Category: Sermon and Lesson Themes

Reversal is a common theme in the teachings of Jesus.  The poor are blessed?  The persecuted are blessed?  How silly is that?

And today we have another reversal in our gospel passage (Mark 12:38-44).  The widow who puts in two little coins that might, optimistically, add up to a penny, is the one who put in more than everyone else.  Again, from the human point of view, this is rather silly.  Even the most math challenged amongst us can figure out that all those rich people were putting in much more money than did the widow.  But God sees things differently.

I prefer a different label for this, not “reversal” but “seeing things differently.”  God simply has a different way of looking at everything involved.  The scribes could count too, and they knew they were important, and that the widow mattered very little.

This difference in the way God sees things reverberates through all the lectionary passages today.  In Ruth, we see the despised Moabite woman, who could not become a member of the congregation even 10 generations later (Deuteronomy 23:3), becoming the ancester of King David, only four generations down the road.  In Psalm 127 we see the possibility of having a house that looks great, has solid engineering, and is located in a prestigious neighborhood, but if it wasn’t built by God, it is vain.

Finally in Hebrews we see the eternal nature of the heavenly sanctuary as opposed to all earthly ones, even divinely ordained sanctuaries.  You could say, in a way, that those earthly sanctuaries must be built by God and incorporate just a bit of the divine in them or they too would be vain, just like the house in Psalm 127.

What exactly does a God-built house look like?  What makes the difference?  Can you tell by looking?  Is there a way to measure it?

I don’t think so.  The real way to measure this success is to allow God to show you that heavenly perspective.  You can’t get all of it, but you can get a little bit.  Ask for that vision, and I believe you will receive it.

Two of the lectionary passages today, at least if you go with the United Methodist selections, involve romance and sexual attraction.  One, of course, is Song of Songs 2:8-13 and the other is Psalm 45, which has a foreign princess marrying the king of Israel.  The second involves romance at least as far as an arranged political marriage, probably into a harem, can do so.

I think there are two major pitfalls in interpreting these passages, and these apply especially to Song of Songs.  The first is that we will miss the spiritual lessons because we are enjoying the story and the poetry.  Literature that involves sex is both popular and controversial. I’m guessing that after some time on the internet, when I check the stats for this article, there will be a correlation between the number of times I mention “sex” in it, and its popularity.  So one can read these passages as simple, physical attraction.

The other pitfall, however, is that we will quickly spiritualize the passage and miss out on the physical connection.  In my view sexual attraction and romantic love provides us with the best metaphor we’re going to get for God’s love and passion for us, and how diligently God seeks to provide his grace.  At the same time, it provides us with a pattern for our own behavior with respect to God.

One common view of Song of Songs is allegorical.  Now I won’t deny that some good things have come out of reading this book allegorically.  But I do believe that reading it as allegory and denying its value as a simple and passionate love story diminishes the book.  It is not written as allegory.  It is written as love poetry.  It is not necessarily to be understood, but to be lived.

And there is where we can also tie James 1:17-27.  Perhaps we don’t really understand something unless we have lived it.  Notice God’s own example in Jesus Christ.  God came and lived among us in human form in Jesus Christ.  God obviously knew, but in Jesus he shared the experience of human beings living in an imperfect world and day by day facing the challenges of being very, very finite.

Despite our unfortunate tendency to regard anything sexual as dirty, and requiring that it be separated from spirituality, human attraction relates very closely to God’s longing for us, and our search for God.  In romantic love, no amount of factual knowledge of a partner would suffice, if learned apart from personal experience of that partner.

So it is with God.  I cannot study theology for years and expect that this alone will let me truly know God.  I need to experience God, to be sought passionately by God, and in my turn to seek God passionately.

References: 1 Kings 2:10-12, 3:3-15; Psalm 111; Ephesians 5:15-20; John 6:51-58

For three of these passages it is quite easy to find a common theme – wisdom.  If you go a step further, all of those passages talk about wisdom in action.  For the remaining passage, the gospel, one may be tempted to preach a sermon on communion, which is not a bad idea.  But don’t give up on truly connecting that sermon with the other three passages.

