When We Don't Get It Right

How mediocre has your walk with Jesus been?

Have you been too busy to pray?

Have you spoken badly about your neighbor, employees, or children? Are you feeling a bit shameful about it? Or are you feeling guilty because you’ve been a bad parent, watched something you shouldn’t have watched, said something you shouldn’t have said, and done some things you really don’t want anybody else to know about?

That’s what society calls a ‘sinner.’ We feel shame, embarrassment, humiliation and we beat ourselves up because we’re Christians and we should know and do better.

Which is what Jesus addresses in this Sunday’s Gospel.

We join Jesus as he has dinner at another rabbi’s house. But instead of commending the rabbi for his stellar religious observance, Jesus commends the person who was at the opposite extreme. Jesus lifts up a woman branded as a sinner, who can only cry and wash his feet with her tears. She commends to us a notion that just may bring you new life today:

Perfect fidelity has never been a requirement of following Jesus.

What are you beating yourself up about right now? Your laziness? Your busyness? Your anger?

Sure, we can rationalize and distance ourselves from our own messes. Or we can be like that unknown woman, that sinner, who simply fell at Jesus’ feet – in worship, compassion, and humility. Jesus isn’t impressed with all the good deeds you brought to church today. Jesus isn’t in awe of the great ways you’ve managed to keep the train on the tracks. Jesus is in awe when we agree to be ourselves. And we say we’re sorry. Admit to the truth. And cling to Him to take it from here.

How might we do that today? Forgive yourself. Our expectations should not be higher than God’s

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Reading

Switch – Heath Brothers

Damn Few – Rorke Denver

Is This The End?

The death had come suddenly and unexpectedly.

He was the only son of a widow with no health insurance or viable means of support, a strapping young man who was very smart and very capable.

So when she came home from shopping to find him sprawled out on the living room floor she absolutely lost it.

Being Jewish, the funeral would be the next day. And the flood of emotion kept her up all night. When the undertakers arrived and the solemn procession to the cemetery ensued, she was comforted little by all the people joining her.

As the procession neared the cemetery a stranger approached. He stopped the parade, called to the corpse to wake up. And the young man did.

We can’t imagine the ensuing emotion.

God had brought to life something humanity had pronounced dead. This is what God does.

What if everything that’s ever died will live again?

What if the break up, bankruptcy, depression, and funeral are not the end?

Friends, we may be going through the worst of times (would anyone trade places with that widow?) and God wants us to know that death is not the end.

So what have we declared dead in our lives?  Our marriage, our financial situation, our hope of ever finding meaningful work?  God is working to restore, rebuild, and resurrect. We are the widow. We are the young man. We are the inheritors of resurrection. So why are we letting the things that are bothering us, bother us? Why do we mourn as if we had no hope? We are in God’s hands and God brings life to things that are dead. Period.

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Reading
Thin Blue Smoke – Doug Wargol

Switch – Heath Brothers

The Online Teaching Survival Guide – Boechtter and Conrad

Don't Tiptoe

It’s been said that all around us people are tiptoeing through life.

Staying close to shore. Not taking chances. Allowing their dreams to visit them only when they’re sleeping.

However, to tiptoe through life in order to arrive safely at death is not a good recipe for contentment, much less meeting the potential we’ve been given.

A far better way is to run, hop, skip, dance, create, and imagine our way through life – anything but tiptoe.

What makes us tiptoe is fear. And much of our fear is so deeply ingrained we can’t begin to name it. But it rules and dominates us in ways we really don’t like.

This is why you and I desperately need Pentecost.

This Sunday we are celebrating this church feast, which commemorates the coming of God’s Spirit to be with us. This is not to say we didn’t have God before, or that we now have some sort of double-dose. What it does say is that you are beloved by a God who is in you. You are watched over by God. You are not alone. No matter what happens all will be well because you have God and God has you.

In what ways are you tiptoeing through life? In what ways do you need to get more risky? How might you better grab hold of the fact that God is in us and with us and isn’t going anywhere?

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Reading
Thin Blue Smoke – David Worgul

Switch – Heath Brothers

The Online Teaching Survival Guide – Boechtter/Conrad

How to Really Honor Mom

The most difficult time for a mother is arguably not giving birth.
But it is that time in a child’s life when Mom has to say goodbye.

Whether it’s a high school graduation, college graduation, or when the moving van pulls up to the house and (finally) moves junior away from the basement bedroom.

This Sunday Jesus talks about Him and the Father being one. And no one understands the oneness of two better than a mother.

Yet, just as it was ordained that the Son would leave the Father to do the work that only the Son could do, so too, do we know that it is ordained that our children will leave us to do the work they have been called to do.

And just as the Father looked with joy upon the accomplishments of the Child, so too, do we - knowing that it is not forever, but that there is a great reunion planned that will bring us all back together to live as one, in One. And at that reunion all things will be repaired - whether we have had a good mom or a less than good mom.

Yes, on Mother’s Day we give thanks for the role that only moms can play. But it is also a time to challenge children everywhere that there is work to do. There is a plan for redeeming the world that the Father has ordained - and every one of us has a role to play in that.

So, honoring mom isn’t just about giving her a flower and a card, but it’s about seizing the life she’s given us and doing the best we can with it. Yes, let us give thanks to God for our mothers, recognizing their role in God’s work of restoration - and that the work we do brings honor and glory to all of those responsible for getting us here.