Posts from March 2014
Toward Sunday
The parables of Jesus take everyday experiences from the time of Jesus and turn them upside down. By showing us ordinary elements and experiences, parables provide a transparency to see the whole of our live and the holy in our lives in a new way (from John Indermark, Parables and Passion, Jesus’ stories for the days of Lent, page 11). This week our worship will be rooted in Luke 18.9-14 Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector. It is hard…
Laborers in the Vineyard
“Matthew’s perspective calls for Christians to understand themselves as belonging to a community, so that no decision is purely personal and individual. Matthew’s perspective calls for Christians to understand their lives as being lived in the light of the present and coming kingdom of God, which represents a reversal of cultural values rather than their confirmation. Thus the individual teachings of Matthew’s Gospel cannot be understood on a paragraph-by-paragraph basis, unless and until one is converted to the Gospel’s ecclesial…
Parables
“Maybe Jesus is saying: … Throw yourself into what you love or simply what you do. Let God sort out the rest. It’s not your problem, and that’s a gift unto itself. And if you should happen to find yourself on the wanting end of what’s deserved, God’s loving hand extended is gift indeed. But even more radical than this message of God’s generosity, perhaps, is a quiet, secondary message of these parables, as understated as their responsible characters. Namely,…
Toward Sunday
We are inviting our community to Give Up Certainty for Lent as we root ourselves in the parables of Jesus. We move into our fourth week and the parable of The Laborers in the Vineyard. What is a parable? Exact definitions vary from “stories of life with religious or spiritual lessons” to “metaphors or similes that take narrative form.” We will be operating on an understanding of parables as “thin places” where the usual boundaries between heaven and earth,…
Parables
“…Jesus’ parables of judgment…are about an action going somewhere to happen. They are not about a system of static recurrences in which time goes on forever-where there is always, by the rules of the system, time for a second chance at everything. They do not allow you the luxury of a historical perspective in which a step taken too soon or a move made too late can always be remedied the next time around. Rather, they are about a world…
Prayer
Rescue me, O God, from the foolishness of presuming to know what I do not know. Save me from failing to trust whom I can trust. Allow your comfort to enter me. Help me prepare for you as you are and will be. Amen. (based on a prayer by John Indermark from Parables and Passion p. 77)
Giving up certainty
“In these times I don’t, in a manner of speaking, know what I want; perhaps I don’t want what I know and want what I don’t know.” ~Marsilio Ficino from The Letters of Marsilio Ficino vol. 3
Toward Sunday
We are inviting our community to Give Up Certainty for Lent as we root ourselves in the parables of Jesus. We move into our third week and the Parable of The Wise & Foolish Bridesmaids. What is a parable? Exact definitions vary from “stories of life with religious or spiritual lessons” to “metaphors or similes that take narrative form.” We will be operating on an understanding of parables as “thin places” where the usual boundaries between heaven and earth, holy and…
Prayer
“I thank you, O God, for grace that did not uproot me when I showed more of my expertise at doing harm than my longing to do good. Teach me to practice such patience so that I might see the beautiful potential of myself, others, even my enemies. Amen.
Weeds
How does one live in a world where weeds do infest the ground, and evil does rear its head in powerful ways that defy certainty and simple answers? The Parable of the Weeds. Matthew 13.24-30
Toward Sunday
We are inviting our community to Give Up Certainty for Lent as we root ourselves in the parables of Jesus. Today we move into our second week and the parable of The Weeds. What is a parable? Exact definitions vary from “stories of life with religious or spiritual lessons” to “metaphors or similes that take narrative form.” We will be operating on an understanding of parables as “thin places” where the usual boundaries between heaven and earth, holy and ordinary,…
Location, location, location.
“Where are we to look? What are we to go after? Barbara Brown Taylor suggests that “God decided to hide the kingdom of heaven not in any of the extraordinary places that treasure hunters would be sure to check but in the last place that any of us would think to look, namely, in the ordinary circumstances of our everyday lives.” Not too high up, not too far away. ” ~Barbara Brown Taylor Where do you find God on a…
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