Be Gentle

•October 10, 2014 • Leave a Comment

We all need some encouragement in life.  Someone cheer leading from the sidelines, giving us confidence, showing their belief in us; words and actions that give us the impetus to keep on going.

Paul wants to do that to his friends and fellow Christians.  To encourage them in their life and faith.  He is bursting with pride for them, but he wants to encourage them to keep on living God’s ways.

Philippians 4:1-9 (CEV)

4 Dear friends, I love you and long to see you. Please keep on being faithful to the Lord. You are my pride and joy.

Paul Encourages the Lord’s Followers

2 Euodia and Syntyche, you belong to the Lord, so I beg you to stop arguing with each other. 3 And, my true partner, I ask you to help them. These women have worked together with me and with Clement and with the others in spreading the good news. Their names are now written in the book of life.

4 Always be glad because of the Lord! I will say it again: Be glad. 5 Always be gentle with others. The Lord will soon be here. 6 Don’t worry about anything, but pray about everything. With thankful hearts offer up your prayers and requests to God. 7 Then, because you belong to Christ Jesus, God will bless you with peace that no one can completely understand. And this peace will control the way you think and feel.

8 Finally, my friends, keep your minds on whatever is true, pure, right, holy, friendly, and proper. Don’t ever stop thinking about what is truly worthwhile and worthy of praise.9 You know the teachings I gave you, and you know what you heard me say and saw me do. So follow my example. And God, who gives peace, will be with you.

Paul is not afraid to give some direct pointers to a couple of named people.  Euodia and Syntyche are arguing.  We all know how that can drag a community down, when two people just can’t get on.  They worked together with Paul, but cannot work together without him.  But this isn’t just seen as their problem, it is a community problem, and is to be solved  by the whole community together, with everyone’s support and encouragement.

Then Paul turns to the advice I love, that we so often forget,

Be gentle with one another.

So often we have such high expectations, unrealistic standards, that we forget to be gentle.  We forget other people have real lives and circumstances they are dealing with.  We forget we are not perfect, yet we expect it of others; or we have such ridiculously high expectations of ourselves, that we transfer that to others – forgetting that we never reach those height; or we are so cross that we don’t meet our own high standards that we end up taking it out on others.

So perhaps the “Be gentle” advice needs to be applied to ourselves first?

Yes there are expectation of the christian life, standards and goals, but we are not God.  They are aims to be encouraged towards, but with the reality that we are all human.  We should be encouraging not discouraging one another.  Cheering each other on, not jeering at every slip up.

Be gentle with everyone, you never know what is happening in their life, what burdens they are carrying, what news they have just been told, what happened before they walked out of their door, what will happen when they walk back in it, what they are fearing, hoping, dreaming or dreading…

That is how we know and spread God’s peace.

Forgive me Lord,
the things I get wrong,
the times I discourage others,
do things that drag my community down,
project my ridiculous expectations on to others
and fail to be gentle,
to myself
and to others.

May I tread
with your feet,
exercise care,
love
and understanding,
even when I do not know.
May I be gentle,
as you are so gentle
with me.

Posted in bible, church, community, faith, forgiveness, God, Religion, theology
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Shelter in the Storm

•October 9, 2014 • 1 Comment

After an incredibly difficult few months, I’m going to have a go at getting back to blogging the lectionary.

It seems appropriate then, to begin with a prayer of thanks:

Isaiah 25:1-9 (CEV)

A Prayer of Thanks to God

25 You, Lord, are my God!
    I will praise you
for doing the wonderful things
you had planned and promised
    since ancient times.
2 You have destroyed the fortress
of our enemies,
    leaving their city in ruins.
Nothing in that foreign city
    will ever be rebuilt.
3 Now strong and cruel nations
    will fear and honor you.

4 You have been a place of safety
for the poor and needy
    in times of trouble.
Brutal enemies pounded us
    like a heavy rain
or the heat of the sun at noon,
    but you were our shelter.
5 Those wild foreigners struck
    like scorching desert heat.
But you were like a cloud,
    protecting us from the sun.
You kept our enemies from singing
    songs of victory.

