Welcome

Posted on April 10, 2017 by M Emlyn Humphries

Please join us to find a place of prayer and rest in a busy week. From intimacy in prayer God is able to do many things.

Let the message about Christ, in all its richness, fill your lives
May you never give up praying.
When you pray, may you keep alert and be thankful.
Pray that together we may make the message of the mystery of Christ as clear as possible.
Amen
(Based on Colossians 3 and 4)

Readings for Sunday: Vanderbilt Divinity Library

Reflections for the week:

Lyfe Devotionals

Lectio 365 Daily Prayer

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Religion?

Posted on March 31, 2024 by M Emlyn Humphries

‭Luke 23:34 HCSB‬
Then Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, because they do not know what they are doing.” And they divided His clothes and cast lots.

https://bible.com/bible/72/luk.23.34.HCSB

‭Acts 10:34-35 HCSB‬
Then Peter began to speak: “Now I really understand that God doesn’t show favoritism, but in every nation the person who fears Him and does righteousness is acceptable to Him.



https://bible.com/bible/72/act.10.34-35.HCSB

Each of the gospels speaks of the last days of Jesus with many similarities in the story and some added details. Some might be led to chart the accounts, trying to create a timeline. The person writing and the people being written for are the divine context of the narrative. Both Acts and Luke are part 1 and 2 of the same book, written for a Greek or Helenist audience steeped in religion. It’s a message for the poor, a message for those who fear God, a message for all nations.

It strikes me that the message of Jesus made sense in a culture where truth, beauty, and justice were valued, where people were truly human. I see that where the message took hold, faith, hope and love grew.

Truth, beauty and justice in life are found in the person of Jesus and his way. A turning away from our own way to his through the gift of peace brings faith, hope and love into the world.

The vehicle is forgiveness, which enters the believers heart, the forgiven become those who forgive, not through religion but in truth. The peace gained is the peace shared.

Jesus makes true the religion of those whose religion is one of fearing God and love. The religion falls away, the scaffolding is removed, and a temple is revealed whose cornerstone is Christ. Our practices are rooted in traditions we no longer have, sanctified by those with dubious motives.

We live in perilous times where this religion is what is loved. Religion divides. Religion has been found wanting, the message squeezed into its binding cage of power structures and sacred practices and self forgiving abuse.

The message of Jesus will always blow free, bringing meaning and accommodating what it wills. Our comfort zone may be invaded, and our taste challenged. The religion of man will seek to control and constrict the spirit, so much so that the good news is bad news and faith is a practice policed by gate keepers of their own truth. The very ones Jesus has come to serve may be excluded.

The times demand a reformation. The church is ridiculed and irrelevant. The spirit will blow into gatherings of the God-fearing and Jesus will be the answer they seek. I’m not sure they will sit in pews and sing hymns. They may find hymns and communities of faith, hope and love that bring meaning and support their journey but may not become adherents. The cult of membership and right belief will be redeemed in ways that bring life and old institutions will die.

Come let us walk together, listen deeply and talk sparingly, sing together from joy. Let us gaze together in prayer on the one who causes us to ask for and seek a better kingdom. Let us praise our Father, practice gratitude for all we receive, and know ourselves for what we are, proud and wayward. Let us acknowledge our brokenness and walk humbly to love and serve the world in Christ.

‭James 1:22-27 HCSB‬
But be doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.
Because if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man looking at his own face in a mirror. For he looks at himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was.
But the one who looks intently into the perfect law of freedom and perseveres in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but one who does good works — this person will be blessed in what he does.
If anyone thinks he is religious without controlling his tongue, then his religion is useless and he deceives himself.
Pure and undefiled religion before our God and Father is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself unstained by the world.

https://bible.com/bible/72/jas.1.22-27.HCSB

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Broken

Posted on March 24, 2024 by M Emlyn Humphries

We are so proud and confident, and yet we know this is our downfall. Our religion is destroying us, our trying to be holy pulling us down.

