This week's scripture is Luke 10:25-37.
You'll notice that once again this week's New Testament scripture is the parable of the Good Samaritan that Jesus told in answer to the question, "Who is my neighbor?"
All week long our Music and Arts Camp has been exploring just that question. The kids have been looking at areas around the world: Zimbabwe, El Salvador, and China; and learning something about each culture.
This Sunday they will be leading our worship and sharing music and drama with us. Watching this unfold as Eloise, Jolly, Jeremy, Joann and Susan pulled all of this together with music and crafts, drama and food has been a real treat. Sunday you'll also meet some older kids who came to help the younger ones have a good experience...now that's what I call 'growing your program.'
I hope that you'll take the opportunity to join them as they share what's been going on. And I also hope that the ongoing question of "who is bleeding beside our road?" has been moving you toward some thought about how we as a congregation can reach out in new ways in the community around the church.
Carole and I will be on vacation this Sunday and all of next week. I'll be back on August 3rd for worship. I'm looking forward to some kayaking on Cape Cod and the chance to spend time with some old friends. But I look forward to seeing you again when I get back.
Take care.
Shalom,
Stephen
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
The Neighbor By Side Of The Road
This week's scriptures are Deuteronomy 10:12-22 and Luke 10:25-37.
A couple of things before I start to blog about this week's scriptures.
First, I've been invited/challenged to preach a series of sermons that will help us sharpen our vision of who we are at Broadneck Baptist in terms of our life and mission moving forward into this next phase of our life together. This coming Sunday will be the first sermon in that series.
The scripture that we're using this Sunday is the Good Samaritan parable that Jesus told in answer to the question "who is my neighbor?" And, throughout the following week at Music and Arts Camp, the kids will be using this same story to frame their work and play around international neighbors. I think this is an interesting way to explore the passage. At the beginning of the work the kids will be doing we as grown ups will be doing some grown up 'theological reflection' on the passage. My hope is that our reflection will trickle down in some ways in the work done with the kids; that the things we discover about our identity on Sunday will be reflected as the Church's (as in universal Church) identity is expressed to kids.
In Mark 12:28-31 Jesus is asked, "what is the greatest commandment?" In his answer, Jesus doesn't settle for one commandment. He responds, "you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind" but he doesn't stop there. Jesus isn't content with leaving the most important thing about our lives being our attitude toward God; he goes on to say, "and the second is 'you shall love your neighbor as yourself' there is no more important commandment than these two." Matthew has Jesus follow up by saying that all the Law of Moses rests on these two commandments. Luke, on the other hand, has Jesus telling the parable that we call the Good Samaritan.
There are a number of lessons that can be learned from this parable. There's the judgement lesson about letting 'religious' laws and rules interfere with compassion-it shines a light on the Priest and the Levite. There's the 'anti-discrimination' lesson about recognizing and valuing couragous compassion where ever it comes from-it shines the light on the Samaritan. But in terms of our exploration of our ministry as Broadneck Baptist Church, I'd like to point us in a different direction. I'd like to shine a light on the man on the side of the road.
We don't know much about this man. Though it is often assumed that he is Jewish, we don't know for sure. Many people traveled the road from Jerusalem to Jericho. He could be any one of them. We know nothing about his economic or social status. He'd been stripped of all his clothes. All we know is that he had been robbed, beaten, and lay bleeding by the side of the road. Jesus defines him only by his need. There is no discussion about "the deserving poor" or about his history or family or his religion-or lack thereof. There's not even much discussion about the kind of need he has (is he brain injured, or just cut up?)Nor (as Jeremy pointed out in our Bible study on Monday night) is there any discussion about the wounded man's response to the Samaritan's kindness. He's there; he's wounded and needy.....what will the passers by do? It is in this response that their "identity" for future generations is defined.
For Jesus...and he makes this point in a multitude of ways and places in scripture...there is no seperating our love of God from our love of neighbor. He goes so far as to say "if you did it to the least of these (the most pitiful, the most powerless, the most despised) you did it to me." If we want to wake up every morning and see Jesus; if we want to encounter God every day; we're told to open our eyes and look at our neighbor.
For us as a congregation in the midst of exploring, examining, struggling with what our ministry to the Cape and surrounding area should look like this is an important lesson. Let's put it in stark terms: Who is bleeding on the side of our road? Where is the need? How do we equip ourselves to respond to it? Maybe we've already got some gifts and tools (the Samaritan had oil and wine), but not having the tools isn't an excuse for inaction. Our action has to be determined by the need.
