October 31st, 2013 Commentary on Henri Nouwen's Daily Meditation

http://myemail.constantcontact.com/Daily-Meditation--Focusing-on-the-Poor.html?soid=1011221485028&aid=I5HQlgYQz0g

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Thursday October 31, 2013 

Focusing on the Poor

Like every human organization the Church is constantly in danger of corruption.  As soon as power and wealth come to the Church, manipulation, exploitation, misuse of influence, and outright corruption are not far away.

How do we prevent corruption in the Church? The answer is clear:  by focusing on the poor.  The poor make the Church faithful to its vocation.  When the Church is no longer a church for the poor, it loses its spiritual identity.  It gets caught up in disagreements, jealousy, power games, and pettiness.  Paul says,  "God has composed the body so that greater dignity is given to the parts which were without it, and so that there may not be disagreements inside the body but each part may be equally concerned for all the others" (1 Corinthians 12:24-25).  This is the true vision.  The poor are given to the Church so that the Church as the body of Christ can be and remain a place of mutual concern, love, and peace.

My Commentary:

Mission in the church today is very difficult on some levels either because it is laden with stumbling blocks of politics and money or as my pastor friend would say—“self-stifling protectionism…”  In a perfect world, it would be nice if the corporate church could function completely engaged in servant leadership in all facets of reaching out to the world…  As we know, however, that is impossible for there are many churches with leaky roofs, office supplies to buy and bills to pay.  The church plant I recently served strove for that reality by operating completely and critically through volunteers.  The pastor himself was a volunteer!  They could reach out to many people in various situations and ministries but they can’t grow beyond themselves, ironically.

The cruel reality of living towards being in the world but not of it; IS that we have to operate through and around sin.  These greatest sins are greed and indifference.  They’ve hit the corporate church where it hurts and in some cases truncated arms outstretched for the glory of the Gospel.  The “transactional” mentality of the current American mindset is even showing its ugly effects in training and placing future pastoral leaders.  Many parishes are only seeking part-time pastors (which truth be told from many pastor friends of mine—it is NOT a part-time vocation to say the least!) and many seminarians are deep in student loan debt finishing their degrees in hopes to be interns, to be ordained!

Nouwen in today’s meditation is reflecting upon one facet of poverty and mission.  For the greater can of worms is girding up to serve, address is a more devastating poverty; this being spiritual poverty. We are in a vast cultural wasteland of transactional, agenda-oriented, heretical idolatries.  We idolize the intellect and the self above and beyond God.  Willfully allowing Satan to assist us in tearing down the pillars/norms of our faith! The further we move into being consumed inwardly, the further we grow away from God feeding off of the false epicurean promises of the evil one. 

The only way we can win the war on both kinds of poverty is living into what are true values over ideals.  Spiritually working together as the Body to transform, not transact with the world around us. We are not in mission to preserve brick and mortar more than transform and build up the Body of disciples in the world.  If we all came to be spiritual grounded in Christ as the Lord of our lives… (Matthew 7:12-14) ¹²“In everything do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law and the prophets. ¹³“Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the road is easy that leads to destruction, and there are many who take it. ¹⁴For the gate is narrow and the road is hard that leads to life, and there are few who find it.”

God Bless Your Thursdays!

Nicole Collins

Tuesday October 29th, 2013 “The importance of seeking fellowship for seeking space; my reflection on the Northern Illinois and Indiana chapter retreat of the Society of the Holy Trinity.”

Any time there is ever a question from anyone, on the outside of my faith journey, about why I consider myself an Orthodox Lutheran…  I think fondly about what true fellowship with pastoral leaders and seminarian peers is when participating in retreat with the Society of the Holy Trinity.  One of the blessings of moving into new experiences and serving in study with Pastor Keith Forni, STS at his parish in Joliet, Illinois—First and Santa Cruz Lutheran Church, is connecting with a devoted family of individuals purely seeking to both keep Christ in the center of their lives and ministries as well as champion His Gospel for all to hear.

This was the first chapter retreat I was invited to come to.  Unlike the general retreat, which is the entire community, there is a more intimate gathering of local pastors and seminarian peers.  I knew beyond a doubt God intended to make space in my busy school schedule to come for both yesterday and today for there were no classes today for the day of prayer at my seminary as well as I burned the midnight oil as they say, last week to be ahead on all of my studies for the rest of the week.  Each and every year Pastor Forni, the Northern Illinois dean of the Society, has chosen the Portiuncula Prayer center in Frankfort, Illinois for the two day gathering of prayers, worship, Bible study and as said, true fellowship.  It is a different kind of “lovely” in comparison to the Mundelein general retreat site.  Intimate rooms, gathering spaces and a lovely basement chapel give you that perfect “space” that for me was truly needed.

This year’s fall retreat had us studying Robert Jenson’s, ‘On the Inspiration of Scripture.’  The book itself is deceptively small on pages but loaded beyond imagination with fantastic theological nuggets of faith for the heart and the mind to chew on.  Pastor Forni purchased the book in honoring the memory of Pastor Thomas Knutson who died this past month from cancer.  What a gift!  I say this both in faithfully discussing the spirit’s work in relaying the scriptures as well as to host this study in loving memory of a faithful pastor. 

One of the greatest blessings from not only this retreat but from pastoral and seminarian fellowship as the intentionally connected Body; IS witness, is sharing, is being BOLD to proclaim both in what you believe and why it is critically important to do so!  We are ALL called no matter where we are on the journey of growing to serve Christ to BE witnesses to love each other—true fellowship, true friendship.  I thank God for all of these experiences for it is the triune God who inspires us all! God’s Blessings to all my brothers and sisters in the society of the Holy Trinity and beyond!

