February 2025 – Wicomico Presbyterian Church

Six Stone Jars: The Economy of Jesus, Week 6: More than Enough

Luke 6:27-38 Here’s a test: You’re shopping online, scrolling through all the options and possibilities, thinking about what you want. You let your curser rest on one particular item, then a message pops on screen saying, “Going fast!” or “Only 2 of these left!” How do you react to that? If you are like me, your immediate response is a slight feeling of alarm. The thought enters your mind, “If I want this I had better act fast or I will lose the chance. Someone else will get it.” This happens, even if I am intellectually aware that this is a technological trick. That it’s probably not even true. That, honestly, my world will be none the worse even if I do miss out on purchasing this item. Yet, it plants this seed in my head – I might miss out. Someone else will get it. I will miss out. […]

Six Stone Jars: The Economy of Jesus, Week 5: Leaning into Blessing

Luke 6:17-26 Last week I had a case of vertigo that hit me like a ton of bricks. So I spent the week mostly in bed, unable to focus my eyes very well. The vertigo has gradually improved but I have still been left with little to do but rest my eyes and … think. And I have been thinking about the text for the week. About blessing and woe. About the economy of Jesus, about fullness and emptiness. About giving and receiving. There is no question in my mind that I am among the blessed – by almost any definition of the word. But when I think of the specific biblical meaning, and the unique angle Jesus presents in his sermon on the plain, this is the meaning of blessed that matters the most to me. To talk about this, I want to go back to my childhood. […]

Six Stone Jars: The Economy of Jesus, Week 4: Yearning for Meaning

Luke 5:1-11 Every living human being somehow needs to find meaning in their lives, it’s what holds us together. Why get up in the morning if there is no meaning in it? Perhaps you have experienced days of depression, when meaning was absent, and any sense of purpose was lost. Perhaps you know how that feels. Meaning is essential to our well-being. For the fishermen, Simon Peter, James and John, it is possible that the primary meaning in their lives was providing a living for themselves and their families. Maybe they loved their work. Hopefully they took pride in it – it was hard. Sometimes you worked all night and came up empty. They weren’t wealthy men. As Jews in an occupied land, they were enduring the hardships of the Roman rule, which taxed them heavily and took much of the product of their labors to be sent elsewhere. There […]

Six Stone Jars: The Economy of Jesus, Week 3: Finding the Courage to Heal

Luke 4:21-30 As I have thought about this story, my mind kept returning to the prayer service at the National Cathedral, the day after inauguration day. It is a tradition that happens every four years, but this year it got an unusual amount of attention. When it first came to my notice, I listened to Bishop Budde’s whole sermon, where she spoke of unity, and the things that are necessary if we hope to work toward unity. It was a good sermon, but what struck me most strongly was her voice. The bishop’s voice was gentle, soft, full of grace. I was amazed at the graciousness of her voice. I also liked what she said. She suggested that there are three foundations for unity: honoring the inherent dignity of every human being, honesty, and humility. And then she closed with an appeal for mercy, […]

Six Stone Jars: The Economy of Jesus, Week 2: Knowing Our Purpose

Luke 4:14-21 In these days, a news item can get around at lightning speed, if people think it’s worth talking about. But even in the days of Jesus, news was spread at a pretty good pace by word of mouth. Today we sit at our computers or with our thumbs on our phone screens, but back then people got out into the marketplace and they talked. They looked for news of what was happening in the world that might impact their lives, and so word of Jesus spread all throughout Galilee. Yet, from Luke’s account, we haven’t much of an idea what they might have been saying about Jesus. We only know that he has been baptized, and that he spent 40 days in the wilderness as a time of preparation. It is possible that this was all anyone knew as they talked about him through the surrounding Galilean countryside. […]