Lectionary Blog

Jesus won't be your citizen

2010-01-30T20:43:00.001-05:00

Luke 4:21-30

The people in Jesus' home town expected favors from their hometown son. Yet Jesus had mixed news for them. He had come to proclaim the good news to the poor, the release of captives, sight for the blind, the year of the Lords favor - and surely the people of a little village like Nazareth were poor and sometimes oppressed. Yet something in their attitude stopped Jesus from offering the signs of the Kingdom's in-breaking. They expected him to be theirs.

And here is where it gets uncomfortable. My town, Sebewaing, is a small village like Nazareth. We also long for Jesus to do something for his church long struggling. Don't we have a claim on him like the people of Nazareth? Moreover don't we think that America has a claim on him? We tout our status as a Christian nation and make impassioned speeches about American Exceptionalism, but Jesus refuses to be called a good ol' boy, or the citizen of a place or kingdom. He tells his neighbors that he is a prophet like Elijah and Elisha who went to the gentiles. This angers them to the point of murder. Would some in our churches be enraged if Jesus said that about the US?

Where do we find him then? He is serving the poor and disenfranchised and not the expectations of those who would lay claim to him.

Planning Helps - Remembering the Saints: 21st Century Worship Resource for All Saints' Day -- November 1, 2008

2008-10-31T13:02:00.000-04:00

Planning Helps - Remembering the Saints: 21st Century Worship Resource for All Saints' Day -- November 1, 2008: "Remembering All Saints' Day

We who walked in the darkness of doubt;
Darkest and deepest
down,
down
down…

We who sought to catch just a moment of your presence;
Chasing the wind, gasping for air, drowning,
down,
down,
down…

You, Lord, have called us:
Voices and grandfathered whispers off yellowed pages,
Guides in the desert, faceless faith still being shared,

Up,
Up,
Up…

You, Lord, have lifted us up by your hand:
Wrinkled strong hands of grandmother's grace,
Quiet prayers spoken, lifting us up from despair,

Up,
Up,
Up…

You, Lord, have shown us light:
The light of a million candles sharing their faith.

The light of saints past,
the living tradition of the redeemed,
the resurrection"

2008-10-31T12:19:00.001-04:00

Wow! A resource for those with the awesome responsibility of reading the text and at the same time engaging the congregation! I am impressed.

Proclaiming It: Your proclamation should capture the awe which the visionary John is trying to convey. He's telling us details of a scene we can't hope to witness in this life. It's not your grade school essay about your family's summer vacation. Read the passage to yourself several times and try to imagine the scene in your own mind. My father once said that when they make a movie of the Book of Revelation, it should be a Cecil B. DeMille production. Well, there's your assignment: All the grandeur of a Hollywood epic, conveyed with your voice alone.

Do I revamp this sermon from three years ago, or preach something else?

2008-01-17T18:01:00.000-05:00

^{JN 1:29} The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, "Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! ³⁰ This is the one I meant when I said, `A man who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.' ³¹ I myself did not know him, but the reason I came baptizing with water was that he might be revealed to Israel."

The Lamb

Andrew and John turned gave each other a look, speechless as Jesus walked away. They had been disciples of John the Baptizer for some time and they had heard him say some incredible things. That was what was so exciting about being around him. He preached that something was coming. At night around the fire he would tell his disciples of the Messiah who was coming. At those times he wasn’t ruthless or abrasive, rather clothed in vulnerability he would impart to them his passion for the one who comes.

This was what John and Andrew were thinking about as they watched Jesus walk away. Could this really be the one that the Baptizer had been telling them about so long? That night around the fire they talked about it.

“What does he mean the Lamb of God?” Andrew asked John. Andrew was a man of action; John was a thinker and a dreamer.

“Think about the Passover Lamb sacrificed so that death would pass over. Or think about the lamb Isaiah talked, the servant of God about being led before the slaughter with calm, Or think about the conquering lamb who will one day lie down with the lion.”

“That’s what I mean, which one?”

“All of them I think, rolled in to one,” John replied.

“Did you see him? The man our Baptizer spoke of?” Andrew asked.

“yes”

“Did he look greater than our teacher? Did he look like the long awaited messiah? Did he seem to you to be a man of miracles, a man who has seen the presence of God?”

John remembered this man, he remembered seeing him baptized by John a few days earlier. Then today as he watched him walk away, the man turned and glanced over his shoulder. Their eyes met. And he saw him.

Have you seen him? Have you seen the Lamb who can take a way the sins of the world? Cast the eyes of your heart upon him. Look to that secret place in your heart where the spirit communes with God and you will see him looking back at you as well. He is powerful, he is amazing, he is God’s Son, Chosen, the Lamb slain from the foundation of the World to take your sins away. He is looking at you? Do you see him?

As they were staring into the fire, thinking, The Baptizer came up behind them and spoke.

^{JN 1:32} Then John gave this testimony: "I saw the Spirit come down from heaven as a dove and remain on him. ³³ I would not have known him, except that the one who sent me to baptize with water told me, `The man on whom you see the Spirit come down and remain is he who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.' ³⁴ I have seen and I testify that this is the Son of God."

-more-

Thoughts

2008-01-17T17:59:00.000-05:00

Themes:

John points Jesus out to his disciples:

Look the lamb who takes away the sins of the world - The lamb of sacrifice. I came baptizing in order to find him. He will baptize with the Spirit. The work of God is proclaimed the rest of the story is the disciples work of response. “Grace is not opposed to effort, it is opposed to earning.” - D. Willard.

The disciples follow Jesus:

Where are you staying - that question will take a while to answer.
Come and see - Come have dinner with me. Come to my table, I will feed you. Spend the night. Are we willing to go after him or are we content to look with our eyes only.

The disciples point Jesus out:

They run to find their brothers, Andrew finds Simon - we have found the messiah!

The Thief on the Cross

2007-11-24T10:00:00.000-05:00

Justified

The Thief on the Cross

Listen | Download

By John Piper December 15, 1985

It was as though a thousand layers
Of fraud and murder and affairs,
Each wrapped around his shrinking heart,
And hard as steel, had come apart.
He hung there silent, numb and hoarse
From screaming at the pain. The coarse
And filthy language of his soul
Dried scarlet on the splintered pole.
No strength remained to comprehend
How these few, quiet words could rend
The wicked wineskins of his life
Where every other moral knife
Had snapped like twigs against the rock.

The man had heard the soldiers mock
The Lord, and joined them at the first.
He saw him keep his peace, and thirst,
And with this tongue he whipped and sliced
The folly of a feeble Christ.
And then by some strange providence
Of grace, above his impudence
He heard the word of Life—not preached,
But whispered low; and that it reached
His ear above the blasphemy
Of his own lips was gift, as free
As gifts could ever be. He heard
Above the mockery the word:
"O Father, please, I beg of you,
Forgive, they know not what they do."
A curse, half-formed beneath his teeth,
Fell silent to the ground beneath,
Like slaving ropes and prison chains,
Like fears and rage and guilt and pains.
But then the lurid memories
Like waves from demon-laden seas
Broke savagely against the light
Of hope.

The lad had learned to fight
For garbage just to stay alive
Before he reached the age of five.
When he was nine he stabbed a man,
A beggar, just to have his pan,
Then threw up in the alley where
He ran to count the coins. He'd wear
A holy garment like a priest
When he was grown and rob the feast
And desecrate the holy meals.
And set the stage for his appeals
To lonely women in their grief,
Until they learned he was a thief,
And he escaped to Jericho.
He formed a group called Ganavo
And worked the wealthy routes until
The roads to Jericho were still,
And Roman legions searched the woods
And found him drunk among his goods.

The prosecutor's case was built
With ease. He bragged about his guilt,
And cursed his way from court to cross
Without remorse, as if the loss
Of his own soul to endless woe
Were sealed, and he would have it so.

But now his vicious mouth was still,
And something deep within his will,
Begotten by the quiet prayer
Of this reputed King, was there
As new and strange to wickedness
As orchards in the wilderness.
And from his lips there came a word
That none from him had ever heard.
He turned his head so he could see:
"Jesus, is there a hope for me?"

At first he feared the Lord was dead.
But then he lifted up his head
To see the fruit of his travail,
And softly spoke around the nail,
"Today with me in Paradise
You'll reign beside the feeble Christ."
And when he heard the Savior die,
He gave his agonizing cry:
"My God! My God! How can this be!
Why hast thou not forsaken me?"

And do we not this time of year
Repeat these words with godly fear,
And stand in awe of sovereign grace
That put a God in sinners' place,
And turned his head to hear our plea!
Who is a pardoning God like thee!

The awesome truth of candle three:
A sinner justified and free!

Lectionary Blog: Christ the King C

2007-11-20T10:40:00.000-05:00

Lectionary Blog: Christ the King C
Click for all posts about this week's texts

Christ the King: 25 November Luke 23:33-43

2007-11-20T10:27:00.000-05:00

Christ the King: 25 November Luke 23:33-43: "Luke presents Jesus from the beginning as one who is addressing Israel’s hopes of liberation. The songs of the birth narratives are full of it. Jesus marches into the synagogue to link his mission to Isaiah 61 in 4:16-20. He announces good news to the poor, hungry, those who wept. He asserts and expresses the value of those considered valueless. He gathers people and announces change. He is not beginning a school of meditation for personal enrichment (though that will have its place); nor is he promising a utopia at another time and another place. Rather he is announcing change and embodying it already in himself and in his community. Dangerous? Certainly not harmless for those with a vested interest in the status quo. Is he one with Barabbas and the brigands? Certainly not; yet we need to see that in some sense there would have been shared goals. He would have more in common with them than with Christian quietists. To affirm that Jesus is king is to affirm a different kind of kingship. But it is not a kingship which abdicates into an inner or other world. Powerlessness is simply passivity if no power is taken up. Jesus was enormously powerful and assertive. He did not come to create a set of doormats, but to spread a revolution of love and grace, which entailed identifying and embodying a new kind of power and priority. The feast of Christ the king is something very assertive. The paradox and irony of the passion is not to be dissolved by dislocation, by saying Christ’s concerns lie elsewhere. It is rather to be entered as representative of a fundamental conflict in the here and now: about God, about Christ, and about being Christian."

The Lord, The Blues, and the Art of Being Smooth: Is there sex in heaven?

2007-11-06T17:29:00.000-05:00

The Lord, The Blues, and the Art of Being Smooth: Is there sex in heaven?: "Janis Joplin was once asked what it was like being a rock star. She replied: “It’s pretty hard sometimes. You go on stage, make love to fifteen thousand people, then you go home and sleep alone.” Jesus was once asked, as a test: If a woman marries seven times and all her husbands die before she dies, whose wife will she be after the resurrection? He answered that, after the resurrection, we will no longer marry or be given in marriage. These two answers Janis Joplin’s and Jesus’, are not unconnected. Each, in its own way, says something about the all embracing intent of our sexuality."

Journal Article 4 « Geribee’s Hive

2007-11-03T16:47:00.000-04:00

Journal Article 4 « Geribee’s Hive: "What the article is all about: The article used a form of redaction-composition criticism to accurately identify the literary form of the Zacchaeus story. Several literary forms have been proposed for Luke 19:1-10. D. Hamm viewed it as a conversion story. R. Bultmann classified it as a biographical apophthegm. M. Dibelius said it is a genuine personal legend where the deeds and experiences of an individual was rewarded and honored by God. V. Taylor considered it to be a story about Jesus “because the interest appears to lie in the incident itself rather than in the words of Jesus and because more detail is supplied than is usual in pronouncement stories” (pp.107-108). R. White said it is a vindication story. C.H. Talbert sees it as a conflict story similar to the narrative of Levi in Luke 5:27-32. Finally, R.C. Tannehill regards the Zacchaeus narrative as a quest story, which is a type of a pronouncement story. But some of the literary forms suggested do not simply apply, and some are similar with the others. The author in his article argues for Tannehill’s claim that the Zacchaeus story is a quest story, a type of pronouncement story. To prove this, he first delves into the proposed structures of the passage. E.E. Ellis sees the structure as “brief and pointed”. E. LaVerdiere sees another structure in the passa"

2007-10-27T16:32:00.000-04:00

ANNIE GET YOUR GUN lyrics

Parable symbolism

2007-10-27T15:57:00.000-04:00

When I want to find a perspective behind the symbolism of the parable, I look to Catholic writings, they embrace the symbolism so much more than my fundamental literalist upbringing. So here is one that grabbed me:

Recall that Jesus' parables are intended to both inform and challenge. It's easy, in hearing this gospel, to distance ourselves from the Pharisee. But notice that if we do so – thinking, for instance, "I'm glad I'm not like him" – we end up committing the same sin of pride! People who are religiously inclined can easily struggle with self-righteousness and judgmentalism.

30GoodMinutes.org - Thomas Long, "Praying Without Losing Heart"

2007-10-20T22:53:00.000-04:00

There's a famous story about a young boy named Frank who was walking along the bank of the Mississippi River and he noticed in the river another boy about his age wrestling with a homemade raft. He said to him, “What are you doing?” He said, “I'm going to take this raft out to that island in the middle of the river. I dare you to go with me!” Well, Frank couldn't resist the dare so he scrambled down the bank and got on the raft. The two boys headed out to the middle of the river but the current was swift and strong. As they approached the island, the raft broke up and sank and they had to swim to the island. And there they were, abandoned on an island, late in the afternoon. Nobody knew where they were. What would they do? Right at that moment, one of those paddle-wheel steamers started coming down the river and Frank ran to the edge of the island and began screaming and waving his hands, “Help! Help!” The other boy said, “Don't waste your breath. They can't hear you and even if they could they wouldn't pay any attention to boys like us.” But just at that moment the paddlewheel steamer turned toward the island. The boy said to Frank, “How did you do that?” And Frank said, “Well, there's something you don't know. The captain of that boat is my father!”
Well, the captain of the universe is our father and how much more will one who has formed us in the womb respond to our every cry. So pray always and don't lose heart.

interplay

2007-10-19T10:26:00.000-04:00

When the widow wrung the verdict she sought from the judge, her efforts turned the judge from a man of injustice to a man who does justice. The man who at the story's beginning is identified only as an unjust judge who respects no one, having done justice and listened to the widow, will need a new name, just as Jacob received a new name.

-Dylan

Give me Justice!

2007-10-19T10:00:00.000-04:00

How do you preach social justice to Pentecostals?

Faith on the Border

2007-10-14T00:38:00.000-04:00

It happened that as he made his way toward Jerusalem, he crossed over the border between Samaria and Galilee.
Now most Jews don’t do that. They go down to Jerusalem along the Jordan so they don’t have to risk talking to a samaritan and defiling themselves, but not Jesus. Quite remarkable since he must have already know what he was going to Jerusalem for. But I am getting ahead of my story. For now just know Jesus was heading to Jerusalem for a purpose but that didn’t stop him from changing my life.

As he entered our village, ten us, all lepers, met him. We kept their distance but raised our voices, calling out, "Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!" That’s right I’m a lepper. Just listen to what it is like… (Song)
Its not easy being a leper and life in the leper colony is a lonely one, though at least we have each other. My friends are all Jews. Go figure. If it wasn’t for our common affliction we wouldn’t even talk to each other. But leprosy has made us all outcasts more than that, it made us all one.

When we saw a traveler coming we went out to meet him to beg. Have mercy on us! We cried. We understood from the crowd and the things they were talking about that this must be Jesus, but we didn’t ask for anything specific, we said, “Have mercy on us!”

We didn’t dare to come near, though we had heard rumors that this man touches lepers. We

Taking a good look at us, he said, "Go, show yourselves to the priests."
We had heard that he touched lepers, that he could heal with a word, but this time he healed in another way. We turned to go - to obey his command. As we did, our sores closed up, our numb fingers worn down to the nub with out our feeling it grew back, our bodies became whole again. We patted each other on the back and congratulated each-other. We quickened our pace, to show the priest, to return to our families and our lives. Then I stopped. I realized I couldn’t go into the temple and show myself to the preist, I’m no Jew, and worse than that I am a Samaritan! I realized my bond with these friends was over, they were returning to their lives.

You see we lived on a border, Jesus had come to our boundary, a fuzzy zone where Jews and Samaritans could live together because they were outcasts. All of that was about to change. Jesus came to our boundary and came to heal it. He was all I had now.

4.I turned around and came back, shouting my gratitude, glorifying God. I knelt at Jesus' feet, so grateful. I couldn't thank him enough

He placed his hand on my head—and I was a Samaritan!

Do you ever notice that it is the outsider that catches fire more quickly when they meet Jesus? I mean all these Jews knew that they were a special people to God. They kept reminding us Samaritans of it. Maybe they took it for granted when the very Son of God healed them. But when an outsider, someone who doesn’t know the hope in Christ comes and meets him, realizes that there is nothing outside of hope in him, how can he take it for granted? Jesus just met us on the outside of the boundary! How marvelous.

Jesus said, "Were not ten healed? Where are the nine? Can none be found to come back and give glory to God except this outsider?" Then he said to him, "Get up. On your way. Your faith has healed and saved you."

Are you like the other nine, or do you shout for joy with me today? I know you have seen the power of God working inside your borders just as he worked outside them for me. You have the symbols of it before you in these emblems. You are here together as one body! You have witnessed the power of God first hand. What a miracle you are made one with each other, once strangers now one body one family! Do you shout with joy? Or do you go on your way to do your duty without the shout of thanks to God.

Jesus followed the other 9 to Jerusalem. Like I said before he was on his way there for a purpose. He was there to be striped, like we were stripped, clothed only in rags. He was to be beaten and his flesh hang from his body like ours did. And by his stripes we are healed. I wonder if the nine Jews who went to show themselves at the temple ran into Jesus again. I wonder if they were in the crowd that watched him carry his cross. I wonder if they sang his praises at last in the midst of the jeering crowd. Will you?

If they did, we are one again, regardless of borders, because all we have now is Jesus. You are one with me too if you will shout his praises. Shout for joy with me!

Uproot this tree

2007-10-06T12:54:00.000-04:00

Oh, What to Preach?

2007-10-05T11:02:00.000-04:00

I’m going very slowly in my sermon prep this week. I’m planning on preaching on Luke 17:5-10, but I may use verses 1-4 as well.

