Welcome to our blog! This is a place to share ideas, thoughts, concerns and joys of our faith journey. I'll be posting sporadically, but hope you will feel free to comment and join in the discussions.

Monday, October 12, 2015

What Exactly Was He Trying to Say?

I teach an Adult Sunday School class between the early and late services. I've been doing it for a looooong time now. Most of the time I like it. There are occasional Sundays where I've considered letting someone else do this for a while, but it's a great discipline for me and other people seem to like what I do.

For the past year or so, we've been studying the gospel lessons as they are given for the church year. The Revised Common Lectionary is a three-year cycle of readings used to varying degrees by the vast majority of mainline Protestant churches in Canada and the US. The readings are built around the seasons of the Church Year, which reflects the life of Christ. The gospel lesson for each Sunday provides a focus if you will for that particular day. I contact members of the class during the week via email (or snail mail if they don't have email) and let them know what the reading is and come up with some questions which relate to what the gospel says for that week coming up. Because I love to dig into what the reading COULD mean versus what it actually says, I've been enthusiastic about this particular style of class discussion.

And since I'm not teaching this week, I got to thinking about this:  what is Jesus is trying to say? We've been pondering that  ever since we started looking at the gospels. What is Jesus trying to get across to the disciples both then and now? Some people have claimed that  the teachings contained in the gospels are archaic and have no place in today's world. But I don't happen to subscribe to that theory. Some other people have said that everything written down in the Bible is fact, but if that is the case, when Jesus says he is vine, it means he's a plant. I don't think so either. Because the Bible seems to me to be something that is living and breathing, we have to give it some oxygen to get at what it says. We have to be able to read and discuss and debate and even disagree about what Jesus was talking and teaching about. There are nuances in these readings just as there are nuances in everyday conversation. Looking into the "way things were" at the time he walked the earth is helpful. Realizing that sometimes the person translating the text had a hidden agenda is also important to think about. Talking with others about what their interpretations of the reading is great for "opening your ears" to what the gospel is trying to get across.

In the final analysis, I think Jesus was trying to say one thing only. Love is the answer to every question. Love your neighbor. Love yourself. Love your enemies and love God. So I guess it really isn't necessary to have class after class on Sunday mornings. But I think it's worthwhile anyway. We hope you will join us some time!


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