"Tight lines" is a blessing fishermen offer each other, a wish for lines taut with the weight of good fish. May God grant that the lines written here be taut with His blessings.
Thursday, 03 July 2008 | |||
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Restful Wisdom | |||
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In The Lord of the Rings, J. R. R. Tolkien often
draws the biblical contrast we find mentioned at least twice in this
text. Spiritual insight, which is a gift of grace, is granted not to the
greatest and wisest of this world, but to the small and humble. In
Tolkien, not to elf lords and wizards, but to hobbits. In Scripture, not
to learned holy men, but to "little children," as Jesus calls
His disciples in
Matthew 11:16-30. After chiding those who accused Jesus of loose living, but who also accused John of extreme asceticism, verse 19 ends with the cryptic saying, "But wisdom is proved right by her actions." The wisdom of Jesus is revealed in the good that He does, not in a particular program of spiritual achievement. Verse 25 speaks of that which is hidden from the wise being revealed to little children. Then in verse 27 Jesus speaks that which is sometimes called "the thunderbolt from the Johannine heaven," since it connects Jesus and the Father in a way which smacks much more of John than of the synoptic Gospels. Yet the point here is that the important knowledge (wisdom) about God is a gift of gracious revelation. So the passage concludes with the wonderful invitation to come and learn from Jesus, yet in a way that offers rest. The wisdom we receive from Him is not a laborious, heavy thing, but a path which brings rest to our souls. How can we hear this invitation truly and well in the midst of all the spiritual exertion and competition so many of "the wise" of our time promote? | |||
Thursday, 12 June 2008 | |||
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A Good View of the Field | |||
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There were no assigned seats as we assembled for my
daughter's graduation last week at Qwest Field in Seattle. So we were
able to find places that were pretty far down and facing the center of
the stage. We could see everything very well. For a football game, I
imagine they would have been ideal and expensive seats, nearly right on
the 50 yard line. We cherish and sometimes pay dearly for a good view of events that are important to us. It seems we ought to cherish as much or more a good view of what is important to our Lord. In Matthew 9:35 - 10:8, Jesus looks out over the "field" of the crowds of people gathering around Him and that sight fills him with compassion. He calls on the disciples to pray for workers in that field and then sends them out in partial answer to their own prayers. May our Lord grant us His own good view of the field, which is the world around us in all its need and hunger both for food and for God. | |||
Wednesday, 21 May 2008 | |||
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Live Like the Birds | |||
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"Do not worry," is hard advice to take.
In the midst of all the difficult and extreme commands of the Sermon on the
Mount, the call not to worry in
Matthew 6:24-34
may be the most difficult. Karl Barth says about this
text: "If we ever take the risk (and it is a risk) of preaching on Matthew 6:25-34, we at once meet with all kinds of sullen or dispirited or unwilling reprimands…, and most of all, if we are honest, from our own hearts and minds. For how can we help taking care for our life?" However much we might be moved by the Franciscan ideal of a Christian life freed from worldly care and devoted to serving Christ and others, it's an awfully challenging vision to realize. Yet the spirit which Jesus portrays in this passage is so enticing. Blessed Izaak Walton in The Compleat Angler relates a little story about one Diogenes wandering through a country fair, seeing ribbons, looking glasses, nutcrackers, fiddles and hobby horses, along with all the other gimcracks sold at fairs. He remarked to a friend, "Lord, how many things are there in this world of which Diogenes has no need!" What a fine attitude to cultivate. If only you and I might walk through a mall or read the ads in the Sunday paper with such a spirit. This lack of anxiety over things produces even better fruit than a peaceful spirit. I think a loose detachment to things also helps make us more generous, more willing to engage in the kind of sacrificial giving that Jesus modeled. In a way that Francis of Assisi understood well, living like the birds makes us more willing to carry a cross. | |||
Wednesday, 14 May 2008 | |||
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Holy Kisses | |||
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The epistle text assigned for Trinity
Sunday (May 18 this year)
