Pentecost Jn 16:4-4-15, Rom. 8:22-7

Pentecost is a difficult day in the church calendar for me. In my mind, it has the import of Christmas or Easter, but in reality, it marks another Sunday. We don’t do a terribly good job with the Spirit, as if working with Pentecost would make us Pentecostals, or as Mike McCoy recalls from a sign in a Laurel church; prayin’, preachin’, singin’. On this Pentecost, we see God is on our side, working for the best in us, the best for us.

 

On the 500th birthday year of John Calvin, we do well to recall how much he emphasized the work of the spirit. Calvin calls the Spirit an inward teacher. The spirit can penetrate our defenses. The Spirit manifests power through the sacraments. Spirit confirms and strengthens faith. Calvin calls the Spirit a Schoolmaster. No one emphasized the work of the Spirit in the sacraments more. The Spirit cements our bond with Jesus, so that Calvin’s theme was union with Christ (sec 2). Without the spirit, this is a mere ritual. With the spirit we are joined with Christ, flesh to flesh, bone to bone, as the old Scots catechism would have it.  It is life giving. On this day when we celebrate the Spirit, the Lord and giver of Life, Calvin reminds us that the Lord’s Supper is life-giving. His symbol for the life a faith was a heart aflame. Given his nature, I would doubt that it meant only the emotional side of life, but the whole of our lives, the core of our lives would be bright with a thorough-going passion for God, for life.

 

Speaking in tongues does not build of the community of faith unless it is also gifted with interpretation of those strange-sounding babble of voice. The crucial thing about Pentecost is that everyone understood the message in their own language. In other words, the Spirit is a teacher who promotes more than information but understanding, a grasp of what is being said. The Spirit continues to illumine us about the continuing life of Christ and beyond the gospels. Jesus sees the Spirit as training us into notions that the disciples were not yet capable of hearing.  the Spirit is portrayed  as God on our side, as our counselors. In our time that can mean an attorney or a therapist; they are both helping professions, one s that act as a loyal friend to the client, albeit for a fee.  Not only that, Jesus pictures the spirit as working along side us as we go about our daily tasks. John uses the same word for it as Luke uses when Martha wants Mary to help her with working to get ready for company.

 

In Romans, the Spirit, within the very life of God, prays for us, intercedes for us, with that wonderful phrase, with sighs too deep for words. Out of the depth of our situation, the Spirit communicates those needs within the divine depths. Even though Paul uses apocalyptic imagery, instead of speaking of destruction, Paul speaks fo the spirit of new life, as birth pangs for the arrival of the new creation.

 

We’ve been emphasizing some elements of Easter life in our readings. Now we look more at life in the Spirit, the life of the church as it carries on the work that has been handed down generation to generation. Wherever we find the breath of life, we are in the presence of the Spirit, the Lord and giver of life. That Spirit places us in the living presence of Jesus Christ in the Lord’s Supper. The same Spirit of God that brought new life to the small knot of disciples is present with us this morning. The presence of God is with us all and as separate souls. My prayer is that our life together and as individuals would be tongues of fire, signs of the presence of God.

1. Is. 6:1-8, Ps. 104:22-35
   
2. The Isaiah passage brings to light an important feature of discussion of div inity: holiness. See David Willis. Notes on the Holiness of God, or the standard, Rudolph Otto’s book, The Idea of the Holy. In our time what does holiness mean in terms of separation for a purpose?
   
3. In a related vein, how do you see the lips being touched, maybe purified by a coal from an altar. Which altar?  This could be a great place to discuss how we use our lips, or how we do not speak of God at all.
   
4. It brings up the related issue of transcendence, when we are in an immanent period.
   
5. Theg clean/unclean idea is well discussed by the anthropologist Mary Douglas.
   
6. To get a handle on it, perhaps we could speak of boundaries.
   
7. The seraphim may well have been more fearsome than we imagine. Think of the bronze serpent with wings.
   
8. 40 Glory ahs a sense of presence for me, but it also has a sense of gravity, weightiness, splendor as would befit the divine.
   
9. For Trinity Sunday, this is an image of a God who breaks all of our boundaries, a God who cannot be boxed in by our mental or emotional containers.
   
10. Here I am, send me. Is it always a good sing when someone is anxious to be a speaker fo rGod?

 

 

 

Psalm 29

1. Some scholars see a link to Canaanite patterns of prayer reflected in this psalm. This shows the boldness of Hebrew worship as it was willing to use other models to proclaim a prayer.
   
