September 4, 2016 (full size gallery)
Loss and Gain – This week, Monday Aug 29 we lost the corner sycamore in the back of the church. It had lost a main trunk not long ago and the tree experts found disease spreading and it was only a matter of time before the tree collapsed. The size of the stump is immense
The gain was the tablets coming back, Thursday, Sept 1. Roy Carter and Don Lee who are professional art installers brought back our 4 tablets thereby uniting all 5 parts of the altarpiece. They had taken them out for work on April 22. Eunice and Jim Heimback were there to capture some pictures
This Sunday the Hooker family from Georgia who visited us on Nov. 29 when we began the altarpiece project with Cleo Mullins describing the project on Advent 1, came back this Sunday at the conclusion of the project.
This Sunday we began integrating some of the other children in the service who received training during Vacation Bible School this summer. Catherine thanked Helmut for the "children’s cross" a lighter version of our altar cross which matches the tablets, ironically. McKenna was the first to use it.
We had 47 in the service. In honor of the tablets returning we said the Decalogue with the 10 commandments. Catherine pointed out the end of Commandment 2 – "showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments." She recounted our blessings with the altarpiece and kitchen work this year
Also in honor of the tablets, we said the Apostles Creed directly from the tablets instead of the Nicene Creed from the Prayer book
During the communion, masterful guitarist Karen Richardson played her guitar with two instrumentals, one begin "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing", appropriate for this Sunday of remembering our blessings.
First Sunday Social was led by Becky, Betty, Cookie and Catherine. An abundance of bean dishes along with a barbecue, a shrimp salad, a regular salad and watermelon. For dessert there were lemon squares and Tucker’s small cheese cakes. We had an unusually large crowd.
Today’s readings explore the meaning of discipleship and commitment. In Deuteronomy , Moses challenges God’s people to “choose life” by remaining faithful to God. In his personal letter to Philemon, Paul disarms the slaveholder’s authority by bidding him to receive the slave as a dear brother. In today’s gospel, Jesus describes a disciple as one who knows the cost and is willing to make a radical surrender to Christ.
The Gospel says, "Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple."
Hate our parents? Reject our spouses? Deny our children? The traditional hyperbole of today’s gospel may have been designed to separate the serious followers from the crowd.
Therefore the “hatred” of father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters” is not disaffection from persons we love, but rather understanding the even greater things that Christ calls us to. The family of reference is really the larger family of discipleship. What is it, we ought to wonder, that Jesus really calls us to, and do we know the cost of it.
The sermon considers who we can trapped by posessions or other forces that keep us away from Jesus’ teachings and to be diciples.
The example is Rolf confronting Captain Von Trapp in the graveyard with a pistol in his hand on the night the latter he was trying to fee Germany. "That gun that Rolf clutches represents death instead of life; power over others through the use of force; and loyalty to a group of people who have taken control over a country through intimidation and by creating an atmosphere of fear. "
“Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.”
"With these stark words, Jesus demands total allegiance from anyone who would follow him as a disciple. He is telling them to put down anything that is keeping them from following him wholeheartedly. Jesus is telling them that nothing, not even their families or their possessions, can come before him."
"And as Jesus points out, the things that we love more than God are the very things we need to put down if we want to be disciples of Jesus. Another example – "When Mother Teresa left home at age eighteen to begin her life as a missionary in India, she left behind her comfortable life with her family. But Teresa gave up her birth family to become the disciple that Jesus was calling her to be.
"Jesus continually issues this call to discipleship to me and to each one of us by giving us multiple opportunities each day to put down the things that are keeping us from following him."
Sometimes it is not a case of giving up but taking up a new view. Paul’s letter to Philemon is a masterful work of rhetoric in hopes of convincing Philemon to not be harsh to Onesimus, the runaway slave, but to welcome him back and to see him differently—no longer as a slave, but as a brother in Christ. Paul is calling for Philemon to change his mind, to change his view. Paul calls Philemon to become a person of stature, to embrace a larger vision of his social context in which all people are God’s beloved children, worthy of affirmation.