Looking Honestly at What Harms Us - 11 March 2018 - Fourth Sunday in Lent

Parallels and paradox abound in these passages: the source of harm becomes the source of healing, those who see the darkness are brought to the light. What is exposed offers a route toward wholeness despite––and even because of––brokenness.

The preacher today may focus on the call in Lent to look squarely at the roots of self-deception and dishonesty. Looking at what harms us is the beginning of life abundant.

John 3:14-21

While nearly everyone is familiar with John 3:16 and the verses that immediately follow it, most readers are probably unaware of the verses that immediately precede it, included in today's reading. “And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness. . .” refers to an oft-overlooked incident during the Israelites’ wandering in the wilderness (see below).

Just as Moses turned the serpent, something that was originally the cause of suffering, into a means of saving lives, the gospel writers made the cross, originally a symbol of shame and suffering, into a symbol of eternal life. . . .

While most readers are familiar with John 3:16, many may overlook the inherent tension between inclusivity and exclusivity in [the passage as a whole]. . . “God so loved the world” suggests the possibility of inclusion (whereas many places in the Bible speak of God's exclusive love for the chosen people), but “everyone who believes in him” limits the reward of eternal life to believers. The next verses increase this tension, since unbelievers are condemned on the assumption that they've had the opportunity to believe and have chosen not to. . .

While many readers have accepted this exclusivity. . . we must consider the audience to whom this gospel is speaking. Some have suggested that the Johannine community felt so beleaguered by “enemies,” not only the synagogues from which they'd been expelled, but the followers of John the Baptist as well as other early variants of Christianity, that they needed encouragement that they had made the right choice. From this perspective then, the exclusivity may be less important than the emphasis on belief in and loyalty to Jesus. –– Jonathan Lawrence

Numbers 21:4-9

This passage provides the background to the cryptic statement that precedes John 3:16. As they often do, the Israelites complain against God and Moses. . . [but] unlike the other times when they complained and God provided food or water, this time God sent poisonous serpents among them and many people died.

When the people realize their sin in criticizing God and Moses, they repent and God instructs Moses to place a bronze serpent on a pole so that anyone who was bitten by the serpents could look at it and live. . .  The concept is of God providing a way to rescue the people from the situation they found themselves in due to their sin, offering a logical parallel for the gospel of John. –– Jonathan Lawrence

Ephesians 2:1-10

Whereas John described Jesus as a signpost of hope to which people could look and be saved by belief, the writer of Ephesians sees the problem not so much as unbelief as the sins they have committed under the influence of the “ruler of the power of the air.” No longer under the sway of their fleshly passions, the Ephesians have been “raised” up and seated with Christ in the “heavenly places.” As in John, they are saved through faith, but there are also echoes of Psalm 107 in the references to God's help and healing. –– Jonathan Lawrence

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

Homily Service 39, no. 4 (2006): 44-52.

Light is the Image of God - 11 February 2018 - Transfiguration

As we come to the end of the season of ordinary time after the Epiphany, the scripture stops us abruptly with anything but the ordinary. Here is another epiphany, a manifestation or showing forth of God in Christ. This is the most vivid such manifestation in the gospels, prior to the resurrection, if you set aside the epiphany of the angels of the incarnation. This manifestation can be seen as a foretaste, of the resurrection appearances, and perhaps a sample of the vision of God that we anticipate seeing, as St. Paul tells us, not “in a mirror, dimly,” but “face to face.” . . . –– Sara Webb Phillips

Mark 9:2-9

Profound spiritual experiences are a normal part of discipleship to Jesus, and may become more frequent in times when we are intentional about letting him draw us nearer to himself, as we do every Sunday when we gather around his table, and as we do every year during Lent as we seek personally and corporately to reorient our lives even more to his way. But those experiences are not the end we seek. Instead they are powerful reminders, pointing us back to the power, wisdom and glory of Jesus.

As we are pointed back to Jesus, the Father's voice continues to remind us to listen to him. Not to the power of the experience, not to the prevailing wisdom of the day, not to hopes for glory for ourselves or others—but to the words and teaching of Jesus.

We as the institutional church must confess that we have not always followed this directive well. We have listened to philosophers or kings or emperors or scholars or psychologists or televangelists or church marketing experts or leadership gurus, perhaps thinking and believing in all sincerity that we were listening to Jesus in and through them. To be sure, sometimes we were.

But our first call, as church, and especially as we all engage this Lenten journey which begins just three days from today, is to listen to Jesus himself. We have his words, his teachings recorded in the gospels. . . . During Lent itself it is to [the] Lord . . . we ultimately turn—not only to hear his words, but to learn again, or perhaps for the first time, how to do them.

