Reflection for Quinquagesima Sunday 2023

The way of life.

Can a mother forget her infant, be without tenderness for the child of her womb? Even should she forget, I will never forget you.

Thank you for joining as we testify, proclaim, and evangelize the great and Holy Name of Jesus. 

Today we come near to the conclusion of this Pre-Lenten season. 

Over two weeks we considered choices and consequences, the fact that hot stoves of sin are everywhere and so often seem like fun. If we chose that seeming fun, we get burned and must come to the realization that in doing so we abandon the promises of God.

We know that how we live now, how close the world grows toward the kingdom we are supposed to be building, and how we live in eternity depend on choices made here and now. 

If we have lived up to our resolution by taking this Pre-Lenten season as an opportunity to identify the stoves in our lives and have planned our strategies for eliminating them this Lent, we have done well.

Um, but Father, I’ve been kind of busy, got distracted, and lost the last two weeks. 

I can empathize. I used to get all kinds of awards in grade school for “deportment.” It means I carried myself well and was a ‘good boy.’ The part I did not do well in was use of time. I can still hear my mother saying – Your report card says that you did not make good use of your time. Too much daydreaming I suppose.

Jesus takes a two-pronged approach for those of us who have not made good use of our time, who have not focused. 

Jesus’ first approach is to remind us of the necessity to focus – to pay attention to God’s way and to ensure He is indeed the Master of our life.

Whatever worldly/everyday stuff gets in our way should not be counted as consequential. Whatever seems important to us must pale against the glory of God and how our lives proclaim Him. Each moment needs to be dedicated to God – loving Him, devoted to Him, and serving Him. In short- pay attention to what is truly important and serve that choice.

Next, Jesus veers into reminders of God’s care. He knows our weakness, He saw his disciples get easily distracted, so He speaks of the fact that our focus must not be given in vain, but rather is to be toward the One Who will see to our every need.

Jesus left no gaps. Faith in God and dedication to God, making choices for God and toward God leads to blessed consequences: But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given you besides. 

As we have been reminded, making choices for hot stoves and away from God leads to loss and eventually total destruction.

In these last two-and-a-half days, let us use our time wisely. See the distraction trying to pull you away, push the distraction away for tomorrow will take care of itself.. Nothing is more important than the right now in our focus on what God wants this Lent and saying yes to where the Holy Spirit leads.

Reflection for Sexagesima Sunday 2023

The way of life.

“For if you love those who love you, what recompense will you have? Do not the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet your brothers only, what is unusual about that? Do not the pagans do the same? So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

Thank you for joining as we testify, proclaim, and evangelize the great and Holy Name of Jesus. 

Today we continue in this Pre-Lenten season. 

Last week we considered choices, the fact that the hot stoves of sin are everywhere and so often seem like fun. Jesus’ way seems so different, so odd, and so hard. No one does that, do they? 

We resolved to take this Pre-Lenten opportunity to identify the stoves in our lives, those areas of disaster we reach out to, the ways we fail to represent Jesus’ gospel way. We reminded ourselves of what will happen if we do not stop reaching for those hot stoves of sin and destruction and determined to prepare ourselves for eliminating them this Lent, to live the way Jesus asks us to live.

Today we continue in our study of Jesus’ teachings in the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus continues to ask us to live His Father’s commandments in their fullness. Thou shalt not kill is not just about physical murder, but about any hardship or rejection we would bring upon another, even if only in our thoughts. If we hold ourselves back and away when another in in need, we kill. It may not seem at all bloody to us, but it is – emotionally, spiritually, psychologically. 

But, what if someone is mean to me, what if they are hurting me? Jesus’ instruction seems clear – turn the other cheek. Seems hard, but simple. What we miss is the way we act is a sort of dam against sin. We, my brothers and sisters, have power to thwart sin, to turn the tide of sin. If we respond to harm, meanness, rejection, anger, and so many other evils in kind we are just perpetuating evil, fostering more sin. But if we act as Jesus asks, we stop that sin right there. We break the chain of sin.

