The Listening Ear

Small Group Ministry

I met with the new Small Group Ministry team for the first time last night. The purpose of the team is to support and encourage small group ministry in our congregation. I don’t really know a better way for Christians to grow in their faith than being part of a small group Bible study.

Most people have a high regard for the Bible, in theory at least. Yet, I recently heard about one survey that found that in a given year only 6% of the members in an average congregation participated in any kind of Bible study and that only about half had ever participated in a study of the Bible.

If the Bible is to have any real impact on our lives, we need to be reading the Word and learning from it on a regular basis. Small groups are an excellent place for this to happen.

A new Small Group Ministry team has begun making plans to encourage small group participation this fall. Beginning September 13, I am planning to do a sermon series on the book of James. The Small Group Ministry team is suggesting that as small groups start meeting this fall, that they consider using a study focusing on James. Samples of materials on James will be available for people to look at to make sure the material fits their group. A couple of choices will be offered.

During the sermon series (and probably after it is finished), I plan to lead a larger group study of James during the Sunday school hour. The study will take place in the church fellowship hall. I am looking forward to what we can discover in this somewhat neglected book for the Bible.

The Small Group Ministry team would like to know which small groups are already planning to begin meeting this fall. If you are part of a small group that is planning to start meeting again this fall, please let the church office know and give us the name of a contact person for the group so the team knows where to send small group information.

The Small Group Ministry team is also looking for individuals who would be willing to host a new small group either in their home or at the church. If you are interested, please contact the church office about that as well.

Thinking about James

I have been working on reading several commentaries on the New Testament book of James in preparation for a sermon series that I am planning for the fall. It’s a book that I haven’t studied seriously before now.

Many student’s of the Bible, recalling Martin Luther’s judgment regarding James that it is an ‘epistle of straw” compared to Paul’s writings, have not known how to approach James. The result is that James is a Biblical book that is often ignore, especially by Lutherans.

Nevertheless, it is a part of the New Testament and that means that the church believes that it is a book that bears witness to the apostolic faith. It is part of the Scriptures accepted as authoritative in the church. That’s the reason I decided I should try to preach on it.

I’ve been discovering some things about James that underscore its value for us. For one thing, Paul and James were writing to two different situations. In several of his letters, especially Galatians and Romans, Paul is contending with opponents who insisted that Gentile Christian converts needed to observe the Jew laws of the Old Testament in order to be true Christians. Paul tells his readers that the law can’t save, that we are justified before God by faith alone.

James, on the other hand, is dealing with a different situation. He is speaking to Christians who have become ‘double-minded.’ They seek to be followers of Jesus while at the same time making friends with the world. James insists that faith must have content, that it necessarily will result in doing good work, in living a life in harmony with God’s law, especially the moral law that calls us to love our neighbor.

It seems to me that James has something to say to our day. There are many who are primarily admirers of Christ. They want the eternal salvation that Christ promises, but they don’t see any connection between faith and the way they live their lives. They don’t really trust Christ to shape the way they live their lives.

Paul has no quarrel with the notion that followers of Christ will do good works. He says that faith will naturally lead to good works. The works, themselves, are a gift of the Spirit working in our lives. That’s the key to understanding James’ emphasis on the need for works to show evidence of our faith. If the Spirit is working in our lives in order to create faith with in us, then the natural consequence of the Spirit’s work is that we do works that are an expression of God’s will for us and in harmony with our faith in Christ.

I am looking forward to this sermon series in the fall. It should be helpful for us all to listen to what James has to say to us. I think we need to hear it.

What Will The End Be Like?

