Secular and Sacred: March 2009

Sunday, March 29, 2009

Is.50:4-9

This is considered
the third servant song, though I am starting to doubt this
convention and its usefulness, Opinions differ if the servant is
always the same, or is sometimes an individual or sometimes Israel
seen through a representative figure.
Would the weary
be the poor, exiles, suffering people? If one reads Christ into
this, one cannot help but think of “come unto me all you who
are weary and heavy-laden.”
I would assume
that the stoci countenance of the servant here may have influened
Mel Gibson’s Christ in the face of horrific suffering . In the
film, it borders on, if not enters into, violent fetishism.
Clifford, a good
reader, finds similarity in this section to Is. 8 and 30 and
thanksgiving psalms or the sections of laments where the decisive
turn comes.
What kind of words
brings comfort?
I ilke the image
of a worn=out rag, as thin as the shirts I use when cutting grass.
Even though evil or indjustice appear so formidable, they will wear
out. The ones who consume so much will themselves be consumed by
something as little as a moth.
Sometimes
Christians are accused of glorifying suffering. Here is a good
example of the reality o pain being faced, but it is not right here,
as elsewhere, to have abuse and shame heaped upon someone, including
oneself. It does take courage to face this, as in Lam.3:30
God is near could
mean in spatial presence or in temporal presence.

Ps.31:9-16

This is a poignant
choice in that 31:5 contain the dying words fo Jesus in Luke and
Stephen’s last words in Acts.
This contains
remarkably full complaint. It reminds me of Peterson’s
commendation in Lamentations section of 5 Smooth Stones that the
completeness of a prayed complaint is cathartic and healing. See
also the wise words of Ellen Davis, Getting Involved with God.
This psalm
understands the isolating effects of trouble; see especially v. 12.
Like many laments,
this is also a statement of trust in God. This is bold prayer,
challenging God to be faithful to God’s side of the covenant.
This is prayer
that knows its Scripture. The covenant words are drawn from the
great definition of Ex. 34:6-7
V.11b is textually
difficult in Heb it is sin, but Greek and other versions read it,
with a slight change, as misery.
The broken vessel
image sounds like Paul’s earthen vessel notion, no?

Is.50:4-9

This is considered
the third servant song, though I am starting to doubt this
convention and its usefulness, Opinions differ if the servant is
always the same, or is sometimes an individual or sometimes Israel
seen through a representative figure.
Would the weary
be the poor, exiles, suffering people? If one reads Christ into
this, one cannot help but think of “come unto me all you who
are weary and heavy-laden.”
I would assume
that the stoci countenance of the servant here may have influened
Mel Gibson’s Christ in the face of horrific suffering . In the
film, it borders on, if not enters into, violent fetishism.
Clifford, a good
reader, finds similarity in this section to Is. 8 and 30 and
thanksgiving psalms or the sections of laments where the decisive
turn comes.
What kind of words
brings comfort?
I ilke the image
of a worn=out rag, as thin as the shirts I use when cutting grass.
Even though evil or indjustice appear so formidable, they will wear
out. The ones who consume so much will themselves be consumed by
something as little as a moth.
Sometimes
Christians are accused of glorifying suffering. Here is a good
example of the reality o pain being faced, but it is not right here,
as elsewhere, to have abuse and shame heaped upon someone, including
oneself. It does take courage to face this, as in Lam.3:30
God is near could
mean in spatial presence or in temporal presence.

Ps.31:9-16

This is a poignant
choice in that 31:5 contain the dying words fo Jesus in Luke and
Stephen’s last words in Acts.
This contains
remarkably full complaint. It reminds me of Peterson’s
commendation in Lamentations section of 5 Smooth Stones that the
completeness of a prayed complaint is cathartic and healing. See
also the wise words of Ellen Davis, Getting Involved with God.
This psalm
understands the isolating effects of trouble; see especially v. 12.
Like many laments,
this is also a statement of trust in God. This is bold prayer,
challenging God to be faithful to God’s side of the covenant.
This is prayer
that knows its Scripture. The covenant words are drawn from the
great definition of Ex. 34:6-7
V.11b is textually
difficult in Heb it is sin, but Greek and other versions read it,
with a slight change, as misery.
The broken vessel
image sounds like Paul’s earthen vessel notion, no?

Saturday, March 28, 2009

March 29-Jer. 31:31-4
is one of the lectionary readings. It has the famous line of God
inscribing the law (or teaching) on the human heart, so that no need
for teaching would even exist. What has been inscribed on your heart,
never to be erased? Are some virtues so ingrained that we don’t
have to teach them?

Monday-Calvin wrote
extensively on prayer, “the chief exercise of faith.” For
someone with such an elevated view of deity, it is a miracle that God
is willing to accommodate divinity to our fumbling limitations. When
it doubt, he pointed people to careful consideration of the Lord’s
Prayer as a model, and often the psalms, “the anatomy of every
part of the soul.” He saw these as examples of prayer for us to
structure our own prayers, as a fund of images for our own prayers. .

Tuesday-Spiritual
discipline has an odd sound to it; it vaguely sounds like
self-flagellation. The root of discipline is Latin for student, the
same root as disciple. We often learn well by doing, from moving to
the abstract to the practice of an idea. Take forgiveness. We all
know it is a vital part of the faith, but is practice is daunting. I
do think that the more we pursue the practice of forgiveness, the
deeper our insight into its powers.

