Main Themes: The corrupting danger of power, David’s abuse of Bathsheba and Uriah, truth-telling and accountability, complicity and self-examination, sin and sainthood, political participation, using our voices, and seeking God’s kingdom of justice and mercy.

Discussion Questions:

1. When Power Distorts

• Pastor Mark describes how David’s long experience of power and praise changed his understanding of himself and his relationship with God. What warning does David’s story offer anyone who holds authority, influence, or privilege?
• Where have you seen power create distance between what a person knows is right and what that person permits themselves to do?

2. Hearing “You Are the Man”

• David recognizes the injustice in Nathan’s story before he recognizes himself within it. Why is wrongdoing often easier to identify in the abstract—or in someone else—than in our own conduct?
• What kinds of stories, relationships, or practices can help us see truths about ourselves that we might otherwise avoid?

3. Sinners and Saints

• Pastor Mark says, “We are all David. We are not all Bathsheba and Nathan.” What does this claim ask us to acknowledge about our own capacity for harm, silence, or complicity?
• How does the idea that each of us is both sinner and saint challenge the temptation to divide the world neatly into good people and bad people?

4. Using Our Small Voices

• Nathan risked speaking truth to a powerful king, and Bathsheba named the consequences of what David had done. What makes it difficult to speak when power is being abused?
• Pastor Mark urges us to use our voices through political engagement while remembering that no candidate is a demigod. What might faithful, thoughtful participation look like without turning politics into another form of worship?

5. Applying the Sermon

• Pastor Mark invites us to “vote every day” with our time, talent, and treasure for the kind of world we want. What is one everyday choice through which you can support justice, mercy, accountability, or human dignity this week?
• Where might your small voice be needed right now—to tell the truth in love, support someone who has been silenced, or call power back to accountability?

The post Sermon Discussion Guide: Your Small Voice appeared first on Roland Park Presbyterian Church.

Main Themes: Remembering God’s faithfulness, gratitude for those who came before us, honest truth-telling about the past, repentance and learning, choosing blessing over conquest, existence as a gift, suffering and compassion, and practicing gratitude.

Discussion Questions

1. Remembering How We Got Here

• Pastor Mark warns against imagining that we arrived where we are entirely through our own goodness, sacrifice, or hard work. Who helped make your life, faith, or opportunities possible?
• What changes when we understand our lives as gifts shaped by God’s faithfulness, other people’s sacrifices, and circumstances we did not create for ourselves?

2. Remembering with Honesty

• The sermon says anniversaries and milestones are occasions not only for celebration but also for truth-telling. Why can it be difficult for individuals, churches, or nations to hold gratitude and repentance together?
• What part of your personal or communal history needs to be remembered more honestly so that its lessons are not lost or repeated?

3. Choosing Between Conquest and Blessing

• Pastor Mark says the text demands that we choose between a God of conquest and violence and a God who intends to bring blessing to the entire world. How does that choice affect the way we read Joshua’s story?
• Where do you see faith being used to justify power, exclusion, or nationalism today? What would it look like instead to bear God’s blessing to the whole world?

4. Gratitude in the Midst of Suffering

• The sermon insists that gratitude does not require us to gloss over pain or pretend to be glad for everything that has happened. How is this understanding of gratitude different from forced positivity?
• Pastor Mark compares gratitude to a deep well that we dig through practice. What practices have helped you find something life-giving when health, money, work, grief, or other burdens feel overwhelming?

5. Applying the Sermon

• Joshua says, “Choose this day.” What is one specific way you can choose gratitude this week while remaining honest about something difficult?
• How might you honor the blessings you have received by passing them on—through compassion, truth-telling, repair, generosity, or care for someone who comes after you?

The post Sermon Discussion Guide: Choose This Day appeared first on Roland Park Presbyterian Church.

Main Themes: The Ten Commandments as the shape of freedom, liberation and responsibility, interpreting Scripture in context, power and privilege, Sabbath rest, human belovedness, neighbor-love, and faith practiced rather than imposed.

Discussion Questions

1. The Commandments as the Shape of Freedom

• Pastor Mark emphasizes that the commandments begin with God’s liberation of Israel rather than with a list of demands. How does hearing the commandments as a gift to people who have been freed change the way you understand them?
• What is the difference between freedom as doing whatever we want and freedom shaped by responsibility, mutuality, and care for our neighbors?

