July 28–August 1 , 2008 | August 4–8, 2008


Monday, July 28, 2008
Scripture Reading: Luke 12:41–43, 48
Peter said, “Lord, are you telling this parable for us or for everyone?” And the Lord said, “Who then is the faithful and prudent manager whom his master will put in charge of his slaves, to give them their allowance of food at the proper time? Blessed is that slave whom his master will find at work when he arrives.

“But the one who did not know and did what deserved a beating will receive a light beating. From everyone to whom much has been given, much will be required; and from the one to whom much has been entrusted, even more will be demanded.” (NRSV)

Reflection
Wealth. Possessions. Prosperity. We get many messages about them from scripture, from theologians and evangelists, and from our capitalist society. Unfortunately, they aren’t always the right messages.

God’s gospel isn’t about getting things. In fact, in the passage we read today, the fact that in this life some of us do get money and wealth may indeed not be the good news for the day but the bad news. Of such people much is expected, including responsibility.

Christ came to set us free from that which imprisons and oppresses people. That comes in many shapes and fashions, but often it centers on wealth: greed, control, dominance, scarcity, envy. So when we find ourselves in the category of wealthy and powerful, we’d better be paying attention. We’d best be paying attention to those things that oppress others and giving our best to rid our society, our world, and ourselves of them. That, my friends, is the gospel, and that is our best life now.

Ours is not to expect others to go out of their way to help us. Ours is to expect ourselves to go out of our way to help others. That’s what we should expect, and that’s exactly what Christ expects of us: our best life now.

Prayer
God of justice, remind me today that you don’t bring material wealth to peoples’ lives to reward them or make their lives better. Instead, instill in me a sense of responsibility that if I have abundance, it is my responsibility to use it to change structures of power and oppression and to lift up friend and neighbor pushed down by the burdens of scarcity in life. All to your glory and honor. Amen.

Written by Dana Ferguson, Executive Associate Pastor
dferguson@fourthchurch.org

 

Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Scripture Reading: Luke 13:6–9
Then he told this parable: “A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came looking for fruit on it and found none. So he said to the gardener, ‘See here! For three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and still I find none. Cut it down! Why should it be wasting the soil?’ He replied, ‘Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig around it and put manure on it. If it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.’” (NRSV)

Reflection
If there is wideness in God’s mercy, as a hymn suggests, there is also harshness. Jesus was a realist when it came to human nature and the sometimes-harsh consequences of decisions we make and actions we take.

The stewardship of life requires that we be faithful in being whom we have been created to be: persons made in God’s image. A fig tree was made to produce figs. As persons made in God’s image, we are called to reflect that image of love and compassion in our lives as best we can. A poem I heard in my youth put it this way:

     You are painting a portrait of God every day
     By the deeds that you do and the words that you say.
     People witness that portrait, whether false or true.
     What is the portrait of God as painted by you?

In the parable of the barren fig tree, Jesus sets forth the gospel of another chance and the threat of the last chance. Knowing that our attempts at portrait painting are often crude and distorted, God is infinitely patient with us and keeps giving us another chance to get it right. Yet we dare not presume on God’s patience, lest we forfeit our relationship to God, even though God’s relationship to us remains intact. When God seems far away, we may want to ask ourselves, “Who moved?”

The peril of fruitlessness is its threat that another chance may be the last chance.

Prayer
Thank you, dear God, for giving me many other chances when I mess up my attempts to portray you, and continue to teach me how to be a better artist. Amen.

Written by John H. Boyle, Parish Associate

 

Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Scripture Reading: Luke 14:7–14
When he noticed how the guests chose the places of honor, he told them a parable. “When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet, do not sit down at the place of honor, in case someone more distinguished than you has been invited by your host; and the host who invited both of you may come and say to you, ‘Give this person your place,’ and then in disgrace you would start to take the lowest place. But when you are invited, go and sit down at the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he may say to you, ‘Friend, move up higher’; then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at the table with you. For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

He said also to the one who had invited him, “When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.” (NRSV)

Reflection
Today’s text seems a bit strange, in part because we are generally not familiar with the strict adherence to the custom of reciprocity common in first-century Mediterranean culture. In Jesus’ time, an invitation to a banquet required the guest to invite the host in return or suffer social embarrassment. Thus, the only way to avoid indebtedness—and “buying into” a culture of exclusion—was to invite those who could not reciprocate!

