God Blog

Family Ties

noreply@blogger.com (Jack Buckley) — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 16:11:00 PDT

Psalm 133; John 11:1-6, 17, 32-36

"Look how beautiful it is," says the psalm, "when kindred live together in unity."

Anyone who's grown up in a good sized family knows that ain't always the case, either. "Mom, he hit me!" "If you don't stop that right now, I'm gonna stop this car and...." And don't forget the legendary Hatfields and McCoys, whose only unity seems to have been hating the other family for who knew what reason after a couple generations of feuding.

"Look," say the mourners at Lazarus's graveside, " see how much Jesus loved him."

Lazarus and his two sisters were like family to Jesus. Their home two miles outside Jerusalem seems to have been his usual hostel when he came to the holy city for one or another piece of Messiah business.

John 11 tells the story of Lazarus dying while Jesus cools his heels a day's journey away -- for two whole days as Lazarus's sickness gets worse and worse. When he finally does show up with his disciples in tow, each sister comes out of the house to ask him why in God's name he hadn't come sooner. "My brother would still be alive if only you'd been here," they say with one voice.

Jesus sees Mary start to cry. Then he sees the friends and neighbors do the same. And then, says John in the Bible's shortest verse, "Jesus wept."

[When I was about eight years old I was so encouraged to find out Jesus actually cried. It meant I could stop trying to be big and strong, too, and it was okay sometimes to just let go when I was afraid, sad, weak, or when -- on a rare occasion -- my big brother punched me.]

And then Jesus raised Brother Lazarus from the dead! Just like that.

Hugs and kisses followed, and not a little cheering I'll bet. Martha set a table and cooked up a mini-banquet to celebrate. And just imagine the table talk over that delightful dinner.

I preached this message on the Sunday our national Presbyterian church was beginning its General Assembly with a glorious worship meeting in San Jose, just 40 miles down the freeway from our church. Commissioners from all across America are working together there this week, trying to live up to the church's calling to be God's eyes and ears and hands and voice in the world all these centuries since Jesus walked the earth.

We Presbys disagree on many issues great and small, the stuff of banner headlines and some things nobody but us even knows about, let alone worries over. But we believe God has put us together in one big family of faith, for some good reason we can't help searching after with open hearts and open minds.

I'm going to spend the day at the GA tomorrow (Wednesday 6/25), watching and listening to the official proceedings, checking out the exhibits, networking with old familiar friends and hopefully some new ones. And I'll make a bee-line to greet Bruce Reyes-Chow, Pastor of San Francisco's Mission Bay Community Church and newly elected Moderator of the General Assembly. Bruce is an Internet shaman of sorts, blogging his way all over the digital map. And inspiring guys like me to keep on tapping this keyboard to my heart's content, hoping against hope I've got something good to say and I'll find some good way to say it.

God bless Brother Bruce!

Listen to the GODcast!

Love Has Its Reasons

noreply@blogger.com (Jack Buckley) — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 10:26:55 PDT

Deuteronomy 7:7-11; John 3:11-21

It was Father's Day. Appropriately, our scripture readers for the morning were Paul and his 7-year-old daughter Megan. He's a great public reader, with a refined English accent. She's a charmer, super soft-spoken with a sing-song cadence.

Megan predictably had the shorter passage (Deuteronomy 7:7-11). Even so, that text contained several polysllabic words -- to say nothing of a very serious warning for God's chosen people to make sure they memorize and practice all of God's holy commandments.

As pastor and preacher I should have been on top of these little details and their large consequences. But hey, that's what delegation's all about. In the end, though, I think everything worked out for the best.

Hearing that angelic little voice pronounce that warning was a big surprise to our congregation. Even more surprising was the promise, tucked into the warning, that God majors not in judgment but in love. To wit --

Why were the Israelites God's chosen people? Because God had made a promise long ago. Why did God make that promise? Because he wanted to. Why did God want to make and keep that promise? Because he loved his people. Why did God love those people? Because he wanted to.

Let's not repeat ourselves. I think you get the point.

Nothing in Israel, or in Moses, or Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, made God love them or choose them or promise them one single thing. No actual or potential goodness, wisdom, beauty, power, faith, or faithfulness. Nada. Zilch. Nothing.

John 3:16 says it this way: God gave the world his Son simply because God loves the world. God as Divine Lover was gospel truth in Moses' day. In Jesus' day. And today.

Blaise Pascal, the French mathematician, philosopher, and devout Christian, thought and thought and thought some more about all this. He finally came up with a maxim of universal appeal -- "Love has its reasons that reason cannot know."

That thought is my watchword for four Sundays' worth of sermons. Check out #1 now...

Listen to the GODcast!

Solid Rock or Shifting Sand?

noreply@blogger.com (Jack Buckley) — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 12:50:18 PDT

Psalm 31:1-5, 19-24; Matthew 7:21-29

Jesus' "Sermon on the Mount" (Matthew chapters 5-7) probably drives professors of preaching crazy. It hardly follows the old traditional 3-points-and-a-poem format. And yay for that! [To all profs who actually train preachers in contemporary communication skills -- Thank you, thank you!]

In fact it seems to have everything all backwards. For instance, he begins with the benediction.

God bless you, says Jesus, if you are poor... hungry... weary... weak... even persecuted....

There's your signal, right up front, that this is a new way of understanding God's ways -- from start to finish!

The sermon proceeds to challenge all sorts of typical assumptions about morality and affirmations of faith. Fidelity... chastity... murder... charity... prayer... good works of every kind... worry... fear.... In every case, the heart of the matter is this: Love God, love people... Serve God, serve people... Treat others the way you'd like to be treated yourself....

And then, finally -- lo and behold -- Jesus ends his sermon with a punch line. An invitation, an altar call, a real live "come to Jesus" moment.

In the form of a little real-life story: Two men build two houses... one on a rock foundation and the other on sand. Rains come, floods rise, winds beat both houses... Guess what happens next!

Listen to the GODcast!

Carefree Faith

noreply@blogger.com (Jack Buckley) — Fri, 30 May 2008 12:13:25 PDT

Psalm 131; Matthew 6:24-34

The bumper sticker says, "If you can keep your cool when people all around you are losing theirs, you obviously don't understand what's going on!" Wise words for worrisome times.

Right in the middle of his Sermon on the Mount -- his exposition of the core values of the Kingdom of God -- Jesus gives us the perfect antidote to worry. For the worst of times and the most humdrum of ordinary times.

