Bible Study February 4 for Worship February 24

Bible Study February 4 for Worship February 24

Luke 13: 31 At that very hour some Pharisees came, and said to him, “Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you.”
32 And he said to them, “Go and tell that fox, ‘Behold, I cast out demons and perform cures today and tomorrow, and the third day I finish my course.
33 Nevertheless I must go on my way today and tomorrow and the day following; for it cannot be that a prophet should perish away from Jerusalem.’
34 O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, killing the prophets and stoning those who are sent to you! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not!
35 Behold, your house is forsaken. And I tell you, you will not see me until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!'”

COMMENTARY

This short passage may hold an important clue about Jesus and his ministry. First of all we learn that not all Pharisees were unfriendly to Jesus. The Pharisees were a broad group of people working on redefining Judaism and the law. There were strict Pharisees and there were more liberal Pharisees. Certainly Jesus would have been numbered among the more liberal. These Pharisees were certainly on Jesus’ side over against Herod.

After the Fall of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. the Sadducees were all killed or deported. The main opposition to the early church resisting the claims of the Jesus movement was the Pharisees. The Pharisees still survive in the form of Rabbinic Judaism. The early church then found themselves in competition with and opposition to the Pharisees, but Jesus himself would have been identified as a Pharisee although a more liberal Pharisee.

We can also note from this passage that Herod was concerned enough about the ministry of Jesus to consider having him arrested and perhaps executed like John. So if Jesus was so meek and mild, why would Herod be so concerned about his ministry, because Jesus was considered radical and revolutionary. He advocated for the poor. He preached sharing. He opposed the oppression of the peasants and the fishermen. Herod represented the wealthy over against the poor. One reason Jesus conducted an itinerant ministry was to stay one step ahead of arrest. If Jesus had not been arrested and killed in Jerusalem, it probably would have happened eventually in Galilee.

The Herod the passage refers to was Herod Antipas. Herod Anitpas was a son of Herod the Great. He was a shrewd survivor. He had been sent to Rome as a hostage to guarantee his father’s loyalty to Rome, and so he was given a Roman education. He was not originally slated to succeed his father, but two of his half-brothers were executed along with their mother Mariamne for reputedly plotting against their father. Their execution prompted August to say, “I would rather be Herod’s pig than his son.”

When Herod the Great died he divided his Kingdom between three surviving sons, Archelaus, Herod Anitpas, and Herod Philip Archelaus was given Judea and the title of King, while Antipas and Philip were given lesser lands and the title of Ethnarc, Native Prince. When Archelaus proved incapable of governing Judea was turned into a direct Roman Province with a lesser governor, known as a procurator. Antipas set about to fortify his lands and to squeeze them for all the taxes he could get. When John the Baptists began a ministry of preaching in his territory and attracted large crowds, Antipas had him arrested and ultimately executed.

After John was executed Jesus began a public ministry of preaching and protest. Antipas had him watched. Indeed at one point the gospels claim that Antipas was afraid that Jesus was John the Baptist returned from the dead to haunt him. Apparently that was a common belief among the peasants, for when Jesus asked his disciples, “who do men say that I am,” their first response was, “John the Baptist.”

It is believable that Antipas was seeking to arrest Jesus in the same way he had arrested John the Baptist before him. We can also imagine friendly Pharisees would have warned Jesus that Anitpas was after him. In this passage Jesus referred to Anitpas as a fox, because he was such a shrewd survivor. In Rabbinical literature “fox” can also refer to a person of unimportance. This also indicates that Jesus understood his danger. A ruler as shrewd as Herod would surely stop a radical preacher like Jesus. So Jesus resolved to remain on the move always one step ahead of arrest. The phrase “the third day I finish my course,” may have been added to the original in order to make reference to the resurrection. Jesus’ object was not to die quietly in Herod’s dungeon, but to make a plea to the nation at Passover in Jerusalem. Did Jesus expect to survive his Jerusalem Passover appearance? We cannot be sure. But surely he was aware of the danger: “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, killing the prophets and stoning those who are sent to you!”

LET’S ASK SOME QUESTIONS OF THE TEXT

1. Who warned Jesus to get away?

2. According to the people warning Jesus, who was after him?

3. What epithet did Jesus use to refer to the person who was after him?

4. What reason did Jesus give for moving on?

5. In our text where does it appear that Jesus will meet his end?

6. According to the text, when will Jerusalem see him again?

7. In verse 34 what animal image did Jesus use to refer to himself.

LET’S ALLOW THE TEXT TO ASK QUESTIONS OF US

1. Why do you suppose Herod was looking for Jesus?

2. Have you ever wondered Jesus conducted an itinerant ministry?

3. If Jesus was so meek and mild, why do you think they ended up crucifying him?

4. Which is more dangerous a violent revolutionary or a non-violent prophet?

5. What examples of contemporary non-violent prophets can you think of?

6. Why do you think Jesus did not want to perish away from Jerusalem?

7. How would the church be different if it members were faithful followers of the Jesus who had to keep moving in order to avoid arrest?

8. Why do you think we don’t want our Jesus to be a trouble maker?

Week of February 18 – February 24: Second Sunday in Lent – Luke 13:31-35 – Strong and Tender – Genesis 15:1-12, 17-18, Psalm 27, Philippians 3:17 –

Bible Study January 28 for Worship February 17

Bible Study January 28 for Worship February 17

Luke 4:1 And Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan, and was led by the Spirit
2 for forty days in the wilderness, tempted by the devil. And he ate nothing in those days; and when they were ended, he was hungry.
3 The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread.”
4 And Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone.'”
5 And the devil took him up, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time,
6 and said to him, “To you I will give all this authority and their glory; for it has been delivered to me, and I give it to whom I will.
7 If you, then, will worship me, it shall all be yours.”
8 And Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve.'”
9 And he took him to Jerusalem, and set him on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here;
10 for it is written, ‘He will give his angels charge of you, to guard you,’
11 and ‘On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.'”
12 And Jesus answered him, “It is said, ‘You shall not tempt the Lord your God.'”
13 And when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from him until an opportune time.

COMMENTARY

The first Sunday of Lent we focus on the temptations of Jesus. Lent is a time of testing, when we try to deny some of our appetites in order to develop some spiritual discipline. Jesus’ temptations are not our temptations, but maybe if we examine them closely we can see ourselves in Jesus’ struggle.

The temptation to change stones into bread can be seen as our tendency to experience everything through the lens of our material desires. God knows we need bread, but we need more than bread to sustain us spiritually. We complain we don’t have enough time for spiritual matters, but the truth is we Americans are working fools. We work longer work weeks, have shorter vacations and fewer holidays than any other force work in the developed world. And we do this in order to afford the affluent life style to which we would like to be accustomed. We make tremendous sacrifices to acquire material things, because we think they will make us happy, missing the point that true happiness is a condition of the spirit.

Our God is gracious and generous and gives us enough each day for our need. “Give us this day our daily bread.” But the abundant generosity of God is not enough for us. We want tomorrow’s bread too, and next week’s bread, and next month’s bread, until we become like the rich fool who pulls down his barns and builds bigger barns to store his stuff (or he rents at an off-site storage facility), not knowing that he is scheduled to die that very night, and his spiritual account is meager. And how do we make deposits into our spiritual accounts: prayer, worship, mission, charity, cultivating love in relationships. Perhaps in the simple act of fasting God can help to re-direct our concerns from our material stuff to our spiritual needs.

