4/26 I John 3:1-7, Like 24:36-48

The line that jumped out at me for today was early in this chapter:” we shall be like Christ.” The fifty-cent word for this is theosis, that we will be made into the image of Christ, the image of the invisible God. We shall again be made in the image and likeness of god. (sanctification-participating in Christ-union in Christ, being godly) Calvin spoke of us being in christ, where we enjoy the benefits of Jesus Christ. Just as Christ is fully joined to humanity, we can be joined to the grace of God. Heim sees it as communion, as linkage of persons, a sharing of life, coming to an understanding of oneself and others. It has often troubled me that our notion of salvation is so negative, as in freedom from the punishment of sin. We do well to also emphasize the other side of the coin that salvation bends us toward communion with God through Jesus Christ. Our humanity will be energized through the transformed, resurrected life with the Risen One. Mick Saunders noticed the little word now in our discussion of the passage. We are children of God, now.We do not have to wait for heaven to claim that title.

To be like Jesus is to be first fully human. Luke goes to great lengths to show the humanity of Jesus remains after the resurrection, something Calvin emphasized more than most. He can still show them the wounds of a fully human death. He eats, something that ghosts do not do according to the beliefs of the time. Being human is physical and it is connected, as the disciples share food with him. He speaks and uses that precious human commodity, language. Do we speak in an Easter way? How do we employ the precious gift of speech? Part of our continuing to resemble Christ more fully will be our resemblance to his resurrected from, a form that will maintain our own memories and life as experienced. As it has been said, “we have a common vocation toward glory.” As children of god, we see a family resemblance in Jesus Christ.

Of course, to be human is to sin. Let’s interpret John’s words here as failing to be like Jesus. Jesus is fully aware of that in his last words in Luke. He urges repentance and forgiveness. Heim puts it well :”every wound to the social fabric of human relations is a rupture in the raw material of salvation.” (2004 TT:330). God is determined to bring the whole world together, fighting through all the obstacles of our stubborn insistence to not live as Christ. Still, sinning does not define us. We do not have to remain on Death Road but take the exit ramp back to Salvation Highway.

A good quick summary of Christian aspiration would be: we would like to be more like Jesus. Another summary is in the old catechism: “to know god and enjoy god forever.” The fundamental truth is to know god, to be truly human is the capacity to love. Our capacity to receive divine love can increase in this world. We can become god’s own gift of grace. We are meant for god; God has always wanted to be for us. God will elevate us to a closer life with God, here and in heaven. While we are here we have time-honored practices to notice the work of God in our lives. We all know them, prayer, Bible devotions, Communion. Those internal changes result in external changes. John knows well that we all talk a better game than we perform. They do not exist for us alone, but they move us out into life as it is lived. Reading of the Good Samaritan may result in acts of compassion. From the first works of growing into Christ, we start to live like Christ a bit more. It’s time to see ourselves as God’s own, and to treat others as a child of God.

4?19 I John 1

The lectionary readings push us in a decided direction this week. All of them deal in some degree with community, about life together. Easter life is life in community. We celebrate the new life in Christ together. We may dream of being Robinson Crusoe on an island, but the biblical dream is one of sharing Easter life together, where togetherness is realized. Community gives more targets, more space, for the grace of God to touch, as it gives us more space to love God. Isolation is a lonely place. I realize that one can be lonely in a crowded room, but we all need places to be together. This is vital for worship. Yes, we can pray on our own, but it is encouraging, even needful, to be together in worship.

I John takes the spiritual aspect of community very seriously. John organizes around polarities: light and dark, truth and lie, sin and good. He sees the community as a mixed one. While it stands against the forces of darkness, the forces of darkness are within its members and within its community. It is not al on its own. It derives the source of its light and life from God’s own light and life that lived in the One named Jesus.

