Contributed by Jay Gamelin
Pastor of Jacob’s Porch, Lutheran Campus Ministry to The Ohio State University

Warm-up Question: Share a time when something happened that was just not fair, that you had no control over. For instance, a car wreck, getting blamed for something you didn’t do, etc.

It seems all we hear about is news about the economy these days. When we hear all the news, we hope that somehow the biggest fallout will pass us by. We hope we will keep our jobs as long as we keep working hard, keep our heads down, and hang on. But for 1,100 Jeep, Dodge, Chrysler dealerships, suddenly they are no longer hanging on but have become a part of the growing statistic of pink-slipped people.

After filing for bankruptcy, Chrysler has been waiting for the results of the government’s plan to help the automaker recover. The decisions are not Chrysler’s, they can only wait and see what recommendations come through. The government put into place one recommendation asking for 1,100 dealerships to close by the end of the month. With the potential of 40,000 jobs lost, many people are in fear for their financial lives. The news comes in the mail this week via letter to the dealerships. Perhaps a mail carrier has never been watched more closely at a Chrysler dealership than on May 15.

Many men and women around the country are also watching their mailboxes, in-boxes, e-mail, and inter-office memos closely waiting to see if they are the next people cut in the continued need to trim budgets in a weakening economy. Tension runs high in many places as people worry, “will I be the next to receive the luck, or perhaps bad luck, of the draw?”

Discussion Questions

• Do you know anyone who has lost a job or had to accept a cut in salary, pay, or work hours because of the economy? How are they dealing with the change?
• What if this situation happened to you? How would you feel? Would you be angry? Frustrated? Relieved? What sort of changes do you think you or your family would need to make to cope?
• Do you believe in luck? Why or why not?
• Why do you think good things keep happening to some people and bad to others? Is there a greater design to it that some are given blessings and others are not — on purpose?

Scripture Texts (NRSV) for Sunday, May 24, 2009.

(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 B at Lectionary Readings.)

• Acts 1:15-17, 21-26
• Psalm 1
• 1 John 5:9-13
• John 17:6-19

Gospel Reflection

Reading the Gospel lesson again, I am reminded that I have always felt bad for Barsabbas. I mean seriously, the poor guy is obviously someone who has followed Jesus for a long time if he is to be considered a choice to be apostle. He is named “Son of the Sabbath” which is a really cool name, and here he is passed over because he drew the short straw. Man, that just stinks for him. Now he is not an apostle simply because of luck?

Perhaps, but also perhaps the world spins on its own and God chooses moments to intersect the kingdom of heaven with the kingdom of earth in actions like healings, tremendous coincidences, visions, and prophecy, to name a few. We call them miracles because, well, they do not happen all the time, right? It seems that God does intervene sometimes, but not in others. How then does God choose when and how? Why are some healed and some not? Why do good things happen to some and others, well, seem to “draw the short straw”? What happens? Is it luck, a choice, or God’s action?

There is no perfect answer to this question, but we can take reassurance in one interesting thought: for every person healed or raised from the dead or freed from slavery, all of them still suffered the ultimate end, death. Yes, we glimpsed the kingdom when Lazarus was raised from the dead, but he eventually died anyway. Yes, Jairus’ daughter was raised from the dead and all wondered and praised God, but she died eventually too. I have known friends who have recovered from cancer and yet in their old age they still moved on into death. It seems that no matter what little thing befalls us in this life, the good and the ill, in the end we all have our ticket punched and none of us live forever. (Just ask Voldemort.)

How is this good news?

These glimpses of the kingdom, these tiny, infrequent moments, are not rewards for people who have been good or bad, they are signposts for what God wants to do in total. We can see that if God wants to raise one of these from the dead, this is a sign that God can do this for all of us. Ultimately we know this through Jesus who was raised from the dead so that while we know death we will not have fear. We are all blessed to receive the miracle of Jesus’ grace. For all that luck or blessing or miracle or curse or whatever we may call it on this side, in the end we are all victorious. We are all blessed. We are all given the gift of new life.

I am not sure I believe in luck. I am not even sure that God played a hand in picking Matthias over Barsabbas. Maybe it just was, for good or bad. Or maybe this was the hand of God in this small instance, a miracle, picking the right one for the job. I just don’t know. Instead, rather than seeing the small picture, I choose to see the big picture. Remember that we are all chosen, straws or not, to be God’s children. This isn’t luck. It’s a blessing.

