Month: May 2025

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.

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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.’

…

Words of Grace for Today –

…

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?

…

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)

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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?

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.

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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.

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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?