Malachi 3:1-4

1) this section answers the question at 2:17.

2)Is messenger human or an angel, especially since the name of the book is that of my messenger? Is the messenger a purifier of the temple, a la Dead Sea Scrolls and then God comes in v. 5? Dating of this passage is uncertain, but most place it in the Persian period.

3)Is the day of coming justice or judgement or both? How one translates this indicates how one sees the Day of the Lord.

4) Is the messenger like that of Isaiah 40:3 paving the way for the great king?

5)Some hear an echo to Ex. 23:20

6) the temple is once again the portal for the presence of God

7) Reflect on your acceptance or rejection of the image of refining as suffering.How do you see purification here and elsewhere? does the metaphor work well today? If so, why? If not, why not?

8) I'm uncertain if the offerings are in righteousness (right relations) or right offerings.

9) Notice that intent may well be indicative if an offering is pleasing. Note then it is not legalistic.

10) How much do you want to bring this into line with Advent themes? Certainly the gospels line up the messenger with john the Baptist.

 

Christ the King 2009 Dt. 17, Ezek.34

Christ the King Sunday marks the end of the church year, even though a lot of us don't mark it with particular force. I always have trouble with the very name, king, in a democratic country. My trouble is really the same trouble as the Scriptures have, because their experience of kingship was rarely positive. More to the point, their leaders consistently failed their faith and their people. As Advent looms, we are asked to think about the kind of world we have and how to get to a better one. This includes a change in individual behavior, but it also depends on changes in the way we organize our live stogether in socieity.

 

The Dt. passage is a prophecy of kingship or an insertion from an age when disappointment with kings became obvious. Kingship started out of imitation and fear of other nations, resulted in empire, then fell into a continual burden on the people. The messianic hope was one where finally a good king would emerge. We can have little doubt that Ezekiel's vision is in the experience of exile. Having seen kings fail over and over, the vision still has reason to hope for a different future. Ezekiel imagines that the new kingship will look out for the public interest, the interest of the whole flock, not just a few. Leadership won't be taken as a license to gain personal advantage at the expense of the public good. It looks toward a time when public servant would be a reality, but here it is God who will intervene to change things for the better. In that way, messianic hope is born of human disappointment and failure..

 

The nature of divine power/rule is not only one type. Just as people in the time of Jesus expected a certain type of rule with a political messiah, we have not changed too much in our expectations. We want God to directly intrude on the political decisions. Instead of being guided by Scripture we mew about putting up big statues of the 10 Commandments. We want God's power to be directed against our enemies and to give us a dose of miracles. If anything, the messiahship of Jesus should show us that it is long past time for us to move away from such a childish definition of power. Divne power gets pictured as help, of rescue. That certainly is advanced by Jesus and healing, but Jesus not not force, coerce, control. God works from all sides of leadership, not only above but along w9ith us, or giving us a prodding from behind.

 

Andrew Carnegie spoke of his philanthropy as doing real and permanent good. for me that is what distinguishes charity from justice. Charity is not permanent but seeks to ease a burden, but justice seeks to eliminate the causes of unfair burdens. Ezekiel's oracle has God detailing the failings of leaders and the insertion of a divine mandate to : strenghten the weak, bind up wounds, seek and save the lost, and keep an eye on the strong or enemy. In other words, god will rectify the failing of the political order to take care of th epeople. Justice arranges the system to prevent the strong from preying on the weak. In so many ways, we live in a more just world. Social Security has its problems but it is a much better set of problems than consigning most of the elderly to poverty. Put differently, leadership, charity, and justice are spiritual issues where private and public meet. The new divine regime will be one where the needs of the public will be matched by private virtues, where persoanl ambition will be wedded to the progress of all of us.

Jeremiah 33:14-16 First Sunday in Advent

 

1) The name,the Lord is our righteousness links us to 23:6 and its ruler as opposed to Jerusalem.

2)Here is a great example of the priestly and the political being linked. No wonder it continued to be worked together in the time of Jesus.

3) Note the emphasis on right (right relations); it can have a sense of salvation/deliverance as well (Is. 46:13, 51:1) and justice. How would you examine those in both a political and religious sense? Where have we become more just and righteous in our lifetimes, and where do we fall short.

4) Of course, we look to a better future when things aren't so good, look at the early part of ch. 33. What elements of the future do you hope will become better?

5) Safety is a political goal. What effects and affects safety.

6) A righteous branch sprouts when something has been pruned or even cut down. It certainly would send us to Is. 11:1 with a different word but is in Zech.3:8, 6:12.

