Pastor's Ponderings: Tuesday Bible Study on Paul’s letter, 1 Thessalonians 2:13-16 (April 15, 2025)

April 15, 2025:  Tuesday Bible Study on Paul’s letter, 1 Thessalonians 2:13-16

Good morning, dear friends in Christ. 

It sounds like this weekend, for the celebration of the Resurrection of Christ, will be wonderful temperatures, and at the very least here in the desert, an opportunity to come to our carry-in Easter breakfast from 8:30AM to 9:45AM, and then to join us for our Easter Festival Worship at 10AM.  I pray that you allow the Spirit to move you this Sunday to be with us.  In prayers today, please keep Liisa in your prayers for her travels to provide signing for the hearing impaired.  She has flown to Texas to be a stand in for her good friend and colleague Itai who is the victim of brain cancer which has metastasized into his ears.  He is losing his hearing.   Please pray for Liisa and Raul as they travel to Dallas to be with their son for Easter.  Godspeed for their safety.  Please pray for Kandice in Hawaii as she battles cancer, and for Jeff here in Tucson who is battling a very similar cancer, that they find hope and healing in their treatment and care and have the best possible quality of life in the weeks and months ahead.  Give thanks that both Shannon and Joshua in Colorado have found work after six months of unemployment and part time work.  Offer prayers that the JOY of EASTER will fill our hearts with the Love of God and grow our faith and certainness in Christ's gifts of life now and forever, forgiveness of sin, and Salvation.

In our reading from 1st Thessalonians today we encounter Paul's thankfulness for the faith and witness of the new Christians who have spread the Good News of Jesus Christ far and wide, so that others may come to know what they have found in God's Only Begotten Son, the compassion of Christ for all people, the gift of freedom from the burden of sin, and the steadfast promise of eternal life for all who believe in Him as Lord and Savior.  Doesn't it all sound wonderful?  Well, my friends, read on.  This wonderful faith in this foreign land was facing the very same reality as the Christians were facing in Judea.  Persecution!  The gentiles were, for the most part, comfortable with the pantheon of gods and the benevolent leader of Rome, so when this faith arose on the scene with gentiles listening to Paul, having a change of heart (metanoia), the persecution of this new community of believers in Jesus Christ began.  It has been the way for several thousand years now, and the people who have faith in Christ as their Savior find themselves called to stand against the lies and bullying of those who don't want that Truth revealed.  Usually when people are persecuted for some human message that they have clung to, many will separate from their faith, and act as if they had never really believed.  But Christians, filled with the Spirit gift did not, and do not today belie their faith and trust in the Christ of God!  In terms of the world, over the years since the recession back in 2008, our nation has been chugging along at a pretty good pace.  In spite of military interventions and the fairly new war in the Ukraine, our economy has rebounded nicely, though homes are out of reach for too many today, we beat a worldwide pandemic, and our recovery has gone very well, and during that time Christians have been pretty comfortable because no one has started to persecute us.  But just like the new Christians in Judea, and the new Christians in Thessalonians, and having seen the history of the church, we must now know that the persecution of we who believe in Christ as our Lord and Savior is in a tipping condition, and in all likelihood will bring persecution on those of us who believe that the ultimate authority in our lives must be Jesus Christ, and the justice of God through Christ, must always be our priority and our proclamation!!  We cannot, as the richest people of our nation are attempting to do, fail to care for the least, the last, and the lost.  They are in every part of our neighborhoods and communities and our nation, and they are also our sisters and brothers in Christ.  The Gospel charges us to intervene on their behalf, doing all that we can ourselves, and then encouraging the resources of our nation to pick up the rest.  The big question today for all of us who accept Christ as our Savior is whether or not we can be as bold as the people who stood in the face of persecution, the Christians of Judea, and the Christians of Thessalonica and beyond.  These early Christians lived under a dark cloud of suffering, and yet, carried their faith in Christ forward with courage.  All we need to do is to ask our forebears in the Church how it was in their lives.  We find their answers in their own word in the histories of church communities who dealt with racism, poverty, and social justice issues of their day.  It was the Word of God, the living Christ, who brought the power of faith and love as the answer to the brokenness of nations and their leaders.  That very same Word of God leads you and me too.  In the state of our nation today, we must be constant as we maintain the gift of faith and the TRUTH of GOD in the face of those who would bring harm upon us all.  The promise of Christ that we will be vindicated, no matter how beaten down we may become, is sure and certain.  I never ceased to be amazed at how the sin of people tries to stand in the way of the victory of Jesus Christ.  This Sunday, once again, you and I will proclaim to those who want the human way to win, that the victory is already won, because Christ Is Risen!  He Is Risen Indeed!

