When I thought, ‘My foot is slipping’, your steadfast love, O Lord, held me up.
Luke 22:32
But I have prayed for you that your own faith may not fail; and you, when once you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.
Words of Grace For Today
At Jesus’ last supper he speaks to all about who is the greatest and then to Peter, Peter (as usual the arrogant man he was) denied he would deny Jesus, and Jesus tells him of his denial before the cock crows three times.
Jesus does not start with Peter’s failings, for they are legend and well recorded in the Gospels. Jesus starts telling Peter that he will turn back to God (after turning away).
So it is God tells us first of how God will save us, before God fills us in on how terribly we will fail God, deny God, turn against God and God’s people!
Only God’s love, in the face of our sinfulness, deceit, and destruction of God’s children, can possibly move us to confess our sins and to return to follow Jesus, pure and sinless only by the power of the Holy Spirit.
So we begin each day, each worship service, each sermon, each prayer by first recognizing God’s love that saves and our desperate need to be saved from our sins.
Then we proceed to celebrate the grand creation that God places us in and the calling we receive: to celebrate God’s love by being God’s love for all people.
May Look Like All the Brokenness Left from All Our Yesterdays
Doch
God, Robes All the Saints,
In New and Righteous Garments,
So That We Rejoice in God’s Grace That We Get to Share
With Everyone
Isaiah 61:10
I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my whole being shall exult in my God; for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation, he has covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself with a garland, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.
Acts 8:39
When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord snatched Philip away; the eunuch saw him no more, and went on his way rejoicing.
Words of Grace For Today
As she’d gotten older, year by year, month by month, even week by week, Jill had spent more and more time getting ready for the day. What started as a simple wash and run in her 20’s, by the time she was 50 was a thorough wash, application of 5 different ‘cleansing’ and ‘preserving’ soaps and lotions, followed by a ten minute exercise routine, then three different pills (a medication for GERDS, a vitamin for women 50+, and a glucosamine for arthritis), a breakfast with Omega3 and antioxidants, and a careful dressing for the day to ensure she did not leave something showing that should not be showing, and then when she was in her 60’s each year there was another thing added to the routine, and the medications at night were added and taken away, exercises, added or increased and removed, then added again, then replaced with others, and the arthritis demanded more and more medications (or additives to food, and the simple glucosamine was now a cocktail of additives that relieved the pain for a few hours, and dressing was always painful. Her wardrobe had to change depending on whether she could get her arms into a sweater, or she needed a button or zipper up front, or whether she could bend her legs and hips enough to get into something proper looking or she had to lay down to edge her way into something quite loose and comfortable, but a bit ghastly looking.
When she read the passage from Isaiah she thought about how her clothing had changed, and how getting dressed had become a major production in the last few months, worse than ever before. What a spectacular image: God has clothed me with the garments of salvation, God has covered me with the robe of righteousness.
Were getting dressed so easy and simple. Just let God do it. If that were her morning routine then she’d wear her ‘birthday suit’ everyday all day long, and that was not a pretty site anymore if it ever had been.
Still this assurance that God robed her in righteousness struck her to the core, and she involuntarily gave God thanks. Then noticing Isaiah’s words again, she realized that these ancient words from so many generations ago reported the same reaction in the writer. Because of the grace of God the writer greatly rejoiced in the Lord, my whole being exulted in my God.
Sometimes it was the simple ancient words that connect us to all the saints, those who have gone before us, those living now on earth, and all those yet to come in the generations of the future. What we experience, knowing we share so much with all the saints of all time, is what the eunuch experienced after Philip baptized him: as he joined the saints through baptism, and after Philip was there with him no more, he went on his way rejoicing.
So also this day, Jill thought, we saints, all of us, have so many reasons to rejoice, but none is more earth shaking and life altering than that God chooses us and clothes us in garments of salvation, in robes of righteousness.
Your sun shall no more go down, or your moon withdraw itself; for the Lord will be your everlasting light, and your days of mourning shall be ended.
John 12:46
I have come as light into the world, so that everyone who believes in me should not remain in the darkness.
