Proper 4C / Ordinary 9C / Pentecost +2 June 23, 2019

The Centurion

Prayer

To you no one is a stranger, God of all peoples and nations, for your saving love knows no boundaries, and your compassion extends to all.  In Jesus, you have come under our roof to speak but a word, and we are healed.  May we, in turn, never set boundaries to your grace, but gladly offer the embrace of your peace to all without difference or discrimination.  We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God for ever and ever. Amen.


From Prayers for Sunday and Seasons, Year C, Peter J. Scagnelli, LTP, 1992.

Some Thoughts on Luke 7:1-10

"Like the people of Nazareth who respond to the story of Elisha and Naaman with anger and rage (4:28), people might respond less than positively if we preach that Jesus cares about, ministers to, and wants to bless our enemies."

Commentary, Luke 7:1-10, Jeannine K. Brown, Preaching This Week,WorkingPreacher.org, 2013.

"Have your needs been carried to jesus by your friends?"

"The Centurion's Friends," Lauren Winner, The Hardest Question, 2013.

Oremus Online NRSV Gospel Text

As we begin our season of ordinary time following the great Eastertide, we return to Luke who will be our primary companion over these next months of preaching and teaching.

In this passage Jesus heals the centurion's slave.  In the passage we have emerging the themes of the prophet king who is powerful and does acts of power.

In the healing we see the generosity of God to the gentiles. We also see God's power reaching down to earth in love. We see the living out and practice of the words that Jesus spoke to the crowd as he taught.  It is a revelation that Jesus is like the prophets who did such work in the ancient days of Israel.  here again is a great prophet.

All of this is very important in the Lukan narrative as it prepares for the prophecy of Jesus' own death and rising to life again and mission to be fulfilled; and for the gospel message to be proclaimed throughout the world to become a reality.

This passage has in it some interesting themes for our church today.  These are well worth a moment before you pen those final words to your sermon text.

Let us for a moment take the model of this passage as a mission strategy for the proclamation of the reign of God and its transformative potential.

1.  Like Jesus the church is in the world engaging with people who do not belong - the Gentile Centurion.
2.  Like Jesus, the church engages not by blaming the world but by coming into the life of the world - Jesus goes to the centurion's home.
3.  Like Jesus, the church listens to what is needed - healing.
4.  Like Jesus, the church discovers in the world faith, and proclaims that it is there - Jesus proclaims the faith of the centurion.  This faith is foreign to the faith of the church and is exhibited by humility, desire, and seeking.
5.  Like Jesus, the church works to heal what is in need of healing.

The prophecy model here is one where in Jesus proclaims that God loves people... and wants the very best for them... and then meets people.. and then points out their faith... and then helps them.  I wonder is this the kind of prophecy the church is engaging?

I wonder as we look across our congregations this Sunday and think about our ministry as a preacher, teacher, bishop, priest, deacon or lay person...does what we do as church fit this particular model of ministry?

Some Thoughts on Galatians 1:1-12

Oremus Online NRSV Epistle Text

There is a great deal in this passage!  It contains particular words which tie into the discussion about Paul's own authority.  It contains pieces that are believed to be part of ancient liturgies.  It is theological in its understanding of God's redeeming work.  There is much here to intrigue the student and reader to be sure. Indeed the themes in this first passage are the themes of the whole text.

I want to focus on the work of the church.  I am most interested in how Paul communicates his understanding of the ministry of Christian Community.

Rooted deeply in his understanding of the Godhead and in human nature Paul makes a particular argument.  This argument is meant to counter those arguments that the Galatians are making within a very divided community.

Individuals commit and will continue to commit sin.  For Paul the solution or "antidote" is not forgiveness for the particular sin. It is instead that God is God and is even now overcoming through the work of Jesus the power of sin.  (J. Louis Martyn, Galatians, 97)  God is working his purposes out and God's work is grounded in the incarnation.  Paul writes:  "Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins to set us free from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father".

Paul believes firmly that God has called the church into being.  God has created it.  It participates in the new creation - the reign of God.

