Jeremiah 31:31-34, Hebrews 5:5-10 and John 12:20-33

I write this on St. Patrick’s Day 2021. The Irish heritage is celebrated here and yon. We wear green and consider our ancestry. If we have little or no Irish in us, we join their fun for a day and then return to our Scottish, Hispanic, African, or Asian roots!

The world is indeed a diverse and “mixed bag” of peoples. The time of Jesus was no different. Our John text says “some Greeks” were seeking an audience with Jesus. They ask Phillip to help. Phillip asks Andrew to assist. These Greeks were probably Gentiles rather than Greek-speaking Jews. Jesus gets the attention of folks from all over the world. The just curious as well as those seeking answers to ultimate questions.

Would that all would seek Jesus! Whatever their motivation. Jesus welcomes a wide range of seekers but cannot help those who will not inquire or those who willfully ignore the Big Questions in life. Whether of Irish, Greek, Asian, or Indian descent our quest for eternal answers begins and ends in the One that both Jeremiah and the book of Hebrews point to.

Let us consider both question and answer this coming Sunday. Let us walk in the shoes of “Greeks” (or inquiring Irish!) for a day and be seekers. As people of faith we have already found our answer but we are about helping others ask the questions as well. Can we live in such a way those around us might ask, “Sir (or madam)? We would see Jesus.”

We have a witness to make in both word and deed. Consider your influence and impact on others as we gather to worship. And bring your own pondering questions as well!

Blessings in your Lenten journey to Easter!

Blessings!

Pastor Barry †

Numbers 21:4-9, Ephesians 2:2-10 and John 3:14-21

The John text and the Ephesians text are some of Christian faiths most primary scriptures. Bedrock, foundational messages about Christ and us BOTH placed in a wonderful position with God and even THAT by God’s doing not ours! It’s good to refresh ourselves and restate for our sake and others some of our most basic beliefs and practices.

But in passing, we also encounter one of the oddest passages in the Bible: the lifting up of a poisonous serpent on a pole in order for the complaining, sinning, punished, wandering wilderness Israelites to be healed!! We will at least take a look at that on Sunday. And we will find that John certainly has a place for that peculiar text in his Gospel’s third chapter!

So in scripture readings, sermon, and song this Sunday, we will cover a lot of solid Christian teaching about sin, Grace, and healing. I would think it would be Good News! Invite someone to join us in person or listen in on the websites. Worship and preparing for ongoing discipleship is always a good place to begin your week! Even if we have to consider briefly that serpent on a pole!!

Blessings!

Pastor Barry †

Exodus 20:1-17 and John 2:13-22

March “comes in like a lion, and goes out like a lamb.” An old saying like any old saying: some truth to it, but not always true! March 2021, for those of us in Tennessee, has been fairly moderate (compared to last March 3 when portions of Tennessee were hit hard by tornadoes).

As for this week in Lent, our John text indeed has Jesus coming into The Temple like a lion! Cleansing sacred space which has been corrupted into a marketplace. And let it be noted he certainly goes out on Good Friday like a Lamb.

Jesus knew his Bible! He knew what it was to honor God based on the commandments from our Exodus text. And he took action, forcefully, to wake people up! And he also has another lesson for his disciples to hear: another temple, the body of Jesus, will be torn down and raised again in three days.

So, this Sunday we will explore these scriptures through an emphasis from 40 plus years ago: WWJD or What Would Jesus Do? These initials WWJD wound up on bracelets or T-shirts intended for youth to wear.

It is still a question that any age person can ask even today. To answer that question is still a challenge. And we may find that the letters WWJHMD is more accurate and helpful even if no less challenging!

Come to worship Sunday as we hear the Word together and also share together at The Lord’s Table. When we depart after the service we can all leave and ask WWJHMD?

Blessings in being a disciple of Jesus!

Pastor Barry †

Genesis 17:1-7, Romans 4:13-25 and Mark 8:31-38

Has anything changed yet because of Lent? Have you decided on a spiritual discipline that is personal to you? Is it either giving up something or taking up something for Forty Days?

In last week’s sermon I suggested taking up forty days of reading and study in one book of the Bible. I have chosen Leviticus to better understand the reasons for so much attention paid to prohibitions and ritual regulations amongst the Israelites. You may have another book in mind or another practice you are called to in Lent.

Regardless, of what we give up or “fast from” or “take up” we are also listening to Jesus who tells the demanding Peter to “quit being like Satan in your attitude!” “Get behind me Satan.”