So often in the Christian life it seems we are making no headway, we aren’t changing anything. What we tend to miss is the downstream effect of our faithfulness. Our impact is huge if we turn the other cheek, if we hand over more than demanded of us, if we go the extra mile, if we give to those who ask – perfect examples our work with CarePortal and Operation SouperBowl.

Jesus demands a lot of us. He asks us for perfection in our gospel walk, to be real kingdom dwellers who live so very differently from the way of the world.

There are consequences to our choices, to choosing the hot stove or the gospel, to reflecting the world and its ruler or to reflecting our Heavenly Father. Those consequences have impact not only here in the present world but also throughout eternity.

As we continue in this Pre-Lenten time of reflection and preparation let us not just consider choices but also consequences. How we live now, how close the world grows toward the kingdom we are supposed to be building, and how we live in eternity depends on the here and now.

February 2023 Newsletter – Prepare, Grow, and Build Like Noah

By faith Noah, being warned by God concerning events as yet unseen, in reverent fear constructed an ark for the saving of his household. 

The text above is from Hebrews 11:7, wherein the writer is reminding people who knew the Hebrew Scriptures, of Noah’s faithfulness to God’s instruction and the fact that by being faithful he became an heir of the righteousness that comes by faith. 

This year, the Pre-Lenten season begins right on the first Sunday in February, and by the time this two-and-a-half week season passes on we are in Lent. It will go by quickly. This year, let us liken ourselves to Noah. We all know the account found in Genesis Chapter 5 – 9.

Scripture says that Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation and that he walked with God. While this was true of Noah, and because of Noah was also true in his family, the rest of the world was corrupt, violent, and filled with continuous evil (sound familiar?). The question to ask – Am I faithful like Noah, and how will my faithfulness affect this age? Noah certainly did not know what to do with the corruption of his time. While he acted properly, was righteous and blameless, he made no impact on those around him. God had to intervene to change the situation. For us, we live in the light of God’s greatest intervention. Not the flood, but the sending of His Son Jesus. That means we now know what to do and we have the power to do it (no flood needed).

Jesus showed us the way to go. He  gave us the gospel that is life. He enjoined on us the Beatitudes as a way of life along with all the other instruction from the Sermon on the Mount. If we do as Jesus taught, we will deeply impact our time, culture, and the people around us. As with the early Christians, people will be amazed and enter the kingdom. Like Noah, let us use this time to prepare, to grow in faithfulness, to build a way of life consistent with the gospel. Where we have succeeded, let us build further.  Where we have fallen short, let us prepare to fix it now, and fix it this Lent.

Welcome to our February 2023 Newsletter. With the start of February we enter the Pre-Lenten Season of Septuagesima. We engage in preparation for our Lenten journey because by the end of February we will be in Lent. This month and next we engage in the ministry of administration with our annual parish and financial meetings. Our Valentine’s Raffle is underway. SouperBowl Sunday is February 12th – let us give generously to feed those in need locally. We also celebrate Scout Sunday, review the great scholarships we have available, and list some fantastic Youth events/opportunities upcoming. There is a pizza/game night around the corner and the Basket Social is not that far away.

Check out all that and more in our February 2023 Newsletter.

Reflection for Septuagesima Sunday 2023

The way of life.

If you choose you can keep the commandments, they will save you; if you trust in God, you too shall live; he has set before you fire and water to whichever you choose, stretch forth your hand.

Thank you for joining as we testify, proclaim, and evangelize the great and Holy Name of Jesus.

Today we enter the Pre-Lenten season. I say that every year, and perhaps this year I have come to understand it even better because I better understand the nature of choices. We do that as we get older because, as some would say, we have wisdom. Others would say that we now see the long-term consequences of our decisions. Did that decision lead to good, or did it create a disaster.

