Thursday - August 31, 2023
Rev. Dr. Neil G. Thomas
SCRIPTURE
Ephesians 5.1-3
Therefore, be imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. But sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints.
WORDS OF HOPE
Wake Up from Your Sleep
Watch what God does, and then you do it, like children who learn proper behavior from their parents. Mostly what God does is love you. Keep company with God and learn a life of love.
Following Jesus and becoming as “Christ-like” as we possibly can is a daily, sometime hourly practice of surrender. We are called to surrender to the ways of the world and to encounter something that is more dangerous, LOVE! Yes, as people of faith we are called to love.
The writer of the letter to the early church in Ephesus puts it this way, “Observe how Christ loved us. His love was not cautious but extravagant. Jesus did not love in order to get something from us but to give everything of himself to us. Love like that.”
The writer wants us to observe how Jesus lived his life. It is what Paul would call, “putting on the mind of Christ” and living, loving, caring, forgiving, like Christ. To face everyday decisions and behaviors as if we were “Christ”, not with the need or desire to get something in return but because it is the right thing to do – the right way to live.
In the 12-step traditions and principles of AA which were heavily inspired by Christianity, a fundamental practice is being of service to others with no intent to receive something in return. The spiritual principles of recovery are acceptance, hope, faith, courage, honesty, patience, humility, willingness, brotherly love, integrity, self-discipline, and service. Following these principles offers us the opportunity to love extravagantly, and not just loving and serving others, but loving and serving ourselves as well.
It is my sincere belief that if we could practice this truth much of the pain, guilt, shame, and damage that has been done to humanity, and which we absorb, could be healed and overcome – perhaps not even inflicted in the first place.
We love others because God first extravagantly loves us. It is this acceptance of God’s love that is lavishly offered to us, poured out toward us, that enables us to love ourselves. It is this God- love and our self-love that motivates us to love others and to be of service. “Love like that”, the writer says. What would our world look like if we could truly love like that? What would our own lives look like if we could love ourselves “like that?” How would this truth change the destiny of the church, our church?
Our invitation is to keep alert and to be mindful of our actions, knowing that they reflect our beliefs. As the writer of the Book of James puts it, “faith without deeds is dead.”
May we keep alert, stay woke, and be a demonstration of that kind of extravagant love in the world.
PRAYER
God, help us to learn to follow your ways and your commandment to love God, love self, and love others. Amen.
DEVOTION AUTHOR
The Reverend Dr. Neil G. Thomas
Senior Pastor
Pronouns: he/his/him
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SCRIPTURE Ephesians 6:10-20 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might. Put on the full armor of God, so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore, take up the full armor of God, so that you will be able to resist on the evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm. Stand firm therefore, having belted your waist with truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having strapped on your feet the preparation of the gospel of peace; in addition to all, taking up the shield of faith with which you will be able to extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. And take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. With every prayer and request, pray at all times in the Spirit, and with this in view, be alert with all perseverance and every request for all the saints, and pray in my behalf, that speech may be given to me in the opening of my mouth, to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains; that in proclaiming it I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak. WORDS OF HOPE This passage and Ephesians has always been one for me that has seemed antithetical to the Christian message in many ways. Gearing up for war; gearing up for battle? I know I’ve seen churches who dress children up in cardboard versions of Roman armor labeled in a way that matches this passage. But if I look at it more closely, I begin to realize that we’re not talking about going to battle necessarily. After all, it does say that to strap on the preparation of the gospel of peace implies going forward in a peaceful way. And except for the sword, most of these items are defensive; they protect you from what comes at you. So why would a Christian writer, whether it is Paul or someone else, use this imagery? I think two things need to be considered. First, he’s writing to the Ephesians. Ephesus in Asia minor had always been at a point of battle. Alexander, the Great had stopped here. The Persians had come here. The Greeks had fought here, and finally the Romans had taken control. Lots of armies moving through. So, the imagery of soldiers is one that would resonate with the Ephesians. There may not have been a time in the memory of anyone when soldiers were not around. And the Ephesians were not Jewish. So many of the Jewish images used in other letters, and the gospels would not have the same resonance as this. But immediately following this militaristic description of evangelism, is a call for prayer. Indeed, the military description ends with the Spirit which is described as a sword, which is the word of God. And the call for prayer says to pray at all times in the Spirit. This positioning of ideas is clear. Just as all of the armies that have come through and have brought the sword to bring what they saw as the truth of their system; now Christians use the word of God to bring the truth of salvation. This would reinforce to the Ephesians; how different the new message of Jesus is from the old message of conquest and tyranny. There is one other thing about armor. When someone is wearing armor, or even a uniform, it is obvious to everyone who they are. Not only does it show that they are prepared, protected, and serving their government. The armor of God shows that we are prepared, protected and serving God. And so, the letter writer reminds us that what people know of God is what they see in us. PRAYER Dear God, help us to always show ourselves as followers of your Christ. May we be prepared. May we be protected. May we, and faith, and peace go forward to show others your love and salvation. Amen. DEVOTION AUTHOR Weber Baker Order of Saint Francis and Saint Clare.
