John 12:20-36
12:20 Now among those who went up to worship at the festival were some Greeks.
12:21 They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and said to him, "Sir, we wish to see Jesus."
12:22 Philip went and told Andrew; then Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus.
12:23 Jesus answered them, "The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.
12:24 Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the
earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears
much fruit.
12:25 Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.
12:26 Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also. Whoever serves me, the Father will honor.
12:27 "Now my soul is troubled. And what should I say--' Father, save me
from this hour'? No, it is for this reason that I have come to this
hour.
12:28 Father, glorify your name." Then a voice came from heaven, "I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again."
12:29 The crowd standing there heard it and said that it was thunder. Others said, "An angel has spoken to him."
12:30 Jesus answered, "This voice has come for your sake, not for mine.
12:31 Now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out.
12:32 And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself."
12:33 He said this to indicate the kind of death he was to die.
12:34 The crowd answered him, "We have heard from the law that the
Messiah remains forever. How can you say that the Son of Man must be
lifted up? Who is this Son of Man?"
12:35 Jesus said to them, "The light is with you for a little longer.
Walk while you have the light, so that the darkness may not overtake
you. If you walk in the darkness, you do not know where you are going.
12:36 While you have the light, believe in the light, so that you may
become children of light." After Jesus had said this, he departed and
hid from them.
Tuesday, March 31, 2015
Monday, March 30, 2015
Monday of Holy Week
John 12:1-11
12:1 Six days before the Passover Jesus came to Bethany, the home of Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead.
12:2 There they gave a dinner for him. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those at the table with him.
12:3 Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus' feet, and wiped them with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.
12:4 But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (the one who was about to betray him), said,
12:5 "Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?"
12:6 (He said this not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief; he kept the common purse and used to steal what was put into it.)
12:7 Jesus said, "Leave her alone. She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial.
12:8 You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me."
12:9 When the great crowd of the Jews learned that he was there, they came not only because of Jesus but also to see Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead.
12:10 So the chief priests planned to put Lazarus to death as well,
12:11 since it was on account of him that many of the Jews were deserting and were believing in Jesus.
12:1 Six days before the Passover Jesus came to Bethany, the home of Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead.
12:2 There they gave a dinner for him. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those at the table with him.
12:3 Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus' feet, and wiped them with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.
12:4 But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (the one who was about to betray him), said,
12:5 "Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?"
12:6 (He said this not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief; he kept the common purse and used to steal what was put into it.)
12:7 Jesus said, "Leave her alone. She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial.
12:8 You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me."
12:9 When the great crowd of the Jews learned that he was there, they came not only because of Jesus but also to see Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead.
12:10 So the chief priests planned to put Lazarus to death as well,
12:11 since it was on account of him that many of the Jews were deserting and were believing in Jesus.
Sunday, March 29, 2015
Mark 11:1-11
11:1 When they were approaching Jerusalem, at Bethphage and Bethany, near the Mount of Olives, he sent two of his disciples
11:2 and said to them, "Go into the village ahead of you, and immediately as you enter it, you will find tied there a colt that has never been ridden; untie it and bring it.
11:3 If anyone says to you, 'Why are you doing this?' just say this, 'The Lord needs it and will send it back here immediately.'"
11:4 They went away and found a colt tied near a door, outside in the street. As they were untying it,
11:5 some of the bystanders said to them, "What are you doing, untying the colt?"
11:6 They told them what Jesus had said; and they allowed them to take it.
11:7 Then they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks on it; and he sat on it.
11:8 Many people spread their cloaks on the road, and others spread leafy branches that they had cut in the fields.
11:9 Then those who went ahead and those who followed were shouting, "Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!
11:10 Blessed is the coming kingdom of our ancestor David! Hosanna in the highest heaven!"
11:11 Then he entered Jerusalem and went into the temple; and when he had looked around at everything, as it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the twelve.
11:2 and said to them, "Go into the village ahead of you, and immediately as you enter it, you will find tied there a colt that has never been ridden; untie it and bring it.
11:3 If anyone says to you, 'Why are you doing this?' just say this, 'The Lord needs it and will send it back here immediately.'"
11:4 They went away and found a colt tied near a door, outside in the street. As they were untying it,
11:5 some of the bystanders said to them, "What are you doing, untying the colt?"
11:6 They told them what Jesus had said; and they allowed them to take it.