2. On the other hand, it shifts the image of Baal’s contest with the waters; they are mere instruments at god’s power.
   
3. The storm language also resonates with the storm at Sinai before the giving of the 10 commandments.
   
4. I assume the heavenly beings are more than angels. It reminds me of Ps. 89 or Job 1 where god is pictured as the CEO of lesser divinities.
   
5. One could use this to talk about storms in life.
   
6. One could speak of the trinity of relation with God, each other, and with nature.
   
7. Older pastors recall that Biblical studies drew a sharp contrast against linking God and nature. In an ecological age, this has changed.

Ezekiel 37-

1) since this is for a group, this is a natural place ot speak of a spirit-inspired, enlivened church.

2)With Star trek we could talk about being transported

3)It is hard to knwo if ruah is breath or spirit here.

4)Here the process of decay is reversed. fro churches, this is good news when people try to chart a church's life cycle.

5) These are just jigsaw puzzles of corpses unless breath/spirit is within them.

6)the breath of life recall Gen. 2 or Elijah and the widow's child.

7) One could speak of a living death as in vv.11-14.

8)To be without hope can be as good as dead.

9)this could be an example of hitting bottom before restoration can occur.

 

Ps. 104:24-35

1) This is an example of wisdom pervading creation. This gets turned into the logos that Jesus incarnates in John 1, God's vision, logic, plan. See Prov. 8:22-31 for a personified wisdom.Here, i think of the spirit of life, or the spirit/breath/wind hovering over the primordial waters of creation.

2) Like lady Wisdom, an emphasis on rejoicing is here.

3) NIB p.1098 McCann calls God architect and artisam here.

4) the fearsomne sea harbors the fearsome leviathan, but as in job, it has lost its edge. Maybe only in god's perspective is it  for sport, but still God revels in it.

5) this is an ecological pslam where everthing fits together.

6)this si a great description of God's providence governance, sustaing, of the world from entropy.

7_God is a god life life:breath or spirit.the resulting resposne is praise. Pentecost too proclaim l'chaim: to life.

 

Rom. 8:22-7

1) Here instead of apocalyptic destruction, we have the labor pains of new life.

2) Still, transformation is painful

3)The church is a priovisional demonstration; its full adoption papers are not yet fully binding.This is an already?not yet tension

4) We are saved in hope for this completed redemption

5)So, we can wait with good grace but still with excitement, again think pregnancy

6) I love this passage of a Spirit who can  sympathize with troubles that words cannot express.this is side by side help,t he kind Martha wanted Mary for (NIB-598)

7)What odes it mean to you that te Sprit prays for us right now?

8) Wright cites god's Grandeur (Hopkins0 at 606

4)

Portals of prayer. John 17:6-19, Ps. 1

Prayer gives us access to the felt presence of God.

Model prayer line up with Lord’s Prayer. Jesus speaks with God, Jesus prays for the church, his church family, and then he prays for the future. The disciples get to hear Jesus praying for them. Paul tells us that Jesus continues to intercede for us. What do they get to overhear. My favorite part is the prayer for helping to keep their souls safe. It reminds me of a parent sending a child off to school, or at this time of year, in that mixture of pride and anxiety as we send a child off to adulthood. This verse even sounds like the Lord’s Prayer.

Psalm 1 leads off the Psalter. It may well introduce the whole fo the 150 psalms as guides to the way of the Lord. The first letter in the prayer is our A and the last word starts with our z. I love the image like a tree planted by a stream of water. This is a tree of life itself. Maybe we would use a mechanical image today. Happy is the person who is like an electric car with an outlet always ready. To find blessedness, is to find happiness, to be rooted in the teaching of God, as a way of life. Put differently, if we keep to the ways of god, we find blessed relief, blessed happiness. When we go off course, we find cheap thrills, illusory uplift, and many pitfalls that lead to a deep unblessed unhappiness. Indeed a lot of our consumption habits are indicators of lives rooted in the promise of possession as opposed to the way of the Lord.

The word delight in Psalm 1 can be linked to the joy of the Priestly Prayer of Jesus. The prayer of Jesus sounds like Jesus to me. I mean that Jesus does not come off as judgemental in his teaching often, and Jesus is not judgemental here either. Instead of all things, Jesus prays for the joy of the disciples. Indeed Jesus prays that his joy, the joy that Jesus knows, be complete in his disciples. Jesus realizes that joy will not come solely from the pleasures of the world, for we are not of the world alone, for we are of God..

