OT Notes Ps. 148, I Sam. 2:18-20, 26 for 12/30

Ps.148

1) this fits with the hymns with lines such as “let heven and nature sing.”

2) Sea monsters catch my attention. We meet tannin, the dragon/serpent. I lean decisively toward the mythic here and detect the echoes of ancient Near East religious accounts that reach back to the chaos of their creation accounts. the deep, tehom, is related to the great void as in tohu and bohu of Gen. 1. We may be in the realm of the response to Job where the fearsome beast is of similar station to other wild creatures in this account. See Jon Levenson for a good look at the persistence of chaos as evil in the biblical architecture.

3) Clearly this is a clarion call to the connected nature of the created world. It could be a good text for evolution Sunday initiative of the Clergy Letter project in February as well.

4)  At the end, horn is a symbol of strength and power. Think of the oak branch held by the dwarf prince in the new move, The Hobbit.

5) the Greeks spoke of the music of the spheres. I would bet that osme musical person has set Hubble space telescope pictures to music.

6) I keep going back to a piece in Interpretation on the costly loss of praise. In contemporary worship, we impose a sense of praise, but it is not evoked. Why is praise so hard to come by in our time?

7) What is particularly human about praise to God?

8) Note the word created in v. 5. Notice the boundary issue. As the new year approaches one could use bara, create, as the movement of something new. Do you think the psalmist is reflecting its language?

I Sam. 2:18-20, 26.

1) we have already worked with Hannah, but this section is easily ignored. Someone with some artistic flai could do a compassionate first person account of her thoughts and feelings making and presenting the robe and then saying goodby until next year. A lot of us said goodbye to family after we feel as if they hjust came in during the holidays, so it oculd be a most heart-redning aspect of the sermon if one so chose.

2) Hannah sacrificed her son to the temple service. Like a grandma catching up with growth in mittens, she makes his linen ephod, a sort of priestly apron for him, but the ephod is more ceremonial and elaborate in the description that I am sure all have memorized in Ex. 285-14. My Polish ancestors would give a huge shirt to a child and say, “for growth.” the image is a good one, what do we grow into?

3) Even though Eli is a failed priest in some respects, think Diary of a country Priest, the blessing is certainly is a potent one for Elkanah and Hannah.

4) Although it is skipped, one could extend the reading into a consideration of being a parent. Look to Home by Marilynne Robinson for a fine sue of the thought.,

5) Please note the similarity to the description of Samuel and the boy Jesus by Luke at the end of ch. 2.

6) given CT shooting, this could be the start of an excellent view on our hopes for children and their rearing and education.

Christmas Eve Sermon Notes 2012

Ann Weems wrote: "we wait in December darkness." .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. 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 goes beyond Bethlehem in his account of the Incarnation and 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 moved to 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. I love how it imagines us as mangers:. when meek souls shall receive him still-the dear child enters in. …abide in us, O Lord Emmanuel. It imagines that while Jesus had no room in the inn, we provide plenty of room for Jesus within us and among us in the manger we call church.
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. Yes, the holidays can be messy, a lot like a stable, perhaps. 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. We are called to tend the Christmas spirit, that moves from Grinch to human being, from Scrooge to Uncle Scrooge. 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. Of greater skill would be those who open our tight fists to generosity, to extend an open hand in greeting, to embrace the prodigal returned home.

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. The people in the manger scenes glow because they reflect the best of human beings and then let their light shine. We arrive here, swathed in the early evening darkness. Rest and reflect in the arc of the readings of god’s engagement with this good earth. Leave bathed in the light of these words, these melodies. God bless the singing and playing of Silent Night by candlelight. No matter how cold the evening, it warms the heart and gives us some light along the way.   May all of us honor the Christ within, the God with us, in this season.

