tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-52728204398983838462024-03-18T20:58:05.453-07:00prayerbookcatholicncPrayer Book Catholic in Asheville, NCTomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13942919028086053295noreply@blogger.comBlogger139125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5272820439898383846.post-80056559610867639262019-05-03T18:46:00.000-07:002019-05-03T18:46:01.243-07:00Conversion<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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Easter 3 C Conversion<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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Today’s Bible readings are about conversion – the Conversion
of St. Paul in Acts and in St. John St. Peter after the Resurrection on the
shore of the Sea of Galilee. Conversion is change of one thing into another.
Water at room temperature is liquid. Heat it and it becomes a vapor; when very
cold it turns solid.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When Lucy and I
went to Mexico this winter I converted American dollars into Mexican pesos at
18 to 1. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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St. Paul’s conversion was from hatred and anger toward
the disciples of the Lord to proclaiming Jesus in the synagogues, saying,
"He is the Son of God." St. Peter’s conversion was from a life of guilt
and confusion to new life in Jesus in the truth and power of the Holy Spirit. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Three times Peter denied; three times Jesus
commanded converted Peter, “Feed my sheep!” </div>
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Jesus appeared to Paul to convert him from hatred to love
and witness. Jesus appeared to Peter to convert him from guilt and shame to
truth and power. Acts tells us that Peter’s Pentecost sermon converted over
3000 people to faith and trust in Jesus. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Paul’s ministry brought the good news of Jesus
to many parts of the Roman Empire. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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In our reading from the Acts of the Apostles: “Saul,
still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to
the high priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues at Damascus, so
that if he found any who belonged to the Way, men or women, he might bring them
bound to Jerusalem.” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On the way he met
Jesus, was struck blind, received the ministry of Ananias and the community of
believers at Damascus, “and immediately . . . began to proclaim Jesus in the
synagogues, saying, "He is the Son of God."</div>
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Peter had confessed Jesus as Messiah by the stream at
Caeserea Philippi in Galilee. Peter was a leader among the disciples, chosen to
experience the Transfiguration, chosen to be with Jesus as he was questioned by
the leaders of the people, and there Peter, as Jesus had foretold, three times
denied knowing Jesus. But though Peter was a witness to the Resurrection, and
though he continued to be with the other disciples, he was a broken man, bowed
down by his memory of his betrayal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His
memory of his failure kept him from claiming the truth and the power of the
Holy Spirit given him at Easter. He fell back on what he had been doing before
Jesus called him; he went back to fishing. And Jesus met him there. Three times
Peter had denied Jesus. Three times Jesus asked him, “Do you love me?” Three
times Peter says, “Yes, I love you,” and three times Jesus calls Peter to love
and serve, “Feed my lambs; feed my sheep; feed my sheep.” </div>
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In the Greek text there is a play on words. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don’t want to push this too hard. The
meaning is that God loves us where we are, as we are, and works in and with us
to bring us to himself. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Greek has at
least four words for love. C.S.Lewis wrote a book about them. St. John uses 2
of the 4 – agape and filia. The other two are eros and storge. Agape is used
for the unconditional love – the love of God for his people – “to will the good
of another.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The first two times Jesus
asks, “agapas me?” Do you love me with an unconditional love?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Peter responds, philo se, philo se, philo se.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Peter uses the word from which we get filial
love, or philanthropy. Aristotle uses philia to mean loyalty to friends, brotherly
love, love of family and community, a general type of love, like desire or
enjoyment of an activity. The third time Jesus asks, phileis me? Jesus uses the
word that Peter uses, not agape love but philia. </div>
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The other two words for love in Greek are eros, physical
attraction, and storge, for the sometimes exasperating love within a family. Storge
also is used to express mere acceptance or putting up with situations, as in “love”
for one's country or a favorite sports team. Lewis writes much about storge.</div>
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<br /></div>
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We sing an African American Spiritual, number 614 in
Evangelical Lutheran Worship:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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Sometimes I feel discouraged and
think my work’s in vain, But then the Holy Spirit revives my soul again. There
is a balm in Gilead to make the wounded whole; There is a balm in Gilead to
heal the sin sick soul.</div>
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If you cannot preach like Peter,
if you cannot pray like Paul, You can tell the love of Jesus and say, "He
died for all." There is a balm in Gilead to make the wounded whole; There
is a balm in Gilead to heal the sin sick soul. </div>
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Don’t ever feel discouraged, for
Jesus is your friend; And if you lack for knowledge, He’ll never refuse to
lend. There is a balm in Gilead to make the wounded whole; There is a balm in
Gilead to heal the sin sick soul.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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“Balm in Gilead” is a healing ointment, a balsam extract.
We read of it in from Genesis 43:11, when it is part of the present the Patriarch
Jacob sent to Joseph in Egypt seeking a second supply of famine relief. Joseph’s
half-brothers had sold him into slavery and told their father Jacob he was
dead. Joseph prospered in Egypt, and he sold the brothers grain in famine time.
The brothers did not recognize Joseph, and at their first visit Joseph did not
reveal himself to them. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But he asked for
his full brother Benjamin. When Jacob sent them the second time with Benjamin
and the balm Joseph revealed himself; the family were reconciled, and the
family were invited to settle on the border of Egypt. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We anoint with olive oil, praying for God’s
healing grace, physical healing, psychological healing, spiritual healing,
healing of relationships. There is indeed a balm in Gilead to heal the sin sick
soul. </div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">A contemporary example:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Heather Cook is a daughter of the Rev. Halsey
Cook, former rector of St. Paul’s Church, Baltimore, born 1956. She was elected
suffragan bishop of Maryland. On December 27, 2014 while driving drunk killed Thomas
Palermo, who was riding his bicycle with others on Roland Avenue in north
Baltimore. Title 4, Canon 4 (1.4.8.5 & 9) requires clergy to refrain from
“refrain from: “any criminal act that reflects adversely on the Member of the
Clergy's honesty, trustworthiness or fitness as a minister of the Church” and “any
Conduct Unbecoming a Member of the Clergy.” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Heather Cook pleaded guilty, was deposed from
the ministry, and sent to prison. By all accounts she has been a good prisoner,
got sober, and has helped other women prisoners. She will be released later
this month, on 5 years supervised parole. Thomas Palermo’s family and many
others have objected. Heather Cook’s release will not bring back their husband,
son, brother. He is dead; she killed him. May God grant that the rest of
Heather Cook’s life will be a witness to God’s love in Jesus Christ. She’s 62,
still young, with years to love and serve. May God grant her conversion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>May God grant us conversion, conversion from hatred
and anger, conversion from sin and guilt, freedom in the gospel to love and
serve. Amen. </span>Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13942919028086053295noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5272820439898383846.post-42325489876250262342019-04-27T18:20:00.003-07:002019-04-27T18:20:52.723-07:00Easter Revelation <!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Easter season is 40 days when we remember the risen Jesus
present with his disciples. Easter season includes Sundays and ends on the
Thursday of Ascension Day. The 40 days of Lent do not include Sundays and begin
Ash Wednesday. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The light of the Paschal
candle reminds us of the light of the risen Christ who ate with his disciples,
men and women, and taught them. Our first Bible reading in Easter season is
from the book of Acts not from the Old Testament. The Epistles this year are from
the Revelation to St. John, next year A from the First Epistle of Peter, then year
B from the First Epistle of St. John. The gospels are from St. John, first the
Resurrection and then from Jesus’ teaching at the Last Supper. </div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Let’s look today at the reading from the Revelation. Revelation
is the last book of the Bible. It is said to have been written in the late 90’s
in the time of a great persecution ordered by Emperor Domitian. This was about
25 years after 7O AD when Domitian’s younger brother Titus put down the Jewish
rebellion and destroyed the Jerusalem Temple. Revelation is John’s report of a
vision received while John was an exile on the Aegean island of Patmos. John
says he was in the Spirit on “the Lord’s Day.” That suggests that Christians
were keeping Sunday, then as now, as the weekly remembrance of Jesus’
Resurrection. John’s report of his vision of the end times forms a letter to 7
Christian communities in what is now western Turkey, then called the province
of Asia. </div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
John begins his letter, “Grace to you and peace.” When
Jesus appears to the disciples Easter evening he begins, “Peace be with you?’
When he appears again the next Sunday he begins, “Peace be with you.” God’s
will for us, for his church, for the world Jesus has redeemed, is peace. God
wants us to live in peace, in reconciled peace with God and with our neighbors.
But peace is not easy; peace in a sin-filled world means that we are reconciled
after conflict, that we forgive and we are forgiven. From early times an
exchange of peace came before <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>communion.
The Agnus Dei has, “O Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, have
mercy on us, have mercy on us, grant us your peace.” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the exchange of the peace moved from words<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>at the altar party to greetings in the pews,
obeying Jesus’ command, “When you bring your gift to the altar, make peace with
your neighbor.” After the Prayers of the People we share God’s peace with one
another, the reconciling peace the risen and living Jesus shared with the
disciples on Easter Day and the Sunday after Easter, and every time he meets us.
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
That peace, John says, is “from him who is and who was
and who is to come, and from the seven spirits who are before his throne, and
from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the
ruler of the kings of the earth.”</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
In 1924 a Mississippi lawyer William Alexander Percy
wrote a poem, “His Peace”</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I
love to think of them at dawn </span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Beneath
the frail pink sky, </span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Casting
their nets in Galilee </span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">And
fish-hawks circling by. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Casting
their nets in Galilee </span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Just
off the hills of brown </span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Such
happy, simple fisherfolk </span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Before
the Lord came down. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Contented,
peaceful fishermen, </span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Before
they ever knew </span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The
peace of God that filled their hearts </span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Brimful
and broke them too. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Young
John who trimmed the flapping sail </span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Homeless
in Patmos died. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Peter,
who hauled the teeming net, </span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Head
down was crucified. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The
peace of God, it is no peace, </span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">But
strife sowed in the sod. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Yet
brothers pray for but one thing – </span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The
marvelous peace of God!” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The last verses are Hymn 661 in the </span>Episcopal <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Hymnal 1982. </i></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Peace, John says, is “from him who is and who was and who
is to come, and from the seven spirits who are before his throne, and from
Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of
the kings of the earth.” </div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Jesus Christ, our Messiah, died and rose almost 2000
years ago. We believe his resurrection began the Messianic Age. Isaiah 2:4 and
11:6-9 describe that age: “<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">They
shall beat their </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swords_to_plowshares" title="Swords to plowshares"><span style="color: windowtext; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">swords into
plowshares</span></a><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">
and their spears into pruning hooks; nation will not lift sword against nation
and they will no longer study warfare. (<span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">2:4)<i>
</i></span>The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the
goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will
lead them. . . . They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain,
for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the
sea. (11:6-9) </span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">But
almost 2000 years later the sword has become the hydrogen bomb, Christians are
murdered in church on Easter Day, and tourist families at breakfast are torn
apart by suicide bombers. People continue to harm and destroy on the holy
mountains. The gospel has been widely preached, but the earth is not yet “full
of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.” Glaciers are
retreating, polar ice is melting, sea waters are covering more and more of the
earth. The Messianic Age is not evident to the eye of the senses. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is to the eye of faith. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Between
1927-29 Georges Lemaitre, a Belgian priest, and American astronomer Edwin
Hubble developed the “big bang” model of the beginning of the universe – about 14
billion years ago. If all the physical world had a beginning, will it have an
end? <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">St.
John says, “yes.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span>Peace is “from
him who is and who was and who is to come . . . and from Jesus Christ, the
faithful wi1tness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the
earth.” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Science and religion agree that
the world as we know it will end. In the meantime we know “Jesus Christ, the
faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the
earth.” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Remember that John’s vision came in a time of conflict
and persecution. Human nature seeks liberty and autonomy, increased power to
rule ourselves, to do what we want, when we want, as we want. Totalitarian
governments before, during, and after the Roman Empire sought and seek complete
control over the lives of their subjects. </div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
John’s vision, and the experience of Christians in all
ages, is that Jesus Christ is Lord, “the faithful witness, the firstborn of the
dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>When Jesus Christ is our Lord we are assured of his love and grace. Our
sin is forgiven and we share new life in Christ. Alleluia!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The resurrected Jesus has set us free to
offer ourselves, our souls, and bodies to God’s service as members of his kingdom,
priests serving his God and Father, sharing in his heavenly banquet as we
receive the sacrament of his new life in the Holy Spirit. Amen. </div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13942919028086053295noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5272820439898383846.post-86915597175903509592019-04-06T07:13:00.000-07:002019-04-06T07:13:06.294-07:00Extravagant love<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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Lent 5 C April 7, 2019</div>
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I was born in 1939; my parents were both born in 1911,
and began at West Chester State Teacher’s college in the fall of 1929. My
father and mother both majored in secondary education. He graduated in 1932,
she in 1933, into the depths of the Great Depression,. Pennsylvania had 100
school districts; 99 of them hired as teachers only graduates of their district’s
own high school; one, Lower Merion, from which my mother graduated, never hired
its own graduates. My father went to the Episcopal Divinity School in
Philadelphia; my mother took what jobs she could get until they finally married
in 1936 when my father was called as Assistant at St. Luke and the Epiphany in
downtown Philadelphia (13<sup>th</sup> St. between Spruce and Pine). <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He was called to serve the people of the neighborhood
and was paid $100 a month and an apartment. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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My point is that my parents learned in the Depression to
be frugal people, and I was brought up to be frugal. We had what we needed, but
extras were carefully considered. My father used to tell me, “Give 10% to the
Lord, keep 10% for yourself as savings, live on what is left.” </div>
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With that family history, I find today’s gospel
challenging. Its teaching about God’s extravagant love is hard for me. Judas
said the perfume was worth 300 denarii. 300 denarii was more than a year’s
income. A day’s wage for a working man was one denarius – 4 grams of silver -
$2 today, but worth a lot more then.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>When you file your taxes note your gross income, and figure that as the
cost of Mary’s perfume, poured out over Jesus’ feet. It was an extravagant
gift.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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But the spiritual truth is that God does love us
extravagantly. “God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that
whoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. God sent
his Son into the world not to condemn the world, but that the world through him
might be saved.” </div>
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It didn’t take supernatural wisdom for Jesus to know that
the leaders of his people wanted to silence him, to kill him if that was
necessary.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Saint John places today’s
gospel story “six days before the Passover.” Jesus is aware of the hypocrisy
and the increasing hostility of the religious establishment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Despite the Commandment, “Thou shalt so no
murder,” St. John (11:50) reports that the high priest Caiaphas said, after
Jesus had raised Lazarus from the dead, “<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">You do not understand that it is better for you to have one
man die for the people than to have the whole nation destroyed.” </span></div>
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<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Our
continuing temptation, as individuals and as social institutions, to set
self-preservation as our first goal. We naturally do whatever we have to do to
keep on living and to preserve the institutions we care for. We learn early to
care for ourselves, to fight back against those who would harm us. That is
prudential, and prudence is a virtue. T</span>he Prayer Book includes this
rubric, “The Minister of the Congregation is directed to instruct the people,
from time to time, about the duty of Christian parents to make prudent
provision for the well-being of their families, and of all persons to make
wills, while they are in health, arranging for the disposal of their temporal
goods, not neglecting, if they are able, to leave bequests for religious and
charitable uses.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The 1979 book places
this rubric on page 445 at the end of the service of Thanksgiving for a Child.
Earlier books placed it at the end of the burial service.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“</span>The
Minister of the Congregation is directed to instruct the people . . . to make
prudent provision . . . .”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For example,
our church board is charged with prudently spending the money we all contribute
to support the ministry of this congregation. Ron, our Treasurer, tells me we
are spending more than we are receiving. Prudence calls us to increase our income
or decrease our expenses. We have received grants from the Synod and diocese for
$8000 to help with the expenses of the Spanish language ministry we host. That
will help some. But we need to be prudent. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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And while we are being prudent we also are called to serve
our risen Lord. We are generous in our food basket contributions; the quilt
ministry helps many; we tithe our income to the work of the synod and diocese.
