Josh Kestner, Clemson, SC

Warm-up Question

• Who are some people that you look up to in your life? What have they done to make you respect them?
• Tell about a time when your faith and values did not line up with your experience of reality. How did you feel? What did you do?

Resilient Women

I am in awe of the Muslim women involved in protests surrounding the wearing of the hijab. They are heroes who are showing strength and resilience in the midst of persistent pushback.

One of the things that has struck me is that there is no one, universal stance. Women are asking for the power to choose how to live out their faith. There are women in Iran who refuse to be forced to wear a hijab. And at the same time there are women in India who wear their hijabs despite being banned from doing so. While justice may look different in both of these societies, the message is clear: stand up for yourself and for others when change needs to happen. These women are putting their lives at risk to defy the way things are and the way things have always been. 

What gives these women the confidence and courage that they need to demand change in their communities?

I often wonder what motivates someone to join or lead a protest. Do they have a loved one in their life who has acted as a role model? Perhaps these women have mothers who have also shown strength in different ways. Or have they learned about heroes from other moments in history? They’re merely waiting for their own opportunities to act and fight. Whatever the answer, God bless these women and others who sacrifice their time and energy to make a difference in the world – not only for themselves but for many generations to come.

Discussion Questions

• What are some examples of big changes that have happened in the history of the world? What did people do to make them happen?
• Name a change that you’d like to see in the world? What is something that you’re passionate about – something that you’ve spent time educating yourself about and that you feel comfortable talking about with other people?
• Have you ever participated in a protest? Or have you ever known someone who has? What was it like?
• What are some ways besides a public protest that you might be able to make change happen in your own community?

Reformation Sunday

Jeremiah 31:31-34

Romans 3:19-28

John 8:31-36

(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

The gospel for this week is chosen to help celebrate the Reformation. The Reformation is the period of history when Martin Luther and many other people helped to work for change in the greater Church. The changes helped make it so people (ordinary people like you and me) could develop a more personal and relational sense of faith in their lives.

Because of its roots in the Reformation, I think that one of the most important traits of the Lutheran church is that it should always be open to change. Lutherans balance tradition and innovation fairly evenly. So, when there is a shift in the world they are ready to adapt. That doesn’t mean that pastors and bishops are always right. We are too often slow to move in the right direction. But when we are wrong, we are committed to holding ourselves accountable and following the Holy Spirit wherever it leads. (Take a look at the ELCA’s Declaration to People of African Descent from 2019 as an example of an act of reformation and reconciliation.)

It can be easy to get stuck in the flow of how things are and how they’ve always been. John 8:31-36 references descendants of Abraham who believe that their history and lineage has earned them some kind of future reward. They are not eager to do what Jesus is asking of them. 

Reading the gospel with the Reformation in mind encourages us to be proactive when it comes to change. While some of us may feel comfortable and affirmed in our current realities, there are countless others who are struggling with poverty, grief, violence, oppression, and other calamities in their lives. Our work is not done until all of God’s children are taken care of.

How do we do it? Like Martin Luther, and so many other people who have demanded change in the world, we have to listen. We have to listen to the people around us who are crying out for help. We have to listen to the voices of folks who are usually ignored. And we have to listen to the rustling of the wind of the Holy Spirit to see where God is already at work.

Discussion Questions

• What have you learned about the Reformation at church or in school?
• How has your own congregation changed in response to the pandemic in the last couple of years?
• What is one change that you would suggest to your pastor about your worship services?

Activity Suggestions

• Tell the story about how Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to a church door in Wittenberg Germany 500+ years ago. Read a few of the 95 Theses and talk about why Martin Luther did it. 
• Find a door (or a few doors) in the church building that is close to where your group is gathering. Give each individual a handful of Post-It notes (make sure you’ve got several different colors). Ask them to write down their hopes and dreams on the Post-It notes: changes they want to see in their own lives, changes they want to see in the church, changes they want to see in the world, etc. Stick each note on the door(s) and then have students spend some time reading what other folks have written (keep them anonymous if you’d like).

Closing Prayer

God of grace, we are always in awe of the ways that your love shows up in the world. We are especially grateful for the ways that your love shows up in our own lives. While your love continues to transform us and transform your whole creation, empower us to be a part of that change. Humble us. Give us courage. And send us out with your Spirit to do your work. Amen.

Steve Peterson, Saulk Rapids, MN

Warm-up Question

Has there been a time in your life when you longed for someone, or God, to have a little mercy on you?  

