Pentecost 4B Creation Care

Sometimes people want to hear what they already know.

Scriptures

• Ezekiel 47:9

Wherever the river goes, every living creature that swarms will live, and there will be very many fish once these waters reach there. It will become fresh, and everything will live where the river goes.

• Ezekiel 47:12

On the banks, on both sides of the river, there will grow all kinds of trees for food. Their leaves will not wither nor their fruit fail, but they will bear fresh fruit every month, because the water for them flows from the sanctuary. Their fruit will be for food and their leaves for healing.

• 2 Corinthians 5:17

So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; look, everything has become new!

• Mark 4:26-34

²⁶ Jesus also said, "The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground ²⁷ and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how. ²⁸ The earth produces of itself first the stalk, then the head, then the full grain in the head. ²⁹ But when the grain is ripe, at once he goes in with his sickle because the harvest has come."

³⁰ He also said, "With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable will we use for it? ³¹ It is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth, ³² yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes the greatest of all shrubs and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade."

³³ With many such parables Jesus spoke the word to them as they were able to hear it; ³⁴ he did not speak to them except in parables, but he explained everything in private to his disciples.

Creation Care Outline

Where are we now in the church's year of grace? One month ago we celebrated the Day of Pentecost, the fiftieth day of Easter. We recollected when a large group of Jesus' first followers gathered in Jerusalem for the Jewish Pentecost. They remembered and affirmed God giving the Ten Words or Commandments through Moses, that way of obedience you could call the Working Papers for our lives together. And they celebrated the wheat harvest, God's gift from the ground that sustains our bodies every day.

Here in the church we recently started the six month long green and growing season of Pentecost; during this stretch of time we emphasize all creation as God's planting,. You know the story of God and God's people and the land from Genesis through Revelation.

Today's scriptures offer agricultural images. We hear from the prophet Ezekiel, and we hear two parables from Mark's gospel: scattered seeds and the famous mustard seed! The gospels of Luke and Matthew also include the mustard seed parable, so that may mean it's especially important.

A month ago we celebrated the Christian Day of Pentecost, or the fiftieth day of Easter. Christians have been celebrating Easter for two thousand years! Our formal theology tells us Jesus Christ's death and resurrection ended endless cycles of death, violence, and everything contrary to God's intention, but we look around and still see war, climate chaos, sorrow, sickness, death—none of that is over and done with yet.

Even though Jesus Christ has died, is risen from the grave, and ascended to reign from the right hand of God, even though we identify as Easter people… what's going on?

Jesus' original followers wondered, too.

After Jesus' resurrection and before his Ascension, in Luke's book of the Acts of the Apostles, his friends and followers asked if now he finally would "restore the kingdom" to the world. Jesus informed them the question was wrong. He told them to stay and wait right there in Jerusalem. and they would be his witnesses, they would testify to new life. In the power of the Holy Spirit of Pentecost, they would be Jesus' presence in the world.

In Romans 8:19-21 the Apostle Paul tells us all creation waits, hopes, and longs to discover us as God's authentic offspring, as people who embody, reflect, and act in God's image to help redeem all creation. Like Jesus!

The agricultural parables in the Good News of Jesus Christ, Son of God, according to Mark, align well with today's song, "God, Whose Farm Is All Creation." All creation. Not only prairie and heartland. But also crowded, overbuilt cities and suburbs. Remote rural wide spots in the road. Deserts. All creation is God's garden. God's land. God's farm.

God whose farm is all Creation,
take the gratitude we give,
take the finest of our harvest,
crops we grow that all may live.

Take our ploughing, seeding, reaping,
hopes and fears of sun and rain,
all our thinking, planning, waiting,
ripening into fruit and grain.

All our labor, all our watching,
all our calendar of care,
in these crops of your creation,
take, O God; they are our prayer.

Author: John Arlott

Romans reminds us creation hopes to discover that we'll treat oceans, wetlands, savannas, and cities in ways that help them heal. Creation watches us and waits for us to become good caretakers of waterways, trees, animals, insects. Of our own backyards and window boxes!

The new creation began 2000 years ago. That eighth day of the week, was the first day of a new reality. The new creation is not finished. The old creation still waits and hopes for us to be green people.

What's a biblical creation care model? We need to learn about plants, about seeds and soils, climates and seasons. It's also a great idea to act locally!

In the bible's promised land we see:

Crops watered by cascades down mountains into valleys and not by water shipped thousands of miles Gardens warmed by the great light of the sun and not by plugged in grids

Scripture shows us act locally. You know some of the ways:

• farmers markets
• street vendors
• community gardens
• backyard plots
• kitchen windowsill herb gardens
• composts

School and community gardens can help cancel food deserts
Besides, living local adds savor and flavor
Although we lose some long term keeper food
When that happens?!
Share the extras!
Trust the mystery!

In Ezekiel we hear about rivers flowing from the temple and healing everything the waters touch. Because everything those waters reach becomes healthy and well, the name of the city then becomes The Lord Is Here.

Today Jesus invites us to his table of grace. This eucharistic festival of thanksgiving is a taste, a token, a sign, a promise of creation completely redeemed.

Christ is raised and dies no more.
By water and the word
we share his death
his Eastered life

The new creation comes to life and grows
Everywhere we go!
Alleluia.
Amen!

Thanks be to God.
Amen.

01 Expectations

What expectations can I quietly let go of?

During fall 2024 I attended a workshop with journaling mentor and coach Joelle. You can follow her substack at Reconnect and Befriend; her Instagram is Reconnect and Befriend Coach.

To help conclude this year (that wraps up a quarter of the twenty-first century), Joelle's recent substack offered three questions – with three lively illustrations – to answer as we anticipate a bright 2026. Today I'll write to expectations because it's alphabetically first.