I received a grant to go to Oregon at the end of the month for a conference on discernment, using religious tools to help us make decisions. Jesus is closing his long goodbye to his friends with a prayer. In part the prayer is his struggle to discern how to say goodbye. What do you say? How do we discern what is the way of the Lord in our lives in matters large and small? Ignatius emphasized his Jesuits to work on learning how to be indifferent to anything but that which you sense god wants you to do. One of the books I picked up for the conference (E. Liebert. Way of Discernment ) gives some guidelines. Before retiring for bed go over the past day. Pay attention to when you followed or did not follow the voice of god’s direction. Look at what allows you to follow god’s lead or what obstructs or hinders you. Close with something simple such as: Jesus please be in my life tomorrow. When you are facing a decision, or get an itch for change; try this. Get some quiet time. Jot down some of the things you would like to be or do soon, even now. Be specific. Then pick some of the central ones. For each one consider if something deeper, more basic is behind that desire. See those as a gift from goad and allow yourself to be grateful. Thomas Traherne said “Thoughts are the angels we send abroad/to visit all the parts of God’s abode.” Putting our thoughts, our considerations, our decisions into a prayerful posture makes us aware of the angels of God’s abode, but our abode here, on this good earth. In prayer, allow yourself to visit the different rooms of God’s abode in the different rooms of your own life.

Acts 1:15-17,21-6

1) Peter emerges as a leader, although he does not appear much after the first half of Acts. With the selection of Matthias, we have an opportunity to talk about leadership in the church. We could focus on leadership selection in the church. Here the criterion is random selection after being in a pool. This takes us back to similar decisions I Sam. 14 for instance.

2) I’m going to a conference on discernment at George Fox in Oregon at the end of the month. The selection procedure could be used as a blanket to cover other forms of decision-making in the church., or in general.

3) The 12 are a unit here, possibly representing Israel. What are your thoughts about collective leadership?

4) this is a good place to see that our roles are replaceable, but is a person really replaceable?

5) Imagine how Joseph/Justus reacted to not being chosen.

6) what conflicting feelings and thoughts swirled through Matthias?

7) This issue of being chosen is at the heart of Reformed thought. What is different about being chosen than to choose?

I John 5:9-13-

1. 
   

   this concludes the lectionary on this letter. If you are not slavish toward it, you may go all the way to the end, of course.

   
   
2. 
   

   I’m not sure about interpreting/testimony/confession/witness here at v. 9 I tend toward the idea that Jesus embodies the testimony of God, a living, breathing witness to the truth of God.

   
   
3. 
   

   Here heart means in the inmost being, not merely emotional preference.

   
   
4. 
   

   In John’s dualism here, it is one side or the other. Look at the content life. It is a commentary, if you will, all the way back to Moses, two paths I give you life and death.

   
   
5. 
   

   5) It is important here to see that eternal life is a present reality, not a waystation into heaven.

Sermon May 17 John 15:1-16

As we wind down the Easter readings, we hear that Easter life is one of love and connection. After all, love requires connection. I love this passage because it is all about living connections. Years ago, I read a piece by Sellars called the web and tree. Mostly he spoke of the interplay of all the connections in the web and the relative simplicity of the design of the tree. We live in a dense web of connections: air routes, highways, tracks, the pipeline that has been constructed forever, it seems, through the fields that will supply natural gas to the East. I don’t know much about grape growing, but I do notice that the wineries seem to prune them vigorously. They want as much energy as possible for the fruit, not growth that will compete for the limited stores of nutrients. Judging from my hikes in the Napa Valley, I saw grape vines don’t require very good soil either, but still produce wonderful fruit.

I’m attracted to this image of the vine in that the branches are connected to each other through the vine. I don’t think we can find any distinctions between the various branches of the vine. When I think of a vine, I think of a lush tangle of growth and fruit. It’s hard to tell an individual branch amidst the weaving of growth.

