Words of Welcome

Luke 14:1, 7-14 What would Emily Post say? If the President invites you to a party at the White House, where should you sit? If you arrive early, should you go and save that empty seat up front at his right hand? It sure would be great to sit as close as possible to the center of attention, but maybe it would be better to take a seat farther back in the crowd. Of course, proximity to greatness does suggest greatness! Back in the Soviet era, when Leonid Brezhnev was still running things, Time Magazine would try to figure out who was next in line to succeed him. Since the Soviets weren't too keen on letting out the secret, the analysts at Time would watch where Politburo members stood on Kremlin wall overlooking Red Square during important events, like a May Day review of the troops. The assumption was that the closer you stood to Brezhnev, the closer you were to the top of the list. If you’d moved down a few spaces, well obviously you were on the way out of favor. You know that...

Matthew 6:7-15; Luke 6:37-42     As much as we like to say the words “don’t judge,” every one of us has served as judge and jury.  I think it must be human nature!   Maybe it’s the way some person dresses or the car they drive.  Driving a Toyota in Michigan might get you stares, while driving a Prius in Southern California will get you words of praise.   Yes, we love Jesus’s command:  “don’t judge, lest you be judged.”  But, we all find it difficult to remove the log that sits there in our own eyes, even as we try to pick out the speck in the eye of the other.      As we come to the fourth petition of the Lord’s Prayer, having prayed that God would hallow God’s name, that God would reveal God’s reign, and having asked that God would provide us our daily bread, we come to the matter of forgiveness.  How should we hear this promise of forgiveness, which seems to be contingent on our willingness to forgive ...