Aloha Friday Message – September 17, 2021 – Love and Prayer, War and Peace

September 17, 2021

2138AFC091721 – Love and Prayer, War and Peace

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A pile of keys outside an antique shop in Eton.

Psalm 40:1 – I waited patiently for the Lord; he inclined to me and heard my cry

Wisdom 2:18 – 18 For if the righteous one is the son of God, God will help him and deliver him from the hand of his foes.

Psalm 54:4 – 4 But surely, God is my helper; the Lord is the upholder of my life.

James 4:1-3 – 1 Where do wars and fightings among you come from? Don’t they come from your pleasures that war in your members? 2 You lust, and don’t have. You murder and covet, and can’t obtain. You fight and make war. You don’t have, because you don’t ask. 3 You ask, and don’t receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures. World English Bible (WEB) by Public Domain. The name “World English Bible” is trademarked.

Aloha pumehana, a me ke akua ho’omaika‘i ‘oe, ʻŌmea! Warmest Aloha, and may God bless you, Belovéd! Today I want to bring together two characteristics about our relationship with God and with each other. The first is LOVE. The Second is PRAYER. God loves us unconditionally. Jesus commands us to love each other as he loves us – unconditionally. We tell God – the Divine Trinity – about our LOVE in prayers of adoration, thanksgiving, and praise. In our prayers we also ask God to be mindful of the persons we LOVE. I want to look at both of these biblically and also share some practical ways these actions – loving and praying – work together.

First, I want to share with you some verses about God’s LOVE. It is so amazing that, if I did not believe in it, it would be incredible. It is credible, however, because we can see it and feel it in our lives, in our hearts and minds, and especially in the love we share among each other. Here are some – only a few – of that wonderful things we know about God’s love – and we know them because they are things HE told us!

It is an Everlasting Love
Jeremiah 31:3b – I have loved you with an everlasting love; (↔ Music Link) therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you.

It is a Manifested Love
1 John 4:9-13 – 9 God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world (↔ Music Link) so that we might live through him. 10 In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11 Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us. 13 By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. (↔ Music Link)

It is a Redeeming Love
Isaiah 63:9b – It was no messenger or angel but his presence that saved them; in his love and in his pity he redeemed them; he lifted them up and carried them all the days of old.

Jude v. 21  21 keep yourselves in the love of God; look forward to the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life.

It is a Preserving Love
Romans 8:38-39 – 38 For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

It is a Persevering Love
Isaiah 55:3b – 3 Incline your ear, and come to me; listen, so that you may live. I will make with you an everlasting covenant, my steadfast, sure love for David

Now, this next one isn’t exactly in the Bible, but maybe you are familiar with it.

It is Way-Cool Love
Isaiah 54:10 – 10 For the mountains may depart* and the hills be removed, but my steadfast love shall not depart from you, and my covenant of peace shall not be removed, says the Lord, who has compassion on you. * Here is a great (↔ Music Link)

It is an Enduring Love
Isaiah 49:15 – 15 Can a mother forget her infant, be without tenderness for the child of her womb? Even should she forget, I will never forget you.

It is a Perfecting Love
1 John 2:5-6 – 5 but whoever obeys his word, truly in this person the love of God has reached perfection. By this we may be sure that we are in him: 6 whoever says, “I abide in him,” ought to walk just as he walked.

And we can. We can live just as he lived, walk as he walked, love as he LOVED if we live in his LOVE.

We share LOVE, we grow LOVE, and we grow in LOVE through prayer. In today’s Key Verse from Psalm 40, the Psalmist declares he waited patiently for the LORD. Sometimes we find that difficult as in the prayer, “LORD grant me patience right now!” Sometimes we just can’t seem to make what we want to say come out in a way that makes sense; we think God needs an interpreter to understand us. Let’s take a quick look at a couple of biblical statements about prayer (two out of thousands).

Romans 8:38-39 – 38 For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (ʻŌmea, use this link to see this quote in full context.)

It is an Always-Merciful Love
Hebrews 4:16 – 16 Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

Yes, it is true. Nothing can separate us from the Love of God, and that means – since God is Love – he places no obstacle between us and Him. And yet, we stumble through prayer sometimes as if it were a terrible ordeal, or breeze through prayer as if it were a recitation of some sort with no depth of meaning. Paul tells us to approach the throne of grace with boldness. Sometimes we feel that we need to learn how to pray so that when we pray we don’t just babble and we don’t recite platitudes and we don’t go away thinking, “Well, if that didn’t work, I don’t know what else will!” Really? Let’s take a look at the anatomy of a prayer. For instance, how do you start?

  • Dear God … Ummmm, Hi God, it’s me. You know, “The Sinner in Apartment D-316?”
  • Jesus, I come to you today to ask for your help with my nut-case neighbor.
  • Almighty God, we come to you today to thank you for sparing us during this latest winter storm.”

So what kinds of “things” go into a prayer, and how can we learn to build a prayer that flows, that is both Biblical and relevant, and one which isn’t so convoluted we don’t even remember what we said? I’m going to suggest a simple outline and give some examples. Here’s the outline:

  1. Greeting
  2. Praise
  3. Thanks
  4. Petition
  5. Confession/Profession
  6. Closing

#1 – Greeting: Name the person to whom you address your prayer: God, Father, Jesus, Holy Spirit, Blessed Trinity, Lord, Master, any opening like that is fine. I have said before my favorites are My El Shaddai-Olam and Abba.

#2 – Praise: Hallowed be thy name, you alone are Holy; you are our awesome God, Omnipotent and Omniscient Creator, Lover of my soul, source of all that is Good, Great, and Just Judge of all mankind, and so on. What is there in my heart and mind that just totally wows me when I think of Him? How can you combine that with the Greeting? They can work together. Here is one that was inspired by a popular contemporary Christian music group – the Hemphills – in the 80’s:
Father, we worship you as One in the Love of the Spirit and the Son.
Jesus, we honor you as Lord by all of Heaven and Earth adored.
Spirit, we love you as our Friend and giver of Love and Gifts without end.
#3 – Thanks: We thank you for all your gifts, thank you for hearing my prayer, thank you for all your blessings, thank you for subduing my enemies, thank you for this day / this life / this world / this family / this spouse / this (everything). To borrow a line from a Gospel chorus … “Thank you, Lord, for saving my soul / Thank you Lord for making me whole. / Thank you Lord for giving to me / Thy great Salvation so rich and free.” Yes. You can quote another’s prayer as part of your prayer especially if it’s a song! (↔ Click Link)

#4 – Petition: This is the part we’re pretty good at, giving God a To-Do list. In fact, truth be told, this is almost always where most of us start. Even if we don’t usually pray the “gimme” prayer, we pretty much expect God to pop up like the genie in the bottle and grant our wishes. A bicycle, a house, a victory over an enemy, something to suit our passions, you know what to ask, and the Bible tells you how to ask – with faith, believing that you will receive it, and in Jesus’ name. But we’re not quite to that closing part yet. Sometimes the best petition is to ask God for guidance, for the grace to see and do his will, or for direction (↔ Click Link) about what he would have us do next. Another is to prepare (↔ Click Link, seriously) your heart for his Presence (↔ Yup, Click this Link, too). (PLEASE USE THESE LINKS.)

#5 – Confession/Profession: “Wait a minute, I’m not Catholic.” “What is there to confess, and to whom?” “What do you mean, ‘confess’? And what could I profess that God doesn’t already know?” You know that part in the Lord’s Prayer “Forgive us our debts (trespasses) as we forgive our debtors (those who trespass against us)? That is a confession of our sinfulness. “Lead us not into temptation (Do not put us to the final test): That is a confession of our weaknesses. But deliver us from evil (from the evil one): That is a confession of our awareness that we are sinners redeemed by Grace through the loving protection of God. When we say, “Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed by thy name,” we are professing our awe of God’s benevolent power in our lives. What does that sound like outside of the Lord’s Prayer? When you pray the Apostles or Nicene Creed, your profession of faith, you publicly profess what you believe. You can declare that privately in your personal prayer as well. Here’s a little example:

Master, I do not know how to pray so that my prayers are pleasing to you, but send me your Spirit to pray with me. You are my hope and my Joy. In you alone do I find comfort and peace. You alone are worthy of Praise, O God my strength and my redeemer! In you, O LORD, I am made whole. I know my sinfulness. Grant me faith to overcome sin and to live in your presence at all times. Look into my heart, Holy Spirit, and remove all that is offensive to you. Cast me not out from your presence O God, but in your mercy save me from my sins. I confess my love for you, my Lord and my God. I place my trust in you. Jesus, I trust in you. Jesus, I love you above all things and persons, and I desire to receive you into my heart and soul. Sprit of the Living God, I surrender my entire life to the Holy Trinity without reserve. O God, you are my God and I will always praise you. I offer this prayer in the name of Jesus, the Christ who lives and reigns with God the Father Almighty, in the Unity of the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the Giver of Life. Amen.

#6 – Closing: Jesus told us to pray in His name, and that’s pretty easy: In Jesus name. Amen. In your most precious name, we pray. As the Lord taught us, we pray in His name, Amen. In faith believing, we place our trust in you, Jesus. As you have commanded through your Son, Jesus Christ (↔ This is how and why it works! Click it!), we pray in His name, AMEN. In the Power of the Blood of Jesus we humbly pray. Amen.

Once we learn to converse with God instead of simply giving him a To-Do list, then our prayer life becomes a source of constant joy. Therefore, Beloved, pray for one another that God will give all of us “the will to do small things with great love.” (Use all the links in this paragraph, please.) Remember, God – all three Persons – knows everything (↔ Click it.), is everywhere (← Do not miss this one!), and is all-powerful. Knowing these things, we also know God is always with us, around us, and in us, and we have no need to shout or doubt. We can be confident He reads and hears our heart’s longings. It only takes a moment for God to answer our prayer. One day it will happen. Wait patiently on the LORD. Pray in gratitude without ceasing. God Will Take Care Of You. (↔ Music Link) He will lean in to reach you and hold you in his LOVE. God is the upholder of our lives, the source of our Peace. And even the son of God endured all for the sake of Love – yes, Belovéd, it was more than nails that held him to the cross; it was above all LOVE. When you are held in the Peace of Love, there is no longer war or illicit passion – we are free from all that is unworthy of God and at ease in Peace. Let Christ Be Our Light.  (↔ Music Link)

Whatever, whenever, wherever, whoever, however, if ever, forever —
at your service, Belovéd!

Please pray with us here at Share-a-Prayer.

Unless otherwise indicated, all scripture passages are from the New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (NRSVCE) New Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright © 1989, 1993 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

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Aloha Friday Messages by Charles O. Todd, III is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License

Aloha Friday Message – September 10, 2021 – Unbearable?

September 10, 2021

2137AFC091021 – Unbearable?

Read it online here, please. And please – when you visit there – use one of the social media links at the bottom of the page to share this post. Thank you! And remember, we now have a READER VIEW available, so share this link or this email often.

     Mark 8:29 – 29 He asked them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter answered him, “You are the Messiah.”

Mark 8:32-33 – 32 He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. 33 But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”

Grace, mercy, and peace will be with us from God the Father and from our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father’s Son, in truth and love. Folks, the readings for this Sunday are heavy stuff! Isaiah’s poetry gives us a mental image of what we recall about Jesus’ so-called trial during his Passion. Here’s a brief sample:

Isaiah 50:6 – 6 I gave my back to those who struck me, and my cheeks to those who pulled out the beard; I did not hide my face from insult and spitting. In the next verse he says, “I have set my face like flint and I know that I shall not be put to shame.

Isaiah continues to describe the fate of the Suffering Servant in the very familiar passage of Isaiah 53 (Sometime this week I hope you will come back, click on this link for Isaiah 53, and reread it.) When we have compassion, sorrow, even empathy with Jesus’ suffering, we sometimes gain new insights into our own suffering. “Aw, shucks! It ain’t so bad! Long as I’m on this side of the grass everything’s good.” We might strike that pose of bravado in front of others, but inwardly we often hear our own voice say, “I’ve had enough of this! I don’t even know how to pray any longer! I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired. It just wears me out, it’s so-o-o unbearable.” And yet, what does Jesus say to his Disciples about a cross? He says, as recorded here in Mark 8:34-35 – 34 He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 35 For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the Gospel, will save it. (Please see 1725AFC062317 – What do you say? for important information on the Greek for “deny.”)

