God's Divine Originality
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to model how a relational study is done and provide questions relating text to the FAW theme for individual or group use. |
"Are you the one or do we look for another?" Matthew 11:1-19
While reading an exposition on John's Gospel in the Interpreter's Bible as to why the people didn't recognize Jesus, I jumped at this sentence. "With some of them it was because the divine originality confused them. They were expecting something different." These words have comforted me and challenged me ever since and I thought of them again as I read this story.
Enter the Story
Read Matthew 11:1-19. Read aloud the passages quoted from Isaiah 35:5-6, 61:1-2.
As we imagine the story in Matthew, we realize that John and his disciples come from a very different place than do Jesus and his disciples. John's austerity in the wilderness doesn't fit with a huge picnic for everyone. For Jesus, consorting with sinners seems to be the norm. What about those dinner parties and that wedding with all that wine?
Prison was certainly not what John had in mind for himself. No wonder he sent his disciples to ask, "Are you're the one?" How would they have heard Jesus using the quotation from Isaiah? Would this have been a comfort? As they leave, Jesus calls after them, "Blessed are those who are not scandalized by me." He then turns to the listening crowd and has some more to say about the kingdom of heaven and God's divine originality.
Read the story again. Walk around in it. Do these words from Isaiah in any way describe the kingdom of God to you? What prompts you to wonder, "Are you the one?"
Where do you expect to see the Spirit at Work?
Growing Edge
Which stories of Jesus shock you most? What are the words that you wish he hadn't said? (I find myself saying about the difficult ones, "maybe these words were added later".) When we feel confronted or disturbed we might need to think again. Perhaps this is what Bruce Larson calls "our growing edge", a place of discovering something more about God and about ourselves. Maybe our expectations keep us from recognizing God working in our lives and in the lives of others, especially those with whom we disagree. Where are you being challenged to grow?
Perhaps the lenses through which we look need to be refocused to see the Spirit at work. Marcus Borg helps me here. He says, "The Christian life is not about pleasing God... nor is it about being good now for the sake of heaven later. It is about entering a relationship... that begins to change everything. Spirituality is about this process: the opening of the heart to the God who is already here. The fruit of this process is compassion. The absence or presence of compassion is the central test for discerning whether something is "of God" ...Compassion is the primary sign of spiritual growth."
Read II Corinthians 3:17-18 and I John 3:14 for further clues.
Application
It has been fun for me to live this question and apply the words from Isaiah as I read the newspaper looking for acts of compassion and listen for stories of freedom from bondage and discover healing in surprising places.
Where is the Spirit at work? Look! Listen! Don't be confused by God's wonderful originality.
References:
Nancy Boyle is a workshop leader, teacher and Christian Education Consultant living in Columbia SC.