September 22, 2022 — Pruning

“Since, therefore, the children share flesh and blood, he himself likewise shared the same things, so that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by the fear of death. For it is clear that he did not come to help angels, but the descendants of Abraham. Therefore he had to become like his brothers and sisters in every respect, so that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make a sacrifice of atonement for the sins of the people. Because he himself was tested by what he suffered, he is able to help those who are being tested.”  Hebrews 2:14-18

“We live in culture saturated and driven by fear. We worry about our nation, our borders, our jobs, our schools, our neighborhoods, our values, our way of life. But fear, the book of Hebrews tells us, is the power of the devil. Hebrews 2:14–15 describes the devil’s hold on us as a lifelong slavery to fear. The devil gets his claws into us when we get lost in the fog of anxiety, suspicion, paranoia, and worry about those people with strange accents, customs, and skin colors.” (The Power of the Devil, Stranger God: Meeting Jesus in Disguise, Richard Beck)

Fear can be a powerful drug. I have been struggling with a lot of fear this summer. Some of my feelings come from my own personal experiences with how I view my ministry, and other feelings come from what I see in the church and the world today. If there is something in my life that I feel needs to be pruned, it is fear. “Why do I do the things that I do?” Paul asked this same question, and this is the question I need to ask myself constantly. Am I doing things out of fear or out of faith? 

Recently my wife was pruning branches off a tree that stands in our front yard. She was pruning the branches because the tree was growing unevenly, out of control, and was interfering with strangers who wanted to walk on the sidewalk in front of our house. These are the reasons we prune certain behaviors from our lives. Sometimes we step back and see that our lives have become uneven and out of control because personal decisions and behaviors are impeding with our own progress in life and faith.

If I can give you one piece of advice my friends, it is this: prune fear out of your life and learn to live by faith.

Let us pray,

Lord Jesus, you call us to live by faith not by sight and not to have fear. Your first words to your disciples on the day of the resurrections was “Do not fear”. Give me the courage today to live by faith, not fear. Amen.

Pastor Dave

September 21, 2022 — Questions Are So Important

“Then they came to Capernaum; and when he was in the house he asked them, “What were you arguing about on the way?” But they were silent, for on the way they had argued with one another who was the greatest. He sat down, called the twelve, and said to them, “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” Then he took a little child and put it among them; and taking it in his arms, he said to them, “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.” Mark 9:33-37

“Our lives are dominated by those feelings of scarcity. In her book Daring Greatly, Brené Brown shares this assessment from Lynne Twist: For me, and for many of us, our first waking thought of the day is “I didn’t get enough sleep.” The next one is “I don’t have enough time.” Whether true or not, that thought of not enough occurs to us automatically before we even think to question or examine it. . . . Before we even sit up in bed, before our feet touch the floor, we’re already inadequate, already behind, already losing, already lacking something. And by the time we go to bed at night, our minds are racing with a litany of what we didn’t get, or didn’t get done, that day. We go to sleep burdened by those thoughts and wake up to that reverie of lack. (Our Reverie of Lack, Stranger G0d: Meeting Jesus in Disguise. Richard Beck)

One of the more curious observations I have made in my seventeen years of being a parish pastor is the lack of questions people ask about scripture, about faith, and about things that confuse them as they struggle to live out their faith. This has often confounded me. I have been trained (mostly from my Seminary Education) in the manner of asking many questions while teaching a bible study lesson. And so I may begin a bible study session by asking questions (rhetorical and not) — and then returning to them — and asking more questions throughout. And so often I receive a lot of silence to my questions because people lack the courage to say, well, anything.

I know there are things that people either do not understand, or issues where people do not agree with me, and yet those remain unasked, and unstated and this just adds to the feelings of “Lack” that Lynne Twist mentions in the above quote.

My friends, if we want to get passed the feelings of “lack” when it comes to our faith understanding, we need to ask questions because “Questions are so important.” Questions help us to grow in understanding, and help us to clarify that which confuses. Don’t be afraid to ask the questions, especially the really difficult ones. I guarantee you there are others who are in need of the same answers.

Let us pray,

Lord Jesus, even your disciples did not have the courage to ask you questions. And yet you continued to teach them and to love them. Help us to have the courage to ask the questions we need to ask — and to be open to the answers you give. Amen.

Pastor Dave