For The Blind and Lame

God’s Call

Friday, May 23, 2025

Includes All Who We’d Leave Behind

Feeling Like Firewood Left to Rot,

God Still Gathers In All Us Outcasts

Jeremiah 31:8

See, I am going to bring them from the land of the north, and gather them from the farthest parts of the earth, among them the blind and the lame, those with child and those in labour, together; a great company, they shall return here.

Luke 14:21

So the slave returned and reported this to his master. Then the owner of the house became angry and said to his slave, ‘Go out at once into the streets and lanes of the town and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame.’

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Words of Grace for Today –

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The banquet table is set, the food is ready or on the last stages of being prepared, there’s even dessert, a specialty seldom enjoyed except by the wealthy.

And then no one comes.

So the master sends one or more out to call in the homeless, the rejected, the immigrants … all those we’d leave behind.

And the feast is fully appreciated by those so hungry for food, and even more to be noticed, to matter, to count for something good.

So God calls us all.

Yet those that are doing well on their own don’t seem to sense a need to show up. It’s not about being saved: as if those that don’t come aren’t saved. All are already saved. It’s living out that salvation that is tough. We prefer the comforts of being slaves to our sins, stuck in our comfort zones that the devil uses to keep us from living.

So God sends out urgent messages to those others, those we’d rather not acknowledge exist. They might not have understood the invitation was for them, for they just are not ever included in anything, so why this?

But they show up.

God’s children all.

Misfits all.

Baptized, marked with the cross, and commissioned to serve those most in need.

What a motley crew!

And aren’t we fortunate if we know we are one of them!

So what will we do this day, to give God thanks for the feast and the dessert?

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There’s plenty of others hungry to know they matter.

Giving God Praise

Along With All Creation

Thursday, May 22, 2025

At the break of dawn, to the setting of the sun,

And even all through the night of doubt and sorrow.

Psalm 74:21 (see also Psalm 67)

Do not let the downtrodden be put to shame; let the poor and needy praise your name.

Let the nations be glad and sing for joy. (Ps. 67:4)

Matthew 15:25-28

But the Canaanite woman came and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, help me.” He answered, “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” She said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” Then Jesus answered her, “Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.” And her daughter was healed instantly.

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Words of Grace for Today –

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The challenges – all those under a deadline – and all besides the immediate ones to be dealt with – the challenges keep me awake, wondering how to improve the poor results methods I’ve used when I have barely anymore resources or smarts on how to meet the challenges.

And then the morning fire started,

I stood, peering, turning, overwhelmed by the music, wondering …

the geese squawked in a line, not a ‘V’ high overhead, passing in and out of the clouds covering the whole sky, calming the light …

cattle mooed insistently off down and beyond the shores adding a cacophony to the

song birds chirping, singing, swaying the air …

as loons called disturbed by something or was it just they were waking to a new day?

Wondering what great praise the music brings to the Creator, Saviour, Sustainer, 3 in 1.

The light, calm, grey, settled over the fog covered green, green grass in the lower north meadow

giving the orchestra an album cover …

before I decided the fire was probably well started, the ash door could be closed, and I could go in and take the morning medication and crawl back into bed, an opposite standing encore, laying down and letting the music of praise go on and on

and

on.

Healing the music brings, flowing freely, gently over all that is, was, and will be.

So it’s a reset to stand and wonder how

God brings all that music together as the dawn breaks

at 4:40 am.

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And how is your morning, your day, and your night going?

So Much To Fear

So Little Certainty

Wednesday, May 21, 2025

God Alone is Strong, Giving Us Strength to Be Gracious to All.

All That We Enjoy

Can Go Up In Smoke So Easily.

Destruction is Easier and Faster

than Building Goodness.

Zephaniah 3:16-17

On that day it shall be said to Jerusalem: Do not fear, O Zion; do not let your hands grow weak. The Lord, your God, is in your midst, a warrior who gives victory; he will rejoice over you with gladness, he will renew you in his love; he will exult over you with loud singing.

Jude 1:22

And have mercy on some who are wavering.

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Words of Grace for Today –

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These days of uncertainty remind us how little can be guaranteed, no matter how much it seems they have been ours as long as memory serves.

Many have fought, suffered, and died. Others have survived, remembered, and work diligently. Many more have committed their lives to serving, according to God’s Will. Yet the majority just take it for granted.

8 May ZDF broadcast the Worship Service for the 80th anniversary of the end of WWII in Europe, a memorial for the day of being liberated. While Asia did not see the end of the war until August in 1945, Germany remembers, with thanks, with endless guilt at having started the war and all its destruction, for it did not just break out into war. It was begun. Even more Germany remembers the efforts made to rebuild for decades after hostilities ceased. And they give thanks for the prosperity and peace that Europe has enjoyed since.

