Pastor's Ponderings: Meandering through Mark 10:1-12 bible study (May 20, 2024)

May 20, 2024: Monday Bible Study on the Gospel of Mark 10:1-12

May the Love of God bless your day today.

This study this afternoon, came because under Doctor’s direction I started a new blood pressure med. My reaction to it seems to be a common allergy reaction of a really stuffy nose, and it knocked me out while I had my feet elevated. So far that is the only problem it seems to present. Please continue prayers for the homeless in this time of growing heat. And please remember to pray for the victims of cancer, Kandice, Jeff, and Heidi, and I am certain you probably know in your own life others for whom you should also be praying.

Today's reading from the Gospel of Mark is one we have heard many times before, as we in the Church try to wade through the personal dilemma of divorce and separation between married people. Jesus faced a real crisis in His time about this issue. First of all, the religious authorities were trying to catch Jesus in teaching that Mosaic Law could be breached in some way, and indeed He did that, but not in the way that we all might expect. Jesus turned to a more stringent interpretation of the consequences of divorce in a person's relationship with God. By the time that Jesus is on the scene in Galilee and in the south in Jerusalem, the ease with which a man could divorce his wife had become as simple as any complaint he might have about his wife, could be, and was, his reason for writing a writ of divorce from her. Originally the primary reason would have been unchastity. But by the time that Jesus was on the scene, a divorce writ could have been done just because a man had found someone younger, or with prettier eyes, or a woman who was a better cook, or did the laundry to the man's satisfaction. Or perhaps his current wife was too argumentative. This may have happened in the Jewish culture due to the influences of the Greeks who had greatly devalued the importance of marriage, or of one's commitment to a married relationship. This had all filtered into Israel when the Romans conquered the Jews, and introduced this kind of thinking into their communities, and that found its way into their religious thinking. The biggest issue here is the dismissal of the wife into poverty and her inability to hold a job, except to become a woman of the streets, a prostitute, if she had no male family to willingly see to her welfare. Jesus enters into this question by telling God asigious leaders that this all happened, and even Moses' thinking on the issue of divorce, and writing a simple writ, was given to him by God as a way of dealing with the lack of commitment that the Hebrews were offering to their wives. Jesus wanted people to know what a great issue divorce was with God, and that looking for reasons that would be acceptable to God was serious business, not just some stupid reason for such a radical action to be taken. I know that in our culture divorce is common. We may all have situations like this in our families and friends. People who have been married for multiple decades are becoming rarer all of the time. Today, like in the Israel of Christ's time, divorce is all too common. We must admit that it is all too common in our culture, but we must know that our God loves us through every crisis of our personal relationships, through Christ forgiving us for this tragedy in relationships that are important to God, and for us to know that the very worst thing about a divorce is the anger that we feel, and the willingness to dismiss and leave our divorced partner without resources and support. That is the usual sin of divorce. Our loving God want us to take this relationship between partners very seriously, as serious as it is for Him. The promise that we have made at our marriage to mutually care for one another must not be dismissed. Married before God in the Church we make promises to one another and to our God who loves us. Either of those promises broken, place us in a difficult circumstance of sin that requires confession, repentance, and penance before God. Divorce is a great tragedy for the people who must endure it becoming a part of their lives, but there is no brokenness for which Christ did not die, and His Holy forgiveness enters into this circumstance just as it does in any other when those who have divorced receive Christ's forgiveness. It becomes a tabla rosa before the Lord. In our relationship with Christ that damage it has done is gone! However, without fully receiving Christ forgiveness people often continue their suffering and anger and fail to start fresh and new with our Savior!

I know this is a difficult passage to deal with. But God through Christ, by the power of the Spirit takes that journey with us, and when we are willing, fills it with His Grace.

With Love in Christ, Pastor Kim

Pastor's Ponderings: Old Testament bible study on Nehemiah 3:15-4:6 (May 16, 2024)

May 16, 2024:  Thursday Bible Study on the Old Testament book of Nehemiah 3:15-4:6

Grace and Peace be with you today and always.

Surprise Wind and Rain in the desert last evening about 7PM, even a flash or two of lightning. Sometimes the desert can be full of surprises. Today that long list of people and groups who were going to rebuild the gate and the wall of Jerusalem brings a surprise too. Not only did they make the commitment to do the building, but they also completed it! It appears that some of what they completed was built in a different place, like higher up on the hill upon which sits the city of Jerusalem. That kind of building, though it created a smaller footprint for the city, was easier to do. This building was not a completion of the wall or temple, but it was the exciting start to the work that needed to be done.

