Blogging Towards Sunday, July 17, 2011

Romans 8:31-39

Chosen by our guest preacher Rev. Nancy Walters, formerly on staff at the Westminster House Ministry at Cal Berkeley, this portion of Romans is among the climactic words of this pastoral letter.  Paul has been writing to the church in Rome, explaining faith in Jesus as the Christ.  He’s articulated how the death of one man – Jesus – can bring life to all humanity – US! Paul has tied faith in Christ into the historic Jewish faith in Jehovah lifted up in the story of Abraham and Sarah’s radical journey from nowhere to where God wanted them to be.

Faith isn’t merely historical, it’s not merely a moral compass for our lives.  It is life itself, a new way of being, of being with others and of being with God.  Paul in Romans 8 writes of a new life that we know through the presence and inheritance of God’s Spirit among and in us.  It’s not just genetic or given to a particular people or ethnic tribe, God’s presence is freely given, actively present, grace-fully loving us and winning us towards love.  Paul ends his development of this vision of how life, faith and love are indistinguishable with this ecstatic proclamation of how much God loves us.  Hauntingly beautiful, philosophically challenging, it’s a radical reminder of the hope that we have in the love of God that we know in Jesus – not just in ancient Palestine, but here, now, today in the urban jungle and metropolitan mix of the East Bay.

·       What word, image or phrase in this passage grabs your attention?

·       How does that word, image or phrase touch your life and what you’re living or wrestling with these days?

·       How do you hear the Spirit of God inviting you – or us as a church – to act, speak or be through this passage?

·       How do you struggle to believe, accept or acknowledge God’s love for you?

·       How has this conquering love healed or transformed you?  How do you need God to liberate you today from the things that can separate you from that love?

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Blogging Towards Sunday, July 10, 2011

John 11:17-45

Chosen by a member of my church community as a challenging Bible passage, this story contains the shortest verse in the whole Bible: John 11:35  “Jesus wept.”  In this story of the raising of Lazarus from the dead, we also see the encounter of Jesus with Lazarus’ sisters.  The story points to the power of Jesus over death, to Jesus as more than just a human being – as the power of God divine incarnate in the human condition.  But the text just might ask more questions of us and our faith, then supply us with answers.  Why does Jesus weep?  Why didn’t he heal Lazarus before he died?  If Jesus was divine, wouldn’t he also know what would happen? 

Summer Camp 2011

We've been at summer camp at Westminster Woods this week, brining children from our church community to camp for the week, and for me to be speaking in the Forest 4th-6th grade camp.  It's nearly the end of the week, and as I walked back from an early morning meeting today I found myself thinking about what constitutes a day in the life this week: the pool, pudding cups for desert, campfire, the craft shack, Robin Hood dueling with the Sheriff, Ro-Sham-Bo about the life cycle of a salmon with Chimi & Changa, Free Time, not taking a shower, new friends, old friends, dumb body tricks, and mosquitos, trying new things, reveling in old favorites, getting a bit homesick, or just plain tired.  That’s what camp is about it.  All of those things in a brief span.  Comfort and challenge, joy and frustration, living with others and learning to stand on your own with your parents not nearby (unless your Dad is the camp speaker).  

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Blogging Towards Sunday, July 3, 2011

John 1:1-5

Chosen by a member of the church I serve as one her favorite Bible passages, these opening verses of John’s gospel are hauntingly powerful.   The words are carefully chosen by their author.  John copies and tweaks the original sentence structure of the creation story in  the first verses of book of Genesis.  The other gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke) start with the birth of Jesus (Matthew & Luke) or with his baptism (Mark).  John however chooses to start at a different beginning, the beginning of the story of God’s relationship with humanity and creation.  It’s not by accident that he does that, calling Jesus the LOGOS – the Greek philosophical word used by philosophers from Socrates to Aristotle for divine wisdom, the intelligence that isn’t humanly attainable, a living word that makes life possible.  He doesn’t do it on a whim, but with carefully crafted intention.

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Blogging Towards Sunday, June 26 2011

Mark 5:21-43

This story within a story is one of my favorite Bible passages about Jesus.  For me it’s so real, easily pictured in my imagination and carries such a clearly challenging message of the radical aspect of Jesus’ love, power and person. 

