Tag Archives: Oneness

Christ with Us

Advent

November 26, 2022

Scripture Reading: Matthew 24:36-44
‘But about that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. For as the days of Noah were, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day Noah entered the ark, and they knew nothing until the flood came and swept them all away, so too will be the coming of the Son of Man. Then two will be in the field; one will be taken and one will be left. Two women will be grinding meal together; one will be taken and one will be left. Keep awake therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. But understand this: if the owner of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into. Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.

All these horrible shootings that are occurring across our country give credence to this scripture. We never know when our lives will end, but the useless waste of life at a grocery store, school, or movie theater is inexcusable.  Jesus’s warnings about the end of time, I think, are meant to alert us to the mission for which we have been chosen—to develop a world where love is the normal relationship between all people. I do not think Christ wants to come back and pitch his tent among people who seem to work hard at ignoring his way of being. He originally came to dwell among us to share the way of love. Visualize how much better all our lives would be if we choose to follow his example.

Jesus blessed us with his continuous presence when he gifted us with the Holy Spirit. We need to quit turning to the ways of the world to define our society and realign with the love God shares with all his creation remaining in constant contact with The Spirit of God. When love truly rules God is with us.

Let all mortal flesh keep silence
and with fear and trembling stand;
ponder nothing earthly-minded,
for with blessing in his hand
Christ, our God, to earth descending,
comes our homage to command*.

Prayer: Lord, as we sit in silent meditation enter our hearts and heal our brokenness as individuals and as a society enabling our work in answering your call to develop a world ruled by your love. Amen.

The first verse of the hymn Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence paraphrased Gerard Moultrie from Liturgy of Saint James believed to have been written around 400 B.C.E.

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 America. Used by permission. All rights are reserved.

Learning about God’s Love

Advent

November 23, 2022

Scripture Reading: Psalm 122

I was glad when they said to me,
   ‘Let us go to the house of the Lord!’
Our feet are standing
   within your gates, O Jerusalem.

Pray for the peace of Jerusalem:
   ‘May they prosper who love you.
Peace be within your walls,
   and security within your towers.’
For the sake of my relatives and friends
   I will say, ‘Peace be within you.’
For the sake of the house of the Lord our God,
   I will seek your good. –Psalm 22:1-2, 6-9

I loved singing the first verse of this Psalm as a child. At vacation Bible school, when the teacher called for us, we would run from the playground, line up in a straight row, and march into the building singing I was glad when they said to me, ‘Let us go to the house of the Lord!’ repeatedly until we all were in the building. We then said the pledge of allegiance to the US flag, the Christian flag, and the Bible. We learned Bible stories from a felt board and memorized a new scripture each day. I still must carefully read some scriptures in worship because my memory from the King James version and the NRSV Bible now used in my church do battle in my head while I read. The twenty-third Psalm is the hardest. That one-room building had been the school my father attended during the week and a church on Sunday. It was no longer used as a school shortly after the depression. I was five years old when it closed as a church. It is a hay barn now, but it served its purpose well and has never lost its usefulness.

Fast forward seventy years, I volunteered in the nursery during church last Sunday. Two sweet toddlers played with toy animals on the floor. Later an infant arrived and was placed in a walker festooned with stuffed toys attached on all sides. The older children attend the first part of worship through the Children’s sermon where they hear a story and have a prayer with the congregation and then join the little ones to share in reading a book, having a snack, and doing arts and crafts. They were seamlessly led to help one another share their snacks and art supplies and clean up spilled water while learning to love their neighbor as they loved themselves. I was the visitor. These children knew what to do and where things were stored and felt just as safe and welcomed as I did seventy years ago. Culture changes but God’s love never wavers.

Prayer: Lord, help us maintain a beloved community, not just inside the walls of our churches but throughout the world where all children can thrive as they become the persons you created them to be. Amen.

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 America. Used by permission. All rights are reserved.

Christ, Our Role Model

November 18, 2022

Living in the Spirit

Scripture Reading:

Colossians 1:11-20

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers—all things have been created through him and for him. He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together. He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross. –Colossians 1:15-20

Christ is our ultimate role model. He sets a very high standard, and yet he indicates that his yoke is easy, and his burden is light*.  I fear most of us are guilty of thinking that everyone else thinks as we do, or at least should.  We all perceive the world through the perspective we have cultivated over time. I grew up on a farm; people raised away from that environment may never have the same sense that I do regarding the source of their food. Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 13:12: For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.

A part of accepting Jesus as our Lord and Savior is accepting him as our ultimate role model, which requires us to examine our thinking and ways of relating to others through the lenses of his example. We do that primarily through the teachings that have been passed down to us from the information captured by those who shared it with us via scriptures. We are all parts of the Body of Christ, we are not Christ, but we can learn from him and live our lives in such a way that others can get some sense of Christ through our attitudes and behavior.

