That Is What We Do!

A blessed Holy Week to you!

On this past Sunday, Pastor Sam stuck to his tradition of going through the Palm Sunday story found in Luke 19. Some of us were privileged to attend not only the services at Bronx Bethany, but also an evening service at Butler Memorial United Methodist church where Pastor Sam was the guest speaker. For this week's blogs, I'll be sharing reflections from both the BBCN and the Butler sermons.

What was interesting about the sermons was that, although the Luke 19 passage is the traditional reading for Palm Sunday, there was nothing traditional about the sermons. Every year, and in each service, the Lord leads us to learn new insights about the passage and the resultant implications for us as we seek to walk more closely with the Lord.

Perhaps the great challenge of "sticking to tradition" is that, in its familiarity, there is the danger of engaging in religious activity only because it is 'something that has always been done'. That is, there is no love for God, no desire for spiritual growth, no longing for a deeper relationship with the Lord. When church attendance, prayer, Scripture reading, or worship activity becomes simply a routine, we are putting ourselves at risk. We'll talk about some of those risks this week.

In preparation for this week's blogs, I encourage you to re-read Luke 19:28-46. See you tomorrow my friends!