February 15--Running to Win

"You know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize. So run to win! All those who compete in the games use self-control so they can win a crown. That crown is an earthly thing that lasts only a short time, but our crown will never be destroyed. So I do not run without a goal. I fight like a boxer who is hitting something--not just the air. I treat my body hard and make it my slave so that I myself will not be disqualified after I have preached to others" (1 Corinthians 9:24-27).

I just love it when Paul gets competitive.

It strikes a deep inner chord in me to know I am not the only follower of Christ who likes to win.

I know we Christians preach the need to curb our ambition, to love others beyond our own achievements, to want what is best for everybody, to put the needs of others before our own. I know the first shall be last and the last shall be first.

But there is just something deeply fundamental in me—perhaps cultivated from the earliest days of childhood—that wants to be the best! That strives to be the best. That feels a fleeting but still potent flash of pride in winning an earthly crown. In the words of Ricky Bobby from that great film sensation Talladega Nights, "If you're not first, you're worst!" And who wants to be worst?


Even Ricky Bobby, however, has a serious conversion experience once he realizes how much his competitive drive has been based on the fear and pain of a childhood lacking in paternal love . . . and how carelessly he has hurt his best friend in his pursuit of greatness. By the end of the movie, “racing to win” has become more about Ricky’s integrity than about his victory lap around the NASCAR track. In order to “win,” once Ricky has changed his mind and heart, he has to be willing to lose. And he has to be willing to love his neighbor as himself.


This, of course, is more along the lines of what Paul had in mind when he encouraged the first century Corinthians to “run to win.” It is a spiritual discipline he is talking about . . . of being willing to “lose” for the sake of our integrity . . . of risking failure in order to love those who desperately need our care . . . of resisting the temptation to let anything in our lives distract us from responding to the grace of God . . . of training our hearts and minds—and yes, even our bodies—to the lifelong work of living in the Spirit.


But it is a communal race! We cannot win it alone.


Paul did not have the same concept of team sports that we do, but he surely understood the church as the “Body of Christ.” And this communal body, I think he would claim, must run the race together, must win the race together, and must do this by undergoing rigorous conditioning, just as the individual bodies within it must set measureable goals toward achieving that crown which will never be destroyed.

It is a victory in this life when we in the church really do live out good news to the poor, release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, and liberty to the oppressed. And it is a victory in the life to come when we place every part of our lives into the hands of a loving and challenging God and allow these lives to be transformed.


So what does the “conditioning” for this race look like?


Some believers have taken Paul’s words about “treating the body hard” quite literally . . . adopting an ascetic life or even engaging in self-flagellation as a way of knowing the suffering of Christ.

Others of us lift up the inherent goodness of the body and its capacity to perform great feats—athletic or otherwise—when we invite God to cultivate and guide its energy as we would cultivate and guide a garden, as a trainer would cultivate and guide an athlete.


In either case, we know that God cares about our bodies and how we discipline them and how we use them to promote justice and peace . . . and we know that God cares about the hearts and minds and spirits that accompany our bodies . . . and we know that God is inviting every part of our being into a race we can only win if we let go the competitive desire for an earthly crown and be willing to “lose” for the love of the world.


So our invitation this week is to hear clearly the voice of the Holy Spirit training us and cheering us on, whether our next practice session is at the local soup kitchen, in our daily devotional life, or in advocating for peace in the halls of Congress.


May God grant us the victory, may we "run to win." Amen.


Gusti Linnea Newquist



(additional lectionary texts: 2 Kings 5:1-14; Psalm 30; Mark 1:40-45)

January 25--From Repentance to Hope

"The Lord spoke his word to Jonah again and said, 'Get up, go to the great city Nineveh, and preach to it what I tell you to say.' So Jonah obeyed the Lord and got up and went to Nineveh. It was a very large city; just to walk across it took a person three days. After Jonah had entered the city and walked for one day, he preached to the people, saying, 'After forty days, Nineveh will be destroyed!' The people of Nineveh believed God. They announced that they would fast for a while, and they put on rough cloth to show their sadness. All the people in the city did this, from the most important to the least important. . . . When God saw what the people did, that they stopped doing evil, he changed his mind and did not do what he had warned. He did not punish them" (Jonah 3:1-5, 10).

Jonah was not the first Hebrew prophet to speak God’s justice to Nineveh. The prophet Nahum also addressed this city of bloodshed, this city of violence, this city of imperial expansion that had led the Assyrian destruction of the northern kingdom of Israel 700 years before the birth of Christ.

