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Between Sundays for Week of September 16, 2024

Be curious. Ask questions. The theme that kicked off our program year last week prompted your curiosity and questions last week! One of you reminded us of a scene from the Ted Lasso television series that serves as a cautionary note about our tendency towards judgment rather than openness.

In the scene,Ted (a David-type) challenges Rupert (a Goliath) to a game of darts in the local bar. Ted, a real fish-out-of-water, moves through a world with wide eyes, experiencing every new thing with a sense of wonder. Rupert, thinks that what you see is what you get with Ted and is certain he will be wiping the floor with Ted when their match is finished!

“Be curious — not judgmental” says Ted (supposedly quoting Walt Whitman). Judgment is one of the pitfalls of asking questions. Not all questions carry the intention of the kind of openness Jesus modeled for us in last week’s gospel (Mark 7:24-37) where we see Jesus engaging the world around him and being open to new ideas about the immensity of God’s love. This week, James tells us that our words can convey blessing or curse. Our words can seek to understand God and God’s movement in the world, or our words can seek to contain and constrain God to our own expectations. Jesus rebukes Peter for doing the latter, when he can’t fathom Jesus as a Messiah who would suffer and be condemned to death.

In A Faith of Many Rooms (which the Women’s Fellowship started reading and discussing this week!), Debie Thomas writes:

“You can’t hunker down and stay where you are, expecting God to linger in the cozy and familiar. God is on the move. God is doing a new thing. God is speaking in places you don’t recognize as sacred, privileging voices you’re not interested in hearing, and saying things that will make your ears burn. Can you handle it? God is not yours. You are God’s” (p. 36).

God is not yours. You are God’s. May God grant us the grace to remember this so our curiosity and questions lead us to more deeply experience the gift of being God’s people who share God’s love in this world.

P.S. View the worship livestream on BLC’s YouTube Channel, or watch past services on the Share in Worship page of BLC’s website!

Faith Connection at Home

In Worship for Kids and JOY, we use a scaffold called the Faith Five. The Faith Five is 5 practices designed for building connections between ourselves, children/youth and God. This scaffold was designed for use in the home. We are using it at church so that children and youth will be familiar with it when families use it at home. The Faith Five looks like this:

STEP 1: SHARE your highs and lows of the day

STEP 2: READ a Bible verse or story

STEP 3: TALK about how the Bible reading might relate to you or what is happening in your life

STEP 4: PRAY for one another’s highs and lows

STEP 5: BLESS one another

Over the next few weeks, I will explain these steps in more depth and provide some resources or examples that families can use to help bring Christ’s presence into home.

Patty Chaffee

Family Faith Formation Coordinator

Between Sundays . . . Be Curious. Ask Questions. Abby and Amy unpack the theme that is shaping the Bethlehem community as we begin the program year. You can read the story of Jesus and a Syrophoenician woman in Mark 7:24-37. Let us know if there’s a topic or question you’d like to hear us wrestle with on a future episode. Connect with us through Bethlehem Lutheran Church’s website.

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Ponderings

Pastor Hoffman’s Prayer from Sunday, September 15

God, you alone have the power to open —

To open our ears to hear

To open our eyes to see

To open our hearts to love

To open our hands to give and receive your blessing.

Suspend our judgement and open us to be curious. To ask questions. To be transformed by your presence as we encounter you in the people we meet each day so that we might more “perfectly love and worthily magnify your holy name, through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Amen.