Take a lesson, he says, from the birds of the air. Hmmm...

In the May 20, 2008 issue of The Christian Century, I found a beautiful meditation by Tom McGrath on that good advice. Here's what he said:

My wife and I have found a great remedy for those times when life seems overwhelmingly stressful, our worries mount, and our inner resources seem depleted. We consider the birds of the air.

Specifically, we pop in a DVD titled Winged Migration, Jacques Perrin's Oscar-nominated documentary that follows dozens of species of birds on their amazing migratory trek -- some covering more than 2,000 miles. On Friday nights or Sunday evenings when we are too spent to read but wary of the silly and gruesome fare on network television, we pull out this disk. As the opening credits roll, we may be anxious and worried about our lives. But within minutes we are mesmerized at the sight of gaggles of birds, large and small, elegant and comical, obeying the secret inner prompting that sets them to fly hundreds, even thousands of miles to serve the demands of life and survival. Perrin, working with five crews totaling 450 people, including 17 amazing cinematographers, makes you feel as though you're traveling with and among the flocks, close enough to see the determined looks on their faces and hear the relentless beating of their wings.

Know what? Wonderful as that is, all you really have to do is look out your window or sit on your deck a while. There's a robin doing the amazing worm trick. And here's a pair of mourning doves cooing away world without end. Oh look, a black crow ten times a dove's size is toe-dancing on that pine tree's topmost branch. And wow, catch the blur of that irridescent hummingbird's wings as he sucks a nasturtium almost dry.

And suddenly you realize that life has slowed down, your burden has lightened, your body and soul have relaxed. Because of birds.

That Jesus. Always way ahead of us.

Listen to the GODcast!

God of Good Surprises

noreply@blogger.com (Jack Buckley) — Tue, 27 May 2008 14:48:40 PDT

Psalm 8; Matthew 28:16-20

When Benjamin Braddock and Elaine Robinson jumped on the bus that wedding day back in 1967, they were exhilarated and filled with hope. After all, Ben had just rescued her from marrying the wrong man. Meaning -- the other guy. Now, all their way down that public transit aisle to the very last bench seat, they amused or puzzled or infuriated the other passengers. Who wouldn't wonder at them, she in her bridal gown, he all sweaty in khakis and a windbreaker jacket.

Then it happened. One or another Simon and Garfunkel song began playing as "The Graduate" came to its end. Ben and Elaine just sat there speechless, facing straight ahead, silently saying all that needed to be said, with shifting eyes and fleeting changes of expression. Thinking thoughts like...

"What in the world have we just done?"

"Who is this person next to me?"

"What will happen to us when we get to the end of the line?"

"How can I get off this [blessed] bus?!"

Not always so dramatically, life is filled with moments when you just have to step back, take a deep breath, and take stock of what's been going on. And what it might mean. And then, at last, what difference it really makes.

Yesterday was Trinity Sunday. A taking stock festival if there ever was one.

Unlike other liturgical red letter days, Trinity celebrates not an event or action in God's Plan Of Salvation, but a grand idea.

Consider... From the birth of Christ to the Wise Men's visit to Palm Sunday to the last supper to Calvary's cross to the empty tomb of Easter, all the way to Pentecost's 3-ring circus of Holy Spirit phenomena... It's one big event after another! You can't help visualizing how they happened, imagining what it felt like to be there when they happened.

And then comes Trinity. As if, exhilarated and amazed by all that's gone before, the church stepped back, breathed deep, and said, "Wow! Who'd have thought?"

What they thought so hard about was the surprising Doctrine of the Trinity. A word never found in even one verse of the Bible, by the way. But evidence, direct and otherwise, is scattered throughout the book.

The capper, of course, is Pentecost. All those dramatic manifestations of the Holy Spirit's presence and power -- gale force wind, flames of fire on the disciples' heads, and fervent speech in unknown languages. The upshot: 3,000 people became Christians in one day. Woo hoo and amen.

So, one week after Pentecost, we Christians pause to make some kind of sense of it. One God now revealed as three Persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Not three Gods. Not one God in three forms. Not --

Go figure.

And we do try to figure it out. Great minds go a bit mad now and then in the process. Lesser minds have tried simple analogies.

I remember Mom's 3 in 1 Oil, that she lubricated her sewing machine with when I was a kid. Aha, said my inner theologian, just like the Holy Trinity. Well, not quite, since those three oils were now blended into a whole new compound.

Some say we can take a lesson from water: one element that manifests its hydrogen/oxygen self sometimes as a liquid, other times a gas, yet again as a solid. Pretty cool, but not your Holy Trinity, whose three Persons are all God but always distinct and different from each other.

All things considered, my vote goes with the wag who warned against trying too hard to unscrew the Inscrutible!

Instead, I take delight in the many good surprises of God's grace tucked into this heady doctrine.

Take, for example, Jesus' last meeting with his disciples in Matthew 28:16-20. There he tells them -- and every disciple ever since -- to take his Good News into all the world, to teach people what he taught, and to baptize them in the (one) name of the (triune) Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

In that context he assures them that he owns all authority on earth and in heaven -- because he has perfectly done God's will here on earth just the way it's done in heaven. Then he guarantees to be their constant companion on the journey -- because the Holy Spirit will be with them, and that's as good as having Christ himself there.

He doesn't guarantee smooth pavement on every road, or safety from pirates, thieves, and various kinds of catastrophe. The first generation of Christians faced ostracism, Collosseum lions, and the headsman's ax. This year Trinity Sunday comes while hundreds of thousands die and nearly die in earthquakes, cyclones, floods, and stupid wars.

Thoughtful minds want to know: Where is God when these things happen? Why is God letting them happen? When will God stand up and do something?

Last week "Prince Caspian" opened in theaters, the second installment in Hollywood's new Chronicles of Narnia series. C. S. Lewis' seven adventure tales for children are allegories of Christian discipleship, of spiritual warfare in a world at odds with God. In them four English children are transported into an enchanted land, the rightful realm of the lion king Aslan, but now ruled by one or another wicked pretender. This time it's a king who has no regard for the beauties and purposes of God's creation -- things like, oh, human dignity and faithful stewardship and harmony among all of life's creatures. So the children have to fight alongside good Prince Caspian if Aslan's claim to all authority will ever be fulfilled. And fight they do, and finally they prevail. And then -- at last -- they take stock and come to understand the Big Idea behind everything they've struggled through together.

