Sunday, June 18, 2017, Pentecost 2 (full size gallery)
A warm Sunday on father’s day. We had 44 in attendance. Catherine recognized the youngest father, the father with the most children, a father soon to be, and the oldest father. She then read the father’s day prayer and invited everyone who had a father to stand up. Some people had to think through that one!
This week was the conclusion of Godly Play for the program year. Becky had them construct a booklet to write their activities over the year. Becky was getting ready for Vacation Bible School (VBS) which starts tomorrow with possibly record attendance. It is a full week, one more than last year and has a Harry Potter them. Here is the best of VBS for 2016
This week is not only VBS but also the Village Harvest Food distribution on Wed. We had some donations today of paper products
This week,the campanile received the first coat of paint and the main church sign one coat of primer.
All this is partially to get ready for Bishop Johnson’s visit next Sunday. No 9am service on June 25. Activities are still being planned for him sincet he is away until Tuesday in Kenya. At the 11am service, he will receive 4 and confirm 1 which will be followed by a reception
Today’s readings remind us of God’s saving work in our world and our participation and cooperation to accomplish God’s plan. In Exodus God recounts the saving deeds performed for the people and makes a covenant with them. Paul reminds us that our reconciliation to God in Jesus Christ will lead to our salvation. In the gospel, Jesus sends out the twelve disciples to carry his work and message throughout Israel.
Today’s reading from Exodus brings the people of Israel to their goal in the wilderness, to the place of God’s self-revelation. Here God offers to humankind a response to their sin (Genesis 2-3), a call to one particular people to enter into covenant with God. God has chosen Israel (Deuteronomy 7:6) from all the world to be God’s “treasured possession.” God proclaims the background of the covenant: mighty acts of deliverance, especially the exodus from Egypt when God bore the people “on eagles’ wings” (an image of the female eagle’s care of her young).
Then God sets forth the conditions of the covenant. Israel is to obey God, especially in commandments to be set forth later. They will thus be “a priestly kingdom and a holy nation,” a people set apart and consecrated for God’s service. As priests were responsible to the people for both worship and teaching, so Israel is sanctified for its service to the rest of the world.
Paul uses two equivalent metaphors to describe God’s redeeming act in Christ: justification, that is, the ending of a legal dispute (3:21-26), and reconciliation, that is, the termination of a state of enmity. Paul makes it clear that it is we who are estranged from God; there is no room here for a doctrine of the cross in which Christ’s sacrifice pacified an angry God. Instead, in Christ’s sacrifice God manifests God’s justifying, reconciling love for us.
Although Christians are still sinful, transformation through the gift of the Holy Spirit has begun. One effect is that they have peace with and access to God (5:1-2). A second effect is that they now possess confident hope, leading them to look forward to the fullness of sanctification. Whereas justification marks the start of this process, salvation marks its future completion. Christians enter ever more fully into salvation by participating in Christ’s risen life and by anticipating a share in God’s glory.
Today’s Gospel’s reading contains an introduction (9:36-38) and the beginning of the mission discourse (10:1-42), the third of the five main discourses that form the structural backbone of Matthew’s gospel. In this discourse, Jesus invites his disciples to begin to participate in his service to the kingdom of God.
Jesus’ ministry is identified as teaching, preaching and healing (4:23; 9:35). The people are “like sheep without a shepherd,” a traditional description of the people of Israel when their leadership has failed (Ezekiel 34:1-6; Zechariah 10:2). He tells the disciples to ask God “to send out laborers.” The harvest is often an image of the last judgment (13:39), already underway in Jesus’ ministry.
The Twelve named disciples, recalling the twelve tribes of Israel, symbolize the fullness of the new covenant community. Jesus now gives them the authority to preach and heal (10:7-8), but reserves authority to teach until after the resurrection (28:20).
Like Jesus during his earthly ministry, the disciples are at this time to limit their ministry to “the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” The exceptions (8:5-10, 15:21-28) foreshadow the mission to the Gentiles (8:10-12, 28:19) validated by Jesus’ resurrection and enthronement. The disciples show Jesus to the people, for their message and ministry is that of Jesus himself.
The greeting of “peace,” shalom, is a dynamic word sent out by the speaker that, if it finds no effect in the hearer, returns to the speaker. If there is no response, the disciples are to disassociate themselves from that town by the prophetic action of shaking off its dust. The fate of Sodom and Gomorrah was a traditional illustration of God’s judgment on wickedness (Genesis 18:16–19:28), but the judgment on unbelief will be more severe. Using the form of the commission of a prophet (Jeremiah 1:4-10), Matthew has outlined the authoritative mandate (28:18) and the mission of the disciples (28:19).
The sermon was about faith, particularly holding onto it in the face of adversity. "When we live in faith, we can claim our sorrows and our struggles and our troubles because we know that God’s love is healing and restoring, and that God’s love is lifting us up on eagles’ wings, to bring us in to safety through every danger of this life, to life in God. "