Words of Grace For Today
Jill sat in her well cushioned rocking chair between the light lunch she’d shared with friends and the book club meeting she would join by zoom. She marvelled at how things had developed in the last two years, so devastating with Jack’s diabetes sending him to his Covid and pain wracked death as he drowned in his own fluids for hours, his son, Bill, suffering a heart attack months after a light Covid cough and fever, her daughter’s eldest daughter taking a severe of Covid just not quite needing to go to hospital but it never really went away as she fought to wake up each day and move even to wash and dress herself and then needing to lie down even before half the morning was by, and all her older friends and Jill herself isolated and cut off from each other … and
then …
How most of them had discovered Zoom on their computers and talked with each other at least once a day, checking in to make sure everyone was alright, helping shop for each other, and getting help when someone needed their drive shovelled or in the summer their grass cut.
And …
all the things they learned to do by Zoom, like the book club, and even a bridge club, playing computer bridge together
and the visits with the great grandchildren that seemed to be the highlight of every day for the kids and for the kid in her.
Looking out the window Jill realized that the closed in feeling over her heart and mind that morning reflected the low and dark overcast sky as if threatening rain or snow as the thermometer outside her window showed it hovered barely above freezing.
She tried to think of things that had made her life and the ever more limited horizons of her world more joyful, or enjoyable, or at least tolerable.
The darkness seemed to press in on her as she read the verse from Isaiah: Your sun shall no more go down, or your moon withdraw itself. Wouldn’t that be a radical change, she thought.
When she was a young person in the 50’s, they didn’t even have a television. The rich people sometimes had one, and all her friends considered themselves lucky if they had a good radio and a record player at home.
Now … well now with computers and the internet and email and Zoom … it was just a wildly different world. Still her dark days seemed to be longer and and more frequent than ever before in her life. There were always challenges in her life, and more than a few dark weeks and even years, but lately with Jack gone, the moon was hard to find and the sun barely shone at all.
As she read the passage from Luke she saw a glimmer of hope, of light maybe returning to her life somehow as Jesus said: I have come as light into the world, so that everyone who believes in me should not remain in the darkness.
She had always been faithful, honest and kind, and until Jack died she’d counted on the light of Christ to guide her and light her way. Now though ….
Then she remembered her friend Tina, and what Arnold had done to her, gaslighting her, trying to get her to kill herself and almost succeeding (like he had with his first wife), and the web of lies Arnold and the police and even the pastor at church had spread about Tina. She remembered how Tina found joy and light and Christ present even as she lived homeless in the woods by a lake. If she had ever heard of a brass verdict, Tina certainly would never wish that for anyone. She’d have said those kind of verdicts were God’s and God’s alone. Even so God’s judgment would be harsher than a brass verdict that ended in death, it’d last for eternity. On the other hand God always gave people time for the amendment of life. Jill knew Tina was right about all that.
It was time to start her computer to join the book club Zoom, today about a court mystery, a murder mystery, and her heart lightened when she decided she was going to share Tina’s story, and try to share Tina’s joy, light, and Christ’ gracious presence with the others in the club. That would be the best answer to the injustice and the ugly resolution the book provided, a resolution that was as terrible as the injustice that it pretended to ‘solve.’
She sat waiting for the introductory matters to be covered off and then as the moderator started them off she jumped in and said she had a real life story to share, one that helped her understand not only this book’s comments about how the courts were so unjust, but also a better solution to injustice and how one could find the best of life no matter what came one’s way, betrayal by loved ones, injustice from courts, or the destruction of lives by Covid. She thanked Tina silently for what Jill called God’s Golden Verdict of Grace for all the world’s evil.
The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness— on them light has shined.
John 16:24
Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive, so that your joy may be complete.
Words of Grace For Today
November is the month when the short days, long nights reach their 4 month long dark winter, lack of light, phase. As one who suffers a slight attitude problem with extended darkness (slight SADS) I prepare well, plan to be in the daylight as much as possible, and save for gasoline to run the generator to supply electricity for the many lights set to stun the living daylights back into me. I often unscrew a few bulbs from the set of 8 that shine from each end of my warm space (warm if the furnace is burning hot enough!)
