Musings on the Daily Lectionary

After Pilate has sentenced Jesus to death, he hands him over to the soldiers for crucifixion. In Mel Gibson's movie, The Passion of the Christ, the abuse Jesus endures is depicted as something beyond imagination, more than anyone could endure. When I saw that movie I wondered if Gibson believed that Jesus' suffering had to be beyond comparison so that it would be sufficient to atone for our sins. But that's certainly not what I see in today's reading from Mark. Rather I see a group of soldiers who decide to have a bit of fun with someone arrested as a threat to national security. And the antics they use are not so different from those used by the soldiers holding terror suspects at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

When I view this scene, I do not see Jesus enduring superhuman suffering. Rather I see him entering into the all too typical unhumaninty and cruely that humans inflict on one another. Nazi death camps, the killing fields of Southeast Asia, genocide in Serbia, Darfur, Rwanda, and countless other places; the list goes on and on. And though we Americans like to think of ourselves as above such things, Abu Ghraib and our willingness to use torture show how easy it is to justify the very sort of behavior we recoil from when we see Jesus suffer it.

When humans are afraid, they will resort to all sorts of uncivil behaviors. Our fears often evolve into anger and venom. Surely Jesus felt fear as he faced his own torture and death. After all he begged God to "remove this cup from me." But faced with the sort of cruelty and inhumanity that powers so typically use to maintain that power, he never lashed back. Somehow he was able to trust that God was still in control and would vindicate him in the end.

It is admittledly very difficult to employ Jesus' method at the level of national security. Even if I can "turn the other cheek" towards violence done to me, how am I to respond to the innocent suffering of others that I might be able to prevent? Still, we seem to find it all too easy to dismiss Jesus' call to non-violence. In America especially, we embrace guns and "the right to protect ourselves" with scarcely a thought as to how strange that sounds coming from someone who claims to be a follower of Jesus.

I suppose that people will continue to encounter cruelty, torture, and horrible deaths until God's reign fully comes. But for the life of me I can't understand why a great many Christians can so casually embrace and endorse such behavior as long as it is aimed at "the enemy." The enemy; you remember them, the ones Jesus told us to love.

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Musings on the Daily Lectionary

In today's reading from Mark, Jesus is on trial before Pilate, the Roman governor of Judea. Pilate is willing to let Jesus go, but the priests stir up the crowd to ask for Barabbas instead. Now this passage has too often been used to "blame" the Jews for Jesus' death. But the fact that the people get what they want, freeing Barabbas rather than Jesus, doesn't strike me as a particularly Jewish issue. Rather, I think this a universal human problem. All too often, what we want turns out to be a poor guide for what is right, best, etc.

We Americans are especially partial to "the will of the people" being a good thing. And I agree that the American system of government is a stroke of true genius. (I should add that I believe the founding fathers were extremely wise in going with a democratic republic rather than a true democracy.) But the checks and balances that are a part of our government are there in large part because our founders realized that what people want is not always the best way to go. In fact, they had a lot less faith in the people that we tend to, as witnessed by the fact that our constitution did not originally allow for the direct election of US Senators. And they did not expect those in Congress simply to parrot the desires of their constituents. They hoped they would do what was best and right.

So how are we to know what it right and best? If we accept the notion that what we want may not be the most helpful guide, where do we turn? My tradition has always insisted that the Bible is our best help here. Is the course of action we desire consistent with the message of the Bible? And no proof-texting allowed. I'm talking about the overall message of the Bible.

But being led by Scripture is no small task. We are all prone to notice those parts that agree with us and conveniently ignore the parts that don't. This means that we would all do well to listen to the interpretation of the larger Christian community, not just folks who think just like us.

Whew! Being faithful ends up being a lot of work.

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Musings on the Daily Lectionary

Today's reading from the book of James so troubled Martin Luther that he argued against James being in the Bible. (The Reformation included a debate about what books were legitimately a part of the Bible and what had slipped in inappropriately. A quick comparison of a Catholic Bible and one in Presbyterian church will reveal the outcome of this debate.) Martin Luther, who championed the notion of "salvation by grace through faith" and not by works, didn't like the way James highlighted works.



The tension between faith and works may be one of the more difficult to keep in balance for a lot of Christians. Is being a Christian primarily about what you believe or about what you do? Luther worried that a focus on works made people think they had earned or merited salvation, undermining his and most of Protestantism's understanding of God's love freely given in Jesus. But Christians have often done horrible damage to the reputation of the faith by their failure to live in ways even remotely resembling what Jesus taught. The stereotyped depiction of Christians as hypocrites arises directly from this.



Not surprisingly, I've always loved my tradition's attempt to deal with this tension. For Calvin, the Christian life grows out of a profound sense of gratitude. The more one realizes the stunningly abundant grace and love so freely given, the more one wants to say "Thank you," with his or her life.



There's a scene at the end of the movie Saving Private Ryan that captures this perfectly. The former Private Ryan, now a grandfather, walks with his family through one of the many military cemeteries that dot France. Among the neat rows and rows of white crosses and stars of David, Ryan finds the grave of the captain who died saving his life, and he falls down beside it weeping. When his wife seeks to comfort him he says to her, "Tell me I've lived a good life. Tell me I've live a good life." He knew that his "Thank you" could never fully repay the debt of gratitude he owed.



If we experiened "salvation" as profoundly as Private Ryan had experienced his, perhaps we would be as motivated as he had been to "live a good life."



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Musings on the Daily Lectionary

I read Simon Critchley's op-ed piece, "Coin of Praise" in yesterday's NY Times just before I read today's lectionary texts. http://happydays.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/30/in-cash-we-trust/ Here is a part of it. "To push this a little further, we might say that in the seemingly godless world of global finance capitalism, money is the only thing in which we really must have faith. Money is the one, true God in which we all believe. It is this faith that we celebrate in our desire for commodities, in the kind of fetishistic control that they seem to have over us. It’s not so much that we revere the things that money can buy. Rather, we venerate the money that enables us to buy those things. In the alluring display of shiny brands that cover the marketplace, it is not so much branded objects that we desire, but rather those objects insofar as they incarnate a quantifiable sum of money."