We may be more comfortable with John’s words about the church. The passage from Acts chills us to our American bones. We believe in private property. Our possessions matter to us. Years ago, we had more concern with young people being lured to cults. The biggest complaint parents had was young people were not keeping all of their possessions. Here we have the church as a community where they share what they have in common, a little commune in Jerusalem, this follows the section in chapter two, after Pentecost, where the people worshipped together regularly. These people could have what little they have taken from them, so they decide to share. If they can share their possessions, my guess is that they can share their lives with each other. They can become spiritual friends, as well as finding affinities in other areas of life. Spiritual friendship can look past the issues we all share to some degree and look past them to the better, true self within.

Community helps keep us in line. We can check out our thoughts and our actions with other people who can be more objective about what we do than we can. Too often the church is pictured as a group of killjoys, judgmental people determined to take the joy out of life. Instead, the church at its best is a light-hearted place, because its source is the light and life of Jesus Christ, and it is not weighed down by the burden of sin as it knows forgiveness. Not that it is superior to other organizations, but it does know the freedom of forgiveness.

After Easter we get signs of heavenly life through the risen Jesus. We also get signs of the kind of life we are meant to lve after Easter. Jesus does point us toward heaven, but Easter draws heaven closer to earth. The renewed life of Easter has elements of Eden in it. Easter light continues to shine after Easter Sunday. As I John reminds us part of that light is forgiveness. To live in sin is to live in darkness. To tell that truth lets the light pour in. We enjoy the new life of forgiveness in Jesus Christ. Forgiveness allows us to live together. When we worship together, we draw the disparate parts of our lives together for a brief [period. When we worship together, Easter dawns anew. In Christian community, God shares life with us, as we share our lives with God and God’s own..

I John 3:16-24

1)I would urge that one at least drops back to v. 14 whoever does not abide in love, abides in death.

2) To get the self-sacrificial contrast for Christ at v. 16, one is well-served to see Cain as the archetypal murderer, after a sacrifice, no less. Some thought Cain's father was the devil. His murder of Abel shows us that we are often more children of Cain than children of God.

3)The elder moves quickly from abstractions about life and death and directly to the physical necessities of life itself. The NIV is closer when it says shows no pity, it is a matter of seeing it as gut-wrenching, or less forcefully, opening ones heart and mind  in compassion to those in need. In other words, no compassion=no love=abiding in death, or at least death's path.

4) Most people love to hear stories about love in action that goes beyond words.

5) This notion of the heart condemning us is a powerful aid toward truth, because God knows us better than we know ourselves. It is the loving God who is the final arbiter. One can play around with courtroom scenes to push the image a bit.

6) To do the truth is a nice way of getting at authenticity.

7) Prayer here is generated by love, not the path of death, the path of mere self-interest. If I understand correctly, the energy comes from the community itself.

8)Belief may well have the sense here of being faithful to Jesus, more than doctrine.Put differently, Christian ethics move from Christ outward, not by applying ethical norms to Christ.

9)Note well that faithfulness is then linked to loving one another as a command, an imperative, not an option.

10) Abiding, mutual life, remaining all work well here. In a time when we are speaking more of divinization and theosis, here is a good Reformed starting point, of participating. Abiding sounds like Calvin's union with Christ. Of course, that includes the presence of the Spriit of life as well. 

 

Ps. 23

1) i realize that this is so well known that we are resistant to looking at it.

2) It is a funeral standard around here, how can we also appropriate for the gift of life?

3) Shepherds were often made in a political leadership analogy. shepherds by the time of jesus.s had a reputation somewhere around used-car salesman and telephone solicitors.

4) In our economic troubles, v. 1 could be  read as: I will lack nothing.

5) Spiritually, where are your green pastures and still waters. One could do a nice turn on the different paths in our lives.What keeps your soul alive, what restores your soul/life/nephesh?

6) What are the darkest valleys of spiritual and emotional life? You could go with jung and examine the shadow side of life

7) In Hebrew evil and shepherd are a little close in sound. what do you make of that?

8)Instead of deterrence or striking, the rod comforts. How? The rod could be a royal scepter.

9) I don't get the shift here, but shepherd blurs into the role of host, like Abraham.some link it to communion.

10) Mercy is hesed, steadfast love, loyalty.

