Category: Lectionary Ramblings

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2014 Lectionary Ramblings Lectionary Ramblings

September 23rd 2014: Acts 13:44-14:7

Read Acts 13:44-14:7 here

“I have made you a light to the Gentiles”

Where I studied theology, we were strongly discouraged from taking passages out of context, or appropriating individual verses for ourselves, or a set of circumstances we find ourselves in. Interestingly, here Paul and Barnabas seem to have no qualms about doing this. Come to think of it neither did Jesus. Intriguing isn’t it. In our day, the burden of proof, the need for scientific rigour and so on, on those of us who claim to hear the voice of God and act in His name is extremely high. When you see how some people use and manipulate the name of God, it is easy to see why this is so. However, as they say, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. As Paul and Barnabas saw many people set free, and the opportunity to speak of the love and mercy of God increasing, so more and more people were drawn to them, and to God, by the integrity with which they lived and spoke.

We can easily get drawn in to the battle to prove our faith, the existence of God, the righteousness of our cause. God does not require this though. He merely invites us to accept the privilege of being a light to the Gentiles, those who do not yet know Him. We have been commissioned. Are we willing to live as lights in a murky and darkening world, or would we rather rant and rave as the ship sinks?

We have a hope that, rather than sinking in to the finality, the world will be renewed and all will be saved. If we really believe that salvation is possible for all, it is for us to live like we want others to receive it. More parties, less services. More celebration, less meetings. More joy, honest, real joy, less naval gazing. A growing picture of who God is, which is open to more and more revelation day by day, not a closed, finished canon of belief and practice. It’s exciting!

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2014 Lectionary Ramblings Lectionary Ramblings

September 22nd 2014: Acts 13:13-43

Read Acts 13:13-43 here

Today, Paul and Barnabas find themselves in Pisidian Antioch (fantastic name for a place, that). An intriguing aspect of this morning’s reading is that they are very obviously well-known, and popular, being as they are recognised upon entering the synagogue on the Sabbath. What had the community leaders and rabbis heard about then? What was their expectation about what would transpire as a result of asking Paul to speak? Was he asked because he had been trained by Gamiliel in the Jewish faith, or because the tales of the miraculous and of their teaching had preceded them?

We’ll never know truly, but what is clear is that Paul, in intimacy with God, was ready to speak when invited, and spoke a message that was directly what they needed to hear that day. Paul was trained in speaking and arguing, but he was also learning quickly what it was to be intimate with God and loving in obedience. When invited to speak, he grabbed the opportunity with both hands, but it was God who did the mighty and wondrous work of salvation which followed.

It’s easy for us to be psyched out by the power and gravitas on show in stories like this, but we benefit from realising that, as God had raised up the people He called for His ministry in the New Testament, so He raises us up day by day to be His sons and daughters. We are to be ready to communicate the truth of the love of God when we have a chance, but most of all, we are to called to contentment in the arms of our Saviour, so that His reputation might precede us. Be content so that God might increase in your life today.

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September 20th 2014: Acts 13:1-12

Read Acts 13:1-12 here

“now, the hand of the Lord is against you”

Issues of power and control have been continuous themes in our recent reflections. Once again these elements of the life of faith are to the fore today. Many of us are uncomfortable with judgement and the idea of God being against us. We’re also uncomfortable, rightly in my view, with the concept of pronouncing judgement in the name of God. This kind of thing is so open to abuse and manipulation that it seems unlikely that it would be something Godly at all. And yet today, the (we’re told temporary) judgement and blinding of Elymas by Paul is used to bring the Proconsul Sergius Paulus to faith. So is judgement justified when it leads to salvation?

The question here is one of intimacy. When the disciples are called to set aside Saul and Barnabas for the work God has for them, they are able to do so rightly because they are in intimate relationship with God and with one another. Certainly they didn’t get every decision right. Neither did Saul (Paul) and Barnabas, and it is dangerous for us to think otherwise. God’s call is an inexact science. God calls us to worship and adoration, to sacrifice and to mission, every moment of our lives, and more often than not we are not attentive enough to hear that call. The relationship, and the opportunity for living well, grows with commitment and time, and remembering thankfully the previous faithfulness of God. From here it is easier to know (although not foolproof!) when God is moving and to know how to follow.

