Hospitality and a cup of cold water - what does God require of us?

• Scripture: Genesis 22:1-14 and Psalm 13  • Jeremiah 28:5-9 and Psalm 89:1-4, 15-18  • Romans 6:12-23  • Matthew 10:40-42

In this Sunday's readings we have the amazing story of God telling Abraham to sacrifice his son, Isaac. Are we, like Abraham, being tested?  Consider Dan Clendenin's "A Terrifying Text: Abraham and Isaac on Mt. Moriah," and, along with Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard, put yourself in Abraham's shoes. Compare this with last Sunday's gospel where Jesus says that whoever loves his son or daughter more than me, or who does not take up their cross and follow me, is not worthy of me.  What does God ask of us?

Enjoy the story of wild haired college student John, who squats in the isle of a church service in  Christopher Burkett's "The Smallest of Good Deeds." 

What does God want us to do? Thinking about freedom this Indepence Day holiday? Read Denae Ashley's "Shake off the Dust." Finally, read Fr. Ric Morley's "sit up straighter..." Whoever welcomes you, welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the One who sent me.

God's Peace in the Midst of Fear and Chaos

Scripture: Genesis 21:8-21 and Psalm 86:1-10, 16-17  • Jeremiah 20:7-13 and Psalm 69:7-10, (11-15), 16-18  • Romans 6:1b-11  • Matthew 10:24-39

"His eye is on the sparrow, and I know he watches over me." Words from a favorite hymn. In this week's scripture, from Hagar's despair over her son, Ishmael, cast out in the desert and death of her son looming, to Jeremiah's lament, to Jesus telling the disciples that God cares for them as he sends them out to take his message of love and forgiveness to a hostile world, we learn that God sees, hears, is present, and provides. God knows when every sparrow falls, and every hair on our heads is counted, Jesus tells us. 

And what about that hostile world and our greatest fears? How is God with us? What does God's peace mean for us? Read Debie Thomas' essay, "What to Fear."

In "Sent," The Rev. Joslyn Ogden Shaefer says Jesus sends out his disciples to interrupt the world-as-they (we)-know it with new possibilities for healing, wholeness, truth-telling, and repaired relationships.

There will be storms and battles, but, thanks be to God, through Christ, there will be victory, even victory over death. Read "Ishmael: God Hears and Sees," by Dan Clendenin and  "Facing battles with the promise of victory," by The Rev. Canon Frank S. Logue.

Go and render believable the compassion of God

Scripture: Genesis 21:8-21 and Psalm 86:1-10, 16-17  • Jeremiah 20:7-13 and Psalm 69:7-10, (11-15), 16-18  • Romans 6:1b-11  • Matthew 10:24-39

During times of turmoil, tragedy, and darkness, it is natural to ask "Where is God when we need God?" As we see senseless killing, or abuse by those we trust to provide care for us, whether it be by the police, spouses, parents, guardians, and even the Church, and the anger and sorrow that killing or abuse produces, what are we called to do?

What, and how, are we to deal with our anger and sorrow? Our Scripture this week gives us answers. And they may not be answers we expect, or want, for that matter. 

First, there is the Old Testament story of Haggar and Ishmael, banned and left to die in the firestorm of Sarah's jealousy. Where is God in this? Read Dan Clendenin's ""Ishmael: God Hears and Sees." This reminds me of the old hymn, "His Eye Is On The Sparrow," and I know he watches over me.

Consider our reading from Paul's letter to the Romans when he talks about character, and what that produces.

And finally, read the gospel reading from Matthew and Debie Thomas' "I Am Sending You," as we ponder, and maybe agonize over, what we can do. What we are called to do?

Why the Trinity Matters - especially now.

Scripture: Genesis 1:1-2:4a and Psalm 8  • 2 Corinthians 13:11-13  • Matthew 28:16-20

This is Trinity Sunday. In these troubled times of pandemic, economic uncertainty, division, and the pain and suffering so many are experiencing with issues regarding race, brutality, and civil and violent protests, why does knowledge and appeal to the Trinity - God in three persons - three in one - God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit - matter? What difference does it make?  What can we learn, and rely on to help us through these times? 

Debie Thomas, in The Undivided Trinity, gives us a timely and important lesson.
This Sunday's gospel also contains Jesus’s commission to spread the good news to all the earth, the ends of the earth. How and what does he mean? Read Dan Clendenin's "What I Do Is Me."

Pentecost - Holy Spirit, breathe fresh life into us

Scripture: Acts 2:1-21 or Numbers 11:24-30  • Psalm 104:24-34, 35b  • 1 Corinthians 12:3b-13 or Acts 2:1-21  • John 20:19-23 or John 7:37-39

Especially during this time of pandemic and divisive rhetoric, Debi Thomas, in her truly remarkable “I Will Pour Out My Spirit,” gives us a lesson of wisdom and hope as she reflects on the Scripture on this Pentecost Sunday. Click the link “I Will Pour Out My Spirit” to read her essay. Here is a snippet.