With love in Christ, Pastor Kim

Pastor's Ponderings: Monday Bible Study on Paul’s letter, 1 Thessalonians 2:9-12 (April 14, 2025)

April 14, 2025:  Monday Bible Study on Paul’s letter, 1 Thessalonians 2:9-12

Good morning to all of you who are joining in this Bible Study this morning, later, today, or sometime in the future.  This can be a very stressful week across our nation as nearly every one of us has the responsibility to file our income tax in just a few days.  I hope that you have been able to accomplish that.  In prayers this Monday, please offer a prayer of thanksgiving that Tricia has been able to travel to see her son, his wife, and the new grandbaby.  Pray for Lynn and Frank as they travel in our state to Prescott.  They are from southern Minnesota.  Pray for Annette as she prepares to have some pretty major dental work done this week.  Pray for success in this dental care, and for a quick recovery.  Offer a prayer of thanksgiving for the success of Gail's knee surgery, and also prayers as she does her therapy that will help her get her full mobility back.  Prayers for Melissa and Roger as they make decisions about their housing situation, with the possibility of finding a new apartment. 

In our reading for today, 1 Thessalonians 2:9-12, we find Paul continuing to talk about the ways in which he, and his companions, worked very hard to not become a burden to the people, all so that there would be no sense in the community that Paul was just another itinerant salesman who came to take advantage of them.  By living on his own resources, Paul was able to show them that the message of Jesus Christ that he brought to share with them, was a free gift, and not any kind of an item that could be purchased.  Paul presented himself as an ambassador for Christ, who was the world's true king.  Of course this endangered not only Paul, but also those who came to faith in Christ, especially considering that Roman Emperors had been proclaimed to be gods after their deaths, and now the Roman Emperors were claiming themselves to be gods to be worshiped!  Paul is able to present himself as a most unusable and unlikely choice for this ambassadorship, and yet Christ Himself had come to transform Paul's life exactly so that in his own brokenness, Christ's grace would fill Paul's life as he came to share the free grace of Christ's love for all people.  Paul was certainly the right life example for these new believers.  We believe that Paul was a tent maker, and it was through this endeavor that Paul was able to provide for himself and his companions.  So, long hours of making a living, enabled Paul to bring a free message of grace, though in other readings Paul makes it clear that expecting to be supported by the church and her members is not inappropriate, and in fact the world of the church, main stream churches and larger churches provide financially for their pastors, while there are certainly small congregations, both mainstream and tiny conservative ones, where their pastors must work to support and supplement their church's provision and assistance for the person who is called to serve the Gospel in their midst.  What Paul is working so hard to accomplish as he preaches and teaches the Gospel in the midst of the Thessalonian people, is to give these new Christians a concrete model of what it means to "walk worthy of God".  This phrase describes a model of "behavior" which is pleasing to God.  The reality of this is that Paul is living the Beatitudes in his everyday living and also when he is serving the Gospel.  I am confident that this style of living is the one for which you and I should also reach for in our lives.  At this point in the passage for today we must be willing to admit that this living style to which Paul ascribes does not in any away earn salvation, forgiveness, or the life with God that we all hold in our hopes.   No, instead of works, our justification comes only through the merit of Jesus Christ, who died to pay the price for our sin and brokenness.  For the Thessalonians this is a brand-new way of understanding the relationship that a person has with the One, True, God vs how people had been relating to the pantheon of Romans gods, which at the time of Paul, included the Roman Emperor.  Through all of this Paul truly became the friend and mentor in Christ for this community. 

