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Every Sunday, before the pastoral prayer, Pastor Michelle asks, “Where have you seen God at work recently?”  Most answers have to do with grandchildren and flower-beds, although some describe turnabouts in their faith-life or other new insight.  There are those who claim that they haven’t seen God…yet prodded with the witness of others will admit to seeing Divinity without being able at the moment to name it as such.  Scriptures this week will recall stories of how God has given a “sign” of Grace, and how those around are slow to recognize the Holy in their midst.

The reading from Exodus (16:2-4,9-15) tells about how the Back to Egypt Committee complained to Moses about the slim pickings in the Wilderness.  “If only we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the fleshpots and ate our fill of bread; for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.”  God heard, and provided flaky stuff for them to eat.  “When the Israelites saw it, they said to one another, “Manna? (What is it?)”  Moving from bondage to the Promised Land can spur a faith-crisis, especially when the would-be believer is hungry!  We’re instructed that the barren places can reveal the glory of the Lord, and that this sudden Grace affirms God’s presence and compassion.

There must be at least 20 good sermons in this passage from the Ephesian Letter, 4:1-16.  This week, verses 11-13 stand forth for me:  that Christ’s gifts were assorted talents to create various church leaders, “to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God…”  Is it too much of a leap to think that these gifts are bread in the wilderness?  Like earlier pilgrims, the grace-hungry Ephesians may well have asked, “So what is it?”

There’s an Appalachian carol with the line, “Sweet Little Jesus Boy, we didn’t know who you was”.  This was the condition of those who wanted another lunch of bread & fish (John 6:24-35).  Jesus told them, “Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you.”  Jesus then calls himself the Bread of Life, the ultimate gift of God.  The Crowd had limited vision, and had difficulty grasping Jesus’ counter-cultural demeanor:  “Sir, give us this bread always.”  But what is it?

I marvel that I’ve been so dense when confronted by Grace.  There have been so many times when I’ve had an epiphany that what I experienced as “small” has really been life-changing!  Perhaps it’s our humanity (some would say “Original Sin”) which diverts us from appreciating the richness of Holy Gifts?  The assorted deserts of my life have been blessed all this time with tokens which have pointed me to the Promised Land!  I’ve been richly sustained on my journey even though I’ve been slow to recognize the Bread of Life.  The unknown has been scattered before me–so what is it?

God bless Us, Every One                        Horace Brown King

My wanderings through the scripture readings assigned to the upcoming weekend can be observed every Tuesday at this spot on Facebook; or at horacebrownking.com

Since I grew up in a poor household, I rarely had the luxury of feeling full.  Even the substantial meals in college left me a bit unsatisfied.  In grad school, I ate honey and saltines and not much else!  Early marriage?  Forget it!  It’s been only in recent times that I’ve felt full at the end of a meal.  Sometimes I bemoan the loss of my “starving poet” days…but not for long.  The scripture readings we’ll look at today acknowledge the constant hunger of humanity for “enough” God.

The brief story recounted in II Kings 4:42-44 is one of four miracles which certified Elisha as a worthy successor to Elijah.  Here, a huge crowd is fed to satisfaction with a few barley loaves and a handful of other grain.  Some commentators will say that this demonstrates God’s abundance in a time of scarcity (Kristin Saldine) and others will add that this is another parable of life in the midst of death (Terence E. Fretheim).  The servant (world-view) sees the inadequacy of the resources, but Elisha (God’s Person) continues to pronounce the abundancy of God.  Will there be enough of God to go ’round?

Paul’s team offer the same message to the Ephesian disciples, not as a miracle story but as a blessing.  “I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.” (3:18-19)  This is really a benediction, although in context it appears in the middle part of the Ephesian letter.  We continue to picture God as generously concerned about our well-being, enough to overflow the capacities of our souls.

John’s Gospel remembrance, 6:1-14, is the classic story of the Feeding of the Multitude.  The crowd kept following Jesus around; they’d seen the marvels of wholeness bestowed on others, and now they wanted this for themselves.  Jesus recognized their hunger and decided to provide Holy Food.  Here we have the hyperbole of the smallest of provisions–five cheap barley loaves and a couple of fish–and a huge crowd, five thousand.  But still everyone had as much as they wanted, until satisfied!  Once again, the Vision of Abundance proved the skeptics too limited in their world-view.  Will there be enough of God to go ’round?

