A Fresh Perspective

Most of us, I think, consider Jesus’ ministry with the common people to have been a great success, and it was the religious leaders that Jesus upset so much that they found a way to kill him. His works of healing attracted large crowds. Others were drawn to his teaching. But in our Gospel text today, John says that many of his disciples came to a point where they found Jesus’ teaching offensive. And John says, “Because of this many of his disciples turned back and no longer went about with him.” Many (not a few, not some, but many) of his disciples stopped being disciples. Many of his followers, stopped following. We are not told why they were offended, other than saying, “This teaching is difficult, who can accept it.” John doesn’t tell us why they found it difficult. Maybe they were offended because of what Jesus was asking them to do. This passage in John 6 is a very difficult passage to wrap our minds around. Now, I know this is a sermon and not a class in New Testament Intro...

Ten years ago we said as a congregation that our vision is one of experiencing and expressing God’s unconditional love. We could have easily come to that sense of vision by reading this letter to the Ephesians, that is actually, a letter to the church at large. In his prayer for the church the writer prays that they will understand and experience the immensity and magnitude of Christ’s love. In the passage we looked at last week the writer called upon his readers to bear with one another in love, to speak the truth in love, and to work together and build up the whole body in love. Everything is to be done in love. Now, in today’s passage we are called upon to be imitators of God by living in love. All the instructions and exhortations the writer gives to the readers in this text are expressions of what it means and what it looks like to live in love and thus, be imitators of God. First, we imitate God and live in love by putting away falsehood and deceit, so that we can honestly ...

I don’t know if there is any truth to it or not, but the story is told that when Britain faced a critical shortage of silver during the days of WWII Winston Churchill launched a search of possible sources of silver. They discovered some sterling silver statutes of saints in some of their churches and cathedrals. When Churchill was made aware of this he said, “Well, it’s time to put the saints into circulation.”  This parable is about saints in circulation. Jesus is addressing his followers. In Matthew’s Gospel there are five major discourses attributed to Jesus, this parable is part of the last teaching block that begins in 24:1. Jesus and his disciples had just come out of the temple. His disciples were admiring the beautiful buildings when Jesus warned of the temple’s coming destruction. Then they walked over to the Mount of Olives and Matthew says that the disciples came to him privately with their questions about the destruction of the temple and end of the age. Tha...

In his letter to the church at Philippi , it is fairly obvious that Paul is concerned about some influences that were steering the church away from the teaching he had imparted and the example he had modeled. It seems that there were two different kinds of pressures being exerted upon the church. One influence pressed for legalistic obedience to rules (3:2), while the other invited a casting off of all restraints (3:18–19). These two influences are still around and they tempt us in very subtle ways. One calls us to take part in an economy of meritocracy, of tit-for-tat. Its appeal is to the calculating mind where there are clear winners and losers.  The other influence entices us with appeals to freedom to shed boundaries that we think we do not need. Here the message is: Just let yourself go, don’t worry about the consequences, live for the moment. There is certainly something to be said for living in the moment, but living in self-indulgence without regard for boundaries is...