The temptation to power may not seem relevant to many of us, but over and over again, at work, at church even in our families and relationships there is struggle over power and control. We may not aspire to play out our power needs on a large stage, but we play them out all the same.

You doubt your own need for power? Consider this, the number one reason for fighting in marriage is money. Money is monetized power – a symbol. Money is a symbol that can tell us, who is in charge, who controls the purse strings. Right now, what are the two parties in Congress and the President fighting about? Money, but more than money they are fighting over power. Who is in charge? Who controls the purse strings? What kind of government and society are we becoming? Who can be married and who can’t?

Some people have more need for power and control than others. But we all have some need for power and control in our own lives, and in relationship to others. What are our needs for power, and what temptations do our needs for power bring?

The temptation to play God, to assume we are immortal, that the universe should make exceptions for us is something with which we might all identify. We put off doing what we really want, because we assume there will be a tomorrow. Bob Neuschaefer kept warning us travel, when you are able. Yet many of us live as if we will be able to travel and perform feats of physical strength, when we are old. We put off making health and lifestyle changes willing ourselves to remain ignorant of the abuse to which we are subjecting our bodies. Perhaps we are seldom confronted with the stark decision Jesus faced to jump from the pinnacle of the Temple. Our pinnacles are lower and the consequences are further in the future, and so we believe we can have our cake and eat it too. But sooner or later the consequences catch up to us, and too late we realize we will not survive the fall.

Another more subtle way of playing God is in our judgments of other people. We have no idea the path that another human being has walked, but we reserve for ourselves the right to judge them. We also make decisions for other people, when we choose not to confront them. We are in a sense withholding information from them and judging their behavior. We are also playing God, when we manipulate people or withhold information to take away their right and responsibility to make decisions for themselves.

Another sign that we may be playing God is the question why me? Often the answer is why not me! We often go through life believing we should be immune to life’s accidents. One of my favorite ways of playing God is to hope that cars, mechanical equipment, or household items will somehow heal themselves. God didn’t make the world to work that way, and I had better get over it.

What we might identify with the most is in verse 13: “And when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from him until an opportune time.” Understanding when we are most vulnerable to temptation can be a great aid in surviving enticements without surrendering. Nikos Kazantzakis in his novel The Last Temptation of Christ explores the theme of the devil returning to Jesus at an opportune time, when Jesus was suffering on the cross. The story is really about Kazantzakis rather than Jesus, but it might prompt all of us to examine the “opportune moments” of temptation in our own lives.

My greatest temptation is overeating. And there are times when I am feeling good about myself, when my appetites are well regulated, my ego is under control, and I am well rested. At times like that I can most of the time resist temptation. But when I am over busy, tired, distracted, depressed, or alternatively when I am elated and full of myself, then I am most likely to over indulge. We need to know ourselves, because the truth will set us free.

Part of knowing ourselves is to understand all of the disparate parts of our personalities. A couple of years ago, using this very passage I was preaching about how Jesus was seeking to embrace and integrate the dark side of his personality. A visitor got up and walked out. Carol Howie went after him to see if he was O.K. When she called to him and asked if he was alright, he turned and vehemently said, “Jesus didn’t have a dark side!”

Bill Green wrote a Still Speaking Devotional that addresses our need for integration. We can’t know God’s love if we overlook parts of ourselves we’d rather weren’t true. Sooner or later that trips us up. “For there is nothing hidden that will not be disclosed, and nothing concealed that will not be known or brought out into the open.” (Luke 8:17) We’re a blessing to God and one another when we’re open and honest.

LET’S ASK SOME QUESTIONS OF THE TEXT

1. How many days did Jesus spend in the wilderness?

2. According to the text how much did Jesus eat, while he was in the wilderness?

3. According to the text what was the source of Jesus’ temptations?

4. In the text what is the first temptation of Jesus?

5. How did Jesus respond?

6. What is the second temptation of Jesus?

7. How did he respond?

8. What is the third temptation of Jesus?

9. How did he respond?

10. After the temptations were over, what happened?

LET’S ALLOW THE TEXT TO ASK QUESTIONS OF US

1. What appetite do you have the most difficulty controlling?

2. When do you feel most vulnerable to temptation?

3. How many different parts of your personality have you identified?

4. Are there any parts of yourself or aspects of your personality you don’t like?

5. Can you recognize any ways that you play God?

6. What would you most like to be able to control in your environment or in your life?

7. If you had unlimited wealth or power or both, what would you change?

8. If Jesus said to you, “you will know the truth and the truth will set you free,” what do you think he would mean by that statement?

9. What is most difficult for you in trying to embrace your dark side?

10. What do you imagine might have been the greatest temptation for Jesus on the cross?

Week of February 11 – February 17: First Sunday of Lent – Luke 4:1-13 – Wilderness Companions – Deuteronomy 26:1-11, Psalm 91:1-2, 9-16, Romans 10:8b-13.

