July 31, 2022 8th Sunday After Pentecost

Luke 12:15-21  (The Message)

15 Speaking to the people, he (Jesus) went on, “Take care! Protect yourself against the least bit of greed. Life is not defined by what you have, even when you have a lot.”

16-19 Then he told them this story: “The farm of a certain rich man produced a terrific crop. He talked to himself: ‘What can I do? My barn isn’t big enough for this harvest.’ Then he said, ‘Here’s what I’ll do: I’ll tear down my barns and build bigger ones. Then I’ll gather in all my grain and goods, and I’ll say to myself, Self, you’ve done well! You’ve got it made and can now retire. Take it easy and have the time of your life!’

20 “Just then God showed up and said, ‘Fool! Tonight you die. And your barnful of goods—who gets it?’

21 “That’s what happens when you fill your barn with Self and not with God.”

You can, to a large degree,  determine a person’s theology by the pronouns they use.  For pronouns give direction to life.  They point to what is important in one’s life.  Mine...yours...ours...Thine.

What a difference it makes when we are able to look at our possessions and say “Thine”.  Then our possessions fall into their rightful place in life.  Then they are not ours in a selfish way, but ours to use in a redemptive way.  And we get out of the trap of thinking they are all that matters, when so often they can do so little to satisfy our deepest needs.  For we were created for more then just abundance.  We were created to know and be known by God.  Our spiritual needs cannot be satisfied with material goods - no matter how hard we try.

 

“Ah, there is only one problem, only one in all the world.  How can we restore to man a spiritual significance, a spiritual discontent;  let something descend upon them like the dew of a Gregorian chant...don’t you see, we cannot live any longer on refrigerators, politics, balance-sheets, and crossword puzzles.  We simply cannot.”   Author unknown 

“When you have everything, 

something is missing.”

Jewish proverb  

Prayer thought for the week:  “Lord, help me to love what is worth loving and treasure 

what is precious in your sight.  Help me to be redemptive in my living.”

July 24, 2022 7th Sunday After Pentecost

Luke 11:9-13 (The Message) 

9 “Here’s what I’m saying:

Ask and you’ll get;

Seek and you’ll find;

Knock and the door will open.

10-13 “Don’t bargain with God. Be direct. Ask for what you need. This is not a cat-and-mouse, hide-and-seek game we’re in. If your little boy asks for a serving of fish, do you scare him with a live snake on his plate? If your little girl asks for an egg, do you trick her with a spider? As bad as you are, you wouldn’t think of such a thing—you’re at least decent to your own children. And don’t you think the Father who conceived you in love will give the Holy Spirit when you ask him?”

Prayer is more then something we do to get our way with God.  Prayer is something we do to discover God’s way with us, and discover how true it is that God’s grace is sufficient for all our needs.

Prayer is one of the most important spiritual disciplines by which we open ourselves to the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives.

Henri Nouwen:
“It is impressive to see how prayer opens one’s eyes...prayer makes (us) contemplative and attentive.  In place of manipulating, the (person) who prays stands receptive before the world (and before God).  He no longer grabs but caresses, (she ) no longer bites, but kisses, (they ) no longer examine but admire.” 

Prayer is a joy, not a duty’ a privilege, not an obligation; it is talking to PAPA - who loves us and will give us more than we ask.

“Prayer enlarges the heart until it is  

capable of containing God’s gift of himself.  

Ask and seek, and your heart will grow big 

enough to receive God and keep God as 

your own.”  

Mother Teresa

Prayer thought for the week:  “Lord, may my prayers open my heart to Your

way in my life.  And help me to both see it and live it.”

July 17, 2022 6th Sunday After Pentecost

Luke 10:38-42  (The Message)

38-40 As they continued their travel, Jesus entered a village. A woman by the name of Martha welcomed him and made him feel quite at home. She had a sister, Mary, who sat before the Master, hanging on every word he said. But Martha was pulled away by all she had to do in the kitchen. Later, she stepped in, interrupting them. “Master, don’t you care that my sister has abandoned the kitchen to me? Tell her to lend me a hand.”

