Throughout the year, the Southern New England Conference of the United Church of Christ reproduces the Daily Lectionary for use by churches. These are the suggested readings for March 14th: Exodus 33:1-6; Psalm 105:1-42; and Romans 4:1-12. I would encourage you to read these short selections as part of your Lenten practice.
I don’t know if you are a fan of The Matrix or not, but there is a philosophical underpinning of the movie that is intriguing from a religious perspective. I believe fully in human free will. I believe that it is an inviolable character of human nature that not even God will suspend because God has decided to create us in His image, and freedom is essential to the nature of God. If human freedom were to be compromised, then human nature would not be worthy of God’s special attention. In The Matrix that human freedom is, however, compromised through the power of an elaborately complicated hoax. People exist in a false reality and only the exceptional few are brave enough to break free of it. Neo is one of those exceptional few, and because of this he is hounded by the enforcers of the deception. These enforcers are personified in Agent Smith. When Agent Smith must enter into the world from the organized sterility of the computer program, he complains about the “smell” of creation. The world is a dirty, obnoxious creation that Agent Smith must endure to perform his duty, but he hates needing to be a part of it. For those of us who have chosen to watch The Matrix, we see ourselves as part of Neo’s world, not Agent Smith’s. We are humans who cherish our existence even if it is the less than pleasant reality that can be artificially generated by the machines. If you could, think about this feeling as you read the Exodus selection. God is so offended by human beings that God tells his chosen people, the people God has selected out of all human creation, that “I will not go up among you [to the Promised Land], or I would consume you on the way.” The holiness of God simply cannot tolerate the reality of human life. God is angered by humans to the point of “I would consume you on the way.” This seems to represent the dichotomy of heaven and earth that is reflected in Agent Smith’s repulsion of needing to enter creation. God is so thoroughly other that our world is noxious to God. And then there is the revelation of Jesus of Nazareth. In Jesus, God enters the world and embraces it – the good and the bad, the holy and even the obscene. Creation is the work of God and in Jesus God asserts its sanctity. We humans are far from perfect. We humans do terrible things to one another. God is shocked by our choice of sin, but rather than Agent Smith’s repulsion of creation, God enters the world in Jesus to claim it again as His own and to offer us a way toward reconciliation. Think back to where our Lenten journey began. Jesus accepted John the Baptist’s baptism for the forgiveness of sin. The sinless Jesus accepted the burden of sin to make us right with God, to show us that we need not be separated from the holy. And at the end of His ministry, Jesus dies with our sins upon His shoulders: “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” (2 Cor 5:21) Jesus comes into our world as us. Jesus shares a life, ministry and gospel with us that offers us a better way so that we may become “the righteousness of God.” And Jesus even is willing to die for us, to take on Himself the burden of sin, to experience the separation of sin, to reveal to us that God will condescend to where we are so that we can rise to where God is. The God who was once thought of as revulsed by humans is now in Jesus willing to accept even our sinfulness to prove to us that even fallen humanity can be welcomed back into God’s communion. Lent is a journey of discovery, not only of ourselves, but of the ineffable love of God who endures anything, even the death of Jesus, to prove to us, to proclaim to us, that everyone is cherished by God, that God is invested in the sanctity of His creation. Our Lenten journey is to appreciate such a love rather than to imagine that we can take advantage of it or even just take it for granted: “‘For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.’” (John 3:16) In Paul’s writing to the Romans today, we learn that God is not moved by our works, we are not going to earn God’s love. God’s love is given as a part of His very nature, a nature revealed perfectly in Jesus, especially in a crucified Jesus who dies for saint and sinner alike because God will not allow anything less than the wholeness and holiness of His creation to succeed – because this is the nature of God. It may have taken the very life of God in the world to convince us of this new revelation, and for this we take our Lenten journey in order to grow closer to such a loving Saviour. If you’d like, here is the link to the Southern New England Conference’s daily reading schedule: www.sneucc.org/lectionary.
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Throughout the year, the Southern New England Conference of the United Church of Christ reproduces the Daily Lectionary for use by churches. These are the suggested readings for March 12th: Psalm 27, 118:26-29; and Matthew 23:37-39. I would encourage you to read these short selections as part of your Lenten practice.