We gather week by week to worship Christ Jesus. Jesus offered himself on the
cross for our sins and the sins of the world. Jesus is Son of God, and God
received his self-offering as full and perfect expiation for the sin of the
world. When on the cross Jesus cried, “Father, forgive them; they don’t know
what they are doing,” God answered that prayer. God forgives all our sins, the
wrongs we do knowingly, in full awareness that what we are doing is wrong, and
also the wrongs we do in ignorance, the wrongs we do because our knowledge is
limited by our limited knowledge, and by the limits of our circumstances. God
loves us extravagantly; God forgives us extravagantly. </div>
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Jesus said to Martha and Mary and Lazarus, “You always
have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.” In the physical world,
the world of prudence, we do always have the poor, and we don’t have Jesus physically
present with us. The resurrected body of Jesus ascended to the Father 40 days
after Easter.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And we do physically always
have the poor. We are called to do what we can to help the poor. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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But in the spiritual world, the world of abundance, we
always have Jesus present with us: present in our hearts by faith, present in
his word written as we read his Holy Scriptures, present to us in the sacrament
of the altar as we receive his body and blood in bread and wine. And we are the
poor, the poor in spirit, continually dependent on God’s grace, on God’s
extravagant gifts showered on us by the Holy Spirit of truth and power. </div>
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“The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.”
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>God grant that our lives may be filled
with the fragrance of God’s grace, unearned and undeserved, extravagantly
poured out on us, and that we may witness in our lives to God’s love in Jesus
Christ. </div>
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The spiritual truth is that God loves us extravagantly.
“God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever
believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. God sent his Son
into the world not to condemn the world, but that the world through him might
be saved.” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13942919028086053295noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5272820439898383846.post-22771296025645922492018-05-17T06:26:00.002-07:002018-05-17T06:26:51.297-07:00Pentecost 18
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">At Pentecost we remember God’s gift of his Holy Spirit to
Jesus’ spiritual body the church. We are baptized in God’s Holy Spirit to
become God’s holy people and to proclaim Jesus’ salvation to Avery County and
to the world. God grant the world may say of us, “we hear them tell in our own
tongues the wonderful works of God.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Pentecost is the Greek word for the Jewish feast of Shavuot
- 50 days after Passover. In Judea the barley harvest began in April at
Passover, the winter wheat harvest began in late May at Shavout or Pentecost.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Exodus is remembered at Passover, and God’s
giving the Law on Sinai is remembered at Shavout or Pentecost. God has blessed
the people of the Law, both Jews and Christians, with knowledge of God’s
perfect will eternally expressed in his unchanged and unchanging Law, knowledge
and power received by God’s grace through the faith God gives. <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">On Pentecost in Jesus’ time and now devout <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Jewish men spend the night studying the Bible
and eating dairy foods - lots of cheesecake – to remember the manna in the
desert while the women prepare a feast for family and visitors. The Passover
seder meal ends, “Next year in Jerusalem!” Devout Jews in the many countries to
which the people of Israel have been dispersed dream of celebrating Passover in
Jerusalem. In Jesus’ time it was a long, expensive, difficult trip: people came
in March for Passover and stayed the 7 weeks visiting family, worshipping in
the Temple, seeing the sights, until the weather got hot. Then they ate the
Pentecost feast and headed home. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Jesus’ disciples gathered for the Pentecost
feast with the many new believers in Jesus. They talked about Jesus and his
free and freeing teaching about the Law. Traditional interpretation had made
the Law complicated and difficult to observe. The disciples remembered that Jesus
had quoting the summary of the Law, “Love the Lord your God with all your
heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your
strength.’ (Deuteronomy 6:5) This is the first and great commandment And the
second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ (Leviticus
19:18) On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: 14pt;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">We
confess that we do not keep even these two commandments, nor the 10
commandments of Sinai, nor the 613 commandments the Jewish scholars found in
scripture. We know that our efforts to obey the Law do not save us from sin and
spiritual death. We are saved by God’s grace in the death and resurrection of
Jesus, grace received in faith. We are justified by God in Jesus without the
Law, and then God the Holy Spirit, the spirit of truth shows us how to return
thanks to God for the gifts of justification and salvation. We return thanks as
we seek to obey the law and to become the holy people God calls us to be. We
cannot obey God in our own spiritual strength, but with God’s power and God’s strength
given by his Holy Spirit we can grow in faith to love God and obey him. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 14pt;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">On the first Pentecost
the disciples remembered that Jesus had promised them the Spirit of Truth. They
had come to know the truth of Jesus. They remembered Jesus had promised them
the Spirit of Power. They knew Jesus’ power because he had defeated the great
enemy death by rising from the dead. And at the Pentecost feast they remembered
the giving of the law at Sinai, Moses on the mountain top, the fire lighting up
the sky, the powerful wind almost blowing the people away. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 14pt;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">They remembered Jesus
teaching at the Ascension 10 days before when Jesus “opened their minds to
understand the scriptures, and said to them, “Thus it is written, that the
Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that
repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all
nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. And see,
I am sending upon you what my Father promised; so stay here in the city until
you have been clothed with power from on high.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They remembered Jesus’ teaching
and so on that first Pentecost they studied Jesus’ promise of the Holy Spirit.
What was this Spirit going to be like? How would life be different with Jesus
no longer physically present with them? <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 14pt;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Then suddenly came a sound
from heaven like a mighty rushing wind, . . . tongues as of fire appeared among
them, and “all of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in
other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.” From Iran in the east to
Lybia in north Africa, from the north coast of Turkey to south Yemen and all
the places in between, “we hear them tell in our own tongues the wonderful
works of God.” <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 14pt;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Professor Bruce Rigdon tells
of being in Russia to make a movie about the Christian church under Communism.
Mikael was their minder, arranging interviews, getting churches opened, making
the project possible. After the last night’s farewell party Mikael told Rigdon,
“You showed me parts of my Russian heritage I never knew; I had never been in a
church until you came to make this movie.” He fell silent. Rigdon moved toward
the door, tired and ready for bed. Mikael stopped him and said, “You are a
Christian?” He knew Rigdon was ordained and a seminary professor, but he had to
ask, “You are a Christian?” Rigdon said, “Yes, I am a Christian.” Mikael said,
“It was not true when I said I’ve never been in a church. I was once but I
don’t remember it. My parents are atheists and party members, but my
grandmother was a Christian. One day when I was an infant she took me to church
and I was baptized. Tell me now, I’m just curious, you understand, but for
curiosity’s sake, tell me, do you think anything happened when I was
baptized?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 14pt;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">The Jewish custom is to
spend the night of Pentecost in study of the bible and prayer. Rigdon and
Mikael spent that Pentecost night in study of the bible and prayer. An American
Christian in Russia with a young man raised in Communist atheism, “We hear them
tell in our own tongues the mighty works of God.” <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 14pt;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">The same Holy Spirit
who came to the disciples at Pentecost comes to us when we are baptized and
believe. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 14pt;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">St. Paul wrote to the
contentious church at Corinth that the Holy Spirit gives many gifts, but they
are given in the one body of Jesus Christ. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 14pt;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">We are all baptized
into one body, filled with one Holy Spirit just as the disciples were on that
first Pentecost. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 14pt;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">We are filled with the
Holy Spirit to remember Jesus’ teaching, “Love God, love neighbor.” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">We are filled with the
Holy Spirit to keep the commandments and grow into the holy people God calls us
to be. We are filled with the Holy Spirit to know the truth of Jesus and witness
to that truth in the world Jesus redeemed by his death and resurrection. <o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> <span style="font-size: 14pt;"></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">We are filled with the
Holy Spirit to witness to the power of Jesus who defeated death and gives us new
life. <o:p></o:p></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 14pt;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">We are filled with the
Holy Spirit so that the whole world, and everyone we know may truly say, “we
hear them tell in our own tongues the wonderful works of God.” Amen. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13942919028086053295noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5272820439898383846.post-72859567670878751022018-04-13T17:06:00.005-07:002018-04-13T17:06:43.029-07:00Easter 3 Repentance to forgiveness
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<span style="color: #333333; font-size: 15pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: 15pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Today’s
gospel ends, “Then Jesus opened their minds to understand the scriptures, and
said to them, "Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise
from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is
to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are
witnesses of these things.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="color: #333333; font-size: 15pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In both gospels, St.
John and St. Luke, Jesus appears to offer “Peace” and the forgiveness of sins.
We share the peace of Christ, and in Christ’s peace receive his grace and his power
to be forgiven and to forgive. Our justification by grace through faith
includes both receiving and offering forgiveness. We are forgiven sinners and
because we are forgiven we receive the truth and power of the Holy Spirit to be
repentant sinners. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
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<span style="color: #333333; font-size: 15pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In his lectures on the
Epistle to the Galatians, Luther said, “Thus a Christian man is righteous and a
sinner at the same time (<i>simul iustus et peccator</i>), holy and profane, an
enemy of God and a child of God.” Luther calls this a paradox. A paradox is a
true statement that appears to be logically inconsistent.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Christian church affirms that Jesus is
both fully and completely God and fully and completely human. We affirm that we
worship one God in three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="color: #333333; font-size: 15pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Spiritual paradoxes
remind us that life includes more than one dimension of existence.
Literal-minded people find life difficult; things are never quite what they
seem. I talked last week about forgiveness, and I want to do that again. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
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<span style="color: #333333; font-size: 15pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The Biblical Hebrew
and Greek words we translate forgive have the common meaning of “take off” or
“let go.” For a children’s talk I used to put a backpack on a child and one by
one fill it with bricks until the child could barely stand. Then I’d lift the
back pack off and ask the child, “How does it feel?” One child obliged with, “I
feel like I could fly!”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s the
feeling we hope for in being forgiven ourselves, and in forgiving others.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="color: #333333; font-size: 15pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Christian forgiveness
is turning over to God. We give up feelings of condemnation, both self-condemnation
when we are forgiven and condemning others when we forgive them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
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<span style="color: #333333; font-size: 15pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Let’s not confuse
forgiving with condoning. By God’s grace we can forgive bad behavior, our own bad
behavior and others’ bad behavior, but by God’s justice bad behavior remains
bad behavior, subject to divine and human righteous judgment. Because God is
infinite, God offers us immediately a restored relationship of love and trust.
But we are limited, limited by time and space. Restoring human relationships
takes time and effort. Trust, once broken, is not easily or quickly restored.
We have the obligation of prudence in restoring relationships. We do no one any
good by confusing forgiving bad behavior and condoning bad behavior.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We have done what we have done and we have to
live with the natural consequences of our behavior – and the natural
consequences of others’ behavior toward us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="color: #333333; font-size: 15pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Repairing
relationships requires repentance. Repentance is turning away from sin and
turning to God and to God’s will for our lives. Repentance is the proper
response to forgiveness. We are forgiven sinners and therefore we are repentant
sinners. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I close with a story. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 15pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 15pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In
Jerusalem the Holocaust museum YadVaShem is surrounded by trees, “the Garden of
the Righteous.” Each tree has a plaque with names of those who sought to save
Jews. One so honored is a Dutch woman, Corrie Ten Boom. Her family hid Jews,
were betrayed by a neighbor, and sent to Ravensbruck where Corrie’s sister
Betsie died. After the war Corrie offered a home for former prisoners and wrote
a book, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Hiding Place</i>, from which
I quote (pp 214-215).<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
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<span style="font-size: 15pt;">“It was at a church service in Munich that I saw him,
the former SS man who had stood guard at the shower room door in the processing
centre at Ravensbruck. He was the first of our actual jailers that I had seen
since that time. And suddenly it was all there – the roomful of mocking men,
the heaps of clothing, Betsie’s pain blanched face. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;">
<span style="font-size: 15pt;">He came up to me as the church was emptying, beaming
and bowing. “How grateful I am for your message Fräulein”, he said “To think
that, as you say, He has washed my sins away!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 15pt;">His hand was thrust out to shake mine. And I, who had
preached so often to the people in Bloemendaal the need to forgive, kept my
hand at my side. Even as the angry, vengeful thoughts boiled through me, I saw
the sin of them. Jesus Christ had died for this man; was I going to ask for
more? Lord Jesus, I prayed, forgive me and help me to forgive him.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;">
<span style="font-size: 15pt;">I tried to smile, I struggled to raise my hand. I
could not. I felt nothing, not the slightest spark of warmth or charity. And so
again I breathed a silent prayer. Jesus, I cannot forgive him. Give me Your
Forgiveness.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;">
<span style="font-size: 15pt;">As I took his hand the most incredible thing happened.
From my shoulder along my arm and through my hand a current seemed to pass from
me to him, while into my heart sprang a love for this stranger that almost
overwhelmed me.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;">
<span style="font-size: 15pt;">And so I discovered that it is not on our forgiveness
any more than on our goodness that the world’s healing hinges, but on His. When
He tells us to love our enemies, He gives, along with the command, the love
itself.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 15pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Then
Jesus opened their minds to understand the scriptures, and said to them,
"Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the
dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be
proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are
witnesses of these things."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13942919028086053295noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5272820439898383846.post-83993458648074576352018-04-07T16:32:00.003-07:002018-04-07T16:32:21.455-07:00Easter 2 18 Peace and forgiving
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<span style="font-size: 8pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">“These
are written that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of
God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.” </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 8pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"></span></span> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 8pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">In Easter Season our first lesson is from the
Acts of the Apostles. The second lesson this year is from the First Epistle of
St. John - last year from St. Peter, next year from the Revelation to St.