I found this rather thought provoking, especially in light of today's reading from James. "For if a person with gold rings and in fine clothes comes into your assembly, and if a poor person in dirty clothes also comes in, and if you take notice of the one wearing the fine clothes and say, 'Have a seat here, please,' while to the one who is poor you say, 'Stand there,' or, 'Sit at my feet,' have you not made distinctions among yourselves, and become judges with evil thoughts?" James, along with Jesus, takes a fairly dim view of earthly riches and the efforts to acquire it. In one place Jesus goes so far as to say, "But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation." A "woe" is the opposite of a blessing, in essence, a curse.

Noted Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann has said that we chase so hard after money because we have bought into what he calls "the myth of scarcity" rather than trusting in generous provisions of a loving God. And while I would agree with those who say that some sort of capitalism is superior to any other economic system yet devised, it is not without significant problems and dangers. Whether it be the sort of blind faith in "the market" that allowed regulators, bankers, and financiers to drive the world's economy off the cliff, the tendency to value people based on how much money they have, or the idolatry of self that claims I am responsible for all that I have, unfettered capitalism is fraught with potential to corrupt both the individual and society.

I have watched with interest as the recent political debate has found a new boogieman, "socialism." Presumably we should all run screaming in horror from any notion of socialism because it is some innate form of evil. But of course Social Security and Medicare are "socialist" styled programs. And a quick read of Acts' description of the early Church will find a group that would conform to many definitions of socialism.

It seems to me that in tough economic times our anxieties and fears grow. In such a climate, the "myth of scarcity" becomes all the more attractive, and we are driven to protect what is ours. But perhaps such tough times could also be a call for us to examine ourselves and see where our true faith lies; in money, in ourselves, or in the gracious promises of abundant life freely giving by God.

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Musings on the Daily Lectionary

Two Sundays in a row absent worship at Boulevard Presbyterian seems quite odd. But I've made good use of this week, getting a significant amount of a Bible study on Revelation written. I mention this because one of today's psalms reminded me of Revelation's depiction of the heavenly throne room. There was lots of worship filled with lots of singing. Psalm 66 has a similar feel. "Make a joyful noise to God, all the earth; sing the glory of his name; give to him glorious praise. Say to God, 'How awesome are your deeds! Because of your great power, your enemies cringe before you.' "

It's amazing how much singing of this sort is in Revelation. I suppose I've rarely noticed because, like many mainline Christians, I have a tendency to ignore the last book of the Bible, which unfortunately leaves this book in the hands of irresponsible and even dangerous interpreters. But Revelation isn't really a book of predictions. It is a call for Christians facing persecution and even death to continue embracing Psalm 66 despite all that. John of Patmos insists that his readers not accommodate their faith to Roman culture, but to trust that God is indeed the Lord of all the earth. Despite their fears, they should live and worship in ways that proclaim the God worshiped in Psalm 66.

I'm not sure that much of the worship I lead really appreciates this, but Revelation and probably Psalm 66 see worship as more "real" that the "real world" outside of worship. The heavenly worship depicted in Revelation is totally focused on God and the Lamb. And this is precisely the world we pray for when we ask for God's kingdom to come and will to be done on earth as it is already done in heaven. In other words, worship that is totally focused on God enacts what it will be like when the kingdom comes, enacts the fulfillment of human history.

And so perhaps the biggest question when it comes to how best to do worship is: How do we become so radically centered on God that we cannot help but offer thanks and praise and song? So how do we do that?

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Musings on the Daily Lectionary

In today's gospel, Jesus' arrest is drawing near and the tells his followers, "You will all become deserters; for it is written, 'I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered.' " But Peter insists otherwise. "Even though all become deserters, I will not." And even Jesus' prediction that Peter will deny him three times cannot shake Peter's insistence, nor that of the other disciples. " 'Even though I must die with you, I will not deny you.' And all of them said the same."

Peter's arrogance has always struck me as a bit laughable. And yet I often engage in an arrogance of my own. I find it all too easy to see the shortcomings in others' faith lives while minimizing my own. I don't know if this is a particular problem for pastors or if it's just me. But to paraphrase Jesus' criticism of the Pharisees, it's easy to see the speck in another person's eye while missing the log in my own.

Does my ability to overlook my own faults rise to the level exhibited by Peter in today's reading? I'd like to think not. But it certainly is nice to know that even Peter's threefold denial of Jesus did not cost him his disciple's credentials. The risen Jesus still embraced him. I'm counting on that.

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Musings on the Daily Lectionary

Today's gospel contains Mark's account of "the Last Supper." This community meal became the centerpiece of Christian gatherings in the 1st century Church. I certainly had no appreciation for this fact growing us. I rarely saw what my tradition called "communion." We had communion four times a year. As a small child, it was both exotic and mysterious to me. The mysterious nature was compounded by the fact that I wasn't allowed to actually partipate in communion until I was middle school age.

Most Presbyterian churches celebrate the Lord's Supper more frequently nowadays, but I think we still struggle to recover any real sense of a community meal. Much of American, Protestant worship is highly personal and individualized. We gather with other people, but often we're still very much alone. It's similar to attending a movie or concert. Others are there, but we're not really there with them. Perhaps I'm overstating the situation a bit, but I think the analogy is appropriate.

In my childhood experience, church covered-dish suppers and picnics probably came a lot closer to the feel of 1st century Lord's Suppers than anything I experienced in worship. And I'm left to wonder why the congregations I've known find it easier to experience community outside of worship rather than in it.

When Jesus was about to leave his followers, he did not hold a class or preach a sermon. He gathered them together for a Passover meal, and this meal that celebrated God's salvation in the Exodus was reinterpreted to celebrate the new saving act of God in Christ. And I continue to wonder how we might better reclaim the community nature of friends and family gathered at table that is so integral to this celebration.

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Musings on the Daily Lectionary

In today's gospel reading, a tension that still exists in the church is on display. When a woman pours a jar of incredibly expensive ointment on Jesus (it was worth nearly a year's pay), some folks grumble about the extravagance, complaining that the money could have been better used to help the poor. I've heard similar arguments in congregations when some want to build a beautiful sanctuary and others say that the money would be better used to do ministry for those in need.

Jesus' response has troubled many over the years. "For you always have the poor with you, and you can show kindness to them whenever you wish; but you will not always have me." But there is no callousness toward the poor here, and I'm not sure if there's much general guidance contained in these words. Jesus' death on the cross is drawing near, and, as he says, this sort of opportunity for extravagance will soon cease to exist.

