Where is our bread shop? John 6:25-35

John 6:25-35               Gospel reading for Harvest Thanksgiving Sunday 28/02/2010

I have taken the liberty this week of departing from the standard lectionary reading. The main reason for this is that the music group that I am involved in at our church, is playing next Sunday and we have been examining the readings in preparation for that. It just happens to be a special service that we traditionally have labeled Harvest Thanksgiving. I thought therefore that it would be good to explore this harvest festival Gospel reading in a schools context.

I actually find this reading to be quite humorous, especially if we just step back a little from it and take a look at the events leading up to verses 25-35. The opening verse I think is quite hilarious. First of all it seems that Jesus has “missed the boat” - so He pulls out a neat little divine trick and strolls out to the boat some 5 kms out on the lake, giving his disciples one hell of a scare in the process. I can just picture Jesus saying “boo!” and having a bit of a chuckle to himself. Interestingly, as soon as they took Him into the boat, they reached the shore … this time a great little divine time-machine trick, given that the lake is about 20 kms long and 12 kms wide!

If we are thinking about a thanksgiving festival, there would be many things that we could be thankful for. Perhaps it would be a valuable exercise for us all to do a 30 second brain-storm of that as a staff group with a follow-up of praise and thanksgiving to God for our many blessings. The incredible wind-fall that many of our schools have enjoyed through the stimulus package would have to be a noteworthy point. However, I want to steer away from the obvious - Jesus saying those well-known words: “I am the bread of life”. I'll just leave a question to ponder on that … “Where is the bread shop for our school”?

So I want to come back to that verse 25 and make one simple point. We can well ask “Hey Jesus, when did you get here?” The comforting reality if we have a correct view of the incarnation, is that Jesus has already arrived and is already present in any situation that we find ourselves in. No matter the complexity or delicate nature of the most all-consuming pressure points of our work, Jesus is already there with us. He has arrived before us and we can be very reassured of His presence in navigating our way through even the most tense and tricky of issues.

Nev

How is the Temptation relevant to us today? Luke 4: 1-13

Luke 4: 1-13   Gospel reading for Sunday 21st February 2010

We seem to be hopping around a bit here with the readings. Last Sunday was the transfiguration account (Luke 9), but this week we are back in Luke 4 exploring the temptation of Jesus. From what I can gather, it is traditional to use the Transfiguration reading before we enter Lent and then hear the Temptation account on the first Sunday in Lent. There may be some biblical / theological scholars amongst our circulation list who could throw some light on that for us! (Feel free to post a comment.)

For most of us, the temptation account is probably a familiar story. It would be easy to become engrossed in an analysis of the temptation, including the lead up (Baptism of Jesus), the desert setting, being led by the Spirit and the three specific sections of the temptation. As an observation, which is something of an aside, it does seem that this is a rare occurrence of the words of Satan actually being quoted in Scripture. I can think of the Garden of Eden exchange, the conversation between God and Satan in Job … but are there any others apart from this significant three-part event?

As always though, I want to focus in this short space on what it means for us today as leaders in Lutheran Schools.

I can’t help thinking that we tend to down-play, ignore, maybe even  reject the work of Satan in our world. Whatever our view on this, it seems that temptations in various forms remain.

It is part of our natural instinct to want to "look good". Take NAPLAN for example: Is it tempting to “teach to the tests” so that we have a fully “green screen” MySchool web report, at the expense of throwing out what we believe about having students engage in quality teaching and learning experiences?

The second temptation of Jesus in our reading, strikes me as a case of everyday life for us in the 21st Century. There is a world full of temptations to distract us from true worship. Capitalism / consumerism / the “I want” mentality / obsessions with building the nest egg / trading up to the latest in cars, house, TVs, Ipods, phones, cameras, clothes.

For me the temptation reading is a reminder to us all to stay with the narrow, bumpy, winding, roller-coaster ride of modern day Christian life rather than getting sucked in to the cruise-control world of a multi-lane open country freeway. Further, if we are to maintain our integrity as Lutheran Schools, it is our duty to continually chip away at building a view of the world that is seen, appreciated and lived as if through the eyes of Jesus.
Nev

Transfiguration: bizarre story or critical incident? Luke 9:28-36

Luke 9:28-36    Gospel reading for Sunday 14th February 2010

What’s God up to here?
First of all, some observations and some questions:
What is it about mountains (always the scene of special events)?
What is it with Peter James and John – are they his mates? Do they get special privileges?
Nice party trick … pulling Elijah and Moses out of the hat! What a blast from the past!
A rare occurrence of God speaking directly in the NewTestament. Not only that, here we have God the Father and Jesus in action together. (Is the baptism of Jesus the only other time that this happens?)
Jesus says don’t tell anyone. (see Mark 9 parallel)

What’s the point of all this? It seems that rather than a bizarre story, it was a critical incident then, necessary and essential to highlight the kingdom of God arriving through the person of Jesus; an authentication of the divine nature of Jesus and confirmation of his relationship to God.
However for us today, I don’t think we need convincing that Jesus is the real deal. So what is the relevance of this incident for us now? We could just pass this off as an interesting biblical story out of the past, or we could take it as a call for serious action.
If we genuinely view scripture as God’s living Word, then we need to allow it to speak to us, to challenge our thinking and our actions at our stations, in our daily lives, in our work place. Here are a few thoughts that came to mind for me.
Well good old Peter (representative of us?) in his usual bumbling fashion, comes up with a plan. Can I paraphrase? “This is so good being with you here Lord, we don’t want this mountain-top experience to end. Let’s build a shelter (a church even?) so that we can live here and just keep on enjoying your presence.” Jesus has other things in mind. “Sorry boys – you need to come down off the mountain, down into the valleys – don’t hide yourself in buildings, get out where the people are … you need to share this with the world around you (but not just yet … I’ve got a bit of work to do first.)”

The challenge for us as key staff in Lutheran Schools, who at some point have had the mountain-top privilege of Jesus being revealed to us, is to do something with that! We are already down off the mountain and in the valleys of the young people and families in our school communities. How will we help these people (and even some of our staff) to see that mountain-top vision of who Jesus really is? We are being called out of our shelters, called into action. How will we show Jesus to someone this week?
Nev