Nicole Collins

"Re-Forming" A Sermon for Reformation Sunday--October 27th, 2013 Nicole Collins

Re-Forming

This year in chewing on the Word in preparation for Reformation Sunday; I had John Lennon rasping as the soundtrack in my mind, his famous Beatles’ tune Revolution.  “You say you want a revolution—Well, you know, We all want to change the world. You tell me that it's evolution—Well, you know, We all want to change the world. But when you talk about destruction… Don't you know that you can count me out! You say you got a real solution—Well, you know, We'd all love to see the plan. You ask me for a contribution—Well, you know, We're doing what we can!

Are we really doing all what we can do?  Do we truthfully want to change the world with the Word: JESUS?  Or more or less are we bent upon our own destruction…  Jesus says: ^31b…“If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples; ³²and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.”  However, we’re probably hearing Jack Nickelson’s famous line from ‘a few good men,’ say in the back of our “saint/sinner” minds: “You want the TRUTH?!  You can’t handle the TRUTH!”  The truth is that we can’t, it is revolutionary, it is radical and counter-cultural to our “way” of doing things in this world!

500 something years ago, a bold monk in a tiny town in Germany decided to “Voice” his concerns on a piece of paper he would hammer to the cathedral doors…  Little did he know or truthfully, desire, that those 95 statements or theses would cause a revolt.  This “revolt” would later productively take the shape of being known as the Reformation.  This would be a Re-formation back to desiring a Christ-centered discipleship and ministry fueled by love which is why we are here and now together as “Lutherans” in the church of the Reformation. 

Let’s take a look at the roots of these Words: Revolution and Reformation.  Revolution is basically a worldly term that entails working against something that needs to be over-turned.  It is both a revolt as well as it is de-constructive and destructive!  The opposite end of radical change is known as reformation or re-formation.  We are re-shaping as individual and collective disciples of the church of Christ.  Formation is all about building, modeling, constructing as well as being constructive!  The Spiritual formation of the disciple also known collectively as a member of the Body of Christ—“the Church,” is or should be willingly engaged in a covenant of transformation to be the faithful bride of Christ… as His hands and feet in this world…  TRUTH be told, we are not.

We are not living as justified by GRACE citizens of the Kingdom of God but then, do we need to hear the cutting edges of the broken mirror of the Law over and over again?  Jeremiah’s prose in the previous chapter before today’s message of future Hope reveals that ugly mirror: ^11b… (says the Lord) “I will chastise you in just measure, and I will by no means leave you unpunished. ¹²For thus says the Lord: Your hurt is incurable, your wound is grievous. ¹³There is no one to uphold your cause, no medicine for your wound, no healing for you. ¹⁴All your lovers have forgotten you; they care nothing for you; for I have dealt you the blow of an enemy, the punishment of a merciless foe, because your guilt is great, because your sins are so numerous. ¹⁵Why do you cry out over your hurt? Your pain is incurable. Because your guilt is great, because your sins are so numerous, I have done these things to you. ¹⁶Therefore all who devour you shall be devoured, and all your foes, everyone of them, shall go into captivity; those who plunder you shall be plundered, and all who prey on you I will make a prey.”  Yikes!

Obviously this snippet is more or less YHWH’s curse before the Blessings He would reveal in the following chapter of Hope for radical, transformational change… but on another level, we can clearly hear the accusing, condemning “voice” of the Law.  It is destructive more than it is constructive or instructing for that matter.  As we know, with Jesus we receive a radical NEW Law which tears down the world of the former external understanding of Law and its system of outward sacrifice with an internal Re-Formation of the Heart.  Basically Jesus verbally performs “bypass surgery” on his disciples with establishing the core of what he came to do for the world: Set it free, set us free!  Setting us free from the bondage of sin, death and the devil imparting a Gospel of unconditional, transformational, revolutionary love that is GRACE itself!

The only thing de-constructing about the radical re-formation Jesus brings to humanity to spiritually take action upon is tearing down the well established “church” of the world catering more or less to the un-Holy Trinity of I, Me and Mine.”

The Gospel of GRACE gets its’ heralds into trouble…  Jesus died for us for this message to be heard LOUDLY and accomplished in many ways what Jeremiah started out to do in calling for change.  As we know for Luther, the Roman church did everything in its power to persecute and condemn him, even excommunicating him.  Excommunicating a loyal servant leader for the Will of Christ!  The established hierarchy of a physical church— Jesus didn’t necessarily intend for us to “build” but BE “building up” each other in fellowship to spread the Good News.  Like those nails in Christ’s hands and feet, Luther sealed his fate with pounding those nails into the hardened walls of the “closed” Body of Christ.  Those nails only nicked into the surface of a radical call for change that the Romans may have not heard with an open heart but those outside the walls heard deeply and joined Luther in starting a revolt which would later transform into being the Reformation. 

We are celebrating today as a “remnant” of what Luther never intended…  BUT what God intended and still is insisting that we continuously do!: RE-FORM or more or less TRANSFORM into GRACE-filled beings living into the Gospel of Love centered around Christ Alone, GRACE Alone, Word Alone and Faith Alone!  As St. Paul’s snippet from Romans today says: ¹⁹Now we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. ²⁰For “no human being will be justified in his sight” by deeds prescribed by the law, for through the law comes the knowledge of sin. ²¹But now, apart from law, the righteousness of God has been disclosed, and is attested by the law and the prophets, ²²the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction, ²³since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; ²⁴they are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, ²⁵whom God put forward as a sacrifice of atonement by his blood, effective through faith. He did this to show his righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over the sins previously committed; ²⁶it was to prove at the present time that he himself is righteous and that he justifies the one who has faith in Jesus. ²⁷Then what becomes of boasting? It is excluded. By what law? By that of works? No, but by the law of faith. ²⁸For we hold that a person is justified by faith apart from works prescribed by the law.”

