Wednesday, December 28, 2011
Godly Things
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
So long...for now.
My Grandmother Gladys Brown died a week ago Monday. She is an extraordinary child of God. You may view her obituary here. http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/themorningsun/obituary.aspx?n=gladys-l-brown&pid=155128523&fhid=2672
Over the past week there has been a cloud of sadness hovering over me. I thought "my gosh, am I depressed? Do I need to see a doctor? Perhaps...but not about this. I am full on in the process of grieving the loss of my grandmother. But while I am sad beyond any control. I am also confident that I will see her again. The only life worth having, as the Apostle Paul describes in the passage above is the one that we have in Jesus Christ. My grandma has that. I have that. Notice the present tense. The life of those we lose in this earthly existence does not end if they are "in Christ." This is a mystery and a mystical truth that when give ourselves over to the Lordship of Jesus that his life, the life that never ends, resides in us.
We all share the same life if we are in Christ. The actions of my grandma in life are just as much a part of the story of my life as mine are. Its just that her part of the story began 50 years before mine did.
Just the same when I go to the funeral tomorrow, I know the pain and the sting of loss will be intense. We will share memories. We will be together as a family. And what a family it is. My grandmother raised 5 head-strong children, who all found partners who are all just as bold and intelligent. This is the environment in which I grew up. This is my family. We are all part of the same story, we are just telling it from different perspectives. One day we will all be reunited. for me and grandma it may be another 50 years, but I can wait.
Love you grandma. So long...for now.
Sunday, December 25, 2011
Enlightenment
The Word became flesh and was born in a barn. Now that's really real. |
what have you to do with us , Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who your are, the Holy One of god.” But Jesus rebuked him, saying , “Be silent, and come out of him.”
Saturday, December 24, 2011
Missed Opportunity
This chalk painting was done by a volunteer chaplain at Hospitality INC (In the Name of Christ), an emergency shelter in Ludington Michigan. |
We trust in Jesus because no matter how good we are at living this earthly life, it will never be good enough to earn eternal life. We have to get to the end of our ego's. We have to get to the end who we are and who we think we are and trust in Jesus. Believing in Jesus also means that we believe what he said and believe what he believed.
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
The Mission
Some very important people in my life people I respect greatly have been very forward direct and sometimes even offensive people. The common thread however seems to be that all those people had at the center of their lives love. When we are motivated by a selfless love a love that is not self seeking, a love that is giving and forgiving then God will use any gift that we have, any skill or trait to serve His ends.
If you have seen the movie the Mission. I would love to know what you think. Do you think that the DeNiro character failed or do you think that he was living out the way that he was designed by God?
Sunday, December 18, 2011
No sermon today
This year my family is reinventing and re-imagining what it means to celebrate Christmas because for the first time in my life, my siblings an I are Not going to be together.
This will not be easy.
I have always drawn much of my identity from who I am in relation to my family. We have always been very close. The very symbol of that closeness is our yearly gathering at the family home around christmas time.
All that fell apart this summer for various and understandable reasons, of which I won't go into here.
And so my wife and our children have had several conversations about what our family traditions will be. It's both sad and exciting. Sad for what has been lost, exciting starting a new chapter of life of which we will pen many of the details that otherwise may have been pre-determined.
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
On This Side of Life
I don't envy a mom who spends her whole life knowing how special her child is only to watch that child be ridiculed and rejected. I don't envy a mom that watches as her son gets arrested unjustly. I certainly don't envy a mom who watches as her son is executed. And yet the Bible says when Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting the child lept in her womb and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and exclaimed with a loud cry "Blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb."
Just saying someone has a blessed life does not by any means mean that they have an easy life.
It's a rainy day on the sunset coast of Michigan. Everything about today makes me want to slow down, perhaps even take an afternoon nap (I am usually opposed to taking naps because it means I would have to get out of bed twice in one day). Days like this lend themselves to contemplation. Just thinking about where you been, we've been through and where you are now. It seems I've done a lot of that lately, remembering the people of my past, people I've lost along the way, the people I've left behind. It's a terrible thing to experience the brokenness of this world, to experience the pain that comes inevitably with this human life. The thing to do, however is to repair the brokenness. I've said that before this blog. When we can make connections when we can demonstrate love and when we can heal old hurts, I believe that's the beginning of the abundant life that God has promised to us. I'm sitting here in my office at the church just on the other side of the office door is the sanctuary, lit only by the lights on the Christmas tree in the chancel area. People come to this place to experience the presence of God, to experience the love of God by demonstrating that love for each other. Behind every happy smiling face that I see on Sunday, There's a story. There's a story of pain of old Hurts of brokenness and of struggle.
