Musings on the Daily Lectionary

As Paul comes near the end of his letter to the Philippian congregation, he writes, "Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."

Oh if only I could embrace these words as a way of life. But my gentleness is often hidden. I worry about many things. And I find it difficult simply to trust in God's providence. At times, however, "the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding," does sweep over me. And then it seems that it might just be possible to follow Paul's other instructions.

As we draw near to Easter, and the impossible story of the resurrection, perhaps the power of resurrection, of the impossible, may draw me once more to what God can do, to the peace God can give, to the life that is possible in Christ.

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Musings on the Daily Lectionary

"Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also." So says Jesus in today's reading from John 12. These words come as Jesus speaks of his "hour" being at hand, referring to his impending death on the cross. But his words also speak to the larger issue of where Jesus is to be found, not seeking his own comfort or benefit, but doing God's will, wherever that may lead.

During Sunday worship, I have a somewhat different perspective than most of the folks because we face in different directions. And on one Sunday, I watched as homeless gentleman came into the narthex while we worshiped . (Windows along the back wall of the sanctuary give me a good view of this area.) This man had barely gotten into the narthex when an usher came up beside him and gently, but firmly, ushered him out of my view and presumably out of the building. I later learned that the ushered assumed the man was looking for some assistance and told him to come back at some other time.

Now this usher meant well. He was generous in his giving to the church's mission, but thought this gentleman has chosen an inappropriate time. But I can't help but wonder about whether our congregation was "where Jesus is" at that moment. I would never denigrate the central place of worship in the life of faith, but I wonder if our church buildings don't sometimes become fortresses, insulating us from the very people and situations we are called to serve.

"Where I am, there will my servant be also." What does that look like for me? What does that look like for you, and for your congregation?

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Musings on the Daily Lectionary

When I was in seminary and was learning Greek, one of the Greek words that stuck with me was skubala. It is found in today's reading from Philippians. Skubala not only has a catchy sound to it (the accent is on the first syllable), but it is one of those words that turns out to have been "cleaned up" in translation.

Paul writes of how knowing Christ has made everything else seem worthless by comparison. "I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish..." Rubbish is how my Bible translates skubala, but while it can mean rubbish, its more literal meaning is dung or excrement. In seminary one smart alec thought it funny to translate this verse "...and I regard them as sh--." Everyone laughed, but the professor then added that this humorous translation likely came closer to what Paul meant than our Bibles did.

No doubt Paul is employing a bit of hyperbole, but still I find his words striking. Very often in our world, religion is an add-on or a pick-me-up. I know that in my own life, it is easy for faith to live at the edges, not making significant contact with a great deal of my day to day activities, even though I am a pastor. But to know Jesus so deeply that this experience dwarfs all of life, puts everything else in a distant second place...

Perhaps Holy Week would be a good time to reflect and meditate on this. As we consider the events of this week, may they become so real to us as to move everything else aside.

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Sermon for April 5, "What Have You Done for Me Lately?"

A basketball coach's job security may ride on the answer to the question, "What have you done for me lately?" And the quick move from "Hosanna" to "Crucify him!" has a similar feel to it. But there's no need to point fingers at the folks in Jerusalem. I have my own ways of joining the parade but avoiding the cross.

Sermon, 4-5.mp3

Musings on the Daily Lectionary

"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Because Jesus repeats these words from the cross, many of us are familiar with the opening of today's psalm, Psalm 22. But we may be less familiar with some of the other lines. " I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint; my heart is like wax; it is melted within my breast; my mouth is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to my jaws; you lay me in the dust of death."

Clearly the psalmist's predicament is dismal. But, as the conclusion of the psalm makes clear, even while experiencing this terror, the psalmist does not doubt that God is still God, and God is sovereign. "Future generations will be told about the Lord, and proclaim his deliverance to a people yet unborn, saying that he has done it." Presumably Jesus also recalls these words during his utterance from the cross.

Before I read today's psalm, the issue of how people understand suffering and tragedy was already in front of me. A person requesting prayers pleaded for help so that "Satan wouldn't win." But I think this psalm, and the resurrection, insist that no tragedy can be so severe as to be a "win" for Satan. Even in the midst of the worst that can happen, somehow, in ways that we often cannot understand, God is still God, and God is still sovereign.

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Musings on the Daily Lectionary

With Holy Week fast approaching, thoughts naturally turn to the cross, resurrection, and the meaning of it all. For me, the meaning too often gets reduced to, "Jesus died for you and then rose again. Believe this and you're saved." Thus "salvation," whatever particular meaning a person has for that term, becomes about recognizing the right formula and plugging yourself in.

But Paul's words from Romans 11 are a bit hard to fit into the formula. Paul is clearly bothered by the fact that so many of his Jewish kindred have rejected Jesus. Yet he is unwilling to see this simply as them not "getting it." He sees the whole episode as somehow a part of God's plan, and he also sees no evidence that God has rejected the Jews. Surely this means that the cross is much more than formula. It is a part - indeed the central part - of God's plan to redeem all Creation, a plan that is often incomprehensible to human beings.

Many years ago I was having lunch with a fellow pastor who was part of our neighborhood, ecumenical clergy group who had conducted a funeral earlier that day. And he said to me, "Boy it sure is hard doing a funeral for someone you know isn't saved." I told him that on this point I washappy to be a Calvinist, and to trust that God saves whomever God saves. Who is and who isn't is known only to God, and I'm more than content to leave that in God's hands.

The cross is a pretty strange way for God to go, when you think about it. And I suspect that easy formulas seek to make simple what are the inscrutable purposes of God. In the meantime, I will meditate on Holy Week, the cross, and the resurrection, and continue with my own feeble efforts to have my life conform better to what I see God doing there.

