Mosaic Church Of Bellingham

Reading parables like this one can be very interesting. If you aren't willing to do a little looking around at the context, it could leave you with some challenging complexities regarding your understanding of God. Is God vindictive? Does he send out armies to destroy people? Does he kick people out of the wedding who were previously invited by him? Hmmmmmmmm

Our good friend and Pastor of The Table Bellingham takes a look at two characters who have different yet similar encounters with Jesus.

The parables of Jesus that include judgement or retribution are very difficult to understand and create problems for a lot of people. They just don't seem to line up with who Jesus is and his teachings about non-violence and loving everyone, including your enemies. So what do we do with a parable that includes both and one of the people who is "thrown out" came because he was apparently invited?

One of these is different. Can you tell which one? All taken from Matthew 18: “And whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.” “See that you do not despise one of these little ones. For I tell you that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father in heaven.” “In the same way your Father in heaven is not willing that any of these little ones should perish.” “treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector" "In anger his master handed him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed. This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart.” Hmmmmm

I am curious as to how we respond to the word “judgement” when we think about God. Like most of history, we are probably divided on the subject. On one hand, some hear it as negative, unfair, condemning while others hear it as positive, righteous, fair and affirming. This is true of Jesus’ day as well and frankly, the gospels don't help with the confusion. Just look up John 3:16-17 and Matthew 10:32-36. Yep, pretty confusing.

Matt. 13:36-43 & 47-50 Just when we thought Jesus could be trusted, down comes the gavel and the door to hell opens up. Is Jesus saying that there is going to be a judgement and that some will not experience what the righteous experience? Yes, that is what Jesus is saying. BUT, and this is one huge but, let’s look at what else is being said, before we zoom in on this judgement stuff.

If the kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field or like a pearl of incredible value, what, about the kingdom of God, gives it this value? Surely, this is the question that the listeners went away wondering about. Everything else is too easy to understand. What is so valuable that just about anyone, anywhere, is willing to give anything to acquire it, whether they started out looking for it, or just happened to stumble upon it?

What do you expect from God? Prayer is often verbalized expectation to God and can leave us wondering where God is and why there is no answered prayer.

Most people, when they come to the parable we are going to talk about today, simply read it where it sits and find it pretty easy to make sense out of. It is one of the most familiar of all Jesus’ parables and has been used to name everything from travel clubs to missions agencies, to anonymous helpers and to major hospitals. You guessed it, the parable that is poorly named, “The Good Samaritan”. I think this parable needs to get renamed. How about “End Racism” or “No Separatism” or “Equality For All” or “Love doesn’t see Race” or “Suffering is Everyone’s Problem”.

Our good friend and anthropologist, Shane Treadway was in town, so we thought it would be great to have him share. Have you ever asked yourself why the Jewish people decided to address YHWH as "Father"? Listen in...

Last week I made a comment along the lines of “I am more convinced than ever that most people’s faith crisis has less to do with being a Christ follower and more to do with becoming comfortable with a faith that is outside their own realm of understanding and experience.” Having faith in the God of the system of belief that has been their past is no longer acceptable or palatable, yet without a clear picture of where to go with putting faith in God, many seemingly shrug it off all together. Can we talk about this a bit? Like really have an open conversation about it? What is at the core of your own faith crisis or of those that you have observed? How do you think a crisis of faith resolves itself or does it? Where do we go when in a crisis of faith? Other religions? No religion?

“Jesus is the only way to God, but there are many ways to Jesus.” That was a post by a friend of mine that caused me to stop and think a bit. How does it strike you? I suppose there are many reasons why Jesus spoke in parables, but maybe one of them was to break the mental pattern we humans have of separating earth and heaven, now and eternity, physical and spiritual. If there is one thing we learn from the Jewish story about YaHWeH, its that this GOD is different from all other gods. YaHWeH is the GOD who hovers over the earth, forms it with his hands, breathes his life into it with a kiss, walks and talks with it and then joins the traveling caravan with His very presence. YaHWeH is the GOD of both heaven and earth, who in Jesus, makes them one and the same.

Sometimes, when we think about the significance of the day of Pentecost and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, we think in terms of what the Spirit does in our lives to CHANGE us and through our lives to USE us. But, maybe more significant than that, is the work the Holy Spirit does between us and God to CONNECT us.

I can count on one hand the times I have been the speaker on Mother's Day. In some settings in my past, it was uncommon to have a woman speak, so Mother’s Day was one of those times when we passed the mic to a trusted woman. Thankfully, that is not the case here at Mosaic. In our time here, it just seemed to make sense to have one of the incredible women share her thoughts on being a mom/woman, etc… rather than me trying to understand what that’s like and making a few comments. But today, I am happily taking this opportunity to speak to you on Mother’s Day. One of the things I have grown to love about Jesus’ teaching and interaction with people, is his close relationships with his mother, other women and his bringing woman into the core of his teaching. I can promise you, if the Pharisees and religious leaders of his day had been able to choose their Messiah, HE would have been nothing like Jesus and he certainly would not tell stories that made women equal with men, or worse yet, suggested that God’s kingd

Who remembers the battle of Thermopylae? No? Wow, thought that one would stick out. Ok, how about the movie 300? Now you are getting the picture. The 300 Spartans fight to the death to defend their kingdom/state. These 300 are not only noble warriors, they also represent what the kingdom of Thermopylae was like. What is God's kingdom like?.....

One of the dangers we face when looking at the parables of Jesus, is that we insert ourselves into the story far too quickly. It's not that we can't learn from them or relate to them, we can. However, it's important to remember that Jesus' parables about the kingdom of God, though they may use human characters, are primarily about God as king and therefore, what His kingdom is like. We tend to think they are about the response of the people in the stories, but they are not! They're about God, the king. "If you can't stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen." An apt saying for this weeks discussion.

The Bundle of Sticks (Revised from Aesop's Fables) "An old man on the point of death summoned his sons around him to give them some parting advice. He brought out a bundle of dry sticks, three feet long and 10 inches diameter, wound with some string. He said to his eldest son: “Break it.” The son strained and strained, but with all his efforts was unable to break the Bundle. The other sons also tried, but none of them was successful. “Untie the bundle,” said the father, “and each of you take a stick.” When they had done so, he called out to them: “Now, break,” and each stick was easily broken. “You see my meaning,” said their father." So, what's the meaning of this fable/parable?

What's a pastor to do when they are sick on a Sunday? Power through? Infect everyone else? Show how tough they are and pretend like there's nothing wrong? I did consider all those options, but decided the sea-lion like cough might give things away. So..... I reached out to our amazing team and Heidi Price stepped in at the last minute and absolutely CRUSHED it!

On Resurrection Sunday this year, we invited the whole family to join us upstairs and we turned our gathering into one big Godly Play story time! We had lots of kids, lots of distractions and lots of fun. Listen in to the Faces of Easter, told by the person that usually talks to the big people.

One of the questions for share plates, is “What could you talk about for 45 minutes with no preparation.” I realized that for me, one of those things was “stress”. I am like an expert on the subject! Having our lives so full that we can barely squeeze another drop from them, is the norm in our society. It is the mark of success. We practice it and we pass the practice on to our children. There is one tool that simply won’t be argued with in our society and it is the holy calendar. Whenever we need to avoid something or some one, we simply say, “let me check my calendar”. When we say that, it’s like people go into a worshipful trance and begin chanting, “Holy calendar, holy calendar”.