Welcome to Pastor Jack Buckley's weekly blog and podcast.
You have three ways to hear his weekly message:
- Read Pastor Jack's GODblog.
- Listen now to an audio of the scripture reading and Pastor Jack's sermon.
- Listen anytime. You choose the time and place. Download Pastor Jack's GODcast to your MP3 player.
Thursday, May 17, 2012
Spiritual Gifts
1 Corinthians 12:1-11; Ephesians 4:7-16
Russ Mowry began his sermon with the alert that he would not be preaching a single word about it being Mother's Day. But when he got about three minutes into the message his cell phone rang, and when he picked up the caller turned out to be -- his mother! [badda bing]
She must have a gift for that kind of thing.
Which is only fitting, since Russ's theme for this sermon was gifts -- spiritual gifts, the world's original charisma. In our culture that Greek word has come to mean things like personal poise, attractive power, style and grace. At root, it simply means a gift, freely offered with no strings attached. Look closely and you can see where the word "charity" comes from.
In Russ's chosen Bible passages, St. Paul emphasizes how critically important the gifts of the Holy Spirit are. For the church, or any individual Christian for that matter, to live up to our calling to live like Jesus, we need each other's help for sure and the Spirit's help above all.
It's great good news that God doesn't command us to represent Christ and then leave us all on our own to make it happen. Instead, the same Holy Spirit, who gave Jesus his wisdom and power and grace to do God's will, bestows on us today the gifts we need to be wise and strong and full of Christlike grace.
A few weeks ago Russ preached on the Church as the spiritual Body of Christ in the absence of Christ's physical body all these centuries after he had come and gone. That word-picture is helpful in processing this thing of spiritual gifts, if you visualize various body parts as embodying different gifts for ministry.
So, eyes contribute clear vision about a church's mission in its own time and place. Hands reach out in strength to serve or support. It doesn't take much imagination to muse on how other limbs and organs work together to do God's will.
Russ gave us some good rich food for thought about natural talents and supernatural gifts, about our personal stake in identifying our own gifts for ministry, and about how we can work together to use all of our gifts well, if we really do want to be the kind of church God wants us to be.
Listen to the GODcast!
posted by Jack Buckley at
5:03 PM
Monday, May 14, 2012
Worship: The Heart of the Matter
Psalm 8; Colossians 3:12-17
My wife and me on a remote two-lane highway in the California mountains ten years or so ago... Brother Lawrence at the kitchen sink in a Paris monastery more than five hundred years ago... United across all those miles and centuries... In the spirit of worship, at the very heart of the human matter.
Friends, every man or woman who has ever lived was formed for friendship with God. Which I believe is the dominant emotional element in the experience we call worship.
I was reminded of Joanne's and my experience that night long ago up there in the "gold country," as I read Psalm 8 in preparation for this sermon on worship. The writer ponders the grandeur of the nighttime sky -- a gazillion gleaming stars scattered all across that blackened dome -- and asks, in effect, "So, what do you possibly see in us, O God, infinitesimal as we are on this small blue dot that we call Earth?"
What happened there outside Twain Harte that night was this: I drove onto a wide spot in the shoulder and stopped the engine, saying, "We have to get out of this car." She thought I must have seen some danger signal on the dashboard, but I said, "No, no, we've got to look at the sky!"
There above us, undimmed by urban ambient light, were (a) the Milky Way striped across the sky, and (b) all those countless stars, meteorites, and planets as far as the eye could see. The longer we gazed at the stars, the more we could sense not just breadth among them, but also depth. Who are we, indeed? What are we? What difference can we possibly make, in proportion to all of that majesty, that vast magnitude?
I was reminded of Brother Lawrence by the other scripture for this sermon. In Colossians 3, Christians are encouraged to worship God not only personally, but especially in fellowship with each other. Specific aids to worship are mentioned there, for example: reading the Bible, praying, and singing. And then comes the heart of the matter: Whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of Jesus and for the glory of God!
Just like Brother Lawrence, who enjoyed God's company right there at his kitchen sink. And in the dusty hallways he swept. And while cleaning the commodes. Anyplace, and everyplace, he virtually breathed the spirit of worship. Think about that for a minute, and see if it helps you understand why we traditionally call a worship meeting a "service."
I could say a lot more here. But I'll just leave these thoughts as a teaser, hoping you will take a few minutes now to...
Listen to the GODcast!
posted by Jack Buckley at
5:02 PM
Tuesday, May 01, 2012
Body of Christ
1 Corinthians 3:5-16; Ephesians 4:1-6, 15-16
Good news: There is no appendix in the body of Christ!
By that I mean...
Well, first things first. "Body of Christ" is a metaphor for the Christian church. It was coined by the Apostle Paul to encourage unity in the rapidly growing international, multi-ethnic collection of believers in Jesus as God's great new thing in the religious world.
Jesus of Nazareth was a very flesh-and-blood Messiah. Son of David, Son of Abraham, Son of Adam, as well as Son of God. The perfect intersection of humanity and divinity. When he rose again from the dead, it was in his physical body. Forty days after Easter, he ascended into heaven; his physical body left this planet once and for all (see Acts 1:9). At least, that is, until he returns once the last day of human history has dawned (that would be Acts 1:11).
All that being so, Christ nonetheless remains very present in this material world. In Acts chapter 2, the Holy Spirit appears dramatically ten days after Christ's ascension, on the Day of Pentecost. Pilgrims from all over the Roman Empire were in Jerusalem to celebrate that festival of springtime harvest -- the palpable promise of new beginnings in nourishing food, robust health, and prosperity.
The Spirit swept through the Temple area and did some amazing tricks that caught the public eye and transformed Jesus' disciples into street-preaching evangelists right then and there. By sunset some 3,000 people had become Christians on the spot, and there you have the living promise of new beginnings as the spiritual Body of Christ was born.
Eventually, Paul picked up the metaphor and made some strong pastoral points with it.
Consider your own body. The head is so crucially important, containing the brain that informs every other part from neck to toes, along with organs that see and hear and smell and taste. The torso houses all your vital organs and the versatile, vital spine. Arms and hands, legs and feet. Oh, and don't forget your ever so modest private parts, which I so easily glossed over in this quick little survey.
Paul asserts that Christ is the body's head, then he appeals to the diversity of limbs and organs in two distinct ways.
First, every part of the body needs every other part to be healthy and functional. Break a toe, and before you know it compensatory movement can throw your back out. Watch Dr. House on any given Monday night, and you're amazed all over again at the body's complex and complementary composition.
Just so, says Paul, the Christian community absolutely depends on every member's spiritual well-being. Your weakness or failure or struggle has unavoidable repercussions in all of our lives, and in our life together.
Second, no limb or organ is unimportant for the health and functionality of the whole body. You need ears to hear, and eyes to see. While you might walk on your hands a few paces as a gymnastic stunt, you really need two feet to walk with. And big toes for effective balance.
Even so, says Paul, it's useless at best to compare and contrast yourself with other church members as if one or another were more talented or valuable to God than the rest. Every single person has some important contribution to make towards the group's health and wholeness.
Thus, in the Body of Christ there is no such thing as an appendix.
No vestigial organ whose original purpose can only be guessed at. No useless lump of tissue lying there so vulnerable to infection and much worse.
Okay, so these are just my thoughts, for what they're worth.
This sermon about the Church As Body of Christ was actually preached by our youth director Russell Mowry. He's got some good things to say about the subject, and he says them with clarity and conviction.
Listen to the GODcast!
posted by Jack Buckley at
4:36 PM
|
