Hello friends.
This is Mark Glaveman,
Also known as Brother Frederick James,
Your friendly neighborhood monk in dogs.
Welcome to another episode in our Lectio Divina series,
The Questions Jesus Asked.
As we begin,
Let's just take a moment.
To allow ourselves to become still.
Just notice your breathing.
Notice the weight of your body resting where you are.
Notice the thoughts moving through your mind without needing to chase them.
And slowly become aware that beneath all your thoughts and distractions,
God is already present.
As today,
We sit with a question Jesus asks a religious expert,
But it's also a question that reaches deeply into the way every one of us sees the world.
In Luke chapter 10.
A teacher of the law stands up to test Jesus and asks,
What must I do to inherit eternal life?
Jesus responds in typical Jesus fashion with a question rather than an answer.
He asks.
What is written in the law.
How do you read it?
Now don't brush over the question because it's actually quite important.
Jesus doesn't just ask what the scriptures say,
He asks how they are read.
Because the reality is two people can read the same text and come away with very different hearts.
One can become more compassionate.
Another can become more rigid.
One can become more open to mystery and another can become more certain.
And defensive.
So the issue here isn't about information,
It's about perception.
And perhaps this question reaches far beyond scripture itself.
How do you read your life?
How do you interpret people?
How do you read suffering?
How do you read failure?
Even,
How do you read God?
I guess much of our human life is.
Interpretation,
We're constantly making meaning.
We tell stories about ourselves and of others.
We interpret silence.
Sometimes as rejection.
We interpret weakness as failure.
We interpret difference as a threat sometimes.
We interpret success as worthiness.
We're constantly reading the world through wounds and fears and assumptions and desires and inherited beliefs.
Over time.
Our interpretations begin shaping the kind of people we become.
And this is why.
Contemplative spiritual traditions place so much importance on awareness.
Because often we don't realise that we're reading life through lenses we never consciously chose.
The lawyer in this passage.
Knows the correct answer.
He speaks beautifully of loving God and loving neighbor,
Yet the conversation quickly moves towards limits and boundaries.
Because he asks Jesus,
Well,
Who is my neighbour?
He wants clarity.
Around who belongs within the circle of compassion.
And this is where Jesus tells the parable of the Good Samaritan.
A story that completely disrupts the lawyer's categories.
Because the outsider becomes the example of neighbourliness.
The religious figures pass by wounded suffering.
Compassion becomes more important than maintaining separation.
In other words,
Jesus reshapes not only this lawyer's theology,
But his way of seeing.
And maybe this is part of the invitation for us today.
Not just to read scriptures for answers,
But to allow scripture to read us.
To allow the teachings of Jesus to expose the places where our visions become narrow,
Fearful.
Or hardened.
We shouldn't let the spiritual life be narrowed down to just being about possessing the right ideas about God.
It's about slowly learning to see.
As Christ does,
To read people through compassion.
Rather than suspicion.
To read ourselves through grace rather than shame,
To read the world with attentiveness.
Instead of judgment.
To read scripture,
Not as a weapon of control.
But as an invitation into love and maybe.
That's the deeper question that Jesus asks us today.
How do you read?
So as we listen.
.
.
To the scripture.
Moving into the reading,
Just listen gently.
Notice the word or phrase that catches your attention.
Allow it to sink deep and for the spirit to speak to you about it.
Allow the text to become less something.
That you're going to analyse and more something that you receive today.
As we read from Luke chapter 10.
Versus 25.
To 29.
Just then.
.
.
A lawyer stood up to test Jesus.
Teacher,
He said,
What must I do to inherit eternal life?
He said to him,
What is written in the law?
What do you read there?
He answered,
You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart,
With all your soul,
With all your strength,
And with all your mind,
And your neighbor as yourself.
And he said to him,
You've given the right answer.
Do this and you will live.
But wanting to justify himself,
He asked Jesus.
And who is my neighbour?
Just then.
A lawyer stood up to test Jesus.
Teacher,
He said,
What must I do to inherit eternal life?
He said to him,
What is written in the law?
What do you read there?
He answered.
You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart,
With all your soul,
With all your strength,
And with all your mind,
And your neighbor as yourself.
And he said to him,
You've given the right answer.
Just do this and you will live.
But wanting to justify himself,
He asked Jesus.
And who is my neighbour?
Just then.
.
.
A lawyer stood up to test Jesus.
Teacher,
He said,
What must I do to inherit eternal life?
He said to him,
What is written in the law?
What do you read there?
He answered.
You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart,
With all your soul,
With all your strength,
And with all your mind,
And your neighbor as yourself.
And he said to him,
You've given the right answer.
Do this and you will live.
But wanting to justify himself,
He asked Jesus.
And who is my neighbour?
As we bring our time to a close,
I invite you to pray with me.
Christ who questions gently,
You see not only what we believe but how we see.
You know the stories we carry,
The assumptions that we've inherited,
The judgments we form without noticing.
And still you invite us deeper.
Teach us to read life through compassion.
Teach us to read scripture with humility.
And openness.
Teach us to see people not as categories or problems,
But as beloved.
Where our vision has become narrow,
Widen it.
Where our fear has shaped our perception,
Soften it.
Where certainty has closed our hearts,
Awaken wonder again.
May your spirit slowly transform the way we interpret the world,
Until love becomes the lens through which we see all things.
And when we encounter the wounded.
Along the road of life.
May we not pass by.
And may grace,
Peace and love go with us and remain with us today and every day.
Amen.
Grace and peace,
Friends,
Until tomorrow.
Bye for now.
