SUNDAY JANUARY 5TH 2025

THE EPIPHANY

This week`s reflection is on The Epiphany and is by John van de Laar, a minister of the Methodist Church of Southern Africa.

“The focus of Epiphany, as usual, is the visit of the Magi. The other readings, though, add some wonderful nuances and textures to this story, emphasising the inclusivity of Christ and the priority of God for justice and for defending the least.

In a world where faith is often used to exclude and exploit, and with the tough conflicts and divisions across our planet, the Epiphany message is a timely word. Since this is the Year of Luke in the Lectionary (Year C) the themes of justice and inclusivity are particularly appropriate, offering the possibility of links between the shepherds (from the Christmas season) and the magi (this week).

Either way, the scandalous truth that we must face in this celebration

is that the light of God’s glory shines on all people and through all people –

if we only have eyes to see it!

Although the Epiphany readings are the same every year, and focus on the visit of the magi to the Christ Child, this year we add the particularly emphasis of Luke’s Gospel to this festival. There is no question that Luke’s passion for inclusivity resonates strongly with the Epiphany message. All of the readings stress two main themes.

Firstly, there is the inclusivity of God’s saving work in the world. All of the readings speak of the diverse groups that are drawn into God’s grace and glory in one way or another (the nations, wealthy and poor, powerful and oppressed, Jew and Gentile).

Secondly, there is the worship and the offering of gifts that accompanies the experience of being included. Only the epistle has no mention of people bringing gifts to Christ. It is significant that, at the start of his human life, the one who is God’s gift to the world, who brings God’s grace and salvation to humanity, first receives the worship and the gifts of humanity. It is also significant that the ones who bring those gifts are those who would have been excluded from the worship of God in the Temple – Gentile foreigners who were sorcerers (the literal Greek word).

The message here is twofold: the incarnate Christ has come for all humanity, not just a particular national or religious group, and the glory of God, reflected in the incarnate God-child, teaches us that God’s glory is also reflected in all humanity. Although no Gospel has the shepherds (from Luke) and the magi (from Matthew) together, it is appropriate thematically, especially in this year of Luke, to hold the two visits together because the message is essentially the same – no one is excluded from the grace and glory of God.

Every church community, and every person, longs for the light of God’s glory and blessing to shine on them. This longing often leads us into trying to earn God’s blessing through legalism, doctrinal purity or separation from those who are considered “unrighteous”. Too often faith becomes something exclusive, something to defend against others who see things differently. Epiphany reveals an alternative view of God’s glory – that in Christ’s incarnation God’s glory and blessing are already ours – not something to earn; and that the experience of God’s glory is found in connection and sharing with others, while protecting and defending the least.

It is a good discipline to ask: “Who needs to be included in our community right now?” and “Who needs to be protected?” – two questions that necessarily call us to emulate Christ’s self-sacrifice in our own lives.

Of course, all this begs the question of evangelism. What does it mean to bring others into the light of God’s grace or to reflect God’s glory to them?

How do we allow our worship to shine, without it becoming oppressive, elitist, judgmental or just plain creepy to others?

The answer, suggested by the readings, and by Christ’s example, is in self-sacrifice. When we are trying to “win souls” or “grow our church” or even “be obedient” the focus tends to be on us, and other people sense this and feel manipulated.

But, when our focus is on serving, empowering, standing with, and loving those around us, with no particular expectation of their response, then they sense this too, and are drawn to the Christ they see in us – rather than to any particular doctrine, church or theological position.

If Epiphany is about God’s glory filling the world,

it must happen through our Christlike love and service,

not through “Christian dominance” over people, other religions

or society’s structures and systems.”

SUNDAY JANUARY 12TH

THE BAPTISM OF CHRIST

This week`s reflection on the  Gospel Luke 3:15-17,21-22, is by Karoline Lewis, Luther Seminary, Saint Paul, Minnesota, USA.

“Never underestimate the power of “you,” especially in the second person singular. We know how “you” feels.

Like you are the only person in the world.

Like someone is paying attention.

Like someone means it and means what they say.

Of course, its negative is equally powerful, but for the sake of this week’s column on Luke’s version of Jesus’ baptism, I am focusing on “you” in the positive.

And, what “you” feels like when you hear it from God.

A quick comparison of the Gospels confirms that only two out of the four Evangelists record this “you” address from the heavens — Luke and Mark.

Matthew’s version is the demonstrative third person “this” and any affirmation from God at Jesus’ baptism would make absolutely no sense in John.

Mark’s private message to Jesus seems to support Mark’s wider theme of the secrecy of Jesus’ identity.

That is not, I don’t think, true for Luke. For Luke, the “you” to Jesus heralds the “you” that God, in Jesus, says to all persons.

Those persons we don’t see, easily pass by, and overlook.

Those persons we don’t want to see.

This is an essential theme in Luke.

Jesus sees those no one else does — the widow of Nain. Zacchaeus up in a tree. Jesus tells stories of persons whose goodness is defined by coming near and seeing those whom most refuse to see, the parable of the Good Samaritan.

The Samaritan, who is never called “good” in the parable by the way, is first good because he draws near and truly sees the guy in the ditch.

The priest and the Levite? They see, but do not see.

They do not see for whom Jesus came.

They are unwilling to see those whom they themselves have excluded from God’s favour.                                                                                                               

And so, I wonder, just like how much Jesus learned from his mother so as to preach his first sermon, how much Jesus needed to hear “you” so as to recognize who he needed to see. It’s hard to pay attention to another when you have never had another pay attention to you.

Moreover, the remarkable thing about this “you” is that as soon as we hear it, according to Luke, we are called to see, to acknowledge, to come near, to free, any “you” who has not heard the good news of great joy.

The “you” in Jesus’ baptism reiterates the regard for Elizabeth, the regard for Mary.

To hear “you” is to be regarded, to be favoured by God.

That’s what “you” should feel like.

And that “you” you are called to say, in Jesus’ name, to others.

The Baptism of Our Lord Sunday can easily digress into sermons about proper baptismal beliefs and doctrines or expositions about the meaning of baptism devoid of any kind of Scriptural foundation.

And so, how does Luke’s interpretation of Jesus’ baptism invite us to think about baptism in a specific way; in a way that might even look forward to what Jesus’ baptism truly means for his ministry, and what it means, at least in Luke’s eyes, for anyone who chooses to follow Jesus?

When I was pastor of a church outside of Atlanta, I ended up writing a dialogue sermon for Baptism of Our Lord Sunday because the church I served was a unique denominational blend and yet was a Lutheran church.

The dialogue sermon quoted and paraphrased much of Luther’s Small Catechism so that my congregation would know that baptism is God’s claim of “you.”

Many years later, I preached this same sermon with my husband in south Minneapolis. After the service, a long-time member of the church, 90-year-old Dot , came up to me and said, “Karoline, is that really true?” “What?” I responded.

“That GOD baptizes you?” “Well, yes. This is what we believe, Dot.”

She then told me why she doubted the “you.” Dot had a sister, born too early and not expected to live, about three years before Dot was even born. The only option was to bring her home for her two-to-three-month lifespan. During that time, the grandmother baptized her. Then, when Dot’s sister died, of course her parents set up a meeting with the pastor for the funeral.

The pastor told them that he would do the funeral, but not in the sanctuary because he had not baptized the baby. The funeral was held in the basement of the church.  

Dot then said to me, “Do you mean my sister is okay?” The sister she never met. The sister she had mourned for her entire 90 years. The sister for whom she wondered, “is God really for her?”

Oh, yes. I said. The “you” your sister heard; God meant.

And God did not, and will never, let her go.                                                           

That, dear friends, is the power of “you.”

JANUARY 19TH 

SECOND SUNDAY OF EPIPHANY

This week`s reflection on the Gospel passage(John 2:1-11) is by Rick Morely,  Rector of St David’s Episcopal Church, Devon, Pennsylvania, USA.

“In the 25th chapter of Isaiah we find a beautiful vision of what happens when God’s victory is made manifest: 

On this mountain the LORD of hosts will make for all peoples, a feast of rich food, 

a feast of well-aged wines, of rich food filled with marrow,                                      of well-aged wines strained clear.

A feast. Rich food. Well-aged wines. Sounds pretty good, right?

In the Revelation to John, towards the end when the victory of God is nearly fulfilled, we find a similar theme:

Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the lamb.

Jesus, the Lamb of God, after evil and death are finally defeated, throws a feast. And the invitees are blessed.                                                                                A good party is a sign of the Kingdom of God—it’s a foretaste of the Reign of God.

There’s a horrible mistake been made when “religion” and “church” are words synonymous with “boring,” and “lifeless.” Yes, of course there are things to be serious about, and there need to be moments of great solemnity in our common spiritual life.                                                                                                        But, the Kingdom of God is like a party. A feast. With fine food and well-aged wines. That’s the very opposite of boring and lifeless.

And this is why Jesus does what he does at the wedding feast at Cana.                The party was going. The food and the wine had been carefully planned and executed…and the wine had run out.                                                                      The hosts had either not thought that part through very well, or their guests were particularly thirsty that day.

“Boring-Jesus,” “lifeless-Jesus” would have said, “Great. Now that the wine is gone, the party is over. We can all leave, go home, and get down to serious business.

I didn’t want to be here anyway.”

But, no. That’s not the Jesus that we have. Jesus is asked by his mother to do something about it, he does.                                                                                He turns water into wine. 120 to 180 gallons of it. (Wow!)

And, when the steward takes a sip, he finds out that Jesus hasn’t made any old plonk. He made the good stuff!

Well-aged wine, like the feast of God in Isaiah.

This is the first of the signs in the Gospel of John, and this sign not only points to Jesus as someone who can do miraculous things, but it points to Jesus as the Messiah who has come to fulfil the promises of old.

The One who has come to bring on the feasting.

Until it’s not someone else’s wedding he’s supplying the drink for, but his own.

So, get that dour look off your face and start spreading the Good News:                  The Church isn’t boring.                                                                                        The Kingdom of God is near.”

JANUARY 26TH

THIRD SUNDAY OF EPIPHANY

This week`s reflection on the Gospel passage Luke 4:14-30 is entitled

“Keeping our eyes on Christ” and comes from the Taizé Community.

“This short account of Jesus’ visit to his hometown is disturbing: how could he stand such a change? At the beginning people are amazed at him, and then all at once the crowd seems to turn into a lynch-mob.                                                     

The people are all waiting for the Messiah (Luke 3:15), who was to come in order to create communion with God and among human beings.

Jesus’ reputation precedes him (Luke 4:14)—undoubtedly as well as news of his healings and his concern for the poorest of society, who feel close to him—and this is true for the people in Nazareth, too. Now he comes to his hometown himself, to proclaim the Good News of God’s Kingdom there as well.                                      

After Jesus reads out the words of Isaiah, all those present in the synagogue open their eyes wide: they see in the man standing before them the Messiah announced by the prophets and then by John. And Jesus himself confirms this:

“Today this scripture is fulfilled” (Luke 4:21).

Looking with amazement is, in the Bible, the constantly repeated reaction of human beings to an encounter with God. Have not we too experienced this wonder during meetings or experiences that allow us to glimpse something of God’s presence?     

Following this acclamation, the question “Isn’t this Joseph’s son?” marks a turning-point. Instead of common rejoicing at God’s presence, a doubt insinuates itself, almost undetected, into the assembly: Is he not one of us, a simple man who left town and now all of a sudden, promoted to a higher rank, comes back?

Why him? Does he still belong to us?

At that time, as today, people looked at themselves and others, often unconsciously, comparing and delimiting in order to define who belongs to a community and who remains outside:

between neighbours in the small town of Nazareth, or with the inhabitants of neighbouring Capernaum, in families, at work, or in one’s circle of friends.

Such behaviour creates a safe haven and bonds people together.

But as soon as the eyes that were at first turned towards Jesus begin to turn away from him and compare—worrying about their own standing—Jesus seems to become a danger that needs to be done away with.

With examples taken from Bible history, Jesus tries to explain that the community formed by God does not come into being in this way. When God becomes human—coming as close to us as the son of their neighbour Joseph—in order to open a way of communion, he goes beyond all human borders and calls into question the order of society which sets “ours” in contrast to “theirs.”

So as more and more to be people of communion, this text invites us to keep our eyes focused on Christ. Then our way of looking at ourselves and others gradually changes. We discover that it is not our boundaries that make community possible, but rather that he is the one who brings us together.

How do we look at ourselves and other people?                                                      Why is it that so often we compare ourselves to others?

What holds our communities together? What divides them?

What turns my eyes away from Christ?                                                                  What helps me to keep my eyes focused on Christ with amazement?”

FEBRUARY 2ND

CANDLEMAS

February 2^nd is observed as Candlemas in the liturgical calendar and we will be reflecting on its meaning in worship this Sunday.

Below are some thoughts on Candlemas (and the Irish saint Brigid)

by Jan Richardson, an artist, writer and ordained minister in the United Methodist Church in the USA.

“The beginning of February offers us another lovely feast day on the heels of today’s Feast of St. Brigid. In the rhythm of the Christian liturgical year, tomorrow marks the Feast of the Presentation of Jesus, also called the Feast of the Purification of Mary.

This day bids us remember Mary and Joseph’s visit to the Temple to present their child Jesus on the fortieth day following his birth, as Jewish law required, and for Mary to undergo the postpartum rites of cleansing.

Luke’s Gospel tells us that a resident prophet named Anna and a man named Simeon immediately recognize and welcome Jesus. Taking the child into his arms, Simeon turns his voice toward God and offers praise for the “light for revelation” that has come into the world.                                                                               

Taking a cue from Simeon, some churches began, in time, to mark this day with a celebration of light: the Candle Mass, during which priests would bless the candles to be used in the year to come.

Coinciding with the turn toward spring and lengthening of light in the Northern Hemisphere, Candlemas offers a liturgical celebration of the renewing of light and life that comes to us in the natural world at this time of year, as well as in the story of Jesus.

As we emerge from the deep of winter, the feast reminds us of the perpetual presence of Christ our Light in every season.                                                          With her feast day just next door, and with the abundance of fire in the stories of her life, it’s no surprise that St. Brigid makes an appearance among the Candlemas legends. The stories and prayers of Ireland and its neighbours often refer to Brigid as the midwife to Mary and the foster mother of Christ.

Chronologically, this would have been a real stretch seeing as how Brigid was born in 454 AD!   However, the legend says that Brigid walked before Mary with a lighted candle in each hand when she went up to the Temple for purification.

The winds were strong on the Temple heights, and the tapers were unprotected, yet they did not flicker nor fail.  

On this Candlemas, where do we find ourselves in this story?

Are we Mary, graced by the light that another sheds on our path?

Or are we Brigid, carrying the light for another in need?”

FEBRUARY 9TH

FOURTH SUNDAY BEFORE LENT

This week`s reflection on the Gospel, Luke 5 vs. 1-11 is by Karoline Lewis,              Professor at Luther Seminary, Saint Paul, Minnesota, USA.

“Catching people” might not sit very well with a number of our congregants. Compared to the parallel accounts in Matthew and Mark where the phrase is, “fishing for people. Luke employs a different verb, “to catch,” to describe the primary activity of apostleship.

The verb “to catch” implies a one-way action, and a violent one at that.

This difficulty is important to acknowledge. This text is not permission to go around nabbing people here and there so as to save their sinful souls.

Indeed, metaphors like this one have succeeded in forceful coercion and conversion; justification for forcing belief systems on the unsuspecting and insisting that those without a relationship with Jesus are most definitely not in the net of Jesus’ community.

Furthermore, this story seems to perpetuate and exacerbate a dangerous ecclesial assumption — the larger the “catch” the greater the missionary, and subsequently, the church from which such missionary hails.

And lest we think such thoughts and expectations are only limited to assessing apostolicity, we should remember how readily we count up our “catch” in our churches, our membership numbers, how many on the rolls, how many in church on a given Sunday, as if numbers alone are the hallmark of successful church leadership and effective mission.

But that is exactly what we do. We tout abundance as our doing and not God’s.

We locate confidence in our ministry in our own abilities to procure loyal believers. We insist that without our making, the catch of fish would be a merely meagre and inexperienced fishing expedition. Inflated figures, exaggerated amounts, extraordinary claims never backed up by any kind of evidence or experience seem to be the ticket to admiration when it comes to assessing ministry, as if Jesus had the pews filled at the foot of the cross.

Maybe, the promise of Jesus realized in the extraordinary catch of fish

is not in what we can do, and even what our potential future might look like,

but in what God can do.

Maybe the amazing catch of fish is not to command what the apostles should do as loyal followers of Jesus but to witness to what God has done and will always do.

We have ample evidence of God’s abundance made possible and visible in our actions toward bringing about the reign of God. And yet we are more often than not looking to give credit to our own capabilities instead of God’s faithfulness.

This past week, I tweeted the following quote:

“Stop waiting for Friday, for someone to fall in love with, for life.

Happiness is achieved when you stop waiting for it

and make the most of the moment you are in now.”                                                                                     

This quote is a reminder that so much of where we locate abundant life

is what will yet be.

A reminder of our ongoing inability to see the abundance around us.

A reminder of our tendency to explain away abundance as too good to be true, excessive, and undeserved. 

After all, more often than not in life, there is no such thing as a free lunch.

What’s too good to be true ends up not being true.

What’s too good to be true is immediately considered suspicious.

What’s too good to be true can’t possibly be real.

We’ve almost stopped believing in too good to be true, haven’t we?

Somehow, somewhere, some way, we’ve lost hope in the impossible,

belief in the unbelievable, trust in the incredible.

In our cynicism, scepticism, and pessimism how quickly we lose sight of what’s truly good news and what isn’t. Easily swayed by those who insist on proof rather than faith. Those who take the Gospel for granted instead of relying on its grace.

And we tend to limit the “catch” to numbers alone instead of engaging a wider imagination around the individuals in the net.

In Luke, the acts of the apostles as first and foremost acts of God; the miraculous, the abundant, the transformative, are all God’s doing. Every incident of conversion, every incident of belief in Jesus, is attributed to God by the apostles themselves.

We would do well to remember that the extraordinary catch of fish happens in Jesus’ presence.

These newly minted apostles don’t haul in the net of fish on their own.

They don’t leave everything and follow Jesus because they are confident in their own abilities.

They leave everything and follow Jesus because they are confident in Jesus’ command,

“Yet if you say so, I will let down the nets.”

FEBRUARY 16TH

THIRD SUNDAY BEFORE LENT

This week`s reflection on the Gospel passage - Luke 6 vs 17-26                              is by R.M. Fergus of the website Clergy Stuff.

“I don’t want to hear this.

It makes me scared.

Scared that if I’m enjoying my life (which I really, really am)

it means that one day I’ll have it all snatched away

and I’ll have to pay dearly on behalf of those whose lives are profoundly challenged by poverty, war, sickness, abuse, and other kinds of trauma.

I live a very small life.

No one in the United States would call me rich.

But the majority of people in the majority of the world would say I am.

So I have to own it.

Own that my having hot running water and air conditioning

and access to fresh food and medical care puts me in a minority.

Own that my having these things also means I’m complicit in systems that give me these benefits at the expense of others.

Own that if I asked Jesus what more I should do,

he might say to me, “Sell everything that you have, give it to the poor,

and follow me.” Yikes.                                                                                                      

So what hope do I take from this passage?

Simply this: Jesus’ reign is one of justice and equity,

and that I am responsible to help bring that reign about.                                       

There are things I can do to change systems.                                                     

There are things I can do to reduce my complicity and lower my impact.               

And I can trust that I’m responsible for the footwork                                              and God’s responsible for the outcome.                                                                  Falling into despair and self-recrimination isn’t the answer.                                      (Hiding in justification and denial isn’t either).

God, please direct me to people who can help me take actions                                to make the world more just in the here and now                                                  and let me turn over the future to you.                                                                  Amen.”

FEBRUARY 23RD

SECOND SUNDAY BEFORE LENT

This week`s reflection on the Gospel passage, Luke 6 vs. 27-38,

is by Catherine McElhinney and Kathryn Turner

from the website Weekly Wellsprings.

“At first glance, today’s Gospel could look as if Jesus is asking his disciples to become doormats - turning the other cheek - or handing over a tunic when someone asks for a cloak.                                                                                    However, Jesus was not a doormat and it is very unlikely that he intended his disciples to be. Rather he is offering a way of life in which the poor and powerless can act from a position of strength - to take an initiative which confronts their opponent and which leaves the wrong where it belongs. Their dignity does not depend on how others treat them. He does not suggest that this is an easy option but a radical alternative - something beyond what “even sinners” do. It is very easy to be kind to those who are nice to us - and to love those who love us. The challenge for Christians is to go further.