The whole world needs to be living in the light of accountability, reciprocity for we have been redeemed, justified, aligned in a new relationship with God because of Christ Jesus.  Because of Christ Jesus we have been re-formed but through faith which is the manifestation of GRACE—we are called to transform not only ourselves but the World!  We need to live into that calling no matter how difficult or contradicting the journey may become at times…  We need to hear the Psalmist’s song of praise, that God is our refuge and is with us while we take on the ever mounting challenge to be BOLD witnesses for the Gospel.  We must be urgent, we must be persistent not just with ourselves but TRUTHFULLY for Christ Jesus.  Living into the light of GRACE is a continuous journey; but it is one not lived Alone.

AMEN

Reformation Sunday October 27^th, 2013; Lectionary 30; 23^rd Sunday after Pentecost; SOLA Lectionary

Psalm 46; Romans 3:19-28; John 8:31-36 &  (RCL) Jeremiah 31:31-34            Nicole Collins

October 24th, 2013 Commentary on Henri Nouwen's Daily Meditation

http://myemail.constantcontact.com/Daily-Meditation--Loving-the-Church.html?soid=1011221485028&aid=Y9JvsZycr68

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Thursday October 24, 2013 

Loving the Church

Loving the Church often seems close to impossible.  Still, we must keep reminding ourselves that all people in the Church - whether powerful or powerless,  conservative or progressive, tolerant or fanatic - belong to that long line of witnesses moving through this valley of tears, singing songs of praise and thanksgiving, listening to the voice of their Lord, and eating together from the bread that keeps multiplying as it is shared.  When we remember that, we may be able to say,  "I love the Church, and I am glad to belong to it."

Loving the Church is our sacred duty.   Without a true love for the Church, we cannot live in it in joy and peace.  And without a true love for the Church, we cannot call people to it.

My Commentary:

Today’s Nouwen has a funny title I must confess… for do we love a building or do we love mission?  What today’s meditation has to say to me is in recalling wonderful, committed laity I have served alongside of during my training in ministry.  The church plant I recently served for the past year and a half had amazing devoted, passionate people.  The Body was in fine shape and everyone could see that!  The deacon of this former plant, in particular, is amazing.  He and his wife have devoted their lives to stewarding the various and often overwhelming duties the community needed to get off the ground!  One of the great tasks they would take care of week after week would be hauling all of the communion ware and altar items back and forth in their family van since the hotel wouldn’t give the church any storage.  Every little facet from the greeting prelude Powerpoint presentation to the elaborately set table, they took charge of.

At my new church family community, there are two congregants who are continually serving in worship.  They are active and passionately committed to the mission efforts of the parish.  They radiate living in the light of God’s GRACE which truthfully is why we gather.  We gather together as the Body to empower and motivate one another to be passionate disciples.  We need one another to live out Jesus’ great commission to us all: (Matthew 28:18-20) “¹⁸And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. ¹⁹Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, ²⁰and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

If I were to re-word this meditation, I would say to love first, the church within your heart built by the Holy Spirit and love/ grow and look forward to true koinonia (fellowship) with the family of disciples—the Body of Christ/ the collective church!

God Bless Your Thursdays!

Nicole Collins

October 23rd, 2013 Commentary on Henri Nouwen's Daily Meditation

http://myemail.constantcontact.com/Daily-Meditation--Being-in-the-Church--Not-of-It.html?soid=1011221485028&aid=bO4XEbMjfMM

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Wednesday October 23, 2013 

Being in the Church, Not of It

Often we hear the remark that we have to live in the world without being of the world.  But it may be more difficult to be in the Church without being of the Church.   Being of the Church means being so preoccupied by and involved in the many ecclesial affairs and clerical "ins and outs" that we are no longer focused on Jesus.  The Church then blinds us from what we came to see and deafens us to  what we came to hear.   Still, it is in the Church that Christ dwells, invites us to his table, and speaks to us words of eternal love. Being in the Church without being of it is a great spiritual challenge.

My Commentary:

Yesterday I was privileged to hear a great presentation and pastoral introduction to a denomination that truly cares for the original mission/purpose of “why we gather to scatter,” as well as how they intend on caring for their congregations.  I will purposely leave out their name because it’s not to be an advertisement for them more than to point out when we see true faith and value come together for Christ Alone and of GRACE Alone.

As leaders of the Body of Christ—the priesthood of all believers; we need to be living into our values.  Living into our values centered in Christ alone in the Word is discipleship.  As the Bishop said last night: “Hear the Gospel, don’t just read it!”  This means taking it into you deeply incorporating it truthfully in your lives.  This is allowing the Holy Spirit to equip you for the work of ministry to which we are all called according to our gifts.  We’ve heard this from St. Paul.  Community as the Body when lived in the Light of GRACE examples natural fruits of gracious, intentional, loving behavior…  Where pastors are real shepherds, where Bishops are real pastors to the Pastors, not figure heads or corporate icons of institutional glory! 

We have a long road ahead fighting with idolatry, heresy and vices that has woven itself into the corporate church…  We will need to look first at the internal church to ask ourselves:  For whom do we have true life from?  Christ Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life—we must VALUE to live into the New Life he has given us through GRACE.

God Bless Your Wednesdays!

Nicole Collins

October 21st, 2013 Commentary on Henri Nouwen's Daily Meditation

http://myemail.constantcontact.com/Daily-Meditation--The-Church--God-s-People.html?soid=1011221485028&aid=CNkpbe2PmDU

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Monday October 21, 2013 

The Church, God's People

As Jesus was one human person among many, the Church is one organization among many.  And just as there may have been people with more attractive appearances than Jesus, there may be many organizations that are a lot better run than the Church.   But Jesus is the Christ appearing among us to reveal God's love, and the Church is his people called together to make his presence visible in today's world.

