Resource: Sermon on the Mount
Twice a year, Asbury Seminary releases a common scripture reader (print and digital forms) for the community. Now that Asbury has created Seedbed, the resourcing arm of the seminary, they are providing common readers to the folks outside the seminary community. I, for one, am very excited about this move.
They just launched ”Perfect” the Fall reader. The focus is on Jesus’ sermon on the Mount in Matthew, which concludes with the instruction, “Be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matt. 5:48). That is kinda a tough verse to live. So check out the reader, and especially audio resource linked below.
The Resource: Each week they are posting brief audio clips of a conversation with Dr. David Bauer teaching on the Sermon on the Mount. Dr. Bauer was my professor for Inductive Bible Study, and taught the course on the Gospel of Matthew. His class was one of the most helpful in how I read scripture. He has taught this particular book for over 25 years now and allowed it to live into his own life. That’s what we desire when we read the Bible, is to allow its story to inform and shape our story/stories.
Get the Resource:
- Mobile device: Go to http://mobilereader.asburyseminary.edu/#listen This link takes you right to the audio pieces, formatted for your phone. On an iPhone, it will give you instructions to make it an app on your home page screen. …pretty cool.
- Computer: Go to http://www.asburyreader.com
Lectionary Part 2: Devotional
Earlier this week I posted about how and why I use the lectionary in my preaching. In this post, I wanted to look at the lectionary as a devotional guide. Now, this is not the only way to read scripture devotionally. If you are looking for a variety of different plans, I recommend you check out YouVersion. The site has a great compilation of bible reading plans that vary in their length of time and scope of biblical books.
But why try a lectionary pattern? Here are several reasons:
- Sunday Preview: In a church that uses the lectionary, you will have a chance to read and think about the scriptures before hearing them in the service. This will allow you to do your own reflection and prayer around the scriptures.
- Connecting Various Scriptures: Each week the lectionary presents an Old Testament book, a psalm/proverb, the gospels, and from the New Testament letters. 4 readings from across God’s revelation over time. I enjoying seeing how these unconnected passages might shed light or speak to the others. It gives you a picture of the story of God over time.
- Christian Calendar: I found this graphic (above) of a liturgical calendar from blogger Internet Monk. The church calendar presents another view of our lives. It is not the linear calendars we are used to that tell us what we are doing. Instead, the church calendar tells us who we are in God’s story. It’s the difference between what we do, and who we are. We move through the year, through times of celebration in advent to solemn times of Christ’s death and burial. We encounter the risen Christ and move into Ordinary time or Kingdom-tide. This is the current season we are in, Kingdom-tide. It is a time to focus on the ministry and teaching of Jesus on the kingdom of heaven, and the gospels call on our lives.
How to do it: You can use your own method, and if you have one that works, please share it in the comments section. For me, I found it works to read one of the four passages each day during the week. Then, at the end of the week (Friday and/or Saturday) to look at how all four are connected. The focus in each reading is to see what God’s action is in the scripture. What is He doing, where is He working in the lives of His people? Then, look also to find how your story, your life, is connecting with the story in scripture. As with all scripture reading, prayer is the way we understand the scripture and discern how God is speaking to us.
Do you use the Lectionary in your own faith and devotion? If so, how? If not, why not? Leave a comment below please.
Related Blog Posts:
Lectionary Part 1: Why I Use It
The United Methodist Church does not have a required format or focus for the individual churches to use each week. Pastors are free to preach as they feel lead. That being said, one of the common tools of the trade is the Lectionary. This is a resource that breaks down the Bible so that in the course of three years, and individual or church can read through the whole New and Old Testament. For example, for this coming Sunday, the readings are from Genesis, a psalm, Romans, and Matthew. These readings also connect to the Church calendar.
Many other faith traditions would not even touch the lectionary. I confess, at times, I really struggle with its use too. When I am only presented with 4 scripture passages to preach from, there can be a sense that I have limited the leading of the Holy Spirit. This is one reason why UM pastors are free to work outside of the lectionary. But, one of my preaching professors in seminary advised that preaching from the lectionary was the best discipline for a young preacher. I am starting to agree.
