Sunday, February 1, 2009
Fourth Sunday After the Epiphany
Preacher: Pastor Kendra Mohn
Readings:
Deuteronomy 18:15-20
1 Corinthians 8:1-13
Mark 1:21-28
Fourth Sunday After the Epiphany
Preacher: Pastor Kendra Mohn
Readings:
Deuteronomy 18:15-20
1 Corinthians 8:1-13
Mark 1:21-28
“I don’t know anybody who’s picked this text for their wedding text. I don’t know anybody who’s picked this text for their funeral text.” So Pastor Mohn points out about today’s 2nd reading from Corinthians. It’s a text on which much preaching is apparently undertaken. It’s interesting. But Pastor Mohn takes it on with a unique perspective. We start, once again, by asking “Where’s the Good News here?”
We have people taking serious stances on “the eating of sacrificial meats” from other religions. Paul nearly becomes a Vegan for the Gospel as he sorts through the differing rationalizations run amok: it doesn’t matter because those “other Gods” don’t exist, it doesn’t matter at all, it’s only food, you name it. The disagreement is born over struggling “What’s the right thing to do?”
Paul says “It doesn’t matter. It’s not as big as we’re all making it out to be.”
“Did you ever have an argument whereby winning you ruined your relationship?”
When the need to prove one’s point overrides, we may pull out the stops. The argument can turn numerical, authoritative. Pastor Mohn points out that we’ve all walked in on conversations wed don’t feel qualified to be part of. Our reaction is to become “silent”. This is a text about living in community, about how we live together in the Body of Christ. What if the sp”qualified”. What we need to remember is without the spleen, there’s no one to recycle old blood cells without which the heart’s function is moot. We ALL play a role. And while we go about the futile enterprise of trying to measure the size of our roll, it’s the uniqueness that matters! There’s no room in a Church or any real community for the silence that accompanies someone trying to “make the argument numerical”. There’s no one who gets to walk in and say “I know more than you.” When we, collectively, have the gifts of all God’s people, there’s no room for exclusion. And our individual and unique gifts act in wonderous concert, or can, for the good of all. He knee bones connected to the hip bone.
The Good News is “We’re ALL chosen. We are ALL called.”
Even if you’ve felt “I should have been farther along. I took a wrong turn & I’m lost & way off course.” Where you are at THAT moment … God is THERE.
If you know a lot, come and share what you know. If you think you know nothing, come and share yourself. Your very presence will stir someone to say something that may reveal to you what it is you are really there to provide and share.
This can’t be preached … or taught, only experienced.
Wherever you are … up or down, down or out, lost or found, God will find you … and bring you home.
We have people taking serious stances on “the eating of sacrificial meats” from other religions. Paul nearly becomes a Vegan for the Gospel as he sorts through the differing rationalizations run amok: it doesn’t matter because those “other Gods” don’t exist, it doesn’t matter at all, it’s only food, you name it. The disagreement is born over struggling “What’s the right thing to do?”
Paul says “It doesn’t matter. It’s not as big as we’re all making it out to be.”
“Did you ever have an argument whereby winning you ruined your relationship?”
When the need to prove one’s point overrides, we may pull out the stops. The argument can turn numerical, authoritative. Pastor Mohn points out that we’ve all walked in on conversations wed don’t feel qualified to be part of. Our reaction is to become “silent”. This is a text about living in community, about how we live together in the Body of Christ. What if the sp”qualified”. What we need to remember is without the spleen, there’s no one to recycle old blood cells without which the heart’s function is moot. We ALL play a role. And while we go about the futile enterprise of trying to measure the size of our roll, it’s the uniqueness that matters! There’s no room in a Church or any real community for the silence that accompanies someone trying to “make the argument numerical”. There’s no one who gets to walk in and say “I know more than you.” When we, collectively, have the gifts of all God’s people, there’s no room for exclusion. And our individual and unique gifts act in wonderous concert, or can, for the good of all. He knee bones connected to the hip bone.
The Good News is “We’re ALL chosen. We are ALL called.”
Even if you’ve felt “I should have been farther along. I took a wrong turn & I’m lost & way off course.” Where you are at THAT moment … God is THERE.
If you know a lot, come and share what you know. If you think you know nothing, come and share yourself. Your very presence will stir someone to say something that may reveal to you what it is you are really there to provide and share.
This can’t be preached … or taught, only experienced.
Wherever you are … up or down, down or out, lost or found, God will find you … and bring you home.
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