Claimed, gathered and sent

This is the message I shared on 5/17 with God's people at St. Timothy, Bemus Point and St. Mark, Mayville. The gospel text is Luke 24:44-53 . What is Ascension and why are we celebrating it? Jesus' ascension to the Father is basically the conclusion of Easter. The ascension both closes the period of Jesus' ministry on earth and opens the period of the church's mission. It is like God is saying, "Tag--you're it! Now you're me in the world." This important feast is often overlooked in the American Protestant church. The irony is, this is the third pillar of the Christian faith. Christ became incarnate, Christ died and rose from the dead and Christ ascended into heaven. We confess these every week in the Creed. The Feast of the Ascension is always on a Thursday, right before the last Sunday of Easter. If it is not observed on Thursday, we can observe it on the following Sunday, as we are doing today. Many times it is skipped altoget...

This morning in lectio divina, we read and prayed with this Sunday's first reading, Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16. Above is what the text looks like when run through Wordle Word clouds are generated from text pasted into Wordle. The larger the words, the more times they appear in a given text. A number of things came to mind while going over the text: God is God almighty, covenant promises, name change and its significance. God names us, calls us God's own, and enters into relationship with us. God is God and does the impossible. After all our sharing, we fell into silence--a prolonged silence. The presence of God was almost tangible. As much as we may know God is with us, it is still wonderful when we sense that nearness. In that quiet time I could only worship and pray that God would move in our lives and in the lives of each of us on this campus--that there would be a fresh outpouring of the Holy Spirit on each and every one. Gracious God, hear our prayer.