Day by day
Day by day
Oh Dear Lord
Three things I pray
To see thee more clearly
Love thee more dearly
Follow thee more nearly
Day by day**

Prayer: Lord, open our minds and our wills to see more clearly and live more nearly the way you love.  Help us revamp our lives to follow that example. Amen.

*See Matthew 11:30

**Song from the musical Godspell Written By Stephen Schwartz see at https://genius.com/Godspell-day-by-day-lyrics

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 America. Used by permission. All rights are reserved.

Darkness into Light

Living in the Spirit

St. Teresa of Avila

November 17, 2022

Scripture Reading:

Colossians 1:11-20

May you be made strong with all the strength that comes from his glorious power, and may you be prepared to endure everything with patience, while joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has enabled you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the light. He has rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. –Colossians 1:1-14

The power of darkness surrounds us. What happens in the dark? I carried one of my mother’s boxes of genealogy information into my living room to find some information for one of my cousins. I left it next to where I was sitting when I went to bed because I needed to dig into it more. The following day as I stumbled through my very familiar house to turn on the lamp next to my favorite chair, my toes slammed into that box. It really hurt as stubbed toes usually do. I hopped around and said bad words as I got the lamp on. The pain soon subsided, but my familiar world had lost its certainty.

Our world, our country has been engulfed in unexpected darkness for several years if we include climate change. We time things to COVID, but it really began before then. We want someone to fix everything. What we are not yet ready to accept is that Christ sent us forth to work toward providing a lighted world as his partners in service. We have already been transferred into the kingdom of God’s beloved Son. He has shown us the way. We seem not to be able to accept fully his vision of the beloved community. We prefer our own vision. That has resulted in division and a divide-and-conquer world. We play around the edges doing the things we have always done, but we do not step out into the darkness and shine God’s light throughout the world. Where do we go from here? How do we get in sync with God’s vision and how it is to be realized?

Prayer: Lord, you called us to be the light of the world; give us the courage to step out in faith and follow your vision.  Amen.

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 America. Used by permission. All rights are reserved.

No War

Living in the Spirit

November 16, 2022

Scripture Reading: Psalm 46
God is our refuge and strength,
   a very present help in trouble.
Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change,
   though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea;
though its waters roar and foam,
   though the mountains tremble with its tumult.

There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God,
   the holy habitation of the Most High.
God is in the midst of the city; it shall not be moved;
   God will help it when the morning dawns.
The nations are in an uproar, the kingdoms totter;
  he utters his voice, the earth melts.
The Lord of hosts is with us;
   the God of Jacob is our refuge.

Come, behold the works of the Lord;
   see what desolations he has brought on the earth.
He makes wars cease to the end of the earth;
   he breaks the bow, and shatters the spear;
   he burns the shields with fire.
‘Be still, and know that I am God!
   I am exalted among the nations,
   I am exalted in the earth.’
The Lord of hosts is with us;
   the God of Jacob is our refuge.

For some reason, yesterday I realized that for the first time in many years our country is not at war with anyone. Indeed, we are providing resources for Ukraine, and we pray that the war they face will soon come to an end. Getting out of our last war was not pretty, and the people of Afghanistan are suffering from the takeover by the Taliban.  Short of war, we must do all we can to bring the world to peace, where everyone has enough, and all can be the person God created us to be. Jesus called it the Kingdom of God. He may have picked that descriptor up from the Wisdom of Solomon 10:10 from the Apocrypha. In my Bible study group last spring we studied the Apocrypha and learned that Jesus was well acquainted with it.  Jesus is quoted in the gospels 54 times mentioning actualizing the Kingdom of God as his and our ultimate goal. Acts uses the term six times, and Paul uses it eight times. We no longer live in a world ruled primarily by Kings so that term may not be as meaningful to us as it was to a first-century audience. I liken it to Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Beloved Community: a community where everyone is cared for, absent of poverty, hunger, and hate.

While the Kingdom of God is not mentioned in the Hebrew Bible using that language, the Psalmist who wrote the above Psalm seems to have been well acquainted with it.

Prayer: Lord, guide us in our work toward your goal of the whole world being a Beloved Community. Amen.

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 America. Used by permission. All rights are reserved.

Recovering

Living in the Spirit

November 12, 2022

Scripture Reading: Luke 21:5-19

When some were speaking about the temple, how it was adorned with beautiful stones and gifts dedicated to God, he said, ‘As for these things that you see, the days will come when not one stone will be left upon another; all will be thrown down.’

