Texts for the coming Sunday can be found here .When I -- not the most spatially inclined person in the world -- took my stained glass class last year -- I quickly learned the importance of proper measurement; of keeping rulers and edges straight. Sloppiness, even to a small degree, can skew and distort the entire picture.
This week our texts speak to the value of "straightening up." On Sunday you may read the Deuteronomy text where the people of Israel are exhorted to internalize the Law they've been given, so that they may enjoy an abundant, peaceful life. Or you may read the Amos text where God's plumb line shows Amos' society to be askew and in need of reform. In one of our alternate Psalms God outlines how to straighten up an unjust society; in the other the Psalmist prays for wisdom and guidance. In our epistle lesson Paul expresses his hopes that the Colossian Christians may continue along the right path. And our Gospel lesson Jesus, in response to a lawyerly question about how to inherit internal life, sets God's plumb line not against one's proper observance of ritual law, but against one's demonstration of compassion and mercy.
What's your straight-up take on our texts this week? As always, here's the place to share insights, questions and plans.
I'm going to a conference this weekend, so no preaching for me this week.
ReplyDeleteI did want to share something from a member of the congregation. She told me her 5 year old daughter asked if boys can be ministers too?
Maybe the world is changing!
Love that little girl!!
ReplyDeleteThanks for the start, LutheranChick. I read the lessons yesterday and was singularly uninspired. This may be one of the shortest sermons I've ever preached. I do like the plumbline in Amos and it fits well with the gospel. After I have said that, I may just ask people to spend time in silence examining their lives against the plumbline and then sit down!
Another thought. I am a Wii Fit junkie and I have come to realize that everything begins with posture and balance. This may be the week I work the Wii into a sermon! One of my friends has been waiting for it since I got the thing. ;-)
ReplyDeleteI'm not preaching this week, but I am trying to think of ways we can bring the lectionary texts into next week's mission trip. So yesterday I was reading the Amos text and sort of pseudo-praying-in-color and when I looked down I realized I had a line surrounded by people, and I couldn't even help but put a cross beam on the line. I know I'm not the first person to think that maybe the cross is a plumb line set in the midst of the people, a sign of never being left by God...what's weird is that's not EVEN remotely like my theology of the cross. It just came to mind.
ReplyDeleteI'll be intrigued to read other thoughts on the various texts as I work them into the devotions for next week! :-)
I've been vaguely wondering about doing the sermon as an Ignatian-style imagined exercise of entering of us into the story ... going down the track of putting ourselves in the place of the person by the side of the road. Hmmmm. Yup. That's about it so far. Argh.
ReplyDeleteIn my first read-through, I'm pondering the idea that the parable illustrates the _whole_ law; I'm also pondering the call to action: "mercy" is not a state of mind but something one "shows", and the lawyer is told to go and DO likewise.
ReplyDeletesome vague messing about on the Luke text here
ReplyDeleteAh, PRL's little girl has set MY world straight!!!
ReplyDeleteI'm off this weekend because the church I've been serving as interim associate has a candidate coming to preach!
ReplyDeleteBut in the dim past, I turned the Good Samaritan into a worship drama, and it's posted on my blog.
I'm intrigued by Amos' complaint that he was "just a herdsman and a dresser of sycamore trees" and the Colossians' reading with its imagery of bearing fruit and being transplanted/transferred. I'm not sure if I'll do anything with this, but it has some possibilities amidst the other harsher elements of this week's readings.
ReplyDeleteI am bouncing around on the plumbline and gospel, but now I like MC's idea with Colossians text too. Sigh.
ReplyDeleteNot coming up with much yet.
In response to Margaret's comment about the Wii Fit ... I am a lay person who leading worship this week while the pastor is on vacation. And I was thinking of using the Wii Fit imagery as well! I was just beginning to think it was a stupid idea when I read that comment ... so you've given me some confidence. Thanks!!
ReplyDeleteSupply preaching this week on the Good Samaritan. Stuck with a "Who is My Neighbor?" title, but I'm going to ignore it, I think. Mumbling in my head...a multi-part sermon where we identify with each character in the parable and ponder "go and do likewise" in reference to each. ? Still not sure about that.
ReplyDelete@ Esperanza - ooooh, liking that idea immensely!! Has sparked off a train of thought - thanks :)
ReplyDeleteSome years ago, on a sunny afternoon, I--a priest--was driving slowly along a suburban residential street when I saw ahead of me a man lying in the gutter. As my car drew nearer, I searched for any sign of movement, any sign of his being okay and just slumped over there looking for a dropped key or something, any sign of someone else in the area who was already helping him. I thought of the good clothes I was wearing, of my need to get home quickly so that I could turn around and get back out to a (church) meeting, of my expired CPR card, of the possible danger if he was there because someone had attacked him. I actually drove past, having convinced myself it would be better to get home and call 911 to respond. About 50 feet past him, I came to my senses--or maybe God's senses rather than mine--pulled over, and helped him. Turned out he was staggeringly drunk; I hope the house into which I helped him really was his own! The incident has stuck with me, and I have never again looked at the Good Sam parable quite the same way, especially the priest who passed by on the other side of the road.
ReplyDeleteBetsy -- wow. you lived the good samaritan story.
ReplyDeleteMy title is: "Whose neighbor are we, anyway?" and that's as far as I have gotten.
I'm definitely going for the Good Sam story - I've spent two weeks in the OT and I think the congregation might revolt if I don't head back to the NT. (Crazy associate minister - you never know what she's going to do when the senior's out of town!)
ReplyDeleteI'm thinking about preaching about the church community. There are so many different "communities" we have in our lives nowadays - different than 50 years ago where church was central to your "community," so what is it that makes our church communities unique? Is it primarily social? Is it that we can participate in service projects? Is it that we speak to relevant issues? There's something about the understanding of "neighbor" that makes a faith community unique and quite different from any other community we find ourselves to be a part of.
Maybe I can somehow address the "gun issue" in Louisiana - but probably not - I'll leave those fireworks for the senior minister to address when he gets back from vacation. :D
I've been asked to preach on Haiti, so the lectionary will be a great help here, given the story of the Good Samaritan - but I plan to be very, very careful to avoid making it simplistic.
ReplyDeleteSarah-- I'm thinking about a group of Outsiders too--the African immigrants who somehow were directed to settle in a nearby post-industrial, economically-depressed city full of reactionary underemployed working-class "whites." I can't think of a much less welcoming place for those immigrants to seek a new life. They certainly seem to fit the profile of "despised foreigner," i.e. Samaritan.
ReplyDeleteIt seems Amos, the epistle and the Gospel reading all reflect the experience of a dislocated or relocated/transplanted person trying to do the right thing in a new place or context amidst the misunderstandings and suspicions of others. That's my starting point, anyway.