The Acceptable Year of the Lord

3: JESUS VISITS NAZARETH
According to Luke Jesus went back to Nazareth with some of his disciples after beginning his ministry. How long had he been absent? Luke doesn’t tell us. Had he taken up residence in Capernaum? Luke doesn’t tell us. Had his family already come to Capernaum to try to bring him home? Luke doesn’t tell us. So for our reading of the text today let’s make some assumptions. Jesus had left Nazareth and the carpenter’s shop to go follow John the Baptist. After his baptism, he went into the wilderness for a time to explore within himself the meaning of messiahship. All of the temptations in the wilderness point to a struggle concerning what kind of leader/teacher would he become.
SLIDE 4: JESUS TAKES UP RESIDENCE IN CAPERNAUM
Sometime before or while Jesus was in the wilderness, or not too long after he came out of the wilderness, John the Baptist was arrested. (It could make some sense that John’s arrest may have prompted Jesus’ departure into the wilderness — sort of a get out of Dodge move.) So Jesus returned from the wilderness and traveled north to Galilee, but he went to Capernaum instead of Nazareth, because there were fishermen there with whom he had made friends while following John. The fishermen were in a rebellious mood, because of Herod’s new taxes and regulations that were squeezing all of the profits out of fishing. Jesus began preaching, teaching, healing and eating with people, all kinds of people. News of his ministry reached Nazareth, and his relatives sent a delegation to try to bring him home to care for his mother. According to Mark his relatives believed he was mentally ill. Jesus rejected his relatives attempt to bring him back to Nazareth.
Jesus then began traveling around Galilee and made a stop in the synagogue at Nazareth. So far from occurring at the very beginning of his ministry the scene in our gospel lesson may have been much later than it appears in Luke.
SLIDE 5: THEY HEARD RUMOR OF HIS MINISTRY
The people of Jesus’ home village had heard rumor of his ministry. There were reports of large crowds and mysterious healings. They had been concerned about his mental health. So the people of Nazareth were anxious to hear what the home town boy would say to them. During the synagogue prayers, when Jesus was invited to read from the scripture he turned to the prophet Isaiah and read a provocative and revolutionary passage that closed with the proclamation that the acceptable year of the Lord had indeed arrived, and the prophet’s vision was being fulfilled as the people in the synagogue were listening. That was radical stuff.
SLIDE 6: RADICAL STUFF
If we go on to look at the verses 4 – 8 of chapter 61 in Isaiah the prophet speaks of a brighter fairer day of justice, peace and prosperity for the Israelites to come:
4 They shall build up the ancient ruins, they shall raise up the former devastations; they shall repair the ruined cities, the devastations of many generations.
5 Aliens shall stand and feed your flocks, foreigners shall be your plowmen and vinedressers;
6 but you shall be called the priests of the LORD, men shall speak of you as the ministers of our God; you shall eat the wealth of the nations, and in their riches you shall glory.
7 Instead of your shame you shall have a double portion, instead of dishonor you shall rejoice in your lot; therefore in your land you shall possess a double portion; yours shall be everlasting joy.
8 For I the LORD love justice, I hate robbery and wrong; I will faithfully give them their recompense, and I will make an everlasting covenant with them.
SLIDE 7: FULFILLED IN OUR HEARING?
The Jews of Nazareth under the oppression of Roman Occupation were not experiencing a brighter fairer day, far from it. They were being ground into poverty by Roman taxes and a new globalization that pushed peasants off of their land. The Romans were expropriating Jewish lands and giving them to retiring Roman soldiers, and creating Roman cities in strategic positions to rule and control the land. It is hard to imagine that the words of Isaiah would have been heard as anything short of revolutionary. And when Jesus added, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing,” his listeners would have been astonished. Either Jesus was calling upon them to rise up in rebellion against the Romans and the Herods, or he was crazy.
SLIDE 8: IF THIS IS THE ACCEPTABLE YEAR OF THE LORD, WHY IS THE WORLD SUCH A MESS?
What do you mean this is the acceptable year of the Lord? What do you mean the prophet’s vision has been fulfilled? What gives Jesus? And that might be the very question we might raise ourselves. If Jesus was announcing the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy, if in the words of Jesus the Commonwealth of God is at hand, why is the world still such a mess?
SLIDE 9: ATTITUDE OF THE MIND AND HEART
For Jesus the Commonwealth of God begins as an attitude of mind and heart – love. We enter into God’s household as we free ourselves from the vestiges of false consciousness that denies love: pride, self-righteousness, hate, greed, violence, and embrace the way of Jesus humility, forgiveness, love, generosity, non-violence. The Commonwealth of God is a way of consciousness. As Jesus said in the Gospel of Luke, “The Commonwealth of God is not an object to be observed. You will not be able to observe it here or there. For the Commonwealth of God is within you.”
That reminds me of a story about a senior citizen bus trip to the canyon lands of the Southwest. There was one old man on the tour, who had a complaint at every stop. You’ve no doubt met him. When the bus pulled up to the Grand Canyon, this old guy got out, wandered over to the rim, then turned around and came back and said to the bus driver, “It’s just a big ditch.”
SLIDE 10: IF YOU DON’T HAVE IT ON THE INSIDE, YOU CAN’T SEE IT ON THE OUTSIDE
The bus driver couldn’t contain himself any longer, and he turned to the old guy and said, “Buddy if you don’t have it on the inside you can’t see it on the outside.” I think the bus driver’s comment can often be applied to many of us. If we haven’t absorbed the way of Jesus into our hearts, if we haven’t read, studied, meditated upon his teaching and tried to put it into practice, we are going to have a hard time reflecting the love of Christ on the outside.
SLIDE 11: ALL THOSE OTHER PEOPLE ARE A PAIN
But sitting around by ourselves contemplating the way of Jesus is not enough. Lillian Daniel one of the Still Speaking Devotional writers has published a new book entitled, When Spiritual But Not Religious Is Not Enough: Seeing God in Surprising Places, Even the Church. I believe just in that book title Lillian has captured an important truth. We cannot become, incarnate the way of Jesus without the community of faith. And I know the church and all of the flawed and sinful people who go with it are a pain. As Mahatma Gandhi famously said, “I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.” There are days when I want to walk away from the Church and go become a hermit. It would be so much easier to be spiritual but without the church. Even Jesus had his days. Look at Mark 9:19 addressing his disciples: “You faithless and perverse bunch, how long do I have to put up with you?”
SLIDE 12: GOD KNOWS WE ARE A PAIN TOO!
God knows it is difficult to live with all those other people in church, but then God knows it is pretty difficult to live with us too, isn’t it?
SLIDE 13: 90% OF LIFE IS SHOWING UP
And so we make a covenant to pray with and for each other and as Zig says, “let God do the judging.” Of course there are some things we have to do together as a community of faith, if the love of God is going to have any chance of transforming us. We have to worship together. Ninety percent of life is showing up, and that is true for worship too! And if we complain that we don’t get anything out of it, maybe we aren’t putting enough into it. Do we read and meditate upon the scriptures ahead of time? Do we really participate in worship, or are we spectators? If we are spectating, how could we change that?
SLIDE 14: ASK SOMEONE ELSE TO PRAY FOR YOU
Are we making an effort to pray with and for other people? When was the last time you took home a list of people to pray for during the week? And when was the last time we asked someone else to pray for something for us? That’s when we really get skin in the game. Try the Sharing Table.
SLIDE 15: PARTICIPATE IN MISSION
One of the principle reasons God calls us into the church is to participate in mission. There are so many tasks God needs accomplished in the world that we cannot do alone. It takes bunches of people to transform the world. Even if we could find common agreement about how to improve life on the planet, it still takes millions of people working together to make a dent in the problems of poverty, pollution, housing, health, war and violence. We have several opportunities to join with our fellows church members in the next weeks to make a difference.
SLIDE 16: SOUPER BOWL OF CARING, FOODLINE, HABITAT
Next Sunday is the Souper Bowl of Caring, when we all put a little money on our favorite team and the money goes to Foodline to help feed hungry people. The very next Sunday is the Chocolate Dessert Bar. We need goodies, and we need people to buy those goodies again to benefit Foodline. And allow me to remind you that United Church has been designated by the Interfaith Mission Service as a sponsoring congregation for Foodline. Then at the end of February we are invited to participate with seven other churches in a Habitat Blitz Build. Look in the newsletter for a schedule. God calls us into the church to participate with others in transforming the world.
SLIDE 17: ONE GENERATION AWAY FROM EXTINCTION
Another important reason God calls us into the church is to continue the story of the way of Jesus. We do this through Sunday school. We do this in Bible Study and at the Sharing Table. Most importantly we continue the story of Jesus by sharing our faith with others. The message of Jesus is always one generation away from extinction. Unless we share the good news of God’s love with others by embodying the love of Christ, the way of Jesus will disappear from the world.
SLIDE 18: THE COMMONWEALTH OF GOD IS NOW
According to Einstein time is relative to the observer. Jesus knew both time and eternity, and so when he said, “the acceptable year of the Lord begins now,” he was telling us that for everyone who chooses to embody the love of God, the commonwealth of God is now.