Tonight Standard Time comes to a close and we lose an hour of sleep. The extra daylight of Daylight Saving Time at the end of the day is appreciated, but it does hit me when I lose that hour of sleep. Maybe I’m too much a creature of habit. I try to go to bed earlier to compensate for that lost hour, but then I can’t seem to fall asleep. I can’t make up that lost hour and the next morning, always a Sunday morning, is a bit groggy at the start. I don’t know if the ones in the pews can tell or not, but it sure feels like I’m not firing on all cylinders on that first morning of Daylight Saving Time. I feel, though, that as the Service progresses that I am less and less out of sorts, and again I don’t know if the ones in the pews can tell or not. Church gives me a boost. I look forward to worship. I love starting my week with that sacred hour. The Psalmist tells us today: “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord. We bless you from the house of the Lord.” These are words from the Temple’s hymns in ancient Jerusalem. 3,000 years ago the People of God were singing their blessings “from the house of the Lord.” And still in 2022, on March 13th, even in the fog of Daylight Saving Time’s first morning, we are invited to continue in that unbroken tradition of blessing and being blessed “from the house of the Lord.” Amid all the uncertainty of our world at present, the constancy of “from the house of the Lord” is comforting. It truly is a sanctuary. Not as in a place to hide, but as a place to be refreshed. The news is so distressing that people have told me they need to take breaks from it. I pray that “from the house of the Lord” we may find the will and the strength to be able to better deal with the reality that is our world. Today’s Gospel is Jesus’ lament over Jerusalem. It is a Gospel story that we will look into further at worship tomorrow. If an hour of time can just disappear over night tonight and yet we survive, then I ask you to consider giving up another hour of your weekend free time to gather with others “from the house of the Lord” and I think we can survive that too. Who knows, maybe like me you will find that hour to be a blessing, a chance to find deeper meaning and a more enduring hope in an awfully chaotic and dangerous world. If you would like to join us in person, please know that we take seriously the promise we share in one way or another at the start of each worship Service that “Whoever you are, you are welcome here.” And if you would like to join us online, please send an email to randyc1897@gmail.com for the login. If you’d like, here is the link to the Southern New England Conference’s daily reading schedule: www.sneucc.org/lectionary. Throughout the year, the Southern New England Conference of the United Church of Christ reproduces the Daily Lectionary for use by churches. These are the suggested readings for March 11th: Genesis 14:17-24; Psalm 27; and Philippians 3:17-20. I would encourage you to read these short selections as part of your Lenten practice.
In today’s first selection, we encounter the enigmatic figure of Melchizedek, a name which means the righteous or just king. He appears out of nowhere and disappears from the biblical text just as quickly. For those who read the Bible through a literal lens, since there is no mention of his beginning or end, they argue that Melchizedek must, therefore, have no beginning or end. If it is not written, it is not so. I don’t put stock in such things. However, in the story, Melchizedek is the king of Salem, which is most likely the city eventually called Jerusalem. After Abram rescues his nephew Lot from invaders and is returning to Hebron, he is met by Melchizedek. With another ambiguous reference, the Bible calls Melchizedek a “priest of God Most High.” As such, Melchizedek blesses Abram in the name of this God, “God Most High.” What is interesting at this point is that Abram acknowledges the blessing and also the superiority of Melchizedek because Abram offers a tithe to this monarch/priest for the blessing he has offered. Melchizedek appears and disappears in mysterious fashion and this has led to all kinds of unnecessary speculation, and his unexpected blessing and reward are equally peculiar. When Abram offers a tithe to Melchizedek, this implies an indebtedness to him, and Abram is the father of the people of Israel. This is an unexpected message in the sacred literature of Israel. Since there is so much speculation associated with Melchizedek, following suit, let me mention that Salem contains a linguistic reference to peace. Wouldn’t it be a welcome message that the profits of war are offered in homage to the righteous leader of the place of peace, that war is inferior to peace? Paul writes in today’s passage, “For many live as enemies of the cross of Christ.” It is a hard lesson to grasp, especially at a time when we must watch war crimes in real-time, that Jesus’ cross is the unequivocal testimony of non-violence. Jesus offers no physical resistance to the violence of the cross. He actually reprimands an unnamed follower who has resorted to violence, saying, “‘Put your sword back into its place; for all who take the sword will perish by the sword. Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father, and he will at once send me more than twelve legions of angels?’” (Matthew 26:52-53) With but one armed follower Jesus does not resign Himself to non-violence because there is no alternative. Jesus believes that with but a request God in heaven will avenge this coming evil. Jesus rejects violence intrinsically. Jesus is thoroughly non-violent, and the scandal of the cross is Jesus’ most emphatic proof of this. On this second Lenten Friday, these Fridays being especially forceful reminders of Good Friday, we must try to deal with the reality of the cross’ revelation that our Saviour, like the timeless Melchizedek, is the king of righteousness who rules over the land of peace, and that we, like the people of God anticipated in the person of Abram, must pay our respects even in times of war to the greater truth that is peace, that is the greater truth of “the cross of Christ.” I wish we did not have to deal with the savagery that is taking place in Ukraine at present, but we must. However, may that savagery teach us to not glorify war and to instead recognize it as the source of almost unimaginable atrocities. May this increasing awareness among disparate peoples around the globe give peace a fighting chance, and may this help us to not “live as enemies of the cross of Christ.” If you’d like, here is the link to the Southern New England Conference’s daily reading schedule: www.sneucc.org/lectionary. Throughout the year, the Southern New England Conference of the United Church of Christ reproduces the Daily Lectionary for use by churches. These are the suggested readings for March 10th: Genesis 13:1-7, 14-18; Psalm 27; and Philippians 3:2-12. I would encourage you to read these short selections as part of your Lenten practice.
