Sermon Threads

Pentecost

2008-05-08T11:16:00.003-05:00

Acts 2:1-21

Like the Ascension last week, Pentecost is more an event to be experienced rather than a theological concept to figure out. I think it was W. H. Auden who once wrote "A poem should not mean but be," and that is very much Pentecost as well.

And how cool that Pentecost falls on Mother's Day this year, because often in the early church the third part of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, is depicted as female (both the Greek and Hebrew words for the Spirit are in feminine gender). Like the best mothers, the Spirit is depicted in the story for this Sunday as moving through chaos, helping people move past differences to communicate and build relationships.

A couple of interesting things

We were told back in chapter one that the folk gathered waiting for the Spirit were not just the 11 (now 12 again), but also some women who had followed Jesus, Jesus' mother and his brothers. So these original prophet/preachers were a diverse bunch.
If you check out the nationalities of all those who heard the Spirited-speakers that day, you discover that Asia, Africa and Europe are all represented. Not an accident, I think, but rather a foreshadowing of where the gospel would spread first.
The use of the Joel scripture indicates even greater diversity. The Spirit now will not only move in select prophets and leaders, but in everyone from the greatest to the least in society, of all ages and social conditions and genders.
Fire, wind and water are all part of this tale as well: flames above the heads of the believers, the "violent" wind heralding the Spirit's presence and getting people's attention, and then, following the entirety of Peter's sermon (not in today's text), we get waters of baptism for 3000! The imagery of the Joel passage Peter quotes includes cosmic elements in the coming of the Spirit.

The marks of the Spirit then included holy, life-giving chaos, breaking down barriers of communication between people and people, and people and God, and the creation of new community among folk who would not ordinarily be in community with one another. Altogether amazing, and still the ways we can see the Spirit at work today.

Ascension

2008-04-30T09:58:00.002-05:00

Acts 1:6-14
If you ask people to list the highlights of the Christian Year, my guess is that most Protestants, anyway, would not have Ascension high on the list, or even on the list at all. In fact, in 26 years of preaching, I think I've only preached one or two sermons on the topic.

It all seems so airy-fairy, like bad religious art with a white-robed Jesus floating up barefoot through the clouds into glory. Is it just Luke's way of trying to explain the very valid question that goes something like this: If Jesus rose from the dead in the flesh, then why is he not around today?!

It is a conundrum. If the Resurrection is so important, why didn't Jesus stick around. At the risk of inciting folk to label me a heretic (a la Carly Smithson who apparently got voted off American Idol for choosing to sing the title song from Jesus Christ Superstar and so vexed the conservative Christian Idol voters in one of the most bizarre popular culture events I've seen in a while), I would ask with Judas in Superstar why Jesus didn't really make a big splash post-Resurrection in order to completely convince people he was divine and therefore get a whole lot more convinced folk to follow God's way?

The text in Acts that tells Luke's second version of this (see the end of Luke's gospel for the first version) does make fairly clear Jesus' reasoning on this one. The enfleshed Jesus has limitations: he can only be in one place at one time. If he goes and the new earthly form of the presence of God is in Spirit, a Spirit that will move in and through people in many places and across time, then the word and work of God has legs, so to speak. The legs of the disciples, and our legs now.

But there is more to it than that. The issue of what the power of the Spirit, the continuing power and divine authority of Jesus, now dwelling in what would become the church, the issue of what that power is to be used for is also addressed here. The disciples asked Jesus if now was the time that the great political revolution would start, the one that would restore Israel to its historic greatness. Even after all this time with Jesus, the disciples are still looking back for their vision and not ahead. Jesus actually ignores the question because he has all along been talking about power not limited to kings and queens and empires. Will they get it post-Pentecost?

Will we?

Paul at the Areopagus

2008-04-23T09:00:00.002-05:00

Acts 17:22-31

A sermon from Paul; maybe not a piece that would get people real excited, but this one is different from all the others in Acts in some ways. He is preaching not to a mixed crowd of the eager and the skeptical and the apathetic, but to a crowd of intellectuals and philosophers at one of the teaching places in Athens.

Now I pastor a church in New Haven, Connecticut, just down the hill from some of Yale's buildings, so I find connections with this passage that are different from when I was pastor of a small church in rural Michigan, when I connected more closely with other of Paul's writings.

So what does Paul say to the smart people? He does not chastise them or denigrate their religious impulses. He praises them for their seeking after God! I really don't think he is being facetious here. I think he honestly is reaching out to them at the place where he and they have something in common: a history of "groping" for truth, for understanding, for God.

He then tells them that in his seeking, he has found, through Christ, one God. He connects with this God; he knows this God as the one who has been living and moving in his life for many years. It's as though he recognizes someone he knows but has never seen before.

What's odd is that our reading for today leaves out the part of the response to this sermon. A couple of people responded to Paul and came to learn more about Jesus. Most did not. Most walked away, disappointed perhaps that Paul did not have a better argument, a more erudite philosophy perhaps?

This is a real tension place for me, as I expect it was for Paul. I am very highly educated at some of the best schools, and I serve a congregation with many highly educated and accomplished members. So do I preach to them with complex theological arguments, doing all manner of apologia? Or do I call them to search within all they know and all they are for the one in whom they live and have their being? Or both? How does the church and its preachers reach out to those who are among the wise and great thinkers of our world with Jesus? The Dawkins and other atheists are reaching out with complex (and often misleading) scientific, philosophical and literary arguments. Paul doesn't really respond to that kind of thing in Athens.

What is the gospel for Yale?

Emmaus Rd.

2008-04-02T10:23:00.002-05:00

No, I have not abandoned the blog! Just got caught up in other things!

This week we continue the resurrection appearances of Jesus in our gospel readings. Luke 24:13-35. Some interesting pieces to lift up about this story follow.

This is the only gospel in which this story appears. The man named "Cleopas" and his unnamed companion (some speculate it was his wife) also appears nowhere else in the scriptures. Obviously Cleopas was in the circle of those who followed Jesus, though not one of the 12. I love it that Jesus appears to those not in the inner circle: Mary and the other women, Cleopas. We need to remember that the early Christian Community consisted of far more than those 11 disciples!
Cleopas and wife come to know Jesus in two important ways: first, through the scriptures. He reminds them of what they already know about him and how God has kept trying to make clear who God is!
Second, they know him through the breaking of the bread. Obviously, this has Eucharistic implications (that last supper, by the way, Da Vinci notwithstanding, had to have included more than just the 12. If it was a Seder, then women had to be present at the very least!). Jesus took, blessed, broke and gave which are all basic movements of Holy Communion. More than once these post-Resurrection appearances involve eating! He had an actual human body and was not a ghost
So excited were Cleopas and friend that they ran, in the dark!!!! back to Jerusalem to tell the others. Their hearts burned. They were inflamed!

Psalms 2 and 23

2008-03-06T10:00:00.001-05:00

What an odd pairing of Psalms, 2 and 23! We are looking at these this week because our choir is singing Leonard Bernstein's amazing "Chichester Psalms," second movement, in which the men sing a vigorous Psalm 2 (in Hebrew) and the women sing a gentle Psalm 23. I was intrigued by the juxtaposition of these two Psalms and how they speak to each other.

Psalm 2 is a coronation Psalm, full of bluster and bravado as befits the crowning of a new king. God here is the tough guy, sticking up for little Israel and making it powerful beyond all reality and able to defeat any enemy.

Psalm 23 is the shepherd Psalm, full of comfort and trust.

Wow, what an emotional contrast, which Bernstein's music exploits wonderfully.

More and more I am seeing Psalm 2 as how we want God and the world to be and Psalm 23 as how God actually moves in the world. We really want a God who will come in and beat up our enemies with a rod, rather than a God who walks beside us with a very different kind of rod. We want a God who starves our enemies, rather than one who sets up a table for us in the presence of our enemies (does this mean the enemies eat with us?).

Here's my quote for the week on Psalm 23. It comes from James Mays' commentary on the book of Psalms in the Interpretation series (Louisville: John Knox Press, 1994), p. 118.

"The trust expressed [in Psalm 23] is not just a matter of mood. Strength must be found, a way must be walked, harm and evil threatened. Enemies persist. That is the environment of trust. Trust is not a rosy, romantic, optimistic view of things. Its foundations are prayer and thanksgiving and the story of salvation. 'There is a great difference between this sleep of stupidity and the repose which faith produces.' (Calvin)"

Psalm 130

2008-02-27T10:50:00.002-05:00

Psalm 130 falls into all kinds of categories. It is one of the Psalms of Ascent (meaning it was used in pilgrimage, as a way to prepare to attend religious festivals in Jerusalem). It is a lament psalm, but of a specific kind, a penitential lament. In other words, the lament here is not for what outside forces are doing to someone, but for how their life is not whole due to their own errors. It is also a psalm of hope.

A couple of fascinating things about this Psalm. First, although at the beginning it seems to be a prayer of confession by one person, it morphs into a prayer about the nation in the final two verses. This is in keeping with the sensibility of Hebrew prayer that there is little separation between an individual and the collective "people" or "nation." This is particularly hard for individual-oriented Americans to understand. When we sin as individuals, the sin impacts many people. When many people sin together (as when a nation makes mistakes), that sin impacts individuals.

The opening lines of this Psalm, in Latin, "De Profundis," pick up the strongest emotion possible. The "depths" are shorthand for the depths of the sea, the sense of the waters rising so high that we are covered and see no way back to the surface and the breath of life. Walter Brueggemann comments in his book The Message of the Psalms that "the gospel affirms that the cries from the depths are the voices to which Yahweh is peculiarly attuned." (p. 104).

That hope, that God is indeed attuned to hear the most agonizing cry of a human being, sits at the heart of the Psalm. The words "wait" and "hope" are synonyms in Hebrew. Together they are repeated five times in the Psalm. Elie Wiesel has said that a "passion for hope" is what makes a Jew a Jew. This is a hope rooted in God, beyond human capacity for understanding or action. It is not a hope rooted in what seems humanly possible or logical or realistic. And it is not a hope that can always be satisfied quickly.

I am coming to this Psalm this week keenly aware of the power of the individual penitential lament, but also keenly aware of the need for the church as well as our nation to engage in this activity. We need to be in touch with the honesty of lament and the possibility of hope (no, this is not an endorsement of Obama, though it is interesting how he has tapped into the basic human need and capacity for hope). Maybe most of all we need to learn how to wait in ambiguity.

Into the Hills

2008-02-14T11:48:00.002-05:00

This week on our journey through the Psalms, we get to 121, "I lift up my eyes to the hills," etc. This one is a favorite of many, and partly because it is a very emotionally accessible song. For many, in the end, it doesn't matter what it may "mean," because it brings comfort and hope.

Nothing wrong with that!

But a few words about this Psalm are in order that, I hope, will increase appreciation and not just be needless explication.

First, those hills. This Psalm is one of 15 designated as "Psalms of Ascent," or Psalms that were sung as pilgrims traveled to Jerusalem for one festival or another. Jerusalem is at one of the higher point above sea level of all the land of Israel, so that journey was uphill all the way for many. One scholar (Erik Routley) thinks these Psalms (120-134) were like folk songs that people would sing while traveling. They are all short and to the point.

The hills. Three ideas. The hills were places of potential danger. Wild animals, tough climbs, robbers and assorted bad guys, uncertain weather. The traveler looked at the forbidding hills and wondered, "How am I going to make it through there?"

Or, the hills were places where other religions had shrines to idols, the "high places." These idols offered help of all kinds for everything that ailed or bothered you. Are these idols the place to get help?

Or, the hills mean the hills of Jerusalem itself, and particularly Mt. Zion, the hill on which the Temple stood. The hills are places of hope where the presence of God is felt. Where will my help come? From God on Mt. Zion at the Temple. The God who made all the hills, and all the creatures in them. Us, too.

The other interesting thing to me about this Psalm is the repetition of the Hebrew word "samar." I have found it translated in various Bibles as "keep," "watch over" (it's the same word used to designate the watchers at the city gates elsewhere in scripture), "guard," "take care of," "protect." God the watcher is attentive to the least detail (those rocks on which your feet might stumble, for example) as well as the big picture (sun and moon). God is present, deeply present in this Psalm. God doesn't do away with evil, but is present and caring for us through it. Much like Psalm 23 with which this Psalm is often paired.

Confession, Psalm 32

2008-02-06T10:45:00.000-05:00

Throughout Lent, we're going to be journeying into the book of Psalms. In many ways the most amazing and honest book of the Bible, the 150 Psalms are sung prayers which incorporate the full range of human emotion and experience. In the Psalms we hear joyful people, desperate people, angry people, frightened people, hopeful people, faithful people and doubting people. These prayers are the human heart laid open and the human relationship with God in all its confusion and ecstasy.

[note: I will refer to the Psalmist as "he" because the odds are pretty good that most of the Psalms were written by the professional musicians of the Temple, who would all have been men. I would love to have a record of the prayers of the women of Israel through the ages]

We began on Ash Wednesday with Psalm 51, a deep and heartfelt confession of sin to God in whom the Psalmist trusts. The Psalm for today, 32, lays out the rationale for the importance of confession. The Psalmist reflects that when he kept the guilt of having gone astray inside, attempting to deceive other people, to deceive God, and to deceive the self, the guilt ate him up inside.

Most people I know have felt exactly this at one point or another in their lives. And most of us have a need to just tell someone in order to find some peace. The Psalmist tells God, and also in this public prayer, gives us a model for telling God.

Even more, the Psalmist tells us, we can tell God trusting that God will greet our confession not with punishment and anger, but with forgiveness, love and shelter. Jesus' promise of mercy was not new, but was fervently believed by worshipers in the great tradition of the Psalmists of Israel.

