uly 11, 2020,
Good afternoon,
" that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.read on bold new paths !"
Matthew 5:45
It is always dangerous to pick out one verse and wrap an idea in it. There is probably another verse in the Bible that will lead me ( or you ) into a different direction. But, when I look at only one verse, it says to me that I do indeed take the Bible very seriously. I view the writers as being led by the Spirit of God to write what they did. It is up to us, as believers in God, to struggle and haggle with the words for meaning into our daily existence. I thought of the above verse when we got the much needed rain yesterday and today .
The verse is from the Sermon on The Mount that was delivered by Jesus to his disciples , and the crowd that might have been there to listen. Jesus talks about a lot of different things. For Matthew, it sets out a plan, or a direction, or a blueprint for the Kingdom here on this earth. We are still trying to live these directives out in our lives, and the life of the church. These words of Jesus are hard to live out all the time. In 5:43-48, Jesus says that we must love our enemies. That is impossible !!! And maybe even more difficult is praying for the people who persecute us. Jesus modelled both of these ideas while on the cross, praying for the people who were killing him.
And our lives are not given a better break in the rain. It rains the same on those of us who think we are righteous, as it does on the people who are unrighteous. I will still pray for rain for Poole farmers, and for the other farmers. Jesus goes on to say that if we do not love our enemies, then we are no better than anyone else. He mentions those tax collectors and pagans in that society. We are just like other people ? So, we are to live alongside all people of this world, loving them.
Finally, Jesus says we have to be perfect, not like him but like his Father in heaven. Really, now that is outrageously difficult ! We cannot be that great. Some interpreters say that the word in Greek means we must be "complete" like our Father in heaven. In the eyes of God, we are forgiven and loved. We have all we need to live, and are complete, so we can accept that the rain falls on us the same as the rest of the world. What do you think ?
Prayer
Thanks for the rain God.
Thank you for taking care of us,
Thanks so much God for thinking of us
as you made the world.
Help us to feel complete in you
Surrounded by your everlasting arms
in a great big hug of love,
even if we get cranky and impatient.
Remind us that you are in charge of the rain, the sun, the moon, the stars and the galaxies. AMEN
Fred
Tread on bold new paths !
Fireflies flash the direction
Hope springs eternal Monica Pieper Landoni 2020
Fred Redekop
Pastor
Poole Mennonite Church
Ponder Anew 