The Mysterious Disappearance of Moses
Somehow the Jewish sect that claimed to follow the Messiah Jesus very quickly ceased to follow the Law.
Read the whole article at The Mysterious Disappearance of Moses - Mockingbird (mbird.com)
Investigators from the missing persons unit of Christian Theology are seeking the public’s assistance in locating Moses ben Amran, who has gone missing. His last known whereabouts appear to be some time in the first century. His last known associate was Saul of Tarsus, last seen traveling from Jerusalem to Damascus on a secretive business trip. While some witnesses are claiming that Moses has been heard from recently, his public appearances have mysteriously dwindled and investigators remain baffled as to the cause.
Where did Moses go?……………………..
What to Do When You’re Running Low on Faith
Faith is walking toward your dreams despite the odds. It’s knowing that your best effort is enough, and that you’ll be provided for through God’s grace. Faith is fearless.
Read the whole article at What to Do When You're Running Low on Faith - RELEVANT (relevantmagazine.com)
Faith is walking toward your dreams despite the odds. It’s knowing that your best effort is enough, and that you’ll be provided for through God’s grace. Faith is fearless.
Every person of faith knows we need faith more than food, even. But how do you just magically “get” it? How do you go from not believing that you can even be happy to living out your purpose and fully trusting in God?
I discovered that faith, like most things, is a learning process; and that if you want to leap, you have to walk and hop first.
MY FAITH JOURNEY
I struggled with faith for the first half of my adult life. I just didn’t think that I could take care of myself or be happy, so I didn’t even try……………………………………..
The Gospel and Butterbeer
There is no substitution for the real thing.
Read the Whole Article at The Gospel and Butterbeer - Mockingbird (mbird.com)
My father’s text message came a little past five in the morning. “I think we should cancel our Universal Studios trip this weekend. It’s just going to be too gross in Orlando. It will be storming the whole time.” My bag was already packed in the corner, but I agreed. I was excited to go back to Orlando, but I knew another opportunity for a Florida getaway would come. A weekend at home with my husband and dogs would be good for me.
Still, I was looking forward………………………………..
Church For Normies
The church has to make room for the unsatisfactory, the just-getting-by, the I’m-barely-paying-the-bills, the it-took-all-I-had-to-show-up-this-morning, the I’m-doing-my-best, the just-give-me-a-break folks. The holly-ivy Christians, who begrudgingly show up twice a year.
The Whole Article is here but it is from. https://www.bradeast.org/blog/church-for-normies
By Brad East
In his book Hauerwas: A (Very) Critical Introduction, Nicholas Healy raises an objection with Hauerwas’s ecclesiology. He argues that Hauerwas’s rhetoric and sometimes his arguments present the reader with a church fit only for faithful Christians—that is, for heroes and saints, for super-disciples, for the extraordinarily obedient, the successful, the satisfactory. By contrast, Healy argues that the church ought to be a home and a haven for “unsatisfactory Christians,” and that our doctrine of the church ought to reflect that.
That phrase, “unsatisfactory Christians,” has stuck with me ever since I first read it. It’s often what I have in mind when I refer to “normie” Christians: ordinary believers most of whose days are filled with the mundane tasks of remaining decent while doing what’s necessary to survive in a hard world: working a boring job, feeding the kids, getting enough sleep, paying the bills, not getting too much into debt, occasionally seeing friends, fixing household or familial problems, maybe taking an annual vacation. Into this all-hands-on-deck eking-out-a-survival life, “being a Christian” is somehow supposed to fit, not only seamlessly but in a transformative way. So you go to church, share in the sacraments, say your prayers, raise your kids in the faith, and generally try to fulfill the duties and roles to which you understand God to have called you.