Would we have recognized Jesus as the Christ if we had met him many years ago?  Are we able to recognize him today in his body, the Church?  We are asked to make a leap of faith.  If we dare to do it our eyes will be opened and we will see the glory of God. 

My Commentary:

I think the last two sentences of today meditation are truly worth ruminating upon: “We are asked to make a leap of faith.  If we dare to do it, our eyes will be opened and we will see the glory of God.”  If is that conditional which just like the law, challenges us into discernment and motivation.  If we dared to preach the Good News faithfully to our flock leaving in the full power of GRACE—obedience, response, intentionality and transformation…  How would today’s surround culture respond?  There’s a lot of cheap grace, health-wealth gospel around diluting the efficacy of the Word which is something we need to collectively fight!  Witness, prophecy, evangelism are those scary words that dare us to live GRACE with our eyes opened to reveal the Glory of God to the world!

We must remember that Jesus taught us to be lights on a hill.  He asked us to leave father and mother, family…  He asked us to pick up our crosses and follow him.  He asked us to fish for people!  Discipleship as the Body isn’t something just the pastor or the church does…  Discipleship is something we do together through servant leadership as the priesthood of all believers!  IF your DARE to boldly witness in a world with an attitude of “if you can’t beat ‘um, join ‘um;” you will be taking up the cost of discipleship needed!  Urgency and agency are the motivation and activity we are all called to be doing for the sake of the Gospel.  Living in the light of GRACE requires taking on the If’s with “an I can” attitude.  The church as a fellowship is to restore itself as a culture dedicated to Christ as its center.  It is to be a training ground to go into the world with a transformed heart to spiritual transform the world for the Glory and Will of God!

God Bless Your Mondays!

Nicole Collins

The image below is a design I helped to create for the discipleship project at my former parish a couple of years ago. 

October 20th, 2013 Commentary on Henri Nouwen's Daily Meditation

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Sunday October 20, 2013 

Superabundant Grace

Over the centuries the Church has done enough to make any critical person want to leave it.  Its history of violent crusades, pogroms, power struggles, oppression, excommunications, executions, manipulation of people and ideas, and constantly recurring divisions is there for everyone to see and be appalled by.

Can we believe that this is the same Church that carries in its center the Word of God and the sacraments of God's healing love?  Can we trust that in the midst of all its human brokenness the Church presents the broken body of Christ to the world as food for eternal life?  Can we acknowledge that where sin is abundant grace is superabundant, and that where promises are broken over and again God's promise stands unshaken?   To believe is to answer yes to these questions.

My Commentary:

If the church were “perfect” or if we truly emulated Jesus… we wouldn’t recognize the world AT ALL!  Accountability is something we have lost in making all the functions of the body “work-together…”  Satan has found a great path for causing division in the church and these are idolatry of the self and its intellect, greed and indifference.  If we truly functioned to breathe in the Word of God and live up to God’s Gracious call to obedience and faith…  We would not be where we are these days in trying to “do” church. 

“It takes two to tango,” as the saying goes.  Cooperation and compassion build mighty teams for the Lord especially when they are CENTERED on Christ and NOT the self and the evil one’s worldly temptations!  The Glory of God’s raining/ reigning GRACE surrounds us abundantly but we can only see this through transformed hearts turned to the Lord and accountability—intentionally motivated to take up our crosses and follow Him.  So great a gift we were given…  Christ Jesus defeated sin, death and the devil upon the cross as well as the gift of faith.  Faith is the fruit of GRACE…  In light of the schisms and divisions in the church; has that mustard seed turned back into sub-atomic particles?!  There is so much potential there that we need to willingly tap into to “grow and go” together spreading the Good News!  Simply thinking deeply about Nouwen’s questions above as well as listening deeply to the Word of God, as seen through the eyes of a transformed heart will resurrect and transform the Body.  Resurrect and Transform the church to burgeon forth a brave New world reflecting God’s Will greatly, abundantly and with everlasting blessings!

God Bless Your Sundays!

Nicole Collins

"Enduring Words;" Sermon for Sunday October 20th, 2013

Enduring Words

“³For the time is coming when people will not put up with sound doctrine, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own desires, ⁴and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander away to myths. ⁵As for you, always be sober, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, carry out your ministry fully.”

Can we consider St. Paul’s Words to Timothy prophetic where we are today, how we struggle?  I would say so and I would Hope with Grace-filled persistence that others feel this way as well and are called to a greater sense of urgency and agency beyond themselves for the sake of others, for the Will of God!

A friend of mine on a similar path began seminary about seven years ago not only answering God’s deep call to his heart but sensing deeply that he cannot be idol.  He was a glass and metal sculptor originally, “yes, another artist,” who found himself struggling.  This was before his official conversion experience some twelve years ago.  What we both had in common in the sense of struggle before we even knew Christ in our lives was being bound, spiritually straight-jacketed to the art object.  We created messages of either glass, metal, paper and wood that did NOT speak.  No one heard it except for God.  Before we even knew what prayer really would be, mean in our lives, God heard our struggling.  For Marshall McCluhan in many ways was spiritually wrong about one thing… the medium is the message but it needed the ego to have it heard.  The ego serves no purpose but to overly inflate our own world and purposes.  It is an existential hell in the making of fantastic proportions!

My friend and I recently met for lunch this past week in our favorite north-side café, in the city of the “Old Nature” (in many ways), Chicago.  He recently had to transfer yet a 3^rd time to another seminary due to either politics or learning problems.  We’re about the same age and learning the Biblical languages can be a daunting task!  He shared with me that he feels a lot like a gambler.  As he put it, he’s got a fantastic seven-year-old craps game going with several chips strategically placed on this project, that opportunity or maneuvering his way around yet another glass ceiling!  He would say: “Yes, those glass ceilings… I think God has a great sense of humor since I was a glass sculptor—every time I clear one another one forms!  Never thought going to seminary meant I had to become a politician AND be good at it!”