1 Jesus said to his disciples: “Things that cause people to sin are bound to come, but woe to that person through whom they come. 2 It would be better for him to be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around his neck than for him to cause one of these little ones to sin. 3 So watch yourselves. “If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him. 4 If he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times comes back to you and says, ‘I repent,’ forgive him.” 5 The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!” 6 He replied, “If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it will obey you. 7 “Suppose one of you had a servant plowing or looking after the sheep. Would he say to the servant when he comes in from the field, ‘Come along now and sit down to eat’? 8 Would he not rather say, ‘Prepare my supper, get yourself ready and wait on me while I eat and drink; after that you may eat and drink’? 9 Would he thank the servant because he did what he was told to do? 10 So you also, when you have done everything you were told to do, should say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty.’” Luke 17:1-10 (NIV)

Verses 5 and 6 talk about faith and verses 7-10 talk about our duty to God. Verses 1-4 talk about sin. I think they really all go together, but I’m not exactly sure how. I think that we need faith in order to perform our duty to God without expectations of glory for ourselves. I also think that we need faith in order to continue to forgive those who sin against us and in order not to be the one “through whom (things that cause people to sin) come”.

So, I guess that is what I’m planning on elaborating on. I found it interesting that the Mulberry tree is known for it’s very deep root system. In other words, it’s not the easiest tree to uproot (it’sprobably the hardest). It’s great how Jesus always used the most extreme examples to illustrate His point. He didn’t pick just any tree with roots, but a tree with one of the deepest root systems. To me, that shows He’s God. Of course, people of Jesus’ time probably knew about the Mulberry tree’s roots, but Jesus, being God knew even more. And of course, He still knows more today.

On the love of money (a meditation from 3 years ago)

2007-09-29T23:53:00.000-04:00

How rich are you? >>

I'm loaded.
It's official.
I'm the 822,871,928 richest person on earth!

Ah ... money. What I could do without it.

In meditating on money check out the Gospel of Suply Side Jesus.

The Good Fight and The Good Confession

2007-09-27T17:54:00.000-04:00

Paul says to fight the good fight for the eternal life for which we gave the good confession. This confession isn’t the positive confession of the name-it-and-claim it brand, it is the confession of trust in God that Jesus offered Pilate. This trust is reflected in the name Lazarus (Eleazar - God helps).

On the other hand we have Dives. Rich-man. He is self-sufficient, and duped by deceitful riches. “But those who want to be rich,” says Paul, “fall into temptation and are trapped by many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction.” He no doubt thought with the pharisees that his riches were a sign of God’s approval. But in the flames he discovers something different, and he finally learns to look beyond himself asking Abraham to send Lazarus to warn his brothers. He’s discovered that he didn’t really believe in God at all, not as the prophets and Moses describe him. I wonder if its beginning to dawn on the pharisees... Jesus said in John, “If you believed Moses and the prophets you would believe in me, for they wrote about me.”

Rich-man says, “No, father Abraham; but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.”
Abraham replies, “If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.”

We are invited to the Good Confession. Will we put our money where our mouths are? Rich-man didn’t live as though he believed God. If he had he would have lived like Paul says,

As for those who in the present age are rich, command them not to be haughty, or to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but rather on God who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. They are to do good, to be rich in good works, generous, and ready to share, thus storing up for themselves the treasure of a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of the life
that really is life.

Narrative

2007-09-22T23:30:00.000-04:00

Imagine with me we are in the board room, and Donald Trump is deciding our fates. We've tried our best to out connive, out scheme, and out sell the other team and we've come up short. Soon Trump is going to say “You're fired!” and one of us is done for ever. He's called us in to hear our accounting of how we've done.

One of your team mates leans over and whispers, “Do you ever sit and wonder what Jesus would do if he were on one of these reality shows? Have you thought about how he would play survivor? Or Big Brother? Would he make alliances and back stab people? Would he look out for his own interests?”

That is what you've had to do playing this game. You've had to be shrewd, you've had to be calculating. When you got called into the board room you had to convince Mr. Trump to fire someone else, every week.

Now you're up on the chopping block again.

As you sit there you wonder “what am I going to do?” Whose voice are you going to listen to? The money is talking to you.

“You need me! Take as much of me as you can before you go!”

Money is deceitful, it'll lie to you.

“Treasure me!”

“Treasure me! I will take care of you, I will make you happy!”

“Trust me! Treasure me!”

“We can go it alone?”

But then you wouldn't have made it this far in the game if you hadn't known how to look to your interests. Is it in your interest to go it alone? Is it in your interest to have a little money today and tomorrow its gone? You have the rest of your life to think about.

You think about the day you went to the financial planner and asked how much you would need to retire on, and he said, “How long do you plan to live?”

“Forever! I want to live forever!” Isn't that what your heart screamed? What is in your interest if you want to live forever?

Soon it will all be gone, your job, your money your stuff... What do you hate to part with most? What will you do when its all gone?

“I must look to my own interests,” you tell yourself

I know what I'll do... I need to make it so someone else will hire me. It is in my interest to make friends.

That annoying team mate of yours leans over and whispers to you again. “You know Jesus, I think he would have made lots of alliances. Just look at the way he went around forgiving people. They thought that his Father would only love the people who did everything just right and here comes Jesus giving away his father's love and mercy like it was going out of style. Generosity, now that is a strategy someone should try in these reality shows!”

OK, so maybe you won't win the game, but maybe you can come out ahead anyway. You take sneak Mr. Trump's cell phone off the table and go into the lobby. You start calling all of his business associates.

“Hello, Mr. Richman? Yes, thats right we spoke earlier... that's right I'm one of Mr Trump's apprentices. Mr. Trump wanted to tell you that we are going to modify the contract on that building you're purchasing... No, Mr. Richman, I convinced him to lower the price to below market value. Yes, I know that means no commission, but you can use the savings to do the good work you have there! You're welcome, talk to you soon, Mr Richman.”

“Hello, Mrs. Goldwater? Yes, you know that money you owe Mr. Trump we spoke about earlier? Yes, go ahead and take the interest of your bill... You're welcome....”

And so on you go down Trump's list of contacts.

You look again at that voice screaming from your pocket... “Keep me!” And you say Hush! It is in my interest to use you... I need to get rid of you for now and that's that. Don't look so down.

And here is the big surprise. Mr. Trump hears about it and calls you in. Instead of reprimanding you he says, “Good Job! You made me look good and you took care of yourself, way to go kid! You'll go far.”

Now if you can imagine a person on the Apprentice or Big Brother, or Survivor looking to their own interests and doing something right, something smart, how much more could you as the child of light do something even better? Jesus wants you to look to your own interests, to your eternal life and give like there is no tomorrow!

Jesus said, “For the people of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own kind than are the people of the light, I tell you, use worldly [deceitful] wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings.”

Puppet song for this Sunday

2007-09-21T19:55:00.000-04:00

SWITCHFOOT lyrics

Stewardship/Discipleship Series

2007-09-05T23:15:00.000-04:00

Week	The Giving Way
Proper C17	Giving Honor
Proper C18	Giving when It Hurts
Proper C19	Giving Chase
Proper C20	Giving to make friends
Proper C21	Giving is better than recieving

Parable of musical chairs

2007-08-31T16:02:00.000-04:00

This is interesting. I've never before thought of parables as needing to represent something else.

The parables read here (vv. 7-11) and the ensuing exhortation are connected by their common context in a meal of Jesus. The parable looks like a piece of prudential advice on how to behave at a dinner party so as to avoid embarrassment.

But since it is a parable, it must not be interpreted as a piece of worldly wisdom or even as a lesson in humility, as usually understood. It deals rather with an aspect of one's relationship with God.

God, in the person of Jesus (see verse 8), is inviting all people to the messianic feast. The only way to respond to this invitation is to renounce any claim or merit of one's own.

The Pharisees expected the best seats as a reward for keeping the Torah, but, like the outcast, they have to learn that salvation has to be accepted as an unmerited gift— exactly as we interpreted humility in the first reading.

The ensuing exhortation is likewise not a piece of worldly advice but a kind of parable, its point being that people's final acceptance at the messianic banquet depends on their acceptance of others now.

In other words, forgive and God will forgive you.

Thus, humility in the Christian sense is not purely a passive virtue; like faith, to which it is closely akin, it is highly active.

Which law to obey

2007-08-23T14:15:00.000-04:00

This is from Tolstoy in his work "My Religion"

One day I was walking (in Moscow) in the Borovitskiya Gates. At the gates an old lame beggar was sitting, with a dirty cloth wrapped about his ears. I was just taking out my purse to give him something. At the same moment down from the Kremlin ran a gallant ruddy-faced young soldier, a grenadier in the crown tulup. The beggar, on perceiving the soldier, arose in fear, and ran with all his might toward the Alexanderovsky Park. The grenadier chased him for a time, but not overtaking him, stopped and began to curse the poor wretch because he had established himself under the gateway contrary to regulations. I waited for the soldier. When he approached me, I asked him if he knew how to read. “Yes; why do you ask?”

“Have you read the New Testament?”

"I have."
“And do you remember the words, ‘If thine enemy hunger, feed him’….?”
I repeated the passage. He remembered it, and heard me to the end, and I saw that he was uneasy. Two passers-by stopped and listened. The grenadier seemed to be troubled that he should be condemned for doing his duty in driving persons away as he was ordered to drive them away. He was confused, and evidently sought for an excuse. Suddenly a light flashed in his intelligent dark eyes; he looked at me over his shoulder, as if he were about to move away.

“And have you read the military regulation?” he asked.

I said that I had not read it.

“Then don’t speak to me,” said the grenadier, with a triumphant wag of the head, and buttoning up his tulup he marched gallantly to his post.

Consuming fire and the prophetic

2007-08-15T15:02:00.000-04:00

Jesus said, “I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled.” Imagine him going through the countryside announcing “The Kingdom of God is near you!” in words like this.

“Am I a God near by,” says the Lord, “and not a God far off? ...Do I not fill the heavens?” The Kingdom of God is at hand. Literally it is in the air we breathe. God goes on: “Is not my word like fire,” says the Lord, “and like a hammer that breaks a rock in pieces?” This kingdom at hand, near as the skin on our bodies, and nearer still, is the Kingdom of the consuming fire! The Psalmist declares that he will judge the world and pleads with him to do it. “Rise up, O God, judge the earth; for all the nations belong to you.”

Jesus came to start a fire. The kingdom of God has come to men. Will that kingdom smooth things over? No! The kingdom of God has always been one to turn the world upside-down or rather upside-right. Hebrews gives us the roll call of faith—faith that saw the kingdom from a far off and lived in it as though it were their very own. Quixotic and in love with their God who promised, they lived in his kingdom and brought it into the world around them.

By faith the people passed through the Red Sea as if it were dry land, but when the Egyptians attempted to do so they were drowned. By faith the walls of Jericho fell after they had been encircled for seven days. By faith Rahab the prostitute did not perish with those who were disobedient, because she had received the spies in peace. And what more should I say? For time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets—who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, obtained promises, shut the mouths of lions, quenched raging fire, escaped the edge of the sword, won strength out of weakness, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight. Women received their dead by resurrection.

This kingdom of God is subversive and counter to the system of the world. Those who would become its citizens would forever be separated from the world, sin, and by extension all who stand against this Kingdom. They would know the loneliness of Jeremiah, and also the fire he had shut up in his bones. They would be seen as a threat to the world system. They would live a life that would bring them ridicule, hate, and persecution. This is the way it has always been. Those who live by faith in a kingdom not of this world commit high treason to this world's system. Hebrews continues with their roll.
Others were tortured, refusing to accept release, in order to obtain a better resurrection. Others suffered mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. They were stoned to death, they were sawn in two, they were killed by the sword; they went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, persecuted, tormented—of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and mountains, and in caves and holes in the ground.

Jesus finishes saying that we know how to tell when the seasons are changing, how is it then that we miss the God-season that is upon us. He is here! He surrounds us like the air, he is near and a far off, there is no hiding, there is no escape from his loving gaze. We are surrounded by a cloud of faithful witnesses who have entered the kingdom by ruthless faith and reckless abandon. The sensible thing to do is to enter into the kingdom among us and be consumed by his fire.

American Dream - Switchfoot

2007-08-05T08:02:00.000-04:00

When success is equated with excess
The ambition for excess wrecks us
As top of the mind becomes the bottom line
When success is equated with excess

If you’re time ain’t be nothing for money
I start to feel really bad for you honey
Maybe honey put you’re money where your mouth’s been running
If you’re time ain’t be nothing but money

I want out of this machine
It doesn’t feel like freedom

(chorus)
This ain’t my American dream
I want to live and die for bigger things
I’m tired of fighting for just me
This ain’t my American dream

When success is equated with excess
When we’re fighting for the beamer, the lexus
As the heart and soul breathing the company goals
Where success is equated with excess

I want out of this machine
It doesn’t feel like freedom

(chorus)

Cause baby’s always talkin ’bout a ring
And talk has always been the cheapest thing
Is it true would you do what I want you to
If I show up with the right amount of bling?

Like a puppet on a monetary string
Maybe we’ve been caught singing
Red, white, blue, and green
But that ain’t my America,
That ain’t my American dream

(chorus)
SWITCHFOOT - AMERICAN DREAM LYRICS

(via american dream switchfoot - Google Search)

Life, Life, Life - Miss Angie

2007-08-05T07:56:00.000-04:00

My heart and tongue
They will rejoice
Dance and sing for the king of my choice
Redeemer...

He is the way for me to say
He is the way for me to say believe
In life, life, life, life

I am the apple of His eye
I know this ’cause He came here
And He died
Redeemer...

He is the way for me to say
He is the way for me to say believe
In life, life, life, life
He is the way for me to say
He is the way for me to say believe
In life

Redeemer, Redeemer, Redeemer...

He is the way for me to say
He is the way for me to say believe
In life, life, life, life
Miss Angie - Life, Life, Life Lyrics

(via "life, life, life" lyrics miss angie - Google Search)

2007-07-17T11:52:00.000-04:00

I am thinking of using a picture like this to illustrate the three characters. Jesus, the image of the invisible God, Martha's hospitality, and Mary the apprentice of prayer.

Strangeness in this weeks readings

2007-07-17T11:27:00.000-04:00

There are some incongruities that texture this week's readings. Martha seems often to be our negative example of discipleship. To be sure she is distracted, but she is concerned with hospitality and the physical needs of Jesus and his party. Is that not the mercy of the Good Samaritan? Doesn't Abraham offer this kind of hospitality to the Lord?

Like Martha, Sarah is distracted with preparations. While Abraham is standing by pleasantly watching his guests eat, Sarah remains in the tent. Though the Lord is far from condemning Sarah, instead he promises her the blessing of child.

All Martha's preparations are good and well, her devotion to Jesus is expressed in the lavish meal she is preparing. We are reminded with her that all our acts of devotion, all of our disciplines are means to an end. We seek Jesus and when we are in his presence even our best actions seem dull in his light. As The Message puts it,

"Martha, dear Martha, you're fussing far too much and getting yourself worked up over nothing. One thing only is essential, and Mary has chosen it—it's the main course, and won't be taken from her."

Mystic Martha

2007-07-17T11:23:00.000-04:00

Lost in God

This is the notion of Eckhart and some other 13th-century mystics of living "without a why." "Living without a why" means that you don't ask, What's in it for me? or Why am I doing this? You just do the good spontaneously, the way that God acts. God doesn't act because of the why or for any interest of his own....
In his treatment of the Martha and Mary text (Luke 10:38-42), Eckhart defends Martha's focus on the tasks of hospitality. Is that a striking departure from the traditional understanding?

Yes, Eckhart is the first commentator to elevate Martha above Mary. The earlier commentators tried to show that both Martha and Mary were necessary, though Mary's approach is higher. Eckhart says that Mary is the one who's still learning, whereas Martha is the one who has learned perfectly because she combines contemplation and action--though Eckhart doesn't use those words--in an unselfish, detached way. She can now operate as the soul "without a why" and be effective spontaneously without losing that contact with God. Mary's just on the way to that. She needs to learn life.

I get the feeling that living spontaneously in God, or living without a why, is a lot like living the Christian life generally. At some point it becomes second nature, and goodness and holiness seem effortless. But getting to that point is the hard part.

Why, Jesus?

2007-07-04T12:33:00.000-04:00

So, I was studying for my sermon last night and this morning and I had to question something Jesus did.

1 After this the Lord appointed seventy-two others and sent them two by two ahead of him to every town and place where he was about to go. 2 He told them, "The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field. 3 Go! I am sending you out like lambs among wolves. 4 Do not take a purse or bag or sandals; and do not greet anyone on the road. 5 "When you enter a house, first say, 'Peace to this house.' 6 If a man of peace is there, your peace will rest on him; if not, it will return to you. 7 Stay in that house, eating and drinking whatever they give you, for the worker deserves his wages. Do not move around from house to house. 8 "When you enter a town and are welcomed, eat what is set before you. 9 Heal the sick who are there and tell them, 'The kingdom of God is near you.' 10 But when you enter a town and are not welcomed, go into its streets and say, 11 'Even the dust of your town that sticks to our feet we wipe off against you. Yet be sure of this: The kingdom of God is near.'

16 "He who listens to you listens to me; he who rejects you rejects me; but he who rejects me rejects him who sent me." 17 The seventy-two returned with joy and said, "Lord, even the demons submit to us in your name." 18 He replied, "I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. 19 I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy; nothing will harm you. 20 However, do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven."

Luke 10:1-11, 16-20 NIV

Why did Jesus send these people out? Wasn't he getting well known enough without additional help? Of course I realize that any publicity is good publicity, but I still could not see a practical reason behind what he did. I'm a very practical, reasonable person. Things should always be reasonable and practical. I am a practical preacher, as well. This is a very good thing because my hubby preaches very philosophically. We balance each other well. Anyways, I realized as I continued to study,that there is a very good reason that Jesus sent these people out. He sent them out to advertise, but also to see which towns would listen to him. If they did not listen to those he sent out, he knew they would not listen to him. At this time, Jesus' last year of ministry, Jesus was running out of time and wanted to use his time wisely. The disciples went out, returned and reported back where Jesus should and should not go. That is very practical.

After that I got to wondering what this meant for us. Jesus has sent us out. What is the reason? We are to proclaim him and prepare the way for his second coming! He knows everything, but through our trying to preach to others, he knows who listens and who doesn't. When he returns, those who do not know him as their personal savior will be cast into hell. Those who do, will reign with him on Earth. What a great calling! And what great power we have at our hands to fulfill our calling!

