Rest for the Weary

Collect for the Third Sunday in Lent

Almighty God, you know that I have no power in myself to help myself: Keep me both outwardly in my body and inwardly in my soul, that I may be defended from all adversities which may happen to the body, and from all evil thoughts which may assault and hurt the soul; through Jesus Christ the Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Rest for the Weary (Matthew 11:2-12:50)

Jesus isn't pulling any punches in these chapters filled with teaching, healing, and run-ins with the authorities. He compares his opponents to whiny “children sitting in the marketplaces” (11:16); he pronounces woes upon the cities that witnessed his “deeds of power” and yet “did not repent” (11:20); he flouts the laws prohibiting work on the sabbath (12:1-14); and he calls the Pharisees a “brood of vipers” (12:34) and worse. But amid all the vitriol are some equally significant moments of mercy, like the restoration of a man's withered hand (12:13-14) and a demoniac's senses (12:22).

I think there's an important insight bound up in the contrasts found in this eighty-verse emotional roller coaster. On one hand, we are reminded that Jesus is nothing if not demanding. With his words he warns repeatedly of the coming “day of judgment” (11:22, 12:36), and with his actions he calls his followers to join him in sacrificial solidarity with all who are needy, ailing, or marginalized (11:5, 11:19, 11:25, 12:13-14, 12:22). There's no doubt about it: the Lord expects great things from us.

AND there is tender reassurance here too, a reminder that God mercifully equips us for the work ahead. We saw at the beginning of Chapter 10 how Jesus gave his disciples authority to do their healing work in the Judean countryside. Now at the end of chapter 11 he promises us all a still greater gift: “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (11:28-30).

We hear these words so often that I think it's easy to overlook their counter-intuitive implication. But it seems like the message is this: the rest and refreshment goes (or rather comes) hand in hand with our willingness to shoulder, as it were, the responsibility God places upon us. It is in taking up the work of the gospel that we receive the rest our souls so long for. How exactly does that work? Beats me. My guess is that it helps us reevaluate the weight we were originally carrying.

Kyle Oliver

Seminarian studying at Virginia Theological Seminary

St. Francis House Episcopal Student Center, Madison

Israel's Repudiation of Jesus

Video for Week 3, March 27-April 2

Israel’s Repudiation of Jesus

Matthew 11:2-16:12

Discussion Questions

We witness people starting to question Jesus and his role more fervently this week.  I wonder when you may have had a time in your life when you questioned God, when you questioned Jesus?  Where did you find God/Jesus in this time?

We hear of people, especially the Pharisees, questioning Jesus and wanting him to be put down, to be arrested and tried.  Throughout these struggles and questions, Jesus remains true to who he is and what he has come to do.  What do you think it was like to be one of the disciples in the midst of this back and forth?  What was it like to be in the midst of this struggle?

Jesus strives to make his word and works clear to those around him.  Is there a place of clarity for you in this week’s readings?  In the Gospel of Matthew?

Learning the Beatitudes

Collect for Tuesday in the Second Week of Lent

O God, you willed to redeem us from all iniquity by your Son: Deliver us when we are tempted to regard sin without abhorrence, and let the virtue of his passion come between us and our mortal enemy; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Learning the Beatitudes

Matthew 4:23-48

As a child, okay, who am I kidding, even as a new priest, I wasn’t very fond of the Beatitudes. I think I managed to spend the first four years of my ordained life avoiding preaching and teaching anything related to the Beatitudes.

Looking back, I saw the Beatitudes as yet another set of expectations of how I must live my life. You know, like the Ten Commandments: another list of thou shall’s and thou shall not’s! I have this understanding that we are children of God who are loved by God not for what we didn’t do wrong, but for who we are in our created being...the last thing I needed was another list of expectations.

It was sometime about 2 or 3 years ago, long after I found the Episcopal church, even after I had been ordained, that I began to see the Beatitudes not as a to-do (or not-to-do) list, but as a set of “sign-posts”, as John Purdy calls them in his Blessed are You Kerygma study (p. 3). The Beatitudes are, for example, sign-posts to remind us that when we are going through life and we feel as if someone has done an injustice to us and we should seek justice, we must remember “blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.”

