For the past several months, we’ve been reading through the book of Luke on Sunday mornings. Not a sermon really. I want us to discuss it. Tackle it. Deny it. Spar over it a bit. Take it apart and put it back together. I may bring a few notes and certainly I can always be found to have an opinion about anything, but often the discussions venture down paths I didn’t foresee.
In doing this, I’ve noticed that there are many passages in the Bible that you never hear preached. 2 Peter 3:15-16 says, “ Our dear brother Paul also wrote you with the wisdom that God gave him. He writes the same way in all his letters, speaking in them of these matters. His letters contain some things that are hard to understand…”
Don’t you love it that Scripture says Scripture can be hard to understand? Takes the pressure off. It’s supposed to be hard. It’s okay.
“I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings.” (Luke 16:9)
Yikes! Preach on that!
“The Law and the Prophets were proclaimed until John. Since that time, the good news of the kingdom of God is being preached, and everyone is forcing his way into it. It is easier for heaven and earth to disappear than for the least stroke of a pen to drop out of the Law. Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery, and the man who marries a divorced woman commits adultery. There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day. At his gate was laid a beggar named Lazarus, covered with sores and longing to eat what fell from the rich man’s table. Even the dogs came and licked his sores.” (Luke 16:16-19)
Hello! Non sequitur. Where did that marriage bit come from? Unfortunately, verses like this can often be pulled out of the context, where Jesus is trying to make a point, and made into hurtful doctrine.
“No one lights a lamp and puts it in a place where it will be hidden, or under a bowl. Instead he puts it on its stand, so that those who come in may see the light. Your eye is the lamp of your body. When your eyes are good, your whole body also is full of light. But when they are bad, your body also is full of darkness. See to it, then, that the light within you is not darkness. Therefore, if your whole body is full of light, and no part of it dark, it will be completely lighted, as when the light of a lamp shines on you.” (Luke 11:33-36)
I got the first part. Don’t hide my lamp. But the second part… my body full of light… no part of it dark… completely lighted, as when a lamp shines on you. Wha? Kind of Zen-like isn’t it. Also disconcerting. I don’t know about you but I think I will always be found with a few dark corners within me. Either way, it’s fun times breaking these down with a group.
Other times, you may see a passage in a completely new light. Like this past week, for example. Most of us have heard the verse from Luke 17:6, “If you have faith as small as a mustard seed [pictured], you can say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it will obey you.”
Sure, in other Gospels it is a mountain instead of a mulberry tree, but without using your hands, it’s still a pretty nifty trick. David Copperfield could build a TV special around it.
Haven’t you normally associated this verse with having more faith? Or with more effective faith? Have you ever said to yourself, If I only had more faith. Or, If I only had that guy’s faith. In context though, this verse reads much differently to me:
“If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him. If he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times comes back to you and says, ‘I repent,’ forgive him.”
The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!”
He replied, “If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it will obey you.” (verses 3-6)
First, I love it that after being chided for having more forgiveness, the apostles yell at him, “Give us more faith!”
But look at Jesus’ reply. Is he giving them more faith? If anything, he tells them that they could get by with a fraction of faith. The crucial detail here does not seem to be amount. He seems to imply that we already have all we need–maybe even more than we need. Perhaps, instead of sitting on the sidelines waiting for some mysterious package of additional faith to someday arrive, we should be out there using what little we have.
What do you think?
