Blogging Towards Sunday, August 6, 2023
1 Corinthians 11:17-29, 33-34; 12:12-14, 25-31; 13:1-13
We continue our summer series wrestling with the three words we’ve used to describe our church mission and ethos. It’s both who we are and who we aspire to become. Today were talking about SAFE. We’ve lived in a time of intense focus on safety. Not just through the years of intense COVID contagion, but back to 9/11 and the first foreign terrorist attack in our country, when we our national psyche began to ask if we are actually safe?
The dictionary defines safety as “the condition of being safe from undergoing or causing hurt, injury, or loss.” But being safe isn’t just about not having negative or threatening risks, it’s also about being fulfilled, contented, alive. This summer our national (and global) culture has been intensely flavored by the Eras concert tour of Taylor Swift. A recent article in the NY Times talked about why that concert series (and other concerts and movies – think Barbie and Oppenheimer) have been so massive in our collective psyche.
In these concerts – both performers and audiences are finding a cathartic rush – and “as I’ve experienced on multiple occasions, it’s a chance to step outside of life and feel overwhelmed in the best possible way. For all the extravagance of this year’s tours, I think our concert summer is being powered by a simpler idea: a reminder of just how good it feels to be in the presence of one another once again.” [Read more of the NY Times opinion piece by Elamin Adelmahmoud with this LINK]
Another article making the rounds this week is by Lutheran pastor Nadia Bolz-Weber. It too reflects upon safety both in and from the church. Writing about what the church – and the decreasing attendance numbers in community of those following the Way of Jesus – might be like if we knew we only had 5 years she says, “…people don’t seem to leave the church because they no longer believe in the beauty of Jesus and his teachings. People leave the church because they believe in the beauty of Jesus and his teaching so much that they can no longer stomach being part of an institution that says it’s about that and so clearly is not.” [Read the whole of piece by Bolz-Weber with this LINK.]
Paul writes to the church in Corinth to tell them to stop playing it safe, according to the values of culture – to risk it all and surrender themselves to the fiercely transformative power of being loved by Jesus and loving other in return.
QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION & EXAMEN:
• What engaged, enraged, or surprised you in these texts?
• What invitation do you hear the Spirit of God speaking to you – or to us, as a church – to act, speak, be, or change, through this word of scripture? What invitation do you hear the Spirit of God speaking to you – or to us – through this word of scripture?
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