Author: crc

On Good Questions and Being Close to the Kingdom

He wasn’t in a good mood.

Maybe it was the tensions of the week.
            Passover in Jerusalem,
            and the stakes are high.

Maybe it was that he knew where this Passover was going.
Maybe it was because he knew that the stakes were higher than anyone had imagined.

Whatever was the reason, he didn’t seem to be in the mood to answer too many questions.

“By what authority do you do these things?”
            I’m not going to tell you.

“What about taxes paid to the empire?”
            Take a look at a coin.

“So this woman has seven husbands one after another,
which one is she married to in the resurrection?”
            You guys really are clueless, aren’t you!

But then he gets a question that he answers.
            Was it because it was such a good question.
            A question that got to the heart of things?
            Or might it have been something about the questioner?
            Did Jesus see something in this scribe that was missing in the others?

“What is the greatest commandment?”
            Now that is a good question.

Jesus answers the question,
            the scribe runs with the answer
            down paths that demonstrate that he “gets it,”
            and Jesus says that this man is
            “not far from the Kingdom.”

Not far from the Kingdom.
            That’s a good place to be.
May it be the case that we are not far from the Kingdom.
May it be that we ask questions worthy of the Kingdom.
May it be that we ask questions worthy of the one on the way to the cross.

You got any questions like that?
Then come to Wine Before Breakfast tomorrow morning.
Joe Abbey-Colborne will be preaching, and he’s got loads of such questions.
The Bandhood will bear our questions and our longings in song.
Judith Alltree will be serving up answers that you can eat.

7.22am in Wycliffe Chapel

And I’ll tell you what.
            If you’ve got bad questions, then bring them too.
            Sometimes a non-answer is the most profound way to get an answer.
Questioners new and old, all welcome!

 

Whose story?
That’s kind of been the question for Paul.

Whose story will set the direction of our lives?
Whose story is redemptive?
Which story will be the basis of home?
Which story will be the foundation of justice?

The story of Caesar or Jesus?

 

Six months of Romans to sort that out.
Six months of walking with Paul.
Six months of Paul working through the meaning of the story of Jesus
            in the face of the story of Rome,
            and in the context of the story of Israel.

And now it is Lent.
Now we enter unto a path to the cross.
Now we walk with Jesus through the streets of Jerusalem,
            the city of peace that was so filled with violence.

One week in Jerusalem.
A week of intensified conflict.
A week of impassioned expectation and dashed hopes.
A passion week.

Here the story comes to its climax.
This is what it’s all about.
Without this week, Paul would have had nothing to talk about.

So for Lent, WBB follows Jesus through the streets of Jerusalem.

We move from Paul’s Romans to Mark’s gospel.
And we walk with Jesus to the cross.

This week our beloved Sacristan, Chris Dow puts down the towel
and takes up the mantle of preacher.
David Neelands will serve up the bread and wine,
the Bandhood of all Believers will lead our worship
and Alex Karney leads the prayers.

Lent is important, friends.
It is an important time for prayer and meditation,
            for quiet reflection on Scripture,
            for self-examination and confession.
Let’s keep a Holy Lent together.

Brian

Wine Before Breakfast
Tuesday Morning, February 23, 2010
7.22 @ Wycliffe Chapel

Title: WBB Still Hanging out with Paul
Location: Wycliffe College Chapel
Description:

“The word is near you,
on your lips and in your heart.”

That’s just one of the passages that Paul cites in Romans 10.

In what is something of a hermeneutical tour de force, the apostle waltz’s through Deuteronomy, Isaiah and the psalms.

Read more WBB Still Hanging out with Paul

Title: WBB: Advent, Assurance and Anguish
Location: Wycliffe College Chapel@7.22am
Description:

WBB: Assurance, Anguish and Advent

“Nothing can separate us from the love of Christ,” the apostle powerfully proclaimed last week. But if you keep reading you see that he then immediately gives voice to a deep sorrow and anguish. So deep that he says that he wishes that he himself could be cut off, that he himself could be separated from the love of Christ.

From assurance to anguish. Why? Read more WBB: Advent, Assurance and Anguish

WBB: Romans 8 (reprise)

I knew from the beginning that we would have to spend more than one week in Romans 8 during this year’s WBB meditation on Paul’s most famous letter. This passage was just too rich to rush through. Of course the same could be said of a lot the first seven chapters of the book as well, but there is something about Romans 8 that requires time for meditation, for reflection.

So we scheduled two weeks for Romans 8. And, well, that isn’t enough. So we are going to remain with Paul in this chapter for one more week. Read more WBB and Advent Waiting: Romans 8 (Reprise)

Title: WBB and the groaning of creation
Location: Wycliffe College Chapel
Description:

Dear friends:

In what is perhaps the most remarkable turn of a phrase in the letters of Paul, the apostle tells us in Romans 8.22 that “the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now ….” This is a creation longing for redemption, longing to be set free from all that binds it.

Perhaps only the women in our community can begin to understand what Paul is talking about here, and even there maybe only the women who have given birth. I can tell you as a very concerned observer that there is an intensity in the groaning of labor like nothing else that I have ever born witness to. Groaning in travail was the way the older versions of the Bible put it.

Read more WBB and the groaning of creation