11:7 Then they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks on it; and he sat on it.
11:8 Many people spread their cloaks on the road, and others spread leafy branches that they had cut in the fields.
11:9 Then those who went ahead and those who followed were shouting, "Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!
11:10 Blessed is the coming kingdom of our ancestor David! Hosanna in the highest heaven!"
11:11 Then he entered Jerusalem and went into the temple; and when he had looked around at everything, as it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the twelve.
Monday, March 23, 2015
Sunday, March 22, 2015
Old Testament Lectionary Reading for Lent 5
Jeremiah 31:31-34
The days are surely coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah.
It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt--a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the LORD.
But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel
after those days, says the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I
will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall
be my people.
No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, "Know the LORD," for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the LORD; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.
The days are surely coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah.
It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt--a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the LORD.
But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel
after those days, says the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I
will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall
be my people.No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, "Know the LORD," for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the LORD; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.
Sunday, March 15, 2015
Prayer
"Gracious Father, whose blessed Son Jesus Christ came down from heaven
to be the true bread which gives life to the world: Evermore give us
this bread, that he may live in us, and we in him; who lives and reigns
with you and Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen." - Book of
Common Prayer
Friday, March 13, 2015
Questions for today...
The cycle of death and resurrection is central to the Christian faith.
In what ways is that cycle present in my life right now?
Where might there be necessary change, suffering, death and decay, and how might new life emerge from those experiences?
In what ways is that cycle present in my life right now?
Where might there be necessary change, suffering, death and decay, and how might new life emerge from those experiences?
Tuesday, March 10, 2015
Grace
Weekly Sermon Illustration: Grace
On March 15, 2015 we will celebrate The Fourth Sunday in Lent. Here is this week’s reading from the book of Ephesians:
On March 15, 2015 we will celebrate The Fourth Sunday in Lent. Here is this week’s reading from the book of Ephesians:
Ephesians 2:1-9
You were dead through the trespasses and sins in which you once lived, following the course of this world, following the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work among those who are disobedient. All of us once lived among them in the passions of our flesh, following the desires of flesh and senses, and we were by nature children of wrath, life everyone else. But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ - by grace you have been saved - and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God - not the result of works, so that no one may boast.
Here are Frederick Buechner’s thoughts on grace, originally from Wishful Thinking and reprinted in Beyond Words:
After centuries of handling and mishandling, most religious words have become so shopworn nobody's much interested any more. Not so with grace, for some reason. Mysteriously, even derivatives like gracious and graceful still have some of the bloom left.
Grace is something you can never get but only be given. There's no way to earn it or deserve it or bring it about any more than you can deserve the taste of raspberries and cream or earn good looks or bring about your own birth.
A good sleep is grace and so are good dreams. Most tears are grace. The smell of rain is grace.
Somebody loving you is grace. Loving somebody is grace. Have you ever tried to love somebody?
A crucial eccentricity of the Christian faith is the assertion that people are saved by grace. There's nothing you have to do. There's nothing you have to do. There's nothing you have to do.
The grace of God means something like: Here is your life. You might never have been, but you are because the party wouldn't have been complete without you. Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid. I am with you. Nothing can ever separate us. It's for you I created the universe. I love you.
There's only one catch. Like any other gift, the gift of grace can be yours only if you'll reach out and take it.
Maybe being able to reach out and take it is a gift too.
From his Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/Frederick.Buechner.Center
You were dead through the trespasses and sins in which you once lived, following the course of this world, following the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work among those who are disobedient. All of us once lived among them in the passions of our flesh, following the desires of flesh and senses, and we were by nature children of wrath, life everyone else. But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ - by grace you have been saved - and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God - not the result of works, so that no one may boast.
Here are Frederick Buechner’s thoughts on grace, originally from Wishful Thinking and reprinted in Beyond Words:
After centuries of handling and mishandling, most religious words have become so shopworn nobody's much interested any more. Not so with grace, for some reason. Mysteriously, even derivatives like gracious and graceful still have some of the bloom left.
Grace is something you can never get but only be given. There's no way to earn it or deserve it or bring it about any more than you can deserve the taste of raspberries and cream or earn good looks or bring about your own birth.
A good sleep is grace and so are good dreams. Most tears are grace. The smell of rain is grace.
Somebody loving you is grace. Loving somebody is grace. Have you ever tried to love somebody?