Among Jesus’ own disciples there were strong characters and the potential for disastrous relationships.                                                                                      Simon the Zealot was violently opposed to Roman occupation.                                Matthew had made a living as a tax-collector in effect collaborating with the Romans.                                                                                                          In the early Church at Philippi, Luke would have met a community in which a wealthy woman called Lydia met and worshipped on equal terms with dockers from the local port.

Christian communities are never uniform - people hold different political views - or have strong opinions - belong to different social groups and so on.                          And yet, week by week, we gather to worship God and, hopefully, to build up the Body of Christ in our own community and the locality in which we live.                  To do this, we have to employ much of the teaching in today’s Gospel, cultivating qualities of compassion, forbearance and forgiveness.                                       

We have to go beyond what might be expected in a club or other organisation - being willing to sacrifice something of our own self-interest in order to create harmony.                                                                                                          Such a community is a powerful witness to the world and will attract others to us. Yes, we may find ourselves exploited from time to time - but, as Jesus says,

God is never outdone in generosity - and what we give we will receive back in even greater abundance.                                                                                                       

What would it mean for you to live by Jesus` challenging teaching this week?”

MARCH 2ND

THE SUNDAY BEFORE LENT

The reflection on this week`s Gospel, Luke 9:28-36 (37-43a) The Transfiguration,    is by Karoline Lewis, Professor Chair of Biblical Preaching, Luther Seminary,

Saint Paul, Minnesota, USA.

“Mountains are particular and poignant. They rise up from the plains of our lives to invite majesty and awe; wonder and fear; to call to mind the heights of the heavens and yet the reality of the valleys below.                                                              Mountains have a way of disarming you. There are those who choose to conquer certain mountains, whether an item on the bucket list or simply a quest that meets a certain life need, want, desire. The truth is, mountains can kill you.                      And perhaps there is a certain truth to that when it comes to the Transfiguration.

Mountains have a way of disrupting you. They change your framework, your way of seeing the world. Mountains don’t lie.                                                                    Mountains have a way of transforming you.

Yet, at the same time, this is the difference between Luke’s version of the Transfiguration and Matthew and Mark (the Transfiguration does not occur in John).

Notice that immediately after Jesus descends from the mountain in Luke,

he is met with need.

Whereas Matthew and Mark include a dialogue about Elijah,

in Luke, Jesus has to address healing and not theology.

This may be our clue to understanding the Transfiguration from Luke — that mountaintops provide moments for seeing reality and not making up theology.

That mountaintops create spaces for perspective instead of justifying preconceived perceptions.

That mountaintops truly change your way of interpreting or making sense of the world. One cannot escape some sort of draw toward the mountains of the Holy Land. They force you to make sense of your confession of faith that is outside any predetermined, isolated, and limited opinion.                                                                                                                                                                              As permanent as mountains appear to be, mountaintops are fleeting.

Mountaintops are temporary.

Mountaintops are momentary.

Yet, we so long for them to be lasting. Why is that?

We are not strangers to this quest.

Maybe this is the issue to pursue this week: why we want the mountaintops to last, to make a difference, to mean something. Why?

Because we long for understanding.

We long for a viewpoint that others do not have.

We long for mountaintops. We need them.

But what is different in Luke’s Transfiguration account is the radical revelation of a mountaintop experience that is then interrupted by the urgency of reality.

Luke reminds us that our proclamation of the good news will elicit real need.

Are we ready to handle that?

Are we ready to embody that?

Are we ready to preach that?

There’s a lot of terrain between hills and valleys, mountaintop experiences and the trenches of real life, the highs and lows of human existence.

The Transfiguration of Jesus has to be a moment of revelation that extends and exists beyond the mountaintop experience. Otherwise, it will only justify glory, power, and privilege.

And so, our call to understand the Word this Sunday has to be grounded in the ways in which God grounds God’s very self in transfiguration.

God has chosen to reveal God’s self in ways that are breathtaking, miraculous, wondrous. Why? Because we have a tendency to tame God, to think that God will adjust to our many needs, to think that God will conform to our ideals.

When the Transfiguration becomes a sort of embarrassment for the church, an example of the ways in which the church hopes for glory, an argument for Jesus’ divine identity, a chance to wax nostalgic about mountaintop experiences, well then, it will cease to matter.                                                                                          Make it matter by seeing it for what it is — no ordinary mountaintop experience.”

MARCH 9TH

FIRST SUNDAY OF LENT

This week`s reflection on the Gospel Luke 4 vs. 1-13 is again by Karoline Lewis, Professor at Luther Seminary, Saint Paul, Minnesota. USA.

“The First Sunday in Lent. Are you anxious? Concerned? Disillusioned?                    All of the above? And maybe we should be.

What to do with Lent is cause for significant pause.

How to make it meaningful in the midst of betrayal.

How to tell the truth of its complications and yet suggest something beyond.

How to acknowledge its mood and yet live into the truth of what lies ahead.

“Filled with the Holy Spirit.”

That’s the only way you can get through something like this. This detail is one of Luke’s unique redactions to this story. In fact, in Luke, there is not much Jesus does without the presence and power of the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit is a major character in Luke-Acts and preaching from this Gospel will tend to its manifestation and its role — constantly. And maybe that is the point of the Holy Spirit that we tend to forget — its constancy.

“Filled with the Holy Spirit.”

The truth of the incarnation? That’s the only way you can get through something like this. Same for Jesus. Lest we think Jesus has some supernatural powers — ok, maybe be does, granted — the purpose of Lent is that he doesn’t. Jesus takes on our humanity in such a way that he is tempted and tested. Not for the sake of our own claim to such feats but for the sake of knowing, deeply, intimately, that this is what it means to be human.

This is why the concept of “temptation” is tricky. And I was reminded that I have always been uncomfortable with this story. In fact, I resist it. It even makes me angry. Why? Because I know that there is no way, no how, that I could resist such temptations. Yes, I know. I get that this is the point of the story. I can’t. That’s Jesus’ job. But I go there anyway, thinking that my incursions toward perceived wrong, my inclinations toward that which might be called into question, my impulses toward “sin” in all of its definitions and demonstrations can somehow be curtailed with enough prayer, enough Spirit, enough Jesus.

That I can just will temptation away.

And then, I am indicted on another level. I want the power Jesus is offered — on all of its levels. And this is the unnerving and upending truth of this story. That which Jesus resists, his “passing of the test,” his resistance to temptation, in the end for Jesus, is a bold “no” to power as we know it.

Power that dominates.

Power that controls.

Power that lifts up for the sake of idolatry and ideology.

Power that insists on your own power.

And the temptation not only to power itself, but what the claim of power then leads to, has a hold on, or determines. Our attraction to power is often unable to see the consequences on the other side. Jesus has the aftermath of that which Satan offers fully in view.

“Filled with the Holy Spirit.”

It is hard, so very hard, to resist the power that the world loves and values.

But how this story starts is the promise of this text. You do not do this on your own.

“Filled with the Holy Spirit.”

And you are. This is your promise.

Is not the promise to Jesus also the promise to you?

If it’s not, then what are we doing?

On what can we ground our discipleship, our proclamation?                        

And “filled with the Holy Spirit” is God’s promise that extends beyond Luke to Acts. This is a moment to bring in the promise of Acts 1:8,

“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria,

and to the ends of the earth.”

Jesus “filled with the Holy Spirit” is not an isolated incident, a temporary truth,

but a promise that has been for God’s people since the beginning and will always be.

“Filled with the Holy Spirit” means giving witness to God’s grace and truth that will only know its fulfilment when it reaches the ends of the earth.

And filled with the Holy Spirit is the only way possible to share such prophetic proclamation.

You are filled with the Holy Spirit, brothers and sisters.

Believe it!”

MARCH 16TH

SECOND SUNDAY OF LENT

This week`s reflection on the Gospel passage Luke 13 vs.31 – 35 is adapted from a longer article by Karoline Lewis. It is also appropriate as The World Day of Prayer, formerly Women`s World Day of Prayer was March  7^th and International Women`s Day was March 8^th.

“We need to be a community of love and belonging.”

That’s my paraphrase of Jesus’ desire to gather together Jerusalem’s children, just as a hen gathers her brood under her wings. And if you add Psalm 27 into the mix, it all makes sense.

Communities of love and belonging are beautiful yet rare; necessary, yet elusive; desired, yet seem always met with stipulations. You know what I mean, right? Communities of love and belonging are those places and spaces of gathered folks that give you life, that nourish your soul, that remind you of who you truly are.

Because there is no love and belonging when there is no regard and respect.

There is no love and belonging when you are overlooked and dismissed.

There is no love and belonging when you are told you don’t measure up, don’t meet expectations, or that you are not enough.

If you rarely, if ever, hear about God’s femininity, female images for God, or female characteristics of God, then even that biblical truth will be hard to believe. And, if God is mostly assumed to be male, referred to with male pronouns, and described as male, then it will be more difficult and take more energy to imagine God in female categories — and to believe that you have a place in the kingdom of God.

This week`s Gospel is an opportunity to imagine Jesus, as a hen gathering her brood; to claim an image so very rarely preached, not for the sake of an agenda, but for the sake of those in your pews who need to hear themselves in the Bible, need to see themselves in the Bible.

Why? Because, there are only 93 women who speak in the Bible,

49 of whom are named.

These women speak a total of 14,056 words collectively — roughly 1.1 percent of the Bible.

Mary, the mother of Jesus, speaks 191 words;

Mary Magdalene gets 61;

Sarah, 141

(Freeman, Bible Women: All Their Words and Why They Matter).

This is Jesus’ wish, Jesus’ invitation — a community of love and belonging under Jesus’ wing; knowing the safety and protection of such a place which then invites you to imagine and live in to the person God has called you to be.

Because here is the truth. How can you know who you are, even one known by God, if you don’t have the safe space to explore what that means? How can you know your truth if no one is willing to listen? How can you believe that your unique self matters for the proclamation of God’s Word, in preaching, in presiding at the sacraments if you don’t hear that the particularity of you matters when it comes to the incarnation of God’s Word?

I sense that this is Jesus’ call this week. Calling all of us into the security of God’s love so that we might know we are safe as well. Safe from the harm of ridicule. Safe from the harm of rejection. Safe from the harm of dismissal.                            That is, at its heart, Jesus’ promise this week. Jesus envelops us, brings us under his wing, protects us.

Why?

So that we can give witness when it’s hard.                 

So that we can preach when we know rejection will be the result.                            So that we can live into our authentic selves                                                      even though so many will continue to say you need to be someone else.                  So that we can live into the person Jesus sees.”

MARCH 23RD

THIRD SUNDAY OF LENT

This week’s reflection on the Gospel passage Luke 13 vs. 1-9 comes from an article by David Lose.

“This passage is rife with both promise and peril. The promise is to address one of the persistent questions many people have: why is there so much suffering in the world? Or, put more theologically, is suffering connected to our behaviour?            Does God cause suffering? Is suffering or calamity a form on punishment?         These are questions usually asked in moments of extreme suffering and loss and they are as poignant as they are important. And this week we have a chance to address them more reflectively than we can when asked in the emergency room or hospice centre – that’s the promise of this week’s reading.

Firstly, suffering is not a form of punishment. If there is anything we can take from Jesus’ sharp retort to his audience – “Do you really think that because these Galileans suffered in this way, they were worse sinners than all other Galileans?” – it’s that suffering and calamity are not God’s punishment for sin. Just to make sure the crowd listening gets the point, Jesus goes on to offer a second example of folks killed when a tower fell on them, asking once more, “do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem,” again answering definitively, “No.”                                                                                             

Secondly, just because suffering is not punishment doesn’t mean that it is disconnected entirely from sin. Pilate’s murderous acts of terror – as well as those horrific actions of today’s tyrants that we read about in the news – are sinful. Moreover, what if the wall Jesus references was built by a fraudulent contractor? Sin has consequences, and there are all kinds of bad behaviours that contribute to much of the misery in the world, and the more we can confront that sin the less suffering there will be.                                                                                       

Thirdly, God neither causes nor delights in suffering and calamity. This is where the parable about the fig tree comes in. Now, a quick warning: we tend to read this parable allegorically, assuming that the landowner is God and the gardener Jesus. But nowhere in Luke do we find a picture of an angry, vindictive God that needs to be placated by a friendly Jesus. Rather, Jesus portrays God as a father who scans the horizon day in and day out waiting for his wayward son to come home and as a woman who after sweeping her house all night looking for a lost coin throws a party costing even more than the coin is worth to celebrate that she found it. Luke’s Gospel overflows with the conviction that “there is more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine who need no repentance” (Luke 15:7).

Given Luke’s consistent picture of God’s reaction to sin, then perhaps the landowner is representative of our own sense of how the world should work. That is, from very early on, we want things to be “fair” and we define “fair” as receiving rewards for doing good and punishment for doing evil. (Except of course, when it comes to our own mistakes and misdeeds – then we want mercy!) So perhaps the gardener is God, the one who consistently raises a contrary voice to suggest that the ultimate answer to sin isn’t punishment – not even in the name of justice – but rather mercy, reconciliation, and new life.

Rather than imagine, that is, that God has to punish someone – and that we’re just lucky Jesus was around – what if instead we recognize that God’s answer to sin isn’t punishment but instead is love. That is, in Jesus God loves us enough to take on our lot and our lives fully, identifying with us completely. In the cross, then, we see just how far God is willing to go to be with us and for us, even to the point of suffering unjustly and dying the death of a criminal. And in the resurrection, we see that God’s solidarity and love is stronger than anything, even death.

So what can we say in the face of suffering and loss?

That God is with us.

That God understands what our suffering is like.

That God has promised to redeem all things, including even our suffering.

That suffering and injustice do not have the last word in our lives and world.

And that God will keep waiting for us and keep urging us to turn away from our self-destructive habits to be drawn again into the embrace of a loving God.

That’s what we can tell people and this, at last, is all promise.

We need to proclaim that message. It’s never been needed more than today.”

MARCH 30TH

FOURTH SUNDAY OF LENT

MOTHERING SUNDAY

This coming Sunday is the Fourth Sunday of Lent and it is also Mothering Sunday, not to be confused with Mother`s Day, which is an American invention.     

Mothering Sunday has its roots in medieval Christianity when the Latin texts of the Mass on Laetare Sunday referenced mothers and metaphors for mothers.            These included a verse from Galatians where Saint Paul refers to Jerusalem as “the mother of us all.” After the Reformation, the Book of Common Prayer continued to assign the same readings.

During the 16^th century people continued to return to their `Mother Church`, which could be the church where they had been baptised or the nearest cathedral, the Mother Church of the diocese.                                                                      For those who worked and lived away, this meant travelling back to their home town or village and anyone who did this was commonly said to have “gone mothering,” a term first recorded in 1644.

Sadly, the modern observance of the day has taken on the American title of Mother’s Day and has lost any religious significance.

Some of us however, still seek to retain the Christian ethos of the day and honour not only our earthly mothers but the Church, which even the Protestant Reformers regarded as “the mother of us all.”                                                   

So as we come to worship and to pay tribute to our mothers, both living and departed, we also remind ourselves of the motherly and nurturing role of the Church in our lives, as it seeks to remind us of the love of God

who is our heavenly Parent.

APRIL 6TH

FIFTH SUNDAY OF LENT

This week`s reflection on the Gospel passage John 12 vs. 1-8, is by Karoline Lose.

“I wonder if in this moment, when Jesus is being loved with a grace upon grace kind of love, an abundance of love, a love that you could even smell, with a fragrance that would linger for days, that Jesus remembered his mother.

Three years ago. Back in Cana. At that wedding. His mother, who loved him, who knew who he was and what he was capable of doing. His mother, without whom, I wonder, when Jesus’ ministry would have actually gotten started.                             Jesus insists it is not his time, but his mother knows better, as mothers often do. Because of her insistence, Jesus starts doing what he came to do. Because of her encouragement, Jesus realizes the time really had come.

Because of her love, Jesus can do what he was sent to do. Jesus’ mother loves Jesus into his future as the Word made flesh.

Now, in Bethany, Jesus finds himself in the same kind of position, the same kind of transition, the same kind of situation. Immediately after Mary anoints Jesus, he will enter the city of Jerusalem. And so, Jesus needs that same encouragement, that same love, to do what he must do.

Mary’s extravagant love for Jesus makes it possible for Jesus to show extravagant love in what follows — washing the feet of his disciples, handing himself over to be arrested in the garden, carrying his own cross, dying, rising, and ascending.

Mary loves Jesus into his future as the fulfilment of, “for God so loved the world.” In other words, Jesus needed Mary’s love as much as she needed to show Jesus how much she loved him.

That’s pretty much how love works. How relationships work. Because, here’s the thing. To what extent you cannot do what you need to do, have to do, even want to do, without another saying, “yes, you can do this;” without another loving you into your future. Jesus is loved into his future by these two remarkable women — his mother and his friend.

In the last week, I have attended two ordinations. I am always moved when, after our hearty and heart-felt applause, the newly ordained thanks all those who made the day possible. Youth group directors, pastors, parents, friends, family, church members, etc. It is quite extraordinary when you have a room full of the ones who loved you into your future.

Of late, I have had to imagine and then begin to implement some changes for my future. What I could not imagine is how to step into that future without being loved into it.

Do you know what I mean? What it feels like to love someone into their future, even a future that is uncertain, even a future that will mean suffering? And what it means to be loved into your own? That without being loved into that future, you would have stayed where you were? But we also know those who object to this kind of love. Who find it unnecessary, a little over-the-top, in fact. Those who dismiss such love as wasteful, who think people are better off fending for themselves; that real strength means relying on individual fortitude rather than the faithfulness of others. That real power comes from trusting in your own autonomy and self-made success, rather than believing in the confidence of others.

Along comes Judas for many reasons, but one in particular is to remind us of these love resisters. These persons who either dismiss this kind of love or insist that only the weak would look for such prodding. These persons who, somewhere along the line, decided that the only future was the one they themselves determined. Or those persons who, for reasons we will never know, never experienced a Mary kind of love and have never known what a difference it can make — all the difference in the world.                                                                                                

I think Jesus took Mary’s love with him into Jerusalem. I think he acted out her love when he washed the feet of his disciples, especially when he washed the feet of Judas about to betray him and Peter who would deny him. I think he felt once again Mary’s love, her gentle touch, when he was beaten. I think he held on to Mary’s love, desperately, when he hung on that cross. And I think he remembered Mary’s love and then, once again, his mother’s love when he looked into her eyes one last time and said, “It is finished.” And then, I think Jesus took all of that love into the tomb, all of that love that would then love him into his future as the resurrection and the life.”

APRIL 13TH

PALM SUNDAY

Our reflection for Palm Sunday is by Katie Munnik, a writer, wife and mother who lives in Cardiff. She blogs every Monday, at presbyterianrecord.ca.

“When I was growing up, Palm Sunday was the day when it felt like everyone was in the choir. I loved being in the choir. Processing was the best part. The organ swells, you are surrounded by singers--adults and children alike--and you are marching. A little glimpse of glory every Sunday morning for this suburban girl.

I even wrote about it in my middle school yearbook profile.

Not a cool move socially, but processing with the choir, I always felt mighty.
Then on Palm Sunday, everyone took to their feet. Or so it seemed. Really, we were just joined by the rest of the Sunday school. But with banners and palm branches waving, we thronged to the front of the church, shouting our loud hosannas to beat the band.

As an adult, Palm Sunday feels different.
I'm not sure if it is awkward because waving at parades is out of character for most Presbyterian congregations or because we know all too well where the week ahead will lead. Or maybe this kind of imaginative historical re-enactment doesn't quite feel like worship. We are self-conscious when we're handed the palms.

There is also an undiscussed story of disappointment running through the Palm Sunday narrative. The crowds have heard the age-old messiah promise. They were expecting a king, and it was high time, too. Rome's boot was heavy and their religious leaders had no real comfort to offer.

But the kingdom Jesus proclaimed was almost unrecognizable when held up against the crowd's expectation. This disappointment led the crowd to fickleness, and, less than a week later, they were the ones who called, "crucify!"

Enter our adult Palm Sunday guilt. We know how easily we, too, turn fickle, how readily we lash out.

But let's look at that disappointment. And that awkwardness, too. It comes because we, like the crowds, believe we've heard one promise--comfort, order, safety in the moment--and really, the gift is going to be so much bigger.

Jesus is the fulfilment of God's promises because he is transcendent.

There's a word to teach the kids. To be transcendent is, quite literally, to step over and to go beyond. Palm Sunday is one illustration of that eternal moment of going beyond. When Jesus enters Jerusalem, he surpasses every expectation we've had of how God will be present in our lives and in our world.

