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ELCA Blogs
Contributed byAaron Matson, Waterton, SD
Have you ever had the wind knocked out of you (literally or figuratively) or felt like you could not breathe?
I suffered from asthma through childhood. While my case was not as severe as some others, there were times when I could not breathe, and needed the help of an inhaler. A few other times, in the course of playing sports with my friends, I had the wind knocked out of me through some extreme contact with someone or something (like the ground). From these experiences, I can tell you that anytime you cannot breathe, it is a scary experience. Breathing is just one of those things we take for granted and do without thinking. When we cannot do this thing which we normally do naturally and is so essential for life it is distressing indeed.
While not everyone has had the wind knocked out of them, or been unable to breathe due to asthma, everyone, at some point of their life will have the breath knocked out of them emotionally or spiritually. Everyone will be faced with a moment of crisis or loss in their life that takes the wind right out of them – the loss of a loved one, the end of a close relationship, a broken heart, not getting that expected job or scholarship that your heart was set on. In those times, it is common for those trying to comfort us to say, “Relax, and just breathe.”
When have you had the breath knocked out of you emotionally or spiritually? If you haven’t experienced a time like this yet, has someone you know had those times? How have others supported you or how have you helped others to “breathe?”
(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.
In the gospel reading from John 20, we see Jesus’ first disciples have had the wind knocked out of them. They have been through Jesus’ arrest and crucifixion, and even though Easter had just happened, and a couple of them had witnessed the empty tomb, they were hiding behind locked doors out of fear – and I imagine some continuing shock and grief. Into this scene, all of a sudden, Jesus appears. To these, fearful, lifeless, and breathless disciples, Jesus gives peace, joy, and a mission (“As the father sent me, so I send you.” 20:21).
Lastly, and most important, Jesus gives the disciples his breath, and in that breath he gives them the Holy Spirit. Jesus’ breathing on the disciples is reminiscent of how God breathed the breath of life into the nostrils of the first man in Genesis 2. Just as God’s breath gave life to man in Genesis, Jesus’ breath of the Holy Spirit gave the lifeless and breathless disciples new life. That same breath of Holy Spirit given to the first disciples by the resurrected Jesus was also given to each of us in our baptism. In those times where we feel the wind, or breath, has been knocked out of us, we can draw peace and strength from the breath of life give to us in the Holy Spirit. We can “just breathe,” knowing that it is not up to us to breathe on our own – but God gives us the Holy Spirit to comfort us and help us, and in the words of the apostle Paul in Romans 8, intercede for us, “with sighs too deep for words.”
Have you ever experienced a time where you have needed some help “breathing” and felt the breath of the Holy Spirit help and comfort you?
This passage from John is called “John’s Pentecost story.” Compare this passage from John with the more famous Pentecost story from Acts 2. What are the similarities and differences between the two?
Life-giving God, breathe into us again that holy and life-giving spirit. In those times when we cannot breathe, help us to feel your Holy Spirit breathe new life into us again. Help us to share the good news of the risen Jesus with others, so that they may know the peace of this Spirit, and the breath of new life you have given us. Amen.
Contributed by Bob Chell, Brookings, SD
1) “Last words” can convey rage, love or meaning. If you knew your life were ending and you wanted to convey your deepest insight about life to guide and inspire others what would you say?
A recent news article noted that the last words of a rabid fan were of his beloved football (soccer) team, Leeds United. Roy Embling had only missed one home game in twenty years—and that was because of his wedding. He loved talking about his team and had even attended its awards dinner.
(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.
“Matthew, Mark and Luke are what Jesus said, John is what the church said about Jesus…” So said one of my professors. Contemporary scholarship might say that is a little too simplistic, but there is no doubt John is unique. Only in John does Jesus claim to be the messiah, the son of God, sent to redeem the world. Oh, there are cryptic allusions in the other gospels but nothing remotely close to Jesus’ claims in John’s gospel. The reading from John comes from what scholars call Jesus’ “Farewell discourse.” Think “after dinner speech.” Following the meal with his disciples Jesus is saying goodbye to his disciples. Like a first year college student, who went overboard on research, the author of the gospel puts in everything Jesus said—with explanations. The author wants to be certain we know and understand Jesus is God’s son, sent to give us life.
