"Reversal Rehearsal," Sermon for Sunday January 26th, 2014 || Nicole Collins

It is 2,000 something years later, how do we truthfully hear or yet alone understand the reality of the Messiah?  This is what today’s lessons spoke to me, in thinking about our role in the Priesthood of All Believers.  Are we just intellectually lining up as if we were in a soup line to hear the facts and figures of our salvation history only on Sundays mornings?  OR have we allowed ourselves to make it very REAL in that dangerous, and uncontrollable place—the heart—the original transformational tabernacle of God’s Work upon us and through us.  

We weren’t physically there, 2,000 something years ago, but we have the witness of hundreds of years of martyrs and selfless people who have: ^2bseen a great light; who have lived in a land of deep darkness—on them light had shone. ^3aYou have multiplied the nation, you have increased its joy… ⁴ For the yoke of their burden, and the bar across their shoulders, the rod of their oppressor… has been broken by Christ Jesus, Our Crucified Lord and Savior. But these martyrs are painted away in works of art, trapped or encased in stained-glass windows or detailed within church history books for seminarians to store up to be a font of knowledge for the future call to come.

We are a creedal people, who have heard the Word… but where are we in regards to living into burgeoning forth Kingdom of God behavior?  I wondered about this during this past week in thinking about a friend of mine.  She did something wonderful and highly unnatural in regards to the standards of the world; she selflessly came to the aid of someone in need.  She sacrificed her time and her wallet to help someone out.  Where even their own family, initially extending a hand, withdrew coming to their aid…

But the world is a lot easier when everything is black and white with no tension to struggle, yet alone be compassionate and selfless to address the in between.  Just imagine, what if all of today’s lessons were written in reverse?  Let’s Start with St. Paul’s letter to his wayward Corinthians.

“A transactional revision of Paul’s letter:”

Original verse: ¹⁰ Now I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you should be in agreement and that there should be no divisions among you, but that you should be united in the same mind and the same purpose. 

Rewritten from “today’s” perspective: Keep up the Good work!  Do whatever YOU feel is best… Let them underneath you know what YOU want them to do! Yeh, you are MY disciples but YOU know best probably even better than those underneath you.

Original Verse: ¹¹For it has been reported to me by Chloe’s people that there are quarrels among you, my brothers and sisters. ¹²What I mean is that each of you says, ‘I belong to Paul’, or ‘I belong to Apollos’, or ‘I belong to Cephas’, or ‘I belong to Christ.’ ¹³Has Christ been divided?

Rewritten from “today’s” perspective:  I told Chloe, Apollos and Cephas to keep you in line; if you don’t want to be underneath their rules, leave we don’t want you.  Do whatever YOU want… Christ was the one who spoke to me anyway. Express your faith on your own, YOU know best.

Original Verse: Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? ¹⁴I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius, ¹⁵so that no one can say that you were baptized in my name. ¹⁶(I did baptize also the household of Stephanas; beyond that, I do not know whether I baptized anyone else.) 

Rewritten from “today’s” perspective:  Remember spread the Word! Who both brought you to Christ and initiated you into our fellowship to begin with… ME, Paul! Look at how much I had to sacrifice for you?! Christ spoke to ME first and I baptized you, initiated you into this community.  It was MY discipling of you that made you Christians in the first place!

Original Verse: ¹⁷For Christ did not send me to baptize but to proclaim the gospel, and not with eloquent wisdom, so that the cross of Christ might not be emptied of its power. Christ the Power and Wisdom of God ¹⁸ For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.

Rewritten from “today’s” perspective:  I’m your pastor, I have years of training and great wisdom, I KNOW everything needed to do my job building your church…  I preach and teach about Jesus’ free grace during the appointed hours.  There’s nothing for you to spiritually do except sit back and take it in. Don’t forget the offering plate.  You only need to be accountable to yourself and support our church. We’re just a club of Christians anyway.

The antithesis or reversal of the original scriptures displays one very prominent feature: the ego.  The world of the self worships the unholy trinity of I, Me, Mine which is the opposite of the Gospel and living in the light of the Gospel as a humbled, and faith-filled servant.  With the above, there is only hierarchy, exclusion, cheap grace and club privileges…  Where, however, is the cross?  Where’s Jesus the Messiah?! 

Our culture has him as a socialist campaign figure head championing our worldly wants and desires. We are showered freely with the wealth of being saved with no need for personal spiritual formation or  yet accountability…  Let’s just step on the gas pedal of political lambasting and intellectual superiority, works righteousness is quite satisfying...  We have good reasons for being divided, OUR needs aren’t being met!

What about today’s Gospel? Could we naturally see the reversal there as well?  Let’s just summarize the past few chapters leading into today’s Gospel lesson through this lens:  Jesus gets ordained by John the Baptist, saves himself from Satan in the garden and now has to start his call.  Well, he’s got to find some individuals worthy to staff his church.  He’d best check out the Rabbi Convocation to see who’d work out the best for him.  Can’t have anyone without the training and knowledge of God to run my club…

YIKES!  What sounds familiar though?  It would be our complacency and orientation to ministry as a separate corporate affair.  We are merely going through the motions of something we are slowly shading ourselves away from: The Living Light of the World; Christ Jesus the Messiah, HERE and NOW!