An Extravagant Sign

An Extravagant Sign
The Gospel of John makes no pretense to be a biography or a history. While loosely based on the life of Jesus, the Gospel of John is a metaphor, a story trying to communicate the author’s understanding of the meaning of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. He doesn’t allow facts to get in the way of his story either. For instance, rather than giving us a birth narrative, John begins with a poem that is an extension of the liturgy of creation in the first chapter of Genesis: “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. The Word was with God in the beginning. Everything came into being through the Word and without the Word nothing came into being. What came into being through the Word was life, and the life was the light for all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” The Gospel of John is poetry and metaphor not biography or documentary.
SLIDE 4: SYMBOL & MYSTERY
John was also not interested in chronology. For instance, Matthew, Mark and Luke all show Jesus turning over the tables of the money changers during Passion Week near the end of the story. John put’s the “cleansing of the Temple” in chapter two right after our story today about changing water into wine. We can’t read John too closely for the facts. Instead, we have to open ourselves up to poetry, symbol and mystery. If we allow ourselves to get bogged down in how the water became wine, or whether or not Jesus performed a magic trick, we destroy the ability of the metaphor to speak to us.
SLIDE 5: JESUS LIKED A GOOD PARTY
Unlike John the Baptist Jesus was not an ascetic or a teetotaler. Jesus did spend time in the wilderness getting his act together. Often the gospels refer to Jesus going off to pray by himself, but he didn’t stay in the wilderness. Rather than waiting for people to come to him like John, Jesus went through the villages and the towns of Galilee preaching, teaching and healing. He lived out his message of sharing by calling people together to share food, and on more than one occasion eye witnesses claimed that the food multiplied until everyone had more than they could eat. After feeding 5,000 people with a couple of fish and a few small loaves of bread, the disciples gathered up twelve baskets of broken pieces. They ended with more food than they started. The whole was equal to more than the sum of the parts.
SLIDE 6: GOD GIVES A PARTY TO WELCOME US HOME
Jesus would have gotten along well at United Church. He liked to eat, and he liked to drink. He especially liked sharing food and drink with other people. He could be the life of the party, so much so his enemies accused him of being a glutton and a drunkard. Think about it, as the leader of a spiritual movement, what did he leave us with as the central act of worship of the Jesus movement — a meal – a ritual meal. And the early church didn’t pass out little stale cubes of bread and little itty bitty sips of wine. The Lord’s Supper was a full meal, where everyone who showed up was fed – sort of like our Sharing Table. Jesus liked to eat and drink, and he loved a good party. In fact he taught that the Kingdom of God is like a great feast, and God’s gift of grace is that the party is in our honor. We are the Prodigal Children for whom the fatted calf has been offered up to celebrate our home coming not only with food and drink but music and dancing, jokes and laughter.
SLIDE 7: SELF-RIGHTEOUS REFUSE GOD’S GENEROSITY
And if you will remember the Parable, the father doesn’t have a problem with the ne’er do well kid who comes home, it’s the older child who has always conformed and done everything right, who ends up rejecting the father’s forgiveness and generosity. It’s the button down self-righteous kid who refuses to come to the table, because he doesn’t deem someone different from himself worthy of being affirmed of being welcomed and given a celebration. Jesus said, “God is giving a party and everyone is invited.” No matter who you are or where you are on your spiritual journey you are welcome at God’s table.
SLIDE 8: CANA NORTHEAST OF NAZARETH
In the story Jesus was invited to a wedding feast in the village of Cana. His mother was also there indicating she was kin to the bride or the groom, or perhaps to both. There was more than one Cana in Galilee so we do not know exactly where the wedding took place, although a small predominantly Arab town to the Northeast of Nazareth claims the distinction. Why not? Lots of tourists stop, buy souvenirs, and patronize the restaurants.
SLIDE 9: WEDDING FEAST BIG DEAL IN FIRST CENTURY
Wedding feasts were a big deal in first century Israel. The whole village would close down for several days with eating, drinking, music and dancing. As a relative Jesus had been invited and he brought along some of his followers. Maybe that is why the wine ran out.
SLIDE 10: HOSPITALITY IMPORTANT VIRTUE
In the ancient world hospitality was a very, very important virtue. To invite people to a feast and not have enough food or drink to serve was a major embarrassment. If the host ran out of food or wine, whenever there was a wedding in the future people would remember the time, when the ben David family ran out of wine at their wedding. It would be discussed endlessly. Embarrassed for her relatives Mary asked Jesus to do something. And Jesus’ initial reaction was, “what do you want me to do about it!”
SLIDE 11: GOD’S EXTRAVAGANT HOSPITALITY
Mary didn’t even argue with Jesus, she just told the servants to do whatever he said. Whether the story was factual or not something rings true about this exchange between Mary and Jesus. Like the father of the Bride who keeps opening his check book, Jesus was supposed to solve the dilemma. How it happened the story doesn’t tell us. Sort of like the feeding of the 5,000 suddenly there was enough wine and then some. And not only was there enough, but the wine was really good. The metaphor is God’s extravagant hospitality – like the extravagant welcome at United Church. The God of Jesus is a God of abundance. And since God’s creation is so abundant, we can share, trusting in God to provide enough. Life is not a zero sum game where we have to beat out other people in order to get a larger piece of the pie. We can share and work together so that everyone has enough. When we gather in love and we share there is always enough.
SLIDE 12: METAPHOR OF THE LORD’S SUPPER
The story of the wine at Cana is also a metaphor for the Lord’s Supper. Jesus shares himself with those who follow him in the bread and the wine of the communal meal of the faith community. Wine is also a symbol of the Spirit. The gifts of the spirit will be available in abundance for those who trust the generosity of God. The sharing of food and faith brings joy and renews our Spirits.
SLIDE 13: GATHER IN LOVE AND SHARE ALWAYS ENOUGH
So often in the life of the church we go through bruising discussions about budgets. We’re always afraid there won’t be enough, and so we control our expenditures, pinching pennys, hoping to somehow frugal our way to prosperity. We sock away little piles of money here there and everywhere that no one can spend. Most churches that close their doors actually go out of business with money in the bank. That’s sad. And at the same time people control the money, they try to control love, they try to limit the spirit. God will provide everything we need, if we will trust God and act out of God’s divine abundance. When we gather in love and we share there is always enough.
SLIDE 14: WIN-WIN SPIRIT OF JESUS
Allow me to ask a question of those who have attended the Sharing Table on Thursday evenings. Have you ever known us to run out of food on a Thursday evening? When people gather in the Spirit of Christ, in the win-win spirit of Jesus there is always enough. Love begets generous spirits.
SLIDE 15: GOD LOVES A CHEERFUL GIVER
Allow me to share with you from Martin Copenhaver’s Still Speaking Devotional this week. “God loves a cheerful giver,” says the Apostle Paul. But is there any other kind? In my experience givers are cheerful. I have never known any truly giving person who has not been a person of cheer. Joy is one of the indelible characteristics of the giving person.
I am not referring to the kind of reluctant, sharp-penciled, let-me-figure-out-what-my-share-is kind of giver. Rather, I am thinking of the open-handed, open-hearted givers.
We might wonder which comes first: Do these people know cheer and joy because they are givers, or are they givers because they are people of cheer and joy? The question seems strangely moot, however, for in the lives of such people the two are inextricably intertwined. Joy and giving flow from one another in a sure and blessed way. Think of it as the endless echo of grace.
Among the reasons why givers are cheerful is that, in giving to others, we are acting in accordance with God’s intentions for our lives. After all, we are created to be givers, meant to be givers. So when we close in on ourselves in self-concern, we are departing from what God intends for us, and there is no joy in that.
SLIDE 16: EXTRAVAGANT SIGN OF GOD’S LOVE
The generous supply of wine at the wedding in Cana was an extravagant sign, a metaphor for the great party God is giving to welcome all of us home. God says, “all is forgiven, love wins, come share, come to the Table you are welcome here.” May God grant that we all embrace the generosity of divine love.