I don’t know why God chose to give us four gospels instead of one. I don’t know why Jesus‘ sermon on the mount goes on for five chapters in Matthew and is moved to the plain and shortened to one chapter in Luke. I don’t know why Jesus didn’t address the issues we struggle with. Why didn’t Jesus speak definitively about abortion or homosexuality?
It would be wonderful if God’s word and God’s will were crystal clear so we always knew the right thing to say, do, or believe. At least we think it would, although it is in those places where Jesus speaks most clearly we have the most difficulty: Love your enemies, pick up your cross, follow me. Perhaps Jesus left things murky for a reason, so that others would not be able to twist his words and his message to fit the political climate of the day, providing simple answers to complex questions.
Still, he is clear in this farewell to his disciples. They had listened to his stories telling how God loved them and how they were to treat others. They watched Jesus reach out with a word of healing and forgiveness to those marginalized and left out. Jesus told them how to live and he showed them how to live. Now, as he prepares to depart from them, he hammers home the point again and again: Love one another.
Jesus wants us to have lives rich with meaning, lives which are rewarding and fulfilling. This is different than being happy or having fun. Placing our trust, our energy, our lives themselves in that which can bear the weight of loving one another is one of life’s great challenges.
Jesus’ words point us in the direction of serving others. The words are paradoxically both vague and specific. They are specific in that it is clear what Jesus asks of us, vague in that nearly any career can allow us to do what he asks. The question at the end of the day is this: Does the way I live enrich the lives of others or impoverish them? That is different from asking whether a chosen career will bring us high salary, status, or approval from others.
Jesus’ words are not intended as a burden but as a blessing. “What should I do with my life?” is an oppressive question. “What can I do with my life?” is liberating.
Jesus changed the world by touching people’s lives—a family celebrating a wedding, a blind man sitting by the road, a Roman soldier with a sick child, a woman consumed by guilt and shame. Jesus is touching our lives too, healing our hurts, giving us direction, easing our burdens. Jesus invites us to do this for others, enriching their lives and our own.
Psychologists tell us that “acting as if” is a way of developing a new behavior, knowing we are more likely to act ourselves into a new way of feeling than feel ourselves into a new way of acting. Act as if you are going to nail that final Tuesday afternoon you’ll do better than if you go in expecting to fail. Guaranteed.
Act as if you are God’s presence in the world and you will grow in faith and into the person you and God both want you to become. Also guaranteed.
God you have gifted us with talents and interests. Be with us as we consider and explore how to invest these gifts and our lives in the world. Give us peace when we are anxious and keep us mindful that you will guide us, sustain us, and call us back to your path when we wander. Amen
Contributed by Paul Baglyos, St. Paul, MN
Is seeing believing, or is it the other way around?
Psychologists use the term “confirmation bias” to describe a behavior common to all people: the way we perceive and interpret information depends upon and tends to confirm what we already believe. We tend to notice and endorse information that confirms our beliefs, while disregarding and denying information that contradicts our beliefs. Examples of confirmation bias abound in our everyday lives and in contemporary society. Think of the arguments surrounding global warming and climate change, or the arguments surrounding standardized testing in schools. Think of how differently a person’s behavior will be interpreted by those who love and admire that person compared to those who despise that person.
In an article published earlier this month, one writer contends that confirmation bias not only affects the interpretation of information but also the availability and reliability of information – especially the information burgeoning on the internet. Here is a link to that article: http://www.theguardian.com/media-network/media-network-blog/2014/may/13/internet-confirmation-bias
(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.