Confession brings freedom, which allows repentance, the possibility of turning our lives in a new direction. We are freed from being held captive to guilt or fear of being found out. The refuge is not a hiding place from truth, but rather the refuge of forgiveness, mercy and healing. Those whose hearts are clear from guilt and the fear of being exposed can truly rejoice.

Confession is not meant to be only a ritual, resulting in punishments to make right the wrong, but ultimately a gift, a liberation. Those who trust God can find this freedom. Why carry around this heavy burden when the promise from Jesus is that his "yoke is easy and his burden is light."

Magi

2008-01-02T10:28:00.000-05:00

Matthew 2:1-12

This is one of those stories that is more full of what we don't know than what we do know. The mythologizers have filled in details that simply are not in the story. It doesn't say there are three wise men. It doesn't say they are kings or what their names are or even exactly where they come from. It doesn't say they meet Jesus at a stable, but in a house. It doesn't say what that "star" was or why those magi brought Jesus those particular gifts.

In short, this is a story that is more visual, more metaphoric, more full of poetry and art than it is fact. It's full of drama and tension, both darkness and light, joy and great fear. It has connections to themes from the past of the people of Israel (particularly Moses), but it also has connections to the lives of any people who live under unjust rulers (which would include a large portion of the current world population).

The images that stand out include that star, a cosmic sign there to be read by all people, not just the people among whom Jesus was born, a sign that this event had import far beyond Bethlehem or Israel. To try to make it Halley's comet (appeared in 12AD) or a regular convergence of several stars takes away the point, which was that this was an unusual event.

And why had Herod's advisers not seen this and wondered about it? Or had they, and were they afraid to tell him? This guy had already killed two of his own sons for fear of their ambition.

Here's what I am wondering about this today. Did those Magi ever hear the end of the story? They seem to leave their gifts and then hit the road. Why go at all? Were they disappointed that the one the star heralded was not in a palace? All the stories and art always make them so in awe (as per verse 11), but if they recognized Jesus for who he was, why did they leave? Did they come back to discover what might have happened when he grew up? How did this encounter change them? Was it as little as Christmas seems to change most people now? Shelly

Advent 2

2007-12-05T10:43:00.000-05:00

Isaiah 11:1-10, Matthew 3:1-12

These two passages together might carry the title: "God the Forester." In some ways this is a difficult image, for trees are being cut down, pruned and burned. In other ways it is a hopeful image, with shoots of new life coming from what has been cut. It depends on what kind of tree you perceive yourself to be!

In chapter 10 of Isaiah, we read about God destroying trees that do not bear fruit in Israel, both those representing foreign invaders and those representing unfaithful Israelites. Verse 19 notes that the remaining trees will be so few that a child could count them. Verses 33 and 34 show God hacking down trees with an ax.

Very much like the imagery John the Baptist shares in Matthew 3:10. We are reading about God's judgment, something most of us good progressive Protestants want to leave to the evangelicals or Roman Catholics to talk about. But these readings this week really don't allow much escape from this theme. If we are going to talk about a shoot coming up from a stump, then we have to account for the existence of the stump!

In Isaiah, that shoot probably was understood to be a new king who would rule with justice, and that hope gets paired here with a hope that a new ruler would also usher in a time of unprecedented peace, symbolized by all those animals getting along. Christians often read back into this passage the hope for Jesus, but we have to be careful not to assume Isaiah was talking about a messiah. The attributes here are those any people would wish for their ruler.

John the Baptist, on the other hand, is fairly clear about the "one who is to come" (and we have no indication here that he knows it is his cousin, Jesus) will come with power and judgment and not just as a nice guy. It's easy for this to get lost at Christmas, and we often want to keep Jesus a baby so we can feel all good about him without John's words of judgment. But it was the judgment part of Jesus that actually got him killed.

As we get caught up in reindeer and tinsel, bells and gifts, we need to hear the words of John about who exactly it is we are welcoming!

Christ Reigns

2007-11-21T10:14:00.000-05:00

The last Sunday before Advent is traditionally called "Christ the King" or "Reign of Christ" Sunday. We end the liturgical year (which starts anew on 1st Advent) by proclaiming that Jesus was not just a nice man who lived a long time ago, but one with God as the ultimate power in all the world, and all the worlds.

So, oddly enough when the rest of the world is putting up decorations and singing about reindeer, we will be reading a part of the story of Jesus' crucifixion. If there ever was a clearer sense of how the world has co-opted the Christian story and how counter-cultural the message of Jesus really is, the juxtaposition of this reading and secular Christmas prep is surely it.

This year we read from Luke 23:33-43. This is the conversation between Jesus and the two thieves followed by the mocking of the Roman soldiers. The gist of the feelings of the first thief and those soldiers is that if Jesus really was powerful, then he'd show that by saving himself. If Jesus chose not to call down the angel armies, then he must be a fraud.

The ultimate mockery was the placement of a sign above the head of the bleeding and broken body of Jesus which read, "The King of the Jews." Pilate and the soldiers thought it was a joke. They only understood power in one way, military might.

So how is Jesus powerful? How are we to tap into that power as we exercise power in our lives and world? That's the central question of this day. I read a great quote by William Loader this week, "Jesus did not come to create a set of doormats, but to spread a revolution of love and grace, which entailed identifying and embodying a new kind of power."

The power of Jesus is that of forgiveness, of love, of breaking down barriers between people. The power of Jesus does not use the weapons of the enemy to defeat the enemy; quite the contrary. This applies to so much in our lives, from how we treat each other in families to the issue of the use of torture which is before our nation in these days of the "war on terror." Shall we use the weapons of terror to defeat the terrorists? Is there another way? What do you think?

Hagar and Ishmael and God

2007-11-06T14:53:00.000-05:00

Genesis 21:8-21

One of the more difficult stories of the Bible, so much so that Phyllis Trible, the Hebrew Bible Scholar, calls it a "Text of Terror." Some context:

Hagar is an Egyptian servant of Sarah. When Sarah continues to be infertile, she gives Hagar to Abraham to impregnate so that he can have children. Hagar, of course, has no say in this. She does indeed get pregnant, at which point Sarah feels Hagar now sees herself as above Sarah so Sarah "afflicts" her (the same Hebrew word is used to describe how the Egyptians later treat the Hebrew slaves, so you know it means tough stuff). Hagar runs away in desperation, into the wilderness, where she becomes the first woman since Eve to have a conversation directly with God (and one of the only women in the Bible to do so). In this conversation, God tells her to return and promises to make of her son a great nation.

She goes back and gives birth to Ishmael (meaning "God hears" since God heard her cries in the wilderness). Soon after, Sarah gives birth to Isaac. Our story picks up after Isaac is weaned (around age 3) and Sarah fears that the first born of Abraham (Ishmael) will take away her son's right to Abraham's name and nation, so she tells Abraham to kick Hagar out of the family along with her son. Regretfully, Abraham follows both Sarah and God and gives Hagar and Ishmael a small amount of food and water and sends them away.

Here is where so many folk have identified with Hagar, especially women who have been abused and made homeless, refugees, women in the midst of war, etc. Hagar is mother to all who have been cast out of families, societies, nations. Her position seems hopeless, and so she cries out in pain and leaves her son so she won't have to watch him die. But God hears her (or the boy, depending on how this is translated) and once again enters into a conversation with her. The promise is that God will honor the previous covenant with her and make Ishmael a great nation. Then God shows her a well.

*****Footnote: In Islam, the geographical location of this well is said to be the Ka'aba in Mecca and part of the rituals of the Hajj involve running from hill to hill as Hagar is said to have done looking for help for Ishmael.*******

So Hagar now is willing to pick up and move into the future, assured that not only is there water for surviving this day, but a promise to give both her and Ishmael a reason not to give up and think all possibilities for prosperity are past.

Jacob and Esau, the Widow and the Judge

2007-10-17T09:39:00.000-05:00

Genesis 32:22-31, Luke 18:1-8

Two amazing and rich stories this week. I want to focus for the blog on Luke's story of a widow who has been denied justice persisting in pestering a judge known to be unjust in order to have justice done in her case. In the end, the judge relents and she receives justice.

Luke's comments that frame this story indicate it may be about several things. He begins by saying it is about the need to pray and not lose heart. Then the words of Jesus indicate it might be about how God will bring justice for the people, but also he wonders if, when he comes again, he will find people have remained faithful in the meantime.

So what is this parable about?

What it is not about is saying we should whine to God or whoever until we get our way.
What it is not about is saying all we have to do is pester God enough and we will get whatever we want.
What it is not about is describing God as unjust and therefore needing to have us pester and pester until we get a response.
It's really important to get those things clear, because sometimes people really do think that's what Jesus is saying here.

Remember that this story is told in the context of a long conversation in the previous chapter about when God's kingdom will come. Remember that in what we call the Lord's Prayer, Jesus has told the disciples to pray that "God's kingdom come, God's will be done on earth as it is in heaven," and to pray this in a time and place where God's will was patently not being done on earth.

One commentator I read this week says that this story is primarily about "a yearning for change," and a yearning on behalf of the powerless, those like the widows of Jesus' time who most need for things to change, and change in a big way in the world. This is also not about personal prayer, really, not about asking for our own needs, but about the bigger picture, the coming of the kingdom in which we won't be arguing about which children should have health insurance and which should not or the fine points of what is torture and what is only making people suffer enough to tell us whatever we want to hear.

Another way to look at this parable might be to imagine God as the woman instead of the judge! What if it is God who keeps pestering us to bring justice while we sit as the unjust judge just wanting God to go away!

Either way, there is an element here of waiting in hope and insisting on not giving up, despite the fact that justice seems so delayed. Sort of what Esau had to do with Jacob, waiting for his brother to come to him seeking reconciliation. Sort of what God had to do with Jacob, wrestling with him until he got the point, even if it took all night and a wound that would follow Jacob the rest of this life, making the one who thought himself invulnerable all too vulnerable.

Don't give up on us, God, and we will try not to give up, either.

Faith Connections

2007-10-03T10:20:00.000-05:00

Second Timothy 1:1-14, Luke 17:5-10

Two interesting passages this week that speak in different ways about faith and its power.
First, in Second Timothy, Paul expresses thanks for Timothy's strong faith and notes that this faith did not spring up in him ex nihilo but from his mother and grandmother (whom Paul perhaps converted?). The faith also came to him "through the laying on of hands" at his baptism? ordination? commissioning as a missionary? The hands that served as the conduit of the HolySpirit came from the church, the faithful gathered to strengthen Timothy's faith.

So he is reminded, as the intro to the Star Trek series puts it, to "boldly go." He's not to be timid, but to see this faith connection with other people as empowering him both to love powerfully and also to stay grounded and not fall to temptation. Paul tells him to "guard the good treasure," not meaning to lock it away in a vault, but to courageously share it, not being afraid of the consequences.

Faith here, grown from and strengthened by connections between the past and the present, enables Timothy to move beyond fear to bring the treasure of the gospel into the future. Those connections, human and divine, are critical.

Then in Luke we get the all too well known mustard seed passage. Check out the context, though, in verses 1-4 of Luke 17. The apostles are asking Jesus in verse 5 to increase their faith because he has just told them that they'd better not do anything to make another believer stumble, and that they need to learn to forgive a ludicrous amount of time; even to forgive a person who sins against them seven times in one day! A feat seemingly beyond the capacity of any human being!

Jesus responds that they don't need more faith, they just need to fully access and exercise the faith they already have, even if it is a small as a little mustard seed! Then he goes on to say that if they just do what they know they should (like a household slave does), then they will find the faith they need, to do as he asks them to do.

They don't need "big" faith in order to say to God and the world, "my, look what big faith I have!" Rather they need to do what is required without expecting to be complimented on the greatness of their faith, either by God or by the community. Very much in line with Paul's charge to Timothy, isn't it? shelly

messages to the "rich"

2007-09-26T09:36:00.000-05:00

Amos 6:4-7, I Timothy 6:6-19, Luke 16:19-31

These three passages absolutely deluge us with conversation about the rich, about what possessions do to people, about God's view on peoples' obsession with possession, about the fact that all this should not be in any way new to us, as it was not for the people many generations ago for whom it was written!

Yet, it seems we still don't, in general, get the message.

Even though someone did rise from the dead!

So part of this seems as hopeless as the passage from Amos, where God says that the "revelry of the loungers" (isn't that a great image!) will pass because they did not feel grief for the plight of the poor and therefore act to address their situation. Is exile in Babylon or Hades the only future for those who are rich?

And who is that anyway? The picture in Amos sounds like folk from a B movie about the Roman empire. Same thing with the unnamed rich man in Luke (how wonderful that the poor man is named and the rich man is not, a total reversal of the usual course of things in history!). Timothy has a little more subtlety. If you have food and clothing, he suggests, you have enough, and any excess would class you among the "rich."

Which means most of us can't ignore these messages sent to the "rich" and assume they only mean those on the annual Forbes list of the billionaires.

So what is the message? Look at how possessions distract your attention from so many things: from the messages of God in the scriptures, from the plight of people right on your doorstep, from a life that is truly free and joyous. Look at what you are missing, the texts seem to say, you who think you are missing only the latest fashion or gadget.

The message seems to be, "pay attention," but not just to how the stocks are doing or the advertisements on the screen in front of you.

The hope here is that, unlike the despair of Abraham when speaking to the rich man, God did indeed rise from the dead to continue to attempt to get that message across. Who's paying attention?

Praying for the President

2007-09-18T09:22:00.000-05:00

This week we are looking at the little book of First Timothy. The book is ostensibly from the apostle Paul to his student and fellow missionary, Timothy. The scholars aren't sure Paul wrote this, but whoever wrote it, the stress of the text is clear: instruction for a young missionary and the new churches he is leading.