The past 1,065 words you have heard nothing but a lot of Law, all death in many ways, with the Gospel trying to chisel through, as cracks of light into the self-concerned/ hardened walls of our hearts.  This is where we are, though—all of us in some form or fashion.  The priesthood of all believers has become a doctrinal statement in Reformation history to be admired but NOT really lived into!  We have steeples with Holy Men & Women doing their jobs to dish out a helping heap of cheap grace and some Gospel to tide you over into next week’s important and busy schedule.

Even from Luther, we hear how he addresses our efforts corporately as the church: “Now there are two roadblocks that commonly prevent us from gathering the fruits of the mass. First, the fact that we are sinners and unworthy of such great things because of our exceeding vileness. Secondly, the fact that, even if we were worthy, these things are so high that our faint-hearted nature dare not aspire to them or ever hope to attain to them. For to have God for our Father, to be His sons and daughters and heirs of all His goods – these are the great blessings that come to us through the forgiveness of sins and life everlasting. If you see these things clearly, aren't you more likely to stand in awe before them than to desire to possess them? Against this twofold faintness of ours we must lay hold on the Word of Christ and fix our gaze on it much more firmly than on those thoughts of our weakness. For "great are the works of the Lord; all who enjoy them study them," "who is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think." If they did not surpass our worthiness, our grasp and all our thoughts, they would not be divine. Thus Christ also encourages us when He says: "Fear not, little flock, for your Father is pleased to give you a kingdom." For it is just this overflowing goodness of the incomprehensible God, lavished upon us through Christ, that moves us to love Him again with our whole heart above all things, to be drawn to Him with all confidence, to despise all things else, and be ready to suffer all things for Him.”

Wow!  What a passage!  This quote was from Luther’s treatise against the injustices done through the Roman Church—“On the Babylonian Captivity of the Church.”  How fitting it is 500 something years later, that our seeking to “BE” the church of Christ in the world back then; we still have the same problems, even worse today.

We are a culture that needs to look deeply and painfully into that mirror of the Law to begin to see the Gospel—the Holy Light and Life of the world, crack through and rest upon us.  We need to renew—BE transformed TRUTHFULLY by and FOR God and Love of neighbor.  Think about the woman at the beginning of my sermon.  The Kingdom of God had genuine hands and feet through her willingness, intentionality and compassion.  She is a shining light of the Gospel shone by her transformed New Creation Heart in loving her neighbor without the world’s boundaries!

AMEN

January 26^th, 2014, 3^rd Sunday after Epiphany; Lectionary 3; SOLA Lectionary

Psalm 27:1-14; Isaiah 9:1-4; 1 Corinthians 1:10-18; Matthew 4:12-23   Nicole Collins

"Laying the Foundation," Sermon for January 19th, 2014 By: Nicole A.M. Collins

The one laying the foundation to our discipleship journey is the one we are accountable to proclaim: Christ Jesus, Our Crucified Lord, Savior, Redeemer and Sanctifier. I can say with all honesty that I DO love to tell the Story.  It IS Christ Jesus who led me to find my true identity as his humbled and obedient servant!  May my life’s story preach and teach the Good News AS the fullness of GRACE received! AMEN

Eleven years ago I heard God’s voice calling to me to begin the journey most holistically into the priesthood of all believers.  Right then and there at Ebenezer Lutheran church, He named me, claimed me and gave me a task to live my whole life towards.  This task is to live as his servant by preaching, teaching and caring for those who need to continue their process of answering God’s transformational, spiritual call upon their lives. To love is to live as the Gospel of John symbolizes the life, work and person of Christ Jesus to BE— love.

John the Baptist, Jesus’ cousin, was our first servant of the Gospel, you could say.  For in the wilderness of our graceless reality he heard God speaking to him to prepare the way.  He remained an Old Testament Prophet but his life’s work gave us an example of how we as one of the many members of the Priesthood of All Believers could make a transformational difference through humbly speaking/living the Word, as it is.  Saying it like it is—the TRUTH of the Gospel leads us to hear, feel, adopt the fullness of GRACE which is the summation of Christ Jesus.

I love the movie Godspell on many levels, the ending of the 1973 film/ musical has all the disciples beginning to go back into their lives singing a combination of both the intro theme: ‘Prepare Ye the Way of the Lord’ and ‘Long live God.’  It wasn’t however, going off into a “works righteousness” or “transactional” agenda/ pursuit of living into the cost of discipleship MORE than it was being sent off as agents of transformation.

Is it fair to say that John the Baptist was an initial agent of transformation or one more of spiritual formation transition?  Let’s hear some of the verses before today’s Gospel snippet: “¹⁵(John testified to him and cried out, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks ahead of me because he was before me.’”)¹⁶From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. ¹⁷The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. ¹⁸No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.¹⁹This is the testimony given by John when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, “Who are you?” ²⁰He confessed and did not deny it, but confessed, “I am not the Messiah.” ²¹And they asked him, “What then? Are you Elijah?” He said, “I am not.” “Are you the prophet?” He answered, “No.” ²²Then they said to him, “Who are you? Let us have an answer for those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?” ²³He said, “I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord,’” as the prophet Isaiah said.” 

