Plymothian

⁹ As Jesus passed on from there, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax booth, and he said to him, “Follow me.” And he rose and followed him.

¹⁰ And as Jesus^[b] reclined at table in the house, behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and were reclining with Jesus and his disciples. ¹¹ And when the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” ¹² But when he heard it, he said, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. ¹³ Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.’ For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.”

¹⁴ Then the disciples of John came to him, saying, “Why do we and the Pharisees fast,^[c] but your disciples do not fast?” ¹⁵ And Jesus said to them, “Can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast. ¹⁶ No one puts a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, for the patch tears away from the garment, and a worse tear is made. ¹⁷ Neither is new wine put into old wineskins. If it is, the skins burst and the wine is spilled and the skins are destroyed. But new wine is put into fresh wineskins, and so both are preserved.”

Out With The Old

Jesus, I didn’t know that the fasting in this passage referred to ritual fasts that commemorated historical events.  I didn’t know you used the question of fasting to deal with ancient traditions.  How can we know these important contextual pieces of information by just looking at the text?  My mother came to me last night with questions regarding animals that seemed to be killed three times over in a passage.  Why are there passages that do not make sense on the first reading or without the background information.  Our minds are darkened, but even what is meant to elucidate them is hidden from us somewhat.  Is it so that we need to work at pursuing you.  Those who do not pursue a deeper relationship with you get from it exactly what they put in?  I remember reading through the Bible when I was being young and being excited at what seems superficial understanding now.  I guess it’s like that in any relationship.  Things need to keep fresh and new.

The Pharisees and scribes wanted to keep everything the same.  When you tried to take them deeper, they resisted.  They held to the fasts they had kept to remember the past, but they could not accept the renewal that you brought.  I think I am flexible, but then I realise that I am stubborn in too many areas.  I am afraid that the church traditions I am raised in could not cope with excitement in worship or the Holy Spirit directing us to do unusual things.  We can get bogged down in business as usual.  Even my home church has a culture it has created.  One of the things they can not change is the constant reinvention of themselves.  Sometimes we need to settle on a thing and be open to following a plan through to see if it works.  It is ironic that some of us need to be open to embracing more tradition.  However, Jesus, in the passage I am reading you challenge the traditions that hold people enslaved to rules and regulations.  Jesus, bring a sense of freedom in the church today that results in active and joyful service.

Questions

1. What are Jesus’ disciples not doing?
2. Why do the Pharisees object?
3. Why does Jesus talk in picture language about their inability to change?
4. How have people asked you to change your ways?  Are you open to changing if God leads?
5. How does Jesus lead us on a path of constant change?

And getting into a boat he crossed over and came to his own city. ² And behold, some people brought to him a paralytic, lying on a bed. And when Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Take heart, my son; your sins are forgiven.” ³ And behold, some of the scribes said to themselves, “This man is blaspheming.” ⁴ But Jesus, knowing^[a] their thoughts, said, “Why do you think evil in your hearts? ⁵ For which is easier, to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Rise and walk’? ⁶ But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins”—he then said to the paralytic—“Rise, pick up your bed and go home.” ⁷ And he rose and went home. ⁸ When the crowds saw it, they were afraid, and they glorified God, who had given such authority to men.

Rising From The Bed

Dear Jesus, I wish someone would carry me to you.  I am such a passive child.  I feel helpless sometimes.  Those who are mature in the faith know you so much better than I do.  I want someone to carry me to you and introduce me to you in ways that I have not seen before.  I want the constant peace of forgiven sin to permeate my being so I won’t worry about whether I offend people or don’t say enough.  But I hear these words addressed to me, “Take heart, my son; your sins are forgiven.”  They are, aren’t they?  You took them on you on the cross.  I carry an illusion that they are still mine, but my sins are yours and I rise to a new life in you.

“Not guilty” but crippled by guilt.  Free from shame, but ashamed.  I have received so much from your hands Jesus, but I don’t live as if your truth has the authority.  I live with the illusion that I must bow to criticism and views that were thrown at me a long time in the past.  How foolish!  How human?  You modeled a perfect human life.  You never had to come back from sin, shame, guilt, depression, anxiety … but you had the authority to banish it.  When you took it away, did you feel its weight?  On the cross, did the darkness of unbidden fears burden you as they burden us?  I think that maybe they did.  If they did, the weight of all the sin that has crippled people physically and mentally must have been like a vice squeezing the brain; it must have been crushing your chest; it must have ripped through your back with an intensity to rival the scourge.  But you endured.  You endured the cross, scorning its shame.  Now we can rise up unfettered by fears and doubts.  Unfetter our hearts and minds.  Help us to live the reality of your healing grace.

Questions

1. What did the paralyzed man’s friends believe?
2. How was sin related to the man’s sickness in your opinion?
3. How does Jesus help people to rise up?
4. What figuratively and literally cripples you?
5. Have you gone to Jesus with your crippled condition?  Do you believe that he is on your side?

