Prepare

In Romans 14, Paul turns from love, the focus at the end of chapter 13, to welcome. It is a practical explanation of what that love looks like when we are living together with people who believe and practice differently than we do.

The church in Rome is struggling to get along. There are significant differences among the believers, especially around faith practices that affect daily life: what foods they should eat and which days should be treated as holy. Paul refers to some believers as “weak” and others as “strong.” Some scholars believe these differences also carried an ethnoracial component, with the former consisting primarily of Jewish followers of Jesus and the latter primarily of Gentile followers. Whatever the exact circumstances, these are not abstract theological disagreements. They affect how people eat, worship, and live together.

And Paul does not tell them to stop caring about these differences. In fact, he says, “Let all be fully convinced in their own minds” (verse 5). Conviction is not the problem. The problem is what happens when our convictions become a reason to judge, despise, or exclude another person.

Paul calls the church to hold deep conviction alongside deep humility. We may be convinced of what we believe, but our certainty does not make us God. We do not belong to ourselves; we belong to Christ. Whether we eat or do not eat, whether we observe one day or another, we do so for the Lord. Christ alone is Lord, and judgment belongs to God.

So how do the strong and the weak, and all those who hold different convictions, live together? They welcome one another. They hold tightly to what they believe without using those beliefs to push someone else away. Christian community does not require the disappearance of difference. Instead, Paul imagines a community in which conviction is accompanied by humility because all are held together by something greater than themselves: the love of Jesus Christ, Lord of all.

Opening Activity

Tell about a time you met someone who practiced their faith differently than you. This could be another Christian, someone of another faith, or someone with no faith at all. How did you discover your differences? How did you respond? Did it affect your relationship? 

Text Read Aloud

• Romans 14:1-12

Holding Conviction and Practicing Welcome

It’s been 25 years since 9/11. I was in second grade, Mrs. Claxton’s class when an announcement over the PA system told all the teachers to turn on the news. I couldn’t fully understand the magnitude of what happened that day. In the weeks that followed, I remember a strong sense of unity and people rallying together. It was only later that I learned not everyone experienced those weeks that way. Muslim Americans faced suspicion, discrimination, and violence in the wake of the attacks.

Most of you know 9/11 only as history. Yet, the way Americans view Muslims today is not something of the past. Just this week, Pew Research Center reported that 42% of U.S. adults say Muslim Americans have a negative impact on the country. Meanwhile, 59% of Muslim Americans say there is a lot of discrimination against Muslims in the United States.

What would it feel like to walk into school knowing that roughly four out of ten adults believe people who practice your religion are bad for the country you call home?

The church in Rome knew something about the damage judgment can do to a community. In Romans 14, Paul is not talking about people of different religions. He is addressing Christians who hold different convictions and practices. Some eat only vegetables while others eat meat. Some observe particular holy days while others do not.

Paul does not tell them to stop caring about what they believe. In fact, he says, “Let all be fully convinced in their own minds.” Conviction is not the problem, Paul tells them. Your judgement is, because it’s tearing apart the community.

That is where humility comes in. We can hold tightly to what we believe while remembering that our certainty does not make us God. Whether we eat or do not eat, observe a day or do not observe it, Paul says we do so for the Lord. Christ is Lord; we are not.

And humility makes welcome possible. If I do not need to be your judge, I can make room for you even when we disagree. Welcome does not mean pretending our differences do not matter. It means refusing to let those differences become a reason to despise, exclude, or push someone away.

Paul is speaking about relationships among Christians. But that posture should also shape the way Christians approach neighbors who do not share our faith.

You may have a teammate fasting during Ramadan, a Catholic friend who attends Mass every week, a friend who is atheist or agnostic, or a classmate whose family has different beliefs about food, prayer, or holidays. What does your faith ask of you when you believe you are right and the person sitting next to you believes something different?

Be fully convinced of what you believe. Hold that conviction with humility. And let that humility lead you toward welcome: loving, listening to, defending, eating with, learning from, and being a neighbor to another person.