There is an illustration that shines with transcendence in the children's devotion book Thoughts to Make Your Heart Sing by Sally Lloyd-Jones and Jago. Often child-friendly art is soft-focused or overly bright and shiny, aiming for easy and friendly rather than compelling and contemplative. Jago's art in this book is neither; instead, it is rich, delightful and full of references to centuries of faith-filled artists. The transcendent illustration is a reworking of a fresco by the Italian Renaissance painter, Piero della Francesca showing the moment of the resurrection. The Risen Christ stands with one foot firmly planted on his tomb as if he is stepping over the edge of the grave, going beyond the limits of death to emerge victorious into life everlasting. In Jago's illustration, the edges are blurred as are the faces of the sleeping guards, and your eye is drawn to the openness of the sky and to Christ's living flesh.

The accompanying meditation by Sally Lloyd-Jones asks us to reflect on Christ's words from the cross: "It is finished." Lloyd-Jones writes:

"What was finished? "Jesus was saying: Everything you need to come back home to God, everything you need to be free and happy in God. everything you need to live forever; I've done it all!"

Palm Sunday's awkwardness has its roots in our understandable incomprehension of what that means. Maybe kids are better at not understanding. Maybe that's why their Palm Sunday joy is easier and louder. We feel awkward and can only humbly echo Martin Luther, mumbling that "as little as children know in their mother's womb about their birth, so little do we know about life everlasting."
But we are given glimpses. In every celebration, every ritual of human life, sparks of eternal life shine through. We glimpse lasting joy in our fleeting celebrations. Palm Sunday's parades can feel awkward because we do know what else will happen in Holy Week, but isn't that life, too? In every family celebration, we know that the day will come when we won't all be together. In every seasonal feast, we know that there will be hungry days and lonely days. But just as we know that

Good Friday is not the end of Holy Week's story,

we know that our hunger and our loneliness will not be the end.

We hold the promise of life everlasting.

We do not understand it but we hold it as a gift."

APRIL 20TH

EASTER SUNDAY

Our reflection for Easter Sunday is adapted from an article by the late Rev Sharron R. Blezard, who served as an Evangelical Lutheran Church of America pastor for 15 years before her death from breast cancer on July 10, 2021. 

Now it was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them who told this to the apostles. But these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them. 

Luke 24:10-11

"The apostles did not believe them. They were, after all, women. What could they possibly know? The apostles themselves were spent, devastated, and fearful; all they had staked their lives on was over. Dead and stinking gone. And now these women come back babbling about Jesus rising from the dead! What kind of idle tale and foolishness were they prattling on about? It was, of course, simply too fantastic to be true.

Peter, dear fallible and impetuous Peter, heard a ring of hope in the women’s story. Perhaps he, too, remembered Jesus’ words. He had to see for himself, so he ran and witnessed with his own eyes that it was just as the women had said. Amazing!

This is the snippet of the story given in today’s gospel.

The rest of Luke’s account includes the sighting on the walk to Emmaus, Jesus appearing among the disciples and eating some fish, followed by the ascension. It’s a chapter jam-packed with action.

Yet for this Year C Resurrection Sunday, all we really get is what is perceived as an idle tale from some most unlikely evangelists. And what are we to do with that?

Maybe on April 20th, 2025, this is just the account we need to hear.

Perhaps we all need a reminder that Jesus’ resurrection is announced to the most unlikely of people — women without power and stature — and then confirmed by a flawed disciple who denied his Lord three times on the night of Jesus’ arrest.

It could be that we need reminding that Jesus continues to turn things upside down and inside out, surprising folks with good news that defies logic AND the forces of evil, empire, and even death.

In a year where political posturing and bluster, terrorism, climate change, a massive refugee crisis, hunger, and economic uncertainty fill the media and confound our minds, a dozen short verses may be just the ticket–enough to surprise us and shake us out of our fearful complacency.

Yes, God is doing a new thing in a new way for a new day. Jesus is risen and because of those first women witnesses, we have an audacious hope and a real future. All of us! Everyone!

This is news that is celebration material and praiseworthy proclamation.

How can we keep from singing and sharing this amazing news.

So pull out the stops today. Steward well and share prodigally this real hope and amazing truth. Whether you gather in the pale light of a cemetery at daybreak or in a lily-scented, gussied-up church building, do these three simple things:

Remember Jesus’ words and the wild witness of the women,

Return to the world after worship, and

Recount the resurrection story to others.

We are not defeated. We need not be dismayed. The One we seek has risen.  

What we have is more than enough.

We have life, real life now, and real life forever.

Thanks be to God who will enable your faithful proclamation and willingness to share what may seem idle and fantastic but is joyously and blessedly true.”

APRIL 27TH

SECOND SUNDAY OF EASTER - LOW SUNDAY

Our reflection for the Sunday after Easter is by Jeanie Miley, a writer and columnist, retreat leader, and speaker on topics of spiritual growth and contemplative prayer. She is the author of ten books including Meeting Jesus Today.

“What do we do, after Easter? Can we really just walk away from the whole experience, putting away the stuff of Easter and going back to business as usual? Doesn’t it mean more to us than that? If my Easter observance means anything to me, it has to make a difference after Easter Sunday, doesn’t it? And if I take seriously the spirit of Easter, then it is important for me to be thoughtful and intentional about just what it means to be a person of Easter in the world I inhabit.

Here’s the bottom line for me this year: I cannot/dare not observe Ash Wednesday, Lent, Holy Week, Good Friday, and Easter Sunday and just yawn and go back to sleep at the wheel of my life as it used to be.                       

Being an Easter person surely means that I live in radical hope in the present, and not just the sweet bye and bye, doesn’t it? Easter must require me to exhibit hopefulness in a world that offers up multiple reasons to feel despair and hopelessness.                                                                                                                                                    

Being an Easter person means that I live in radical grace, accepting the forgiveness and mercy I’ve been offered and giving it with generosity, as it has been given to me.

If I am going to be an Easter person, that means that I am called to love people instead of using them as objects to meet my own needs. It means that I am going to have to give up manipulation, power, and control and am clean and clear in the love I give. Authentic love for others does, indeed, introduce me to my own deep pockets of selfishness and neediness, but the grace of Easter can lead me to a change of heart and new, more loving actions.

I may make only one small change or many in my life in the coming year between this Easter and next year’s Ash Wednesday, but I want to do Easter justice by living it out in the ordinary parts of my daily life.

What about you? What did Easter mean to you this year?

What will there be about the observance of it all that might be transformative for you, bringing you closer to the one wild and precious life you are meant to live? Will you experience the Presence of the Living Christ more fully, once you have observed Easter?

Will you give grace more easily when you have received the grace of the season?

How will you be more hopeful, having celebrated the wonder of resurrection?

Will you be more loving, compassionate, empathic, or tolerant when you have remembered the extent of God’s love for you?

Lamentations 3:23 affirms that God’s mercies are new every morning.

Surely that means that with the dawn of every new day, it is possible to begin against, re-claiming Easter and living it, one day at a time.

And when I forget to claim God’s mercy and grace in the morning, the good news is that it’s always morning somewhere, all the time.

With God, I can begin again at any time of the day.

Each hour, each moment, then, can be the moment of beginning again…if you are an Easter person. Each morning is an opportunity to proclaim again the affirmation of faith, “Christ is risen, indeed!” and an entire day to live within that mystery.

So…why wouldn’t you want to be an Easter person, all year long?”

APRIL 4TH 

THIRD SUNDAY OF EASTER

Dear friends, our reflection on this week`s Gospel, John 21 vs.1-19 is by Karoline Lewis, Professor at Luther Seminary, Saint Paul, Minnesota.

“Right on the heels of Thomas, we have the story of Peter, another character in the Gospel of John often misinterpreted. Perhaps not as misrepresented as Thomas, but perhaps it’s time to free Peter from his own chains of misunderstanding. Thomas, the doubter. Peter, the denier.                                    Rash and brash, Peter is the one on whom we can count to do what Peter does best — impetuousness and impulsivity. From wanting a full body bath from Jesus at the foot washing, to striding out of the garden and cutting off the ear of Malchus, to getting dressed and jumping in the lake to get to Jesus on the shore, yes, indeed, we’ve come to expect such behaviour from Peter.

With this perspective in place, it’s easy to reduce the conversation between Jesus and Peter in John 21 to a reinstatement of Peter’s discipleship or an attempt at some kind of reconciliation for a relationship gone bad. And so, it makes the most sense that this has to be the moment when Jesus forgives Peter, in particular, forgiving Peter for the ultimate foolishness and recklessness — denying Jesus when Jesus needed him most. Except nowhere in the story does Jesus utter the words, “I forgive you” because Peter hasn’t done anything deserving of Jesus’ forgiveness. No, the person who needs to forgive Peter, well, is Peter himself.

And yet, forgiveness is perhaps not the issue at all. We like to fall back on it, frequently, assuming it’s that which is needed to fix a relationship, especially to mend this specific relationship. But in this case, a little more digging and some careful study reveals that what Peter needs is to accept who Jesus needs him to be.

A re-reading of Peter’s denial in John exposes his true rejection — that of his own identity. The question asked of Peter is not, as it is in the Synoptic Gospels, “do you know the man?” To which Peter responds, “I don’t know the man.” Rather, in the Fourth Gospel, the inquiry posed to Peter is, “aren’t you one of his disciples?” Peter’s response? “I AM not.”

As a result, the conversation between Jesus and Peter should take on a completely different meaning. Jesus does not blame or shame Peter. Jesus does not ask for Peter’s repentance. Jesus does not ask three times, “Peter, do you love me?” to remind Peter of his three-fold denial, to test him or to trap him. If any of that is true, that’s not the Jesus I know, I love, or in whom I believe. Instead, as I have written before, Jesus reaffirms who Peter needs to be; the disciple Jesus needs him to be. And the disciple Jesus needs Peter to be is the shepherd now. No wonder Peter responded with “I AM not.”

Denying our identity is an all too often reality. We deny who we are because we worry that we won’t meet expectations. We deny who we are because we are afraid to disappoint. We deny who we are because we could be judged, even rejected, for that truth. We deny who we are because we do not believe that we will be liked for who we truly are, or that we will be loved for who we truly are.

We play it safe around a lot of people in our lives, pretending, and rightly so.

Not everyone deserves our truth. Not everyone can be trusted with our truth.      And, if this is the way we feel with people in our lives, even those closest to us,

I suspect the same would be true of our relationship with Jesus.

Our first thought about Peter when it comes to the decision he had to make around that charcoal fire is that he was terrified that what would happen to Jesus would happen to him. Except, of course, that Jesus had yet to be crucified. Maybe Peter was unwilling to admit his identity because he wasn’t ready yet — not that you ever can be, really. Maybe Peter couldn’t affirm his identity because the garden was too fresh in his mind, too painful, too personal. Maybe Peter was not able to say, “I AM” because he just couldn’t believe it himself.                             

I wonder when, not if, we have felt the same. We just can’t imagine that Jesus would commend us with being the good shepherd when he can no longer be.

We cannot believe that Jesus would trust us with making John 10:16 come true,

“I have other sheep that are not of this fold.” We cannot believe that Jesus could believe in us.                                                                                                    And so, Jesus shows up on that shore, hosts a meal one more time, and tells Peter, tells us, “I believe in you. I know who you are and I love you. And yes, you are exactly the disciple I need, the disciple the world needs, for God to the world.”

MAY 11TH

FOURTH SUNDAY OF EASTER

Dear friends,                                                                                                    our reflection on this week`s Gospel, John10:22-30, is by Rev. Dr. Alan Brehm,      First Presbyterian Church of Dickinson, Texas.

“The church in our day is known for a lot of things. Unfortunately, not many of them are positive.  At least not in our culture at large.  In our day, the church is known for things like covering up serious abuses by the clergy.  And at the same time, it is known for heaping loads of guilt on people who don’t seem to “fit in.”  The church in our day is known for manipulating well-meaning people into giving what amounts to huge sums of money.  Almost in the same breath we could say it is known for spending extravagant amounts of money on itself.  Or it is known for the extravagant amounts of money its “leaders” spend to create their own versions of the lifestyles of the rich and famous.  I’m not sure much of what the average person on the street thinks about church seems very  positive.    

In our Gospel lesson for today, Jesus makes some interesting remarks about what characterizes those who at least claim to follow him.  He says, “My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me”.  Earlier in this chapter, he makes a similar statement: “I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father”.  Those who belong to Jesus know him in the same way that Jesus and the Father know each other. They hear his voice and follow him. 

That seems to me to be a remarkable way to describe the church: the fellowship of those who know Jesus, who hear his voice, and follow him.

Of course, that’s easier said than done.  Talk of hearing voices in a religious or spiritual context can make people think you’ve lost touch with reality.   And, of course, the claim that “God told me” has been used and abused in every conceivable way.  And yet, when it comes down to it, what Jesus says distinguishes those who believe from those who don’t believe is this: “I know my own and my own know me” and “My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me.”  It would seem to me that some kind of spiritual relationship with God is at the heart of what it means to be a follower of Christ.  And that includes an active attempt to know God, to hear God’s voice, and to put into practice what we hear.

I don’t think that means that we turn loose all moorings and leave the church at the mercy of whatever someone claims God told them.  For one thing, I think we can assume that the voice of God in our day will not speak in a significantly different way than the generations before us have experienced it.  This particularly relates to Scripture as the primary witness to the living interaction between God and the human family over the centuries.  So paying attention to Scripture can help us in our effort to listen for the voice of God. Another check on an “anything goes” approach to spirituality is that we tend to hear God’s voice better when we do so in community with others than when we are listening alone.  I think a final test for the quality of our attempt to listen for God’s voice has to be the fruit it bears in our lives. 

If our discernment of God’s voice leads us to be more patient, more kind, more merciful, more understanding, more loving--in short, if it leads us to live in a way that is more like Christ--then I think we’re on the right track. 

At the end of the day, however, there has to be some kind of effort on our part to actually seek God: his presence, his truth, and his will for our lives.  That is an

inherently personal endeavour.  You can do it together with others, but no one can do it for you.  Somehow, sometime, somewhere in your being you have to make the decision that seeking God’s presence is a vital part of your life. Somehow, sometime, somewhere in your heart you have to decide that aligning your life with God’s will and God’s way is of central importance. 

Somehow, sometime, somewhere in your soul you have to come to the place where you realize it’s essential to at least try to listen for God’s voice.

I think this is one more way that we can bear witness to our new life through faith in Jesus Christ. 

Can you imagine the response from our world if the church came to be known as the people who truly seek to listen for God’s voice?          

Can you imagine what would happen if the church became known as the people who know Christ and who truly seek to follow him? 

I’m not sure I can.  But I’d like to try.” 

MAY 18TH

FIFTH SUNDAY OF EASTER

Dear friends,                                                                                                    our reflection this week`s Gospel John 13 vs. 32-35                                            is adapted from an article by David Lose.

“I’m going to keep my comments on Jesus’ command to love in this week’s readings quite brief. In fact, I’m going to simply pose a series of related questions.

First, do we take seriously that love is at the centre of the faith? On the one hand, I suspect we do. “For God so loved the world…” most of us can recite. On the other hand, many conversations I’ve had with Christians over the years have made me wonder what other things vie as candidates to be the centre of our faith: law, justice, knowing and doing God’s will. All of these are important, of course, but as the Apostle Paul once said, absent love, none of these other things amounts to a hill of beans (okay, so that wasn’t verbatim what Paul said, but you get the idea).

Second, even if we know and believe that love is at the heart of things, why do we sometimes find it so hard to love? Or, put differently but perhaps better, who do we have the hardest time loving? Is it people who are different from us? People who have hurt us? People who see things differently? Who? I think this is a question we don’t often ask but probably should, particularly during this election year when the question of who’s in and who’s out seems to be a part of the text and subtext of many speeches.

Third, when we do love others well, what is that like? And, just as much, when we feel loved by someone – accepted for who we are, valued, honoured, even cherished – what is that like? How does it change our lives? What might we learn from these experiences that can help us share our love with others more fully?

It’s this third question that brings me back to this Sunday’s reading. It’s easy to forget where we are in the story. After all, over three of the last four weeks we’ve been working with Easter passages – stories of the resurrection and Christ’s appearances to his disciples. But this week we go back to a story just before the cross and resurrection. In John’s account, it’s Thursday evening, the night we remember on Maundy Thursday.

In fact, the name “Maundy” is derived from the Latin mandatum, meaning a mandate or command, and comes precisely from this passage: “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.”

Often when I’ve read this passage, I’ve gotten hung up on the second part: “Just as I have loved you, so you also should love one another.” Whoa, that’s a tall order, Jesus! Can I possibly love others the way you have love me?

I’ve heard these words, that is, not just as a command but as a challenge. But I think I’ve heard it wrong. Because this is, after all, just hours before Jesus will be handed over, tried, beaten, and crucified…all for us. Jesus goes to the cross to show us just how much God loves us. Jesus has been extending God’s forgiveness and love throughout the Gospel, and as John reports in the opening line of this chapter, a chapter that marks the turn to the second half of John’s story, “Now before the festival of the Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father. And having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end” (13:1).

That’s what this verse is about. Jesus reminding us of just how much he loves us – and of how much God loved and loves us through him – that we might be empowered to love others, extending God’s love through word and deed, and in this way love others as Jesus has loved us.

We don’t have to do this perfectly to do it meaningfully, of course. Indeed, even as we remember those who have loved us, we probably acknowledge that while their love was not perfect, it was nevertheless powerful. So, remind yourself this week, that God is love, that God sent Jesus to show us that we are loved, that this love changes us, empowering us to love others, and that even when we struggle to love – often for compelling reasons – yet God continues to love us and work through our lives to bless the world God has created and continues to sustain.

Maybe this doesn’t sound like all that much, on any given week or in the face of all the injustice and challenges in the world. But, trust me, it is a powerful word through which God continues to work.”

MAY 25TH

SIXTH SUNDAY OF EASTER

Our reflection on the Gospel passage this week, John 5 vs.1-9,

is by Rev Debbie Thomas, Minister for Lifelong Formation at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Palo Alto, California. 

“If you’ve spent any time reading the Gospels,

then you know that Jesus asks in-your-face questions. 

“Do you love me?”  

“Why are you so afraid?”  

“Are you also going to leave?”  

“How long shall I put up with you?”   

“Do you still not understand?”

But the question he asks in this week’s Gospel story might be the most jarring of all.  The setting in which he asks it is Jerusalem, near a pool by the Sheep’s Gate.  In the five porticos by the pool, the chronically sick and disabled of the city lie waiting.  

Rumour, legend, or tradition has it that an angel visits the pool at random times, stirring up the water, and giving it healing properties.  

The first person to step into the pool after the angel disturbs it, receives healing.  

In our story, Jesus visits this outdoor nursing home, finds a man lying by the pool who has been sick for thirty-eight years, and approaches him with a question.  

No introductions.  No small talk.  No sermon. Just a question:

“Do you want to be made well?”

Is it just me, or is this an uncomfortable-making question?  How would you feel if you were unwell for close to four decades, and a stranger came along one day and asked if you really wanted to get better?  Implying that your ongoing sickness was at least partially your fault.  Implying that you were benefiting, consciously or unconsciously, from remaining sick.  Implying that you were somehow invested in your brokenness, that you had stakes in it, that your identity was so wrapped up in your infirmity, weakness, or defeat, you couldn’t imagine your life without your illness.

How would you feel? How would you respond?  Would you hear pure insult in the question?  Or would you hear a faint echo of the truth?  The kind of truth that hurts?

Let me be clear. I don’t believe that Jesus is “blaming the victim” in this story.  

All four Gospels attest to his deep compassion for the sick and the disabled. 

Not once in Scripture does he respond to pain or illness with contempt, mockery, or condescension.  

Not once does he tell a sick person that her illness is her own fault.  

In fact, he corrects that cultural misunderstanding about disease and disability at every opportunity.

All of that to say: I trust Jesus’s heart and his motives enough to take his question in this Gospel story at face value.  When he looks at the man who has been

But if I’m willing to sit with the uncomfortable truths at the heart of this week’s Gospel story, maybe I can come to know that Jesus’s desires for me aren’t murky and two-sided like mine are.  

He wants me to be made well.  Period.  He wants me to walk again.  To thrive again.  To live again.  He wants to deliver me from the paralysis of my past, my baggage, my fear, my laziness.  He wants me to want, and to want fiercely. 

He wants me to say, “Yes.”  Do you want to be made well?  Yes.   

If there’s anything more remarkable in this Gospel story than Jesus’s question, it’s what happens after he asks it.  “Stand up, take your mat and walk,” Jesus tells the man.  And the man does exactly that.  "At once," John tells us, “the man was made well, and he took up his mat and began to walk.”

