Friday, December 31, 2010

Mt. 2 2011
The visit of the Magi is a story of doing the right thing for the wrong reasons and the wrong thing for the right reason. It shows that in spiritual matters one needs careful discernment. Even knowing the Bible is insufficient. God can use us when we are unwitting or if we are clear about what we must do.Matthew even plays with the ambiguity as the word can mean either homage or worship. We are not sure if they were of this feared group Parthians, or if they were representatives of the dualism of Persian religion with Zoroaster  Daniel was called chief magi. The Magi themselves occupied religious positions but were actively involved in counselling the rich and members of government. For those of a certain age, think of Jafar in the Aladdin moves. Their gifts were appropriate for a king, but all of them appear at the altar in Exodus. All of the gifts have both a secular and religious character. Gold is obvious, both as a gift for a king but also in its use in the Temple.  frankincense was prized for its aroma and expense, but recall that it was an important par of the worship in the temple. Not only is the odor pleasing but its slow rise to the sky makes one think about prayers ascending. Myrrh is bitter, as life itself can be. It also heals and smells good, It was an item for worship. It was also used to make anointing oils for important events during life and in anointing a body at death. In other words, we can read much significance into the gifts of the sages, far beyond their capacity to realize what and to whom they were giving them. They followed the starlight as gentiles. Maybe it was out of astrology or some tenet of their religious beliefs, but they went to Bethlehem. In doing the right thing for the wrong reason, they then did the proper thing: to visit Herod the king of the region.  Now this gesture would turn murderous as we were so terribly reminded last week. They were right that Jesus was to be a king, but wrong about the type of kingdom his would demonstrate. Even though they we sages, it was but a partial epiphany.
 
Matthew ends his gospel with end time, apocalyptic signs at the crucifixion and of course the resurrection itself. He starts with it too, in a world of dreams and heavenly bodies changing course. Celestial bodies don't move about like the star of the Magi.  The ancients thought that celestial objects were connected to the earth. In the time of Jesus a lot of emphasis was placed on the  star of Jacob. they Magi may have believed that the object in the sky had a human counterpart. they would be joined only at death.

Matthew's story is journalistic in a way, as it asks basic questions such as,where.Mic. 5 and 2 S 5:2 give the Scriptural expectation for the birthplace of the Davidic messiah. The religious experts knew the right passages and could cite them. They did not apply it to their life and times. Even though the passage from Micah was messianic at this time but they missed the messiah.
It speaks of when and how.The dream motif In this early part of Matthew have dreams as vehicles of direct revelation. Both Joseph and the Wise Men have them and heed them.  
 
Isaiah speaks of the light rising on us.That light shines on everyone. What attracts me about our passage is that it speaks of lifting up the head, opening the eyes, and embracing the light. When we are downcast we don;t notice the light shining thorough. Think of the old charlie Chaplin song smile, smile and maybe tomorrow, you'll see the sun coming shining through." Even if we do not perceive the light fully, we open our eyes and see more clearly. We enter into the new year clear-eyed after New Year's Eve revels: cleared eyed because we enter the year with worship.

Monday, December 27, 2010


Heb.2
 
 
I heard folks complaining that all of the work for getting ready for Christmas goes by too quickly. So much work flies by in an instant. Perfection in setting up may have been missed by this much. Some folks are ready to burn the tree and take down the decorations. After all, some of them have been up before Thanksgiving. On December 26th the baby Jesus has been fed and changed and slept. As the sermon in Hebrews emphasizes, Jesus is a human being.
Some folks have Christmas blue or a blue Christmas or post-holiday blues. The Christmas season saturates the senses/We've been hearing Christmas music for a long time in stores, now we will hear it until next month in church. We touch fur-lined collars and give hugs to aunts and uncles. Oh, the good smells, of cookies and meat roasting in the oven and scented candles, and running into bath and body works for a stocking stuffer. The tastes of good chocolates and all those foods, and the crunch of a pastry.
 
What gifts are in the wrapping. how we tear it off to get at the treasure inside. My mother was always a bit hurt at seeing the wrapping job and the pretty paper dispensed so casually.What a gift was wrapped in swaddling in Bethlehem.Paul calls us temples of the Holy spirit. In other words we are wrappers with a treasure beneath.
 
The girls' Grandpa McKinnon died this year. He wore a stocking cap during the holidays. He kept a pile of Chicago Tribunes in the basement, because he was going to get to them; because he paid for them. He knew that there were treasures inside. In one of those was an article about a rash of baby Jesus statues stolen from Nativity sets all over a neighborhood, and 32 were dumped in a woman's backyard. She placed them all in front of a church to be picked up and called the cops. The cops let them stay, as the officer said, "baby Jesus should be in the manger, not in the evidence lock-up.
 
The place for baby Jesus was an unlikely place, a feeding stall. It was not to be running for his life as an infant. As an adult, it was not the manger, but where people needed him, and I assume that would be a police station too. After all, angels don;t need much help. Mt.'s quote of Rachel not in pretty church pageants. Mt. alters his citation formula here. Even though this is a horrible story, it  is still a story of escape, like Moses and his little ark. Legends have sprung up about the travel to Egypt. Part of me dismisses them, but I must admit I like that here a tree gave shade to the family. Now they are even farther away from home. They have no idea how long they will have to be refugees. The first Christmas season was on the run, fleeing from a death sentence.
 
Death surely was still in force in Bethlehem.The author/pioneer/leader  of salvation broke through the barrier of death. The Easter moment of new life was an ultimate present, so the fear of death is no longer an ultimate barrier. The preacher in Hebrews goes on to say that Christ was made complete in suffering. The same phrase, made complete,  used of a consecration for a priest, includes intercession, the work of the priest. The shared humanity of Christ also unwraps the character of God for us all.That same pioneer surely faced suffering when tested/tempted/tried, but he made it throurgh, like the pioneers of the West.
 
I usually had to serve Mass the day after Christmas. It was hard for me to understand why the martyrdom of St. Stephen was the day after Christmas. suffering of the innocents then and now Death and its brother, Trouble, don;t take holidays off. After all, the Savior saves us from a world of hurt.
 
.
 

Xmas Eve 2010
Ann Weems wrote:"we wait in December darkness." the wait is over for Christmas Eve this year.Many of us have ambivalent feelings at Christmas. Try as we might, we keep looking for more in the season than anything is capable of giving. Were the shepherds intrusive?did they feel as intrusive as the new companion a child brings home, or advice from new in-laws?e Did angels sing at the manger as they did for the shepherds. What helped the Grinch who stole Christmas was the realization that Christmas was not wrapped up in the tinsel, but that the tinsel was a shining symbol of people able to celebrate the season of love and giving.
John has no patience for trying to figure out the  biology for the identity of Jesus. No manger, no shepherds, no Wise men populate his beginning of the story. He echoes genesis and goes back to the beginning of , well, everything.He says that the wisdom, the plan, the vision of God for creation is present in this Jesus born on some long ago far away day we designate as Christmas John uses the great Christmas image of darkness that fits us perfectly as the days are just starting to grow longer now in the bleak winter. Bill Adams told a story years ago about a Christmas pageant where the shepherds processed, elegantly clad in flannel bathrobes and towel headdress. One move dot Joseph and said, well Joe when do you pass out the cigars. People tried to stifle their laughter but that only made it worse. The angel above the scene fell off her chair and took all of the sets with her.The only thing of the pageant that survived was the light bulb placed in the manger to represent the light of the world.
 
God chooses to make a dwelling, a place to stay, to rest, inside a human being named Jesus, one of us. God works from the inside out. God dwelt among us, not far off, but within our condition. Ann Weems also wrote: 'in each human heart lies a Bethlehem." In being born in Bethlehem, Christ allows Bethlehem, as the hymn says, to be born in us this day.
Almost ten years, with more or less avidity, we have been in Afghanistan, so Lord knows we need to hear again peace on earth goodwill to all. Our commitments to war mock the easy Merry Christmas, the easy reference to the Prince of Peace. So too does all of the attendant anxiety at family gatherings, where we walk on eggs shells to keep at least the veneer of civility shiny. It is hard to fathom the effort people make to be together for something they dread.
Yet, those soldiers in harm's way miss the home fires of simple family gatherings and traditions and conjure up the memories frame by frame in their minds. they think of the two year old who gets an expensive present and then plays with the box.
 
Andy Rooney said that one of the most glorious messes ever made is on the living room floor on Christmas...don't clean it up too quickly.
God bless the singing and playing of Silent  Night by candlelight. No matter how cold the evening, it warms the heart. We all live within a manger of grace, of god's good gifts to us. All of us are shepherds who witness to the miracle once more.Cynthia Rigby  said "in particular moments finite creatures realize their participation in the artistry of God." Lots of folks perform artistry at the table, with decorations, with wrappings of presents.We speak easily of Christ in our hearts. The incarnation is not about feelings alone but the very matrix of life. Auden wrote remember in a stable, for once in our lives, everyone became a You and no one an it. May all of us honor the Christ within, the God with us, in this season.

Sunday, December 26, 2010

Jer. 31:7-14
We may have worked with this previously.
1)in v.7 I picture a scene such as Spartacus.
2) Instead of survival of the fittest, look who comes back in v. 8.Why?
3)  Again what do you make of a young mother and a woman in labor returning?
4)Is the return tears of joy, sorrow, or both?
5) What kind of consolations or supplication will lead them back?
6)The highway is an easy one to return, like when on a trip the return seems faster than the first leg to the destination.
7) What do you make of God as father here in v. 9? then we have shepherd language
8)Ransom and redemption language buys someone back. I like the line hands too strong for him.
9)I like the abundance language and the great phrase, watered garden.
10)When does it feel right for mourning to turn to joy and dancing?
 
Is. 60:1-6
1)  Is this where rise and shine came from?
2)the light image is a good one for the time of year when the days start to grow longer. glory in my view is well thought of as God's presence.
3)Notice that instead of exile, people will be coming to them. We could use the image of all the family gatherings at this time of year.
4) What do you make of daughters being carried? Is it an image of safety v. being carried off?
 
