Pastor’s Ponderings: Meandering through Mark 4:22-23 Bible study (November 13, 2023)

May the Great Goodness of God's Love for your life bring joy to you today and always.

We are entering into a particularly busy time of the year. Here at American we are celebrating birthdays, doing a pumpkin pie fellowship time after our 10am worship service this coming Sunday as we give thanks to God for the abundant blessings of our nation. The Sunday after Thanksgiving finds Lutherans at the end of the Church Year. On that Sunday we celebrate Christ the King and look forward to our period of waiting called Advent. This is the time of the new church year when we are called to prepare our hearts and minds to receive and celebrate the birthday of Jesus. St Nicholas Day arrives quickly on December 6th, and on Sunday, Dec 3rd we have our Gospel Music Sunday. If you are a Scandinavian Lutheran, you may celebrate Lucia on Dec 13th. On a personal note, the following Sunday, the 10th, will be the day on which Melody and I celebrate our 52nd anniversary with a treat for the worshiping community after service. We will decorate the church for Christmas on the 17th after the late service, we will share treats and come with joy as we get our worship space ready for the Big Birthday Party on Christmas Eve, Sunday Dec 24 at 7PM. Then in December, for good measure, in addition to our wedding anniversary, three of our eight children have birthdays, and my 39th anniversary of ordination is on Dec 30th.

Today's passage from Mark is certainly appropriate for the times that our world and nation are in right now. This is another of Jesus' independent sayings which are recorded sequentially in Mark, even though they are not necessarily related content-wise to one another. "There is nothing that will not be hidden." These words of Jesus speak most directly to the nature of God's Truth. We might look at this passage as just another bit of wisdom from Jesus, but there is hardly a more important statement of how God's creation, which includes all of us, responds when someone attempts to hide, or misinform, or deny the power of God's love and intent for His Children. Basically, what Jesus is saying is that this most important of all Truth will break free of the sin of humanity and be revealed. I really think that the early Church, about 350C.E, had a good handle on this Truth. In that time period the Church of the day gathered in Council to make a succinct statement of God's Truth. We repeat it together every Sunday during worship. In the Apostle's Creed we clearly state our authentic faith in the very Trinitarian nature of God, and His Omnipotence that tells us that His Truth will not be hidden. We have come to understand our God as Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer of Life, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. As you and I know, in the world, we ask, "Whose Truth?" and we frequently have a counter comment, or some doubt about it being anywhere near absolute. We see it all of the time in political divisions in our great nation and experiment in democracy. No matter how much proof is provided, some will always choose to doubt its veracity. That happens most frequently when people find that they must defend their "truth" in the face of it being disproven. God's Truth, of course, is at a completely different level, yet people are often in denial about God as well. Some see Him as an angry vengeful judge who fails to love His creation at all, while others deny His existence, and still others doubt God's motives, while some in Christ's Church are opportunistic when it comes to placing power and money as their primary god, while removing more and more references to our Savior. However, Jesus makes it clear that in spite of people's approach in understanding God, His Truth will be revealed, and in fact, has been revealed in Christ Himself. God's gift of faith, and His willing Sacrifice of His Beloved Son are truly signs of the Truth that will always win its way against those who tear it down.

In the same way as God's Truth, the truths of our lives will also ultimately find their way to the light of day. What we may think has been well hidden almost always finds its way to revelation at some point. This Word about Truth and truth, bring us to the reality that anything that has been covered will be uncovered. So, we ought to be able to see that there is great power in truth, God's, and ours. Truth is innately filled with a power to find its way into being revealed by means that are not yet obvious.

Tomorrow we will move forward in chapter 4 of Mark to verse 25.

God Bless You Today.

In Christ's love, Pastor Kim.

Pastor's Ponderings: Old Testament Bible Study on Ezra 2:68 - 3:5 (November 9, 2023)

Blessings and Peace to you on this cool crisp autumn morning.

