Tag Archives: Oneness

God of All

Living in the Spirit
September 25, 2018

Scripture Reading: Esther 7:1-6, 9-10, 9:20-22

Mordecai recorded these things, and sent letters to all the Jews who were in all the provinces of King Ahasuerus, both near and far, enjoining them that they should keep the fourteenth day of the month Adar and also the fifteenth day of the same month, year by year, as the days on which the Jews gained relief from their enemies, and as the month that had been turned for them from sorrow into gladness and from mourning into a holiday; that they should make them days of feasting and gladness, days for sending gifts of food to one another and presents to the poor. —Esther 9:20-22

Do we really know and acknowledge what a wonderful God we worship? As individuals do we relish the presence of God in our lives who loves us unconditionally and goes through hell and back with us if needed? What about communities of faith, when was the last time we celebrated in worship God’s acts in our lives?

Sometimes I fear we take God for granted believing we hold some state of privilege that others do not share. God loves all of God’s children. Frankly, we are tasked with being God’s hands and feet as we work together with peoples of all the world to assure that they have enough to fulfill their potential.

We’ve a story to tell to the nations,
that shall turn their hearts to the right,
a story of truth and mercy,
a story of peace and light,
a story of peace and light.

Refrain:
For the darkness shall turn to dawning,
and the dawning to noonday bright;
and Christ’s great kingdom shall come on earth,
the kingdom of love and light*.

Prayer: Lord, help us fulfill our responsibilities of serving others in your name. Amen.

*First verse and refrain of We’ve a Story to Tell to the Nations by H. Ernest Nichol, see at https://www.hymnsite.com/lyrics/umh569.sht

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.

Citizenship

Living in the Spirit
September 24, 2018

Scripture Reading: Esther 7:1-6, 9-10, 9:20-22

So the king and Haman went in to feast with Queen Esther. On the second day, as they were drinking wine, the king again said to Esther, ‘What is your petition, Queen Esther? It shall be granted you. And what is your request? Even to the half of my kingdom, it shall be fulfilled.’ Then Queen Esther answered, ‘If I have won your favor, O king, and if it pleases the king, let my life be given me—that is my petition—and the lives of my people—that is my request. For we have been sold, I and my people, to be destroyed, to be killed, and to be annihilated. If we had been sold merely as slaves, men and women, I would have held my peace; but no enemy can compensate for this damage to the king.’ Then King Ahasuerus said to Queen Esther, ‘Who is he, and where is he, who has presumed to do this?’ Esther said, ‘A foe and enemy, this wicked Haman!’ Then Haman was terrified before the king and the queen. –Esther 7:1-6

‘Ask, and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you’. –Matthew 7:7

I just listened to Elizabeth Warren delivering a speech on Education that had been recorded earlier and was posted on social media. While she spoke the little messages that appeared were nasty stereotypical personal comments unrelated to anything she was saying interspersed with more positive comments that were related to what she was saying. We live in the age of distraction politics and character assassination supported or not supported by facts. The results are that for several years we have had extremely low voter turnout. Now we even must wonder if those little nasty comments are being added from Russia.

Esther was facing a dire situation which required her putting her life on the line asking for the king to save both her and her people. We may not be at that point yet, but our future and the future of our country is at stake when we do not take full advantage of our rights and our responsibilities of being citizens of a country that was founded on the principle of government of the people, by the people, and for the people.  We must take the time to understand the issues and the character of the people we support.

Prayer: Lord, guide us as we seek to create a government that tries to find common ground for the Common Good. 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.

Well Trained

Living in the Spirit
September 22, 2018

Scripture Reading: Mark 9:30-37

They went on from there and passed through Galilee. He did not want anyone to know it; for he was teaching his disciples, saying to them, ‘The Son of Man is to be betrayed into human hands, and they will kill him, and three days after being killed, he will rise again.’ But they did not understand what he was saying and were afraid to ask him. –Mark 9:30-32

The job of parents is to prepare their children for adulthood, to leave home and make a positive contribution to the world whatever that might be based on their skills and interest. Parents also set the stage for their children to prepare the next generations to do the same work. In the above scripture, Jesus is preparing the disciples for their role in advancing the Kingdom of God. He enabled them to become trainers for Jesus’ future followers and we are still challenged with that call today.