Peter is in such contrast to 99 year old Abraham in our Genesis text. Abraham listens to the word of God and trusts the promise to come true to in spite of almost being dead! But Peter does not trust what Jesus says about where His ministry is heading: to conflict and death; in order to fulfill the promise and purposes of God.

Peter is not literally Satan but he surely is acting as an “adversary” to Jesus the teacher, healer, Messiah! Peter is a slow learner as we shall see further ahead during Lent. Even so, he still learns while walking the way that leads to life Eternal. Not an easy path but a fulfilling, exciting, meaningful path. Peter finally quits being “Satan”

Lent is an opportunity to “change,” to grow and learn like Peter did. God isn’t finished with us yet! “Get thee behind us, Satan!”

See you Sunday in worship!! And onto the next week of discipleship!

Blessings

Pastor Barry †

Psalm 25:1-10, I Peter 3:18-22 and Mark 1:9-15

As I write this I am looking out the kitchen window into a beautiful, cold wilderness that won’t go away! The ice and snow are affecting us and millions of our fellow citizens throughout the USA.

And it seems like we’ve been “out of church” for not just a week but what seems like forty days! I suppose Jesus in the wilderness felt the absence of worship in the synagogues. But he was experiencing God in ways not unlike Moses and the prophets, the children of Israel in their wilderness, Israelites in their captivity to foreign powers like Assyria and Babylon.

So, now is our temporary winter and COVID absence from worship and fellowship. Prayer continues in our homes and work places, scripture study is ongoing, and our friends and family in Christ are not far removed from us!

When we do gather again in our sanctuaries or “on the ether waves” we will rejoice and be glad. And we will repent, look inward and outward, as we enter those Forty Days in preparation for Holy Week and Easter. We are marked by the sign of the Cross wherever we are whether shut in or moving about. Marked as we are by the Life and Death of Christ, we know our wilderness is only temporary, transient, and to be left behind as we enter our Promised Land and life in the midst of the Kingdom of God!

Fear not the cold nor the heat but rejoice in the warmth of God’s care for us! Rejoice that you have brothers and sisters in Christ. May the time in whatever wilderness you are going through, be also a time of the love of Jesus for you!

Let us look forward to our worship time together whenever that day appears! Prepare your hearts for the Forty Days of Lent whether at home, at work, in the community, in our sanctuaries, and wherever you carry forth in your mission and witness!

Blessings

Pastor Barry †

2 Kings 2:1-12, 2 Corinthians 4:3-6 and Mark 9:2-9

This Sunday’s worship highlights the Transfiguration of Jesus as presented in Mark 9. Paul celebrates the light and the glory of God in Christ. The 2 Kings passage is about two “senior and junior” prophets one who is taken up in a chariot of fire.

Bright light, shining glory, fire. Words that describe the presence and power of God. We are given so many ways to understand and experience God in scripture. All our human senses are involved. Body, mind, and emotions are called to behold the Lord!

And not just in imitation of the Bible descriptions but in our current living situations. Bible images speak to our emotions while our mind helps us interpret and experience God centuries removed from those vivid images. Then our bodies serve to bear witness to God’s care for all.

So, to see Jesus on the mount of Transfiguration is to be reminded today to look up, listen, and to look “inward” to realize that God is worthy of glory, beauty, and wonder!

We may not see “chariots of fire” today but we can understand and experience that in ways appropriate to the times we live in. Such meaning can even find its way into the movies. You might want to watch the movie CHARIOTS OF FIRE (1981) as a way of entering in to a contemporary experience of faith in the gifts of athletic skill and struggling discipleship in the modern world. Our faith is a living faith not bound by space and time limited to centuries ago.

Read these passages in preparation for worship and revel in the glory of God!

See you Sunday in person or on line!

Blessings indeed!

Pastor Barry †

Isaiah 40:21-31, I Corinthians 9:16-23 and Mark 1:29-39

God offers a whole lot in the full package of relational salvation. Isaiah says God is a “renewer of strength.” Paul says the Gospel is a “blessing.” And Mark says “Jesus cast out evil spirits.”

For us, and most of church history, the faithful experience a divine strength beyond our own. They experience a long list of blessings from the Good News. However, getting an evil spirit cast out is not at the top of the list!

On the other hand, we would eagerly accept the “exorcism” of meanness, violence, captivity to bad habits, anything that “harmfully possesses us!” Please release me!! The Good News is meant to be a freedom both from bad things and a freedom for good things. Please release me, let me go! Please direct me toward the good, the better, the best!

Most of us are in need of help beyond what we can do for ourselves. The Source is God in Christ and the visible help comes by the Spirit working through the many hands and feet of the Church. Especially the Church known Sunday and every weekday!