I used to be Hauerwasian (or Yoderian, before that moniker assumed other connotations) in my ecclesiology, but over the years I’ve come to think of that style of construing Christian discipleship as a well-intended error, though an error all the same. To be clear, I’m not talking about Hauerwas himself—who defends himself against Healy’s critique in a later book—but about the sort of ecclesiology associated with him and with those who have developed his thought over the decades. I’m thinking, that is, of an approach to church that sees it as a small band of deeply committed disciples whose life together is aptly described as an “intentional community.” These are people who know their Bibles, who have strong and well-informed theological opinions, who are readers and thinkers, who have college degrees, who are white collar and/or middle-/upper-middle class, who make common cause to found or form or join a local community defined by a Rule of Life and thick expectations and rich, shared daily practices. Often as not they meet in homes or move into the same neighborhood or even purchase a plot of land for all to live on together.
I would never knock such communities. Extending the monastic vision to include lay people in all walks of life is a lovely development. Though I do worry that such communities are usually short-term arrangements lacking longevity, and that they are typically idealized and overly romantic, nonetheless they represent a healthy response to the vision of the church in the New Testament and sometimes even work out. Nothing but kudos and blessings upon them.
My disagreement is with the view that this vision of church just is what any and every church ought to be, as though all other versions of church must therefore be (1) pale imitations of the real thing, (2) tolerable but incomplete attempts at church, or even simply (3) failed churches. That’s wrong. It’s wrong for many reasons, including exegetical, historical, and theological reasons. But let me give one closer to the ground, rooted in human experience.
The radical church is not a church for normies. To use Healy’s terminology, it’s not a community meant for unsatisfactory Christians. It’s for Christians who have their you-know-what together: Christians who are both able and willing, given their background, education, financial status, temperament, moral and intellectual aptitude, and personal desire, to enter the monastic life, only here as laypersons. It’s certainly possible to make a case, based on the Gospels and the teaching of Christ, that the church exists solely for such Christians, since the condition for faith is discipleship to Christ, and discipleship to Christ is costly. I believe this to be a profound misunderstanding, however, not least because the rest of the New Testament exists. Just read St. Paul. He’ll disabuse you rather quickly of the notion that the church consists of satisfactory Christians. It turns out the church is nothing but unsatisfactory Christians. And if your Christian community is such that no normie would ever dream of visiting or joining it, because it’s clear that he or she is not and would never be up to snuff, then—allow me to suggest—you’re doing it wrong.
The church has to make room for the unsatisfactory, exactly in the manner I described above: the just-getting-by, the I’m-barely-paying-the-bills, the it-took-all-I-had-to-show-up-this-morning, the I’m-doing-my-best, the just-give-me-a-break folks. The holly-ivy Christians, who begrudgingly show up twice a year. The Kichijiros and Simon Peters and doubting Thomases. The addicts who relapse, the gamblers in debt, the porn-addled who can’t quit, the foreclosed-on and laid-off, the perennially fired and out of work, the ex-cons and adulterers and fathers of five kids by three different moms. Is the church not for such as these? “Truly, I say to you, the tax collectors and the harlots go into the kingdom of God before you.”
Our churches may not, must not, fall prey to the temptation that such people have no place in them, because if we believe that, then we will make them such places. Worse, we will inadvertently make them havens for a different kind of person: neither “the least of these” (whom Jesus loves) nor the radical types who flock to intentional communities, but the sort of credentialed professionals who want that sweet, sweet upper-middle-class life alongside others who look and talk and live just like them. Such folks are all unsatisfactory to a person—that’s just to say they’re human—but they present the opposite on the outside. Either way, the undisguised unsatisfactory have nowhere to lay their heads: the well-to-do don’t want them and the radicals can’t receive them.
Does this mean our churches should expect less of their members? Does it mean our churches should restructure their common life? Does it mean churches should function to permit and even welcome the straggler, the good-for-nothing, the failed disciple, the I’m-just-here-to-take-the-Eucharist-and-run type?