From an early age we are trained to be independent, to make it on our own. The truth is that when we get disconnected from each other and from God, we get disconnected to our own selves. When a prayer goes unanswered, we may feel that God is disconnected from us. A lost friendship does diminish the quality of our lives. When we get cut off from each other, we lose the connection that allows fellow feeling. Sadly, some relationships do wither on the vine. Poisons threaten the branches that prevent the nutrients from reaching them

Jesus announces that we are more than disciples, but friends. Not only that, the very love that flows from God to Jesus flows through the vine to every one of us. When we act as if we are on our own, we deprive ourselves of the life-giving energy of the true vine. In the end, the fruit of the vine is one of abundance and quality. It is also an image of life, for more fruit to be produced. In the same way, we are all connected through the true vine to the health and well-being of each other.

We know that distance does not have to undercut connection. Communication builds up the strength of our relationships. We speak of a wired, or better, wireless world for connection. When I was in Bloomington, I was struck by so many of the students walking about with cell phones pressed to their ears. My daughter’s phone has one type of ring for calls and another for a mysterious, to me, form of communication called texting. Something called Twitter allows folks to shoot about short thought bubbles to each other. We can directly use some of the same notions for prayer life. I guess we could call short prayers as tweets. I love the idea of keeping our spiritual cell phones close to our ears to hear what message God may well be sending us. Cut off from the vine, we may allow ourselves to wither away from it.

Easter life is life that pulses with new groth and abundant living. Easter life is a life of connection to the source of our very being, a constant transmission of life-giving energy to each one of us. We are not made to wither on the vine, but to flourish.

.

May 10 Sermon I John 4:7-21

Our readings continue to look at dimensions of the new Christian life as Easter life. God can work even with happenstance. A eunuch just happens to be going home and happens to be reading a suffering servant passage from Isaiah. Our precise genetic inheritance is a collision of chromosomes. The Bible is the memory book of the church. The Ethiopian is reading, but he needs some clues to understanding what he is reading. Philip responds by giving him the great aid to interpreting scripture for Christians, the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The official is brought into a new global family, a new Easter life through the new waters of new life. Philip is the midwife for the new birth of the Ethiopian eunuch. We see the radical character of the new faith, as it is a most inclusive family. Eunuchs were not in the congregation of Israel in Dt. 23, but Is. 56 looks toward an inclusive future. In its way, the story in Acts tells us that the future is now. Philip disappears, just like Jesus at Emmaus, but the formally foreign official goes on his way rejoicing. He lives the Easter life of gladness at this new life, this new way of seeing his world, this new world, this new way of life.

I John 4 is at the heart of my faith. We were asked in Committee on Preparation for Ministry to write our own statement of faith, so we could have a better sense of writing our own creed, as we require of candidates. My main section came from what John twice says: God is love. It is not control, not power over others, but the ennobling power of mutuality that is love.It is not a possessive love, but a love that seeks to share life. God wanted to share that life as fully as possible. John’s requirements for salvation are remarkably simple: a life of love. Indeed, it seems that the love of God and the love of others are less 2 separate commandments here, but they seem to involve each other so that separation is difficult if not impossible. We find that the true dwelling place of God is where love appears, where love is practiced. . That love can move beyond the self’s desires and move into the life of the loved one, to sacrifice for the loved one, even laying down one’s own life in ultimate sacrifice for the well-being of the loved one.

I would like to draw some parallels between the love of God and the love of Mothers- Mothers have nine months getting to love the new life within them. Scripture says that God was in planning before the foundation of the world, an eternity to come to see us and love us. For that matter, all life emerged from God’s work, so perhaps we see that God could well love the whole creation as a mother loves a child, with all of its flaws and imperfections. At Bible Study a woman said that she worries that she loves her family more than she loves God. That is a worry I don’t think would cross the mind of a lot of fathers. I don’t know how Mary, the mother of Jesus, worked that out in her life. In Jesus Christ, we see the love of God clearly. Before Jesus said a word or healed anyone, we get a glimpse of the love of God that was determined to demonstrate that love in a person, in an incarnate way. We see love for humanity clearly. God’s love is incarnate in Jesus Christ. Mothers incarnate love for us every day. Mothers are a part of so many memories, especially of childhood. In the womb, the umbilical cord forms, so that we are nourished through the mother. At birth, the cord is cut. We are connected by cords of love all through our lives, even when we cut the apron springs and begin adult life on our own. Our very existence depends on being connected to the hand of God holding the world from spinning into entropy and decay, chaos and confusion. On this Mother’s Day, the force that no equation can gather, no force control, is that of love