This portion of Matthew’s Gospel we are to read today, the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount, calls to our attention that we need to focus on our intentions as we continue along our spiritual journeys. If we focus only on our actions, then we are already lost on our journey. However, if we can control our intentions, then our actions will surprise even ourselves. As you go along your journey, let your yes be yes and your no be no and when you see the uprising start, “remember that blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called the children of God.”

Oh, and one final thing, this year, for the first time, I am teaching, and learning even more, about the Beatitudes. What an awe-filled experience! God’s truth was unchanging, but my understanding of God’s truth was transformed by the sign-posts along my journey. This Lent, how will you be transformed by God’s signs posted along your journey?

The Rev. Kenny Miller

Rector

St. Boniface Episcopal Church, Mequon

The Calling of the First Disciples

Collect for Monday in the Second Week of Lent

Let your Spirit, O Lord, come into the midst of us to wash us with the pure water of repentance, and prepare us to be always a living sacrifice to you; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

The Calling of the First Disciples

Matthew 4:18-22

Jesus’ ministry is beginning and he needs to put his team together and to build a community able to carry on his message – ‘Repent the Kingdom of God is near’ (Matt 4:17). How would you put such a team together? How would I? I would need to know what their role is and what are their expectations – what skills are needed? Let’s go back and look at what discipleship meant in Jesus’ time.

The role of the disciple (student, apprentice or follower) was to learn as much as they could from the rabbi to be able to carry on the rabbi’s work just as he did. They were the best of the best and expected to have memorized the Torah, the laws of Moses and be able to respect and honor the rabbi and his work. It was an honor to be chosen. If you were not chosen, believed not to have the knowledge and skills to be a disciple, you went back to your family and learned the family trade.

I see now why the disciples act as they do upon the invitation to follow Jesus. They are back learning their trade and have been passed by other rabbis and now to have Jesus come to them and say ‘Follow me and I will make you fishers of men’. Jesus has faith in them and he believes they can carry on his work – wow that is a powerful statement.

Jesus takes them where they are and builds on who they are. We see Simon and Andrew working on their own while James and John are still working with their father - and all of them leave their homes. They have hope and the desire for more. They know as a disciple they will learn, will be supported in community and moreover they will obey their rabbi by doing and living into his teachings and commandments. They are called into action and they are ready to go because of the belief and faith Jesus has in them simply by saying the words ‘Come follow me’.

Is discipleship different for us? If it means that we are learning, spending time with Jesus, living in and support of a community of followers, AND obeying the teachings and commandments of Christ then no it is the same. The question for us is do we understand discipleship to be the honor Simon, Andrew, James and John did?

Does Jesus have the same expectations of us as he had for the first disciples? Does he have faith in us that we can carry on his message and live into full discipleship (Matt.28:18-20)? I believe he does and I believe he takes us as we are and builds up our gifts and skills so that we can go and engage the world just as he did with Simon, Peter, James and John. To be on ‘the team’ and part of the community of followers is more than understanding about Jesus it is taking our whole self into action. It is trusting in the faith that Jesus has for us, that he has called each one of us – just as we are – to follow him. We know what the role of discipleship is and we know the expectations. I hope we also know Jesus has faith in us, hope in us and belief in us as he calls us into his community. He invites us to know him and to carry on his work as he continues to guide us, strengthen us and be with us.

Where are you on answering his call – “Come, follow me”?

Mrs. Peggy Bean

Bishop’s Assistant for Congregational Development

Diocese of Milwaukee

Repentance and Re-arranging Ourselves

Collect for the Second Sunday in Lent

O God, whose glory it is always to have mercy: Be gracious to all who have gone astray from your ways, and bring them again with penitent hearts and steadfast faith to embrace and hold fast the unchangeable truth of your Word, Jesus Christ your Son; who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Repentance and Re-arranging Ourselves

Matthew 4:12-17

“Now when Jesus heard that John had been arrested… ‘Jesus’ left Nazareth and made his home in Capernaum… and began to proclaim, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.’”

“Repent for the kingdom of heaven is near!” How easy it is to say it, but how difficult it is to do. Sometimes, there are moments in life when we are reminded of our human nature, a nature that is not perfect, but a nature that helps us face and re-evaluate actions that cause pain to others or to ourselves. Most of the time, after we have re-evaluated these circumstances we are invited to repent and ask for forgiveness, but it is difficult to do so. Many of us do not like to accept our own mistakes and try to run from this responsibility.

