Everybody seems to have answers . . .we analyze . . .we explain more than we know . . . but the fact is only One Person sees the whole picture, and He has given us a prayer which we know so well we sometimes pray it and don't hear what we are praying . . . or worse, we sing our ditties and pray our extemporaneous prayers and never come to grips with what Jesus told us:
PRAY THIS WAY!!!
OUR FATHER WHICH ART IN HEAVEN . . .
HALLOWED BE THY NAME!
THY KINGDOM COME !
THY WILL BE DONE ON EARTH AS IT IS IN HEAVEN !
We need to pray this together ... in our churches . . . pray it in our homes . . . pray it from our hearts!
Then...it is all right to ask:
GIVE US TODAY WHAT WE NEED TO BE ALL YOU WANT US TO BE !
FORGIVE US OUR SINS AS WE FORGIVE THOSE WHO SIN AGAINST US !
LEAD US!
dELIVER US FROM EVIL!
What if we all did what Jesus said we shoudl do?
I hear the call to prayer from different, even surprising directions these days . . . before we rush off to save the world in our own puny strength . . . before our civilization slips into hell . . . can we join together and pray the prayer we know by heart until from our hearts we truly pray that prayer?
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Diana and Teresa . . . that week in September
September 7, 1997
Good News! There's Hope!
THE OUTSIDER
Mark 7:24-30 The Syro-Phoenician woman with a daughter
distressed with an unclean spirit.
This has been a week we will remember a long, long time. The
death of the Princess of Wales has caught the attention of many
millions of people around the world. At the outpouring of words that
immediately followed the news of Diana's death, I think I was most
impressed that Mother Teresa of Calcutta had loved Diana, and had
said, among other things, that Diana "was in love with the poor" of
the world. And then Friday afternoon we heard: Mother Teresa was
gone!
Two women, so very different-- one 37, and tall and stately and
beautiful-- one 87, and tiny and wrinkled and, yes, beautiful, too, in
her own wonderful way. One born to great riches, and living in the
glare of the spotlight. One with absolutely nothing of this world's
goods to call her own, under a vow of chastity, poverty, obedience,
and of service to the poor.
[[[Diana Frances Spencer was born on the first of July 1961, just
over 36 years ago and married Charles Philip Arthur George, the Prince
of Wales, in a spectacular wedding in St. Paul's Cathedral on July 29,
1981. Mother Teresa was born, Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu on the 27th of
August 1910 to Albanian parents in what was then Serbia. She was
called "Mother" but was a nun for 69 years. ]]]
Two women very different-- and yet both of them remembered with
love for one thing: they made the people they met feel valued and
respected. They somehow carried the message: "Whoever you are, you
matter!" And in so far as they carried that message, they were
messengers of truth. This world is starved for genuine love. We need
to hear the message "You are a person of worth! You matter!"
The first message that God wants this world to hear is that same
message: YOU MATTER TO GOD! Before they can really understand
anything else of spiritual worth, they need to know that God cares
about who we are and how we live.
It may not be the first message the church thinks the world
needs. We begin with Lesson Two or Lesson Three. We attack the evils
of our culture, and get wrapped up in boycotts and legislation, and no
doubt there is a place for all of that and much, much more. (After
all, Mother Teresa took every occasion she could to speak out against
abortion. But first she paid her dues; first she saw in every face
she met the image of God-- her base from which she worked was: YOU
MATTER TO GOD!) We tell the world "Change the way you're living, and
God will accept you, and you will be saved!" We say, "Confess your
sins-- and turn to Jesus and be saved!" and of course this is the very
heart of what we are here for-- but first, "Lesson ONE" is the message
the world needs to hear: God cares about you! You matter! You are of
worth to Him!
It seems so simple, perhaps. We've heard it so many times. But
the fact is, there are times when we need to hear this first word
again. But if we, who know our Bibles, and know something of God's
love need this, how much more people who have never met Jesus Christ
need to hear the good news of strong hope-- that God loves them, and
that THEY MATTER TO GOD!
In the gospel lesson today a woman, a foreigner, heard that Jesus
was nearby, in the coastal town of Tyre. This woman was an outsider
so far as the pious Jews were concerned. She had two big strikes
against her, maybe even three. She was a woman in a society where all
the religious leaders were male; she was a Syrophoenecian, a sort of
half-breed foreigner who was despised by the pure orthodox Hebrews.
