Living in the Spirit
August 13, 2015

Scripture Reading: Ephesians 5:15-20 Be careful then how you live, not as unwise people but as wise, making the most of the time, because the days are evil. So do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. –Ephesians 5:15-17

Evil days, I suppose that means times—evil times, but it seems like evil is raising its ugly head every day, several times a day. How else do we make sense of two teenaged brothers, allegedly hacking their parents and three younger siblings to death and injuring seriously a 13 year old sister or a man alleged to have kill eight people including six children, some may have been his own, in what was called a domestic dispute? Two stories plucked from the news are just the tip of the iceberg of dysfunctional families and the dire consequences of their lives. If this is happening in families is it any wonder our world seems to have an unlimited supply of lone-wolf and other terrorist ready to strike at will.

Such tragedies occur in both non-religious and very religious families. Sometimes, I feel, we as the called Body of Christ on the earth today have failed miserably at our task of spreading the good news that God’s love is abundant and does not discriminate. Of course, to spread that news we must love abundantly and not discriminate.

When I was in college, and that was more than a few years ago, I heard the story of another student who was volunteering to help at Sunday school at a local church. A woman came to the church and brought her toddler son. Both were dressed poorly. The child was left in the nursery while the mother attended church and when she picked him up he had a note pinned to his shirt saying something to the effect that children attending this church wear church clothes on Sunday. She never went back.

When discerning the will of God we might start with Micah 6:8: He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?

Prayer: God of grace and God of glory on your people pour your powers* so that we might spread your love throughout the world. Amen.

*from God of Grace and God of Glory by Harry E. Fosdick see at http://www.cyberhymnal.org/htm/g/o/godgrace.htm

All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of American. Used by permission. All rights reserved.