Sunday December 1, 2023 marks the beginning of the season of Advent in the Christian Church. It is a reflective, introspective season as we wait patiently for the coming of Christ.
For this Advent season and Christmas our “Sunday Blast” will look at different prophetic voices in the first two chapters of Luke’s gospel: Zechariah, the angel Gabriel, Elizabeth, Mary, Simeon, and Anna. Each week we will see how these prophetic voices express a theme represented by the candles of the Advent wreath: hope, love, joy, and peace; and on Christmas the Christ candle.
For this week we hear about the angel Gabirel’s visit to Zechariah in Luke 1:11-17, where the birth of John the Baptist is foretold.
May the spirit of the season be with you and may you have a blessed Advent!
When is the last time you heard a sermon about pride or humility or read an article about pride which may be the number 1 cause of grief throughout history? This week’s Sunday Blast will look at this competing pair – pride and humility – from a Biblical and practical perspective. This will be the last Blast in 2023 which addresses “Characteristics of a Christian Life.”
Next week we will begin the season of Advent with the Sunday Blasts focusing on traditional Advent themes each week.
In this week’s service we bring to the front one of Christianity’s most prayerful and thankful saints: Francis of Assisi. Thank you for joining us in the service this week. Have a blessed week and safe and happy Thanksgiving!
Karl Barth, the 20th century Swiss theologian, said “Grace and gratitude belong together like heaven and earth. Grace evokes gratitude like the voice of an echo. Gratitude follows grace like thunder lightning.” Is Karl Barth right? This week’s Sunday Blast explores why it is a mark of a Christian life to give thanks for God’s grace.
Before reading this Sunday Blast, read the Parable of Forgiveness (Matthew 18:21-35). And this week, please say this prayer excerpt from St. Francis a few times. Our world sorely needs it.
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace:
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy.
Amen.
This week’s Sunday Blast highlights “Love” and what “Christian Love” means to us and those around us by referencing the lyrics from a familiar hymn based on John 13:35. In troubled times “love” may seem an unattainable state, but we take heart in “God’s Peace.”
A couple of months ago the Sunday Blasts discussed several ideas of Christian Dignity. For the next several weeks we revisit those ideas but from a different perspective: what makes a Christian a Christian? Imagine you were trying to explain what a Christian is and behaves like to someone who is completely unfamiliar with Christianity. The next several Sunday Blasts will focus on one aspect of Christian behavior. This week’s topic is “Prayer.”
This week’s “Sunday Blast” highlights the major parts of Jesus’ final prayer in John Chapter 17. This chapter of John records Jesus’ prayer for himself, his disciples, and all future believers, and the prayer reveals Jesus’ mission, relationship with God, and vision for unity. This is the last chapter in John of “Jesus’ Final Discourse.” Please note the special Prayer for Peace in the Middle East included at the bottom of this week’s “Blast.” Your prayers are needed!
This week’s Sunday Blast focuses on John 16. This is a difficult chapter. It probably helps if you put yourselves in the disciples’ shoes who also found Jesus’ words difficult to understand. I hope this “Blast” will shed a little light on Jesus’ teaching in Chapter 16.
In this week’s Sunday Blast, we continue with “Jesus’ Final Discourse” by looking at the famous metaphor of the vine and the branches in John 15. If we find we are concerned about our “moral compass” or we are feeling “ungrounded,” we need look no farther than John 15 for one of Christianity’s key teachings.
As promised I’m picking up a discussion of “Jesus’ Final Discourse”, John 14-17, with an overview of Chapter 14. This is a challenging chapter to read at one sitting because it seems like many points of faith that Jesus made for his disciples were delivered potentially over several days! And all of them summarized into a single Gospel chapter. With that said, I will appreciate hearing from you, particularly as you attempt the “challenge” that I have lay before you! Thank you for your thoughts and please continue sending any prayer requests that you have so we can join together as a group in prayer.
September 3 ends Raquette Lake Chapel’s summer service season. It is also a communion Sunday. To honor the end of in-person services for the year (until Christmas Eve) at the Chapel, celebrate the gift of God’s presence in “The Lord’s Supper,” and begin a new season of fall, we will begin study of “Jesus’ Final Discourse” John chapters 14-17. This Sunday our focus is “The Holy Spirit Cometh” and John 16. We will continue our study of the “Final Discourse,” and to follow along, please read John 13:31-38 which is the actual beginning of the discourse, before you read chapters 14-17.