11) follow si weak, it is more like pursuit, prosecute.

12)It is good to be reminded that we do have enemies.

13 where is the house of the Lord for you, especially internally? what does the room inside you called house fo the Lord look like?

 

Limburg makes the excellent point tht for you are with me is at the center of the psalm. God was with joseph.Gideon, and Jeremiah.Abrah, Moses, and Israel in Is. 41. Emmanuel means God with us.

Mays cites God leading Israel in right paths in Ex. 15.

Israel lacked nothing in the wilderness (Dt. 2:7)

1) Peter makes a defense before the religious council, of up to seventy one members or so,to explain the power of the name in healing. Note that the name, ha shem is a Hebrew phrase for God.

2) Please don't get all caught up if Anna was really the high priest or his son in law Caiaphas.

3) Acts is concerned with magic power, as well as religious. It lies behind the question, in my view. See some early work by susan Garrett of LPTS

4)Like a prophet, peter has Spirit-filled utterance. Often the word, heal, sozo, is the smae as the word to save.

5) He uses Ps 118:22. this apparently was used to see the work of jesus in a new light by early christians. We read it a lot during Holy week. the end of this section takes us back to Joel again.

6)One could play with building metaphors here, with capstone, cornerstone.

7) Some take this as exclusive. it is a good place to consider universalism.

1) Peter makes a defense before the religious council, of up to seventy one members or so,to explain the power of the name in healing. Note that the name, ha shem is a Hebrew phrase for God.

2) Please don't get all caught up if Anna was really the high priest or his son in law Caiaphas.

3) Acts is concerned with magic power, as well as religious. It lies behind the question, in my view. See some early work by susan Garrett of LPTS

4)Like a prophet, peter has Spirit-filled utterance. Often the word, heal, sozo, is the smae as the word to save.

5) He uses Ps 118:22. this apparently was used to see the work of jesus in a new light by early christians. We read it a lot during Holy week. the end of this section takes us back to Joel again.

6)One could play with building metaphors here, with capstone, cornerstone.

7) Some take this as exclusive. it is a good place to consider universalism.

I John 3:1-7-

1) We have a sense here of a restored Eden, as children of God

.2) this resotration is made more clear in v.2 that sounds not only as if the image and likeness has been restored, but that we will be transformed further.

3) We will be like him sounds like theosis to me.

 

4) Still, as the noted exegete and LPTS fan, Mick Saunders notes, the future in no way changes that we are God's chidlren NOW. We don't have to wait for heavenly transformation. We were known as God's from the start. It is our present reality.

5) p.412 of NIB, Black notes that the polarity of lawlessness v. righteousness is par tof the end time battle.

6) Note well that scholars often imagine this to be a community under external and internal threat.

7)if I understand correctly the writer is saying we are what we do. It is the opposite of the popular phrasing today that no matter how heinous the act, people respond with "I'm a good person."

8) Still, is sin here a category, is it rejecting Christ or what. It does not fit with what we read last week about forgiveness of sin. Could it be the emphasis is on the source of goodness and evil and the fruit of each?

 

Psalm 4

 

1) Answer me is in the imperative. How often we feel this way when we wait for an answered prayer.

Relief=wide space. it seems related to me for a word, i think it is yashar, that means salvation but has a sense of open space. distress=narrow. So, the psalmist is looking for elbow room in a tight spot.

2) i always think of the phrase, how long, with Martin Luther King's speech, where the answer is not long. Depending on the circumstance this can be a bit anxious or a plea of desperation.vain words could lead one into how we use our tongues and the misuse of words in the media.

 

3) i usually think of disturbed as being angry, but here it has the sense of a disturbed childwho needs to be quieted.

4) This is a good place ot examine different views of fulfillment and prosperity.

5)Whod oesn't want to sleep in peace/well-being/health and safety (betah is related to trust)

1. 
   

   I John 1, Acts 4:32-5

   
   
2. 
   

   Is the beginning, the start of creation as in John’s prologue, or the start of this group, or the start of the church?

   
   
3. 
   

