7A Easter - I Ptr. 4..12-14; 5. 6-11 Venn, the Kingdom?



Alleluia. Christ is risen.  The Lord is risen indeed.  Alleluia.

One of my most well remembered moments in seminary was from a class for which I was not present, nor enrolled.

Professor Bob Werberig taught a class for those who returned for their last year following internship.  It was a very popular course, helped by being required I suppose, which attempted to reconnect the seminary learning with the so called "real world" of internship.  There is a need for the academy and the congregation to have such a rapproachment .  Without the two having an understanding with one another - and this is not a zero sum question, by the way -  a budding pastor will find difficulty in serving the church. 

Professor Bob was a kind of fidgety sort of guy, known to be a two pack a day smoker and no one knew how much he smoked the 22.5 hours of the day that he wasn't teaching class.  One of the things he taught those young men in the last year of seminary had to do with the pastor's leadership of a congregation in the face of a world to varying degrees not accepting of the gospel, whether the overt persecution of some societies or the more insidious harassment of socially oriented pressures. 

Carefully balancing his cigarette and chalk, he would make two large ovals on the blackboard, and say, "OK men, this is your situation; ' you have the world ovah heah (He was from New York,) 'you have da world 'ovah heah, and the church ovah heah, and (placing  a linking circle between them) and here in this circle, "you have suffering."  in the common of the Venn Diagram.


The encounter of church and world is suffering in the sense that God and world meant for a "showdown" at the cross  The destiny that God has in mind for human beings in the world He so loves is considerably different from that which the world itself offers.  When the world discovers the programme in God is the defeat of death "and the darkness about our earthly course," God's alternative isn't all that appealing.  Disarmed death cannot begin to win the victory over a saving God.  Without death, the kingdom of God is ours for ever through the champion Jesus Christ and his triumphant death and  glorious resurrection.

Suffering could be a characterisation of the relation of church and world. when the world can't see any further than the grave, or any further that someone's plans or desires for all of it.  The world is the only world you know, you know?  When the disicples wondered about the world and the restoration of the kingdom of God, they only knew the world they knew?  What the Church empowered of the Spirit of Pentecost can do, is to reveal or foreshadow the triumph of Christ's resurrection  which it does in a life of faith and trust in Christ's rising - a life of humility, a life not overwhelmed by anxiety, a life that in the power of love of God and brothers and sisters sees God's love and life triumphing.  In the daily ministry we offer one another, centred in Word and Sacrament.. 

That triumph is life, a life of Oneness.  One faith, one Lord, one baptism, one body in Christ.  To the various places we are scattered, to the splintering of our relationships, the divisions that sin engenders in us, comes the gathering into one under God that reveals the Kingdom of God.  The resurrection reveals the oneness of God Who gathers His people. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit show the Oneness of God .  So, the Venn diagram of events of suffering in reality make possible the One, the one Lord Jesus whom we praise.

Alleluia.  Christ is risen.  The Lord is risen indeed.  Alleluia.                                                                                                                       












































































































































 about our coarse," then the death event that the world has 



































Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

5a Easter - I Peter 2. 2-10 Resurrection: An Invitation to a New Identity

 Alleluia.  Christ is risen.  The Lord is risen indeed.  Alleluia . On Easter morning, Christ burst from the tomb. Since Christ has defeated death on the cross, His resurrection is the event that reveals God to us, and knowing Who God is, we discover who we are. In this morning's Gospel, we have heard Jesus' definitive assertion to Philip, "Whoever has seen me has seen the Father." Jesus' rising from the dead is God the Father's expression of His solidarity with us through His Son.  As these so called "farewell discourses of the next few chapters explain, God the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, comes to empower our faith and unite us in the Church's witness  as it "daily and richly forgives all of our sins."  Our Lutheran insight is a Holy Spirit is not some optional part of God that shows up when we get excited, motivated, or particularly filled with pious thoughts. The Holy Spirit is the power that makes believing the Gospel possible at al...
Read more

Fourth Sunday in Lent - Series A Eph. 5.8-14

Covid- 19, the new corona virus was not a phrase known to us a couple of months ago.  Never before singled out, never contracted by humans, its newness in our population meaning we are without treatment or immunity. Thankfully, it's only a small fraction of folks that die from it.  The disease is relentless, unstoppable.  It must avoided by action on our part.  Our medical system inadequate to combat it due to our Now let's flip this whole thing on its' ear referring to "anastasisitus.a thanatos"or Iroughly speaking} the resurrection of the dead.  In case you hadn't noticed, light has this way of being visible.  The world we see around us is light to us, much more than my vision made out of light.  "You were once darkness," writes the author, " but now you are light." Faith reveals light. At issue is existence.  Light reveals.  Darkness is nonexistence.  Such is the physics and metaphysics of the Bible.  Therefore our identity...
Read more

Vigil of Pentecost - Rom 8. 14-17, 22-27 Now (and) Venn the Diagram

Alleluia.  Christ is risen.  The Lord is risen indeed.  Alleluia.   In our last adventure into proclamation we spoke of "Venn the Diagram?" The Vigil of Pentecost brings us "Now, Venn the Diagram" The apostles had the Holy Spirit set upon them, giving them "utterance" ( per NRSV) in the languages of their world.  According to the story of Jesus according to Dr Luke, they were waiting until the festival of Succoth, the Harvest festival in Jerusalem.  If they expected the festival to bring God's Spirit it was hard to say, but that's when the Spirit struck with His signature sign, "the howling of a fierce wind." Each apostle was filled with this holy wind, evidenced - I suppose - with flames of fire "alighting" on their heads and holy breath was given voice to announce the good news of Jesus to an audience of pilgrims from every region of the Roman empire. Ever since the lot fell on Matthias to complete the compliment of th...
Read more