Oh my word, that’s a whopping-big requirement – those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the Gospel, will save it. Everyone listening knew what a cross was, and they knew it was part of the Roman’s way of disgracing a person condemned to die to carry the implement of their death to the place of their death. I sometimes imagine people sat there shaking their heads and wondering how much crazier this new Prophet could get. Even today, with 2,000 years of work and study on this passage, the content and import of it is immense. Does he literally mean “Grab a cross and carry it beside me to Calvary.”? Honestly, when I think about that, about the suffering he endured for ME, my heart turns and my stomach churns. I could never do that. It would be unbearable; still, I am to bear my cross, and give up my life for the Gospel. Alright, then, where is this cross that I must take up? The answer really surprised me. It validated that old adage, “Be careful what you ask for.” Where is my cross? I am my cross.

I have to put up with me. I have to pay the temporal cost for my sins – those consequences that accompany every action I make – are mine to deal with. Jesus took care of the Eternal consequences, but I still am accountable for the temporal, in-my-own-little-world consequences. If you don’t believe me, try telling a law enforcement officer or a Judge, “No worries guv! Jesus has got my sins all paid for. It’s been covered.” Nice thoughts, but – if you are deserving – you’re still going to jail. We bear the consequences for all the smart and stupid  things we do. That’s how it works. Now I want to throw something in here that’s sort of a light-hearted interruption. I want to use it for two reasons. [1] It’s kind of a funny story, and [2] it uses the word “unbearable.” Here we go:

The Pregnant Wife

A man from Bolivia was meeting with some officials from The Bureau of Consular Affairs about getting visas for him and his wife. He was having some difficulty because his command of English was limited. The official asked if he would be bringing any children along as well. The man replied, “Ah, no, Señor, my wife is unbearable.” The puzzled look on the official’s face indicated he hadn’t understood. “Ah, Señor, what I mean to say is that she is, ahhh, inconceivable.” The puzzled look on the other man’s face changed to surprise. The Bolivian man decided to try one more time. “You see, Señor,” … he then whispered, “she is impregnable.” The official’s face lit up with understanding, and he wrote on the application, “NO CHILDREN.”

When we say unbearable we mean that something is not tolerable, it is unable to be endured, it is something our capabilities cannot manage. It would be overwhelming, massively painful or destructive; it might even kill us. Are we really¸ really ready to die as a martyr while testifying about Jesus? Let me go back to “I am my cross” and try to answer that question about martyrdom.

If “I am my cross” is true, then when I “deny my self and take up my cross” to follow Jesus, that is very much like my day-to-day life consequences. If there is some simple thing I’d like to do that really isn’t good for me or that doesn’t really show love for God or neighbor, what happens if I go ahead and do it anyway? Well, of course, I have sinned! Now, if I deny that impulse, then I – in a manner of speaking – put it to death, and I do not sin. There are other ways we become, and deal with, being our cross. One which most of us associate with Jesus’ suffering is PAIN. We all know pain – physical pain, emotional pain, even spiritual pain – and honestly none of us like it. Let’s just think about physical pain for a moment. We know people with cancer or other chronic illnesses have plenty of pain. We know that innocents from fetuses to old-timers are tortured to death. Some of us have injuries that plague us for years.

I’ll share something with you: I have a stasis ulcer on my right ankle that’s been surgically debrided every week since January and wakes me up at night. Both rotator cuffs have significant, inoperable tears. There is osteoarthritis in practically every movable joint in my body. Pretty much every move, every step, every breath, every blink is a moment of pain. I tell you sincerely, I have no use for it; so every day I give it to God so he can do with it as he pleases. Do you remember how the Apostle Paul described that? Take a look:  Colossians 1:24 – 24 I am now rejoicing in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am completing what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church. Doing that doesn’t diminish what my senses are telling me, but it does make my sensations sensible. Maybe someone on my IPL could get the benefit, or even someone I know nothing about. It’s just one of those things that makes my days better. Now, let’s talk about the head-snapper in today’s Key Verses.

     Jesus asks the Disciples, “Who do you say that I AM?” The Apostle Peter comes back with the correct response – You are the Christ. You are the Messiah. Again Jesus tells all of them not to tell anyone else – yet. His revelation as Messiah is set for the time of his Passion, and it’s just days away, but it is not that day. Jesus tells them openly, frankly, and factually that  he is going to die a terrible death. Next thing you know, The Apostle Peter is so pleased with himself for getting the right answer that he feels he can take Jesus aside and say, “Look Master, you can’t talk like that! Nothing that bad is going to …” Jesus breaks in with “Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.” Now usually in my mind’s little movie theater, Jesus says that angrily, but actually I think he probably said it with sadness.

As in the wilderness when tempted by Satan, The Apostle Peter was taking the role of opposing what is God’s will essentially saying that course of action he deemed unnecessary. Jesus the Christ knew that it was his divinely-appointed purpose to suffer and die. The Apostle Peter was saying “There gotta be a better way.” Although he said it out of love and respect for his friend and Master, it was still wrong! It must have really stung his sensibilities, because The Apostle Peter wasn’t thinking of Jesus the same way God was thinking of Jesus. Here’s why it is so important to understand the difference. We do not want to pen God up in a pretty little box!

Belovéd, he is the God of the impossible! What did Gabriel tell Mary? “for with God all things are possible.” What did Abraham decide about sacrificing Isaac. “God can restore his life if he chooses to.” We have a tendency to measure what God can do by using our yardstick. Boy! Is that dumb! I can only do what is humanly possible, and there’s not much of that that I can do any more, so my busted yardstick is certainly no match for God’s awesome power.

We would all love to see miracles, wouldn’t we? When I look out my window, I see several – and they are all from God! Who can make a flower? (↔ Music Link) As nearly I can tell, it’s a Wonderful World (↔ Music Link) out there. Have you ever thought about how great a miracle it is to plant one kernel of corn and get 500 back? We have such low expectations of our God. There’s nothing at all wrong with asking him to tackle the big stuff. After all, look at all the little stuff he manages. Ask him for the big stuff! If he doesn’t change your illness or pain, at least you get credit for asking in faith.

Here’s the deal: I Expect A miracle! (↔ Music Link) Like Iz, says “You gotta just make you kuleana pono.” (Kuleana = caring responsibility. Pono = done with careful correctness in harmony with all things and persons.) We have to make whatever we do be worthwhile and doable; we need to “do t’ings for God’s way not for my way.” The Apostle Peter learned that eventually and that enabled him to be the Rock upon which the Church was built. You know, I don’t mind at all being a little stone in the floor of that edifice. That’s because I have solid faith in what The Apostle Peter himself told us in 1 Peter 2:4-5 – 4 Come to him, a living stone, though rejected by mortals yet chosen and precious in God’s sight, and 5 like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. My little life is no bargain, believe me; but, if I put it where it belongs – in God’s hands – if I invest it, clothe it with Love, and give every living moment to him for you and to you for him, then nothing in my life will ever be unbearable. I’m going to close with something from 2020 (↔ Click Link) because the point made by what follows can be life-changing:

We want to acknowledge and thank Turn Back to God and Jesus Christ Cartoons for this wonderful object lesson on The Cross We Carry. Used with permission from the author at http://www.turnbacktogod.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Jesus-Christ-Cartoon-02.jpg

Please use this link to see the image full-size at that location.

Whatever, whenever, wherever, whoever, however, if ever, forever —
at your service, Belovéd!

Please pray with us here at Share-a-Prayer.

Unless otherwise indicated, all scripture passages are from the New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (NRSVCE) New Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright © 1989, 1993 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Biblical languages inserts from Bible Hub (Bible Hub: Search, Read, Study the Bible in Many Languages) Visit at http://biblehub.com

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Aloha Friday Messages by Charles O. Todd, III is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License

Aloha Friday Message – September 3, 2021 – Opened to Hear, Closed to Fear

September 3, 2021

2136AFC090321 – Opened to Hear, Closed to Fear

Read it online here, please. And please – when you visit there – use one of the social media links at the bottom of the page to share this post. Thank you! And remember, we now have a READER VIEW available, so share this link or this email often.

     Isaiah 35:4 – 4 Say to those who are of a fearful heart, “Be strong, do not fear! Here is your God. He will come with vengeance, with terrible recompense. He will come and save you.”

Mark 7:34-35 – (↔ Please use this link to see the whole story in context.) 34 Then looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him, “Ephphatha*,” that is, “Be opened.” 35 And immediately his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly.

* Ἐφφαθά = Ephphatha and is part of the Baptismal Rite when the Priest says, “Ephphetha: that is, be opened, that you may profess the faith you hear, to the praise and glory of God. While saying this, he touches the ears and lips of the candidate. I found this illustration of the Bible story, and to me it makes this passage clearer. Take a look:

    This man was freed from what kept him “locked up” inside himself. He is referred to as “a deaf man who had an impediment in his speech; and they begged him to lay his hand on him.” Many of us have known hearing-impaired persons who have trained themselves to speak. The speech is understandable but not without distortions. We know, then, that he could communicate his inner thoughts and desires, but could not hear the responses to whatever he had spoken. He released his fear, fired up his faith, asked for and received Jesus’ help, and his life was completely changed. If we try to understand why Jesus used this unusual form of healing, we might not get any better answer than, “It was necessary.” The deaf man was in the presence of the Creator (↔ Click Link), so whatever the Creator did was how the Creator worked. Oh, how we love to say it! “God works in mysterious ways.” Sometimes we say that tongue-in-cheek (↔ Click Link) because we wonder how something good could come out of a real mess. Often the best explanation is “God did it.” That kind of childlike faith is a supreme goal for every Christian, and when we resort to such simplicity, we find ourselves standing much closer to The Light of Truth. Belovéd, if we’re standing in The Light, we need not fear the darkness!

That is what Isaiah is prophesying in the other Key Verse for today.

During Isaiah’s ministry, Israel and Judah were in terrible straits. They were oppressed, repressed, depressed, distressed, and hard-pressed to even stay alive. Neighboring nations waged wars against them, there were revolts and swift counter-attacks. Some of the names involved are familiar to us both historically and biblically: Sargon, Sennacherib, Assyrians and Arameans, Ashdod and Hezekiah, and Babylon and its Arabian allies. Good News was hard to find, because bad news was everywhere you looked. It seemed to Israel and Judah – “The Divided Kingdoms” – that God had abandoned his Chosen People. They certainly got a whopping-big chastisement for their disloyalty, wicked rejection of God’s sovereignty, and their lack of faith and trust in God’s deliverance. True to form, though, God had something better in mind for them – Salvation! In the short-term scheme of things, God was going to overturn the oppressors who devastated the Kingdoms. In the long-term scheme, we know that his Promise of a Redeemer for all earthlings was behind everything he did. Now, can you guess what Israel and Judah had to do to get out of that mess? I’ll give you a hint: It starts with R, ends with T, and means “turn around.”

Now that we understand that, it’s time to look at the driving force behind one of the greatest Prophets that ever lived. I’m going to ask you to go “off-message” for a moment so you can read about the remarkable circumstances behind Isaiah’s call to serve God. It’s one of the most remarkable passages in Scripture. Whenever I read it I think, “God is indeed very and completely AWESOME!” The images invoked by this passage are absolutely magnificent. Please take a few moments right now to at least glance through Isaiah Chapter 6. We will peek in on some of that passage now.

     When I read about what Isaiah saw – the Lord God on a Glorious Throne with Seraphim surrounding and praising him (In the Christian theological doctrine of angels, the Seraphim are the highest-ranking celestial beings in the hierarchy of angels), I sense the absolute awe he must have felt. From that magnificent throne room, God called out as in Isaiah 6:8 – 8 Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” And I said, “Here am I; send me!” (↔ Music Link!) WHAT A RECRUITING CALL!! How thrilling to have such Majesty and Power say “You’re my guy for this job – only if you take it.” It is as magnificent a call as the fiat of Mary or the mantle of Prophecy passed to Elisha (See 2 Kings 2:8-14). The passage also reminds me of the vision of God and his Throne recorded in Daniel 7:9-14 when the Judgment before the Ancient One is described. In all of these visions of God, there is a strong and beautiful message to those who are suffering. We see it in our Key Verse from Isaiah: “Be strong, do not fear! Here is your God. He will come with vengeance, with terrible recompense. He will come and save you.” That message is for us as well, Belovéd.