This woman had a daughter in deep trouble, deep spiritual trouble.
This outsider thought she saw in Jesus that same quality we have
been speaking about-- the love and respect for all people that drew
people to Diana and Mother Teresa. Jesus had actually crossed a
political and religious boundary in entering Tyre, a city in Gentile
territory. It seems as though Jesus was trying to get a little down
time-- a tiny vacation, but it doesn't work and people flood in to
ask for his help.
The Syrophoenecian woman came to where Jesus was trying to rest,
and she watched for a while as people came and went, and saw his
kindness and power and healing compassion. Then she, too, asks for
help with those who are breaking into his time of rest.
Mark doesn't tell us, but Matthew does, that this woman was
noisily bothering the disciples and that they wanted Jesus to send her
away. He doesn't do that however, and I wonder if maybe the
interesting interchange between Jesus and the woman is more for the
disciples (read "us") than it was for the woman.
But this "outsider" saw what we all will see if we will look and
live-- she saw that no one who ever came to Jesus was turned away,
except those who came in hypocrisy to defeat Him. By his own words we
know "The one that comes to me I will in no way (ever) cast out!"
This "outsider" saw that compassion, and dared to ask for help. And
she found that she mattered to God. She got the help she needed.
YOU MATTER TO GOD! That is Good News!
Do you really believe that? You don't have to break down doors
and try to persuade God you are worthy to be loved by him. He loves
you just as you are! He cares about you! He wants to come into your
life and brings HIS HOPE to bear on all that you are and do.
YOUR NEIGHBOR MATTERS TO GOD!
How are you going to tell him/her? Probably imperfectly, if
you're like the rest of us. But it will begin with an attitude.
James has some suggestions in our epistle lesson. He tells us
that we had better stop deciding who is "in" and who is "out." He
says if a person with money starts attending, and we act as though she
matters more than another person who is poor, we are missing the
message: you matter to God.
Don't get me wrong-- rich people need to hear this message, too.
Don't despise your neighbor because he may have more than you do. The
message is the same: you matter to God!
Conclusion:
Not one of us here will ever catch the attention of the entire
world like Diana or Mother Teresa. We won't have the spotlight in
which to tell people that they count, they are important. We probably
can be thankful that we don't.
But we will all have the privilege, first of all, to know that
fact for ourselves. IN JESUS CHRIST WE HAVE A DOOR TO AN ETERNAL
RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD! We matter! We are as important to God as
anyone who ever lived!
And then we have the privilege and the duty to begin where we can
by spreading the word far and near: YOU matter to God! You are NOT an
"outsider" to him! That is the message of our church! Will you help
tell it this week?
Good News! There's Hope!
THE OUTSIDER
Mark 7:24-30 The Syro-Phoenician woman with a daughter
distressed with an unclean spirit.
This has been a week we will remember a long, long time. The
death of the Princess of Wales has caught the attention of many
millions of people around the world. At the outpouring of words that
immediately followed the news of Diana's death, I think I was most
impressed that Mother Teresa of Calcutta had loved Diana, and had
said, among other things, that Diana "was in love with the poor" of
the world. And then Friday afternoon we heard: Mother Teresa was
gone!
Two women, so very different-- one 37, and tall and stately and
beautiful-- one 87, and tiny and wrinkled and, yes, beautiful, too, in
her own wonderful way. One born to great riches, and living in the
glare of the spotlight. One with absolutely nothing of this world's
goods to call her own, under a vow of chastity, poverty, obedience,
and of service to the poor.
[[[Diana Frances Spencer was born on the first of July 1961, just
over 36 years ago and married Charles Philip Arthur George, the Prince
of Wales, in a spectacular wedding in St. Paul's Cathedral on July 29,
1981. Mother Teresa was born, Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu on the 27th of
August 1910 to Albanian parents in what was then Serbia. She was
called "Mother" but was a nun for 69 years. ]]]
Two women very different-- and yet both of them remembered with
love for one thing: they made the people they met feel valued and
respected. They somehow carried the message: "Whoever you are, you
matter!" And in so far as they carried that message, they were
messengers of truth. This world is starved for genuine love. We need
to hear the message "You are a person of worth! You matter!"
