Dearest e-votees-
This Sunday (the Sunday after Pentecost) is Holy Trinity Sunday. It is a time when we remember that God is in community and that through Jesus' work on the cross we, too, are folded into that community.
May your worship with your community be blessed this week.
Peace,
Karl
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So then, brothers and sisters, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh—for if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, “Abba! Father!” it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ—if, in fact, we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him.
This Sunday (the Sunday after Pentecost) is Holy Trinity Sunday. It is a time when we remember that God is in community and that through Jesus' work on the cross we, too, are folded into that community.
May your worship with your community be blessed this week.
Peace,
Karl
-------------------------
So then, brothers and sisters, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh—for if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, “Abba! Father!” it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ—if, in fact, we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him.
There has been an awful lot of talk about debt and interest and bankruptcy lately. Last Sunday's Doonesbury cartoon certainly broached the topic. Most of us engage the topic whenever we get a monthly statement or consider a purchase or look at our dwindling retirement plans. It is hard to watch the news or listen to the radio or read the newspaper without getting flooded with news about how we are drowning in financial crises. Bailouts and bankruptcies seem to have no end. Paul, in Romans, talks of debt too--but in a much different sense.
Paul asserts that we are all debtors. We are all in positions of owing God. Everything we have--every breath, every stitch of clothing, every morsel of food, every loving relationship, every moment of time--everything comes from the hand of our gracious God. God makes us children and lavishes blessings upon us.
We respond to God with lives framed by gratitude and humility. If nothing we have is truly earned by us we have no boast. If everything we have comes from God have reason to give thanks unceasingly.
God has adopted us. We could never truly repay God (just as we could never repay our earthly parents for how they have tended us) but we can honor God. We honor God by not letting our fleshly desires rule our days. We honor God by seeing God's image in others we encounter. We honor God by perhaps even suffering so that God might receive glory. These are the things Jesus did. May we be bold in following after our adopted brother's (our adoption, not his) footsteps.
And when things get harder than we think we can bear, let us cry out "Abba! Father!" and know that our loving divine parent will never forsake us.
Abba, Father, draw us more deeply into the community you share with Jesus and the Holy Spirit. Help us all be thankful and humble. Amen.
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