Counting the Cost

2007-06-30T22:37:00.000-04:00

Little Pedro

A missionary was preaching to some Mexicans. After the service, a little boy came walking down the aisle on little fat brown legs. With serious eyes, he looked up at the missionary and said, “You ask what I would have done if I had been in the crowd when Jesus fell, carrying His Cross? Please sir, if I had been there, I would have helped him carry it!”

The missionary said, “But, Pedro, if you had helped Jesus carry his cross, the cruel Roman soldiers would have beaten your back with a whip until the blood ran down to your heels.”

With a look of courage, the little boy said, “I don't care. I would have helped him carry it just the same.”

Two weeks later, little Pedro was at the mission again. The missionary patted him on his back. Pedro winced. “Don't do that, my back is sore, my back hurts.” The missionary took the little boy into another room and looked at his back. It was covered with big bloody welts. “Who did that?” the missionary asked.

“Mother did it. She whipped me because I love Jesus. But I don't care I will always love and serve Jesus!”

Our Lamb Has Conqured Let Us Follow Him

2007-06-30T22:34:00.000-04:00

The Moravians had learned that the secret of loving the souls of men was found in loving the Savior of men. On October 8,1732, a Dutch ship left the Copenhagen harbor bound for the Danish West Indies. On board were the two first Moravian missionaries; John Leonard Dober, a potter, and David Nitschman, a carpenter. Both were skilled speakers and ready to sell themselves into slavery to reach the slaves of the West Indies. As the ship slipped away, they lifted up a cry that would one day become the rallying call for all Moravian missionaries, "May the Lamb that was slain receive the reward of His suffering." The Moravian's passion for souls was surpassed only by their passion for the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ.

Psalm 30

2007-06-09T22:25:00.001-04:00

Letio continua, continua and continua

2007-05-28T20:51:00.000-04:00

A colluege of mine from a church for whom the RCL is no strange thing, expressed disatisfaction with it because he wanted to preach straight through books (I assume of the Bible, but since he follows Schuller , who knows.) His dissatisfaction stunned me. We are entering ordinary time and everything is Lectio Continua. My biggest struggle is which route to preach.

Do I preach through the shorter Epistles? Do I do the Prophets? Do I go for the long haul and preach straight through Luke to the end of the year? Three years ago I think I started in the Epistles and jumped over to do a series in Jeremiah (That is when I started this blog). So this time I guess I ought to buckle down and preach the gospel. That should make my Lutheran friends happy since that is all they preach.

Trinity Sunday Posts

2007-05-28T12:19:00.000-04:00

Check out the common themes from years past. Click here

Sharing in God's Glory

2007-05-26T20:13:00.000-04:00

Birthday or power

2007-05-25T09:04:00.000-04:00

We pentecostal churches don't celebrate Pentecost as the birthday of the Church. Perhaps, like a middle age woman, we don't want to acknowledge another year has passed. We are acutely aware that every year older we are removed from our roots, the more institutional we become. At the same time another year passes with out Jesus coming back. We thought that a fresh outpouring of the Spirit meant the return of Christ was very close. Every year we have to reexamine the meaning of our Spirit Baptism.

Or perhaps the biggest reason we don't bother with birthday celebrations is that the empowerment of the Spirit filled life trumps cake and candles. O God help me to inspire people to seek fullness in the Spirit this week!

Genesis 11: 1-9; Scattered!

2007-05-22T19:06:00.000-04:00

Genesis 11: 1-9; Scattered!: "Finally, in Gen. 11, God also decides to punish humans, though it isn't as clear what the offense of Gen. 11 is (the building itself? the arrogance of humans? the unwillingness to 'fill the earth' according to the command in Gen. 1? the use of poor materials to build a monumental structure?)."

In any one of these, are we less guilty today? Why hasn't God come down and intervened? If a clay tower could upset him, how about an atomic bomb?

The Very Tall Tale of Babel | The Shalom Center

2007-05-22T19:01:00.000-04:00

The Very Tall Tale of Babel | The Shalom Center: "The tale is an ironic parody, a joke at Babylon's expense. 'Bav-El' meant the 'gate of God' in the Babylonians' own language, but the Israelite legend parodied it as 'Baffle/Babble Town.' As the Israelites told the story, the arrogant Sumerians built an imperious tower for an empire whose power they intended to rule the earth so that everyone would have to speak the same language.

Their rigid tower challenged 'YHWH,' the breezy, whirly, swirly Breath of Life.

But the Breathing-spirit of the Universe, the Wind of the World, (Ruach ha'Olam) baffled them by turning their world-language into babbling. They became Babylonians, 'Babble-onians.'

This diversity was not so much a punishment as a consequence of and a cure for their disease: Try to unify all humankind into a single empire, talking the same language so as to storm Heaven -- and the almost inevitable consequence, as well as the cure for this disease of arrogance, is that the top-heavy empire will dissolve into many many peoples, grass-roots communities of many tongues and cultures."

The Spirit glorifies God through our lives and miracles

2007-05-19T22:44:00.000-04:00

Dwelling in God's Glory, the Spirit as our light

2007-05-12T12:45:00.000-04:00

Subversive parade

2007-03-27T17:52:00.000-04:00

Daniel B. Clendenin leads me to wonder if our form of Christianity would raise any eyebrows at all.

The Journey with Jesus Foundation: " Given that the Roman state always made a show of force during the Jewish Passover when pilgrims thronged to Jerusalem to celebrate their political liberation from Egypt centuries earlier, Borg and Crossan imagine not one but two political processions entering Jerusalem that Friday morning in the spring of AD 30. In a blatant parody of imperial politics, king Jesus descended the Mount of Olives into Jerusalem from the east in fulfillment of Zechariah's ancient prophecy: 'Look, your king is coming to you, gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey' (Matthew 21:5 = Zechariah 9:9). From the west, the Roman governor Pilate entered Jerusalem with all the pomp of state power. Pilate's brigades showcased Rome's military might, power and glory. Jesus's triumphal entry, by stark contrast, was an anti-imperial and anti-triumphal 'counter-procession' of peasants that proclaimed an alternate and subversive social vision called 'the kingdom of God.'

People today argue about who's 'subverting our nation.' A friend in Florida forwarded me an email that blamed Muslims in America for our problems. Others attack evangelicals as 'Christian fascists.' For a long time now others have taken aim at 'secular humanists' and liberal Democrats. On his nationally televised program Jerry Falwell blamed the wickedness of pagans, abortionists, feminists, gays, lesbians, the ACLU, and People for the American Way for the 9-11 disaster, which he construed as God's judgment. Pat Robertson, a guest on the show, nodded in agreement, “well, I totally concur.” The greed of corporate executives and the sleaze of Hollywood movies also make easy targets. But I never recall anyone blaming Jesus, that Jesus is the one who's "subverting our nation." But that was the allegation that sent Jesus to Golgotha...

...On Palm Sunday Jesus invites us to join his subversive counter-procession into all the world. But he calls us not to just any subversion, subversion for its own sake, or to some new and improved political agenda. Rather, Christian subversion takes as its model Jesus himself, "who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death—even death on a cross." Dying to self and the many demons of egoism, and living to serve others, will prove itself as sufficiently and radically subversive. And so Paul instructs us in his epistle for this week: "have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus" (Philippians 2:5–11).¹"

In his reflection section he points to a description of ancient Christians living their lives subversive to the kingdom of the world. Can it describe us?

"For the Christians are distinguished from other people neither by country, nor language, nor the customs which they observe. For they neither inhabit cities of their own, nor employ a peculiar form of speech, nor lead a life which is marked out by any singularity. The course of conduct which they follow has not been devised by any speculation or deliberation of inquisitive people; nor do they, like some, proclaim themselves the advocates of any merely human doctrines. But, inhabiting Greek as well as barbarian cities, according as the lot of each of them has determined, and following the customs of the natives in respect to clothing, food, and the rest of their ordinary conduct, they display to us their wonderful and confessedly striking method of life. They dwell in their own countries, but simply as sojourners [or resident aliens]. As citizens, they share in all things with others, and yet endure all things as if foreigners. Every foreign land is to them as their native country, and every land of their birth as a land of strangers. They marry, as do all [others]; they beget children; but they do not destroy their offspring. They have a common table, but not a common bed. They are in the flesh, but they do not live after the flesh. They pass their days on earth, but they are citizens of heaven. They obey the prescribed laws, and at the same time surpass the laws by their lives. They love all people, and are persecuted by all. They are unknown and condemned; they are put to death, and restored to life. They are poor, yet make many rich; they are in lack of all things, and yet abound in all; they are dishonored, and yet in their very dishonor are glorified. They are evil spoken of, and yet are justified; they are reviled, and bless; they are insulted, and repay the insult with honor; they do good, yet are punished as evil-doers. When punished, they rejoice as if quickened into life; they are assailed by the Jews as foreigners, and are persecuted by the Greeks; yet those who hate them are unable to assign any reason for their hatred."

A way in the wilderness

2007-03-25T00:20:00.000-04:00

Etymology

2007-03-13T20:11:00.000-04:00

prodigal: c.1450, back-formation from prodigiality (1340), from O.Fr. prodigalite (13c.), from L.L. prodigalitatem (nom. prodigalitas) "wastefulness," from L. prodigus "wasteful," from prodigere "drive away, waste," from pro- "forth" + agere "to drive" (see act). First ref. is to prodigial son, from Vulgate L. filius prodigus (Luke xv.11-32).

Mind map of text interactions Lent 3C

2007-03-08T00:45:00.000-05:00

Lenten Progression

2007-02-20T09:53:00.000-05:00

Lent begins with the temptation of Jesus. It serves as an invitation to join him for forty days in the wilderness. Our victory in the temptation comes through confession and the Word. We are also invited to look across the wilderness to the promised land of Easter.

We progress with movement to the cross. Jesus laments over Jerusalem displaying the heart of God. We are invited to put our trust in him and take our victory in Jesus.

Repentance in the face of destruction, in the third week we are invited to seek God in our times of testing, and turn to him while he may be found.

In the forth week, we are assured of forgiveness, the shame is rolled away, the old become new.

Finally we are again reminded of the cross as Jesus is anointed at Bethany. We have seen the reason for the cross and promise of new life. Now we see something new is on the horizon, an inversion. The anticipation is palpable, Easter brings a new world.

Transfiguration

2007-02-13T15:26:00.000-05:00

What was Jesus praying about on the mountain when he was transfigured? Was he interceding for his disciples and the world like he did in John 17? Was he pleading with his father? Was he communing with him in mystical union like he did before coming to earth? Was he chatting with the Father and the cloud of witnesses about what was to come? Is that why Elijah and Moses appeared? What was it that kept him up sleepless night after night (for he seems to often go off and pray the night away)?

The disciples he took with him couldn’t pray like that. They dozed off… but hey, dozing off in the presence of Christ and waking to a wonderful communion of the kingdom you are learning to enter is indeed a sweet thing. Still, Peter must have felt a little awkward waking up to this fantastic sight; a little guilty he couldn’t keep praying. What are we here for anyway?

“Master its good we’re here we can build three booths for you and Moses and Elijah.” His idea has echoes of the feast of tabernacles and in its eschatological expectation isn’t far fetched. But God himself tells them why they are there. Not to build booths, but to listen to the shiny one-his one and only Son. Superior to the law and the prophets, the new kingdom turns them on their head with a long expected, yet unexpected fulfillment.

What do we do when we find Jesus in his glory? Or do we ever? Do we ever bother to ascend the mountain with him? Are we too afraid that our falling asleep will disappoint him and the Saints we find with him?

Beatitudes in context of the other readings

2007-02-04T16:16:00.000-05:00

Jeremiah gives the curses and blessedness of trust. If we trust in our hearts and mortal flesh we are miserable, but if we trust in God we are happy. They shall be like a tree planted by water, sending out its roots by the stream. It shall not fear when heat comes, and its leaves shall stay green; in the year of drought it is not anxious, and it does not cease to bear fruit.

The psalmist echoes that strain while extolling the blessedness of delighting in the law.

Paul also tells us not to trust the flesh, but rather tells us that we are blessed because Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have died.

If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.

If we fail to see Christ as risen, or trust the flesh that perishes, we are of all men most miserable. But Christ has been raised and we are counted among the men most blessed.

Dallas Willard suggests that unlike the if then formulation of the blessings and curses that formed prophetic covenants, Jesus is simply stating that those in front of him are blessed because the kingdom of heaven is at hand. He contends that the beatitudes are not prescriptions, but descriptions. See this excerpt.

An excerpt from "The Divine Conspiracy" by Dallas Wilalrd

2007-01-31T23:35:00.000-05:00

The Beatitudes as Kingdom Proclamation What then does Jesus say with his Beatitudes?How are we to live in response to them? That is the question we asked at the outset of this chapter, and it is now time to answer it.

We have already indicated the key to understanding the Beatitudes. They serve to clarify Jesus’ fundamental message: the free availability of God’s rule and righteousness to all of humanity through reliance upon Jesus himself, the person now loose in the world among us. They do this simply by taking those who, from the human point of view, are regarded as most helpless, most beyond all possibility of God’s blessing or even interest, and exhibiting them as enjoying God’s touch and abundant provision for their lives.

This fact of God’s care and provision proves to all that no human condition excludes blessedness, that God may come to any person with his care and deliverance. God does sometimes help those who cannot, or perhaps just do not, help themselves. (So much for another well known generalization!) The religious system of his day left the multitudes out, but Jesus welcomed them all into his kingdom. Anyone could come as well as any other….
And on Your list of the Blessed? You are really waling in the good news of the kingdom if you can go with confidence to any of the hopeless people around you and effortlessly convey assurance that they can now enter a blessed life with God.
Who would be on your list of “hopeless blessables” as found in today’s world? Certainly all of those on Jesus’ lists, for though they are merely illustrative, they are also timeless. But can we, following his lead as a teacher, concretize the gospel even more for those around us? Who would you regard as the most unfortunate people around you?

A Silly Side of Salvation? There is first of all, a silly side to this question-which turns suddenly somber. If you look at advertising and current events in print and other media-for example, as you encounter them in supermarket checkouts, newsstands, and bookstores or even on television and radio-you might think that the most unfortunate people in the world today are the fat, the misshapen, the bald, the ugly, the old, and those not relentlessly engaged in romance, sex and fashionably equipped physical activities….

Instead Jesus took time in his teaching to point out the natural beauty of every human being (Matt 6:30)…

This is the gospel for a silly world, all the more needed because the silly is made a matter of life and death for many. Sin, for that matter, is silly. If the kingdom did not reach us in our silliness who would be saved? Lostness does not have to wear a stuffed shirt to find redemption.

So we must see from our heart that:

Blessed are the physically repulsive,

Blessed are those who smell bad,

The twisted, misshapen, deformed,

The too big, too little, too loud,

The bald, the fat, and the old -

For they are all riotously celebrated in the party of Jesus.

And the more serious side Then there are the seriously crushed ones: The flunk-outs and drop-outs and burn-outs. The broke and the broken. The drug heads and the divorced. The HIV-positive and herpes-ridden. The brain-damaged, the incurably ill. The barren and pregnant too-many-times or at the wrong time. The overemployed, the underemployed, the unemployed. The unemployable. The swindled the shoved aside, the replaced. The parents with children living on the street, the children with parents not dying in the “rest” home. The lonely, the incompetent, the stupid. The emotionally starved or emotionally dead. And on and on and on. Is it true that “Earth has no sorrow that heaven cannot heal?” It is true! That is precisely the gospel of heaven’s availability that comes to us through the Beatitudes. And you don’t have to wait until you’re dead. Jesus offers to all such people as these the present blessedness of the present kingdom - regardless of circumstances. The condition of life sought for human beings through the ages is attained in the quietly transforming friendship of Jesus.

And the Immoral Even the moral disasters will be received by God as they come to rely on Jesus, count on him, and make him their companion in his kingdom. Murders and child-molesters. The brutal and bigoted. Drug lords and pornographers. War criminals and sadists. Terrorists. The perverted and the filthy and the filthy rich. The David Berkowitzs (Son of Sam), Jeffery Dahmers, and Colonel Noriegas….

If, as a recovering sinner myself, accept Jesus’ good new, I can go to the mass murderer and say, “you can be blessed in the kingdoms of the heavens. There is forgiveness that knows no limits.” To the pederast and the perpetrator of incest. To the worshiper of Satan. To those who rob the aged and weak. To the cheat and the liar, the bloodsucker and the vengeful: Blessed! Blessed! Blessed! As they flee into the arms of the Kingdom Among Us.

Lectionary Blog: Markan Distinctives

2007-01-22T17:16:00.000-05:00

Lectionary Blog: Markan Distinctives: Here is a synoptic study of this pericope from proper 9b, when the story came up in mark.

Position

Mark alone places this pericope right after a collection of miracle stories – directly connecting the power in those situations with the lack of power in his home town. Matthew has it after a collection of parables.
His disciples followed him

Luke places this pericope before the calling of the disciples, as an introduction to his power.
The placing of the commissioning of the disciples immediately after Jesus is rejected in his hometown in Mark puts the emphasis on the disciples reaction to those who reject them in their ministry. It has been suggested that a preacher preach one or the other parts of this lection, but only in Mark do we get the force of them together.

On the Sabbath

Mark, in comparison with Matthew, includes the timing of the Sabbath, making this the congregations regular time of teaching (as in Luke)

What mighty works are wrought by his hands!

This sentence is difficult in placement in Mark. The other Matthew makes it part of the questioning and Luke simply implies their unbelief. Perhaps Hooker is right when stating that the force of the statement is a question. Where does he get this power?

Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary?

Matthew and Luke make reference to Jesus being the son of the carpenter Joseph. In this reading of Mark, Jesus is a carpenter, perhaps the other evangelists thought it too base that Jesus worked with his hands (so Origen).
Also if the villagers did not mention Joseph as his father, it may be a derogatory reference to rumors surrounding his conception. – Hooker

And he could do no mighty works there

Matthew frames it that he would not. Here the lack of faith actually limits Jesus’ ability. If they rejected his teaching at the synagogue, and had no faith, his ability was hampered. Here, as with the woman with the issue of blood, the Markan theme of Jesus’ authority is contrasted with the efficacy of faith.

Except that he laid his hands upon a few sick people and healed them.

Presumably those who received his teaching were able to receive healing.
Not the great works of power demonstrated in Capernaum.

Joy

2007-01-16T22:34:00.000-05:00

The Journey with Jesus Foundation takes a great look at Nehemiah and subversive acts of joy.

