Musings Along Lifes Way: God's Love

Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.., 8 for God is love. 9God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. 10In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us.... 11Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another. 12No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us.

What makes your heart sing? What do you love? For many of us, members and friends of First Congregational UCC, our church makes the heart sing, but even more so, we are in a love affair with God.

Love is a wonderful thing! Let us be glad and rejoice in just that, we love God. But, check things out in John’s first letter: it is not that we loved God, that is not the big deal – the unbelievable, great news is this: God first loved us. Our love for God, for our church, our love for our family and friends is a gift because God first loved us. God’s love for us is our first love – primary, predating even the love our parents have (had) for us. Now, isn’t that interesting: all love proceeds for God. This is a very good thing, showing us that love itself, God’s self, reaches further than we can imagine – embracing all. God’s love is basic, underlying the love a mother has for her child, the love that two people who are considering marriage have for one another, the love a child has for her parents, the love that we have for our friends, the love that we carry for people we haven’t even met yet. God’s love supports all this – supports everything. This first love is THE TRUTH attested to by all the spiritual teachers of all time. This first love is the midwife’s hand helping you out of the womb. This first love is the hospice nurse as he holds you while you take your last breath. There is no where that this first love does not reach.

Even our grumbling and grousing, our moaning and complaining--is held in God’s love. The gospel is Good News, pure and simple: there is an unending supply of God’s love, ours is a rhythm of abundance. You cannot escape this love that reaches everywhere. So what do you with it?

Your heart sings, you raise your voice, give witness and testimony. Everyone needs to know of God’s undying, unending, limitless unconditional love. The Church uses a particular word when talking about sharing God’s love with others: evangelism. Yes, yes, I know that is a hard word. We have seen others turn this word around where the good news seems to become unwelcome burdensome news – having something to do with being able to repeat a certain belief. But No! Evangelism is simply telling Good News. What do we tell? That there is a first love, a love that gives meaning and life to all loves. Evangelism is really an invitation to fall head over heels into this first love, so that we can become all that it is humanly possible to become: reflections of divine love in the world.

So, what makes your heart sing? Who do you love? Who loves you? Remember Jesus summing up all spiritual knowledge—two rules: Love the lord your God, heart mind and soul. And love your neighbor as yourself. That’s good news. Love, David

Musings Along Lifes Way: What Jesus Taught

As we approach the Bible, it might be hard for any of us to know what precisely it is that Jesus taught. The different gospel writers each had their own slant on Jesus. They differ in many ways ranging from particular theologies as to who Jesus was to the ways in which they shaped their voices for their particular audiences. For instance, the writer of Matthew is clearly a Jewish author placing Jesus within the Jewish thought world and perspective, where John, written much later has a clear anti-Jewish bias in his telling of the story and teachings of Jesus. If we study the gospels closely we are left with the question, “What exactly did Jesus teach?”

Over the next nine weeks of summer we will be examining the teachings of Jesus. The parables give us insight into the teachings of Jesus: how he re-imagined the world and how these re-imaginings subverted contemporary renderings of the world, or reality itself. In his teachings on the Kingdom of God, Jesus imagines a kingdom where the first shall be last, and the last shall be first. His imaginings of the Kingdom are such that the realm of God is more like a mustard plant, small and pervasive weed than it is like a strong cedar of Lebanon – is more pervasive than it is dominant and domineering.

In the next weeks we will discover how radical a teacher Jesus really was. We will explore his creative, parabolic imagination, and discuss the implications for his vision for our contemporary world. We will find, I think, that Jesus is as radical today as he was 2000 years ago. Here are the places that you can encounter Jesus’ parables and teachings over the next weeks:

~8:30 and 10:30 Worship on Sunday mornings. Check your brochures for each weeks scripture and theme. This week: SCANDAL ROCKS THE REALM!!
~9:30 am Adult Study on Sunday mornings. We will be studying the book, “Re-imagine the World: An Introduction to the Parable of Jesus by Bernard Brandon Scott
~10 am on Wednesdays during our Bible Study: we will be studying different parables each week.
~7 pm Beyond Belief: Meditation and Spiritual Enrichment: we will read the parables of Jesus during our Meditation times.

I am looking forward to studying the teachings of Jesus. I invite you all to share in this time of intellectual and spiritual exploration.

Blessings, David

P.S.: I just received a notice from the IRS that I will be receiving my Economic Stimulus Check this week. I’m excited because in the “Rhythm of Abundance” I will have an opportunity to “give back” 10% of my check to the church to help with our deficit.

Musings Along Lifes Way: We are called to be a People of Invitation

Dear Friends,
It’s hot. Yesterday, I was in my study at the church working on the grant proposal which we will be presenting to the national setting of the church. The day had started off warm and by 1:30 it was hot. That is when I heard the call. It was the swimming pool at the YMCA, calling out, “Come submerge yourself in my coolness, find relief in my waters.” What an invitation! For days like this, not a bad idea. God, the universe herself, calls out to us in a like way, inviting us into the loving-kindness that is the pattern of all that is. Did you know that we human beings can do this for each other?

We are called to be a people of invitation, inviting one another into the refuge of God’s presence. It is this way in the church. Churches are hubs of invitation, communities of loving-kindness and refuge, calling out, inviting. We have something to give, something that is unique in our world. However, we have to call out and invite people to join us. In the church of 1955 (the church many of us remember fondly – and for good reason), we held the idea that if we “built it they would come.” That used to be enough so churches of that era built great in house programs knowing that an active church would attract others. However, in 2008 this no longer works as a model for spreading the good news (evangelism).

Did you know that 87% of people who come to churches today and stay do so because someone invites them? Like the swimming pool in paragraph one of this note, we need to learn to call out, to invite. You see, in this fractured and fracturing world we offer coolness and relief. We carry the teachings of Jesus, which offer a clear alternative to the distractions, disorder, “the heat” of our day. With the teachings of Jesus we taste the pattern of things as they are, a kingdom or realm of God where the blind can see, the lame walk, the oppressed are set free. See how Jesus invites us.
I invite you to invite your friends to our church. What we have to share is “good news,” the blessings that we experience as a community of God’s love, the hope that is active and alive in our experience of the God’s grace.

Blessings,

David

Musings Along Life's Way: Celebrations!

Dear Friends,

This coming Sunday we will have the opportunity to honor our graduates and give thanks to our church musicians for a year of hard work in giving us outstanding music. So, we will celebrate. To sing is to embody prayer. To sing the singer must use her whole body. The breath is from the belly, deep with the diaphragm fully employed. To keep rhythm the singer moves, sometimes swaying with the beat. Emotions, too, are involved as they give color and flavor to the words sung. To sing is to embody prayer – to be fully involved as one gives glory to God. You are invited to come and celebrate our musicians this Sunday.

NEWS FLASH!!!
This Sunday, June 8, there will be a service of worship at the Center for Spiritual Living in celebration of Gay Pride Week. The service starts at 7 pm. I will be having a part in the service.

On July 26th, from 10 am to 12 pm, Ron Buford, the founding director of the God is Still Speaking initiative in the United Church of Christ will be coming to our church to direct a "financial development seminar." Since leaving Still Speaking Ron has been hired by the Northern California Nevada Conference to help churches in their identity and financial development. Put the date on your calendar.

Fed Ranches, from the Local Church Ministries – Evangelism Team will visit our church on June 28 and 29 as part of the process of renewing our revitalization grant for the next three years. Please try to attend church on that day.

Blessings, David