Priests

Kids Korner: Loving ourselves (Oct. 29th)

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Read Matthew 22:34-46 with your family.

What does it mean to be a Christian? Jesus answered that one: it means we have to love God above all else and love everyone else like we love ourselves AND we have to love ourselves like we love everyone else.

Often people think there was only two parts to this section of scripture that we call The Greatest Commandment, but there is actually three: God, neighbours and ourselves.

How do we love God? We pray and we do what God has asked us to do to take care of other people.

How do we love our neighbours? We are kind to others, welcome strangers, and help make sure everyone has food to eat and a safe place to live, and all the other things Jesus told us to do for other people.

How doe we love ourselves?

This is something the church doesn’t talk about, instead the church often tells people what is wrong with them and how they have to change. But Jesus never said we had to change who we are, we just have to love everyone. That’s about behaviour not who we are as people.

How we love ourselves is knowing that God made us perfect just the way we are on the inside, and we can make any choice we want to change the outside, so long as it doesn’t hurt us or anyone else. God loves us as we are. Once we love ourselves it is easier to love strangers and people we know.

Sunday Reflection – October 22, 2023

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Give back to God the things that come from God

Matthew 22 15 The Pharisees got together and planned how they could trick Jesus into saying something wrong. 16 They sent some of their followers and some of Herod’s followers to say to him, “Teacher, we know that you are honest. You teach the truth about what God wants people to do. And you treat everyone with the same respect, no matter who they are. 17 Tell us what you think! Should we pay taxes to the Emperor or not?”

18 Jesus knew their evil thoughts and said, “Why are you trying to test me? You show-offs! 19 Let me see one of the coins used for paying taxes.” They brought him a silver coin, 20 and he asked, “Whose picture and name are on it?”

21 “The Emperor’s,” they answered.

Then Jesus told them, “Give the Emperor what belongs to him and give God what belongs to God.” 22 His answer surprised them so much that they walked away.

Kids Korner: Give to God (Oct. 22nd)

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Read Matthew 22:15-22 with your family.

Many people know this story, even if they don’t attend Sunday school or church regularly. But why was this a trick and why did Jesus know it was a trick?

When Jesus was a small child, another person from Galilee named Judas (not any of Jesus’ friends and followers) encouraged a tax revolt around the year 6 CE. The Romans were fierce in putting it down and many Hebrew people suffered. After that, Rome and her officials, including the Temple leadership in Jerusalem, watched to see if anyone else would suggest not paying taxes to Rome as a way of encouraging rebellion.

Jesus knew this history of his people and he knew that the Temple leadership was trying to trick him.

Jesus rarely answered questions directly and never for the Temple leadership. But in his answers and new questions he showed us different ways to look at the world.

Jesus never asked us to be outside the world and not interact with others.

Jesus asked us to change the world, and share the gifts that God gave us.

Sunday Reflection – October 15, 2023

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Parable about the rich landowner and tenants

Matthew 22 Once again Jesus used stories to teach the people:

2 The kingdom of heaven is like what happened when a king gave a wedding banquet for his son. 3 The king sent some servants to tell the invited guests to come to the banquet, but the guests refused. 4 He sent other servants to say to the guests, “The banquet is ready! My cattle and prize calves have all been prepared. Everything is ready. Come to the banquet!”

5 But the guests did not pay any attention. Some of them left for their farms, and some went to their places of business. 6 Others grabbed the servants, then beat them up and killed them.

7 This made the king so furious that he sent an army to kill those murderers and burn down their city. 8 Then he said to the servants, “It is time for the wedding banquet, and the invited guests don’t deserve to come. 9 Go out to the street corners and tell everyone you meet to come to the banquet.” 10 They went out on the streets and brought in everyone they could find, good and bad alike. And the banquet room was filled with guests.

11 When the king went in to meet the guests, he found that one of them wasn’t wearing the right kind of clothes for the wedding. 12 The king asked, “Friend, why didn’t you wear proper clothes for the wedding?” But the guest had no excuse. 13  So the king gave orders for this person to be tied hand and foot and to be thrown outside into the dark. That’s where people will cry and grit their teeth in pain. 14  Many are invited, but only a few are chosen.

Kids Korner: Get ready for the banquet (Oct. 15th)

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Read Matthew 22:1-14 with your family.

In our story today Jesus continues to use parables to tell the leaders in the temple that they are not doing a good job of representing God to the people. This time Jesus compares God to a King who wants to hold a special wedding feast for his son (meaning Jesus), and invites all the power people who like to think they are important. But all of those people say ‘no’ to the invitation and even kill the messengers.

Jesus tells the Temple leaders that after that rejection, the King, or God, calls ordinary people who are not rich or powerful, and they are the ones who will get to enjoy what the King/God has given to our world.

Sometimes in the church when people think they are important, and other people treat them as important, they start to think they are better than others. This story reminds those people that God calls everyone. But in order to be part of God’s world, you also have to do the work and live the way God calls us to live.

It’s not good enough to say we are Christian, we have to mean it with the way we behave and treat others..