5) wealth of nations in v. 5 is the tile of Adam Smith's capitalist/free enterprise book of 1776.Wealth is moving in instead of moving out. One could refer to our national debt here, or our balance of trade problems.
6) camels got connected to the Magi. So too did their ethnic heritage refer to the locations here. 2 of the 3 gifts are mentioned here.
 
Ps. 147:12-20
1) This psalm starts with a city/temple and moves to nature. When we read of John 1 and the word, this is an interesting counterpoint.
2) I am compelled to go back and note that President Bush II quoted this at v. 4 and notice the ravens. i would think that they were unclean animals, yet within this abundance.
3)What impact would this image of cold have on desert people?
4) At the end notice that God does deal with other nations but not the same way as Israel.
 
Ps. 72:1-7,10-14. notice it is of Solomon
1)v.10,15 gets gold and again the ethnicity of the kings/magi/sages with gifts, including gold.
2)v.3 prosperity is shalom.
3)Don;t the verses sound like the old Indian treaties?
4) Again, LOOK AT THE TESTS FOR A LEADER CONCERN THE POOR.
5) v.15 speaks of prayer for the leader. Do you pray for our leaders?

 

Saturday, December 18, 2010

Is. 63:7-9
1) NIB (p.526) says that "God's attributes of holiness, love, and mercy were fully intermingled and fully present."
2) "Carrying us" is resisted by all of us who are independent, or like to care for others but hate being cared for.
3) Carrying also brings up the frequent image of the child in Isaiah. Patricia Tull has her Smith and Helwys commentary on Isaiah published,(see its web site),  and she alerted me to this motif. It is perfect for the Christmas season. Maybe you have some good children stories from this holiday season.
4) The passage insists that it is the presence of God, one that dwells in Jesus, that is the saving agent. (This is an insuperable textual issue here, apparently). How to speak of Emmanuel the day after Christmas?
5) How does this passage address the thoughts and feelings of the day after Christmas?

Emmanuel 12/19
Most of you recall that I was raised Catholic. Mary's image is deep with my religious core. A certain color of blue reminds me immediatley of her pictures. We sing of the virgin birth in Christmas hymns. When I was little and we sang round yon virgin, I imagined Mary having roughly the shape of Big Boy at the restaurants.The name Emmanuel ( God with us) does not appear as much. (OK, It is in O Little Town and Hark the Herald Angels). Emmanuel brackets the entire gospel of Matthew as a kind of shorthand gospel. At the close of the gospel Jesus will say, "Lo, I am with you always, even to the close of the age." God is present but God is still God, elusive and ineffable. Where is Emmanuel present is easier to imagine than how is Emmanuel present. Does it have a sense of God being for us, not against us? This Jesus is GOD with us. What kind of picture God do we carry at this time of year? Douglas John Hall writes of Emmanuel: "ultimate power can only intimidate the ultimately powerless." Luther kniew ell that feeling and counselled us to look upon the baby Jesus. "Divinity may terrify. Inexpressible Majesty will crush us...with love and favor Christ will console and confirm." God moved toward us in the manger and at Golgotha, a few miles away. Emmanuel is God with us in everything. At Christmas we can emphasize the with us, along with the word God alone. (24,000 children die every day, but  we have the Chips program for children's health).
 
When Joseph learns that Mary is expecting, he must have been thunderstruck. the child was a symbol of shame, not hope. Joseph is given the divine information in Matthew's gospel through a dream. In a way the Isaiah passage has a dream like quality, as it is hard to pin down. The name Jesus is given specific meaning by saying that he will save the people from their sins. In both readings, we look into the face of a child. that's a good image for hope. The child and hope both take shape into the future. Emmanuel's vaguefuture birth in Isaiah acquires another name, Jesus.
 
At first it seemed that life was plotting against him. What should he do, engaged to a pregnant wife? Right away his mercy kicks in and he decides not to make her a public spectacle. Still, doing the proper thing has consequences too, for how would Mary and the child make it on their own? Every new father gets slapped upside the head by the enormity of responsibility for helping to bring a new life into the world. I wonder how he started to wrap his mind around the notion that he was to help raise and provide for the Messiah? How did he grasp that he would be raising God with us? Last week we sang "Mary Did You Know".  We could ask the same question of Joseph. Joseph needed to know that God would be with him, as the rush of inadequacy and humility poured over him. He had God's message with him in a dream. Over the years God worked with and through him when he had an insight and wondered where it came from. Matthew's birth story is so matter of fact for the Nativity, no angels, no shepherds, no gifts, yet... God is with us in the miracle of conception and birth, and the perhaps greater miracle of raising a child.. God is with us in the matter of fact movement of life between a husband and wife. God's hand may well lie behind seeming disturbances to the order of things as they are or should. No one raises a child alone. God accompanies us. God is there to help guide us to discern between good and evil, and when the proper thing is not the right thing to do. God is there to help us move toward good when faced with a tough situation. God is with us; God is there, as Jesus was here and is now in heaven, in the church, and carried within the womb our our lives.

Sunday, December 12, 2010

Second Cut- for all of these options we do well to ask how the text fits or does not fit Christmas realities and hopes.
Is. 9:2-7
1) Again, this passage is a political passage. What is your opinion of spiritualizing it as we have?
2) v.2's darkness is a broad image. List at least three ways to work with the image of darkness and light in Advent.
3) What are some contemporary yokes/bars that oppress us socially, physically, spiritually. What does it feel like to be released from them?
4) How does this passage fit lighting a Christ Candle in the Advent wreath?
5) is V. 5 an image of peace or not?
6) we hear Handel in v. 6 of course.How do these titles work or not for Jesus? Most think that this passage is some sort of enthronement liturgy, or at least contains elements of them.
7) How is David's throne one of justice and righteousness in the reign of Christ? Note that only v. 7 is properly in the future tense.
80 Again, we do well to see that god's future or advent more properly is intersecting with a human future.
 
Is.62:6-12 thsi may be referring back to Is 40.

 1) This is a wonderful evocation of persistent prayer:give no rest until the new Jerusalem is established. Where do we need to give heaven no rest in 2010? Are the watchman announces the advent of a new day to come, or are they still warning of something? Are the watchmen informing god?
2)Notice here that God makes an oath for security.
3)Now an army comes, but it is an army of the return of the glory of Israel. It's a parade or maybe better, a procession.
4)  With Jesus at Christmas, how do you interpret v. 11?
5) Instead of rejected or abandoned, the people are called sought after. What does it feel like to be pursued romantically? How doe it make you feel to be pursued by God?
 
Is. 52:7-10 Is God acting as Moses for the return? How much do you read this as introduction to the final servant hymn that is upcoming? Is it right to place the cross in the manger?
1) The angels being news of peace in Bethlehem. Is this a liturgy?How do you handle the clean/unclean issue?
2) Again watchmen, who see relief, salvation, reinforcements, victory, not cries of alarm or defeat.
3) Ruins can burst into song here. What bursts into song, or needs to, on Christmas 2010? How does God comfort us?
4) Notice that they are waiting for divine power to reveal itself again, even after defeat. instead of Egypt, the whole world will see the sight.
5) In what ways does Christmas bring peace?

Advent Week Three 2010
 
Sunday- It took me a while to realize that 2 different hymns were buzzing around in my head: All Things Bright and Beautiful and We Plow the Fields. both sound like James 1:17 where he sees God as a fountain of good. In his way, James imagines God as a Santa Claus of heavenly goods being thrown about us not just on Christmas but every day of the year. They'd be good to sing in a long line: "all good gifts around us are sent from heaven above/then thank the Lord, O thank the Lord, for all his love." 
 
Monday-St. Nicholas found a legend starting around a good man in modern day Turkey. As a young man, he gave away his possessions. Eventually, he became a Bishop and attended the council of Nicaea and faced persecution as well. Stories grew up around him such as the famous story of throwing money down a chimney or through a window into a shoe. It was said that he appeared to a boy who was captured into slavery and deposited at the feet of his mother on his feast day, Dec. 6th.
 
Tuesday- Advent as a time of remembering and letting go One of our life tasks is learning to say goodbye and when to hold on. Santa is a piece of learning of the source of presents but holding on to the symbol of this season, as in the famous editorial, yes, Virginia. What parts of the Nativity story do you particularly hold on to? Where would it be wise to let go of things, thoughts, feelings?
 
Wednesday Light is an image that accords well with the life of the spirit. In this time of short days, but the ancients soon learned that the light would start to return toward the end of this month. Light dispels darkness, as John says, the darkness does not overcome it. Quakers have long spoken of an inner light. I find sometimes that the light of a candle helps me to focus when I pray. When i was a kid, I liked science and was fascinated that the different segments of the light were different temperatures. A candle is near me as I ponder this week's devotional material.
 
Thursday-Luke mentions no animals in Bethlehem's manger. We do hear of sheep in the fields. A manger means animal s feeding at a station, so ingenuity has filled in the gaps. Many children's books add an animal at the manger scene.Consider making up a Nativity story with an animal or plant that you could draw some meaning from. the robin's red breast comes from flapping its wings to help keep Mary and Jesus warm when the other animals did not respond to her discomfort. Some believe that the same donkey that carried Mary to Bethlehem had a cross on its back and it carried Jesus on Palm Sunday. Some say we put tinsel on the tree because angel hair was caught in a tree Jesus decorated as a child.
 
Friday -Spiritual practice of forgiveness is always a good program. One of the stresses of the holidays is seeing people whom we have hurt or have hurt us. It fits with the season: a season of peace should stop revenge; a season of peace should have us define a person beyond the hurt they caused us. perhaps, like scrooge, we could learn to be reconciled to our past and let go of the hurts that we fan the flames for, even during the holidays. forgiveness is not only a gift of reconciliation, but it is a gift to one's own self, one's own good cheer.
 