As one person recently challenged - the church is a principality of this world and we should not forget that as such it is part of those principalities which the devil has oversight.  I understand the point.  The church is made up of sinful broken human beings in need of redemption and as such is not perfect to be sure! Sometimes the church does really horrific things; history tells us this truth to be sure.  But there is much good in her too.  And, Paul sees this good and is very intent on focusing our attention on it.

The church even in its brokenness even now participates in the good and heavenly work of the reign of God.  It does this in spite of our human tendencies to harm others and to sin.

For Paul one of the things the church does is to deal with instances of sin.  If it forgives the sins of any they are forgiven and if it binds the sins of any they are bound.

More importantly though is this notion that it is in community that people are able to be at their best.  It is in the Christian Community of the faithful, where the good news is offered, that we outperform the norm of a society that is fallen and "evil" in Paul's words.

Some Thoughts on 1 Kings 18:20-39

Oremus Online NRSV Text

The story of 1 Kings is a story of prophecy by Elijah. This is a Sinai prophecy, it is not oriented at the Temple mount, but from the wilderness rooted in the first covenant with God on the mountaintop.  

While this is often correlated with the ministry of John the Baptist, and the later desert fathers, what we see here is that the work of the Sinai prophet is to be responsive to God's love and to enact in life a response. In this we see that Elijah and his story and prophetic work is about life lived in the wake of God's action. 

In this passage Elijah is calling the people back to God. He is reminding them of God's action and how they are to be in response to this delivering God. 

Unlike the church which seems to cower inside over and against the silence of the world around it, Elijah's response to the people is not to resent them or to be moved to inaction. Instead, Elijah calls the people together, he repairs the altar, and makes a sacrificial offering. In doing this he restores the Sinai site to its rightful holy place. It is this re-newing of the temple that prepares him for the contest agains the prophets. 

What seems important here is the reality that instead of allowing the temple to continue to be used for the secular he renews it for the sake of evangelization of the community around it. It is the renewing of the Sinai worship site that brings about the renewal of the people. Elijah calls the people to action, and after the renewing of the site, they obey and do as he commands.

Then Elijah calls upon God:

“O Lord, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, let it be known this day that you are God in Israel, that I am your servant, and that I have done all these things at your bidding. Answer me, O Lord, answer me, so that this people may know that you, O Lord, are God, and that you have turned their hearts back.”

Then God acts:

Then the fire of the Lord fell and consumed the burnt offering, the wood, the stones, and the dust, and even licked up the water that was in the trench.

Then the people respond:

When all the people saw it, they fell on their faces and said, “The Lord indeed is God; the Lord indeed is God.”

God is acting, and God will act in the world. However, in order to encounter the world we must renew ourselves, renew our altars, call upon God, and faithfully respond to the God who freed the Israelites and has made a covenant with them. In this then we may reenter the world and respond to God's work and acts.

When we stay huddled in our broken down and decaying buildings it is very difficult to remember the mighty hand of God at work in the world. Elijah calls us to renew our faith, to get busy, to make sacrifices, to clean up, and to renew our faith that we might receive God's fire.

Easter 4B April 26, 2015

"This is part of what it means to be the Body of Christ -- to remind each other of God's promises and speak Jesus' message of love, acceptance, and grace to each other."

 "Abundant Life," David Lose, Dear Working Preacher, 2012.

"Then Jesus said, "Feed my lambs. Feed my sheep;' and you get the feeling that this time Peter didn't miss the point. From fisher of fish to fisher of people to keeper of the keys to shepherd. It was the Rock's final promotion, and from that day forward he never let the head office down again."

"Feed My Sheep," sermon discussion from Frederick Buechner, Frederick Buechner Blog.

"These are wonderful, comforting images, but this passage includes one other challenging thought. The good shepherd decides who is in the sheepfold, we do not."

Commentary, John 10:11-18, Lucy Lind Hogan, Preaching This Week,WorkingPreacher.org, 2012.

"This is part of what it means to be the Body of Christ -- to remind each other of God's promises and speak Jesus' message of love, acceptance, and grace to each other."

"Abundant Life," David Lose, Dear Working Preacher, 2012.

