ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGS Thought for the Day: Who really wants to hear someone say, “I am sending you out like sheep into the midst of wolves”? No one is going to ask, “Are they nice wolves?” -or- “Can you, instead, send us into the midst of some really fluffy kittens?” Of course, the rhetoric of Jesus doesn’t ease up as he goes on to speak of arrest and flogging, being drug in front of unsympathetic leaders. Where did we ever get the idea that Christianity is supposed to be jovial and easy, pain-free and undemanding? It wasn’t from scripture or Jesus? In today’s world, following Jesus is going to take on some discomfort for some of us, even challenging us to see things differently, pushing us on what it means to honor another person’s experience that may be far different than our own. I don’t know if we can ever truly walk in someone else’s shoes, but there are moments when we can catch a glimpse. Those are gifts, and usually moments that are a mix of pain, awe and respect. Prayer: Thank you, Lord God, for all the saints and martyrs who have provided an awe-inspiring glimpse at what love and faithfulness can look like. I’m not real excited about joining the martyrs, yet I do not wish to be silent or aloof to the cries of those who suffer this day. Show me how best to be part of real and lasting transformation, Easter morning transformation. Amen. via WordPress https://ift.tt/2BmrX1m
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ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGS Thought for the Day: Today is Juneteenth, or Jubilee Day. It is the day in which we commemorate the end of slavery in this country. I have known of Juneteenth for years, but sadly I did not know the history of why it was on June 19 until I moved to Texas. You probably already know how the Emancipation Proclamation was made on January 1, 1863. The Civil War came to an end on April 9, 1865. It wasn’t until June 19 of that same year that General Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston and announced to enslaved African Americans that the Civil War was over and they were free. I know I am slow to this realization, but what does it mean for freedom to be delayed? How many people died in slavery even after slavery was ended? Too often the message people long to hear is delayed. It is one thing to teach a child patience, it is something very different for someone to suffer because a message did not make it to the ears of those who needed to hear it. Today, where do you hear cries like that of the Psalmist – How long, O Lord? Where have you experienced unnecessary delays that had real and painful implications? Where might God be calling you to carry a message of Good News into the life of someone who has been waiting for far too long for such a message? Prayer: How long, O Lord, how long? This is the cry of so many in every generation. Empower us with the Good News and a willingness to carry that Good News wherever it has yet to be spoken and shared. Amen. via WordPress https://ift.tt/313eBSF ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGS Thought for the Day: Have you ever heard someone say, “I’m like a duck. Stuff rolls off me like rain.” There are probably people who truly are duck-like, but most of us are not. We can have 10 successes in one day, but the one failure (or negative) is what consumes us, especially as we lay in bed that night. Jesus encouraged us to take our peace with us and shake the dust from our feet as we move on. Some of us might be good at this in one aspect of life, but lousy in another way. For more than a decade, the business world has celebrated failure in the belief that innovation requires failure. But innovation won’t happen if we are unable to move beyond the failure. For Jesus, there was an urgency in sharing the news of the Kingdom of Heaven, and it feels as if Jesus wanted us to move forward when things did not succeed. Doing some evaluation and seeking ways of improving are always good, and I doubt Jesus was opposed to such things. Don’t you think it was the “stuck thing” that Jesus was most concerned about? I am reminded of the parable of the sower who sowed the seeds, but didn’t get frustrated and spend a bunch of time digging the seeds out from the rocks or those near the weeds. In many situations, our task is to sow the seeds of love, and to realize (as Paul will say) that maybe someone else will come along, when we are no longer present, and do the watering and the weeding necessary to see it grow and flourish. Don’t let failures, or even less than stellar moments, consume you. There is work to be done. Prayer: I am a human, not a duck. Stuff doesn’t always roll off me. Help, Gracious God, especially in those moments when I am too focused on a failure to see the next new thing coming my way. Amen. via WordPress https://ift.tt/30QdMwh ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGS Thought for the Day: Had Jesus said this before commissioning you to go beyond your usual community, what would you have been saying to yourself? You might not have said it out loud, but