Friday, June 24, 2005

Good Morning!
Hope everyone has had a good week. Note that I will be gone on this Sunday.

The new unit for this week is Unit 8 , Reaching Out to the Poor

Focus Scripture for the Week: Leviticus 19:10

You shall not strip you vineyard bare, or gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard; you shall leave them for the poor and the alien. I am the Lord your God.

Today's scripture: James 2:1-7, II Corinthians 8:8-15, Luke 14:1-14

-- last three scripture readings for the week.

-- The scripture from James offers a completely different view of the idea of reaching out to the poor, one that I hadn't taken into account.

-- up to now, my focus on this topic has been about money -- about the need for those who have to give to those who are have nots. But James opens a completely new window on the subject -- the concept of favoritism. He gives a great real-life example -- of two people, one well-dressed and obviously rich, and the other shabbily dressed and poor. Who do we treat better?

-- one of the points that James makes is why would we treat the rich person better? As he notes, we don't know how the rich person made his money, or how he has used it -- we could honoring/favoring someone who is not a Christian over someone who is devote, based on the wrong thing.

-- the commentary in my bible notes three reasons why we might treat the rich person better -- (1) poverty makes us uncomfortable, we don't want to be reminded of our responsibilities to the poor (2) we want to be wealthy too, and we hope to use the rich person to help us (3) we want the rich person to join our church, and provide financially for our church. It also notes that when we show favoritism to the rich, we are putting appearances ahead of character.

-- today's message is something that we can put to work right away in our lives -- we encounter the poor all the time as we live our lives. If we just took into account the earlier scriptures, it would seem that our response to them would be to give them money, or to organizations that helped them. But today's lesson pushes us and actually demands much more from us -- that we treat the poor with respect and dignity and equality. That really represents more of effort than giving. All of us have written a check or simply handed over a few dollars when encountering someone begging. That's not that hard. But how well would a really obviously poor person fit into our church family? Our social circles? Or, looking at one of Wesley's 22 Questions (available on the blog) how often have we thanked God that we were not poor like some person we encounter, like the story we read earlier about the Pharisee and publican. Today's lesson is about attitude towards the poor, and that is really the challenge set down by the lesson today.

Today's prayer request: Alex Lloyd, Monica's nephew

He had surgery last week for a difficult hip condition, and recovery from that and from the condition in general is going to take a long time.

Today's class member prayer:

Matt Rocksvold

Have a great day.

Jay

Thursday, June 23, 2005

Good Morning!

Just fyi, I'm pretty sure I will be away this Sunday as well.

The new unit for this week is Unit 8 , Reaching Out to the Poor

Focus Scripture for the Week: Leviticus 19:10

You shall not strip you vineyard bare, or gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard; you shall leave them for the poor and the alien. I am the Lord your God.

Today's scripture: Luke 6:17-26

-- this passage is from what is called the Sermon on the Plain, because of where Luke describes it taking place. It appears to be Luke's version of Matthew's account of the Sermon on the Mount. But note that they are probably not accounts of the very same sermon -- they are likely either two different sermons, or slightly different summaries of Jesus's teachings over a number of sermons. There are some differences from Matthew's and Luke's sermons.

-- one difference between the two is in the verse we have for today. In Matthew, he says "blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." In our reading from Luke, it simply says, "blessed are you who are poor . . ."

-- Matthew's version also doesn't have verses 24-26, the "woe to you who are rich . . ." Since we are focused this week on the poor, let's just focus on verses 20 and 24

-- I'm not sure I understand what is meant in these verses. I'm not sure that I see in these verses a direct call to reach out to the poor. I think that for the unit we are studying this week, verse 24 is the key verse for us to focus on. What I see in that verse is a warning about misplaced priorities. What v.24 is saying is that money -- being wealthy -- can create misplaced priorities. I think that it is talking about choices -- if you are rich, if you have laid up treasures here on earth, you have chosen to keep your money for your own comfort and fulfillment now. If you have made that decision, then that is all of the comfort you will receive out of this life -- you have opted out of what God's plan is for your comfort and fulfillment by trying to provide your own.

-- and obviously, if you are rich, and you want to make a change in your life as a result of verse 24, then the most likely thing that you would do is to give some of your wealth to those less fortunate. So, in somewhat of a roundabout way, verse 24 is giving us motivation to reach out to the poor by warning us that keeping it for ourselves will not give us the lasting comfort and security that we seek.

Today's prayer request: Natalee Holloway and her family.

We are more than three weeks into this, and still no resolution. Her mother, in particular, has been under tremendous strain - not just from the disappearance, but from the constant media pressure. Pray for Natalee's safe return, and for continued strength for her family and friends.

Today's class member prayer:

April Walker

Have a great day.

Jay

Wednesday, June 22, 2005

Just fyi, I'm pretty sure I will be away this Sunday as well.

The new unit for this week is Unit 8 , Reaching Out to the Poor

Focus Scripture for the Week: Leviticus 19:10

You shall not strip you vineyard bare, or gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard; you shall leave them for the poor and the alien. I am the Lord your God.

Today's scripture: Matthew 19:16-22

-- we discussed this parable of Jesus earlier this year during our study of Luke -- this parable appears in Matthew, Mark and Luke.

-- in this story, I hear echoes of Wesley's instructions about money -- "gain all you can, save all you can, give all you can".

-- this is a scary passage for all of us. Sell all we have, give it all to the poor? When it says the young man became very sad, we can see that and feel that. The challenge that Jesus was issuing him was about identifying what this man felt was his base of security. He had more faith in his possessions and wealth than in God. So this passage is more about the need to put your faith in the right place and on the right thing rather than the need to give to the poor.