It's not coincidental that Lewis wrote the Narnia stories while World War II raged on. In a real and important way, he was doing the Trinity Sunday reflection thing. Spiritual struggle is not a sign of God's absence or indifference. It's evidence that God is right here with us in the midst of life's bad, even horrible, news. Reminding us why we're here, what we're to do, who we're to be, whose side we're to choose again and again and again. Reassuring us that God's good plan will surely be fulfilled, in large part by people like you and me remembering all of the above, and acting on it as faithfully as we know how to do. "And, lo, I am with you always, to the end of the age."

Wow! Who'd have thought?

Hallelujah For Hea Jung

noreply@blogger.com (Jack Buckley) — Wed, 14 May 2008 11:35:41 PDT

Our church family has been blessed this school year by Hea Jung Noh's leadership of our youth ministry. (She came our way last September immediately after finishing a chaplaincy internship at Alta Bates Medical Center in Berkeley, to work part-time here while finishing her Master of Divinity program at San Francisco Theological Seminary.)

Of course, Hea Jung has blessed the families of our high school students. Her ministry to the youth includes their parents and siblings. As she spent time one on one with this young person or that one, she made it a point to get to know their families as well. Moms and dads appreciate both her personal warmth and her professional skill. They trust her with their kids, and with themselves.

All of us have benefited from her good work with the youth. I've observed our young people growing stronger in their fellowship and in their sense of Christ's daily presence. Their long-standing enthusiasm for volunteer service has a new spiritual resonance. So I look forward all the more to this year's Vacation Bible School and our All-Church Retreat, which are both famous for the youth group's mentoring ministry to our children.

Hea Jung fit right in to their annual snow trip to Tahoe. Then she led them into a new mission trip as well. They worked for a week in post-Katrina construction ministry in New Orleans. Daily blog entries kept us posted on their prayer requests and praises throughout their stay. Their testimonies upon return helped renew our compassion for the hurricane's thousands of victims, 2 1/2 years after the devastating storm tore through their hometown.

I can't thank Hea Jung enough for her contribution to our church's life and work. But this is the season for us to say one last "thank you," for she will be leaving us on May 25. She's returning to her family home in Korea to assist her parents for a year before entering the Ph.D. program in Berkeley's Graduate Theological Union. We will miss her, and we will pray God's best blessing on her as she steps out to follow God's lead from here.

Hea Jung will be our preacher on Pentecost Sunday, May 11. A week later we will honor her at the coffee hour on Sunday, May 18. I hope you can join us for both of these very special events in our life together as God's church -- one congregation right here in little Alameda and one small part of Christ's Body spread all across God's good earth.

True Love Loves The Truth

noreply@blogger.com (Jack Buckley) — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 14:54:08 PDT

Psalm 66:8-20; John 14:15-21

Thinking about Jesus and his disciples at the dinner table on that last night they had together, in a borrowed upper room somewhere in Jerusalem, I remember a late night I had together with a dear friend I hadn't seen for a few years.

Mike Parker and I were at a national church conference on a midwestern college campus. At the end of a busy day, we joined several friends from seminary days for dinner and a lot of chatter -- gossip and jokes and some chewing of the theological fat. At the end of all that, Mike and I walked across campus to the dorm he was staying in. At the entrance door, we stood a while wrapping up our conversation. Or so we thought.

Instead, we ended up walking over to my dormitory, where we stood out front talking some more. Then we walked back to his dorm, then back to mine again, talking all the way.

It finally dawned on me -- We were like a couple at the end of a date! The fun and joy we were sharing was wrapped around our love for each other. And who wants to say a quick good-night to all of that?

Something like that was going on between Jesus and his men at the last supper in John 14...

Every minute counts, as if it were the last minute of them all. He says
"This is the end." But not yet! "Now is the time for..." But there's more! "Rise," he says, "let's be on our way."

And then come three more chapters of conversation! Finally, in John 18, the action picks up again.

Among all their conversation, all the theological themes Jesus unfolds one on top of another -- the heart of the matter turns out to be love. "Love me... Love God... Love each other."

Not warm fuzzy feelings. Not hot passion (which anyway runs hot and cold beyond our control). But God's kind of love, that chooses to do the loving thing regardless of how the lover presently feels about the beloved.

Jesus showed his men what he meant at that very meal. John 13 says the first thing he did as they settled down for dinner was to go around the table and wash each disciple's feet. You'd expect one of them, his apprentices, to assume the servant role towards him! But he did it as an act of loving respect -- and said they (we) should be willing to do the same kind of thing with the same motivation.

I wish my sermon had recorded well enough to post as this week's GODcast, but that's not the case. Argh and %$#^+*!

Lacking that, here's the prayer I read to bring the message home. It's from Robert James St. Clair's Prayers For People Like Me...

Help Us Do What You Require

Great God who made everything beyond our knowledge,
who is before the beginning and after the ending,
inspire in us new confidence
to create beyond our knowledge
and love beyond our limits.

Over the years we have become distressed
with those we could not love.
We could not be expected to forgive that relative;
or reasonably be expected to love that neighbor;
and no one with any sense could forgive
that alleged friend;
and as for that person who divorced us
(just up and abandoned us)
well, only God knows the anguish -- the torture.
How could I forgive and maintain my self-respect?

Lord, nothing less than the hand that planted
a thousand forests
and poured the seven seas can impart to our hearts
the impulse to love the unloved, the unloving,
and the unlovely --
a power beyond limits and foreign to reason.

Except, O Lord, we are convinced you love us,
will love us down through the ages to come,
until the seas become deserts and the forests
are no more.
Outlasting any bond will be the everlasting
covenant of life,
somewhere keeping as one the family of God.
Keep before our vision the victory over death
and the resurrection of Jesus,
an event to be lived, and relived, O God,
where friends and enemies meet,
where the alienated come together,
where those outside are drawn in,
and those who dislike themselves are invited back,
and people like us, bound with the cords of resentment,
may rendezvous, and find at the old cross
liberation at last.

May this be the week we inherit the earth,
and when the whole Gospel of Christ is entrusted to us.
Then, while you keep telling us what we can do,
we shall stop telling you what you cannot do.

Through Christ our risen Lord, Amen.

Heaven Here and Now

noreply@blogger.com (Jack Buckley) — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 11:52:51 PDT

Psalm 31:1-5,15-16; John 14:1-14

Well hey, this week has turned into one of those times you don't quite get done all that you've intended. Can you say "scramble"? Which doesn't much live up to Sunday's sermon title. Ah well...

