I meant to post this last month, but didn't get it done. Sorry, all.
We began a new calendar quarter of reading the Bible in a Year on Easter Monday, the first day of the Easter octave. Christian history is full of traditions and teachings that are a vast reservior of wisdom for modern Christians. However we seldom take advantage of them. My Christian brothers and sisters from Africa are much more attuned to the wisdom of the ancestors when it comes to looking for wisdom in how we are to live.
The NT letter we are reading in the month of April is Paul's letter to the church at Corinth. Easter Sunday's lectionary text, and my preaching text from [Easter], came from the great 15th chapter of that letter, Paul's amazing defense of the resurrection. For Paul the only reality that governed his existence was the real, bodily resurrection of Christ that put him in touch with the grace of God. How Paul changed from a persecutor of the Way of Jesus into a tireless promoter of the Gospel is one of the great mysteries, but also great blessings in understanding Christian origins. The advice he was asked to give to the Corinthians and put down for them in this letter, is one of the great passages of pastoral wisdom collected in the first century after Jesus.
April's Gospel reading is from Mark. I remember that before we went on a pilgrimage to Israel with a group from my father's church, we were asked to read the Gospel of Mark, the shortest gospel, but the one that put the Jew Jesus into the immediacy of the Roman world, with all the complexities of that relationship right in the foreground. As we traveled the sites in Israel that Christian pilgrims visit, the scripture came alive for us in new ways. I was thrilled to see the places and sights that Jesus visited during his brief ministry. The ending of Mark provides great material for discussing how and why it was written--shorter or longer versions.
Our OT passages for April are the books of Joshua, Judges, and Ruth--stories from Israel's history after Moses and before its "kings." The stories describe the dilemmas of tribal organization without a strong central figure: how can the people defend themselves against enemies, internal and external, with different 'gods' and make a cohesive people? How can outsiders be part of God's people?
Finally in April, we make it through almost the whole Book of Psalms. Have you noticed how much of the identity of Israel is formed by singing its songs? Paying attention to what we sing and how we worship is part of our witness, too.
Keep Reading!
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