SCRIPTURES Revelation 7:9 ..after this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. Galatians 3:28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. WORDS OF HOPE The scene is a dimly lit bar & grill and it’s Sunday night around 9:30pm. There’s a small stage in the front corner, a large floor with table seating, a bar area with barstools, and booth seating on the far wall. In the back corner, there’s a table for two, but it’s reserved for someone very special. We showed up way too early, which meant we got to hear the musicians on the stage jam a little before the downbeat. It also meant that from our booth, we could watch people come in. Among the first to arrive were two trans women, who grabbed a table near the bar. Then a middle-aged woman came in and started arranging tables together for a birthday celebration. There were young people whose ID showed they just turned 21 and old people who are probably up past their normal bedtime. Some people were dressed up to perhaps to impress a new friend, and others were in old t-shirts and faded jeans. There were black people, white people, Native American people… persons of every ethnicity, age, economic status, and gender identity. This place is Bunker’s Music Bar & Grill on the North Loop in Minneapolis. And every Sunday night since 1987, a band known as Dr. Mambo’s Combo drops some wicked and unmistakable Minneapolis funk-soul. The band reflects the crowd, members being older and younger, black and white, dressed up and dressed down. Back when he was still alive, a Minneapolis native known as Prince would sit in the back corner and sometimes make his way on stage. The empty table for two in the back corner is still reserved for him. We found ourselves at Bunker’s because the tour guide at Paisley Park, the waitress at another bar, a server at a local restaurant and my niece all said that Dr. Mambo’s Combo was not to be missed. At one point, during a break between sets, Kas motioned to the room and said, “Churches should look like this”. A place where anyone and everyone is welcomed and accepted, where you can shed the identity that the world puts on you and be completely yourself. You’re tied together by rhythm, cadence, and transcendence, so there are no cliques, castes, cabals, or inner circles. Of course, we’ll move over and make room for you. Of course, you can sing along to Steve Wonder or Chaka Khan or Janet Jackson. It was shortly after Kas’ comment that I started imagining a middle eastern man in an outer robe and tunic. He was laughing with the trans women, dancing with the birthday girl, and chiming in to James Brown. I think Jesus loves a good party and adores diversity. I want to be at that party too. PRAYER God of all, In Christ, we are one— no divisions, no barriers, only love. Open our hearts to see each person as beloved, to honor differences and celebrate unity. May we live as one body, guided by Your grace. Amen. DEVOTION AUTHOR Thomas Riggs
SCRIPTURE Jeremiah 29:11 For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. WORDS OF HOPE Creating Space for Hope There are times on the journey of life when we wonder about this thing called hope. Your 17-year-old son is diagnosed with terminal melanoma. The neighbor next door takes his own life, leaving his spouse to provide and care for their four children ages 3 to 11. At age 62, your position at work is eliminated and there are few prospects for your area of experience. Despair can seem more familiar than hope at times. The writer of Lamentations declares: “Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for God’s compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. I say to myself, ‘The Lord is my portion; therefore, I will wait for the Lord.’” (Lamentations 3:22-24) When I was at a particularly low place in my life, I recall the words of a friend who said, “You can choose to get bitter or better.” Hope chooses the latter. Hope is more than wishful thinking; it is an intention. We choose—we declare our intent to create space for hope to exist and to thrive. The gifted poet, Emily Dickinson, struggled with depression most of her life and never lived to see her works published. Still, she penned the words, written in the mid 1800’s, that endure still: “Hope” is the thing with feathers - That perches in the soul - And sings the tune without the words - And never stops - at all - PRAYER Holy One, may we leave space—indeed, create space—chiseling it out of rock if necessary, for your precious gift of Hope. Holy Spirit come, dwell with us and make it so! Amen. DEVOTION AUTHOR Rev. Dr. Gary Kindley Pastoral Psychotherapist DrGK.org