John.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The theme of St. John’s epistles
is light and love. “God is light” and “God is love.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“. . . if we walk in the light . . . we have
fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus God’s Son cleanses us from
all sin.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">“But
if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the
righteous; and he is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not for ours only
but also for the sins of the whole world.” In the old Prayer Book tradition
this is one of the Comfortable Words after Confession and Absolution. Jesus
Christ is our advocate, the one who speaks for us on judgment day. Jesus speaks
for us - we are guilty and pardoned. By his death Jesus has set us free from
sin and God’s judgment for all our sins – “for ours only but also for the sins
of the whole world.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">Jesus’
death and resurrection was not only for Jesus’ disciples, but for every one in
every place and every age who admits sin and claims the pardon. I’ve sat in
court and heard the state’s attorney offer a plea bargain. The defendant pleads
guilty to a lesser offence and the more serious charges are dismissed. The
judge says to the defendant, “Do you accept this agreement, and are you in fact
guilty of the crime to which you plead?” The required answer is “yes, I am
guilty.” So say we all. We all are guilty of willful disobedience of God’s law
in some respect at some time. But “if we confess our sins, he who is faithful
and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If
we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">One
of the major problems of our society and church is pervasive denial of the
reality of personal sin. We all want to focus on our good intentions and ignore
our morally ambivalent and sometimes egregiously evil actions. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Jesus Prayer in the Eastern Orthodox
tradition is “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the living God, have mercy on me, a
sinner.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Only as we become aware of our
own sinfulness can we accept the wonderful grace of our risen Savior. “We have
an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and he is the atoning
sacrifice for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the
whole world.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">In today’s
gospel Jesus comes to the disciples gathered traditionally in the upper room
where they had celebrated the last supper. The doors were locked; the mob was
still out there looking for more blood. Jesus comes; he offers the disciples his
peace, and in that peace Jesus shares his power to forgive sins. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoPlainText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16pt;">By Jesus’ death and resurrection, and by
the power of the Holy Spirit, our sins, and the sins of the whole world, have
been put away forever. Our sins are washed away by the blood shed by Jesus on
the cross. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoPlainText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16pt;">Baptism is the beginning. The water of
baptism washes away sins and every time we confess our sins we renew the
spiritual effect of our baptism. And where water baptism is not possible we recognize
a “baptism by desire.”.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoPlainText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16pt;">The risen Jesus shared with the
disciples his authority of the cross to forgive sins against God, and he <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>shares with all Christians his essential power
to forgive sins committed against ourselves. “If you forgive the sins of any
(against you), they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any (against
you), they are retained (to you).” We all sin against God’s presence in our own
lives, and we sin against God’s presence in the lives of others. We are all
sometimes sinned against. Evil has been done to the dignity and honor of God’s
creation in our lives. Jesus gives us the choice. We can hold to the memory of
being sinned against, or we can forgive. We can continue to resent, or we can
forgive. We say in the Lord’s Prayer, “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive
those who trespass against us.” The contemporary version of the prayer has
“sins” – “forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoPlainText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16pt;">The gift of being able to forgive sins
against us, to let go of resentments, is a gift of the Holy Spirit by the
resurrected Jesus. It is also hard spiritual work.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>G.K. Chesterton once said, “Jesus commands us
to forgive our neighbors and forgive our enemies. Frequently they are the same
persons.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We need to forgive over and
over again, as often as the resentment comes back to bother us. When we have
forgiven the sins committed by others against us we also can forgive the sins
we have committed against ourselves, the things we have done to harm ourselves
even when we knew they were wrong when we did them, When we forgive God gives
us his peace, and in his peace <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the wisdom,
the grace, and the power to change, to do things differently. For that we thank
God. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoPlainText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The peace of God in Jesus made
possible Thomas’ radical change from skepticism to belief, from “Unless I see
the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails
and my hand in his side, I will not believe” to “my Lord and my God!” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“These are written that you may come to
believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing
you may have life in his name.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13942919028086053295noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5272820439898383846.post-32910139953695282002018-03-31T10:24:00.003-07:002018-03-31T10:24:46.810-07:00Easter 10,000 x 10,000
<br />
<b><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 16pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Easter 18<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>10,000 x 10,000<o:p></o:p></span></b><br />
<br />
<span lang="EN" style="font-size: 16pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Stephen Hawking</span><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 16pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;"> was born January 8, 1942 and departed this life March 14. His funeral was
Saturday and in June his ashes will be placed in westminster Abbey. Hawking was
an English </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theoretical_physics" title="Theoretical physics"><span lang="EN" style="color: windowtext; font-size: 16pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">theoretical
physicist</span></a><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span lang="EN" style="color: windowtext; font-size: 16pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><u>, </u></span></span><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 16pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">an expert on black holes and quantum mechanics. For over 50 years he lived
with a rare early-onset slow-progressing form of </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amyotrophic_lateral_sclerosis" title="Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis"><span lang="EN" style="color: windowtext; font-size: 16pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">amyotrophic
lateral sclerosis</span></a><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 16pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;"> "ALS" or </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lou_Gehrig" title="Lou Gehrig"><span lang="EN" style="color: windowtext; font-size: 16pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Lou Gehrig</span></a><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 16pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;"> disease that gradually paralyzed
him. <span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><u>He once </u></span></span>through a computerized </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speech-generating_device" title="Speech-generating device"><span lang="EN" style="color: windowtext; font-size: 16pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">speech-generating
device</span></a><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span lang="EN" style="color: windowtext; font-size: 16pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><u>,
“</u></span></span><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 16pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">I
regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components
fail. There is no heaven or afterlife for broken-down computers; that is a
fairy story for people afraid of the dark.” <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<span lang="EN" style="font-size: 16pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">From a Christian
perspective we can say, “Surprise, Dr. Hawking!” You now have a new spiritual
body and now you know all the answers to those questions about the universe you
spent your life raising. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-size: 16pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Stephen Hawking was blessed with a wife, Jane, two sons and a daughter.
Robert works for Microsoft, Timothy works for Lego, and Lucy writes children’s
books<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Jane Hawking is a Christian. She once wrote
that faith in God had sustained her in the hard times of her marriage.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div align="left" class="textcontent2" style="background: white; margin: 0in 0in 7.5pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16pt; font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Stephen Hawking was baptized in the Church of
England. At his baptism the celebrant said, “We receive this child into the
congregation of Christ’s flock, and do sign him with the sign of the cross, in
token that hereafter he shall not be ashamed to confess the faith of Christ
crucified, and manfully to fight under his banner against sin, the world, and
the devil, and to continue Christ’s faithful soldier and servant unto his
life’s end.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16pt; font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">In his later life Hawking called himself an
atheist. </span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16pt; font-style: normal; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">He also said
</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16pt; font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">his life quest was "trying
to understand the mind of God."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div align="left" class="textcontent2" style="background: white; margin: 0in 0in 7.5pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16pt; font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">I don’t know when Hawking gave up on God, but I do know
that God never gave up on Stephen Hawking. God is not finished with him, and
God is not finished with any of us. God loves us; God wants for us what is best
for us; <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16pt; font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">God offers us by the resurrection of his son Jesus
Christ eternal life in his love and service.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></span><span style="font-family: Georgia;"><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 16pt; font-style: normal; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">“Surprise, Dr. Hawking!”</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16pt; font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<br />
<div align="left" class="textcontent2" style="background: white; margin: 0in 0in 7.5pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16pt; font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 16pt; font-style: normal; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;">One of my favorite Easter hymns is 10,000 x 10,000.
It is in the 1940 Episcopal Hymnal and the 1955 Lutheran Service Book and
Hymnal, but is not in either the 1982 Episcopal Hymnal or Evangelical Lutheran
Worship. The text is this: <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span lang="EN" style="font-size: 16pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> Ten thousand times ten thousand In sparkling raiment bright, The armies
of the ransomed saints Throng up the steeps of light: 'Tis finished, all is
finished, Their fight with death and sin: Fling open wide the golden gates, And
let the victors in.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN" style="font-size: 16pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">2 What rush of alleluias Fills all the earth and sky! What ringing of a
thousand harps bespeaks the triumph nigh! O day, for which creation and all its
tribes were made! O joy, for all its former woes A thousand fold repaid!<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN" style="font-size: 16pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">3 O then what raptured greetings On Canaan's happy shore; what knitting
severed friendships up, where partings are no more! Then eyes with joy shall
sparkle, that brimmed with tears of late; Orphans no longer fatherless, nor
widows desolate.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN" style="font-size: 16pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">4 Bring near Thy great salvation, Thou Lamb for sinners slain; Fill up the
roll of Thine elect, Then take Thy power and reign: Appear, Desire of nations,
Thine exiles long for home; Show in the heavens Thy promised sign; Thou Prince
and Saviour, come.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN" style="font-size: 16pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;"></span><br />
<span lang="EN" style="font-size: 16pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">The hymn was written by the Rev.
Henry Alford, Dean of Canterbury, and sung at his funeral in 1871. Alford wrote
over 60 hymns including one we sing at Thanksgiving, “Come, ye thankful people
come, raise the song of harvest home.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN" style="font-size: 16pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;"></span><br />
<span lang="EN" style="font-size: 16pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">The third verse of 10,000 x
10,000 expresses our personal hope in the resurrection: <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN" style="font-size: 16pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">O then what raptured greetings <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN" style="font-size: 16pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">On Canaan's happy shore; <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN" style="font-size: 16pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">what knitting severed friendships up, <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN" style="font-size: 16pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">where partings are no more! <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN" style="font-size: 16pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Then eyes with joy shall sparkle, <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN" style="font-size: 16pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">that brimmed with tears of late; <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN" style="font-size: 16pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Orphans no longer fatherless, <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN" style="font-size: 16pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">nor widows desolate.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-size: 16pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 16pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">We have all had friendships severed by death. Many of us know what it is to
be orphaned by the death of parents, and we know something of the desolation of
losing to death someone whom we love.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-size: 16pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">The good news of Easter is that in Jesus’ resurrection we and they are
given new life in him, today, tomorrow, and for ever more! <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Amen!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-size: 16pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span></span> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-size: 16pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span>Alleluia!
Christ is risen. He is risen indeed, Alleluia!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13942919028086053295noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5272820439898383846.post-49801120136434532102018-03-17T19:00:00.001-07:002018-03-17T19:00:05.314-07:00Lent 5 Passion
<span style="font-size: 16pt;">Next Sunday is Palm Sunday,
the beginning of Holy Week. The Palm Sunday service has two gospel readings, one
for the blessing of the palms and the other the reading of the Passion. We will
read the full passion from St. Mark 14 and 15. It is long, and the custom is a
dramatic reading – narrator, Jesus, </span><span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Peter,
Judas, Servant-girl, Pilate, Centurion. high priests, disciples, bystanders and
crowd. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">We can read the Bible for spiritual growth as we
imagine ourselves being part of the story, as we imagine the reactions and
feelings of people in the story. Over the years the church has found that the dramatic
reading of the Passion can help us grow in our spiritual life. It is not easy.
Our natural tendency is first denial. We are rightfully uncomfortable as we
begin to put ourselves spiritually into the events of Jesus’ death and
resurrection.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 2.25pt 48pt 0pt 0in; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">One spiritual effect of this personal participation
in the Passion of Our Lord is that us recognize our own guilt, our own
participation in the sin that brought Jesus to his painful death on the cross. When
we hear Jesus say to the disciples at the Last Supper,, </span><span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“Truly I
tell you, one of you will betray me, one who is eating with me,” we begin with
the disciples “to be distressed and” we want “to say to him . . .,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Surely, not I?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But Jesus says to us, “It is . . .<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>one who is dipping bread . . .<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>with me”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 2.25pt 48pt 0pt 0in; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In
our time and in our country we are blessed. We are not in the situation of the
Syrian Christians in our own time facing decapitation from ISIS or the 17<sup>th</sup>
century Japanese forced to stamp on a crucifix or Jan Hus burned at Constance,
or Martin Luther in protective custody at Wartburg, or Bishops Cranmer, Latimer
and Ridley burned at Oxford. Our denials tend to be <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>little ones, mostly sins of omission, failing
to give an account of the faith that in in us, keeping silent when we should
speak up in witness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Next Sunday we ask the congregation to read three
parts: the parts of the priests and of the disciples, and of the crowd, who
cried, “Crucify him, crucify him!” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In
Jesus’ time the responsibility for maintaining stable political and economic
structures was assigned to the priests. We are all in some way or another
implicated in maintaining the injustice and sin of the political and economic
structures of our time, so we get to share in the priests’ response to Jesus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And we call ourselves disciples, spiritual
descendants of the 12 whom Jesus called to follow and serve him, so we get to
share the disciples’ response to Jesus. And finally we are all spiritual
descendants of the bystanders and the crowd that called for Jesus’ crucifixion
and jeered at him on the cross. We don’t escape our participation in the sin of
the world that brought Jesus to the cross because we share in the joy of his
salvation.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Sin is both individual and collective. We have each
fallen short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23) in some way, and the society of
which we are a part has also fallen short of the glory of God. As Article II of
the Augsburg Confession teaches, “all men who are born according to the course
of nature are conceived and born in sin. That is, all men are full of evil lust
and inclinations from their mothers’ wombs and are unable by nature to have
true fear of God and true faith in God.” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Prayer Book Catechism tells us, “Sin is
the seeking of our own will instead of the will of God, thus distorting our
relationship with God, with others, and with all creation.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">So as we read the Passion we are spiritually
convicted of our sin and convinced of our need for the redemption Jesus Christ
secured for us and for all the world by his death on the cross. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We live in thanksgiving for Jesus’ redemption.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Today’s reading
from Jeremiah immediately follows his prophecy (31:29-30), “</span><span class="text"><sup><span style="font-size: 16pt;">29 </span></sup></span><span class="text"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">In those days they shall no longer
say: ‘The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on
edge.’ <sup>30 </sup>But every one shall die for his own sin; each man who
eats sour grapes, his teeth shall be set on edge.” Jeremiah prophesies a new
covenant, written not on tablets of stone like the Sinai covenant but on our
hearts, not an external law we obey out of fear, but an internal law of love, a
law of gratitude.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We are so grateful for
God’s covenant of love and continuing presence that we seek to love and serve
him in our lives,. <o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<br />
<span class="text"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">And when we sin, as we will
(it is our nature) by God’s grace we are able to repent and return again and
again to our Lord Jesus who receives us with open arms, as he did in Galilee,
and on the cross, and in the resurrection, and as he receives us forgiven
sinners at his table today.</span></span><span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><o:p></o:p></span><br />
Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13942919028086053295noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5272820439898383846.post-52745991981122393532018-03-10T13:33:00.001-08:002018-03-10T13:33:38.916-08:00Lent 3 Moses
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 48pt 0pt 0in;">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: large;">Lent 3 B 18 Moses<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: large;">This
morning’s sermon has two parts: First two points of explanation to help us
understand today’s Gospel reading about the cleansing of the Temple and second
a reflection on the covenant of Sinai and the 10 Commandments. So (1) about the
people selling cattle and (2) the money changers. (1) selling cattle: <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: large;">How
many of us have been to Jerusalem? On the east edge of the Old City is the
Temple Mount – 37 acres (roughly as big as 30 football fields, 5 down and 6
across). Toward the center in Jesus’ time was a relatively small but tall building
for the empty room of the Holy of Holies. It was surrounded by the Court of the
Priests where animal sacrifices were made, then the Court of the Israelites
reserved for ritually clean male Jews, then the Court of the Women for all
Jews, and finally the much larger Court of the Gentiles. For the convenience of
those who came to make the sacrifices a supply of ritually approved animals was
provided in the otherwise empty Court of the Gentiles - the highest and best
use of otherwise unused property. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span style="font-size: large;">(2) According to Exodus 30:12, all Jews paid a
tax for the support of the Temple – half a shekel, about 14 grams of silver,
about $7.50 in our money. It had to be paid in pure silver and the best
available was in coins originally minted in the Lebanese port of Tyre and later
by the Temple authorities. So you changed your Roman money into Temple money –
at an exchange rate set by the Temple authorities.</span><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 48pt 0pt 0in;">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: large;">You can see how both of these might become a racket. And God
is a God of truth. He despises dishonesty and rackets. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 48pt 0pt 0in;">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: large;">And Jesus says the true temple of God is not a building in
Jerusalem, but the person, created by God, in whom God dwells by his Holy
Spirit. Jesus is the true temple of God, and by his spirit we also are God’s
temple.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 48pt 0pt 0in;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">First Corinthians 3:16-17 and 6:19-20 remind us: “</span><span class="text">Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit
dwells in you? . . .God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple.” And “Or do
you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which
you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you were bought with a
price; therefore glorify God in your body.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 48pt 0pt 0in;">
<span class="text"><span style="font-size: large;">Our question
today is how much of the temple of our lives is dedicated to God and how much
is taken up with cattle and money changers – with the rackets and ordinary
dishonesty of life? </span></span><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span style="font-size: large;">That is an individual question and one that we
can reflect on this week and this Lent? Jesus cleansed the physical temple in
Jerusalem; Jesus can cleanse the temple of our lives, and he will if we invite
him to. That’s the first half of today’s sermon.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 48pt 0pt 0in;">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: large;">The second part of today’s sermon is about the covenant of
Sinai and the 10 Commandments. For a long time the recitation of the Ten
Commandments has been an examination of conscience and a reminded of our need
for salvation by God’s grace in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ
which we receive by faith alone and not by works. That is a true and Godly use
of the Commandments. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 48pt 0pt 0in;">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: large;">But there is another use of the Commandments and that is as
a sign of God’s covenanted love and a guide to a Godly life in thanksgiving for
our salvation by God’s grace in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ
received by faith alone and not by works. Our Godly life, our good works, do
not cause our salvation. Our salvation is God’s free gift received by faith.
