St. Mark’s Lutheran

Readings
Numbers 23:11-26
Romans 8:1-11
Matthew 22:1-14

Meditation
The parable in the reading today can be unsettling. We track through the early part. Ok, Jesus, got it, the original invitees are the Jews. They rejected the invite and killed the prophets. God sent Babylon, His soldiers, to take them into exile. It could also be prophetic that God sent Rome and leveled and burned Jerusalem in 70 AD. Paul & the early apostles went to the highways and invited everyone. We track with that. Its the next part the brings unease. The king spots a man at the wedding banquet without the proper clothes. He asks the man, where are your wedding clothes? The man has no answer and he is thrown out. Not just into the street where he supposedly came from, but into the outer darkness with weeping and gnashing of teeth. The parable is not in Kansas anymore. It has moved from the stuff of the everyday to the stuff of the eternal. And what is the wedding garment? Do I need a tux? Do I have such clothes? Where can I get them? My natural sinful mind wants to keep asking questions like that - questions that quantify and qualify. And that is the law. You could be wearing an Armani tuxedo, and it wouldn’t be right, the lapels might be too wide. The wedding garment is free. It is the righteousness of Jesus Christ. My natural self says that rag, but what do I have to do? And Jesus replies, blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of God. What do I have to do? Nothing. In faith put on Christ. That is a beautiful garment.

May you find peace in your wedding clothes as we watch for the bridegrooms return.

Tags: Meditation // Add Comment »

Readings
Numbers 22:41 - 23:12
Romans 7:13-25
Matthew 21:33-46

Meditation
One of the key Lutheran paradoxes is simul iustus et pecccator or less priggish at the same time justified and a sinner. Martin Luther talks about it while discussing baptism. Baptism representing the entire Christian life - “the old Adam in us should by daily contrition and repentance be drowned and die…that a new man should daily emerge and arise to live before God in righteousness…” St. Paul is talking about the same thing in Romans. Who will deliver me from this body of death, this thing that keeps doing the things I don’t want, this old Adam. Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Jesus has delivered us from sin and the bondage to death that sin caused. Until the new creation we are both sinner and saint, but saint the justification is assured through the work of Christ. Baptism has drowned that sinner.

May the Lord grant you the strength to drown the sinner and arise a saint until he returns and remakes all of us.

Tags: Meditation // Add Comment »

Please check out the VBS tab. We will be teaming with West Henrietta Baptist to bring Group publishing’s POWER LAB where kids will discover the Power of Jesus. There is a link to preregistration on the page and further information about dates, times and places.

Tags: Announcements // Add Comment »

Readings
Numbers 22:21-38
Romans 7:1-12
Matthew 21:23-32

Meditation
Today we get the second part of the Balaam story (tomorrow is the conclusion). The story is just so strange and funny. This is one that is so rich and deep and at the same time if the Bible were just a human book, there is no way this makes it into sacred scripture. First God appears to change his mind, why’s He angry? He told Balaam to go. Second, this is a very minor character, more comic relief than anything, yet The Angel of the LORD appears right here and first to Balaam’s ass. Lastly you have talking animals. Miracles of power, ok. Great acts like the Exodus, easy. But talking animals? That’s the stuff of fables, yet God puts it in His Word. If it was just human, this story would have been cut in the first edit. But it is so deep and speaks to us. How many Balaam’s asses do we have in our lives? We set off intent on going our own way and then our trusty instruments fail us. A computer breaks, a car gets a flat tire a wife or a husband says something we don’t like. We get all flustered. Why does this stuff happen to me? Why right now? I’ve got things to do. We usually shoot the messanger, or like Balaam threaten to take a sword to his faithful ass. The Balaam’s asses in our lives just might be seeing things that we in our sinfulness aren’t.

May we all be blessed enough to recognize the faithful voices in our lives who prevent us from being the real jokes in our own stories.

Tags: Meditation // Add Comment »

Note: My wife and I have completed the large part of moving from St. Louis to West Henrietta, NY to take the pulpit at St. Mark. I have internet back and I have an office. In the intervening days the lectionary shifted us in the Old Testament to Numbers - the immediate wonderings of the people of Israel after the Exodus. It has been appropriate reading for a migrant.

