Adult Bible Study Online

Overcoming Rejection

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Lesson text: Matthew 13:54-58
By: Ken Seitz
Email: kenseitz@hotmail.com

I'm taken with these words in ABS, page 54: "But the story [of Jesus' ministry] is not over. God has called Jesus to be God's Messiah. Jesus' work will go on." Dorothy Jean Weaver, ABS author, makes much of Jesus picking up and going on following his rejection at Nazareth (pp. 54-55).

We recently received our January 2010 issue of The Mennonite. We see what editor Everett Thomas promised in the preceding issue, prepping us with his editorial, "Don't Waste a Crisis" (The Mennonite, December 15, 2009, p. 32). In short, he says that the current economic downturn (the crisis) has led to some necessary and (hopefully) beneficial changes in format, content, and frequency of publication.

In the January issue, "Letters" (p. 5), Walter Sawatzky, a leader in the Franconia Conference, picks up on "Don't Waste a Crisis," to talk about his Parkinson's disease diagnosis at the prime of his career. He talks about the struggle to deal with this chronic disease, stressing that his life of ministry is not necessarily over; resources untapped will come to bear in a positive manner. Incidentally, my spouse was diagnosed with a chronic disease in July 2009. We, too, are trying to get our thinking together about not wasting a crisis.

Turning to our beloved Mennonite Church USA and Canada, I sense that we are in crisis over several issues that seem to render us asunder: matters of sexuality and the situation in Israel-Palestine, to identify two. The former is currently being more widely debated than the latter, but both are leaving us poles apart.

Does every so-called crisis have a positive spin to it? Should it? In our household, we are still trying to find out what it means to live in a state of "new normal." And in our churches, we've yet to come out on the positive side of these issue debates.

Jesus emerged from the crisis of rejection at Nazareth without slowing down his ministry in the least; the gospel account picks up without missing a beat in Matthew 14. However, I often wonder: Where does that leave the rest of us and the ministry/mission that God has given?

This message relates to the Adult Bible Study. For additional information on Adult Bible Study or Adult Bible Study Teacher, send email to info@mpn.net. To order either publication call Mennonite Publishing Network at 1 800 245-7894.