2. Recomplicating the Text

• Pastor Mark says we must “recomplicate” the commandments by restoring their historical and theological context. What can be lost when Scripture is flattened into simple rules or slogans?
• How can questions, context, and careful interpretation help an ancient text come alive without weakening its authority or importance?

3. Power, Privilege, and Coveting

• The sermon reframes coveting as using power and privilege to take what belongs to another, rather than merely wanting what someone else has. Where do you see this deeper form of coveting at work today?
• What might it look like to respect another person’s autonomy and refuse to use our power to our advantage and their disadvantage?

4. Sabbath and Human Worth

• Walter Brueggemann describes Sabbath as withdrawal from a system that defines life by production and consumption. What anxieties or expectations make genuine rest difficult for you or for people in your community?
• How could Sabbath practice affirm that we and our neighbors are valued for who we are—not only for what we do, produce, or own?

5. Applying the Sermon

• Pastor Mark says the true test of faith is not making others follow our values, but how well we follow them ourselves. Where is that distinction especially important in your life or in the public life of the church?
• What is one concrete way you can embody the generous spirit of the commandments this week—especially in how you treat someone vulnerable, overworked, overlooked, or subject to another’s power?

The post Sermon Discussion Guide: The Shape of Freedom appeared first on Roland Park Presbyterian Church.

Main Themes: God’s solidarity with the oppressed, liberation, fear and uncertainty, courage and faithful participation, faith and science, ordinary and extraordinary rescue, justice, and hope without passivity.

Discussion Questions

1. God’s Love and the Oppressed

• Pastor Mark says that God loves everyone but is not always neutral—that God’s love can compel God to take the side of the powerless and oppressed. What challenges or comforts you about that claim?
• Pastor Mark names Christian nationalism and manifest destiny as distortions of faith. How can communities of faith discern when religion is serving power rather than God’s work of justice and liberation?

2. Standing at the Edge of the Unknown

• We know how the Exodus story ends, but the Israelites did not. Where in your life are you being asked to move forward without knowing what waits on the other side?
• Why can a familiar form of bondage sometimes feel safer than an uncertain path toward freedom? What helps people choose freedom anyway?

3. Participating in Liberation

• The waters part, but the Israelites still have to walk between them. What does this suggest about the relationship between God’s saving work and our faithful participation?
• What ‘threatening waters’ of injustice or disorder are people facing today, and what might it mean for us to help hold them back?

4. Ordinary and Extraordinary Rescue

• Pastor Mark insists that we can believe in science and God, heed warnings, accept practical help, and still pray for rescue. How does that understanding reshape the way you think about faith and miracles?
• When have ordinary people, practical resources, or common-sense decisions become a means of grace or rescue in your life?

5. Applying the Sermon

• Where are you tempted to give in to despair, and what would it look like to keep working for justice, equity, peace, or liberation in that place?
• What is one concrete step you—or your community—can take this week to stand with people who are powerless or voiceless while trusting God to make a way?

The post Sermon Discussion Guide: A Way Where There Is No Way 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.

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.

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.

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.

We continue today with our sermon series on disputing with God. The past two sermons in this series have been on the book of Exodus, and in particular with Moses and the people, as they struggled in the wilderness and tried to remain faithful through that time of unknowing and uncertainty. In some ways, we’re kind of moving backward to Genesis 18, but one of the things I wanted to point out that maybe we don’t often think about is that we open the Bible and there’s Genesis at the beginning.

It starts with the creation story, and we think that’s a very natural beginning narratively. But in terms of the way that the Bible was constructed, Exodus, and the Exodus experience of the people being released from slavery in Egypt and God liberating them, is actually kind of the beginning point of the story of the people of God, the Hebrew and Israel. But the book of Genesis then is kind of the prequel.

So it’s kind of like around Christmas time I’ll remind us that, you know, it wasn’t that the story of Jesus’ birth was written down at the time of Jesus’ birth. It was written years and years later, hundreds of years later, really, once people had kind of understood the importance of Jesus’ life and they said, “Gee, I wonder how he was born. We should figure that out and tell that story.” In the same way, also, the people who are liberated from Egypt say, “Well, gee, how did this all come about?”

And so they go back and they tell the stories that we have in Genesis. Most of the stories in Genesis, of course, revolve around a man named Abraham and his wife Sarah. Just preceding the passage that we are about to read, God has come to them, and this is just to help us kind of orient overall into the big picture. This is after Noah and the Ark and the flood, and then the rainbow, and God has promised never to again destroy the earth.

