February 5, 2025

February 5, 2025

by | Feb 5, 2025 | PS from PS

ps from ps

“You’re only…..”

Has anyone ever told you that?

Sometimes it can be motivating.  But most of the time it holds us back.  And breaks us down.  And sets up boundaries.  And when we start to hear it enough, we start to believe it.  And then it progresses to something worse…we start saying about ourselves – “I’m only.”  

And that’s when the real damage is done.  Especially in God’s eyes.

This weekend at church, Kristen started using this phrase in her sermon as she retold the story of Jeremiah’s call to be a prophet of God.  God’s call went out to Jerry and what was his first response?  “I’m only…”  

Who had he heard that from?  How many times already in his life?  

But the beauty in the story is that God’s call to him already had gone out.  God had already identified him as amazing.  As important.  As needed.  As crucial for the story of salvation history.  

God reminded him that he knew him from the beginning.  Jeremiah’s beginning.  Had designed him for the incredible.  And gifted him with the potential.

In some ways, God was trying to help him realize his “only” was exactly what God needed him to be.

Only Jeremiah was just about right!

Did you wake up today and feel God’s calling for you in the world?  For your team?  For your family?  For your church?  For your neighbor?  For those who are hurting?  

Did you have that reaction that Jeremiah did and want to reach for the “I’m only’s” that have snuck in to our subconscious and conscious from the unhelpful and untrue and unrealized?

Or, above those doubts and fears, can you hear the voice of God who needs you and wants you just as and only as you.  Only you.  

Your only today is perfect.  Your only is needed.  Your only is loved.  Your only, in the eyes of God, is just about right!

Lord, help me to appreciate the only you made me to be.  Amen

Still in One Peace,
ps

And also “pps from ps”: Biegner Winter is 67% over!!
January 29, 2025

January 29, 2025

by | Jan 29, 2025 | PS from PS

ps from ps

We will now take a 100+ day break from football and Buffalo Bills analogies and metaphors.

So….. moving on to the Buffalo Sabres and hockey.

“The next shift is the most important shift.” – Coach Lindy Ruff

Coach Ruff has tried to instill in the team this year an important principle – bouncing right back when you get scored on.  So, he’s pushed the team to understand that when the opposing team scores a goal, the VERY next shift is the most important shift to push hard, and score right back!  Some games it works better than others, but last night, it was executed perfectly.  

Both times that the Boston Bruins scored on the Sabres, the very next shift our top line pushed harder and grabbed a goal back.  It not only fired up the whole team to play harder, but two of those guys on the same line got hat tricks (three goals in one game).  

“The next shift is the most important shift.” – Jesus, to the disciples and us.

Throughout the incredible journey that Jesus took with the disciples, he was teaching the same principle that Lindy is teaching on the ice – after someone gets a goal on you, your immediate response is most important.  

Whether it was the need for forgiveness…whether it was standing with the outcast…whether it was people drawing swords and cutting off ears…whether it was the crowd coming up hungry….whether it was the village turning them away….each and every time, Jesus taught them to use the principles he was teaching to come back right away with love, compassion, forgiveness and peace.  

And this was God’s principle from the beginning…in the garden…with those worshipping golden calves…and throughout all of salvation history, God was teaching us to respond to the hard stuff with the love stuff.  To come back from being down on our luck, hurt and off track by recentering around the Coach’s message, the teammates on our lines and our options to put a goal on the board with grace, action and tangible hope.

Today, you might feel like the other team just got a goal.  You might be down, disappointed, disconnected or disillusioned.  

If so, I would encourage you to hear Jesus’ words that “the next shift is the most important shift.”  How will you respond today?  How will we recenter around God’s love and hope when it feels like we just went down a goal?  

Don’t forget you play on a team.  You have line mates – church, family, friends that you can skate hard with.  You’re not alone on the ice.  And your incredible and increased effort will inspire them as well.

Lord, thanks for reminding us that it’s important to keep going and respond with more love.  Amen

Still in One Peace,
ps

And also “pps from ps”: Happy 42nd Anny to my folks!
February 5, 2025

January 22, 2025

by | Jan 22, 2025 | PS from PS

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Don’t eat yellow snow.  (Especially in Houston or New Orleans of all places!)

Don’t poke the bear.

Just do it!

Be the change.

So many short phrases to recenter us and help us to make better choices, reframe the hard moments and direct our dailyness.

Could sermons be this short?? 

Could my sermons be this short one day?  Maybe.  (It’s OK if you’re saying “Hopefully!:)

Jesus had one.  In Luke 4, he’s in the temple teaching, reads Scripture, rolls us the scroll and says: This Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.

Mic drop!  

Sermon over.

And the crowd soaked it in and appreciated his brief message.  They were fine with it!