Sermon Notes Lk 1:45-55, Micah 5 12/23

Off and on, I have been working on essays on the Book of the Twelve, the so called Minor Prophets. So we come to Micah. This is one of the earliest linkages of a messiah figure with peace. How I crave peace. I was born after the right after the Korean conflict, so Vietnam dominated our childhood.How I hoped that the new millennium would presage better days, and that was met with 9/11. We are finally out of Iraq and hope to be out of Afghanistan in a couple more years, and we live with a drumbeat of domestic massacres.. I can go with an interpretation that does see peace emerging from the birthplace of David, but it could also be that peace will not emerge full blown from the halls of power, Jerusalem, Washington D.C. or Beijing, but could grow from a small place of little account. After all, it is little Cindy Lou who melts the heart of the Grinch. Peace is both personal and structural, private and public. Seemingly small acts can  help create a more peaceful world.At the same time, how my heart leapt when the last U.S. soldier left Iraq. Even though ti left a sour taste in my mouth, how relieved I was when the last soldier left the seemingly endless struggle of Vietnam.I still thrill to see the old pictures of soldiers sweeping folks up in their arms when WWII was over.    

Mary certainly has an ambivalent reaction to peace. to find some peace, she goes off to visit her expectant cousin Elizabeth.Even Micah might regard them as hillbillies.She avoids the swirl of talk that would accompany a story of a miracle birth.She may well need some peace and quiet to come to grips with the birth. All expectant parents do, as the enormity of the gift hits them, but can you imagine the pressures weighing on her?>

Her prayer is not a peaceful one in the sense of absence of conflict between the classes. She envisions a more peaceful age in the broaders sense of shalom. Not for Mary is the sweet inner peace we so crave. Not for Mary is the pregnant hope that we can all get along. To Mary, she represents a new order for the ages, a slogan on our money. She wants reversal; she sounds like a first century member of Occupy Jerusalem. She sees the child to be born to her as the emblem of people being treated the way they should be: with dignity and respect. Mary seems less enamored of the idea of Scrooge finding generosity than of the Tiny Tims of the world rising up. Major change undergirds this prayer of hers.My guess is that she would see justice being the pre-condition for peace, not peaceful hearts sowing seeds for justice.For Mary the times they are a changing, a train;s a coming.

Still, inner peace too is part of shalom, I think, as a condition for living out the days we have to us in a full way.Surely the path of Jesus Christ is a path of peace.Many Jews hold that Messiah will come to usher in a time of peace, so the First Advent for some of our Jewish spiritual relations reflects our second Advent vision.Mary;s son was committed to peace, even as he seemed to court conflict with his message, and it would lead to the cross. In that sense, the shadow of the cross obscures the light of the manger. All of the bloodshed in our time soaks the hay around the creche. Silent Night beckons, for quiet within,and the guns to be stilled together.

12/21 Friday Column

My favorite Christmas song is O Holy Night. i got to hear pieces of it being rehearsed for our Christmas eve lessons and carols service. I heard it after the horrors of last Friday, so the words, “ the weary world rejoices” jumped out at me this year. We get weary after working hard for a long time with little tangible result. It’s a combination of being physically and emotionally spent.
Christmas is a time of balm and restoration for the weary. Our two daughters came to visit this week, so we had an early Christmas set of celebrations. Our new son-in-law came as well, so I got to learn to be more open for the holidays. Our younger daughter reminded me that I had better prepare a stocking for him as well as the girls, and he was most helpful in telling of some likes and dislikes, as I dislike having people feel pressured , and I like to get them presents that they may well appreciate and enjoy.

Of course expectations of Christmas perfection often collide with reality. While they were out watching the Hobbit, I made dinner and had two grease fires due to the goose and a crack in my roasting pan.I had more smoke going on than  teenagers covering up weed with incense in their room. Families have an innate capacity of pressing buttons, so visits are often fraught with tension and hurt feelings. Attic gremlins turn lights into constricted  balls of wire. In bad economic times, we may share Clark Griswold’s disappointment that a hoped for christmas bonus is the apple butter of the month club.Christmas dinner tastes a bit bitter when we look at the empty places around the table.We may even wear a hideous Christmas sweater to commemorate the addled aunt who gave it years ago.Over the years we have been careful to add some traditions in our household. We honor our different ethnic traditions; we have foods that have a religious significance; the girls get a book and a T-shirt in their stocking.Christmas music fills the house, now often from their ipods. We usually read some Christmas picture books, and I recited one on the way to Effingham in the windstorm that hit yesterday afternoon.  