"How terrible it will be for the city that has killed so many," Nahum proclaims in righteous anger. "It is full of lies and goods stolen from other countries. It is always killing somebody. . . . Many are dead; their bodies are piled up—too many to count. People stumble over the dead bodies" (Nahum 3:1, 3b-c).


If Nahum is like any one of us who has been deeply wounded to the core of his being by a violent oppressor, he wants God to punish his mortal enemy without mercy. If Nahum is anything like me, he expects justice to look something like vengeance, he wants his oppressor to hurt as deeply as he and his people have been hurt, he feels his justified outrage turn into simmering anger, he puts that anger into the mouth of God.


"'I will pull your dress up over your face,'" Nahum says to Nineveh, supposedly on God’s behalf, "'and show the nations your nakedness and the kingdoms your shame. I will throw filthy garbage on you and make a fool of you. I will make people stare at you'" (Nahum 3:5b-6).


Nahum’s language is as bad as it sounds: murder and rape and shame employed as tools of divine justice.

Is this what God tells Jonah to say? Is this the call to repentance that leads all of Nineveh to comply? Is this the kind of punishment God decides to withhold?


It is a shocking message, indeed, for we who claim to worship a God of peace.


But those of us who have suffered extreme violence at the hand of another—whether it be rape or bombing or the insidious damage of mental or spiritual abuse—those of us who have been violated to the very core of our being know that it is just plain honest in the midst of our agony to admit we do pray for this kind of justice to roll down like waters. To admit we do want this kind of righteousness to flow like a mighty stream.


“It is not right what they have done to us!” Nahum reassures a broken people. It is not right what they have done to us, the preacher declares to a broken world.


Nahum did not expect Nineveh to repent upon hearing the news of God’s anger. But Jonah did.


“’This is why I ran away to Tarshish,’” Jonah complains to God when Nineveh repents. “’I knew that you are a God who is kind and shows mercy. You don’t become angry quickly, and you have great love. I knew you would choose not to cause harm!’” (Jonah 4:2b). How could you let my enemy off so easily!


It can be easy to blame Jonah for running from God’s call. It can be hard to understand his frustration with God’s mercy. Unless we understand the modern-day parallels.


Jonah speaking repentance—and mercy—to his mortal enemy Nineveh is perhaps something like Ghandi speaking repentance—and mercy—to the British colonialists. Jonah speaking repentance—and mercy—to his mortal enemy Nineveh is perhaps something like Martin Luther King speaking repentance—and mercy—to racist White America. Jonah speaking repentance—and mercy—to his mortal enemy Nineveh is perhaps something like Sister Helen Prejean speaking repentance—and mercy—to death row inmates awaiting execution. It is really, really hard.


For some of us reading Jonah this week, God may be challenging us to take the hard step of speaking the truth in love to those who have hurt us, asking them to change their hearts and minds, trusting God’s merciful love to restore us all to new life.

For others of us reading Nineveh this week, we hear God’s call to repentance, to acknowledging that others have good reason to hate us, to changing our hearts and minds, to committing to a new way of life.


And for me reading Jonah on this particular day, in this particular week, I cannot help but hear God’s merciful and joyous celebration over the people of the United States, who continue to repent of our racist heritage, who continue to say we don’t want to live that way anymore, and who ask God to continue walking with us to the end.


Surely God’s concern for Jonah, God’s concern for Nineveh, God’s concern for every one of us will correct us when we fail, will applaud us when we succeed, and will sustain us every day of our lives yet to come.


May it be so now and forever. Amen.

Gusti Linnea Newquist

(Additional lectionary texts: Psalm 62:5-12; 1 Corinthians 7:29-31; Mark 1:14-20)

September 17--Practicing What We Preach

Here comes our good friend Peter, rocking the boat as usual. We’ve met him three times before in the gospel texts over the past six weeks, but we just can’t seem to get enough of him. So far Peter has progressed from an aborted attempt at walking on water to a dramatic confession of Jesus as the Christ . . . only to turn around and chastise his Messiah for telling the truth about his pending death and resurrection.

Our friend Peter just couldn’t leave well enough alone, even after all that. He had to follow it up with a question to Jesus about forgiveness.

“Lord, when my fellow believer sins against me, how many times must I forgive him?” Peter wonders. “Should I forgive him as many as seven times?”

Jesus answered, “I tell you, you must forgive him more than seven times. You must forgive him even if he wrongs you seventy times seven” (Mt 18:21-22).

I think it might be easier to walk on water.