Before I heard about and understood the effect of the lack of sunlight on my mind, I loved to joke about the darkness, and about the light at the end of the tunnel. … I still do, though now the humour is a bit darker, since I know ‘the light at the end of the tunnel’ is most likely a freight train of Covid19 delayed goods, running late and fast and long and heavy, coming this way … and we’ve got no where to go to get out of the tunnel, so throwing ourselves between the tracks on the dirty ties, and keeping our heads down is probably the best way to survive what’s coming at us. Except keeping our heads down pretty much means giving up on life until the train leaves us in the tunnel in the dark, marching, marching, marching over the ties to get out of the tunnel. The advice fits well: when you find yourself having/having-been marched into hell, keep moving until you are out!
This is only a caricature of the deep shtako that so many people through history and in so many places have found themselves. It is the deep darkness that Isaiah and many others speak about. It is the darkness that can be forced upon us by our reaction to the dark seasons, by other people’s intent to destroy and de-story us, and by the cascading and accumulating effects of sins massed into evil that simply consumes all life in its wake.
We need the promise that Isaiah and so many others have provided: on them and on us a great light has shined. Even in the darkness consuming us and those around us, there is a light that shines, a great light that shines in every darkness, a light that exposes and overcomes all darkness: every lie, every deceit, every greedy theft, and even death. It is the light of Christ.
This light provides us simple respite from the darkness: we ask. Jesus delivers. We live in the light and are the saints who reflect Christ’s light to all around us.
November is the month when the short days, long nights reach their 4 month long dark winter, lack of light, phase. There is a light that overcomes all darkness, and we are God-made saints who get to reflect that light in the darkness to all people around.
Christ has dealt with all our past sins. Christ has overcome all the past evil and darkness. Christ has prepared us and all the saints for every coming darkness no matter how dark it gets.
That’s a promise to live out today! Work hard for the coming winter. Prepare well. And always trust Christ to be with with us, no matter what comes!
But I the Lord will speak the word that I speak, and it will be fulfilled. It will no longer be delayed; but in your days, O rebellious house, I will speak the word and fulfill it, says the Lord God.
1 Corinthians 4:20
For the kingdom of God depends not on talk but on power.
Words of Grace For Today
Paul writes to the congregation at Corinth, a very divided and problematic congregation, filled with strife and people seeking to gain power. Paul speaks to the issues through the letter, and here addresses the arrogant ones who are full of divisive talk. Paul speaks to the bullies.
While Paul has preached (spoken) about the grace of Jesus, forgiveness of sins for sinners as we all are, and renewal of life given as a free gift (grace) so that we can share the gifts God gives us each day with others who need what we have, here Paul uses his written words to move people to recognize that these promises given to us in Jesus’ story are not mere words. These promises carry the reality of the universe’s maker and all of God’s unlimited power in them.
Words carry God’s promises. The Word, Jesus the Christ, as John teaches, existed before the beginning with God, and God spoke to create all that is. Words are very powerful.
Words are also empty vessels of deceit and deception, of irreality, of things that are not, though corrupt people and the Devil wish they were, and with their wishing they give them a semblance of reality … but only a reality that dissolves like a holo program on a spaceship in a fictional story of the Star Trek series.
God’s power is in words that are fulfilled, even for a rebellious house, like Israel and like us all as we seek our own way through life. God’s power is in healing that relieves diseases of body, mind, heart and soul. God’s power is greater than anything else we could imagine and infinitely more! God’s Word creates all that is, all reality that does not dissolve but stands in time … and in hearts and minds … for bodies and for souls.
The arrogant bullies in the Corinthian congregation and all the bullies of all times and all places are no match for the power of God, the Word of God. So unsure of themselves, bullies present a false front of self-assurance and self-made power. Their so called ‘power’ and deceiving words dissolve in the face of truth, in the face of God’s Word, in the face of Grace, in the face of real power, in the face of sacrificial love, and in the face of hope that cannot be extinguished by evil.
Bullies everywhere: listen up! Bullies everywhere: stand down! Bullies everywhere: God will deal with you, will heal you, will send you out to be messengers of God’s Word that gives life (instead of the words you now use to destroy others’ lives.
Bullies everywhere meet God. God’s been with you through all time.
