Plymothian

²⁹ Jesus left there and went along the Sea of Galilee. Then he went up on a mountainside and sat down. ³⁰ Great crowds came to him, bringing the lame, the blind, the crippled, the mute and many others, and laid them at his feet; and he healed them. ³¹ The people were amazed when they saw the mute speaking, the crippled made well, the lame walking and the blind seeing. And they praised the God of Israel.

³² Jesus called his disciples to him and said, “I have compassion for these people; they have already been with me three days and have nothing to eat. I do not want to send them away hungry, or they may collapse on the way.”

³³ His disciples answered, “Where could we get enough bread in this remote place to feed such a crowd?”

³⁴ “How many loaves do you have?” Jesus asked.

“Seven,” they replied, “and a few small fish.”

³⁵ He told the crowd to sit down on the ground. ³⁶ Then he took the seven loaves and the fish, and when he had given thanks, he broke them and gave them to the disciples, and they in turn to the people. ³⁷ They all ate and were satisfied. Afterward the disciples picked up seven basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over. ³⁸ The number of those who ate was four thousand men, besides women and children. ³⁹ After Jesus had sent the crowd away, he got into the boat and went to the vicinity of Magadan.

Jesus’ Provision

Jesus, your provision is bountiful and yet I am never filled.  I am always hungry and often feel like I am starving spiritually.  I want more strength, more joy, more confidence.  Living in the west, my physical needs are taken care of, but my spiritual needs are more apparent.  You have provided three meals a day, plenty to drink, and enough clothing.  I take these things for granted and I frequently think that I have in some way provided these things for myself.  Help me to see that I am dependent upon you for what I already have and that I must be dependent upon you for the things that I lack.

Questions

1. How many people were fed at this time?
2. How many basketfuls were left?
3. What does the fact that Jesus did this kind of miracle twice say about is provision?
4. What has Jesus provided for you?
5. What do you need?

²¹ Leaving that place, Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon. ²² A Canaanite woman from that vicinity came to him, crying out, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is demon-possessed and suffering terribly.”

²³ Jesus did not answer a word. So his disciples came to him and urged him, “Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us.”

²⁴ He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.”

²⁵ The woman came and knelt before him. “Lord, help me!” she said.

²⁶ He replied, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.”

²⁷ “Yes it is, Lord,” she said. “Even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.”

²⁸ Then Jesus said to her, “Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted.” And her daughter was healed at that moment.

Persistent Faith

Jesus, I don’t really have the motivation or drive to badger you for blessing.  Part of it is that I have trouble thinking that I should receive anything.  Of course you bring joy to people, but why would you bring joy to me?  Of course you heal people, but why would you bring healing to me?  Yet in the Bible it says if we petition you, you will answer.  Why must we petition?  Why can’t we just ask once and have done with it?  Why did this woman from Tyre or Sidon have to keep pressing?  Is it to show our dependency?  Is it to show that we have no-one else to whom to turn?  Yet, this persistence is seen as faith – is our faith weak when we give up asking?  I guess it is.  We need to have faith that keeps banging on the gates of heaven until they will open up.  It is like any relationship.  If one is not persistent, the relationship does not grow.  If one does not persevere, there is no reward.  I have known petulant and self-absorbed people who insist on being pursued, and I have known shallow and arrogant people who insist on being heard.  It seems the experience with both extremes leaves me wary.  The drain of relating to narcissists has tainted my experience.  You are no narcissist, but I bring my past experience to this.  You do not require persistence because of self-obsession.  You require persistence because it develops resilience in faith.  You require persistence because it develops maturity.  Help me to have the kind of faith that keeps coming back to you as the solution.  Help me not to look elsewhere for distractions or false solutions.

One area I struggle with at the moment is the juggernaut of the normalizing of homosexual relations which is advancing through society.  I sometimes see myself on the ‘wrong side of history’.  I ask you to show us ways to make a stand for what is right, but we are seen as hateful and intolerant.  Ironically, a live and let live stance was not possible.  We hoped by ignoring the issue it would remain a private issue for homosexuals to live out behind closed doors.  However, it’s leading to public demands in areas of hiring, adoption, and schooling that are engulfing those of us who don’t agree.  We are becoming the oppressed minority and homosexual activists own the language and the power in the debate.  We can not retreat into our shells.  Yet I don’t know how to approach the issue.  I feel like an insignificant supplicant before your throne.  Give my school, my home and my church insight into how to deal with the problem.  I must remember to ask you again.  I have to seek you in order to find a solution to this seemingly insurmountable problem of those who do not accept sin as righteous are deemed hateful and anathema.

Questions

1. What was Jesus’ initial response to the Syro-phoenician woman?
2. What changed his mind?
3. Why was this remarkable?
4. How is our faith to be like the woman in the passage?
5. Why do we fall short of her example?

¹⁰ Jesus called the crowd to him and said, “Listen and understand. ¹¹ What goes into someone’s mouth does not defile them, but what comes out of their mouth, that is what defiles them.”

¹² Then the disciples came to him and asked, “Do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this?”

