June 2024 – Wicomico Presbyterian Church

Called and Sent: Discipleship in the World Today, Part 4 – Crossing to Safety

2 Corinthians 6:1-13 Mark 4:35-41 We are continuing today with this fourth chapter of Mark, where Jesus is teaching a large crowd. Crowds of people have been growing and following him around desperately, hungrily. They need something from him, they want something. And this is, perhaps, a thing that resonates for you. You might be reading this today because you need something, want something from Jesus. There is a detail about this section of Mark’s gospel that seems kind of important. Jesus and his new disciples are beside a lake. And the swelling crowds of people have come again. This is the new normal for him. There is no place, evidently, that Jesus can go where the crowds are not. It is as though he has been backed up against the lakeshore with no place to go. Jesus looks at the mass of people. Then he turns and looks at […]

Called and Sent: Discipleship in the World Today, Part 3 – What We Cannot See

2Corinthians 5:6-10,14-17 Mark 4:26-34 Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.” Mark 1:14-15 Back in the beginning of Mark’s gospel, these are the first words we hear from Jesus, himself. The time is fulfilled. The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe in the good news. And the rest of the gospel tells us what this means, tells us what this kingdom is like. In the fourth chapter we get the first lessons about the kingdom of God. And the lessons are given – naturally – in the form of parables. The word parable actually means “thrown alongside.” Jesus scattered these parables alongside our lives, inviting us to see where they might connect with our own paths. A parable doesn’t give us the answers; […]

Called and Sent: Discipleship in the World Today, Part 2 – Family Ties

Mark 3:20-35 In the movie, Field of Dreams, Kevin Costner plays a man named Ray who is trying to learn how to be a successful farmer. He didn’t grow up on a farm, but he has a lot working in his favor. For one, he lives in Iowa, which is a place God made for growing food. He has a beautiful, fertile piece of acreage, and he lives in a community of farmers, from whom he can learn a lot. But one evening he is walking in his cornfield and he hears a voice. “If you build it, he will come.” After that, it’s one weird thing after another, and he ends up ploughing under his cornfield to build a baseball diamond so all the ghosts of ballplayers past can come out and play. And his wife Annie gets it. Somehow, she gets it. But their relatives and the community […]

Called and Sent: Discipleship in the World Today, Part 1 – New Wineskins

Mark 2:23-3:6 All four of the gospels tell us basically the same story, but each one bears certain unique marks that set it apart from the other three. Mark’s gospel is believed to be the first one written, probably around the year 70. It is short; it is blunt. Mark has two focuses: Jesus and his disciples. It is all about the relationship between them. Mark wants us to have a clear and correct understanding of Jesus, in order to have a clear and correct understanding of what it means to be a disciple of Jesus. But the understanding is not easy, nor is it simple. As you read Mark’s gospel, pay attention to his disciples and you will see a change happening. At the beginning, they seem promising. They are eager, enthusiastic, even brilliant at moments. But as we read on, we watch that change. Increasingly, they fail to […]

Trinity Sunday: Strange Gifts

Isaiah 6:1-8 John 3:1-17 When I was a freshman in college, I answered a knock on my door one evening and met three young women I had never seen before. They lived a few flights up in my dorm and they were making the rounds on behalf of salvation. They smiled warmly and spoke in gentle voices and invited me to participate in a weekly bible study they were holding in their room. I didn’t even need to think about it; I said yes. It was like God had opened the door and said here you go. I went to the bible study, and at first it was very nice. These young women radiated warmth and love, and I appreciated the things I was learning. But then suddenly one day it changed. We were in our usual space, sitting on the floor together reading the scriptures and then the leader […]

True Friend

John 15:9-17 In the musical, My Fair Lady, there is a young man who is hopelessly in love with Eliza Doolittle. He is trying to profess his love to her, then Eliza suddenly interrupts him, saying she is so sick of words, words, words. She says, “If you’re in love, show me!” Because words will only go so far in communicating something as big as love. In the Gospel of John, God’s love is a clear thread running through it – and the gospel only has words to show us this. Jesus uses an awful lot of words with his disciples to show them who he is and what kind of relationship he wants to have with them. In John’s gospel we have the “I am” passages, where Jesus uses words to show his disciples who he is for them. And in recent weeks we have dwelled on some of […]

Abide in Me

John15:1-8 Several days before Jesus was arrested and crucified, he was spending some quality time with his disciples; the ones closest to him, those who had left behind lives full of work and people and purpose. They had dropped everything to go with Jesus – to be with him. And they stayed with him, wherever he went, whatever he went through. So during these days leading up to the end, an end he knew would be coming, he spoke a lot to these disciples about all the things that seemed most important for them to know. It was a very tender period in their lives together. One evening, he took a towel, filled a basin with water and knelt before these men to wash their feet. To their bewilderment and discomfort, he said, “Unless I wash you, you have no share with me.” Later that same evening they all sat […]