"We do know that Jesus invites all of us who are worried and distracted by many things to sit and rest in his presence, to hear his words of grace and truth, to know that we are loved and valued as children of God, to be renewed in faith and strengthened for service.
Commentary, Luke 10:38-42, Elisabeth Johnson, Preaching This Week,WorkingPreacher.org, 2013.
"This brief encounter within the gospel narrative purposely disrupts expectations and disturbs our sense of propriety. I hope to hear a sermon that resists the temptation to justify Jesus and allows Jesus the guest to offend my sensibilities."
Commentary, Luke 10:38-42 (Pentecost +8), Marilyn Salmon, Preaching This Week, WorkingPreacher.org, 2010.
Prayer
From Prayers for Sunday and Seasons, Year C, Peter J. Scagnelli, LTP, 1992.
Some Thoughts on Luke 10:38-42
Oremus Online NRSV Gospel Text
Good Samaritan. As familiar with the last story as most Christians are the story of Mary and Martha has cultural ramifications and is very popular in its own way.Martha welcomes Jesus and sets about his comfort. Meanwhile, Mary sits and listens to the word. Overwhelmed by the serving Martha has had enough. She is all tangled up in life and goes to Jesus to seek a better portion. But she finds in the words of Jesus that her cause of anxiety and worry and trouble is of her own making. As Jesus points out there is only need of one thing. So what is the one thing?
Some scribes have made some serious errors. They thought Jesus meant dishes and so replaced one with few. We are all focused on the dishes vs. prayer argument.
Jesus is simply talking about the essential note of hospitality: pay attention.
Others have thought he meant the one thing – Jesus.
The idea that Jesus means to be attentive and that this is the chief concern of hospitality may seem foreign but not when you take it into the context of the last few weeks Gospel lessons. When you are a messenger be attentive to your message (do lift your head from your plow), those to whom you go should be attentive for the kingdom is near, and be attentive to your opportunity to serve even if the person is so very unlike you. In this reading, we see that if we miss being attentive because we have busied ourselves with the practice we will, in the end, miss our opportunity.
Remember, the message of the Gospel of Luke is that Jesus the great prophet is present, he is working miracles, he is bringing in the very real kingdom of God, and he is sending us out. Acts teaches us the Spirit is present with us today. Be ATTENTIVE God is working in our lives and we don’t want to miss it!
Luke Timothy Johnson summarizes this series of episodes on the way to Jerusalem in a wonderful way:
“It is obvious that Luke understands something about human psychology. The pattern of avoidance exhibited by the priest and Levite, the self-justifying bluster of the lawyers, the irritation of the “dutiful daughter” Martha. These are people like us. Less familiar perhaps is what goes beyond psychology into gospel: the compassion that is not simply a feeling but translates itself into the self-giving that takes risks, that disposes of the self and one’s possessions and then allows the other to leave without clinging; the hospitality that receives the other as the other wishes to be received, that listens.”
This Sunday the preacher will have a difficult time staying away from the allegory of Mary and Martha, the worker bee and the contemplative. To engage in that dichotomy may be a false sense of Christian life. In the meditations of a Benedictine at work, we discover work is prayer. In the contemplation of a solitary, we discover prayer is work. Both are true but neither is Godly unless it is attentive to the revelation of Christ.
Let us though ponder a slightly different train of thought. We have come to believe through our overall scripture studies that this particular family is an important part of the Gospel and the mission of the Kingdom of God. We know that Jesus will spend his last days with them and that he is close enough to weep over the loss of their brother Lazarus. So is there more going on here than a debate about work and prayer, and the overarching narrative about hospitality to God?
We do well to remember Jesus' call of a few disciples in this particular Gospel. The author writes: "Then Jesus said to Simon, “Don’t be afraid; from now on you will fish for people.”11 So they pulled their boats up on shore, left everything and followed him." We see this repeated as a frame in the passage today.
Mary is in the position of the disciple, sitting at Jesus' feet and learning. She is already following Jesus. Jesus confronts Martha. Is it possible that the purpose of confronting her is not merely to make a judgment about work and prayer but instead to break the social norms and invite her to be a follower - a disciple? Mary is breaking norms... Martha sees this. Jesus then invites Martha to do the same. Come and drop your work (for that is what she is doing) and follow me - be my disciple. Here like the invitation to the fisherman, Jesus invites individuals to drop their work and take on the work of the kingdom.
There is a bit more here too. As the passage is often paired with the passage of the visitors and Abraham at Mamre, we see that God is present and to be attended. (Genesis 18:1-10a) Abraham is faithful in waiting upon the three visitors - sometimes cast as angels and others as the persons of the Trinity. Either way, part of what is happening is that the social convention of waiting upon God is changed to being in a relationship with God. This then is a radical undermining of social and religious norms.
Some Thoughts on Colossians 1:15-29
This week we read an ancient Christian hymn. The purpose of the hymn is to remind us of who it is that is the Church's Lord.
Jesus Christ is the revelation, the manifestation, and the representation of God. Christ is not a copy but as Ralph Martin says, Christ is the "projection of God on the canvas of our humanity and the embodiment of the divine in the world of men and women." (Colossians,Interpretation, 109)
The hymn is used by Paul to set forth his theology.
Jesus Christ is the image of the invisible God. He is the firstborn of creation. All things were created, everything in heaven and on the earth. Thrones, dominions, principles, authorities, are all under his authority. Creation is his and it exists for him. Christ is the binder of all creation and he is the head of the church. Christ, the resurrected one is the firstborn of the dead who will rise. Jesus Christ is the one who has done (and is the only one who can) do the work of reconciliation.