And so we are left with this tension between caring for others and displays made to honor God. Or perhaps not. One of the things I've discovered in my time as a pastor is that generous people tend to be generous on both sides of this tension. The same folks who give extravagantly to renovate the sanctuary often give sacrificially to fund mission.

Now I am aware of people who want to build sanctuaries as monuments to themselves. Perhaps this provides a key for dealing with this tension. Presumably the woman in the gospel reading engages in her extravagant act without ulterior motives. It is simply an act of love on her part. As Christians, we are called to love God and love neighbor. Perhaps if our extravagances can always be rooted in this love, we can live faithfully in the midst this tension.

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Musings on the Daily Lectionary

I was struck by the opening line of today's Old Testament reading before I ever got to the particulars of the situation. "Again the anger of the LORD was kindled against Israel..." I admit that I find such lines in Scripture troubling, as well as difficult to reconcile with my own image of a loving God. Although I am convinced that all our pictures of God are partial and incomplete, it can still be difficult to hold together some of the seemingly contradictory pictures of God found in the Bible.

On the one hand, these varied pictures of God do serve to overturn the God I create in my own image. They force me to see a God who is bigger than any image of mine, and who is beyond my ability to fully comprehend. And yet...

I suppose my struggle with this raises the issue of how one approaches, receives, and interprets Scripture. I've never thought of Scripture as being dictated by God, by I do firmly believe that it is inspired, that it reveals God to us in ways we could never discover on our own. But what exactly does it mean for something to be divinely inspired? How much of the writers' biases and preconceptions about God's nature mix in with this revelation?

Do the opening words of today's reading speak of a God who gets mad, who in anger lashes out at humans? Are an ancient writer's notions of God coloring these reports of what happens when people live contrary to God's desires? Difficult questions, but are they rendered moot in a day when fewer and fewer people view Scripture as authoritative? And is my own discomfort with "Again the anger of the LORD was kindled against Israel..." indicative of my own inability to accept scritpural authority over the idol of personal feelings?

Whew! Lots of questions without easy answers. No wonder some go the route of fundamentalism and others the route of "spiritual but not religious." But I guess I'll keep muddling along somewhere in between.

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We're all Hindus?

This fascinating little piece from Newsweek points out that many beliefs of American Christians aren't Christian at all, at least not the biblical Christianity of our ancestors. Even evangelical Christians stray fairly far from traditionally held, biblical views. Reincarnation anyone?

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Sunday Sermon - "All God's Children: It Comes via Strangers"

Sunday Sermon - "All God's Children: It Comes via Strangers"

When Jesus sends out 70 of his followers, they are told to cure the sick in those towns that welcome them. It seems that encountering the good news of God's coming rule requires loving the stranger.

Sermon for August 16.mp3

Musings on the Daily Lectionary

The exchange between Jesus and a blind beggar in today's gospel reading has always struck me as a bit odd. The man hears that Jesus is passing by and he repeatedly screams out, "Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!" despite the attempts of some to shut him up. When Jesus calls him over he runs to Jesus and this conversation occurs. " 'What do you want me to do for you?' The blind man said to him, 'My teacher, let me see again.' Jesus said to him, 'Go; your faith has made you well.' Immediately he regained his sight and followed him on the way."

A blind man begging for mercy, and Jesus has to ask him what he wants? But as soon as the blind man states the obvious, Jesus says, "Go; your faith has made you well." (The word here translated "made well" is often translated "save.") So just what was the content of this man's faith, that he hoped Jesus might be able to help him? That he was bold enough to state the thing he so desperately wanted?

Christians (and members of other religions) sometimes refer to ourselves as "people of faith," but just what we mean by faith isn't always clear. Is is believing the correct things? Is it trusting in God? Is it hoping when hope is difficult? Is it taking a chance on God? Is it turning to God when all else has failed?

Today's gospel reading doesn't offer a precise answer. But it does say that this faith makes us well, makes us whole, saves us, and when we experience this, we follow Jesus on the way.

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Musings on the Daily Lectionary

Today's reading from Acts reports the arrest of Paul, which sets in motion events that will eventually take him to Rome and, presumably, to his execution. His arrest happens following a mob scene at the Temple after some Jews accuse Paul of defiling the Temple. It isn't clear just who these Asian Jews are, but it is entirely possible that some of them are Christian Jews. Read the letters written by Paul and you will get an idea how strained his relations were with some Jewish Christians who insisted that all converts be circumcised, adopt Jewish dietary restrictions, and so on.

The fact that the accusations against Paul are made up of lies, half-truths, and misunderstandings makes no difference. The crowd is whipped into such a frenzy that soldiers arrest Paul, and when the tribune attempts to make sense of the situation, "Some in the crowd shouted one thing, some another; and as he could not learn the facts because of the uproar, he ordered him to be brought into the barracks." Sound familiar?

Given what trouble mobs cause in Bible - Paul has been beaten before by enraged mobs, and, of course, a mob helps get Jesus crucified - you would think that Christians would be extremely wary of them. Yet we've participated in quite a few over the years. Whether it's witch trials or pogroms against European Jews, Christian mobs have had the same sort of disastrous results as those in the Bible. And yet I see all sorts of people who clearly consider themselves Christians engaging in what looks a lot like mob mentality at "town halls" to discuss health care reform.

While I'm quite certain that Christians of deep faith can hold many different views on health care that are in keeping with that faith, when Christians start acting like mobs, they are not following the ways of Christ, but the win-at-all-costs ways of the world. Mobs and love are pretty much incompatible, and above all, Christians are called to love God and to love our neighbors, even the ones we think are enemies.

Have Americans become so partisan, so selfish and narcissistic, as to make both democracy and Christian discipleship hard to envision? Lord, save us from ourselves!

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Musings on the Daily Lectionary

The several versions of today's gospel reading have led people to speak of "the rich young ruler" even though no such person appears in the gospels. In Mark (our reading for today) he is simply "a man." In Matthew he is "the young man," and in Luke he is "a certain ruler."

This story is a difficult one for many of us, for most of us are certainly rich by the standards of Jesus' day. That's probably why people often disparage this fellow who came to Jesus asking what he should do to inherit eternal life. They presume he must have been unusually greedy, or they think his answer to Jesus about keeping the Law since his youth to be arrogant. But in fact, the Apostle Paul describes his own keeping of the Law the same way. In Jewish thinking of the time, to have "kept all these since my youth" does not claim perfection. It means that a person has diligently tried to keep the Law and has asked for forgiveness when he faltered. And the story says nothing about the man being greedy.

