Blog Question for the week following June 14, 2009

After the week of June 14, I will be taking a break from blogging during my time away for study. The next blog question will be based on the Scriptures for August 16.

Thank you for the depth of your engagement for the past several weeks. Naturally, you are able to continue dialoguing with each other on the blog during my absence.

For June 14: Please read 2nd Corinthians 5:6-10. Paul states that we walk by faith and not by sight. He does so in the context of the question of life and death: He doesn't know when he will die, what heaven will be like, etc., but he has faith that God has charge of such matters. This leaves Paul free to engage in ministry without fear.

I believe it begs a question: What do we trust to God? What lies within our control? What does it mean to walk by faith, and not by sight? Where is our margin, our shadow place, where we experience fear?

Blog question for week following May 24, 2009

Please read Philippians 2, the great hymn of servanthood shared by the apostle Paul. Our preacher of the day was Beverly Hovenkamp, whose 20 years of ordained ministry we celebrated today. Beverly invited us to embrace humility, our gifts and limitations in our respective lives and ministies; and she challenged us to reach beyond ourselves as a congregation. During one part of her sermon, Beverly mentioned the empowering work of women theologians who recognize that too often women are the ones called on to submit.

I am wondering if this is not a good week to ask a question regarding gender in our culture. What challenges do women in particular face in home, work, and community? What role does humility play for them? I will not pretend to have an answer.

Blog question for the week following May 17, 2009

Our Scripture lessons speak of love: John 15:12-17 and 1st John 5:1-6. This is not romantic love, or the love of friendship or for a pet, but the love of God that fulfills and makes durable every human love. Although always with us by the power of God's Holy Spirit, this love is often observed by us in the exceptional moments of life, e.g. when we find the power to forgive, or let go, or make a sacrifice.

Begin by seeing yourself being submerged in the cold waters of baptism. You are held down; all around you is water, bubbles rising, shimmering reflections, light. You are bathed in God's love, you are dying into it. Suddenly you are yanked out, cold air strikes you! Love remains - you are still sopping wet and there is no means to get dry - but now you are experiencing God's love in a new life.

You have drowned all except for love. Equipped only with love, how will you love and who will you love? Recall that even animals love their own kin and we humans love our friends: But how will you love as God loves?

Blog Question for the week following May 10, 2009

Last Sunday we heard selections from the Messiah sung and played by our musicians, and hence no blog question arose. I could not find a question that matched the beauty of our worship experience.

This week George Minot is preaching from John 15:1-11. Read this passage three times, and imagine Jesus saying these words to you sitting at the dinner table. You have grapes in one hand, and a glass of wine in the other: His words hit you between the eyes. What do you think? What do you feel? What does "abiding in his love" mean? What does it mean to be clean and how do you bear fruit? Does this have any relationship to the forgiveness explored after April 26? Can God love through us people that we cannot love on our own if we try to "go there (as in, please don't go there)?" Some passages invite something more than intellectual wrestling or emotional reflection. They take us . . .

Blog Questions for the Week following April 26, 2009

Read Luke 24:46, 47. Reflect in silence on what it means to be forgiven. Is this important to you, that God completely forgives you? Does this become more important if you recognize that accepting God's forgiveness means that you agree to forgive others? What do you need to forgive? Consider that to forget, in Old English, can mean to set aside or to neglect (rather than losing a memory). Can you forgive others and set aside your desire to harbor anger and to seek vengeance? In other words, can you forgive and forget? What impact will this have on you and on the person who has sinned against you?

Blog question for the week following April 19, 2009

Read Isaiah 42:1-9. Reflect on this statement: "Humans tends to see their physical environment as an object separate from them to be exploited, with science being paradigmatic of this approach. The Christian calling is to recognize that all of creation, living and non-living, human and non-human, is the crucial community upon whose health we depend, and our primary approach to it must be loving nurture."