Gospel for Jan. 18, 2015

START WITH SCRIPTURE:

John 1: 43-51

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OBSERVE:

At the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, he begins to assemble his team – those who will be discipled personally by him over the subsequent years, and who will be witnesses of his cross and resurrection.

In this passage, he calls Philip, whose response is immediate and seemingly without reservation.  Presumably he, along with Andrew and Peter, have heard John the Baptist’s testimony that Jesus is  the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! (John 1:29).  This might explain Philip’s eager willingness to follow Jesus, based on John the Baptist’s recommendation.

Nathaniel, on the other hand, is more skeptical.  Although Philip tries to produce evidence from Moses and the Prophets that Jesus is the Messiah, he undermines his argument as far as Nathaniel is concerned when he says that Jesus is from Nazareth.

Is it because Nazareth is a backwater, or because it is in Galilee where there have been impure influences from other cultures, or simply because Nazareth is not mentioned in the scripture?

In any event, Nathaniel sneers scornfully at the prospect of a Messiah arising from such a place.

But Jesus wins Nathaniel over.  He hails him as an Israelite in whom there is no deceit.  Nathaniel, still skeptical, asks “how do you know me?” And Jesus says mysteriously “I saw you while you were still under the fig tree before Philip called you.”

What does Jesus mean?  Did he actually see Nathaniel, as a seer might see in a vision, when he was resting in the cool of the day under a fig tree? Was this a metaphor, as some commentators suggest?  We don’t know.

“Sitting under the fig tree” was an image in Micah 4:4 and Zechariah 3:10 suggesting a sense of shalom or peace and well-being.

What we do know is that something about Jesus’ response to Nathaniel penetrates deeply into his spirit.  He is transformed from scorn and skepticism to earnest faith: “Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are the king of Israel.”

Jesus’ answer can be summed up in this phrase: “you think this is something? This is nothing!”  Jesus promises Nathaniel that if he follows him, he will see ‘heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending on’ the Son of Man.”

Knowing what we know as believers, we can see what Nathaniel can’t yet – that Jesus will be lifted up on the cross, and that his resurrection will open the gates of heaven.

APPLY:  

Jesus continues to call disciples.  The methods may differ.  We may hear about Jesus from a dynamic preacher, much like John the Baptist.  Jesus may come to us through the Holy Spirit in a direct fashion, the way Jesus approaches Philip directly. A friend may come and tell us about him, the way Philip comes to Nathaniel.

We need to remember that there is a kind of preparation that takes place in each of these instances.  God uses the proclamation of preachers, or the study of scripture, or a friends testimony.  But the Holy Spirit is the one who prepares the heart.  Those in the Wesleyan tradition call this “prevenient grace,” the grace of God that prepares us to turn toward Christ.

There is always the initiative of God’s grace in our lives, and God invites us to respond and follow him.  We can be scornful or skeptical, or we can turn to Christ in faith and experience the adventure of our lives!

RESPOND: 

I experienced a call from God 40 years ago, and it has informed everything I’ve done since that time.  While I am no apostle, I have preached and taught and borne witness as a pastor and evangelist for 35 years.  I can think of no more fulfilling life to have lived, and I pray that all who read these words may experience the same sense of joy that I have experienced in Christ.

Our Lord, you call each of us in different ways, but there is a sense of adventure for every believer who truly turns to you.  Open our eyes that we may see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending on  the Son of Man. Amen.

Epistle for Jan. 18, 2015

START WITH SCRIPTURE:

1 Corinthians 6: 12-20

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OBSERVE:

Paul is writing this letter to a group of Christians he knows pretty well.  His second missionary journey brought him to Corinth for about 18 months from 50-52 A.D., and in his third missionary journey he stayed in Corinth for about three months, sometime between 56-57 A.D.

He is likely writing this letter to Corinth either from Philippi or, more likely, during his longer tenure at Ephesus where he stayed for three years.

We are reminded that this was an extremely volatile time in the early church.  The message of the Gospel was brand-new to these Corinthian Christians and they had many questions about doctrine, practice and morality.