The commandments show us what a Godly life looks like.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 48pt 0pt 0in;">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: large;">The commandments are in the negative: “Thou shalt not” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span style="font-size: large;">– have, make take, murder, adultery, steal,
false witness covet. Turn these around. Imagine how life would be if God alone
were central in our lives. Imagine us free from worship of the idols of money,
property, prestige. Imagine what our world would be like when children honor
parents, parents honor children, husbands honor wives and wives honor husbands
(Ephesians), when public servants seek to honor and serve the people, first and
always. Imagine a society in which people are safe and secure in their lives,
in their intimate relationships, in their property, in their reputations and
honor. Imagine a world free from the corrosive sin of envy, a world in which
everyone is able to meet all their needs without depriving another.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span style="font-size: large;">In short imagine a world where truly God’s
“will is done, on earth as it is in heaven.”</span><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 48pt 0pt 0in;">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: large;">That’s the world God promises in his covenant with the
people of Israel, the covenant we Gentiles are grafted into, the true and
eternal covenant on Mount Sinai, the true and eternal covenant made sure on the
Mount of Olives and on Golgotha hill, the true and eternal covenant we enjoy in
the High Country, and everywhere Jesus Christ is proclaimed as Lord. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">Holy God, through your Son you have called us to live
faithfully and act courageously. Keep us steadfast in your covenant of grace,
teach us the wisdom that comes only through Jesus Christ, and give us the power
of<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>your Holy Spirit to love and serve you
in that covenant, through Jesus Christ our Savior and Lord.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Amen. </span>Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13942919028086053295noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5272820439898383846.post-16926632265443390462018-03-10T13:30:00.001-08:002018-03-10T13:30:09.989-08:00Lent 4 Manna
<br />
<div style="background: white; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt;">Lent 4B 18 Manna<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-size: 16pt;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 16pt;">Numbers tells how the people
of Israel came from Sinai up the east side of the Dead Sea to cross the Jordan
at Jericho. Numbers includes the Aaronic blessing “The Lord bless you” 6:22-26 said
in the Lutheran service. It also has lot of complaining and rebellion. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 16pt;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 16pt;">Six weeks after the Exodus the
people started to complain (Exodus 16), <span class="text">“In Egypt we sat
around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out
into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death.” That is one of the
signs of the spiritual continuity between Israel and the church. The Lord
provided manna. Manna tasted like a honey cake, but even honey cakes can get
old in time; 35 years of manna every day is enough for people to “detest this
miserable food.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span class="text"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"></span></span><br />
<span class="text"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Manna has
been variously identified as tamarisk resin, lichen, plant lice secretions, and
mushrooms. The rabbis said manna was a unique and special food, part of God’s
provision for his faithful people. </span></span><br />
<span class="text"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span class="text"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">But as the
Celebrate notes tell us, not all the people are faithful; many “whine and
grumble.” Numbers says God sent poisonous snakes to bite people who complain. Many
of us have known at least a few venomous people. We know about the bad
consequences of bad behavior. And we have learned the healing power of
repentance and confession.<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span class="text"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"></span></span><br />
<span class="text"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">I don’t
understand how the snake-bit children of Israel were cured by looking at a
bronze serpent lifted up on a pole, but that was the remembered experience of
the people. St John says Jesus used the experience in the desert teaching to
tell Nicodemus that so “</span></span><span style="color: black; font-size: 16pt;">must
the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal
life.” <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="chapter-2" style="margin: 1em 0in;">
<span style="color: black; font-size: 16pt;">The bronze
serpent on the pole was sacramental. It was an outward and visible sign of
inward and spiritual grace, the grace of forgiveness which heals the poison of
venom in the soul. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="color: black; font-size: 16pt;">Another sacramental
is the wedding ring – the unbroken ring a sign of eternal love. And the great
sacraments use ordinary things as signs of God’s eternal love and grace. Water
washes away dirt – and sin. A small piece of bread and a sip of wine are our spiritual
food, our manna in our wilderness of sin.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div style="background: white; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt;">Jesus continued with the familiar verse, “<span style="color: black;">For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so
that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That is the core of the new covenant. All the
covenants – Noah, Abraham, Moses, Numbers, Jeremiah – all are assurances of
God’s continued love and presence in this life. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The new covenant is the new assurance of
eternal life, life that continues through death into the fullness of God’s
presence.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="background: white; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-size: 16pt;">Jesus continued, “Indeed, God did not send
the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might
be saved through him. Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who
do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the
name of the only Son of God.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div style="background: white; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-size: 16pt;">These verses frequently raise questions like,
“What about those who do not believe, Jews, Muslims, our friends and neighbors
who don’t go to church? Does God condemn them?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The short answer is, No. God does not condemn. “God so loved the world .
. . “ <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div style="background: white; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-size: 16pt;">So take a step back. Remember the airplane
rule. “Put the oxygen mask on your own face first, then on others.” That seems
contrary to the Christian ethic of concern for others. But truly, we are to
work out our own salvation. The first question is, “Have I claimed for myself
the new life Jesus offers? Do I know my own sins are forgiven? Am I a new
creature? Have I put the mask on myself? We need to start with what we can deal
with, and that is ourselves. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div style="background: white; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-size: 16pt;">As I look back on them I recognize my own
doubts and fears were not theological, but moral. I was in college, strongly
influenced by my hormones. I had not yet internalized the truth that the God
who made me loves me. God wants what is best for me. And so I’d best seek to
know and do his will. Once I made the commitment of obedience the theology fell
into place.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div style="background: white; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-size: 16pt;">The condemnation is human condemnation,
not God’s. We live in lots of human judgment and condemnation. Talk politics;
get people of one party talking about the moral failures of the leaders of the
other party. Condemnation is human, not divine.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>God is righteous and just; he calls us to share divine righteousness and
justice. But condemnation is for our own sin, the sin for which Jesus died on
the cross. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div style="background: white; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-size: 16pt;">“Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in
the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in
him may have eternal life. . . . God so loved the world that he gave his only
Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal
life.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13942919028086053295noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5272820439898383846.post-469420530366754162018-02-24T09:45:00.002-08:002018-02-24T09:45:15.150-08:00Father Abraham
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt;">Lent 2 B February 25, 2018<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt;">Do you remember the Bible
camp song, “Father Abraham?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 16pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Father Abraham had many sons. Many sons had Father
Abraham. I am one of them and so are you, So let's all praise the Lord.</span></i><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 16pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sing it 6 times. After each one. right arm, then
left arm, right foot, left foot, chin up, turn around - sit down!</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">When
Abram was ninety-nine years old, the <span style="font-variant: small-caps;">Lord</span>
appeared to Abram, and said to him, “I am God Almighty; . . . I will make my
covenant between me and you, and will make you exceedingly numerous.” Then
Abram fell on his face.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt;">Billy Graham was 99 years
old. November 7 he would have been his 100<sup>th</sup> birthday. Friday’s
paper compared him to St. Paul as an evangelist. In the 58 years b</span><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 16pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">etween1947 and 2005 Graham
conducted 417 crusades in 185 countries on six continents. He was heard by more
than 210 million people - face to face and on television. The longest crusade was
in 1957, 16 weeks in </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City" title="New York City"><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 16pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="color: blue;">New York City</span></span></a><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 16pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">. In 1973 in South Korea
he preached to over 1,100,000 people at once. I never heard him in person but I
watched him on television. Graham is remembered for his friendship with
Presidents and other world leaders, remembered for desegregating his crusades
in 1953, remembered for posting bail for Martin Luther King in 1963, but
chiefly Billy Graham is remembered as a preaching witness to the good news of God’s
love in the life, death, ns resurrection of Jesus Christ. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<span lang="EN" style="font-size: 16pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Billy Graham was
99. Abraham was 99. I can’t </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">imagine
beginning a family at 99. I hope we all continue to be like Billy Graham and
like Abraham, trusting in the love of God as long as we have breath.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>St. Paul tells us that Abraham’s faith “was
reckoned to him as righteousness.” God offered, and Abraham received by faith,
a covenant of eternal life. We are spiritual descendants of Abraham and God
offers us in Jesus Christ the same covenant of eternal life. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 16pt;">Abraham stands at the margin of legend and
history. Noah is oral tradition and legend. We have physical evidence of an ice
age, and global warming, and many cultures have a tradition of flood,
destruction, and new life repopulating the world. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Genesis tells us of God’s covenant with Noah
and with all humanity, a covenant of respect for life with the sign of the
rainbow.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 16pt;">God offers Abraham a covenant for himself and
for all his descendants physical and spiritual. God will bless Abraham’s
descendants, and they will be rulers of nations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Abraham received tis covenant in faith. “Then
Abram fell on his face.” He prostrated himself in faith and obedience before
the Lord. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 16pt;">In the Holy Land from November to February the
rain clouds blow east from the Mediterranean Sea. On average 24 inches of rain
fall each year. (Boone gets 52 inches.) Most of the rain falls west of the
central ridge where Jerusalem sits. East is a steep escarpment down to the
central valley of the Jordan and Dead Sea – 4,000 feet in 14 miles. Little rain
falls there. But the rock formations bring some of the water that falls in the
west through the limestone to springs and pools to the east. The Dead Sea has
so much salt and minerals that swimmers can lie on their back, put chin up and
all four hands and feet in the air. “Father Abraham had many sons . . . .”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Four yards from the edge of the Dead Sea is a
fresh water swimming pool. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is sheep
and goat country, nomad country. Flocks move from spring to spring, well to
well. Scholars think Abraham was a nomad chieftain, living in a big tent. The
bible stories about Abraham fit into the Middle Bronze Age, about 1800 to 1500
years before Christ.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 16pt;">Abraham received God’s offer of blessing with
faith and trust. St. Paul reminds us, “The promise that he would inherit the
world” came to Abraham “through the righteousness of faith.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is</span><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 16pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;"> not what Abraham did, but what God does. God
offered the covenant to Abraham not based on what Abraham did, but what God
does. God offered, “</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">I will make my
covenant between me and you, and will make you exceedingly numerous. . . . You
shall be the ancestor of a multitude of nations</span><span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;"> <span lang="EN">.” The covenant with Abraham and
his descendants was God’s free gift of a relationship. <o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-size: 16pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Abraham had a choice. He could have rejected God’s offer. But Abraham fell
on his face in worship and acceptance. Sarah first doubted and then accepted
God’s offer of a son. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-size: 16pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">God offers us in Jesus Christ the same covenant of relationship that he
offered Abraham. We don’t have to be 99 years old; we don’t have to be
childless; we don’t have to be a nomad herder of sheep and goats in the Holy
Land. We are who we are; where we are, in the present time. We don’t have to
fall prostrate. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We have simply to open
our hands and our hearts to receive God’s love, and to allow that love to fill
us, and cleanse us of sin, and give us the truth and power of the Holy Spirit
to love and serve God, this day, and for the rest of our lives. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 16pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Father Abraham had many sons.
Many sons had Father Abraham. I am one of them and so are you, So let's all
praise the Lord.</span></i><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 16pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Right arm, then left arm, right
foot, left foot, chin up, turn around – love and serve! Amen. <span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-size: 16pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><o:p><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt;"><o:p><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></o:p></span></div>
Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13942919028086053295noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5272820439898383846.post-75596128977772776702018-01-31T07:07:00.000-08:002018-01-31T07:07:07.819-08:00Hospitality
<br />
<div class="MsoPlainText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt;">Epiphany
5B February 5, 2018</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoPlainText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt;">Some
years ago Lucy and I had a friend visit for 10 days recovery after an
automobile accident. It wasn't all that easy. The first few days she mostly
slept, but then she was up and around, and on the phone making arrangements,
and a fourth person at the table when you are accustomed to three takes some
getting used to. Everything went well, and Lucy did almost all the work, but I
have to admit some feeling of relief when our friend left. Nevertheless,
hospitality is a Christian virtue, and friendship includes caring about each
other, and I am glad that we were able to offer our friend hospitality.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoPlainText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt;">Hospitality
is a Christian virtue. In today's gospel after Jesus preached in the Capernaum synagogue
and healed a man possessed of an evil spirit Peter took him home for dinner. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoPlainText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt;">At
Capernaum archaeologists say a group of low stone walls are the remains of a
4th century church surrounding a first century house. The house is barely 20
feet on a side. You can imagine how hard it was for Peter's mother-in-law to be
sick with a fever and have these extra men arrive, particularly because you
don't cook on the Sabbath day; all the food has to be prepared the day before.
Husbands who have, once, brought an unexpected guest home to eat will
appreciate Simon's situation. His mother-in-law was sick. It took her some effort
to be gracious and hospitable. But Jesus responded to her need and to her
hospitality. "He came and took her by the hand, and lifted her up. Then
the fever left her, and she served them." They ate together.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoPlainText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt;">St.
Paul in Romans (12:13) commands us, "practice hospitality." St.
Peter's first Epistle (4.9) says "practice hospitality ungrudgingly,"
and the Epistle to the Hebrews (13:2) reminds us, "do not neglect to show
hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels
unawares." <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoPlainText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt;">The
Greek word here translated "hospitality," is philoxenia (like
Philadelphia, love of the brother) literally "love of the xenos,” the
stranger who becomes a guest. Anthropologists tell us that strangers are always
viewed with suspicion and even fear. All people, put in a strange situation,
with strange people, are fearful, cautious, and timid. Test this against your
own experience; think of a time when you were a stranger, whether it was the
first time in a foreign country, or a new town, or a new school. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt;">Strangers
are viewed at first with suspicion, even fear, but every society has developed
a way to move from suspicion and fear to knowledge and affection - and that is
the common meal. A stranger, received into table fellowship, becomes a guest,
perhaps even a friend. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoPlainText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt;">Jesus,
at table with his disciples at the Last Supper took bread and wine, blessed and
gave them, "This is my body and blood; do this in remembrance of me."