You might ask, "well what if we don't know a lot about this issue/need?" My answer is that we educate ourselves. We've just been given a tremendous gift by 20+ years of giving at Broadneck...our morgage is paid off. That frees us financially, should we need to, to put money into education ourselves about the need, to develop an intelligent response, to live out our call.
But let's be blunt. We're not talking about "issues" or "needs"....we're talking about people. Who's bleeding by the side of our road? Or better yet...where by the side of our road do we see Jesus wounded, bleeding, in need of help?
That's where we need to start.
Hope to see you Sunday.
Shalom,
Stephen
A couple of things before I start to blog about this week's scriptures.
First, I've been invited/challenged to preach a series of sermons that will help us sharpen our vision of who we are at Broadneck Baptist in terms of our life and mission moving forward into this next phase of our life together. This coming Sunday will be the first sermon in that series.
The scripture that we're using this Sunday is the Good Samaritan parable that Jesus told in answer to the question "who is my neighbor?" And, throughout the following week at Music and Arts Camp, the kids will be using this same story to frame their work and play around international neighbors. I think this is an interesting way to explore the passage. At the beginning of the work the kids will be doing we as grown ups will be doing some grown up 'theological reflection' on the passage. My hope is that our reflection will trickle down in some ways in the work done with the kids; that the things we discover about our identity on Sunday will be reflected as the Church's (as in universal Church) identity is expressed to kids.
In Mark 12:28-31 Jesus is asked, "what is the greatest commandment?" In his answer, Jesus doesn't settle for one commandment. He responds, "you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind" but he doesn't stop there. Jesus isn't content with leaving the most important thing about our lives being our attitude toward God; he goes on to say, "and the second is 'you shall love your neighbor as yourself' there is no more important commandment than these two." Matthew has Jesus follow up by saying that all the Law of Moses rests on these two commandments. Luke, on the other hand, has Jesus telling the parable that we call the Good Samaritan.
There are a number of lessons that can be learned from this parable. There's the judgement lesson about letting 'religious' laws and rules interfere with compassion-it shines a light on the Priest and the Levite. There's the 'anti-discrimination' lesson about recognizing and valuing couragous compassion where ever it comes from-it shines the light on the Samaritan. But in terms of our exploration of our ministry as Broadneck Baptist Church, I'd like to point us in a different direction. I'd like to shine a light on the man on the side of the road.
We don't know much about this man. Though it is often assumed that he is Jewish, we don't know for sure. Many people traveled the road from Jerusalem to Jericho. He could be any one of them. We know nothing about his economic or social status. He'd been stripped of all his clothes. All we know is that he had been robbed, beaten, and lay bleeding by the side of the road. Jesus defines him only by his need. There is no discussion about "the deserving poor" or about his history or family or his religion-or lack thereof. There's not even much discussion about the kind of need he has (is he brain injured, or just cut up?)Nor (as Jeremy pointed out in our Bible study on Monday night) is there any discussion about the wounded man's response to the Samaritan's kindness. He's there; he's wounded and needy.....what will the passers by do? It is in this response that their "identity" for future generations is defined.
For Jesus...and he makes this point in a multitude of ways and places in scripture...there is no seperating our love of God from our love of neighbor. He goes so far as to say "if you did it to the least of these (the most pitiful, the most powerless, the most despised) you did it to me." If we want to wake up every morning and see Jesus; if we want to encounter God every day; we're told to open our eyes and look at our neighbor.
For us as a congregation in the midst of exploring, examining, struggling with what our ministry to the Cape and surrounding area should look like this is an important lesson. Let's put it in stark terms: Who is bleeding on the side of our road? Where is the need? How do we equip ourselves to respond to it? Maybe we've already got some gifts and tools (the Samaritan had oil and wine), but not having the tools isn't an excuse for inaction. Our action has to be determined by the need.
You might ask, "well what if we don't know a lot about this issue/need?" My answer is that we educate ourselves. We've just been given a tremendous gift by 20+ years of giving at Broadneck...our morgage is paid off. That frees us financially, should we need to, to put money into education ourselves about the need, to develop an intelligent response, to live out our call.
But let's be blunt. We're not talking about "issues" or "needs"....we're talking about people. Who's bleeding by the side of our road? Or better yet...where by the side of our road do we see Jesus wounded, bleeding, in need of help?
