But we’re still at the beginning of our journey, barely even launched off, and we encounter today in Genesis chapter 12 a very foundational and important text, not only for us as Christians, but also for our Jewish brothers and sisters, as well as our Muslim brothers and sisters. We all kind of trace our heritage and our beginning back to this foundational story: the story of an older couple whose names get changed halfway through the story. But this is still the beginning of the story, and so they are Abram and Sarai. We later come to know them, after they’re renamed, as Abraham and Sarah.

Genesis 12: 1-9:

Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

So Abram went, as the Lord had told him, and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran. Abram took his wife Sarai and his brother’s son Lot and all the possessions that they had gathered and the persons whom they had acquired in Haran, and they set forth to go to the land of Canaan.

When they had come to the land of Canaan, Abram passed through the land to the place at Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. At that time the Canaanites were in the land. Then the Lord appeared to Abram and said, “To your offspring I will give this land.” So he built there an altar to the Lord, who had appeared to him.

From there he moved on to the hill country on the east of Bethel and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east, and there he built an altar to the Lord and invoked the name of the Lord. And Abram journeyed on by stages toward the Negeb.

For the Word of God in Scripture, for the Word of God among us, for the Word of God within us. Thanks be to God.

***

For the past two Sundays, we’ve been talking about Noah and the ark. As somebody pointed out to me this morning, I probably should have saved those for today with all of the rain. But we’ve been talking about Noah and the ark, and I’ve been trying to give us a different perspective on it: that it is really a story about beginning again, about second chances, about new and unexpected opportunities.

We talked about how, from a biblical perspective, the flood is not an ending, but a new beginning in grace and gratitude. Well, today we discover in our reading what this new beginning looks like on the ground and in the flesh. We find out that second chances come with their own work and challenge, and we learn all of this through a man called Abram, later renamed Abraham.

Abram seems a decent fellow in our text. He has a pretty good life, a loving wife and family. He lost his brother, which is why his brother’s son Lot is coming with them. But they have land, they have work to do, they have familiar surroundings. Things aren’t perfect. As I mentioned, he’s lost his brother. Also, he and his wife Sarai wanted children, but they were seemingly unable. It’s life’s big disappointment for them, a bitter pill to swallow for sure.

Still, all things considered, Abram and Sarai have a good life. And so what God is asking of them is no small thing. Get up and go. Where exactly? Well, I’ll tell you that later. Why? I don’t want to get into the specifics just yet, but basically my plan is to bless the whole world through you. Just go with it.

Professor Susie Park writes, “Abruptly and without warning, God calls on Abram to move from his country, his people, his father’s household.” You know, any time in Hebrew where they repeat something three times, they’re really wanting to emphasize the point. So at the very beginning: your country, your people, your father’s household. Park continues, “That is, he’s called from all that he knows to make a clean break with everything with which he is familiar. Moving forward into an unknown future is not easy. It takes courage. It takes faith. It takes a willingness to walk in trust.”

Richard Rohr writes, “I believe that faith might be precisely that ability to trust” what he calls “the big river of God’s providential love” – to trust the visible embodiment, that is the Son; the flow, the Holy Spirit; and the source itself, the Father.

“This is a divine process,” Rohr writes, “that we don’t have to change or coerce or improve. We just need to allow it and enjoy it.” And that takes immense confidence, especially, he writes, when we’re hurting.

He says, “Usually I can feel myself getting panicky, then trying to quickly make things right. I lose my ability to be present, and I go up into my head and start obsessing. Soon I tend to be overly focused in my head to such a point that I don’t really feel and experience things in my heart and in my body. I’m oriented toward goals and making things happen and trying to push or even create my own river. Yet the big river that is God’s love, God’s care, God’s providence, is already flowing through me, and I am only one small part of it.”

One of the biggest challenges, one of the biggest hurdles we have, I believe, to trusting this divine flow is actually the direction of the current. Too often we think that the river flows toward us, that God’s favor and blessings are apparent through our lives, through our wealth and our power, our influence, our recognition, our success. Winning, right? Winning is evidence of God’s approval. That’s the way it works, right?

And that’s why us preachers need our own personal jets and gold rings and fancy Italian suits, right? I mean, if God loves me, I should be rolling in it, right? That’s what this story of Abram’s about.

No, we know that’s not true. Actually, the river flows in the other direction: not toward us, but away from us, or, as Rohr says, through us. The call of God is not so much to be blessed as it is to be a blessing.

In his book Do One Thing Different, Bill O’Hanlon tells the story of a widow who has fallen into depression. Not only has she lost her spouse, her children are grown and away, living in different states, and her friends – those who are still with us – are either sick or depressed like her.

Her pastor is worried about her. She used to be really active in church. Now she barely leaves home, and she doesn’t want visitors. The few who have managed to stop by have all reported to the pastor that it’s bad. She doesn’t even open the curtains in her house anymore. She was known for taking care of plants and being a good gardener, but her houseplants are starting to die. So they’re all worried about her.

The pastor decides he’s going to do something about it. He sends her a note announcing that he’s going to visit because he has a special message for her. He shows up on the day and time announced, and she reluctantly welcomes him in. The curtains have been cracked just a little bit, but it’s still dark and dusty. She’s made tea, but he isn’t there for the pleasantries.

As soon as they are seated, he launches into his spiel. “You are not being a very good Christian,” he tells her.

The woman’s stunned. How dare he? She’s been a faithful member for many years. She served as a leader in the church. She was even on the committee that called him to their church, for Pete’s sake. Who does he think he is?

But she doesn’t say this. She just sits there. And he continues, “You have so much to give,” he tells her, “and you’re sitting here in your house, hiding your light under a bushel.”

He looks around at her plants and flowers. “We have so many people in our church who are hurting and lonely, and you know better than most how they’re feeling. You could be writing them cards, sending them flowers or plants, and visiting them to cheer them up.”

The woman was shocked. He was right. How had she not seen it? She thought she was done and that no one needed her anymore, but nothing could be further from the truth. There were people all around who needed just what she could do.

Get up and go and be a blessing, God says to Abram. Get in the river. Trust in me to take you where you need to go. Trust the flow.

Bono, the lead singer of U2, the Irish band, gave a speech at the National Prayer Breakfast when George W. Bush was in office. He tells of a transformative encounter that he had had some years earlier. He says, “Years ago, I met a wise man who changed my life. In countless ways, large and small, I was always seeking the Lord’s blessing. I was saying, you know, I have a new song; look after it. I have this family; please look after them. I have this crazy idea.”