We are surrounded by so much violence and evil! It seems that every day we are assaulted by more news of natural disasters and horrific catastrophes so disruptive that entire communities – and many of their inhabitants – are destroyed. There are indeed wars and rumors of wars. There are appalling incidents of terrorism and cruelty, horrifying stories of excessiveness in politics, religion, and human interactions, and the constant fear of yet another incredibly deadly disease sweeping across the planet.

Then we hear it as in Psalm 46:10 – 10 “Be still, and know that I am God! I am exalted among the nations, I am exalted in the earth.” This idea of “being still” is an important Act of Faith. Take a look at Psalm 37:7 – 7 Be still before the Lord, and wait patiently for him; do not fret over those who prosper in their way, over those who carry out evil devices. In the prophetic poetry of Isaiah’s messages later on in his career, God’s message in Isaiah 30:15 – 15 For thus said the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel: In returning [repentance] and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength. Alright, by now you get the idea. We need to quiet down and listen for God’s call. What would he want to say to us? How about this?

DO NOT BE AFRAID. He says that nearly 70 times in Scripture. Have no fear, fear not, be not afraid (over 80 times!) And how about this: Mark 4:9 – 9 And he said, “Let anyone with ears to hear listen!” You know what? I’ll be somewhere listening! (↔ Music Link) Where is that somewhere I’ll be listening? Right here, Belovéd; I’ll be right here. It’s really hard for me to be quiet (someone just said “No kidding!”), but Love makes it possible – whenever I remember Love. All this disease – “If I get the covid I’ll die” – and war – “Authorities in Afghanistan today said …” – and violence – “A large group marching in a peaceful protest over the new laws was attacked by a mob of dissidents who …”  –  – What’s it all coming to? What do we do? We quietly trust that God will say to us  “Be strong, do not fear! Here is your God. He will come with vengeance, with terrible recompense. He will come and save you.”

I believe that. Do all of us believe that? If not, why not – what’s stopping us? Let us therefore make our ears, our hearts and our minds Opened to Hear, Closed to Fear. (Brendan, this is for you) – Remember FEAR is False Evidence Appearing Real (the Devil’s lying again!), and FAITH is Fully Aware I Trust Him. I find good reason to trust whenever I read Jude 1:24-25 – 24 Now to him who is able to keep you from falling, and to make you stand without blemish in the presence of his glory with rejoicing, 25 to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, power, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.

I want to share this Music Link with you again. Please think of it when you’re watching the news on the MSMOs, or reading the paper (or some news blog) or listening to a podcast. As long as there is Love in the World we know God will be telling us “Be Not Afraid.” (↔ Music Link) Beloved, let us quietly listen for God’s call “Whom shall we send?”, and stop being afraid. We stop all the worry, because Why worry when you can pray? (↔ Music Link). Here is the secret to finding that Wisdom:

😀

In fifth grade, our Music Teacher Mrs. Williams would put on a record for us to listen to, and she seemed to say, “Sit down. Be quiet. Listen Carefully. Be in the music.” Isaiah might say something similar: Sit down. Be quiet. Listen Carefully. Be in the Lord.

That’s a wrap for these two key verses, but I have one more thing to add – a wonderful story that goes with the Epistle for this coming Sunday. It’s from James 2:1-5 and it begins like this: My brothers and sisters, do you with your acts of favoritism really believe in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ? Let me share an example by telling you about

The Old Cowboy

One Sunday morning, an old cowboy entered a church just before services were to begin. Although the old man and his clothes were spotlessly clean, he wore jeans, a denim shirt, and boots that were very worn and ragged.

In his hand he carried a worn out old hat and an equally well-worn, dog-eared Bible.

The church he entered was in a very upscale and exclusive part of the city. It was the largest and most beautiful church the old cowboy had ever seen.  The people of the congregation were all dressed with expensive clothes and fine jewelry.

As the cowboy took a seat, the others moved away from him. No one greeted, spoke to, or welcomed him. They were all appalled by his appearance and did not attempt to hide it.

As the old cowboy was leaving the church, the preacher approached him and asked the cowboy to do him a favor. “Before you come back in here again, have a talk with God and ask him what he thinks would be appropriate attire for worship in this church.”   The old cowboy assured the preacher that he would.

The next Sunday, he showed back up for the services wearing the same ragged jeans, shirt, boots, and hat. Once again he was completely shunned and ignored.

The preacher again approached the cowboy and said, “I thought I asked you to speak to God before you came back to our church.”

“I did,” replied the old cowboy.

“If you spoke to God, what did he tell you the proper attire should be for worshiping in here?” asked the preacher.

“Well, sir, God told me that He didn’t have a clue what I should wear. He said He’d never been inside this church.”

Whatever, whenever, wherever, whoever, however, if ever, forever —
at your service, Belovéd!

Please pray with us here at Share-a-Prayer.

Unless otherwise indicated, all scripture passages are from the New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (NRSVCE) New Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright © 1989, 1993 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Biblical languages inserts from Bible Hub (Bible Hub: Search, Read, Study the Bible in Many Languages) Visit at http://biblehub.com

Creative Commons License
Aloha Friday Messages by Charles O. Todd, III is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License

Aloha Friday Message – August 27, 2021 – The Beast Under the Bed

August 27, 2021

2135AFC082721 – The Beast Under the Bed

Read it online here, please. And please, when you visit there, use one of the social media links at the bottom of the page to share this post. Thank you! And remember, we now have a READER VIEW available, so share this link or this email often,

  Mark 7:17-23 – 17 When he had left the crowd and entered the house, his disciples asked him about the parable. 18 He said to them, “Then do you also fail to understand? Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile, 19 since it enters, not the heart but the stomach, and goes out into the sewer?” (Thus he declared all foods clean.) 20 And he said, “It is what comes out of a person that defiles. 21 For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come: fornication, theft, murder, 22 adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, folly. 23 All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.”

     James 1:17-20 – 17 Every generous act of giving, with every perfect gift, is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. 18 In fulfillment of his own purpose he gave us birth by the word of truth, so that we would become a kind of first fruits of his creatures. 19 You must understand this, my beloved: let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger; 20 for your anger does not produce God’s righteousness.

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope, Belovéd. Surely you must be thinking, after reading that title, “The Old Man has finally fallen off the cliff and landed in the loony bin.” My dear friends, that is indeed a possibility, so let me show you what I mean. Let’s begin with why I picked these Key Verses. We’ll start with the parable mentioned. Jesus had just taken the Pharisees to task for cheating parents out of the support they should have been giving by saying that the resources for that care have been set aside as a sanctified gift for God and therefore the parent should not expect any access to those resources. Of course, those greedy children using this excuse gave perhaps a small offering to the Temple, but the rest went for their own pleasures. Jesus scolded them for making a big show out of “keeping The Law” and by criticizing Jesus’ disciples for not performing the ritual hand-washing before eating. Such behavior, they said, defiled the person and what the person ate. Jesus was showing the Pharisees that they had made The Law a threatening and even frightening barrier set up to hold them away from the goodness of worship in the Temple. This barrier was like the Greek mythological creature Cerberus (← Check it out!), a “religion” monster that blocked the Jews going in for worship or coming out with blessings. The Law had become a monster under the control of the three political powers then – The Pharisees, the Sadducees (opposing political parties), and the Priests (the executives who owned the right to pass judgment). To put it in frank terms, that really ticked Jesus off! He blasted the masters of that monster many times, and Belovéd, that really ticked them off, too! It got them angry enough to start plotting to kill this rebellious, blaspheming, trouble-making upstart from some hick village in Galilee.

Jesus was most angry about this monster forcing God’s children away from God’s gifts of Love, and Peace, and Joy – all the things promised to those who kept The Law – but denied to those children of God by greedy, sinful, vain men who valued prestige and power over justice and mercy. I think all of us can recall times when we absolutely knew something terrifying was right over there in the closet, or under the bed, or behind the curtains. Our moms and dads would comfort us, show us it was just a shadow or an imaginary shape. No monsters would get past the loving protection of our parents! … except maybe for that one that lived under the bed and was invisible, and might even be friendly enough to touch if we just patiently waited for it to talk to us. Then, just as we drifted off to sleep, we heard it roar into life and knew it really was a monstrous beast under the bed. After that jolt of fright, many of us ended up spending the night in our parents’ bed. That reality indeed was God’s gifts of Love, and Peace, and Joy. It was full and free access to all that is Good – every generous act of giving, with every perfect gift, (↔ Music Link) and that is True because it is not imaginary, not false evidence, not under the control of anyone but God.

     My Belovéd friends, we really do have a monster under our bed, but this one is not like the imaginary monsters that scared us as children. This monster is one that we try to make into a pet; but it’s a wild animal that will destroy us and all we have if we allow it to stay with us, to control us, to get in-between us and all that is Good. Those things are available to the Children of God through his Church, and we are told repeatedly that in that Church we are not to compromise with evil. Now, here comes a whole slew of Bible passages. Just read through them gallantly and then we can wrap this up. I want to start with how the monster was used to threaten Jesus and his Disciples during the Passion:

Matthew 26:59-65 – 59 Now the chief priests and the whole council were looking for false testimony against Jesus so that they might put him to death, 60 but they found none, though many false witnesses came forward. At last two came forward 61 and said, “This fellow said, ‘I am able to destroy the temple of God and to build it in three days.’” 62 The high priest stood up and said, “Have you no answer? What is it that they testify against you?” 63 But Jesus was silent. Then the high priest said to him, “I put you under oath before the living God, tell us if you are the Messiah, the Son of God.” 64 Jesus said to him, “You have said so. But I tell you,

From now on you will see the Son of Man
seated at the right hand of Power
and coming on the clouds of heaven.”

65 Then the high priest tore his clothes and said, “He has blasphemed! Why do we still need witnesses? You have now heard his blasphemy.

The monster is a liar and a murderer, and we want nothing to do with him. THERE IS NO REASON TO COMPROMISE OUR FAITH OUT OF FEAR BECAUSE THE MONSTER CLAIMS IT WANTS TO BE IN THE PEW WITH US! Here’s an example from the Apostle Paul:

1 Corinthians 5:9-13 – 9 I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral persons — 10 not at all meaning the immoral of this world, or the greedy and robbers, or idolaters, since you would then need to go out of the world. 11 But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother or sister who is sexually immoral or greedy, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or robber. Do not even eat with such a one. 12 For what have I to do with judging those outside? Is it not those who are inside that you are to judge? 13 God will judge those outside. “Drive out the wicked person from among you.” This last Scripture quotation is from several passages in Deuteronomy where God orders that those who are evil must be purged from the midst (↔ Click Link) of the people. He will not tolerate evil where there should be only holiness! Brothers and Sisters, that applies to us. Are we so intimidated by this monster of accommodation, acceptance, and compromise that we feed and defend the beast under the bed?

In his letter to the Hebrews, the Apostle Paul again points out the difference between regret and repentance. Repenting changes us. Regret merely disguises our sinful intentions. Hebrews 12:16-17, 25 – 16 See to it that no one becomes like Esau, an immoral and godless person, who sold his birthright for a single meal. 17 You know that later, when he wanted to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no chance to repent, even though he sought the blessing with tears.

25 See that you do not refuse the one who is speaking; for if they did not escape when they refused the one who warned them on earth, how much less will we escape if we reject the one who warns from heaven! Who ya gonna call? It had better be Jesus, and not the caretakers for the beast. That monster is no “ghost” to be busted. This monster intimidating us is from the demonic force that controls the masters of the monster. Jesus makes it clear that we must not let those forces inhabit his Church. We who call upon the name of the Lord are to be his and only his to the degree that nothing which must stay outside the Church is allowed to inhabit the inside of the Church. Hebrews 3:12-19 – 12 Take care, brothers and sisters, that none of you may have an evil, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. 13 But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” so that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. 14 For we have become partners of Christ, if only we hold our first confidence firm to the end. 15 As it is said, “Today, if you hear his voice,
do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.” 16 Now who were they who heard and yet were rebellious? Was it not all those who left Egypt under the leadership of Moses? 17 But with whom was he angry forty years? Was it not those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness? 18 And to whom did he swear that they would not enter his rest, if not to those who were disobedient? 19 So we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief.