Do we tend to think of faith as a noun or as a verb? As a noun, faith means the content of what we believe. As a verb, faith means the act of believing, how we practice and live what we believe. The two work together. Faith as both a noun and a verb means that it’s personal. We’ve invested ourselves in what we believe by acting on what we believe. Take the example of Abram in today’s reading. His relationship with God is so deeply personal that it needs to be expressed in terms of a conversation. Abram and Yahweh are presented as speaking with one another in ordinary fashion. Abram settles by Hebron and God promises Abram all the surrounding lands. How does Abram memorialize this sacred conversation? He builds an altar there to God. Abram honours the encounter with Yahweh in this way, but the altar then makes the place sacred too, not only the initial encounter. The altar memorializes the relationship. This happens throughout history, and across religious divides. Often times, a place that is sacred in one religion, if overtaken, will become a sacred place in a subsequent religion. Archaeologists can dig down into the earth and reach further and further back into history, and there they find that one religion’s sacred building is built above the remains of a previous religion’s sacred structure. The place takes on a religious significance of its own, but we should not forget that it all begins with an exceptionally personal spiritual connection. Hopefully, the transition to a sacred site enhances the ability of subsequent believers to find their own personal, spiritual encounters there. As I have mentioned in the past, I would love to visit Nazareth’s old synagogue because Jesus must have once worshiped there. The holiness of the place isn’t only because Jesus was there in the past, but because the place can inspire a special closeness to Jesus in the present. Hopefully, remembering the story of a religious place like Hebron does not end with Abram’s encounter of the divine. Hopefully, it is not only faith as a noun, as in the faith of Abram, but also faith as a verb, as sharing in a faithful encounter with God like Abram once did. Faith needs to be personal, not only remembering and honouring someone else’s personal faith. This need for a personal connection with the divine is expressed so beautifully and authentically in the Pauline selection today. Paul revels in the closeness of Christ, and reveals that it is this personal relationship that inspires and empowers his own faith. Paul’s Epistles have helped church and Christians to define the content of faith as a noun, but his lived faith is what believers should hope to emulate. Listen again to his confession: “I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord … I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection … because Christ Jesus has made me his own.” We still teach Paul’s faith as noun, but the power of faith is to live it with a passion like Paul shares today. I hope and pray that our Lenten journeys will help us to deepen our personal connections with Jesus, with the Jesus who loves us each enough to go to the cross for us. Knowing faith is one thing. Lent calls upon us to make that faith personal with a passion like that of Paul. If you’d like, here is the link to the Southern New England Conference’s daily reading schedule: www.sneucc.org/lectionary. Throughout the year, the Southern New England Conference of the United Church of Christ reproduces the Daily Lectionary for use by churches. These are the suggested readings for March 9th: Job 1:1-22; Psalm 17; and Luke 21:34—22:6. I would encourage you to read these short selections as part of your Lenten practice.