Wednesday-Stress is
less made of danger and deprivation now and more about work and
worry. It can eat away at our living fully and well. It can suck the
life out of us. We can retreat to a place of serenity by careful
attention to our prayer life. Many psalms come out of a position of
distress. Alternately, find a passage that you find restful. I always
go back to Mark when Jesus tells the waves, “Peace, be still.”
Examine a stressor in your life and consider ways to combat it.

Thursday-Weavings is a
spirituality publication. In the first issue of this year, they have
a good article on the spiritual struggles of Mother Teresa. In her
spiritual journals, she describes a darkness. Saralyn is learning a
lot about mystic saints in school. The saints often had deep
spiritual turmoil. Part of her struggle may have been ‘the dark
night of the soul.” Some think it was a reflection of a world
for which god is indeed absent. God is both elusive and ineffable but
also as near as our next breath.

Friday-Being stuck is
frustrating, even infuriating. That applies to being in a snow bank,
in an endless task at work, or in a spiritual rut. We get caught in
the trap o f doing more of the same, only more insistently, and
wondering why we feel stuck. It’s been said that a rut is one
foot in the grave. We are made for life, new life, abundant life.
Life is too precious, too short, to allow ourselves spinning on the
same treadmill.

Saturday-In Listening
for God (vol. 1), Annie Dillard is in the tradition of Thoreau as a
close examiner of nature. She notices the tension of the order and
beauty of nature and its terrible, impersonal violence. One time as
she was walking in a field, the silence was overwhelming. It had real
force. “It gathered and struck me. It bashed me broadside.”
We may crave the presence of God, but whenit arrives, we shrink back,
as frightened children. We have a friend in Jesus, but the divine is
also always transcendent.

Sermon Heb. 5:1-10, John 12:20-33

At Christmas we celebrate the birth of a sweet baby. Miracle of miracles, we claim the baby as God’s own, the love of God Incarnate. As Holy Week hurtles toward us, the readings get more foreboding. It is one thing to celebrate a baby, but it is another thing entirely to face a good man, Jesus of Nazareth, facing an all too early death. Jesus Christ suffered, not only at the hands of Pontius Pilate. . Did Jesus suffer as God’s own, as human, as both? Since God is love, the heights and depths of love are known to God. To love is to rejoice, but to love is also to suffer. To love means caring as much for the other as we do our very own selves, so we may well sufer with them and for them. .

In both of our passages this morning, Jesus prays in the face of suffering. When were loud cries and tears lifted up, other than Gethsemane? In the Maccabees material these types of prayers are signs of piety, of being a good priest. I wonder if those loud cries and tears could also be prayers of frustration and confusion. If Jesus could see into the future, I wonder how many of those loud prayers were ones of pain at what we would, do, and will continue to do to each other? Of course, Hebrews pictures Jesus as the Great Priest of us all, the mediator, the bridge, between God and humanity par excellence. The job of the priest is to make intercession and offerings. For sins, for praise, for blessings. It could mean that he prayed out of death, from death, a pointer to resurrection. The linkage of these passages made me notice that the loud cries and tears to “now my soul/life is troubled” in John. I wonder if those loud cries and tears were not for us? Was the soul of Jesus troubled by us? We pray to be delivered from suffering. We pray in desperation for relief of suffering. Some pray to be able to face suffering with integrity and courage. I don’t know what Jesus learned through his suffering. Jesus was not set apart riding high above human issues. God does not ride above them either. Both sides join in prayer.

The Bibilical scholar Gail O’Day sees a relational stress here in John, so she emphasizes “the gift of life in love” After all, the fruit of the seed is the communion of saints, the community of Christians. When Jesus says, now my soul or my life is troubled could it be a sharing aspect issue of trust in the agony of the hour? Even though he faces death so resolutely, Jesus wants to live. The community fruit does emerge from the single seed; its life comes through the death the seed does not look forward to death. As I get older, I realize more fully that the life’s work of Jesus was terribly short. We really didn’t give him much of a chance to even get started. The seed loves life and expends its energy to create more life, abundant life.

We would like to see Jesus. We would too. Often people say that they would invite Jeuss to a magical dinner party for the greats. Many people want to see Jesus when they get to heaven; well maybe they want to see their family, well some of their family, first. What do we see of jesus in the various representations by artists? Some say we get to see Jesus in worship, in personal prayer. Calvin would insist that we see Jesus as the living image of the gospels. We get a glimpse of Christ in Communion. The disciples work through each other for this request. I think it is a signal to us that as Paul says, we form Christ. We allow others to see Jesus in our lives. The stunning answer to the request is that we see Jesus in suffering people, even in death. As Jesus says, to lose one’s life is to find it, its goal in eternal life. It clearly seems to mean to face death here, but it can include the loss of our egotism, the illusion of being in control, of letting go of our constant striving.

