Book of Faith - John 10 - The Good Shepherd

Everyone loves the image of the good shepherd.  However, in the time of Jesus, this image was a little jarring. Being a shepherd was not the best job.  Besides being demanding and dangerous, a shepherd could not remain ritually clean.  A shepherd was not a member of polite society.  The idea of a good shepherd was unusual to say the least.  In true Jesus fashion, he uses the image to catch people's attention. And it works. There is something about a good shepherd that is reassuring, particularly for us as sheep. There is also something powerful about the image that Jesus, as the good shepherd, will not let us go.  Once we are his, we are his always.   

If the image of the good shepherd got us talking this week, so did our conversation about eternal life.  Jesus came to bring life and bring it abundantly.  Within Judaism, the promise of abundant life was in the here and now.  An abundant life was a true gift from God.  Who could ask for more?  Life beyond death was to be experienced through your children and your children's children.  As Christians, we live with a different sense of eternal life.  We live with the promise of life beyond death. 

Of course, this led to a conversation about what that life beyond death will be.  Most of the images we have i.e. clouds, halos, and harps, come from our culture and not scripture.  The scripture speaks of banquets, praise, and no more tears.  The same thing can be said for the other side of the equation.  The images of hell again come from our culture.  The scriptures speak of being separated from God.  To help describe what that is like, the scriptures made a comparison to the trash heap outside of Jerusalem, Gehenna.  There you would find fire and worms, but the image is metaphorical.  In contemporary terms, what is hell, it is being completely alone.  God is all about connections.  Being apart from God is to be disconnected.  The work of God in this world is reconnecting people to each other, the world, and God.

Once again, our conversation was rich and meaningful.  Join us on Wednesday at the CEB at noon or follow along on the blog.

Peace,
Pastor Summer

Book of Faith - John 6:1-21 - Feeding of the 5,000

The group commented that John's telling of this miracle was fairly straight forward as compared to some other passages of John.  The one addition to the story is the testing of Phillip.  John always has Jesus knowing what he is doing and what is going to happen.  He knows there will be a miracle and is wondering if Phillip is open to the possibility.  This raises as interesting question.  Does Jesus always know what's going to happen?  In John, it would appear so.  It's almost as though Jesus has a day planner already written by God and simply follows the script.  This raises an additional question as to how Jesus is divine and human?  The group believed that Jesus new what the broad strokes of his life were going to be.  In other words, he knew his purpose, but he did not know the details.  He could genuinely be surprised and he could change.  Both of these attributes make him human, and, for the group, did not take away from his divinity.  In the history of the church, there was a real battle between the divinity and humanity of Jesus, particularly in the early years. Each of the gospels leans one direction of the other.  The solution, captured in the creeds was to say that Jesus was fully divine and fully human.  

We also discussed the miracle itself.  One person pointed out that it was interesting that Jesus did not feed the poor as a regular part of his ministry.  Here, he feeds 5,000 pilgrims as they make their way to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover.  Our group was open to two possibilities as far as the miracle.  One possibility would be that this is simply a miracle.  By the power of God, 5 loaves and 2 fish feed everyone and there are 12 baskets of food left over.  The second possibility would be that the pilgrims already had food with them, but as Jesus called them together, divided them into groups of 50, and then offered what little he had, the pilgrims were moved to share with each other and there were still 12 baskets left over.  In either case, a miracle took place.  In fact, our group preferred the second miracle of sharing.  

The conversation this week continues on Wednesday and we encourage any and all to participate.  Each time we venture into the bible, we discover new insights for the living of our faith.  Join us!