A few weeks ago, while walking around Virginia Theological Seminary’s campus, I noticed a group of trees that grew from the ground, pointing in every direction but the sky. These trees were beautiful for their unique structures, but it was precisely because of their structures that they all met a similar end. Because their main trunk was anything but strait, these trees grew pointing in all different directions and at some point, when to much weight was added to their structures, each tree would fall down and die. Because these trees do not have the possibility to re-arrange the direction in which they grow, they share a common end.

If we were trees that grew without the possibility of re-arranging our trunks, we would fall down and die, but because we are able to repent, to re-arrange our structures, we are invited to accept our mistakes and ask for forgiveness. God loves us so much that we have the opportunity to repent and to re-arrange ourselves.

In this time of lent, lets re-evaluate our own structures and come to recognize our mistakes. Let us repent. Repentance is difficult only until we take the first step...

Almighty God, help us to recognize our mistakes, but more importantly, help us repent so that we might share with you in your heavenly kingdom.

Mr. Oscar Rozo

Seminarian studying at Virginia Theological Seminary

Grace Church, Madison

Jesus Teaches - Matthew 4:12-11:1

Video for the Week of March 20-26
Second Week in Lent



Discussion Questions

Discussion Questions March 20-26

Jesus Teaches (Matthew 4:12 – 11:1)

With a focus on the Sermon on the Mount

1. Jesus goes up on the Mountain to address the people of God, giving them a new law and a new covenant. This echoes Moses on the mountain and coming down the with the Ten Commandments. As you think of the law, commandments and teachings that we hear on a mountain top, which one do you remember the most? Which one strikes a chord in your heart?
2. Matthew wants us to know from his language and the action of this Gospel that Jesus is the one who has come to fulfill the law. How do you see his law being similar and different from the law that came before him?
3. What do these laws have to do with us today? How can they be a part of our everyday lives?

Reflection on the First Week in Lent

Collect for Saturday in the First Week of Lent

O God, by your Word you marvelously carry out the work of reconciliation: Grant that in our Lenten fast we may be devoted to you with all our hearts, and united with one another in prayer and holy love; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Matthew 1:1-4:11

As you look back on the readings and reflections for the week, I wonder what stood out for you? What surprised you? What made you think in a different way?

As I have read through these reflections in conjunction with the scripture, what has come to me each and every day is how alive the scripture is. This is not necessarily surprising, but it has struck a new chord with me this week. Maybe it was the wonderful diversity of the reflections from people all over the Diocese, maybe it was the fact that these voices are giving new light to scripture that we hear often, or maybe it is that we are reading each and every part of Matthew as a story and then pausing to think about what that section or phrase or word means to the scripture and to us a people of God.

Thank you to all of our writers this week. I can't wait to see what next week brings us.

Don't forget that you can comment either here on the Blog or on the Facebook updates at the Diocese of Milwaukee Facbook page at http://www.facebook.com/DioceseOfMilwaukee.

Peace and blessings to you all as we continue this journey together.
The Rev. Shannon Kelly
Bishop's Assistant for Christian Formation

Temptation of Jesus

Collect for Friday in the First Week of Lent
Lord Christ, our eternal Redeemer, grant us such fellowship in your sufferings, that filled with your Holy Spirit, we may subdue the flesh to the spirit, and the spirit to you, and at the last attain to the glory of your resurrection; who live and reign with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

The Temptation of Jesus
Reflection on Matthew 4:1-11


Jesus comes up from the muddy water of the Jordan River, the Spirit of God alights upon him like a dove, and a voice from heaven proclaims him God’s Son, the Beloved, with whom God is well pleased. But before Jesus can begin his public ministry he is led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the Devil.


Jesus came to reconcile all people to God, to turn us back to the God who loves us unconditionally, and to help us to return that love in joy and thanksgiving. Jesus goes into the wilderness and the Devil offers him three means by which he might accomplish his mission.


Turn these stones into bread and buy their loyalty. They will follow you wherever you go if you will just fill their bellies.


Throw yourself off of the temple and make their loyalty a matter of proof, of science. When the angels bear you up everyone will know that it would be foolish not to follow you.


Force your will upon them. I will give them into your hands. Surely you would be a benevolent dictator and everything that you do would be for their good. Take this power and make them follow you.