Sunday, March 22, 2009

Jeremiah 31:31-4

This is the sole instance of new covenant in the OT. Newness is in Ezek11:19, Is. 43:19, and the idea of a circumcised heart in Dt. 30:6.
Notice that God speaks if being a husband to Israel. This is as good a metaphor of intimacy as possible for Israel. It explains why adultery gets used when speaking of idolatry.
When has something been engraved on your heart? Job spoke of a pen of iron in a similar vein.
New covenant, of course, looks toward the new covenant of the Lord’s supper on the seder meal of long ago.
Law can also mean teaching/instruction
I like the vision of a time when teaching won’t be necessary, because people will all know God fully.
Why hasn’t the word been inscribed more deeply after all this time?

this is in a section called the book of comfort. How does it work as comfort for us now?

Jesus uses the phrase new covenant for the lord's supper. Thsi could be a good place to consider the

Reformed view of the Lord's Supper.

Remember covenant has a sense of cutting a covenant, cutting a deal. Describe how or when God's way cuts into one'slife.

March 22-I’ve
been looking at Proverbs more lately. I like that the bible honors
homespun wisdom human wisdom. I did a bible Study where we just
randomly picked one verse and talked about it, and then moved to
another one. They do have an almost scrapbook feel to them, after
all.

Monday-David Ford cites
the poet O’Siadhail. Here’s an excerpt from “Leisure.”
“the apple back on its tree/in a garden lost, a garden longed
for…rejoice, rejoice/to attest the gift of a day/to saunter
and to gaze, to own the world.” I’m starting to think
that being too busy is a sin. Idle hands may be the devil’s
workshop, but the frenzied pace of life pushes out the gift of time
to be with family, friends, and God.

Tuesday In the 3/ 24
Christian Century magazine, Susan Andrews write of Jer. 31:31-4,
“od’s covenant is translated from rules to
relationship…not ion stone but on the soft tissue of human
potential…not a faint pencil sketch, but a cutting to the
heart..an indelible etching.” Where has God written upon your
heart the foundation of faith for you?

Wednesday Listening for
God is a collection of stories culled from great recent American
writers. Kathleen Norris is a poet who serves as a lay pastor in
South Dakota. Reading from Isaiah’s ‘all flesh is as
grass” she muses: ”this is a hard truth, and it has real
meaning for people who grow grass, cut it, bale it, and go out in the
winter to use it to feed. They know that grass dies not just in the
winter, but in summer’s dry heat…bellowing cows join in
the call to worship. One year baby rattlesnakes showed up for
Vacation Bible School.”.

Thursday-In the Lenten
hymn Go to Dark Gethsemane, v.2 says “view the Lord of life
arraigned.” John says that the logos, God’s vision,
natural law, resided in Jesus. So the source of law was brought
before the human legal system, a foreign one at that. The judge of
the world was standing as one judged to be a criminal, a condemned
criminal at that. When we look at the cross, the turns pile upon each
other, the gifts fo the suffering servant.

Friday- James Kay
teaches worship classes and preaching at Princeton. He had us promise
to subscribe to the journal, Interpretation, is we were going into
the pastorate. In the Fall 2008 issue we find these Brian Wren words:
“hidden Christ, alive for ever, Savior, Servant, friend, and
Lord/year by year you offer life undying, love outpoured/day by day
you walk among usknown and honored, or concealed/ freeing, hiding,
leading. guiding, ‘til your glory is revealed.” As a
spiritual exercise, write a hymn to a familiar tune, so you can
follow the meter easily.

Saturday-Calvin saw
marriage as an immense social good. The Reformation marked a decisive
move against the idea that it was solely for ordered procreation. It
was for us to have agreeable, stable, joyful companionship. Marriage
was a good gift for us. It was to be a mutual benefit for wife and
husband together. Marriage is the source of many jokes and
complaints. Think on its benefits here in Lent 2009.

Sermon Ephesians 2:1-10, John 3:14-21

People work so hard. They don’t feel appreciated, or fear their work doesn’t add up to much. They work hard, and the benefits don’t seem to add up to the amount of effort expended. That’s one reason we so want a world of grace. It s word that is hard to get a religious handle for, even as it shows up in all sorts of ways in other places.

Grace could be defined with the line from John: “Not to condemn the world, but that the world could be saved.” made alive through grace We are God’s workmanship, a gift of God. We have so many phrases with grace: grace under fire/under pressure-grace period-grace notes-state of grace -graced v. graceless. They all have a sense of almost effortless charm, beauty in form (Astaire).-After all these years we prize, amazing grace The phrase has a sense of how life can be or should be, not a struggle, but the sheer joy of living in the world. Life itself is a gift of grace. Grace can have the sense of an unexpected favor granted from on high, like the Publisher’s Clearinghouse van actually stopping at your house, when your number does come in.Jesus is the emblem of grace in our own lives. The life of Jesus is a gift to us. The death of Jesus was transformed into a free gift for us. The resurrection announces an upcoming gift for all of us. Grace comes to us without strings, fee and clear, a pure gift.

