The View from the West Mesa

Luke's telling of the Annunciation is a story too easy for us to simply read over, thinking we've heard it all before. We do ourselves a disservice if we don't slow down and read the exchange as though there is something there for us. An angel appears in front of a young girl. No, not just an angel - an Archangel. Gabriel. He's been around but today he is entrusted with delivering a very important announcement. And so he appears.Usually in Scripture when an angel shows up, grown warriors fall to the ground and have to be coaxed to their feet. This girl doesn't do that though. She is a bit confused. First, she isn't expecting an angel today and this one is telling her something about her having a baby and her baby being a king for Israel, a descendant of David on his throne. The angel has to repeat himself and expand his message a bit.He even tells her that her aunt who everyone thought to be barren was pregnant. So we have two females who aren't suppos...

The parable of the tenants is one I don't remember hearing much as a kid. Maybe that is due to the presence of brutal murder as part and parcel of the story and our general aversion to exposing young children to sex and violence if we can avoid them. As an adult, this parable has usually been explained in the most obvious application, and that having to do with Israel rejecting Jesus, the Son of God. The fallout of that rejection of course, is the taking of the gospel to Gentiles. So far, so good I suppose. Certainly that is one of the main purposes of the parable. The parable though, doesn't just appear in the text by itself. Rather, it comes as part of a story itself. In this case, Jesus' jousting with the Pharisees. I think it is this story from which we can best use this parable for the church. There are two often left unnoticed statements in the larger story which may have more to say to modern disciples than the actual parable. The first appears to be the res...

Jonah, the guy with the big fish. Or the guy with the scorching heat and the shade problem. The guy directed to Nineveh by his God. The guy who does everything he can not to do what his God wants him to do. If we have read the story and paid attention, we know that it ends with God’s rhetorical question about caring for people - a stark contrast drawn between a God follower and his God. Standard insights and details that most of us glean from this story. But.... Have you noticed these details: Once Jonah gets on the boat, in the middle of the storm we find the Pagans entreating their gods for safety and deliverance.  Once they learn from Jonah that they’re going to have to throw Jonah overboard, these Pagans entreat Jonah’s God not to hate them for throwing him overboard. Once we get Jonah to Nineveh and he delivers his speech, the Ninevites almost immediately – at the direction of their king – repent in “sackcloth and ashes.” Jonah goes up on the hill ...