Going away…

Have you ever had to say goodbye to someone? 

Have you ever moved away and knew it would be a while before you would see the people you had grown to love and build friendships with, if you would ever see them again?

It is hard. Terribly hard. It is a time of sadness and loss. We are facing a death, like these people are dying and will never be a part of our life again. Now we know that that is not really the case, but there is a part of our minds that perceives moving away and losing friends in this way.

Image how the disciples felt as Jesus told them He was going away? How they must have felt. Their teacher and friend who has walked with them, taught them, and helped them through their lives over the past years has told them He is leaving them. He is going away.

But He has to go. Otherwise the comforter, the helper can not come to them.

Sometimes goodbyes are inevitable, but as followers of Christ goodbyes are merely see you later. Because in Christ we have been given the Holy Spirit and are united as His body and even if we move across the country of the world we are still connected and we will be together in the great by and by.

So goodbye is not forever. It is only see you later…

Do not be afraid

Revelation 1 starts the vision of John. Today’s reading is Revelation 1:9-18. Her John is told to write down all he sees so that the vision can be shared. But in this opening John sees 7 lamp stands and one stands among them dressed in white.John writes “I saw one like the Son of Man, clothed with a long robe and with a golden sash across his chest. His head and his hair were white as white wool, white as snow; his eyes were like a flame of fire, his feet were like burnished bronze, refined as in a furnace, and his voice was like the sound of many waters. In his right hand he held seven stars, and from his mouth came a sharp, two edged sword, and his face was like the sun shining with full force.”

John fell on his face in terror. He was worshipping but he was scared. I would have been too! If i had seen what John saw I probably would have run away screaming like a little girl. That is why the man says be not afraid.  He knew John was scared and not just worshipping. That means that Jesus knows when your heart is not in it when you are worshipping, serving, or what ever you are doing in the mission of God.

But be not afraid. Jesus knows and He still loves you and accepts your half hearted worship service and missioning in the world. And that my friends is great news. So be not afraid and give Jesus your all.

you will be my witnesses

Happy ascension day!

Today is the day in the beginning of Acts/End of Luke we get Jesus ascending into heaven and the disciples looking and wondering what is going on…

Jesus has gone from the disciples and now is the great in between! Jesus is gone and according to Acts the Holy Spirit has not come yet, and that is Pentecost – 10 days away! We are separated from Jesus and now we have to wait 10 days before the comforter comes. But when She does we will get power! Power! Visions of Despicable Me flowing through my head… All of the evil villains there ever were because power is what we all want. Power to control, power to yield, power to make others do what we want them to. Power that comes from money, and status and that is what is coming to all of us in 10 days…

That is not the power Jesus speaks of or that the Holy Spirit will bring us. Power in this sense is not physical might or the ability to produce an effect.  It is not our ability to produce anything! God does it all. Power that is coming is our link to a source of energy. The Holy Spirit will plug us into God and give us the energy to go and do for Him.  And this source of energy will allow us to do what Jesus said, “and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” And to understand this, know Jerusalem was the center of the known world, and Judea was the space just out and around that was Samaria, then everywhere… concentric circles out… like a stone thrown in the water causes ripples and moves out, that is what the energy source we have been given will allow us to do.

The power you’ve been given by the Holy Spirit is not something to yield, but it something to share.

follow other gods…

18 You shall put these words of mine in your heart and soul, and you shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and fix them as an emblem on your forehead. 19Teach them to your children, talking about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise. 20Write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates, 21so that your days and the days of your children may be multiplied in the land that the Lord swore to your ancestors to give them, as long as the heavens are above the earth.

26 See, I am setting before you today a blessing and a curse: 27the blessing, if you obey the commandments of the Lord your God that I am commanding you today; 28and the curse, if you do not obey the commandments of the Lord your God, but turn from the way that I am commanding you today, to follow other gods that you have not known.

Follow other gods – if you do this you will be cursed. Turn away from what you have been commanded, and you will follow other gods… So obviously a person who willfully sins is someone who has turned away from God and is following after their own wants and desires. The problem with this is we all willfully sin everyday… so where does that leave us…

Well the first part of the reading says that if we are following after God then we will put these words on our heart and soul, and we need to write them on our hand, and fix them as an emblem on our forehead. We will teach them to our children and talk about them all the time. How many of us talk about the commandments of God all the time? How many of us actually talk about God at all not at the building in which the congregation we are a part of meets? DO we talk about God outside of our congregation? Other than using His name in vain which is a direct violation of the first commandment. We will talk about God all the time, and teach others and helping them understand what God has called us to. Teaching, not berating. We can not use God’s commandments which are given to us to give us a better life, cause someone else pain and suffering. That is not what the law is for.