That's where we need to start.
Hope to see you Sunday.
Shalom,
Stephen
Friday, July 11, 2008
Trusting the Process of God's Grace
This week's scriptures are Genesis 25: 1-18 and Matthew 13: 24-30.
In this section of Matthew, Jesus tells three parables back to back that he prefaces with the phrase "the Kingdom of heaven is like..." They are about tiny seeds that grow into large plants; yeast in bread dough; and weeds in the wheat field.
These parables are, in part, about the paradox of the Kingdom of God. About the fact that small things make great differences and that it is in the tinest of moments or actions that great things are held.
But the lead off to this is this pecular parable about the weeds and the wheat. Now most of you who garden weed on a regular basis. I hear folks talking about tending their flowers nearly every Sunday. So it seems a bit strange that the farmer in the story tells his workers NOT to weed for fear they will pull up some wheat by mistake. The farmer would rather risk the weeds (for now) than lose the wheat. Though the story ends with the idea that the weeds will finally be culled out, this is a story of patience and grace and trust. Of a desire to let the process of growth and life do their work and make sure that we can tell the difference between weeds and wheat before we go to yanking things out of the earth.
When followed by the two stories of small things...mustard seeds and yeast...I can't help but wonder if part of what Jesus was getting at was that little things can turn the tide; the power of the smallest act-"the cup of cold water" that we talked about a couple of weeks ago-to transform not only the moment, but the larger picture as well.
How many times in your own experience, or in your knowledge of history, has someone been written off as a "weed" only to be transformed by the process of life and grace-or by some "cup of cold water" into a life of "wheat"?
Have you ever felt written off yourself as a "weed" only to find renewal and hope in someone's "cup of cold water" held out to you?
Do you look at your own life and see lots of "weeds" and little "wheat"?
These parables tell us that our lives, and in fact, the universe, turn on small things. And that God is patient with the process. God is not so quick to go 'weeding', but rather seeks to 'draw straight with our crooked lines' by the use of the small things...the pebble that turns the stream.
Please don't mistake my faith for naivety. We make mistakes...huge mistakes. We sin. And there is evil in the world. Huge clouds of evil in which violence is done, humans are trafficed, and innocents tortured and killed. I know this and we have responsibilities to face and respond to it.
But we respond in faith. Faith that God will have the last word. That the final act does not belong to evil and that the small actions you and I take today can turn the stream, raise the loaf, or grow into a place where others may find shelter.
We'll explore some of this on Sunday in relation to Isaac and Ishmael and the Issac's and Ishmael's in our lives.
For now, I'm off to go camping. Car is packed; the dog is ready; and Carole is waiting.
Hope to see you Sunday.
Shalom,
Stephen
In this section of Matthew, Jesus tells three parables back to back that he prefaces with the phrase "the Kingdom of heaven is like..." They are about tiny seeds that grow into large plants; yeast in bread dough; and weeds in the wheat field.
These parables are, in part, about the paradox of the Kingdom of God. About the fact that small things make great differences and that it is in the tinest of moments or actions that great things are held.
But the lead off to this is this pecular parable about the weeds and the wheat. Now most of you who garden weed on a regular basis. I hear folks talking about tending their flowers nearly every Sunday. So it seems a bit strange that the farmer in the story tells his workers NOT to weed for fear they will pull up some wheat by mistake. The farmer would rather risk the weeds (for now) than lose the wheat. Though the story ends with the idea that the weeds will finally be culled out, this is a story of patience and grace and trust. Of a desire to let the process of growth and life do their work and make sure that we can tell the difference between weeds and wheat before we go to yanking things out of the earth.
When followed by the two stories of small things...mustard seeds and yeast...I can't help but wonder if part of what Jesus was getting at was that little things can turn the tide; the power of the smallest act-"the cup of cold water" that we talked about a couple of weeks ago-to transform not only the moment, but the larger picture as well.
How many times in your own experience, or in your knowledge of history, has someone been written off as a "weed" only to be transformed by the process of life and grace-or by some "cup of cold water" into a life of "wheat"?
Have you ever felt written off yourself as a "weed" only to find renewal and hope in someone's "cup of cold water" held out to you?
Do you look at your own life and see lots of "weeds" and little "wheat"?