¹³ He replied, “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be pulled up by the roots. ¹⁴ Leave them; they are blind guides.^[d] If the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit.”

¹⁵ Peter said, “Explain the parable to us.”

¹⁶ “Are you still so dull?” Jesus asked them. ¹⁷ “Don’t you see that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and then out of the body? ¹⁸ But the things that come out of a person’s mouth come from the heart, and these defile them. ¹⁹ For out of the heart come evil thoughts—murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. ²⁰ These are what defile a person; but eating with unwashed hands does not defile them.”

Heart of Darkness

Jesus, it’s dark in here.  As I go deeper inside myself and examine the choices I have made, they so often come from a heart of darkness.  I feel powerless sometimes because I doubt my motives.  I struggle with grief because of the choices I have made in the past, or the people that I have lost.  Fear, anxiety, and nervousness surprise me.  Ken Gates said on Sunday that he believes that deep down anxiety is the natural state of humanity.  I found it hard to think that others would struggle with anxiety or fear as I do.  However, Jesus, you address this double-minded anxiety quite strongly in the Sermon on the Mount.

Then there is the unhealthy desire for things I think that I deserve or need.  I demand things in my heart from my world and those around me.  I desire material things that are temporary and prone to break.  Everything that I desire apart from you will fail me.  I desire to self-medicate with things that can not satisfy.  Al television series end.  All computer games create a fantasy that lasts for a while.  However, the only satisfying eternal truth is in you.

I seldom get angry because I bury my fear.  Perhaps deeper in me is a caged rage.  I hope not.  I am not aware of it.  However, when I think I am free of pride, I find another area where I need to change my perceptions.

However, Jesus, you lead us from darkness to light.  You clean us deeply from the inside.  Each time I find sin deep inside me, you remove the fears and create stability.  You enable the guilty stains to be washed away and so I can forget about myself for a while and get blissfully lost in you.

Questions

1. What defiles a person?
2. What do our words reveal – especially in unguarded moments?
3. What is the natural condition of a person’s heart and how does Jesus change that?
4. What do modern psychologists preach most often about a person’s heart?  Do they have justification for their beliefs?
5. How do you have your heart cleansed in an ever-deepening way?

²³ After he had dismissed them, he went up on a mountainside by himself to pray. Later that night, he was there alone, ²⁴ and the boat was already a considerable distance from land, buffeted by the waves because the wind was against it.

²⁵ Shortly before dawn Jesus went out to them, walking on the lake. ²⁶ When the disciples saw him walking on the lake, they were terrified. “It’s a ghost,” they said, and cried out in fear.

²⁷ But Jesus immediately said to them: “Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid.”

²⁸ “Lord, if it’s you,” Peter replied, “tell me to come to you on the water.”

²⁹ “Come,” he said.

Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus. ³⁰ But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, “Lord, save me!”

³¹ Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. “You of little faith,” he said, “why did you doubt?”

³² And when they climbed into the boat, the wind died down. ³³ Then those who were in the boat worshiped him, saying, “Truly you are the Son of God.”

³⁴ When they had crossed over, they landed at Gennesaret. ³⁵ And when the men of that place recognized Jesus, they sent word to all the surrounding country. People brought all their sick to him ³⁶ and begged him to let the sick just touch the edge of his cloak, and all who touched it were healed.

Walking Through The Storms of Life

Jesus, you call us to walk through the storms of life by faith.  In the darkness of our nights of sickness, anguish, and isolation you walk out into the storm and reach out a hand.  Some of us snarl and bite at you, bitter that you seemed far away.  Some are petulant and passive.  We expect you to come to us and show up on our own terms.  Such an attitude is most common today.  A few of us step out into the stormy night with our eyes fixed upon you.  However, even when we take those faltering steps the storms of life draw us away from our commitment to follow you and we start sinking.  Jesus, save us!  As we struggle toward you help us to be singular in our focus.  Help me not to focus on ungraded papers, coming deadlines, and the sicknesses that friends of mine are struggling with.  Help we to look to you and walk through those storms with increased grace and serenity.

Help us to think of you as the one who walks through these storms with us but is unperturbed. Help us to look to your strength.  Help us not to be proud in the vain belief that what we accomplish was possible without you.  Help us to be grateful and lean on you in the trials and storms that are sure to come.  Our house is still unsold.  We could obsess on each potential buyer: “Is this the one?” I think it will be better if we do what we can in your strength and then move on to something else.  Our adoptive son meets his birth mother for Easter today.  We could fret about what she might say to him about being his ‘real’ mother, or we could do what we can and just trust in you to take care of the things we don’t control.

We want control, so badly.  We want to seem independent.  Help us to focus on you and to take hold of your hand as you lead us to safety.

Questions

1. Why were the disciples startled?
2. How did Peter succeed?  how did he fail?
3. What does Jesus tell Peter he lacks?
4. How are faith, trust, and control related?
5. What storms are you going through?  How would Jesus have you walk through the storm?

At that time Herod the tetrarch heard the reports about Jesus, 2 and he said to his attendants, “This is John the Baptist; he has risen from the dead! That is why miraculous powers are at work in him.”

