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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

8) Mueller has an interesteing book on sabbath observance.

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

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

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

Numbers 21

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

8) What serpents persist due to our complaints?

9) How would a replica of something become healing?

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

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

1. 
   

   Notes for Gen. 17: 1-7, 15-16

   
   
2. 
   

   The lectionary makes a decision to skip over the sign of the covenant here, circumcision. I guess that’s a partial explanation about why we don’t have more hymns about it.

   
   
3. 
   

   The name change goes from father is great to father of many.. Sarah receives a name change too: it means princess/female leader

   
   
4. 
   

   El Shaddai is translated as God Almighty- we have choices for the root. It could emerge from God of the mountains, or breasts (some mountains have a rounded contour), as a symbol of nurture or fertility, or God the overpowering/the destroyer. See #7.

   
   
5. 
   

   At the end, we have material on laughter. What is the source of the laughter here: relief, a promise fulfilled, at misunderstanding for now he will be the progenitor of the Hagar and Sarah line, mocking at the thought of a child in old age?

   
   
6. 
   

   In two weeks, two covenant markers, so this could be a tiem to speak of covenant. Presbyterians could even go back to the Scottish tradition of covenant that formed churches that eventually became part of PCUSA

   
   
7. 
   

   Remember that through Colossians 2 we tie infant baptism to circumcision. Jesus was circumcised at 8 days old.

   
   
8. 
   

   We are in mythic territory with its meaning. A sense of cutting of somehow betokens inclusion. It is a mrk, as Jacob was marked after wrestling with the angel. Recall Zipporah and the destroyer in Ex.4:24

   
   
9. 
   

   The rainbow is everlasting, as is the covenant with Abraham. Certainly this natural sign is more ‘personal.” Reflect on how different religious signs and symbols work for you.

   
   
10. 
    

    Of course the laughter here cannot be laughter for Hagar and Ishmael in terms of inheritance.



11. 
    

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

Lent 09 week of 3/1

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

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

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

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

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

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

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