The violence, destruction, and death in Ukraine, just 100s of km east, remind them that the lack of war is not ever guaranteed.

But Peace is more than just the lack of the violence, conflict, and destruction of war. Peace, in this world, is also to have institutions that honour all people, space and opportunity to worship as one chooses, and a social contract (an unspoken contract between people) that all are free to speak one’s mind, but no one is free to harm others, not even with words. Where the balance between the needs of the community and the needs of individuals is respected, upheld, and understood to be fragile. Where justice is striven for earnestly by all. And where peace, and all that makes it, is understood to be fragile, never guaranteed, and always requiring that we work to give it to the next generations each decade, knowing it requires great sacrifice to rebuild it decade after decade, year after year, day after day, and that begins with each of us.

Here in Canada, as the US has rewritten the world order these past few months, when rising global powers continue to grow in strength and threat, when fragments of extremists and war-minded groups, militia, and failed states continue to create chaos in our world, we must remain vigilant, and continually strive for those things that make for peace in our nation, in our province, in our communities, and in our homes. Ignorance and apathy, fake news and heated rhetoric, extreme ‘solutions’ and the status quo can have no place in our lives if peace is to continue here for us. If we are to avoid the complete loss of prosperity that we have enjoyed more or less for the past many decades.

But Jesus and his followers remind us that this kind of peace, peace that we must work for every day, is not the kind of peace God offers us. God offers us a more powerful, more life-changing, more effective kind of peace. It is the peace that the Holy Spirit gives us, and teaches us to share with all people.

The Peace that God gives us enables us to work for peace in the world, the kind that brings prosperity and possibilities to all.

Servants, Happy

Birthday

Saturday, May 20, 2025

Simon

Always Storms Threaten,

Weeds Can Slow Us,

Still Jesus Calls Us

Onward to …

Psalm 119:36

Turn our hearts to your decrees, and not to selfish gain.

Titus 2:7-8

Show yourself in all respects a model of good works, and in your teaching show integrity, gravity, and sound speech that cannot be censured; then any opponent will be put to shame, having nothing evil to say of us.

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Words of Grace for Today –

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Jesus calls and bids us die.

Dietrich Bonhöffer

Jesus calls each one of us, to different lives of service,

always self-sacrificial service.

Not self accomplishments, nor selfishly accumulating wealth, power, or fame.

Just service,

bringing the basics of life, and the extravagant gifts of the Holy Spirit, to all people, especially those most in need.

Where of where

are you going this day?

With Jesus?

Or off into the wilderness so large it swallows up souls day after day?

Singing With Cause

For God is Good

Thursday, April 24, 2025

to each of us in God’s own way.

sometimes it’s hard to see

Psalm 13:6

I will sing to the Lord, because he has dealt bountifully with me.

Mark 7:37

They were astounded beyond measure, saying, ‘He has done everything well; he even makes the deaf to hear and the mute to speak.’

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Words of Grace for Today –

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Jesus walks from village to village with his disciples following along. Dusty roads. Wise sayings and guidance, and challenges to the powers that were. And miracles healing the incurable. And giving renewed life to the worst sinners (or were they the best sinners? That always catches me.)

As we realize that, though Jesus is not healing us of our incurable diseases as record numbers of people die from disease (mostly because there are more people than ever trying to live on earth,) – though Jesus may not be healing us of diseases, Jesus is freeing us from our sins and sending us out with purpose: to provide all people with the food of life, and the living water.

For that we can sing God’s praises, each day and each night.

Pick a melody, the hills and the planets provide the harmony.

Choices, Everyone Has Them

As For Us

Monday, April 21, 2025

We are Returning To God

By the Spirit’s Work In Us We Turn To The Light,

not on our own,

never,

we cannot ever.

First Samuel 7:3

Then Samuel said to all the house of Israel, ‘If you are returning to the Lord with all your heart, then put away the foreign gods and the Astartes from among you. Direct your heart to the Lord, and serve him only, and he will deliver you out of the hand of the Philistines.’

1 Corinthians 8:6

… yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.

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Words of Grace for Today –

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We all make choices.

God gives us that ability.

To choose to love as God created us, or to turn and serve other gods or godlets or ourselves.

We would like to take the credit for choosing right, for choosing to turn to God, to love God, ourselves, our neighbours, our enemies and all creation,

BUT

WE cannot.

On our own we cannot ever make such choices.

What we can all on our own is turn away from God, away from love, to ways that diminish and extinguish life for us all, and for all creation.

That is the starting point of honesty with ourselves, and our own turning to God: We cannot turn ourselves to God.

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But God can.

God does.

The Holy Spirit works in us.

And we are able thus to leave behind our godlets, our false gods, our worship of ourselves.

We are able to turn and trust God as we serve those in need.

Christ Is Risen!

Christ ist erstanden!

Sunday, April 20, 2025

Hallelujia!

