Scriptures for Sunday, July 23, 2017:
Psalm 86:11-17
Isaiah 44:6-8
Wisdom of Solomon 12:13-19
Romans 8:12-25
Matthew 13:24-43

One of our Old Testament Scripture readings for this week is from The Wisdom of Solomon, a book which is not printed in all Bibles.  Back in the 1500s, Martin Luther and some of the other Protestant Reformers decided that certain books of the Old Testament, including The Wisdom of Solomon, were less important than the others.  When they published Bibles, instead of including these books, they set them aside in a separate collection which is called The Apocrypha.  Nevertheless, some Bibles to this day still include The Wisdom of Solomon and the rest of these books.  This week, I am publishing this text in case your Bible does not include it.  Please look it over.  I find it very worship-inducing and thought-provoking, and I hope you do, too.
Wisdom of Solomon, chapter 12
13 For neither is there any god besides You, whose care is for all people,
to whom You should prove that You have not judged unjustly,
14           nor can any king or monarch confront You about those whom You have punished.
15 You are righteous and You rule all things righteously,
deeming it alien to Your power to condemn anyone who does not deserve to be punished.
16 For Your strength is the source of         righteousness,
and Your sovereignty over all causes You to spare all.
17 For You show Your strength when people doubt the completeness of Your power,
and You rebuke any insolence among those who know it.
18 Although You are sovereign in strength, You judge with mildness,
and with great forbearance You govern us;
      for You have power to act whenever You choose.
19 Through such works You have taught Your people that the righteous must be kind,
and You have filled Your children with good hope, because You give repentance for sins.
†                 †                 †

Our gospel lesson for this coming Sunday is Jesus’ parable of the wheat and the weeds.  In his teachings, Jesus used many colorful comparisons, metaphors, and illustrations.  The first example of this that I find in Matthew is “Follow me and I will make you fish for people” (4:19). 
The parable of the wheat and the weeds is the first one in Matthew’s gospel that addresses his great concern with the end of the age (13:40) and the son of man judging the wicked and the righteous.  Matthew will return to these themes again and again.  Check it out and see.
In the parable of the wheat and the weeds, it seems to me that a lot of readers of the New Testament imagine that Jesus is talking about ‘other people,’ ‘bad people’ when he says, “The son of man will send his angels, and they will collect out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all evildoers, and they will throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”           (Matthew 13:41-42)

On the flip-side, I imagine a lot of folks who read the New Testament picture themselves when Jesus says,  “Then  the righteous  will shine  like  the
sun in the kingdom of their Father.” (verse 43)
 
If you tend to divide up the world that way, beware.  Remember that Jesus had already told the crowds, “Do not judge, so that you may not be judged.  For with the judgment you make you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get.  Why do you see the speck in your neighbor's eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye ?”  (Matthew 7:1-3)  Jesus, a.k.a. the son of man, will judge everyone in due time. 
 
Rather, while we have this bodily life, God is calling each of us to repent and trust in His good news of grace offered to all people.  The best we can do is to cooperate with God as if we were truly God’s beloved children— and everybody else may be God’s beloved children as well !  It’s not up to us.
But maybe we can help Jesus “fish” for them.
 
Whenever comes the end of the age, we will agree:
I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us.  For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God….        Romans 8:18-19

SCRIPTURE READINGS FOR Sunday, July 16
Psalm 65:9-13
Isaiah 55:10-13
Romans 8:1-11
Matthew 13:1-23

First, a follow-up from where my Sunday benediction left off.
One of the most charming and delightful teachers in Eastern Mennonite Seminary, when I became a student there, was Wendy Miller.  She specialized in the spiritual life and spiritual practices.  Once when she was leading a workshop on meditation, we were seated in a circle, facing center.  She invited us to get comfortable on our chairs, close our eyes, and breathe deeply and regularly.  
I woke up some time later, terribly embarrassed !
Wendy came by, understood exactly what had happened, and said, “Obviously, you needed the rest.”  What a blessing.
In her book, Invitation to Presence, she writes,
“Hear Jesus speaking to you, Come to me, all you who are weary and carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.
“See yourself walking away from your workplace, your house, all that you are responsible for, and walking down a path toward a quiet place where Jesus is standing, waiting for you.  Notice what you are carrying with you; as you come to Jesus, release it all in his presence.  Hear him saying, Take my yoke upon you and learn from me....
“He knows the direction to go, he knows the direction of the Lord of the field.  Jesus invites us to shoulder the light end of the yoke, so that we will stay close to Jesus, moving where he walks, pausing when he stops.”
She goes on to give instructions for resting our bodies, reflecting on all that our bodies do throughout our activities of daily life.  She continues: 
“Our bodies are a gift from God, a dwelling place for God’s presence, nurtured and sustained by God’s care and provision.... [A]ppreciate the gift your body is to you.”
These words of guidance are part of her larger theme, “Opening our attention to God.”  She notes, “As we come to a place and time for prayer, we often discover that we are full of activity and noise inside.  Our body may be in place, but thoughts... have captured our attention and led it off somewhere else.... [W]e are absent while present.”

Where are you (spiritually speaking) ? 

Where does God wants you to be ?
 