When do we prefer darkness to light? In ignorance, in fear of what we will see-sometimes we prefer what we know to what we do not know

Serene Jones speaks of us a envelopes of grace, containers of grace, and the church as graced communities-map of grace over the contours of our lives. Now there’s a good spiritual practice. Go over some of your own life story and overlay some of the moments and people of grace that touched your life. Grace is love. The life of Jesus emerges from God’s kindly, graceful disposition. In accepting that gift we are made acceptable to God. God has the grace to accept us for who we are. To live in a state of grace is to see oneself as whole and complete, our undiminished selves, stripped of our defenses, such as pride, envy, or the other deadly sins to relationship. Sin could be called the fall from grace. What gets us about grace is that the seemingly undeserving get rewarded. God does not run a meritocracy. Eugene O’Neil wrote that “we all are born broken. We live in mending. The grace of God is the glue.” Since we are just after St. Patrick’s Day, let me tell you a story from Brennan Manning. “ A priest is walking down a road to see a farmer praying by a rock near a field. He tells the farmer that he must be close to God. The farmer replies, why yes, God is very fond of me.”

The world is a grace-filled table, if we only perceive it. The library has been showing some movies, and I suggested that they try some classics, as we tried some time ago. Babette’s Feast. A general rises and says ”We have all of us been told that grace is in the universe. In our shortsightedness, we imagine divine grace to be finite…when the moment comes when our eyes are opened, and we see and realize that grace is infinite. Grace, my friends, demands nothing from us but that we await it with confidence and acknowledge it in gratitude.” In the story Babette spends all her lottery winnings on a fancy diner for 12. The math of grace is not that of the ledger book.It is the Cinderella story of finding the princess beneath the smudges. It is where God rejoices over the one found, not the 99 safe, where the laborer who works and hour get the same as those who put in a long, backbreaking day,

Saturday, March 14, 2009

Sermon on Theology of the Cross I Corinthians 1:18-25

Sometimes we work at cross purposes. Paul calls Christ crucified, the power of God, the wisdom of God.Luther called the turth of this the theology of the cross. The power of God is obscured by its oppososite. Dubus, in a Father’s Story, ends with a prayer. “God says, so you love your daughter more than Me. Yes, he replies. Then you love in weakness, god says. As you love me, the father replies. The cross appears to be divine foolishness, the weakness of God? Shakespeare has them possessing wisdom .My old teacher Donald Capps wrote that the wise fool sees the two-edged nature of life, of failure in success and vice-versa, the dangers of playing it safe. We do foolish things for love. Does it make economic sense to spend what, a quarter, a third, of a yearly salary on an engagement ring? Sometimes when something doesn’t make sense, we need to search for a deeper wisdom.

A few weeks ago, we read of the transfiguration, a resurrection preview. With Paul this morning we read that the cross transfigures everything. Use “things that are not” as God’s future, new action, new perspective. It looked like the cross closed all the doors. Only god could use ti to open up doors of salvation, to make an instrument of death, an instrument of eternal life. Only God can create a new future out of nothing, so tha tit is not more of the same. Only God can make something out of nothing, even the abyss of death. Is it the wisdom of God’s own as a victim, instead of seeing God as a potential victimizer?

Wouldn’t it make more sense to talk about the power of God in the resurrection? Why make a symbol of defeat the core of a faith? In part, it shows that God can be with us in thick of thin. In its way, it is a response to the question thrown at Job. It is one thing to get along when things are good, how about when they are terrible?

As Paul says, the cross faces the last great enemy death, and confronts it from within, even the shadows of the tomb. As Douglas John Hall says, really the last enemy is less death itself than the fear of death, the hold death has over life. As Moltmann wrote years ago, the cross is not afraid of death, so the crucified Christ can bring the world the change it so needs. Maybe that is a way to glimpse what Paul is getting at when he speaks fo the things that are not, the power of death, the power of erasing a life. The cross moves our eyes from our own suffering and to the suffering of others. It moves us to compassion and the quest to find ways to cure, at least to ease, that suffering.

I sometimes wonder if Protestants should have some crucifixes around. It keeps the cross from becoming quite so easily a piece of jewelry, a mark fo protection, or even a tattoo.

I under stand the notion of an empty cross-betokening resurrection, but it makes the cross safer, les awful, somehow. IN our time it would be a needle for lethal injection or an electric chair.

God is not on the side of the victimizers, because God is on the side of the one on the cross. God is not on the prowl looking for new sufferings to test us. That idea is cast out with the cross, in its sense of once, for all. It is not for us to tell others who suffer that is your cross to bear. With its arms outstretched, the cross tells us to reach out to those in trouble. God is willing to play the fool for love for us, to taste bitter defeat and even death for us. In the end, the cross tell us that we use use ever power at our disposal to kill God’s love, but love, weak little love, will still win in the end.

Friday, March 13, 2009

March 15-We read the 10 Commandments today. Mick Saunders at Trinity, Rushville, wasted to consider Sabbath-keeping in our group. It’s a good choice, in our effort to not be legalistic about it; we are in danger of losing it altogether. Maybe a good start would be set aside some small Sabbath time during the day. I heard someone say that as a student they worked for 55 minutes and took a five-minute break. It may be “better to burn out than to rust,” but we are made to last a long time in a balance of work and rest.

Monday-We could read II Cor. 3:3 as you are a letter of Christ, or a message of Christ. In the age of cell phones and Twitter, that may be more apt these days. Young people, especially, seem to have the phone pressed to the ear or are dutifully typing about the ordinary course of the day. That’s a nice view of prayer, to keep God in touch with our lives, even the quotidian marks of the mundane. On the other side, what sort of Christian message do you intend to convey by the example of your life?