I’m guessing the conversation inside your head would have consisted of some questions, or even the words: Are you crazy! How big is your suitcase even if you’re only getting away for a long weekend? Sadly around our house, there are times it looks as if we left less stuff at the house. This is one of those passages that most of us confine to the first century, specifically a command given to the group of twelve, and no one else. As much as I’d like to think of it in those terms, and move on, I believe there are challenges to be found for us. I hear those words with a question: How has my stuff, and my need to hold tight to my stuff, become the rationale for why I cannot do what God might be calling me to do? For many people, this pandemic has provided some time to clean out a closet or the garage, and to get rid of some of that excess stuff. How many of us, when things settle down, will fill in those empty spaces with more stuff? I hear Jesus challenging me to ask the question, “What is it that keeps me from following God more faithfully?” For many of us, it might be stuff. For others, it might be something else. The question we ask ourselves, and the struggle that follows, are often where our faith really grows. Prayer: Today is another day where I can do my best to make sure that nothing really changes. Holy God, today might be the day that I need to make some changes. In fact, they might be long overdue changes, but today is the day I have and I desire to make something of it. Be honest with me and I will try to be honest with myself. Allow for your grace to give me the space for what might be difficult, even painful. But in the end, faithfulness to the works of love and mercy, kindness and healing, is what I desire. Amen. TODAY via WordPress https://ift.tt/2Y6Hyeu ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGS Thought for the Day: As I continue to move through this section of Matthew’s Gospel, we come to this point of commissioning. Matthew’s Gospel has always been seen as focusing more on the Jewish community, specifically during the ministry of Jesus. Here Jesus sends the disciples to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, with an announcement – The kingdom of heaven has come near. Jesus described this heavenly kingdom as Eggizo, the Greek word we translate as: come near, approach or at hand. These words should sound familiar as Jesus was echoing the proclamation of John the Baptist, from the third chapter. What direction is this heavenly kingdom coming? So often, people are looking to the sky, assuming it will fall from the clouds to the earth. But for Jesus, it was coming near/at hand as it came alive through faithfulness to the ways of God. When the disciples of John the Baptist asked Jesus if he was the Messiah/Christ, the anointed one who would represent this heavenly kingdom, Jesus responded by telling them, “Go and share with John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them.” Wherever healing, restoration, transformation and salvation are manifest in the world, the Kingdom of heaven has come near. Prayer: O Source of Kingdom Light, show us once again the kingdom in the life of Jesus, and in glimpsing this reign of love and new life, inspire us to do likewise. Amen. TODAY IS THE DAY via WordPress https://ift.tt/37xnGEt ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGS via WordPress https://ift.tt/2ArpkLL ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGS Thought for the Day: Jesus invited his disciples to pray for the Lord to send out laborers because the harvest was ready. For Matthew, this is an eschatological image, a picture of God’s new reign. It is interesting how the disciples are called upon to pray for these laborers, and upon turning to chapter 10, we learn how the answer to the disciples’ prayer is for the disciples to become the laborers whom Jesus sends. In fact, Matthew will use the language of apostle to describe the twelve for the first time which means to be sent out. Have you ever prayed, asking God to solve a problem, and God’s answer appears to be, “I call you!” Matthew West has a song that we would occasionally sing in the Contemporary Service: Do Something. There are some great lines in the song, including: So, I shook my fist at Heaven If you are like me, I have wept often during my prayers the last few months, but even more intensely since the death of George Floyd. The prayers have been a mix of grief and hopelessness, but with a hint of frustration directed at God, “Darn it, God, do something!” Though if I am interpreting the divine response, it is a gentle, but firm, “You, as a human race, can do this. You must do this.” In a 72 hour period, I have had 41 separate conversations (a mix of Cypress Creek folks and community folks), mostly online, about race in this country. Though not everyone, my take away was ha been that most people are hearing the same message from God. Prayer: Lord God, I have a strange feeling that I am once again the answer to my own prayer, or at least a part of that answer. Wherever my gifts can be put to use, show me. Wherever