The letter comes in the context of a rise in persecution of Christian churches, and also of those churches still figuring out who they are and what they believe. In the first chapter, the writer (we'll call him Paul for ease of prose) cautions Timothy about those in the churches who get all hung up on "myths and genealogies." He worries about those engaged in "meaningless talk" and great stress on law. How easy it is to spin our wheels wondering about the details of things like who wrote this letter and not about the greater demands of the gospel?

Early in the life of the Christian churches, especially in the context of persecution and in a powerful Greco/Roman culture, it would have been tempting for the churches to cocoon themselves and separate from the society around them. Several "heresies" arose to encourage people to do just that, waiting for the second coming of Jesus. It is also tempting, especially when a group is threatened, to put together all kinds of careful ways to maintain identity with rules which have the result of making sure of who is "in" and who is "out."

The writer of Timothy is trying to counter those tendencies. He tells Timothy that first, the community's identity is in worship, and specifically in prayer. That prayer is not only to be for those in the community and their needs, but for "everyone." Specifically, for "kings and all in high positions." Remember that in the Roman cults, people prayed to the emperor, but in the churches, people are now to pray for the emperor. Can you imagine how difficult this must have been? Remember "love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you?" But Paul puts the emperor and all with power under the same God as all of us and in need to "being saved" and coming to the "knowledge of truth," just like everyone else.

That "knowledge of truth" probably was not meant to be intellectual information, but that all might experience the presence and love of God through Jesus and so be led in such a way that they would want all people to "lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and dignity." People in power, not just political rulers, but also those with economic or military power, need our prayers because our ability to live peaceably and with dignity is very dependent on their actions and decisions, as we well experience in our day. So, far from separating from the world around them, the early Christians were called to engage that world in prayer and seek the transformation of the world, not their removal from it.

When was the last time you prayed for George Bush or Dick Cheney? or Bill Gates or (name your CEO)? or President al-Maliki of Iraq or the leaders of Iran or North Korea or Israel or Palestine or the Sudan? or Osama bin Laden? Or your boss? Really prayed for them not that they might be hurt but that they might know God fully and live abundant lives of love in God?

Seeking and Being Sought

2007-09-11T12:41:00.000-05:00

After a summer hiatus, sermonthreads is back, looking each week at the texts to be preaching the following Sunday. This week: Exodus 32:7-14, I Timothy 1:12-17 and Luke 15:1-10.

The Exodus reading has perhaps the most fascinating, and for some folk, most troubling component. It talks about God changing God's mind! For those taught that God is the same, yesterday, today and forever, the idea that God could change a plan could be troublesome. But for those who believe in the power of prayer, it is exhilarating!

The story takes place while Moses is up on the mountain conversing with God and receiving the Ten Commandments. The Hebrew people, newly freed from Egypt, have grown impatient down in the wilderness waiting for Moses to return. Some think he may have died, and Joshua with him. So they ask Aaron to give them a god to worship. A golden calf is made from the jewelry they purloined from the Egyptians at their leavetaking, and a great orgy follows in the manner of ecstatic religious celebrations of the Middle East at that time.

Moses knows none of this, but God does. And God gets most perturbed by this activity. God threatens to "consume" all of the people, except Moses. He says he'll make a new nation for Moses to lead.

Now at this point, given the grief these folk have given Moses throughout the flight from Egypt, you might think he would take God up on that option. But Moses instead pleads for the people. He tells God that it would be such a waste to destroy them when God just went to a lot of trouble to liberate them. Moses says it would embarrass God in front of the Egyptians. And Moses says God would be going back on promises made to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (Israel). All of this Moses sees as contrary to God's essential character. Note that Moses does not excuse the actions of the people; he's not appealing out of mercy for them overtly, but out of a desire for God not to contradict what is essential about God.

Amazingly, God agrees with Moses and decides not to consume the people with anger.

So, my questions include wondering why Moses stuck with these difficult folk, what Moses said that convinced God, and how this all relates to prayer and to forgiveness? More tomorrow on the other texts.

Forgiveness, part 2

2007-06-12T10:20:00.000-05:00

Luke 7:36-8:3

We are very familiar with this story of the woman anointing Jesus' feet and washing them with her hair (and here, her tears). But Luke places this story much earlier in Jesus' ministry, and instead of using it as a preparation for his death, Luke uses it to talk about forgiveness and gratitude and hospitality.

The woman is identified as a "sinner." Let's guess prostitute? Oh, and by the way, Luke does NOT identify her as Mary Magdalene (whose name comes up at the end of this reading as one who has been healed of demons, not forgiven for sinning). Anyway, Simon the Pharisee's reaction tells us she is not someone that respectable men of God would hang around with. But then Jesus rarely hung with the respectable folk for long.

Leonard Sweet once had a great line, "be careful if you invite Jesus into your house because he likes to bring all his annoying friends!"

We get the impression she has already met Jesus and been forgiven by him, and in her gratitude, she has come to do for him the only thing she knows. Jesus contrasts her attitude to Simon's. It really was unforgivable and a clear slap in the face to Jesus if he had been treated in Simon's house as he indicates here. In the Middle East hospitality is a very high value. When I traveled in Turkey, Jordan and Israel/Palestine, even when we went into the poorest home or monastery, we were always offered water for washing our hands and some kind of food as well as the kisses on both cheeks that are still the common greeting there. For Simon not to do that was obviously intentional and a message to Jesus about his opposition to Jesus.

So here the respectable religious leader disses Jesus while the "sinner" gives him extravagant welcome. And Jesus says it is because she was forgiven much and therefore was grateful. Whereas Simon did not even understand he had anything to be forgiven for.

So if God forgives us but we do not even acknowledge we need forgiveness, do we then show gratitude or humility? If forgiveness happens in a vacuum, does anyone receive it? That's Jesus' question to Simon. To us.

Forgiveness

2007-06-11T09:41:00.000-05:00

Psalm 5, Luke 7:36-8:3

Some initial reflections on Psalm 5 that surprised me as I began to think about it. The Psalm is a psalm of lament, words spoken by one who fears for his enemies and wants God to take care of them (Tony Soprano-style, perhaps?)

At first blush, we could all join the Psalmist's cry. The "evildoers" of the world should be punished and destroyed by God and the "righteous" protected. Nothing very controversial about that.

Until you think about who may have written this. The Psalm is identified as a "Psalm of David." If David actually wrote this Psalm, that gives it a slightly different cast. Read this Psalm again as though spoken by a king, someone who is a politician and military leader. Someone who wants God on his side. It just made me think differently for a few moments.

Especially because I might imagine the Pharisee who hosts Jesus at his dinner party including the woman of the city who showed up uninvited at his house in the category of evildoers needing to be harshly dealt with by God.

BTW, for all of you who wonder how she got into his house to begin with, remember that locks on doors didn't exist then, and that most dinners were held in the coolness of the courtyard of a well-off home, a courtyard which would have been easily accessible from the street.

More later on the woman and her relationship with Jesus.

Pentecost 2

2007-05-23T12:00:00.001-05:00

Acts 2:1-21

A little context: In the first chapter of Acts, Luke (the presumed writer) says he is continuing the story beginning with the ascension of Jesus into heaven and final instructions to the disciples, including the instruction to wait in Jerusalem for the "promise" of God. So they waited, and while they waited, they chose one of those who had been following Jesus to replace Judas among the inner circle of 12 (Matthias)

Then, on the Jewish festival of Pentecost (started as a first fruits festival and, as Judaism became less agrarian, morphed into a festival celebrating the giving of the law on Sinai), at a time when lots of Jewish travelers from around the middle east (it's a little bit of an exaggeration in verse 5 to say that devout Jews were present from every nation, but perhaps every nation with a significant Jewish presence), the promise arrived. Note that this event is among Jews, both those born Jews and "proselytes" (that is, converts), so the deep diversity which would include Gentiles which would later characterize the Christian church is not yet in effect here.

But these Jews and proselytes did all speak different languages. Scholars have debated for years whether the miracle was in the hearing or in the speaking, in other words, did the folk "hear" in their own languages while the disciples spoke Aramaic or did the disciples actually speak the other languages. Quite frankly, does it matter? The miracle was that communication happened not by everyone being made to speak one language, but by the message being delivered in a way that people could hear it as they were.

These travelers didn't have to go to church and learn a new vocabulary to get the message, God ensured that the message would get to them in a way that they could receive it. HMMMM.

A couple of random things about this passage.
1. The Spirit is described as sounding like a "violent" wind. Violent. Not a gentle breeze. Implications for the character of the Spirit here? Also fire, not a neutral nor even always friendly force of nature. There is power here.

2. There is a healthy dose of perplexity in this passage. In verse 6 the crowd is "bewildered," in verse 7 "amazed and astonished," in verse 12 "amazed and perplexed." The questioning and wonderment of the crowd is an opening for the message that is important not to miss.

3. Don't miss the humor here (who says the Bible isn't funny?). Some folk thought the disciples were acting drunk! And Peter responds that they couldn't be drunk cause it's only 9 in the morning!

4. The Joel prophecy. These are powerful and deeply symbolic words which take the events of the life of Jesus beyond Jerusalem and even these cosmopolitan Jews and into the cosmic realm. It also again moves us into inclusive territory. The prophets are not going to be the official court or religious establishment folk, but children, and women (!), and slaves (!!). And everyone who seeks a relationship with God will find not only that relationship, but salvation (here undefined).

5. Our reading ends not even halfway into Peter's sermon, but that ends with the people being so compelled by what they have heard that they ask what they should do. So Peter tells them to repent, to be baptized, and to anticipate themselves receiving the Holy Spirit (this new religion would not have power reserved to the exclusive few, but the mystical power would be available to all, an absolutely radical concept among all religions of the region at that time).

Pentecost

2007-05-22T13:12:00.000-05:00

Obviously we are going to be dealing with the Holy Spirit this week --

First, the passage from Romans. This passage is a wonderfully liberating promise. All of us led by the Spirit (i.e. all of us from every nation -- see Acts) are children of God.

So, we do not need to relate to God from a position of slavish obedience which results in fear. Slaves fear their masters, for their masters are in a position (and too often are disposed) to punish slaves at the least infraction of rules (see the rest of chapter 8 before these verses for more on this).

Instead of slaves, the Spirit calls us to relate to God just like Jesus did! We are children who do not call God "master" but "abba" (Daddy, the most intimate form of address). Our spirit is not slavery and fear, but adoption.

As an adoptive parent, I can tell you that adoptive children are loved with the same fierce passion as birth children. Adoptive children not only have the same legal rights as birth children, but also the same access to love, compassion, time and teaching.

The adoption metaphor can take us in all kinds of directions. Sometimes children who come to adoptive families have a problem attaching to the family (the child development folk call it "attachment disorder."). They often dwell in a household in a position of fear or anger, unable to receive the love offered for a variety of reasons, often because of a past experience of rejection or the experience of some orphanage children of never having been attached to anyone.

Paul says the Spirit can help us overcome this and enter fully into a complete and loving relationship with God that produces not fear, but joy, a relationship that empowers us to live fully into discipleship, as did Jesus. We are attached and grounded in God, and so having roots we also have wings.

Because those disciples in Jerusalem after the Ascension of Jesus had finally begun to understand their relationship to God in Jesus, they were ready for the Holy Spirit to lift them up and move them into empowered discipleship. They did not have to be afraid of a strong wind and flames and this compelling need to speak of God in languages they had never known or heard, even. In the Spirit they were both secure and surprised and that is exciting.

More ahead on Acts. Shelly

More on Paul in Philippi

2007-05-15T09:38:00.000-05:00

Acts 16:16-34, Revelation 22:12-21, Matthew 28:16-20

Last week we met Lydia and took Paul to Europe to minister in Philippi in Macedonia. He gathered with new believers in Lydia's home and continued to take his ministry to the streets. In this reading, he and his companions get in trouble for placing a higher value on a young slave girl's spiritual and mental freedom than on the commerce she generated for the men who owned her.

The men who were marketing this girl's fortune telling abilities (which apparently came from a spirit that was possessing her) got angry at Paul who freed her from this spirit (apparently because the spirit so annoyed Paul, see verse 18). When they dragged Paul and Silas before the magistrates, the crimes they accuse them of are interesting:

Disturbing our city: how is Paul's preaching disturbing the city? Does our preaching and proclamation of the gospel here in any way disturb our city?

Being Jews. Well, yes. Not actually illegal in Roman lands. But interesting that they are accused of being Jews and not Christians. Up to this period of time, the folk in Roman Europe had no experience of Christians!

Advocating customs that are not lawful for us Romans to adopt. What does that mean? They are not practicing religion like Romans do? What exactly were they encouraging people to do that was illegal?

Notice in all these accusations, nowhere do they note the economic impact that Paul and Silas had on them. William Willimon's commentary has this note: "No, we do not come right out and say that our financial self-interest is threatened; we say that our nation is threatened....Nation, race, tradition all stepping into line behind the dollar." HMMMMM.

What follows cannot help but bring up pictures of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Birmingham jail. Here are Paul and Silas in jail, singing hymns and praying and being listened to by all the folk already in jail for who knows what crimes. The presence and spirit of Paul and company clearly had a strong impact not only on those other prisoners, but on the jailer off sitting in the corner.

That jailer, like Paul himself, was given a strong jolt toward the faith, this time in the form of an earthquake. But God spoke here not so much in the earthquake as in Paul's willingness to remain in the jail in order to save the life of the jailer! Extraordinary! Would we do this if we were unjustly imprisoned? That witness prompts the jailer to want to find out what faith could result in such actions. Upon hearing the gospel, he treats the prisoners' wounds, is baptized, then feeds them at his own home.

Seeing a life witness, hearing the word of the gospel, practicing the service the faith teaches, baptism, holy supper. The whole cycle of coming to faith is here, condensed in a few hours. And I think that jailer must have gone through some considerable change in behavior/attitude, because it says his whole household rejoiced in his baptism!