Interesting part of the Scripture he read though.  It proclaimed who he was and what his calling was: bring good news, proclaim release to the captives, sight to the blind and freedom to those oppressed.  And to let folks know that God has broken in.

So, much like those pithy little statements, it seems that this sermon and that text is meant to do the same thing: to recenter us and help us to make better choices, reframe the hard moments and direct our dailyness.  

What’s intriguing to me is that he says: it’s fulfilled in your hearing.  He didn’t say: in your doing.  The crowd is very comfortable with his sermon and proclamation when he’s just talking about “hearing it”.  

But, immediately after his mini-sermon, he actually heads out and starts DOING it!  And that’s when they get uncomfortable.  Maybe our “hearing” is meant and intended to motivate and guide our “doing” and we, like those who heard the sermon the first time, can get uncomfortable too?

I mean, that would never happen still in church today, right?  A preacher sharing tough words about release to captives, sight to blind, freedom to the oppressed and then after hearing it, being invited to do it and getting uncomfortable??  

Monday, on MLK Jr and Inauguration Day, I watched the Episcopal Bishop of Washington DC share a sermon in the prayer service with the incoming President, as tradition holds.  She reflected Jesus’ teachings and made a passionate plea for those in need today, which sounded quite similar to the scroll Jesus read.  When asked after worship how the President liked the service, he said: it wasn’t very good.

Turning the hearing into doing makes us uncomfortable.

How’s your comfort level today?  Are we ready to hear Jesus open that scroll for us again today?  To hear that God’s good news had indeed broken in, and the call to the doing of that good news is as needed now as it was then?  “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me
        to bring good news to the poor.  He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
    and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.  And maybe also, your doing. 
Lord, thanks for this powerful and short sermon.  Amen

Still in One Peace,
ps
February 5, 2025

January 15, 2025

by | Jan 15, 2025 | PS from PS

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“Softball pitch this Sunday” – Pastor Scott Hannon says to me as we contemplate life and faith together.  

What’s the text? – I ask him.

“Wedding at Cana” – Scott replies.

That’s a good one.  Why do you say?. – I inquire. 

“Beginnings become endings.  Endings become beginnings.” – He replies again.  

Then he picked up a piece of tape and held it in front of me.  “A beginning and an ending right?”  Yep, I said.  Then he took the tape and stuck the two ends together to make a loop.

“Same tape.  But now – Beginnings become endings.  Endings become beginnings.”

In John’s gospel, Jesus, already in chapter 2, is at a wedding.  Wine runs dry.  His mom and others panic a bit.  So Jesus turns som water into wine.  What looked like a wedding coming to an end was now a wedding just beginning.  What seems like fears just beginning became doubts ending as they were washed over by God’s miracles.

We live a circular life.  It’s not linear at all.  Our birth to death cycle is only linear if you forget about the resurrection.  Our fears driving us to despair are only linear if we lose hope in God’s provision.  Our health concerns are only linear if we don’t allow for God’s healing.  Our lostness is only linear if we discount the Holy Spirit’s guidance.

Beginnings become endings.  Endings become beginnings.

May you see God’s power to turn water into wine again today.  May you sense that the moment you are in right now isn’t linear at all.  It’s a loop of tape.  A loop of faith.  A loop of hope.  A loop of the miraculous..

Lord, thank you for cycling me through miracle after miracle.  Amen

Still in One Peace,

ps
February 5, 2025

January 8, 2025

by | Jan 8, 2025 | PS from PS

ps from ps
What is distracting you today?

For many of us, our personalities, styles and modes of operating through life allow for distractions to pull us away, listen to the wrong voices and maybe even lead us toward bad choices.

When you read through stories in the Bible, we’re not alone!

As we launched into the season of the NFL Playoffs….I mean Epiphany (see what happened, I got distracted again!) we got to hear about the wise men getting distracted by Herod.  He’s the ruler boss of the land and wasn’t super thrilled about some new “God-baby” coming into town and potentially zapping some of his power and authority.  

The wise guys were summoned to see him.  So they went and listened.  But they realized the distraction in live time.  Whether it was hearing how sketchy Herod’s motives were or being in the presence of this God-baby themselves, they picked up on it.  It motivated to them to return him a different way and not get derailed by the dis-Herod-traction so that they could announce the presence of God in the world to their home country.  

Distractions can be story changing.  They can be injury causing and energy zapping.

What distractions pull you in the wrong direction?  Pull your energy…your faith energy…away from the journey God has set for you?

As we move into 2025, take some time to name some…or even one…of them.  Pray about them.  And maybe even take some action steps to set them aside, move away from them or battle with them in live time.  

And if you get distracted from noticing the distractions, you aren’t the first and won’t be the last.  That just reminds me that we’re in this together.  But let’s give it a shot and allow the wise men’s live time recognition be an inspiration for our own faith journey.

Lord, help me to stay focus on your love for me.  Amen

Still in One Peace,

ps