Happy Friday the 13th to you! I hope you are having a good week. As you look forward to the weekend I hope you will find time to enjoy the warmer weather forecast for Saturday. And of course, you are warmly invited to come out for a morning of worship and communion at our house on Sunday’s Church in the Living Room at 10:30.
We will continue with our reflections on the “non-negotiables” of faith. So far we’ve discussed God’s call for us to :
- Care for the marginalized, hungry, poor and imprisoned.
- Forgive as we have been forgiven
- Be peacemakers, not peace keepers
- Pray for our enemies
Next we will look at God’s plans for our resources: money, time, talents/gifts.
Last week in our discussion of praying for our enemies we came up against one of the classic challenges in scripture – what do we do when it seems like part of the bible contradicts another? We saw this in Jesus teaching on turning the other cheek, and the old testament reference to “an eye for an eye.”
One concept I look for in understanding things like this is that God is without blemish and the Lord’s values will be constant. In looking into our passage a bit more it led me to want to study again how to read and understand the “law” and the Hebrew scriptures called the Torah. I’ve found teaching from the bible project helpful as well as more longer podcast on the Law. Maybe you’d like to check it out.
This Wednesday is the beginning of Lent. I kinda can’t believe that myself, but Wednesday, February 18 is Ash Wednesday. Personally I like to mark this day with as much simplicity as I can, and look for ways to focus on my faith in community. So, I’d like to invite you to come out to our house on Wednesday evening. Join us for a simple soup dinner at 6:00 and a low key worship and contemplative prayer gathering at 7:00. Please RSVP so I know who much soup to prep in the crockpot.
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