Pastor's Ponderings: Meandering through Mark 7:1-4 bible study (February 6, 2024)

February 6, 2024

Tuesday morning Bible Study on the Gospel of Mark 7:1-4

Blessings and Peace be with you on this cloudy morning which promises to bring much needed rain to the desert.

Today please watch out for the wind which is predicted later tonight and tomorrow.  Wind gusts as high as 60 mph can do a lot of damage, and can move things in your yard around, even things which you thought would never be affected by wind. It would be wise to be certain that your car is not parked under trees.  My little car is always under that big tree in our front yard.  You know, shade from the sun.  Today it will be moved to a different place in the front yard away from the tree, so please be careful. 

Meet us online for our virtual bible study

I know that it seems like the previous chapter of the Gospel of Mark seemed to go on forever.  Today we begin the 7th chapter, which really helps us to understand how Jesus saw the religious authorities, and their lives as the "faithful" of God.  Jesus was not kind to those who perpetrated all of these rules and regulations for growing more right with God.  The Scribes and Pharisees were caught in a trap of their own making.  Right away in these first four verses we begin to see the areas of conflict which will arise between Jesus and those religious authorities.  The very first of these conflicts surrounds the fact that Christ's Disciples fail to "wash" their hands before eating.  You might ask why this is such a big deal.  It is a big deal because these leaders already know the kind of authority and power to heal that Jesus has shown himself to possess, and quite frankly the Scribes and Pharisees were trying to argue with him to convince the people that he was not the great Rabbi that they were claiming Him to be.

So, what lies behind this "washing" of the hands that has come to be a problem?  The very first thing that we need to understand is that this complaint is not about having hands that are physically clean enough to eat.  It is not like getting the young men and boy in my home, my sons, to get washed up and ready for a meal to be served.  That's hard enough by itself.  For the religious leaders this is a matter of honoring God with ritual washing of the hands before, during, and after the consumption of food.

The complaint here is that the disciples do not honor the tradition of the elders.  Originally the tradition of the elders meant the obedience to the 10 commandments, and then following the rules of the first 5 books of what we call the Old Testament, that is, the Books of Moses which comprise what today is called the Torah.  The Torah contained, and contains, the rules for living in a historically accurate way in one's life.  Initially the Jews were content using these much broader guides for living in relationship with God which contained a certain number of detailed regulations and instructions.  In the manner of moral questions, they contain a series of great moral principles which a person must apply to his own life.  But in the fourth and fifth centuries a class of legal experts came into being.( probably in response to the exile, and subsequent return to rebuild the Temple and Jerusalem)  These "Scribes" wanted to break all of these broader rules for living into thousands of tiny little guides for every fact and function of living if one was going to be truly respectful of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  These guides meant that life was no longer to be guided by just the 10 Commandments and the Torah.  Under the Scribes, now life was instead guided by rules and regulations which are summarized in the Mishna, and it was all intended to offer rules for EVERY part of a person's life.  This is where the issue of the washing of hands comes from.

This ceremonial cleanness was a must if one was to be right with God.  The guide of the Scribes for following the traditions of the elders had become more and more difficult as those rules expanded to cover all of a person's life.  The ritual washing of a person's hands took place as follows:

1. It must take place before eating, and between every course of a meal.

2. The water for cleansing had to be kept in special large stone jars. (think here about the wedding at Cana in Galilee) This water was itself to be ritually clean and could be used for no other purpose in the home.

3. Holding one's fingers up to the sky, a small amount of water was to be poured over the fingers so that enough was used to get wet at least to the wrist, then the hands were turned so that the fingers were pointing down, and washed again with water being poured from the wrists down over the fingers.  This must be done at every change in the meal being eaten.  The amount of water to be used in each of these parts of the ritual washing was to be one "log", that is an amount of water at least as big as one- and one-half eggshells full of water.

4. Finally, the person whose hands are now wet must wring the water off each hand and fingers with the fist of the other hand.

For the Scribes, failure to follow the prescriptions of this rule meant that a person was unclean before God.  Now that is not all.  Failure to ritually cleanse in this manner meant that the person was susceptible to a demon called Shibta or would become liable to poverty and destruction. 

I hope you are beginning to see why Jesus takes the time to address the issue of these man-made regulations, and then the punishments which are apparently not from God who they believed was offended, but just come at the person out of the blue.  If you would like more on this, read Leviticus 11 to 15.  Then of course there is the issue of using utensils which have been made unclean by being handled by ritually unclean hands, or by having ritually unclean food in them.  Even the kind of plate, dish, or utensils had varying regulations for how each kind must be cleaned.  In the Misha there are twelve treatises on this kind of uncleanness and how to make it correct by certain use of rules and regulations. Obviously, the complexity of all of these rules and regulations meant that a person attempting to be right with God would be consumed by all that had to be done to accomplish it.  While many in the time of Jesus saw religion as ritual, ceremonial, rules and regulations, Jesus saw all of this as a barrier to what was really before all people, loving God above all else, and loving one's neighbors as he/she loves themselves.

I suspect by now that you can already see the pattern that is developing between Jesus and those who are caught in the complexity of the Mishna type rules for living and being right with God.

