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The World As It Should Be Meets the World As It Is

 

By The Rev. Dr. Fritz Ritsch

Isaiah 50:4-9a

Philippians 2:5-11

St. Matthew 21:1-17

“It is not incumbent upon you to complete the work, but neither are you at liberty to desist from it.”

The Talmud, Pirkei Avot, 2.2

 Several years ago someone in a bible study I was doing expressed a concern a lot of Christians feel. She said, “I’m uncomfortable with saying that Jesus is Lord of everything, of the whole universe. It sounds so closed-minded and prejudiced toward a Christian point of view. What about the other religions, and good people who don’t believe in Jesus?”

We had been looking at biblical passages about the Cosmic Christ, passages such as Ephesians 1: 8-10, “With all wisdom and insight (God) has made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure that he set forth in Christ, as a plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth,” or the passage from Paul’s letter to the Philippians that we just read: “Therefore God also highly exalted Jesus?and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus?every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess?that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”  These passages give absolute Lordship and authority to Jesus, which is bound to make any open-minded person uncomfortable.Read More »The World As It Should Be Meets the World As It Is

Chapter V: The Cowtown Christ Jumps the Shark

Matthew 21:12-17

Isaiah 1: 12-17

Cowtown Christ is a sermon series that reimagines the stories of Christ in the gospels as though they were happening today, right here in Fort Worth, dealing with the issues of our times. The Cowtown Christ is Jesse, a Mexican American woman with a group of followers she calls her Close Companions.

 After this sermon, we’ll take a hiatus from this series for Palm Sunday and Easter, and for the next two Sundays, I will return to my normal preaching style. But following Easter,  we will finish the story of the Cowtown Christ.

 Jesse, the Cowtown Christ, turned to her close companions, those who’d followed her for some time, those who had been there at Oakwood Cemetery when they saw her revealed as some sort of supernatural being, and had heard a voice say, “This is my Daughter–Listen to Her.”

Jesse turned to them and said, “Who do people say I am?”

]Read More »Chapter V: The Cowtown Christ Jumps the Shark

Who is This Really About?

Who is This Really About?

Acts 8: 26-40

Rev. Dr. Fritz Ritsch, Preacher

May 7, 2012

When Margaret and I were visiting in Israel several years ago, our guide was Lee, a brilliant, vibrant lady in her seventies who was originally from Chicago and seemed to have boundless energy. Lee’s day job was as a social worker helping assimilate Jews migrating to Israel under the aliyah, Israel’s “law of return.” The law of return means that Israel will accept anyone into their country as a citizen who can make any legitimate claim to be Jewish, whether racial, religious, or cultural.Read More »Who is This Really About?