May 13 part 2

2007-05-09T12:42:00.000-05:00

On to the John reading for this week. John 14:15-29 (I've added a few verses to the lectionary segment because I think it's hard to break up this chapter of John intelligently)

This is part of the "Farewell Discourses" which are Jesus' last instructions to his disciples in John's gospel (following supper, footwashing and the dismissal of Judas to betray Jesus). In this chapter as in the previous one, Jesus focuses on his "new" command to "love one another as I have loved you" and the implications of that. He also focuses on his leave-taking and the implications of that.

He has already told them that he will go and prepare a place for them and then come and bring them to himself. But now he talks about how he will continue to be with and for them in this life! He promises the presence of the Holy Spirit ("I will not leave you orphaned") and indicates that the Spirit will enable them to remember and enact not only what he has taught, but that the Spirit will continue to reveal new things to them (God is still speaking!)

Having told them earlier he will prepare a place for them, now he tells them that if they keep his word, then "we" (God and God enfleshed) will come and make a home with them ("tabernacle" with them, sort of saying God will pitch a tent with us). God will come to US to dwell; we don't have to wait for heaven to be in God's presence!!

Finally a blessing of peace, such a peace as the world cannot know.

So as our church calendar indicates that this Sunday is the Festival of the Christian Home, I am wondering what it means for our homes to consider God dwelling there with us? What exactly does a "Christian Home" look like? What does it mean to keep Jesus' word, to love as he loves us?

God comes home

2007-05-08T09:37:00.000-05:00

May 13, Revelation 22:1-5, Acts 16:9-15, John 14:15-29

Sorry for the long absence; time for blogging got interrupted by many things! Now I hope to be back weekly.

Sunday's texts are again so rich it is hard to know where to go. We'll begin with Lydia whom we meet in the book of Acts. The intro to this (most of which is not part of the lectionary segment) indicates that Paul had a clear plan for his mission, and it involved going to Asia. But Luke writes that both the Holy Spirit and Jesus blocked Paul from going to Asia. Then Paul has a dream in which he is called to Macedonia, so he goes.

Macedonia. In case your geographical knowledge can't call that one up, it is either a separate country north of Greece, or the northern part of Greece (there's actually a rather nasty modern conflict about that boundary and name). The critical piece for the spread of the gospel here is that this is the first time word about Jesus is coming to Europe. We're told that the city of Philippi is a Roman colony, a place established often for veterans of the Roman armies to dwell. The religious affiliation of the people would probably have included the Greco/Roman religious sects, but there may have been Jews there as well. At any rate, Lydia and her household are almost certainly Gentiles.

An interesting stylistic note on this passage, in verse 10 suddenly the narration shifts to "we" language. Apparently the writer of Acts (Luke?) now accompanies Paul on his journeys. I find this exciting because now the story seems less like old historical material and more intimate, more real, if you will.

Paul seeks a place to worship on the sabbath and finds a group of women gathered at the river. Was the river a usual place of prayer in society at that time? Interesting that in the Revelation passage, a river also is shown as an important focus for prayer and worship. Water imagery abounds in the readings today (and in the alternate gospel, John 5, the story of the pool of Bethesda). Baptism....new life.....all centered around the river.

It would have been both unusual and normal for Paul to speak with women who were strangers. Unusual because in his time this generally wasn't socially acceptable. Usual because from its inception the church included women in prominent positions. Paul gets a rather unfair rap as being sexist because he often worked with women in leadership in the churches (Priscilla and Lydia prominent among them).

Lydia. She was probably a gentile. She was probably unmarried because we are told she made independent decisions for her household which a wife would not have done in roman society. She was wealthy; purple cloth was the most expensive due to the dyes, and so reserved for the upper classes. She was also a seeker, we are told, looking for God in her life. So when she hears Paul, (and we assume we are told only a very condensed version of longer events here), she responds in faith and shows that faith by her hospitality, inviting Paul (and eventually the church in Philippi, to which Paul would later write a letter, Philippians) to her home. He goes and uses her home as a base for other forays into Macedonia.

More tomorrow on the John reading.

Easter Questions

2007-04-02T09:39:00.000-05:00

It's hard to start working on an Easter sermon in the middle of Holy Week. The mood of the week is somber and full of struggle. And here I am trying to figure out how to speak in the midst of the Alleluias we have been missing for six weeks!

So as I begin this week, I find that it is the questions around the John version of the story that fill my mind.

When it says that the beloved disciple saw no body and the linen cloths all nicely folded, and then the gospel reports that this disciple "believed," what exactly did he believe?(or she; there are some scholars who speculate that this person might not have been John, as many suppose, but a woman, even Mary M?) Did this person believe Jesus was alive? Or what?
What actually happened at that tomb before Mary showed up? We have no witnesses to the actual event of the Resurrection.
Why did only Mary and not Peter and BD (Beloved Disciple) see those two angels?
Why did Peter and BD just "go home?" after knowing the body was missing? Were they still so scared?
Why do the angels ask Mary who she's looking for? Don't they know?

Actually that last question is the one that is catching my attention as I think this week. Who are we looking for on Easter? Or what? Nice story? Lots of flowers? New clothes? Great music? Re-animated body? Perhaps nothing at all?

What happens if we stop looking and listen; will we hear our names called? Have we seen Jesus? Can we, do we want to, "announce," like Mary, that we have seen Jesus? Or do we just want to go home, still not understanding?

Quote for this week from Barbara Brown Taylor: Never get so focussed on the empty tomb that you forget to speak to the gardener!"

Fourth Sunday in Lent

2007-03-13T12:25:00.000-05:00

II Corinthians 5:16-21, Luke 15:1-3, 11-32

Today's readings clearly are joined in theme, as is the Psalm, 32. Beginning with Corinthians, remember that Paul is writing to a church that regularly has squabbles and fights and divisions between social and economic classes. This reading is all about our point of view in looking at ourselves and other people.

Think of baptism as causing a change in eyeglass prescriptions. Before we saw Jesus as human, and we saw everyone else fully in their limited, flawed humanity. We were quick to point out what was wrong in others. Once our prescription changes, however, we begin to be able to see others as God sees them: people deeply in need of reconciliation with a God who offers grace and forgiveness and, by implied extension, in need of reconciliation with one another.

It's important to note that the renewal of a relationship with God comes first. Without that, we do not have the grace, the power, the insight (to continue the metaphor) to see others with the generosity with which God sees them.

Once we have renewed our own relationship with God, through being "in Christ" and therefore newly created, then we are given the task of calling others to this reconciliation. We are called to create, if you will, a "new world order" based on reconciliation. Once we internalize God's forgiveness of us, then we have the power not only to forgive others (a la the Lord's Prayer), but to help others understand God's gracious forgiveness offered to them and then to pay it forward to others.

All of this is amply illustrated in the story Jesus tells in Luke that we often know as the Prodigal Son. RIght off the bat we need to look again at how that title colors our understanding of this story. It's really not about either son, but about the Father, one who forgives so extravagantly it offends folk who think that very forgiveness is unjust!

A few interesting details on this story. Inheritance law would have given the elder brother the vast majority (about 2/3) of the property upon his father's death, while the younger brother would have received only a third. It was not uncommon for fathers to make a "living trust" with sons, to hand over control of property with the provision that they would still live on it and have privilege of place in helping make decisions.

Oh, and by the way, no respectable man would have gone running down a road anywhere unless his coat was on fire!! Especially to greet someone of much lower status than himself!

Remember the context for this story in the first three verses of the chapter. Jesus has been hanging out with the kind of folk who most need to be reconciled with God and with their communities. The "righteous" folk are offended by this, because they think Jesus should make those folk change their lives before they receive the love and attention Jesus lavishes on them. That is a very common human inclination: say you're sorry and make restitution and then we will forgive you. That's certainly the attitude of the older brother, and probably many of us as well.

But the father in the story doesn't even wait for the younger son to say a single word before he rushes to meet him with a loving embrace. When the younger son tries to explain what has happened and admit his failures, the father stops him and calls for a party. We know the son has indeed had a change of heart, but the father does not know this before embracing him!

The theologian Martin Luther once wrote, "Forgiveness is not an occasional art; it is a permanent attitude." That's what both Paul and Jesus are talking about. And this is very tough stuff for most of us, indeed.

Lent Three

2007-03-05T11:39:00.000-05:00

Isaiah 55:1-13, Luke 13:1-9

Two powerful passages this week which might, at first reading, seem to be presenting God in both "good cop" and "bad cop" modes.

Isaiah is the good news. This passage anticipates return of Hebrew exiles in Babylon home as God has promised them. The promise is that they can find food and water, even if they have lost everything in exile.

BUT, and there is a rather sizable "but" here in verses 2 and 3, in order truly to be fed on return and find safety and security, you need to attend to God's call and God's way. Like David, the people are called to be witnesses and leaders; their job is to be living examples of God's love so that others will be drawn to that love. IF they seek God, IF they change their ways, then they shall find joy and security.

What got them in trouble in the first place and led to exile was a choice on the part not only of the leadership of the nation, but of many others as well, to leave behind the covenant with God and take credit themselves for their prosperity. They ignored worship and caring for the "widows and orphans" (symbols of those on the lowest rungs of society) and so were vulnerable to attack because they relied on their own strength and not God.

So while this beautiful passage is full of GOOD NEWS, it is also full of a call to live in such a way that the news continues to be good and God can do what God wants to do in their lives!

The Luke passage is a bit more complicated, but along the same theme. The text begins with two examples which the people around Jesus used to illustrate a common theological belief: if something bad happens to you, you must be bad! The first story (an incident in which Pilate had soldiers lay in wait for some wanted men [terrorists against Rome?] at the temple and killed them while they worshipped) shows human-caused disaster. The second shows a natural disaster which also killed people.

Jesus isn't buying that theology. There isn't always a reason why someone is the victim of bad things. Innocent people become victims all the time; did those who didn't escape from the World Trade Centers on 9/11 die because they were all the bad people while the survivors were all the good people? Jesus would say, "Ridiculous!"

Then we get the "but" in this passage. Even though innocent people die because human beings or nature cause tragedy, that doesn't mean that some suffering isn't caused by our own actions. If you are a lifelong smoker, the odds are pretty good you will suffer health consequences. If you drive drunk, the odds are good you will injure yourself or others you love. Sin CAN lead to death. So stop congratulating yourself that you weren't in the temple that day when the Galileans were killed or that you didn't happen to be walking under that tower when it fell down. You are no more righteous than those who died.

Pay attention to your own life and see that you are aligning yourself with God and life.

Then the fig tree reinforces the point. Note that the fig tree hasn't done anything evil, or even just bad. It hasn't produced wormy fruit. It's sin is that it has done NOTHING AT ALL. When fruit is required from it, it simply stands still. So Jesus further pushes his listeners to widen their understanding of sin. As an old prayer puts it,

Forgive us for what we have done and what we have left undone.

Yet the good news here is that second chances abound in God's economy, just as the Isaiah passage assured the exiled Hebrews. There is still time to bear fruit.

Temptation

2007-02-21T13:50:00.000-05:00

Deuteronomy 26:1-11, Luke 4:1-13

Before I say anything about this week's texts, I want to put in a plug for a film the kids and I saw this past weekend. Bridge to Terabithia, by Katherine Paterson, is one of the finest children's books ever written, and this film, with screenplay by her son, is absolutely faithful and fabulous. Don't be fooled by the marketing campaign; the computer generated fantasy effects take up a very small part of the film. The main story is relationships, being an outsider, imagination and friendship. You don't need a child to go see this film, but if you take children who have not read the book, be aware that there is a death involving a main character (offscreen) that is very sad.

Now, onto a bit about these texts.

The Deuteronomy text is a description of a ritual of worship for the harvest Festival of Weeks where the first fruits (literally baskets of the very first crop harvested, considered the best quality) were brought to be given at the temple, dedicated to God. So is it a stewardship text?
Well, it wouldn't hurt to hear that message in it (first fruits of my resources to God's work, hmmmm).

The ritual also includes the recitation of the heilsgeschichte (my favorite German word), or "salvation history." Now that the people are in the land and it is producing some of that fabled "milk and honey," worship is the occasion for remembering that it was not always so for the people of Israel. It is the occasion for remembering that it was not by their own wit or power or might or wealth that they got to the promised land, but by the grace of God. The story is identity forming and identity-reminding.

And note that when the worship leader speaks of what happened in the past, the term used is not "them," but "us." We are connected organically with this past, he/she is saying. It is not about us, it is us.

On to Luke and Jesus' temptation. I had a seminary professor who wanted to make sure we understood that Jesus' temptation was in so many ways different from ours that we should not make this an occasion for a sermon on "Jesus as a template for how to avoid succumbing to temptation."

So I won't do that.

But I will ask us to think about who the devil is here. The devil here is not a power co-equal with God, though he (and scripture is free with the male pronouns here, as it is for God, so perhaps we should acknowledge up front that gender attached to the devil is no more valid than gender attached to God) would like Jesus to believe he is.

Jesus' responses to the devil help us see what this evil is. The devil brings the temptation to forget what the worshipper in Deuteronomy remembered: who Jesus is and how he got where go was. The wilderness is often a place where people forget that, as the wanderers did in Exodus when they made the golden calf. Jesus actually counters the devil by quoting from Deuteronomy! The formational story not only forms, but grounds Jesus here. The devil is amnesia, spiritual Alzheimers, if you will.

So both texts are occasions for thinking about what we forget and what we remember and how those things form and ground us. What are the stories for us that do that?

Lifting the Veil

2007-02-12T14:41:00.000-05:00

Exodus 34:9-35, Luke 9:28-36

In the Spiderman comics, we meet Peter Parker, a rather ordinary, nice guy who is accidentally given super powers in which he has some attributes of a spider, and thus becomes Spiderman. He remains Peter Parker, student, friend, lover, but he is also Spiderman and can decide to use those powers whenever he desires or the need calls.

