Excerpts from messages being presented at area places of worship this weekend.
The Rev. Jane Florence, First United Methodist Church, Omaha
2 Corinthians 8: 1-15
People often express their affection or displeasure in the giving or withholding of gifts and their money. We give gifts to the people we love and money to the causes we endorse. We don’t often give money to causes or people that we don’t approve of or to those who have not approved of us.
Paul had a lot of nerve asking the Gentile-Christians at Corinth to take up an offering for the Jewish-Christians in Jerusalem. There was conflict and contention in the Corinthian community. They fought with each other; they were angry with Paul; they were rejected by the people in Jerusalem.
The Jewish-Christians of Jerusalem maintained the purity rituals and laws faithful to their ancient scriptures. The newer communities of Christians in Corinth did not keep the same laws and rituals. Paul asked people who didn’t like him to give money for people who didn’t like them. The situation is ripe for refusal.
We can understand this passage in light of the many factions and divisions between people of God in the world today. Paul is bold to ask the people of Corinth to look beyond their hurt feelings, distrusts, and dislikes. He asks them to focus instead on the compassion of God for all people. He asks them to balance their abundance against other people’s needs in spite of theological and ethnic differences.
Divine compassion remains ready to pour into this world whenever we open our hearts and hands to care for one another.
Monsignor James Gilg, St. Mary Magdalene Catholic Church
Scripture: Mark 4:35-41
Being tossed around in the storms of our life’s journey is an experience that we would like to avoid, but which seems to come around over and over again. We would like to learn to conquer it and move through the turmoil with the calmness displayed by Jesus as he sleeps in the stern while the small boat rises and falls with the rough sea and begins to fill with water. Like the disciples, we are terrified and cry out for help.
Jesus provides that help in the Gospel account, and Jesus is to be the source of our help as well. As the years go on, we hopefully learn better ways to deal with the turmoil, but there comes a time when our human resources alone come up short and leave us no other option than to turn to Jesus, who offers Himself as our “rock” and our “shelter.”
Nurturing our relationship with Jesus during calmer times is important if we are to know how to rush to him for help in the moments of panic. Our habitual times of prayer and devotion provide a grounding and a pattern of easy access to Him that comes to our rescue when we need Him quickly. Giving quality time and focused energy to our relationship with Him today is our best defense against the possible storms of tomorrow.
The Rev. Matt Nieman, First Presbyterian Church, Bellevue
Leading up to the Old Testament story of David’s encounter with Goliath, we don’t learn much about David’s proficiency with a slingshot. Samuel doesn’t allude to any particular experience or affinity he had for such a device. So when he slung that first small stone and dropped the mighty Philistine, we have to conclude that there was more than slingshot expertise that made him so successful. In the face of long odds — outmanned in size, armor and ammunition — David came up victorious because of something other than tactics or skill.
David took down Goliath largely because of what he believed. He believed in himself and in the cause for which he was fighting. And that belief allowed him to do something that was extraordinary.
David believed so much in Israel’s cause and that God was behind Israel in its existence and in its mission that he had the courage to stand up to an overwhelming force and find success. In our own journeys, both personal and collectively as the church, we should be realistic about what we can achieve; but we also should not discount the potential we have to do great things in the name of the God we worship.
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