Thoughts and Musings from My Faith Journey
Below is a link to a discussion of Ephesians 1.15-23 based on a sermon titled “God is Not Finished With Us Yet” by Jennifer Collins. The sermon was originally preached on Ascension/Graduation Sunday, May 17, 2015.
If you have an Apple product you can subscribe to the podcast through iTunes.
Link: https://goo.gl/Q63OMK
I have a meeting of my theological reading group this Monday, and so I’m re-reading Scripture and the Authority of God: How to Read the Bible Today by N. T. Wright. In doing so, I came across an aside in which he equates “the call to holiness” with the call “to genuine and renewed humanness.” As I said, it’s an aside; it is not a major part of the book or even that chapter of the book. However, it very concisely states a point that I’ve been trying to make for a long time.
In the biblical sense, holiness is not about setting ourselves apart from other people as their moral superiors. Instead to seek holiness means to seek to live as genuine and renewed human beings. It means seeking (with the Holy Spirit’s help) to be the people God created us to be: people who love the Lord with all their heart, mind, soul, and strength and their neighbors as themselves.
Graduation Sunday is tomorrow. We’ll be celebrating the great transition that is graduation and seeking God’s blessing upon on graduating seniors. Jenny will be preaching on Ephesians 1.15-23 and focusing on the words: “I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him.” Hope to see you there!
Mary Riemler, our church administrative assistant, can’t access the calendar on the church website. Can you? If you have the time, please go to http://abilenefirstumc.org/calendar/ and try it. Drop me a note and let me know whether or not it worked for you and what web browser (Internet Explorer, Chrome, Safari, etc.) you were using. Thanks.
Today is the final meeting for Power & Light; the Wonderful Wednesday Evening Meal; Youth Group; and Choir practice. We’ll continue to have holy communion on Wednesdays, but the time will be moved up to 5:15 pm. All the other events will pick back up at the beginning of the next school year, but we’re scaling back the Wonderful Wednesday Evening Meal to just the second Wednesday of every month.
Below is a link to a reprise of my sermon from this past Sunday on the the vows members take when they join Abilene First United Methodist Church. It was a sermon meant for prospective members, current members, those who haven’t ever thought about membership and those who would like to avoid membership like the plague. The sermon was titled “Membership is as Membership Does.”
If you have an Apple product you can subscribe to the podcast through iTunes.
Link: https://goo.gl/uSlTvP
I shared this quote about four years ago, but it’s one of my favorites, so I’m going to share it again:
“You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.” —Augustine of Hippo (Confessions)
We can search for meaning in all kinds of things and all sorts of places, but we will remain restless until we find the true meaning of our lives in God. I know this to be true, but somehow I none-the-less find myself searching elsewhere. I long to get to the place where I can find rest content in the grace and love of God.
I want to take a moment of personal privilege and put in a plug for the Plain Great Players production of Godspell. Jenny and I went last night, and it was wonderful. The better you know the Bible, and especially the gospels, the more you can get out of it. There are two productions left: one today (May 9, 2015) and one tomorrow—both at 7:30 pm and both at the Abilene High School auditorium. Tickets are only $12 for adults and $10 for students.
The Lord’s prayer has traditionally been given substantial weight and assigned great importance because it is the prayer that Jesus taught his disciples (and by extension, all Christians) to pray. Today I received a quote from Sojourners that reminded me of an important, but often overlooked, detail of that prayer.
“It is not for oneself alone that each person asks to be forgiven, not to be led into temptation, or to be delivered from evil. Rather, we pray in public as a community, and not for one individual but for all.” — Cyprian of Carthage
This doesn’t mean that we can’t pray the Lord’s Prayer aloud or silently when we’re by ourselves. But it does mean we should always keep in mind that we do not pray it alone and that there is a collective, communal element of our faith. We do not travel by ourselves. Through the power of the Holy Spirit, we are all in this together.
Last Sunday, seven confirmands vowed that they would support Abilene First United Methodist Church with their prayers, their presence, their gifts, their service, and their witness. Last Sunday, I announced that I would be preaching on what these vows mean this coming Sunday, May 10, 2015.
I wish that I had made it clear that I intend to talk about how fulfilling these vows helps us to grow in our faith and in our relationship to God in this particular time and this particular place. Fulfilling these vows won’t make you a Christian, but it will help make you a better one. This sermon will be applicable to four groups of people: those who are considering membership; those who have never given a thought to membership; those who want to avoid membership (after all, you can fulfill the vows without taking them); and those who are already members alike.
It’s been brought to our attention that Jenny and I didn’t share with the congregation the book that was being given to the confirmands this past Sunday. The book was Beyond Words: Daily Readings in the ABC’s of Faith by Frederick Buechner. We’ve found it to be a great book for confirmands and graduates even though it was written for an adult audience (Jenny and I love it). There are 365 entries that you can use for a year’s worth of daily devotions or you can skip around to get a pithy and engaging take on biblical characters and theological concepts. It’s available at amazon.com, but cokesbury.com (the United Methodist Publishing House) has it in stock at a better price.
The confirmands did a great job of leading worship yesterday. We were happy to welcome Audrey, Austin, Bailey, Brenna, Kate, Liz, and Sidney into full membership. With the seven of them leading worship, I was able to relax and experience God’s presence. At which point I promptly missed the cue for something I was supposed to be doing (Fortunately, Jenny was there to pick up the slack). It was a wonderful service, and they were a great confirmation class, it has been a joy to get to know them better.