You may not wish to invite strangers to your next banquet. But Jesus’ admonition to sit at table with the least, the lost, and the lonely is still in force. This is what motivated Dr. Elam Davies to create the Social Service Center, now named for him, at Fourth Presbyterian Church. The work that he began opens the door for you to heed Jesus’ call in 2008: to serve or sit “at the table” with those who are homeless or cannot afford food due to the high cost of their rent.

Luke’s story offers up the opportunity to respond to God’s grace by serving or dining with those who may not even own tables, much less sponsor banquets: Sunday Night Supper is a tradition every Sunday evening at Fourth Church. On Monday evenings, Fourth Church Deacons sponsor a supper at Catholic Charities and every fourth Friday Fourth Church joins ecumenical partners in serving another evening meal there.

The good news is this, the gift promised in return by God’s Son still holds: “You will be repaid at the resurrection of righteousness!”

Prayer
Lord, give me the courage to see you in every stranger and to welcome the least, the lost, and the lonely to the banquet of life. Help me to make room for others just as you make room for me at your table. Amen.

Written by Beth Truett, Executive Director of Chicago Lights
btruett@fourthchurch.org

 

Thursday, July 31, 2008
Scripture Reading: Luke 15:3–7
So he told them this parable: “Which one of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it? When he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.’ Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.” (NRSV)

Reflection
The poet Coleridge once wrote that the theology that had sustained him most in his life was the theology he learned from the hymns of his childhood. I am not a particularly musical person, but I would concur with Coleridge about the important role that hymns and songs play in the reflection on, and practice of, our faith.

I admit to disliking the idea of having our places of worship full of multimedia video screens on which the words of the latest song or praise chorus scroll down. This is not because I am against innovation in worship and certainly not because I am against new songs and hymns (because I love new hymns.)

Rather, it reflects something a friend said to me. He described how the hymn book he was brought up with was more than just a list of numbered songs that was handy to have to take to church with you. His own copy was like a prayer book, he said, in which the central tenets of the faith and the hopes and prayers of God’s people over generations were stored in an accessible and readable form.

I agree with him. Whenever I read the parable of the lost sheep, I go over the last lines of a hymn I learned only a few years ago. It is a paraphrase of Psalm 23 by Isaac Watts (Hymn 172 in The Presbyterian Hymnal). Let those lines be our prayer for today.

Prayer
The sure provisions of my God attend me all my days,
O may your house be my abode and all my work be praise.
There would I find a settled rest, while others go and come;
No more a stranger or a guest, but like a child at home. Amen.

Reflection written by Calum MacLeod, Associate Pastor
cmacleod@fourthchurch.org

 

Friday, August 1, 2008
Scripture Reading: Luke 15:8–10
“Or what woman having ten silver coins, if she loses one of them, does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it? When she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.’ Just so, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.” (NRSV)

Reflection
When I read the words of this parable, I hear too the words of Martin Luther advising how it is that we should begin each day:

When you rise in the morning, make the sign of the cross and say, in remembrance of your baptism, “In the name of God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.”

Our waking thought, said Luther, is to be a daily reminder and an embrace of our identity as children of God. Through God’s grace, we can and are to embark on each new day secure in the knowledge that we are known and claimed by a loving God.

So often in reflecting on these parables of the lost sheep, lost coin, and prodigal son, we focus on the “lost” and the “found,” rightfully reminding ourselves and taking comfort that there is nowhere we can go outside the love of God, nowhere that God won’t search and find us.

But what is easy to overlook is that it is not only when we have been lost that we are found; it is not in the being found that we are valued. We, like the lost coin, are of value because of who and what we are. Whether we are feeling lost or found, near to or far from God, we each are, always have been and will be, valued, loved, and claimed as a child of God.

Prayer
In each new day, O Lord, may my first and last thoughts be the acclamation that I am a child of God. You have loved me and claimed me, you value me and know me. Help me always to live in the reassurance and joy of that knowledge, to live secure in the warm embrace of a loving God who has called me and named me a child of God, forever. Amen.