A crucial eccentricity of the Christian faith is the assertion that people are saved by grace. There's nothing you have to do. There's nothing you have to do. There's nothing you have to do.
The grace of God means something like: Here is your life. You might never have been, but you are because the party wouldn't have been complete without you. Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid. I am with you. Nothing can ever separate us. It's for you I created the universe. I love you.
There's only one catch. Like any other gift, the gift of grace can be yours only if you'll reach out and take it.
Maybe being able to reach out and take it is a gift too.
From his Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/Frederick.Buechner.Center
Sunday, March 8, 2015
Affirmation
You call us to service;
to be your eyes and ears,
hands and voice in this your world.
To open our eyes not only
to the beauty and love which you create,
but the injustice,
hate and suffering that mankind generates.
To open our ears not only
to the chattering of this coming week,
but the searching,
fears and questioning of all whom we shall meet.
To open our hands not only
to those we choose our lives to share,
but in welcome,
love and fellowship to all who you draw near.
To open our mouths not only
to speak platitudes and simple words,
but the truths you lay upon our hearts.
Your Word for this your world.
You call us to service,
to be your eyes and ears,
hands and voice in this your world
to be your eyes and ears,
hands and voice in this your world.
To open our eyes not only
to the beauty and love which you create,
but the injustice,
hate and suffering that mankind generates.
To open our ears not only
to the chattering of this coming week,
but the searching,
fears and questioning of all whom we shall meet.
To open our hands not only
to those we choose our lives to share,
but in welcome,
love and fellowship to all who you draw near.
To open our mouths not only
to speak platitudes and simple words,
but the truths you lay upon our hearts.
Your Word for this your world.
You call us to service,
to be your eyes and ears,
hands and voice in this your world
Epistle Lectionary Reading for Lent 3
1 Corinthians 1:18-25
For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
For it is written, "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart."
Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?
For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, God decided, through the foolishness of our proclamation, to save those who believe.
For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom,
but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles,
but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.
For God's foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God's weakness is stronger than human strength.
For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
For it is written, "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart."
Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?
For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, God decided, through the foolishness of our proclamation, to save those who believe.
For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom,
but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles,
but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.
For God's foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God's weakness is stronger than human strength.
Thursday, March 5, 2015
Questions for Today
Lent is a time to listen to God, but sometimes God speaks through
others, particularly the poor, oppressed, marginalized, and suffering.
To whom should I be listening this season?
How can I cultivate a listening posture toward others whose perspective and experiences might differ from my own?
To whom should I be listening this season?
How can I cultivate a listening posture toward others whose perspective and experiences might differ from my own?
Wednesday, March 4, 2015
Want to Follow Christ? Count the Cost
By Elizabeth Hagan (click here for original post)
A sermon from: Mark 1:40-45
There are a lot of popular beliefs about what it means to follow Jesus.
Some would say that following Jesus means joining a religion.
Some would say that following Jesus is accepting his baptism or remembering his death through communion.
Some would say that following Jesus is about trying to live out his teachings of love and forgiveness.
All of these answers have value. But this morning I want to dig a little deeper. What does it really mean?
If we say we are following Jesus or we want to follow Jesus him more, then, will there be any cost?
When I was a young girl, I only dreamed of becoming one thing when I grew older: a teacher.
According to my mother, I’d line my dolls up as a preschooler and explain to them the differences in colors.
By 8 or 9, I frequently gathered all the books in our house and organized a classroom library in my room complete with a check out station with a due date stamp.
And, then by 15, I’d assembled bin after bin the attic of teaching supplies. I wanted to be more than equipped when my first job came!
So in 2002, when I graduated with my education degree and a teaching certification to go along with it, an assignment with my name on it came! But as most college graduates soon learn, you don’t exactly get the first job you apply for right away.
My 5th grade class sat in the middle of the city of Birmingham, AL. A place where segregation still felt as thick in the air as it did in the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. 95% of my students were on free and reduced lunch and I got no more than chalk for the chalkboard by way of supplies. You needed to be BFFs with the Vice Principal to use the one copier in the building.
So, needless to say, South Hampton Elementary was a rude awakening to this fantasy life I’d constructed in my head. And even though I arrived prepared with my books, flash cards and brought my own paper from home, teaching was much tougher than I thought.