Lord Have Mercy

Sometimes we experience a tension in life.  We want to see ourselves in a position of superiority, thinking of ourselves as better than “other kinds of people”.  But we also feel a pull toward humility and a stance of shared humanity with all people.  Resentment may come into play.  We are tempted to dehumanize those we resent, maybe even punish them. We think ourselves justified in considering them “less than.” We want to punish them because of behavior we see as unacceptable.  Perhaps we simply put “bad people” out of our consciousness, relegating them to permanent insignificance and inferiority.  We do this as individuals and as a society.

For example, in a September 27 article in Scientific American  Sara Novak writes that 

dementia in prison is turning into an epidemic.  The number of older inmates has increased 200% in the last 20 years and will make up a third of the prison population in a decade.  Many of these older inmates will develop dementia, which makes them difficult to care for and more vulnerable to victimization in a number of ways.   

Prison staff often are ill-trained and equipped, or simply not inclined, to provide humane and appropriate care.  Only a small number of prisons are experimenting with humane and caring ways to address this need.  One way to address this growing crisis is compassionate release, sometimes called “geriatric parole” but this option is very much underutilized.    

Prison is a place where human beings live, yet it may be hard for us to look at a prison and the people who live there in that way.  Mass incarceration in the United States seems to indicate we want to lock up the people we consider bad and forget about them.  Even when some are released, we may permanently label theless than human beings who deserve to be given every opportunity to thrive.  Maybe we as a society could be a little more just and merciful in our approach to incarceration, rehabilitation, and end of life compassion for those in prison.

Discussion Questions

• We all have a tendency to think of  certain persons or kinds of people as less than fully human.   Are there people or groups of people whom you see being treated this way?
• What can you and people you know do to humanize people relegated to a lesser status and treated as less than God’s precious children?

Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost

Jeremiah 14:7-10, 19-22

2 Timothy 4:6-8, 16-18

Luke 18:9-14

(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

What I like about Jesus’ story of the Pharisee and the tax collector is that it gives me the chance to feel superior.   I may not be the best God follower, but at least I am a much better prayer than the Pharisee!  I am much better in my humility than he is. Or, at least now that I know that is what Jesus wants, I can try to be better than the Pharisee, so Jesus will approve of me more.  You see what I am doing here, right?  This story so easily becomes a trap for us.  

In feeling superior to the Pharisee who feels superior, we ourselves are like him..  We miss what Jesus really wants us to get out of this story, that God loves everyone. Everyone.  And that love is never dependent on how good we manage to be.  We share a common humanity; each of us is a treasure of God’s creation, even as we struggle to live as God intends,  in ways that are most life-giving for ourselves and others.   God loves us all, all the time, even when our behavior is less than we or God would wish.  God is full of grace and mercy and wants us to know the joy of being bathed in God’s love, no matter what.

Americana singer-songwriter Mary Gauthier in her book, Saved By A Song, The Art and Healing of Songwriting, writes about the process she went through in writing “A Little Mercy Now.”  It started out as a song about her father, as he lay fragile at the end of his troubled life, and ended up also being a song about her troubled brother and all people and a whole world in need of mercy.  A few lines from Mary Gauthier’s song “A Little Mercy Now”:

My father could use a little mercy now
The fruits of his labor fall and rot slowly on the ground
His work is almost over it won’t be long, he won’t be around
I love my father, he could use some mercy now

My brother could use a little mercy now
He’s a stranger to freedom, he’s shackled to his fear and his doubt
The pain that he lives in it’s almost more than living will allow
I love my brother, he could use a little mercy now

My church and my country could use a little mercy now…
Every living thing could use a little mercy now…
Yeah, we all could use a little mercy now
I know we don’t deserve it but we need it anyhow

And every single one of us could use a little mercy now…

In writing about how this song came to be created, Gauthier remembers an encounter with her AA sponsor.  She describes sharing with him her anger in response to a record label that was not treating her in a way she felt like she deserved to be treated.  Her sponsor’s response was to laugh and say with a smile in his voice, “Given some of the behaviors you’ve exhibited in your life, you should thank God each and every day for NOT getting what you truly deserve.”

That is true for us all.  It’s Jesus’s point in this story about the Pharisee and the tax collector.  What good news!  God’s mercy is big enough for us all.  May we embrace that relief and joy for ourselves and for all of humanity!

Discussion Questions

• Do you ever feel superior to others?  Do you every feel like you are at least not as bad as that person, those kinds of people?  Do you every thank God for that?  If so, how do you feel about that in light of this story about the Pharisee and the tax collector?
• Are there times you would like to put limits on God’s mercy?  What would those limits be?
• How does it make you feel to know that God looks upon you and all people with grace and mercy?  That God places no limits on God’s grace and mercy?

