Posts from February 2011

We’ll celebrate faith, community, and our love of  God & neighbor through song on the final Sunday before we enter Lent and journey together toward the cross. Join us in worship this Sunday at 10:30 am.  Some of the finest jazz musicians in town will be leading us in song. I’ll Fly Away | Just a Closer Walk with Thee | In the Glory Land | When the Saints Go Marching In | and more… Max DePree, in Leadership Jazz, writes,…

Luce Irigaray writes, Instead of being light opposed to darkness, or knowledge opposed to ignorance, truth is light which does not give up mystery…never total never authoritarian or dogmatic, but light always shared between two subjects irreducible to one another (as quoted by Catherine Keller in On the Mystery: Discerning Divinity in Process, 42).

The United Methodist Book of Discipline (2008) concludes a section titled Our Theological Task (#104, page 85-6) with the following: A convincing witness to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ can contribute to the renewal of our faith, bring persons to that faith, and strengthen the Church as an agent of healing and reconciliation. This witness, however, cannot fully describe or encompass the mystery of God. Though we experience the wonder of God’s grace at work with us and among…

Our reading for Sunday will be Matthew 6.24-34.  Read the full text here. The reading begins, 24“No one can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.”

John Wesley, in the Preface to Explanatory Notes to the Old Testament, outlines ways to search the Scriptures.  You’ll find a link to Wesley’s framework and further reading here.  Wesley writes, If you desire to read the scripture in such a manner as may most effectually answer this end, would it not be advisable, 1. To set apart a little time, if you can, every morning and evening for that purpose? 2. At each time if you have leisure, to…

Kevin Watson writes, Searching the scriptures is important to discipleship…because it is the primary place where one finds guidance for how to live as a disciple of Jesus Christ. Just as it is not controversial to suggest that Christians should spend time in prayer, it is not likely to stir up controversy to suggest that Christians should read the Bible. However, saying that it is important and actually doing it can be very different things (A Blueprint for Discipleship, 87).

We’ll conclude our three-week series, Staying in Love with God, this Sunday with reflection on the disciplines of searching the scriptures and expounding upon the Word through witness. Henri Nouwen writes, The Word of God is not a word to apply in our daily lives at some later date; it is a word to heal us through, and in, our listening here and now. The questions therefore are: How does God come to me as I listen to the word?…

In our reading for Sunday we will continue with the Sermon on the Mount by reading Matthew 5.38-48.  Read the text here. Russell Rathbun writes, In the context of the Roman Empire, the Sermon on the Mount is a radical proposal for resistance. Written just years after Titus (who succeeds his father as Emperor during this period) destroys Jerusalem along with the temple, it is a call not to arms but an invitation to a nonviolent reorientation of civilization. There is…

These words from Thomas Merton, a 20th Century Trappist monk and writer, have become known as The Merton Prayer: MY LORD GOD, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire…

Our worship series, Staying in Love with God, continues this week with reflections on Prayer and Fasting. John Wesley wrote in A Plain Account of Christian Perfection, Whether we think of; or speak to, God, whether we act or suffer for [God], all is prayer, when we have no other object than [God’s] love, and the desire of pleasing [God]. All that a Christian does, even in eating and sleeping, is prayer, when it is done in simplicity, according to…

Our reading for Sunday will be from Matthew 5: 21“You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, ‘You shall not murder’; and ‘whoever murders shall be liable to judgment.’ 22But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgment; and if you insult a brother or sister, you will be liable to the council; and if you say, ‘You fool,’ you will be liable to the…

A selection from Stepping Westward by Denise Leverrov: …If I bear burdens they begin to be remembered as gifts, goods, a basket of bread that hurts my shoulders but blouses me in fragrance.  I can eat as I go.