Introduction
When I was growing up and Sears was the dominant department store, around the time it was back to school shopping season you would start to see ads for “tough skins” jeans. These jeans carried the explicit guarantee to frugal minded families that their kids would out grow the jeans before they wore them out. Sounds good right? For the parent’s pocket book maybe, but not necessarily for the kids who had to wear them. The jeans were indeed very tough, made of an incredibly stiff weave of dacron, nylon and cotton. These were the kind of jeans that could be stood up in a corner all by themselves. Durable, yes… but flexible? comfortable? Not so much. I think we often interpret scripture in the same way Sears made jeans. We weave together a mix of legalism, pragmatism and yes, grace, but grace stiffened and stifled by the admixtures.
Maybe it’s because we think without the stiffness it won’t survive real life. Well, Paul writes that Jesus wants us weaving a different kind of cloth, one knit together with love.
Grace and peace,
John Ray and the Teaching team
Text:
Lord’s Prayer
Christ, who taught us to pray saying:
Our Father who is in heaven, hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come, your will be done,
on earth as in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread and forgive us our sins
as we forgive those who’ve sinned against us.
Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.
For yours is the kingdom, and the power,
and the glory forever. Amen.