God says if you follow after other gods, you will be cursed, and following after other gods, is done through our looking inward and ignoring or making our sins ok and pointing out someone else’s deviation from the law. Do not be hung up in your own self righteousness, but allow God to work through you and His commandments to bring life, not only to you, but to all through talking about what He has given you.

The river…

The rivers lift up, the rivers lift up their voice. O jehovah! the rivers lift up their roaring Psalm 93:3

Other translations talk about the seas or the floods, it all is about water. But what is this water? Why is water important? Water is huge in our understanding of who God is and who we are in God. Water is the thing that a lot of us would say is what makes us a part of the community of God. Our baptisms are what make us a part of the kingdom… (now I could say not, as the Bible does not tell us the disciples were baptized nor the thief on the cross, so there is some question on if baptism actually is what brings us into the kingdom, but I will not argue that baptism and water are important.)

But what does this verse say about water? The rivers lift up, the rivers lift up their voice. O jehovah! the rivers lift up their roaring. The voice here is the annunciation of truth, the speaking forth of God’s love and mercy and truth to all the world. It is rising up and roaring in the world, and how is that? The rivers lift up their voices, and the rushing water delivers God’s love. Water and light are important, and in our baptisms we receive a candle and are called? The light of the world. We are the light that Christ gives us and we are to take that roaring into the world, allowing God to speak through us.

So be the part of the mission of God you are, spreading the light and roaring water of His truth flowing through you to the world around you. Be the roaring truth of His love in the world.

a reason for hope…

Have you ever felt like everything was falling apart around you?

3 months ago I resigned my call as pastor of a congregation, and I have been looking for a congregation to go to as leader for a long time… I have tried to keep it together for my children and my wife… But I have spoken with over 10 congregations in the past 3 months and none of them have been a match. Now a door closing is not a bad thing, it is simply a place that we do not belong. Yet as a provider for my family it gets disheartening… To worry about how the rent will be paid, and will there be food, will the girls be able to do the things they love, or will we all have to tighten our belts. Which I keep losing weight which is a good thing, but now I don’t have the money to buy new clothes… If it isn’t one thing it is something entirely different… Yet I cling to what I have been promised:

Jeremiah 29:11 For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope.

1 Peter 2:9-10 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvellous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

Philippians 4:13 I can do all things through him who strengthens me.

Psalm 93:1 The Lord is king, he is robed in majesty; the Lord is robed, he is girded with strength. He has established the world; it shall never be moved

The world will never be moved! God has made it, He is girded with strength and will hold His creation, and He gives us this power so that we can do what He has led us to and will walk with us through it, as is promised in Psalm 23. He told us through Peter that we were not a people, but now we are His people, we are a royal nation, a holy people, and He has a plan for us to prosper and not to fail. He has promised us to walk with us through the crap. To be by our side, and as dark as it is, He is the light!

Walk with God knowing that even in the darkest of times, that He has the light and will give it to you so you can show it to the world, so that they can know how much He loves them too!

chose who…

John 15:9-17 continues the gospel lesson from last week, the final discourse from John where Jesus teaches the disciples about the vines and branches. How we are all interconnected…

We are all branches and leaves interconnected to the vine. We get cut off and thrown away, or pruned back so we produce more fruit. And because we are connected to Jesus, the vine, we are suppose to love others.

But the point I caught today is something we all know is true and know for a fact. We as Lutherans like to point it out all the time, we can do nothing to obtain the grace we have been given. Jesus chose us, we did not choose Him. He chose us to be a part of the branches and attached to the vine.

We have no choice on when we get in, or if. Jesus chose us and called us to be His children, His friend, and He wants us. And He chose us. And while we are a part of the vine, an important branch that produces fruit for the kingdom, we have no choice of the branches or leaves next to us. Jesus chooses who He wants, and we have no say in that. We are called to love everyone…

Reminded me of a story I have heard many times:

I was shocked, confused, bewildered
As I entered Heaven’s door,
Not by the beauty of it all,
Nor the lights or its decor.

But it was the folks in Heaven
Who made me sputter and gasp–
The thieves, the liars, the sinners,
The alcoholics and the trash.

There stood the kid from seventh grade
Who swiped my lunch money! Twice.
Next to him was my old neighbor
Who never said anything nice.