Reflection Questions

1. What differences among believers are causing conflict in the church in Rome?
2. What do you think Paul means in verses 7 and 8, about not living or dying to ourselves?
3. Paul tells believers to be “fully convinced” in what they believe while also warning them not to judge one another. How can conviction and humility exist together?
4. What do you think Christian welcome looks like when we genuinely disagree with someone or believe differently than they do?
5. Think about your school, team, workplace, friend group, or family. Where might you be tempted to judge or distance yourself from someone because of what they believe or practice? What could welcome look like instead?

Closing Activity – Conviction Line

Create an imaginary line across the room, from “strongly agree” on one end to “strongly disagree” on the other. Read each statement below and invite participants to stand somewhere along the line based on what they believe.

• Respecting someone’s beliefs means you should not tell them you disagree.
• Having a strong conviction means trying to convince others that what you believe is true. 
• It is easier to welcome someone when you understand why they believe what they believe.
• You can be completely convinced you are right and still be humble.
• Welcome does not require agreement.

After each statement, invite a few people from different places on the line to explain why they chose their spot. Encourage participants to listen rather than argue or try to change someone’s mind.

• At the end, notice what happened: you held different convictions, listened to one another, and remained together. How might we practice that same kind of humility and welcome beyond this room?

Closing Prayer

Holy God, we give you thanks for all our neighbors: those who believe and act like us, and especially those who don’t. Where our beliefs differ, give us humility. Where judgement threatens our relationship, increase our welcome. Bind us together in the love and grace that only comes from you, Jesus Christ our Savior and Lord. Amen. 

Editor’s Note: Many churches and youth groups embark on summer service trips. This Faith Lens post is a reflection we hope you’ll use with your group prior to your trip to spark conversation not only about what you are doing, but also why you are doing it and what outcomes you hope for.

This post is the first in a two-part series designed to help groups reflect on their service work both before and after their trip. The second post, a post-service trip reflection guide, will be published in early July.

Prepare

So you’re leading your youth group on a summer service trip, that’s great! As people of faith, freed by God’s grace, we are sent into the world to love and serve our neighbors. Whether we’re painting houses, stocking pantries, working in gardens, or cleaning up blight, we hope not only to serve but also to learn, listen, and reflect God’s love.

But is it safe to say that all service is good?

Are there forms of service that are not actually good, even when they are well-intentioned? There are forms of service that can perpetuate systems of inequality. For example, a food drive may provide temporary relief without ever addressing why families are food insecure in the first place. Other acts of service can give the appearance of humility while subtly reinforcing the superiority of the server, who serves out of freedom, while others receive out of necessity. Still others may make us feel good without accomplishing much good at all. Before engaging in service, it is important to talk about both the kind of service we are doing and why we are doing it.

Often we assume we know why we serve. We serve because Jesus calls us to love our neighbors. Yet if not all service is good, then good intentions alone cannot be enough. We need to think carefully not only about what we are doing, but also why we are doing it. Are we serving in ways that genuinely help our neighbors? Are we listening before acting? Do we understand our own motivations? If we hope to serve faithfully, these are questions worth asking before we ever leave for our trip. 

A thought-provoking article that can help frame this conversation is Adam Davis’ “What We Don’t Talk About When We Don’t Talk About Service.” Give it a read, and then use this guide as an opportunity to reflect on service before engaging in it. My hope is not that this conversation will discourage service, but that it will help us serve more faithfully, thoughtfully, and lovingly.

Opening Activity

• Tell about your favorite service experience or service trip. What made it meaningful? Was it the work itself, the people you met, something you learned, or something else?
• If the upcoming trip will be someone’s first service experience, ask: What are you hoping for on this trip? What would make it meaningful? What do you hope will be different because you went?