Activity Suggestions

• Make a list of people or situations in need of God’s mercy, trying to be as broad and deep in your list as you think God might be in light of this story told by Jesus.  Talk about this list with someone else.   Pray this list, imagining each of these people and situations bathed in the light and warmth of God’s mercy, God’s unbounded love.
• Now make a list of all the ways you are unworthy of God’s love.  Pray this prayer, “Jesus Christ, have mercy on me”.  Prayer it over and over with your breathing.  Feel God’s merciful response of mercy and love deep in your bones.

Closing Prayer

Gracious God, we thank you for your love and mercy for each one of us, for all of us.   Please give us the humility and courage to see ourselves and others honestly, warts and all, and then to see ourselves and others as you see us, with spectacular and unlimited favor and delight.  Help us to trust that this is true and to live humbly and boldly in your love.    Amen.

CeCee Mills, Greensboro, NC

Warm-up Questions

• What is the difference between being persistent and being annoying?
• How do you decide when to push harder and when to pull back?

Persistence

I keep thinking about the people’s determination in the Ukraine. It has been nearly eight months since the invasion began. Ukraine’s population is forty-four million compared to Russia’s one hundred forty-four million. I watch President Volodymyr Zelensky and I feel inspired. I am sure it was not a surprise that they were attacked – but I wonder what the citizens feel. I assume they feel displaced, angry, scared, and untethered. I imagine they also feel determined and proud. This giant has attacked them, and it has not been as easy as Russia had hoped. Russian reservists have had to be called up and draft age men are running for the border. What makes the Ukrainians continue to resist?

I imagine they are aware of the danger. From media reports, we clearly see that the threat is both tangible and imminent. Still, they have hope. They are convinced that they can stand. I imagine a lot of their confidence comes from the strength of their allies. They know that they have support beyond their borders from countries with plenty of resources and strong militaries. There is something noble in standing your ground and in standing with an ally.

 I wonder most about those who are displaced – especially those who had to leave family and friends behind. They know that their world will never be the same. I wonder how their tenacity helps them adapt. I imagine there are many brave steps that they have taken into an unfamiliar world. The images of the youth captured in these photos shows both the pain and possibility of their resilience . 

Discussion Questions

• What are the stories you have heard or seen about young people from the Ukraine? 
• What are there different opinions about refugees and migrants in your congregation and community? What do you perceive is the role of Christians in helping these neighbors?
• How have you seen or aided in welcoming refugees or migrants in your local area? 

Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Genesis 32:22-31

2 Timothy 3:14-4:5

Luke 18:1-8

(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

This text focuses on the persistence of the widow. The writer invites us to see the power available through repeated asking. It’s not mystical or divine but simple human tenacity. God wants us to understand that persistent prayer is important. Jesus uses a determined widow and unwilling judge to show the possibilities with even unsympathetic listeners are high if you are persistent. To that point, Jesus recognizes that we are loved by a caring God, and if an unsympathetic listener will cave to persistent asking, how much more will God who loves us?

God desires a deep relationship with each of us. God knows that in that relationship we will have clarity on how-to walk-in righteousness. Jesus wants us to understand that God is with us and ready to give us what we need to accomplish God’s mission. We have the greatest, strongest, and the most loving ally in all of creation.

Discussion Questions

• When in your life have you experienced an abrupt permanent change? 
• What did you lose in the change? 
• How did the change draw out the best in who you were at the time? 
• How did you heal from the difficult parts of the change? 
• In what ways were you resilient and/or persistent? 
• How did God use what happened to help you mature in faith?

Activity Suggestions

• On a poster, using sticky notes, invite youth to write words that describes what it means to be a persistent disciple. Have a discussion about why a disciple needs to be persistent and what helps them be persistent. At the end of the time, invite youth to take a word with them that will help them be a persistent disciple.
• Invite the youth to imagine that they had to permanently leave their home and only could take three possessions with them. Have them discuss what they would choose and why in triads. Close with asking them how they can support youth who are new, immigrants, or refugees in a way that helped their feeling of loss.
• For seven days have the group offer the same prayer (two or three sentences) on an issue of their choosing, ten times a day, out loud and in the presence of at least one other person. Use the time in youth group to decide what should they be praying about over those seven days. The only requirement is that it is a prayer Jesus would be pleased to hear being prayed.

