First United Methodist Church Bellevue

Kingdom of God can seem like an archaic term, so, for this posting I’m substituting a new term for it:  A Godly Worldview.  There are probably flaws with that term, so, if you have objections  please voice them here!   In any case, we all stake claim to our own worldview.  What’s your worldview?  Does it include ideas like, democracy, capitalism, individual freedom, for instance?  What other beliefs guide your daily living?

Here’s a hard one to grasp sometimes:  being a Christian does not ensure that my worldview is the same as God’s Worldview.  That’s because we aren’t perfect yet (we’re trying to move in that direction hopefully) and we just miss the mark sometimes.  How do we know when we make the mark?  Confusing, isn’t it?

Mark is trying to show us what A Godly Worldview looks like in his gospel.  In chapter 4 he relays some parables that help us shed some light on the matter.   Jesus is said to have taught in parables, a combination of story/riddle.  Why didn’t he just come out and tell everyone directly?  I  have some of my own ideas on that matter.  Have you ever heard someone talk who was passionately for gun control or against it?   If you disagree with them how willing are you to let them know?  🙂   When we become passionate about an idea or cause very often that passion stems from a past experience that  has become part of our worldview.  Once something has become our worldview we resist (maybe even unconsciously) changing our minds.  Sometimes we fight to the death to defend our worldview.   I think Jesus knows that arguments seldom change anyone’s minds and often make enemies.  However, who can resist a good story or riddle?  We listen with our guard down waiting for the point and then stir it around in our  mind trying out different possibilities for what it might mean.  By the time someone figures it out (if they ever do) Jesus would be long gone.

The first parable in chapter 4 is the one about the sowing-challenged farmer!  Really, though, this farmer can’t seem to get the seeds in the right place.  He threw some all over the road and others in unplowed, thorn infested ground.  Some seeds did land where they should – in well prepared soil so that there was a harvest – yeah!!!  Does it seem sometimes that God is careless too about establishing A Godly Worldview here on Earth?  I mean really, just turn on the news and you’ll hear about Swine Flu, the war in Afghanistan, and unemployment rates.  Does this sound like the vision God has for our world?  If God is so powerful, why aren’t we there yet? 

One think I wonder about, though… perhaps it’s God’s job to spread the seed, but our job to prepare the soil???   Good soil is of course symbolic for openess to God’s message.  What must we do to help others become open to God’s message?

In A Companion to the Gospel of Mark M. Rascho suggests one example of A Godly Worldview is forgiveness.  When we live as if we believe that we have been forgiven by God we then take the risk of forgiving others in the same way.  “Our relationships and our world will become a different place because of the power of the kingdom of God [A Godly Worldview] in our lives.”  Our actions plow the relational soil preparing others to receive new ideas and live in new ways.

May you all live this week knowing that you are forgiven and loved by the Originator of the Big Bang, Creator of the Universe.  Each one of us is special and has a unique role to play in preparing the soil for the sowing of the seeds for the kingdom of God.  Happy Holidays, all.  Join us at Starbucks next week to read the Christmas stories.

Everything we do in life involves a decision.   Even if we chose to do nothing, a decision has been made.  It brings to mind how we make decisions.  How often does our faith enter into the decisions we make?  On Sunday our readings in Mark had to do with decisions. 

How many of us haven’t dreamt at one time of being rich and famous?  We see crowds rushing to get a glimpse of a movie or sports star and wonder what that might feel like – to be recognized and admired by crowds of people.  Mark gives us a different look at fame in verses 7-12.  It got around that Jesus could cure the sick so crowds of people swarmed to Jesus for healing.  It wasn’t all that glamorous in fact – the people were so demanding that Jesus was afraid of being crushed by them and asked his disciples to have a life boat ready in case he needed an emergency escape route.  Now that Jesus the man is no longer on earth it’s up to all of us followers together to carry on his ministry and his message to others – all while living our busy lives.  A professor and pastor I know reminded us once that John Wesley asked  leaders to pose 2 questions to their small groups each week:  What has God done for you this week? What have you done for God this week?   If we all decide to do our part of that second question – we can help God to transform this world into such a better place.