Written by Ann Rehfeldt, Director of Communications
arehfeldt@fourthchurch.org

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Monday, August 4, 2008
Scripture Reading: 2 Corinthians 5:16–21
From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we know him no longer in that way. So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. (nrsv)

Reflection
The life of faith (or the faithful life) is not a straight trajectory, where one begins with no knowledge and over time builds up a body of information that allows one to practice (unlike, say, learning a language or a musical instrument). The metaphors that are common to describe the experience of faith often use the language of journey or pilgrimage, with all the connotations of moving forward, yet sometimes finding side roads and going down cul-de-sacs, encountering forks in the road, the changing seasonal conditions, and so on.

This metaphor of journey famously forms the central image of John Bunyan’s classic of Christian literature, The Pilgrim’s Progress, which traces the allegorical journey of Christian to the Celestial City and describes all the barriers placed in his way and wrong steps he takes.
What has all this to do with Paul writing to the church­ in Corinth? (Apart from the fact that we are told that Paul’s life was one of journeying to spread the gospel!)

It is that for me on my faith journey, as I struggle with the task of “faith seeking understanding,” and go down the occasional blind alley or find myself at a dead end, 2 Corinthians 5:19 is like a compass for me, reminding me what the Christian life is all about: God’s grace in Christ and our work of healing. I particularly like it in the King James Version:

God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself . . . and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation.

Prayer
God of the journey, protect and watch over me. Amen.

Written by Calum I. MacLeod, Associate Pastor for Evangelism
cmacleod@fourthchurch.org

 

Tuesday, August 5, 2008
Scripture Reading: Mark 2:13–17
Jesus went out again beside the sea; the whole crowd gathered around him, and he taught them. As he was walking along, he saw Levi son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax booth, and he said to him, “Follow me.” And he got up and followed him.

And as he sat at dinner in Levi’s house, many tax collectors and sinners were also sitting with Jesus and his disciples—for there were many who followed him. When the scribes of the Pharisees saw that he was eating with sinners and tax collectors, they said to his disciples, “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?” When Jesus heard this, he said to them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.” (nrsv)

Reflection
This passage from Mark puts me in an ironic mood. Christianity is associated, by people both in and out of the church, with being “good.” Christians go to church to learn to be good, right? Yet, even lifelong Christians will testify they’re no “gooder” than they ever were. My life with Christ has made me more truthful, more capable of compassion and love. But have I achieved goodness? Ask the airline reservation agent I chewed out last week.

Jesus’ ministry in Mark helps obliterate this prickly pear of a problem, and not a moment too soon. Christianity is not about being good. Christianity is about standing with God when you face the evils of the world and your own inner demons. Christianity is about sin and weakness. Jesus said, “I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.” If I want Christ to call on me, I need to recognize myself as a sinner and in need of God’s justification. I need to unashamedly cry out like the beggar Bartimaeus, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”

Whenever I am blessed with a glimpse of my own sinful nature, which happens more frequently as I mature, I remember that Jesus came for me, a sinner.

Prayer
Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me, a sinner! I stand in need of your grace, which is sufficient, even for me. Help me to open more of my soul to your healing light for the building of your kingdom. Amen.

Written by Patty Jenkins, Director of the Chicago Lights Center for Life and Learning
pjenkins@fourthchurch.org

 

Wednesday, August 6, 2008
Scripture Reading: Matthew 5:14–16
You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven. (nrsv)

Reflection
“Y’all are the light of the world,” said Jesus, as he taught his disciples on the Mount of Olives. No, I am not quoting from a Southern translation of the Bible. It’s just that we need to see in the original Greek text that Jesus is identifying the community of disciples as “the light of the world,” not addressing an individual. The good old King James Version makes this clear, using the plural ye ratherthan the singular thou.

Some years ago, Fourth Church adopted the motto, A Light in the City. If any one of us claimed that title, it could betray an inflated ego, a go-it-alone faith. While it is true that Christ calls us one by one to be his disciples, he also calls us to join in community. While on earth, he carefully nurtured his followers to pursue his great purposes in the world and to move together toward God’s kingdom.

