10w for August 2nd, Bread of Life. P10.

The following is a 10-minute worship for August 2nd, Bread of Life. P10. You can listen on the flash player below. You now also have the option of receiving these notices each week and on festival days by signing up for the 10W constant contact email list on the right side of the 10W blog where it says "Please Join our Email List or you may text 10w to 2828 to sign up. The song for the day is: I Am the Bread of Life by John Michael Talbot.  Used with permission, you can find this and others gifts for ministry at www.johnmichaeltalbot.com

10w for August 2nd, NL, The Gift of Love.

The following is a 10-minute worship for August 2nd, NL, The Gift of Love. You can listen on the flash player below. You now also have the option of receiving these notices each week and on festival days by signing up for the 10W constant contact email list on the right side of the 10W blog where it says "Please Join our Email List or you may text 10w to 2828 to sign up. The song for the day is: Love will lead the way by Celia Whitler from the CD On the Road to Somewhere.  Used with permission, you can find this and other gifts for ministry at: http://celiamusic.net/

Opening Litany based on Psalm 78:23-29

Worship Leader: As the wandering children of Abraham complained of no food, God commanded the skies above, and opened the doors of heaven and it rained down on them manna, the bread of heaven to eat,
   
Congregation: Because of the grace of God, mortals ate of the bread of angels in abundance.

Worship Leader: God caused the east wind to blow in the heavens and through the power of the Almighty, there rained down flesh upon the people of God like dust, winged birds like the sand of the seas fell within their camp.
   
Congregation: All the people ate and were well filled, for the Lord gave them what they craved.

Poem10th Sunday after Pentecost John 6:24-35 based on

Our bellies are full

We are refreshed

Our minds are no longer dulled

By that gnawing ache of hunger

And yet

We long

There was more that took place on that day

Than just the loaves

------------and fishes

what happened was good

--in the way creation was pronounced good

and yet

--we hunger for more

not just the food

that eased our hunger

but there was power in the words that were spoken

power that opened our minds

power that challenged us

and made us see

--a hunger

 we had not known

--(Jesus Said)

a hunger from deep within

which now that it has become loosed

will not be bound again

until it is feed

--(I am)

and nourished

as only God

--(the Bread)

as the Creator of all

--(of life)

can do

a bit empty inside

Sunday August 2^nd, Psalm 78: He split the Sea and they walked right through it; he piled the waters to the right and the left. He led them by day with a cloud, led them all the night long with a fiery torch. He split rocks in the wilderness, gave them all they could drink from underground springs; He made creeks flow out from sheer rock, and water pour out like a river. All they did was sin even more, rebel in the desert against the High God.  Children will be children and the children of God are no exception.  As an empty nester I find that it’s nice when the children get older and they begin to take care of themselves.  Mark Twain marveled, tongue in cheek, at how smart his father had become as he got older.  I’m still waiting on my children to reach that maturity, but someday maybe.  God had that same trouble with the children of God during the Exodus, when are we going to get there, I’m hungry, Johnny looked at me, can I smite him?  God still has that same trouble with us, them gays love different than us, we can’t provide healthcare for my brother, he is lazy and hasn’t made as much money in the market as I have, when can I start a war and smite someone?  We all want a bit more because we feel a bit empty inside.  God has not only given us more than we can imagine, but also through Christ, something to fill that emptiness in our soul.  If we stopped playing around with the war machine we might notice that.  

half-baked idea

Monday August 3^rd, Psalm 78: It was clear they didn't believe God, had no intention of trusting in his help.  But God helped them anyway, commanded the clouds and gave orders that opened the gates of heaven. He rained down showers of manna to eat, he gave them the Bread of Heaven.  It is the same today, in spite of the fact that all have sinned and fallen short of the Glory of God, Jesus came into the world to save the world and bring salvation to all.  Now it is our turn to share the gracious gifts we have been given and in the process, participate in the graciousness of God.  It is in giving that we receive.  In hording we find a smell in the depth of our souls; it is all that manna, down there hidden in the cracks, rotting.  God rains down blessings on us all and a Christian is no better than anyone else, no more or less loved than anyone else, a Christian is simply someone who once in a while has some half-baked idea who to thank.  

journey together

Tuesday August 4^th, Exodus 16: 2 In the desert the whole community grumbled against Moses and Aaron. 3 The Israelites said to them, "If only we had died by the LORD's hand in Egypt! There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death."  Have you ever take a trip with young children?  Remember the continued questions and complaints, “When will we be there?”  “How much longer?” “I have to go to the bathroom?” “S/He touched/looked at me” and on and on and on?  Things haven’t changed much have they?  We are all quite capable of being bought off by the comforts of life to the point where we resist and resent a spiritual journey.  When was the last time you went to a Bible Study or Worship, even if you didn’t feel like it that day?  In spite of it all, God loved them.  In spite of it all, God loves you. We are all in this life together, the butcher the baker and from half way around the world, the candlestick maker.  Forget the bottom line and all your justified ways of using your brother to make a profit and enjoy the journey together.  