I will be back with you next Monday.  God bless you and keep you in the days in between our time together. Pastor Kim.

Pastor's Ponderings: Meandering through Mark 6:53-56 bible study (February 5, 2024)

Grace and Peace to you in the Name of our Savior, Jesus Christ.

Welcome to the Monday Morning Bible Study on the Gospel of Mark.  I hope that as you have taken the time to share this Bible Study with me on Mondays and Tuesdays, that you have considered inviting others to share it with you.   The writer of Mark has so much for us to ponder in our relationship with Jesus, and today's short passage is no exception.  More on this in a little while.  Please continue to pray for Kandice and her wife Lisa in Hawaii.  Kandice is battling cancer that has developed in her torso core.  She has developed some new tumors, so her doctors are now looking for a new approach to battle the old tumors which were shrinking, and the new one that seems to not be affected by the old treatment plan.  Also pray for Jeff H., and his wife Karen, Jeff has a similar kind of hard to treat and inoperable cancer which was just discovered.  Give thanks for Jeff's current good quality of life, but his future of more than 12 months is really in doubt.

I had an in-home fall on Saturday late in the day.  I am thankful to God that I was not more seriously injured.  A am still very sore, and the gash on my elbow will take some time to heal.  I have come away from this event knowing that it was the Lord's pause to what was going on in my head and heart at the moment the fall happened. God uses both the good and the difficult things in our lives as opportunities for growing our faith and love for His always present Grace. 

Meet us online for our virtual bible study

I am never quite certain how I will move from my opening into the study today, yet once again the Lord provides, as He always does.  Let's just review a bit.  Today's reading follows the feeding, teaching, and healing of the 5000 men and their families.  Jesus sends His Disciples off in what appears to be an attempt to keep them from hearing the tempting calls of the people to make Jesus the king of Israel.  On Galilee the Disciples fall victim to a stormy headwind, that keeps them from making any progress toward shore.  Jesus has dismissed the crowds, and gone into the hills to pray, but on his return to Galilee, He sees His Disciples in their struggle.  He walks to them through the waves and stills the storm so that these men, and perhaps a few women, who are the ones he loves for their faithfulness, can continue to get to the shore.  They have left the feeding of the 5000 to move on to other areas around Galilee, but on landing they are recognized.  From here you know what happens!  People rush into their communities to bring out all who are ill and in need of healing. They are brash about reaching out to just touch Christ's clothing, and as we continue through the passage, village after village offered Christ the same response.  They all came to get what they wanted from Jesus, AND THEY GOT IT!   Christ offered His healing to all who came, village after village after village.  The Gospels are loaded with just such overwhelming numbers of needy people who come to take from Christ what they want, His power to heal.

I guess such reaching out to take what we want is a part of human nature.  The people in these villages were hardly any different to what we continue to be today ourselves.  There is definitely a reason why Mark continues to include these kinds of stories of Christ's life experience with the people who he has come to save.  They all seem to be after what they can get, and not what they can give!  On Sunday in my sermon, I spoke about how we often attempt to serve Christ to get saved, when the opposite is where we need to be in our lives of faith.  We are already saved by Christ's sacrifice on the cross.  So, we are saved to serve.  And we receive from the Spirit the “yes” of faith, and faith itself, and through Christ we have forgiveness, life with God, and Salvation, all already done and complete for us.  But how do you and I respond.  We seem to continually come to Christ to get, instead of approaching Christ to give.  When our children are at home growing up, they have a lot to give me in their lives.   A house, food, warmth in the winter, cooling in the summer, allowance, "drip” (that’s cool clothes for we older folks), a car to drive, Nike shoes, and so much more, and try as we might, we work to help them understand that life is about giving, at home, and in the world.  Our journey of faith is exactly the same.  Churches seem to be able to offend members easily when member giving of time, talents, and resources are sought, even when the Church has been in their midst to Baptize, Commune, marry, bury, teach, provide rich worship experiences, and so much more in the Name of Christ.  Yet in all of that we seem to do a lot of getting, and a lot less giving.  We all probably have experienced friends who only use us, and who find it difficult to give of themselves in the relationships we have with them.  That seems to be human nature with our relationship with God too.  When was the last time that you actually told Christ that you love Him, and are thankful for every opportunity to serve His Gospel and Truth with people you meet in your life?  I have to tell you, it is so refreshing on the prayer chain when we are able to give thanks to God for having answered our prayers, but we often do not hear when God's intervention has been received.  We really just need to be mindful of all of the giving which is possible for us because we have already received so much through God's love for our lives in Jesus Christ.  As I approach the ripe old age of 74 in a few months, I am giving my thanks and love to God for providing me each week that I am able to be playing the preludes and hymns, and selecting music and worship setting and hymns appropriate for the Church Year Seasons, and most especially, to offer for the good of the Gospel's work, the sermon for the day.  All I have needed to continue being a servant of the Gospel has already been shared with me by my Savior and Lord, and my giving will be to continue as long as I can to proclaim my love for our Savior, and to encourage you to do the same.

Tomorrow we will move into chapter 7 of the Gospel of Mark.