“Like the disciples in our Gospel reading for this week, we are huddled together behind locked doors, waiting for Jesus to come among us and say, “Peace be with you.”  Waiting for him to breathe on us.  Waiting for him to speak the words we need so desperately: “Receive the Holy Spirit.”  

Pentecost — from the Greek pentekostos, meaning "fiftieth," was a Jewish festival celebrating the spring harvest, and the revelation of the law at Mount Sinai.  In the New Testament Pentecost story Luke tells, the Holy Spirit descended on 120 believers in Jerusalem on the fiftieth day after Jesus's resurrection.  The Spirit empowered them to testify to God's saving work, emboldened the apostle Peter to preach to a bewildered crowd of Jewish skeptics, and drew three thousand converts from around the known world in one day.  For many Christians, Pentecost marks the birthday of the Church.

The story Luke describes is a fantastical one, full of details that challenge the imagination.  Tongues of fire.  Rushing wind.  Bold preaching.  Mass baptism.  But at its heart, the Pentecost story is not about spectacle and drama.  It’s about the Holy Spirit showing up and transforming ordinary, imperfect, frightened people into the Body of Christ.  It’s about God disrupting and disorienting our humdrum ways of engaging the sacred, so that something new and holy can be born within and among us.  It’s about the Spirit carrying us out of suspicion, tribalism, and fear, into a radical new way of engaging God and our neighbor...

But even in that atmosphere of suspicion and cynicism, some people spoke, and some people listened, and into those astonishing exchanges, God breathed fresh life.

Something happens when we speak each other's languages.  We experience the limits of our own words and perspectives.  We learn curiosity.  We discover that God's "great deeds" are far too nuanced for a single tongue, a single fluency.

I hope that the Pentecost story compels us, because it's a story for this time, this moment.  As we continue to face the coronavirus pandemic as people of faith, we will be tempted to grow complacent, or to despair, or to turn in on ourselves and forget that we are part of a much larger whole.  We live in a world where words have become toxic, where the languages of so many cherished "isms" threaten to divide and destroy us.  The troubles of our day are global, civilizational, catastrophic.  If we don't learn the art of speaking across the borders that currently separate us, we will burn ourselves down to ash.”

Jesus' prayer for us - that we all may be one

Scripture: Acts 1:6-14  • Psalm 68:1-10, 32-35  • 1 Peter 4:12-14; 5:6-11  • John 17:1-11

This is the Sunday following Ascension Day. The gospel account is of Jesus praying with his disciples on the night before his crucifixion. This is known as Jesus' priestly prayer for us before he leaves us to go to the Father. Both of our authors give us perspective during this time of social distancing, loneliness, and issues of trust and hope. We need Jesus' prayer for us, especially now. Read The Rev. Anna Tew's " Split Screen," and Debie Thomas' "That they may be one." 

We Are Not Alone - Thanks Be to God!

Scripture: Acts 17:22-31  • Psalm 66:8-20  • 1 Peter 3:13-22  • John 14:15-21

This week Jesus tells his disciples, and us, two weeks before the Pentecost (birthday of the church) that we are not alone. He said he will ask the Father, and He will send another Advocate, the παράκλητος (paraclete), a helper, counselor, who provides guidance, consolation, strength, and support to us.

The Rev. Jason Cox, in "Paul: Appealing or Appalling" (I would have called it "Taking it to the Greeks," gives us insight into what God, and this Advocate, is like, as Paul appeals to the Greeks in Athens,  the birthplace of western philosophy, at the Areopagus (Mars Hill) in the shadow of idols of Greek gods and goddesses.  The Greeks, like us, were searchers, as is evidenced by their monument to the "unknown God." What did they, and do we search for? What idols stand in our way of seeing God, and receiving God's help. In what ways is God, and his Advocate present today?

In "Orphaned? Reflections on John 14:15-21," The Rev. Dr. Anna Hosemann-Butler, poignantly tells and shows us that we are not alone.

In this Sunday's Scripture, Jesus gives us a new commandment, Love one another. As I have loved you, love one another."  And then he tells us how to love one another, as he loves us. By keeping his commandments.  In "Love and Obedience," Debie Thomas says, "Everything else we say and do as believers in Christ comes down to this.  Prayer, evangelism, repentance, generosity, asking, seeking, alms-giving, truth-telling, honoring, serving, feeding, sharing… all of it, in the end, comes down to love.  The essential question, the searing question, is this: Do we love one another as Jesus has loved us?  Or do we not?  He says, 'Love one another as I have loved you.'  As in,  for real.  As in, the whole bona fide package.  Authentic feeling, honest engagement, generous action." Not just acting in rote obedience. But as she, and our other authors say, We don't have to do what seems impossible ourselves. We are not alone. As we say, and believe, when we reaffirm our baptismal covenant, "We will, with God's help." Thanks be to God.