Musings on the Daily Lectionary

In today's reading from John 5:1-18, Jesus asks a strange question to a man who has been ill for 38 years. "Do you want to be made well?" The man is lying near a pool purported to have healing powers when its waters become disturbed, but his condition (he is apparently lame or paralyzed) means that others always get to the waters ahead of him. When Jesus sees the man, he can tell that he has been there a long time, but still he asks, "Do you want to be made well?"

It seems an absurd question, and so I wonder why John bothers to record it. It has very little to do with the story. But there it is. Surely the man wanted to be made well.

In the churches I've been part of over the years, attempts were made to find out what people were looking for in adult Christian Education offerings. Over and over again the answer to questions about this was, "We don't know our Bibles well enough. We need some basic Bible studies." But when these churches offered such classes, the people who said they needed them didn't attend. Apparently they didn't want what they said they wanted.

"Do you want to be made well?" I have spiritual longings and hungers in my life, desires to grow closer to God and understand more fully what I am called to be and do. But sometimes these are a lot like the desires of those church members to know their Bibles better.

Sometimes it is a very good thing for Jesus to confront me and ask me a hard question. "Do you really want to follow me? Do you really want to be my disciple?" Surely that's an absurd question. Surely I do.

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Musings on the Daily Lectionary

Today's Old Testament reading contains words of judgment that the prophet Jeremiah is called to speak against Israel. But the beginning of this prophecy looks back to earlier days. "Thus says the LORD: I remember the devotion of your youth, your love as a bride..." There was a time when Israel and Yahweh were like young lovers, when Israel delighted in God as in nothing else.

Many of us know what it is like to "fall in love." I talk to many young couples who are in love and preparing to marry. Generally speaking they are devoted to one another and can hardly imagine life not being that way. But of course, these feelings usually wane over time. I suspect that nearly all couples experience this to some degree. And if the relationship is not tended to, intentionally renewed and revitalized, it can gradually waste away.

Most people of faith have moments when relationship with God, with Jesus, became real and significant. I had several of those moments in my life, the most significant being the flowering of faith that happened in my early to mid thirties. That experience ultimately led to seminary and my calling as pastor. But that was 17 years ago. And at times the intensity and passion of faith, of my relationship with God, seems to wane, to grow stale and dry.

In today's verses, Israel has forgotten God, but Yahweh remembers when things were different. And despite words of accusation and judgment, God's deepest desire is to renew relationship.

I like to think that I've not forgotten God, but I suspect that sometimes my actions might make it seem so to God. But God remembers. What a hopeful thought. God remembers.

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Musings on the Daily Lectionary

In today's reading from John 4:27-42, Jesus once more confuses his disciples. When they offer him food and he explains, "I have food to eat that you do not know about." As often happens in John, they take Jesus literally, wondering who might have brought him something while they were gone. But Jesus is speaking of doing God's will as his food.

I've been reading a book by Eugene Peterson, The Contemplative Pastor. Peterson says that modern language is about description, explanation, and information, and modern people have largely lost the ear for poetry, for language that touches our hearts and speaks from our hearts. Sunday sermons often reflect this, being more an attempt to explain and convince than to evoke God's presence or touch people's hearts.

In John's gospel, the truth Jesus speaks is almost never found in the literal meaning of what he says. Jesus is "the Word made flesh" but obviously this doesn't refer to some run of the mill word that might be looked up in the dictionary.

One of the greatest spiritual awakenings for me in the the last year or so has been learning the freedom to hear scripture as more than information, more than something to be dissected and parsed. It has a lively power to speak deep within my heart, if only I will listen to it with different ears.

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Sermon from March 8, "The Tyranny of Self"

3-8 Sermon.mp3

Musings on the Daily Lectionary

"How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?" That is the response of this woman when she is startled by Jesus' request. Normally rabbis didn't speak with women in public, and they certainly didn't speak with Samaritans, who were considered half-breed heretics by the Jews. But Jesus not only asks this woman for a drink, but he engages her in conversation, finally revealing that he is the Messiah. This encounter is all the more striking when contrasted with Jesus' previous conversation with Nicodemus, a Jewish Pharisee who makes no headway in understanding who Jesus is.

That Jesus chooses to reveal himself to someone considered so unworthy by the good religious folks of Jesus' day gives me some pause. It makes me wonder about what folk are my Samaritans. Who are the people I think Jesus wouldn't talk to, wouldn't embrace and offer "eternal life."

But mostly Jesus' encounter with this Samaritan woman reminds me that Jesus' embrace is so surprisingly large, that I am surely included.

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Text of 3-1 Sermon

Mark 1:9-15

Becoming Son of God

James Sledge -- March 1, 2009

Today is the first Sunday in the season of Lent. The gospel reading for this Sunday is always an account of Jesus being tempted in the wilderness. The Presbyterian Hymnal has a number of hymns that connect Jesus’ 40 days in the wilderness with our 40 days of Lent. “Lord, who through these forty days for us didst fast and pray, teach us with Thee to mourn our sins, and close by Thee to stay.”[1] And sermons on this Sunday typically reflect on the meaning of Jesus’ temptations, his forty day experience.

