Homiletix II

Here's the text from a "topical" sermon by Greg that was to be 10-12 minutes long and the topic chosen was Ascension day.

Opening Collect from BCP, 226
O Almighty God, whose blessed Son our Savior Jesus Christ ascended far above all heavens that he might fill all things: Mercifully give us faith to perceive that, according to his promise, he abides with his Church, even to the end of the ages; through Jesus Christ, who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, in glory everlasting. Amen

Moving... in my 29 years, I've had the begrudging joy of moving 25 times. There's packing to be done, forwarding addresses, setting up some system of hauling your stuff to a new place (which hopefully you have already established as your destination), and with all the annoyances, my all-time least favorite part of moving was always saying Goodbye. Goodbye to the friends I have made and the people who have impacted my life; Goodbye to the places I've grown accustomed to and come to rely on; Goodbye to schools and routines of life that offered some kind of consistency in our obviously tumultuous life. Goodbye everything I've known and Hello abandonment
At the Ascension of Jesus, he says goodbye, too. But instead of the heartache of goodbye, we may never meet again and your whole life is being uprooted and everything is changing for the unknown... We (and the disciples) thought we'd lost Jesus once, we said goodbye the day that he was crucified and buried, only to have our faith and hope and love renewed by his glorious resurrection! but now he's saying goodbye again. Jesus says, I go to prepare a place for you, and I am coming quickly. We are never forsaken nor abandoned. But why does he have to Ascend? Over the next couple of weeks we are going to be talking about the Ascension and Session of Jesus, but today, focussing on the Gospel Reading, we are going to focus on the WHY of the Ascension, Why did Jesus have to go"?
Jesus Ascends to the Father in order to
Bring our real humanity into communion with the Trinity
Commission His Body to the ministry of proclamation, and
Dispatch the Holy spirit to empower and give life
Post-Resurrection, Jesus is revealing himself to people left and right. The disciples are gathered in a closed room talking about his latest revelation on the road to Emmaus through the breaking of the bread and by how their hearts burned within them as he open the Scriptures to them.
All of sudden, Jesus appears! Out of nowhere (ex nihilo?) and says, "Peace to you!" Naturally, they respond, "And also with you", right? No way... where there should have been a, "And with thy Spirit", there is a frightened, "Ah!! A Spirit!!"
They immediately doubt the real humanity of Christ and Jesus takes great pains to belabour the fact that he is still very human - appealing to their senses "See my hands and my feet...touch me, and see. A spirit does not have flesh and bones as I do. Have you anything to eat?" Why is it so important to Jesus to proove his real humanity?
Because Jesus Ascends to the Father in order to Bring our real humanity into communion with the Trinity Jesus, bearing our real humanity is our Mediator.
1Tim2:5, "There is one mediator between God and man, the MAN Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all"
Barth (Dogmatics in Outline, ch 18) "Christ is where God is and as bearer of our humanity is our Representative in the place where God is, and in the way in which God is"
The death and resurrection of Jesus secures our salvation and it s through the Ascension that we are united to the One, True, and Living God by the real humanity of Jesus. Gregory of Nazianzus summarizes this point well (On Apolonarianism), "That which has not been assumed has not been healed, but that which is united to the Godhead is saved"
Our Hope and confidence in the finished work of Christ is grounded in the reality that he ascended to the Father in order to bring our real humanity into communion with the Trinity. We are the branches of the Vine of Christ because he bears our real humanity to the Father in the Asension.
Jesus Ascends to the Father in order to Commission His Body to the ministry of proclamation
Luke 24:44-48
Prior to his ascension, when it seems as though he's saying goodbye, just as Jesus is sure to remind his disciples of the reality of his humanity, He makes sure to remind them of the gospel message they are to proclaim once He is seemingly gone. That all the Law, Prophets, Writings, and all of Scripture speaks of the story of Jesus Himself, "That the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead. And that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed...to all nations... you are WITNESSES of these things" You have received the story of the salvation of your souls... you have been healed and sin has been dealt with and you are commissioned to tell this story to the whole world. This ministry of proclamation, which began in Eden and continued through Moses and the Prophets and John the Baptist, and the disciples doesn't cease when Jesus goes to bring our humanity into the community of the Trinity. No, Jesus Ascends to the Father in order to commission his Body to continue that ministry - He goes away to build the Church.
Eph 4:10-12, he ascended far above all the heavens that he might fill all things...and he gave apostles, prophets, teachers, seminarians... to equip the saints for the work of ministry and for the building up and maturation of the Body.
We are given a task because Jesus Ascends to the Father, though Jesus says, I go, you are now my witnesses, Go make disciples of all nations... He also says, I will ask the Father and we will send you another helper who is with you and dwells in you... we are also given the power to do his commandments because
Jesus Ascends to the Father in order to Dispatch the Holy Spirit to empower and give life In the Ascension, Jesus Brings our real humanity into communion with the Trinity and Commissions us to the ministry of proclamation and then He says
Luke 24:49, Behold, I am sending the promise of my Father upon you..stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high..." Jesus doesn't say goodbye that we may be separated from Him, no we are closer than ever before by the Holy Spirit who fills us. We are not left alone because Jesus has moved...because just as he mediates our humanity to the Father, He also mediates the divinity of God to His commissioned Body by clothing us in the Holy Spirit
Athanasius said, "[Jesus] became as we are, that we might become as he is" We are empowered by the Holy Spirit, not only to proclaim repentance and forgiveness of sins in word, but in our very being, as united to the gracious, omnipotent God who descended to become Incarnate and Ascend again so that we who by faith know and love and serve him may have real hope and faith and live in true love by the indwell of the Holy Spirit!!
Jesus opens up the lines of communication between God and humanity by bearing BOTH in Himself and mediating each to each by his Ascension. He goes away, but he goes to prepare a place for us and
Ascends to the Father in order to
Bring our real humanity into communion with the Trinity
Commission His Body to the ministry of proclamation, and
Dispatch the Holy spirit to empower and give life