Paul’s First Epistle to the Corinthians in particular seems to be an answer to a list of very important questions they had for their spiritual mentor: was wisdom the way to salvation, or faith? what about sexual relations, marriage and divorce? how should they handle disputes? what about eating meat that had been sacrificed to idols?

Paul patiently answers each of their questions.

It seems that Corinth in particular had a reputation in the ancient world for sexual libertinism.  Prostitutes plied their trade in this port city that drew sailors, soldiers, and merchants from all over the Roman world.

And the message of Christian freedom that Paul brought may have been misconstrued by some of these early Christians who thought that they could be devoted to Christ and still live a sexually promiscuous life.

So Paul applies the message of the Gospel to the very practical aspects of human life.  He quotes those who are arguing that sexual promiscuity is perfectly natural and normal, and then demolishes their arguments.

The advocates of sexual permissiveness  say “I have the right to do anything,” you say—  and Paul answers but not everything is beneficial.  The advocates of permissiveness say “I have the right to do anything”  and Paul says but I will not be mastered by anything.  Once more:  You say, “Food for the stomach and the stomach for food, and God will destroy them both.”  And Paul answers The body, however, is not meant for sexual immorality but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body.

These libertine Christians are arguing that Christian freedom means the Christian can live how they choose, and after all just as food is natural and normal, so is sex.

Paul’s response is that we are not be mastered by anything. He sees the intoxicating, addictive power that sex has in a person’s life.  Moreover, he argues that the body is not meant for sexual immorality but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body.

So, there are three  primary arguments he makes against sexual promiscuity:

One, that we are raised with Christ in his resurrection and have become a part of his spiritual body, as he will develop later in 1 Corinthians 12.  If so, then when a person unites with a prostitute he is de facto uniting Christ’s body with prostitution.

He quotes Genesis 2:24 “The two will become one flesh.” But he is clear that we are rather to be one with Christ in spirit.

Two, Paul points out that sexual behavior is intensely intimate and personal.  Other sins are external, but sexual behavior reaches deep into one’s inmost being.

His third and most powerful argument is this: Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own;  you were bought at a price.  

In other words, if all of the arguments he has presented are true – that our bodies are to be united spiritually with Christ, not sexually in promiscuity; that sexual sin deeply impacts the psyche of a person – then it follows that we are not only ‘believers’ but our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit.  The logic here is that the Holy Spirit has come to dwell in the believer.

And, conclusively, he asserts that the Christian doesn’t belong to him or herself, but to Christ who has purchased their freedom from sin through his death on the cross.

The bottom line is, they are to ‘honor God with their bodies.’ To engage in promiscuous sexuality is to unite Christ with sexual immorality, to pollute the temple of the body, and to betray the one who has purchased believers through his death.

APPLY:  

This is a sensitive topic that deserves more than a few paragraphs.  But I’ll try to be brief.

We live in a sexually obsessed culture, especially those who live in the West.  A click of a button on your computer will conjure up images that will penetrate to the dark places of a person’s imagination.  The message of our culture, since the Playboy Philosophy of the 1950’s began to popularize it, has been “sex is normal and natural and should be enjoyed as often as possible with as many people as possible.”

Ironically, this was pretty much the same kind of culture that Paul encountered in the Greco-Roman world.

So, we must find the balance.  Paul is not saying that sexuality is inherently bad, something that some of our Christian ancestors seemed to think.  He understands that sex is a good gift from God, but that it is also to be expressed only between a husband and wife.  This is rooted in his understanding of creation and the revelation of scripture.

On the other hand, we as Christians must understand that our sexuality is a deeply intimate part of our identity; that as our allegiance to Christ must be primary in our lives, so our sexual fidelity to our spouses must reflect that devotion; and that we don’t belong to ourselves, we belong to Christ.

We are also aware that as our pleasures can become deeply addictive, they can lure us away from a devotion to Christ.

Two principles in this passage have tremendous implications in so many areas of our bodily and practical lives.

First, your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you. If that is so, then not only must we guard our sexual nature, but we must be careful what we eat, drink, ingest, read, watch on t.v.  If we wouldn’t have sex in church why would we do so something so shocking with our own bodies? If gluttony does damage to our bodies, are we not damaging the temple of the Holy Spirit? If we smoke cigarettes . . . I think the implications are clear.

