Men in Ministry Sunday

This Sunday, July 24th, is Men in Ministry Sunday at Trinity. To prepare for worship led by Anton Ahrens, Jon Farrell Higgins, Greg Lee, and David Ross, read Romans 8:26-39.

Where do we find confidence to trust in God's authority and sovereignty and power so that we can believe that nothing will separate us from God's love in Christ. Perhaps we're the ones doing the separating - turning our backs on God. Perhaps we're challenged to look at our sense of independence, or our self importance, or our extensive ability to worry, or to stay so busy that we don't pay much attention to God's presence.

How can we stay connected to God so that we can believe in the promise that nothing will separate us from Christ's love? How we stay connected in our families - our personal families; our work or school families; our families of faith - may be one path of connection. Getting outside ourselves so that we actively connect by serving others is another path of connectedness.

Let us give thanks that God, in choosing us, awaits our attentiveness, holding the door open - a door that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation can close in our face.

Grace and Peace,

Pastor Shelley

Celebrating Wholeness as We're Yoked with Jesus

"I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate." (Romans 7:15). Does the Apostle Paul speak for you here? Do you weary of a world full of complications/contradictions/compulsions that enslave you?

Read Romans 7: 15-25a and Matthew 11: 16-19, 25-30.

Jesus too seems to despair of a world where children call us to dance and we don't respond - where children call us to wail and mourn and we don't hear. We react to John the Baptist as an extreme ascetic (who wants to eat locusts?) and people call Jesus a glutton who eats and drinks with sinners. We live in a world where confusion seems to reign - where the wise and the intelligent don't seem to see or hear God's wisdom and guidance. Yet the little ones (could that be us?) have the truth revealed to them through Jesus Christ.

We weary of the competing dualisms of the world: left vs right; conservative vs liberal; right vs wrong; moral vs immoral; and on and on. As we prepare to celebrate the founding of our country with patriotic celebrations and fireworks, let us remember that there have always been fireworks and fiery words in the face of conflicting dualisms. Christianity didn't spring fully formed out of the words and deeds of Jesus. Our country's founding documents didn't spring fully formed out of a unanimous consensus of our founding fathers. Today's free flow of combative speech is no different from the generations before us - although it appears to me to become increasingly uncivil.

Jesus invites us to take upon our weary backs his yoke which is easy and light. When we yoke ourselves to God's Word and to service in Christ's name, we'll continue to be challenged, but we will be yoked to our Master who will guide the way and provide the rest we need.