Clothe yourself with Love Col. 3:14

Our OT lesson in Exodus 17 begins with the words: “From the wilderness of sin…” (Not a good place to be!) How fitting this is because Israelites were in quite a messy situation; I am afraid this is a situation we might be familiar with. Have you ever been in a situation where you were 100% sure that your plan was going to work out and it doesn’t? Total disappointment! It was kind of like that for Israel. They were now out of Egypt (God had led them through victory after victory so far!). Now they were on their way to the promised land but, as you know, patience is a virtue that is rare not only in our own families but also in Israel. This time, though, they were in dire straits! They faced lack of water. That’s like a death sentence in the desert, except that they were a people of faith. How did they react? Well, they looked at how bad the situation was and freaked out. They forgot they were people of faith. We fall into that! Many times! Jesus comes with a solution for us: your secur...

There has always been violence in the world. It has been estimated that 3180 out of 3357 years, have been years of war. From the year 496 to 1860, there were only 227 years of peace. The ratio has been 18 years of war to one year of peace. Today there’s more wars; no doubt sophisticated and more fatalities but, there is something different about the violence of our day: It is the silent violence accomplished using the law to our own advantage. The late Catholic Archbishop Fulton Sheen reckoned that this is because humans have despaired for losing their God-given purpose. Case in point: When we have more enthusiasm in being anti-something, more than we cultivates good moral values, good virtues in ourselves, this can be distracting because violence is not the only ill in our society! There are more unfortunately. The trouble is that, without God, all the paths we take lands us back in to the same troubles we were avoiding in the first place. I call this a loop of self-misguidance. In t...

Several days after the 1989 devastating 6.9 earthquake in San Francisco area, a young boy was seen rocking and swaying on the school playground. His principal asked him if he was okay, and the boy said yes, I am moving like the earth, so if there is another earthquake, I won’t feel it. He wanted to prepare himself for another shaking of the ground. We do the same in our lives especially when comes bad news on the phone, and when it rings again, we are quick to say, what else now? This sounds like a predictable behavior. Holy Scriptures are full of instances where God’s people were in these predictable behaviors. I will give an example: God rescued Israel from slavery in Egypt, and when things started getting tough in the desert on the way to freedom, they started craving for Egyptian food! Onions and Garlic, and for us, it would have been pizza, fried chicken and hamburgers! They complained for a piece of their old life of slavery. This is predictable behavior. God wasn’t impressed! W...

I was always fascinated by stories of missionaries from far distant lands. One of those I never forgot. It was a story of two tribes who were long-term enemies, over the years they had lost in fighting a lot of people both sides. The missionaries kept learning new things about the local culture that would could provide an opportunity to share the Good News of Salvation in Jesus Christ. I grew up in Rwanda and Camels are no where to be found there. I learned them in books and got to see them only when I got here in the United States. There are cultures that have never seen a sheep. It's an incredible task for missionaries to explain the Gospel because if they don't know the sheep, there is no way they would understand the lamb of God. Missionaries have to find things that are in their culture that can have the same value so that they can understand the Gospel. It turns out in this particular story that, in order to make peace with other tribes, it was required that both tribe...

TUE EP Reflection 102522 Luke 11:27-36 Hear God’s word and Obey While he was saying this, a woman in the crowd raised her voice and said to him, ‘Blessed is the womb that bore you and the breasts that nursed you!’ But he said, ‘Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it!’ When the crowds were increasing, he began to say, ‘This generation is an evil generation; it asks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah. For just as Jonah became a sign to the people of Nineveh, so the Son of Man will be to this generation. The queen of the South will rise at the judgement with the people of this generation and condemn them, because she came from the ends of the earth to listen to the wisdom of Solomon, and see, something greater than Solomon is here! The people of Nineveh will rise up at the judgement with this generation and condemn it, because they repented at the proclamation of Jonah, and see, something greater than Jonah is here! ‘No one after l...

Sermon 101622 Since the early days of God’s call on Abraham, it seems that God’s relationship with the nation of Israel was up and down, and the time of the prophet Jeremiah was no different. Israel had not learned its lesson because, time after time their hearts veered off the course, and they fell into complacency and forgot God’s ways and did things their own way. No worries, they were punished for it, so were the following generations as well. They faced hardships, some of which, are almost similar to ours. They might not have experienced the devastation of the atomic bomb, but they also knew terrible effects of war and living in exile. They also knew worse pandemics than we have known: a much higher rate of deaths. Just like us, they faced broken relationships, they had pride, greed and conflicts just like we do. No wonder God is seen comforting the next generations: He promised them that they will no longer be liable for the sins of their parents: “This time you will be liable fo...

John 6:16-27 The seamless journey: An encounter with the divine When evening came, his disciples went down to the lake, got into a boat, and started across the lake to Capernaum. It was now dark, and Jesus had not yet come to them. The lake became rough because a strong wind was blowing. When they had rowed about three or four miles, * they saw Jesus walking on the lake and coming near the boat, and they were terrified. But he said to them, ‘It is I; * do not be afraid.’ Then they wanted to take him into the boat, and immediately the boat reached the land towards which they were going. The next day the crowd that had stayed on the other side of the lake saw that there had been only one boat there. They also saw that Jesus had not got into the boat with his disciples, but that his disciples had gone away alone. Then some boats from Tiberias came near the place where they had eaten the bread after the Lord had given thanks. * So, when the crowd saw that neither Jesus nor his disciple...