For you bless the righteous, O Lord; you cover them with favour as with a shield.
.
Acts of the Apostles 5:41-42
As they left the council, they rejoiced that they were considered worthy to suffer dishonour for the sake of the name. And every day in the temple and at home they did not cease to teach and proclaim Jesus as the Messiah.
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Words of Grace for Today –
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The Way of following Jesus, of going where God sends us and how the Holy Spirit guides us, with righteousness, wonder, and grace for all people,
The Way of following Jesus is never without risks and challenges.
Only when we trust that God shields us from final death, giving us new life each day, and everlasting life after death itself, can we proceed confidently into and through each day, meeting all challenges as Jesus would have us,
For who is God except the Lord? And who is a rock besides our God?
.
2 Corinthians 1:9-10
Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death so that we would rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead. He who rescued us from so deadly a peril will continue to rescue us; on him we have set our hope that he will rescue us again
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Words of Grace for Today –
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Since we keep on sinning in old and rarely in new ways, God keeps saving us, again and again.
We have reason to give God thanks many times each day.
We have reason to hope to a future formed by God, and not ruined by those who try so hard these days (as each day has had many someones ready to ruin it).
That hope does not crumble, like shale.
Rather God gives us hope that is as solid as granite or marble, even more sure than matter existing in the universe, more sure than we can wrap our hearts and minds around.
Try squeezing a piece of granite or marble.
And then trust God to be more solidly for us, for us all.
For then, in those days and at that time, when I restore the fortunes of Judah and Jerusalem,
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Acts of the Apostles 2:33
Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this that you both see and hear.
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Words of Grace for Today –
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Something has happened, is happening, will happen …
What is it?
It happened when God restored the fortunes of Judah and Israel.
It happened after Jesus was exalted at the right hand of God, having received the promise of the Holy Spirit, when Jesus poured out something that the readers of Luke’s saw and heard.
What is it?
Whatever it was, we know that God is still doing it in our midst, and that God will continue to do it in our midst, so that we can hear and see it as the early followers of Jesus did.
What is it?
It is tied to the restoration of fortunes for God’s people, to Jesus’ return from life and death on earth to sit at God’s right hand, and to Jesus receiving the gifts of the Holy Spirit as promised.
What is it?
It sounds like … It looks like … It could be ….
But the texts don’t give that information, though the fuller texts could.
What is it?
Perhaps our experience with God will inform us as well.
Who has directed the spirit of the Lord, or as his counsellor has instructed him?
John 3:8
The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.
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Words of Grace For Today
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So many times we want or desperately feel we must get control, control of an uncontrollable in our lives. So we grasp
grasp
grasp
and think that we can twist
reality
so that we can control God
to be as we need God to be.
But
God remains beyond our control, or our ability to predict.
We can only trust the testimonies of so many saints who have gone before us that God is always gracious and merciful, and abounding in steadfast love.
What’s Coming At Us, From Behind the Trees, On the Road, Through the Woods?
Or
What a Beautiful Sunset
Over the Snow and
Through the Woods!
Isaiah 49:23
Kings shall be your foster-fathers, and their queens your nursing-mothers. With their faces to the ground they shall bow down to you, and lick the dust of your feet. Then you will know that I am the Lord; those who wait for me shall not be put to shame.
Luke 12:11-12
When they bring you before the synagogues, the rulers, and the authorities, do not worry about how you are to defend yourselves or what you are to say; for the Holy Spirit will teach you at that very hour what you ought to say.’
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Words of Grace For Today
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It’s all fine and good to say do not worry, but most of us worry no matter what, sometimes even about things that deserve to be worried about.
Being brought before the authorities to defend oneself for being a Christian, when the punishment for that faith was death for so many … well that certainly seems to deserve more than a little worry. One’s life is on the line.
But then
one’s life is always on the line
if one is faithfully serving Christ
by being a servant to all, and master to none.
Only in a different life will the kings and queens bend so low as to care for us, let alone care about us, other than to wipe us out for showing the truth about their wickedness and God’s goodness.
But that worry, and that other life to come, need not consume more than passing thoughts from us. We have our work cut out for us, sharing God’s blessing and gifts with those most in need of them. Without cost they are given to us, though we certainly have not and cannot earn them. The only ‘string’ attached is that we share them. For these gifts are really only blessings if and when we share them with others in need.
That’s how God’s world works, whether we worry or not.
For from the least to the greatest of them, everyone is greedy for unjust gain; and from prophet to priest, everyone deals falsely. They have treated the wound of my people carelessly, saying, ‘Peace, peace’, when there is no peace.
Romans 12:9
Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good;
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Words of Grace For Today
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We’ve all heard again that famous, or infamous, Rant, I am Canadian. With quiet music building to swells of patriotic music Joe states his case:
Hey, I’m not a lumberjack or a fur trader
I don’t live in an igloo or eat blubber or own a dogsled.
and I don’t know Jimmy, Sally or Suzy from Canada, although I’m certain that their really, really nice.
Uh
I have a prime minister, not a president.
I speak English and French not American
and I pronounce it about, not aboot.
I can proudly sew my country’s flag on my backpack.
I believe in peacekeeping not in policing.
I believe in diversity, not assimilation.
And I believe the beaver is a truly proud and noble animal.
A toque is a hat.
And a chesterfield is a couch.
And it’s pronounced Zed, not Zee, Zed.