 Or was it luck? It seems that the text wants us to consider that God had a hand in how this drama unfolded, that the true apostle would be picked by divine providence and the right one would become the apostle. But does God work this way? Is God really the one pulling all the little strings of every moment of every action?

Discussion Questions

• How do you think it would have felt to be Barsabbas? What do you think you would have done? Been mad and left? Stuck around? Accepted the decision? Been bitter?
• The good and the bad that happen to you… do you think they all come from God?Do you tend to call good things luck and bad things God — or vice versa? Why?
• Is God is at work in every little thing? Why or why not? Do you think God works to bless some people in special ways? Do you think God tries to challenge, maybe you’d even say curse, others?
• What do you think when you ask God for an A on a test, or a good job evaluation, or a faster solution to a problem and it doesn’t happen? Who do you blame? God? Do you think it’s life, luck, blessing, or curse?
• What do we do when we pray for healing for someone and it doesn’t happen? Is this God? Life, luck, blessing, or curse? Does healing occur sometimes in a way that we don’t think of or ask for? How?

Quotables

• “We must believe in luck. For how else can we explain the success of those we don’t like?”  Jean Cocteau (1889-1963)
• “It is bad luck to be superstitious.”  Andrew W. Mathis
• “Luck favors the prepared, darling.”  Edna Mode in The Incredibles
• “I have a lot of luck, it’s just not always good luck.”  Carter Terry
• “Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.”  Seneca, Roman dramatist
• “Shallow [people] believe in luck, believe in circumstances. Real [people] believe in cause and effect.”(ed. “men”)  Ralph Waldo Emerson

Activity Suggestion

Lucky Straw

This is a wishing game. It is a simple test, for good or ill. Everyone think of a hope for the coming week, a wish, so to speak. They can be as simple (“I want to be really happy”) or as complex (“I want to grow wings and shoot fireballs from my eyes”) as they wish, but it has to come true this week.

Give people a chance to consider their hope, then write it down on a slip of paper. Give everyone a few minutes to look at the slip of paper, concentrating really hard, REALLY wanting it to happen. Now throw all the slips of paper into a hat or container. Mix them all up telling them that whatever they draw out will come true. Have each person pull one out and read it out loud.

Discuss:

• Do you think it is going to happen? Why or why not?
• Is this a trustworthy process? Why or why not?
• Come back the following week and discuss whether the wish came true. Why do you think it did or didn’t?
• Do you think God or luck played a hand in this?

Closing Prayer

Holy God, for all the good and bad that comes in the world, I know that no matter what, you are our Father, and of you we will have hope that we will rest eternally in you. Thank you for whatever blessings we have been given, forgive us for ascribing good or ill to you that is not yours, and give us confidence to follow you, for good or ill. Amen.

Contributed by Pastor Jay Gamelin
Columbus, OH

Warm-up Question: Think of a time when you got hurt (physically, emotionally, spiritually, or otherwise). What’s the most important thing you learned from that experience

In the weeks leading up to Easter this year, sad news filled nearly every newspaper and broadcast. In just over a week, there were five mass murders in the U.S. alone, from Oakland, CA, to Binghamton, NY, killing nearly 40 people. In Italy, just as that predominantly Roman Catholic country was beginning to celebrate Holy Week, a massive earthquake killed at least 260 people. Violence continues in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as in other war-torn corners of the globe. And all over the world, people continue to struggle with a devastated economy.

All this news has surrounded what for Christians ought to be the most joyful time of the year. Figuring out how to celebrate on a tighter budget in the midst of difficult times is an ancient challenge, and one that the faithful will face again as they gather to celebrate the festival of the resurrection and the bright, seven-week season of Easter that follows.

Discussion Questions

• Have you ever tried to celebrate something (Christmas, Easter, your birthday, family weddings, etc.) while also having to deal with sad news? How did that go?
• What did your family do for Easter this year? Was anything different than years past?
• How do you think the families of people who died in the shootings in the U.S. felt during the Easter celebration this year, especially if they were Christians?
• What do you think Jesus would say to folks who were trying to celebrate Easter while also finding themselves homeless after the earthquake in Italy?

Scripture Texts (NRSV) for Sunday, April 19, 2009.

(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 B at Lectionary Readings

• Acts 4:32-35
• Psalm 133 (1)
• 1 John 1:1-2:2
• John 20:19-31

For lectionary humor and insight, check the weekly comicAgnus Day.

Gospel Reflection

The week after Easter is a peculiar Sunday in the church. On most Sundays, the appointed readings are different each year, following a three-year cycle. But every year, on the week after Easter, we hear this story about Thomas, the disciple who asked for proof. That makes me wonder: What’s so important about this story that the church asks us to read it every year during this time?

