Peace and Purpose

Reading: Luke 1:57-80 Luke’s gospel is often represented in the iconography of the Church by a bull or an ox. One of the reasons for this is that Luke begins in a sacrificial setting, in the Temple, where bulls would be sacrificed. We hear in Luke 1 the story of Zechariah, the priest who was appointed to go into the Holy of Holies and offer sacrifices for the people. Zechariah gets an unsuspected message in the midst of his service. He and his wife Elizabeth are going to have a baby! But like Abraham before him, Zechariah doubts that can happen at his age and he asks, “How shall I know this?” His question, his demand for proof, is answered with him not being able to speak until the baby is born. And so the gospel begins with the pattern we will see repeated throughout it: the insiders, the powerful, the ones who “get it,” demonstrate their unreadiness to receive the Kingdom of God, while the lowly, the outsiders, the ones assumed to not have it together, are invited in. Mary has j...

Readings: Numbers 18:1-24 ; Mark 14:1-25 Is anyone else having trouble finding meat these days? Because in our house it is taking a little bit of extra effort to support our carnivorous lifestyle. We are using our grocery store’s pickup service to minimize contact with others during quarantine, both to protect ourselves and to make sure we don’t unknowingly spread something to others. This is a good resource that many grocers are currently offering free of charge, which is especially helpful for those who are immunocompromised or have a pre-existing condition. The only issue we’ve had with it is that meat is rarely available when we pick up our order. Now, this hasn’t really been a serious problem. We’ve just had to make a couple of trips to the store, mask up, and go in ourselves, where there has been plenty of meat for us to buy. It just takes an extra step. Based on the laws and instructions from Numbers 18, it doesn’t sound like the Old Testament priests had any problems g...

Texts: Numbers 11 ; Mark 10:17-31 I think we can all relate to Moses. Whether it is in our home or at our job, we have all dealt with complainers. We have all encountered irrational and outrageous demands, whether from the mouths of children, or, far too often, from the mouths of adults. For me, when I am the one that receives these complaints, I find myself thinking about the ways in which I am being wronged in that moment, the grief that I am having to put up with, so that I am even less inclined to see if there is indeed a kernel of genuine need in the complaint. Ironically, I find myself planning about how I am going to complain about this complainer later to someone else. In this way, complaining begets more complaining. And that is what happens with Moses in Numbers 11. Having wearied his ears with the complaints of the people, who long for the days of slavery in Egypt all because at least there, they could get a decent plate of fish, Moses turns his own complaining up...

Readings: Job 6 and 2 Timothy 2 When we hear about Job, it is often, at least colloquially, about his patience. We have taken the story of all that happens to him, the loss of his health, his children, and all that he has, looked at his faithfulness through all of it, and dubbed him to be the biblical paragon of patience. While I don’t want to come out and say that this vision of Job is entirely incorrect, I will at least say this: Job’s own assessment of his patience does not match up with the more popular take. Job 6 gives us Job’s own perspective on things: Speaking of his death, he says, “This would be my comfort; I would even exult in pain unsparing, for I have not denied the words of the Holy One. What is my strength, that I should wait? And what is my end, that I should be patient?”   Job’s suffering is so intense, his despair is so great, that he does not wish to wait for death. Job is in a very dark place. This one chapter does not tell the whole o...

Readings for this meditation: Mark 1:32-end and Exodus 39:1-21 “Jesus could no longer openly enter a town, but was out in desolate places, and people were coming to him from every quarter.” - Mark 1:45b Jesus has become so in demand among the crowds that he is helping, that he has to go outside of the populated areas, into the “desolate places” and let the people come to him to be healed. Of course, in this case, Mark is speaking of literal desolate places, the wilderness, places that are unsuitable for life to flourish. Not many of us have much experience with the literal wilderness, but in these recent days, we’ve all become more acquainted with that feeling of strangeness and exposure that the wilderness brings, even as we remain in places that are familiar. It’s probably not typical for most of us to think of our homes as desolate places, but here in the midst of quarantine, when we are separated from one another, even our home can begin to feel like a d...