Then God seeks to begin again with this project that God is trying to carry out through humanity and says, Abraham and his wife, that’s where I’m going to start. I’m going to build a nation through them. And even in their old age, then God comes and visits them with two strangers. Abraham and Sarah open up their home to them, welcome them, feed them, and come to find out that they are messengers from God and that they are God’s chosen people to begin again and that through them, even though they are old, they will have many descendants, as many as the stars in the sky.

And then from there, the two visitors go out and we pick up the story from there in Genesis 18. This translation just calls them the men. Other translations might have visitors or even angels.

Genesis 18: 16-33                                                                                                                                 

Then the men set out from there, and they looked toward Sodom, and Abraham went with them to set them on their way. The Lord said, “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do, seeing that Abraham shall become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him? No, for I have chosen him, that he may charge his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing righteousness and justice, so that the Lord may bring about for Abraham what he has promised him.” Then the Lord said, “How great is the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah and how very grave their sin! I must go down and see whether they have done altogether according to the outcry that has come to me, and if not, I will know.”

So the men turned from there and went toward Sodom, while Abraham remained standing before the Lord. Then Abraham came near and said, “Will you indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked? Suppose there are fifty righteous within the city; will you then sweep away the place and not forgive it for the fifty righteous who are in it? Far be it from you to do such a thing, to slay the righteous with the wicked, so that the righteous fare as the wicked! Far be that from you! Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?” And the Lord said, “If I find at Sodom fifty righteous in the city, I will forgive the whole place for their sake.” Abraham answered, “Let me take it upon myself to speak to my lord, I who am but dust and ashes. Suppose five of the fifty righteous are lacking? Will you destroy the whole city for lack of five?” And he said, “I will not destroy it if I find forty-five there.” Again he spoke to him, “Suppose forty are found there.” He answered, “For the sake of forty I will not do it.” Then he said, “Oh, do not let my lord be angry if I speak. Suppose thirty are found there.” He answered, “I will not do it, if I find thirty there.” He said, “Let me take it upon myself to speak to my lord. Suppose twenty are found there.” He answered, “For the sake of twenty I will not destroy it.” Then he said, “Oh, do not let my lord be angry if I speak just once more. Suppose ten are found there.” He answered, “For the sake of ten I will not destroy it.” And the Lord went his way, when he had finished speaking to Abraham, and Abraham returned to his place.

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.

***

Genesis 18, the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, is perhaps one of the most misunderstood passages of the entire Bible. The two towns or cities become the focus of God’s anger because of their wickedness. Yet the exact nature of the wickedness is never specifically mentioned.

There’s mention of the way they treat outsiders, how they abuse them and mistreat them. There are certainly accounts of assault and violence. And of course, we all know that this passage has been used over the centuries to shame and exclude and other people of same-sex attraction. People who want to oppose homosexuality from a religious viewpoint point to this passage as their source to affirm homosexuality is a sin.

Now, given the sensitive nature of this topic, I don’t want to feel the need to move down this path, but let me just say this: To equate the actions of any two people in love with that of a violent assault of someone on a stranger does not hold water. It just doesn’t.

So let me relate this to more current events. The New York Knickerbockers—I like to say the whole name, the Knickerbockers—won the NBA championship for the first time in 53 years this past week.

And Knicks fans have lined the city streets in celebration. And as there is any time people drink and celebrate in public, fights have broken out. These fights have nothing to do with being a Knicks fan or a basketball fan and everything to do with being drunk and probably way overstimulated.

We would never say that God is angry with all Knicks fans because of these incidents. The only people who would say that are people who are already not Knicks fans. They will see these incidents as backing their bias. But the bias already existed.

Likewise, nobody reading Genesis 18 would come to the conclusion that God disapproves of same-sex relationships except for those who are already biased against gays and lesbians. It is the violence and assault that deserves God’s anger. Period. That is it.

Those who would use this passage to defend their bigotry or worse, their own physical violence or verbal violence against those with whom they disagree are actually guilty of the very thing that put Sodom and Gomorrah in God’s crosshairs in the first place.

When we widen out and read this story in context, we realize that the real issue at the heart of the passage is hospitality to strangers.

