Prairie Musings

This first Sunday after Pentecost is called “Trinity Sunday.” Since we all know the Trinity is an inexplicable mystery, rectors usually make their assistants preach on this Sunday—but Fr. Bob is moving this weekend….and so, here I am.  Why does something that can’t be really explained matter so much to our faith? The word “Trinity” doesn’t even show up in Scripture—why should we care? Well, here’s why, according to two great living theologians: as Will Willimon puts it, the Trinity is our best way to tell the story of “God’s rich, relentless love for us.” And Paul Neuchterlein says, “The Trinity is not a logical puzzle for us to solve—the Trinity is God’s Love Story for us to be swept up in.”… God’s love story…let’s explore that a little. The first person of the Trinity is God the Father: God, the Creator of all, who is not, therefore, a created “being.” God, who is utterly beyond our understanding and our knowing, outside of our time and space. This kind of abstract, distant God h...

Lectionary readings This prayer is from the great American theologian and longtime Duke professor Stanley Hauerwas: Almighty and ever-loving God, we give you thanks, on this Day of Pentecost, that you did not leave us alone but came to us, in the power of your Holy Spirit, and breathed your life-giving power into every life gathered here this day. You found a way to get to each person here, even when we had no idea of how to get to you. Furthermore, you refused to let us be alone, all locked up in ourselves. You found a way to thrust us into the church, to drag us into fellowship with a group of people whom we would probably never have joined if you had left us to our own devices. By your Spirit you put us into a new, diverse family [not just here, but] one that stretches from one end of the earth to the other. In all this, we give thanks that, in the power of the Holy Spirit, you have saved us from ourselves. Amen! Pentecost is often referred to as the birthday of the Church. What a ...

 Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God ( Luke 6:20 ). This is Super Bowl weekend…anybody join a betting pool on who’s going to win, Cincinnati or Los Angeles? This competition wouldn’t really be very interesting, would it, if there weren’t a winner and a loser? The Super Bowl is, of course, a zero-sum situation: whatever is gained by one side is lost by the other; one team’s success is possible only with the other team’s loss. One of the important underlying themes in today’s Gospel, I think, is a reminder that our lives as disciples in the grace-filled Kingdom of God are not part of a zero-sum game.  As you were just listening to the deacon read the Gospel, you might have been thinking, “Wait a minute…these Beatitudes, they don’t sound quite like the ones I remember! What about the merciful? What happened to the meek inheriting the earth?” Well, as you know, the four different Gospel writers tell their stories of Jesus to four different audiences, and...

 Now: about things relating to the spirit’s work, my brothers and sisters, I don’t want you to remain uninformed… To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. ( 1 Cor 12:1, 7 ) We just finished the twelve days of Christmas, and I’m curious…did any of you re-gift anything? I did a Google search, and found several etiquette websites with articles like “Nine rules for regifting” and “The Seven Simple Rules of Regifting” and “Five Things that Are OK to Regift, and Five Things that Are Not.” All of this—and even the term re-gifting—thanks to a 1995 episode of Seinfeld. Paul in today’s reading from Corinthians is telling us that, where the works of the Spirit are concerned, a sort of holy regifting is not only OK, it’s what is actually required of us! So what is it that we are to be regifting? What is the spirit’s work? Paul’s teaching on the work of the spirit makes it clear he’s not just talking about simply “lip service” like speaking in tongues or evangelizin...

Stir up your power, O Lord, and with great might come among us...(Collect for Advent III ) One of the sermon resources I used this week had this cartoon: The first panel shows someone looking up and shouting to the heavens, ‘God! If you’re up there, tell us what we should do!’ The second panel has a voice coming from the clouds, “Feed the hungry, house the homeless, establish justice.” In the third pane the person has an alarmed expression, “Just testing!” they say. Then the voice answers back, “Me too.” This Third Sunday of Advent is called Gaudete Sunday—“Rejoice” Sunday. Instead of purple candles and purple vestments—reminders that Advent is sometimes called the “Little Lent”—we light the pink candle and we wear pink rose vestments. The prophet Zephaniah—usually a pretty somber, doom-and-gloom guy—today says, “Sing aloud, O daughter Zion; shout, O Israel! Rejoice and exult with all your heart, O daughter Jerusalem!” Instead of a Psalm we read the First Song of Isaiah, “Therefore you...

 But whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many ( Mark 10:43b-45 ). “Shotgun!” My kids still sometimes yell this out as we’re heading to the car, even though they’re almost grown up. Sound familiar? Today, James and John call shotgun in Jesus’ kingdom. Like children, they ask first, “Promise us you’ll say yes to what we’re going to ask.” The truth is, I’m afraid, we’re all really not that different from these two brothers. It’s part of the human condition, it seems, to want to be the best, to be the first, to have the most, to win the trophy…and, like the other disciples in the story, to be a little angry and jealous when we don’t. “What is it you want me to do for you?” Jesus asks James and John…”What is it you want me to do for you?” The verb want shows up many times in this part of Mark, and each time it ...