II Corinthians 13:11-14 is a short four verse lesson that ends with a familiar trinitarian benediction: ". . . the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all." Hence the lectionary's selection of it for Trinity Sunday. One bit of technical weirdness is that the Revised Common Lectionary (which the Covenant denomination follows) designates the text as II Corinthians 13:11-13. That's because the lectionary follows the verse numbering in the NRSV, which follows the numbers in the UBS standard Greek text of the New Testament. In those versions the two tiny verses which are 12 and 13 in other versions like the NIV, RSV, KJV, etc. are combined as verse 12, making the trinitarian benediction verse 13 and the end of the chapter. I find it highly interesting that this text offers a series of injunctions regarding healthy community life -- restoration, encouragement, unity of mind, peace, love and even the offering of an intimate greeting to each other. Then the Trinity comes into the picture. This conjunction of church community and divine Trinity is a great reminder that the foundation of community life in the Church is the fact that God is a community of three different persons living in the most complete and perfect unity. We are called together to live among ourselves the kind of life that God enjoys within the deity. Facets of our understanding of the Trinity therefore speak to Christian life together. Certainly unity in diversity. But we also can see that there is an ordering of function and authority that still does not eliminate the equality of the divine persons. The Son submits to the will of the Father, and the Spirit does will of both the Father and the Son. Yet all three are equally God and equal in honor. What might this have to say about church order and the different gifts, functions and roles that are exercised in the Body of Christ? | |||
Thursday, 01 May 2008 | |||
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Jesus in Charge | |||
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It's often hard to believe that Jesus is in charge in the
way described in
Ephesians 1:15-23, everything under His feet, head over everything.
So much seems so out of control, from oil and food prices to the cancer
that will soon take away a dear young believer in our
congregation. If He's in charge, it's sure hard to
see. The writer to the Hebrews felt the same thing, quoting in Hebrews 2:6-10 , Psalm 8 that God made everything subject to man, but bemoaning that we do not see everything in fact subject to us. What we do see, he says in verse 9, "is Jesus who was made [like us] lower than the angels for a little while, now crowned with glory and honor, because he tasted death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone." Because Jesus lowered Himself, we are raised, so that Hebrews goes on to say that God brings "many children to glory" through the sufferings of the Author of our salvation. We look for that glory, a glory that comes from the fact that Jesus took charge in a mysterious way, by dying on the Cross. May we live into and enjoy that glory. | |||
Thursday, 24 April 2008 | |||
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Humbled to Death | |||
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I get a little break from preaching this
week. Emma Jensen will deliver the sermon Sunday morning, using
Philippians 2:1-9
as her text. She is focused more on the attitude of
unity and humility called for in the first few verses of the text, which
then moves to the suffering and death of Christ as the prime example of
that attitude. However, I'm moved today by verse 8, which says that Christ, "humbled himself by becoming obedient to death--even death on a cross!" I've been sitting with a young woman of 37, dying of cancer, now in hospice care. It strikes me just what a humbling thing dying really is. Much of the trappings of dignity disappear as medical people come and go, talking about urine output and fluid intake and such things. Most of one's own control of the situation is lost, as others make decisions for the one dying. To think of Christ, who could have chosen never to die, voluntarily submitting Himself to that kind of humility is a good reminder of what it means for me as a Christian to die to myself and seek the attitude of my Lord. In many ways it's just plain hard. Yet there are also moments of deep peace I sense in our friend. She is ready to be with the Lord. She has let go of the desperate grasp on life that characterizes most of us. If the humility of death can bring that kind of peace, then there is a good and a blessing in it, despite how hard it is. I look forward to hearing what Emma will share with us. | |||
Wednesday, 16 April 2008 | |||
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You Know the Way | |||
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We're always looking for the secret. And there are plenty of
people ready to sell it to us. The secret to losing weight. The secret to
making money. The secret to good health. The secret to a successful
marriage. We're constantly tempted to imagine that somebody knows
something we don't know about how to succeed in all these areas. If we
give into that temptation, and pay for this secret knowledge, one of two
things happens. Either the "secret" doesn't work, or we
discover that it's something perfectly ordinary. Eat less and exercise
more and you will lose weight. Work hard, spend less, save more and you
