People today are always susceptible to a con-job, scammers are always out there ready to “give” you  computer assistance, or help you receive thousands of dollars in government pay out or corporate winnings, sell you new insurance or help you “unfreeze your bank account” or keep you from being prosecuted by the IRS or Social Security.

As a community of faith, one of the most serious charges that can be leveled at us is the claim that "Church People" are turned in on themselves. We Christians are vulnerable in the extreme to such a charge because the Gospel we preach is the Good News that God is a loving God who cares about all His human creatures. .

Straightforward. Simple. Relating a lot of information. The same can be said of our text in today's Lesson wherein Jesus says to the Apostle Thomas, "Doubt no longer but believe." Straightforward, simple, and conveyed in a kind of show and tell way. Go ahead and touch if that is what it takes for you but blessed are those who can not see but still believe.

Orchidaceous! I can think of no better opportunity to call forth one of my favorite words than today, Monday of Holy Week leading us to Easter Sunday. Even when you hear it for the first time, it's a word that immediately evokes an image of awesome beauty. When no other word will do, it is an expression of something extravagantly wonderful.

The Holy Spirit is given to the church to bring about community in the deepest sense, a true loving and accepting spirit and a fellowship dependent upon grace for themselves and for each other. When the Holy Spirit is present and active you can truly sense the bonds to togetherness the are beautiful, hopeful, faithful and gloriously joyfully loving.

Sheep  are very skittish and run away at any unfamiliar sound, animal, or person. But once they get to know you, they are very dependent creatures needing to be led to water and given good grass to graze and protection from dangers. Sheep need and depend upon a “Good Shepherd” and so do we.

Remember that God created us to be relational beings. To relate first to Him and then with each other. One of our great responsibilities today is to help people find their way into the church, God’s family and have a beautiful loving relationship with the church family as together we dispel loneliness in the arms of a loving Heavenly Father.

We have the promised commitment of God and the reassurance of our faith the God’s somedays are eternal guarantees ready to happen, to spring into being, and fix’n to be real. So bet your life on God and you have the absolutely safest bet in heaven and on earth.

Into every loving relationship comes the inevitable quarrel that moves those involved into their respective corners, holding fast to their version of the truth. And as the saying goes, there’s three sides to every story: Yours, mine, and the truth.

If a member of the tribe acts irresponsibly, they are placed at the center of the village. Every man, woman, and child  gathers around the accused in a large circle. Then, one at a time, everyone calls out all the good things the person in the center has done previously. All the positive attributes and the kind acts are recited carefully and at length.

Mortified and disgusted by leprosy, St. Francis may have wished to pass by on the other side of the road, but God’s still, small voice told him to stop, reach out, and embrace the man with leprosy.

Both the man with leprosy and Francis were transformed in that moment. 

Jesus says, "if you want to know all you need to know about who you really are and where you’re going with your life - Trust Me! Not just when it's convenient, not only when it's easy, not just when it doesn't hurt, but trust Me, especially when you feel like you can't handle life's burdens anymore."

And Jesus said to them, “19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age.””

With fiery words of hope, wisdom, and a passion for justice that resonate as much today as they did years ago, Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., stirred the deepest convictions of listeners everywhere, inspiring them to extraordinary acts of courage and perseverance

In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And when he came out of the water, immediately He saw the heavens opened and the Spirit descending upon Him like a dove; and a voice came from Heaven, 'You are My beloved Son, with You I am well pleased'".

On the second visit the Rabbi brought drinks to all to enjoy and how did these people from the concentration camp still suffering the ravages of torture and malnutrition respond? Each lifted their glass and cried with a loud voice that rang throughout the building and beyond, “ L'chayim! ” which means “to life!”

Gospel of John. It is the gift of the infinite God who comes to us and reveals Himself to us in the Person of a tiny, vulnerable human Child. "In Him was life and the life was the Light of men".  God has made it possible for us to experience His Power and Love in the depths of our existence so that we may have fullness of life.

Of course, the Good News of the Christmas Event is that there are no exceptions to God's Love for His human creatures -- not even the inventors of social media! In and through the Lord Jesus Christ, God became one of us to tell us that He loves every one of us, without exception.

Situated between steep mountains, every year the small Norwegian town of Rjukan is shrouded in semi-darkness as the great peaks cast their shadows over the terrain below. And during the winter months, the only way the residents of the town can get a dose of sunlight is to take a cable car ride to the top of a nearby ridge.

One way to prepare appropriately for the coming of Christ in this Advent Season is to move away from all the glamour and glitz and into a deeper commitment to the Christ Child. To rededicate your life to His will and way. After all, that is what this Holy Season is all about.

Santa looks up and says to himself, "It used to be a lot easier to know if they've been bad or good."

Jesus' timeless "Parable of the Last Judgment" provides Santa with an easy answer to his problem. The parable is Jesus' once-and-for-all, definitive, foolproof way of knowing "if they've been bad or good."

So there are a few scriptures that lead us to our life of gratitude. And where is the God of THANKSGIVING?  We know that God dwells in two places:  in heaven, and in a humble grateful heart!

"I give my tithe to my church because I know that it will be used wisely to help my loving community of faith and that knowledge enriches my life. I’ve discovered how important it is to be with joyful and faithful people and to be of service to them as much as possible.”