The cost of living into what I thought was my dream job felt like endless stacks of papers to grade, lesson plans to write constantly and loosing my voice from talking to loudly to the children more days than I could count. I got little to no support from the administration. So, when the calling came on strong to begin seminary the next year, I shed no tears in packing up those bins and giving all those supplies to someone else!
Though a wonderful career for some people (and I know that was many of you at one time or another), elementary school teaching I decided had a cost that I could not take on.
Our gospel lesson for this morning provides us an opportunity to see Jesus on a similar journey: a journey where the cost of his path would be counted.
Ok, so remember last week, things were going strong for Jesus. He was healing and casting out demons at a record pace. Then, he takes a break, going to a quiet place to find strength. Then, he charges on forward accepting the fact so many more people needed to experience the love and healing power of God.
And the next significant person we are told Jesus meets is a leper.
It’s good to remember that being a leper in the time of Jesus was the great untouchable skin decease. Lepers weren’t allowed in the city walls. In fact, Old Testament cleanliness laws in fact dictate who can and can’t be around these folks within religious life. Lepers didn’t attend religious services in the temples. They weren’t included in any town events.
So, beyond being physically painful, a leprosy diagnoses came with emotional and spiritual pain.
And this is the kind of person we are told in verse 40 comes to Jesus.
He comes begging Jesus and kneels before him saying, “If you choose, you can make me clean.”
This man is asking not only for physical healing from his skin aliment but also for healing from his perpetual state of isolation.
And it’s an interesting choice of words, “If you choose.”
The man shows his faith by believing that Jesus can give him what he most wants, while also knowing that it might not be want Jesus will actually do.
And scripture tells us that “Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him” (HUGE deal by the way!) and said to him, “I do choose. Be made clean!”
Jesus then instructs the man to not tell anyone about what happened to him except the priest. For the priest’s blessing would return him to communal life and worship—so his spirit may be healed as well.
Yet, if we stop for a moment, I think what is most interesting about the healing exchange between Jesus and the man with leprosy is the parallel language.
The man says, Jesus “if you choose, heal me.” And Jesus replies back, “I do choose.”
What’s all the choice business really about?
The deeper story is this: as the man is healed from leprosy, his whole posture in the world will soon change. He could move around freely in a crowd. He could invite family members over for dinner on an average Sunday night. He could basically do whatever he wants again, something his disease has not given him the privilege of in most likely many years!
While the man gets exactly what he wants, his healing comes with a cost. His life will be lived in a different world.
And similarly for Jesus, as he heals this man, according to Mark’s fast paced account of Jesus’ life, this will be THE moment when Jesus’ place of being in the world will change too.He won’t be able to move freely in a crowd. He won’t be able to invite family over for dinner on an average Sunday night. He won’t be able to do whatever he wants anymore.
This is especially true because the healed man does not keep his mouth shut as Jesus asks him to do.
For verse 45 tells us that “But [the man] went out and began to proclaim [the healing] freely, and to spread the word, so that Jesus could no longer go into a town openly.”
For as Jesus heals, it costs him this: he donates his freedom to the other man.
And in all of this, it’s a moment for Jesus to set himself one step closer the cross. A cross that would in only a matter of time ask Jesus to give up everything. Absolutely everything so that you and I would know what true love is all about.
For though, we often think of Jesus’ big moment of sacrifice as the occasion that we celebrate on Good Friday—what a testimony this account is!
First of all, we can’t expect that following Jesus will come without cost.
And second, we can’t follow Jesus and not make small, everyday choices that lead our lives toward the cross too, just like him.
But this is NOT what cultural Christianity teaches us. In my experience:
We are taught that following Jesus is about feeling good no matter what if we have a Bible verse to hang on a problem.
We are taught that following Jesus is about the right things coming easily.
We are taught that following Jesus is about having hope that we know where we’ll go when we die.
And while some of these sentiments may be a part of the story, they aren’t the story.
One of the most prominent theologians to come out of the 20th century was a German by the name of Dietrich Bonheoffer.
One of his classic texts, still widely read today is called, The Cost of Discipleship. Within it, he challenges readers with the difference between “cheap grace” and “costly grace.”
“Cheap grace,” Bonheoffer wrote, “is the grace we bestow on ourselves…grace without discipleship…. Costly grace is the gospel, which must be sought again and again…. It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life.”
Bonheoffer practiced what he preached about the cost of following Jesus because at several junctures he made choices that did not come without a price.