" In his poem The Revival the Welsh poet and physician Henry Vaughan (1621–1695) challenges us to open our 'drowsy eyes' to experience 'the drops and dews of future bliss.' This is a choice we can make or refuse.

Unfold! Unfold! Take in His light,
Who makes thy cares more short than night.
The joys which with His day-star rise
He deals to all but drowsy eyes;
And, what the men of this world miss
Some drops and dews of future bliss.

Hark! How His winds have chang’d their note!
And with warm whispers call thee out;
The frosts are past, the storms are gone,
And backward life at last comes on.
The lofty groves in express joys
Reply unto the turtle’s voice;
And here in dust and dirt, O here
The lilies of His love appear!

'The greatest honor we can give Almighty God,' wrote the English mystic Juliana of Norwich, 'is to live gladly because of the knowledge of his love.' No matter how bleak the tragic course of history, how unnerving our personal circumstances, or how pessimistic the forecasts of cultural historians, with joy we can expect his love to blossom even in the dust and dirt of our lives."

The Importance of the Word

2007-01-16T21:58:00.000-05:00

How do we respond to the word of God? Is it good news? Do we respond to it in that way?

And Nehemiah, who was the governor, and Ezra the priest and scribe, and the Levites who taught the people said to all the people, "This day is holy to the LORD your God; do not mourn or weep." For all the people wept when they heard the words of the law. Then he said to them, "Go your way, eat the fat and drink sweet wine and send portions of them to those for whom nothing is prepared, for this day is holy to our LORD; and do not be grieved, for the joy of the LORD is your strength."
Nehemiah 8:9-10

The joy in the word is describe by the psalmist,

The law of the LORD is perfect, reviving the soul; the decrees of the LORD are sure, making wise the simple; the precepts of the LORD are right, rejoicing the heart; the commandment of the LORD is clear, enlightening the eyes; the fear of the LORD is pure, enduring forever; the ordinances of the LORD are true and righteous altogether.
Psalm 19:7-9

Jesus declares that he has come to fulfill the scripture, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free...

And he said, Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing. Have we heard him? Do we rejoice in the fulfiller of the scripture? Do we still hear, do we allow the Spirit to move among us in his way to speak to us?

And God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers; then deeds of power, then gifts of healing, forms of assistance, forms of leadership, various kinds of tongues...
I Cor 12:28

Lord, may we see your word as more to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold; sweeter also than honey, and drippings of the honeycomb. Open our ears to your fulfilled word.

Light and Delight

2007-01-11T13:04:00.000-05:00

Jesus' sign gave light to the disciples. They saw a glimpse of his coming glory. In his actions, Jesus proclaimed his message, the kingdom has come, it is near, and it provides where the old system ran out. It provides a better and abundant mercy.

The psalmist declares, "They feast on the abundance of your house, and you give them drink from the river of your delights. For with you is the fountain of life; in your light we see light."

Isaiah says,

"For Zion's sake I will not keep silent, and for Jerusalem's sake I will not rest, until her vindication shines out like the dawn, and her salvation like a burning torch. The nations shall see your vindication, and all the kings your glory; and you shall be called by a new name that the mouth of the LORD will give.... you shall be called My Delight Is in Her, and your land Married; for the LORD delights in you, and your land shall be married."

I am reminded of the Westminster Catechism: Man’s chief end is to glorify God,[1] and to enjoy him forever.[2] We shine his light as we delight in him as he delights in us, lavishing his gifts upon us like the over abundance of wine. We show his glory in using his gifts for the good of the body.

Common thread

2007-01-08T22:16:00.000-05:00

Episcopal Diocese of East Tennessee:

Today’s readings speak of the revelation of hidden glory breaking through and inviting celebration. Isaiah announces the coming glory of God’s vindicated people when they return to rebuild their shattered homeland. Paul describes the amazing results of spiritual gifts, given to all God’s people “for the common good.” Today’s gospel, the story of the wedding feast at Cana, relates the first “sign” of Jesus’ identity and ministry that “revealed his glory.”

Paul doesn't specifically speak of glory, but rather of the common Good. In function the Spirit brings glory to Christ.

The symbolic refreshment of the Christian wine is glorified in the Psalm. "...you give them drink from the river of your delights. For with you is the fountain of life; in your light we see light."

Sign in Cana

2007-01-08T16:47:00.000-05:00

“Plainly he records the miracle because he believes that it happened. But for him the Miracles are all ‘signs’: they point beyond themselves. This particular miracle signifies that there is a transforming power associated with Jesus. He changes the water of Judaism into the wine of Christianity, the water of Christlessness into the wine of the richness and the fullness of eternal life in Christ, the water of the law into the wine of the gospel.”

I’ve never thought before that this passage makes a partial parallel to the wine and wineskins of Luke. John’s use of signs, explaining the truth allegorically, like a live action parable is a little new to me. I guess I owe that to my fundamentalist background. Reading the church fathers, most recently Augustine, I begin to appreciate more the ancient exegesis of texts. I am less likely to see the significance of the miracle in that it happened, as a bit of historical information about the life of Christ. Rather I see the significance in the mystical and spiritual realities they present, these are completely independent of their historicity. Not that I believe them to not have happened (i.e. attempts to de-mystify Jesus) but rather I think it really doesn’t matter at all to the reading.

Happened-in-reality or not – not skin off our collective noses. It is real and true regardless. So I choose to believe it happened. Why not? What is far more important is: what is the reality and significance? What does it really tell us about Jesus?

Here we see the first glimpse of his glory in John. His time has not yet come to be glorified, but we see a sign (first of many) of what will culminate on the cross of glory.

Light in the context of the church.

2007-01-06T22:32:00.000-05:00

Father John was saying this week that in order to understand the story of the wise men, it must be seen in the context of the Matthean community. The early church makes a big deal of the nations coming to the Light of Christ. Theirs is the pentecostal experience, theirs the mission to the gentiles. They would have seen great significance to the theme in Isaiah and the narrative of foreign kings coming to worship Jesus. While John's words were still working in my head, I read this from Augustine (this time in Chadwick's Translation).

It is as if God says 'Let there be lights in the firmament of heaven', and 'suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as if a vehement wind blew, and tongues were seen split, like fire which sat on each of them' (Acts 2:2-3). And lights, made in the firmament of heaven, have the word of life (Phil. 2:15-16). Run everywhere, holy fires, fires of beauty. Do not be under a bushel (Matt. 5:14-15). He to whom you have adhered is exalted, and he has exalted you. Run and make it known to all nations (Ps. 78:10).

Light

2007-01-05T23:05:00.000-05:00

Augustine's treatment of the creation of light illuminates epiphany to me.

13.8.9
Angels fell away, man's soul fell away, and thereby pointed the
abyss in that dark depth, ready for the whole spiritual creation,
hadst not Thou said from the beginning, Let there be light, and there
had been light, and every obedient intelligence of Thy heavenly City
had cleaved to Thee, and rested in Thy Spirit, Which is borne unchangeably
over every thing changeable. Otherwise, had even the heaven of heavens
been in itself a darksome deep; but now it is light in the Lord. For
even in that miserable restlessness of the spirits, who fell away
and discovered their own darkness, when bared of the clothing of Thy
light, dost Thou sufficiently reveal how noble Thou madest the reasonable
creature; to which nothing will suffice to yield a happy rest, less
than Thee; and so not even herself. For Thou, O our God, shalt lighten
our darkness: from Thee riseth our garment of light; and then shall
our darkness be as the noon day. Give Thyself unto me, O my God, restore
Thyself unto me: behold I love, and if it be too little, I would love
more strongly. I cannot measure so as to know, how much love there
yet lacketh to me, ere my life may run into Thy embracements, nor
turn away, until it be hidden in the hidden place of Thy Presence.
This only I know, that woe is me except in Thee: not only without
but within myself also; and all abundance, which is not my God, is
emptiness to me....

13.12.13
Proceed in thy confession, say to the Lord thy God, O my faith,
Holy, Holy, Holy, O Lord my God, in Thy Name have we been baptised,
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; in Thy Name do we baptise, Father, Son,
and Holy Ghost, because among us also, in His Christ did God make
heaven and earth, namely, the spiritual and carnal people of His Church.
Yea and our earth, before it received the form of doctrine, was invisible
and without form; and we were covered with the darkness of ignorance.
For Thou chastenedst man for iniquity, and Thy judgments were like
the great deep unto him. But because Thy Spirit was borne above the
waters, Thy mercy forsook not our misery, and Thou saidst, Let there
be light, Repent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Repent
ye, let there be light. And because our soul was troubled within us,
we remembered Thee, O Lord, from the land of Jordan, and that mountain
equal unto Thyself, but little for our sakes: and our darkness displeased
us, we turned unto Thee and there was light. And, behold, we were
sometimes darkness, but now light in the Lord.

Have we grown with Christ this year?

2006-12-30T11:22:00.000-05:00

So this is Christmas
And what have you done
Another year over
And a new one just begun
Ans so this is Christmas
I hope you have fun
The near and the dear one
The old and the young

A very merry Christmas
And a happy New Year
Let's hope it's a good one
Without any fear
And so this is Christmas
For weak and for strong
For rich and the poor ones
The world is so wrong
And so happy Christmas
For black and for white
For yellow and red ones
Let's stop all the fight
A very merry Christmas
And a happy New Year
Let's hope it's a good one
Without any fear
And so this is Christmas
And what have we done
Another year over
And a new one just begun
Ans so this is Christmas
I hope you have fun
The near and the dear one
The old and the young
A very merry Christmas
And a happy New Year
Let's hope it's a good one
Without any fear
War is over over
If you want it
War is over
Now...

Growing in favor and stature

2006-12-24T15:28:00.000-05:00

The young Samuel was consecrated to God. He outgrew his white linen ephod and each year his parents would come to see him and clothe him in a new garment.

Now the boy Samuel continued to grow both in stature and in favor with the LORD and with the people.

Samuel's growth echoes that of the young Jesus. The psalmist said, "He has raised up a horn for his people." Jesus grew in understanding. When he was at the temple he discoursed with the teachers. The evangelist shows how Jesus was growing in wisdom, I don't know that he meant anything by his treating his parents poorly. At any rate when he went home he "was obedient to them.... And Jesus increased in wisdom and in years, and in divine and human favor."

We are invited to grow up with Jesus as his chosen beloved. We are to clothe ourselves with the new linen garments of his character.

Colossians 3:12-17

As God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in the one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly; teach and admonish one another in all wisdom; and with gratitude in your hearts sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

That's My King

2006-12-21T18:04:00.000-05:00

By Dr. S.M. Lockridge

The Bible says my King is a seven-way king....He's the King of the Jews; that's a racial king....He's the King of Israel; that's a national King....He's the King of Righteousness....He's the King of the Ages.....He's the King of Heaven....He's the King of Glory....He's the King of kings, and He's the Lord of lords. That's my King. Well....I wonder, do you know Him?.... David said, "The Heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament shows His handiwork. My King is a sovereign King. No means of measure can define His limitless love. No far seeing telescope can bring into visibility the coastline of His shoreless supply. No barrier can hinder Him from pouring out His blessings. He's enduringly strong....He's entirely sincere....He's eternally steadfast....He's immortally graceful....He's imperially powerful....He's impartially merciful....... Do you know Him?

He's the greatest phenomenon that ever crossed the horizon of this world. He's God's Son....He's a sinner's Saviour....He's the centerpiece of civilization....He stands in the solitude of Himself....He's august....He's unique....He's unparalleled....He's unprecedented....He's the loftiest idea in literature....He's the highest personality in philosophy....He's the supreme problem in higher criticism....He's the fundamental doctrine of true theology....He's the cardinal necessity for spiritual religion....He's the miracle of the age.... He's the superlative of everything good that you choose to call Him....He's the only one qualified to be an all sufficient Saviour...... I wonder if you know Him today?

He supplies strength for the weak....He's available for the tempted and the tried....He sympathizes and He saves....He strengthens and sustains....He guards and He guides....He heals the sick....He cleanses lepers....He forgives sinners....He discharges debtors....He delivers captives....He defends the feeble....He blesses the young....He serves the unfortunate....He regards the aged....He rewards the diligent....and He beautifies the meek....... I wonder if you know Him?

Well, my King....is the King....He's the key to knowledge....He's the wellspring to wisdom....He's the doorway of deliverance....He's the pathway of peace....He's the roadway of righteousness ....He's the highway of holiness....He's the gateway of glory....... Do you know Him?

Well....His office is manifold....His promise is sure....His light is matchless....His goodness is limitless....His mercy is everlasting....His love never changes....His word is enough....His grace is sufficient....His reign is righteous....and His yoke is easy, and his burden is light. I wish I could describe Him to you, but He's indescribable....He's incomprehensible....He's invincible....He's irresistible.

Well, you can't get Him out of your mind....You can't get Him off of your hand....You can't out live Him, and you can't live without Him....The Pharisees couldn't stand Him, but they found out they couldn't stop Him....Pilate couldn't find any fault in Him....The witnesses couldn't get their testimonies to agree....Herod couldn't kill Him....Death couldn't handle Him, and the grave couldn't hold Him. Yea!!!, that's my King, that's my King.

Father..."Thine is the Kingdom....and the Power....and the Glory....Forever"....and ever, and ever, and ever, and ever. How long is that? And ever...and ever...and when you get through with all the forevers, then.... AMEN!....AMEN!

The Sustaining Word of the Creation

2006-12-21T12:36:00.000-05:00

Augustine has beautiful thoughts on the Word in the beginning who continues to sustain all things by his powerful word.

But how dost Thou make them? how, O God,
didst Thou make heaven and earth? Verily, neither in the heaven, nor
in the earth, didst Thou make heaven and earth; nor in the air, or
waters, seeing these also belong to the heaven and the earth; nor in
the whole world didst Thou make the whole world; because there was
no place where to make it, before it was made, that it might be. Nor
didst Thou hold any thing in Thy hand, whereof to make heaven and
earth. For whence shouldest Thou have this, which Thou hadst not made,
thereof to make any thing? For what is, but because Thou art?
Therefore Thou spokest, and they were made, and in Thy Word Thou
madest them.

But how didst Thou speak? In the way that the voice came out of
the cloud, saying, This is my beloved Son? For that voice passed by
and passed away, began and ended; the syllables sounded and passed
away, the second after the first, the third after the second, and so
forth in order, until the last after the rest, and silence after the
last. Whence it is abundantly clear and plain that the motion of a
creature expressed it, itself temporal, serving Thy eternal will.
And these Thy words, created for a time, the outward ear reported to
the intelligent soul, whose inward ear lay listening to Thy Eternal
Word. But she compared these words sounding in time, with that Thy
Eternal Word in silence, and said "It is different, far different.
These words are far beneath me, nor are they, because they flee and
pass away; but the Word of my Lord abideth above me for ever." If then
in sounding and passing words Thou saidst that heaven and earth should
be made, and so madest heaven and earth, there was a corporeal
creature before heaven and earth, by whose motions in time that
voice might take his course in time. But there was nought corporeal
before heaven and earth; or if there were, surely Thou hadst,
without such a passing voice, created that, whereof to make this
passing voice, by which to say, Let the heaven and the earth be
made. For whatsoever that were, whereof such a voice were made, unless
by Thee it were made, it could not be at all. By what Word then
didst Thou speak, that a body might be made, whereby these words again
might be made?

Thou callest us then to understand the Word, God, with Thee God,
Which is spoken eternally, and by It are all things spoken
eternally. For what was spoken was not spoken successively, one
thing concluded that the next might be spoken, but all things together
and eternally. Else have we time and change; and not a true eternity
nor true immortality. This I know, O my God, and give thanks. I
know, I confess to Thee, O Lord, and with me there knows and blesses
Thee, whoso is not unthankful to assure Truth. We know, Lord, we know;
since inasmuch as anything is not which was, and is, which was not, so
far forth it dieth and ariseth. Nothing then of Thy Word doth give
place or replace, because It is truly immortal and eternal. And
therefore unto the Word coeternal with Thee Thou dost at once and
eternally say all that Thou dost say; and whatever Thou sayest shall
be made is made; nor dost Thou make, otherwise than by saying; and yet
are not all things made together, or everlasting, which Thou makest by
saying.

Chadwick translates it as God created outside the framework of the universe. This cast my mind back to the various creationist theories. Was it a 24 hour day, was it a day-age, was it a day-revelation? Augustine rightly points out that creation happened outside the framework of time. God made a day and called it today. For him creation is still right now. For Christ he is right now at the dawn of time, lying in a manger, suffering on the cross and glorying in the presence of God. He is no longer bound by time.

Scripture interplay

2006-12-21T12:10:00.000-05:00

A. Luke 2:1-7

2:1 In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered.

2:2 This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria.

2:3 All went to their own towns to be registered.

2:4 Joseph also went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the city of David called Bethlehem, because he was descended from the house and family of David.

2:5 He went to be registered with Mary, to whom he was engaged and who was expecting a child.

2:6 While they were there, the time came for her to deliver her child.

2:7 And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.

B. Hebrews 1:1-4

1:1 Long ago God spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways by the prophets,

1:2 but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom he also created the worlds.

1:3 He is the reflection of God's glory and the exact imprint of God's very being, and he sustains all things by his powerful word. When he had made purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high,

1:4 having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs.

C. Luke 2:8-14

2:8 In that region there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night.

2:9 Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified.

2:10 But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid; for see--I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people:

2:11 to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord.

2:12 This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger."

2:13 And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying,

2:14 "Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favors!"

D. Hebrews 1:5-7

1:5 For to which of the angels did God ever say, "You are my Son; today I have begotten you"? Or again, "I will be his Father, and he will be my Son"?

1:6 And again, when he brings the firstborn into the world, he says, "Let all God's angels worship him."

1:7 Of the angels he says, "He makes his angels winds, and his servants flames of fire."

E. Luke 2:15-20

2:15 When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, "Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us."

2:16 So they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the child lying in the manger.

2:17 When they saw this, they made known what had been told them about this child;

2:18 and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them.

2:19 But Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart.

2:20 The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.

F. Hebrews 1:8-12

1:8 But of the Son he says, "Your throne, O God, is forever and ever, and the righteous scepter is the scepter of your kingdom.

1:9 You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness; therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness beyond your companions."

1:10 And, "In the beginning, Lord, you founded the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands;

1:11 they will perish, but you remain; they will all wear out like clothing;

1:12 like a cloak you will roll them up, and like clothing they will be changed. But you are the same, and your years will never end."

