Poor in Spirit

This week we are getting into the first of Jesus’ teachings during The Sermon on the Mount.

We often have a skewed view of spiritual justice and morality. It is very common to think of your life in terms of a scale; as long as the good things in your life outweigh the bad things then you're going to be ok. However, this isn't at all what we see Jesus teach, and there are actually a lot of problems with this idea. To start with, who defines good and bad? Does each person get to choose for themselves what is good vs. what is bad? What if something I think is good, you think is bad? Does that thing count as whatever we think it is or does it have a universal designation? Even if salvation and spiritual justice worked on a sliding scale of good vs. bad, we would need some definitive measure and designation that is set in place by someone outside of the system. 

Listening to God

The Sermon on the Mount is Jesus’ famous sermon, from which we get many of the principles, guidelines and examples of what it means to live a Christian life. This is where the Beatitudes come from as well as The Lord’s Prayer. It is an extremely important section of scripture, and we are going to take the next few months to go over it and see how we can apply it to our lives today. 

So, before we jump in, let’s set the stage. Jesus had just begun His public ministry. He was traveling all around the area, teaching, healing, performing miracles and displaying wisdom. He had just called His apostles, those twelve who were closest to Him, who traveled with Him and ministered with Him and learned from Him. He was gaining notoriety and fame, and as such, a huge crowd of people were beginning to follow Him, to see what He was going to do and hear what He was going to say. They didn’t have Instagram or TikTok during that time, but if they did, Jesus’ follower count would have been skyrocketing, and every one of His videos would be going viral. 

A Library in a War Zone

I recently had the privilege of going to the "International District" Library to get a copy of Alice in Wonderland for my daughter to read for school. (I had placed a hold on it to pick up at another library, but didn't think it would be ready for at least a week or more. It was ready the day after I went to the library. Oh well.)

This library was really really nice. It was clean, well lit, organized, and the grounds were well maintained and landscaped. The parking lot was nice. Even the Recycle and Trash bins outside were nice. It had a cool Little Free Library outside. It was a really neat library. 

However...

The Great Romance

Since this Friday is Valentine’s Day, it seemed only appropriate that we look at love, but more specifically, that we look at romance, because while love is a very broad and encompassing topic, romance is much more narrow and specific. So, what is romance?

Romance: a feeling of excitement and mystery associated with love; or a quality or feeling of mystery, excitement, and remoteness from everyday life.

There are a couple of words in those definitions that I want to highlight: Mystery & Excitement.

This is a really cool concept to think about. We often talk about love in church, about God’s love for us, about our love for God, about loving each other, about loving our enemies, etc… Love is central to Christianity. It is how the world will know that we are followers of Jesus, by our love. It is the enduring quality that supersedes and outlasts even faith and hope. It is what gives everything meaning. It is one of the absolute qualities and characteristics of God. God is love. So, what is love? 

Something New

This past Sunday was Groundhog Day, the day that a cute, furry, little rodent crawls out of his hole to let everyone know if there is going to be an early spring or six more weeks of winter. As it goes, if the groundhog sees its shadow, that means it is sunny, hence, six more weeks of winter, and if it doesn’t, that means it is cloudy, hence, early spring. Don’t ask me how that makes sense. It is what it is.

What we are looking at today, however, doesn’t really have anything to do with the Groundhog Day events and more to do with the Groundhog Day movie. If you aren’t familiar with it, it is a movie about a weatherman who is assigned every year to cover the Groundhog Day festivities in Punxsutawney, PA. This guy is a real jerk who doesn’t like anyone or anything but himself, and pretty much no one likes him either. He especially hates the Groundhog Day event. As it turns out, a blizzard ends up causing him to have to spend the night in Punxsutawney, and when he wakes up the next morning it is Groundhog Day again. He winds up getting stuck in a loop in which he relives the same day over and over again for something like 35 years, until he finally breaks free.

Education Goals

As we look this week at Education related goals, let’s start by looking at the opposite of education: ignorance.

Ignorance is defined as a lack of knowledge or information.

Paul, on multiple occasions throughout the Bible, says something to the effect of, “I do not want you to be unaware/uninformed” about mysteries of the Gospel, about spiritual gifts, about God’s works, about actions and events in his and his companions’ lives, etc…

There is a common saying in society, “ignorance is bliss,” which is a way of conveying the idea that if you don’t know about something you aren’t worried or anxious about it, and that it can be better to be ignorant and happy than informed and scared.