Saturday-I wrote a note on holiday grief for the Springhill newsletter, but I always include a note on it for Advent devotionals too. I went to a good session at CTS, led by a retired pastor and teacher, Dan Moseley. we emphasized the expectations that we all hold for the season, and a loss always feels as if it it spoils the picture in our heads. Second, we emphasize togetherness, and togetherness will always be different after a death in the family. Instead of rendering them only absent, it may be wise to memorialize them in a toast, a present, a story, a favorite food.
-
Sermon Is. 35:1-10 Lk. 1:47-55
Advent is a time of waiting to see real change, a transformation, and preparing for it. In passing, I mentioned how depressing it is to see the ruins of industrial plants. it is uplifting to see restoration of the beautiful buildings like the IRT or Hilbert theater in Indianapolis.  People who have visited Israel will remark on seeing row after row of fruit crops in the formerly barren desert. In our own country, California is an agricultural giant for one reason:water for irrigation. Up at Trinity Pres in Rushville, the basement was in poor shape. They cleaned up one room and use it as a warehouse to give away shoes to the needy. They gave away almost 100 pairs of shoes last week. I love seeing abandoned lots in cities become community gardens for the poor. One day schools will look like palaces and hospitals will be converted into amusement parks.
life from destruction goes back and forth from nature to us a massive renewal project of all Creation-far to exceed the miracles of the exodus of water from the rock, it imagines a world that looks like a water park.
 
We read the Magnifcat often in Advent, so it has lost the edge of the revolutionary thought of Mary. She sees her pregnancy as vindication of the poor, with her as the representative. If God selects a humble girl such as Mary to be the instrument of a new world order, then anything can happen. Just as the wilderness is imagined as a garden, so will social life be changed. The poor will be safe form the rich; the mighty will no longer have a throne to lord it over others. MLK spoke of the content of our character, not the color of our skin. in a similar way, Mary says that leadership will emerge from a boatload of talent, not just a fat wallet. 
 
Everybody faces emotional and spiritual dry places. It is a mistake to think that somehow we will avoid them. They are part of the course. With all of the frenzied preparations,drooping hands are a common feature of trudging through the holidays. Drooping hands to me signal exhaustion. Even when we feel as if we wander in unfamiliar  wastelands, No human heart can ever dry up. All it needs is a little tending, like Charlie Brown's Christmas tree. It may seem as if our very souls have shriveled to the point of being unrecognizable even to ourselves. Every human spirit can flower. You're sick and have a hard time remembering feeling really good. Our passages look toward health, well being and restoration. One day we will not hear the word cancer, just as we no longer hear small pox or polio.

 
Weak knees could come from fear or love, or both, remember how seeing a special someone can get you weak in the knees. . For a while the Christmas landscape seeks to replicate the hope of Is. 35. People actually do sing. We, at least for a moment, obtain joy and gladness in the season. Even for a bit when people sing silent Night by candlelight, sorrow and sighing flee away as fast as any reindeer on a flying sleigh. It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas fits the cards in the mailbox, the candles in the windows, but it can live inside us and be glimpsed in our institutions too. I like hearing the bell ringers for the salvation Army. I like that offices have Christmas parties, and that the children get a long break for Christmas. those all light of candle of joy down the line that makes the holiday, the holy day blaze with light.

Tuesday, December 7, 2010

Is.7:10-16
Few passages divide wings of Christianity more than v.14. Liberals emphasize that virgin is from Greek, and the Hebrew means young woman. Matthew uses the Greek translation of the passage, as does most of the NT, and we have spilled ink on how literally one should take this word in the gospel. Still, words do not exist encased in amber, but they move and grow with time and use.If memory serves, Barth plays games with the passage calling us to take it very seriously but will not go to the level of accuracy. It is similar to his parsing of words to speak of resurrection.(see IV/1 in a section like Lord of Time and a new book by Dawson)). We may be around 742 BCE.

1) A recent Interpretation on the Gospel of Matthew emphasizes not the virgin birth, but the name Emmanuel (God with us). How does Jesus add meaning to that name? Could Emmanuel mean god with us, as in on our side, or as companion? See Douglas John Hall 's professing the faith for a good discussion of Emmanuel. I am not sure the degree to which 1st century messianic thught looked toward this passage. OK, the Septuagint's translation of young woman into virgin (parthenos) may be a move in that direction,k but maybe not, especially if one considers the political expectations of the Messiah of David's line.
2) Ahaz does well with the question of the sign-he will not put God to the test (trial). I sometimes think that this is the meaning in the Lord's Prayer, we are not to test/try/tempt God.
3) In this passage, the sign son will bring a big change and soon. It is a symbolic sign of impending rescue from military threat. See ch. 9 on a child. Sign="ot", as in signs and wonders.
4) Is the king being addressed here? Isn't the symbol enacted in ch 8?  Mt.'s appropriation of this could be as simple as the surprise that the birth of a child presaged a major event. Still, is the child a symbol, or the actual deliverer/redeemer/messiah?
5) in 13, what would now exhaust the patience of humans or God?
6) IB (219) has a nice quote from Blake "for mercy has a human heart/pity, a human face/and love the human form divine/and peace the human dress."

Friday, December 3, 2010

Second Week of Advent 2010
 
Sunday Dec. Ps. 72 contains material from which we draw traditions about the Three Kings of Matthew 2's visit. what I notice is how socially concerned the king should be. This psalm, along with many other passages, regards justice and help for the poor as the great responsibility of the king. We do well to act out Mt. 25's concern for the least of these in the Holiday season, as we still the Salvation Army bell of conscience by dropping in some coins, we are not only called to charity but to promoting social justice, where the structure of society work to lessen the plight and the numbers of the least of these.
 
Monday Here's another quote from O'Donahue's book, Beauty: "to participate in beauty is to come in the presence of the Holy...spirituality  has to do with the transfiguration of distance, to come near ourselves, beauty, and our God." (121-2) the oft-repeated sense of encountering god in a sunset finds some resonance here. Recall thought, God's beauty resides within human beings too. Where can we discern beauty inside of another?
what does it mean to do a beautiful thing? With the movie, what does it mean to catch sight of a beautiful mind? How do all of these bring us 'near to the heart of god?"
 
Tuesday since Advent starts the church year, it is wise to look at quotes from the secular new year's day. Lamb: Advent "starts a day when it is everyone birthday."Tennyson:"the year is going, let it go/ring out the false, ring in the true; Eliot:"next year's words await another voice/to make an end is to make a beginning; Atkinson:"drop last year into some silent limbo of the past/let it go...and thank God we can let it go."
 
Wednesday-Barth burst on the scene in the early 20th Century to remind us that God is more than humanity to a higher degree. god's way is usually in a disjunction with the way things are. With Scripture's spectacles, we can catch a glimpse of the "strange new world of god" moving into our own. Advent has us look again at the radical reversal of the birth in Bethlehem. it also has us look at the inbreaking of god's way in the world in the apocalyptic sense of god's unveiling of a new way in the world, where god has marched non-violently into enemy territory, into the realm of darkness, to bring light. A good sense of this can be found in Christopher Morse's new book, the difference Heaven Makes.
 
Thursday-Christmas Kid's books sometimes capture the spirit of the season without the treacle of popular adult books for the season. they may not be religious in the sense of replaying the stories from Matthew or Luke. Often, they are profoundly religious as they tie us into the the meaning for the season in some fresh, moving ways, when our ears have been dulled by repetition of the Nativity story too many times. Pick some up and read them aloud, and you may well find yourself in the mood for the season all over again.
 
Friday-Since this is a season here we look toward peace. consider these quotes as part of a long stream that link inner peace with peacemaking. Muste:'When you find peace within yourself, you become the kind of person who can live at peace." Fulghum:"Peace is not something to wish for. It's something you make;something you do, something you are, something you give away."
 
Saturday-Around 490, the bishop of Tours started a tradition of preparing for Christmas. In many churches, but not all. it was a penitential season of fasting and prayer. Advent customs, such as the calendar and the Advent wreath seem to come from Germany. traditions help to coalesce our memories into symbols. Perhaps no season has as many symbols as moving into Christmas. they can push space for us to live into the season as we practice them.
 
 
 
 

 

 
When I was young, most houses had a welcome mat at the front door. We all know what it feels like to be welcomed by someone and welcoming others. It's a feeling of a good fit to hear-welcome home. Welcome is determined to make you feel at home. It is an ancient way of saying that I am so glad you came.
 
Welcome extends the family metaphor to surprising extent toward 1 voice and indeed one common mind. In politics an administration seeks to speak with one voice, even if the path toward a policy has been contentious. The new Christian Century notes the musical allusions of the peace of welcome. (Here demonstrate harmony and dissonance).Just as Israel's history meets at a point in Christ, now that pivot point will open a door to all. Paul uses a dense interplay of scripture here,as he arranges a string of quotations to tell the Jewish Christians that an advent moment had arrived with Jesus Christ and the church. A door had been opened through little Israel to welcome the whole world in.
 
This section closes a long discussion by Paul on judging others as the opposite of welcoming them. Instead of acceptance , we close off welcome with walls when we judge them harshly, and what other kind of judgement is there? So we make people feel unwelcome. Both groups thought they were being better Christians than the other, and they looked askance at the other group. I'm not sure if it is arrogance or defensiveness that brings us to such a point.I remember going to a church and hearing that the contemporary worship folks blamed the traditional worship folks over a pastoral dispute, but it had nothing at all to do with that issue. Judgement leaps to conclusions. Judgement links points that are not necessarily linked. it makes untested assumptions about people, and untested assumptions usually end up with poor decisions.
 
