Questions for going deeper with the Scriptures for Sunday, June 3^rd 

  Mark 11:12-26

Prayer.  It’s something that we all invoke, even if we claim to be spiritual but not religious.  But what is prayer all about?  Is it us expressing our needs, hopes and fears?  Is it God listening to us?  Is it an energy that we plug into through centering actions of silence and mindfulness? Is it a way in which we relinquish our will and accept God’s, connecting with the work that God is already about in our world?  Today’s scripture points to all these facets of prayer and also offers a deep challenge to an exclusive vision that God only listens to prayers done in one particular spot.  Common in Jesus’ day, and mostly foreign to us, this notion of having a privileged or exclusive relationship with God still makes up part of the religious perspective we move in.  How do you experience prayer?  How do we as a community?  How is God calling us to move beyond our expectations, to being a house of prayer in a deeper and wider way?

Blogging Towards Pentecost Sunday,  May 27^th

  Mark 11:1-11 (Crowning the King),

Acts 2:1-21 (what does this mean?),

& Acts 2:42-47 (the gospel embodied in community)

 Pentecost is a unique day in the life of the Church Calendar in which it is connoted by the color red, (remember our Godly Play lesson from 2 weeks ago?)  Red is the color of passion, strong feelings, fire.  It evokes the heat and passion of fire similar to the passionate purpose and transformative presence of God’s Spirit when it moves in the world.  Pentecost is a reminder that God calls the Church to a risky endeavor, to engage the world, in the world, to declare in word and action that God loves the world and that we most know God through the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth.  If that’s the meaning of the birth-day of the Church, I find myself wondering what kind of legacy we’ve been leaving as the church?  When folks encounter our church on College Avenue, or when the wonder about the Church in general, do they imagine a community of people making meaning in life together around a shared core value that we most know, experience God and grow in faith through knowing Jesus & practicing what he preached?

Questions for going deeper with the Scriptures for Sunday: May 20th

  Mark 10:32-52

The Way of Jesus is different than the way of the world.  Today’s scripture point to that mystery, which supersedes any discussion that merely reduces faith to a particular set of morals or ethical actions.  The Way of Jesus leads to and through the cross, and then out of the victory of the resurrection and the paradox of the empty tomb.  Today’s passage closes the center literary nugget of Mark’s gospel which began with the healing of an anonymous blind man in 8:22, echoed and inverted in today’s healing encounter of another blind man Bartimaeus in 10:46-52.  The Way of Jesus moves us from anonymity, to relationship with God through Christ.  In that movement we confess, naming Jesus as the Christ and in the life-giving and universe-transforming love of that relationship we too receive our true name and discover our identity as servants of the Resurrected One.

Questions for going deeper with the Scriptures for Sunday, 
May 6^th   Mark 10:17-31| Salvation as a Gift

We often look for answers, but maybe it’s our questions that most define and shape us as human beings. What defines us?  Is it our jobs?; zip code?; possessions?; faith?; class?; ethnicity?; choices?  Jean-Paul Sartre wrote, “Commitment is an act, not a word.”  In his existential viewpoint he echoes to a certain extent what Jesus is getting at in his encounter with the young rich ruler in today’s section of Mark.  Philosophy grew out of the essential human question as posed by the ancient Greek Socrates: What is a good life? How does one live one?  Can one even live a good life? Does the good we do come from a greater good?  Do we have to be religious, or spiritual, to have a good life? Do we need to be saved from something?  If so, what? It gets at the fundamental heart of Christian faith.

Questions for going deeper with the Scriptures for Sunday: April 29^th

  Mark 10:1-16 | Bonhoeffer’s notion of Costly Grace

If you've been to Frog Park in Oakland's Rockridge district this past week you've seen some major construction and trench-digging emerge.  I go there for dog park breaks with my dog David during the day.  Throughout the week I reflected upon the marks that appeared on the street, sidewalks, even the bushes indicating what was below.  It was striking to realize how much is down there, and how ignorant I am of its presence - and exactly how important it all is to and in day to day life.  I think this week's passage is like those markings, pointing to what lies below in our identities, our relationships and our day to day life.