At Emmaus, Easter evening, "he was known to them in the breaking of the
bread." You can appreciate how important the Communion has been in the
life of the church as an effective sign of God's love and hospitality.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoPlainText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p> A</o:p><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt;">t
the communion rail we enjoy the Lord's hospitality. Here we can cease to be
strangers and become friends together. Here we receive new spiritual life. Here
Jesus takes us by the hand to lift us up from our beds of fever to serve the
living Lord. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoPlainText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt;">We
serve, among other ways, in hospitality, by greeting one another, by concern
for one another, by friendly encouragement, by inviting our friends and family
to join us at the Lord's Table. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoPlainText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt;">As
in church, so in the society. Our national government shut down briefly over
immigration . The Congress is negotiating over the “dreamers.” I offer some
history and invite you to pray. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoPlainText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt;">We
are a nation of immigrants. Henry Rightmyer came from Baden in southwestern
Germany to Reading, Pennsylvania, in 1743. He made wheels for a living. His
children and their children stayed there for 120 years; it makes family history
easy. My mother’s people came from northern Ireland, some in the 1850’s, some
in the 1880’s. Until 1891 there was no national immigration policy; the states
dealt with immigration issues. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some were
more welcoming than others. My mother’s family remember signs at construction
sites, NINA – No Irish Need Apply. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Through
most of the 19<sup>th</sup> century immigrants came from the British Isles and
northern Europe. In the late 19<sup>th</sup> and early 20<sup>th</sup> century
more immigrants came from southern and eastern Europe, Italians, Poles and
Hungarians, and Jews from western Russia. Resistance to immigration led in 1921
and 1924 to national immigration acts imposing quotas for each country, quotas
based on the percentage of immigrants from each country. Since most immigrants had
come from the British Isles and northern Europe, immigrants from those
countries had an easier time than people from other countries and other
continents. We’ve been tinkering with a quota system ever since. A 1934
immigration act allowed American citizens to bring in foreign spouses and minor
children. War brides were admitted in 1945, and the door has been nudged open
and nudged closed ever since. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoPlainText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt;">I
ask you to pray about immigration and to let the members of Congress know what
you think. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoPlainText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt;">And
as you pray, remember Peter’s mother-in-law who was healed by Jesus and got up
to serve her son-in-law’s friends. Give thanks to Jesus who welcomes us to
feast at his table. Amen. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13942919028086053295noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5272820439898383846.post-63731555297350510972018-01-27T17:33:00.007-08:002018-01-27T17:33:57.138-08:00Evil Spirits
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 11.25pt 48pt 0pt 0in; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Epiphany
4B Newland<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8.4pt; mso-line-height-alt: 12.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-outline-level: 3;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">This morning we prayed, “Bring
wholeness to all that is broken and speak truth to us in our confusion, that
all creation will see and know your Son, Jesus Christ, our Savior and
Lord.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">This Sunday and next Sunday our
Gospel readings tell us about the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry. Today
Jesus heals a man with an unclean spirit; next Sunday we will hear of the
healing of Peter’s mother-in-law and how Jesus “</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">cured many who were sick with various diseases, and cast out many
demons.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then after Lent and Easter we
return in June to more about Jesus’ public ministry of teaching and healing. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8.4pt; mso-line-height-alt: 12.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-outline-level: 3;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt;">Ash
Wednesday we’ll meet at 6:00 PM for a bilingual service from the Prayer Book in
English and Spanish. This year our Palm Sunday service will be from Evangelical
Lutheran Worship and the Easter Day service from the Book of Common Prayer.
Next year reverses: Palm Sunday from the Prayer Book, Easter Day from the <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>ELW. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-size: 16pt;">In
today’s gospel we hear, “</span><span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">. Just then there was in their synagogue a man with an
unclean spirit, and he cried out . . .” We have lots of unclean spirits in the
church and in the society. Jesus “brings wholeness to all that is broken and
Jesus speaks truth to us in our confusion.” Wholeness and truth are
connected.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Wholeness is brought by
truth. And as St. John reminds us in 8:32 and 16:13 that the truth makes us
free and that the spirit of truth will guide us into all truth. About half the
congregations I know of have suffered some kind of serious misconduct by clergy
or lay leaders. Sexual misconduct, stealing money, misuse of power, malicious
gossip, all these evil spirits are found in the church and in the society. Penn
State, Hollywood, the American gymnastics organization, our political life, all
of these have recently shown the presence and the power of evil spirits. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8.4pt; mso-line-height-alt: 12.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-outline-level: 3;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Last week Rachel Denhollander
testified at the sentencing hearing of Dr. Larry Nassar. Nassar had been
convicted the Michigan court of sexually abusing her and other young girls. The
transcript of her testimony is on line. You can read it after church. Her
report of misconduct by the doctor and by university and gymnastic association
leadership is horrifying. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">But
the testimony is also a word of grace. This is part of what Rachel Denhollander
said in court directly to her abuser, “<span style="color: #262626; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">The Bible you speak carries a final judgment where all of God's wrath
and eternal terror is poured out on men like you. Should you ever reach the
point of truly facing what you have done, the guilt will be crushing. And that
is what makes the gospel of Christ so sweet. Because it extends grace and hope
and mercy where none should be found. And it will be there for you. I pray you
experience the soul crushing weight of guilt so you may someday experience true
repentance and true forgiveness from God, which you need far more than forgiveness
from me -- though I extend that to you as well.” <o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="color: #262626; font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The truth sets us free. It appears to
have set Rachel Denhollander free. The truth will set us free. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="color: #262626; font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In your bulletin today are letters
from Bishop Jose McLoughlin and from the Presiding Bishop and the President of
the House of Deputies of the Episcopal Church. They call us “</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">to create a church that is not simply safe, but holy,
humane and decent. We must commit to treating every person as a child of God,
deserving of dignity and respect.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt;">Evil spirits do not come out
easily. Conflict and trouble have come along with the progress we have made
toward holy, humane, and decent treatment of all people regardless of race,
sex, language. We have a ways to go. But Jesus who set free the man in the
synagogue in Capernaum works by his spirit of truth in each of us, in the
church and in the society, to set us free to love and serve our Lord.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13942919028086053295noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5272820439898383846.post-29731705595438935932018-01-27T17:31:00.005-08:002018-01-27T17:31:43.532-08:00Bishops letters on sexual abuse
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;">The Diocese of
Western North Carolina<span style="mso-tab-count: 3;"> </span></span></b><span style="font-size: large;">January
24, 2018<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: large;">My Brothers and Sisters in Christ,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">On January 22, Presiding Bishop Michael Curry and the Rev.
Gay Clark Jennings, president of the House of Deputies, called on all people to
examine and repent the many ways in which our Church has been complicit in the
marginalization and victimization of women.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: large;">In </span><a href="http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?f=001wJIxXwuRp1TypI-nui90-AfkfCooRkA9604kLU6wNgycfNkiP2Ad0ipF743XNYO9xZHfmhNN0niu5frwnIaeDyGJ4hkMiDpF8BG1PngFzEPtmJrpvUrVnnxtFRZ3u6xIjDsB7wgG1nAgDHGd1CCzAHwPPN69DC3JK_7NGcZ7r00CPWLwG2Q_oojRbxDhb8W1HkEHPUEPxFtt7CuWeen7_fWEKo2B2qz9YSBAhZ9Ly9GV5rPbKgNX6A6B-AzqMC8yr5GaG5Mt1AwrSYl6478c964MZV1NFfWVW7qHjLCB0Q4mfAQgYHkUAHb_8qX8LsP1q8nIG7lOQCA=&c=FWvoQUUwXCrKvqPWZeky3pxQ_YGRtcTbSi9k2-QtJBhGo1d6MXq1xg==&ch=q7_p1Wc1wf5KdUO3H16spzkB276zBjRccIzaIfy0IYRzG6PCbTA7og==" target="_blank"><span style="color: windowtext;"><span style="font-size: large;">the letter</span></span></a><span style="font-size: large;">, they
write, "As our societies have been forced into fresh recognition that
women in all walks of life have suffered unspoken trauma at the hands of male
aggressors and harassers, we have become convinced that the Episcopal Church
must work even harder to create a church that is not simply safe, but holy,
humane and decent."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Indeed, our Lord counted among his disciples several women,
and the Gospels record that women were the first to encounter the resurrected
Jesus and were the first evangelists. Clearly, he honored, valued and empowered
women as vital participating members of his community. As such we, too, are
called to advocate for the safety, protection and equality of all women and
girls, our sisters in Christ.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: large;">I therefore invite everyone to read and reflect on
Bishop Curry and the Rev. Jenning's </span><a href="http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?f=001wJIxXwuRp1TypI-nui90-AfkfCooRkA9604kLU6wNgycfNkiP2Ad0ipF743XNYO9xZHfmhNN0niu5frwnIaeDyGJ4hkMiDpF8BG1PngFzEPtmJrpvUrVnnxtFRZ3u6xIjDsB7wgG1nAgDHGd1CCzAHwPPN69DC3JK_7NGcZ7r00CPWLwG2Q_oojRbxDhb8W1HkEHPUEPxFtt7CuWeen7_fWEKo2B2qz9YSBAhZ9Ly9GV5rPbKgNX6A6B-AzqMC8yr5GaG5Mt1AwrSYl6478c964MZV1NFfWVW7qHjLCB0Q4mfAQgYHkUAHb_8qX8LsP1q8nIG7lOQCA=&c=FWvoQUUwXCrKvqPWZeky3pxQ_YGRtcTbSi9k2-QtJBhGo1d6MXq1xg==&ch=q7_p1Wc1wf5KdUO3H16spzkB276zBjRccIzaIfy0IYRzG6PCbTA7og==" target="_blank"><span style="color: windowtext;"><span style="font-size: large;">letter</span></span></a><span style="font-size: large;"> and then to
talk about the implications for our ministry and mission in your parish. It is
my hope that we all take part in an Ash Wednesday Day of Prayer on February 14,
"devoted to meditating on the ways in which we in the church have failed
to stand with women and other victims of abuse and harassment and to consider,
as part of our Lenten disciplines, how we can redouble our work to be
communities of safety that stand against the spiritual and physical violence of
sexual exploitation and abuse."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: large;">It is so very important that we join together in prayerful
reflection and recommit ourselves to the holy work of standing up against and
eradicating exploitation and abuse of all God's children.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="MsoNormalTable" style="mso-cellspacing: 0in; mso-padding-alt: 0in 0in 0in 0in; mso-yfti-tbllook: 1184; width: 184px;">
<tbody>
<tr style="mso-yfti-firstrow: yes; mso-yfti-irow: 0; mso-yfti-lastrow: yes;">
<td style="background-color: transparent; border: rgb(0, 0, 0); padding: 0in; width: 100%;" width="100%">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></o:p></div>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Faithfully,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: large;">The Rt. Rev. José A. McLoughlin , </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: large;">VII Bishop of Western
North Carolina<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;">The Episcopal Church
– The Presiding Bishop and the President of the House of Deputies<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Dear People of God in the Episcopal Church:<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span><span style="font-size: large;">January 22, 2018<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: large;">In recent weeks, compelling testimony from women who have
been sexually harassed and assaulted by powerful men has turned our minds to a
particularly difficult passage of holy scripture: the story of the rape
of King David’s daughter Tamar by her half-brother Amnon (2 Samuel 13: 1-22).
It is a passage in which a conspiracy of men plots the exploitation and rape of
a young woman. She is stripped of the power to speak or act, her father ignores
the crime, and the fate of the rapist, not the victim, is mourned. It is a
Bible story devoid of justice.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: large;">For more than two decades, African women from marginalized
communities have studied this passage of scripture using a method called
contextual Bible study to explore and speak about the trauma of sexual assault
in their own lives. Using </span><a href="http://ujamaa.ukzn.ac.za/Libraries/manuals/Tamar_Campaign_Contextual_Bible_Study_Manual_-_English_Version.sflb.ashx" target="_blank"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">a manual</span></span></a><span style="font-size: large;"> published by the </span><a href="http://www.fecclaha.org/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&layout=item&id=57&Itemid=202" target="_blank"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">Tamar Campaign</span></span></a><span style="font-size: large;">, they ask, “What can the Church do to break the
silence against gender-based violence?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: large;">It is, as the old-time preachers say, a convicting question.
As our societies have been forced into fresh recognition that women in all
walks of life have suffered unspoken trauma at the hands of male aggressors and
harassers, we have become convinced that the Episcopal Church must work even
harder to create a church that is not simply safe, but holy, humane and decent.
We must commit to treating every person as a child of God, deserving of dignity
and respect. We must also commit to ending the systemic sexism, misogyny and
misuse of power that plague the church just as they corrupt our culture, institutions
and governments.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Like our African siblings in faith, we must create contexts
in which women can speak of their unspoken trauma, whether suffered within the
church or elsewhere. And we must do more.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Our church must examine its history and come to a fuller
understanding of how it has handled or mishandled cases of sexual harassment,
exploitation and abuse through the years. When facts dictate, we must confess
and repent of those times when the church, its ministers or its members have
been antagonistic or unresponsive to people—women, children and men—who have
been sexually exploited or abused. And we must acknowledge that in our church
and in our culture, the sexual exploitation of women is part of the same unjust
system that also causes gender gaps in pay, promotion, health and empowerment.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">We believe that each of us has a role to play in our
collective repentance. And so, today, we invite you to join us in an Ash
Wednesday Day of Prayer on February 14 devoted to meditating on the ways in
which we in the church have failed to stand with women and other victims of
abuse and harassment and to consider, as part of our Lenten disciplines, how we
can redouble our work to be communities of safety that stand against the
spiritual and physical violence of sexual exploitation and abuse.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Neither of us professes to have all of the wisdom necessary
to change the culture of our church and the society in which it ministers, and
at this summer’s General Convention, we want to hear the voice of the wider
church as we determine how to proceed in both atoning for the church’s past and
shaping a more just future. May we find in our deliberations opportunities to
listen to one another, to be honest about our own failings and brokenness, and
to discern prayerfully the ways that God is calling us to stand with Tamar in
all of the places we find her—both inside the church and beyond our doors,
which we have too often used to shut her out.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Faithfully, <span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: large;">The Most Rev. Michael B. Curry, Presiding Bishop<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">The Rev. Gay Clark Jennings President, House of Deputies<o:p></o:p></span><br />
Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13942919028086053295noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5272820439898383846.post-42673103158409598562018-01-19T16:57:00.006-08:002018-01-19T16:57:55.739-08:00Epiphany 3 Jesus Calls Us<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><strong> </strong><span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Now
when John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of
God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near;
repent, and believe in the good news.” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Three points: “The time is fulfilled. The
kingdom of God has come near. Repent, and believe in the good news.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 11.25pt 48pt 0pt 0in; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The
time is fulfilled. All of human history prepared for a day on a lake shore, the
shore of a fresh water lake between Egypt and Syria, near the main road between
Africa and Asia, a lake big enough to support commercial fishing, 64 square
miles, 13 by 8 miles, the lowest freshwater lake on earth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>God is not only God the creator of all that
is; God is creator of particular things and particular people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 11.25pt 48pt 0pt 0in; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Human
history began in in east Africa about 200,000 years ago. People moved to Egypt
and Mesopotamia to about 50,000 years ago. We began to farm about 10,000 years
ago, began to use metal tools and write things down about 5,000 years ago. Abraham
lived about 1500 years before Christ, the Exodus was about 1250 years before
Christ, David about 1000, the Assyrian conquest of the northern kingdom 722. The
Babylonian exile began in 586 and formally ended in 538 when Cyrus the Persia
set the exiles free to return. Alexander the Great conquered from Greece to
India to Egypt around 333. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In 165 the
Maccabean revolt brought the rededication of the Jerusalem Temple - celebrated at
Hanukkah. Jesus knew Roman military occupation. all of human history prepared
for a day on a lake shore. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 11.25pt 48pt 0pt 0in; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The
time is fulfilled. Every day God’s time is fulfilled. Every day someone is born
and someone dies. Under the Deerfield main staircase sits a green marble topped
French Provincial chest of drawers. On it are placed framed pictures of
residents when they die. Living residents irreverently call it the check-out
counter. For each of us every day our time to come to love and serve our Lord
Jesus Christ is fulfilled. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 11.25pt 48pt 0pt 0in; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The
kingdom of God has come near. The kingdom has come near. The kingdom is not
here. In every age we face the temptation to over-identify our wills with the
will of God. The kingdom of God includes all God’s children who love and serve
him, all of us who claim our place in God’s kingdom by conversion and baptism. In
the life and teachings of Jesus, in his death and resurrection, God’s kingdom
draws near. As we come to the communion rail we claim again the place in God’s
kingdom Jesus has secured for us by his death on the cross and his resurrection
from the empty tomb. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 11.25pt 48pt 0pt 0in; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">We
claim that place as we obey Jesus’ command to repent and believe the good news.
As Martin Luther reminded us we are justified and forgiven sinners – <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">simul justus et peccator.</i> We rejoice in
the good news that in Jesus Christ God forgives our sins and sets us right with
him. We are assured by St. John 3:16 “</span><span class="text"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">For God so loved the world, that he gave his only
begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have
everlasting life.</span><span style="font-size: large;">” That is the proclamation of the good news.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<span class="text"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Christians are often right
in what we affirm, but we get into trouble when we try to deny. Preachers who
affirm salvation by grace received through faith are frequently tempted also to
a false negative. If all who believe are saved, then what about those who do
not believe? The natural human response is to say that those who do not believe
are damned. But the natural human response is wrong. The Bible does not condemn.