As the Second World War began, Bonheoffer who had studied theology in the US had a choice. He could take a teaching job stateside at an Ivy League School. Or he could go home. He chose to return to Europe, to his own country and be and teach the people who needed what he’d learned the most.
When congregating for religious study and practice was banded in Germany, Bonheoffer made the choice to lead an underground seminary where pastors and leaders could still be trained.
When the reports of the capture, torture and death of millions of Jews at the hands of Hitler grew more pronounced, Bonheoffer made the choice to assist with an assassination plot against Hitler.
This choice eventually cost him his life.
I’m not trying to be a downer. Or even say that all or any of us will be asked to die for our faith in Christ.
But what I am saying is this: it’s easy to believe in a cost-less discipleship way. It’s easy to believe in cheap grace. Or grace that cost us nothing.
But the stories of scriptures and stories of faithful ones throughout the ages teach us that these sentiments aren’t true.
And the word I found coming to my tongue was surrender.
I realized that in 2015, what God needed more from Elizabeth Hagan was letting go of control. Not being obsessed so much with what I wanted the outcome of my life to be, but whatever God had in mine.
My friend shared with me more about her word and then I shocked us both when I said: “You know what, this is what I think I’ve come to know about Jesus, the longer I follow him. If it aint hard, it aint Jesus.”
And I really believe such is true. There’s so much my friends that you can I can do perfectly good and well on our own. There are lots of good things that you and I can achieve seemingly without divine intervention.
But if we really want to follow Jesus, then the cost is going to be surrender.
It’s going to be loss
.
It’s going to be costly.
Jesus healed the man with leprosy. And the cost was: he never again got away from the spotlight and cameras and people in his face.
The Skin Horse had lived longer in the nursery than any of the others. He was so old that his brown coat was bald in patches and showed the seams underneath, and most of the hairs in his tail had been pulled out to string bead necklaces.
“What is REAL?” asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. “Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?”
“Real isn’t how you are made,” said the Skin Horse. “It’s a thing that happens to you. . . “
“Does it hurt?” asked the Rabbit.
“Sometimes,” said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. “When you are Real you don’t mind being hurt.”
Does the cost of discipleship hurt? Sometimes. But when you are following Jesus really following Jesus you don’t mind being so hurt. The path of the cross leads you to your truest home and into the arms of a Savior who says no matter what you go through love will follow you and life will be ok.
AMEN
A sermon from: Mark 1:40-45
There are a lot of popular beliefs about what it means to follow Jesus.
Some would say that following Jesus means joining a religion.
Some would say that following Jesus is accepting his baptism or remembering his death through communion.
Some would say that following Jesus is about trying to live out his teachings of love and forgiveness.
All of these answers have value. But this morning I want to dig a little deeper. What does it really mean?
If we say we are following Jesus or we want to follow Jesus him more, then, will there be any cost?
When I was a young girl, I only dreamed of becoming one thing when I grew older: a teacher.
According to my mother, I’d line my dolls up as a preschooler and explain to them the differences in colors.
By 8 or 9, I frequently gathered all the books in our house and organized a classroom library in my room complete with a check out station with a due date stamp.
And, then by 15, I’d assembled bin after bin the attic of teaching supplies. I wanted to be more than equipped when my first job came!
So in 2002, when I graduated with my education degree and a teaching certification to go along with it, an assignment with my name on it came! But as most college graduates soon learn, you don’t exactly get the first job you apply for right away.
My 5th grade class sat in the middle of the city of Birmingham, AL. A place where segregation still felt as thick in the air as it did in the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. 95% of my students were on free and reduced lunch and I got no more than chalk for the chalkboard by way of supplies. You needed to be BFFs with the Vice Principal to use the one copier in the building.
So, needless to say, South Hampton Elementary was a rude awakening to this fantasy life I’d constructed in my head. And even though I arrived prepared with my books, flash cards and brought my own paper from home, teaching was much tougher than I thought.
The cost of living into what I thought was my dream job felt like endless stacks of papers to grade, lesson plans to write constantly and loosing my voice from talking to loudly to the children more days than I could count. I got little to no support from the administration. So, when the calling came on strong to begin seminary the next year, I shed no tears in packing up those bins and giving all those supplies to someone else!
Though a wonderful career for some people (and I know that was many of you at one time or another), elementary school teaching I decided had a cost that I could not take on.
