P2

in the rain, in the sun, at an undisclosed location. (Okay, it’s our cabin at Riding Mtn National Park.)

See you in September.

The artist Banksy made this image. I think this is what Jesus is saying about money and possessions:

This image is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license. Please see: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en-us

Got this from one of my brothers, about Karl Barth, 20th C Christian, and dapper dresser/pipe-smoke):

Karl Barth understood the church as an empty, hollow space, a place that is opened so that God may come. The church is, in Barth’s words,

A canal through which flows living water. Wherever graves are, there is resurrection. Where the church ends, there is its beginning. Where its unrighteousness is exposed, there its righteousness dawns. The divine demolition of any Church means that every Church arises as a signpost, threshold, and door of hope . . . Broken, the Church can bear its message with its head erect, for the Gospel belongs to the Church that is lost.

(Karl Barth, The Epistle to the Romans, trans. Edwyn C. Hoskyns, Oxford University Press, 1968, pp. 375 and 416.)

Wow. Did a wedding on Saturday – way to go, J&L! – and it was hot, hot, hot. Lost 900 lbs in sweat.

I learned something at that wedding: when people come to the church – and there were 200 of ‘em – I have the adrenaline of a host with guests in their home. I want people to feel comfortable and to have a good time… and it’s exhausting!

Mary or Martha? Martha – the busy one… definitely Martha.

It’s a Manitoba summer, and the rain threatens, the heat heats, and the construction on Inkster Boulevard happens this weekend. The train crossing is being replaced, July 9-12, so park across the tracks, or find another way here. Don’t get lost on the way!

If you do get lost, Wednesday Worship is at 6:25 pm. Wear shorts.

Is Jesus at the centre? If so, shouldn’t we do what he commands – go, tell, baptize. teach? What makes us so reluctant? We sin in refusing to go, tell, baptize, teach.

But thanks be to God, we have a God who seeks sinners, Jesus, who died for us, in fact – killed under the supervision of a Roman – Pontius Pilate – in the first century, around 30 AD. His death gives us forgiveness of sins, life and salvation. So, go, tell, baptize, teach!

Dangerous stuff, following Jesus. He leads us out there, away and far from all we hold dear. He pries our idols out of our clutches, leaving us nothing but Himself, and isn’t that enough?

Yesterday I had lunch with a friend who related how someone who taught regularly at their Lutheran Church did not believe in the bodily resurrection of Jesus. He asked my friend, “Do you need to believe Jesus actually rose from the dead?” or something to that effect.

It’s been bugging me. Of course Christians need to believe that. Otherwise we are mere deists -along the line of Thomas Jefferson. Don’t let that person teach in church.

God-come-in-person, Jesus, actually died, really rose, and actually is present with us today. “If Jesus did not rise from the dead, we are among all people most to be pitied.”

Don't believe in the resurrection? I pity the fool!

“I pity the fool” – to mash up the Apostle Paul and Mr T – who claims the Christian faith as their own, without being grabbed by the central tenet – Jesus rose from the dead.

Ahhh – nothing but quiet…

Peace to you – Peter

Nice work, kids and folks. Thanks for your donations and for the tireless work of the volunteers. We raised about $600, and had fun and good fellowship doing it – probably more important than the money. God is good.

Bless you.