   It cannot be overstated: in the letter eternal life is heaven touching earth, it is new life in Christ now that will be transformed in the future, but it is not heaven alone. Life is more than a waiting platform for the heaven train.

   
   
4. 
   

   Notice that sensory images of sight, sound, and touch employed here.

   
   
5. 
   

   God is light. What does that mean? What are its functions, especially religious. Think of theophany. Look at its use in the Psalms, see William Brown’s book on senses and the Pslams.

   
   
6. 
   

   In a time when we don’t use the word sin, but a mistake or a misjudgment, these are powerful words. It’s odd to me that we will speak, as does John, abut the blood of Christ and forgiveness, but where is forgiveness found when sin is non-existent?

   
   
7. 
   

   Along the same lines, cleanse shows up twice in this little section.

   
   
8. 
   

   Notice the linkage of to fellowship. This is certainly a letter that emphasizes the bonds of community. That is not easy in individualist America.

   
   
9. 
   

   What are the plus points and the dangers in the polarities of light/dark/sin/righteous, truth/lie?

   
   
10. 
    

    People often like action sermons. Anmy passage with walking will suit them just fine. What examples are you considering for walking in the light?

Act 4:32-5

1. 
   

   The lectionary is making a community point, again Why on the first Sunday after Easter is it brought out? Note that it is an ethical parallel to 2:42-47 liturgy.

   
   
2. 
   

   How does this early socialist commune strike you? Usually, the only thing we share in church is dislike of presbytery.

   
   
3. 
   

   Could sharing stop poverty in our churches?

   
   
4. 
   

   Few passages show the idolatry of private, possessive individualism as much as our reaction to this little story.

   
   
5. 
   

   I bet Woody Guthrie was thinking of this passing in This Land.

Easter, Mark 16:1-8, Is. 25:6-9

I grew up in a coal mining area, so cave-ins were a real concern. A cave-in meant that you could be entombed deep in the earth, the darkness a looming presence as much as the air slowly giving way. In the old days, in the inky blackness of the mine, to see a speck of light gave hope. Easter is the light at the end of the tunnel. Easter makes God’s plans for the future clearer, but they have not come into play as of yet. I like to imagine that Easter light shone from the tomb, just as the first rays of the sun were striking it.

The women’s mood matched the dark. A good, young man had died terribly. While the male disciples slept or hid, they were doing what they were supposed to do, anoint the body. Practical considerations come to mind, were they strong enough to move the heavy stone that had sealed the tomb? The first surprise is that it’s moved. The second surprise is a seemingly angelic messenger. They cannot take in the first words, yet, to not be afraid. Of course they are afraid, less of the angel, but more of the stunning, new irruption into our lives, the power of God to make things new, for only God can make life emerge from death.

Easter is the dawn of our hopes, not its fulfillment. We still wait for that completion. The promise of heaven doesn’t negate the goodness, the sweetness, of life here and now. Easter doesn’t take away the grief of loss. Even though we may look toward heaven, ti does not take away the pain of absence in this world. An empty tomb does not fill the empty feeling of loss. Older churches like Kingston have cemeteries nearby, called churchyards. Those prevent ministers from going too far on Easter. Easter does tell us that loss is not the last word. One day, grief will be buried. Death itself will be entombed in eternal negation; death will go to hell. As the angel said, he is not here. He is risen. The tomb was no place for the risen Jesus., no place for the Living One.

Years ago, people argued an amazing amount about the hair length on boys and rock music. My mother would say, that music will wake the dead. People still put a lot of stock into appearance. Easter tells us to look toward something deeper, beyond appearance, but to the possibility prior to appearance, the dream, the hope. Easter points us toward two things: the commitment of God to life, and the shock of the new.. Granted the women did get a report from an angel, but like us, they did not receive an appearance of Jesus. . Easter does open doors. to an expanded sense of possibility. Easter frees us from the strictly factual. Isaiah’s great vision seems a bit closer. One day the shroud that covers the earth will be removed, for death will be banished. At Easter the burial shroud was tucked away in a corner, all neatly folded. That’s is a remarkable image, a shroud on the earth. Wars keep it on; we threaten the planet with pollution. One day it will be pulled aside with a magician’s flourish.