It may seem trite to compare Jesus to Spiderman, but this passage from Luke shows us a side of Jesus that has been hinted at but not fully revealed until now. We've seen the some manifestation of the divine part of Jesus as he has healed people and spoken with authority and fed thousands. But here on the mountain with Peter, James and John, Jesus' divinity is fully experienced by them and it fills them with wonder and ecstacy, so much so that Peter doesn't want to come down. Jesus is still Jesus, fully human, but now they can see more clearly than ever that Jesus is also God, fully divine.

In both the Luke reading and the story in Exodus where Moses returns from being in the presence of God with the tablets of the 10 commandments bearing enough hints of glory in his face to be seen by the people, the experience of God's glory is frightening. The people in the wilderness ask Moses to put a veil over his face because they can't bear the "shine" leftover from the presence of God.

(footnote: an early mistranslation in the Vulgate or Latin Bible of that Hebrew word for "shine" was "horns," so that readers thought Moses came down the mountain having sprouted horns. Thus the representation of Moses in some famous statues with horns -- see Michaelangelo--is a result of this mistranslation)

In the Luke, Peter, James and John are dazzled, but still engaged enough to talk (at least Peter is) until the cloud of God's presence (often in the Bible God's presence is described as a cloud. Curious) overshadows them and they hear the actual voice of God. Then they are "terrified." The whole experience left them so awestruck that, at least according to Luke, they couldn't even talk about it, at least until after the resurrection (hey, somebody talked to Luke!).

As at Jesus' baptism, where the voice of God says almost the same thing, the deeper, hidden identity of Jesus is revealed, and the response (as the response to the God-spangled Moses had been) is fear. Like Adam and Eve in the garden after they had eaten that apple, we tend to fear the unfiltered presence of God rather than welcoming it. Why? What do you think?

Roots and Wings, Feb. 11, 2007

2007-02-06T15:14:00.000-05:00

Jeremiah 17:5-10, Psalm 1, and Luke 6:17-26

Jeremiah speaks again of impending doom and then rescue and return for the people of Judah. This time we get the contrast between shrubs and trees, preceded and followed by a reflection on the untrustworthiness of people and our hearts.

Shrubs: low to the ground, surviving, barely, on what water is nearby, whether or not it is of good quality, not bearing any fruit.

Trees: planted near water, sending roots down deep into the earth, always seeking and finding good, nurturing, pure water, looking up, bearing fruit. Trees are not afraid of hard times because of their deep roots.

Shrubs pop up quickly, like human beings, but in this metaphor (let's leave aside a long discussion of biblical flora), they cannot be relied upon because they do not last when they are tested by drought (difficulty). They may be beautiful, and our hearts may respond to them, but our emotions and our thinking (in the Bible, heart was not just the seat of emotions, but of intellect and will) are not trustworthy as guides without the guidance of God. So, Jeremiah's ultimate counsel here is to trust God to guide decisions, thought, emotion, will and you will, as the Psalmist says, be like a tree, planted by the water, and therefore, "you shall not be moved" by every wind and whim and defeated by difficulty.

Jesus also presents us with contrasts in Luke's telling of the Beatitudes, in this case, not on the Mount, but on the Plain. Notice some differences here from the version in Matthew 5, including the identity of the listeners. Within his religious tradition, divisions were often presented between Jews and Gentiles, but notice both Jews and Gentiles are present when he teaches the disciples. So this time, the division is between Blessed and Cursed (Matthew does not include this part), regardless of religious affiliation.

Blessed: poor, hungry, weeping, persecuted for what you believe.

Cursed: rich, full, laughing, spoken "well" of.

Notice he doesn't talk about what should be, but what is. Jesus doesn't say we should become poor or hungry or weepy or persecuted, nor does he say we should avoid being rich or full or laughing or praised. He is saying that things may not be as they seem; what you see may not be what you get. Perhaps even more clearly, in the words of William Willimon, Jesus is saying that God takes sides.

Blessings will go to those who need them most: poor, hungry, sad, persecuted, while those who already have what they need and are well-esteemed by all are so filled up that they have no need of, nor could they receive God's blessings. More than "cursed," the literal translation of the word the NRSV calls "woe" would be "there's trouble ahead." Perhaps like those bushes, when the difficult times come, those who do not know their need of God will fall apart; they are without roots.

This, of course, begs the question for all of us who are rich (a relative term which defines many North Americans), full, happy and respected in our communities: can a bush become a tree?

February 4

2007-01-30T14:47:00.000-05:00

Isaiah 6:1-8, Luke 5:1-11

The reading from Isaiah has become a standard one for ordinations and Confirmations, with the call to service and the response, "Here am I, send me." Most people know the relatively recent hymn, "Here I am, Lord," which takes its theme from this lesson as well as the story of Samuel's call. But the before and after of this call make Isaiah a very rich and deep story. Isaiah's call, like Samuel's, comes in the temple, a place thick with the cloud of witnesses of many worshippers for many generations. Isaiah sees a stunning image of the courts of heaven and hears the songs of angels. His response is not that of a tourist; when in the presence of what is so incredibly holy, he sees more clearly his own sin and that of his whole nation. "I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips and I live among a people of unclean lips." In the presence of God, Isaiah cannot speak or sing as the angels do, for he understands as if for the first time how fall he has fallen short of God's desires for him and for his nation.

But God has a surprise for Isaiah. Following Isaiah's confession, God sends a cleansing fire on his lips and pronounces his guilt and sin gone, burned away, blotted out. So that when God calls for a spokesperson, Isaiah now is able to speak with cleansed lips. And if you read on through the rest of this chapter, the words he is given are intended to elicit the same kind of confession and prepare for the same kind of cleansing in the whole nation of which he is a part. The prophet is convicted of his own sin, repents, is forgiven, and then is called to help a whole nation do the same thing.

A similar theme appears in the story in Luke, another call story. This time Jesus is preaching on the shores of the lake, and because the crowd is so big, he asks Simon (Peter) to take him out a bit on the water (the water conducts sound and he could speak to the crowd more easily while making room on the beach for more people). Because Simon has served him, Jesus then rewards him by suggesting how Simon might find fish. Now Simon is skeptical because Jesus is not a fisherman, and so doesn't understand that you don't fish at the height of the day. But he humors him, and then is confronted with an overwhelming abundance. Like Isaiah, when confronted with one who is so obviously holy and has blessed him so abundantly, Simon confesses that he is sinful and therefore unworthy to be with Jesus. Jesus tells him not to be afraid of his own shortcomings or of the wrath of God, but rather to follow Jesus and get a new purpose in life; "catching" people, that is helping others who are also separate from God to come into a new relationship. Like Isaiah, Simon and the others follow quickly, leaving everything behind.

A common theme in these two readings is the relationship of confession to call to service. As someone once wrote, God cannot fill what is already full, either of guilt or of selfishness that results in sin. Once emptied, both Isaiah and Simon were ready for a new commission, a new focus for their lives, and both leapt at the opportunity without delay.
Another theme is what our response is when we are fully aware of being in the presence of the holy. Whenever we hear stories of people who have this experience, they almost always report at first a sense of their unworthiness to be in that place. That experience takes us out of our comfort zones, the places where we can hide. In the blinding light of holiness, we see ourselves more clearly, which is why angels always say, "don't be afraid," as Jesus said to Simon. If we are not afraid, we can examine ourselves completely and let go of what we are afraid to expose to the light. Only in that letting go, as AA says, can we let God work in and through us.

january 28

2007-01-23T10:44:00.000-05:00

Luke 4:21-30, I Corinthians 13:1-13

Powerful texts this week that may seem to be in opposition to each other upon first reading. The Luke is the continuation of last week. It seemed last week that the people all loved Jesus and were excited about this new prophet in their midst, the "hometown hero" as it were. But quickly Jesus disabuses them of that notion. He's not here to get their praises, but rather to face them with some uncomfortable truths. He reminds them of two stories from the books of Kings about the prophets Elijah and Elisha who healed people who were not Jews at the same time they were fighting with the kings of Israel. It has always disturbed me that Jesus was so irritating to his hometown folk here; why did he have to be so sharp with them? I have wondered if something happened in Nazareth that we do not know. It may, however, be in line with John the Baptist's admonition to the people that simply claiming Abrahamic descent is not enough to be right with God. Jesus can only work with people who are open to God working in them in a new way. Were the people of Nazareth too complacent? Were they too eager to share his glory and not eager enough to respond to his message? Were they too excited to be "insiders" and so he needed to make them understand that God often comes especially to those who are "outsiders?"

Then when we read the Corinthians, we wonder about why maybe Jesus didn't exhibit more of the qualities of love listed in this passage. Why was he not more patient and kind with the folk of Nazareth? Was he indeed rude? Perhaps the sentence that connects most clearly here is that he rejoiced in the truth and wanted them to as well. This text seriously needs constant redemption from connection with weddings. It is not about romantic love. It is not about marriage. It is about the love of God which is to be the model for our love, not only our love of our family or significant others, but more especially our love for those for whom we don't have emotional feelings. This love is not about feelings at all, but about commitment, discipline, openness and the Holy Spirit. It is what Paul calls the "more excellent way," the gift we can all receive and use that provides the foundation for how we use the other gifts of the Spirit we receive from God. A couple of interesting text clarifications: the giving of the body is meant to signify sacrifice; if we go to jail or are killed for standing up for our faith, it is meaningless if it is done only to make ourselves important or to be perceived as a martyr. The other clarification is more fun. The piece about "seeing in a mirror dimly" is actually a translation of the word "riddle." Our understanding of God and God's love is now like trying to unravel a riddle, but eventually, all will become clear. That frees us from thinking we need to understand perfectly before we act in God's name; we will not understand perfectly in this life. We can love, though, in the image of God.

January 21

2007-01-16T10:43:00.000-05:00

Luke 4:14-21, I Corinthians 12:12-31a

The Corinthians passage for this week is the continuation of a conversation Paul has been having with the church in Corinth about community and gifts. The Corinthian church became one of the largest and most active of all those founded by Paul and his co-workers. It also became a church full of conflict from the beginning. Much of the conflict was caused by an inability of those of differing economic and social standings to work together. In Chapter 11 Paul has castigated the more wealthy (and therefore powerful) members of the church for coming to worship (which included a meal) and not sharing food with the poorer members of the church. He tells them that to celebrate the Lord's Supper without discerning the body of Christ is to eat and drink judgement on oneself. Although some consider that to mean literally discerning the physical body of Christ in the bread, Paul's greater context has been an understanding of the church as a whole as the body of Christ.
That theme continues in chapter 12, where he begins the chapter discussing the great variety of the gifts of the Spirit and how all of them are to be used not for personal gain, but for the "common good." Everyone has gifts, he says, and the Spirit hands them out as God chooses.
Now he goes on to say that the body of Christ (the church) is just like the human body: having many parts which are necessary to each other. Baptism makes us that body, no matter what our national or ethnic or religious background was before, and no matter our economic or social status (Jew or Greek, Slave or Free, and elsewhere Paul adds Male or Female). Apparently in Corinth those who had the gift of speaking in tongues had been promoting themselves without having someone translate what they said, therefore depriving people of the prophecy while making themselves seem spiritually superior to other members. Paul reacts elsewhere with anger to this practice. Yes, he says here, some do speak in tongues, but that is only one of the several indispensable gifts the Spirit gives for the working of the Body of Christ.
He then catalogs our various body parts, including those we hide away, and reminds us they are indispensible to the whole and work together for us every moment of every day. At the end of the catalog, he tells us that NOW we are the body of Christ. Note that he doesn't say, "You should become the body of Christ," but "you ARE the body of Christ." It doesn't happen by our actions, but by our baptisms. Therefore our gifts are to be used as Christ used his gifts, for the building up of the body. Everyone's gifts are to be valued and used. Then Paul follows by saying that using the gifts is important, but that there is still "a more excellent way." Then we get the chapter on love. But that is for next week.

January 14

2007-01-10T09:32:00.000-05:00

Texts for Baptism of Jesus Sunday (which actually was last week, but we used the Epiphany texts then) are Isaiah 43:1-7 and Luke 3:15-22

Three themes pull these two readings closely together: God's call, the Holy Spirit, and the community. Isaiah begins with the powerful claim that we need not fear because God calls us by name and we belong to God, the same affirmation we make each time we baptize. The name God calls Jesus in Luke's version of his baptism is "Beloved." One of the wonderful aspects of this Isaiah reading is verse 4 where we get the very rare formulation in the Bible of God saying to the people "I love you." We read about God's love in lots of places in the Bible, but this particular phrase occurs almost never. God calls us; we are loved by God. In Jesus' baptism, he is clearly called and then called Beloved.

A second theme is that of the presence of the Holy Spirit. The word is not used specifically in the Isaiah, but water and fire run throughout the Bible as symbols of the Holy Spirit. In Luke, the Spirit is seen in a body, that of a dove, resting on Jesus' body. The last time we saw the Spirit in Luke, Gabriel told Mary the spirit of God would come upon her and she would conceive a child. This generative Spirit now becomes visible to others at Jesus' baptism, and then immediately sends him into the wilderness for a time of testing (we'll get the continuation of this story on the first Sunday in Lent). Of all the ways we have of experiencing and understanding God, the Spirit is often the most perplexing, mysterious and varied in form, and therefore worth spending time considering and meditating upon.

The third theme reminds us of the importance of Community. In Isaiah, God did not just call individuals out of exile, but a whole nation, and the coming together of the sons and daughters is critical to discerning the presence of God in that activity. The people survived exile by holding to each other in community and they will rebuild their nation the same way. In Luke, Jesus comes together with other people to be baptized. This is not a private event, but part of a crowd, Jesus becoming one with the people in this act. God's proclamation was not just for Jesus' benefit, or for John's, but a voice heard by others, a dove seen by others, a public action. Many have asked why Jesus needed to be baptized, since he had not sinned and need not repent. One answer to that is that he did so to be in solidarity with those seeking to renew their relationship with God, and also to show John's authority as a reformer of Judaism. Jesus standing with John and those who followed him immediately made him controversial in the larger community (Luke makes sure we get that point by inserting his historical note about what later happened to John).

