[The Midweek Encounter is a ministry of Encounter Church in Kentwood, MI. These posts are reflections on Sunday's message, which can be heard here each week: http://myencounterchurch.org/#/messages-media]
I used to be good at reading the Bible. And by good, I mean I read it pretty regularly, even every day most of the time.
Then something happened, the type of thing that seems to be almost inevitable when you follow Jesus for any length of time...I started to lose interest in the Bible. Reading it in bits and pieces didn't seem like it was doing anything. The words seemed as flat as the page they were written on. I suspect I'm not entirely alone in feeling that way.
Maybe my problem was that I had fallen into thinking that reading the Bible is just about that--reading the words, making sure my eyes pass over each one simply so I can say I read it. But reading the Bible was never supposed to be about just reading the Bible. There are college courses teaching the Bible as literature, and while such studies have merit in their own right, when we approach the Bible like we would any other book, we miss the major point of it.
The Bible isn't just words. It's the God behind them.
Which means, as we read the story of Mary poured this expensive perfume on Jesus' feet, we should be asking ourselves what it reveals about who Jesus is--and how that, in turn, shapes our lives as we seek to become more like him.
The perfume wasn't like dollar store body spray that lasts an hour and then dissipates. This was lasting, the scent initially saturating the house and invading the senses of those present, then clinging to Jesus for days afterwards. Wherever he went, people knew that Jesus had been near. The scent was unavoidable. Anything he did, people would associate those words, those actions, those feelings, all with Jesus.
My Bible didn't come with scratch and sniff pages, but I don't need them to know that the scent Jesus spread was a good one. People would have associated that scent with love, truth, compassion, understanding, and grace. They experienced the smell of Jesus firsthand as they talked with him and ate with him and laughed with him. While we can’t do those same things, if we let it, the Bible tells us what we need to know about how we can soak up those wonderful attributes of Jesus.
When we approach the Bible as more than just words on a page, we can get whiffs of what the aroma of Jesus was like. We’re invited to discover it for ourselves, and tasked with spreading that good scent wherever we go. II Corinthians 2:16 describes it as “an aroma that brings life.” By seeing the God behind the words and joining in the work he is already doing, we can be carriers of the aroma of Jesus wherever we go.
[Brianna DeWitt believes in Jesus, surrounding yourself with good people, and that desserts are best when they involve chocolate and peanut butter. She loves Christmas and can be found spreading Christmas cheer by singing loud for all to hear. You can read more of her musings on her own blog or follow her on Twitter @bwitt722.]
[The Midweek Encounter is a ministry of Encounter Church in Kentwood, MI. These posts are a reflection on Sunday's message, which can be heard here each week: http://www.myencounterchurch.org/#/messages-media]
Whether it’s lingering memories from being picked last or not at all for kickball in elementary school, or more recent moments of feeling like the odd one out because our house or car isn’t up to the same standard as many people we know, we all know what it’s like to feel left out. The particularities of the situation can take many different shapes, but the root—feeling different, unwanted, outcast—remain the same.
In Luke 8 we read the story of a woman who had been bleeding for twelve years. Not only did she have to deal with the physical aspects of her ailment, but in that time, this ailment that was completely out of her control would have meant she was socially, physically, and religiously isolated from her community. Far from being the last one picked for the kickball game, she wouldn’t have even been welcome to sit in the stands to watch.
So I can only imagine what was going through this woman’s mind when she heard that Jesus was going to be in the area. She had spent all she had on doctors, trying to find someone who could make her well, so maybe she was thinking that Jesus was her last chance. I had always thought of this story only in physical, medical terms—she had been bleeding for twelve years, and suddenly, she no longer was. But when Jesus healed her, he broke down all the barriers for her—the social, physical, and religious ones. Perhaps she had family and friends who hadn’t talked to her or spent time with her in years, and once she was healed they did again, or maybe she started a completely new life, one she had hardly dared dream of all those years she was sick.
Whatever it was, it all began because Jesus was willing to break down barriers. While the healing took place as soon as the woman touched Jesus' cloak, he took the time to stop. He talked to her at a time when it's likely that very few people were doing the same. He saw her.
In our society, we don't often isolate people in as noticeable of ways as what this woman endured. But it still happens. We've all felt it, and likely even inflicted it at times as well. The question is, are we willing to notice? Will we, like Jesus, stop and take the time to talk to the people no one else seems to want to acknowledge? Will we take the time to really see them, to break down a barrier in whatever small way we can?
[Brianna DeWitt attends Encounter Church and lives, works, and writes in Grand Rapids, MI. You can see more of her musings on her personal blog at http://awritespot.wordpress.com and on Twitter at @bwitt722.]
[The Midweek Encounter is a ministry of Encounter Church in Kentwood, MI. These posts are a reflection on Sunday's message, which can be heard here each week: http://myencounterchurch.org/#/hear-a-message]
As a kid, I loved the Amelia Bedelia books. For a second grade project, I even decorated a pumpkin to look like her, with the classic yellow flowers bordering her bonnet.
My dad, however, did not love Amelia Bedelia quite so much. As far as children’s books go, the Amelia Bedelia ones tend towards the longer side, which I think was part of the reason my dad didn’t like them. His problem with the books went beyond length though—it was saying “Amelia Bedelia” out loud over and over and over. After a while, he’d start calling her “Emmy Lou” to avoid the bouncing syllables of “Amelia Bedelia.” Having read the books out loud to my niece, I now understand the temptation to do just that.
It seems to me that we often do a similar thing with the Bible. Even as we read Matthew 6:19-24 on Sunday, it struck me that I’ve rarely heard anything about verses 22 and 23. I’ve heard verses 19-21 used as a nice reminder to not seek after the things of this world, and verse 24 often gets quoted in messages about not loving money. But verses 22 and 23 are a bit confusing. They don’t seem to fit with the theme of the passages around them, about where our ultimate treasures should be found. It’s tempting to gloss over them and just carry on with what we can understand.
The problem is, when we take this approach to the Bible—of turning “Amelia Bedelia” into “Emmy Lou” for the sake of ease—we miss out on really important things. When we dig into Matthew 6:22-23, as Pastor Dirk did on Sunday, we discover it’s about having an open heart, and ultimately a lifestyle of generosity that reflects God’s generosity towards us. Suddenly, its placement among talk of where we store our treasure makes a lot more sense. If our treasure is truly not in the things of this world, it should cause us no pain to be generous with we have—with our money, our talents, our time, and whatever else God has given us.
Replacing tricky Bible passages with simplified explanations is tempting, but it’s not the way to learn what God is really teaching us. When we refuse to gloss over the difficult verses and really dig into them, we can find that everything around it begins to make more sense as well.
[Brianna DeWitt attends Encounter Church and lives, works, and writes in Grand Rapids, MI. You can see more of her musings on her personal blog at http://awritespot.wordpress.com and on Twitter at @bwitt722.]