SCRIPTURE Colossians 3:12 Therefore, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. Colossians 3:12 WORDS OF HOPE The morning Joyce died a dear friend came to the hospital and would stop at nothing before she wrapped me in her arms and held me while I wept. She stayed with me as I walked through the official leaving of her body, grown cold to my touch, and then followed me home to make toast—the only thing I could eat. Then she cleaned out the refrigerator so that there would be room for casserole-comfort. I know intimately the relationship of loss and kindness of which Naomi Shihab Nye speaks in her poem: “Before you know what kindness really is/ you must lose things,/feel the future dissolve in a moment/like salt in a weakened broth./What you held in your hand,/ what you counted and carefully saved,/ all this must go so you know/how desolate the landscape can be/ between the regions of kindness.”* How desolate a landscape indeed. We are sadly seeing in our country right now cruelty and hatred of a magnitude which still shocks and horrifies, sanctioned even at the highest corridors of power. So, this morning on World Kindness Day let us commit ourselves to an ethic of kindness. Recently, I heard a conservative pastor say that you don’t really have to agree on anything to be kind. If we accept the truth in that assertion, kindness can become one of the paths back to each other. Contrarily, looking at the roots of the word “unkind” are telling. “Uncynde” in Old English means “unnatural, not in accord with the regular course of nature.” Therefore, our unkindness is unnatural, not living in accord with our God given nature. In our unkindness we do not see that “no [person] is alien” to us, to paraphrase John Donne’s famous poem.** Kindness begins when I see you, witness your struggle, discomfort, or pain, and something inside of me stirs in the heart—compassion, empathy, desire to alleviate suffering—and moves me to turn that feeling into action. Kindness, then, whether the simplest act of opening a door for someone on a walker, comforting a young person who has been excluded at school, taking meals to our unhoused neighbors, or committing ourselves to the long faithfulness of a critically ill friend’s care, is the resilient spiritual thread that weaves us together in our humanity, helps create kindred out of strangers, brings heaven closer to earth. To return to our poet: “Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,/you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing./You must wake up with sorrow. /You must speak to it till your voice/catches the thread of all sorrows/and you see the size of the cloth.” When we understand the size of the fabric of world sorrow, or as Fr. Richard Rohr calls it, “the tears of things,” it’s as if we cannot do anything other than take kindness with us every day—“like a shadow or a friend” (Nye). PRAYER God whose steadfast loving kindness transforms our hearts, “For as long as space endures/And for as long as living beings remain/Until then may I, too, abide/To dispel the misery of the world.”*** Amen. DEVOTION AUTHOR Dr. Pat Saxon *A link to Naomi Shihab Nye’s poem https://poets.org/poem/kindness ** John Donne, “No Man is an Island” *** The quoted part of the prayer is the Dalai Lama’s.
SCRIPTURE Romans 15.1 For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope. WORDS OF HOPE Although it may not seem very spiritual, I sometimes wonder how certain things smelled back in the days of the Bible. I imagine there were lots of familiar smells such as fires burning while people cooked, anointing oils, wine, and various smells in nature, but for the ancient Bible days, I can pretty much stop there. Recently, somebody asked on a social media page about what they remembered of things and places past while living in Arlington, Texas, the city where I grew up in my teen years. I remembered a little country store called Granny and Granddad’s. Suddenly I was taken back in time and remembering very specifically how that little store smelled when I first walked in. It was the home of old wood, candy, popcorn, and whatever hot foods they were serving that day. My mind then wandered off to other places. Another location I remembered was Wyatt’s cafeteria where I could distinctly pick out the olfactory pleasures of fresh coffee, chocolate cake, roast beef, and brown gravy. If three is a charm, the third place was a toy store in North Dallas called Booth’s Toys. I really don’t know how to describe those smells that were in the store; maybe nothing more than brand new boxes of games and plastic model kits. The smells contributed so much to those treasured few minutes of just walking into a magical place with no intent of doing anything but looking at all those wonderful toys. Those smells created some kind of inspiration deep within me. Maybe it was anticipating the toys of my birthday, the plastic masks of Halloween, the holly and candy canes of Christmas; or just the idea of living in some kind of mystical fantasy paradise. I don’t really know how to label those feelings. What matters is all of these things combined created indelible memories. I was inspired. It’s how we tell our stories, share memories, and reminisce about the days that we have delegated as ideal. Yet, all of this gives context to relate my memories to yours. When I think of those remote people of history who wrote the texts of what we’ve come to call the Bible, I wonder how their familiar smells and dwelling places may have inspired them to write about the things they did. How would we have been affected by writing in the fresh smelling outdoor sunshine? Would we write a Psalm of praise? How about the Apostle Paul breathing damp mold smells in a tiny dark Roman jail cell or David writing while hiding in a cave from the tyrannical King Saul? Would we write about social justice? If they could afford it, did the writers smell burning bee’s wax or favorite foods cooking nearby? Would those fragrances inspire us to write about loving the people we call our families? We’ll never really know, but I’m convinced the fragrances of their world were as influential to them as ours are to us. PRAYER Loving Creator, I’m thankful for the people you inspired to give us a tiny glimpse of their world. It fascinates us and influences us so much that we are still reading and interpreting their messages thousands of years later. Help me to be aware of the sights and smells of the world around me and to be conscious of my own words. Will what I say or do today be worth remembering in a hundred years, let alone next week? May your world live in my words. DEVOTION AUTHOR Charlie C. Rose Order of St. Francis and St. Clare
