Week 13

Psalm: Psalm 84
Old Testament: Joshua 24:1-2a, 14-18

Gospel: John 6:56-69

Epistle: Ephesians 6:10-20

Welcome to another Sunday.  August is just about over and by next Sunday, we will be in September.  I want to point out two things this week about how we ought to read some of these passages.  In this regard, it will sound less like a normal devotional and more like a biblical commentary.  In so many ways we read the Bible with all of our own preconceptions, ideas, and culture.  This is partially inevitable and never fully reversible, but it is always helpful to recognize this is so and what those “lenses” are in which we read the text.  I say this because in reading the Scripture this week, I noticed two things that challenge the way I had read the texts in the past.

First, our Psalm.  Psalm 84 declares the loveliness of the dwelling place of the Lord Almighty.  The writer cries out,

“My soul yearns, even faints,
    for the courts of the Lord;
my heart and my flesh cry out
    for the living God.”

Later, he says that “better is one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere.”  I’m sure we have all sung that song that quotes these very words.  But, listen to what the Psalmist says right after that, “I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God, than dwell in the tents of the wicked.”  I had always pictured this song solely about heaven, but I think the author has much more in mind.  The dwelling place of the Lord was viewed as the temple of God in Jerusalem.  The temple of God was where one met God and was able to sacrifice and make atonement.  It was a crucial aspect of the life of Israel.  I think when we read this Psalm, we ought to focus on the desire to spend time in the house of the Lord, here and now.  It is in this life that we ought to desire to be in the presence of God.

week 12

Psalm: Psalm 111

Old Testament: 1 Kings 2:10-12, 3:3-14
Gospel: John 6:51-58
Epistle: Ephesians 5:15-20

This week, I want to do something a little different.  Last week, I wanted to mostly explore the idea that Jesus declaring he is the bread of life reveals that he is from God, just like manna in the Old Testament.  I was planning on leaving it at that, but this week, the Gospel of John continues with the theme of Jesus as bread. So, of course, I think this is a good week to actually discuss the Eucharist.  I want to focus on the idea of the elements, the bread and the wine, actually becoming Jesus’ body and blood.

Like I said, this week will be different.  First, let me describe four broad and historical interpretations of the elements without getting into technical details.  1. Transubstantiation (the Roman Catholic position): in which substance becomes the flesh and blood whereas the “accidents”—taste, color, texture, etc. remain the same.  2. Consubstantiation (the Lutheran position): again, there is a real presence, but Christ’s presence is in, with, and under the elements.  Thus, when we receive the elements, we also receive the body and blood of Christ. 3. Spiritual presence (Reformed or Calvinist view): For Calvin, the presence of Christ is communicated by the Holy Spirit.  In a sense then, the real presence of Christ is received in Communion.  4. Memorialist view (Zwingli): in the elements we remember Christ’s sacrifice by reenacting the meal.

Week 11

Psalm: Psalm 130 

Old Testament: Numbers 19:11-16

Gospel: John 6:35, 41-51
Epistle: Ephesians 4:25-5:2

Does anybody else notice how August is always a great month of transition?  Schools are starting; jobs are ending or beginning; depending on where you live the weather might start to change; and this year the Olympics are coming to a close. This has nothing to do with the readings, but is just an observation.  We are moving on from the story of David and I have changed the Old Testament reading this week to fit the Gospel reading. One line in particular interests us.  Verse 11 says, “Whoever touches a human corpse will be unclean for seven days.”  In the Old Testament, lots of things could make one unclean.  The remedy was typically to wait the appointed time and then present a sacrifice to the priest to be clean again.  The average Israelite probably spent most of their time being unclean in some way or another.  Only the priests, or in Jesus’ day, maybe the Pharisees and such, were able to actually spend the time and energy to avoid anything unclean.

Week 10

Psalm: Psalm 51:1-12
Old Testament : 2 Samuel 11:26-12:13a
Gospel : John 6:24-35
Epistle : Ephesians 4:1-16

This week we continue the story of David, but I think we will finally be done with his story next week.  Last week, we stopped the story of David just after he had murdered Urriah to cover up his affair with Bathsheba.  After Bathsheba’s time of mourning is finished David marries her and everything seems to be fine and covered up.  But we finish chapter 11 with these words, “The thing David had done displeased the Lord.”  I don’t think there is a more foreboding sentence in the whole Bible.  The Lord knows what David did and sends Nathan to confront him.

Nathan is really crafty; he tells David a parable of a poor farmer who just has one little ewe who he cherishes more than anything.  But, a rich man comes and takes his ewe to feed a traveler because he didn’t want to take one of his own from his flock.  Of course, the story is filled with irony and injustice.  Custom demands that the rich man feeds and shelters the traveler, but the manner in which he does it does so much harm to his own neighbor and kinsmen.  David is outraged and even declares a death sentence on the rich man.  Nathan walked David right into a trap because David essentially declared a death sentence on himself when Nathan declares that “You are the man!”  David deserves death for his sin against Urriah.  David, the King of Israel, who had more wives than anyone took the wife of a poor foreigner and then even kills him to cover it up.  He’s worse even than the rich man in the parable.