In St. Matthew 5:11-12 , Jesus says “Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you,
and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my
sake.</span> <sup> </sup>Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your
reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.</span>”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The most we can say about those who do not
believe is that they do not believe. We have to leave the state of their souls
to the mercy and love of God. <o:p></o:p><br />
<br />
<span class="text"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Jesus went on to call his
first four apostles: Peter and Andrew, James and John. As we will sing in the
Hymn of the Day, “Jesus calls us.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 16pt;">“The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of
God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span><br />
Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13942919028086053295noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5272820439898383846.post-44763423700306457532018-01-19T16:54:00.000-08:002018-01-19T16:54:13.687-08:00Epiphany 3B Jesus Calls Us<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><br clear="all" style="mso-special-character: line-break; page-break-before: always;" />
<span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><strong> </strong><span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Now
when John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of
God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near;
repent, and believe in the good news.” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Three points: “The time is fulfilled. The
kingdom of God has come near. Repent, and believe in the good news.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The
time is fulfilled. All of human history prepared for a day on a lake shore, the
shore of a fresh water lake between Egypt and Syria, near the main road between
Africa and Asia, a lake big enough to support commercial fishing, 64 square
miles, 13 by 8 miles, the lowest freshwater lake on earth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>God is not only God the creator of all that
is; God is creator of particular things and particular people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 11.25pt 48pt 0pt 0in; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Human
history began in in east Africa about 200,000 years ago. People moved to Egypt
and Mesopotamia to about 50,000 years ago. We began to farm about 10,000 years
ago, began to use metal tools and write things down about 5,000 years ago. Abraham
lived about 1500 years before Christ, the Exodus was about 1250 years before
Christ, David about 1000, the Assyrian conquest of the northern kingdom 722. The
Babylonian exile began in 586 and formally ended in 538 when Cyrus the Persia
set the exiles free to return. Alexander the Great conquered from Greece to
India to Egypt around 333. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In 165 the
Maccabean revolt brought the rededication of the Jerusalem Temple - celebrated at
Hanukkah. Jesus knew Roman military occupation. ll of human history prepared
for a day on a lake shore. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 11.25pt 48pt 0pt 0in; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The
time is fulfilled. Every day God’s time is fulfilled. Every day someone is born
and someone dies. Under the Deerfield main staircase sits a green marble topped
French Provincial chest of drawers. On it are placed framed pictures of
residents when they die. Living residents irreverently call it the check-out
counter. For each of us every day our time to come to love and serve our Lord
Jesus Christ is fulfilled. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 11.25pt 48pt 0pt 0in; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The
kingdom of God has come near. The kingdom has come near. The kingdom is not
here. In every age we face the temptation to over-identify our wills with the
will of God. The kingdom of God includes all God’s children who love and serve
him, all of us who claim our place in God’s kingdom by conversion and baptism. In
the life and teachings of Jesus, in his death and resurrection, God’s kingdom
draws near. As we come to the communion rail we claim again the place in God’s
kingdom Jesus has secured for us by his death on the cross and his resurrection
from the empty tomb. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 11.25pt 48pt 0pt 0in; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">We
claim that place as we obey Jesus’ command to repent and believe the good news.
As Martin Luther reminded us we are justified and forgiven sinners – <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">simul justus et peccator.</i> We rejoice in
the good news that in Jesus Christ God forgives our sins and sets us right with
him. We are assured by St. John 3:16 “</span><span class="text"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">For God so loved the world, that he gave his only
begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have
everlasting life.</span><span style="font-size: large;">” That is the proclamation of the good news.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<span class="text"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Christians are often right
in what we affirm, but we get into trouble when we try to deny. Preachers who
affirm salvation by grace received through faith are frequently tempted also to
a false negative. If all who believe are saved, then what about those who do
not believe? The natural human response is to say that those who do not believe
are damned. But the natural human response is wrong. The Bible does not condemn.
In St. Matthew 5:11-12 , Jesus says “Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you,
and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my
sake.</span> <sup> </sup>Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your
reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.</span>”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The most we can say about those who do not
believe is that they do not believe. We have to leave the state of their souls
to the mercy and love of God. <o:p></o:p><br />
<br />
<span class="text"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Jesus went on to call his
first four apostles: Peter and Andrew, James and John. As we will sing in the
Hymn of the Day, “Jesus calls us.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 16pt;">“The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of
God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span><br />
Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13942919028086053295noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5272820439898383846.post-56864976383258982522018-01-13T14:34:00.002-08:002018-01-13T14:34:59.316-08:00Epphany 2 Knowledge<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 48pt 0pt 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Today’s Scripture readings have in common the theme of God’s knowledge. The God who made us loves us, and the God who made us knows us, knows us better than we know ourselves, better than anyone or anything else in all creation knows us. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Nathanael asked Jesus, “Where did you get to know me?” Jesus answered, “I saw you under the fig tree before Philip called you.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 48pt 0pt 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In Jesus’ time and since “under the fig tree” had become a metaphor for bible study and prayer. In I Kings 4:25 during Solomon’s time “Israel and Judah dwelt in safety, every man under his vine and fig tree.” Micah 4:4 in God’s kingdom “they shall sit every man under his vine and his fig tree, and none shall make them afraid, for the mouth of the Lord of hosts has spoken.” And Zechariah 3:9-10 “I the Lord of hosts will remove the guilt of this land in a single day. In that day every one of you will invite his neighbor under his vine and his fig tree.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When Jesus said, “I saw you under the fig tree” everyone – except maybe us – knew that Jesus knew Nathanael in prayer and study. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 48pt 0pt 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">We have the witness of the Collect for Purity. “Almighty God, unto whom all hearts are open, all desires know, and from whom no secrets are hid: Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of thy Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly love thee, and worthily magnify thy name, through Jesus Christ our Lord.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 48pt 0pt 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">God knew Eli the priest and priest sons Hophni and Phineas. Eli was a godly man but old and weak. I Samuel 2:12 says Hophni and Phineas “were worthless and had no regard for the Lord.” God knew Hannah’s sorrow at having no children, and God knew how her co-wife Peninnah provoked her for that reason. God heard Hannah’s vow to lend her son, if she had one, to the Lord’s service, and God sent her Samuel. Samuel grew up with Eli and Hophni and Phineas, but he did not know the Lord. But Eli did know the Lord, and Eli was an honest man. When Samuel reported the Lord’s judgment on Eli and his house, Eli accepted God’s judgment. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 48pt 0pt 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The Psalmist witnesses that the Lord who made us knows us, knows all of us from our conception. The Lord surrounds us and lays his hand on us. God knows each of us better than we know ourselves. Part of the joy of life is the joy of self-discovery, learning what we can do that we didn’t think we could do, learning how to experience and to share God’s love for us, learning also what we shouldn’t do and what we can’t do but must leave to others. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 48pt 0pt 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The church in Corinth had heard the good news that Jesus’ death and resurrection had set them free from sin and had lifted from them the burden of the ceremonial law of Moses. But this knowledge of freedom is not unlimited. Rather than the external law of the Torah, Christians take on the internal obligation of self-control. Paul commands the Corinthian Christians to shun prostitution.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He reminds them, and us, that our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, that we were freed from the need to sin only by the shed blood of Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit, the spirit of truth, will give us knowledge of God’s truth, and the Holy Spirit, the spirit of power, will empower us to do the truth we are given to know.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 48pt 0pt 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">John’s Gospel opens and closes with knowledge and with skepticism. When Philip tells Nathanael of Jesus of Nazareth, Nathanel’s skeptical response is, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>City people in the Roman Empire looked down on country people and called them “pagans.” In Jesus’ time Nazareth was a country village about 4 miles southeast of Sepphoris, the major town of central Galilee. Sepphoris was excavated in the 1990’s by a team from Duke. But when Jesus shows his knowledge “I saw you under the fig tree,” Nathanael comes to faith, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 48pt 0pt 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The parallel account is at the end of John’s Gospel. Thomas was not present when the resurrected Jesus first appeared to the disciples. He said, “</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe." A week later when Jesus said, “Put your finger here . . . reach out your hand . . . Do not doubt but believe.” Thomas answered him, "My Lord and my God!" Jesus said to him, "Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” </span><span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 48pt 0pt 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The God who made us loves us, and the God who made us knows us, knows us better than we know ourselves, better than anyone or anything else in all creation knows us. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So let us rejoice that God knows us, and loves us, and calls us to love and serve our Lord Jesus Christ. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13942919028086053295noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5272820439898383846.post-59015189392902416112018-01-05T09:19:00.003-08:002018-01-05T09:19:30.551-08:00Epiphany 1 Baptism
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 15pt;">The
beginning of Jesus’ earthly ministry is the theme of the gospel readings on the
Sundays after Epiphany, first his baptism and then the call of the apostles and
Jesus’ ministry in Galilee. We break for Lent and Easter and resume after
Trinity Sunday. This morning for the Creed we will reaffirm our Baptismal
Covenant (page 292). The Covenant has 8 questions: 3 expect the answer “I believe”
and 5 expect “I will, with God’s help.” The 3 “I believe” questions repeat the
Apostles’ Creed. The 5 “I will with God’s help” questions ask: (1) Will you
continue, (2) Will you persevere, (3) Will you proclaim, (4) Will you seek and
serve, and (5) Will you strive? <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To all 5
questions we answer “I will with God’s help.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 15pt;">God
has made <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>many covenants with God’s
people – Genesis 9 the rainbow covenant with Noah and his descendants, Genesis
12-17 the covenant with Abraham and his descendants, Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy the
10 Commandments covenant with Moses and Israel, 2 Samuel 7 the kingdom covenant
with David. Jeremiah <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>31:30 tells of
God’s promise of a new covenant. And Christians see the Lord’s Supper as the
sign of the New Covenant in Jesus’ blood. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 15pt;">Both
the Prayer Book Catechism (pp 844-862) and Luther’s Shorter Catechism<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(1160-1167 in ELW) teach about the Creed, the
“I believe.” Today let’s look at the 5 questions to which the expected answer
is, “I will with God’s help.” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 15pt;">We
all know from our experience with New Year’s resolutions that human will alone
cannot accomplish many results. But God gives us the grace of the Holy Spirit first
to know God’s Truth and second in the Power of the Holy Spirit to accomplish God’s
truth. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 15pt;">The
first of the 5 “I will with God’s help” questions is about life in the church. “Will
you continue in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of
bread, and in the prayers?” Four interrelated parts of church life: teaching
and learning, fellowship, holy communion, prayer. All four are important. We
both are and are not solitary Christians. We are born alone but we are born into
a family, into a biological family and into a church family, born into shared
life and heritage. We will die alone, and by Christ’s resurrection we will be
born again into a family “with angels and archangels, and all the company of
heaven.” So we pray with and for one another, we share in broken bread and
wine, we share in chili and cornbread. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 15pt;">The
first question is continue, the second is persevere. “Will you persevere in
resisting evil, and, whenever you fall into sin, repent and return to the Lord?”
The temptation to give up is ever with us. Being a Christian takes courage.
Owning up to our failures takes courage and humility. In the 12 Step programs
people speak of “the great river of Egypt” Denial. Denial is easy; confession
is hard – and healing. God gives us people who love us who help us know when we
have done wrong, people who receive us with God’s love when we “repent and
return to the Lord.” Jesus taught us in a prayer to say, “forgive us our sins
or trespasses or debts as we forgive those who sin or trespass against <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>or owe us.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 15pt;">Continue,
persevere, proclaim. “Will you proclaim by word and example the Good News of
God in Christ?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Christ has died; Christ
is risen; Christ will come again.” “God so loved the world, <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>that he gave his only begotten Son, that
whosoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” To St.
Francis of Assisi is attributed, “Preach the gospel, when necessary use words.”
There is no record he said that. The closest record is from the Franciscan Rule
of 1221, Chapter 12, “All the Friars should preach by their deeds.” We need to
be clear in our own minds what we are doing and for whom we are doing it, and why,
and then be prepared to speak of God’s saving grace. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 15pt;">Continue,
persevere, proclaim, seek and serve. “Will you seek and serve Christ in all
persons, loving your neighbor as yourself?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I’ve been told, “Jesus calls us to love our neighbors and our enemies,
because frequently they are the same people.” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My mother used to say, “We are all examples to
one another; some of us are good examples.” <u>God made us all</u>. It is easy
to discount people; it is sometimes hard to recognize God’s love in other
people, particularly when they are so wrong about so many things. But the love
of God for us calls us to love one another, to love with his love.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 15pt;">Finally,
“Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the
dignity of every human being?” We can agree on the goal of justice and peace.
We are free to differ in conscience on the means by which justice and peace are
to be accomplished. We may well strive for different political candidates, but
we are all called to respect the dignity of every human being. I read the
Washington Post on line, and have become aware recently of some of the
differences of opinion <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>inside the
Beltway. It is easier to respect the dignity of some people than others, but
our covenant is to respect the dignity of all. As a society we have made some
progress, some progress in respecting the dignity of people who look different
from us, progress in respecting the dignity of gay people. In the last few
months our society has become more aware how common is sexual misbehavior and how
common rare attitudes that do not respect women’s dignity. We have a way to go
in respecting the dignity of every human being. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 15pt;">By
ourselves, in our own strength, we cannot, but with God’s help we can. So let
us thank God for his grace, God’s grace shown us in Jesus’ baptism, God’s grace
poured out on us in our own baptisms, the grace of God’s Holy Spirit who strengthens
us in prayer, in Bible study, and in this sacrament of Christ’s body and blood.
God’s grace in Jesus Christ is shown forth in his baptism, in our baptisms, and
in the body of all baptized people. God’s grace sustains us in this life and
the life to come. Amen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13942919028086053295noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5272820439898383846.post-80500010056597896952017-12-30T05:49:00.001-08:002017-12-30T05:49:07.244-08:00Christmas 1 Nunc dimittis
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Christmas
1 Dec. 31, 2017 Nunc dimittis<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“Simeon
took the baby Jesus in his arms and praised God, saying,” <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In
peace and joy I now depart as God is willing,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">And
faith fills all my mind and heart, calming, stilling,<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">God
the Lord has promised me that death is but a slumber.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Christ
Jesus makes the way for me, my gracious Savior,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">With
eyes of faith and trust I see God’s great favor.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">When
this life comes to an end my hope is God’s embracing.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The
Lord is health and saving light for every nation,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Dispelling
shadows of the night with salvation: <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Israel’s
praise and hope’s delight, my treasure, joy, and glory. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">That’s
hymn 440 in the red Evangelical Lutheran Worship hymnal. It is an English
translation of Martin Luther’s German metrical version of the Simeon’s song of
praise. Luther wrote both text and tune for the February 2, 1524 feast of the
Purification. It was published in 1524 and included in a 1542 set of chants for
funerals. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The
traditional Prayer Book version has:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according
to thy word; For mine eyes have seen thy salvation, which thou hast prepared
before the face of all people, To be a light to lighten the Gentiles, <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and to be the glory of thy people Israel.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Psalm
119 verse 164 says, “Seven times a day do I praise you, because of your
righteous judgments.” The early church continued and adapted the customs of Jewish
daily prayer. As an Augustinian monk Luther learned the medieval pattern of
corporate prayer 7 times a day. Simeon’s canticle was sung at the Compline
service just before bed. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Many
parish churches were served by monks In those churches the 4 major services were
combined into two - morning and evening. The <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Magnificat from Vespers and <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Nunc dimittis from Compline are sung in
Evening Prayer. The Nunc dimittis is also part of the extensive concluding
prayers of the Eastern Orthodox liturgy. And when some Reformation northern
German Lutherans began to chant the Nunc dimittis as a post-communion devotion it
went viral. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Nunc dimittis is a
popular part of many Lutheran liturgies. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">We
read that “Simeon was righteous and devout, looking forward to the consolation
of Israel, and the Holy Spirit rested on him.” As children of Adam and Eve, we
are not by nature either righteous or devout. But God works in and through us
to fit us for his love and service in this world and the world to come. Thanks
be to God who imputes his righteousness to us and who draws by his love and
beauty into devotion to his love and beauty.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Simeon
looked for the consolation of Israel. The consolation of Israel has come in the
birth of Jesus Christ. The sin of the world has been defeated on the cross.
