—St. John of Karpathos (date unknown)
Daily Reading & Meditation
Monday (1/12): "The kingdom of God is at hand"
Scripture: Mark 1:14-20
14 Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of God, 15 and saying, "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent, and believe in the gospel." 16 And passing along by the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and Andrew the brother of Simon casting a net in the sea; for they were fishermen. 17 And Jesus said to them, "Follow me and I will make you become fishers of men." 18 And immediately they left their nets and followed him.19 And going on a little farther, he saw James the son of Zeb'edee and John his brother, who were in their boat mending the nets. 20 And immediately he called them; and they left their father Zeb'edee in the boat with the hired servants, and followed him.
Meditation:What is the preaching of the gospel of God? The word "gospel" literally means "good news". When a king had good news to deliver to his subjects he sent messengers or heralds throughout the land to make a public announcement – such as the birth of a new king or the defeat of an invading army or occupied force. God sent his prophets to announce the coming of God's anointed King and Messiah. After Jesus was baptised in the River Jordan and anointed by the Spirit he begins his ministry of preaching the good news of God and bringing the kingdom of God to those who will receive it.
What is the kingdom of God? The word "kingdom" means something more than simply a place or realm. It literally means "reign" or "kingship" and power to "rule". The prophets announced that God would establish a kingdom not just for one nation or people but for the whole world. God's kingdom is bigger and more powerful than anything we can imagine because it is universal and everlasting (Daniel 4:3). God's throne is in heaven and his rule is over all (Psalm 103:19). His everlasting kingdom is full of glory, power, and splendor (Psalm 145:11-13). In the Book of Daniel we are told that this kingdom is given to the Son of Man and to the saints (Daniel 7:14,18,22,27). The Son of Man is a Messianic title for God's anointed King. The New Testament word for "Messiah" is "Christ" which literally means the "Anointed One" or the "Anointed King". The core of the gospel message is the good news of the kingdom of God. The coming of God's kingdom is both a present event – in the first coming of Christ in which he defeats sin and death on the cross – and a future reality when Christ will come again to establish the kingdom in all its fulness. The kingdom of God is the central theme of Jesus' mission. That is why God sent his only begotten Son into the world to overthrow the kingdom of darkness and to bring us into the kingdom of his marvelous light (1 Peter 2:9; Colossians 1:13).
As soon as John the Baptist had finished his testimony Jesus began his in Galilee, his home district. John's enemies had sought to silence him, but the gospel cannot be silenced. Jesus proclaimed that the time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand. Jesus takes up John's message of repentance and calls disciples to believe in the gospel--the good news he has come to deliver. What is the good news which Jesus delivers? It is the good news of peace (restoration of relationship with God), of hope (the hope of resurrection and heaven), of truth (God's word is true and reliable), of promise (he rewards those who seek him), of immortality (God gives everlasting life), and the good news of salvation (liberty from sin and freedom to live as sons and daughters of God). In announcing the good news, Jesus made two demands: repent and believe. Repentance requires a life change, a change of mind, sorrow for sin and its consequences, a hatred of sin and a firm resolution to avoid it in the future. The Lord gives us grace to see sin for what is really is – a rejection of his love and wisdom and a refusal to do what is good and in accord with his will. His grace brings pardon and help for turning away from everything that would keep us from his love. To believe is to take Jesus at his word and to recognize that God loved us so much that he sent his only begotten Son to free us from bondage to fear and sin. God made the supreme sacrifice of his Son on the cross to bring us back to himself. God loved us first and he invites us in love to surrender our lives to him. Do you believe that the gospel has power to free you from bondage to fear and sin?
When Jesus preached the gospel message he called others to follow as his disciples and he gave them a mission – "to catch people for the kingdom of God". What kind of disciples did he choose? Smelly fishermen! In the choice of the first apostles we see a characteristic feature of Jesus' work: he chose very ordinary people. They were non-professionals, had no wealth or position. They were chosen from the common people who did ordinary things, had no special education, and no social advantages. Jesus wanted ordinary people who could take an assignment and do it extraordinarily well. He chose these individuals, not for what they were, but for what they would be capable of becoming under his direction and power. When the Lord calls us to serve, we must not think we have nothing to offer. The Lord takes what ordinary people, like us, can offer and uses it for greatness in his kingdom. Do you believe that God wants to work through and in you for his glory?
Jesus speaks the same message to us today: we will "catch people" for the kingdom of God if we allow the light of Jesus Christ to shine through us. God wants others to see the light of Christ in us in the way we live, speak, and witness the joy of the gospel. Paul the Apostles says, But thanks be to God, who in Christ Jesus always leads us in triumph, and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of him everywhere. For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing (2 Corinthians 2:15). Do you witness to those around you the joy of the gospel and do you pray for your neighbors, co-workers, and relatives that they may come to know the Lord Jesus Christ and grow in the knowledge of his love?
"Lord Jesus, you have called me personally by name, just as you called your first disciples, Simon, Andrew, and James. Help me to be a faithful to the gospel and loyal to you. Fill me with the joy of the gospel and help me to be a good witness of your kingdom to others."
Psalm 25:4-9
4 Make me to know thy ways, O LORD; teach me thy paths.
5 Lead me in thy truth, and teach me, for thou art the God of my salvation; for thee I wait all the day long.
6 Be mindful of thy mercy, O LORD, and of thy steadfast love, for they have been from of old.
7 Remember not the sins of my youth, or my transgressions; according to thy steadfast love remember me, for thy goodness' sake, O LORD!