Bullies everywhere quake in fear, for God has spoken and your bulling days are coming to an end.
He said, ‘If you will listen carefully to the voice of the Lord your God, and do what is right in his sight, and give heed to his commandments and keep all his statutes, I will not bring upon you any of the diseases that I brought upon the Egyptians; for I am the Lord who heals you.’
Luke 4:40
As the sun was setting, all those who had any who were sick with various kinds of diseases brought them to him; and he laid his hands on each of them and cured them.
Words of Grace For Today
If we are obedient to God, then God will not strike us with diseases, but will heal us. So reads the text from Exodus.
Any and all came with those who were sick with various diseases, and Jesus laid hands on them and cured them. So reads the Gospel from Luke.
God’s promises are always given as a statement of God’s stance towards humans, both righteous and waywardly sinful and evil humans. Jesus’ story is God’s communication to us of God’s stance towards us, which is in a word Grace. That is God saves us from our sin while we are yet sinful, not because or in response to what we have done right, but rather as a response to what we have done that is sinful! God not only saves us from our sins, but God cures us of our every illness, renews life in us, and then sends us back out into the world, that wretched place of evil and sin and corruption and greed and lies and destruction …. God sends us back out into the world, that wonderful place of God’s good creation, of beauty, Grace, love and hope. God sends us out to be, in the midst of all that evil, the one’s who embody God’s Grace, beauty, love, and hope for all people.
So why the conditional given in Exodus and so many other places in the Bible, both Old and New Testaments? Simply because Grace is such a difficult reality for arrogant humans to swallow that we turn it around, pervert it, into to something we can earn. That is the story we are accustom to living with and it is comfortable even in the extreme as we recognize that it is the ultimate illness and disease by which we will die, by which we are dying, by which we have died and yet still walk as shells of humans on earth.
It is also the religious story, so commonly used in so many traditions, by the ‘priests’ or those who pretend to lead others, in order to control their followers. It is exactly the means the Devil uses to corrupt and pervert us and live all around us.
Jesus comes to heal us and to live a story we can understand … so we can understand and trust (amidst all the sick evil around and in us) that:
Grace still abounds, as does beauty, love, and hope.
Thankfully these abound for all the children who have grown up by those so perverted they cannot see Grace at all, yet alone beauty, love or hope.
Yours, O Lord, are the greatness, the power, the glory, the victory, and the majesty; for all that is in the heavens and on the earth is yours; yours is the kingdom, O Lord, and you are exalted as head above all.
Hebrews 4:16
Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
Words of Grace For Today
How do we measure all that we measure?
How do we measure what angle the sun is at, so that the solar panels produce most efficiently through all the year (helping reduce our carbon footprint for everyone’s benefit, especially future generations), or so that we know when to wake up to be outside before dawn breaks to take photos of the magnificence of creation (to share and inspire others, who cannot see this beauty in person, to celebrate God’s blessings), or so that we know when to start our work for the most efficient use of our bodies’ capabilities since the warmth of the sun protects against injury and further degeneration of ‘this limited resource’ we each have?
How do we measure the wealth that we possess, or the wealth that others have, or the wealth that governments control (and waste through bungling and favouritism and fraud), or the wealth that is needed to deal with the challenges we personally, or collectively (in our local area, our country, or together in this whole wide world), face this day and can anticipate we will face in the coming days, weeks, months and decades (of climate change, breakdown of global supply lines, on-going pandemics)?
How do we measure the needs of our stomachs, our minds, our hearts, and our spirits?
We can choose many different ‘yard sticks’: our or other’s bank accounts as our/their worthiness of living and living in comfort; scientific facts and theories that inform us of creation and how it ‘works’; the needs (real and addiction created or imagined) we feel each day or each minute allowing them to dictate what we do to satisfy our ‘hungers’.
There is no measure that will give us life other than placing the universe or rather our perspective of it in order at the very beginning of each of our considerations:
Yours, O Lord, are the greatness, the power, the glory, the victory, and the majesty; for all that is in the heavens and on the earth is yours; yours is the kingdom, O Lord, and you are exalted as head above all.
As Martin Luther wrote in the Catechisms again and again: We are to love and fear God so that ….