Blogging Towards Sunday April 22^nd

Mark 9:38-50

A common joke among pastors goes like this: “If it weren't for the people, I'd love my church!"   While irreverently funny, it points to the true challenge of following the teachings of Jesus:  other people.  It’s easy (or at least seems easier) to work to love God, as Jesus said, with all our intelligence, passion and life-energy.  It’s other people that are difficult.  There’s a reason that Jesus claimed that anyone can love their friends and family.  What’s truly revolutionary is to actively love your enemies in a way that transforms us, them and the world.

Blogging Towards Sunday: April 15^th 
Mark 9:30-37

WWJD? [What Would Jesus Do?] is a phrase commonly printed on bracelets and t-shirts these days to proclaim a message of Christian ethics, morality or world-view shaped action.  It’s an acronym that has entered the lexicon of our national and pop culture.  It comes from the work and thought of Walter Rauschenbusch, an American theologian and Baptist minister of the last century [1851-1918].  He was one of the key figures in what became known as the Social Gospel movement: an effort to care for the poor, widowed, orphaned and excluded.  It began out of an effort to live out the teachings of Jesus, to truly be able to pray may your will God be done on earth as it is in heaven.  That movement faded in glory, losing popularity in the beginning of the 20^th century to the growing evangelical and fundamentalist perspectives.  But now, the essence of the movement is back, feeding those later movements with its vigor.  I wonder though if the acronym isn’t wrong in itself?  I don’t think Jesus asks us to do what he did so much, as he asks us to find our identity in his kingdom and Way, asking us What Will You Do when you are confronted with….?

Blogging Towards  Easter Sunday: April 8^th 

Isaiah 25:1-10a & Mark 16:1-8

Easter is about more than just eggs.  It seems stupid to say it.  Yet in our current cultural context, commercial settings and pop culture vernacular, it has to be said.  What is Easter about?  Historically, we know that the group of Hebraic and Israelite followers and disciples of Jesus of Nazareth claimed that he rose from the dead, leaving his tomb empty, at sunrise on this third day after his crucifixion, as the Jewish Sabbath ended.  That community soon became diverse and different, incorporating and engrafting people from diverse cultures, languages and nations; as well as involving both men and women as full participants.  This diversity – which today seems commonplace – was radical in the time of the Roman Empire.  In the Ancient Worldview nations and tribes all worshipped their own gods. And so didn’t mix with other peoples by marriage, real estate location outside of their cultural ghettos and in religious communities.

Blogging Towards Palm Sunday, April 1^st

  Psalm 118:1-2, 19-29 & Mark 11:1-11

What is power?  We live in a season in which several people in our country are scrambling to become the President – the most powerful man (or woman) in the world.  What makes power?  A super PAC? An Ivy League degree?; Money?; a particular zip code?; military power?; connections?; luck?   We are in a confused age in which greatness, power, authority, fame, are aspired to – and yet often times responsibility to those over whom power is given, is shrugged off.  Look at our schools.  Look at what is happening in Syria.  Look at the major themes of the box-office smash movie of the past week “The Hunger Games.”  In an age and culture in which the squeaky wheel gets the oil, the loudest complainer gets ahead; the message of Jesus is counter-cultural, pointing to a parallel way of being in, but not of, this world.

The greatly influential German philosopher and poet Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) best frames the way that our world today envisions and defines power. He wrote of the will to power, believing to be the main driving force in man (and he meant man as he was an open misogynist).  Achievement, ambition, the striving to reach the highest possible position in life; these are all manifestations of the will to power.

Blogging Towards Sunday March 18^th   

Mark 9:14-29

 What is faith?  It’s a common question today in our culture in which many indentify themselves as spiritual but not religious.  Is faith about an institution?; or is it about the God at the center of it all?  Can you still doubt and have faith?  Can you lose your faith when you struggle with the difficulty of believing?  Today’s scripture passage wrestles with those questions in the context of a story about the remarkable faith of a father who radically loves his sick son, coming to Jesus for help.