Closing Prayer

God, help us to be persistent disciples. Give us the passion, determination, and excitement to daily ask for all that we need to complete your mission. Amen.

Kris Litman-Koon, Mount Pleasant, SC

Warm-up Question

What determines the borders of the space where you are now gathered? For instance, if you are in a room, the answer would  be the walls.  What about beyond that? What determines the borders of the property on which you are located? The municipality?

Borderlands

Many physical places serve as a transition between two other spaces. In locations where outdoor temperatures can be frigid, some homes have a vestibule, which is an enclosed entryway that serves as a buffer between the warm interior and the cold exterior. (In South Carolina, with its moderately warm winters, I have never seen a vestibule in a home.) Architects and other designers will often refer to transitional zones as “liminal spaces,” which means being at the threshold of something new but not quite there yet.

In nature, a common transition is the riparian zone. This is the space that has land on one side and water on the other; think of the space where cattails and inland sea oats naturally grow at the edge of bodies of water. These zones have many benefits: filtering water, curbing encroaching floods, preventing erosion, and providing the most suitable habitat for many amphibians and insects to thrive. When the riparian edge is eliminated (e.g. a neighborhood pond that has lawns up to the edge of water), the results are typically less wildlife, unclean water with algae blooms, and erosion. 

Recently a federal judge approved an agreement among several interested parties in Arizona because unmitigated cattle grazing “devastated streamside habitats across the Southwest and pushed a lot of vulnerable plants and animals closer to extinction,” said Chris Bugbee, an advocate at the Center for Biological Diversity.

Now consider the transitions around borders. I was raised in a city on the border between West Virginia and Ohio. It was common for adults to live on one side and work on the other, I had friends and activities on both sides, and there was a common culture that was uniquely both Appalachian (WV) and Midwestern (OH). Often the areas alongside national borders are referred to as borderlands. In these transition zones, it is common to find the exchange of goods, employment, languages, and cultures from one side to the other. When the border becomes “harder,” these exchanges are reduced, in both human and ecological terms. 

Discussion Questions

• As a group, name some of the riparian zones in your area. Are there other ecological transition zones present where you are located? (e.g. dunes are the transition zone between land and sea)
• What are some transition zones common to your area that humans created? Are there designed transitions (like the vestibule) that are common, or social transitions (like a border between state, towns, or districts) that someone can find there?
• What exchanges take place in all of these transition zones you’ve named?

Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost

2 Kings 5:1-3, 7-15c

2 Timothy 2:8-15

Luke 17:11-19

(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

The gospel reading tells us that Jesus is traveling through the region between Samaria and Galilee while on his way to Jerusalem. [Locate this region on a map in the back of a Bible, or by searching online, “1st Century Palestine map.”] Borders often designate, from the perspective of a particular group, what is considered safe and what is forbidden. Jesus is in a borderland.  It’s difficult to distinguish between the two sides. Perhaps that is why these ten men with leprosy are located here: neither side wants them. So they are in this borderland, although this space socially isolates them and economically relegates them to meager living.

The leprosy discussed in the Bible is a catch-all term for any number of skin ailments. Some of these ailments are contagious after long exposure, but some cannot be passed to other people. Regardless, once someone was labeled a leper, they were removed from the community out of fear, though caring individuals would periodically visit or offer supplies. 

Yet it is in this borderland, a forbidden zone that neither Samaria nor Galilee desires, that Jesus does something special: he makes it holy. By bringing healing to those ten men, Jesus allows them to return and be fully engaged in their communities. This borderland that once symbolized their hopelessness becomes the symbol of God’s action.

The story ends with one of the ten – a Samaritan – returning to Jesus to give thanks. To be honest, if I were in their position, the first thing I would likely do is bolt to my loved ones to embrace them. Yet this one Samaritan returns to Jesus, and Jesus points out that there were nine others. He then tells the one, “Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well.” 

One clear takeaway is that we should give thanks to God, but I believe this lesson has more to say than that. First, it tells us that people on both sides of a border bear the image of God. Second, the story shows us how God is often revealed in places of human hopelessness. Combining all this, we see that God is at work in the borderlands, among all people, often bringing hope where they have lost hope, doing so regardless of whether they stop to give thanks. That is because love is the nature of God.

Discussion Questions

• If someone wanted you to teach them how to give thanks to God, what would you instruct them to do?
• How do you find comfort in the idea that love is the nature of God? (In other words, love is simply what God does, and there is no beginning or end to God’s continuous nature to love.)

