Pastor's Ponderings: Bible Study on Paul’s letter to the Galatians 1:1-9 (December 2, 2024)

December 2, 2024:  Monday Bible Study on Paul’s letter to the Galatians 1:1-9

Greetings and God’s Peace be with you today and always.

Today we start a new study as we also begin the second day of the Church Year Season of Advent. Yesterday we received enough gifts for the ELCA Good Gifts project to purchase 165 chicks! Wow! I am so happy that this will be yet another opportunity for the generosity of the people of Jesus Christ to act with kindness and love for so many in our world who need an available opportunity, and free gift, to move their lives and economies forward when it can be so difficult without help from us.  Thanks. We collect these offerings for the ELCA Good Gifts project through Christmas Eve. Please continue to pray for Kandice, and her wife Lisa, as they live with the strength of Christ's gift of faith in the face of Kandice's difficult cancer battle. Pray too, please, for Teri as she recovers at home from the rebuilding of her leg bone to prepare for a later surgery for her hip replacement. My brother and his wife also need our prayers. His health is very fragile, and after a pacemaker placement, he continues to be too fragile for repairing his blocked arteries. His name is Rick, and his wife's name is Connie. Pray for peace in the Middle East. These wars rage on: Syria, Israel, Lebanon, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.  We must also pray for peace in the war in the Ukraine with Russia.  There have been massive numbers of both military and citizen casualties, as well as the devastation of homes and environments. This coming Sunday, December 8, we will decorate the worship space for Christmas. I hope that you will join us right after worship. Bells will practice at 9AM on Sunday morning this week. Melody and I will host a cake reception after church for our 53rd marriage anniversary. It falls on Wednesday, December 11th. Please join us as we celebrate our love and commitment to one another and the blessings that we have shared during these years which now seem to have flown past.

Today we begin our study of the writings of Paul to the Galatian Church. Galatia is today what we would call Turkey, or Asia Minor.  Paul was born in Tarsus which sits on the Mediterranean in the south of Galatia. It only makes good sense that he would move into this area after his conversion experience on the road to Damascus. This is a place of familiarity for him. He comes into this area proclaiming the truth of Jesus Christ for all people, with no divisions or separations between people due to national identity, wealth, or community status, slaves and the free alike. This is no story to separate people, rather its truth is meant to unify all who hear Paul's teaching and come to believe in Jesus Christ as the Messiah, the only begotten Son of God, the King of all of creation, the bearer of Truth of His Father in Heaven.  But as we begin chapter one, we discover that other teachers and leaders have arrived while Paul has been away encouraging other church starts and communities of faith.  In their teaching they have created divisions and certain requirements for those who would be members of this new community of believers. We know these kinds of divisions and the hard work that had to be done to stop their effect on our own nation. The segregation of people of color from the dominate white community is just one example. We find these same kinds of erroneous ways of approaching the unity that should be in Christ between all Christians, but we still find ourselves in circumstances of power, authority, and wealth being taught in some "Christian" churches as the way of Christ and His Truth. There will be much work to do between the congregations who see advantage and their power over others as they drive that thinking into the minds of their members, who in my opinion, are, at this time, self-separated from the love of God above all else, and the love of neighbors in the way in which they love themselves.  We will all be Christ-driven to restore His healing and hope in places where division has been sown between congregations and Christian communities. As God drove Paul to reach out into the Galatian provinces with Christ's truth and love, there were indeed those who thought that division was best. Yes, best if the church is to never strive to be the people who hear, and work to live the Great Commandment and its companion, to love each other like we love ourselves.