The Lord Has Saved Us

6 On this mountain
    the Lord All-Powerful
will prepare
for all nations
    a feast of the finest foods.
Choice wines and the best meats
    will be served.
7 Here the Lord will strip away
the burial clothes
    that cover the nations.
8 The Lord All-Powerful
will destroy the power of death
    and wipe away all tears.
No longer will his people
be insulted everywhere.
    The Lord has spoken!

9 At that time, people will say,
“The Lord has saved us!
    Let’s celebrate.
We waited and hoped—
    now our God is here.”

Sometimes giving thanks is the hardest thing to do.  We all have times when it feels like we are being bombarded – with difficulties; with seemingly relentless stresses; with one thing after another; with the same thing going on and on and on…   The last thing we feel like doing is giving thanks.  We are busy enough just surviving.  We cannot see God’s plan and purpose – never mind thank him for it.

But somehow we make it through. Maybe battered and bruised, certainly changed. And as we turn and look back, we see the shelter in the storm, the protection from the heat, a place of safety – and we give thanks.

Sometimes giving thanks is the only thing we can do, the simplest thing.  To pray anything else is too hard, too big, way beyond us – but we can give thanks.  Just rest in his shelter and be.  Come to terms with where we are and how things are.  In our troubles to rest and hope in God’s presence.

For here is the one who wipes away our tears. He doesn’t stop them, but holds us as we cry; as we sob on his shoulder and gently, lovingly wipes them.

We waited and hoped—
    now our God is here.

My Jesus, My Saviour

Posted in bible, faith, God, Lectionary, Religion, theology
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What Am I Missing

•October 5, 2014 • Leave a Comment

Brooklyn Museum - The Son of the Vineyard (Le fils de la vigne) - James Tissot.jpg

Who
or what
have I overlooked,
thrown out,
turned away?

Who
or what
have I decided is irrelevent,
not of God,
not what we should be doing here?

That was trying to show me God,
bring his word,
show his ways,
but I wouldn’t hear,
couldn’t see,
so I wanted rid?

How many times Lord,
have I missed you,
through my fixed ideas
and ended up
rejecting your work?
Rejecting you?

Forgive me Lord,
for not looking beyond,
taking the time
to hear,
listen,
see;
and suppose,
just suppose,
that you might be in
something different
to what I expect.

Forgive me Lord,
for missing you;
the opportunity to be a part
of what you are doing;
and trying to stop you.

Open my eyes to see you,
my ears to hear you,
my mind to be ready
and my heart to love
– whatever guise you come in

Matthew 21:33-46 (CEV)

Renters of a Vineyard

33 Jesus told the chief priests and leaders to listen to this story:

A land owner once planted a vineyard. He built a wall around it and dug a pit to crush the grapes in. He also built a lookout tower. Then he rented out his vineyard and left the country.

34 When it was harvest time, the owner sent some servants to get his share of the grapes. 35 But the renters grabbed those servants. They beat up one, killed one, and stoned one of them to death. 36 He then sent more servants than he did the first time. But the renters treated them in the same way.

37 Finally, the owner sent his own son to the renters, because he thought they would respect him. 38 But when they saw the man’s son, they said, “Someday he will own the vineyard. Let’s kill him! Then we can have it all for ourselves.” 39 So they grabbed him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him.

40 Jesus asked, “When the owner of that vineyard comes, what do you suppose he will do to those renters?”

41 The chief priests and leaders answered, “He will kill them in some horrible way. Then he will rent out his vineyard to people who will give him his share of grapes at harvest time.”

42 Jesus replied, “You surely know that the Scriptures say,

‘The stone that the builders
    tossed aside
is now the most important
    stone of all.
This is something
the Lord has done,
    and it is amazing to us.’

43 I tell you that God’s kingdom will be taken from you and given to people who will do what he demands. 44 Anyone who stumbles over this stone will be crushed, and anyone it falls on will be smashed to pieces.”[a]

45 When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard these stories, they knew that Jesus was talking about them. 46 So they looked for a way to arrest Jesus. But they were afraid to, because the people thought he was a prophet.

Posted in bible, community, faith, God, Lectionary, Religion, theology
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