And God loves each one of them so much he came and sacrificed is own human life for each one of us. We may think we know our fellow brothers and sisters. We may think we know them so well that we have the right to judge them, but we don't. Some people have felt the pressures of this life and found it to be too much to bear. In the last 20 years, I have lost four friends who thought just that. Blair, Jeff, Angie and Matt, for them, I will remember. I will remember them and I'll try harder to reach out to really hear those who have something to say.
God said that he will make all things new. I don't think God is waiting to the end of time to do this. I think through us we have to make all things new. We have to fix those relationships. We have to fix those hurts. We have to lift each other up and support each other and love each other. That's what it means Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
So let's all be kind to each other because a blessed life does not necessarily mean an easy life.
In God's perfect love
Jon
Sunday, December 11, 2011
Woodcarver's Christmas
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
Family
Juliana. Loves reading and imagining possibilities. Future tae kwon do master |
Alex. Loves science, logic and has a heart for justice |
Savannah. A natural leader. Loves dance. |
Jaylen. Always happy. Loves to "drive" everything i.e.Mario Cart, toy trucks, plates, chairs - whatever he can imagine as a steering wheel. |
Julian. A deep thinker. Loves action and adventure. |
Sunday, December 4, 2011
A Christmas Story
Thursday, December 1, 2011
A reading from the Church Fathers
Recognize both natures in Christ
Jesus Christ, the Word incarnate, was true God and true man. When we hear or read the Gospel stories, says St. Gregory the Great, we need to see both natures at work, because we need to understand that both natures are vital for our salvation.
When you read or hear the Gospel, you find some things in our Lord Jesus Christ subjected to injuries, and some things lit up by miracles. In the same Person now the humanity appears, now the divinity shines out.
Don't think any of these things are a delusion, as if Christ were either man or God alone, but believe both faithfully, and worship both very humbly.
Attribute it to the man that he was born of a woman; attribute it to God that his mother's virginity was not harmed, either by conception or by bearing.
Recognize the form of a slave wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger, but acknowledge that it was the Lord's form that was announced by angels.
Understand it of his humanity that he did not avoid the wedding feast; confess it divine that he turned water into wine.
Let your own feelings explain to you why he shed tears over a dead friend; realize his divine power when that same friend, after moldering in the grave four days, is brought to life and raised just by the command of his voice.
For the old original wounds in human nature could not be healed, except by the Word of God taking flesh to himself from the Virgin's womb, by which flesh and the Word existed together in one and the same Person.
–St. Gregory the Great, Sermon 46, 2
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Sunday, November 27, 2011
Expectations
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
Pepper Was A Good Dog
Sunday, November 20, 2011
The Kings Orders
A really cool stool given to me on Father's Day several years ago |
Does this look like a throne of a king? Perhaps. |
24 hour fast
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
In our midst
Sunday, November 13, 2011
Truth Justice and God's Way
The farm where I grew up. It was a dairy farm when my dad was a kid, a beef farm when I was a kid and now it is practically a farm in name only. Earthly circumstances change. God is eternal. |
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
Like the Morning Frost Being Melted By the Sun
Jesus gives us some perspective, “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, `What shall we eat?' or `What shall we drink?' or `What shall we wear?
We may be more valuable than a lily or grass in a field but our lives are just as temporary, therefore each day is a celebration. Even the planned and regular interruption of my much valued sleep by Miles Davis playing from my CD alarm clock is a joyful event. I have, in my most human way, tried to order my life so that it is as predictable and manageable as possible. However, as we all know, change happens.
We get older, we grow stronger in our convictions or we let some of them go as they are no longer useful. Our bodies start to fail as the years wear on. Even if the circumstances of our life were stable…we are not.
Truth is circumstances are even less stable than our physiology. Things happen. Relationships change, children grow up, economies falter, wars rage, tires go flat and in the midst of all that God says “I am with you.”
When I was about ten years old, there was a tornado warning, and for whatever reason my parents were not home. My grandmother knowing I was home alone came to our house with a package of those cheap sugar wafer cookies and she sat with me through the storm. She couldn’t protect me from a tornado but it was nice that she was there. What ever may come across that field she and I would be together and every thing was okay.
The tornado never came. That was thirty plus years ago. And now my grandmother is near the end of her life. Her body is failing her. She is facing the end of her earthly existence and I know that God is with her. I know because he has a steady stream of loving family members taking turns sitting with her. The storm is coming but its okay because she’s not alone.
In the Bible Jesus says, “The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me; and where I am, my servant also will be. My Father will honor the one who serves me.”
I pray that we… that I can give of myself in every moment the way she gave of herself for me on that summer afternoon in 1981.