Reading
Numbers 22:1-22
Romans 6:12-23
Matthew 21:12-22

Meditation
The Old Testament reading is the set up for one of the funniest scenes in the Bible. The story of Balaam’s ass. (I’m assuming we get the second part tomorrow.) In the set up there are two intersting threads that struck me. First, all of this is taking place in Moab which is a famous enemy of Israel. Yet, Balaam is listening to the LORD. The text is YHWH. The LORD has not left even Moab without a prophet. Second, Balaam is listening the the LORD. Balal and the Moabites just want to manipulate God. That is a pagan understanding. The gods are celestial vending machines that you just have to insert the right change and bump the right way. Balaam tells the king sorry, can’t do it, the LORD said they are blessed. But, at their insistance, the LORD says go, but only say what I give you. The LORD is the LORD of all, even Moab, and the LORD is in a relationship with us. One where he speaks and instructs and wants us to ask and to listen. We don’t always listen, which leads sometimes to comic and sometimes to tragic results, but the LORD is in control.

May you ask and listen of the LORD this day.

Tags: Meditation // Add Comment »

Readings
Ecclesiastes 11:9 - 12:14
Galatians 5:25 - 6:10
Matthew 16:21-28

Meditation
Today is the last day of the Ecclesiastes readings. Thank God for small mercies. The Preacher’s words are hard because as a 21st century American we are youth obsessed and always hopeful in the new new thing. And even through that cultural filter, we know instinctively that these words are true. The law is written on our hearts. The Preacher’s final summation, let you heart cheer over such things, but know that God is judge. Pure law. The Judge that terrified Martin Luther.

Becuase we all face that judge, we should as Paul says, bear each other’s burdens. In the end, the burden in the same, in helping others we also bear our own burden, we all go to the judge that hidden God. But as Christians we have a great revealed joy. That judge we dread when hidden has been revealed as Christ himself. The good shepherd who gave himself for us. We don’t have to fear. We aren’t in the dark as the preacher of Ecclesiastes becuase everything has been revealed to us in Jesus. So bear on anothers burdens and fulfill the law of Christ - the man who carried our burden.

May the Lord grant you a willing heart to hear his Word and bear each others burdens.

Tags: Meditation // Add Comment »

Readings
Ecclesiastes 11:1-8
Galatians 5:16-24
Matthew 16:13-20

Meditation
Today is my oldest child’s fifth birthday. Love and joy are easily felt. Peace and patience are are sorely tested. In looking at St. Paul’s lists of vices and virtues, the works of the flesh and the fruits of the spirit, the time nature of the words is striking. The vices give instantaneous feedback. The pleasures of fornication are in the moment. The angry word feels good when expressed. The night drinking and carousing is living for the moment. The virtues are habits or character traits developed or revealed over time. A toddler must be God’s way of developing patience. Faithfulness can only be displayed long term, but can be lost in a moment, same with self-control. Peace can be felt in a moment, but when momentary, we know its insecurity. In a time of war, peace is an attitude toward existence and not a state of being - i.e.are we at peace with the way we deal with our neighbor. God is busy through His Spirit recreating for eternity. The momentary pleasures of vice have no place in that eternity.

May the Spirit, birthday by birthday, recreate us more and more in conformity with the virtues that last for eternity.

Tags: Meditation // Add Comment »

Readings
Ecclesiastes 9:11-18
Galatians 5:1-15
Matthew 16:1-12

Meditation
Proof, signs, give me something I can see, taste, touch, smell or hear. Then I will know. But proof often deceives us, or even more common we want more of it. We shouldn’t downplay those things, Jesus didn’t. In Matthew’s narrative Jesus has been all around the region of Judea and Samaria and Galilee and even into the gentile regions of Tyre and Sidon. Jesus has been working miracles. These signs are what Jesus gave to John the Baptist as proof he was the Messiah (Matt 11:4-6). But here we have the Sadducees and the Pharisees demanding a sign. Did they miss the earlier ones? Do they not believe the crowds who witnessed them? More likely they were thinking, “we are the important people Jesus. We are the people your little movement needs to convince. Show us a sign.” The Kingdom of Heaven is for the poor in spirit. Those demanding signs, see the sign of Jonah, the cross. It is only through the humbleness of the cross that we get the resurrection. The Sadducees and Pharisees got their sign, but it became a stumbling block - the messiah can’t be crucified!?! But to those perishing, those lost and who recognize their condition, the cross becomes the humble gateway to resurrection.