Tuesday-St Patrick has wonderful prayers attributed to him. Here’s a piece from the “breastplate”. "I arise today, through The strength of heaven, The light of the sun, The radiance of the moon, The splendor of fire, The speed of lightning, The swiftness of wind, The depth of the sea, The stability of the earth, The firmness of rock." He kept the old Celtic natural images and applied them to the new faith seamlessly.

Wednesday-We are hit by so much tragedy that we grow numb in self-defense. Numbness makes pain more bearable: physically and mentally. I wonder if becoming numb to psychic pain comes at the great cost of our compassion being marshaled when it needs to be alerted. Christians are called to resist suffering, to heal it when possible, to ease it when necessary, not to flee from it.

Thursday-Paying attention is an antidote to numbness. Life is too good to be half-observed and half-lived. We live in too frantic, hectic a pace. That rush makes the world rush by in a blur. Paying attention requires us to slow down and look. Ralph Mitchell of Rushville speaks of photographs allowing him to pay more attention to the world around him, even though the viewfinder is so small.

Friday Here’s another quote from Christian Winan’s new book. “God is not absent. God is everywhere in the world we are too dispirited to love…all too often the task to which we are called simply to show a kindness to the irritating person, or touch the face of a spouse from whom we have been too-long absent, letting grace wake love from our intense, self-enclosed sleep.”

Saturday-Calvin spoke of the spectacles (lenses) of Scripture. He agreed fully that we catch a glimpse of God in creation, but it is a clouded vision. Scripture sharpens the picture of god through Jesus Christ. It also acts as a therapist to help us see deep inside our motivations that we would much prefer to not view. Those spectacles adjust as we move through life. God continues to accommodate our needs, or weakness, and our growing strengths.

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Irish Blessings Column for Greensburg Daily News

We live with tto much bane and not little blessing, too many curses and not enough blessing. The Irish knew full well the pain of life’s poverty, so they made an art out of the blessing. They applied to the blessings to most of the circumstances of life.

One of my favorite Irish blessings concerns the Sacrament of Penance or Confession. By the tiem I was a teenager, I learned that one could go shopping for a priest who was easier on some sins, say taking a drink at a party, than others. Usually, you were assigned lots of prayers and sometimes a work of mercy. I heard an Irish blessing ‘If you tell the priest that you were with a woman, may your penance be to say three alleluias.”

When a child is born we could hear: ”bless this day of new beginnings/smile upon this child/surround this child, Lord/with the soft mantle of your love.” Let me share a house blessing. “Bless these walls firm and stout/keeping want and trouble out/bless the roof and the chimney tall/let thy peace be over all/bless the doors that they may prove/ever open to joy and love/bless the windows shining bright/letting in God’s heavenly light bless the hearth ablazing there/with smoke ascending like a prayer.” Life is not easy so: “may God give you for every storm a rainbow/every tear, a smile/every care, a promise/a blessing in every trial/for every problem that life sends/a faithful friend to share/for every sigh, a sweet song/and an answer for every prayer.” I like one that remembers the world as we rest in the night: “bless those tending cattle/and those minding sheep/and those fishing the sea/while the rest of us sleep.”

If ever we need a blessing, it is in time of sorrow. “may you see God’s light on the road ahead/when the road you walk is dark/may you always hear/even in your hour of sorrow./ the gentle singing of the lark/when times are hard/may they never turn your heart to stone/may you always remember./when the shadows fall/you do not walk alone.” Even death receives a blessing. “may the good earth be soft under you/when you rest upon it/may it rest easy over you/when you lay out under it/may it rest so lightly over you/that your soul may be out from under it quickly/and up, and off, and on its way to God.”

As a spiritual practice for Lent and for St. Patrick, consider composing some of your own blessings. Pick some things that touch everyday life such as: “may any line you are in be short/may the lines for your enemies be long./ may the gas prices go down every time you pull into the service station./May your boss be on vacation during March Madness games./ may your test have only exactly what you studied for.” Our prayers sometimes get a bit general. Pick some specific time of day to bless, or some room in the house. (We could run a contest on best bathroom blessings). Our prayers tend too much toward asking for things. We do well to bless others, along with our own life. It opens our eyes more readily to the good and gives trouble a better perspective.

“May the newspaper be blessed with people who can spell/may its mistakes be few and not noticed/may it be filled with ads of companies looking for good workers at high pay/may its readers see only good stories about themselves/ may good news always fill the community/ may their seed grow in good soil with warmth and rain/ may your children be wiser than their parents/ may your heart’s desire greet you with a smile.”

Sermon Romans 4:13-25, Mk. 8:31-8

Paul was writing to a new community. Each side of Jewish and Gentile Christians seemed to claim superiority. Paul takes an Old Testament story and radically reforms it. Paul’s transformation of the old story works magic for his new community. For Paul, the story is not so sacred that it becomes a shrine. It has living power in new situations. (see hays) Here, Paul takes the clear command about circumcision and instead makes Abraham the father of many in faith. Why? He wants converts to be unde4tered by the circumcision requirement. Everyone would agree that the Jews spoke of Father Abraham, but now Paul is saying Abraham is the father of all Christians in matters of faith. It would be like someone saying that bobby knight represents the best of Purdue For Paul, the living word is too important to be left with a quick quotation as if that decides an issue. He scours the Scripture to try to have it breathe life and wisdom into his circumstance.

