Author: Chris Kelly

Knowing

Chris Kelly – October 5, 2014 1 Comment

Texts: Deuteronomy 30:11-20, Psalm 139:1-10, James 2:14-18, Mark 10:46-52

Theology has been called faith seeking understanding. This has always sounded to me like a kind of intellectual personals ad: Handsome M seeking fun-loving F for companionship, possible marriage. As if faith (lowercase) had to be completed, as if it could not be complete without understanding. As if when we did not examine and know and understand how things of faith were, then our faith would be less, whatever that could mean. And if by understanding people mean knowing—I’m not sure that is even possible. And whether it is an honorable task.

Read more on Knowing…

Love in Phlippi

Chris Kelly – September 28, 2014 Comment

Text: Philippians 2:1-13

Lutherans are notoriously comfortable with paradox. We claim, for example, that we are saints and sinners at the same time. We find it reasonable that the infinite might be found in the finite. And we are especially adamant that Jesus was 100% human and 100% divine at the same time.

Read more on Love in Phlippi…

Eyes of Grace and Justice

Chris Kelly – September 21, 2014 Comment

Text: Matthew 20:1-16

Parables are prone to eisegesis.

Eisegesis is a kind of made-up jargon-y word. It means injecting our own meaning into scripture rather than trying to figure out what it says. It is inevitable that we do some of that, because reading scripture is like a conversation to which we bring our own concerns and hope to find in our reading understanding and guidance. But it is way too easy, just as in a real conversation, to not attend to what scripture is saying and instead to assume that we know all about it before we even hear it. Parables, which are purposely mysterious—fantastic, even—and open-ended, especially tempt us. Like the one we heard today.

Read more on Eyes of Grace and Justice…

Guide in Place

Chris Kelly – September 14, 2014 Comment

Text: Exodus 14:19-31
Other texts: Romans 14:7-12

The third commandment teaches us to observe the seventh day of the week for Sabbath. There are two reasons given for this in the Bible, because there are two listings of the commandments, one in Exodus and the other in Deuteronomy. The two reasons come from the two founding stories in the Bible. They each are a story version of central Jewish and Christian ideas of the world and God’s role in it. A little like two focus points of an ellipse, together they control the form of our faith.

Read more on Guide in Place…

Twice Blessed

Chris Kelly – September 7, 2014 1 Comment

Text: Matthew 18:15-22

The Lord’s prayer is primarily a list of blessings. We ask for the peace of the coming of God’s kingdom, for food to sustain us, for freedom from trials, and protection from evil. But like a “which of these is not the same” puzzle, our request for forgiveness from God seems different from the rest; for it is paralleled by our promise to forgive others. Or maybe it is not a promise. Maybe it is another blessing. Maybe for us to forgive the sins committed against us is as much a blessing as for God to forgive the sins we commit.

Read more on Twice Blessed…

As You Are Able

Chris Kelly – August 31, 2014 Comment

Text: Romans 12:9-21

Commandments tell us who we are.

Commandments—laws, as we sometimes call them—guide us. They identify us to ourselves and to others that we are the people who follow these particular rules and laws and rituals.

Read more on As You Are Able…

Messiah

Chris Kelly – August 24, 2014 Comment

Text: Matthew 16:13-20
Other text: Exodus 1

In the story of the Exodus, Moses, with the aid and guidance of the God of the Israelites, frees the people from slavery under the Egyptians. This is a political story, a story of power, revolution, and freedom, in which God plays a part and interferes—in a good way—in the affairs of people and nations.

Read more on Messiah…

On the Cusp

Chris Kelly – August 10, 2014 Comment

Text: Matthew 14:22-33

What Peter said? I wouldn’t have said it.

I would not have said to Jesus: Command me to come to you on the water. Not on a stormy sea, in the dark, at 3:00 in the morning.

Read more on On the Cusp…

Satisfaction

Chris Kelly – August 3, 2014 Comment

Text: Matthew 14:13-21

We are not plants. We cannot make food from the sun, soil, and air. We need to eat, we depend on proteins that we recycle from other plants and animals. We are pretty big and active creatures. We get hungry quickly. We need to eat a lot and often. Otherwise we get sick, or cannot think straight, or get very weak. Hunger makes us search for food. Sometimes, though, food is hard to come by.

Read more on Satisfaction…