3 Now Herod had arrested John and bound him and put him in prison because of Herodias, his brother Philip’s wife, 4 for John had been saying to him: “It is not lawful for you to have her.” 5 Herod wanted to kill John, but he was afraid of the people, because they considered John a prophet.

6 On Herod’s birthday the daughter of Herodias danced for the guests and pleased Herod so much 7 that he promised with an oath to give her whatever she asked. 8 Prompted by her mother, she said, “Give me here on a platter the head of John the Baptist.” 9 The king was distressed, but because of his oaths and his dinner guests, he ordered that her request be granted 10 and had John beheaded in the prison. 11 His head was brought in on a platter and given to the girl, who carried it to her mother. 12 John’s disciples came and took his body and buried it. Then they went and told Jesus.

Foreshadowing

Before today, Jesus, I did not think of John’s fate as foreshadowing your own.  It must have been sobering to see your messenger being beheaded and knowing that you, too, would be falsely accused and killed.

Questions

• Who had John arrested?
• Why was John killed?
• What does John’s death foreshadow about Jesus?
• How does this passage apply to you?
• Coming after Jesus and John’s sacrifice, how bold are you for the Kingdom of God?

⁵⁴ Coming to his hometown, he began teaching the people in their synagogue, and they were amazed. “Where did this man get this wisdom and these miraculous powers?” they asked. ⁵⁵ “Isn’t this the carpenter’s son? Isn’t his mother’s name Mary, and aren’t his brothers James, Joseph, Simon and Judas? ⁵⁶ Aren’t all his sisters with us? Where then did this man get all these things?” ⁵⁷ And they took offense at him.

But Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor except in his own town and in his own home.”

⁵⁸ And he did not do many miracles there because of their lack of faith.

Familiarity Breeds Contempt

Jesus, you were rejected by the people who knew you best.  They could not accept that the little boy down the lane had incredible power and authority.  It is heartening to see that people would not allow you to be different than their preconceived ideas.  I look back on my foolish behavior growing up , and I think, “I am so different now.”  However, I know the potential for the same mistakes is there again.  Sometimes, around old friends, they will tell me that I am ‘still the same old Peter’.  It unsettles me because I wish so much not to be.  You were not swayed by local people’s contempt for you.  I pray that I would not be swayed by local people’s preconceptions of me if I make it back to England this summer.

We can not become anyone we want to be.  However, we can become anything God wants us to be.  Help us to pursue higher things and leave the base things that we once wallowed in behind.  We have caused a lot of heartache and pain to friends and family growing up, and we have caused a lot of joy for some.  As they are closed to the possibilities of what we might be, help us to remember that people rejected you.  You were like us.  You were sometimes isolated and abandoned.  You pushed through, and in the Spirit, we can have the same strength.

Questions

1. What did Jesus do in his home town?
2. How did people respond?
3. What would have been the motives of local people when they dismissed jesus as anyone worthy of allegiance?
4. How have some people become so familiar with Jesus that he is nothing special?
5. How have you been dismissed by someone close to you?  Did anyone tell you, “No-one is looking at you!” or “A leopard can’t change it’s spots!”  Remember God dotes upon you and he can change you into whatever he wishes!

44 “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field.

45 “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. 46 When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it.

47 “Once again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was let down into the lake and caught all kinds of fish. 48 When it was full, the fishermen pulled it up on the shore. Then they sat down and collected the good fish in baskets, but threw the bad away. 49 This is how it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come and separate the wicked from the righteous 50 and throw them into the blazing furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

51 “Have you understood all these things?” Jesus asked.

“Yes,” they replied.

52 He said to them, “Therefore every teacher of the law who has become a disciple in the kingdom of heaven is like the owner of a house who brings out of his storeroom new treasures as well as old.”

One Way

Jesus, many people turn to your saying, “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. No-one comes to the Father except by me,” to verify that there is one way to God. However, in these passages, the one pearl, the one treasure and the division of the fish highlight the same thing. The singularity of the one treasure points to a singularity in the one way to inherit the Kingdom of Heaven. Many of the fish collected are thrown out. They are not fit for the purposes of the fishermen. We were created for a purpose. It is not a purpose of our own design, but we were born to fulfil your purposes. I know that I find it hard to be sure that I am living in your purposes, but I know that I am committed to walking in your paths. Many people, through ignorance and rebellion are not living out their purpose. Many people in the West believe there are many pearls to be valued, many treasures to be dug up, or purposes for all the fish caught if you will just look hard enough. People will allow any belief except the belief that you can’t just believe whatever you want. Our humanistic egocentricity is out of control. We are vain like the Greeks, Babylonians, Romans, and European Empires before their demise. We have left behind the values that made us great and we are in full pursuit of our own pleasure and vanities. Jesus, help us to shape our lives around this singular destiny. Help us to pursue one treasure and one pearl. With so many reasons to be busy, help us to be still.

Questions

1. What is found in each parable?
2. How many pearls and treasures are found?
3. What is the fate of the fish that are not edible?
4. What do these parables teach to those who believe all religions are right?
5. What do these verses say to those who are bothered because ‘ there are so few verses saying that there is one way to God’?