Today’s Gospel examples a little old woman who’s faithful persistence eventually shattered that glass ceiling of injustice being done upon her, not with her bony fists shaking in the air at the indifferent and unjust judge but with an endurance that was living faith in action—living prayer!  She kept coming to him every day probably looked at her sundial in the back yard of her home to make sure she would be there exactly when this man got his chalice of wine & his papyruses of court cases ready to review for his bureaucratic functions. She was unrelenting as I’m sure she struggled with herself walking that fine-line tightrope between hope and despair. 

She probably sounded a lot like my friend when he began to “need” to vent some of his pain-of-the-journey with me.  One school  he was at was all about ugly politics… little to do with developing the pastoral self or faith and more to do with partisan denominational, “chaplaincy to culture” issues.  He was Orthodox like me and unbeknownst to him, had a giant bull’s eye invisibly painted upon him taking the cold and evil arrows from a self-absorbed, power-seeking community of “future pastoral leaders…”  He finally had enough of the toxicity of the place and moved on to try to finish his MDiv at another school.  He loves the school’s pastoral theology classes but not necessarily their “Calvinist bent” (as he puts it) or their languages which he has not been surviving!  He thought of going back as a supplicant to the former “seminary from hell” as he put it… but I told him: “We never get to see what happened to Albert Brooks and his wife in ‘Lost in America’ when they return to New York and “eat S%&*”   Does their tenacity and drive help them to restore their lives?”  We looked at one another sipping a long since chilled cup of coffee and realized it was the drive, motivation and life of faith that keeps us going! 

My friend is currently working on gathering a “faithful” bunch of references he can once again pester, and is applying to a school out west.  He feels most likely a complete change of venue plus perseverance will help him see finishing his MDiv before the next presidential election at least!  I could almost hear St. Paul’s beginning dialogue to Timothy in hearing my friend share his new “craps table move” for the journey of being an evangelist and carrying out his ministry fully: “¹You must understand this, that in the last days distressing times will come. ²For people will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, ³inhuman, implacable, slanderers, profligates, brutes, haters of good, ⁴treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, ⁵holding to the outward form of godliness but denying its power. Avoid them! ⁶For among them are those who make their way into households and captivate silly people, overwhelmed by their sins and swayed by all kinds of desires, ⁷who are always being instructed and can never arrive at a knowledge of the truth. ¹⁴But as for you, continue in what you have learned and firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it, ¹⁵and how from childhood you have known the sacred writings that are able to instruct you for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. ¹⁶All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, ¹⁷so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work.”

Being equipped for every good work for both my friend and I, means not spinning one’s wheels—it is actively pursuing answering God’s call no matter what obstacles and injustice there may be on the road to ordination!  One needs to deeply join the Psalmist’s Words of praise and prayer—lifting their eyes over the great tasks at hand, knowing the Lord is our spiritual strength and guide. The manifestations of GRACE are our faith in action!  Living into, breathing in God’s Enduring Words is our motivation. Our efforts are our GRACE-filled responses to God’s GRACE and presence in our lives!

The purposes long since entombed within my friend & I as spiritual stones seeking to break away from the existential hell of the art object are the sources of struggling with the world and wrestling with God.  Wrestling with God, not as an ungrateful scoundrel (like Jacob) playing a “dirty game of craps” but as children of God seeking to fulfill a consecrated New Nature purpose poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit.  Answering as we all must answer as being in the world, NOT of the world!  I hope to be keeping in touch with my friend to empower and encourage one another to stand firm and keep pressing forward. 

There are many gifts all of us have to share with the world…  God never limited our potential, we limit one another.  Leonardo Da Vinci will always be someone to look up to for encouragement for me.  It wasn’t about “pampering the ego” that he was an artist, inventor, scientist, philosopher and enlightened individual…  He felt encouraged to persevere and be all that he could be just as we can BE, USE all of what God has granted us for the Glory of God, love of neighbor and revealing of the Kingdom of God! Luther fits to conclude here: “I cannot choose but adhere to the Word of God, which has possession of my conscience…! Here I stand; I cannot do otherwise, so help me God! Amen.”

AMEN

October 20^th, 2013; Year C; Lectionary 29; Proper 24; 22^nd Sunday After Pentecost; SOLA Lectionary

Psalm 121; Genesis 32: 22-30; 2 Timothy 3:24-4:5; Luke 18:1-8                Nicole Collins

October 17th, 2013 Commentary on Henri Nouwen's Daily Meditation

http://myemail.constantcontact.com/Daily-Meditation--The-Church--Spotless-and-Tainted.html?soid=1011221485028&aid=-pDxQdGIdiY

In case the above link to Henri Nouwen’s Daily Meditation doesn’t work:

Thursday October 17, 2013 

The Church, Spotless and Tainted

The Church is holy and sinful, spotless and tainted.  The Church is the bride of Christ, who washed her in cleansing water and took her to himself "with no speck or wrinkle or anything like that, but holy and faultless"  (Ephesians 5:26-27).  The Church too is a group of sinful, confused, anguished people constantly tempted   by the powers of lust and greed and always entangled in rivalry and competition.

When we say that the Church is a body, we refer not only to the holy and faultless body made Christ-like through baptism and Eucharist but also to the broken bodies of all the people who are its members.   Only when we keep both these ways of thinking and speaking together can we live in the Church as true followers of Jesus.

My Commentary:

It’s been about 11 years since I taught college-level art history.  When it came time in the semester to teach medieval architecture, I would talk about the many cathedrals in Europe. What was fascinating to read and discuss was that every aspect of how the cathedrals were built embodied an expression of the theology.  The Roman Catholic perspective on the architecture of the church was that it needed to literally reflect, be a dwelling of God’s here on earth.  It was literally to be a sanctuary of the other world—Kingdom of God. The English word sanctuary, which is derived from the Latin word sanctuarium, meaning a sacred place (the words sanctity, sanction and saint are all derived from the same root) is secularly defined as a place that is set apart as a refuge from danger or hardship.