General Resources for Sunday's Lessons

Prayer
Creator God, you make the resplendent glory of the Risen One shine with new radiance on the world, whenever our human weakness is healed and restored.  Gather all your scattered children into one flock following Christ, our Good Shepherd, so that all may taste the joy you bestow on those who are the children of God. We ask this through Christ, with whom you have raised us up in baptism, the Lord who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God for ever and ever. Amen.


From Prayers for Sunday and Seasons, Year B, Peter J. Scagnelli, LTP, 1992.


Some Thoughts on John 10:11-18

Oremus Online NRSV Text

Textweek Resources for this week's Gospel

It comes as part of an overall scriptural unit.  Chapter 10: 1-21.  Most New Testament scholars break our reading up into two sections. The first section is made up of verses 11-16 where in the reader discovers the nature of the shepherd.  The second section is made up of verses 17-18 wherein we read about the specific work of this Good Shepherd.

Jesus is the model of the good shepherd because he is willing to die for his sheep - this is a unique Johannine theology.  This model is a shepherd who cares for all the sheep and for their very lives. This shepherd is willing to lay down his life for all; and all means all.

The hired hand and the wolf prey on the sheep. They care only for themselves.  They steal and consume the sheep.  What is interesting here is the parallel drawn by scholars to those religious leaders who betray their flock.  Certainly, in the early tradition there is a notion of being sent among wolves.  In Acts Paul reminds church leaders they are to feed their sheep.

I think that the next section is important as a defining boundary for the care and tending of sheep.  The shepherd here does not only know their work, but also knows their sheep intimately.  They know all their sheep intimately.  They recognize the shepherd's voice.  And, that there are sheep who are being added to the fold (the gentile mission).  Therefore the shepherd knows his sheep and knows sheep who are to be gathered in.

This tradition falls in the long line of prophetic witness wherein the leaders of Israel have been seen as shepherds of their flock.

As I read through a number of texts on this passage (including my own preaching) I am ever mindful that the Shepherd lays down his life for the sheep; and that God takes up his life for him when his work is done.  Resurrection, new life, transformed life, comes to the shepherd who is willing to lay down his life for his sheep - those in his fold and those without.

Today we live in an age where we protect ourselves at all cost. We do this by projecting out into the world our own desires. We disguise this protection by gathering around us like minded people.  So we get our cause (political, religious, social) and we gather with people who have the same interest in maintaining ego protection on any given topic.

Paul Zahl reminded me in a recent podcats (PZ's Podcast available on Itunes) that one reason why when people accomplish what they set out to do on any given agenda and they usually feel unfulfilled is because they set out based upon ego protection and not based upon their own true nature's need for salvation, grace and mercy.  They set out to change the world because they were sure everyone else was wrong not because their own heart needed transformation.

The shepherd is in need of resurrection when the life is laid down; this mimics the Good Shepherd's own death and resurrection.  The individual who truly lays down their life and loses it will in the end find it.  But it is real life that is lost, a costly ego death, that must be allowed to take place.

This means more frequently a non-heroes death and/or the failure of perfection.

What does it really mean to be one of the good shepherds, serving the One Good Shepherd?  It will mean being shepherd to all.  A leader must lead and be a shepherd for all the sheep.  All the sheep include: those who agree and those who disagree; those who love you and those who hate you; those who are pleased with your action and those who are pounding down the doors of your fortified ego castle; and the unseen sheep not in our fold.

So as I prepare to preach this week I have a lot of questions running through my mind.  None of these questions have much to do with the loving shepherd finding me in the darkness and carrying  me off to the sheepfold.  Rather, the questions I am asking are based upon that redemption already being underway:  What part of myself must die in order for me to be shepherd (in the mold of the Good Shepherd) for all the sheep?  How shall I lay down my life for them?  Am I willing to die a hundred thousand deaths (not as vanquishing hero) but as a lonely herdsman in the midst of a valley of wolves and thieves?

Ah yes, perhaps that is the real work after all.  You and I if we brave this sacred journey we should be prepared for the silence, the lack of followers, a shameful death, and...and...in the end God's hand snatching us from the grave.  It is the silent waiting of the dead in which God's love, grace and mercy resides.  That is the meaning of life as a good shepherd; would that we had a church full of such men and women!

