Paul study for 1/25/13

Tomorrow is the Feast of the Conversion of Saint Paul. Let's begin our look at Paul and the Law. Let these questions serve as a guide to your discussion, as I will not be there due to annual convention.

1.) What are your thoughts of the Law, that is, the Old Testament Laws including the 10 Commandments?

2.) what do you think Paul thought of the Law? Read Phil. 3:4-6.

3.) summarize Paul's thoughts on the Law in these passages: Romans 13:8-10, 5:14, 7:12.

4.) What's he saying here: Romans 6:14 and 7:5-6?

5.) Finally, Romans 3:20, 4:15, and 5:20. Discuss.

We will stay will Paul and the Law for a couple weeks, I look forward to seeing you all next week.

We want those nones!

NPR had a pretty good series last week, found here: http://www.npr.org/series/169065270/losing-our-religion. All week they highlighted the Pew Research Center's findings on the rise of the "nones." Find it here: http://www.pewforum.org/unaffiliated/nones-on-the-rise.aspx .The nones make up a growing demographic in American life; they have no religious affiliation. Many times the nones, are not at all antagonistic about religion, though they are ambivalent. We want these people. But we should try something the church has never really tried before: friendship. Instead of trying to make these nones like us, why don't we listen to them? Instead of making fun of them for being "spiritual but not religious" why don't we trust that the Holy Spirit blows where it wills without us controlling it. Try reading John 3:8 and think about how God might be moving in these nones. Many are discouraged by the rise of the nones, but I see it as a tremendous opportunity for the Church, and I don't think that I am being blindly optimistic. Instead I see the rise of the nones as a important time for Christians to really be authentic, and to be authentic is to be vulnerable. Share your story, share your doubts, share your life with Christ, in all its colors. Invite a none to the funny little celebratory meal that we have on Sundays. Don't explain it all, as if you could. Invite a none, let the party wash over them. And then talk.

The Bible, a Saint, and the Commander in Chief

I really love Cornel West. He might be a modern day prophet who can speak truth in love. WOuld love to discuss this with my parish sometime.

New home for class stuff

Go to our new website to access a new blog there that I will keep: www.saintjohns-charlotte.org/father-joshs-blog/

Paul study for 1/11/13

We are going to look at grace this week. Here are some questions to get you started, I'll post some passages to read tomorrow.

1.) what is your definition of grace?
2.) what sense do you think Paul had of grace before his encounter with Jesus?
3.) what do you know of grace from the Hebrew Scriptures ?

This Sunday's sermon

Featuring:

