All You Need is Love

Some fans have been patiently waiting for this week for 29 years: the return of the Royals to the World Series. With the series tied at 1-1, hope still exists, and most of America seems to be rooting for this Cinderella team. The players have worked hard, going to practice over and over again, fixing their mistakes and learning to work as a team. They have eaten the right food and taken the right amount of rest. They have dedicated their whole lives to this moment. To what have you dedicated your whole life? To what have you given your heart, your mind, your soul?

Read Deuteronomy 6:4-9 and Matthew 22:34-39.

We are supposed to love God with our heart, mind, and soul, and to love our neighbors as ourselves. We are being asked for our whole lives, we are being asked to dedicate everything to love. Just as professional athletes give all of themselves to the game, so should we give all of our lives to God. That means we incorporate showing up to practice, getting the right nourishment, and getting Sabbath time.

For as the Beatles sang, “all you need is love.” While they make it sound simple, the truth is that love is hard work. Loving God means giving of yourself; loving God means making time for worship, for reading the Bible, for deepening your relationship with God. Loving your neighbor means making sacrificial time to work at Let’s Help or Harvesters or the Rescue Mission, or giving your time to a neighbor, or increasing your pledge to Trinity’s ministries as we reach out to our neighbors. When we love our God and love our neighbors, we all get what we need. As we give to each other, so do we receive. Everyone shares their love for God and their love for each other, and that’s when we witness real Christian community.

Come on Sunday and hear stories of how Trinity is changing lives. Come on Sunday, ready to worship with your whole heart, mind, and soul. Come on Sunday to be nourished and find rest, come on Sunday to practice the rhythms and the language of loving God and loving our neighbors. For when we fulfill the two greatest commandments, it could take us all the way to the championship: with all the love we need as we glorify God, share Christ’s love, and make new disciples.

Grace and peace,
Pastor Kate

Blessings in Abundance: Lift Your Hands in Praise

When was the last time that you completely and wholly gave praise to God? Was it when you finished that big project at work? When one of your family members married the love of their life? Did you receive the recent rain with great thanksgiving? Have you just been grateful for being allowed to breathe the crisp air in the mornings? Have you ever felt the urge to stop what you are doing, lift your hands to the sky and give a strong ‘Praise be to You, Giver of life’?

Read 2 Corinthians 9:6-12 and Psalm 65.

What about the times in your life when things aren’t so joyous? Do you take time to admire your Creator as a dear friend suffers through stage four cancer? How do you feel as your best friend struggles to find a new job after being laid off after numerous years of hard work and dedication? How about your sister who isn’t able to become pregnant? When your teenage cousin is killed in a car accident because a driver was texting, do you still raise a prayer of happiness?

As we move about through our daily lives, we take advantage of all of the blessing that are freely given to us from our Writer of life. The overflowing gifts that are offered to us on a daily basis quickly add up as the weeks and months go by. The speed of time seems to accelerate at a faster pace every time we turn around. Our Redeemer doesn’t ask for thanks or praise, but it is well deserved. We wouldn’t have the ability to overcome the difficult circumstances that we are faced with if we didn’t have those around us to support and lift us up when needed. God is often called upon in a pleading manner when we are overwhelmed with our schedules and lists of ‘to-dos’. How can we change the way that we call upon our Lord as we are challenged throughout life? In what ways can we begin to give back or share our blessing in order to honor God more for the everyday miracles that we benefit from?

Grace and peace,

Melissa Ansberry

Stewardship Chair

Blessings in Abundance: Turning Blessings into Praise

What’s the last big transition you went through in life? A job change? Divorce? Birth of your child? Consolidating and moving to a smaller house? Your child’s wedding? Death of a loved one? At Trinity, we’re currently going through a pretty big transition time – Pastor Shelley has retired, and Pastor Alex has yet to start. We are living patiently and a little anxiously through a liminal space, continuing to journey on, wondering what is on the other side.

Read 2 Corinthians 9:6-12 & Luke 17:11-19. 

Jesus encounters the lepers in Luke in a liminal space – the border of Samaria and Galilee. Jesus was on His way to somewhere else, until the lepers made themselves known. After their encounter with Jesus, the lepers then also start a journey to somewhere else, and, while on their way, they are healed of their isolating disease. The healing is freely given and freely received, and the lepers can be restored to their community. 

The healing story in Luke clearly mirrors our relationship with God through Jesus Christ. The ten lepers did not earn their healing in any way. Out of His goodness and compassion and love for the lepers, Jesus makes them whole once more. Out of His sacrificial love and desire for reconciliation, Jesus went to the cross and was resurrected three days later, making us whole again and again. 