Read Aloud

• Matthew 25:35-41

Motivations, Inequality, and Good Service

Summer service trips are great for lots of reasons. They are a wonderful opportunity to make or deepen friendships, travel to new places, engage in new experiences, and live out one’s faith in new ways. But what about the service itself? Is all service good service?

It sounds like a crazy question, right? Of course service is good, we think. Everyone tells us to do service: churches, schools, clubs, parents, and more. In fact, we assume that all service is good so much that we don’t feel the need to talk about it before or after we engage in it. But I think we are overlooking two aspects of service that require our attention: motivation and inequality.

Maybe you are going to stock shelves in food pantries, work in community gardens, clean up neighborhood blight, build or repair homes, or help with kids or senior citizens. Whatever service you are doing, we need to ask ourselves why we are doing it. It is easy to say, “Because Jesus tells us to serve.” That’s true, and that may be your primary motivation. But it’s rare, if not impossible, to have only one motivation.

Yes, you are doing this because your faith encourages you to do so. But maybe you’re also doing it because it sounded fun, which isn’t a bad thing! Or maybe you are doing it because you genuinely care about hunger and people who suffer from it. Empathy is a powerful emotion. Perhaps you feel like you need to, as if God won’t love you if you don’t. Or maybe you’d feel guilty or worry about how others might see you if you stayed home. It’s likely that more than one of these motivations is at play. And that’s okay, because that’s human! We will have both good and not-so-good motivations because we are, as Luther reminds us, at the same time both saints and sinners. What matters is recognizing the complexity of our motivations rather than pretending they are perfect.

What’s also complex is the relationship between service and inequality. When we think about it, inequality is often at the heart of the service work we do. We have time, money, and resources that we are choosing to share. The person on the other end of the service lacks one or more of those things. A church group may spend a week repairing homes because homeowners cannot afford the repairs themselves. That need reflects an inequality in resources and opportunity. The server chooses. The served often does not. The server acts from relative freedom. The served often acts out of necessity. That is inequality. We need to ask ourselves: Does our service work perpetuate that inequality or challenge the systems that create it?

So if service is more complicated than we often admit, how should we view the people we are serving?

Image by Kelly Latimore. Used with permission. Copyright Kelly Latimore Icons.

Dorothy Day, the founder of the Catholic Worker movement, dedicated her life to living beside and serving neighbors in need. When asked how she saw Christ in the people she served, many of whom were impoverished, she responded, “The mystery of the poor is this: That they are Jesus, and what you do for them you do for Him. It is the only way we have of knowing and believing in our love.”

Perhaps what matters most is remembering that the people we encounter are not projects to complete or problems to solve. They are our neighbors, and they bear the image of God. When we begin there, our motivations become clearer and our service is more likely to challenge inequality rather than reinforce it.

Reflection Questions

1. Is all service good? Why or why not?
2. How does service work relate to inequality? Can you think of examples where service might challenge inequality? Can you think of examples where it might reinforce it?
3. What do you think Jesus and Dorothy Day mean when they say that serving those in need is the same as serving Jesus himself?
4. What are your motivations for going on this trip? Which motivations feel strongest for you right now?
5. What good do you hope comes from this service trip—for you, your church, and the people you will encounter?
6. How might seeing the people you meet as neighbors, rather than projects or problems to solve, change the way you approach this trip?

Closing Activity

• Look at the icons of Jesus created by Kelly Latimore. As a group, choose the icon that best reflects the service you are preparing to do or the neighbors you hope to encounter on your trip.
• Share why you chose that image. What does it reveal about how you see the people you will serve alongside? What does it teach you about seeing Christ in your neighbors?
• If your budget allows, consider purchasing a digital download of the icon and printing a copy for each participant. Encourage students to keep it with them throughout the trip as a reminder that in serving their neighbors, they are serving Christ himself.

Final Prayer

• Pray this over your group:
  • Holy God, prepare our hearts, our minds, and our bodies for the work that you have called us to. Root our motivations for service in love, humility, and faith. Help us to see you in each person we encounter. May our work not perpetuate inequality, but reveal its causes and ignite a passion to work toward justice in your name. We pray all this by your grace and for your glory. Amen.