Blogging Towards Sunday, March 4^th    

Mark 9:2-13

 

This past week our neighbors were robbed.  An occurrence that’s all too common in our city of Oakland.  I was most likely home, being dropped off by the car repair shop shuttle.  Odds are that I scared off the robbers, who left without the TV that they’d unplugged from the wall, while I chummed it up with the driver.  It’s not all that uncommon, as I’ve said; but I’d just spent the 20 minutes in the shuttle ride talking with another passenger, who lives in a less “edgy” and that’s not urbanite for “cool”, area of town than I do.  Her concerns were all about burglaries, violent crimes, with the fear of living in the city.  She saw true – but only part of what is.

Oaklanders seem to take pride in the grit.  Isn’t that why Oaklandish is so successful?  If you live in a dirty, tough town, it’s better to take pride in surviving it than to be paralyzed by shame for staying there.  For many of us, the city, and maybe Oakland in particular, is one of the last places to come to mind (if it comes to mind at all) when we think about where we encounter God in our lives or find spiritual renewal.  Instead, our minds wander to more peaceful and serene settings outside the hurried and complex life of the city: the mountains, the desert, parks, the ocean beach-side, silent retreat houses in the redwood forests of the North Bay. 

Blogging Towards Sunday, March 4^th    

Mark 8:22-9:1

Spiritual sight is something that most of us are looking for.  It’s not primarily the capacity to know all things that we long for, but more for perspective, balance and direction.  I’ve spent years praying for sudden illumination, the sort of explosive religious experience that comes to mind when you think of Paul on the way to Damascus, Moses in front of the burning bush, or Esther in her journey to queenship. 

We live among a few spiritual giants: Mother Teresa, MLK Jr., Desmond Tutu, Billy Graham, the Dalai Lama, other yogis. We have our own lists which differ with specifics, but have the same focus.  I’ve been around people who had an authority that you could feel.  It was as if the air was different around them, the space changed, their perspective stretching out to impact me, to invite me to deeper vision, wiser words, radical humility and action.  But how do you achieve that?  You can’t buy it in the dollar bin at Target. Nor can you order it from the Great Speakers’ Series.

Blogging Towards Sunday, February 26^th   

Mark 8:1-21

How much is enough?  We live in a society where we want to super size everything.  So we should supersize faith right?  We should have a supersized demonstration of proof that God is and that God is what we think, before we believe.  It’s not asking the impossible.  It’s just asking for a little more, not that hard to get.  It only costs like another quarter to get it at McDonald’s, so God should be able to do it – easy!

Ash Wednesday 

"Until Death Do Us Part"

Today marks the beginning of Lent: the season of 40 days (not counting Sundays, roughly 6 weeks)  that precede Easter Sunday.  In the ancient and early Church it was a time for catechism: learning about what it meant to be a follower of Jesus (sort of like a membership class sort of thing).  Catechets, or faith students, would be baptized as the sun rose on Easter Sunday, thus joining the community of faith.

Blogging Towards Sunday, February 19^th   

Mark 7:24-37

Today’s passage is rather shocking and potentially embarrassing for it shows Jesus mouthing prejudice.  His comments in verse 28 seem to affirm that God loves the Jews more than the Gentiles; that he has come not for everyone but only for his people.  It’s embarrassing because it seems so –un-Jesus and also flies in the face of other scriptures and historic church affirmation about Jesus coming for all peoples, nations and languages.  Does this racist Jesus change his mind?  Is he won over by the theological argument of the woman?; convinced by her great faith?; or merely using her as a rhetorical device in order to expound upon his version of good news?

This peculiar story, recorded only here in Mark among the four gospels, points to the reality we face today.  How do we interact with others?  How do we approach not only racial and social class diversity in our faith communities, but how do we encounter those among us who have a different faith story, spiritual practice, or theological viewpoint?  How are we as the church called to live in our world of today, but not of it?  What is great faith?  What does it look like? 

