OCTOBER 30, 2016

About 10 minutes after worship ends, we’ll gather together for Aftertalk. We hope you’ll join us! Bring your questions, stories, insights, doubts, musings, imaginings and whatever else you need. Join us for some fellowship, laughter and ample space for reflection and real questions to help us reflect on the implications of our faith and make the transition from worship to world.
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Readings for this Sunday:
Habakkuk 1:1-4, 2:1-4 • Psalm 119: 137-144 • 2 Thess 4: 1- 4 • Luke 19:1-10 

Be Thou My Vision
Many who grew up in the church know the song:

Zacheus was a wee little man....

Zacheus went out on a limb - literally climbed a tree to see Jesus. Jesus' vision for the world caught him. A vision of a world where riches are shared and folks are treated fairly. We don't know how the story ends. Did Zaccheus keep hold of the vision?  Did he act on it? That's maybe one of the questions for this Sunday. How do we keep to the vision of shalom - peace of earth?  How do we faithfully act on it amidst all that life brings?

Bring a baked potato topping to share this Sunday and enjoy a baked potato with our conversation... a spud with a bud, a tuber with a St. Andrewber!

About 10 minutes after worship ends, we’ll gather together for Aftertalk. We hope you’ll join us! Bring your questions, stories, insights, doubts, musings, imaginings and whatever else you need. Join us for some fellowship, laughter and ample space for reflection and real questions to help us reflect on the implications of our faith and make the transition from worship to world.
​
Readings for this Sunday:
Joel 2:23-29 • Psalm 65 • 2 Timothy 4:6-8, 16-18 • Luke 18:9-14

Love is Little
A Pharisee and a tax collector walked into a temple...

​If you don't know the rest of the joke, take a look at the Luke reading for Sunday... although it isn't really a joke, but Jesus does seem to have his fun with his listeners. In the telling he creates something of a catch-22. The Pharisee seems to be judged harshly in the story, but once we begin to judge the Pharisee we commit the sin of the Pharisee and become like him! As much as we want to find our place and get comfortable in the story, we are in trouble. Clever. And profoundly important to note!

About 10 minutes after worship ends, we’ll gather together for Aftertalk. We hope you’ll join us! Bring your questions, stories, insights, doubts, musings, imaginings and whatever else you need. Join us for some fellowship, laughter and ample space for reflection and real questions to help us reflect on the implications of our faith and make the transition from worship to world.
​
Readings for this Sunday:
Jeremiah 31:27-34 • Psalm 119:97-104 • 2 Timothy 3:14-4:5 • Luke 18:1-8

Hearts and Minds
Timothy is a third generation Christian who has been marinated in the gospel: "continue in what you have learned and firmly believed." There's something here about the power of faith, that is, trusting in the reliability and wisdom of Jesus' gospel, even when facts on the ground cast a shadow of doubt over it. Surely we can relate in an upside-down time when much of what we call our Christian culture seems to abandon notions of goodwill, human dignity, and virtue for other (more political?) considerations.

In his response to the community, Timothy clearly struggles over how Christian communities like his could not find themselves aligned with people like the widow in Jesus' parable. The only support she seems to have in the story is that of an "unjust" judge who is not defending her out of any sense of moral obligation, but simply because he is tired of hearing from her. Where are the others, we might ask, who should be helping her? Where is her community of support?

​And yet, we know there is a community, even if it seems to wane in different seasons. There is a God who grants justice, who watches over the widow and the orphan and the oppressed, who loves equally all people, yet seems to regard the poor as more equal than others.

About 10 minutes after worship ends, we’ll gather together for Aftertalk. We hope you’ll join us! Bring your questions, stories, insights, doubts, musings, imaginings and whatever else you need. Join us for some fellowship, laughter and ample space for reflection and real questions to help us reflect on the implications of our faith and make the transition from worship to world.
​
Readings for this Sunday:
Jeremiah 29:1, 4-7 • Psalm 66:1-12 • 2 Timothy 2:8-15 • Luke 17:11-19

Meeting Places
The story in Luke is a familiar one to many. Jesus and his followers encounter ten lepers whom he quickly heals, instructing them, "Go and show yourselves to the priest." Nine disappear never to be heard from again. But one turns back and gives thanks, a Samaritan. This is interesting for a number of reasons. One, we might wonder what good it would have done for him to go to the priest. He wasn't a Jew, and in fact would not have been welcomed. Seeing the priest would restore these former lepers to their families and communities. They would no longer have to hand around the edges, keeping a safe distance, essentially cut off. This was a big deal!

About 10 minutes after worship ends, we’ll gather together for Aftertalk. We hope you’ll join us! Bring your questions, stories, insights, doubts, musings, imaginings and whatever else you need. Join us for some fellowship, laughter and ample space for reflection and real questions to help us reflect on the implications of our faith and make the transition from worship to world.
​
Readings for this Sunday:
Lamentations 1:1 - 6, 3: 19 - 26 • 2 Timothy 1:1-14 • Luke 17:5-10

Worthless?

Self-talk is a powerful thing and it all the more powerful when we put the weight of God's opinion of us behind it. Jesus seems end his story in Sunday's Gospel with a question about self-talk?  Do you consider yourself worthless? We might also ask, do we think too highly of ourselves. So In Sunday's after-talk we will ask these question (and probably a few others):  

What are we to tell ourselves about our place in God's community.?
How can we practice telling ourselves the truth of who we are in God's eyes?
What difference does it make?

Resources for your Reflection