A Two Goal Lead is the Most Dangerous Lead...

Russell Rathburn, a local pastor here in Minneapolis, asked an interesting question in his weekly column called “The Hardest Question”. Rathburn asks, “Is John’s Jesus telling us that we should become God? In the Eucharist do we rehearse the consuming of Jesus’ life, binding his soul to ours making us like God? Which begs an even harder question: what is God like?” We don’t really know what God is like, and we don’t even really know if God wants us to be more like God. But these are important questions for us to consider as we walk along the path we are on. These are important questions that can help us understand more fully what it is God is calling us to do and to be. There are indeed clues that help us understand the questions, never the answers unfortunately, but always the questions more clearly, and one clue that I love to the think about is the idea of the incarnation. The incarnation has been on my mind a lot as I have read these scriptures, the idea ...

L et your continual mercy, O Lord, cleanse and defend your Church; and, because it cannot continue in safety without your help, protect and govern it always by your goodness; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. ___________________________________________________________ The above was the collect that was read this past Sunday, August 5th, 2012 at our 8 and 10AM services. At first it was a tough collect to read, a tough collect to comprehend and swallow. A collect is a prayer that the clergy person at an Episcopal Church reads to "collect" the people, gather us together as we begin our corporate worship. It is a little late in the service to really function that way as we have already said a different collect, something called the Collect for purity, and sung a hymn to gather us all together and mark the beginning of our corporate worship, but none the less, that is its function. I had an old...