I remember when I first came to American there was still a great deal of pride in the self-financed remodel and new sanctuary faceted glass. Back in 1980 that took nearly 80,00 dollars of member financed bonds.  There was great pride that under the direction of Loretta Olsen the self-bonding was nearly paid off, even the interest that the bonds received as payments. You and I get to see the result of that hard work of the congregation each time we come to worship. We are proud too of the work that we have done since then to keep our building and property moving forward. In my home I can say that my first boys and I rebuilt our kitchen, building and mounting new cabinets. I sat on the living room floor or stood at the dining table constructing cabinets that weighed as much as five hundred pounds, and then the boys and I moved them to the kitchen. We love our kitchen, though it is not designer, I look at it with pride in the work which we did to make it much more livable and much bigger than the original galley kitchen, and all in time for Joshua's rehearsal dinner. Just like Jerusalem, and the work done by so many people excited to get under way with Nehemiah overseeing their work, there was great pride, however, the locals ridiculed their work as inferior, saying that a little fox could breach the wall, but their families who would carry on the tradition of service and worship in the city that was being reestablished. It would continue the very traditions of service and worship provided for in this first outreach to begin the rebuilding. It is uncertain yet whether the wall that they rebuilt was on the original which had never been done since the exile, or if a new enemy had torn down the earlier work of Ezra, and the wall building now was the second new wall begun. There were certainly enough enemies to do that. All of this causes me to think of my forebears who built the church where I grew up. They came as immigrants in the early 1860s, and one of their first challenges was to get a new Swedish Lutheran church built. It was only about 15 years before Emmanuel Lutheran was chartered and built in 1876. It was built in the heart of Sweden Town, which was not the wealthiest area of the city, but their church was really impressive. Other peoples from Scandinavia built a Danish church, a Finish Church, and Norwegian Church, and as sad as it must seem, they derided each other over whose church was doing the best for years and years. The Judahites faced their own enemies, people who did not want to see these returned Jews do well. We all know and pray for God's blessings on our church, and yet today, just like in the time of Nehemiah, there are those who want to see the church fail, or in the case of the Judahites, want the whole of Jerusalem to fail along with the temple. But note, the Judahites do not send out hit squads to take out these enemies of the city. No instead they offer prayers that the attitude of such people is won over, or for God's judgement to take its course on these people who object and ridicule their work. After all they are ridiculing the work which God Himself has called for.  Since this story appears in Nehemiah, it is likely that Sanballat suffers discrediting and failure, while we know that the Judahites were successful in their work at Jerusalem. It stands until about 70 in the common era when the Romans destroy the City of David again, some nearly 40 years after the death of our Savior.  

I will be back with you next week as we continue our study of the Gospel of Mark, and Nehemiah.

In Christ's love, Pastor Kim

Pastor's Ponderings: Meandering through Mark 9:49-50 bible study (May 14, 2024)

May 14, 2024:  Tuesday Morning Bible Study on the Gospel of Mark 9:49-50

Blessings and Peace from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

At church we are entering into the season of Pentecost and the Sundays after Pentecost. Its name comes from the fact that it is always 70 days after Easter. The Sunday after Pentecost will be celebrated as Holy Trinity Sunday. And we will celebrate our high school graduates on this Sunday the 19 with a lunch and cake reception for Josiah, Jesse, and Armando.  Please plan to stay for lunch with us after church. (11:15AM).

Today we are going to deal with one of the most difficult passages in Mark 9. It is only two verses long, but its word usage, and the fact that according to Mark this is the direct word of Christ to His disciples, make comprehending this even more difficult. So, let's begin.  This word salt. What does it mean in the context of what we have heard before it? Commentators have worked to come up with something that will stick in our mind. just like the phrases from Christ about Salt, Saltiness, loss of Saltiness. This word has a variety of meanings in the setting in which it is shared.

What we have in these two verses in Mark 9 are three different sayings. The first is that everyone must be salted by fire. According to Jewish law for sacrifices offered at the temple, the law says that they must be salted if they are going to be found OK by God. The salt used for this process of getting a sacrifice ready was called the salt of the covenant. This saying then means that every Christian must be treated with fire if they are to be acceptable to God. In other words, every Christian must be purified to be acceptable to God. This kind of sounds like there is a way to earn one's salvation, doesn't it? Remember that our purification comes through our Baptisms and our participation in Holy Communion. It is only in Jesus Christ, His life, His sacrifice, and His death and Resurrection that we can be purified and acceptable to God. That happens through the Spirit's yes which we experience as faith in God's only begotten son. And maintaining that faith in the face of all of life's "fires" makes us acceptable too. It is all possible because of the Spirit's guiding presence. In Christ's time, that fire would probably have been during times of deep persecution of believers.  These difficult times of our faith being challenged, when we keep our faith in place through the Spirit's presence, are treasures to God.

This next piece, Salt is good, but if it loses it saltiness with what will you season it? is an even more difficult saying to understand. Thinking of salt, we see that it has two primary virtues.  First, salt lends flavor to things, and second, salt is a preservative. In Christ's time the world of "men" was bored with the world, looking for some thrill in the world of their lives. Second, the world was a place of corruption. In the face of all of this Jesus was telling His disciples that indeed they had what exactly the world needed. The same is still true for us today, we are called to bear this very same news into a weary world, where going to war, or bigotry and hatred become the only thing that give us opportunity for living with excitement. But the Great Good News that Christ brings to us all, is that the new life in Christ is filled with those exciting healing and life changing feelings. No wonder Easter Sunday is so filled with joy and happiness as we say to each other “Christ is Risen" and others respond, "He is risen indeed!"

Have Salt in yourselves and live in peace with one another. Be pure through Christ's love for your life. Journey away from bitterness, anger, selfishness, self-centeredness, then, and only then, will you be able to live in harmony with all people. Always fill your life with Christ!

Next Monday we go on into chapter 10 of the Gospel of Mark.

With love in Christ, Pastor Kim