Tag: religion
Wednesday Devotion
I am leading our staff devotion today. Each Wednesday we gather in person for a brief time of listening, prayer, and conversation. These are the words I will share today.
Opening Thought
Is God Speaking to Me?
Customarily, when we read the Bible we listen to its ancient words, allowing it to tell us our ancestor’s stories. But, what would it mean to read the Bible by allowing it to help us tell the stories of our lives? What if we read our joys, our fears, and our doubts into the biblical narrative?Then God’s question to Adam and Eve after they have eaten the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden — “Where are you?”– would become a question for us, for now. What are we doing in our lives at this moment? Are we ashamed? Are we hiding from something, from someone? Are we running away? What part of Adam and Eve’s story is our own? Asking such questions is the beginning of midrash.(1)
Luke 16:1-13 (edited)
Jesus said to the disciples, ‘There was a rich man who had a manager, and charges were brought to the rich man that his manager was squandering his property. So he summoned the manager and said, “What is this that I hear about you? Give me an account of your management, because you cannot be my manager any longer.” Then the manager said (thought) to himself, “What will I do, now that my master is taking the position away from me? I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg. I have decided what to do so that, when I am dismissed as manager, people may welcome me into their homes.” So, summoning his master’s debtors one by one, he asked the first, “How much do you owe my master?” He answered, “A hundred jugs of olive oil.” He said to him, “Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it fifty.” Then he asked another, “And how much do you owe?” He replied, “A hundred containers of wheat.” He said to him, “Take your bill and make it eighty.” And his master, the rich man, commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly; for the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light. And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth so that when it is gone, they may welcome you into the eternal homes.
‘Whoever is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much; and whoever is dishonest in a very little is dishonest also in much. If then you have not been faithful with the dishonest wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches? And if you have not been faithful with what belongs to another, who will give you what is your own? No slave 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.’
Naming Those in Need of Prayer and Remembrance . . .
‘Lord, purge our eyes to see
within the seed a tree,
Within the glowing egg a bird,
Within the shroud a butterfly,
Til, taught by such, we see
beyond all creatures, thee.’
Creator God, for daily bread
and all who work
to bring your harvest home
we bring our thanks today.
(pause)
Forgive our ingratitude
we who have so much
yet waste what you have given.
(pause)
For those whose harvest is poor,
whose crops have withered,
water tainted, children starve,
help those who bring relief
and bestow on us
an unaccustomed generosity,
that all might share from your garden
and all might sing your praise.
(pause)
Creator God, provider of all
we bring our thanks today.
And we bless each other
that the beauty of this world
and the love that created it
might be expressed though our lives
and be a blessing to others
now and always
Amen.(2)
Parting Thought . . .
May God bless us with work and good new to be and do this day and the next.
——–
Notes
1. Sandy Sasso, God’s Echo, Paraclete Press, 2007, p. 3.
2. John Birch, “Harvest Thanksgiving – Traditional & Contemporary Liturgy,” Faith and Worship – Prayers and Resources.
Paragraphs from SSCSJ
And now, back on schedule, a few paragraphs from Sacred Steps: Children’s Sermon Journal for Jan 13.
Psalm 29
The claims and imagery of Ps 29 may seem a bit odd to the 21st century reader. We can explain natural phenomena through meteorology. We know that inanimate objects/concepts cannot skip or dance. We no longer look to nature for divine messages. Is there a way to bring these ancient words into our world? What do you think the “voice of the LORD” sounds like? Is it bold or soft? Or, does God’s voice change based on what a person needs to hear or can comprehend? What would it mean to proclaim that God is “president” over all creation? How might this influence your actions in the world? Is it possible to hold this claim in tension with respect for human rulers? Does your faith influence your participation in civic duties? What would you ask the LORD to grant to you or to the 21st century world?
Isaiah 43:1-7
Two aspects of this text, “exile” and “being named or called by name”, are of interest. The children will not know either of these, but they will most likely be able to express feelings about each. Exile is not a word that modern and post-modern westerners easily use. One would think that “exile” would be easily embraced because ours is a mobile society where many change jobs, change marriages, change houses, and change “hometowns”. Communication and travel technology have made the world smaller; its net effect has raised the chaos level rather than helping create community. Why? The majority of “plugged-in” humanity, secular and religious, lacks the filtering sophistication (maybe the word is “maturity”) necessary for the evolution of community. Thus, exile is most likely experienced, but rarely expressed, in terms beyond economic or social status. When did you last come to worship feeling as if you were in exile? From what, or where, were you separated?
Acts 8:14-17
This is an example of the Lectionary choosing a few verses of scripture to “sync” a Christian dogma, or liturgical theme, to a particular theological view of the bible. In this instance, “The Baptism of Jesus” (sometimes called, “The Baptism of our Lord”) is both a dogmatic belief and a liturgical theme which these few verses of Acts 8 are meant to support, rather than seeing the text as important on its own merit. Without reading all of chapter eight, or at least a few of the verses before and after the Lectionary reading, there is no way to know that John and Peter go to Samaria because Philip, according to unnamed apostles, apparently lacked the ability to baptize persons correctly in Jesus’ name. Moreover, without reading before and after the Lectionary’s choice, the reader misses the work of Philip, the conversion of some of the people of Samaria, as well as the power struggle among magicians, Jewish followers of Jesus in Jerusalem, and the Gentile world beyond Jerusalem. There is much more going on in this story than is portrayed by the reading.
Luke 3:15-22
Like the Isaiah reading for today, the Luke text draws our attention to being named and being God’s beloved. Do you consider yourself “God’s beloved?” Was Jesus God’s beloved, before he went into the Jordan that day? Were you God’s beloved before baptism, or does baptism functionally make you, or anyone, God’s beloved? These are questions that, depending on your piety and denominational dogma, may have answers or lead to more questions. What did Jesus know about God prior to his baptism? What does baptism do “to you” or “for you”? In your denominational heritage, what does baptism obligate a person to do or be? Any of these questions could be the foundation for crafting a children’s sermon. This text (and its synoptic parallels) also offers the opportunity to talk with the children about Jesus’ baptism as an awakening, or a way for the children to understand Jesus as a person just like them.
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