Bible Study January 14 for Worship January 27

Bible Study January 14 for Worship January 27

Luke 4: 14 And Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee, and a report concerning him went out through all the surrounding country.
15 And he taught in their synagogues, being glorified by all.
16 And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up; and he went to the synagogue, as his custom was, on the sabbath day. And he stood up to read;
17 and there was given to him the book of the prophet Isaiah. He opened the book and found the place where it was written,
18 “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed,
19 to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.”
20 And he closed the book, and gave it back to the attendant, and sat down; and the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him.
21 And he began to say to them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

COMMENTARY

According to Luke Jesus went back to Nazareth with some of his disciples after beginning his ministry. How long had he been absent? Luke doesn’t tell us. Had he taken up residence in Capernaum? Luke doesn’t tell us. Had his family already come to Capernaum to try to bring him home? Luke doesn’t tell us. So for our reading of the text today let’s make some assumptions. Jesus had left Nazareth and the carpenter’s shop to go follow John the Baptist for a while. After his baptism, he went into the wilderness for a time to explore within himself the meaning of messiahship. All of the temptations in the wilderness point to a struggle concerning what kind of leader/teacher would he become.

Sometime before or while he was in the wilderness or not too long after he came out of the wilderness John the Baptist was arrested. (It makes some sense that John’s arrest may have prompted Jesus’ departure into the wilderness. Sort of a get out of Dodge move.) So Jesus returned from Galilee but went to Capernaum, because there are fishermen with whom he had made friends while following John. The fishermen were in a rebellious mood, because of Herod’s new taxes and the regulation of the fishing industry that was squeezing all of the profits.. Jesus began preaching, teaching, healing and eating with people, all kinds of people. News of his ministry reached Nazareth, and his relatives sent a delegation to try to bring him home to care for his mother. Jesus rejected his relatives.

Jesus then began traveling around Galilee and made a stop in the synagogue at Nazareth. So far from occurring at the very beginning of his ministry the scene in our gospel lesson may have been much later than it appears here in Luke.

The people of Jesus’ home village had heard rumor of his ministry, so they were anxious to hear how would Jesus address them? Jesus turned to the prophet Isaiah and read a provocative and revolutionary passage that closed with the proclamation that the acceptable year of the Lord has indeed arrived, and the fulfillment of the prophet’s vision was in their hearing? That was radical stuff.

The prophet Isaiah was celebrating the release of the Jewish captives from slavery in Babylon. Cyrus the Great had conquered Babylon and the more enlightened approach of the Persian Empire was to allow subject peoples to return to their homelands, worship as they pleased, and in local matters govern themselves. They owed allegiance and taxes to the Persian Empire, but otherwise they are sort of left alone. For the Jews, who had been beat up by one conquering empire after another this was about the best they could hope for – relative peace and prosperity and the freedom to be themselves. In fact Persian rule was so benign for the Jews, many, many Jews remained in Persia into the modern era. The Babylonian Talmud was considered to be more authoritative than the Jerusalem Talmud.

The netzer clan that settled Nazareth did not return from Babylon until about 100 BCE, several years after the Jews had won their independence from the Selucid Empire. Jesus people had been returned to Israel less than 100 years before Jesus was born, and while Nazareth was a Jewish village, only a few miles away was the cosmopolitan City of Sepphoris with Jews living along side of Gentiles.

As we try to understand our scripture it is probably worth a look at the entire chapter 61 of Isaiah :

61:1 The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, because the LORD has anointed me to bring good tidings to the afflicted; he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound;
2 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn;
3 to grant to those who mourn in Zion — to give them a garland instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the mantle of praise instead of a faint spirit; that they may be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that he may be glorified.
4 They shall build up the ancient ruins, they shall raise up the former devastations; they shall repair the ruined cities, the devastations of many generations.
5 Aliens shall stand and feed your flocks, foreigners shall be your plowmen and vinedressers;
6 but you shall be called the priests of the LORD, men shall speak of you as the ministers of our God; you shall eat the wealth of the nations, and in their riches you shall glory.
7 Instead of your shame you shall have a double portion, instead of dishonor you shall rejoice in your lot; therefore in your land you shall possess a double portion; yours shall be everlasting joy.
8 For I the LORD love justice, I hate robbery and wrong; I will faithfully give them their recompense, and I will make an everlasting covenant with them.
9 Their descendants shall be known among the nations, and their offspring in the midst of the peoples; all who see them shall acknowledge them, that they are a people whom the LORD has blessed.
10 I will greatly rejoice in the LORD, my soul shall exult in my God; for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation, he has covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself with a garland, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.
11 For as the earth brings forth its shoots, and as a garden causes what is sown in it to spring up, so the Lord GOD will cause righteousness and praise to spring forth before all the nations.

We can speculate whether or not Jesus read the entire chapter that certainly speaks of a brighter fairer day of justice than the Jews of Nazareth would have been experiencing under the oppression of Roman Occupation. It is hard to imagine that these words would have been heard as anything short of revolutionary.

Our scripture next week will deal with the crowd’s reaction, but just on the face of it, looking around even today we might say, “this Jesus is nuts.” If this is the acceptable year of the Lord, what gives? And indeed that is the very question we might ask ourselves. What gives Jesus? If the acceptable year of the Lord has arrived, why is there still war, why are school children gunned down in cold blood, why is unemployment persistently high? So the challenge that faces followers of Jesus even today is what is the Good News?

LET’S ASK SOME QUESTIONS OF THE TEXT

1. Where did Jesus return from?

2. Where did Jesus return to?

3. When Jesus returned what activities did he begin doing?

4. Where all did Jesus go before he came to Nazareth?

5. Where did Jesus go on the Sabbath?

6. How was the scripture chosen for Jesus to read?

7. What part of the scripture did Jesus read from?

8. After reading the scripture, what did Jesus do?

9. What did Jesus say about the scripture he read?

LET’S ALLOW THE TEXT TO ASK QUESTIONS OF US

1. How long do you think Jesus may have been absent from Nazareth, when he returned in this scripture?

2. Why do you think it was Jesus’ custom to attend the synagogue on the Sabbath?

3. Do you think Jesus was reading one of the appointed scriptures for the day, or did he specifically choose the passage from Isaiah?

4. Of whom was Isaiah speaking, when he wrote Isaiah 61?

5. How do you think people in the synagogue in Nazareth might have responded to the words of the prophet?

6. How do you think people in church in the 21st century can hear Isaiah 61?

7. What do you think the good news is?

8. How do you think the community of faith needs to present Isaiah 61 today?

9. What so you think is the mission of United Church?

Week of January 21 – January 27: Third Sunday After Epiphany – Luke 4:14-21 – Good News, Good Ways – Nehemiah 8:1-3, 5-6, 8-10, Psalm 19, I Corinthians 12:12-31a.

