You Lost Me!

It seems the church at large has a hard time connecting with people.  I hear stories about how church is no longer relevant to people’s lives.  Why is that?  At what point did the church at large seem to lose connection with people … real people with real issues living real lives?  And how might the church begin to connect with people, with where their passions are?  How can the church leave the building and meet people?  I know that Jesus’ message is relevant to people’s lives, but somehow or other we as Christians, or the church at large, have obscured that connection. Where do we start to truly hear people again who are not connected to God or the church?

Help us explore these questions in our next sermon series “You Lost Me” starting Jan 15.

Reading Someone Else’s Mail

Have you ever read someone else’s email? Poked your head over someone’s shoulder while he was reading a letter? We’re doing just that for the next several weeks as we read letters written in the first century to fledgling faith communities… some of the first people who were trying to figure out what it means to live as a follower of Christ.   It seems in many ways that we are still struggling with some of the same issues they had.  Come and explore how God uses handwritten letters from about 1,960 years ago to connect to the tweeting, facebooking, texting world of today.

Holy Spirit

John 20:19-31; Genesis 1:1-31; John 1:1-5, 10-14

We do not talk much about the Holy Spirit when we talk about God.  We speak freely about Jesus Christ and about God as Creator, Judge, Sustainer, Redeemer.   The Holy Spirit is much harder to comprehend.  Artists have a difficult time depicting the Holy Spirit, and authors have a difficult time describing this aspect/part of the Three-One God.  The Holy Spirit is God at work within us, moving us, shaping us, transforming us.  It is the Holy Spirit who nudges us toward others; it is the Holy Spirit who reminds us of Christ’s teachings and tells us who we are.  It is the Holy Spirit that tells us when to listen and gives us words when it is difficult to speak.  It is the Holy Spirit that tells us we belong to God.  The Holy Spirit is wonderfully, inescapably uncontrollable.  God within us…

How do you notice the Holy Spirit in you?

Earth Sabbath

Last week when I was visiting someone who is homebound, she encouraged me to go in her backyard and look at the azaleas in full bloom.  She told me that she could not imagine how absolutely beautiful heaven will be if even earth can look like that.  For her, the blooming azaleas are a bright reminder of God’s presence and new life.  How do you notice God’s presence beside you in the natural world?  At a sunrise on the beach?  Standing before a mountain of autumn trees?  Gazing upon a delicate spider web?  Catching a whiff of honeysuckle?  

This Sunday we look at God’s earth and our stewardship of it.  We look at the total picture of Christian stewardship, challenge ourselves to be consciously responsible, and join the earth in praising God.  How do you live your faith by caring for God’s earth?

Holy Week

Now comes the hard part.  We walk toward the cross through the days of Holy Week.  On Maundy Thursday, we remember the Last Supper with the disciples.  On Good Friday, we remember the agony and seeming finality of the crucifixion.  What would it have been like to be a disciple after Jesus’ death?  Tradition says the men locked themselves in a room, fearful perhaps that the authorities would next come after them.  They sat in grief.  They sat in disappointment, that the One in whom they had placed their lives and hope was now dead.  Christ had told them he would be raised up, but I imagine few if any of them believed it or understood the words.  And so they sat.  Perhaps they shared stories about Jesus’ time with them, as people do when someone dies.  Perhaps they laughed and cried together when the memories came to mind.  Perhaps they tried to figure out where to go now that Jesus was gone.  Perhaps they sat in remorse, feeling guilty for denying and abandoning him when he needed them most.  What is it like to be stuck in the middle of waiting, not quite sure if the situation in which you are living will one day be redeemed?  What is it like to sit for days in fear, regret, and grief?  This is the dark place where we find the disciples on Good Friday, sitting, grieving, waiting, praying ….

Somebody Got It

Mark 15:25-47

Working as a youth minister years ago, I will not forget those moments on mission trips when a teenager “got it:”  those moments when God’s love, God’s grace, God’s presence, and God’s kingdom all came together in a visible and tangible way.  Somehow, in the midst of bug-infested showers, malodorous cabins, and sweaty hard labor, God’s love for that person found a home open to take in the holy mystery of grace.  It never ceases to amaze me how and when God moves in an unlikely person through an unlikely situation to communicate a love that knows no bounds. 

In the story for this week, two unlikely people “get it.”  A Roman centurion, for one, who stands at the cross and had probably participated in beating and mocking Jesus hours before, now stands and says, “Truly this man was God’s Son!”  Joseph of Arimathea also “gets it.”  He was one of the religious authorities, perhaps among those who had hours earlier condemned Jesus as a blasphemer worthy of death.  He now asks for the humble honor of caring for Jesus’ body.

How and when does God’s message of love break through our own reluctance to see it?  How and when does God use the message of the cross to begin to reshape who we are?

Walking Beside Another’s Pain

Mark 15:15-24

Perhaps you know what it is like to be Simon, to come alongside another who is underneath a load of unbearable pain.  In this story, Simon of Cyrene carries Jesus’ cross; heavily beaten, Jesus is unable to bear the load on his own.  Perhaps you know the view from Jesus’ seat, beaten by circumstances and unable to bear the weight … struggling underneath a heavy diagnosis, the burden of grief, or the lengthy and unpredictable road of treatment.  The person who knows these burdens knows that he cannot walk through suffering alone.  He needs a tangible Simon, a companion, a shoulder, a listening ear.  A friend once told me, “You’re about to get sick of me because I care too much about you to let you go through this pain alone.”  That friend’s partnering with me on my journey eased some of the weight on my shoulders.  Perhaps you know what it is to be that companion, a Simon, the one who comes alongside.  Perhaps you find God enabling you to do  things for another that you never thought you could do.  You know what it is to realize that you cannot fix the burden.  Perhaps you are caring for a spouse battling cancer or a parent who is dying, or you sit with a friend going through divorce.  If you walk these roads beside another, know that God is present and loves you and the one whose burden you help carry.  I think Simon would tell you that these roads are, in fact, holy ground.

In what ways is God inviting you to walk beside another in pain?  In what ways is God inviting you to help carry someone else’s burden?  How have you noticed Christ’s presence beside you?