2 Samuel 4:1-12; Acts 16:25-40; Mark 7:1-23

This morning, our passage in Acts is about a jailbreak.  Paul and Silas are behind bars, praying and singing hymns.  There is an earthquake.  (OK, this is starting to sound familiar.) The foundations shake.  The doors fling open wide.  The jailer panics, only to find all the prisoners still there.  He falls before them asking, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?”

“Believe on the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.”  (So much for those who see “believers’ baptisms” as the only way to salvation – “You and your household.”) That night, he and his entire family were baptized without delay.

In Acts, God’s grace is on the loose.  Literally.  There are many Jews that are feeling threatened by the lessening importance of the law.  The good news cannot be contained, and is spreading even to those who know very little about God.

This has been continued tension in the church for millennia.  As new believers come into the fold, there is a tendency for those of us who have been around for a long time to kick back on our heels and not give an inch.  We become defensive and territory-oriented.

We fight about the way things used to be done.  We fight about who should have power, when God is the one with all the power anyway.

None of these fights are healthy for the church.  The fact is we are called to a new life, a life in Christ.  That earthquake was to do more than shake things up, but to set us all free, that the prison doors of our lives be flung open, and that we are ready and willing to accept God’s new creation, which is never-ending.

The church is changing.  It is on the move.  Our foundations are shaking and a new world order is upon us.

Our only call?  To believe on the Lord Jesus, and follow wherever the Spirit leads.

So let’s shake things up.

-Matt

2 Samuel 3:22-39; Acts 16:16-24; Mark 6:47-56

Today’s reading in Mark is Jesus walking on the water.  Immediately I pictured the Sea of Galilee in my mind, and the meek and mild fishermen who still clutter the small docks.  I also flashed back to early 2017 when as I gazed out my hotel window in Tiberias and witnessed the most spectacular sunrise over the Sea of Galilee.  (And yes, the above pic is me Snapchatting the experience and being a goofball.  But it was pretty!)

Going to the Holy Land and walking where Jesus walked (minus the water part!) literally changed my life.  It made the Bible come alive.  It is like the difference between watching something in black and white, and then seeing it in color.  If you have not been to Israel, I strongly encourage you to go.  I lead a trip every other year or so, and half of those trips are to the Holy Land.  Every Christian should experience the Sea of Galilee, the River Jordan, Masada, Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Capernaum, Petra – at least once in their lives.

If you are interested in turning the Bible into 3D vivid HD color, my next trip is a Mediterranean Cruise through Italy, Greece, and Turkey – The Journeys of Paul.  www.mattmeinke.com/trips

At the end of the walking on the water story, after the disciples cry out in fear, after he gets in the boat and the wind ceases, then Mark states, “And they were utterly astounded, for they did not understand about the loaves, but their hearts were hardened.”  For me, being there in Israel helped give me a measure of understanding I did not have previously.

Scholars over there speak of the Fifth Gospel.  At first I was confused, thinking they had canonized some text in the Eastern Church that I didn’t know about.  Finally a professor at the Hebrew University pulled some of us non-natives aside and said, “The fifth gospel is the land itself.  The land tells a story!  You cannot possibly understand the first four gospels until you understand the Fifth Gospel.”  He was right.

Maybe I still do not know the Messiah.  Perhaps, like the disciples, I still do not truly understand where his power was from.  But because of Israel, God’s presence has become all the more real to me.

It has also helped me to trust the text – and to trust in God.  Trust is the key to many of these miracles.  In a similar story, where Jesus calms the storm, he is asleep in the boat amidst a huge storm raging around them.  I don’t know how many of you have been in a small boat during a storm, but this is nearly impossible.

His being asleep is a theological sign for us, not a nautical one: Jesus trusted God.  In the story of Job we see a similar thing.  The one who is asleep trusts God.  The world’s chaos is of no consequence.

Here the disciples thought he was a ghost.  They were afraid.  They did not trust that their lives were in God’s hand – or worse yet, they didn’t even know that.  No matter.  Either way, they are not putting their eggs in the right basket.  To trust in the Lord is the most essential quality for the miracles.  As it turns out, to trust in the Lord is the most essential quality for our very lives.

Think about giving yourself the gift of visiting the Holy Land.  I promise it will radically change your walk of faith.   It is the power of seeing Jesus, and the text, come alive.

