September 28, 2016 – Words of Wisdom
Navajo Proverb

“You can’t wake a person who is pretending to be asleep.”

“After the Sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb. And suddenly there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord, descending from heaven, came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing white as snow. For fear of him the guards shook and became like dead men. But the angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid; I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He is not here; for he has been raised, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay.” Matthew 28:1-6

Today I ask you to pray for those who seem to be living life as if they are dead. You know who they are – you see them every day. They are the people who are so tired they fall asleep at their desks, or are so battered they won’t look you in the eyes, or are so sad they wear their despair like a well-worn suit. It is you and I who need to wake up and notice the people who are worn out by life, who are deep in the emotions of despair and hopelessness. Going through life “as if we are dead” is no way to go through life. Say a prayer for those who are so hopeless, so grief-stricken, so worn out that they believe no one cares. As Christians, we are called to care – and to act – and to be the hands and feet of Christ.

Pastor Dave

September 18, 2016
18th Sunday After Pentecost Year C

“Then Jesus said to the disciples, “There was a rich man who had a manager, and charges were brought to him that this man was squandering his property. So he summoned him and said to him, ‘What is this that I hear about you? Give me an accounting of your management, because you cannot be my manager any longer.’ Then the manager said to himself, ‘What will I do, now that my master is taking the position away from me? I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg. I have decided what to do so that, when I am dismissed as manager, people may welcome me into their homes.’ So, summoning his master’s debtors one by one, he asked the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’ He answered, ‘A hundred jugs of olive oil.’ He said to him, ‘Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it fifty.’ Then he asked another, ‘And how much do you owe?’ He replied, ‘A hundred containers of wheat.’ He said to him, ‘Take your bill and make it eighty.’ And his master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly; for the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light. And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth so that when it is gone, they may welcome you into the eternal homes. “Whoever is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much; and whoever is dishonest in a very little is dishonest also in much.” Luke 16:1-10

“Why forgive someone who’s sinned against us, or against our sense of what is obviously right? We don’t have to do it out of love for the other person, if we’re not there yet. We could forgive the other person because of that whole business of what we pray in Jesus’ name every Sunday morning, and because we know we’d like forgiveness ourselves. We could forgive because we’ve experienced what we’re like as unforgiving people, and so we know that refusing to forgive because we don’t want the other person to benefit is, as the saying goes, like eating rat poison hoping it will hurt the rat. We could forgive because we are, or we want to be, deeply in touch with a sense of Jesus’ power to forgive and free sinners like us. Or we could forgive because we think it will improve our odds of winning the lottery. It boils down to the same thing: there is no bad reason to forgive.” (Biblical Scholar Sarah Dylan Breuer)

It is easy for our scoundrel of the day, the unjust manager to be prodigal with forgiveness. But, you could say, he has a pretty good reason to be prodigal with his forgiveness. But, I don’t think that our message today is that we are to wait only for good reasons – for opportune times to forgive people. No, I think the message for us is to forgive and to forgive and to keep on forgiving because you never know how that might affect someone – especially yourself and your own faith journey.

It is a model of living that is worthy of imitating. This manager forgives – he forgives things he has no right to forgive – he forgives for all the wrong reasons – he forgives as if his life depends on it – and in fact, maybe that is closest to the truth – our lives do depend on it. Maybe we are to forgive – forgive it all – forgive it right away, don’t wait for a reason – you don’t have to have a reason other than the fact that Jesus commands us to forgive – not just 7 times but 70 times 7 times. I mean, we are taught by Jesus to pray in the Lord’s prayer “to forgive us our sins, as we” – and this is so important, so listen up – “as we have (ALREADY) or ARE FORGIVING the ones owing us.” The implication from the Greek language is that we are the ones called upon to be the first to forgive – even before we drop to our knees to prayerfully seek our own forgiveness.

Pastor Dave