1) the elctionary omits Uzzah getting zapped. It is a prime example of the sphere of hoiness being dangerous.See 1 Sam.6:19 that is like Raiders of the Lost Ark.

2) My teachers, roberts and Miller wrote The Hand of the Lord as part of an 'ark narrative," but saw this section as separate from 1 Sam. 4-6.

3)Psalm 132 may be connected to this passage.

4) Just as jerusalem helps legitamate and stabilize the new ruler, so could the liturgical act of bringing in the ark.

5)Birch in NIB 1247 notes that Brueggemann sees a mixture of calculation and piety in Davi dhere.

6) Yet another Princeton teacher, Seow sees elements of a ritual drama being performed here in his Myth, drama, and Poitics of david's dance bbok.

7) What happened between Michal and Dabvid. after all, she was stripped of herDavid, married to another, stripped of that love. Now she sneers. See Telling queen Michal's Story and Exum's article on her in Pleasure of her Text. Se Alter Art of Bib. Narrative on this and notes in is David Story, p.229

8)See Ex. 25 for a description of the ark a spresence of god. Recall that the hos tis a divine army.

9) David dances. one could use this as a form of enacted prayer.

10) David is afriad of its power, places it somewhere else, then moves when blessing is asso ciated with it.

11)I cannot tell if god or david's ascension to the throne or both si celebrated here.

 

1. David now consolidates power. He needs legitimacy, even though he was anointed by Samuel, but that was a secret ceremony after all.
   
2. It seems to be covenant language, even as it reflects Adam’s response to Eve in Gen. 2.
   
3. I would assume David selects Jerusalem, in part, because it was not part of the original conquest. With his success, it symbolizes a new start but always a potent reminder of his victory.
   
4. This could be a good time to talk about leadership
   
5. This could also be a good text to enter into a consideration of how god may work through human action toward God’s own goals. One could go back a chapter and see what leads up to David rise to power.
   
6. One could make Jerusalem a symbol of unity, of bringing disparate pieces together in neutral territory. What are safe places for you? What would a neutral ground be in having disagreements?
   
7. David’s rise to power could be a way of speaking of our rise and falls. One could certainly speak of the rise of Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett and their falls.
   
8. One could speak of different capitals:political, cultural, economic, and then speak of our spiritual capital.

Goliath, 6/21 I Sam. 17

We know this story from youth. To apply it I decided to make Goliath and David symbols. Let’s make Goliath the symbol of our fear. One of the people at crown Pointe said that facing living alone was Goliath in her life. Some situations strike fear in us: cancer, divorce, or assault. The positive thinking folks would like to deny the power of a Goliath, unless they want to trumpet a victory in advance. Real obstacles, real dangers face us all, and we need not minimize them. Fear paralyzes us. It prevents us from doing what we know we should. We become prisoners to it before it even has a chance to hurt us. For forty days the army did not move against Goliath. They will not notice any resources around them, as they are blinded by their fear and shame.

 

This week, the disquieting thought him me that a Goliath lurks in us all. We can become a Goliath to others. Our country is seen as a Goliath by most of the world. We may seem like a Goliath to those over whom we have some power. In=-laws can be a Goliath sometimes. For forty days Goliath insulted and taunted the army of Israel. That can wear a person down when they feel the odds are stacked against them. It makes them feel smaller and less significant.  The Goliath within had better be careful, or someone smaller may rise up and take that part down.

 

Some people say, too easily I think, not to be afraid. We know full well that Goliath deserves fear. Courage isn’t the absence of fear; it’s being able to summon up the will to face our fear down and act. If David isn’t afraid, I think it’s bravado. That is what his eldest brother suspects. Of course, Samuel passed him over in favor of anointing his youngest brother. When he is given the king’a armor, he knows that this is serious, even as he makes a show of removing it. He is able to face his fear as he is furious that the living God is being dishonored; he knows his abilities; he can draw strength from the living God. David is still realistic. He knows that goliath would destroy him unless he uses the weapons of the guerilla fighter, speed, surprise, and agility. Those create the conditions for his victory.

 

I don’t know if anyone noticed that the creek was full of smooth stones. If Goliath did, he ignored them. He was safe in his size and his 125 pounds of armor. Goliath’s spearpoint probably weighed more than the five stones combined. I doubt David weighed 125 pounds.  Only David noticed them as he walked toward Goliath. We all have resources that are invisible to others. We all have access to 5 smooth stones. Unused, they are unnoticed. When put to use, they can be most powerful. Sometimes they can cut down a Goliath. I heard a woman with a serious eye condition say that her five smooth stones were the prayers of five churches. This week I would urge you to reflect on finding five smooth stones in your own life.