Some Thoughts on I John 3:14-24

"The whole idea behind this week's reading from 1 John, and indeed the entire book, is that in the sacrificial love of Christ we see and experience God; in doing so we are compelled to live out that love in word and deed."

"What's the Catch?" Sharron R Blezard, Stewardship of Life, 2012.

"This epistle, really a sermon, was written for a community that defined itself over and against the world around it."

Commentary, 1 John 3:16-24, David Bartlett, Preaching This Week,WorkingPreacher.org, 2009.

"The writer clearly envisages a relationship with God where people are not diminished but encouraged to stand on their own two feet with confidence."

"First Thoughts on Year B Epistle Passages in the Lectionary," Easter 4, William Loader, Murdoch University, Uniting Church in Australia.

Oremus Online NRSV Epistle Text 

Resources for Sunday's Epistle


Powerful words from my fellow blogger who encapsulates the beginning of this passage very well. Here it  is from Chris Haslam: 

1 says “For this is the message ... that we should love one another.” Abel’s godly deeds (Genesis 4:8) stirred Cain’s hatred for him, even to murdering his brother, so don’t be surprised if the “world hates you” (v. 13). For a Christian to hate a fellow Christian is equivalent to murder. “We know that we have passed from death to life because we love one another” (v. 14).

God is love and Jesus is our great icon of God's love. True love lays down one's life for the other. For the author of John this meant real action.

This is so very unlike a lot Christian behavior today. We tend to tell people what to do and how to be. We expect them to lay down their life for the Gospel. We tell them how they are to act and what they are to do and not do. We make lists and we judge them unequal to the task.

This is all a way of masking our own lack of love for them - our own inability to follow God's second commandment.

The Christian Gospel says that we are to lay our life down for the other. We are to lay our life down for the neighbor. We are to lay our life down for the one we disagree with. We are to lay our life down for the one different than us.

Only, when we do this are we truly moving closer to God. Only when we lay down our expectations and our life do we find it. This is the cross and this is the commandment. As a good friend says, "As soon as I hear the 'but' we have moved away from grace." How true!

There is a lot of hatred, there is a lot of fear, there is a lot of anxiety all of which moves to anger and violence very quickly. This is the evil in our midst and it is deeply rooted in our inability to lay down our lives willingly for one another. What evil schemes we will deploy which kills our brother all in the name of protecting ourselves. It sounds reasonable - but it is not the Gospel. 

February 8th, 2016, Transfiguration - The Last Sunday in Epiphany

"Mark's use of the story connects so strongly to what follows that we can scarcely interpret it without reference to what Jesus disciples were to listen to in the chapters which follow, namely lowliness and compassion. It is not just any elevation of Jesus which will do, but this particular one, which we appreciate when we know the whole story. Mark's story reminds us that disciples, then and now, frequently get it wrong, through fear and ignorance and much else."

"First Thoughts on Year B Gospel Passages in the Lectionary," The Transfiguration of Jesus, William Loader, Murdoch University, Uniting Church in Australia.

Prayer

God of life, in a blaze of light on Mount Tabor you transfigured Christ, revealing him as your Beloved Son and promising us a share in that destiny of glory.  But in a blinding flash we, children of the promise, annihilate life, disfiguring the face of Christ and mocking his Gospel call to gentleness and peace.  Let the beacon of that gospel pierce again the clouds enshrouding the earth, so that even in the darkness of these times we may believe your day will dawn.  We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God for ever and ever. Amen.

From Prayers for Sunday and Seasons, Year B, Peter J. Scagnelli, LTP, 1992.




Some Thoughts on Mark 9:2-10

The passages that come before this are filled with a pounding and unrelenting march by Jesus to proclaim the good news and to overturn the forces that now bind God's people. He knows this proclamation and action campaign (to use the military imagery of the Greek text) which is the Way will ultimately lead to the cross.  Therefore, everyone who is on the Way must be prepared to pick up his cross and follow. (8.34)

Yet here in this passage we have a vision of the God's glory and in the last two verses the connection of this mission with the resurrection.

