putting on Christ

Good evening friends,
Today's reading reminds us that when we become Christian it means finding our identity in Jesus and rejecting those parts of our old identity that are opposed to God's kingdom. That means taking off the prejudice, selfishness and consumer identity the world encourages us to wear and putting on the love, openness and justice Jesus stood for. It also means putting forgiveness at the heart of our relationships with others. Jesus forgave us, so we forgive others; seeking love in all that we do. Letting our faith transform us can be hard because the world keeps bombarding us with contrary messages, but if we allow God to do so, the Spirit will work inside us to make us new in Christ.

God bless,
Sam

Colossians 3:8-17

⁸But now you must get rid of all such things—anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive language from your mouth. ⁹Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have stripped off the old self with its practices ¹⁰and have clothed yourselves with the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge according to the image of its creator. ¹¹In that renewal there is no longer Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free; but Christ is all and in all!

¹²As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. ¹³Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. ¹⁴Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. ¹⁵And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in the one body. And be thankful. ¹⁶Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly; teach and admonish one another in all wisdom; and with gratitude in your hearts sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God. ¹⁷And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

journey into Samaria

Good morning friends,
We dug into this story some on Sunday. Jesus is traveling through Samaria. The woman puts the division between Jews and Samaritans on the table right away. For much of Israel's history the nation was divided into a southern kingdom, Judah, whose capital was Jerusalem, and a northern kingdom, Israel, whose capital was Samaria. In 722 BC the northern kingdom was defeated by the Assyrian Empire and its people were taken into exile. The land was resettled with people from all over the empire. In an interesting twist, God sent wild animals to threaten and kill some of the new inhabitants, so the Assyrians sent back a few priests to teach the way to worship God. The people then worshiped the Lord, but also kept up their other observances.

With that history and the resulting jealousy, Jews thought of Samaritans as intruders in their land and as impostors in the faith. Jesus tells lots of stories about Samaritans because they were the hated minority in his culture. Jews looked down on them, and yet here is Jesus starting a relationship and offering living water. May we have the courage to do the same.

God bless,
Sam

John 4:5-15

5So he came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph.6Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon.

7A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” 8(His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) 9The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?” (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.)


10Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” 11The woman said to him, “Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? 12Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?” 13Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.” 15The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.”