New year’s Eve: New Heaven and Earth

Revelation 21:1-7

As the old year dies away, our thoughts may dwell on the past-perhaps longing for loved ones we’ve lost or, more positively, celebrating our successes or recalling good times with friends. Or we may be so focused on reaching future goals that we busy ourselves with too many tasks and fail to appreciate the joys of life that surround us every day.

I recently began reading books and practicing yoga and meditation to enhance my mindfulness–a state of consciousness attuned to fully experiencing the present. John of Patmos wrote that God’s kingdom brings “a new heaven and a new earth” and that now, in the present moment, “the home of God is among mortals.” By focusing our attention and energies on each moment, we experience the world in which God “is making all things new.”

PRAYER: Great Renewer, help us to stop living in the past or worrying about the future and instead embrace the fullness of life in the present–the new heaven and new earth of your dwelling here with us. Amen.

Lynn Foley

John’s Testimony

John 1:29-34

Despite all intention, my mind loops continuously back to an unorthodox exegesis of these verses. I cannot help but tilt with my spiritual struggle in a secular world. The juxtaposition of this scripture with my reading of an essay about “The Fourfold” (earth, sky, divinities, and mortals) left me no choice in my response.

Our role in the world is to dwell properly. To do so ensures the preservation of the delicate balance of the four: earth, sky, divinities, and mortals. We best approach preserving this balance with our sacred rituals–rituals that become more powerful when observed by a community “re-enchanting a disenchanted world.” In these actions we lift light back toward heaven.

PRAYER: Dear God, you gave us the light of love, compassion, and hope. May we use those gifts to bring balance and light in our daily lives and as we practice our rituals as a community–baptisms, caring for the homeless, striving for peace and justice, creating music, sharing meals, and caring for each other. Amen.

Karl and Fran Mohr

This Sunday is our 2nd annual Epiphany worship service. Instead of a sermon, the worship will feature selected poems from ancient and modern poets, each of which is a “showing forth” of some hidden aspect of reality. Between every poem, Minister of Music Clint Miller has chosen a musical work that extends the meditation.

Epiphany is the annual feast day when the church celebrates the “showing forth” of Jesus as the beloved child of God. A secret, once hidden, is revealed!

See you Sunday at 11am. No adult Sunday School, but for folks who want to come early, we will have time for kids to play and adults to share a cup of coffee together.

Baptism of Jesus

Luke 3:1-22

“You brood of vipers!” John was not subtle, and it is clear he never read Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People. And yet the crowds flocked to him. The response to his call of repentance was intense. People came from all over to be baptized and find guidance. Their repentance was sincere as evidenced by their very specific questions to John about their own lives and professions such as tax collectors and soldiers.

John gave them specific answers: share your abundance, don’t cheat people, don’t bully them. His answers point the way to life, then and now. What is your question for John?

PRAYER: Gracious God, give us ears that we may hear the voice of one crying in the wilderness. Give us strong minds and bodies to prepare the way. And give us grateful hearts that we may rejoice. Amen.
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Linda Davis

Murder of Innocents

Matthew 2:13-23

These passages of scripture from the Old Testament are concerned with the birth and early life of Jesus as the fulfillment of what the Lord had said through the prophets. Probably this remembering of what God said in the Old Testament was to give credibility to the new story that was being told. This new story about a very poor child born to displaced parents and forced to flee to another country for safety sounds so different from the glory of King Solomon’s court and the grandeur of King David’s royal self-indulgence.

The slaughter of the innocent little boys in and around Bethlehem doesn’t seem to bother the storyteller since it had been predicted by Jeremiah. It has always troubled me. Why was it necessary that the innocents be slaughtered?

PRAYER: Dear Creator God, we pray for a time when we will not have to struggle so hard to change the ways of the powerful in this world, for a time when the powerful will work for peace and justice, for a time when the powerful will honor and protect the innocent, especially the young and vulnerable. Amen.

Kent Leslie