July 22-2 Sam. 7-look for a messiah-we have one in Jesus Christ. Promise unfulfilled-Messiahs serve as projections. God is with this outpost of the kingdom of God on earth. Quell anxiety and reflect/discern.
Eph. 2:11-2 Sally Brown identify the divides that structure our lives, granting them either a sense of distinction or painful exclusion. But the gritty reality of the divisions that Christ died to undermine envision concrete practices that create a counter-current to the forces that stratify and separate. Meals shared with communities of other faiths are a start; common work for justice is another step, and praying together may be the most challenging of all.
Ephesians declares peace on new terms, the peace forged not by the "lords" of Empire but in the blood and bone of the Crucified. The cross undermined the wall dividing Jew and non-Jew, but that is only the beginning.
The new household of God is not a purely spiritual reality that we visit briefly on Sundays -- a weekly "time out" The church can the daring practice of a new politics -- a different kind of power, the self-outpoured, boundary-crossing power of Christ's cross. We trust this power, letting it undermine every wall, until we are "built together spiritually into a dwelling place for God" (verse 22).At its worst the church erects its own walls, builds a containing barrier of complaint, abetted by silence.the temptation is to build a moat around this castle.
God’s reconciliation and transformation of humanity finds expression in a unity marked by welcoming. Consider areas of divisiveness within the church, or even within culture. the upside-down idea that such uniting of humanity was won not through the blood of conquest and victory, but through (in the eyes of the world still enslaved to the spirit of the air) the blood of defeat.. “The powers’ triumph over Christ was their own defeat.”they show themselves still remaining under the ways that lead to death and have always led to death since Genesis 4. Through death to the ways that lead to death -- in blood -- God in Christ has brought an end to those ways and raised up a people who die with Christ to witness to reconciliation and unity in Christ.(Kyle Fever) Another way to express this is the Jesus Christ is healing medicine for the divisions we insist on erecting, as we are both victims of sinful behavior and attitudes and its agents.
Mk 6:30-4,53-56 the odd division of Mark frames the feeding of the multitude and the stilling of the storm.We share too little and create too many storms. Pastor means shepherd, but they are always auxiliary shepherds to the good. We are so individualized that I wonder if we have the capacity to act together, to even be a flock. Shepherd.healing sheep without a shepherd-Webb underscores Jesus' identity as the true shepherd, the very inauguration of the divine kingdom. Seeing the great crowd, Jesus "had compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd" (verse 34). These words echo Moses's prayer in Numbers 27, so that the congregation of the Lord may not be like sheep without a shepherd" (Numbers 27:17).Powery- In comparison to earlier summaries, the impossibility of Jesus entering towns unnoticed (6:54-55). Also, this summary statement addresses the idea of touching Jesus again. shifted to a desire to touch his garments (6:56). In between these two summary statements, readers witnessed a successful healing story through only a touch of his garments (cf. 5:28-29). Those ascended garments are there for us to reach out and touch in prayer.Christians have been reading these passages for 2 millenia.
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