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Stirring
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Bradford Bosworth | Read 2 Corinthians 6:1-13
Our time together closes in the port of Corinth with an ETA on the sabbath. We are beginning to identify with the Corinthians much the same as we viewed the Israelites: a people off course looking to navigate their way back.
We can almost feel the gentle rocking motion as if we are back in the boat on the Sea of Galilee as Paul in subsequent verses reels off life’s juxtapositions: honor/dishonor, ill repute/good repute, well known/unknown, sorrowful/rejoicing, poor/rich, and nothing/everything. We find ourselves reaching out, looking again for that stable place to recover our balance. Yet, to be without these variances in our daily experience means we are not living. And if we look back to 2 Corinthians 5:20, we note the place of balance as Paul advises us to “be reconciled to God.” For Paul, this reconciliation is a matter of urgency: “Now is the acceptable time.”
As a boy transitioning into manhood, I cannot forget the nights sometimes turned into morning, full moon hanging over Biscayne Bay, me leaning over a bridge catwalk railing with a long dip net. If my shrimping mates and I were fortunate to have the high tide turning and subsiding under the full moon, we would bring up a bounty of shrimp in our nets. I know that in those moments between the bay’s ebb and flow, some neighborhood boys found themselves “in the time of [God’s] favor” between the frontiers of life’s extremes. God continues to offer the gift of reconciliation, but we must choose to accept it and acknowledge the greatness of the gift.
God, may we accept your offer of reconciliation that helps keep our lives in balance. Amen.
As children of God, we will face opposition; but God will ultimately give us victory. The psalmist cries out to God asking for deliverance from oppression at the hands of his enemies and concludes the psalm with the assurance that God will do so. Tradition credits this psalm to David, who as a boy had risked his life against Goliath based on that same assurance. Goliath mocked the Israelites and their God, but God gave the victory. Paul recounts his sufferings for the gospel, yet he is not overcome or in despair, for he trusts in God. Jesus calms a storm and is disappointed that the disciples show so little faith. Why do they not believe in God’s deliverance? And what about us? Do we still believe in God’s deliverance?
• Read 1 Samuel 17:1a, 4-11, 19-23, 32-49. How do you stay grounded in the knowledge that you are part of the people of God? How does that knowledge sustain you in trying times?
• Read Psalm 9:9-20. When have you been provoked to cry out, “Rise up, O Lord?” On whose behalf did you cry?
• Read 2 Corinthians 6:1-13. When have you allowed your discipleship to become lax? Can you sense Paul’s urgency in his appeal: “Now is the acceptable time” (emphasis added)?
• Read Mark 4:35-41. How do you find the quiet center when the storms of life rage around you?
Respond by posting a prayer.
I join many of those who will pray for you as you seek to discern what you are called to be at this moment. May God grant you the courage to fulfill that calling. May we all open our eyes and see the misery, open our ears and hear the cries of God’s people, and, like God through the Lord Jesus Christ, be incarnate amongst them.”
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