Homiletix

So, we thought you all might enjoy some of our sermons from this year of multiple sermonizings.

Click the link below to hear Noel's sermon on the Feast Day of Clive Staples "Jack" Lewis, November 22nd.  If you so desire, the reading that the sermon is based on is 1 Peter 1:3-9, read it if you want to follow along a little better. :)  Enjoy!

Living Hope

Goodbye, Summer

Yes, we are well aware that we have pretty much waved goodbye to summer and are well into Autumn.  But, hey, we're having days in the 70s this week, so excuse us if we're trying to ride out the last waves of summer!  School is going well though this is our first week of heavy assignments.  But thus far, it was has been mostly full of resource collecting and reading, which is great! 

As our pensieve i.e. memory-holder, we figured it would be good to leave a tribute to some of our summer activities (except our brief stint on dog-sitting). 

Earlier this summer, a fellow seminarian friend of ours, who also makes his own chain mail (sweet!) approached a few of us to see if we'd like to play Dungeons and Dragons.  None of our original crew had ever played but we all love the exercise of imagination, dragons and communal activities.  So, we embarked on a little adventure together to find 2 adult children of a local barmaven who joined an adventuring party but never came back.  Noel adventures as a dwarf cleric healer and protector who throws a mean waraxe and Greg as an edifying, mischievous gnome bard who holds in his lyre the courage and morale of the whole group.  Here's some shots of us battling a bugbear (an annoyingly powerful goblinoid who also turned out to be a chef...who made excellent adventurer soup)!

 And these are Noel's pretty dice!  Oo-oo! Aa-ah!

We actually did not get to go into Pittsburgh quite as much as we had hoped and didn't get to go to any of the movies in the park nights or anything, but we had fun anyway.  But, we did purchase a Groupon (if you don't know about it, you should!!! www.groupon.com) for a place called the ToonSeum, as the genius name suggests it is a cartooning museum.  And over the summer, they had an exhibit of superhero comics.  So, we thought we'd check it out.  We talked to a couple of the artists who work there and ironically, this exhibit had been scheduled long before the third Batman movie was scheduled to film in Pittsburgh but how great for their marketing that it ended up that way!

 And then we got some peaks at the new Gotham City! (Check out the license plate)

 Camouflaged batmobiles!

 Gotham Cathedral?!

 Noel worked here all summer and though parts of it were hard,all worth it.
Yes, that is a nuclear power plant in the background, ah, the scenery! :)

And a quick jot to San Antonio to spend some time with the familia, especially this little (though not so little anymore) guy!

Fun & Funding (not mutually exclusive!)

So in our mad efforts to make the most of our summer financial opportunities since wrapping up J-term classes, we spent a couple weeks mid-July dogsitting in the town ten minutes up the river. It’s a good thing that Noel already knows this dog up close and personally from my acquaintance with his family, because he’s named Mozart, which might have led me to expect a dog that weighed less than my husband. It would have taken a name like Wagner or Tchaikovsky to start giving me a sense of the ginormity of this dog. As it was, we fortunately knew ahead of time that Moe is a hefty guy. His tongue is as long as my arm and runs like a faucet, and he overheats pretty quickly, so much of our quality time was confined to the kitchen where the drool puddles could be easily mopped up. He’s been trained to keep his, um, messes, in one small part of the yard, a worthwhile investment of training time and expense, for sure. Indeed, he’s been well-trained overall and can’t help that his front and his back don’t always coordinate.

This picture does not do Mozart's magnitude justice.

Our other work time is spent barista-ing at Starbucks and lifeguarding at the YMCA outdoor pool (under the cloud of the nuclear power plant!). (Noel is now known throughout western PA for her water-treading skills, an event she won at the YMCA lifeguarding competition - woooo, that's my wife! -G.) Even though we’re working a lot, we get some fun in the neighborhood with our peeps here and there:

Scott plays tennis. Which means he plays badminton too. Look out, Greg!

Our agent has asked us to make an appearance via Skype in the Chicagoland area on Wednesday, August 31 at 7 pm in Wheaton. Thanks to those of you setting this prayer time up as we launch into Year 2. If you want more info on that gathering, email us.

We Made It!