Yes. That is exactly what I’m saying. Radicals hate the medieval distinction between the evangelical counsels of perfection and the “lower” universal teachings of Jesus meant for all Christians. But the distinction arose for a reason, and it’s an essential one. Further, it’s why the church, especially in patristic and medieval periods, developed such a strong account of the sacraments as the heart of lay Christian life. The sacraments are pure reception, pure gift: grace upon grace. That’s what a sacrament is, the material sign and instrument of God’s grace, and it’s what the Blessed Sacrament of Christ’s Body and Blood enacts and encapsulates. God willing, the Spirit so moves in the regular, daily and weekly, reception of Holy Communion that a believer is drawn into a lifelong journey of sanctification, what is unsatisfactory (this plain and unimpressive water) being transformed into that which pleases the Lord and edifies his body (the miraculous wine saved best for last). But that’s up to God, and it begins, it does not end, with initiation into and partaking of the liturgical and sacramental life of God’s people.
We need churches that offer and embody and invite people to that, making clear all the while that the summons is for all—especially normies.
5 1/2 habits of Remarkably Ineffective People
Was Jesus successful? I guess it depends on your definition and criteria.
Read Whole article at 5 1/2 Habits of Remarkably Ineffective People - Mockingbird (mbird.com)
Hi Was Jesus successful? I guess it depends on your definition and criteria. The gospels themselves swing between accounts of Jesus drawing a crowd then preaching it down to a dozen (e.g. John 6:1-13; John 6:66ff).
Recently I was preparing to preach on the rich and strange story of Jesus’ temptation in Luke 4. Clearly the Devil is offering Jesus a highly effective path to glory — to trade his Passion for praise and recognition. Had Jesus done exactly what the Devil said, there would have been no question a……………………..
A Window, A War, and a Metaphor in Winchester Cathedral
A window in Winchester Cathedral tells the story of a war and of people putting things back together.
Read whole article at https://curiousrambler.com/a-window-a-war-and-a-metaphor-in-winchester-cathedral/
The huge west window over the entrance to Winchester Cathedral isn’t what you would expect to see in an 11th century church. It’s filled with stained glass, but instead of showing scenes of Biblical events as most church windows do, this one is abstract and quite modern looking. There are jumbles of colored glass put together in what seems to be a haphazard pattern. You might see partial faces or bits of scenes here and there, but mostly it’s just a random mosaic of color. Let’s find out why…
The Big Picture in Ukraine by Scott Yaunt
While I’ve been giving updates about what’s going on here at the youth center in Slovakia with refugees,
a van loaded up with aid.
The Big Picture
While I’ve been giving updates about what’s going on here at the youth center in Slovakia with refugees, I haven’t had the chance to share about the big picture. I want to share some of the other ways the Spiritual Orphans Network Ukraine fund has been helping people in Ukraine as well as refugees who’ve left.
Erik Helgesplass delivering aid to a local hospital
As many of you know Ukrainian men between the ages of 18-60 are not allowed to leave the country. Many of the Ukrainian pastors we know have been serving their people in Ukraine for over two and half months while separated from their wives and children who evacuated the country. I can’t even begin to imagine how difficult this time has been for them and I please encourage you to keep them in your prayers every day.
A van driven by Pastor Oleg with children written on it.
I’ll start with the Lutheran pastors from the German Evangelical Lutheran Church in Ukraine, who SON has been partnering with for many years. There is the synod president Pastor Alexander Gross whose daughters will soon join us here in Slovakia to help out with the center and summer camps planned for Slovakia with SON mission teams. Pastor Gross and his wife are in the Odesa area, which has come under heavy rocket attacks over the last month. They run a social kitchen, providing meals to lots of shut-ins and people in need in the villages around Odesa, while also leading worship services and providing spiritual care for his flock.
There is the Bishop Pavlo Shvarts, who serves a congregation in Kharkiv, one of the cities with the heaviest fighting at the moment. He has helped set up humanitarian aid points, visited congregations all over the country including Bila Tserkva, and recently traveled to Vienna to meet with church leaders from all over Europe to give an update on Ukraine and the humanitarian crisis.
Pastor Ihor Shemihon preaching on Easter Sunday
Pastor Ihor Shemihon leads a congregation and ministry in Kyiv. He has also served the congregation in Bila Tserkva for many years and preached there a few weeks ago. He too has been helping provide and transport food and aid to people in need.