And this wise man said, “Stop. Stop asking God to bless what you’re doing. Get involved with what God is doing, because it’s already blessed.”

Get up. Go and be a blessing.

Friends, the Christian life is not about stockpiling blessings for ourselves. It’s about gratefully counting our blessings and then seeing how we can put them to use to bless others. I don’t know how we got so completely turned around that we’ve made people think that wealth and prosperity are signs of following Jesus. Do we not remember that Jesus himself said, “I have come not to be served, but to serve”?

That is who we follow. That is the life that we are called to lead. That is where God’s river takes us.

As Christians, each and every one of us is called to serve, to get involved in what God is already doing because it’s already blessed, to leave our comfortable confines, and to venture out into the flow of God’s love and be a blessing.

Amen.

The post What Is Already Blessed? appeared first on Roland Park Presbyterian Church.

Main Themes: God’s call into an unknown future; trust in God’s providential love; blessing that flows through us; service rather than prosperity; joining what God is already doing.

Discussion Questions

1.   Leaving What Is Familiar

• God asks Abram and Sarai to leave the familiar without giving them a detailed destination. What makes that kind of trust difficult?
• When have you sensed that faith was asking you to move beyond what felt comfortable or predictable?

2.  Trusting the River of God’s Love

• Richard Rohr describes faith as trusting the ‘big river of God’s providential love.’ What does that image suggest to you about God’s presence and care?
• When you feel anxious or hurt, are you more likely to trust the flow or try to create and control your own river? What helps you return to trust?

3.  Blessing That Flows Through Us

• Pastor Mark says, ‘The call of God is not so much to be blessed as it is to be a blessing.’ How does that challenge common ideas about success, favor, or prosperity?
• What gifts, experiences, relationships, or resources have been entrusted to you that could become a blessing to someone else?

4.  Joining What God Is Already Doing

• What is the difference between asking God to bless our plans and looking for what God is already doing?
• Where do you see love, justice, healing, or hospitality already taking shape in your community, and how might you join that work?

5.   Applying the Sermon

• Who might need ‘just what you can do’ this week, and what is one concrete way you could reach out?
• What comfortable boundary could you cross – individually or with RPPC – in order to serve and become a blessing?

The post Sermon Discussion Guide: What Is Already Blessed? appeared first on Roland Park Presbyterian Church.

So often when we read the Bible, familiarity is actually not our friend. It provides a challenge. That’s especially true with stories like Noah and the ark, which many of us have heard since we were little. It may be one of the first Bible stories that was ever read to us, maybe in a nice children’s book with wonderful pictures. But that familiarity can turn us deaf to new insights and to being willing and open to being surprised by the text.

That’s one of the reasons I’ve spread this reading over the past two Sundays. Last week we read about the flood and the building of the ark. Today we’ll read about the conclusion and the sign that is put in the sky.

After all these years of reading and studying this text, I was surprised this week. A commentator suggested that when God says in this passage—and we’ll hear this in today’s reading—“I have put my bow in the sky,” the reference is to a bow and arrow. I tested this with the adult ed group because I didn’t want to expose my ignorance if I was the only one. I had never thought of that before. Maybe you have. Good for you. But that was a new insight to me.

So the sign is not only there to remind us when we see a rainbow in the sky. It was also a symbolic act on God’s part in the story: to hang up the weapon. “I will no longer use this weapon. I will no longer use any weapons against you. We will resolve our differences peacefully and in other ways,” God is saying.

With that, I’ll turn us to the text and ask us to try, as best we’re able, to put on new ears and new eyes and new thinking, and be open to the new insights this text may have for us today.

Genesis 9:8-17

Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him, “As for me, I am establishing my covenant with you and your descendants after you and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the domestic animals, and every animal of the earth with you, as many as came out of the ark. I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.” God said, “This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations: I have set my bow in the clouds, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh, and the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.” God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant that I have established between me and all flesh that is on the earth.”

For the word of God in Scripture,
for the word of God among us,
for the word of God within us.
Thanks be to God.

***

Why is the sky blue and the grass green? Where does the sun go each night, and where do the stars go during the day? And what about those stars? Are they like lanterns hanging in the sky? Or are they holes in the fabric of the sky that let light through from whatever is on the other side?

Why do rainbows come out after rainstorms? Why are there floods and earthquakes? In the ancient world, it was common to tell stories explaining the way things are. If you want to impress somebody at a dinner party, these are called teleological stories. Telos is the Greek word meaning “ending.” The idea is that they are stories told with an ending already in mind. They explain the way things came into being.

Before science, this is how people explained the world around them: through stories. This is the way wisdom and learning were passed from generation to generation. Now, as modern people, we too often dismiss these stories as fairy tales or myths, by which we mean they’re cute, sometimes fun and insightful, but aren’t really meant to be taken seriously. They’re not true vessels of truth.

But as John Dominic Crossan once pointed out, it’s not that those ancient people told literal stories and you and I are now smart enough to take them symbolically. They told them symbolically, and sometimes you and I are dumb enough to take them literally.

Noah and the ark is no different. Many of us learned the story of the flood as children. I honestly don’t know what about God destroying the earth with a flood says, “This is a good child’s nighttime story.” But I guess the picture of animals going two by two is too cute to ignore. Some illustrator somewhere said, “I can draw that.”

The reality—we don’t need to imagine too hard—would have been anything but cute: smelly, hot, dangerous, noisy. Not fluffy, adorable, or fun. And the meaning has a lot more to do with us than the origin of rainbows and floods. It speaks to us of the relationship between the Creator and creation.

Walter Brueggemann explains: We do not have before us in the story of Noah and the ark a history. This story is not concerned with historical data. And with equal firmness, we must deny that this story is merely a myth. What meets us here, he writes, is proclamation: the announcement of what God has done and is doing about a fractured world.

Scholars point out that there were a lot of flood stories already floating around—excuse the pun—in ancient times. Biblical authors were no doubt aware of these other flood stories, which usually featured people doing something wrong to displease the gods and the gods sending a flood to punish the people. Sounds familiar, right? But instead of just telling that story, the biblical authors make it a proclamation about how the God of Israel is different from the gods of the nations.

