Tag: service

A Scandalous Love

Rob Woodrum1 Comment

Imagine you’ve been asked to a dinner party for the small company you work for. When dinner is done and people are sitting and chatting while dishes are being taken away, your boss has quietly gone to the corner of the room and stripped down to his underwear and with a jug of bottled water, starts going down the line of guests and begins washing their feet.

Besides being the basis for a huge lawsuit – how would something like that make you feel? Would it unnerve you? Would you protest this action?

We’re going to be reading John 13:1-17 this Sunday, and the events described above sort of play out in our text. Sometimes we pass this strange display off as a cultural thing, something that everyone was accustomed to – but we have nothing to support that claim. Actually, just the opposite. Foot washing happened, but by and large, guests at a home would wash their own feet. Jewish servants were not required to do this sort of humiliating and intimate thing. Only gentile slaves were known to do something like this.

John sets the stage for this event by saying that Jesus had become aware that all things were in his hands…that is, he wielded the supreme authority of God. So with that knowledge, what did Jesus do with those hands, very first thing?

I don’t have a lot of questions to prod you with this week – just that image to ponder. If Jesus is our greatest revelation of God…who IS God as we see him on display in this section?

This is humbling, challenging and potentially life-altering stuff. Hope to see you this Sunday.

Livin’ Large

Rob Woodrum1 Comment

Greatness.

Most people wouldn’t admit to trying to be great, unless they are Muhammad Ali in the 60’s, but most people are trying to find greatness if we define it as the best life we can live.  For us as American consumers, if we were to ask people what the best life we can live looks like, it would most likely be described as one where we have all the possessions we want and are free from discomfort.  I could guarantee that nobody would exclaim that the best life results from doing extra work for somebody else for no immediate rewards.

Yet oddly enough — that’s exactly what Jesus described as the pathway to greatness. We’re going to be reading Luke 22:24-30 this Sunday. It is still Luke’s account of Jesus observing the Passover meal with his disciples, and the final words he gives to them.

In this passage, an argument breaks out about who is the most awesome of Jesus’ disciples, right on the heels of Him explaining how he’s going to be betrayed and sacrificed for everyone.  It’s downright cringe worthy.  Ever do that?  Ever find yourself fixated on your own self-centric interests even in the face of someone else’s greater dilemmas?  I have, way more often than I’m willing to admit to.

Jesus corrects his disciples by inviting them into a “descent into greatness”.  He points toward a focus that is others-centered as the means of true satisfaction.  Jesus pointed toward himself as our example for this kind of life.  In what ways was Jesus a servant – and how can we use that as a template for our own lives? When is it most difficult to BE a servant, and how can we change our attitudes about that?

I love how Jesus finishes off the section by commending his disciples, promising them that they’ll be sharing his kingdom with him.  It gives me such great hope. Here these goons have been vying for the disciple of the month award, in the face of Jesus’ great sacrifice – – and yet….THESE are the same guys he’s been longing to eat this meal with.  These are the guys he likes, and wants to hang with.  I’m encouraged by that.  God’s grace super-abounds in spite of our human frailties.  Pretty cool, huh?

Hope to see you Sunday!

Our Inadequacy is Christ’s Abundance

Rob Woodrum3 Comments

This Sunday we’ll be exploring the events described in Luke 9:10-17.  The astute reader may worry that I’ve skipped verses 7-9 in our studies…but we’re just putting those aside, and we’ll be dealing with them next time.  Our focus this week will be on the miracle of the loaves and fish.

This appears to be an important miracle, because all four gospels recount the story of it.  Early Church art often used the imagery of loaves and fish as symbolic of God’s provision, and even the gospel itself.  We have been exposed to the telling of this miracle so much that it tends to get lost in the shuffle of telling the story of Christ, but it has a very important message contained it.

There are several parallels to the Old Testament that are most likely intentional.  Jesus in the wilderness, providing food for His followers, like Moses in the wilderness providing Wonder Bread (manna) for the children of Israel; or the multiplication of resources yielded to God like the story of Elijah and the widow of Zarephath.

As you read this story, what distinctions do you see between the way Jesus responded to the people and the need and the way the disciples responded?  Consider the overall setting and circumstances, that the disciples had just come back from their own ministry tour and were probably worn out…does this possible detail impact the story in any way?  If you apply this story to your own life as a servant of Christ…what lesson can you glean about meeting the needs of the world around you?

Should be interesting…hope to see you Sunday!