Daily Liturgy and Scripture

Jesus continually runs up against legalism. The synagogue leader wasn’t a total idiot, he was just doing his job. Probably, he was deeply concerned with reverence for the law. How does Jesus answer that? By reminding everyone of the value of people (“love your neighbor” had been around for a while too) and by showing what the Kingdom was like in illustrations. These parables use the image of very...

There are some current (to Jesus' time) events that come into play for Luke's narrative that we don't know all the details concerning. It does seem that this was a series of events that caused the religious to guess at why the catastrophes befell the victims, with a likely conclusion being sin on the part of those who died. Jesus wishes to pull them away from that discussion, because something mor...

Pentecost! This is a very important day in the life of the church, because the Holy Spirit became part of the life of the whole church. The scripture for day is the spirit of Pentecost (especially what Jesus said would happen) rather than the actual story of the events, which you can read in Acts 1 and 2. But the reality is this: the spiritual life of the church would never be the same after this...

For Jesus to help us find the Kingdom, we must find a way to remove ourselves from the thinking that comes naturally by living in the world. We must learn to think like him, to act like him, to follow him. This is why he spends so much time talking about laying aside possessions. It isn’t that having things in itself is a problem, but that surrounding ourselves with too much of that blocks us from...

Jesus’ very presence of course means that God is among us. But it means something else too, as he points out to the teachers of religious law: with the law and prophets culminating him him, it is a much bigger deal to reject him than it was to reject Zechariah or Elijah. The nation of Israel had trained themselves well to ignore those predecessors. But all is not lost, and many Israelites followed...

A lot about spiritual warfare is happening today, but Jesus doesn’t shy away from it. The center of spiritual warfare is always prayer. (Remember the demon that the disciples couldn’t cast out? Jesus said prayer was the missing key.) And in that vein, Jesus gives the disciples both the model for prayer that we use daily, accompanied by a couple stories. One is about praying diligently, but the oth...

When Jesus gives someone a specific challenge to help them better understand his Kingdom, it’s not a universal answer. Previously, he told the rich young ruler to sell all he owns. In this passage, speaking to a man who seems to be from a similar background, he tells him that he needs to learn compassion. Martha needs to learn to listen, and Mary needs to be left alone by her nagging sister! Certa...

For hospitality to exist, it must be both offered and received. Nobody can be hospitable if someone else doesn't have a need. Jesus sent this large group of followers out not to become powerful and hand out free lunches, but to enter with nothing and allow themselves to be cared for. What an odd way to introduce yourselves. It's unlikely that many in our modern world would be comfortable with so c...

It must have been lonely to be Jesus. We don’t really know why he chose to lead his group through Samaria. The region was not particularly friendly to Jewish folks, most would have gone around that region to get to Jerusalem. Whatever his reasons, Jesus walks straight through the heart of the place and is rejected by the Samaritans. You really have to wonder if that influences what he says later i...

It seems like the disciples are always falling asleep at the wrong times. Now as Jesus meets with the great men from Israel’s past who are the symbols of the law and the prophets, and later when Jesus is praying before his arrest. But when did Jesus sleep? Remember back in chapter 8? During a storm. Jesus is at rest in the midst of trouble, but the disciples are flatly unaware of what is going on...

Jesus’ ministry was all about giving away. In this period, he’s doing everything to help the disciples understand what it is they’re receiving. He sends them out with nothing, so they can understand what it is to start from a position of weakness, both receiving from those they meet and giving back to them of the Kingdom. When they come back, they excitedly tell him what they have done… and immedi...

It’s revealing, the way that Jesus reacts to those he meets. Certainly he wished to bring wholeness to all, but he isn’t impressed by titles and status… or urgency, for that matter. When going to heal the daughter of a synagogue leader, he finds himself coming into contact with a woman who took control of her own healing, taking the initiative to touch him. Most of us, if we can even imagine knowi...

Jesus came to live among us so that we could know how to live like him, but he returned to the right hand of the Father so that he could be Lord. We are not left alone. As Ephesians tells us, he gave us the gift of the Church, guided by the Spirit. It's not just so we have a social club. We are to be changed, made more and more into his image every day.