The lectionary forces me to preach from passages, stories, and books of the Bible I might otherwise not land on in my sermon study. My tendency is to move toward familiar passages in scripture that I have heard a good sermon on, or are my favorite. This past week I preached from Genesis 32, where Jacob wrestles with God. Two weeks ago, I came to the parable of the wheat and the weeds in Matthew 13. Both are great stories, but neither were on my radar during preparation. But here lies the spiritual discipline part. The purpose of spiritual disciplines is to form us into Jesus-likeness in our actions and our relationship with Him. The lectionary discipline challenges and stretches me. In the cases of my first two sermons at First Church, I began the week looking at a scripture and wondering if it was the “right” one for the congregation. Did this scripture contain the specific message God wanted to communicate? In both cases, by Friday, I looked at the finished sermon and was amazed. God had worked through the lectionary text and lead me to form a sermon that I felt really connected the congregation’s story to God’s story. Now, don’t hear me wrong. I am not in the category of saying it is the only way to preach, but for me, this discipline is teaching me.
There is a stream who says the lectionary limits God’s work in the church. I am seeing just the opposite. Its use does not limit God, but really opens all of God’s Word to us over the span of time. Plus, difficult and challenging passages which typically would be avoided are brought out and served to the congregation, precisely because they happened to “come up” on the lectionary calendar. In my ministry, the use of the Lectionary is forming me through scriptures that I may not have otherwise considered.
The next post, part 2, will look beyond preaching the lectionary, to its uses in our devotional lives. Stay tuned!
(Image taken from the “Lectionary” iPhone app…which is FREE!)
Moses, Thermostats, and Culture
Let me ask you a question. What does a thermometer do? (seriously, take time to answer mentally). If you said “measures temperature” that is right (good job!). Thermometers respond to the environment. Whether 85 or 42 degrees, that is what they report.
So, what does a thermostat do? It not only measures the temperature in the environment, but it also controls the environment. If the space is to hot, it can introduce cool air to bring it down to a more pleasing temperature, and then keep it there. Thermometers are passive, simply reacting to the surrounding environment. Thermostats are active agents of change in an environment.
After witnessing the abuse of one of his fellow Hebrews by their Egyptian slave-owner, Moses kills the Egyptian and buries him the sand. When he is confronted the next day about the crime, he decides to flee from the coming wrath of Pharaoh. The environment around Moses was heating up, and was about to come to a boiling point. You remember those cartoons where the red thermometer mercury keeps rising until it finally bursts out the top? Moses was about to burst. So he got out of Dodge…Egypt. His environment forced him to a breaking point.
But God keeps working with Moses. God meets him in the desert in Chapters 3 and 4. Moses is called to go back to Egypt, except this time he will be a thermostat. Things were going to get hot because God was preparing to pull His people out of their slavery. Each time Pharaoh refuses to let the Hebrews leave, Moses responds by setting the expectation. Pharaoh increases the work load of the people, and Moses demonstrates the power of God. No longer was Moses changing with the whim of the environment.
This analogy has been coming close to home for me this week. As I begin my new job as a pastor, and as I join the journey that my church is on, I pray that we will be a thermostat. The city may expect us to react to what the think is important. People might think we should keep to ourselves, and not meddle in their lives. Our culture may think our values are silly. God has called us to influence our environment. So I am praying about how God desires to us my gifts, in conjunction with the church, to blow cool air on the sweltering parts of our city. I am proud to be pastoring a church that eagerly desires to see God’s environment come not only downtown, but also in central Florida, and all over the world.
God wants earth to look like heaven. He uses reluctant people like Moses, a man who ran from trouble, feared human rulers, and apparently was not an eloquent speaker. Ordinary thermometers are transformed into thermostats as we encounter the living God. People like you, and me.
How has God made you into a thermostat in your environment?