Pastor Kostya and Pastor Dennis loading up aid!
Pastor Oleg Schewtschenko is a Lutheran pastor with SELKU (Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Ukraine). He has been helping transport women and children to the border, has helped provide food and humanitarian aid near Odesa as well and much more.
Pastor Kostya and Pastor Sergei buying aid in the west of Ukraine
Pastor Костянтин Кисіленко (Kostya) is with Church of Christ in Bila Tserkva and one of my favorite human beings to be around. He too has been helping transport people, food, and humanitarian aid. The congregation in Bila Tserkva has been doing repairs so internally displaced people can temporarily live at the church.
Pastor Oleg and others with a truck loaded with humanitarian aid
Pastor Dennis Sopelnik is also with Church of Christ and helps run the Bear Valley Bible Institute. Dennis has helped drive people to the border, deliver humanitarian aid and even performed a wedding during the war.
A van driven by Pastor Oleg filled with humanitarian aid
Pastor Gross and I back in June.
Pastor Sergey Gritsenko also serves in Bila Tserkva. He has been helping prepare the congregation for refugees as well preaching and leading Bible studies. Sergei is my father in law and has helped take care of our house, watched our dog, and has helped us send money to different pastors and ministries helping out in Ukraine.
Pastor Alexander Gross with a van and trailer filled with humanitarian help
Pastor Ihor's ministry in Kyiv with food packets ready to go.
Finally, while not a pastor, I’ve been touched by the work of Erik Helgesplass, a Norwegian man who lives in the Bila Tserkva region, he has been non-stop driving families to the border and picking up aid. He offered my family and many others the opportunity to stay at their house in the village where it was safer than in the city.
Pastor Pavlo and the congregation in Bila Tserkva
Me with Pastor Oleg and his family back in June
We are blessed to know these men and support their ministry to people in Ukraine in different ways. We’ve also had the opportunity to provide direct financial aid to families in need, help with housing for displaced families and send aid to people in Ukraine. It is because of your generosity we’ve been able to provide funds to these different ministries. I also ask you to pray for Тарас Даниленко a driver from Church of Christ, Vadim, Valery Guk, Sergei, Ruslan, Zhenya and Yura, they are the men from God’s Hidden Treasures who I know have been working hard and doing so much. I know some of their families are abroad as well and they miss them dearly.
Special prayers for safe travel for the family of Kostya and the wife of Dennis, who are traveling to Bila Tserkva from abroad, there stay will be short as they are picking up necessary documents but I know the temporary reunion will be priceless. Please pray for peace, that this war will end and families will be reunited. Next time I hope to share about the many different ways the Slovak church are helping refugees beyond the center where we are staying.
God bless,
Scott
Six Steps to Divine Blessing?
Trying to be holy — just like Abraham.
Read the whole article Here Six Steps to Divine Blessing? - Mockingbird (mbird.com)
As a pastor, one of my greatest joys is being able to look at scripture and lift up the great figures of the past. While the saints of the past often leave footprints too big for us to fill, we can model our walk after them as a surefire way to procure divine…………………………
Pious Imposters
Separating the frauds from the hypocrites.
Read the whole article at https://mbird.com/bible/pious-imposters/
owards the end of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus issues a warning against the false prophets who will eventually infiltrate his newly-established community. They will be devious, he says, but with proper diligence they can be detected: “You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit” (Mt 7:16-17). Whatever their impressive abilities and accomplishments, these would-be prophets will ultimately reveal themselves (one way or another) to be dangerous frauds…………………………..
Jesus’ Triumphal March to Crucifixion
In this way, Mark presents Jesus’ defeat and death, the moment of his greatest suffering and humiliation, as both literally and figuratively a triumph.
Pacing Ourselves: Learning Moderation
How did we come to know that we were dying a slow and unacknowledged death?
