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Pastor Says

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. Sunday, February 28, 2010

The Daily Lectionary for today is:

Psalm 84

Jeremiah 1: 1-10

1 Corinthians 3: 11-23

Mark 3: 31-4: 9

Psalm 84

¹How lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord of hosts!

²My soul longs, indeed it faints for the courts of the Lord; my heart and my flesh sing for joy to the living God.

³Even the sparrow finds a home, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young, at your altars, O Lord of hosts, my King and my God.

⁴Happy are those who live in your house, ever singing your praise.

⁵Happy are those whose strength is in you, in whose heart are the highways to Zion.

⁶As they go through the valley of Baca they make it a place of springs; the early rain also covers it with pools.

⁷They go from strength to strength; the God of gods will be seen in Zion.

⁸O Lord God of hosts, hear my prayer; give ear, O God of Jacob!

⁹Behold our shield, O God; look on the face of your anointed.

¹⁰For a day in your courts is better than a thousand elsewhere. I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than live in the tents of wickedness.

¹¹For the Lord God is a sun and shield; he bestows favor and honor. No good thing does the Lord withhold from those who walk uprightly.

¹²O Lord of hosts, happy is everyone who trusts in you.

How lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord.Everyone can find a home there, even me! All the scriptures this morning deal with going to God’s house and enjoying worship together with the people of God. But some of us CAN’T get out to worship. And some of us choose to worship alone, in our own way. Yet God calls us all to just worship some way, somehow. Remember yesterday’s scripture talks about not worshiping in a place, but worshiping in Spirit and in truth. If you were to come to our church this morning, you would hear me preaching about Luke 13: 31-35, where Herod sends a threatening message to Jesus, and Jesus basically calls him out. Here’s a part of what I am saying:

When someone hurts or upsets you, the first primal human instinct is to fight. In your heart of hearts you want to get them back, or better yet, to get them before they get you. Anger begets anger, frustration begets frustration. The other instinct is to fly. To run away from the problem, from the agitation. Are we able to face our fears and those who intend harm toward us with as much faith and fortitude as Jesus? Jesus knew what was coming – his death – and he was unafraid. Jesus knew Herod was his enemy, and yet he called him out. Talk about revealing your game plan. “Hey, Herod. You can find me right here, doing what I do best. And when I am finished, you can find me in Jerusalem, because that’s where I am going. Do you want that in latitude and longitude? Cause I’m here if you want me.”First, it is good to understand what is at stake. Jesus is living out what he is teaching his people. This life is not it. This is not all there is. While living is a good thing, dying is NOT a bad thing. And this is what Jesus was doing for us here. He was making it so that dying is not a bad thing.Maybe it is time to be a little more like Jesus as he faces the threats of Herod. Jesus had stripped himself bare, leaving behind family and safety and home. He set his face toward Jerusalem with only the robe on his back and his love for God, his father. With only the discipline of prayer and fasting, he set out on his journey, unburdened by expectations, unencumbered by bad habits and things he forgot to do. He made a list: I will be here, performing cures and casting out demons and doing my work. And he did his work. Spare and unencumbered – like us in every way, yet without sin – Jesus faced the end of his journey with grace, like the trees facing the burden of the snow.We’re not called to walk casually into our deaths with only the clothes on our backs. We are not, most of us, called to leave family and friends behind. But we are called to leave our burdens behind, to shed the snows that threaten to break us. Oh, but how?The first step is always always prayer. Pray for strength, courage, endurance, grace. Jesus constantly went to a quiet spot to pray. He took time out of his busy day to stop and talk to his Father in heaven.Pray that when your Herod, whether that is anger and frustration, or hunger and a paycheck that just won’t stretch far enough, or impatience or lack of knowledge or loss – pray that when your Herod sends a threat, that you are given by God the strength and the ability to send word back: “Here I am. I can stand and face you.”Gather your resources. Talk to friends. Seek people who will encourage you in your journey. Seek help, and do not be afraid. And those that you ask help from don’t have to be experts. Jesus gathered twelve people around him to help and stand by him. None of them had expert skills. But they were there as friends and support. Help others with their burdens. Help others shake the snow off their branches. Help and support and love and comfort and pray. God intends good for you. For all of us. God sent Jesus into the world to save us from ourselves, from the world and FOR something, too. God sent Jesus into the world to save us for God’s holy self, so that we, God’s creation, might see God face to face. In the immortal words of Jean Luc Piccard, “Make it so.” Amen.May God richly in your walk with the Lord today and every day.