The people of power, the scribes and the Pharisees demanded from John: Who are you?  Can we say in parallel to John’s experience to our lives today that we at some point in our lives have been challenged by others to “explain ourselves, declare our identities as people of faith?”  I would say that this is now more than ever apparent.  My own journey in answering God’s call and being commissioned through my conversion experience has upwardly battled justification NOT to God mind you, but to others!

Just the other day, I got a Google chat notification from someone on the opposite side of the spectrum of defining and living into the Priesthood of All Believers.  Basically, he feels called to merely champion the social justice battle of Bipartisan lambasting and works righteousness justification.  His Gospel has very little to do with Christ Jesus and helping others to grow/ transform themselves through the Gospel, more than it is all around politics and self-righteous vindication.

This is a popular view though, since it feeds the human nature’s tendency to grow into self-idolatry and lawlessness.  St. Paul, the original Pastor to the Pastors, we see this week needs to preach and instruct his wayward Corinthians to refocus on whose they are, as well as who and why they are disciples of Christ Jesus.  To borrow a dear peer’s perfect analogy: St. Paul had to get his “Las Vegas” people to ship out and shape up to the Gospel’s call and commission upon their lives.  How he did this was by laying the foundation of GRACE.

What could we say is the foundation of GRACE he laid before the Corinthians?: “⁴I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that has been given you in Christ Jesus,⁵for in every way you have been enriched in him, in speech and knowledge of every kind— ⁶just as the testimony of Christ has been strengthened among you— ⁷so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ. ⁸He will also strengthen you to the end, so that you may be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. ⁹God is faithful; by him you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.”

What a beautiful way to begin a letter.  We hear about Jesus and the testimony his eventual victory at the Cross defeating sin, death and the devil would impart upon our lives.  It is a Gracious reminder to us of “why” we are disciples and “how” we are to respond—bear fruit with our New lives!  This is what he needed to remind the Corinthians of to keep on track.

Martin Luther talks about our role within the priesthood of all believers through his discussion of John the Baptist’s role: “Thus John the Baptist did not have this name because of his person; he has it because of his office and testimony—For he was not to preach and testify of himself, but of Christ, who had now appeared for the salvation and consolation of the entire world.  Therefore he points at Christ with his finger and says: “Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.”  By virtue of this testimony and proclamation he deserves to be called a preacher rich in Grace, one who does not preach the Law—through which comes the knowledge of sin and which makes sin abound, which strikes terror into the heart and provokes it to wrath—but the Gospel of God’s mercy for the sake of Christ, who bore our sins and rendered satisfaction for them.”

Thinking more deeply upon Luther saying that John the Baptist pointed his finger to Christ; we can also think about how we’ve pointed our fingers.  AS the saying goes, the one finger pointed out justified by our own righteous vindication has the other three fingers pointing back upon us.  Those “Trinitarian” set of fingers should get us reflecting upon ourselves when we step on the spiritual gas-pedal of discipleship with the wrong motivations or intentions, with ourselves in mind over and above God.

My “wayward” friend is a hearty “advocate” for the Gospel but it is not necessarily centered in or necessarily for Christ Jesus.  This is our contemporary problem, however, which mirrors St. Paul’s pastoral struggle with reaching out to the Corinthians to not cave into a self-defined discipleship to Jesus but a SELFLESS—CROSS-BEARING DISCIPLESHIP obedient to the Law of Love.  We are called as members of not only the Body, BUT of the office—priesthood of all believers to through our humbled, transforming lives preach, teach and care for the Gospel.  We are stewards, servants to the Word and its power to transform lives to Christ Jesus.  We are called to serve no other call except that of God’s will to fulfill the gospel of Hope through loving HIM and neighbor.

Let us Pray:

Ever Gracious God, may our lives never cease loving to tell your story,

May our hearts work bear the spiritual fruit of your justifying GRACE

May we never sway from your foundational intentions of GRACE

May we always champion your Will and Word above ourselves

For the Glory of your Son, Jesus the Christ—who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit

One God, now and forever

AMEN

2^nd Sunday after Epiphany; Lectionary 2; Year A; January 19^th, 2014; SOLA Lectionary

Condell Hospital Theme: ‘I Love to Tell the Story’                                      Nicole Collins

Psalm 40:1-11; Isaiah 49:1-7; 1 Corinthians 1:1-9 & John 1:29-42

January 14th, 2014 Henri Nouwen's Daily Meditation ||Commentary by Nicole Collins

http://myemail.constantcontact.com/Daily-Meditation--From-Unceasing-Thinking-to-Unceasing-Prayer.html?soid=1011221485028&aid=ZG7DsIK2rzU

In Case the link above to Henri Nouwen’s Daily Meditation doesn’t work—

Tuesday January 14, 2014
From Unceasing Thinking to Unceasing Prayer

Our minds are always active. We analyze, reflect, daydream, or dream. There is not a moment during the day or night when we are not thinking. You might say our thinking is "unceasing." Sometimes we wish that we could stop thinking for a while; that would save us from many worries, guilt feelings, and fears. Our ability to think is our greatest gift, but it is also the source of our greatest pain. Do we have to become victims of our unceasing thoughts? No, we can convert our unceasing thinking into unceasing prayer by making our inner monologue into a continuing dialogue with our God, who is the source of all love.