“Unbelief” is the growling of the beast. It is a false warning to stay away lest we be devoured. It is the monster that must be cast out from the Church, not the humble believers seeking Love, and Peace, and Joy – “Every kind of gift given that is good, and every one received that is perfect in its kind comes from above.” This magnificent sentence is thought to be the fragment of some Christian hymn. Two words are translated by our one word “gift”; the first is more accurately the act of giving (dosis), the second the gift itself (dōrēma), and the effect of both together is an affirmation of the statement of God’s benevolence. If we besmirch that gift, reject that gift, hand it over to the monster and its masters, we stand to lose everything. We invite the starving fox into the henhouse, the ravening wolf into the sheepfold, the menacing kraken into the safe harbor. We are called to live In Christ Alone. Why would we do such foolish things?

We do them because, in our pride and fear of being accused of prejudices, biases, and partisanisms we compromise on biblical values. We probably will get clobbered with Galatians 3:28 – 28 There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. I understand that. I also understand that this passage requires closer reading than we usually give it.

First, to whom is the Apostle Paul writing? This letter is to the Christians of the Church in Ephesus. He is writing to the Church which is one in Christ Jesus. Those who are claiming the confidence of living Christian lives but who are also sexually immoral or greedy, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or robber those whom Jesus identified as those who have evil intentions such as fornication, theft, murder, adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, folly. When we have persons in the Church who

  • advocate murder (euthanasia, abortion, capital punishment),
  • commit adultery (openly or secretly perform adulterous acts),
  • commit fornication (openly commit sexual acts with themselves or other persons of the same or different gender),
  • theft (tax evasion, hacking, stealing from the poor or from one’s employer),
  • pride (braggadocio about one’s prowess, denying their abuse of others),
  • idolatry (to honor and revere a creature, image, or object in place of God, such as celebrities, plants, animals, or geographical locations like mountains, or power, pleasure, ethnicity, ancestry, political or religious prestige, and of course money)

… if those things are invited, allowed, tolerated, encouraged, even ordered IN, BY, AND THROUGH THE CHURCH, WE HAVE GONE HORRIBLY ASTRAY!

It is we who must speak out to the Church – our brothers and sisters in Christ – about the same things the Apostle Paul warned about: Fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, male prostitutes, sodomites, thieves, the greedy, drunkards, revilers, robbers – every kind of wickedness, evil, covetousness, malice, envy, vaunted pride, murder, strife, deceit, craftiness, gossips, slanderers, God-haters who are insolent, haughty, those who are gluttonous, boastful, inventors of evil, rebellious toward parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, and ruthless. They know God’s decree, that those who practice such things deserve to die – yet they not only do them but even applaud others who practice them. (See Romans 1 and 1 Corinthians 5) To that list we must shamefully add murders of millions of innocents – babies, elders, political enemies, ethnic pogroms, and intentional destruction and failure of stewardship for our only home, Earth. We do well to remember these warnings:

Isaiah 5:20-21 – 20 Ah, you who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter! 21 Ah, you who are wise in your own eyes, and shrewd in your own sight!

Wisdom 2:23-24 – 23 for God created us for incorruption, and made us in the image of his own eternity,24 but through the devil’s envy death entered the world, and those who belong to his company experience it.

John 8:44 – 44 You are from your father the devil, and you choose to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks according to his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies.

2 Corinthians 11:3 – 3 But I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by its cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ.

Cast out the beast under the bed! Do not be deceived by the wiles of the Devil or the fawning of the demons. We must suit up in the Full Armor (← Check it out!) of God and get in there and fight on our knees. The beast is real, dear ones. Don’t let The World convince you otherwise. Do not confront it with your anger. You must understand this, my beloved: let everyone [in the Church] be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger; for your anger does not produce God’s righteousness. Banish the beast. REPENT AND PROCLAIM THE GOSPEL BY LIVING IT.

Whatever, whenever, wherever, whoever, however, if ever, forever —
at your service, Belovéd!

Please pray with us here at Share-a-Prayer.

Unless otherwise indicated, all scripture passages are from the New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (NRSVCE) New Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright © 1989, 1993 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Biblical languages inserts from Bible Hub (Bible Hub: Search, Read, Study the Bible in Many Languages) Visit at http://biblehub.com

Creative Commons License
Aloha Friday Messages by Charles O. Todd, III is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License

Aloha Friday Message – August 20, 2021 – Love and Marriage

August 20, 2021

2134AFC082-21 – Love and Marriage

Read it online here, please. And please, when you visit there, use one of the social media links at the bottom of the page to share this post. Thank you! And remember, we now have a READER VIEW available, so share this link or this email often.

     Ephesians 5:28-32 – 28 In the same way, husbands should love their wives as they do their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 For no one ever hates his own body, but he nourishes and tenderly cares for it, just as Christ does for the church, 30 because we are members of his body. 31 “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” 32 This is a great mystery, and I am applying it to Christ and the church.

Revelation 21:2 – 2 And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.

Aloha nui loa, ʻŌmea! Grace and Peace to each of you from God our Father and our Lord, Jesus the Christ, in the Power of the Holy Spirit. Some of us “of a certain age” will remember a 1955 song with lyrics by Sammy Cahn and music by Jimmy Van Heusen called “Love and Marriage.” We may also remember it was recorded by Frank Sinatra, Dinah Shore, and Peggy Lee. When I was in the fifth grade, I was “volunteered” to participate in a musical dance number  with seven other students to that tune at the Denver Coliseum as part of the Denver Public Schools Folk Festival (I think that was the name) which featured groups from elementary schools in the Metro Denver Area. It was one of those childhood experiences that I dreaded because I was so clumsy and shy, and never could remember all the steps. I can still visualize the colored spotlights and hear the music echoing across the crowded floor. Even today when I hear that song on TV or the radio, I’m swept back to that moment when I finally got to escape from the lights and noise, find my parents, and get out of there. Still, the lyrics are fixed solid in my mind – especially the phrase “like a horse and carriage.” They do indeed go together.

We have quite a few phrases like that in our idioms – go together like bread and jam, bread and butter, cheese and crackers – and sometimes the phrase goes the opposite direction as in goes together like oil and water or like cats and dogs. Marriage has always been one of those states in life that attracted me. Although I was extraordinarily shy, I remember wanting to “get married.” Naturally I had no idea how complicated married life could be. I just thought it was always going to be wonderful. My parents seemed very happily married, and we spent lots of time with families from our church who seemed happily married. The moms and dads loved each other, they loved their kids, their kids loved them, and we all loved each other. It seemed like being married was the most natural goal for every boy and girl. As I grew older, the luster of that conclusion tarnished and faded. I remember the first time I heard about one of the couples we knew and visited often getting divorced. It was incomprehensible to me. Why would anyone want to do that? It saddened me that something I cherished so deeply could turn out to be so painful to my childhood friends and their parents. That sadness also strengthened my determination to get married and stay married.

Since marriage and family life was something like “The Prime Directive” for the Christian families we associated with, we heard about it often in Sunday School Lessons and sermons. Some of those messages connected marriage to the relationship between God and the Church – more specifically the Church as the Bride of Christ. Here are some examples of what came up:

     Revelation 19:7-8 – 7 Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready; 8 to her it has been granted to be clothed with fine linen, bright and pure” — for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints.

Revelation 21:2 – 2 And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.

Revelation 21:9 – 9 Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues came and said to me, “Come, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb.

Revelation 22:20 – 20 The one who testifies to these things says, “Surely I am coming soon.”

Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!

2 Corinthians 11:2 – 2 I feel a divine jealousy for you, for I promised you in marriage to one husband, to present you as a chaste virgin to Christ.

This takes us back, then, to our Key Verse today at Ephesians 5:32 – 32 This is a great mystery, and I am applying it to Christ and the church. Sometimes it is difficult to follow the Apostle Paul’s comparisons. Here he is saying the relationship between Christ and his church is like the relationship between a married couple; they go together like a horse and carriage, bread and wine. In fact a successfully married couple can and do live as one because they were made by God for each other. As the Apostle Paul says, it is a union prepared for us and preferred by God. He instituted marriage and approves it. The reunion of humanity with God is seen as the marriage of Christ as the Bridegroom and the Church as the Bride – another perfectly natural fit prepared for us and preferred by God. We continue the comparison with this:

29 For no one ever hates his own body, but he nourishes and tenderly cares for it, just as Christ does for the church, 30 because we are members of his body. Christ loves and nurtures his Bride the Church. And who, what, and where is The Church? That’s us, folks. We are the Church. We are the Bride. We love and serve the Bridegroom and look forward eagerly to eternity with our Spouse. We are, in this correlation, “one flesh,” one bread, one body, one cup of Blessing, one hope, one faith, one Spirit, one baptism, serving one Lord and Savior of us all just as a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. In this same chapter we find some words to which certain sectors of modernistic thinking have vociferously protested. As you read this, you will know what I mean. I will attempt to clarify the intent momentarily.

Ephesians 5:21-24 – 21 Be subject* to one another out of reverence for Christ. 22 Wives, be subject to your husbands as you are to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife just as Christ is the head of the church, the body of which he is the Savior. 24 Just as the church is subject to Christ, so also wives ought to be, in everything, to their husbands.

* hypotassomenoi I submit, put myself into subjection e.g., properly, “under God’s arrangement,” i.e. submitting to the Lord (His plan). Note: It is a voluntary submission, not forced, because we can choose to rebel.

This passage, and others like it, are bandied about in today’s Cancel Culture with rancorous vigor – perhaps justly in some times and places, but nonetheless result in a fallacious argument because the rancor is derived outside of context. In the fifth chapter of Ephesians, the Apostle Paul is admonishing the membership of The Church in Ephesus as a model or image of the worldwide Church. There were some problems there, and he sought to correct them by emphasizing the principle of Unity in Service to Christ and to each other as the Church. His advice centers on mutuality. Read Ephesians 5:21 again carefully: Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ. It does not say Be subject to one another out of gender dominance. The Apostle Paul says that wives defer to their husbands, but not – as any husband can tell you – without expressing her views, needs, wants, and expectations. In like fashion he adjures husbands to care tenderly for their wives even as Christ cares for his Church. A very similar passage is found in Colossians 3:18-21 – 18 Wives, be subject to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. 19 Husbands, love your wives and never treat them harshly. 20 Children, obey your parents in everything, for this is your acceptable duty in the Lord. 21 Fathers, do not provoke your children, or they may lose heart. The tone and purpose of mutuality is the goal. The intentions and actions of domineering subjugation are antithetical to the Apostle Paul’s “Rules for Christian Households.” Why is that important and what does it have to do with The New Jerusalem and the Bride of Christ?

Today’s dissident voices might say, “God would never make us live in a patriarchal society where males are considered intrinsically superior.” Perhaps in feminist theology that is true, but such theology is of Worldly origin, not Divine origin. In our Scriptures, God (here again I am citing “Trinity” as God) presents as male. Without that, pretty much none of the content of Scripture has any coherence or meaning. Perhaps some among us don’t like that outcome and want to rewrite that content to better suit our choices in life – and we are perfectly free to do so because we have been given the remarkable Gift of Free Will. That means we are also perfectly free to be completely wrong. If we were to go through the Bible cover-to-cover, we could find hundreds of incidents where that was the outcome – the participants defy God’s Absolutely Perfect Plan (the APP) because they believe they are right and God is wrong. Now, to me, that sounds ludicrous; but then I remember my own sinfulness and realize I, too, can be just that stubborn, just that stupid, just that forgetful that God made the rules that govern the universe and I had nothing to do with creating it. What a pretentious little doofus I would be if I thought I was God and could change the way Life works! Come to think of it, I might have tried that a few times with disastrous results. For me, Life works so much better if I just stick to the APP. Here’s an example.