Again, the Apostle doesn’t argue that we shouldn’t enjoy healthy sexual relations with our spouse, or a good meal – but immorality pollutes the temple of the Holy Spirit, and excess in eating and drinking can cause damage to it.

Finally, Paul’s argument that  You are not your own; you were bought at a price  is a wake-up call to narcissistic Christians.  We have a tendency to think that our bodies belong to ourselves.  We hear that rhetoric in relation to sexual morality, reproductive rights, the consumption of food or drugs.

I can do what I like with my body is the one thing a Christian cannot say.  We are not our own.  We are bought with a price.  That  price was the body and blood of our Lord Jesus.

RESPOND: 

Sometimes I treat my body, as a friend once said, as though it were an endlessly renewable resource. As though it will always bounce back no matter how I treat it.  I eat too much of the wrong foods at times.  At such times I need to remind myself that my body is the temple of the Holy Spirit.

Sometimes I am very careful about eating nutritiously, getting enough exercise, and even occasionally fasting as a way of reminding myself of my dependence on God.  At such times I need to remind myself that I do these things because my body has been bought with a price.

Lord, we live in a sexually permissive culture, when sexual fantasies abound and are readily available online. And we in the West live in a culture where food and drink and drugs are readily available.  Remind us that you have purchased us through the precious body and blood of Jesus, and that we are to treat our bodies with great care as the temple of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Psalm Reading for Jan. 18, 2015

START WITH SCRIPTURE:

Psalm 139: 1-6, 13-18

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OBSERVE:

This Psalm highlights the omniscience of God concerning the very conception, consciousness, and inner being of the Psalmist.

This is a first-person poem/prayer in which the Psalmist marvels at the intimacy of God’s knowledge of an individual: every movement, thought, word is known even before they are enacted, thought, or spoken (verses 1-6).

The Psalmist is amazed and humbled by the capacity of God to search and know him, and deeply aware of just how transcendent God’s knowledge is of all things.

One can’t help but wonder if this Psalm doesn’t inform St. Paul’s understanding of the Spirit of God, which is described in The Epistle to the Romans as communicating directly with our own spirits: The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children (Romans 8:16); and in Romans 8:27: he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God.

While some Psalms marvel at the created order of the stars and the mountains, and the revelation of the Law – Psalm 8 and 19, and 119 and so many others – this Psalm revels in the deeply personal nature of the relationship between God and the human being.

God’s omniscience extends even to the mysterious realities of life and death. God is described as having woven the Psalmist together in his mother’s womb, and knowing him when he was yet unborn. The Psalmist is profoundly aware of just how fearfully and wonderfully made is the human body.  The mysteries of human anatomy and development in themselves are a testimony to the creative powers of God.

And there is even the sense that God knows each day of the Psalmist before it is lived, until even the day of death.

The Psalmist marvels that God’s thoughts are precious, vast and inscrutable.

APPLY:  

Consideration of the omnipotence and omniscience of God can often leave us feeling insignificant.  But this Psalm reminds us that the omniscience of God is really quite intimate.  God knows us from our conception to our death, our interior thoughts and even those aspects of ourselves unknown to us.

Although God is transcendent and “wholly other” as the theologians are wont to say, God is also deeply immanent and personal in his knowledge of us.  We puny, finite human beings are capable of knowing and being known by the Creator of all the universe!

St. Anselm of Canterbury once wrote that “God is that than which nothing greater can be conceived.”  The Psalmist illustrates that this God, above whom there is nothing greater, knows us each intimately and personally.  Although our knowledge of him is limited by our capacity, the great blessing is that because he knows us we can know him.

RESPOND: 

I am capable of having a personal and intimate relationship with God, not because of my capacity but because of God’s initiative.  God has searched me and known my thoughts before they entered my mind, has known me from before my conception, and knows my potential and even my destiny.  Like the Psalmist I find that all this boggles my mind!