Ben Sira of Jerusalem, or in short Sirach, shares various versus of wisdom with us, things learned from the Spirit of God for right living. Today, he presents us with some real age-old wisdom we totally connect with: There is a hot stove, don’t touch it. As I just mentioned, wisdom comes from experience with choices made. I wonder how many times Ben Sira touched the hot stove after his mom told him not to. Ben Sira knew, as wisdom, the fact that touching a hot stove leads to disaster while listening leads to good.

That is the way of God. We have a way of life before us. Will we reach out to His life or chose death?

St. Paul tells the Corinthians the practical truth: What eye has not seen, and ear has not heard, and what has not entered the human heart, what God has prepared for those who love him, this God has revealed to us through the Spirit.

Paul is speaking from experience, i.e., the wisdom he had acquired from Jesus on the road to Damascus. Meeting Jesus caused him to pull his hand away from the stove and to choose life. He said to himself, Wow, I was about to be burned bad, I could not see it, I could not hear it, my heart was closed to it, but now I know what God has in store for me if I chose His way of life.

It is of note that the Corinthians were new Christians, for not more than three years. They were falling back into their former way of life in so many ways. They were running headlong to each and every hot stove they could find. Paul is reminding them of that choice, the fact that they will be burned, and in being burned will reject all God has in store for them.

Jesus’ commandments to us, His way of life built upon His Father’s Commandments, may seem anachronistic to us. Divorce is common. Treating people as sexualized objects, without humanity, is not just a way to sell music and products, but a commonplace way of life. Disrespect for others, calling them empty (raqa) or impious (foolish), basically non-human, most especially online, is easy. The stoves seem to be so much fun. Jesus’ way of life so difficult. But whoever obeys and teaches these commandments will be called greatest in the kingdom of heaven.

Let us then take this Pre-Lenten opportunity to identify the stoves in our lives, those areas of disaster we reach out to. Let us recall what will happen if we do not stop, and focus our Lent on eliminating them, choosing life with God.

Reflection for Quinquagesima Sunday 2022

Called to Live Anew.

Therefore, my beloved brothers and sisters, be firm, steadfast, always fully devoted to the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.

Anew – Life Anew in Christ is exhibited especially when we live to know, love, and serve the Lord and when call people to also know, love, and serve the Lord and His Holy Church right here at this parish.

Today we enter the final half-week of this Pre-Lenten season. This season is specifically designed so we might prepare ourselves for the rigors of the Lenten season to begin in just three days. Between now and Easter we endeavor and strive at the vast changes we need in our lives.

St. Paul reminds the Church at Corinth, and us, that we have been made new, we have put on the eternal, the incorruptible. The definition of life anew. He reminds us that we are not to be those hypocrites Jesus warns against, but rather those who bear good fruit, producers of good.

In baptism we were consecrated to the Lord and that makes us different, new. We have entered the Kingdom and its life. We have victory. Therefore, we must be firm, steadfast, always fully devoted to the work of the Lord. As such, we must live as the Kingdom people we are now, not the people we were then.

Being fully devoted to the work of the Lord means calling ourselves to necessary repentance, to fasting, prayer, and charity. Being fully devoted to the Lord means constantly reaching for the next rung on the ladder to heaven and helping others up the ladder.

By growing in this new life, we show our beauty – our attractiveness – to those who do not know the Lord. Between our Kingdom life example and the gentleness of our words we call others into the Kingdom life.

Last night’s Grand Ole Opry introduced a group appearing for the first time, We The Kingdom. It was a great example of people, family and friends, living out their faith in Jesus Christ publicly, with joy, and celebration. So, we should be We The Kingdom for indeed that is what we are – as we live out our life anew in Jesus Christ publicly, with joy, and celebration. As they sang, calling others to meet Jesus by their artistic example, so must we by the means and opportunities that are in our paths.

Imagine a community of people where others are welcome without criticism and judgment, where words and music are sweet balm for the hurting, where the inhabitants are steadfast, devoted to the work of the Lord, where each person helps the other to climb the ladder to heaven. Yes, that place is here because we are the Kingdom and we grow evermore as we endeavor and strive at the changes we need in our lives – living anew each day, and welcoming others to the same.