They asked him, ‘Teacher, when will this be, and what will be the sign that this is about to take place?’ And he said, ‘Beware that you are not led astray; for many will come in my name and say, “I am he!” and, “The time is near!” Do not go after them.

‘When you hear of wars and insurrections, do not be terrified; for these things must take place first, but the end will not follow immediately.’ Then he said to them, ‘Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be great earthquakes, and in various places famines and plagues; and there will be dreadful portents and great signs from heaven. –Luke 21:5-11

Luke was believed to be written around the time that the temple in Jerusalem was desecrated and destroyed. The book’s message was surely impacted by that event.

 A few days ago, a level-four tornado struck causing major damage in Idabel, a town in southeast Oklahoma. On the day after the tornado, I watched a reporter standing in front of a church that was now a pile of scrap wood interspersed with broken pieces of stained glass. Two days later the same reporter stood in front of people setting up folding chairs in the yard with debris in the background that had not yet been removed. They were preparing for worship. This church did not have the long history of the temple in Jerusalem, but for its members it contains similar memories of weddings and funerals, making lifelong friends, and watching children grow in spirit and truth, adults too. Such events remind us that bad things do happen to good people. However, they also remind us of what is important in life and that loving God and loving our neighbors as we love ourselves can never be destroyed and will prevail as we restore our buildings while sharing our love as we work to build the Beloved Community.

Prayer: Lord, we pray for all the people caught in climatic disasters, the ravages of war, and the violence of discrimination. Show us the ways we can share our love with them in meaningful ways including advocacy. Amen.

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 America. Used by permission. All rights are reserved.

Enabling Others

Living in the Spirit

November 10, 2022

Scripture Reading:
2 Thessalonians 3:6-13
Now we command you, beloved, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, to keep away from believers who are living in idleness and not according to the tradition that they received from us. For you yourselves know how you ought to imitate us; we were not idle when we were with you, and we did not eat anyone’s bread without paying for it; but with toil and labor we worked night and day, so that we might not burden any of you. This was not because we do not have that right, but in order to give you an example to imitate. For even when we were with you, we gave you this command: Anyone unwilling to work should not eat. For we hear that some of you are living in idleness, mere busybodies, not doing any work. Now such persons we command and exhort in the Lord Jesus Christ to do their work quietly and to earn their own living. Brothers and sisters, do not be weary in doing what is right.

The Greek word for idleness as used above is   atáktōs – properly, disorderly (“breaking rank”); insubordinate to God’s Word and hence fruitless (unproductive) – because lacking proper order (discipline)*

The 80/20 Rule (also known as the Pareto Principle) means that 20 percent of something is responsible for 80 percent of the results (i.e., 20 percent of the workforce provides 80 percent of production) **.

In building the Beloved Community, we all must do our part, and that does not always happen. I have spent the last several months trying to discern why people in Oklahoma do not vote. We have one of the worst voting records in the nation. The only thing I could discern is that many people do not feel like they matter. The issues that are important to them may be given lip service in campaign ads but are barely or rarely actualized. For example, I am looking forward to seeing what actions are implemented that successfully reduce worldwide inflation and who is responsible for making that happen.

Do we do the same thing within our faith fellowships?  Through our actions do we send messages to people that their work in the church does not matter or is not good enough? I have found myself completing a task in the church because it needed to be done, but I certainly was not the most prepared or qualified person to do it. Part of being in the 20% worker bee group includes enabling and nurturing those in the 80% group to contribute their skills and talents in meaningful ways.

In the above scripture, Paul comes across as rather coarse in the above scripture, but he is trying to encourage all to use their talents and skills to the furtherance of building that Beloved Community.

Prayer: Lord, give us the skills to lead others to share their skills. Amen.

*https://biblehub.com/greek/814.htm

**https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_principle

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 America. Used by permission. All rights are reserved.

A New Song

Living in the Spirit

November 9, 2022

Scripture Reading: Psalm 98
O sing to the Lord a new song,
   for he has done marvelous things.
His right hand and his holy arm
   have gained him victory.
The Lord has made known his victory;
   he has revealed his vindication in the sight of the nations.
He has remembered his steadfast love and faithfulness
   to the house of Israel.
All the ends of the earth have seen
   the victory of our God.

Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth;
   break forth into joyous song and sing praises.
Sing praises to the Lord with the lyre,
   with the lyre and the sound of melody.
With trumpets and the sound of the horn
   make a joyful noise before the King, the Lord.

Let the sea roar, and all that fills it;
   the world and those who live in it.
Let the floods clap their hands;
   let the hills sing together for joy
at the presence of the Lord, for he is coming
   to judge the earth.
He will judge the world with righteousness,
   and the peoples with equity.

