This Week at Church

Community Dinner Tonight: TACOS!!!

Fellowship Feast: If you did not yet hear, Lori Schriver injured herself quite severly last Saturday. She is still putting together this week's potluck, but she has asked for extra help. On facebook, she posted: "Who would like to help me decorate Saturday evening? Help get things set out on Sunday and assist with cleanup after? It is Pastor John's 40th so let's make it special for him!! Please bring a dish to share to celebrate Pastor John!!!! `

Weekly Word from Pastor Ryan 

This morning I was reading the Daily Office passages and they included Matthew 25:31-46. This passage is a well known passage on the final judgement and the separating of sheep and goats. It made me think of my sermon from this past Sunday. If you were there, I reminded everyone that we are all deeply loved by God. and I meant it. God is love! And I spoke about God's incredible grace towards us. Tho I did not specifically cite the passage, I was alluding to Galatians  2:16 which says, "Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ" (KJV). 

And I maintain that as true, how then do we square that biblical concept with Jesus teaching in Matthew which has judgement based on works?  I maintain that those who come to know of God's love are given the task of responding to love with love. We are not saved by works, but we reveal our desire for salvation by how we live.

God has granted us free will. And just as God did not force Rebecca to leave her homeland, and God did not force Esau to sell his birthright, nor did God force Mary to give birth to Jesus. God does not force us to do anything. God offers us a way of life which we can reject or accept. Our righteous actions are a response to GOd's love and they reveal to God, ourselves, and others how much we trust God for our salvation. Another way of stating this is we submit to God, we get filled with the Holy Spirit and the Spirit bears fruit in keeping with repentance. That fruit manifests in care for the least of these our brothers and sisters. 

If we struggle with care for the least of these, that ought to be a giant signal to us that our relationship with the Lord is not as strong as we thought. When we are right with God, care for the least of these is easy. We don't worry about having enough for ourselves because we know that we don't need to worry about such things like what we should eat or what we should wear. God will take care of us. We can take care of others.

In this way, the warning in Matthew 25 is not to create some sort of duty ethic that fills us with shame when we fall short. Instead we should realize that those who took care and those who did not, did so without realizing it. They all asked "When did we do this?" Care for the least comes simply because we are in tune with the Holy Spirit. What should terrify us is when our heart grows callous and we inoculate ourselves from the suffering of others. When that happens we need Jesus to melt our hearts of stone. Those who do not care clearly have not let Jesus change their hearts and their form of faith, is not faith which saves. As James says, "Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by my deeds."