Tag Archives: Discipleship

Devotional, Series

Sacred Signs of Subversion, Part 19: Bread & Wine

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Read John 6:53–58

ALSO IN SCRIPTURE
“Some of you hurry to eat your own meal without sharing with others. As a result, some go hungry while others get drunk…For if you eat the bread or drink the cup without honoring the body of Christ, you are eating and drinking God’s judgment upon yourself.” (1 Corinthians 11:21, 29 NLT)

Symbols carry memory and meaning far beyond words. The Church has always leaned on them—sometimes hidden in plain sight, sometimes dismissed or distorted. Yet the most powerful symbols are those that subvert the world’s expectations and draw us back to the radical heart of the Gospel. In this series, we’ll look closer at the sacred signs that shock, unsettle, and ultimately call us deeper into Christ.

Image: AI-generated using DALL·E and customized by the author. Used with the devotional “Bread & Wine” at Life-Giving Water Devotions.

Part 19: Bread & Wine. The symbols of Bread and Wine pull us into one of the earliest and most persistent scandals of the Christian faith. Outsiders heard whispers of a strange meal shared behind closed doors: “They eat flesh and drink blood.” This rumor—part fear, part fascination—was enough to brand Christians as cannibals, atheists, and subversive threats to the empire. What those rumors missed, however, is what they accidentally revealed: this meal was never meant to be respectable. It was meant to unsettle a world built on hierarchy, purity, and the consumption of the vulnerable.

Jesus does not soften His language in John 6. He intensifies it. “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood…” It is an intentionally shocking metaphor. Because the Kingdom of God—unlike Caesar’s world—does not devour the poor to feed the powerful. Christ offers His own life so that no one else must be consumed. The Bread & Wine are divine care, not divine demand. They feed rather than exploit. They restore rather than extract. They reveal a God who sustains humanity rather than draining it for power.

In this way, the Table becomes the great reversal. Empire feeds on the weak; Christ feeds the weak. Empire uses bodies; Christ gives His own. Empire organizes itself around dominance; Christ organizes community around nourishment, memory, and love. When Jesus breaks bread, He is not founding a new ritual. He is founding a new kind of world.

But to understand how radical this sign truly is, we must return to the first Table. It was not set in a sanctuary. It was not overseen by a priest. It was not fenced off from the wrong sort of people. It was prepared in a borrowed room. The participants were not clergy—they were ordinary friends, one of whom was preparing to betray Him, another ready to deny Him, and all of whom would scatter before sunrise. Yet Jesus fed them anyway. He washed their feet. He entrusted the remembrance of His life, death, and resurrection to those who had no credentials, no rank, and no halo of holiness around them.

This leads to one of the most quietly subversive truths in the Christian story: Jesus never created sacramental authority. He never restricted this meal to a particular class of leaders. He never attached it to a hierarchy. The early Church broke bread in homes, around kitchen tables, with no formal structures and no official gatekeepers. Sacramental authority developed later—created by a Church anxious about order, purity, consistency, and control. That authority has done much good… and much harm. But it is a human invention, not a divine requirement. Ordination is a tool for service—not a fence around grace.

As an ordained elder in the United Methodist Church, I carry the privilege and responsibility of presiding at Christ’s Table with the deepest reverence. I take that calling seriously. It is one of the greatest honors of my ministry to place the Bread and Cup into open hands and say, “This is the grace of God for you.” I cherish the sacramental trust the Church has placed in me. Yet it is precisely because I value that sacred trust that I must also tell the truth: authority exists to serve grace, not to restrict it. The Eucharist was never meant to elevate the presider over the people. It was meant to reveal Christ who gives Godself to all.

This matters, because Paul’s harshest rebuke to the Corinthians was not about ritual precision. It was about inequality. The wealthy feasted while the poor went hungry. The privileged ate early; the laborers arrived to crumbs. Paul’s outrage is simple: You cannot celebrate Christ’s feast while embodying Caesar’s hierarchy. A Table rooted in self-giving love cannot become a stage for self-preserving power.

Yet in many places, the Church has done exactly that—protecting the Table from the very people Jesus fed. Fencing it. Managing it. Measuring worthiness. Policing access. Deciding who is welcome to receive God’s gift and who must wait for institutional approval. When the Table becomes a throne, it stops being Christ’s Table. Bread and Wine become reminders not of grace, but of gatekeeping.