Hospitality to strangers, you see, is a biblical mandate. It could not be more clear. The Bible drives home this point time and time again. You take care of the stranger in your midst, the foreigner or the alien in your country. Why? Again, it goes back to that origin point for the Hebrew people because you were once strangers yourself. You were once foreigners in a foreign land, and you know what it’s like to be mistreated.

Right before the passage we read for today, as I explained in the setup, Abraham and Sarah offer hospitality to strangers. Strangers, who it turns out, were messengers or angels sent from God. And because Abraham and Sarah showed kindness to strangers and welcomed the foreigners into their home and fed and cared for them, God chooses them to begin again after the flood.

And in this passage, God makes a covenant with Abraham. God says, I will be your God, and you will be my people. He tells Abraham that through him he will build a great nation as numerous as the stars.

But this is the second covenant that God makes. The first one is after Noah and the flood, where God says, I will never again wipe out all the people because of their sin.

Now, as soon as the covenant is made, who do we expect to break it?

Abraham, right?

And don’t worry, Abraham makes his own mistakes. But biblically speaking, God is the first to be tempted to violate the terms of the covenant. Did you catch it? When God hears about the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah and the way they treat strangers, God decides to wipe them out. Well, that would break both covenants, wouldn’t it?

So God wonders, seemingly out loud, should I just go ahead and do it, but not tell Abraham?

Wow. That’s really interesting, isn’t it?

We think we’re the ones who should be afraid of God’s judgment. But according to Genesis, God seems to be a little bit afraid of Abraham’s judgments, not the other way around.

This is a turning point in Scripture and the basis for our faith and trust in God. To paraphrase the great Swiss theologian Karl Barth, we may choose to live without God. Humanity may prefer a godless existence. But God never chooses to live without us.

Perhaps the central characteristic and identity of the triune God is the refusal to ever be without humanity.

So one way to read this story of Sodom and Gomorrah, a good way I think, is to understand that this is actually a test for God. Prior to Abraham, God was free to do whatever God wanted to do. But now, now God is bound by the covenant that God has made.

God knows that if he lets Abraham in on his plan, Abraham will disapprove. And indeed he does. Abraham says, what if there are 50 righteous who live in these towns? Will you spare them then? God says yes, if there are 50. What about 45? 30, 20, 10.

Just, by the way, footnote, this is where the notion of a minyan comes from. A minyan is that ten people are required for certain prayers in the Jewish tradition. You have to have a minyan. And so, you know, there are some times where there’s a group that might be joining at a synagogue and there’s eight of them and they have to go out and flag down two other Jews to come in and have a minyan so that they can have prayers. That’s where this comes from: If there are ten, I will not destroy the city.

Like Moses, Abraham convinces God to show mercy. But let’s be clear, it’s not the case that God is vengeful and has to be convinced to show mercy. Rather, it is that God is merciful. But sometimes in the midst of anger, God forgets God’s self. It has to be reminded of God’s true nature.

Now it has been said to those who believe, no explanation is necessary, those who do not believe, no explanation will satisfy. I’m not sure if I buy that 100%, but I think it makes a good point. If we are inclined to faith, if we have a sense that we are a part of something bigger, if we believe that there is a benevolent presence that infuses the universe with life and meaning, we don’t need the Bible to convince us.

Rather, the Bible helps us work out what kind of God we believe in. And rather than just telling us what kind of God is, the Bible tells us stories about God that were shared throughout human history of people working out what kind of God is, considering what we know about God and what we know about the world. And if we approach the Bible this way, what we actually find is a treasure chest of the world’s biggest ideas and questions.

I mean, how limited and unhelpful is the interpretation that Genesis 18 is about how two people choose to share their love and affection. How mean-spirited and harmful is that interpretation? And what does it say about God?

Nothing good.

But it was the early Christian theologian and philosopher Augustine of Hippo who wrote, “whoever then thinks that he understands the Holy Scriptures or any part of them, but puts such an interpretation upon them as does not tend to build up this twofold love of God and neighbor, does not yet understand them as he ought.” In other words, if your interpretation of Scripture doesn’t lead you to love God and neighbor more, you have not yet understood Scripture correctly.

If your understanding of Scripture does not lead you to love God and neighbor more, you have not yet understood it correctly. Conversely, as the quote on our bulletin cover today states, “Hate, it appears, is the heresy.”