Jesus is interrupted in the midst of doing his business.  On his way to visit the dying daughter of a well-known religious leader, Jesus is interrupted by a nameless woman who audaciously touches him in the midst of a jostling crowd.  His response must have been comical.  Surrounded by throngs of people, Jesus asks aloud “who touched me?” Yet he’s insistent.  The text tells us that she’s broken: physically as she’s be bleeding for 12 years, well beyond the normal timeline of a menstrual cycle.  She’s broken financially as she’s been bankrupted seeking a medical solution.  She’s broken personally and relationally, as she is considered unclean by the purity laws practiced by the Israelites (see Leviticus 12:7, 15:19-22 and 20:18), similar to how we treated those with AIDS in the 1980s and early 1990s.  She’s looking for a quick fix, a remedy; yet Jesus won’t settle for just a band aid.

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Blogging Towards Sunday, June 19, 2011

Jeremiah 29:1-14

This passage from Jeremiah contains several verses (11-14) commonly quoted as a favorite by many readers and hearers of the Bible.  It’s a radical affirmation that God doesn’t leave us, abandon us to the cruel contexts in which we may find ourselves.  But rather God is present – even when it doesn’t seem to be so – working underneath what we see, behind the curtain, preparing, calling, healing, delivering all with a divine intention.  Isn’t that the real challenge of faith?  It’s not all that impossible to believe in a God that infinitely loves us, but it is difficult to believe and live that when life is in its most difficult, when it seems that there is no rhyme or reason for what happens, that there could not be a divine being behind it all, urging the universe towards peace, blessing and a future.

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Blogging Towards Sunday,  June 5

John 17:1-11 | Community

This prayer of Jesus, at the conclusion of John's gospel story of his life and relationships, is for unity among those that he calls his community in his day and in days to come.  As I thought about community in the text, in my life and it's changing implications in our urban, multicultural, technologically-flavored city characterized first and foremost by its diversity I wondered at the current definition of COMMUNITY:  according to wikipedia it's:

In biological terms, a community is a group of interacting organisms sharing a populated environment. In humancommunities, intent, belief, resources, preferences, needs, risks, and a number of other conditions may be present and common, affecting the identity of the participants and their degree of cohesiveness.

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Blogging Towards Sunday, May 22nd, 2011

End of the World +1

John 14:1-14 | 1 Peter 2:1-10

According to the billboards I've seen around the Bay Area for the past 2 + months Sunday most likely won't come for those that follow Jesus of Nazareth, calling him master, and Lord.  And yet I suspect I'll be here come Sunday.  Guess I'll need to write a sermon.  As I think about those signs proclaiming God's judgement on May 21st and wrestle with the words of Jesus in John 14, responding to Thomas' uncertainty and questions by asserting that Jesus is "the Way, the Truth and the Life" I just can't accept that it will all end come Saturday night at 6pm in an earthquake.  I'm stuck with 2 thoughts: 1) Jesus says himself that no one but God the Father will know when that hour of radical world transforming revelation (or apocalypse in Greek) will appear [Matthew 24:36] and 2) Jesus seems to teach those that follow him to live in the world, not to flee the world.

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Blogging Towards Sunday, May 15 2011

Psalm 23 | John 10:1-10 | Acts 2:42-47

The major theme of the scriptures proposed to us by the Lectionary Cycle after Easter wrestle with what it means to be sent out into the world as disciples, followers of Jesus, in his name.  The lift up the paradox that we're sent out and that Jesus goes with us.  We're sent with authority that he had and gives to us.  We're sent not just to proclaim, but to build community, to testify to how our lives have been changed, to point to the birthing pains of an emerging new thing in the universe, begun in the resurrection.

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Blogging towards Sunday, May 8^th  

Luke 24:13-35

Being sent into the world is a major theme of the scriptures that we read after Easter. As we listen again to the testimonies of those that experienced the great teacher as the resurrected One, we have to ask ourselves how is it that we experience him as both teacher and resurrected Lord today, here in the context of the 2011 East Bay?

This story is unique to Luke.  Some say a faint echo of it can be found in Mark 16:12-13.  This pilgrimage story follows Luke’s telling of the resurrection encounter at the empty tomb (Luke 24:1-12).  These two followers of Jesus are heading towards Emmaus.  They’re on a journey – not just to a village 7 miles away, but also on the journey of faith.  They’ve heard the report of the women, and wonder at what it means. 

