Category Archives: Messages

The Capernaum Elders and the Centurion’s friends have gotten over looked in our retelling of this story of faithfulness. This isn’t a story of the Centurion and Jesus – it is a story of a faithful community, people who are willing to carry the hopes and prayers of those in need to Jesus. It is a community of faithfulness who connects you and me by caring for the needs of one another. Continue reading →

If the Greeks were right about the meaning of truth and if Jesus was right about the gift of the Spirit of Truth and its work in our lives we are all the more appreciative of Keirkegaard’s understanding that it isn’t that we go trolling for truth, looking under every rock and critiquing every philosopher or theologian. He said that we don’t grab hold of truth, it grabs us. We can only have it as it snares us and makes of us its captive. Truth isn’t an idea, a notion, an hypothesis or a creed. It is being loving held hostage by Christ’s own spirit and our allowing that Spirit to fill all the empty places in our lives. It scrubs out the residue of our less than inspired behaviors and acquisitions and then replaces in those places of our lives which we’ve conveniently filled with stuff extraneous to living a spirit led life, until we are completely filled by the love of Christ. Continue reading →

The Gospel reading for today, Pentecost Sunday, is from the 14th Chapter of John. It includes the promise of this anointing of the followers of Jesus and by extension us to continue the spirit empowered ministry of God’s work in the world as begun by Jesus. You can hardly separate these twenty verses from the flow of John 13:31 through the end of the 17th Chapter. These are the very tender farewell conversations Jesus has with his closest followers bracketed by Judas leaving the gathering as night falls and Jesus’ own departure to the garden of Gethsemane to await is arrest, trial and execution. Continue reading →

…thanks be to God for this tenacious Syrophoenician theologian and mother. But don’t lose track of the simplicity of it all. Her theology doesn’t originate in books and study; it’s an expression of painfully experienced need and fierce motherly love. Continue reading →

Reflecting the Elephant in the Meeting Room A Message Shared by Kitty D. Benedixen-Park in Meeting for Worship at Spokane Friends May 5, 2013   Elephants have very sophisticated hearing, and incredible infrasound, which is very low-frequency sound that can … Continue reading →

Jesus asks “For which of these (works) are you going to stone me?” The Jews answered, ‘It is not for a good work that we are going to stone you, but for blasphemy’”.  It wasn’t the Messianic implications that whips them … Continue reading →

Waylaid On the Road to Righteousness. A Japanese Christian wrote of the experience of his country before and then a precisely 8:16 on the morning of August 6th, 1945.  In 1941 the Emperor of Japan declared war on the United … Continue reading →

Resurrection faith came slow to most of the disciples. But when it did come it changed everything.  They recognized the incredible scope and enormous implications of the biblical witness that when God raised Jesus from the dead God was creating … Continue reading →

Celebrate It was big show biz news this last week — Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher and Mark Hamill are returning for ‘Star Wars: Episode 7’. In how many of our memories resides the fantastic flight of Luke Skywalker, who with … Continue reading →

Psalm 143 When you take the time to study not so much the reign of David but David himself you come to see how, when it came to family relationships he was an abject failure.  But it is no wonder … Continue reading →