Sunday Sermon June 25, 2023

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Prayer for the Week (June 18-June 24, 2023)

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Let us pray to God so that we be to everyone the sign of his healing love: Lord God, source of all love you showed you have made yourself our God and have bound us closely to yourself in a lasting covenant of life and love. Mold us into a people set free by Jesus your Son. Help us be responsible for one another and be a living sign of your tender love and compassion. We ask this in the name of Jesus the Lord.  Amen.
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Sunday Reflection (June 18, 2023)

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On the way to crucifixion, Jesus said: “Father, forgive them, they know not what they do.” In Romans Paul relates that we find forgiveness in a crucified Messiah who reconciles us to God and yes one another (Romans 5:6-11). The cross reveals that God’s character is not violence; rather, it reveals a way to end violence by not practicing violence. We are reconciled through the extension of forgiveness and mercy and kindness. Reconciliation is the establishment of harmony between God and us.
 
God has reconciled us, and we have received reconciliation, but where do we go from being reconciled? Do we only bask in being reconciled? Rather, may we keep proclaiming the message of God’s reconciling humankind to God through Jesus Christ. May we seek to be reconciled with another as a response to God’s reconciling us.

Sunday Sermon June 18, 2023

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Devotion June 14, 2023

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Devotion June 13, 2023

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Sunday Sermon June 11, 2023

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Sunday Reflection (June 11, 2023)

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In this week’s Scripture Reading (Matthew 9:9-13) a carpenter who was also the son of a carpenter gives an imperative, a command. Interestingly, Jesus did not say, “Accept me as your personal Lord and Savior,” but “Follow me!” This entails much more than the heart; it is the heart and soul and giving it our all. It is like that Great Commandment: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” Jesus Christ certainly lived such a life, and he invites us to “Follow him.”
Yes, we are not disciples in the sense of the twelve disciples, but we are the fruit of their labors in Christ’s Church. We are learning, like them, to become disciples who follow Jesus. May we, like Matthew, rise up and follow Jesus and bring healing and restoration to the world.

Prayer for the Week (June 11-June 17, 2023)

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Let us pray that our faith and love be deep and authentic: God of love and mercy, to our surprise your Son Jesus said to wavering, erring people, “Come, follow me.”  May we realize that it was to us he spoke. Give us the courage to give up our pride and reliance on our own achievements and practices. May we follow in faith and love the call of Jesus Christ and to reflect your love and mercy. Grant this through Christ our Lord who eternally dwells with you and the Holy Spirit, One God now and forevermore.  Amen.

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Sunday Reflection (June 4, 2023)

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This Sunday we celebrated the mystery of Trinity. God has not left us without a spiritual witness that leads us to God:  Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. To listen to the Spirit is to listen to the Son and to listen to the Son is to listen to the Father. In the first three verses of Genesis the Word of God and the Spirit originate in God and proceed from God to embrace creation (Genesis 1:1-3).

God is not a distant, impersonal God who demands blind obedience or no obedience at all; rather, the Holy Spirit moves from God and brings us into fellowship with Christ, each other, and the Father whom we address as “Our Father who art in heaven.” In Jesus Christ God’s Word was enfleshed (or the Latin word, “incarnate”) and lived among us (John 1:1-5, 14). Through this move from God to us, Christ is formed within us and among us (John 1:15-17).  As a response to this move from God to us, God invites us to participate in the move of God’s compassion to the world by learning to be his disciples and teaching others to be his disciples (Matthew 28:16-20).