Our scripture reading comes after a challenging time for Elijah, the prophet. You can read that part of the story in the preceding verses, but suffice it to say that it was a time of intense and productive activity, relational conflict, physical exhaustion, a major success, and a crushing disappointment.
The writer Annie Dillard once said that if we truly heard the radical character of the Easter story we should go to church wearing a crash helmet.
It occurs to me that we always live in an in-between time — no longer the past and not yet the future. We live between past and future.
How do you most often use the word “hope” or hear the word being used?
In today’s reading, we have Jesus’ words preparing his disciples for the lonely time when he is no longer physically with them.
The first eleven verses of the Sermon on the Mount describe those who are “blessed,” a translation of the Greek word makarios, meaning “superabundant joy.”
The house of Simon and Andrew was home base for Jesus and the disciples in Galilee. It was in the town of Capernaum on the shore of the Sea of Galilee.
Today we have another reading from the longest Psalm in the Bible. It is mostly an extended prayer.
Our text is the story of Mary and Martha from the tenth chapter of Luke. Jesus is visiting in the home of a woman named Martha and her sister Mary.