Even so, the MP3 recording is all loaded up for your listening pleasure. And your spiritual nourishment, too, I'm hopin'.

Listen to the GODcast!

Secure In Any Season

noreply@blogger.com (Jack Buckley) — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 11:14:27 PDT

Psalm 23; John 10:1-10

Sometimes while driving to church on Sunday morning, I'll ask Joanne what she would say if this were her day to preach on my sermon text. Like a savvy trout or salmon, she'll sniff around that bait ever so briefly, then politely let it dangle right where I cast it.

This Sunday I changed it up a little, and she was the one to ask a question.

What I said, cruising along at more or less the speed limit, was, "Preparing this message I kept flashing back to the movie Brokeback Mountain, what with all the shepherd stuff in the 23rd Psalm and John 10."

To which she softly asked, "Hmmm, how are you going to preach on that?!"

I'm not sure just which scenes she had in mind.

The one I'd kept remembering was where the guy goes up the mountain at dawn to tend the sheep and finds a carcass all chewed up by wolves, who'd had their way with the flock while he'd stayed down by the river's edge all night, having his way with... Ooooh, so that's what she meant.

Well, faced with the challenge of alluding to Ang Lee's complex treatment of gay love, I took the easier route of retelling a corny old joke about a rascally boy and his dinnertime prayer. (Listen to the GODcast and you'll catch my drift.)

But seriously, folks... Those lovestruck Brokeback Mountain shepherds do illustrate Jesus' point in John 10:12 pretty well.

In that verse, Jesus talks about hired hands whose priorities are all about payday instead of the safety of the sheep. If they see a wolf, they run for their own lives. More often than not, they're probably up to their own entertainment and don't even see the wolves coming.

In stark contrast, Jesus is ready to lay down his own life to make sure God's "flock" are safe and secure. For he is The Good Shepherd. (Shades of Psalm 23's "The Lord is my Shepherd!" The Almighty and Everlasting God [trumpet fanfare] attends carefully to Israel's every need, just as a shepherd does for the sheep [gentle strings]. )

What a brash and bold thing to say, that he -- Jesus of Nazareth, a carpenter's son from the outback -- is (gasp) GOD! And he seems to have made a habit of making that claim.

While I could go on and on about biblical references to kings and priests and prophets, all of them called by God to be good shepherds for God's people -- I'll just cut to the chase and invite you to...

Listen to the GODcast!

Honest To God

noreply@blogger.com (Jack Buckley) — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 18:24:36 PDT

Psalm 16; John 20:19-31

No GODcast this week, due to recording difficulties. Again. Rats.

Meanwhile, I'm mulling over both the story I preached about on Sunday and a candid response I got in Monday morning's e-mail.

The story... "Doubting" Thomas, the disciple who politely insisted "Just give me the facts."

Twice he did that, according to the Gospel of John.

In chapter 14, at the "last supper," when Jesus waxed all theological... "I'm going away, to heaven. I'll come back and get you, so you can be there with me. You already know the way there." Thomas stopped him short with, "Lord, we don't know where you're going at all. So how could we possibly know the way to get there?" Good point. Jesus' answer is cryptic: "I am the way."He throws in the truth, and the life, for good measure. Under the circumstances, that was as clear as Mississippi mud.

In chapter 21, back in the same room where they'd shared that last meal with Jesus... Thomas shows up late and the other disciples tell him he's just missed Jesus. "No way! I won't believe that one unless I can see him for myself. In fact, I want to touch his wounds from the nails that fastened him to the cross!"

The story continues, one week later. Same room, same disciples, including Thomas on time this time. And then -- shazam -- same Jesus!

And he invites Thomas to do just what he'd demanded the chance to do. "Here. Touch the wounds in my hands. Put your hand in the spear wound in my side. If that's what it takes, I'm yours."

Jesus meets Thomas right where he is, just as he is, doubts and demands and all. He gives him exactly what he wants -- and needs.

We pause here for the other mull-able thing I'm mulling on... My Monday morning e-mail.

The woman and her husband have been worshiping with us lately. Fairly new to town, they're checking us out. Are we their kind of church? Should they look elsewhere? How and when will they know?

Her e-mail said she was moved by my observations about how different Jesus' handling of Thomas was from our own inclinations when faced with difficult people.

Among other things, I had said we tend to watch people carefully and wait for them to change to our liking... We test them, we judge them... If only they could be more outgoing, or patient, more grateful for God's sake, more cooperative, more nice. In short, if they would only be like us! Then it'd be so easy to welcome them with open arms.

The woman said that really got to her. "I thought about the church and how we might be waiting for the church to become what our previous church was to us, instead of being more accepting of the differences and opening ourselves to the possibility of making a difference in this congregation.... [T]hought provoking as well as personally helpful."

Then she suggested she and her husband would likely be sitting in on my next Seekers & Joiners workshop, to get acquainted and find out more about how we "do" church here.

Now friends, that's just the kind of stuff that can make a pastor's day. Especially a Monday.

What a Difference One Day Made

noreply@blogger.com (Jack Buckley) — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 16:16:01 PDT

Psalm 118:1-2,14-24; Matthew 28:1-10

Easter is the best day of the year. The best day of all days ever. So says our morning prayer on that festival day of Surprising Great Good News.

In a sense, though, every Sunday -- in the Christian tradition -- is a kind of Little Easter.

We worship on the first day of the week instead of the seventh exactly because it's the day the resurrection happened. The day of rich ripe promise that life, not death, is God's last word about the nature of things. "Jesus lives and so shall I," says the Reformation chorale. If you really believe that, you have to celebrate it as often as possible. At the top of each week ain't bad at all.

Actually, every waking morning -- whether Sunday, Tuesday, whatever -- is a Little Easter.

To all appearances, except the breathing part, your sleeping body lies in death until your eyes open up again. Your brain, unless it's dreaming coded messages from God or simply flushing away a day's worth of scattered impressions, might as well be dead. And then -- shazam, voila, and hallelujah -- comes the dawn and there you are: alive again. For better or for worse.

And even on the worst of days, we never quite quit believing it's really for the better.

The Episcopal Book of Common Prayer starts each new day by quoting 1 Peter 1:3 -- "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! By his great mercy we have been born anew to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead."