May we all see the proof and may the Word keep us safe in a resurrection faith.

Tags: Meditation // Add Comment »

Readings
Ecclesiastes 8:14-9:10
Galatians 4:21-31
Matthew 15:29-39

Meditation
Why does Matthew have a second feeding the masses miracle? Jesus feeds the 5000 a short time before this in Matthew’s narrative, but in today’s reading the number is 4000. The disciples pick up 12 baskets left over from 5 loaves and 2 fishes earlier. Here they pick up 7 baskets from 7 loaves and “a few” fishes. Is Matthew just playing with numbers? Ultimately, some of those questions are unanswerable. We don’t have enough information, or we are not close enough culturally to the original readers. One of the best answers is based on the location of this miracle right next to yesterday’s reading. Yesterday, Jesus appeared rough, unkind, or maybe in the words of our day, intolerant. The canaanite woman’s daughter was healed, but what about the rest of the non-Jewish world. Are they included? Will the table of the Kingdom be open to them? The answer is yes. Jesus, walking along the Sea of Galilee in gentile teritorry repeats his earlier feeding miracle. “I have compassion for these people” he says. We can get lost looking at the numbers. We can lose our way focusing on specifics and the exact way to do things. They are not unimportant, but the key to the story is that line, “I have compassion for these people.” The compassion of the Father’s Messiah did not stop at the border of Judea or exclude the Canaanite, the Samaritan or the Greek.

Lord, help us also to feel and to show compassion for all of your children.

Tags: Meditation // Add Comment »

Note: The Readings are coming from the two year lectionary originally based in the Book of Common Prayer.

Readings
Ecclesiastes 7:1-14
Galatians 4:12-20
Matthew 15:21-28 ESV

Meditation
The Matthew reading is one of those that is so “full of stuff” that keeping it to 150 words is tough. A Cannanite woman, the historic and hated enemy of Israel is the main character. The OT echos with the insults and the warning not to marry Cannanite women. This one approaches Jesus, “Lord, Son of David”…and he did not answer, not a word. The disciples go to Jesus and beg him…send her away, she is bothering us. Jesus answers the disciples by turning to the woman and saying…”I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.” (!?!) Where are the rebukes to the disciples? Where is the Jesus who answers prayer and is open to seekers? The woman is persistent. She kneels in begging, “Lord, help me.”…and Jesus answers with what sure sounds like an insult, “Its not fair to take the Children’s bread and throw it to dogs.” Is this the Jesus we knew, or know?

But this “enemy of Israel” answers, “Yes, Lord, yet…” Some translations have “Yes, Lord, but…” the point remians, but the amazing nature of the story is slightly altered by the “but.” This Canaanite woman is never confronting Jesus. Her answer is not a “yes, but” negation, her answer is larger. “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the scraps that fall from the master’s table.” This women fully expects that the scraps that fall are more than enough to heal her daughter. She does not argue for a seat, but believes the scraps are more than enough. “O woman, great is your faith.”

In an egalitarian era, it is hard to hear Jesus talk like that, maybe harder yet thinking of answering like this woman. I want my place at the table. I’ve got my rights. Yet, the Kingdom belongs to the poor in spirit. Paradoxically, when we demand less for ourselves, we are demanding more from God. When we are weak, He is strong. The scraps from the table are more than enough. “And her daughter was healed instantly.”

May the Lord help us all to live abundantly from His scraps until the heavenly feast.

Tags: Meditation // Add Comment »