-Matt

2 Samuel 3:6-21; Acts 16:6-15; Mark 6:30-46

The Bible is full of power shifts and amazing conversion experiences.  Today those two combine in conversion of Lydia, the dealer in purple cloth, in Acts.

Now on the surface we may miss the profound and radical nature of this passage.  Paul and Timothy are moving through the region of Phrygia and Galatia, preaching the good news to many, which some in Jerusalem thought impossible.  Already God’s dream of a nation of believers beyond Israel is a dream too big for some.

Paul and Timothy make it to Philippi, a leading city of that time, a place of trade and commerce.  It would be like us saying, “They made it to Seattle or Hong Kong, or Tokyo!”  This is big, in and of itself.

It is also the Sabbath day, and they go down to the river to pray.  There they encounter a woman who had also gathered there.  Already the story is extraordinary.  In a culture when it was a scandal to even speak to a woman who was not of your family, these two guys buddy up and talk “faith” with her.  (Do you see God’s dream spilling out past the boundaries again?  Be on the look out in the NT.  It is always happening!)

Lydia is a dealer of purple cloth, in a region known for its purple cloth.  And she is not in her home town.  As the story unfolds, it becomes clear she owns her own home, is unmarried, and comes from relatively high social and economic status.  Selling purple, the color of royalty, she encounters many of influence. Most likely, she owned one of the largest companies in this region of the world, employing many.   And she is her own boss.  What luck that Paul and Timothy have found her!  She can greatly influence this region!

Already being a worshiper of the God of Israel, she hears the story of Jesus – a story of turning power on its head – and she was deeply moved, and opened up her heart and her home to it all. 

Lydia’s story is more than a story of conversion, or simply breaking gender barriers.  This is a story about power and influence.  We are seeing how the early church operated – much like a virus – a good virus – infecting people’s hearts in a good way and spreading like wild fire.  The good news became an unstoppable force as it spread from a centralized core to a multi-faceted and complex machine.  In its wake, it left people like Lydia entrusted with the good news of Christ’s salvation.

Now we are a part of this radical and virus-like instrument of God’s goodness.  We are entrusted with the news that Christ has died for us and saved the world, breaking apart the power and influence that others have on our lives, and opening a way of freedom from sin and the power of death.   Thanks be to God.

-Matt

2 Samuel 2:1-11; Acts 15:36-16:5; Mark 6:14-29

Change is inevitable.  We see that come to life in 2 Samuel today.

David is anointed king in the town of Hebron where he and his two wives reside. (As a side note, I always get a chuckle when folks these days declare they believe in “biblical marriage.” My response is often, “What…polygamy???”  David, the greatest of the kings, had two wives.  We won’t even talk about how many Solomon had.)  In the midst of change, David smooths things over by blessing those loyal and who buried Saul.  Despite this, Abner, Saul’s uncle and chief military officer, sets up a false government up North, and anoints Saul’s son, Ishbaal, as king over Israel, the Northern Kingdom.

Chaos and conflict ensues.

Often in our biblical stories there are dramatic shifts of outlook.  Perspectives change.  Leadership changes.  And yet permeating the stories is one common thread: despite the chaos, God’s purposes are being realized.  It all reminds me of the many changes in church leadership that has occurred over time, from popes to the Reformation and folks like Calvin and Luther.  Individual churches go through pastoral changes, some of them tumultuous, and yet God’s Spirit continues.

Over time, the Church has exhibited amazing fluidity and flexibility.  It is organic and freely structured, despite the Roman Catholic’s assertion it is not.  I see churches pop up everywhere, nearly every day.  And as we witness the age of the death of many mega-churches, which were so strong just 10 years ago, I have to say that the church will survive this chapter too.

Today’s renaissance is people coming back to their roots.  There are numerous Presbyterian churches experiencing just this.

I’m sure you have heard someone say: “If only things were the way they used to be!”  I never know quite what that means.  As I look back on the last 100 years, I see only change.  The world is always in flux, but especially in the 20^th Century.  Often what those folks mean, it turns out, is that they want things back the way when THEY were children, and children have a way at looking at things with rose-colored glasses.

It turns out, the only thing we can count on is change.  And our scriptures for today remind us that despite changes in human leadership (such as our very chaotic turnstile White House these days), our divine leadership remains constant.  In our world of flux, we have one constant in our life, and that is the steadfastness and faithfulness of God.  That will never change.  That needs to be our focus, amidst a sea of change and doubt.

Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit!