It is easy for us to fall in to control and manipulation, but as we are called to lives of contrition, we need to ask for strength to fight the very human temptation to think it’s all about us. It’s all about God, and his glory. So if we’re all set to pronounce judgement, we better be sure that it is God asking us to do it, and not fear or culture, and we better be ready for the spotlight to be turned right back on to us. Tread with caution!

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September 19th 2014: Acts 12:18-25

Read Acts 12:18-25 here

In today’s reading, the final throes of the life of Herod are told in rather gruesome and some would say gleeful detail. As an encouragement to the persecuted Church in the first centuries of Christianity, stories like this, clearly laying out the supremacy and victory of God, must have been a great source of strength. It is easy to be jaded and cynical in the protected Western world as to how important the continued reminders of the supremacy of God are a matter of life and death to some, giving the courage to carry on when the pressure is on.

That said, there is another uncomfortable sense of “might is right” in these verses, a sense which has so pervaded the readings this week. It is not the might of man, but the might of God which is championed here. The problem though, is when we as people take the view that because “our God is greater” as the popular contemporary song goes, we are greater too, or we can subvert others to our will. This can work in all facets of life; in the family, the work place, in a Church, in politics local, national and international, theologically and everywhere else. Until we realise that we are no greater, and no lesser, than any other people or people group, we will never be able to ascribe any kind of glory to God, or love to Him, or to others.

For me these verses are a call to check ourselves. Do we secretly crave the moments of recognition and glory, or do we have integrity in placing the glory of God and the love of others before all other aims? I’m not even sure that Luke, writing Acts, could say for sure what his motives were, and neither can we much of the time. Let’s ask God to give us courage to take the path of humility and grace today.

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September 18th 2014: Acts 12:1-17

Read Acts 12:1-17 here

Just as King Herod turned against the followers of Christ, those who are frightened of the commitment, compassion and conviction of those who have felt called to follow Jesus have, throughout Christian history, attempted to silence, or even destroy them. The temptation for those of us who experience anything like this (not that we do often in the Western world) is to prove the righteous nature of our cause, and the truth of our beliefs, by “showing the strength of God’s arm”. We fight back. We argue, we rely on apologetics to diminish the thoughts and beliefs of others. We use military strength to prove that we are right by destroying others, and so much more besides.

God does not need or require us to do this. God asks of us that we turn the other cheek. We stand for justice, pursue all that makes for peace and builds up our common life, but if our confidence is truly in The Lord, our hope and our salvation, as scripture, and many songs we sing, encourage us, it is disingenuous for us, in the next breath, to use the things of the world to protect ourselves and justify the “right” of our position. What would the world look like if we as Christians truly chose to turn the other cheek in the face of injustice and persecution?

How can we be people that walk humbly with our God rather than walking arrogantly or in an entitled fashion? God has His glory. We don’t need any for ourselves.

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September 17th 2014: Acts 11:19-30

Read Acts 11:19-30 here

Today we find prophecy proved true. The Church is growing all over the displaced world. Famine is prophesied, famine comes. What intrigues me about this is that rather than revelling in the veracity of their truth claims, the disciples immediately seek to provide practical support to those who are in need.

We can spend a lot of time wanting to be right, and much time celebrating when it is proved that we are. It is easy to be seduced by the glittering image of perceived “success”, particularly in spiritual matters, and even more particularly when, in a difficult and hurting world, we are given something of a “leg-up”. This is human nature and something to be wary of, especially in the context of humbly lived out faith. While the glory and authority of God are important, they are His concerns, first and foremost. We are called to serve, to support, to meet needs and love and bless people. Let’s be people who live in a way which honours God, but never forgetting to serve practical needs.