The Bible was living communication for Jesus. He too interpreted Scripture. He lived Scripture. From Scripture, he drew the template of Christian ethics, love God with everything you have and your neighbor as yourself. He would use Scripture easily in arguments about the shared faith and as his sure defense against the snares laid for him in the wilderness. . Indeed Jesus looked at the messiah and saw not a conquering hero, as we still want it to be but someone who would suffer and die.

The Christ story has suffering. We say it so easily, that Jesus suffered and died for sin. Gospel songs get drenched in blood. It is a hard task to watch someone you love suffer Peter could not bear the thought. Jesus reacts so strongly because he would have preferred to go on teaching and healing for many, many years. He has a sense that his young life would be terribly foreshortened. Luke’s gospel says that the devil left Jesus after the first set of temptations until and opportune time. Maybe Peter’s words were an opportune time for Jesus to try to avoid the via dolorosa to the cross. Luther spoke of the theology of the cross, that we see god most clearly in the cross, no in power and glory. Both Jesus and paul emphasized faith, that is trust in a good God. Even when the facts are against us, we can maintain faith. As Paul said, Abraham and Sarah were as good as dead, yet a child came to them. Calvary surely looked like a defeat, but only god could move that horror into Easter.

During the season of Lent, I would hope that we allow the Bible to live in our lives a bit more fully. I was at a presbytery gathering on Tuesday and a grumpy retired pastor stated categorically that adults don’t look at the Bible, and no one, other than me, even batted an eye. It has to be more than a sacred, untouched book. Give it some fresh air of the Spirit and read it. Talk back to it, question it, struggle with it, find some solace in it. It is just another big book if it sits around and gathers dust or acts as a handy paperweight. The end of our reading from Paul is vital for us all. Those words were not for Abraham alone, not for Jews alone, not for Paul alone, but for all of us. The living Bible reaches across time to grab us by the souls. Here in Lent, biblical seeds planted long ago have taken root. For our future we do well to continue to let the bible shower our imaginations with seeds that will sprout down the line. As new circumstances arise, we will continue to have the living word speak to us. John Calvin would speak of a teachable spirit, a willingness to go back to ti over and over in the expectation of some new riches, some deepening thought. For the Spirit continues to hover over the Bible and us for wisdom.

Friday, March 6, 2009

March 9-I was talking
with someone who sees guilt as a sign from God. It is when we do
something wrong. When we have not done something wrong, guilt is a
sign of trouble. Misplaced guilt is troublesome as it may blind us to
feeling guilty when we should. God is not about wanting us to feel
guilty but to be released from its weight, appropriate or
inappropriately felt.

Monday-Calvin
emphasized a ‘union with Christ.” The Holy Spirit so
unites us with the life of Christ that we participate in life with
Christ. Yes, he meant most clearly in Communion, but he would not
limit its reach only to the sacraments. He would have little patience
with our determination to feel closer to God, when we are already
engrafted into God’s own, Jesus Christ. Christ is the hinge for
the door of faith.

Tuesday-Recently, I saw
a 3 lb baby girl. I didn’t peer into her character, or her
future. I had no stereotype, no accomplishments to judge. I prayed
for a fragile life, straining to live and grow. Maybe God continues
to see us that way, from the ineffable heart of divinity. God sees us
as a beautiful, vulnerable creation at 3lbs or 250lbs, in newborn
clothes or XXL.

Wednesday-Ghosts can be
persistent. A couple argues and dredges up the past. A church keeps
looking to the glory days of a generation ago. A middle-aged person
cannot let go of being a 3 sport all star. They don’t fit in
haunted houses, nor should they haunt a life. As Paul said, “the
past is finished and gone. When the past haunts us, we require a
sense of forgiveness. That’s why, week after week, we declare
the cleansing pardon of God in worship.

Thursday-On those rare
times someone would tell the truth when asked how is it going, they
would reply, tired, or exhausted. The great spiritual writer Kathleen
Norris has written of a struggle with an old nemesis, acedia. . It’s
a sense of spiritual depression or desolation that saps the energies,
where we just throw up our hands and ask what’s the use? 2
remedies: prayer gives us spiritual energy, and the other is to look
outward to help someone else.

Friday-Christian Wiman
is editor of Poetry magazine, a believer, and a beautiful writer, no
surprise. “Silence is the language of faith. Action is the
translation.” Sometimes our faith is so deep that no words can
hope to grasp it. Sometimes faith may be lost in silence, as when we
are too timid to speak when we should. I think that silence is the
sense behind Jesus saying we should pray in secret, in that place
beyond words heard, but they will turn into words lived.

Saturday-When the news
is about the economic stimulus package, how about a Spiritual
Stimulus Package? The metaphor for a stimulus is the idea that one
may need to prime a pump, or a lawn mower engine to get it going, or
run a truck downhill and pop the clutch to start. Few of us full
capacity spiritual lives. I would leave it to the individual to
create such a package, but in our tradition, surely prayer and
Scripture devotion would lie at the heart of such an enterprise.