What expectations can I quietly let go of?

But why? Wouldn't that be quitting my dreams? Is dream and expectation the same, or is a dream more ethereal and sometimes ephemeral? An expectation more concrete and—expected?!

In this primarily bilingual (multicultural, multilingual) megalopolis, I often consider the triple meaning of esperar: expect; hope; wait. Most days it feels as if my life has been an expect – hope – wait marathon. How about yours?

As I've silently obsessed, not infrequently journaled, and occasionally blogged, my current situation, with current encompassing most of the last decade is "so far afield of the minimum I'd anticipated by now," it feels as if "anticipate" sleekly combines hope and expect. Expect because with my careful extensive preparation, I knew it would happen. The best way to predict the future is to create the future. Amirite?

We're late in the season of Advent, that wintry time that overflows with hope.

For in hope we have been saved, but hope that is seen is not hope, for who hopes for what they already see or have? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. Romans 8:24-25

You know the context! Creation waits for us to fully claim our divine natures so the new creation itself will flourish:

Romans 8:18-25

Digression: To nudge my sense of expectation, I hope to present my Theology of the New Creation discussion during Epiphany, but it needs tweaking because I planned the original version for the Season of Creation.

Back on topic: Joelle asked if I can let go of any expectations—plural more than one. How about just one? She asked if we can release them quietly. We're not talking hoping or waiting, although how can they not be factors? Expectations feels more vibrant and alive, as if it's growing wings and ready to fly. In most cases that wouldn't be a quiet event!

What are my primary expectations? A life of participation in and contribution to church and world. Still. That's so generic it feels easy to achieve, but it hasn't happened. Will I let it go? Will I release it? No! I won't give it up because that would be quitting.

# # #

911 Twenty Four Years

Yet my soul,
keep thou silence unto God:
for mine hope is in God.
Psalm 62:5

This is my reflection from two years ago with a few minor revisions.

The saga of un-creation in Jeremiah 4 feels like the reality of World Trade Center Ground Zero.

Jeremiah 4

¹¹ At that time it will be said to this people and to Jerusalem: A hot wind comes from me out of the bare heights in the desert toward the daughter of my people, not to winnow or cleanse, ¹² a wind too strong for that. Now it is I who speak in judgment against them.

²² "For my people are foolish; they do not know me; they are stupid children; they have no understanding. They are skilled in doing evil but do not know how to do good."

²³ I looked on the earth, and it was complete chaos, and to the heavens, and they had no light.
²⁴ I looked on the mountains, and they were quaking, and all the hills moved to and fro.
²⁵ I looked, and there was no one at all, and all the birds of the air had fled.
²⁶ I looked, and the fruitful land was a desert, and all its cities were laid in ruins before the Lord, before his fierce anger.

²⁷ For thus says the Lord: The whole land shall be a desolation, yet I will not make a full end. ²⁸ Because of this the earth shall mourn and the heavens above grow black, for I have spoken; I have purposed; I have not relented, nor will I turn back.

Twenty-Four Years

9/11/2001 + 24 = 2025

Where has the grief gone? Where have the memorial services gone? At least a few people on social media still ask where we were when we heard the news, although it's mostly for those of us who are so old we were chronologically mature adults in September 2001. We're still ready to revisit our experience, to retell the horror.

Monday evening 9/10/2001 I'd gotten back late from a seminar for the year-long Community Economic Development Certificate (mini-MBA in entrepreneurship) I'd just started at San Diego State. Tireder than usual, I'd gotten up an hour later than usual. By the time I turned on the morning news it had gone live. I watched the second plane hit the second tower.

And I can't ever forget the hope of two and a half days later.

Thursday evening September 13, 2001, my Presbyterian Church (USA), the large Evangelical Lutheran Church in America across the street and the smaller ELCA around the corner, a nearby Roman Catholic, that big United Methodist, and the United Church of Christ that bordered this neighborhood and the adjacent one gathered at the ELCA across the street and celebrated Eucharist. In the wake of unprecedented destruction on USA soil we offered thanksgiving! A glance into all creation healed and whole. A moment in the future God dreams of and calls us to help create.

Where were you? What words or communities or actions or realities sustained your hope? Still hold you in hope?


• Pentecost 14 Lectionary blog for Sunday, September 11, 2022 with more about God's presence, more on Jeremiah, and another retelling of when I saw the news. This coming Sunday September 14th will feature the same scriptures. As I mentioned about the counsel to preach the text and not the day, the appointed scripture often feels custom picked for the day in history or in our own local family, individual, ecclesiastical, or political lives.

Earth Day 2025

Our Power, Our Planet

From previous Earth Days:

• 2023 Invest In Our Planet

• 2020 50 Years :: #ClimateAction

• 2019 #ProtectOurSpecies

• 2018 #EndPlasticPollution

• 2015 #GreenCities

• 2008 Urban Oasis

Epiphany 2C

Intro

Tony Campolo, "The kingdom of God is a party." Not like a party, not some semblance of a celebration, but the reign of heaven on earth is the real thing.

This is MLK weekend. The USA and many other countries have been impacted with frightening political, social, and economic uncertainties. Unprecedented wildfires have leveled Los Angeles area neighborhoods. Wars and other armed conflicts simmer and explode across the globe.

John 2:1-11

¹ On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. ² Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. ³ When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, "They have no wine." ⁴ And Jesus said to her, "Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come." ⁵ His mother said to the servants, "Do whatever he tells you."

⁶ Now standing there were six stone water jars for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. ⁷ Jesus said to them, "Fill the jars with water." And they filled them up to the brim. ⁸ He said to them, "Now draw some out, and take it to the chief steward." So they took it.