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Sermon for Proper 24B Mark 10:35-45 Today we get the story of an interaction between Jesus and his disciples. On the surface it looks like yet another scene where the disciples get it all so wrong. Here we have James and John approaching Jesus and essentially asking for top billing once the Kingdom of God is established. Jesus questions them about whether they know what they're getting into, and they answer that yes indeed they do. They know that to follow Jesus means to be willing to suffer like he did. Jesus takes the opportunity of the grumbling of the disciples to talk to them about the economy of power in the kingdom, namely that it is the servant who is considered first in the Kingdom of God. This whole chapter in Mark, chapter 10, is punctuated by this one teaching: that to be considered first in the Kingdom of God is to be a servant, just as Jesus was, and is. The problem comes when we notice that the lectionary has done some editing between last week and this week. Last week we had a reading from the same chapter. It ends with the words, "the many who are first will be last, and the last will be first." And then today our gospel begins with James and John, but three verses are cut. Here is what we missed: "they were on the road, going up to Jerusalem, and Jesus was walking ahead of them; they were amazed, and those who followed were afraid. He took the twelve aside again and began to tell them what was to happen to him, saying, ‘see, we're going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be handed over to the chief priests and the scribes and they will condemn him to death; then they will hand them over to the Gentiles; they will mock him, and spit upon him, and flog him, and kill him; and after three days he will rise again.’" It is after this retelling of the plan that Jesus must follow: of his arrest, torture, death, and then his rising; that we get James and John. But here we have Jesus giving out all the information about how things will go for him. Earlier in the Gospel of Mark, Jesus had done the same thing after the Transfiguration and of course you remember that Peter rebuked him because Jesus was not playing by the Messiah rules. But here in today's reading we have James and John. James and John who respond to Jesus speaking of his death and resurrection, they respond to his inauguration of the kingdom of God and they ask to be closest to him. It is my reading of this passage along with the verses that precede it that leads me to the understanding that James and John get. They understand what Jesus’ life and teaching is all about: that Jesus is inaugurating the Kingdom of God, and they want to be part of it. Usually when we read this passage we tend to think of James and John as doing some kind of power grab but I think that when they say, "we are able." they do so solemnly, with clear eyes: “We are able.” In response to Jesus' question, “Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or be baptized with the same baptism that I am baptized with?" They get it; they understand that to participate in the Kingdom of God will mean to serve, and to suffer. A very important Christian thinker, Soren Kierkegaard, said, “There is no lack of information in a Christian land; something else is lacking, and this is a something which no one can directly communicate to the other." “There is no lack of information in a Christian land.” As usual Kierkegaard was talking about several things at once but for today this speaks to us, and speaks of James and John. There is no lack of information for James and John Jesus is just, once again, described that he would suffer and die and then be raised. This is all the information that is needed. Jesus died and was raised. Period. Now, the church and the world has of course tried to come to terms with what all that might mean; and what we have are the various traditions of Scripture, theology, sacramental practice, and prayer. But all of these are ancillary to the core of the Christian information: that Jesus died and was raised. Kierkegaard went on to say that something else was lacking, besides information, and this is a something which no one can directly communicate to the other. But it is what James and John do which is that something that Kierkegaard wondered about. It is their ascent to what Jesus was and was about, and their desire to enter deeper into relationship with him that makes the difference. It is a saying yes to Jesus. What Kierkegaard puzzled over in communication is resolved in our relationship with Jesus Christ. We must enter into a relationship, it cannot be merely a study, cannot be any theoretical supposition. We must enter into relationship with Jesus. And that means to question, to be angry with, and yes even to fall in love. James and John have the information and they are able to enter into deeper and deeper relationship with Jesus. Now, in the fevered nonlinear wasteland that is sometimes referred to as my mind: we naturally go from Holy Scripture to Kierkegaard; the next stop is of course Yoko Ono. Apart from her well known project of breaking up the Beatles, Yoko Ono is a modern artist of some renown. In one of her most famous works she set up a white ladder in the middle of the gallery floor and those who attend the exhibit are encouraged to climb the ladder up to the ceiling, and hanging there is a magnifying glass which one can take and read a very very small work written on the ceiling. The word is "Yes.” Back in 1966 when John Lennon participated in this piece of art, he said that he would have been disappointed if the word had been “No.” There is a participation, a relationship, in saying yes. When we say yes to someone or something we are allowing it to become part of our life. Through Jesus we have all the information we need. Jesus Christ, became God incarnate, to live and die as one of us to reconcile all creation to God. Jesus Christ: who brought the day of the Lord that the prophets have always spoken of. And this same Jesus, through his Holy Spirit continues to call us into relationship with him. He gives us all the information, but there is one thing lacking which no one can communicate directly to another. It is relationship, and the quality of that relationship and how we might be in relationship with Jesus. Jesus has always been climbing the ladder of your life. When he gets to where you are now, right now in your seat, in your life, in your mess, in your success. When he gets to you and reads your word, what word will he read? “No? Maybe? Not yet?” It is my prayer for all of us that our word to him will always and ever be “Yes.” Yes lord we know what you have done and are doing and we bring all of our lives to you: our whole lives: the days, the thoughts, the feelings, our bodies, our work, our money, all of it. Yes Lord. Yes.

Here is a sermon that I recently submitted to a nationally known sermon source that I write for, it was rejected, can you find out why?