The first message that God wants this world to hear is that same
message: YOU MATTER TO GOD! Before they can really understand
anything else of spiritual worth, they need to know that God cares
about who we are and how we live.
It may not be the first message the church thinks the world
needs. We begin with Lesson Two or Lesson Three. We attack the evils
of our culture, and get wrapped up in boycotts and legislation, and no
doubt there is a place for all of that and much, much more. (After
all, Mother Teresa took every occasion she could to speak out against
abortion. But first she paid her dues; first she saw in every face
she met the image of God-- her base from which she worked was: YOU
MATTER TO GOD!) We tell the world "Change the way you're living, and
God will accept you, and you will be saved!" We say, "Confess your
sins-- and turn to Jesus and be saved!" and of course this is the very
heart of what we are here for-- but first, "Lesson ONE" is the message
the world needs to hear: God cares about you! You matter! You are of
worth to Him!
It seems so simple, perhaps. We've heard it so many times. But
the fact is, there are times when we need to hear this first word
again. But if we, who know our Bibles, and know something of God's
love need this, how much more people who have never met Jesus Christ
need to hear the good news of strong hope-- that God loves them, and
that THEY MATTER TO GOD!
In the gospel lesson today a woman, a foreigner, heard that Jesus
was nearby, in the coastal town of Tyre. This woman was an outsider
so far as the pious Jews were concerned. She had two big strikes
against her, maybe even three. She was a woman in a society where all
the religious leaders were male; she was a Syrophoenecian, a sort of
half-breed foreigner who was despised by the pure orthodox Hebrews.
This woman had a daughter in deep trouble, deep spiritual trouble.
This outsider thought she saw in Jesus that same quality we have
been speaking about-- the love and respect for all people that drew
people to Diana and Mother Teresa. Jesus had actually crossed a
political and religious boundary in entering Tyre, a city in Gentile
territory. It seems as though Jesus was trying to get a little down
time-- a tiny vacation, but it doesn't work and people flood in to
ask for his help.
The Syrophoenecian woman came to where Jesus was trying to rest,
and she watched for a while as people came and went, and saw his
kindness and power and healing compassion. Then she, too, asks for
help with those who are breaking into his time of rest.
Mark doesn't tell us, but Matthew does, that this woman was
noisily bothering the disciples and that they wanted Jesus to send her
away. He doesn't do that however, and I wonder if maybe the
interesting interchange between Jesus and the woman is more for the
disciples (read "us") than it was for the woman.
But this "outsider" saw what we all will see if we will look and
live-- she saw that no one who ever came to Jesus was turned away,
except those who came in hypocrisy to defeat Him. By his own words we
know "The one that comes to me I will in no way (ever) cast out!"
This "outsider" saw that compassion, and dared to ask for help. And
she found that she mattered to God. She got the help she needed.
YOU MATTER TO GOD! That is Good News!
Do you really believe that? You don't have to break down doors
and try to persuade God you are worthy to be loved by him. He loves
you just as you are! He cares about you! He wants to come into your
life and brings HIS HOPE to bear on all that you are and do.
YOUR NEIGHBOR MATTERS TO GOD!
How are you going to tell him/her? Probably imperfectly, if
you're like the rest of us. But it will begin with an attitude.
James has some suggestions in our epistle lesson. He tells us
that we had better stop deciding who is "in" and who is "out." He
says if a person with money starts attending, and we act as though she
matters more than another person who is poor, we are missing the
message: you matter to God.
Don't get me wrong-- rich people need to hear this message, too.
Don't despise your neighbor because he may have more than you do. The
message is the same: you matter to God!
Conclusion:
Not one of us here will ever catch the attention of the entire
world like Diana or Mother Teresa. We won't have the spotlight in
which to tell people that they count, they are important. We probably
can be thankful that we don't.
But we will all have the privilege, first of all, to know that
fact for ourselves. IN JESUS CHRIST WE HAVE A DOOR TO AN ETERNAL
RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD! We matter! We are as important to God as
anyone who ever lived!
And then we have the privilege and the duty to begin where we can
by spreading the word far and near: YOU matter to God! You are NOT an
"outsider" to him! That is the message of our church! Will you help
tell it this week?
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