Faith, Grace, and Hope

Some Christian traditions observe the season of Lent and some do not.  Lent is a six- week period before Easter, wherein churches that observe the season focus on 1) Jesus' journey to Jerusalem and the cross, 2) preparation for baptism or renewal of baptismal vows, and 3) corrective spiritual discipline with a prayer toward increased faith and deepened trust in God.  Sometimes when people think about spiritual disciplines for Lent, they think "giving things up"- a setting aside of something enjoyable for a season of deprivation (only to resume the habit or activity at Easter). The purpose of spiritual discipline isn't (usually) deprivation, but instead an exercise to make one stronger in internal and external faith demonstration. We should be setting aside things that cause us to feel separated from Christ and/or taking up actions or practices that help us to connect with the Ground and Source of our Being.  For most of us, chocolate is not getting betwe...

I've had this image floating around in my head and in my social media feeds for more than a week. I even wrote a prayer around it here . Lutherans famously are "weak on sanctification". I even have one colleague who had a t-shirt to that effect in seminary. I cringe. The most significant theological aspect of Lutheran theology is justification. This "being made right with God by God's own work and not our own" is the whole basement of our belief system, built with the cornerstone of Jesus the Christ. Lutheran theologian Gerhard Forde said here  (in a really good article that I recommend!), Sanctification, if it is to be spoken of as something other than justification is perhaps best defined as the art of getting used to the unconditional justification wrought by the grace of God for Jesus ’   sake. It is what happens when we are grasped by the fact that God alone justifies. It is being made holy, and as such, it is not our work. It is the work of...

Drawn by Pastor Julia Seymour, 9/13/18

Even as we are more fully known. Sister Joan Chittister says, " We don't change as we get older - we just get to be more of what we've always been." ( The Gift of Years: Growing Older Gracefully) This is the definition of sanctification for me. We are children of God,  simultaneously saint and sinner, but we are not yet what we have been made to be in fullness.  The on-going work of the Spirit within pulls, pushes, and propels us to being more fully the child (children) of God for the time and place and hope and future for which we were created.  When there is great turmoil and fear in the world, like now, I can easily feel detached from many things. Yet, because I believe God is still working - even and especially in me- I believe that nothing is settled. History is within God, thus no other forces will even be footnoted in the final telling.  Every glimpse of pain or horror in the world is also a chance to perceive one's own ...

14 What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you? 15 If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, 16 and one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill,” and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? 17 So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead. 18 But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith apart from your works, and I by my works will show you my faith… 26 For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is also dead. James 2:14-18, 26             I just realized today that I haven’t posted a single thing to my blog since Easter. For some of you that doesn’t mean anything and for others, you’re screaming, “I know!” Though, in most weeks, I write sermons, litanies, commentaries, and (sometimes) book reviews, my blog rem...

6 th Sunday of Pentecost 1 John 1:5-2:2             Whenever I hear today’s verses from 1 John, this is what happens in my head, “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sin, God who is faithful and just will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. We kneel or sit.” My years in churches that knelt or sat for the time of confession are not any greater in number than the number of years I’ve been with you, so I’ve never said or heard this phrase in six years. And yet, there it is. A biblical command and my automatic response…             “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sin, God who is faithful and just will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. We kneel or sit.”         ...

1 Kings 17:1-16             A famous theologian once said, “You should preach with the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other.” That can be tough, because then in one hand I have stories of droughts and floods, wars and struggles between ruling parties, unexpected deaths, people struggling to make ends meet, and people longing for justice… and is that the hand that holds the newspaper or the Bible? Sometimes, it can be hard to tell one from the other without looking carefully and remembering what each one is supposed to do. The newspaper shows us a world that longs for God’s kingdom to come or has forgotten its promise. The Bible reminds us of the promise and shows us God’s actions through history, so that we have a foundation on which to base our hope in and expectation of God’s future actions.             If the Bible were like other history ...