. Saturday, February 27, 2010

Welcome to the blog for the First Presbyterian Church of Levittown, NY. This is the church season of Lent, when we prepare for the Easter celebration. We are looking forward to the greatest event in human history: the resurrection of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. In doing so, we walk toward the cross "cleaning up our act", so that we can meet the sorrow of Jesus' death with bravery, and so we can be ready for the JOY of Christ's resurrection, and our place in God's kingdom that Jesus' death and resurrection has made possible for us.

In the Presbyterian tradition, there is a discipline called “Daily Prayer”. Yes, this is very like our brothers and sisters in faith in other traditions, and in fact, it is based on the common lectionary used by most Christian denominations. Here during Lent, I offer you an invitation to join me, Pastor Pam, in the discipline of daily prayer. There is no time like the present to start.

The daily lectionary for today, Saturday, February 27, 2010, follows:

The Psalm is Psalm 43

The Old Testament reading is Deuteronomy 11: 18-28

The Epistle Lesson is Hebrews 4: 11-16

The Gospel Lesson is John 4: 1-26

Each day has these four types of readings. At the bottom of today’s entry to the blog, I will give you the lectionary readings for the Second Week of Lent, beginning with Sunday, February 28, 2010, and going through the following Saturday.

Today, I want to concentrate on the Gospel lesson.

John 4: 1-264Now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard, “Jesus is making and baptizing more disciples than John” 2—although it was not Jesus himself but his disciples who baptized— 3he left Judea and started back to Galilee.

4But he had to go through Samaria. 5So he came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon. 7A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” 8(His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) 9The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?” (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.) 10Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” 11The woman said to him, “Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? 12Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?” 13Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.” 15The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.” 16Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come back.” 17The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; 18for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!” 19The woman said to him, “Sir, I see that you are a prophet. 20Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.” 21Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. 24God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” 25The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming” (who is called Christ). “When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us.” 26Jesus said to her, “I am he, the one who is speaking to you.”

Jesus here is revealing himself and his true nature to someone who doesn’t belong to the traditionally recognized “Chosen” people. The Jews were the first to receive the good news that Jesus Christ brought to them. Here Jesus is talking to a woman from a group that the Jews don’t get along with. It is surprising, in some ways, that this story is here, but then, Jesus calls all sorts of people to believe in him, and through him, to believe in God. In the final verses, Jesus says to the woman, “You worship what you do not know… but the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship God in spirit and in truth.”

It’s so easy to get away from worshiping God in spirit and in truth. It is easy to get caught up in our daily lives of grocery shopping and tending the children, in work or in doctors’ visits (and the long waits between them), in planning and in banking. If we need to cut something out of our schedules, the first thing that seems to go is our time with God.

During Lent, I invite you to make some space for conversation with God. Or maybe just add a few minutes to what you are already doing. Maybe join me in the daily lectionary. Maybe just spend a little more time in prayer. Please pray for those on the prayer list, for the Shepherds of the church, and for me, your Pastor.

The daily lectionary for Week Two of Lent, beginning on Sunday, February 28, 2010:

Sunday: Psalm 84

Jeremiah 1: 1-10

1 Corinthians 3: 11-23

Mark 3: 31-4: 9

Monday: Psalm 119: 73-80

Jeremiah 1: 11-19

Romans 1: 1-15

John 4: 27-42

Tuesday: Psalm 34

Jeremiah 2: 1-13, 29-32

Romans 1: 16-25

John 4: 43-54

Wednesday: Psalm 5

Jeremiah 3: 6-18

Romans 1: (26-27) (the parentheses means optional), Romans 1: 28-2: 11

John 5: 1-18

Thursday: Psalm 27

Jeremiah 4: 9-10, 19-28

Romans 2: 12-24

John 5: 19-29

Friday: Psalm 22

Jeremiah 5: 1-9

Romans 2: 25-3: 18

John 5: 30-47

Saturday: Psalm 43

Jeremiah 5: 20-31

Romans 3: 19-31

John 7: 1-13