But the Spirit still whispers the truth: this meal was never meant to be guarded. It was meant to be given. Bread & Wine expose every system—religious, political, or cultural—that survives on consuming others. They invite us into a different way of living: a world where no one is devoured, no one goes hungry, and no one is turned away.

Bread & Wine are not symbols of consumption. They are symbols of communion. They teach us how to feed and be fed. They train us to become people of care in a devouring world.

Because the Table was never about power. It was always about the unconditional grace and love of God through Jesus Christ.

THOUGHT OF THE DAY
God’s Table is not a place of consumption—it is a place of care.

PRAYER
God of the Table, teach us to receive Your grace with humility and to share it with courage. Shape our hunger into compassion, our rituals into hospitality, and our lives into places where others find nourishment rather than judgment. Feed us with the Bread that gives life, that we may become people who feed others in Your name. Amen.

Devotion written by Rev. Todd R. Lattig with the assistance of ChatGPT (OpenAI).

Devotional, Series

Sacred Signs of Subversion, Part 15: Alpha & Omega (ΑΩ)

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Read Revelation 1:8–11

ALSO IN SCRIPTURE
“I am the first and the last; apart from me there is no God.” (Isaiah 44:6 NLT)

Symbols carry memory and meaning far beyond words. The Church has always leaned on them—sometimes hidden in plain sight, sometimes dismissed or distorted. Yet the most powerful symbols are those that subvert the world’s expectations and draw us back to the radical heart of the Gospel. In this series, we’ll look closer at the sacred signs that shock, unsettle, and ultimately call us deeper into Christ.

Caption: Image: AI-generated using DALL·E and customized by the author. Used with the devotional “Alpha & Omega (ΑΩ)” at Life-Giving Water Devotions.

Part 13: Alpha & Omega (ΑΩ). The phrase Alpha and Omega has been embroidered onto church banners and stitched into altar cloths for centuries. But when John’s community first heard those words, they didn’t sound decorative—they sounded defiant. John wrote in rough Greek, not to flatter the empire’s tongue, but to commandeer it. His audience were diaspora Jews and Jewish-Christians scattered through Asia Minor—not exiles like John on Patmos, but people living under Roman rule, constantly watched, never quite trusted.

To Rome, they seemed unpatriotic. They refused to burn incense to Caesar or join festivals that honored the emperor as divine. To them, it was faithfulness; to Rome, it looked like rebellion.

It’s not unlike what happened when Colin Kaepernick first sat during the national anthem in quiet protest against racial injustice. A fellow player and veteran approached him, suggesting that kneeling would be more respectful—the way soldiers kneel when a comrade falls. Kaepernick listened, adjusted, and took a knee out of reverence and grief. Yet politicians and fans twisted that gesture into a sign of hatred for the nation. What began as lament was painted as treason. And it wasn’t without cost. Kaepernick lost his job.

That’s the kind of pressure early Christians lived under. A quiet act of conscience—refusing emperor worship—could be recast as rebellion. A choice of faith could cost livelihood, community, and belonging.

To the synagogue communities, they were heretics whose loyalty to Jesus jeopardized the fragile peace with Rome. They lived “in place but not at home,” faithful to a kingdom no one could see.

Into that tension John heard Christ’s voice:

“I am the Alpha and the Omega.”

Rome boasted of being the beginning and end of civilization; Christ stole the slogan and crowned it with a cross. It was not cultural borrowing—it was defiant translation. The language of empire was turned against itself. The Word that spoke creation now rewrote the alphabet of power.

Every time empire said, “This is the end,” God began another sentence. The persecuted became the punctuation marks of God’s story—the commas, pauses, and ellipses where new life breaks in.

And still, the same dynamic plays out. When conscience collides with comfort, society calls dissent dangerous. Yet Christ, the true Alpha and Omega, invites us to speak hope against the empire’s tongue—to reclaim the words and symbols others have weaponized.

So when a believer stands for justice, when a worker refuses to bow to exploitation, when a community insists on love over fear, they echo John’s act of resistance. They take the alphabet back from Empire.

