Month: September 2024

Scripture:  Luke 7:36-50

Dear Church,

This Sunday we wrap up our six-week session of ‘Sin School,’ and I’m sure that some of you are wondering what the point of it all was. Given all the harm that has been done in the name of condemning sin, shouldn’t we be retiring this dangerous and arcane theological concept? Don’t we need to focus more on grace and justice? Shouldn’t we be learning about generosity and healing?

The gospels are clear, Jesus came to save sinners. So if we don’t know sin, we don’t really know Jesus.

And once we know sin, we’ll know that we all are sinners. Each one of us is a person separated from God by our individual choices and by the broken and destructive powers and principalities (read: systems) of our culture. if we are too squeamish or precious to wrestle with the hard truth that each one of us is a sinner, then we cannot accept, rejoice and participate in the new life that Jesus is offering us.

The gospel of Luke shows us it’s almost impossible to love Jesus until you know yourself as a sinner.

Without a mature, sober understanding of sin, we might be like Simon, confident in our own ability to live a righteous life in an unrighteous world, carefully, and critically considering Jesus, unaware that we need forgiveness, healing and new life.

But once we know ourselves as people who have been forgiven an insurmountable debt, we are transformed like the saint at the center of the story. We mirror Jesus’ extravagant love. We worship exuberantly.  We become witnesses, sent to break in to inhospitable dinner parties, sent out to live joyfully in peace.

It is one of the strange and holy paradoxes of the gospel life: only a church full of sincere self-acknowledged sinners can become a source of Christ’s forgiveness and grace-fueled new life. 

I hope you will join me in seeking God’s truth and grace so that together we can be a living sign and source of the glory of God.

Peace,

Pastor Kate

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Scripture:  John 8:1-11

Saints,

Sin is offensive.

Jesus is a disruptor of sin.

When we put those two together, we’re left with a conundrum. How could Jesus, deemed Lord of Lords, Holy Magistrate, Counselor, and Friend, be of statute and judge people who aren’t caught actively sinning? And yet, be gracious, merciful, and kind to what seems like a crime against humanity for the woman caught in adultery?

What does my contribution to the cycle of sin have to do with Jesus?

Here’s a hint: We have more in common with the woman caught in adultery than we do with the teachers of the law and the Pharisees.

I hope you can join me, this Sunday, as we wrestle with the text (John 8 : 1-11) — all while sitting in the truth that: just like the woman caught in adultery, we (the world) need a savior. 

See you soon,

Shardae’

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Scripture:  Romans 5:12-21

Dear Church,

This week at Sin School we turn to the passage in Paul’s letter to the Roman church that we call chapter 5. For millennia, scholars and theologians have been studying these words and then arguing about a concept called Original Sin. I bet you’ve heard of it.

I bet you have questions like what the heck is it? Where did it come from? Is it in me? Can I get rid of it? Why am I responsible for it if it’s something I was born with?

As we said earlier in this worship series, if we turn to the Bible with bad questions, we’ll get bad answers.  Paul wasn’t trying to explain the concept of original sin to the believers in Rome, mainly because such a concept didn’t exist!

He was writing this small, struggling community mired in conflict to help them live in peace and unity with one another. And he definitely thought they needed a better understanding of the power and nature of sin in order to flourish.

But he was even more interested in opening their eyes to the power of grace.

This Sunday, I’ll tell you why I don’t think we need to worry about original sin and what Paul’s words help us to see about the power of sin–and the power of grace–instead.

Peace,

Pastor Kate

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Scripture:  Luke 11:1-13

Dear Church,

Last week, when Octavia led our time of corporate confession and pardon, she shared how a weekly practice of confessing sins was unfamiliar to her when she first came to the Grove. At first, she wondered what kinds of things people were doing that they needed to confess their sins every week.

She went on to beautifully share how regularly wrestling with her own sinfulness has borne fruit in her life.  A practice of confessing sins has deepened her awareness of God’s love for her and the power of grace and also broadened her compassion for and connection with other people in their struggles.

Mature Christians regularly face the reality that we are sinners.

But what happens when we grow too comfortable?

What happens when we decide that our sins–the things that separate us from God–are reasonable and tolerable? What happens when we keep confessing our sins, but stop repenting of them? How can we walk in the peace Christ has given us, confident of his grace and our belovedness and still, at the very same time, long for greater redemption and transformation? In other words, how do we live as sinners being saved by grace?

I hope you’ll join me as we consider the prayer Jesus gave his disciples in Luke and see that Jesus anticipated our weakness and provided a way for us not just to know, but experience the power of resurrection in our on-going struggle with sin.

Peace,

Pastor Kate

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Scripture:  Genesis 11:1-9

Dear Church,

Does God just not like tall buildings?

That was my question the first time I heard about the Tower of Babel and no Sunday School teacher ever answered it to my satisfaction.

Why was God so bent out of shape about the people coming together to work cooperatively to build a big tower? Just a few verses previously God was pretty pleased with Noah for building a big boat–what gives?

The Bible is a holy book.  It’s best read, not front to back, beginning to end, but in cycles. On a first read, this story is pure mystery.  But we can begin to understand the danger God saw on the plain of Shinar once we know about Pharoah’s pyramids, Nebuchadnezzar’s statue and Solomon’s temple.

The size of a vision doesn’t make it righteous. Every common cause isn’t in service of the common good. Everything that seems glorious, isn’t. This ancient story reveals that sin isn’t limited to the actions of individuals, we can also be collectively swept up into sin-filled destructive systems of oppression and harm.

Sin is corporate, too.  That’s a terrible, almost incomprehensible truth for those of us raised to take personal responsibility for our own righteousness. How can we be faithful in a world that sometimes gives us no good choices?

The good news is, we have a God who intervenes.  A God who makes a way when there is no way.  A God who loves us enough to thwart our plans and scatter us, even when that is our greatest fear. We have a God who loves us enough to be good to us, even when that goodness seems like a curse. Come and see how the very worst things that happen to us can sometimes, but not always, be our deliverance.

Things are not always what they seem. Sometimes, impressively great things have the capacity to destroy us.  And sometimes, the end of everything and death of our dreams is the door to the wild, free and abundant life we’ve been praying for.

Come and see.

Peace,

Pastor Kate

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