We will be starting a 6-week study on Sunday, June 7th using the book “Freeing Jesus” by Diana Butler Bass.  We will be covering the Introduction (Liberate Jesus) and Chapter 1 (Friend) to begin, then one chapter each week after that.  I’ve heard lots of positive feedback on the book from friends who have read it, so we should have interesting discussion.  I hope to see you there.  Any questions, email me or text/call: 510-301-8779

“Prayer is not asking. It is a longing of the soul.”

Mahatma Gandhi

Dear Friends,

I’m thinking, this week, about prayer and its importance in our lives.  We often speak about prayer as if it’s a “given” in our lives and yet, prayer is, by no means, that.  For many, if not most of us, prayer doesn’t just happen easily or effortlessly.  Prayer often involves struggle and challenge. I have discovered (am discovering) that prayer is a discipline that requires thought, intention and persistence.   For this reason, I believe that prayer is a topic well worth our focus.

One of the most common impressions about prayer is that it provides a means of “getting what we want” from God.  People have often been known to feel the need for prayer when they are faced with circumstances beyond their control, circumstances that threaten them or drive them to despair.  Their need is so great that prayer becomestheir primary option for escaping their current predicament.  This approach has sometimes been referred to as an example of a “fox hole theology” that approaches God out of pure need and desperation.

While there is certainly nothing wrong with the choice toappeal to God in our great hour of need, it is, I believe, to misunderstand the essential nature of prayer.  Prayer, as Ihave come to understand it, isn’t so much about getting what we want, but about getting what we need—which happens to be a relationship with God.  Some might even refer to this as a friendship with God that is cultivated over time.

Ghandi suggests that “Prayer is not asking, it is alonging of the soul.”  The true meaning of prayer can be found in our longing for a relationship with God thattranscends whether or not our prayers are “answered” as we had hoped they would be.  It’s our relationship with God that provides the true reward of prayer.

Soren Kierkegaard offers a slightly different understanding in his suggestion that, “The true function of prayer is not to influence God, but to change the nature of the one who prays.”

I believe that Kierkegaard is exactly right!  Prayer isn’t really about persuading God to give us what we want.  Prayer is essentially about creating a relationship with God that has the power to change us as we learn to understand the nature of God and what it is that God desires of us and for us.

A true life of prayer, then, isn’t one that persuades God togive us what we want.  It is one that persuades us to live in harmony with God’s will and way for our lives. And thatrequires patience and persistence.  It requires discipline and hard work.  And it is precisely here that some are inclined to conclude that a life of prayer is not for them.

How sad!  To be so close and yet so far!  A relationshipwith God, just like any friendship, is not created in a day…or two…or three.  It is cultivated over time, one prayer at a time.  It may a take a while before we even realize what is taking place in our connection with God.  But, if we persist in our prayer life, we will surely begin to see that, much to our surprise, the meaning of our prayer life is to be found in the transformation of our own life. 

By the grace of God and our persistent prayer, we are nolonger who we once were.  Instead, we have become what the Apostle Paul referred to as “new creations in Christ.”

 That, if you ask me, is the sign of a successful prayer life, one that is measured not in getting what you want, but in getting the relationship that you need.

See You in Church!

Ron

Rev. Ron Dunn

I owe everything to the gift of Pentecost. For fifty days the facts of the Gospel were complete, but no conversions were recorded. Pentecost registered three thousand souls. It is by fire that a holy passion is kindled in the soul whereby we live the life of God. The soul’s safety is in its heat. Truth without enthusiasm, morality without emotion, ritual without soul, make for a Church without power.               

___Samuel Chadwick____________

Dear Friends,

I am intrigued by this quotation (above) from SamuelChadwick.  He is, of course, speaking about the importance of the fire of holy passion kindled, so dramatically, on the occasion of Pentecost as described in the second chapter of Acts.  This will be our reference point as we gather for worship this coming Sunday.  We will read this familiar story and its dramatic descriptions of fire, wind and an explosion of languages from around the world.

It was in this earth-shaking moment that the Church firstsprang to life with a passion and a power that was astonishing!  Three thousand people joined in the ranks ofthe fledgling Christian movement and then proceeded to live out their faith with a remarkable sense of harmony, dedication and love.

It may be difficult for some of us to read this story in Acts,Chapter Two, without feeling a twinge of envy.  After all, the church was alive, filled with passion and power andpossibility!  The Spirit was at work, and lives were being changed on a daily basis.

