Pastor's Ponderings: Tuesday Bible Study on Acts of the Apostles 10:34-43 (January 13, 2026)

January 13, 2026:  Tuesday Bible Study on Acts 10:34-43

Rejoice in the Light of Christ and always remember that this is the day that the LORD has made, rejoice, and be glad in it! I am doing all my Bible studies at home during this year. It is an attempt to keep heat off in the office area during these winter months, and to keep air off in the warmer and hotter months, except for the two days each week when the office is open. Here at home, the house is already heated, BUT our dining room has two outside walls, and even though the furnace keeps the rest of the house at 68, the dining room is about 64. It is quite chilly even for an old Swedish Dane. Some days I must wear my hooded jacket to stay comfortable. Please continue to pray for Joyce and Larry as they battle identity and resource theft in their lives. Also please pray for Annette and Steve to improve their health, and for finding a home, house or apartment, by mid-February.

In today's reading from Acts 10:34-43 we find Peter in the home of Cornelius, receiving the hospitality and welcome of people who were thirsty to know more about the heart and core of the Gospel to which Peter and the other disciples had been called.  The very first thing that Peter does when asked to speak is to affirm for everyone who is in the room that he is a primary witness to the ministry of Christ, the suffering of Christ, the death of Christ, and Christ's Resurrection and presence in the midst of the disciples, teaching them, and even eating meals with them throughout the forty days before He would ascend into the heavens to be with His Father.  Cornelius and his household lived lives which certainly indicated to outsiders that they were generous, gentle, and hospitable in the community in which they lived. They had come to fear (honor) the God of the Jews, yet they hungered for more foundation to the faith that had become a part of their lives. Peter tells them about all that he has witnessed, including Christ's Resurrection. I believe that we will find in our reading for next Monday that the obvious question for Cornelius' household is "What is next for us?"  What brings the Roman's heart to this place, is how Peter approaches the topic of Jesus, who according to quite recent circumstances in Jerusalem could be seen as a political zealot, a criminal. But this is what Peter must do without assuming that Cornelius and those who have gathered in his home know very much at all about what the true witnesses to Christ have experienced.

1. at the very start Peter makes it clear that he now sees these gentiles as children of God. They are not outcasts from faith in Christ. They are His children who He has come to save.

2. The Word that Peter will be sharing with them is directly from God for the benefit of Cornelius and his household.

3. Jesus did not come to change God's Nature. He came because of God's love for all His children, no matter who they were, or from where that had come.

4. Jesus exercised a ministry of healing.

5. It was men's sin and disobedience that filled them with anger and hatred for Jesus.

6. Three days after Christ's death, He was Resurrected from the dead.

7. For preachers and teachers of the faith, like Peter, Jesus is not some now distant God, rather he is present (by the Spirit's power and desire) bringing to all who will hear the Living Presence of our Resurrected Savior.

8. The purpose of all of this is to bring the forgiveness of sins to all people!!

When we consider the pressure that Peter was under in this situation, it's amazing that he didn't over preach and teach at this moment in Cornelius' home. According to Luke, who we believe authored Acts, Peter got to the point and supported it too.

For Cornelius this talk with Peter was all confirmation of his beginning faith. But in our Monday reading we find Peter being challenged by other gentiles who came in a bit later. But, unless you read ahead, you will have to wait until Monday to find out how that goes.

What we might learn from this text is that we too must rely on God to give us the best words to be shared, so that others can hear clearly too, and come to know Jesus as their Savior.

In Christ's Love, Pastor Kim

Pastor's Ponderings: Monday Bible Study on Acts of the Apostles 10:17-33 (January 12, 2026)

January 12, 2026:  Monday Bible Study on Acts 10:17-33

Blessings and Peace be with you on this beautiful sunny morning. What a gift the weather has been this winter in the desert! Along with you, I love the warmer trend of our desert winters, but I also know how important it is for us to remember that environmental change means that there is something wrong in the world that has caused that change. We have seen it in raging floods in the Carolinas, severe weather in the deep south of our nation, drought with which we live and struggle here, too cold and snowy in the upper mid-west and around the Great Lakes. The one saving grace this past year is that no hurricanes hit the lower 48 states, but the increasing warmth in the Gulf means that it is only a matter of time, and the storms may be larger than we have ever seen before. I am hopeful that God's creation will work to rectify itself in the years ahead if we are careful in our stewardship of this planet on which we all live. If you are from outside of our congregation or not at worship yesterday, I want to let you know that Kandice Kartchner, our member in Hawaii has died following a long battle with cancer. Please keep her wife Lisa, friend Alexis, her parents who live on the big island, her sister and her brother who live stateside all in your prayers for comfort and peace in their loss, that the certain hope of the Resurrection will sustain them all, and us too. 