The Holy Family has been frozen in our minds in Christmas cards, creches, and carols. Our families rarely approach that image of calm and peace.If we take the Incarnation seriously, Jesus was born into a regular family, with all of the stresses, strains, joys, and laughter of any family.As Emmanuel, God with us,Jesus does represent the divine “veiled in flesh.” At the same time, the Incarnation is being enmeshed with what we go through in life. it is not God in an elaborate masquerade for the holiday.Living with us, living a human life, Jesus can both sympathize and empathize with us.

Another carol buzzing about in my mind is O Little Town. Luke’s story says that there was no room in the inn. They were then forced to use a feeding trough for a cradle. The lyrics of the carol ask us to be living mangers, our lives the Nativity scene. Christmas is all about the birth of the new. To what extent do we provide hospitality for the Christmas spirit, the presence of the divine inside of us. The Grinches of Fox news look to create a problem every Christmas with various greetings of the season. Rather, the point should be the degree to which we learn and open hospitality to the presence of God in our own spirits and in our social spaces.This Christmas, my prayer would be for us to see ourselves and each other as mangers for the “ Christ to be born in us today...to abide with us.”

Ps. 80:1-7 OT notes

Ps. 80:1-7
why do we not preach on psalms more?
1) save us-This could be a good time to consider the depth of the word salvation. Woith the feast of the Incarnation approaching, it could be a good time to talk about its senses in this world, as well as the world to come.enthroned upon the cherubim-ark image from Ex. 25, is it a cosmic one as well?.

2) restore- this is repeated, always an important sign in Hebrew. face shine note how it works off the Aaronic blessing

3) fed with bread of tears is a most arresting image-who is fed with that bread right now?

4) angry=  smoke pouring out of nostrils (like a bull/dragon?) We moderns would not deign to use such a natural image, would we? What are some images of God that we use that may be sneered at as primitive in the future?How do you think God would be smoking mad with prayers? How do you interpret the angry/smoking hot God today? would it be their content or the context, as in Amos of prayers without justice?

5)Scorn in v. 6 is from Syriac, while the Hebrew would be  contention or strife (madon) a favored word in Proverbs..

6) One could play a bit with Asaph and maybe even make up a good story.

7) Limburg reminded me that the shepherd image is frequent in the Asaph psalms in the the seventies in particular.

Micah 5:2-5 notes

Micah 5:2-5  second cut
We should be reminded that this passage is maddening to translate, and we deal with the push to link it to christmas with the Matthew citation for the Magi.
1)As usual in apocalyptic  pieces, this description of a better future is in contrast to issues of punishment and judgment, even if it is not full blown apocalyptic visionary work. I suppose that it could be referring to a birth of a royal child as in Is. 7,8. I would tend toward going back to Micah 4’s relation of labor and apply it toward a more apocalyptic birth pangs reading. Not only will pain not last forever, but better times are coming.

2) Of course, one could emphasize that the immense God is one who seems to like to work at small scale. of a Bethlehem.. One could talk of the "butterfly effect"
I am not sure of ephrathah/fruitful. I assume it is a place name, maybe a clan name,but do not grasp it use i here clearly.

3) I don't have a good notion  why mosel=ruler is used and not king. Still God reigns, not kings.Is it reflecting some continuing disquiet with the monarchy, or being sick of the terrible rulers under which they suffer. To dwell securely itself would be a good sermon topic. Be careful to avoid the notion, not in the text, that to dwell securely would mean only some sort of spiritual security. After all shalom=well-being, health, wholeness, not only inner spiritual peace. This will be peace could refer to what just preceded, what will come next,as a demonstrative pointer,or I suppose, both.

