Pastor John Wright

This coming Sunday's readings are, as usual, powerful. Last Sunday as I listened to Richey Rodgers preach, I recognized something that I think is important. Protestant preaching, and maybe Catholic as well, tends to function as a "moral exhortation" or "instruction" as preparation for the table. What I heard so important from Rich was the call to gratitude to God that must be primary. As I reflected, it seems to me that we have to remember that our worship culminates in Eucharist -- thanksgiving. Yet thanksgiving, gratitude is moral, but in a strange way -- it's origin is always outside of ourselves. Gratitude comes only as a response for gift, the gift of creation, the gift of life, but most of all, the gift of Jesus Christ and the forgiveness from sins that comes in him.

To hear and read these Scriptures in gratitude changes the way we hear them. Rather than moral demands, they become the means of opening our lives to God's Spirit that learns to accept what is other as possible and as gift.

Deuteronomy 30:9-14

The setting, of course, is the re-narration of the Torah before the elect enter into the fullness of God's promise. The life under Torah is to be lived, not to achieve the promise, but to live fully in the promise of God. Turning to the Torah results from turning completely, wholly, to the Lord God in gratitude to receive the fulness of the promise. Why is the obedience to the Torah, living in the fullness of Torah, possible?

Colossians 1:1-14

An interesting thing about NT letters is that they expand the "thanksgiving" that usually constituted letters in antiquity. Rather than a short mentioning of thanks which was stereotypical, the NT epistles expand this section of the typical Greco-Roman letter. It might be good to go through the section to see why Paul is thankful and discuss what this thankfulness presupposes on part of the recipients. Yet again the passage looks into the future. Out of the thankfulness comes hope for them. What is the hope expressed? How is it related to the gratitude that comes first?

Luke 10:25-37

Hopefully this allows us to hear anew the parable of the Good Samaritan. What is the relationship between gratitude and love, between gratitude and living life to fulfill the Law? How does this help us see the parable differently? What really is the bloody, beaten enemy for the Samaritan? What is necessary for the formation of the character of the Samaritan to be able to undertake such an activity or to not be overwhelmed by it? How does it relate to the Lawyers question?

We live in a world that thinks of our life's activities in terms of duty or obligation, and Christianity largely in terms of this ethical obligation. How do these passages help us move beyond such an understanding?