Faith Lens is pausing its weekly article rhythm for the summer. However, be on the lookout for three new resources we hope will be useful:

• A pre-summer trip reflection to help prepare groups for a trip, released in June
• A post-summer trip reflection to help process the experience, released in July
• A special article on The Gathering to help groups begin thinking about this life-changing opportunity, released in August

If you are looking for an accessible devotion for yourself, teens, and/or young adults this summer, check out d365.org! It is a year-round daily devotion available on the web and in a free-to-download, user-friendly app. The ELCA is now a partner in this ecumenical resource!

Lastly, thanks to all our writers who produced thoughtful, meaningful articles throughout the year. Most of all, thanks to you, the readers, users, and supporters of this blog. I pray it has been, and continues to be, a faithful tool in whatever way you engage with it.

With gratitude,

Rev. Cogan Blackmon
Editor

Prepare:

The Gospel of John has some of the most dense “theological language” of the Gospels. Not that the others aren’t also deeply engaged in God-talk (theo-logos → God-words → theology!), but the author of John goes to great lengths to clarify “a but not b, and c because d”. They are reflecting on the theological developments of the early church and deliberately educating their audience through passages like today’s. 

Today’s text invites us to think about what Jesus wants for his disciples as he prays for them (and us!). Are we meant to believe that Heaven is “up there” somewhere? What does Jesus mean when he talks about “eternal life”? Is all of this church stuff just about what happens after we die? Maybe these kinds of questions are familiar to you. For folks  unfamiliar with Christianity, it’s easy to think that “believing in Jesus so we go to heaven when we die” is the whole point of Jesus’ life, ministry, death, and resurrection. This prayer helps expand our perspective,  providing a broader view of what Jesus hopes and intends for his disciples.

Opening Exercise:

Read Psalm 8 aloud together. What stands out to you from this poem? 

I especially love verses 3 and 4; have you ever looked up at the stars so long that your brain recognizes that you’re staring into a three-dimensional space and not just a flat starfield? (and you become immediately aware that gravity is holding you to the planet…) If not, I hope you get the opportunity one day!

• What places or spaces in your life give you a feeling of being very, very small compared to something very, very big?
• What about the opposite? When do you feel very, very big compared to something very, very small?

Text Read Aloud:

John 17:1-11

Look Up

I was six years old the first time I took a flight. The moment the plane crossed to the upper side of the cloud cover, I looked out the window and said “Wow! We’re in Heaven!” My little brother leaned over excitedly, peered out the window and asked, “Where’s Grandma?”. (Needless to say, we didn’t see her.)

We all have ideas about what words like “heaven” and “eternal life” mean; we should pay attention to what Jesus actually says about them. 

The author of the Gospel of John and the characters within have a very different understanding of the cosmos than modern readers do. They lived more than twelve centuries before Copernicus pointed out that the Earth isn’t the center of the Universe, and even further back in time from any of our modern observations of black holes, the Big Bang, multiverse theory… It is almost impossible to imagine how different their understanding of the physical world is from our own.

So when Jesus “looked up to heaven” in verse 1, do we need to believe that “heaven” is “up there” somewhere? I don’t pretend to know what Jesus of Nazareth believed about those things. However, I think it’s fair to say that wondering about the physical location of a heavenly realm is not the part of the story that Jesus really wants us to focus on. 

Eternal Life Jesus

Jesus prays for his disciples, and we should pay attention to what he prays for: knowledge and unity. In Verse 3, Jesus defines what “eternal life” is: knowing that God is the true God and Jesus Christ is the one whom God has sent. At the beginning of the Gospel, John describes Jesus as the Word of God: Jesus is what God is communicating to the world. Jesus is God’s message. Not just a messenger, but the message itself. All these things are the message of God: the way Jesus treats people, the way he interacts with the world around him, the things he advocates for, what he says he’s about (such as Luke 4:16-21, Matthew 25:31-46, etc.), the ultimate integrity to the message that led to his death, and his resurrection. Knowing the life of Jesus is the stuff of eternal life for us. It will connect us to God and to each other.