Rejoice the God is in your midst

2006-12-10T23:54:00.000-05:00

Luke goes messing this week up again. The first three readings talk about rejoicing that God is in the midst of his people. Emanuel is come.

Zephaniah 3:17 The LORD, your God, is in your midst, a warrior who gives victory; he will rejoice over you with gladness, he will renew you in his love; he will exult over you with loud singing.

Isaiah 12:6 Shout aloud and sing for joy, O royal Zion, for great in your midst is the Holy One of Israel.

Philippains 4:4-5 Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice, Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near.

Then we have the end of the world stuff from John the Baptist. "You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?" Yet when you look at what he teaches, "Bear fruits worthy of repentance." It sounds just like Jesus when he is proclaiming that the Kingdom is at hand. Yeah, but where is the grace?

In entering the kingdom silly. Some have said that John the Baptist represents the last of the graceless age. That Jesus offered a new age of grace and wrath is no more. I don't think so, Jesus offered an enterance to the Kingdom of God to the real rule and presence - an eternal kind of life now as Willard puts it. In that God has never changed. He has always wanted people to trust him and enter into his life. The acts John describes are the same kind of living out the eternal kind of life that Jesus shows. And all this talk of the judgement to come gets people talking. A great expectation arose.
Could John be the one? No, he says, there is one coming after me who will baptise into a new kingdom with fire. We get the purifying theme coming back from last week's old testament reading.
It souldn't surprise us that the coming of God in the Flesh would have such strong statements. God is a consuming fire. Let us not let the meekness of the babe allow us to forget.

Fiery Expectation

2006-12-04T23:45:00.000-05:00

The dual focus of advent is shown this week. We see the telescoping of the expectation of the coming of the Messiah as we celebrate it on Christmas Day and the expectation of his return “in the clouds”.

Malachi gives us a picture of the coming Messiah that perhaps reflects John The Baptist’s understanding of what the messiah’s role would be.

But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears? For he is like a refiner's fire and like fullers' soap; he will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the descendants of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, until they present offerings to the LORD in righteousness.

He did in deed accomplish those things. We see in the ministry of Jesus a way that constantly challenged the religious authorities, but we have yet to see the offerings to the Lord being presented in righteousness by the house of Levi. Instead we see Malachi’s expectation fulfilled in the temples of our hearts, as the Shekinah—the cloud of God’s glory, again fills the temple of our hearts.

The fiery language of the prophets (Malachi and later John) gives a sense of imminent judgment. That sense is not reflected in Zachariah’s song.

And you, my child, will be called a prophet of the Most High;
for you will go on before the Lord to prepare the way for him,
to give his people the knowledge of salvation
through the forgiveness of their sins,
because of the tender mercy of our God,
by which the rising sun will come to us from heaven
to shine on those living in darkness
and in the shadow of death,
to guide our feet into the path of peace."

Many have questioned whether John understood his mission in the way his father described it. They wonder if perhaps John later doubted that Jesus was the one precisely because he wasn’t winnowing the chaff to be burned. Perhaps, but his message is spot on.

The language John uses in Luke is particularly apocalyptic. Luke alone quotes the further context from Isaiah.

Every valley shall be filled in,
every mountain and hill made low.
The crooked roads shall become straight,
the rough ways smooth.
And all mankind will see God's salvation.

God’s instruction to the one calling in the desert (Isaiah 40:2) is to speak tenderly to Jerusalem. Yet, in preparing the way some very chaotic things happen. We have a list of apocalyptic inversions, employed to show how God will bring order from chaos, and turn the world upside down to bring salvation: valleys filled in and mountains leveled, crooked roads straight and rough ways smoothed. And all mankind will see [a good thing] God’s Salvation.

Paul too points out the good thing in God’s salvation.

“And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ—to the glory and praise of God.”

Just as in the Revelation reading a couple weeks back, Paul’s concern is that they endure to the end to see the beauty of Jesus face to face. He prays that their love may increase and that they could discern what is pure and blameless. The need only look to their Lord—the fullers soap, the smelting furnace.

Year C Advent 2 Malachi 3

2006-12-03T21:51:00.000-05:00

Year C Advent 2 Malachi 3: "Malachi is a book suitable for reading during Advent, in that it describes a time of restless waiting in the history of the people of Judah. The exile was over, the second temple had been built and worship there restored, but all was not as it had been envisioned. There was as yet no sign of the glory of God returning to fill the temple.

We know little about the prophet Malachi, whose name means, ‘my messenger.’ Like the other prophets, he was given a word from the Lord to speak in a particular time. The priests had strayed from their faithful worship, and led the people astray (Mal. 1:6-8). People noted the inequities of life around them and asked, ‘Where is the God of justice?’ (Mal. 2:17)

The passage for this Sunday from chapter 3 comes in answer to that question, with the promise of a day when all will be set right. God promises a messenger of the covenant to prepare the Lord’s way, and to herald the coming of justice. The forerunner is seen in Rabbinic interpretations as an angel appointed to avenge the breaking of a covenant, or perhaps Elijah or the prophet Malachi himself. But this coming is not only good news. It implies purification and judgment will precede the Lord’s coming."

Synoptic study

2006-11-28T19:22:00.000-05:00

If we assume Markan priority, then the uniqueness in Luke takes on added significance. First Luke leaves out the reference to the gathering of the Elect. This may be to place the warning at the end of the discourse, But watch at all times, praying that you may have the strength to escape all these things that will take place, and to stand before the Son of Man. (vs. 36) The burning question is what are “all these things”. It is frustrating for me to understand these eschatologies outside of the dispensational construct I grew up with and have rejected. This could be taken as a support for a pre-trib rapture. But I think that the things referred to are not the supposed Great Tribulation, but the real possibility of falling away during the trials the Jews and the Church would face. Hooker takes a look at the Markan text in the same way:

At the end of the discourse, we have two parables and a number of sayings, which seem to have been linked together because of certain words and phrases that they have in common. The first is a parable about a sign – a natural enough pericope to have added here. Yet it fits badly into its context: these things in v. 29 cannot refer to the events in vv.26f., since they were themselves the climax to the period of waiting. The parable has been added here because it was thought to be on the same theme as the rest of the discourse, but in the setting of Jesus’ own lifetime it may well have had a different emphasis. Even in its present setting, Luke takes it to be a parable about the Kingdom of God, and he may well be right. If so, then perhaps the signs, which showed that the Kingdom was near were originally the activities of Jesus himself (cf. Luke 11.20; 12.54-6). Mark may perhaps have had another reason for adding the parable at this point. The parable is about a fig tree, and it was a fig tree that was cursed in chapter 11, when Jesus first pronounced judgment on the temple and on Israel. It is significant that now, when Jesus has spelt out the nature of Israel’s punishment and the final gathering of the elect, we have a story about another fig tree. The dormant tree, apparently dead, bursts into new life, and its young leaves are a promise of coming summer: hope and not destruction, is the final word….

…Many attempts have been made to understand the Greek for this generation in some other way, but they are all unconvincing. The reason for these attempts was the embarrassment caused by an apparently unfulfilled prediction in the mouth of Jesus. An alternative solution was to limit the application of the phrase ‘all these things’. Once it is recognized that the saying did not originally belong in its present context, the difficulties become rather different. If it is an authentic saying, to what did it originally refer? The similarity with Mark 9.1 suggests that it could have referred to the Kingdom of God. A comparison of that saying with the Matthaean parallel shows how easily a saying about the coming of the Kingdom could be reapplied to the coming of the Son of man. But perhaps it is a warning of unknown origin, couched in traditional apocalyptic language and used here by Mark because it seemed appropriate – at once ominous and vague. Used here, the saying provides an important clue to Mark’s purpose in this chapter. If all these things are to take place within this generation, then we understand why he ends the discourse with the warnings in vv.33-7. The fact that some Christians have been misled by false signs of the parousia does not mean that there is no need for continual vigilance: sooner or later the End will come, and Marks’s readers must therefore keep watch.

Enduring to the end

2006-11-26T16:57:00.000-05:00

The hope we have as Christians is in deed great. This week we are faced again with the messiah coming again – with the hope of seeing his face, the trustworthiness of God’s saving arm, and the promise of trials to come.

Jeremiah prophesies that a branch with sprout from the line of David. We find ourselves in the expectation between the last two verses in the reading. We have seen “The Lord is Our Righteousness” bloom in human flesh, but yet we don’t see Jerusalem living in safety, nor did the disciples who followed him to the cross.

The psalmist sings of our expectation of the ability of God to make his promise sure. In spite of the fact we have yet to see the perfect rule of Christ, we still sing with the psalmist.

Lead me in your truth, and teach me, for you are the God of my salvation; for you I wait all day long. Be mindful of your mercy, O LORD, and of your steadfast love, for they have been from of old.

Paul reveals his joy in the church of Thessalonica and desire to see him and compares it with the hope they have in seeing Christ return. He prays that they would be strong to endure to the end. There is much trouble coming their way, and God puts a premium on the faithful who overcome.

As a former dispensationalist, the Lukan text gives me pause. I believe that the blessed hope of the return of Christ is imminent, nothing has to happen to set the stage, it has been set from Pentecost. The signs of the times can confuse us. I grew up with the fear of movies like “A thief in the night.” My grandfather watched Jack Van Impe regularly and believed Edgar Whisenant’s “88 reasons why the Rapture will be in 1988.” I was afraid, of what should be our blessed hope, along with a surprising number of my generation who grew up with nuclear war as an expectation. This fear is fueled by “Left Behind” and war in the Middle East. Luke says we are not to faint from fear.

“Be on guard so that your hearts are not weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life, and that day catch you unexpectedly,”

As we face the text in Luke we must see it through the eyes of a disciple. Jesus isn’t trying to frighten or convert. He is giving them a base of understanding as the approach the cross, then the persecution of the early church. He is equipping them with the tools to overcome. He says this generation will not pass away until all things have taken place. One commentator (Pentecostal no less) suggests that “generation” should be taken as a type of people (i.e. an evil generation, or righteous generation). In that, his people and those who will have nothing to do with him will be around to the end – just like the wheat and the tares. What was true for them is true for us. Every generation has had its reason to realize that the return of Christ is near, because it is. From Goth, to pope, to crusade, to Hitler, to Hussein, the stage has been set, the time ripe. Antichrists come and go, but Christ remains forever and one day we will see him face to face if we are strong in the day of temptation and trial.

“Be alert at all times, praying that you may have the strength to escape all these things that will take place, and to stand before the Son of Man.”

Revelation reading

2006-11-21T01:01:00.000-05:00

An excerpt from Full Life Bible Commentary to the New Testament. Tim Jenny's comments on Revelation are some of my favorite.

Since God is eternal and unchanging (James 1 :16- 17), we should expect the same to be true of his Word (Matt. 5:18). His message to his church is faithful and dependable, not erratic or unstable. When we consider what this book said to its original audience, it steadies our interpretation, making it more balanced. Too often we twist Revelation, forcing it to answer questions about each new daily headline even if the book has nothing to say about it. We must learn to care more about what God wants to say than what we want to hear they are often very different! This attitude of submission pleases God and tunes our ears to his voice. 1.2.3. The Greeting (1:4c-5a). John's greeting begins with the traditional "grace and peace" familiar to any reader of the letters of Peter or Paul (e.g., 1 Cor. 1 :3.; 1 Thess. 1 : 1 ; 1 Peter 1 :2). Since the letters in the Bible are inspired by God, the greetings usually include the names of each member of the Godhead.
Their titles are modified in the light of the audience's plight. The title in Revelation emphasizes the Father's eternality, the Spirit's omnipresence, and the martyrdom of Jesus, the Son of God all of which foreshadow the main message of the book. The readers will have to remember them if they are to endure through the upcoming trials.

Revelation is from . . .

1.2.3.1. The Eternal God (1:4c). God the Father is the one "who is, and who was, and who is to come” (v.4; cf. v. 8). This is one of the most misquoted verses in the Bible. The order is not chronological, as one might expect (i.e., "was, is, and is to come"). It deliberately places the present before both the past and the future, emphasizing that God the Father is the God "who is." This title does two things. (1) It reminds us of God's covenant name in the O1d Testament.

He revealed himself there as Yahweh (or Jehovah). That name means "I AM” in Hebrew (Ex. 3: 14). (2) His title foreshadows the real impotence of the "beast" (Rev. 17), which these early Christians found so threatening. Revelation describes this beast as "once was, now is not, and will come” (17:8, 11 ). These Christians thereby recognized that this beast was not an eternal, unchanging God, nor would he ever be a match for Yahweh, the God "who is."

1.2.3.2. The Holy Spirit (1:4d). The Spirit is described as the "seven spirits" or, better, the "sevenfold Spirit” in front of God's throne. He is later described as "seven lamps” (4:5), This image surely comes from a Jewish menorah, a seven-pronged lampstand with seven flames.

Its position in front of the throne reminds one of the interior of the tabernacle or temple.

There the menorah burned continually in front of the ark of the covenant, God's throne in the O1d Testament (Ex. 25:37., 37:23). It reminded the Israelites that God never slept or took a day off. He was always "on duty" and able to defend his people (Ps. 121 ; cf. 1 Kings l8:27).

In the same way, the flame that appeared on each believer on that first Pentecost after the resurrection was a visible symbol of the Spirit's presence (Acts 2).

It is surely no coincidence that there are seven flames one for each of the seven churches mentioned in Revelation. The point is that the presence of the Spirit continues to burn among them (l Cor. 3:16., 6:19). God has not forgotten them, nor is he removed from their suffering. John's vision of Christ walking among the lampstands (Rev. 1:12-13) will reinforce this message.

1.2.3.3. Jesus Christ (1:5a). Jesus has the most unusual set of titles. We would have expected "Messiah" or "Son of God " but the titles listed here reminding us of his earthly life.

Jesus was "the faithful witness"; he testified about God faithfully, even to the point of giving up his life. He was "the firstborn from the dead"; God raised him on the third day. Thus he is now "the ruler of the kings of the earth" (v.5)., he reigns supreme in heaven.

If we want to appreciate these titles, we have to remember that the first followers of Jesus were called followers of "the Way" (Acts 9:2; 19:9, 23;24:14,22;cf. John l4:4-6). The titles here describe "the Way" to eternal life in chronological order. First, we must live faithfully, testifying about God even if it means death. Then we will experience resurrection and glorification. This is the path all followers of Jesus must walk.

Unfortunately, many members of these early churches tried to take a shortcut. They wanted to skip the part about a life of faithful endurance, even death. and go immediately to the glorification stage. This change in their theology had been influenced by their booming economy: Asia Minor was experiencing unprecedented regional prosperity. They had been seduced by triumphalism (cf. 1 Cor. 4:8ff ). A theology somewhat akin to the con- temporary doctrine of "Kingdom Now" Some of them may even have believed they would never personally experience death (cf. 1 Thess. 4:13-18). Convinced that Jesus would return immediately and establish his kingdom, they were caught unaware when fierce persecution came from Rome.

The first step is the one those early believers did not want to take: death. “Faithful martyr” is a much better translation of the Greek phrase than “faithful witness," It not only means death to self ("self-denial"), but physical death for the sake of the gospel (“martyrdom"; see "Testify, Testimony, Witness" at 6:9). This translation also helps us to understand better why they would want to avoid death and go right to being "ruler[s] of the kings of the earth” (l:5). Martyrdom is usually painful. Who would not want to escape martyrdom if it could be avoided? Revelation is a call to Christian martyrdom.

With all its fantastic images, its most important message says exactly what Jesus did while he was still on earth: "Take up [your] cross and follow me” (Matt. 16:24., cf. Luke 9:23 ). Paul had to remind the Philippians of this truth too, with an early hymn recorded for us in Philippians 2:6-1 1: Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:

Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.

And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death even death on a cross! Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Therefore , my dear friends, as you have always obeyed not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.
The cross of Christ has continued to challenge Christians down through the ages, Contemporary American Christians often forget that suffering was the present reality for most Christians in the biblical times, just as it is today. We would do well to remember that it is our own experience that is atypical. Let us never be seduced by the wealth surrounding us or those who connive for power and glory. We must humble ourselves and be obedient to God. The first step of "the Way” of Christ is still humility and self-denial. It is often accompanied by suffering, sometimes even by martyrdom. Power and glory, being a “ruler of the kings of the earth," will come after our death and resurrection (Matt. 20:2l-23:2 Tim. 2:12) just as it did for Jesus.

The great devotional writers of recent times knew this and wove it into their allegories of Christian life. Reading their writings will help remind us of this great truth (see, e.g., Hannah Haurnard's Hinds' Feet in High Places, or John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress) It will also help us to develop a healthy theology, one immune from changes in our economy.

1.2.4. The Liturgical Prayer (1:5b-6). At this point in a normal letter. we would expect a prayer. Considering the persecution of the seven churches, they probably expected to find a prayer for deliverance, the defeat of the enemies of the church, and the immediate return of Jesus Christ. John asked for none of these, tacitly implying that everything was as it should be.

Instead of asking for an easier situation, John prays that God will be glorified through it. His prayer also encourages the churches to be obedient. He reminds them of the past: Jesus loved them so much he sacrificed his life for them. He also reminds them of the future: They will be an eternal kingdom and a priest- hood for God, if they obey. This ancient promise to Israel (Ex. 19:6) had been recently extended to include the church (1 Peter 2:5,9., cf. Rev. 5:10).

The prayer here is more formal, more liturgical, than that of the other letters in the New Testament. This fits with the descriptions of the solemn "high church" rituals that will appear later in the book. John ends the prayer with the traditional “Amen,” though here it may also be a wordplay on one of the titles of Jesus (see "The Amen" at 3:14).

1.2.5. The Liturgical Prophecy (1:7). In a usual letter of the New Testament, the body directly followed the prayer. Here John includes two more liturgical elements: a prophecy (v. 7) and an exhortation (v. 8). These may well have represented elements in the order of service of these seven ancient churches. They too set the atmosphere for the book's upcoming rituals.

The prophecy of Jesus' coming is a blend of two Old Testament prophecies. One concerns the Son of Man's coming with the clouds (Dan. 7: 13., cf. Matt. 26:64., Mark l3:26., Luke 21: 27.,

Acts 1:9-11; 1 Thess. 4:17), the other predicts that people will mourn when they see the one they have pierced (Zech. 12:10., cf. John 19:34).

