Passage: Luke 10:25-37    

  Description: Jesus always found a way to twist and turn a phrase in order to help his followers learn. This is what parables do best and why I think Jesus used them a lot. The parable of the good Samaritan is a great example of Jesus’ teaching tactics. Honestly, the lawyer answers well. He knows the law and he knows that the heart of the law is to, “love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength and your neighbour as yourself.” The whole transaction would have sufficed right there if the lawyer hadn’t fallen into his need to be clever. But Jesus entertains the lawyer’s coy approach and digs in. He goes after the definition of neighbour and advances it. I’m not sure it was the answer that the lawyer expected. He would have expected: love the neighbours that you know, that bring casseroles when you’re sick, that look like you, that make the same amount of money, that are members of the firm. I think the parable about the Samaritan would have surprised the lawyer quite a bit, because the most respected ones in this parable are the least effective and least helpful. The one who showed mercy is the one least trusted and the furthest away from being liked. Strangers and neighbours, respected ones and disrespected ones are all mixed up in this story. I imagine the lawyer having to reconfigure his thinking as he walks away from this exchange with Jesus. It is a very human thing to distrust differences and fear what we don’t know or understand. In the early stages of our development as humans, these traits served human survival. Embedded in our human DNA like all creatures, is a cautionary gene that serves up distrust and fear in the presence of danger or the unknown. This gene is normal and is designed to move us to caution so that we stay safe. Makes sense. This gene helps us navigate the dangers of life whether that be cross walks, grizzly bears, dark alleys, and lightning storms. It helps us be cautionary and reduce the risk of danger. It’s a good thing. It helps us survive and evolve. The shadow side of this cautionary gene is that it spawns fear between humans. The worst expression of this fear leads to genocide and war. It still does. However, now we are globalized and never before have humans had so much capacity to move around the planet bringing with them culinary, dietary, cultural, social and spiritual practices. This also creates numerous fears around immigration and economics that give rise to racism and populist politics. It seems we can’t help ourselves. The cautionary gene is powerful.

Passage: Mark 1:16-20    

  Description: Rev. Susan & Rev. David speak about what it means to follow the Way of Jesus, the challenges, the joys, and the compelling nature of Jesus' command to love neighbour, stranger and enemy. They explore what being born again means from a United Church point of view (it's not a one time event), and talk about salvation - which means healing and wholeness. Jesus says to the disciples, "I will make you fish for people." How are we reeled in by God's love and how do we go out to share God's love and reel others in?

Passage: Mark 15:33-41    

  Description: Annie Dillard a well known American writer once said, “On the whole, I do not find Christians, outside of the catacombs, sufficiently sensible of conditions. Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of power we so blithely invoke? Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it? ….It is madness to wear ladies’ straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews. For the sleeping God may wake someday and take offense, or the waking God may draw us out to where we can never return.” I first encountered these words several years ago, and I’m still pondering them. Do we have the foggiest idea of the power we so blithely invoke? Or, that the waking God may draw us out to where we can never return? Crash helmets and life preservers, indeed. But it was exactly this quote that came to mind as I set before me the task of walking around the significance of the cross in the Christian faith. To consider the cross is an invitation to enter a hard-hat zone because it involves life and death. We might want to hold on tight. We might want to prepare for the very real possibility that we will not return to our life as we know it because where those two beams intersect is the epicenter of God’s transforming power. Let me be clear. We are fooling ourselves if we think we can sanitize and domesticate this power in order to feel good about ourselves and avoid the real wood and nails of its significance. The cross was one of the most brutal and public forms of Roman torture and execution. It was used to send powerful signals to anyone or any group that opposed Rome or was perceived as a threat. It was designed to quell any hint of revolution. Rome’s strategy was to take out the leaders of such groups. Jesus was believed to be a danger to Roman peace (pax romana).

Passage: Galatians 5:16-25 & John 14:15-27    

  Description: Rev. David & Rev. Susan talk about the Spirit of God. How do we know the Spirit? What is the Spirit's role in our lives? Why would we want the Spirit of God active in our lives and our congregation?

Passage: Romans 8:37-39 & Mark 8:27-30    

  Description: Rev. Susan & Rev. David converse about the moments in their lives when they have experienced the presence of Jesus, who Jesus is for them now, and how they understand what Jesus came to do. As apprentices of the Way of Jesus, who are we committed to following? How do you picture Jesus?