Scot McKnight has been doing a series of posts on his views regarding eschatology—which is the study of end times. If you are looking for a more sensible view of such things, I’d recommend you start with these 1 2 3 4 5. There’s far too much in these posts to summarize here. Basically McKnight calls into question all the current speculation about rapture, tribulation and all the rest. He give what I think is a convincing case that when Jesus uses apocalyptic images in Mark 13, for instance, he is talking about the destruction of Jerusalem that would talk place in 70 A. D. This doesn’t mean that McKnight doesn’t think there will be a conclusion to the world as we know it. He puts it this way: 

I believe in Jesus' 'return' but I think it will be much better and bigger and more grandiose than we can imagine. In other words, I believe in the "Second Coming" but I think it is how we speak of the inaugurating event in the establishment of Christ's reign (and I believe in an earthly manifestation of that reign and of Christ's Second Coming -- and I'm just not sure what that will look like). And now I feel like a lion in a den of Daniels, but I want to appeal to one major point: no Bible-saturated contemporary of Jesus thought when the Messiah came he would be as Jesus was. So I suspect anything we "think" will happen only glimpses what really will happen. Most who speak of the Second Coming "know more than they should" and it is that kind of knowledge I'd like to push back behind the veil of mystery by saying what I have above. He will return, but what will that return look like? I suspect everyone will be surprised. We should anticipate both what traditionalists have anticipated and a lot more. 

It has always been my suspicion that what God has planned will turn our far different and a lot better than anyone has yet imagined. This is a topic that I believe we need to approach with great humility, admitting that we just don’t know. History is filled with examples of people who thought they could use the Bible to figure out how God is going to finally and fully establish God’s kingdom. So far, they have all been dead wrong.

Considering Hatred

The most recent issue of Christian Century (March 24, 2009) quotes from Harvard Divinity Bulletin:

The Dalai Lama and an Indian psychoanalyst held a public dialog in which the subject of hate arose. The psychoanalyst said that a healthy person should be able both to hate and to transcend hating. The Dalai Lama said that was not the Buddhist view, and he told a story about a man who had been imprisoned in Tibet and tortured by the Chinese. After he got out, the man told the Dalai Lam that on two occasions things had gotten very bad in prison. Had he been close to death? the Dalai Lama asked. “No,” the man responded, “Twice I almost hated the Chinese!”

It makes me think of what Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount. “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous.” (Matthew 5: 43-45)

Do you think it is possible to avoid hatred completely? Is hatred ever appropriate or is there always a negative price to pay when we allow ourselves to hate others? Both Jesus and the Dalai Lama seem to think there is.

Was The Manger Made Out Of Stone?

John Frye has a fascinating post on his blog

regarding the manger. He writes: 

Wood as a commodity for things like mangers, tables, etc. was rare in Galilee. ...Stone mangers, troughs to feed animals, were common in Israel in the 1st century. When Mary wrapped her newborn son in strips of cloth and laid him in a manger, he was in a solid, secure structure. 

John goes on to suggest that since wood was rare and stone was plentiful in Galilee, the it was more likely that Joseph and Jesus were stone masons rather than wood carpenters. The meaning of the word teknon used for Joseph’s and Jesus’ occupation (Matt 13:35 & Mk 6:3) is a matter of debate. See the entire post here.

A Third Way

Scot McKnight has started a series of posts on his Jesus Creed blog that explore the question of whether there is a “Third Way.” What he means to ask is whether there is another option besides being a liberal or a conservative. 

McKnight senses, and I think he is right, that there are a host of people in our culture who aren’t quite comfortable with either of those labels. They are looking for a third way. Of course, that applies to politics, but McKnight is asking this especially about the Christian faith. As he does so, he draws on Adam Hamilton’s recent book Seeing Gray in a Work of Black and White: Thoughts on Religion, Morality and Politics. 

McKnight writes:

Here's what I believe: anyone who wants to live in the Third Way seeks to love God and love others, seeks to follow the Spirit, and adopts a posture of sensitivity to others. 

And here is where the Third Way avoids legalism: it trusts others to do the same and can live, in trust and respect, with the decisions of others who also live in the Spirit, who also love God and love others, and who also adopt a posture of sensitivity. 

It is easier to be a libertine and let everyone do whatever they want; it is easier to create rules/legalism for others to live by. It is far more difficult to discern how to live by living the Third Way.

