Words of Welcome

Mark 4:26-34 We just finished studying the Gospel of Mark in the Wednesday afternoon Bible Study. Our group discovered that Mark is full of surprises. His gospel proclaims the “good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God” ( Mk. 1:1 ), but for some reason Jesus tries to keep this news a secret.  Even though the disciples spend their days and nights with Jesus, only the demons seem to recognize him for who he is. When you read Mark, it’s difficult to set aside stories from Matthew, Luke, and John. We want to read into Mark’s story what we know from the other gospels, but if we do this, we won’t hear Mark’s version of the story. There is one word that stands out. That word is “immediately.” Mark’s story moves quickly. He rarely stops to let Jesus catch his breath. He starts with the baptism of Jesus in the Jordan at the hands of John the Baptizer. Mark doesn’t have an infancy narrative. His family appears only once and they come to take home, because they thought he had...

Romans 7:15-25a “We know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh.”  Those words come right before our reading from Romans.   According to Paul, it’s difficult to do the right thing, even when you know what the right thing is! Does that seem to describe your reality?  Could it be that there is a war going on inside us? Paul seems to think so, which is why I titled the sermon: “I’m so confused.” In Romans Paul talks a lot about how difficult it is to keep the law of God. While the Law reveals God’s desires for our lives, it doesn’t have the ability to help us fulfill these desires.  The Law is good.  As the Psalmist puts it: The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul; the decrees of the Lord are sure, making wise the simple; 8 the precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart; the commandment of the Lord is clear, enlightening the eyes; 9 the fear of the Lord is pure, enduring forever; the ordinances of the Lor...

Luke 8:26-39 There’s been a lot of talk recently about the relationship between faith and healing. Some of these studies seem a bit silly, but others help us and the medical community recognize that we’re more than the sum of our physical body parts. They also suggest that people of faith tend to recover quicker than those without faith. Though we can't always define why this is true scientifically, people of faith know intuitively that their faith gives them hope and peace, even in difficult times. This cautious embrace of faith and spirituality by the medical community is controversial, but it’s providing benefits to many. Of course, a degree of skepticism is healthy. We don’t want to fall prey to the quacks and frauds and other purveyors of false hopes. At the same time it’s appropriate to recognize that we are -- to use a medical term -- a psychosomatic whole. Because we seem to be more than simply a mass of carbon-based atoms magnetically linked together, there may be room for...