Loving our neighbors: Jewish and Christian traditions in Waterloo
Leaving jealousy behind
Romans 13:8-14 (9/7/2014)
This is not at all about depreciating the value of our own tradition or about changing our ways. We love who we are and how we are! But we are called, by Jesus, to love our neighbors as we love ourselves. Loving them, learning from them, will only enlarge us. And loving them will remind us, that as much as we do love our way of being church, it is one way, not THE way, and the most important thing about our way and theirs is where it is taking us – toward the unity in Christ, toward the oneness of all humanity and all creation, toward the shared intimacy with the living God, that God intends for us.
Jewish: remembering and proclaiming the mighty acts of God
The God who does
Exodus 15:1-11 (9/14/2014)
But we are Jews, too. We worship the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, the God of Sarah and Rebecca and Rachel and Leah. We worship יהוה, the Lord, the Eternal One, the One who is beyond all praises and songs and adorations that we can utter. The same God who delivered the Israelites delivers us. The same God that saved them saves us.
Roman Catholic: servants of the poor
Servants of a generous God
Matthew 20:1-16 (9/21/2014)
God is always more generous than we are, stretching and challenging the limits of our generosity, stretching and challenging the limits of our welcome, stretching and challenging and tearing down the limits we put on our love.
Eastern Orthodox: the beauty of worship
Let us stand in awe
Luke 5:1-11 (9/28/2014)
Peter saw enough, enough to fall on his knees. Do you see enough?
Lutheran: by faith alone
By faith alone
Philippians 3:4-11 (10/5/2014)
But what if you didn’t hold tightly? What if you counted anything and everything you might once have considered precious as mere garbage? What if you threw it all away? What if you had nothing left to protect? What if you had nothing left to be jealous of?
Presbyterian: decently and in order
Heart and mind
Philippians 4:1-9 (10/12/2014)
We need to learn to think clearly. We need to do Bible study. We need to be faithful students of the word so we can be faithful doers of the word.
Doesn’t that make sense? Or are we supposed to just make it up as we go along? Or just do it the way we’ve always done it because it is the way we’ve always done it?
Methodist: living a sanctified life
got soul?
Matthew 22:15-22 (10/19/2014)
Are you striving for holiness, for nothing less than entire holiness, to be as Christ is? Inside and outside? In being and in doing? And, if not, why not? Were you made for anything less? Were you made for anything less?
Assemblies of God: filled with the Spirit
Feeling it
Matthew 22:34-40 (10/26/2014)
Don’t be afraid of feeling it! Expressing feelings, releasing emotions, is your gift of love, of yourself, to God, but it also may well be the occasion of God’s gift of love to you. It may provide an emotional catharsis, an inner cleansing, an inner healing, letting go of things deep inside that need to be let go.
Baptist: no matter who you are
Finding your own way
Matthew 23:1-12 (11/2/2014)
Finding your own way is not going your own way. “Going” your own way means going wherever you choose to go! But “finding” your own way? Finding your way? Finding the way? The way is there, you just need to find it.
Episcopal: awe
For whether we live or whether we die
Psalm 90:1-12 (11/16/2014)
You are a dream, a daylily. Immortality is not your glory. Your glory is your mortality.
Loving our neighbors: celebrating our differences … and our unity
πληρωμα
Ephesians 1:15-23 (11/23/2014)
So may we learn from the Jews how to pray and from the Orthodox how to stand in awe in God’s presence, from Catholics how to live as servants of Christ and from Presbyterians how to think as servants of Christ, from Lutherans how to rely utterly on God’s grace and from Methodists how to strive for nothing less than complete holiness, from Missionary Baptists how to praise God with our whole selves and from Pentecostals how to ask God for what we need, from Baptists how to say “yes” to God when God is calling and from Episcopalians how to revel in the beauty that comes from God and that is God.