The temptation that Jesus faces is the temptation to coercion. Buy their allegiance, make it a matter of science and fact, or force them to follow. The problem with these three options is that what Jesus wants, what God wants from us is love and coercion never leads to love. “If you can’t say ‘no’ it isn’t love.”


So Jesus chooses another path. Jesus reveals God’s true nature and draws us into loving by giving himself to us, by refusing to abandon us no matter how we treat him, by loving us even when we do not love in return.


Coercion never leads to love. Love cannot be bought, proven, or forced. Love does not come through guilt, shame, or manipulation. Jesus understands that true love only happens when we are willing to make ourselves vulnerable, giving up control of the outcome, and love one another as God loves us. Jesus rejects the temptation to coercion so the Devil leaves him and the angels come and wait on him.


The Rev. Andrew Jones
Rector
St. Andrew’s Church, Madison

Voice in the Wilderness

Collect for Wednesday in the First Week of Lent

Bless us, O God, in this holy season, in which our hearts seek your help and healing; and so purify us by your discipline that we may grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.


Voice in the Wilderness
Reflection on Matthew 3:1-12

I am a singer who has performed George Frideric Handel’s oratorio Messiah many, many times over the past 30 or so years. The first time I did it was in high school as a freshman. As a relative novice to performing in a choral ensemble, I was more concerned back then with trying to figure out how to read music and to sing well, not considering at the time the meaning of the words I was singing. By the time I got to concert week, that was when I started to gain an appreciation of the words (which were all from Scripture). The tenor, in his opening recitative, sang the words of Isaiah: “The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, ‘Prepare ye the way of the Lord. Make straight in the desert a highway for our God.’” When I heard Isaiah’s words in the setting of that glorious music, the meaning of that passage became crystal clear. That proclamation would change the course of history, and there was no turning back to the past.

John the Baptist was that “voice in the wilderness”. He prepared the way for Jesus.

I can only imagine what John’s emotions were as he performed baptisms along the banks of the river Jordan. He knew the coming of the Messiah was very, very near. He knew the prophecy that Isaiah made many years before and was not afraid to boldly proclaim it, even in front of the Pharisees and Sadducees. And he also knew that we as sinners need to repent of our sins so that we can be ready for the One who makes all things new.

John the Baptist and the musical Godspell have a connection…preaching repentance. I am reminded of some lyrics that came to me from Godspell: “Turn back, o man, forswear thy foolish ways.” That’s a worthy goal to strive for this Lenten season.

Steve Murphy
St. Boniface, Mequon, WI

The Promise Survives

Collect for Tuesday in the First Week of Lent

Grant to your people, Lord, grace to withstand the temptations of the world, the flesh and the devil, and with pure hearts and minds to follow you, the only True God; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.




The Promise Survives

Reflection on Matthew 2:13-23

Matthew 2:13-23 builds upon the narrative found in the previous chapter. In this passage, Joseph is communicated with, via a dream and the angel of the Lord, and told to do something he might otherwise not do. He is asked to do something extraordinary in an extraordinary manner, and he doesn’t back down from the challenge. We never hear a verbal response from Joseph to these supernatural requests. We only get his response in action. Yet, his action is critical. The survival of God’s promise depends upon it.

If a story about a character named Joseph whose life is changed because of dreams seems familiar, there is a very good reason. Just the way that Melville wants you to know something about Captain Ahab just from his name, the gospel writer leverages associations with an ancient and earlier Joseph (Genesis 37-50) — a Joseph that also provided a means of survival for God’s promise. But this association is only one of many collective memories conjured by this passage. Egypt is the place Joseph brings his family to survive a famine, but it is also the place that the ancient Hebrews will emerge from the Pharaoh’s rule by signs and wonders.

As in those Old Testament narratives, the gospel writer tells us of a clear danger to the persistence of God’s promise. We learn of Herod’s rage and paranoia as he attempts to snuff out any perceived threat to his throne. Evil is present in this story, and it is no small theological feat to explain why such a horrific act takes place in a story about one named “God with us,” other than to say in the midst of great evil and the possible extinction of God’s promise, a faithful person acts and the promise survives.

This is the elemental plot that flows through those Hebrew tales: God has promised to bless all people. In the face of certain extinction of this promise, God finds a way to fulfill the promise. In this plot, a key element is the faithful person without whom the plan would fail. In this gospel story, Joseph is that faithful person. He believes in the promise, and acts on it. In this way, he foreshadows the faithfulness of Jesus, who will ultimately be faced with the final threat to God’s promise and will be asked to do the unthinkable. He will be asked to die.