Revelation proclaims that Jesus is ("coming with the clouds" (v. 7). The association of God with clouds is ancient. A rainbow in the clouds is a reminder of the Noahic covenant (Gen. 9:13-16). God also displayed his presence among the Israelites in the desert by a cloud during the day (Ex. 13:21., see "The Shekinah Canopy" at 7:15). The Old Testament describes God as "rid[ing] on the clouds" (Ps. 68:4., cf. 104:3), clouds that are even more noticeable when he comes to judge on the Day of the Lord (Ezek. 30:3', Dan. 7: 13., Joel 2:2., Zeph. 1:15). Similarly, Jesus will return “with the clouds” on the Day of the Lord.

John's use of "with the clouds" rather than "in the clouds” is unusual (only the Hebrew text of Dan. 7:13 has this expression). The prophecy may refer to the thunderclouds that preceded the fall rains in Israel. The high priests prayed for those rains; as they did for the resurrection of the dead, at the daily dawn drink offerings each year during the Feast of Tabernacles (John 7).

1.2.6. The Liturgical Exhortation (1:8).

The last liturgical element in the introduction is an exhortation. It emphasizes God's eternality, his presence, and his power. "Alpha is the first letter in the Greek alphabet, "Omega" the last. "The Alpha and the Omega” (1:8.,21:6.,22:13) is another way of saying that God is "the First and the Last” (l:l7-,22:13: cf. Isa. 44:6-,48:l2) or "the Beginning and the End" (Rev. 21:6.,22:13-, cf. Heb. 7:3'). Both of these latter phrases appear in the prophecies of Isaiah, where they describe God's uniqueness and his foreknowledge (see Isa. 44:6-8., 46:10): this is what the LORD says Israel's King and Redeemer, the LORD Almighty: I am the first and I am the last', apart from me there is no God. Who then is like me? Let him proclaim it, Let him declare and lay out before me what has happened since I established my ancient people, and what is yet to come yes, let him foretell what will come. Do not tremble, do not be afraid. Did I not proclaim this and foretell it long ago? You are my witnesses. Is there any God besides me? No, there is no other Rock; I know not one " I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come. I say: My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please.

The titles remind the reader of Revelation that God has had everything planned, down to the smallest detail, for a long, long time. The Alpha and the Omega here refer to the Father, not the Son, as one can see by comparing the phrase in verse 8, "who is, and who was, and who is to come" with its twin in verse 4. The two phrases balance and enclose this epistolary introduction.

Stewardship series evaluation

2006-11-20T11:50:00.000-05:00

Year B – Proper 22-28

This was a challenging series for the disciple we were continually faced with giving up our whole lives to enter the kingdom of God. Yesterday having finished this series, I felt glad it was over. I felt like the Holy Spirit was putting his finger on people’s hearts. In response to the conviction and challenge they were feeling relationships became strained between some of the members and their pastor. That’s why the pulpit is nothing to covet. If you can do anything else do it. If you are obedient to God and faithfully preach his word, there will come a time when you are not popular. Yet I rejoice if that strain in relationship means they were beginning to get it.

This was a great series for discipleship, but I could have done a better job on stewardship what the readings didn’t lend themselves to (or I didn’t figure out well enough) was doing practical how-to sermons showing not only the importance of stewardship but how to make it part of our lives. Perhaps the fall of another year would have a better sense for that. I’ll have to take a look. Once every three years wouldn’t be bad – if its there.

The Kingdom of God

2006-11-19T17:25:00.000-05:00

The following is an excerpt from The Dvine Conspiracy.

The Presence of God in Action
Such a response, along with many others familiar from the Gospels, illustrates how Jesus' hearers understood the invitation to base their own lives on the rule of God “at hand" Of course they had no general understanding of what was involved, but they knew Jesus meant that he was acting with God and God with him, that God's rule was effectively present through him.
The familiar stories, traditions, and rituals of Israel enabled them to know the practical significance of this. They were stories and traditions of individual human beings whose lives were interlaced with God's action. Abraham, David, Elijah were well known to all. And the routinely practiced rituals of Israel were often occasions when God acted. Everyone knew that whoever trustingly put themselves in his hands, as this poor scandalous woman did, were in fact in the hands of God. And God's deeds bore out his words.
When he announced that the “governance” or rule of God had become available to human beings, he was primarily referring to what he could do for people, God acting with him. But he was also offering to communicate this same “rule of God” to others who would receive and learn it from him. He was himself the evidence for the truth of his announcement about the availability of God's kingdom, or governance, to ordinary human existence.
This explains why, as everyone saw, he did not teach "in the manner of the scribes” but instead “as having authority in his own right” (Matt. 7 :29) . Scribes, expert scholars, teach by citing others.
But Jesus was, in effect, saying, “Just watch me and see that what I say is true. See for yourself that the rule of God has come among ordinary human beings.”
“Already during Jesus' earthly activity," Hans Kung has pointed out, “the decision for or against the rule of God hung together with the decision for or against himself (italics mine). The presence of Jesus upon earth, both before and after his death and resurrection, means that God's rule is here now “In this sense," Kung continues, “the immediate expectation . . . [of the kingdom] . . . has been fulfilled.”
God's Rule Extended Onward Through Us
From the very beginning of his work, those who relied on him had, at his touch, entered the rule, or governance,of God and were receiving its gracious sufficiency Jesus was not just acting for God but also with God - a little like the way, in a crude metaphor, I act with my power steering, or it with me, when I turn the wheel of my car.
And this “governance” is projected onward through those who receive him. When we receive God's gift of life by relying on Christ, we find that God comes to act with us as we rely on him in our actions. That explains why Jesus said that the least in the kingdom of the heavens are greater than John the Baptist-not, of course, greater in themselves, but as a greater power works along with them, The “greater” is not inherent, a matter of our own substance, but relational So, C. S. Lewis writes, our faith is not a matter of our hearing what Christ said long ago and “trying to carry it out." Rather, “The real Son of God is at your side. He is beginning to turn you into the same kind of thing as Himself He is beginning, so to speak, to 'inject' His kind of life and thought. His Zoe [life], into you; beginning to turn the tin soldier into a live man. The part of you that does not like it is the part that is still tin."
Jesus' words and presence gave many of his hearers faith to see that when he acted God also acted, that the governance or “rule” of God came into play and thus was at hand They were aware of the invisible presence of God acting within the visible reality and action of Jesus, the carpenter rabbi.
Some years of reflection and further experience with Jesus and the kingdom enabled his people to describe him in lofty language as “the icon of the unseeable God” (Col. 1:15). Today we might say photo or snapshot instead of icon. He was the “exact picture” or “precise representation of God's substance” (Heb. 1: 3) . But that time was not yet. It was to still uncomprehending ears that Jesus said, “Those who have seen me have seen the Fathers."
Made to Rule
What a "Kingdom” Is
To gain deeper understanding of our eternal kind of life in God's present kingdom, we must be sure to understand what a kingdom is.
Every last one of us has a "kingdom" – or a. "queendom,” or a "government” – a realm that is uniquely our own, where our choice determines what happens. Here is a truth that reaches into the deepest part of what it is to be a person.
Some may think it should not be so. John Calvin remarked rather balefully, “Everyone flatters himself and carries a kingdom in his breast.” He understood this to mean that “there is nobody who does not imagine that he is really better than the others." Perhaps this is so for human beings as they are. All too easily, at least, we presume to rule others-in opinion and word, if not in deed.
But it is nevertheless true that we are made to “have dominion” within an appropriate domain of reality. This is the core of the likeness or image of God in us and is the basis of the destiny for which we were formed. We are, all of us, never-ceasing spiritual beings with a unique eternal calling to count for good in God's great universe.
Our “kingdom” is simply the range of our effective will. Whatever we genuinely have the say over is in our kingdom. And our having the say over something is precisely what places it within our kingdom.
In creating human beings God made them to rule, to reign, to have dominion in a limited sphere. Only so can they be persons.
Any being that say over nothing is no person. We only have to imagine what that would be like to see that this is so. Such “persons” would not even be able to command their own body or their own thoughts. They would be reduced to completely passive observers who count for nothing, who make no difference.
The sense of having some degree of control over things is now recognized as a vital factor in both mental and physical health and can make the difference between life and death in those who are seriously ill. Anyone who has raised a child, or has even supervised the work of others, knows how important it is to let them do it - what- ever “it” may be-and to do so as soon as that is practically feasible.
Obviously, having a place of rule goes to the very heart of who we are, of our integrity strength, and competence.
By contrast, attacks on our personhood always take the form of diminishing what we can do or have say over, sometimes up to the point of forcing us to submit to what we abhor, in the familiar human order, slaves are at the other end of the spectrum from kings.
Their bodies and lives are at the disposal of another. Prisoners are, in most cases, several degrees above slaves. And, as the twentieth century has taught us, thought control is worst of all. It is the most heinous form of soul destruction, in which even our own thoughts are not really ours. It reaches most deeply into our substance.

Argument

2006-11-09T22:35:00.000-05:00

We had a rather heated discussion at ministerial today. I never knew the widdow's mite could bring out such contention.

I guess it should have been expected. It really is a challenging thing. It was then and it is now. The giving up of everything is never comforatable. A cross isn't made to be.

The widdow's actions challenge us to our core. What is our responsibility, our duty, our responce to God's grace? What do we have to do? anything?

Fr. John said that commentators he read stressed that Jesus was pointing out the injustice of a system that failed widows. The widdow gave everything to a temple system that was supposed to take care of her. The fact that her everything was less than a penny shows how that system had been failing. (Some sources I've read say that was 1/100th of a day's wage.) Jesus was then pointing out a sad state of affairs rather than showing the widdow as an example.

Some of the guys were adamate that the widdow gave out of her faith, her love, her gratitude, her devotion, or what have you, not because she was expecting back.

I pointed out that the fact of a sad state of affairs in the temple system made all the more poigniant the widdows faith in God. And just like the widdow of Zaraphath in the Kings reading, God would take care of her with or with out the religious establishment.

But this idea of giving all was still hard to swollow. If it was so hard for us as pastors, how hard will it be for anyone else. Fred warned us about laying false guilt on good people who are honestly trying to make ends meet and be faithful to God.

I agreed, but also wanted to combat a scarcity mentality that our people sometimes get, where they trust in themselves and not God. I have found with a very meager salary that faithfulness in giving, even extravagant giving, always helps ends meet. God will take care of us.

But some of the guys took Fred's thoughts even further, how can God desire something so impossible as to give him everything. We would be perfect then.
I brought up Brother Lawrence and the Practice of the Presence. He says that is doesn't require changing what we do, but doing what we already do for the sake of God. My take, God doesn't want to be the biggest part of our lives, he wants to be all of our lives - integrated into the whole.

Glenn had a hard time with my thought, thinking I was putting the children I taught that to in Spiritual bondage of a works legalism. Ray too, thought Brother Lawrence didn't once mention Jesus, meaning Where is grace in this practice?

So often in the last few weeks in Mark we have been challenged by the cost of discipleship and the giving up of everything, be it status, riches, or begger's coat. This is hard for us, and rightly so. Admitedly the themes of Grace and our own actions in giving up all to follow are in tention. But it shouldn't surprise us that if we were to give up all, it could only happen by God's grace. We could not bring ourselves to do it on our own, or survive on our own after we did.

Monopoly Illustration

2006-11-09T21:50:00.000-05:00

1) Widow And The Banker land on income tax.

Out of love: Who is playing

Grandmother and grandson

2) Flash back: The Widow Lost Her Property To The Banker

the grandson has hotels on everything and the grandmother has just lost her last property, Mediterranean ave.

Previous moves

Landed on Marvin gardens paid $1200 had to mortgage Mediterranean to pay rent.

Rolls 4 lands on community chest

Explain: Community chest advance to Go.

They play with the rule that the tax money goes in the middle like the Community chest - it is gained by those who recieve the mercy of free parking.

Advance to Go $200

Roll 4 and land on income tax

Out of her poverty

3) The Choice 10% Or $200

Assess your blessings

Thanks from the Heart or mouth

4) Who Wins?

Spare change or all of you?

Mercy doesn’t make sense

It doesn’t win the game, but it does win

If we give in proportion to the mercy shown to us by Jesus we are overwhelmed and no amount will do.

What will you give? What will you do with mercy? How will you show your thanks to Christ who is merciful? Now that you have landed on this space, your opportunity to give, what will you choose?

Lord of the law of love and the widow’s offering

2006-11-09T21:45:00.000-05:00

A. Law of Love

‘Of all the commandments, which is the most important?

The voice came strong and with force over the buzz of the crowd as a teacher of the law should speak. The crowd had just played witness to a debate between some Sadducees and Jesus. They were loving it. The teacher of the law watched Jesus soundly trounce the men in the debate.’ He was pleased, and moved through the crowd to pose a question himself.

The temple was packed. The Passover was only two days away and visitors from all round were preparing to sacrifice and worship.

Jesus was on the steps of the Temple teaching. When he heard the question and saw the man coming towards him. His eyes narrowed and a slight smile started to force its way
across his face.

‘"The most important one," answered Jesus, "is this: `Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.' ³¹ The second is this: `Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these."

His eyes never left the man who asked the question. He was searching his face for something. The man gazed back in thought almost trying to avoid Jesus’ eyes but incapable of it. Almost imperceptibly, the man’s face changed. Lit up with recognition.
The ah-ha moment.

‘"Well said, teacher," the man replied. "You are right in saying that God is one and there is no other but him. ³³ To love him with all your heart, with all your understanding and with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices."

Jesus’ face could not restrain it any more; the smile broke free and beamed at the man. The worn lines in his face gave away that he had become frustrated with teachers of the
law. They were so concerned with the way things look, with the sacrifices, the little things that the law demanded. But those worn lines danced in the presence of this teacher. He was one of the few that got it.

With almost a chuckle of pure joy Jesus said to the man, "You are not far from the kingdom of God."

And from then on no one dared ask him any more questions. So Jesus helped them out. If they had finally caught on that he actually counted them as lawbreakers, that his teaching was more strict than theirs because he demanded the whole heart, then perhaps they were ready for this riddle

1. Jesus is Lord-Love the Lord your God

‘‘How is it that the teachers of the law say that the Christ is the son of David? ³⁶ David himself, speaking by the Holy Spirit, declared:

The Lord said to my Lord:

Sit at my right hand

until I put your enemies

under your feet.’’

David himself calls him ‘Lord.’ How then can he be his son

The crowd was tickled by the riddle but the even more they enjoyed the look on the scribes faces.

You’ve probably been there too. I know I have. These teachers of the law have been doing it for so long they could do it with out thinking. How ‘bout you, do you ever realize, maybe getting ready for church when everything is rushed and pressured realize
that the Lord your God isn’t real.

The teachers of the law knew all about the scriptures.’ The Lord would be in the line of David—a king. The missed that it was so much more than just a descendant to the throne,
it was David’s Lord, and Jesus had just claimed to be him, standing in front of
them, real, in the flesh, and greater than David.

That might get my attention. But so often I find myself living with the crust of reality. Just the outside, doing the right things, and I find that for a while any way I wasn’t
even thinking that God was real. I may have known it but my heart didn’t
realize it.’ Have you been there?

All of this shock and amazement was all over their faces. They started puffing them selves up and going about their business, getting ready to go into the temple.

2. Not loving the Lord-Scribes’ Pretence

Jesus sighed, and sat down on a stoop along the stairway. Watching the group of scribes making their way into the temple he said, "Watch out for the teachers of the law. They like to walk around in flowing robes and be greeted in the marketplaces, and have the most important seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at banquets. They devour widows' houses and for a show make lengthy prayers. Such men will be punished most
severely."

2’. Not loving neighbor-scribes devouring the widows

Jesus’ eyes fixed again on the young teacher of the law who earlier had declared that the
intensity of Love in a mans heart toward God and neighbor was more important than the sacrifices going on in the temple.’ The man’s was standing on the second step looking out into the courtyard. His face had a tortured look.

Jesus followed the man’s gaze. Down in the courtyard there was an older teacher harassing an elderly woman.

‘‘I handled your husbands estate well, madam, the scribe said with feigned courtesy and a gruff voice. ‘Please give me what I am due!’

The younger man’s face twisted as he watched. He glanced at Jesus, with despair in his eyes. The law of Love did not rule in Jerusalem, not toward God, and certainly not toward fellow man. He quickly looked away and walked away quickly and sadly. Brushing between the teacher and the poor widow as he went.

The interruption caught the older teacher off guard and he soon turned, embarrassed, and walked into the temple.

He came to the trumpet shaped treasury box and put in a large satchel of coins and a few bags of carefully measured mint, dill and cumin. A perfect tithe.

1’. The widow’s mite-Love your neighbor as yourself.

Jesus watched the crowd putting their money into the temple treasury. Many rich people threw in large amounts. But a poor widow came and put in two very small copper coins, worth only a fraction of a penny.

The old teacher of the law watched her and was about to approach her.’ Not only because she owed him money, but because two copper coins couldn’t be a tithe. A man could make 100 times that in a day. She should be ashamed.’ This ornate temple couldn’t be
supported, and all the priests in side by just a couple coppers.

But just then Jesus spoke up

‘"I tell you the truth, this poor widow has put more into the
treasury than all the others. They all gave out of their wealth; but she, out of
her poverty, put in everything--all she had to live on."

Where is your heart today? I have to ask that question myself. This poor widow had a heart brimming with love.’ It poured out of her, a kind of devout abandon. She gladly
gave everything she had.

The Old Teacher of the law’s eyes narrowed and searched Jesus’ face. What a radical teacher this was.’ He didn’t even acknowledge all the tithe of wealthy, he didn’t get
excited about a tithe he was excited about a woman who loved God enough to give
everything.

Jesus followed the woman into the temple with his eyes. His smile brimmed with pride. He--the king of everything, Lord of all the riches in the universe was most pleased by a
gift of change. A gift of complete surrender.

Is he your lord today?’ Does your heart overflow with love for people around the word? How bout for God? Is he even real in your heart today?

This is how we live the life of love.

A’. Life of Love

Seeking Truth

2006-10-29T00:39:00.000-04:00

Jesus is here! I’ve been hearing about him. Every time I hear of him, my heart is stirred. The same way when in my studies and work as a scribe the commands of God stir my heart!

Now he is here in Jerusalem! I wonder if he knows where he comes? This is the center of Worship of God! Has he learned his law? His Moses? His David? His Solomon? Does he know what God says?

If he does I wonder if he knows what God wants from him. I wish I knew what God wanted of me. I spend everyday studying God’s commands, how he wants me to act, but in that I still seek the truth of what purpose God has for my life. I know I will go ask him. But I’ll have to go think up the best question ever!
(Exit)

The teacher of the law thought and thought about what question he should ask. He looked through the book of the law.