-- however, think about this -- once the man had told Jesus that he was keeping all of the commandments, and asked what more he should be doing, Jesus identified giving to the poor as a "next level" type commitment. Note that he could have told the rich young man any number of things, but giving to the poor is the thing Jesus focused on. Again, part of that reason was because of what is mentioned in the paragraph above, but part is because Jesus places great importance, time and again, on helping those less fortunate.

-- this particular story continues along a few more verses beyond our reading for today, and at the end Jesus returns to the idea that first shall be last, and the last shall be first. This is a theme that runs throughout several of Jesus's parables and teachings. In this case, that theme gives some additional insight into what Jesus was telling this man -- that the things that put you first or on top here on earth -- money, power, etc. -- do not put you first in the kingdom of God.

-- at the end of this passage, Jesus repeats the promise he makes in verse 21 of our reading -- whatever good thing you have to give up to follow me, it will be worth it based on your reward to come in heaven.

Today's prayer request: Monica's nephew, Alex Lloyd

Alex is going to have a long-term presence on our list, due to the condition of his hip and the long term nature of his treatment.

Today's class member prayer:

Valerie Waters

Have a great day.

Jay

Tuesday, June 21, 2005

Good Morning!

My email was down this morning, but I was able to do the blog -- if some morning you don't have an email, you might want to check the web at www.leapclass.blogspot.com and see if I was able to post here.

The new unit for this week is Unit 8 , Reaching Out to the Poor

Focus Scripture for the Week: Leviticus 19:10

You shall not strip you vineyard bare, or gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard; you shall leave them for the poor and the alien. I am the Lord your God.

Today's scripture: Amos 8:4-10

-- today's scripture from Amos is a taste of what the entire book is about -- it is a message to those whose faith life is shallow and superficial, and in particular to those who take advantage of the poor as a way of enriching themselves. Those to whom Amos was writing professed to have a relationship with God, but their actions showed that to be a lie.

-- the scripture today covers both of these points -- essentially Amos is writing about those who celebrate certain religious holidays, but in their hearts they are wishing that the holiday would end as soon as possible so that they can get back to business. And in their case, "back to business" is about cheating, shorting and price gouging their customers, particularly the poor.

-- the concepts behind Amos's message gets to what the heart our class mission -- that we become Christians of substance -- not Christians who simply go through the motions on Sunday mornings - but Christians who are actively engaged in living a Christian life every day, expressing it through all of our activities and relationships. Amos's target audience simply went through the motions of worship, and as soon as they returned to their everyday lives, they worked and lived as though they had no faith, no guiding principles at all.

-- those who have that superficial faith demonstrate it in a lot of ways -- Amos chose to focus particularly on their mistreatment of the poor. And that is the other thing we can take from this lesson -- Amos's words should broaden our sense of what we can do for the poor -- Amos is not condemning his audience for not giving to the poor as an expression of their faith -- he is condemning them for their treatment of the poor as an expression of their worklife.

-- the question then for today is what can we do, as part of our work life, to treat the poor better, or how can we stop practices that take advantage of the poor?

Today's prayer request: Nelson Ferreiro, a family friend of Megan Douglas

Nelson was recently diagnosed with brain cancer, and had surgery to remove the tumor. However, they could not remove all of it, and he was given 2 - 6 months to live. We need to pray for him and his family

Today's class member prayer: Brigitte Severance

Have a great week.

Jay

Monday, June 20, 2005

Good Morning!

Hope everyone had a good weekend.

The new unit for this week is Unit 8 , Reaching Out to the Poor

Focus Scripture for the Week: Leviticus 19:10

You shall not strip you vineyard bare, or gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard; you shall leave them for the poor and the alien. I am the Lord your God.

Today's scripture: Matthew 11:1-5

-- this is a unit that offers up another challenge to us and the way we live and think. What did you or I or any of us do for the poor yesterday, or the day before? I think that we generally think about the "poor" as being some nameless mass of people, when we often come into contact with them as individuals, who are asking for or needing help. And we often think about helping the poor only in the context of food or money for food. But the poor have a wide range of needs -- for housing, for medical care, for education, for any number of things we take for granted.

-- the Reflections reading made an interesting point, in that one of the ways that Wesley worked to help the poor was to make certain resources available to them inexpensively. The point was that there are ways to help the poor, including making necessities more affordable. Auburn University has a major affordable housing initiative that focuses on designing simple, inexpensive homes for the rural poor. That is an example of being engaged with the poor beyond simply dropping a dollar in the collection plate, or pushing a five out a rolled down window at the end of the interstate exit.

-- the scripture reading points out how important care and ministry to the poor was to Jesus -- in the passage, John the Baptist sends some messengers to Jesus to ask if he the one, the Messiah, that John had been preparing the way for. Jesus answers by simply saying what he is doing -- with the implication that the work Jesus is doing is the work that the Messiah would be doing. Right up there with healing the sick and raising the dead was preaching the good news to the poor. If you take the approach that the Messiah was going to do things that couldn't or wouldn't be done by others, then think about the reference to the poor --- the poor were neglected and ignored and dismissed by Jewish society at the time of Jesus -- so to reach out to them was a major break from the norm. The challege laid out in the Reflections section is that we live in a time where being poor separates you from society in many, many ways -- and that the Methodist tradition calls us to bridge that gap, and to reach out in ways that bridges that gap.

-- I guess one of the questions of the day would be -- what is your opinion of how our society and culture treat the poor among us? How does being poor separate you from society?

Today's prayer request: Natalee Holloway's family.

This situation sadly continues to drag on, and I think everyone knows what the ultimate resolution of this mystery will be. Let's pray that it be resolved soon, and give the family strength to get through this ordeal.

Today's class member prayer:

Christie Peebles

Have a great week.

Jay