Skip to content
ELCA Blogs

Faith Lens

Faith Lens on Hiatus

Faith Lens is not published during the summer.

We hope you value this resource and look forward to its return September 4.

May 27, 2012–Who Will You Advocate For?

Contributed by Angie Larson, Clive, Iowa

 

Warm-up Question

When is it ok to use photoshop on a photo?

Who Will You Advocate For?

Fourteen year old, Julia Bluhm has begun a petition to ask Seventeen magazine, a magazine geared towards teenage women, to cut back in using Photoshop on their photos.  She started a petition on change.org and has so far had over 70,000 people sign that petition. Bluhm believes that cutting back on the amount of photo alterations would benefit the young women who read and subscribe to the magazine.  Bluhm wrote, “The media tells us that ‘pretty’ girls are impossibly thin with perfect skin. Here’s what lots of girls don’t know. Those ‘pretty women’ that we see in magazines are fake. They’re often photoshopped, air-brushed, edited to look thinner, and to appear like they have perfect skin. A girl you see in a magazine probably looks a lot different in real life. That’s why I’m asking Seventeen magazine to commit to printing one unaltered — real — photo spread per month.”  Bluhm is advocating for thousands of girls who compare themselves to the photos in the magazines.

There is debate concerning  this advocacy program.  Some say that selling magazines is what it’s all about; it’s just business and putting Seventeen’s best look forward is what sells.  Others say that the unrealistic and unachievable perfection of  photo-shopped photos are partially to blame for eating disorders and low self –esteem.  At this time Seventeen has not issued a response.

 

Discussion Questions

  • If you had a zit on your face during the day of your yearbook photo, would you want it computer altered to make you look more flawless?
  • What do you think of Julia’s advocacy campaign?
  • Would you be willing to sign Julia’s petition or do you agree with the magazine’s perspective?

Scripture Texts (NRSV) for Sunday, May 27, 2012 (Day of Pentecost)

Acts 2:1-21

Romans 8:22-27

John 15:26-27, 16:4b-15

(Text links are to Oremus Bible Browser. Oremus Bible Browser is not affiliated with or supported by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. You can find the calendar of readings for Year C at Lectionary Readings.)

For lectionary humor and insight, check the weekly comic Agnus Day.

 

Gospel Reflection

In this part of John’s Gospel Jesus tells his friends that the Advocate will come.  By the “Advocate” he is referring to the third part of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit.  As Christians we try to grasp an understanding of God the Father from Scripture.  We also know Jesus through the Gospel, but our understanding of the Holy Spirit can be confused.  The Holy Spirit is just as much at work as God the Father, or Jesus the Son.  However, the Spirit’s work is more mysterious.

When the disciples heard Jesus talking about the Holy Spirit as an advocate who will come when He is gone, they were confused.  They couldn’t understand what he was saying about his upcoming death, resurrection, and ascension. He also calls the disciples to testify to the truth about who Jesus is.  Jesus knows that he must leave in order for the Advocate to come.

The Advocate or Spirit will come to “convict the world about sin, righteousness, and judgment.”  At the same time it will “guide you into the truth.”  Both the good and the bad will be revealed.  The Holy Spirit is our advocate, it will guide us in areas that we need someone to help us to understand the true nature of the world.  The Holy Spirit will help us to see accurately, un-airbrushed, the reality of who Jesus was.

Discussion Questions

  •  How do you see the Holy Spirit’s movement in your own life?
  • Having read the Scripture text, what do you think was the disciples’ original reaction?
  • Who are some that do not know Jesus yet?  How can you share with them the truth?

Activity Suggestions

  •  Make a list of causes you think you can advocate for.  What world concerns do you think need to be pointed out as issues?  Choose one issue or cause. Brainstorm ways that you can witness and testify to others about what you understand to be the truth.
  • Create a mock trial situation.  On one side, have a “lawyer” explain and call witnesses about why Jesus is the Son of God.  On the other, have a group explain why he is not.  Put together your own trial and practice apologetics in order to learn how to better testify.  Then switch sides.

Closing Prayer

Dear Lord Jesus, thank you for blessing us with this time together.  Open our hearts to your Holy Spirit, your Advocate for us.  Help us to see your activity in our lives and in the lives of those around us.  Help us to know your love and care for us in our own unaltered state. Please use us Lord for your kingdom. Amen.

May 20, 2012–Caps and Frowns

Contributed by Paul Henrickson, Salem, VA

 

Warm-up Questions

What if Jesus prayed for you?

  • Would it be the same as the prayer in John 17 which he prayed for his disciples?
  • Would he pray that you would be “sanctified?”
  • Would Jesus pray for your PROTECTION or for your PURIFICATION or both?

