Lent Day 7 February 29

Lenten Reflection for Day 7

Date: February 29, 2012

Author: John Harris

Bible Passage: Philippians 2:12–13 (NRSV)

¹² Therefore, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed me, not only in my presence, but much more now in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; ¹³ for it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure.

Reflection: God is always at work in our neighbors, even those “curmudgeonly” neighbors who you wish, on occasion, would just dry up and blow away. It is easy to see God at work in folks like Barbara McKinley and Al Evans. Barbara was always willing to pitch in and see a project to completion, whether it was the Thanksgiving in-gathering or an advocacy issue with the Upper Valley Interfaith Project. Al was always ready with a kind word and a joke that would make even the most resolute “Grinch” smile. It was easy to look into their faces and see the face of Jesus reflected back into yours.

But what about those difficult co-workers, fellow students, and neighbors who appear not to have a drop of human kindness or empathy left in them? How is the light of Christ reflected in them? We need to look at the difficult people in our lives as fellow travellers trying to work out their salvation with the same “fear and trembling” as we are. We need to keep the communication channels open with them, to go out of way to empathize with them, to be conduits for their stories and experiences, and, if need be, “kill” them with kindness. Yes, Christ is found in the most unexpected places, on the cross, in a manger, in the pregnancy of a teenage girl, and even in the face of a troublesome acquaintance. God’s grace is a gift to them just as it to every person in God’s creation.

Prayer: Dear God, we see Jesus’ reflected glory in every person. Help us be good neighbors to everyone, as they come to recognize, in their own due time, the saving grace of Your only Son. Amen.

Lent Day 6 February 28

Lenten Reflection for Day 6

Date: February 28, 2012

Author: Pastor Pat Harris

Bible Passage: Mark 12:26–27 (NRSV)

²⁶ And as for the dead being raised, have you not read in the book of Moses, in the story about the bush, how God said to him, ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? ²⁷ He is God not of the dead, but of the living; you are quite wrong.”

Reflection:

This statement concerning God was made by Jesus, in response to the Sadducees’ challenge to him in the form a story about a woman who married each of seven brothers, in turn, after the previous one died. The Sadducees, who did not believe in resurrection, asked Jesus whose wife she would be in the resurrection. This fictional story was created by the Sadducees to be used as a type of insulting challenge to Jesus’ statements about resurrection. It is a kind of sideways attack, which attempts to discredit the idea of resurrection without making a direct hit.

Jesus, who was aware that the Sadducees only accepted the first five books of the Bible (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy) as Scripture, drew on God’s conversation with Moses at the burning bush (recorded in the Book of Exodus) to disprove their challenge to resurrection. God, who is well known to be the God of living people, introduced Godself to Moses, with the words: “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” If God is considered to be the God of these deceased people, then they must have been resurrected. Jesus returns the challenge to the Sadducees, accusing them of not knowing Scripture and of being skeptical of the power of God.

Although we might find this particular story and the resulting challenge to be absurd, many, if not all of us have challenged God at some point in our lives, or questioned God’s power. Many of us have found ourselves, occasionally, saying like: “If there really is a God, then why…..?”, or “If God is so powerful, then why did this happen? Like the Sadducees, most of us have difficulty conceiving of God as being able to do things that are beyond our logical framework or comprehension. If we can’t understand it, then it can’t be so; or if it doesn’t fit our framework of how things should be, then God couldn’t possibly have done it.

Jesus reminds us that God does things that we can’t possibly imagine. All of our attempts to put God in a box are destined to fail because God transcends our imaginations. Our desire to limit God’s power is a form of idolatry, as we attempt to re-make God in our own image, rather than our being made in the image of God.

Prayer: All powerful God, help me to learn to accept you as all-powerful and beyond my limited comprehension. Make me humble and willing to acknowledge my limited, flawed understanding. Amen

Lent Day 5 February 27

Lenten Reflection for Day 5

Date: February 27, 2012

Author: Carol Brudnicki

Bible Passage: Luke 10:25–29 (NRSV)

²⁵ Just then a lawyer stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he said, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” ²⁶ He said to him, “What is written in the law? What do you read there?” ²⁷ He answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.” ²⁸ And he said to him, “You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live.” ²⁹ But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”

Reflection:

Throughout Jesus teaching he summarizes the Laws passed down from Moses and the Prophet into two commandments – To love God and to love your neighbor as yourself. All other laws support these two.

We so often find it hard to put God first and love him with all our heart, soul, strength and mind. We are distracted with having the latest or newest items. We put others ahead of God. We think of our needs or wants. Our hectic lives interfere with putting God first and foremost. Yet all things come from God and are his gifts to us. We need to start each morning with praise to God asking him to help us put God first and to ask for guidance for the day.