So, often we feel stuck. We seem caught in a trap. Those are the stones that threaten to keep us locked in, living half a life, or maybe better, a living death. Even a large gravestone is not enough for the presence and power of the love of God. No matter how heavy, it was no match for the power of new life. No matter how dark that tomb was, the light of life shone forth from it. No matter how cold it was, the resurrection warmed it. So on easter we can do no better than to glory in this precious gift of life. We let Easter light shine in it and through it to celebrate it, and to point the way to the far horizon.

Isaiah 25:6-9

1) The act of
swallowing death could be a takeoff on Mot 9death) swalling life.

2) Notice how Paul in I
cor 15:54 and Rev. 7:17, 21:4 pick up this passage.

3) This is in a section
called the little apocalypse (Is. 24-7)

4) The image of the
shroud over the earth is intriguing to me. Is the earth dying?
(here’s an environmental image for you) Could this be where we
speak of casting a pall over proceedings?

5) I’ve always
liked the RSV translation at v. 6 a feast of fat things. This could
be a good place to speak about our weight obsessions.

6) God loves
celebrations, even the wine is special.

7)This is an emphaisis
on the effect of death, tears will be dried.

8) the cause for
mourning seems to be defeat. That is difficult for Americans to fully
grasp.

9) v. 9 is a good
example of a prayer that tends to the future, that imagines a
different future being born even as we speak the words.

10) I assume the
mountain is the temple mount, Mt. Zion. Some imagined it as the point
where heaven and earth meet, a sort of portal.

11) As an Easter text,
to what extent did Easter bring this text to frution?

Ps. 118:19-29

1. Some think that
   this could be a temple entrance liturgy. It is part of the Egyptian
   Hallel, typically read at Passover. So, it is possible that Jesus
   read this very psalm, or sang it, on the way to the Mount of Olives.
   

   
   

2. Since this is
   Easter should we not go back to v. 17?

   
   

3. Could one speak of
   the gate of life in v. 20? One can imagine this as a liturgy for the
   resurrection itself, where the tomb itself became a temple of life,
   not death.

   
   

4. The chief
   cornerstone is a major Christian image, the reversal is a favorite
   of God’s it seems.

   
   

5. Save us=hosanna.

   
   

6. V.26 si repeated
   in Communion liurgy.

   
   

7. Speak of Easter
   light here in v. 27

   
   

8. This psalm is
   enclosed with thanksgiving.

   
   

Palm Sunday-One of the
readings, Is, 50:4-9 speaks of sustaining the weary with a word. How
do you try to do just that? When have you been sustained by a word?
When do you need more than a word to sustain you? What makes you
weary?

Monday-ER ended last
week. I haven’t watched it for years. Sometimes we say that the
church is a hospital for sinners, and maybe the church has an ER
where life and death hang in the balance. Characters linger in our
minds, as we come to know them better than some of the living beings
in our real lives.

Tuesday- Calvin
believed that God condemned some from the start and others were
saved. We could not dare to know for sure which ones. For example,
should we pray for others, not in the church? What good would it do?
Calvin was a Biblical theologian. Even if logic dictated otherwise,
he attended to the bible carefully. So, I Tim. 2:1-2 exhorts us to
pray for all people. So, he prays. After all, only God is the judge
of all who wants the whole world to be saved.

Wednesday-Jocelyn and I
visited state parks for 3 days of her spring break. This is a good
time for Holy Week. Much of the ground remains bare and stark, but
signs of life are cropping up. Already the ground was blooming with
color: white, purple, green, of course. Life is insistent. Light is
just as insistent. When we entered Donaldson Cave, we were surprised
by a shaft of light enering the next chamber. In Christ, we have the
life and light of the world. Church is the park where we get to enjoy
it.