Those gods carry their bows and arrows and swords around with them. The God of Israel doesn’t just punish people when they do wrong. God does care about justice, but God balances God’s justice, punishment, and judgment with love and mercy and forgiveness. The two are never apart. We never meet one without the other.

This is how the God of Israel is set apart. The Lord, the God of hosts, the God of Israel, the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, no longer carries a weapon of violence. God has hung the bow in the sky, put it aside. “I don’t need it anymore.”

And yet God cannot allow wickedness just to pass by unnoticed or unchecked. God has to do something about it. Yet God does not leave humanity without recourse. God selects Noah and his family to build an ark and save just enough of creation to begin again.

Here we learn that God is the God of second chances. That’s where we left off last week. We’re reminding ourselves that despite what we first might think, or what we might have been taught, or how we learned the story originally, this is a story of grace and gratitude after all.

But the familiarity of this story is so strong. We’ve been carrying it with us for so long, along with a version of God that is harsh. We’ve been carrying these with us for far too long. It feels odd; it feels hard to read a story like this and find the God of second chances, and to know where we are in it.

Today I want to offer us another way into this passage that might help us find new relevance in this ancient story. This week I learned another thing. I learned two things this week, not just about the bow. I learned something else I want to share with you: in many Jewish communities, they have a different way of reading this story that makes it relevant for people of faith.

It’s obvious, right? We don’t need to build an ark. We have a much better understanding of meteorological events. We know floods aren’t sent by the gods. We can’t always predict flooding, but we know why it happens. We know why the sky is blue and the grass is green. We might not be able to explain it immediately to our children when they ask, but in general we know. We know why the sun sets, what the stars are—all these things.

So this isn’t just another teleological story. It isn’t history, it isn’t myth, it isn’t a fairy tale. It’s a proclamation. And the proclamation is this:

God knows that sometimes we need a vessel to get us to the other side of the storm. That’s why God had Noah build the ark: to protect him and his family, to help them weather the storm, to get through the flood. Perhaps not coincidentally, the word for “ark” in Hebrew is the same word for “word.”

And words are the vessels that we have to understand and reach out to God: the words of our lips, the words of our minds, the words of our hearts and spirits. In other words, our prayers. And in the Jewish community, that’s how they read this story. It’s about prayer. Prayer is the vessel.

According to Amy Robertson of the BibleWorm podcast, the Jewish tradition really digs into this. She says, “What does it mean to construct a word, a prayer life, a vessel that carries us through really difficult situations and helps us to keep somewhat apart from the wickedness that is all around us? How do we build a prayer that has an active life?”

Remember back to the instructions: God said not only all the cubits and all of that, but it has to have a window. How does our prayer life have a window in it so it’s not cut off from the realities of the real world, the outside world? How do we invite all of nature in, like Noah did—all of creation—so that we don’t imagine it’s just us and God sitting there, but we imagine ourselves sitting there in the midst of creation, surrounded by all of God’s creatures, knowing ourselves a part, not apart?

I love this interpretation. I’ve never heard that one before. I am grateful to our Jewish brothers and sisters and for their tradition for presenting that to us. It’s helped me move beyond all those little parts of my head—no matter how much I tell myself that this is proclamation—that try to reconcile this story to history or dismiss it as a fairy tale. It reminds us that God will not leave us without a vessel in a stormy world, a space for shelter and safety, a space to reflect.

So what I want to suggest is that this fall, as we begin this new program year together, we think of ourselves as an ark: this place, this community, the people gathered here to worship week after week. This is our ark. But God has some requirements. We don’t just get to build it to our own comfort and specifications. God has taught us how to build it, right?

It has to have a window in it. Our worship needs to be about more than us and the people here. It needs to have a window; it needs to be checked against the realities of the world. We need to always have one eye on the outside world. We cannot come here and turn our eyes from the suffering of others while we count our blessings.

Also, like Noah, we too must provide shelter and protection for all of God’s creatures, indeed all of creation. “Everyone is welcome here,” we say. Do we really mean it? Who is just outside of our doors looking for a vessel? Who has not been invited into our ark? And who needs to come with them?

I encourage us to think of this place as our ark, our vessel—not just the building, but our whole community. Because the truth is, our world is underwater: floods of violence and war, floods of animosity, floods of greed and injustice, storms of racism and sexism and religious bigotry. So many of us are drowning as well. We’re drowning in family entanglements, we’re drowning in our own issues, we’re drowning financially, we’re drowning in our jobs. We need shelter. We need an ark. We need a vessel to carry us through the storm to the other side.

We all know what it is to need an ark. I guess that’s why most of us are here. Because it’s all too much, and we need a break, a place to come, people to know us and help us keep our heads just above water. But this ark isn’t just for us, friends. It’s for others as well.

As we think about the image and the road ahead, as individuals and as a congregation, I want us to close today with a prayer inspired by the story of Noah and the ark. It was written by Rabbi Harold Kushner. You might recognize the name; he’s the author of When Bad Things Happen to Good People. Part of the prayer is on your bulletin cover. If you search for it, you can find the whole thing later. I would suggest that this prayer is kind of an ark for us, a vessel to guide us in the days and weeks and months, and maybe even years, ahead.

Prayer for the World
by Rabbi Harold Kushner

Let the rain come and wash away the ancient grudges, the bitter hatreds held and nurtured over generations.

Let the rain wash away the memory of the hurt, the neglect.

Then let the sun come out and fill the sky with rainbows.

Let the warmth of the sun heal us wherever we are broken.

Let it burn away the fog so that we can see each other clearly.

So that we can see beyond labels, beyond accents, gender or skin color.

Let the warmth and brightness of the sun melt our selfishness.

So that we can share the joys and feel the sorrows of our neighbors.

And let the light of the sun be so strong that we will see all people as our neighbors.

Let the earth, nourished by rain, bring forth flowers to surround us with beauty.

And let the mountains teach our hearts to reach upward to heaven.

Amen.

The post Begin Again: Flood and Promise, Part II appeared first on Roland Park Presbyterian Church.

Main Themes: God’s covenant with all creation; the rainbow as a laid-down bow; prayer as a vessel; an ark with a window; shelter, hospitality, and justice.

Discussion Questions

1. Seeing a Familiar Story Again

• How did the image of God hanging up a bow change the way you hear the flood story?
• What helps you notice new meaning in a Bible story you have known since childhood?