Eternal life is for living now! Knowing that Jesus is the Word of God invites us to focus us on living the way he does, empowered by the Spirit, lifting our heads to see a horizon beyond our own lives. We are invited into what God is doing in the world! Nobody else can play our part for us. Perhaps a good way of thinking about taking up God’s invitation is that we will live “the kind of life that death can’t destroy” or “the kind of life that is eternal”. Jesus talks about it as “the kingdom of Heaven” and says that it’s a reality right now. It’s about a different quality of life, not just an extension of it into infinite old age. 

Reflective Questions:

1. How do you understand what Jesus says in verse three? Is this a different definition of eternal life than you’re used to?
2. Maybe this study has offered you an opportunity to re-frame a belief you hold. How does that feel? Does it feel ok? Not ok? What’s different?
3. Can you think of people who have lived “life that death can’t destroy”? Make a list of them. What do they have in common? What kind of things made their life so compelling?
4. Jesus is the Word of God; what is God saying to you today?

Closing Activity:

Listen to “Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus”

1. “From our fears and sins release us” 
   • What fears hold you back in life?
     What sins can you confess to Jesus and lay aside?
2. “By thine own eternal Spirit rule in all our hearts alone”
   • What can you do today to strengthen the community around you?
     What unity can you be part of creating? This doesn’t mean everyone has to be the same: let the harmonies of the song inspire you! Sing your part, let others sing theirs.

Final Prayer:

Take a deep breath and exhale.

Holy One, thank you for showing yourself in the life of Jesus Christ. Help us to know you better and follow you more closely. Shine a light in our life, into the shadows that hide the things we don’t want to look at. 

Silence

Thank you for loving us as we are; help us to hear your voice more clearly and trust where you’re leading us.
In Christ’s name. Amen

Bio:

Rev. Rory Chambers is the Pastor for Youth and Young Adults at The First Presbyterian Church of Dutch Neck, NJ. Rory is Australian, and looks for any excuse to share a meal with people. If he’s not at home with his family, you’ll find him leading karaoke at a pub with his neighbors.

Prepare:

The Gospel of John has a very different character than the other three Gospels (Mark, Matthew, and Luke, which are called “the Synoptic Gospels”). Whereas the Synoptic Gospels tell many similar stories about the life and ministry of Jesus, John emphasizes the mystic spirituality of Jesus’ life and mission. Together all four Gospels combine into a wonderful overlapping kaleidoscopic vision of Christ. The author of John especially wants their audience to understand that Jesus is God, and (for better or worse) they go about it with very circuitous, and sometimes confusing, language. Remember that this text is from an ancient spiritual document; it’s okay that it’s confusing to us sometimes! 

In today’s text, Jesus is speaking to his disciples in the upper room on the night before his crucifixion. This is part of what’s called his “farewell discourses”. Think of it as Jesus saying goodbye to his friends, and they’re saying, “no, don’t go!” He’s comforting, preparing, and instructing them for what happens next. In this passage, Jesus promises that the Spirit of God will be with them. He reassures them with ways to know that even after he’s gone, they are still part of what God is doing in the world. 

Opening Exercise:

• Think about people that you love, people who you are in regular, close relationships with. It might be family, roommates, friends, etc. List three of them specifically.
• What things do you do for them that you wouldn’t normally do for a stranger?
• Do you have to do those things, or do you choose to? 
• What changes about your relationship when you do these things (or don’t do them)?

Text Read Aloud:

John 14:15-21

Ordinary, Household Acts of Love

I don’t think anyone really likes being told what to do, do you? (seriously, do you?)

