A Fresh Perspective

Jesus knows his death is imminent. Hence the cryptic statement, “I am casting out demons and performing cures today, tomorrow, and the third day I finish my work.” I suspect that in the passing on of this tradition the third day reference was added at some point, which is an allusion to God’s resurrection and vindication of Jesus. We have the same thing in Jesus’ passion announcements to his disciples. Looking back after the event it all forms one piece: his life, death, and vindication by God. Jesus knows he’s going to die at the hands of the religious and political leaders. The handwriting is on the wall. Jesus knows something else too. He also knows that his people are headed for disaster. He can feel the animosity of his countrymen toward their oppressors, the Romans. He can since the growing anger and hate. He knows where it will lead and what will happen. They will clash, and the Romans will bring to bear their powerful army on his people, Israel. Maybe Jesus thought that i...

My sermon title is the question that this text raises. The passage begins with a direct command from Jesus, “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.” What follows from that initial command are several specific examples of how this can play out in the culture of that day and time. Luke first offers some examples along the line of what we might think of as nonviolent protest. Standing back up and offering the other cheek after being slapped in humiliating fashion by someone in power would have been an act of nonviolent protest. The same can be said about taking off ones shirt, after someone in power has taken one’s coat. But then Luke talks about giving to those who beg. Perhaps the reason they are begging is because they have been stripped of necessities by those in power. At any rate, I want to focus today on the initial command: Love your enemies, do good to them, bless them, and pray for them. I don’t know of an...

Jesus is limited in what he can do in his hometown of Nazareth. The healing and liberating power of God is not irresistible. We can resist and reject what is good for us. Because of the resistance Jesus encountered in his hometown he could not do many good works there. While many were astounded by the wisdom with which he taught and the good works they had heard Jesus had been doing, Mark says that Jesus could do no more than heal a few people. They say, “Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon, and are not his sisters here with us?” And then Mark says, “And they took offense at him.” Why are they offended? The implication in the text is that Jesus was just too common and ordinary. He had not been to theological school. He had not been trained by a prominent rabbi. He was a carpenter, a common craftsman like many of them. He was one of them. They knew his family – his brothers and sisters were among them. So how could the great ...

In our text today Mark begins a story, then that story is interrupted by another story, a second story, after which Mark returns to complete the first story. This sandwiching technique in telling stories is common in Mark. Mark wants us, his readers, to find common features and themes in the two stories. So as I read the text perhaps you can look for features that are common to both stories. Fred Craddock tells a wonderful story about arriving at a hospital to make a pastoral visit, but in the corridor he sees a woman.   Her head is against the door, and both fists are beside her face, and she is banging on the door: “Let me in, let me in, let me in.”   When he gets over to where she is he could see that it was the chapel door. Fred stops a worker, “This chapel is locked.” The worker says, “We have to keep it locked. There were some kids that trashed it and we had to get all new furniture. We can’t afford to keep doing that, so we have to keep it locked."  Fred says...

According to John’s Gospel, when Jesus appeared to the disciples in an Easter epiphany, he said, “As the Father sent me, so I send you.” Then the text says that he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” Only a literal reading of the text would regard this as the first connection the disciples had with the Holy Spirit, who is also called the Advocate or Comforter and the Spirit of Truth in John’s Gospel. The language of “Holy Spirit” is just another symbolical way of talking about God and God’s relationship to the world. One of the key things the Gospel of John teaches about the Holy Spirit, I believe, is that present day disciples of Jesus experience the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of Christ. The Christ image is the Christian’s dominant image of God. We understand the Spirit of God as the Spirit of Christ. When John says that Jesus breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit” he wants his readers to recall the creation story where God breathes into the human ...

Sometimes, maybe more times than we ever realize, even with all our good intentions we get in the way of God. It’s interesting how quickly this can happen. At Caesarea Philippi, as they make their way to Jerusalem, Peter makes a revelatory confession, “You are the Messiah.” But no sooner than he makes this confession, it becomes clear that he doesn’t have the faintest idea what it means. After Jesus tells them he is going to be rejected and killed in Jerusalem, Peter takes Jesus aside and begins to rebuke him. Jesus calls him “Satan” and says, “Get behind me. For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.” Keep in mind that Peter functions in the story as the spokesperson and representative for all the disciples. Peter says what the group is saying. So one minute the disciples make a revelatory declaration, then the next minute they are acting as Satan’s emissaries. And Jesus is still being visited by angels and wrestling with wild beasts just as he did in th...