Words of Welcome

Hosea 11:1-11 Children will try the patience of their parents.  It’s simply inevitable.  Even Jesus caused his parents a few headaches – that is if Luke’s account of the family visit to Jerusalem can be believed.  I know that some people think their children are perfect, but this idea must be a figment of the imagination.  We might wish for the perfect child, but to this point no such child has emerged.   Because I’m both parent and child, I’ve had the opportunity to see the parent/child relationship from both sides.  I’ve tried the patience of my parents, and had my patience tried by my son. If you were to ask my mother, she would tell you that I was a wonderful child growing up.  But she would also be lying, because I wasn’t always a wonderful child.  Yes, if she were honest, she could tell you that I tried her patience on many an occasion. In a scene reminiscent of Luke’s story of Jesus getting left behind in Jerusalem...

John 15:9-17 Even if we’re not mothers ourselves, we’re all daughters and sons of mothers.  That means that we all have stories to tell about motherhood.  This is especially true of our newest mothers (and fathers, of course).     When we think of mothers, whether it’s Mother’s Day or not, what comes to mind might be that special intimacy that seems to exist between mother and child, which  begins at birth.  Or, perhaps it begins even earlier, during that long period when a child begins to take form in the womb.  This relationship is often complex but it’s also very powerful.   Although Protestants have struggled to find a place for Mary in our faith story, she remains an important contributor to that story.  Catholics, on the other hand, have tapped into the image of Mary the Mother of God, and seek Mary’s intercession with Jesus.  Catholics don’t pray to Mary because she is divine, but because of a belief that since ...

Romans 13:8-14 There has been a lot of talk these last few months about debt and how to reduce the nation’s deficit.  Not long ago politicians said that deficits don’t matter, and now everyone is in a dither about them.  So, at the very last moment, with the nation looking at the first default in its history, Congress held its collective nose and passed legislation that raised the debt ceiling and established a super-committee, which is composed of people on both sides of the aisle committed to not compromising with the other side!  Of course the Federal Government isn’t the only entity struggling with debt.  The national consumer debt – that’s the debt we as citizens owe, minus mortgage debt, stands at 2.4 Trillion dollars, or about $7,800 per person.  What this means is that many of us are borrowing a lot of money to pay for our chosen lifestyles.  Of course, in a consumer driven economy, where jobs depend on spending, perhaps that’s the way...