Our gospel lesson for this morning provides us an opportunity to see Jesus on a similar journey: a journey where the cost of his path would be counted.
Ok, so remember last week, things were going strong for Jesus. He was healing and casting out demons at a record pace. Then, he takes a break, going to a quiet place to find strength. Then, he charges on forward accepting the fact so many more people needed to experience the love and healing power of God.
And the next significant person we are told Jesus meets is a leper.
It’s good to remember that being a leper in the time of Jesus was the great untouchable skin decease. Lepers weren’t allowed in the city walls. In fact, Old Testament cleanliness laws in fact dictate who can and can’t be around these folks within religious life. Lepers didn’t attend religious services in the temples. They weren’t included in any town events.
So, beyond being physically painful, a leprosy diagnoses came with emotional and spiritual pain.
And this is the kind of person we are told in verse 40 comes to Jesus.
He comes begging Jesus and kneels before him saying, “If you choose, you can make me clean.”
This man is asking not only for physical healing from his skin aliment but also for healing from his perpetual state of isolation.
And it’s an interesting choice of words, “If you choose.”
The man shows his faith by believing that Jesus can give him what he most wants, while also knowing that it might not be want Jesus will actually do.
And scripture tells us that “Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him” (HUGE deal by the way!) and said to him, “I do choose. Be made clean!”
Jesus then instructs the man to not tell anyone about what happened to him except the priest. For the priest’s blessing would return him to communal life and worship—so his spirit may be healed as well.
Yet, if we stop for a moment, I think what is most interesting about the healing exchange between Jesus and the man with leprosy is the parallel language.
The man says, Jesus “if you choose, heal me.” And Jesus replies back, “I do choose.”
What’s all the choice business really about?
The deeper story is this: as the man is healed from leprosy, his whole posture in the world will soon change. He could move around freely in a crowd. He could invite family members over for dinner on an average Sunday night. He could basically do whatever he wants again, something his disease has not given him the privilege of in most likely many years!
While the man gets exactly what he wants, his healing comes with a cost. His life will be lived in a different world.
And similarly for Jesus, as he heals this man, according to Mark’s fast paced account of Jesus’ life, this will be THE moment when Jesus’ place of being in the world will change too.He won’t be able to move freely in a crowd. He won’t be able to invite family over for dinner on an average Sunday night. He won’t be able to do whatever he wants anymore.
This is especially true because the healed man does not keep his mouth shut as Jesus asks him to do.
For verse 45 tells us that “But [the man] went out and began to proclaim [the healing] freely, and to spread the word, so that Jesus could no longer go into a town openly.”
For as Jesus heals, it costs him this: he donates his freedom to the other man.
And in all of this, it’s a moment for Jesus to set himself one step closer the cross. A cross that would in only a matter of time ask Jesus to give up everything. Absolutely everything so that you and I would know what true love is all about.
For though, we often think of Jesus’ big moment of sacrifice as the occasion that we celebrate on Good Friday—what a testimony this account is!
First of all, we can’t expect that following Jesus will come without cost.
And second, we can’t follow Jesus and not make small, everyday choices that lead our lives toward the cross too, just like him.
But this is NOT what cultural Christianity teaches us. In my experience:
We are taught that following Jesus is about feeling good no matter what if we have a Bible verse to hang on a problem.
We are taught that following Jesus is about the right things coming easily.
We are taught that following Jesus is about having hope that we know where we’ll go when we die.
And while some of these sentiments may be a part of the story, they aren’t the story.
One of the most prominent theologians to come out of the 20th century was a German by the name of Dietrich Bonheoffer.
One of his classic texts, still widely read today is called, The Cost of Discipleship. Within it, he challenges readers with the difference between “cheap grace” and “costly grace.”
“Cheap grace,” Bonheoffer wrote, “is the grace we bestow on ourselves…grace without discipleship…. Costly grace is the gospel, which must be sought again and again…. It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life.”
Bonheoffer practiced what he preached about the cost of following Jesus because at several junctures he made choices that did not come without a price.
As the Second World War began, Bonheoffer who had studied theology in the US had a choice. He could take a teaching job stateside at an Ivy League School. Or he could go home. He chose to return to Europe, to his own country and be and teach the people who needed what he’d learned the most.
When congregating for religious study and practice was banded in Germany, Bonheoffer made the choice to lead an underground seminary where pastors and leaders could still be trained.
