June 19, 2016 (full size gallery)
A wonderful Father’s Day on the river with abundant sunshine! The temperature was bearable for this time of year. The day lilies continued in full bloom and with the light hitting them in the early morning it was beautiful. As the day moves forward the day lilies become even brighter. There is a picture of the campanile and day lilies after the service which shows this to be the case. The Easter lilies were also blooming in the memorial garden.
The altarpiece renovation continues. By this Sunday the center portion is almost complete. The pinacles are beginning to have the 5 petal design. The specialist working with the guilding will be coming again shortly. The wooden tablets are another 2-3 months.
We had 9 at "Weaving God’s Promises" discussing the Parable of the Sower and parables in general. 35 were at the service.
The service featured a special father’s day prayer as well as another Cookie flower arrangement Queen’s Anne lace, smoke and a third flower.
Today’s readings focus on the understanding of how Jesus’ presence changes our lives. Past, present and future unfold before us in today’s scripture readings. The bullletin is here
Isaiah describes God’s necessary judgment and promise of final deliverance and cleansing for the people.
The psalm conveys Israel’s experience of God in the past and extols God’s majesty and divine protection. The psalmist’s lips give praise to God, whose identity was never in question. The psalmist yearns for God’s presence, especially in times of suffering.
By the time Paul wrote to the Galatians, the heirs of the promise to Abraham’s spiritual offspring were claiming their inheritance. Justified by faith in Christ, no longer separated by the law from God or neighbor, Jews could be united with Gentiles. The blueprint of God’s kingdom was discernible on earth. Paul writes to the Galatians of their unity and freedom in Christ Jesus.
Following the chronological order of revelation, we move to scenes of those who come to know the mystery and majesty of Jesus. Jesus’ begins his mission to the Gentiles with the expulsion of many demons in this foray across the Sea of Galilee. The healed demoniac and his fellow villagers struggle with the implications of such a powerful figure in their midst. The demoniac is healed and restored to community through Jesus’ power. Although he wants desperately to follow Jesus, the healed man is directed to do his evangelizing first with his own family.
The sermon looks at the implications of the Gospel story on the man and villagers. The villagers missed what Jesus could do for them – "The people of the city in today’s gospel reading who came out to see Jesus and what he had done must have gone near the edge of the steep bank of the Sea of Galilee and peered over to see all of those pigs that had drowned when the destructive demons entered them and they rushed down the bank into the lake…They also kept their feet planted firmly on the ground of certainty and the status quo when they sent Jesus away out of fear for what else he might do.
They asked Jesus to leave, and so Jesus got into his boat and left, and nothing changed for them. In doing so, they also missed experiencing all of the powerful, healing, awesome resurrection events that Jesus would have done among them if he had stayed with them. They missed the unexpected, exciting, healing and life giving changes that Jesus would have brought to all of them.."
The man by contrast received the freedom of Jesus .’This man had enough faith, though, to start running toward that cliff, uncertain of what might happen, counting on being caught in the updraft of God’s saving love, about to experience flying and some “this is awesome” moments, like the one he had experienced when Jesus sent the demons out of him."
"The evidence throughout scripture is that Jesus is all about the life changing and life giving kingdom of God in our midst—unity rather than division, vulnerability rather than violence, love rather than hate, life rather than death. But to choose unity, vulnerability, love and life requires that we run toward a cliff, uncertain of what will happen when we take the proverbial leap of faith into the updraft of God’s powerful, changing, life giving, resurrection love."
"For us, the status quo in this country is becoming more and more a state of division, a widening gap between the rich and the poor, distain for anyone with a different point of view, political gridlock, discrimination against people who are not like us, and an acceptance of violence as the norm, particularly the acceptance of gun violence that goes unchecked in schools, movie theaters, bars, churches, grocery stores, street corners—no place in this country is immune to this sort of violence. All of this mayhem has become the status quo that we complain about but are unwilling to change.We send him away because the new resurrection life that Jesus offers us seems too idealistic to work in such a broken world, or too hard to implement, or too daunting to even consider. Our fear of change, even for the better, has become greater than our fear of death itself. "