All types of skills and interest are needed in the developing Kingdom of God. Paul outlines some specifics in 1 Corinthians 12 where he discusses spiritual gifts. Exodus 31: 1-11 describes how integral art was to in worship and how the Spirit of God was gifted to people to provide the special touch of art. All have gifts and all gifts provided by the Spirit are important to the furtherance of the Kingdom of God.

This scripture also describes Jesus’ intensity of training as he knew his time was short. While we may hope for a long life and people now are routinely living to be over 100, our need to fast-track the Kingdom comes from the longing to live as many of those years as possible in a world ruled by love that we are called to build.

Prayer: Lord, thank you for leaving us a roadmap to the Kingdom of God and ancestors in faith who shared it with us. Enable us to do our part now in making the Kingdom a reality and passing your training on the future generations. 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.

Wisdom in Loving

Living in the Spirit
September 10, 2018

Scripture Reading: Proverbs 1:20-33

Wisdom cries out in the street;
   in the squares she raises her voice.
At the busiest corner she cries out;
   at the entrance of the city gates she speaks:
‘How long, O simple ones, will you love being simple?
How long will scoffers delight in their scoffing
   and fools hate knowledge?
Give heed to my reproof;
I will pour out my thoughts to you;
   I will make my words known to you.
Because I have called and you refused,
   have stretched out my hand and no one heeded,
 and because you have ignored all my counsel
   and would have none of my reproof,
I also will laugh at your calamity;
   I will mock when panic strikes you,
when panic strikes you like a storm,
   and your calamity comes like a whirlwind,
   when distress and anguish come upon you. –Proverbs 1:20-27

Truth is staring us in the face and we choose not to see it. Living in denial has become a way of life for many. We pay a high price for our greed, our lust for privilege, our search for shortcuts to a better world. We chase after anyone that seems even slightly capable of making the truth less real and thus less painful.  In our hearts, we know what is necessary to create a world where all have enough, feel safe and secure, loved and respected, where everyone can maximize his or her potential and live in the wholeness and oneness God desires for us.

I was told as a child that it takes fewer muscles to smile than to frown. I do not know if that is a fact, but I do know that it is a truth. We often work harder at avoiding justice and righteousness than we would ever work toward loving one another. The problem is that loving one another requires us to let go of all our ingrained habits of needing to be better than someone to be a person of worth and of assuming the righteousness I seek may or may not be right for me or anyone else. Loving our neighbor as ourselves requires us to invest some time in understanding our neighbor and wondering what is the best for them and not assuming that what is best for me is best for all others.

Prayer: Righteous God, forgive us for our shortsightedness, take the blinders from our eyes and help us see the world through 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.

Welcoming Cultures

Living in the Spirit
September 8, 2018

Scripture Reading: Mark 7:24-37

From there he set out and went away to the region of Tyre. He entered a house and did not want anyone to know he was there. Yet he could not escape notice, but a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit immediately heard about him, and she came and bowed down at his feet. Now the woman was a Gentile, of Syrophoenician origin. She begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter. He said to her, ‘Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.’ But she answered him, ‘Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.’ Then he said to her, ‘For saying that, you may go—the demon has left your daughter.’ So she went home, found the child lying on the bed, and the demon gone.  –Mark 7:24-30

For me, this story from the life of Jesus epitomizes his experience of being fully human as we all must grow beyond our cultural limitations and into the wonderfully diverse world God created as the habitat we share with all God’s children. That does not mean that Jesus’ culture was good or bad. It was probably some of both as all cultures are. Some attributes stand the test of time and need to be saved and savored even shared with others. While some parts of every culture fade from existence as they tarnish with time. I am sure the same could be said for the Syrophoenician woman’s origin.

I just had lunch with a friend at one of my favorite Mediterranean restaurants. I live a few blocks from the area in my city known as little Asia that abounds with Chinese and Vietnamese and Thai food. Several Mexican restaurants are close. That mix has become my culture.

