Anguished

Have you ever cried out to God in anguish? Perhaps you were in mental or physical pain, or in trouble, as we will read in our Psalm this week.

Psalm 34:17  MSG

17 Is anyone crying for help? God is listening, ready to rescue you.

              Anguish, Painting by August Friedrich Schenk

Last week, we read about the disciples In Luke 11, asking Jesus to teach them how to pray.   After Jesus teaches them the Lord’s Prayer, he tells them to be persistent in prayer, and then he says, 

9 And I tell you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. 10 For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. 11 What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent; 12 or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? 13 If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”

The Bible is full of stories of people crying out to God in prayer.  These stories reveal a God who hears us, understands our pain, and does something to help.  He gives us a new beginning.

Hundreds of years before Jesus spoke about prayer to the disciples, when the Israelis were in slavery to the Egyptians, they cried out to God:

Exodus 2:23  NASB

And the sons of Israel groaned because of the bondage, and they cried out; and their cry for help because of their bondage ascended to God.

God understood, the Message translation tells us. 

Stories of redemption and hope.  I could use a little of that.  Could you?

Prayers of the People

Why do we pray in worship?  Could prayer be the most important thing we do in worship?

Rev. Donna worked with us to understand what we do in worship…GATHERING, SINGING, SHARING A PSALM, READING SCRIPTURE, REFLECTING, PRAYING, and BLESSING.

On Sunday we’ll be focusing on praying together.  The prayers we do in worship are sometimes called Prayers of the People. 

I believe that the Prayers of the People are the main reason why we gather to worship. Another word for worship is liturgy, which comes from Greek and means “public working.” When we worship, we are there to work: to do a public working or a public service. - Rev. Susan Lukey, Editor, United Church of Canada, gatheringworship.ca

Matthew 22 MSG

34-36 When the Pharisees heard how he had bested the Sadducees, they gathered their forces for an assault. One of their religion scholars spoke for them, posing a question they hoped would show him up: “Teacher, which command in God’s Law is the most important?”

37-40 Jesus said, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your passion and prayer and intelligence.’ This is the most important, the first on any list. But there is a second to set alongside it: ‘Love others as well as you love yourself.’ These two commands are pegs; everything in God’s Law and the Prophets hangs from them.”

John 15:7 NIV

If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.

What do these scripture passages say to you about our Prayers of the People?

On Sunday we will pray for those who are on our hearts and minds this week.  Who would you like us to pray for?  I invite you to think about this before Sunday.

Chosen...Loved

Can you imagine yourself being chosen by Jesus to be an apostle?  Wow. 

The time is the second Passover of Jesus' ministry...just before he preaches his Sermon on the mount.  In Luke 6 we read:

At about that same time he climbed a mountain to pray. He was there all night in prayer before God. The next day he summoned his disciples; from them he selected twelve he designated as apostles.

I admit that I have some difficulty placing myself there and being chosen.  My memory flips back to choosing teams at school.  I was never among the first chosen.

Last week, we read the beginning of John 15, when Jesus spoke to the chosen ones and said, “I am the vine and you are the branches.”

This Sunday, with Flo Kim, we will continue the story:

9-10 “I’ve loved you the way my Father has loved me. Make yourselves at home in my love. If you keep my commands, you’ll remain intimately at home in my love. That’s what I’ve done—kept my Father’s commands and made myself at home in his love.

11-15 “I’ve told you these things for a purpose: that my joy might be your joy, and your joy wholly mature. This is my command: Love one another the way I loved you. This is the very best way to love. Put your life on the line for your friends. You are my friends when you do the things I command you. I’m no longer calling you servants because servants don’t understand what their master is thinking and planning. No, I’ve named you friends because I’ve let you in on everything I’ve heard from the Father.

16 “You didn’t choose me, remember; I chose you, and put you in the world to bear fruit, fruit that won’t spoil. As fruit bearers, whatever you ask the Father in relation to me, he gives you.

17 “But remember the root command: Love one another.

In this passage, I feel like Jesus could be speaking directly to me:  “You didn’t choose me, remember; I chose you”.  He tells me that he loves me, he calls me his friend, and I believe him. I am secure in that love. 

How can this be?  How can it be that now I feel like Jesus is speaking directly to me? The more time I spend with him, the more sure I am of his love. He loves you too. Such is the power of Jesus, the mystery of Jesus.

Join us on Sunday as Flo speaks to us of his love for each one of us. 

