Blogging to Sunday

Sorry I have been away from the blog for a couple weeks, I will blame my absence on the busy holiday season. The text for this week is John 1:29-42. (I’ll trust you to read before moving along)
I am not a big fan of John’s Gospel, mostly because John seems to ramble on and on in his stories. Of all the Gospels, John by far has the most extended conversations between Jesus and other people. And very often in those conversations Jesus bounces around in his subject matter. As a person raised on TV, I enjoy the other gospels much better, because those have a lot more “action” that John’s Gospel.
This week’s text, however, is an exception to John’s normal ramble. Instead, there seems to be a lot of action and very little talking. Lots of verbs that denote doing: looking, seeing, hearing, following. And in what might be Jesus’ shortest conversation, at least in the book of John: “What are you looking for?” (Jesus)..”Rabbi, where are you staying?” (2 disciples of John)..”Come and see” (Jesus)
These first words of Jesus in John’s Gospel speak to the deepest question of life: “What are you looking for?” What do you want out of life, I think Jesus is asking. What is most important to you? And in their response, these 2 disciples of John the Baptist seem to move into a whole different conversation: “Where are you staying?” “Come and see,” Jesus tells them, and the text says that they stayed with Jesus that day. That’s it. For once I wish John had gone on in his rambling conversations of Jesus, but we don’t read anything about what they talked about at wherever it was Jesus was staying. (although John does share that “It was about four o’clock in the afternoon”. And I am sure that John, being the master of double meanings in his gospel, has some deep reason for this little tidbit of time, but I sure can’t decipher it)
Could it be, that when Jesus asks the most important question of life, these two disciples of John the Baptist don’t really want answers? Could it be that they just want to be with Jesus?

The Advent text for this last Sunday before Christmas involves somebody who gets little press during Christmas, and we don’t read about him at all after the story of the boy Jesus getting lost at the Temple. But if there is anyone who deserves a pat on the back for his trust, it’s gotta be Joseph.
In the text for this week (Matthew 1:18-25), we read this whole story so easily, but let’s remember that Joseph had to live this story before it reads so well to us. I wonder how Joseph had first heard the news, that his fiancée was pregnant? I wonder if he had walked into the poolroom and heard the guys talking, and that’s how he found out? Or maybe his momma had heard the news from Mary’s momma, and she broke the news to her son? No matter how Joseph found out the news, it had to have left him heart-broken, mad, maybe even a bit desirous of revenge for what Mary had done. My guess is that before all this news broke, Joseph had been dreaming of some big plans for his wife and him. Maybe he had already spotted that nice starter home down the block, maybe he was already figuring out how to ask his boss for a raise when babies would come along…. But now Joseph’s thought about “baby” was anything but joyful.
But then Joseph had a dream….My, how things change.
You got any thoughts on this? I’d love to read them.

This coming Sunday I will not be preaching (our choir will share their Cantata this week!). So, since I will not be preaching, I don’t have a text to write about. So instead, I want to poke around a bit at the text that we will be using in our Call to Worship. It comes from Luke 1:47-55 (I’ll let you look it up). It’s been called “Mary’s Magnificat” by the Church, (Magnificat being the Latin for “magnifies”); it is the song Mary sings as she continues to comprehend that she will be the mother of the Messiah. We read this during the Advent season, but I wonder if we really read this during any season of our lives.
As we read this song of Mary, we read with great sentiment the humility that Mary exudes, that God has looked with favor upon her the lowly servant. We read this with great sentiment because it helps us to remember the surprising way that God came among us in Jesus Christ. That God came not in royal palaces or even in important religious centers, and that God came not through blue-blooded parentage. Instead, God came through this lowly servant, born in a feed trough in a one-horse town. Yes, we might read this part of Mary’s Song with great sentiment. But then let’s continue to read. For as we read, we read of the strength of God, which not only lifts up the lowly (such as the servant Mary) and fills the hungry with good things, but also scatters the proud and brings down the powerful and sends the rich away empty. I don’t know about you, but my sentimental connection with Mary loses its feel-good as I read this part of Mary’s Song. Because I know which side of the tracks I live on, and what place in life I hold. I might not be “powerful” and “rich” to some, but I am all this and more to most people in our world. And if you are reading this from a computer, at your leisure, then I am betting that you are among the powerful and rich as well. It kinda makes me wish that Mary hadn’t said this last part, and left me alone in my feel-good sentiment. What do you think?

