Category: Commentary

The first reading today is from Proverbs 1:1-7.

What does a Christian life look like? In the abstract, that seems pretty simple: love God and love your neighbors as yourself. That’s the Greatest Commandment as Jesus describes it. But life isn’t abstract. Our lives are filled with events and people. When it comes to the nitty gritty of daily living, it’s sometimes hard to live the way God wants us too. Up to this point in the bible, we’ve heard much about kings and queens, leaders, prophets, and priests. But what if we are not royalty? How are we to act? Well, that’s what the book of proverbs is all about.

The book of Proverbs describes itself as wisdom, the knowledge gained through life experience. By examining these short sayings, a person can uncover what holy living looks like. The beginning of this journey is centered on the fear of God. But “fear” doesn’t mean to be afraid. Rather, this fear is to be awestruck by just how awesome God is. Wisdom literature (like Job, the Psalms, and Proverbs) unwrap how awesome God is and how we can act towards the world God made.

As Christians, Proverbs helps frame what we face in our daily lives. Doing what proverbs asks does not put us in a right relationship with God. Only through Christ and the Cross are we reconciled (brought into a right relationship) with God. Through this Christian lens, we look at proverbs to discover the grace and mercy we are called to share with the world. Proverbs doesn’t help us save the world (only Christ can do that) but proverbs helps us to live in a world and discern what God has in mind for all of us.

Each week, I write a reflection on one of our scripture readings for the week. This is from Christ Lutheran Church’s Worship Bulletin for 7/17/2016.

The first reading today is from Psalm 121.

I’m a big fan of questions. I like asking questions, love answering questions, and I enjoy starting my sermons out with questions. Questions help frame a conversation. They guide me, letting me explore all the possibilities such a question comes up with. A question enhances my creativity. And that’s what Psalm 121 does today when it begins with a question. The author asks, “Where will my help come from?” The author is posing a question and, in the next 7 verses, will explore possible answers.

The author of this psalm first looks to the hills for help. Hills might be a strange place to look for help but, when we’re in need, looking upwards is a normal response. We might feel we are trapped in a valley, surrounded on all sides by what is afflicting or bothering us. We look for a way out, so we look up, towards the hills that around us. Cities, castles, and fortifications were usually built on hills, providing some protection and defense during a military attack. A hill is a safer space than a valley so that’s where the author first looks.

But hills, the places where people live, build cities, and towers, is not where the author finds final strength. A hill cannot overpower or protect from the God that created it. The author turns to the ultimate creator, God, for protection. The psalm assures us that we are seen, noticed, and protected by the God who created all hills and all seas. In verses 3-8, the word “keep” is used six times. It’s used in this case to mean “watch over,” like a guard protecting a city a night. God isn’t just protecting us, God is watching us, guiding us, through trouble and strife. And this guidance does not happen only once. God continues this process, over and over again, through this life and into the next. 

Each week, I write a reflection on one of our scripture readings for the week. This is from Christ Lutheran Church’s Worship Bulletin for 7/10/2016.

The first reading today is from Psalm 98.

What’s your favorite new song? One of my personal joys is going to library book sales and digging through their old cd collections. I try to find songs and albums filled with the music I heard on the radio while I was growing up. In the process, I discover songs I never heard before by bands that fill the soundtrack of my youth. These songs are old but they are new to me. 

Psalm 98 is a hymn of praise separated into 3 stanzas. It begins with the command that all of us should sing a new song to God. But what would be a new song to God? For the author of this psalm, something amazing has happened. God delivered the people of Israel from some kind of national crisis. We don’t know what happened (an enemy army could have invaded) but the people survived. The people are called to sing a song of thankfulness and praise. God saved the people and, sometimes, the most proper response is to sing.

But the psalm isn’t saying that only the people of Israel are called to sing. Everyone, everywhere, is invited to tell what God has done. This isn’t a song for only one kind of people in one kind of place. God’s deliverance of Israel is a sign to everyone that God is present and active in the world. Saving Israel from a national calamity isn’t only good news for Israel; it’s good news for the world. God is a God who cares for God’s people and God’s world. And a world that’s commanded to sing a new song is a world called to sing God’s love song to the ends of the earth.

Each week, I write a reflection on one of our scripture readings for the week. This is from Christ Lutheran Church’s Worship Bulletin for 7/03/2016.

The first reading today is from Psalm 63.

By the end of the day today, according to our Year with the Bible reading schedule, we’ll have read 89 of the 150 psalms. Many times we’ve encountered a place called Sheol. Sheol is a vision of what happens after death. Our vision of heaven and hell are not contained in a vision of Sheol. Sheol isn’t a half-way part or a way point until people end up with God or not. Sheol, instead, is a wasteland where all end up. It’s dark, lonely, and silent. When Sheol is described in scripture, it is without possibilities. Everyone there feels like they’re waiting for something to happen. But since the people are dead, nothing will happen. Those who live in Sheol wait, and wait, and wait, for something that never comes.

For the author of Psalm 63, that silence is the epitome of life in Sheol. Silence is a firm description of what death is all about. This psalm is a trust psalm where the author longs for God’s presence. The author trusts that God is present and loves the author. The author has experienced God, felt God in their lives, and cannot stop talking about God. For this author, to be with God is to speak about God. To speak about God is to experience life and opportunity. A life with God is a life of words, sounds, and music. A life without God is a life that will only end in permanent silence.

The author of Psalm 63 is not saying that silence is bad but they are encouraging us to share. To trust God is to trust that we matter to God and God is active in our lives. When we experience God or see God active in someone (or something) else, we’re called to share that with others. We’re called to share our experiences of faith. These experiences are gifts from God that can do more than just nourish our relationship with God. By sharing these experiences, we can bring God and God’s love to someone who needs it.