And if there is any question as to how to view this fellow, Mark's gospel states, "Jesus, looking at him, loved him." Jesus' command, "Go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me," is not a way of catching some religious hypocrite. It is the one thing this man lacks and that Jesus wishes for him.

Just as many of us do today, people in Jesus' time assumed that riches were a sign of God's blessings. But here Jesus speaks of them as a curse, a curse that I and many others pursue nonetheless. I check my stock portfolio online most days, happy when it goes up in value and grumbling when it goes down. Obviously I have a hard time accepting what Jesus says. "Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God."

If Jesus ever said to me, "Go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me," would I be able to do it? I wonder if I'm poor enough to say "Yes."

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Musings on the Daily Lectionary

These words of Jesus are familiar to many. "Let the little children come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs. " What these words mean is another issue. What is it about little children that make them especially suited to the kingdom of God?

Some of the more popular answers are probably off the mark. Notions of children as sweet, cute, and innocent are relatively modern ideas, not shared by Jesus' original listeners. If modern, romantic notions of childhood are put aside, what is Jesus saying?

As hard as it may be for us to imagine in our child focused culture, children in Jesus' day had no status. They were virtual non-entities with no say or control over their lives. In essence, they were property that belonged to their fathers. And it's likely that Jesus is not using the image of a child in a positive sense. In fact, had Jesus first come to earth today, he would likely have used a different example, perhaps a homeless person.

None of this is all that appealing to me. I want power, at least over my own life. I want to be in control. Yet Jesus says the kingdom belongs to people without power or control. I don't know. I want God's help in my life, but I still want to be in charge.

I wonder what it would look like for me to become more "child like" in the sense Jesus is saying.

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Sunday Sermon - "All God's Children: Invisible Jesus"

Musings on the Daily Lectionary

Today's gospel reading can't be many people's favorite. Jesus says, "If any of you put a stumbling block before one of these little ones who believe in me, it would be better for you if a great millstone were hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea. If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life maimed than to have two hands and to go to hell, to the unquenchable fire."

It helps a little bit to realize how important hyperbole was in Hebrew and Middle Eastern thought and speech. Our culture is much more literal, and we tend not to be as adept at handling metaphor and imagery. Jesus doesn't expect anyone to cut off her hand. Rather, Jesus is talking about prioritizing, about a kind of single-mindedness when it comes to the life of discipleship.

Jesus presumes that there are things in life that get in the way, that distract us from living as we should. This is hardly an earth shattering notion, as anyone trying to lose weight or undertake a workout regimen can attest. The ice cream in the freezer calls and the blankets implore you to stay in bed a little longer rather than getting up for that run. Health and fitness require pushing those distractions aside.

Jesus speaks to two different sorts of distractions or stumbling blocks. (The Greek word for "stumble" is the root of our word "scandalize.") The first is when we trip up someone else, especially "little ones" which is used in the New Testament to refer to people who are new to the faith. Think of all the people who have been "turned off" to Church because of the actions of people in the Church. From general hypocrisy to unfriendliness to strangers, to overbearing moralism, there are a plethora of things that have tripped up little ones along the way. Strange that most folks I've talked to are more offended by the second sort of distraction Jesus talks about.

Perhaps the sound of cutting off one's hand just jars us. Maybe because we're so individualistic in our culture, this second sort of distraction is simply more up our alley. Or maybe it's that we have come to believe that the good life mean having it all, and we're troubled by this notion that we might need to give something up to be a part of what Jesus is up to.

In recent days I've watched news reports about the failure of a local school levy, and the fighting about health care reform. And in much that I've heard, I think I detect an inability by many folks to think communally, about the good of the other. And I've also heard people who obviously want the Medicare that they enjoy, want the goods and services that the government provides them, but rage against health care or other services they don't use. They seem unable to see beyond "how does this affect me?" and they seem completely unwilling to give up anything.

Maybe the reason Jesus' words bother us so has nothing to do with the offensive notion of self mutilation. Maybe we just don't like him telling us that the call to live by the ways of God's coming reign might mean some things we like or want might have to be pared.

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Sunday Sermon - "All God's Children: Invisible Jesus"

After the disciples argue about influence, about who's most important, Jesus plops a child down in their midst. Children in that day were regarded as non-entities, unimportant and invisible. And Jesus says that welcoming the unimportant and invisible is how we welcome him, and so welcome God.

Sermon for August 9.mp3

Musings on the Daily Lectionary

O sing to the LORD a new song;
Sing to the LORD, all the earth. (Psalm 96:1)

What's wrong with old songs? Why do we have to sing a new one? I vaguely recall watching a movie on the life of Peter Marshall on our TV when I was a child. At the time I didn't know that he was a famous preacher, and I don't remember very much about the movie. But I do recall a scene where he was struggling at some outdoor event early in his career, and the situation was salvaged when someone fired up the crowd by getting them to sing "Gimme that Old Time Religion." It wasn't a song I knew, but it had lines that went, "It was good enough for Hebrew children; it was good enough... And it's good enough for me."

We recently did a "hymn survey" in my congregation so we would have a good list of favorites to use for a "hymn sing" Sunday worship service. A few favorites were relatively new songs, but most were oldie goldies. I don't know, but I suspect that for many these favorites come from folk's childhood and youth, songs that were part of their Christian formation. Music is a very emotional part of life, and many of us have music both religious and secular that can immediately transport us to another time and place, that can conjure up all sorts of memories.

So what's wrong with old songs? Nothing. We need to sing old songs. We need connection to the traditions that have sustained faith over the years and centuries. But as the psalmist knows, we need new songs, too. A God who is "making all things new" can never be fully expressed using only the old and traditional. Our faith is aimed toward a "new heaven and a new earth," and it cannot be fully contained in what was "good enough" for some previous time.

A vital, lively faith must cast its vision in two directions, toward both the past and the future. Traditions from the past form a foundation for us so that we can continue to move toward God's future. And as we catch glimpses of that new day, we will need to "sing to the LORD a new song."

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Musings on the Daily Lectionary

"The country's going to pot." No doubt you've heard such sentiments expressed. Perhaps you've even felt that way yourself at times. I know I have. But apparently things have been going south for a long time. Consider the opening of Psalm 12.

