Words of Welcome

Acts 2:42-47 Back during my days teaching at Northwest Christian University, a couple of my students asked me what I thought about them living as a group of students in community. I remember acknowledging their interest in this arrangement, but since one of the students involved had just gotten married, I suggested that they might want to take it slowly and cautiously. While they decided not to pursue the venture, one of those students ended up forming just such a community. That community in Eugene is part of a movement that has come to be known as the New Monasticism. This movement builds off the teachings of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who called on Christians to live together in community and pursue life lived under the guidance of the Sermon on the Mount.   Down through the years many Christians have experimented with living in community as described in Acts 2 and  Acts 4 . This community, according to Luke, gathered for the Apostles Teaching, for fellowship, for pra...

Proverbs 22:1-2, 8-9, 22-23 Do you remember when the two businessmen visited Ebenezer Scrooge on Christmas Eve hoping that would chip in with a nice charitable contribution to provide meals for the poor at Christmas?  Now, Scrooge has no interest in contributing to their cause.  For one thing, as far as he’s concerned, Christmas is a humbug.  Besides, he really doesn’t care about the fate of the poor.  After all, despite his wealth, he won’t even spare a few cents so his beleaguered clerk can get a bit of coal to warm himself with, and besides that he’s already paid taxes to support the workhouses and the prisons – let the poor go there. Later in the play, just before he leaves Scrooge, the Ghost of Christmas Present opens his robe to reveal two children – “Ignorance and Want.” Scrooge is appalled at their appearance, and asks the ghost:  Are these your children?  The Ghost replies: “No, they’re Humanity’s.”  Scrooge asks:  "Have t...

Numbers 11:24-30 The biblical prophets aren’t very appealing characters.  Remember Jeremiah?  He was sent packing to Egypt in a big jar.  And then there’s Elisha who cursed a group of boys who were making fun of him because he was bald, and as a result two bears attacked the boys.  Then there’s Jonah who got upset when God spared the people of Nineveh when they repented.  Those are just a few stories about prophets, who on their best days had a tendency to say things that people didn’t want to hear.       I expect that when most of us think of prophets we have in mind a “John the Baptist” type, who dresses funny and maybe has a long beard -- unless she’s a she like Huldah -- and makes you feel uncomfortable when they’re around.  So maybe you weren’t all that pleased to hear Moses say that he’d love it if everyone was a prophet!     Since it’s Pentecost Sunday and we’re supposed to think about the things of the Spirit, it...

Luke 11:1-4; Luke 12:22-34 We’ve come to the third petition of the Lord’s Prayer.  In the previous two petitions we’ve asked God to make God’s name holy in our lives, and we’ve asked that God’s reign would be made known in our midst, even as we seek to know and do God’s will.  Having made these requests, which focus on God holiness and God’s reign on earth as well as in heaven, we make our first request of God.  And in this request, we focus on our most basic of needs – our daily bread.  Yes, food, water, shelter, these are the basics, and so it’s not surprising that this is where Jesus begins.         The idea that God is the provider of our daily bread goes back at least to the Exodus story, where the people of Israel find themselves wandering for forty years in the desert of Sinai.  Reading the story, you might think that the people expected a quick trip across the desert, and on into the promised land.  Yes, just a hop, ...