Notice that the man never asks for healing.  There’s no indication in the story that he even knows who Jesus is.  Notice that Jesus makes no reference to belief, as he often does when he performs a healing miracle.  

He doesn’t tell the man, “Your faith has made you well,” because that would be a lie.  Notice that Jesus doesn’t dwell on the man’s past; he doesn’t dredge up the loss and waste of the thirty-eight years the man can’t get back.

And notice that he doesn’t heal the man on the man’s terms — by helping him into the pool when the angel stirs the water.  Jesus simply tells the man to get up and walk.  And he does.

What I take away from this story is that Jesus is always and everywhere in the business of making new and making well.  His desire to heal is intrinsic to his character — it doesn’t depend on me.  In other words, “Do you want to be made well?” is a question he will never stop asking, because his heart’s desire is for my wholeness, my freedom, and my thriving, and he understands that there is painful, surgical power in the question itself.  Confronting the zinger question of what we want — what we really want — is how the work of healing begins.”

JUNE 1ST

ASCENSION SUNDAY

Our reflection on the period between Easter and Pentecost including the Ascension, is by Barbara Lundblad, Professor Emeritus of Preaching at Union Theological Seminary in New York.

 “The Nurturing Place” was a day care centre in Jersey City. The centre, run by Roman Catholic sisters, welcomed children whose families were homeless, families with no addresses. One day the sisters took the children to the Jersey shore.      The 3- and 4-year-olds scrambled up the sandy dunes, falling and giggling their way to the top of what must have seemed like mountains to their little legs. 

When they got to the top, they could hardly believe their eyes: water as far as they could see — more water than they had ever seen. They slid down the dunes and ran to the ocean’s edge. They chased the waves that teased their toes. Then they went off for a picnic in a nearby park. After lunch they begged to go back to the dunes. One little boy named Freddie outran the rest and climbed his way to the top. He looked out, then turned to the others and shouted, “It’s still there!”

In Freddie’s short life, so much had disappeared — even the ocean could disappear over lunch. We’re older and wise enough to know the ocean is there even when we’re not looking. But we’re not so sure about other things. We may feel a bit like the poet who said: you discover that “ … you live in a different place though you have never moved.” We’re scrambling up the sandy dunes, trying to find a place that will hold.

Jesus’ disciples must have felt the earth slipping beneath their feet at the thought of being left alone. Again. It had been a roller coaster ride of emotions since they followed Jesus into Jerusalem — hope, fear, death, and then the unbelievable presence of Jesus — no longer dead, but alive. But they knew he wouldn’t stay. Indeed, Jesus speaks as though he’s already gone: “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you … ” Isn’t he still with them? His words must have seemed very confusing. Then Jesus opened their minds to understand the scriptures and interpreted the meaning of all that had taken place. He had done the same thing with two disciples on the road to Emmaus.

Now Jesus promises even more than scripture: “See, I am sending upon you what my Father promised; so stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.”

What did he mean? What was this “power from on high”? Jesus doesn’t say “Holy Spirit” here, but he does in Luke’s second volume, the book of Acts: “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. And you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth.” (Acts 1: 8) This is the same Spirit that rested on Jesus at his baptism, the same Spirit that anointed Jesus to preach good news to the poor and freedom for the oppressed. This same “power from on high” would now be given to the disciples and by extension, to us. This is a gift from beyond ourselves — not the same as “team spirit” or conscience or inner peace or anything we create on our own.

But how can we speak of something we have never seen? Could the Spirit be anything we imagine? In John’s gospel Jesus compared the Spirit to the wind — you hear the sound of it, but you don’t know where it comes from or where it goes. Though we cannot see the Spirit, we can see where the Spirit has been.

There’s a wonderful woodcut of Jesus’ ascension by Albrecht Durer. If you look closely at the picture — not up in the clouds, but on the ground — you can see footprints on the earth. Durer has carefully outlined Jesus’ footprints down on the level where the disciples are standing with their mouths open. Perhaps the artist was simply imagining a detail that isn’t in the text. Or perhaps, he is asking us, “Why do you stand looking up into heaven?”

Look at Jesus and we will see where the Spirit has been: Jesus’ feet carried him where others wouldn’t go, brought him to tables surrounded by odd companions, gathered children on his lap, and questioned the disparities between the wealthy and the poor.

Theologians haven’t had an easy time talking about the Spirit. They’ve talked far more about God the Father and God the Son. Theologian Elizabeth Johnson says, “Perhaps at the end of their long treatises, they simply got tired.”² Sometimes, they forgot about the Holy Spirit all together. “This is a shame,” says Johnson, “for what is being neglected is nothing less than the mystery of God’s personal engagement with the world … the mystery of God closer to us than we are to ourselves.” This is staying power.

The Spirit is something rather than nothing. Look at the life of Jesus to see where the Spirit has been — leaves moving, then still upon the tree, nailed down. But the story didn’t end there. God breathed into lifeless clay and brought Jesus forth from the tomb. And when the risen Jesus appeared to his disciples, he said: “Stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.” From now on, Jesus says, I will be with you in the power of the Spirit. Though I am leaving, you will not be left alone. This is staying power.

The Spirit that anointed Jesus anoints us, still breathes with us and surprises us. Still reshapes the community called the church. If we forget and imagine that we’re in this all by ourselves, if we trust only in our own efforts, I hope we’ll hear a little boy named Freddie calling out to us: “It’s still there!”

JUNE 8TH

PENTECOST SUNDAY

Our reflection for Pentecost Sunday is by  Melissa Bane Sevier, a fledgling podcaster, Presbyterian minister, public speaker, author, photographer, and blogger.

“I still occasionally receive newsletters from the first seminary I attended (for an education degree).  Almost invariably, it contains stories of ministers who have birthed large churches out of nothing in just a few years, or who have turned dying congregations into mega churches. 

These are spectacular “wow” narratives, and I assume they are designed to make alumni feel proud of the institution that educated them and make them want to give their support. 

Truly, there is nothing wrong with that.  I am always impressed.

The Pentecost story is even more astounding. 

It contains elements that are stunning, incredible, ecstatic.  

When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other  languages, as the Spirit gave them ability…  Those who welcomed [Peter’s] message were baptized, and that day about three thousand persons were added. 

From Acts 2 

Wow!  

3,000 new members as the result of one sermon.  Talk about ecstatic.   

It was an amazingly dramatic beginning.  But I’m even more intrigued by what happened after the drama subsided.  The very next verse says: 

They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.

This last verse seems to refer to the ordering of their lives together after the Pentecost event. Not much drama here.  Worshiping together, eating together, learning together.  We know from the rest of Acts that there would be more excitement in the form of healings, unexpected conversions, visions, even a shipwreck.  There would also be other events, far more of them and far less sensational: conversations, travels, meetings, more sermons.

Our lives together are somewhat the same, a couple of thousand years later.  Occasionally we hear of some remarkable situation:  amazing church growth; surprising personal turnarounds or healings; breathtaking testimonials. 

These are the “wow” stories that make newsletters come alive. 

More often, though, the stories that I find truly remarkable are the ones that never get told in the seminary news (or anywhere else) because they are not stories of wild action, but of simply living life with God:

• the  chaplain who has been working with Alzheimer’s patients for ten years, and whose patients never get well or give testimonials; 
• the church that hasn’t been able to afford a pastor for decades and must often suffer through a succession of mediocre student pastors, but still is ministering to its neighbourhood by providing hot lunches for the poor seven days a week; 
• the woman who cares for her children with humour, love and kindness even though her husband has left;
• the teens who lead their community in starting a recycling project, to care for God’s earth;
• the young man who somehow finds peace in his soul after he’s lived through a war in Iraq;
• the elders of shrinking Korean and Anglo churches who reach out to each other to share a building and urban ministry. 

God’s work takes place wherever God’s people are—and wherever God’s people are open to the leading of the Spirit.  The Spirit’s people measure success, not by the number of converts or new members or programs, but by whether or not we are doing what the Spirit is urging us to do.  That is a vastly more difficult calculation.  We can easily count the number of people in the pews and we can see the size of our programs, but how do we measure the long-lasting effect we are having on our friends, family and community? 

The effect of the Spirit’s work through the Spirit’s people is indeed beyond measure.                 

It is incalculable. 

Wow.”

JUNE 15TH

TRINTY SUNDAY

The Congregational Federation, in common with a number of Congregational bodies across the world is a non-creedal fellowship. Members or Ministers are not required to sign up to a doctrinal statement of belief.                                                                                                                                                                    Our brothers and sisters in the National Association of Congregational Christian Churches in the USA like to say that our Household of Faith is distinguished by three principles or values: Faith, Freedom and Fellowship.

Faith -The earliest Statement of Faith in the Church of the New Testament was short and simple, "Jesus is Lord". That is where we begin; it is our foundation.                                                                                                                

Freedom - Others may move on from this starting point to embrace other beliefs or doctrines that they believe God has made clear to them. But each church member is encouraged to search the scriptures for themselves and to come to their own conclusions, as they feel led by the Spirit.                              

Fellowship - Despite potential differences in belief and practice we nevertheless can come together in fellowship because the basis of our fellowship is not in a Creed but in a Covenant. We covenant with God and with one another to walk in the ways of God known to us or yet to be made known to us.

With all of that in mind, on this Trinity Sunday, some will be more comfortable with the doctrine of the Trinity than others. However, all of us can recognise that God is revealed in scripture -

as a creative and loving Father,                                         

in Jesus - as a compassionate and loving Saviour                                                and in the activity of God in our hearts and minds - as a living and loving Spirit.                                                                                                    

But why stop with a Three-Fold God?

God`s revelation to the world and action within it is manifold.

Yes, we know that Father Son and Spirit are expressions of God,  but God cannot be confined or defined. And so, I include a hymn by a former Congregationalist Minister, Brian Wren, entitled "Bring many names".

May the blessing of the God of Many Names be with you all.

Bring many names, beautiful and good,
celebrate, in parable and story,
holiness in glory, living, loving God.
Hail and Hosanna! Bring many names!

Strong mother God, working night and day,
planning all the wonders of creation,
setting each equation genius at play:
Hail and Hosanna, strong mother God!

Warm father God, hugging every child,
feeling all the strains of human living,
caring and forgiving till we're reconciled:
Hail and Hosanna, warm father God!

Old, aching God, grey with endless care,
calmly piercing evil's new disguises,
glad of good surprises, wiser than despair:
Hail and Hosanna, old, aching God!

Young, growing God, eager, on the move,
saying no to falsehood and unkindness,
crying out for justice, giving all you have:
Hail and Hosanna, young, growing God!

Great, living God, never fully known,
joyful darkness far beyond our seeing,
closer yet than breathing, everlasting home:
Hail and Hosanna, great, living God!

JUNE 22ND

FIRST SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY

Our reflection on this week`s Gospel Luke 8:26-39 is by David Lose

“When I’ve written on this passage in years past, I’ve focused on the power of names. It regularly breaks my heart, for instance, to hear this young man respond to Jesus query, “What is your name?” by answering, “Legion.”

He has defined himself, I’ve argued, by his deficits, by his ailment, by his pain, by his struggles and captivity. I’ve contrasted this shrunken, broken reality with the life-restoring gift of a new name and identity in Holy Baptism.

I am still struck by this reality and, indeed, think it still preaches.

But this year I was taken not so much by what Jesus said to this captive young man, but where Jesus went to find him.

First, he leaves the comfortable, predominantly Jewish area of Galilee and crosses the sea to the land of the Gerasene’s.

This is Gentile territory, not a place a Jewish rabbi would normally venture.

Once on land, he is encountered – many would say “accosted” – by a man possessed by an unclean spirit. That’s an interesting designation, reminding us that there are a variety of spirits, some life giving, some not. This one is not.

And, in Jewish custom, it is therefore he is not only perilous to himself and others, but religiously unclean.

Moreover, this young man no longer abides among the living in the local town but rather dwells among the dead in the tombs. Tombs, we should note, are another place considered ritually unclean.

All of which means that Jesus, the Jewish itinerant rabbi proclaiming the coming kingdom of God, goes to an unclean land to meet a man possessed by an unclean spirit living in an unclean place.

This is, in short, the very last place Jesus should be.

Which, when you think about it, is where God usually shows up. 

At our moments of profound doubt, grief, loss, and defeat.

And – and this is the one that often surprises us – among those who may to this point have little interest in, let alone relationship with, God.

Note that after this encounter, Jesus sails back home again.

Which may mean that the whole trek across a stormy sea and turbulent run in with townspeople distraught by their loss of livestock and frightened by the power of this rabbi was all in order to meet this unclean man possessed by an unclean spirit living in an unclean and forsaken environment.

All of which suggests to me that there is absolutely nowhere God is not willing to go to reach and free and sustain and heal those who are broken and despairing.

There is no place on earth that is God-forsaken.

Moreover, and more importantly, there is no person that is God-forsaken.

Unclean. Outcast. Abandoned. Unpopular. Incarcerated. Unbeliever.

No one is left out.

Consider, there is no indication that this Gentile man later became Jewish or, for that matter, Christian. He wants to follow Jesus, but Jesus sends him back home with the instructions, “Go and tell what God has done for you.”

There are no conditions to be met to receive God’s love. You don’t have to be wealthy…or poor. You don’t have to be from one ethnic group…or another. You don’t have to have believed your whole life, or come to faith only recently, or have any faith at all. Jesus seeks out everyone, even this unclean man possessed by an unclean spirit living in an unclean place. And just so God loves all: male and female; young and old; gay or straight; white, black, Asian, Latino; believers and non-believers; Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, atheist; the list goes on.

Which might make us ask, where are we willing to go? Whom are we willing to love? In the wake of one more violent crime of hate and terror, we need, I think, first to be reminded that God is always among those in greatest pain and need and, second, that we are sent to go and do likewise.

This is not often easy work, of course, but we take it up and go out knowing that God is with us, working through us to seek out those in need, to share a word of mercy and grace, and to witness to the hope we have in Jesus, the one who continues to seek us out when we feel down and out, caught in the shadow lands, eager for a new name, identity and future.”

JUNE 29TH

SECOND SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY

Our reflection on the Gospel passage for this week Luke9 vs. 51-end, is taken from an article by Daniel B. Clendenin, of the Journey with Jesus Foundation.

“If your Bible has study notes, you might see that some ancient manuscripts insert an extra verse in this week's Gospel at Luke 9:56. I think of this extra verse as the most important verse not in the Bible. At Luke 9:56 some Greek manuscripts add a conclusion to the story: "And Jesus said to them, 'You do not know what kind of spirit you are of, for the Son of Man did not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them.'"

As Jesus travelled to Jerusalem, he sent his advance team to a Samaritan village to prepare for his arrival. "But the people there did not welcome him," writes Luke. Because they rejected Jesus, or maybe because of the Samaritan's ethnic hostility toward them, the disciples James and John exploded in rage: "Lord, do you want us to call down fire from heaven to destroy them?!" They probably spoke figuratively, not literally, but that's small consolation given their desire for revenge. Instead of rebuking the Samaritans who rejected him, Jesus rebuked James and John who defended him. Then comes the extra verse that shouldn't be in the Bible: "And Jesus said to them, 'You do not know what kind of spirit you are of, for the Son of Man did not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them.'"

When textual scholars — God bless them! — compare, contrast and cross-check every last fragment of evidence, they reach an overwhelming consensus: even though we don't have the original documents that Luke, for example, wrote, and even though there are many differences among those manuscripts, the Bible that we read today is a mirror image of the texts as they were originally written. In effect, we read "the real McCoy" and not some corrupt approximation.

 Unfortunately for me, this unprecedented textual precision leads the experts to reject my favourite addition to the Bible. In the footnote at the bottom of my Greek New Testament the editors assign this variant reading a grade of "C." That's no better than how you'd feel about getting a "C" on a test; it means that there's significant doubt that the verse added at Luke 9:56 belongs in Luke's original.

But I'm not so ready to give up. I'm glad that a later copyist inserted his gloss. It's like a one-sentence commentary on what he thought the Gospel story meant: "Jesus didn't come to destroy men's lives, but to save them." Even though the addition doesn't convey the original words of Luke, it surely communicates the authentic spirit of Jesus.

When James and John invoked divine wrath on the Samaritans, they exemplified an attitude diametrically opposed to everything Jesus said and did. A few verses earlier John tried to stop an exorcist from healing a person because "he was not one of us" (Luke 9:49). These zealous disciples transformed the good news of God's unconditional love for all people into the bad news that God had it in for them. The "good news" belonged to them, the "bad news" was for others.

For many people today, religion is what Christopher Hitchens calls a "force multiplier of tribal suspicions and hatred," and God is an angry tyrant before whom people must grovel in fear. Paul emphasizes divine favour expressed through human love in this week's epistle. "The only thing that matters," wrote Paul, "is faith expressing itself in love." You can summarize the entire Bible, he insisted, in five words: "Love your neighbour as yourself." This is nearly a verbatim quote from Jesus himself (Matthew 22:37f), who had quoted it from the more ancient Leviticus 19:18. To the Corinthians Paul wrote that the "greatest gift" is love, without which we are nothing but an irritation and a nuisance.

Demonstrating divine favour to every person, rather than denying it to any person, validates claims about the love of God. For both Jesus and Paul divine love made human was the only thing, the entire thing, and the greatest thing. The additional verse added to the text of Luke 9:56 is clearly spurious, but the authentic voice behind it is unmistakably original: "the Son of Man did not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them."

JULY 6TH

THIRD SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY

Our reflection on this week`s Gospel, Luke 10 1-11,16-20, is by Karoline Lewis.

“For the first time in my life, this past week I was trolled on Facebook. To be honest, I expected it to happen sooner, but to be totally honest, I never thought I would be the object of such a hurtful comment. Call me gullible, I guess. Or, even when fully aware of trolling, I still find it hard to believe that a person can be like that to another human being.

Of course, I know, we are capable of much worse — much, much worse. The person was responding to an article I shared. On Facebook, Twitter, and here in this column, I have tried to be faithful to my own commitments, to my own truth, to my own faith. If someone does not agree with me, that is fine. That is the nature of discourse, whether intellectual, theological, or personal. There have been many times over the years that readers have questioned my conclusions and we engage in conversation, sometimes intense, but most of the time respectful. But when dialogue devolves into inflammatory and vitriolic remarks, it is demonstrative of a more insidious truth that can be summarized in the following quote I ran across this week by Charles Blow, “One doesn’t have to operate with great malice to do great harm. The absence of empathy and understanding are sufficient.”

What does all of this have to do with the Gospel reading for this Sunday? I think Jesus knows this truth about the human condition. “Whoever listens to you listens to me, and whoever rejects you rejects me, and whoever rejects me rejects the one who sent me” (Luke 10:16). The verb rendered as “reject” has some interesting possibilities when it comes to translation. “To disregard, set aside; to nullify; to refuse, to slight.” Even a slight has the potential to lead to harm. And we know exactly to what end the rejection of Jesus’ words and Jesus’ actions led.

Perhaps our world is really no different than the mission field into which Jesus’ disciples were sent. Human nature hasn’t changed much in 2,000 years. We would do well to do our witness work with eyes wide open and expect rejection sooner rather than later. Those who refuse to see others as Jesus sees them. Those who walk on by, ignoring those left for dead. Those who perpetuate patriarchy and protect their power by any means possible. Those who refuse to see the sin of white supremacy. Those who prop up leaders to save their own skins — in the end do not want the Kingdom of God near. Because when the Kingdom of God is near, it is then indeed when the lack of empathy and the dearth of understanding will be exposed and you can expect the trolls to start their trolling.

It is no accident that Jesus sends his disciples out ahead of him so early on in the travel narrative. There are still nine chapters left before they arrive in Jerusalem. The disciples need to know, they need to experience, both the rejection that Jesus will experience and what is inherent in the gospel itself. They need to understand that not everyone will appreciate, to say the least, hearing that the Kingdom of God is near.

A troll here and there is certainly nothing like Jesus’ faced. Whether it’s rejection of how we interpret Scripture or choose to live our faith, we shake the dust off our sandals and move on.

I found it interesting how many Facebook friends responded to the troll’s post quoting this very passage from Luke. And so, the interchange between Jesus and his disciples and the exchange between the troll and me point to a characteristic of the Christian faith hidden between the lines. To be sure, “shaking the dust off your sandals” is not simply a lesson in morality or a trouble-free rule for Christian living. It is a wider insistence on persistence. You shake the dust off and move on, certain of the truth of gospel. And then you come back the next day and testify to the truth once again. And the day after that. And that’s the hard part. Because the real truth is, not everyone sitting in our pews wants to hear that the Kingdom of God is near. Is that ever an understatement!              