will make money. But you already knew those things. In John 1:1-14, and in the previous few verses in chapter 13, as Jesus is preparing His disciples for His departure, first Peter, then Thomas, and then Philip all ask for the "secret" in different ways. Jesus keeps telling them that they already know it. . . because they've known Him. As my wife can wax eloquent about, even in our faith we are tempted to this desire for secret knowledge, the gnosis of the Gnostic heresy. We buy Christian books advertising the biblical secrets to successful living. We go to seminars. We show up at church expecting a preacher to tell us some hidden key to life we didn't already know. And Jesus says the same thing to us, "You know the way. . .." There is no way, no secret but Jesus Christ. The key to Christian life, to beautiful, dynamic, transformed, abundant life (as in last week's text) is simply to know what we already know as Christians, to know Jesus and to walk with Him, to follow Him, to seek to live in our own context and situation the kind of life He led. That's all there is, nothing more, nothing deeper, no mysterious trick or strategy to spiritual life. It's all there in what we learn about Jesus in Scripture. As He says to Philip, if we've known and seen Him, we've known and seen the Father, known and seen God. What could be deeper than that? | |||
Tuesday, 08 April 2008 | |||
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Sheep Dogs | |||
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While I was in seminary, I heard the pastor of our church
preach on
John 10:1-16. He suggested that, while Jesus is the Good Shepherd,
that pastors, despite the traditional designation of
"shepherd," might aspire to less auspicious role of "sheep
dogs." We are merely the true Shepherd's lowly assistants in caring
for and keeping the sheep together. Maybe something of a sheep dog role belongs to every Christian. Christ is the Good Shepherd, the Great Shepherd. All believers have a part in His work of caring for the flock and gathering it in. In verse 16, Jesus speaks of sheep "not of this fold." The simplest and probably best interpretation is that He meant the Gentiles who would be gathered in along with the Jewish people. But the application of that for now implies that we have a role, like the first Christians did, to fulfill in helping bring into the flock those who are not yet part, not yet believers and followers of Jesus. I've always felt that the role of sheep dog was a little less burdensome than that of shepherd. | |||
Tuesday, 01 April 2008 | |||
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Making a Place for Jesus | |||
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Only one of the two disciples on the road to Emmaus is
identified in
Luke 24:13-35, Cleopas, in verse 18. I. Howard Marshall suggests he
is named because he was well-known in the early Christian community,
perhaps the father of a Simeon who later became head of the church in
Jerusalem. Marshall also raises the possibility that Cleopas' companion
was his wife. I like the image of Mr. and Mrs. Cleopas hospitably inviting their traveling companion into their home and making a place for him at their table. I like it partly because it is so homely and well, physical. We often get the impression that "making a place for Jesus" is a purely spiritual affair of ordering ourselves so that our Lord has a higher situation in our priorities or is the focus of much of our internal dialogue. But I like the thought that making a place for Jesus is something like an actual physical process, requiring us to move a chair around, add some silverware to the table, and place another pork chop in the pan. I'm not sure exactly what that means, but I think it's something to the effect that the physical space of worship and Christian activity is not a "non-spiritual" consideration, but actually merits close attention if the real Jesus is to be present. I think it also has to do with the fact that Jesus made clear (Matthew 25:31-46) that we make room for Him only insofar as we literally, physically make room for others in our lives, feeding, clothing, housing them in ways that demand actual space. God bless you all in this holy season of the risen Lord. | |||
Thursday, 27 March 2008 | |||
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Forward in Faith | |||
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I've got a cold, which maybe is appropriate for this week
after Easter, when it often feels like there is a little "let
down" after all the excitement. I struggle to find the stirring
sense that Christ is risen, which I felt on Sunday. Nonetheless, we
believe and make ready to come and worship our Lord again. The text for
Sunday, March 30 is
John 20:19-29, the marvelous story of Thomas' need to see for himself
that Christ was risen in the body. Thomas' doubts serve us in two ways: First, they are a marvelous confirmation that this is a true story. He behaves very much like many sensible and down-to-earth people would, asking for evidence before making any commitment to belief. Second, Thomas shows us that there is room in the Christian community for doubts, even of the deepest sort. We are not people who plow ahead blindly believing, but people who question and wonder and struggle. Yet in the end we come out at the feet of Jesus, worshipping with both belief and awe, saying "My Lord and my God!" | |||
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Profile |
I am the pastor of Valley Covenant Church in Eugene, Oregon. I love to flyfish and hike along the beautiful rivers in our area. I welcome your comments as I share sermon work in progress and occasional other thoughts.
Thank you for visiting this blog. I invite you also to visit my web page.
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