I need to learn a little more, help me make the time. Call me, as you have so many others, to be a part of those who are being sent as laborers in the restoration of all creation. Amen. SUNDAY MORNING via WordPress https://ift.tt/37qks5B ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGS Thought for the Day: This seems to be a common attack on Jesus, suggesting that for Jesus to have the authority to cast out demons, he must have a demon connection himself. I can just imagine people in the crowd saying, “I’ve never thought of that, but it makes complete sense to me.” Throughout history, people of power have been amazingly good at redirecting the attention of others from what was really occurring. Jesus had been healing people left and right, and then he followed it by casting out a demon. People whose lives had been broken, people who had lived in the shadows because of an ailment, were suddenly set free. I can only imagine joy and holy elation from those who were made whole, but with only a few words a rumor was started that had the potential of undermining the good that had been done. Change was coming, yet the guardians of the old rules etched in stone were willing to do whatever was necessary to make sure change was thwarted. They were only mildly successful. Prayer: Let me join the voices of joy wherever wholeness is experienced. Let me be about your work, Creative God, by keeping the Body of Christ focused on the good things you are doing among us. Amen. DON’T FORGET via WordPress https://ift.tt/2YyZMnE ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGS Thought for the Day: We tend to typecast the religious leaders at the time of Jesus, viewing them as hypocritical and out to get Jesus, but that wasn’t necessarily true of everyone. Our tendency as human beings is to view the world in categories, but people rarely fit the categories we create. This religious leader, even if it was for selfish reasons, came and knelt before Jesus. He was convinced that Jesus could bring his daughter back to life. Could it be that this religious leader had been, at one time, in complete agreement with other religious leaders in regard to Jesus? They did not like him and wanted him out of the picture. And then, without notice, illness and death came to this man’s home. Suddenly that event had him seeing Jesus in a completely different light. Even if it was only a slim possibility that Jesus could revive his daughter, it was worth a shift in how he viewed Jesus. It is strange how desperation can have us looking where we never imagined we’d look, and even more surprisingly, discovering what we never imagined we’d find. Prayer: Create within me, Holy God, a capacity to see beyond the many categories that have been imposed upon our world. Surprise me, as you so often have, for I desire to see Jesus in a way that I have never seen him before. Amen. via WordPress https://ift.tt/2B1sTYZ ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGS Thought for the Day: As a young kid, I remember hearing the song, Turn! Turn! Turn! The song is based upon the well known words from the Book of Ecclesiastes: To every thing there is a season… The song actually hit Number One on the Billboard Charts before I was born, but one Sunday evening, after an earlier Sunday School lesson from Ecclesiastes, there was this aha moment as I heard the song on the radio. Come to find out, there has never been another number one pop song that had more scripture in it…nothing even close. I share that background because Jesus seemed to talk about certain things occurring in the proper season, at the right time. Once you move away from God as the great puppeteer, controlling every move of every human being, to an understanding of God who respects free will, you begin to realize how involved we need to be in the realization of the vision presented by Jesus. God not only needs us, but God expects us to be a part of the process. And there are moments in human history when seismic shifts have occurred, and those moments were not magic or brought about by a really good speech. The moment was right and ripe, in part, because there was a tipping point in the collective consciousness of humanity…a tipping point that had been building long before the tip ever occurred. Some are always a little dumbfounded by what appeared to be an unexpected and dramatic change, but for many others, the generational hope had been consistently building and gaining strength. Jesus recognized how important the season was – a time to laugh, a time to cry; a time to dance, a time to mourn; a time to enjoy a meal, a time to fast. Often fasting would come just ahead of the tipping point. Prayer: Holy God, create within me a holy awareness so that I am not blindsided by the movement of your Spirit. I do not wish to be caught off guard by the new thing you are doing. Instead, I want to feel as if I somehow participated in seeing some small part of your vision actualized. Amen. TONIGHT via WordPress https://ift.tt/2UxXnZo |
AuthorRev. Bruce Frogge Archives
April 2024
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