A quick glance at our current church / religious climatewould suggest a very different picture.  Instead of bursting with energy, passion and power, some churches seem to be so caught up in a lethargic boredom that are causing them to focus not on growth and expansion, but upon decay and decline.   In some cases, they may be entertaining discussions about whether or not they even have a future.  

It’s difficult to imagine a greater swing of feeling andemotion between the story described in the Book of Acts and the stories that some churches are telling about their present circumstances.

To reference the quote by Chadwick, “Truth withoutenthusiasm, morality without emotion, ritual without soul, make for a Church without power.” That is certainly what several churches today are experiencing—a loss of power.

The question, of course, that we all wonder about is justhow we might reclaim that power?  How might we go about rekindling this flame of holy passion?  In what ways can we learn to practice our faith with enthusiasm,emotion and soul?

While these are not easy questions to answer, I will do mybest to offer my perspective in my message this week, “The Age of Spirit.”  I do believe that at the heart of the current energy crisis in the church is the simple truth that we have often forgotten that vital faith is often linked to an experience of the Holy, an encounter with the Divine.  Unless faith is allowed to become “personal,” it is not likely that it will do much of anything to stir us up and move us forward on the journey that is before us.

While no one would dismiss the importance of being “thinking Christians,” neither should anyone deny the importance of being “feeling Christians,” that is, those individuals who cultivate the presence of God and the experience of God’s enlivening Holy Spirit.  Both head and heart are needed if we are to reclaim the power and thepassion, the energy and the Spirit that gave birth to the Church in Acts Two.

As you prepare for worship this week, you might want to take some time to reflect upon the balance in your life between your ability to think about your faith and your ability to feel (experience) your faith.  Is it a good balance?  What adjustments, if any, might be needed?

I am looking forward to talking with you further about theimportance of Pentecost and the invitation it extends to each one of us who are a part of the community of faith we call the Church.

Grace & Peace,

Ron

Rev. Ron Dunn

“Only transformed people transform people.”

Richard Rohr

Dear Friends,

Over the past couple of weeks, I have been addressing the question concerning the purpose of the church in my Sunday morning messages.  I have suggested that our purpose can be best be defined by the word, “transformation.”  Transformation, I believe, lies at the very heart of the gospel message.  Jesus invited people toexperience a personal (internal) change that led to a social (external) change.  As our conference missionstatement has suggested, “We are called to makes disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.  What we experience personally in our faith leads, inevitably, to a social expression.

With this premise in mind, I would like to focus my attention on what I believe to be an excellent case study in transformation.  I am thinking about the story of Zacchaeus as it is shared in Luke 19: 1-10.  This is, of course, a familiar story to many of us, but I invite you to re-read it in preparation for this Sunday’s message.  As you do so, you might want to reflect upon the nature of Zacchaeus’ experience of transformation.  Do your best to crawl inside of his skin and feel what he was feeling.

One thing is clear.  Zacchaeus was a changed man and the evidence of that change within him can be found in his decision to make amends for his past practice by giving away half of his possessions to the poor and repaying anyone whom he had wronged four times the amount!  That, of course, was no small sum of money as he, as Chief Tax Collector, had undoubtedly wronged a lot of people!   

While the experience of transformation can be difficult to measure or quantify, the evidence of transformation can often be found in the way an individual chooses to treat other people.   As Richard Rohr suggests, “Only transformed people transform people.”

See You in Church,

Ron

Rev. Ron Dunn

I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, by the mercies

of God, to present your bodies as living sacrifices,

holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.

Do not be conformed to this world,

but be transformed by the renewing of your minds,

wo that you may discern the will of God—

what is good and acceptable and perfect.”

Romans 12: 1-2

                    *******************************************************

Dear Friends,

I’m thinking, this week, about the word, “transformation.”  It is a word that, I believe, is to be found at the heart of the gospel message.  Jesus continually invited the people he encountered to experience the power of God’s transforming love in their lives.  The gospels, of course, tell this story oftransformation in different ways.  They tell stories of the blind receiving their sight, stories of the lame being ableto walk, and stories about the sick and tormented being made well.

In many ways, the Gospel story can be understood as a story about the ways in which Jesus initiated a fundamental change or transformation in the lives of the people that he encountered.  Simply put, they were never again the same after their encounter with Jesus.  They looked at themselves differently and, as a result, they chose to live their lives differently from the way they hadbefore.  They were changed.  Transformation, you see, is a part of the central equation of faith as described in much of the New Testament.

