Intersections

  In our journey through the lectionary texts, it brings us to this passage in Isaiah, which I’m not sure if it would normally stand out on its own, but here we are.   We have brief words of thanksgiving from Isaiah, which seems appropriate today in all of our reflections we may be having about the year that was and the year we want to have. You may have had this week off of work, and are gearing up to return, and this week between Christmas and New Year’s is kind of time without structure, or liminal time. It just passes without any real organization.  I wish it had been like that for me this week. As some of you know, my uncle died on Christmas Eve. I was planning to spend this week with Ali & Aaron, but I also knew that I needed to make the journey to see my uncle’s funeral. So I caught a ride with my parents and off to Wisconsin we went.  But as I was traveling to a place where I had gone so many times as a child, lots of those memories came back. I had...

  It seems strange to be talking about “Making Change” by using the Old Testament. We’re New Testament people, right, and Jesus and the power of His Holy Spirit are the change agents in our lives. So? What’s with this message series rooted in the writings of Solomon? Well, think about it. In his day, Solomon was not only considered the wisest man in the world, but he was also the richest man in the world. I’ve always believed if we want to be successful in life, we should watch successful people. If you want to be good at basketball, watch what Michael Jordan does (well, maybe Steph Curry these days). We’ll probably never be NBA players, but we can learn from the best to make ourselves better. If it works that way in other areas of life, why not with our money. Solomon used his wisdom and increased his wealth. We ought to learn from him, and Solomon, in his collected wisdom says: Give freely and become more wealthy; be stingy and lose everything. 25 The generous will prosper; t...

  Last week, I talked about how our itchy ears can get in the way of the truth of salvation and how we can be distracted in our pursuit of holiness. Paul still encourages Timothy & even us now to “carry out your ministry fully”, in verse 5. But at the start of our excerpt today, the mood has changed. Paul seems weak and very convinced that death is coming soon.   This part of the letter has become amazingly personal, almost like it’s a little awkward for us to be reading it. Should we close the door to the hospital room that they’re conversing in, to give them a bit of privacy?  Although, we’d miss the lesson Paul has for us. He is continuing where he left off last week to his final words for Timothy. As we’ve gone through this letter, we’ve talked about rekindling the gift God has presented to us, showing up in service for God, staying encouraged and faithful when it’s difficult. But now, at least for Paul, it’s the end of the journey and we are the benefactors of ...

  What a wonderful September it was, and here we are in October! How fast was that - those festivals really make the month fly by.  October is kind of this weird space in the church calendar, we could focus on stewardship, but typically that’s saved for November, it’s not Advent yet, and our time within summer is slowly fading away. I’d like to fill this space then with a series I’m calling “Not Ashamed”, based on the Second Letter to Timothy. The New Testament letter, written by Paul, is a short one yet very powerful. Let’s walk further into our faith and our discipleship by proclaiming that we are not afraid of the power the Gospel has over us, and how that makes us unique.  This act of boldness and enthusiasm can be mistaken for arrogance and false teaching, though, so we may need to be careful of how we share the power of the Gospel. It is about looking inward and outward at the same time, that we may grow upward to be closer to the divine, and also outward to be clos...

  Let’s start this text with maybe something a little lighter: There once was a rich man near death. He was very grieved because he had worked so hard for his money, and he wanted to be able to take it with him to heaven. So he began to pray that he might be able to take some of his wealth with him. An angel hears his plea and appears to him. “Sorry, but you can’t take your wealth with you.” The man implores the angel to speak to God to see if He might bend the rules. The man continues to pray that his wealth can follow him. The angel reappears and informs the man that God has decided to allow him to take one suitcase with him. Overjoyed, the man gathers his biggest bag, fills it with pure gold bars, and places it beside his bed. Soon afterward, the man dies and appears at the Gates of Heaven to greet St. Peter. St. Peter seeing the suitcase, says, “Hold on, you can’t bring that in here!” But, the man explains to St. Peter that he has permission and asks him to verify his st...

 Twelve years ago, I was reeling and recovering from my life implosion that happened only the previous year. I had been knocked down and to be honest, I was kind of bitter about it. I was angry that this is how my life was turning out. I knew I had to get out, make some new connections, friends, acquaintances - even. Fort Wayne was a very different place then. As much as we still had the Three Rivers Festival downtown, that was about the ONLY attraction, especially in the summer, that was going on and pulled people in from the suburbs and outlying regions to celebrate, or even to spend much time down there. If you would have gone downtown at any time after 5:00 on a weekday, you might have seen some misplaced tumbleweeds rolling down the street. Nothing was happening.  One thing that had started happening though, that there was a new young professionals group, called YLNI or Young Leaders of Northeast Indiana, who were under 40 and wanted to make Fort Wayne more palatable sinc...