SCRIPTURE Joshua 1:9 Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go. WORDS OF HOPE Today in the United States we observe Veterans Day and in countries such as Canada and the United Kingdom, Remembrance Day. This day commemorates the end of World War I and honors the services of all military veterans over time. This day has deep meaning to me as my dad served as a Captain in the Navy. As a child, all I knew about my dad’s job was that he “drove ships.” On a hot summer day when I was seven, I said good-bye to him like I did each day having no concept that he was leaving for a year to go to Vietnam Nam and there was a real possibility that he would not come home. By the grace of God, he did return to us…two weeks later than expected as he delayed his return to accompany the remains of my mom’s cousin who lost his life in the service of our country. I wore two POW/MIA bracelets for five years. In 1973, when the POWs from the Vietnam Nam War were released, my dad was stationed in Hawaii. Honolulu was the first American soil that these servicemen set foot on upon their release. I was there to meet each plane as it landed at Hickam Air Force Base. One of the men whose bracelet I wore was on one of those planes. I was able to greet him, welcome him home, and give him his bracelet. I saw this soldier before his own family did. Even with this deeply moving firsthand experience, at eleven I could not fully comprehend the enormity of war and the sacrifices of these servicemen. To this day, I still have the second bracelet on our home alter and pray that one day his family will have closure. I’m not sure it is possible for any civilian to truly grasp the experiences, commitment, and sacrifices made by our service men and women each and every day. Today, Veterans Day, is the day set aside for all of us to think and pray about this. After twenty-six years of service on the seas, my dad retired from the Navy and was blessed to enjoy thirty more years in civilian life, though he was always called “Captain” by those who knew him best. Eleven years ago I stood by his flag-draped casket and listened to the gun volley and Taps played by a young sailor. I felt viscerally the respect being given to him. A few days later, I read the tributes written by friends and those that had served on ships with my dad. Many of them spoke of him as a strong and fair leader and a good example. Those made me proud, but did not surprise me. I also knew my dad as fair and as strong leader. The one note that has stuck with me was the one that simply said, “Thank you, Captain, for getting us home safely.” At home, my dad never talked about the hard and the ugly side of being in the service. To this day, I have no idea the circumstances for which he was awarded The Bronze Star for heroic service. Perhaps that sailor who thanked my dad for getting him home safely does. Dad only talked to us about the places he sailed and, more importantly the people with whom he made those journeys. As I think about my dad on this day, I realize that my way of seeing him and his service is similar to the way I have seen Jesus through my life. As I child, I sang “Jesus Loves Me” but had no concept of the depth of those words. Metaphorically, I think I was seeing Jesus also as “the driver of the ship”, and just as with my dad, I was not cognizant of all that the “job” entailed. And just as I finally understood the depth of my dad’s service as he was being laid to rest, I had a similar moment in my faith journey where I became fully aware of what the promises made by Jesus to the world and to me through his life, death, and resurrection truly mean. As I read and reread the stories of Jesus’s ministry, Jesus, like my dad, focuses on the people he meets more so than the difficulties that he encounters. Now, as I look forward, at the end I want to be able to say to Jesus, “Thank you for getting us home safely.” On this Veterans Day and Day of Remembrance, take time to offer respect, gratitude, thanksgiving, and prayers for all veterans who are serving and have served in the armed forces and for their families. PRAYER Almighty God, we commend to your gracious care and keeping all the men and women of our armed forces at home and abroad. Defend them day by day with your heavenly grace; strengthen them in their trials and temptations; give them courage to face the perils which beset them; and grant them a sense of your abiding presence wherever they may be; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. From The Book of Common Prayer 1979 DEVOTION AUTHOR Kris Baker