And like Colin Kaepernick, they may pay a price. But faith’s grammar remains: the first and the last belong to God. No power—political, religious, or cultural—gets the final word.

After all, is it not so that every Advent, we remember: the Word became flesh, entering human language to subvert human power. The alphabet of empire will always be rewritten in love’s script.

THOUGHT OF THE DAY
Christ is the first and the last—not as owner of time, but as author of new beginnings. Every ending empire writes, God edits into resurrection.

PRAYER
Eternal Word, you speak through every language and every silence. When conscience costs us comfort, keep us steadfast. Teach us to reclaim the words and symbols the world misuses, and to write your mercy into the margins. Amen.

Devotional, Series

Beloved & Becoming, Part 1: Not Who We Wished God Made

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About This Series
Started during Pride Month 2025, this series is for anyone who’s ever been told they had to become someone else to be loved by God. It’s a journey of returning to the sacred self God created—especially for those whose stories have been silenced or shamed.

Read Psalm 139:13-16

ALSO IN SCRIPTURE
“The Lord doesn’t see things the way you see them. People judge by outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” (1 Samuel 16:7b NLT)

We live in a world obsessed with image, identity, and self-improvement—but rarely in ways that honor the sacred self God already created. From a young age, we’re taught who to be, how to behave, and what parts of ourselves to silence if we want to be accepted. Some of us spend years trying to become the version of ourselves that others will finally call good. But what if holiness isn’t about becoming someone else? What if it’s about remembering who we were all along—the person God saw and called good from the very beginning?

Image Caption: Image: AI-generated using DALL-E (OpenAI) and customized by the author. Used with the devotional “Not Who We Wished God Made” at Life-Giving Water Devotions.

Part 1: Not Who We Wished God Made. He stood in front of the mirror like it was a witness. Shirt off. Breath held. Not to admire—never that—but to prepare. He tugged at his shirt before even putting it on, stretching it so it wouldn’t cling. Shoulders slouched inward, more defense than posture. He didn’t hate his body—not exactly. But he’d spent years treating it like something to apologize for.

And the mirror remembered.

It remembered the kitchen table—age eight—when his uncle laughed and told him to stop stuffing his face or he’d turn into a walking meatball. “Better learn now, kid. Nobody marries the fat one.” The words stuck harder than the food ever did.

It remembered middle school, when boys hooked their fingers through the loop on the back of his shirt—the so-called “fag tag”—and yanked, grinning as they spit the word like gum. It was supposed to be funny. It wasn’t. And it didn’t stop.

It remembered the church potluck, the woman at the serving table who gave him a second helping with a wink and said, “Don’t worry—God loves us big boys too.” Her tone was sweet. The shame was not.

It remembered the date who ghosted. The pastor who called his baggy clothes a sign of humility. The job interview where no one looked him in the eye until he mentioned his degree.

Every time he dressed, it became a kind of translation. What do they want to see today? Not too loud. Not too soft. Not too “emotional.” Not too “fabulous.” Just… not too much.

He didn’t want to be admired. He just didn’t want to be erased. And in that quiet, staring back at himself, he still wondered—though he feared the answer—if God looked at him the same way he did: through the eyes of everyone who’d wished him smaller.

The psalmist wrote, “You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother’s womb.” That’s not a metaphor for a sanitized version of ourselves—it’s the raw, real beginning. God saw everything—every curve, every quirk, every contradiction—and called it wonderfully made.

But that’s not the version most of us were taught to love. Somewhere along the way, someone handed us a template: be strong, but not soft. Be pure, but not weird. Be faithful, but not too much of yourself. The result? We try to become who we think God wished God made—shaving off the parts that might offend, hiding the parts that don’t “belong.”

Yet Psalm 139 isn’t about who we might become if we work hard enough. It’s about the God who already saw us and called us good. Before the world told us to shrink, God was already forming something beautiful. Before the bullies, the uncles, the pulpits, the potlucks—God was already knitting. Already blessing. Already calling us known.

When we try to become someone else for the sake of belonging, we aren’t just hiding ourselves—we’re denying the sacredness of God’s design. That doesn’t mean we don’t grow, repent, or transform. But transformation doesn’t mean erasure. Becoming doesn’t mean abandoning. It means unfolding—step by step—into the truth that was planted in us before we ever knew how to be afraid of it.