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Blogging Towards Sunday, May 1, 2011

John 20:19-31

Peace, or “Shalom” in Hebrew was the traditional greeting in Jesus’ day.  Yet repeated in this text, it takes on a deeper meaning.  It’s a peace that reassures, picks up, rebuilds, resurrects.  It’s the echo and fulfillment of the teaching of Jesus : “Peace I leave with you.  My peace I give you.  I do not give as the world gives.  Do no let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.” (John 14:27) We too long for peace today – in the pain and suffering of our individual lives, in the injustice of our world, in the continuing wars and the ongoing efforts of many to put their lives back together after tornadoes, earthquakes and nuclear disasters.  The peace that Jesus gives is not just a “hello” but a force that changes, liberates and shapes every aspect of life. 

Questions for going deeper with the Scriptures for Sunday, April 24th  

Questions for Easter Sunday  | Mark 16:1-8

The story of the empty tomb is told by all of the gospel writers.  Much like 4 witnesses of an accident would relate different aspects, they all four tell the story a bit differently

(Matthew 28:9-20 | Luke 24:13-53 | John 20).  Mark ends his retelling of that day in a peculiar, even a bizarre, way. Where we expect them to overcome fear and go forth to share the good news, they instead are terrorized and they run away to hide.  Where they are commanded to speak they remain mute.  Asked to return to a community, they prefer an isolation that seems to have become familiar.  Jesus is not where they expected him.  He is not what they thought him to be.  Only now, after the end, at the time of a new beginning, do they realize that maybe they never actually understood the way in which they traveled with Jesus.

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Questions for going deeper with the Scriptures for Saturday, April 23rd  

Questions for Holy Saturday  | SILENCE

God seems to be silent on this day of death and Sabbath rest.  The gospel writers are mute about what happened. As Protestants, we often seek God in the word – spoken and written – and yet often we encounter the Divine in silence.  Today try to sit in silence for 5 – 10 – even 20 minutes if you can.  Silence your thoughts, worries and mental-to-do-lists and listen for God’s presence.  How is it hard for you to be in silence?  How does the experience challenge you to move beyond the cacophony of daily life?

Questions for going deeper with the Scriptures for Friday, April 22nd

Questions for Good Friday | Mark 15:1-47

Crucifixion was the worst way to die in the world of the Roman Empire.  It was reserved as the death penalty for the very worst of criminals and traitors.  It’s ironic that Jesus dies in this painfully slow and public way.  He who spoke of love without walls, new paradigms of community, direct experience of God’s presence, is denied all of those things.  The inspiration for non-violence the world over, paradoxically dies the most violent of deaths imaginable.   Jesus assumes the worst of the human condition, in order to liberate us from our worst nightmares. How does his life and death turn the world upside down when there is so much suffering all around us?  Is it his blood that frees us as a sacrifice in our place?  Does he overcome evil but submitting to it freely?  Does his death unmask the powers that are at work in the world?  Is his example of costly love universe-changing? There are multiple theories about how his death atones for our brokenness.  Yet all agree that the cross affirms the lengths to which God goes to convince of us his love.  The radical solidarity with which he stands alongside the poor, abused and persecuted.  The way in which who God is runs completely counter to what we imagine.  The Apostle Paul claims that you can’t preach Christ, without preaching “Christ Crucified”. That paradox is why we dare to call this “Good Friday” when it seems to be anything but good.  How does this disturb you? How is it a scandalous message for our culture today?

Questions for going deeper with the Scriptures for Thursday, April 21st

Questions for Maundy Thursday | Mark 14:12-72

Exodus 12:1-14 | 1 Corinthians 11:23-26 | John 13:1-17, 31b-35

Today is known as “Holy Thursday” and also liturgically as “Maundy Thursday”.  The Maundy isn’t a misspelled Monday, but rather a derivative of the old French mandé and the Latin mandatum , both of which mean “commandment”.  In this last night together, Jesus gathers with his friends to celebrate the Passover: the high holiday in which the Jews remembered the story of the Israelites slavery in Egypt [Mitzrayim  in Hebrew] through a liturgical sharing of a meal.  It’s together around a table that they re-enact their deliverance of the Israelites from the hand of Pharaoh.  In doing so they don’t just remember, but they appropriate the story for today’s context, reflecting upon the meaning of freedom in terms of the mitzrayims that enslaves, distract and blind us today.

Questions for going deeper with the Scriptures for Wednesday, April 20th

The Wednesday of Holy Week | Mark 14:1-11

After the confrontations and clashes in the courts of the temple, Jesus retreats to be with his closest friends.  He removes himself from the public eye, quite possibly to give his friends perspective that they still lack.  The gospel writer tells us that the plot to kill Jesus is now in full swing.  The authorities realized that there is no way to shut Jesus down or up.  They have to remove the threat to their power and their way of life.  Only one option remains.