Gratitude is a powerful virtue of the Christian life. This week’s Sunday Blast introduces five ways to reflect on gratitude and key verses of Scripture. As we explore these five, we will expand our understanding of gratitude and how it can reshape our outlook on life, strengthen our relationships, guide us through adversity, inspire generosity, and deepen our spiritual connection with our Creator.
First, I want to say this about our “Prayer List” in the Sunday Blast. Our virtual community has people near and worried about Canadian wildfires. Our virtual community includes people with family and friends in war-torn Ukraine. Our virtual community consists of people in the Adirondacks who have been affected by lightning and rain. And our virtual community has friends who live in the Southwest US where the high temperatures have broken every record in sight. So, you can see your prayers for this community are real and needed!
Finally – Our Sunday Blast Introduction. Gratitude, giving thanks, is something we always say in church. Living in a secular world, faithful believers try to find avenues to bring what we claim to believe in church out into the day-to-day of our lives once we go out of the church doors. Not an easy task! In a world often filled with challenges and distractions, it’s crucial that we take time to reflect on the blessings we have and the importance of cultivating a heart of gratitude. This week we will begin discussing “Gratitude,” and in Chapel this Sunday we will read Psalm 86:8-12 and Luke 17:11-19. Let’s open our hearts to hear what the Spirit is telling us as we walk a little way down this path together.
Jesus taught in parables, and people didn’t always get it. That’s because parables challenge us to go beyond what is just on the surface. This week in Chapel we will have readings from Hebrews 11 and Matthew 7 and 17, which touch on two themes: anchoring our lives and faith. We have a modern parable written by C. E. Davis to help us zero in on a small piece of anchoring and faith: “Blind Faith” vs. “Wishful Thinking.”
This Sunday, August 6, 2023, is Communion Sunday at Raquette Lake Chapel, and this week’s “Blast” (and sermon) asks “what does communion (Mass, Eucharist) mean to us?” and “How do we live in the presence of the Lord?”
Using a few scripture selections about “a house divided” in the Sunday’s Blast, we see how a community that has stark divisions will eventually fail as a community. This raises essential questions: What distinguishes divisiveness from differences, and how do healthy communities behave? In this Sunday’s Blast, we touch on those ideas and explore characteristics of thriving communities. Drawing from David French’s reflections in a recent NYT editorial, we present the significance of treating “outsiders” with empathy and respect in building resilient communities.
This week we explore Scripture and the newspaper for lessons from “The Greatest Commandment” – to love and serve God and neighbor. We read the Parable of the Good Samaritan and a modern story about how a simple act of kindness changed the trajectory of a young man’s life.
This week’s Sunday Blast continues our discussion of the saying “Take the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in another…but read both.” This week we will work from a portion of Scripture where we read “I have the right to do anything” (1 Corinthians 10:14, 22-33). These days we find many news items about court cases involving “individual rights,” and this week we will look at how we might apply St. Paul’s message to the Corinthians to news about individual rights.
“Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is …” (Romans 12:2, NIV). In this passage St. Paul is reminding the Christians in Rome that they are “in this world but not of this world.” Beginning this week, our Sunday Blasts and Sunday sermons will explore a famous line from the noted 20th century theologian Karl Barth: “Take your Bible and take your newspaper and…read both, but interpret newspapers from your Bible.”
This Sunday begins the Raquette Lake Chapel Summer Services, and so the “Sunday Blast” will highlight some of the main themes which the sermon will expand upon. On the first Sunday of the month during summer we will celebrate communion. This Sunday’s Gospel scripture will focus on “The Road to Emmaus” found in Luke 24:13-35.
Our Sunday Blasts for the past months have been talking about “Christian Dignity,” and a couple of weeks ago we touched on the Trinity and “The Great Commission.” The Great Commission introduced us to the two themes of calling and vocation. If we can find what those are, we can begin to answer that big question “What is the purpose of life?” We can live into our purpose with “Christian Dignity” by trusting that all of creation was constructed with God’s purpose. As the summer season begins for the Chapel on July 2, the Sunday Blasts will take on this purpose and theme. Stay tuned!
Often it is hard for us to see the goodness and daily miracles in our lives when there is so much which contradicts “the way the world should be.” This week’s Blast encourages us to find the love of God even when we have to look hard for it! Indeed, “the earth is full of the steadfast love of the Lord. [Ps. 33.5]”
June 4 is Trinity Sunday. On Trinity Sunday, Christians gather to reflect specifically on the mystery of the Trinity and celebrate this foundational aspect of our faith. It provides an opportunity for believers to deepen their understanding of God’s triune nature and explore its implications for their lives as disciples of Christ.