Then it teaches us to pray -- "Lord God, almighty and everlasting Father, you have brought us to this new day: Preserve us with your mighty power, that we may not fall into sin, nor be overcome by adversity; and in all we do, direct us to the fulfilling of your purpose; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen." That's resurrection life, one day at a time.

So... Here we are 4 days after the Biggest Sunday of the Year. And I'm just getting around to posting the sermon MP3. But, know what?

Happy Little Easter!

Listen to the GODcast!

From Triumph To Turmoil

noreply@blogger.com (Jack Buckley) — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 19:09:19 PDT

Psalm 118:1-2,19-29; Matthew 21:1-11

Jesus on a unicycle? You gotta be kidding!

Listen to the GODcast!

Harry Hears, That's Who!

noreply@blogger.com (Jack Buckley) — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 11:39:31 PDT

My grand-dog Harry went suddenly deaf on us a few weeks ago.

A visit to the vet's for some ear wax removal went south somehow. Not in the procedure, which worked just fine. But in the meds he had to take afterwards. Next morning, poor Harry was dazed and confused by the proverbial sound of silence that echoed inside his little head. (See my March 4 post for the whole story.)

Well, folks, God is good all the time -- even if a deaf dog never gets to hear again.

But I'm here to tell you our little Harry has his hearing back. Hallelujah and amen! It's nowhere near 100%, but good enough that he's his usual responsive loveable self again.

What a great relief I feel for Sharon and Victor, whose hearts were torn over their little guy's affliction. His recovery just now, at the top of Holy Week, has the feel of a mini-resurrection.

Thanks be to God.

How To Beat the Devil, Again

noreply@blogger.com (Jack Buckley) — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 11:28:14 PDT

Psalm 30; Matthew 26:36-46

I grew up in New Jersey. [We pause here for one cheap joke of your choice.]

In elementary school assemblies, we gleefully sang "My Garden State." The landmark in a little park two blocks from my house was a huge dark rock whose plaque said that George Washington and his troops once camped right there on their way to some other place more famous.

When I was a teenager the state opened a new toll road, landscaped much of the way with medians so wide they appeared to be meadows, even little forests now and again. Well, at least once you got south of the urban glut sprawling between Newark and Philadelphia.

One distinctive feature of the Garden State Parkway, then and now, was the spacing of its toll booths. Instead of picking up a ticket as you enter the freeway and paying as you exit, a driver pays small tolls here and there all along the journey. You leave one toll booth, quickly resume cruising speed, and sail merrily along. Just long enough that you almost forget about toll booths. And then, suddenly, wham! Here comes another toll booth just ahead! [Visualize Groundhog Day's interminable repitition, with no chance you'll ever "get it right" enough to stop the repitition.]

I think of this now because Sunday's sermon was about Jesus praying his heart out in the Garden of Gethsemane, just before Judas handed him over to some Roman soldiers with a bitter little kiss.

You might call that episode "the last temptation of Christ." Together with his initial forty days of temptation in the desert (Matthew 4:1-11), it sets the boundaries of our Lenten retracing of Jesus' journey towards his date with destiny in Jerusalem. This one last time, the Devil doesn't show up physically to work on Jesus. Instead, he's invisible there in the dark cold night, whispering, "You don't need to die, you know. There are better ways to get what you're after. Why go through all that suffering and shame when you really don't have to?!"

At least that's what I think was going on between the lines of Jesus' sweaty prayers that night. "If it's possible," he said three times to God, "let me live!"

How many other times, do you suppose, between that first round of temptations and this last assault on his willingness to do God's will, did Jesus have to say No to the Devil? Or to his own human nature, which, left to follow the line of least resistance, would lead him down a very crooked path?

I imagine Jesus' spiritual journey must have felt something like driving through the Garden State Parkway's pop-up toll booths. Stop and pay the price of temptation... Teach and heal and spend quality time with God... Attain a high level of grace and peace and joy... And then, wham! Repeat the process, world without end, amen.

I don't know. Maybe I just don't like that parkway the way I should.

But I do like the way Jesus handled this last temptation.

For one thing, it's a great example to you and me who, in our better moments, really do want to do what God wants us to do. Want to be who God wants us to be. Want to have a hand in God's will being done on earth as it is in heaven. Want to be like Jesus, and here we see how possible that really is. Because he's so much like us -- temptations and all.

More important, it's the great guarantee that you and I really can live like that. Because Jesus did, until the moment he died. For God, of course. For himself, yes. And for people like you and me, which is absolutely amazing! For once, in all of human history, somebody somewhere lived exactly the way God wants us all to live. The curse is broken. The price has been paid.

You may now resume cruising speed.

Listen to the GODcast!

Sinking Down Into Doubt

noreply@blogger.com (Jack Buckley) — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 17:44:15 PST

Isaiah 43:1-3; Matthew 14:22-33

Working my way towards Sunday's sermon, I got all-too-timely word that my grand-dog Harry had a serious new problem. It would have made a powerful preaching illustration, but I didn't know how to talk about it in public.

Let me explain.

The message focused on Jesus' miracle of walking on the water during a night-time storm on the Sea of Galilee, and pulling Peter out of the surging waves just in the nick of time.

Jesus had sent the disciples on ahead by boat after a long hard day doing what Messiahs do. Teaching, healing, and feeding 5,000 people with a few loaves of bread and a couple of fishes. He stayed behind to pray by himself a while, then he headed out to meet the boat the hard way -- by walking on the water!

When the disciples recognized him Peter called out, "Lord, if that's really you, let me walk out there and meet you partway!" And that's what Jesus did.

Peter couldn't believe what he was doing. Defying the law of gravity, for God's sake! And by God's power. In fact, he stopped believing it.... He felt the force of the wind, stared at the waves, and thought, "Wait a minute. I can't do this! Nobody can walk on water."

And he began to sink.

Then he prayed the world's most effective, eloquent prayer -- "Lord, save me!" Which Jesus did, right then and there.

So, the point was: No matter how stormy life gets, Jesus will always show up to help you through.

Now, that idea got started way before Jesus ever came on the scene. It's there in Sunday's other Bible passage, too. Isaiah 43 assures the people of Judah, exiled far from home in Babylon, that God will always be with them -- even when their path leads through the hottest fires and the deepest floods. Come hell or high water, so to speak, God will always show up to help them.

Okay. But what about Sharon and Victor's terrier Harry?

If you've been reading my blog, you'll remember that my daughter Sharon and her husband Victor Hernandez experienced two tragic losses in 2007. (See my December 31 post.)