My childhood dream of being married came true! I have had the same wonderful, beautiful, talented, supportive, and One True Love for 19,116 days as of today. Most of those days have been wonderful days, a few have been troubled by illness or other unexpected changes, but – whatever came to us – we always tackled it together. It is, was, and always will be just the three of us – Jesus, Crucita, and me. As I see it, that’s even better than a horse and carriage. It’s more like that surrey with the fringe on top. The reason is simple – PRIORITIES. We know in whom we believe,(↔ Music Link) and we know we are right because he is Right. Some of the folks that listened to Jesus chose not to believe him and so they dismissed him as a mere novelty and walked away. That’s the content of Sunday’s Gospel in John 6:60-69(↔ Click Link). It is a continuation of the Bread of Life Discourse. I encourage you to go back and reread John 6:48-60, but this time with the “foresight” of what came afterwards – the meaning of The Bride of Christ, the powerful image of Divinely Instituted Marriage, and the importance of knowing and believing in The APP well enough to trust and obey our Creator who has given us who believe in his only begotten Son (↔ Music Link) the Gift of Eternal Life by the union of Christ and his Bride, the Church. It’s a marriage made in Heaven. We stay in that union because there is nowhere else to find Eternal Life. It’s a Love thing.

Whatever, whenever, wherever, whoever, however, if ever, forever —
at your service, Belovéd!

Please pray with us here at Share-a-Prayer.

Unless otherwise indicated, all scripture passages are from the New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (NRSVCE) New Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright © 1989, 1993 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Biblical languages inserts from Bible Hub (Bible Hub: Search, Read, Study the Bible in Many Languages) Visit at http://biblehub.com

Creative Commons License
Aloha Friday Messages by Charles O. Todd, III is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License

Aloha Friday Message – August 13, 2021 – Just Say YES

August 13, 2021

For the Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary

2133AFC081321 – Just Say YES

Read it online here, please. And please, when you visit there, use one of the social media links at the bottom of the page to share this post. Thank you! And remember, we now have a READER VIEW available, so share this link or this email often.

     Luke 1:35-38 – 35 The angel said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God. 36 And now, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month for her who was said to be barren. 37 ” 38 Then Mary said, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” Then the angel departed from her.

Luke 1:41-45 – 41 When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit 42 and exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. 43 And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? 44 For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy. 45 And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.”

All of this led to this exquisite moment in history when Jesus was soon to be sleeping Away in a Manger. That “YES” from Mary can be likened to the point where the two loops in this infinity symbol cross. Everything that had been planned in the first loop came to fruition in the second loop and infinity never changed. It just kept going and everything that was there is still there. That’s the whole idea behind Contemporaneous Concomitance. Nothing is begun until nothing is unfinished so that everything is completed once everything is begun.

All it took to get it working like that is one simple – but very great – YES. It reminds me of another very simple but very great YES by Abram. God told him to go to a place Abram had never seen, and he said YES. He kept doing that until there was a whole Nation of his descendants. Later God changed his name from Abram (father) to Abraham (father of nations). Looking back at that infinity symbol, I see Abraham is also standing right at the pinch between the two sides of forever. That means two of my good friends are right at the moment of change – Abraham and Mary.

I thought about how to approach this weekend’s readings and decided to tackle the Catholic-Christian and non-Catholic-Christian similarities rather than differences. Catholics know that some non-Catholics think we are idolaters, that the Pope is the antichrist, and that we have no concept of what’s in the Bible because we never study it. Truthfully we don’t worship statues, but we do surround ourselves with images of people we love. We do refer to the Pope as the Vicar of Christ, which merely means he has the responsibility to carry out the obligation given to Peter by Jesus “feed my lambs” … “tend my sheep” … “feed my sheep.” Jesus was passing on to Peter the shepherding responsibility he instituted in his own ministry. As for the Bible, there are 6-9 Scripture passages used in daily Masses, the entire Catechism of the Catholic Church includes literally thousands of Scripture references, and many Parishes (including ours) have structured, in-person Bible studies as well as Religious Education Classes (Crucita and I have been catechists most of our married lives), and faith-based, live-streaming educational and entertainment resources. I think where things get really unclear is deciding what to do about Mary.

If you are any kind of Christian at all, you know Mary’s story. She was likely just a teenager betrothed to an older man – probably not greatly older – when she had a visit from Gabriel. After a brief exchange, she began carrying the fetus that would grow up to be Jesus of Nazareth, the Only Begotten Son of the Living God. There are contentious debates about her perpetual virginity, and of her Immaculate Conception so that she was conceived and born without the stain of original sin. “She couldn’t possibly deliver a child and remain a virgin, and no one but Jesus is sinless, That’s biblical.” Maybe that’s how it works in someone’s book, but in my book, the whole thing is a miraculous mystery. I have no idea how the Trinity made her pregnant. I don’t have to know. I just know that God asked her if she would allow that, and she said YES: “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” Her presence in the Bible, in the history of Jesus, in the history of the Church, and in God’s eternal and Absolutely Perfect Plan (the APP for Eternity), teaches us Mary is real, essential, and undeniably Apostolic. Along with Abraham and Mary, we are part of the Family of God (↔ Click Link please), and like almost every real family we have a Father, a Mother, a Son and an incredible number of adopted siblings. That is mysterious, miraculous, but certainly not impossible For nothing will be impossible with God. Not all readers will follow that link, so I’m going to pull just a segment out of the context of that message because I want to be consistent in what I say:

It seems too impersonal to write someone off because they disagree with me about how my relationship with Jesus works. “Of course I have a personal relationship with Jesus,” I tell them. “In fact, I have a close, personal, and deeply satisfying relationship with the whole family – Father, Son, Holy Spirit, our Blessed Mother, and all the Angels and Saints.”

Perhaps it is unkind to respond that way, and I confess I have taken the wind from the sails of an occasional evangelizer by saying, “Yes I’ve accepted Jesus as my personal Savior. Have you accepted Mary as your personal Mother?”  I believe a personal relationship with Jesus is a very good and doable idea, and I do continuously reassess the relative distance between us.  It is the Trinity, however, to whom I gravitate. When I say, “God,” I mean “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.” When I say, “God bless you,” I am asking the Trinity to bless you. They are, after all, three distinct Persons all in one Being. Because I am created “in the image and likeness of God,” I can see the same patterns in me.  This is why I Have Decided to Follow Jesus.

I have a small statue of Our Lady of Fatima in our bedroom. It reminds me of how much I love Mary because I know how much Jesus loves her. There are religious pictures and crucifixes in every room of the house. These are family pictures and remembrances that bring comforting, warming, hope to my day-to-day struggles with pain, with sin, with confusion about what’s happening outside my Christian life. Sometimes I wonder what is happening inside our Church when I hear some in the upper hierarchy saying it’s OK to distribute the Eucharist to people who are obviously, publicly, and unrepentantly living in grave sin. I rest my heart in the hope I have in Christ Jesus. I do not hold my Peace – I let loose on things like that from time to time (it’s a miracle I have any of my mind left! I’ve hurled so many pieces of it at others that exasperate me!) – but I am held in Peace. In our own right we are weak, but he is strong (↔ Music Link – it’s a POWERFUL one!) . When we hold our peace, we are held in peace. Many years ago I wrote a song called “Man of Peace.” It was so long ago that I can no longer remember all of it. However, this little scrap has existed for well over fifty years, and it still speaks to me.

I am a man of Peace. I own no other name.
I stand before you, gird about with gifts of Love.
You ask me of my Peace, and how I hold it so.
Good listener, I do not hold my Peace.
I am held in Peace.

It’s a mysterious miracle, or a miraculous mystery – take your pick – but the bottom line is we really never should be lonely even when we are alone because our entire Family is with us whether we’re walking in that long lonesome valley, or taking a seat on that slow train a-comin’. When I read Mary’s Canticle (song, often called “The Magnificat” because that is the first word of Mary’s Canticle in Latin), I identify with her lyrics:

My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord,
my spirit rejoices in God my Savior
for he has looked with favor on his lowly servant.

  • ●●

He has come to the help of his servant Israel
for he remembered his promise of mercy,
the promise he made to our fathers,
to Abraham and his children forever.
This reminds me of Our God our Help (↔ Music Link)

In my heart, my mind, my soul I hear her speaking those words and to me they are the soothing words of a mother sharing her life story – my Mother. No matter where I am, the Hope I have in my eternal Family is “the Light that drives away the darkness and draws me and everyone I meet to God’s Perfect Integrity, Endless Mercy, and Eternal Salvation.” And how did I come to possess that light? John 8:12 – 12 Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life.” Jesus is Hope. Jesus is Light. Jesus is All because he is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. 1 Corinthians 15:21-22 – 21 For since death came through a human being, the resurrection of the dead has also come through a human being; 22 for as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ. (↔ Music Link) I have, you have, we have that promise because Jesus took on every sin, every moment of pain, every abandonment and turned it into Glorious Praise to God Our Father.  Jesus did that …

F O R  O U R  S A K E.

Like they say in the movies, he took a hit for you. He took thousands of hits for us. It is explained in the post for August 11, 2006: The story of the Dart Test and the effect of taking out our hurt on others. Jesus ends up taking the hurt for us. Check it out at this link.

Get together in Church again with your family this weekend and with your Family every day. You, too, will be held in Peace as your “soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord; [your] spirit rejoices in God [our] Savior.  Then you will know the meaning of “Blessed are you who believed that what was spoken to you by the Lord would be fulfilled.” When God asks – and he will – just say YES.

Whatever, whenever, wherever, whoever, however, if ever, forever —
at your service, Belovéd!

Please pray with us here at Share-a-Prayer.

Unless otherwise indicated, all scripture passages are from the New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (NRSVCE) New Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright © 1989, 1993 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Biblical languages inserts from Bible Hub (Bible Hub: Search, Read, Study the Bible in Many Languages) Visit at http://biblehub.com

Creative Commons License
Aloha Friday Messages by Charles O. Todd, III is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License

 

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Aloha Friday Message – August 6, 2021 – Enough Already!

August 6, 2021

2132AFC080621 – Enough Already!

Read it online here, please. And please, when you visit there, use one of the social media links at the bottom of the page to share this post. Thank you! And remember, we now have a READER VIEW available, so share this link or this email often.

    John 6:43-45 – 43 Jesus answered them, “Do not complain among yourselves. 44 No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father who sent me; and I will raise that person up on the last day. 45 It is written in the prophets, ‘And they shall all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me.

Exodus 15:24 – 24 And the people complained against Moses, saying, “What shall we drink?”

Aloha nui loa, ʻŌmea! Grace and Peace to each of you from God our Father and our Lord, Jesus the Christ, in the Power of the Holy Spirit. Do you ever have something you just have to “get off your chest” and then you hold back until that “something” explodes all over you and everyone around you? Yeah, me too, and generally it’s something over which I have no direct control and it’s nothing I caused. Take today’s post for example.

I don’t know how often you use the Scripture links I put in these messages, but if you do check them occasionally, you’ll know they usually display three parallel versions for you. Well, today that’s not happening (try it, you’ll see), and it really sorta ticked me off. I want you to be able to see a passage from more than just one point of view. Let me say again that the whole point of these essays is to help all of us [1] read the Bible more often, and [2] understand in new ways what we read. Naturally, being the loud-mouthed nerd that I am, I found the Contact Us link and let them know my reaction to the changes they had “forced” upon me. None of us like to be pushed into something we don’t expect or appreciate. We grumble, gripe, moan and groan, maybe even have a tantrum. “How dare they/you?” Then I read a story by Kathleen Basi. Here’s a quick synopsis:

She was in the soccer-mom van with her kids and stopped at a red light. On the median stood a man in camos and he held a sign saying  “HOMELESS—HUNGRY—ANYTHING HELPS.” The kids in the back were chattering away about something as Kathleen wrestled with whether or not to roll down her window and pass a couple of bucks to the guy. “But he might just use it to get drunk or stoned.” Well, yes, but he also might use it to get a cheeseburger off the Dollar Menu. Then the commotion in the back of the van changed. The kids were all yelling “Hi! Hi! Hi!” and waving at the man. His face lit up with a big, generous, warm smile and he waved back. The window went down, the money went into a gloved hand, and Peace filled the minivan. Kathleen said, “In that moment, Jesus’ words about becoming like children rang in my mind: ‘Amen, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of Heaven’ (Matthew 18:3). It was in this moment that those words made sense for the first time. My children are better Christians than I am, I thought.” She had just experienced one of those “Close Encounters of the Sixth Kind” (Click This Link) She got to make eye contact with Jesus by looking into the face of the poor. There are a couple of things that I see here, besides the obvious point that we don’t need to rationalize being generous in the name of Christ. Take a look at Jesus’ first requirement for entry into The Kingdom: “… unless you turn …”

There it is again – that recurring theme of repentance. We see it so often we tend to gloss over it, but maybe that’s not very smart. If God is known to like grass because he made so much of it and made it so versatile, we should probably take the hint that his multitudinous references to repentance in Scripture are a pretty good sign he thinks it’s important. Given how easily we forget his preference for repentant sinners, we should probably wake up and pay more attention. Usually, though, we just ignore it – we even grumble, gripe, moan and groan, maybe even have a tantrum. “How dare you expect me to be perfect!? You gave me this free will and all it does is get me into trouble.”