10 Commandments-Sabbath, as requested by noted Biblical exegete, Mick Saunders

1) In an era where time is precious, sabbath is a good tool to recover.this is the gift of holy time in a time-pressured world.

2) The meaning of the verb is to stop, to cease. Recall that converts to Judaism are advised to first keep the sabbath.

3) Christians can be more flexible on the meaning of work. I think that students should have sabbath from study, or therapists have a compassion sabbath.

4) Sabbath shows us that we are not indispensible. To remember (zakar) means to appropriate into the present a past.

5) think back to when down time has been a valuable resource fo ryou, especially in daydreaming and visioning.

6)See on the decalogue an edited book by Brown, Harrelson's little book, and of course the great Paul lehmna's book, the decalogue, pp.146-8. It's written in his trademark thick, almost incomprehensible prose, but as always has some ideas that even i can glean from it.He thinks we should pray with both eyes open, one to corporate follies and the other to the shining sun. Lehman aplplauds Luther's view of the sabbath as a holiday/holy day.

7) Even God rested on creation's seventh day and enjoyed it..

8) Mueller has an interesteing book on sabbath observance.

9) many fear, rightly, being too legalistic about Sabbath. I don';t think that's a problem in our time. Teh problem is observing it at all.

10) In the shorter catechism 7.061-62 speks of no unnecessary worldly thoughts, words, or works. the Longer Catechism (7.227231)Sees it as a worship day with only absolutely necessary work. It sees sabbath as containing both creation and redemption it speaks of preparation for the special day.

11) Sabbath then went into social views of saving the land, and helping debtors and even returning land to its original family owners with jubilee. It si a sense of release/forgiveness for everything, a return if you will.

Thursday, March 5, 2009

Numbers 21

1) This is the final of a series of complaints. this time it is directed against Moses and God.

2) I love this anxiouos complaint-no bread no water but the food they have is lousy. It reminds me of the old joke. 2 women are in a restaurant compalining about the food. Othen one says, yeah and such small portions.

3) Some translate these creatures as fiery, due to the painful inflammation perhaps. The poisonous ones are seraph, flying snakes as in Is.14:29, related, I would guess to the seraphinm in Is.6 they are in the temple adornments.

4) I would have to work on the idea of bronze serpents beyond their potential as idols. In Egypt a cobra that spit fire as protection was depicted on the ruler's crown.

5) Like the snake in pharmacies, this one has healing properties as well. The replica will show up later as Nehushtan (this is an idol destroyed late). This seems to have, at the least, echoes of sympathetic magic. We can't be sure if it would be the alloy tine and copper=bronze or jsut copper.

6) A great use of this story with John 3:14 is in James Kay's Seasons of Grace collection. It is a fabulous collection of short sermons and is a demonstration of his skill with images.

7) I don't know to what extent one could start relating different serpents such as the one in Gen.3 or the serpent of Is.27 or for that matter, Rev. 12. Lots of serpent images have cropped up in the Ancient Near east.

8) What serpents persist due to our complaints?

9) How would a replica of something become healing?

10) Kay in his sermon, see #6 uses the idea of looking up as critical as draining away the poison.

11) What poisons afflict modern life? What would heal them?

Sunday, March 1, 2009

Notes for Gen. 17: 1-7, 15-16
The lectionary makes a decision to skip over the sign of the covenant here, circumcision. I guess that’s a partial explanation about why we don’t have more hymns about it.
The name change goes from father is great to father of many.. Sarah receives a name change too: it means princess/female leader
El Shaddai is translated as God Almighty- we have choices for the root. It could emerge from God of the mountains, or breasts (some mountains have a rounded contour), as a symbol of nurture or fertility, or God the overpowering/the destroyer. See #7.
At the end, we have material on laughter. What is the source of the laughter here: relief, a promise fulfilled, at misunderstanding for now he will be the progenitor of the Hagar and Sarah line, mocking at the thought of a child in old age?
In two weeks, two covenant markers, so this could be a tiem to speak of covenant. Presbyterians could even go back to the Scottish tradition of covenant that formed churches that eventually became part of PCUSA
Remember that through Colossians 2 we tie infant baptism to circumcision. Jesus was circumcised at 8 days old.
We are in mythic territory with its meaning. A sense of cutting of somehow betokens inclusion. It is a mrk, as Jacob was marked after wrestling with the angel. Recall Zipporah and the destroyer in Ex.4:24
The rainbow is everlasting, as is the covenant with Abraham. Certainly this natural sign is more ‘personal.” Reflect on how different religious signs and symbols work for you.
Of course the laughter here cannot be laughter for Hagar and Ishmael in terms of inheritance.

Of course, thsi is a good place to talk about growing old. Alternately, God can work even though physical reality says differently. Again, what is impossible for God?

First Sunday in Lent 09 Gen. 9:8-17, I Peter 3:18-22

this is an example of a sermon that is image-driven

We all have a t least a vague memory of the story of Noah and the ark. The rainbow came after the cataclysmic event that unleashed the waters. When the waters have subsided, life begins again. God has the rainbow become a visual aid. The power of the bow is set aside, put away. It seems to be a sign for God to remember, never again. Destruction would not be such an instrument for change.