Each week, I write a reflection on one of our scripture readings for the week. This is from Christ Lutheran Church’s Worship Bulletin for 6/26/2016.

The first reading today is from Psalm 10:1-4,9-18.

When you see and experience God, what are the words that come to mind? I’ll admit that even a professional religious person, my experiences of God cannot be fully described. There are times I experience such grace, love, or heart break where words are just not enough. But God-moments are not limited to only experiences that take our breath away. There are times when our spirit cries out in words of joy and lament. In those moments, we don’t usually know what to say. We can sometimes worry about what we can actually say to God. We’re usually comfortable having God speak to us but what words can we use to speak to God?

Faith is more than just a belief; faith is also a language. The book of Psalms helps us to speak faith-language. These 150 short (and not-so-short) poems and songs all serve different purposes. Some are prayers asking for God’s help while other’s celebrate God’s creation. Some were used when the King of Israel was crowned and others were the hymns and songs sung in worship. The psalms are meant to be spoken, sung, and heard. They are faith-filled words that cover the full range of human experience and emotion. Fear and joy, sadness and love are all covered in the book of Psalms. There is nothing we can bring to God that God hasn’t already heard and the book of Psalms helps us bring our pain and joy to God in whatever words are comfortable to us.

Today’s reading is Psalm 10. This is a Psalm centered on human suffering. In the face of evil, the psalmist wonders where God is. After last Sunday’s recent terror attack in Orlando where men and women were targeted for being LGBT, that is a question we can ask too. The psalmist knows that God sees what happens and they plead for God to break the power of the wicked and evil. Their prayer is our prayer. We seek justice, love, and peace so that “mere mortals may strike terror no more.”

Each week, I write a reflection on one of our scripture readings for the week. This is from Christ Lutheran Church’s Worship Bulletin for 6/19/2016.

Our first reading is Job 1:1, 2:1-10.

Who is Satan? In Job, Satan isn’t who we think they are. In the Hebrew text that our English translation comes from, Satan isn’t a proper name. Satan is a title (“the Satan.”) A better translation would be “Accuser” or “Adversary.” In Job, Satan is like a prosecuting attorney. God gives this divine being, this angel, the job to investigate wrongdoing and bring it to God’s attention. In Job 1:7, God asks this accuser what they have been doing. The Accuser has been traveling the earth, seeking out things to bring to God. God points Job out to the Accuser. The Accuser claims that Job, if all that he has is taken away from him, will eventually curse God to God’s face (1:11). The parameters of the game are set and the Accuser is given the power to make Job’s life miserable.

Why does God let this game take place? This is one of the harder questions from the book of Job and is a question the book doesn’t answer. To me, the book of Job isn’t a historical book. Instead, it’s a meditation on the problem of undeserved suffering. The Lutheran Study Bible shares that Job is tackling questions about the suffering of innocents, where God is in our suffering, and what kind of world we live in.

The vast majority of the book of Job is a dialogue between Job and three friends. His three friends come to console their friend in his suffering but also to tell him why he is suffering. Job’s friends do not know about the game between God and Satan. Instead, they assume that Job did something to deserve what happened to him. But he didn’t. Suffering came to Job. The dialogue they share is the conversation we all share when senseless suffering happens to us or our family members. We sometimes know why we or others suffer. But there are times when something sudden, like an illness, disease, or tragic accident, just happens. Like Job, we wonder, “why?” And, in the end, we’re left with a mystery that even the book of Job doesn’t fully explain.

Each week, I write a reflection on one of our scripture readings for the week. This is from Christ Lutheran Church’s Worship Bulletin for 6/05/2016.

The First Reading for May 29, 2016 is Nehemiah 8:1-3, 5-6, 8-10.

Why do we stand up so much in worship? Part of that answer is in our first reading from Nehemiah today. The books Ezra and Nehemiah (which were originally one book before they were split in two) tell the story of Jerusalem after the return from Exile. Cyrus the Great, after destroying the Babylon empire, sends the Israelites back to Jerusalem. The returnees start to rebuild the temple but local politics and infighting stop the project fron continuing. The Temple is eventually rebuilt but Jerusalem is not allowed to become the kingdom it use to be. Nearly 65 years after the first wave of exiles return to Jerusalem, Ezra and another group arrive in Jerusalem. Ezra comes to reform the community, teach the law (the Torah – the first five books of the Bible), and develop the Jewish identity.

In our reading today, everyone – men and women – gather in Jerusalem. When Ezra opens the book of Moses (the Torah), all the people stand up. Ezra reads the book, from early in the morning through midday, while everyone stood and listened. As Ezra read, the leaders would stop to offer an interpretation of what was heard. This is similar to what we are doing today. We’ll read scripture, stand up when a story of Jesus is read, and listen as I (with prayers and help from the Holy Spirit) offer an interpretation of what is heard.

Ezra, at the end of our text, tells the people to not mourn or weep. At this point in the story, the people are weeping because they’ve discover how much they haven’t followed God’s law of love and mercy. But Ezra reminds the people that worship isn’t only about focusing on what we’ve failed to do but is an opportunity to celebrate God. God doesn’t let us travel through our life alone. Instead, God offers teachers, the Word, scripture, and even Jesus’ body and blood to help us do what God is already doing in the world. Worship is more than just hearing God’s stories. Worship is discovering that God is helping us to share God’s love out loud.

Each week, I write a reflection on one of our scripture readings for the week. This is from Christ Lutheran Church’s Worship Bulletin for 5/29/2016.