St. John Chrysostom said that in marriage, husband and wife become companions on a journey. He says there are two kinds of marriages: those that bring great blessings to the husband and wife, their family, and their neighbors; but there are other marriages which seem to bring few blessings to anyone. The difference between the two, he says, is in the spirit of the bond in which the marriage is formed….
Read MoreThroughout the Scriptures we see the righteous suffering. St. Paul had his thorn in the flesh, an angel of Satan to harass him. Job experienced the death of his children, the scorn of his wife, the rebuke of his friends, and the wasting away of his flesh. His days were spent on the dunghill, and his nights filled with bitter weeping. Abraham and Sarah spent years in barren sorrow. Isaac and Rebekah grieved over their wayward children. Jesus said that His followers should expect tribulation in this world. And St. Paul told Timothy that everyone who desires to live godly will suffer persecution….
Read MoreToday’s Gospel begins with many disciples; there is “a great multitude [following Jesus].” But by the end of the same chapter, after Jesus teaches about the Supper, almost everyone turns around and stops following Him. They loved the loaves, they marveled at the miracles – but they could not stomach His teaching. American Christianity preaches a gospel of success; Jesus is the giver of health and wealth.
But when the cross comes, it’s very tempting to turn back and follow Him no more….
Read More“I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser.” Everything Jesus says about love is grounded in this organic connection: Jesus the Vine, the Father the Vinedresser. We are branches joined to the vine. That means we have no life in ourselves. Our life is utterly dependent upon His. That’s the background for our Lord’s teaching about love, which comes eight verses later.
There, in Jn 15.9, Jesus says, “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love.” Notice that the Lord does not say, “Abide in love.” It’s easy to be in love – for a time. It’s easy to feel love when we’ve set a romantic mood and there are no crosses to bear.
But Jesus is not preparing His disciples for a make-believe life. He is preparing them and us for the way of the cross….
Read MoreThe first Psalm of Lament we looked at, Psalm 6, came from fear of God’s permanent rejection after the psalmist had sinned grievously. Then last week’s Psalm was a national lament after a military defeat. Despite their fidelity to YHWH, He had still allowed them to suffer a great loss.
Tonight’s Psalm of Lament is of a still different type: it is a lament after the destruction of the Temple….
Read MoreThere can be no neutrality with respect to Jesus. “He who is not with Me is against Me.” Still some want it both ways. They want to think of themselves as Christians, but they refuse to make a real break from the Old Adam, the sinful nature. C.F.W. Walther, nineteenth-century German pastor who came to America, he called those who want it both ways “half-Christians”: …
Read MoreA strange piety the Psalms give us, because they invite us to complain to God, even to accuse God. He is not acting in the way we expected. And the only hope, the only reliable thing, is to return to the foundational character of God, expressed in the final line of the Psalm: “Redeem us for the sake of your steadfast love.”
The people of God don’t expect God to act because of something they are offering Him; in fact, they don’t even try. There is no bargaining.
And they don’t expect Him to act because of their accusations of His not being fair, as though He could be shamed into acting.
They simply appeal to God to be who He is….
Read MoreFlabbergasted are the disciples at the way Jesus is behaving. This woman wants help. She keeps on crying out, yet He answers her not a word. How can Jesus be so cruel? “Send her away!” the disciples say to Jesus. They don’t mean, “Get rid of her”; the words mean, “Release her!” In other words, “Help her! Answer her prayer.”
But He doesn’t. Isn’t that about what we expect, if we bother to pray? Nothing seems to come of it.
Why doesn’t Jesus answer this woman right away? …
Read MoreLamentation doesn’t fit the American religion. We are inculcated to seek success. Prosperity comes from work.
In the Psalter, however, we have genres that do not fit the American mindset. The Psalms address not only thanksgiving and praise, but desolation and grief, guilt and loss.
The Psalms of Lament teach us to see ourselves, in the words of Jürgen Moltmann, “Limping, but blessed”…
Read MoreYou’re a sinner, it’s true. David says in Ps. 51, “Surely I was sinful from birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.” Confessing this entails the danger of acceptance. Why change? Why even try?
In today’s Gospel, the Lord Jesus shows us how to fight sin. But that would not be enough, if we were left to our own strength….
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