For Oct. 6

I wanted to get this in, as I am off to Utah  hike in Arches and Canyonlands next week.

Eugene Peterson has a good chapter on Lamentations in Five Smooth Stones

The lectionary isn't produced for World Communion Sunday, but let's take a look at Lamentations 1"1-6 and 3:19-26. Even as someone as close to it as I  am willing to adjust the readings as well.This may be a good time to look at the depth of our views on the Lords Supper, starting with the easy formulation in C 67.

3:19-26 could work with Communion-After all, the words of institution speak of a broken body. It fits the funereal sounds of a number of Communion hymns. Our passage is about the center if the book.
Communion moves from a broken body to embrace broken lives. In gathering the broken, it then presages healing.

Wormwood and gall -both deal in bitterness-indeed wormwood is related to the word for curse. Since the sacrament is a "medicine of immortality" one could focus on its healing properties through its bitter start.

Its words fit the liturgy as it starts on a down note and moves toward hope.

The feast, the spiritual feast of the Lord's Supper is quite the portion as our cups run over.

The soul that seeks moves from its previous use (vv 17,20,24) Nephesh tends more to the self, to life itself, more than a sense of a disembodied spiritual core however. That is perfect for the Chalcedonian mixture of the human and divine, the physical and spiritual nature of any sacrament.

Maybe we should have some silence in  the Eucharistic sacrament ti fit v. 26.

Jer. 32 for Sept 29

I haven't looked at  translation points, as this seems a fairly straightforward account, but here are some thoughts on the passage itself.

This provides an excellent chance to speak of the future in the midst of struggle in general, for our nation, a congregation, a denomination, a ministry. How certain and uncertain is the future? Why have we gone to such a dystopian view of it in popular culture?

One could look at this virtue of hope not in the optimistic way that things naturally progress, but as a virtue in spite of the facts on the ground, in a different future.

Here money is being used for a noble purpose. we do well to be careful that Scripture does see acquisition as a temptation, but not sharing is the usual issue, not money in itself.

If one were so inclined, one could use its dull features of the transaction itself  as doing God's work in the mundane tasks. Many folks in the pews have gone through similar stages in the difficult process of buying a home. Did you ever sign so many documents at once as a t a closing?

One could use this enacted prophecy as an example of doing a small thing in the face of large forces.

We are quick, too quick, to disparage church property. It provides  sacred space, but it is also a repository of memory, the precious keepsake of a wedding, a baptism, a funeral.

As an alternative, one could speak of the value we place on 100 year farms in Indiana and our concern about the family farm as a symbol.

For Sept. 29- I Tim. 6


I know few minsters who enjoy speaking about money, but we have a gold mine of resources for this Sunday. (Sorry this is so late, but will do better for first Sunday in October, I hope.)

I Tim 6 is a good place to start on money but also vices and virtues.

First, please note that the common expression on money is not what the letter says.

Second one may consider going back to v. 4 on vices t help frame our passage.

Third, tell me that v. 5 would not be a direct assault on many TV preachers and the health and wealth theology movement.

Words to consider-godliness-what does that mean in the first place in our time? Eusebia- the word could be translated as religion or piety. One could go far speaking of the corporate and individual aspects of religion in 2019. Autarkia=contentment but also self-sufficiency, the Stoic acceptance of what life brings to us, almost as a fate or destiny. One could contrast that with our hunger for more that rejects sufficiency or the notion of enough as enough. Depending on translation used- hupomone= not patience but endurance, the sense of perseverance, of keeping on, of not giving up or giving in.proateta=meekness/gentleness, but as the Sermon on the Mount, it may well have the Greek sense of being well-balanced, neither too aggressive nor too passive, as in a well-trained, tamed, animal.

One could speak of the craving for wealth as an addictive quality that includes the vices listed as part of that craving.

One could choose to go through the virtue list at v. 11 or draw on one or two to emphasize as virtues, Christian or not.

The concluding exhortation insists that being rich has real spiritual resources and follows the Lucan theme of wealth being there to be shared. After all, that seems to be the problem with the rich one and Lazarus, as the rich one seems to know Lazarus but did not share his opulent meal.

Notes for Sept 15 Readings

Jer. 4:11-12, 22-28

I am not sure why we have the break, but we start with what I assume would be a terrible sirocco as a judgment that goes far beyond cleaning. Yet why the phrase my poor or foolish people? Is the punishment going too far?

I do not know which was first, but the waste and void phrase in v. 23 has clear verbal links to Gen. 1:2. Brueggemann notes this  passage in his Theology of the OT. That creation account emphasizes life, and here it seems to disappear, both plant and animal life. I suppose one could use this as a guide to the planetary threats of greenhouse gas pollution as dire warnings. At v. 25  no one is the human one, adamah, so now we get Gen. 2 in the picture. The effects of evil become a theater of desolation.

Even with this anti creation theme (see Fretheim) God is not considering a complete destruction. God's interrelated world has human action, including evil, have an effect on nature. Creation exists within a complex of forces and actions.
Even so, Jeremiah envisions cosmic mourning. Katherine Hayes has asserted that mourning or drying up are meanings for a-b-l and that word is connected to the land eretz.

Brueggemann in a Jeremiah commentary-prophetic work “is not a blueprint for the future. It is not a prediction. It is not an act of theology that seeks to scare into repentance. It is, rather, a rhetorical attempt to engage this numbed, unaware community in an imaginative embrace of what is happening ... because ... evil finally must be answered for.”

Philemon means affectionate , as its root is kiss.
Apphia could be protect one/shield or a variant of Joseph, fruitful/increasing
Archippus-great name for a soldier-master of the horse

This often gets pushed aside but has a number of ways to make a sermon or a good study.

First Philemon is a slaveholder and Onesimus (useful) is a slave. If one is a storyteller, the opening here would be for background, especially on how Onesimus meets up with Paul in the first lace.

AT v. 7 hearts="gut" as in gut wrenching, or deeply moved.
Later, Paul uses another term that is translated as my own heart.

I find this a masterpiece of persuasion. I appreciate Paul's announcing that he could try to make an order but he won't (v.8). He builds the recipients up and notes the personal  gifts of grace he has received from the recipients. He is relying on the best of the slaveholder. Paul aims for sympathy due to his age and condition as a prisoner. He wants Philemon to make a decision and not be presented with a fait accompli of Paul's holding on to Onesimus.

Notice how careful he is with words. Onesimus has been separated from his master-think of the words he could have used (v. 15). He wants a welcome fit for Paul himself for this returning member of the economic  realm.
Look at how he turns reciprocity language-Philemon owes Paul his own self, but Paul will repay from his own account

I am moved to despair when I read Christians on social media. They assume that they are in the absolute right and opponents are absolutely wrong. They call people terrible names. They do not seek to try to see things from another point of view.

Social sin seems to bring out the jeremiad in ministers, even when they will not speak that way about personal sin often.

Should Christians align with identity politics as antithetical to the  beloved community?

This letter is the personal as political, but Paul makes no grand political statements her. except for his constant reference to the new community in Christ.