The readings for some weeks are filled with Challenge, but this set of lessons has to do with Hope–a welcome relief in the midst of worldly chaos.  A shrinking world rightly has concern about inequity and unequal distribution:  my mailbox brings me handfuls of worthy appeals every day!  It’s good for me to hear that God has dealt charitably with those overwhelmed by scarcity in previous crises, thus to project that God will be present to contemporary needs.  Will there be enough of God to go ’round?

God Bless Us, Every One                 Horace Brown King

My musing on scripture readings assigned to the upcoming weekend can be found every Tuesday at this spot on Facebook; or at horacebrownking.com

While talking about this blog with my wife, she reminded me that sheep are notorious for following the leader–any leader.  Marie grew up on a farm, and the wool from her sheep provided a significant portion of her undergraduate tuition.  Readings for this weekend deal with “sheep” and their need for a wise and loving leader.   (So you already see where I’m going with this?)  When these paragraphs were originally written, the speakers could see a clear analogy with the people of their day; preachers & teachers must not be shy about bringing these scriptures into contemporary understanding!

Jeremiah complained (Jeremiah 23:1-6) that the shepherds of Judah had sold out to the Establishment and not attended to the well-being of their flock.  The royal house and its sycophants have chosen greed and oppression over justice and righteousness, and God is dismayed.  But all is not lost!  “The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely…”  Even though God’s People may soon be scattered, says the prophet, we are not utterly forsaken.  Dare we proclaim that better days are coming, even though we fear that our leaders seem to have bailed out on us?

“Remember,” says the writer of the Letter to the Ephesian Church, “that at one time…you were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.” (2:11-22)   It’s useful to remember these periods of crises in our holy-history, because greed and injustice seem to be endemic to humanity; each generation must deal with them.  The passage goes on to affirm Christ as savior and dispenser of peace to Jew and Gentile alike, and that everyone is joined together in the holy temple of God.

Two similar Gospel stories present themselves–Mark 6:30-34 and 53-56.  Jesus & Co. were trying to get away to catch their breath, even to Gennesaret, a town in a foreign country.  BUT people recognized them, and came for healing, feeding and comfort.  “As [Jesus] went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd…”   Who’s in charge, here?  Anybody home?  When a Messiah, a Savior or a charismatic politician show up, folks begin to Feel the Bern and realize both that they’re just drifting around AND that God cares about their wholeness.

If I were preaching this weekend, I’d create a sermon which points out the wide difference between the Wholeness of the Kingdom of God and the current preoccupation with military safety and bottom-line profits, irregardless of who gets hurt in the process.  The Church is an alternative to selfishness and power:  we’re to reflect the teachings of Jesus about unconditional love, tolerance and peace.  There’s always a choice–between the adherence to the virtues of God or going along with the wickedness of one who only THINKS he’s God!

God Bless Us, Every One                                     Horace Brown King

My interpretation of Scripture assigned to the upcoming weekend can be found every Tuesday at this spot on Facebook; or at horacebrownking.com

Readings for the upcoming weekend are quite harsh:  two spokesmen for God, Amos & John the Baptizer, are meanly rejected and put aside.  But many pew-sitters will crave words of acceptance, assurances that they are of worth within the greater picture.  What to do?  As leaders and interpreters we’re entrusted with honest presentation of what God’s Presence is directing; are there ways to include worshipers as Beloved of God even though the dragons of politics and religion spit their invective?

Around the year 760 BC, Amos, a pastoral herdsman from Tekoa, a village in Judah –the SOUTHERN kingdom–appeared in prosperous Israel–the NORTHERN kingdom– to speak against their military might, their social inequality for the poor, and their empty words of piety.  In our present text (Amos 7:10-15), the priest of Bethel (remember, house of God?) Amaziah has had enough of this “foreigner”, and tried to send him back to Judah.  Amos stubbornly remained to speak truth to power.  He’s been revered by activists ever since for condemning not the People of God, but their practices.  Is there a place in our contemporary culture for this prophet?