Epiphany, January 7

2007-01-03T09:50:00.000-05:00

Instead of the usual lectionary readings, I will be using the readings for Epiphany this week (epiphany is actually Saturday, but it seems a shame to lose the magi!). So we have Isaiah 60:1-6 and Matthew 2:1-12.
The Isaiah is a beautiful poem imagining the return of exiles to Jerusalem in fulfillment of God's promises to the people. It seems doubly appropriate this time of year to read the contrast between light and darkness in this passage, both in its real and metaphorical senses. Pay attention to the international sense of this reading, which is undoubtedly why it is paired with the Magi reading from Matthew. In this case it promises a people who are returning to a decimated land that not only will their prosperity be restored, but the character of their nation will be such that people of other nations (mostly Arab tribes) will willingly (there is not a sense of capture or booty here) bring wealth and praise of God. If you read on to verse 7, you will see a radical thought for Judaism of the time that all the offerings of foriegners will be welcome on the very altar of God. The other wonderful thing about this passage is the absolutely palpable sense of joy.

We know the Matthew passage, or think we do, so well that we often miss the nuances in it, and there are several. First, notice that there is no exact number mentioned for the magi; we have assumed three because three gifts are mentioned (pay attention to my sermon Sunday for another option). We have also over the years made them "Kings," though nowhere in this passage are they referred to that way. They are magi, the Greek word for astrologers or sages, those who were highly educated and respected, which is actually rather different from kings!They are assumed to be from Persia, somewhere in the modern-day Iran direction. And Matthew very clearly does not have them showing up at the stable, but at a house, and the time frame would indicate not immediately after Jesus' birth, but before Mary and Joseph would have returned to Nazareth. We later read that Herod assumed the star appeared when Jesus was born and so had all children under two years old killed, thus possibly indicating the magi told him the star had actually been around for two years!
Several themes appear in this passage. First, note that now Jesus' birth has moved from a local event to a cosmic and international and political one. Not just angels to one set of shepherds, but a natural phenomenon which brings non-Jews to find what prompted it and then sets off a political crisis which will result in the massacre of children. From the very beginning, the good news of great joy has enemies who prefer the status quo. This will be a theme of Jesus' life and the lives of his followers for the next 2000 years.
Note also that Matthew is eager to establish that even the stars proclaim that Jesus is the ruler of Israel. The magi are not looking for a spiritual leader, but "the king of the Jews." How ironic that another Gentile, Pilate, would have that very title put up over Jesus on the cross. This understanding of Jesus' place and the conflation of "messiah" with political ruler will also continue to haunt.
Finally, to expand on the theme above, the visit of the magi and their gifts begin the work of expanding the ministry of Jesus beyond his homeland, for he comes for all nations and peoples.

Third Advent

2006-12-11T11:36:00.000-05:00

Isaiah 12:2-6, Luke 3:7-18

The Isaiah text comes in the midst of a prophecy about the coming age of the Messiah. Earlier in the chapter, we get the familiar image of the rise of the "root of Jesse," the descendent of David who will lead not just Israel, but "the nations." Chapter 12 is a short hymn of thanksgiving to the God who will bring all this to pass. Several themes are central here. First, the admonition not to be afraid (we've heard that before and will hear it again this season!). Don't be afraid because God is our strength when we are weak and God is our salvation; we don't have to accomplish that on our own. Second, there is this beautiful image of drawing water from the well of salvation, an image the church has used as a baptismal image. The rest of the song dwells most on saying thank you and then sharing the news of what God has done to all nations (again, the sense that what God is up to is not just about one people in one land, but about all people in all lands).
This is a text of joy, reminding us who is the author of our blessings and our hope for taking what is wrong with our lives and making it right. On the Sunday the church has traditionally celebrated as "Gaudete" or "Joy" Sunday, this seems a very appropo passage.

Our second passage may be harder to understand on this day, since it involves John the Baptist and his hard news. William Willimon sums up John's message as meaning God has come not just to save us, but to change us. Again, we get a baptismal story, this time with a bit of a cut we might miss. You see those who converted to Judaism went through a ritual bath as part of their conversion, a "baptism." Those born to Jewish mothers did not have to go through that ritual. But John says that DNA will not save you, rather the fruits your life bears will reflect whether or not you truly have a connection with God that means something in your life.
John also opens up the possibility of salvation to those usually excluded by the Jewish establishment. Tax Collectors and soldiers were seen as collaborators with Rome and so shunned. But John says everyone can do something for God.
More tomorrow.

Second Advent Luke 1:26-38

2006-12-04T14:26:00.000-05:00

Luke 1:26-38
We are going off the lectionary for Sunday for a service of lessons and carols for Advent. Five scripture lessons will come from both Hebrew Bible prophets and the stories in Luke which precede the birth of Jesus. Most of the readings will be followed by poems, then music. But this one will be followed by a short meditation. This is Luke's story of the visit by Gabriel to Mary of Nazareth, commonly called The Annunciation.
Although this story appears only in Luke's gospel (as do most of the birth narratives), it has wonderfully fired the imagination of the faithful, the artists, the poets, and the liturgists throughout the centuries. Those of you who grew up Roman Catholic remember well "Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you," Gabriel's opening words to Mary. This passage has been used and misused as well over the centuries to tell women that their proper role not only with God but with the church is to be subservient and passive, although I do not read this text or Mary's activity in this incident that way. So a few general comments:

Mary comes across in this story as very thoughtful, not afraid to question (an angel!), clearly in control of her decision in this matter. I have not seen the film "The Nativity," but I am told that the actress who plays Mary picks this up nicely. She's not just a passive dishrag, but a willing participant. Eyes wide open, as it were.
Like Zechariah earlier in this chapter, Mary questions the announcement of an angel. Zechariah is punished because, perhaps, he is perceived with his question as doubting. Why is Mary not punished for her question? Perhaps because she was perceived as having faith that this could happen, but being a bit confused (and rightfully so) about how. The scholar Jennette Scholer observes that following the angel's answer to her question, Mary is "faithfully obedient." She says this means "not to be full of an emotion or a belief; it is to act steadfastly on the basis of a commitment or a relationship." That works for me in thinking about her response.
This passage always reminds me that "finding favor with God" is always a mixed blessing. No wonder Mary pondered what sort of greeting this might be. She knew the history of her people. Those who were chosen (from Moses to Esther to the prophets) often faced great difficulty in carrying out the task for which God chose them. Makes sense that Gabriel needed to say to her following her perplexity, "don't be afraid." Almost always, by the way, that is the first phrase out of the mouth of an angel. Rather makes me think the usual picture of angels we have as sweet and beautiful must not be quite right. I wouldn't be afraid if an angel appeared looking like the ones on the tree in the Metropolitan Museum in NYC. (p.s. angels in the Bible are always male, too)
Mary has had almost a negligible place in Protestantism. Anyone out there who reads this; I'd be so curious to know what you think of Mary and her place in our faith, our spiritual lives, our theology.

First Advent, II

2006-11-29T10:26:00.000-05:00

There is a lot of wonderful material out there reflecting on these passages and the ideas of Jesus' second coming. As I read more and more, I am struck by the passages and commentators stress on the fact that the center of these stories is not fear and trembling in the face of judgement, but the certainty of God coming to redeem the world. We're not to hide and cringe, as did Adam and Eve when faced with God's judgement in the garden, but to lift up our heads. The emphasis is not on us at all, but on the faithfulness of God. Dietrich Bonhoeffer reflected on Advent as being like a prison cell: help comes from outside to open the door.
Then there's this wonderful story I have heard many times and choose to believe really happened. Over 200 years ago, the Connecticut House of Representatives was meeting one May morning when suddenly everything got very dark (an eclipse of the sun). Some of the men (and they were all men) started racing around, panicked, calling for prayer, believing this was the end of time. The very wise Speaker of the House, however, is quoted as saying something like this. "Either the Day of the Lord is approaching, or it is not. If it is not, there is no cause to adjourn. If it is, I, for one, choose to be found doing my duty. I therefore ask for candles to be brought."

First Advent, December 3

2006-11-27T14:45:00.000-05:00

Jeremiah 33:14-16, Luke 21:25-36

Today's passages take us into the realm of apocalyptic literature, as the lectionary always does on the first Sunday in Advent. It's a reminder that what we are about to celebrate in Christmas has larger implications for the earth and for history than we usually capture in our cultural celebrations of this holiday. It's also a reminder that the one who came to us in Bethlehem promised to return. In the wake of the popularity of the Left Behind books, some reflections on this type of literature in the Bible might be helpful.
The first thing to say about this literature is that it is almost always written in the midst of times of fear and upheaval. Luke wrote his gospel after the Temple in Jerusalem had been destroyed by the Romans and persecutions of both Jews and Christians were common (be sure to read the entirety of chapter 21 for the full context as today's lesson begins a reading midstream in a longer discussion by Jesus). Ditto for the Book of Revelation. Jeremiah wrote when Jerusalem had been under siege by Babylon and was close to falling; many people were already in exile.
The second thing is that it is important to understand that in the Biblical context, "prophecy" does not equal "predicting the future." Jesus is not doing a Nostradamus act here. Apocalyptic prophecy is meant to be a timely warning, a call to pay attention to one's own life, the life of the society and God's activity in the midst of both. That's why Luke spends important time at the end of this section of his gospel with repeated warnings to keep your head up and pay attention. As the Lutheran Biblical scholar Barbara Rossing writes, "When biblical prophets preached destruction, the purpose of their threats was almost always to warn of the consequences of destructive behaviour, not to furish play-by-play information about events in the future. The prophet's goal is to wake people up." (The Rapture Exposed, 2004, p. 89)
In short, don't waste time taking this passage in Luke and trying to line up the events detailed in it with events happening in our time to get a timeline to the end of the world. People have been doing that for centuries, and they have always turned out to be wrong. That kind of thinking puts people into a fear and defense mode. But for both Luke and Jeremiah, the point of all this is to hope in the grace of God. Eschatological (or "end times") thinking is not about fear, but about hope. When we read the signs of trees blooming and know summer is at hand, that is good news, as is the hope that the kingdom of God might be near. We are called to pay attention to how we are living our lives because we need a strong connection with God in order to meet any calamity the world may throw our direction. We are called to pay attention because when we do we are given strength of purpose to be as countercultural as we need to be to be faithful. We are called to pay attention because God does indeed judge our words and actions and calls us to account for them. We are called to pay attention because if we do not, we might miss the activity of God in our midst and therefore miss our chance to join God in new and exciting ways.
I'd be interested in your reflections and questions on this passage. Shelly

November 19, B

2006-11-14T10:33:00.001-05:00

Hannah's act of giving Samuel here has larger dimensions than even she could fathom. What makes her one of the more remarkable characters in the Bible is that somehow she knows that. Imagine this woman who had yearned for years for a child, who miraculously gets pregnant and gives birth to a son, who then freely gives this child to God's service before he is a teenager! The longed for gift she now gives away. She understands on some level that the gift of this child was not just to make her content and ease her pain, but rather to help change the society in which she lived, a society clearly in danger of ruin. Hannah could see the big picture here and so not cling to Samuel as we would clearly have expected her to do!

Patrick Miller writes that giving thanks reminds us that "we are not autonomous and self-sufficient." Hannah, in her song, understands that she did not cause this child to be created and born; Samuel's conception and birth came about by divine intervention. Her recognition of that makes her gift of Samuel a natural act of faith. Sometimes, often, "it's not about us." When we give thanks as she did, we realize that so much of what is good in our lives did not come about because of our work or our merit. Her prayer recognizes the one who is ultimately the Giver of all Gifts, even if those gifts seem delayed as did her child.

In the years that I struggled with infertility, Hannah's story and her prayer helped me, not because I believed God would miraculously intervene to put a child in my womb. I understood that God needed Hannah's child for a purpose, and that perhaps no child of my womb was so needed. She also helped me understand that there is a bigger picture than just my family in God's world. And that, as I discovered three adoptions later, good things do come to those who wait by the power of a loving God.

November 19

2006-11-13T11:51:00.000-05:00

I Samuel 2: 1-10
Hannah's Song

Hannah lived in the time before there were kings in Israel. The last line of the book of Judges notes that the system of having Judges who helped mediate disputes and organize community was falling apart. We know from the first chapters of I Samuel that the religious establishment was also in trouble. Israel needed new leadership, new intervention from God.
Into the midst of this comes a very human story of the family of Elkanah, a common man from the hill country of Ephraim, and his wives Hannah and Peninnah. Peninnah had children, but Hannah had been unable to conceive (the word used at the time was "barren"). In any context, that physical reality would be difficult, but in her context it might have meant her being cast out of her home and divorced. But we are told that Elkanah loved her deeply; he comforted her and made sure she was well-cared for. Nevertheless, Hannah suffered, and apparently Peninnah didn't make it any easier.
So Hannah went to pray at the Temple. Chapter 1 tells us the wonderful story of the priest misinterpreting her fervent prayer as drunkenness, but then blessing her with the hope that her prayers are fulfilled. And they are. She gives birth soon after to her son, Samuel. She has promised God that the first child she bears will be dedicated to God's service, so when Samuel is weaned, she takes him to the same priest, Eli, to give him as a servant in the Temple. Eli receives him, and Hannah leaves. Instead of weeping for the loss of her son's companionship at that point, she sings the song which is our text for this day.
(Before we discuss the text, it is important to note that Samuel grows up to be a great reformer in the religious life of Israel, and he also anoints the first two kings of Israel, Saul and David. Hannah goes on to have five more children.)
Hannah's Song is one of the classic doxologies (songs of praise and thanksgiving) in the Bible. Those of us who are Christian are perhaps more familiar with Mary's song in the first chapter of Luke which gets its form and some of its content from Hannah's song and others like it. The Biblical scholar Walter Brueggemann calls these songs "songs of impossibility," for they note that "conventional definitions of reality do not contain or define what God will yet do." Hannah sings about things that have not yet come to pass (the poor sitting with princes? the hungry full?), just as Mary does, but she sings about them in the present and not the future tense. Her personal experience of God acting beyond what seemed possible enables her to proclaim that God acts that way not only for her, but for the whole world. It is thanks both for the "now" and for the "not yet" which she confidently expects to happen. The scholar Patrick Miller comments that doxologies are "fundamental indicators that wonders have not ceased, that possibilities not yet dreamt of will happen, and that hope is an authentic stance." More on doxology tomorrow!