²³ Then he got into the boat and his disciples followed him. ²⁴ Suddenly a furious storm came up on the lake, so that the waves swept over the boat. But Jesus was sleeping. ²⁵ The disciples went and woke him, saying, “Lord, save us! We’re going to drown!”

²⁶ He replied, “You of little faith, why are you so afraid?” Then he got up and rebuked the winds and the waves, and it was completely calm.

²⁷ The men were amazed and asked, “What kind of man is this? Even the winds and the waves obey him!”

Be Still

Some inner calm would be nice.  Jesus, you calmed the sea.  You have power over the forces which work against creation.  You created me for Shalom.  You created me for an harmonious peace and yet so often I get swept out into a raging ocean.  I want my heart and mind to be calm amidst the chaos.  You can work in me to that effect.  I know I need to eat well, sleep, and exercise to do my part of the deal.  However, I know you can undo the harm that I have done myself in chasing after things that don’t matter.  My priorities are skewed, help that to change.

From that position of inner strength help me to serve others.  Help me to get to a place of pleasant forgetfulness where self doesn’t even come to mind.

Questions

1. How is the storm described on the lake?
2. Why do you think Jesus could stay asleep?
3. How does Jesus handle the disciple’s basic fears and anxieties about the forces of nature?
4. Is Jesus in your boat?
5. How does he handle your fears?

¹⁴ When Jesus came into Peter’s house, he saw Peter’s mother-in-law lying in bed with a fever. ¹⁵ He touched her hand and the fever left her, and she got up and began to wait on him.

¹⁶ When evening came, many who were demon-possessed were brought to him, and he drove out the spirits with a word and healed all the sick. ¹⁷ This was to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet Isaiah:

¹⁸ When Jesus saw the crowd around him, he gave orders to cross to the other side of the lake. ¹⁹ Then a teacher of the law came to him and said, “Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go.”

²⁰ Jesus replied, “Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.”

²¹ Another disciple said to him, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.”

²² But Jesus told him, “Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead.”

Priorities

Jesus, you are a priority to us once or twice a week.  We carve out some time of a Sunday and we say, “There you go!”  We live detached from you for days on end.  We get caught up in cleaning, work, or play.  We don’t think about the healing that you want to bring.  We don’t think of the relationships you want to restore.  We just think of something else.  many of these things seem worthy.  It seems harsh of you to want our attention now.  We will sit down and talk with you after the movie ends, or dinner is done, or the pathway is cleared of snow.  Of course, then it is the tyranny of the urgent that kills our relationship by inches.

Help us not to be task oriented.  Help us to remember that tasks were to enhance relationships and not the other way round.  Help us not to reduce anyone to a resource that serves our agenda – especially You.  Help us to see you as an ever-present person with whom we walk and talk.

Questions

1. What happened at Peter’s house?
2. What complaints did two disciples have?
3. Why isn’t Jesus being harsh?
4. Where are your priorities?
5. What if Jesus talked to you directly in this way?

When Jesus came down from the mountainside, large crowds followed him. ² A man with leprosy^[a] came and knelt before him and said, “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.”

³ Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. “I am willing,” he said. “Be clean!” Immediately he was cleansed of his leprosy. ⁴ Then Jesus said to him, “See that you don’t tell anyone. But go, show yourself to the priest and offer the gift Moses commanded, as a testimony to them.”

⁵ When Jesus had entered Capernaum, a centurion came to him, asking for help. ⁶ “Lord,” he said, “my servant lies at home paralyzed, suffering terribly.”

⁷ Jesus said to him, “Shall I come and heal him?”

⁸ The centurion replied, “Lord, I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. But just say the word, and my servant will be healed. ⁹ For I myself am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I tell this one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and that one, ‘Come,’ and he comes. I say to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.”

¹⁰ When Jesus heard this, he was amazed and said to those following him, “Truly I tell you, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith. ¹¹ I say to you that many will come from the east and the west, and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. ¹² But the subjects of the kingdom will be thrown outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

¹³ Then Jesus said to the centurion, “Go! Let it be done just as you believed it would.” And his servant was healed at that moment.

Authority Explained

Jesus, it is your right to run my life.  Quite frankly, I think that I would prefer that option but you want me to choose to surrender daily.  I get distracted.  I get lost down side alleys and miss where the path is meant to lead.  I am often not conscious of the Father and all that he is doing.  I go along as if the most important thing in the world is to determine what is for lunch.  I know that your priorities are the true priorities but I don’t always pay attention.  You, Jesus, were sent into the world to redeem it.  There is much to be done.  The planet is struggling and its inhabitants are sick.  Their way to heal their sickness is to pretend that they don’t have anything wrong with themselves.  How can a doctor heal those who do not see that they are sick.  I feel stressed under your authority.  I have to talk about you and the freedom that you bring, but people want systems and rules to hide behind.  People want formulae and quick fixes.  They don’t want true heart transformation because it hurts.  Then when they reject your message, I wonder if I misread the Bible.  I wonder if I got the relationship with you wrong.  However, you really didn’t have much to show for your three years of ministry, did you?  You were dead and your followers scattered.  I should remember that I am under the authority of one who saw his followers disperse under duress.

