Faith Notes for August 31, 2021
First Presbyterian Church of Big Spring TX
New News:
This is Labor Day weekend and many folks will be spending time with family. Prayers for traveling mercies for all who are venturing away from town. There will be no Discovery adult Sunday School class this Sunday, but it will resume the following week.
The Session met this past Thursday evening. We are making a donation to Presbyterian Disaster Assistance for Haiti relief. We are also financially supporting the Big Spring Symphony again this year. Administratively, the Session, recognizing our congregational size, voted to set the number of Session Elders to five and established a designated quorum at two members plus moderator.
The Session also recognized the current rise in Covid cases that are jamming hospitals and recommends wearing a mask and social distancing at church.
This Sunday, September 5th, we’ll celebrate Holy Communion. Our scriptures this week follow the complimentary lectionary readings for the fifteenth Sunday of Pentecost: Psalm146; Isaiah 35:4-7a; Mark 7:24-37; James 2: 1-10, 14-17.
The Book of Psalms ends with songs of praise. From Psalm 146 through Psalm 150 are a collection of hallelujah expressions praising God; each beginning and ending with the phrase “Praise the Lord!” Psalm 146 contrasts the trustworthiness of God with the frailty and untrustworthiness of human beings. God executes justice for the oppressed, gives sight, and lifts up the downtrodden while mortals offer no help to anyone. With this praise of God, we are urged to emulate God rather than the society around us.
The Isaiah passage follows the theme of the Psalm and pictures a time of restoration which God commands. God is coming to a broken world, but God does not come gently. God’s instrument of salvation is vengeance. Maybe that causes some fear in us but it invokes praise from the deaf (ignored), the mute (silenced), lame (ostracized). Even the earth itself will receive justice when water issues forth and fires are quenched. This is good news for our times.
Last week in Mark’s gospel, Jesus said that our defilement occurs from within rather than the pressures, temptations, and evil that attacks us from without. This week we travel with Jesus and the twelve to the coast where He meets a foreign woman who asks for the healing of her daughter. Jesus doesn’t immediately give her what she wants, contending that He came primarily to serve the Hebrews. In the discussion that follows, Jesus vocalizes a racial slur and comes off in a very human and not very Christ-like way. Is this the same God we’ve read about in the Psalms and Isaiah? Do you believe that Jesus could be like this or do you think something else is going on? What is Mark trying to tell the worship community that listens to his gospel account?
The letter of James continues this week to advocate for authenticity in Christian living. Some people read James and hear his words as urging a kind of “works righteousness,” but really he is urging us to walk our talk. If we profess Christ but then do not do acts of Christ’s ministry then how can we authentically say we are Christ followers? Verse 14 is difficult because it asks: “Can your faith save you?” In fact, James is specifically saying that faith that never moves from our hearts to our fingertips isn’t really faith.
Meetings and Gatherings Calendar:
Women’s Bible Study - September 1 at 10:00 a.m. in the church library.
History Class- September 1 at noon in the church theater room.
Lectionary Bible Study - September 1 at 5:00 p.m. in the church library.
Lunch Bunch- every Thursday at 11:30 a.m. in the fellowship hall.
See you in church!
Allen