Caps and Frowns

Begin by reading following online articles about job prospects for new graduates.  Note the chart “Caps and Frowns:  Job prospects for the class of 2012.”

http://www.decisionsonevidence.com/2012/02/limited-job-prospects-and-earnings-for-high-school-diploma-only-workers/

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304020104577384410323391198.html?mod=WSJ_hp_LEFTTopStories

Whether you’re in high school or college, the employment outlook is not encouraging.  This raises some important questions for people of faith.

  • Would God really call us to be unemployed?
  • Do we need a broader understanding of “calling?”
  • How do faithful people respond to the “new economic reality?”
  • What is our true “vocation?”

 

Discussion Questions

  • What do you envision as your future?
  • What is your dream?
  • What are you planning to do after graduation from High School/College?
  • What is your calling?
  • Are you looking for security or meaning?
  • Do you want to be Protected or Purified?

Scripture Texts (NRSV) for Sunday, May 20, 2012 (Seventh Sunday of Easter)

Acts 1:15-17, 21-26

1 John 5:9-13

John 17:6-19

(Text links are to Oremus Bible Browser. Oremus Bible Browser is not affiliated with or supported by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. You can find the calendar of readings for Year C at Lectionary Readings.)

For lectionary humor and insight, check the weekly comic Agnus Day.

 

Gospel Reflection

This is part of the “Priestly Prayer” of Jesus in the 17th Chapter of John.  These four verses seem to sum up the core of the prayer of Jesus for his disciples – for Jesus’ disciples today:

I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world.I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but I ask you to protect them from the evil one.*  They do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world.Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth

There are three points worth noting:

We are IN the world, not OF the world.

  • We have been claimed by Christ to be those redeemed.
  • We are no longer under Satan’s rule (this world), but God’s rule.

We are protected.

  • “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.”
  •  The power of evil gets too little attention from today’s Christian.
  • From Luther’s Large Catechism: “If you could see how many daggers, spears, and  arrows are at every moment aimed at you, you would be glad to come to  the sacrament as often as possible.”

We are being “made holy.”

  • We have been “sanctified – made holy”  from Late Latin sanctificāre, from Latin sanctus holy + facere to make

Discussion Questions

  •  How would you live your life today if you really believed that God was doing His work on you to “make you holy?”
  • What does it mean for you to be IN the world not OF the world?

Activity Suggestions

  •  Write a prayer that Jesus might pray for you.
  • Imagine a day in your life where your sanctification was a 24 hour activity.
  • Read the newspaper and find places where sanctification is required.

Closing Prayer

There is no better prayer for protection and sanctification than Psalm 141.  In your group, slowly read the psalm together as a prayer, perhaps pausing briefly after each verse.  As you read, think of those who are in particular need of God’s care, and pray for them.

May13, 2012–Who is Your Friend?

Contributed by Seth Moland-Kovash, Palatine, IL

 

Warm-up Question

Do you have someone whom you consider a close friend?

Who is Your Friend

A recent article in the May issue of The Atlantic cites research saying that, despite social media networks that keep us more connected to one another than ever before, we are really lonelier than ever. More important, this loneliness has real effects on our mental and physical health. The article is entitled “Is Facebook Making Us Lonely?” It cites a recent study that says up to 20% of Americans are unhappy with their lives because of loneliness.

Interestingly, the article also cites a German study about the effect of belief in God on loneliness. “Active believers who saw God as abstract and helpful rather than as a wrathful, immediate presence were less lonely.” While Lutherans might argue about the abstract part of this sentence, the core of Lutheran belief is that God is helpful (merciful) rather than wrathful.

Being physically alone and feeling lonely are not the same thing. And every person has their own priorities and needs related to alone time and personal connection. But each one of us does have a need to have connection. It seems that those connections are becoming harder and harder to make in our world.

 Discussion Questions

  • What does it mean to be lonely? How would you define loneliness?
  • What are the ideal traits that would make someone a close friend? Is it about trust, shared interests, personality traits?

 

Scripture Texts (NRSV) for Sunday, May 13, 2012 (Sixth Sunday of Easter)

Acts 10:44-48

1 John 5:1-6

John 15:9-17

(Text links are to Oremus Bible Browser. Oremus Bible Browser is not affiliated with or supported by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. You can find the calendar of readings for Year C at Lectionary Readings.)

For lectionary humor and insight, check the weekly comic Agnus Day.

 

Gospel Reflection

Jesus says that his disciples are friends. While he was speaking historically to a few select people a couple thousand years ago, we believe that he is also speaking to us. “I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father.”

