Sunday Stretch: Vol. 77

Start off your week with a grounded take on Bible, prayer, the world, and your life ...

Hi Readers,

As I write to you I’m currently playing the fun little game of: is it, a) allergies b) a cold or c) influenza? All answers win chicken noodle soup, fatigue, and Theraflu tea (which I am also currently drinking!)

Trees are some of my favorite things, and I love to see them budding here in Minnesota, but they’re also one of my worst allergy triggers. So, hopefully that’s all it is.

ICYMI, I got to preach last week as part of my sabbatical coverage at Bethlehem Lutheran Church - Minneapolis campus. You can view the service here if you’re interested; I loved getting to lead with my friend, the Rev. Meta Herrick Carlson.

I’ll be preaching again next Sunday, April 28, at Bethlehem’s Minnetonka (Minn.) campus at 9:30 a.m.

I also last week started a brand-new permanent part-time pastoral call! I’m going to write a whole post about that and will share it with you this week. I’m really excited to share it with you.

All that to say - with all of this change and busyness in the air - maybe it’s not so surprising I’ve found myself a little run-down, health-wise. I’m trying to be better in these moments than I used to be, when I would push myself past the point of exhaustion and try not to miss a beat every time I got sick. Shockingly, when I did that, I tended to have colds and sinus infections that dragged on for weeks. Instead, I’m going to do what I can this week to rest a bit. I welcome your prayers for energy and healing!

And you know what else I can always count on to bring me healing? Honestly - just a few moments of dwelling in the Word. So let’s get to the texts!

Bible Stories

Acts 4:5-12

Acts 20:28 Keep watch over yourselves and over all the flock, of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God^a that he obtained with the blood of his own Son.^{b  29} I know that after I have gone, savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock. ³⁰ Some even from your own group will come distorting the truth in order to entice the disciples to follow them. ³¹ Therefore be alert, remembering that for three years I did not cease night or day to warn everyone with tears. ³² And now I commend you to God and to the message of his grace, a message that is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance among all who are sanctified.

This passage from Acts matches up with the imagery of sheep and shepherds we’ll read later in the Gospel of John parable from Jesus about the Good Shepherd. I don’t know if you’ve all been following at all the recent fallout around Texas megachurch pastor Josh Howerton, and his gross comments about women “obeying” their husbands’ explicit instructions on their wedding nights. I read an article this morning about Howerton’s “apology,” and I reference it here because I believe in the video Howerton refers to his congregation as his “sheep.” Somehow modern Christian leaders have taken the meaning of being shepherd to mean they get to be some kind of king, surrounded only by followers and yes-men who will not challenge their authority. I think these leaders are much more savage wolves, as Paul references in verse 29.

Questions to Ponder

Paul tells the early Christians to “be alert” and to listen to the warnings he gave “with tears.” What might this being alert look like for us?

What do you think the word sanctified means here in verse 32? Look it up in the original biblical Greek.

Are the apostles part of the flock that Paul references? Why or why not?

1 John 3:16-24

1John 3:16 We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us—and we ought to lay down our lives for one another. ¹⁷ How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister^a in need and yet refuses help?

1John 3:18   Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action. ¹⁹ And by this we will know that we are from the truth and will reassure our hearts before him ²⁰ whenever our hearts condemn us; for God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything. ²¹ Beloved, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have boldness before God; ²² and we receive from him whatever we ask, because we obey his commandments and do what pleases him.

1John 3:23   And this is his commandment, that we should believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us. ²⁴ All who obey his commandments abide in him, and he abides in them. And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit that he has given us.

I remember learning in seminary that 1 John is a good book to study for those who are beginning in their learning of biblical Greek. That’s because, as we see here, 1 John tends to be repetitive and to say the same thing in different ways, allowing for detailed language study. I love to think of the word abiding as a key descriptor for Jesus.

How do verses 16-17 describe love? Who is called to sacrifice for one another?

How does this passage say Christians should treat people who are in need?

What does this passage have to say about doctrine?

John 10:11-18

John 10:11   “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. ¹² The hired hand, who is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and runs away—and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. ¹³ The hired hand runs away because a hired hand does not care for the sheep. ¹⁴ I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, ¹⁵ just as the Father knows me and I know the Father. And I lay down my life for the sheep. ¹⁶ I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd. ¹⁷ For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life in order to take it up again. ¹⁸ No one takes^a it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again. I have received this command from my Father.”

I find these words from Jesus to be deeply moving this week. As I write this, I am thinking of the recent news from the Holy Land, where Iran sent hundreds of bombing missions last Sunday night, in response to Israel’s fight against Hamas in Gaza. Mercifully, most of these missiles were thwarted before exploding or causing harm. However, there was one injury related to these bombs: the critical injury of a 7-year-old Bedouin Israeli girl, named Amina al-Hassouni.