Quick Facts about Worship Services at Philadelphia

The Scripture readings for this Sunday underscore the dramatic and life transforming consequences into which we are drawn by virtue of our having been grasped by God’s infinite and unconditional love made visible in Jesus Christ and drawn into Jesus’ call to discipleship. The radicality of God’s healing and redeeming love immerses us in a transformative, life long journey which brings forth a dramatic shift in our priorities and values and yields a complete reorientation of everything as our life moves from being centered in self to being centered in Christ.

The First Lesson - Deuteronomy 30:15-20- As the book of Job and the life and teachings of Jesus remind us, we misinterpret this narrative in Deuteronomy if we assume that worldly success and prosperity are a reward from God for our having achieved “righteousness” or that God’s love and favor can be “won”, “manipulated”, or “cornered” if we just obey God’s teachings. At the same time, the writer of Deuteronomy challenges us to remember that God’s teachings and laws are grounded in wisdom and truth and are designed for our well being. They are given for a reason, namely, that our lives can flourish despite the fact that we are flawed people living in a less than perfect world. This text reminds us that we are disgustingly foolish and laughably shortsighted if we dupe ourselves into thinking that we can ignore or fudge God’s teachings, wisdom and truth and at the same time escape the increased likelihood that such insanity will bring upon ourselves a life complicated and spoiled by mounting levels of hardship, disappointment and heartbreak. In summary, the choices we make in life have consequences. Choices grounded in God’s love, truth and wisdom most likely yield a good outcome. Foolish choices that ignore God’s truth, wisdom and love set in motion consequences that have a nasty way of coming back and biting us in the “you know what!”

The Second Lesson - Philemon 1:1-21 - In a moving and pastoral letter to Philemon, Paul give us a glimpse of the reality of God’s healing and redeeming love which can transform broken lives and unhealthy situations. In this moving letter, we learn about the transformation of both a runaway slave and the possibility of a new relationship based no longer on the horrors and injustice of slavery but on the love, dignity and mutual respect God desires for all people and in all relationships.

The Gospel - Luke 14:25-33 -  Today’s Gospel text starts out by reporting that large crowds were following Jesus. Apparently Jesus was on a “roll” and was well on the way to becoming quite a sensation. One can’t help but wonder how many were left after being blistered, flattened and confronted with Jesus’ radically challenging and sobering description of the costly and unsettling consequences of being a disciple. What’s with all this unsettling talk about “hating” one’s father and mother, wife and children, brother and sister, and, yes, even one’s life? Of course this was just the warm up. Jesus ups the ante by comparing the call to discipleship and of bearing the cross to that of weighing the costly consequences of going into battle unprepared. And as a grand finale Jesus goes “off the cliff” when he drops an outlandishly absurd notion on the crowd by saying that if one is really serious about being a disciple one must give up all of one’s possessions. Whew! All of this “heavy and sobering suff” is enough to silence the bloated hype and suck all the wind out of the sails of even the most enthusiastic of today’s high dollar hucksters and motivational speakers. In this Gospel narrative, we get an awesome and amazing look at Jesus’ call to discipleship and the mind boggling radicality of God’s healing and redeeming love. It is God’s unique form of love that immerses us in a transformative, life long journey which brings forth a dramatic shift in our priorities and values and yields a complete reorientation of everything as our life is moved from being centered in self to being centered in Christ.