In Christ's Love, Pastor Kim

Pastor's Ponderings: Old Testament bible study on Ezra 7:11-28 (February 1, 2024)

February 1, 2024

Thursday morning Bible Study on the Old Testament book of Ezra 7:11-28

Good morning in the Name and Love of Jesus Christ.

I hope you are ready for tonight's rain which will run through tomorrow, though perhaps in a lighter fashion tomorrow.

I just keep thinking that the plants which have suffered with extreme summer heat and drought are finally getting a much-needed reprieve.  I hope that it is enough to deal with the next coming summer.  Once again, this Sunday is Gospel Music Sunday which is followed by a carry-in meal.  Also, Sarah, the VA nurse, will be here to take blood pressures after church, and Miss Vicky will be here to offer any assistance that you might need with your health insurance.  Besides, she's just fun to meet and talk with.  Remember to schedule yourself to be able to attend worship on Ash Wednesday / Valentines Day at Noon or 7PM.  As we proceed through Lent there will be Noon Worship, but evening service will be available only on our web site through the Link to You Tube.  There will be two services at Noon and 7PM on Maundy Thursday and Good Friday.  Just a note: I have started reading "The Bible Unearthed", a new archaeological vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of its Sacred Texts.   Finkelstein and Silberman.  I have not yet gotten to the section on Ezra, but this text continues to affirm what I have believed about the construction of the history of Israel and its settlement of the Promised Land.  It’s a very approachable style.

Today we move on to a section of Ezra which speaks to the heart of stewardship, with its being a combination of the Spirit's movement of the heart and of God's command and expectation of how we respond in returning to the work of God a portion of all that God has provided for the blessing of our lives.

The Old Testament book of Ezra

This entire section is about how Artaxerxes approaches both wealth possession, and the need to be certain that he is not offending the God of the Judahites.  In other words, he is trying to cover all of the bases for his safety and place in the world.  This whole text is about Artaxerxes command to all people, including both Judahites who continue to live in Persia, and to his own people, most especially to the leaders and people beyond the "River" who are to follow this command to give generously to every request from the people who are rebuilding the Temple.  My text uses the word scrupulously following the commands of the king's letter.  This is a word that we don't often use today when we speak of giving, and like everyone else, I understand that there are times and life circumstances which prevent us from giving in the way that we would like to.  But it continues to be important for us to be aware that stewardship is serious business in our relationship with God, though I certainly hope that you are giving regularly out of your joy in God's gift of Jesus Christ for your life, and not out of fear for God's retribution like Artaxerxes.  The letter Also speaks to the responsibility of the leaders of the Temple worship center of the Judahites, of Ezra to be certain that he teaches everyone the things that he knows about the worship and life of the community, so that they might prosper in their endeavors to live and worship the God of Creation.  The punishments are worldly.  They will come from the king of Persia.  There must be no failure in any of this, stewardship, helpfulness, compassion, provision of any requests, teaching, and training, after all, the people have been away from right worship and care for one another for a long period of time.  They will definitely need help in adhering to the knowledge and priestly training that Ezra brings.  In verse 27 of today's text, we see a transition of the language and its style.  This is where the comment of Ezra begins and the letter from Artaxerxes ends.  We know that some of the Judahites chose to not leave Persia, and they were being called on to send forward offerings for the work in Jerusalem.  But for those who chose to return, their entire lives, in the midst of many hardships and difficulties of settling back in the promised land, would be their offerings.  You see a big part of our stewardship is not just giving of time, talent, and resources, it is the commitment of our whole selves to the call of Christ to live in this world as His children.  It is everything about us, our whole being, our lives in the world, which includes our time, talent, and resources, all are meant to be always and forever in the service of God.  We can see it as a sacrifice, but in reality, all of this is just returning a portion of all that belongs to God in the first place. 

Let's talk for a moment about how it is that God uses unlikely people, sometimes people who do not understand God's Grace and compassion for His children, who do not see the possibility of  the Holy Truth which Christ brings for us in the Gospels, and yet, they too are moved to act in ways which reinforce and strengthen God's purposes and intents with those who have come to believe in the Holy Trinity and its action for each of our lives before God.  Even in congregations, the sometimes most difficult people are catalysts for the always changing work of the Gospel in the world.  We always have lots of questions when we see these unusual ones being alligators in our midst, and yet, often in the future, when we look back, we see how they too were an important part of God's Plan for all of us. 

Artaxerxes wants. a good neighbor in this reestablishing community, so there is a kind of imperialistic thinking here too.  These returning people have every reason to be entrenched in their anger over the initial exile.  However, when Persia and her people are deeply involved in the restoration of Jerusalem, and the surrounding countryside, then committing to their return and their survival with everything they need, creates the likelihood of another rebellion to be extremely low.  The practicalities of governance have changed very little over the course of many centuries.  Today we have a good relationship with Germany and Japan, who were literally obliterated by the military power of the United States and its Allies, and yet today we are close friends because of the rebuilding of those nations with our help after the war.  Like the situation with Persia and the Judahites, there are certainly difficulties in this too.

I will be back with you on Monday and the study of Mark's Gospel.

In Christ, filled with Grace and Joy, Pastor Kim