Spiritual Life @ Bucknell – Page 10 – Reflections, Thoughts, and Prayers from Kurt Nelson, Director of Religious & Spiritual Life at Bucknell (and friends).

During the Month of February, the Rooke Chapel Congregation is praying with great leaders, thinkers, activists, poets and scholars of the Black Church (writ large.)

This week, Sunday 2/3/19, WEB Dubois – Educator, Scholar, and Activist:

Give us grace, O God, to dare to do the deed which we well know
cries to be done. Let us not hesitate because of ease, or the
words of men’s mouths, or our own lives. Mighty causes are
calling us—the freeing of women, the training of children, the
putting down of hate and murder and poverty—all these and
more. But they call with voices that mean work and sacrifices
and death. Mercifully grant us, O God, the spirit of Esther, that
we say: I will go unto the King and if I perish, I perish.

(via https://sojo.net/articles/prayer-day-give-us-grace-1)

Rooke Chapel Congregation
Kurt Nelson
Sunday 1/20/19
John 2: 1-11

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory… full of grace and truth…From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.

Thus begins the Gospel of John.
The word “Grace”
which you’ll soon learn is my favorite word,
appears 4 times in John’s dense prologue,
and then never gain.
Unlike – for instance Paul
who’s always trying to tell us what grace means –
John tries to show us.

in one sense,
the Gospel of John is a simple text.
When you take a course on biblical Greek,
you read John,
The language is clear, uncomplicated
and unlike so much of the Greek New Testament,
grammatical.
John is well considered and coherent,
and not a word is wasted.
It’s poetry.
Indeed, it’s theology,
in story form.
But the simple language belies
a deeper complexity.
beneath it all,
you sense layers.
you sense magic.
You sense he’s trying to point you to something great,
and big and mysterious.
Did you notice how today’s story began?
“On the third day…”
This is not an accident.
John’s readers and hearers know the story,
and he’s trying to take them deeper,
to show them what grace is,
to show them who God is.
And remind them that scarcity and abundance,
death and resurrection,
are all woven intimately together. Continue reading “The best is yet to come.”