 

Goliath usually wins. Goliath is so imposing, and we seem so scrawny in comparison. At times, Goliath trips up. Caught up in its own sense of invincibility, they do not regard a threat with proper respect and lumber into trouble.  At some marvelous times, the Davids of the world win. Milan wins the state title. Villanova beats Georgetown in the 1980s. They don’t only fight a brave fight; they actually win. When we face our goliaths, may God help us to face down our own fears. May our eyes be opened to the resources we have at hand to battle them. May we se the possibility that the little one can win.

1) Saul is dead, so is the great  friend Jonathan. One could choose to review their sad demise.

2) David utters this fine lament. One always wonders how much of this is personally felt and how much is public rhetoric.

3) This is in a limping meter, a broken set, called a qina.

4) Where is God in this lament?
5) One could go the conspiracy route and talk about the book of Jashar.(see Josh. 10)

6)Glory in v.18 is more like splendor/beauty/elegance like its namesake the gazelle.

7_One can recount how the mighty have fallen at other times.

8)David curses the place of death. Anointed is linked to messiah, remember.

9) In poetic license David says that they were not parted, even in death.

100 Israel is encouraged to grieve this public loss, so should we.

11) I would see the love here as political/public and personal.

12) We are often called to give uelogies. What do you think are imnportant aspects of them? How does this reflect the old phrase do not speak ill o fthe dead?

Sermon June 14 I Samuel 16, Mark 4:26-34

God is big, so we don’t have to be. All my life, I was interested in national government. As I learned more about it, the sheer size of its endeavors causes a lot of problems. It’s difficult for us to take in enormity. Yet, we aspire to the biggest as if it means the best, and it rarely does. The sheer size of our financial dealings brought us to the brink of ruin. I just saw that the huge Six Flags amusement park filed for bankruptcy. Large size can mean large-sized headaches.  The Catholic Church has a principle of subsidiarity, that the size that best fits an issue is the size that should have responsibility for it.

 

When I went to Seymour not long ago for a workshop on small churches, David Ray, the leader, made some good points about small churches. God often works at the small level. God doesn’t snap the divine fingers to create the kingdom of Israel, but works through one family in little Bethlehem and then picks the youngest in the family, David. God seems to delight in confounding our cherished notions of how the world should work. The normative size of the New Testament church was a house church,

 

When Jesus speaks of the kingdom of God, he means God’s way in the world. Jesus rarely picks empire-size images for getting at its nature. Jesus seems to have a bias in favor of small examples. When he uses a large example, it is often for the purpose of drawing a laugh at the fantastic size, like the parable of the talents. When Jesus is tempted by world power in the wilderness, he resists it with a biblical quotation.  Today we have good examples. They are living examples and they are small   Jesus moves to the natural world to speak of the incredible capacity of the small for growth, for life. The mustard seed is small. It does nto grow into a mighty oak, but a shrub. That shrub is just fine as it is; it provides a perfect nesting place for the birds of the air that God cares about. Jesus is determined to get through to his hearers that they matter just as much as anyone else in the kingdom of God.

 

God is so big; we don’t have to be big. If the God of the universe knows us by name, why should we scramble to try to make a bigger name for ourselves? Maybe most of our lives are just the right size. Maybe we would do well to consider the move toward simplifying the size and pace of our lives. We try to do so much with children that we crowd out time with them. The quest for more and bigger can often be a rather sad attempt to make ourselves bigger in our own eyes but trying to make ourselves bigger in the eyes of others. If we center our esteem on being equally loved by God, it makes our efforts seem a bit petty. Can we change our relative value more than being loved by God?

 

The same can apply to small churches. Some regard small churches as an anachronism, but they seem to be hardy and healthy anachronisms. Maybe we should name churches the church of the mustard seed, the pearl of great price, the church of the loaves and fish. Around 2/3 of the churches in our denomination could be considered small. Small churches fall victim to the culture and say things such as we are just a small church. The critical word there is just. It may well be that in God’s ordering of things, small churches are preferred. The God who knows our names works through places like the song in cheers, where everybody knows your name. The small church is a human=scaled place where we can be known, accepted for our quirks, and cared about.

1) This is a difficult story to work with, as everyone thinks they know it so well. We also face the daunting task of taking a stiory we hear as children and making it applicable to adults.

2) One way is to speak of the aley of Elah in our lives (An Iraw movie has the title). Who or what is Goliath in our lives? Who is anxious Saul, trying to be too helpful?
3) When have you used your own 5 smooth stones as a weapon?

4) 2 Samuel 21:19 has another person killing goliath. Is this story made to make David look good/ Is it an ancient version of TR and the Rough Riders?

5) maybe you could look at the new power on the horizon, the Philistines. they were Sea people, sophisticated traders and good at weaponry. they would even give Egypt trouble. Palestine draws its name from them. Their coastal cities were impressive Iron Age places.

6) Goliath's name recalls exile in hebrew. What if this story was to speak fo the giant specter of exile for a later people?