Advent is upon us, and yesterday we hung the greens to prepare ourselves for this season. There was beauty and excitement in the air in our service yesterday. The text for this coming Sunday is Matthew 3:1-12 (I’ll let you look it up this week), and we come face to face with the biggest possible killjoy character for our Advent season. Here comes John the Baptist this week, that wild-eyed prophet out in the wilderness wearing his grubby clothes and eating his gross food (not even honey can make locusts taste good!), proclaiming the harsh word of “Repent” (and even harsher words for the religious leaders, whom he dubs “You brood of vipors!”). Why John the Baptist in this week?
I don’t want to tip my hand about where I think my sermon might lead, but I wonder if we hear John this week as a counter to what else we might be hearing as we move closer to Christmas? I wonder if John might be calling us out of our “Christmas rush” for a moment?
That’s enough of me, what do you think?

Welcome to my attempt at a weekly blog of the Scripture texts for the upcoming Sunday. My hope in this exercise isn’t so that I might ramble on about something, but that I may throw out some thoughts with the hope that you will respond to them. What do you think about the text, about what I say, what more would you want to add, etc?
The text for this coming Sunday, which is the First Sunday of Advent (and the beginning of a new church year), is Isaiah 2:1-5. Here’s the text:
“The word that Isaiah son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem. 2In days to come the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be raised above the hills; all the nations shall stream to it. 3Many peoples shall come and say, “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.” For out of Zion shall go forth instruction, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. 4He shall judge between the nations, and shall arbitrate for many peoples; they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. 5O house of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the Lord!”

What would be very important in reading this text is an understanding of the writer’s context. Isaiah is writing this at a time when Jerusalem is in big trouble. The northern kingdom of Israel has been destroyed already (about 150 years earlier), and now the southern kingdom of Judah is being threatened by the powerful Babylonians. Much of the first 39 chapters of Isaiah’s book will warn of the destruction that lies ahead for Judah, but we read in our text today something that is far far different than how things seem in the here-and-now. Judah is on its last legs, threats are all around and overwhelming, but Isaiah speaks of a time (“in the days to come”) when Judah and Jerusalem will be over all others, and nations will stream to it because of its blessed relationship with God. Rather than fear and violence and war, the weapons of war will be made into instruments for yielding crops, and the ways of war of will be replaced by the ways of God’s peace.

What’s important in reading this text is that Isaiah is painting a picture that doesn’t look anything like how things were going on for the people of Judah. BUt Isaiah speaks of the “day to come” when God would do a new thing, an utterable unseeable thing, at least compared to how things are now.

As we move into this season of Advent, a season in which we prepare ourselves for the coming of Christ. As is most obvious in this season, we are preparing ourselves for the coming of Christ at his birth. BUt we are also preparing ourselves for how Christ will come again. As we read in Isaiah today, God will come in ways so unlike how things are, in so unlikely ways. Like being born in a feed trough, for instance. How might Christ be coming again among us?

Friends, After a time away, due mostly to computer/email/internet/blog glitches, I am back to writing. No, I didn’t fix any of these glitches, I am just choosing to ignore them and hope that they have gone away.