41-42 The Master said, “Martha, dear Martha, you’re fussing far too much and getting yourself worked up over nothing. One thing only is essential, and Mary has chosen it—it’s the main course, and won’t be taken from her.”

There are times to be like Martha; organized, efficient, concerned about the basics. There are times to be like Mary; spontaneous, free, flowing with.

The struggle is to find the balance between the two, as Martha had difficulty with in our text.

The problem with Martha is not all her good work, but that she is too busy to experience the moment and savor the specialness of what is happening.  She is distracted by her concern for order and efficiency.

This can be how we miss God present in our lives - by being too busy. By being distracted.

“We...need to practice the ‘art of no agenda’ - to live in such a way that we begin to respond to the rhythms of life around us rather than control or initiate all of them.  We must, in prayer, seek to be open to and content with whatever the days brings.  We must allow ourselves to be ‘interrupted’ for God visits in interruptions.”  

Take time to listen for the still small voice of God.  Be quiet and sit at the feet of Jesus; take time to do nothing.

”The question that must guide  

all organizing activity in a parish 

(and in a family) is not how 

to keep people busy, but how

 to keep them from being so busy 

that they can no longer hear the 

voice of God who speaks in silence.”  

Henri Nouwen,

Prayer thought for the week:  “Lord, help me to slow down, take a deep breath, and hear your voice in the “sound of silence”. 

July 10 2022 5th Sunday After Pentecost

Luke 10:25-37   (The Message)

25 Just then a religion scholar stood up with a question to test Jesus. “Teacher, what do I need to do to get eternal life?”

26 He answered, “What’s written in God’s Law? How do you interpret it?”

27 He said, “That you love the Lord your God with all your passion and prayer and muscle and intelligence—and that you love your neighbor as well as you do yourself.”

28 “Good answer!” said Jesus. “Do it and you’ll live.”

29 Looking for a loophole, he asked, “And just how would you define ‘neighbor’?”

30-32 Jesus answered by telling a story. “There was once a man traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho. On the way he was attacked by robbers. They took his clothes, beat him up, and went off leaving him half-dead. Luckily, a priest was on his way down the same road, but when he saw him he angled across to the other side. Then a Levite religious man showed up; he also avoided the injured man.

33-35 “A Samaritan traveling the road came on him. When he saw the man’s condition, his heart went out to him. He gave him first aid, disinfecting and bandaging his wounds. Then he lifted him onto his donkey, led him to an inn, and made him comfortable. In the morning he took out two silver coins and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, ‘Take good care of him. If it costs any more, put it on my bill—I’ll pay you on my way back.’

36 “What do you think? Which of the three became a neighbor to the man attacked by robbers?”

37 “The one who treated him kindly,” the religion scholar responded.

Jesus said, “Go and do the same.”

The command to love our neighbor as ourselves is not a “fifty-fifty” proposition, as if we are to divide up our love like a pie.  It is much more radical than that.  The Greek reveals this deeper meaning:  “Love our neighbor in place of, instead of yourself.” In other words, change plans with your neighbor.  Let him/her enter the space where your love is and discover

God’s love in the process.

It is as Frederick Buechner has said:

When Jesus tells us to love our neighbors, he is not telling us to

love them in the sense of responding to them with a cozy

emotional feeling.  You can as well produce a cozy emotional

feeling on demand as you can a yawn or a sneeze.  On the 

contrary, he is telling us to love our neighbors in the sense

of being willing to work for their well-being even if it

means sacrificing our own well-being to that end.”                                                (Listening To Your Life, p.242)

Indeed, it is not enough to “pass by on the other side.”  Nor is it enough to offer our “thoughts and prayers”.  It is only enough when we sacrifice something of our own cherishing to benefit the needs of our neighbor.  

