Genesis 24: Abraham had a son. He wanted Isaac to marry in the family (1). He sent an unnamed servant (2) to search for a suitable mate for Isaac. The servant, still unnamed, took ten camels and went to the family home, stopping at a well and told God his test of worthiness (3). “If she offers me water and then says she’ll draw water for all ten camels, that’s the one.” Rebekah comes and fulfills his conditions and he then asks who she is (4). Finally he puts a ring through her nose. Then she repeats the whole thing to her family and then the nameless servant does the same. That last bit repeating everything again and again is not unusual but the numbers above indicate things strange and, not to be too blunt about it, foreign to us.

(1)Most societies demand that you mate with somebody as unrelated to you as possible. Dire things happen when people intermarry. (2)For somebody to be the subject of a whole chapter of the Bible, a male and unnamed is strange to put it mildly. (3)The servant sets his own standards and God accepts them just like that. How’s that for unusual? (4)He plays it out and only afterward checks to see if he found the woman from the right family.

Just when we thought we were making sense of the Bible it throws us a whammy, in fact four of them. The ring right through the nose just emphasizes how you feel as a witness to this story.  And what does this say about Isaac? Who, if any, can you identify with among the participants: Servant, Beckie, Abe, thirsty camel? One theme for Lent 2011 is leaving our comfort zones to do what God calls us to do? We can leave comfort behind with even some familiar passages from the Bible if we examine what they actually say, can’t we? Where is God leading? Are we following? This passage may just surprise us. Others may shake us to the core. For example, how are you doing with loving your neighbor as yourself today?

-Dick Sales

Romans 5:12-21: Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death came through sin, and so death spread to all because all have sinned – ¹³sin was indeed in the world before the law, but sin is not reckoned when there is no law. ¹⁴Yet death exercised dominion from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sins were not like the transgression of Adam, who is a type of the one who was to come.¹⁵But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died through the one man’ trespass, much more surely have the grace of God and the free gift in the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, abounded for the many. ¹⁶And the free gift is not like the effect of the one man’s sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brings justification. ¹⁷If, because of the one man’s trespass, death exercised dominion through that one, much more surely will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness exercise dominion in life through the one man, Jesus Christ.¹⁸  Therefore just as one man’s trespass led to condemnation for all, so one man’s act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all. ¹⁹For just as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous. ²⁰But law came in, with the result that the trespass multiplied; but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, ²¹so that, just as sin exercised dominion in death, so grace might also exercise dominion through justification leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Have you ever thought of a life without God? I can’t imagine a world without God in it. I understand there are non-believers amongst us and for them I pray they will experience God’s love. Knowing God’s love gives me the courage and strength I need each day to face life. For me a world without God would be a world of darkness. It would be a world where birds did not sing, the stars would not shine and rainbows would be colorless but   the greatest travesty of all would be there would be no love.  It is God’s love that comforts me when I hurt, it is his spirit that walks beside me during a storm and it is his gift of grace that I thank God for every day. What kind of world could it be if everyone had God as the center of their world?

-Cindy Jones

John 5:2-9: Now in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate there is a pool, called in Hebrew Beth-zatha, which has five porticoes. In these lay many invalids – blind, lame, and paralyzed. One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be made well?” The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; and while I am making my way, someone else steps down ahead of me.” Jesus said to him, “Stand up, take your mat and walk.” At once the man was made well, and he took up his mat and began to walk.

Do you want to be made well?

What kind of question is that?

After lying paralyzed for 38 years among the incurably blind and lame, who wouldn’t want to be made well?

Why would Jesus ask a question like that?

Could it be that Jesus knew how our infirmities can become our identities;  after awhile, without them, who would we be?

Could it be that Jesus knew that we might fear the absence of our pain?  Without our pain, what would we feel?  Without all the time spent focused on our own issues, what would we do with ourselves?

Could it be that Jesus knew that we, like the man in the story, are likely to make excuses and blame others rather than take responsibility for our own healing?

Could it be that Jesus knew that, while we might fiercely deny it, we sometimes desperately hold onto that which cripples us?   How else can we excuse ourselves from living life fully with joy and gladness of heart?