Image:  www.LumoProject.com

Interconnected

This week I’ve been thinking about how much I need all of you…how interconnected we are.

It takes all of us to attend to worship matters each week.  From the moment we set up the chairs to the time we put them away, so many hands, hearts and minds are at work.

Even before the chairs are set up, the Advisory team is arranging speakers weeks in advance, planning the service, and practicing music.  We couldn’t do any of this without you…without each other.

Last week, Sanders introduced us to the Passover Seder. This week, we return with Flo Kim to the night of the Seder table that became known as The Last Supper.  The final Passover Seder of Jesus' ministry. 

Imagine yourself in the scene:  Jesus washes your feet, you recline at the table together.  Jesus talks of many things that night. 

The bread…the wine…his betrayer…Peter's denial. 

And then we leave the table in the Upper Room and begin to walk.  As we walk, we pass one of the many vineyards in the area. 

Jesus begins the last of his "I am" statements:  

I am the Real Vine and my Father is the Farmer. He cuts off every branch of me that doesn’t bear grapes. And every branch that is grape-bearing he prunes back so it will bear even more. You are already pruned back by the message I have spoken.

Live in me. Make your home in me just as I do in you. In the same way that a branch can’t bear grapes by itself but only by being joined to the vine, you can’t bear fruit unless you are joined with me.

I am the Vine, you are the branches. When you’re joined with me and I with you, the relation intimate and organic, the harvest is sure to be abundant. Separated, you can’t produce a thing. Anyone who separates from me is deadwood, gathered up and thrown on the bonfire. But if you make yourselves at home with me and my words are at home in you, you can be sure that whatever you ask will be listened to and acted upon. This is how my Father shows who he is—when you produce grapes, when you mature as my disciples.

When you’re joined with me and I with you, the relation intimate and organic, the harvest is sure to be abundant.

I'm reminded of a beatitude, of getting my inside world—my mind and heart—put right.  I hear Jesus say that this can happen by staying connected to him.  Just as I am connected to you.  Like branches on a grapevine, we are all connected together, to the vine that is Jesus.

Praise the Lord!

Image:  צולם על ידי עמוס מרון, Wikimedia Commons

Wonder

I'm living this week in a state of wonder. Researcher and author Brené Brown says that this is where we may go when things are beyond us.  

Easter…spring…the season of wonders. Wonder inspires learning, a great place to be. 

Part of the reason I'm in a state of wonder is because of you, because of your wonderings from worship last week. Walking the Road to Emmaus with you and your wonderings, placed me on the path of wonder. 

One of the things I'm wondering about is what we read in Luke 24: 25-27:  

Then he said to them, “So thick-headed! So slow-hearted! Why can’t you simply believe all that the prophets said? Don’t you see that these things had to happen, that the Messiah had to suffer and only then enter into his glory?” Then he started at the beginning, with the Books of Moses, and went on through all the Prophets, pointing out everything in the Scriptures that referred to him.

What are the Books of Moses, I wonder?

When we left off last week, Jesus disappeared after sharing a meal with a pair of disciples.  The story In Luke 24 continues,

33-34 They didn’t waste a minute. They were up and on their way back to Jerusalem. They found the Eleven and their friends gathered together, talking away: “It’s really happened! The Master has been raised up—Simon saw him!”

35 Then the two went over everything that happened on the road and how they recognized him when he broke the bread.

36-41 While they were saying all this, Jesus appeared to them and said, “Peace be with you.” They thought they were seeing a ghost and were scared half to death. He continued with them, “Don’t be upset, and don’t let all these doubting questions take over. Look at my hands; look at my feet—it’s really me. Touch me. Look me over from head to toe. A ghost doesn’t have muscle and bone like this.” As he said this, he showed them his hands and feet. They still couldn’t believe what they were seeing. It was too much; it seemed too good to be true.

41-43 He asked, “Do you have any food here?” They gave him a piece of leftover fish they had cooked. He took it and ate it right before their eyes.

44 Then he said, “Everything I told you while I was with you comes to this: All the things written about me in the Law of Moses, in the Prophets, and in the Psalms have to be fulfilled.”

Jesus mentions the Books (or Law) of Moses again in verse 44, so they must be important.

Unlike me, many of you probably know that these Books of Moses are what we know as the first five books of the Old Testament: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.

I hear Jesus say that I need to know the Bible that He knew in order to follow the story properly. 