Could this include sacrificing what we claim we have a right to, to safeguard the rights of our neighbor?  Like the right to bare arms verses facing the fact that we have lots of neighbors being shot up because we refuse to face the gun issue in a realistic way.

The evidence is clear, if we will only see it and not walk by on the other side. We have the largest number of “innocent neighbors” being killed by

guns of mass destruction of any nation in the world.  No matter how poor a shot you are, you do not need an AK- 47 to kill a prairie dog.  (Senator Thune, SD)  The AK-47 is not a sporting weapon.  It is a weapon designed to kill as many as possible as quick as possible.  It is time we stop “walking by on the other side” and face this issue.  Our neighbors cry out for our sacrificing our rights for the better good!  It is being a Good Samaritan!

“When Jesus tells us to love our neighbors,        

… he is telling us to love our neighbors in 

the sense of being willing to work 

for their well-being even if it means sacrificing 

our own well-being to that end.”  

Frederick Buechner

Prayer thought for the week:  “Lord, keep me from the indifference which keeps me from loving my neighbor as you loved me - sacrificially.”

July 3, 2022 4th Sunday After Pentecost

Luke 10:1-20  (The Message)

10:1-2 Later the Master selected seventy and sent them ahead of him in pairs to every town and place where he intended to go. He gave them this charge:

“What a huge harvest! And how few the harvest hands. So on your knees; ask the God of the Harvest to send harvest hands.

3 “On your way! But be careful—this is hazardous work. You’re like lambs in a wolf pack.

There is no question about the need; the harvest is plentiful.  

There is no question about the importance of prayer as a part of the task. 

The question is, who are the laborers we are praying might be sent out?

Praying was never meant to be a substitute for doing.  It is “me” who is to “go”!  To pray for the harvest is to pray that I might be one of the laborers sent out to struggle in the heart of the day with the task of reaping the harvest.  There is something God cannot do with out my doing it.  God has chosen to limit God’s activity to those humans who will do it for Him/Her.

 

Indeed, this is a dangerous prayer for we might be caught up in the answer. 

“This God gives the skill           

But not without men’s hands;

He could not make Antonio 

Stradivarius violins

Without Antonio.”

George Eliot in “Stradivarius”

Prayer thought for the week: “Lord, use me in your harvest.  Open my eyes to see how I might “be there” for You each day.”

June 26, 2022 3rd Sunday After Pentecost

Luke 9:51-62 (The Message) 

51-54 When it came close to the time for his Ascension, he gathered up his courage and steeled himself for the journey to Jerusalem. He sent messengers on ahead. They came to a Samaritan village to make arrangements for his hospitality. But when the Samaritans learned that his destination was Jerusalem, they refused hospitality. When the disciples James and John learned of it, they said, “Master, do you want us to call a bolt of lightning down out of the sky and incinerate them?”

55-56 Jesus turned on them: “Of course not!” And they traveled on to another village.

57 On the road someone asked if he could go along. “I’ll go with you, wherever,” he said.

58 Jesus was curt: “Are you ready to rough it? We’re not staying in the best inns, you know.”

Jesus said to another, “Follow me.”

59 He said, “Certainly, but first excuse me for a couple of days, please. I have to make arrangements for my father’s funeral.”

60 Jesus refused. “First things first. Your business is life, not death. And life is urgent: Announce God’s kingdom!”

61 Then another said, “I’m ready to follow you, Master, but first excuse me while I get things straightened out at home.”

62 Jesus said, “No procrastination. No backward looks. You can’t put God’s kingdom off till tomorrow. Seize the day.”

Whatever else it means, to follow Jesus, it is a radical departure from what has been to what is yet to be.  

It is an all consuming adventure which is full of uncertainty, vulnerability and openness to God’s surprises as they come upon us at the most unexpected moments, in unconventional ways and ask us to be ready to  “proclaim the Kingdom of God” in the very essence of our being. 