Let's break out of our isolation and realize that Someone who dwells in the center of our beings wants to listen with love to all that occupies and preoccupies our minds.

My Commentary:

Wow, talk about coincidence, but today’s LCMS Daily reading includes Psalm 42.  This Psalm is all about our struggle with quieting our hearts to feel, know—God’s Peace through Prayer. 

Psalm 42

¹As a deer longs for flowing streams, so my soul longs for you, O God.

²My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and behold the face of God?

³My tears have been my food day and night, while people say to me continually, “Where is your God?”

⁴These things I remember, as I pour out my soul: how I went with the throng, and led them in procession to the house of God, with glad shouts and songs of thanksgiving, a multitude keeping festival.

⁵Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my help ⁶and my God. My soul is cast down within me; therefore I remember you from the land of Jordan and of Hermon, from Mount Mizar.

⁷Deep calls to deep at the thunder of your cataracts; all your waves and your billows have gone over me.

⁸By day the Lord commands his steadfast love, and at night his song is with me, a prayer to the God of my life.

⁹I say to God, my rock, “Why have you forgotten me? Why must I walk about mournfully because the enemy oppresses me?”

¹⁰As with a deadly wound in my body, my adversaries taunt me, while they say to me continually, “Where is your God?”

¹¹Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my help and my God.

Outside of daily prayer several times a day with my prayer cross, the Benedictine Jesus Prayer is actually helpful as well to begin to meditate and focus upon your conversation with God. The Jesus Prayer:  “Jesus Christ, Son of God have mercy on me, a sinner.”  That is the full Jesus Prayer but you can do smaller variations—“Jesus Christ, Son of God have Mercy…  or Jesus Christ, Son of God quiet my heart.”  Saying this prayer in sync with your breath is quite powerful.

In closing, today’s Psalm reminded me of one of my favorite Cursillo hymns that I found online:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=TF27EczT_pU‎

God Bless Your Tuesdays!

Nicole Collins

"A New Imperative," Sermon for The Baptism of Our Lord Sunday || Nicole Collins

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was right in saying that “we should listen with the ears of God that we may speak the word of God.”  It is also right to say that in order to live the Word spoken we must face that internal struggle.  It is imperative that we seek with willingness, intentionality and sincere accountability inward transformation from the Old self to the New. Jesus ordination through his baptism by John not only begins his three year ministry but begins his example to us all of what it means to live into the New nature reality of a lifestyle of GRACE.

In my text study Saturday morning, there were two Words to wonder about spiritually in relation to where we are as disciples of Christ:  Indicative and imperative.  What does indicative mean in relation to the character of God and our commissioning into the priesthood of all believers?  The indicative is merely a matter of information.  It informs us of something accomplished, a fact that has already been declared about you. The imperative however is a command, a direction given through a new law—one constructed by God to respond to.

Just this past Thursday in another group study, we were looking at the idea of Worship as repentance which the book by the same title talks and critiques in depth our wandering away from both the process of sanctification spiritually and the imperative to preach and teach the Gospel.  At the font, we turn our eyes towards the pastor and share in a corporate confession—in addressing the “why” of worship it was to remind our hearts’ internal journey of the process of confession, reflection, repentance and renewal.  Over the years the Law was softened as that mirror we need to see ourselves in before the Glory of the Gospel transforms us with spiritual formation GRACE.

Before this begins to dive off course into merely being a commentary on where we are jointly as the corporate church…  We need to return to talk about the other sanctuary—the one that is mobile: our hearts or the tabernacle of the Holy Spirit to work upon us and through us! With Jesus we see Isaiah’s prophecy fulfilled: “⁹See, the former things have come to pass, and new things I now declare; before they spring forth, I tell you of them.”

Well, what has God been telling us for the last 2,000 something years? St. Paul’s letter today begins on a similar note addressing our discipleship imperative: “6What then are we to say? Should we continue in sin in order that grace may abound? ²By no means! How can we who died to sin go on living in it? ³Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? ⁴Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.”

Baptism is a rite of transformation including with it accountability—an imperative to be obedient in humility to the Will of God—to cast Satan and the Old Nature aside for the path of true righteousness—The lifestyle of GRACE: Kingdom of God.  It never ceases to amaze me of how much we advance in all areas EXCEPT the lifestyle imperative of GRACE.  We are in a graceless wilderness where sin is the new presence and ruler of our lives’ motivation and God becomes irrelevant to the world of the self.

The other lectionary dodges the imperative aspect, Law and Gospel bullet by focusing us on Peter’s journey to reconciling himself to minister to the Gentiles.  It merely begins to indicate his struggle with coming to understand Cornelius’ conversion and the ramifications of how he needs to grow as a disciple/ servant of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.(Acts 10:39b-43 ): “They put him to death by hanging him on a tree; ⁴⁰but God raised him on the third day and allowed him to appear, ⁴¹not to all the people but to us who were chosen by God as witnesses, and who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. ⁴²He commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one ordained by God as judge of the living and the dead. ⁴³All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.”

