Sunday, October 04, 2009
Sunday Recap Oct 4, 2009
Today's text was of an encounter between Jesus and a Gentile woman. The event puts the differences between Jews and Gentiles in stark terms. The walls that they constructed then aren't really any different than the ones we build today. The contrast between the Gentle woman's confident faith in Jesus and the disciples (or duh-sciples) is great.
As I studied this all week, and let the text percolate, I couldn't get over how many ways we divide from each other. Then how many ways we in the Church and as a church tell people whether or not they are wanted, whether they are loved by God and worthy of our time. Duh-sciples.
To follow Jesus means loving who He loved. "While we were yet sinners..."
But sometimes once you are inside the walls, you forget you were ever an outsider.
To paraphrase Robert Frost, "Someone there is that doesn't want a wall." His name is Jesus.
This week's music -
"Your Grace Is Enough"
"Call Upon His Name"
"Blessed Be Your Name"
"Grace Flows Down"
The basic idea was to help remind each other as we sang praises of just how great God's grace is - regardless.
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http://www.snopes.com/science/greatwall.asp
ReplyDeleteThough it remains an excellent example for this purpose.
The think from the message that I kept thinking on was the woman. The scripture doesn't say she ran up to Jesus, I imagined her as waiting for him to come by and then she rushes out, in her desperate state, to meet him. Then I went to football and thought she must of used an excellent blind-side angle tackle to get in like that :-)
That, however, led me to another thought: how often to do we actually rush to God? This woman shows that she had belief and faith and so went out to "tackle" Jesus. She ignored procedure and rules and went straight to what she believed and what she knew she needed. She needed to see Jesus and no person or arcane cultural divided was going to stop her. She wasn't going to wait to picked out of a crowd or remain in her pew.
She shows that Christ-following is proactive. The best defense is a good offense.
She also knew how to run a good play apparently.
-Michael W.