2. Prayer as a Vessel

• When have words or prayer helped carry you through a difficult season?
• What might it mean to build a prayer life that has room for honesty and for the world around you?

3. An Ark with a Window

• What would it look like for our worship to keep a window open onto the suffering of others?
• How can our gratitude and our attention to injustice belong in the same worshiping life?

4. Room for All Creation

• Who might be just outside our doors, looking for a place of shelter and belonging?
• How does imagining the ark full of creatures change the way we think about our place in creation?

5. Applying the Sermon

• What one practice could help you keep your head above water this week?
• What concrete step could help RPPC offer shelter to someone who has not yet been invited in?

The post Sermon Discussion Guide: Begin Again: Flood and Promise, Part II appeared first on Roland Park Presbyterian Church.

Genesis 6:5–22; 8:6–12

The Lord saw that the wickedness of humans was great in the earth and that every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually. And the Lord was sorry that he had made humans on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. So the Lord said, “I will blot out from the earth the humans I have created—people together with animals and creeping things and birds of the air—for I am sorry that I have made them.” But Noah found favor in the sight of the Lord.

At the end of forty days Noah opened the window of the ark that he had made and sent out the raven, and it went to and fro until the waters were dried up from the earth. Then he sent out the dove from him to see if the waters had subsided from the face of the ground, but the dove found no place to set its foot, and it returned to him to the ark, for the waters were still on the face of the whole earth. So he put out his hand and took it and brought it into the ark with him. He waited another seven days, and again he sent out the dove from the ark, and the dove came back to him in the evening, and there in its beak was a freshly plucked olive leaf; so Noah knew that the waters had subsided from the earth. Then he waited another seven days and sent out the dove, and it did not return to him any more.

For the Word of God in scripture,
For the Word of God among us,
For the Word of God within us,

Thanks be to God.

***

If you are fortunate or blessed enough to get one, here is my advice: Take it. Make the most of it. Second chances are a gift. They are one of the purest forms of grace.

Now let me be clear: True second chances are not necessarily earned. They are not due and should not be expected. It is the same with forgiveness, which may or may not be a part of the second chance. We have spent a good chunk of this past summer looking at repentance and repair. In the process, we learned that forgiveness, too, is pure grace. It cannot be forced. It can only be freely given.

If you have caused harm to another, you can apologize. You can seek to make amends. You can offer to be a part of repair. The one thing you cannot do is demand or expect forgiveness. Even if you have apologized again and again, done what you can for amends and repair, forgiveness is up to the victim and the victim alone. It is tied to their own process of healing and repair. It is theirs to give if they see fit to do so. And if they don’t, that is just something that we have to accept.

Now, that applies to interpersonal situations, but what about between us and God? Things get even more complicated. You will hear some preachers say all you have to do is pray a certain prayer, or just genuinely repent in your heart, and God will wipe your slate clean. But is it really just that easy? I mean, if we can just say a few words and get forgiveness from God, then can’t we just ignore the victims?

The older I get, the more I am suspicious of those who want to privatize faith—those who say, “My faith is about my relationship to God and is no one else’s business.” When we speak or think like this, we mix up the definitions of personal and private. Faith is always personal. It cuts straight to the heart of the matter, straight to the human heart in a way that is deeply intimate, but in no way unique. Faith is always personal, but never private. It is never about me and me alone. It is always about how we relate to others. Jesus made this plain when asked the greatest commandment and quickly recited the Shema: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and soul, and mind.” But Jesus doesn’t stop there. “The second is like it,” he said. “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

Reflecting on what this means for us today, Brian McLaren writes, “It’s not about the church meeting your needs; it’s about joining the mission of God’s people to meet the world’s needs… Imagine if organized religion organized billions of people and trillions of dollars to tackle the challenges that our economic and political systems are afraid or unwilling to tackle—a planet ravaged by unsustainable human behavior and an out-of-control consumptive economy, the growing gap between the rich minority and the poor majority, and the proliferation of weapons of all kinds—including weapons of mass destruction.”

That may sound like a mighty lofty plan, but God has had mighty lofty plans for us from the beginning, according to Genesis. Professor Dennis Olson writes, “God began directing a symphony of light, order, boundaries, flourishing life, creatures of all kinds, vocations, relationships, co-creative responsibilities, and blessing—a veritable garden of life teeming with possibility, hope, and promise. God’s gracious generosity and hospitality welcomed into existence a whole new creaturely world, a world different from God but a creation in relationship with God.”

Dr. Olson continues, “True relationship requires a degree of freedom and agency on both sides, both human and divine. While God assessed God’s creation at the beginning as ‘very good’ (Genesis 1:31) but not perfect, possibilities existed for wrong choices and negative consequences. Tragically, humans were tempted to become ‘like God’ (3:5). They experienced temptation, fear, distrust, shame, and a tendency to transfer blame to others rather than oneself.”

We are used to reading the story of Noah and the ark as a story of destruction and punishment—God’s wrath and judgment flooding down over the people, drowning the wicked. But what if, instead of a story about destruction, we read it as a story of re-creation; not a story of punishment, but a second chance, a chance to begin all over again? Because in the biblical narrative, that is exactly what it is.

Olson writes, “Other cultures surrounding ancient Israel had their own flood stories in which a hero builds an ark and survives a flood sent by angry gods. The biblical account adapts some elements of this flood story tradition but also reshapes the tradition to conform to an enduring biblical pattern… The flood was a whole-earth attempt by God to deal with the corruption and violence of God’s good creation by destroying nearly all of it and starting over again… God promises ultimately to work for creation’s flourishing and not its destruction, even though God knows that ‘the inclination of the human heart’ will continue to remain ‘evil from youth’ (8:21). Yes, judgment and consequences will follow from such human corruption and violence. But God will also be mercifully restrained and will work to ensure that the story of humans and creation continues in spite of human wickedness.”

The story of Noah and the ark is the story of second chances, of new beginnings and re-creation. It is “what the Gospels teach us,” according to Jonathan Walton. He writes, “Consider the ways Jesus often forms his disciples while they are in motion. Jesus walks alongside them, asks questions, and listens. In the process, the disciples misunderstand his teachings, debate with one another, encounter those with different views, and witness miracles that they cannot readily explain. Yet, along the way, they are transformed.”