Forgiveness is one of those thorny theological concepts for those of us who claim to pursue God’s justice in the world and who have been appalled by the misuse of this powerful spiritual discipline. We know far to well that the immediate call to forgive an abuser, or those who commit genocide, or even an older sibling who ceaselessly taunts a younger one can trivialize the deep suffering and legitimate anger on the part of those who have been wronged. As L. Gregory Jones points out in Embodying Forgiveness: A Theological Analysis, “Christians have too often supported forgiveness, love, and forbearance while failing to acknowledge the moral force of anger, hatred, and vengeance” (244). To the contrary, anger can actually serve a moral purpose, as a protest against injustice and as a commitment to our inherent human value in the face of dehumanizing acts. And when our efforts at forgiveness suppress bitterness, rather than restore right relationships, we can inadvertently strengthen the hand of those who do harm but do not seek to change their ways.

But as I re-read Matthew's text for this week, I'm starting to think Jesus had some of this complexity in mind when he offered his parable in response to Peter’s question. A modern day version of that parable might go something like this:

The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a loan officer who decided to demand payment in the midst of a sub-prime mortgage crisis. A homeowner who simply could not pay the debt was brought before the loan officer, who ordered foreclosure. So the homeowner begged the loan officer, “Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.” And out of compassion, the loan officer decided not only to stop the foreclosure but to cancel the entire loan altogether!

But that same homeowner went straight to his brother, who owed him a thousand dollars, and demanded repayment. His brother pleaded with him, “Have patience with me, and I will pay you.” But the homeowner refused and garnished his wages until he could pay the debt. When the homeowner’s family members saw what had happened, they were angry. They told the loan officer what had happened. The loan officer said, “You selfish jerk! I forgave you an entire home loan because you pleaded with me, but you couldn’t forgive a thousand dollars from your brother?” And in anger, the loan officer placed the house on auction the very next day.

Forgiveness in this parable is all bound up in power and fear, rejection and hypocrisy. What might have become a reconciliation and new life for the homeowner and his brother instead turned to disaster for them both. What might have led to a more compassionate lending practice on the part of the mortgage company turned into anger and retrenchment. All because the homeowner couldn’t share the wealth. All because he couldn’t forgive even one time.

Perhaps Jesus tells us to forgive one another seventy times seven times because he knows we won’t get it right the first time, or the second time, or the seventh time. I think Jesus knows that there is no “forgiveness light switch” that we can simply flip up or down. It’s a lifelong journey of naming and confronting evil and suffering, both that which is done to us and that which is done by us. In the meantime, we participate in an ongoing community of confession and repentance and reconciliation, sharing the truth of our lives with others who help us always turn toward healing and wholeness. And our family of faith holds us accountable when we are not able to give even a small portion of the grace we have received. And our God remains faithful even until the end of the age.

So I hold out hope that we can keep trying to walk on water, that we can keep trying to forgive one another, that we can keep trying to ask for forgiveness ourselves. Not as a particular moment in time but as a daily discipline and a divine gift. Not as a way to pacify pain or to overlook injustice, but as a way to transform it into a new reality. This is our Christian walk. May we move forward with courage and faith. Amen.

Gusti Newquist

P.S. Kelsey Rice Bogdan is on vacation this week.

Blog Introduction

This blog is intended to be a resource for all types of people seeking insight and exegesis into the week's Lectionary texts. I will post about one or more of the selected passages a week, with an emphasis on the ways the scriptures foster positive Christian practice and devotion. I hope this blog can serve as a resource for both lay people studying the Bible and for preachers/teachers preparing sermons or studies on the Lectionary. I intend to work two weeks or so ahead of the lectionary schedule, so that the following weeks scriptures will be available for people.

The Massachusetts Bible Society is "dedicated to biblical message of redemptive Hope, Compassion and Justice." It was the third Bible Society in the United States (following the Philadelphia Bible Society and Connecticut Bible Society) and was originally formed to disseminate religious texts and to aid the public in religious education. The methods of serving this mission have changed over two centuries (the horse drawn carriage handing out free Bibles is no longer in service...), but MBS remains an ecumenical organization dedicated to religious literacy. This lectionary resource hopes to serve that mission.

Comments are highly encouraged to help me tailor these posts to my audience. I am also available through email if you desire clarification or have additional questions. I intend on using the Revised Common Lectionary to select the weekly texts, and to work primarily with the New Revised Standard Version English translation. I will also consult the New International Version and the original Greek (for NT selections), but will only raise issues of translation if highly relevant or remotely interesting.

Thank you for reading this blog, and I pray you find it interesting and informative.

Peace.