Isaiah imagines a peaceable kingdom in nature, so maybe even in church. Gen 1 seems to indicate carnivores came after the fall. It is a vision of no more predators, of safety and security. Secure in welcome, we can let our guard down. That's why church is a place where tears flow when they don't normally. It is the one place where we can admit that everything is not up to us. In church we glimpse a God who stands with arms wide open to us. For me, the liturgy offers a secure place to stand, so that we can feel that divine welcome.Emily Dickinson-the soul should stand ajar,ready to welcome ecstatic experience. I heard a complaint about a pastor that the new folks who were visiting were Not our kind of people. People will often welcome newcomers only if they pledge fealty to doing things exactly the way they have been done before. Who are the predatory folks in church, and who are the lambs? Margaret Wheatley says a circle tells the shyest person that their voice is welcome 
 
Welcome as Christ as welcomed you. We see what that looks like in baptism. We don't run a litmus test on age or any demographic factor. Jesus Christ accepts those who heed god's equal call to baptism. In communion it is a wide open spiritual buffet line. Scratch that as usually we get served family style. Paul Tillich famously preached: you are accepted. That phrase continues in the short statement of faith of the reunited North and South of our own denomination. The NIV translates welcome as accept. I will say this, even though it may be going to far. Welcome is an example of unconditional love, love with no strings attached.

Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Is.35 (Second Cut) Contrary to the older view, many see this chapter as postdating 1st Isaiah and that it serves as a sort of bridge to ch.40, after the material in 36-39. fro instance, the theme is exilic in the end, but yes, maybe it alone was tacked on.
 
1) Verses.3,4 hit me hard this year. What puts us in these postures.  What changes our posture?
2)The desert looks like a garden, but without irrigation.
3)the abundance of nature then becomes healing in vv.5.6. One could say that the glory/presence of the temple radiates outward to heal. Jesus may be referring to this passage in Mt. 11:15.
 4) I would think that streams in the desert makes at least some allusion to Ex.15,17's water. What does it mean to you to say that nature will rejoice?
5) Notice the movement verbs at the end of the passage. Instead of a king's highway,we have a holy highway.
6) Anticipating his discussions with Renowned Theologian of Rush County Mick Saunders, Breuggemann looks at the alternative world of this passage (TOT,209) and speaks of ordered life, v. deathly chaos, possibility of a new future, v. despair,dancing freedom v. oppression,viable community v.absolutizing autonomy,nourishment and care v.wretched abandonment.

Sunday, November 28, 2010

Is.11:1-10 First cut.
 
1) Sometimes, even when a tree seems dead, a new shoot can spring from what seems to be a lifeless, useless stump. This is not resurrection, but it is close. Of course, why would the writer pick such an image if the monarchy were strong? It could be a branch out fo the trunk, as the same word, gaza
The Davidic emphasis explains the concern for Davidic background in the gospel listings of Mt. and Lk.
One could also look to fit this more directly into an Advent theme that matches the meaning assigned to candle 2.
One could also speak of Advent 1 and 2 as where this is fulfilled by Christ and where we yet wait for its completion.
 
 2) We use the gifts of the spirit here in baptism. Realizing its source, how does this affect your reading of baptism? Notice that the wisdom and understanding trun back the star tof the book's accusations.
 
3) Some folks differ, but I see this text as envisioning an end to violence in the human and natural world, maybe even the threat of violence, as the predators lie with the former prey.
 
 4) Again look at the social dimension of governance and it direction here. Notice the clothing metaphor in v. 5.

 5)The Peaceable Kingdom series is worth a look at how the animals change over Hicks Quaker painter's lifetime.Notice that some of this is repeated and amplified in the new creation of Is. 65:17-25. This is a good example of an interweaving of material throughout the book.
 
6)Would v. 9 mean some sort of communication with God and the natural world? Everything gets to share in Israel's knowledge of God. Fretheim in God and Creation (265) looks toward a day when nature will only praise.Think of Julian of Norwich all will be well and all will be well. We just read this verse at Is. 65:25. It is also at Hab.2:14.

7) How I yearn for signs of peace with the Middle East and now Korea baring claws again. We look at wildlife drama but don;t focus on the red in tooth and claw portions all of the time. In the face of the new Know Nothing Tea Party, how I yearn for leaders liek that of Is. 11:1-5.

Is.11:1-10 First cut.
 
1) Sometimes, even when a tree seems dead, a new shoot can spring from what seems to be a lifeless, useless stump. This is not resurrection, but it is close. Of course, why would the writer pick such an image if the monarchy were strong? It could be a branch out fo the trunk, as the same word, gaza
The Davidic emphasis explains the concern for Davidic background in the gospel listings of Mt. and Lk.
One could also look to fit this more directly into an Advent theme that matches the meaning assigned to candle 2.
One could also speak of Advent 1 and 2 as where this is fulfilled by Christ and where we yet wait for its completion.
 
 2) We use the gifts of the spirit here in baptism. Realizing its source, how does this affect your reading of baptism? Notice that the wisdom and understanding trun back the star tof the book's accusations.
 
3) Some folks differ, but I see this text as envisioning an end to violence in the human and natural world, maybe even the threat of violence, as the predators lie with the former prey.
 
 4) Again look at the social dimension of governance and it direction here. Notice the clothing metaphor in v. 5.

 5)The Peaceable Kingdom series is worth a look at how the animals change over Hicks Quaker painter's lifetime.Notice that some of this is repeated and amplified in the new creation of Is. 65:17-25. This is a good example of an interweaving of material throughout the book.
 
6)Would v. 9 mean some sort of communication with God and the natural world? Everything gets to share in Israel's knowledge of God. Fretheim in God and Creation (265) looks toward a day when nature will only praise.Think of Julian of Norwich all will be well and all will be well. We just read this verse at Is. 65:25. It is also at Hab.2:14.

7) How I yearn for signs of peace with the Middle East and now Korea baring claws again. We look at wildlife drama but don;t focus on the red in tooth and claw portions all of the time. In the face of the new Know Nothing Tea Party, how I yearn for leaders liek that of Is. 11:1-5.

Saturday, November 27, 2010


I am sick of war. I am sick of hearing about war and seeing its dreadful effects. Benjamin Franklin said  we've never had a good war or a bad peace. I grabbed coffee this week at MDL on the south side of the  square and about lost it when I saw Rep. Pence's picture on the front page praising our alleged progress in Afghanistan when the very same day it seems that the government there has been negotiating with an impostor alleging connection to the Taliban. I am sick and tired of giving gold-plated weapon systems to the Pentagon but acting like that is not a part of government spending. Isaiah is working off the same page as Micah 4, and Joel flips the image (3:10). Helen Keller said that she wanted the understanding that leads to peace more than the peace that passes understanding. the Internet cites Jimi Hendrix but it was Gladstone who said the world would find peace when the power of love would replace the love of power. I love the sentiment, but the practical, realistic side of me asks what do we do in the interim? I'd love to see us put as much energy into a Peace College as we do the War College. I'd love us to put the energy in rebuilding some of our industrial base with the same attention we give to making new generations of sophisticated killing hardware.
 
I always say that shalom is a greeting but in Hebrew includes peace, health, prosperity, well-being, wholeness. Often, we translate peace into a sense of inner peace. I'll gladly settle for the basic meaning of peace as war being shut down. Ps. 122 offers a wonderful blessing on all facets of the life of Jerusalem, all playing on different strands of meaning of shalom. the psalmist is much more spiritually advanced than I. where I see frustration, the psalmists sees room for a blessing. It's listed as a psalm of ascent, it may have been read or recited for all the pilgrims on their way up the Temple mount. Maybe even one stair at a time, the Pilgrims would stop and recite a prayer.  Prayer transforms  a thirst for peace, even frustration for  peace, into a blessing that touches all. In a time when the threat of terror has us being treated like cattle for inspection at airports, it is a great prayer for our own security and well-being.
 
 
God's advent of peace is a new, different transformed future. Advent marks a new church year. Advent is about us living into god's way and time. the future is noticing the trends of past and present and charting a path. History has been called one damned thing after another. God is not locked into our past; God is not locked in trend lines. God's Advent, God's movement toward us is a unpredictable sea change. Sometimes I think that God's way is hurtling toward us, and we are backpedaling as fast as we can to avoid contact with it. Advent is about us keeping alert to the contacts made between God's looming advent and our future. One day the world will resemble a Communion service. People will be able to share with each other,Yes, they we will share the necessities of life: food and drink,but they will share the deeper necessities of of their thoughts and feelings. Instead of leaders crawling over themselves to attain martial glory, they will sit up front, to be able to serve and then be served last.One day we will have no new wars to study at West Point, no flags folded for the grieving family. Life will be Eucharistic, an endless thanksgiving, a thanksgiving for the blessings of peace.

Thursday, November 25, 2010

Sunday Nov.28 Isaiah is featured in Advent Sundays this cycle of the lectionary (the 3 year cycle of church readings).the readings are Is. 2:1-5, 11:1-10, 35:1-10, 7:10-16. How I crave the vision of peace in the first reading. Where in your life should swords be turned into plowshares? We know 11 from Handel as much as Scripture itself.We use v. 2 for baptism. Why? Notice the emphasis on justice. Ch. 35 uses natural restoration as an image then as befits the move toward Christmas. Where do you need to get more strength (v.3)? Look at a birth in the royal family that Christians read as a far-off promise that points to Jesus, that a child will be born to a young woman (virgin in Greek translation). Reflect on a child being the womb of hope.
 
Monday-Recently we spoke in church about not reading enough end times material from the the hopeful side. Let's use  these:Zeph.3:14-20, including these verses 17) "God will take great delight in you/he will quiet you in his love/he will rejoice over you with singing."Amos 9:11-15 with (13) "new wine will flow from the mountains and flow from all the hills." Joel 3:17-19 with (18) "the hills will flow with milk/all the ravines will run with water/a fountain will flow out of the Lord's house/to water a valley of acacias."
 
Tuesday Not long ago, I was asked about the animals at the manger of Jesus. The gospel answer is that we have no idea, as none are mentioned in Luke or Matthew. The church's imagination is a Biblically formed one, though. Following a rabbinic principle of looking for the same word in different places, an ancient  student found Is.1:3 mentioning the manger, with an ox and donkey.
 
