No matter how we repeat Jesus' story of the greedy farmer who wants to build a bigger barn to store all his grains from his abundant crops, we can see a scolding or moralistic sermon on stewardship coming from a mile away. (Luke 12: 13-21) And when we add Colossians 3: 1-11 in which Paul scolds us for our licentious, selfish behaviors, we turn off our hearing aids or daydream ourselves into la-la land.
Instead.....I hear encouragement and promise of transformation into new life in these scriptures. I can identify with the farmer as I de-clutter my overstuffed house in preparation to move. The initial estimate from the moving company was as loud as God's voice to the farmer to motivate me to begin to discern between the essentials and non essentials in the accumulation of my life. My house (and therefore my daily living) has been filled with things that please me and make me happy. But my blue pottery and my pewter collection need regular dusting and my yarn calls out to me when I should be studying. My over abundance of possessions possess my attention and distract me from attending to God. And when I allow my choices of going, doing, or playing to be the only forces to shape me and form me, I allow too little time to be shaped and formed by God's Word.
The encouragement and promise of these scriptures is that my things don't need to dominate nor define me. I CAN de-clutter both my things and my time in an effort to discover the true wealth that comes from God. I am finding freedom in my trips to Goodwill, Salvation Army, and the library. I am already imagining the discoveries others will make as they select my goods for their uses. I'm practicing discerning what I value as I see my things and my choices more clearly through the eyes of God. I am being re-clothed into new life and there is plenty of abundance in this simplicity that allows more time for God to speak and me to listen. God's bar of abundance is a high one that can be obstructed by our desire for too many things, too much entertainment, and too much time pleasing ourselves. But as I clear the path toward God's high bar, I find that the bar becomes closer, clearer, and is calling to me.
Thanks be to God that God is faithfully steady in holding this bar as I tiptoe toward it.
Grace and Peace,
Pastor Shelley
Tuesday, July 30, 2013
Wednesday, July 24, 2013
God Holds a High Bar: Prayer as the Pinnacle
Jesus' disciples ask him, "Lord, teach us to pray as John taught his disciples." Hooray for disciples who want to pray! But...I'm not sure prayer is so much teachable, as it is something to be practiced, practiced, practiced with much patience and persistence. Beside, weren't they paying attention to the Master Prayer who prayed in their midst? What better example and role model could they have had?
But, Jesus wants to encourage his disciples so that they continue to deepen a more intimate relationship with God. Jesus provides what we consider the first half of The Lord's Prayer that most congregations pray every Sunday. We're faithful members of the Jesus club when we recite it, considering the authority it carries. See Luke 11: 1-13.
If I were to encourage folk as pray-ers, I'd advise simple prayers: Ann Lamott has hers down to "Thank you. Thank you. Help me. Help me." I'd also advise against self serving prayers as the ONLY way to pray. In Jesus' words, I see him challenging us to also ask for forgiveness, for guidance, and for deliverance. Jesus also presses us to be urgent and persistent in praying. Ask. Seek. Knock.
But is praying just about us - our actions - our faithfulness - our persistence? Jesus teaches us more about God and God's persistent faithfulness in this scripture. An underlying assumption is that God is eager to provide for us and powerful and persistent enough to wait on us. What if it's God's generosity that our Lord will give us so much more than we ask for? What if it's God knocking at OUR door? What if praying is aligning ourselves with God so that we participate in God's kingdom here and now?
Now THIS is good news.
Grace and Peace,
Pastor Shelley
But, Jesus wants to encourage his disciples so that they continue to deepen a more intimate relationship with God. Jesus provides what we consider the first half of The Lord's Prayer that most congregations pray every Sunday. We're faithful members of the Jesus club when we recite it, considering the authority it carries. See Luke 11: 1-13.
If I were to encourage folk as pray-ers, I'd advise simple prayers: Ann Lamott has hers down to "Thank you. Thank you. Help me. Help me." I'd also advise against self serving prayers as the ONLY way to pray. In Jesus' words, I see him challenging us to also ask for forgiveness, for guidance, and for deliverance. Jesus also presses us to be urgent and persistent in praying. Ask. Seek. Knock.
But is praying just about us - our actions - our faithfulness - our persistence? Jesus teaches us more about God and God's persistent faithfulness in this scripture. An underlying assumption is that God is eager to provide for us and powerful and persistent enough to wait on us. What if it's God's generosity that our Lord will give us so much more than we ask for? What if it's God knocking at OUR door? What if praying is aligning ourselves with God so that we participate in God's kingdom here and now?
Now THIS is good news.
Grace and Peace,
Pastor Shelley
Monday, July 8, 2013
God Holds a High Bar: How Well Do We "See"?
No matter how biblically literate (or not) we are, most are
familiar with Jesus’ story of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10: 25-37) – that
Samaritan man despised by Jews who stops to tend to the man beaten and robbed
by the side of the road. Most of us hear
the term “good Samaritan” and think of the moral: Come to the aid of anyone in need.