When the reports of the capture, torture and death of millions of Jews at the hands of Hitler grew more pronounced, Bonheoffer made the choice to assist with an assassination plot against Hitler.
This choice eventually cost him his life.
I’m not trying to be a downer. Or even say that all or any of us will be asked to die for our faith in Christ.
But what I am saying is this: it’s easy to believe in a cost-less discipleship way. It’s easy to believe in cheap grace. Or grace that cost us nothing.
But the stories of scriptures and stories of faithful ones throughout the ages teach us that these sentiments aren’t true.
The way of Jesus WILL cost us something. Or a lot of something as we journey our life through.
I have a dear friend in whom I talk about things of faith all the time. Several weeks ago, both of us shared our thoughts for the New Year. What were we hoping for in 2015?And the word I found coming to my tongue was surrender.
I realized that in 2015, what God needed more from Elizabeth Hagan was letting go of control. Not being obsessed so much with what I wanted the outcome of my life to be, but whatever God had in mine.
My friend shared with me more about her word and then I shocked us both when I said: “You know what, this is what I think I’ve come to know about Jesus, the longer I follow him. If it aint hard, it aint Jesus.”
And I really believe such is true. There’s so much my friends that you can I can do perfectly good and well on our own. There are lots of good things that you and I can achieve seemingly without divine intervention.
But if we really want to follow Jesus, then the cost is going to be surrender.
It’s going to be loss
.
It’s going to be costly.
Jesus healed the man with leprosy. And the cost was: he never again got away from the spotlight and cameras and people in his face.
And who are we to think we are that it will be any different for us?
My favorite description of such real living comes from a children’s book called the Velveteen Rabbit.The Skin Horse had lived longer in the nursery than any of the others. He was so old that his brown coat was bald in patches and showed the seams underneath, and most of the hairs in his tail had been pulled out to string bead necklaces.
“What is REAL?” asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. “Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?”
“Real isn’t how you are made,” said the Skin Horse. “It’s a thing that happens to you. . . “
“Does it hurt?” asked the Rabbit.
“Sometimes,” said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. “When you are Real you don’t mind being hurt.”
Does the cost of discipleship hurt? Sometimes. But when you are following Jesus really following Jesus you don’t mind being so hurt. The path of the cross leads you to your truest home and into the arms of a Savior who says no matter what you go through love will follow you and life will be ok.
AMEN
Tuesday, March 3, 2015
Devotional
By: Kathryn Cartledge(click here for original post)
"
I lift up my eyes to the hills - from where will my help come? My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth."
-- Psalm 121:1-8
-- Psalm 121:1-8
This
Psalm was written to be sung and clearly it speaks of God always
watching over us. God is awake and neither slumbers or sleeps!
The
last two verses are a powerful benediction: "The Lord will keep you
from all evil; he will keep your life. The Lord will keep your going
out and your coming in from this time on and forever".
Sitting
in my living room I am literally surrounded by mountains. Most every
day when I see them, I see beauty. I see the oldest mountains in the
country and I am filled with awe and gratitude. I seek their wisdom and
energy and I feel secure in their embrace.
Other
days though - I must admit that I lift up my eyes to the hills and I
can only see what I fear. I see dark and ominous things. My eyelids
are heavy with a sense of insecurity and need. My eyes are held down
with self doubt and helplessness. On these days, it is obvious that I
have rolled down the hill into a shallow place.
From where will my help come?
I
wish, on these days, that I could stand right up, brush myself off and
sing aloud, "My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth".
Just
so you know it's not because I can't sing that I don't do this....it is
because I forget all about God and look to every one and to everything
else.
Prayer:
God, I am so glad that you are
awake! You are watching as I stumble and roll around in my own mental
mess. I pray that I use my mind and heart to remember all of the ways
that you are present in my life and that I can hold onto the assurance
that you have my back, coming and going, forever, Amen.
Monday, March 2, 2015
Sunday, March 1, 2015
New Testament Lectionary Passage for Lent Second Week
Mark 8:31-38
Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.
He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.
But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, "Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things."
He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, "If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.
For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.
For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life?
Indeed, what can they give in return for their life?
Those who are ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels."
Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.
He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.
But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, "Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things."
He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, "If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.
For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.
For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life?
Indeed, what can they give in return for their life?
Those who are ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels."
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