BibleWorm

Episode 536 The Disciples' First Miracle (Acts 3:1-10)

This week we’re continuing on in our post-Easter readings with the story of disciples’ first healing, as told in Acts 3:1-10. On their way to the temple one afternoon, Peter and John encounter a man who was born without the ability to walk. Not having any money, they heal him in the name of Jesus, then take him into the temple where he leaps and praises God. We talk about the disciples regarding the man as an equal, looking him and the eye and grasping him by the hand as they offer him healing. We discuss the risk Peter takes, pressing beyond the most obvious gifts and offering the man what he most truly needs. And we notice the most profound gift of all—the restoration of the man to his community, where he enters fully among them for what is likely the first time in his life. If only our communities could be sources of healing in the world in the same way.

Episode 535 Waiting for the Spirit (Acts 1:1-14)

This week BibleWorm begins not only a new book but a new kind of book in the New Testament – we move from a gospel to the Book of Acts with Acts 1:1-14.  We love seeing what the author lays out for us as the sort of “season recap” at the beginning – what parts of the Jesus story are most pressing for us to hold close for this next chapter? And truly it is a new chapter – the disciples sit in the echo of what has happened, but really don’t know yet what it all means for the future. And guess what they are to do, these leaders of the budding church, these people whose lives were turned upside down in every imaginable way? They are to stay put, stay in community, stay in prayer, and wait. How much pressure must they feel to DO something with what they’ve received already – to figure out what should happen next? But something is still missing – you can’t get ahead of the spirit.

Episode 534 Easter without Jesus (Mark 16:1-8)

This week BibleWorm reads the story of the first Easter as told in Mark 16:1-8. In this most challenging version of the Easter story, we never encounter the resurrected Jesus. Rather, a young man in white tells the women to go to Galilee where Jesus will meet them. It’s strange not to see Jesus on Easter, but isn’t this the way we mostly live our lives? We live the life of faith, based on the testimony of others and mostly without tangible evidence, trusting that Jesus really is resurrected just as the young man said. But Mark tells us that the women, startled and overwhelmed, left the tomb in silence, saying nothing to anyone because they were afraid. So it falls to us, as the readers, to make a choice. Will we go to meet Jesus just as the young man instructed? Do we have enough faith to meet Jesus in Galilee?

Episode 533 SPECIAL EPISODE Good Friday (Mark 15:16-41) REPLAY

On this special Good Friday episode, originally released on April 4, 2020, BibleWorm explores the story of Jesus's crucifixion in Mark 15:16-41. We talk about the humiliation and abandonment that so often accompanies and exacerbates our suffering, about vessels of God’s holiness breaking open into the world, and about what it means to have supporters out there that you may never know about.

Episode 532 SPECIAL EPISODE The Last Supper (Mark 14:12-42)

This week BibleWorm has a special episode for you – we are reading Mark’s account of the Last Supper, in Mark chapter 14: 12-42. What a story. We can feel the urgency in this supper, just like the original Passover meal – that something new and big and awesome and fearsome is about to happen, and there‘s no way you can really anticipate its magnitude. But alongside that, the text forces us to stare deeply into the frightening idea that no matter our convictions or our intentions, at the end of the day, we can’t really trust ourselves. What do we do with that – how can we live with it? And maybe more importantly, what does Jesus do with it?

Episode 531 The Triumphal Entry and the Anointing at Bethany (Mark 11:1-11 and 14:3-9)

This week BibleWorm reads the traditional Palm Sunday text in Mark 11:1-11 as well as the story of a woman anointing Jesus as told in Mark 14:3-9. We focus on the cries of the crowd as Jesus rides into Jerusalem, as they shout “Hosanna! Save us!” Their cry is urgent and hopeful but also quite vague about what, exactly, they need to be saved from. Sometimes, we think, this is the best prayer we can offer, not knowing how we can be saved but trusting that Jesus knows and can do as he promised. When we turn our attention to the anointing at Bethany, we find an unnamed woman doing the best she can to honor Jesus with extravagant love, using a year’s worth of wages to buy oil for his anointing. While others try to shame her for her wastefulness, Jesus lifts her up, making her gift even more profound than even she could ever have known. But that’s just the way Jesus is. He takes what we have—both our cries and our love—and transforms them in profound ways that we could never anticipate.

Episode 530 The Markan Apocalypse (Mark 13:1-8, 24-38)

Today BibleWorm reads from the Markan apocalypse, Mark 13:1-8 and 24-37 - a vision of the thorough undoing of the world as we have come to know it. The most grand of buildings will fall. The weather patterns that sustain our food and water will falter. Even heaven and earth will not endure.  Our persistent question reading these texts was – for better and for worse, is - what do people do when they think the world is going to end? How can this knowledge root us in the teachings of the Torah, or the word of Jesus, without prompting us to shrink back from a world that still needs us?

Episode 529 Loving God and Neighbor (Mark 12:28-44)

This week BibleWorm reads Mark 12:28-44, a collection of texts that begins with the greatest commandment to love both God and neighbor. We think about what it means to love in this context, concluding that fidelity to one’s neighbors is the prerequisite for loving God. But what really interests us is that Jesus and one of the scribes, who have been antagonists throughout the book of Mark, find common ground in this commandment. We wonder whether we, too, could find common ground with our opponents by taking a step back to focus on love of God and love of neighbor. Finally, we discuss the story of a widow putting her last two coins in the temple treasury. Here is the measure of faithfulness that Jesus has been seeking—someone willing to relinquish control and trust her life to God and the community of faith. Now, we wonder, will the community return her faithfulness by sustaining her in her time of need?

Episode 528 The Parable of the Tenants (Mark 12:1-17)

Today BibleWorm reads Mark 12:1-17. Jesus is in Jerusalem, in the last week of his life, when he pulls upon Isaiah’s well-known image of Israel as a vineyard to offer another parable - one in which those sent on behalf of the landowner are rejected over and over again by the proverbial management. What does it mean in this context to say that the one that was rejected will be the cornerstone - or does he mean foundation stone? And how does all of this tie into Jesus’s famously clever instruction to pay to the emperor the things that are his, and to God the things that are God’s? Oh – and we also announce our summer series!

Episode 527 The Healing of Bartimaeus (Mark 10:32-52)

This week BibleWorm reads Mark 10:32-52, the last of Jesus’s three predictions of his suffering and death that began back in Mark 8. Once again, we see that the disciples have not quite understood, as James and John respond by asking Jesus to sit at his right and left hand when he comes in his glory. We talk about Jesus’s invitation to James and John to drink his cup and receive his baptism, indicating that they—and all followers of Jesus—must be willing to share in his suffering, becoming slave and servant of all. We also discuss the story of blind Bartimaeus, who asks for mercy and receives his sight. Unlike the disciples, who have been jostling for first place, Bartimaeus becomes a model for Christians, falling in place behind Jesus on the way. What else could he do—and what else should Christians do— but live his life in gratitude for the mercy Jesus showed him?