July 2024

Is Your S0ul In Danger? Taken from a Red Rock News Article Rev. Dona Johnson | July 28, 2024 A deep and abiding question for people of faith is this: is my soul in danger? In other words, what is the state of your spiritual life. Is your moral integrity in danger? Does it seem like today, there is a shorter supply of moral integrity than ever before? Social media, texting, videotaping have all rapidly expanded a platform for people to raise their voices like never before. Social media has provided an immediate way, a communal way to speak out about wrong doing both in helpful and wrongful ways. It has also provided a way to unleash information that is untrue, that tears apart people’s reputations and normalizes harmful behaviors. We see in real time news cycles displaying harmful behaviors in all its forms: misogyny, racism, prejudices and discrimination existing everywhere—in religion, politics, academics and in family life.       Moral integrity or the lack thereof has been so much a part of the human condition from the very beginning of time. It is a human problem and it is present in every generation. The culture has such a gravitational pull on every Christian’s heart. It has the church by the scruff of the neck wanting to force it to agree with the ways of the world.       What is integrity anyway? The Cambridge Dictionary defines ‘integrity’ as the virtue of being honest and having strong moral principles that you live out and refuse to change. Integrity also represents a consistency and congruency in how we think, what we say and what we do. For Christians it means to embody at a very deep level the faith practices and live out the teachings of Jesus. These practices reshape our personalities and how we react to others.       Rich Villodas author of “The Deeply Formed Life,” in a recent podcast said, “I have the theological conviction that I am susceptible of living with integrity, as well as not living with integrity. I try to live with the practice that my soul is in danger of losing its center.”      Jesus often talked about this spiritual center. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world [wealth, fame, success], but forfeits his soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul? (Matt. 16:26). Paul also understood the human temptation to be selfish and self-centered, to live a life where you will go to any length to get what you want. All things are lawful [that is, morally legitimate, permissible says Paul, but not all things are beneficial or advantageous (1 Cor 10:24). There is nothing more real than Christian freedom, but as we are freed of sin through the life and death of Jesus Christ, we are at the same time bound to him in love to live a life of integrity before him.      How do you keep the state of your soul free from the sin and distractions in this world? For one, make yourself available to honest counsel from close friends or spouses, people who see your life through the lens of the Christian faith. We need a lot of trusted friends around us to help us protect our integrity. There are also seasons in our lives, where we may need to seek therapy or spiritual direction to sort through unresolved conflicts and hurts that rob our souls of peace. We may have friends who no matter what always agree and take our side. While other friends offer needed criticism that will help us improve ourselves and our walk with Christ (Proverbs 27:17). Another way we can protect our souls is to honor the Fourth Commandment, keep the Sabbath holy. A lot of things get violated when we are tired, overworked and fraught with too many demands. We may say something mean-spirited; tempers flare and we may lie and cheat in our fidelity to God and others. Keeping trusted friends close to us, examining our reactions with others, keeping one day a week free to worship God, we live from a place of depth, wisdom and discernment and that produces a life of integrity and keeps our souls safe from danger.