7) Is David brave or spirit-intoxicated. I don't sense fear here, just teenage arrogance

8) David tactics are the ones of any small fighter: speed and cunning. He won't fight on Goliath's terms.

9) Eugene Peterson has an interesting chapter on this passage in his Leap Over a Wall. He has a good way at the start of the chpater ot get into the text by giving careful, vivd descriptionof the scene while David collects the 5 smooth stones

10) See Robert Alter on biblical Narrative150-3.

11) Depending on the textual variants, Golaith is around 6 feet 9 to around ten feet tall.

12)What do you think of the sibling rvalry section with Eliab?

13)Polzin in his Samuel and Deuteronomist sees the aftermath as Saul gaining allegiance from David, as the political contest ocntinues, even though the warfare is finished.

13)

 

 

Trinity Sunday 09 John 3:16-18, Ps. 29, Is. 6:1-8

The God of the Trinity is the God of past, present, and future.Saralyn is off to the island of Paros, north of Crete. Part of her studies will be digging for ancient artifacts. Some time ago, a trove of material was found north of Israel. They contained some prayers. One of those prayers sounds a lot like Ps. 29. I want to reflect on tha a bit. When Israel encountered beautiful prayer, they worked it into their own liturgy. Yes they changed some things. The God of Israel looks at the fearsome sea and sea monsters, the very symbols of all that threatens us, and sees them as mere playthings. God speaks through creation. Here, it is a little different. Instead of emphasizing the beauty of creation, say the romance of sunset, here God speaks through the fearsome storm.

 

About 700 years before the birth of Jesus a priest named Isaiah had a vision in the temple, similar to the vision of john in Revelation. The temple became a portal to heaven. Here the priest trembles at the sight of heaven, for human beings are overwhelmed at the presence fo the divine. It is a bold vision,;one that cannot be imposed by singing our God is an awesome God a million times into drudgery. Yet, we hold that a human being, Jesus of Nazareth, reveals the divine nature to us. The very vision of God could be glimpsed in one of us.

 

Sixty years after Jesus died, John wrote a different sort of gospel. In a confusing question and answer session with Nicodemus, the story breaks off into commentary. We learn that the one called Son was the one sent. Why? He was sent to give eternal life, not to condemn the world, but to save it through the one sent, the Son. That new life, that born again/born from above gift comes through the Spirit, the Lord and Giver of life. Here, we see aspects of God’s action in the world expressed in three personal ways, three accessible ways for us. All of that awe-inspiring power of Psalm 29 and the pure holiness of Isaiah’s encounter was able to be seen in a way for us to see without shrinking in Jesus of Nazareth.

 

A lot of people know this prayer before meals. “God is great. God is good…”Here’s a way to imagine God. God is so big, so great that God takes in the cosmos. That’s an angle of speaking of the oneness of the great God.  The creative side of God is one of power, harmony, wildness, and beauty. I stayed on the coast my last night and early morning in Oregon. I was making my way toward the last dune that blocked my view of the Pacific. I noticed a sign: Tsunami Warning area: Beach Emergency Exit. The world is not made for our sole enjoyment and ease.

 

Still, the God of this complicated universe reaches out to us constantly. Even though God is above any attempt to corral that splendor, God moves toward us. The human virtue that God elicits is humility. The conference was pretty good, but people there sure seemed to know a lot about what God wanted for them. The world is not made for us alone. God deserves adoration and praise, as we are not the measure of all things. Any attempt twe have to tie down all the loose ends about our view of God can end up in idolatry, the creation of a god, a lesser god by our frail attempts to speak of the unutterable. Out of that splendor, we do not have to become little gods ourselves. To be loved by God is a miracle. To be able to love that great God astounds me. Every single day of our lives, that God reaches out to live out a good life, to live in circles of love.

 

 

1) We see the sad story of the decline of Saul. He violates herem, the ritual destruction of all. What were the good and bad points of his disobedience to your standards?

2) Analyze his cut off of communication with Samuel?

3) Notice how God is willing to supply a cover story for Samuel. It is a good example of God responding to human frailties.

4) obviously, surprise here is of the essence, that the youngest would be chosen, just like Jacob or Ishmael, or to a degree, Joseph.

5) NIB, p.1097 places emphasis on God's vision being superior to ours. Thsi can certainly preach. Samuel looks but does not see in a deep sense when looking over the boys.

6) Messiah=anointed one. David= beloved  Messiah -note Reformed tradiion sees Jesus as preist-prophet-king to include all designations.Jesse=God's man Eliab=God is father, Abinadab=father is generous, Shammah=God hears as a poss. variant.

7) Is Bethlehem afraid of Saul or the bloody Samuel, after Agag?

8) Shepherd of course becomes an image for king, God, and Jesus.

9) After all the talk of seeing, we get an appearance description that David is a stud.

10) Now the Sprit comes on David after anointing.