NOTE FROM PASTOR JR FOR SUNDAY, AUGUST 7, 2022
Sunday is the Ninth Sunday after Pentecost. The assigned text has terminology that seems out of place or inappropriate for 2022 if your goal is to encourage people in being prepared and ready to make the most impact of God’s call on one’s life. As such, it is important to remember that in scripture when Jesus uses images and language that seems strange to us, those to whom Jesus was speaking understood it. The first principle of biblical interpretation is seeking to understand what the passage meant to the original hearer. In doing so, we understand that we should not take first century examples and language literal for the 21st century. We should simply seek to understand the timeless message of the scripture.
In teaching reliance of God’s provisions, developing a Christlike perspective on our possessions, and then being prepared, faithful and ready to seize the moment when God calls us into service, which is “Living the Dash” between the dates of our births and our deaths.
Living the Dash is what Gandhi, an unsuccessful lawyer did when he adapted the teachings of the Sermon on the Mount and the writings of Tolstoy in bringing independence to India, because he was ready. Living the Dash was what Rosa Parks, a rather inauspicious person, did in refusing to move to the back of the bus in Montgomery, sparked the beginning of the civil rights movement of the ’50s and ’60s, because she was ready. Living the Dash is what Mother Teresa, a rather unpretentious nun, now a saint in the Catholic Church, was doing in her simple act of trying to rescue people from the streets who might otherwise die. She did so because she was ready!
It is important we do not get confused or distracted by Jesus’ language or examples in the assigned text. We should seek to discover the timeless truth of it and let it impact the way you are “Living the Dash.”
Join us for worship this week, in person or by social media. My sermon is “Living the Dash” based on Luke 2:32-40.
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