Transcripts

SCRIPTURES: I Samuel 15:34 - I Samuel 16:13; Psalm 20; II Corinthians 5:6-10; II Corinthians 5:14-17; Mark 4:26-34.

COMMENTARY (716 words)

I Samuel 15:34 to I Samuel 16:13

This story forms the beginning of David's rise to power. At the time of this story, Saul is still king over Israel. Israel's first king, Saul assumed leadership against the objections of the prophet Samuel. The Lord was Israel's real King, contended the prophet. Nonetheless, a growing threat of a Philistine incursion into the nation of Israel resulted in the people's demand for a king. This demand was evidence of the people's lack of faith - the absence of faith in the Lord's ability to defend them from those who sought Israel's destruction. Grudgingly, Samuel acquiesces, appointing Saul to lead Israel into battle.
A familiar narrative results by this action - God's disapproval. Insistence of personal will over discernment and delight in God's will results in God's disapproval and loss of God's favor. The kingship of Saul, consequently, had a cloud of disapproval over it from the beginning. Rather than being alive to God's presence and open to God's power, the nation of Israel became more fearful than before Saul was appointed king.
Here, in this lection, God now seeks a shepherd-king for his people, a man after God's own heart. An important dynamic is operative here: the kingship of the Lord is reestablished and demonstrated as Israel learns that only God can decide who should rule Israel. Indeed, Samuel must explicitly follow the Lord's instructions in order to identify that ruler.

SCRIPTURES: - Exodus 20:1-17; Psalm 19; I Corinthians 1:18-25; John 2:13-22

COMMENTARY (715 words)

Exodus 20:1-17

It is generally agreed that the interpretive work of Holy Scripture is never done from a place of neutrality. Interpretive lenses of one variety or another always give shape to the engagement of and listening to biblical texts. Theological presuppositions, cultural contexts and particular ministry concerns are but a few of the lenses employed by those who otherwise seek a responsible encounter with scripture. For my own work with this particular text, I unapologetically acknowledge my own interpretive lens: the urgency of speaking to a church that has neglected spiritual growth. Is there a word here that calls faith communities to center everything they do on becoming people who have the character of Christ? I believe there is. (The careful reader will note that I have already acknowledged another set of interpretive lenses: This passage from the Old Testament will be read as Christian literature.)
Having acknowledged my own agenda, I confess that preaching on the Ten Commandments, as a whole, is a rather daunting assignment. There have been several occasions I have preached a separate sermon for each of the commandments. This approach permits a careful exposition and application for each. Treated as a whole, the territory becomes so vast, so immense in meaning that attempting to negotiate a single sermon can be like transporting the freight of a cargo ship into a canoe. The sermon will sink.
A helpful approach is the recognition that the commandments are given to a faith community for protecting the health of the community. The commandments are communal in nature though individuals must take personal responsibility for the welfare of the community. Neither Israel nor the church is created by the commandments. God gives birth to both Israel and the church by God's call. Behaviors addressed by the commandments are for the purpose of protecting God's community from individual choices that would destroy it. As Terence E. Fretheim observes, "...they (the commandments) serve to keep order in the world, restraining the forces of disorder so that creation does not revert to chaos." (Terence E. Fretheim, Exodus: Interpretation, Louisville, John Knox Press, 1991. p. 222.)
From the moment the reader understands this function of the commandments God may be observed here as a fine artist at work, scratching in clay tablets a portrait of what the faith community was created to be. Vulnerability to a set of rules is diminished and freedom from self-absorption to authentic life in community is realized. Navigating from the shallow waters of faith to the deeper waters of vibrant discipleship begins when the individual is able to visualize that "It's not about me" but, rather, "It's about God" and what God seeks to accomplish through faith communities. The Ten Commandments are an exercise in sacred portraiture offering a glimpse of life as God intended.

SCRIPTURES: - Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16; Psalm 22:23-31; Romans 4:13-25; Mark 8:31-38 or Mark 9:2-9.

COMMENTARY (716 words)

Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16

Our world is being continuously rearranged around us resulting, for many, in disorientation and loss of security. Such disorientation causes some to believe that life is fated or without hope or purpose. Faith in a God that is confidently directing creation toward God's own purposes becomes fragile. Genesis 17 occurs in a larger section of stories that center around the uncertainties that color the faith of Abraham and Sarah, particularly their difficulty in having a child. The problem of infertility is a theological one, resulting in a faith crisis, since God promised Abraham that he and Sarah would have many children.
God speaks to the crisis with a follow-up affirmation of a covenant in which specific events would occur, including the promise of a child. Trouble is, Abraham has permitted present circumstances to have greater power than God - Abraham laughs at the absurdity of a man who is a hundred years old fathering a child. Further, Abraham offers God a way out of this absurdity by suggesting that his son with the slave Hagar, whose name is Ishmael, might be the one through whom God would create the promised nation according to the covenantal promise.
Quickly answering Abraham's doubts, God affirms once again that it would be Abraham's wife, Sarah, who would have a child. Two dynamics are at once presented: No power, not even the circumstance of old age, is greater than God and, God keeps promises. Neither Abraham, nor we, ever needs to think that God requires our assistance out from seemingly difficult circumstances.

