a reflection on Luke 7-8

by Meridith Mitchellweiler

Within this week’s readings, Jesus twice mentions the importance of hearing God’s word. First in 8:15, he explains the meaning of a parable: “But the seed on good soil stands for those with a noble and good heart, who hear the word, retain it, and by persevering produce a crop.” He mentions it again in 8:21 in response to a reference of his mother and brother: “My mother and brothers are those who hear God’s word and put it into practice.”  

After spending time reading the passages last week, a question kept coming to mind, especially in light of what we have been leaning into Sunday mornings. What does Jesus mean when he says “hear God’s word and put it into practice,” and “hear the word, retain it and by persevering produce good”? 

I believe the only way we can begin to answer this question is to look to Jesus. After all, who could be a better example of what it means to hear God’s word and put it into practice, than God Incarnate? As I was reflecting on the Jesus we have gotten to know through Luke, I was reminded of a quote from a devotional I read earlier in the month. Brian McLaren writes, “Of the many radical things said and done by Jesus, his unflinching emphasis on love was the most radical of all … Love decenteredeverything else; love relativized everything else; love took priority over everything else—everything.”

As we have seen in the past few weeks, Luke shows us a Jesus who is far more concerned with the weak than the powerful, whose every act embodies a love incomprehensible to the people of this earth. Love was at the core of everything Jesus did and as such his love “decentered” all worldly concerns and aspirations.

In this week’s readings, we again see that Jesus’ love and focus on the vulnerable was confusing to the Pharisees and many others. In a class I took in college, the professor presented the thought that perhaps the disciples were disappointed by Jesus at first. Perhaps they expected a new king to take power over the system in play to fix their broken and oppressive society. But they were instead met with Jesus the healer. How was loving the poor, sick, and sinful going to fix the major societal issues? 

I’m coming to discover that Jesus did not come to fix the problems of the world from the outside, as was expected by many. He seemed more focused on the inside, the hearts of the people. Just in this last week’s readings we saw the story of the woman who anointed Jesus’ feet. From the outside, she was marked as sinful, but Jesus focused on her heart instead. What mattered to Jesus was her reaction to his love for her. She expressed that love in the most vulnerable of ways. She came to him in a wealthy and powerful man’s home, used her own tears and hair to clean his dirty feet, and anointed him with an expensive perfume. She didn’t appear to care how it looked. All she cared about was expressing her “great love.” Love was at the center of her actions. Everything else was then decentered. 

I look at the times when I have felt God’s love the strongest and it has been when I am at my most vulnerable. When I have messed up horribly, like the sinful woman, or when something awful and out of my control has happened to me, like the widowed mother. I think I turn to God in those moments so easily because it’s clear I can’t do it on my own any longer. I need Him. I need His love. In that place, I’ve found I feel strangely at peace. His love takes its place at the center and I merely act in response to that. Everything else goes quiet.

I think placing love at the center, whether in accepting God’s love for us or showing His love to others, is what it means to put God’s word into practice. At least it seems that’s how Jesus did it. As Paul says in Galatians 5:6: “What matters is something far more interior: faith expressed in love.” 

artwork: Mary’s Sacrifice, Wayne Forte (2008)

a reflection on Luke 6:27-7:10

by Katie Heemstra

It never ceases to amaze me how God meets us right where we are at.  Even more so this week I was truly amazed reading the passages I would have to write about as I choked down the humble pie God was feeding me.  In my humanness, at one level wanting to put forward a polished foot for my first blog post for our church, it would have been nice to focus on Day 4’s reading, the centurion whose faith amazed even Jesus, which is truly an inspirational and aspirational story, but also one that is a step or two farther from home in my life right now.  No, in praying over this week’s reading it was Day 2 that God kept drawing me back to:

“Do not judge, and you will not be judged.  Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven…Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?  How can you say to your brother, ‘Brother let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when you yourself fail to see the plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.” (Luke 6:37, 41-42).

Verses 41-42 used to be verses I lived by.  When people would ask me how I try to live my life among God’s people, I would quote them those two verses, but somewhere along the way in the past year or so someone else’s speck got so apparent to me, that I completely forgot about the plank in my own eye.  And the even sadder part is, as I focused on their speck, my plank got bigger.

Have you ever been in a situation like that before?  Someone does something that hurts you and instead of dealing with it in the moment or truly letting it go, you just let it slide but in letting it slide you begin keeping score.  Then the emotions that come from continuing to let things slide but still keeping score take on a life of their own until that person becomes satan incarnate to you and it all spirals downhill and out of control?  Is it just me?

Even more, it can feel so good to demonize that person or situation because we feel justified in our anger (or even in our hate if we let it get that far) because our laundry list of their faults has been gathered like evidence against their case.  In reality, they don’t even know they’re on trial, but we add their nonchalance in the situation as a mark against them too. And again, it spirals out of control.