The Gospel is the story of transformation, and transformation happens when we embrace the grace, the forgiveness and the second chances we have been given.

When we come to this table, we accept the divine invitation to begin again, to try once more to live as God intended. Here at this table, we are all recipients of God’s amazing grace. Here we are nourished to live in love, hope, and forgiveness. Because we all need second chances, where we can learn from our past without being bound by it.

And being given another chance, we begin where all great epic stories begin: in gratitude. Gratitude for the gift of life, gratitude for companions on the journey, gratitude to be able to grow and change, and learn, and be transformed. A whole new chance in life, just like that. You can’t earn it. You may never deserve it. But it is yours. It is a gift. It is always a gift.

Amen.

The post Begin Again: Flood and Promise, Part I appeared first on Roland Park Presbyterian Church.

Main Themes: Second chances as grace, forgiveness and repair, faith as personal but never private, love of God and neighbor, Noah’s flood as re-creation, transformation, gratitude and beginning again.

Discussion Questions:

1. Second Chances as Grace

• Pastor Mark calls second chances “one of the purest forms of grace.” What makes a true second chance a gift rather than something we can earn or expect?
• When has receiving an unexpected second chance changed the way you understood yourself, another person or God?

2. Forgiveness, Repair and the Victim

• How does the sermon distinguish among apology, making amends, participating in repair and receiving forgiveness? Why do those distinctions matter?
• What can happen when someone seeks God’s forgiveness while ignoring the person or community harmed by their actions?

3. Faith Is Personal, but Never Private

• What does Pastor Mark mean when he says, “Faith is always personal, but never private”? How does Jesus’ command to love both God and neighbor support that claim?
• Brian McLaren imagines organized religion directing its people and resources toward needs that political and economic systems avoid. Where might the church be called to act for the world’s flourishing today?

4. Flood, Re-Creation and Transformation

• How does reading Noah’s flood as a story of re-creation and second chances change—or complicate—your understanding of this difficult passage?
• The sermon describes transformation as something that happens while disciples are in motion—questioning, misunderstanding and encountering different views. How have you been changed along the way rather than all at once?

5. Applying the Sermon

• Where do you need the grace to learn from your past without being bound by it? What might beginning again look like in that part of your life?
• What concrete act of love, repair, service or gratitude can you undertake this week as a recipient of God’s grace?

The post Sermon Discussion Guide: Begin Again: Flood and Promise, Part I appeared first on Roland Park Presbyterian Church.

Mark 14:32–42

They went to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to his disciples, “Sit here while I pray.” He took with him Peter and James and John and began to be distressed and agitated. And he said to them, “My soul is deeply grieved, even to death; remain here, and keep awake.” And going a little farther, he threw himself on the ground and prayed that, if it were possible, the hour might pass from him. He said, “Abba, Father, for you all things are possible; remove this cup from me, yet not what I want but what you want.” He came and found them sleeping, and he said to Peter, “Simon, are you asleep? Could you not keep awake one hour? Keep awake and pray that you may not come into the time of trial; the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” And again he went away and prayed, saying the same words. And once more he came and found them sleeping, for their eyes were very heavy, and they did not know what to say to him. He came a third time and said to them, “Are you still sleeping and taking your rest? Enough! The hour has come; the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Get up, let us be going. Look, my betrayer is at hand.”

For the Word of God in scripture,
For the Word of God among us,
For the Word of God within us,
Thanks be to God.

***

Well, depending on your perspective, the words that I am about to say may make you a little sad or may make you very happy. This is the last in our sermon series on disputing with God.

Mixed reaction. Just what I expected.

But it’s been a fun journey this summer, so thank you for joining me on it.

Our last Scripture in this series comes to us from Mark, chapter 14. It is a familiar passage, although it is not one that we are used to hearing at this time of year.

From the Gospel according to Mark, chapter 14, verses 32 through 42:

They went to a place called Gethsemane, and Jesus said to his disciples, “Sit here while I pray.”

He took with him Peter and James and John and began to be distressed and agitated. And Jesus said to them, “My soul is deeply grieved, even to death. Remain here and keep awake.”

And going a little farther, he threw himself on the ground and prayed that, if it were possible, the hour might pass from him. He said, “Abba, Father, for you all things are possible. Remove this cup from me; yet, not what I want, but what you want.”

Then Jesus came and found the disciples sleeping, and he said to Peter, “Simon, are you asleep? Could you not keep awake even one hour? Keep awake and pray that you may not come into the time of trial. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.”

And again he went away and prayed, saying the same words. And once more he came and found them sleeping, for their eyes were very heavy, and they did not know what to say to him.

He came a third time and said to them, “Are you still sleeping and taking your rest? Enough! The hour has come. The Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Get up, let us be going. See, my betrayer is at hand.”

For the Word of God in Scripture, for the Word of God among us, for the Word of God within us.

Thanks be to God.

Well, as I said, it’s a familiar scene, though we’re used to hearing this in the springtime, toward the end of Lent or maybe during Holy Week: Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, praying for God to “remove this cup from me,” by which he means his impending crucifixion.

Then there are his disciples, who aren’t even able to stay awake through the night with him. We find Jesus finally, at the end, submitting himself to God’s will, and then the betrayer leading the Romans right to him.

The scene is familiar, but what does it all mean? How does it apply to us? What are we supposed to take from all of this? And finally, how does it fit into our disputing with God series?

Let’s take a minute and review where we have been this summer in this sermon series.

Abraham, Moses, Jonah, the psalmist, the Syrophoenician woman—they all took issue with God in one way or another. At times, as with Moses and Abraham, the issue is something that God is planning on doing, namely punishing the people.

In the case of Moses, he convinces God not to punish the people for their idolatry. Abraham pleads with God to spare the people of Sodom, whose great sin was inhospitality to strangers.

Then there was God, who wanted Jonah to go to the Ninevites and warn the people that God would not tolerate their wicked ways. But Jonah doesn’t want to go because the Ninevites are his sworn enemy.

Then we had the psalmist, who was crying out in anguish and pleading with God to be present, and yet God seemingly remained silent and absent.

Last week, we read about this foreign woman, Canaanite or Syrophoenician, who begs Jesus to heal her daughter. Yet Jesus ignores her until she annoys him so much that he’s forced to answer.

In all of this, we’ve learned that Scripture is not naive about the struggles we face in life and how much you and I can wrestle with our faith.

