Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Gospel Reflection



We had a great conversation on Sunday night about laying down our fears and our worries. Many times we have to bring those very same fears and worries to Jesus daily. I would encourage you to continue to lay them down. Jesus tells us we have nothing to fear! That is good news.

Feel free to leave comments about things you are learning or questions that you may have. It would help us all.

(For Aug 23 read from bottom of 47 through the second paragraph on 57)

3 comments:

Rob Yackley said...

After last night's discussion, some of us continued the conversation in the kitchen (where many good conversations usually start or end up!). We talked about one of the tougher passages in this week's reading: Jesus' interaction with the Canaanite woman where he seemingly calling her a dog.

One take on Jesus response to the woman: "It is not right to take the children's bread and toss it to the dogs," is that Jesus responded impulsively, culturally, from a position of privilege, and when she countered by saying, "Yes it is Lord," she was actually correcting him, even instructing him. That interpretation flows from the idea that Jesus was still "growing in wisdom and stature."

I see it differently. I think Jesus was intentionally undermining a posture of superiority by tossing out a common, disparaging colloquialism that he actually wanted her to challenge. It's almost like he was saying, "Well, you know what they say...". I don't think he owned the cultural expression or wanted her to own it. I think he actually wanted to expose it for what it was and show us that his good news is available to everyone. His immediate response to her rebuttal: "Woman, you have great faith," seems to indicate that she responded just as he hoped she would, and he proceeded to grant her request that her daughter be healed.

Rob Yackley said...

The other "kitchen conversation" we had last night concerned the tension we saw in the "bread of life" stories between everyone being called and some being chosen. Theologians have debated this forever, so I know my simple take is far from bullet-proof, but I find to helpful to think of it like this:

It's like Jesus is looking at everyone, the whole world, and he is saying, "You are all invited to come into my house. You're all welcome. In fact, you're not only invited, but my Father has actually enabled all of you to make the journey here." But the unfortunate reality is that only some choose to come. Only some choose to accept the invitation and the empowerment offered for the journey. And then to those who chose to come, to those who by their own volition and by the enablement of the Father are now standing with him in the room, it's like Jesus is saying, "You, you who chose to come, are chosen to inherit eternal life."

I believe that everyone is both called and enabled to come, but only those who response to that call and who actually show up are chosen.

Derek said...

great comments Rob. These are both difficult things to understand.