Even worse is when someone tries to leverage you by saying things like “if you really loved me, you’d [fill in the blank]” It’s bad enough they’re telling you to do something you maybe didn’t want to do, without them adding an extra layer of manipulation to it. I hope that this is a scenario you’ve only seen play out in movies and you’re not actually having to navigate your own Mean Girls/Regina George situation.

Without context, this text from John 14 might sound like Jesus is being manipulative. But when Jesus says “if you love me…”, he means it in a very different way. God’s love isn’t needy or insecure, it’s the opposite! The love of God is secure and giving; it builds us up, supports us, encourages us, and is absolutely steadfast. God’s love is the foundation of all creation; it is our source, our origin, our road, and our destination. 

Knowing that, it’s better to read the start of this passage basically as the inverse of how Regina George says it: Jesus is saying “if YOU want to be sure that you love me, you’ll know it because you’ll be keeping my commandments.” How do we know we love people around us? We feel it, and we help out – around the house, we take care of our responsibilities, we pick them up from the airport, we help them move, we share meals, we make them food, we look after them when they’re sick, etc. That’s the stuff of loving relationships that we can look to and be confident that we’re doing our part. 

Ordinary, Household Acts of Love

Jesus is comforting his disciples here who are terrified because they know that he’s about to be taken away from them. They’ve been with him for years, and they’re scared about life without him. Jesus is saying: “it’s going to be ok, and you’ll know that it’s ok because when you follow my commandments, you’ll experience the love and presence of God.”

Do you remember the story about the lawyer who asked Jesus what the greatest commandment is? Jesus said: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” (Matt. 22:34-40) That story doesn’t appear in John’s Gospel, but Jesus says something similar just before today’s passage; in chapter 13, he says “34 I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. 35 By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

When we love someone, it’s so much easier to let our lives be interrupted by them. It’s like we don’t even need to be told what to do; acts of love just flow out of us. Jesus calls us to extend that to not just our friends, but to all our neighbors, and even our enemies. That’s how we’ll experience the presence of God.

Reflective Questions:

1. The presence of God can be hard to “get” if you’re not sure what to pay attention to. It’s like recognising an ingredient in a recipe: once it’s pointed out to you, you’ll taste it. You’ll probably start to notice it everywhere, actually. Jesus says that when we obey his commandments (i.e. love), we’ll experience the presence of God. Do you have a story about that?
2. You might have heard about some US legislators wanting to put the 10 Commandments up in schools. Without getting into the weeds of whether that’s a good idea or not, how do you think the conversation around this idea might be different if it were these “greatest commandments” instead?
3. “Everybody wants a revolution, but nobody wants to do the dishes.” This quote is varyingly attributed to Dorothy Day and/or Tish Harrison Warren. What does it mean to you?

Closing Activity:

1. The greatest commandment from Matthew 22 has three parts: Love God, Love your neighbor, Love yourself. In John 14:15-21, Jesus says that when we do this, we’ll experience the presence of God.
   1. Make a dot point list of three things you can do to obey each part of this commandment. Think about things you can do today, and things that have a longer-term scope.
   2. What stands out to you on these lists? 
   3. What parts are easy? Which parts are difficult? 
   4. Which one will you start with immediately?
2. Listen to or sing a hymn together, “They Will Know We are Christians By Our Love”

Final Prayer:

(take a deep breath and exhale)

Holy One, we trust that you tell us the truth. Loving people can be really hard; loving ourselves can be even harder sometimes. You know this; and we trust that you will help us. We want to know you better and follow you more closely. We trust that when you say you’ll fill us with your Spirit, you’ll do it. So, help us love one another, help us love ourselves, and help us love you; help us recognize you in the midst of it all. 

Thank you for loving us, and thank you for making your home with us.

In Christ’s name, Amen. 

Bio:

Rev. Rory Chambers is the Pastor for Youth and Young Adults at The First Presbyterian Church of Dutch Neck, NJ. Rory is Australian, and looks for any excuse to share a meal with people. If he’s not at home with his family, you’ll find him leading karaoke at a pub with his neighbors.