But in the years that we use Mark’s gospel on this Sunday, such typical sermons are not possible because Mark tells us nothing about the temptations Jesus faced. In fact, Mark manages to squeeze in Jesus’ baptism, his temptations, and the beginnings of his ministry in considerably less verses that Matthew or Luke use to tell the story of Jesus tempted in the desert. But Mark’s gospel is different from Matthew and Luke in another, significant way.

The verses we heard today are our first encounter with Jesus. Mark’s gospel has no Christmas story. He simply opens with, The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Mark then tells of John the baptizer’s ministry before introducing Jesus in our reading for this morning. Mark seems to think that these few short verses are much more important for understanding who Jesus is than any story of his origins. Mark seems totally uninterested in how Jesus was born, what he was like growing up, or anything else about him prior to this moment. For Mark, it all starts here.

I think there may be something here that is a bit peculiar to many of us. When Christians consider who Jesus is, when we think about him as Son of God, many of us tend to assume that Jesus is Son of God in a biological, deep in his bones, sort of way. But it’s not at all clear that Mark views things this way.

Now perhaps Mark doesn’t know the story of Jesus’ virgin birth, or perhaps he does. But regardless, he clearly thinks that the events of our reading this morning are much more critical for Jesus’ own understanding of who he is and what he is called to do than anything about Jesus’ biological nature.

Many of us are so used to thinking of Jesus as divine that we have difficulty thinking of him as just a guy. Yet Jesus seems to have lived a totally obscure and uneventful life up until he begins his ministry. Apart from one stray story in Luke’s gospel about a 12 year old Jesus, we hear nothing about him growing up, and know little about who he understood himself to be. But we do know that Jesus’ baptism and 40 days in the wilderness launched him into his ministry.

Mark’s gospel especially focuses in on this. He presents the events in our reading as something for Jesus’ benefit. The baptism is portrayed as very a personal moment. Mark doesn’t say specifically, but he implies that only Jesus sees the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. And the heavenly voice does not introduce Jesus to the world; rather God speaks to Jesus. “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” The Spirit then immediately drives Jesus into the wilderness where he is tempted and where angels wait on him. And somehow these events prepare Jesus for what is to come.

I recently came across a story about a Presbyterian Church near Pasadena, California that began life as a mission started in 1905 by a number of white congregations as an outreach to Japanese immigrants. The by the late 1930s the church was growing, with over 200 worshippers. But then came the attack on Pearl Harbor and America’s entry into WWII, and the members of this church were sent off to internment camps for the duration of the war.

When the war ended and the people began to return to the area, many of their former neighbors did not welcome them. They were “the enemy.” However, some of those white churches had helped store their church property and even to preserve a few of their business. And they helped them get their lives back together when the returned. One white church member who was a realtor even braved death threats to help the returning Japanese Americans find homes.

These events became foundational memories for the congregation, moments that echoed down through the years, spurring the church to become one that helped refugees, that reached out to its neighbors, that became an instrumental part of its community. The congregation thrived, grew to over 600, and relocated to bigger facilities.

But more recently, this congregation has experienced significant decline. And when they found themselves having to search for a new pastor, they used that as an opportunity to set up meeting for members to recall their important stories, to remember the moments when they were most alive and vital, to recall who they were deep in their bones, who they were called to be. They began to reconnect to the foundational, formative events of their life as a congregation, and new life began to emerge.

In our gospel reading this morning, we heard some of Jesus’ foundational, formative events. His experience of God’s loving embrace and the Spirit’s presence at his baptism, along with his learning to entrust himself to God’s provision when he was tempted in the wilderness, allowed him to hone his identity and answer his call to be Savior, Messiah. Those events must have served as a touchstone, a well that he regularly returned to for strength and sustenance.

In every life of faith, and in every faith community, there are foundational moments and formative events where God helps us to realize who we are and what we are called to be and do. When we draw on those moments that assured us of God’s love and provision, that empowered us to be who God calls us to be, our lives are filled with power and joy. But when we get disconnected from them, our lives become distorted and uncertain. They are robbed of power and vitality.

In the waters, God has grafted us into Jesus, empowered us by the Spirit, and called us to new lives as disciples, as sons and daughters of God, and as the living body of Christ in the world. In key faith moments, we have been formed as disciples and as a congregation, and we have been tested and learned to trust in God’s provision.

What are the key moments in your life where God claimed you as beloved child, empowered you and called you to ministry? Perhaps you need to reconnect to those, to remember who you are and who you are called to be. Or perhaps, like Jesus, you need to come to the waters where God can claim, empower, and call you.

“You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” At the water, God speaks those words to us. “You are my son; You are my daughter, the beloved.” And true life begins.