God Chooses Life

For Us All!

Luke 24:1ff

On the first day of the week, at early dawn, [the women] came to the tomb, taking the spices that they had prepared. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they went in, they did not find the body. While they were perplexed about this, suddenly two men in dazzling clothes stood beside them. The women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen.

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Words of Grace for Today –

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Today with great joy we proclaim:

Christ is Risen! (He is risen indeed!) Christ is Risen! (He is risen indeed!) Christ is Risen! (He is risen indeed!)

What’s For Breakfast?

Winnie the Pooh and Piglet take an evening walk. For a long time they walk in silence. Silence like only best friends can share.

Finally Piglet breaks the silence and asks, ‘When you wake up in the morning, Pooh, what’s the first thing you say to yourself?’

Pooh answers quickly, ‘What’s for breakfast?’ and then asks. ‘And what do you say, Piglet?’

Piglet says, ‘I say, I wonder what exciting thing is going to happen today?’

Billy Strayhorn, Easter Heart Burn, www.Sermons.com adapted 2025

What wondrous things God has in store for us today, just as God had the most wondrous thing in store for the women that first Easter as they made their way to Jesus’ tomb with their spices.

As for the women that day and for Christians ever since, Easter morning is the most joyous time of all our lives! But this day’s joy cannot be truly appreciated, if we do not remember what has brought us to this day.

Easter Only After …

After Advent calls us to be alert, to wait for Jesus’ Christmas’ birth, long promised. After, in Epiphanies unending, God reveals Christ’ Light come to shine forever in our darkness. After Jesus draws us up to the mountaintop-wonder of his glory revealed, so astounding!

After all that and more in this year so far, we were marked with ashes. Ashes bring us back to the humble reality of who we are: sinful people needing to repent, to be saved … again and again. So Jesus calls us to repent, to turn to God.

Repentance though is a root problem, not a problem of what fruit we produce. It lies at the root of who we see ourselves to be. “I can” statements cannot form our repentance, such as “I have sinned God. I am sorry God. I can do better.” Repentance contains our “I can’t” and “God can” statements: “I have sinned, God. I am sorry, God. I’ve tried and tried and tried but I just don’t produce good fruit. I can’t do better.

I need your Vine dresser to work on the roots of my life. Turn me around to your will. Give me a new life, God. Give me your life. I can’t. You can.”

(Richard Jensen, Preaching Luke’s Gospel p. 147, via B. Stoffregen, “Gospel Notes, adapted 2001 & 2025)

No matter how hard we try, we cannot save ourselves. Only God can. So we turn to Jesus, who bends down to wash our feet at his last meal. And we protest like Peter that it should not be so. We try to protect Jesus, with swords, but Jesus tells us to put them away. We stand by, waiting, in grief, and, like Peter, we deny we know Jesus when others threaten us for being his followers, (or because we feel uncomfortable following such a demanding Saviour.) We watch as he is crucified, most torturous. Jesus is thirsty as one in three people on earth are today. He receives sour wine. Most receive nothing. And Jesus, the hope of all nations, of all generations, dies…

and is buried

in a new tomb

spices and linen covering his body.

It is the greatest victory for Evil, for Evil has wielded death against God’s own Son and won.

Our hope has died as well, for what hope can we possibly find? There is none. There is none. There is none … without Easter.

Jesus Gives Us The Badly Needed …

Early in the morning on that third day the women go to the tomb with spices for the body, but Jesus is not there. He has risen from the grave.

The story is more than one resurrection; for others, like Lazarus, have been resurrected before. With Jesus’ resurrection all evil, even death, is defeated, for all time. And with that defeat God promises us all resurrection to new life.

For Jesus’ story is not just standing at home plate and hitting a home run out of the stadium. It’s standing at the plate, in the bottom of the thirteenth inning, with a full count, down three runs, bases loaded, having been put up at the plate in desperation by the manager, after you are mostly recovered from a chemotherapy treatment three days ago and surgery on your left shoulder last month, at 65 years old. You will never be here again, ever, even if you beat cancer.

Then you hit a home run to the utter amazement and benefit of a home town desperate for a team that could finally win.

That’s Jesus, not only on the cross, but risen on Easter morning for us, giving us all a badly needed win over Evil and Death itself.

What appeared to be Evil’s greatest victory, using jealousy, ridicule, plotting, bribery, riotous crowds, false testimony, weak leaders, a false conviction, and that most terrible symbol of Rome’s power, the cross …

What appeared to be Evil’s victory over everything good, over all hope, over all love,

is denied!

Instead God works love in a most demonstrative way, and Jesus returns to teach, call, and send us, his disciples, out to share the Good News with the world.

But we’ve heard all that before, haven’t we?

