Luke 2 41 52 is a great story of Passover and Jesus entering adulthood. But what might this mean in the context of Christmas? How might this reading, this arguing within the adult community that Jesus engages in? Perhaps we need to encourage our children to debate with the adults of our church community and see what happens next?
The community I serve has been experimenting with a variety of off-site worship styles. We are developing everything from a full-blown Youtube service, to paper liturgy and now to this hybrid format through Microsoft Sway. Nothing beats being in person together but there is hope that somehow these offerings can hold us while we navigate through restrictions. WordPress will not let me embed the site. Click the below to go there. https://sway.office.com/7ojaEMuiBFOe9WWO?ref=Link
New Lockdown Style?
John 3:1-17
I have been providing video sermons for a few congregations over the COVID season. It has been a blessing in many ways, but the most important lesson for me is that a sermon should provoke a theological response. I don’t have the answers, I have some insight, I don’t have the wisdom, I belong to wise community. This sermon is no different. I want the text to prompt questions and provoke an ongoing conversation.
In this reading we encounter Nicodemus, a leader compelled to hide his questions under cover of darkness. For many of us, we have inherited an expectation that leadership does not allow for questions or even human failings. What does that look like for Nicodemus?
The Sabbath
There is recognition from our young adults that social media is both a blessing and a curse. One of the issues it causes, is a constant feeding into a sense of insecurity and over stimulation of information. So what does the church have to offer into that?
Healing an Enemy
Matthew 8:5-13 has Jesus healing the lover of the local commander of the Roman army. For many of us, we quietly wish pain and suffering upon those who hold us oppressed, but this confronting image of Jesus bringing healing to an enemy’s household moves us into a greater, more sacred understanding.
Mark 5:1-17
What is the cost for the healing of an individual?
In the midst of a pandemic can we put a finacial cost on the healing of individuals in our communities?
Christianity and Climate Change
One of my early videos from a series called Immerse. This was within the light of some of the community engagement we had regarding a Christian response to climate change. Of course, feel free to comment or message me if you think I missed something.
It is a happy pain……
Heading to a conference tomorrow. It is a “Dreaming Day” for the future of Churches of Christ.
It has been three years since the last time we got together to discuss anything, anything at all, let alone what we dream to be.
This realization has motivated me to reflect on what my dreams are for what I am doing. As a result there have been some strange thoughts running through my head. As a result, I hope the following makes sense.
My mission, my motivation, for what I do, comes from a deep sense of love that I have experienced. A love that has been so profound that I can only call it ‘of God’. It has arrived at many moments, from many places, some expected and some unexpected but all have shaped me into the person that I am today. I have found that the only way I can express a response to this experience of love is through Christianity, trying to make sense of this experience using a history of people’s experiences of God as a way of finding myself in the story of my own life.
This does not mean that other expressions of faith, religion or even expressions of Christianity are any more or less right than my expression. This does not mean that my expression cannot inform or challenge other expressions, or that my expression cannot be confronted and changed by other expressions. I don’t think anybody has the complete handle on what life is supposed to look like, or how God is found in the midst of it.
All that said, 5 years at Ormond Church of Christ has at times be an experience that has left me feeling more removed from my own ‘denomination’, my theology doesn’t seem to fit, my personality doesn’t seem to fit and my vision for what the Church could look like seems like a foreign concept. The thing that I love/hate the most is that the very theology and expression, and investigation of that theology, that seems to put me outside of the Churches of Christ circle, is found to be completely relevant and easily communicated to those outside of the church.
The things that cause me to feel loneliness and isolation, out stepped-ness within my own denomination, are exactly what I find the non-church community responding to.
It is a wonderfully painful place to be sometimes. I can only imagine how many other ministers and ex-ministers feel exactly the same.
The demon possessed man
Luke 8:26-39 (New International Version)
The Healing of a Demon-possessed Man
26They sailed to the region of the Gerasenes, which is across the lake from Galilee. 27When Jesus stepped ashore, he was met by a demon-possessed man from the town. For a long time this man had not worn clothes or lived in a house, but had lived in the tombs. 28When he saw Jesus, he cried out and fell at his feet, shouting at the top of his voice, “What do you want with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, don’t torture me!” 29For Jesus had commanded the evil[b] spirit to come out of the man. Many times it had seized him, and though he was chained hand and foot and kept under guard, he had broken his chains and had been driven by the demon into solitary places.
30Jesus asked him, “What is your name?”
“Legion,” he replied, because many demons had gone into him. 31And they begged him repeatedly not to order them to go into the Abyss.
32A large herd of pigs was feeding there on the hillside. The demons begged Jesus to let them go into them, and he gave them permission. 33When the demons came out of the man, they went into the pigs, and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and was drowned.
34When those tending the pigs saw what had happened, they ran off and reported this in the town and countryside, 35and the people went out to see what had happened. When they came to Jesus, they found the man from whom the demons had gone out, sitting at Jesus’ feet, dressed and in his right mind; and they were afraid. 36Those who had seen it told the people how the demon-possessed man had been cured. 37Then all the people of the region of the Gerasenes asked Jesus to leave them, because they were overcome with fear. So he got into the boat and left.