In August, Sharon suffered a miscarriage at the 5-month point of gestation. They'd wanted so much to have a child, but now their hopes and dreams lay shattered. Then, 2 days after Christmas, their 20-year-old dog Pepper was euthanized, releasing her from a host of sicknesses. But extending Victor and Sharon's season of suffering by much too much.

And now, just a few days before I would preach on life's storms and Christ's saving presence, Harry suddenly went deaf. It had to do somehow with a routine ear-cleaning at the vet's office. Maybe it was the medication prescribed to follow up the procedure? Whatever, and why ever, my grand-dog couldn't hear anymore! And now, days later, he still can't hear a thing.

How confused and frightened he must be. How worried and angry his mom and dad are. How very very sad I am.

All of us know the Lord is here, strong and wise and kind to help. Come hell or high water, so to speak, God in Christ knows exactly what we're going through and goes through it with us. Every step of the way. All the way.

Even so, it still hurts. Like hell and high water.

I'm tempted to ask God right now, "How much do my kids have to suffer? In such quick succession? And what's next?" Tempted nothing. I am asking it.

There. That felt good.

The answer I hear is very unspecific. But good enough to sustain us for now -- Sharon, Victor, my wife and me, and Harry too, if dogs understand the Bible....

On that dark and stormy night Jesus told Peter and his pals, "Don't be afraid. It's me. I'm here with you." And when Peter reached out for help, Jesus picked him up and got him back in the boat. The wind died down, and the sea was as smooth as glass again.

So we won't be afraid (for long, or only). We look and listen for signs that Christ is with us. To know our stormy problems... To experience them with us... To give us just the help we need... Just the way we need it... Just when we need it most.

God knows, I want that to mean our little Harry will hear again.

Listen to the GODcast!

If Jesus Came to Your House

noreply@blogger.com (Jack Buckley) — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 21:12:17 PST

Genesis 18:1-15; Luke 10:38-42

It doesn't take many pre-wedding counseling sessions for ministers to realize that, no matter how much we talk about marriage, the almost bride and groom are always thinking wedding.

Even so, I use most of our 3 or 4 meetings before the rehearsal to brief with them on the predictable pressure points of married life.

Instead of imposing a curriculum or strict agenda, I ask them to do a simple exercise between our first and second meetings.

"Visualize," I say, "the various rooms of the home you'll share as husband and wife. Each one has powerful symbolic value about some of life's big questions about values, priorities, relationships."

So, the bedroom speaks of intimacy and family planning.

The bathroom's where you take care of your physical grooming and well-being.

The kitchen conjures up chores and your food preferences and values.

The living room welcomes friends and relatives into your life together and challenges your openness to relationships beyond your selves.

And then there's the closet, a place for privacy and maybe even secrets. Can you live with secrets?

Which reminds me... The house Joanne and I live in sometimes gets kind of cluttered. When guests are coming, our hospitality default is simply to gather up the mess, stash it in our bedroom, and make sure nobody gets anywhere near that shut door for the duration! Talk about your private little secrets.

Now, what if you knew that the next visitor to your home would be Jesus? Not just to your cute little craftsman bungalow. But in your metaphorical house, the architectural icon of your whole life.

How would you answer his knock at your door?

Listen to the GODcast!

The Journey of Faith

noreply@blogger.com (Jack Buckley) — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 16:25:16 PST

Exodus 33:12-16; Philippians 3:7-14

The newspaper article told about a patient in the emergency room who'd been injured in the act of burglarizing a private home. Not just injured, more like mangled here and there. His story, as reported by the police, was...

Rummaging through the dark living room, he heard a voice say, "Jesus is watching."

Stunned, he stood stock still. Nothing. So he continued his search for something worth stealing.

Again, "Jesus is watching."

"Who's there?" Nothing.

A third time, "Jesus is watching."

Wheeling around toward the voice, he turned on his flashlight, and there sat a parrot blinking calmly in his direction.

"Was that you?" he asked, not very sensibly. But still. "What's your name?" he demanded.

"John the Baptist," came the answer.

"John the -- What idiot would name a parrot John the Baptist?"

The parrot waited a beat, then said, "The same guy who names his rottweiler Jesus!"

Well, friends, the good news is that the real Jesus is not just watching you wherever you are and whatever you're up to. In fact, Jesus is watching out for you. Wherever you are, whatever you're doing, by the Holy Spirit's power he's right there with you.

And for you, with all of his wisdom, power, and kindness ever ready to do exactly what you need -- just when you need it most.

Listen to the GODcast!

How To Beat the Devil

noreply@blogger.com (Jack Buckley) — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 17:45:13 PST

Genesis 3:1-7; Matthew 4:1-11

Jesus as Scoutmaster... I never ever conceived that mental image before this Sunday's sermon. But there it came to me, all of a sudden, while I thrashed about for a hook to hold the interest of our Scout Sunday guests from Troop 2.

Our church has sponsored the troop for 91 years now. I've got to say, some of the older scouts can hardly tie a knot anymore. And just forget about long hiking trips. At that age they're lucky to climb a flight of stairs.

But seriously, folks... We're proud as can be that Troop 2 has been in business all that time, and that our church has invested so fully in that business of shaping boys into men of deep character with sharp leadership skills. In the 14 years I've been pastor here, about a dozen of the troop's young men have achieved the rank of Eagle Scout. This year 5 boys from our church family are active in the troop, and each of them had a leading part in Sunday morning's program.

But, back to Jesus as Scoutmaster... How did I ever get that idea from Matthew's story of Jesus locked in a spiritual smack-down match with the Devil out there in the desert?

Listen to the GODcast!

Seeing the Invisible

noreply@blogger.com (Jack Buckley) — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 18:00:34 PST

Exodus 24:12-18; Matthew 4:1-11

My men's group was reading Robert A. Johnson's He, a study of the masculine psyche as a "hero's journey." Johnson unfolded the archetype by retelling the legend of Parsifal's quest for the Holy Grail.

Parsifal starts out as a callow youth, brave and adventurous, but lacking in sufficient life experience to recognize all the cues and clues strewn along his heroic path.

At one point he comes upon the Grail castle, home of the wounded Fisher King. But he doesn't recognize the king or the castle and he stumbles through their rituals that night, never knowing how close he is to achieving the goal of his quest. Next morning, he saddles up and rides off wondering if last night's events had all been just a dream.

