Sunday’s Coming

Scripture doesn't just shape the life of the community of faith. It also has a powerful effect on the lives of those who maintain distance from traditional religion, even those who explicitly deny religious faith.

According to Jesus, chances are good that there's not going to be much left of us once we've admitted to just how often stumbling blocks stand in our way. Whether others put them there or we find ways to place them ourselves, they trip us up, keep us from moving forward, get us off track.

Our proclivity for greatness is rather embarrassing, isn’t it? No wonder the disciples keep their mouths shut when Jesus inquires about the topic of their conversation on the road. We want it, and we want it big time—recognition, sway, importance—but we also get that we shouldn’t admit this out loud.

Each time I read these words from the beginning of Proverbs, I can't stop thinking about how much I would like to hear a child read them in worship.

In the Talmud, there is a story of a group of rabbis arguing over the status of a particular clay oven. Is it clean or unclean? Rabbi Eliezer stands alone against the interpretation given by his fellow sages, and he begins to call upon nature to confirm him.

My first piano teacher, Mr. Jackson, was the best. I didn't like him.

When I was in my mid 20s, I came down with pneumonia bad enough that I had to spend two weeks in the hospital. I felt cut off from everything. I had no idea what things were like on the outside.

When Martin Luther wrote, "I have so much to do that I shall spend the first three hours in prayer," I don't imagine that he meant to squeeze another three hours of work and relationships into the hours that remained.

In my Bible, this week's reading from Ephesians bears the title, "Rules for the New Life." The text reads like a laundry list of more or less unrelated instructions. Put away falsehood. Speak the truth, be angry but don't sin, and do not make room for the devil. Give up stealing and work honestly. Speak only what is useful for building up; do not grieve the Holy Spirit. Put away bitterness, anger, slander, and malice.

I've always admired the prophets. Their job of truth-telling required such courage and personal sacrifice. Yet they never held back. They spoke the truth no matter the consequences. I imagine they were lonely, then. Who could stand their challenging company for very long? Personal relationships, however, weren't the prophets' priority. Their job was to tell God's truth in a way that would be heard.

My husband came home one night confused and needing to talk. A friend of his had blown him off at work, and Dan couldn't figure out why. "I was standing there, waiting to talk to him, and he just walked away!" My husband was hurt and remorseful.

In his years as a pastor my husband read the 23rd Psalm at the bedsides of quite a few people who were dying. It was the most frequently requested passage among those who were facing their own going and still able to choose. When I began to volunteer for hospice, I found, as he had, that even for people who had wandered far from church, even for the skeptical and the uncertain, even for those who were unused to prayer and didn't want to be prayed over, the 23rd Psalm provided a place of return that was beautiful, familiar, inviting, and reassuring.

Perhaps there is a connection we shouldn't miss between David's dancing with all his might--uninhibited, unclad, unaware of disapproval--and the generosity with which he blesses and distributes food to all the people. Both are extravagant gestures that turn love into action, withholding nothing.

As a young minister in my early 20s, I was often admonished by the senior ministers to keep a guarded distance from laypeople. To get too close, they would say, is to become too familiar with a resulting loss of one's ministerial authority. They thought authority was protected by distance and diminished by relationships.

Not everything urgent is important. The difficulty is distinguishing between the two. In ministry, people's pressing needs seldom come before us in neat, conveniently timed packages. Instead, the minister is bombarded with legitimate requests and pleas from every side.

There is a puzzling and disturbing detail in Mark’s account of the storm at sea, one we often do not even notice. In verse 36, we are told that when Jesus heads across the sea with his disciples, “other boats were with him.”

On first reading, the two parables in today's Gospel text seem to make less and less sense. In the first, a sower seems to leave the seed to fend for itself. In the second, a tiny mustard seed becomes a bush large enough for its branches to provide shelter for birds. (In Matthew's telling, it's a full-size tree!) When we stop to think about it, both parables are preposterous.

The first Sunday's Coming email will feature a new piece by Justo González, along with past Century work by Nadia Bolz-Weber, John Buchanan, Brian Blount, and Lillian Daniel.

As she was about to open the gate, the sister glanced at the ground. Then she quickly removed her sandal, bent over, and began beating it on the ground.

I was not raised in the Mennonite church; I came to it later in life. It was primarily the commitment to nonviolence that drew me in, though I soon learned that there is more to like about being a Mennonite than that. One of the things I admire about Mennonites is their respect for history.