In John 6:51-58, Jesus gets down in the mud and the blood and the dirt and works with us.  The idea of eating his flesh and drinking his blood is a shocking one designed to emphsize to us taking in Jesus.  This grittiness is the ultimate expression of grace in action.  In communion we not only experience grace (in Wesleyan theology, as a means of grace), but we see it in action, and are reminded of it.

We have a great deal of trouble comprehending grace.  There are two opposing reasons for most of our difficulty with the concept of grace.  On the one hand, we have a hard time receiving something for nothing, something which we know we have not earned.  Note here also that this receiving is not one for the lazy; grace is demanding at the same time as it is free.  In opposition to this is our pride that makes us want to find something, somewhere, that gives us a bargaining position.

But if we go back to the very fundamental doctrine of creation, it is God who is at the foundation of everything.  We really don’t want to admit it, but God didn’t have to create us.  He didn’t have to grant us any dignity at all even when he did.  He could have created us as anything he wanted.  He could have made us as lowly or as great as he desired.  But no matter what he did, we would owe it all to him, no exceptions, no mitigating hook on which to hang our pride.  In this sense grace is blazingly obvious and yet very difficult to accept.  We don’t want to be contingent; we want to be self-made.  But if we believe the concept of creation we should believe the concept of grace. Even where i believe in choice, that choice is simply God’s gift to me.

So how does this grace and this communion expressed in John relate to the other passages?  Well, as the Psalm tells us explicitly, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.  I’ve written a couple of times recently about the fear of the Lord.  There is reverence, there is awe, yes.  But there is also a godly variety of honest fear.  But it is this fear that brings us to grace.  Realizing who God is will frighten the human soul and make us fear losing our sense of independence, our sense of self-worth apart from that given us by God.  So when Psalm 111 reminds us that wisdom is all about God, he’s reminding us of God’s grace.  God gives wisdom because he is willing to get dirty with us in Jesus Christ.  In 1 Kings 3, when Solomon prays for wisdom, he recognizes that there is only one place to get it.

In Ephesians, the story becomes more explicit.  Do you ever read the rest of the chapter or a couple of chapters that contain the lectionary passages?  In Ephesians 5:1-2 Paul connects what he has said before to the practical results he will discuss in chapters 5 & 6.  What is it about?  Be imitators of God.  What do we imitate?  God’s giving, God’s grace!  So when Paul tells us to live wisely he’s talking about the way in which grace works itself out in our lives.

Now many seem to think that Paul is all about cheap grace and no works.  We balance things off by playing James against Paul.  But Paul has no problem with works, as long as they are placed where they belong.  You cannot begin to live a Christian life until you recognize God’s grace at the foundation of it all.  The fear of the Lord results in understanding his grace (perfect love casts out fear-1 John 4:18), and God’s grace works in your life.  The result looks a great deal like wisdom, because it is.  It’s God’s wisdom working in your life.

Our problem in reading Paul is that we don’t read all his letters, and we don’t read all of each one.  Paul is all about grace, but he doesn’t regard grace merely as a get out of hell free card.  Grace is powerful.  Grace works in your life.  Grace changes you.  God’s grace of course, as the Holy Spirit lives in you.

Communion, you see, can be the beginning of wisdom, provided that we clearly hear the challenging language Jesus uses in John 6:51-58.

I like to look for common themes in the lectionary passages.  If I can find a way to use all four together on one topic, that’s even better.

Proper 13B uses 2 Samuel 11:26-12:13a (I’ve already discussed why I dislike cutting this off before verse 14), Psalm 51:1-12 (and I’d prefer to read the entire Psalm), Ephesians 4:1-16, and John 6:24-35.  There are obvious connections between Ephesians 4 and John 6, especially if one includes the prior passage about feeding the 5,000.  But the question of John 6:28 “what shall we do?” is well answered in verse 29-believe (and I would say “put your trust in”) the one the Father has sent.  Those two verses can be combined with “unity of the Spirit,” “bond of peace,” and the offices that are ordained in Ephesians four with some powerful effect, I think.  We see Paul trying to implement the command of Jesus in practical terms.

