Prayer: Help me to love another today, Jesus.
Reading: John 15:12-17 (Click to read text) Stop and GROW: After reading the text, discuss/ponder the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America's Book of Faith questions, which are part of Camp Mount Luther's GROW Time with campers. QUESTION 1: What scares, confuses, challenges, or doesn’t make sense to me in this text? QUESTION 2: What delights me in this text or is my favorite part of the story? QUESTION 3: What stories or memories does this text stir in me? QUESTION 4: What is God up to in this text? Reflection: This month, on Fridays, we’ll look at our Day 5 summer curriculum as part of our theme, “A Love That Never Ends.” To recap, we are looking at heroes of the Old Testament and how God loved them and how that love is in our lives today, too. We’ve looked at Abraham and Sarah, Moses and the Israelites, Jonah, Ruth and Naomi, and finally Jeremiah. Our reading for today is one of the alternate texts for Day 5, the day we help campers prepare for reentry. We want to send them home looking to share God’s love. And so today’s text. I’m not sure how young ladies pick up teams. One of the ways the guys do it is with a baseball bat. Two people keep putting their hands on top of the other one’s hand around the bat until one person wraps his hand around the top of the bat. That person got to pick first. Seldom was I the “captain” that got to do the picking. So I remember hoping and hoping that one of the “captains” would pick me. The alternative was to be standing alone and just go with a team. You didn’t really get picked. I’m always struck in this reading by the idea that God chooses me. Not the other way around. God chooses me! (Can’t you see Charlie Brown on the mound leaping for joy because he got chosen?) That in itself is a blessing. God chooses me. To go and bear fruit, to love on another. Hey, chosen ones—what fruit will you bear today? Whom shall you love? --Jim Bricker, Chaplain to Camp Mount Luther’s Summer Staff
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