Blogging Towards Sunday February 12^th   

Mark 7:1-23

After several striking demonstrations of miraculous healing power in the Jewish west bank of the Sea of Galilee, Mark turns to a narrative of an argument between Jesus and the Pharisees and the Scribes.  Today’s sections contain 5 teachings all organized around a common theme of ritual purity.  They start in 7:1, 7:9; 7:14, 7:17, and 7:20.  We divide them up in a literary fashion because of the change of location, or the use of transitional words such as “and he said….”; or “Again Jesus….” 

Before we study the text we need some historical reminders of things that we may have forgotten or never known.  In Jesus’ day there were several principal sects (or denominations or schools of thoughts) among the Jewish believers: the Pharisees, Scribes, Sadducees, Essenes, and the Zealots (or Siccari).

Blogging Towards Sunday February 5^th   

Mark 6:45-56

Defying Gravity

This is a curious story. The second miracles on the water – of the sea of Galilee.  It echoes what we’ve already experienced in Mark 4:35-41 when Jesus calms the storm, and goes beyond it.  Are they the same story edited because it’s such a good one?  Or is this wonder on the water moving the disciples – and thus us: the current readers, by extension – to deeper faith? 

After feeding the 5,000 Jesus does something even more radical: he defies gravity.

 Blogging Towards Sunday, January 29^th 

Mark 6:30-44

This pericope (section of the gospel) seems to be perfect for us as we gather today for worship and our shared ministry work of discernment, discipleship and rededication as a community of faith at our annual congregational meeting.  Mark tells this story in juxtaposition with the story of the horrific feast at which the 1% of ancient Palestine gorge themselves at the table of Herod Antipas and punctuate the debauchery with the beheading of John the Baptizer all for a king to avoid shame and his mistress to exact revenge on a too courageous prophet.  (Mark 6:14-29)

In the larger scheme of Mark’s retelling of the Jesus story, we see that these two contrasted stories about feasts follow Jesus sending out the twelve disciples to do ministry (Mark 6:6-13).  On one hand it’s remarkable that he would dare to do so: the disciples seem so clueless:  They were terrified by Jesus’ calming of the story (Mark 5:35-41).  They don’t seem to get the parables and basic teachings of Jesus about the Kingdom of God (Mark 4:10).  And yet on the other hand, Jesus has redefined family – the principal thing in terms of identity in the ancient world.  Family isn’t about your family name, your gender, your tribe; but rather it’s about who you follow and how you follow them in your life.  For Jesus, anyone who follows God, seeking to do God’s will in the world, is part of his family.  So in the end the disciples might not be 100% clear on what’s going on, but they get the big picture (even if not very clearly).  They too seek to know God, to follow God, and to do God’s will in the world.  Maybe we ourselves are not all that different than the disciples today?

Bumper Sticker of the Week

Blogging Towards Sunday, January 8^th 

Mark 6:14- 29

As I read this pericope (section of the gospel) it seems to be about authenticity and boldness.  How far are we called to go in standing for what we believe to be right?  How bold are we in proclaiming what we believe to be true, right, gospel-good-news?  Do we proclaim it with just words, or do we do so with all of our lives and livelihoods?  In a world that often is toxically tainted by hypocrisy, polished messages, photoshopped images and smooth talkers who promise everything, I’ve been told to not lose my head.  No one expects you to go that far in doing what you think, or what the Bible says.  And yet in a world that’s bankrupt of belief in promises made – whether that be by politicians, bankers, bosses, union leaders or clergy – aren’t we all looking for some sort of authenticity that’s organically earned by doing what is preached and promised?   In my life, I first had a transformational faith experience as an adolescent when I encountered and dialogued with people – principally adults who weren’t in my nuclear DNA based family – who actually did what they believed and what Jesus taught.  It was experiencing that radicalness that shaped and reshaped me.