More Precious Than A Sweet Orange

In East Germany in the early 1980s fresh fruits were so scarce that a simple orange was a very special Christmas gift. Imagine (if it could be found and then afforded) one simple and always imperfect orange was the most precious gift one could give … and so sweet to receive!

Jesus’ Easter story is more precious than any gifted orange, and still, like the bags of oranges now available to us in grocery stores, we take it for granted. Yet, as we hear the familiar story once again, it is God’s promise to each of us, that we too can live again. That promise is more precious for us today than that scarce and costly Christmas orange.

That promise is not just for 2000 years ago, nor only for all the sins of our past. It is a promise that we will never be separated from God’s love, not by any sin, not by the most powerful Evil, not even by death itself. And don’t we know there’s enough sin and evil and death going around still today!

This is the ‘home run’ we most need again today.

As Christ’s new creation forms around us and in us, we proclaim:

Christ is Risen!

He is Risen Indeed!

Amen

Fools All

Thinking They’re Wise

Tuesday, April 15, 2025

The Most Foolish of Follies.

True Wisdom is As Accessible As Beauty,

Everywhere!

Jeremiah 8:9

The wise shall be put to shame, they shall be dismayed and taken; since they have rejected the word of the Lord, what wisdom is in them?

1 Corinthians 1:20

Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?

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Words of Grace for Today –

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The world’s ways spawn many people who think they are wise, who are told by many others they are wise, who’s counsel is taken by many especially those in power.

But they are nothing but mere fools, thinking they know so much, in such good ways, as to bring the world forward to some nebulous goal.

God’s Word brings a different kind of wisdom:

Jesus sees the crowds, climbs the mountain, sits down, and begins to teach. Actually, he begins to turn everything upside down. Or is it right-side-up? All of a sudden, the meek, the poor and the heartbroken are the blessed ones — and our enemies are the ones we should pray for. The Sermon on the Mount is one of the greatest gifts of scripture to humanity; just ask Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., and Leo Tolstoy. But who is making any use of it today?

In a time, like every other, when an eye for an eye still seems to hold sway, what is this seemingly bizarre logic of Christian non-violence, beginning with Jesus’ counsel to ‘turn the other cheek’*

if not the wisdom of God for us all.

* CBC IDEAS’ Newsletter description of IDEAS’ “Turn the Other Cheek: The Radical Case for Nonviolent Resistance” episode for 14 Oct 2022 and rebroadcast Good Friday 18 April 2025

Oh My Goodness!

Or Rather God’s Goodness,

Monday, April 14, 2025

Spread across all creation!

Always Centre,

Shining Gloriously,

God’s Steadfast Love!

Psalm 33:5

He loves righteousness and justice; the earth is full of the steadfast love of the Lord.

Acts of the Apostles 14:17

… yet he has not left himself without a witness in doing good—giving you rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, and filling you with food and your hearts with joy.

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Words of Grace for Today –

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Goodness.

Goodness received and enjoyed and given thanks for,

or Goodness received and ignored and complaints made high and wide.

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The Goodness of God pervades all creation, and yet we fail to notice it, even in stark contrast to all the

unrighteousness

injustice

and enduring hate

that humans play out against each other,

Like shadows hiding from the good light.

Like shadows that point us to the light.

May the soft rains of spring fall before the fires of wild woods burn and spread smoke across all that is good and bad.

May the steadfast love of God penetrate our thick skins, hard hearts, and dense skulls, and bring us to give thanks for all that nourishes us and gives us unmatched cause for joy.

This is what God made us for.

Cheating Others?

Fear God and Stop

Sunday, April 13, 2025

Fear God Almighty Already –

Stop so that you may live!

For the love of God,

Leave Wilful Evil Behind

and Find Joy

IN Life Abundant.

Leviticus 25:17

You shall not cheat one another, but you shall fear your God; for I am the Lord your God.

Philippians 2:5

Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus….

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Words of Grace for Today –

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Let

not achieve or make yourself or strive,

just let

let the Holy Spirit put in you

the same mind that was and is in Jesus the Christ!

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What is that?

Jesus taught, healed, sacrificed, served the poor, welcomed everyone, and died to save us all.

Can you do that?

Can anyone of us do that?

Not on our own, for sure!

But cheating others,

I mean

taking life from others with deceptions and lies and all that.

Come on, you think that gives you anything worthwhile? Really?

It just sucks the life right out of you, even as you continue to walk and work and futilely strive to live well.

The fear of God ought to have kept you from that path long ago.

But it hasn’t, has it?

So fear of God does not help you.

Perhaps you ought to surrender to God’s love for you.

God intends that you live as Jesus did.

Now that’s living!

Try surrendering to the Holy Spirit working in you,

repenting, making amends, working to give to others,

starting today!

Why not?

You’ve nothing to lose, except what God has given you exactly for this purpose, to imitate Jesus.

God waits, always with steadfast love and grace.