is so NOT because little is demanded, but because much is first given.

The yoke of Jesus is the commitment to love; it is the call to be kind, loving, good, merciful, just as we have received mercy.  It is discovering the “unforced rhythms of grace”.

Bearing one another's burdens in love is light!  No matter how heavy it gets!  To do this we first have to know we are loved.  For only the loved can so love.  God first loves us; then God demands much from us.  And the much is easy, for it is given in love.  This is the yoke which is easy and the burden which is light.



Bearing one another’s
 burdens in love is light!
 No matter how heavy it gets!






Prayer thought for the week:  “ Help me to be a bearer of burdens in love, no matter how heavy it gets.”