Jesus in this moment of transfiguration is revealed as the new Adam, the new Moses, the great prophet, the Son of God and is clearly the Messiah.  He is God in all his glory revealed in the person of Jesus to the disciples sitting at his feet, to the first hearers of this Gospel, and to us.  And, this work is well pleasing to God.

We are reminded perhaps of the words of Enoch and his response to his own heavenly vision.

And there I saw another vision of the dwellings of the righteous and the resting-places of the holy.
And there my eyes saw their dwellings with the angels And their resting places with the holy ones...
And I saw their abode beneath the winds of the Lord of Spirits,
And all the righteous and elect were radiant like the brightness of fire before him....
There I desired to dwell and my spirit longed for that abode.  (I Enoch 39:4-8, trans. Marcus, Mark, 638)

While Peter echoes Enoch's vision in this world, the disciple and follower of Jesus along the way (with the certainty of the cross before them) sees instead the great hope of Resurrection and our eternal dwelling beneath the wings of our "father hen when he calls his chickens home" - to quote Johnny Cash.
The transfiguration is a theophany in which the followers of Jesus and the generations that follow are able to glimpse their future.

In the months to come our people will enter Lent, we are in tax season, election time, our economy is slow, people are suffering and hurting.  They are pretty sure that this is not heaven!

Our preaching is to so move those who listen that they may have a glimpse of the transfigured risen Lord.  That they may see the promise of their future and understand that the present sufferings in this world are ones that will eventually be swallowed up by the glory of God.

We are to so move our hearers that on this Sunday, they like Jesus and his first followers, will be moved through their vision of things to come to change the world around them. We are to move our people to understand that their glimpse of the heavenly family and our place under God's embrace is not something to be waited for in some distant future, but that we are to make our drum beat loud and to act in this world building up stone by living stone the kingdom of heaven.

A Little Bit for Everyone

Oremus Online NRSV Text

General Resources for Sunday's Lessons

Textweek Resources for this week's Gospel

Mark 9:2-10
2Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain apart, by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, 3and his clothes became dazzling white, such as no one on earth could bleach them. 4And there appeared to them Elijah with Moses, who were talking with Jesus. 5Then Peter said to Jesus, “Rabbi, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” 6He did not know what to say, for they were terrified. 7Then a cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud there came a voice, “This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!” 8Suddenly when they looked around, they saw no one with them any more, but only Jesus.

9As they were coming down the mountain, he ordered them to tell no one about what they had seen, until after the Son of Man had risen from the dead. 10So they kept the matter to themselves, questioning what this rising from the dead could mean.

Epiphany 6B February 15, 2015

Quotes That Make Me Think

"By the end of this story, Jesus has shown us what it costs to go where the people are and it is a cost he is 'willing' to pay."

Commentary, Mark 1:40-45, Sarah Henrich, Preaching This Week,WorkingPreacher.org, 2012.

"Jesus steps right into a terribly risky reimagining of social order."

"Lepers and Risky Love," Katie Munnik, Presbyterian Record, 2012.

"Maybe we don't need to choose between the two emotions, anger and pity. Pity and anger can intermingle."

"Blessed to Be a Blessing," Alyce McKenzie, Edgy Exegesis, Patheos, 2012.

General Resources for Sunday's Lessons from Textweek.com

Prayer

Cleanse and restore us, O God, and heal us continually from the sinfulness that divides us and from the sinfulness that divides us and from the prejudice and discrimination by which we degrade ourselves and dishonor your image in others. Help us to stretch out our hands in love especially to those our society scorns and to recognize in their faces the very image of Christ, blood-stained on the cross. We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God for ever and ever. Amen.

From Prayers for Sunday and Seasons, Year B, Peter J. Scagnelli, LTP, 1992.

Some Thoughts on Mark 1:40-45

Oremus Online NRSV Gospel Text

Resources for Sunday's Gospel

Jesus made a noise like a horse - he was so exasperated and incensed!

A lot of preachers will be trying to figure this one out. We will turn to scholars and they will say, and we will typically preach:

Jesus was upset because his preaching mission was interrupted.

Jesus was upset because the man is unclean.

