That's What She Said

You give them something to eat. Two stories are contrasted here: the constraint on Jesus’s power in his hometown, and his expectation of the disciples’ power to feed a crowd. What does it mean that power swells and shrinks in relation to context? And what does that present for Carissa’s ordination to Christian ministry?

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Treasures old and new. The parable imagery turns to economic metaphors: treasure, pearls, a fishing haul, more treasure. “What is valuable?” Jesus seems to be asking. The reign of God requires our accurate appraisal, an eye trained to see prizes in fields crowded with other stuff.

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Seeds, weeds, yeast. “The reign of God is like…” Jesus says repeatedly, and he does his best to use workaday metaphors for something so ethereal. Farming and baking – so relatable – with a sprinkle of magical thinking, all those birds nesting in all those branches. How is our own work like a parable, down-to-earth and sprinkled with woo-woo?

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To you it has been given. In this case, the parable itself becomes a recursive reason for parabling – because, like seeds sown in different terrains, the reign of God is not visible/hearable by everyone equally. Why does Jesus, following Isaiah, insist on raising the bar? What is the secret sauce of parables that make them his favorite mode of teaching?

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The Wisdom from Above. This chapter begins with a serious warning about how we speak, given the violence we can do with words. (Don’t we know it!) And then it moves to describing the “gentleness born of wisdom.” The leaders we seek and revere in the church are not the ambitious or arrogant kind; they are the\ gentle ones who make peace – especially with the way they speak, to each other and to the rest of us.

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Vindicated by Her Children. Jesus has an interesting take on wisdom – that part of the trick is recognizing it when you see it. I mean, what if Jesus himself came to your town, and you thought he was a fool (a glutton and a drunkard)? Jesus’s question to his critics: What does this way of being yield? And for us: Is our religion teaching us how to recognize wisdom, or is there danger that we could mistake truly Christian wisdom for a losing proposition?

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Seek It Like Silver. Wisdom is the subject of the whole of Proverbs – not because everybody has it, but because everybody should want it. It’s a gift that only God can give, but there is a path toward it that a person has to choose and re-choose. The only problem is, there are many paths, including alluring paths that lead to whatever is the opposite of wisdom. (Proverbs often says “destruction.”) Those seductive options are personified as seductive women, like the sirens who call Odysseus to a treacherous shore.

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Beyond the Jordan. “In the fortieth year, on the first day of the eleventh month...” To open Deuteronomy, Moses recounts the Israelites’ journey through a generation’s worth of wilderness. He remembers for them how he set up a leadership structure, asking them to recommend the “wise, discerning, and reputable” among them. It’s a give-and-take – the people make recommendations; Moses appoints; the people then ought to listen to the ones they’ve selected. (Spoiler alert: they don’t.)

To tell us your thoughts on this sermon, click through to the web posting and leave us a comment. Or, find us on social media: Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Or, email us the old-fashioned way: [email protected]. To contribute financially to the ongoing ministry of Galileo Church, find us on Venmo, Patreon, or Zelle ([email protected]), or just send a check to P.O. Box 668, Kennedale, TX 76060

Who is one another? As at the end of all Paul’s letters, there is an assumption that the Galatian Christians are working out their faith together. Thus they need some minimal guidance about how to get along while they do it. Verse 2 is his elevator pitch: “Bear one another’s burdens; and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.” Finally, we find out who we are in community with each other, enjoying and pondering God’s mercy together.

To tell us your thoughts on this sermon, click through to the web posting and leave us a comment. Or, find us on social media: Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Or, email us the old-fashioned way: [email protected]. To contribute financially to the ongoing ministry of Galileo Church, find us on Venmo, Patreon, or Zelle ([email protected]), or just send a check to P.O. Box 668, Kennedale, TX 76060

Who is the Spirit? Paul presents an unsettling (to us) duality between “flesh” and “Spirit” – a somewhat anachronistic, Hellenistic understanding of personhood. Maybe for us, his contrast would be better understood as “impulsive appetites” vs. “considered choices”? Or perhaps “self-pleasing” vs. “other-considering”? In any case, the “fruit of the Spirit” in 5:22-23 deserves our full attention.

To tell us your thoughts on this sermon, click through to the web posting and leave us a comment. Or, find us on social media: Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Or, email us the old-fashioned way: [email protected]. To contribute financially to the ongoing ministry of Galileo Church, find us on Venmo, Patreon, or Zelle ([email protected]), or just send a check to P.O. Box 668, Kennedale, TX 76060