⁹ When the steward tasted the water that had become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the steward called the bridegroom ¹⁰ and said to him, "Everyone serves the good wine first, and then the inferior wine after the guests have become drunk. But you have kept the best wine until now."

¹¹ Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.

Background

So far in this year of grace and season of revelation we've waited for God in our midst, we've been awed at the nativity of the infant Savior, we've met visitors from the East bearing gifts, we've joined a crowd alongside the Jordan.

After his riverside baptism by his cousin John the Baptist that all four gospels include, each gospel brings us a different version of Jesus' first act of public ministry. How can that be? Most likely they all happened around the same time, but each writer chose a particular one because it fit their perspective better.

The community surrounding John the beloved disciple writes about Jesus' signs rather than miracles. A miracle implies suspension of natural laws (which sometimes is the case, and sometimes there is a logical explanation), but a sign points beyond itself to a place, event, person, or idea—in this case, to Jesus. The Greek here is like our word semiotic that relates to signs, symbols, meanings. This gospel includes seven signs and seven "I Am" statements from Jesus. In Hebrew numerology, seven is the number of perfection or completion.


New Creation

In Matthew and Luke, after incarcerated John the Baptist wonders about Jesus being "the one who is to come," Jesus replies "go tell John what you see and hear: blind see; lame walk; diseased become clean; dead are raised! poor receive good news."

• Luke 7:20-22

• Matthew 11:2-5

These events fulfill John's signs.

John's gospel brings us the most explicit new creation.

• In the beginning … God –Genesis 1:1
• In the beginning … was the word –John 1:1

logos, word connotes both origin (where this came from) and immanence (what this might become). Does that sound theological?

On the seventh day God finished the work. –Genesis 2:2
"It is finished!" –John 19:30

• And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden… –Genesis 2:8

The garden of Jesus' burial and resurrection becomes the new garden of Eden

• Now there was a garden in the place where Jesus was crucified, and in the garden was a new tomb in which no one ever had been laid. And so, because it was the Jewish day of Preparation and the tomb was nearby, they laid Jesus there. –John 9:41-42

The first day of the week is the eighth day of creation, the first day of the new creation.

• Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb. –John 20:1
• Supposing him [Jesus] to be the gardener… –John 20:15b

Of the four canonical gospels, John brings us the most fully realized eschatology (protology is the word about first things, about origins; eschatology is the word about last things, about conclusions)—the clearest right here and right now of the reign of heaven on earth. A wedding party perfectly fits that worldview!


Today's Good News

This reading begins, "On the third day." In that place and time, the third day – Tuesday – was considered the best day for a wedding. But as Easter people, we also recognize the third day as the day of resurrection that initiates the new creation. And back then and there, an extravagant wedding party where everyone gets more than the dayenu or "it would have been enough" of the Passover song would be a primary indicator of the messianic age.

Cana in Galilee was disreputable gentile territory known for thieves and petty criminals. This wedding was not at an elite venue or an aspirational destination. Jesus performed this sign among regular, ordinary, working class people. Most of the guests and reception attendants probably lived nearby; some may have worked in the vineyard.

A wedding is an occasion to party; a wedding brings families together and gathers a community in one place for a single purpose. Whatever is happening elsewhere in the world, a wedding hopes for and promises a future. The couple getting married trusts that a future will arrive.

This isn't the old band Canned Heat Going Up the Country singing about "where the water tastes like wine." This is water that has become wine, and "you have kept the best wine until now!" –John 2:10


Where We Live

At the start of his public ministry Jesus attends a party and makes the party even better, in a preview of the rest of his time on earth. But two thousand years after Jesus' death and resurrection, we still experience death, disease, destruction, deadly fires, nations at war, a threat of government that is not by the people, of the people, or for the people.

Evidently a recent article in The Atlantic informed readers we need to party more. It was behind a paywall and no one provided a summary, but I agree.

After the 911 attack on the World Trade Center, although we didn't exactly rejoice with a block party, two days later on Thursday evening several churches in our neighborhood gathered to celebrate Eucharist, a meal with the risen Christ. Here's one of my reflections about it:

• 911 :: 22 years later

Literally in spite of everything we glanced into all creation healed and whole. We briefly lived in that future moment God dreams of and calls us to help create. Did you know the chasuble the person presiding at Eucharist vests in is the wedding garment of the messianic feast?

To paraphrase Cornel West, "We are people of hope. Why do we party on Friday night? Why do we go to church on Sunday?"

Because the Kingdom of God, the Reign of Heaven is a party!

Season of Creation :: Earth

• Last Sunday's Sermon. I had more notes than usual (tired body, weary mind, sorrowful spirit), so this is close to what I said. I haven't expanded all the shorthand, and from the lovely comments I got afterwards, I trust my presentation was more lyrical than these on-screen words.

• Genesis 1:9-13


Responsive Prayer

For the fruit of all creation,
thanks be to God.

In the help we give our neighbor,
thanks be to God.

For the plowing, sowing, reaping,
silent growth while we are sleeping,
thanks be to God.

For the harvests of the Spirit,
thanks be to God.

Most of all, that love has found us,
thanks be to God.
Amen!

Fred Pratt Green, 1970. Stanzas combined in the same order as the original.

911 :: 22 Years

Yet my soul,
keep thou silence unto God:
for mine hope is in God.
Psalm 62:5

I've partly borrowed this from the intro to my lectionary blog for 911-2022 when the saga of un-creation from Jeremiah 4:11-12, 22-28 felt like the reality of WTC Ground Zero. Although they frequently advise us "preach the text and not the day," the appointed scripture sometimes feels custom picked for the day's event.


