Intersections

  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 ...

  "Remember Jesus Christ!" are the first words of our passage today, as Paul continues to talk to his protege, Timothy, about what he wants to pass on to him. If nothing else, remember Jesus Christ. Last week, I spoke about how Paul was in his last days, in a Roman jail. Things are bleak for him, and through the passage this week, we find out a little more about that. Paul has suffered, and is sharing with Timothy his experience. Know that I suffered for my faith, Timothy, and yet I was faithful! Know that God sees our suffering for him and is faithful! Know that you will also suffer, and you need to learn to be faithful!  Passing down wisdom is a hard thing. It's more than, as the days are getting colder, reminding my children to grab a coat because the summer days are behind and far in front of us. It's more than just telling stories, because it's not guaranteed that the wisdom will be passed alongside the story.  I was listening to a speaker this week who w...

  As much as I've enjoyed the winter weather... I can't help but to look ahead to when it's a little warmer outside. I know it's a little before the season, but does anyone enjoy garage sales? I mean, it's a great way to clear out stuff from your house you've accumulated, and if you're lucky, then you can get some cash out of it to do whatever you want with, whether it's to trade it for more stuff or not!   Anyway - about five years ago, at our old house, we tried to have a garage sale. We got all our stuff around, put on a half dozen tables, labeled & priced everything to move. It was part of a whole neighborhood two-day sale; we thought - how can we not get rid of this stuff?? We opened the garage on the first morning, hoping there'd be a line down our street. There was no one. We said, maybe it's just early - the people will come later.  At the end of the first day, we had no customers. What we didn't realize is that as much as w...

  Ah... the good old days... back when everything was more simple, am I right? I’m sure each of you has a story or two about “back in my day...” that you could tell me about. It may even involve being thrown in a snowbank (my uncle’s favorite threat), or walking to school, uphill both ways in waist-high snow, barefoot. We have gained so much in the 60-odd years since this church was built, yet I believe its best days are still in front of us. Technologies have changed, improved, and re-evaluated modern life, but not everything can be the way it was when we began.  In 1959, when this church was started, a few other things were: the middle of the Cold War - that probably wasn’t difficult for anyone... Vice President Nixon met on LIVE TELEVISION with the Russian President and debated on the merits of each of their systems. Could you imagine something like that today? The Pioneer 4 unmanned spacecraft was supposed to do a fly-by of the Moon and photograph it. It failed to take any...

  Love - I know it may feel like a couple weeks early, but love is in the air today. Our passage is one of the most well-known excerpts from the New Testament and Paul’s writing. If you’ve been to a wedding, most likely you’ve heard some bit of this. It’s hard to dismiss love at a wedding, right? I’m not sure Paul would agree using this text at a wedding ceremony is appropriate, but we’ll get into that later. I’m sure I could make a whole series of this one chapter, but I promise to get you out of here in a reasonable amount of time for lunch, if you’re worried about that. Who thinks there should be more love in the world today? Show of hands…. Don’t be shy. Many, if not all of you… right? We look around at our world, and we don’t see that there’s enough love, that people aren’t acting with love. Is love an action? Or is it just a feeling? We have countless bits of movies and television showing what love is from just about every possible angle. But what’s the most truest love? We g...

  You ARE the Body... YOU are the body... you are the BODY... this sentence can be read in many different ways and mean other things. Some of my initial thoughts about this reading today sent me to a place I hadn't thought of in a long time - One of my guilty pleasures in my early twenties during college was watching Maury Povich. He was a talk show host whose topics were typically around family dysfunction running the whole spectrum. My favorite type of show was around contested paternity... and the guests would agree to paternity tests, and the results would be released live on television. This was NOT my finest hour of television. ANYWAY - Maury, the host, when reading the results, always said... "You ARE the father" or "You are NOT the father!!" depending on the situation. Don't get me wrong - it makes for theatrical television, but this is not something I should be watching these days. Although, given my former employment in family court, it reveals a...