Jesus calls us friends based on some shared understanding of what God is doing in the world. Because we know that God is in the world saving lives and restoring all of creation to wholeness, we are Jesus’ friends. That’s a very privileged position. It raises our status and our sense of what it means to be the church. We aren’t just a group of followers; we aren’t just a group of people who believe some things… we are Jesus’ friends.

Discussion Questions

  • Read the words to the hymn “What a Friend We Have in Jesus,” Evangelical Lutheran Worship #742. What are the good things about having Jesus as a friend? Do you feel you have those things in your life?
  • When Jesus calls us friends, does that come with obligations in addition to benefits? What might some of those obligations be?

Activity Suggestions

  • One aspect of loneliness is the feeling of being bullied and marginalized. Create an anti-bullying pledge for your group and your lives. Publicize it within your church or school or community.
  • Visit members of your church or community in the nursing home. Play a game with them, or talk about memories. Show them that you are their friend.

Closing Prayer

Good and gracious God, we thank you for sending Jesus to be our friend. Help us to feel that community and to live into the community that Jesus has created.  Amen.

May 6, 2012–Grapes and Vines

Contributed by David Delaney, Salem, VA

 

Warm-up Questions

  •  What is your favorite place to just sit and relax?  Think about a place where, once you get there, you are so comfortable that you just do not want to get up.  Is it the couch in front of your TV?  Or the inflatable float you lie on at the neighborhood pool in summer?  Or a chair that could be anywhere, but because it’s at your best friend’s house, it’s your favorite spot in the world?  Or the rock ledge on the hiking trail that overlooks the neighboring valley?  Or the bed in your own room?
  • What if the answer to the question had to be a person you love to be with rather than a place you like to be?  Some people are at their most relaxed when they’re alone, but for others there are best friends who put them at ease and in whose presence they can be most completely themselves, wherever they are.
  • Another way of asking the same question:  To whom do you go to be renewed in energy, or to obtain trusted and wise advice, or to share very private secrets?

All of the feelings associated with such places and people contribute to the idea of what it means to “abide” in the sense that Jesus means it in John 15.

Grapes and Vines

In early 2012, the U.S. Department of Agriculture reported that California’s 2011 grape harvest was down more than 7% overall and as much as 17% in some key places like Sonoma Valley.  That may not mean much until we realize that this represents between 250,000 and 500,000 tons of grapes – not pounds, tons.  The reasons growers gave for the decreased yield were, as we might guess, things over which they had no control, primarily weather.  There were a series of unexpected freezes in the early spring and an unusual amount of rain in late spring that weighed vines down and knocked the blooms off of their vines.  That was followed by a cool summer and then more heavy rain during the harvest months of October and November, which caused entire fields of grapes to rot before they could be picked.

One has to wonder just how delicate grape branches, blossoms, and fruits are if simple changes in weather can have such a dramatic effect on whether the fruit actually gets produced or not.  Apparently they’re very delicate!

Did Jesus have this in mind when he compared us to grapevine branches?  Are we really that susceptible to being robbed of abundant life because of the changing conditions around us, things over which we have no control?  That is undoubtedly a part of the story:  For many of us, faith thrives when we are living and working in ideal conditions – a loving and gracious family, like-minded friends in school and in the church’s youth group, sturdy and lively worship with a generous dose of solid preaching, fulfilling opportunities to serve, and support during times of crisis.  Who wouldn’t thrive in such an environment?  And yet, if those factors change, are we destined to decline in our spiritual health?  Can we still bear good fruit?

There’s another side to the image of the vine and the branches.  Not all of California’s grape crop was negatively affected by the 2011 weather patterns.  Some growers of heartier varieties of grapes reported that the fruit was actually some of the best they’ve ever had!  Evidently the variety and quality of the vine make a huge difference.  There is an important lesson.  In California, some grape branches attached to more vulnerable types of vines lost their fruit-bearing capabilities and in some cases died altogether.  But those attached to more resilient varieties of vines not only survived the weather but bore better fruit than expected.

We are not like grape branches in one important sense: we can self-detach from a vine and latch on to something else that we suspect might provide a better home.  This is the reason Jesus could give the unusual instruction to his disciples to remain attached to him like a branch is connected to a vine.  He wanted to make sure we understood how vulnerable we can be to the changes and challenges going on around us.  So there is a difference between just attaching to any vine that may be out there promising to sustain us through rough weather and staying attached to Jesus, who is not just any vine, but the sturdiest and heartiest of all vines, the true life-giver.