The two Old Testament passages go together even more obviously, as one can see from the superscription of Psalm 51.  This Psalm is presented as the prayer of David after Nathan confronted him with his (David’s) sin.  Psalm 51 is a powerful outline for repentance, though I think it is good to read to the end, because the final verses present us with the end result of repentance, which is service.  Many times we treat concepts such as servant-leadership as appearing ex nihilo in the New Testament, but they are, in fact, solid Old Testament concepts as well.

I would suggest that all four passages could be combined to talk about how a servant leader deals with errors and with falling into sin.  We are all imperfect.  We all make mistakes. The real question is what we do about them.  Our political leaders like to hide their sins so that people will trust them and they can lead.  What about truly humble leadership when one is up and humble repentance when one is down?

Servant leadership involves putting one’s trust in Jesus (John 6:24-35), following his commands and pattern of ministry (Ephesians 4:1-16), willingness to hear correction (2 Samuel 11:26-12:13a), and finally willingness to repent decisively and truly turn to a new way (Psalm 51).

Resource Link:  The participatory study series pamphlet Repentance and Rejoicing discusses repentance based on the outline of Psalm 51.

Scriptures: Acts 4:32-35; Psalm 133; (John 20:19-31)

There are two major responses to fear in a group.  One is to gather together and seek mutual support.  The other is to scatter, with each individual seeking his own safety.

One can see this in action in military history.  Many military leaders have recognized the importance of morale.  Napoleon, writing on St. Helena, said:  “Moral force rather than numbers, decides victory” (source).

“Like a mighty army / moves the church of God . . .” or maybe not so much.  How do we do with “morale” or “moral force?”  Are we looking to numbers or budgets most, or are we looking at the strategy, with the power and the principles that are behind it?

At the crucifixion, the disciples scattered.  Afterward, they began to come together, to present “moral force.”  At first they didn’t have numbers.  All they had was their unity and their commitment.

How does your church congregation measure up?

This week I did some reading on the lectionary, and even led a discussion on Wednesday, but due to work on some new book releases I never had time to write.  There is one theme that came to mind when I was looking at the two liturgies–palms and passion.

In teaching Bible study I like to use a couple of key stories.  The first is the story of Jonah and what I call “the Jonah problem.”  Now this doesn’t refer to the possibility of large fish swallowing people whole and said people surviving for days, then being spit up on shore.  That’s an interesting point to discuss, but even more important is the issue that comes up at the end.

Jonah, whose preaching has been wildly successful, beyond the dreams of any evangelist that I know, is discouraged.  Down and out.  Suicidal even!  Why?  Because the story seems to him to have come to an end, and the end isn’t what he wanted.

We often think that Jonah’s big problem with going to Nineveh was fear of the Ninevites.  I imagine he was afraid.  The Assyrians were not known by their foes as nice people.  But more importantly, I think, Jonah didn’t like the Ninevites.  He’d really have preferred to see them all consumed.  He ran away primarily because if the Ninevites didn’t hear the message, they wouldn’t respond, and they’d all be dead.  To Jonah, this was a good thing.  (Now before you go condemning him, think of your worst enemies, no, not the guy who taunts you at work.  Perhaps a serial killer.)

So Jonah gets the wrong ending, which incidentally isn’t the actual end, as in the end the Ninevites get wiped out and it was many centuries before the site was even identified again.

Jonah expected and was looking for one ending, and he got another.  He didn’t recognize what God was doing, because God didn’t do what he expected.

The disciples have a similar problem.  To them, Palm Sunday should have been an end, or at least the beginning of one.  It should have been the end of them being the down-and-out, scum from Galilee, Jews of a lower class under the domination of Rome.  Palm Sunday was the thing that was supposed to happen.

