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All Things New

Revelation 21: 1-6

All Saints Sunday

All things new.

That’s what we believe as Christians.

A new heaven. A new earth.  Everyone of our loved ones who has died in the faith, possibly a whole lot of others, maybe even everybody, made completely new. You and me, made completely new.Read More »All Things New

The Gospel of Job, II: Redemption

The Lord answers Job out of the whirlwind, by William Blake.
The Lord answers Job out of the whirlwind, by William Blake.

By Rev. Dr. Fritz Ritsch

October 28, 2012

The Book of Job, Chapter 42

 Job ends on a bizarre, uncomfortable note. God “rewards” Job by giving him NEW wealth, NEW property, most bizarrely, NEW CHILDREN.  It doesn’t take a rocket scientist, or even a biblical scholar, to step back and say, “Wait a minute.” This is a reward? New children can be wonderful and beloved, but they can’t possibly make up for children who’ve died. Is this how God thinks?Read More »The Gospel of Job, II: Redemption

Is It Job’s Fault–Or God’s?

Fault-Finding
By Rev. Dr. Fritz Ritsch
October 14, 2012
St. Stephen Presbyterian Church
Fort Worth, TX


Job 23: 1-9, 16-17

In our Old Testament scripture for today, Job longs to find a place where he can present his case for a fair hearing before God.

If only I knew where to find him; if only I could go to his dwelling! I would state my case before him and fill my mouth with arguments. I would find out what he would answer me, and consider what he would say. Would he oppose me with great power? No, he would not press charges against me. There an upright man could present his case before him, and I would be delivered forever from my judge.

As Gerald Janzen points out, this is a “utopian” vision, for Job’s point is that such a place is “utopia”—a word that means “nowhere.” There’s no place where he could get that fair hearing where God would see the error of His godly ways in causing Job to suffer so, and would amend them. You see, here in essence is Job’s complaint: It’s not fair. The universe is not fair. The good people often suffer and the bad people often prosper. Suffering seems to happen without any direct connection to whether somebody deserves it. His complaint is that he thought that we live in a moral universe, and it turns out apparently we don’t.Read More »Is It Job’s Fault–Or God’s?

God on Trial

Din Torah

The phoenix, the Invictus cross, and the butterfly–all symbolizing different meanings of the resurrection of Jesus Christ to Christians.

By Rev. Dr. Fritz Ritsch

October 7, 2012

World Communion Sunday

Job 1:1, 2: 1-12

Yaffa Eliach, a highly respected Jewish historian who is herself a survivor of the Holocaust, tells the story that in 1979, she was a member of President Carter’s Commission on the Holocaust.  The commission, who would ultimately lay the groundwork for the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC, had visited sites of countless atrocities and collected stories from Holocaust survivors. After visiting Auschwitz, the commission held evening services at the ancient Rema Synagogue in Cracow, Poland.  In the middle of the worship service, “Miles Lerman, a former partisan and sole survivor of a large Jewish family,” stepped forward, banged his fist on the bema, the pulpit, “and declared that he was calling God to Din Torah—summoning God to court!” Read More »God on Trial

Seeds and Soil

By Rev. Dr. Fritz Ritsch
St. Stephen Presbyterian Church
Fort Worth, TX
Mark 4: 1-20
September 30, 2012

The most bizarre thing about the farmer in the parable of the sower is that she throws the seeds anywhere, just willy-nilly, like she doesn’t care where they land. So some seeds land on the path, some in rocky soil, some in thorns. And of course, some lands in good soil, and thrives.Read More »Seeds and Soil

Childlike Church in a Grown-Up World

The only stained glass window that was taken from Broadway Presbyterian Church when it moved to the present site of St. Stephen in 1950.

By Rev. Dr. Fritz Ritsch

September 23, 2012 

Mark 9:30-37

 

 

Here’s something I’ve seen happen in every church I’ve ever served in. Families with children join the church, or start coming back after a long hiatus. They are sitting in the pews with their children. The children get antsy and a bit distracting, as children do. And one of the “long time” members leans over and whispers to the family, “You know, there’s a nursery.”

And as often as not, the family never returns.Read More »Childlike Church in a Grown-Up World

What Do Politicians Say Jesus Thinks?

By Rev. Dr. Fritz Ritsch
St. Stephen Presbyterian Church
Fort Worth, TX
September 16, 2012

Mark 8: 27-38

Jesus and his disciples are in Syro-Phoenicia, modern-day Syria, north of their normal stomping grounds in Galilee. They are in Gentile territory, headed to a place called Caesarea Philippi, where monuments stood to honor most of the gods honored in the Greco-Roman world. So it’s telling that this is the place where Jesus asks, “Who do people say I am?” In this place where so many gods vie for human attention, who do people say Jesus is?

Well, once again we Americans are in an election season. In a lot of ways, election season is our Caesarea Philippi, with candidates presenting all sorts of variations of God as the true candidate of choice. Everybody claims God is on their side, and the question is, which version of God will we elect?Read More »What Do Politicians Say Jesus Thinks?

Sacramental Drama

 

By Rev. Dr. Fritz Ritsch

St. Stephen Presbyterian Church

Fort Worth,TX

 Communion Sunday and the Baptism of Eunice Kang

Mark 7: 31-37

James 1: 17-27

JC Kang, St. Stephen’s seminary student at Columbia, holds baby Eunice with his wife Jung and sponsors Beth and Robbie Fultz looking on, as Rev. Ritsch administers the sacrament of baptism.

Today we’re baptizing Eunice Kang, the daughter of JC and Jung Kang. JC is the seminary student we’re sponsoring at Columbia Seminary. But we’re also performing the Lord’s Supper, which means we’re performing both the sacraments that Presbyterians believe in.

 

Now when yours truly was in seminary, I was taught that one of the main purposes of the sacraments is drama. When I heard that, a little light went off in my head. See, I was an actor for quite a while myself. The sacraments are dramatic—of course! When we do the sacraments, we are actors in a play. Read More »Sacramental Drama

“Found Difficult and Not Tried”

By The Rev. Dr. Fritz Ritsch
St. Stephen Presbyterian Church
Fort Worth, TX
September 2, 2012

Mark 7: 1-8, 14-15, 21-23
James 1: 17-27

I would like you to hear and consider this re-writing of our Gospel lesson for today. It doesn’t apply, of course, to St. Stephen:

“Now when the leaders of the church and those who did all the real work around here had gathered around Jesus, they noticed that the new members and the youth and the homeless were eating with defiled purpose, that is, that they hadn’t done anything to earn their meal. (For the Presbyterians, and all Christians in those days, believed you were not taking Christianity seriously if you didn’t serve on at least five committees, thus observing the conventions of their society; and they did not eat anything from the market unless it was free-range and safe from causing environmental hazard, and there were many other traditions they observed: that church members had their own pews, on which no one else, even visitors, could sit; the correct washing and placement of Tupperware containers in the church kitchen; the correct order of worship; that all should bring a dish to the pot-luck or else not come; and that those who were most like them were the ones most truly welcome and that everyone else was ‘the least of these,’ who were to be helped, but otherwise avoided.)”Read More »“Found Difficult and Not Tried”