Help, O LORD, for there is no longer anyone who is godly; the faithful have disappeared from humankind. They utter lies to each other; with flattering lips and a double heart they speak.

Clearly there are times in any people's history when things are going relatively well, and there are times when they are less so. There are times when a people display what Abraham Lincoln called "the better angels of our nature," and there are times when we display our worst, when we are petty, greedy, self absorbed, and apparently devoid of ethics and morality.

But even if we have reason think our time is a bad one, that does not mean all is lost. I have often been struck by how people of faith can be some of the most pessimistic folks. They can be sure that doom and gloom are just around the corner because of our failings. It's as though they believe that we have the ultimate say.

The psalmist knows better. Despite the pessimistic assessment of a world where "the faithful have disappeared," the psalmist still trusts the God "will rise up," that "the promises of the LORD are promises that are pure."

My own Reformed Tradition has always emphasized the sovereignty of God, but we often seem to forget about it. But when we remember that this is God's world, and God is sovereign over time and history, we can trust that despite very real troubles, God's purposes will be worked out.

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Sunday Sermon - "All God's Children: Acting Neighborly"

Musings on the Daily Lectionary

The opening words of today's psalm are hardly startling.

For God alone my soul waits in silence;
from him comes my salvation.
He alone is my rock and my salvation,
my fortress; I shall never be shaken.

The idea of God as absolute sovereign, as the one in whom our hopes ultimately rest, is basic to Christianity as well as Judaism and Islam. And what person of faith would argue with it? God is our rock, a mighty fortress.

But in practice most of us don't want to leave all that much up to God. We may entrust God with our salvation when that term is defined very narrowly to mean what happens to us after we die. But when it comes to most everything else in life, our theology often runs more along the lines of "God helps those who help themselves." A lot of people think that quote is from the Bible. It isn't. And while I think the Bible expects us to do our part, I think that this theology really expects very little of God and trusts mostly in ourselves.

I know that I have trouble really trusting God. I struggle with how to integrate God into my daily life. Like a lot of folks, I find it easy to let God be a God of the gaps, filling in those places where I don't have answers or need a little help. But really trusting in God to set things right, to bring salvation, not some "pie in the sky by and by" type salvation, but the biblical sort that is real, earthy, and tangible? I have more trouble with that.

I think this highlights one of the difficulties for mainline Christians in an era when the culture has stopped supporting us. One of the reasons most traditional Christian denominations are loosing members is because, for many folks, what we're selling seems so disconnected from day to day living.

What does is it mean to wait for God, to trust in God alone for salvation, when salvation means more than life after death?

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Sunday Sermon - "All God's Children: Acting Neighborly"

The parable of The Good Samaritan is Jesus' answer to, "And who is my neighbor?" To a questioner looking for the limits and boundaries of who he must love, Jesus tells a story of a hated outsider who loves abundantly. And then Jesus says, "Go and do likewise."

Sermon for August 2.mp3

Musings on the Daily Lectionary

Coming from North Carolina and growing up a Presbyterian there, I am very familiar with a beautiful place in the mountains known as Montreat. There is a Presbyterian college there, but I and many others know it primarily as a mountain retreat center - hence the name. This time of year there are youth conferences going on there, and I saw on facebook that this week's conference had 1089 youth in attendance. Youth groups come from all over the country to the six weeks of conferences, and it is an incredible experience.

Considering that it is a youth conference, open only to high school ages, any participant 's tenure is fairly brief. Certainly people who came as youth come back as counselors and such, but there is a steady stream of new youth attending for the first time each year. And so you might think that there would be no way for any traditions to become entrenched the way that sometimes happens in local congregations, but you would be wrong.

I was at the conference some years ago when there was a great deal of upset over the expulsion of the song "Star Trekking" from the morning "energizers." It seems the powers that be had decided that one of the verses, "We come in peace; shoot to kill," was inappropriate. Many youth were outraged, and in a compromise, conference leaders allowed the song to be done at an outdoor event later in the week.

Traditions are sometimes thought of as the purview of old fogies, but traditions and rituals are effective ways of binding people together. There is a reason that fraternities, sports teams, sororities, and clubs have joining rituals.

I think it is important to remember how powerful rituals are we we hear Jesus speaking to the Pharisees in today's gospel. Many of the rituals used by these Pharisees helped them maintain their Jewish identity in a world that was not always very accommodating to them. And if you've ever attended a Friday night Shabbat meal in a Jewish home, you may have encountered some of the ritual washing Jesus speaks against. But it may have seemed a wonderful ritual to you.

We all need rituals. The early Christian Church, as it became more and more Gentile and abandoned its old, Jewish rituals, had to replace them with new rituals. Rituals of Baptism and the Lord's Supper were first. The bringing of bread and wine for the Supper eventually evolved into a ritual of offerings in worship. And even the most avant-guard, contemporary mega-church has a slew of rituals in place.

The issue - and I think this is Jesus' real concern - is whether or not our rituals help or hinder our life with God. Rituals that bind us together as community are helpful, except when they also work to exclude people who aren't like us. Rituals that help us maintain a distinct identity can be extremely helpful, as long that identity is Christ-like.

There can be a temptation when trying to renew or revitalize a congregation simply to throw out rituals without considering their purpose. I suppose this is a natural reaction to an opposite tendency to hang on to rituals long after they've outlived their usefulness. But rather than thinking of rituals and traditions as good or bad per se, we might do well to consider how ours contribute to or detract from "building up the body" and helping people to grow in their walk with Jesus.

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Musings on the Daily Lectionary

Reading the synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke), you get the impression that Jesus' reputation as a healer was what really drew in the crowds. You can see that in today's gospel. When Jesus shows up - fresh from walking on the water - people immediately recognize him. "And wherever he went, into villages or cities or farms, they laid the sick in the market-places, and begged him that they might touch even the fringe of his cloak; and all who touched it were healed."

It's a dramatic picture of folks clamoring just to get near Jesus, wanting nothing more than to touch him in hopes of being healed. Yet though Jesus makes his initial splash with these rather indiscriminate healings, we Christians seem to be know mostly for what we believe. And we fight mostly about what to believe. Some Christians are even sure that some other Christians aren't "saved" because they haven't gotten the formula quite right.