But in Mark 11:1-11, which is our gospel passage for the liturgy of the Palms, Jesus goes into Jerusalem to the temple, looks around, and then leaves.  It all falls flat.  Nothing comes of it.

But the real climax was coming soon–the cross.  Of course, even though they had been told about it many times.  It just didn’t sink in. It didn’t become real to them.

I had the experience of talking to a Sunday School class once immediately after what might have been a controversial sermon.  The interesting thing was that the minister had spoken against religious pluralism and in favor of salvation by grace.  The class members tended to think one got into heaven by being good enough, that the benefit of Christianity over other religions was that Jesus gave us a better example of how to live.

But they liked the sermon anyhow.  They thought the pastor had said just what they thought.  Now I had heard the same sermon, and he said no such thing.  I talked to him and confirmed it.  He intended to say, and said, what I thought I had heard.  I know I’m perfectly capable of error in hearing, so I checked this carefully.

During the class, however, I tried to explain what I thought he had said, and heard the same line repeated.  It was as though the actual message simply couldn’t penetrate.

I think that’s where the disciples were.  Since the message of the cross made no sense at all, they had to try to interpret their way around it and come to understand it as meaning something other than it was.  So they thought Palm Sunday should be the beginning of the end, followed, of course, by Jesus taking the throne and driving out the Romans, whereas Jesus knew that the cross was coming.

Now on Easter Sunday we get another high–the resurrection.  But have you noticed that again, the ending isn’t really quite there yet?  Oh yes, Jesus has paid the price and salvation is ours.  But that coming kingdom is both now and not yet.  The structure of the Christian year points that out to us, if we will pay attention.

Good Friday must come before Easter.  Being the body of Christ here comes before the rest of heaven.  The apparent end of the story, isn’t really the end.

The passages are Numbers 21:4-9, Psalm 107:1-3, 17-22; Ephesians 2:1-10 and John 3:14-21.  These passages center around the story of the serpent that Moses put on a pole in the wilderness.  The omission of verses 4-16 maintains that emphasis even in Psalm 107, though I would recommend reading the entire passage.  I am not always happy with the omissions in the lectionary readings, and this is no exception.

There are three points that I think may be gleaned from these passages:

1. Grace is grace.  It is something freely given even in circumstances under which the recipients might be said to have made their own bed.
2. The offer of grace often appears in strange or unexpected ways.
3. Grace rescues, but it also puts us at risk.

One of the problems we have with grace, I believe, is that it takes us out of control of the situation.  Let’s suppose I am out of work, and someone offers me a job.  Let’s also assume that I really have no hope of getting a job doing something I like or think I would be good at.  This offer of a job comes to me as grace.  I do not have the qualifications.  I couldn’t claim the job in a process of submitting resumes and doing interviews.  The job will be difficult and I’m not certain I can do it, but my potential employer says he’ll provide the training necessary.

Taking this job is a risk.  I risk:

1. My control. I can’t go to my employer, remind him of my great value, and persuade him to keep me.  At least in the short term I’m not a positive asset.  He claims he will make me into an asset, but that hasn’t happened yet.  It would be hard for me to threaten to quit.  He knows I have no other job available and would be going back onto the street.
2. My pride. I must go to work every day knowing that I didn’t earn this job.
3. Failure.  While my employer believes he can make me into a good worker in this new job, I don’t know that myself.  It looks like a long hard road.  Will I be successful?
4. My past. I have great experiences in other fields.  When I go into this new job I’m putting aside everything I’ve done in my past.  Must I feel like a failure because I am now in a different field?
5. My future. If I was down and out before, what would happen if I lost this new job, my one and only opportunity?  Who would employ me then?
6. My relationship with the giver. If I fail or quit, it is not just a job that’s at stake, it’s a relationship.

The principles involved are best illustrated from Numbers 21:4-9.  The Israelites complain about food and water, even though their need has been supplied time after time.  Why do they complain first, rather than ask first?  After they complain and are in trouble, they are not asking for their wages or something they have earned.  They are asking for special relief.  Grace is grace.  It isn’t payday.

