June 27, 2021 5th Sunday After Pentecost

Mark 5:22-34 (The Message)

22 One of the meeting-place leaders named Jairus came. When he saw Jesus, he fell to his knees, 23 beside himself as he begged, "My dear daughter is at death's door. Come and lay hands on her so she will get well and live." 24 Jesus went with him, the whole crowd tagging along, pushing and jostling him. 25 A woman who had suffered a condition of hemorrhaging for twelve years - 26 a long succession of physicians had treated her, and treated her badly, taking all her money and leaving her worse off than before - 27 had heard about Jesus. She slipped in from behind and touched his robe. 28 She was thinking to herself, "If I can put a finger on his robe, I can get well." 29 The moment she did it, the flow of blood dried up. She could feel the change and knew her plague was over and done with. 30 At the same moment, Jesus felt energy discharging from him. He turned around to the crowd and asked, "Who touched my robe?" 31 His disciples said, "What are you talking about? With this crowd pushing and jostling you, you're asking, 'Who touched me?' Dozens have touched you!" 32 But he went on asking, looking around to see who had done it. 33 The woman, knowing what had happened, knowing she was the one, stepped up in fear and trembling, knelt before him, and gave him the whole story. 34 Jesus said to her, "Daughter, you took a risk of faith, and now you're healed and whole. Live well, live blessed! Be healed of your plague."  

It is easy, with a text like today's, to make faith something magic rather than deeply human.

The power to heal was not in Jesus garment.  It was hidden someplace in what happened between the woman and Jesus.  Had she not reached out, she would have never known this healing.  Had she not risked doing what was both forbidden and scary, as well as a bit selfish, nothing would have happened.

Miracles happen when we believe in them enough to make them happen.  This doesn’t mean we create the miracle;  it could mean that we have something to do with being open to the possibility of a miracle happening in our lives.  The miracle begins and ends with God, yet it also includes us.  We have to want it bad enough to even risk doing what is forbidden to get it!  

Don’t wait for God to create a miracle for you and lay it at your feet.  Create the possibility of a miracle and lay it at God’s feet.  This is what faith dares to do!  It dares to believe that God can and will make miracles out of our efforts.  God will create the miracle of reconciliation as we open our hearts and mind to being reconciling.  God will create the miracle of forgiveness as we confess and become forgiving.  This in no way diminishes God’s power.  It makes God even more real, and intimate.  Not a magician who does things we cannot do; but a Friend who walks with us and enables miracles to happen.

 

Miracles are impossible                                                              

things that happen anyway.”   

Lin Jennewein

                                                                              

Prayer thought for the week:  “Lord, help me be a miracle this week.  

Keep me open to the impossible happening in, for, and through me.”

June 20, 2021 4th Sunday After Pentecost

 Mark 4:35-41  (The Message)

35 Late that day he said to them, "Let's go across to the other side." 36 They took him in the boat as he was. Other boats came along. 37 A huge storm came up. Waves poured into the boat, threatening to sink it. 38 And Jesus was in the stern, head on a pillow, sleeping! They roused him, saying, "Teacher, is it nothing to you that we're going down?" 39 Awake now, he told the wind to pipe down and said to the sea, "Quiet! Settle down!" The wind ran out of breath; the sea became smooth as glass. 40 Jesus reprimanded the disciples: "Why are you such cowards? Don't you have any faith at all?" 41 They were in absolute awe, staggered. "Who is this, anyway?" they asked. "Wind and sea at his beck and call!"

We look for signs of God caring for us by how God uses his power for us - in miraculous ways.  Perhaps we need to look again at how God cares for us, not in miracles, but in the miracle of our faith.

What if the disciples had fought the storm rather then wake Jesus, trusting that they could do it? What if they had made the miracle happen (getting through the storm) by trusting that Jesus did care about them and trusting their own God given strength to overcome?  It would still have been a miracle!

This is not to diminish the uniqueness of what Jesus did; and the sign it is for who he is!  It is to say that there are miracles of God in the ordinary, not just the extraordinary things of life.

Jesus calls for the faith which empowers one to believe strong enough to create one’s own miracle, by not letting fear immobilize and paralyze; but by daring to believe against all odds that God is for us, not against us. always! 

Don’t wait for God to do it for you.  Ask God to do it with you and see what miracles can be created when you dare to believe that asleep or awake, God does care for you. 

“Don’t wait for God to do it for you.  

Ask God to do it with you and see 

what miracles happen.”

Prayer though for the week:  “Lord, help me be a part of a miracle this week, in ordinary ways, which helps us get through the storms of life.”

June 13, 2021 3rd Sunday of Pentecost

 Mark 4:30-32  (The Message)

30 "How can we picture God's kingdom? What kind of story can we use? 31 It's like a pine nut. When it lands on the ground it is quite small as seeds go, 32 yet once it is planted it grows into a huge pine tree with thick branches. Eagles nest in it.”

The Kingdom of God seems terribly insignificant and insufficient in the affairs of the world, yet it has the dynamic 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.”

The parable of the “pine nut” (mustard) seed reminds us that God often works God’s purposes out through the insignificant.  In the Kingdom of God, it is not bigness which counts, but making a difference in someone’s life. 

 

"All gestures of love,           

however small they be,

in favor of the poor and 

the unwanted, are 

important to Jesus."

               Mother Teresa

Prayer thought for the week:  “Lord, it sometimes seems like it is too small to make a difference -my smile, my kind word, my gift.  Help me remember

that no matter how small, it counts in your eyes, and makes a difference.”