It is in that fear and love as the beginning point that all other measures make sense of life being blessed for us and for all other people.
There will be no end of need, dire need, on our part; our stomachs, our minds, our hearts, and our spirits all have needs that need be met for life to continue well for us. There is no end of evil and sin that permeates the world, disrupting the meeting of those needs for us and for all people. There is no end of hungry stomachs, minds, hearts and spirits; desperately hunger grips more of us than not at any moment!
Knowing that God rules over all though our best efforts, our best measures, our best science, our best collaborations, and our greatest wealth will be demanded of us to meet the hunger that grips all people. None of that will do much good, though, if we try to go it alone, and working with others requires something of us that we can barely generate on our own: cooperation with those so different than us. Before we begin then we needs must therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
Grace, that is God’s attitude towards us and all people that has the power to overcome all challenges we will ever face. It can be our attitude on God’s behalf towards all people that we work with and for whom we work each day, ourselves, families and friends, our neighbours, strangers and aliens far from us, and even our enemies. God’s grace is sufficient for all people. And God equips us God-made saints to be those who spread it liberally everywhere, to all people.
As the sun continues it’s dance with the darkness and the moon do-si-do-s around the earth, all motion of bodies celestial and corporeal, all minds great and small, all hearts generous and restrained, all spirits of every colour … all motion of everything is a dance of Grace, a dance of Grace started by God at creation and continued each day as God creates new time and reality for us all.
Truly the hills are a delusion, the orgies on the mountains. Truly in the Lord our God is the salvation of Israel.
Matthew 15:35-36
Then ordering the crowd to sit down on the ground, he took the seven loaves and the fish; and after giving thanks he broke them and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds.
Words of Grace For Today
There are always tempting-terrible ways for humans to try to make sense of the world so perverted by our attempts to live without God. In the hills the people gather to fill their senses to overfilling. It is their attempt to try to fill the void in their lives that living separate from God leaves. There is nothing that can be filled by the void of living a lie, telling lies to get ahead, and destroying others with lies.
Where did we go so wrong with the gift of life that God gives us? Wherever it is, it is an oft trod path. So people do stupid things, like gathering for ‘orgies in the mountains’! Mountains are a great place to retreat to celebrate life, but orgies! Sacrificing one’s soul to pleasure in order to fill a void that cannot be filled with anything other than God’s Grace, makes a very bad ending to life! Celebrating God’s Grace on the mountains makes for a blessed life and a blessed end to life, when Jesus gathers us in to a home with many rooms, and room for all. Mountains are for celebrating life. The plains are where life is lived with all its challenges and dangers.
The crowds have followed Jesus to the plain to listen to him, to be healed by him. When it is time to eat, they are afraid, afraid to bring out the little food they have brought with them. The fear is real and reasonable. There are a lot of poor people, hungry people gathered in that crowd.
In the face of this rightful anxiety (for food is required for life to continue) Jesus exercises boundless generosity with a mere seven loaves and a few pieces of fish. Jesus’ little demonstration overcomes the crowd’s collective fears (now that is a miracle!) and as the seven loaves and fish pass from one person to the next each person brings out their little supper to eat and to pass the extras along for the others to take from or contribute to … and everyone eats their fill.
This is the meal that fills the void in our souls. The food fills the crowd’s stomachs, and their sharing transforms the meal into a great blessed celebration. This is the feast of eternity that God provides for us whenever we are souls are hungry. This is the feast that results when we share the great blessings God has given us with each other.
What will we, what will you choose this day and each day you breath: ‘Orgies in the hills’ [our own ways of trying to fill our hungry souls], OR feasting with Jesus [humbly accepting the Grace and life that Jesus offers us]: there are many choices we make each day and they lead us to a greater void in our lives, or to thanking God for all the blessings of life
…
by sharing it with those who have less than we have.
Even now your enemies are in tumult; those who hate you have raised their heads. They lay crafty plans against your people; they consult together against those you protect.
Matthew 6:13
Do not bring us to the time of trial, but rescue us from the evil one.
Words of Grace For Today
A murder mystery, fiction, true fiction, begins:
Everybody lies.
Cops lie. Lawyers lie. Witnesses lie. The victims lie.