8 Good and upright is the LORD; therefore he instructs sinners in the way.
9 He leads the humble in what is right, and teaches the humble his way.
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(c) 2009 Don Schwager
Is God Still Speaking?
Samuel and the Silence of God
For Sunday January 18, 2009
Lectionary Readings (Revised Common Lectionary, Year B)
1 Samuel 3:1–10 (11–20)
Psalm 139:1–6, 13–18
1 Corinthians 6:12–20
John 1:43–51
Four Scenes from the First Book
of Samuel, late 11th century,
miniature on vellum
A church near my house has a sign in its front yard that proclaims, "God is still speaking." Is that really true? And if it is true, what is God saying today?
Many places in the Bible describe God as forgetful, ignorant, remote, deaf, and even asleep (cf. Psalm 44:23). In the Old Testament reading this week, God is portrayed as speechless. It's as if He's unable or unwilling to talk: "in those days the word of the Lord was rare; there were not many visions" (1 Samuel 3:1). We generally don't interpret these descriptions of God in a literal way, nor should we. We explain these unflattering depictions of God as "anthropomorphisms," that is, as paltry human attempts to describe Him who is ultimately beyond description, and to articulate the experience of many people today of the loneliness of abandonment in a silent world.
After the Asian tsunami that killed 225,000 people in 11 countries (December 26, 2004), a little Indonesian boy remarked on television, "We have left our traditional ways, and so God was angry with us. He abandoned us. I think I am alive today to tell our people this." Indonesia is no more wicked or deserving of divine punishment than any other country, and in the New Testament Jesus discouraged linking human misfortune with divine punishment (John 9:1–3). But that little boy was on to something, I think. He was right to describe divine activity as mysteriously intertwined with human choices, to picture human history as a dynamic synergism between God's speech and humanity's response. History is not mechanistic, and still less is it meaningless; it consists of the interplay between the free decisions of people and the sovereign love of God.
God calls Samuel,
anonymous, Utrecht,
c. 1430.
That's how I understand Samuel's assessment. The silence of God and the absence of visions he described were not just a subjective feeling, a poetic anthropomorphism, or a human projection onto their image of God. Rather, Samuel accurately described an objective state of affairs. His day was a period of political anarchy in Israel's history when "every person did what was right in his own eyes" (Judges 17:6 = 21:25), when the two sons of the priest Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, were "wicked men; they had no regard for the Lord" (1 Samuel 2:12). People were not listening. God was not speaking. He was silent. Visions were rare. Having left their traditional ways, as the Indonesian boy put it, God was angry with Israel.
It's a chilling thought to imagine that God might grant humanity's request for autonomy, that He could honor our insistence that He leave us alone, or that He would stop speaking as a consequence of our not listening. Perhaps His last, terrifying word to us might be, "I have answered your prayers and now grant you the horrible freedom you have craved. Since you are so disinterested as not to listen, I will no longer speak. From now on, the only voices you will hear will be your own."
God calls Samuel,
French, c. 1250.
But a single person can make a difference. Samuel proved to be the exception in this story. Dedicated to the Lord by his mother Hannah at an early age, he "continued to grow in stature and in favor with the Lord and with men" (1 Samuel 2:26). In contrast to the silence that had fallen upon the land, God spoke to him three times as a little boy (Jewish tradition says he was 12 at the time), and he responded with his famous words, "Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening." In contrast to the priest Eli and his two degenerate sons who flaunted their sexploitations in the place of worship (1 Samuel 2:22), "the Lord was with Samuel as he grew up, and He let none of his words fall to the ground." The nation recognized him as a prophet who heard from and spoke for Yahweh. Samuel eventually crowned Israel's first king, Saul, but not before warning the nation about the oppression inherent in political power (1 Samuel 8). By himself, Samuel ended the drought of divine silence in Israel, for "Samuel's words came to all Israel" (1 Samuel 3:19, 21).
Samuel anoints Saul as King,
Maciejowski Bible (13th
century illuminated manuscript).
The story of Samuel and the silence of God reminds me of a "saying" from the early desert fathers in Egypt that emphasizes this decisive link between divine speech and human attention, between His call and our response, between word and obedience. Like so many of the desert "sayings," this story from Abba Felix begins in one place but ends in another.
"Some brothers who had some seculars with them went to see Abba Felix and they begged him to say a word to them. But the old man kept silence. After they had asked for a long time he said to them, 'You wish to hear a word?' They said, 'Yes, abba.' Then the old man said to them, 'There are no more words nowadays. When the brothers used to consult the old men and when they did what was said to them, God showed them how to speak. But now, since they ask without doing that which they hear, God has withdrawn the grace of the word from the old men and they do not find anything to say, because there are no longer any who carry their words out.' Hearing this, the brothers groaned, saying, 'Pray for us, abba.'"
Perhaps the Indonesian boy spoke more than he knew. If there are "no more words nowadays" from God, if He has "withdrawn the grace of His word," that might have more to do with our human refusal to listen than with any divine reluctance to speak.
For further reflection:
* When and why have you ever felt the silence of God?
* What are the dangers of claiming that God has spoken to you?
* Is God speaking today? Where and how? What is he saying?
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Image credits: (1) National Gallery of Art; (2) Biblical Art on the WWW; (3) Biblical Art on the WWW; and (4) www.medievaltymes.com.Sphere: Related Content
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