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This week is difficult in many ways. The hairs on their head are numbered too...
God is the deliverer in face of evidence to the contrary, in the face of turmoil even in our own families.
The Witness: The Father's Day Distraction Let us take care not to be distracted!
Another interesting text for Father's day, and interestingly enough the Gospel of Thomas shed some light on this for me.
Jesus said, "Whoever does not hate his father and his mother as I do cannot become a disciple to Me. And whoever does not love his father and his mother as I do cannot become a disciple to Me. For My mother gave me falsehood, but My true Mother gave me life." (italics mine)
Jeremiah and Ishmael tell us of God's deliverance from death. The image of the helpless infant's cries under the cover of the bushes reaching the ears of God is powerful. God's provision, for him and his mother, is in contrast to Abraham's faithful action in sending them away. (Abraham is a hard example to preach for father's day.)
The psalmist echoes their prayer, "Preserve my life, for I am devoted to you…"
Jeremiah feels deceived by his heavenly father, but looks to him for deliverance. The psalmist again echo's his prayer, "It is for your sake that I have borne reproach…"
Paul inverts the deliverance of God in New Testament fashion. "So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus." Consider yourself dead to be considered alive by God. God's deliverance from death comes through death.
Jesus' own words echo this. "Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it." The statements about the sparrows and the hair on their head demonstrate that God cares more about them, so they should not worry about their own lives, in fact they must loose their lives to experience the life of God.
The sign on the Methodist church carries the sermon title, "Do it in Sebewaing." I haven't talked with Art about what he is doing, but keeping with my game of stealing his title, I can see how it works. The disciples were sent to work the wonders of Christ. As we praise the wonders of God with the psalmist, can we also begin to expect the same wonders done through us, proclaiming the Kingdom!?
This week we boast in what God has done. For he has done amazing things in and through us, things that make us laugh and things that make us cry.
Nowhere is the humor of the Bible more evident than in the scene of Abraham running around taking care of his guests and Sarah laughing at God's promise-joke. But look at what he did! Though they were as good as dead God promised the impossible and ridiculous.
"I love the LORD, because he has heard my voice and my supplications. Because he inclined his ear to me, therefore I will call on him as long as I live." The thanksgiving of the psalmist's heart fits. God is a doer of wonders.
"Therefore," says Paul. Look at all that God has done, ridiculous and wonderful. While we were enemies God loved, Christ died, and grace came! And not only the wonderful, but the ridiculous, we boast in our sufferings. Peace, Grace and God's Love poured in our hearts.
Jesus was a wonderworker in his life too. The Thaumaturge went around healing and teaching. Then he did the ridiculous. He sent the 12 to do the same.
The alternate readings also declare the wonders of God. In Exodus, God tells Moses to recount his mighty deeds in bearing the Israelites on eagles' wings out of Egypt. A more serious side of the wonder is displayed in this track. The Israelites are delivered to freedom and promise, and the Egyptian army delivered to the depths. The psalmist cries out his thanksgiving to a God who, "is good; his steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness to all generations."
In keeping with this line Paul declares the deliverance offered by the suffering Christ, and Jesus sends harvesters out to the plentiful declaring that deliverance to the kingdom of God is at hand.
I didn’t know what to make of these texts so I took a look at the gospel’s context in Matthew and the context in the synoptics:
The Kingdom extended under Jesus’ Authority (8:1-11:1)
Healing the paralytic (9:1-8)
Authority to forgive (9:6)
Authority in calling Matthew (9:9) He does not hesitate
Eats with sinners – sick need a physician not the well (9:9-13)
Eats-Celebrate while the bridegroom is there, fast when he is gone, (9:14-15)
Don’t put new wine in old skins (9:16-17)
Healings (9:18-26) Connecting these healings to the sayings above is uniquely Matthew.
2 blind men (9:27-31)
Cast out demons (9:32-34)
Harvest (9:35-38)
Commission 12 (10:1-16)
This section explores Jesus’ authority, in his call, in his actions, and in his mighty works.
Authority is a good heading for the other readings as well.
Abram’s experience is like that of Matthew. God calls and his authority demands a response. For Matthew it meant leaving his tax table behind, Abram his country. What we don’t see is deliberation or hesitation. Weather there was any or not, the point is that in the end there is no questioning God’s authority.
The psalmist declares, “By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and all their host by the breath of his mouth.” He goes on to describe what his authority has accomplished.
The Romans hear the authority of God, not in the law, or his commands but in Faith, “being fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised.”
The Hosea and Psalm alternate readings also explore authority in terms of his judgment and promises.
The past few weeks have been building his authority. What will we do with it?
