Sunday, September 25 – “Notice-Remember-Act”

View this recorded version of Sunday Worship from September 25, 2022.

Bible Verses

Luke 16: 19-31 (The Rich Man and Lazarus) and John 15: 9-17

Reflection: Notice-Remember-Act

Excerpts from the reflection by Rev. David Brown:

“We’re going to talk about money and a lot of people don’t like us to talk about money.

Some people think talking about money is meddling. The only trouble is in the Bible.

We have discovered that money was Jesus’s favorite subject–he talks about it a lot.

…[And that] ‘covenant’ is the mutual relationship of trust and responsibility named in the power and presence of God.

If others are putting their trust in us then if we go back to looking at covenant and what Jesus was saying, to love our neighbors, then, if we’re going to be good neighbors, we have to fulfill our part of the covenant.

Covenant made me realize that often in human relationships we get in trouble when we fail, or someone fails to take their part of the covenant seriously. You take a look at marriages and when they get in trouble. It’s often, because one member has forgotten the covenant.

So in John, when Jesus gives the commandment to his disciples to love their neighbors, I think he’s trying to set up a covenant to them so that they will remember that they are covenanting with Jesus as followers to love their neighbors.

Now, when it comes to Luke 16…

The rich man ends up in Hade–not a good place. So, therefore Jesus must not like the rich–but that kind of logic I don’t think is where Jesus was at. I think Jesus didn’t want the rich to end up in Hades.

What he wanted was the rich to remember, if they had more than enough, they needed to remember to share it, they needed to remember the Lazarus in their lives.”