May 10 Sermon I John 4:7-21

Our readings continue to look at dimensions of the new Christian life as Easter life. God can work even with happenstance. A eunuch just happens to be going home and happens to be reading a suffering servant passage from Isaiah. Our precise genetic inheritance is a collision of chromosomes. The Bible is the memory book of the church. The Ethiopian is reading, but he needs some clues to understanding what he is reading. Philip responds by giving him the great aid to interpreting scripture for Christians, the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The official is brought into a new global family, a new Easter life through the new waters of new life. Philip is the midwife for the new birth of the Ethiopian eunuch. We see the radical character of the new faith, as it is a most inclusive family. Eunuchs were not in the congregation of Israel in Dt. 23, but Is. 56 looks toward an inclusive future. In its way, the story in Acts tells us that the future is now. Philip disappears, just like Jesus at Emmaus, but the formally foreign official goes on his way rejoicing. He lives the Easter life of gladness at this new life, this new way of seeing his world, this new world, this new way of life.

I John 4 is at the heart of my faith. We were asked in Committee on Preparation for Ministry to write our own statement of faith, so we could have a better sense of writing our own creed, as we require of candidates. My main section came from what John twice says: God is love. It is not control, not power over others, but the ennobling power of mutuality that is love.It is not a possessive love, but a love that seeks to share life. God wanted to share that life as fully as possible. John’s requirements for salvation are remarkably simple: a life of love. Indeed, it seems that the love of God and the love of others are less 2 separate commandments here, but they seem to involve each other so that separation is difficult if not impossible. We find that the true dwelling place of God is where love appears, where love is practiced. . That love can move beyond the self’s desires and move into the life of the loved one, to sacrifice for the loved one, even laying down one’s own life in ultimate sacrifice for the well-being of the loved one.

I would like to draw some parallels between the love of God and the love of Mothers- Mothers have nine months getting to love the new life within them. Scripture says that God was in planning before the foundation of the world, an eternity to come to see us and love us. For that matter, all life emerged from God’s work, so perhaps we see that God could well love the whole creation as a mother loves a child, with all of its flaws and imperfections. At Bible Study a woman said that she worries that she loves her family more than she loves God. That is a worry I don’t think would cross the mind of a lot of fathers. I don’t know how Mary, the mother of Jesus, worked that out in her life. In Jesus Christ, we see the love of God clearly. Before Jesus said a word or healed anyone, we get a glimpse of the love of God that was determined to demonstrate that love in a person, in an incarnate way. We see love for humanity clearly. God’s love is incarnate in Jesus Christ. Mothers incarnate love for us every day. Mothers are a part of so many memories, especially of childhood. In the womb, the umbilical cord forms, so that we are nourished through the mother. At birth, the cord is cut. We are connected by cords of love all through our lives, even when we cut the apron springs and begin adult life on our own. Our very existence depends on being connected to the hand of God holding the world from spinning into entropy and decay, chaos and confusion. On this Mother’s Day, the force that no equation can gather, no force control, is that of love

May 10 Sermon I John 4:7-21

Our readings continue to look at dimensions of the new Christian life as Easter life. God can work even with happenstance. A eunuch just happens to be going home and happens to be reading a suffering servant passage from Isaiah. Our precise genetic inheritance is a collision of chromosomes. The Bible is the memory book of the church. The Ethiopian is reading, but he needs some clues to understanding what he is reading. Philip responds by giving him the great aid to interpreting scripture for Christians, the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The official is brought into a new global family, a new Easter life through the new waters of new life. Philip is the midwife for the new birth of the Ethiopian eunuch. We see the radical character of the new faith, as it is a most inclusive family. Eunuchs were not in the congregation of Israel in Dt. 23, but Is. 56 looks toward an inclusive future. In its way, the story in Acts tells us that the future is now. Philip disappears, just like Jesus at Emmaus, but the formally foreign official goes on his way rejoicing. He lives the Easter life of gladness at this new life, this new way of seeing his world, this new world, this new way of life.