I do not understand why the Consultation on Common Texts (CCT), the ecumenical body of Protestants and Catholics that compiles the lectionary, begins Lent with such a concentrated emphasis upon the devil. We meet Satan once again in today’s selection from Job. The prose sections of this Old Testament book are judged to be very early in the religious history of Israel, while the poetic dialogues come along as a later addition. Our selection today is so early in Israel’s religious formation that Satan takes on an unfamiliar sounding role to our ears. John Adams, one of the Patriot leaders of the Revolution, was a lawyer. He represented the British soldiers who fired on protesting Bostonians 252 years ago this past Saturday in what came to be known as “the Boston Massacre.” He was much maligned for this, but Adams insisted that for the judicial process to be fair and impartial it required a strong defense for those charged no matter how egregious the alleged crime. The newly named Supreme Court nominee, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, may bring a defense attorney’s perspective to the nation’s highest court. This has caused some to question her credentials, but just like John Adams this perspective is an essential element in a fair judiciary. As unexpected as it may sound to our ears, Satan takes on the unpopular but necessary role of one of the players in the heavenly courtroom. The Hebrew term śāṭān (Hebrew: שָׂטָן) is a generic noun meaning "accuser" or "adversary," and it is derived from a verb meaning primarily "to obstruct, oppose." Satan’s role may not be popular, but neither is it opposed to God’s justice. Satan, in other words, is not the evil counterpart to God. Satan actually joins the heavenly conclave and, well, plays the devil’s advocate. We read: “Then Satan answered the Lord, ‘Does Job fear God for nothing? Have you not put a fence around him and his house and all that he has, on every side?’” Then, God grants Satan power to harm Job and his family. Satan cannot harm on his own; he cannot act unilaterally. He can only act as God allows. This reflects the early theology that God was responsible for everything that happened, good and bad. Eventually, believers had a good deal of difficulty with this, and they heaped on the character of Satan, the already unpopular accuser, the power to act independently and contrary to the will of God. Satan took on the darker shadings of the Almighty. This we see in action in today’s Gospel selection where Satan leads Judas into treachery against Jesus. I think it may be time to take a step away from this whole mythology and realize that we are intelligent and free beings, which makes us in the image of God. As such, we can knowingly and freely choose paths of destruction, and God will not prevent these evils because God will not eviscerate our essential human nature by turning us into robots that can only do as God commands. We can take the easy way out and blame a Satan, or we can choose to face the consequences of our own making and try to do better. In a world that has no problem bombing civilians as they flee from besieged cities along paths agreed to in formal cease fires, in a world where the unfathomable reality of nuclear weapons has become fathomable, we don’t need Satan. We can do just fine on our own at creating evil. But if evil is our responsibility, then evil is counteracted by Jesus’ gospel – IF we choose to follow it. And this is Jesus’ command to “Be on guard.” May Lent give us time to focus on our lives, to see the harm of evil and the welcome blessing of the gospel. If you’d like, here is the link to the Southern New England Conference’s daily reading schedule: www.sneucc.org/lectionary. Throughout the year, the Southern New England Conference of the United Church of Christ reproduces the Daily Lectionary for use by churches. These are the suggested readings for March 8th: Psalm 17; Zechariah 3:1-10; and 2 Peter 2:4-21. I would encourage you to read these short selections as part of your Lenten practice.
Carl Jung was a famous 20th century psychiatrist. He once observed: “Thinking is difficult, that’s why most people judge.” Jesus’ teaching technique is most associated with the parable. Parables are stories that are meant to get people thinking. They often play on human assumptions. Jesus’ stories lead their listeners to expect they know the outcome and then suddenly Jesus pulls the rug out from beneath them. And as soon as the listener is confused, the gospel has a chance to make its impact because the listener must start to think. The early Gnostics – based on the Greek word gnosis or knowledge – have left a stigma on knowledge. It is almost as if knowledge compromises faith, that faith must be blind and obedient to be authentic. It’s too bad that the Gnostics left their imprint on the story of the Tree of Knowledge in Genesis because there is some merit to a rereading of the story. Hopefully we’re familiar with Eve taking the serpent’s advice and eating of the fruit, and then giving it to a rather doltish Adam. They realize immediately that they are naked and they create rudimentary clothing. Up to this moment, they were like the other animals in Eden, who were, as the story goes, created by God as Adam’s partners. (Genesis 2:18) Now Adam and Eve are different than the other animals because they share knowledge with God, for as the serpent had said, “‘You will be like gods.’” (Genesis 3:5) God then reacts to this new reality. God makes “garments of skins” (Genesis 3:21) for Adam and Eve. This further differentiates humans from the other animals. Before knowledge, they all coexisted. Now God allows for humans to kill animals and use them for their needs. I realize that there is an ethical reading of this lost coexistence as idyllic, much like Isaiah’s wolf living with the lamb (11:6+), but in the broader scope of Genesis this differentiation is the beginning of a long road to human responsibility and creativity. Look at the original doltish Adam who when he receives the fruit from Eve is described as merely the one “who was with her.” (Genesis 3:6) Eve’s motives are complicated; Adam is simply simple. Up to the point of gaining knowledge, the human couple had everything provided for them by God. Idyllic maybe, but sad in the sense that they really have no way of providing for