thanks

Wednesday August 5^th, Exodus 16:  4 Then the LORD said to Moses, "I will rain down bread from heaven for you. The people are to go out each day and gather enough for that day. In this way I will test them and see whether they will follow my instructions. 5 On the sixth day they are to prepare what they bring in, and that is to be twice as much as they gather on the other days."  God provides for everyone’s need, not everyone’s greed.  What the people found out was that if they gathered more than a day’s worth, it rotted, it stank.  On the sixth day they could get enough for two days so they could rest on the Sabbath.  When we horde, it also rots, and rotting still stinks.  It rots away in our garages and houses, true, but mostly it rots away in our hearts and souls, and that is where the stink comes from.  Can’t come to church, I have a boat; I have to go fishing again.  And just who do you think gave you the ability to get the boat in the first place?  A little thank you would be nice.  Do we live in a world of “Mine” or a world of “thanks?”  Mine leaves an empty feeling in your gut, thanks leaves singing in your soul. 

justice thing

Thursday August 6^th, John 6: 24 Once the crowd realized that neither Jesus nor his disciples were there, they got into the boats and went to Capernaum in search of Jesus.  25 When they found him on the other side of the lake, they asked him, "Rabbi, when did you get here?"  26 Jesus answered, "I tell you the truth, you are looking for me, not because you saw miraculous signs but because you ate the loaves and had your fill. 27 Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you.  If you give someone who is starving a lecture on how Jesus loves them and how salvation is theirs, complete with the gift of eternal life, they will not hear a word, they are hungry and first they need food.  Here is a lesson for all world leaders, food draws people in, bombs, guns and prison drive them away.  Once they are in, you can work on the Jesus and justice thing.  All too often we work on the fear and Jesus thing, which is only Jesus in name, not in essence.  Jesus worked on the food and justice thing, and that is where they, and you and I, find Jesus.  

on my terms

Friday August 7^th, John 6:  28 Then they asked him, "What must we do to do the works God requires?"  29 Jesus answered, "The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent." People are funny, even in the midst of their searching; they want to be in charge.  It’s the old Garden of Eden thing all over again.  When I get something for doing something, then ultimately I, not the giver, am the one in charge.  Jesus has done it, your job is to say “Wow, thanks!!!” and then live like you mean it.  Born again, Personal lord and savior, holy prayer warrior, are all ways of telling Christ to buzz off, I will take the prize….. on my terms.  Living a life of wow, thanks, is a way of saying God is in charge, and Christ has shown you that way. 

gluttony

Saturday August 8^th, John 6: 33 For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world." 34 "Sir," they said, "from now on give us this bread." 35 Then Jesus declared, "I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty.  Gluttony is raiding the refrigerator because of a case of spiritual hunger.  That which makes life comes from God, and no blue plate special can ever truly fill that hunger.  Until you fill that hunger, all the hording, holding and hounding only brings more hunger.  God has given you more than enough good things, what they learned on that mountain, and what we still have trouble hearing today, is that in sharing there is life.  Life that comes from God, life that flows through us, life given to others, and once we tap into that life, the hunger goes away, and so does the gluttony.  

10w for July 26th, Oh, Teacher, NL.

The following is a 10-minute worship for July 26th, Oh, Teacher, NL. You can listen on the flash player below. You now also have the option of receiving these notices each week and on festival days by signing up for the 10W constant contact email list on the right side of the 10W blog where it says "Please Join our Email List or you may text 10w to 2828 to sign up.

10w for July 26th, Doing Your Part, P9.for July 26th, Doing Your Part, P9.

The following is a 10-minute worship for July 26th, Doing Your Part, P9.  You can listen on the flash player below. You now also have the option of receiving these notices each week and on festival days by signing up for the 10W constant contact email list on the right side of the 10W blog where it says "Please Join our Email List or you may text 10w to 2828 to sign up.

Opening Litany based on Psalm 145:8-21

Worship Leader: The LORD is gracious and compassionate; slow to anger and rich in love.

Congregation: The LORD is good to all and has compassion on all creation and creatures.

Worship Leader: All of creation Praises You O Lord and the people of faith extol you and tell of your glory day in and day out in what they say and in what they do so that all will know the wonders of the Lord.  

Congregation: Your love and your kingdom is forever and ever, your loving rule for all generations.

Worship Leader: Who can you trust but the Lord who upholds all who fall and lifts up all who are bowed down?

Congregation: The eyes of all look to the Lord and the Lord supplies enough and desires for all to have enough food at the proper time, for the Lord’s open hand desires that every living thing have enough to live and flourish. 