I John 4 is at the heart of my faith. We were asked in Committee on Preparation for Ministry to write our own statement of faith, so we could have a better sense of writing our own creed, as we require of candidates. My main section came from what John twice says: God is love. It is not control, not power over others, but the ennobling power of mutuality that is love.It is not a possessive love, but a love that seeks to share life. God wanted to share that life as fully as possible. John’s requirements for salvation are remarkably simple: a life of love. Indeed, it seems that the love of God and the love of others are less 2 separate commandments here, but they seem to involve each other so that separation is difficult if not impossible. We find that the true dwelling place of God is where love appears, where love is practiced. . That love can move beyond the self’s desires and move into the life of the loved one, to sacrifice for the loved one, even laying down one’s own life in ultimate sacrifice for the well-being of the loved one.

I would like to draw some parallels between the love of God and the love of Mothers- Mothers have nine months getting to love the new life within them. Scripture says that God was in planning before the foundation of the world, an eternity to come to see us and love us. For that matter, all life emerged from God’s work, so perhaps we see that God could well love the whole creation as a mother loves a child, with all of its flaws and imperfections. At Bible Study a woman said that she worries that she loves her family more than she loves God. That is a worry I don’t think would cross the mind of a lot of fathers. I don’t know how Mary, the mother of Jesus, worked that out in her life. In Jesus Christ, we see the love of God clearly. Before Jesus said a word or healed anyone, we get a glimpse of the love of God that was determined to demonstrate that love in a person, in an incarnate way. We see love for humanity clearly. God’s love is incarnate in Jesus Christ. Mothers incarnate love for us every day. Mothers are a part of so many memories, especially of childhood. In the womb, the umbilical cord forms, so that we are nourished through the mother. At birth, the cord is cut. We are connected by cords of love all through our lives, even when we cut the apron springs and begin adult life on our own. Our very existence depends on being connected to the hand of God holding the world from spinning into entropy and decay, chaos and confusion. On this Mother’s Day, the force that no equation can gather, no force control, is that of love

Acts 10:44-8

1) God does not always do things decently and in order. Here, the gift of the spirit precedes baptism.

2) Again, the ambit of the church widens, as the Gentiles receive charism.

3) Where in our lives can we ask about withholding baptism or other acts fo the church?

4) Baptism here is in the name of Jesus, not a Trinitarian formula.

5) Easter life is one of hospitality. The wall of separation was more than breached, a hand of friendship was now extended.

6) Think of how the way we do things defines the culture of a congregation and how resistant we are to change

I John :5:1-6

John continues his look at the interplay of the love of God and love of neighbor.

2) I have always been wary of arguments about obedience. Here, we are told that obedience is not burdensome but responsive to the love of god, so the commandment doesn’t sound or feel like a commandment, here I think of Torah meaning teaching as much as law. Put differently, it is a law of love we follow not the strictures of regulation.

3) What does it mean that faith conquers the world? How can this be read in dangerous ways?

Acts 10:44-8

1) God does not always do things decently and in order. Here, the gift of the spirit precedes baptism.

2) Again, the ambit of the church widens, as the Gentiles receive charism.

3) Where in our lives can we ask about withholding baptism or other acts fo the church?

4) Baptism here is in the name of Jesus, not a Trinitarian formula.

5) Easter life is one of hospitality. The wall of separation was more than breached, a hand of friendship was now extended.

6) Think of how the way we do things defines the culture of a congregation and how resistant we are to change

I John :5:1-6

John continues his look at the interplay of the love of God and love of neighbor.

2) I have always been wary of arguments about obedience. Here, we are told that obedience is not burdensome but responsive to the love of god, so the commandment doesn’t sound or feel like a commandment, here I think of Torah meaning teaching as much as law. Put differently, it is a law of love we follow not the strictures of regulation.

3) What does it mean that faith conquers the world? How can this be read in dangerous ways?

4) Here believers are begotten of God as well.

Acts 10:44-8

1) God does not always do things decently and in order. Here, the gift of the spirit precedes baptism.

2) Again, the ambit of the church widens, as the Gentiles receive charism.

3) Where in our lives can we ask about withholding baptism or other acts fo the church?

4) Baptism here is in the name of Jesus, not a Trinitarian formula.

5) Easter life is one of hospitality. The wall of separation was more than breached, a hand of friendship was now extended.

6) Think of how the way we do things defines the culture of a congregation and how resistant we are to change

I John :5:1-6

John continues his look at the interplay of the love of God and love of neighbor.

2) I have always been wary of arguments about obedience. Here, we are told that obedience is not burdensome but responsive to the love of god, so the commandment doesn’t sound or feel like a commandment, here I think of Torah meaning teaching as much as law. Put differently, it is a law of love we follow not the strictures of regulation.