Our Lord, how can my words begin to match the prayer of the Psalmist? That you know me intimately and care for me exceeds my capacity to understand.  All my life is lived in your omniscient omnipresence.  Amen.   

Old Testament for Jan. 18, 2015

Then Samuel said, “Speak, for your servant is listening.” I Samuel 3:10

Start with Scripture:

1 Samuel 3:1-10

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OBSERVE:

Like many great stories, this one begins, as the literary phrase goes “in media res,” i.e., “in the middle of things.”  It would be helpful to know who this child Samuel is, what the backstory is of Eli the priest, before we can understand the great impact that Samuel will have on Israel.

Samuel is the son of Elkanah and Hannah.  Although Elkanah deeply loved his wife Hannah, she was grieved because she was unable to have children.  But she went annually with her husband to the shrine of the Lord in Shiloh, where the ark of the covenant was kept in the tent that had been made at Moses’ instruction some centuries earlier. There she prayed each year for a child.

It was at Shiloh that Hannah met the High Priest Eli.  When he saw her praying fervently, he thought she was drunk until she explained her desperate pleas for a child.  Eli prayed that she might have a child, and when she returned home with her husband Elkanah the prayer was answered: she conceived and bore a son, whom she named Samuel. Note that his name means “God hears.”

This is where the story becomes extremely fascinating. This woman, who has been childless for so long, does an amazing thing. After Samuel has been weaned – possibly sometime between ages three and four – Hannah took her child to Shiloh to dedicate him to the Lord!  Not merely as an act of ritual, but to actually leave him with Eli to be completely dedicated to God’s service!

So, Samuel seems to become a kind of acolyte, assisting the aging Eli in his functions in the tabernacle.  We know from the second chapter of Samuel that Eli’s sons Hophni and Phineas were profoundly corrupt and sexually immoral.  In fact, a man of God has come to Eli to warn him that because of their sins the house of Eli would be removed from the priesthood and his sons would die on the same day.

It is in this context that the young Samuel hears the voice of the Lord one night as the lamp in the tabernacle is burning.  He has no idea what it means, so he goes three times to Eli, thinking his mentor is calling him.  But Eli still has enough spiritual sensitivity to realize that the Lord himself is speaking to Samuel.

Note the irony.  Samuel’s name means “The Lord hears.”  And now Eli instructs Samuel to return to his station and to say “Speak, Lord, for your servant hears.”

God has listened to the prayers of Hannah, and Eli’s intercession for a child for this woman; and now Samuel in turn is being trained to listen to God!

Thus begins a prophetic career that would carry Samuel into the pages of the two books that would bear his name: 1 & 2 Samuel. He would judge Israel, and would anoint the first two kings of Israel, Saul and David.  He had learned to listen, and to obey.

APPLY:  

It is my experience and opinion that we usually are in the position of responding to God’s initiative.  We may think that we are seeking God, but in fact God is seeking us.  When we respond, usually we realize that he has been calling us for quite some time.

This is the case of Samuel, who is quite oblivious to the call of God.  He is simply doing the work required of him in the tabernacle, and sleeping on his appointed mat in the vicinity of the Ark of the Covenant.

In fact, his initial reaction to the call is to confuse God’s voice with the voice of the high priest Eli.  It is Eli who helps Samuel understand what’s happening in this encounter with God.

It is helpful to have a spiritual mentor who can interpret for us what God is doing in our lives, at least until we are able to discern the voice of God for ourselves.

One other thing: by placing himself in the tabernacle of the Lord, Samuel is at least available to hear God’s voice.  Contrast him to the sons of Eli, who are abusing their privilege as priests and using their position only to satisfy their own cravings.

Likewise, if we place ourselves in the presence of God through regular worship, prayer, Bible study, and fasting, we will find ourselves more likely to hear God’s voice than when we are merely serving ourselves and our own appetites.

RESPOND: 

While God’s voice doesn’t come to me audibly, I do believe that God speaks in spiritual whispers.  What is required is that I listen.  And I can listen more carefully when I am practicing the spiritual disciplines of worship, prayer, fasting, and Bible study.

Lord, may I say with Samuel, “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.”  And may I heed and obey what I hear.  Amen.