Faith Notes
First Presbyterian Church of Big Spring for August 3, 2021
New News:
Great news from our Music Director Gabe Martinez: this coming Sunday evening will be the first choir rehearsal in over a year. With any luck we will have great voices singing by the beginning of September. It was great to welcome visitors this past Sunday.
This Sunday we’ll follow the complimentary lectionary readings for the eleventh Sunday of Pentecost. That will include Psalm 34:1-8; 1 Kings 19:4-8; John 6:35, 41-51; Ephesians 4:25 - 5:2.
Our selection from Psalm 34 is pure praise for God, describing the activity of God’s grace in the life of the Psalmist. Verse 11 addresses the congregation directly: “Come, O children, listen to me.” It’s a Psalm. It's a liturgical chant. It’s a sermon. It might even be a song set to music with memorable lines that can be tucked away for some dark hour when all seems lost. On that day, the believer can pull out some little scrap of Psalm 34 and remember: “The angel of the Lord encamps around those who revere Him.”
In the 1 Kings text, Elijah is dealing with some serious burnout. He has been working against Jezebel and Ahab and has had a great victory, but Elaijah’s victory has incited Jezebel’s desire for revenge. So Elijah has gone where his pursuers won’t follow: the wilderness. There, he asks God to end his ministry and life. We usually think of wilderness as a place of danger, but for Elijah now, it’s a place of respite and God nourishes him even there with a meal provided by an angel. Then it’s time for Elijah to get back to work.
This is the third of five Sundays that the lectionary swerves through the sixth chapter of the gospel of John. We are getting a healthy dose of Jesus’ bread of life discourse and this week the lection begins with the same verse that ended last week’s reading: “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.” Here, coming to Jesus means valuing the ethos of God’s kingdom over the ethos of the world. Believing means embodying God’s values with the way that we live.
To the ear, this week's Ephesians text initially sounds like a Pauline version of the Ten Commandments, a list of don'ts and do’s. But previously in the chapter, gentile listeners (as opposed to gentle listeners) have been urged to put away the lives they led before being taught about Jesus. So now they, and we, get a snapshot of what that “putting away former things” looks like as a set of alternatives. We may affirm our “belief” in Jesus but do we choose to live as beloved children of God? Do we choose Christian love over judgmentalism, hate, and exclusion of others? As Reformed Protestants, catechized in childhood, this is a question for our whole lives.
Meetings and Gatherings Calendar:
Women’s Bible Study - August 4 at 10:00am in the church library.
History class- No history class this week
Lectionary Bible Study - August 4 at 5:00pm in the church library.
Lunch Bunch- every Thursday at 11:30 am.
Choir rehearsal- August 8 at 6:30 pm