When we read Luke 18:1-8, we are encouraged to be persistent in prayer. The widow kept on pestering the judge until he caved. She got her justice!
Jesus continues, "Listen to what the unjust judge says. And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly."
This is a story not only about persistence in prayer, it is a story about justice and aobut God's plan for His world. In effect, Jesus is having God say, "Don't make me come down there! I will not ignore the cries of those who are being oppressed, those who are being exploited, those who are being abused. I hear their prayers and I will not forever abide the injustice that they are experiencing."
God hates injustice, and God's people ought to hate injustice as well. And we are the answer to injustice! Anywhere people are being mistreated, anywhere people have needs that aren't being met, we are God's hands reaching out with love.
Justice is what God wants, for all people, everywhere.
Pastor Kay
Monday, October 11, 2010
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
A Familiar Story
I like this time of year when the lectionary (prescribed scriptures) brings us many of the old, familiar Sunday School stories. This Sunday will be the healing of the lepers. Do you remember? Jesus heals ten lepers and only one returns to thank him.
Why do you suppose Jesus showed disappointment when only one of the lepers returned to give thanks?
The great Lutheran preacher of the late 20th century Edmund Steimle, says: "Well, for one thing, a marvelous and miraculous cure had been given to them, not a calamity. Jesus was concerned that there be recognition of the giver behind the gift. One can rejoice in gifts, as did the other nine, no doubt, and as we frequently do when good things come our way. But Jesus was concerned that they recognize their dependence upon the giver for all the good they had experienced in life."
Too often, we forget our dependence upon God. May we take the time today to recognize that dependence and ..............Oh yes, thank Him.
Grace & Peace
Pastor Kay
Why do you suppose Jesus showed disappointment when only one of the lepers returned to give thanks?
The great Lutheran preacher of the late 20th century Edmund Steimle, says: "Well, for one thing, a marvelous and miraculous cure had been given to them, not a calamity. Jesus was concerned that there be recognition of the giver behind the gift. One can rejoice in gifts, as did the other nine, no doubt, and as we frequently do when good things come our way. But Jesus was concerned that they recognize their dependence upon the giver for all the good they had experienced in life."
Too often, we forget our dependence upon God. May we take the time today to recognize that dependence and ..............Oh yes, thank Him.
Grace & Peace
Pastor Kay
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
The Miners
This article was e-mailed to me from our Synod Letter. It made me think. I thought perhaps you would want to read it as well.
It sounds like the latest prime-time reality show. Thirty-three miners trapped half a mile beneath the earth’s surface await rescue. How will they fare through several months of cramped exile in a hot, dark tunnel the size of a couple semi-trailers?
The entire group might sink into a deadly funk if they knew the likely length of their confinement. So, authorities have decided to keep as vague as possible all projections about the timing of their rescue. How long will it take for the men to realize they’re being kept in yet another kind of darkness?
I was grateful to learn that the miners have a separate tunnel to use as a latrine, and
that they quickly organized themselves. Administrative, medical, and spiritual leaders emerged, but as weeks and months in the darkness drag on, will the men turn on their leaders the way we do up here?
Can you think of 32 people, even if you could choose from among both genders and other walks of life, with whom you’d willingly spend six months in an unfurnished room with no win-dows? Can you name 32 others who could tolerate you?
The most dramatic story lines we’ll eventually hear may have to do with certain details of the rescue plan. Crews have begun boring a hole 26 inches wide through which they expect to raise the men, one at a time, in a three-hour elevator ride to
the surface. Currently, several men are too large for an opening that size. They have several months to shed some body mass, but how do you lose weight when you can’t take a walk, much less jog or work out at the Y?
We’ll learn plenty about these men over the next few months as they become the unwitting cast of an un-scripted reality show, or accidental lab specimens in an unplanned but all too genuine study of human nature.
Meanwhile, up here in breeze and sunlight, we too face a test. If our own humanity remains intact, we’ll find ourselves down there in the dark with those castaways, at least in our prayers.
Peace,
Pastor Kay
It sounds like the latest prime-time reality show. Thirty-three miners trapped half a mile beneath the earth’s surface await rescue. How will they fare through several months of cramped exile in a hot, dark tunnel the size of a couple semi-trailers?
The entire group might sink into a deadly funk if they knew the likely length of their confinement. So, authorities have decided to keep as vague as possible all projections about the timing of their rescue. How long will it take for the men to realize they’re being kept in yet another kind of darkness?