Johnson interprets the situation this way:

The most important event of one's inner life is portrayed.... Every youth blunders his way into the Grail castle sometime around age fifteen or sixteen and has a vision that shapes much of the rest of his life....

Most men can remember a magic half hour sometime in their youth when the whole world glowed and showed a beauty not easily described. Perhaps it is a sunrise, a glorious moment on the playing field, a solitary time during a hike when one turns a corner and the whole splendor of the inner world opens for one. No youth can cope with this opening of the heavens for him and most set it aside but do not forget it. Others find it so disturbing that they dismiss it and play as if it had never happened.

Right there, I stopped reading. I laid down the book and stared off into a memory I'd completely forgotten for forty years!

One morning in my teenaged years I woke up with the rising of the sun. Everyone else in the house was asleep. I silently got dressed and went outside to see what I would see. Our "house" was a brick apartment building, with a wide stretch of concrete from doorsill to curbside, on the busiest street in our part of Newark, NJ.

But next-door were two huge lots that might as well have been in a ritzy suburb. On each lot a grand old mansion sat at the back of an expansive lawn. I sat by the driveway of the nearer estate, taking in the early morning scene.

The lawns seemed a huge green park... Birds chirped and twittered like nature's chancel choir... Did I watch a wiggly worm, a pretty little ladybug, a busy line of ants going about their work with a joy akin to Snow White's dwarves?

Whatever, that half an hour or so was a Transfiguration moment without the shining Christ. I was beholding the hidden glory of my mundane little corner of the world, as if the Holy City had descended on a cloud accompanied by the Robert Shaw Chorale's rendition of the Hallelujah Chorus.

I finally stood up, went back inside, got in bed, and took a little nap. When time to get back up arrived, I kept my secret to myself and went about the day as if none of it had ever happened. And then I forgot about it until well into my second or third midlife crisis.

How fortunate we are that Peter, James, and John absolutely refused to forget their Transfiguration moment, complete with a shining Christ at the center of it all.

Listen to the GODcast!

Give The World Your Best

noreply@blogger.com (Jack Buckley) — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 11:33:45 PST

Isaiah 9:1-4; Matthew 4:12-23

Frederick Buechner wrote a whimsical theological alphabet back in the 1970s. A sort of sanctified Devil's Dictionary (Ambrose Bierce's 1911 skeptical take on American mores), Wishful Thinking begins with Abraham and ends with Zaccheus. Stop off at V and you find Vocation, the high class word for one's career, or calling.

What Buechner has to say there ties in just right with our Gospel story for last Sunday -- Where Jesus called four fishermen to drop their nets, tie up their boats, sell their business, and become "fishers for people" instead. I love Christ's generous kindness in the way he called them to discipleship. He spoke of spiritual things in the most practical understandable words, inviting these guys to do God's work as if it was the job they knew inside out and were especially good at doing.

And that's exactly the way he calls you and me today. If we're willing to listen in the first place.

I'll let Brother Freddy B. take it from here...

There are all different kinds of voices calling you to all different kinds of work, and the problem is to find out which is the voice of God rather than of Society, say, or the Superego, or Self-Interest.

By and large, a good rule for finding out is this. The kind of work God usually calls you to is the kind of work (a) that you need most to do and (b) that the world most needs to have done. If you really get a kick out of your work, you've presumably met requirement (a), but if your work is writing TV deoderant commercials, the chances are you've missed requirement (b). On the other hand, if your work is being a doctor in a leper colony, you have probably met requirement (b), but if most of the time you're bored and depressed by it, the chances are you have not only bypassed (a) but probably aren't helping your patients much either.

Neither the hair shirt nor the soft berth will do. The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet.

Listen to the GODcast!

Get In Step With Jesus

noreply@blogger.com (Jack Buckley) — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 17:15:50 PST

Isaiah 49:1-7; John 1:29-42

For all the headline news he'd been making, and his popularity with the hometown crowds, John the Baptist knew the day would come for him to fade into the background. That day arrived when Jesus stepped in line to be baptized.

The Gospel of John (no relation to J the B) tells the story this way...

John (the B) saw Jesus walking by soon after the baptism and pointed his disciples in Jesus' direction. "There he is, boys! Go, follow his lead from now on. I've done what God sent me to do. Now it's his turn."

Two of them did just what John said. Shy maybe, definitely unsure what would happen next, they stayed a safe distance behind Jesus.

Until he stopped, turned their way, looked them in the eye and asked, "What are you looking for?"

Truth be told, that's the question he puts to every one of us when we start to take him seriously.

What were you looking for when you made those resolutions at the top of this new year? How did you want your life to really be different from that day forward?

What are you looking for when you sit straight up in bed at 3:00 a.m.? A new idea about solving an old problem? Forgiveness for a sin you thought you'd forgotten for good? Strength beyond your self, to do the right thing when morning comes?

What do you suppose those two guys said in answer to Jesus' stunning question? And where did he lead them from there?

Listen to the GODcast!

With God On Your Side

noreply@blogger.com (Jack Buckley) — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 10:47:10 PST

Isaiah 42:1-9; Matthew 3:13-17

Read the story of Jesus' baptism by John and you get the sense God just loves to shake up the status quo.

I mean, John the Baptist was a wild and wooly prophet, warning everyone about judgment just around the corner. He talks about axes and torches and bonfires. "Turn back to God!" he cries. "Let go of your sins, open your hands and hearts to God!"

And be baptized to show you really mean it.

Baptism. Some water on your skin to symbolize the washing of your soul. We're talking sin and salvation.

Now, John himself shakes up the status quo. But then there's Jesus.

When he shows up to be baptized, John doesn't know what to do. For he knows this guy. They're cousins. And he knows the family folklore, about angels and shepherds and wise men all celebrating Jesus as God's gift to the world. Perfect in every way. Sinless, you might as well say.

So he protests, "You should be baptizing me! I'm the sinner here."

And Jesus shakes things up all the more by saying, "Don't worry, bro. This is exactly the right thing to do. It's just what God wants." [Translation: "I need your ritual bath. I need to have my non-existent sins symbolically washed away, just like you did for those guys in front of me."]

Now, how in the world does that compute?

Listen to the GODcast!

Let There Be Light

noreply@blogger.com (Jack Buckley) — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 16:50:45 PST

Isaiah 60:1-6; Matthew 2:1-12

At last!

