Jan DittmarIsaiah 55:1-9; Psalm 63:1-8; 1 Corinthians 10:1-13; Luke 13:1-9
Not about sin, about forgiveness If you scan the worship aid and hymns this week, you might note, as I did, that they include more language than usual about sin. Yipee! Aren’t you glad you came to worship this week? This is Lent, the preparation period before Easter, an opportunity for look inward. But the focus this week isn’t about sin, it is about forgiveness. We sometimes carry guilt around inside ourselves. Maggie talked last week about negative self talk, beating ourselves up when we talk to ourselves. But even if you aren’t a running-commentary kind of person and don’t talk to yourself, you might inwardly feel guilt. Sometimes we carry a burden of thinking we are responsible, or have done wrong and need forgiveness. We feel a darkness and separation, we create our own personal hell. Confession in the Church is intended to release us from these burdens and free us to feel forgiven and be our best selves.
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Jan DittmarGenesis 1:1-31; Psalm 8:1-9; 2 Corinthians 13:11-13; Matthew 28:16-20
Anyone living in the Pacific Northwest should read Timothy Egan’s The Good Rain. It is a thrilling yarn by a modern day wilderness adventurer who follows the route of a trailblazer from 1853. Woven through many historic threads, is Egan’s reverence for Creation in the Pacific Northwest. Let me read a small passage, chosen at random. Near Vasiliki Tower (a mountain in the North Cascades), wildflowers grow from rock slits high above timberline. A hummingbird buzzes overhead, and I see goat prints on a patch of midsummer snow. As it has for many citizens of the Information Age, computer time has cut my attention span and reduced my patience. To come up here, I must slow to glacier time. In a class at Seattle U, several of us from St. Andrew read a half dozen books, at least four of which also captured an enchantment with Nature in these parts. I was reminded of the creation story Pat read that begins Genesis. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. And it was good. Farther down, at verse 26, God says, “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing.... God blessed them, and God said to them, Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion…. Jan DittmarToday's Scripture:
John 18:1-19:42 It is finished. These scriptures are so powerful that I admit I have a strong inclination to simply say, “Amen!” and go home. It is difficult to say anything or give illustrations that do anything but pale beside these words. It is finished. |
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