It seems to me we could answer that question with two words: doubt and scars.

Isn’t it a bit jarring that just one week after the lilies and the brass, the egg hunts and family gatherings, the joyful shouts and songs filled with “Alleluia!,” all of a sudden we run into doubt and scars? What happened to butterflies and bunnies?

The church is trying to tell us something. From the beginning, the joyful news of the resurrection had to be spoken, heard, sung, and lived by people whose lives were not very joyful. “He is Risen!” did not put an end to the suffering and persecution, death and danger that those first Christians lived with. In fact, their claim that Jesus, whom the Empire had tried to destroy, was in fact living and reigning as the true King of Creation, made things even worse for the faithful.

In the midst of danger and suffering, it’s normal for a little doubt to creep in. Thomas asked, and for good reason, to see the same proof that Jesus handed — literally — to the other disciples. For Thomas, as for most of the citizens of Jerusalem, the resurrection had not changed anything. Well, not anything they could see anyway. Life was still hard, and death was still at hand. So before Thomas took the message of “He is risen!” very far, he needed to be sure he wouldn’t just be telling a cruel joke to people who needed some real, meaningful hope.

Legend has it, Thomas ended up taking that message very far indeed — all the way to India! So whatever Jesus showed him was good enough.

What Jesus showed him were scars. Jesus was alive, but his body still had the marks of what he had suffered. His own flesh would not let him, or us, forget about the real tragedy and death he endured. Knowing that Jesus was still a marked man helped Thomas know that God still understood the danger and the risk of living faithfully in a broken world. Those scars gave Thomas’s own scars holy meaning: doubt and danger are still abundant, but God’s love and life are more abundant still.

We, too, live this Easter faith in a dead and dying world. Thanks be to God, Jesus lives and breathes in the midst of our doubts, bearing the scars, and yet overflowing with life. Alleluia! Amen.

Discussion Questions

• If you were Thomas, what proof would you ask for to know that the resurrection — rising death — was real?
• What does it mean to you that Jesus still has the scars on his resurrected body? If God could raise him from the dead, why didn’t God take the scars away, too?
• Do you have any scars (physical or otherwise)? Where does God fit into the stories about how you got your scars?
• What difference does “He is risen!” make in your own life? If “He is risen!” actually made your life more challenging and dangerous, would you still tell it to your friends and neighbors? Would it make a difference to them?

Activity Suggestions

• Get a laminated map of the globe and some Vis-à-vis overhead pens. Invite folks to draw or write on places on the map where the world is scarred or marked. Play some music during this time (anything from Taizé songs to an iPod mix of thoughtful or thought-provoking music like The Fray’s “You Found Me”). After they’ve had some time to write, draw, or circle places, ask them to share why they drew or wrote what they did. Then ask where they think God is in all the world’s scars.
• Have youth draw temporary tattoos (any non-permanent marker pen will do fine) on their arm, wrist, or ankles. (Draw it on paper first. Some may choose not to draw on themselves — a valid choice that should be respected.) What mark would you draw that would describe your faith and your doubts in your life? What invisible scars do you have that you could make “visible”? Where does Jesus fit into this picture? Have them share as they are comfortable.

Closing Prayer

Jesus, you lived and died and live again, feeling in your own body how hard life can be. Help me see your love and grace in the midst of the entire world’s, and my own scars. Be patient with me, and accept my doubts even as you give me faith. Amen.

Warm-up Question: Why do we pay taxes?

The current economic crisis may put hopes for tax cuts on hold, perhaps permanently. Both presidential candidates have promised lower taxes in some form and both have talked of extending the tax cuts approved during George Bush’s first term.

But the enormous, expensive bail-out program recently passed by Congress may mean that the new president will have to break those promises. The amount of the rescue package — close to $1 trillion — equals over a third of the entire national budget. Even after “belt-tightening” measures meant to reduce spending are put in place, both government and citizens may be in for a long, hard road before any of the money is paid back, much less until the budget is balanced.

On the other hand, raising taxes does not appear to be good idea, either. Experts cite the actions of President Herbert Hoover after the stock market crash of 1929. Hoover’s response was a steep increase in taxes which many believe worsened the Great Depression.

While it is unlikely that people will be reduced to selling apples on street corners, as they were during the 1930’s, individuals, businesses, and government on every level may have to redefine “necessity” in their spending habits for the coming months and years.