This Sunday marks the beginning of a new Church Year, as we move into the season of Advent. If you are like me, you didn’t know about Advent growing up, or maybe you had heard of an Advent calendar and little goodies in the calendar for each day of Advent. I came across the celebration of Advent several years into my life as minister and have come to really embrace Advcent just in the last 10 years or so. Unfortunately, what I find very often in discussions about Advent centers around the music of the Advent season (as in, “Why aren’t we singing Christmas songs in December?” Over the years I have moved from caring way too much that we sing “only” Advent hymns until Christmas Eve, to now probably caring too little about this whole music divide.) No, what stirs my thinking during Advent now isn’t about the music. It’s about the hoping.
This past Sunday we finished out the Church Year, celebrating Christ the King (or Reign of Christ) Sunday. We ended that church year, as we do every church year, with the strong reminder that the basis of our faith and hope is that Christ is Lord, that Christ is King, that Christ’s reign is coming among us. As we read last Sunday in Revelation 1, we celebrate and praise the Christ who was and is and is to come. But if we are to be honest, life seems to be less than fully filled with the reign of Christ among us. We live in a nation involved in 2 wars right now; we know personally of loved ones and friends who are serving in these wars. We continue to read of financial crises in our nation and world; the unemployment rate will not stop its rising. The political atmosphere in Washington seems to be as divided and negative as ever, now with a Democrat in the presidential hot-seat. As a minister of First Christian Church, I see much that seems to deny our proclamation that Christ indeed reigns. Our prayer list never lacks for names. Indeed, when one name comes off (often because that person passes away), two more names are needed to be added. And I won’t even begin to talk about our church’s financial straits. So, in sum, it might seem a bit silly to proclaim that Christ is Lord, over all of this.
Which is why the season of Advent is so important. Because in Advent, we start over. We have spent a whole Church Year proclaming the story of Christ and Christ among us, and with Advent we begin to tell the story all over again. Yes, we have told the story before. Yes, we are still waiting for Christ to return and make all things right. Yes, the world is still in dire need of a redeemer. In Advent, we begin this journey of telling the story all over. And we begin it by preparing ourselves, we launch ourselves into another year of proclaiming Christ as Lord by waiting for Christ to come. We will see in the Christmas story that Christ comes in the most surprising and unexpected ways. In Advent we prepare ourselves for Christ coming in more surprisingly and unexpected ways.
Our culture’s celebration of Christmas, on its best days, carries in it some of these ideas I have mentioned. The surprise of an unexpected gift, the gathering together in love and sharing and giving. The occasional moments of rest and Christmas cheer in the midst of the busyness. The fascinated look in the eyes of children on Christmas morning. All these elements of Christmas are wonderful, and I strive every year to embrace these moments when I want to pull out my best Scrooge-ish dismissal of materialistic excess. BUt none of this will ever be enough. What IS enough is that which we begin to proclaim this Sunday, the fervent hope that Christ is coming.
May this Advent season be a time of joy-filled hope!

I missed out on blogging my thoughts for last Sunday’s sermon, one reason being that my thoughts were so all over the place for most of the week that I was too embarassed to try to put them in writing. And I almost didn’t offer up thoughts on this week’s text, but for another reason. The sermon text for this Sunday is Mark 10.2-16, I encourage you to read it before moving along.
Trusting that you have read the Mark text, maybe you can begin to sense my hesitation in writing this week? If still no clue, what if I tell you that I have been through a divorce in my life? If still no clue, maybe I could tell you about some of the women I came across earlier this week, during my morning as volunteer chaplain at the Family Justice Center: about the woman who looked to be about 16 but who was seeking an order of protection against an abusive husband? or maybe the two women who, in their writing their stories about why they want to move away from domestic violence situations, asked for extra pieces of paper because their stories were too long for just one full page? And if still no clue, maybe I could tell about the conversation I had with someone this week, in which she told me of living in an abusive household growing up but whose parents stayed together “for the children”, while the children wanted nothing more than the parents to separate?
Why my hesitation on the text for Sunday? Because in it Jesus speaks against divorce, in it he talks about God’s intention of “two becomiong one flesh”.
One of, if not the, hardest things for most people to do is to let people see the brokenness within their lives. Especially us church folks, who will go to great lengths to let others (especially other church folks) know that they are doing “fine”. And such an atttitude is understandable, since no one truly wants to be broken, none of us revels in the less-than-perfect life we really live. No, we want all to be good, and we even want our time at church to be all about good and positive and happy and feel-good. And for some of us, we long for the good and positive, because so many other places of life are indeed broken, whether the brokeness be public and for all to see, or hidden behind “I’m fine” and concealed within our hearts.
What are we to make of Jesus’ words today? I’d love to hear what you say on all this.