911

9/11/2001 + 22 = 2023

Twenty-two years later, where has the grief gone? Where have the memorial services gone? Happily or not, at least a few tweeps have asked where we were when we heard the news. That would be for those of us who are so old we were chronologically mature adults on 11 September 2001. And we're always ready to revisit our experience, to retell the horror.

Monday evening 9/10/2001 I'd gotten back late from a seminar for the year-long Community Economic Development certificate program I'd just started at San Diego State. Tireder than usual, I'd gotten up maybe an hour later than I typically did. By the time I turned on the morning news, the news had gone live. I watched the second plane hit the second tower.

And I never forget the hope of two and a half days later.

Thursday evening September 13, 2001, my Presbyterian Church (USA), the large Evangelical Lutheran Church in America across the street and the smaller ELCA around the corner, a nearby Roman Catholic, that big United Methodist, and the United Church of Christ that bordered this neighborhood and the adjacent one gathered at the ELCA across the street and celebrated Eucharist. In the wake of unprecedented destruction on USA soil, yes, we offered thanksgiving! A glance into all creation healed and whole. A moment in the future God dreams of and calls us to help create.

Where were you? What words or communities or actions or realities sustained your hope? Hold you in hope?

Five Minute Friday :: Quick

• Five Minute Friday :: Quick Linkup

Header Phrases

• Follow your heart
• There is a place
• In the quick of existence
• Where the mind sees more than the eye
• Peace
• Friends
• 3
• Go Slo
• We, according to his promise,
Look for new heavens and a new earth
[where righteousness dwells]. 2 Peter 3:13


Quick

And behold, I am coming quickly, and my reward is with me, to give to every one according to his work. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End, the First and the Last. He who testifies to these things says, "Surely I am coming quickly." Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus! Revelation 22:12, 13, 20

"Quick" in this passage from Revelation sometimes gets translated soon; the Greek supports both. My most frequent connotation of quick is without much delay. Though not necessarily the yesterday we often wish for, quick isn't lightning fast, definitely not at the speed of light.

Quick bread comes to mind. You need to get the recipe and the ingredients. Recipe may already be in your file box or folder, or you may need to search online for one with the best pictures so you can know what'll come out of your oven. Do you have ingredients in pantry and fridge or do they mean a trip to the store? This won't be slow bread, but it's not done yet because you need to mix them up.

Put it all in the oven and wait a short eternity for your so far fairly quick bread to bake. You probably need to let it cool some before enjoying a slice or two with butter or cream cheese and a friendly companion. Yet that procedure is short and quick compared to yeast bread that needs to rise a while, sometimes a very long while; it approaches instantaneous compared to acquiring sourdough starter.

I like the percussive sounds of Jesus promising a quick arrival in contrast to meeting him "soon." We still need to wait longer than our heart's yearning, yet when we seek Jesus he'll be in our midst, fulfilling his coveted promise of new heavens, a new earth. Amen? Amen!

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen! Revelation 22:21

• Zucchini basil quick bread by Tiny Banquet Committee on Flickr

# # #

Sermon for 29 January

Intro:

These days I preach from notes, so typically I can't easily fill in the spaces and blog. Besides, a homily really is for a specific day and place, for "those people" in the best sense of the word. However, for 29 January I typed out a lot before making notes (church pastor requests guest preachers to send her some content beforehand—a good idea in many ways), and from the compliments plus my own perception I believe it went well, so here you go. Not surprisingly, the real life sermon was a few minutes longer than it blogs. Scripture was Matthew 6:7-14. During the autumn through spring academic year they follow the Narrative Lectionary that emphasizes the larger story of God and God's people. This year the NL twins with the Revised Common Lectionary with Matthew as the featured gospel.

Matthew Background

Today we continue in Matthew's gospel. Each of the four gospels has a distinctive personality, flavor, and style. Along with Mark and Luke, Matthew is one of the gospels that views Jesus' life and ministry in a similar way. In fact, all three contain a lot of the exact same content. Scholars believe authors of Luke and Matthew had a copy of Mark, so they literally copied and pasted big chunks.

This is Matthew's year in both of the lectionaries that suggest scriptures to read and study, so we'll spend a lot of time on Matthew to learn more about the Jesus Matthew presents, more about the way Jesus teaches us to live.

Matthew starts out as the story of a new creation, biblios geneseos—the same word as Genesis, the very first book of the bible. According to Matthew, Jesus of Nazareth's birth, life, death, resurrection, and ascension initiates this new creation, new genesis. According to Jesus, our lives and ministries continue the new creation, the new genesis.

As Matthew's gospel progresses, Jesus provides formal instruction in the Sermon on the Mount and offers parables about the reign of heaven. We see Jesus healing diseases and confronting economic, religious, and governmental powers that be.


Sermon on the Mount

Today we continue with the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus' sermon on the mount has five sections that parallel the five books of Moses in the Torah or Pentateuch: Genesis, Exodus…

Through Moses God gave the people ten words or commandments at Mount Sinai. Jesus brings us words of life in the Sermon on the Mount on another hill or high ground, with a different style from the commands God gave us through Moses, yet like the ten words/decalogue, Jesus is all about our flourishing together in safe, healthy, productive community. Jesus' entire ministry shows us how to live and love together in service, how to be church together.

Jesus was a rabbi or teacher who moved around a lot. For Matthew, Jesus is the ultimate teacher who wants his followers to be the best learners ever. As Pastor MAH mentioned, it's interesting that Matthew is the only gospel that uses the word church or ecclesia; we mostly know the word "church" from the letters or epistles. This called out assembly (us) is the Roman City Council, the Los Angeles City Council, the New England Town Meeting that gathers together, deliberates together, and in our case, prays and worships together.