I am sure I am not alone when I admit that sometimes it’s just easier to say what people want to hear — most of the time, actually. Rather than ruffling the feathers or worse, risk offending our base, we utter safe generalities, hiding behind palatable platitudes rather than taking a stand or being forthright about what is at stake for us.

And so, I find it comforting that Jesus doesn’t send the disciples out solo. Seventy is a hefty number of colleagues and comrades to accompany you and have your back.

We need each other in this thing called ministry, in our call to preach.

We shake the dust off and move on — but we never travel alone.”

JULY 13TH

FOURTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY

Our reflection on the Gospel passage Luke 10 vs.25-37 is by Karoline Lewis.

“The story of the Good Samaritan is rather remarkable. It has worked its way into our culture that even the unchurched will summon its principles so as to describe and determine a moral way of life. Yet, to “be a good Samaritan” is merely an occasion to define someone’s extraordinary act of assistance. As if day-to-day life demands no such decisions, no such needs.                                                       

The ubiquity of this parable is then cause for great consternation among us preachers — what revelatory insight can we possibly share that would provide a new perspective on this well-worn, oft-told tale? Part of the challenge, of course, is the title itself. It makes me want to ask the person, the committee, the translation, the manuscript, the scribe, whomever, “Just how did you decide on this title, anyway? What makes the Samaritan ‘good’? Especially, when he is never called ‘good’ in the story itself?”                                                                   

Were there bad Samaritans? Actually, at the time of Jesus, most, if not all, Samaritans were considered bad, so kind of a moot point.

Was the Samaritan good because he actually saw the guy in the ditch? That could be it. After all, this is a main theme in Luke. Jesus sees whom others overlook and Jesus asks us to see those we might easily pass by.

Was the Samaritan good because he was moved with pity (had compassion on him; had mercy on him; Psalm 25:6)?

Was the Samaritan good because he went to the beaten man and bandaged his wounds?

Was the Samaritan good because before bandaging the left-for-dead man’s injuries he poured oil and wine on them?

Was the Samaritan good because he put the ditch-guy on his very own animal? Was the Samaritan good because he brought him to an inn and took care of him? Was the Samaritan good because the next day he took out two denarii, equivalent of two paydays, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, “Take care of him?”

Was the Samaritan good because he said, “when I get back, I will repay you whatever more you spend.”

That is, was the Samaritan good because he made sure that both the man would be well and even that the man might prosper (“For the Lord will again take delight in prospering you, just as he delighted in prospering your ancestors,” Deuteronomy 30:9)?

Was the Samaritan good because he did all of the above?

Believe me, I thought through every single one of these options. And every single one of these options is too much for one sermon. But here is what I would preach this Sunday: what if the Samaritan was good because he simply made the choice to come near the almost dead guy in the ditch? To approach him? To decrease the distance between him and the man clearly in need of help?                               

What if eternal life might also be known, here and now and in this place, in nearness, not remoteness? In proximity, not reserve? In deciding to be closer, and not looking for ways to push away? We expend a lot of energy in our lives toward decided detachment, disengagement, and disenfranchisement. Sometimes these decisions are very much justified — for our safety, our self-preservation, our self-care. But other times, our distance is decided by our determination not to change. Our resistance to intimacy. Our rejection of those persons that might actually expose who we truly are.

If the Levite and the priest came near? Well, they would then have to face some truths about themselves that I suspect they would rather not admit and that they have spent a lifetime pretending, hoping, even ensuring, don’t exist.

“Who is my neighbour?” means, according to Jesus,

a commitment to coming near.

Your neighbour is not just the person living next door — in a house you never have to enter, into which you might never be invited, to whom you never have to speak. Your neighbour is not one who happens to be convenient for you to help.

Your neighbours are not those whom you can keep in their place.

Your neighbour is not the one who meets the qualifications of your company.

Your neighbour is someone who, without a doubt, is experiencing pain, struggles, challenges, and sorrow, and yet to whom you draw near.

Your neighbour is someone who clearly has needs and you decide —

I will help you.

Your neighbour is someone who might even resist your assistance

but you insist on it anyway.

This should not be such a stretch for us preachers or listeners. After all, God’s decision to become human is just such an act — a commitment to closeness, a desire to close the distance, a need for nearness.

In the end, the Good Samaritan comes near

as one who knows the Kingdom is near.

And the Kingdom of God comes near when we do the same.”

JULY 20TH

FIFTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY

Our reflection on this week`s Gospel Luke 10vs.39-42 is by Rev. Dr. Jennifer S. Wyant, Pastor at Johns Creek United Methodist Church in Johns Creek, Georgia, USA.

“There is a famous legend told about Martha of Bethany that was popular in the Middle Ages. In this story, which takes place after the resurrection of Jesus, she becomes a traveling preacher and ends up in a small town in France that, unfortunately, has a chronic dragon problem. She manages to slay the dragon and, in doing so, wins the whole town over to Christianity. In that same story, her sister Mary, on that same trip, ends up starting a monastery in the wilderness, meaning they both live out the roles assigned to them in Christian history: Martha acts and Mary studies. Martha represents an active faith, while Mary represents a contemplative faith. 

This dichotomy comes in many ways from Luke 10:38–42, in which Martha shows Jesus hospitality while Mary sits at his feet. The two women embody different aspects of Christian discipleship in Luke’s Gospel, and both are lifted up as positive characters. They are both doing good things. There is no villain in this story. 

But ultimately, Jesus tells Martha that Mary has chosen the better part, and this represents a tension point for most readers.

Why is Jesus, who has just told the parable of the Good Samaritan, now saying that sitting at his feet is the better thing to do than serving him?

Does Luke think contemplative practices of Christianity (prayer and study) are really better than the active practices (hospitality and service)? Should we think that too?

To see if we can make any headway on this, let’s take a step back and look at each character’s actions. 

Two good things

First, we see that Martha is described as welcoming Jesus into her home. She is showing him hospitality by receiving and preparing a meal for him. Earlier in Luke 10, Jesus tells his disciples that those who welcome them will be blessed and that the Kingdom of God has come near to them (verse 9). Similarly, in Luke 19, Zacchaeus will also welcome Jesus. Welcoming is the act of a true disciple in Luke. Martha is doing the right thing.

Her sister, Mary, is described as sitting at Jesus’ feet while listening to his words. Both actions suggest the posture of a true disciple. In the New Testament and in its wider culture, sitting at someone’s feet is a sign of deference to a teacher and indicates a teacher/disciple relationship. For instance, Paul describes himself as sitting at the feet of his teacher Gamaliel in Acts 22:3.

(Similarly, the theme of listening to the word of the Lord is a recurring one in Luke–Acts (Luke 5:1; 6:47; 7:29; 8:14, 21; 10:16; 11:28; 14:35; Acts 2:22; 4:4; 10:22; 13:7, 44; 15:7; 19:10; 10:28) and appears as a core piece of authentic discipleship.) Thus, we have two sisters and two disciples.

The better part?

The trouble, then, is not what either sister has done. The trouble comes when we are told that Martha is distracted by many things. These distractions feel relatable as she juggles a household and serving the Lord. She then turns to Jesus and asks why he does not seem to care, and why he hasn’t asked her sister to help.    Again, this feels relatable, and I think we, as readers, are supposed to sympathize with Martha in her request. She is working hard and needs help. But by making this request, she is forcing Jesus to choose between the two (good) behaviours, either telling Mary to stop listening and help her sister, or rejecting Martha’s plea.

But Jesus flips the script on her (and on us) by telling her that she is worried about so many things, but only a few things, indeed, only one thing is needed (verse 42). Mary, he tells her, has chosen the better part, one that will not be taken away from her. 

The problem wasn’t that Martha was serving, which is worse than sitting at Jesus’ feet. The problem was that she was distracted by the wrong things. She became focused on the fact that her sister wasn’t helping. Like the older brother in the Parable of the Prodigal Son or the Pharisee in the Parable of the Tax Collector, Martha is focused on the actions of others and their perceived shortcomings, as opposed to focusing on her own relationship with Jesus.           

It is this misorientation, not her service or her hospitality, that leads to Jesus’ gentle rebuke. Mary has chosen God as her portion, and that will never be taken away.  In this way, the story of these two sisters serves as a powerful example for disciples today. It turns out that maybe Luke isn’t attempting to prioritize one act of Christian discipleship over another. Maybe instead he is presenting the idea that we can do right and good things but still be distracted by the wrong things. We can focus more on the perceived shortcomings of those around us than on our own relationship with Jesus.

So yes, in Luke, disciples both serve and listen to the word, just as disciples today navigate both the contemplative and the active practices of faith.

Sometimes we slay dragons, and sometimes we start monasteries.

But Luke’s deeper concern is that our orientation be in the right place:

that we focus on Jesus and let the main thing be the main thing.”

JULY 27TH 

SIXTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY

Our reflection on the Gospel passage Luke 11:1-13 (and in particular verse 13)      is by Rev Karoline Lewis, Chair in Biblical Preaching at Luther Seminary, St. Paul, Minnesota, USA. 

“This week I have been reading a book by Mary Norris, Between You and Me: Confessions of a Comma Queen. Norris’s career has spanned almost four decades in the The New Yorker’s editorial department. Ok, I know I need to work on choosing something to read that is a little more outside the box of what I do for a living. I promise to work on that.

But truly, the book is a fascinating read. If you think grammar is boring? Mary Norris will convince you that grammar not only matters, but also can be really interesting, even engaging.                                                                           The book includes, for example, the history of Webster’s dictionary, the proper use of who and whom, the idiosyncrasies of The New Yorker’s style manual, and the joy of knowing how to spell. Yes, joy!

One thing, however, caught my attention as I was thinking about the preaching of this Sunday’s text from Luke — the importance of context in the determination of meaning. Of course, this is something we preachers know already, obviously.    But it was fascinating to think about the importance of context when it comes to editing. Every editorial decision for Norris has to incorporate the immediate literary context, The New Yorker editorial criteria, and Norris’s knowledge of, or relationship with, the author and her or his personal style.

Considering the Luke text, the phrase I found fraught with the importance of context was, “how much more?” In the case of the words of Jesus, “how much more will the heavenly Father give you?”

But “how much more” in different contexts has very different meanings,        doesn’t it?

“How much more” can be as mundane as clarifying a monetary transaction, determining what’s left to do toward the completion of a task, or the time outstanding for a meeting or event. Yet, depending on the nature of the occasion, “how much more?” can be either the question that wishes for the end to come or that hopes for time to stop still.

In the contexts of our personal lives “how much more?” might be, how much more can I keep up with the demands of my family? How much more of this strained relationship can I take? How much more loss can I survive?

In the contexts of our professional lives: how much more will this church take from me? How much more can I give before I simply lose it?

How much more can I trust in the preaching of God’s Word before, in the midst of the hate and violence and hopelessness of the world, the Gospel starts sounding like just a figment of my imagination?

And, speaking of our world, how much more can we hear about the manifestations of racism, terrorism, homophobia, xenophobia, before we begin to believe dystopia as the norm over the Kingdom of God?

We need these words from Jesus today; words that help us remember a context we should never forget when it comes to making meaning in our lives — the context of God.

That whenever we say, “how much more?” from our places of hurt and pain and loss, God’s response is, “how much more will I give you?”

That whenever we voice, “how much more?” from our locations of abandonment and rejection, God says, “how much more do I promise to be with you?

That whenever we utter, “how much more?” from our spaces of disillusionment and disappointment God says, “how much more do I love you?”

On the day we call, “how much more?” God answers us, increasing our strength of soul (Psalm 138:3), because for every “how much more?” we say and pray — which we need to say, have to say, cannot help but pray in our times of need and grief and longing, God responds with God’s “how much more.”

AUGUST 3RD

SEVENTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY

Our reflection on the Gospel Luke 12:13-21 is by Alyce M. McKenzie.

“This parable of the Rich Farmer is unique to Luke, but its spirit shows up in Jesus' teaching about treasures in heaven versus treasures on earth in Matthew (6:19-21), and in the story of the wealthy man's encounter with Jesus recounted in all three gospels (Mt. 19:16-30; Mk. 10:17-31; Lk. 18:18-30).

The Christian's attitude toward possessions is an important theme in Luke. In the set-up to this parable, a man asks Jesus to settle a dispute with his brother over their inheritance. Jesus changes the subject from possessions to one's attitude toward them. His parable undercuts our habit of equating possessions with life. The parable illuminates the man's inward life through a soliloquy, one of Luke's favourite ways of expressing a person's motivations and decisions (12:17-19).

In several of Luke's parables the protagonist comes to a turning point (Prodigal Son, Dishonest Steward, Unjust Judge) and decides to take a different course of action. This turning point is expressed in the soliloquy.

But here the rich man's words to himself express his decision to continue on his present course of accumulating more resources without sharing them.

His expectation is that his comfortable life, lived without thought of the suffering of others, will continue, only better organized, with a more secure future.

There is no conversion or change of course here to propel the plot forward. In this respect, this parable is like the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus. The man's own death, which, we are told, will happen this same evening, intervenes with appalling swiftness.

This is the only parable in Luke in which God directly addresses a character. And what God says is this: "You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?" (12:20).

The Rich Farmer parable points to the futility of devoting one's life to accumulating possessions in light of the coming judgment. Earlier in Luke's Gospel, Jesus says, "Woe to you who are rich now, for you have received your consolation" (Lk. 6:24).

Several questions come to mind after reading this brief parable.

For one thing, how much can one person really use or enjoy? Doesn't grain eventually rot if not used, if simply stored in silos? What is implied in the words of God to this man? "And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?" Does this imply a social reality that the poor will get his wealth anyway, by default, so what purpose did his greed serve?

Or that, no matter how carefully we plan, we can't control the dispersal of our wealth when we are no longer there to oversee it?                                                Even the Book of Proverbs, which generally assumes that wise living will be rewarded with a degree of prosperity, is cautious about making wealth the goal of one's life.

"Do not wear yourself out to get rich; be wise enough to desist. When your eyes light upon it, it is gone; for suddenly it takes wings to itself, flying like an eagle toward heaven" (Prov. 23:4-5).

The search for wisdom, living in keeping with God's will, ought to be the goal of our lives (Prov. 2:1-15). The Lord "stores up sound wisdom for the upright" (Prov. 2:7). This is a far better storehouse than silos full of more grain than one person could possibly eat in a lifetime! Wisdom is frequently equated with a wealth that is more lasting and satisfying than gold, silver, and jewels (Prov. 3:13-15). This wisdom is expressed as respect for the poor, who are, like the rich, children of God and whose advocate God is (17:5; 22:22-23; 23:10-11).                                      The fool is the one who is "wise in his own eyes" (Prov. 3:7a), who does not 'fear the Lord" (Prov. 3:7b), that is, does not revere God as the source of moral guidance or wisdom for daily living. Wisdom and the wise life are equated with life, not just longevity and prosperity.

It's one's relationship with God that neither adversity nor death can take away. Wisdom is "a tree of life to those who lay hold of her" (Prov. 3:18).

The realistic portion of this parable is that a rich man in Jesus' day would hoard his wealth while the poor around him were malnourished. This points to the social reality all around him. The unrealistic, or strange aspect, is that God speaks to him directly on the futility of the priorities he has chosen in life and on the exact timing of his demise.                                                                                                 

While none of us gets the timing memo, we have the futility information.

Does it make a difference in our priorities

for living out the future days of our lives?

AUGUST 10TH 

EIGHTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY

Our reflection on the Gospel Luke 12:32-40 is by David Lose.

“One of my favourite questions to ask in visioning work or counselling sessions is as follows: “What would you love to try if you knew you couldn’t fail?”

You may have heard that question, or asked it, yourself. I like it because it prompts us to cast our gaze beyond our present circumstances and challenges, elements in our lives that, while perhaps real, often cast a larger than necessary shadow. We are evolutionarily wired to overestimate risk and danger because, well, in a harsh environment underestimating risk and danger can be deadly.

But one might argue that in our relatively civilized world, we often lose more to underestimating possibility. You have to ask this question at the right time, of course, for it to do its work. When you’ve just come out of a difficult or harmful environment, you don’t have the resources to imagine a future, that while brighter, may also be more challenging or risky. A modicum of confidence or relative safety helps us to take on even greater challenges.

Similarly, having a backer or mentor or advocate helps. Someone to support you, who has your back, who will champion your efforts and encourage you.

In a sense, that’s what Abraham (then called Abram) receives from the Lord in today’s first reading. “Do not be afraid,” the Lord tells Abram, “I will guide you and protect you and give you offspring and a future you could not have imagined.” Now, if someone had asked Abram what he would do if he knew he could not fail, I don’t know that he would have answered that he wanted to pull up stakes and move all his family across a continent. But that’s what he did. And that’s what vision and promise do – they enable you to do things you’ve never previously dreamed.                                                                                                      One could read Jesus’ promise in much the same vein. “Do not be afraid, little flock,” he says, “it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you all things.” And from that astounding promise comes the invitation, rather than command, to prioritize, to share, to be prepared for what comes, to give things away. And what’s the difference between a command and invitation, you may wonder. Only the force of how a statement strikes you. The one implies coercion; the other freedom. And promises always lead to freedom. Because we have Jesus’ promise that it is God’s good pleasure and heart’s desire to give us all good things, we are suddenly free to give away, to care for others, to lose ourselves in service, and in all these ways find our security and confidence not in our earthly possessions or accomplishments but rather in our relationship with God.                                                             What an astoundingly different message that is than the one we hear in our culture and, this year in particular, from too many political candidates. Rather than tell us not to be afraid, would-be leaders relentlessly tell us, even shout at us, all about the things that we should fear. And such fear tends to limit our vision and paralyze our actions, thereby making it difficult to imagine a hopeful future, let alone work toward it.                                                                                       

Despite my affinity for the “vision question” I started with, I’ve been wondering lately whether I should modify it to make it serve better as an “action question.” That is, while it’s important to free folks to dream of life without limits, it’s also important to equip us to live with the very real challenges in front of us.

So I would tweak the question slightly: What would we do, dare, attempt, not if we knew we couldn’t fail, but rather if we believed that failure didn’t matter. Not “didn’t matter” as in there are no consequences, but rather “didn’t matter” in the “it’s not the end of the world” sense. Because, indeed, Abraham will fail, at times spectacularly, and the followers of Jesus will experience multiple setbacks and disappointments. Yet they carried on, trusting that their future and self-worth were neither secured by their success nor eroded by even devastating setbacks, but rather were granted and made sure by God’s good pleasure and promise alone.                                                                                                                              I think the call – or at least one of the primary calls – of the church today is to become a place where people are so rooted in the promise of God’s good pleasure, reminded of their identity as God’s beloved children, and affirmed in their inherent self-worth and dignity, that they can, indeed, see all those around them as similarly beloved and deserving of self-worth, dignity, and God’s good pleasure. The question for a Christian, you see, isn’t finally about some form of self-actualization but rather discovering that as we give ourselves away in relationship and service, we find a deeper sense of self than we’d imagined possible. We are born for community and find a sense of self and meaning and purpose as we trust God’s promises and give ourselves away in love.”

AUGUST 17TH

NINTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY

Our reflection on this week`s Gospel, Luke 12:49-56 is by David Lose.

“What does it cost us to go to Church?                                                             

A free Sunday morning?                                                                                 

A chance to sleep in?

The money we put on the offering plate?

Odds are, if we stop to think of it, it costs us very little to be a Christian today, as even in an increasingly “post-Christian” culture, going to church, if no longer quite the norm, at least occasions little comment.

Not so, of course, in Jesus’ day. As Jesus indicates in this complicated and, if truth-be-told, somewhat off-putting passage, those who followed him were regularly thrust into conflict and division, often with their own family members. To follow Jesus, you see, was to question the religious and economic and even political status quo. If you were Jewish, it meant accepting as the Messiah this itinerant rabbi who hung out with the disreputable, accepted sinners, and preached a message of love and forgiveness. If you were Gentile, it meant accepting as the Messiah this itinerant rabbi who hung out with the disreputable, accepted sinners, and preached a message of love and forgiveness. Jesus didn`t fit either group`s expectations of a leader. Moreover, following Jesus meant not merely adopting new beliefs, but a new way of living. To be a follower of the one who accepted and even honoured the disreputable meant that you needed to do the same, rejecting the easy temptation of judging others and instead inviting them into our lives. To be a follower of the one who preached love and forgiveness was to practice the same, particularly when it comes to those who differ from you even, and maybe especially, in terms of what they believe.

I began this reflection noting a major difference between Jesus’ day and our own but I wonder if we might also find ourselves thrust into conflict and division with those we care about if we welcomed into our homes and congregations and social circles those whom society shuns. What would be the reaction of our family and friends and co-workers if we really acted like Jesus did?

