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Weekly Focus
Sixteenth Sunday After Pentecost
Body and Spirit
In the gospel today Christ's followers, newly empowered to proclaim God's forgiveness throughout the earth, start to focus on heaven. In heaven, they begin to wonder, who will be the first disciple? Who will sit at Christ's right hand? Along the way to the town of Capernaum, they begin to argue. Things get so heated that when they arrive, and Christ asks them what they were arguing about, you'll notice their response: silence and shame.
Real spiritual life is not about rewards or power—in heaven or on earth. Nor is it about being "spiritual" in the way that some people would use the word today (as in, "I'm spiritual, but not religious.") The Christian faith shows us that God's presence and power take form in our world in the human body. God in Christ became human; and, likewise, our spirits or souls have physical dimensions and take shape as bodies.
This is good news for our culture. Because in our culture where there is so much shame and discomfort with the body, God's message for us is that the body—however we feel about ours—is created for good. It is not a container of the soul, but it's expression. Body and spirit are not separate but one. Thanks to our bodies we have gifts to share not only to help others but to grow in our love of God. In a mature Christian faith, using our gifts, we fulfill a calling to be a member of the body of Christ. "Christ," as St. Francis said, "has no hands or feet in this world, but yours."
Welcome to St. Tim's, a people and place where God is alive and transforming people through gifts of compassion and care that we share and receive from one another. We celebrate the blessings God has shown us and see the Holy Spirit moving us in a new way. Wherever you are in your faith and belief, we are delighted you are here with us.
Wisdom 1:16-2:1, 12-22
Psalm 54
Ephesians 4:4-6, 11-18
Mark 9:30-37
Fifteenth Sunday After Pentecost
Belonging
Today in our gospel reading Jesus asks his disciples, "Who do people say that I am?" This was not a difficult question. Like today, people then said Jesus was a miracle worker, preacher, or a moral teacher. But then he asks his disciples, "And who do you say that I am?" There is no question more telling. It dangles in the air as a challenge to his early disciples to articulate and see him for who he really is. It's a challenge meant for us, too—his disciples of today. How do you answer? Peter's answer, "You are the Messiah!" is a deep recognition of Jesus as the one sent by God to bring our world into life with him. In other words, Jesus' identity is not just as an individual, but as sent from God, belonging to God.
Who is St. Timothy's? That question is on my mind as I get to know you in this new time. There are many ways that people may describe us: a church where God's Spirit is moving us in worship; a community that takes discipleship and its marks seriously (for more about that, see here), a church that experiences joy in action and has fun together in Christ. But these descriptions, while all true, do not give us a full picture. Paul, in our reading from Corinthians, calls us to find our identity together in Christ. St. Timothy's belongs to him, just as Christ belongs to God. Welcome to St. Timothy's, a place and a people through whom God's Son is alive at work in our world. May God bless you powerfully through worship.
Isaiah 50:4-9
Psalm 116
1 Corinthians
Mark 8:27-38
Fourteenth Sunday After Pentecost
In the Beginning...
Of all the Scriptures of the major religious traditions it is the Judeo-Christian tradition's Scripture-our Bible-that begins in cosmic proportion: "In the Beginning." Genesis is a cosmic history; and yet it is a personal history, too. At its most profound, it is our summons and gateway into new life-God's life among us (his created) and our life in God.
Perhaps, like me, you find beginnings exciting. Do you remember the spine of that new textbook, how it crackled as you opened it for the first time on that first day of school, in your new classroom, at your new desk? The smell of that new car-how you could open the door, get in, and smell that "new car" smell... The experience of opening the door to a new home... Beginnings are exciting.