Do you want to be made well?

It’s deceptively difficult question.  Strange how a broken leg can become a crutch.

In Deuteronomy 30:19, God says, “I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. So choose life in order that you may live.”

The choice is set before us every day.   Choose life.   Choose to be made well.  Choose to be made whole.

-Rev. Angie Wright

In Ephesians 2: 11-22, one of the lectionary scriptures for today, Gentile readers/hearers who have recently come to the Christian faith and those persons of a Jewish heritage are told that they are together, brought together by Christ. Whether they knew and had experienced the covenants and promises of God from their ancestors’ time or barely had heard of them, they now all know Christ and Christ has “brought down the walls between them.” As written in Eugene Person’s contemporary language of The Message: “He (Jesus) started over. Instead of continuing with two groups of people, separated by centuries of animosity and suspicion, he created a new kind of human being, a fresh start for everyone.”

Centuries later many more than two groups, we know we have been brought together by Christ and we are together in Christ. I find myself especially aware of that in worship, and having perceived it in worship I am more likely to hold onto being ‘together in Christ’ through the week.

Of course, we know that those who are together in Christ are all of God’s beloved’s  (with a small ‘b’). Still, I think it helps me to truly be one with all, worldwide, when I have a community with whom I see, feel, taste that togetherness on a weekly basis. Thanks be to God for Beloved Community Church and God’s other congregational families around the world!

Recently I was particularly touched by this portion of a prayer: “God of wisdom here at week’s end as we prepare for worship in community,… May we have and take the opportunity to, in the words of another scripture for today:     … shout praises to God, raise the roof for the Rock who saved us!  …march into God’s presence  singing praises, lifting the rafters with our hymns!

(Psalm 95:1-2, The Message)

-Nancy Sales

Genesis 12:1-4 tells of God appearing to Abram and saying, “Pack up, leave your family and go until I say stop.”

Now that is asking a lot of anybody. Abram might at least have asked if he’d need rubber boots.

Abram, later to become Abraham, sets out and the story begins of two religions, Judaism and Islam (three, if you count that offshoot of the Jews, Christians). Without Abraham’s willingness to ‘set out’ the world would be a very different place today. St. Paul would make a major theme of Abraham’s obedience about 1500 years a Genesis 12:1-4 tells of God appearing to Abram and saying, “Pack up, leave your family and go until I say stop.”fter the event. But for me what strikes is the whole notion of setting out and knowing nothing about what you’re going to.

Jane, my first wife and Nancy’s big sister, had studied missions in Africa and wanted to be a missionary. I hadn’t studied about Africa unless you count the matinee double headers with Tarzan films as one of them. And I knew more about what Africa was than Abraham knew about Canaan, enough to know Tarzan wasn’t likely to be found. I also knew that my other alternative after seminary, work in the inner city of Chicago, would entail learning a language (Latinos were arriving in the melting pot every day). So Jane made it sound simple. “If you’re going to learn a language anyway…” The upshot was of course that I married her and we went to South Africa.

I say I knew Africa wasn’t men in pith helmets and damsels in jungle distress. In twenty eight years I was never once in a jungle like the ones in Tarzan movies and I learned two African languages, worked in three countries at eight very different jobs, and over a distance of about 2000 miles found beautiful grasslands, cities and towns and wonderful people wherever I went. But the only jungle I saw was when, within sight of the great Victoria Falls I walked in the rain forest the spray created.

One of the themes for Lent this year is a call to listen for God’s call. Another is to venture out of our personal comfort zones at God’s call. I was astonished when I arrived in South Africa in 1957 to find a city just like the one I’d left behind, as I thought, forever. The first shock was discovering far away places aren’t all that different! But the next surprise came when I began to see the different ways of solving humanity’s problems of those among whom I was working.

So don’t be fearful of going where you haven’t been if you get the call. You’ll probably be surprised that the new place is so much like where you’ve always been. And don’t be too shocked when you dig beneath the surface and discover creative and different ways of life that enrich your understanding and challenge you to growth.

-Dick Sales