November 12

2006-11-08T09:25:00.000-05:00

Ruth 1:1-18, Mark 14:3-9

Those of you who follow the lectionary will see that this week I am not doing so. Actually the Ruth was the reading for last week, but I have paired it with the story of another extravagant act by a woman for stewardship Sunday this week. So that's the reason for the odd readings.

This Ruth reading is rich enough for many sermons, and I highly recommend you read the whole book of Ruth to get the rest of the story. The book was probably written with a single agenda in mind: to deal with the prejudice against foriegners at a specific time in the life of the nation of Israel (the period of Nehemiah). When Israel was rebuilding after exile, the leadership under Nehemiah did many great acts, but they also thought the only way to become "pure" again in God's eyes was to cast out all the foriegners among them, including the wives and children and husbands who had come from the land of exile. This story, with the ending noting that Ruth was an ancestor of David who was welcomed, though a foriegner (and a Moabite which was a hated foreigner) into the city of Bethlehem and united with an important man of Bethlehem, thus becoming great great great (etc) grandmother of the great King David.

The central thematic word of the book of Ruth, however, is "hesed," the Hebrew word which is variously translated as loving-kindness, faithfulness, compassion, loyalty and is related to the word used to describe the love of a mother for the child in her womb. The word is used repeatedly throughout the book, beginning with the blessing Naomi gives Orpah and Ruth as she prepares to leave them. In this story, the character Ruth becomes the embodiment of hesed. Her commitment to Naomi is absolutely as extravagant and impractical as the gift the woman with the alabaster jar made to Jesus in anointing him.

Just a word about the poem "where you go...." This is so often read at weddings, and I think it is critical to recover the fact that it is spoken from one woman to another, indeed from a daughter-in-law to her mother-in-law, a relationship often fraught with complication. This is not about romantic love, but about commitment and covenant, and if it is read at weddings, that should be what we talk about. More tomorrow. Shelly

October 15, II

2006-10-11T13:56:00.000-05:00

Mark 10:17-31

Here's another text that is so rich and full it's hard to get a hold on, and it is challenging to most of us.
The man addressing Jesus here starts off by showing his hand in the way he asks his question. "What must I do to inherit eternal life?" He doesn't say receive, but inherit. One inherits something that has been stocked up on or saved, often by someone else. We inherit commodities by virtue of our relationship to someone else; for Jesus, eternal life is something only God can give us, therefore his comeback to the man that God alone has power in these things.
But it seems something in this man catches Jesus, so he goes on with the conversation, telling the man to follow the old teachings, specifically the 10 commandments (though curiously he substitutes the words "don't defraud" for "don't covet," and I haven't read anyone who really explains that, but I think it's important to note in a society where defrauding has become such an art). The man says he's done his best to follow these his whole life.
Then, in the only instance in the Bible where any writer talks of Jesus in these words, Mark says Jesus "loved him." One can almost see a wistful smile cross Jesus' face as he senses the man really has done these things, but that there's just one thing keeping the man from complete faithfulness. So he tells the man to remove the block, which in this case is his wealth, and to follow Jesus. And in the only call story in the gospels where the one called refuses to come, the man goes away "shocked and grieving."
And one interpreter says that at that point the disciples were probably looking at Jesus with mouths agape, for what pastor would turn away a potential donor of large funds that way!

The rest of this reading talks more about how great wealth can get in the way of people being willing to serve God as God needs them to. Jesus isn't condeming wealth or lifting up the virtues of poverty here, he is simply stating what anyone with any possessions knows: having stuff makes you afraid to lose it and eager to have more, and those two motivations can keep even the best of us from risking discipleship fully. Jesus addresses those whose lives have been defined by wealth. The disciples are surprised because in their time, wealth was seen as a sign of God's favor; if you have property, it's because God is pleased with you and has "prospered the work of your hands." Jesus debunks this theology, still prevalent today in many circles, and says that only by the power of God can the wealthy overcome their fear and greed and move into full relationship with God.
Because this text has been so simplified or ignored over the years, we need to dwell with it and read it again. We also need to discern where we are in relationship to our things and how they may, or may not, be blocks to discipleship for us. shelly

October 15

2006-10-10T09:33:00.000-05:00

Psalm 90, Amos 5:10-15, Mark 10:17-31

I am reading all these texts this week in the context of an event sponsored by the UCC and other denominations affiliated with an organization called "Let Justice Roll" which has been working for the past two years on issues of economic equality in our society, in particular a "living wage" and health care coverage for all people in our country. We always read scripture in a particular context, so this week my eyes are taking on this context. I don't try to read into scripture what is not there (I hope), but as I read, these issues are in the back of my mind.

The Amos reading, in this case, stands out strongly, though we'll get to the Mark (and the lovely plea to God that ends the Psalm, "O prosper the work of our hands"). Amos is a rural shepherd who is called to be a prophet in the midst of the most prosperous and secure time of Israel's existance to that date, the rule of Jeroboan II from 786-746 BCE. The religious leaders of Israel assured the people that their prosperity and security were signs of God's favor with them. So Amos has the job of preaching justice in a time of peace and prosperity, not an enviable task.

Yet in this time of peace and prosperity, when the leaders of the people were "at ease in Zion" (6:1), the wealthy people had gotten lazy about living the kind of caring, compassionate and giving life to which God had called them in the desert with Moses. Read chapter four for Amos' take on God's anger over how the poor and needy were being crushed, and here, in an unusual event in the prophetic literature, he's singling out the role of women in oppressing the poor and needy!
Chapter 5 is a lament for how things have gone awry in Israel and what will happen to them because they have lost their sense of justice. The first verse in our text this week proclaims the familiar fact that the people hate those who are telling the truth about their society (so what's new?). Verse 11 holds up the interesting observation that it has been the poor, from whom the rich have taken food, who have hewn the stone to build the fine houses and who have toiled in the hot sun in the vineyards and done the hard work of making wine. If the poor are not taken care of, none of those jobs will get done, so the rich will not have houses in which to live or wine to drink. God goes on to catalog the injustice of "pushing aside the needy in the gate." "The gate" of the city was the central place where both commerce and the courts of law were held. (If you go to Jerusalem today, you will find around the gates to the Old City dozens of small vendors of food and clothing, reminiscent of this picture). Both in commerce and in law, Amos observes, the poor are getting the shaft.
The curious verse 13 I stumbled over, until a commentator helped me to see that it is probably ironic. In other words, if you see this injustice and yet want to keep your lifestyle comfortable, you'll just keep silent and not rock the boat. Ouch! Another commentator suggested that perhaps this means something different and is intended to be translated like "an insightful person is speechless for it is an evil time." In other words, people who are insightful are constantly struck speechless by the level of injustice increasing in society. Another interesting and timely interpretation.

But Amos is not silent. He urges people that it is not too late to change these things, to bring justice in commerce and court, to hate evil and love good, not just in words, but in deeds.
The chapter ends with the famous assertion that God hates the religious rituals of the people because they are a sham and a show, and calls the people to let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an everflowing stream.

More tomorrow on Mark. Shelly

October 1, part two

2006-09-26T10:16:00.001-05:00

In doing more reading on Esther, I discovered that the enmity between Mordecai and Haman is deeper than at first it seems. The feud apparently is meant to hark back to a war described in Deuteronomy 25 between Amalek (Haman's ancestor) and the Jews (Mordecai's ancestors). Deuteronomy 25:19 calls the Jews not to forget about Amalek, but to blot out his memory forever. So Esther's story is a continuation of an ethnic battle which happened long before her birth. Human history is full of such continuing ethnic hatreds, as is our modern world. The slaughter at the end of the story of Esther is not just revenge on Haman, but on the descendents of Amalek. Does it never end? Shelly

October 1

2006-09-26T09:39:00.000-05:00

This Sunday is World Communion Sunday.
Esther 3:7-11, 4:9-17, 7:1-10

This Sunday is the only day in three years of lectionary readings that we get anything from the book of Esther. Esther is known for, among other things, never mentioning the name of God. In fact this disturbed some folk so much that somewhere along the line a piece of Esther was added which includes a prayer (if your Bible has the Apocrypha in between Old and New Testaments, you can find it there). I have added a piece to what the lectionary calls for to try to flesh out the story, but it really would be helpful to read the whole book of Esther (not that long and very interesting story) to get the full picture. Our Jewish kin read this book (and often act it out) every year on the feast of Purim. (Pur is the Hebrew word for the "lots" that were cast - in essence dice - by Haman to determine the starting date for the pogrom against the Jews).

Here's the set-up: Esther is a beautiful young Jewish girl who gets chosen by the King of Persia for his new wife, after being suggested for such a role by her uncle, Mordecai, who was a minor official at court. He urges her, however, to keep her Jewish heritage a secret. (The whole story of the King's first wife, Vashti, told in chapter one is worthy all on its own as a story of a courageous woman!). One day Haman, a higher official at court, noticed that Mordecai never bowed to him at court (implicit here is that Mordecai did not do so because his sovereign was only God, but this is not stated, BTW, the same reason I do not place my hand over my heart when I recite the pledge of allegiance -- my heart bears allegiance only to God. But that's another sermon). Haman gets mad and wants to punish Mordecai, so he convinces (attempting a bribe) the king to let him destroy all the Jews for not following law and custom of Persia. Mordecai goes into mourning ahead of time when this is announced (he wears sackcloth and ashes), and when Esther sends a message to ask him what is wrong, he suggests she might do something about all this. She declines, valuing her life. Mordecai reminds her that she, too, is a Jew, and will be discovered and killed. She asks Mordecai to call a fast for her people (which again implies prayer to God, though this is not stated), and she successfully gets the King's attention, inviting him and Haman to a feast. She repeats this feast twice and then lays out her desire that her people's lives be spared (chapter 6 has an interim act whereby the king honors Mordecai for past service, which further enrages Haman). The king is furious with Haman for threatening the queen's people, and when Haman throws himself on Esther to plead for his life, the king thinks he is threatening the queen's body, and so has him put to death.
That might have been the end of the story, but actually the book has a rather bloody ending. The King's decree, once issued, could not be withdrawn, but a separate decree goes out allowing the Jewish people to be armed to defend themselves. A considerable slaughter and plundering is described in chapter 9, as well as the instructions to observe the festival of thanksgiving that followed.
I will be concentrating (I think), on the central portion of the story, where Esther thinks what will happen is not her concern, that she can do nothing about it, that it is all far away from her reality. Mordecai's words to Esther are perhaps the most well-known from this odd book, "Who knows? Perhaps you have come to this place for just such a time as this?" In the context of World Communion Sunday, this is one to think on. Shelly

September 24

2006-09-20T11:20:00.000-05:00

James 3:13-4:3, Mark 9:30-37

The James reading is very much in line with what we read a couple of weeks ago; very clear and frank discussion of the Christian life. He's talking to folk who are very much caught up in the pursuit of worldly wisdom (do we know about that in New Haven?) and are proud of their accomplishments and relentless in their ambition. He cautions them that all that ambition can have negative results in the rest of their lives (I read a quote recently whose source I don't remember to the effect that behind every successful person lies a path of wreckage). James contrasts this kind of ambition for success with those whose lives show evidence of peace, of gentleness, among other things including this interesting phrase "willingness to yield." When I think of the Donald Trumps of this world, or Bill Gates, "willingness to yield" doesn't come to mind. Although Gates recently yielded a large amount of power to pursue some other fruits. Interesting.

The Mark coordinates nicely with these sentiments. It's hard in our context to imagine the place of children in the time of Jesus. They were, quite literally, invisible. Now with media and advertising so focussed on children as consumers, it seems impossible to imagine a culture where they were meant to be servants, not ever meant to claim anything by way of possessions or time or power for themselves, in fact in many ancient languages the two words, child and servant, are the same word. Note that in Mark Jesus does not say, "become like a child," but "whoever welcomes or receives (depending on translator) a child in my name welcomes me and the one who sent me." Welcoming and receiving the powerless, the invisible is to welcome Jesus, not to aspire to welcome and receive only the great and powerful.

The implication here, however, is not just to say hi to someone, or even offer the "extravagant welcome" the UCC Still Speaking campaign urges us to do to church visitors. Jesus calls the disciples to serve these folk, the "least of these" from Matthew 26. The greatest, in Jesus' equation, are those who make themselves of less stature than the least, servants of the least, the invisible, the powerless.

I'm grappling with this word "welcome" or "receive" in this context, as we seek a new measurement of greatness. shelly

September 17

2006-09-11T13:30:00.000-05:00

Proverbs 7:20-33, Mark 8:27-38

I just read the Proverbs reading, today, September 11. I was profoundly struck at the themes given today's anniversary of attack. Haven't processed all that yet, but I encourage you to read it and think about it.