St. Paul, or some amanuensis writing in Paul’s name, spoke to the Church in Ephesus about the specialness of being children of God through Christ (1:3-14).  “[God] has made known to us the mystery of [God’s] will…as a plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in [Christ], things in heaven and things on earth.”  This puts us directly in the mode of being “in the world, and not of it”.  Prophets are commissioned to confront the idols.  Some of these may be carved of wood or stone, but most are attitudes of selfish hearts.

John the Baptizer pops in and out of the Gospel narratives.  Here in Mark 6:14-29, we have a flashback of how John was done in as a reward to a dancing-girl.  Here again was a prophet who spoke truth to power, accusing Herod of misusing his carte blanche to steal his brother’s wife.  Herod guiltily associated Jesus’ teaching and healing with the ghost of John the Baptist, recognizing at least to himself the extremes between God’s Word and his own.  Evil inflicts its chaos–to Mark, there’s little neutral ground, little gray area between the Ultimate Goodness of Jesus and his group and the Total Depravity of the Herodian culture.  The prophetic voice in the wilderness was sent to confront this idolatry.

About now, most congregants are day-dreaming of high surf and hot sand, or of dozing in a rowboat on some shady Adirondack lake.  They may take exception to a call to confront today’s idols.  Our challenge is to announce this vigorous mission on a sleepy midsummer day!

God Bless Us, Every One                        Horace Brown King

My angst with lessons assigned to the upcoming weekend can be found every Tuesday at this spot on Facebook; or at horacebrownking.com

Years ago, I thought that it would be fun in retirement to live on a houseboat, to navigate the Intercoastal Waterway north in Summer, south in Winter.  But age brought a need for stability:  an address, a regular neighborhood with regular friends and church and social structure.  After many years as an itinerant United Methodist preacher, a home base seemed desirable.  This is an age of abrupt social change; many folks are quite comfortable in their usual pew as a refuge from the maelstrom.  Scripture readings for this weekend will challenge most of us to become less sedentary in our faith…

Young Ezekiel was commissioned by Yahweh (2:1-5) just as the aristocracy of Israel was being marched off to Babylon, circa 597 BC.  “Mortal, I am sending you to the people of Israel,to a nation of rebels…impudent and stubborn…and you shall say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord God'”.  There was no guarantee that this sleeping congregation would hear the message, or even welcome the messenger.  Even if we couch-potatoes (pew-potatoes?) use our strongest denial mechanism, we’ll still have to grudgingly acknowledge that there has been a prophet among us.

II Corinthians 12:2-10 is full of Paul.  It would be easy to get lost in this recitation of virtue and miss the centrality, which I think is vv.7b-9.  Here we encounter the “thorn in the flesh” which may have been Paul’s perceived epilepsy.  Though Paul appealed for healing, God responded, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.”  To mission-travelers On the Road, it’s good to know that God has made provision despite the lions and jackals that may lurk there.

Which brings us to Mark’s Gospel, 6:1-13.  For me today, the second part is my focus– disciples are sent On the Road to preach repentance, to cast out the demonic and to cure the sick.  Some houses will be welcoming, others not so much:  so don’t carry the dust of yesterday’s rejection with you to slow your steps into tomorrow!  Most importantly, take only what you have; live off the land and the hospitality of your hosts, and remember that God’s grace is sufficient.  (Insert here my usual rant against Stuff.)  It’s really important to make this a message for Today, to affirm that disciples are actively being sent out, often to communities which are “rebellious, impudent and stubborn”.

At last evening’s book study it was noted that Jesus was training his followers to be Activists.  Some of us cringed a bit, thinking that the term “activist” brought images of wild-eyed sign-bearers with but one central interest.  Well, yeah…perhaps early disciples COULD be seen as such.   Perhaps we followers of Jesus need to BE more wild-eyed, more focused on  God’s message as we go On the Road Again.

God Bless Us, Every One.                   Horace Brown King

My wrestling with Scripture assigned to the upcoming weekend can be found every Tuesday at this spot on Facebook; or at horacebrownking.com