Readings for this Sunday:
  Proverbs 1:20-33 | Psalm 19 | James 3:1-12 | Mark 8:27-38

Who do we say Jesus is? I suspect it is a more complicated question than we might first imagine it to be. I also suspect it is more related than we might first imagine to the question of what Jesus meant when he said to his disciples, “If you want to become my followers…” deny yourselves and take up your cross and follow.

So I wonder if we might play a little with these two questions today. Explore them a bit together: Who do we say Jesus is and then, what does it and what doesn’t it look like to follow, to be his disciple, to take up our cross?

Readings for this Sunday:
1 Samuel 17:32-49 | Psalm 133 | 2 Corinthians 6:1-13| Mark 4:35-41

“How very good and pleasant to live in unity” feels like something of a lament this week… a yearning… an if only.

  …feels like a statement of what’s meant to be, and far removed…

  …but also strangely it feels like some kind balm for the heart: a heart that aches at those lives lost in Charleston and the horrors of witnessing one of God’s beloved so brutally taking the lives of others.  

“How very good and pleasant to live in unity”… a sadness at the brokenness that we can’t seem to escape…  

…but also these words, they ring, maybe faintly, with the echoes of something we might hold onto.   

“How very good and pleasant to live in unity” …a reminder…..a hope - yes a hope…..an enticement…a coaxing …and a question – a gentle question: How will you respond? - we are connected to those who are in pain – we ache with them and this ache is of this unity of which we sing – unity in God – holy belonging to each other – feeling pain for each other – knowing that this violence is far from the peace we are made for and so as people connected to all other’s that God’s loves there come this question…..How will you be? What will you do?

Today's Readings:
Exodus 24:12-18  •  2 Peter 1:16-21  •  Matthew 17:1-9

There’s a ten dollar word that describes the idea of what a church is about. The word is ecclesiology. It comes from the Greek word ekklessia, which is the word typically used for the church in the New Testament. The word has been coming up for me a lot lately as I’ve been working on a project for a degree program, which I am proud to report to you has been progressing at the breathtaking speed of a snail suffering from asthma, who has unfortunately left his inhaler at home.

Actually, the work continues to be both interesting and helpful to me, and many of you have supported me in it, so I do want to say thank you.

Anyway, the word ecclesiology has been coming up a lot lately in the work. And for some reason I had been having a tough time getting my head around its meaning. That changed this week when I was retelling a story that you have heard me tell before, and I realized it summarizes for me, my ecclesiology—what I understand the church to be at its heart—what it is, what it does, where its authority lies, how God is in it.

Today's Scripture:
Isaiah 9:1-4  •  1 Corinthians 1:10-18  •  Matthew 4:12-23

Ok. I will admit to watching just a little Sportscenter this week in preparation for the Superbowl next Sunday. Ok, I’m sorry. That’s a total lie. I have spent many hours soaking in the attention that the Seahawks and this region have received on the many programs—sports programming and otherwise—that have all of a sudden seemed to discover there is a professional football team not to mention an urban area north of California and west of Chicago. So I have this strange sense that I should be talking about Richard Sherman this morning because clearly there hasn’t been enough said already about him this past week.

And if you didn’t get that joke, then I’m afraid you may not be as “all in” as the rest of the region is when it comes to these Seahawks and their march to the Superbowl and the fanatic response of the region to their success.