Entering the Lenten Wilderness – 22 February 2015 – First Sunday in Lent

Begun on Ash Wednesday, the season of Lent is the annual time for mulling the crux of our faith. Who are we as people beloved by God?

Mark 1:9-15

The biblical accounts of Jesus in the desert being tempted by Satan and ministered to by angels are always a little harder to relate to than the accounts of his teaching and healing and passion. Even if you don’t take the forty days literally, most of us don’t have that kind of experience. Our times of discernment, even if we are contemplating God’s call on our lives, are usually lived in the midst of our everyday duties and family life. Sometimes we go on retreats, taking a week or so to pause and consider our direction in life. Usually, we just muddle along until we get some sense of direction...

‘‘The kingdom of God has come near,’’ [Jesus] said. His desert time wiped away other concerns and gave him a sense of urgency about telling the good news of God’s love. In modern terms we would say that he got his priorities straight.

– Judith Simonson

Who is this God who entered the wilderness of this life for us? What is our calling? What are our particular gifts?

Genesis 9:8-17

These Lenten readings give us an opportunity to enter into huge questions about existence by first hearing the promises given to Noah, his family, and all creation.

Genesis 9 introduces the first of several covenants that will be discussed in the lectionary over the next few weeks, God’s covenant with Noah and all living creatures. Here God promises never again to threaten extinction or destruction by floodwater and gives the rainbow as a sign of that promise of protection. Ironically, that sign seems to be more for God’s benefit as a reminder not to destroy the earth than as a comfort to humans that God will not forget. While these verses speak of God’s promises to Noah, not human responsibilities under this covenant, the beginning of Chapter 9 stipulates prohibitions against murder and eating the blood of animals. Jewish tradition developed a set of ‘‘Noachide’’ laws, the minimum observances expected of all people, not just Israelites. For Christians this set of laws becomes the basis of the agreement in Acts 15 as to which laws are mandatory and binding upon gentile converts to Christianity. Although these verses do not specifically mention a number, the connection to the forty days and nights of the flood is clear.

– Jonathan D. Lawrence

I think of the Epistle reading as a window into how the church is called to take in the central good news from the First Reading and the Gospel. Sometimes it is necessary to dig deeply into the presuppositions behind the text in order to find that window. Other times, as on this Sunday, the connections are plain. 

1 Peter 3:18-22

This short passage connects the story of Noah to the practice of baptism and the significance of Christ’s death. The writer sees Christ’s death and rebirth in the spirit as an innocent suffering or sacrifice on the behalf of all people. . .  Early Christians drew on Peter’s symbolism here and used the ark as a symbol of baptism, since ‘‘a few, that is eight persons, were saved through water.’’ Christian paintings in the catacombs and elsewhere used this symbol, in connection to the Eucharist as well. The idea is that just as Noah spent forty days in the ark, as a sign of faith and as the water washed away the sins of the world, Christians wash their sins away (not just physical dirt) and seek God’s care and rescuing. Again, as in the other passages for today, repentance, humility and trust are required of those seeking to follow God.

– Jonathan D. Lawrence

Jonathan D. Lawrence, an ordained minister in the American Baptist Church, teaches Religious Studies and Theology at Canisius College, Buffalo, New York.

Judith Simonson is an ordained minister in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

Homily Service 39, no. 4 (2006): 13-21.

God’s Vast and Intimate Power – 8 February 2015 – Fifth Sunday after Epiphany

Here on the last Sunday before the Transfiguration, the lectionary gives us evocative images of divine power. Perhaps it is a way for us to move toward that coming moment when the very human Jesus appears glowing white on the mountain, when the identity of God-with-us takes on a mysterious reality.

The writers for Homily Service in 2009 who focused on these texts urge us toward both awe at God’s vast power and intimate care, so that we may find in these images a source of hope.

Isaiah 40:21-31

Isaiah points to the whole universe where God “sits above the circle of the earth” spreading out “the heavens like a curtain” in order to turn the people’s attention to the Lord who stoops to give “power to the faint.” For the very reason that God’s power is gigantic, we must  know that our close, personal lives are also God’s concern.

Here is how Pastor Aaron Couch preached the enormity of the heavens from his place in Oregon using information from astrophysicist William P. Blair of John Hopkins University (see fuse.pha.jhu.edu). 

If our sun were the size of a baseball, right here at the front of the sanctuary, then the planet Mercury would be a grain of sand out here about the second row. Then Venus would be a slightly larger grain of sand out around the fifth row. And Earth would be a still slightly larger grain of sand in about the fifth row . . . And finally, although Pluto isn’t regarded as a planet any longer, it would still be there, a big speck of dust almost two more blocks away. . . 

And that’s just our cozy little solar system. The next closest star would be Alpha Centauri, about 1,400 miles away, just this side of Kansas City. And after that, the universe really does get unimaginably huge. Our sun is part of the Milky Way, a galaxy with more than 100 billion stars, and there are at least 100 billion galaxies in the universe. In such an unimaginably vast expanse of space, it is possible to begin to feel lost and alone.

That was how the people of Israel were feeling when our Old Testament reading was written. They were living in exile in Babylon—prisoners in a place that could never be home. Some of them were thinking that their troubles were bigger than they could ever manage. Maybe they were even bigger than anything God could manage.

To people who are discouraged and overwhelmed, the prophet says, ‘‘Your god is too small.’’ Do you think that the world is too big, that God has somehow lost track of you? Look out your window on a dark, clear night. See the stars spread across the sky. Our Creator God called each of them into being. He knows all their names. He never loses any of them.