7) Do you read this as eschatology?

I Samuel 23:1-7

1) First, I am not a complete slave to the lectionary. I am going to use Dt. 17 and Ezek. 33 for Christ the King Sunday.

2) How comfortable are you with the designation, king? What contemporary analogies do you make? How do the analogies threaten its biblical meaning as did the political readings of messiah in the time of Christ?

3) I would think that some would see this as a high point of Zion theology mixed into the power of the king.

4) What do you think of god's working through human beings as an element of providence? Are these still free agents or puppets?

5) What do you think of the curse toward the end? When do you feel like cursing someone, not in terms of vulgarity but a curse for harm?

6)I am struck by the immense trust in v. 5 that God will bring to fruition David's help and desires.

7) Here is a prophetic utterance, another example of anointed being priest-prophet-king.

8) Translation issue; it is either David sweet singer or related to God as Strong One

9) Note that God is the source of power here, not the king, not the people.

10) Note the emphasis on justice. Define it. Where do we march toward it and when do we fail. Especially consider, at this time of year, the difference between charity and justice.

 
Sermon Nov. 15, 2009 I Samuel 1, Heb. 10

Hannah is tired of unanswered prayer. She is tired on being the favored wife but having to put up with the taunts of the second wife since she does not have children. She is tired of her husband trying to make it up to her and doing so clumsily. As Bruce said, "is a dream alive that won't come true, or is it something worse?"Every once in a while, I'll see some polygamous Mormon offshoot on TV and they always say how great they get along. I don't believe it. It is a situation bred for trouble. Men have enough trouble working with one wife; I can't imagine keeping a number happy. Anyway, at rock bottom, she goes into the shrine to pray, even though her prayers have been to no avail, and her desperate prayer is mistaken for the drunken mutterings of a reprobate. Elkanah's name means God fashions; Eli's means my God. Both these men with godly names misunderstand her, even as she may fear that even God misunderstands her plight.

 

The congregations in the book of Hebrews are tired of trying to be good and not seeing much benefit for it.Some are bringing in home troubles, others work troubles; some are stressed out, and others depressed, in other words, a typical congregation. He has them hold on to hope. When hopes have been dashed, that is a hard task. As Langston Hughes said, "what happens to a dream deferred?" Hope imagines a different future and lives expecting and working toward its realization, almost as if it is already at the doorstep.

 

How do you provoke someone into doing good? How does one exhort, especially about the end times? I don't know if nagging pushes someone into doing good, or more likely puts them into a more passive mode. Good examples are ignored as much as found inspiring. It's not easy to exhort into the end times when Christian predictions have always been wrong, when we've seen 2,000 years pass by,l even as the new movie 2012 adopts a Mayan calendar for Hollywood's latest apocalyptic venture. We get a triad of hope here: boldness, endurance, faith. How to hold on? Boldness comes in short supply when you are in trouble, especially when you try and try and keep on spinning your wheels to no avail. Endurance is a word often translated as patience. Its sense is not giving up or giving in, hanging in there all the way. Faith here strikes me as closer to a sense of abiding trust in the promises of God. He recalls the days of the congregation at its best to remind them of their resources.

 

After all the years of strife, Hannah's prayer gets answered. Every year she would go to Shiloh and make a new priestly robe for her vowed and dedicated son. she and Elkanah would have more children, and I guess Penninah stewed in her anger, or I hope grew to appreciate Hannah and her children. I hope that the congregation of the Hebrews found the energy they were lacking.I hope they came to see that God notices and appreciates all of their good work, even if thy felt under-appreciated at the time.

 

I pray that all of our unanswered prayers find a good resolution, even if it is not quite what we demand or expect. I pray that we see that the future does not have to repeat the mistakes of the past but is open to the fresh breeze of the new. God does realize that we all need fresh infusions of energy from time to time.God is an unfailing spring of energy that we often leave untapped. Go to that source of energy and hope, find refreshment and strength for the days ahead.

I Samuel 1:4-20, 1 Samuel 2:1-10

 

1) Bruce Birch (NIB,p.973) cites the critic Polzin that the family drama plays out national issues for Israel. It reminds me of Lasswell's saying that political psychology is private issues played out on a public stage. We are in the hill country south of Shiloh, northwest of the Dead Sea.

 

2) Elkanah's name means God makes (Canaan in there perhaps)? Hannah means grace, charming attractive. Peninnah means fertile, prolific ( once again someone lives out the meaning of their name in childbirth this time).