38The man from whom the demons had gone out begged to go with him, but Jesus sent him away, saying, 39“Return home and tell how much God has done for you.” So the man went away and told all over town how much Jesus had done for him.
Growing up in the church I have heard many sermons preached on this reading. The explanations for the ‘demon possessed’ man have usually been that the man suffered from schizophrenia and that Jesus, through spiritual healing powers, removed the mental illness and restored him to his community. This explanation would make sense in the light of the mission of Jesus to heal the sick and restore people to life.
I have also heard this reading preached in a light that spiritual powers had possessed this man and that actual demons inhabited his body requiring an exorcism to spiritually cleanse him. This particular slant on this reading has led to many damaging actions taken in the name of Jesus, causing pain and suffering on many levels.
I have never really believed in spiritual warfare. It is something that I have never witnessed and would struggle to believe in. In the same token I have never seen anybody miraculously healed from mental illness using spiritual powers. In this light, I have usually struggled to sit through sermons on this topic.
I do see this reading as a vitally important reading in the context of our community. I think that it is easy to see this reading as yet another example of the amazing spiritual powers of Jesus, I also think that type of understanding makes this reading irrelevant.
We all know someone who struggles with life. Problems with alcohol, gambling, sex and drugs are all aspects of our community that cause destruction, break families and cost lives. This, for me is where we can enter the call of Jesus in this reading. We are called to lead people who are ‘possessed’ to a place of wholeness. How this looks will vary depending on the ‘demon’ and your understanding of wholeness.
For those of us who are battling our own ‘demons’ we can take heart from the fact that we are not alone, and will not be left alone. God is all about bringing people to life. Taking you from a place of death and despair, to a place of life and meaning.
For those of us who drink to fill a void, who gamble to fill a space in our lives, who use sex to feel complete, God is calling you to let your demons go. Search yourself and find the broken part of you that causes you to destroy yourself and have the courage and grace to allow yourself to be healed.
For those of us who may consider ourselves ‘demon free’ we need to examine our actions and our attitudes that may be causing the ‘possessed’ members of our communities to continue to suffer. Do we allow the space, love and support needed to allow open, honest dialogue that will lead to a life based on love.
39“Return home and tell how much God has done for you.” So the man went away and told all over town how much Jesus had done for him.
Jesus brings a widow back into life.
Luke 7:11-17 (New International Version)
11Soon afterward, Jesus went to a town called Nain, and his disciples and a large crowd went along with him. 12As he approached the town gate, a dead person was being carried out—the only son of his mother, and she was a widow. And a large crowd from the town was with her. 13When the Lord saw her, his heart went out to her and he said, “Don’t cry.”
14Then he went up and touched the coffin, and those carrying it stood still. He said, “Young man, I say to you, get up!” 15The dead man sat up and began to talk, and Jesus gave him back to his mother.
16They were all filled with awe and praised God. “A great prophet has appeared among us,” they said. “God has come to help his people.” 17This news about Jesus spread throughout Judea and the surrounding country.
Modern Context:
I want to take a moment to stop and ask God to be with Vanessa Robinson, the mother who lost her two boys who died in Maroopna last week. We pray that somehow a she will find a place of peace in her heart after the tragic loss, and that she will be able to rely on her community for support and love at this tragic time. Amen
We find the woman in this story, as someone who finds herself in a place where life has thrown her to a dark place. For this woman, this childless widow, is put in a position of worthlessness.
This woman undoubtedly finds herself questioning the value and worth of her life. She has lost her place in the world.
Widow, no husband no provider, turns to her son as provider, now he is dead. She has nothing for herself except a future of begging and/or prostitution.
Society has set itself a system of making women dependent on men. Without a man women are worthless. She can only define themselves as mother or wife in her community.
So not only has this poor woman lost her ability to define her worth through being a wife and a mother, but she has become a drain on society. She has found herself without any financial suriety. Wherever she goes she will be seen as a problem for her community. She is too old, she has no house she belongs to, she has no husband, she has no children, she is a financial burden on society. I think you would agree with me that these are still common feelings.
13When the Lord saw her, his heart went out to her and he said, “Don’t cry.”
Jesus responds to this woman and her pain and loss by giving her back her son. Giving her back a place in her community, giving her back her life.
If only it where that easy for us. We are surrounded by people in our Church, in our families, in our community, that feel removed from life and meaning. There are people that walk among us that question their worth, their place, their life. People in our community question their relevance because they are divorced, unmarried, childless, too old or because they feel they are a burden on those around them. You may know someone like that, it may even be you.
But we worship a God whose specialty is making life from death, meaning for the meaningless and hope for the hopeless. We invest ourselves in a God who loves the people God created and responds by offering life and love and meaning through the Christ.
You may not experience this as a supernatural moment when the dead are raised, but when you allow yourself to be loved, life is reinstated.
God has called us to participate in life through the Christ. We have been called from the edges of society, from the dark places of our souls and like the widow, been given renewed meaning in our lives.
And our response to this?
16They were all filled with awe and praised God. “A great prophet has appeared among us,” they said. “God has come to help the people.”
We are called to spread the Good News of Jesus Christ, finding those on the edges of society, talking to people who live in the dark places of their souls, giving renewed meaning to the lives of those around us.
Go with this renewed life God has given you, and bring meaning to the widow!
3 Squares 