The question isn’t whether God loves us. That part is settled. The question is: will we stop wishing to be someone else long enough to believe it?

THOUGHT OF THE DAY
God doesn’t love the version of you you’ve performed to survive. God loves you. The real, unfiltered, unpolished you. That’s where becoming begins.

PRAYER
God, forgive me for chasing someone you never asked me to become. Help me remember who you made me to be—and to trust that it is good. Amen.

Devotion written by Rev. Todd R. Lattig with the assistance of ChatGPT (OpenAI).

Devotional

REVISITED: Denial and the Cross

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Read  Mark 8:34-38

ALSO IN SCRIPTURE
Then he said to them all, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. (Luke 9:23)

If you are Christian you have, no doubt, come across today’s scripture reading before. In one fashion, or another, you have heard that following Jesus means that we need to deny ourselves and pick up our cross. Part of the problem of being a Christian is that, all of these centuries later, we hear Jesus’ words in ways that I believe he never intendeded them. For instance, when we come across today’s Scirpture passage we often interpret it in ways that both trivialize the cross and demonize ourselves into something less than valuable in the eyes of God.

An unhealthy understanding of Bible passages such as these can lead to an unhealthy, and perhaps damning perception of self, of neighbor and, ultimately, of God. So let me begin by stressing what this passage is NOT saying. First, this passage is NOT saying you should hate yourself or deny yourself your basic needs. It is not saying that at all! God created you and God does not create junk or rubbish. God created you, and all, with a divine and holy purpose in mind. Thus, Jesus is not telling us that in order to be his disciple we need to hate ourselves, look down upon ourselves, or neglect to take care of ourselves. To do such would be sinful and would not be in line with God’s will for us. After all, God calls us to be good stewards of God’s creation (in which we are included) and to go against that would be to go against God’s call.

Second, this passage is not intended to trivialize the cross. There is a TobyMac song called Irene, in which TobyMac sings “Pick up your cross and where it everyday.” This is both a reference to Luke’s parallel passage (Luke 9:22-25) and to the trinket people often where on a necklace fastened around their necks. But this is not what the passage is referring to at all. It’s not referring to a necklace, nor is it referring to a lamented obligation, or a personal challenge one has been going through; rather, Jesus is referring to the instrument of capital punishment he would be affixed to as a means of painfully and humiliatingly exterminating his life.

What Jesus is ultimately saying in this passage is that, if anyone wishes to be his follower, we must deny any part of us that would hold us back from following him. Regardless of what those things are (e.g. our sins, our hangups, our fears, our desires, our hopes, our dreams, etc.) we must be willing to put them aside and be willing to pay all costs for being associated with Jesus. Even if the cost is our very lives, we must be willing to give it all to follow Christ. It has nothing to do with self-loathing, though. It has to do with one’s identity! If one truly identifies as a Christians, and sees him/herself as belonging to Christ, then that will be the most important thing to him/her over and above anything else, including his/her own life.

There are numerous examples of people who saw Christ as being at the core of their identity. This week it behooves us to look at the life of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. who was a disciple of Christ who denied the fears and things that held him back from following Christ. Dr. King certainly picked up his cross, the burden of fighting for equality and freedom for all people regardless of their skin color, and ended up paying the ultimate price for doing so. When we look at Dr. King we see a man who certainly denied himself, picked up his cross and followed Jesus.

The question for us today is this, will we let our fears and our desires keep us from accepting Christ as our Lord? Will we refuse to pick up our cross because of the possible consequences? Will we deny Christ, or deny the parts of ourselves that keep us from accepting Christ? Will we be ashamed of Christ, Christ’s message, and the way of the Cross because it is more convenient for us to do so? Or will we deny our own convenience for the sake of Christ, for the sake of others and for the sake of God’s Kingdom? The choice is ultimately yours and I pray that your response is one of affirmation rather than one of denial and embarrassment. The world could use more disciples of Christ and the hope, healing and wholeness that such disciples bring in Christ’s name.