Yet in our gospel reading, folks who do nothing more than touch the fringe of Jesus' cloak are "saved." The term "saved" has taken on all sorts of religious meaning in the Church. But the Greek word that gets translated "saved" is the same word used to speak of those sick folks who touched Jesus and "were healed." In some gospel accounts where Jesus heals people he tells them, "Your faith has healed you," or "has made you well." Although in my copy of Luke Jesus tells a blind man whose sight he has just restored, "Your faith has saved you." But these distinctions are only in the English translation. In the original Greek, it's all the same word.

It seems that Jesus was a lot freer with his healing, with his salvation, that we in the Church sometimes want to be. Don't get me wrong. Jesus does call us to live and act in certain ways, to believe certain things. But he still runs around healing/saving folks at the drop of a hat. What's up with that?

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Musings on the Daily Lectionary

I've always been envious (and also a bit suspicious) of those who seem to have a very clear sense of what God wants them to do, of God's will for them. I say that because I often struggle to understand what God intends for me. Even with help and advice from a Spiritual Director, I often feel quite in the dark.

That makes today's reading in Acts especially interesting to me. In it we see Paul, who seems to have a direct line to God if anyone ever did, have one and perhaps two false starts as he seeks to travel about sharing the good news about Jesus. He is forbidden to go to Asia; exactly how is not said. And when he tries to go to Bithynia, the Spirit of Jesus stops him. Once again we don't hear exactly how this works. Finally, Paul has a vision (a dream perhaps?) of a man calling him to come over the Macedonia.

I am especially intrigued by the account of what follows. "When he had seen the vision, we immediately tried to cross over to Macedonia, being convinced that God had called us to proclaim the good news to them." Now perhaps I'm making something out of nothing here, but after this vision, Paul and his buddies are described as "being convinced that God had called us..." Being convinced doesn't sound like absolute certainty to me. It sounds like they would try to go to Macedonia, but if prevented, they would then conclude that they had misunderstood.

In my own faith life, I would like to have more certainty. A burning bush in the back yard would be nice; perhaps an angel or two coming to the office and laying out a vision for the congregation. But it doesn't seem to work that way. We are required to do our best to understand what God's call is and then act on it, realizing that God may redirect us when we've gotten our instructions mixed up.

For the life of me, I wouldn't do it this way if I was God, but I have to assume that God's methods are better than mine. And based on my reading of today's scripture, it seems that we need to be both bold and humble when it comes to answering God's call. We do need to act, to move, to step out based on what may often be a rather vague set of instructions and directions. Waiting for God to send us Mapquest directions that say, "Go 1 mile south, turn left, talk to the person..." will likely mean waiting a long time, maybe forever. But at the same time, we can't be arrogant when we think we have discerned God's will. We may head out on that journey only to prevented by the Spirit.

I once was told by someone in strategic planning that one of the most difficult steps for some groups is to stop planning and start doing. Maybe that's what's going on in Acts. We have to move forward while the destination is still a bit fuzzy, and trust that God will provide the mid-course corrections along the way.

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Musings on the Daily Lectionary

There's an old saying that "there are no atheists in foxholes." I doubt that is completely true, but being in dire circumstances certainly does cause many to turn toward God. I think this is because dire circumstances can have a way of forcing us to acknowledge what limited creatures we actually are.

My own theological tradition has long held that we humans are prone to think more highly of ourselves than we ought. And the American ethos sometimes seems to encourage this. We celebrate the self-made man or woman and rugged individualism. We encourage the idea that everyone should pull themselves up by their own bootstraps. But in a foxhole, facing cancer, at the tragic death of a loved one, and in countless other situations, we come face to face with the truth that much is out of our control, that we are not nearly so powerful or substantial as we had thought.

The Psalms are filled with the prayers of those who realized that they cannot make it without help. Psalm 57 begins, "Be merciful to me, O God, be merciful to me, for in you my soul takes refuge; in the shadow of your wings I will take refuge, until the destroying storms pass by." Such psalms are not only cries of desperation, but they are theological statements insisting that we are dependent on God.

Anne Lamott has said that her two primary prayers are "Help me, help me, help me," and "Thank you, thank you, thank you." Her prayers seem to echo this notion of dependence on God, perhaps the "Thank you" even more so. It can be easy, once the storm is over, to reconstruct the illusion of self-sufficiency and control, and forget the "Thank you."

I wonder if women aren't better at both these prayers than men. The male ego can be a real barrier to faith. The old joke about men not stopping for directions has some truth to it. We don't like to admit we need help, which makes it hard to say, "Thanks."

"Help me, help me, help me. Thank you, thank you, thank you." I think I'm going to borrow Anne Lamott's prayers and make them my own.

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Random Thoughts on a Non-preaching Sunday

I don't know why it struck me today, but with my mind freer to wander than usual for a Sunday morning, I found myself thinking about summer and worship attendance. I assume that most anyone who attends worship regularly has noticed that attendance drops off in the summer. There are some obvious reasons, of course. More people take vacations in the summer. Some folks take extended vacations, and so the pool of members and others who attend any congregation is diminished.

I don't have any hard data to back me up on this, but I am of the opinion that vacations, summer camps, and the like do not account for the total decline of those in worship. There is another factor, folks who "take summer off" from worship. In a pattern that somewhat mirrors schools, they take a summer vacation from church.

Now I'm not wanting to impugn these folks in any way. My interest in noting such vacations from church is not to chastise or cajole anyone. Rather I am wondering what it is about the way we do church, the way we conduct worship or education, or the way we envision ourselves that creates a church from which some folks need a break.

I written before that I don't think it's possible to have church without institutions. Practicing faith with no sort of structures usually ends up being terribly vacuous. But at the same time, religious institutions can become impersonal, and worse, they can lose focus on relationship with God and be more about the institution itself. And if doing church becomes mostly about institutional loyalty, maybe it should be no surprise that folks need a break now and then.

"My soul longs, indeed it faints for the courts of the LORD; my heart and my flesh sing for joy to the living God." Psalm 84 seems to speak of something other than institutional loyalty. And I wonder what practices of faith and worship might enliven our congregations so that when folks get back in town from a vacation or trip, they couldn't wait to get back to worship.

Musings on the Daily Lectionary

Your righteousness is like the mighty mountains,
your judgments are like the great deep;
you save humans and animals alike, O LORD.