3) What does it mean that faith conquers the world? How can this be read in dangerous ways?

Acts 10:44-8

1) God does not always do things decently and in order. Here, the gift of the spirit precedes baptism.

2) Again, the ambit of the church widens, as the Gentiles receive charism.

3) Where in our lives can we ask about withholding baptism or other acts fo the church?

4) Baptism here is in the name of Jesus, not a Trinitarian formula.

5) Easter life is one of hospitality. The wall of separation was more than breached, a hand of friendship was now extended.

6) Think of how the way we do things defines the culture of a congregation and how resistant we are to change

I John :5:1-6

John continues his look at the interplay of the love of God and love of neighbor.

2) I have always been wary of arguments about obedience. Here, we are told that obedience is not burdensome but responsive to the love of god, so the commandment doesn’t sound or feel like a commandment, here I think of Torah meaning teaching as much as law. Put differently, it is a law of love we follow not the strictures of regulation.

3) What does it mean that faith conquers the world? How can this be read in dangerous ways?

Column for Mother's day

As a father, I envy the flurry of activity and consideration for presents on Mother’s Day.

Mothers are often the family caregivers, the center of its life. I remember that my brother and I picked wildflowers for her in the field behind our house almost 50 years ago. It is a shock when the roles are reversed, and they require care. It’s a chilling prospect for adult children. We still se ourselves as caretakers of our own children, even if they are grown, and se are not sure about entrusting ourselves to them.

We witness so many reversals. The woman who told us that a new cereal was disgustingly sweet, now wants to eat only dessert. The woman who changed my brother and me, who had a hard time with changing the “new” plastic diapers of her grandchildren, needs help.We swore she could see through walls and behind her without turning, but now she sees but dimly. She could hear us whispering, or being “too quiet” but I don’t think she’s heard anything her granddaughters have said to her in years.

The decline brings some laughs; maybe it has to. My mother likes me to play a bit on the piano. One of the residents told me that I must not have practiced enough as a child. She was right. Never getting to play anything popular reached its climax with general Grant’s March, and I quit playing. I was encouraged by The Piano Guy’s easier method on TV, so I pick out some tunes a bit. Edelweiss is easy, and my mother likes it and recognizes it. Recently, she announced that the song was called, “Thank God for Me.” I told her the title again. She replied that Edelweiss meant “thank God for me.”

She’s at the stage where we share few memories. When I reminisce, it is as if she is hearing it for the first time. Sometimes that eases troubles. She doesn’t remember that she is widowed, or that my brother died at the same age as our father. She may forget. God does not forget. I love the idea in process theology that our lives are taken up into the memory of God.. Connected to God, her life and memories will not be lost but are kept safe and sound in the divine life. After all, Mary was with jesusfrom Bethlehem to Calvary. I wonder if she received a resurrection appearance.

In the meantime, create some good memories for yourself and your mother, even if we have no guarantee that they will be remembered by both of you. Mothers can take a break from double binds and emotional manipulations and enjoy the presents and the compliments. Children can let go of grudges and disappointments and celebrate. Both can ask what sort of memories do they want to create, that remain with them as the years go by. Some may be surrounded by mothers: a birth mother, the mother of their children, and maybe their own children are now mothers.

Maybe the best Mother’s Day present is the gift of presence and time. Touching base with a mother, to share memories and maybe make some new ones, is a mutual gift. The gift of time lovingly spent is a great legacy of mothers. Years ago, our youngest daughter was sick when she was about 15 months. She cried in the night. I went to get her, and she looked at me, and hit me as she said, not Momma. Mothers care for us in every dimension of our growth into adulthood. They are the touchpoints of our lives. They deserve a day for us to bask in that love that is a bit of heavenon earth.

I John 4:7-21 Acts 8:26-40

1) v.10 has the reformed emphasis on God as the source of love. Our love is a response.

2) Perfect love casts our fear.(v.18) This is a good topic for sermon, class, or spiritual

formation. To what degreedoes fear of punishment motivate us? Should it be religious motivation?

3) v. 8, 16 assert: God is love. What does that mean to you? How is this prone to becoming overly sentimental?

4) Love=agape in reek. Some made much of love alos being philia, brotherly love, and eros, unitive love. Is this a distinction worth making, as the word love floats through all three in the NT?

5) v.10 is a rare use of a notion of atoning sacrifice in the sense of propitiation.