Turning Point

SLIDE 3: EPIPHANY – BAPTISM OF JESUS
Epiphany means to be revealed, and during Epiphany season our scriptures focus upon stories of the revealing of Jesus to the world. Last week we focused upon the Christ Child revealed to the Wise men, this week we concentrate on the baptism of Jesus.
The three Synoptic Gospels Matthew, Mark and Luke were clear that Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist. The Gospel of John, however, tried to finesse that issue by never actually presenting the baptism of Jesus. Probably by the end of the First Century, when the Gospel of John was being written, the early church was embarrassed to admit that Jesus had been a follower of John.
SLIDE 4: ARE YOU THE ONE?
What happened, when Jesus came up out of the water after his baptism? Were the dove and the voice seen and heard by anyone else? Hollywood usually presents the dove and the voice as if everyone present could see and hear them. The voice and the dove may have been subjective experiences of Jesus alone. We don’t know, but we can speculate. Apparently even after Jesus witnessed the dove and heard the voice, John continued his ministry as if nothing had happened. According to the gospels even after John had been arrested he sent two of his followers to Jesus to ask, “Are you the one we have been looking for, or should we look for another?” This represents a level of uncertainty that is inconsistent, if John had seen the heavens open, a shining dove descend, and heard the voice of God from the heavens.”
SLIDE 5: MAJOR LIFE TURNING POINT
Whatever happened, Jesus’ baptism was a major life turning point for him. His life could never be the same after that experience. For many people who want to believe that Jesus had a fully developed messianic consciousness even at birth, the very idea of a turning point in Jesus’ life is blasphemous. If he experienced a turning point, then that would call into question the very idea that Jesus was pre-destined to be the messiah, the son of God. And experiencing a turning point is just somehow too human for someone we want to put on a pedestal, so we don’t have to follow his example.
But what if Jesus was truly human like us? What if the significance of the Jesus story is we are supposed to follow him and try to put into practice the hard things he taught in our own lives like loving people we don’t like and forgiving people who hurt us, and sharing our stuff with others?
SLIDE 6: SIGNIFICANT TURNING POINTS IN OUR LIVES
I think our scripture is asking us to consider significant turning points in our lives, and how God has been involved in those important moments. If God is still speaking, maybe God speaks in those decisive moments in our lives. We might all wish God would send a dove and a voice or sign posts to give us direction and point the way. Most of the time, however, we don’t even know we are at a turning point, until we look back in hindsight. Also turning points at least in the moment are seldom as clear as they may seem years later. Consider that after his baptism Jesus spent 40 days in the wilderness considering the implications of his call to messiahship. He had to work through several temptations in that time of contemplation. Perhaps he was even questioning the very meaning of the dove and the voice during his forty days in the wilderness.
As we look back over our own lives what kinds of events might have been turning points? Everyone is different. But allow me to suggest some common turning points in people’s lives as we think back over our own lives.
SLIDE 7: RELATIONSHIPS AS TURNING POINTS
Relationships with mentors are often experienced as major life events for people: a significant teacher, a coach, a pastor, a counselor. I remember my father sharing with me that he had dropped out of high school and was digging ditches, when a chemistry teacher, who was also his football coach got a hold of him and said, “Fran, if you don’t finish your education, you’ll never amount to anything!” Now, I don’t know if it was the eloquence of the coach or the ditches he had been digging, but he did go back and finish high school, and then went on to college, and finally earned a doctoral degree in educational psychology and taught at the University level for thirty years. Significant mentors can be experienced as a turning point in our lives. Did you have a significant mentor?
SLIDE 8: PEERS INVOLVED IN OUR TURNING POINTS
Significant relationships with peers, friends, partners, spouses, roommates can also be turning points in our lives. My best friend in 8th grade, Ken McCall, changed my life. During the Cuban missile crisis Ken shared with us that his father, who was the chief programmer for the targeting computers at the Strategic Air Command, had told him that the bombers were parked on the runways, and the crews were sleeping in the planes, ready to take off within 2 minutes notice. Ken didn’t know it, I didn’t even know it at that point, but the realization that we all faced the possibility of nuclear annihilation started me on a journey into the ministry. It was a turning point.
SLIDE 9: RECOGIZING TURNING POINTS IN HINDSIGHT
Sometimes only in hindsight do we perceive and understand those turning points. Maybe Jesus didn’t understand how the dove and the voice were turning points until he spent time in the wilderness and John the Baptist was arrested opening the way for Jesus’ ministry. Look back on your own life and appreciate God’s hand in the turning points in your life.
SLIDE 10: SYNCRHONICITY – THE CLEMSON RING
Another way God’s hand can appear in the turning points of our lives, is through coincidence, or as Carl Jung preferred to call it synchronicity. My father suffered a horrendous life accident during World War II. He was wounded — took three machine gun bullets and shrapnel in the stomach. It was a miracle he was still alive, when they were finally able to transport him to the field hospital. When the triage medic saw his massive abdominal wounds, he tied a tag on Dad’s toe, gave him a shot of morphine and set him aside. By all rights my father should have died there in the hallway of the Field Hospital.
But then a surgeon came walking down the hallway, and he noticed Dad’s Clemson Ring. The surgeon was a graduate of Clemson. He took the tag off of father’s toe, took him into the operating room and after operating for twenty-four hours saved Dad’s life. What a turning point – coincidence – synchronicity? Dad believed it was God’s hand.
SLIDE 11: GOD’S PRESENCE THROUGH GUIDANCE
My father also credited that surgeon for changing his life in another way. Three days after the surgery, when Dad finally became fully conscious, the surgeon stopped to see him. He asked my father what he had done before the war, and Dad said he had been in construction for Southern Bell Telephone.
The surgeon said, Well we did our best to put you back together, but I can’t guarantee you will ever be able to lift more than five pounds. Education, we will need a lot of good people after this war in education.”
That thought stuck in my father’s mind, and gave him direction for what to do with the rest of his life. Did someone speak a special word to you after a life accident? Think about that. Maybe God’s hand was present in that turning point.
SLIDE 12: MAKING CHOICES
What are some other ways God can be present in the turning points of our lives – like making choices about school, marriage, career choices, or other life accidents like parenthood? And what are other signs of God’s presence in our lives – unexpected gifts of love, gifts of guidance, or what about what I call spontaneous prayer.
SLIDE 13: SPONTANEOUS PRAYER – HELP! THANKS! WOW!
Have you ever been in a situation, maybe you were brought up short by a crisis, or a surprise, or you were overcome by awe, and you found yourself muttering a spontaneous prayer like: “Oh my God,” or “Holy ____,” or “Thank you,” or “Help!” Anne LaMott claims there are three essential prayers: Help! Thanks! Wow! I believe those spontaneous prayers are evidence of God’s presence. They aren’t holy or pietistic prayers, but they are real prayers, and when we are being real, we are closest to the divine.
Now why am I encouraging everyone to go back to meditate on the turning points in our lives? Because I believe if we can begin to see God’s actuality in our lives in hindsight, we can start to recognize and appreciate God’s presence in the present moment.
SLIDE 14: REVERENCE FOR GOD IS THE BEGINNING OF KNOWLEDGE
Allow me to share part of a Still Speaking devotional by Ken Samuel on the importance of acknowledging the importance of God in the present moment, based on Proverbs 1:1 “Reverence of God is the beginning of knowledge.”
How many times in the past year have we not acted and then regretted it? How many times have we made decisions without praying, and then prayed to mitigate the damage caused by our bad decisions? How often do our plans and agendas relegate God to an after-thought?
SLIDE 15: BEGIN EVERY ENDEAVOR WITH PRAYER
The New Year gives us an opportunity to do some things differently. The wise writer of Proverbs begins with one simple but often neglected insight: “The fear or the reverence of God is the beginning of knowledge.” The wisdom here has to do with how we begin. We are encouraged to begin every day and every decision with the acknowledgement that God is with us, God is working in us and God is watching over us. We are encouraged to begin every endeavor with the acknowledgement of God’s presence, God’s promise and God’s power.
SLIDE 16: PRAYING IN THE PRESENT CAN CHANGE OUR FUTURES
By learning to appreciate how God has been with us in the turning points of our lives, we might learn to reverence and pray in the present and thus change our futures. How much better we might be if we prayed before we did something, rather than regretting what we’ve done? Or maybe by praying regularly we can become motivated to act, rather than leaving something undone that really ought to be done? Let’s learn from the turning points of our pasts, and thus change our futures.