Across the Old Testament, the purifying fire Jesus seems to reference here is most often associated with the fire that burns away impure religious practices. Not impure as in “not liturgically correct,” but rather impure in that they tended to make religion a source of false comfort. Right religious practice and beliefs, too many have thought over the centuries, should exempt you from the suffering or disaster or poverty or even death all around you. In this regard, I believe little has changed. Think, for instance, of the popular Christian obsession with “accepting Jesus into your heart” as the means by which to escape eternal punishment and secure an eternal reward. But what if faith wasn’t about guaranteeing future bliss but rather was an invitation to live differently now, to see those around us neither as souls to be saved or threats to be deterred, but rather to see them – everyone! – God’s children to be loved, honoured, and cared for?

Now, the temptation at this point may be to imagine a sermon that chastises people for their easy faith or acceptance of what Bonhoeffer called “cheap grace.” But what if instead we simply asked people how we could our time together on Sunday in worship, education, and fellowship to encourage each other to live like, not just believe in, Jesus? How would we imagine worship, preaching, Sunday school, even coffee hour if our goal was to equip people to enter more deeply into their faith so that it might shape more palpably their life. I am absolutely convinced that our people desperately want their faith to matter, to be useful to them, to shape the way they think about their work, their families, their money, and more.

So what if we invited a conversation this weekend that helped us see Church not as an obligation or spiritual destination, but a place to come to be encouraged, equipped, and sent to make a difference to the world. And a place to return to when living like Jesus creates division. Because it will. But it will also create joy. Because the one who sends us out was himself baptized by fire – note, it’s his own baptism Jesus talks about in these verses – and is both with us and for us as we come to church to be reminded of our identity as God’s beloved and are sent out again in mission to tell others in word and deed that God loves them as well.

This is a life that takes courage, and the power of the Holy Spirit will help create that courage. We are called to be faithful in and out of season and even and especially when our witness to Christ creates division.”

AUGUST 24TH 

TENTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY

Our reflection on the Gospel Luke  13:10-17 is by Peter Woods.

“One hundred and thirty-eight times, in the four gospels, Jesus is reported as “seeing”. Jesus noticed. Jesus was a “seer”.

It wasn’t that others around him did not see, it was the way he saw that contrasted with his disciples, the crowd, the Pharisees and generally everyone else.

In last week’s lectionary reading, Jesus accused the crowd of being hypocrites, because they were able to see the signs that foretold the changing weather (Lk12:55) but were unable to see the signs that showed that their heavenly parent wanted to give the kingdom to them, the little flock.(Lk 11:32) There are forty four references to Jesus referring to or working with eyes in the gospels. One of the recurrent miracles of Jesus was to restore sight to the blind. It would seem that the people of Jesus’ day had a problem with seeing. Certainly, they did not see as he saw and thus did not see what he saw.

In today’s passage Jesus encounters a woman who has been crippled (astheneia – a word still with us in asthma and a male infertility disorder called astheno teratozoospermia lit “weak sperm”). The woman Jesus saw had been crippled for eighteen years, long enough I would speculate, for her to be seen by her community as the “bent over crippled woman”. So, when she appeared in the synagogue, no one except Jesus, would have seen anyone other than a crippled woman. What tells us that Jesus, saw something else is that his first words to her are in contradiction of her outward appearance, “Woman you are set free from your ailment“. The next thing Jesus does is to touch her, and it would seem that the contact is simple human contact and not some magical transfer of healing energy moment, as it is often interpreted as being. Just those words, based on unique seeing, and a simple human touch are enough to heal this woman and set her off praising God.

I don’t know about you, but I want to be able to see like that! So, I ask myself, “What was different in the way Jesus saw this woman that could teach me to see as he saw? “In answer to my question, I noticed three aspects:

He saw the person and not the condition.

Whenever I have had the really challenging task of conducting a funeral for someone who has taken their own life, I have encouraged the congregation to remember that a person, any person is much, much more than the way that they died. It is a real trap to speak of a person who died by their own hand, as forever after, “a suicide” and to forget that they were also a person, in relationships, with a family, a career, a home. The leader of the synagogue, in today’s reading saw only the misdemeanour of a healing on the Sabbath.  Jesus saw a miracle of a woman whose cure was imminent (and immanent). In all my encounters with people, am I able to see the person and not the condition?

He saw the potential and not the present manifestation.

I would love to have the technology to evaluate exactly at what point the healing of the crippled woman took place. Was it when she was seen by Jesus? Was it when he told her she was free of her ailment? Was it when he touched her? I have no way of identifying the moment, but I would like to think that, at some level, the healing began when Jesus saw her as whole and not bent-double. Just as quantum physics is teaching us that our expectations of outcomes in the experiments we are observing can determine the data we observe in the experiment, so too I believe people often become and manifest what we “see” them to be. In South Africa where we are still working on the fallout of our Apartheid heritage, there is a question asked in anti-bias workshops. The leader asks the group, “Why is it that when we see a white person running in the street, we ask, ‘I wonder what he is late for?‘” “When we see a black person running in the street, we ask, ‘I wonder what he is running from?‘” What effect does our shadow projection, or by contrast our light projection onto people do to the experiences they and we have of each other. The work of Carl Gustav Jung has shown that the effects are significant. In all my encounters with people, am I able to see the potential in the seemingly suffering individual before me?

He saw without prejudice.

It would seem that Jesus had the wonderful gift to see exactly what was before him in its full kingdom potential and not be swayed by obvious externals and past realities that might contradict what he was seeing at a deeper level. Prejudice affects us all. The word means to  “judge before” I remember a case that was told me of a teacher who was given false information about the intelligence and learning abilities of a class of children. After just one semester the children were actually performing according to the false profiles she had been given. Her prejudice had created real behaviour in the classroom.

In all my encounters with people, am I able to see the reality of the person rather than be swayed what I have been told or experienced of them before this moment? Can I act always without prejudice? 

When I think of my work as a healer,

(I believe all ministry is healing at some level)

I realise that healing begins when people are seen as Jesus would see them:     

with unconditional acceptance                                                                          with appreciation for their person and not their problem.                                      with vision for their potential and not their limitations                                          with insight into how my prejudice could keep them in bondage to suffering,

or if I could let my prejudice go, to their liberation.

Believing is seeing…. as Jesus does.”

AUGUST 31ST

ELEVENTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY

The reflection on this week`s Gospel passage Luke 14 vs.1,7-14, is by the late Sharon R. Blezard, former priest of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America.

"But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame and the blind". Luke 14:13                                                                                            New Revised Standard Version

"Send out invitations to those who value a good meal – the poor, the disabled, the lonely, people with special needs." Luke 14:13                                                    GOOD AS NEW A Radical Retelling of the Scriptures

“When was the last time you threw a party and invited anybody and everybody who wanted to come? Most of the time party planning involves a guest list, or at the very least, a sign-up sheet if there’s a covered dish or potluck involved.

Much thought is given and effort put into seating arrangements, menus, entertainment, and other important details. We want our friends and family to have a good time; we want our carefully planned event to be successful.

My spouse’s congregation hosts a Fiesta every year and invites the entire community. They plan all year long for this one Saturday in August, and it is quite an undertaking–food, games, displays, entertainment–all free and all for anybody who wants to show up.

This year some 300 people came to eat hamburgers, tamales, tinga, nachos, and sno-cones. Cake walks, a bounce house and miniature train, games and prizes galore, and three musical groups ensured something to interest everyone. It was a lovely event that was once again well-received.

It was also an event that required a lot of planning, investment of time, energy, and money, and an element of risk.

When you invite everyone, you can’t exactly guarantee the results. This rural Pennsylvania Lutheran congregation has a vision to serve their neighbours, and they are willing to take some risks to do so. The Fiesta, now in its fifth year, hasn’t resulted in a huge influx of new members, and the coffers of the congregation are not fuller because of this event. But what it has done is created a lot of goodwill. It signals welcome and a willingness to do something without expectation of specific returns on the investment.

Maybe that’s part of what Jesus is getting at this week. When we open our doors and throw a party, when we reach out in ministry and mission, we have to be willing to take some risks. Results aren’t the point of our hospitality.

Success by the world’s standards isn’t the proper measure. This whole discipleship thing isn’t about honour, glory, reward, or prestige. And it’s not a competition.

Serving God and neighbour is more like a community potluck than a gourmet meal in the finest restaurant.

It’s less about perfection and more about improvisation. It’s less about form and more about function.

It’s less about looks and much, much more about love.

It has something to do with rubbing elbows with strangers and kin alike; after all, both can present challenges. Instead of a guest list carefully crafted to reflect our wishes and wiles, Jesus crafts a “grace list” that is an open invitation to the party. The point is this: At Jesus’ banquet table there is room for everyone.

Great Aunt Mabel’s lime Jello salad can exist peacefully with vegan Valerie’s fresh green bean vinaigrette. Homemade mac and cheese can sit side-by-side with a bag of store-bought potato chips. Hamburgers and tamales and sno-cones co-exist and complement one another in delightful ways. When everyone brings his or her best offering, when we all show up, the banquet table groans with the goodness of God.

Showing up, sitting down, and sharing our abundant blessings is the kind of banquet Jesus is talking about. Every place is a place of honour in God’s economy. Humbling oneself in our 21st century culture might mean trying ministry in new ways or allowing new folks to bring their best “dishes” to the congregational table.

Take some risks, explore new tastes and talents, and most of all celebrate that our God has a heart for every last rag-tag, bumped, bruised, dented, broken, and tired one of us.

We’re all included on the “grace list,” and that, dear friends, is good news indeed!”

SEPTEMBER 7TH

TWELTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY

Our reflection on this Sunday`s readings, including Luke 14 vs.25 33,                    is by John W. Martens, Associate Professor of Theology                                        at the University of St. Thomas, St. Paul, Minnesota, USA.

“The Gospel of Luke has a central message: God’s mercy, in the person of Jesus Christ, has been offered to all without exception. God’s gracious gift, however, has one limitation, which is our willingness to respond to God’s mercy. And while God’s mercy evokes a “feel-good” response—endless GIFs of cuddly cats and infants taking their first steps—discipleship, the result of responding to God’s mercy, has a price. On the road to Jerusalem, Jesus asks his disciples to weigh the cost of discipleship and determine whether they are willing to pay the price.

Jesus’ language is sharp about the demands of discipleship: “Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple.” Is that all then? My family and life? No, one more thing: “Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.” Give up a comfortable life? Is that it? As long as you include all of your things: “None of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions.”

While these images are offered as a means to relativize the things of this life, to subordinate family and possessions to Jesus’ call, that call is for your life. It might be your life at the altar as you celebrate Mass, as it was in Rouen, France, for the Rev. Jacques Hamel. It might be your life given to foreign lands, as it was for St. Francis Xavier. It might be your life given to the poorest of the poor, as it was for Mother Theresa. But make no mistake: Jesus calls for our lives.

Jesus offers two parables to explain why the things of this life are secondary to Jesus’ call. Jesus describes building a tower and waging a war, both activities for which a great deal of money, planning and people are needed. He asks, “Which of you, intending to build a tower, does not first sit down and estimate the cost, to see whether he has enough to complete it?”

and “What king, going out to wage war against another king, will not sit down first and consider whether he is able with ten thousand to oppose the one who comes against him with twenty thousand?”

The focus of these stories is on the disciples. If you follow me, do you have what it takes to complete your mission? This means Jesus’ disciples must be all in. Are we committed to the project of Jesus’ mission?

But Jesus needs to know, too, whether he has the builders and the soldiers committed to completing the tasks to build the kingdom and to defend it.

For the kingdom is an exercise in construction but also a battle waged against the forces of evil.

For Jesus to complete the kingdom, he needs steadfast disciples; for the battle to be waged successfully, he needs faithful disciples.

What the building and the battle mean in practice for each of us will be something different, something perhaps unexpected even at the sunset of life, from what one has planned; but all of us must remain at the disposal of God’s plan, not our own personal plans.

Paul remains the prime example of a man who felt he was doing all that God required of him in tracking down disciples of Jesus in ancient Syria, when the risen Lord appeared to him. Paul’s life turned in this moment. Instead of being a persecutor of the Messiah’s disciples, Paul became an apostle for the Messiah, bringing Jesus’ word wherever he was called, including to prison cells. It was from prison cells that Paul continued to build the kingdom, even while in chains, by personal witness and by writing letters to the churches dotted throughout the Roman Empire.

Paul’s life, and all that he had, was at the disposal of the kingdom after he heard the call. The cost of discipleship for Paul, for building the kingdom and fighting the forces of evil, was beatings, imprisonment and finally his life. But Paul weighed the price and gladly paid it. Building the kingdom was all that he desired, and the price of discipleship was more rewarding than he could have hoped.”

SEPTEMBER 14TH

THIRTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY

Our reflection on the Gospel passage Luke 15 vs.1-10, is by David Lose.

“First, this story is about joy. We understandably focus on issues of being lost, of being found, of the Pharisees and scribes displeasure, of avoiding judgment, and so forth. But what we often miss is the common denominator of both these stories is joy. “Just so, there will be more joy in heaven….” Repeat twice. And here’s the thing: I get that.                                     

And that’s how God feels anytime anyone is drawn back into relationship with God, or chooses life, or lives into his or her potential, or helps out another, and in all these ways is found. Joy. Pure joy.

The Pharisees and scribes don’t get that. They don’t realize that God is primarily about love, rather than rules, and therefore about joy, rather than anger or fear or impatience, or all the other things it’s easy to imagine God is about. So what would it be like, I wonder, if we decided to invite our congregations to places about joy, all about joy, anytime one of God’s children discovers the abundant life God hopes for all of us? I think it would be pretty cool.

Okay, one more observation, briefly. As I mentioned, earlier, when we focus on lostness, for lack of a better word, we miss the joyful character of these stories and of God. But we also might miss that in both stories, there’s far less attention on what’s been lost than on the one who is searching. I mean, these stories aren’t about a lost sheep or coin, not really. They’re about a shepherd who risks everything to go look, and about a woman who sweeps all night long to find.

These stories are about a God who will always go looking for his lost children.

More than that, though, when you think how ordinary were the persons representing God – a shepherd who stands at the very bottom of the socio-economic ladder in first-century Palestine, a woman with only ten silver coins to her name – you realize that maybe these aren’t just metaphors, but rather that they are reminders that God often works through ordinary people to do the extraordinary work of helping to find someone.

On September 11, 2001 – fifteen years ago this Sunday – Welles Crowther went to work like every other day to his job as an equities trader in the World Trade Centre. After the second tower was hit, the one he was in, Welles led everyone he could find down the steps to safety, and then he went back for more. And after leading more people to safety, he went back again, and again, and again, until the tower collapsed. On that day, this talented, athletic, good natured, but in so many ways ordinary person did an extraordinary thing, giving his life to make sure others could live.                                                                                              On that day, God used Welles Crowther to find people who were lost.                   

I know we won’t often find ourselves in those kinds of circumstances, yet God can also use us to find others. Not only can God use us, but God does and will. At work, at home, at school, through our congregations, in our places of volunteering, God regularly uses us to find others.                                               

So another question; what if our congregations were places of joy where we heard that God was regularly about using ordinary people like us to find others in order to create even more joy. Again, I think that would be cool. More than cool, awesome! Or maybe even better – if we could do that, I guarantee you that there would be joy in heaven, more even than we can imagine.”

SEPTEMBER 21ST

FOURTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY

Our reflection on the Gospel Luke 16:1-13 is by David Lose.

“If you’re not sure what to make of this parable, take some comfort — I’m not sure Luke was either! Consider that there are at least four interpretations offered immediately after the parable proper ends in verse 8a:

*The children of the light need to act more shrewdly.                                            *Christians should make friends by “dishonest wealth.”                                        *If you’re not faithful with dishonest wealth,

who will trust you with the true riches?                                                                *You cannot serve two masters.

Talk about confusing!

Part of the problem is that terms like “dishonest wealth” and “true riches” are not made clear. And how we are to make friends with dishonest wealth that will lead to a welcome into the eternal home is left unsaid. But perhaps most vexing of all is the question of why the rich man commended his dishonest manager.

It’s here, I think, from which we may hear, even if somewhat faintly at first, the heartbeat of a good sermon on this passage.

While I can’t claim with confidence to know exactly why the owner commends his dishonest manager, it occurs to me that one of the prominent themes in Luke is the proper use of wealth. Except that it’s not just the use of wealth; it’s more like

Luke is concerned with our relationship to wealth and how that affects our relationships with others. With this in mind, we sense a profound change in the rather interesting, if not terribly admirable, character of the dishonest manager. For while he once acted in a dishonest way to enrich himself, he now acts to enrich others and thereby establish a relationship of mutual benefit.

Granted, he does this out of a sense of desperation.

Granted, he’s still acting in a rather fishy way, given that he’s cutting the debts that people owe his master, not him. But he has caught on to the fact that money can be used to engender relationship, even if it’s relationships of mutual obligation. And so perhaps the manager commends him for just this shrewdness, that in a moment of desperation he is able to use his financial savvy to make friends rather than enemies (for it is his co-workers who initially turn him in).

Whatever we may think of the manager, might we recognize that there are better and worse ways to use money, and using money to establish relationships is better than hording it? More to the point, might we use this parable as a chance just to talk about money and, more than that, about our relationship to and use of our wealth? Once you bring up money, some may feel you’ve moved from preaching to meddling. There is a strong cultural taboo regarding talking about money with others, and yet most people I know — including myself — struggle with questions about money: how much is enough, how much should we give away, how can we raise children who are both wise and generous, and so on. While I’m not sure this parable gives clear guidance to any of these questions, is does present characters who also struggle with money, characters with mixed motives and yet who change over time in relationship to their circumstances. Characters, perhaps, not unlike ourselves.

We need to invite our people into conversation about this parable — what questions do they have, what in the story stands out, how does it shape the way they think about money. If folks seem puzzled or confused, assure them they are not alone. But then move to also ask them about whether we are not similarly confused at times about what we should do with our money.

What is our responsibility to those with less? How might we use the money we have to build relationships? What might our congregation look like if it became a place where we could help each other think more clearly about our economic lives in light of our faith, and how do we help each other use money well without ultimately serving it? If the only time we talk about money is when we need some to balance the church’s books, we reinforce the view that the church has nothing to add to conversations about money and perpetuate the gap between our faith and our everyday lives.                                                                                     

Not an easy passage this week but know that as you wrestle with these issues you’re not alone, for Christians since Luke’s time on have wrestled with similar questions.”

SEPTEMBER 28TH

FIFTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY

This week`s reflection on the Gospel, Luke 19 vs. 19-end, is by  Alyce M. McKenzie, Professor of Preaching and Worship at Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University, USA.

“Unlike other parables, this one does not stay in the realm of first-century village life. It spans this life and the next. It is realistic in its portrayal of the vast gap between rich and poor. The phenomenon of the poor waiting for crumbs at the doors of the rich is a detail taken straight from first-century life.

It is strange in that the reversal of fortunes it depicts contradicts the widespread belief that wealth was a sign of God's favour and poverty a sign of sin. The story reflects the ancient belief that the righteous and the wicked can see each other after death.

The background of this parable is a tale from Egyptian folklore about the reversal of fates after death. It also has connections to rabbinic stories. In Greek the name Lazaros has the same root consonants as the name Eliezer who, Genesis 15:2 tells us, was a servant of Abraham. Some rabbinic tales feature Eliezer (Greek Lazaros) walking in disguise on the earth and reporting back to Abraham on how his children are observing the Torah's prescriptions regarding the treatment of the widow, the orphan, and the poor. Lazarus is a poor beggar (16:20); he returns to Abraham's bosom, and the rich man requests that Abraham send him as an emissary to his brothers (Lk. 16:28). (Donahue, 169-170)

This parable is found only in Luke. It underscores a theme expressed earlier in the Gospel (Lk. 1:52). God has "put down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of low degree." The story is a three-act play. The first act portrays the earthly contrast between the wealthy man and Lazarus. The second act describes the reversal of their conditions in the afterlife. The third act depicts the rich man's request to Father Abraham for a sign so that those still living can avoid his torment, a request that Abraham refuses.

First-century hearers of this parable would not have assumed that the rich man was evil and that the poor man was righteous. On the contrary, wealth in the ancient world was often viewed as a sign of divine favour, while poverty was viewed as evidence of sin. The rich man's sin was not that he was rich, but that, during his earthly life, he did not "see" Lazarus, despite his daily presence at the entrance to his home. The first time he ever sees Lazarus is when, from Hades "he looked up and saw Abraham far away with Lazarus by his side" (v. 23).