My big question right now is how do you come back from something like that?

I think the answer is in this passage, and I think it is why God, in all his wisdom and omniscience, made sure I had to write about this past week of readings (as we can clearly see from my not-so-hypothetical examples).  Day 1’s reading lays it out pretty clearly: love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, turn the other cheek, pray for those who mistreat you, lend without expecting repayment. Day 2 we see more of it: do not judge, do not condemn, forgive.  If we read over these two passages as just nice ideas but don’t take it to heart, we get smacked in the face again at Day 3 when Jesus asks, “Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say?”

We cannot ignore his instructions for us, build our house on sand, then wonder why our life is in shambles when something hard happens.  Now why would someone want to build a house on sand? Because it is easier! Have you ever dug a hole in the sand? It’s an afternoon passtime at the beach and children can do it!   Have you ever dug a hole in a rock? Yeah, me neither, because it is hard and you need specific tools to do so. Digging foundations for a home in sand is easier, but it won’t last, we need to gather the tools to start securing our foundations in rock.  In the Rock. In Jesus. In what he teaches us to do.

In all my time as a Christian, and a human Christian who can hold a pretty strong grudge if I put my mind to it, the most helpful and effective tool I’ve seen and personally used is praying for those who mistreat me.  There is something about praying for someone, having a conversation with the Most High about one of his other children that just puts things in a better perspective. Sometimes I have to talk with God about them every five minutes, but eventually I do feel that ice around my heart melt away and I’m able to genuinely look at them through the eyes of the Father and love them as God has called me to.

That’s the hope in this passage.  That is God’s promise to us. We see in in Luke 6:35-36, if you follow his instructions, “Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked.  Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.” He is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. Isn’t that such a relief? It is to me as I take another bite of my humble pie this week and begin to pray for those who have mistreated me and bring the plank in my eye to my loving heavenly Father to help me remove it piece by piece.

Artwork: The Sermon On The Mount, Jan Brueghel the Elder (1568-1625)

a reflection on Luke 6

by Don Phan-Huy

WARNING: this post contains profanity, convoluted run-on sentences, and is a little too long for a blog post. Reader discretion is advised.

To be honest, I was reluctant to sign up for this because reading the Bible can be tricky and I saw myself running into one of two possible complications. I thought I might either: (1) come across a passage and have no idea what it was saying; or (2) come across a passage that is so well-known, so defining, that much smarter people have said much more interesting things about it than I ever could. Well it was just my luck to encounter both scenarios this week, but as we say when I drop my pick or Jojo breaks another a string, “the show must go on!”_{(We don’t actually say that.)}

There were two passages that really stood out to me last week. The first is one that I have always been fond of but have a newfound appreciation for. As the story goes, Jesus was teaching at the synagogue on the Sabbath. While he was teaching, some Pharisees were carefully monitoring him from afar (cue Every Breath You Takeby the Police) to see if he would heal anyone, or otherwise work, on the holy day of rest. They were desperate to find another reason to accuse him of blasphemy, heresy, social justice activism, etc. Jesus was aware of their intentions, so he called up a man with a withered hand, said something baddass, and healed him in front of the whole crowd. Needless to say, this pissed off the pharisees.

This passage resonated with me when I was a new Christian because I grew up believing that everything in life has its limits. And while I still believe that most things indeed have (and probably need) limits, this passage helped me realize that Love does not. The all-encompassing, self-giving love of God is not confined by what our cultures have deemed worthy or lovable. God’s love overcomes the conventions of man so that all may experience his restorative power. 

After reading this passage more recently, however, I discovered an aspect to the story that made me laugh because I think it’s hilarious. Basically: while knowing full well what the pharisees wanted, Jesus looked them dead in the eyes and, in the most Jesus way possible, flipped them the bird. I’m not entirely sure why seeing this part of Jesus made me so happy. Perhaps it’s fun to imagine the Son of God being such a punk. But maybe there is something deeper at play here. Maybe it’s not justthat Jesus was a punk but that what he did was profoundly moving. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that Jesus, as he so often did, stood up to those in power to care for the sick and marginalized, even when it put him at risk.

As mentioned by my co-contributors to this blog, there seems to be a recurring theme throughout the Gospel of Luke that revolves around how God raises up the lowly and brings low the powerful. I think that’s a fair interpretation for the withered-hand-man story but Luke does something very interesting with this theme in the second passage that caught my attention. Week 5’s reading ends with the blessings and woes spoken by Jesus in the Sermon on the Plain. The structure is similar to the Beatitudes in Matthew’s Gospel. The first half consists of blessings that Jesus speaks upon people who struggle – blessed are the poor, blessed are the hungry, etc. But the second half is a little different.