Jesus was upset because the man doesn't believe Jesus can heal him. (Marcus, Mark, 209)

I was struck by the scholar M. D. Hooker's thoughts (Commentary on Mark, 80). He believes Jesus is disgusted with the demon. One might expand this to include the system as well; as in Ched Myers' text Binding the Strong Man.

How often do we get exasperated with the person and not the illness? How often do we get exasperated because we have more important things to tend to? How often do we get exasperated because of how we might be perceived if we are with someone for whom they disapprove?

We are all guilty of this. Me included. We may however loose a great preaching moment if we simply take our exasperation and project it onto the text.

What if we reread the story this way: The leper comes to Jesus. He has, more than likely, already been to the priests to no avail. He comes to Jesus who is not a priest and simply says, "Jesus you could make me clean"; which given the last few chapters is true.

Jesus snorts like a horse because he is simply disgusted - with illness, with the powers that be, with the world...but not with the man. No with the man he is moved and so he acts. He reaches out and touches the leper, making himself unclean according to the holiness code.

Then he sends the clean man away, not in secrecy, but why send him back to the religious power that could not make him well in the first place. No, he can go and he not tell anyone.

How do we begin to move our congregations to snort like a horse when confronted by the brokenness of the world, to be incensed; and then move them to action on behalf of those who come to us and invite us to engage in healing?

So often we are thinking someone else more talented, someone more generous, someone more schooled, someone else will come along and heal the leper raising their hand before us and inviting us into their life. The reality is that we are being invited - you and I. There is just us. And, we have been sent by Jesus.

Some Thoughts on 1 Corinthians 9:24-27

Oremus Online NRSV Epistle Text 

Resources for Sunday's Epistle

"The proclamation of the gospel, be it public or private, in front of an audience or one-to-one, can be difficult. As Paul says elsewhere it may seem like foolishness and folly to many who hear it, and this will, from time to time, reflect back on we who proclaim it. But this is our imperishable wreath, the life and salvation of those for whom and with whom we run this race."

Commentary, 1 Corinthians 9:24-27, Karl Jacobson, Preaching This Week,WorkingPreacher.org, 2009.

"Paul's Lord, Jesus, was not a slave of patterns (or the lord of patterns!) and obsessed with being a lord, but one who emptied himself, poured himself out."

"First Thoughts on Passages on Year B Epistle Passages in the Lectionary,"Epiphany 6, William Loader, Murdoch University, Uniting Church in Australia.


This is one of my favorite passages. I used to be a long distance runner. I even ran a marathon. I loved running. Somehow this passage really spoke and continues to speak to me. 

What I did not know until recently is that the games for which our modern day Olympics are modeled were held in Corinth! So Paul isn't simply picking up an image of running because it is generally known or helps him move back to the major content of the letter. He chooses it because he knew they knew this image quite well there in Corinth. We might even infer that it was an important image for them. 

Of course he uses the race as metaphor to his life and the work of all Christians. Paul uses it to help the Corinthians understand that a Christian life is not a magical fix but rather a lifetime of work. I have to say that in the midst of crisis, pain, suffering, grief, and trouble it would be great if Christianity WAS a magical remedy! 

I don't believe there are perfect Christians. Our perfection is rooted in the perishable world - not unlike the wreath. We must realize that we are a work in progress, our communities are a work in progress, our neighbors are a work in progress, and God has saved us and made us his own anyway. 

January 24, 2015, 3rd Sunday after the Epiphany 2013 Year C

Quotes That Make Me Think

"...Jesus’ words are a call to real life, real people, real time. This is God in our present and in our reality."

Commentary, Luke 4:14-21, Karoline Lewis, at WorkingPreacher.org, Luther Seminary, 2013.


"A change in condition always accompanies an encounter with the divine. Radical change is what Jesus proclaims and will perform. Jesus does not merely affirm the condition of his children. He is about the reversal of fortunes that results not just in change in one's environmental state, but in the person itself."

Commentary, Luke 4:14-21, Roy Harrisville, at WorkingPreacher.org, Luther Seminary, 2010.

General Resources for Sunday's Lessons

Prayer

On this day which is holy to you, O Lord our God, your people asemble to hear your words and delight in the feast you prepare.  Let the Spirit that anointed Jesus send us forth to proclaim your freedom and favor.  We ask this through Christ, with whom you have raised us up in baptism, the Lord who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God for ever and ever. Amen.

