blocked healing

Good evening friends,

In yesterday's reading Jesus healed a man who had been unable to walk for years. In today's reading the religious leaders scold the man for carrying his mat on the Sabbath. In our time this feels like a really silly concern, but for Jewish leaders under Roman occupation every decision about following the commandments (including the Sabbath commandment to rest) must have felt like a possibility to support or turn away from God's rules that kept the community together. 

Instead of thinking badly about the leaders, I invite us to consider where we have been inflexible with others. Where have you resisted, rejected or thought unkindly about someone because "you can't do/say/dress like that in church?" Where have you let appearances or manners keep you from seeing a miracle God might be trying to do in your community? Where have you let your own self criticism block a miracle God might want to work in your life?

May we all find God's healing,
Sam

John 5:9b-18

Now that day was a sabbath. ¹⁰So the Jews said to the man who had been cured, “It is the sabbath; it is not lawful for you to carry your mat.” ¹¹But he answered them, “The man who made me well said to me, ‘Take up your mat and walk.’” ¹²They asked him, “Who is the man who said to you, ‘Take it up and walk’?” ¹³Now the man who had been healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had disappeared in the crowd that was there.¹⁴Later Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, “See, you have been made well! Do not sin any more, so that nothing worse happens to you.”¹⁵The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well. 

¹⁶Therefore the Jews started persecuting Jesus, because he was doing such things on the sabbath. ¹⁷But Jesus answered them, “My Father is still working, and I also am working.” ¹⁸For this reason the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because he was not only breaking the sabbath, but was also calling God his own Father, thereby making himself equal to God. 

preaching in context

Good afternoon friends,
Yesterday we read about Paul exploring in Athens and starting to share his faith. After being invited to a major spot for philosophical and religious discussion, Paul begins his message. Notice how he approaches things differently with an audience that won't know the basics of his religion. We have to know who we're sharing with if we're going to tell the story in a way that means something to them.

God bless,
Sam

Acts 17:22-34

22 Then Paul stood in front of the Areopagus and said, ‘Athenians, I see how extremely religious you are in every way. ²³For as I went through the city and looked carefully at the objects of your worship, I found among them an altar with the inscription, “To an unknown god.” What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. ²⁴The God who made the world and everything in it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by human hands, ²⁵nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mortals life and breath and all things.

²⁶From one ancestor he made all nations to inhabit the whole earth, and he allotted the times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live, ²⁷so that they would search for God and perhaps grope for him and find him—though indeed he is not far from each one of us. ²⁸For “In him we live and move and have our being”; as even some of your own poets have said, “For we too are his offspring.”

²⁹Since we are God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the deity is like gold, or silver, or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of mortals. ³⁰While God has overlooked the times of human ignorance, now he commands all people everywhere to repent, ³¹because he has fixed a day on which he will have the world judged in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed, and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.’

32 When they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some scoffed; but others said, ‘We will hear you again about this.’ ³³At that point Paul left them. ³⁴But some of them joined him and became believers, including Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris, and others with them.

starting a conversation

Good evening friends,
We continue the story of Philip and the Ethiopian Eunuch. Yesterday we saw an angel send Philip to a wilderness road between Gaza and Jerusalem. Then the Holy Spirit told Philip to go up to a chariot he saw there, with the eunuch inside. What happens next humbles me and, tradition says, gave birth to the Ethiopian Church, which is still active today.

God bless,
Sam

Acts 8:32-40

³²Now the passage of the scripture that he was reading was this: “Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter, and like a lamb silent before its shearer, so he does not open his mouth. ³³In his humiliation justice was denied him. Who can describe his generation? For his life is taken away from the earth.”

³⁴The eunuch asked Philip, “About whom, may I ask you, does the prophet say this, about himself or about someone else?” ³⁵Then Philip began to speak, and starting with this scripture, he proclaimed to him the good news about Jesus. ³⁶As they were going along the road, they came to some water; and the eunuch said, “Look, here is water! What is to prevent me from being baptized?” ³⁸He commanded the chariot to stop, and both of them, Philip and the eunuch, went down into the water, and Philip baptized him.

³⁹When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord snatched Philip away; the eunuch saw him no more, and went on his way rejoicing. ⁴⁰But Philip found himself at Azotus, and as he was passing through the region, he proclaimed the good news to all the towns until he came to Caesarea.