Starting with the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus' entire ministry shows us how to live and love together in service, how to be church together. Rabbi Jesus wants us to be the best learners ever. Jesus' ministry leads to healthy community. When we follow Jesus, our ministries lead to good community.


Jesus' Model Prayer / What is Prayer?

Today we're considering the model prayer Jesus taught his followers. We call it the Lord's Prayer, and almost all worship services include it in traditional or contemporary language.

But first, what is prayer? Prayer is communication with God. Prayer takes many forms. Sometimes we read prayers the church has treasured for a long time, such as from the liturgy and devotional books. Sometimes we speak words from our heart. Scripture includes many prayers. The book of Psalms was the prayer book and the hymnal of the synagogue; Christian hymnals include many songs based on psalms. There's silent prayer when you sit, stand, or maybe lie down to bask in God's presence. The apostle Paul told us to "pray always," which is an attitude of openness to God. You may have heard we usually become closest to those we talk with the most.

Prayer is communication with God. As we pray, God also communicates with us.

Let's look at this particular prayer Jesus taught his followers. Jesus outlined this prayer not necessarily for us to repeat the exact words as we do every week in worship, but to follow its general content.


Lord's Prayer/ Our Father

It starts out with addressing God and requesting God's name be holy or set apart. In that culture, a name reflected or described the essence of a person. A few months ago Pastor MH preached a sermon about Names of God. That could make an excellent study or journal entry for us to continue.

"May your kingdom come, your will be done" asks God to make the world heaven on earth.

Daily bread or bread for tomorrow? Food is essential! We can't keep on with other endeavors without food, water, sleep… In his Small Catechism Martin Luther explains "daily bread" is shorthand for everything we need. That would include solid housing and safe streets, streets and roads to get us from here to there, good government, functional families. Daily bread may include high-speed internet, too.

What else is essential for all of us? What is essential for you and your family? What would your "daily bread" list of essentials include? Is there anything you might leave off your list?


Forgive us our debts or sins

"Forgive us our debts or sins" is a huge one for everyone. Some versions of Jesus' prayer ask forgiveness for trespasses, which sounds like entering someone else's property without permission (in many senses, it is). In Jesus' world sin and debt essentially were the same thing. Tenant farmers, people who fished the sea, and those who sold goods and wares often found themselves owing their soul to landlords and to the government.

In this year 2023, the world is full of financial debt and obligation. Many people are in serious credit card debt from trying to stay afloat during Covid. However, this prayer also asks to forgive (the opposite of to give) all those ways we've offended people (friends, relatives, acquaintances, etc.) close at hand and on the other side of the planet, our lack of justice to creation, everything we've done to hinder our own well-being as individuals.

Forgive is far from saying and acting as if those sins and offenses are ok and didn't do harm. Forgiveness admits and acknowledges the serious wrong someone else or we ourselves have caused.

Forgiveness has nothing to do with tolerating sin. Forgiveness is not about minimizing or denying sin.

When I forgive I've turned the wrongdoing over to God so that sin no longer is a debt or burden to me or to my community. Literally giving the sin to God means the sin or offense becomes a debt to God. Forgiving a person releases them from our lives and turns the person and the offense over to God. And sometimes it's necessary to physically release a person from our lives, as well.


Shalom

We've taken a short look at the prayer Jesus taught his first followers, the prayer scripture gives us to learn from Jesus.

Last week Pastor MH talked about shalom, the peace that's more than absence of conflict. The Lord's Prayer or Our Father prays, begs, and pleads for the reign or rule of heaven on earth.

Heaven on earth is the fulness of shalom. It begins with eliminating obvious physical, emotional, and interest conflicts, but shalom goes beyond that. Shalom is enough of everything we need to live healthy lives. As Martin Luther explained, actual daily bread or food (water, shelter, etc.) is only one part of our request in the Lord's Prayer. Shalom is integrity and honesty with each other here in community and with everyone we meet outside. Shalom is the Good News of the gospel fully lived out every day, everywhere we go.

Jesus the master teacher or rabbi teaches us how to be church together. Jesus wants all of us to be the best learners ever who pray, hope, and act to bring this world the new creation Matthew's gospel is about. We beg God to bring heaven to earth. We pray for the reign of shalom. We act in ways that welcome shalom.


Table of Grace

Again today Jesus invites us to the table of grace. This feast of life is about heaven on earth—the reign of life right here and right now. The Lord's Supper, Holy Communion, brings shalom into the world. All are forgiven. All is healed. All is whole. Everyone has enough. In the Lord's Supper we experience the new creation, if only for a fleeting moment.

Come, let us eat, for lo, the bread is spread!
Come, let us drink, for lo, the cup is poured!

You are welcome.
I am welcome.
We are welcome.

Amen? Amen!

To God alone be glory! Amen!

Five Minute Friday :: Laugh

• Five Minute Friday :: Laugh Linkup

John 20:1, 12-16

Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been rolled away from the tomb.

…and she saw two angels in white sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying. They said to her, "Woman, why are you weeping?" She said to them, "They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him." When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, "Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?" Supposing him to be the gardener…

Jesus is not here—He is risen! But it still is dark!

Do not remember the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I am doing a new thing. Now it springs forth! Do you not perceive it? I will make a a road in the wilderness and rivers in the desert. Isaiah 43:18-19

At first Mary didn't recognize Jesus; she imagined Jesus was the gardener. But wasn't her initial perception very correct? Jesus created it all, a world that began with a garden that, well-tended, would grow, expand, blossom, and flourish into a city. Wasn't Mary's anxious guess more than right? On the first day of the week, the eighth day of creation, Jesus the first gardener returns as lover of a new creation, a restored and expanded glory.