Many of us were taught, or simply picked up along the way, that disputing with God is a no-no. It’s not befitting a faithful Christian. Yet here we have example after example in Scripture of people—not just any people, but pillars of the faith—doing just that.

In today’s passage, it seems to be Jesus himself who is taking issue with God’s plan. He’s in the Garden of Gethsemane. His arrest, trial and crucifixion are imminent, and he goes there at night to pray.

He brings a couple of close friends with him and asks them only one thing: “Stay awake with me while I face this hour.”

But they can’t do even that.

Jesus prays to God, “Please, Lord, there must be another way. Take this cup from me. Yet, not my will, but yours be done.”

Then Jesus chides his disciples for falling asleep. He’s told them that his soul is deeply grieved, and he’s only asked them this one thing.

But they’re tired, and it’s dark and quiet there in the garden. We can imagine the noises of the wind going through the trees, and the animals and the crickets lulling them off to sleep.

When Jesus sees this, he’s upset. But then he thinks about it for a minute and says, “The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”

We assume we know what he means: that they just don’t have the spiritual strength to face this trial with Jesus.

But I want us to consider this. I want us to ask this: What if, instead of merely chiding his friends and disciples for not staying awake with him, Jesus is reflecting on something deeper—a more profound truth?

You see, in ancient Greek, the language in which this story was written, they don’t have any way of distinguishing between capital letters and lowercase letters. There’s no capitalization in ancient Greek.

So there’s no way for us to know whether the Gospel writer Mark intended to write spirit with a small “s” or Spirit with a big “S.”

What does that matter?

Simply put, we don’t know whether Jesus is referring to their all-too-human spirit or whether he is intending to invoke the Holy Spirit.

As I said, you and I tend to read this as spirit with a small “s,” meaning that they want to stay awake, but they just can’t.

We can all relate to that, right? We’ve had some time or another when we’ve had to try to stay awake, but our eyes get so heavy and we just find ourselves drifting off. I don’t know—maybe it was during some sermon or something.

But what if Jesus isn’t referring to spirit with a small “s,” but God’s Spirit?

What if he is saying that, on their own, they can’t stay awake, but God’s Spirit is available to them to help them in their weakness?

As Paul would later write in Romans 8, “The Spirit helps us in our weakness, for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words.”

It’s odd that so much could ride on something so simple. Is it a capital “S” or a lowercase “s”?

It reminds me of those grammar books that have become popular over the past 10 or 15 years. One of my favorites was Let’s Eat, Grandma, which made the point that if you remove the comma, you may go from a nice invitation to have dinner with your grandmother to cannibalism.

Sometimes small things make a big difference, right?

In this case, if we think Jesus is referring to spirit with a small “s,” then these poor disciples are left to their own devices in their time of need. But if we think Jesus is referring to Spirit with a capital “S,” then God is there with them, offering to help them through their time of want and need.

You’ll not be surprised that I would argue that the capital “S” is the way to go here. We need look no further than Jesus himself to back this up.

Jesus is facing his own dark night of the soul. He loves his friends. He doesn’t want to leave them. Yet his mission and his ministry have brought him into conflict with the Romans, and the consequences of that are fatal.

It has been said that Jesus is both a window into divinity and a mirror to our humanity. So it’s important for us to recognize that there may be no more human moment for Jesus than when he is praying in the garden.

He is honest with God: “I don’t want to die. I don’t want to be crucified.”

And yet he prays, “Not my will, but yours be done.”

You know, we can only truly pray that prayer when we know that God is on our side.

Too often, you and I think of God as an opponent of some kind—like God has nothing better to do than watch us all day long, just waiting for us to mess up so that we can be punished.

I would argue this is actually the predominant picture of God that many of us carry with us.

I’m sure that, at some point in human history, this was a really convenient theology. I can see what value that would have in keeping society in check. This is what led Karl Marx to claim that religion is the opiate of the masses: religion as a means of social control.

A vengeful, punishing God is really helpful for that.

But what if God is not in the sin-counting business? What if God has better things to do than catch us doing something wrong? What if God is really on our side and has been all along?

What if, as the quotation on our bulletin cover by Dietrich Bonhoeffer says, being a Christian is less about cautiously avoiding sin and more about courageously and actively doing God’s will?

Richard Rohr writes:

“Although Jesus made this quite clear throughout his life, we still largely turned Christianity into a religion where the operative agenda was some personal moral perfection, or attaining some kind of salvation, going to heaven, converting others rather than ourselves, and acquiring more health, wealth, and success in this world. In that pursuit, we ended up largely aligning ourselves with empires, wars, and colonization of our planet instead of with Jesus and the powerless.”

And he concludes, “It’s all caught up with us in the 21st century.”

I think that’s where I want to end this series on disputing with God.

As I pointed out at the beginning of the summer, you’ll notice that those we have encountered in this series—those who have had arguments with God—are not the uninterested or uninvested.

They are those who are already in partnership with God: Abraham, Moses, Jonah, the psalmist and now Jesus.

They are those who know that God is on their side. So they know that they can be honest. They don’t need to hide their feelings or thoughts from God for fear of God’s judgment or punishment.

They know that they’re not left to their own devices, even in the valley of the shadow of death. They know that God is with them.

And they know that when they pray, not only is their spirit, small “s,” activated, but it is God’s Spirit, capital “S,” that is activated in them.

Look, we all want a life that’s free from pain and suffering, and God wants that for us too—but not at the expense of a life of meaning and purpose and service to others.

God knows that pain and disappointment and failure are necessary parts of our journey. But God will never leave us to face them alone.

God promises to be with us.

God invites our questions, our doubts, even our arguments, because God doesn’t want robots as children.

God wants us.

All of us. Not our fake selves, not our pretend selves, not our masked selves that we put on when we go out the door to present ourselves to the world.

God wants our Garden of Gethsemane selves.

So we do not need to live in fear, because God is already with us. And as Scripture says, “If God is with us, who can be against us?”

We do not need to live in fear. We can trust. We can fully trust that the one who brought all things into being loves each and every one of us more than we could ever imagine.

Of course, knowing this does not mean that we will not struggle with our faith. We’ve seen plenty of examples of that this summer.

And if that’s not good enough, we need to look no further than Jesus himself for permission to do so. Because ultimately, his prayer is ours too:

“Not my will, Lord, but yours be done.”

Amen.

