Lent Devotional 2021 - Pittsburg - Flipbook - Page 5
stumbling and finally, triumphantly, takes a first step! The
cancer patient learning he’s in remission after going through
rounds of treatments and multiple “clean” tests.
When we have a “life event” that initially seems
overwhelming, if we take it one step at a time we have the
potential to get through it successfully. We just need to
remember that God is with us in each little step along the
way!
PRAYER
God of grace and love, help us to realize that it is okay to
lean on you. When we feel overwhelmed by life’s obstacles,
remind us of your presence as we explore each new day little
by little. We thank you Lord for your loving support! Amen.
SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 2021
The Rev. Mark Gaskill ’03
SCRIPTURE
1 Corinthians 1:18-31
18 For the message about the cross is foolishness to those
who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the
power of God. 19 For it is written, “I will destroy the wisdom
of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will
thwart.” 20 Where is the one who is wise? Where is the
scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made
foolish the wisdom of the world? 21 For since, in the wisdom
of God, the world did not know God through wisdom,
God decided, through the foolishness of our proclamation,
to save those who believe. 22 For Jews demand signs and
Greeks desire wisdom, 23 but we proclaim Christ crucified, a
stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, 24 but
to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ
the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25 For God’s
foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness
is stronger than human strength. 26 Consider your own call,
brothers and sisters: not many of you were wise by human
standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble
birth. 27 But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame
the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the
strong; 28 God chose what is low and despised in the world,
things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are,
29 so that no one might boast in the presence of God. 30 He
is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, who became for us
wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and
redemption, 31 in order that, as it is written, “Let the one
who boasts, boast in the Lord.”
DEVOTIONAL
This passage is a terrible sales pitch. I will paraphrase a few
of the highlights: “The cross is a ridiculous way to save the
world,” “God picks stuff that doesn’t make sense to anyone,
Jew or Greek,” “Oh, and all of us who follow Jesus, we’re
pretty much just a bunch of losers—that’s how we know this
is really God working in us.”
The reality today is that churches are failing. Some of us
are failing numerically; declining attendance, membership,
and commitment can be plotted on gloomy graphs and dire
charts. In that scenario, we think we have to find a better
sales pitch, so we try (too hard) to be something other than
what we are. Others may be growing numerically but failing
spiritually. They have abandoned the message of the cross to
some degree in favor of something that seems less foolish
to the comfortable and the privileged, and there they have
found a market niche.
It is difficult for the human ego to accept the terms Christ
offers us. Paul was no exception; he had to do it the hard
way. He fought with himself and with others to keep focused
on the reality that he was not the one who was responsible
for doing the saving—God had to do it.
How do you “sell” your church? Do you tell people how
ridiculous you are? Do you admit that you can’t do anything
that’s good on your own? Do you confess that you are a
sinner, for real, and that some of your sins are pretty bad?
False humility will not avail in this world—people are too
used to being lied to and sold scams. The only place to be
right now, if we want to live, is with God’s foolishness, which
is wiser that human wisdom, and God’s weakness, which is
stronger than human strength.
PRAYER
Help us, Holy God, for we want so badly to be wise and
strong. We spend so much time and energy seeking to
project positivity and success. It is exhausting. We need to be
vulnerable, but we just can’t seem to trust that it will work.
Teach us what it means to offer our broken hearts to you.
Bind up the wounds we carry from trying too hard. If we fail,
let us fail as Christ failed on the cross—if we succeed, it will
only be in Christ. Amen.
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 2021
The Rev. Sarina Odden Meyer ’07
SCRIPTURE
Deuteronomy 8:1-20
1 This entire commandment that I command you today you
must diligently observe, so that you may live and increase,
and go in and occupy the land that the LORD promised
on oath to your ancestors. 2 Remember the long way that
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