June 2021 – Wicomico Presbyterian Church

LISTEN

Acts 16:6-15 There is a picture, some abstract shapes all in black and white, with four tiny dots in the middle. And if you focus on the four dots for 30 seconds and then close your eyes, you will see Jesus. That’s what the instructions said, so I did it. And, sure enough, that is what happened. When I closed my eyes an image that I recognized as Jesus appeared before me. It’s an optical illusion. These are fun things to play around with. There are some that have two different images in them – like the one with an old witch and a young woman, or the one with the musician and the girl’s face. Usually you see one of them to start with, but to see the other image it is like your brain has to switch tracks to get a different perspective. I find that I need […]

RISK

Matthew 25:14-30 There is an argument in the church that is probably as old as the church. It is an argument about grace and works. We say that we are saved by the grace of God. And we say that faith in this grace is all we need. We don’t have to do anything to deserve God’s love and God’s saving grace. But, on the other hand, we have a lot of rules, a lot of expectations about how we should live and be in the world. We say that when we are living a life of faith we will receive the gifts of the Holy Spirit and we will begin to see the fruits of the Spirit in our lives. We say that God’s grace enables us to live such lives and bear such fruit. To become the kind of person about whom the master might say, “Well done, good […]

HOVER

Luke 4:1-13 So … what was going on right before Jesus began his public ministry? roaming through the countryside visiting the synagogues and proclaiming that he was the fulfillment of the good news? He was forty days in the wilderness, fasting. With the devil breathing down his neck. But why, though? He went into the wilderness directly after his baptism in the Jordan River – you remember, that moment when the heavens opened and the Holy Spirit descended on him like a dove. And, then, full of the Spirit, he was led into the wilderness. Alone. It is a surprising turn of events, really, because after he was baptized, and the Holy Spirit appeared and the voice from heaven spoke, you would expect some kind of action. Clearly, he was well-equipped to do something magnificent. The people who witnessed his baptism might have waited with expectation for what would happen […]

DREAMS

Luke 4:13-21 Note: This is part 1 of a six-week series using the movements of creativity from Troy Bronsink’s book Drawn In: A Creative Process for Artists, Activists, and Jesus Followers. In some Bibles, the words that Jesus said are printed in red to set them apart, to make them stand out. I don’t have a Bible like that. But, this past week, on a whim, I highlighted the words in quotation marks and changed them to red. Because what he said here was pretty huge. Of course, he didn’t make it up. He was reading from the prophet Isaiah, Chapter 61: The spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, because the LORD has anointed me; he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners; to proclaim the year of the […]