The commandment to Love your Neighbor is one of the hardest to follow. Our neighbor is everyone – They are similar and different from each of us. They are your brother, your friend, and the stranger. They are the person who cuts you off when driving, the one who gossips or spreads false information about you, and the person who would do anything for you. I am reminded of the bracelets that were common a few years ago with the initials WWJD on them. It was to remind the wearer to think “What Would Jesus Do” in all their actions and dealing with others. To Love your Neighbor is to treat your neighbor as you would like to be treated, as Jesus would do.

Prayer:

Lord, Thank you for all you have done for me and for all you have given me. Help me to relate to my neighbor in a loving and caring way. Guide me in seeing their needs and viewpoints.

Lent Day 4--February 25, 2012

Lenten Reflection for Day 4

Date: February 25, 2012

Author: Mike Michaels

Bible Passage: Matthew 7:1–3 (NRSV)

¹ “Do not judge, so that you may not be judged. ² For with the judgment you make you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get. ³ Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye?

Reflection:

Reading these words of our Lord, in several different versions of translation of the Greek Scriptures, reminds me of several of Jesus’ other teachings. Among my favorites is the line from the Prayer that he taught us to Pray to His Father, “Forgive us our Sins, AS we forgive those who sin against us…”

It seems that Jesus was always teaching us, his followers, to “Treat others the way we would want to be treated,” and not as was taught in the Hebrew Scriptures, revenge, as in “An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.

In setting up the standards for his followers, He wanted us to always be mindful of our loving behaviors in relationships with our fellow believers, as well as with our enemies (Matt. 5:44) because, as he says, and I paraphrase, “We will be judged (by the Father) as we judge others, and we will be forgiven (by the father) as we forgive others.”

In what looks to me like a 180 degree turn from the “Old Testament” that The Father had with The Jews through Moses, Jesus was telling us that in his “New Testament” Jesus’ sacrifice for us would now lift the eternal death penalty (brought down upon us by Adam and Eve) from us, and that we would have to learn a whole new way of thinking, reasoning, believing, and behaving…to be in line with this new contract.

We still pray to The Father, but as Jesus pointed out, from that point onward we prayed “In Jesus’ Name,” or through The Son and our Savior, Jesus Christ.

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus had already given us His new teachings on True Happiness, on Anger, on Adultery and Divorce, and Vows, when he began to teach us the new rules regarding “Revenge, Love for Our Enemies, The Lord’s Prayer (in which He tells us to ask Forgiveness as we forgive others) and Not Judging Others, so as not to be judged.

The Sermon on the Mount is one of my personal touchstones in the Bible; it covers just about all I need to know when things get rough, or even when things are going well! I have to strongly recommend reading it in its entirety, not once, but until it is committed to memory, for its miraculous problem-solving properties, but this is only my opinion.

In terms of today’s scripture, Matthew 7:1-3, you can only look to the daily news to see what happens when people all over the world choose to NOT follow Jesus’ admonition to “Not Judge, but to Forgive as we would like to be forgiven.” Just think how joyful the family of humankind will be when we all are living by Jesus’ perfect standards, at last, in paradise.

Prayer:

Dear Heavenly Father, please help us to be non-judgmental, so that day by day we might become closer to the people you want us to be. Please help us to forgive our neighbors and family members, as well as our enemies, as if we remembered that your forgiveness of our sins were dependent upon our forgiveness of them. We know that you alone are the Judge of everything including the Good and the Bad. Please help us to live and behave as though we remembered this and always held it with us as one of your prime directives for us. We thank you for our ability to reason and learn these things. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.

Lent Day 3

Lenten Reflection for Day 3

Date: February 24, 2012

Author: Howard Shaffer

Bible Passage: Job 42:1–3 (NRSV)

¹ Then Job answered the Lord: ² “I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted. ³ ‘Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?’ Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know.”

Reflection:

Job’s story is about good and evil and our reaction to it. The story raises the old question, “Why do bad things happen to good people?”

Job has bad things happen to him and gets angry with God, and they discuss it. God answers by telling of his divine power and wisdom. Job has kept his faith and is repentant (sorry) for his angry words.

The Good News translation is clearer to me. “You (God) ask how I dare question your wisdom when I am so very ignorant. I talked about things I did not understand, about marvels too perfect for me to know.”

This tells me:

Don’t worry about how God runs the universe.

