Blog Archives

BLIND TO WHAT GOD IS DOING - from Sunday, March 26, 2017

3/27/2017

Having a vision for the future can be easy since we (think we) understand current realities and realistic probabilities. Recognizing God's vision is another matter entirely. Typically we're blind to what God is doing, and the scriptures make that clear in two familiar stories.

The selection of David to be anointed as Israel's next king portrays God's prophet Samuel struggling to figure out what it is that God wants in the next monarch.

God provides Samuel with a workable ruse to go out to visit Jesse's people in Bethlehem, dodging the paranoid wackiness of current King Saul, which has also made Jesse's people wary of the visitor from the royal court. Yes, God helped Samuel lie. Get over it.

Then there is a "beauty contest" of sorts as the mature sons of Jesse, seven in all, take the runway for Samuel's evaluation. Samuel is thoroughly impressed, but God is not moved - not with any of them. God reminds Samuel that the criterion is within - a matter of heart and spirit - not in outward appearances. Boy David isn't even in the lineup, yet he's the one to be chosen. (Even the text's editor screws up the criterion; talk about blind!)

In John's gospel, the ever unfolding story of the healing of the blind man turns from the blindness of the beggar to the blindness of everyone to what Jesus is doing and who Jesus is. It gets quite comical. Finally, Jesus tells the once-blind man exactly who he is.

God is plenty active in all our lives and the lives of those around us. Check out the sermon video below and note the downloads available as you consider a vision test for what God is doing in and around you.

03-26-17-ff-answers.pdf
File Size:	27 kb
File Type:	pdf

Download File

03-26-17-blind_to_what_god_is_doing.pdf
File Size:	196 kb
File Type:	pdf

Download File

2 Comments

THIRST FOR NEW LIFE - from Sunday, March 19, 2017

3/21/2017

1 Comment

While thirst may be for water, there are other kinds of thirst. A lack of connection, meaning, and purpose reflect a thirst. In God's people, making that connection with the divine, to be part of the covenant of new life, to taste "living water" drives the stories from Exodus and John's gospel.

Thirsty? The Israelites complained to Moses when their camp at Rehidim was found to lack any water. On the surface, their complaint seems legitimate. However, a review of their recent history in sojourning the desert wilderness reveals a different context. As needs have arisen on their trek, God has provided, purifiying the foul water at Marah, and sustaining them with manna and quail in the Desert of Sin.

Behind the hostility of God's people, and Moses' own rather exaggerated sense of victimization, among the Israelites we find longings for assurance, and for independence. They need to know once again that God was with them, providing for them, faithful to the covenant of new life and the Promised Land ahead. Thirst was the object around which their complaint arose, but their true thirst concerned their relationship with God and the meaning of their new life as God's people.

It's the pretext of thirst that has Jesus ask for water at Jacob's Well in Samaria. Far from his normal travel destinations, he has come to a place where relations are always on edge. Jesus breaks every rule in the book as a Samaritan woman comes to the well and Jesus, a Jew, engages her in conversation. For a Jewish male to enter into conversation with a Samaritan female was off the charts. Fortunately his disciples were elsewhere because they would have freaked out. (They did later when they caught up with Jesus.)

In their dialogue, Jesus makes mention of "living water" that is unlike any kind of water. Intrigued, but feisty, the Samaritan woman challenges him on this, citing the long history of Jacob's Well taking care of the people. Is this "living water" superior to the water of Jacob's Well?

John's dialogue runs extensive as he is wont to do. What we find emerging is her likely submerged desire to belong, to have meaning and connection with her God. She is a seeker of new life, but perhaps had pushed aside that longing amid life's demand and the need to move on. In Jesus, she is awakened to a thirst that she had for God and new life.

Check out the whole windy dialogue (that goes far beyond this sample selection) and get the full commentary in the sermon video below, and note downloads below the video panel.

03-19-17-ff-answers.pdf
File Size:	30 kb
File Type:	pdf

Download File

03-19-17-thirst_for_new_life.pdf
File Size:	189 kb
File Type:	pdf

Download File

1 Comment

A VISION FOR STARTING OVER - from Sunday, March 12, 2017

3/13/2017

0 Comments

Starting over is no fun. There is the admission that you aren't where you need to be. Then there's the realization that you need to change your location, change your focus, and change a whole lot more. Up for that?

Abram was. He and Sarai had the good life in Haran. He had everything he needed, except one thing. An heir. Unable to have children, there was no legacy to his life, no meaning in his life.

That is, until God discovers this one individual of exceptional faithfulness and decides to build the promise of new life in Abram. (Previous strategies had failed (see Noah and flood). This is a new gambit.) The promise from God is extravagant, as God always is; heirs galore! Abram responds without apparent question. He and Sarai and his entire household pick up and go at God's command.

Destination? Not to worry; God will take care of everything. Does that work for you? You see, this is why Abram is regarded as the epitome of faithfulness in both Jewish and Christian traditions.

On the other hand, change is a real problem for Nicodemus in the selection from John's gospel. Playing with the imagery of light and dark as John's editor was fond of doing, this leader of the Pharisees comes to visit Jesus at night. It would be very helpful to know what Nicodemus' motivation was in making this excursion. His positive comments toward Jesus suggest that he may simply have wanted to know more about the good news that Jesus was preaching and teaching.

The conversation doesn't go well, however. Jesus' response doesn't match at all with Nicodemus's opening statement, and we find the dialogue lurching as Jesus leads Nicodemus along. However, Nicodemus can never quite catch up or catch on to what Jesus is talking about.

Nicodemus is evidence of our own problems with seeing things in a new light, embracing life-giving change, and working our way forward to make change in our lives. It is as if we discover a prison that has captured our lives and we're unwilling to break free and move forward with the faithfulness of Abram.

Get it all sorted out for yourself in the sermon video below, and note the downloads below the video panel.

03-12-17-ff-answers.pdf
File Size:	24 kb
File Type:	pdf

Download File

03-12-17-a_vision_for_starting_over.pdf
File Size:	178 kb
File Type:	pdf

Download File

0 Comments

THE GOD TEMPTATION - from Sunday, March 5, 2017

3/7/2017

0 Comments

Temptation can get trivialized. However, it is anything but trivial when we consider the nature of events in the Garden of Eden and in Jesus' wilderness temptation. Do you think this kind of thing is a temptation for you? I'm betting it is. Read on.

Is the Garden of Eden simply about eating fruit that you were told not to eat? That's the kind of simple disobedience that starts as a three year old. The stakes are much higher here. God tells Adam that if he eats the fruit, he will surely die. Those are pretty high stakes, far more than a cookie-out-of-the-cookie-jar slap on the hand.

We can see the gravity of the situation when we listen closely to the dialogue between the slippery serpent and the naive Eve. Or is she so naive? Hasn't she simply omitted the information that makes this a big deal in order to justify her decision to eat the forbidden fruit anyway? You and I, of course, would never be so selective in choosing information simply to justify our choices, right?

The nature of the issue is more straightforward when the devil challenges Jesus after his forty day and night fast in the desert wilderness. We can see the stakes more clearly. Again, we need to pay attention to the dynamics at work in the dialogue between the two. Turning stones into bread leads to Jesus' admonishment about the word of God. The devil picks right up on that, quoting the word of God back to Jesus, insisting that he prove himself as Son of God, and his statement about the importance of the word of God. After Jesus denies the righteousness of testing the faith of God, the devil brings out his best temptation yet.

Find out how this works out and see if the God temptation is anything you should be aware of. The sermon video is below and the downloads are below the video panel.