Herod and the Old Politics

SLIDE 3: EPIPHANY
January 6th is Epiphany the celebration of the first revelation of Jesus to the outside world in the form of the Wise Men. In Spanish Speaking Countries it is El Dio de los Tres Reyes, or the Day of the Three Kings. In those countries the three Kings leave gifts for children on Epiphany. In countries where people open gifts on Christmas, Epiphany becomes the 12th Day of Christmas. The appointed lesson for the day is the visitation of the Three Kings from Matthew. The purpose of the Story of the Three Kings is to rival the claims of the Roman Empire. Suetonius the Roman historian claimed that a special star appeared to mark the birth of Augustus and that an important astrologer of the day claimed that Augustus’ horoscope had forecast that he would become the world ruler.
SLIDE 4: STAR OF BETHLEHEM
The Three Kings were from Babylon the recognized center of astrology in the ancient world. Making the claim that the magi had identified Jesus as the world ruler was a major coup, a one up on the Romans, for the early church. According to the Babylonian Star Charts the most probable candidate for the “star” in the Gospel of Matthew was a rare triple conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn in the constellation Pisces that occurred in the year 7 BCE, which for the astrologers of the time would have signaled the birth of a new King of the Jews, hence Herod was worried.
SLIDE 5: ICTHYS
According to the Babylonian system of astrology Jupiter represented the supreme God of the universe, Saturn was the sign of the end times, and the constellation of Pisces was associated with the god of wisdom, life, and creation, as well as the Jewish people. Some scholars contend that the Babylonian astrological interpretation of the triple conjunction would have been “the end of the old world order is coming with the birth of a new king in Israel chosen by God.” Support for this theory can be found in the fact that early Christians used the astrological symbol for Pisces (Icthys), the fish, the constellation where the triple conjunction occurred, as a symbol for Jesus and of their new religion.
SLIDE 6: HEROD AND THE OLD POLITICS
The story of the three Kings is used by Matthew to bring Herod into the story. Herod the Great was a local ethnic ruler in the Roman Empire, and he was quite mad. The Romans didn’t really care how their native princes treated their people, so long as they kept firm control, collected taxes and sent money to Rome.
SLIDE 7: BRUTAL RULE
Herod was a brutal ruler. He made sure that he quelled any unrest. On one occasion after a rebellion in Galilee, Herod crucified over 2,000 rebels and lined the road from Galilee to Jerusalem with crosses, every hundred yards or so. He taxed his people into poverty in order to send money to Rome, and his taxes made the population all the more restive. On top of his brutality Herod was also paranoid. On one occasion he suspected a butler of plotting against him, so he had the butler tortured until the poor man in his pain named co-conspirators (who probably had not been plotting.) He then had the co-conspirators brought in and tortured until they named names. Finally, Herod had over 2000 people gathered in the arena in Jerusalem who he suspected of treason, and he unleashed his personal body guard of elite German soldiers to slaughter the 2,000 people, while he watched.
SLIDE 8: PRINCIPLES OF EMPIRE
Vilifying Herod was easy and popular. The point of the story is to contrast the Messiah of Love with the old politics of power and oppression. Jesus rules! For our purposes I think we can think of Herod as representing the “old politics,” where the ends justify the means, and the Principles of Empire rule:
Principles of Empire
1. Human beings need to be governed from the top down.
2. The top 1% of the Empire’s population will accumulate the majority of the power and wealth.
3. The Golden Rule: Those who have the gold make the rules.
4. Violence is the preferred method for enforcing order within an Empire.
SLIDE 9: ENDS JUSTIFY THE MEANS – FALLEN HUMAN NATURE
The ways of Empire persist — part of the fallenness of human nature – the ends justify the means. Greed, desire for power, using power to accumulate wealth at other’s expense are all still around today. On Monday night we all held hands, closed our eyes and jumped off of the fiscal cliff, or maybe we didn’t. It is hard to tell. I’m not sure what consequences there will be. Maybe we just haven’t hit bottom yet. Sort of like the guy who jumped off the Empire State Building and on the way down at the 40th floor he was heard to say, “so far so good.” I bring up the fiscal cliff, because it exemplifies our fallen human nature.
SLIDE 10: PRINCIPLES OF HUMAN NATURE
Here are some principles of human nature I see at play in the fiscal cliff negotiations. Never plan ahead or do something before the deadline. Always put off to tomorrow what you can do today. If you can’t win, make sure everyone loses. Blaming others is always easier than taking responsibility. When the chief obstacle to economic recovery is the inability of government to make a reasonable decision, then we cannot afford to continue the kind of dysfunctional government represented by the Old Politics.
SLIDE 11: PROGRESS
Now allow me to give credit where credit is due. In the past 2,000 years we have made some advances in civilization. At least in Western Nations we no longer enslave and execute the losers. We abolished formal institutionalized slavery 150 years ago with the 13th amendment. (We are now just working on wage slavery.) Rather than sending our old people off into the snows to die, we now have Social Security and Medicare. We even provide for some medical care for the indigent through Medicaid. And even though I cringe as I watch Congress fumbling with some kind of compromise to keep our government running, our legislators seem tame in comparison to the effort to pass of the 13th Amendment in the film Lincoln.
SLIDE 12: INTERCONNECTED WORLD
So we have made some progress, but our world has become more and more complicated and events move faster all the time. Our technology links us together faster and more comprehensively than ever before. As population and globalization grow we become increasingly interdependent, and influenced by events and people half a world away.
SLIDE 13: ZERO-SUM GAME – WIN-LOSE
The problem is the Old Politics treats human relationships as a zero-sum game. What’s that? Zero-sum games are an example of negotiations where the pie cannot be enlarged by good negotiation. These are win-lose relationships. If I win, you lose. If you win, I lose. Win-lose relationships can inspire poison pill tactics, where relationships become lose-lose. If I can’t win, I make sure everyone loses.
SLIDE 14: WIN-WIN SOLUTIONS
If we are to survive in an increasingly interconnected and complex future we will be forced in our own interest to find non-zero-sum solutions — win – win solutions instead of win – lose solutions. When we are willing to recognize our interdependence and give up our zero-sum mentality we will discover, we do better when other people do better as well. We can only win, when everybody wins.
But how do we change the very nature of politics and human relationships? I believe Jesus tried to show us the way. He was the new model of leadership born under a special star to show us the way to win-win relationships. So what did Jesus advocate?
SLIDE 15: SERVANT LEADERSHIP
Jesus taught the opposite of hierarchy, the first will be last and the last will be first. If you would be a leader you must be the servant of all. Leadership according to Jesus is for the purpose of serving the needs of others rather than self.
SLIDE 16: SHARING
Jesus advocated sharing. He opposed the concentration of land and wealth in the hands of a few. He advocated for fair wages and for sharing. When wealth and power become too highly concentrated in a society it leads to stagnation. Economic growth requires enough money in enough different hands to go out and spend it in order to drive the economy. When power is more widely shared the decision making process becomes more creative about how to seek innovative solutions rather than relying upon the same old answers.
SLIDE 17: NON-VIOLENCE
Jesus rejected the use of violence. In the words of Mahatma Gandhi, “And eye for an eye only leaves the whole world blind.” Just look at Israel and the Palestinians. Israel and the Palestinians have been playing a zero-sum game for over 65 years. There is no end in sight for their struggle. Both sides think they can win, and both of them are losing. They are captives of Herod and the Old Politics.
SLIDE 18: LOVE WINS
Strangely enough a couple of years ago I saw a sign of hope in of all places Bethlehem. When Jesus was born, Bethlehem was a small village about five miles from Jerusalem. Today Bethlehem and Jerusalem would run together, except there is an ugly concrete wall that separates Bethlehem from Jerusalem. As I was coming out of an olivewood shop, where the owner gave me the nativity set on the altar this morning, I saw the triumph of hope over despair, the way of Jesus over the way of Herod. There on the wall in graffiti was the message – Love Wins.
Those who follow the way of Jesus insist that human relationships can change. We are not stuck with Herod and the zero-sum game of the old politics. We can transform the way we relate to one another by creating new relationships where everyone can win. We will have to change our consciousness from win-lose to win-win, but in an increasingly interdependent and interconnected world it is the only sane way forward.
SLIDE 19: LOVE RISES STRONGER THAN BEFORE – LOVE WINS
Jesus the leader born in a stable laid in a feed trough for animals represented a new day, where the meek will inherit the earth, and everyone will have enough because everyone shares. Of course the old politics sought to destroy the Holy Child, and 33 years later the old politics succeeded in crucifying Jesus. But resurrection trumps the old politics. God’s promise is that love rises stronger than before. God’s promise — Love Wins!