Wednesday-We can make better endings, as we move through phases in our lives. Forgiveness is important for endings. We can admit regrets to ourselves and others. When we can, it is a good spiritual practice to try to mend fences. Some folks are unwilling to do that, but at least you tried. We should look back and take note of the good things done, not just harp on the failures. Do you believe people who say that if they had their whole lives to do over again, they would do them exactly the same way? Good endings, as the church year closes, can open the door to a better, brighter future.
 
Thursday-The administration talked of hitting the reset button in our relations with different countries. I don't know if we can do the same, but that is part of the promise of a new year, no? We say we learn from mistakes, but we often repeat patterns more than change them. We enter a new situation and try to recreate the old one. I ran across a great piece of advice"don;t let the urgent crowd out the important."
 
Friday-Ann Weems writes liturgical poems from "Christmas spirit"Christmas spirit is that hope/ which tenaciously clings to the hearts of the faithful/ and announces in the face of any Herods of the world can produce/ and all the inn doors slammed in our faces/ and all the dark nights of our souls/ that with God all things are possible/ that even now unto us a child is born.
 
Saturday-Our daughters gave me a birthday gift certificate, and I bought O'Donohue's Beauty book. No it's not on grooming or fashion, but the  source of wonder in our lives. Here he is on the heart (219) "through the heart beauty can pervade every cell of the body and fill us....we sometimes let the prism to become dull and darkened....Prayer of course us as the supreme way we lift our limited selves toward the light, and ask it to shine into us."

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

 
I don't want to sound as if I am laying another burden on you. on top of everything else, now I'm supposed to be grateful? Like so many virtues, we have gratitude already in us, but we ignore it so much that we hide its light under a bushel. In its way, Thanksgiving is the secular world giving the gospel to the church. I continue to be so impressed that the sessions of the churches continue to offer a thanksgiving service year after year.
Patrick Miller speaks of worship as creating a circle of thanksgiving. This weekend many people will say grace around a table and may even mention something or someone for whom they are grateful. That too is a circle of thanksgiving, a circle of worship.
 
Robert MacAfee Brown was asked to give sermons in strange places during his long career. He said that in preparing liturgies he though that Now Thank We was the best all purpose hymn every written, that is was good for almost every occasion. The Christian faith does emphasize this virtue. indeed, religious people do score higher on measures of gratitude than others.
 
Dt. pushes us to ask if we really should get what we deserve. Just because we worked hard, does that mean that we automatically deserve a masterpiece? When we speak of what we deserve we often mean in comparison to others whom we regard as inferior. Think of Salieri in Amadeus who feels that his virtue deserves musical genius. Hard work alone does not mean we deserve something does it? Do we really only deserve praise and good raining down on us? This passage reminds us that we are born into  all sorts of things we need, as a present from birth. We inherit the legacy of so many people laboring so many years. For thousands of years, the gift of Scripture enables us to live into that passage, with those people as our people.
 
In John, Jesus did indeed feed hungry people, but that points to the larger spiritual issue of his life itself as manna from heaven. Jesus speaks of the gift himself to us as a new bread from heaven. We inherit the spiritual legacy of Christ through the church. Jesus feeds our deepest hungers. It is good to take a step back and notice that offered spiritual abundance.
 
Gratitude is a virtue honored by many faith traditions. For all of his bitter crabbed tendencies, Calvin had a generous view of God, or may be better put an attitude of gratitude toward god. His great American follower Jonathan Edwards, known for the fear of the revival sermon, Sinners  in the Hands of an Angry God,  noted grateful affections as a sing of religious deepening.In some ways the opposite of these Reformed Christians, Wesley saw gratitude for the benevolence of god as critical to the Christina life. A rabbi said that we were made to enjoy life, but we should always pray a blessing for each enjoyment of it. E.A. Robinson wrote of two types of gratitude:for what we take, and a deeper, higher gratitude for what we are able to give. 
 
On Saturday, I went to a good program on grief during the holidays at CTS. We talked of oft-repeated stories heard during the holidays. Even if they are annoying year after year, we find we miss them when their teller is no longer with us. We continue to make the corn pudding that only grandpa liked as a gift of memory. I am grateful for the gift of memory. Religious people tend to prize gatherings more highly than those with a created belief system or none at all, I suppose. I hope and pray that we can not only appreciate this holiday but to make some good memories again this year.

Friday, November 19, 2010

I flicked on the Today show on a dark foggy  Tuesday and found out that Prince William is engaged. then one of the networks ran a prime time special on the blessed event. Be still my heart. An early 20th century Pope started this day, Christ the King, to claim the church's place in the world when it saw its secular power slipping away and being challenged on so many fronts, including non-Catholic Christians movements such as our own.The celebration or acclamation of Christ the King is an act of hope and defiance. Against appearances to the contrary, the world is in the hands of God.
 
Colossians speaks of Christ as the head of the universe. The fullness of god dwelled in Jesus.It elevates Jesus of Nazareth to be lifted above all human attributes. This divine king was born not with Herod but in a manger. The one we call Christ the King was under the thumb of religious and secular power to plot his early death. This divine king received acclaim on Palm Sunday but instead of a royal ascension to the throne, he was mocked with the ersatz royal trappings of robe and scepter, most viciously, a crown not of gold but of thorns. I don't think Pilate ever grasps what Jesus is saying, but the bandit, the terrorist on the cross does.Pilate condemns an innocent man to death, but the bandit proclaims his innocence on the hill of the skull. The kingdom's origin not of this world as its origin with the logos of God, but it is in this world. Jesus speaks of his regime, no force, no coercion, no violence. The thief at the cross knew a truth that eluded the religious leaders and Pilate and asks to enter into his kingdom, obviously outside the world.
 
Some of us resist the king phrase as it seems that God works in a more democratic, bottom up way.God works to empower more than control. As Jesus says, I no longer call you disciples (students) but friends. Kings have subjects, but Jesus has co-workers. God inspires more than directs Political life is a high calling; it may have conflict, but it needn't descend to lies, bumper sticker thoughts,propaganda,  and general vulgarity of late Heartbreak of church leadership. We import model form other areas and apply them to the church. Should we? I recall a church that decided that they wanted a dictator as the pastor. They found one. The heartbreak came in they realized that they did not want a dictator, but it was never made clear to the pastor. then he was kicked out for doing what he thought they agreed to.
 
Christ the King Sunday compels us to look at issues of power and control within the lesser powers of our lives here. From what we see of Jesus, he preferred not to control but to love, to help people discover power within themselves. He wanted to  empower others to live better lives. The activity of the Incarnation was about relinquishing power. Jesus's power was not of egotism or selfishness but of selflessness. God works through people. Years ago, people compared Ike  less favorably than the Machiavellian power games of FDR. Fred Greenstein wrote that Ike was not about demonstrating command; he possessed it. He termed the administration a hidden hand presidency, where the work was behind the scenes. Instead of flashy miracles God seems  to work behind the scenes.
 
Prayer connects us to power maybe even sharing with the angels, but it is no flight from work, but engages us to work with God toward
reconciliation. When things seem to fall apart, we recall all things hold together in Christ.To speak of Christ as the head could mean the source or ruling principle of God's way, God's kingdom, God's regime. the  Christ of Colossians looks toward restoration of all things.
.  

Is.2:1-5 First Sunday in Advent
 
OK, one could apply new year hopes to this passage. Also, after Christ the King, God is not referred to as king in the OT passage.
 
1) A fun intertextual exercise is to compare and contrast this to Micah 4. See also Psalm 46
2) The mountain probably means the temple Mt, Zion. see Ps. 46,48,122, for instance, among a number of others. This does again push us to consider church/state relations. In this case, are we being propelled into a notion that agreement on a faith is a requirement for peaceful resolutions of conflicts?
3) God sounds like the UN or the World Court here.
4) I crave this vision. Where did it appear with Christ, and where do we wait for it still? (Note Advent waiting, but days to come is the better reader, an indefinite future, rather than the NIVs annoying insistence on the last days to push a particular reading) I like learn war better than train, but that is a rhetorical preference. I'm not sure about the actual translation, at this point.. Instruction is better than law in v. 3.
5) Please pay some attention to Moltmann's distinction between advent and future in the Coming of God. Christopher Morse makes use of it in an excellent new book (I am only partway through it) The Difference Heaven makes.
6) Where does worship enact this vision?
7)In personal terms what aspects of personal life need to be transformed into peaceful implements, such as one's tongue, fist, attitude? (see Serendipity Bible on these)
8) In political terms, when have you seen swords into plowshares? Look to some of Sen. Lugar's initiatives

Is.2:1-5 First Sunday in Advent
 
OK, one could apply new year hopes to this passage. Also, after Christ the King, God is not referred to as king in the OT passage.
 
1) A fun intertextual exercise is to compare and contrast this to Micah 4. See also Psalm 46
2) The mountain probably means the temple Mt, Zion. see Ps. 46,48,122, for instance, among a number of others. This does again push us to consider church/state relations. In this case, are we being propelled into a notion that agreement on a faith is a requirement for peaceful resolutions of conflicts?
3) God sounds like the UN or the World Court here.
4) I crave this vision. Where did it appear with Christ, and where do we wait for it still? (Note Advent waiting, but days to come is the better reader, an indefinite future, rather than the NIVs annoying insistence on the last days to push a particular reading) I like learn war better than train, but that is a rhetorical preference. I'm not sure about the actual translation, at this point.. Instruction is better than law in v. 3.
5) Please pay some attention to Moltmann's distinction between advent and future in the Coming of God. Christopher Morse makes use of it in an excellent new book (I am only partway through it) The Difference Heaven makes.
6) Where does worship enact this vision?
7)In personal terms what aspects of personal life need to be transformed into peaceful implements, such as one's tongue, fist, attitude? (see Serendipity Bible on these)
8) In political terms, when have you seen swords into plowshares? Look to some of Sen. Lugar's initiatives

Friday, November 12, 2010

Second cut
Jer. 23:1-6-Again we may have done this previously, so maybe I will fight laziness and look up previous posts. Anyway, here is the effort for Christ the King Sunday. right away, this puts us in a difficult place, as many churches in the reformed tradition don't recognize Christ the King Sunday.
 