By telling the story we are to grow into continuing the story—this is the truth of the cost of discipleship BUT how is this made an imperative—heard internally/ battled with internally in the heart? Luther says in one of his lectures on Romans chapter six: “But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves, through the righteousness of faith, of God, the return you get, that is the merits and joy of a good conscience, is sanctification, that is through purity and chastity of body and soul, and its end, reward, eternal life.  For the wages, the rewards which are the final end, of sin is death; the end of those things is death, but the free gift, the present , of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord, that is, the grace which is in us in Christ personally and through faith in him as we participate in it and receive it through imputation.”

Imputation theologically means reckoned to a person—attributed. Participating in it is living into the imperative given in our Baptismal discernment to become active disciples for Christ.  It goes way beyond a “Sunday morning” affair, it goes way beyond membership… As Peter says: “^34b… “I truly understand that God shows no partiality, ³⁵but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.”  We are to internalize the “Why” of all we do together and on our own to realize our initiative which is to transform into the New Life given to us through Christ Jesus’ victory over sin, death and the devil—GRACE.

GRACE is more than a name we have given to understand the Truth of the Gospel.  The very first cursillo, I made the year of my conversion experience taught me the imperative of spiritual formation into the kind of disciple Christ Jesus wants me to be.  Pastor Kathy’s talk about how Grace is like the dust in the air all around you, upon everything you come across, in your path is that motivation to realize your baptismal calling… 

In today’s Gospel we are witness to Jesus’ Baptism or ordination into his ministry which was to redeem the world. “¹³Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan, to be baptized by him. ¹⁴John would have prevented him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” ¹⁵But Jesus answered him, “Let it be so now; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.” Then he consented. ¹⁶And when Jesus had been baptized, just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him.¹⁷And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”

Perhaps as a people of GRACE, we need to return to deeply listening for the Voice of God to challenge us to persevere?  We need to embody that Voice like prayer, as prayer as a New initiative—imperative from God to LIVE.

The Prophet Isaiah’s Voice of leadership: (Prophets Now!) “As His beloved servants, you are objects of His Joy and delight.  The paths you travel will not be smooth; there will be enemies to face and failures to contend with.  The people you are to serve.  You have been endued with the Spirit of God. Thus with conviction and courage you can speak of God’s infinite love, and you can demonstrate such love in your struggles to bring light to those in darkness, freedom to the oppressed, sustenance to the deprived, and dignity, opportunity and justice for all of God’s creatures in your generation.”

Our daily Baptismal confession: (Epistles Now!) “We are now even as sinners, the sons and daughters of righteousness.  We have, in effect, been crucified with Christ and raised with Him from the dead.  We are new people, focused upon new goals, compelled by new ambitions, committed to new objectives.  This means that we cease yielding to self-interest and self-concern. We have now been reborn.  All things have become new.  Whereas we were once slaves to self-concern, we are now set free from its destructive bondage to be followers of Jesus Christ.  While we celebrate our redemption, even while we fail at times to reflect and communicate the loving Grace of God, this is the stand we take and this is the goal we pursue.  Service to God, and to our fellow person for God’s sake and by His Grace, fills life with joy and meaning and purpose.”

Our absolution:  We do have one faith, one Lord and one Baptism, each of us…  Now what are you intending to do with it?

AMEN

January 12^th, 2014; Baptism of Our Lord; 1^st Sunday after Epiphany; Year A; SOLA Lectionary

Psalm 29; Isaiah 42:1-9; Romans 6:1-11; Matthew 3:13-17 RCL: Acts 10:34-43       

Nicole Collins

January 10th, 2014 Henri Nouwen's Daily Meditation ||Commentary by Nicole Collins

http://myemail.constantcontact.com/Daily-Meditation--Growing-Beyond-Self-Rejection.html?soid=1011221485028&aid=Vvbg03LD1z0

In Case the link above to Henri Nouwen’s Daily Meditation doesn’t work—

Friday January 10, 2014
Growing Beyond Self-Rejection

One of the greatest dangers in the spiritual life is self-rejection. When we say, "If people really knew me, they wouldn't love me," we choose the road toward darkness. Often we are made to believe that self-deprecation is a virtue, called humility. But humility is in reality the opposite of self-deprecation. It is the grateful recognition that we are precious in God's eyes and that all we are is pure gift. To grow beyond self-rejection we must have the courage to listen to the voice calling us God's beloved sons and daughters, and the determination always to live our lives according to this truth.

My Commentary:

Humility is a beautiful thing. Acquiring the big H, is not easy stuff but it something the heart needs to put on as St. Paul tells us in clothing ourselves with Christ.  We must also hear the beautiful creedal hymn St. Paul sings to us in Philippians to remind us, bring us back to the reason why we need to be humble: (Philippians 2:1-18 ) “2If then there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy,²make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. ³Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. ⁴Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others.⁵Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, ⁶who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, ⁷but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, ⁸he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death— even death on a cross. ⁹Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, ¹⁰so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, ¹¹and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

¹²Therefore, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed me, not only in my presence, but much more now in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; ¹³for it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure.