THOUGHT OF THE DAY
When we deny the poor and the vulnerable their own human dignity and capacity for freedom and choice, it becomes self-denial. It becomes a denial of both our collective and individual dignity, at all levels of society. – Jacqueline Novogratz
PRAYER
Lord, I give me the strength to deny the things that hold me back from you, to pick up my cross, and to follow you at all costs. Amen.

Online Worship

September 11, 2022 – Newton UMC – Sunday Worship Livestream

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JOY Fellowship Worship Service in Holland Hall: 9:00 a.m.

Worship service streams live at 9:00 a.m. EST (-500 GMT)

Worship Service in Main Sancutary: 10:30 a.m.

Worship service streams live at 10:30 a.m. EST (-500 GMT)

Welcome to our JOY Fellowship Worship Service for September 11. Today we learn that we are a people of faith and Christ calls us to lay our fears aside and put that faith in action.

Please support us by giving online: https://tithe.ly/give?c=1377216 or https://paypal.me/newtonumc Your support is vital, especially during this COVID-19 pandemic. You can also write and mail a check to First UMC of Newton, 111 Ryerson Ave., Newton, NJ 07860.

If you are from another church that is not able to host online worship, we would strongly encourage you give to YOUR church and support them. They no doubt need that support as much as we do. God bless you all for your generosity.

Online Worship

September 4, 2022 – Newton UMC – Sunday Worship Livestream

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JOY Fellowship Worship Service in Holland Hall: 9:00 a.m.

Worship service streams live at 9:00 a.m. EST (-500 GMT)

Worship Service in Main Sancutary: 10:30 a.m.

Worship service streams live at 10:30 a.m. EST (-500 GMT)

Welcome to our JOY Fellowship Worship Service for August 28. Today we learn that following Christ requires a commitment of FAITH and TRUST in our Lord and Savior. Anything short of FAITH leads us back to being agents of the world.

Please support us by giving online: https://tithe.ly/give?c=1377216 or https://paypal.me/newtonumc Your support is vital, especially during this COVID-19 pandemic. You can also write and mail a check to First UMC of Newton, 111 Ryerson Ave., Newton, NJ 07860.

If you are from another church that is not able to host online worship, we would strongly encourage you give to YOUR church and support them. They no doubt need that support as much as we do. God bless you all for your generosity.

Online Worship

August 28, 2022 – Newton UMC – Sunday Worship Livestream

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JOY Fellowship Worship Service in Holland Hall: 9:00 a.m.

Worship service streams live at 9:00 a.m. EST (-500 GMT)

Worship Service in Main Sancutary: 10:30 a.m.

Worship service streams live at 10:30 a.m. EST (-500 GMT)

Welcome to our JOY Fellowship Worship Service for August 28. Today we learn that the eternal city of God, also known as the Kingdom of God, is real, and it is REALLY coming. God has asked us, citizens of that Kingdom, to help make Heaven on Earth a reality.

Please support us by giving online: https://tithe.ly/give?c=1377216 or https://paypal.me/newtonumc Your support is vital, especially during this COVID-19 pandemic. You can also write and mail a check to First UMC of Newton, 111 Ryerson Ave., Newton, NJ 07860.

If you are from another church that is not able to host online worship, we would strongly encourage you give to YOUR church and support them. They no doubt need that support as much as we do. God bless you all for your generosity.

Devotional, Previous Post

REVISITED: FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT: Love

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Read Galatians 5:22-26

ALSO IN SCRIPTURE
“Three things will last forever—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love.” (1 Corinthians 13:13 NLT)

In his letter to the church in Galatia, the Apostle Paul is writing to a community that is divided over the issue of male circumcision: should new Gentile followers of Jesus be counted as a part of the Jewish covenant without being circumcised, or should they have to be circumcised just as all of the Jews are circumcised. Being that Christianity at the time wasn’t a religion, but a sect of Judaism, this was a VITALLY IMPORTANT question. While Paul is opposed to making Gentiles be circumcised, he also is against divisive behavior regardless of which side it is coming from. In response to this division, Paul describes to the Galatian church what he calls, “The Fruit of the Spirit.”