Sunday Reflection – October 8, 2023

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Parable about the rich landowner and tenants

Matthew 21 33  Jesus told the chief priests and leaders to listen to this story:

A land owner once planted a vineyard. He built a wall around it and dug a pit to crush the grapes in. He also built a lookout tower. Then he rented out his vineyard and left the country.

34 When it was harvest time, the owner sent some servants to get his share of the grapes. 35 But the renters grabbed those servants. They beat up one, killed one, and stoned one of them to death. 36 He then sent more servants than he did the first time. But the renters treated them in the same way.

37 Finally, the owner sent his own son to the renters, because he thought they would respect him. 38 But when they saw the man’s son, they said, “Someday he will own the vineyard. Let’s kill him! Then we can have it all for ourselves.” 39 So they grabbed him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him.

40 Jesus asked, “When the owner of that vineyard comes, what do you suppose he will do to those renters?”

41 The chief priests and leaders answered, “He will kill them in some horrible way. Then he will rent out his vineyard to people who will give him his share of grapes at harvest time.”

42  Jesus replied, “You surely know that the Scriptures say,

‘The stone the builders
    tossed aside
is now the most important
    stone of all.
This is something
the Lord has done,
    and it is amazing to us.’

43 I tell you God’s kingdom will be taken from you and given to people who will do what he demands. 44 Anyone who stumbles over this stone will be crushed, and anyone it falls on will be smashed to pieces.”

45 When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard these stories, they knew Jesus was talking about them. 46 So they looked for a way to arrest Jesus. But they were afraid to, because the people thought he was a prophet.

Kids Korner: The rich landowner and the tenants (Oct. 8th)

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Read Matthew 21:33-46 with your family.

Sometimes we have to listen very carefully to what Jesus meant in his parables, and sometimes we don’t have to wonder at all.

In this parable the priests who were listening knew Jesus was talking about them and about how they had not respected or accepted the messengers from God who had come to teach them about how God wanted them to live. They felt guilty but they did not want to change how they behaved or how rich they were because they worked at the Temple.

The last part of the story was the land owner, meaning God, sent his son, meaning Jesus, and they beat and killed him too.

Jesus barely finishes telling the story when those same priests were planning ways to get rid of Jesus – like they hadn’t even heard the warning in Jesus’ story that they better leave Jesus alone.

There are a lot of people who call themselves Christian leaders, but who are more interested in the power to tell others how to behave rather than living like Jesus wanted them to.

Jesus knew about them and how they chose power and money over God’s teachings.

That is also why Jesus taught us we don’t need anyone else getting in the way of our relationship with God. We can pray to God, sing to God and do the things Jesus taught us to do to make the world into a fair place where everyone is treated properly.

Sunday Reflection – October 1, 2023

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Challenges from the Temple priests

Matthew 21 23 Jesus had gone into the temple and was teaching when the chief priests and the leaders of the people came up to him. They asked, “What right do you have to do these things? Who gave you this authority?”

24 Jesus answered, “I have just one question to ask you. If you answer it, I will tell you where I got the right to do these things. 25 Who gave John the right to baptize? Was it God in heaven or merely some human being?”

They thought it over and said to each other, “We can’t say God gave John this right. Jesus will ask us why we didn’t believe John. 26 On the other hand, these people think John was a prophet, and we are afraid of what they might do to us. That’s why we can’t say it was merely some human who gave John the right to baptize.” 27 So they told Jesus, “We don’t know.”

Jesus said, “Then I won’t tell you who gave me the right to do what I do.”

28 Jesus said:

I will tell you a story about a man who had two sons. Then you can tell me what you think. The father went to the older son and said, “Go work in the vineyard today!” 29 His son told him he would not do it, but later he changed his mind and went. 30 The man then told his younger son to go work in the vineyard. The boy said he would, but he didn’t go. 31 Which one of the sons obeyed his father?

“The older one,” the chief priests and leaders answered.

Then Jesus told them:

You can be sure tax collectors and prostitutes will get into the kingdom of God before you ever will! 32  When John the Baptist showed you how to do right, you would not believe him. But these evil people did believe. And even when you saw what they did, you still would not change your minds and believe.

Kids Korner: Temple priests challenge Jesus (Oct. 1st)

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Read Matthew 21:23-32 with your family.

Jesus did not come to start a new religion, he came to fix the problems in the Hebrew tradition that he loved and had been raised in. He was very frustrated with the priests in the Temple because they were teaching rules about how to dress and eat, but they weren’t teaching the people how to love each other.

Jesus wanted them to change. He wanted them to listen to what he was trying to teach them, but they refused to hear anything.

Instead, the priests in the Temple got very angry with Jesus and eventually helped to get him killed. This story is part of a larger story we call Holy Week, that ends in Jesus being killed on Good (God’s) Friday and rising from the dead on Easter Sunday.

The priest asked Jesus who gave him authority because the priest wanted power to stop Jesus teaching about God. Unfortunately for the priest, Jesus was very smart and he challenged the priest instead. The priest didn’t want to answer because he knew any answer he gave would anger the people.

Jesus wasn’t concerned about angering people, he was only interested in showing how much God loves and accepts everyone, and how the Temple priests had forgotten about God’s love.