Blogging Towards Sunday, April 27, 2014
Isaiah 2:1-5, Isaiah 25:1-10a, Luke 4:14-30
Easter has come and gone. Jesus is risen from the dead, now what? That can be the way that we feel after discovering or re-discovering the promise, passion and purpose of the resurrection. What do we do with that? How do we return to the beginning in Galilee in order to live resurrection life? That was the conclusion of last week’s sermon.
In seminary I enoucntered Emmanuel Levinas, a Russian-French philosopher from this past century, who wrote extensively about finding life in loving the other around us. In my studies this week I re-encoutnered this quote:
“Faith is not a question of the existence or non-existence of God. It is believing that love without reward is valuable.”
We’re beginning a series on Mission or Missions. It can be a divisive word in how we understand and live it. It’s the belief that the love of God is expressed in the outpouring of love, by our God-induced service of others, and life for others. But why? And who are we called to love without reward? How do we do that? Should it be local, and/or global? Through gifts of money, time, energy, prayers, or something else?
ESCHATOLOGY is the theological word for the study “-ology” of the last things “eschaton” As we begin our series on Mission we thought we start at the beginning, which is actually the ending – the last things – the way that God is going to remake the Earth and world.
Some Keys to reading the scriptures for this week:
- The mountain of the LORD refers to Mt. Zion, the mountain on which the Temple and Jerusalem (the city of God) is built.
- The word “Nations” in the Bible always refers to all people apart from the Jews, the chosen people of God. In a sense the nations are those that oppose or frustrate the way of God.
- The word to walk, or go in the Bible has 2 levels of meaning – one is physical (move forward) the other is theological (to walk in the Way of God – to live the life of faith).
- The Day of the Lord, or the Jubilee of Jubilees or what Rabbis also call “The 8th Day” is the term for the end of the world, or God’s new creation. Biblicists disagree on whether this notion of God’s preferred future is within, or outside of history.
Other scriptures that you can read pointing to the last things
– of vision of God’s preferred future for Creation –
what we call Eschatology include:
Question for Going Deeper:
1. What grabs your attention in these texts?
2. What is the common vision you glimpse of God’s preferred future for the world and creation?
3. How does God’s vision for the world, give you vision for daily life? How does/should it shape our church community?
CAPC Oakland 