Our Life with Jesus 20-21

  --Sabbath is a radical practice. -- Our Worship liturgy is a daring act of imagination. --It manifests our belief in God who is doing "hands-on work"  to make new human futures. --Worship is resistance  to the dominant, life-flattening order. --in Sabbath Worship we explore the experience of covenant community:    (a)   we celebrate a God-ordered life, and (b) we engage in the practice of hope in the face of the world's hopelessness.  -- We celebrate a world that is fruitful and generative, rather than use-ful. -- We embrace God's themes of wholeness and completion in a world that can be half-baked and distorted. --We  are rooted in the peace of Jesus (an antidote to anxiety). --The fabric of our lives depends on fidelity, not "productivity." Liturgy is way of imagining the world differently and acting according to that imagination. (thanks to Walter Brueggemann)

  "And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness.  He was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts, and the angels waited on him."  --Mark 1:12-13 In the wake of the story of Jesus's baptism are the two verses above.  Before he can begin his ministry, Jesus is driven by the Spirit of God into the wilderness for forty days, where he is tempted to compromise his identify and purpose, and to misuse his gifts.  While the passages in Mark are brief, both Matthew's gospel (Matthew 4:1-11) and Luke's gospel (Luke 4:1-13) give much more detailed stories that include the nature of the temptations that Jesus faces.  Take time to read them carefully and reflect on them.  He responds to each temptation by rooting himself more deeply in God's Word and God's will.   How do you think that happens in our lives?  What are some of the decisions that we  make in life that clarify our identity as a Child of God and a disci

  "In those days Jesus came from Nazareth and was baptized by John in the Jordan.  And just as he was coming up out of water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him.  And a voice came from heaven, "You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased." --Mark 1:9-11 This week we considered the story of Jesus' baptism.  We noted that it was a momentous decision that Jesus was making, leaving Nazareth for the long journey to the Jordan , a passage similar to the one that Mary and Joseph made to Bethlehem three decades before.  Jesus joins the large crowds of people being baptized by John.  His life was taking a powerful turn.  Though he eventually would come back to Galilee, he would return different than he had  left, and his life would embody new mission.   Eighteen years have passed since the twelve-year-old Jesus  sat with the teachers in the Temple.  What has he been doing since them?  Perhaps he worked with Joseph in the car

  "And Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature, and in divine and human favor."  --Luke 2:52 Tucked at the end of second chapter of Luke's gospel , extending from the story of Jesus' birth, is the one account we have of Jesus growing from a child into an adult.  He is twelve years old and accompanies his family on the yearly pilgrimage to Jerusalem for the festival of the Passover, the celebration of the Exodus journey of salvation.  The people remembered when God released God's people from slavery to the Egyptians, so that they would be free to follow God's path to the Promised Land and live fully in God's ways. Celebrating Passover was a core expression of their faith. Take time to read and reflect on Luke 2:41-52. At age 12, Jesus is at the cusp of adulthood in that culture.  This would be a time for him to take on his own faith promises and responsibilities, to become an adult in the faith, not unlike our Confirmands.  When Jesus' family heads bac