Category: 2014 Lectionary Ramblings

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August 22nd 2014: Acts 2:37-47

Read Acts 2:37-47 here

“When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?”

Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off—for all whom the Lord our God will call.”

Here we have a crowd who have just been told that they have missed the Messiah that most of them had been hoping for all of their lives. In what is probably one of the greatest sermons of all time, Peter has convicted the crowd of their need for a saviour, and as many signs and wonders are done by the apostles, the crowd asks what they should do. In short, they are told “come to Christ”. Their current ways of life are not sufficient to attain salvation. Only coming to Christ can assure them of life now, and in the age to come.

How many times have any of us wondered “what must I do to be saved”? Perhaps circumstances press in on us in ways which seem like they will never improve. Perhaps we are sick, or in danger, or afraid, or even ashamed. What must we do? Turn around, stop walking away from Jesus and walk towards Him. Ask Him, and those Christians we know and trust, how we can direct our lives towards Him. Ask Him for the strength, day by day, to renew our courage to do so, and walk towards Him. And then, we are told, and the evidence of history suggests, we will be given the gift of the Holy Spirit to seal and sustain us for this Earthly life.

Wherever you find yourself today, make the decision to turn to Christ. Let Him love you, cherish you and walk with you.

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August 21st 2014: Acts 2:22-36

Read Acts 2:22-36 here

Writing this in a fog of headache/tiredness/bug and all that goes with it (hence the delay). Sorry if it’s incoherent

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Peter’s impassioned preaching here is designed to show the Israelites amongst his audience that, whatever they think, however much control they think they have had over their lives, God has seen the present circumstances from the beginning, just as He sees the end. The crucifixion of Jesus was not an end, it was not even a disaster, it was part of the plan of God to bring about His purposes. Whatever else might have been at play, God’s purposes would not be stifled, and David had foreseen how things would be.

So often we mistake the gift of free will and choice that God gives us for control of our own destiny. We can make choices each day (those of us who are free enough to by the grace of God) but we cannot affect our destiny. “The Earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it”. He is working His purpose out. His purpose is life, love, hope, freedom. His purpose is relationship with us. It always has been. He will not be denied.

Don’t fall into the trap of thinking that you are in control. Rejoice in the fact that you are not.

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August 20th 2014: Acts 2:1-21

Read Acts 2:1-21 here

The story of Pentecost is so well-known to many Christians, it is difficult to come up with anything new to focus on within it. For me, today, Peter’s allusion to the words of the prophet Joel at the end of the reading really stand out:

“…everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

That’s all there is to it. With the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost we can be confident that Jesus’ words “I will be with you always, even to the end of the age” have come to fruition. The filling of the disciples, and 3000 new converts with the Holy Spirit on this day is the signing and sealing of our life in God and promised future hope. As this experience happened to them, so, today it continues to happen to those who call on the name of the Lord and are saved. Whatever you are going through today, however you feel, whatever the situation, call on the name of the Lord. You might not be saved from the situation or the circumstance, but you can be sure and confident that God will hear your cry and bring you to salvation. Being saved, here, means being brought to fulness of life, eternally, with God, in to the life and hope that we were made and always meant for. The Christian life is not meant to be easy or devoid of difficulties. In fact it can often be quite the opposite, but if we take the step of faith and trust and call on the name of the Lord, we will find that our greatest fears no longer have any power and instead our deepest longings will be realised.

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August 19th 2014: Acts 1:15-26

Read Acts 1:15-26 here

When people fail and fall, as Judas has done, requiring the choosing of a new member of the 12 here, we can be left in quite a quandary. Obviously, in the case of Judas, his fall had been heavy and significant. At the same time, as Peter explains here, Judas’s betrayal actually fulfils part of what has been prophesied in regard to the death and resurrection of the Messiah.

This is one point where we can find ourselves in difficulties of understanding around failing and falling in our Christian lives. I’m not a huge fan of the doctrine of predestination (either single or double predestination) but it is undeniable that whereas our perspective is only ours, God has a view of our lives and circumstances which is far wider, far more knowledgeable, and far more in control of things than ours ever will be. That isn’t to say that failing and falling is something we should try to do because it doesn’t matter, far from it. But when we do, it is not beyond the reach or love of God to bring about redemption and reconciliation.