(Flip through the book)
Should I ask him, “Teacher is it right to wear a poly-cotton blend?” No, No, he’ll know the law says it is an abomination in the sight of God to wear mixed fabrics. What will that prove?

Should I ask him, “Teacher, is it ok to work on the Sabbath? Or how burnt does toast have to be to divorce your wife? No those guys over there asked that last week! Jesus sure had a good answer for them too!

Should I ask him if Adam and Eve had Belly buttons? No, No, I’ve got It!
(Run along wall)
Teacher, Teacher! Teacher, I have a question for you!

Yes…?
Jesus answered the young scribe looking deep into his soul.
What is your question?

Which of commandment is the greatest?

Jesus smiled.

(Excitedly)
A wonderful answer, Teacher! So lucid and accurate—That God is one and there is no other. And loving him with all passion and intelligence and energy, and loving others as well as you love yourself. Why that is better than all offerings and sacrifices put together.

You’re almost there! Right on the boarder of God’s kingdom
The young scribe felt his heart leap. His inward desire to seek God was validated by this Jesus. He knew Jesus was a true teacher, because the Spirit of God bore witness with in him, and his heart raced. He had to continue to seek the kingdom of God. He left with a great excitement and purpose in his life.
(Exit)

Seeking Vision

2006-10-23T18:28:00.000-04:00

Seeking Vision

Date preached: 22-Oct-06, Sebewaing

RCL Proper 25 B

Text: Mark 10:46-52

Subject: What gives people the ability to see the truth about Jesus?

Complement: Faith gives people the vision to see and follow Jesus.

Exegetical Idea: The disciples didn't see what Jesus was about but blind Bartimaeus did. Even though Mark's community could not see Jesus with their eyes, they could with their faith.

Homiletic Idea: Putting our faith in Jesus means receiving vision to follow him down the road of discipleship.

Purpose: Hearers will be presented ministry vision and challenged to follow.

Type: Deductive, Expository

I. See Jesus For Who He Is

Blind Bartimaeus saw Jesus for who he is

Son of David –

Messiah

King of kings and Lord of lords

Savior who could have mercy on him

Power in his hands

Divine power

2. Are we blind like the Disciples?

Hush—don’t upset what’s going on

Jesus is to busy with the members

Don’t stick out

Seem flaky

Seem annoying

Don’t disrupt our decorum with your neediness

Continually getting it wrong

He surely won’t die!

We will sit at his right and left hands

We will be rewarded but no longer suffer

II. Get Up! He Is Calling You.

1. Bartimaeus threw everything aside to come to Jesus

Throws aside his cloak and alms

All that was important to him, his lively hood, his whole life

Jesus was more important

Trusting that he would no longer need those tools to beg

Comes to Jesus seeking vision

My rabbi!

His deepest longing

I would see

Can you imagine how long he had wished for that?

Could no longer resist, I would see you!

Are we ready to jump up and beg Jesus for vision?

Vision means seeing what the road will bring

The suffering way - sacrifice

The disciplined way - Work

Vision means seeing thins as they truly are

Seeing ourselves in our need

Seeing others in their need

Seeing Jesus as he is!

III. Receive Your Sight And Follow Him On The Way

Your faith has saved you

Recovered his sight

Physical need was met

healing

And followed him on the road – restored wholly

Spiritual healing - salvation

Decided to follow him

Are we whole and wholly following him?

Restored sight and transformed life

See glimpses of what is truly important, the supernatural?

Life completely turned around for a bigger vision?

Casting aside everything for a new vision

Throw away your beggars coat

Your fears

Your resisting

See through the eyes of Jesus

Dream his dreams

See people as he sees them

See yourself as he sees you

Follow him!

The Road to Greatness.

2006-10-15T14:08:00.000-04:00

· Date Preached: 6 April 2003, McCook AM
· Text: Mark 9:30-37, 42, 10:13-16, 32-52
· Subject: Why does the messiah have to suffer?
· Complement: The one who is willing to put the interests of the lowest ahead of his own interests, even in suffering is the greatest in the kingdom.
· Exegetical Idea: The messiah must suffer because the kingdom of God values sacrifice for those of the lowest status as greatest.
· Homiletical Idea: Because Jesus lived and died to serve so we must serve each other.
· Purpose: The hearer should see that as the body of Christ, we must be involved with one another in discipleship and service.
· Type: Narrative

The words rang—echoing in our shocked minds.

“The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into the hands of men. They will kill him and after three days he will rise.”

It was as if we were knocked off balance. When our shock faded it allowed us to see and the world slowly came to motion again, and the sound again began to return to our ears, as if it had been on a journey down a long road. I turned to John and we exchanged questioning looks.

“This must be another parable, but I don’t even want to guess at the meaning.”

The others expressed their wonder in hurried hushed voices.

“Who is going to die? It’s the Romans; they will kill man, all of Israel if we do nothing! Is that when he will be king? Surely he is not going to die, he couldn’t die, he…

On they went. We didn’t understand what Jesus said half the time, or at least when we tried to interpret it we all had a different version and we never quite got it right. One thing we knew, we had found something good. Something revolutionary. We put all of our hopes in this man attaching our lives and future to him. There were times we were frightened of him too. Who is this man? He could heal the sick, cast out demons even the wind would be silent and the sea lay down trembling at the sound of his voice.

None of us dared ask him what he was talking about. We didn’t understand him, but we loved him. If he were talking about dying, leaving us, our hopes and lives left in the balance—no I won’t think of it. Who would meet our needs? Jesus took care of us with frightening power and ability. We’d make ourselves believe anything to get around what he seemed to be saying. What if our darkest suspicions were true—that he meant that he would die?

Kings are meant to rule not to die!

Soon the group grew silent. We walked trudging down the road. All our hopes and aspirations came into focus again. The words Jesus had just spoken had shaken them, and to the man each of us was trying to regain the security we once held inside ourselves.

John turned to me, “James, what do you think you and I will do when Jesus is king?”

John, you know Jesus has his eye on us. There isn’t a place that he doesn’t take you, Peter and me. We’ll certainly not be forgotten. Jesus will put us on his cabinet or even have us reign with him like we’ve talked about.

“That will be nice James, I just wanted to hear it again. Who do you think will be the greatest in his kingdom? Peter?”

This was a game we loved to play. Soon some others were slowing down to put in their nominations and explain their reasons. It was a spirited contest. The reasons were sometimes sarcastic, and the ribbing would be great road fun.

John and I were brothers, Peter and Andrew were brothers and our partners in the fishing industry. Before we left everything…. We got on pretty well traveling together. We didn’t quite get guys like Matthew or Judas, they were banker types. We all pretty much looked out for ourselves, oh yes we were all together in our cause and in our decision to leave everything to go after Jesus, but we all had our eyes on some great job in the kingdom.

We had our little groups you see. The whole entourage was huge. We gravitated towards others like us. There were the 72, and of course the 12, we stuck together based on how much we saw Jesus. Even within the 12 though there were people who rubbed you the wrong way. We were little groups of brothers, or friends or fisherman. It was almost as if we were on the same road by coincidence. We were so assured of our own strength, needing no help.

Is it just a Galilee thing? Or do you have factions and inner rings in your congregation as well? What is your journey like together? Are you like we were, concerned about what you get out of the service, or are you serving one another? Imagine if you will, our ragamuffin band trudging together, jostling one another hot and dusty, sometimes with tempers growing short. Is that your experience together? Are you on the same road by coincidence, or are you guiding one another down the road?

By this time our game was really getting heated— angry hushed voices, glares and an unseen tussle ended the game. We never let Jesus hear us; we walked slower and let him get ahead with a few others.

Somehow we figured that he wouldn’t be interested in the game—or more to the point we would be embarrassed if he knew we were expecting positions in his kingdom that he may not be intending to give us. We were about to find out how much he was interested.

Once we made it to Peter’s house in Capernaum, Jesus asked,

“What were you arguing about on the road?”

A silence choked us. We were ashamed children caught breaking a window. Sitting down Jesus broke our awkward stalemate calling us around him.

“If anyone wants to be first, he must be the very last, and servant of all.”

He cut to the heart of our argument. He knew exactly what we were discussing. I could feel embarrassment creeping up my neck with hot pins. But his eyes met blank stares; we did not comprehend what he meant.

He went on to dramatize the point. He took a child and stood him among us. As he spoke, he put his arms around the child and hugged him.

If anyone receives one of these little children in my name he receives me. If you make it your business to adopt someone who has no status and serve him—serve him like a king, you will be great in my kingdom. Yes he will receive me and the one who sent me.

He went on…

And if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin. (Here he pointed not to the child but to us.) it would be better for him to be thrown into the sea with a large millstone tied around his neck.

We who were concerned with being the greatest, were almost insulted to be compared with children. Looking back though how tender, that he being God, Messiah and King would call us his children.

Look around you. What do you see next to you? Strangers? An empty seat? Or children that you can serve. Even if you’re an actual child and the child of God next to you is a grown up do you see someone you can serve? Or if you’re sitting with your own child, do you see someone who needs your services to guide them? What needs are here in this place that you can meet? Friends…

I can’t think of how many times I wished I had grasped what he was talking about. Looking back, how unimportant our arguments were on the road.

As the road took us through Judea, people started bringing little children to Jesus to have him touch them. Maybe because he called us children, we forgot that he had said “Whoever welcomes one of theses little children in my name welcomes me.” We were on the road. We were getting closer to Jerusalem. We had bigger thoughts in our heads. Thoughts of kingdoms and political position.

“John,” I said, “Go tell Jesus that Peter and I will keep him free from being bothered.”

Jesus was not as pleased as I thought he’d be. In fact he was pretty upset.

“Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them.”

I felt embarrassed, I felt like I had never in my whole life understood anything, never done anything right and good, until this moment when I saw the deep disappointment in Jesus’ eyes. At that moment I saw my place clearly, I was humbled. Jesus with one look both destroyed me, and rebuilt me.

When John and I were kids, there was a bully named Matthew that was my friend only when he needed something from me. He taught me that a friend is someone that you can use to get something you want, and that if you weren’t part of our group you were nobody. Often, because of him I wasn’t very nice to John because he wasn’t part of our group, he was just a younger tag along. But that day, in Jesus’ eyes I saw what it meant to include people and not to use them, and just like John, deep in those eyes I also found a friend that sticks even closer than a brother.

That was the way he was, to be around him was to grow, to be healed, to have every need met. At that moment he saw my need and met it. He humbled me. At last I realized that it was good to be like a child. Not exclusive. Not petty and cruel, but accepting. I saw myself now and for the rest of my life like a child, but I was still blind! How quickly I would miss it again.
The closer we got to Jerusalem… he kept repeating what was to happen. We… we continued to be concerned about who was the greatest.
“We are going up to Jerusalem,” he said, “and the Son of Man will be betrayed to the chief priests and teachers of the law. They will condemn him to death and will hand him over to the Gentiles, who will mock him and spit on him, flog him and kill him. Three days later He will rise.”

Even after saying that, John and I asked to rule with him in his kingdom.

“Teacher,” I said, “we want you to do for us what ever we ask.” Like little children we played the game.

“What do you want me to do for you?” He asked with a chuckle.

“Let one of us sit at your right and the other at your left in your glory.”

His face suddenly became serious and sullen.

“You don’t know what you’re asking. Can you drink the cup I drink or be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with.”

We knew the way he was talking there would be trouble ahead, but we would go anywhere with him, even if we died trying. John’s voice spoke with resolve when he answered, “We can.”

Jesus said “you will drink the cup I drink and be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with, but to sit at my right or left is not for me to grant. These places belong to those for whom they were prepared for.”

We went a way a little embarrassed, and when the others found out what we had asked, the were upset. Peter and Andrew just thought it was funny, Judas made some cutting remarks about our intentions and commitment to the cause.

Then Jesus called us all together. “You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, who ever wants to become great must be your servant, and who ever wants to be first must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

As we were leaving Jericho for Jerusalem, Jesus healed a blind man who was along the road. Right there on the side of the road, a man who had never seen saw. Right there on the side of the road a man saw Jesus for the first time.

On the Road!

If only we knew where that road was taking us. If only we knew who was on that dusty path with us—who it was leading us all the way to Jerusalem.

It was we who were blind, we had never seen Jesus for who he was, only what we wanted him to be. Never had we seen how deeply he provided for each of our needs, or what he saw we could become as a community. He was so determined, we were so blind.

Why couldn’t we see it!?

This dirt worn pat was leading Jesus to an execution.

So many times we asked why. I found the answer back on the road when he took up the child.

Up on the cross he was the picture of greatness. There was no greater in this kingdom than its king bludgeoned and bloody, restrained and powerless.

He had the interests of his children, servants, even the enemies of his kingdom ahead of his own. He provided for them with his own life, the only way to open our eyes to his kingdom.

That day our eyes were open—our blindness was healed. We disciples had a long journey, and along the road we argued and looked out for our own needs. At the end of this journey was an upper room. Now we served each other. With out Jesus there to meet our every need, we found his spirit working through us to meet each others needs. This new journey we began together. This new road is the road of love and service.

Goodness

2006-10-13T11:02:00.000-04:00

The rich young man calls Jesus "Good Teacher". Many of the church Fathers point out that in this designation the young man mis-identified Jesus, that he was merely good. I don't know that Jesus rebuffed him, as they say. He asks why do you call me good? Jesus later invites this man to follow him, so I like to think of his response in the way he treats a disciple. Who do you think I am? He is prodding the man's faith. Only God is good, do you sense the truth in what you are saying?

He goes on to the goodness of the commandments. The goodness of obeying the law reflects the One goodness. Or better yet is God's Goodness. I've been trying hard to understand this statment of ultimate goodness in non-platonic thougth. The goodness of God is whole and one, the goodness of men isn't simply a shadow of the real good like plato says but in mystic union with God's Goodness. Jesus draws out from the man his sense of need. In his questioning he reveals how being good by the law does not satisfy the longing. The goodness of the law are made complete in Jesus.

Jesus then invites the man to reject something good for something better. Riches were seen as a sign of God's blessing. Indeed every perfect gift comes from above. It is right to recognize that our belongings are ours only because God has given them. We are to hold them lightly as stewards. The young man is challenged to give up those manifold blessings to follow him. Holding on to even the blessings of God makes the blessings a burden when they weigh us down from the path of discipleship.

Releasing our blessings, aspirations, and even God given dreams, alows us the freedom of the eternal life.

To remember

2006-10-09T21:14:00.000-04:00

The young man was sincere – he knelt before Jesus as one in need of healing

The young man wasn’t prideful – although he had kept the precepts of the law there was a sense of lack. He knew he needed something to inherit eternal life.

Jesus wanted the young man to follow him on the difficult path of discipleship – leading to a cross.

He had invited his disciples to leave everything and take up a cross

What he was calling him to was already hard, but the added burden of all that he had to leave made it harder.

It wasn’t the act of giving up everything that would cause the man to inherit eternal life, but the grace of following.

The disciples would receive all that they gave up back in hundredfold with persecutions.

Quotes

2006-10-04T16:11:00.001-04:00

A question about divorce

It is perhaps the contrast between the concessions allowed by the Law and its basic rigorous demand that led Mark to place this incident in a context concerned with the demands of discipleship: those who follow Jesus are those whose aim is to do the will of God, not to look for concessions….

Jesus blesses the Children

Mark’s inclusion of the story at this point has been seen as topical, a narrative about children following naturally after one on marriage and divorce. For him, however, its importance is more likely to lie in the sayings about the Kingdom in vv. 14 and 15: once again, he has used a story which is linked to his basic theme of the meaning of discipleship.

The story is a reminder that the Kingdom is given to those who are content to receive it as a gift without laying claim to it, and a warning to those in the community who claim the right to exercise authority over others.

…The Kingdom belongs to them [children] because they have nothing on which they base a claim, but are content to receive the Kingdom as a gift; their attitude is akin to what Paul describes as ‘faith’, which humbly receives God’s grace. This is why children are said to show the appropriate attitude—not because they are presumed to be innocent or without sin.

By linking Jesus’ words about entering the Kingdom with his action in blessing the children, Mark reminds us that to come to Jesus is to be confronted by the claims and benefits of the Kingdom; his blessing is a symbol of the joy which the Kingdom brings.

Foster on the disciplines

Picture a long, narrow ridge with a sheer drop-off on either side. The chasm to the right is the way of moral bankruptcy through human strivings for righteousness. Historically this have been called the heresy of moralism. The chasm to the left is moral bankruptcy through the absence of human strivings. This has been called the heresy of antinomianism. On the ridge there is a path, the Disciplines of spiritual life. This path leads to the inner transformation and healing for which we seek. Me must never veer off to the right or the left, but stay on the path. The path is fraught with severe difficulties, but also with incredible joys. As we travel on this path, the blessing of God will come upon us and reconstruct us into the image of Jesus Christ. We must always remember that the path does not produce the change; it only places us where the change can occur. This is the path of disciplined grace.

Effective prayer and the God who provides

2006-09-24T18:35:00.000-04:00

Therefore confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, so that you may be healed. The prayer of the righteous is powerful and effective.

Elijah was a human being like us, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the earth. Then he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain and the earth yielded its harvest.

We have a God who answers prayer! History bears it out. If we ask, in Jesus name, in his heart, we will receive it! Health for our bodies, salvation for our souls, wisdom, knowledge and strength all from his almighty hand! Added to James’ example of Elijah, we have Esther who’s own prayers and fasting before God are summed up in her request to the king.

“If I have won your favor, O king, and if it pleases the king, let my life be given me -- that is my petition -- and the lives of my people -- that is my request.”

The psalmist declares, “If it had not been the LORD who was on our side -- let Israel now say -- if it had not been the LORD who was on our side, when our enemies attacked us, then they would have swallowed us up alive.” But the Lord was on their side, and is on their side and mine! And yours! Let us rejoice with the psalmist, “Blessed be the LORD, who has not given us as prey to their teeth. We have escaped like a bird from the snare of the fowlers; the snare is broken, and we have escaped. Our help is in the name of the LORD, who made heaven and earth.”

And with James declare, “Are any among you suffering? They should pray. Are any cheerful? They should sing songs of praise.”

The Israelites in the desert complained of not having meat to eat. God provides them not with the meat of animals, but with the Spirit of Prophesy anointing the elders to prophesy and meet a deeper need.