Worship Leader: The Lord is righteous and faithful, near to all who truthfully call upon the name of the Lord

Congregation: The Lord works to fulfill the desires of all the children of God.  The Lord hears the cries of the despised and saves them from all who would destroy them.

Worship Leader: My mouth will speak in praise of the LORD.

Congregation: Let every creature praise the holy name of the Lord forever and ever. Amen!

Poem based on 9th Sunday after Pentecost John 6:1-21

It seems like so little to go around

With the people of this world

Starving

Mothers holding children in their arms

Gifts of life from God

Only to be taken from them

By priorities

Not their own

Priorities

That must be set by someone

I scream

As I watch the swollen bellies of starvation

Eat away at yet another

Someone else’s child

There must be someone

Who is doing this to these children of God

These sisters and brothers of mine

in the family of God

these to whom I claim my oneness

through Christ

as I take the bread and wine

but “who” is the cry that keeps the bowls empty

and the water filled

with yet another messenger of death

(so they gathered up)

“Who” is a finger pointed out there

aimed at some

unnamed

and unchangeable

villain

out there

as the children continue to die

(twelve baskets)

I turn off the TV

Turn down the thermostat

And turned off the lights

To get a good nights sleep in the comfort

And security

Of this home I have made for myself

And hope I do not have to hear

The pleas

For the children

On the car radio as I drive

To work

Tomorrow

(with fragments)

I can’t stand to hear

Of the pain

Until

That one is found

(from the five loaves)

who is responsible

and that one

out there

is made to correct this injustice

(left by those)

that is bringing starvation

to those

(who had eaten)

sisters and brothers of mine

ever flowing stream

Sunday July 26^th, Psalm 145: The LORD helps the fallen and lifts up those bent beneath their loads.  All eyes look to you for help; you give them their food as they need it. The Lord does indeed give food as it is needed, the trouble is that we humans have managed to disrupt the distribution system.  I love Coffin’s saying, It is one thing to call with the prophets of old to let Justice roll down like an ever flowing stream, it is quite another to design the irrigation system.  Often in the design of the irrigation system, there are those who wish to siphon off more than they need without regard for those downstream.  We now have a multi-billion dollar industry in producing diet foods and diet plans in some parts of the world and children starving to death in other parts of the world.  Perhaps if we were to love justice and show mercy (Micah 6:7-8) we could see to it to spend one tenth of our military budget on mercy and justice.  That would be enough to provide adequate food, housing, clothing, and medical care for everyone in the world that does not currently have such.  At the same time, it would reduce the need for such an obscene military budget and save money in the long run. We can cry to let justice roll down like an ever flowing stream, what we need to work on is the irrigation system that distributes to all the children of God.  When Paul talked about not discerning the Body as eating and drinking damnation onto ourselves, he was saying more or less the same thing.  

struggling to survive

Monday July 27^th, Psalm 145: All eyes look to you for help; you give them their food as they need it.  When you open your hand, you satisfy the hunger and thirst of every living thing.  God created the world and looked upon it and called it good.  In God’s eyes there is no us and them, for all are the children of God created in the image of God and called good.  That which you do, or fail to do, onto the least of these, you do or fail to do onto God.  Society is judged not on how it creates wealth for the few, but on how it cares for the least, lost and lonely.  God has given the gift, we are only asked to share.  Health care for all or high profits for a few, the fight continues, and in the midst of it God calls us to adhere to Kindergarten rules, clean up after yourself, share, be kind and remember there is enough for everyone’s need, but not enough for everyone’s greed.  God had provided for all, the fact that some are walking with Golden parachutes while others are going bare foot in tattered clothes is a sin.  For far too many, life is simply struggling to survive and is an example of what happens when we don’t discern the body and eat and drink damnation to ourselves.  The hoarding tends to bring rot not only to our piles of stuff, but also to our lives, the smell of rot comes from within.  

man on the moon

Tuesday July 28^th, 2 Kings 4:  42 A man came from Baal Shalishah, bringing the man of God twenty loaves of barley bread baked from the first ripe grain, along with some heads of new grain. "Give it to the people to eat," Elisha said.  43 "How can I set this before a hundred men?" his servant asked.  But Elisha answered, "Give it to the people to eat. For this is what the LORD says: 'They will eat and have some left over.' " 44 Then he set it before them, and they ate and had some left over, according to the word of the LORD.  Forty six years ago we put a man on the moon.  When the idea was proposed by President Kennedy, the response from the scientific community was disbelief, and cries that it couldn’t be done.  Once the idea was accepted that it could be done and the focus was put on how it could be done, things began to happen.  What if we applied the same drive to eliminate hunger in the world?  We are still focused on whether it can be done, not on how it can be done.  We have however found lots of money to build an impressive military machine, which many feel we need given our wars of choice. When all people eat and have some left over, terrorism can gain no foothold.  It is far less expensive to feed, clothe, educate and provide healthcare than it is to protect, kill and defend our status quo. We should be throwing our nation’s wealth behind fighting terrorism in a way that works rather than just testing weapons systems that don’t.