"Two angels in white." In some traditions, white is the color for harvest. Like the first creation, the new creation begins with light. Light that pierces "while it still is dark" with a Word of resurrection.

Angels rolled the stone away—Jesus is here, after all. No longer dead and buried. Jesus still is risen! Everything may look hopeless and bleak, yet God always is doing a new thing: God's final answer always is resurrection.

God's laughter behind the empty grave!

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Five Minute Friday :: Testimony

• Five Minute Friday :: Testimony Linkup

¹ Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and found that the stone had been rolled away from the tomb. John 20

²¹ "So one of the men who have accompanied us during all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us,
²² beginning from the baptism of John until the day when he was taken up from us—
one of these must become a witness with us to his resurrection."
²⁶ And they cast lots for them, and the lot fell on Matthias,
and he was added to the eleven apostles. Acts 1

The apostle Paul called himself an apostle because he had seen the risen Christ! As the Acts of the Apostles make clear, someone who has seen the risen Christ is an apostle of Jesus Christ like the original twelve! For Paul the gospel is death and resurrection. Throughout the epistles or letters he sent to local assemblies he founded or visited, Paul shared his testimony of meeting the living Christ along with more formal theology that grew from his experiences. Paul's words would resonate through the centuries, would lead to others knowing Christ, and in turn bearing their own testimonies in word and action to a world in pain, a world enmeshed in death, a world that desperately needs hope. More often than not (almost never!) we don't encounter the whole entire world, but rather one or two individuals who may be neighbors, random strangers, coworkers, or someone else God providentially has placed in your life, you in theirs.

In my tradition, when we gather to celebrate Eucharist, together we proclaim the mystery of faith:

Christ has died;
Christ is risen;
Christ will come again.

Death. Resurrection. New Creation.

The broken bread and poured out wine testify to the presence of the risen Savior. The welcome table itself testifies to the presence of the Lord of life within the assembly.

Our actions announce the reign of life despite the reality of death, but we often need to tell the story of Jesus in our life. We frequently need to describe the transformation that happens when we meet the risen Christ and become easter people. Why did you notice me? Why were you kind to me? Why did you help at the toy drive? Why do you always attend the reach out-gather in dinner? They've seen it; now you explain it!

The world needs all of our apostolic (yes, we're all apostles, because we've witnessed death and resurrection) testimonies, yet more often we get to share it with one or two residents of this planet at a time—definitely not in ways that trend worldwide. When someone asks you to bear your testimony how do you begin?

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Five Minute Friday :: Vision

• Five Minute Friday :: Vision Linkup

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.

And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "See, the home of God is among mortals. God will dwell with them as their God; they will be God's peoples, and God will be with them; God will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away." Revelation 21:1-4

Like a vision board packed with pictures of the future you dream of, the not here right now you expect will manifest and you'll then testify to, scripture reveals God's visions for creation's wellbeing and provides ideas we can follow to partner with God to create heaven on earth. In my focus passage from the book of Revelation that concludes the bible, John the Revelator describes the vision God gave him.

"Sea no more" is far from ecological disaster, but picks up the code word sea or ocean that in scripture frequently denotes untamed chaos, as when Genesis 1 tells us about the dawn of creation when the Spirit of God hovered over the formless empty deep darkness. Oh, yes, the new creation does have a river with life-giving water—"enough" clear clean water along with all we need of everything else.

God's vision of the reign of the Spirit is "shalom" justice and bountiful sufficiency. Reading and studying scripture gives us plenty of practice in learning God's ways. Enough food, safe shelter, healthy community. Good work for good pay in good conditions. Abundant mercy and love. No sorrow or dying or pain. The end of war and violence. Scripture sings in the language of geography and space, because we are embodied humans solidly situated on land.

The God who calls us into new creation partnership is Jeremiah's God so near with laws so just. Along with 2 Peter, we proclaim and claim, "According to God's promise we look for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells." [2 Peter 3:13] That's quite a vision!

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Earth Day 2018

#EarthDay2018 #EndPlasticPollution

Winds of Heaven • Stuff of Earth

Winds of Heaven, Stuff of Earth: Spiritual Conversations Inspired by the Life and Lyrics of Rich Mullins by Andrew Greer and Randy Cox on Amazon

In Winds of Heaven, Stuff of Earth you'll find a treasure-trove of memories, information, and testimonies to God's pervasive presence and everlasting faithfulness. Andrew Greer provides an ongoing narrative punctuated by reflections from musicians, publicists, producers, band buddies, friends and others who either knew the (sadly too early deceased) singer, songwriter, troubadour, and creation-lover Rich Mullins. Most of us have heard some stories from relatives, friends, or neighbors so frequently that even though the events happened long in the past or the characters died decades ago, the dynamism of the raconteur has brought them alive to the listener. In fact, that's how the canon of scripture began as an oral tradition before it became a written one. Drawing upon that tradition, the book also includes contributions from people who'd interacted with those who'd met him face to face so they'd developed their own sense of Rich's life and persona.

"Rich's imagination was so saturated by biblical narratives ... Yes, he longed for the winds of heaven, but he also ached for the redemption and restoration of the stuff of earth, and he had the courage to let some of Christ's passion for the world infuse his own." Page 175, from Chapter 34, "The Bittersweet Longing," by Carolyn Arends

I discovered Rich and his music when a friend linked me to "Help me, Jesus." The World as Best I Remember It was my first Rich Mullins album; "Calling Out Your Name" the cut that grabbed me so I couldn't leave it: "Where the sacred rivers meet // Beneath the shadow of the Keeper of the Plains // I feel thunder in the sky // I see the sky about to rain // And I hear the prairies calling out Your name." The Revised Common Lectionary appoints Psalms 96, 98, and 148 for Christmas, the celebration of God's incarnation on earth in a body made from the stuff of earth. Fields rejoice, oceans roar, trees sing, sea monsters, fire and fruit trees, wild and domestic animals all praise God because God in our midst means the end of pollution and decay, the beginning of the new creation, the dawn of humanity reclaiming its divine image. Martin Luther described the divine presence as "in, with, and under" all creation; in his closeness to Creator and creation, Rich heard the prairies praise. How about us?

