Fifth Sunday After Epiphany: Dancing with God in the Ordinary Rhythms of Our Lives

This week we celebrated the fifth Sunday after Epiphany. Our community is in the midst of a series focusing on Discovering the Presence of God in the Ordinary Rhythms of Life in which we are juxtaposing the Old Testament and Gospel texts.

The message for this fifth Sunday after Epiphany, which took place at our annual Church Retreat at Camp MennoHaven, focused on the following Scriptures: Isaiah 40:21-31; Mark 1:29-39

Connect to Dancing with God in the Ordinary Rhythms of Our lives . In this message, I invite us to notice the rhythms of God in our lives so that we might join in with what God is doing.  This is much like a dance - in which we just don't jump in and do our own moves, but take a moment to discern, to catch the beat, to become attuned to the rhythm of God so that we can join in with God in dancing the dance of life, being invited in and inviting others into the dance that is the community of God.  

Second Sunday After Epiphany: Hearing God in the Ordinary Rhythms of Our Lives

This week we celebrated the second Sunday after Epiphany. Our community is in the midst of a series focusing on Discovering the Presence of God in the Ordinary Rhythms of Life in which we are juxtaposing the Old Testament and Gospel texts.

The message for this second Sunday after Epiphany focused on the following Scriptures: 1 Samuel 3:1-20; John 1: 43-51

Connect to Hearing God in the Ordinary Rhythms of Our lives . In this message, I ask how we might go about training our ears so that we might hear God in the everyday rhythms of our lives.  Cultivating our imagination and responding to the Spirit-guided intuition helps attune our lives to the voice of God who speaks to us in the midst of our days.  Some suggestions are provided how we cultivate our ears through engaging Scripture, through prayer, and through spiritual conversations.

First Sunday After Epiphany: Seeing Re-creation in the Ordinary Rhythms of Our Lives

This week we celebrated the first Sunday after Epiphany. Our community is in the midst of a series focusing on Discovering the Presence of God in the Ordinary Rhythms of Life in which we are juxtaposing the Old Testament and Gospel texts.

The message for this first Sunday after Epiphany focused on the following Scriptures: Genesis 1:1-5; Mark 1:4-11

Connect to Seeing Re-creation in the Ordinary Rhythms of Our lives .  In this message, we are being called to have eyes to see the light of God. Just as God created light in creation, so the presence of God is not only revealed in Jesus, but also through us, as the people of God, as we live out our lives.  What we discover is that God's presence is not primarily in spectacular ways, but in the everyday ordinary rhythms of our lives.

Third Sunday of Advent: Transforming Our Sorrow

This week we celebrated the third Sunday of Advent. Our community is in the midst of an Advent and Christmas series focusing on Awesome Deeds We Do Not Expect.

The message for this third Sunday of Advent focused on the following Scriptures (particularly the ones in bold font): Psalm 126; Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11; 1 Thessalonians 5: 16-24; John 1: 6-8, 19-28

The message – Transforming Our Sorrow (click on the title to be connected to the message) addressed how we live in light of the sorrows we encounter everyday.  One day God has promised to turn our sorrow, our nmourning into joy, but how do we live in the "meantime?"  The Psalmist as do the Isaiah and Thesssalonian texts reveal that we are called to live in the present in light of the future reality of God's peace, God's shalom.  This is not merely wishful thinking, but living in the reality of the Spirit who creates joy in our life as we create room for the Spirit to do God's transforming work in us. 

Second Sunday of Advent: Changing the Landscape

This week we celebrated the second Sunday of Advent.  Our community is in the midst of an Advent and Christmas series focusing on Awesome Deeds We Do Not Expect. 

The message for the second Sunday of Advent focused on the following Scriptures (particularly the ones in bold font):   Psalm 85:1-2, 8-13; Isaiah 40:1-11; Mark 1:1-8; 2 Peter 3:8-15a

The message – Changing the Landscape (click on the title to be connected to the message) addressed whether we are willing for God to change the landscape of our lives.  Do we want God to change the landscape in front of us to make open roads for us so that our lives are fulfilling, or are we willing for the Spirit of God to remove barriers within us, to change the landscape within our lives so that God has unimpeded access into the center of our lives – in order to transform us, shape us, lead us?