. . . Today we are on a high mountain with Jesus, looking out over the spiritual battleground that lies ahead for each of us. –– Taylor Burton-Edwards

2 Kings 2:1-12

Elijah's ministry ends dramatically as he is taken into heaven in a chariot of fire. The wonderful storytelling draws out Elijah's final journey with repetition of narrative elements. The listener's sense of expectation increases as Elisha will not be dissuaded from following his master. At last “the mantle is passed” and the story turns its attention to Elisha. –– Aaron J. Couch

2 Corinthians 4:3-6

Paul pictures the gospel message as open and clear but acknowledges that for some, its truth is veiled. It is Satan, the “god of this world,” who has blinded them so they fail to see the glory of Christ. Those who believe “see” the glory of the Creator God revealed in Jesus Christ. –– Aaron J. Couch

Taylor Burton-Edwards is the Director of Worship resources for the United Methodist Church.

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

Sara Webb Phillips is a United Methodist minister serving North Springs UMC in Sandy Springs, Georgia.

Homily Service 39, no. 3 (2006): 35-46.

Being Reformed for Love – 29 October 2017 – 21st Sunday after Pentecost/ Lectionary 30

Many churches, Protestants and ecumenical gatherings, as well, may be celebrating on this day a special worship service that commemorates this year as the 500th anniversary of the Reformation. It is that celebration that Pastor Kolderup refers to in the following:

While not every preacher will choose to connect the Sunday readings to the coming week's anniversary of the protest of Martin Luther, we have a reading that closes out the remarkable life of Moses and gives us opportunity to review his leadership in the life of God's people. He is the first of the great prophets in Israel's tradition and Matthew's Gospel evokes the memory of Moses in its structure and in his teaching.

If this is indeed going to be a Sunday in which other leaders in the faith are celebrated, Moses is an excellent starting place. If the Reformation was about leaders who sought to focus on what is central in God's salvation, Moses can be honored as one who most intimately lived the covenant relationship between God and Israel. Their returning to the center of the faith was tied to his continuing instruction and intercession. –– Stephen C. Kolderup

In these readings, the preacher can find many connections between the faith of the Hebrew people and the followers of Christ Jesus as the Messiah. One of the writers for Homily Service in 2008 offers this question to ponder:

It would not be Reformation Sunday without saying, “Thanks be to God for new life in Christ,” and asking, “What is the Holy Spirit reforming in us today?” –– Robin K. Brown

Matthew 22:34-46

The interchange between Jesus and the religious leaders ends with his question to them about the Messiah. We may not appreciate the scriptural ploy that Jesus used to trap the Pharisees in their answer about David. Many of us grew up being suspicious of so-called proof texting and this at first feels like Jesus out-dueling the players at their own game. However, Jesus was just as serious in his discussion of scripture as were the Pharisees. For all of them it was worth delving into the word of God and discussing the matter at hand in light of the study.

Classic Jewish writings are full of lively discussion aimed at being faithful from day to day. Sometimes these discussions reopened matters thought to be decided and closed. One such topic was the Messiah's identity as the son of David. While this could be accepted as true, Jesus was proposing that there was more truth about the Messiah. Jesus' use of Psalm 110:1 invites his debaters to step outside that box and consider the Messiah to be even greater. That greatness would not be an extension of David's military and political achievements.

As Jesus would demonstrate, the Messiah would be revealed in rejection, suffering, and death. On many days, we stand with the Pharisees, stuck inside the box of Messianic expectations that avoid the cross. The last question is still waiting for an answer—from us. –– Stephen C. Kolderup

Leviticus 19:1-2, 15-18

In Leviticus 19. . . [the] central theme is holiness, regarded as the end of law. Israel becomes holy (1:1) as it meets the norms God set in the law and participates in divine intent. To emphasize this point, each exhortation to obey God's commands is followed by the declaration, “I am the Lord.” This emphasis on holiness and its ethical import serves as a midrash upon the first line of the Shema, quoted by Jesus as the first commandment. The selection from this chapter concludes with the verse Jesus quoted for his second commandment (Lev. 19:18). –– Fritz West

1 Thessalonians 2:1-8

[This passage] recounts that Paul and his companions when proclaiming the Gospel persevered despite difficulties (2:1–2), distinguished themselves from contemporary philosophers (2:3–6), and nurtured the Thessalonian Christians as one would a child (vv 7b–8). –– Fritz West

Robin K. Brown, a Lutheran pastor, is the Associate Director, ELCA World Hunger and Disaster Appeal at the ELCA headquarters in Chicago.

Stephen C. Kolderup, a PCUSA pastor, recently served as temporary pastor to Frenchtown Presbyterian Church, Frenchtown, New Jersey.

Fritz West, a liturgical author and retired pastor of the United Church of Christ living in Minnesota, serves as the Presiding Member of the Association for Reformed & Liturgical Worship Steering Committee.

Homily Service 41, no. 4 (2008): 90-99.