As for Lazarus, we aren't told he was pious but his name means "God helps," which implies righteousness. Lazarus's hunger and willingness to eat whatever was at hand (Lk. 16:21) are reminiscent of the younger son's famished, desperate condition in Luke 15:16.

The rich man calls Abraham his "Father." Earlier in Luke (3:8) we get the message that claiming a religious heritage cannot by itself gain us salvation. Living a life characterized by active compassion to others is a sign that we are responding to God's covenant. John the Baptist tells the crowds, "Bear fruits worthy of repentance. Do not begin to say to yourselves, 'We have Abraham as our ancestor'; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham" (3:8).

What is it that causes some people to have something or someone in their line of vision and yet not really see them? And what causes others to both have someone or something in their line of vision and to really see them? What makes the difference between not really seeing and seeing? We have said that this parable is one of several in Luke that shows us that the kingdom of God shows up when and where we least expect it. We don't expect it to show up in the gap between the bearable, even pleasant, or luxurious living conditions of some and the unbearable, inhumane living conditions of others. We don't expect it to show up in the offer of the ability to see that gap and move from seeing to active compassion before it is too late. But we ought to have learned by now that the kingdom of God is not a prisoner to our expectations.

I mentioned earlier that the story of the Rich man and Lazarus reflects the ancient belief that the righteous and the wicked can see each other after death. If they are attentive to the presence of the kingdom of God, they can also see each other before death!”

SUNDAY OCTOBER 5TH

SIXTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY

This week`s reflection on the Gospel Luke 17:5-10 is by John T. Carroll,                Professor of New Testament at Union Presbyterian Seminary,

Richmond, Virginia. USA

“The mission of Jesus in Luke’s Gospel brings the reigning activity of God up close. It’s not just about some future setting things right; it also concerns household life and social relations, for these too are arenas where the saving impact of God’s reign can be felt. In the passage that precedes today’s passage, Luke 17:1–4 gives a more compact version of Jesus’ teaching on accountability and mercy in Matthew 18. The disciple community is responsible for its treatment of the vulnerable (“these little ones,” Luke 17:2).What’s more, Jesus insists that when a community member engages in misconduct, both repentance—a prominent motif to this point in Luke’s Gospel - and forgiveness are essential. As long as the wrongdoer repents, the offended party is urged to extend mercy—as many as seven times in a single day! The disciples apparently recognize their need for help if they are to fulfill this expectation. So, with one voice, the apostles petition for increased faith.                                                                                                                                  

Mustard-seed faith, take two                                                                             

Enlarge our faith? Jesus answers the request of his apostles with hyperbole, with an exaggerated assertion of the sufficiency of even a small amount of faith: “If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you” (verse 6). Luke’s readers have already encountered the mustard seed as a parabolic image of God’s reign (8:18–19), although in that parable Jesus does not mention the seed’s diminutive size (in contrast to Mark 4:30–32; Matthew 13:31–32). In the 21st century, we may have less interest in replanting trees in the ocean than in even more improbable feats like ending international conflicts, or poverty and hunger, or racism and xenophobia, or—perhaps most urgent of all—reversing global warming. Would faith of mustard-seed scale move us to bold action, even when the prospects of success seem so slight?  We need faith that, despite the evidence of sight and sound, what we do matters; that we can make a difference for good; that God isn’t done with this world just yet. Perhaps the key is not the size of faith but its tenacity and durability (see also Luke 18:8b). We might do well to join the apostles’ plea for more robust faith and add to it a resolve to embody our faith in persistent, courageous action.

It’s your job!                                                                                                 

Speaking of action, the mini discourse now pivots to duties within the household. Here Jesus assumes existing social structures within the Roman Empire, in which slavery was basic to social and economic relations.³ The passage graphically displays the imbalance in power relations within first-century households: Who among you would say to your slave who has just come in from ploughing or tending sheep in the field, “Come here at once and take your place at the table?” Would you not rather say to him, “Prepare supper for me; put on your apron and serve me while I eat and drink; later you may eat and drink”? Do you thank the slave for doing what was commanded? So you also, when you have done all that you were ordered to do, say, “We are worthless slaves; we have done only what we ought to have done!” (verses 7–10)

These verses assume that enslaved persons owe their enslavers obedient performance of their assigned duties. Verses 7–9 draw on this social reality by posing a rhetorical question: “Who among you … ?” That is, which person of superior status and privilege would dare to flip the script, serving rather than demanding loyal service?                      

The distorted power relations depicted in this passage were commonplace in Luke’s world; though familiar, they are, however, disturbing. This is an exploitative system that people and communities of faith must not replicate or sanction today.

It remains a pressing concern, in light of the sobering realities of human trafficking and the trampling of human rights of so many marginalized and vulnerable persons on a global scale. Jesus’ call to protect the vulnerable, earlier in chapter 17, already presses against such an oppressive system.                                        Indeed, which person of superior status would flip the script?

Reading ahead in Luke’s Gospel, we learn the answer: Jesus himself!

He later presents a radically different picture of what it means to have power and what it means to serve.                  

In his farewell speech to the disciples, he offers himself—as a person of superior status who is entitled to be served—as the very one doing the serving.                                                                               

His followers are to emulate that model, rather than conform to the usual quest for superior position and power. Persons and communities of faith are called to obedience of a different kind, serving the One who alone is sovereign.”

SUNDAY OCTOBER 12TH

SEVENTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY

Our reflection on this week`s Gospel lesson, Luke 17 vs.11-19 is by David Lose.

 “I’m grateful.”                                                                                                 

That was the regular response of a colleague and friend of mine of a few years past to my casual question, “How are you?” It took me by surprise. Not just the first or second time, but almost every time. Eventually, of course, I wasn’t so much surprised, as I was struck by the simplicity and power of this statement. It wasn’t the answer I expected. Indeed, we usually expect little more than “fine” or “pretty good” or maybe once and a while “great” when we ask this conversational placeholder, “How are you?”

“I’m grateful.” My colleague chose her words with care. She wanted to make a point. That gratitude is not only a response to good fortune but also a choice we make. Certainly that’s true of the leper in today’s Gospel reading. Ten were healed. Ten, no doubt, were surprised at this discovery. Perhaps some were overjoyed. Perhaps some celebrated. Perhaps others ran to tell their family and friends. Perhaps a few even took it for granted. Who knows? What we do know is that one not only felt thankful but decided to actually give voice to those emotions, to express his gratitude to Jesus and to God.                                   

Gratitude is indeed a response to the blessings of life, but it is also a choice to see those blessings, name them, and express our gratitude in word and deed.              And giving voice to gratitude a choice with consequences, for as we express our gratitude, we affect those around us, even shape the reality in which we live.

Think about it. Gratitude is not the only emotion we might choose to express in response to the events of any given day. There are reasons for gratitude, yes, and also reasons for fear, for anger, for frustration, grief, for regret, for apprehension. Each and all of these colours our experience, makes its appearance on the stage of our lives, and perhaps each has a place and role to play from time to time. But we choose how much stage time to grant each of these emotions by giving them expression, and as we do so we give them power in our lives.                             

And that’s what’s key: we are making choices. We may feel a range of emotions to all kinds of circumstances and situations, but we choose which to give expression. When confronted by someone who is angry, do we respond with anger as a form of self-protection or do we choose empathy, trying to understand the emotions of the other, and gratitude that the person was willing to be honest? When we are set back in some endeavour at school or work, do we express frustration or a resolve to keep at it and gratitude for what we’ve learned through this setback? These are choices. Because here’s the thing: gratitude, like all of our other options, becomes easier to choose as we practice it. Gratitude, like faith and hope and love and commitment, are not inborn traits that some have and others don’t, but rather gratitude is more like a muscle that can be strengthened over time. And as you practice giving thanks and more frequently share your gratitude, you not only grow in gratitude but create an example for others. More than that, you create a climate in which it is easier to be grateful and encourage those around you to see the blessings all around us.                                                                             

“I’m grateful.” Take a moment to scan the headlines and you’ll see how scarce – and how desperately needed – more expressions of gratitude are.

Accusation, excuses, venting anger – these seem to have hold of our culture. Indeed, we seem to live in the age of complaint, whether shared in person or increasingly through the venue of social media. What a powerful response gratitude is in these situations.                                                                         

In this light, saying “I’m grateful” does not simply express our thanksgiving but actually gives voice to a counter-cultural witness that has the power to shape those around us, push back the tide of resentment and complaint that ails us, and make room for a fresh appreciation of God’s renewing, saving grace.

So what if this week, we were to start practicing gratitude and develop greater thanksgiving-oriented “muscle memory” by responding for the rest of this month to the question, “How are you,” with the simple but powerful reply, “I’m grateful.” There’s more we could do, of course, like start a gratitude list that we add to, review, or say aloud each night before we go to bed, for instance.

But for now, perhaps just the challenge and encouragement to say “I’m grateful” is enough. It may surprise us– and those around us – how meaningful this simple practice can be.`

SUNDAY OCTOBER 19TH

HARVEST THANKSGIVING

Harvest is upon us once again. The service inevitably evokes warm memories for me, not so much of my home church, which was in town, but of Legacurry Presbyterian Church, which was in the countryside, a mile from our family home.

As local children we were only too happy to volunteer on the day before Harvest, to “assist” the grown-ups as they decorated the church with fruit and vegetables, wheat and barley. It was not unusual in those days to see a bale of hay of a sack or grain as part of the display. I can still vividly remember not only the sights but the smells of the decorated church building. As children, we also appreciated the opportunity to pluck the odd grape or two as we were attaching bunches to the pulpit or placing them on window ledges!

Sadly, most Harvest Services, at least those in urbans settings, are now devoid of such sights and smells. This year, we will again be supporting the local foodbank and so the most appropriate  harvest gifts will be canned and packet food stuffs as well as toiletries. As usual I will supply a small token display of more traditional produce in tribute to Harvests of yesteryear.

Growing up in the countryside, one could not help but be aware of the source of the foods we take for granted; grain for bread, pigs for bacon and sausages, cows for beef, potatoes for mash and chips. Apparently, many schoolchildren today are ignorant of the origins of most of the food they consume.

Harvest can be a useful festival for re-educating the young but also for reminding all of us, that the ultimate source of all things is God himself.                               

Speaking personally and as a minister, I don`t believe that any Harvest Service worth its salt is complete without the hymns “Come ye thankful people come” and “We plough the fields and scatter.”

Not least, because in the latter, the refrain proclaims, “All good gifts around us are sent from heaven above: then thank the lord, O thank the Lord, for all His love.”

SUNDAY OCTOBER 26TH

LAST SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY

The reflection on this week`s Gospel, Luke 18:9-14 is by David Lose.

“The moral of this story is so clear it’s hard to miss: Don’t think too highly of yourself like this hypocritical Pharisee; rather, be like the self-abasing tax collector. Or, to make it even simpler, we can boil the point of this parable down to two words: “be humble.”                                                                                         

But here’s the thing: whenever a parable seems this clear, this simple, and this straightforward, I figure we’d better not trust it. Because a careful reader of Luke’s story about Jesus should realize that Luke is the master of reversals. From Mary’s song at the outset of the Gospel to the surprising words Jesus utters both to crowd and thief at the cross, things never stay as they are for long in this story. So, let’s take a closer look at these two characters.

First, the Pharisee.

Truth be told, he only speaks the truth: he is righteous. He leads a life blameless according to the law. He fasts and gives alms and indeed bears no resemblance to the unsavoury characters with which he compares himself. What, then, is his problem? It narrows down to one thing: while he is right about the kind of life he should live, he is confused about the source of that life. For while he prays to God, his prayer finally is about himself, and because he misses the source of his blessing, he despises those people God loves. For this reason, he leaves the Temple as righteous according to the law as when he entered, but he is not justified; that is, he is not accounted and called righteous and by God.

For it would never occur to him to ask.

Second, the tax collector.

Once again, Jesus in Luke’s story messes with our expectations. For there is no note of repentance in the tax collector’s speech, no pledge to leave his employment or render restitution to those he has cheated, no promises of a new and better life. Nothing, except the simple acknowledgment that he is utterly and entirely dependent on God’s mercy. The tax collector knows the one thing the Pharisee does not: his life is God’s — his past, present, and future entirely dependent on God’s grace and mercy. He could claim nothing other than God’s good favour.

Which is where the first part of the trap of this parable rests. Because the minute you decide to take this parable to heart and “be humble” like the Pharisee, it’s pretty hard not to also be grateful you’re not like that Pharisee. And then the trap has sprung. It’s not about you, you see. Not your humility or lack of pride or even about your being a child of the Reformation or one justified by faith. It’s not about you; it’s about God.

But there’s another trap in the parable as well. And that’s to hear in the tax collector’s confession an example that we also ought to live our lives fully and entirely aware of our status as a sinner. But the minute you do that; you’ve also shifted attention away from God’s activity to your status. And the trap is sprung one more time. Once again, it’s not about you — not about you being a sinner or a wretch or one who does not deserve or merit God’s grace or however you might want to formulate it. It’s just not about you; it’s about God.

This parable — and indeed the whole Reformation — was and is an attempt to shift our attention from ourselves — our piety or our passions, our faith or our failure, our glory or our shame — to God, the God who delights in justifying the ungodly, welcoming the outcast, and healing all who are in need.

So perhaps the best way to approach this clever and dangerous parable is to keep all talk of the Pharisee and tax collector and Luther and us and anyone and everyone else to an absolute minimum. Instead, perhaps we should reserve most our time, thought, and words for God, the God who creates light from darkness, raises the dead to life, and pulls us all — Pharisees and tax collectors, righteous and sinful, disciples and ne’er-do-wells alike — into a realm of unimaginable and unexpected grace, mercy and joy.”

SUNDAY NOVEMBER 2ND

FOURTH SUNDAY BEFORE ADVENT

Our reflection on the Gospel passage Matthew 5:1-12 comes from Karoline Lewis, Chair in Biblical Preaching at Luther Seminary, St. Paul, Minnesota, USA.

“Do you really hunger and thirst for righteousness?                                              Sometimes, perhaps most times, I am not sure. That’s where the Beatitudes hit me this week. Yes, Luke’s account of the Beatitudes has always been my preference. Yet, the events of late have drawn me closer to Matthew. Not that I have now chosen one over the other, but because Matthew has reminded me, when I most needed it, of my own inaction in or complacency about God’s kingdom. Matthew speaks to me this week and speaks to me in ways that bring me up short.

Thank God God’s Word does this sometimes. That’s one reason why I marched today in my home state of MN (#womensmarch).

“There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must

never be a time when we fail to protest.” (Elie Wiesel, 1986 Nobel Lecture).

Do I hunger and thirst for righteousness or do I look the other way?

Do I hunger and thirst for righteousness or do I assume someone else will?

Do I hunger and thirst for righteousness or do I explain away my perceived indifference because I don’t want people to think I take sides, because I choose to play it safe?

Do I hunger and thirst for righteousness or keep silent so as not to offend, not to disappoint, in fear of not meeting expectations?

We need to hunger and thirst for righteousness because our world actively works against it, overrides it, sidelines it, monetizes it, limits it, and assumes that it’s overrated and overstated. We have to hunger and thirst for righteousness because even our churches sweep too much under the proverbial rug, making excuses for its inaction so as to protect the powerful at the expense of those victimized. We are called to hunger and thirst for righteousness because even our internal systems that have been put in place presumably to pursue righteousness — our judicatories, our seminaries, our synods — seem only to seek to save themselves when they should be in the business of trusting in God’s salvation.

“The church should not be in the business of politics,” we say. As if the Gospel wasn’t political.

The Gospel is a word of protest. In this time and in this place, we cannot forget this. Jesus was a person who stood up and said no. If you need additional words to language what this all means, Psalm 15 is your resource.

The Beatitudes are not just blessings but a call to action.

The Beatitudes are a call to action to point out just who Jesus really is. Perhaps not the Jesus you want. Perhaps the Jesus who likely rubs you the wrong way. Perhaps the Jesus that tells you the truth about yourself. The Jesus who reminds you, at the most inconvenient times and places, what the Kingdom of Heaven is all about.

The Beatitudes are a call to action to be church, a call to action to make Jesus present and visible and manifest when the world tries desperately to silence those who speak the truth. “There was a time when the church was very powerful — in the time when the early Christians rejoiced at being deemed worthy to suffer for what they believed. In those days, the church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society… If today’s church does not recapture the sacrificial spirit of the early church, it will lose its authenticity, forfeit the loyalty of millions, and be dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no meaning…” (Martin Luther King Jr., “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”).

The Beatitudes are a call to action for the sake of creating the world God imagines. And these days, we need this reminder — when our imagination may be limited. When our hope for the future might have been dimmed. When we think what we do and what we say and what we believe does not matter.

Our hunger and thirst for righteousness matters. It really does.”

SUNDAY NOVEMBER 9TH

REMEMBRANCE SUNDAY

Our Remembrance Service will be held this coming Sunday, with the slightly earlier start time of 10.55am. We are grateful to Christine for leading the worship on this solemn occasion.

Remembrance Sunday is always a very moving act of worship as it triggers memories for many people of loved ones and friends who gave their lives in the service of their country. For most people those memories are of the Second World War. When I was growing up, I always remember one of the elders in my home church carrying the wreath on Remembrance Sunday, chosen because he was a veteran of the First World War. That generation has passed and soon the same will be said of those who served in World War Two.

For others of us, our memories are of what are described in Remembrance liturgies as "subsequent conflicts". For me, that includes Northern Ireland and the period known as The Troubles.  I remember having to agree to disagree with a fellow student at college in Manchester when I was training for the ministry, when she declared Remembrance Sunday to be irrelevant. Because events of that time in Northern Ireland`s history are still fresh in my memory, Remembrance Sunday for  me, is always relevant and poignant.

The challenges that our nation faces today are different from that of  a few decades ago and the same can be said for the wider world but the same vigilance is needed, as terrorist attacks and massacres sadly remind us.

The same commitment to freedom and justice is needed as was evident in the lives of all those who have served in our armed forces down through the years.      As someone once  said, " The price of liberty is eternal vigilance."

I leave you with these thoughts…….

"They are the race -
they are the race immortal,
Whose beams make broad
the common light of day!
Though Time may dim,
though Death has barred their portal,
These we salute,
which nameless passed away." 

Quoted by President Kennedy at Arlington Cemetery on Veterans Day 1961

Oh! you who sleep in Flanders Fields,
Sleep sweet - to rise anew!
We caught the torch you threw
And holding high, we keep the Faith
With All who died.

We cherish, too, the poppy red
That grows on fields where valour led;
It seems to signal to the skies
That blood of heroes never dies,
But lends a lustre to the red
Of the flower that blooms above the dead
In Flanders Fields.

And now the Torch and Poppy Red
We wear in honour of our dead.
Fear not that ye have died for naught;
We'll teach the lesson that ye wrought
In Flanders Fields.

by Moina Michael

SUNDAY NOVEMBER 16TH

SECOND SUNDAY BEFORE ADVENT

Our reflection on the Gospel (Luke 21 vs. 5-19) is taken from the article,       ‘Edgy’ Stewardship for Troubling Times by the late Rev. Sharron Riessinger Blezard, who served as an Evangelical Lutheran Church pastor for 15 years before her death from breast cancer on July 10, 2021. 

“They asked him “Teacher, when will this be, and what will be the sign that that this is about to take place?”  Luke 21:7

There’s nothing like uncertainty or an unexpected result to heighten anxiety and inquiry, whether one lives in first century Palestine or 21^st century North America. We humans want to know how and when our lives are going to be altered. We want to know what this might mean. Could it be the end of time as so many folks have predicted? Or is it just another day and we have all the time in the world to go on about our business as usual?

Jesus’ words in this week’s gospel lesson come during Jesus last days, the time we observe as Holy Week. He is responding to some of the faithful’s comments about the grandeur of the building with its beautiful stones and gifts honouring God. Jesus answers with a not-so-gentle reminder that a day is coming when “not one stone will be left upon another; all will be thrown down” (vs. 6). Of course, when Luke is writing this gospel the temple has indeed been reduced to rubble, the limestone edifice exploding as it burns, the sacred space desecrated and destroyed.

How will congregants hear this gospel lesson?

Will they have a tough time making a connection between their lives and the apocalyptic words of this text?

Do they see glimmers of destruction to the things and places they hold dear, the traditions and edifices that represent and “house” their faith and history?

Do they hear an echo of twin towers falling, of wars and rumours of wars, of storms and natural disasters, of the earth giving way to humankind’s destruction? Are election results still ringing in their ears?

