Advent - Week 4 - Love

Scriptures

Isaiah 7:10-16

Romans 1:1-7

Matthew 1:18-25

Reflection:

This final Sunday in Advent, we focus on love. The love God has for all of creation is important.  The love Jesus has for all people leading to the chance for salvation is important.  Without them the world would cease to exist - at least in any form we would recognize. As important as the love of God and the love of Jesus are, in the forefront of the scriptures this week is the love of people for God that affects the outcome of his kingdom on Earth.

In the Old Testament I think it is hard to find many figures who loved God more than the prophets. God gave them the thankless duty of delivering his message to the entire nation - from leaders to the least powerful. Most of their messages harshly condemned widespread behavior in the society that violated God’s rules. When they gave good news for an undisclosed point in the future very often the people realized that the good news was not even going to happen in the lifetime of their children (and sometimes even later). It takes a great deal of love to faithfully recite the message from God to the people. Isaiah faced that when the leader refused to do what God directed (ask for a sign). Instead he was forced to tell them of the sign (Messiah) who was to come some generations in the future.

In the Romans passage, Paul describes the process by which Jesus’s followers came to have the authority available to them: believe that Jesus was God’s son. After believing in Jesus, the believer is expected to love God enough to complete their part of God’s plan. In Paul’s case it meant giving up his prominent position within the Jewish religious elite to replace it with a New Covenant that also included the Gentiles. Early Christians abandoned tradition for a new teaching.

The story in Matthew would be vastly different if Mary and Joseph had not loved God as much as they did. Despite fantastical occurrences that friends, family, and society would have rejected outright in the moment, Mary and Joseph loved God enough to follow his direction and trust everything would work out as he promised. They too rejected traditional ways of behaving in the circumstances and followed the way God directed them to go.

We often refer to the power of love in trivial ways, but when we see the power love carried through these passages we begin to understand the transformative power of love in the world around us. As we reflect on the impact love had on the Christmas story we can also reflect on the many times Jesus gave directions to love. What would happen if we truly started loving with a love equal to that found in the scriptures today? Our world might be a little more like God wanted it to be. That’s the power of love.

July 14 Ordinary Time

Today’s Scriptures: Lectionary selections from the Revised Common Lectionary Year C Amos 7:7-17 Deuteronomy 30:9-14 Psalm 82 Psalm 24 Colossians 1:1-14 Luke 10:25-37

Today’s Reflection: I am the original owner of my house in what is actually a fairly small subdivision for Austin. Every time a new house was completed, those of us who already lived here welcomed the new residents. As the neighborhood filled we knew everyone up and down the street. Seven years later, my next door neighbor and I are the only people on the street still living here. Of the new neighbors, I only know the one who shares a fence with me and the one directly across the street. The people who lived in the time of Jesus could not have imagined the scale of the cities in which we live today, so the lawyer’s question that prompted the story of the good Samaritan rings especially true today: who is my neighbor? The conversation began, as so many of Jesus’s conversations with the Jewish leadership began, with a lawyer asking Jesus a rigged question in an attempt to make say something incriminating. The answer comes from scripture: love God completely and love your neighbor as yourself. Two very straightforward concepts. The first concept, the call to love God with all one’s heart, soul, strength, and mind is a call to love God the way God loves us. The second concept, the call to love one’s neighbor as oneself, though opened itself up to some interpretation. That is where the real challenge came to Jesus. How would he apply that concept? To make the point clear, Jesus told an illustrative story. By the time the story reached a conclusion, the questioner had only one conclusion to draw: the person who helped the one in need. We are neighbors to everyone in need. By the time all was settled we see that loving our neighbor as ourselves means loving him as God loves him. Loving everyone in need the way God loves them was not the answer the lawyer expected to get. It put him in a situation where he was required to act. It puts us in a situation where we are required to act. Jesus mentions love regularly. The story of the good Samaritan moves from love as a concept to love as an action. The idea that we love our neighbor in the same way that God loves forces love to be active. God’s love for us is not a concept, it is a daily action.

Revised Common Lectionary Daily Readings, copyright © 2005 Consultation on Common Texts. www.commontexts.org

Ordinary Time June 16

Today’s Scriptures: Lectionary selections from the Revised Common Lectionary Year C 1 Kings 21:1-21 2 Samuel 11:26-12-10, 13-15 Psalm 5 Psalm 32 Galatian 2:15-21 Luke 7:36-8:3