Proper 21B   How many of you lost something—your keys, your wallet, your cell phone, your checkbook—lost something this past month? Let’s see your hands…me, too. I had saved some coupons for getting work done on my car, and I couldn’t find them to save my life. Well, actually, I’m sure I didn’t lose them—I’m sure Lisa hid them—she does that all the time, you know… Finding what was lost, recovering it, is something we encounter frequently in our day-to-day lives. And we all have family and friends who are recovering from surgery or from an illness, who are in the hospital to be restored to health and wholeness. I mention recovery because this is the end of Recovery Month, a time to foster awareness and understanding of mental and substance use disorders and to celebrate the people who are in recovery and have escaped the grip of addiction. “Recovery” in this context is a life-long, on-going process, typically described in 12 steps. The Betty Ford Clinic defines it this way: Recovery...

"I am the living bread that came down from heaven… not like that which your ancestors ate, and they died. But the one who eats this bread will live forever" ( John 51a, 58b ). You know how we always talk about our celebration of the church year is divided into liturgical seasons, and our most important feast days are actually celebrated over several weeks, like Christmastide and Eastertide….Well, we’re in the middle of a special season that comes around only once every three years in our lectionary. It’s not something you’ll find in the official calendar; it’s a season sometimes dreaded by those of us who have to preach…This is the season of Breadmastide —the five Sundays at the end of summer in lectionary year B when the Gospel reading for every Sunday has Jesus talking about bread. (1) Jesus feeds 5000 with two loaves of bread. (2) Jesus says, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. (3) Jesus aga...

Proper 9B, Mark 6:1-13 "And Jesus was astounded at their lack of faith." When was the last time you were astonished? I mean really astonished? Maybe it will help you answer my question to think about astonishment compared to things like wonder and surprise and amazement . You might wonder about something you don’t quite yet understand, or you might see a wonder of nature while your on vacation. Wonder is not all that far out of the ordinary, really. You are surprised at something you didn’t expect—a birthday party, someone jumping out and yelling “boo!” You are momentarily surprised, and then things are back to normal. You are amazed —your thoughts literally caught in a tangle, a maze, when you see or hear something that just doesn’t make sense. All of those things happen pretty regularly for me…but astonishment? Literally, the root of the word astonishment means thunderstruck —“out of a clap of thunder.” So, when was the last time you were thunderstruck…so shocked by som...

Proper 7B: 1 Sam 17:32-49, Psalm 9:9-20, 2 Cor 6:1-13, Mark 4:35-41 Lectionary Page Here But David said to the Philistine, “You come to me with sword and spear and javelin; but I come to you in the name of the LORD of hosts…” (1 Samuel 17:45a) Ann, Ann, Ardie, Barb, Barb, Barbara, Becky, Bill, Bob, Bobby, Carol, Claudianna, Connie, Dan, Debbie, Denise, Doug, Doug, Erin, Gayle, George, Gina, Harry, Ibby, Jan, Jeanne, Jennifer, Jessica, John, Judi, Julie, Kathy, Kris, Kris, Lana, Lauri, Linda, Linda, Lisa, Luann, Matt, Michael, Michelle, Nancy, Nola, Pam, Pat, Patrice, Patrice, Patti, Peggy, Phyllis, Rob, Rosey, Sam, Sandra, Sandra, Sandy, Sandy, Sarah, Sooz, Sue, Susan, Terry, Vivienne , Will. (And I’m sure I have left some people out, so I apologize for that.) These people are part of a modern-day David-and-Goliath story. The ancient David went out to do battle with Goliath, the seemingly unconquerable, brutal, powerful giant, and toppled him with just a few small stones he put into ...

By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey God’s commandments. For the love of God is this, that we obey God’s commandments. And God’s commandments are not burdensome, for whatever is born of God conquers the world.  (1 John 5:2-4a) Easter 6B readings Love, love, love. dah dah dah, love, love, love….All you need is…Love. All you need is Love…My hope is to have you leaving worship today with that earworm stuck in your head! Because the lectionary for this year has assigned the First Letter of John, we’ve been talking for weeks about love. This week John switches it up a little bit, though, and give us two other repeating words in addition to the word love : commandments , and obey . Those don’t sound quite as warm and fuzzy. John says loving God means obeying God’s commandments. Obeying God’s commandments is the topic of the book What if Jesus Was Serious that our confirmation class is reading right now. The author, Skye Jethani, compares Jesus’ t...

 See what love God has given us, that we should be called Children of God; and that is what we are (1 John 3:1a). Easter 3B, 1 John 3:1-7 There’s this really great advertisement I saw on the History Channel for its series called “Vikings” that shows a pudgy, balding, middle-aged man running out to his mailbox day after day, disappointed that something—we’re not sure what—hasn’t arrived. Finally, the envelope he’s been waiting for shows up—it’s the results of a DNA ancestry test. He rips it open, scans the results with disappointment, but then, at the very bottom of the page, he sees it—0.012% Viking. Suddenly he jumps up, he screams, and he’s transformed into a fur-robed, sword-wielding warrior. He knew it all along—he’s a Viking.  According to recent estimates, 26 million people have purchased one of those genetic ancestry testing kits. The journal “New Genetics and Society” recently published an extensive study based on interviews with Swedish, British and American individ...