Second, and following from this, the Church is bigger than any one of us. It is not about any of us individually. It is about a community of people,  holy nation, called to live lives surrendered to God, with a direction of travel towards Him, and lived in such a way as to draw others in to relationship with Him. One day soon, though, none of us will still be here. All the worry, anxiety, energy, power-brokering and so on that we will have done to try and push our own claims or theological points of view will cease, as we entrust the care and growth of the Church to the next generation. It is not for us to conserve our view of Church as we see it, or as we wish it was. It is for us to rejoice as God reveals ever more of Himself to His children with each passing generation.

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August 18th 2014: Acts 1:1-14

Read Acts 1:1-14 here

“Then they gathered around him and asked him, “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?”

He said to them: “It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

As we reach the ascension in Luke’s account of the life and times of Jesus and the Church, one of the key questions for all of human history is answered. As the disciples ask about the restoration of Israel, Jesus, as He so often does, turns it round and says, basically, “it’s not for you to know, how, or when it will happen, and in the meantime, get on with telling people about me.”

We can spend so much time worrying about whether we get to win or not, whether we get things our own way, whether we get what we want, that we forget that life is actually simple: it’s all about God, not simply about us. We can be like the disciples and see that what Jesus did is all about us and what we hope for (in their case, believing Jesus to be the Messiah, sent to restore Israel).

God is for us. He has loved us. But what Jesus did in life, death, resurrection and ascension is, ultimately, for the glory of God. Similarly, our lives are, ultimately, for the glory of God. We aren’t converted so that our earthly lives are made better. We are converted so that we are brought in to relationship with God, and to tell the world about Him. Let’s try not to be selfish with our faith and our hopes. Christianity isn’t meant to be powerful. It’s not meant to be patriarchal, it’s not meant to be hierarchical. It’s meant for the worship of God. It’s designed so that rather than the restoration of the kingdom of Israel, the inauguration of the eternal kingdom of God is to come. We, as Christians, are not meant to win. We’re meant to follow our Saviour in losing, so that we can remember His ultimate victory and inspiring others to do the same.

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August 17th 2014: 2 Peter 3:14-18

Read 2 Peter 3:14-18 here

“…make every effort to be found spotless, blameless and at peace with him”

Today’s reading from Peter’s second letter exhorts us to prioritise our relationship with God. If His patience is our salvation, it makes sense that we make every effort not to try it too much. This is not a call to legalism or rule-keeping (although we should remember Peter’s struggles with accepting the gospel of grace and the offer of life to non-Jewish believers which might make him prone to aiming for a structured life of faith).

We have been made at peace with God in the life, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ. We should hold on to that today. But we shouldn’t rest on our laurels. It is a waste of a life lived with God if we do not walk closely with our saviour. What does this look like? Love the poor and needy, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, live generously, justly, show mercy and walk humbly with our God. Fine words indeed perhaps, but in fact it’s an every day choice, or even a several times a day choice, are we going to seek Jesus and His kingdom first, or something else? If we seek the kingdom, we will be people of love, and we will show the love of God to those we meet.

Make choices that enable you to live in the peace of Christ today.

Couldn’t be simpler could it?

 

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August 16th 2014: Luke 24:36-52

Read Luke 24:36-52 here 

“Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures.”

What a moment it must have been! The risen Jesus appears to the disciples. Not surprisingly, they are terrified. As is His way, He says “don’t be afraid, it’s only me” (paraphrasing obviously) and the story proceeds towards the glorious ending of the ascension, after which “they worshipped Him and returned to Jerusalem filled with great joy”.

The verse that has caught my attention the most this morning is the one quoted at the top, though. In the midst of everything, Jesus opens the minds of the disciples so they could understand the scriptures – so that they could understand how what they were seeing with their eyes was corroborated with what their scriptures told them, and what He had told them about Himself. This leads to a couple of questions for me:

1. If they were not able to understand until their minds were opened, at what stage are our minds opened?

2. If we answer 1 with ” by the Spirit” aren’t we in danger of having nonsense opinions, and passing them off as divinely inspired?

I’m inclined to think that we think too much of thinking. I don’t think we’re supposed to understand everything. I think that by thinking too much about thinking, we are, in fact, idolatrous. I don’t want to be a Bible teacher, or one who believes or leads people in to a life of Father, Son and Holy Scripture. That way leads me to gain more and more power and authority, as I show I “know things” until I’ve lost the thread of the point of it all, which is, in case you were wondering, relationship with God. I don’t know about you, but most of the relationships I have, I don’t understand completely. If I claimed to I’d be lying heinously. The beauty is in the ongoing revealing of what it means to know, love and to be known and loved. This takes more than knowledge. It is a conscious, many times a day, decision about how and what to prioritise.

