Natalie's Grace Notes

  It’s “love your enemy” Sunday, y’all. The most uncomfortable words ever to come out of Jesus’ mouth. This teaching happens immediately after last week’s Gospel passage–the Sermon on the Plain, Luke’s version of the Beatitudes. Jesus is still standing on flat land, on eye level with everyone standing around him. The words he just said really dressed down a few key groups of people–the wealth hoarders, the food hoarders, and Jesus’ perpetual frenemies, the Pharisees. If any of those words describe you, should you bother to stay to hear more? And if none of those words describe you, if you are in the groups Jesus just called blessed–the poor, the food insecure, and the mourning–now what? If Jesus tells me that I’m blessed and woe will come to you, does that make you my enemy? And, if so, how am I supposed to treat you? Bringing up the word “enemy” in a spiritual circle is a great way to halt a conversation. That word makes us very uncomfortable, and that discomfort is coming from a ...

  The words we’re hearing today in our Gospel reading are words that sound vaguely familiar, but like they’re coming from the “wrong guy”. I’ve preached these sentiments many times before, and I quote them at nearly every funeral I preside over. You all have doubtless heard these words many times over, too, and heavily quoted in the public sphere for all kinds of reasons, good, bad, and otherwise. But most of us aren’t used to hearing these words coming out of Luke’s pen. Instead we prefer to hear these words as adapted by his near predecessor Matthew.  First, you get some background information on biblical scholarship and criticism, courtesy of your nerdy pastor who needs to fully utilize that master’s degree, because it was very expensive. Matthew, Mark, and Luke are what we call “the synoptic Gospels”, literally meaning that you can “look at them together”, and you’ll see giant chunks of words written exactly the same. We’re pretty sure that Mark, the shortest and hastiest ...

  Today’s sermon was brought to you by a typo. When I sent the bulletin information to Mary, I was struck by the two uses of the word “before” in the Old Testament reading from Jeremiah, and I didn’t have any other plans for the sermon, I was waiting for the Saturday afternoon surge of inspiration to hit me, likely between scoops of cookie dough ice cream. But when Mary sent out the bulletin, I took a close look at it, and noticed that she added something to my sermon title–a question mark. So, suddenly, the title of my sermon was no longer “Before”, statement, but “Before?” question. Huh. Then I realized…it’s perfect. This passage from Jeremiah chapter one, Jeremiah’s call narrative, has long been a favorite passage of mine. But I’ve preached it several times before, and 13 years deep in this line of work, coming up with new things to say about multi-thousand year old words can be a challenge. Not always, but certainly this week. “Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you. And b...