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Weekly Devotional

August 25, 2008
 

Exodus 2:15-20  ¹⁵ When Pharaoh heard of it, he sought to kill Moses. But Moses fled from Pharaoh. He settled in the land of Midian, and sat down by a well.  ¹⁶ The priest of Midian had seven daughters. They came to draw water, and filled the troughs to water their father's flock.  ¹⁷ But some shepherds came and drove them away. Moses got up and came to their defense and watered their flock.  ¹⁸ When they returned to their father Reuel, he said, "How is it that you have come back so soon today?"  ¹⁹ They said, "An Egyptian helped us against the shepherds; he even drew water for us and watered the flock."  ²⁰ He said to his daughters, "Where is he? Why did you leave the man? Invite him to break bread."

As we as a congregation move forward in our journey together, I hope that we can continue the practice of inviting others to be a part of that journey.  As we read in our scripture above, Moses was invited by Reuel to stay and break bread with his family after helping his daughters.  Now it’s not often that we have to come to the rescue of those that are gathering water, or that we are rescued as we are gathering water.  But that doesn’t mean we still can’t invite others to join with us in worshiping God.

As I reflect back on this past year that we have had together, I recall that the best attended things are our social events, such as our Soghetti (Thanks for the name Jane!) that we had last fall.  Santa Sitters was well attended and VBS was also a huge success.  However, I am not sure that we are doing as good a job at inviting others to join with us in worship.  What does that look like?  What is your answer if people ask where you go to church?  Do you have to explain what being Lutheran is all about?  Do you know what being Lutheran is all about?  Is our goal to have members, or to invite people to worship with us on a weekly basis?

This is a place where we could sit down and write a whole dissertation.  But rather than getting into a theological dissertation about Lutheranism, we should invite neighbors, friends, strangers, the poor, those in need, etc. to come EXPERIENCE the Lutheran-version of worship.  Yes, we tend to do things more high-church (if you want to think of it that way).  But even if this is the case, we still do the same things that every other church does.  We have a liturgy (an order to the service), we have prayers, singing, congregational participation, and a relaxed atmosphere.  Do we have a rock band or guitars every Sunday?  No, but not every church in the world does.  That is a place where we have something different to offer.

On top of that, we have the celebration of Holy Communion every Sunday.  Why?  Well, the first reason is that Jesus simply commanded “Do this, in remembrance of me.”  Secondly, we do this “For the forgiveness of Sin.”  We break bread because we are children of God.  We break bread together every week.  Families break bread together every day.  We are a family, so should we not break bread together when we gather?  Moses was invited to break bread with the family of the priest of Midian.  So what prohibits us from inviting others to come break bread with us?

In our prayers this week: 

Alma, Mary, Ann, Gail’s mom, Doris and her mom.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Judson