SCRIPTURES: Jeremiah 4:11-12, 22-28; Psalm 14 or Exodus 32:7-14; Psalm 51:1-10; I Timothy 1:12-17; Luke 15:1-10

COMMENTARY

Jeremiah 4:11-12, 22-28

Here is a text that presents quite a different view of God than the one imagined behind the compassion-filled ministry of Jesus in Luke's Gospel. In Luke, the Lord is a forgiving God, a shepherd that searches for one lost sheep to return it gently to the fold or one who hunts for the one lost coin until it is found. The lost are welcomed and included among those who belong to God.
Not so here in Jeremiah! Present in this passage are words of judgment and desolation. Words that surprise until we recall Jesus' teaching also included repentance and the transformation of life. Cutting sharply across all notions of a kindly deity who overlooks all wrong, this chapter announces personal accountability to God. Yes, the God here is the same God of Luke's Gospel, a God who forgives. But forgiveness demands repentance, turning around from what is evil in God's sight and walking in God's ways. When we refuse, God is just in his judgment of us.
What is significant for one who preaches on this text is wide-eyed awareness that the devastating effects on the earth announced here are not the result of God's activity. As 4:23 observes, God looks upon the earth and sees the waste and void brought upon it as the natural consequence of human evil. God is complicit only in that he does not exercise divine intervention to stop the harm we would do. God's restraint permits all creation to see the depth and breath of human sin. Here, God's judgment is simply divine permission for human beings to destroy the earth and, consequently, themselves.
Though Jeremiah imagines the collapse of creation into ruin, there remains good news. The preacher will note 4:27b announces that God will not permit a full end to the earth. God will limit the destruction human evil would work. There can be no mistaking the weight of sin and it's devastating effects. Yet, God's promise to preserve something that is good keeps alive the possibility that God's last word for us is not death but life.

Luke 15:1-10

SCRIPTURES: Acts 9:1-6 (7-20); Psalm 30; Revelation 5:11-14; John 21:1-19

COMMENTARY

Acts 9:1-6 (7-20)

Here is an account of a life-transforming experience, one that changed Saul, the persecutor of the early Christians, to Paul, the Christian apostle to the Gentile nations. There is no hyperbole here, Saul is confronted by the power of God and is forever changed. The author of Acts is not here immediately concerned with Saul's own spiritual insight and growth in faith but, rather, what happens when God intervenes in our hearts and minds. This story shows the church rather clearly that we do not mature in faith by our own discipline and strength. Our lives are transformed solely by God grace.
The thoughtful reader of this text may wonder if Paul's experience of Christ on his way to Damascus is normative. The answer depends upon the how the question is asked. No, if the question is narrowly focused on the particular nature of the encounter, Paul's sudden conversion experience preceded by a voice from heaven and temporary blindness is unique to Paul and does not represent what all Christians will experience. God meets each person in a variety of ways, according to who we are. Yes, if the question is addressed to what happens as a result of God meeting him, Paul's conversion, and ours, is nothing less than the ending of the old and the emergence of the new. Heart, mind and soul - all experience a new birth by God's redeeming grace.
New birth, though a gift of God, does demand personal responsibility, however. Here, in this narrative, Ananias hesitates to go to Saul when asked by God. A leader among Christians, Ananias knows well the singular mission of Saul-to destroy all who would confess Christ. Yet, Christ answers Ananias' hesitation that Saul is a chosen instrument to bring the Gospel to the Gentiles and kings and the people of Israel. Saul, who would become known as Paul, was chosen to be an instrument in the hands of God for ministry. That is true for us also. God has not transformed our lives, given us new birth, that we may enjoy his fellowship without responsibility. We are called, in our new birth, as chosen instruments in God's hands to speak a word of grace where there is brokenness, hope where there is despair and become, as a faith community, the continuing ministry of Christ on earth.

COMMENTARY - Genesis 1:1-2:4a; Psalm 8; II Corinthians 13:11-13; Matthew 28:16-20

Psalm 8

Trinity Sunday provides the church an opportunity to reflect on the dynamic relationship between God and the community of faith. This familiar psalm, the first song of praise in the psalter, is not immediately concerned with acknowledging God's work of creation but, rather, with the intimacy of the relationship between human beings and God. Addressing God in the second person establishes that intimate relationship and provides the landscape against which the question of v. 4 is asked: "What are human beings that you are mindful of them? " Psalm 8 cuts sharply across any understanding of a strict hierarchical relationship between humanity and the Lord. Carefully employing language of worship with a delicate blending of the high stature of humanity and human lowliness, this psalm confidently speaks of the graciousness of God who is willing to share "glory and honor" with humanity. Bracketed by a celebration of God's sovereignty (vs. 1a, 9), the psalmist provides a corrective to those that may hear that humanity enjoys equality with God.