Mark 13:35-37

You do not know when the Master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow or at dawn, or else he may find you asleep when he comes suddenly. And what I say to you I say to all; Keep awake.

BE ALERT, BE ALERT, so that you will be able to recognize your Lord in your husband, your wife, your parents, your children, your friends, your teachers, but also in all you read in the daily newspapers. The Lord is coming, always coming. Be Alert to his coming. when you have ears to hear and eyes to see, you will recognize him at any moment of your life. Life is Advent; life is recognizing the coming of the Lord...still, I keep making mistakes. Tonight I went to see the Movie "STUNTMAN", a movie about the making of a film. The movie was so filled with images of greed and lust, manipulation and exploitation, fearful and painful sensations, that if filled all the empty spaces that could have been blessed by the spirit of advent...Why do we keep missing the most obvious signs of God's coming and allow our hearts to be filled with all those things that keep sugesting, not that the Lord is coming, but that nothing will happen unless we make it happen?

I hope and pray that Advent will not be filled with stuntman, but with the Spirit of him who invites us to listen carefully to the sounds of the New Earth that are manifesting themselves in the midst of the old.

PRAYER

Good and gracious God, you know how much clutter fills my mind and heart these days. Help me to pay attention to your presence in my life. Help me to look for and find oppurtunities this Advent to become more aware of how you touch my life each day. May I become evermore a sign of your love in the world, Amen.

2 Peter 3:13-14

In accordance with God's promise, we wait for new heavens and a new earth, wher righteousmess is at home. Therfore, beloved, while you are waiting for these things, strive to be found by him at peace, without spot or blemish.

What is perhaps most striking about the visions of the world's future is that they have taken form completely independant of Christian thinking which is preeminently future oriented. Those enormous powers which are gaining ground in the hardened world, which cry out for a new age, a new world, and a new order can find no solid roots in Christianity, it seems. While Christians were so busy with their interior household problems and were so preoccupied with themselves that they lost sight of the rest of the world, a growing need for salvation outside of Christianity became more and more evident. This suggestion Christians often regarded as merely naive, anarchical and immature.

And yet you are Christian only so long as you look forward to a new world, so long as you constantly pose critical questions to the society you live in, so long as you emphasize the need for conversion both for yourself and for the world, so long as you you stay unsatisfied with the status quo and keep saying that a new world is yet to come. You are a Christian only when you believe that you have a role to play in the realization of this new kingdom, and when you urge everyone you meet with holy unrest to make haste so that the promise might soon be fulfilled, so long as you live as a Christian you keep looking for a new order, a new structure, a new life.

SERMONETTE JULY 15TH 2007

MATTHEW 6:5-15 "TEACH US TO PRAY"

TOPIC WAS THE LORDS PRAYER AND HOW JESUS GAVE US THIS SIMPLE PRAYER AND IT WAS ONLY AN OUTLINE AND LEFT SO MANY BLANKS TO FILL IN AND HOW TO ENLARGE IT TO OUR OWN USE.

HOW TO USE IT AND TO USE IT WITH REVERANCE. GLORIFY GOD AND KEEP HIM CENTERED IN ALL THINGS WE THE CHURCH DO.