Today’s Reflection: The passages from the Old Testament and the Gospel could have been written from the headlines with leaders from around the world replacing the names of the Biblical characters. The corruption that comes with power plays itself out in our news, literature, and scripture. Regardless of one’s view of the Bible as a literal history or a collection of stories for educational purposes, one fact that remains true is that human nature does not change. Likewise, fortunately, God’s love for us does not change either. The Kings and Samuel passages present two gross abuses of power by the king over Israel. Despite the king’s responsibility to protect the powerless and avenge injustice, both leaders let themselves be driven by their lust to do despicable acts. The justice that should have come at the hand of the king ended up coming at the hand of God. Paul, in Galatians, drives home the idea that we are forgiven through the grace of God, rather than through the law. We are incapable of living up to the law, so we are subject to God’s justice, but through grace, we still have access to God through Christ. During the dinner with the Pharisee, Jesus teaches how access to grace comes through demonstrating love. It is only through love that we gain grace through Christ. We are incapable otherwise of meriting anything from Christ. Our natures do not change. Neither does the nature of God. Justice will happen: that is the nature of God. It is necessary then, that we learn to love in the way God loves us.

Revised Common Lectionary Daily Readings, copyright © 2005 Consultation on Common Texts. www.commontexts.org

Holy Week - Holy Friday

Today’s Scriptures: Lectionary selections from the Revised Common Lectionary Year C Isaiah 52:13 – 53:12 Psalm 22 Hebrews 10:16-25 John 18:1 – 19:42

Today’s Reflection: A few months ago a friend of mine was mugged and assaulted as he walked through his neighborhood. When I arrived at the emergency room to be with him, I was shocked to see the swelling and bruises on his face. Despite this my discomfort at seeing his wounds, I recognized him and felt great sympathy for his situation. I never want to get beat and kicked the way he was; seeing his wounds proved quite enough for me. Today we remember the abuse and execution of Christ. Through the hours leading to his death, Jesus continues to teach lessons and demonstrate who he is. Through the interrogations and torture he resisted using the full power of his “Godness.” At a word he could have called down forces and an angelic response that would have made atomic explosions look modest. Jesus’s final lessons reinforced the condition that he was the ultimate sacrifice that bridges the gap between all humanity and God. He lived love in a way that very few ever do. While we remember this sacrificial love, we too are challenged to love so completely.

Revised Common Lectionary Daily Readings, copyright © 2005 Consultation on Common Texts. www.commontexts.org

Holy Week - Maundy Thursday

Today’s Scriptures: Lectionary selections from the Revised Common Lectionary Year C Exodus 12:1-14 Psalm 116 1 Corinthians 11:23-26 John 13:1-17, 31-35

Today’s Reflection: Recently a friend of mine announced the beginning of his “birthday week” on Facebook with “opportunities” for his friends to celebrate with him. For many people I know their birthday is the biggest celebration of the year: it is one day that is all about them (and the millions of other people born on that date). For me, Maunday Thursday is the best day of the year. We get to celebrate essential ministry of Christ as demonstrated by the exchanges in the upper room. There is no gift to give but service to those around us. The greatest lesson for me lies in realizing that sometimes I have to let others serve and minister to my needs. As is usual on Maundy Thursday, the passages include the Exodus history of the Passover meal which is what Christ celebrated with his apostles in the upper room. The Passover reminded the Jews of God’s loving care for them and his power over the enemies as he spared the lives of those protected by the blood of the lamb. The plagues of Egypt had been severe and annoying to that point, but nothing like the deaths of firstborn to strike at the heart of those who held the Israelites as slaves. The passage in Corinthians provides the directions most churches follow in offering Communion or the Last Supper In the John passage, Jesus takes the final moments with those closest to him to share final essentials to his ministry. In his actions and lessons, he demonstrates the servant leadership aspect of being Christ. All through the week we have seen different expectations of what it means to be Christ, but as Jesus washes the feet of the apostles and breaks the bread and shares the wine with them, Christ the servant leader emerges as the expectation for all Christians. While sometimes wet caught up in the theology of complex interpretations of what the words of Christ meant. Debates rage between faith and works advocates. In the upper room, Jesus condenses it all into the theology of the washrag. We are not greater than anyone around us (neither are we lesser) and serving one another demonstrates (works) the love we have through Christ (faith). We are often taught that leadership comes by dominating others. As believers, we know from Christ that meaningful leadership comes by serving and being an example. For Christ to spend his last night teaching and practicing such humility, I know that I too, must practice that same humility. It is how the world will know I am a Christian.