The healing and the saving power of Jesus Christ are freely given blessings from God, blessings in abundance. The question that both Luke and Paul present to the reader is how will you respond to these blessings? Are you the one leper, who comes back to praise Jesus, who turns his blessing of healing into praise? Are you cheerfully sharing your abundant blessings for every good work through Trinity? Or are you hedging your bets, waiting to see what’s on the other side, waiting to see if you really want to share your blessings, waiting for this liminal space to end? 

Jesus is with us at Trinity through this liminal space, on the border between pastors. Jesus continues to pour out blessings in abundance at Trinity, regardless of our hopes and fears during this time of transition. And God continues to challenge us to share all our blessings in abundance so we may share in every good work. How can you share your time, your gifts, and your money with Trinity so that we may glorify God, share Christ’s love, and make new disciples? Through our commitment and our giving, we may show the world the gratitude we feel for the blessings we have freely received. Through our commitment and our giving, we may continue our ministry to the least of these, even in the liminal spaces. 

Grace and peace, 
Pastor Kate

Mind the Gap

Someone actually won the $400 million Powerball. What would you do if you suddenly had that much money? How would your life change if all of a sudden you were very, very rich? Would you keep working? Would you be able to provide for aging parents, or have a college fund for your children? Would you buy a house, a car, a sailboat? Would you invest it into very safe stocks, leaving it to build and build, creating an inheritance for your family? Would you somehow share with strangers? 

Read Paul’s words about rich people in 1 Timothy 6:6-19 and Jesus’ parable about a rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16:19-31. 

It is hard for most of us to read this Scripture and not feel a little guilty, to not feel a little condemned or convicted. If you’re reading this at a computer, chances are you are more like the rich man and a little less like Lazarus. How many times do we choose not to meet the eyes of someone suffering on the street or in the hospital bed? How many times do we choose to simply keep to ourselves instead of reaching out to someone on our doorstep? How many times do we choose inaction instead of faithful, transformative action? 

This is a story of gaps, a gap between rich and poor, between comfort and agony, between visible and invisible, between full and hungry, between burial and being carried away by angels, between privileged and marginalized; gaps in this world, and gaps in the next world. Where are the gaps in your lives? What are you doing to overcome the gaps in this life, not the next? Are you able to see the invisible suffering going on right here in Topeka, right here at Trinity? 

As Abraham alludes to in the Luke story, Jesus’ resurrection did not convince everyone then or now of the truth of God’s words. Yet because of the resurrection, we are empowered, we are bound together, we are called to work to mind that gap – to cross that chasm between east Topeka and southwest Topeka, to work on closing the gulf with ministries like Topeka JUMP. 

Maybe in the end we are most like the rich man’s brothers, hearing these words of warning from Moses, the prophets, and the witness of Jesus Christ. How will you respond? Will you open up your feast? Will you see the poor through the eyes of Jesus and Abraham? As Paul writes to Timothy: “Tell the rich people to go after God, who piles on all the riches we could ever manage—to do good, to be rich in helping others, to be extravagantly generous. If they do that, they’ll build a treasury that will last, gaining life that is truly life.” May we all work to mind the gap and to gain life that is truly life. 

Grace and peace, 
Pastor Kate

Mission Possible: Taste and See that the Lord is Good

"Get up.  Your faith has made you well," says Jesus to no-longer blind Bartimaeus.  What an extraordinary healing!  How did Bartimaeus make this happen?  Wrong question.  Miracles in the Bible point us to the healer - Jesus Christ.  When we focus on Jesus we see God revealed in the One who can bring us from darkness into light so that we become aware of what really matters in life and death.

Notice some details in this story in Mark 10: 46-52.  Sitting by the side of the road, Blind Bartimaeus is a blind beggar - ie. a man outside of any family support and unable to participate in any of the "normal" activities of family/town/culture.  Because he can't SEE Jesus, Bartimaeus is told that Jesus of Nazareth is walking past - ie. Jesus as identified by his home town means Jesus would be perceived as mere man, peasant of low status by virtue of his birth. But... Bartimaeus calls out to Jesus as "Son of David."  Somehow Bartimaeus knows Jesus to be the Messiah, the Christ, the anointed One destined to fulfill God's promise that King David's descendant would reign over Israel forever.  How does Bartimaeus know this about Jesus?  How do any of us KNOW OR SEE THIS TRUTH?