Those who came after Paul sowed division by teaching that Paul was a kind of secondhand disciple of Jesus, that he really did not know everything that he should to hold the new church together. The hope that Paul brought to Asia Minor and Galatia was a bright light of unity in all of the division between Roman conquered nations. In Lutheran thought, the decisions for life in Christ must be based solely on the nature and sense of Christ's teaching. Word Alone, Grace Alone, Faith Alone, separate, but always one faith founded in God's Love for all of His Creation, and perhaps most especially in we who are His Children and Treasure.  Can there be any doubt? After all we are moving ever closer to the world's celebration of the birth of God's Son, God's answer to bring all of creation into harmony and grace. This is God's ONE TRUTH for all time! There is no other authentic way to be right with God. What if a new church came into existence and would only accept members who had adult Baptisms? Those churches exist today, and still cannot see through dialog that they must change and listen to the Word of God, not in the way that they want to understand it, but by the definition which Christ has given us in His Words for LIFE, FORGIVENESS, and SALVATION, and the sacrifice of His sin-free life that every child of God has the assurance of being saved by God's Grace and gift of Faith, and ONLY in that way!  All else that we might argue about is, according to Martin Luther, anathema, insignificant in comparison to the REAL TRUTH of God the Creator, the Redeemer, and the Sustainer of every life, and every piece of His Creation.

God bless you in this Advent season. I will be back with you tomorrow.

With Love in Christ, Pastor Kim

Pastor's Ponderings: Meandering through Mark 16:9-20 bible study (November 26, 2024)

November 26, 2024:  Tuesday Bible Study on the Gospel of Mark 16:9-20

Grace and Peace be yours in the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Today I am going to get started right away, but first I hope that your preparations for Thanksgiving are moving right along. Please remember to give thanks to God for His mighty and wonderful blessings in your life.

Today we are in the last part of Mark, and there is not a whole lot to say about it. This closing in Mark is substantially different than what we read in the other Gospels.  In Mark there is no clarity about how long Jesus spends with His disciples, but what is clear is that He chastises them for their failure to accept the news which has been brought to them by those who have actually seen Christ. Here you and I learn how many times that same kind of failure in how we care for Christ's gift of faith in our own lives. There are so many people who need to hear the confidence of our faith when we allow Christ to be a part of our lives and information about ourselves which we share with others. The Christ in us has so much to share, the Truth of God's love for all people and the whole of His creation. In this season of Thanksgiving there is no better time to allow our Savior to fill us with that love, and then to carry it into the world in which we live.

These verses today are a kind of curious group. It would appear that either Mark did not have the opportunity to finish this Gospel, or that perhaps Mark was no longer able to complete this beautiful Gospel.   Maybe these closing verses of Mark are written by someone later in the first century of the Church in its new beginning.  Though probably not written by Mark, we still include them in the canon of Scripture because of the truths that they convey for the Church which is the gift of Christ for the world to sustain all believers by conveying Christ's Grace and Forgiveness for all of us.

So, in addition to the disappointing response of the disciples to the news of Christ's Resurrection, we have this part about the early Church. The Church has work to do:

1.       The Church, and all churches who claim Christ as Lord and Savior, have a preaching task in the world. That hymn "We've a story to tell to the nations” helps us to know that the Church, the means of grace, is meant to be shared with great joy and thanksgiving in the world. Today you and I know how important that is as we live in a world where so many people see the Church as an unnecessary part of their lives.

2.     The Church has a healing task. If there is anything which may help a person in their life is to know that for all of their failure in the face of God's loving presence, God forgives through our Lord Jesus Christ.

3.     The Church is filled with power. Not to control others who do not believe, but to bring to people's lives the power to cope with all this life brings with it for each of us, and even death itself, our final and greatest enemy.

4.     The Church is never left alone in its work. Christ, and His Holy Spirit are always present with all people who accept the forgiveness, life, and Salvation which Christ's sacrifice brings to the faithful who proclaim Him as the King of all things.

This Sunday is our Beginning of Advent, and our Gospel music group will lead our singing. We will also gather for our traditional chili luncheon after church service. I will choose something from the Pauline letters as we get restarted next week. God be with you as we all prepare to celebrate our Lord's birth.