The Psalmist declares, “The law of the LORD is perfect, reviving the soul; the decrees of the LORD are sure, making wise the simple; the precepts of the LORD are right, rejoicing the heart; the commandment of the LORD is clear, enlightening the eyes;”

Jesus response to others casting out demons in his name is like that of Moses, “Would that all God’s people were prophets.” Jesus said “For truly I tell you, whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because you bear the name of Christ will by no means lose the reward.”

God provides for the deep needs, Jesus commends us to the providing of even the simple needs, a drink of water, a word of encouragement, or a deed of power to the increasing of the faith of his children. (Woe to those who cause them to stumble!)

Wisdom of the whole

2006-09-17T18:33:00.000-04:00

But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy.

Proverbs sings the virtues of a wife of ancient times who understood the wisdom from above. The psalmist sings of those who follow heavenly wisdom,

“Happy are those who do not follow the advice of the wicked, or take the path that sinners tread, or sit in the seat of scoffers; but their delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law they meditate day and night. They are like trees planted by streams of water, which yield their fruit in its season, and their leaves do not wither. In all that they do, they prosper.”

Like the virtuous wife, James challenges those who think themselves wise to show it with their lives. It is by following earthly wisdom and the lusts of the flesh that we find strife and conflict.

Those conflicts and disputes among you, where do they come from? Do they not come from your cravings that are at war within you? You want something and do not have it; so you commit murder. And you covet something and cannot obtain it; so you engage in disputes and conflicts. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, in order to spend what you get on your pleasures.

The psalmist sings with the suffering messiah. “For the insolent have risen against me, the ruthless seek my life; they do not set God before them. Selah” Jeremiah identifies with the fate of Christ, “… I was like a gentle lamb led to the slaughter. And I did not know it was against me that they devised schemes, saying, "Let us destroy the tree with its fruit, let us cut him off from the land of the living, so that his name will no longer be remembered!"”

Jesus again predicts his suffering and in response we hear another argument of who will be greatest. Jesus is giving the example again and again. He will die, his whole body given, even for those who are nailing it to the cross. “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all”

Messianic Example

2006-09-10T18:31:00.000-04:00

We of the wisdom of God, of the Messiah, should accept the grace of God that instructs our whole being. Our whole life changed by his power. Isaiah said of the Messiah, “The Lord GOD has given me the tongue of a teacher, that I may know how to sustain the weary with a word. Morning by morning he wakens-- wakens my ear to listen as those who are taught.”

The palmist sings of the kind of suffering the messiah would endure as Jesus prophesies he will go through. With an example of whole being offered to God, how can we do less?

Of wisdom and tongue

2006-09-10T18:12:00.000-04:00

Wisdom cries out in the street; in the squares she raises her voice.
At the busiest corner she cries out; at the entrance of the city gates she speaks:

"How long, O simple ones, will you love being simple?
How long will scoffers delight in their scoffing and fools hate knowledge?

Give heed to my reproof; I will pour out my thoughts to you;
I will make my words known to you.

Wisdom is abundant for those who will see it. Madame Day holds classes every morning, Professor Night lectures each evening. Their silent voices sing of God’s wisdom in creation. The revelation of God is spectacular for those who have eyes to see it.

The Psalmist says, “Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, O LORD, my rock and my redeemer.” James says that the mouth is the last stronghold to yield to the wisdom of God. Such a small member but the one that can control it is perfect. Yet James tells us that doing just that is a matter of our worship.

“With it we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse those who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this ought not to be so.”

Virtues of Rich and Poor

2006-09-03T16:34:00.000-04:00

This week we have three proverbs offered to us about the rich and the poor.

A good name is to be chosen rather than great riches, and favor is better than silver or gold.

The rich and the poor have this in common: the LORD is the maker of them all.

Whoever sows injustice will reap calamity, and the rod of anger will fail.

Those who are generous are blessed, for they share their bread with the poor.

Do not rob the poor because they are poor, or crush the afflicted at the gate;

for the LORD pleads their cause and despoils of life those who despoil them.

The psalmist declares that it is he who trusts the Lord who abide forever unshakeable.

James warns us that we should not favor the rich, honoring them and cowing to them for their continued tithe, attendance and patronage. “Is it not the rich who oppress you? Is it not they who drag you into court? Is it not they who blaspheme the excellent name that was invoked over you?” How many a church treasurer has become the church dictator? How many a power-player leverages their bedraggled minister by threatening to withdraw? Isn’t it the respectable that more often show themselves least worthy of respect?

Instead of taking the respectable as favorites, James challenges us to favor the down-and-out. Not a very practical way to run a ministry, I know. Yet, James makes it a matter of faith. If we had a faith-full heart, it would bubble out with action. We would not say to them, "Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill," and yet not supply their bodily needs. No we would do… compelled by faith—compelled by heart, driven to act, meeting the needs. We don’t show partiality, meet the needs of the rich and poor a like.

Faith without works is dead. In verse 26 James says it again, “The very moment you separate body and spirit, you end up with a corpse. Separate faith and works and you get the same thing: a corpse.”

God as doer

2006-09-03T16:26:00.000-04:00

Over and against James do we see Jesus showing favoritism to the Chosen people over the Syro-Phoenician woman? Is it a matter of election? As the psalmist says, “The LORD will reign forever, your God, O Zion, for all generations.” God is in charge, he chooses.

But Jesus chooses to heal. The psalmist also says

“Happy are those whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the LORD their God, who made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them; who keeps faith forever; who executes justice for the oppressed; who gives food to the hungry. The LORD sets the prisoners free; the LORD opens the eyes of the blind. The LORD lifts up those who are bowed down; the LORD loves the righteous.”

And this Almighty God of the Election also told Isaiah,

“Say to those who are of a fearful heart, "Be strong, do not fear! Here is your God. He will come with vengeance, with terrible recompense. He will come and save you." Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped…”

The voice of the Lord rolls down through prophesies of the ages declaring I will heal. The voice rolls off the tongue of the God’s own Anointed in response to the Woman, and flows in his saliva as he touches the tongue of the deaf man. His stopped up ears hear the voice. Ephphatha!

Love songs and full hearts

2006-08-30T14:31:00.000-04:00

Moses says, “What other nation is so great as to have their gods near them the way the Lord our God is near us whenever we pray to him? And what other nation is so great as to have such righteous decrees?” In one breath he is extolling the precious intimacy of God and in the next exhorting the people not to let the righteous decrees slip from tender hearts. Listen, watch, keep.

The Psalmist says those who may dwell in the bosom of God are those who live rightly. James gives his famous and much debated treatment of Faith and Works, this week calling us to be doers of the word and not hearers only. As Tozer says, Faith is the adoring gaze of a soul on her God.

Works of righteousness are then the overflow of a full heart. The Sons of Korah sing a wedding song for the king with sweet fragrance and beauty. Solomon sings of his lover’s full heart as he comes to her saying “Arise, my darling, my beautiful one and come with me.”

Jesus called his disciples to him, giving them a new way. “It’s not what you swallow that pollutes your life; it’s what you vomit – that is the real pollution.”

What is our heart full of? Will it overflow with love, beauty and fragrance, or vomit lust, hypocrisy and hate?

The season

2006-08-30T11:43:00.000-04:00

I'm thinking I will start with James and then Jump back to Mark. If I don't preach James now, I'll have to wait another three years, and I think the road to Jerusalem will make excellent material for stewardship. To better connect with the children, I am thinking of building a set on the stage representing the dusty road to Jerusalem and put places for puppets to come up too. I think I'll try to put all the visuals I'll use durring the series out as part of the set.

I think I'll concentrate on the Epistles for Advent, focusing on Paul's prayers for the churches as the await Christ's coming.

Click here to see a chart of themes.

Looking ahead

2006-08-27T21:39:00.000-04:00

This week I find myself at a crossroads. The lectionary offers two lectio continua choices. I could do a five week series in James possibly followed up by a seven week series in Hebrews (probably my favorite NT book). Or I am offered a 12 week course back in Mark taking us to the end of the season, chapters 7-13.

This fall I want to cover themes of stewardship and also mobilize gift oriented ministry from the laity. I have a feeling one of these options will cover these themes nicely. The lectionary has yet to let me down. I'll have to do some reading ahead tomorrow.

Context and Exegesis from uniting church

2006-08-25T15:20:00.000-04:00

Political context

"As it can be seen from the brief paragraphs describing the scenarios in Egypt and Mesopotamia there was little time or energy for intrusion into Palestine which allowed David to extend his empire without interference from the Empires either side. This does not deny the military acumen and charisma that David needed to weld the tribes together and fight as a cohesive unit."

Narritive flow

The flow of the above narrative is well thought out and is liturgically interesting if one compares it with the Eucharist in which elements of both are present. The presence of God (cloud, bread & wine), the reminder in the great prayer of thanksgiving of God's actions in history, prayer of confession & petition, blessing of elements and people...
Solomon's prayer begins with a three fold act of praise: there is no God like you, keeping covenant and steadfast love, the covenant that you kept with David (vv.22-24)....
The prayer changes to that of petition in which Solomon asks for God to be present in the temple in order that he will be able to hear the plea of his people Israel (vv.27-30)....

Theology and message

However, Solomon in reiterating the promise changes from a prayer of praise to petition and seeks God to keep his promise to David, but adds the condition "if" your children walk before (v.25). This becomes the explicit theology which gives the explanation why they ended up in exile, that is, they failed to keep the statutes and walk in God's ways.

Verses 27-30 begin with the rhetorical question, But will God indeed dwell on the earth? The answer is a profound theological truth that nothing in heaven and on earth can contain God. Therefore, we cannot possibly expect God to be contained in this temple. However, that doesn't prevent God heeding their prayer from heaven and God said that his name would be present. It is a wonderful précis of immanent & transcendent theology. God is present both, in heaven and will hear their prayers as directed towards the temple (not necessarily in the temple), and is immanent because his name is present in the temple. This incredible reassurance that no matter where you are God will and can heed your prayer. If the exiles can pray toward the temple and know that God is not contained in the temple, but is present everywhere what hope it could give them.

The lectionary chosen from the seven specific petitions is that one focussing on the foreigner. This word, which means someone who comes from a foreign land is quite a deliberate move away from the word used of a person who is a sojourner in Israel. The petition asking God to hear the prayers of such a person is quite extraordinary and we probably have little concept of the radical nature of this request. These foreigners will have heard about God and have accepted the lordship of Yahweh. They come now to Jerusalem and pray and Solomon petitions God to hear their prayer. If God will do this all people will know of God and honour him. Around 400 BCE there was conflict between foreigners who were part of the worshiping community and those who wanted to get rid of them ( See my book, Inclusive voices in Post- Exilic). The theology present in these verses is before its time.

A late start.

2006-08-25T14:30:00.001-04:00

I just returned from my vacation. I had been working a few weeks ahead, so I thought I'd be ok, but here I come home and find I didn't write anything for this week yet. Its Friday and I haven't started my sermon yet. Not even the study. :D At least vacation was worth it!

I am going to preach the dedication of the temple. That caught me as I read it before I left, as did Psalm 84. I love that song, Better is One Day! I guess I've gotten that far. Oh, I also found a picture I think I'll use this week:

Wisdom

2006-08-13T15:30:00.000-04:00

Solomon pleases God in asking first for wisdom to rule His people.

The psalmist declares to us, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” Obedience to the covenant reaps great rewards. God gives food to those who fear Him. He has shone the works of his hand and brought redemption through his covenant. It is wise, even logical to obey.

Paul also enjoins us to live as wise people. Making the most of every moment. Not wasting our lives drunk and numb to the world, but rather drunk and immersed in the Spirit, praising and thanking God always, “any excuse for a song to God the Father in the name of our Master, Jesus Christ” (Message). Fully live. Fully immersed. That is wisdom. That is the fear of the Lord, lest we squander a moment we could spend in his will – his presence.

In proverbs, wisdom is laying a table for the simple to come and feast.

Jesus the very bread of life, wisdom incarnate invites the multitude to eat. Eat of the true bread, the Word of God, wisdom and life. Will the simple come and be satisfied? Will we leave the path of evil and turn into the house of wisdom and feast? Will we hear the call of the psalmist:

O fear the LORD, you his holy ones,
for those who fear him have no want.

The young lions suffer want and hunger,
but those who seek the LORD lack no good thing.

Come, O children, listen to me;
I will teach you the fear of the LORD.

The new life

2006-08-06T20:03:00.000-04:00

De Profundis! Out of the depths I cry to you. David cries out of the depths for his rebellious son, Absalom. He also sings of God’s forgiveness.

If you, O LORD, should mark iniquities, Lord, who could stand?

But there is forgiveness with you, so that you may be revered.

I wait for the LORD, my soul waits, and in his word I hope;

my soul waits for the Lord more than those who watch for the morning, more than those who watch for the morning.

O Israel, hope in the LORD! For with the LORD there is steadfast love, and with him is great power to redeem.

It is he who will redeem Israel from all its iniquities.

Paul talks of our forgiveness in Christ, putting off all the old life. He then says, “So then.” He gives a list of ways to live out the new life – a together kind of life. Peterson says in his introduction to Ephesians that Paul explains that the old life of sin has hurt us and then proceeds to uncover how every bone in our bodies is broken and crushed. It will take work to live the new kind of life we have been born to.

Since we are members of each other, we shouldn’t lie to our neighbors, because in the end we will be lying to ourselves. He tells the church, “Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice, and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you.”

Amen.

Bread of Life

2006-08-06T20:00:00.000-04:00

Elijah running for his life from Ahab and Jezebel is given the Angel bread to sustain him. Three times the angel tells him to eat and be sustained. Then powered by the holy food alone he makes the 40-day trip to mount Horeb to see God.

The angel of the LORD encamps around those who fear him, and delivers them.

O taste and see that the LORD is good; happy are those who take refuge in him.

Jesus said to them, "I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.” 40 days is a miracle fast, 40 days is nothing! Jesus declares that we will never hunger or thirst after feasting on him. He is infinitely greater than the angel-bread manna. He is the bread of life!

Running together

2006-08-02T13:08:00.000-04:00

Ephesians

2006-07-31T15:35:00.003-04:00

I've read the book of ephesians through, over a cup of coffee, a few times the past week. Each time the Spirit and the coffee overcame me. As a whole the book is more esciting and I can see the mystic-caught-up-into-heaven side of Paul that I like so much. The readings kick my butt. The first time they propelled me to do a visit, something that always scares me. The second time it pulled me out of the slough of despond. This last time has likewise filled me with zeal, tears, and the Spirit praying through me. The more I re-read it, the more I prove again to myself that Peterson's introduction to the book is dead on.

What we know about God and what we do for God have a way of getting broken apart in our lives. The moment the organic unity of belief and behavior is damaged in any way, we are incapable of living out the full humanity for which we were created.

Paul’s letter to the Ephesians joins together what has been torn apart in our sin-wrecked world. He begins with an exuberant exploration of what Christians believe about God, and then, like a surgeon skillfully setting a compound fracture, “sets” this belief in God into our behavior before God so that the bones—beliefs and behavior—knit together and heal.

Once our attention is called to it, we notice these fractures all over the place. There is hardly a bone in our bodies that has escaped injury, hardy a relationship in city or job, school or church, family or country, that isn’t out of joint or limping in pain. There is much work to be done.

And so Paul goes to work. He ranges widely, from heaven to earth and back again, showing how Jesus, the Messiah, is eternally and tirelessly bringing everything and everyone together. He also shows us that in addition to having this work done in and for us, we are participants in this most urgent work. Now that we know what is going on, that the energy of reconciliation is the dynamo a the heart of the universe, it is imperative that we join in vigorously and perseveringly, convinced that every detail in our lives contributes (or not) to what Paul describes as God’s plan worked out in by Christ, “a long range plan in which everything would be brought together in summed up in him, everything in deepest heaved, everything on planet earth.”

I think this week's text shows us the best place to start living our lives in the light of what God has done to put us back together.

Bread from heaven

2006-07-30T16:05:00.000-04:00

The Israelites are confused by this strange stuff on the leaves. Indeed it is a marvel. The dew evaporates and a flaky substance is left behind. “What is it?!”

The psalmist calls it “the bread of the angels.”

The people looking for Jesus are asking the same question. They don’t understand what the bread from heaven is. They don’t realize that God sent the manna, or that God sent Jesus his own Son. Here the powerful symbolism of communion, especially in the Catholic understanding, gives us pause and stands us in awe. We eat this true bread of heaven, the bread of angels.

Living rightly

2006-07-30T15:50:00.000-04:00

David is confronted with the story of a man who takes the poor mans only and beloved ewe. See “King George and The Ducky” for the powerful flannel graph version of Nathan’s story. The king is rightly hart broken and enraged at the actions of the man.

“O king, you are the man!”

David responds immediately with repentance.

“Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions.”

Coincidentally, David’s story is contrasted by Paul’s hopes for the Ephesians. The Message Remix puts it,

“In light of all this, here’s what I want you to do. While I’m locked up here, a prisoner for the Master, I want you to get out there and walk—better yet, run!—on the road God called you to travel.”

I love how Paul wants us to live rightly in light of God’s power and goodness. It is especially sweetly stated in the Message:

“God can do anything, you know—far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams! He does it not by pushing us around but by working within us, his Spirit deeply and gently within us.

Glory to God in the church!
Glory to God in the Messiah, in Jesus!
Glory down all the generations!
Glory through all Millennia! Oh, yes!”

And here is what we live in light of! The glory of God! Permeated with Oneness! Oh, Paul, thank you for your pastor’s heart. Thank you for your good word of exhortation! God bring the fruit and make manifest in our churches what you have already made a reality.

Folly

2006-07-25T16:31:00.000-04:00

David’s folly shows us plainly all have sinned. Even God’s friend some times falters, and not even a little. David shows himself an adulterer, a murderer and a plotter. So many times he sang of those who would snare him, and he does the same to Urijah. What folly lurks in the heart of men!

David correctly sings in Psalm 14, “The LORD looks down from heaven on humankind to see if there are any who are wise, who seek after God. They have all gone astray, they are all alike perverse; there is no one who does good, no, not one.” Not even David himself. He prays, “O that deliverance for Israel would come from Zion! When the LORD restores the fortunes of his people, Jacob will rejoice; Israel will be glad.”

Paul joins David in prayer. To the Ephesians he writes, “I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.” O that we knew what it was to be grounded in the Love of Christ, to live his love toward each other, to experience and be messengers of the Deliverance from Zion!