"Winds of Heaven, Stuff of Earth" celebrates Jesus Christ, the power of the Holy Spirit of Life, and the promises of God the Father throughout—though it's not exactly a devotional book. But reading the short entries in order or at random still could enhance anyone's devotional life; it's not too much to claim it has a place alongside any collection or single volume of lives of the saints. As much as we can learn from the people of God in centuries past (shoutout to this year 2017 being #Reformation500 / #Luther500 and our ongoing awareness of ways God used both passions and imperfections of Martin Luther and other reformers, and more recent Jesus followers like Saint Teresa of Kolkata), Rich Mullins' inner struggles, his contributions to the world of music, the world of the church, and society in general bear pondering and at their best, are worth imitating.

I've had the privilege of being on the launch team for Winds of Heaven, Stuff of Earth; I'm excited to start wearing my t-shirt and finding even more fans for Rich!

my amazon review: Remembering Rich Mullins

Three Word Wednesday: Here I Am

First Three Word Wednesday of this new month March; first Three Word Wednesday of this new liturgical season of Lent—how apt is Kristin's Here I Am prompt? Kristin references a song that's new to me, but I know another with a similar name: "I, the Lord of sea and sky, I have heard my people cry... whom will I send?" Additional lyrics from a different poet a few years ago: "I, the Lord of font and cup, covenant to lift you up—splash the water, break the bread, pour out your lives."

Last Sunday, churches that follow the Revised Standard Lectionary concluded the season of Epiphany with the Feast of the Transfiguration; I'm writing on Thursday, so yesterday on Ash Wednesday we opened our lives to six weeks of Lent with slower-paced songs, more thought-provoking prayers and readings, wearing a cross made from ashes and oil inscribed on our forehead. Ashes left after burning palms from the previous Palm Sunday / Lent 6 has been the tradition and the ideal, but doesn't necessarily need to be. Ashes and oil carry a multitude of meanings, but most immediately, ashes signal the mortality of our bodies created from earthbound elements that one day will return into the ground. Oil? Anointing for burial after death, but more urgently, a reminder of the oil – chrism – that in the HS anoints us at baptism into Jesus' threefold public ministry of prophet, priest, and king.

Every year on the First Sunday in (but not of, since every Lord's Day is a "little easter") Lent, we listen to, hear, and ponder Jesus' desert temptations. Steeped in scripture, Jesus refutes all three of the tempter's [devil, adversary, satan, prosecuting attorney] challenges with scripture.

A lead-in to saying the RCL scripture readings during the past few weeks have included Matthew's Sermon on the Mount for the gospel, instructions from the Pentateuch for the first reading from the Hebrew Bible. In his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus announces how people with certain attitudes and behaviors toward those in their community and others in the wider world out there have God's favor and blessings. Essentially, in the Sermon on the Mount, in Luke's Sermon on the Plain, in his entire life, death, resurrection and ascension, Jesus interpreted the commandments. Simplifying them in some ways; making the commandments even more impossible to fulfill in others. Hebrew Bible passages have been about acting with justice and righteousness toward all, about showing hospitality to any outsider who enters our space. On Epiphany 7 we harkened to God's command and promise from Leviticus 19 that opens with ¹The Lord spoke to Moses, saying: ²Speak to all the congregation of the people of Israel and say to them: You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy and leads into ways a holy God and holy people act always with justice, compassion, love, and generosity.

We know Jesus' resurrection as the first fruits of the New Creation happened over two thousand years ago. We realize the new creation isn't pristine in the same sense of the first creation, yet we live and sometimes feel like dying amongst evidence of broken, sinful lives, institutions, and relationships that are anything but resplendently redeemed. Do you remember how the book of Acts begins with Jesus' disciples asking if he'd restore the Kingdom to Israel now? Not sure if they imagined the return of the united kingdom or simply more functional versions of the monarchs that reigned afterwards, but on some level Jesus knew his rising from death and burial, though conclusive, was only the beginning of what needed to follow. Without saying it's not now or yet and not my current calling, Jesus told the disciples to wait where they were in Jerusalem so they could receive the power – and the freedom – of the Spirit of Life on the day of Pentecost and could continue Jesus' life work of justice, love, righteousness, healing—and resurrection.

Jesus said to the desert-haunting devil after his baptism into public ministry, The writings tell us: thou shalt (promise and commandment) worship the Lord your God and serve only the one true God. And how?

Leviticus 19 explains:

When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap to the very edges of your field, or gather the gleanings...You shall not strip your vineyard bare, or gather the fallen grapes; you shall leave them for the poor and the alien: I am the Lord your God. You shall not steal; you shall not deal falsely; and you shall not lie to one another ... you shall not steal; and you shall not keep for yourself the wages of a laborer until morning ... You shall not revile the deaf or put a stumbling block before the blind; you shall fear your God: I am the Lord. You shall not render an unjust judgment ... but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.

Kristin Hill Taylor's blog graphic tells us, "Here I am, to say you're my God." No. Other. Gods. The ELCA's slogan says, "God's work, our hands."

Whether we hear God ask who to send in I, the Lord of sea and sky or God's charge to "splash the water, break the bread" in I, the Lord of font and cup in the power of the Spirit of Pentecost, anointed into Jesus' threefold royal, prophetic, priesthood, our response can be, "Here I am, God. I hear your call! Send me!!"