Concern yourself with running your own life and recognizing you need God’s help in doing it. There is a hymn “I need Thee every hour.” For me that is often optimistic. I need God’s and the Holy Spirit’s guidance more frequently that that.

Prayer:

God help us to know that we can turn to you as often as we feel the need. Help us to remember Christ’s words about prayer. “Whatever your need pray for it. You Father in heaven knows what you need before you ask for it.”

Day 2 Lenten Devotion--February 23, 2012

Lenten Reflection for Day 2

Date: February 23, 2012

Author: John Harris

Bible Passage: Matthew 28:16–17 (NRSV)

¹⁶ Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. ¹⁷ When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted.

Reflection:

“Doubt is merely the seed of faith,” states an elderly Benedictine monk in response to Kathleen Norris’ frustrations with her own Christian faith. Doubt plays a major part in this morning’s Bible passage.

Jesus has a special place in His heart for all of us “doubters.” And I ask all of you, who has not had his or her moments of doubt? In over thirty years of leading adult Bible studies, I cannot count the number of times folks have expressed difficulties of belief over certain Bible passages. But, you know what, Jesus can handle our doubts. Indeed, the “seeds of faith” are planted in the very heart of our unbelief. We just need the “intestinal fortitude” to continue our conversations with Jesus by continuing to read the Bible, attending worship services (particularly the Wednesday Lenten services!), and availing ourselves of the sacrament.

It is through worship that we hear the word of God and how God strengthens our faith and speaks to us in our moments of doubt. Through worship, we see how God responded to all those other doubters—Sarah, Moses, Jonah, Jeremiah, Peter, the woman at the well, and Thomas just to name a few. Through worship, we keep the channels of communication with Jesus open. When we keep our two way conversations with God open, as Kathleen Norris so eloquently states, “things fall into place.”

Prayer: Dear God, I know that You are with me in my moments of doubt. Help me to discern Your ways through worship and the gift of Your body and blood. Speak to me through Your Holy Spirit as you have spoken to the prophets of old. Amen.

Welcome to Lent

Introduction to the Season of Lent

This morning we begin Lent with a day of reflection, repentance and prayer that Christians refer to as Ash Wednesday. Most Christian communities gather for worship on this day, and in many churches, Community Lutheran Church among them, worshippers may receive a cross of ashes on their forehead. There is much symbolism associated with this cross of ashes. The cross reminds us both of Jesus's suffering for us and of our own baptisms, when a cross was traced on our foreheads, marking us as one of God's children. The use of ashes is both a sign of repentance and of regeneration. For millennia, God's faithful people have marked themselves with ashes as sign of their humbleness, regret for sins, and dependence on God. Ashes have also been used as a sign of mourning. But because we also use ashes to make fertilizer and soap, ashes are also a sign of cleanliness and new growth. If you choose to receive ashes on your forehead in worship today, in addition to confessing your sorrow at the things you have done wrong, remember that you have been baptized, that you belong to God, and that with God there is forgiveness and the opportunity, each day, to begin anew.

You can expect to see a daily Lenten devotion on this blogspace daily as we march toward Good Friday and Easter. Different members of the Community Lutheran Church fellowship will be authoring these devotions.

Lenten Reflection for Day 1—Ash Wednesday

Date: February 22, 2012

Author: Pastor Pat Harris

Bible Passage: Deuteronomy 6:4–5 (NRSV)

⁴ Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. ⁵ You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.

Reflection:

This passage is at the heart both Christian and Jewish beliefs and faith. Faithful Jews pray this passage daily as the “Shema”, which is the Hebrew word meaning “hear”. Jesus combines this quote with one from Leviticus to give us Jesus’ law of love: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and your neighbor as yourself.” Coincidentally, this morning’s passage is also the theme for our midweek Lenten worship and reflection.

What does it look like to love the Lord with all your heart, soul and might? A love of the Lord that is this intense, means that loving the Lord is my first and top priority. One might even go so far as to say that it is my only priority. Love of this intensity and this focus may never be achievable for a flawed human being, but if we use this passage as a prayer, we are praying that focused love of the Lord would be the ideal that drives our lives.

If I love this Lord to this degree, then I don’t have room other kinds of self-destructive or harmful love. I don’t have time to love money or to let money drive my life. I don’t have time for ambition of any type to force my love of God to go back stage. I don’t have the energy to put a love of my possessions ahead of my love for God.

A full-hearted and mindful love of God is a devotion to God that makes me put God’s priorities and God’s laws ahead of anything else in my life.

Prayer:

Good and loving God, help me to love you in more ways and with more energy and commitment than I can imagine. Help me to put you first in my life. In your son Jesus’ name I pray. Amen