Maundy Thursday-I got a
chance ot speak with a 7^th grade Catholic girl at bible
Study last week. She had a marvelous sense of Communion as communion
with Christ. Andre Dubus struggled to get to Communion after he lost
the use of his legs. He did so, because he wanted, needed, tangible
samples of the love of God. “I placed on my tongue the taste of
forgiveness and of love that affirmed, perhaps celebrated, my being
alive, and being mortal…we can bring ourhuman distracted love
into focus with an act that doesn’t need words.”

Good Friday-In my mind
it is always cloudy and gray on Good Friday. At First Presbyterian
yesterday, they enacted the tradition of the Stations of the Cross.
It breaks down the story of the road to the cross into 14 discrete
points to pray and ponder. We rightly point to the cross. Slow down a
bit and ponder one of the parts of the story leading up to the Cross.
Try to imagine it fully. Smell the air; taste the grit; hear the
sounds; see the vision, touch the walls.

Holy Saturday-In the
faith of Jesus, he was laid to rest just prior to the start of the
Sabbath. Would it be his final resting place? Would he forever
inhabit the cold peace of the grave? Would death win its greatest
victory? Did God’s best hopes lie entombed with Jesus? Did even
God need Sabbath rest to consider the fate of Jesus? Did Sabbath rest
become the proper prelude to the new life of Easter?

Sermon John 12:12-19

Usually, I punt doing Palm Sunday and move into the sufferings of Christ on this Sunday. I have an eye for the tragic. John’s little piece got me thinking. Maybe the events of Palm Sunday helped get Jesus through the rest of that week. It’s is less an issue of bad things following good, but that we need the good to survive the tough times in life. It feels good to be cheered. Some folks chase it for themselves or their children all of their lives. Resilience may well need some good to help fuel its power when we face bad times. Yes, it is ironic that the same cheering crowds will soon cheer his death. Even in the bright sunshine of the hour, the people are still in the dark about Jesus, including his closest disciples.

My sense of the passage is that the people don’t grasp the significance, the religious significance of Jesus in Jerusalem. John has them raise palm branches, a sign of political freedom that we see on coins struck in that few generations before Jesus when Israel was free. They call him a king, and I wonder if they realized that they were quoting a psalm. He was called a king right away in the first chapter, but his is a different sort of kingdom. John makes sure that we know that Jesus rides as a prince of peace, not as a warrior. Jesus is in a death struggle, but not with Rome as much as deeper forces of darkness. His courage is there surely, but to be a victim of violence, not its agent. He is destined to be the lamb on the throne of Revelation. That lamb is also the Good Shepherd. The shepherd is not about to send people off to die as so may kings will. This king is all about healing and saving the lives of those yet unborn under his care.

From the start of John, he has been identified as the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. At the end, John makes sure that we know that the bones of Jesus are not broken, just like the unblemished lamb of the Passover in Exodus 12. Jesus embodies the ritual life of Israel. The sheep may recognize the voice of the shepherd, but we don’t always heed it. John has the disciples understanding only after the end. We read Scripture through the lens of the entirety of the life, death, resurrection ascension of Jesus. So it is that we read Jesus into the servant of Isaiah here. We read through the suffering and resurrection of Jesus. The words here cast an image always reflected where the end is a new beginning.

The Pharisees give up; “the world has gone after him” What they say is truer than they can imagine. The entire world came after God’s plan, the one incarnate in Jesus. A world of people over the years has gone after him, even the way we measure the years.

Getting a big crowd is due to the raising of Lazarus. Lazarus has a death warrant as well. They are after Lazarus and Jesus now. John loves irony. Lazarus receives the gift of resurrected life, only now to be the object of a lynching. They cannot celebrate the gift of life because they are groping in the darkness of enmity and fear.

Palm Sunday shows us how fast last can change in less than one week. It also shows us that we live within levels of understanding. The same event is read differently by the participants. As in the last episode of ER, life and death struggle together all of the time. Perspective determines our motives and our actions. John insists that our actions are often blind meanderings, filled with misunderstanding or partial knowledge. Even in our mistakes, we may grasp the elusive truth. Our security lies in the gift of Christ.