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.

…

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

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.

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

Turning Back

Being Turned Back

Tuesday, April 8, 2025

God’s Can, Our Can’t

The Beauty Only God Can Give,

A Day Brought To A Wondrous Close,

Is Ours As We Share It With Those Most In Need.

Second Chronicles 30:9

For as you return to the Lord, your kindred and your children will find compassion with their captors, and return to this land. For the Lord your God is gracious and merciful, and will not turn away his face from you, if you return to him.

Luke 22:32

Jesus spoke to Simon: but I have prayed for you that your own faith may not fail; and you, when once you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.

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Words of Grace for Today –

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God is gracious and merciful.

God can save us from ourselves, and from our enemies.

God can bring us to live life abundant

by sharing God’s generous gifts with others in need.

God can!

We cannot!

We cannot save ourselves!

We cannot make our lives better!

We cannot help others!

We cannot even turn back to God.

Only God can turn us back.

Nothing good can happen without God making it happen.

Nothing good happens that is not something we do for others.

Just another day in trying to fix it ourselves and making it worse.

And God saving us from ourselves,

and sending us out to help others.

God’s Holy Temple

Defiled

Saturday, March 29, 2025

All Creation Holy and Defiled

All Is Holy,

All Of It,

Wonders And All

Habakkuk 2:20

But the Lord is in his holy temple; let all the earth keep silence before him!

Mark 11:17

He was teaching and saying, ‘Is it not written, “My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations”? But you have made it a den of robbers.’

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Words of Grace for Today –

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So often we think of God as being there,

over there,

in that place,

that one holy place,

or one of many holy places.

Like churches, Temples, etc.

We make rules of how we are to behave in those special, holy places.

Good rules and traditions of hallowed places of prayer, worship, singing, giving thanks, feasting, welcoming all and sharing with everyone.

Which frees us to behave otherwise in all our places.

And that we are so good at that even in those special hallowed places we have behaved horrendously.

But!

God is everywhere in all creation.

All our places are first and foremost God’s places.

Our behaviour in ‘holy places’ as well as everywhere, should be governed by our following Jesus example, and the example of many, many saints who have gone before us, and who walk among us even today.

Reverence, prayers of gratitude, prayers of intercession, and acts of selfless love, acts of justice, acts of bringing equality to all.

Keeping God’s hallowed places holy, means keeping all creation holy, us included.

Hovering Overhead

Protection? … or Drones!

Friday, March 28, 2025

What Do We Hear/See?

See the Drone Threat, Or Is It The Moon Reflecting Christ’ Light?

Isaiah 31:5

Like birds hovering overhead, so the Lord of hosts will protect Jerusalem; he will protect and deliver it, he will spare and rescue it.

Matthew 10:6-7

but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. As you go, proclaim the good news, “The kingdom of heaven has come near.”

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Words of Grace for Today –

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Hovering overhead these days,

one thinks of drones, loaded with missiles of destruction used against targets, against enemies, against … too often, innocents.

Who protects them, and us

from Drones – including the metaphorical drones of crazy voices threatening our very lives, livelihoods, sovereignty?

Reset one’s mind to hear/see first the promise long ago given, that God will protect us, that God will bless us, that God will walk with us even when the way is troubled with our earthly demise, laden with minefields of unknown threats and disasters.

Knowing God’s love

unconditional love

for us

and for our enemies,

and remembering it first,

then

the drone threats are

nothing

in comparison to the blessings God already pours out on us, so we have so much to share with others.

Fear not.

Move with the Light,

The Kingdom of God is here!

To Be Seen

To Be Known

Wednesday, March 19, 2025

And Loved

Especially When We Are Cast Out,

Cut-Off,

Alone.

Job 40:3-4

Then Job answered the Lord: ‘See, I am of small account; what shall I answer you? I lay my hand on my mouth.

1 Corinthians 13:12

For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.

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Words of Grace for Today –

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There is nothing more frightening than to not be seen.

To have no one see one as a person, as a person of worth.

Or worse, to be seen and valued as worthy only for what one is not. To be a lie.

…

In the Psalm for this coming Sunday we read

O God, you are my God; eagerly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you, my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.

Our hearts, minds and spirits know from where we have come, and they thirst to be seen and known for who we are.

Most often we seek to be seen and known by other people. This is not misguided, for God created us people to be for each other God’s presence, God’s voice, heart, hands, and feet, graciously sharing all God’s gifts.

And as Jesus taught, to be God’s loving presence especially for the poor, the ill, the lost, the outcast, the foreigner, and even for our enemies.

What does God do for those, like Job, whom all others have rejected and there is no one to be God’s presence?

God comes and makes God’s own self visible, palatable, healing, loving, and enlivening in mysterious ways, in ways mystics have spoken of for generations.

Just as Paul knew there was no danger in not being seen by other people, because God still sees us, and knows us.

We need not bring our protests to God for how terrible the world has treated us, though we may. God can take it. We can know that God is Great above all, and we are but dust given spirit as a gift from God,

and we therefore can, especially during our Lenten journey, remain humble and still, bending low before the wonders of God all around us,

witnesses to God’s steadfast love for us.

And when we pray it can be in thanks in words the Psalmist gives us this Sunday:

For you have been my helper, and under the shadow of your wings I will rejoice.
My whole being clings to you; your right hand holds me fast.

It Once

Was Good

Sunday, March 16, 2025

But Now You Hide Life From Me

the light is nearly gone, just a sliver of it left,

and then …

Psalm 30:7-8

By your favour, O Lord, you had established me as a strong mountain; you hid your face; I was dismayed. To you, O Lord, I cried, and to the Lord I made supplication.

John 16:22

So you have pain now; but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you.

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Words of Grace for Today –

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Oh, it used to be so good, blessed people said, though they plotted and schemed to bring me down, down, down,

without cause, just jealousy and fear at being seen for what they are.

it was

but now

is no more

The joy is gone

the hope has died

for even God has deserted us

and all that is left are promises, promises, promises

as old as the ages and newer than fresh snow

that have been broken

through the ages

so often and

so often

again.

…

Where is the joy?

Everything is

Just the Same

Saturday, March 15, 2025

Old Story

The Blues,

from Sky to Ice

and Back.

Isaiah 62:2

The nations shall see your vindication, and all the kings your glory; and you shall be called by a new name that the mouth of the Lord will give.

2 Corinthians 5:17

So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!

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Words of Grace for Today –

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The Promises people make,

the Promises scripture makes on behalf of God,

the Promises people make to one another,

the Promises.

…

How can it all be new,

when it’s the same old, same old.

Putting creases on my face, and on yours.

Wearing my all down, down, down.

…

promises

…

More lines, more grief, more loss, more sorrow, more lines.

Until my face, your face, is no more, except dust.

…

So?