Waxing Theological

9-27-15 (Proper 21 / Ordinary 26 B, Semi-Continuous) James 5:13-20; Mark 9:38-50 Having Salt In Yourself     It’s amazing the kind of things people say when they’re talking about Christ.  For example, as I was doing research for a paper in seminary, I discovered the website of a church in Oklahoma that begins with the statement - “You think you’re saved, but you’re not!”  Of course, this piqued my curiosity, so my inner seminarian was eager to read further.  I’m quoting now directly from the website: “All of the world religions (Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Atheism, Mormonism, Jehova’s Witnesses, Catholicism, Protestantism, Seventh Day Adventism, etc.) lead to nowhere but hell.  Every single last person involved in them reject the truth of the Bible, and thus, the Truth of the Bible, God, will burn them forever in the lake of fire for hating Him so.” A paragraph or two later, it continues: “If you are involved with the kind of Christianity that views Protestantism, or Catholicism, or

9-20-15 (Proper 20 / Ordinary 25B, Semi-Continuous) James 3:13-4:3, 7-8a; Mark 9:30-37 The Only Stupid Question "The only stupid question is the one left unasked."  -- Unknown     As we hear some of the more familiar phrases in this text from Mark’s gospel this morning, it’s tempting to jump directly to Jesus’ words to the disciples about being servant to all and welcoming children.  There are images in this passage that many of us have probably seen throughout our whole lives - paintings of a smiling Jesus as he bounces beautiful giggling children on his knee that are usually titled “Let the little children come to me” or something similar, moments during church dinners where we jokingly cut in front of people in line, saying “The first will be last and the last shall be first,” even images of the humble servant Jesus as he breaks the bread with his disciples and bows to wash their feet.  But if we give in to that temptation and go for the “easy lesson” in these sev

9-13-15 (Proper 19/Ordinary 24 B, Semi-Continuous) James 3:1-12; Mark 8:27-38 Take Up Your Cross     The conversation was simple enough - the question even simpler:  “Who do people say that I am?” asks Jesus as he and the disciples are walking together on the way to Caesarea Philippi.  It seems like such a casual question, as if Jesus is asking “Do you think it will rain today?” but as we soon see, the question is a little deeper than that as well.  And as the disciples start to give Jesus some results to what is possibly the first public opinion poll in written history, we start to get an idea, both of what the disciples may be thinking about who Jesus is and about who the public thinks he is as well.  They answer him readily - “Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, still others say one of the prophets.”  It seems nobody’s quite sure just who Jesus is, exactly - it’s still relatively early in his ministry and every one of his miraculous works so far has been matched with a

9-6-15 (Proper 18 / Ordinary 23 B, Semi-Continuous) James 2:1-17; Mark 7:24-37 Actions Speak Louder     Take a second and think about a lot of the movies that you’ve seen in theaters, watched previews for, or heard news about.  How many of these movies are action packed adventures of some sort?  This last year alone, we’ve had movies like The Fast and the Furious, The Avengers, Mad Max, Jurassic World, Terminator, Ant Man, and Mission: Impossible, and there are still more exciting movies coming up this year, particularly the new Star Wars movie.  We like our movies to have some excitement to them - even our comedies have begun to take on elements of action-adventure.  Put too much dialogue in a movie and people tend to get bored too easily.  It seems like gone are the days of such iconic films as Casablanca and Gone With the Wind.     Luckily for us action fans out there, our lectionary is all about the action this week.  As we continue through Mark’s gospel, we see a very active,