Let’s explore this help we receive from God in its many forms and features this Sunday in worship in Word and at Table as scripture is proclaimed and Bread and Cup are shared.

Blessings indeed!

Pastor Barry †

Deuteronomy 18:15-20, Revelation 12:1-6 and Mark 1:21-28

I offer these worship thoughts on Holocaust Remembrance Day. Some 6 million Jews were systematically killed by those in authority who wielded power and force with little resistance or protest from a nation. On this day 76 years ago the first allied soldier entered the death camps and began the rescue of those who somehow had survived.

Authority misused is a terrible abuse of a gift from God to be used in a fallen world. Our scriptures speak of the authority given to prophets and Jesus as revealed in powerful persuasion through calling attention to what God both offers and commands. The only force seen at work here is the voice of the genuine Old Testament prophet and the voice of the Crucified Lord who does not strike back against his enemies nor his executioners. It is not the authority of violence but that of suffering love.

These passages will confront us in worship and ask us whether we resist or ignore God’s authority and if we don’t, what do we do to affirm and follow God’s authority. And how does God’s authority interact with lesser authorities in nations, communities, institutions, and relationships?

In Mark 1:21-28 we see Jesus have authority over a demonic sprit and “ Amazement gripped the audience….What sort of new teaching is this? ….It has such authority! Even evil spirits obey his orders!”

We should still have many moments when even we today should be amazed at what we see and hear in the Living Lord! And do we obey when the Authority speaks?! Better still, what does our obedience look like?

We will trust and obey for there’s no other way………

See you Sunday in the sanctuary or on-line from your homes!

Pastor Barry †

Jonah 3:1-10, I Corinthians 7:29-31 and Mark 1:14-20

Some Sunday scriptures may well leave us with more questions than answers as we leave for our homes after worship. This may well be one of those Sundays!

In Jonah we will hear of God who is intending to punish the huge city of Nineveh for their wickedness. And they are not Jews to begin with! Jonah is sent to call them to repent. They do and God seems to change his intentions. Jonah seems to be disappointed in God’s reconsideration! What is going on here?

And to those in Corinth who might be happy, or grieving, or married……Paul advises them to be “ as if these conditions are not that important” (??)! Why? Because the “time is short(?!)” How lightly are we to hold our commitments and our deepest emotions?

And in Mark, Jesus calls the sons of fisherman Zebedee to follow, but doesn’t seem to call father Zebedee or the hired hands who are all in the boat together. Why not all of them? Or at least the hired hands!

Absolutely fascinating passages of scripture! And challenging for those who notice things they weren’t expecting to hear from God, Paul, or Jesus! Challenging for “inquiring minds of 21st century disciples!”

Preachers and other students of the Bible come up with some kind of answers…..usually.

Pray for your preacher this Sunday! And don’t be too anxious. There is Good News in these scriptures besides some lingering questions! People repent, people hear their calling to follow, people live “as tho the time is short.”

See you this Sunday either in person or “on line!”

Pastor Barry †

I Samuel 3:1-20, Revelation 5:1-10 and John 1:43-51

There are certainly a lot of voices in public life these days. Of course, we are always being addressed in some form or fashion: “Come here!” “Stop that!” “Help me please!” “Huddle up!” “Watch out!” “Love you.” “Do this!”

And if not being spoken to directly, we can’t but overhear what others are saying. Reading and hearing the scriptures for today, we overhear Samuel and Eli and God in communication with each other. Jesus and Nathaniel and Phillip. Then an angel in Revelation! What will each of us hear for ourselves as we overhear these exchanges?

At the very least, a call to follow and to do are before us. These are divine calls above and beyond much else that is Babel today. Current voices that are important to listen to but are not ultimately to guide us to what is Ultimate. And what is Ultimate and Eternal should take priority at the end of the day’s voices. This is humbling and asks a certain humility and patience from us. We don’t know how much attention to give to social, political, and earthly voices when God has a Word for us that is above our words. Yet, we live in this imperfect world, not some unrealistic Utopia. Here is where we live out our three score and ten.

That is our task……discernment. Wisdom. Asking, seeking, knocking. Then choosing to follow Someone who is the Way, the Truth, the Life. No one said it was easy. But together we learn best. “Come see,” says Phillip to Nathaniel. We all might do well to be both Nathaniel the questioner, the seeker and Phillip the follower in listening and conversing with the Lord.

Other voices in our current state of the world then will be given their rightful temporary place in our living out lives to the fullest and with the most responsibility!

Hello? Let’s listen.

Blessings in the time ahead!
†

Pastor Barry