A trial is a contest of lies. And everybody in the courtroom knows this. The judge knows this. ….
[Everyone] take their seats … and agree to be lied to.
Michael Connelly’s The Brass Verdict
I’m not sure if I had known this truth that it would have mattered one iota. I certainly did not know that everyone expected everyone else to lie.
I certainly did not lie, not at all, not at all.
That put me at a huge disadvantage, and that is the way this sad world works, the way people work with each other. It is part of what I have never understood about people, who speak lies, and expect others to lie, and are just fine with all that comes of it. I certainly cannot understand cops, lawyers, witnesses, and judges who choose to lie. I cannot understand how they can so lie as to put innocent people like myself in jail for crimes they certainly did not commit, while other crimes are committed against them by their lying accusers.
As for me, I certainly did not lie, not at all, not at all.
That puts me at a huge advantage, for I know what is and is not. I live in the reality of this world. This in the end is not sad at all, not at all, not at all.
If the price of being honest and kind is that I must be homeless, then I would always choose to be kind, though the choice is not mine to be honest, and I will live well as a homeless person.
So my enemies do not care if they lie. I certainly would care if I lied.
I know that by not lying I do not make myself better than others, the others who lie. I do know that I really have no choice … and those that lie do have a choice. I do not understand how they can make that choice, and that is their burden and what a burden it is.
That is not the greatest burden we can bear, the burden that we cannot survive, not on our own.
The trial that we pray God will save us from, is the trail where the Devil plays freely with us, and only God can save us from the Devil’s clutches.
Seems to me though, if one lives in lies always, then one is got one foot on the greased slide into the Devil’s clutches and the other foot is somewhere, but you cannot ever be sure where it is since it’s been so long since you lived in the truth.
All the other enemies we face are nothing compared to the Devil, and none of them, the Devil included, is anything compared to God.
God walks with me. As for them, I cannot be sure. As for you, you should know that yourself, or pray hard and long so that God will show you. Living homeless is common among all humans of all times, but life is no place to find oneself alone.
No matter what comes, enemy, lies, trials of all kinds, I know God walks with me.
Take courage, all you people of the land, says the Lord; work, for I am with you, says the Lord of hosts, according to the promise that I made you when you came out of Egypt. My spirit abides among you; do not fear.
Romans 15:13
May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Words of Grace For Today
It’s a good thing our lives are not dependent upon what other people do to us and around us.
Since what makes or breaks us
sometimes is the least expected
someone else messing with our lives with their irreality or their attempt to ‘climb to the top’, right?
In the book titled Sound Pictures: The Life of Beatles Producer George Martin, written by Kenneth Womack, the author reveals a strategy behind Beatles records.
Martin and the band decided to have Ringo sing one song on every Beatles album. And it wasn’t just to be nice to Ringo. In the first wave of Beatlemania, Ringo was the most popular Beatle.
Years ago, comedian Mitzi McCall and her husband Charlie Brill were a comedy team called McCall & Brill. They were a nightclub act that finally got a big break to be on the Ed Sullivan Show. But that big break happened on February 9th, 1964 – the historic night the Beatles also appeared.
The comedy team came on right before the Fab Four’s second set that night, but they couldn’t hear each other while performing their sketch because the 14-year-old fans were screaming for the Beatles.
Seventy-three million people watched that night. It was their big opportunity – and no one remembered McCall & Brill. Their agent didn’t call them again for six months after that. They say they never watch the video of that night.
Later, McCall would share one funny moment.
She was standing with John Lennon before the show, looking out the window at the screaming crowd outside the theatre. She turned to Lennon and said, “Can you believe this is all for you?”
Lennon shrugged and said, “It’s not for me. It’s for Ringo, actually.”
And that’s why the Beatles always put a Ringo vocal on every album. As George Martin said, it was just good marketing.
As for us, what makes or breaks us is God’s Grace, and God’s promises are what give us hope for each day:
Take courage, all you people of the land! … Work, for I am with you, says the Lord of hosts, according to the promise that I made to you when you came out of Egypt. My spirit abides among you; do not fear.
No matter the challenges that we face this day we pray may the God of hope fill us with all joy and peace in believing, so that we may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.