The rainbow is such a beautiful, startling thing, so people have gathered stories around it. For instance, the Norse saw it as a bridge between heaven and earth. The rainbow is a bow in Hebrew, where lightning would be the arrow. Think of Zeus and the thunderbolts. . It is a cosmic instrument of power. Here it is set to undergird the firmament as an instrument of peace. It is a sign of a new start. This time it will not all come undone. God will find another way to redeem a fallen creation.

Look at the ecological features for this story. God makes the covenant without any conditions for everything and everyone. Creation is for everything, no human alone. The rainbow is a reminder that we are not to be at war with the earth. If God would protect creation, we do well to consider what a calamity, what a sin it is for us to despoil, even threaten God’s creation. In that sense the Endangered Species Act respects the rainbow. We cannot be party to making rainbow’s end the end of God’s creation. In its way, the rainbow is a sign of ecological peace with the environment.

In the Apostles’ Creed we recite an odd phrase that is drawn from a letter, “he descended into hell.” It could be a conclusion to the phrase, crucified, dead, and buried. For Easter to have significance, Jesus truly died and went to the abyss of death we all share. We cannot be sure if it means the abode of the dead or a place of punishment. At any rate, Jesus preached to the spirits in prison. I like to think of it as seeing God’s love able to reach past the gates of death. Later, Christians spoke of the harrowing of hell, a military incursion where Jesus defeated the hold of death’s prison and released its victims into heaven. Recall Hercules going to the Hades. In the late 1880s people argued about a second chance for people to hear the gospel after death. During the Reformation, it was thought that the descent into hell began in the Garden. The descent into hell was the entire Good Friday experience that extended into the horror of God’s own in the grave.

In the days before video, CBS ran Wizard of Oz every year. Young Judy Garland sang Over the Rainbow. We don’t have to dream that closeness to God is somewhere over the rainbow. On this first Sunday of Lent, session decided to have us enter this time of spiritual discipline with Communion. The Irish imagined a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. This morning, the Communion table is at the end of the rainbow. This is the new covenant. This morning a diverse rainbow of languages, regions, and peoples gather around the table. In our time, the rainbow has become a symbol of diversity to be celebrated. We take up the fruit of the earth, work with it, and the elements bring us the reality of Jesus Christ. Now matter who we are, no matter where we are from, we are fed in the ark of salvation, the church. We are joined to each other; that’s why we call it communion. The Holy Spirit joins us to heaven itself; that’s why we call it Communion. For once, we are in communion with nature, with creation as well, as we all receive e Communion under the sign of the rainbow.

Lent 09 week of 3/1

Sunday-Lent has 40 days, not counting Sundays. I like the thought. Sundays mark the resurrection, so it puts the Lord’s Day into a new key. I t reminds me of Prince calling Sunday “his fun day.” The Sabbath is a time to take a break even from tasks such as spiritual self-improvement and instead to” let go and let God” in worship.

Monday- With John Calvin’s 500^th birthday, I’ll try to have a quote every week. He spoke of the world as a “theater for God’s glory.” That is a remarkable statement for someone as ascetic as Calvin. He was overwhelmed with the glories of creation. In our time, science could make it seem dry and technical. With a different set of glasses, science gives so much depth to our sense of the world, especially beyond what the naked eye can spot.

Tuesday-As I write this, it is cold and windy, and the slush has frozen. February is a cruel month, as it seems that winter’s grip will not grow slack. If we had meteorologists of the human deeps, we would diagnose wintry hearts as a big problem. Bombarded by stimuli, we grow numb and cold to the world. Instead of it being personal, it becomes abstract and unreal, an item to be observed without participation. In high school, we read a poem by Robert frost, hwere he was afraid that the world would end in icy indifference. Perhaps, that’s another reason Easter comes in the spring.

Wednesday-Peace is so elusive, either inner peace or the blessed event of peoples getting along well. I am so tired of troops shot up overseas, as I was a boy raised on the Thursday body counts of Vietnam on the news. Using Lent as a time to learn some peacemaking techniques fits the executed prince of Peace.

Thursday-The protein, laminin, helps with cell cohesion. Its organic structure is somewhat cross-shaped. Now I’m not jumping up and down about this, but I do like the thought. In Colossians hymns (1:15-20) all things hold together in Christ. The world Christ saves has a cruciform shape and need. Certainly, the glue to our faith is Jesus Christ. Where are cross-shaped holes in your soul?

Friday-In Luke, after the temptations, the devil leaves Jesus until ”an opportune time.” Many think that was at the Garden, or even at the cross. What is an opportune time for you to hear the tempter’s voice? Is it in crisis, or could it be when things are going very well? Perhaps, different temptations strike in different circumstances. What helps you push back against temptation?

Saturday-The economic downturn has caused real financial hardship in seminaries, foundations, and churches. The natural anxious response is to issue giving demands, with the dreaded stewardship pledges or tithing campaigns. Instead of operating out of fear of lack, perhaps generosity would be a better theme. I’m not suggesting being a Pollyanna, but I am suggesting that we often do better when we examine our virutes, and resources instead of a focus on our lack.

Secular and Sacred