Oh, Belovéd, none of God’s gifts get us into trouble. It is our sinful nature that does that. In this case that pronoun “our” refers to all of the earthlings throughout history up to this very day. Even those who are zealous for the Lord or those who readily do his will quickly and well are sinners. They can – and do – often find themselves under the domination of truly wicked people, governments, and even repugnant religions. Nonetheless, their passion for serving God strengthens them in truly remarkable ways. In the Church’s decision to focus on John Chapter 6 – the Bread of Life Discourse – we take a good look at Elijah (the name means “YHWH is my God”). In today’s Key Verse from 1 Kings 19, Elijah is running for his life from the evil queen Jezebel, the wife of the defiant King of Israel, Ahab. In the previous chapter we have the amazing story of Elijah taking on the 450 prophets of Ba’al and 400 prophets of Ashera and challenging them to a duel of fire. The idolatrous prophets would prepare an altar, stack it with wood, slaughter a bull, and lay the pieces of the bull on their altar. Elijah did the same. Then the false prophets for Ahab and Jezebel were to call upon their deity to set their offering ablaze with fire. They worked at that all day, even bloodying themselves with knives and swords to “appease” their deity, “but there was no voice, no answer, and no response.”

Elijah rebuilt the Altar of the Lord. He laid his wood upon it. He slaughtered and divided the bull. He had them dig a deep trench around the Altar. He had them pour huge amounts of water over the meat, the wood, and the altar until the trench filled up and overflowed. Then this happened as we read in 1 Kings 19:36-38 – 36 At the time of the offering of the oblation, the prophet Elijah came near and said, “O Lord, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, let it be known this day that you are God in Israel, that I am your servant, and that I have done all these things at your bidding. 37 Answer me, O Lord, answer me, so that this people may know that you, O Lord, are God, and that you have turned their hearts back.” 38 Then the fire of the Lord fell and consumed the burnt offering, the wood, the stones, and the dust, and even licked up the water that was in the trench. The people of Israel agreed that there is only God the Lord, and Elijah took away all the wicked prophets and had them killed. When Jezebel heard what Elijah had done she swore to do the same or worse to him.

Eventually it was she who came to a very bad end. She was thrown out a window by the servants of King Jehu, her body was trampled by horses, and then – as Elijah’s successor Elisha had prophesied – “The dogs shall eat Jezebel in the territory of Jezreel, and no one shall bury her.” She never had enough power or wickedness or vile plans to satisfy her. Elijah, on the other hand, was pleading for God to take his life because he was sure Jezebel would put an end to him. His prayer was like our saying, “Enough already!” God’s response to that prayer was, “Hold on. I have something better in mind.” And so we read that Elijah was given rest, food, encouragement, and spiritual nourishment. He took the food the angel provided – a hearth cake and a jug of water – along with the blessing of spiritual strength from God and walked forty days and forty nights from Beer Sheba in Judah.

It was a long trip and took a long time. The language in this tale is, of course, prophetic, so “40 days and 40 nights” is Prophet-speak for “a long time” and he probably traveled about 200 to 250 miles through some pretty rough country on foot. He “threw in the towel,” but God said, “Not yet.” Elijah eventually got to hop onto a fiery chariot that swung low and took him to God.

Today we have so much to complain about! We even complain about complaining! We grumble and mumble and grouse and gossip and whine and pitch fits and protest and carry signs and pillage, rob, loot, and destroy – and we expect to be rewarded for that. Oh, you don’t really do those things yourself. We see it on the news or on Facebook or some other social media outlet. We would never behave like that! We would never challenge authority, or criticize the decisions of our elected leaders (who are there by the permission of God). We wouldn’t get bent out of shape because our grocery store or COSTCO stopped stocking something we’ve truly enjoyed for a long time. We would never say, “That’s it! I’m never going there anymore!” When we are tested or tempted, we don’t ever say to God, “That’s enough already!” Then perhaps later we see a skin-and-bones three-year old covered in flies accepting a drink of clean water after none was available for days. Or we might see terrified refugees fleeing for their lives before a band of violent religious fanatics determined to wipe out everything and everyone that is not lawful in their view. We might see the collapse of a building with hundreds of people inside, many of whom died. We might see a loved one ravaged by disease, or lying broken after a tragic accident that was not caused by them. “I complained because I had no shoes until I met a man who had no feet.” Belovéd, at times I wonder if God’s answer should be “Quit whining and asking to be freed from this trial! Ask me for strength to endure this moment so you will be cleaner than before. Try to see that this blessing is the next step to the purity I can see growing in you.” Then, like little children, we might say “Hi! Hi! Hi!” and look Jesus in the eye long enough to say “Right behind you Lord. Thanks for the heads up!” Talk about your OMG moment!

We have spoken before (↔ Click Link for examples) about those short, seeming directionless exclamatory prayers we use every day. “Oh, my God!” is one of them. Another one – presented here – is “That’s it. I’m done!” We need to think twice about that one. Oh, I am certainly not saying that we should just hunch up and get beaten like an obstinate mule (although we can be obstinate) by those who seek to do us harm  (person to nation to worldwide included). There are absolutely times when we have to stand up and speak out – see something, say something. THEN DO SOMETHING. Remember this:

James 2:14-16 – 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? Same thing goes for anything we see that is not nurturing for body, or mind, or spirit. Do we truly have Faith, Trust, Grace upon Grace? Or instead is our living based on satiation or Satisficing (← Check it out!)? Look beyond whatever distracts us from God’s will (including the assertion of our own will). We must not nourish our souls with the junk-food empty calories of selfishness. Love demands that we must turn to God to know and satisfy our True needs, not our temporal and carnal wants. If all we can do is grumble against whomever or whatever because we feel empty, maybe we should reexamine the value of fasting from those things that cannot make us wholly Holy.

God reveals his own fatherly heart and parental Love in Christ Jesus so that – having sent the Son as the fulfillment of the Original Promise after the Original Sin – we have access to God the father and eternal life when we are attracted to the Father by the Son as the Son is both drawn from the Father and sent to his chosen. It is the working of that “irresistible affinity for God” I often speak of. It is not violent or forceful; it is only the gentle tug of Love calling us out of the muck and mire of sin. We can resist and grumble all we like, but if we once relent in our struggle to preserve the status quo of our sinfulness, we enter into the Brightness of his Light. It was not the manna, or the quail, or the water that took Israel to the Promised Land. All of those were the Gifts of the Greatest Giver. He was really all they ever needed to make the eleven-day trip from Egypt to Canaan. All their grumbling was of no use whatsoever. They had Bread sent down from Heaven. So do we.

That is something I really need to think about more often.

Whatever, whenever, wherever, whoever, however, if ever, forever —
at your service, Belovéd!

Please pray with us here at Share-a-Prayer.

URGENT: PLEASE PRAY FOR THE VICTIMS OF THE HORRIFIC FIRES WORLDWIDE AS THE DELTA VARIANT SPREADS. BE WISE AND REDUCE THE RISK FOR BOTH.

Unless otherwise indicated, all scripture passages are from the New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (NRSVCE) New Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright © 1989, 1993 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Biblical languages inserts from Bible Hub (Bible Hub: Search, Read, Study the Bible in Many Languages) Visit at http://biblehub.com

Creative Commons License
Aloha Friday Messages by Charles O. Todd, III is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License

Aloha Friday Message – July 30, 2021 – Bread on the water

July 30, 2021

2131AFC072821 – Bread on the water

Read it online here, please. And please, when you visit there, use one of the social media links at the bottom of the page to share this post. Thank you! And remember, we now have a READER VIEW available, so share this link or this email often.

     Ecclesiastes 11:1 – 1 Send out your bread upon the waters, for after many days you will get it back.

Deuteronomy 8:3 – 3 He humbled you by letting you hunger, then by feeding you with manna, with which neither you nor your ancestors were acquainted, in order to make you understand that one does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord*. (*or by anything that the Lord decrees)

     John 6:35 – 35 Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.

Matthew 5:6 – 6 Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

Aloha nui loa, ʻŌmea! Grace and Peace to each of you from God our Father and our Lord, Jesus the Christ, in the Power of the Holy Spirit. Well, once again we have a passel of verses in our Key Verse section, so let’s see what the Lord has in mind for this coming Sunday.

We are going to be tooling around in the Gospel of John for awhile, specifically in John 6:22-59. This section of the Gospel of John is referred to as The Bread of Life Discourse and is part of Jesus’ teachings at the Synagogue in Capernaum. That discourse is a key factor in God’s plan for Salvation. Let’s begin by backing up a bit and looking into the reason bread is important to the Lord.

Bread is so common that we easily take it for granted. We somehow got the idea that ancient earthlings domesticated grains and then started making bread. Actually the chances are much better that it was the other way around sometime during the “winding down” of the Stone age 10,000 to 20,000 years ago during what is referred to as the Epipaleolithic time. In 2018, crumbs of leftover toasted bread were discovered in a 14,000-year-old archeological dig in Shubayqa 1, a Natufian hunter-gatherer site located in northeastern Jordan. The bread was made from crushed wild grains and roots of tuberous plants. It most likely looked like what we now call tortillas – flat, flexible, and nutritious – and other flatbreads commonly used around the world even today. Some archeological discoveries in the Fertile Crescent Tigris-Euphrates Valley, Egypt, and even Mesopotamia date as far back as 22,000 years ago – about 10,000 years before domestication of grains into cereals that could be farmed. It is a staple part of human food intake that affects every part of the world where cereal grains can be raised.

Those grains – like wheat, spelt, corn, barley, millet, rice, and even the pseudocereals like quinoa, amaranth, buckwheat, and chia – are crushed into flour after removing the indigestible fibrous husks and stems. When God created these cereal grains – all of which are forms of grass – he had big, immensely-long plans in mind. It is assumed that grass is God’s favorite creation in the Plant Kingdom because he made so much of it in so many wonderful forms. He even designed the animals that could benefit the most from this versatile and plenteous food – including us. After Jesus fed 5,000+ people with bread and fish, then walked across the water on the Sea of Galilee to the shock of his Disciples (See John 6:1-21), the people who met him there wanted to see more miracles and get more bread. The early Church would have understood these accounts as pointing toward Jesus being a “new Moses” leading his followers out of The World and into the Promised Kingdom of God, and – as in the manna in the wilderness – giving them the “bread come down from Heaven – himself. The people heard him say “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.” They understood this in a literal, worldly sense and wanted free-and-easy bread like they had just received – even if it was barley loaves, the bread of the poor. But, wait! There’s more (of course)!

Let’s pick up on Matthew 5:6 – 6 Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. Eating bread and fish – if that’s all you had – could be life-sustaining, but a little boring, too. Jesus was always teaching his Disciples and other listeners that God will supply all that they need, but first they need to give God what he requires – their love and obedience, their contrition and repentance, their lives and their faith. He constantly points them toward the greater blessings – the blessing of giving rather than receiving, the blessing of Peace rather than fear, the blessings of God rather than the praises of earthlings. What is the food that Jesus brings into the world? It is to do God’s will as in John 4:34 – 34 Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work.” We are fed when we do as he told us in Matthew 6:33 – 33 But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. What is the bread we should be seeking, the drink we should request? It is the righteousness of God’s presence in every moment of every day. God is always lavishly extravagant when we keep our priorities straight. We receive Grace upon Grace, Blessing upon Blessing, and the Joy of Peace that surpasses all understanding when we rely on him rather than on anyone or anything else. And yet, Belovéd, how easily we forget!

