Chewing
I’m working on my sermon for this Sunday and chewing on the Gospel lectionary text – Mark 4:35-41. This is that great little tale of Jesus taking a nap in the boat while the disciples are fighting a huge storm.
When I prep for a sermon, I read the text over and over again – from a variety of translations and paraphrases – so that I can just chew on it and see where God strikes my taste buds.
The last couple of days I can’t seem to get past the question that the disciples ask Jesus when they rudely awaken him from his nap. Picture it – there is a storm all about you, you think your boat is going down, your worried and ready to cry "oops I crapped my pants" and you see Jesus sleeping. You rush over to him and scream "don’t you care that we’re going down?".
I don’t know. It just really strikes me as an odd first question in the midst of the panic. Why not? "Get up, Jesus. Grab a life jacket." or "Jesus, wake up. Here’s a bucket. Start bailing". I’m not sure where it will go but I"ve learned enough to know that I need to follow the scent for awhile to see what I discovered.
What I do know I’ll find for sure is a little "touche". God always does that with me. I usually travel with my nose to the ground and run smack into a mirror. Usually stings a little too.
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