Book of Faith - John 5:1-18 - Healing of the man at Bethzatha

This is a well known story.  Jesus finds a man, who is crippled, waiting by the pool called Bethzatha. Everyone believed that when the water in the pool was disturbed (troubled), the first person who entered the pool would be healed.  This man had waited 38 years for a miracle.  In primitive times, it was understood that a local divinity troubled the water.  Later, the local divinity was replaced by an angel.  Jesus question to the man is both curious and profound.  Jesus asked the man if he wanted to be healed.  The obvious answer would be "Yes", but it's not as simple as it may sound.  We don't always want to be healed.  In Dr. Phil's language, our "illness" works for us.  I may do battle with weight and say that I was to lose the added pounds, but there may also be a part of me that is afraid to lose the weight.  I may have convinced myself that if I lose the weight, all my problems will go away. My weight may serve as a way to protect me from dealing with other issues in my life.  It is very interesting that in Native American culture, if you go to the shaman to be healed, the shaman will ask two questions.  Do you wanted to be healed?  What will you do when you are healed?  Jesus asks the same questions of us.  Do we want to be healed of the brokenness in our lives?  What will we do when we are made whole?  Jesus is the one who can both heal us and lead us into a new day.

The other aspect of the story is the response to the healing by the religious authorities.  The healing takes place on the Sabbath and the authorities are upset that Jesus has the man pick up his bed and carry it. Carrying his bed would have been forbidden under Sabbath law.  Again, we are confronted with people missing the point of what has taken place.  They see the violation of the law and miss the healing.  This can happen to all of us.  We can be concerned about what someone wears to church rather than celebrating their being at church.  The truth is that we can be blind in our own ways.

Peace,

Pastor Summer

Book of Faith - John 4:1-42 - The Woman at the Well

Book of Faith is back.  We took off for the summer, but we've ready to explore the scriptures again.  We're continuing in the gospel of John.  The passage we read this week is the story of the Samaritan woman at the well.  In this story, Jesus is tearing down so many barriers.  The woman is a Samaritan.  She is a woman.  And she is a woman with a reputation.  Any one of those distinctions should have removed her from the list of proper people for a rabbi to engage in conversation.  However, the distinctions do not stop Jesus.  This is a wonderful witness of the gospel.  The woman, as you can imagine, was more than a little surprise.  As with the story of Nicodemus, Jesus uses language that has much deeper meeting.  When he speaks of living water, the woman assumes he is talking about running water i.e. a spring.  Of course, Jesus has something else in mine.  He is speaking of God quenching a thirst in all of us that no water can touch.  Jesus is the source of that holy water.  

The group enjoyed how Jesus makes the gospel universal.  Jesus speaks of a time when people will no longer worship God in Jerusalem or Mount Gerizim (the Samaritan's holy site), but will be worshiped is spirit and truth.  The group explored the idea of worshiping is spirit and truth.  The conversation suggested that true worship was lived out in everything we do and say.  Every aspect of our lives carries an element of worship. There is no disconnect between what happens on Sunday and what happens on Monday.  The group also believed true worship needed to be authentic.  Authenticity could mean different things to different people.  For one, all the richness of the liturgy rings true to them.  For another, it might be worship in its simplest form.  The beauty is that God meets us again and again in all the varieties of worship we express.

The group also found Jesus' conversation with the disciples interesting.  The question was asked about the meaning of "Four months, and the harvest will come".  The discussion centered on the very human practice of waiting until the last moment.  We will get around to the business of the kingdom when the kingdom (harvest) comes.  Jesus is telling the disciples that there is work to be down now.  There are seeds to be planted. There are seeds that need to be nurtured. In the kingdom of God, those who sow and those who reap will rejoice together.  

For everyone, it was good to be back together.  We encourage anyone who would like to join us at noon on Wednesday at the CEB to come.  We also encourage anyone who would like to join us by following the blog to visit the website.  Make Book of Faith a part of your discipleship journey.

Peace,

Pastor Summer

Germany Day - Day 8

Today is our last full day in Germany.  The trip has been amazing.  The weather forced us to change plans, but we still hit all the high points.  We woke up for the first time to rain, which meant we would not be taking the walking tour of Unter den Linden, one of Berlin's most fashionable boulevards.  However, we did visit the Bundestsag that was destroyed during World War II and rebuilt after the wall came down.  A fantastic dome, designed by Sir Norman Foster, caps the building and is a work of art allowing a breath taking view of Berlin.  From the Bundestsag, we walked to the Brandenburg  Gate, which stood in the "no man's land" between East and West Berlin and became a symbol of a divided Germany.  From there, we entered a memorial, based on a cemetery in Prague, dedicated to all the Jews murdered during World War II.  The memorial was deeply moving.