themselves. However, by the end of Genesis, by the end of “the beginning,” Joseph is the primary actor and provider. Reference to God dwindles, but as any parent hopes and knows, this is what is right and good. Any parent wants their child to have enough knowledge to become self-reliant. But the road from Eden to Joseph’s Egypt and beyond is a hard one, but Genesis seems to reveal that it is far better than the lazy one of lolling around Eden purposelessly for an eternity. Yes, thinking is difficult, but most anything worth its weight is. Jesus knew this and embraced it with His parables. This is why we need to combine faith with knowledge, with thinking. God has blessed us with intelligence. Let’s not turn it into a curse by divorcing it from our faith. I see this happen when religions and religious people give up on thinking and resort to judging. Today the leader of the Russian Orthodox Church exonerated the Russian instigated war in Ukraine with its possible war crimes because there are gay people in Ukraine. (https://www.newsweek.com/russian-orthodox-church-leader-blames-invasion-ukraines-gay-pride-1685636) He has passed judgment on gay people and simultaneously excused the killing of innocents, the destruction of cities and homes, the mass exodus of more than a million women and children, the separation of wives and children from husbands and fathers, not to mention the possibility of intentionally or accidently starting a nuclear war! The church leader ignores everything that Jesus teaches and relies on a silly judgment against gay parades. It is so ludicrous that even doltish Adam could see it. So in the face of unthinking religious judgment, let us think about our faith, and let us also trust in the God who is always there even when we commit unthinking atrocities against one another, for as the Psalmist writes for us today: “Wondrously show your steadfast love, O saviour of those who seek refuge from their adversaries at your right hand.” And if you’d like to join us for online Bible study this evening and think about the Word of God, please send an email to randyc1897@gmail.com for the login. If you’d like, here is the link to the Southern New England Conference’s daily reading schedule: www.sneucc.org/lectionary. Throughout the year, the Southern New England Conference of the United Church of Christ reproduces the Daily Lectionary for use by churches. These are the suggested readings for March 7th: 1 Chronicles 21:1-17; Psalm 17; and 1 John 2:1-6. I would encourage you to read these short selections as part of your Lenten practice.
If you were with us yesterday for church, you heard the Gospel selection of Jesus’ temptation or testing in the wilderness. I shared my thoughts that the literal reading of the text distracted from the powerful meaning of the text. Two thousand years ago, people saw evil spirits everywhere. Heck, even 300 years ago and only about 100 miles east of here the people of Salem saw evidence of witches right in their very own neighbours. If you want to read a frightening book, read or re-read Arthur Miller’s The Crucible about the Salem witch trials. It was set in the 1690’s, but it’s message was meant for the 1950’s. The Cold War witch hunts were conducted by Joseph McCarthy’s House Un-American Activities Committee. McCarthy judged Miller a Communist and just like in Salem the only way for Miller to exonerate himself was to name names, which he refused to do. There were consequences for being a person of principle. Miller’s previous play was the much-acclaimed Death of a Salesman. It ran on Broadway for 742 performances. The Crucible was produced after Miller’s appearance before McCarthy. It lasted for only 197 performances, and it only made it this long because the cast accepted a pay cut to keep the show on stage. Miller’s next play lasted for only 149 performances, and then Miller was banished from the stage for the next nine years. I think McCarthy was far more un-American than Miller; I think the Salem witches were innocent and the judges guilty; and I think there are far more profound issues in the account of Jesus’ testing in the wilderness than a devil carrying Jesus from mountaintop to Temple pinnacle. But that was all in yesterday’s sermon. In today’s reading list, I would like to ask you to add one additional verse. It is 2 Samuel 24:1, which states: “Again the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he incited David against them, saying, ‘Go, count the people of Israel and Judah.’” When this account is rewritten during or after the nation’s exile to Babylon, we now read in today’s selection from 1 Chronicles: “Satan stood up against Israel, and incited David to count the people of Israel.” I don’t know if you caught the significant change between the first and second text. If you look at them a second time, you’ll see that in the first text what God had done becomes in the second text what Satan had done. The reason for the change is not a change in the nature of God. It was a change in the theology about God. Before the Exile, Israel counted God as the uncontested supernatural power, which meant that God was responsible for good and for bad. During the Exile, the Jews were exposed to a dualistic theology, one of a good God and an evil nemesis. This was to alleviate the problem of theodicy, the accusation that God caused bad things to happen to good people. And the two texts above show this taking place right in the biblical text. Additionally, Jesus comes to us from a different place that simply does not need the distraction of evil spirits. Instead, as we read in today’s selection from 1 John: “My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.” Jesus the righteous is our advocate not our accuser. The shift in religious thought has moved from evil to righteous, from accusation to advocate. This is the Saviour we seek to know better during our Season of Lent. If you’d like, here is the link to the Southern New England Conference’s daily reading schedule: www.sneucc.org/lectionary. Throughout the year, the Southern New England Conference of the United Church of Christ reproduces the Daily Lectionary for use by churches. These are the suggested readings for March 5th: Psalm 91:1-2, 9-16; Ecclesiastes 3:1-8; and John 12:27-36. I would encourage you to read these short selections as part of your Lenten practice.