Discussion Questions

  • What does it mean to “bear fruit”?  What kind of fruit are we, the branches of the vine, expected to bear?
  • Outside of this section, the word “fruit” only occurs twice in the Gospel of John, but students of scripture over the centuries have often connected this passage with one from another New Testament writer, Paul, who speaks of “the fruit of the Spirit” in Galatians 5:22-23.  What do we learn from that passage that helps us understand the experience that Jesus intends for us?

Scripture Texts (NRSV) for Sunday, May 6, 2012 (Fifth Sunday of Easter)

 Acts 8:26-40

1 John 4:7-21

John 15:1-8

(Text links are to Oremus Bible Browser. Oremus Bible Browser is not affiliated with or supported by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. You can find the calendar of readings for Year C at Lectionary Readings.)

For lectionary humor and insight, check the weekly comic Agnus Day.

 

Gospel Reflection

Whenever we come across passages of scripture that set up scenarios of success and failure in the life of faith, we always run the risk of turning the good news of God’s saving love for us back into a law that discourages and depresses us or a system that supposedly lays out a formula for making God happy and assuring our salvation.  In this passage that tendency is enhanced by the starkness with which the consequences of failing to abide are described:  “He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit … Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers;  such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned.”

It sounds rather judgmental and threatening.  If we are of a fearful conscience, this verse can leave us in terror that we will do it wrong and end up discarded.  If on the other hand we trust in our own righteousness, the task of abiding just becomes one more goal that we check off our list of things we do to make God like us.  In fact, however, this passage allows neither of those conclusions.

To abide means to remain connected to Jesus over time.  It is being in relationship with him.  It is not a matter of doing it right or wrong, but just being aware of how dearly he, the vine, is holding onto us, the branches.  Furthermore, we must remember that the life that is promised does not flow from branches to the vine, but the other way – from the vine (Jesus) to the branches (us).  All of these words about abiding in the vine do not describe a hoop we must jump through or a spiritual state for which we must strive, but a reality that is already true as he declares it – “you have already been cleansed (or pruned) by the word that I have spoken to you.”  Perhaps we need to hang on to our list of synonyms for “abide” that was suggested above – “relax with me,” “dwell with me,” “remain with me,”  “be still with me” – as a way of hearing the good news in this passage.

Discussion Questions

  •  Try to think of some words that could mean the same thing as “abide.”  Some possibilities:  remain, stay, live, relax, dwell, connect, rely on, stay close to, and others.  So how does one “abide” in the Christ the vine?  What faith practices do you engage in that help keep that relationship alive and flowing?
  • What does Jesus mean by verse 7? – “If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.”  That sounds like a pretty outlandish promise, given that I could wish for all kinds of crazy things.  But this is the second time he has said it (see 14:13-14)!  How does this work then?  Can it be that if we are abiding in Jesus, our lives and words, including our very wishes and desires, are so completely transformed by him that we can indeed ask for whatever we wish because our wishes will at that point be so aligned with his own?
  • In chapters 13 and 14, the disciples interrupt Jesus quite a bit with their questions.  What question would you ask Jesus if you could interrupt him in the middle of this chapter?
  • This instruction of Jesus to his disciples comes in the very middle of a much longer conversation during The Last Supper that runs all the way from chapter 13 through chapter 17, covers a huge number of topics and even includes a lengthy prayer.  If you skim through those five chapters (and it helps if you have a Bible with paragraph titles!), what sorts of themes do you see?  What kinds of things are repeated several times?  How do they relate to each other?
  • John 15:1 is part of a set of “I am” sayings in the gospel – 6:35;  8:12;  10:9;  10:11;  11:25;  14:6;  and 15:1.  Each one says something different about who Jesus is and they culminate in one more instance of “I am” later in the gospel, 18:5.  As you look at each of these passages and the titles that Jesus gives himself, which of them strikes you as the most important for your life of faith?  What dimension of Jesus’ connection to his followers resonates the most with your life right now?

Activity Suggestions

  •  Locate a piece of dried grape vine and, depending on the size, start adding names of people in your congregation or youth group, either to the leaves if they are still attached, or even on pieces of paper.  Then put the vine somewhere where it can serve as a reminder of your constant connection to Christ and your common connection to others.
  • In response to verse 7, use index cards to write things down that someone abiding in the vine of Christ might ask of him.  If it’s true that someone who is so connected to Jesus will find their desires for themselves and the world closely aligned with Jesus’ desires for them and the world, what would those things be?  Use these cards as the content of your closing prayer for your study session.

Closing Prayer

Lord Jesus, we thank you for your life giving and life sustaining call to abide in you.  Even as you reassure us day by day that our connection to you remains strong through your grace, feed us also on the life you give so that we may indeed bear good fruit in this world and so become your disciples.  In your holy name we pray, Amen.