The church was built on brokenness. We are formed into a body, a commonwealth gathered to a table, breaking bread and sharing the fruits of the vine. Life to the full. Yet in our companionship, the breaking of bread reminds us of the brokenness of Jesus’s body and the wine, the pouring out of his life.

Knowing our brokenness brings us before God. Our God saves, and rightwiseness is a gift.

Come let us boast in the Lord. Come let us love God. Come let is love one another. It begins with us knowing our need, a seed sown, that we might grow.

The Lord’s discipline is in giving us up to our own ways. It’s standing beside us when we muck up, being there, ready, when we choose to turn to him. The gate is his cross, the place of brokenness, the beginning of victory. The light is his presence in all creation, drawing us to him, to peace.

‭Psalms 118:18-29 HCSB‬


[18] The Lord disciplined me severely but did not give me over to death.

[19] Open the gates of righteousness for me; I will enter through them and give thanks to the Lord.

[20] This is the gate of the Lord; the righteous will enter through it.

[21] I will give thanks to You because You have answered me and have become my salvation.

[22] The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.

[23] This came from the Lord; it is wonderful in our eyes.

[24] This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.

[25] Lord, save us! Lord, please grant us success!

[26] He who comes in the name of the Lord is blessed. From the house of the Lord we bless you.

[27] The Lord is God and has given us light. Bind the festival sacrifice with cords to the horns of the altar.

[28] You are my God, and I will give You thanks. You are my God; I will exalt You.

[29] Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good; His faithful love endures forever.

https://bible.com/bible/72/psa.118.18.HCSB

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It’s not too late.

Posted on March 17, 2024 by M Emlyn Humphries

Jesus teaches all people not to be anxious for tomorrow – the day’s troubles are enough. He goes further, we can’t worry our hair longer, and God knows all things, even how many hairs we actually have, and the life span of every small creature. The beauty of the meadow is for the moment, every flower a fleeting glorious spectacle.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wheat_Sculpture.jpg

Yet some believe we can worry people into the kingdom of heaven. We want them to be anxious about the life to come and that there will come a day when it’s too late. I am not sure anyone understands the afterlife to be a threat in our day; today’s culture, if it thinks about an afterlife at all, believes universal salvation for themselves and their nearest and dearest. For the most part, the afterlife is a metaphor for a sentimental need. The end of life is a punishment or mercy in the popular consciousness. We look up to a mythical heaven from where our ancestors look down. But we don’t really believe it exists.

Jesus looks with compassion on our needs, and one of our needs is justice. In his parable about equal pay for day workers, no matter how long they have worked or waited longing for work, they get enough to feed their families. Jesus opens our eyes to true justice, challenging our concept of fairness. One of his last acts on the cross is to welcome the criminal into heaven. Jesus opens the way to eternal life to the criminal because of what he sees in his heart? This is the new covenant he heralds.

‭Jeremiah 31:33-34 NRSV‬
[33] But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. [34] No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, “Know the Lord,” for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.

https://bible.com/bible/2016/jer.31.33.NRSV

We are to forgive endlessly under this rule, not because we have been told to, but because this is what God does. Our obedience is to see the offender as family, to act from a heart of love – to do good.

There is evil. I hope God is angry at sin. I hope he is livid about injustice and abuse; about wars and want. Hunger and thirst for righteousness and fully expect you will be filled. It’s those indifferent to the plight of others who weep and gnash their teeth – the opportunity they missed was to do good. They believed they had made the right decision – they looked alright and were in the right tribe. I want judgement, but that was not Jesus’ task. He went obediently to the cross.

‭John 12:31-32 NRSV‬
[31] Now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out. [32] And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.”

https://bible.com/bible/2016/jhn.12.31.NRSV

The wrath of God is satisfied on the cross. By his sacrifice, the rulers and principalities are exposed, exposed, and exposed again.
By his death, their mask is ripped off – holy seed is planted.

