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Born as Jacob, Reborn as Israel

Rev Dr. Fritz Ritsch

Baptism of the Lord Sunday

January 10, 2016

Isaiah 43: 1-7

“He who created you, O Jacob; He who formed you, O Israel.” That’s how our Isaiah passage begins; and it ends speaking of all people whom God will redeem: “Every one who is called by My name, whom I created for My glory, whom I formed and made.”

Now what the Lord means in context is that God created the nation of Israel and that God will save it from the trouble it’s in, specifically, the Babylonian exile, in which the nations of Israel and Judah were defeated by the Babylonians and sent into exile throughout the empire. God is promising to bring them back from exile to their homeland again. In Isaiah’s poetry, God’s people are called by turns Jacob and Israel. This is because of the story of the founder of Israel, Jacob. It’s a story worth repeating.Read More »Born as Jacob, Reborn as Israel

Be Opened

Be Opened

By Rev. Dr. Fritz Ritsch

James 2: 1-13

Mark 7: 24-37

“Only someone who is ready for everything, who doesn’t exclude any experience, even the most incomprehensible, will live the relationship with another person as something alive and will himself sound the depths of his own being.”

― Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

The past year the nation has been torn over tension between African Americans who feel they are often unfairly targeted by police officers, and police officers feeling they are being publicly and unfairly punished and scrutinized for a crime that they as a group are not collectively guilty of. The past couple of weeks have seen a number of police officer deaths that in many cases seem to be the result of deliberate targeting, and a lot of officers believe that these killings are the direct result of overheated language on the part of the “Black Lives Matter” movement. Houston County Sheriff Ron Hickman, grieved and angry over the senseless shooting of Deputy Darren Goforth, said “Cops lives matter, too.”

There are debates back and forth about the propriety of saying “Black lives matter” versus “Cops’ lives matter,” versus, “All lives matter.” I’m not getting into a language debate. This isn’t about language. This is about human lives. On both sides of the issue. Read More »Be Opened

Forgiveness Unbinds Us

Unbound

by Rev. Dr. Fritz Ritsch
Ezekiel 34: 11-16
2 Timothy 4: 6-8
Matthew 16: 13-22

Life may change, but it may fly not;
Hope may vanish, but can die not;
Truth be veiled, but still it burneth;
Love repulsed -but it returneth.”
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792 –1822), Prometheus Unbound

I discovered through our interim organist choir director that this Sunday is traditionally held to be “Saints Peter and Paul” Sunday, a day of celebration of the the founding of the church. It’s the day the church remembers the words that Jesus pronounces to Peter today, that he is the rock on which the church will be founded. Protestants tend not to celebrate it, because, I guess, of the fact that we aren’t Roman Catholic, and the RCs refer to this blessing of St. Peter as the beginning of the papacy. Since last week I preached positively about Pope Francis’ encyclical on climate change, you all may be wondering if I’m changing teams and secretly saying “Hail Mary’s” in my office. I’m not, but I’d like to refer you to something I heard Methodist theologian Stanley Hauerwas’ say once that “we should all become Roman Catholics, just as soon as they start ordaining women.” He meant by this that we need to stop viewing the church as splintered and work towards reconciliation—we need to look at our traditions, though disparate, as part of a whole church, what we call in the creeds “The Holy Catholic Church.” When we say that in the Apostles’ Creed, what we mean is that the church of Jesus Christ is united; and Hauerwas meant that his hope is that one day our differences will all be resolved and we will be united again under the banner of the one church.Read More »Forgiveness Unbinds Us

A Whole Jesus for a Whole Persons, or How to Tell a Fraud. I John 4:1-12

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A WHOLE JESUS FOR A WHOLE PERSONS, or

HOW TO TELL A FRAUD

1 John 4.1-12

May 31, 2015 

Is the Islamic State a legitimate form of Islam or not?  Certain statements by our government would give the impression that the Islamic State is un-Islamic.  This is suggested, so it is argued, in order to avoid the impression that the West is engaged in a holy war directly with Islam.

While the suggestion that the Islamic State is un-Islamic may be understandable from a tactical standpoint, it has been criticized from a strategic perspective as being wrongheaded.  In fact, this suggestion is dangerously unhelpful to containing and ultimately stopping the violence in the Middle East.[1]  The Islamic State does represent a form of Islam that has a history and can be supported from texts found in the Qur’an.

Therefore to call the Islamic State un-Islamic insults large swaths of Muslims who believe to their deaths that the Qur’an is verbally inerrant Scripture.  More believers are primed to become terrorists to martyr themselves for the defense of their faith.  It creates the perfect incentive for acts of barbarism against Western targets and Arab Christians which are videotaped and used with tremendous propaganda effects.Read More »A Whole Jesus for a Whole Persons, or How to Tell a Fraud. I John 4:1-12

Be A Prophet: Pentecost

Prophesy

Acts 2: 1-21

What does “prophesy” mean? We tend to use it to mean “predict the future.” But actually that’s not what it means at all. The ancient prophets sometimes got their predictions wrong. Remember the story of Jonah? He predicts “Yet thirty days, and Nineveh will be destroyed.” He gets angry because in the end God doesn’t do what was predicted. Why? Because the people of Nineveh repented of their evil and turned to God, and so God showed them mercy.Read More »Be A Prophet: Pentecost

Love the Vine

Love the Vine, All Loves Excelling
by Rev. Dr. Fritz Ritsch
May 3, 2015
1 John 4:7-21
John 15:1-8

Bear Fruit.

That’s a consistent message in the gospel. Jesus says in the Parable of the Sower, “the ones sown on the good soil… hear the word and accept it and bear fruit, thirty and sixty and a hundredfold.” The Apostle Paul talks about the fruit of the Spirit: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness,  gentleness, and self-control” (Galatians 5: 23-24).Read More »Love the Vine

Baptism: We Are All God’s Children

“We Will See”
Sermon Celebrating the Baptism of Jack Field Munson
by Rev. Dr. Fritz Ritsch
April 19, 2015
I John 3:1-7

“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” Matthew 5:8

Today we are making an extraordinary assertion. We are asserting that Jack Field Munson is not only the child of Tyler and Sydney—he is a child of God.

We take it so granted today, so I want to emphasize it again: We are saying that Jack is a child of God. What are we thinking?

In the liturgies of the early Christian church, when the congregation came to the Lord’s prayer, they were reminded what an amazing thing it is that we can dare to call God our Father. This was Jesus’ point as well when He taught us the prayer and told us to call God “Father.” His point is, this is an extraordinary statement. We have the right to claim it. But we must never ever take it for granted.Read More »Baptism: We Are All God’s Children