---

[1] Claudia Hernaman, No. 81 in The Presbyterian Hymnal

Musings on the Daily Lectionary

"For God so loved the world..." Those are some of the more familiar and beloved words from the Bible. These verses from John 3:16-21 promise that the Son comes not to condemn but to save. This sounds like unadulterated good news, but there is a caveat. The light has come into the world, but people prefer darkness.

I vaguely recall an essay by Walker Percy that I believe was entitled, "The Message in the Bottle." It speaks of messages washing up on a desert island shore, most of them containing true information, but nothing that would change your life; for example, stating that water boils at 212 degrees Fahrenheit. But if a message were to direct the recipient to fresh water, well that could be another matter. It could be life saving if one was thirsty and had no water.

A professor of mine once suggested that the world is like someone who is dying of thirst, but doesn't realize that water will cure the problem. And so the message about fresh water just around the bend seems as trivial as one on water's boiling point.

"For God so loved the world... the light has come into the world..." That would seem to be great news, as long as we realize we need God's love and God's light. I sometimes wonder if God is trying to "save" me from all sorts of things, but I'm too content and comfortable with things to think that this is good news. When God's bright light shines on me, do I step back into the shadows? How do I become more open to God's love and God's light?

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Musings on the Daily Lectionary

"Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God." So says Nicodemus when he comes to Jesus "by night." Nicodemus "knows" that Jesus is from God, and yet Nicodemus is portrayed in John 3 as unable to understand when Jesus speaks of being "born from above." (The Greek word means both "from above" and "again," and it is impossible to render these words in English so that both possible meanings are apparent. Nicodemus hears the literal "again" while Jesus speaks of the more figurative "from above.")

Nicodemus is a learned teacher who comes to Jesus as one who "knows." Yet he seems to leave the encounter befuddled. And I wonder how often what I "know" gets in the way of what Jesus would say to me.

In other gospels, Jesus speaks of needing to become like children in order to enter the Kingdom. Being like children probably has many possible meanings, but perhaps one of them is to not be so sure of what we know, to be open to new possibilities, to allow the Holy Spirit to show us things we've never seen before.

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The Gift of Reading

Students at East Franklin Elementary are happy to read their books to Emma Sledge, a senior at Upper Arlington High School. As part of her senior project, Sledge helped the students in the South-Western district school buy books at the school’s March Scholastic Book Fair. The students earned “paychecks” by meeting reading and writing goals. Sledge received a grant from her church, Boulevard Presbyterian in Grandview Heights, as well as donations from family and friends, to pay for the book project. (from the Columbus Dispatch, Eric Albrecht, photographer)

Musings on the Daily Lectionary

"Stop making my Father's house a marketplace!" says Jesus in today's reading from John. All the gospels contain a version of this story, and I learned it as a small child. As a child it seemed a simple enough story, but I find it more troubling as I get older.

The activities in the Temple -- the money changers and the animal sellers -- were integral to worship there. They allowed pilgrims who had come from foreign lands to convert their money to the proper Jewish currency in order to make offerings. And people who had journeyed far could not bring animals with them for sacrifice, but they could buy them at the temple. And none of these things were happening inside the temple proper. They were out in the courtyard, not unlike when tickets to the spaghetti supper are on sale in the church lounge.

It's a lot easier to enjoy this story when the folks Jesus throws out are evil and nasty, not at all like me. But when they are simply part of the religious apparatus, not so different from congregations taking credit cards or setting up bank drafts for paying your pledge, the story hits a little closer to home.

I take it as a given that all religion has a tendency to try to make God and God's blessings manageable. But Jesus seeks to pull us back to the core of faith, trusting ourselves to the provision of God rather than setting up systems to manage them.

As a pastor, I think that religious institutions are essential to our faith lives. But still, we need to remember where our ultimate loyalties lie, to God who is revealed to us through Jesus the Christ.

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Musings on the Daily Lectionary

I was 35 when I enrolled in seminary. As most people would probably assume, I had some personal faith experiences intense enough to prompt a dramatic career change. And yet I still often find myself participating in what God warns against in today's reading from Deuteronomy 8:1-20. "Take care that you do not forget the LORD your God..."

Now by "forgetting" I don't mean that I forget that God exists. Rather my past faith experiences recede far enough into my memory that they no longer move me to act. I take it that this is a common problem, otherwise it would not be such a common biblical theme. When we go through a crisis of faith, identity, purpose, hope, or countless others, we can have profound experiences of God's presence and guidance. But later, when things have calmed down, when God perhaps seems less present, those experiences become wispy memories. They can lose their sense of being "real."

Perhaps this all too common an experience helps explain why there is a regular need for faith renewal, for seasons such as Lent where we reconnect to our own faith stories as well as to the faith story of Scripture. May Lent be a time of renewal for all of us.

Sermon from March 1, "Becoming Son of God"

3-1-09 Sermon.mp3