Questions for going deeper with the Scriptures for Tuesday, April 19th

The Tuesday of Holy Week | Mark 11:20-13:37

This busy, full day also begins with the nonproductive fig tree, now withered.  It’s a living metaphor for Jesus’ judgment of the big business that Temple establishment had become.  He returns to the temple courts and teaches, with an authority never seen before.  As Mark tells the story, the teachings of Jesus become more and more critical and challenging of the religious authorities.  The crowds go wild with excitement, witnessing his naming of the injustice perpetrated in the name of Yahweh.

But what is this injustice?  It is mistaken hopes, backwards worship, or a spiritual malaise?  The supposed authorities remain mute.  They seem to be content with how things have been, wanting to maintain tradition for facility, or for fear of being the weak link in the chain, or for spiritual far-sightedness.  Jesus is taking on spiritual compartmentalization: when we simplify God’s creative and redemptive presence in the world saying “this, here, is God; that, there, isn’t.”  We see the example in the saying about emperor and the need to recognize who is sovereign and what that means in our daily life.

Questions for going deeper with the Scriptures for Monday, April 18th

The Monday of Holy Week
Mark 11:12-19 | Isaiah 56:7 | Jeremiah 7:1-15

The day after Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem is written around this peculiar encounter with a nonproductive fig tree.  Why does he curse this tree that bears no fruit?  It seems superfluous if we merely read verse 12-14.  Yet when connected to his encounter with the money changers in the Temple, we can see how the tree represents the Tempe, subverted, corrupted, dying changed from a place of God’s presence, to merely a place for business as usual.

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Blogging Towards Palm Sunday, April 17, 2011

Psalm 118:1-2, 19-29 | Philippians 2:1-11 | Matthew 21:1-11

“Who is this man?”  and “Who do you say that he is?” are the foundational questions that the story of Palm Sunday ask us.  We easily get distracted in our modern, scientific-based, empirically inspired culture.  We want to verify Jesus’ divinity, to prove that he rose from the dead, to demonstrate physically his resurrected existence among us in 2011?  Those questions are all valid.  Yet today’s texts seem focused more upon telling us why Jesus is a different king than what the people had expected.

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Blogging Towards April 10, 2011

Ezekiel 37:1-14 & John 11:1-45

Does faith in Jesus really change anything in life?  Is it just a crutch to help us get through the difficulties that we face?  Is it merely a metaphor that we invoke for hope?  Is his bodily resurrection a game-changer; transforming the very essence and structure of the universe?  No matter our answer as we wrestle with those deep questions, the essence of Christian faith is a living-in-the-tension between the hope of resurrection and the finality of death which is all to palatable and familiar to us in our lives.  Our faith is based upon resurrection, the idea of life overcoming death, light overwhelming darkness, the power of love and grace surprising the power of force and violence.  But what does that mean for us in our daily lives?

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Blogging Towards Sunday, April 3, 2011

John 9:1-41

This story of a healing encounter with Jesus is filled with irony.  Only the blind man is able to see Jesus.  And yet he recognizes him not first by sight but rather through hearing his voice.  Once healed, the community, that has known this man his whole life, cannot recognize one of their own.  The religious community, rather than celebrate this miraculous sign and wondrous man, wants to paint him as the bad-guy and the problem creator.  What would seem logical, isn't what happens.

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Would Anyone Hire Jesus?

Singles Men Unhireable as Evangelical Pastors

In a conversation with a merchant near the church I serve as pastor told me about a recent article in the New York Times [Single and Evangelical?  Good Luck Finding A Job].  The article basically asserts that single pastors, in particular male ones, in the evangelical church network are at the bottom of the hiring heap.  Single women would be too, but I assume that they're not included in the article because the author focused on communities that only ordain men.  They're usually not hired because their is an unspoken assumption that they're either predators, or gay, or something else.

Blogging Towards Sunday, March 27, 2010

John 4:5-42

How do we understand God's presence as Jesus and in Jesus in the world?  Is he still in the world?  Or is that presence over?  John begins his gospel with a remarkable introduction laced with irony:  Jesus is the word and yet the world did not know him or recognize him?  [John 1, v. 10 and 14].  Is this because Jesus isn't really who is said he was?  Or who his first followers claimed he was?  Or who we struggle to experience him as today in the midst of modern technologically filled and quantified life, in the shadow of the revolutions across the Middle East, the natural and man-created disasters in Japan and our continuing economic pain?  Is Jesus really with us?  And if so, what the deal?