¹⁴Do all things without murmuring and arguing, ¹⁵so that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, in which you shine like stars in the world. ¹⁶It is by your holding fast to the word of life that I can boast on the day of Christ that I did not run in vain or labor in vain. ¹⁷But even if I am being poured out as a libation over the sacrifice and the offering of your faith, I am glad and rejoice with all of you— ¹⁸and in the same way you also must be glad and rejoice with me.”

I first truly experienced this passage earlier on in my seminary journey in the Scripture by Heart class I had.  Basically we were to embody the scripture passage and deliver it orally by acting it out, speaking it as if you were there.  It was one of the most powerful animations of scripture I experienced!  This passage cannot be heard as a verse or two.  You need to see Jesus going to the cross enacting GRACE.  You need to fall to your knees and rise like a shining light in speaking these verses: “¹⁰so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, ¹¹and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”  The entire passage tells, prays, redeems of GRACE and our journey to live into it!

God Bless Your Fridays!

Nicole Collins

January 8th, 2014 Henri Nouwen's Daily Meditation ||Commentary by Nicole Collins

http://myemail.constantcontact.com/Daily-Meditation--Enough-Light-for-the-Next-Step.html?soid=1011221485028&aid=oqXoyEXswh8

In Case the link above to Henri Nouwen’s Daily Meditation doesn’t work—

Wednesday January 8, 2014
Enough Light for the Next Step

Often we want to be able to see into the future. We say, "How will next year be for me? Where will I be five or ten years from now?" There are no answers to these questions. Mostly we have just enough light to see the next step: what we have to do in the coming hour or the following day. The art of living is to enjoy what we can see and not complain about what remains in the dark. When we are able to take the next step with the trust that we will have enough light for the step that follows, we can walk through life with joy and be surprised at how far we go. Let's rejoice in the little light we carry and not ask for the great beam that would take all shadows away.

My Commentary:

Walking with lighted steps is the challenge of the Christian journey.  Perhaps it wouldn’t be a blessing to see into the future.  For what if we see something unavoidable?  Something we have to face and deal with is a part of the tension of seeking to live in the middle of our given reality of being both saint and sinner.

The second half of Nouwen’s meditation says that the art of living is to enjoy what we can see and not complain about what remains in the dark.  The art of living in terms of the Gospel is one lived into GRACE as being clothed in a new kind of righteousness as St. Paul says: (2 Corinthians 5:16-20 ) “¹⁶From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we know him no longer in that way. ¹⁷So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! ¹⁸All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; ¹⁹that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. ²⁰So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.”

St. Paul’s snippet from his second letter to the Corinthians examples, how being reconciled to God, allows us to be spiritually illumined on our daily journeys...  Knowing who we are as well as whose we are helps us to live every moment of our lives with a new kind of peace which fruit is joy.

God Bless Your Wednesdays!

Nicole Collins

January 7th, 2014 Henri Nouwen's Daily Meditation ||Commentary by Nicole Collins

http://myemail.constantcontact.com/Daily-Meditation--The-Gift-of-Friendship.html?soid=1011221485028&aid=ut5a7eKqkBU

In Case the link above to Henri Nouwen’s Daily Meditation doesn’t work—

Tuesday January 7, 2014
The Gift of Friendship

Friendship is one of the greatest gifts a human being can receive. It is a bond beyond common goals, common interests, or common histories. It is a bond stronger than sexual union can create, deeper than a shared fate can solidify, and even more intimate than the bonds of marriage or community. Friendship is being with the other in joy and sorrow, even when we cannot increase the joy or decrease the sorrow. It is a unity of souls that gives nobility and sincerity to love. Friendship makes all of life shine brightly. Blessed are those who lay down their lives for their friends.

My Commentary:

Friends are a gift to your life.  My oldest and best friend I’ve had for 25 going on 26 years!  We have been through thick and thin as well as have seen each other grow and transform by God working in each others’ lives.  Relationship, fellowship, companionship are the most connected with and through love or more specifically as φίλος or Philos which means brotherly love. Though the Greek has several other more detailed words for understanding love… such as Eros Eros and agape agape. Philos is the best word to define the divine goal of friendship. 

We must always hold central in our lives Christ commandment to love God and each other: (Matthew 22) ““’You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ ³⁸This is the greatest and first commandment. ³⁹And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ ⁴⁰On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” (John 13:34-35) “³⁴I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.³⁵By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

A part of our discipleship spiritual formation journey which Nouwen eludes to in today’s meditation is seeking to embody that lesson taught by Jesus to let love be the foundation of our New Nature.  Love is the Spirit’s fuel to allow us to be the children of GRACE, God is hoping for us to become.  We are a society advancing in many things… except when it comes to one another.  We must diligently fight Satan’s efforts to tear down and destroy relationships.  If we become spiritually curved inward, we devour for self and deflect or isolate ourselves from others.  We join the evil one’s efforts to polarize and castigate others over loving and serving them AND growing in relationship with them!

Look into the story of your lives, where they are leading—see and cherish those whom have walked long side you.  I know I have!

God Bless Your Tuesdays!