On the evening of August 28, 1930, President Herbert Hoover pressed a telegraph button in the White House, lighting the beacon on top of Chicago’s newly completed Palmolive Building. Designated the Lindbergh Beacon, the 2-billion-candlepower rotating beacon was visible to pilots up to 300 miles away and operated for the next fifty years at Michigan Avenue and Walton Place. A block away, at the corner of Michigan Avenue and Delaware Place, another light has been shining from a community of faithful lives into hearts and homes and neighborhoods of this city and beyond. This light continues to spread hope and encouragement and warmth of God’s welcoming love to many, “so that they may give glory to your Father in heaven.”

Prayer
O Light of the World, O Bright and Morning Star, let us as the Society of Christ in this place shine forth your light of goodness and grace, of justice and peace. Amen.

Written by Tom Rook, Parish Associate
trook@fourthchurch.org

 

Thursday, August 7, 2008
Scripture Reading: Psalm 119:105  
Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. (nrsv)

Reflection
Sometimes we forget how hard some of our ancestors fought for, and even lost their lives for, the right of the Bible to be in the vernacular. One of those ancestors was John Wyclif, born in 1320, a strong advocate of translating the Bible into the everyday speech of the people. He was fighting against the position of the church that said Christ gave the Scripture to the clergy and doctors of the church and that scripture put in the hands of the average person might be misinterpreted and cause mischief.

Eventually an English translation of the Bible was printed, and it became known as the Wyclif translation. Those who supported Wyclif’s effort to make the scriptures available in our common languages knew the Bible had the power to change lives. I like the idea of Hans-Ruedi Weber, who says the Bible is not a book we read, but rather a book that reads us. Weber says that the change of role that takes place when the Bible starts to read and shape us “does not come from the power of human scholarship or clever teaching and know-how”; it happens, when it happens, by God’s grace and mercy.

We can live life in a fog and darkness and some people do; others search many places for answers to life’s questions: “Who am I? Why am I here?” The answers are not in any new technology but in an ancient book. Those who dare to open it and read it find that it not only informs but transforms. It becomes the living word because it lives in us to mold us into God’s own, where we find a peace that passes our understanding. “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.”

Prayer
Dear God, we thank you for the Bible that has stood through the ages as a firm foundation. Amen.

Written by Donna Gray, Minister for Children and Families
dgray@fourthchurch.org

 

Friday, August 8, 2008
Scripture Reading: John 12:32–36a
“And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” He said this to indicate the kind of death he was to die. The crowd answered him, “We have heard from the law that the Messiah remains forever. How can you say that the Son of Man must be lifted up? Who is this Son of Man?” Jesus said to them, “The light is with you for a little longer. Walk while you have the light, so that the darkness may not overtake you. If you walk in the darkness, you do not know where you are going. While you have the light, believe in the light, so that you may become children of light.” (nrsv)

Reflection
It should have been obvious, shouldn’t it? Who this Son of Man was. The presence of the light. The benefit of embracing light over darkness.

Or so it seems to us, as we read John’s Gospel. From its opening verses, John points us to the light. Who is this Jesus? He is the one who “was the light of all people,” the one who was in the beginning with God, when God separated the light from the darkness. It’s all laid out in front of us.

But when realization does not meet expectation, it can be easy to miss. The crowd that had gathered around Jesus expected a Messiah who would remain forever, not one who would suffer death. They did not see what they were looking for.

In my childhood bedroom, one of the ceiling fixtures was fitted with a single 40-watt bulb. When I would come upstairs on a rainy day or in early evening, the light that bulb cast didn’t seem to be light at all. I was expecting something as bright as the lamps downstairs.

But this bulb was, in its own way, one of the brightest in the room. It was the light my parents turned on when they woke me up. Then, in the darkness of early morning, that light illuminated all that needed to be seen, gently awakening me to the newness of the day. And in that newness, with no expectations or comparison, I could see the light, and it shone brightly.

Prayer
Light of all, in my baptism you claimed me as your own, a child of light. Yet sometimes I miss the glimmers of your love shining in and around my life. Open my eyes to the many ways in which you are present to and for us, and guide me, that my life may always bear witness to your light among us. Amen.

Written by Ann L. Rehfeldt, Director of Communications
arehfeldt@fourthchurch.org

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