Seeking Abundance
October 20, 2024 | Rev. John Young
Readings: Isaiah 55:1-5; Psalm 145; John 6:1-15
Both this Sunday’s Scripture lessons—the one from Isaiah and the one from John’s Gospel—involve abundance. In the passage from Isaiah, the prophet recounts God’s words to the people of Judah who are in exile in Babylon. It is a promise that those who have suffered much—loss of their homeland, exile, deprivation—will find an abundant life in a renewed covenant with God. It is an invitation to return to their homeland and to trust that God will provide the abundant life offered in this story.
The passage from John’s Gospel recounts the “feeding of the five thousand,” the only miracle story to be found in all four gospels, a fact that in and of itself might speak to the importance of this story in the life of the early church. While early Christians, indeed Christians for many centuries, found the miracle of Jesus feeding the five thousand to be a key proof that he was who he said he was, we may be more convinced by other aspects of Jesus’ life and work. But this story, in a way different from the Isaiah passage, is also a story about abundance, God’s abundance, in our world.
In the sermon, on the Sunday when we think about World Food Day, I want to do some reflection on the notion of abundance as we find it in both these stories, and in particular in the passage from John’s Gospel.
Why Shouldn’t We Worry
October 13, 2024 | Rev. Dr. John H. Young
Readings: Joel 2:21-27; Psalm 126; Matthew 6:25-33
Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount (Matthew, chapters five through seven) includes some of Jesus’ more challenging instructions to his followers. Among those challenging instructions would be this week’s reading from Matthew’s Gospel. That passage begins: “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear.”
Those words are all well and good. At the same time, food does not magically appear on our table. The clothing we wear requires that we pay for it, whether we purchase it at a store or on line. And if we extend our thinking to our world, there seems to be much about what we might legitimately worry—violence and war in some parts of our world, climate change, a shortage of affordable housing in our area, to mention but a few things. And people in Judea in Jesus’ day also faced some significant challenges—finding sufficient food and living under military occupation, to name but two examples. So what did Jesus mean when he said to his followers, “Do not worry about your life?” Is his advice realistic in our world? This week’s sermon will explore those questions, something perhaps particularly germane on the Sunday of the Thanksgiving weekend.
What Do We Do with Job?
October 6, 2024 | Rev. Dr. John H. Young
Readings: Job 1:1 – 2:10; Psalm 130
“Job is the most difficult book of the Bible to interpret.” So wrote Mayer Gruber in the “Introduction” to the book of Job in The Jewish Study Bible (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), p. 1500. Gruber was writing about the challenges of translating the Hebrew text into English—many of the Hebrew words in the book of Job are found only there, making translation a less than certain enterprise, and it is also hard to know how to structure some of the Hebrew poetry when rendering it into English.
When I initially read Gruber’s sentence, however, I thought he was going to write about difficult the book of Job is to interpret in terms of its message. After all, we have a righteous, faithful, innocent individual who suffers the loss of everything—his wealth and possessions, his ten children, and his health. It is a story that counters the notion found in some passages of Scripture that good, faithful living will bring prosperity and good health. That same “faith will bring a good life and prosperity” concept is also held by some Christians in our day. The story of Job profoundly challenges that understanding. Most of us know that our own lived experiences challenge that understanding, too—or if not our own lived experience, we know of people who have lived faithful and exceptional lives while also experiencing much suffering.
So, what do we do with the book of Job, with the reality that we know “bad things happen to good people,” to quote part of the title of a book written by Harold Kushner after the death of his young son? This Sunday’s sermon will explore some of the many questions the book of Job raises for us..