Today’s second reading is rather familiar although the why escapes me. It is poetic, but not all that insightful. Its message is that life changes. Well, yeah. It speaks to people as a message that life is transient, and this is why I hear this passage often at weddings and funerals, but is this revelatory? I sometimes wonder what goes through my dog’s mind as we take our walks at the change of seasons. I sense that he remembers what snow is after the first new snowfall of a season. I sense that he remembers how cool the stream is in the heat of summer’s first hot day. I sense that my dog understands that “for everything there is a season.” And my beloved Mason is not the brightest bulb on the shelf. Maybe the resonance of this rather familiar passage is that it is comforting in times of distress and gratifying in times of blessing. Maybe it reminds us to take stock of time, to enjoy times of healing, laughter, dancing and peace so that in times of death, weeping, mourning and war we can remember what was and hope in what will return. But again, I don’t find this revelatory. I think my problem with this biblical passage is that it wraps in the mantle of the sacred the notion that we are forever consigned to repeat history. We are now, for example, in a time of war in Europe. There has not been this scale of conflict in Europe since 1945 – 77 years ago. In generational terms, this is three generations of an uneasy but present peace. For three generations, we have lived with MAD – Mutual Assured Destruction. The unbearable, unthinkable prospect of nuclear war, and its Mutual Assured Destruction maintained the peace – not because we were a peace-loving people, but because nuclear war was too unimaginable. Now Putin talks of the threat of using nuclear weapons against any nation that would dare to interfere in his war against the Ukrainians, and commentators are again having to discuss for public consumption what this all means. What makes all of this so tragic is that none but a few zealots want war, not to mention nuclear war. People in Russia, Russian conscripts, people in Ukraine, people assembling in city centers around the world, 141 nations in the UN General Assembly, all want peace, but war is forced upon us for reasons of pride and greed, with maybe a bit of insanity thrown into the mix. We are again held hostage by war. We again long for times of peace. And it seems like human history simply cycles around once again. But is this revelatory? Is fait accompli the will and way of God or is it a lazy human resignation? I believe that the pendulum of revelation, culminating in the life, ministry and gospel of Jesus wants us to break free of this notion of necessarily repetitive history, and seek instead to establish our better selves. The full human nature of Jesus even to the point of His crucified death is that in Him we can be godly. The United Church of Christ inherits from the early Congregationalists a hope in Postmillennialism, that the reign of God comes to earth only after the People of God have proven worthy of it by embracing, practicing and letting prosper our Christian ethics. This is the rejection of the idea that God must intervene to prevent us from destroying everything, that a future of war is inevitable, and that as war’s technology grows ever more lethal, that the annihilation of everything can only be prevented by God putting us in the corner for a child’s time-out. I believe that what is revelatory is that we can be better, and it still amazes me that this promise is fulfilled by a crucified Saviour. I invite you to come and join us at worship tomorrow. We will pray for peace and we will talk of Lent as the disruptive reminder that things do not have to be the way they always have been, that to break free of this cycle we need to better embrace and be embraced by Jesus. If you have any questions about how to join us for worship tomorrow, please send me an email at randyc1897@gmail. com. If you’d like, here is the link to the Southern New England Conference’s daily reading schedule: www.sneucc.org/lectionary. |
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