You know your context and your people. Perhaps you see the fear and anxiety in their eyes as they survey pews that are emptier each year and budgets that continue to shrink even as they cling to the buildings that represent decades or even centuries of faithful worship and discipleship.

In the often-threadbare decline of what we hold dear and lovely, stones of hope still stand. The reality is that everything crumbles and fades away; nothing on this earth is permanent.

Our congregations, denominations, and faith traditions are in flux. Stone upon precious stone is dismantling before our eyes. Threatening? You betcha! But this is not the last word. Jesus makes it clear in this passage that no personal persecution, no false prophet, or terrifying war can destroy God’s people.

Not even death itself can harm us, for we belong to God.

Instead Jesus instructs us to see our suffering and the changes that ravage our security and life as opportunities to witness and testify to the love and grace of our Lord. We don’t even have to worry about having eloquent words or a carefully constructed elevator speech that encapsulates our fragile faith.

No, the Holy Spirit will give us words and wisdom equal to the task.

Even if we lose our grand edifices and life as usual is upset like the proverbial apple cart, we will still gather around Word and bread and wine and water.

Jesus will still show up, and we will continue to worship, praise, love, and live. Indeed, in this edgy place between what was, what is, and what might yet come, we can be faithful stewards and church together for the sake of the world.

So go ahead, encourage the faithful to keep on practicing their faith in spite of everything. God is faithful and will not desert us. On this we can rely even as we walk the narrow edge between the world of woes and our fragile faith.                                This, my friends, is very good news.

SUNDAY NOVEMBER 23RD

CHRIST THE KING SUNDAY

Our reflection on the Gospel for Christ the King Sunday, Luke 23:33-43, is again by the late Sharon R Blezard, former priest of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in the USA.

“The words of Jesus in verse 34 of this week’s gospel lesson haunt me.

While Luke recounts these words in a particular place (Golgotha) and at a particular hour (Jesus’ crucifixion), they echo across time and space, consistently drawing me–all of us–back to the foot of that same cross and at the same feet of the crucified and risen King of Kings.

Now falling at the feet of a king is not an unusual posture for loyal subjects. Historically, that is exactly the sort of behaviour people exhibit in the presence of royalty. Maybe such bowing and scraping is motivated by fear; perhaps it stems from a sense of respect and some element of awe. It might even be the by-product mostly of tradition and expectation. The king, however, is found seated above his subjects, resplendent on a golden throne, bedecked in fine fabrics and dripping with fine metals and precious jewels. The king of lore and history is a monarch of imposing presence, a majestic ruler surrounded by courtiers, servants, and soldiers.

Falling at the feet of Christ the King is a considerably different encounter. Our king’s feet are dirty and bloody, his body broken and beaten, his head bowed beneath the sting of a crown of woody thorns. No jewels, no robes of finest linen, no signet ring or sword. Brutally executed in a manner befitting only the worst criminals and political insurrectionists, the King of Kings commands that we confront the darkest corners of the human condition. His eyes see deeply into one’s very soul, exposing all the secrets, shame, and hurts. Because he has plunged to the very depth of human despair and suffering, there is nothing he does not know or understand.

Christ is the King of Kings, the ruler who turns all of our human notions and illusions of power squarely on their heads. In what by worldly definitions appears to be weakness and failure, Jesus shows that real power is rooted in love, bathed in grace, and covered with mercy. He is the one who redeems that which seems unredeemable and the one who loves those who appear unlovable. By his broken body, bruises, and lacerations, we are healed and restored to wholeness. The slate is wiped clean and we are made new. Now that’s real power!

Yes, the king imagery is quite a stretch in our modern-day Western culture.

It just doesn’t resonate with our democratic, individualistic, bootstraps culture.

But Jesus’ words of absolution and his promise to that humbled and broken criminal beside him cut through all cultural filters and barriers.

They touch the very deep place of need within each human heart. In Christ we are forgiven AND we belong. This is what matters. This is what’s real.

Jesus Christ is truly a king like no other: Born into this life a homeless babe of a peasant mother, lived as an alien in a foreign land, challenged the status quo as a radical rabbi, and crucified as a common criminal. From birth through death, and from resurrection to life eternal, Jesus is with us holding all things together.

Forgive us, Lord, for we still know not what we are doing. Thank you for your gracious promise of life. Thank you for loving us in spite of ourselves. This is indeed good news for all people.”

SUNDAY NOVEMBER 30TH

FIRST SUNDAY OF ADVENT

Our reflection on this Sunday`s Gospel, Matthew 24 vs.36-44 is by David Ewart, from the website Holy Textures.

"Advent" means "arrival." And so the Season of Advent is a time of preparation and anticipation for the arrival of Jesus. But not just preparation and anticipation for celebrating the birth of Jesus on Christmas Day.

We are also reminded in this Season of Advent to get ready for the arrival of Jesus on that day when our prayer - "Your will be done on earth as it is in Heaven" - is finally realized.

We are awaiting the arrival of December 25 to celebrate the past - the birth of Jesus - and also the arrival of a future that has already been prepared for us, and is on its way, but whose date no one knows.

The lesson today comes from 3 Chapters of last teachings from Jesus before his betrayal, arrest, torture and brutal execution.

First, is that these final words of Jesus follow a pattern in many cultures where those near death are also nearer to the life to come. What to us is an impenetrable boundary, is opening for them. And so they are more able to sense what lies beyond and ahead and can tell those being left behind what to expect for the future and how to deal with what will happen.

Second, is that these final words of Jesus follow a pattern in many cultures where those near death give their "last will and testament." Jesus testifies about his trust in God - past, present, and future. And he continues to pass on his one earthly possession - wisdom.

Third, is that these final words of Jesus follow a pattern in many cultures where leaders near death, attend to the impending catastrophic loss of relationship that their death will bring.

At the time of Jesus, relationships were everything. Relationships defined who a person was in society; defined where one lived; defined what work one did; defined where food, shelter, family, and safety came from.

Those who followed Jesus - who attached themselves to him - gave up life-defining given relationships of blood-family and birthplace. They followed Jesus, and Jesus became THE relationship that defined who they were. But who will they be after Jesus is gone? Jesus addresses these 3 concerns in the whole of Chapter 24. And in this passage Jesus stresses once again that though there will be many signs, many trials, no one knows precisely the day or the hour of the arrival of the Son of Man.

So what should we do while we are waiting for the Messiah?

Should we just give up on the whole idea? Just give up waiting altogether?

After all, it's already been 2,000 years. Why bother? Well that is just the point. Why bother? What actual difference does it make to live your life waiting for Jesus to return, as opposed to not even thinking about that?

Jesus suggests that on the surface of things it makes no difference. Two men will be working side by side in a field; two women will be working side by side at home. They look identical. But one will be taken and one will not. Why? Because even while doing ordinary daily chores, one was waiting for the arrival of the Son of Man and one wasn't.

Why does waiting while also living make a difference?

Jesus uses the example of an owner of a house - how he would have acted differently if he had known that a thief was coming in the night.                            I like to use the example of emigration. We should live as those who have applied to emigrate to a new country called The Kingdom of God. We haven't heard yet when our visa will be approved - no one seems to know the day or the hour.

But in the meantime, we want to be ready, and so we are already learning the language and practicing the habits and customs of that new land. While we are still citizens of our current country, we also live like citizens of the age to come.

This is what Advent is. In anticipation of Jesus arriving, we practice now how we expect to live then.

SUNDAY DECEMBER 7TH

SECOND SUNDAY OF ADVENT

Our reflection for the Second Sunday in Advent, is by a blogger who simply goes by Pastor Jerry and is a retired pastor of the United Church of Christ in the USA.

“The Advent Season is a season of waiting, and we wait in Advent as we wait in the culture for the coming of Christmas.  Each of these is intertwined.        Christians count the days of Advent for the revelation of Jesus to happen in hearts and homes once again.  

People in their homes and out in the cities count the days until Christmas Eve

so that Santa Claus will come once again

and bring them what they have desired to receive.  

The two seasons run concurrently because we are Christians who live in the culture we inhabit and we cannot escape this.  It is part of life that cannot be changed because it has been part of it for such a long time.

Waiting for the Messiah to come was part of Jewish tradition also.  The Prophets spoke of one who would come who would set things right.  Life would be changed in such an extraordinary way that even nature would respond so that the animals lived together in peace even as human beings learned to get along also.  This week's reading from Isaiah 11 describes the one for whom Israel was waiting.  He would be wise and strong and be able to help others to see the way they should live by his words and actions.  All the nations would come to him and seek his advice.  People would see him as the glorious embodiment of God.

Isaiah and the other prophets wrote of the one to come but he never came in their lifetimes.  Hundreds of years passed and the people of Israel lived in their land that was occupied and ruled by a foreign power, the Romans.  People still waiting for the Messiah to come but this time their idea of what a Messiah would be like was based on their yearning to be free from the domination of Rome.  

They wanted a king who would conquer the Romans and make them a world class power.

John the Baptist became the last prophet to speak of the coming Messiah.  

He stood on the banks of the Jordan River and cried out for people to repent and get ready for the coming of the Messiah.  

John told those who would listen that the one he was talking about was powerful and would baptize them with the Holy Spirit and fire.  He would do remarkable things that reminded them of the image of the Messiah the earlier prophets had spoken of.  The Messiah that Christians embrace, the man Jesus, was not the powerful ruler the Jews wanted.  He was the gentle teacher that wanted to change them from inside out.  So, John had spoken correctly of the coming Messiah.  He would be the one who would bring change through the repentance that John preached.

It is now the year 2025.  We are still waiting for a Messiah to come and set things right. The world is still in a huge mess where powers are in competition to see who can be the most powerful and rule the most people in the most demonstrative way. Nations rail against nations and threaten to destroy us all by unleashing powers that we cannot comprehend or describe.  

We need a Saviour, a Messiah, a shepherd to lead us and bring us into the way of right living.  We all need that one....when will he come?

Or perhaps he has come already and we refuse to give him the reins to our hearts, wanting instead to be in charge of our own lives instead of submitting to his control.  

Will the world be ready when he comes to stay?  

Waiting for a king....will this be the day?”

SUNDAY DECEMBER 14TH

THIRD SUNDAY OF ADVENT

Our reflection for the Third Sunday in Advent comes from Karoline Lewis, Luther Seminary, Saint Paul, Minnesota, USA.

“ `Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?`

If that isn’t a question that breaks your heart … or maybe, it speaks a truth,

many truths, that so often we can’t find the words, or the strength,

or the courage, to say. On the lips of John the Baptist, no less.

The one in the know. The one who was supposed know. The one who knew Jesus.

This week, John the Baptist is in a new place. He’s gone from wilderness to pent-up-ness. From freedom to confinement. From wide-open spaces to the captivity of a cell. A change of place causes a change of perspective.

No longer in the wilderness, no longer baptizing in the Jordan River, no longer having people come to him, John is now in a different desert,

no longer prophesying but questioning, with people likely positioning themselves as far away from him as possible.             

When you are imprisoned, your questions change. When you are captive, your yearnings change. When your freedom to roam has been taken away, you then have an altered sense of freedom, perhaps — the freedom to ask questions you have not risked asking before, you have not dared to voice, or you have been told you should not utter.

Lest we think one place of perspective is better than the other, we need to keep in mind Jesus’ response. There is no condemnation of John’s question.

Rather, Jesus acknowledges John’s inquiry as demonstrative of faith —

“Go and tell him,” says Jesus.

“Go and tell John to believe in who I know him to be.

Go and tell John he is more than who he might have thought himself to be.

Go and tell John he did what he was called to be.”

Or, to paraphrase using the words of Jesus in Matthew,

“Go and tell John he was indeed the salt of the earth and the light of the world” (Matt 5:13-14).

In other words, disciples of Christ, be like John — which means even asking John’s question, “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?”

Our tendency is to place our perspective on the place of another. To share our privileged-place viewpoints as if they are better than those who don’t share our advantage. To tell others what to think because they could not possibly see and know what we are able to see and know. After all, “just look at them.” And so, pride and pity take the place of humility and empathy. Hubris and certainty take the place of regard and wonder. We allocate judgment instead of embodying compassion.                                                                                                      John’s question is not one of doubt, but a question of trust. I suspect that behind John’s question is the promise of the Psalmist, “Happy are those whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord their God” (Psalm 146:5). The truth of this Psalm as known by John makes it possible for him even to ask his question. Because what we think this question asks all depends on determination of tone.

Does the question come from a place of speculation or a place of introspection? Does it come from a place of interrogation or from a place of true inquiry?

Does it come from a place of disappointment or from a place of newly discovered determination that perhaps God might not always match up with or meet our expectations?

“Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” is the question at the heart of Advent. It gives voice to our latent hesitancy even in the midst of anticipation. It allows us to express uncertainty even though our viewpoint is on the other side of the incarnation. It provides us with the words to articulate what our hearts, our souls, actually feel when our mind tries us to convince us to stay quiet.

“Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” is the question we ask from our own prisons that confine us to a limited imagination about God. It is the question we ask from our penitentiaries that can’t see beyond the concrete walls of divide and difference. It is the question we ask from our jails that justify our advantaged views of God over and against another’s.          

“Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” is the question of longing — longing for what we dearly hope but then wonder if it can truly be. Longing for promises to come true when it seems that the cards are stacked against us. Longing for what was, but at the same time looking forward to what could be.                                                                                                          Let John’s question be your question this week. Ask it together — not to answer it, not to solve it, not to tie it all up in a Christmas bow, but to lean in to the waiting, the wanting, and the wonder, so as to hear God’s answer.”

SUNDAY DECEMBER 21ST

FOURTH SUNDAY OF ADVENT

Our reflection for the Fourth Sunday of Advent is taken from a longer article by James Boyce, Professor Emeritus of New Testament and Greek, Luther Seminary, St. Paul, Minesota, USA.

“With its focus on Joseph as the chief character, Matthew’s unique story of Jesus’ birth will probably not be the model for any children’s Christmas pageant, in many of which Joseph seems to walk in the shadows as a necessary, if somewhat embarrassing, appendage.

In contrast, Matthew’s narrative takes great pains to identify Joseph as the father of Jesus, tracing out his link to King David in the elaborate genealogy that opens the gospel. And in our lesson, even if Jesus’ birth is clearly a miracle of God’s power through the Spirit, still Joseph is the real father, who by naming the child according to God’s command, in effect adopts this child as his own. That adoption is no mere fiction but becomes Matthew’s way of ushering us into the mystery of the incarnation, apart from which this Jesus could not stand in the line of Davidic ancestry. If the mystery of the “word becoming flesh and dwelling among us” (John 1:14) were not enough, Matthew’s story is a veritable cornucopia of Matthean themes that could occupy the preacher for this Sunday

or through the year.

Obedience and Faith

Joseph, the central character in this story, is no wishy-washy person, but a person of strength and purpose. He is committed and faithful to his religious tradition and ready to act on that commitment. When the call of God comes to him through an angel in a dream, he is not just ruminating; he has already made a definite decision, “resolved” upon a course of action. Told against the backdrop of Old Testament stories of others to whom God’s call has come, this story is noticeably different. When the call comes, Joseph speaks not one word either of question or objection. He simply acts directly and immediately in obedient response to the call. Both in the original and in translation, the story makes this clear by describing Joseph’s actions of response with exactly the same words as used in the angel’s instructions. Joseph becomes visibly and audibly an example of the power of God’s call to transform our decisions and our lives. So here at the beginning, he is a model of faithful discipleship long before we hear Jesus’ commission at the end to “Go and make disciples” of all nations.

Righteousness

Joseph makes his decision to divorce Mary because he is righteous (19). Here in this story we meet explicitly for the first time an important theme of Matthew’s gospel. We are meant to ask, “What does righteousness look like?” And we are given a model of righteousness in Joseph’s faithful response to God’s call. The story also makes clear that this is no easy matter for Joseph or for us. What Joseph initially understands as the righteous thing to do is challenged directly by the call of God to act precisely opposite to what he saw and expected the law to demand. What happens when our notions of righteousness and justice come up against the ways of God’s creative mercy? In Joseph we meet one who risks becoming disobedient in the eyes of the world-becoming an outcast to family and community-dare we say, even becoming sinful and suffering-for the sake of being obedient to God’s call. So the story invites us to think of another in this story who became sin for us, that the promises of God might take shape in new creative power. When law and righteousness or justice seem to clash, how deep do the promises of God go? How far will discipleship lead us?

Of Dreams and Decisions

At every stage of this story, Joseph’s decisions are prompted by God’s intervention through a dream. As we prepare for Christmas and to receive this child, we too might ask what happens when God is an intrusion into our nicely laid plans and decisions? How do we know when God is speaking to us and when it is just bad food? Depending on your perspective, intervention can be the good news of rescue or deliverance, or it can be just plain meddling.                                                    In Advent we pray, “Stir up your power, Lord, and come.” Are we really ready to risk that such a prayer might be answered? To be open to this story means to invite the possibility that obedient discipleship may transform us and lead us in ways we had never imagined.”

CHRISTMAS DAY

DECEMBER 25TH

Our reflection for Christmas Day is by Rev Janet Hunt, a Lutheran Pastor in the USA.

“We had our "Christmas in the Barn" again this year.  The weather was a little warmer and so the crowd was a little bigger and there were a number of children present with us.  I called them to the front after I read the Christmas Gospel where they could get a closer look at the pair of goats and the pig and a couple of miniature donkeys.  And of course, the manger.
We have a life size wooden manger we keep at church. The straw stays in it year around. The blanket had been left from the Children's Program a couple of weeks ago.  And nestled into the straw was a plastic doll, meant, of course, to remind us of the baby Jesus.

The little ones gathered around as we pointed out pieces of the story represented there that night, for we were in an actual barn with animals and all the associated sights and sounds and smells.  Indeed, I think they were probably more excited about the proximity of the live animals than by our plastic approximation of Jesus.  Even so, I noted that one of them, probably four or five years old, with a sense of wonder and curiosity that children sometimes show, was reaching in to touch our baby Jesus' eyes.  I've seen small children do this with actual babies, too. 

They go for a most vulnerable place, closing the eyelids, even as this little one did this Christmas Eve.

I didn't get the chance to ask, but I have to believe he didn't think this baby Jesus was real. Even so, everything else in the barn was real that night, so maybe he thought this was, too?  Maybe in some small way he wondered if this could be real, too?

It is, of course, the first wonder of Christmas and one that carries throughout Jesus' life here on earth.  He was human.  He was flesh and blood, real, like you and me with all of its wonder and all of its frailty.

I have become a little more aware of this frailty this year.  I know I've mentioned this before, my mid-summer's meeting of the ground from my place on an extension ladder.  I am so very fortunate that the ground was not hard and my distance from it was not so far.  I was so very fortunate, I know, to walk away with only some bruises. In fact, it was only after a quick trip to Minneapolis this fall that I realized how wounded I really was.  For when I returned, I was not able to twist and turn to look over my shoulder.  It turns out I had and have a rib out of place.  For some reason the symptoms did not kick in until late October.  I've been seeing a chiropractor about it ever since. 

It seems to be helping, but it is slow healing, that's for sure.
Here is one thing I have noticed in the chiropractor's surgery - at any given time there can be a dozen patients in there at once. There are toddlers brought in as well and infants, too.

I can't help but think of how very fragile this human flesh is, how from the start, we are so very vulnerable to wound and disease. And to think that God's Own Son would take this on in our behalf.  To think that Jesus would come as one of us.  When I pause in this simple truth, it takes my breath away.
For this human flesh will not last as long as that plastic baby doll we placed in the manger on Christmas Eve.  (I'm told that given the right conditions, that one's life span could be indefinite!)                                                                               

In fact, even as I write this afternoon, I find myself remembering an old song called "Plastic Jesus" which was recorded in the early 1960's. If you haven't heard it before, it may be helpful to know that it was 'inspired' by a radio station in Del Rio, Texas in the late 1950's "which was run by a dentist and religious fanatic who sold the most outrageous stuff imaginable, all with magical healing properties."  It is a spoof, of course, and speaks to our certainty that inanimate objects in and of themselves cannot protect us or save us.  At least not in the way Jesus, the Word become flesh, did and does.

And so it is that we pause here on Christmas Day to marvel once again that "the Word became flesh."  With all of its risk and all of its promise, Jesus became one of us.                       

No, this is no 'Plastic Jesus, even if we have to use such as that to represent him in a barn on Christmas Eve.  This Jesus lived like us, as we did and do.                                                               

Oh, just think of it: God stooping to this for you and me! And of course, you and I who know the rest of the story know exactly what happened to the 'Word become flesh' who lived and died among us. 

That, of course, is the greatest wonder.”

Minister ~ Rev Alan Kennedy 07733153203 01612703296 alanrk1690@gmail.com