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Musings on the Daily Lectionary

When I was in seminary, I had the chance to go to the Middle East. While riding in our chartered bus through the West Bank, I looked down in a valley and saw a young boy - he looked to be 9 or 10 - walking along a path with a little group of sheep following him, single-file, down the path. I've learned that this is the typical pattern of Middle Eastern shepherding. The herds tend to be quite small, and the shepherds don't drive the sheep; they call them and the sheep follow after them. Jesus as the Good Shepherd adopts a rather gentle metaphor for leading his people. He calls and walks ahead.

Contemporary Americans often expect more of their leaders. We want forceful leaders, people who take the bull by the horns. And I think that I sometimes let such images shape the way I think Jesus/God should be: powerful, assertive, commanding, etc. But a shepherd simply calls, and his own who hear, follow along behind.

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Musings on the Daily Lectionary

"I once was lost, but now am found, was blind, but now I see." So goes a line of the popular hymn "Amazing Grace." And today's reading from John 9 is also about the blind seeing. In a recurring pattern from John's gospel, blindness here functions on two levels. A man who was literally blind has been healed by Jesus, but by the end of the reading, blindness has become a metaphor. Jesus says, "I came into this world for judgment so that those who do not see may see, and those who do see may become blind."

Once more it is the learned, religious folks who cannot see. Their certainty about the rules, about the proper channels and methods that God would use, blinds them so that they cannot recognize Jesus. Worse, they are convinced he is the enemy of God because he doesn't fit their doctrines and their understanding of Scripture. As religious experts, they know, they understand, they "see." But in the presence of God's power and wisdom in the flesh, they become blind.

My own Presbyterian Church (USA) has been embroiled for years now in arguments about whether gays and lesbians may be ordained as elders, deacons, or pastors. As Presbyterians, we naturally go to the Bible to see what it says, and then we claim to know, to understand, to "see." It makes me wonder about that questions the Pharisees ask Jesus. " 'Surely we are not blind, are we?' Jesus said to them, 'If you were blind, you would not have sin. But now that you say, "We see", your sin remains.' "

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Musings on the Daily Lectionary

When I was growing up in the Presbyterian Church, I think that I likely heard more sermons preached from the Apostle Paul's letters than anything else. That's certainly not the trend nowadays. The "narrative preaching" that I learned in seminary doesn't work as well with Paul. He is a bit wordy, after all, as this portion of today's reading from Romans demonstrates. "But who indeed are you, a human being, to argue with God? Will what is molded say to the one who molds it, 'Why have you made me like this?' Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one object for special use and another for ordinary use? What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience the objects of wrath that are made for destruction; and what if he has done so in order to make known the riches of his glory for the objects of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory - including us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles?"

But wordiness isn't the only problem with these words. Paul's description of God's sovereignty jars me. Yes, I know that Presbyterians and others in the Reformed tradition have always insisted on a radically sovereign God. But I chafe a bit at the notion of simply being the clay God fashions. I'm more impressed with myself than that.

Now clearly God has tremendous concern for humanity. The whole Jesus event makes that obvious. But it seems that I still want more. I want God to conform to my expectations, to work in ways that honor my notions of proper human existence. My father once told me, "Any God I can fully understand is no God at all." But I still want God to make sense. I don't want to be told, as Paul does, "But who indeed are you, a human being, to argue with God?" It sounds like the divine version of a parent saying, "Because I told you so."

But I did learn as a parent that sometimes, that is the only answer. And, in the end, isn't faith about trusting in God, trusting that God's reasoning, God's wisdom, God's plans, are better than any that I have?

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Sermon for March 29, "The System"

In John 12:20-33, Jesus speaks of his death judging the world. The sermon title comes from a commentary's suggestions that "the world" might be better understood if translated "the system."
(Sorry, no video this week.)

Sermon, 3-29.mp3

Musings on the Daily Lectionary

In my nearly 14 years as a pastor, I have discovered that most people seem to think the term children of God is a synonym for human being. I'm not sure how this came to be. Perhaps because Christians are referred to as children of God, and because for many years our culture was presumed to be Christian, the moniker children of God came to be thought of as ours by birth, as a biological thing.

The Bible clearly has other thoughts. C.S. Lewis is following biblical thinking when he has the children in his Narnia books called "sons of Adam" or "daughter of Eve." This is our nature by birth, the heirs of rebellion against God. But the Bible also speaks of a change in this nature through Jesus by virtue of being adopted. Jesus claims us as his brothers and sisters, and it is here that we become God's children.

Paul speaks of this in today's reading from Romans 8:12-27. Speaking of the transformation that comes from being "in Christ," he writes, " ...but you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, "Abba! Father!" it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God."

I know that some folks greatly prefer that they be God's children by birthright. But I find it incredibly heartening to realize that I am God's child because God chose me, because God has gone to the trouble to adopt me. It is no accident of biology. A loving God has claimed me, at great cost, to be part of God's family. Now that's good news!

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Musings on the Daily Lectionary

In today's reading from John 6:16-27, Jesus says to the crowds who have sought and found him, "Very truly, I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you."

Jesus raises the interesting question of what we are looking for when we seek Jesus. My wife has a quote on our refrigerator which I don't remember exactly, but I can paraphrase it. "Stop asking God to bless what you are doing. Get involved in what God is doing. It is already blessed." I know that very often I want God to help me do what I want to do. I spend more time pleading for God's help than I do asking God what I should be doing. But over the years I have found that life seems well ordered and at peace when this is reversed, when I am more focused on discovering what God desires for me.

O God, help me to want most what you want for me.

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