For some reason, these lines from Psalm 36 caught my eye this morning, specifically the part about Yahweh saving "humans and animals alike." This isn't the only place where the Bible speaks of God's concern for the earth's creatures. According to Jesus, not a single sparrow falls to the ground "apart from your Father." And in what it my personal favorite, the book of Jonah ends with God rebuking Jonah and arguing for animals. In the very last verse of the book God says, "And should I not be concerned about Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also many animals?"

"...And also many animals?" What an odd way to end. Or maybe it only seems odd because people of faith tend to focus on souls and heaven to the point that we've forgotten about God's love for creation, for bodies and such. The Apostle Paul speaks of creation itself awaiting its redemption. And obviously God thought creation was a good thing when God created it.

I've been reading a wonderful book by Barbara Brown Taylor entitled An Altar in the World: A Geography of Faith. It has some interesting chapter titles such as "The Practice of Wearing Skin - Incarnation" and "The Practice of Walking the Earth - Groundedness." In these and other chapters she notes how often we miss the sacred, miss God, because we are so unaccustomed to looking for God in the created, messiness of earthly, fleshy life.

"You save humans and animals alike, O LORD." If this is true, as the psalmist insists, then surely God is present and at work in the garden, in the backyard, in the day to day living of our lives. Surely God is more present than we often realize because we forget that God is not contained in the "houses" we build for that purpose.

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Musings on the Daily Lectionary

I've always been fascinated by the image of Jesus asleep on a cushion in the stern of a boat as a storm threatens to swamp it. (Mark's version of this event is the gospel reading for today.) I visited the Sea of Galilea once as part of a seminary trip. They had recently discovered a fishing boat from Roman times buried in the mud of the lake and were in the process of restoring it. It wasn't very big, and it's somewhat difficult to imagine anyone being able to sleep in it as a gale raged. When I was young I could sleep through phone calls and thunderstorms, but sleeping while waves crashed over the sides of the boat? That's mind boggling.

Yet Jesus seems surprised, perhaps even irritated, that the disciples awoke him. He acts as if his sleeping through the storm was no big deal. What were they worried about anyhow?

I don't need a storm to get the worry motor revving. I can get worked up and cry out for help over all sorts of things that might happen. Will the church be able to meet its budget? Will our congregation figure out how to reach out to the different sort of residents who are moving into this area? Why haven't we been able to find a new music director? The list goes on and on. And Jesus is asleep on the cushion, or so it seems much of the time.

My denomination, the Presbyterian Church (USA), has just released its latest membership statistics, and they are depressing. Our numbers are dwindling at an alarming rate. And there is much worrying and hand wringing over the future of the Church. "Wake up, Jesus! Don't you care that we are perishing?"

I don't think that God's plans require that any particular congregation or denomination do well or even survive. But surely God has things under control. If not, God wouldn't be God. And so Jesus' words from that boat come to us. "Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?" And I take that to mean that Jesus wants us to stop worrying, trust in God, and concentrate on living faithful lives. God will take care of the rest.

I'm trying to take that to heart.

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Musings on the Daily Lectionary

As a pastor I've had conversations with people whom seem to think that being a believer should somehow insulate them from the troubles of the world. And when things go badly, they feel God has abandoned them or that they've done something wrong so that God doesn't help them. Such feelings are natural, I suppose. I've certainly had my share of times when I thought God needed to step or I might throw up my hands and walk away.

But even a cursory reading of the Bible will reveal numerous instances of the righteous suffering, of people of deep faith being persecuted or dealing with terrible troubles. It's hard to come away from Scripture convinced that faith will protect one from all misfortune. And yet the same reading of the Bible will also reveal some pretty animated "discussions" with God about suffering and injustice. The psalms, especially, are filled with voices calling on God to act, at times demanding that God act. These voices insist that God's reputation is at stake, that a failure to do something will injure God.

There seems to be a more dynamic relationship at work here than I sometimes witness among we church members. There is often a formality and deference in our approach to God that makes it nearly impossible for us to shake our fist at God or demand that God do something.

Today's morning psalm, Ps. 123, is not as bold as some, but it nonetheless demands that God respond.
To you I lift up my eyes, O you who are enthroned in the heavens!
As the eyes of servants look to the hand of their master,
as the eyes of a maid to the hand of her mistress,
so our eyes look to the LORD our God, until he has mercy upon us.
Have mercy upon us, O LORD, have mercy upon us,
for we have had more than enough of contempt.
Our soul has had more than its fill of the scorn of those who are at ease,
of the contempt of the proud.

I would never suggest that if we enter into the correct sort of prayer pose, all our wishes will be granted. But I wonder about our difficulty is coming before God like the psalmist, saying that we will gaze toward God with pleading eyes until God does justice and mercy. Maybe that's what Jesus was talking about when he said, "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness."

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Sunday Sermon: "All God's Children: Problem Sons and Elder Brothers"

Love that embraces the most wayward and irresponsible; such is the love Jesus describes in his Parable of the Prodigal Son and his Brother, Luke 15:11-32. It's a beautiful parable. At least it would be if not for the problems presented by the good, responsible, older brother.

Musings on the Daily Lectionary

In today's reading from Acts, the "rejection" of the gospel by some Jews spurs Paul to carry the good news to the Gentiles, "and as many as had been destined for eternal life became believers." This isn't one of the primary texts for formulating a doctrine of predestination, but it certainly is compatible with such a doctrine. People became believers, not because the figured things out, not because it made sense to them, but because they had been "destined for eternal life."

Personally, I am glad that the Bible doesn't develop this idea at great length, a reticence that might have served my own denomination's theologians well at times. Presbyterians didn't come up with predestination. Calvin borrowed it from Augustine and we share the doctrine with Roman Catholics, Lutherans, and others. But we emphasized it more and became known for it. We've backed away from it some in more recent years. It's still on the books, but we don't talk about it a lot. After all, it seems so... un-American.

We Americans are big on notions of merit, of people getting what they deserve, of people getting ahead on effort and not status. What business does God have destining anyone for good or bad?

Someone once noted that no one would be inclined to embrace a doctrine of predestination without believing she was one of the chosen ones. But be that as it may, I wonder why it is that so many of us are more comfortable leaving things in human hands rather than simply trusting God. Most all Protestants want to talk about God's unmerited grace, about being "saved" as a gift and not by our own merit. So why does the idea of predestination bother us so? (It's important to distinguish between predestination and determinism. Predestination - formally known as the Doctrine of Election - is not about every event in one's life being preset. It is concerned almost exclusively with salvation.)

