ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGS Thought for the Day: Some of the great moments in my ministry have been on Youth Mission Trips. There is always a need for caution – that we don’t get too much of a Messiah Complex – showing up as if we are there to rescue those in need. Mission Trips have been the most successful when the youth were able to step away from much of the other stuff that consumed them, and then felt as if they were able to be helpful…to work alongside others with a sense of purpose. So many youth would have described their faith as dead or on life support when the trip started, but by the time they put it to work in flood relief, building a medical clinic, working with the elderly in a poor community, etc, their faith had a renewed pulse. Faith without some purpose is an empty belief system, yet too many people continue to cling to it. Your purpose may not require you to travel long distances. In fact, your purpose right now might be something within your own home. But when we feel that sense of purpose, our faith comes to life. Prayer: No matter where I am in this faith journey, O Lord, let me be reminded of how you are not done with me. Continue to call my faith into life, into a strong witness for the Kingdom of love, the Kingdom revealed in the life of Jesus. Amen. via WordPress https://ift.tt/2DMbC7P
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ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGS Thought for the Day: Can faith save you? This is one of the great questions of Christian history, specifically emerging from The Protestant Reformation. As you may know, there was quite the battle between salvation by faith and salvation by works. Basically the question was whether someone got to heaven by their good deeds or their faith in Jesus. The Book of James was an outlier, especially during the Reformation. I know that some will think I am an outlier, though in fact, I am not alone in my thinking when I say that they are both a bit wrong. Both salvation by works and salvation by faith, at least in their purest sense, don’t have an appreciation of grace. Salvation by works can easily put people on the hamster wheel of righteousness, doing more and more and more, yet not feeling like they are doing enough. There is never peace, never any break from the anxiety. At the same time, salvation by faith has always been a linguistic game where the rules change regularly. What defines faith? I have heard people say, “All you need is faith in Jesus.” But that statement is immediately followed by their unique exclusions, caveats and list of dos and don’ts. It may sound more pious, but The Protestant Reformation, in my opinion, has brought us to the very same place as salvation by works. Faith – in all of its rhetorical twists and stylistic gymnastics – has put people on another hamster wheel of righteousness. They are both running the religious rat race, a race that many are quick to claim a victory is within reach… but it usually ends when one collapses from exhaustion inside the wheel. At the end of the day, I do not believe it is works or faith that save a person. It is grace, and grace alone. Prayer: Wherever Christians are pushing something other than your grace, O God, there is usually an alternative motive, such as power or money. There have been so many moments in our history when groups have got folks on the hamster wheel of righteousness, hoping they’d never notice what the institution was doing or not doing. Forgive us when we join those games where no one can really win. Bring us, once again, to your grace. Allow for the life of Jesus, the embodiment of grace, to become our source of liberation and inspiration. Amen. via WordPress https://ift.tt/3heb5sI ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGS Thought for the Day: Now James does not toss out grace and mercy, but he demands consistency when it comes to living the faith. Perfection is a word that appears in the Book of James, but maybe a helpful way for us to think of it is complete or fullness. We are never going to be without sin or error, but James does not want the life of faith to be some smorgasbord where we pick and choose. If someone does really well in certain areas, that’s wonderful, but this is not the Cap & Trade of Forgiveness. You don’t excel in one area so as to buy your way out of another. It is not about picking your top three Fruit of the Spirit, hoping your exceptional work with joy, generosity and faithfulness will have folk ignoring your complete failure in the areas of peace, patience and kindness. The Prophets of old called out such behavior. For James it was about striving for consistency, and in those times when we fall short with sin and failure, the expectation is for confession and repentance to follow. And I believe James was expecting his readers to wake up the next day and say, “By God’s grace, today will be a better day, for I want to be a more complete Jesus follower.” Prayer: While I live each day in your grace, O God, I will not allow that gift to be the rationale for ignoring what needs to change. In fact, it will be your grace that provides the strength needed to make the change. Amen. via WordPress https://ift.tt/2Fj3gVn ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGS via WordPress https://ift.tt/3h74nFd ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGS Thought for the Day: This verse of scripture is referenced in today’s sermon. I like this translation (CEB), and the use of the word Imagine. I can almost hear Rod Serling from The Twilight Zone. In the TV series, it was an invitation to engage one’s imagination, but here in scripture, I find it as a gentle entry point into a tough conversation. James could have browbeaten them, making a harsh accusation right from the start. It allows the listeners to hear what is said, and as they begin to imagine, it doesn’t take much imagination. You can just picture some of them nodding as they know firsthand from that time greeting folks on a Sunday morning right before the whole pandemic thing started. There is some discomfort in acknowledging the possibility of some preferential treatment, yet the invitation to imagine is a much less threatening approach. My heals are not dug into the ground and my fingers are not in my ears. In today’s world, there might be something for us to learn when it comes to challenging people on tough issues. Prayer: Use my imagination as a path to confession and repentance. Invite me, Merciful God, and then join me in this important journey. Amen. TODAY’S SERMON via WordPress https://ift.tt/3h3m2NO ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGS Thought for the Day: As you may know, the 16th century reformer, Martin Luther, wanted to exclude The Book of James from the Bible, though it was for a very specific theological reason. Over the years, I have met numerous people who have echoed Martin Luther’s desire to put James in some nonBiblical category, but their reason was mostly connected to passages like the one above. They were fine talking about love and the cross and the empty tomb, but they had very little interest in talking about what our faith should look like as it relates to the most vulnerable in our world. They wanted the peace that came with God’s grace, while not being confronted with voices like Dietrich Bonhoeffer who challenged the church on what he called Cheap Grace. Plenty of folks seek the benefits of God’s grace, but are not