Jerry, who I always thought
Was rotting away in hell,
Was sitting pretty on cloud nine,
Looking incredibly well.

I nudged Jesus, ‘What’s the deal?
I would love to hear Your take.
How’d all these sinners get up here?
God must’ve made a mistake!

‘And why’s everyone so quiet,
So somber? – Please give me a clue.’
‘Hush, child,’ He said, ‘it’s because
they’re all in shock.
No one thought they’d be seeing you.’

So love as Jesus loved you and chose you to be a part of the fruit producing kingdom even when you did not deserve it, and don’t judge who Jesus chooses because they are probably ready to judge you!

to serve or to be served?

Why do you go to church?

Ok that was a trick question, we can not go to church, we are the church.  We are the body of Christ in the world. We are charged with showing forth the love Christ has given to all of us.

But why are you a part of a community that worships God? Is it for recognition? Do you go so your ideas are front and center? Do you plan events that show case your giving and time you put into something? Is it about you being seen and having people tell you what a great job you are doing?

These are the wrong reasons to be involved. Jesus calls us to serve others, and not for recognition or to be lifted up, but because that is what He came for. Mark 10:45 says For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.  Jesus came not to Lord over us the fact that He is God and will judge us all on the last day, but He came to serve us, as shown in the Last Supper of John the washing of the feet. In this act the master washed the feet of the disciples, all of the disciples, including Judas who would hand Him over to the authorities so that He could give His life as a ransom for many…

So as you get ready to go to worship, examine your heart and know that we are called as Jesus was to serve and not be served. To do things without thought of getting anything in return…

to serve or to be served, is to serve!

A new song…

Psalm 98 starts “O sing to the Lord a new song, for he has done marvellous things.” Sing to the Lord a new song. New is a scary word for us in the church… Most of us like the tried and true methods of doing things, and the songs from our youth. It is comfortable, like that old pair of jeans that is broken in just right, and fits us in all the right places. New jeans don’t snug with us, or fit quite right yet, they have not been broken in yet, and so they rub us wrong sometimes. Like a new pair of shoes that has the possibility of giving you a blister…

So why does the psalmist say sing a new song, when there is probably a song that would work just as well that is well known to us? Because God is not stale and stuck in the past. He remembers the past, and the promises He has made to His people, but He is not stuck there like we sometimes get. He wants us to stretch out and do things differently. Because sometimes the old comfortable stuff to us just doesn’t connect with those who are looking, and we can not expect them to become like us before they come, because God does not expect us to change before we come to Him, He excepts us as we are…

I can hear some of you saying though what about tradition. And tradition is good, if it is tradition and not traditional… explanation – tradition is that on which and in which we are grounded. It is the basis for our understanding. Traditional is doing something because that is the way we have always done it. If you ever hear, “we haven’t done it that way before…” maybe it is time to think about tradition vs. traditional. Be grounded in the past and remember it, but be like God and looking for the new way to sing and praise and help people understand how much God loves them.

So sing to the Lord a new song!

no partiality

Our reading for today is from Acts 10:1-34 – please take a moment to read it…

It is the story of Peter going to Cornelius’ house… it includes the sheet being lowered from Heaven with the unclean/non kosher animals on it and Peter being told to eat from it. Peter says he has never eaten anything that is profane or unclean. And God responds “What God has made clean, you must not call profane.”

There is a lot more to this story, but this is where I want to focus… It is interesting that the sheet is lowered from Heaven and the contents are described as “all kinds of four-footed creatures and reptiles and birds of the air.” All kinds of four footed creatures does not mean that they are unclean, and birds of the air are not unclean, all of them… The only thing that tells us they are unclean is Peter’s pronouncement of the items in the sheet being unclean. Now I agree that Peter does hold some weight because of his stature and his place with Jesus, but why do we take his word that the items are unclean? And where did the kosher laws come from?  We say we believe something because it is written in the Bible in black and white (or maybe red). But where did the Bible come from. Yes it was inspired by God, but what does that mean? What is important is the statement form the voice, and the lesson Peter learns. The voice says to eat.  Because the voice knows we need fuel. When Peter balks, the voice says, “What God has made clean, you must not call profane.” Everything that God has made is good. Isn’t that what he said in Genesis? It is good and God has made it clean and we can not then call it profane! We have no right to say something is removed from God only God has that power. God shows no partiality, and that is what Peter learned. God alone can say something is profane! We do not have that right.

Live in the love God has given you and give that love you have been given with no partiality, because that is how God does it…