Luther understood the church more as the communion of saints over the understanding of the church as the house of the Lord.  “Those who want to know Christ cannot find him by trusting in their own reason, they must go to the church, but not the church built of wood and stone, but the church which is the communion of the saints.”  Luther though, as well affirmed the institutional nature of the church suggesting that it was divinely instituted by God as a means of GRACE. These two concepts however are in tension to one another:  the church as a spiritual reality and the church as an institution.  How I have come to appreciate the Lutheran view of church is that we are all a part of the priesthood of all believers—here is where we gather in communion with one another to build the Body—grow and go together to spread the Good News!  GRACE is the structure of the church which has been created by faith.  It embodies many things but most importantly it embodies the grassroots efforts of the children of God. It is a place of interactive faith, faith in action.

And what I believe Nouwen concludes with is the notion that now more than ever we need to recapture the urgency and agency of the church to turn the tide against evil.  For Faith without naturally produced responses (works) is dead…

God Bless Your Thursdays!

Nicole Collins

October 16th, 2013 Commentary on Henri Nouwen's Daily Meditation

http://myemail.constantcontact.com/Daily-Meditation--Called-out-of-Slavery.html?soid=1011221485028&aid=gUreJO31cd4

In case the above link to Henri Nouwen’s Daily Meditation doesn’t work:

Wednesday October 16, 2013 

Called out of Slavery

The Church is the people of God.  The Latin word for "church," ecclesia, comes from the Greek ek, which means "out," and kaleo, which means "to call."  The Church is the people of God called out of slavery to freedom, sin to salvation, despair to hope, darkness to light, an existence centered on death to an existence focused on life.

When we think of Church we have to think of a body of people, travelling together.  We have to envision women, men, and children of all ages, races, and societies supporting one another on their long and often tiresome journeys to their final home.

My Commentary:

As some of you know, when my pastor and several friends left the ELCA, we started a church plant.  I will always be grateful for the blessing of the experience of building a community from scratch.  Church planting is a lot of work but very exciting stuff! One of the concepts of the community was trying to fight the paradox of the notion of church.  It didn’t necessarily work for either people needed the “brick-and-mortar” comfort or stability of a “place” to gather or they just couldn’t see enough of the discipleship grassroots blessing potential it could have.  I wrestled often with feeling conflicted about the community’s tightrope/ meandering ecclesiology.  First we were “Lutherans in limbo,” which I found way too unstable and was seeking or more or less hoping they would consider seeking affiliation.  The impression I got was that this will never happen.  Secondly the fellowship unfortunately became closed.  It was as the pastor once told me, their greatest blessing and their greatest curse!  How can true open hospitality grow?  It wasn’t a matter of “butts and bucks” which they fought not caving into but their discipling will never truthfully expand into living into what Nouwen says above: “Called Out!”  We gather to scatter and as the priesthood of all believers we should be witnessing, sharing the Gospel with our neighbor and bringing all who are hungry for the Word into where we gather to grow and go together.

We may never be able to completely return to the days of when virtue and vice found a perfect balance in the sanctuary of church—God’s home. That is a part of our more faithful, innocent past.  We need to address the culture around the church without saying spiritually: “If we can’t beat ‘em, will have to join ‘em.”  Chaplaincy to culture doesn’t work for the Bible speaks of two churches we as future leaders of the Body of Christ need to always take into consideration when we preach, teach and administer: the one within us and the one we gather together in fellowship in. The church of this century and growing into the future can return to being that manifestation of Grace built by Faith…  We simply need to reconcile where our intentions are and persevere with great hope the many challenges we will constantly face being a Body placed on earth needing to aspire to be not of this world.

God Bless Your Wednesdays!

Nicole Collins

October 15th, 2013 Commentary on Henri Nouwen's Daily Meditation

http://myemail.constantcontact.com/Daily-Meditation--The-Pillars-of-the-Church.html?soid=1011221485028&aid=6O125pqWU-4

In case the above link to Henri Nouwen’s Daily Meditation doesn’t work:

Tuesday October 15, 2013 

The Pillars of the Church

The two main sacraments, baptism and the Eucharist, are the spiritual pillars of the Church.  They are not simply instruments by which the Church exercises its ministry.  They are not just means by which we become and remain members of the Church but belong to the essence of the Church.  Without these sacraments there is no Church.  The Church is the body of Christ fashioned by baptism and the Eucharist.  When people are baptized in the Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and when they gather around the table of Christ and receive his Body and Blood, they become the people of God, called the Church.

My Commentary:

I think Father Nouwen’s metaphor of “pillars” is very interesting especially when we think about the current trend to deconstruct the structure of the corporate church with apostasy, universalism and antinomianism.  Church theology or Ecclesiology has suffered a lot of blows in the past few years.  It can’t just be defined through the narrow parameters of just “liberal or conservative,” either.  It goes way beyond party-line church politicking and suggests a human failure in hearing the true intentions of “church.” 

Jesus Christ taught his disciples (one on one faith based discipleship) that church began first and most importantly within the tabernacle of the Holy Spirit—the heart.  A heart turned to God plus contemplation (mind) creates response as well as relationship.  This requires a life of obedience, spiritual formation and developing relationships with God and neighbor.