Nicole Collins

January 6th, 2014 Henri Nouwen's Daily Meditation ||Commentary by Nicole Collins

http://myemail.constantcontact.com/Daily-Meditation--Spiritual-Choices.html?soid=1011221485028&aid=uM9L5RFYF8M

In Case the link above to Henri Nouwen’s Daily Meditation doesn’t work—

Monday January 6, 2014
Spiritual Choices

Choices. Choices make the difference. Two people are in the same accident and severely wounded. They did not choose to be in the accident. It happened to them. But one of them chose to live the experience in bitterness, the other in gratitude. These choices radically influenced their lives and the lives of their families and friends. We have very little control over what happens in our lives, but we have a lot of control over how we integrate and remember what happens. It is precisely these spiritual choices that determine whether we live our lives with dignity.

My Commentary:

The Christian Journey is to be one lived in maintaining that tension of pursuing the center of GRACE.  Since it is difficult for we humans to understand GRACE, we often relegate it to one extreme or the other.  One extreme would be bound to the Law and the Other cheap grace.  Being purely bound to narrowly understanding GRACE through the Law produces works righteousness—no heart and inner transformation.  Being purely bound to cheap grace’s “reward for nothing…” bears ugly fruit of self-concern and it’s following idolatry, greed and indifference—the ripe battle ground for spiritual warfare and Satan’s temptation upon us.

Coming straight out of “Wikipedia”: Prevenient grace is a Christian theological concept rooted in Augustinian theology. It is divine grace that precedes human decision. It exists prior to and without reference to anything humans may have done. As humans are corrupted by the effects of sin, prevenient grace allows persons to engage their God-given free will to choose the salvation offered by God in Jesus Christ or to reject that salvific offer.

The last sentence of this, I don’t necessarily or completely agree with, but I will say that awareness to God’s Grace pointing to the path, leading you forward is Prevenient Grace.  Whether or not this heart-knowledge awareness leads you to make a choice or not—it is God’s work.  Many things have happened on the road of my Journey towards becoming a pastor that were not planned but just happened.  When you trust God and are confident that your footprints are being guided to some degree—you can chose obedience.  Obedience is abiding in God.  Obedience, humility, altruism, gratitude for everything and everyone in your life is riding upon that Law || Gospel tightrope.  It is GRACE’s center.

Just the other day in treading through the horrible cold and treacherous snowy streets; I told my husband:  What would our world be like if back when the decline of the corporate church began to decline—we did address the difference between obligation versus obedience?  From what I recall in summation from several church leadership and church history classes; the grand impression about what happened in the 1950’s was more or less our “resting on our Pastoral laurels” and not seeing more or less the need to pastorally address and engage our congregations with Evangelism past the Sunday Morning experience.  Since this attitude wasn’t addressed well, the ‘60’s began the slow deconstruction of  “church”/ faith and led right into our current battle between a very self-involved lawless culture invested in heresy, idolatry and near contempt for God and neighbor!

If there were more of a harbored, nurtured obedience to God and awareness to God’s GRACE—perhaps people wouldn’t have been speeding all around us, spinning out into accidents.  Perhaps, out of concern and care for the well-being of others, despite budget short falls—streets and highways would be thoroughly plowed and salted…  Perhaps people would’ve stopped and helped the motorists with stalled out cars…

This is a choice boundary here.  We can bear the fruit of GRACE by obedience/ abiding in God and live in constant awareness of the tension we need to pursue… OR we can bear the fruits of Satan and choose to cater to the Unholy Trinity of I, Me, Mine!”

God Bless your Mondays!

Nicole Collins

"Reigning in the Heart," Sermon for 2nd Christmas/ Epiphany || Nicole Collins

Epiphany January 6^th (Monday); Year A; SOLA Lectionary                                              Nicole Collins

Isaiah 60:1-6 ; Psalm 72:1-15; Ephesians 3:1-12  & Matt 2:1-12

Addtl txts: Ephesians 1:3-14 & Luke 2:40-52 (2^nd Sunday of Christmas)

Reigning in the Heart

My husband the other day had a creative post about how many people actually came to bring gifts to the baby Jesus.  It wound up becoming an interesting intellectual treatise from doctrinal positions to history—Which makes you kind of wonder when facts or features to something as powerful as the birth of Jesus become adiaphora.  

What if the numbers were significant?  What if it was much greater than expected and may have been 144 foreign kings, sages, and other people of power?  What if it was a significant number to the ancient Israelites’ existential need for identity being the number “12?”  We will never know.  Three is “Trinitarian.”

Our Luther once said in speaking to developing “heart wisdom” that in order for us to fully live into the Priesthood of all believers we would need to become little Christs:  “As our heavenly Father has in Christ freely come to our aid, we also ought freely to help our neighbor through our body and its works, and each one should become as it were a Christ to the other that we may be Christs to one another and Christ may be the same in all, that is, that we may be truly Christians...”

In stretching my sermonizing this week, I wanted to see what would happen if we expanded that window of peering into the Word more deeply looking at both Gospel lessons, the one assigned for the 2^nd Sunday of Christmas and the other being the Gospel for Epiphany which will be celebrated on Monday.  But you probably want to ask, where’s the connection points between the two?  The connection point is WISDOM. What kind of wisdom you may ask?  Wisdom that works through the heart to enact transformation—this is the true sovereignty of God working in, with and through us as we grow in spiritual formation/ discernment to be the people of GRACE God is hoping for us to BE.