Let’s pull in another Key Verse from today – Deuteronomy 8:3 – 3 He humbled you by letting you hunger, then by feeding you with manna, with which neither you nor your ancestors were acquainted, in order to make you understand that one does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord*. (*or by anything that the Lord decrees) Even then, even now, even forever it seems, we just never learn. It really is very simple. Love God, love neighbor, love self, repent and believe the Gospel, Trust and Obey. What God says is sufficient, what God does is awesome, what God expects is planned to the minutest detail: BE LIKE ME BECAUSE I AM. We are to be righteous, to be perfect, to be godly but not godlike, to be who and what God made us to be. If we are hungering for bread that does not satisfy our hunger, for water that does not slake our thirst, it is because these are not what Jesus is asking us to pursue. Again, Matthew 5:6 – 6 Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. Where do we find that righteousness which alone satisfies our deepest hunger and thirst?

It is found in God. It is found in always being lavishly extravagant with our bread and our Bread. We share our material lives with others so that they will see the spiritual lives that sustain us. We share our Spiritual lives powered by the Bread of Life so we can sustain others in good stewardship of all of God’s greatest stuff. And that is why we have that Key Verse from Ecclesiastes. Who would be foolish enough to just go throw bread out into the stream or the lake? Well, unless we’ve gone to the Park to feed the ducks, that’s kind of a silly and wasteful way to use bread. Now, that verse says that the bread will return to us (certainly not after the ducks have gotten it!), so what’s the deal here?

Some interpret that verse as an admonition to be practical in our business dealings. Taken in context, that make some sense – increase your profits by sending your material goods out for trade beyond your closest circle of customers – and if you do that in a responsible and timely manner, your profits will benefit from that risk. I believe there is more to it than that. God never stops inviting us to try to be like him. Think of that bread on the water as your material gifts given with his lavish generosity without any thought of being paid back. Remember the measure by which we give is the measure by which we receive? I see that verse in Ecclesiastes as telling us to be more generous than we believe possible and, when we do that, the return on that “investment” will supersede all our expectations.

Belovéd, let’s give it a try; let’s go ahead and put our bread upon the waters and see if God will send it back to us 10-, 30-, 60-, or 100-fold. Let us hunger and thirst for righteousness and be fed with the True Bread because, as it says in John 6:50-51, – 50 This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. 51 I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh. Compared to that 14,000-year-old bread, the Bread of Eternal Life sounds like something that we should much prefer – the bread and water of Righteousness. He became our righteousness so that through him we can become God’s righteousness. This entire immensely-long plan was set in place to do one simple thing: Reunite us with God and restore us to original innocence by removing original sin and all its consequences – including hungering and thirsting for righteousness. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. Come on, Belovéd, let’s go to the Water and share the Bread of Life (↔ Music Link).

Whatever, whenever, wherever, whoever, however, if ever, forever —
at your service, Belovéd!

Please pray with us here at Share-a-Prayer.

Unless otherwise indicated, all scripture passages are from the New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (NRSVCE) New Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright © 1989, 1993 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

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Aloha Friday Messages by Charles O. Todd, III is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License

Aloha Friday Message – July 23, 2021 – Jesus would go

July 23, 2021

2130AFC072321 – Jesus would go

Read it online here, please. And please, when you visit there, use one of the social media links at the bottom of the page to share this post. Thank you! And remember, we now have a READER VIEW available, so share this link or this email often.

     John 6:13 – 13 So they gathered them up, and from the fragments of the five barley loaves, left by those who had eaten, they filled twelve baskets.

May the God of peace himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be kept sound and blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Aloha nui loa, ʻŌmea! Today I want to give you a bit of Local History along with biblical greatness.

Pictured above is the double-hull voyaging canoe called Hokuleʻa. The word Hokuleʻa translates as “Star of Gladness.” The man shown here is Eddie Aikau. He was born on Maui and later moved to Oʻahu. In 1968, Eddie was the first lifeguard posted to the North Shore of Oʻahu. During his tenure there not one life was lost, and Eddie saved at least 500 people. He would go out to rescue even in the worst conditions, sometimes swimming through or over waves twenty-feet high to save a life. He was also an exceptional surfing champion and was well-known for challenging the biggest of waves when other surfers decided to just watch the surf rather than ride it. Sometimes when watching big wave, people would say, “Br’ah (pidgin for Bruddah, Brother), that’s too big for me, but ‘Eddie would go.'” In 1977, he won the esteemed Duke Kahanamoku Invitational Surfing Championship. In 1976, the Polynesian Voyaging Society successfully completed a 2,500 mile journey from Hawaiʻi to Tahiti. The objective was to show that the trip could be made in a canoe based on an ancient design and guided only by the stars, the sea, and the animals in and above the sea. There were no “modern” navigational instruments aboard. (That is still the case today.) In March of 1978, another voyage to Tahiti was planned, but early on in the journey, one hull started leaking. There was also a powerful storm. The canoe soon capsized, turned over, and began to break up about 7 miles off the coast of Maui. Eddie volunteered to paddle out on his surf board to get help on Maui. A coast guard plane later spotted the wrecked canoe and the other crew members were rescued. Eddie was never seen again. “Eddie would go” took on an even deeper meaning. Eddie never backed down from the tough challenges when it came to using his formidable skills to save a life. And that is why I want you to understand how I mean it when I say “Jesus would go.”

In Sunday’s Gospel reading, we have the story of the feeding of the five-thousand (plus women and children). The Gospels record 37 of Jesus’ miracles, and this is the only one that is in all four Gospels. You can find the accounts of this miracle in Matthew 14:13-21, Mark 6:31-44, Luke 9:12-17, and John 6:1-14). In Matthew, Mark, and Luke the narrative says that Jesus took “the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds.” (See Matthew 14:19) Jesus went to them with food for their journey, and the Disciples participated in the miracle.

Jesus and the Disciples were tired and hungry after another long trip across the Sea of Galilee. Somehow people had figured out where they were headed and they got there before him. The Apostle John mentions that the eight-day Passover Festival was near. When Jesus and his Disciples disembarked, Jesus saw the vast crowd and realized he would be going up the mountain to help them. In this account, he also asks Phillip, “Where are we to buy bread for these people to eat?” Jesus already knew what he was going to do, but Phillip’s answer shows that he thought feeding that vast crowd would be as impossible as scraping up a year and eight months worth of wages to buy bread – in short, impossible.

The mention of the Passover is important, because Jesus knows he is now on his way to Jerusalem. Awaiting him there was a tidal wave of suffering and death. The Disciples did not understand this. As the journey continued, he told them how he would be captured, tortured to death and die, and then return to them on the third day. They still did not understand. Someone needed to face the most horrifying, painful, degrading death for the completion of God’s plan of Salvation, and Br’ah, Jesus would go. It was too much for any of them … then. Later on, they all were martyred with the possible exception of the Apostle John.

No matter how tired, or hungry, or cold, or hot, or wet, or dry or any such thing, Jesus would go to bring the Good News. And, up until that night in Gethsemane, so did the Disciples. His path was too big for them, but Jesus would go. Even though he knew what was coming upon him, he went. We’ve often said here, “There’s no Easter without Calvary.” The question we might want to ask ourselves would be “Will I go?” Can I make it all the way to Calvary without chickening out? Can I be baptized with the baptism Jesus and his Disciples received? Will I go when I am needed? And here’s another important part of that discernment: Will I be a participant in the miracles along the way?

Double-check the Key Verse for today. What happened to the loaves and fishes? There were 12 basketsful left. How much is a basketful? Well, based on the Greek work used – κόφινος kophinos {kof’-ee-nos} – it would be a small- to medium-sized basket like one would use for a shopping bag or picnic basket. This is in contrast to another type of basket in Scripture called a σπυρίς (spuris) {spoo-rece’} which is a large flexible basket used for carrying provisions on a journey, perhaps lashed to a donkey. It is the type of basket used to help the Apostle Paul escape from Damascus when the Disciples lowered him over the wall. There was a twelve-fold blessing on that day. God had often promised a ten-fold increase, but twelve is significantly more. It also represents the Twelve Tribes of Israel, all of whom can be “fed” in spirit by the atonement of Christ.

You may recall that in another miraculous feeding, there were 4,000 fed, and there were seven loaves with a few small fish. The leftovers filled seven baskets full. See Matthew 15:32-39 and Mark 8:1-13 for the details. In this miracle, Jesus has preserved for us the distinction God was planning to reconcile together in Jesus through his death. The seven baskets represent the seven Gentile nations who would also be “fed” in spirit by the atonement of Christ. Thus, in these two miraculous events, we see that Christ has gone forward toward his death in Jerusalem, and along the way he has provided for the entire world to be strengthened in his Spirit by receiving his Body and Blood. God also provided for the Disciples to be participants in that. In the same way that they took the miraculously- multiplied food and passed it forward to the crowds. Personally I believe that in the groups of families seated on the grass in both occasions, family members shared the bread and fish with each other.

It is exactly what we are supposed to do with the Gospel: Be fed and feed others by passing it forward. Belovéd, there will be a 12-fold blessing for that. When we do such things, when we have compassion for others and act to relieve their suffering, to redeem their lives from the waves of death, destruction, and destitution, then we are like Eddie. It’s not too big for us. Eddie would go. Jesus would go. Fill in the blank here with your name: “________ would go.” Will you, will I, will we be the one? You know it’s not just “the other” that needs to be saved through heroic compliance. We have responsibilities for ourselves in our service to God.

We know that God promises an increase when we honor him with our tithes. Let’s look at Malachi 3:10 – 10 Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, so that there may be food in my house, and thus put me to the test, says the Lord of hosts; see if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you an overflowing blessing. What is the purpose of this tithe? God says, “so that there may be food in my house.” We give of our lives so that others can be fed. Your church-offering envelope is the gift wrap for your gift back to God and his community – you congregation, your Parish, your church on Earth. Do you remember this one? Part of our mission is to provide for others to be fed – spiritually, of course, but also mentally, physically, and emotionally. We feed not just ourselves, our family, or our “church family. We are to feed (and clothe and shelter and safeguard) GOD’S FAMILY. WHEN (if?) we do that, God blesses us with an increase 10-, 12-, 30- or even 100-fold. Now folks, that’s a bargain! But wait! There’s more!

What we get back is measured out with unsurpassed generosity! We will go to Luke 6:38 for an example. Jesus said, “38 give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap; for the measure you give will be the measure you get back.” Just think about the times when, at Jesus’ command, others would go. Here’s one I particularly love. It’s in Luke 5:4-7 – 4 When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch.” 5 Simon answered, “Master, we have worked all night long but have caught nothing. Yet if you say so, I will let down the nets.” 6 When they had done this, they caught so many fish that their nets were beginning to break. 7 So they signaled their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both boats, so that they began to sink. Jesus not only told the Apostle Peter to “keep on fishing,” but also told him “Go farther into the deep water.” Peter did not say, “Br’ah, that’s too far and too deep for me.” Instead he did as Jesus commanded. Jesus said “go,” and obedience brought blessings beyond measure. That is the wage of obedience – Life. We also know the wage of disobedience. Here are two verses that show us how that works out: Romans 6:23 – 23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. 1 Thessalonians 2:15c-16 – they displease God and oppose everyone 16 by hindering us from speaking to the Gentiles so that they may be saved. Thus they have constantly been filling up the measure of their sins; but God’s wrath has overtaken them at last. Remember, as with the measure of graces for obedience, the bigger the measure used for sin an even greater measure will be returned. You might ask, “Is that really the way it goes?” Here’s one more for us: Proverbs 11:24 – 24 Some give freely, yet grow all the richer; others withhold what is due, and only suffer want. When God says, “GO,” we must go where and how he sends us; when we do all ends well as in Deuteronomy 1:8, 11 – 8 See, I have set the land before you; go in and take possession of the land that I[a] swore to your ancestors, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give to them and to their descendants after them.” 11 May the Lord, the God of your ancestors, increase you a thousand times more and bless you, as he has promised you! But we all know what happened. Aaron chickened out and gave into the murmuring mixed multitude by creating the odious Golden Calf. A journey that should have been only eleven days long (from Egypt to Canaan) became a 40-year excursion that wiped out a rebellious generation. Instead of going forward in faith and charity, they basically lost everything except the Love of God and his promise to provide for them in the end.