The post Disputing with God: God’s Will Be Done appeared first on Roland Park Presbyterian Church.

Discussion Questions:

 1. Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane

• What does Jesus’ prayer—“Remove this cup from me; yet, not what I want, but what you want”—reveal about the place of honesty, fear and struggle within a faithful life?
• Pastor Mark describes Jesus as “both a window into divinity and a mirror to our humanity.” What do you recognize about yourself in Jesus’ experience in the garden?

2. The Spirit Is Willing

• How does the passage change when you hear “Spirit” as a reference to the Holy Spirit rather than only to the disciples’ human determination?
• When have you experienced help, strength or prayer beyond what you felt capable of producing on your own?

3. From Fear to Trust

• What images or teachings have encouraged people to see God primarily as an opponent waiting to punish them?
• How does trusting that God is on our side affect our ability to pray honestly, acknowledge failure and seek a life of meaning?

4. Disputing with God as Partnership

• Pastor Mark observes that Abraham, Moses, Jonah, the psalmist and Jesus could argue with God because they were already invested in a relationship with God. How might questioning God express commitment rather than rejection?
• Why might God want our honest, unguarded “Garden of Gethsemane selves” instead of the carefully managed versions of ourselves we present to the world?

5. Applying the Sermon

• Where are fear, disappointment or uncertainty making it difficult for you to trust that God is with you?
• What courageous act of God’s will—particularly one involving meaning, purpose or service to others—might you undertake this week with the Spirit’s help?

The post Sermon Discussion Guide: Disputing with God: God’s Will Be Done appeared first on Roland Park Presbyterian Church.

Mathew 15:21–28

Jesus left that place and went away to the district of Tyre and Sidon. Just then a Canaanite woman from that region came out and started shouting, “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon.” But he did not answer her at all. And his disciples came and urged him, saying, “Send her away, for she keeps shouting after us.” He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” But she came and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, help me.” He answered, “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” She said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” Then Jesus answered her, “Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.” And her daughter was healed from that moment.

For the Word of God in scripture,
For the Word of God among us,
For the Word of God within us,
Thanks be to God.

***

All right, I know I’m just back from vacation, but pop quiz time. Let’s see how well you all know your Bible. How many Gospels are there? Four. Easy one, right?

Sometimes the most obvious things are staring at us right in the face, and we’re so used to them that we take them for granted. How many Gospels do we have? Four. Not one—four.

I think this says something really important and significant about our faith. Presumably, those who put the Bible together, deciding which books were in and which were out, could have chosen just one of those Gospels. But they didn’t. Or they could have combined those four Gospels and made one super-Gospel. But they didn’t. They let the four Gospels be and put them side by side.

Now, to be clear, we know that other Gospels were out there that didn’t make the cut. Perhaps those who were putting the Bible together didn’t know about those other Gospels at the time, or maybe they did know about them and thought they were more fringe. But what we know is that the four that are there are there at least partly because they were already widely read among communities of faith.

Still—and this is important—they do not always agree on important details. Where was Jesus born? Where did he start his ministry? Who were his first disciples? What are the names of the women who accompanied him on his journeys?

Sometimes those differences are telling. For example, in Mark’s Gospel, we are told that the woman who asked Jesus to have mercy on her and heal her daughter is a Syrophoenician woman. Syrophoenician is a mixture of Syrian and Phoenician. They were both neighboring countries to Israel—not really allies, but not really enemies. Just neighbors. So it’s kind of a neutral term.

In the context of the story, it means that Jesus doesn’t have to care about this woman because she’s not from the house of Israel. He doesn’t have to care about her, right? Which is kind of what comes into question.

But we didn’t read Mark’s version, did we? We read Matthew’s version. In Matthew’s version, the woman is not Syrophoenician. She is Canaanite.

Now, Canaanites were also from a neighboring region to Israel, but not so neutral. They were the historical and sworn enemies of Israel. When Matthew tells us that the woman is Canaanite, not Syrophoenician, he’s kicking Mark’s version up a bit. It’s not just your neighbor whom you don’t have to care about. This is your enemy whom you’re not supposed to care about.

So, what does this all mean?

It’s widely believed that Mark’s Gospel was the first one written. It’s the earliest. When Matthew sat down to write his Gospel, he was reading Mark. He knew Mark. He knew the stories that were in Mark.

That means the Gospel writer Matthew made an intentional decision to change this woman from being just a neighbor whom Jesus doesn’t have to care about into an enemy—someone who would make everybody reading the story think, “Yeah, Jesus, she’s a dog.”

If you’re like me—even if you’re not—you may be wondering when you read or hear this story: What is going on with Jesus?

We are conditioned to expect him to respond with kindness and compassion to all people. Never be mean. We don’t expect Jesus to be mean. Never short-tempered. Never biased, certainly.

So it’s shocking to read about him not only ignoring this woman who so badly needs him, but also calling her a derogatory name. This is not the Jesus whom we know or expect. So what’s wrong? Is he hangry? Does Jesus need a Snickers? Does he need a nap?

I think more is going on here than that.

We need to remember that when we read the Gospels, we’re not reading an unedited, unbiased account. That’s the brilliance of having four Gospels. That’s the wisdom of our forefathers and foremothers, who thankfully kept four Gospels and did not leave us with just one.

It tells us that we have to engage our brains. We have to engage our intellect. We have to engage our hearts. It’s a two-way street with the text. We have to engage it and wrestle with it.

We are acknowledging that these authors are biased, too. They’re all telling us their version of Jesus—which is something we all do, right? We all have our own version of Jesus.

What we have here with Matthew is that he’s taking a story about not ignoring a neighbor, which is significant in and of itself, and making it into one that threatens to stretch our ideas about who is in and who is out. It forces us to admit that God really does love everyone.

That means not only those whom we love, or even just those we don’t care about very much and are fine ignoring, but also the people we despise.

Now, I’m going to admit something here. This is not the sermon I originally thought I was going to preach today when I was planning this at the beginning of the summer.

I thought I would be preaching to you about this remarkable woman and her persistent faith: how she stood up to Jesus, but did so kindly and respectfully; how she called him out on his bias; and how such a give-and-take is part of our ongoing relationship and dialogue with God.

We need to be persistent in our faith. We shouldn’t be afraid of the questions, the doubt or the struggles. That’s a good sermon. I would have been happy to preach that sermon today.