‭John 12:24-26 NRSV‬
[24] Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. [25] Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. [26] Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also. Whoever serves me, the Father will honor.

https://bible.com/bible/2016/jhn.12.24.NRSV

We are called to nurture the green shoots we see and to help gather in the harvest. I am not sure we are to form waysides for people to wither on, but I am sure we should work with God who prepares good ground for seeds to flourish.

The cares of the world are the way the world holds people. Are we to have and to hold people by anxiety about the afterlife – fight fire with fire? Or are we to live a life of abundance in every circumstance that opens people’s eyes to the good news that wrath rules no more however troubled our lives. God’s just wrath, and God’s answer to wrath is made visible on the cross, and the sin of the world is defeated. What foolishness, God wins us by selfgiving sacrifice, not a threat.
Let us clothe the naked, feed the hungry, shelter the homeless, visit those in prison – love wins, not fear. Our only worry should be, will I be found here with the righteous.

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Something from nothing

Posted on February 27, 2024 by M Emlyn Humphries

‭Psalms 22:26-29 NRSV‬
[26] The poor shall eat and be satisfied; those who seek him shall praise the Lord. May your hearts live forever! [27] All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord; and all the families of the nations shall worship before him. [28] For dominion belongs to the Lord, and he rules over the nations. [29] To him, indeed, shall all who sleep in the earth bow down; before him shall bow all who go down to the dust, and I shall live for him. https://bible.com/bible/2016/psa.22.26.NRSV

This is hard to see sometimes, but in Faith, we persevere. Peter struggled to see the one he named Anointed as achieving this through death. Jesus begins the story, saying,

‭Mark 8:29-33 NRSV‬
[29] He asked them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter answered him, “You are the Messiah.” [30] And he sternly ordered them not to tell anyone about him. [31] Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. [32] He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. [33] But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”

https://bible.com/bible/2016/mrk.8.30.NRSV

The promise of the psalm is fulfilled in Jesus, not the way of violence. This is a new and everflowing, everlasting rule. Abundant life comes through denial.

‭Mark 8:34-36 NRSV‬
[34] He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. [35] For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. [36] For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life?

https://bible.com/bible/2016/mrk.8.34.NRSV

But we are not called to a martyr complex, to be door mats. In fact, Paul tells us,

‭1 Corinthians 13:3 NRSV‬
[3] If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

https://bible.com/bible/2016/1co.13.3.NRSV

Love is always the test of the authenticity of a call to self-denial, not duty or obligation. We all well and truly muck up; wilfully say the wrong thing, do the wrong thing, hurt, and get hurt. We can push our feelings down or over share, but there is no healing to the cringe we feel. Only love completes anything we might have to do. Peter has to learn the extent of this love, the love of Jesus that has the power to heal, to strip us of our self-reliance and open our eyes to the new way. This way is the way of freedom, freedom from sin, and freedom to walk in forgiveness. Faith in Jesus’ birth death and resurection is the foundation of all love and abundant life.

Source

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Enough is enough.

Posted on February 20, 2024 by M Emlyn Humphries

So there are very few of us. We’re also at the stage of life when some of us will be moving on, physically and spiritually. Every now and then, people join. We are enough. But,we are thinking things through: not standing still.


‭Psalms 25:10 NRSV‬
[10] All the paths of the Lord are steadfast love and faithfulness, for those who keep his covenant and his decrees.

https://bible.com/bible/2016/psa.25.10.NRSV

So we are meeting, we are singing, we are holding one another accountable, sharing bread and wine, and most of all, we are waiting on God and praying. As far as God has led us, we are loving Jesus.


‭Mark 1:9-12 NRSV‬
[9] In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. [10] And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. [11] And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” [12] And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness.

https://bible.com/bible/2016/mrk.1.9.NRSV

In Christ, we hear this; our Father is well pleased. Our temptation may be to seek renown. But God has led us here, and we pray; Lead us not into temptation.

Not the welcome you get with us.
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