4) The shepherd imagery is often used for leaders. This time he will be a "good shepherd.'I don;t know if people have already heard too much about the shepherd image or not, especially its political connotations/. I would note that this messianic text does not use hte word in the passage. Some would read v.2 as of old as referring to Jesus, maybe even pre-existence and not the promise itself.

5) In history this goes back to David, around 300 years. Christians see it as taking 700 years to come to pass. I see a tinge of exilic material here, but that will not happen for some time, unless we are seeing some insertions over time.

6) I tend to read this less as direct prophecy of Jesus and more in line with the apocalyptic themes in 4:9-10, for instance, as Paul does in Rom. 8 It uses the pain of birth as a prelude to a miracle to come.

7) One could look at Bethlehem, house of bread. A then and now approach could work. One could plumb its association with David and Ruth

8) The way we approach this text is a great example that we have the world of context, when this was composed and edited, but it also creates a world within its pages as well that frees it from context, but we alos read the words from our vantage pt, and that changes the reading, so there is the world behind the text, the world of the text, and the world in front of the text.  

We are in ancient territory here, the late eighth century. perhaps he was working at the same time as early Isaiah material. His work is known to Jeremiah (see 26:18-19).

Sermon notes Dec. 16-Zeph. 3;`14-20, Phil. 4:4-7, Is.12

Dec. 16, 2012 Zeph. 3:14-20 Phil. 4:4-7, Is. 12
End time material has a sunny side as well as one of foreboding, with a Advent joy and Advent hope Presbyterians may be vulnerable to the advances of right wing views on the end times, or maybe better put the consummation of God’s hopes, God’s vision for creation for a couple of reasons. One we don’t engage in Bible Study nearly enough, so we feel we are shaky ground. Two, we do not have the narrative overlay, the cookbook setting for  end times material that others embrace. In fact our southern branch declared such an approach to be heresy. Third,  we have not done a good job in getting folks a framework for apocalyptic material, and indeed, often ignore it when it does appear in the readings.

When we are thinking more of the infant Jesus  in our hearts and minds, I love one way to read a line in Zephaniah. with serious translation issues. It could mean that God will quiet you in his love. Immediately, I imagine a parent soothing a squalling infant, the very thing that the swaddling is supposed to help.(remember the look on the first Lady’s face when the President calmed a squalling infant?) Another way to read and translate the passage would be as the NRSV does, to renew us in the love of God.Either way, is a wonderful Advent image, to be quieted in our hectic pace. We could also see this time as starting to grasp a love of abundance, that flows and flows, with no end in sight, instead of our careful micrometer measurements of a size of hearts we fear grows two sizes too large instead of being too small for our lives.

The Incarnation is a proof of how good delight sin humanity. Here the Creator of all, the bringer of the end times as new beginning lives in a newborn at Christmas time. At this time of year, hear those words fully. God delights in us. god delights in each one of us. We are a gift to God, not only gifts from God. that may be one of the best spiritual presents we can receive, to hear and accept this verse that closes the vision of Zephaniah. His name is a bit obscure. He could be a visionary of things hidden by god, but this can also mean kept for safe keeping, treasured. I think of company coming in our house that if we touched something for them them it was on pain of death. That may well of been my introduction to the sacred, those guest towels, those things set out for company.

Phil 4:4-7 the Lord is near.We could take that to mean that the consummation of all things is on the calendar, or that the presence of God is as close as every breath.We can take it as an extension of the very notion of Emmanuel, god with us, in every condition of our lives, and in its most apparent in the birth of Jesus.The Lord is near to calm and quiet unquiet souls with noisy, frenetic lives. I p[icture Mary and joseph calming the babe of Behtlehem. I picture god saying there , there to us in the everlasting arms.

Is. 12 draw water with joy from the well of salvation.See the image of abundance there;imagine  the water is pure and deep and refreshing.The well of salvation is  Christmas spirit.We could use the mighty Mississippi down the hill from us, big enough to support barges.We then canuse the other translation of Zephaniah, to be renewed in god’s love.