Read the article at Pacing Ourselves: Learning Moderation - Mockingbird (mbird.com)
We felt that it was important to be good to ourselves, and that this meant that it was dangerous to tell ourselves no. About anything, ever. Repression of one’s desires was an unhealthy thing […]
When did the collision between our appetites and the needs of our souls happen?
How did we come to know that we were dying a slow and unacknowledged death? And that the only way back to life was to set all our packages down and begin again, carrying with us only what we really needed? -Barbara Cawthorne Crafton………………………
Jesus Is After You
God is not a quaint idea.
Read article at https://mbird.com/religion/testimony/jesus-is-after-you/
young woman named Kelly Tietsort was called by God to be a missionary to Boys Town, a red-light compound controlled by a cartel near the border town of Reynosa, Mexico.
To be clear, she wasn’t a missionary in the traditional sense. She didn’t establish a church or even a school. Instead, she walked around Boys Town and prayed for the women and children trapped inside and for the men who traveled from near and far to the hellish destination.
One day as she sat outside the gate to Boys Town, a gray Crown Victoria car slowly drove past. The driver with gelled up hair and big reflective, Robocop sunglasses locked eyes with Kelly and gave her a smirk. Clearly keeping an eye on the guests at Boys Town, the spiky hair driver asked Kelly what she was doing. …………………
Offering Dangerous Promise In Rural England
Hope is a difficult and maybe a dangerous concept to offer or promise.
Read the rest at https://mbird.com/social-science/money/economics/offering-dangerous-promises-in-rural-england/
Another way too exciting, frightening, and extreme Lenten season. I feel like I’ve said that several years now, in a row. Can we turn it down a bit, Lord, even now, like right now? Something a friend of mine (David Babikow) said to me recently got me thinking about the incarnation and Lent. It gets right at something I’m somewhat worried about, what with the triple crown of crappy years………………….
God Grows His Vinyard Isaiah 5
Read Isaiah 5. a Poem about how God is growing his vineyard isreal
Read from the bible Site at https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Isaiah+5%3A1-7&version=NIV
The Song of the Vineyard
5 I will sing for the one I love
a song about his vineyard:
My loved one had a vineyard
on a fertile hillside.
2 He dug it up and cleared it of stones
and planted it with the choicest vines.
He built a watchtower in it
and cut out a winepress as well.
Then he looked for a crop of good grapes,
but it yielded only bad fruit.
3 “Now you dwellers in Jerusalem and people of Judah,
judge between me and my vineyard.
4 What more could have been done for my vineyard
than I have done for it?
When I looked for good grapes,
why did it yield only bad?
5 Now I will tell you
what I am going to do to my vineyard:
I will take away its hedge,
and it will be destroyed;
I will break down its wall,
and it will be trampled.
6 I will make it a wasteland,
neither pruned nor cultivated,
and briers and thorns will grow there.
I will command the clouds
not to rain on it.”
7 The vineyard of the Lord Almighty
is the nation of Israel,
and the people of Judah
are the vines he delighted in.
And he looked for justice, but saw bloodshed;
for righteousness, but heard cries of distress.
Like a seed sown in the Ground
The sower is unbothered by apparent failures.
Read whole article at https://mbird.com/bible/like-a-seed-sown-in-the-ground/
If you ask ten different people on the street what Christianity is all about, you will likely get ten different answers. Is it to love one another? Political partisanship? Serving the poor? Being nice? Preaching the gospel? To be fair, Christians themselves aren’t exactly sure how to answer the question either…………………..
Clowning Around in Lent
Taking a break from pretending everything is great.
Read whole article at https://mbird.com/art/clowning-around-in-lent/
Episode 205 of This American Life premiered back in 2002, featuring an interview of Cuervo Man, from the tequilla brand, Jose Cuervo. It’s quite the interview, an insight into the life of a man who is paid to party on behalf of a liquor brand. Cuervo Man’s real name was Ryan McDonough, a Princeton English major whose life-of-the-party skills turned out to be more marketable than his degree. At one point in 2002, Ryan McDonough was doing 150 events a year on behalf of the liquor brand around New York City. Ryan would show up at bars with a car trunk full of promotional t-shirts and koozies and host an evening bacchanal with free shots and revelry on the company dime. Cuervo intro…………………………………….