But Jesus tells this story in response to the lawyer’s (ie.
religion scholar) legitimate question:
“What must I do to inherit eternal life?” After the lawyer rightly responds that the
law (Torah) demands that we love our Lord God with all our heart, soul,
strength, and mind and our neighbor as ourself, he then tries to pin Jesus down
with the question: “Who is my
neighbor?” Jesus, in the best rabbinic
tradition answers the lawyer with the parable of the Good Samaritan.
Like most of Jesus’ stories, we’re left with the complex
challenges of: On our journeys through
life, we’re confronted with regular opportunities to love our neighbor. How we choose to interpret who is our
neighbor determines how we will respond to our neighbor. When we can see such opportunities with
hearts of love, then we respond with hearts of compassion. First we “see.” Then we “do.”
Both are challenging responses – challenging our identities as God’s
children (or not) who see and respond.
According to the fullness of the Great Commandment, when we love God
with all our heart, soul, strength, and mind, then we love our neighbor which
means we love God. In this circular
understanding of love, we inherit and begin to participate in eternal
love. As we enter into eternal love in
the here and now, we continue our transformation as a faith-filled children of
God.
This parable is not just about what we see and do, but it
points us toward who God is. If we look
to Jesus to see who God is, we can see that God refuses to quantify, or
clarify, or get legalistic on us in defining our neighbor. Our God’s love is so high, so broad, so deep
that anyone in need is welcome in God’s circle of love. God is eager to be in right relationship with
all of us. May we continue to develop
our vision to see and hear God whispering, breathing, shouting, moving,
pushing, pulling, drawing us ever closer to God through opportunities to love
our neighbor.
Grace and Peace,
Pastor Shelley
Friday, July 5, 2013
God Holds the High Bar: Harvest Time
It’s harvest time in Kansas again. Even with all the technological advances, harvest time is still hard work for farmers. They pour their sweat, their backs into 14+ hour long days in the warm summer weather to gather the harvest. Have you ever seen a harvest? Have you ever had to work really hard to get everything just right?
Read Galatians 6:1-6 & Luke 10:1-11,16-20.
In addition to sending out the Twelve, Jesus is now sending out seventy more disciples, to gather in the harvest. The way of life that he describes for them is not an easy road; the harvest they need to bring in requires hard work. It requires shaking off the dust, being peaceable in the face of struggles and hardship. It requires teamwork to prepare people for their encounter with Jesus, to reach the high bar of relationship that God holds.
It is important to note that those sent out are not the creators of the harvest – that’s God’s job. It is important to see that those sent out aren’t bringing Jesus to the people – that’s God’s time. Instead, they are called and equipped to prepare the way – to spread the Good News, to speak peace in the face of trouble, to be vulnerable, to trust that their eternal relationship with God will sustain them. Jesus calls the seventy and calls us to the high bar of relationship – to resting in our relationship with God and working on relationship with those in our community.
We are called to trust in God’s promise that the harvest is abundant – that people still care about God, even as churches close and the surveys say that people don’t care. We are called to trust that there is still work for us to do, to build relationships with people at school and at work and at workout classes and even in our families. We are called to rely on our relationship with God – that our faith and our peace will prepare the way for the encounter with Jesus. We don’t have to be great speakers or deep thinkers or seminary-educated in order to tell our story, in order to tell about our lives.
So reach for the high bar of relationship that God holds – the relationship with God and with people that requires not incredible strength, but incredible vulnerability. And thanks be to God for allowing us to be partners in the abundant harvest
Grace and peace,
Pastor Kate
Read Galatians 6:1-6 & Luke 10:1-11,16-20.
In addition to sending out the Twelve, Jesus is now sending out seventy more disciples, to gather in the harvest. The way of life that he describes for them is not an easy road; the harvest they need to bring in requires hard work. It requires shaking off the dust, being peaceable in the face of struggles and hardship. It requires teamwork to prepare people for their encounter with Jesus, to reach the high bar of relationship that God holds.
It is important to note that those sent out are not the creators of the harvest – that’s God’s job. It is important to see that those sent out aren’t bringing Jesus to the people – that’s God’s time. Instead, they are called and equipped to prepare the way – to spread the Good News, to speak peace in the face of trouble, to be vulnerable, to trust that their eternal relationship with God will sustain them. Jesus calls the seventy and calls us to the high bar of relationship – to resting in our relationship with God and working on relationship with those in our community.
We are called to trust in God’s promise that the harvest is abundant – that people still care about God, even as churches close and the surveys say that people don’t care. We are called to trust that there is still work for us to do, to build relationships with people at school and at work and at workout classes and even in our families. We are called to rely on our relationship with God – that our faith and our peace will prepare the way for the encounter with Jesus. We don’t have to be great speakers or deep thinkers or seminary-educated in order to tell our story, in order to tell about our lives.
So reach for the high bar of relationship that God holds – the relationship with God and with people that requires not incredible strength, but incredible vulnerability. And thanks be to God for allowing us to be partners in the abundant harvest
Grace and peace,
Pastor Kate
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)