Beloved,

This Sunday in worship, we’ll look at three short verses from the Gospel of Luke as a gateway into the other 31,100 mysterious bits of our sacred text.

In it, a lawyer (read: canon lawyer, scholar of the Bible), asks Jesus what he must do to inherit eternal life. Jesus asks him, in turn, what the Bible says, and adds “how do you read it?”

How do we read the Bible? Do we, at all?  Or have we left it to others to interpret for us, to our great loss? Have we given it up to the lunatics and the literalists? Do we wait patiently for our preachers to digest it for us, and hand over all that authority?

Jesus ultimately tells the lawyer the story of the Good Samaritan, as an answer to his question. He tells this intellectual that it’s time to go do something about what he knows of God’s law. In the very next chapter, he tells a woman, Martha, the opposite–to stop doing–to sit, like her sister Mary is, and listen. My preacher-hero, Fred Craddock, says we should take a hint from this–if Jesus writes a new prescription every time rather than offering up the same spoonful of patent medicine, so should we, too, follow Jesus in ways that fit each occasion.

And so we do, or are trying to. This weekend, there is going and doing, like the lawyer; and there is also sitting and listening, like Martha and Mary. Tomorrow: the Somerville Homeless Coalition 5k! Come and hang at the First Church table near the T stop, where we’re handing out apples and information about our church. If you’re not running, you can support our runners with a donation:  last year we were the highest-giving group, as befits the kind of people Jesus told to feed and shelter the poor.

Sunday morning, we’ll sit and listen:  it’s World Communion Sunday, complete with hymns and organ and choral pieces from all the continents of Creation. We’ll take communion from many loaves, mindful of the unity of Christians across the globe, some who still suffer for following this faith. I’ll be preaching, our second in a sermon series on the Bible, on just how we read it. Bring your own Bibles! Take control of your biblical destiny! Heather E. is our newly-minted liturgist:  say prayers for her, sit and listen to her wisdom and testimony and faith in the still-speaking God!

After worship: New Old Fashioned Bible Study closes out a 4-part series on the intriguing, exasperating letter to the Romans, with Althea in the Parlor. It’s not to late to join in the discussion. And Rooftop People regathers after hiatus, in the Chapel, to welcome newcomers and catch up after the summer.

Happy Sabbath. Whether you are going and doing, sitting and listening, bless you on your way~
Molly