In Matthew 6:33, Jesus tells us to strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. All these things refers to what we eat and drink and wear which take their proper place in a world seeking to love like Jesus loves.

Prayer: Lord, thank you for the blessings that come from the rich experiences of shared culture. Free us from the fear that keeps us from exploring how others practice your love. 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.

Loving Our Neighbor

Living in the Spirit
September 7, 2018

Scripture Reading: James 2:1-17

You do well if you really fulfil the royal law according to the scripture, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ But if you show partiality, you commit sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors. For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it. For the one who said, ‘You shall not commit adultery’, also said, ‘You shall not murder.’ Now if you do not commit adultery but if you murder, you have become a transgressor of the law. So speak and so act as those who are to be judged by the law of liberty. For judgement will be without mercy to anyone who has shown no mercy; mercy triumphs over judgement.

 What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you? If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill’, and yet you do not ply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead. –James 2:8-17

Christians tend to cherry pick the scriptures we favor and ignore the ones we do not. My guess is that is true also of other faiths. We identify as the worst sins those things we would probably never do in the first place but afford us the opportunity to judge others whose behavior we do not understand. I think much scriptural interpretation is derived from human nature rather than God’ nature. I guess that makes me a cynic. James speaks of murder and adultery representing sins without differing magnitudes. Human nature says adultery is not as serious as murder. I have been surprised that many people who claim to be pro-life support capital punishment that seems a contradiction to me. Did you know that the death certificates of executed prisoners indicate the cause of death as homicide? Federal law restricts the use of federal funds from being used for elective abortions, but our tax dollars pay for executions.

James is calling us to account for our hypocrisy when according to Jesus the primary law we are to follow if we love God, is loving our neighbors as we love ourselves that precludes the necessity of judging anyone but calls us to journey with others as they search for relationship with God.

Prayer: Lord, do a new thing in us helping us to love one another as Jesus modeled for us. 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.

Greed is Not Good

Living in the Spirit
September 3, 2018

Scripture Reading: Proverbs 22:1-2,8-9, 22-23

A good name is to be chosen rather than great riches,
   and favor is better than silver or gold.
The rich and the poor have this in common:
   the Lord is the maker of them all. –Proverbs 22:1-2

I was raised with the idea, particularly emphasized by my father, that my behavior reflected on family generations before me and following me. Perhaps that is what sparked my interest in genealogy. Not too surprising what I found was some outliers, a few famous a few infamous, but primarily good hardworking faith-driven folks. I was also raised with the sure and certain knowledge that all people are made in the image of God. I have dubbed my mother the first and greatest egalitarian for she modeled loving all God’s children rich or poor and those represented among all other dichotomies of diversity among people. The foundation of my parent’s philosophies is that we are each first and foremost children of God and our very being exists to honor God by the way we live God’s love with all God’s children.

I have not seen the movie Wallstreet but I am acquainted with a phrase from it, “Greed is Good” as I understand the movie portrays the epidemic of greed in our land. Greed is not good. It robs us of our individual identity to reflect God’s image as we strive to worship wealth accumulation rather than God. It robs us of following the commandment to love one another when our overwhelming desire for more always results in others having less than enough. There is nothing greater than the love of God.

Then sings my soul, my Savior God, to Thee
How great Thou art, how great Thou art
Then sings my soul, my Savior God, to Thee
How great Thou art, how great Thou art*

Prayer: Lord, remind me of the faith of my ancestors who knew the love of God in good times and bad and the legacy I will leave for my descendants when I am enticed by the temptations of the world. Amen.

*Chorus from How Great Thou Art by Carl Gustav Boberg see at https://hymnary.org/text/o_lord_my_god_when_i_in_awesome_wonder

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.

Jesus’ Worldview

Living in the Spirit
August 31, 2018

Scripture Reading: James 1:17-27

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.

 If any think they are religious, and do not bridle their tongues but deceive their hearts, their religion is worthless. Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world. –James 1:22-27

The book of John tells us that Jesus is the Word (John 1:1) I think James is picking up on that idea when he instructs us to be doers of the word—model our lives after Jesus. He practiced what he preached, and he did not cherry pick the words he read and applied.