Their chastisement should be a lesson for us. What is the measure of the sin in our lives, in the lives of our Nation, in the lives of our World? Jesus would go where God commands. Who’s next to step up, dive in, and go? What wealth of blessings will come from going?

Whatever, whenever, wherever, whoever, however, if ever, forever —
at your service, Belovéd!

Please pray with us here at Share-a-Prayer.

Unless otherwise indicated, all scripture passages are from the New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (NRSVCE) New Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright © 1989, 1993 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Biblical languages inserts from Bible Hub (Bible Hub: Search, Read, Study the Bible in Many Languages) Visit at http://biblehub.com

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Aloha Friday Messages by Charles O. Todd, III is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License

Aloha Friday Message – July 16, 2021 – The Grace of Faith

July 16, 2021

2129ACF071621 – The Grace of Faith

Read it online here, please. And please, when you visit there, use one of the social media links at the bottom of the page to share this post. Thank you! And remember, we now have a READER VIEW available, so share this link or this email often.

    Ephesians 2:8-10 – 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God — 9 not the result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.

Ephesians 2:15-16 – 15 He has abolished the law with its commandments and ordinances, that he might create in himself one new humanity in place of the two, thus making peace, 16 and might reconcile both groups to God in one body through the cross, thus putting to death that hostility through it. Here’s another way to understand that: 15 He canceled the detailed rules of the Law so that he could create one new person out of the two groups, making peace. 16 He reconciled them both as one body to God by the cross, which ended the hostility to God. Common English Bible (CEB) Copyright © 2011 by Common English Bible

Aloha pumehana, a me ke akua ho’omaika‘i ‘oe, ʻŌmea! Warmest Aloha, and may God bless you, Belovéd! Thank you to all of you who helped us pray my brother, John Edward Todd, home. We appreciate your kind condolences and thoughtful messages. If ever there was a man who was fully prepared to meet his Maker, it was John. All the Todd boys are pretty much task-oriented, and he never lost sight of his destination; but, also made sure there was time for helping someone else along the way. He was in no rush to get past an opportunity to do good things. It’s true he was a bit of a rascal, and a hard-headed one at that. I think as a teen he took aim at getting into more mischief than the rest of us put together. We’ll miss his humor, his caring heart, and his unshakable faith. In fact, John was a terrific example of how essential faith can be. Sometimes he reminded me of a gentleman I knew at Corona Presbyterian in Denver. His name was John Stookey.

John was really tall – especially from that vantage point of a shrimpy 6 year old. He and his wife, Gracie, sang in the choir. John sometimes spoke at special meetings. He was, for a time, the leader of the Corona Governing Body – it was called The Session – and he would talk about how the church was getting along. One particular occasion he told the congregation, “I have been greatly blessed in my life because God has given me Grace to keep me humble.” The look of love exchanged between them – John and Grace – was like a brilliant flash. They knew he meant the Grace of God as well as his dear Gracie … and so did we. John and Gracie shared their trust in God by sharing their faith with us. As you can tell, it was a lesson that has lasted a lifetime. In that lesson we could switch today’s title around and call it “The Faith of Grace.” What of Grace, though?

The Apostle Paul wrote “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God.“Just for a quick review, let’s think about that word, Grace. We’ve said in the past (↔ Click Link) that it is a gift, a grace, an unmerited favor from the heart of Christ to our hearts. The word we find used in the New Testament for Grace is χαρις charis {khar’-ece} “It is that which affords joy, pleasure, delight, sweetness, charm, loveliness: grace of speech, good will, loving-kindness, and the Gift of Salvation. It speaks of the merciful kindness by which God, exerting his holy influence upon souls, turns us to Christ; how He keeps, strengthens, increases us in Christian faith, knowledge, affection, and kindles us to exercise of Christian virtues.” (Paraphrase from Strong’s Notes 5485) Another term we often use in these pages that also means merciful kindness is unwavering or steadfast love. The gift of Grace, the charism divinely bestowed on every living soul, but not accepted by some, awakens us to the astounding Power of God’s Love gifted to us from the dawn of creation and consecrated for us in Christ Jesus our Lord.

That wholly Holy Gift of Love illuminates our lives with “faith to move mountains” if only we accept the Grace of God and the faith in Christ Jesus that restores us to salt and light instead of flesh and corruption. Remember this: Romans 8:9 – 9 But you are not in the flesh; on the contrary, you are in the spirit, if only the Spirit of God dwells in you. Whoever does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. New American Bible (Revised Edition). Every time you accept the Gift of Grace, it blazes up like a beacon (↔ Music Link) as Faith. It breaks my heart when I look out into the World and see fewer and fewer souls who are ablaze with the Light and Love of God! I hear things like, “What good is faith? It never got me anything, and God never answered my prayers.” We’ve stated previously James 4:3 – 3 You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, in order to spend what you get on your pleasures; and James 4:7 – 7 Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. IT’S NOT THAT HARD!! How many times have we written here “Honor the Giver by accepting the Gift?” That’s all there is to it. It would be nice if we all remembered to tell God “thank you” when we receive the Grace of Faith, but often we just never think of it. Giving thanks not a “rule” we have to follow; it is a JOY, and charism, that happens when we really think about who gives us Grace and what it does to, for, with, and through us. Before Jesus threw wide open that Heavenly Gateway to the Presence of God, there were only Jews and Gentiles, and there was enmity between them and against God. God obliterated that difference and quelled the enmity in the Body and Blood, and Soul, and Divinity of Christ so that there is no other necessity than to gratefully accept the Gift.

We do well to consult the Prophet, Joel, who told us in Joel 2:12-13 – 12 Yet even now, says the Lord, return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; 13 rend your hearts and not your clothing. Return to the Lord, your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and relents from punishing. And there it is again! REPENT! THE END IS NEAR! Perhaps that is something the Apostle Paul had in mind when he counseled Timothy: 1 Timothy 6:11-12, 16 – 11 But as for you, man of God, shun all this [material passions]; pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance, gentleness. 12 Fight the good fight of the faith; take hold of the eternal life, to which you were called and for which you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses. 16 It is he [Christ] alone who has immortality and dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see; to him be honor and eternal dominion. Amen.

Grace has been given to us in unlimited measure, and we know it through the Faith we share. If, for any moment, or for any reason, we should ever wonder about that, just bear this in mind: 2 Corinthians 13:5 – 5 Examine yourselves to see whether you are living in the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless, indeed, you fail to meet the test!

Check your beacon. Is the Light still on? How do we know that Light is shining? What are we doing with the Grace of Faith? Let’s go back to the Letter of James for an insight. I’m going to use the NABRE again because I get a kick out of how this passage is translated (my emphasis additions). James 2:18-20 – 18 Indeed someone may say, “You have faith and I have works.” Demonstrate your faith to me without works, and I will demonstrate my faith to you from my works. 19 You believe that God is one. You do well. Even the demons believe that and tremble. 20 Do you want proof, you ignoramus (kενός – kenos {ken-os’}) that faith (πίστις – pistis {pis’-tis}) without works (ἔργων – ergon {er-gōn’}) is useless (ἀργή – argē {argay’})? When and if we accept the Grace of Faith, we don’t hide it under a basket (↔ Music Link). We use it to make the World a better place. “You have faith, I have works.” Our world has many, many people who do not believe in Christ but who can point to their good works as a demonstration of how it is possible to do good things without attributing them to Christ’s Law of Love – Love God and love your neighbor. “I don’t have to be [religion] to do good things. It is natural for people to do good things for others.” James replies that faith is not a “work.” Faith (pistis) is always a Gift from God; it cannot be manufactured or contrived up by human enterprise. We see this over and over in Scripture, particularly in Paul’s letters:

Romans 4:16-17 – 16 For this reason it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his descendants, not only to the adherents of the law but also to those who share the faith of Abraham (for he is the father of all of us, 17 as it is written, “I have made you the father of many nations”)—in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist.

2 Thessalonians 1:11-12 – 11 To this end we always pray for you, asking that our God will make you worthy of his call and will fulfill by his power every good resolve and work of faith, 12 so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the Grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Faith is always a gift from God given exclusively to those who are redeemed in Christ. It is always the work of God and never the work of any earthling. It comes from hearing his voice (Romans 10:17 – 17 So faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes through the word of Christ.) which persuades us to seek God’s salvation – the preferred state for all of God’s Creation which is unity with him. Those who rely on some sort of contrived “belief system,” even if they don’t get hung up in esoteric rituals and secret knowledge, are like the Gnostics (↔ Click Link) who are trying to use human effort to “produce” saving Grace. Ain’t gonna happen, folks!

Lastly we have works. Good deeds that, for some, arise out of the goodness of their hearts. This question of good works without faith in something is a dichotomy that often sends my brain running in circles. A dichotomy is the division into two mutually exclusive, opposed, or contradictory sets of information; for me the dichotomy is that many good things done by people who are irreligious or antireligious are significantly more generous and effective than those done by people who are religious. How can that be? James gives some insight into that. Doing a good deed is always a good thing whether you attribute that motivation to do-good to the Universe, the Force, the Intelligent Designer, or even random chance. It is noteworthy to realize that the motivation for this kind of charity always arises from within the self; it is self-centered and – even though it purports to be done in the service of social justice – it is always self-serving. It is at all times a better thing to serve social justice as an effect of love, and because all good things come from and through God (James 1:17 – 17 Every generous act of giving, with every perfect gift, is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.) it is just plain silly to take credit for something you didn’t – and couldn’t – do without Grace from God – even if you don’t acknowledge him in any way whatsoever! My favorite way to say thank you is to honor the giver by accepting the gift, and then using the gift. My Spiritual Director, Fr. Blane Grein, taught me I can make my whole day a prayer-without-ceasing by giving A Morning Offering (↔ Click Link). Please give it a try – copy and use ad lib. Here’s a song to get you started: Take My Life.  (↔ Music Link)

Is there any goodness in the World? It comes to us in and through God by the love of Christ and the ministry of the Holy Spirit. Is there truth in any religion other than Christianity, or the Abrahamic Faiths? Whatever truth can be found in any religion or self-made “belief system” comes to us in and through God by the love of Christ and the ministry of the Holy Spirit. As we continue through Ordinary Time, I want to continue this discussion about how and why we are stewards of God’s gifts, gifts that cannot be denied, cannot be manufactured by us earthlings, and – in the end – glorify God because they begin and end in him. In fact, everything – including you and me – begins and ends in God when we acknowledge HE is indeed GOD.

James’ point is this: You can have good works without faith – any fool can do that. BUT you cannot profess to have Faith and refuse or avoid doing good works. That’s not faith; it’s just an air-head’s blather. It’s like having an isolated cogwheel with nothing to engage it. It’s like having a candle with no wick (↔ Click Link). Belovéd, we have Faith in the Grace that Grace is ours to keep and Faith is ours to share. Like Mr. Stookey said, God has given us Grace to keep us humble, and humility is the prerequisite for accepting all that is Good. Three of the four readings this Sunday are about shepherds and sheep. God wants Good Shepherds to take care of his children, the sheep of his pasture. If we are going to follow Jesus, we will need to serve him (↔ Music Link) and our neighbors; if we are to feed his lambs, if we are to care for his ewes, we need the Grace of Faith in us to do the compassionate work of making Grace visible to everyone for whom it is available – and that would be everyone.

Whatever, whenever, wherever, whoever, however, if ever, forever —
at your service, Belovéd!

Please pray with us here at Share-a-Prayer.

Unless otherwise indicated, all scripture passages are from the New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (NRSVCE) New Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright © 1989, 1993 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Biblical languages inserts from Bible Hub (Bible Hub: Search, Read, Study the Bible in Many Languages) Visit at http://biblehub.com

 

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Aloha Friday Messages by Charles O. Todd, III is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License

 

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