Understanding the GRACE of what had happened for our behalf is something the corporate church of the past as well as of today have always struggled with.  GRACE itself is an embodiment of the unconditional love (Agape) of God, Kairotic time and the mystery of God…  We have been spending centuries upon centuries to try to completely understand or fathom this reality…  How can we fathom it though, truthfully and completely?  It is beyond our understanding!  All we can as human beings (both saint and sinner) is graciously respond by and through Faith.  Faith is an outward, altruistic, transformational expression of being a disciple.  Getting back to the pillars of the church being Baptism and Holy Communion; if we live truthfully in a sacramental sense the pathos of our lives—we can rebuild or re-strengthen the corporate church…  This can only happen through genuinely freed discipleship centered around Christ alone and the reality of living into the light of GRACE being an ongoing process of reflection, confession, repentance and renewal.

God Bless Your Tuesdays!

Nicole Collins

October 14th, 2013|| "Wolverine," A review & prayerful questions more than Commentary

What was an interesting conversation with my text study peer a couple of months back was how a lot of these "action/ super hero" type films are "seeking..., ..."  In an age where the secular and intellectual idolatry are currently reigning, there also reigns spiritual starvation in some form or another.

In the interim of serving in church yesterday & coming back for our church's Ocktoberfest parish fundraiser, we decided to go to the dollar theatre in Joliet.  They had alot of children's movies and the latest Xmen series film around Wolverine.

I'm not usually an action/ violent battle, etc type of movie goer but I have liked the Xmen flicks.  The film to which you see a good trailer above, begins with Wolverine's first "save."  He is in WWII Japan and the nuclear bombs are being dropped...  A Japanese soldier is frozen in shear terror and disbelief while the explosion is beginning to travel.  His soldier peers kill themselves by the sword but Wolverine or "Logan" helps to convince the young terrified soldier to jump into a tunnel.  They barely make it into the well/ tunnel where Wolverine/Logan shields the young man with a small metal lid and himself.  He takes on the horrendous brunt of the grazing fires.  The scene closes with him in silence burnt and slowly healing all his wounds.  He basically saved this man's life.

There are some other characteristics that are allusive to "seeking" as well throughout the film from him being both a self-healer and healer, to being eternal and never changing...  Hollywood weaves a love story in there of course with Logan's torment of accidentally killing the woman he loved.  She has ghostly hauntings of him throughout the film either as moments of conscious contemplation or of pleading with him to surrender his life.  Are we seeing some clear motives developing here?  I certainly did!

One of the greatest nearly "cruciform" moments of our "hero" in action is when he is near the location to where he will be rescuing the daughter of the Japanese man he saved all those years ago.  He is running down a snow covered path trying to dodge these "Ninja" marksmen arrows till in a weakened state, with arms outstretched and dozens of arrows impaling his back he falls over.

There are a dozen or so more little references strung throughout the film which frankly by the end of the movie I really wondered if my friend's hypothesis was right?  Is the surrounding secular culture seeking to find a "messiah?"  They don't want to buy into the story of our faith but they will spend inordinate amounts of energy creatively constructing these surreal heroes that "heal, save, and resurrect."  Is it because realizing God's GRACE and true presence in the world is too frightening or uncontrollable for these people to want to deal with?

When we can spend our energies and truly begin to focus outward beyond the Old Nature and the Un-Holy Trinity of I, Me, Mine... perhaps those who are spiritually starving, seeking for the Messiah will find the only true God: Jesus Christ in our midst.  I confess I enjoyed this film but it has left me praying for our discipling efforts to become more "real" outwardly to the secularized, self-absorbed world.  We need to take hold of the reigns to those seemingly uncomfortable words:  Witness, Prophetic, Proclamation, Martyrdom and Disciple(!) holistically into our hearts and LIVE!

God Bless Your Mondays,
Nicole Collins

"Graceful Transitions," Sermon for October 13th, 2013 by Nicole Collins

Graceful Transitions

Thomas Moore in his book the ‘Original Self’ makes a powerful point of the place we understand GRACE to affect us and transform us: “In rationalistic times like ours it is tempting to think that we are shaped by our intentions and our awareness.  We think that the ego is the dominant self, and we educate ourselves to have good ego boundaries, strong identity and self esteem. But we are made from the depths—beyond consciousness.  We are more original than we can imagine.  We are driven from a place beneath awareness, and what drives us—the Holy Spirit—hurling us towards our identity and our place in time and space.”

Much like the book title—“original” and “self” are the natural components to nurture, grow and develop faith LEAD by Christ Jesus of course!  Our individual paths or pathos of discipleship along with the cost of discipleship leads us wandering down that course of God’s time and our own in tension to one another—up those mountains and into those valleys where the times in between are moments of transition. Living into and living up to the light of GRACE is an ongoing reconciliation to God for the other in obedience and occasionally through disobedience!  Yes I did say disobedience, for the stories in today’s lectionary all have this in common as well as the notion of being in transition— spiritually processing transformation. 

One of the things we grapple with as disciples of Christ is how much of our lives are in tension to many aspects of living into the light of God’s healing/ transforming GRACE.  We are in bondage held in tension to the ultimate freedom, liberation that the good news has to give us!  To what to we hold our fidelity to?  That indeed is the question to which love, hope and gratitude came from foolish disobedience—from Ruth disobeying Naomi’s request to move on, to the Samaritan leper who disobeyed Jesus’ command to go to the priests and TURNED back to him instead to give Praise and gratitude to his healer.  Ruth’s faith-filled disobedience to Naomi’s request to leave her be, made her Naomi’s liberator with the good news of hope.  Ruth extended herself to the point of risking her life to spiritually reach out to Naomi with the healing, liberating words of HOPE given in/ through loving faithfulness to staying by her side.  This is Gracious behavior:  “¹⁶But Ruth said, “Do not press me to leave you or to turn back from following you! Where you go, I will go; Where you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God my God.¹⁷Where you die, I will die— there will I be buried. May the Lord do thus and so to me, and more as well, if even death parts me from you!”