What a wonderful scripture for the day after the election. I do not know about you, but I am ready for a new song. Or perhaps I am longing for this very old psalm that assures us that God is the God of joy, beauty, music, and nature. God is love. We seem to have lost sight of that over the tension of the problems in our world today. As we prepare to turn the page on our choices of who will represent us in our government and start working together, we must let go of our divisiveness and work together to build God’s beloved world community.

Prayer: Thank you, Lord, for ordering chaos when you created the earth and for ordering the chaos we bring on ourselves as we meet the challenges of the world head-on.  Amen.

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 America. Used by permission. All rights are reserved.

Culture Changes; God Does Not

Living in the Spirit

November 6, 2022

Scripture Reading: Luke 20:27-38

Jesus said to them, ‘Those who belong to this age marry and are given in marriage; but those who are considered worthy of a place in that age and in the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage. Indeed they cannot die any more, because they are like angels and are children of God, being children of the resurrection. And the fact that the dead are raised Moses himself showed, in the story about the bush, where he speaks of the Lord as the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. Now he is God not of the dead, but of the living; for to him all of them are alive.’ –Luke 20:34-38

One of the primary reasons for marriage at the beginning of civilization was to raise workers for the field and the housework. I grew up on a farm and jokingly attest to being put in charge of chickens when I was five years old. I fed and watered them each day, gathered the eggs, and opened the building in which they roosted in the morning so they could be, now popular, range-fed chickens. I also counted them making sure they were all there when I closed the door each evening. I at least knew how to count to the number of chickens we had by the time I started school. I started my work at an early age because my older sister was afraid of chickens and thus graduated to milking cows. I have never understood her fear because cows are a lot bigger than chickens. Chickens do peck people. My mother, sister, and I also worked in the garden and canned fruits and vegetables for the coming system. My brother was driving a tracker and sledding hay bales with my dad.

That is not to say that we did not love one another, and we took good care of each other. It was just the way things were in rural Oklahoma immediately following World War II. Making sure one’s brothers had heirs was just the way things were in Abraham’s time. Culture changes, industrial revolutions happen, and technology now abounds. God enabled our progress and was and is with us as we traverse the changes that result. God was then and still is love, and we are still called to love God and our neighbors as ourselves. That is true of our life now and our life into eternity. We can believe different outcomes and even have spirited arguments about them. What we can never do is change God’s love or our calling to love God and others.

Prayer: Lord, center us on love ruling all aspects of our lives. Amen.

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 America. Used by permission. All rights are reserved.

Doers of the Word

Living in the Spirit

November 5, 2022

Scripture Reading: Luke 20:27-38

Some Sadducees, those who say there is no resurrection, came to him and asked him a question, ‘Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies, leaving a wife but no children, the man shall marry the widow and raise up children for his brother. Now there were seven brothers; the first married, and died childless; then the second and the third married her, and so in the same way all seven died childless. Finally the woman also died. In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife will the woman be? For the seven had married her.’ –Luke 20:27-33

Have you ever noticed how easily faith groups can get caught up with the most trivial things, often a real distraction to our basic mission? I remember when I was a child, we had people who left our church over a dispute about replacing the rickety chairs behind the communion table. The argument was over whether we get new wooden or holstered chairs. The dispute above is between Sadducees who did not believe in the resurrection and Jesus who did. Immediately time and talent are refocused on a divisive issue that makes no difference in the long run. The irony is that if there is no resurrection, one who believes that will never know if they were right.

The real issue in most of these debates is a deep need to be right about God, and that is a good thing. Problems arise when we ascribe our all too human judgments regarding our relationship with God. In that regard, we invest much time in what we believe and less time in how we serve God and reflect God’s love to others.  I enjoy a good conversation on what the scriptures mean. We can grow in our ability to love like Jesus in such studies, but they will always only give us a glimpse of an omnipresent, omniscient, and omnipotent being who has our best interest and the best interest of all people.

Matthew 7:24–27

‘Everyone then who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock. The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell—and great was its fall!’ (Matthew 7:24-27)

James 1:22–25

But be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves. For if any are hearers of the word and not doers, they are like those who look at themselves in a mirror; for they look at themselves and, on going away, immediately forget what they were like. But those who look into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and persevere, being not hearers who forget but doers who act—they will be blessed in their doing. (James 1:22–25)

Prayer: Lord, open our eyes that we may see glimpses of truth thou hast for us. Place in our hands the wonderful key that shall unclasp and set us free *. Amen.

*Derived from the hymn Open our Eyes That I may See by Claire H. Scott, see at https://hymnary.org/text/open_my_eyes_that_i_may_see

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 America. Used by permission. All rights are reserved.