“They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore. [Isaiah 2:4, NIV]”
Friends of Raquette Lake Chapel, on this Memorial Day weekend, this scripture points to a future time that we all dream of and pray for but is clearly not the present time. There’s not a reader of these words who has not had family involved in hostilities or war. This weekend we remember family, friends, ancestors who have made the ultimate sacrifice for their country…and we read about one bishop – blacksmith who is literally “beating swords into plowshares.” I ask you also to keep Dean’s soul in your prayers, as well as his family and friends who mourn his passing.
Adversity is a common experience in life, and it can take many forms: illness, loss, financial hardship, relationship problems, and more. In the face of such challenges, it can be tempting to give up hope and lose our sense of dignity. Yet, there are those who manage to keep their faith and their sense of worth even in the midst of great difficulty.
On Mother’s Day we often experience a wide range of feelings caused by our different experiences of what it means “to mother” or what “motherhood” is about. In this week’s Sunday Blast, we turn to the fascinating story in Exodus 2:1-10 about the birth of Moses and how his mother “mothered” him. In this story we will find contemporary lessons.
Hello, dear friends of Raquette Lake Chapel! I hope this week’s Sunday Blast finds you well and blessed. This week I want to share with you some thoughts on a very important topic: holiness. What does it mean to be holy? How can we live a holy life in this world? How does holiness contribute to our human dignity? These are some of the questions that I will explore with you in this week’s Sunday Blast, based on the Torah portion of Leviticus 16-20.
4/30. Many people who felt lost have rediscovered their human worth and gone on to live full and notable lives. Sometimes we lose track of “being wonderfully made” (Psalm 139). This week’s Sunday Blast highlights Kay Warren and talks about the three aspects of human dignity and living into a life as children of God.
“Understanding Dignity.” This past month I’ve spent a lot of time exploring what “dignity” means in spiritual terms, especially to the Christian community. My conclusion is that “dignity” encompasses more than what I have previously thought. Somehow the word itself seems too small to represent what it means! As we honor all of creation for Earth Day (4-22-2023) and especially the Adirondack Park, let us begin to explore what “dignity” means to people of the Book.
This week’s Easter offering is a poem, “An Easter Carol” (1885) by Christina Rossetti which celebrates the resurrection of Christ, the joy of springtime, and the gift of new life. We are born anew with Christ. Just as Christ rose, we also rise. “Don’t be alarmed,” the young man said. “You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here.” [Mark 16:6] May you have a blessed Easter!
An unknown, 8th century poet sees a beautiful tree in a dream: it is the “rood,” or cross, on which Christ died. The rood tells its own story of Christ’s crucifixion. “The Dream of the Rood” is probably the oldest poem we know of written in what today we would call “English.” This week’s “Blast” for Good Friday includes several stanzas from that poem.
On what we now call Palm Sunday, Jesus rides on a donkey’s colt while crowds lay palm leaves on His path to Jerusalem. In Biblical times, royalty would ride on a donkey during periods of peace, rather than a horse, which was associated with war. When Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey, it is believed that He fulfilled Old Testament prophecy that a king would come in peace and humility.
PS: for those of you who would like scripture for each day of Holy Week, I can recommend the following from the Gospel of Mark:
Palm Sunday, Mark 11:1-11, Jesus and his disciples enter Jerusalem on a colt, and the crowds spread their cloaks and palm branches on the road, shouting “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!”
Monday of Holy Week, Mark 11:12-19: Jesus curses a fig tree for not bearing fruit and cleanses the temple by driving out those who were buying and selling goods.
Tuesday of Holy Week, Mark 11:20-25: Jesus teaches his disciples about the power of faith and the importance of forgiveness while using the withered fig tree as a lesson.
Wednesday of Holy Week, Mark 14:1-11: The religious leaders plot to kill Jesus while he is anointed with expensive perfume by a woman at the house of Simon the leper, and Judas Iscariot agrees to betray Jesus to the authorities.
Thursday of Holy Week, Mark 14:12-16: Jesus instructs his disciples to prepare for the Passover meal, and they follow a man carrying a jar of water to a house where they prepare the meal in an upper room.
Good Friday, Mark chapters 14-15: The Last Supper; the arrest, trial, and crucifixion of Jesus; Jesus is buried.
Saturday: Mark says nothing about Saturday, and so we turn to the Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds to find these three events on three separate days: Friday – “suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died and was buried”,
Saturday – “He descended into hell”, Sunday – on the third day He rose again from the dead.”