Forwarding into the New Testament stories of Jesus’ healings to St. Paul’s sharing of his call to Timothy.  Both offer freedom in broad brush strokes to the liberating power of God’s LOVE and GRACE upon an individual’s life. With the Gospel today we have Jesus healing 10 lepers with only one turning back to him with praise and thanksgiving.  Is it really that simple to think it’s merely a matter of who was grateful and who was not or is it more a matter of faith?  The 9 lepers for the most part were obedient to Jesus’ command to them to go and be examined by the priests. BUT, in whom did they hold their faith in more? The law and the priests for none of them turned back to respond graciously to what they were given.  Isn’t this human nature though as well?  We most often “do” as we’re told holding more faithfulness to our reasoning and practicality over and above God’s faithfulness and interaction in our lives’ journeys.  The Samaritan wasn’t bound to Jewish law but was spiritually moved—transforming to recognize Jesus as more than a healer.  He bowed down to the ground and worshipped him in praise that flowed from a changed heart, TURNED to God.  He felt God’s reconciling GRACE deeply which on the outside seemed like disobedience but was actually obedient to FAITH. 

Faith is obedience, which in the view of the world, often paints us to being or displaying disobedience in many activities.  Were the Prophets I ask you, obedient to the law or to the rationale of society? No they were not on the surface which got them into lots of trouble.  For what the world sees as foolish, failure and rebellious God is raising up!  We are being raised from the dead when we allow ourselves freedom from bondage.  Allowing is more like listening, living deeply—faithfully in relationship to God.  The Lord of our lives is Christ Jesus not government, not intellectual idolatry and the full gamut of the ways of the world. As Luther says in his sermon around this week’s Gospel: “In the first place it is a characteristic of faith to presume to trust God's GRACE, and it forms a bright vision and refuge in God, doubting nothing it thinks God will have regard for their faith, and not forsake it. For where there is no such vision and confidence, there is no true faith, and there is also no true prayer nor any seeking after God. But where it exists it makes one bold and anxious freely to bring their troubles unto God, and earnestly to pray for help.”

St. Paul in this week’s conversation with Timothy share his yoke of ministry with Timothy though he is literally bound, imprisoned in Rome.  His physical self may be in shackles and chains with actual death looming around the corner… but his Words of great Faith, honesty and commitment build up Timothy to reveal the profound liberation the Gospel can give!  Hear his closing comments in this week’s snippet: “⁷Think over what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding in all things. ⁸Remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, a descendant of David—that is my gospel, ⁹for which I suffer hardship, even to the point of being chained like a criminal. But the word of God is not chained. ¹⁰Therefore I endure everything for the sake of the elect, so that they may also obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus, with eternal glory. ¹¹The saying is sure: If we have died with him, we will also live with him; ¹²if we endure, we will also reign with him; if we deny him, he will also deny us; ¹³if we are faithless, he remains faithful— for he cannot deny himself.”

The Word of God is not chained, only by Satan working in our lives it is! How does Satan manage to have us “chain” up the Gospel in the world today? Spiritual warfare would say that we chain up the Gospel when we are obedient to any and everything but the faith which had first claimed us to be disciples, baptized into the Body of Christ, living in the world not of the world... Faith has become irrelevant to our human-made “buffet of intellectual idolatry” and its legal system!  An unchanged heart would’ve read Thomas Moore’s entire treatise on the nature of the Soul and the nature of the self to be merely some form of new age health-wealth gospel, not the spiritual excavations of holistic faith penned by a former monk.

Spiritually excavating a holistic faith in your own lives is “work.”  It stretches us to the point of nearly breaking which we spiritually need to do in order to grow and go with God!  It cannot be in the form of a worldly, intellectualized demand made into absolute law seemingly under the guise of “for the sake of others…”  Let us for a moment think about how our current society or “socialized” system works… We put our “faith” and trust in leaders to enact political ideologies into systems for the betterment and well-being of all concerned but that is not always the case.  We forget our accountability easily in the guise of socialized, enforced management over and above others further indenturing ourselves in idolatry of money and the intellect.  In regards to the idolatry of the intellect; this stems from the sins of greed and indifference.  Indifference is the devil’s greatest bondage over our world to abandon faith and hope, to abandoning living in the light of GRACE!

Let’s return to that beautiful story of faith with Ruth and Naomi.  Against all odds and the oppressive reality of their patriarchal culture, they shared love and hope between one another.  Naomi’s love to Ruth was still indentured to the fear of the law upon women like her… she nearly fell into despair worrying about her future.  Ruth however, gave Naomi an even greater gift than staying by her side—her faith exhibited true accountability to trust in God above and beyond their current circumstances…  She could’ve merely obeyed Naomi’s fear-filled request and join her sister-in-law Orpah returning back to Moab but she chose instead to disobey the world’s laws/ and Naomi’s fear of the law to spiritually liberate Naomi to a life of faith, hope and trust in God alone.

Faith, hope and trust in God alone is something we must, as disciples today in this world herald to restore!  The voice of Faith needs to drown out Satan’s efforts that have been bearing its evil fruit in our world.  We are beginning to truly transition into suffering but it’s not for the Gospel more than the unholy Trinity of I, Me, and Mine!

Let us Pray:

Gracious and Loving God,

Great are your works!

You are indeed gracious and merciful!

For we fall short in our faithfulness and accountability to you

Help us to seek your forgiveness and righteousness

Delighting in your promises

May we truly transform/ transition into wisdom given by you alone, not made by and for ourselves

May we grow to love and praise you as well as love our neighbor with our whole hearts

May the fruit of our faith trample Satan underfoot!

In your most Holy and Precious Name we pray—

AMEN

Sunday October 13^th, 2013; Lectionary 28; 21^st Sunday after Pentecost; Proper 23; SOLA Lectionary

Psalm 111; Ruth 1:1-20; 2 Timothy 2:1-13 & Luke 17:11-19                      Nicole Collins