Some in the crowd urge Bartimaeus to be quiet.  I envision Archie Bunker saying to Edith in the tv show, "All in the Family":   "Stifle!"  But Bartimaeus won't be stifled or stopped.  He throws off his cloak - ie. his most treasured possession as a beggar which keeps him warm through the cold winter nights.  Just as Bartimaeus leaves his cherished treasure behind in the hope of healing, what are we willing to renounce to follow Jesus and beg for sight - for insight - for wisdom - for healing - for transformation?

Bartimaeus won't keep still as he springs to action.  Jesus stops for Bartimaeus and asks him, "What do you want me to do for you?"  Bartimaeus' response - "Let me see again" - understands that it is Jesus who has the authority and power to bring him his sight. Jesus responds to Bartimaeus' need, showing us that he, as God revealed, has the power to conquer our brokenness.  This is a testimony of hope - of trust in the ability of God to accomplish much more than all we can ask or imagine.

How do we respond to this good news?  First with praise, such as that from Psalm 34: 1-8:  "I will bless the Lord at all times.  God's praise shall continually be in my mouth...[We will] taste and see that the Lord is good."  Second, we respond with our behavior - our actions - our decisions.  In this time of being called to be good stewards of God's blessings already bestowed on us, we respond by pledging our treasured possessions, so that we too might be testimonies of hope to an unseeing world.

Grace and Peace,
Pastor Shelley

Mission Possible: On a Mission From God

Last week in worship we saw through a clever video that Trinity has a mission…if we choose to accept it. But what is that mission? Who gives us the mission – and are we part of the Impossible Missions Force like in the TV series and movies Mission: Impossible? They are constantly given impossible missions, but they always find a way to make them possible. If we at Trinity accept our mission, will it actually be possible?

Read Mark 10:17-31 and 2 Corinthians 1:1-2.

Much like in the classic Blues Brothers movie, we at Trinity are on a mission from God.  

Just like Paul writes in 2 Corinthians, God has given us as Christ-followers a special mission. As we look at the Gospel message today, we might get the feeling that the mission is impossible.

A rich and faithful man approaches Jesus in a respectful way with a question that is on his heart. Because Jesus loves him, Jesus gives him a mission, a way that this rich man can be a participant in the kingdom of God. Jesus knows his obedient and faithful heart to the Jewish laws – so he asks the man to sell everything he has and give it to the poor.

While Christian tradition has always assumed that the man rejected the mission from Jesus, there is nothing in any of the Gospels to suggest that. We don't really know what his future looked like. All we know is the man went away sorrowful, grieving because he loved his possessions. Maybe he was sorrowful because he loved his possessions more than he loved God. Or maybe he was sorrowful because he knew that this was going to be a big change in the way he lived – no more nice dinners at the Rowhouse, no more KU basketball season tickets, no more shopping sprees in Kansas City. Maybe he was grieving his own self-centered way of living as he was taking the first step toward the kingdom of God.

We don’t know the end to the rich man’s story. But we hear in this Gospel a call to follow Jesus, a call to remove whatever blocks us from loving God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength – possessions, addictions, pop culture, our busy calendar. The Good News is that Jesus loves us enough to give us a mission. The Good News is that we can choose to accept that, and will be surrounded by sisters, brothers, and Jesus along that Way. How will you respond to God’s call to mission? What will the end of your story be? The Good News is that by the grace of God, we can take baby steps in the right direction, that we can trust in a God who makes the impossible possible, who turns little into much, who restores the sick to health, and who wants us to be partners in that mission. Thanks be to God!

Grace and peace,

Pastor Kate

Creation Care as Radical Gratitude

Genesis 1: 1- 2:4 is the biblical story of creation.  In this understanding of creation, God speaks, separates, and names all that God created.  With each day (some undefined period of time), God looks at each aspect and animal of creation and declares that it is good.  All creation is filled with inherent goodness and beauty.  In verse 26 and 27, God creates human beings in God's image (imago dei). If we are created in the image of God, how do we respond to God as Creator?  If God takes the initiative in creation, what is our concomitant response?

One way to understand an appropriate response is to understand our responsibility of dominion (verse 26b) as stewardship and care.  We can become engaged with God's abundance in creation (Today's New International Version calls it a "vast array") by keeping and healing creation.

Another way to respond is to envision God's delight in creating.  I can just imagine God tapping into her creative side as he creates both mosquito and dolphin.  What fun it is to create anything new!  So...if we're made in the image of God, where do we find our delight?  Where do we tap into our creative energies to co-create with God?  If God calls us good, how do we use our goodness in creation care?

I leave you with these open-ended questions because we each approach creation care with our own priorities, our own gifts, and our own experiences with what God has created.  Out of our experiences, gifts, and priorities we find energy and passion to tend to the land, sea, air, and animals.

Grace and Peace,
Pastor Shelley