Part of being human is not knowing everything. Faith seeks understanding, but faith also knows that God is incomprehensible to humans in many ways. "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says Yahweh. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts." (Isaiah 55:8-9) So while I will seek to understand God and live as God calls me to live, I'm pretty comfortable leaving ultimate questions of judgment, of who's in and who's out, up to God. After all, the God we meet in Jesus is not only just, but loving, caring, merciful, and forgiving.

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Sunday Sermon - "All God's Children: Problem Sons and Elder Brothers"

Love that embraces the most wayward and irresponsible; such is the love Jesus describes in his Parable of the Prodigal Son and his Brother, Luke 15:11-32. It's a beautiful parable. At least it would be if not for the problems presented by the good, responsible, older brother.

Sermon for July 19.mp3

Musings on the Daily Lectionary

There is a lot of conflict between Jesus and religious authorities in the gospels. It shows up in today's reading from Mark in the form of a Sabbath controversy. Over the years, Christians have tended to picture these authorities as evil folks in black hats, as cartoon bad guys. But that seems highly unlikely. No doubt they had mixed motives, as do religious leaders in every age. Some of them were concerned with preserving the status and privilege they had. And some worried about religious movements that might get out of control and lead to conflict with the powerful Romans. But along with such concerns, there were genuine religious concerns that God's laws be upheld. The Pharisees, especially, were a reform movement that wanted people to embrace the Law in day to day living, compared to what they saw as overly ritualized Temple Judaism.

My childhood was spent in North and South Carolina, when the Bible belt was a much stronger cultural force than it is today. And if you wanted a lot of folks in the neighborhood to look at you and shake their heads, all you had to do was cut the grass on a Sunday afternoon. Even though Sunday isn't the Sabbath, the culture had built in all sorts of safeguards to assure that the Christian Sabbath was not violated. And if you go back a bit further in the history of this country, you will find Sabbath enforcement that rivaled anything Jesus encountered.

Sometimes in these musings, I find myself sounding like one of those folks that hates organized religion. I'm not. I think that faith without a community that teaches and embodies the practices of the faith is a pretty nebulous and vacuous thing. But as much as I think the institutional Church is an absolute necessity, it, like all things human, has its dark side. The notion that Christians or the Church are somehow immune to the influences that made the religious authorities oppose Jesus, is a dangerous one, for it frees us from examining ourselves to see where we may be opposing God.

Now no genuine Christian would intentionally set out to oppose God, but then again, no genuine Jew of Jesus' day would have either. And Jesus himself notes how easy is can be to miss him in one of his parables. There people both good and bad say, "Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison?"

Lord, don't let my religious certainties cause me to miss you or reject you.

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Musings on the Daily Lectionary

Here are a couple of verses from today's reading in Mark. "When the scribes of the Pharisees saw that he was eating with sinners and tax-collectors, they said to his disciples, 'Why does he eat with tax-collectors and sinners?' When Jesus heard this, he said to them, 'Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.' "

Complaints about the company Jesus kept crop up all the time in the gospels. There is also a phrase I've heard all my life that I suppose is rooted in Jesus' response to his critics. "A Church is a hospital for sinners and not a museum for saints." (supposedly said by Abigail Van Buren) I've heard all sort of people quote some form of this line, but in my experience most congregations seem closer to a doctor's office than a hospital. We'll all admit to being sinners and in need of help, but our sins are like strep throat or a cold, not heart attacks of pancreatic cancers. And we're not real comfortable when people with such serious conditions show up at our church. To stretch this metaphor perhaps to breaking, we're more comfortable dealing in preventitive care than we are in treating life threatening diseases.

It would be interesting to know if people outside the church saw things in a similar light. If they do; if they see the the church as a place that only handles mundane little problems, will they consider coming to us when they have a big problem, a full blown spiritual crisis?

We say we're in the salvation business. Barbara Brown Taylor writes in her latest book of being asked many years ago to speak at a church. When she asked what she was supposed to talk about, the "wise old priest" said to her, "Come tell us what is saving your life now." What is saving your life now? That's an interesting question. Maybe we should ask it to each other in our congregations.

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Musings on the Daily Lectionary

One reason I enjoy writing these "musings" comes from the fact that I don't approach the lectionary readings in the same manner I do when I prepare a sermon or a Bible study. What I do is closer to lectio divina, where you simply read a text and let it draw you where it may. This means that I am sometimes drawn to something in a reading that isn't its central point, that may even have nothing to do with its main point. I wouldn't want to approach scripture this way all the time, but sometimes this method lets the Bible touch me in unexpected and rewarding ways.

When I read today's story in Mark about the paralyzed man whose friends lower him to Jesus through a hole in the roof, I was not drawn to the issue of Jesus first forgiving the man's sins and then healing him as proof of having such authority. And I didn't think about the great faith of this man's friends. Instead, I found myself reflecting on what it was that drew these people to Jesus.

The story does not tell us what these four men carrying a friend know about Jesus. It seems quite possible that they knew nothing of his teachings, perhaps nothing that he had said. But they certainly had heard that he could heal. They had heard that there was something about Jesus that restored people, that made them whole. Here was salvation in the biblical sense. Nothing about going to heaven when you die. This was about life.

And so it seems to me that if the Church is somehow the body of Christ, we should exude life. We should be all about becoming whole, about being restored to full and abundant living. But I know that I sometimes worry so much about getting things right - whether it's doing worship correctly or trying to improve a congregation's programs - that any sense of vibrant life can get obscured.

Surely the picture in the Bible of crowds flocking to Jesus is not a picture of people coming to make sure they have their doctrines straight. Rather they sensed a life giving power and presence that drew them in. Lord, help us as the living body of Christ, to be a life giving presence in the world.

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Communion Meditation, July 12

Sunday's worship focused on singing favorite hymns and songs, and so the sermon was replaced by a very brief communion mediation from 1 Corinthians 11:27-34. In this letter, Paul is upset with his Corinthian congregation because of divisions that have developed there. One is particularly troubling. When they gather in homes for worship, the well to do are arriving early and finishing off all the food and wine before the poorer members can arrive. Paul's insistence that they not eat the Lord's Supper without first "discerning the body" is sometimes thought to mean discerning Christ's presence in the bread and cup. But a quick look at the context shows that "the body" Paul speaks of here is the congregation, the Church.