As we read on it seems that Jesus has more followers than he can handle.  Jesus has another decision to make – he can’t spend enought time with everyone to ensure they know enough to carry on his ministry when he’s gone.  So, he narrows it down to 12 apostles who he can get up to speed in time.  We live in a busy world right now – time flies by.  Technology links us to infinite knowledge, friends, and opportunities.  Life in the fast lane can become overwhelming unless we pare it down.  When making decisions about what and who to keep in our life and what and who to keep out – don’t forget Jesus.  He’ll continue to pay dividends long our earlthy lives are over.

Young adulthood is a time of finding ourselves, discovering our identy, and determing what purpose God has for our life.  If we skip this step, we get the chance to do it over when we are middle aged – an often more inconvenient time for this kind of work.  In childhood we often align with our parents and their value systems.  In young adulthood we decide what values we’ll claim for our own and sometimes this causes a clash with the people who raised us.  Jesus defines a new family for us – those who do the will of God.  He defines such a family as thicker than blood relatives.  I pray that we all can find love within the families we grew up in.  But, there’s a bonus to accepting God’s love for us.  We then become part of an even bigger family – the family of all of God’s children.   Those Christians we run into at church are no longer acquaintances or even strangers, but, they are our brothers and sisters in Christ.  We are a family with a purpose too – our job is to help God’s Kingdom become real here on earth.  What would it look like for God’s Kingdom to become real here on earth?  We’ve already seen glimpses of it during these first 3 chapters of Mark.  Please join us in person or online as we continue to unlock the secrets of God’s Kingdom by reading Mark.

On Sunday we started the season of Advent – the weeks of waiting for Christmas.  It’s a time when we are called to step away from the lessons of the world and re-remember the message of Christmas – the message that Christ brought and continues to bring to our world.

Last night I remembered to turn on the television right at 5pm when President Obama was giving his Afghanistan speech.  Looking out over the young cadets in his audience and to the soldiers listening remotely I was reminded that sometimes I forget that we are a country at war – and have been for the past 8 years!  That is – until I turn on the TV or read the newspaper.  Karl Barth supposedly challenged us to read the Bible in one hand, and the newspaper in the other.   When we live and make decisions based on biblical values the world we live in should grow closer and closer to the good world that God intended.  As one who is easily seduced by idealism it’s easy for me to desire that world to exist right now.  I want heaven on earth and I want it now!  Evolution, on the other hand,  is a slow process and God who created our universe and humanity seems to have eternal patience.  Perhaps the pathway to peace takes longer and is more convoluted that I can even imagine.  And so I will pray for President Obama, I will pray for all the soldiers already in Afghanistan and those to be sent, and I will especially pray  for the days to come – may they come sooner than later and bring with them the message of Christmas – Peace on Earth.

In days to come the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be raised up above the hills. Peoples shall stream to it, ²and many nations shall come and say: “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.” For out of Zion shall go forth instruction, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. ³He shall judge between many peoples, and shall arbitrate between strong nations far away; they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more; ⁴but they shall all sit under their own vines and under their own fig trees, and no one shall make them afraid;  (Micah 4:1-4a; New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved)

On Sunday a small group of us met at Starbucks (on 106th – Bellevue, WA) to read a little more of Mark.  I even bring bibles so you don’t have to cart  yours in if you don’t want.  AND – we aren’t doing hardcore bible study here – just show up, get a drink if you want, we read and talk about anything that popped up. 

In chapter 2 we discovered “Controvery Stories.”  In teaching us about God Jesus kept bumping into established religious traditions and met with the disapproval of the religious authorities.   I like this quote from Mike Raschko’s book (A Companion to the Gospel of Mark, p. 28) about how God works in human history: “… is God’s work encapsulated in established religious traditions as the opponents of Jesus think, or does God break into human history and upset even traditions that are rooted in God’s earlier deeds?” 

When we think about what it means to be a follower of Christ in today’s world – we might ask if past traditions hold all the answers.  Can we be open to letting God move in new ways in our lives?

One word of caution: Mark has been called pretty liberal minded.  We might benefit from comparing his spin on the stories of Jesus to Matthew’s (more of a traditionalist) for instance.  But – maybe we’ll get to that if we do a “Reading Matthew” group in the future!!!

Holiday Blessings, all – and join us next Sunday to read Mark 3:7-35.  (A full schedule of the readings can be found under the Spiritual Growth link).