Devotion - Monday, August 26

Yesterday's Gospel Lesson included a confrontation between Jesus and the leader of a synagogue.  Jesus had healed a women, crippled for eighteen years.  The leader was indignant that Jesus would perform such a work on the Sabbath.

In the sermon I preached (my sermons - as well as these devotions - are posted at a blog - chrisheavner.blogspot.com) I made the claim that what started the whole confrontation was a conflict of preferences for how one gathers in God's house; that Jesus was in favor of loosening the tight controls on Sabbath behavior.  I may have overstated the case, and it is possible that some may have left with the thought of "anything goes."

God has a way of aiding us in our blindness, or our shortsightedness.  This morning's reading from the Daily Lectionary returned me to Sabbath and Temple laws.  This time, Jesus is on the side of defending the ancient practices and customs.  

In Mark 11:14 ff, Jesus overturns the tables of those who sold pigeons and exchanged money on the temple grounds.  "You have made my father's house a den of robbers!"

There is much to be learned from these verses in Mark, but for this morning I want to make some general comments about reading our bible and coming to our conclusions about what the bible "says."  

We can always (and rather easily) find an individual verse which reinforces what it is that we want the bible to say.  It is a rather simple task to find biblical support for what we want to believe.  But honestly reading our bibles means that we remember the rest of the verses and that we evaluate the verse we want to reference with other verses.  Martin Luther called this the "canon within the canon."  It is the core or the center which affects (or even directs) the way we see what is along the edges.

Even so, we will not all agree.  There is no uniformity of thought as to which verses will form the core.  That is why we get so many differing denominations or traditions.  

I wanted to acknowledge to any of you who heard or read my sermon from yesterday that I remain fully aware of those other places in scripture where the assumptions of my brief, 12 minute sermon are called into question.  I stand by what I said; but I do so with a great degree of humility.  More to the point, I want you to join me in developing the openness to seeing how it is that God's people can love and follow the same Jesus, but find differing ways to summarize what it is that Jesus says.