Discussion Questions

• Many news sources, when writing about the current bank and mortgage crisis, mention a famous quote from the 1987 movie Wall Street: “Greed is good.” How did greed, both individual and corporate, contribute to today’s money problems?
• If you could ask the presidential candidates a question about how they would handle the nation’s money, what would it be? What responsibility do you feel, if any?
• When it comes to giving money, your time, or donating something, who or what would get priority in your life (could be more than one thing)?
• If you could make a suggestion to the candidates what would it be?

Scripture Texts (NRSV) for Sunday, October 19, 2008.
(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 A at Lectionary Readings.)

• Isaiah 45:1-7
• Psalm 96:1-9 [10-13] (7)
• 1 Thessalonians 1:1-10
• Matthew 22:15-22

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

Gospel Reflection

No one likes to pay taxes, but this duty was especially distasteful to the Jews who lived under Roman rule. They knew that their tax money contributed to the decadent Roman lifestyle, to luxuries for the emperor and the building of pagan temples. The Pharisees saw this as the perfect trap for Jesus. If he was in favor of paying taxes, the people would turn against him. If he was not, the Romans would arrest him.

Jesus does not fall for it though. Instead he takes the opportunity to remind the Jews (and his own followers) of their dual citizenship. We have, so to speak, one foot on earth and one in heaven. We are to give our government its due: payment of taxes, obedience to the law, loyalty, and service. In return we receive the benefits of citizenship and set a good example as Christians.

First and foremost, though, we belong to the kingdom of God. When we give “to God the things that are God’s,” (v. 21) we are not forced by the law, but we are motivated by the Spirit and inspired by love and gratitude. Nor do we measure our giving by typical earthly standards. We needn’t worry that any time, talent, resource, or money we entrust to God will be wasted or spent poorly. “Stock” in the kingdom of God never falls prey to human greed and does not lose its value.

Psalm 96:1-10, another of this week’s readings, shows us more about giving God what is God’s. We are told to sing God’s praise, declare his glory, and speak of his attributes (“ascribe”). Every nation and all people should hear about God’s love, power, blessings, creative work, and justice through us. In giving God glory and sharing the good news of Jesus Christ, we experience the joy and privilege of spreading God’s Word throughout the world; a world that is desperate for good news, lasting hope, and new life.

Discussion Questions

• Some people make it a matter of conscience to withhold the amount of their taxes that would contribute to programs with which they disagree. Based on today’s Gospel lesson, is this valid Christian behavior? Why or why not? (See also Matthew 17:24-27) What does Jesus suggest in the way of behavior that goes beyond what might be expected or required of us by the government or even our congregation?
• In what ways can we express honest disagreement with our leaders and still remain good citizens and representatives of Christ? When is expressing a different opinion or opposition difficult or not so easy to figure out how to do it? (At home, school, in public, politically, among friends, at church, with strangers, with adults? What challenges or support for expressing disagreement are found in each of these realms?)
• Think about the Christian’s “dual citizenship.” Give examples of both kinds of “investment” — earthly and heavenly, but not necessarily financial — and their benefits in real, everyday life. Can earthly and heavenly be easily separated? How or why not?

Some related resources

• ELCA Statement on Economic Life
• ELCA Statement on Church in Society: A Lutheran Perspective
• About Congregation-Based Organizing (ELCA)
• Teaching stewardship resources (ELCA)
• 10-10-80 youth stewardship education resource (ELCA)

Activity Suggestions

Arrange in advance for access to a camera that takes videos. Most digital cameras do, even those on cell phones.

During an election year, there are a lot of public service announcements on television about being a good citizen by voting. What kind of public service announcement might encourage people to be good citizens of heaven; faithful and generous followers of Christ?

As a class, discuss and list the kind of actions such an announcement might promote. Write and produce the announcement, and film it with a video-capable camera. Post it on the church Web site or on the personal Web site of a class or church member.

Suggested songs

“God of Grace and God of Glory,” “O, Master, Let Me Walk with You” (ELW, #818), “We Are an Offering” (ELW, #692), “Here I Am, Lord” (ELW, #574), and “Lord of All Hopefulness” (ELW, #765)

Closing Prayer

Dear Heavenly Father, you want us to live holy and generous lives on earth to prepare us for the joy of your heavenly kingdom. Direct our hearts and minds toward your Word so that we can be guided and moved to care for all people and creation as you desire. Remind us that when we give to you what is yours, we give our very selves. In the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, we pray. Amen

Contributed by Sylvia Alloway
Granada Hills, CA