From Prayers for Sunday and Seasons, Year C, Peter J. Scagnelli, LTP, 1992.

Some Thoughts on Luke 4:14-21

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Resources for Sunday's Gospel

In our liturgical reading we have moved from the Epiphany through the Baptism of our Lord, to his first miracle at the Wedding in Cana of Galilee.  We arrive this week to settle into a reading of Luke’s Gospel as Luke intended it, sequentially.  We land in this first reading (following the propers for Ordinary Time) on Jesus in the synagogue in Nazareth.  It is never easy to come home, and it certainly brings its own challenges when you have been filled with the Holy Spirit, as in Jesus’ case.

We certainly have the parallels for this section in Matthew 13:53-54 and Mark 6:1-2 if you wish to read through them.  And, as in Acts 13:15 and the parallel passages we are given a view of the worship that dominated synagogue gatherings of Jesus’ time. (Haslam)

We are in transition mode in the Gospel once again, and here the words from verse 14: “filled with the power of the Spirit” remind us that in Luke’s Gospel we haven’t been at the wedding but rather at his baptism.  So we are in the midst of Jesus’ inaugural preaching mission which begins, according to Luke, at home.

For Luke teaching and preaching flows out of the Holy Spirit, as do all the activities of ministry.  This is clear throughout the Lukan Gospel and certainly in the first chapter of Acts: 5:3, 5:17, 6:6, 13:10, 22, 19:47, 20:1, 21, 21:37, 23:5, Acts 1.1.  The scholar Luke Timothy Johnson believes the Holy Spirit sent Jesus out on a preaching tour of the many towns and villages and that he is just now coming to Nazareth.  Jesus has returned to “where he has been raised.” Interestingly, Luke uses the term “nourished” here.  Jesus is returning to where he was nourished, and the word frequently means where he was nourished in his religious studies (see Luke, Luke Timothy Johnson, p78).

Some scholars believe that the words “as was his custom” were used to describe Jesus’ custom of teaching in synagogues. I believe this better belongs to the idea that as a pious Jew, Jesus knew that the custom of attending synagogue.  He was nourished in a Jewish home and educated in their religious customs and it was his nature to follow what his family had given him and return to the synagogue to worship on the Sabbath.  (The Sabbath is a theme in Luke’s Gospel and can be picked up in these passages: see also 4:31-37 (teaching and casting out a demon ); 6:1-5 (his disciples pluck some heads of grain), 6:6-11 (restores a man’s withered hand); 13:10-17 (heals a crippled woman); 14:1-6 (heals a man who had dropsy).
Third Isaiah, or later Isaiah, is so very essential in the early Christian understanding of who Jesus was and understanding his ministry.  This is true for Luke that begins with several citations and now continues in this passage with a reading that helps the reader know who Jesus is.  Just think about the prophetic words being read and how here in the midst of the people of Nazareth is Jesus the person who will fulfill in his ministry the very words of Isaiah.  Jesus will cure, bind up the broken-hearted, and announce the day of the reign of God, comfort all who mourn, provide for those who mourn free the captives, and to proclaim a Jubilee year.  You and I can think of moments throughout the Gospel narrative when Jesus does these things.  Moreover, you and I can also tell stories of when Jesus Christ did these things in our own lives, along our journeys.
Handing the scroll back to the minister or Hazzan – a person who is a synagogue leader, Jesus sits down.
We of course continue with the second half of the story next Sunday.  What is very important here is that Luke has moved this event to the very first part of Jesus ministry – considering where both Mark and Matthew place it in the Gospel. Luke is illustrating, and highlighting, who this is, what his ministry is and what kind of messiah is he going to be.  Luke’s Jesus is here for the disenfranchised and for the poor.  Luke wants this message to get out right at the beginning as if to inaugurate Jesus’ ministry with clarity about  his coming from God on God’s behalf to restore creation, making the wounded whole, and filling the hungry with good things.