Thoughts on Hell and the Wrath of God

Recently I have been running across a spate of articles dealing with hell and the wrath of God. Not the most cheery subject, yet Christians do need to somehow come to terms with that fact that Jesus did talk about what we’ve called hell, as do the rest of the Scriptures as well. 

I think Christians have tended to veer into one of two ditches regarding hell and the wrath of God. Many contemporary folk would just as soon avoid the subject. There are many who would think that hell is an antiquated idea that we have outgrown. The opposite ditch is the get caught up in intense speculation about who belongs in hell and what exactly it will be like. There are those who have used the notion of hell to try to scare people into faith. 

Scott McKnight has been using his blog to examine the Biblical passages that deal with the wrath of God. You can find a good example here. McKnights writes, “We are testing a hypothesis, namely, this one: Does “wrath” refer only to “historical” events in history, the negative implications of doing things contrary to God’s will, or does it also refer to “evangelistic” wrath (threatening with wrath when evangelizing) or “eternal” wrath (an endless state of the damned)? As I read him, Scott seems to find the first and third meanings of hell, but seems to question whether wrath is used evangelistically.

The Remarkable Choice Of Women As Witnesses To The Resurrection

As you might expect, I’ve been doing some reflection on the resurrection stories in preparation for Easter. Sometimes its been suggested that the stories of the empty tomb are simply legends made up by early Christians to talk about their conviction that Jesus is still alive.

N. T. Wright in his masterful work, The Resurrection of the Son of God, notes that there are some strange elements in the resurrection stories that give evidence that these stories more than just an invention.

One of those elements is the presence of women in these stories. If early Christians were going to construct a story about the empty tomb, as people in the ancient world they would be unlikely to have women as the primary witnesses to these events, especially someone like Mary Magdalene as the chief witness. That’s the case because women were regarded as unreliable witnesses who weren’t even allowed to give testimony in court. If the stories were invented, it would be much more likely that they would have written in some upstanding males to be the ones who first discover the empty tomb.

This is just one of characteristics of these stories that Wright notes gives evidence of their authenticity.

Hearing The Sermon On The Mount With Communal Ears

One of the things we tend to do in our culture is to read the Scriptures as if they were primarily addressing individuals instead of a community. This perspective often makes us misunderstand what the Scriptures are really saying. For instance, listen to this snippet from Theology Today (January, 2008) that I recently saw in Christian Century (March 11, 2008)

Sigmund Freud is supposed to have said upon reading the Sermon on the Mount, “Impossible.” What Jesus commands is impossible if his sermon is read as a manual for personal ethics. However, David Buttrick argues that the commandments are meant to order communal life. When Jesus says that we’re not to look lustfully on another person, he doesn’t mean we have to shut off our sexual desires. Rather, Jesus is calling for “new order ‘sister/brother’ communities in which sexuality does not disrupt the affections of our life together.” When Jesus says, “You” in the sermon, we should hear it as “You all”; he’s addressing our life together

Jesus, The Subversive

In an article in the most recent issue of The Lutheran magazine, George S. Johnson asks, “Was Jesus subversive?” It is a question I have been thinking about as I have been preaching my way through Mark’s account of the last week of Jesus’ life.

There is no doubt that the Bible describes Jesus’ death as a sacrifice for sin, a ransom, an atonement. Nevertheless, Johnson notes that “there also is strong evidence in the Gospels that Jesus died because of what he said and did as a ‘subversive’ Jewish teacher who was a danger to the status quo.

The religious leaders of Jesus’ day wanted to silence Jesus because he called into question the established order. Take for instance the story of how Jesus shuts down the temple on the day after Palm Sunday. He wasn’t merely putting a halt to the buying and selling that was going on in the temple courtyard. Jesus was announcing the end of the temple because it had become a tool of exploitation and violated God’s intentions for God’s people.

I think this is important because to be a follower of Christ calls us to resist the forms of injustice that exist in our world. Being a disciple makes us part of a resistance movement that continues to work for justice.

If you want to read more about what Johnson says, click here.