We hear that a Pharisee has invited Jesus into his home, and we later see that other teachers of religious law are already there. Before we jump on Simon just for being a Pharisee, let’s acknowledge that he's already gone a lot farther than most of his kind seem to. Jesus had been saying some pretty convicting things about these guys, and one of them invited him over for a meal. (The culture is al...

The sense of purpose in Jesus’s ministry is starting to fully emerge. He is aligning himself with John, who was already making disciples when Jesus started his ministry. He is hinting at himself as being the person John foretells, which is a rare occurrence of Jesus revealing who he is. (Usually he tells people not to tell anyone.) He is also starting to divide disciples from power-hungry religiou...

Hear and obey: that’s the thread that runs through both Moses’ speech and Jesus’ illustration of the house built without a foundation. It is the foundation of our own faith as well. Notice he didn’t say we need to invent anything new or come up with our own version of God’s timeless truth. We need to hear it and do it. The Hebrew word, “shema,” which is seen throughout the Old Testament, actually...

Jesus is laying out a pretty upside down Kingdom. It must have been a great comfort for the mourners and hungry to hear that they were blessed, even when they didn’t have it all together, but love enemies? Give without expecting a return? Surely a lot of people must have thought this Jesus guy had a screw loose. And yet that’s his Kingdom. It can’t be taken by force, because it has only the force...

It could be that we all need a little more healing in our Sabbath. If the Kingdom is about wholeness, then the Sabbath is the day we ought most to be practicing that. We look at the Pharisees and religious leaders in horror, scarcely being able to imagine why they would have such an awful attitude. Our Sabbaths may have a different kind of wrong. Maybe we don’t look to enforce rules, but perhaps w...

The calling of Matthew and his subsequent lack of reputable friends becomes an occasion for more than the recruiting of a new disciple. In that time Jesus also takes the opportunity to challenge the drinkers of “old wine” that they don’t even want the new wine. What is the new wine, and the new wineskin? It is the coming of the Kingdom. It’s the fulfilling of God’s promise to his people, and the b...

Coming in contact with Jesus seldom leaves people unchanged. Like Peter, it may be that we don’t immediately think that we have any need for a change, but then he shows his Lordship and we immediately see our smallness. Sometimes, we’re like the leper. The change we need is obvious, and we have become unable to hide it. Whatever the task, Jesus is up to it. The change he brings is always the one w...

It’s sometimes easy to forget that being spiritual includes recognizing darkness. Jesus certainly did. His Kingdom was focused on bringing wholeness, but that couldn’t be achieved if there were forces working against it. Rebuking both demons and religious leaders, he wasn’t only preaching positivity. The same should be true of us. As we learned yesterday, sometimes we must tell those closest to us...

Being tempted by the devil is certainly a challenge, and Jesus handled it masterfully. There was a second period of temptation in this story, and it must have also been great: the temptation to tell those who know you best what you know they want to hear. In his hometown, probably surrounded by a few people who had become his admirers through the years, Jesus instead decides to upset their comfort...

Long lists of names can seem a bit tedious, almost irrelevant. What do all these dead guys have to do with us? Looking through the list, Jesus' family tree is really full of some characters. King David, whom all of Israel revered. Jacob, a scoundrel and a trixter. The incarnation of the Son of God is not made out of nothing as creation was, but out of a line of real people who brought a family lin...

Jesus’ entry into ministry defies his universal Lordship in the same way as his birth. Why does he need the crazy man in the desert talking him up? Can’t he announce himself? But of course, that’s not how it works. Jesus didn’t come to be a one-man show, he came to establish a Kingdom. That Kingdom is made of many people, and humanity was in on the deal from the start. John’s important role put a...

It’s intriguing, the connection Jesus has to the Passover festival. Eventually this will be the time for his crucifixion, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. In this moment, the same festival is an occasion for him to meet with the religious leaders, to converse when them in the midst of this holy day. The turn that happens later couldn’t be more different. They were still God’s people, he still...