Activity Suggestions

Situate yourselves into a circle and designate a spot that will be like the 12 at the top of the clock. That spot is January 1, and moving clockwise around the clock are the days of the year, finishing with December 31 next to January 1. Without talking, have the group get in order by the date of their birth (the year doesn’t matter). Once in position, everyone can speak to determine how well the group did.

Have everyone note who is to their right (if introductions need to be made, please do so). Then – perhaps writing it down – have everyone think of something that they give thanks to God for about the person to their right. Share your affirmations. 

Closing Prayer

Loving God, you encounter us in places that we often think are off-limits to love. Yet, it is in those places that your love sprouts new life and hope. Help us to acknowledge that love and to give thanks to you. Amen.

Joshua Serraro, San Carlos, CA

Warm-up Questions

• What does duty mean? 
• Do you believe that you have any duties as a child, sibling, student, or citizen?

Duty!

John Stewart is an actor, comedian, and talk show host. He is probably most famous for hosting  The Daily Show, a comedy news show, for many years. Stewart is also a well known advocate for 9/11 first responders and the military. 

Recently he did an episode on his Apple Tv show, The Problem with John Stewart, talking about toxic burn pits from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.  The military dug large holes in the ground and put anything that they didn’t want anymore in them.  They then burned the contents with jet fuel.  Soldiers reported that the thick black smoke made its way into the camps when the wind shifted.  Many soldiers have developed health problems including respiratory issues and cancers, which they claim comes from exposure to the pits. 

John told a crowd that Congress agreeing to take care of our military should be the lowest hanging fruit in the legislative agenda. But, for some unknown reason, many lawmakers decided not to support the legislation to care for the military.  During each interview Stewart gave he repeated that the soldiers did their jobs and now it’s time for congress to do its job.  After much media attention and public support the bill eventually passed after many of the those who voted against the bill changed their minds and voted for it.

Discussion Questions

• Do you think that our society and our lawmakers have a duty to our military and first responders to help take care of their health care issues resulting from what they did on the job? 
• What duties do you think we have to each other in our country?

Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost

Habakkuk 1:1-4; 2:1-4

2 Timothy 1:1-14

Luke 17:5-10

(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

Today’s gospel reading can be broken up into two parts:  the disciples asking Jesus for more faith (Luke 17:5) and Jesus’ responses to that request (Luke 17:6-10).

When the disciples ask Jesus to increase their faith they do so because Jesus has just told them to avoid causing little ones in the faith to stumble.  This follows Jesus command to be quick to forgive. He says in verse 4, “And if the same person sins against you seven times a day, and turns back to you seven times and says, ‘I repent,’ you must forgive.”  This causes the disciples to exclaim, “Increase our faith!” requesting increased desire to do their duty.

Jesus says, “If you had faith the size of mustard seed, you could say to this sycamine tree, ‘Be rooted up’ and be planted in the see’, and it would obey you.” Scholars hotly debate the meaning of these words! Fred Craddock believes Jesus is saying, “If you had faith the size of the mustard seed (and you do)…” Luke Timothy Johnson believes that Jesus implies that they don’t actually have faith and that they need just a bit the size of a mustard seed.  Nonetheless, in verses 7-10 Jesus brings the conversation back to the disciples’ duties as Christians. 

Jesus uses the master/slave imagery relevant in his time, but we should sober reflect on the implications of that image, considering the United States’ brutal history and lingering affects of slavery today.  Some translations of the Bible have tried to soften this image by translating it as servant/master.  In Luke’s gospel Jesus uses the master/slave dynamic in a few other places. 

The slave in Jesus’ example has two jobs, out in the field and in the household. He seems to be pulling double duty, just as the disciples are being asked to continue in their duties to rebuke sin and forgive those who repent throughout the day.  The slave doesn’t get gratitude or praise from the master for carrying out the two jobs commanded.  Jesus says elsewhere in scripture, “The son of man did not come to be served, but to serve.” Likewise, as followers of Jesus we should not expect to be served, but to serve.  Our place is doing what Jesus has called us to do.

Discussion Questions

• What do you think about what Jesus was saying in Luke 17:6? Did the disciples have faith or not?
• What duties do Christians have?
• What duties as a Christian do you feel you must do?

Activity Suggestions

Discuss the ministries of your church and reflect together on what you are doing in the community? Does the group think that you should be doing something else? Do your church’s ministries reflect the character of Jesus? 

Closing Prayer

Gracious God, you forgave us of our sins, help us to forgive others.  Give us the grace to do what you have called us to do. Amen.