I am thankful the book of Mark includes the story of the Syrophoenician woman (Mark 7 24-30) it described an encounter Between Jesus and a foreign woman that went against the ideas of Jesus’ culture. Jews did not interact with gentiles. Yet when this woman brought her daughter to Jesus to be healed his first reaction was to turn her away, but she challenged him on following his culture rather than his heart and the heart won.

In our diverse world, we encounter different ways of being all the time that may be uncomfortable for us at first because it is not of our culture or what some call our worldview. What we must discern is how our interaction with others appears through Jesus’ worldview and adapt our worldview accordingly.

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.

Spewing Hate

Living in the Spirit
August 27, 2018

Scripture Reading: 1 Kings 8:(1, 6, 10-11), 22-30, 41-43

‘But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Even heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you, much less this house that I have built! Have regard to your servant’s prayer and his plea, O Lord my God, heeding the cry and the prayer that your servant prays to you today; that your eyes may be open night and day towards this house, the place of which you said, “My name shall be there”, that you may heed the prayer that your servant prays towards this place. Hear the plea of your servant and of your people Israel when they pray towards this place; O hear in heaven your dwelling-place; heed and forgive. –1 Kings 8:27-30

Revelation 21:3b-4 answers Solomon’s question, “Will God indeed dwell on the earth?” by saying:

 ‘See, the home of God is among mortals.
He will dwell with them;
they will be his peoples,
and God himself will be with them;
he will wipe every tear from their eyes.
Death will be no more;
mourning and crying and pain will be no more,
for the first things have passed away.’ 

God is omnipresent, bigger than both heaven and earth. God will live among us fully when love rules the world. We are the ones crowded God out.

God incarnate, Jesus Christ came to challenge us to work toward such a world to make it a reality sooner than later. The goal of Christ followers is not to judge who will be included in such a world. The goal is to work until all are included by taking responsibility for our own assignment of loving like Jesus. We are assigned the task of loving; Jesus is assigned the task of judging.

It must surely break God’s heart to hear the hate language being spewed throughout our land by those who claim to be God’s followers and those who use God’s followers for selfish gain. One way to test what we hear or say about others is how would it make us feel if someone were saying the same thing about us or treating us in the same way. It’s called loving your neighbor.

Prayer: Lord, forgive me when I get caught up in the movements to spread hate and divide your people. Remind us through the life of Jesus, how we are to love. 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.

Taught by God

Living in the Spirit 
August 12, 2018

Scripture Reading: John 6:35, 41-51

It is written in the prophets, “And they shall all be taught by God.” Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me. Not that anyone has seen the Father except the one who is from God; he has seen the Father. Very truly, I tell you, whoever believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.’ –John 6:45-51

I guess it was reading or hearing the accounts of Native Americans regarding their spirit connections that first made me consider that God may have manifested God’s self in spirit and in truth to all peoples in ways differing.  Their Great Spirit sounded a whole lot like Yahweh of the Israelites, Jesus’ Abba. I thus understand the inclusiveness of John’s statement: and they shall all be taught by God. It makes sense if all people are made in the image of God than all people have an avenue for communion with God. Perhaps our goal is to synch our various paths and weave them together into the oneness to which Jesus calls us.

Ethnocentricity*, inclining to regard one’s own race or social group as the center of culture, describes a sociological phenomenon that is common among humans probably all animals. Taken to its extreme, such an opinion leads to thoughts that your culture, religion, whatever is better than everyone else’s. I was a little miffed when I read the other day that Oklahoma is in the bottom ten states for the number of pretty days of weather in a year. We have a lot of pretty days. We also have some of the hardest weather to forecast. It can snow in the morning and a heat wave can arrive in the afternoon. Perhaps we just have a greater appreciation of pretty days and do not take them for granted. Sometimes people get hung up on letting their culture define their intrinsic value.

God’s message is that all of God’s children are persons of worth and all persons are God’s children.

Prayer: Lord, teach us to share our culture with others as we learn about theirs and find that we are all related through your creation. Amen.

*http://unabridged.merriam-webster.com/unabridged/ethnocentricity

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.