It is really difficult to realize that we are so close to the celebration of our national holiday of Thanksgiving. I hope that you are able to gather with your family and/or friends to celebrate this day. Indeed, we have so much to be thankful for in our nation. Yet today we see a polarization of our citizens and of their way of seeing others as a toxic presence while they build themselves up and look for ever-growing power and wealth. As a spiritual leader in our community and nation, I must tell you that I am concerned about the Truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ being set aside for the gain of political and economic power. We must always move toward the Great Commandment and its second about our neighbors. In this Jesus is patently clear. There is no one who is excluded as our neighbor, and to add to it all, Christ makes it even clearer that He is the One and Only Judge of all of us. Our doing so makes us most presumptuous as we try to become the judging Christ for the lives of other people. It is the Holy Spirit who transforms that change of heart and mind in which we all are called to participate. Before I segue to our reading from Ezra for today's bible study, I have one more comment to make. The world is still tempting people of faith to slip away from the great grace-filled Truth of Jesus Christ. Who do you want to blame for the problems of your life and of our world? Muslims, Jews, gays, Hispanics, women, the poor, or any other group you can name, and probably have? Jesus opened His Heart of Love for everyone, and every one of them, and us, sinners!

Now with regard to this issue of maintaining the faith of the community in its appropriate form for worship, which gathers the community together with the reminders that what God has requested through the leaders of the faithful people is truly important in the relationship which God has opened to Himself with all of His children. In the case of the people who have returned to the area of Jerusalem and the surrounding land, it becomes vitally important for everyone to gather for right worship, and to remember the words of the Law recorded in the books of Moses. I have to wonder how it was that the Pentateuch, the first five books of the O.T. were held onto during the period of the exile, or perhaps they were maintained by oral tradition, and recorded during the exile in Persia. At any rate, what takes place in Jerusalem are expressions of faithfulness through large offerings for the work of rebuilding the Temple from the tribal leaders of the Jews, those heirs of the original 12 brothers, and after a period of time, the gathering of all of the people who have returned to come to worship which is a giving of themselves to their relationship with the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The same thing is true for us today and is certainly one of the reasons why we come to worship. This is the time when in midst of all that is going on in our lives, we set aside the time to be with our God. We offer our sacrifices and acknowledge the sacrifice that God has made to be open to us, even in our sinfulness, His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. The worship in which these returned exiles participated was based on the books of Moses, which pretty graphically described how often, how physically the sacrifice was to be performed, who was to lead it, etc. Today in the church our worship is pieced together from the Scripture from the Psalms and prayers to the Gospels and the writings of Paul which shares with us the very first early church consecration of the Sacrament of the Altar. Another thing which worship is to always call us to is the memory of the mighty acts of salvation which God has performed to care for we who are His children. For the Jews it was the act of being set free from bondage in Egypt, and the way in which the newly freed slaves lived as they journeyed through the wilderness. This is the Jewish holiday of Sukkot, booths, (We might more readily speak of tents.) the temporary shelter which housed God's people on this many years long journey. For us in the Christian church today, worship always needs to bring us to the salvation which Christ brought to us by His Sacrifice on the Cross, paying the price for our sins. Our journeys begin, not in Egypt, but on the day of our Baptisms when, through the faith of our parents, or our own faith if we were older, that day on which we were set free from the bondage to sin.

A very important reason for renewing and establishing worship on the site of Temple was the people coming together to appeal to God for His protection. After all, these people, like the Jews of 1947, were being placed back into the promised land by a foreign government, Cyrus and the Persians. Of course, there were already people there, especially after the 50 years of exile. Farms were running, Businesses were flourishing, and families were growing. The fear of the current residents of being displaced was in all likelihood, shown by their aggressive approach to the new/returning interlopers. In some ways we are in the same circumstance here in Arizona, what used to be Mexico, and as Eastern settlers moved in, there were bound to be hard feelings on the part of those who had lived here generationally, both indigenous communities and the Hispanics. Those feelings of animosity still exist to this day. In our gathering for worship, we too are asking God for His intervention in all the tough circumstances of our lives, and hopefully, in some of the happy ones too.

Just as a point of information: Jerubbabel is the heir of King Jehoiachin, and thereby is established as the Davidic leader. There were no kings of Israel at this point since this community of people was still under the oversight of Persia. His duties would have been administrative, but also would have included some duties for worship. Jeshua was more involved directly with the worship because he was an Aaronic priest. Those family connections brought people to leadership. (whether they were any good at what they did or not) Both of these men had work that blended the worship and the administration of the community. Note: Ezra came to Jerusalem about 100 years after the first people who returned. Next Thursday we will speak about Ezra 3:6-13.