THE FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT: Love. It was recently that I came to the realize that almost every song on the radio is about love. What’s love got to do with? Well, frankly, it evidently sells pretty well…that’s what. There are songs about falling in love, as well as songs about falling out of love. There are songs about love lifting you up to higher mountains, and songs about surviving the woes and despairs of falling out of love. There are songs about faithful, devoted love, as well as songs about getting revenge against a lover who wasn’t so faithful. There’s songs about a loving relationship defining who one is, and there are songs about a lover giving love a bad name. There isn’t a lot of originality or depth when it comes to love as it is played out on the radio

That’s just in the secular market. In the religious realm, a majority of the songs are related to love as well…especially worship songs. Those songs tend to be about God loving us so much that God came in the form of Jesus, took our sins, and died. There are also worship songs where we express our love of an awesome God, or a mighty Creator, or an irresistible Lord, or the air we breathe, or…well, place your Christian cliché here. These songs, while they go beyond romantic love, are also lacking in originality and depth.

Love is so much more than an emotion that causes us to feel all warm, fuzzy and gooey on the inside. Love is far more than worship the God that fits our image, the God who conveniently looks, feels, thinks, and acts as we do. I am not saying that to knock secular love songs or to knock contemporary worship songs. I am writing this to point out that LOVE GOES MUCH DEEPER THAN THIS. Love is not always pleasant, it is not always warm and fuzzy, and it most certainly is not always welcome. Love pushes to hold ourselves and others accountable. It pushes us to stand up against injustice, even when others wish we would remain silent. It causes us to do what’s right even when that equals making a hard decision regardless of the consequences.

Love is so much more than a God that fits who we think God should be. Love transforms us from who we think we are to WHO GOD WANTS US TO BE. It compels us to forgive, rather than hold grudges. It pushes us to treat others as we would want to be treated. It asks us to be humble and swallow our pride. It calls us to CARE, rather than be complacent. It calls us to be patient, gentle, kind, compassionate, faithful, hopeful instead of cynical, and strengthens us to endure through all circumstances. This is the kind of love that Paul is talking about. This is the kind of love that Jesus Christ is calling us to. This is the kind of love that is evidence of the Holy Spirit. Open your heart to it, be transformed, and bear that fruit.

THOUGHT OF THE DAY
“If I gave away everything that I have and hand over my own body to feel good about what I’ve done but I don’t have love, I receive no benefit whatsoever.” – St. Paul, the Apostle (1 Corinthians 13:3 CEB)

PRAYER
Lord, melt me, mold me, fill me and use me as your vessel of love. Transform me in your love so that I may more boldly love others. Amen.

Online Worship

August 21, 2022 – Newton UMC – Sunday Worship Livestream

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JOY Fellowship Worship Service in Holland Hall: 9:00 a.m.

Worship service streams live at 9:00 a.m. EST (-500 GMT)

Worship Service in Main Sancutary: 10:30 a.m.

Worship service streams live at 10:30 a.m. EST (-500 GMT)

Welcome to our Sunday Online Worship Services for August 21. Today we learn that the Bible is our PRIMARY source of divine and eternal truth, our identity, and our purpose.

Please support us by giving online: https://tithe.ly/give?c=1377216 or https://paypal.me/newtonumc Your support is vital, especially during this COVID-19 pandemic. You can also write and mail a check to First UMC of Newton, 111 Ryerson Ave., Newton, NJ 07860.

If you are from another church that is not able to host online worship, we would strongly encourage you give to YOUR church and support them. They no doubt need that support as much as we do. God bless you all for your generosity.

Online Worship

August 14, 2022 – Newton UMC – Sunday Worship Livestream

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JOY Fellowship Worship Service in Holland Hall: 9:00 a.m.

Worship service streams live at 9:00 a.m. EST (-500 GMT)

Worship Service in Main Sancutary: 10:30 a.m.

Worship service streams live at 10:30 a.m. EST (-500 GMT)

Welcome to our Sunday Online Worship Services for August 7. Today we learn to discern what we believe to be valuable from what is ULTIMATELY VALUABLE.

Please support us by giving online: https://tithe.ly/give?c=1377216 or https://paypal.me/newtonumc Your support is vital, especially during this COVID-19 pandemic. You can also write and mail a check to First UMC of Newton, 111 Ryerson Ave., Newton, NJ 07860.

If you are from another church that is not able to host online worship, we would strongly encourage you give to YOUR church and support them. They no doubt need that support as much as we do. God bless you all for your generosity.