I was grateful to learn that the miners have a separate tunnel to use as a latrine, and
that they quickly organized themselves. Administrative, medical, and spiritual leaders emerged, but as weeks and months in the darkness drag on, will the men turn on their leaders the way we do up here?
Can you think of 32 people, even if you could choose from among both genders and other walks of life, with whom you’d willingly spend six months in an unfurnished room with no win-dows? Can you name 32 others who could tolerate you?
The most dramatic story lines we’ll eventually hear may have to do with certain details of the rescue plan. Crews have begun boring a hole 26 inches wide through which they expect to raise the men, one at a time, in a three-hour elevator ride to
the surface. Currently, several men are too large for an opening that size. They have several months to shed some body mass, but how do you lose weight when you can’t take a walk, much less jog or work out at the Y?
We’ll learn plenty about these men over the next few months as they become the unwitting cast of an un-scripted reality show, or accidental lab specimens in an unplanned but all too genuine study of human nature.
Meanwhile, up here in breeze and sunlight, we too face a test. If our own humanity remains intact, we’ll find ourselves down there in the dark with those castaways, at least in our prayers.
Peace,
Pastor Kay
Monday, September 6, 2010
The Lost
This Sunday, the 12th of September we will be studying Luke 15:1-10. Some good stuff there about the 'lost'.
I once knew a young woman (won't mention a name). Shortly after I met her, her boyfriend kicked her out of his house. She brought that problem to work, and it got her fired. She said, "Maybe I should go to chuch. Nothing else is working!' Instead, she went out drinking with her friends. The hour grew late and her friends called it a night, but not this young lady. Some people were buying the drinks and she stayed on. The bar closed. She was drunk and angry. She went to her ex-boyfriends house, broke in, and beat him up. Then she stole his truck. Before morning came, she was in jail.
We might say that Sue was a sinner. But I think Jesus would say, "She is lost." Jesus would figure out how to welcome her. Maybe he would post her bail. Maybe he would buy her lunch. Maybe he would not judge her by her sin, but measure her value in the eyes of God.
What is the young woman's value in God's eyes? He died for her!
Now, when she is found, we will all celebrate her rescue! There is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one of us who repents.
Jesus looks at each one of us, and sees us as worthy of his death on the cross. And that's the Good News for us all!
Grace Abounds,
Pastor Kay
I once knew a young woman (won't mention a name). Shortly after I met her, her boyfriend kicked her out of his house. She brought that problem to work, and it got her fired. She said, "Maybe I should go to chuch. Nothing else is working!' Instead, she went out drinking with her friends. The hour grew late and her friends called it a night, but not this young lady. Some people were buying the drinks and she stayed on. The bar closed. She was drunk and angry. She went to her ex-boyfriends house, broke in, and beat him up. Then she stole his truck. Before morning came, she was in jail.
We might say that Sue was a sinner. But I think Jesus would say, "She is lost." Jesus would figure out how to welcome her. Maybe he would post her bail. Maybe he would buy her lunch. Maybe he would not judge her by her sin, but measure her value in the eyes of God.
What is the young woman's value in God's eyes? He died for her!
Now, when she is found, we will all celebrate her rescue! There is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one of us who repents.
Jesus looks at each one of us, and sees us as worthy of his death on the cross. And that's the Good News for us all!
Grace Abounds,
Pastor Kay
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Discipleship Costs!
Luke 14:33......any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple.
What? Give up everything? When we read this scripture in church Sunday, will we respond, "This is the Word of the Lord, thanks be to God"?
What does it cost us to profess our faith in Jesus Christ and to announce ourselves as his disciples? What does it cost you to be a Christian? We're not just talking here about your financial commitment.
You know that if you're going to play golf well you're going to invest hours on the range working on your swing, you may pay a pro to give you instructions, you will frustrate yourself watching balls splash in the water and disappear into the rough. Playing golf well does not come cheap.
It's common sense, Jesus says. Count the cost of what you want to build. Can you afford it? Will you pay it? It's common sense.
What is the cost of discipleship? It's not cheap. To hear more-please join us in church this Labor Day Weekend. Sunday at 11 AM. Cambridge, Kansas Presbyterian Church, USA
I'll be looking for you!
Pastor Kay
What? Give up everything? When we read this scripture in church Sunday, will we respond, "This is the Word of the Lord, thanks be to God"?