God's Purpose in the Temple
Read 1 Kings 8. The dedication and purpose of the Temple of God Solomon Built.
1 Kings 8:22-60
22 Solomon was standing in front of the Eternal’s altar before the entire community of Israel, and he lifted his hands up toward heaven.
Solomon: 23 O Eternal One, Israel’s God, there is no other God who compares to You in heaven or on earth. You have guarded Your covenant and revealed Your loyal love to those who serve You with all their being. 24 You have kept Your word to Your servant, my father, David. You have promised with Your mouth and fulfilled Your promise with Your actions as it is today. 25 Eternal One, Israel’s God, preserve that which You have promised my father, David, when You told him, “Your descendants will sit upon Israel’s throne for as long as your sons walk the way you have walked before Me.”[a] 26 Israel’s God, fulfill what You have promised to my father, David, who served You.
27 Is it true that God will live upon the earth? The heavens and even the highest heaven are not big enough for You, so how will You live in the house I have raised? 28 Please listen to the prayer and humble request of Your servant today, Eternal One my God, 29 that Your gaze might fall upon this temple all night and day, that You might look upon the place about which You said, “My name will be there,” and hear the humble request of Your servant when he prays in the direction of this place. 30 And hear the prayer of Your servant and Your people Israel when they pray in the direction of this place. Hear them from heaven, Your dwelling place. Hear them, and forgive them.
31 If a man does evil against his neighbor, and he is instructed to make a promise at the altar of Your temple, 32 then hear him from heaven and act. Judge those who serve You. Denounce the evil man by returning his evil to him, and redeem the righteous man by blessing him according to his righteousness.
33 When Your people Israel are defeated by an enemy because they have acted against You and wronged You, if they come back to You and praise Your name and send their requests to You in this temple; 34 then hear them in heaven, forgive them for their sins, and lead them back to the promised land You gave to their ancestors.
35 When the heavens are dried up and no rain is given to the earth because Your people sinned against You, if they turn and pray in the direction of this place and praise Your name and turn away from their sins after You afflict them, 36 then hear them in heaven and forgive the sins of those who serve You and of Your people Israel. Show them the best path, the good path, upon which to walk. Give them rain for the portion of Your earth which You have given to them as an inheritance.
37 If there is food shortage, epidemic, plant disease, mildew, locusts or grasshoppers, enemies surrounding the land of their cities, plagues, or any other sickness; 38 whatever it is that is prayed or requested by any one person or all of Your people Israel who expresses the suffering of his own being and lifts his hands in the direction of this temple; 39 then hear him in heaven where You live. Grant forgiveness according to each person’s heart, for You know the heart of every man. You, and only You, know every heart 40 so that all people might live in awe and fear of You for as long as they live in the land You gave to their ancestors.
41 Whenever a foreigner, a person who is not a part of Your community of Israel, comes from a distant land in honor of Your name 42 (for everyone will hear about Your great reputation, mighty actions, and outstretched strength), when he prays in the direction of this temple; 43 then You will hear in heaven where You dwell and grant the foreigner’s requests. This is so Your reputation will spread all throughout the earth and so all may live in awe and fear of You, just as Your people Israel do, and so all will know that this temple I raised honors Your reputation.
44 When Your people enter the battlefield to face their enemies along the path You have sent them, when they pray to the Eternal in the direction of the city You have appointed and the temple I have raised in honor of Your reputation; 45 hear their prayers and requests in heaven, and You will do justice on their behalf.
