SUNDAY, May 9 Easter 6

Acts 16:9-15. Come over to Macedonia and help us.

How many members of our mainline churches would understand you if you spoke of the Macedonian Cry? Not many, I'm afraid. But our parents, possibly, and our grandparents, almost certainly, would instantly have recognized its meaning. The phrase was a watchword of missionary-minded Christians of an earlier day. They felt that the "man of Macedonia" was everywhere in the world of the unevangelized, praying for Christians to "come over and help us." If these mainline churches are languishing today, one reason for their decline is the loss of the missionary imperative. How long has it been since you have heard the hymn "From Greenland's Icy Mountains" sung in church?

Somehow we must recover our sense and awareness of the marching orders we have received from our Lord--to go into the world and preach the gospel to every living creature, baptizing them into Christ with water and in the Spirit. William Temple rightly said that the church exists primarily for the sake of those outside itself. (1983)

The church exists by mission as fire exists by burning.

--Emil Brunner

PRAY for The Anglican Church of Korea and the Diocese of Busan

Ps 67; Revelation 21:10, 22-22:5; John 14:23-29 or John 5:1-9

View the daily Lectionary Readings at Satucket.com.
Or view the Bible passages at Biblegateway.com.

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May 09, 2010 at 1:21 am

Written by Steve Doutt,

I feel the message of this meditation on today's Bible readings very intently. However, when I read the lyrics to "From Greenland's Icy Mountains" I felt that it has good intent, but it is very dated. It would be inappropriate to sing it in our congregation. We have members from around the world. They are from many families of the human race. Indeed, based on the current membership of the world-wide Episcopal church, the body of Christ from "Afric’s sunny fountains" should be conducting missionary work on the heathen American who "bows down to wood and stone." It's hard for Episcopalians to get out and spread the Good News among strangers, but that is what we are called to do.

...

May 09, 2010 at 6:55 am

Written by Andrea,

Amen, Steve.

Uniting Pluralistic Multicultural America in Jesus Christ

May 09, 2010 at 1:49 pm

Written by Sheri Christi,

I agree with Steve that the missionary work needs to be right here right now. Missionary yogis from India have seduced many Americans into seeing Jesus as an avatar like Krishna. Lawyer Gandhi used the ideology of Paul against the British and so far western nations have not recovered from what was wrongly interpreted as Hindu righteousness. The Christian British preferred honor over wealth, power and domination. Every summer powerful Mother goddess yogis like Amma and Karunamayi visit America on highly successful missionary missions. Normally we think of mothers as positive, but these beings destroy the soul. It is called "merging" in which they project part of their identity into another and it takes them over, just like a cancer takes over healthy cells. We used to call that possession, now it is called self-realization....

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