From the memorial, we went to the Berliner Dom (Berlin Cathedral), which was destroyed in World War II, but is now fully restored.  The church is impressive, but I will still take Zion.  After visiting the church, some people went back to the hotel and the rest of us stayed on Museum Island.  Grabbing a great lunch (curry wurst), we explored the Pergamon Museum.  This museum houses the Pergamon Altar.  To say that is impressive is an understatement.  You can't imagine the size.  In addition, we saw the Ishtar Gate of Babylon, a collection of ancient Near Easter artifacts, and a beautiful exhibition of Islamic art.

After this wonderful cultural experience, the sun broke out and we made our way back to the hotel.  We have a little free time before supper.  We will gather for our final supper at one of the local restaurants.  We will be up bright and early tomorrow morning for our flight home.  Don't worry, there will be many more stories to tell and we want to share all of them.. Thank you for keeping us in your prayers.  We will be home soon.

Peace, Pastor Summer

Germany - Day 7

This morning, we left Wittenberg.  It was truly a wonderful experience.  However, I did have one more chapter to write.  Since I would be preaching on the bus, I had one last opportunity to walk the streets of Wittenberg as I prepared my sermon.  As you can imagine, I loved the walk.

The trip to Berlin was uneventful.  This was the first day we had a few clouds.  Coming into Berlin, there was a real difference between East and West Berlin.  The wall is down, but the economic differences remain.  While we were in the city, we visited two museums.  The first was at Check Poimt Charlie and told the story of the Russian occupation of East Germany and the building of the Berlin Wall.  The wall went up almost overnight and divided so many families.  The various ways people devised to escape to the west were amazing.  The second museum was the Judisches Museum which told the story of Jews in Germany all the way back to the Babyonian captivity to the present time.  The story was compelling, if sobering.  The story is a diffult one to hear.  The museum does an impressive job and the architecture is very much a part of the telling of the story.  The museum is not your usual museum.  It is laid out like a deconstructed star of David.  The visits to the two museums will stay with us for a long time.

We are now in our final hotel.  The location is ideal.  We will be heading out to dinner in a few minutes.  It's hard to believe that the end is in sight.  The trip has been everything I hoped it would be.

Peace,
Pastor Summer

Germany - Day 6

In many ways, this trip has been leading to this day.  The roots of Zion's story really go back to October 1517 when Martin Luther nailed the 95 theses on the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg.  Today, we stood looking at that door and feeling the sense of history and God at work.  The moment was humbling and where we began our tour.

Our guide through the city was Thomas Gaubig, who grew up as a believer in Wittenberg when the town was a part of the GDR.  As a matter of faith, he did not become a communist and paid the price.  His own story added a depth to our tour.  We began at the Castle Chuch and made our way through the city to St. Mary Church, where Luther preached and was married.  Along the way, we stopped at the town square and saw a couple coming out of city hall having been married.  We were told the history of Wittenberg as the center of the Reformation and a fortified city with a surrounding wall.  We heard the miracle of Wittenberg.  When the city was bombed during World War II, all the houses between Luther's and Melanchthon's fell, but those two remained standing.  There were surprises like Dr. Eber, who was a freed slave from Guinea and a doctor at the university about the time we held our first service in the home of Aree Von Guinee, who was also a free slave from Dutch Guinea.  We visited the home of both Luther and Melanchthon and heard their stories.  This is just a taste of what we learned.

After another wonderful lunch under a clear blue sky in the town square, we had time to revisit the Luther House and other stops where we wanted to spend more time.  We all returned to the hotel to get ready for the worship service at the Castle Church.  The church is being renovated, but it was amazing to be in that space where Luther had proclaimed the Gospel so long ago.  I was given the honor of reading the epistle.  I was moved by the experience.  Someday, I would love to preach in that space.

As I write this blog, we are getting ready for dinner.  This day has been special for many reasons.  I have been touched as a Lutheran coming to the place where it all began.  I have been touched as a pastor who has had the joy of preaching the gospel of grace.  And I have been touched as a person of faith by the witness of the reformers in the pastor to the witness of Thomas, our guide, in the present.  I have many memories that I will carry with me as we leave this place.

Peace,
Pastor Summer