First Sunday of Advent - Learning to Pay Attention

This blog had a short run as a place to raise some discussion based on a previous Sunday’s message – now it is being resurrected as a place to post my Sunday messages for those who have been requesting them, as well as providing a forum for feedback, added insights, deeper questions, or even points of disagreement.

After Last Sunday begins again with the onset of the Christian Year with the celebration of the first Sunday of Advent.  Our community is in the midst of an Advent and Christmas series focusing on Awesome Deeds We Do Not Expect. 

In this focus we give our attention to God who enters our world in many ways – some large and dramatic, others small and subtle.  Isaiah’s imagery about mountains falling down, valleys standing up, and unlikely people appearing on the road is not about a dramatic moment as a decisive change.  God’s presence is disruptive and surprising, never safe or predictable.  Nothing pictures the surprising nature of God’s presence than God’s coming in the person of Jesus.

During this Advent season, we are invited to meditate on God’s sure coming – but often in places we would not think to look.  We are invited to ponder God’s awesome deeds – but often not the ones we would expect.  What we celebrate and anticipate this Advent is the unexpected manner of God’s coming in Jesus, and the unexpected ways God is still coming.

The message for the first Sunday of Advent focused on the following Scriptures (particularly the ones in bold font):   Psalm 80:1-7, 17-19, Isaiah 64:1-9, Mark 13:24-37, 1 Corinthians 1:3-9

The message – Learning to Pay Attention (click on the title to be connected to the message) addressed our longings for dramatic revelations of God, yet, God often enters our lives in unexpected ways that catch us unaware if we aren’t alert and watching.  Even small moments can be vessels of God’s awesome deeds.  God is near – so keep awake and pay attention!

Where is God in the Telling of Our Stories?

Over the past couple of weeks I have been reflecting on being open to God’s Story and Vision in my life.  How do I go about living not just for myself, but being part of what God is doing in the world? 

In reflecting on this, I realize that how open I am is dependent upon how I tell my story, particularly who I see as the main character in my story.

I was recently engaged in such a conversation involving how we go about telling our stories in serving as a reader for a Doctor of Ministry oral exam for a student of mine who was in a doctoral seminar I taught at Perkins School of Theology a couple of summers ago.

We were talking about using contemporary stories, even fairy tales, for getting into Scripture – God’s Story and Vision.  For many people, gaining access to Scripture is a difficult thing because we have a particular understanding, or perhaps, misunderstanding of God.  We have a low or negative view of Scripture because of how we perceive God, and so Scripture becomes foreign, even antithetical or our life experiences. 

But in reframing an understanding of God through identifying with characters in other stories, films, fairy tales, etc., we come to discover a fresh understanding of God’s nature and how God is expressed through stories such as the Prodigal Son and other parables, or Jesus’ engagement with people in need.  And then in the midst of this dialogue, a comment was made that had a tremendous impact upon me for framing how we speak about our stories as the people of God.

In being a people who are growing in our attending to God, in our being open to God, are we the main character in our stories, or is God the main character?  We tend to get it reversed.  In describing our spiritual experiences, our life stories, we almost always make ourselves the main character of our own stories – but if we begin to have ears and eyes that are open to what God is doing in the world, we begin to realize that it is God, rather than us, who is the main character even in our own stories. 

What so radically changes my perspective is coming to realize that even in my own life story, I am not the one who is changing me.  God is changing me – especially as I open myself to God.  God is active in me to draw myself to him; God is working out God’s purposes in me; God is more interested in me than I am interested in me.  God is indeed the main character in the development of my story.  In response, God then becomes the main character in the telling of my story, because God has invited me into the Story and Vision that God is unfolding in the world that God is healing, reconciling, restoring, and making new.

In telling our stories in which God is the main character, we come to realize that we are worshiping God and pointing to God who is and always will be gracious to us – earthen vessels, broken and cracked jars, through whom God is making all things new.  God is unfolding God’s Story and Vision through the ordinary human lives – now that is a story worth sharing.