Revised Common Lectionary Daily Readings, copyright © 2005 Consultation on Common Texts. www.commontexts.org

December 23 - Fourth Sunday in Advent

Today’s Scriptures: Lectionary selections from the Revised Common Lectionary Year C Micah 5:2-5a Luke 1:46b-55 Psalm 80:1-7 Hebrews 10:5-10 Luke 1:39-45 (46-55)

Today’s Reflection: Working in a bureaucracy, I almost every day complete pointless tasks that do little to improve my working conditions or improve the process for anyone with whom I work, but someone, somewhere in the hierarchy wants to see that product so they know we are doing our job. I do the task because I am expected to do them, often with little attention to detail and never with any enthusiasm. I go to work every day because of the real work I do, the connections I have with those in my workplace and the difference I am able to make in their daily lives. The bureaucratic tasks never reflect the relational connection that is the center of my work.   The Jews, in Jesus’s time, experienced the same thing with the prescribed offerings and sacrifices demanded by the law. The covenant between God and the Jews obliged them to do certain things to maintain their relationship with him. That lack of connection between the act of offering and the relationship with God was pointed out by the author of Hebrews quoting Jesus. Christ recognizes that there was no pleasure in doing the obligated work because it was required rather than something done as a part of maintaining a relationship.   The Luke passage, contemporarily referred to as the Magnificat, narrates Mary’s joy at being the mother of the Christ. She understands her connection to God. In that connection she proclaims, “from now on all generations will call me blessed.” How incredible must it feel to be so blessed?  Her exuberance is contagious. The truth is, we all have that same connection and we ALL are blessed for generations.   The difference between those bureaucratic tasks I do daily and the work I adore like the difference between the Jews of Jesus’s time and his mother comes from the difference between obligation and connection. We share the fortune of Mary to be connected directly with the work of God in the world around us and have the opportunity to be blessed daily in that work as we live with him. That connection makes all the difference in the world because it radiates from love that goes from God to humankind to God. As members of God’s body we celebrate that love like no other and this fourth Sunday in Advent gives us the chance to reflect on it directly.

Revised Common Lectionary Daily Readings, copyright © 2005 Consultation on Common Texts. www.commontexts.org

 

November 4 - Ordinary Time

Today’s Scriptures: Lectionary selections from the Book of Common Prayer Psalm 24, 29, 8, 84 Ezekiel 20:27-44 1 Corinthians 12:27 – 13:13 Matthew 18:21-35

Today’s Question: How do we love the way God wants us to?

Today’s Reflection: A few years ago, I spent a few years studying the minor prophets in the Old Testament. It was one of the most fascinating studies I have ever undertaken – and it certainly opened my eyes to how we throw around the terms prophet and prophecy, and how we cite ancient prophesies in relationship to events today. We can take lessons from them, as the scriptures today provide, we just have to be careful what we say.   We have a living language that alters meaning over time, but applying current meaning to ancient language gives us a warped understanding of that time. The prophets in Israel’s history were specific people and they delivered a specific message for a specific people at a specific time. God did not speak a warning intended for centuries in the future. Those who connect the events of prophetic history to events today, fail to understand the specificity with which they were delivered. One can easily cite some great disaster as a threat if things are not done a specific way: that disaster has come and gone.   What we need to focus on comes in the verses preceding the disaster. How did the people fail God? Are we doing the same thing? What we know from the prophets is that God will act for those who do not follow his command and under the New Covenant that command is love God and love your neighbor as yourself. The passages from Corinthians and Matthew reinforce that concept emphatically. Throughout the Old Testament prophets when God’s people failed to care for the needy (their brothers and sisters, fellow Israelites, strangers in the land), when the wealthy let their means isolate them from the poorest rather than become a tool to alleviate desperation, when idols – both intentional and accidental – took the place of God, God takes action.   The recent trend crossing my news feed from religious groups carries the theme of how the church is failing and what can be done to change it. My news feed from secular press regularly reports on religious figures who make inflammatory, controversial statements. Largely, the religious groups find that people are turned off by the vocal message promoting a legalistic, agree with me or-else, image of Christianity. The secular press finds that people mock inflammatory statements and see the church as an arcane joke. People are right to be turned off against that church – it is not the church of Christ, or even Paul. Both of them focus on love in the passages from Matthew and Corinthians today.   Paul’s listing of spiritual gifts – then calling them worthless without being used in love demands that we consider our language of faith, our view of others, and our own belief of who God loves. Instead of polarization and judgment, unity and compassion may be the key to revitalizing the church. Threats of Hell never saved anyone; ministrations of love saved everyone who has been saved.   Loving, as God wants us to do, is incredibly hard. If it were easy, the command would not repeated so many times in Jesus’s lessons and the apostles Epistles. Loving, as God wants us to do, requires that we get out of our own head and into God’s head. If we really believe God sent his son to be tortured and killed for our sin, our shortcomings, is there anyone we should not love in his name? Failing to love will bring a response from God. The prophets of the Old Testament give us dozens of examples when that happened. The calamities they foretold will not be the punishment God sends our way, but as God created all things, he will find the punishment that is right for us.

Today’s Prayer: Let us love with the heart of God as he has given us that love.