interested in the responsibility and expectations associated with grace. I want James exactly where it is because there are days when I need James. It almost feels like a healthy tug of war, where we find ourselves in the tension of grace – the tension between the liberating gift of grace and the holy requirement put before those who have accepted the gift. Prayer: May your grace that has liberated me, O Holy One of Heaven, be the catalyst that thrusts me into the world where your grace is so desperately needed. Amen. via WordPress https://ift.tt/2ZcA0qK ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGS Thought for the Day: Let that soak in for a moment, especially the second half: “…anger does not produce God’s righteousness.” Now I don’t wish to suggest that James was wrong, and in fact, I won’t. At the same time, it is important to clarify the difference between unhinged anger and righteous indignation. Righteous indignation is often called anger, and maybe it is a form of anger, but it is not an unhealthy anger. That’s the reason I prefer to use righteous indignation as it allows for some clarification in our semantics. I see a lot of unhinged anger today, and most of it is emerging from fear that is recklessly seeking someone to blame. Righteous indignation emerges, not from fear, but from a deep-seated understanding and conviction of rightness (or justice). And like fingernails on the chalkboard, when something before us is inconsistent with that sense of rightness, there is a part of us that cannot remain silent. Before one can feel righteous indignation, it is necessary to know what the rightness of God looks like. And if we allow the life of Jesus to be our starting place, from the meals he shared to the parables he taught, we will begin to glimpse what the rightness of God is for our own lives and for our community. Prayer: There are things that make me angry. There are people who can bring the worst out of me. Merciful God, continue to show me ways of living that do not allow for anger to consume me in unhealthy ways. Yet where a little righteous indignation is needed, allow for me to speak your rightness, your justice to the world. Amen. via WordPress https://ift.tt/354z633 ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGS Thought for the Day: I have never fully known what to do with this passage of scripture. Over the years, I have listened to clergy use it to begin their sermon, only to go and do something entirely different with the sermon. Though as I think about Jesus, and statements like the first will be last and the last will be first, there was a clear underlying message of a Great Reversal. Jesus declared in the Sermon on the Mount, “Blessed are those who mourn…” Most of us, when we are grieving, are not thinking of ourselves as blessed. Yet it sounds as if Jesus was seeking to communicate an alternative vision of priorities in God’s kingdom. When you live in a culture 24/7, and it values certain things that do not represent the values of Jesus, it is easy to get lost in those other values – before long, an individual is scrambling for more money, more power, more stuff. Those were very much the values in the Roman Empire, and it sure sounds as if James was playing on this great reversal taught by Jesus. It is hard to imagine the poor having a high status, the wealthy having a low status, but that is what James envisioned. Such statements confound us, causing discomfort, but they also force us to ask questions, including: Whose values do I really honor with my life? Prayer: Even the passages that cause discomfort or confusion should not be dismissed. Let them sit in my head and in my heart, O Gracious God, for there is much to learn. Amen. via WordPress https://ift.tt/3i1pSIQ ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGS Thought for the Day: When faith helps you hold your own against despair, loneliness, lostness, fear and grief, an endurance begins to build. Part of it is an endurance of memory, remembering how you got through a previous challenge. It does not take away the pain or anxiousness, yet the capacity to recall a previous journey is beneficial. I may not have been in this exact situation before, but I trust that God will not leave me in this darkness because God has never left me in the darkness. In the current moment, I may have no idea how I will make it through, but the One who journeyed with me before will not abandon me now. My trust is grounded in experiences, from significant to nearly inconsequential, both my own and those of others. Every situation is contributing to a more resilient and enduring memory. Prayer: Let the memories I have – all of them – be applied to the work of building a resilient and enduring faith. Assist me, Holy God, as I continue to grow in my capacity to be a witness to your everlasting love. Amen. TODAY’S STUDIES LiveStream On via WordPress https://ift.tt/2DmQEw7 ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGS Thought for the Day: For the next two Sundays, I am preaching on the book of James. When I’m needing a personal challenge, I know James will not disappoint. Here at the beginning, James speaks of testing. As young people are headed back to school, we can be confident that testing is on their mind. For them, a test is something designed by a teacher (or some entity in the educational structure) that is put before them. If they are challenged by the test or feel as if it is unfair, their negativity is usually pointed at the one who put the test before them – the teacher. Within faith, the word test appears often, and many people assume the test giver is God. This assumption emerges from a challenge, often determined as unfair, that is thrust before an individual. It is believed that the test giver is to blame. But what if a lot of the tests put before us don’t necessarily have a test giver? What if the things we call tests are nothing more than challenges and obstacles of life. I remember getting a call from a guy who got two teeth knocked out in a basketball game, and it was right before a big presentation at work. He was angry and asked, “Why is God testing me this way?” Actually, when your head is going down at a fairly good clip and the back of your opponent’s head is moving in the opposite direction, the only test I think of is related to the impact of an unstoppable force meeting an immovable object…and something almost always loses. When bad or less than pleasing things happen in life, there is a yearning to thrust the blame on something or someone. Yet playing basketball comes with certain risks. For James, I don’t believe he wrote of testing one’s faith for the purpose of trying to cast blame. Instead, he asked his readers: How are you going to respond to this challenge, this unexpected obstacle put before you? How does faith in God’s unconditional and redemptive love play itself out in such moments? What kind of positive change might it bring? What kind of witness does it provide? To really struggle with those questions requires us to move beyond blaming God for the test. Prayer: You don’t need to test us, Merciful God, as the world around us does a pretty dandy job. Let us not waste time in seeking to blame someone or something. Instead, encourage us to find a faithful response to all the challenges and obstacles that appear in our lives. Amen. via WordPress https://ift.tt/3hQFCxW |
AuthorRev. Bruce Frogge Archives
April 2024
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