– Aaron Couch

Another commentator notes that the import in this passage from Isaiah is highlighted by the fact that verses 21 and 28 are the same questions: “Have you not known? Have you not heard?”

[This emphasis] is a reminder about who God is, whom God chose, and how God has already been at work in the world. It is a reminder to have hope, because God does not desert God’s people; indeed, God renews their strength and soul. Earlier writings in Isaiah hint to a cultural and religious amnesia, and this passage attempts to re-ground a weary and tired people back into the faith.

– Sky Lowe-McCracken

Mark 1:29-39

Punctuating God’s attentiveness to what is both large and small, Mark shows us Jesus in very personal settings: healing a disciple’s mother-in-law, ordering demons not to reveal his identity, and praying alone. 

The power of God that called the world into being was present right there, in Jesus. And Jesus raised her up. It’s no coincidence that our Gospel writer uses the same word that he’ll use later to describe how God raised up Jesus from the dead. This is what the power of God’s love looks like. This is the kind of work that God does. God’s powerful love brings life from death; it creates hope out of despair; it brings home those who are lost; it creates a circle of love and belonging for those who are alone. It overcomes resentment, guilt, and alienation with forgiveness.

– Aaron Couch

Aaron Couch is co-pastor of First Immanuel Lutheran Church in Portland, Oregon. 

Sky McCracken, OSL, is a Methodist pastor serving as District Superintendent of the Paducah District, Memphis Conference, of the United Methodist Church in Kentucky.

Homily Service 42, no. 1 (2009): 126-135.

The Call and the Following – 25 January 2015 – Third Sunday after Epiphany

This Sunday’s lections set Jonah’s prophecy and Jesus’ proclamation next to each other. These two figures appear to people whose lives are situated in very different places. Jesus calls people who work on the water, fishing. Jonah calls to the people of Nineveh, the powerful and ancient center of the warring Assyrian empire.

The pronouncement may seem different to each group, but the outcome is the same; the people change their life focus as described below by Pastor Waldrop in the 2008 commentary from Homily Service.

This is a Sunday to examine foundations. To what do we cling? What are we able to hold loosely? Where is our rock and salvation? Are we ready to follow, even if we don’t much like where God takes us . . . or whom God brings along to join us on the journey?

                        – Denise Thorpe

Mark 1:14-20

Jesus's first sermon holds a multitude of fresh images and strong teaching. Note that like all the rest of the Gospels, Jesus's ministry begins with John the Baptizer—Jesus and John are intertwined in the minds of the evangelists. Note too that Jesus points to the kingdom of God that has come near.

Have you ever thought of repent as meaning, “change the way you see things,” “change your perspective"? Before one changes behavior, a change of perspective is often required. We treat people or things or situations in precisely the way we see them.

In the Seven Habits of Highly Successful People . . .  Stephen Covey uses “change your paradigm” to describe this necessary beginning of successful living. If to repent means to see things differently, then repentance consists of those actions that show we see things differently; we see things as God gives us to see and act accordingly when we rightly repent!

          – H. Gregory Waldrop

Jesus invites us: Follow me. Learn from me how to live. Learn from me what the love of God looks like in the flesh.

Follow me, and the work of your life will be about the rule of God as well. Follow me, not so that you can be come a ‘‘religious’’ person, but so that you can become a real person, one who is alive to the presence of God in this world, learning to embody the love of God in the way Jesus did.

Jesus is calling us to be disciples—people who are learning from him how to live. What sort of life would Jesus live if he were . . . a forestry manager? A health care worker? A technical writer?

With Jesus, we aren’t on our guard against identity theft. We open our hearts to identity gift! In baptism, we have received from Jesus a new identity—we are God’s beloved daughters and sons. Now we are following him, because he’s the one who can teach us what it means to live that way—to live as God’s beloved daughters and sons! It doesn’t mean that we’re perfect.

            – Aaron J. Couch

Jonah 3:1-5,10

Given the brevity of the entire story of Jonah, this is a good time to encourage people to go home and read the whole thing. Then the complexity of God’s command that, at first, drove Jonah to Tarshish instead of Nineveh, then threw him into the sea, then launched him out on dry land, and finally sent him to do his calling would make even more profound the statement in vs. 10 that God had a change of intention. God would not destroy the Ninevites –– because they did listen. They repented. They changed their ways.

1 Corinthians 7:29-31

And perhaps the crux of these texts comes down to what Paul asserts to a troubled church. 

It is striking that Paul’s letter to the Corinthians tells them to hold loosely to what many of us would define as the essential fabric of social order and proper conduct: marital relationship, mourning rituals, celebrations, control of property (1 Cor. 7:29–31). Part of what needs to ‘‘pass away’’ may be our self-assurance that we have a handle on God’s understanding of right and wrong. That is why the Nineveh story is so wonderful. Jonah spoke and, by golly, Nineveh responded in a way that God recognized and blessed. Jonah was none too happy about it.

            – Denise Thorpe

The preacher’s quandary might be to ponder what it was that caused such a huge turnabout for these people. What made the Ninevites believe Jonah’s words? We might think of it as a terrorist group in our time deciding one day to become Quakers. What caused Simon, Andrew, James, and John to drop their nets? What makes us believe in the word of God?

Denise Thorpe is a Presbyterian pastor (PCUSA) who served a church in Raleigh, North Carolina, for eight years. She is currently a ThD candidate at Duke Divinity School.

H. Gregory Waldrop is an ordained elder in The United Methodist Church and serves as pastor at Fountain Avenue United Methodist Church in Paducah, Kentucky.

Aaron J. Couch is co-pastor of First Immanuel Lutheran Church in Portland, Oregon.

Homily Service 42, no. 1 (2008): 107-115.