Two boys who don’t understand their father’s love. That’s our reading from Luke’s telling of Jesus’ story this Sunday. Neither son understands – although one comes to see it through hardship and pain. A place is always set at the table. There is always a place set at God’s table. There is always grace to repent and for God to change our way of thinking. God is not the enemy – we are. Lord, have mercy – and He does and will.

A cool prodigal daughter video:

The Bible reading for Sunday has Jesus telling a parable of a dead looking tree, and the owner looking for fruit. “Shall we cut it down?” “No, leave it, fertilize it, give it another year, and see what happens.”

Always, always, God offers opportunities to repent. These dead tress can bear fruit.

Like Ezekiel’s vision of the valley of dry bones – “Can these bones live?” The answer is yes, yes, yes.

The fox will eat the chicken. Herod – or some other fox – Pilate? – in power – will kill Jesus. And in dying, that hen will save her brood, and Jesus will have his way. Random thoughts for this coming Sunday – the 2nd in Lent.

Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.

Some people claim orthodox christianity (and by that I mean Christianity that is conservative theologically – not the Orthodox arm of the Church) focuses too much on sin, and that it’s a downer to hear we are sinners.

But what if that is what we are? What if it is realistic and indeed freeing to recognize that I am a sinner – prone to always do the wrong thing? What if that simply puts the honour and glory on God, who saves sinners, of which I am chief? What if it makes sense of the world to know even Mother Theresa was a sinner? What is it makes sense of God and the work of Jesus on the cross?

So, we remember we are sinners this Wednesday, and we smear ashes on our foreheads in a cross-shaped claim on our sinful selves – a claim by God that says, “This one, this sinner, this lost sheep, this murderer, liar, cheating, unfaithful, selfish one – this one is mine. I save her. I saved him. They did nothing to earn it, can do nothing to deserve it, nor can they participate in this saving work of mine. I do it all by giving myself for them.”

I am hip deep in too much – a funeral on Thursday, some volunteer things for my daughter’s school, preaching on Sunday, people sick.

This Sunday is Transfiguration Sunday, when we remember Jesus taking his inner council – Peter, James and John – onto a mountain, where He was shown in His heavenly glory – bright, shining, holy. Elijah and Moses where there, talking with Him. The disciples were terrified – who wouldn’t be? – and they wanted to stay on that mountain, with the certainty of what they had seen and experienced.

But Jesus took them down the mountain – to a funeral on Thursday, some volunteer things for my daughter’s school, preaching on Sunday, people sick. The same holy Jesus is with us in our everyday lives.

What are you doing in response to God’s love?

How can I be sick again? Sneezing, runny nose, tired, achy…

If there is a bug, I have gotten it.

A cold haiku:

Runny nose and aches
unwelcome. What can this be,
this strange gift of God?

I will signing copies of my new book of poetry after church… Or not.

I have been reading about and listening to some blogs around “Fresh Expressions,” a Church of England initiative to reach out to the de-churched and the unchurched around them. Church planters and churches are encouraged to look at the people groups around them who don’t know the Gospel of Jesus. They then seek ways to serve them, live their lives among them, and to live out the love of God in Jesus in their midst.

Out of these relationships grow diverse groups of church. To quote the Archbishop if Canterbury, Rowan Williams, “[C]hurch is what happens when people encounter the Risen Jesus and commit themselves to sustaining and deepening that encounter in their encounter with each other.” No one expression of church – traditional, contemporary, liturgical, surfer, children – is the only expression. Each is a fresh expression.

Click on http://www.cofe.anglican.org/info/papers/mission_shaped_church.pdf for a wonderful book, Mission-shaped church: church planting and fresh expressions of church in a changing context. How can we be church in our new context, here in Winnipeg? Let me know what you think about that.

I love the text from Luke 4 for this Sunday:

14-15 Jesus returned to Galilee powerful in the Spirit. News that he was back spread through the countryside. He taught in their meeting places to everyone’s acclaim and pleasure.
16-21 He came to Nazareth where he had been reared. As he always did on the Sabbath, he went to the meeting place. When he stood up to read, he was handed the scroll of the prophet Isaiah. Unrolling the scroll, he found the place where it was written,

God’s Spirit is on me;
he’s chosen me to preach the Message of good news to
the poor,
Sent me to announce pardon to prisoners and
recovery of sight to the blind,
To set the burdened and battered free,
to announce, “This is God’s year to act!”
He rolled up the scroll, handed it back to the assistant, and sat down. Every eye in the place was on him, intent. Then he started in, “You’ve just heard Scripture make history. It came true just now in this place.”

Did you see it? Jesus knew how to read. I love that humanness He shares with me, that I share with Him. I love that it reveals a rich life, a working, thinking brain not unlike mine. Bless the Lord.

Also I love that Jesus usually went to the meeting place. It was His habit, and we would do well to share that habit with Him.

(Scripture taken from The Message. Copyright � 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group.)

What can be done for Haiti? Money, yes. There’s lots of places to give, and please do.

Can we, as a church, get a work group together to go to Haiti in a couple years, when things have died down, when things still need doing? Rebuild a school, help an orphanage, or build church? Check out this orphanage: http://www.glahaiti.org/

A mission trip will change our lives. And maybe we can do a little good down there. Where is Jesus leading us?