46 When they sin against You (for there is not one person who will not sin), and in Your anger You hand them over to their enemies who take them away to enemy territory, whether it is near or far away, 47 if they repent from their wrongdoings during their captivity, confess to You that they have been sinful and acted wickedly, 48 give their hearts back to You, offer You their entire beings while being held captive by their enemies, and send their prayers to You in the direction of the land You gave to their ancestors (the city you appointed to be sacred) in the direction of the temple I have raised in honor of Your name; 49 then hear their prayers and requests in heaven where You live and do justice on their behalf, 50 forgive Your people who have wronged You, erase all their sins, and transform them into examples of compassion in the sight of their captors so that their enemies might be compassionate toward them.
51 These are Your people, the vessels of Your earthly legacy, whom You led out of Egypt and away from the iron furnace of slavery 52 so that Your eyes may be open to the requests of those who serve You—Your people Israel—and hear them whenever they call out to You. 53 You have set them apart from all other people on the earth; You have chosen them as vessels of Your earthly legacy. You revealed this to us when You chose Your servant Moses to be Your mouthpiece. It all began when You led our ancestors out of Egypt, Eternal, our True God.
54 After Solomon had finished praying to the Eternal, he stood up before the Eternal’s altar where he had been kneeling and lifting up his hands toward heaven. 55 With a booming voice, he blessed the entire community of Israel.
Solomon: 56 Blessed is the Eternal One who has given rest to His people Israel and who has fulfilled all His promises. He has been true to every last word of the promise He gave through His servant Moses. 57 May the Eternal our God live among us, just as He lived with our ancestors. May He never abandon or neglect us 58 so that He can make us desire and walk in His ways, keeping all the commands, laws, and judgments He gave to our ancestors. 59 May my words and everything I have requested of the Eternal our God be close to His heart continuously, both day and night, so that He will support His servant and His people Israel according to the needs of each day as it is today. 60 Then all the people of the world will understand for themselves that He is the only True God.
At The Crossroads of Lent
God must barge in and interrupt our lives.
Read the Whole article at https://mbird.com/literature/at-the-crossroads-with-jonathan-franzen-and-gerhard-forde/
onathan Franzen’s Crossroads and Gerhard Forde’s Where God Meets Man are two books that have little in common on the surface: the latest novel by one of America’s pre-eminent fiction writers and a fifty-year-old book of Lutheran theology, but there are affinities. Franzen’s novel is set in the early 1970s, mostly in the Midwest, and deals with mainline protestant Christianity. Forde’s is a book of mainline protestant theology written and published in Minnesota in 1972. While Franzen has said that theology was not his concern in Crossroads, the characters of the Hildebrandt Family find themselves repeatedly confronted by God and/or the church. It is this confrontation which is the theme of Forde, who believed that theology is inextricable from its significance for people — that God revealed himself “down to earth.”………………..
The Moms Are (Still) Not Alright
Parenting feels hard because it is hard.
Read the Whole article at The Moms Are (Still) Not Alright - Mockingbird (mbird.com)
The dread can hit anywhere, anytime. Last week, I was in the fancy grocery store, where I met my friend for prepackaged sushi from a refrigerator case in the back. We sat in the little dining space at the front of the store where just moments earlier, my friend had stopped a fire from breaking out in the communal microwave. An older woman had microwaved foil. My phone rang and the dread took over — the fire was the least of my worries. Every phone call from the school or even an unknown caller with a similar area code can make my head pound. Before I accepted the call, I ran through the list of things I would need to cancel for the afternoon.
Just a few days before, my kindergartener arrived at the nurse’s office with a headache and was sent home from school. She could not return until she had a n………………..
No Other Name!
Only in Christ has God taken upon himself the worst that could ever happen between God and man: he has allowed himself to be rejected.
Read whole Sermon at No Other Name! | 1517
On the next day their rulers and elders and scribes gathered together in Jerusalem, with Annas the high priest and Caiaphas and John and Alexander, and all who were of the high-priestly family. And when they had set them in the midst, they inquired, “By what power or by what name did you do this?” Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, “Rulers of the people and elders, if we are being examined today concerning a good deed done to a crippled man, by what means this man has been healed, let it be known to all of you and to all the people of Israel that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead—by him this man is standing before you well. This Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone. And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.” (Acts 4:5–12)……………………………….