The second Sunday of Christmas has us seeing Jesus as a young boy or as some believe a “12 year old” seemingly disobeying his parents and running off to a synagogue to grow as St. Luke says: “⁴⁰The child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom; and the favor of God was upon him.” “⁵²And Jesus increased in wisdom and in years, and in divine and human favor.”  The Greek contextually has us understand wisdom as Sophia σοφίᾳ.  We could dismiss this as how we normally think of wisdom as head knowledge…  But, Jesus disobeyed his parents Mary and Joseph?  To our surface understanding, yes he did BUT he chose to make God the Father first.

Our role within the Priesthood of All Believers is no less different in some ways ONLY when we spiritually grow in discernment (spiritual formation) to possess transformed, reconciled hearts.  The Epiphany we need to have to begin the life time journey towards sanctification.    As St. Paul says in the first chapter from Ephesians: “¹⁷I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, ¹⁸so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints, ¹⁹and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe, according to the working of his great power.”

For as St. Paul said earlier in this chapter we are heirs: “¹¹In Christ we have also obtained an inheritance, having been destined according to the purpose of him who accomplishes all things according to his counsel and will, ¹²so that we, who were the first to set our hope on Christ, might live for the praise of his glory.”

The greatest difference in our understanding of being an heir, wisdom and roles is that the purposes to roles, wisdom and heritage of God’s ARE entirely different. We can debate as burgeoning “Biblical scholars” what the importance of the “three Magi” or wise men from the East were to mean or allow the greater message of the New Reign—the incarnation of God spiritually means upon our Heart wisdom!

I was asked once in talking through what I would be preaching without notes: is Christ Jesus the Lord of your life?  Well was he?  Did he become the center of my life or better put, did I allow him to reign in my life, transform my heart to grow in great knowledge to begin to live the lifestyle of GRACE?  Yes, I did, I went to seminary or should I say still am in seminary being stretched, shaped, molded into a leader for Christ’s will to: Preach it! Teach it! Live it!—The Gospel!  St. Paul in his 3^rd chapter to the Ephesians lays it out for us: “3This is the reason that I Paul am a prisoner for Christ Jesus for the sake of you Gentiles— ²for surely you have already heard of the commission of God’s grace that was given me for you, ³and how the mystery was made known to me by revelation, as I wrote above in a few words, ⁴a reading of which will enable you to perceive my understanding of the mystery of Christ.”

Getting back to the Gospels, in understanding paths chosen:  If the Magi or myriad of many following the star to discover Christ Jesus were to simply report to Herod their findings perhaps Jesus would have been put in great jeopardy?  They were lead however, by a different kind of knowledge to basically lie to Herod and save the life of Jesus.  Just as the boy Jesus was beginning to prioritize internally to make the will of the Father BE his destiny!

The logic and contradictory elements of both Gospel texts are our stumbling blocks to allowing the “Full Monty” of the Gospel have an explosive impact upon our lives!  The Prophet Isaiah in one of his suffering servant songs instruct us: (Isaiah 60:1) “Arise [from the depression and prostration in which circumstances have kept you—rise to a new life]! Shine (be radiant with the glory of the Lord), for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you!”

What are we afraid of?  Think of how powerful an impact God had upon the heart of the Gospel writer Luke to talk about Jesus as a young boy growing into His role for our salvation?  Here is a fellow traveler with St. Paul, a possible protégé to all of Paul’s spiritual gnosis, theology and going all over the ancient East planting and helping to pastor churches!  The Word of God came through him to reach and teach the Gentile world the Gospel of GRACE—Jesus Christ.  The Incarnation is the manifestation of the beginning story of GRACE.  It is also the beginning of our discipleship journey—which is one of discernment and focus.  The light of Christ is the heart’s wisdom to intentionally and humbly live into our commissioning into the Priesthood of All Believers.

That star rising above where the babe Jesus lay is just the beginning of our calling to grow up into Christ.  As the temple, the boy Jesus disobeyed his parents by staying and studying within has become Christ himself.  The first and greatest church is the one built right inside of you, the heart.  Christ Jesus must operate here first before we can even understand ourselves as a corporate body of disciples—the steeple and the people!

I don’t know how many people have watched the 1973 classic musical, God Spell but this song in particular talks to our need to grow in spiritual formation—heart understanding.  It also speaks to our need to operate with Christ Jesus as the Lord of our Lives—the true sovereign:

By My Side

Where are you going? Where are you going?

Can you take me with you? For my hand is cold,

And needs warmth

Where are you going?

Far beyond where the horizon lies, where the horizon lies.

And the land sinks into a mellow blueness,

Oh, please take me with you.

Let me skip the road with you,

I can dare myself

I can dare myself.

I'll put a pebble in my shoe, and watch me walk.

I can walk, I can walk.

I shall call the pebble dare.

(I shall call the pebble dare)

We will talk together, about walking.

Dare shall be carried

And when we both have had enough,

I will take him from my shoe singing,

"Meet your new road"

Then I'll take your hand,

finally glad (finally glad)

That you are here (that you are here)

By my side, by my side, by my side.

AMEN