 

In words reminding us of Ruth 4, Elkanah says that she is worth more than 10 children.

 

3) Eli is a blind priest to the spiritual condition of Hannah. v. 15 She is not drunk but what is being poured is her soul, her nephesh, her self, her life force. He then changes course and at least does bless her prayer. A brave pastor could use the Eli story to speak about pastoral weaknesses in the face of God's call. I think of Diary of a country Priest in this regard.

 

4) her vow to have him be a Nazirite reminds us of the Samson story. After all, he is a surprise child fro Manoah (secure/safe/restful place) and his wife.

 

5) Some say Samuel is related to asking God, as in Saul's name, other s see it more like Ishmael's name with God hearing, perhaps.

 

6) pay attention to her fear of being considered worthless. The word is applied to the sons of Eli. God does not see us as worthless, even if society does.

 

7) She prays because she is deeply troubled (some translate it as stubborn).

 

8) Infertility is an issue for many couples, and this is a good text to approach it, for tis pain to the childless.

 

 

S Samuel 2:1-10

 

1) Hannah's prayer evokes the power of God.

 

2) At the same time, she then discovers personal power (raising the horn, a symbol of power)

 

3)An element of the curse psalm is here, as this is prayer with a warning.

 

4)She sees God as a God of reversals of society. This leads into the Magnifcat of Mary in Luke 1

 

5)Like a lament, she then moves to praise. i have a sense that this type of prayer now looks into a future where god ahs indeed acted.

 

6) For not by might 9v. (0 has haunting national comeuppance for all of us.

 

7) notice anointed one, messiah, here. 

Sermon Nov. 8, 2009 Mark 12:38-42, Ruth 4

We look at three widows this morning, Ruth, Naomi, and a nameless woman. They lived a a pre-Social Security time.the law and prophets agreed that how we treated vulnerable widows was a fundamental ethical test. If one's family did not fulfill their obligations, a widow was in desperate straits. Then and now, the widowed occupy an uncertain social place. It can be a dependent social space and one that is a ready reminder of our own fears about the future. So, it is surprising to see all of them as givers of gifts of various sorts when thye were usally in a dependent situation. I don't think that Social Security absolves us of our social resposnibilities toward the widowed.

 

Gifts depend on perspective, like many things. From one angle, the widow gave a pittance. When you have a big building program, you want some big donations. From the angle of Jesus, she gave everything she had. Maybe Jesus is aware of widows, if our suspicion that Joseph died between his early teens and adulthood is correct. Gofts bind giver and receiver in new ways.A meaningful gift pours something of ourselves into the gift and shows our esteem for the receiver. Her small gift does not symbolize a small person. since it is everything she has, it is symbolic of an astounding generosity, a symbol of all she is and maybe hopes to be, in making her offering to the temple. It relies on intent. care in selection. Newly married couples have to learn about giving and receiving gifts, as they interpret different things as sign of love: price, thoughtfulness, usefulness. I think of the O. Henry Christmas story, the Gift of the Magi. The poor young wife cuts her beautiful hair to get a proper present for her young husband. The young husband tries so hard to get beautiful ornaments to hold that beautiful hair.Our gifts to the work of god create a new set of relations with the divine. For many of us, nothing comes from the heart as much as money and property.

 

Ruth and Naomi don't even have a penny to spare. They live on gleaning the field at this time of year.It would be as if they would need to subsist on what falls from trucks during all the harvesting now. They give each other loyalty, as family, even though Ruth is from Moab.  They seek a safe and secure place that Boaz can provide. They find the gift of security. Ruth has the gift of a new family, as does Naomi. She goes back to her name, joy and pleasantness. No longer is she the one of bitter tears, Marah. Then, miraculously, she receives her youth again, this female Job. The women give the child the gift of its name.

 

The widow's plight is one of emptiness in these stories, financial and emotional. they all move toward fullness. We always hear about inclusiveness. In so many ways widows are excluded in social situations.We do well to give some thought about inclusion of widows as the social swirl of the season will soon be upon us. A few disgustingly organized people probably have their Christmas shopping planned, done, and wrapped. We are moving toward the time of year when we are asked to give all sorts of gifts to good causes and for friends and family. It is easy to read the story as claiming th rich were showing off their wealth in their offerings. The rich give from their heart too and may give until it hurts sometimes. Jesus is looking at both intent and the depth of the commitment shown, not the actual amount. In the end, how we decide to spend ur time, talent, and treasure is all a prayer in action to the God of all good gifts.