What does it cost us to profess our faith in Jesus Christ and to announce ourselves as his disciples? What does it cost you to be a Christian? We're not just talking here about your financial commitment.
You know that if you're going to play golf well you're going to invest hours on the range working on your swing, you may pay a pro to give you instructions, you will frustrate yourself watching balls splash in the water and disappear into the rough. Playing golf well does not come cheap.
It's common sense, Jesus says. Count the cost of what you want to build. Can you afford it? Will you pay it? It's common sense.
What is the cost of discipleship? It's not cheap. To hear more-please join us in church this Labor Day Weekend. Sunday at 11 AM. Cambridge, Kansas Presbyterian Church, USA
I'll be looking for you!
Pastor Kay
Monday, August 23, 2010
What A Party!
One day Jesus was at a dinner party and he taught something very different. "When you have a party," Jesus said, "or when you want to take someone to dinner, don't do this for someone who can afford to pay you back. Instead, invite someone who will never be able to pay back your favor. Then God will always be the one who will bless you." Luke 14: 7-14
Barbara Brown Taylor vividly imagines what the table fellowship of Jesus might look like today. She pictures an abortion doctor, an arms dealer, a garbage collector, a young man with AIDS, a Laotian chicken plucker, a teenage crack addict, and an unmarried woman on welfare with her five children by three different fathers in tow. Sitting at the head of the table, Jesus asks the young man to hand him a roll and then offers the doctor one more cup of coffee before she heads back to the clinic.
But the scene doesn't end there. In come some pastors from the local ministerial association. They plunk themselves down in a booth across from the sinners. These pastors all have good teeth and well-groomed fingernails. When their food comes, they hold hands to pray. They are all perfectly nice people. But they can hardly stomach their sandwiches at the sight of the strange crowd in the far booth.
The chicken plucker is still wearing her white hair net. The garbage collector smells like spoiled meat. The addict can barely bring spoon to mouth, "But the heartbreaker is Jesus, sitting there as if everything werre just dandy. Doesn't he know what kind of message he is sending?" (Christian Century, March 11, 1998, page 257).
The fact is that he did and does! The message he sends is about a forgiveness that can never be rescinded, an acceptance that can never be questioned, and a love that is unlimited and available to all!
May we ever be like Jesus,
Pastor Kay
Barbara Brown Taylor vividly imagines what the table fellowship of Jesus might look like today. She pictures an abortion doctor, an arms dealer, a garbage collector, a young man with AIDS, a Laotian chicken plucker, a teenage crack addict, and an unmarried woman on welfare with her five children by three different fathers in tow. Sitting at the head of the table, Jesus asks the young man to hand him a roll and then offers the doctor one more cup of coffee before she heads back to the clinic.
But the scene doesn't end there. In come some pastors from the local ministerial association. They plunk themselves down in a booth across from the sinners. These pastors all have good teeth and well-groomed fingernails. When their food comes, they hold hands to pray. They are all perfectly nice people. But they can hardly stomach their sandwiches at the sight of the strange crowd in the far booth.
The chicken plucker is still wearing her white hair net. The garbage collector smells like spoiled meat. The addict can barely bring spoon to mouth, "But the heartbreaker is Jesus, sitting there as if everything werre just dandy. Doesn't he know what kind of message he is sending?" (Christian Century, March 11, 1998, page 257).
The fact is that he did and does! The message he sends is about a forgiveness that can never be rescinded, an acceptance that can never be questioned, and a love that is unlimited and available to all!
May we ever be like Jesus,
Pastor Kay
Monday, August 9, 2010
Worship
When we leave worship and go out through the doors of the church into the world, we should go as people who have been changed through an encounter with God. Worship should not be something that simply sustains us in what we are already doing. Worship needs to make us, somehow, into different people, into the people that God wants us to be. Worship needs to help us to cease to do evil, and it needs to encourage us to learn to do good. For if our worship truly does all this, we can be assured that God will smile upon our festivals and solemn assemblies. And we can be assured that God will delight in the worship that we offer. Thanks be to God!
Psalm 50: 23 He who sacrifices thank offerings honors me, and he prepares the way so that I may show him the salvation of God.
Grace and Peace
Pastor Kay
Psalm 50: 23 He who sacrifices thank offerings honors me, and he prepares the way so that I may show him the salvation of God.
Grace and Peace
Pastor Kay
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
