Today’s Lectionary Readings: Psalm 119:57-96; Isaiah 63:1-5; John 5:1-18; Revelation 2:8-17
It’s often difficult for folks to identify things in Scripture with which they wrestle. I suppose that’s because they equate giving voice to such struggles with being sacrilegious. If that’s the case, then I guess today I will be sacrilegious. For today’s reading from the Gospel of John includes an embedded piece of theology (from the mouth of Jesus no less!) that I wrestle with. You might remember that near the end of today’s passage, Jesus encountered the man he had cured earlier in the Temple. When Jesus sees the man the Gospel of John attributes these words to Jesus: “See, you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you” (John 5:14 – NIV). Those words tie into a theological stream going back to Hebrew Scriptures that suggests one’s illness is a punishment for one’s sins. Over the years I have encountered hundreds of folks with a variety of illness ranging from epilepsy to diabetes to bi-polar disorders who – using the sentiment embedded in these words – would have been judged by their peers to be morally suspect. Sadly, this way of thinking has driven many folks away from God. Thankfully over the years we have arrived at a point where most no longer understand illnesses this way. Nevertheless, today’s passage reminded me that often one of the greatest challenge of our faith is to find ways of integrating pre-modern understandings and expressions of the faith into our modern world. Some are overwhelmed by this challenge and chose not to integrate the two – they choose to embrace pre-modern beliefs and ignore modern advances entirely or they embrace only modern notions and completely abandon earlier expressions of the faith all together. Unfortunately, I believe much is lost when we simply chose one over the other. Today I invite you to think about how you deal with this pre-modern vs. modern dilemma. May God’s generous and gracious spirit guide us as we seek to arrive at understandings that don’t just reflect our will and our ways – but God’s as well. Til next time…
It’s often difficult for folks to identify things in Scripture with which they wrestle. I suppose that’s because they equate giving voice to such struggles with being sacrilegious. If that’s the case, then I guess today I will be sacrilegious. For today’s reading from the Gospel of John includes an embedded piece of theology (from the mouth of Jesus no less!) that I wrestle with. You might remember that near the end of today’s passage, Jesus encountered the man he had cured earlier in the Temple. When Jesus sees the man the Gospel of John attributes these words to Jesus: “See, you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you” (John 5:14 – NIV). Those words tie into a theological stream going back to Hebrew Scriptures that suggests one’s illness is a punishment for one’s sins. Over the years I have encountered hundreds of folks with a variety of illness ranging from epilepsy to diabetes to bi-polar disorders who – using the sentiment embedded in these words – would have been judged by their peers to be morally suspect. Sadly, this way of thinking has driven many folks away from God. Thankfully over the years we have arrived at a point where most no longer understand illnesses this way. Nevertheless, today’s passage reminded me that often one of the greatest challenge of our faith is to find ways of integrating pre-modern understandings and expressions of the faith into our modern world. Some are overwhelmed by this challenge and chose not to integrate the two – they choose to embrace pre-modern beliefs and ignore modern advances entirely or they embrace only modern notions and completely abandon earlier expressions of the faith all together. Unfortunately, I believe much is lost when we simply chose one over the other. Today I invite you to think about how you deal with this pre-modern vs. modern dilemma. May God’s generous and gracious spirit guide us as we seek to arrive at understandings that don’t just reflect our will and our ways – but God’s as well. Til next time…
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