I sometimes find myself wondering just where this word, “transformation” fits in our own vocabulary of faith today. It is a word that doesn’t seem to be used as often as it once was.  Perhaps we aren’t as inclined to think about the ways in which our faith evokes a change in us.  Perhaps it seems too old fashioned to do so.  And yet, I can’t help butthink that it would be wise for us to reclaim our understanding of its central importance in our own equation of faith.

After all, the Spirit of God still moves in ways that invite us to change our point of view and our orientation in living. In his letter to the Romans, the Apostle Paul invites his readers, including you and me, to be “transformed by the renewing of our minds, so that we might discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect.”

That is, I believe, good advice.  This week in worship, I will be “thinking out loud” about the importance of the experience of transformation in our own walk of faith.  In preparation for Sunday’s worship, you might want to reflect upon your own experience of transformation and the ways that you have experienced a change in your  way of understanding yourself, God and the world around you. 

Transformation may be a word that, some would suggest, is a bit old-fashioned, but, from my point of view, it could not be more contemporary.   I look forward to Sunday and the opportunity to explore this idea with you a bit further. In the meantime, have a good “rest of the week.”

Grace & Peace,

Ron

Rev. Ron Dunn

Dear Friends,

After taking some time away to see some beautiful sights(Lake Tahoe and Ashland, Oregon), I am looking forward to my “return engagement” with you in our Sunday morning worship this week.  I will be concluding my sermon series on the radical teachings that we know asthe Beatitudes.  I trust that you will agree that these teachings are truly “counter-cultural” in the sense that they directly challenge our conventional wisdom and contemporary assumptions.  Used as a measuring stick, they serve to remind us of the fact that those who choose to follow Jesus and his teaching are not likely to fit comfortably in a culture that often holds a very different opinion concerning the “good life” and what it looks like.

Take, for example, the matter of making peace, which is our concluding focus for this coming Sunday.  Jesus teaches, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God.”  This beatitude suggests that those who make peace will discover the joyful blessing of being a child of God.  But what does it actually mean to make peace?

Some will insist that, as strange as it may sound, peace issomething that is made through conflict.  They believe that war can serve as a prelude to peace. I am inclined,however, to think that this is merely wishful thinking.  War, I believe, serves only as a prelude to more war.

The famous “Pax Romana” (the Roman peace that existedroughly between 27 BC and 192 AD) was ushered in by Roman violence and threat (imperial power).  Although there was a noted lack of conflict during the Pax Romana, it did nothing to resolve the issues and the tensions that existed with the people who were most directly impacted by the influence of Rome.  Those tensions were still there, simmering and threatening to boil over at the nextopportunity.  Roman peace managed, for a while, to keep a lid on the tensions that would one day explode into violence once more.  In other words, the Roman Peace was not really peace—at least as Jesus chose to define it.

The peace that Jesus was referring to had to do with morethan merely the absence of conflict and war.  The Hebrew understanding of peace (shalom) is one that advocates theidea of wholeness—restoring wholeness to relationships that have been broken and damaged.  True peace, then, is made only when broken relationships have been healed and restored.  It is something that takes time and effort.  It takes a willingness to see the other as a human being, worthy of respect and, ideally, love.

When understood in this light, we can begin to see just how radical this Beatitude about peace really is.  It suggests that peace can NEVER be attained through violence, but only through non-violent commitment to heal and restore the relationship that has been broken.

I can’t help but wonder about what such an approach would look like in our world today and the current circumstances in which we find ourselves.  What would it require of us?  Are we willing to set aside our inclinations to believe that violence will solve the problem?  Are we willing to be vulnerable enough to take the risk of being in relationship with those that we don’t understand or,perhaps, don’t want to understand?

That, of course, is difficult for us to imagine.  It’s much easier to press a button  to launch a missile and rely upon the destruction that violence brings.  The only problem is that violence will inevitably bring more violence, and we will find ourselves in a never-ending cycle of madness.  As Mahatma Gandhi once observed, “An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.”

As you reflect upon the radical nature of Jesus’ teachingabout the blessing of choosing to make peace, I invite you to focus your attention upon the ways, large and small, that you might choose to roll up your sleeves and be about the essential work of making peace in your life, in yourrelationships with others and in your role as a citizen of our planet.  In what specific ways might you choose tomake peace in our world?

Shalom,

Ron

Rev. Ron Dunn