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Blogging Towards Sunday, March 20th

Genesis 12:1-4 & John 3:1-17

What is faith?  Is it about God or is it about us?  In Genesis 12 we hear the foundational story of faith as being about a journey not the destination.  Abraham and Sarah set out on a risky journey, leaving behind the safety of their familiar and established social network and safety net in order to hope for something bigger, better and God-given.  Their story of faith is one of journeying, walking, adventuring.  For them, faith is not the memorization of doctrine, nor the confession of established tenants, but the open road of being challenged in terms of their expectations and preconceived ideas, the limits they put on what is a "good life" and what the passion and purpose that gives breath to their life is.

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Blogging Towards Sunday, March 13th

Matthew 4:1-11

This peculiar passage about Jesus occurs at the onset of his public speaking and presence.  It seems peculiar as there is no other encounter story in the gospel between Satan (the divider) and Jesus (the great uniter).  Is it a test?  Is it him beating the devil?  It is theological?; metaphorical?; historical?  And how does such a story apply to our lives?

Blogging Towards Ash Wednesday

Isaiah 58:1-12 and Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21

I find that the hardest part of faith and living a life of faith is not the "believing" part, but more often the life in community part.  It's hard to strive to be faithful and to put into practice the teachings of Jesus when we feel like others we journey with aren't following through, being authentic or integrating faith into all of their lives.  In our current society it's often that those outside the church look and criticize a seemingly naive piety that is disconnected either from the way in which Christians actually live or the way in which the world is.  Ash Wednesday is a celebration of our call to faithful discipleship which is based first and foremost on the confrontation of our mortality - our limits as part of the human condition - and also our recognition of our sinfulness - that we often don't live out what we desire to, or that we stray from the life path of goodness, mutuality, justice-doing, community-building, spiritual awareness and God-centeredness that the Divine One longs for us.

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Blogging Towards Sunday, March 6

Exodus 24:12-18 & Matthew 17:1-19

Fear - Katy Perry - Westboro Baptist Church

My kids sing the song "Firework" by Katy Perry often these past weeks.  A current pop music hit, the words resonate with me as I reflect upon the scriptures proposed for this week:

Ruby Bridges: links

Last week I told the story of Ruby Bridges in my sermon on Isaiah 49:8-16 & Matthew 6:24-34, using this painting of Norman Rockwell as the bulletin cover.  Her remarkable story, poignant in terms of the paradoxical way in which our nation - in particular followers of Jesus - has dialoged about race, inclusion and community.  Hers is a story pregnant with possibility.  Her example still proclaims courageous and risky hope in a different future than what we see outside our doors when we leave in the morning.  Here are two videos that can lead you to know more about 6 year old Ruby as a societal and world-changer.


A short documentary clip



A video clip to the song "Ruby's Shoes" by Lori McKenna. [site]

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Blogging Towards Sunday, February 27

Isaiah 49:8-16 & Matthew 6:24-34

This week's gospel passage contains a familiar portion of the Sermon on the Mount.  You can't serve two masters: God and Mammon or wealth.  Jesus talks of trust and loyalty.  We in our day and our Western World think of the worries that plague us: to-do-lists, fears, possibilities, unresolved situations, difficult relationships, existential angst and anxiety.  Yet Jesus is talking to folks who were worried about putting food on the table each day, enough for the children or elders to get in order to survive, worried about shelter, not more square footage, but would they - could they - be safe from the elements.  They're different, and yet similar, even with all our wealth that separates us.  Our worries plague us, chase us.  They can become the elephant in the room, no matter what we think of, they're still there.  It's easy to forget the dissonance between the anxiety we live with and that which characterized ancient Palestine in the Roman Empire.

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Blogging Towards Sunday, February 20, 2011

Psalm 119:33-40, Matthew 5:13-20 & 33-48

I've been thinking the past days about the text and sermon from last week - the first part of these 6 sayings of Jesus in the overall text of 5:13-48.  How can Jesus - the one who says to love your enemies - be asking so much, what seems so judgmental, destructive, impossible, unrealistic, un-Jesus-like?  It seems so much easier - and comfortable - to explain it all away.  Jesus didn't mean it, because he knew it's impossible to live out these values.  Jesus was talking to individual people in his day and age, but in our context - our world today - it's just not realistic or pragmatic.  Jesus spoke to oppressed people - inhabitants of a world occupied by the Roman Imperial power - in order to empower them to rise up and throw off their oppressor nonviolently.

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