Green Team Talk: Friday of Pentecost 18

January 2017: I've tried to reconstruct my talk from my scant notes that were all I needed at the time... and I'm publishing this on the actual Friday of Pentecost 18 date.

Isaiah 25:6-9

⁶On this mountain shall the Lord of hosts
make unto all peoples
a feast of fat things
a feast of vines on the lees
of fat things full of marrow
of vines on the lees well refined

⁷God will swallow up the covering that hovers over everyone
the veil stretched over all nations

⁸God will swallow up death forever
God will wipe away all tears
God will remove the remove the reproach of the people from the earth
For the Lord has spoken

⁹On that day we will say,

"This is our God we've waited for
so he could save us.
"This is the Lord we've waited for.
"Let's rejoice in God's salvation."

This passage the canon places in First Isaiah is the appointed text for Easter Evening RCL years A, B and C. We find it amidst writings mostly from Isaiah of Jerusalem, yet it's probably at least a century afterwards—with its sense of optimism, probably exilic or later. This is the Hebrew scripture reading for Easter evening, but six months have gone by since we celebrated the Day of Resurrection, over four months since the Great Fifty Days concluded.

Here in the northern hemisphere the wheel of the year has been in meteorological autumn for close to a month; in a couple days we'll be in astronomical fall. Ripening root crops, leaves falling from trees then decaying on the ground, shorter days, longer nights, all remind us of God's gift of the agricultural cycle, God's gift of land. These natural events in the browning time of autumn anticipate the arrival of the apparently quiet, still, and silent season of winter that in many respects is similar to the stillness and quiet near-silence of the surface of the desertscape.

These imaginative words we find in First Isaiah remind us the God of Israel is God of all people, God on the side of everyone. They promise God will swallow up death and the shroud of death – a veil that hides the light of life, anything that lessens our joy – into God's own being. God will obliterate tears of grief; God will prepare and serve an amazing spread of a covenant meal shared by God and people. That eschatological feast – as we called our extravagant potlucks in divinity school – will be God's sign that death and dying are no more!

But six months have gone by since we celebrated the Day of Resurrection 2016, over four months since the conclusion of the Great Fifty Days. We look around us and still see, still experience hatred, poverty and injustice. Illness, death, and dying. Grief. Tears. We know the agricultural seasons' periods of tilling, planting, growing, and harvest keep cycling continuously, yet our theology tells us how Easter, the event of Jesus Christ's resurrection, that eighth day that's also the first day of the new creation, marked the end of death and dying, concluded ongoing cycles of poverty, illness, injustice.

These promises we find in First Isaiah describe God's action of new birth from death, the start of the new creation. Despite the dawn of the new creation on the day of resurrection two thousand years ago, that renewed, restored natural creation and righteous society has only begun, still waits for us to help finish it as God's hands doing God's work. Theology of the cross emphasizes Saturday, the interstitial time of winter-like quiet when apparently nothing happens yet everything happens, yet God calls us to live as people of the cross who now are fully alive, resurrected, and redeemed. The third day aligns and unites nature and history; filled with the Spirit of the Day of Pentecost, the fiftieth day of Easter, we become God's hands, God's voices, agents of God's justice, inclusion and freedom for all! Let's all follow Jesus into the resurrection, into the next six months!

Can I get an "Amen"?!

#trees4earth • #earthday2016

My class notes on urban wilderness from Earth Day 2016 | Easter 5 for this morning.

Excerpts:

Every day is Earth Day, but on Friday 22 April we celebrated the 46^th official formal Earth Day. The Earth Day theme this year is #Trees4Earth that relates closely to #FaceofClimate for 2013 and #GreenCities for both 2014 and 2015. Trees and forests are earth's respiratory system, this planet's lungs.

from "Let us Talents and Tongue Employ"

Jesus lives again
earth can breath again
pass the word around
loaves abound!

Fred Kaan, 1975

For Easter 5 and Earth Day we mainly discussed Revelation 21:1-6, and also considered creation-themed Psalm 96, Psalm 98, and Psalm 148, as well as the beginning of James Weldon Johnson's poem, The Creation. All this poetry is about a God so in love with Creation that God chooses to make a home on earth in the midst of creation.

Sacraments depend upon a healthy creation.

Very briefly from last week: the book of Revelation shows us how empires everywhere operate; it provides not quite a road map, but at least a guide book for living baptized in the context of empire. This week and next week the passages from Revelation especially show us ways to live baptized into the new creation.

More discussion of how physical, earthbound, and incarnational Christianity is. God so in love with creation God chose and still chooses to make a home on earth in a body formed from the stuff of creation.

nativity

The Nativity of Our Lord



Unto us a Child is born,
Unto us a Son is given;
And his name shall be called
Wonderful, Counselor,
Prince of Peace!
Isaiah 9:6

River Sunday 2014

God of all creation, at the dawn of time rivers flowed over mountains and through valleys; we ask that in the Spirit of life we may live faithfully to our baptism with water and the word, that the rivers of the new creation would flow freely and provide healing to all the nations. In the name of Jesus the Christ, Amen!

Here's the Eucharistic Prayer I wrote for Season of Creation Year A in 2011:

Eucharistic Prayer Creation A – © leah chang 2011

Outback/Wilderness Sunday 2014

God of the covenanted faith-filled journey homeward, in the exodus desert you formed a people after your own heart as you led them toward the land of promise. We ask that you would lead us to trust you in our moment by moment wanderings, that we might freely serve as your gracious presence in the world. In Jesus' name, Amen!

Here's the Eucharistic Prayer I wrote for Season of Creation Year A in 2011:

Eucharistic Prayer Creation A – © leah chang 2011