Jesus’ resurrection offers new life to all who will believe.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">What
do we look for today?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What do we hope
for today? Many of us spent some time this Christmas with family. We look and
hope for the continued blessing of our family relationships, for their good health
and ours, for reasonable prosperity for all. As a Christian I look and hope for
continued growth in God’s love and service, and for opportunities to show God’s
love in service. As a citizen I look for fuller expression of the declaration
of the Pledge of Allegiance, “one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty
and justice for all.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">As
we prepare for the new year, I invite you to consider, “What do I look for? What
do I hope for?” Ask God to show you his particular will for your particular
situation. And when God does show you what to look for and hope for, then ask
for the truth and power of the Holy Spirit to do God’s will in your life and in
our community. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Simeon
prayed, “</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Lord, now lettest thou thy
servant depart in peace, according to thy word.” We will all eventually depart
this life. God grant we also may depart in peace, trusting in God’s word Jesus.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Simeon
concluded, “for my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in
the presence of all peoples, a light to lighten the Gentiles and the glory of
thy people Israel.” The God who made us loves us; he so loved the world that he
sent his only begotten Son, that “</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">whosoever
believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” Whosover – all
people, rich and poor, English speakers and Spanish speakers, whosoever. May God
give us grace and opportunity to share the good news of the gospel this day and
this year. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt;">This morning in Holy
Communion we see the salvation secured to us in Jesus’ death and resurrection,
as we obey his command to “do this in remembrance of me.” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt;">So with Simeon and Christians
in every age since, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In
peace and joy I now depart as God is willing,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">And
faith fills all my mind and heart, calming, stilling,<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">God
the Lord has promised me that death is but a slumber.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 8pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p> </o:p><span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Christ
Jesus makes the way for me, my gracious Savior,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">With
eyes of faith and trust I see God’s great favor.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">When
this life comes to an end my hope is God’s embracing.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 8pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p> </o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The
Lord is health and saving light for every nation,<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Dispelling
shadows of the night with salvation: <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Israel’s
praise and hope’s delight, my treasure, joy, and glory. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13942919028086053295noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5272820439898383846.post-28960634056287362682017-12-15T17:12:00.006-08:002017-12-15T17:12:43.387-08:00Know Jesus
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 48pt 0pt 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Advent 3 B 17</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 48pt 0pt 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">John said, “I baptize with water.
Among you stands one whom you do not know, the one who is coming after me . .
.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 48pt 0pt 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">On December 8, 1941 Japan invaded
the Philippines. After the fall of Corregidor <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>May 2, 1942 they interned more than 3,000
civilians, Americans, British, and others in classroom buildings at the University
of St. Thomas in Manilla. Interning foreign nationals is common in war time. Some
Germans spent parts of 1917 and 1918 at Hot Springs, NC. From 1942-45 the
United States interned more than 110,000 people of Japanese ancestry, even
though 62% of them were American citizens. Canada interned about 21,000 people,
2/3 of whom had been born in Canada. We have a friend at Deerfield who was
interned as a young child. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 48pt 0pt 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I tell you all this to introduce an
internment Christmas story I once heard.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Over the bed an internee had hung a crucifix and on a table below had
made a crèche with sticks and scraps of cloth. A Japanese guard pointed questioningly
at the figure of the child in the manger and was told, “Jesus.” Then the guard
pointed at the crucifix and was told, “Jesus.” He put his hands together,
bowed, and said, “So sorry!” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 48pt 0pt 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">This same Jesus whose birth we
remember at Christmas is our crucified and risen Lord, our crucified and risen
Lord whom we love and serve. We love him, we serve him, but do we know
him?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In St. John’s gospel we read how
John the Baptist, as he was questioned by the Jewish authorities, spoke to the
crowd, “I baptize with water. Among you stands one whom you do not know, the
one who is coming after me . . .”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 48pt 0pt 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Do we know Jesus?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Is it as true for us as it was for those who
heard John the Baptist, that Jesus is “one whom you do not know, the one who is
coming after me . . .”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Bishop Tim Smith of the NC Synod wrote this
year in an Advent meditation, “</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">A simple
philosophical exercise: “Who am I?” Immediately we must ask, in order to answer
that, “Who tells me who I am?” The answer to that second question is everybody,
from parents to teachers to pastors to politicians to advertisers and more.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 48pt 0pt 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt;">We
know a lot about Jesus, the babe in the manger, the </span><span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">crucified
and risen Lord, the itinerant preacher whose teachings reveal God to us. Jesus
wants us to know him. He stands at the doors of our life waiting for our
invitation to come in. When we open the door of faith he does come in and makes
himself known.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So in the quiet times I
encourage you to get to know Jesus as Jesus makes himself known to you. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 48pt 0pt 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">As you get to know him, be alert to
Jesus as John spoke of him, “one among you whom you do not know.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>First semester in seminary we were assigned
Albert Schweitzer’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Quest of the
Historical Jesus</i>. Schweitzer was born in 1875, a Lutheran pastor’s son from
Alsace, a gifted organist interpreter and biographer of Johan Sebastian Bach.
He was a theologian, ordained, and later served as a medical missionary in west
Africa In 1952 he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. He died at his hospital in
Gabon, west Africa, in 1965.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 48pt 0pt 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Quest of the Historical Jesus</i> examines
all the 19<sup>th</sup> century biographies of Jesus and shows how much the
Jesus they portray looks like the <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>biographer. Then Schweitzer wrote a biography
that looks like Schweitzer. Every biography of Jesus since tells us much about
the writer. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 48pt 0pt 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">We want to believe in a Jesus who is
like us. But Jesus calls us to be like him. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 48pt 0pt 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">As you get to know Jesus in your
prayers and meditations and Bible study be alert to the strangeness of Jesus,
be alert to the ways he is different, be alert to the ways Jesus calls us out
of spiritual comfort into new life. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 48pt 0pt 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">John said, “I baptize with water.
Among you stands one whom you do not know, the one who is coming after me . .
.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13942919028086053295noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5272820439898383846.post-42543236091349192532017-12-06T05:29:00.003-08:002017-12-06T05:29:58.151-08:00Hope and Isaiah
<br />
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Advent 2B 2017 Newland<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>We are called to be people of hope, people who trust in the
love and mercy of God, in all our life, in this world and the world to come. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The Book of the Prophet Isaiah has 66 chapters. The first 39
chapters tell of the last days of the southern kingdom of Judah. Then Jerusalem
was captured, the Temple destroyed, and the leaders of the people taken into
exile in Babylon 586 years before Christ. Two generations later Babylon fell to
the Persians, who allowed Jews to return to Jerusalem. Gradually they did so
and the last 27 chapters of Isaiah tell God’s word to the returning exiles. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The Jews who returned had heard from their parents and
grandparents of the land of milk and honey, the beauty of the Temple, the joy
of living in Judah. Our children and grandchildren occasionally ask us about
the past, and we all tend to describe the good parts. Going back to places
where we lived as children is always a shock. The houses and the rooms are much
smaller than we remember them. So we can imagine some of the returning exiles’
reactions, particularly from the reluctant spouses. “What have you gotten us
into? This is not like grandmother described it. This “homecoming” idea is a
big mistake. We’re being punished like our grandparents were. We should have
stayed in Babylon.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They forgot that
their ancestors in the desert said the same things about Egypt. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>To this dispirited group, the word of the Lord comes by
Isaiah, “Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to
Jerusalem, and cry to her that she has served her term, that her penalty is paid,
that she has received from the LORD's hand double for all her sins.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The penalty has been paid. By his death on the cross Jesus
paid the penalty for the sins of the whole world, and for our sins, our
individual sins and the sins that come because we live in a world filled with
sin and evil and pain and injustice and hopelessness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We can live in hope because on Easter Day
Jesus rose from the dead. Because he lives, we live, and we live in hope. The
Holy Spirit of God came at Pentecost to in-spirit us in God’s hope. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The exiles had followed the route our father Abraham had
taken. From southern Iraq they went up the river across Syria and then down the
valleys past the Sea of Galilee and down the mountain road to Jerusalem. It
took several months on a rough road. The returning exiles knew first-hand about
the wilderness and the desert, the valleys and the mountains, the uneven ground
and the rough places.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They understood
the call of the Lord, “In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD, make
straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be lifted up,
and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level,
and the rough places a plain. Then the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and
all people shall see it together, for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.” The
exiles understood the call to hope.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>We all know about physical, emotional, and spiritual valleys
and mountains, uneven ground and rough places. And we know how the Lord has
brought us through them into the place where we are now. For some of us it was easier
than for others, but we’re in this together, to help each other, to hope
together. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Deciding to leave the familiar in Babylon to return to
Judea was not easy. Families were divided. Some left; others stayed. During the
500 years of Europe’s Dark Ages Babylon was the center of Jewish learning, and
Jews were only forced out after the founding of Israel in 1948. The returning
exiles knew from experience about the pain of broken personal relationships. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>We know about pain and loss and the loneliness that invites
us to lose hope. We know how “people are grass, their constancy is like the
flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower fades . . . surely the
people are grass.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">To
the exiles, and to us, Isaiah comes with a word of hope, the word of the Lord.
“The grass withers, the flower fades; but the word of our God will stand
forever.” Our hope is in God’s promise. We are called to take the long view,
the view from the mountain top, to trust in the love and power of God who “comes
with might,” feeds “his flock like a shepherd,” who gathers us his precious lambs
in his arms, and carries us next to his heart, and gently leads. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>St. Peter reminds us that we live in God’s time, and
encourages us to patience. “With the <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Lord
one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like one day. The
Lord is not slow about his promise, as some think of slowness, but is patient
with you, not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>John the Baptist called the people of Jesus time to
repentance, and John continues to call us to repentance. We are exiles in a
sin-filled world who are on the road – the sometimes rough road – to God’s
kingdom. We are sinners saved by God’s grace in Jesus. And while we are on the
road we are called to hope, to hope for our final redemption, to look in hope
for God at work in the world and in us. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>December can be a dark month, a time of despair and loss
and pain and hopelessness. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But Advent is
a time of hope, hope in Jesus’ final triumph, hope in our redemption, hope both
in the last day and hope every day. In the busy days let us hope for the
guiding of God’s Holy Spirit. In the sad moments let us look in hope for God’s
love and power. In the happy times let us hope for the fullness of God’s love
and joy in our lives, in the lives of those we love and those we have trouble
loving, and in those whom we do not know with whom we share life in the world
redeemed by Jesus death and resurrection. Amen. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13942919028086053295noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5272820439898383846.post-43543493695329138182017-11-30T08:58:00.007-08:002017-11-30T08:58:55.629-08:00Big end? Advent 1
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt;">Advent 1B 12/3/17</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt;">Religion and science agree
that the world as we know it will end. According to the NASA website: the universe
began with the big bang 13.8 billion years ago. Our sun came together 4.5
billion years ago and will become a red giant in about 5 billion years. But the
earth will become too hot for life in just one billion years. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt;">The first signs of human
beings are found in Africa about 200,000 years ago and in Europe and Asia about
60,000 years ago. Historical records begin 6000 years ago. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt;">Predictions of the end of the
world have been frequent – and continue. Atomic war is a current fear. Europe,
Asia, and much of North America lie within the range of North Korean missiles
and atomic bombs. Other human caused dangers include global warming, overpopulation
and world famine, and (according to Wikipedia and in alphabetical order) artificial
intelligence, biotechnology, cyberattack, environmental disaster, and mineral
resource exhaustion <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt;">Natural dangers not man made include
asteroid impact, extraterrestrial invasion, natural climate change, cosmic
threats (including Mercury’s orbit becoming so unstable so the planet crashes into
the earth or gamma ray bursts or a solar flare), geomagnetic reversal, a global
pandemic caused by naturally arising pathogens, a mega-tsunami, and volcanism. A
current volcanic explosion in Bali is expected this winter to lower the world’s
temperature by one degree.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt;">Fears of future disaster based
in science and in Scripture have in common very vague future dates and
probabilities. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Today’s reading from
Isaiah was probably written down about 500 years before Christ, after the
leaders of the people had returned from their two generation exile in Babylon
after the capture of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple in 586. That
destruction was as much a reality to the people who heard the prophecy as say
the Depression is to us. The Depression and World War II were life changing events
in our parents’ lives. For us they are past events we don’t want to repeat. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt;">Jesus’ teaching about the end
times is also found in St. Mathew 24 and St. Luke 21. It was part of the
teaching of the early church. For almost 300 years church members were persecuted
for their belief. For long periods of time Christians lived lives of peace
among their pagan neighbors, but then without much warning a small conflict
might bring out the mob and death and destruction would follow. It was roughly
like the situation of the Muslim Rohinga in Burma, or the former conflict in
Bosnia, or the situation of Christians in Pakistan or some other Muslim
majority countries – social pressure, with some occasional but usually short-lived
government persecution <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We join in prayer
for these and for other persecuted and abused peoples. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt;">When we are under attack we
look for redemption.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And God in his
grace and love offers us redemption, his love and support. The memorial to the
Holocaust in Jerusalem is in the midst of a grove of trees each one given to
remember one of the righteous who helped save Jews from Nazi murderers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt;">When we are under attack by
the temptation to sin, we remember God’s grace in Jesus Christ. When we are
tempted to despair, God gives us hope, the hope of new life in Jesus. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt;">So this Advent season, let us
be aware that the end is coming – the end of the world as we know it, the end
of our lives on this earth – and let us be prepared and watchful. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 2.25pt 48pt 0pt 0in; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt;">We watch 4 Sundays for Christmas. We watch
and wait as St. Paul reminded the church in Corinth, “</span><span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">not lacking
in any spiritual gift as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ.
He will also strengthen you to the end, so that you may be blameless on the day
of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful; by him you were called into the
fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13942919028086053295noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5272820439898383846.post-41587391520513197202017-11-25T06:09:00.000-08:002017-11-25T06:09:04.117-08:00Christ the King
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 15pt;">Christ the King November 26,
2017<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-size: 15pt;">On December 11, 1925 Pope Pius 11<sup>th</sup> ordered
the last Sunday in October be kept as a feast of Christ the King. He acted in
response to the political situation in Italy and throughout the world. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In 1969 the observance of Christ the King was
moved to the Sunday before Advent. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-size: 15pt;">The Russian Communist revolution of November, 1917,
and the wars that followed it terrorized the world. Many countries chose hyper-nationalist
governments that repressed all forms of dissent. In the United States Attorney
General Mitchell Palmer led a federal government attack on labor unions, and
there were race riots, and new restrictions on immigration.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-size: 15pt;"> </span><br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-size: 15pt;">In Italy on October 28, 1922 Benito Mussolini’s
Fascists seized control of the government. In June, 1924, the Fascists
kidnapped and murdered Giacomo Matteotti, an opposition member of the Italian
parliament. In Germany Adolf Hitler organized a Fascist private army, and in November
1923 Hitler tried to overthrow the government of Bavaria. He was sent to prison
where he wrote <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Mein Kampf</i> (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">My Struggle</i>), which was published in
early 1925. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-size: 15pt;">. The Fascists were political gangsters, determined to
maintain order at the expense of justice, Fascism promised social order and opposed
Communist social revolution. Both Fascism and Communism were totalitarian
ideologies, incompatible with Christian faith. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 15pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Celebrating the feast of Christ the
King is a political act. Christians proclaim that “Jesus is Lord.” Because
Jesus is Lord the early church refused to burn incense to the Roman Emperor as
a god and bore the consequence of martyrdom. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German
Lutheran pastor, joined the plot to kill Hitler. Archbishop Oscar Romero of El
Salvador opposed the civil war in that country and was machine-gunned at the
altar. The Rev. Emmanuel Allah Ditta, a priest of the Church of Pakistan, 14
parishioners and the Muslim guard were murdered when a gunman broke in at the
end of the church service and opened fire with an automatic rifle. In Iran,
Pastor Youcef Nadarkhani has been imprisoned for serving as a Christian pastor.
