Words of Welcome

Romans 6:1b-11 On the day of Pentecost, the people gathered in the streets of Jerusalem asked Peter what they needed to do to be saved.  Peter told them that if they would repent and be baptized, they would receive forgiveness of sins and the gift of the Holy Spirit ( Acts 2:37-38 ).  That passage of scripture has been a foundation stone for Disciples life from the beginnings of the movement.  In some circles, just giving the biblical reference Acts 2:38 is like saying John 3:16.  Everybody knows what it says. Baptism comes up again in Romans 6, where Paul is in the middle of a conversation about sin, law, grace, and the Christian life.  In  Romans 5,  Paul wrote that “where sin increased, grace abounded all the more.”  It seems that there were some Christians in Rome, who believed that grace was an eternal get out of jail free card, so why not throw caution to the wind.  After all, God will forgive.  There’s a name for this belief – “antinomianism.”   That’s Greek for “no

2 Corinthians 13:11-13 It is Trinity Sunday, which is a good time to stop and think about the God we serve and worship.  Most Christian traditions confess God to be One, and yet three.  This is the confession we raise when we sing: “Holy, Holy, Holy! Lord God Almighty!  Early in the morning our song shall rise to thee; holy, holy, holy!  Merciful and mighty!  God in three persons, blessed Trinity!” (Reginald Heber).     This doctrine of the Trinity that we celebrate today is complicated, and yet there are incredible spiritual riches to be found in this confession.  The benediction that closes Paul’s second Corinthian letter offers us one of the more explicit Trinitarian confessions in the New Testament.  While this isn’t a fully developed theology of the Trinity, because it closes one of Paul’s most difficult letters, it might have some practical importance.  Paul wrote to a congregation he started, but which was now deeply divided – and they didn’t even have to worry

John 20:19-23     “He breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.’”    John has his own story of how the Spirit fell upon the followers of Jesus.  It’s different from the traditional Pentecost story, but what he does is connect the Holy Spirit with the very essence of life. In fact, there’s a connection between this story and the story of creation in Genesis 2.  In that story, God created the first human being by forming a body from the dust of the ground, and then God “breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being” (Genesis 2:7).  The biblical words for breath and Spirit are the same.  So to have breath is to have the Spirit.       We see this connection in the book of Ezekiel, where the “spirit of the Lord” took the prophet to the Valley of Dry Bones.  Then the Lord asked Ezekiel – “can these dry bones live?”  God then told Ezekiel to prophesy to these dry and lifeless bones, saying to them:  “Thus says the

John 17:1-11 Family life changes from generation to generation.  We may prefer the way we grew up to the way these newfangled families do it today, but change is inevitable.  This is especially true of the roles we play in our families.  Things have changed dramatically since the 1950s – back when  Father Knew Best.    Back in the age of Beaver Cleaver, the father went to work, brought home the bacon, and the mother cooked it up.  And if you misbehaved, well, wait till your Father gets home.  Thankfully, Ward Cleaver was a very understanding father. But things began to change in the late 1960s, when Julia was a nurse and a single mother.  What can I say about today’s  Modern Famil y?  Depending on your perspective – things are better or they’re worse – but we can agree on one thing – they’re different!  And even the world of the 1950s wasn’t the same as the world of the Bible.   One thing remains constant – the family, in whatever its configuration, has needs that must