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...

Luke 24:13-35      Two disciples, one named Cleopas, journeyed to Emmaus.  Although we don’t know why they were taking this trip, they know that Jesus had been executed, buried, and according to some reports, had been raised from the dead. Could they be fleeing the city, fearing they might suffer Jesus’ fate?  Were they ready, with Jesus dead, to give up the whole Jesus enterprise?  Or, were they heading home to await further instructions? No one seems to know where Emmaus is located, but maybe we don’t need to know where it was. As Frederick Buechner puts it:   Emmaus is whatever we do or wherever we go to make ourselves forget that the world holds nothing sacred:  that even the noblest ideas that men have had -- ideas about love and freedom and justice -- have always in time been twisted out of shape by selfish men for selfish ends.  Emmaus is where we go, where these two went, to try to forget Jesus and the great failur...

John 6:58-69 Has a preacher ever said something that offended you so much that you never went back to that church?  I hope that none of you will take offense at what I say today, or if you do, I hope you’ll come back next week!   And what about Jesus, is there anything that he said that offends you?   I’d be surprised if you said no.  After all, Jesus did have a tendency to say things that got him into trouble.  Remember how his sermon back at his hometown synagogue went?  He was just coming off being baptized by John and had begun to gain a following.  But as they say – you can’t always go home.  On that evening, after Jesus read the text from Isaiah, he began to preach and before too long, the people were getting restless and just a bit angry with what he had to say.  So, instead of celebrating a triumphant homecoming, the hometown crowd tried to throw him a cliff.  Fortunately, Jesus escaped this fate and head...

Yesterday our worship at Central Woodward Christian Church included both Word and Sacrament.  There was music (the choir finished out the year with style and verve) and there was prayer, but standing at the center was Word and Sacrament -- a sharing in the reading of Scripture, a sermon , and the Lord's Supper.  The Disciples are a Table-Centered church.  But we are also a Word-Centered church.  Even if there isn't a sermon per se , there will be something that brings the Word to the community.  It might be simply the reading of Scripture with a few comments.  It might be a sharing of testimony, or the sharing of the word through song.  But in some way or form the Word is presented, for without the Word the Table loses context and meaning.  You see, we Disciples have a rationalist streak in us so we want to understand what we're doing.  We're okay with a bit of mystery, but within "reason." I offer this up as a way of introducing a posting ...