With Christ's love, Pastor Kim

Pastor's Ponderings: Meandering through Mark 16:1-8 bible study (November 25, 2024)

November 25, 2024:  Monday Bible Study on the Gospel of Mark 16:1-8

Glory be to God our Father, our Redeemer, and our Sustainer of Life,

Thank you for joining me today. I have some prayer requests for you today. Please pray for Teri Hardy, whose surgery became much more complicated than was expected. Due to bone deterioration, it was necessary to replace the bone around the hip socket, rebuilding it so that at a later date her hip surgery could be done. Her recovery will be longer than expected. We thank God for her good doctors, her loving family, and all those who made this surgery possible for her, and we pray for a full recovery. Please also pray for my older brother who is having major cardiac health issues on top of having kidney health issues. He is scheduled today to receive the angioplasties that couldn't be done until his heart was regulated with a pacemaker.  He continues in the hospital for a few more days before he can return home. Also, pray for our worship assistant, Sharyn, whose friends are having major health issues. It is really stressful for her as she deals with Bobbie's health issues, Sharon's issues having brain surgery, and most especially for her sister Sonia who is in ICU in the Phoenix area. We pray that our Lord Jesus Christ holds all four of these women in His care for courage, strength, and healing.

Today we enter into our study of the first part of chapter 16 in the Gospel of Mark. We are getting much closer to the end of this Gospel. Our text for today is one with which we are very familiar. Here, of course, the first day of the week for Jews – Sunday – is the day on which Christian communities meet for worship. The Jewish Sabbath is on Saturday. There also would have been little preparation of Jesus' body because of the prohibition of any kind of work on the Sabbath. So, the women are headed to the grave now, a cave carved into a wall, with no door, but in some way sealed with a "rock". They were coming to do that work of preparation for Jesus final resting place. As we know, they are in for a massive surprise. Though each of the Gospels manage this visit and its outcome a little bit differently, here the women are met by an angel who sends them with a message for the men who are apparently not going out in public yet.  It is here that these courageous women are told of Christ's resurrection from the dead, and they are also given a message to take back to the disciples. "Jesus will meet them at Galilee."  They really all do know all of the places that they might go to. If we think back a bit, it seems that there is Jesus' family home there, and of course there were the family businesses too.  Though we often overlook the courage of these women, it is important. They carry the word back that Jesus is risen from the dead. If these women had not received this news, the world would never have heard of them, nor would there have been any reason to make this most incredible claim. Because of their bravery we know:

1. Jesus is not a figure in a book of fiction. He is a living presence, and in our study of these Gospel texts, we must ultimately come to meet Jesus' presence in our world and lives.

2. Jesus is much more than just a memory for we who believe in Him. The Greeks had a word which means time which wipes all things out. This is not a description of how we live our lives with Christ's presence. We live long after all of these things which we are reading in the Gospel of Mark, but Christ's life and presence is real for us today. It is much more than just remembering a historical figure. We are surrounded by Christ's living presence at all times.

3. Christian life is more than just knowing about Christ. It is all about knowing Christ in every breath of our lives. We all know about former presidents of our nation. Unlike our hearing about them in the history of our nation, with Jesus we speak about personally knowing Him, and being known by Him, intimately connected to Christ by His Spirit.

4. Unlike some just historical figure with whom we only have head knowledge, with Christ we have heart knowledge. Our faith life grows and grows when we are actively involved in our relationship with Him.

Perhaps most importantly in this passage are the two words of the messenger, "go” and “tell".  That is certainly one of the most important parts of our Christian lives. The love of Christ for us cannot be contained in just our own selves. It overflows from us showing and telling others that we are different. Our victory in this life has already come in our Savior. For us there is nothing more important. As we grow in faith, we grow ever closer to our Savior. This is no stagnant presence for us, but the Spirit fills us with "living" faith that must be shared with others who have this faith, and with those who do not yet know about the living presence of Christ in their lives.

God bless you. I will see you online tomorrow as we move a little more deeply into this last chapter of Mark.

With love in Christ, Pastor Kim.