These parables tell us that our lives, and in fact, the universe, turn on small things. And that God is patient with the process. God is not so quick to go 'weeding', but rather seeks to 'draw straight with our crooked lines' by the use of the small things...the pebble that turns the stream.
Please don't mistake my faith for naivety. We make mistakes...huge mistakes. We sin. And there is evil in the world. Huge clouds of evil in which violence is done, humans are trafficed, and innocents tortured and killed. I know this and we have responsibilities to face and respond to it.
But we respond in faith. Faith that God will have the last word. That the final act does not belong to evil and that the small actions you and I take today can turn the stream, raise the loaf, or grow into a place where others may find shelter.
We'll explore some of this on Sunday in relation to Isaac and Ishmael and the Issac's and Ishmael's in our lives.
For now, I'm off to go camping. Car is packed; the dog is ready; and Carole is waiting.
Hope to see you Sunday.
Shalom,
Stephen
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
Incredible Love
This week's scriptures are Song of Solomon 2:8-13 and Matthew 11:16-30.
God loves us. Now when I say that, most of you sort of go..."yeah, we know that"-right?
But I mean God LOVES us.
I think that sometimes we lose track of what that means; of the incredible depth and passion that is involved here. It may be because so many of us grow up singing "Jesus loves me this I know" that we think of that love as somehow childish. Or we hear John 3:16 "For God so loved the world..." so often that it quites having a real impact.
Then we look at stories like Hosea. Hosea who loves his wife so much that he goes and buys her back after she's sold herself into sexual slavery...and then tells us that this is what God's love is like. Hosea who, on God's behalf, describes God's love as like a mother remembering nursing her new-born and the time that she taught her toddler to walk.
And then, we have the pictures painted for us in the Song of Solomon (or the Song of Songs if you prefer). This is really hot, sweaty stuff. Much of it is graphic sexual love poetry. It is steamy account of two young lovers and their desire for one another. They can't keep their hands off each other and everything they see reminds them of their lover's body. So much so that the girl in the poetry goes wandering the streets at night in search of her lover.
We're told by the rabbis and other commentators that this book is included in the scripture because it's also description of the kind of love that God has for us. Think about it! There's God, like a young adolescent male, hanging outside his girlfriend's house....peeking through the windows to catch a glimpse of her, waiting for her to wave back at him...gazing through the latticework into the back yard.
What we're being told in no uncertain terms is that God has the hots for humanity. Think about the most powerful erotic loving feelings you've ever had for another person...they don't even begin to touch the passion God feels for you!
Roll together all the images that scripture gives us: Father, Mother, Brother...and now Erotic Lover-even in combination they only begin to scratch the surface of the quality of depth and passion coming to us from God. This is the Love that the hymn says will not let us go; this is the Love that Paul says nothing can seperate us from; this is the Love that not even death could conquer.
I find it a little bit scary, frankly.....but it's a good kind of scary. Think about falling in love. God's in love with you. Can we fall in love with God?
Hope to see you Sunday.
Shalom,
Stephen
God loves us. Now when I say that, most of you sort of go..."yeah, we know that"-right?
But I mean God LOVES us.
I think that sometimes we lose track of what that means; of the incredible depth and passion that is involved here. It may be because so many of us grow up singing "Jesus loves me this I know" that we think of that love as somehow childish. Or we hear John 3:16 "For God so loved the world..." so often that it quites having a real impact.
Then we look at stories like Hosea. Hosea who loves his wife so much that he goes and buys her back after she's sold herself into sexual slavery...and then tells us that this is what God's love is like. Hosea who, on God's behalf, describes God's love as like a mother remembering nursing her new-born and the time that she taught her toddler to walk.
And then, we have the pictures painted for us in the Song of Solomon (or the Song of Songs if you prefer). This is really hot, sweaty stuff. Much of it is graphic sexual love poetry. It is steamy account of two young lovers and their desire for one another. They can't keep their hands off each other and everything they see reminds them of their lover's body. So much so that the girl in the poetry goes wandering the streets at night in search of her lover.
We're told by the rabbis and other commentators that this book is included in the scripture because it's also description of the kind of love that God has for us. Think about it! There's God, like a young adolescent male, hanging outside his girlfriend's house....peeking through the windows to catch a glimpse of her, waiting for her to wave back at him...gazing through the latticework into the back yard.
What we're being told in no uncertain terms is that God has the hots for humanity. Think about the most powerful erotic loving feelings you've ever had for another person...they don't even begin to touch the passion God feels for you!
