Pastor John Wright

In a few minutes, before I finish this post, I will change clothes to move to a memorial service for Roberta Reed, the wife of a Rev. Dr. Gerard Reed, a colleague who retired at the end of next year. Roberta struggled with a rare form of cancer, and in June, went through an experimental treatment to help her fight off the cancer -- a form that attacked the immune system. The treatment actually worked -- the cancer was cured. Unfortunately, the treatment evoked other problems in her system, and she died as a direct result of her treatment. Roberta died the day before Gerard formally began his retirement. Gerard will deeply miss her -- he is as devoted of a husband that one could ever imagine. Yet what could be seen as an utter tragedy takes on different light as Roberta was a faithful follower of Jesus Christ -- and thus lived, even in her illness, as one not without hope. She faced the last years of her life, with Gerard by her side, with a tremendous dignity, grace, and love -- even amid the trials that her "treatments" provided for her.

We live in a culture that turns death into a sentimental "he or she is always there looking down on us" or repressing its reality -- both symptoms of denial. Denial comes from the paradox fear of death and love of death that our culture exhibits -- two sides of the same coin. This covenant with death reduces our lives merely with "values" -- a significance that we or others must project upon our lives. Rather than finding our selves living from God to God, we live towards death -- and try to cram as much "fun" in before it comes. Death provides a refuge for the ultimate ending of the struggles of our life -- nothing more.

Yet with Gerard and Roberta, we know the "more" -- that Love that transcends us because it has become us in Jesus Christ, crucified and raised. Our readings take us here this week. The readings take us past the "I'm okay, you're okay" covenant with death to a live lived on a cornerstone -- what the Scriptures call, a live that is really life, an image that the Scriptures invoke through the image of Zion.

Isaiah 28:14-22

As you read the Isaiah passage, compare those who look to "a covenant with death" for their immediate salvation versus those who dwell in Zion, built on the cornerstone. Can you think of situations in our culture of persons who try to survive by a "covenant with death"? Traditionally "Zion" has been seen as a typology for the church (i.e., local congregations) as well as the "cornerstone" being Jesus Christ. What is the differences of trust? Why does where one places one's trust/loyalty make a difference? Why does destruction/judgment attend to those who enter a covenant with death?

Hebrews 12:18-19,22-29

The Hebrews passage begins with an allusion to Exodus 19 -- God's address to Israel at Mount Sinai. What is it that one finds in "Mount Zion"? How? Why does one "receive the kingdom" rather than "build it"? What is the relationship between the kingdom and Mount Zion?

Luke 13:22-30

Does Jesus answer the question that "someone asked him"? What question does Jesus answer? What is his answer? Who "enters the door"? Why are people turned away for an answer that is inadequate?

The the Scriptures all make strong distinctions between "Zion" and "those left outside". What does this tell us about God? What does it tell us about "covenants with death" and life built on the cornerstone in Zion? What is necessary to insure the importance of one's activities in the world now?