We are to try and put God first. That is all.

 

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August 15th 2014: Luke 11: 27-28

Read Luke 11:27-28 here

He replied, “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it.”

Will we hear the word of God today? What will we think it is? Will we take it as our moral compass, our way of regulating the life of those around us and “calling to account” those with whom we disagree? Certain parts of scripture make a case for this cantankerous, and frankly entirely unappealing type of “faithfulness”. It’s as if we’re scared to be creative, to think for ourselves, to take responsibility, to live in a state of grace, and so instead we bind ourselves up in labyrinthine, contradictory rules and edicts, so that we can feel ever more guilty, ever more unworthy, and yet at the same time ever more morally superior.

What would it be like if the word of God we sought to obey was “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength, and love your neighbour as yourself”? Would we want to be the world’s moral police then? Would the height of our ambition be to prove which version of the Genesis creation stories were “true”? Would we justify our communities, our nations, blowing people to smithereens because they have “a divine right” to do so to get to a patch of land? I really don’t think we would. I think we would realise that to love is to sacrifice, to be humble and to put others first.

Jesus changed the world like that. We are following after Him. We can follow in His way.

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August 14th 2014: Luke 23:56b-24:14

Read Luke 23:56b-24:14 here

“He is not here; he has risen! Remember how he told you, while he was still with you in Galilee: ‘The Son of Man must be delivered over to the hands of sinners, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.’ ” Then they remembered his words.

“But they did not believe the women, because their words seemed to them like nonsense”

It seems that, on the morning of the resurrection, everyone has forgotten what Jesus had promised to do. Even though the story has unfolded just as He promised, it seems that grief has overtaken them, quite naturally I might add, and their expectations were that their journey of life and hope with Jesus was all over.

Even when the women at the tomb remember His words, told to them by those guarding the tomb and rush to report them to the disciples, “their words seemed to them like nonsense”. Rationality and necessity have quickly replaced the fire of hope in the disciples. Now they are seeking self-preservation as the smouldering embers of their hope have been stubbed out. And yet it is Peter, he who had denied Jesus three times only days before, who has something pricked within him, runs to the tomb, and finds, gloriously, that the words of the women are true. Jesus has risen. He is alive. Things will never be the same.

It’s easy for us to retreat into rationality when things in our spiritual lives seem to go wrong. After all, we think, the gospel stands up to rational and philosophical scrutiny. And so it does, but the truth of the resurrection and the life is that it is so far away from “normal” so out of the ordinary, that it should offend our sensibilities. We should question it, interrogate it, doubt it. We can do all these things, but then it will still be true. Whatever we think or feel, Jesus did die, and on the third day rise again. He did prove Himself and the truth of His claims, once and for all. It is our privilege and our destiny to work out what all that means for us and for those we love, and those we meet today, every day for the rest of our lives.

 

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August 13th 2014: Luke 23:44-56a

Read Luke 23:44-56a here

As the story of Jesus’ death and burial continues, one of the most striking elements of today’s reading for me is that, as the body was being honoured in burial, the disciples and the community around them rested on the Sabbath. I’d never noticed this detail before. Often when we read this, we focus on the offering of Joseph of the tomb for Jesus to be laid to rest, other times we focus on the lack of expectation that everyone had that Jesus would rise from the dead (even though He had promised numerous times that He would do so). I think, though that resting “according to the commandment” on the Sabbath is a crucial element, too.

If you’re anything like me, the harder life gets, the busier you get, right along with it. Somehow, we feel as if we need to be doing something to try and change our circumstance, or to prove that we are coping, or to try and show that we will not be defeated. What we’re not so good at doing, at least in Protestant-work-ethic-centric Britain, is to maintain obedience during times of crisis and struggle and rest. But it is in resting that we can be refreshed, if we truly do Sabbath, so as to reconnect with God, offer ourselves to Him again and let Him lead us as He wishes to. It’s about things being about God, rather than me. Especially at times when life is tough, and I can be prone to becoming even more self-absorbed than I normally am, stepping into rest and quiet can be crucial.

The disciples knew it, even in their grief and understandable lack of faith and hope. I hope that we do too today.