Roll together all the images that scripture gives us: Father, Mother, Brother...and now Erotic Lover-even in combination they only begin to scratch the surface of the quality of depth and passion coming to us from God. This is the Love that the hymn says will not let us go; this is the Love that Paul says nothing can seperate us from; this is the Love that not even death could conquer.
I find it a little bit scary, frankly.....but it's a good kind of scary. Think about falling in love. God's in love with you. Can we fall in love with God?
Hope to see you Sunday.
Shalom,
Stephen
Thursday, June 26, 2008
How Do We See God?
This week's scriptures are Genesis 22: 1-14 and Matthew 10: 34-42.
The Genesis passage for this week, often referred to as "The Binding of Isaac" is one of the more disturbing passages in the Hebrew Scriptures. The Matthew passage with its "who ever does not hate mother and father" and "I have come to bring not peace, but a sword" may not be quiet as disturbing as Abraham getting ready to make a sacrifice out of Isaac...but it's close.
As I'm living with these two passages this week there are a couple of thoughts that keep coming back to me...and before I share them I want to offer a big THANK YOU to Jeremy for his conversation with me about them-it really helped my processing of these passages.
Now....
Part of the problem is that we tend, way too often, to look at God through the lens of our culture and/or our family. We get caught up in what C.S. Lewis referred to as "Christianity and..." This is a view of our faith that defines our belief in terms of things which have nothing to do with Christianity, and, finally, these things take over and become part of our understanding of what it means to be Christian.
Abraham, lived in a culture in which the sacrifice of children was, if not normal, not unusual either. What WAS unusual in this story is that God relinquished any claim to human sacrifice here. In fact-with one exception-there is no occurance of human sacrifice in the Hebrew faith from this point on. One way to look at this story is that it is the account of the Hebrew faith breaking with the cultural expectation of human sacrifice.
This all sounds really good til we get to the Matthew passage. We don't have any trouble believing that faith should not demand human sacrifice. But when Jesus says, "Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and who does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me".....that's harsh.
Can we challenge ourselves to look at our faith and seperate out all that isn't Jesus? Can we put Jesus first? Can we be willing to go against those who would make culture or family or politics a god?
These are the thoughts that are moving me toward Sunday. I hope you'll join us as we continue to explore these passages and what they mean for us and our faith today.
Hope to see you Sunday.
Shalom,
Stephen
The Genesis passage for this week, often referred to as "The Binding of Isaac" is one of the more disturbing passages in the Hebrew Scriptures. The Matthew passage with its "who ever does not hate mother and father" and "I have come to bring not peace, but a sword" may not be quiet as disturbing as Abraham getting ready to make a sacrifice out of Isaac...but it's close.
As I'm living with these two passages this week there are a couple of thoughts that keep coming back to me...and before I share them I want to offer a big THANK YOU to Jeremy for his conversation with me about them-it really helped my processing of these passages.
Now....
Part of the problem is that we tend, way too often, to look at God through the lens of our culture and/or our family. We get caught up in what C.S. Lewis referred to as "Christianity and..." This is a view of our faith that defines our belief in terms of things which have nothing to do with Christianity, and, finally, these things take over and become part of our understanding of what it means to be Christian.
Abraham, lived in a culture in which the sacrifice of children was, if not normal, not unusual either. What WAS unusual in this story is that God relinquished any claim to human sacrifice here. In fact-with one exception-there is no occurance of human sacrifice in the Hebrew faith from this point on. One way to look at this story is that it is the account of the Hebrew faith breaking with the cultural expectation of human sacrifice.
This all sounds really good til we get to the Matthew passage. We don't have any trouble believing that faith should not demand human sacrifice. But when Jesus says, "Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and who does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me".....that's harsh.
Can we challenge ourselves to look at our faith and seperate out all that isn't Jesus? Can we put Jesus first? Can we be willing to go against those who would make culture or family or politics a god?
These are the thoughts that are moving me toward Sunday. I hope you'll join us as we continue to explore these passages and what they mean for us and our faith today.
Hope to see you Sunday.
Shalom,
Stephen
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
A Dark Story of Crooked Lines
This week's scriptures (a whole bunch of them): Genesis 16: 1-16, 21: 8-21;
Psalm 69: 1-3 and 16-18, 86: 1-10; Matthew 10: 26-39.
