Scripture: Mark 5:1-2, 9-13 (NRSV)
Suffering is a critical component of Jesus’ message. Richard Rohr defines suffering as losing control…how does suffering play into the gospel message as we understand it? . How can we begin to see this as a part of life, part of the gospel, and not something that is negative and to be overcome?
Scripture: Mark 8:14-21
From healing to prayer to power to suffering, the disciples truly have a hard time understanding Jesus’ teachings as they applied to real life, their life. Looking at our own measures of success today, we STILL struggle with understanding Jesus. Why is it so hard?
Scripture: Mark 8:27-36
“This story is unique in the New Testament in that the healing happens in two stages. Mark’s account, however, has an important, symbolic significance as well: Clarity about Jesus’ mission comes only after confusion.” Right after the story of the blind man’s healing, Mark showed Peter’s great confession of Jesus as “the Christ” (the anointed one in Greek, equivalent to the Hebrew “Messiah”), followed immediately by Peter’s confused effort to “correct” Jesus’ explanation about what it meant to be the Christ. Glimpsing the truth, but only in a fuzzy image “like trees…walking around,” Peter couldn’t yet grasp that Jesus truly meant that his mission involved rejection, suffering and execution.
Who is This, That Even the Winds and the Waves Obey Him – February 28, 2021
Scripture: Mark 4:35-41
The parables in Mark 4, culminating in this powerful witness of Jesus’ power, give us insights into who Jesus was and what was important to him. Opening our ears to hear his message is as important now as it was in his time.
Rev. Hannah Adair Bonner Preaching
Scripture: Mark 1: 1-20
Scholar and pastor Eugene Peterson caught Mark’s urgency: “Mark wastes no time in getting down to business—a single-sentence introduction…. There’s an air of breathless excitement in nearly every sentence he writes. The sooner we get the message, the better off we’ll be, for the message is good, incredibly good: God is here, and he’s on our side…. Mark, understandably, is in a hurry to tell us what happened in the…life, death, and resurrection of Jesus—the Event that reveals the truth of God to us, so that we can live in reality and not illusion.”
Scripture: 2 Corinthians 4:3-6; Mark 9:2-9
As Christians, we are constantly discovering new ways of seeing Jesus and his gift to the world. As our filters change, so does our understanding of scripture and how we have experienced the world. As we celebrate our awareness of the biases we have studied over this series, we allow ourselves to see things from a different point of view than one we may have always held. The disciples thought they knew Jesus, until they saw him differently. We may think we know our biases, the systems in which we live, the right way to think about anything…until we see them differently. Praise God for open hearts and open minds.
Scripture: Isaiah 40:21-31
The next three biases look at the social-political dimensions of seeing: Comfort/Complacency/Convenience Bias: Our brains welcome data that allows us to relax and be happy and reject data that require us to adjust, work, or inconvenience ourselves. Catastrophe/Normalcy Bias: Our brains notice sudden changes for the worse, but we easily miss slow and subtle changes over time. We think what is now normal always was and always will be. Our brains are wired for what feels normal. Cash Bias: It is very hard to see anything that interferes with our way of making a living. Our brains are wired to see within the framework of our economy, and we see what helps us make money. . Isaiah’s words, “Don’t you know? Haven’t you heard?…help us focus on what is right and good and true.
Scripture: 1 Corinthians 8:1-13
The next two biases look at the social-political dimensions of seeing: Confidence Bias: We mistake confidence for competence, and we are all vulnerable to the lies of confident people. Our brains prefer a confident lie to a hesitant truth. Conspiracy Bias: When we feel shame, we are vulnerable to stories that cast us as the victims of an evil conspiracy by some enemy “other.” Our brains like stories in which we’re either the hero or the victim . . . never the villain. The argument about meat/idols/worship in the Corknthian church shows what this can look like.
Scripture: Jonah 3: 1-5, 10: Psalm 62:5-12
The next three biases look at the social-political dimensions of seeing: Conservative/Liberal bias: Conservatives and Liberals see the world differently. Liberals see through a “nurturing parent” window, and Conservatives see through a “strict father” window. Liberals value moral arguments based on justice and compassion; conservatives also place a high value on arguments based on purity, loyalty, authority, and tradition. Our brains like to see as our party sees, and we flock with those who see as we do. Consciousness bias: A person’s level of consciousness makes seeing some things possible and others impossible. Our brains see from a location. Competency bias: We are incompetent at knowing how incompetent or competent we are, so we may see less or more than we think. Our brains prefer to think of ourselves as above average. The story of Jonah helps us understand these biases; the psalmist grounds us in God.
Scripture: John 1:43-51
The next three biases look at the social dimensions of seeing: Community bias: It is very hard to see something your group doesn’t want you to see. This is a form of social confirmation bias. Complementarity bias: If people are nice to you, you’ll be open to what they see and have to say. If they aren’t nice to you, you won’t. Contact bias: If you lack contact with someone, you won’t see what they see.. Weaving the story of Nathaniel under the fig tree with social biases helps us to see as Jesus sees.
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