In another gospel passage (Matthew 16:13-15), Jesus asks his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?” and then, more pointedly, “Who do you say that I am?” Presumably, everyone together at the right time and the right place shared the same information about Jesus; they could all see him and the things he was doing, they could all hear him and the things he was saying. But very different interpretations of Jesus abounded. Was Jesus perhaps John the Baptist come back from the dead? Was he Elijah, Jeremiah, or one of the other prophets in a new appearance? People interpreted the information about Jesus in many different ways. Finally Peter said, to Jesus, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God” (Matthew 16:16).
Religious skeptics claim that faith in God is a distortion of reality, an example of confirmation bias that impairs judgment and critical thinking. People of faith often make the same claims about skeptics, thereby participating in a tired and pointless argument that only manages to perpetuate itself endlessly. People of faith might ask, for example, “How can anyone look upon the grandeur of nature and not see the existence of God?’ Skeptics might ask, “How can anyone look upon the extent of suffering and not see the absence of God?” Each side engages in its own form of confirmation bias to support its claims and to denounce its detractors.
Confirmation bias, however, does not always or necessarily produce a distortion of truth and reality. The fact that our perceptions are shaped by our beliefs does not necessarily mean that our perceptions are false and unreliable. The Gospel of John deals with this matter extensively with regard to faith in Jesus. Everywhere in John (with the exception of the story about Thomas in chapter 20!) believing precedes seeing and is necessary to it. “You will see me,” Jesus promises those who believe in him.
But if belief leads to seeing, what leads to belief? Jesus answers that question in our gospel text when he talks about “keeping my commandments.” Here we have to do with the behaviors and practices that pertain to the Christian community, the church. The church is called to do as Jesus does, to do as Jesus says, to do as Jesus teaches. Such doing incubates belief and belief incubates seeing.
As a group, describe ways that you have seen Jesus in each person of the group or ways that each person helps others to see Jesus. What, for each person in the group, is the most surprising about what others have said?
Pray together the prayer for “Enlightenment of the Holy Spirit”:
God Almighty, Father of our Lord Jesus Christ: Grant us, we pray, to be grounded and settled in your truth by the coming of the Holy Spirit into our hearts. That which we know not, reveal; that which is wanting in us, fill up; that which we know, confirm; and keep us blameless in your service; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. [page 86, Evangelical Lutheran Worship]
Contributed by Seth Moland-Kovash, Palatine, IL
Who are the people you trust most?
The effort to keep those who know too much quiet is a common theme in books, television, and movies. From gangster movies to Cold War spy novels to fantasy dramas, secrets must be kept at any cost. The stories get very dramatic based on the lengths to which the “bad guys” go to keep the witnesses from telling the secret. In Alfred Hitchcock’s 1934 aptly-titled movie “The Man Who Knew Too Much,” a girl is kidnapped to keep her parents from revealing an upcoming plot.
One of the biggest book and television phenomena of recent years has been the HBO series “Game of Thrones,” based on the books by George R.R. Martin. In the very first episode of this series, a young boy, Bran Stark sees something powerful people don’t want him to see. In order to keep him quiet, he is thrown from a castle tower. He does not die as his silencers hoped, but he is paralyzed and cannot remember the events leading up to his fall. Many of the events of the series that follows stem from this incident, from the attempt to keep the secret that Bran saw and to find out what really happened to him on that tower.
(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.
The raising of Lazarus was not a secret. Many people knew about it. People had been there to watch him die; people had helped to bury him, and then they talked with him after Jesus raised him from the dead. But still, Jesus’ opponents thought that perhaps they could make it a secret once again. They plotted to kill Lazarus to stop people from talking about how he had been raised from the dead.
Lazarus was not killed by these opponents, at least as far as we know from the biblical record. And his story is still told 2000 years later. But even if he had been killed, his story would have been told. Some things just cannot stay secret. The life and hope that Jesus brings to the world cannot be kept secret. Even if Lazarus had been killed, even if all those who had seen him had been killed, the gospel light overpowers darkness.
Make a poster that shows how Jesus has touched the lives of your youth group. Post it in your church to tell the story. Don’t keep it secret.
Good and gracious God, help us not to keep your life and love a secret. Help us to tell the story with boldness and love. Amen.