The Scriptural Deacon

On Fridays I teach the middle school kids at OLPH a Bible study. That is the local Catholic school here in Rocky Mount. One of the things we talked about this past week was what the people of Jesus’s day where expecting from him, from a promised Messiah. From this man who was making himself out to be the “King of the Jews”. How would they think he would arrive in Jerusalem? Well surely they thought, he would come upon a white house as all kings do. He would have had a sword in his hand and would be ready to fight these wicked pagans at any cost. But how did he come? He comes into Jerusalem as the “meek and humble rider”, sitting upon a donkey and as Luke tells us he is weeping for Jerusalem. This is a far cry from what the people of the day expected. Or from what we too, might expect from a King making his grand and triumphal entrance. We can see this great expectation with the crowds as they cry out, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the kingdo...

The opening verse of Psalm 36 is, “The transgressor, that he may sin, speaks within himself; the is no fear of God before his eyes.” Here we find a man who has to convince himself that his actions and thoughts are not really sinful. He is saying sin is not a problem for me. I am ok. I think this is what many people do today. They spend much time and go to great lengths to try to say within themselves, “I am doing no wrong, there is no sin in me. I never do anything to bad.” But what is this problem with this? The key issue is that sin breaks down our relationship, not only with God, but also with one another. Every action and thought that we have has a result upon something or someone else. We see this on display in the Parable of the Pharisee and Tax Collector (Luke 18:9-14). Jesus tells the parable it those, “who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and despised others.” My thought is that this situation, this way of thinking, must have been as bad then as it is today....

The Church’s Lectionary in the West, gives us two readings today that I would like to reflect upon briefly. The first is from Daniel (3:14-20, 91-92, 95) and its part of the scene where King Nebuchadnezzar sends the three youths into the fiery furnace because they will not fall down and worship the false god the king has created for himself. The second is from the Gospel of John (8:31-42). There our Lord himself says these very powerful words for us to think about and live by, “If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” (8:31-32) When we bring these two readings together we get the story of a God who is faithful to his people and at the same time this faithfulness requires in return our faithfulness. The three youths will not bow down to the false gods of their time, just as we should not bow down and worship the false god’s who make themselves manifest through our own sins. This is just what we do when w...