Reflection for Sexagesima Sunday 2022

Called to Live Anew.

“Give, and gifts will be given to you; a good measure, packed together, shaken down, and overflowing, will be poured into your lap. For the measure with which you measure will in return be measured out to you.”

Anew – Life Anew in Christ is exhibited especially when we call people to know, love, and serve the Lord and His Holy Church right here at this parish.

Today we enter the second week of this Pre-Lenten season. This season is one in which we prepare ourselves for the rigors of the Lenten season because it is between now and Easter that we endeavor and strive at the vast changes we need in our lives.

Jesus certainly speaks of vast changes, a true upheaval in our lives. Jesus calls His followers to radically different lives. If we were once silent and demure we must now speak up boldly.

In this discourse on living radically different lives Jesus alludes to measures – the weight of our obligation and the generous weight of God’s response.

Certainly, many of us have baked. Perhaps it is only out of a Betty Crocker or Duncan Hines box. Perhaps it is from scratch.

If we have cooked from scratch, consider how the measurement and handling of flour can result in such different weights. A cup of sifted flour seems light while a packed down cup of flour can be quite dense and heavy. As we shake that cup down, we can always seem to add more.

Consider how those weights might represent our call to life anew, to the inner changes we need and our call to drawing others into worship and fellowship right here. 

It is a serious obligation to live as Jesus says we must: loving people who hurt us, giving our all and without expectation of repayment, foregoing judgment and accusation, and forgiving.

We draw people to Jesus because our lives are so different from that of the world. Jesus is saying the cup of our work can always be shaken down more – and that we must put more into it.

In return, Jesus makes an awesome statement. We will be repaid equally. As radically different as our lives are, so radically will God give unto us. What we pack in will be poured into us.

Our Kingdom lives are so vastly different and so amazingly blessed. As St. Paul tells us, the image of the earthly and worldly man in us – the place we came from – is vastly changed because we now bear the image of Christ Jesus. We therefore must give our all and still more for the advancement and growth of the Kingdom because we are the image of the heavenly.

Put the image of God’s generous outpouring into our mind’s eye and pour into the places we go a heavy, not a sifted, weight of our own life in Jesus.

Reflection for Septuagesima Sunday 2022

Called to Live Anew.

“Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude and insult you, and denounce your name as evil on account of the Son of Man. Rejoice and leap for joy on that day! Behold, your reward will be great in heaven.”

Anew – it is a word we will focus on for years to come. Now is the time for our next great step together, to call people anew to knowing, loving, and serving the Lord and His Holy Church right here at this parish.

What better way to connect with the word anew than to enter this new season in our Church life, the Season of Septuagesima, Pre-Lent.

This Pre-Lenten season is one in which we prepare ourselves for the rigors of the Lenten season because it is between now and Easter that we endeavor and strive at the vast changes we need in our lives. To live anew we set to the hard work that is a re-valuing of our priorities, and the doing of God’s work.

Let us start with the one beatitude that is very hard for most of us: Accepting the fact that we will be hated, excluded, insulted, and denounced as evil because we proclaim the name of Jesus. We know it happens to those who follow and speak Jesus’ teachings, because those teachings call worldly people to repentance and change. Who really wants to change and live anew anyway? We know it can and will happen to us as we live anew and call people to know, love, and serve the Lord and His Holy Church

We all want to be liked, we all want to be fabulous, funny, accepted, spectacular, and spoken well of. But there is a cost. The cost is the truth of God’s word and our place in the Kingdom. So, we set out in this season and the season ahead to re-value what is important and to live the way we must – not should – but must. Life anew.

If we are to live lives anew, things must change in us. We each have those inner issues we need to overcome. We each have attitudes, really bad-i-tudes, that must be rooted out and replaced with Jesus’ beatitudes. We must weigh the cost of silence versus the loss of souls on the scale of eternity and do all we can to speak about our God, our faith, and our Church and how they hold forever promise for each person we encounter.

