It will be a quieter Christmas. It will be a still Christmas and in that stillness perhaps we can focus more clearly on the meaning of incarnation — of God’s entrance into human experience in the person of Jesus.
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It will be a different Thanksgiving holiday, for sure, but one thing will remain: We will remember to do what the holiday is supposed to remind us to do: give thanks.
Jesus said that the rain falls on the just and the unjust, and God makes the sun to shine both on the good and the evil alike.
On November 1, All Saints’ Day, we will begin our annual Stewardship emphasis with the theme, Faithful, that best reflects who we are and why we’re able to do all we do to Love God, Serve People, and Transform lives, even in the most difficult and challenging of times.
Jesus’ prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane shows the emptying of himself to which Paul referred. It is a moving moment, when Jesus prays, “Abba, Father, for you all things are possible; remove this cup from me; yet, not what I want, but what you want.”
May we go out to be God’s people turning the world right side up — turning on its head complacency, injustice, prejudice, moral indifference, hatred, and smug self-satisfaction.
Sunday we’ll be challenged by Jesus the Good Troublemaker to the discipline of truth-telling and clarity. What would it be like if we said what we mean and we mean what we say?
Sunday, we’ll be challenged by Jesus as we think together about the issue of economic justice — an issue that Christians and other Abrahamic faiths find themselves struggling with.
In everything he did, in everything he said, Jesus acted out of a clear priority — people. So, what does that clear priority mean for us today?
Jesus scandalized many of the people of his day. He shocked them. He surprised them. He challenged them to look at the world and to live life in a different way. He was, in a word, a troublemaker — a good troublemaker.