Through the long cold dark month of December, we watched and waited for Christmas. Week 1 of Advent, then 2, and 3, finally 4. And then came Christmas, right on schedule, filled to overflowing with angel songs and glorious heavenly light.

Then the countdown began again. Day 2 of Christmas, then 3 and 4 and 5, all the way to 12. (I know you're singing inside your head right now, about calling birds, lords a-leaping, and a partridge in a pear tree. Who can resist?)

Then, this Sunday, at last... The Wise Men entered the scene.

Three of them? So tradition says, though Matthew doesn't bother counting. But they do bear three precious gifts for the newborn King of the Jews.

Three kings? Matthew calls them "magi," a term used for the priests of Persia. Advisors to the king, they were. And guardians of all the Persian sacrifices. Scholars, too -- philosophy, medicine, science, and astrology. They could read omens and destinies in the night-time sky. And one star told them a miracle baby was being born way over there someplace.

So off they went on a pilgrimage to God only knew where. And they trusted God to lead them right.

The story Matthew tells is full of surprises, if you read it carefully. For instance...

King Herod and all Jerusalem were caught off-guard when the magi showed up asking about a newborn prince. "Why wasn't I told?!"

The magi thought for sure that a royal baby would be born in a royal palace. "You'll find no babies nursing inside these satin sheets."

The religious leaders showed not a bit of interest or even curiosity about prophecy being fulfilled just a few miles down the road. "Ho hum. So much for tradition."

Last, but far from least -- Matthew's "most Jewish of all the Gospels" is the one that brings Gentiles into the Christmas story. Instead of foreign idolaters and all-around religious bad guys, he gives us humble seekers after God's eternal light.

And they see it for all it's worth, not in the miracle star so much as in the miracle baby, Jesus.

Listen, folks... Wise men and women still search carefully to discern God's eternal light, and, once they find enough rays of it, will risk everything to follow wherever it might lead them. And, if Matthew's story is even halfway true, that light of all lights will bring you face to face with Jesus.

Listen to the GODcast!

We Interrupt This Blogcast

noreply@blogger.com (Jack Buckley) — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 14:21:22 PST

It's been two weeks and counting since I last checked in with you all, even by podcast. Argh...

Of course this is the busiest season of the whole church year. And what good and pleasant busy-ness it's been! Including: a Sunday morning Christmas pageant; a Sunday night sing-along; a busride all across town one evening to sing carols for shut-ins; Three Wednesdays' worth of "Handel's Messiah and the Bible"; and -- at last! -- Christmas Eve's full-house gathering for lessons, carols, and candles. Yay God!

I apologize for the interruptions to our electronic conversation this month. I have 2 credible excuses...

1. Proverbial technical failures have beset our sound volunteers Sunday after Sunday. Argh again.

2. Family preoccupations have been biting into my concentration on more general commitments. I'll explain.

We Buckleys, plus a few of the Hernandezes, plus 5 count 'em 5 dogs, spent a weekend at The Sea Ranch. TSR is a huge rustic resort on the Sonoma County coast, featuring an ocean view from every house, and sufficient open space between houses for quiet privacy. Pure bliss by careful, subtle design. Joanne and I woke one morning to see half a dozen deer grazing in your backyard. Our sudden presence didn't faze them in the slightest. After all, we were weekend guests; they owned the place!

But our short sojourn there, at that particular time, was bittersweet. Mixed in with the beautiful setting, some gourmet meals, and a lot of relaxed being with each other... We had gathered to honor the memory of Jonathan Buckley Hernandez. That's the name Sharon and Victor gave their unborn baby who died during labor last August. At 5 months, he weighed just 1 pound, 1 ounce. The little guy was diagnosed in the womb with a host of physical problems which, had he survived, would have made his life extremely difficult. Our Sea Ranch Saturday, December 8, would have been his due date. So we spent some time that morning talking, praying, hugging, and grieving my daughter and son-in-law's loss. In a setting so serene and wildly gorgeous it feels like a little corner of God's Heaven.

With us that weekend was Victor's family dog Pepper. A black Lab, now gone gray, she was 20 years old! She was gimpy and leaky, and now suffered frequent siezures as well. Victor and his mom took turns all weekend lightly lifting her core with a bedsheet so she could take short walks and do her business. Watching that procedure (mostly the short walks part), I felt such a sadness for all three of them and simultaneously great respect for their mutual devotion.

Two days after Christmas, though, Sharon and Victor made the painful decision to have Pepper euthanized. Joanne and I joined them at the Point Isabel dog park, on El Cerrito's bay shore. There, waiting for the veterinarian to arrive, Sharon lay with Pepper by the open rear door of a borrowed minivan. Like two spoons they were, Sharon leaning up a bit to stroke Pepper's twitching head or rub her shoulder and side. Their view through the doorway took in the expanse of San Francisco Bay with the Golden Gate Bridge centered on the horizon. At last, the vet drove up, spoke briefly with Sharon and Victor, and administered the required shots to poor old Pepper. Joanne and I watched the whole procedure, which lasted about 5 minutes. Our sadness lightened a bit when the vet (who looked all of 23) stood up silently with one single tear running down her cheek. So humane, so in touch and deeply touching, in her tender loving care.

I hope you will forgive an aging father's self-indulgence here, briefly lowering his heart and mind into sorrow's warm sweet waters. My kids have suffered two great losses this year. Their faith and love, for God and for each other, sustains them even while they grieve. My faith and love, for God and for each of them, believes their present and future blessings will outweigh by far these and all misfortunes.

And so I pray for Sharon and Victor, for each of you, and for all of us together: A happy, blessed new year touched each new day with the grace and peace of God!

Here's a promise we can trust and live by in 2008:

For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord,
plans for your welfare and not for harm,
to give you a future with hope.
(Jeremiah 29:11)

Gift Giving

noreply@blogger.com (Jack Buckley) — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 13:41:44 PST

Isaiah 11:1-10; Matthew 2:9-11

I was out of town this Sunday on a special retreat with our family. We huddled up together at The Sea Ranch, a beautiful rustic resort on the Sonoma County coast. Ten humans, five dogs, four home-made gourmet meals, a whole lot of love in the air. A blessed respite, a sanctuary for both body and soul.

In my absence, our youth ministry leader Hea Jung Noh brought the message from God's Word. Not only have I heard rave reviews of her poise and power in telling the gospel truth -- I've also been asked if I couldn't go out of town more often.

Listen to the GODcast!