This is where we are going this week, back to the Bible that Jesus knew. Jesus and his disciples went to Jerusalem to celebrate the Festival of Passover.  Sanders is going to help us explore the first Passover, and I can't wait. 

"With each other, we ask questions, we worship, we bring our conflicts and doubts forward. Mostly, we allow ourselves to experience the Resurrection and remain open for Jesus to give us the Resurrection, a life of new possibilities, of newness, of promise. Our proper response to this event is to stand back in amazement and speak these words: My Lord and My God." - John Predmore, S.J.

Image Design: Frode Inge Helland, 1978

The Road to Emmaus

During the seven weeks of Easter, we might ponder what it means to encounter the Risen Christ in our own lives.  Could you identify him?  I’m looking forward to this Sunday, when we will explore more of the Easter story together and see what it might tell us about encountering Christ on our own journey.  

"That same day", our scripture for this week begins. The same day as what?  The day was Sunday, the day of the empty tomb. Yes, we return again, to the first Easter Sunday, to see what else happened on "that same day".  

Let’s first refresh our memories of what happened earlier on that day.  Luke reminds us,

24 1-3 At the crack of dawn on Sunday, the women came to the tomb carrying the burial spices they had prepared. They found the entrance stone rolled back from the tomb, so they walked in. But once inside, they couldn’t find the body of the Master Jesus.

4-8 They were puzzled, wondering what to make of this. Then, out of nowhere it seemed, two men, light cascading over them, stood there. The women were awestruck and bowed down in worship. The men said, “Why are you looking for the Living One in a cemetery? He is not here, but raised up. Remember how he told you when you were still back in Galilee that he had to be handed over to sinners, be killed on a cross, and in three days rise up?” Then they remembered Jesus’ words.

9-11 They left the tomb and broke the news of all this to the Eleven and the rest. Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them kept telling these things to the apostles, but the apostles didn’t believe a word of it, thought they were making it all up.

Luke continues the story with a pair of disciples, walking.  Imagine yourself as one of these.

We are disciples, two of us, and we are walking the seven miles from Jerusalem to Emmaus. We are walking and talking, trying to make sense of all that has happened recently. 

What are we feeling?  What are we wondering?  A stranger joins us, making us three.

That same day. It’s hard to stay focused there, isn’t it?  Two thousand years later.  Now what?  We put one foot in front of the other in the messiness and confusion of our own lives.  As Easter people, we try to look out for the Risen Christ.

Jesus is apt to come, into the very midst of life at its most real and inescapable. - Frederick Beuchner

Painting By Robert Zünd - joyfulheart ; upload Dezember 2008 ; upload by Adrian Michael, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5537171

New Beginnings

Can you put yourself back into that first post-resurrection story?  We can only imagine how the disciples might have felt. Overjoyed that Jesus had indeed risen?  And mystified and fearful at the same time? Maybe even doubtful?

Where was Jesus in this story now? Appearing in rooms, on roads, sometimes unrecognizable.

I wonder how the post-resurrection disciples coped with this new beginning.  What might we learn from them, as we find our way through our own new beginning? 

After the resurrection, John concludes his gospel in Chapter 21.  I love the miracle of the 153 fish in Verses 1-5:

After this, Jesus appeared again to the disciples, this time at the Tiberias Sea (the Sea of Galilee). This is how he did it: Simon Peter, Thomas (nicknamed “Twin”), Nathanael from Cana in Galilee, the brothers Zebedee, and two other disciples were together. Simon Peter announced, “I’m going fishing.”

The rest of them replied, “We’re going with you.” They went out and got in the boat. They caught nothing that night. When the sun came up, Jesus was standing on the beach, but they didn’t recognize him.

Jesus spoke to them: “Good morning! Did you catch anything for breakfast?”

They answered, “No.”

He said, “Throw the net off the right side of the boat and see what happens.”

They did what he said. All of a sudden there were so many fish in it, they weren’t strong enough to pull it in.

Whatever the disciples were feeling, they were experiencing great change and uncertainty.  Political…Personal.  They returned to fishing, unsure of anything else or what to do next.  

As my church embarks on a new beginning, and all the scary messiness that this involves, we feel comfort and joy as we welcome back Paul Beckingham as our guest speaker this week. He will help us gather at the Lord's Table in Communion together.  Hallelujah!

This is the day that the Lord has made!  We will rejoice and be glad in it!