Canada is the second largest landmass
The first nation of hockey
and the best part of North America.
My name is Joe
and I am Canadian.
Reality
Given Trump and his threats and actual tariffs that will do great damage to our economy, one can understand the call to be patriotic.
At the core of our problems, though, we do not find economics or politics, but good old fashion love, faith, and hope, expressed as empathy and care for all people, especially the poor.
So ours is not a rant but a chant backed by any number of great pieces of music, for example “Canticle of the Turning” (ELW 723) by Rory Cooney, to the lively Irish folk tune used as a rugby match song:
Hey, I am not a crusading knight, nor a desert ascetic.
I don’t hold exorcisms, live in Corinth or Bethlehem or Nazareth.
I have a pastor and a bishop, not a coach or a guru.
I speak many native languages, but not Latin or Sanskritic.
I proudly were a cross on a fine chain around my neck.
I believe in peace not in war or violence.
I believe in respecting and welcoming diversity, not excluding strangers or foreigners.
I believe the fish is a wonderful symbol of faith, as is the boat.
I’m not concerned with how people pronounce words, but that we share the radical Word of God.
God’s favour is not won by what we do or say or believe, but is God’s free gift given to us.
We can refuse it and we do, sinners that we are. But God keeps saving us over and over again, making us saints able to do miraculous things for others, especially the poor, the hungry, the homeless, the outcasts, refugees, strangers, and especially children.
Christianity may be worldwide and messed up in many places, sometimes even here at home, but it is the gift of life,
the gift of life abundant for all people.
We may be getting fewer in number, but being a follower of Jesus is the best part of life.
My name is not important because God knows it and everything about me and still loves me. I’m not ashamed of my name, yet it’s not what I’m proud of.
I’m proud that I bear Jesus’ cross and Jesus’ name,
Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.
Romans 14:9
For to this end Christ died and lived again, so that he might be Lord of both the dead and the living.
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Words of Grace For Today
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At my father’s funeral the pastor gave a heartwarming eulogy using the image of a table around which his father welcomed so many different kinds of people.
If we accept that God judges us according to how good we are, what good we think, say, and do while alive, then the pastor set us up to be thankful that my father passed into everlasting life because he met the criteria needed, instead of being judged lacking and therefore passed into everlasting shame and contempt.
Except that is not at all how we believe God judges us, not at all, not at all.
We trust that Jesus lives, loves, dies, and rises from the dead to clearly demonstrate to us how much God always loves us, and that love includes that Jesus saves us from judgment according to our sins. Rather Jesus’ record replaces ours, and by grace alone we live and die in God’s favour, blessed, and equipped to be God’s love and forgiveness for others.
Later it became heart-rendingly obvious that the pastor did not once mention that my father was a sinner, who made his share of mistakes, who God loved, who Jesus died to save, and who the Holy Spirit equipped to do the good things he did.
Which made me sad, for myself and everyone else at the funeral, having missed that during his funeral. And it made me sad for the pastor, who close to retirement, did not provide the one clear message of God’s love that we receive and have to share, giving hope even in the face of death.
If we leave no room for God’s love and grace we do not honour the real person, or God’s promises to us and for us.
Do we then try to create a similar false version of life for ourselves, a living, lying eulogy?
Joseph said to his brothers: Even though you intended to do harm to me, God intended it for good, in order to preserve a numerous people, as he is doing today.
Luke 6:28
Bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.
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Words of Grace For Today
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I woke to a clear morning,
early before the sun rose
in the twilight of dawn
in the thick fog
holding visibility to less than a quarter kilometre.
How can this be, you rightfully ask.
Take Joseph’s words to his brothers: you intended to do me harm, but God made something good of it, preserving our lives and helping us grow to a great and numerous people.
If they hadn’t thrown in the pit, and then sold him into slavery, where he served, was falsely accused by the wife of his master, and finally freed by Pharaoh for his wisdom and set as Pharaoh’s right hand, in charge of saving grain to prepare for the 7 year famine to come,
which would have wiped out his family back home,
then Joseph would not have been in a position to save his family.
Things are never just what they seem to be.
Most often things are very complicated, an interwoven set of events, actors, sufferers, and results.
Jesus knows this full well. Bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.
Why?
Because things are never so simple.
The person who curses you today, when blessed may well be the person who saves you on the most challenging day of your life.
But even before that, cursing another person costs the person cursing as much as, if not more than, the person being cursed.
So how is this a clear morning in the soup of thick fog?
It’s complicated and true.
After a very short night’s sleep the night before last, leaving me in a brain fog of exhaustion yesterday, while I had to deal with a vehicle that just did not want to run,
last night I slept long and fast, a full 8.5 hours plus.
So the brain fog is gone. I see, think, hear clearly. I can work without risking making costly mistakes. It’s a wonderful recovery, made so marked by the comparison with how difficult yesterday was.
The fog shrouding the lake and touching even the trees across the meadow may limit visibility, but I need not see far to know what I see actually is what I can deal with, and must deal with.
Of course, I’m not driving or flying, in which case what you don’t see in the distance can literally knock you about until you are silly or never going see, hear, or smell anything ever again.
Today I am thankful (it is that weekend after all) that it is a crystal clear morning, shrouded in a wonderful hug of fog.
What has God done lately to use evil intentions, aimed at you, in order to bring about greater good? What can you be unexpectedly thankful for this morning?
