Faith Scribbling

Focus Scripture: Mark 1:21-28 January 28, 2024 – 4 th Sunday After Epiphany Put It to the Test Jesus knows who and what we are. The lesson from Mark’s gospel today is one of many examples of this. Whether Jesus is calling a tax collector to be an apostle, asking another person to drop his fishing nets to follow, or identifying and casting out an unclean spirit, Jesus always knew what people were about. As Jesus is God, this is not surprising. Unfortunately, we are not always as adept at and equipped to do the same thing. Appearances and titles can throw us off, misleading us into being deceived by another. Depending on the context, this can and does do real harm. Until recently, this episode of Jesus silencing and casting out a demon did not seem remarkable to me. After all, there are many scenarios similar to this one in the Gospels. Maybe you recall Jesus casting out many demons into a herd of swine (Matt 8:28-34). While there are specific, detailed encounters like the one...

Focus Scripture: 1 Corinthians 7:29-31 January 21 – 3 rd Sunday After Epiphany Perspective Matters What does it feel like when someone discounts your feelings? What might you say when someone responds to your excitement or concern with some negative or dismissive comment? It does not feel good, right? Oh, you just got married? Well, that’s not going to last long. You are excited about that promotion at work? Curb your enthusiasm. You are mourning the death of a loved one? Get over it. Just considering this might be getting you a little angry or stressed, right? Maybe you are recalling a time when that happened. After all, most of us have experienced encounters in our lives when people just were not getting where we were coming from. Their empathy was lacking, they were insensitive or worse, and it made us feel bad. It would be easy to take this as Paul’s meaning in the letter to the church at Corinth. The time is short! Don’t get too involved in your life. The present ...

Focus Scripture: John 1:43-51 January 14, 2024 – 2 nd Sunday After Epiphany & Human Relations Day What Do You Expect? Among the many things we can say about Jesus is that he was full of surprises. From where he was born to how he conducted himself, Jesus was not a conformist. Today’s episode concerning his interaction with Nathanael is no exception. When I read this gospel passage, I visualize Jesus smiling, maybe even chuckling, when he spoke with Nathanael. As we have seen so many times, Jesus could see a person’s heart and verbalized his observations often. From the rich young man who loved his money too much to the Roman centurion who had greater faith than anyone else, Jesus knew the hearts of those he encountered. Who among us cannot relate to Nathanael and his reaction when first learning of Jesus? We do it all the time. When hearing of Jesus’s hometown, he famously remarked, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Just this week, there was a story that came o...

  Focus Scripture: Matthew 2:1-12 January 7, 2024 – Epiphany Sunday The Star Still Shines The world can be a very dark place. In places torn by war and other conflicts, there is darkness. In times throughout history when strongmen ruled, there was darkness. When people are marginalized, victimized, and squeezed for every penny the have in our consumerist culture, there is darkness. And even in Jesus’s time, when the Light of the World had entered the world, there was darkness. Yet, the star still shines. Matthew’s gospel brings us forward from where we were over the last two weeks – at the manger and in the temple to dedicate Jesus to God, to a time as long as two years after Jesus’s birth. The choir of angels is gone, the quiet of the silent night is a memory, and the joy Simeon and Anna expressed as in the past. Like so many scenarios we read about in the Gospels, there is tension in this one to balance with the joy. We have the joy of the visiting magi. The tension is ...

Focus Scripture: Luke 2:22-40 December 31, 2023 – 1 st Sunday after Christmas Indifference is Unlikely Some things we encounter in life elicit strong responses, some good, some bad. A song, a movie, an actor, an author, even a sports team: all can generate a response. I like the Eagles – the band, not the football team – but my wife can’t stand them. Why, I don’t know, but it is true. (How can you not sing along with “Desperado”? I don’t understand.) And the Dallas Cowboys, “America’s Team”: no thanks. But I know people who love them. Maybe that someone is you. Whatever your tastes, having these things to bicker and banter about can be good fun and a source of laughs as we stake out our positions. But sometimes, topics can generate much more serious responses. The being of Jesus Christ was and continues to be one of these more serious topics. As Christians, we should consider it the most consequential. In the Biblical narrative we just read (Gospel of Luke 2:22-40), we...

Focus Scriptures: Isaiah 9:2 and Titus 2:11 and Luke 2:1-20 December 24, 2023 – Christmas Eve The Light of the World The Great Light has entered the world! The people who have walked in darkness have seen it. The shepherds have seen it. Mary, the humble and faithful, gave birth to the baby Jesus and laid him in a manger as there was no other place to go. This quiet beginning led to events that changed the world, with effects that reverberate to this day. While there are many messages we could consider in this evening’s scriptures, there is just one I would like us to focus on: grace. Advent Wreath and Altar First UMC of Shelton God sent Jesus, God’s only son, to save us from ourselves. While we were and are unworthy of such great love and grace, God did it anyway. For God so loved the world – the people, us – that God sent Jesus Christ to take on our sin, to pay our debt, so we would be justified, redeemed, and able to live in the Light of God forever. Isaiah writes that we in...

Focus Scripture : Luke 1:26-38 December 24, 2023 – Fourth Sunday of Advent The Power of Yes   “For nothing will be impossible with God.” These are the final words of the angel Gabriel as he leaves Mary after delivering the big news and getting her “yes.” This yes turned the world upside down. What might your yes do? What might happen when we let God do a new thing in us and with us. The annunciation of the coming Christ child to Mary by Gabriel is a fascinating interaction, both for what Mary says and for what she doesn’t. I must imagine that for most of us, our reactions would be different. Let’s do a walk through the text of Luke 1:26-38 to see what I mean. Let us begin with the opening moments of the encounter between Gabriel and Mary, starting with Gabriel’s being and role. We see Gabriel appear four times in the Bible, twice to Daniel in the Old Testament, then twice in the new, one to announce the coming birth of John the Baptist to Elizabeth and in today’s Gospel...