Claimed, gathered and sent

This is the message I shared with God's people at St. Timothy Lutheran Church on Sunday, 5/13. We celebrated Jesus' Ascension. The text was Luke 24:44-53 . Memories are powerful things. Because of this, I grow sentimental when Ascension Day, which was Thursday comes around. It is one of those feast days that can be moved to the Sunday after. When my family lived in Bethlehem, we worshipped at Redeemer Lutheran Church in the Old City of Jerusalem. On Ascension Day afternoon, when the kids were out of school, the various congregations of Redeemer (Arab, Danish, German and English) would meet on the Mount of Olives, behind Augusta Victoria Hospital for a picnic and a multi-lingual service. The hymns we sang all had very familiar tunes, so each of us sang in our own language. It was like an aural symphony. Throughout this post, you'll see pictures of the grounds of Augusta Victoria Hospital. To the left is  a picture of the area all the kids liked to play on. By the way, ...

This is the reflection I shared with the people of St. Timothy for our weekly e-ministry.  Gospel: Luke 24:44-53 44 [Jesus said to the eleven and those with them,] “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you—that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled.” 45 Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures,  46 and he said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day,  47 and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.  48 You are witnesses of these things.  49 And see, I am sending upon you what my Father promised; so stay here in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.”    50 Then he led them out as far as Bethany, and, lifting up his hands, he blessed them.  51 While he was blessing them, he withdrew from them an...

I came across this just now and find Joan Chittester brings a powerful perspective on the issue. The Meaning of Our Memories Memory is one of the most powerful functions of the human mind. It is also one of life’s most determining ones. What goes on in memory has a great deal to do with what goes on in us all our lives. Memory is a wild horse, unbridled, riderless, maverick. It takes us often where we would not go, or takes us back over and over again to where we cannot stay, however much we wish we could. So, it leaves us always in one state or the other, one place or the other, leaves us either pining or confused, leaves us in either case in a world unfinished in us. It is the unfinishedness that is the price we pay for growing always older. The young hear memory in the voice of their elders and, delighted by these voices from the past or bored by them, too often miss the content behind the content. Memory is not about what went on in the past. It is about what ...