Knowing we live in the Kingdom of God we must be willing to accept polite and not so polite no’s when we invite people to meet Jesus, to join us in fellowship. We must be willing to speak truth in the face of worldly values so that hearts might be converted, and people might be saved.

So let us start now, living anew in each encounter and invite others to that same new life for Jesus’ sake no matter the outcome. If we do, we hold onto our forever promise and await the day we rejoice and leap for joy as we accept Jesus’ great reward in heaven. 

February 2022 Newsletter – Timeless Preparation

Blessed is the one who trusts in the LORD, whose hope is the LORD.

The text above is from Jeremiah 17:7, the Old Testament reading at the start of Pre-Lent. The next verse goes onto say about the one who hopes and trusts in the Lord: They are like a tree planted beside the waters that stretches out its roots to the stream: It does not fear heat when it comes, its leaves stay green; In the year of drought it shows no distress, but still produces fruit. As you will read herein, the Pre-Lenten season of Septuagesima is one of preparation. So the question, Preparation for what?

We could say that Pre-Lent is preparation for a better 40 day Lenten journey. That we might make time and schedule our fasting, prayer, giving  – that is certainly true. We could mark the time off on the calendar as days until Easter: 70, 60, 50 – that is true as well. Notice how both of these thoughts on preparation are time-constrained. I must set time to do these timely things according to the time on the calendar. However it might be better if we did not consider our preparation or even our lives as time constrained, as limited. We have, through our baptism, been  added to the great cloud of witnesses – disciples of Christ – who already reside in His eternal Kingdom. We are no longer time-bound. Rather we are freed to be as Jeremiah states. Then, let us prepare to be fully engaged as a people who trust in the Lord – having a real and active faith that Jesus does as He promised to do. We are to have full-time hope in Him – and that trust and hope leads to a courage when speaking about Jesus to others. If we focus on trust and hope and who we are in the Kingdom we turn out (bloom) like that tree. We are planted in Christ Jesus Who nourishes us. We do not fear the negatives, the “heat,” for Jesus has us safely in His care. We remain alive in Him, so prepare to bear fruit full-time by timeless lives that draw others unto Jesus.

Welcome to our February 2022 Newsletter. It is packed full of info on the season of Pre-Lent / Septuagesima, the two-and-a-half week time of preparation for the Great Lent (which starts late this particular year). We have provided materials linked herein for your study. We are holding our annual meetings this and next month, part of our ecclesial democratic tradition. The Valentine’s Raffle is here, SouperBowl Sunday, and Epiphany house blessings continue – schedule your time soon. March 6th is Scout Sunday and Scouts coming to church in uniform can get their Scout Sunday patch for 2022.

Also, read up on things to say in church, the meaning of “Lord have mercy,” College Stipends and Scholarships, free healthcare opportunities, and the BASKET SOCIAL is back. All this and more in our February 2022 Newsletter.

Reflection for Quinquagesima Sunday 2021

Cleaning out.

  • First reading: Hosea 2:16,17,21,22
  • Psalm: 103:1-4,8,10,12-13
  • Epistle: 2 Corinthians 3:1-6
  • Gospel: Mark 2:18-22

“No, new wine is poured in new wineskins.”

We are in the final half-week of this short season dedicated to preparation for our Lenten journey. It is a season of ‘cleaning out the old’ to make room for the new thing God has waiting for us.

In the first Sunday of Pre-Lent we recognized our likeness to the leper in the Gospel. We acknowledged the fact that we need Jesus to make us clean, clean from old idols and rebellion against God. We were asked to trust that He will indeed cleanse us.

Last week we saw Jesus forgiving sin and showing forth this authority to do so through the curing of the paralytic. Jesus came to cleanse us at an entirely different level – like with the paralytic a cleansing so deep it is complete. St. Paul reminded us that God’s promises are sure and firm. He will do what He says, providing us complete cleansing, forgiveness, and healing. We need only trust.