Friends, what I’m trying to get at here is that faith is not some static statement of beliefs to which we choose to ascribe or not. Not. Faith is a living, evolving relationship with God and one another. Faith, to put it in the language of the book of Genesis, is the living out of the covenant between God and humanity. “Faith,” writes Madeleine Lengel, “is what makes life bearable with all of its tragedies and ambiguities and sudden, startling joys.”

And one of the many ambiguities we encounter in life is the very issue of Sodom and Gomorrah. Not human sexuality, but how justice and mercy relate to one another. Because God has a point here. As much as we don’t want to admit it, I mean in the abstract, it’s easy to agree with Abraham. It’s not right to punish the innocent along with the guilty. That’s not fair. That’s not justice.

But neither is it fair to the innocent to leave the wicked go unpunished or unchecked, right? Bobby Williamson points out “there’s no discussion here about simply stopping the wickedness in one way or another. Or even just eliminating the people perpetuating wickedness while leaving the righteous alone.” That’s never even on the table. The assumption here is that they are all in it together. “But if mercy in this case basically means ignoring the land’s outcry and letting the wickedness stand, what does that say? And what does it mean for the innocent who continue to live there?” And he concludes with this: “In a modern society that so values individual autonomy, how do we think about the ways in which our fates are inextricably tied?”

Now that is a question worth wrestling with, don’t you agree? That will get us a lot further down the road than judging what we think about the way that two people love one another. How do justice and mercy relate? And how are our fates intertwined? With one another.

I don’t have answers to that. But I think that’s what we’re supposed to be wrestling with as people of faith.

It’s an odd notion to me that our image of God that we receive as children would not continue to grow and change with us as we get older and experience more of life in the world. We need an adult image of God to carry with us, to walk with us in this complicated and confusing world. But so many of us were never given permission, or whatever, to allow our notion of God to evolve, to wrestle with it in meaningful ways. And so we look like people who are trying to engage this complicated world with this very rudimentary image of God.

So if you’ve never received permission to wrestle with the image of God that you carry with you, please, please consider this sermon series your sign. Permission is granted. God welcomes your questions, your doubts, and your challenges because God has decided not to be God without you. So take it on good authority. Not mine, two guys named Moses and Abraham.

Amen.

The post Disputing with God: Advocating for Others appeared first on Roland Park Presbyterian Church.

Discussion Questions:

1. Reading Genesis 18 in Context:
   ● The sermon describes Genesis 18 and the story of Sodom and Gomorrah as one of the most misunderstood passages in the Bible. What interpretations of this story have you heard before?
   ● How does reading the story through the lens of hospitality, violence, and the treatment of strangers change the way you understand it?
2. Practicing Hospitality:
   ● The sermon emphasizes that hospitality to strangers is a biblical mandate. Why do you think Scripture returns to this theme so often?
   ● Where do you see opportunities for RPPC to practice deeper hospitality in our church, neighborhood, and wider community?
3. Scripture, Love, and Harm:
   ● Pastor Mark challenges interpretations of this passage that have been used to shame or exclude LGBTQIA+ people. How can communities of faith repair harm caused by harmful readings of Scripture?
   ● Augustine wrote that if our interpretation of Scripture does not lead us to love God and neighbor more, we have not understood it correctly. How might this guide the way we read difficult biblical passages?
4. God’s Covenant and Mercy:
   ● The sermon suggests that Genesis 18 shows God being held accountable to the covenant God has made with humanity. What does that image of God stir up for you?
   ● Abraham speaks honestly with God, asking whether the righteous should be swept away with the wicked. What does this conversation teach us about prayer, courage, and trust?
5. Justice, Mercy, and Our Intertwined Lives:
   ● The sermon raises a hard question: How do justice and mercy relate to one another? Where do you feel that tension in your own life or in the world around us?
   ● Pastor Mark asks how we think about the ways our fates are “inextricably tied.” What does that mean for how we live as neighbors, citizens, and people of faith?
6. Faith That Wrestles:
   ● The sermon says faith is not a static statement of beliefs, but a living, evolving relationship with God and one another. How has your understanding of God changed over time?
   ● Have you ever felt like you needed permission to question or wrestle with your image of God? What helps make a faith community safe for honest questions?
7. Applying the Sermon:
   ● What is one way you can practice hospitality to someone who feels like an outsider this week?
   ● How can RPPC continue to be a place where all are welcome, where questions are honored, and where love of God and neighbor shapes how we read Scripture?

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