Sunday, Mark 16:1-8: Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome visit Jesus’ tomb and find it empty, and a young man in a white robe tells them that Jesus has risen from the dead and will meet his disciples in Galilee, causing fear and amazement among the women.
This week the Gallup World Happiness Report came out, and Finland is #1 (again). (The United States does not appear in the top 10.) When we compare the Gallup Poll questions and “The Sermon on the Mount” in Matthew, a foundation of Christianity, we see a disconnect. How do we reconcile that…or do we? For those attending Chapel services this summer, you can expect a lengthy sermon on this topic!
Please also, keep in your prayers all those affected by the tornado in Mississippi. There was tremendous loss of life and injury. Pray for the souls of those who have died, healing for the injured, and comfort for the grieving.
This week’s Sunday Blast for the week of 3-19-2023 pays tribute to the healthcare professionals who have been called to provide unprecedented help to those suffering during the pandemic. Many medical providers still trudge on despite the hardships they have endured over the past three years.
This week’s Blast focuses on “doubt.” Probably the most famous story about “doubt” in the New Testament is in Matthew 14:22-33, the story of Jesus walking on water. How we treat our doubts is important: either we criticize ourselves and feel guilty or we explore our doubts honestly. The second option is what makes our faith grow!
This week’s Sunday Blast discusses the purpose of Lent and how we might approach it. There is also a short suggestion on how to read scripture more deeply if regular Bible reading is something you are practicing during Lent!
This week’s Sunday Blast, coming to you early, will conclude our discussion of the Folktale “To Live a Good Life” by summarizing Elijah’s answers to three questions: When is the most important time? Who is the most important person? And, what is the most important thing to do? And the Blast is early this week because we are preparing to begin the season of Lent which starts next Wednesday February 22, Ash Wednesday. You will receive a short email message about the season of Lent on Sunday 2-19, and there will be a short compline service recording available the evening of Ash Wednesday, 2-22. I will email a copy of the service to you on Wednesday so you can participate in the service.
This week’s Sunday Blast discusses Elijah’s answer to the 2nd question in the folktale “Who is the most important person?” You will notice that this question and answer neatly follows the first question and answer “When is the most important time? NOW!” Next week’s Blast will end the folktale discussion with the answer to the 3rd question “What is the most important thing to do?”
How did you answer last week’s question “What is the most important time?” With a phase or stage of life, like childhood, adulthood, parenthood, retirement? Or with an event like a special vacation, graduation, marriage, birthday? Did you discover you spend way too much time regretting things from the past or worrying about the future? The answer to this question that Elijah gave the King has a different perspective, and this week’s Sunday Blast will explore the answer using several Biblical passages, which we can consider “Wisdom Literature.”
This week’s Sunday Blast introduces us to the Yiddish folk tale “The King Who Searched for the Way to Live a Good Life,” where we will discover three important questions key to living a good life. After this week’s story, the next three Sunday Blasts will dig deeper into the answers for those three questions. Folk tales are usually avenues to wisdom. These down-to-earth stories reveal the morals, ethics, spirituality, and religious beliefs and faith of both the community and the individuals in the stories. Judaism has been described as “a religion of questions,” and we could say the same thing about Christianity. We can also think of Judaism and Christianity as religions of stories. Before you read this week’s Sunday Blast, think for a moment of the stories you remember about Jesus and the questions addressed to him in the Gospels.
This week’s Sunday “Blast” looks at what is behind the song “Turn, Turn, Turn” performed by Dave Crosby, who died this week, and whose music reached thousands of people in the 1960’s and 1970’s. In your prayers this week I ask that you remember to include all the people traveling at this time who are venturing out in bad weather. Also, please remember those suffering from natural disasters in the US and around the world and the people of Ukraine and Russia.
Last week’s Sunday Blast about “Gaslighting” generated several appreciated comments! Gaslighting is a *big* topic, and to make matters worse, it is not consistently defined and is understood different ways. This week I will highlight some ideas found in religious/spiritual/Biblical counselling communities with the intention of zeroing in on what gaslighting means to Christian communities.
This year the focus of the Sunday Blasts will be different: rather than a single theme, they will be about (1) current events and Scripture or (2) based on my “folder which have things that I have put off doing, but intend to look at through this year”. (articles, books, etc.) And there is always room for your comments and input! The 1-8-2023 Sunday Blast will react to the “2022 Word-of-the Year: Gaslighting.” I have a very strong reaction to the word and the idea behind it.