Whew! I don't think I've ever posted this many scriptures for a Sunday before. And to be prefectly honest with you, as I read them I'm not totally sure where we're going to wind up on Sunday when it comes time to preach.
What I do know is that the story of Sara and Hagar is a dark story of jealousy and rage; of using people to get our goals met; of God's hearing the cry of the mistreated and the throw-away; and of God (to use the words of an old Portugese proverb) "drawing straight with crooked lines."
It is faith in this....in God's action in the face of our pain and despair....that gives the Psalmist the strength to call out. To say, 'I'm drowning here,' and to give voice to the anguish of the moment.
And it is this understanding of His Father's concern for us-not just as a piece of history or part of some ongoing Will-but as individuals, as persons, that causes Jesus to remind us that not even a sparrow (often used by the poor for their sacrifice or as food) falls without God's knowledge.
The idea that the same God who is the God of history-who has a hope, a dream for what creation will be....cares about you and me in all our tiny, small, petty, cruel, heroic, humanness....it is truly an Awe-ful thing.
That God heard the cries of Hagar and Ishmael does not diminish or excuse Sara's cruelty or Abram's cowardliness in sending them into the wilderness. But if I have to live in a world where cowardliness and cruelty are often in the driver's seat, I'm grateful that God hears the cry of those who are driven out.
A final word. One of the things that I love about scripture...even when it makes me squirm...is that it does not blink in the face of the truth about the people whom God called to be God's friends. It does not soft-soap their shortcomings or their sins. The Hebrew Scriptures are especially noted for their brutal honesty about the human condition and its potential for being less that what we are called to be. It gives me hope that if these persons, with their issues, found a place in God's friendship, perhaps there is room for me as well with all of my sins.
See you Sunday.
Shalom,
Stephen
Psalm 69: 1-3 and 16-18, 86: 1-10; Matthew 10: 26-39.
Whew! I don't think I've ever posted this many scriptures for a Sunday before. And to be prefectly honest with you, as I read them I'm not totally sure where we're going to wind up on Sunday when it comes time to preach.
What I do know is that the story of Sara and Hagar is a dark story of jealousy and rage; of using people to get our goals met; of God's hearing the cry of the mistreated and the throw-away; and of God (to use the words of an old Portugese proverb) "drawing straight with crooked lines."
It is faith in this....in God's action in the face of our pain and despair....that gives the Psalmist the strength to call out. To say, 'I'm drowning here,' and to give voice to the anguish of the moment.
And it is this understanding of His Father's concern for us-not just as a piece of history or part of some ongoing Will-but as individuals, as persons, that causes Jesus to remind us that not even a sparrow (often used by the poor for their sacrifice or as food) falls without God's knowledge.
The idea that the same God who is the God of history-who has a hope, a dream for what creation will be....cares about you and me in all our tiny, small, petty, cruel, heroic, humanness....it is truly an Awe-ful thing.
That God heard the cries of Hagar and Ishmael does not diminish or excuse Sara's cruelty or Abram's cowardliness in sending them into the wilderness. But if I have to live in a world where cowardliness and cruelty are often in the driver's seat, I'm grateful that God hears the cry of those who are driven out.
A final word. One of the things that I love about scripture...even when it makes me squirm...is that it does not blink in the face of the truth about the people whom God called to be God's friends. It does not soft-soap their shortcomings or their sins. The Hebrew Scriptures are especially noted for their brutal honesty about the human condition and its potential for being less that what we are called to be. It gives me hope that if these persons, with their issues, found a place in God's friendship, perhaps there is room for me as well with all of my sins.
See you Sunday.
Shalom,
Stephen
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Like Sheep Without A Shepherd
This week's scriptures are Matthew 9: 35-38 and 10: 16-25.
Matthew 9:36 tells us that as Jesus went about in the cities and villages and saw the crowds "he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd."
Now, as a prelude to understanding this verse it might be helpful to notice what Matthew records Jesus has having been up to before this verse and his sending out of his disciples: he's cleansed a leper, healed a centurion's servant, healed Peter's mother-in-law (and those who came to the house when they heard about it), stilled a storm, healed a paralytic, been ranted at by the Pharisees for hanging out with sinners, raised a dead girl, healed a woman who was hemorraging, given two blind men their sight, and given a mute man back his voice....and that's just in the space between this verse and 8:1! No wonder, being faced with this overwhelming expression of human suffering, that Jesus would look at his disciples and say 'the harvest is plentiful...ask God to send help.'