Bible Study January 7 for Worship January 20

Bible Study January 7 for Worship January 20

John 2:1 On the third day there was a marriage at Cana in Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there;
2 Jesus also was invited to the marriage, with his disciples.
3 When the wine failed, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.”
4 And Jesus said to her, “O woman, what have you to do with me? My hour has not yet come.”
5 His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”
6 Now six stone jars were standing there, for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons.
7 Jesus said to them, “Fill the jars with water.” And they filled them up to the brim.
8 He said to them, “Now draw some out, and take it to the steward of the feast.” So they took it.
9 When the steward of the feast tasted the water now become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the steward of the feast called the bridegroom
10 and said to him, “Every man serves the good wine first; and when men have drunk freely, then the poor wine; but you have kept the good wine until now.”
11 This, the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and manifested his glory; and his disciples believed in him.
12 After this he went down to Capernaum, with his mother and his brothers and his disciples; and there they stayed for a few days.

COMMENTARY

Unlike John the Baptist Jesus was not an ascetic or a teetotaler. He did spend time in the wilderness getting his act together, but then he went through the villages and the towns of Galilee preaching, teaching and healing. He lived out his message of sharing by calling people together to share food, and on more than one occasion eye witnesses claimed that the food multiplied until everyone had enough.

On this occasion Jesus was invited to a wedding feast in the town of Cana. His mother was also there indicating she was kin to the bride or the groom, or perhaps to both. There was more than one Cana in Galilee so we do not know exactly where their wedding took place, although a small predominantly Arab town to the Northeast of Nazareth claims the distinction. Why not? Lots of tourists stop, buy souvenirs, and patronize the restaurants.

Jesus had been invited to the wedding, but he also brought along with him several followers, and maybe that is why the wine ran out. In the ancient world hospitality was a very, very important virtue. To invite people to a feast and not have enough food or drink to serve was a major embarrassment. Whenever a wedding would occur in the future people would remember the time when the ben David family ran out of wine at their wedding. Embarrassed for her relatives Mary asked Jesus to do something. And Jesus’ initial reaction was, “what do you want me to do about it!”

Mary didn’t even argue with Jesus, she just told the servants to do whatever he said. Whether the story was factual or not something rings true about this exchange. If we allow ourselves to get bogged down in exactly what happened, how the water became wine, we will miss the metaphor. The jars in question were used for the ritual of purification at the wedding. (There may be some mixing of metaphors in this story. Ritual of purification perhaps linking to baptism, and the miracle performed at the wedding feast reminding us that the church is the bride of Christ.) According to some commentators, our translation may be inaccurate, a “firkin” being equal to about 9 gallons rather than 20 or 30 gallons. Six times nine gallons would still be fifty-four gallons of wine, surely more than enough. Not only was there more than enough, but the wine was really good. The metaphor is God’s extravagant hospitality – like the extravagant welcome at United Church. The God of Jesus is a God of abundance. And since God’s creation is full of abundance, we can share trusting in God to provide enough. Life is not a zero sum game where we have to beat out other people in order to get a larger piece of the pie. We can share and work together so that everyone has enough.

The story of the wine at Cana is also a metaphor for the Eucharist. Jesus shares himself with those who follow him in the bread and the wine of the communal meal of the faith community. Wine is also a symbol of joy in Hebrew culture. The sharing of the Eucharist brings joy. The story is very specific in calling the wine at Cana a sign. John of course was focused upon miraculous signs as proofs that Jesus was the Messiah.

LET’S ASK SOME QUESTIONS OF THE TEXT

1. What day was the marriage at Cana?

2. According to the text who all were there?

3. Who calls Jesus’ attention to the fact the wine has run out?

4. What was Jesus’ initial reaction when asked about the wine?

5. What instructions did Jesus give to the servants?

6. How much wine was produced?

7. What was the reaction of the Steward of the Feast?

8. What was the response of his disciples?

9. Where did Jesus go when he left Cana?

LET’S ALLOW THE TEXT TO ASK QUESTIONS OF US

1. Why do you think Jesus’ mother enlisted his help?

2. How do you explain Jesus’ reaction to his mother?

3. What do you find most challenging trusting God’s abundance?

4. How important is sharing communion as one of your spiritual practices?

5. What significance do you think the wedding feast has in this story?

6. In what ways do you think life is a zero sum game, where you have to fight for your piece of the pie?

7. What meaning you hear in the Steward’s words: “Every man serves the good wine first, and when men have drunk freely, then the poor wine; but you have kept the good wine until now?”

8. How important to you are the miracle stories in establishing Jesus as the Messiah?