Faith Scribbling

February 25, 2024 – Second Sunday of Lent Focus Scriptures: Romans 4:13-25 and Mark 8:31-38 Covenants of Life Our faith, active trust in God, is central to our lives as Christians. When we have faith in God and faith that Jesus Christ is who he said he is – the son of God, The Way, The Truth, and The Life – we are entering into a sacred covenant of life that makes us understand why Jesus Christ came into the world in the first place. There are five central covenants on which our faith is built, covenants in the Bible going back to the covenant with Noah that we discussed with the children last week. From there, we move to the covenant we heard about this morning, God’s covenant with Abraham, a covenant that said he would be the father of many nations due to his faithfulness. From there we move to the Mosaic covenant. God gave the Israelites the law in the desert after leading them out of Egypt. God said, “I will be your God, and you will be my people.” And from this law, we s...

February 18, 2024 - First Sunday of Lent Focus Scripture: Mark 1:9-15 Wilderness and Wild Beasts “And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. He was in the wilderness for 40 days, tested by Satan, and he was with the wild beasts, and the angels waited on him.” These two sentences from the briefest of the gospels tell us much. They describe the relationship among the persons of God, they show and foreshadow sacrifice, and they hint at the challenges that our Lord and Savior endured to do his work, that which we will observe and celebrate six weeks from today. These two sentences and their images also give us an idea of how God is with us and works in us today. Let’s first take a moment to consider the contrast of events in this passage. Jesus is baptized by John in the Jordan. Then God speaks saying, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” Then, in the very next sentence, we are told that the Holy Sprit immediately compelled Jesus – drove J...

Focus Scripture: Mark 9:2-9 February 11, 2024 - Transfiguration Sunday and Scout Sunday Clarify and Prepare Sometimes, we need something special, significant, and memorable to give us the clarity we need to prepare for what is to come. A health scare might get someone to cut the junk food and go for the salads. A walk around the neighborhood might look more compelling than more time on the couch. Paying off a large debt and realizing the interest charges paid might get someone to think twice before doing it again. Even in school, a poor grade on a quiz might get us to buckle down and study hard for the final exam or to put in extra effort on the big project. The reality is that we have tons of information coming at us every day, but not all of it is significant or memorable. We remember the memorable, everything else is background noise. Today is Transfiguration Sunday, the gospel lesson is found in the 9 th chapter of Mark, more than halfway through this concise, 16-cha...

Focus Scriptures: 1 Corinthians 9:16-23 and Mark 1:29-39 February 4, 2024 – 5 th Sunday after Epiphany Just One More Our Christian faith is one of action. God expects us to do God’s work. God works in us, among us, and through us. Christianity requires effort. Both the 1 Corinthians and Mark scriptures this morning feature a driving force: the motivation to fulfill the mission for which one was created. Jesus is explicit: “That is what I came out to do” (v.38). Paul’s message is similar, as it should be: “I do it all for the sake of the gospel so that I might become a partner in it” (v.23). This statement from Paul is the conclusion to the text we just heard. It concludes his explanation that he will become as a Jew for the Jews, a Gentile for the Gentiles. In this description of Paul’s work, we see that he is willing to meet people wherever they are physically and spiritually to bring them to Christ. He wants to save some. God inspires us to action if we listen. In the ea...

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...