I think we've both been waiting for some really exciting things to happen to us so that people might want to read our blog.  And here we are...2 months later :)  And on the one hand, yes, we survived our first year of seminary!  Thank you, thank you!  And yet, it is a month beginning with the letter "J" and when it is one of these "J" months, we have what is called fittingly called, "J-Term".  In order to stay on track with a three-year program (and if we don't, then well...we'll be here for-e-ver [think Sandlot]), we must take 5 classes per semester.  In order to accomplish this and stay sane...and by sane, I mean gainfully employed, sanitary and fed, we usually take a "J Term". 

This "J Term", Noel is taking Hebrew Exegesis which is a fancy way of saying translating several passages of the Old Testament, the whole book of Jonah, learning more syntax than she ever wanted to know and getting all sorts of fodder for hip sermons on the OT.  It's fun!  She thought she wasn't going to be able to venture on this little project with the same professor and teacher whom she previously ventured through Hebrew II with, but God aligned things marvelously (as He's wont to do) and so there she is.  Every morning for two weeks, you can find her studying Hebrew or chatting nonchalantly with her Hebrew buddy, Ben.  The prof told us not to sit by each other, but secretly I think we're his favorites :)  Lift up Noel that her memory may prove vast and capable in the area of Hebrew and that it would stick and that God's Truth would be deepened in her gut as a result of her study of the Old Testament in Hebrew.  (She's thankful for already learning some interesting tidbits!)

"J Term" holds Evangelism and Church Planting for Greg.  He has been reading a few books in order to prepare book reports due prior to his class which starts next Monday.  None of these books, as of yet, have been all that great and would probably appear mundane and uninsightful to most of you, so we will not recommend them here.  We are both hoping for his sake that the reading material improves and becomes less formulaic (and for Noel, too, because she has to take it sometime in the next year).  A good book on evangelism and church planting is hard to find, so it seems.  Chatting with a friend the other night, we thought that perhaps this class needs some good missional church, how-to-church-plant-and-be-missional kinds of books.  Ironically, we are feeling quite a lack in the "How To" area in most of our classes.  Like, where there's a will and a theology, there must be a way, right???  Well, we believe so...or else what kind of theology is it, really?  Anyway, that's a different soap box for a different day.  If any of you have any suggestions on good church planting or missional church books, please let us know!
And pray for Greg as he is in class all day every day next week that he would learn what it is that God has for him.

When not in "J Terms" ie most of the summer, we can be found at our various jobs.  Greg is still at Starbucks, though he was just relocated...AGAIN.  But, it's all good.  He's at a slow, giant cafe store now that is a great hang out and lets him engage with customers as he likes to do (which Noel doesn't understand at all :) ).
Noel is a manager at an outdoor pool in Midland, about 35 minutes northwest of where they live.  Thus far it's been both a challenge and fun.  Last week, she had a good conversation with Grandpa Jim, as she calls him, about the woes of western PA and the seeming epidemic of very young moms (and dads).  More on that later, but it's people like Jim that make Noel's days out in the sun, yelling at kids and saving lives all worth it....well, that and the wicked tan she's getting!  Just kidding, pray that the both of us would live the joy of the Lord at work and would be lights in dark places.

Thanks for reading, Pfiles.  We regret that we will not be traveling anywhere much this summer and so will not get to see many of you.  But, please do come see us if you're over our way!  And let us know if we can be lifting you up as well.  We wouldn't have made it through our 1000th day of marriage and our first year of seminary without your love and prayers...fo' real, we mean that. 

March Madness!

Sorry if that just manipulated you into looking at this post!  It's not so much about basketball as it is some of our meanderings during Reading Week where we were able to visit some of the folks in Chi-town.  We were bummed not to get to see all of you but we hope to be able to visit again soon and to pick up with some of you whom we were unable to see!  We miss the area where we spent so much of our lives.  But I'm glad that we are still going back and we pray we will continue to get to do so.

Maybe you don't all want see photos of yourselves but it is our pensieve (please see Harry Potter references if you are looking at this dumbfoundedly or just take our nerdy words for it) as well and we cherish these memories and want to be able to withdraw the watery, ethereal substance of anamnesis into the forefronts of our reflections, so here we go:

anticipating a good SAGA run!

Best College Salad Bar in the U.S. 8 years and counting!

nothing reminds me of the good ol' days in SAGA like their abundant gourmet mayonnaise section.
yes, it made all of those days in the ugly BGC worth it (not that I disliked the job, just the building!)

SAGA group date!

Amigos Locos, more like it...

The LOVE!!!!!

Worst...and yet best celebration of Pi Day ever

Dinner with our hospitable hosts!  We miss you all dearly.  Except Scott, we see him all the time.

Because there must always be a goofy portrait to accompany a serious one.
It is pointed out that Noel's presence is represented here by the Guinness bottle.

A Palm Sunday blessing

Look! Our names are appearing in our Church bulletin as real seminarians! Woo hoo! We are so thankful for this church that we are a part of...yesterday was truly a beautiful Palm Sunday and they are a church who loves God and sees Him at work all the time and choose to be thankful and pray for all of His body.