Musings about Faith

Read the text here:  Matthew 25:31-46 Surprise!!! We have come to the last Sunday of the church year and the last Sunday of our year of Matthew.   This Sunday is also celebrated as the Feast of Christ the King or the Feast of the Reign of Christ.   The text is the prophecy of the sheep and the goats and is a judgment prophecy.   The context of this passage is important in that it is contained in the very last teaching discourse in Matthew.   Immediately following this – in chapter 26 – we move into the passion narrative. It is important to recognize this on a day in which we are celebrating the “Kingship” of Jesus for Kingship looms large in the Gospel of Matthew.   The kings of this world (like Herod in Chapter 2) are enthroned in glory and splendor and have power and authority concentrated in them.   Some of them were considered to be gods.   But Jesus, our King, is enthroned on a cross, wearing a crown of thorns.   Jesus does hold the...

Read the text here:  Matthew 25:1-13 Give Me Oil For My Lamp! The parable of the 10 Bridesmaids is perhaps one of the best known, but also one of the most difficult of all of Jesus’ parables. Perhaps this is because it really takes aim at us modern Christians – right where we are most vulnerable: the pace of life! On the one hand we live in a very fast-paced and impatient world.   We hate waiting; we are uncomfortable with silence. We need to have something going on all of the time. We get impatient with waiting at the doctor’s office or standing in long lines or with an internet connection that isn’t as fast as we would like.   We can hardly wait – we can hardly stand to wait!   But then on the other hand we are procrastinators. I don’t feel like it.   I’ll do it tomorrow. I’ll finish that model with my son tomorrow, I’ll visit my mom in the nursing home tomorrow, I’ll start reading the bible and praying tomorrow, I’ll give a little more of my time and m...

Read the text here:  Revelation 7:9-17 Who are These…? It is as if fear had settled like a cloud over the whole world. People who had been so used to living carefree lives now were wracked by fear of a host of terrifying threats.   Perhaps the most prevalent of these threats was pervasive the threat of violence.   The nation as a whole was now threatened from the outside by violence. There was a fear of being overrun by violent outsiders and this fear was now terrifying the population.   In response the government had itself become much more heavy handed, utilizing violence itself more readily in order to respond to any and every perceived threat, no matter how small.   So pervasive was the fear that even individuals had started to respond to the slightest provocation with violence. This led to more vigilante violence and consequently simply heightened and intensified the fear that hung over the whole population.   It is not too surprising that in su...

Read the text here:  Matthew 22:34-46 The Work of Love Jesus has been on the hot seat from the moment he entered Jerusalem.   It was not so much because of the enthusiastic entrance as what happened next.   Jesus enters the Temple courtyard and creates chaos, turning over tables – “You have turned my father’s house into a den of thieves.”   This does not endear Jesus to the Temple authorities.   After all the tables Jesus turned over were there for a good reason.   People needed to convert their Roman and provincial coins to Temple currency in order to pay various expenses, including purchasing animals for sacrifice.   The folks who are the customers are only trying to be faithful to the expectations of their faith, they are trying to follow the law.   And the vendors? Nowhere does it explicitly say they are gouging their customers.   That is the assumption, I suppose, but it may be unfair.   These men were only trying to make a l...