It means being a servant, a steward, a slave.  We cannot do it our way - we have to do it His way.  We cannot consume one another, we are to serve one another in love.

“True religiousness, in whatever faith, functions not to enslave but to free, not to injure but to heal, not to destabilize but to stabilize.”

True religion lives by grace which sets people free.  Free to be who we are.  Free to struggle with our purpose in life.  Free to choose without fear of reprisal, yet with responsibility for our choices.  Free to live knowing that I will always be loved, and also knowing that I have to choose how I am going to use my freedom - as an excuse to indulge in self-gratification at the expense of others; as a license to destroy myself and others;   or as an opportunity to love my neighbor as myself, to love as I have been loved!  Hans  Kung 

“True religiousness,              

in whatever faith,                            

functions not to enslave 

but to free, 

not to injure but to heal, 

not to destabilize but to stabilize.”

Hans  Kung

Prayer thought for the week:  “Lord, help my “religiousness” to be life giving, proclaiming your Kingdom of grace and love for all.

  

June 19, 2022 Pentecost 2

Luke 8:26-39  (The Message)

26-29 They sailed on to the country of the Gerasenes, directly opposite Galilee. As he stepped out onto land, a madman from town met him; he was a victim of demons. He hadn’t worn clothes for a long time, nor lived at home; he lived in the cemetery. When he saw Jesus he screamed, fell before him, and bellowed, “What business do you have messing with me? You’re Jesus, Son of the High God, but don’t give me a hard time!” (The man said this because Jesus had started to order the unclean spirit out of him.) Time after time the demon threw the man into convulsions. He had been placed under constant guard and tied with chains and shackles, but crazed and driven wild by the demon, he would shatter the bonds.

30-31 Jesus asked him, “What is your name?”

“Mob. My name is Mob,” he said, because many demons afflicted him. And they begged Jesus desperately not to order them to the bottomless pit.

32-33 A large herd of pigs was browsing and rooting on a nearby hill. The demons begged Jesus to order them into the pigs. He gave the order. It was even worse for the pigs than for the man. Crazed, they stampeded over a cliff into the lake and drowned.

34-36 Those tending the pigs, scared to death, bolted and told their story in town and country. People went out to see what had happened. They came to Jesus and found the man from whom the demons had been sent, sitting there at Jesus’ feet, wearing decent clothes and making sense. It was a holy moment, and for a short time they were more reverent than curious. Then those who had seen it happen told how the demoniac had been saved.

The casting out of demons and the resulting peace in the man’s life announces again the mission of Jesus - to set us free from the evil which so easily possesses us.  It is a strong reminder that Jesus seeks too bestow wholeness, peace, and belonging to our lives.  

Our greatest challenge is not to try figure out why Jesus did this to the pigs,

but having to courage to name the powers which seek to enslave us and keep us from living free, joyous, compassionate lives.  And to let them be cast out!

   

The powers of evil are still at work in our world and in our lives.  Prejudice, indifference, blasphemy, hypocrisy , bulling, judging, name calling, excluding, etc. etc. etc.  We may not be able to  change the world but we can let our hearts be changed from evil to good.  And that means that we let go of what sometimes seems to be so important for our own welfare, and live so that love will prevail in our world of hate.  

Perhaps we all need too hear again the words of Scott Peck who describes this evil which is in all of us and needs to be cast out.   

"It is no accident that people who commit

 the most evil in this world see no power 

higher than themselves.  The evil are very 

strong-willed men and women.  And 

because they are narcissistic, self-absorbed, 

and their will is supreme, they are the ones 

who are most into inappropriate and 

destructive blaming.  They are the people 

who cannot - who will not - take the beam out 

of their own eye."

                       Scott Peck

Prayer thought for the week:  “Lord, it is easy to see evil in others.

Help me see where I have that which needs to be cast out, lest I be evil too.”