But something happened this week, and the sermon I thought I was going to preach changed. Maybe it’s because of the summer I’ve had.

In many ways, it’s been a really good summer. I’ve had a good bit of vacation. I’ve gone to some of my favorite places. I’ve spent time with loved ones. I’ve been able to relax—all the wonderful things we want in summer.

But in other ways, it’s been a challenging summer for me. I’m reaching middle age, so these are all normal things, okay? I don’t want anybody to worry. I’m fine, I promise you. I’m fine, okay? Everybody got that? I’m fine. I’m good.

But it’s been challenging. There have been family health challenges. I’m at that stage in life where I’m ushering my children into adulthood, and it’s not easy. Last week, as many of you know—and you’ve been very kind to follow up with me and be compassionate toward me—I dropped my son off at school almost a thousand miles away.

These are all normal things at this stage of life. But as many of you know, they make you think. They make you ponder. They give you a new perspective. You reflect sometimes a little more deeply on things, and maybe your perspective begins to shift a little bit.

I will admit that in this process—and again, I think this is normal; this is nothing to worry about; we all go through it—I’ve had a few dark nights of the soul this summer when I’ve really wrestled with my faith. I’ve really wondered about my place.

Everybody needs a break and a vacation now and again. What I’ve found is that I have truly missed being with you all this summer. I’ve missed worshiping God in community.

That’s a weird thing pastors do. We don’t always go to worship when we’re on vacation. Some do. Some of the really pious pastors, maybe. I occasionally do, but mainly I take a break.

But as I’ve been wrestling with all of these life things, I’ve been struggling because I haven’t been here with you all, discussing these things that matter.

It has all led me to wonder about my image of God and all the things I put on God that are mine and not God’s.

Anne Lamott famously said, “When it turns out your version of God hates all of the same people you do, it’s safe to assume that you have created God in your own image.”

We all create God in our own image, and a big part of faith is deconstructing the God we have created and encountering the true, free, triune God.

I think that’s why Matthew tells the story the way he does—why he changes the woman from Syrophoenician to Canaanite. Matthew knows that we all do it. He knows that, when reading or hearing the story, his audience will be drawn into Jesus’ contempt for this woman. Their own contempt for her will bleed out as well.

They will be pleased that Jesus seemingly has the same enemies they do. Isn’t that nice? He doesn’t like the Canaanites either.

Except it turns out that Jesus was wrong. And so are we when we do the same.

So instead of a sermon about this woman’s persistent faith—and again, there’s nothing wrong with that sermon; it’s a good one—if that’s what you need today, go out and be persistent.

But it turns out that this sermon, which I need to hear today, and maybe you do too, is really about God’s persistent love for us.

Simply put, God never stops loving us. Ever. Not even at our worst.

God not only refuses to be boxed in by our projections and biases; God refuses to let us be confined by those barriers we make for ourselves. And we do it all the time.

Some of you may remember me saying: Every time we draw a line in the sand, the one thing we can be sure of is that Jesus is on the other side of it.

Every time we draw a line, every time we put up a wall or a barrier, every time we exclude somebody, Jesus isn’t with us. He’s with them. He’s on the other side of the line, the other side of the wall, the other side of the barrier, the other side of our prejudice.

That’s how persistently God loves us. God will not leave us to our own devices. God will continually challenge us in love, through love, and for love.

As we near the end of this series about disputing with God, there are many legitimate reasons we’ve come across to have disputes with God—to question God, to wrestle. That’s okay. That permission is important.

But today’s sermon in this series is kind of a caveat to that. It’s a warning that the God we might be arguing with is not the true God, but the God we have made up for ourselves. The God we may be arguing with is one of our own creation.

I have a pastor friend who, when he tells somebody he’s a pastor and they say, “Oh, I don’t believe in God,” responds, “Tell me about the God you don’t believe in.”

When they start saying, “Well, I don’t believe that God would do this or do that,” he says, “I don’t believe that either.” He finally tries to get to the point where he says, “Well, let me tell you about the God I do believe in.”

We all have to sort that out. Who’s the God we believe in? Who’s the God we don’t believe in? Who’s the God we’ve made up for ourselves? And who’s the God who challenges us—the God who doesn’t always say yes, the God who doesn’t allow us simply to wallow in the mess we have made for ourselves?

Thomas Merton uses this analogy. He says many of us will spend our whole lives climbing the ladder, only to find at the end, when we get to the top, that the ladder has been leaning against the wrong wall the whole time.

Thanks be to God that we don’t have to have it all figured out—that part of our journey is the struggle and the wrestling and, yes, even the dark nights of the soul. And the truth of the matter is that when we feel most alone, when we feel most afraid, the God who awaits us is the God who never, ever stops persistently pursuing us in love.

Thanks be to God.

Amen.

The post Disputing with God: Persistence appeared first on Roland Park Presbyterian Church.

Discussion Questions:

1. Wrestling with a Difficult Story

• What troubles or surprises you about Jesus’ initial response to the Canaanite woman? Why is it important not to avoid the difficult parts of this story?
• How might wrestling honestly with a troubling passage deepen our faith rather than weaken it?

2. The Persistence of the Canaanite Woman

• What do you notice about the woman’s courage and persistence as she continues advocating for her daughter?
• Pastor Mark suggests that this woman challenges Jesus and helps reveal the expansive reach of God’s love. What does that possibility invite you to consider about how God works through human encounters?

3. The Lines and Barriers We Create

• Pastor Mark says, “Every time we draw a line, every time we put up a wall or a barrier, every time we exclude somebody, Jesus isn’t with us. He’s with them.” How does this challenge the ways individuals, churches, and communities decide who belongs?
• What lines, walls, prejudices, or assumptions might keep us from recognizing Jesus among people we have placed on the “other side”?

4. The God We Believe In

• What does the pastor’s question, “Tell me about the God you don’t believe in,” help us uncover about the images of God we may have inherited or created?
• How can we distinguish between the God revealed through persistent love and a god shaped primarily by our own fears, preferences, or prejudices?

5. Applying the Sermon

• Where might God be challenging you “in love, through love, and for love” right now?
• What is one line you can cross, barrier you can question, or person you can see differently this week as you trust the God who never stops persistently pursuing us in love?

The post Sermon Discussion Guide: Disputing with God: Persistence appeared first on Roland Park Presbyterian Church.