Note: This could be a good time to discuss power as control or empowering others, when to relinquish power and when to use it ruthlessly, when to cede power- what is its source- should the business model of power be used in church? what sort of leadership qualities and actions should the church have? what should be the church's involvement in politics? should it receive state sanctions? when can one speak truth to power? when is power as ocntrol weak in the end? is the pen mightier than the sword? how about the gospel?
How are the little guys faring in 2010?:What are examples of governmental officials living too well or imperiously?
 
1)This concludes a series of thoughts on kingship in Jeremiah. Apparently the shepherd/king connection was common in the ancient Near East. Jeremiah inveighs against the kingship as it did not serve and protect, did not help the hurt. Again, the more radical Tea Party types would declare this wrong, but that is a discussion for the role of government.
2) NIB's Miller notes the heavy relational language god uses (744) with the pronoun, my.
3) the big turn is God moving in to do what the shepherds failed to do. That will get expanded in apocalyptic imagery over the years.
4) We look forward to a time where fear and dismay will be gone. That too gets picked up in apocalyptic material.
5) We then move into messianic territory with the new Davidic ruler to arise.
6) the basic program is clear(righteousness right relation) and equity, justice and safety. see royal psalms such as 72,82.
7) The king's name has to be a play on Zedekiah.
8) the last word is not trouble but hope for  a better world.
9) Brown in his excellent Ethos of the Cosmos notices that organic language is applied to the monarchy, including here where David (v.5) is a righteous sprout, semah tzaddik.
10) Breuggemann in TOT 615-17 sees Jeremiah as relentless against the monarchy, or at least a failed one of "royal failure and public demise."..power cannot survive unless administered justly. He argues that the public failure was kept alive in liturgy (616).
 
 

 

Lk.21:5-19, Is. 65:17-25 November 14, 2010
Here as the church year closes, we usually move to readings of the close of this age and the opening of a new one. Luke gives a prediction of the destruction of the temple. It happened about forty years after the death of Jesus in 70, but some time before Luke's gospel may have been committed to writing. Already in the time of Luke, people were growing concerned about a seeming delay in the return of Christ. Notice how Luke arranges the material. He has the typical apocalyptic natural disorder, but after that, he moves to foreshadowing about the struggles of the disciples that we will soon see in his second volume, the book of Acts in normal history and time. Luke seems to understand that the new age is inaugurated in Jesus Christ, but we will live with feet in both ages.

Luke warns to have his readers alert. One warning  made contemporary for them and us is being led astray could be false messiahs? We may not see false messiahs but we certainly live in a period of false claims about the end times. Another striking thing about Luke is his push for virtues, resources,  needed for times of religious pressure. Personal trials and tribulations will come before the cosmic trials of the end. Maybe that is another way of reading the end times, of linking our personal trials with the great drama of death and rebirth that is off in a distant future. Before the end, they will meet their end. Before the end, we will most likely reach our own, yes even the young here now who may well live to the age that Isaiah saw as a dream, not an expectation that may well be actual.This does not envision a rapture where we are lifted away from troubles. Instead, the troubles we face could well be a part of the end times experience. We require God-given resources to even cope with the troubles everyone faces, including Christians. In a way think of apocalyptic material as graduation exercises that signal the end of one phase of life and the commencement of another. 

Compared to Luke, we get a much brighter image in Isaiah. It is one of transformation, an almost heavenly account before people believed in an afterlife.It is a vision of all sorts of abundance and fertility,long life, of security and peace, a new Eden, but better. Not only will the troubles of human life be lessened but even the threat of the serpent would be removed. In God's hands, the end is not the conclusion. Indeed the end is a new beginning. what looks to be finality from our point of view is a chapter in the divine time frame.  In terms of medical science we are nearing what must have seemed to be a far off dream to the prophet. Sadly we are still far away from a sense of fairness and security.So often, the end times are pictured only with the disturbances and destruction, but it is more in God's nature to embrace than to cast off (see this week's blog notes on TOT) In a way it may be the difference between a nightmare and waking. Indeed apocalyptic material has a companion less in social life than in our own natural course of life. All of us have apocalyptic moments of the death of the old and the birth of the new, in love, in career, in family. All of us are moving toward the fateful day when we are now more in this zone of being, when we die. That won;t be the conclusion either, as then we move into god's time and place.

Sunday, November 7, 2010

1) We have worked with these texts before. I don;t know if the blog has search features, or if I can recover older material. At any rate, I'll try to present some new thoughts and citations. At this point,I don;t have access to the Brevard Childs commentary on Isaiah but would recommend a look. I also would commend the work of Moltmann in the Coming of God for an emphasis on transformation and not annihilation. I continue to insist that the older churches have remained silent on apocalyptic texts, so we have left the field to nuttier interpretations as undergirding the thought forms of congregations. I do not think that Darby's 1829 work determines interpretation.
2) In God and creation Fretheim seeds redemption and creation as linked. In Isaiah indeed the new creation is the working out of redemption. At 193 he cites Bruckner with approval that all of creation is in need of redemption. He further argues that the dispirited exilic/post-exilic group needed to hear a new fresh word on creation to stand behind the promises of renewal.
3) At 194 he underscores his contention that  human salvation will be fully realized only when the natural order has been healed.
4)Brueggemann in TOT(482) notes the hope for abundant fertility. ""Human hope that awaits God's generosity and extravagance...flies in the face of every theology of scarcity." At 549, he calls it a poem, his word for surprise. "god will overcome all that is amiss."  All will come under the life-giving aegis of God...even the most deep distortions m9serpent??) He quotes Julian "all will be well and all will be well." at 551-'the world will begin again in blessedness...it is in God's character not to abandon but to embrace." He asserts that chaos follows God's abandonment.
5) Note that violence, in all forms, even perhaps the threat of violence disappears in this section, that replays Is. 11.
6) Note joy and delight that replays Ps. 104 and Wisdom in Prov. 8
7)the former things will not be remembered...by whom, God?
8) on prayer-before they call I will answer-Seitz in NIB sees this as possibly a reversal of the fall hiding in Gen.3, the lack of labor pain may refer to Gen. 3:16
9) Seitz sees this section as the vindication of the servant (544).
 
Is. 12
1) Tucker NIB 147 sees this as a deliberate liturgical conclusion to chs. 1-11.
2 he also notes that we have calls to both individual and corporate thanksgiving.
3)We have allusions/echoes of the psalter and the song of Moses of Ex. 15. See alos Jdg. 5:11, Zech. 2:10
4) G. Ernest Wright would like this praise of the 'god who acts."
5)At 148 Tucker sees this as imagining a world with Zion at the center and God's acts radiate and ramify through the whole world.
6) Talk about how you see god's anger. when and how does anger turn to comfort? How would that fit with the historical events of israel?
7) What would be a more contemporary way of stating v. 3?
8)What do you see god has done lately?
9) What specific acts of thanksgiving would it be helpful to note as a spiritual exercise. how about for the community and Nation?
10) Gratitude has enjoyed social scientific experiments of late. See the work of Emmons, for instance.
11) consider the word joy and describe it.

Saturday, November 6, 2010

The Women's Thank Offering gives us a head start on our own thanksgiving spiritual exercises. It started as a small gesture that has now lasted well over a century to live out the words of Mt. 25 to make this world more livable, more human.
First, most of us think in terms of losses or liabilities when we look at life. We work with half of a balance sheet. We look at the minus end, but don;t tote up the credit side of the ledger nearly enough. An alternative way is to pay attention to our assets. It is good to list them out. What are your personal assets? What virtues do you have, what physical, emotional, spiritual assets are at your disposal? Emerson said that what lies behind and what lies ahead cannot compare to what lies within us." If we pay more attention to what encourages and heartens us, we tend to make better decisions. When we let go of our alarms and instead replace them with triggers for releasing for engaging our assets, we tamp down feelings of anger and anxiety that inhibit us from working well, alone or together. (Cramer, Changing the Way You See Yourself). G.K. Chesterton said that "all tings look better when they look like gifts."
We do well to give thanks for virtues that come to us as gifts more than through hard won practice. We do not do everything on our own, but we are caught up in a world on which we depend. When Barbara and I did an asset exercise in Columbus some time ago, the idea for the talent sharing came through that exercise, a joyous expression of gratitude for gifts we have to share and gifts we would like to share.

Robert Emmons is making a career in examining gratitude as a virtue in our day to day lives. He writes that " ingratitude leads ...to a confining, restrictive, shrinking sense of self" (2007:10). The practice of gratitude, such as keeping a gratitude journal, is correlated with all sorts of good and healthy attitudes and habits. He writes of embodied gratitude of expressing it in ways beyond words. surely the thank Offering is such a gesture. Private gifts are rendered public actions; personal priorities become public property. It does not have to be a large-scale effort. Asset thinking emphasizes things that are doable with the resources available to us. As I am getting older, my concern for the environment grows, so I am planting trees in the names of our daughters in places that need them. with the increasing amount of CO(2) we are pouring into the air, that would be everywhere. I have a friend who gets tree seedlings from the nearby state park and distributes them for free. It embodies our gratitude for water by providing for clean, safe water in villages in Africa. For creative people who can make quilts and clothes, it provides sewing machines for people to clothe families but even start small businesses. For those of us with dentists, it provides dental care to children. for those who farm, we provide a tractor to Ghana. For those who go to CVS we provide money for medicines. For those of us with markets, we are providing a mill to grind corn.
  
One intriguing gratitude study was an assignment to write a nice letter of about 300 words that details how important someone has been in your life. Make an appointment to see them if you think you could read it to them or send it if you think you cant'/ I would take that experiment and put it in the explicitly spiritual realm of writing a nice letter to god of 300 words or so of gratitude. Consider a prayer list of thanksgiving for the upcoming week? Know that the contributions to the thank Offering is an enactd prayer, one that tells god of our best hopes for each other.
 