Not unlike the passage from Luke, Paul is clear that Christ is the revelation of God and that we are to be attentive to this revelation. Moreover, like Paul, we are to reveal this God in our own lives and in our ministry. I am challenged to reflect today...when people are in contact with me and engage in ministry with me...do they see the revelation of God as through Christ? Hmm...
Some Thoughts on Amos 8:1-12
We continue this week with our lesson from Amos. We remember that Amos is a dresser of fruit trees and herdsman. From his context, the prophet brings forth imagery to call people back into a faithful response to God's mercy and deliverance.
We must always remember that the framework of the prophets is located within the following faith system:
1) God acted on behalf of his people
2) At Sinai the people chose to respond to God's action with faithfulness
3) God's people are want to faithlessness and to replace God with kings and rulers
4) The prophets are raised by God to call the people to repent
Amos refers to the failing leaders and idols as a basket of rotting summer fruit. Then Amos says that part of the unfaithfulness has become evident by the people's lack of care for those in need and the poor of the land are revelations of the people's rejection of God and God's desire that all be cared for on God's behalf.
Amos then reminds the people of their covenant with God and that they have brought upon
God's poor and the neglected and so themselves shall suffer. This is not merely an act of God upon the kingdom but a direct correlation is made in Amos' prophesy between the kingdom's faithfulness, the poor and needy, and their long-term prosperity.
Amos makes it clear that the kingdom that remembers their promise to God after Sinai will be a people who remember the poor and neglected (as God once remembered his suffering people) and so will bring about just community. But when the nation forgets their God they bring upon themselves their own terrible suffering. Amos tells the people in no uncertain terms their unfaithfulness is bringing upon them a great calamity, and God will not stop it.
Some Thoughts on Genesis 18:1-10
"Abraham has received a seemingly impossible promise, but his animated efforts on behalf of these strangers under adverse conditions suggest that he still trusts that God can and will do the impossible."
Commentary, Genesis 18:1-10a (Pentecost +8), Jacqueline E. Lapsley, Preaching This Week, WorkingPreacher.org, 2010.
"Grace always comes first. Because that grace is there, God's people can respond with their best."
Commentary, Genesis 18:1-10a (Pentecost +9), Sara Koenig, Preaching This Week, WorkingPreacher.org, 2013.
"Along the way, Abraham learns that no one person has a monopoly on God's covenant, and that great endeavors require great partners."
"A Great Partner for a Great Endeavor," Torah Commentary by Wendy Amsellem. BeliefNet.
This is a chunk of scripture. But it is good stuff. God has called Abram out of the land of Uhr. Abram has followed God and set up altars along the way. For his work and pilgrimage, God has given he and Sarai new names. Furthermore, God has continued to journey with him even into the land near the oaks of Mamre.
We are told that God appears there in the person of three men. God is then received, the three men are received, by Abraham and Sarah and they are welcomed and fed. Before God leaves God promises that they will have a son. This seems impossible but God makes the promise that it will, in fact, happen before God is with them again. Indeed God keeps God's promise.
This event is often depicted in the great masterpiece of the Trinity as written in the icon of my Rublev. The icon is entitled "The Hospitality of Abraham."
Now the passage itself is important for many reasons. Certainly, it is important in the origination stories of the people of Israel for it speaks to God's special relationship with Abraham. It is also important for it speaks to God's relationship with God's people and God's willingness for those people to prosper and to multiply.
The passage cannot be divorced from the Genesis desire on God's part that the people multiply themselves. Nor can it be separated out from God's continued desire to walk with his creation in the eve of the day beneath the trees of his garden.
Mary translates her pregnancy to the story of God delivering God's people but also the story of God's promise to Abraham. This links the past to the present in the Gospel narrative, the old with the new. Jesus calls his followers to the work of the hospitality of Abraham. In fact that they are the inheritors, the very real progeny of the Gospel and covenant of Abraham says Peter in Acts. Paul invites his hearers to understand they are inheritors of the relationship Abraham had with God.
This is a chunk of scripture. But it is good stuff. God has called Abram out of the land of Uhr. Abram has followed God and set up altars along the way. For his work and pilgrimage, God has given he and Sarai new names. Furthermore, God has continued to journey with him even into the land near the oaks of Mamre.
We are told that God appears there in the person of three men. God is then received, the three men are received, by Abraham and Sarah and they are welcomed and fed. Before God leaves God promises that they will have a son. This seems impossible but God makes the promise that it will, in fact, happen before God is with them again. Indeed God keeps God's promise.
This event is often depicted in the great masterpiece of the Trinity as written in the icon of my Rublev. The icon is entitled "The Hospitality of Abraham."
Now the passage itself is important for many reasons. Certainly, it is important in the origination stories of the people of Israel for it speaks to God's special relationship with Abraham. It is also important for it speaks to God's relationship with God's people and God's willingness for those people to prosper and to multiply.
The passage cannot be divorced from the Genesis desire on God's part that the people multiply themselves. Nor can it be separated out from God's continued desire to walk with his creation in the eve of the day beneath the trees of his garden.
Mary translates her pregnancy to the story of God delivering God's people but also the story of God's promise to Abraham. This links the past to the present in the Gospel narrative, the old with the new. Jesus calls his followers to the work of the hospitality of Abraham. In fact that they are the inheritors, the very real progeny of the Gospel and covenant of Abraham says Peter in Acts. Paul invites his hearers to understand they are inheritors of the relationship Abraham had with God.
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