Mark 9:38-50 "For no one who does a deed of power in my name will be able soon afterwards to speak evil of me." At football games it is still fairly common to see people holding signs that read John 3:16. Of course this is a famous reference to Scripture, "God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, to the end that whosoever believes in him will not perish but have life everlasting." It is no wonder people like that passage; it's good news indeed. The problem comes up when we think that John 3:16 tells the whole story of what God is up to in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. It turns out that life is actually complex and nuanced; and so is how Jesus thinks about how we ought to relate to him. Today's gospel reading shows a little bit of Jesus’ nuanced view of how people act in his name. In this passage the disciples have just returned from doing some deeds of power: healing and casting out demons. It seems that while they were out in the mission field they came across another person doing similar deeds of power in the name of Jesus. The disciples try to stop him because he is not a part of the same club as they are. This outsider apparently had at one point encountered Jesus in his ministry. This encounter with Jesus clearly had an effect on the man because he at least knew enough to use the name of Jesus for his deeds of power, which was a marker of a follower of Jesus. The disciples don't like this at all, they tell Jesus thinking, I imagine, that Jesus would support their condemnation of this non-disciple. But here Jesus, as usual, does the unexpected. Jesus not only tells the disciples not to stop the outsider, but informed them that, "no one who does a deed of power in my name will be able soon afterward to speak evil of me." This is a curious thing to say, because it reveals an interesting bit of information about this non-disciple who can do deeds of power in Jesus' name. It seems that the outsider may have actually been badmouthing Jesus; he says that even those who do deeds of power and speak evil of him won't be able to do so for a long. There seems to be a relationship in this kind of behavior of doing good acts and claiming Jesus. There is something irresistible about Jesus. One may be able to do good works and badmouth Jesus, but not for long. The irresistible power of Jesus, his power to transform lives, will win over any hard heartedness. This all speaks to the age old argument in the church between faith and works. On one hand there are the voices in the church that say all you must do to be accepted by God is to believe that Jesus is the Son of God and that he died for your sins. Faith alone will save you. The opposite viewpoint is what has traditionally been called works righteousness. This view says that it is not so much what you believe but how you behave that matters. This viewpoint says that a Christian acts a certain way and that their actions represent what they believe and without proper actions than faith is dead. This is been the argument in the church since the days of James and Paul and was the main argument that fueled the Reformation of which our church is an heir. The problem with this kind of polarized thinking between faith and works, belief and actions is that it sets up a dualistic thinking of which Jesus is speaking out against today. Many of the arguments in the church today are over what it means to be a Christian. This has led to some very ugly and very public disagreements within the church where people take sides and take up the Bible and the creed and hit each other over the head with it. Today's gospel reading undoes all those arguments. The work of a great many churches is to take people who believe in Jesus but do no acts of mercy, no great deeds of power such as feeding the homeless, caring for the poor or the sick, or visiting prisoners. The work of those churches is to support their belief in Jesus and then to slowly try to kindle in their hearts a concern for the other. What the church makes very little room for is for those people who do deeds of power: they feed the poor, they feed the sick, and they have true concern for the stranger. The church has very little room for them because of these people do not proclaim Jesus as Lord. In a very real sense these people are like the man in today's reading who do great deeds of power but do not follow Jesus as a disciple. And what is Jesus' answer to this kind of person today? Basically Jesus says, "They will come around.” Jesus is saying, "If they do deeds of power, if they do good works, they will grow into me." The church needs to begin to welcome these beautiful souls who do deeds of power; we need to make a place for them, to support their ministries even if they do not know in whose name they minister. The church would do well to remember Jesus’ injunction about the least of these and how when we served them we serve him, and to also remember that his teaching was not to us only the to the whole world. So that, even when we go to seek Jesus in the faces of the poor we must also have faith that Jesus is being revealed to those who are not even seeking him, yet serve the hungry, the thirsty, the sick, and the prisoner. This is a difficult teaching: that there are those out there who serve Jesus, and their hearts grow closer and closer to him, maybe even without their knowledge. This muddies the waters of discipleship. Today's gospel reading is not quite the same as John 3:16. Now this is a Scripture that would look very good on a sign at a football game: Mark 9:39; “For no one who does a deed of power in my name will be able soon afterward to speak evil of me." Can you imagine? Holding up that sign that says Mark 9:39 and people seeing that on the screen they may actually run to their Bibles and look it up and instead of dividing the world up into those who are in and those who are out, they might look out at the world and see Jesus at work transforming each soul and knowing that God is drawing all of us closer and closer to each other. And for this muddied, beautifully nuanced life with Christ we say thanks be to God. Amen.

Acts study for Friday, August 31

1.) Read through Acts 13. 2.) What is the difference between magic and the actions that Saul does? 3.) Compare Acts 13:9-12 with 8:20-24. 4.) Keeping in mind Peter's speeches in chapters 2,3,and 10, how is Paul's speech different? 5.) Acts 13:39, in the NRSV reads by this Jesus everyone who believes is set free from all those sins..." How does your version read that passage? Furthermore, what is interesting theologically about this verse and who it comes from? Finally, check out this verse in this inter-linear version found here: http://www.scripture4all.org/OnlineInterlinear/NTpdf/act13.pdf 6.) Acts 13:48b = barf.

Acts study for 8/24/12

Read chapters 11 and 12. How should Acts 12:6-11 be read? Is 12:24-25 related to 12:18-23?

Acts study guide for 8/17/12

Lets read through Acts 10. I
Recommend this brief article on the God-fearers http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/God-fearer , pay special attention to the section on their theological significance. The further sections on Noahidism are fascinating.

Let spend some time looking at what it would have meant to include people into The Way who were not circumcised or observed kosher dietary practices. What would you give up in the Church in order to welcome people, what can't be lost?