 

Thursday, October 28, 2010

 November 7, 2010  Hag.1:15-2:9 Lk. 20:27-38
 
We continue looking at books of the twelves, the minor prophets. This is a parade example of why i use the lectionary, as Haggai would not come to mind as a preaching text in my mental file cabinet. Haggai is a great piece for dispirited people. It does stake the reality of feelings seriously but says in spite of them to take heart, to not be afraid, to work. How much should one work when you are colonized? How does being under the thumb of a power affect people? Here Darius is building a fabulous city and they are struggling to rebuild a ruined city that seems to remind them only of their failure.Work has begun on a reconstructed temple. Like all building projects, this one runs into criticism. It is especially poignant as it lacked the real or imagined magnificence of the first temple.Darius the Great ruled from around 522 until 486 BCE, so this is early in his reign. This Darius was called king of kings. This is the builder of some of the glories the great Persepolis that Alexander would later level. In contrast, the exiled have returned to ruins.  I get sad when I see grass growing in the cracks of city sidewalks, of "whitewashed windows and vacant stores" as Springsteen sang in the midst of the recession of the early 80s, just as I am delighted that some new businesses will grace the eternal Lincoln Street project..  

How to fight that sense of failure?  God is with you. God is with you in this project. Notice the spirit of God is among them or within the community already. God is not only presence, the power of God would be felt again. This power was already felt in the rebuilding and in the work. So Haggai says to find courage, to not fear, and to work. Putting hands to work negates the drooping hands of despair and resignation. It is a description of living in the culture of life, not death. it is seeking out new life in the midst of the old ways that have crumbled into dust. 
 
Now it says, just you wait, this will be even better than before. The point of all of this is a move toward shalom=peace/prosperity/well-being. After all, we are temple of the spirit, as Paul said. god will not allow us to fall into decay and ruin forever, but offers whole new way of being. We obviously can't do this on our own, but the revivifying spirit of God can.  We see heaven as a place to help to make up for life's failures and disappointments, the goal toward which we press on.We use heaven to express an ultimate destination of shalom, of well-being in an entirely new and different dimension.  Jesus sees us as children of the resurrection While his religious opponents are assuming the cultural pattern of a family taking responsibility for the widow and family, Jesus is pointing to a whole new way of life. They are trying to show the foolish extent of a belief in an after life that has but  vague hints in the Scripture. Jesus sees it as discontinuity of existence. The need for children is an arrangement about immortality through progeny. The immortal needn't worry about arrangements for having children. more than that, Jesus sees God of the living not the dead. Living or dead, we are alive to God. In this new realm restricted love is  not within resurrection  life. Rev. Eversull  had Albert Outler as a teacher. Once he was discussing the resurrection with a Yale colleague. Outler said that we can't pin down resurrection except at two times, when we are on our deathbeds or when we are at the bedside of a dying person. Jesus would not play mind games abut describing life in heaven, but he did claim it as a reality that will not only restore us but will blow away any of our cherished preconceptions.
 
 

This story follows a story of a blind man. Two men want to see, one physically blind, one morally blind. The name, Zaccheus,  is ironic as it means clean or innocent-the last person who should have that name. Z may be  small inside and out? I imagine Z to look like Danny DeVito. Apparently a good deal of prejudice was directed at the very small.  Climbing a tree was considered undignified for an adult. Z and the publican both are seeking God. We are in the interesting position where the rich Z is a social outcast to some degree.  What draws Z to Jesus? Z may well be eager to do a lot for the poor as opposed to the rich young ruler. Both the  blind beggar and Z attain  spiritual insight. The sycamore is different than our sycamore had figs, an evergreen one could reach (Amos 7;14) here is a  rich guy is climbing a tree for the poor.  He rejoiced in coming down. when Jesus says must that is a divine imperative- Jesus announces salvation has come to this house ( himself or what)-
 
Some think Z is protesting that he indeed does good. this might be  resolve to follow biblical principles. Paying back double was for the law in Num. 5:7, the big number for animals. The "if" in Z's words bothers some of us. If Z is repenting, he is going to follow the regulations and pay back money to those whom he defrauded. For those of us who are more suspicious, he could be saying in the future, I will make restitution, or a broad statement, if, if I defrauded anyone (not that I ever did) then I will pay them back more than what I owe. Z was seeking a but so was Jesus. For us in a culture of religious choice, God is the seeker for us-Today is a word of emphasis the issue of restitution and forgiveness-"giving back" I realize that we cannot ever make full restitution, but we can make a start. Few things show taking responsibility as much as it does. First, it obviously means paying back funds. Second, it seeks to try to make up for the emotional impact of a wrong. In legal settings it is not only compensatory but even punitive. I would extend it and ask us to consider trying to make restitution when we have wronged someone. We have the quick phrase kiss and make up. Restitution is a serious way to try to make up. It is a sign of sincerity. Men buy candy and flowers as a sign of trying to make up. What do women bring when they hurt the feelings of their spouse? We don;t have symbols of trying to make up as much as we could
 
It is big surprise that Z gets picked. The long sweep of salvation history points to this little guy. This would be as if we received a vision that
LINDSAY Lohan, or colts punter Pat Macafee or Donald Trump was to receive special divine favor. Of course, all the people grumble/murmur, that word for complaining in the wilderness, that word of putting God to the test. In large part, the complaint would go, why Z and not us. Why Z and not me? There must be something not right about Jesus if he would invite himself to share some time with Z. The grumbling comes from the same instinct that angers the elder brother and pushes the Pharisee into an arrogant prayer. We claim god's gift of salvation extends to everybody, but we would still like to pick and choose those on the inside. That attitude puts us precisely in the role of the judgmental in the gospels, so places us in need of the grace. Today in worship once again we all hear the words salvation has come to this house, today.

Saturday, October 23, 2010

Dan.7:1-3, 15-18 second cut
1) I'm glad we have this choice, as I am weak on the book of Daniel in general. this section moves from Daniel interpreting dreams to being the seer. It also is a decisive move into apocalyptic. Some date material to the time of the rebellion against Antiochus and the period of  Hanukkah, 160s BCE.
2) the four winds( see Zech.2:6)  are attacking the sea in the LXX. tghe word is birth pangs in Micah 4:10.We are in mythic territory certainly. See also 1 Enoch and four angels. See Job 26:12 and Ps. 89:9-11 for more cosmic weaponry.
3)Now four great beast arise. the are creatures of the deep, maybe ancient chaos itself. Clearly Rev. plays off this. Political powers are associated with evil here. Also the sea could stand for the nations of the earth (Is. 17:12, Jer. 6:23) This is no surprise for a long colonized people to imagine.  We may also be in Persian Terrijo with its emphasis on dualism, good v. evil.  Some think the four beasts are a symbol for the entirety of wrong as in Zech. 1. As you can see these are mixed beasts, so they are unclean beasts. IB (457) the beasts emerge from our own hearts. In our time Walter /Wink would call the beast powers as in powers and principalities.
4) Our passage concludes with an emissary giving explanation of the vision. the dream interpreter now needs help in interpretation, like a therapist going to a therapist.
5) Quite simply, power arises and falls, but god will win out in the end.  the fourth beast gets elaboration later, if you choose to go that way.
 
6) the old IB (449) sees this as a "trumpet call to loyalty." whenever it was recorded ti reflect the difficulties of a colonial people and the prevailing cultural assumptions. As religion grows culturally disestablished n this country, we too face these issues of drawing the line.
7) Apcalyptic material appeals to the underclass when they feel beaten and need outside, external help to change their world. they are encouraged when they see that might does not last forever.
8) IB (450) links the beast to the metals of ch. 2. In both cases, they decline in value.
9) sons of the most high can be saints/holy ones. Possibly this refers to the angelic host. The will possess the kingdom the way we hold property.

Thursday, October 21, 2010

A minister slips into church early to pray before a church board meeting: no, a Presbyterian minister, maybe one serving  two churches. Feeling tired and  frustrated, he prays that in comparison to others, it could be worse. Most church goers know we should have the humility of the publican. At the times of prayers of confession, we may feel more like the Pharisee. self-righteous people unwittingly, unknowingly put themselves sin the position of the publican. I have heard people say that they don't share in the prayer of confession because it doesn't apply to them. Whenever we hear a sermon really going at a sin and folks say to the minister, you really let them have it, we are in Pharisee territory. We have pews in church so the self-righteous have something to hold on to so that they don't ascend at that moment. It is difficult for community when we  view others with contempt when we are judging others harshly. Of course, the moment we go, whew, I'm glad I'm not like the Pharisee, then the trap is sprung shut on us. This story cannot be read as denigrating the good acts of the Pharisee who walks the talk. This is an an admirable religious person, no hypocrite.
 
An old story tells of a student wanted to know the way of God. The master poured the cup full and it spilled on to the saucer. Was it a sign of my cup runneth over? No, you have no room in yourself for God.Think of the publican as say, a meth dealer, or a corrupt official, who has cheated on a spouse, been negligent toward the children, but who has now broken under the pressure. Or consider the recent great  NYT piece on a woman, Annie, 85,  who haunted the old Fulton Fish Market in New York. She was a foul-mouthed older woman who ran errands for the market, cleaned offices, and laundered the fishing clothes for the workers.  and hid the money in her clothes. At one point, she had been a beauty that turned heads, and her old pictured was featured at one of the docks. At home, she was a grandma. She gave away all of the money she made at the fish market. She supported a ballet school in LA. She got a car for a grandchild and sent the other through college in new Hampshire. She almost single-handedly supplied the clothes need for the Catholic worker house. The publican is a recipient of Joel's vision. 
 