But maybe, like me, too you experience some nervousness around beginnings. What will I have to adjust here of myself? What is God doing here in me, in this place, in this time? Beginnings challenge what we know and challenge us to learn more. That's why Genesis is so important to read. It rewards us just to open it to the very first sentence-because its first sentence shows us that God is the author of all beginnings. God creates: "bara" says the Hebrew-a verb used only in the Old Testament exclusively of God's creating-and through the generation of his Son, and the procession of the Holy Spirit, we come to be. And thus all the creating that we do in our lives-with God, and in our families, and work, and hobbies-has on it the divine fingerprint. God is in it, and we are his.
I am excited to be here: new friends, an amazing people called St. Tim's, and a new and strong call by the Holy Spirit to lead. April and I are settling into our new home. Eva, our one and a half year old, loves her new backyard. And I'm listening these days, in my prayers and in our conversations, for what God is doing-in me, through St. Tim's, and in this time as we begin a new chapter. Already I see Christ here in the hospitality and the evident love that you have for one another. The ministry you do, seen and unseen. God is in it. And just as we see leaves move on the trees and discern by it the wind blowing, I join you in seeing great evidence here of our lives being moved by the Holy Spirit in this new time.
God is blessing us here through St. Tim's. And the gift we have together now-poised, as we are, to unwrap it-is Genesis: Beginning.
Genesis 1:1-2
Psalm 146
James 1:17-27
Mark 7:31-37
Thirteenth Sunday After Pentecost
God or Tradition?
In the Gospel reading today, Jesus meets the issue of tradition head on. A person is to choose between the commandments of God and the man-made traditions.
Jesus' disciples are being observed by the local watchdogs: the scribes and the Pharisees. These well-intentioned and faithful men see all the little things - never seeing any of the big things. They saw the violations of the hand washing codes. But they did not see Jesus for who he really was. They never took an open look so that the true nature of Jesus and his teaching would come fairly before them. They never really saw the people who had been blessed by a man going around doing good. They were not interested in these things. They were interested in pots and pans, in washing, the minute details that kept them separated from their community. Their eyes were blind to everything...except what threatened their traditions, their vested interest, their authority, and their prestige.
That same blindness of not being able to see the really big things because of focusing on the small things has come down the years to this very day. In every century people have been blind to the authentic work of God, because their myopic vision took in only the violation of some tradition.
Two rather embarrassing questions come to us. The first question is: What do I see quickly? The big things or the little things? The genuine work of God in human life, or the straying from my traditional ways of doing things?
The second question arises out of the fact that the scribes and Pharisees did not fairly examine Jesus. They had already made up their minds. They were like a judge who pronounces sentence before the trial. We can't stand this when it happens to us or when it happens to our faith. So the second question is: Do we ever approach issues in the same way, with our minds made up, so that we never really examine them at all?
Who can answer that honestly by saying "No?"
Deuteronomy 4:1-9
Psalm 15
Ephesians 6:10-20
Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23
More Weekly Focus:
June 2006
July 2006
August 2006
September 2006
Monthly Focus Archive
2006:
Easter Focus: New Covenant
Lenten Focus: A Covenantal Response to Poverty
February Focus: Moving Forward
2005:
December Focus: Longing
November Focus: The Gift of Years
October Focus: Stewardship
September Focus: Foundations
Summer Focus: The Book of Acts
Easter Focus: Tapestry
Lenten Focus: Rule of Life
January Focus: The Next Wave
2004:
December Focus: Surprising Grace
November Focus: Free Indeed
October Focus: Money Madness
September Focus: The Outrageous Promise
Summer Focus: Into the Fullness
June Focus: Thick Faith
Easter Focus: All Things New
Lent Focus: A Hungry World
February Focus: Commitment
January Focus: Unity
2003:
December Focus: Hope
November Focus: Worship
October Focus: Stewardship
September Focus: Seasons of Faith
Summer Focus: The Gospel of John
May Focus: Faith
April Focus: Resurrection
March Focus: Truth
February Focus: Covenant Groups
January Focus: Sabbath
2002:
December Focus: Shut Up and Sing
November Focus: Spiritual Gifts
October Focus: Stewardship
September Focus: Intentional Faith
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