The Mark reading captures one of the absolutely pivotal moments in Jesus' ministry, his disciples' recognition of his identity as Messiah. The text moves clearly through three phases: first Jesus' inquiry about public opinion concerning him and the disciples' opinion concerning him; second he begins to explain what Messiah means, and finally what it means to their lives to proclaim him Messiah.
Of course, the folk of Jesus' time had some definite ideas about who Messiah would be. Some were political (he would elevate Israel to power and defeat all enemies) and some were religious (he would restore right relationships between people and God). None of those ideas involved a self-sacrificing Messiah, however. In fact, Lamar Williamson in his commentary notes that one reason Jesus tells Peter to be quiet about his being Messiah is that Jesus knows Peter has a flawed concept of who Messiah is! Fred Craddock adds to that his observation that general public opinion had Jesus as forerunner of the Messiah because "Messiah as future keeps one's image intact and makes no demands; Messiah as present calls for an altered image and demands an altered self."
So many people today seem to be very clear on who Jesus is, what he would do today and what he wants us to do. What are you hearing about who Jesus is? shelly

September 10, part 2

2006-09-06T13:34:00.000-05:00

Thinking of other people who have pressed God and made an impact brings up Abraham, who kept negotiating with God to save the life of his nephew Lot, slated to die in God's planned destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. Also others, like Moses asking God for water and food for the people in the wilderness, who didn't so much change God's mind as simply reach out and grab a hold of what God wanted to give all along. That's the mood of the Isaiah reading pared with this week's gospel, 35:1-7. God wants to bring the people home from exile and calls them to claim that promise, to hitch themselves to God's desire and live into it.

As I was reading on the Mark passage, I came across a blog by someone named Jerry Goebel who had a very interesting take on this passage in the light of recent events in Tyre, one of the places Israel bombed during the recent battles in Lebanon with Hezbollah. Using the favorite catchphrase "WWJD" (What Would Jesus Do) as his starting point, Goebel writes "What Would Jesus Do in Tyre? We already know. The same thing he did 2000 years ago in that ancient city. He would find the most ignored, most forgotten, most desperate person in the city and he would heal her daughter." Actually, to be more accurate to the text, I might say he would be open to being found by her and be moved by her need and her wisdom, despite the fact that she seemed to be an enemy. That takes this is a rather interesting, different direction that intrigues me.

The other piece of this passage that is sitting with me, considering we begin our Sunday School program this week, is the fact that the one matter that helps Jesus and the woman overcome the barriers between them is the well-being of a child. The original Mother's Day was an attempt by some women to rally the women of the world to stop war and the killing of our children (wow has that gone by the wayside as card companies have taken over the holiday). Can the well-being of children be the thing that overcomes barriers and unites people in one purpose? shelly

September 10

2006-09-05T13:10:00.000-05:00

Mark 7:24-37

Remember last week that Jesus frankly and boldly and unambiguously demolished the purity code of the Judaism of his time. He clearly declared all foods clean and that relationships are more important than ritual observances. So when the reading for this week begins, it looks like Jesus is going out to put his money (well, his work) where his mouth is. He heads into Gentile territory, Tyre and Sidon, in modern-day Lebanon. Why would Jesus make that journey if not to show that his gospel is not just for the Jewish people?
Actually, it seems at first that Jesus may be going north for a break. He has worked ceaselessly for weeks, having difficulty escaping the crowds for even a short period of time. Up north his name is less well-known; what is a Jewish prophet in Gentile-land? As one commentator I read noted, we claim Jesus to be fully human, but we sometimes seem surprised that he acts fully human, as in someone who needs a rest now and then.
Then we get this most unsettling story of the Gentile woman who is desperate for healing for her daughter. Matthew also records this story (15:21-28), and he gives the beginning of it even more oomph. In Matthew's version, Jesus at first ignores her altogether and the disciples ask him to send her away because her shouting is annoying them. Both Matthew and Mark agree that Jesus then says one of the most disturbing things we ever hear him say. He tells her that he's sent to give food to the children of Israel first, and then says it's not fair to take that food and give it to the dogs. The implication, of course, is that she is a dog (translaters say that the word he uses implies house dogs, not street strays, but I think that is splitting hairs. It's still an insult).
Whoa! What happened to the inclusive Jesus, the one who breaks down barriers, the one who is not bound by the social conventions of his time? Is it because she's a woman? a Gentile? obnoxious? Is he testing her or his disciples (I and many other exegetes have trouble believing Jesus could be that cruel)? Is it that he is so tired, and that the job of trying to reach the children of Israel is so exhausting and seemingly fruitless that he can't imagine having the energy to reach out even further in his mission? Does his weariness lead his mouth on this rare occasion?
Well, if Jesus is tired, this woman is more tired. She's been dealing with a daughter who is "demon-possessed." Epileptic? Mentally ill? Who knows what the disease was, but what any one of us can imagine is how difficult every day was for her, trying to just get through the day with this sick child. She had a shred of hope here, and she wasn't about to give up that easily.
But look how she responded. She didn't chastise him for being so rude. She didn't defend her rights to his attention as a valuable child of God. She took his metaphor and rode it out, with boldness and grace. "Even the dogs get the leftovers," she told him.
Indeed. Mark clearly implies here that this woman's boldness, her bodaciousness, if you will, had an impact on Jesus. "For saying that, you may go, the demon has left your daughter." Her saying brought him up short, reminded him of who he was and what he was supposed to be about, perhaps. Her energy for healing fed him in his weariness, so much so that he could go from that house on a long journey and heal again in Gentile territory. The barriers were undoubtedly broken, now, and Jesus would not erect them again.
More tomorrow. Where is this story touching you? Shelly

September 3

2006-08-28T11:57:00.000-05:00

Psalm 15, James 1:17-27, Mark 7:1-23

This week is unusual in that all three of these readings speak to similar themes. The Psalm was probably part of an entrance ritual during some worship event at the Temple. It seems to set forth requirements for entry into the holy space for worship. What is particularly striking about this list is how different it is from the list that evolved to be followed during Jesus' time. Then the requirements for entry to worship at the Temple or a synogogue involved following the "purity code." We're probably most familiar with the kosher food laws as reflections of this code, but it was much more extensive than that. These are the laws that kept eunuchs, lepers, non-Jews, the mentally ill, menstruating women and others away from worship for fear of contaminating others. These restrictions were almost always based on something physical.
This Psalm, however, indicates that the requirements for joining the worshipping community had more to do with the way one lives one's life outside the Temple rather than anything to do with the body's physical nature. To paraphrase MLK, Jr., it's about the content of the character rather than the color (or health) of the skin.
This Psalm reminded me of a practice in John Calvin's Geneva, where "fencing the table" was standard for Holy Communion. What that meant is that before someone could come to church to receive the sacrament, they had to be examined by elders of the church as to how they had been living their lives since the last time Holy Communion had been taken. Approaching the table depended on the faithful quality of their lives. A practice we have since changed, for good reasons.
This Psalm connects, then, with Jesus' long discussion about purity with the Pharisees and scribes and his own disciples. A nice summary of Jesus' interaction with the purity code can be found in Marcus Borg's little book Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time. The general summary is that Jesus again and again defied the purity code by whom he healed, with whom he ate and spoke and in his teachings. Here he takes on the notion that one can be pure (read faithful, Godly, righteous) by eating the right things. While kosher food laws may make a good deal of nutritional sense (and the washing of hands a good health practice), Jesus says it does not make one a righteous or good or faithful person. It's the same with other ritual observances that were created by human tradition, not commanded by God. It's not what we eat or how we worship that separates us from God, but what comes out of us in word and deed.
The James reading continues this same theme, with the kind of frank directness that is indicative of this treatise (not really a letter, though it seems to begin like one. More a manual for Christian life). Martin Luther hated James because he thought it could lead people to think that you can earn your way to heaven by your actions on earth. That's what he thought the Catholic Church was urging people to do by buying indulgences or masses, etc. One could read James that way, but one could also see James as continuing Jesus' insistence that true faithfulness has to do with how you live in the world, not just with what you say, in worship or elsewhere. His summation in verse 27 that pure religion is not about worship or ritual practice at all, but caring for the "widows and orphans" (shorthand for those with the least power, possessions and respect in his world) and not taking on the values of the world in how one lives one's daily life seems to reflect what both Jesus and the Psalmist had in mind.

More tomorrow. And from you? shelly

August 27

2006-08-24T09:58:00.000-05:00

Charles and Cathy both make interesting points here. Charles picks up the sense of Jesus' words in verse 63 that it is the spirit that gives life; the flesh is useless. That's what makes this passage so difficult. You have both the flesh eating metaphor (or not a metaphor, as Cathy notes, depending on your theology of holy communion) and then Jesus seeming to contradict himself by noting that flesh is useless. One commentator I read lifted up some ancient commentators' idea that the "flesh" to which Jesus refers here is actually the "Word," (logos in Greek, see the first chapter of John). So another image here is that we eat the Word (verse 63 also, "the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.").
Then there is Peter's wonderful response to his total confusion over what Jesus is trying to get across here. Jesus asks if the difficulty here, or the offensive language about flesh eating, or, per Charles, the idea that Jesus will not lead a political movement, will also send them away. "To whom can we go?" Peter says. A question I have often asked myself.

August 27

2006-08-21T10:44:00.000-05:00

Psalm 84, John 6:56-69

This week we are back to John and the "I am the bread of life" passages. The context of this particular set of verses (cut out by the lectionary designers from a larger passage and that drives me crazy when they chop up a passage that is a unit like this) is a dispute with a group of Jewish leaders about Jesus' saying that he would give them his flesh to eat. In Judaism there has always been a strong prohibition of cannibalism, and what Jesus said smacked of just that. So here Jesus is trying to (pardon the pun) flesh out what he is trying to get across to them.

John's gospel in many places seems to contain messages to refute the Gnostic movement of his time. Though this is a vast generalization of a complex movement, one tenet of gnosticism is to deny the human nature of Jesus and lift up only the spiritual, divine part. John wanted it to be absolutely clear that Jesus was flesh, and that we are called as fleshy beings to unite with Jesus. Though John does not include a story of the Last Supper, here he clearly is talking about the sacrament of Holy Communion and a physical ritual to bring us into one being with Jesus. The language Jesus uses here seems to be intentionally offensive and crude, even. But if Jesus is indeed flesh, then we can be one with Jesus in our flesh. In addition, it seems to me, this is a strong case that Jesus (therefore God) does not ignore or denigrate issues that fleshy people get involved in in favor of only the pure, spiritual matters. To be "in the world but not of the world" as the old saying puts it, means truly that Jesus and we as believers are God's disciples in the world.

So I read this and see that religion is not to be divorced from flesh and the things of the world in which we as flesh are enmeshed. Religion is not to be an escape from the hard things, but something we carry with us as we plunge fully into our world. This is a hard saying. Many want to run away from it and say the church should not be involved in worldly things. Jesus was. More later, and from you?

August 20

2006-08-14T10:57:00.000-05:00

Ephesians 5:15-20 (paired with Psalm 100)

This week is a little different from usual. I'm focusing on three verses of the Ephesians passage, verses 18-20 where Paul encourages the church folk not to get drunk and have raucous parties fueled by alcohol, but rather to get raucous in the Spirit, singing and praying together. Joyful noises, as it were, are to be encouraged as a way to build up not only the individual but the Christian community as a whole.
As I read this, the old Augustine quote that one who sings prays twice came immediately to mind, with the linking of prayer and singing, something which really moves through almost every world religion and is not unique to Christianity. Actually most Christian churches are probably more spoken word-centered than any other world religion. Traditional Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Shinto, etc. all include much singing/chanting as prayer.
I actually became a Christian not because of convincing theological arguments or sermons, but because someone invited me to sing at her church. I learned how to pray by singing before I ever figured out how to pray in my head or with spoken words. I actually think I prayed by singing before I understood that's what I was doing.
Elsewhere Paul says that the Spirit prays for us with "sighs too deep for words," when we cannot pray. I imagine that as a kind of song.
So this week we will be singing to accompany brief thoughts on the five classic kinds of prayer: confession, intercession (praying for others), supplication (praying for ourselves), thanksgiving and praise. Any thoughts on how prayer and song go together for you?

August 13, 2

2006-08-09T08:36:00.000-05:00

Psalm 34 is paired with the Ephesians this week and one verse of that strikes such a chord with me. Verse 18: God is near to the brokenhearted and saves the "crushed in spirit." In our society a broken heart is so often equated with having a love affair go wrong or not achieving some goal or losing out to someone else in a contest of some sort. I don't think that's what this means. I read the reports daily from Lebanon and northern Israel and Iraq and I think of the broken hearted. Mary Mikael of the American University in Beirut said this week that in six days Israeli bombs undid all the work of rebuilding in Beirut over the past 15 years. That's brokenhearted. How can the Lebanese, Palestinian and Israeli civilians NOT be crushed in spirit as things spiral down. How about the villagers in Darfur as yet another peace agreement crumbles? How about the single moms at the shelter in New Haven I visited who turn to drugs to try to numb the spirit-crushing poverty and frustration they face daily? How do these folk know God is near?

August 13

2006-08-08T09:34:00.000-05:00

The texts for Sunday are Psalm 34 and Ephesians 4:25-5:2. I am especially concentrating on Ephesians, and I am struck by the verses in chapter 4 that precede this reading. There is a contrast between the "hardness of heart" described in verse 18 and the call to be "tenderhearted" in verse 32. I read a quote from Tony Campolo not long ago that says something like faithfulness consists in having your heart break for the same things that break God's heart.
The Jerusalem Bible translates verse 31 this way: "Never hold grudges or lose your temper or raise your voice to anybody or call each other names or allow any sort of spitefulness." Paul's words not to kids on a playground, but to adults in a church. HMMMM.
I'm also thinking this week about atrocities committed by American soldiers in Iraq, by Israeli and Hezbollah fighters in Lebanon and Israel and Palestine. Hardness of heart.