Let’s never forget the sacrifice of all veterans and their families and most especially those who gave their last full measure of devotion.

Here is our Supreme Allied Commander in World War II with thoughts as June 6th, 1944, known as D-day arrived:

He had such trust in God. He had sunk Himself so deep into the being of God for that period of refreshment that He was sleeping right through the storm. You can look at this painting and say to yourself, “WOW I wish that I could sleep like that, I've really got to learn that from Him: to have complete trust in God."

By historical consensus, October 31, 1517, is the day Martin Luther nailed his Ninety-Five Theses to the door of All Saints’ Church in the German town now known as Lutherstadt-Wittenberg. The sound of his hammer would soon be heard throughout Germany and the rest of the world. 

I tried to share with him that Christianity is not nor ever will be “all about him” but instead Christianity is all about JESUS!  Now of course centering on Jesus does bring many spiritual blessings but that is not the reason for finding faith in Christ or believing in the Jesus of the New Testament.

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I have come to uphold those laws," Jesus said. But then He added, "There's more to My ministry than that. I have come to fulfill the Law. I have come to enrich your understanding of the basis of the Law. I have come to demonstrate for you the spirit that underlies the Law.

In the Book of James he states: “But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.”(James 1:22) It's one thing to dream about being good, and quite another to do good."

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The world can be a frightening place. There is so much corruption and crime displayed on our TV screens at home and around the world. Think of what would happen if everyone who called themselves Christians set out to change it all!

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A funny thing happened several years ago in New York City: five new pizza parlors with five different owners opened in the same block. It soon became apparent that there wasn't nearly enough business on the block

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Each year on the anniversary of 9/11, the families of victims gather for a ceremony on the 9/11 Memorial Plaza to read aloud the names of the 2,983 men, women, and children killed in the September 11, 2001 attacks

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With the arrival of “Labor Day”, it seems that employment and unemployment are often topics of conversation and interest.  I would like to think of a celebration we might refer to as “Calling Day” or “Vocation Day.” Vocation is simply the Latin word for To Call in a spiritual sense.

For me evangelism is telling a story, “My Story,” of where I have found bread that for me is the bread of life. And that story is simply planting a seed, which with care and nurture God, the Holy Spirit will use to produce fruit. But for that to happen the seed must be planted.

If we believe, we must act. Belief is the starting point, the place where the race of new life begins and the starting gun has fired.  Hear its sharp sound, run the course and He will run beside you - but you must run. Be doers of the WORD not hearers only!

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Fake News is a term that we all have seen thrown around. It is used for news with clear facts to support the news story and for news stories that are made up of fabrication and deception.  This idea of “alternative facts” seems to be a fevered pitch since the war in Ukraine. 

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Ambrose of Milan became the Bishop of Milan more by the desire of the general church members that by any Papal decree. He was popular as a scholar and mediator in the church. So, let me begin with the words of Saint Ambrose.

Each year on the anniversary of 9/11, the families of victims gather for a ceremony on the 9/11 Memorial Plaza to read aloud the names of the 2,983 men, women, and children killed in the September 11, 2001 attacks

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One day a man was driving down a country road when he noticed a chicken running ahead of him. He glanced at his speedometer and couldn't believe his eyes: he was topping 50 miles-per-hour , and the chicken was outrunning the car!

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Do you remember how Jesus said, “I am the Good Shepherd?” Can you recall that Jesus claimed, "The sheep that belong to Me listen to My voice; I know them and they follow Me." (John 10:27) Sheep must follow because they hear and trust the shepherd’s familiar voice.

Remember the story of Jesus, hungry and looking for some fruit to eat on a
nearby fig tree? Unfortunately, it was not the right season for the tree to produce fruit ready to eat. Jesus cursed the fig tree and with that curse, it died.

We live in an age of divisiveness. People have become tribal; banding together by ethnic, religious, orientation, cultural and heritage. It also seems that being suspicious of others is commonplace and being hostile toward any supposed
threat is normalized.

Keeping up church attendance in the summer has often been a real challenge over the years but it is especially true since Covid-19. The pandemic started a new level of reasoning that made not going to church more.

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One day many of us wake up and realize that we have become our parents. A  recent commercial on the television is about a man trying to coach younger men  and women how not to be like their parents!

With the beginning of June, we head into the summer doldrums with its “dog days.” There is an old phrase as ancient as Egyptian Pharaohs and Greek mythical stargazers called “Dog Days”.

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Yesterday was Trinity Sunday. How do we understand the mystery called the Trinity? The idea is expressed in the Apostles’ Creed: From “I believe in God the Father” “and in Jesus Christ His only Son” and “I believe in the Holy Ghost”.

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In my younger days in the church, we would sing a song with lyrics that went: “Love, love, love the Gospel in a word is Love.” How true! I love that expression
that states: 

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In one of his novels, E.M. Forster gives us an emotional interpretation of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. He describes, in rather frightening terms, how the music gives one the eerie feeling that there are shadowy

A national magazine ran a story that began with a picture of a man lying prostrate on subway stairs. This was followed by a series of images taken for thirty minutes.

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Motherhood is the greatest “Hood” which one can inhabit. To one mother who prayed for Jesus to bring healing to her child, Jesus said clearly, "Woman, you have great faith! Let your wish be granted" (Matthew 15:28). 

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