Psalm 80:1-3, 14-18
Sirach 48: 1-11
Matthew 17:9-13

les saisons d’église humaine

The rhetoric of issues
and
the toils of everyday
evaporate and pass away like
rotted roots of the poorly tended vine

Through the constant birth
and death
of our Lord Jesus Christ.
We realize
and
We search for
the awareness of God
as
the Gardener and the Harvester

The Divine constantly flowing
flowing through us,
and through all heartbeats.
We again seek the radiance of
God in this season,
as in all days.
Those that have been, those that are,
and those that will be

Call out the name of
the Lord.
For only then can you
restore your mind, body, and soul
perennially pushing upward and onward
in darkness and light.
the well tended, as intended,
Vine

Alex Barton

Psalm 1
Isaiah 48:17-19
Matthew 11: 16-19

Recently, a co-worker of mine put me in my place, and rightly so. She and I are working on different high profile projects, struggling with different issues on each side. Our projects report on testing status at a daily meeting that I lead. We share resources, both human and technical. Things got a little heated. Instead of saying something out loud, she texted me “I don’t appreciate your snotty attitude.” Uh oh. Was this on purpose, I asked myself? Did I think I could get away with it? Well, to be honest, yes. I deserved that observation and was glad she didn’t declare it out loud to everyone on the call.

It made me stop and listen. I thought about the baptismal vow “check up” Tracey had asked us to consider doing one Sunday. I failed that check on all levels. In that moment I was humbled, embarrassed, ashamed and guilty as charged. I was loitering on the way and sitting with the scoffers. I had taken the advice of what I like to call my “dark side” that operates out of laziness and being too tired to care. I was reminded of my brokenness. Christ would not be finding a room in my mansion with my thoughtless actions.

But thanks be to God that Psalm 1 reminds us of another way. The way of happiness. The way of joy. The way of finding pleasure in obeying the law and of delighting in the Lord. The way of forgiveness. The tree of life with abundant fruit. In the light of Christ that we walk with in Advent, there is great forgiveness. I apologized and she forgave me. I apologized and forgave myself. The light of Christ shines on our darkness and illuminates our good. And that is the best gift of all.

Karla Rivers

Psalm 145:1-4, 8-13
Isaiah 41:13-20
Matthew 11:7-15

I am sending my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way before you. Matthew 11:10

The great theme of John the Baptist, says Karl Barth, is “the pointing hand.” John and the other prophets of Israel were men and women “who dared.” “The movement into which they all were drawn … meets us in the Bible in an inescapable way.” The movement is from religion and religious experience towards the One who is beyond the experience–who can be seen when a line is drawn from the pointing hand to its object.

In Matthias Gruenewald’s painting of the crucifixion, John is a small figure in one corner pointing towards Christ in the center. In this painting, John’s “strangely pointing hand” symbolized for Barth the task of our spiritual teachers. That means, ultimately, that we must leave them and follow our own way to Jesus. They can point the way, but not take the journey for us. “How necessary it was for John to point his disciples away from himself to Christ,” wrote Martin Luther in a sermon on this text. John was only the “messenger” who “prepares the way.”

But in the story there is also a reverse movement–not only our movement towards God but God’s movement toward us. John’s finger points along a trajectory that leads to Christ, but coming down that road is Jesus himself. Jesus has already closed the distance that separates each of us from him, is already walking toward us. So the “way” that John prepares is a road that leads from Christ to us, a road on which we can take our first steps only to meet the One who is already there and waiting to embrace us. We want to know God, Barth writes, but God already knows us.

Andy Lang

Psalm 103: 1-10
Isaiah 40: 25-31
Matthew 11: 28-30

Sometimes life seems just plain burdensome. I haul my sorry (burden) out of bed in the morning and drag it around all day. If the morning news doesn’t depress me, then the evening’s news surely will. It is all so bitter, so callous, so unkind. Some days it just makes me tired, too tired even to find a prayer.

But then something draws me to a window and I see…….birds. Thousands of birds are migrating past my house every day — mergansers, grebes, scaups, and buffleheads on the lake. Juncos, vireos and buntings in my yard. Hawks and harriers overhead. An eagle — utterly magnificent, strong, graceful. Different from other birds. What is this unsearchable understanding so tightly programmed into the DNA of a bird that it cannot resist, but must pick up and fly thousands of miles every fall? Inevitable. Inexorable. Incredible. Have you not known? Have you not heard?

Emily Ingalls

Psalm 50: 7-15
Amos 5: 18-24
Matthew 18: 12-14

Savory Lamb Shanks

1 clove garlic, slivered
4 meaty lamb shanks
salt and pepper
¼ cup flour, for coating
2 tablespoons butter or cooking oil
¾ cup chicken broth
¼ cup white wine
2 small onions, sliced
1 tablespoon minced fresh parsley
½ teaspoon crushed marjoram
½ teaspoon crushed rosemary

Preheat oven to 300 F. Lightly grease a deep baking dish.

Tuck a sliver of garlic in each lamb shank. Season with salt and pepper and roll in flour.
Melt butter in frying pan over medium-high heat. Add lamb shanks and cook until well browned. Place in prepared baking dish.

Add broth to pan and bring to a boil, scraping up any browned bits in pan. Reduce heat and add wine, sliced onion and herbs. Simmer for 3 minutes. Pour pan juices over lamb shanks.

Cover dish and bake until shanks are tender, about 1 ½ hours. Serve with pan juices over hot cooked rice.

Yields 4 servings.

Agan, Donna, ed. Cooking with Herb Scents. Cleveland, Ohio, The Western Reserve Herb Society, 1991.

Psalm 85: 1-2, 8-13
Isaiah 40: 1-11
2 Peter 3: 8-15
Mark 1: 1-8

“Pray for the peace of Jerusalem”

Sean Bryan

Psalm 80:1-7, 16-18
Isaiah 64: 1-9
1 Corinthians 1:3-9
Mark 13:24-37

The mystery is this: in the bleak midwinter, after that distress (which distress, o Lord?), when heaven’s light seems dimmest, with neither sun, nor moon, nor stars burning brightly in the sky, precisely then are we called to watch. Watch, not wait. Look into that black sky for the clouds and the winds and the presence that will bring eternal life.

And like a sailor, we dare not sleep, looking always out to sea, straining to hear the bells that chime each segment of our watch away.

Pam McKee