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September 16th 2014: Acts 11:1-18

Read Acts 11:1-18 here 

Continuing the story of the coming of the Gospel to non-Jewish believers which we began yesterday, I am again struck by the short-sightedness of the disciples. According to the NIV, they praised God for His goodness only once their objections to the action He had decided to take had been exhausted. Here we have to respect Peter as having been able to speak well enough to answer all of their many concerns and gripes. It is important, too, to realise that part of the concern of the believers might have very easily been for their own safety. The more people welcomed in to their inner circle, the more chance there would be for persecution and all that came with it. Most likely though is a theological mis-understanding of what God sought to do in the life, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus. In effect, the believers limited the scope of what they thought God’s purpose could be or what Jesus could achieve.

How often do we do this? We ask God for things we can imagine, or things which are just beyond the reach or scope of our hoping, but that we can just about dare to dream for. How small our faith is! God has done more than we can ever dream of, and will continue to do so. Our faith exists merely to be blown out of the water and enlarged day by day. Every single time we put a limit on what God is allowed to do, who He is allowed to welcome in to His kingdom, He will prove us wrong, selfish, sinful, unworthy ourselves. The task of the Christian is to love, it is not to mediate or referee salvation. God does this. Rest in His presence and your security, and love other people so that they might know Him too.

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September 15th 2014: Acts 10;34-48

Read Acts 10:34-48 here

One of the greatest days in the history of the Christian faith is chronicled in today’s reading. Here we find that God, shwoing no partiality, makes it abundantly clear that there is no limit to the offer of His love. You don’t have to be born in to the right race, the right lineage, to have done the right “pure” things or to think only lofty thoughts. If anything, it is better if you’re not, and you haven’t. The gift of the good news of God is that God is good, and that we are made ever more good, through the grace of God, His decision to love and bless us, and that alone. Anything else puffs us up and makes us think that we have agency, control, authority and power. We don’t. We are blessedly impotent, apart from, and until, the Holy Spirit comes upon us, and then we receive power, and we are able to become witnesses to the goodness, grace, mercy and wonder of God, to the ends of the Earth. We don’t have power for the sake of power. We have power for the sake of God and His glory. Any time we use it for anything other than His glory, we dishonour Him.

Peter and the Jewish believers thought that they knew that the faith of Christ was limited to them, but following on from Peter’s vision in which God made it clear that no foods were unclean, today’s act of God blows the good news of the Kingdom wide open for all. Let’s not be people who limit or close the opening to freedom that God has made.

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September 12th 2014: Acts 10:1-16 and September 13th 2014: Acts 10:17-33

Read Acts 10:1-33 here

The story of Peter and Cornelius is punctuated with “and the Spirit said” as God talks to both of them conversationally, and through angels. I wonder how the disciples responded when they heard such stories. Like us, were some of them excited and seeking such things for themselves while others were cynical? How did they decide on when a hearer had heard the true voice of God? These are problems the Church continues to have no real answer to today.

Only God can make things pure. Nothing can be impure if God has made it pure. This is a revelation to Peter, shocking indeed. The vision he has in this story will change the whole course of faith history for followers of Jesus, marking a key shift away from Judaism. If we truly believe that only God makes things pure or impure, it is not for us to spend the whole of our lives worrying about the impurity of others and what they choose to do. Wouldn’t we be better served thanking God for the undeserved gift of grace, freedom and purity that is offered to all? We should all check ourselves and discern whether we prefer being declared pure by God, or if we’d rather use our faith and our Scriptures to declare others impure, and to denote our supposed superiority. We’re all prone to this. It does us no God, and fails to honour God in any conceivable way.

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September 11th 2014: Acts 9:32-43

Read Acts 9:32-43 here

As the good news of Jesus Christ the miracle worker is spread far and wide, this passage today recounts several healings of Peter, the Rock on which Jesus said His Church would be built. The healing miracles show Peter in a good light as the one who follows Jesus’s lead as the head of the Church. They also clearly result in many people coming to belief, baptism and living faith, as the fledgling Church grows. We can get excited about the drama of people being healed. It is exciting. We can run the risk of seeking merely to emulate the faith of the early Church in seeing the dramatic. It can be intoxicating to see God at work.

More than both of these though, let’s ask God to use us in whatever way He chooses so that many people might be added to His family, in believing, being baptised and living in faith.