I will be with you again tomorrow morning to share with the next passage in which Paul speaks to the issue of persecution of Christians.

In Christ's Love, Pastor Kim

Pastor's Ponderings: Old Testament bible study of Psalm 14 (April 10, 2025)

April 10, 2025:  Thursday Bible Study on Psalm 14

Dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ,

I am praying that this day is a really wonderful one for you as you join me in studying this 14th Psalm.  This week prayers can be offered for Tricia Don who is recovering from a surgery that will allow her oncologist to begin her radiation treatment for breast cancer.  Sue O'Kelley is recovering from cataract surgery earlier this week, and Gail Tucker has had her bandage removed from her knee replacement, and is doing well.  Continue to pray for Jeff Hovelson and Kandice Kartchner, both of whom are dealing with aggressive forms of cancer. Pray for care that will keep their quality of life as good as possible.  Palm Sunday is this coming Sunday on the 13th of April.  This is the Sunday when we begin our journey into Holy Week in the church.  On Thursday of this week, we will celebrate the mandate of Christ on the eve of His death, to receive and participate in the meal of Holy Communion.  Services that day will be at Noon and 7PM.  The very next day is Good Friday, the day on which we remember and grieve the death of our Savior.  We will have a noon service, and at 7PM we will worship using the traditional Tenebrae service of darkening light helping us to participate at the moment of our Savior's death on the cross.  On Holy Saturday, April 19 at 10AM we will gather to decorate the church for Easter and set up the parish hall for our 8:30AM to 9:45AM Easter Breakfast.  Please bring brunch type food to share by 8:30AM that morning.  Easter Festival worship will be at 10AM with special music by the Bell Choir, The Gospel Group who will support congregational singing, as well as solo music vocally and instrumentally, with both organ and piano supporting our hymn sings.  If you are bringing an Easter Lily for the memorial garden at the altar for Easter, let the office know not later than Maundy Thursday, and lilies need to be at the church not later than Holy Saturday for decorating.  I hope that you will be able to join us for these special High Holy Day celebrations.

Our Psalm for today is 14.  It is not a very long Psalm but it approaches the problems which are faced in Jerusalem and Israel during King David's reign.  It begins with a character who is called the rogue.  In Hebrew that word can mean either fool, or the more likely meaning, scoundrel.  This outsider who is seeing the failing nature of the people of Israel feels that God is an absent landlord, who watches His children, but chooses to no longer be involved in their day to day living, or in their faith lives either.  It would appear that God has, from the perspective of this scoundrel, found no one person of faith in the whole of His elect children.  Their lives are a total mess!  However, there will be recompense by God for the terrible actions of this people He calls His own.  When the people in power and authority, the corrupt ones and many others who are failing in so many ways, there will certainly still be a few who have remained faithful to the LORD, and He will act to defend and carry them in such terrible times.  In the final verses of this Psalm, we are able to see a closing similar to Psalm 12.  This outsider, the rogue, who is, in all likelihood, imposing his will on the people of Israel, knows that Zion (Jerusalem) is the place of the LORD'S stronghold where His children will return to worshiping, and faithfulness in the justice of the LORD, that the LORD will be their defense and stronghold in all things.  This Psalm makes it clear that those who choose to oppress God's elect people will meet with defeat and destruction by the LORD of Israel.  You and I must take a moment to think about how the times of David were filled with turbulence and difficulty.  This Psalm helps us to understand how outsiders might view the weakness of the people, but the strength of the LORD God who defends them!

Please remember that next Thursday there will be no Psalm Study due to the worship services at Noon and 7PM.  I will, however, be providing the Monday and Tuesday studies for each of those mornings during Holy Week.  When you come to church this week, take a few minutes to view and walk by the Stations of the Cross, and then revisit the Resurrection Station on Easter Sunday morning.  Let this be part of your discipline of faith during Holy Week.

With Love in Christ,   Pastor Kim