Like so many stories in the Old Testament where God acts on behalf of his people because they are not being cared for, Luke gives us a vision of the incarnation where God is seeking to restore creation.  The restoration of creation for Luke begins with the understanding of God’s special interest in the poor, powerless, and voiceless.  Jesus’ work is a freedom and release from evil through exorcisms, healings, education, and economic transformation.  Luke Timothy Johnson writes, “the radical character of this mission is specified above all by its being offered to and accepted by those who were the outcasts of the people.” (Luke, 81)


Some questions I am pondering: Are we as a church involved in this work? What does it mean to be a follower of Jesus and not be directly involved in the work that Jesus was involved in? Who are God’s people today that we are not being attentive to?

Some Thoughts on I Corinthians 12:12-31

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We have a problem with this passage.  I believe as human beings we have a problem with this passage and as a church we have a problem with this passage.  I know a little about both.  As human beings and as church (we could put all organizations into this category as well) we like everything to be the same.  We just do. We don't need to get all into it; but we ought to admit it. We like regularity, dependability, and the expected.  We order our lives in this way. We order our families in this way. We order our organizations in this way.

The Gospel truth in this passage is, "everything can't be the same." (v19)  Paul writes, "If all were a single organ, where would the body be?"  Everything can't be the same.  The view at the whole of creation should tell us that fact; God didn't mean for everything to be the same.  The universe is filled with various things and colors of things and many multiples of living things.  Everything is not meant to be the same nor can it be...for if it was it would perish.  In Paul's language from the letter, if we there was only one organ it would be just that an organ - it would never be a body on its own.

Moreover, what makes the body the body is baptism; not right belief or right action.  What makes the body the body is God's grace and love.  In baptism we the community recognize the individual as an individual of God's; God's beloved. God's love.  In baptism we say outwardly and we mark the individual so that we may say to ourselves..."See everything can't be the same, look at this beloved person of god who is different from me, yet God loves them and they are one of God's family members." That is what we say in baptism.  

I think we forget sometimes. Sometimes we forget that baptism is just as much about the community as the individual who is being baptized.  We forget sometimes and we think baptism is about making everyone the same.  But in keeping with Paul's letter to the Corinthians baptism reminds us that everything is not the same.  People are not the same.  People come with different gifts.  People are different. Communities are different every time a new person is baptized and marked as Christ's own forever.  We forget that the marking isn't for Christ so he remembers.  The marking is so the individual and we don't forget!

But this same-ology is the sin of the church.  The great sin of the church (on every side of the aisle) is that we must all be the same. We must all think the same. We must believe the same.  We must be either Jew or Greek. We must be either slave or free. We must be either progressive or conservative; high church or low church; right or wrong.  You name the same-ology you choose.  I know my own!

Paul reminds us that when we make same-ology our theology we are doomed. The body will die. It will cut off its members and it will die.  That was the problem for the Corinthians. They thought some were right and some were not right; some had better gifts than others; some were in and some were out.  The Corinthians had a same-ology.

When we have a same-ology we can say I have no need of you.  Paul tells us that is not healthy nor good nor right thinking.  It isn't Gospel thinking to be sure.  

The Gospel of Jesus Christ reminds us all means all.  We have need of one another. Everything can't be the same.  When one suffers we all suffer.  We all have different roles and different work. We have a more excellent way and that is to be a community where everyone is not the same. We are to reject a same-ology.  

This is where we live right now.  I know it.  I recognize it.  Pretty much every side of our cultural divide, our religious power struggles, our cultural wars is promulgated by same-ology.  That will be what history will say about our time as leaders in the church.  I am not sure I am satisfied with that story.  I think I might want to write a new story about how the church awoke from its slumber to find that it was possessed by same-ology. That all sides chose to be clear about how God in Christ Jesus unites us.  We decided together in our different ways to work on God's mission instead of our own. We decided to put down our weapons which had been trained on one another and we charged together against the menace of poverty, lack of food, and all the evils of this world which corrupt and destroy the creatures of God.  I think I would like all the help I can get on that mission!  I think I would give up my same-ology to motivate and move the diversity of God's people to engage the Good News of Salvation and our particular and unique revelation of Jesus.  Yes...that is a much better story; a more interesting and scriptural way of doing Church.