Our gospel lesson for this coming Sunday is Jesus’ parable of the sower sowing seed.  He told the crowd that, depending on where the seed falls, it either gets eaten up immediately, or it grows but then fails, or it grows and the new plant develops its own yield of grain.
Jesus’ disciples asked him, “Why do you speak to them in parables ?”
Maybe, over the years, you have many times been told this parable and the way Jesus went on to explain it.  Or maybe this is your first time to really think it over. 
Imagine being a member of the crowd that heard Jesus tell this story of the sower and the seed for the first time.  Do you believe that you would have grasped its meaning right there and then ?
Maybe you grasped it immediately and started following Jesus, growing to “bear much fruit” for him.
If you’re anything like me, however, instead of instantly understanding his truth and quickly joining Jesus on his Way, you go through numerous “wrong places” where the seed (God’s message) will not bear much fruit. Eventually, we pray that we will take root in “good soil” to begin to become the pleasant planting God intended us to be.  Eventually, we come ‘round right and “yield.”
 
I have long wrestled with the doctrine of predestination, the notion that “what will be will be.”  When Jesus answered his disciples’ question, why he spoke to the crowds in riddles (parables) like this one, Jesus quoted the prophet Isaiah: “You will indeed listen, but never understand, and you will indeed look, but never perceive.  For this people's heart has grown dull, and their ears are hard of hearing, and they have shut their eyes; so that they might not look with their eyes, and listen with their ears, and understand with their heart and turn— and I would heal them.”                                                (Isaiah 6: 9-10)  
[Some of us, in our Sunday School classes this week, studied Isaiah’s mystical vision of the LORD on the heavenly throne, and God’s call to Isaiah, which comes just before this passage.] 
Where are you (spiritually speaking) ? 

Are you in place to “bear much fruit” for God’s sake ? 
If not, do you feel you are doomed to be in the wrong place forever ?
 
Or can you choose to go take root in good soil ?

Scriptures for Sunday, July 9, 2017:
Song of Solomon 2:8-13
Zechariah 9:9-12
Psalm 145:8-14
Romans 7:15-25
Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30

As I write on Monday evening, 2,751 delegates to the Thirty-first General Synod of the United Church of Christ are about to begin the evening session with a “speak out!” (open-mic time for delegates to express themselves to the gathering), a “theological reflector,” and an important address from our President and General Minister, Rev. John Dorhauer.  Entitled, “The Three Loves,” Rev. Dorhauer gave a preview of this theme on Saturday morning, July 1st.  The Three Loves refers to a new mission initiative that the UCC Board and national leadership have been developing.
Rev. Dorhauer has spent the last two years crisscrossing the country and listening to people at all levels of the denomination.  With the UCC leadership, he has been seeking statements of purpose, mission and vision that articulate the core values of the UCC and explore what it means to be in covenant with one another.

The Purpose Statement, the UCC reason for being, is drawn from a passage in Matthew's Gospel:
To love God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength and our neighbor as ourselves.

The Mission Statement: United in Spirit and inspired by God's grace, we welcome all, love all, and seek justice for all.

The Vision: United in Christ's love, a just world for all.

“We were hoping to find a phase that would pop, that really captured our essence,” Dorhauer said. “When we asked you what you would see if we were successful at our mission, these words appeared: ‘A just world for all.’  The second I saw those words in print, my heart leapt.  This vision calls upon all of us — no matter what our political or theological commitments are; no matter whether we identify as an urban, rural or town setting; no matter whether we are a large, small, pastor-sized or family-sized congregation; whether we are a CHHSM [Council for Health and Human Service Ministries] agency or a conference board of directors — all of us covenantally bear now the same responsibility.  We must faithfully answer the question: how do we embody or incarnate a commitment to build a just world for all ?”
source: http://www.ucc.org/news_gs_dorhauer_outlines_new_framework_for_pursuing_love_and_justice_as_a_unified_church_07012017
 
         There is a river whose waters MAKE GLAD 
                              the city of God.  
                                             - Psalm 46:4
It sure looks like Synod.  There are friendly faces of local church volunteers welcoming guests and getting them registered.  Hugs are in abundance as old friends greet each other in the Baltimore Convention Center.  But amid the extravagant welcome, there is a noticeable absence: Where are the cookies?  Replaced, at least for this Synod, by prepackaged snacks provided by the churches and members of the Central Atlantic Conference.
Local Arrangements Committee Chair Jill White, a member of Evangelical Reformed UCC in Frederick, Md., says, “the Local Arrangements Committee was ready to form a cookie committee, but the convention center and the health department both have rules which do not allow us to bring in home-baked products.”
White says the snack committee, chaired by Linda and Steve Matthias from St. Mary's UCC in Silver Run, Md., borrowed a practice from their own Central Atlantic Conference meetings and determined to supply prepackaged snacks such as pretzels, cookies, and crackers.  “We offer individual snacks at our annual conference meetings,” White says.  “The snack committee took that idea and scaled it up for General Synod.”  Snacks for the estimated 4,000 General Synod delegates and visitors appeared on June 29 first as part of the welcome bag received at hotels.  Additional snacks will be available throughout the Synod at snack bowls located in the hotel lobbies and at the entrance to the convention center....
White estimates more than 20,000 individual snacks will make their way to Synod, showcasing a new way to engage local churches and members in a new form of hospitality.
For those recalling the usual variety of cookie flavors and styles from previous Synods reflective of regional and individual tastes, White replies that delegates can expect a variety of pretzels, cookies and crackers, all purchased with donated funds or supplied directly from local churches.  “We included every single [Central Atlantic Conference] church in this effort,” she says.  “Some churches contributed money [Bethel !], and more than sixty churches purchased snacks.”  Even the welcome bags were sponsored by Homewood, a retirement community in Frederick, Md., so no Conference or Synod funds were needed to supply snacks.

SOURCE:  http://www.ucc.org/news_gs_its_curtains_for_cookies_but_local_hospitality_still_provides_synod_snacks_09302017?utm_campaign=friday_jun30&utm_medium=email&utm_source=unitedchurchofchrist