-Matt

P. S. I would be remiss if I did not mention today was also the Feast Day of St. Ignatius of Loyola.  Check him out: Ignatius of Loyola  Without Ignatius, I would not be writing these Morning Reflections today, and I owe him a heap of gratitude.  We also wouldn’t have the Jesuits and their amazing commitment to education.  Thanks Ignatius!

1 Samuel 31:1-13; Acts 15:12-21; Mark 5:21-43

In Mark today we witness the miracle of the raising of Jairus’ daughter.  So today’s Morning Reflection comes to you through art – the splendor of a stained glass window depicting Jairus’ daughter.

Also, today is also the Feast day of: Johann Sebastian Bach, George Frederick Handel, & Henry Purcell.  Enjoy reading about them by clicking the link, or listening below:

Joy!

Matt

1 Samuel 28:3-20; Acts 15:1-11; Mark 5:1-20

The fight over who is IN and who is OUT is an age old fight we humans continue again and again.  From Cain and Abel, to our Acts passage today which is the first Church fight, to our current political circus of immaturity – the world has always been full of people vying for power.

The struggle in Acts is the struggle over Jews and Gentiles in this new Christian world.  Can Gentiles be “in?” Today in Acts we see that first theological debate take shape.

What will be the new requirements for Christians?  Ultimately Paul’s argument wins the day, and today we have many Christians (me included) who did not have to become Jewish first, in order to qualify for entrance into the ranks of Christian.

As our beloved lawmakers in Washington wrestle with whether or not a Commander in Chief can even lead from a Twitter account, or whether there actually needs to be a verifiable process for orders, the age-old grab for power continues.  (Imagine the power I could have these days if I simply stole a certain phone or hacked into a certain Twitter account.  It’s ridiculous!)

Never mind that that this whole argument over transgendered service members began because of medical bills and military budgets.  Never mind that the military spends 5 times more money on erectile dysfunction prescriptions than it does over transgender medical care.  (That’s 84 billion dollars a year on erectile dysfunction medication by the way, folks).  But never mind that.  And never mind that this is yet one more attempt at distraction from Russia.  And never mind that this opens up the can of worms of gays in the military again, and we are back to the question of “who is in” and “who is out.”

Never mind all of those things.

We seem to have forgotten that there are 10,000 active transgender people currently serving in military uniforms.  We seem to have forgotten what it means to “Support Our Troops.”  Can you imagine the disruption of a platoon in a combat area when the status of the platoon commander is called into question?  This is the height of stupidity.

What we learn from Peter and Paul in Acts is that there was a right way to go about fighting, and there was a wrong way.  

There are ways to make change, and honor the Spirit of God as it blows through our churches, and then there is just reckless, awful behavior.  Sen. John McCain pointed out this troubling trajectory just a couple days ago on the floor of the Senate.

It is time for Christians to stand up, and honor the traditions of decorum and civility.  And why?  Because that is how we believe the Spirit of God can best lead us into his new future.  We don’t fly off the handle, or throw away all the rules.  We believe that God has led us to this point and that the rules we established we have for HIS reasons.

It is time for us to take back our country and take back our churches by having respect and dignity for all people, honoring process, civil discourse, and by parenting those who can’t seem to outgrow their adolescent tantrums.  Stand up everyone.  Take responsibility.

Keep in mind that as the People of God you play a part in this – a responsibility that will not go away simply because we elected someone who values chaos and who only effectively leads the country from one tabloid-model five-alarm fire to the next.  You have a responsibility not to sit around looking for the next manic sequence of tweets, but to speak out against that which stands against God’s ways.

If we do not stand up for love, justice, mercy, and peace, then we are nothing.

Get to it, America.

-Matt

1 Samuel 25:23-44; Acts 14:19-28; Mark 4:35-41

In Mark, Jesus stills a storm.

As is often, New Testament themes pick up on Old Testament themes, or fulfillment of them.  A great windstorm overcomes their small boat on the Sea of Galilee, reminiscent of the storm in Job.  And yet, he is asleep, again reminiscent of Job, and a typical posture of trust in God.  Then, reminiscent of many of the Psalms, the others plea for deliverance, and the wind is silenced.

The story comes to a head with the final line of the story, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?” 

This is the question we all have to answer.  For many our answer is “Jesus is the Messiah,” and that changes the trajectory of how we live.  Jesus is the one who calms the storms of our lives.  Whether it be great sins, or cancer, or death, or even just a lack of trust, God is delivering us from it all.

-Matt