Social Time:
Sunday Morning at 10:30 AM.This is our main worship service. Sunday School and a Nursery are offered.
Click for an INTRODUCTION TO THE SCRIPTURE for this week.
Social Time:
Sunday Morning at 10:30 AM.A time to visit, after the service. Coffee, tea, juice and refreshments are offered.
Those wishing a more complete analysis of these lessons may locate them at :
http://seemslikegod.org
First Sunday After Pentecost - Trinity Sunday - May 30, 2010
(June 6/13/20 are farther down the page)
PROVERBS 8:1-4, 22-31. The Book of Proverbs comes from a type of creative writing known as Wisdom literature. It gets this name from the way in which it presents religious teachings as ancient, inherited wisdom to guide the morally and spiritually inexperienced. The Books of Job, Song of Songs, Ecclesiastes and some Psalms also belong to this class. In this passage, Widsom is personified as God’s first creation who also shared in all other acts of creation. Wisdom is often equated with the Holy Spirit.
PSALM 8. The psalmist first contemplates the glory of God manifested in the wonders of the heavens. This brings to mind a reflection on the place of humanity in creation. Sadly, by taking the text literally, we have excessively exploited our role as God’s vice-regents with “dominion” over nature.
ROMANS 5:1-5. Two of the most important doctrines of our faith had their roots in this passage: justification and sanctification. Justification means putting our trust in the power and goodness of God whose grace gives us peace instead of the sinful conflict between God’s will and our will. This transforms our moral character. We are not only changed, but we also find hopeful assurance that God’s love reigns in this hostile world. Through God’s gift of the Holy Spirit, love becomes the sole motivation for all our behaviour, i.e. we are sanctified, made holy and worthy representatives of God in the world.
JOHN 16:12-15. In Jesus’ final discourse to his disciples, John defines for his own community the purpose of the gift of the Spirit at Pentecost. This is the closest any New Testament author comes to a statement of the doctrine of the Trinity. The role of the Spirit is to guide the church into all truth. The fundamental criterion of truth for the church is that it must always witness to Christ and seek to reveal God’s purpose. This requires much careful reflection before being expressed in life.
Second Sunday After Pentecost - Proper 5 Ordinary 10 - June 6, 2010
(NOTE: During the Season of Pentecost, some traditions follow a different set of readings from the Old Testament and Psalms. These alternate readings will be included in both the brief introductions and the more complete analyses.)
I KINGS 17:8-16. (Alternate 17:17-24) This passage introduces of a series of stories in which Elijah the prophet appears as God’s spokesperson in very difficult times during the 9th century BCE. Both passages reveal Elijah as a man of God who follows God’s directions. The alternate reading raises the serious question of how we deal with the all too common experience of having good things turn out badly. Does such experiences hinder us from following God’s will to love others with abandon, “wastefully,” as John S. Spong says?
PSALM 146. This brief psalm of praise, one of the five exultant hymns that end the Psalter, celebrates the hopes of Israel in God’s desire for freedom and justice.
PSALM 30. (Alternate) The psalmist praises God for saving him from death in a critical illness. After at first expressing overconfidence about God’s favor, he realizes how much he owes to God for answering his prayer of distress.
GALATIANS 1:11-24. To convince the Galatians of his trustworthiness, Paul reviews his past as a faithful Jew who first persecuted the Christians in Jerusalem, then received his own call to be an apostle to the Gentiles in a direct revelation from Jesus himself.
LUKE 7:11-17. This passage tells of Jesus raising a widow’s only son is reminiscent of a similar miracle performed by Elijah. Undoubtedly that Old Testament story influenced Luke’s narrative, as the people’s astonished reaction shows.
Third Sunday After Pentecost - Proper 6 Ordinary 11 - June 13, 2010
1 KINGS 21:1- 21a. This simply told tale echoes across the centuries as brilliant example of how the Israelites put their message about God’s justice so even a child could understand. The depressed bumbling of Ahab make for great irony and the deceit of Jezebel clearly describes how the powerful victimize the powerless. The dramatic words of Elijah reveal how God feels about such selfish injustice.
2 SAMUEL 11:26-12:10, 13-15. (Alternate) This conclusion to the story about David’s lustful adultery with Bathsheba forcefully conveys the moral lessons that God’s justice is meted out equally to kings and commoners alike. The prophet Nathan confronted David about his deceitful arranging for Uriah’s death so that he might marry Bathsheba. Despite David’s confession of sin, Nathan declared God’s judgment against the king: Bathsheba’s child will die.
PSALM 5:1- 8. This lyrical lament may well have been recited by temple singers to the music of flutes. It tells worshippers making their way into the temple that God hears their cries for help because God has only steadfast love for all who follow God’s righteous ways.
PSALM 32. (Alternate) This prayer of confession has nothing to do with King David’s confession. It contains a hopeful expression of God’s forgiveness for any penitent relying on the steadfast love of God. This is something in which we too can truly rejoice.
GALATIANS 2:15- 21. Paul cites the basic difference between Jews and Gentiles as resting on the law given to Moses when he led the Jews out of slavery in Egypt. Then Paul strikes down that distinction because Jesus Christ has established an entirely new relationship with God for Jews and Gentiles alike. It depends on faith in Jesus Christ who was crucified and raised from the dead to live in anyone who believes.
LUKE 7:36- 8:3. In this passage Luke told several things about Jesus’ ministry in Galilee. He had friends among the Pharisees and one invited him to dine. He rebuked his host for neglecting a customary welcome. He also had great compassion for this disreputable women always thought of as a prostitute.
The parable Jesus told to drive home his message must have cut the Pharisee to the quick. The point of the whole incident is that forgiveness depends on our faith in God’s compassionate love, not on how righteous we may strive to be.
Fourth Sunday After Pentecost - Proper 7 Ordinary 12 - June 20, 2010
1 KINGS 19:1 15a. Elijah the prophet was on the run from Queen Jezebel whose foreign priests he had defeated in a contest of spiritual power. He was still in God’s care, however, and after being provided with food and drink in the desert, he came at last to the mountain where God had given the covenant law to Moses. But he could never escape responsibility as God’s prophet. After a windstorm, an earthquake and a raging fire, God spoke to him with a still, small voice within to give him a new commission.
ISAIAH 65:1-9. (Alternate) In this eschatological song God offers both judgment and hope for Israel after the return of the exiles from Babylon, ca. 539 BCE. Judgment came because of a series of unholy religious practices (vss. 3-5) possibly related to a nature cult. Yet God promised not to destroy the whole people and to restore them to their traditional land.
PSALM 42 AND 43. These two psalms were originally one. The first part laments a deep sense of absence from God. Yet the psalmist hopes that he will eventually have reason to praise God. The second part prays that his faith will be vindicated as he goes to the temple to worship.
PSALM 22:19-28. (Alternate) Like all laments, this excerpt pleads with God for rescue, acknowledges God’s sovereignty and promises to be faithful. It envisions a hopeful future in which posterity will serve the Lord.
GALATIANS 3:23 29. Paul’s most decisive statement declares that faith in Jesus Christ has removed all barriers to a relationship with God for all who believe. He claims that the law given to Moses was like a schoolteacher disciplining us until Jesus came to make us all God’s children and heirs with Christ.
LUKE 8:26 39. This story appears to set Jesus’ compassion for the man chained among the tombs against compassion for the Gentile people of this community east of the Sea of Galilee. Is it a garbled story of the demoniac being healed after his frantic outcries had panicked the pigs? Or did Jesus fail to convince the unbelieving Gadarenes who had lost their pigs of God’s compassionate love? Even for the most sane among us, the struggle to believe can be tormenting.