Wednesday, February 5, Childcare at Leawood, West, Overland Park will not be open during morning due to local public school systems announcing late arrival schedules. All church buildings will operate on regular schedule. However, at Leawood, West and Overland Park, programs requiring childcare will not be held prior to noon Wednesday.
On Sunday, February 9, we’re moving our regular 5 pm worship service to 4 pm so everyone can get home in time to watch the Chiefs play in the Super Bowl.
Deuteronomy 28
2 All these blessings will come upon you and find you if you obey the Lord your God’s voice: 3 You will be blessed in the city and blessed in the field. 4 Your own fertility, your soil’s produce, and your livestock’s offspring—the young of both cattle and flocks—will be blessed.
12 The Lord will open up for you his own well-stocked storehouse, the heavens, providing your land with rain at just the right time and blessing all your work. You will lend to many nations, but you won’t have any need to borrow. 13 The Lord will make you the head of things, not the tail; you will be at the top of things, not the bottom, as long as you obey the Lord your God’s commandments that I’m commanding you right now, by carefully doing them.
Matthew 5
43 “You have heard that it was said, You must love your neighbor [Leviticus 19:18] and hate your enemy. 44 But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who harass you 45 so that you will be acting as children of your Father who is in heaven. He makes the sun rise on both the evil and the good and sends rain on both the righteous and the unrighteous. 46 If you love only those who love you, what reward do you have? Don’t even the tax collectors do the same? 47 And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing? Don’t even the Gentiles do the same? 48 Therefore, just as your heavenly Father is complete in showing love to everyone, so also you must be complete.
In his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus expanded a variety of promises that God’s people tended to think were only for them to all of God’s human family. This was a striking example. Deuteronomy pictured God blessing just his covenant people from “his own well-stocked storehouse, the heavens.” But Jesus said if God only blessed his friends with rain, that would fall far short of heaven’s type of love. Jesus made his point with an “obvious” statement that isn’t obvious at all when we reflect on it: “[God] makes the sun rise on both the evil and the good and sends rain on both the righteous and the unrighteous.” Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. preached his last Christmas Eve sermon on December 24, 1967. It included these words: “Agape is an overflowing love which seeks nothing in return…. I’ve seen too much hate to want to hate, myself… every time I see it, I say to myself, hate is too great a burden to bear.” *
“In verse 45 Jesus bases His call to love on the very nature and practice of the Father, who, in perfect love, without respect of persons, treats enemies and friends alike in His gracious providence. The next two verses, 46 and 47, call us to the higher ethic of positive love. Jesus says that to treat others as they have treated us is to behave at the same level as the sinners about us who do not experience the transforming grace of Christ. Perhaps the injunction in verse 47 is as difficult as any: to be gracious to those who are not our brethren, who are not of our group! This needs to be heard as a corrective admonition for all whose denominational prejudice, in-group bias, or whose cozy security in a primary fellowship keeps them from being a light to the world. Jesus removes all of the fences; He breaks down the walls. He shows us that loving enemies is of God and sharing God’s kingdom is to share His way of love.” ** Where can you expand the boundaries of your love to more fully live out Jesus’ command?
Lord Jesus, give me the courage, creativity, focus and faith to live as a committed member of your family, enveloped in and actively sharing God’s love with everyone. Amen.
Jacob Hery is a returning intern from Houston, Texas serving in the Modern Worship department at the Church of the Resurrection. He recently graduated from Samford University with a Bachelor of Arts in Commercial Music, with an emphasis in songwriting and a minor in worship leadership. In his free time, Jacob enjoys binge-watching sitcoms, hanging out with friends, and writing music.
Whenever someone asks me what my favorite holiday is, my instant instinctual answer is always Christmas, with Easter following close behind. But the firm third-place spot always goes to Thanksgiving. Turkey Day is so high for me because it is the one time every year when my Dad’s entire side of the family gathers together. It is the only time in 365 days that I get to see some of my relatives.
Sure, there are awkward moments, and someone always says something offensive or crass. But the thing I love about it is that every single member of the family is invited and shown love. It does not matter what happens the rest of the year; we focus on sharing love and laughter on that Thursday in November.
I think this is similar to what God asks us to do. Jesus says we should love everyone, even those we disagree with, because we are all children of a great God in heaven. So, like at Thanksgiving, let us focus on sharing love with every human on earth because a careful Creator crafted each of us.
* “A Christmas Sermon on Peace,” in James M. Washington, ed. A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches of Martin Luther King, Jr. San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1986, p. 256.
** Myron S. Augsberger, comment on Matthew 5:43-48 in The Preacher’s Commentary Series, Volume 24: Matthew. Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1982.