When God offers grace he often does so in ways we don’t expect.  I wrote a devotional for my wife’s list titled Rescued to the Wilderness.  My point there was that if we had our choice, grace would come in the form of rescue from Egypt directly into the promised land.  What happened to Israel is more like the case of a climber who gets stuck at the bottom of a canyon.  He’s discouraged and just wants to get out of there.  Someone drops him new ropes and the tools needed to climb out.  He’s rescued, but he has to climb out.  He might prefer to have a backet dangling from a helicopter that would pull him out instantly.

In the wilderness case, however, the action was simple.  It just wasn’t fully logical, at least to our modern minds.  Why put a snake up on a pole and look at it in order to be healed?  The NISB reminded me in a note that the snake was an equivocal symbol in the ancient near east (p. 221 on Numbers 21:4-9).  On the one hand it represented death, but on the other it represented life and fertility.  Imagine the conflict of a person asked to gaze on an image of the thing that had threatened one’s life.  But “God made him who knew no sin to be sin” (2 Corinthians 5:21) and put him up on a cross for us to gaze upon.

We often don’t see how that symbol is filled with conflict from our human point of view.  That’s why, as we read last week in 1 Corinthians 1:18-25, it is foolishness to those who are perishing.  Why look at some dead guy to save me from dying?  It doesn’t make sense!  This isn’t grace, it’s silly!  But it is precisely the way in which grace is presented.  Jesus is lifted up as the serpent was in the wilderness.  I don’t think it is an accident that while John 3:14-15 gives the same message as John 3:16, we memorize the latter much more frequently than the former.

Finally, accepting grace is risky, as I showed in my illustration.  I think God’s grace is much more like the person who offers a job or the one who drops ropes and other equipment to the climber than it is like the parent who presents a child with a new, fully-paid car on his or her 16th birthday.  The 16 year old can get in and drive.  The recipient of God’s grace has begun a journey, one which will be difficult at times, but which will also be thoroughly soaked in God’s grace, again and again.

Scriptures:  Exodus 20:1-17, Psalm 19, 1 Corinthians 1:18-25, John 2:13-25

There are quite a number of places in the gospels where authority is displayed, but in today’s passages we see the theoretical basis or the underlying explanation of God’s sovereignty.  There are a number of key elements.  These are likely quite obvious to you, but let’s look at them anyhow.

1. God is the creator of everything.  This is the focus of Psalm 19.  Because God is the creator he is also eligible to be the lawgiver.  I would call creation an act of grace.  There is no reason why God had to create intelligent beings with choices.  He could do whatever he wanted to.  Robots would be much more tiny, whether biological or mechanical!  But he chose to create human beings.  The Babylonians had the gods regret making humans because we were so noisy and the gods could get no rest.  The God of the Bible extends more grace.

2. God is the redeemer.  I mentioned that while the ten commandments were addressed to the Israelites, they nonetheless contain principles that apply universally.  None of these is more important than the fact that the lawgiver is the redeemer.  “I am the LORD your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.”  The lawgiver is the one who set you free.  In his forthcoming book Preserving Democracy, Elgin Husbheck notes the paradox of law and freedom:  “… the more democracies try to do to improve the lives of their citizens, the less freedom those citizens will have” (p. 57). In one sense, God’s law works in the same way, but law also provides freedom.  My freedom to live might be restricted by my neighbor’s freedom to murder me.  There are two aspects to the ten commandments.  The first portion establishes a relationship to God and his authority to rule.  The latter looks at how we can best live in society–how best to balance the relationship between law and freedom.

3. While God’s plans are sovereign, they may not look so to us.  God’s plans may look foolish because of our limited perspective and understanding (1 Corinthians 1:18-25).
4. God’s authority is often recognized even though it is not understood.  In John 2:13-25 we have the cleansing up the temple.  Unlike other gospels, this comes at the beginning of the ministry of Jesus in John.  The priest don’t know who he is.  Yet they obey.  They come back asking for his authority, but they already ran.  They didn’t understand.  They couldn’t explain.  But they knew.