June 6, 2021 2nd Sunday After Pentecost

 Mark 3:24-26  (The Message)

“24-26   A constantly squabbling family disintegrates. If Satan were fighting Satan, there soon wouldn't be any Satan left.”

Revised Standard Version

“24 If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. 25 If a house is divided against itself, that house cannot stand. 26 And if Satan opposes himself and is divided, he cannot stand; his end has come."

A divided Kingdom is sure to fail.  A true Kingdom is one where all are brothers and sisters.

Dare we say it?  Jesus words regarding a divided kingdom remind us of what is happening in our country and world right now.  This is no way to live in our earthly kingdom and it no way to live in the Kingdom of God.

We are called to live in harmony, letting the spirit of goodness, mercy and respect lead us to decisions which must be made for the good of all.  For we are family!  And only as we live as family will we be able to stand, and standing,  be a blessing to others.

 

 

“Hatred paralyzes life; 

love releases it.

Hatred confuses life; 

love harmonizes it.

Hatred darkens life; 

love illumines it.”

Martin Luther King

Prayer thought for the week:  “Lord, help me live for more than myself.  Make me a loving instrument of your love, and  a blessing even to those I know not.”

May 30, 2021 Trinity Sunday

 John 3:8  (The Message)

8 You know well enough how the wind blows this way and that. You hear it rustling through the trees, but you have no idea where it comes from or where it's headed next. That's the way it is with everyone 'born from above' by the wind of God, the Spirit of God.

The wind is predictably unpredictable.  It blows where it will.  We do not control it nor can we always predict it.

So is the Spirit of God.  It blows where it will.  We do not control it nor can we always predict it.  For as Paul says, (Rom (9:15b)  “(God) will have mercy on whom He will have mercy, and compassion on whom He will have compassion.”

God loves whom God will - and that includes those I would exclude.  It is the world God desires to save, not just us.  As those who believe in Christ we are to live as those who are led by the Spirit of God, which means we will not stand idly by as injustice seeks to have its way in our world.  We will, as Lewis said, get in “good trouble”.

God sent Jesus into the world not so we could gloat over being children of God but so we could say, God is for you too, whether you know it or not.  To be born again is to face the truth that God loves all people and it is to face this truth over and over and over again, until it finally sinks in. 

The Triune God is                     

“The Lover, The Beloved, 

and the Love who binds all 

together in One.”

Augustine

Prayer thought for the day:  “Lord, blow over me with the wind of love that I might be born from above and make a difference in someones life today.”

May 23, 2021 The Day Of Pentecost

 John 15:26-27

26 "When the Friend I plan to send you from the Father comes - the Spirit of Truth issuing from the Father - he will confirm everything about me. 27 You, too, from your side must give your confirming evidence, since you are in this with me from the start.”

The Holy Spirit is about power.  Power to believe; power to show mercy and kindness; power to live in hope. Power to change and be changed.  

Even power to be nonviolent.  It is an energizing power.

God gives us his Spirit to be creatively alive, creatively different (sometimes disturbingly so) and creatively compassionate.  And even to get in “good trouble.”

This is what is needed in our world today - revolutionary and redemptive activity!

Forging a new humanity in God’s name.

A humanity which erases distinctions between people. which regards none from the human point of view, but Jesus’ point of view where forgiveness is  paramount, and all are precious.

“God is the ultimate nonviolent one, 

so we dare not accept any theory of 

salvation—much less socialization, 

economics, or politics—that is based 

on violence, exclusion, social pressure, 

or moral coercion. When we do, these 

are legitimated as a proper way of life. 

God saves by loving and including, 

not by excluding or punishing.” 

 Rohr

Prayer thought for the week:  “Lord, empower me with your Spirit that I might be creatively compassionate in all…yes all…that I do.  And forgive me when I am not, so I can try again.” 

May 16, 2021 Seventh Sunday of Easter

John 17:14-19  (The Message)

14 I (Jesus) gave them (the disciples) your word; The godless world hated them because of it, Because they didn't join the world's ways, 15 Just as I didn't join the world's ways. I'm not asking that you take them out of the world But that you guard them from the Evil One. 16 They are no more defined by the world Than I am defined by the world. 17 Make them holy - consecrated - with the truth; Your word is consecrating truth. 18 In the same way that you gave me a mission in the world, I give them a mission in the world. 19 I'm consecrating myself for their sakes So they'll be truth-consecrated in their mission.

The story is told of a Norwegian pastor who, during the German occupation of World War II was called into the Gestapo Headquarters for interrogation.  Before the Gestapo officer began he took his Luger out and placed in on the desk.  Immediately the pastor pulled out his Bible and placed in beside the Luger.  “Why did you do that?” the officer asked.  “You put your weapon on the table, I did too!”, replied the Pastor.

The Bible is our weapon - not for evil but for good.  To be sanctified in it’s truth is to live in love and compassion, not hatred and condemnation.  We are to  dare risk loving rather than hating for loving is a more difficult and profound emotion.  It can do what nothing else can do!

Martin Luther King in Strength to Love:  

Hatred paralyzes life; love releases it.

Hatred confuses life; love harmonizes it. 

Hatred darkens life; loved illumines it.

“We need to spend more time in God’s Word.  

Not to be better informed of God’s’ Word, 

but to be better formed by God’s Word.”

Prayer thought for the week:  “Lord, forgive me for neglecting Your Word

as a lamp for my living.  Open my heart to the light of your Word, so I can be formed by it.”