I believe that our reading from Acts for today is helpful for us as our congregation, and whole Church of Jesus Christ on earth struggles with member numbers and resources. In the early life of the Lutherans, we were divided by cultural and ethnic heritage into communities of remarkably similar people. Over the second half of the 1900s the LCA, and ALC, the main Lutheran bodies aside from the Missouri Lutherans, came together in unity in the mid-1980s, became one church, and set about the task of inclusiveness for all people who would enter our congregations.  Both groups had already begun the ordination of women, and after many years of struggle and acknowledgement in the ELCA were able to finally recognize the many gifts for ministry in the LGBTQ+ part of our faith communities and ultimately moved to provide for ordination and marriage too.  Our reading from Acts about Peter, his vision, his eyes and heart for people of the Jewish community where the Apostles had their primary mission, and learning about all those who he had previously seen as unclean and undesirable for inclusion in Christ's new Church.  First, we need to note that Cornelius was known for his kindness and generosity towards the people who had been conquered by Rome. That was extraordinary! Normally soldiers would conquer and then begin the brutality of the victor during the occupation of the people, but not Cornelius. He had been intrigued by the Jewish faith in only One God, and that God being beyond any manipulation by the actions of those who worshiped YHWH. However, according to the reading, when Peter arrives, Cornelius has already arranged for his family and friends to be present to hear what Cornelius' vision had revealed to him, that Peter, who had been summoned by Cornelius would have the Word of God to share with all those who had been called together.  All of this was a lesson from God for Peter about the new openness to those previously thought as outside of faith by no fault of their own other than being born outside of Judaism. Through Paul, Peter would truly come to understand that the greatest successes of the New Christian mission would be outside of the traditional Jewish communities to which Peter felt called. Those outsiders would take a generous collection across their lands and nations for the support of the continuing, but nearly failing, mission to the Jews. The sense of what was clean and unclean was carried by all the original Apostles. It was their ingrained heritage, but Peter welcomed the envoys from Cornelius into the hospitality of Simon's home and traveled with them to the hospitality of the Roman gentile home, where he was received with a sense of awe by those who met him, and had come to hear him speak.  Without that roof top vision, Peter would have been unable to move forward with such boldness and confidence in taking on the new! I am hopeful that this experience for Peter will help us all think of how we can become more open to those who are new, who we often deem as too different, who are searching in faith for the love of Christ for their lives, and the lives of people around them.  Peter found the new with bravery and love. How will you and I respond to the vision that changed Peter's world?

God's Word in Christ is a gift for all of creation.

With Love in Christ, Pastor Kim

Pastor's Ponderings: Old Testament bible study of Psalm 42 (January 8, 2026)

January 8, 2026:  Thursday Bible Study on Psalm 42

Good evening/morning, depending on when you choose to look at your emails and the Psalm study which normally comes to you late on Thursday morning. I pray for the LORD'S richest blessings to sustain you and to keep you fully faithful even in what may be difficult times. I know that the cold rain today is important to the health of our desert and its environment in which we live. But I must tell you as I sit in our 68-degree house, that I yearn for the high seventies and nights much nearer to 50. I do know that if our environment is to have any chance in its long-term recovery from a severe drought, days like today, and I do remember many like this in other winter seasons in the 35 years we have lived here, must be a part of our winter season.  I do know that many of you wish that we would keep the worship area a bit warmer on Sunday mornings, but it is truly expensive to heat that very large space to a temperature warmer than 70. When I practice piano during the week, I do not turn on the heat, instead I wear warmer clothes and bear with the very cold temperature of the piano keys. Have hope though, by a week from now we will be back in the 70s with lows at night much warmer, and plenty of sun once again.

I wanted to speak for a moment about how we approach our membership and participation in church. I think that we often find that congregation and building where we grew up as somehow more holy than subsequent churches we may have attended or joined later in our lives. I have come to love our beautiful church, mature and holding some of the best glass in Tucson, God's altar at American holds many wonderful memories of weddings, and on the nave floor, Baptisms and oh so many Holy Communions, filled with music, joy, and the courage of our faith in God even when times can get pretty tough, like the pandemic closures, and the necessary absence of those who feared being around others, and for darn good reasons.  But, at my insistence, we didn't close our doors, we worshiped with courage and some pretty cold Sunday mornings when our furnace and our fresh air cooler were running at the same time. I know that the Church throughout the world has suffered because her members sometimes failed to return to worship, fellowship, and unity with our Savior in Holy Communion. We have sometimes felt down, and yet, we have weathered through all of it with the strength of our faith that God will never dessert us, or leave us destitute of knowing that, in Christ, we will be lifted up once again.  The prayer chain at American, your participation in three Bible Studies each week, your support of my sometimes mediocre piano and organ performances on Sundays or festival days, and our feeling that American is unlike any other church we have been in, is real, and potent in our call to serve Christ's Gospel Truth in the world, often broken with unnecessary violence by governments toward their citizens, wars against neighbors, and biases that broadly show our sin.  You may feel down about how each of us can move forward, and yet, our life experience tells us that God is not far from us. In fact, it is we who find ourselves far from God even when His faithfulness toward us has never failed.

Now my good friends in Christ, why did I start out with all of this about our relationships with congregations and buildings where we have been, or may be right now? This is exactly what Psalm 42 is about. The Psalmist is walking with two feelings in his/her heart about God's faithfulness and acknowledging their own personal failure to trust the God who has proven Himself time and again in the history of His people, and by the birth, ministry, suffering, and death of His Son, Jesus Christ.  The Psalmist is definitely worried about God's faithfulness personally, but also to Jerusalem, its people, its safety, and its current situation which is alive with threats from outside the nation of Israel. In the north of Israel are the mountains about which the Psalmist writes. Just as we have seen in the last week in California, those wonderful mountains of rocky strength can be flooded and flooding against those who are near to them, but it is God, in spite of that flooding and damage, who always remains in control, there, and in all of life!  I can see myself in this Psalm, sometimes the resolve of my faith and confidence in God and Christ is unshakable, and sometimes, I find myself praying for greater faith, and for the courage and commitment of Christ as my ministry moves forward in my later life.

However, like the Psalmist, we also know that our God's love for us is immutable and unshakeable. In the weeks ahead we may need to revisit this Psalm. It is a powerful telling of our loving God, and our shaky faith, and of our loss of courage at the hands of others who might make us fail to turn to the God in whom we have always trusted.

Please enjoy the rain, carry the birth of Christ in your hearts, and know, that in everything that we face, celebration, triumph, failure, or weakness to face the driving forces around us, Our God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – is in charge!

With the Love of Christ for all people, those I know, and those who are yet to be known by me, I humbly offer you this psalm of mine for today. Pastor Kim