Joel wrote to people who felt like the world seemed stacked against them, when everything from nature to politics to religion seemed to be going wrong.Joel's vision of the Spirit being poured out speaks of offering access to God in a more direct way. In Joel images of nature drying up and in abundance vie for pwoer. Old and young, men and women have the Pharisee and the publican residing within. We've all done things of which we are proud and justifiably so and done things of which we are ashamed and justifiably so. That kind of access is scary, as it illumines parts of ourselves we would rather remain hidden. Pride is an obstacle to getting involved with God. So is the confidence that we can handle anything all on our own.Humility seems to be a vehicle for prayer. It's a rare posture for most of us, appearing without our masks and justifications and rationalizations. Maybe it's related to being cast down by something that most predictably draws us to prayer. God's not as lucky to have us, as we are to have a generous, open-hearted God who loves us: Pharisee or publican.

Monday, October 18, 2010

Second  cut Hab. 1:1-4, 2:1-4
1) Habakkuk is a shorter version of Job in its way, or if you prefer a longer version of Ps. 13. If one is feeling bold, this is a good place to work on some theodicy. I resist material that seeks to excuse or defend God for the weight of evil in the world, so I like material such as Douglas John Hall, God and Human Suffering, or Wendy Farley Tragic Vision and Divine compassion.. A good textbook is Tyron Inbody, The Transforming God. N.T. Wright works with the issue in  an accessible way in Evil and the god of justice. On lament see Migliore and Billman or the compendium on prayer, Patrick Miller's They Cried ot the Lord.
2) We are back to the issue of Lk. 18:1-8 two weeks ago and the issue of persistence in prayer and unanswered prayer. The messenger is to be bold, to write it in large letters.
3) Calvin saw God as constantly acting in discrete ways. So, he was uncomfortable in talking of god's permissive activity. We see it here in the lament. Why would God tolerate evil? At 1:3 destruction and violence (hamas) can be literal but also metaphors for perverted justice and the power of Mammon Strife (rib) and contention (madon0 are often legal hearing words, trial words. See MacLeish's JB.
4) The lectionary breaks make the readings a bit unclear. The end of chapter one has another complaint/question from the prophet about the propriety of god punishing the Nation with an evil idolatrous nation. Chapter 2 is god's response to that second complaint. In other words, God announces punishment at the hands of the Chaldeans and the prophet responds with how could that be a proper instrument?
5) 1:4 aqal=twisting/bending of justice at 1:4. 2;2 is a tough translation. Think perhaps of running with it as a metaphor for working the mesage to its ocnclusion.2:3 is an attempt to give assurance that God really will act, even with a delay.
6) 2:4 looks t the arrogant, the puffed up/ swollen apal) My old teacher JJM roberts reads it as two words and the fainthearted will not walk in the way. righteous or just is saddiq.2:4 is quoted by Paul,  if you want to get picky about the Hebrew word, faithfulness/steadfast trust/faithfulness/fidelity/loyal commitment  may work better, and it would read his faithfulness..We also don't know if it refers in its antecedent to that faithfulness or the faitfulness of the message. In others word, hold on, keep on, trust in the promise. In the LXX it would be my faith. I suppose one could then use this to force the words into a Pauline mode to create the old Protestant fear of works righteousness 500 years after Luther. One could also work with the best translation one could muster and work on it, even though its meaning seems different than Paul's use of it..
7) Hiebert in NIB quotes Wendell Berry at 643, 'be joyful, even though you have considered all of the facts." Faithfulness to God's loyalty will not permit the tyranny of mere facts.

Thursday, October 14, 2010

resemble God's people pray. Usually, our prayers are asking for help in some way, it may well be the only time we ever admit dependence on anyone or anything. We look for the recipe that will somehow get a good answer to our prayers. Weary with life's troubles, we get weary in prayer. (IB 308) Perhaps faith does not find God except on the last edge of helplessness,  Success maybe, but yes to perseverance and fortitude in prayer.  Praying like politics can be the slow boring of hard board in the story. Ps. 44 wonders if God is asleep and uses its prayer to rouse the sleeping god to justice and action. Early in the movie The Apostle, Robert Duval's Pentecostal pastor character comes to an accident scene and prays through the window of the crushed family in the ruined car. The woman's hand moves. He goes back to his car and tells his mother, Mama we made news in heaven today, yes we did
 
Even the early church struggled with prayer. Jesus dealt with unanswered prayer in the Garden. Jesus would resemble the widow in the parable in the Garden.The widow demonstrates power disparity and the temptation to despair when no one could or would help. The story does not ask us to make analogies to God but to have us move from the lesser to the greater   Prayer may feel like pounding on a locked door.Dylan had a song years ago, knocking on heaven's door. Prayer can be pounding on heaven;'s door. I never thought that I would live to see the Berlin wall fall peacefully. It did, and that utter surprise may have had some of the countless prayers for peace to thank.So, the unfit judge cannot be equated to God but can still do right, even though he is not virtuous. We don't know why she is not heard, maybe it's one more person looking for justice when he is waiting for a bribe. Instead, he is fed up with her constant pleading, literally so she won't strike me or wear me out.=keeps giving me a black eye.
 
 
Gen. 32 prayer as wrestling, with purpose, with oneself (see Janzen-old grabby self and a new one ends in dislocation-the words in Hebrew play with the ordering and the sounds-new name-new birth in baptism-alienated from the true self) One of the things we wrestle with is a slow answer to a prayer-we wrestle with what seems to us to be uncommon slowness, like drumming our fingers when the ATM doesn't spit out bills immediately,and the divine timetable. Wrestling prayer can be exhausting, not polite mere feigned emotion. Prayer does not leave us unchanged. Patience as a virtue lost.Having it out with God may leave us with a bit of a limp. I think of Robert Duval in the Apostle, yelling "I love you Lord, but I'm mad at you." We don't need to nag God who knows and wants good for us. Persistent prayer teaches us about the flow of time and to learn patience in the sense of forbearing/long suffering/enduring with God amid trouble.
 
Our Greek Orthodox sisters and brothers pray with images, icons. It is noteworthy we use the word to speak of old entertainers now. Praying hands evoke the spiritual sense in me. I have always liked the Grace and Gratitude pictures by Eric Enstrom or the praying hands of Norman Rockwell's freedom of religion piece of the four freedoms set. We all received a living tableau of persistence and rescue from Chile this week. For some time, miners were trapped in what col miner grandfather called the bowels of the earth. Many prayed, and some gave the enacted prayer of presence
day after day at the entrance. They waited for a rescue capsule to arrive on the surface. Think of prayer as sending messages from below ground up to God's presence, as we wait for the rescue capsule to bring us back to a safe place together.

Sunday, October 10, 2010


Third  Cut As far as I am aware, no consensus exists on the date of these oracles. Since I was in seminary, roughly at the time of the writing of Joel, a move has been made to conflate the minor prophets and refer to them as the book of the twelve.
 
1) A good bit of disagreement exists if the locust horde was a natural disaster or a symbol for an army of destruction. Either way, God will make recompense. All of this reverses the previous indicators of suffering.If it is a natural event, see the new book by Terence Fretheim on creation and natural disasters.
2) the abundance image fits this time of harvest.
3) Notice the repetition against being shamed, by what do you think?
4) Now we move into familiar Pentecost territory. since we see this being fulfilled at Pentecost where does this place us in the afterward of v.28
5) What do vv. 28-9 and 32 say about claims to religious exclusivity?
6) v. 31 seems out of place to me. It certainly is of a peace with Amos 5 and the blood curdling view of the Day of the Lord. Notice how it gets picked up in Mt, especially, during the crucifixion.
7) The old men dreaming dreams seems to me to be a a very good place to write a sermon about defying age's debilities.

Friday, October 8, 2010

When some therapists are assessing stress levels, they use a simple instrument to add up stress points. Some are obvious, divorce, for instance gets 100 points. Some are not. Apparently moving is one of the most stressful events in life. Imagine being transported to a far off land, without any idea of whether if, or ever, you would return; to nod to Tom Petty, you have to live like a refugee. How long would they be there? Already they were hearing that they would be home before they knew it. Jeremiah is warning them that they should prepare for the long, long haul.They are not insular; they are to be part of a larger political unit, even if they do not wish it, they fortunes are tied to that of this new place. We may well often imagine some shangri-la, some new Eden where everything would be better compared to where we are. Everything would be better if only things were the way they used to be. 
 
Jeremiah says that God has  plans for us, our future, a hope, and our welfare.  Philip Cary in the new Christian Century has a good piece where he demonstrates that God does not have a special secret agenda that will guarantee us happiness, if only we find the key to unlock it. It is similar to the fiction that we have one and only one soul mate who is a fit twin to ourselves, as if we are two pieces of a puzzle made whole only when we fit together.Isn't it anxiety producing to claim too much specificity.God does not play hide and seek. God is as present to them far away as if they were in the temple. Still, it won't be forever. If not next year in Jerusalem, some day in Jerusalem.the Creator God is endlessly creative and is not bound by the past. that is a foundation for hope.
 
Paul writes as a prisoner. Even though he is chained, he knows that the Word of God not chained. Chrysostom said that we could not chain a sunbeam.He too his doing church work by giving advice to Timothy. Even though he is a prisoner, he can make it a workplace. He works for God, no matter the circumstances. God is faithful even when we are faithless That may be from old Christian liturgy. I find real comfort in its words. God is faithful even when we are not. We see lots of syn/together words to emphasize with Christ and with each other. We think of the hymn "great is thy faithfulness."
Bloom where you're planted would sound almost traitorous for people who saw the temple destroyed and are now strangers in a strange land. They are given some basic advice: to make a new life for themselves as aliens in this new, dangerous place. After Jeremiah's letter was written, we have some evidence from archaeology that his advice was heeded. A Jewish group, Marashu and sons had made a business enterprise and we have some documentation of it. Be Here Now. Make the best of a circumstance. Live into a future instead of longing for the past or a misty future. Palestinians have lived in squalid refugee camps for more than a half a century in a fruitless hope to be able to turn back the clock and claim a right of return to the family property. Even while we wait for better days, for the coming of God's way in the world, we build a future as best we can with the resources at our disposal. That then is holy work, to build a life. Building a life is putting prayer into action.