Jesus looked around him and was acutely conscious of the state of 'harasssed helplessness' of those who came to him. What do harassed sheep do? The become nervous. They may run in circles. They flock closer together. Except if they're seperated. Then a sheep will become paralyzed and lay down. This is why we see pictures of the 'Good Shepherd' carrying the sheep. The creature has frozen and cannot even respond to the voice of the shepherd (which it will do under other conditions). I'm reminded of experiments done on traumatized mice. They were shocked without any ability to escape their cage...then they were put in a cage with the door open...having been exposed to this inescapable trauma, they would go to the corner of the open cage, huddle down, and not move to escape further shock---even though there was now a door open for them.
How many of us know people like that? How many of us, if we're honest, have places in our lives where we are like that?
Frightened, frozen, unable to see the doorway(s) to freedom. We ask ourselves, perhaps, "can't they hear God saying that they are loved? Can't they hear the shepherd's voice?" But the honest answer is "no, they can't." In my work as a therapist, I often see traumatized clients who's entire early life had been a case of "inescapable shock." You know them too. The battered spouse, the grown up abused child, the abandoned one.
This is the 'harvest' that Jesus was talking about. It wasn't about 'saving souls' when a few verses later Jesus sent out his disciples. He sent them out saying, "proclaim the good news, 'The kingdom of heaven has come near.' Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons" (10:7-8)-these, by the way, were the things Jesus had just been doing. The coming of the kingdom meant that human needs were being met. Illness was cured, alienation releaved, voices long silences were being heard.
As we look at our world; as Broadneck explores the new opening phase of its life; can we hear Jesus saying, 'Look! there's work to be done...ask God to send help' and can we realize that, just like the disciples...that help is us.
Hope to see you on the water Sunday for our outing.
Shalom,
Stephen
Matthew 9:36 tells us that as Jesus went about in the cities and villages and saw the crowds "he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd."
Now, as a prelude to understanding this verse it might be helpful to notice what Matthew records Jesus has having been up to before this verse and his sending out of his disciples: he's cleansed a leper, healed a centurion's servant, healed Peter's mother-in-law (and those who came to the house when they heard about it), stilled a storm, healed a paralytic, been ranted at by the Pharisees for hanging out with sinners, raised a dead girl, healed a woman who was hemorraging, given two blind men their sight, and given a mute man back his voice....and that's just in the space between this verse and 8:1! No wonder, being faced with this overwhelming expression of human suffering, that Jesus would look at his disciples and say 'the harvest is plentiful...ask God to send help.'
Jesus looked around him and was acutely conscious of the state of 'harasssed helplessness' of those who came to him. What do harassed sheep do? The become nervous. They may run in circles. They flock closer together. Except if they're seperated. Then a sheep will become paralyzed and lay down. This is why we see pictures of the 'Good Shepherd' carrying the sheep. The creature has frozen and cannot even respond to the voice of the shepherd (which it will do under other conditions). I'm reminded of experiments done on traumatized mice. They were shocked without any ability to escape their cage...then they were put in a cage with the door open...having been exposed to this inescapable trauma, they would go to the corner of the open cage, huddle down, and not move to escape further shock---even though there was now a door open for them.
How many of us know people like that? How many of us, if we're honest, have places in our lives where we are like that?
Frightened, frozen, unable to see the doorway(s) to freedom. We ask ourselves, perhaps, "can't they hear God saying that they are loved? Can't they hear the shepherd's voice?" But the honest answer is "no, they can't." In my work as a therapist, I often see traumatized clients who's entire early life had been a case of "inescapable shock." You know them too. The battered spouse, the grown up abused child, the abandoned one.
This is the 'harvest' that Jesus was talking about. It wasn't about 'saving souls' when a few verses later Jesus sent out his disciples. He sent them out saying, "proclaim the good news, 'The kingdom of heaven has come near.' Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons" (10:7-8)-these, by the way, were the things Jesus had just been doing. The coming of the kingdom meant that human needs were being met. Illness was cured, alienation releaved, voices long silences were being heard.
As we look at our world; as Broadneck explores the new opening phase of its life; can we hear Jesus saying, 'Look! there's work to be done...ask God to send help' and can we realize that, just like the disciples...that help is us.
Hope to see you on the water Sunday for our outing.
Shalom,
Stephen
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