 The Rev. Don Fleischman
St. Barnabas Episcopal Church
Richland Center, WI

What Does Matthew's Genealogy Tell Us?

The Collect for the First Sunday in Lent

Almighty God, whose blessed Son was led by the Spirit to be tempted by Satan; Come quickly to help us who are assaulted by many temptations; and, as you know the weaknesses of each of us, let each one find you mighty to save; through Jesus Christ your Son my Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.


What does Matthew’s genealogy tell us?
Reflection on Matthew 1:1-17
My brother has recently gotten into genealogy, pouring through old census records, old state and county documents, through various resources scanned and available online. When he first told me about his new hobby, I gave him a word of caution – be careful. Looking into one’s ancestors may turn up some things that are scandalous. You may found out things you didn’t know before. You may be surprised by some things that you find.

It’s no different with Matthew’s foray into the genealogy of Jesus. The Hebrew Scriptures have a number of genealogies, most notably in Genesis, but also in the historical books. Two of the gospel writers – Matthew and Luke -- make an effort to trace Jesus’ lineage, and, in yet another blow to biblical literalists, they do not agree.

What does Matthew’s genealogy tell us? Lots of things, really, in these seventeen verses, but there are a couple of elements which seem particularly relevant during this Lenten seasons.

One is that God is doing something unusual. Matthew’s genealogy breaks from convention and on four occasions traces Jesus’ descent through women. And not just any women: Rahab, Ruth, Bathsheba, and Tamar. All had a whiff of scandal about them, but all had something in common: each was an instrument of God in the life of the Jewish people. Matthew’s inclusion of them here signals that God is again going to do something significant through the fifth woman mentioned – Mary.

Matthew traces Jesus’ lineage back to Abraham; this is different from Luke, who traces it all the way back to Adam. There are several reasons why Matthew does this, mainly as part of his efforts to place Jesus in his Jewish context. But one which strikes me this Lenten season is to look at the parallels between the first man in this lineage, Abraham, and the last one, Joseph. Both were ordinary men, living ordinary lives, when out of nowhere God asked them to do something. For Abraham, to leave his homeland and go where God was calling him. For Joseph, to trust in the God who told him to marry his betrothed who was already with child. The link is made stronger with Matthew’s description of Joseph as “righteous” (v. 19) the same word frequently used to describe Abraham. Not righteous in the sense of being correct, but rather in its most literal sense: someone who is right with God, and who is right with God because they were willing to listen and to do what God might be asking.

Looking back on Jesus’ genealogy, maybe we don’t always need to have the kind of concern that I expressed to my brother. We can also learn things which are insightful and positive. This Lenten season may we see in Jesus’ genealogy a God who is doing something new in Jesus Christ, and may we, like Joseph, be willing to listen to how God might be calling us.

The Rev. Thomas Ferguson, PhD
Chaplain
St Francis House, Madison

Gospel of Matthew 1:1-4:11

Video for the week of March 13-19

 


Discussion Questions (Click for a pdf of the Discussion Questions)
Jesus Presented (Matthew 1:1-4:11)

1. Genealogy – Matthew begins his Gospel by telling tracing Jesus’ lineage for us, letting us know that he is descended from Abraham. He is opening with a retelling of where Matthew came from in order to tell us where he is going. As you think of your own genealogy, what does it say about your family, about your lineage, about who you are as a child of God? What does Jesus’ lineage tell us about who he is.
2. “All this took place to fulfill” – this is a classic phrase used by the writer of the Gospel of Matthew as he points out the variety of ways that Jesus is fulfilling the prophecies. Why do you think this is important? What do you think this tells us about Matthew’s view of Jesus’ place in the world?
3. “Prepare the way of the Lord, make his path straight.” How did John the Baptist prepare for the way of the Lord? How do we continue to prepare for him today?
4. As we hear of Jesus’ temptation, his fasting for 40 days and 40 nights, what do you think would have been his greatest temptation? What would be your greatest temptation? Hunger? Testing God? Power? Worshipping evil?

Lent 2011 "Trailer"

Enjoy this fun "trailer" of the Lenten Bible Study on the Gospel of Matthew with Bishop Miller. The first video will be up soon!