who's using whom?

Good afternoon friends,

First, there is a small but important meeting tonight for some folks in Urban Presbyterians Together, the Rochester church consortium we're most active in. We'll be thinking about how we can strengthen each other for ministry. Please keep this meeting in prayer for God's wisdom and creativity to shine through.

Our reading today is both a critique of the wealthy and powerful of Jerusalem and the beginning of a critique of the King of Assyria. God used the Assyrian Empire to punish Israel and Judah for their injustice. But the Assyrians didn't realize they were God's instrument, so they thought they were really in charge. God says Assyria isn't going to get off the hook either.

God bless,
Sam

Isaiah 10:1-11

10:1 Ah, you who make iniquitous decrees, who write oppressive statutes, ²to turn aside the needy from justice and to rob the poor of my people of their right, that widows may be your spoil, and that you may make the orphans your prey! ³What will you do on the day of punishment, in the calamity that will come from far away? To whom will you flee for help, and where will you leave your wealth, ⁴so as not to crouch among the prisoners or fall among the slain? For all this his anger has not turned away; his hand is stretched out still.

⁵Ah, Assyria, the rod of my anger— the club in their hands is my fury!⁶Against a godless nation I send him, and against the people of my wrath I command him, to take spoil and seize plunder, and to tread them down like the mire of the streets. ⁷But this is not what he intends, nor does he have this in mind; but it is in his heart to destroy, and to cut off nations not a few. ⁸For he says: “Are not my commanders all kings?⁹Is not Calno like Carchemish? Is not Hamath like Arpad? Is not Samaria like Damascus? ¹⁰As my hand has reached to the kingdoms of the idols whose images were greater than those of Jerusalem and Samaria,¹¹shall I not do to Jerusalem and her idols what I have done to Samaria and her images?” 

why?

Good afternoon friends,
Today's reading shows us Jesus' disciples asking an honest question. Who sinned, the man or his parents that he was born blind. We think that success and failure, illness and health are all connected to whether we're doing things right. The truth is sometimes we do everything wrong and things go well or we do everything right and things go badly. And when things go wrong, it's a great opportunity for us to help others. That's what we'll be digging into tomorrow in worship.
God bless,
Sam

John 9:1-7

As he walked along, he saw a man blind from birth. ²His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” ³Jesus answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him.

⁴We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming when no one can work. ⁵As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” ⁶When he had said this, he spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva and spread the mud on the man’s eyes, ⁷saying to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which means Sent). Then he went and washed and came back able to see.

exile

Good morning friends,
Today's reading is the follow up to Adam and Eve eating the forbidden fruit in the Garden. God sends them out of the Garden to make their own way in the world since they have chosen independence rather than continuing intimacy with God. The result is that we no longer stroll in the Garden with God and we have to work hard to make our living. We are dust, taken from the earth and returning to the earth at the end of our lives. Not only are we separated from God, we are also separated from each other: God talks about the man ruling over woman as he struggles for food. Authority, power, struggle with nature and more are the marks of our separation from God. Fortunately, God hates being separated from us, so God sent Jesus to bring us back home.

Blessings,
Sam

Genesis 3:14-24

¹⁴The Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, cursed are you among all animals and among all wild creatures; upon your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life. ¹⁵I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will strike your head, and you will strike his heel.”

¹⁶To the woman he said, “I will greatly increase your pangs in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children, yet your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.” ¹⁷And to the man he said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten of the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life; ¹⁸thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. ¹⁹By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

²⁰The man named his wife Eve, because she was the mother of all living. ²¹And the Lord God made garments of skins for the man and for his wife, and clothed them. ²²Then the Lord God said, “See, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil; and now, he might reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever”— ²³therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from which he was taken. ²⁴He drove out the man; and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim, and a sword flaming and turning to guard the way to the tree of life.