Looking Toward Sunday

"Prisoners of Want"

Fourth Sunday of Easter

April 26, 2015

This week we're taking a look at the iconic 23rd Psalm.(Click here to read it.) We'll be paying particular attention to the very first verse: "The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want..." 

There are many things we want in life - most of which have little or nothing to do with God. Our want of those things can potentially distract us from what we truly need. And if we're not careful, those wants can ultimately become a prison for us, keeping us from the genuinely abundant life we so desire. 

Join us as we think about where it is that we seek happiness, security, and meaning. In the Good Shepherd who provides all we need? Or in things that can never truly satisfy?   

See you on Sunday!

Devotion for April 12

Unless I See the Marks

by Steve Garnaas-Holmes

“Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.”  (John 20.25)

Oh, Thomas was no doubter.

The least naive, he trusted in the dark

the promise of our rising,

the open door of death.

He was the one, when Jesus stood

to go to Lazarus’ tomb in Bethany,

where enemies awaited him

with threats of death, who said,

“Then let us go and die with him.”

Oh, more, not less than all the rest,

Thomas believed in love, and how it bled.

He sought not proof of Jesus’ life,

but marks of what he suffered and forgave,

the scars of Thomas’ own betrayal,

to know that he had risen

not from bed, but from the depths

of hell, where Thomas needed him

to have gone, and been, and left transformed.

He didn’t ask to see his smiling face,

has famous, radiant eyes;

he didn’t hope to see him break the bread

the way he always did.

No, he asked to see his wounds,

the marks of love, the wounds of one

who weeps with those who weep,

who has walked with us through the valley

of the shadow of death.

Oh, Thomas, I’m with you:

I would not follow the safe and happy one,

the well-dressed Christ from a catalogue;

I will follow only the wounded one,

the one with most to forgive

and least reason to expect his hope.

I will follow the loving one with steady eyes,

who knows how much his love will cost.

I will follow the gentle man

with holes in his hands.

Devotion for April 11

My Confession: I Deny the Resurrection 

by Peter Rollins

Without equivocation or hesitation I fully and completely admit that I deny the resurrection of Christ. This is something that anyone who knows me could tell you, and I am not afraid to say it publicly, no matter what some people may think…

I deny the resurrection of Christ every time I do not serve at the feet of the oppressed, each day that I turn my back on the poor; I deny the resurrection of Christ when I close my ears to the cries of the downtrodden and lend my support to an unjust and corrupt system.

However there are moments when I affirm that resurrection, few and far between as they are. I affirm it when I stand up for those who are forced to live on their knees, when I speak for those who have had their tongues torn out, when I cry for those who have no more tears left to shed.

Devotion for the Friday after Easter

Easter Prayer

by Steve Garnaas-Holmes

Loving One,
you are present,

unbound by anything.

Dawning One,
you are in this moment,
not entombed in the past.

Forgiving One,
you are in the freedom of my soul,
not the stones of my surroundings,
not the grave of my deeds.

You whose glory it is to set us free,
deliver me
into the present moment.

You who give life
where there is none,
I live not by surviving
but by being raised
each moment,

with each breath
to have died,
with each breath
to be risen.

Devotion for the Thursday after Easter

We Are Baffled

by Walter Brueggemann

Christ is Risen

He is risen indeed!

We are baffled by the very Easter claim we voice.

Your new life fits none of our categories.

We wonder and stew and argue,

and add clarifying adjectives like “spiritual” and “physical.”

But we remain baffled, seeking clarity and explanation,

we who are prosperous, and full and safe and tenured.

We are baffled and want explanations.

But there are those not baffled, but stunned by the news,

stunned while at minimum wage jobs;

stunned while the body wastes in cancer;

stunned while the fabric of life rots away in fatigue and despair;

stunned while unprosperous and unfull

and unsafe and untenured…

Waiting only for you in your Easter outfit,

waiting for you to say, “Fear not, it is I.”

Deliver us from our bafflement and our many explanations.

Push us over into stunned need and show yourself to us lively.

Easter us in honesty;

Easter us in fear;

Easter us in joy,

and let us be Eastered.  Amen.