The Iranian courts say, “Once a Muslim, always a Muslim;” Pastor Nadarkhani
says, “Jesus is Lord.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 15pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>We are blessed to live in a country
where the power of government comes from the votes of the people, not from the
barrel of a gun. The use of military power in the United States is cotrolled by
the civil government. The stars and stripes represent “one nation under God
indivisible with liberty and justice for all.” Liberty is not absolute. Human
justice at best only approximates God’s perfect justice. But Christ our King
calls us to pray today to the “God of power and might” from whom “we inherit
the riches of his grace” for “the wisdom to know what is right and the strength
to serve.” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>With God’s wisdom and
strength we have made as a nation some progress toward the Pledge of
Allegiance’s promise of, “liberty and justice for all,” but we still have some
way to go in ordering our common life for our common good. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 15pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Our churches historically support the
good work of government. Luther was supported by the Elector of Saxony. Luther
used his time in protective custody to translate the New Testament into German.
The separate identity of the Church of England began in popular and government
opposition to what was seen as unjust and tyrannical rule from Rome. At the
American Revolution some in the Church of England and in the Lutheran churches
in America supported royal authority, while others were Patriots. One Patriot was
Peter Muhlenberg, a son of Pastor Henry Melchior Muhlenberg, the apostle of
American Lutheranism. His great nephew reported that Peter was serving as
pastor in Woodstock in the Shenandoah Valley, in a Church of England parish, </span><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 15pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">on January 21, 1776, preached
from Ecclesiastes chapter 3, “To every thing there is a season . . . a time for
war and a time for peace” and that day enlisted 162 men from the congregation
in the 8<sup>th</sup> Virginia Regiment of the Continental army. Peter later became
a major general and after the war returned to Pennsylvania where he served in
the first, 3<sup>rd</sup> and 5<sup>th</sup> sessions of Congress. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 15pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Our Christian call is to engage in the
life of the community. Jesus is Lord; Christ is King, and we demonstrate that Lordship
and that Kingship in our own lives, in the lives of our families, our work
places, and our common political life. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 15pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>We will all face the final judgment of
God. Today’s readings from Ezekiel and St. Matthew’s Gospel tell of God’s final
judgment. God’s judgment is real; God’s judgment is final, and God’s judgment
is finally just and true. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; tab-stops: -45.4pt -.5in 0in 27.0pt .75in 1.5in 2.0in 2.5in 3.0in 3.5in 4.0in 4.5in 5.0in 5.5in 423.0pt 6.25in 7.0in 7.5in 8.0in 8.5in 9.0in 9.5in 10.0in 10.5in 11.0in 11.5in 12.0in 12.5in 13.0in;">
<span style="font-size: 15pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>We all
stand condemned. We have not, as individuals, as church, as nation, adequately
fed the hungry, given drink to the thirsty, welcomed the stranger, clothed the
naked, cared for the sick, nor visited the prisoners. We’ve all done some of
these, but as individuals and as a nation we have not loved God with our whole
hearts; we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves. “We have left undone
those things which we ought to have done, and we have done those things which
we ought not to have done,” and there is no spiritual health in us.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; tab-stops: -45.4pt -.5in 0in 27.0pt .75in 1.5in 2.0in 2.5in 3.0in 3.5in 4.0in 4.5in 5.0in 5.5in 423.0pt 6.25in 7.0in 7.5in 8.0in 8.5in 9.0in 9.5in 10.0in 10.5in 11.0in 11.5in 12.0in 12.5in 13.0in;">
<span style="font-size: 15pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>But the
good news, the good news of our salvation is that Jesus our Lord, Christ our
King, was content to die for us, to die to set us free from sin. For us and
from all who will claim his sacrifice he bears the penalty of our sins and his
judgment. By his resurrection he gives us day by day a new opportunity to love
and serve him. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; tab-stops: -45.4pt -.5in 0in 27.0pt .75in 1.5in 2.0in 2.5in 3.0in 3.5in 4.0in 4.5in 5.0in 5.5in 423.0pt 6.25in 7.0in 7.5in 8.0in 8.5in 9.0in 9.5in 10.0in 10.5in 11.0in 11.5in 12.0in 12.5in 13.0in;">
<span style="font-size: 15pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>On this
Feast of Christ the King, a feast established in the conflict of Christian
faith and totalitarian values, let us by his grace recommit ourselves to love
and serve Jesus, our Lord and our King, this day and every day that is given to
us. Amen. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13942919028086053295noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5272820439898383846.post-868021278266127122017-11-18T10:58:00.002-08:002017-11-18T10:58:38.250-08:00Talents
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Talents Nov. 19, 2017</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"></span></span> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt;">Our scripture readings for
the next few weeks are about the end times when the world as we know it will
cease and Christians believe the Lord will come in glory to judge the living
and the dead. In that last day - whether it be the last day of the world as we
know it, or our own last day - <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the voice
of God proclaims his vindication . On some level we all seek vindication. We
love to be able to say “I told you so.” But as we grow in God’s spirit we learn
that it is God who will say, “<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">I</b> told
you so.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And we will, in truth, say,
“Yes, you did.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In that last day we will
not plead our own good works, we will plead not our own merits, but we will
plead Jesus Christ. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That is the truth of
the Christian faith, both Catholic and Reformation - not us but Christ.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt;">Zephaniah proclaimed God’s
message 600 years before Christ. In his day as in ours some were </span><span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">complacent
and said in their hearts, “The <span style="font-variant: small-caps;">Lord</span>
will not do good, nor will he do harm.” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We
are always tempted to live as practical atheists, without reference to God in
what we say, think, and do. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We are as tempted
as were the people to whom Zephaniah preached to put our trust in our wealth. But
as the prophet reminds us, “Neither their silver nor their gold will be able to
save them.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-size: 16pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Zephaniah lived in a time of political turmoil. Judah was an Assyrian
client state on the border of an increasingly powerful Egypt. Assyria had
exiled the people of Israel and besieged Jerusalem just 55 years before
Zephaniah wrote. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For the people who
remained in Judah destruction was a living memory. We have recently seen in Houston
and in Puerto Rico that God sends rain on the just and the unjust, that both rich
and poor can be flooded out and we suffer together. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-size: 16pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Most of us are fortunate. We have worked hard and used the talents God has
given us. We will go home to a warm house. We’ll have plenty of food for
Thanksgiving and for the week. When we get sick we will be able to pay for
medical advice and treatment and drugs. We may not have all we want, but
generally we have much of what we need. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-size: 16pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Jesus’ parable of the talents encourages us to make the best of what we
have. A talent was a measure of weight. Talents of gold and silver were worth many
years’ income. We are not told how long the owner was away, but it was long
enough for the talents that were put to use to double. In a time before paper
money, inflation, and the Federal Reserve, even the servant who buried the
money could have made the interest. A modern savings account would have lost
value. But the servant who buried the talent suffered from bad theology. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He
understood the master as “</span><span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">a harsh man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering
where you did not scatter seed; so I was afraid,” When people encounter God,
their normal first reaction is fear, but from Abraham in Genesis 15 to Moses in
Exodus 3 to the Blessed Virgin Mary in St. Luke 1, God’s first word to us is, “Fear
not!” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The
commentaries tell us Luther drew the distinction between servile fear and
filial fear. Servile fear is the fear of consequences. A mild example is how I
watch my speed on Rt. 221 from Marion – 55, 50, 45, 35, sometimes reasonable,
sometimes not, but I don’t want a ticket, and I don’t want to be delayed on the
way. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Filial fear is the respect we have
for those in spiritual or parental authority. I help with Rotary Youth
Exchange, bringing 10<sup>th</sup> and 11<sup>th</sup> grade students from
Europe, Latin America, and southeast Asia to study for a year here and sending
American students abroad. We drill them in the 5D’s – forbidden behaviors – Don’t
Drink, Drug, Drive, Date Exclusively, and Don’t Do Anything Dumb Your Mother
Wouldn’t Approve Of – filial fear. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The
one talent servant had servile fear of the master, and that fear paralyzed him.
God’s love in Jesus Christ sets us free from servile rear. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And the mutual love and respect among the
persons of God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – is both an example of the love
and respect we are to have for God and for one another, and also the power of
the Holy Spirit working I us to make that love and respect possible. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 16pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-size: 16pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">St. Paul reminds us that the end is near. He draws an analogy with
pregnancy. We who have children know something of those last few weeks of
discomfort. Our granddaughters, for medical reasons, were delivered by Cesarean
section. Our daughter Sarah knew the day and the hour. In St. Paul’s time, and
for much of human history, mothers and fathers knew only approximately when the
time of labor was to begin. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-size: 16pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">In the meantime we are called to live in preparation - <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">awake and sober, as people who belong
to the day, in faith and love, with the hope of salvation, encouraging one
another and building up one another – as St. Paul says, “as indeed you are
doing.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt;">When the world as we know it comes
to an end and the Lord comes in glory to judge God will say, “<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">I</b> told you so.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And we will plead not our own merits, but we
will plead Jesus Christ. Amen. </span><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 16pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13942919028086053295noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5272820439898383846.post-56565739518010412282017-11-11T17:22:00.002-08:002017-11-18T11:00:27.670-08:00Bridesmaids Oil<div class="MsoPlainText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 15pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 15pt;">All
four Scripture lessons today deserve some comment, the Gospel first and longer,
then the Epistle, Amos, and the Psalm. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Do
you remember the old church camp and Bible school song? <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The version I remember goes: <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 15pt;"><o:p> </o:p><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 15pt;">Give me oil in my lamp, keep me burning, Give me oil in my lamp I
pray. <o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 15pt;">Give me oil in my lamp, keep me burning, burning, burning,<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 15pt;">Keep me burning till the light of day <br />
Sing Hosanna, sing Hosanna, Sing Hosanna to the King of Kings <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 15pt;">Sing Hosanna, sing Hosanna Sing Hosanna to the King <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 15pt;"><br />
There are lots of other verses:<br />
Give me joy in my heart keep me praising <span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 15pt;">Give me love in my heart keep me serving <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 15pt;">Give me peace in my heart keep me resting <span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 15pt;">Hide your word in my heart, keep me learning</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 15pt;">,</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 15pt;"><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 15pt;">Make me fishers of men, keep me searching<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 15pt;">Some others are these:<br />
Give me wax on my board, keep me surfing for the Lord... <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 15pt;">Give me coffee in my cup, lift Him up, up, up... <br />
Give me water in my shower God is power, power, power... <br />
Give me gas in my Ford, keep me truckin' for the Lord... <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 15pt;">Give me gas for my Chevy Keep my testimony heavy<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 15pt;">Give me wheels for my skates, then I’ll roll to heaven’s gate.</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 15pt;"><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 15pt;">Give me Nikes for my feet, I’ll be preachin’ on the street</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 15pt;"><br />
Give me chicken on my plate, God is great, great, great... <br />
Give me umption in my gumption, help me function for the Lord... <br />
Give me beans in my burrito, God is neat-o, neat-o, neat-o...<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 15pt;">Give me salt on my Fritos, God is neat-os, neat-os, neat-os....<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "droid sans"; font-size: 15pt;">Give me hot sauce in my taco, let me
witness in Morocco</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 15pt;"><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 15pt;">(from England) Give me batteries for my torch, keep me shining <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 15pt;">I’m sure there are more.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 15pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 15pt;">In Christian history the oil of this parable has had many meanings.
In our time reserves are important – material reserves and spiritual reserves. Last
year a Federal Reserve survey said nearly half the people in this country could
not raise $400 in an emergency. In terms of net worth – 10% have less than $1,000,
half less than $100,000,10% more than 1,200.000. My church pension is funded by
an 18% assessment for 37 years, and I paid into social security. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But pensions are going away and savings are
not making up for them. We need to build up our material and financial reserves.
<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 15pt;">More importantly we need to build up our spiritual reserves.
Regular prayer, regular bible study, regular worship, regular Christian service
– all these help us grow in God’s love and grace. We can’t pass on what we have
not received for ourselves. In <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Christ Jesus
we are forgiven sinners. We have been given new life in Jesus Christ. God has
given us the Holy Spirit – the spirit of God’s truth, the spirit of God’s power
to overcome the temptations of this life. Focusing our attention on God’s gifts
helps us keep our spiritual oil flasks filled. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 15pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 15pt;">We all know the feeling of burnout – to be overworked and under-appreciated.
It is easy to burn out. Overwork is a subset of the sin of pride. Make time for
God. Remember “this is my father’s world.” He is in charge, and he wants us
rested, and filled with his Spirit. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 15pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 15pt;">Give me oil in my lamp, keep me burning, Give me oil in my lamp I
pray. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 15pt;">Give me oil in my lamp, keep me burning, burning, burning,<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 15pt;">Keep me burning till the light of day
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]-->
<!--[endif]--></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 15pt;"><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="-ms-layout-grid-mode: line; font-size: 15pt;"></span><br />
<span style="-ms-layout-grid-mode: line; font-size: 15pt;">Today’s Epistle reading from Thessalonians includes the
proof text for the Rapture. 4:17 “<span style="color: black;">Then we who are
alive, who are left, will be caught up in the clouds together with them to meet
the Lord in the air; and so we will be with the Lord forever.” You may have
seen the bumper sticker, “In case of Rapture this car will be unmanned.” The
Rapture is one way of understanding the final coming of Jesus Christ at the end
of time. <o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 15pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 15pt;">That
Jesus will come at the end of time again is a matter of faith. How and when he
will come is pious opinion and speculation. Our task is to remember how Jesus
has come to us our lives, to be wise, prepared with extra oil to obey Jesus’
command to keep alert and awake. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 15pt;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 15pt;">We all look for the Day of the Lord, the day
of judgment Amos writes about. We tend to think of it as our day of
vindication. Amos reminds us God’s judgment is righteous, and that we are to
live by God’s standards, “</span><span style="-ms-layout-grid-mode: line; font-size: 15pt;">let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing
stream.” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 15pt;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 15pt;">And the Psalm reminds us of our need for God’s deliverance. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“</span><span style="color: black; font-size: 15pt;">I am poor and needy; come to me quickly, O God. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You are my helper and my deliverer; O LORD, do
not tarry.” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 15pt;"><o:p> </o:p><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 15pt;">Give me oil in my lamp, keep me burning, Give me oil in my lamp I
pray. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 15pt;">Give me oil in my lamp, keep me burning, burning, burning,<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 15pt;">Keep me burning till the light of day <br />
Sing Hosanna, sing Hosanna, Sing Hosanna to the King of Kings <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 15pt;">Sing Hosanna, sing Hosanna .Sing Hosanna to the King </span><span style="color: black; font-size: 16pt;"><o:p></o:p></span>Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13942919028086053295noreply@blogger.com1