mold

Wednesday July 29^th, Ephesians 3:  14-19 My response is to get down on my knees before the Father, this magnificent Father who parcels out all heaven and earth. I ask him to strengthen you by his Spirit—not a brute strength but a glorious inner strength—that Christ will live in you as you open the door and invite him in.  Jesus summed up all the law and prophets as follows; love God, love others.  In loving God, we are strengthened from within by the Holy Spirit, in loving others that strength is nurtured and encouraged to grow.  To love God only as our personal Lord and Savior is to choose to be an empty vessel, the kind Jesus pointed to and noted the shiny outside and the mold on the inside.  To work for the betterment of others in the world, though noble, leads more often to agendas and egos and blind activism which without the God connection can easily be seduced into pressure tactics and manipulation. Of this the world already has too much.   When we follow Jesus’ command to love God and love others, in word and deed, we find that the doing informs the reflection which informs the doing, round and round, ever closer to God’s calling.  To do one without the other often results in the death of both.  

make room

Thursday July 30^th, Ephesians 3: 19 And I ask him that with both feet planted firmly on love, you'll be able to take in with all followers of Jesus the extravagant dimensions of Christ's love. Reach out and experience the breadth! Test its length! Plumb the depths! Rise to the heights! Live full lives, full in the fullness of God.  Learning to share with others from the abundance of our blessing does not lessen our blessing, it increases and enhances our blessings.  One trouble humanity seems to have is that we often see our blessings in material terms only, and yes, materially speaking, more for others who do not have enough, may, at times, mean less for us. In the long run however, more for others will mean more for everyone.  We live in a world that does not trust God and God’s plan.  In not trusting God’s plan and the abundance of God’s blessings, we hoard.    We have trouble trusting the fact that the more we give, the more we receive.  We keep thinking in terms of a glass of water, pour some off for others and there is less in the glass.  In God’s world, it is only when we pour off for others that the glass begins to fill with God’s blessings.  Sometimes we have to make room in our lives to receive.   When we are full of ourselves there is less room for God. 

satiated

Friday July 31^st, John 6:  10 Jesus said, "Have the people sit down." There was plenty of grass in that place, and the men sat down, about five thousand of them. 11 Jesus then took the loaves, gave thanks, and distributed to those who were seated as much as they wanted. He did the same with the fish. Part of the miracle that day was Christ blessing the provisions that were provided, the thankful blessing for what has been given.  All we have, everything, is a gift from God for which we should forever be thankful.   Additionally, part of the blessing we receive is the ability to share with one another, for what we are about to receive and the ability to share from this bounty, we thank you O Lord.  If we focus only on the receiving, we still remain famished; our bellies full maybe, but famished none the less.  When we look at everything we have as a blessing from God and receive it in true thankfulness for the gift, for that is what it is, and in that thankfulness, share, we find that we are not only full, but satiated.  A generous heart is the gift of putting your faith in God. 

help one another

Saturday August 1^st, John 6: 12 When they had all had enough to eat, he said to his disciples, "Gather the pieces that are left over. Let nothing be wasted." 13 So they gathered them and filled twelve baskets with the pieces of the five barley loaves left over by those who had eaten.  The second part of the miracle is the blessing of the hearts that takes place as those sitting on the ground reach into their own private hidden stash, and share.  It is then that the abundance of the blessing is manifest in the physical world as well as in the spiritual world.  When we reach into our own private, hoarded, protected stash that in reality is a gift from God all along, we too begin to see the true blessings in our lives.  Our calling is not a “God and me” thing, where I am blessed because I have decided to follow Jesus in the right way and in the right church.  It is a “God and us” thing, where we are blessed as we gather together, brothers and sisters in Christ, around the body broken, and in the process, heal some of the broken pieces of our lives as we help one another.  

10w for July 19th Wisdom, NL.

The following is a 10-minute worship for July 19th Wisdom, NL. You can listen on the flash player below. You now also have the option of receiving these notices each week and on festival days by signing up for the 10W constant contact email list on the right side of the 10W blog where it says "Please Join our Email List or you may text 10w to 2828 to sign up.

10w for July 19th, Holy Rest, RCL.

The following is a 10-minute worship for July19th, Holy Rest, RCL.  You can listen on the flash player below. You now also have the option of receiving these notices each week and on festival days by signing up for the 10W constant contact email list on the right side of the 10W blog where it says "Please Join our Email List or you may text 10w to 2828 to sign up.