Today we focus on the room we have made by cleaning out the old and by trusting in God to cleanse us. The room we have made prepares us for the new thing God has waiting for us.

Have you ever reflected on how amazing God is at doing something new? Who else but our God would do new amazing things like lead His people dry shod through the midst of the sea on their way to freedom? Who else would cause the walls of the world’s strongest city to fall before His people? Who would allow His servants to walk safely through the hottest oven ever built? Who would give victory to His armies in the face of overwhelming opposition? Who would send His Son to save us? Who would love a prostitute?

Wait, what? Yes, who else, beside our amazing God, would be bold enough to do what no one else would do, love a prostitute.

The story of the Prophet Hosea is exactly that, God’s next new thing. Hosea was commanded to go out, find, clean up, and marry Gomer the prostitute. Hosea was commanded to go after her, even when she chose to leave him so she could go back to prostitution. In this relationship, God shows forth the depth of His love, a love ever new and renewing. A love deep, complete, and powerful to do new for Gomer and for us.

Jesus speaks of clothes and wineskins. Imagine your oldest most threadbare clothes. God’s ever new way is not to fix up your old clothes with patches, trying to cover the holes that leave us exposed. Rather, He has prepared new brilliant white clothes for us to wear into the kingdom. He does not want to fill the old us with His new wine, His word and His very self. If He did, we would burst. Rather He makes us new, in and out, and ready to receive His next new thing this Lent. 

Reflection for Sexagesima Sunday 2021

Cleaning out.

  • First reading: Isaiah 43:18-19,21-22,24-25
  • Psalm: 41:2-3,4-5,13-14
  • Epistle: 2 Corinthians 1:18-22
  • Gospel: Mark 2:1-12

When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven.”

We are in the second week of this short two-and-a-half-week season dedicated to preparation for our Lenten journey. It is a season of ‘cleaning out the old’ to make room for the new thing God has waiting for us.

Last Sunday we recognized our likeness to the leper in the Gospel. We acknowledged the fact that we must throw away the old idols within us and clean ourselves of the rebellion against God that is in us. We must ask Jesus to cleanse us of our ẓaraʿat, and trust that He will cleanse us.

Jesus pointedly brings that message home to us today. We must trust that He can and will cleanse us.

The story of the paralyzed man and his friends is dramatic. A crowded street and entryway to a home. People pressing in on all sides, the man and his friends unable to get to Jesus. They get up to the roof and tear it open to lower their friend to Jesus. It is miracle time. Jesus is going to cleanse him of his paralyzing condition.

Jesus had been sitting there speaking the word to them. He was proclaiming the gospel message, repent and believe, the kingdom of heaven is at hand. I have come to free you from your handicaps, from your blindness and captivity. He was alluding to the words of Isaiah: The past is forgotten; a new way is being made. No matter how obstinate you have been, no matter how sinful, for My own sake I wipe out your offenses, and remember not your sins. I have come to cleanse you at a whole different level – completely.

Some in the room were listening, others not. Along (or down) comes the paralyzed man. The room goes silent. What will happen next. Will he walk? Will Jesus fail?

Jesus looks up and says: â€œSon, your sins are forgiven.” I am hereby cleansing you of every sin, every failing, every fault. 

The Scribes (read lawyers) were shocked. Jesus cannot cleanse that way. That is blasphemy. So, Jesus confronts them. He asks them what is harder, the cleansing of forgiveness or of healing.

Jesus shows that His cleaning is God’s cleaning and that His cleaning is at a different level – it is so deep it is complete.

St. Paul got our doubt about the completeness of Jesus’ cleansing. How could God free me, heal me, cleanse me. That is why Paul told us that Jesus is YES and AMEN. In Greek “yes” means “sure” and “amen” means “firm.” All of God’s promises are sure and firm. They are unchanging, unwavering, and unmovable. He will do what He says. He will provide us complete cleansing. Jesus has forgiveness and healing waiting for us. Yes, we can trust in Him.