These passages provide some fascinating looks at law, grace, and justice, though the end of the week is approaching and I don’t know how much more I will have time to write.  Be sure the read them all many times and meditate on what you see.

The texts are 1 Samuel 3:1-10(11-20), Psalm 139:1-6,13-18, 1 Corinthians 6:12-20, and John 1:43-51.  The common theme that stuck in my mind was on receiving God’s word.

We frequently focus on how God gives his word, how reliable it is, how reliable God is, and how we must trust what God says.  But how often do we discuss the way in which we receive the word, understand it, apply it, and indeed obey it?  (I’m probably biased in favor of this topic as I’ve written a book on it, When People Speak for God.)

In fact, the lectionary texts in some cases slip over the hard parts, especially if you don’t include the parenthesized texts.  The first 10 verses of 1 Samuel 3, for example, talk about the wonderful experience of Samuel when he is first introduced to hearing God’s voice.  If you read just that, your view may be unbalanced.  It’s not all joy and peace when one is close to God, particularly if one is also close to people.  Verses 11-20 tell about the unpleasant message Samuel is given for Eli.

One theme I would bring up here, though I won’t expand on it, is Eli’s reception of the word.  He takes it in stride, but do you notice that he makes no effort to act on it.  I think I could build a sermon comparing and contrasting this story with that of Nineveh in the  book of Jonah.  Both receive dire messages.  Neither message appears to offer any hope.  Nineveh, however, repents, and even though hope was not offered in the message, it is fulfilled in God’s compassion.  Eli accepts the message but takes no noticeable action, or at least the text gives us no such indication.

Psalm 139 as quoted is a good passage for looking at the difference between God’s understanding and ours.  God knows us through and through, but we don’t necessarily know ourselves all that well.  God is always accessible, but do we always access him and his message for us?  In addition, I would again note that the Psalm is cut off just before one of those “hard-to-explain” parts.  Verse 19 starts “O that you would kill the wicked, O God” and continues on the path of vengeance.

I think that if we were more honest, we would pray such prayers more often.  There is a time for forgiveness, but I think we will normally have to struggle with God in prayer before we can get there.  Before we forgive, we must acknowledge the hurt and the very human desire for vengeance.  It is only God’s grace that truly permits forgiveness.  For some, a Christ-like, forgiving attitude means pretending not to be hurt in the first place, but this certainly was not the attitude of the Psalmist!  In many cases we have no indication that forgiveness is coming at all!

You may think that the epistle, 1 Corinthians 6:12-20, doesn’t deal with the same subject, but it does.  It is dealing with God’s presence with us.  What people ought we to be, what thoughts ought we to think, what plans to make, if God is living with us, if we, ourselves become the seat of God’s presence in the world.  You are a temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 6:19), which means that your body is a place where the Holy Spirit shows up.  That’s what temples are–a place for gods to show up.  Are you ready?

Finally we have people meeting Jesus in John 1:43-51, and responding to his call.  We often think that if we had Jesus here in person, we would surely listen.  But in his own lifetime, that wasn’t the case.

Here is a list of themes:

• The voice of invitation – how do you recognize when God is calling to you?
• God’s presence with us, focusing especially on Psalm 139 and John 1, but also note the rarity of God’s word reflected in 1 Samuel 3.  What makes it seem that God is absent and that his word is hard to come by?
• God’s judgment, as reflected in 1 Samuel 3:11-20, but also implied in 1 Corinthians 6:12-20.  Is there a difference in God’s presence today in the church and in the time of Eli?
• The reliability of God’s judgment, reflected in Psalm 139.  The one who truly and objectively knows is the one who will judge. 
• Living conscious of God’s presence, with the main text of 1 Corinthians 6:12-20

What a rich selection of texts!