This week I am wrestling with another text from Mark’s Gospel, and I would love to hear your thoughts on the text and/or my sharings on the text. This week’s text is Mark 9.30-37, I hope you will read it over before moving along.
OK, here’s a little context on this text. Last week we read the first of Jesus’ predictions of his future betrayal, death, and resurrection; today is the second of these predictions. In between these readings, Jesus goes up on the mountain with Peter, James, and John and is transfigured (“his clothes became dazzling white”), Elijah and Moses appear and talk with Jesus, then as quickly as all this started it stopped, and the 3 disciples and Jesus go back down the mountain. Very soon after this, Jesus finds out that the disciples had been asked to heal a boy with an unclean spirit but couldn’t do it, so before he heals the boy, he gets onto the disciples, “How much longer must I put up with you?” In short, it’s been an up and down time for the disciples since last week’s text.
Today we read the second prediction of Jesus, the last one will take place right before Jesus will enter into Jerusalem on what we call Palm Sunday, which begins his last week of life. If you were to read all three prediction stories, you would find a familiar pattern: Jesus shares his prediction (always referencing his betrayal or arrest or suffering, his being killed, and his being raised after 3 days), and after each prediction the disciples show that they don’t understand Jesus here (last week, Peter rebukes Jesus, this week we read that they didn’t understand (v. 32), then prove by their arguing in the next verse). Then, Jesus will have a time of teaching to help the disciples understand (last week Jesus called the disciples to deny selves, take up a cross and follow, for those who look to save their lives will lose them, …; this week he says that the first must be last and servant..)

OK, enough of the bookish stuff. Now the questions: So what? What is Jesus saying here, and specifically, what is Jesus saying of me here? What is Jesus wanting me to do here?

So here goes some of my own poking around:
*I bet I know why the disciples were “silent” when Jesus asked them what they had been arguing about. The Message translation here says that “the silence was deafening”. They had been busted, that’s why they are quiet. There’s been a time or two (or hundreds) in my life when I get busted by those in charge, with them knowing what I had done and me knowing that they know that I know that I had done what I shouldn’t have done. Yes, a deafening time of silence for sure. What was it about arguing about being “the greatest” that would have the disciples feel like they had been busted? And don’t give an answer that talks about the first are to be last/servant, because that comes only after the silence. Could it be in the prediction itself, that speaks against what the disciples get busted doing?
*What does the “little child” mean in this story? I don’t want to say much on this, since as of right now I am thinking my sermon Sunday is gonna move somewhere toward this. But I would like to share what one of our small group members shared last night in our discussion on this text. She’s a teacher, her comment was that children are very often “overlooked”. Hmmmm.

This week’s tests are Proverbs 1.20-33 and Mark 8.27-38. I hope you’ll take a minute to read them before coming back to my thoughts on these texts.
Trusting that you have now indeed read these texts by now, I will go ahead and say it: As of right now I’m not getting much out of them. I think I have either preached on or taught on the Mark 8 texts a dozen times, at least, during my time as a minister. And usually I have wrestled with this text during the season of Lent, as we wrestle with the texts of Jesus as he makes his way to the cross of Good Friday. This time, though, I don’t even have Lent to lean on, cause we’re not anywhere close to that time of year.
And then in the Proverbs text, there’s that whole cry from “Wisdom” out in the streets. Pretty much we read Wisdom (here personified as a woman crying out in the street) calling out for folks to listen to her and to follow her. Then she spends much of her time railing on those who ignore her calls. In the end those who disregard Wisdom will face an ignoble end, but those who do listen will be “secure and live at ease.” Here’s my wonder: Where is some of this wisdom that Wisdom wants to dole out to those who will listen? Where’s the 3 steps that will lead to living at ease? Where’s the clear-cut thoughts that Wisdom offers that will have us avoid the “distress and anguish” and have us in the place of security and ease?
Now I wonder: Does anything that comes from Wisdom relate in any way to Mark’s story, and specifically to Jesus’ question, “Who do you say that I am?” BUt then again, if there is a clear-cut answer to Jesus’ question, as with Wisdom’s claims, then Peter seemed to fail it miserably. What gives?