Jesus Chooses Not to Leave Us In The Conditions Where He Finds Us Taken from a Red Rock News Article Rev. Dona Johnson | July 14, 2024 For anyone who has had a seriously sick child or a loved one taken ill, knows the deep pain and anguish that comes when you’re waiting for some sign of recovery to happen. The pain of not knowing the final outcome. Where the wavering back and forth between hope and despair can be quite upsetting.       Jairus who was a ruler in the synagogue experienced that same type of trauma when his young daughter had taken ill. Jairus was a well known member in his local community and a respected leader in the synagogue. But something happened to him the day his young daughter died. In his desperation, his thoughts turned to Jesus. Had Jairus forgot his prejudices? Anyone in the Jewish ruling class knew Jesus was someone to steer clear of, an outlier and a dangerous heretic. But at the death of his daughter, Jairus humbled himself and fell at Jesus’ feet begging for help— save my daughter’s life. Few things have done more to hold things back from moving in the right direction than our prejudices.       Jesus was deeply moved by Jairus’ situation. So, he calls upon Jairus’ faith, telling Jairus that now is not the time to give up, but instead to keep on in the faith. Jesus then goes to Jairus’ home. Death had struck this little household; people were sobbing as if all hope had run out. Jesus calmed the crowd. He tells them not to worry, that the child is only asleep. Then taking Jairus, his wife and his inner circle Peter, James and John, he cleared the house. He walked over to the young child and takes her hand. He calls out to her in Aramaic, “Talitha cum,” which means “little girl get up.” Time stood still for a moment. For those standing there could hear their own hearts beating in their chests. Instantly the girl sighed, took a deep breath, sat up and began to walk around the room. Using just his words he resurrected her from the dead, fully restored to the point of walking around and needing to eat some food. Whether she was dead or sleeping in a coma, this was by far a miracle healing.       It was not just the life of the little girl that Jesus gave back, but also the life of the father and the mother. In fact the worst thing that could have happened became the best thing that had ever happened to them—they had witnessed the power of God to give back life! Who can say for sure exactly what Jesus did in that house or how far down into the darkness he had to reach to do it, but in a way who cares any more than her mother and father could have cared. They had their child back. She was alive again, and that was all that mattered.      There are many times when we feel as if life has been taken from us—the death of a loved one or a relationship, the loss of health through acute or chronic illness, the sudden death of a lifestyle that you have so loved and grown accustomed to and of course the death of a dream—a career, having children or the desire to be married. And those losses can truly shake us at our core. But Jesus chooses not to leave people in the condition in which he finds them. He has the power to alter their conditions. Jesus says to us in those moments when we want to quit, when life gives us no other options, when we feel only partly alive, Jesus comes to us and says, “Little boy, little girl get up.” Life is not over—there are miracles all around you.       Can the Christian community alter the conditions of people’s lives? Can it, too, bring healing into troubled circumstances? Must it not also cross boundaries of pride, prejudices and conquest — whether they are related to ethnicity, gender, race, politics or any other boundaries that divide our society, and advocate life-giving meaning and change? The answer is yes! Amen.

Compassion, the touchstone of the Christian life Taken from a Red Rock News Article Rev. Dona Johnson | July 7, 2024 Jesus’ compassion for the sick and suffering was beyond human words and our ability to comprehend. He was so deeply moved with mercy and compassion when he saw the hungry multitudes without food that he fed them. He was so moved by the leper who was contagious and disfigured by his disease that he reached out his hand and touched him. He was so moved when he heard his close friend Lazarus had died that he wept with them. He was so deeply moved by the adulterous woman who was shamed and embarrassed when the Pharisees wanted to stone her and rub her sins in her face, Jesus in mercy forgave her. Jesus also wept over Jerusalem. How often do we weep over the great cities of this country or for people in our midst who suffer and are oppressed? Do we even weep for our own communities when we see poverty, abuse, and suffering? As believers we have a special responsibility to have compassion on the poor, the sick, the oppressed, the hungry and the outcast.      The word compassion comes from the Greek noun “spalgchna,” which means “internal organs.” In other words, compassion is a gut feeling. It means a visceral, gut-wrenching, emotional response that is so strong that we are physically moved to action. It is the willingness to enter into the pain and chaos of others. It is to be fully present to those who suffer. It is every Christian’s commission to announce the mercy of God and be an oasis of mercy and compassion to others. It is the beating heart of the Gospel.      It is true that in his common grace, God enables even unbelievers to display some measure of compassion for the preservation of society. It’s also true that some people, both believers and unbelievers, seem more naturally geared toward compassion than others. But although both these points may be true, it’s crucial to understand that compassion is a virtue that should increasingly characterize all believers in Christ, regardless of personality. No Christian, therefore, can rightly say, “I’m just not a very compassionate person,” thinking that their self-assessment frees them from expressing mercy and compassion towards others.     Compassion is hard because it requires the inner disposition to go with others to the place where they are weak, vulnerable, lonely, and broken. But this is not our spontaneous response to suffering. What some people desire most is to dismiss suffering pretending it’s not there. Or they cast judgment on others thinking they deserve to suffer. But as Henri Nouwen says, “Compassion can never coexist with judgement because judgement creates the distance, the distinction and excuse not to enter into the suffering of others.”When Job had lost everything, his family, his wealth and everything known to him, his friends sat with him day and night for seven days and said not one word, because they saw that Job’s suffering was too great for words (Job 2:13). How can we respond to someone’s loneliness unless we are in touch with our own experience of loneliness? How can we be close to handicapped people when we refuse to acknowledge our own handicaps? How can we be with the poor when we are unwilling to confess our own poverty? Those who can sit with their fellow man, not knowing what to say but knowing that they should be there, can bring new life into a dying heart. Henri Nouwen writes, “Those who are not afraid to hold a hand in gratitude, to shed tears of grief, and to let a sigh of distress arise straight from the heart can break through paralyzing boundaries and witness the birth of a new fellowship, the fellowship of the broken.” Amen.