In Christ Love, Pastor Kim

Pastor’s Ponderings: Meandering through Mark 4:21 Bible study (November 7, 2023)

Good Morning.  It sounds like we have one more day of this above average temperature, and then this next week our weather will finally get back to those more enjoyable November averages.  I hope that you have been praying for the situation in the Middle East, and the terrible loss of life for both the Palestinians and the people of Israel.  Lets all pray for peace, not just there, but also for the Ukrainian people as well as the families of killed soldiers in Russia.  In the midst of all of this brokenness we can never seem to reach a point where our world is at peace.  If you have ever had any doubt about the human race's need for Jesus Christ, that doubt should now be put away.  I am convinced that it is only through the people of faith, who live for what is right, and good, and just in God's eyes, that we will ever be able to truly be secure and safe in this world.  It is really simple, Love God first above all else, and love your neighbor as yourself.  Maybe not so easy to do all of the time, but it is the the reality for which all who love Jesus Christ should be reaching.

Today we are going to cover only one verse in chapter four of the Gospel of Mark.  We have had this happen before, and have come to realize that quite often one verse contains so much that we need to know in our journey of faith.  First it is important to realize that if we were to read ahead we would encounter more sayings of Jesus in the next four verses.  Our temptation might be to try to connect them, but it appears that they all stand independent of one another.  These brief sayings of Christ appear in Matthew too, but in Matthew they are really spread out, which makes it a little easier to see them as independent.  These sayings of Christ may have often been repeated as He moved from area to area to bring His ministry of healing, teaching, and preaching, At least for Mark, they stuck so well that they got recorded in a connected line even though they were independent.  Today's short saying is that people who have a lighted lamp do not hide it under a bushel.  Obviously, it does no good hidden away.  The purpose of that lighted lamp is to provide illumination, and Jesus also says that it should not be hidden under the bed.  I hope that we all know that this light about which Jesus speaks is Wisdom and Truth.  IT IS MEANT TO BE SEEN!  It is meant to be shared.  Granted, there are times when truth telling will get you into trouble, but that does not mean that we should not be revealing it.  Martin Luther in the 1500s talks about this very situation.  If a law is unjust, then it is the obligation of the Christian to reject it and protest, perhaps even breaking the law.  But, that said, Luther indicated that if the result of that truth telling is getting incarcerated, then the Christian is called to bear the price patiently as an example of the surpassing presence of the Christ in their life.  Luther himself stood against the lies of the Catholic church of his day, and often faced being tried for heresy, though his friends the German princes, were able to keep him away from that punishment by hiding him away in a castle for over a year. There is always danger involved in living in the Light and Truth of the Savior.  The world of people is ready to join the attack against what is right and good and just in God's Kingdom.  

Secondly, our Christianity is meant to be seen!  In our very lives we are the bearers of the living Christ in today's world.  This reality was not always easy, especially during the time of the early church, with Rome vying for devotion to the current ruler of Rome who saw himself as god.  Their lives were in constant danger of death.   In the Roman State were days on which every citizen was called to venerate the emperor and give offering.  Thousands of Christians refused and lost their lives.

Today we have a Christian Nationalism movement in our own nation, which is attempting to acquire more power, and in the process to realize the wealth making potential that moving in such a direction may bring to their congregations.  When their building display massive flags of the United States, I must wonder, who or what are they really worshiping at this time in Christian history.  By the way, I drive by one of those "Christian" churches that has changed their name, leaving out the identity of their denomination relationship, and in the process have removed the Cross from their building's exterior.  According to this statement of Jesus, His Light has taken a back seat when churches desire more power and wealth, and uses Christ only as a manipulation of what is the authentic life of faith!

Next Monday we will move on to the next two of these statements of Christ in chapter 4.   I  pray that you are well, open to the fullness of Christ's Truth, and ready to light your personal lamp while revealing your Christianity.

With Love in Christ,   Pastor Kim