6) What are some ways, at least 3, of God abiding, living, dwelling in u?

7)love perfected (v.12) has the sense of a purpose fulfilled, a telos, an end, a goal met. It could be seen as the abstract made concrete.

8) I love tha tit refuses to separate love of God and love for others. It is a direct assault on the sort of piety that judges others harshly and sees others as objects, not people to love.

Acts 8:26-40

1. 
   

   I first want to emphasize a eunuch in these days of sexual conflict. Here, the new age is looking past sexual issues to become more inclusive. See the move from exclusion in Dt. 23:2 to the hop of Is. 56:4-5 to this inclusion.

   
   
2. 
   

   I’m too lazy to look it up, but Interpreter is an early figure in Pilgrim’s Progress. Here Philip is in that role with the Scriptures. Notice that the bible is not magical, it needs to be read and understood.

   
   
3. 
   

   Baptism here is inclusion in the community, a move away from the traditional exclusion. I have no patience with using the text to try to prove something about the amount of water used for baptism to be effective.

   
   
4. 
   

   Since he is from Ethiopia, we may be getting a sense of world-wide mission, see Ps.68:31

   
   
5. 
   

   The suffering servant quotation is a great example of reading the OT through the lens of Jesus Christ.

   
   
6. 
   

   6) Why was Philip snatched away? How could the eunuch go on his way rejoicing? Why is rejoicing not especially present in our lives?

5/3 Ps.23 I John 3:16-24

In many ways, the Bible is a commentary on the injunction in Deuteronomy: two paths I give you life and death. Choose life. John sees the Christian life as a life-affirming path. To reject it is to follow a path that leads to death and darkness. I want to emphasize spiritual life this morning. This morning, let’s look at the 23^rd Psalm with a spiritual focus, as a journey inward. The journey inward can be athe work of a lifetime. It can be filled with hazrds and great reward. Think of the old word, Pilgrim’s Progress, on the road to the Celestial City. The Lord is my shepherd. Few psalms start so personally as this one. If the shepherd image doesn’t work well for you; move on to the next line. God provides. Spiritually, God is such an ample provider that each one of us will lack nothing. God gives us all we need to live a rich spiritual life.

The psalm centers at the line, “for you are with me.” At a retreat the leader asked the group to name their favorite proposition. Images of sentence diagrams and failed Spanish tests flashed through their minds. He asked it as an entry point to the center of this psalm, for you are with me. We can walk in the valley of deepest darkness, the one filled with doubts and fear. We are not alone.

God leads us to Spiritual green pastures and quiet waters. I was at Crown Pointe and saw a devotional, Still Waters, published by an Amish Mennonite group in Kentucky. In the midst of an unquiet life, we all need some quiet still time. More than that, we need to be able to find a quiet, still point within us. So often our lives are in turmoil and turbulence. It seems we have no stable center, no safe, secure abode. I attended a Renovare group after Easter with mostly clergy and a sprinkling of church members. Right away, when the microphone was turned over to the crowd gathered, the immediate desire was a sense of peace. Think of it. Right after Easter, when a sense of peace in the face of fear of death should be at its highest, anxious people wanted some peace

God spreads out a table for us. Not only is God the host, but we get to have our enemies witness the feast. Yes, Christians have enemies. We certainly have spiritual enemies. Our vices are not eradicated. The ones called deadly, such as arrogance have us claim spirituality, godliness, in their absence. God does spread out a spiritual banquet for us. We may accept or reject the invitation. At the feast, we may act as if we are on a diet. Goodness and steadfast love, hesed, follow us, not looming disaster, not trouble, but the blessings of God will follow us. To dwell in the house of the Lord my whole life long/forever is to live in the realization that we are temples fo the Holy spirit, that god has chosen to make a home with us, in each one of us.

We receive a valuable reminder this morning: to walk the talk. John puts it strangely though. We usually say tell the truth. John tells us to do the truth. At the same time, John is spiritually generous. Instead of cowering before God, he says clearly that God knows well that we weaken, and our conscience may condemn us. God is our judge. God doesn’t take things as seriously as we do at times. God may well be more gentle on us than we would be. Both of our readings this morning are reassuring words for anxious souls. Sometimes when we are anxious, we return to the comforts of familiarity. Perhaps no passage is as well-known as the 23^rd Psalm. It breathes spiritual security.