It is helpful to picture reporting to you as a soldier reports in for duty.  Give me your mission.  Help me to follow today’s orders and do so with the confidence that I am not relying on my own power and authority.

Questions

1. How does Jesus demonstrate authority over Israel and the world?
2. What is the correct response to Jesus’ authority?
3. Why wasn’t Israel able to exhibit the same faith as the centurion?
4. Are you submitted to the person of Jesus?
5. How does Jesus’ authority give you orders for each day?

²⁴ “Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. ²⁵ The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. ²⁶ But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. ²⁷ The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.”

²⁸ When Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were amazed at his teaching, ²⁹ because he taught as one who had authority, and not as their teachers of the law.

The Foolish Man

Jesus, thank you for the breakfast on Friday where I sat with my son and sang ‘Sandy Land’ and the ‘Foolish Man Built His House Upon The Sand’.  I want to know how best to reach my children, but I know that my son likes song.  So we sat at the breakfast table after I wrote this and we sang it through.  I was reading about the Reflective-Contemplative model of spiritual formation for children.  It said to ask them hard questions and let them figure things out.  It also said to vary experiences for children to think over so that they grasp the deeper truths.  I see so many children these days playing lots of games, but they do not grasp the deeper meaning of the gospel.  I am concerned that we tell many children that they are good when in fact the Sermon on The Mount tells us that we are ‘evil’ (Mtt. 7:11).

Help me not to be foolish.  Help us not to take short cuts to success, to serve ourselves first and others with what is left over.  Help us to center our lives around what is important.

Questions

1. Which words in particular is Jesus referencing?
2. How would flash floods destroy houses?
3. How would basing your life on false teaching lead to sudden destruction?
4. What is the role of Jesus’ authority in this sermon?
5. Have you bowed to Jesus’ authority?

⁷ “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. ⁸ For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.

⁹ “Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? ¹⁰ Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? ¹¹ If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him! ¹² So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.

Ask

I forget who I am.  I shouldn’t get too big for my boots.  I wouldn’t worry what people think about me, if I only knew how little they thought about me.  No-one is going to stop their horse galloping to look at me.  Who am I to ask anything of God?  Who am I to turn elsewhere?  I don’t think that The Father would want to listen to me, Jesus.  I think he is preoccupied with saving the world from radical Islam, financial ruin, and nuclear war.  I have asked before, but I asked with the wrong motives and I didn’t receive.

This one is hard for me, Jesus.  What do I want?  I would like joy.  I would like to be free from worry and doubt.  It feels too much to ask for it all at once.  Just more moments like the moment I had on Saturday.  I touched joy in a deeper way as I drove my children to Costco to do the shopping.  I was grateful for them, I was connecting more with my wife.  I saw hope.  Can I have more of that?  I see the Father being annoyed with this request.  I see Him ignoring it.  I have a false view of one who would give a snake when I ask for a fish.  He would laugh and think it’s funny.  I know I am not alone in this misconception.  Depeche Mode used to sing, “I don’t want to start any blasphemous rumours, but I think that God’s got a sick sense of humour. And when I die I expect to find him laughing.”

Yet where should I go?  On the one side I know that the Father gives good gifts to his children.  On the other side I have too low a view of my place in God’s kingdom.  Jesus, I know that you have paid the price for me to be a son.  As a child, I present this request to God:  Father, I want to be healed from worry and self-doubt so that it doesn’t cause me to think about myself.  I want to be free of the things that hurt and cause me to take my eyes off of you and try and fix myself.  Even in any emotional isolation or pain, help me to find joy and peace in you.  In spite of circumstances help me to find joy.  I am meditating on the joy of the Lord being my strength.  I know that when I sense your joy I feel like I can attempt any task you set before me.  Without it, I am a child cowering in the corner, afraid that if I ask my Father for bread He will give me a stone.”

I sound like the one who buried his talent.  I have a heinous misconception of God.  I paint my loving Father as if he were a tyrant.  I am so sorry.  I’d like to blame someone else for the misconception.  Shift the blame.  Ultimately, though, it is my misconception.  I just want to be free from it.  Here is another request:  “Help me to see you as Abba, Father.  Help me to see you as kind, gentle, and patient.  I don’t really see you that way.  I don’t see you as present or nurturing.  I see your Son Jesus more that way, you, Father are harder to relate to.”

So, I have asked, sought, and knocked.  Let’s see if I really get snakes and stones.

Questions

1. How are mankind and God contrasted in their natures?
2. Why might Jesus’ audience not have asked God for things?
3. What examples does Jesus give of things asked for?
4. What do you need or want?
5. Have you asked God about these things?