The second half of the Luke Beatitudes also contain four “woes” which all seem to target things that don’t seem inherently bad. It made me wonder, “that’s kind of messed up, Jesus. I get why you’d go after rich folk because that’s kind of your M.O., but why woe to people who are well fed? Why poo poo on people who are laughing? What do you have against laughing??” Without knowing Luke’s undergirding agenda, this would have made no sense to me at all. But considering the types of people Luke puts in the limelight, it became clear to me that Jesus isn’t just talking about someone who randomly laughs at a joke or eats until they’re full. He’s talking about people who have enough money to eat well. He’s talking about people who have enough comfort to laugh. He’s referring to people who can afford these luxuries because of their position in society. He’s talking about us. He’s talking about me.

And now I’ve run into a third complication that I hadn’t considered earlier (but probably should have): I’ve come across a passage that called me out on my shit. This is definitely my least favorite one. It makes me feel bad. Or a nicer way of putting it: it is very humbling. But this is probably why the Pharisees hated Jesus so much. Apart from whatever political or religious reasons they had for wanting to get rid of him, I think it really just came down to the fact that Jesus made them feel bad about themselves – and not in an insecure way, but in a way that made them face a truth about themselves that they didn’t want to face. I think this is the power of the Gospel when it speaks truth to power. It forces those of us with privilege to take a good, hard look at ourselves and ask if we’re doing our best to follow Jesus with what we have. For me, the answer is often no. And that is a tough pill to swallow. I say all this because I think it’s important to note that while it can be redemptive to identify with people like the prodigal son or the woman at the well, we cannot escape the reality that, in many ways, we are also the Romans and the Pharisees. To tie this into the Christmas story, we might even find ourselves in Herod, plotting to kill what we know about Jesus because he gets in the way of what we want. 

            This got very dark so I’ll try to end with something a little more hopeful. As we close out this Christmas season, I’m reminded that God must reallylove us. He already knows how messed up we are and yet deemed it a worthy endeavor to come into this world tolivewith us and showus his love. As much as we focus on how much faith we have in Jesus, it’s probably worth mentioning that it seems God has faith in usas well. With all that power, why else would he not just make things right again with the snap of his fingers? It seems that there is a work to be done, and God knows that we have the capacity to participate in that work. So the next time we gaze upon our reflection and see our face in all its beauty and shame, we ought to remind ourselves that the Creator of Heaven and Earth loves us and believes in us to be better.

             If you’re reading this and you’re already doing your best in life, I’m proud of you! Keep doing what you’re doing and make sure to take a break once in a while. Self-care is important and learning to love yourself is just as important as learning to love others. If you’re like me and often find yourself unmotivated but want to do something about it, my prayer is for you to realize that you have a lot to offer – even if it doesn’t seem like much. Something as small as a word of appreciation or a little bit of your time can go a long way. I know because I’ve been a recipient of these gifts and they meant the world to me. In closing, these are my main takeaways from reading through Luke so far and reflecting on Christmas: (1) if you haven’t written a blog post in a while, don’t wait until the day before the deadline to start writing it; (2) Jesus is hilarious; and (3) regardless of where we are in life, and no matter what good or bad we do to each other, we and God are all in this beautiful shittiness together. So let’s do our best to help make this world a little more loving, and a little less shitty than how we found it.

Artwork: The Man with the Withered Hand,James Tissot (1836-1902)

a reflection on Luke 4-5

by Janet Hsu

High fevers, leprosy, paralyzation. These were all physical ailments that Jesus came head to head with in last week’s scripture. We see Jesus rebuking the fever. He lays hands on sick people and heals them. He touches a man who has leprosy and immediately, the leprosy leaves him. Jesus tells a paralyzed man to get up and walk and up he goes.

Last week, I saw my own husband suffer through a painful blistering rash on his face and rendered him bedridden for days. When I read these passages, I thought of what Ken was going through and found it weird that Jesus rebuked the illness.

My first reaction was to call a doctor. Make sure that Ken obtains the proper drugs and the proper medical tests. Asking God for healing then is almost like an after-thought.

But from these readings, I am reminded that God is more powerful than any drug or surgery. While modern medicine is an amazing feat and should be utilized and marveled at, we forget that Jesus is the ultimate Healer and Physician. He desires to and can heal us, both spiritually and physically. We should place our faith in Him the same way the paralyzed man’s friends placed their faith in Jesus–so much that they punched a hole in the roof so their friend could get in the house.

I confess that I lack that type of faith. Like Simon Peter in the fishing story, I too, base my decisions on what I see with my eyes and my own experience and I am often left hopeless. But I pray that we ultimately trust Jesus and his words to us. If we are willing to extend ourselves to him, Jesus is willing to heal us.

artwork: Christ Cleansing a Leper, Jean-Marie Melchior Doze, 1864