2 Kings 5;1-14
10 this is good for examining charity begins at home, or issues of inclusion and exclusion, cutting off the nose to spite the face.

2) Newman is a great man with a serious problem. Ironically,a captured girl provides a way out.

3) Did Naaman need all of the royal envoy material to go to Elisha?

4)Why is the king so blind?

5) Why does Elisha shun the entourage?

6) The seven times issue can be seen in Lev. 14:7 cf.

7)What do we learn about the insight of the servants here/ what do we learn of his ego? What are some good analogies to his distaste for the Jordan v. home waters?

8) See Lk. 4:27, also the Syro-Phoenician woman, the healing of the centurion's servant.

90 How is this story like the still small voice account?

Sermon June 27, 2010 Gal. 5:13-25, 2 Kings 2:1-14

So often, we speak of the Christian life as full of rules, especially don;t do that. We do not get that Picture from scripture. In our passage from Paul, instead we are called to freedom. The only rule is the ancient one to -love neighbor as oneself and serve the other . Sometimes I wish that we had a few more specific rules for the Christian life. Sure we have the 10 Commandments and Jesus's 2 part love command. I guess I would like 10 christian commandments but not as difficult as those given in the Sermon on the Mount.

 

Please don;t see the flesh as equal to the body, but it is more an opposing force to the work of the spirit. Yes we see an opposition of flesh and spirit. This dichotomy is similar to the notion in  Hebrew of an evil and good impulse warring within us.So we do get a virtue and vice list- we are part of a conflict, like it or not. the vices .destroy community-(participle is continuing action over time)-this removes us from the way of God and the road to a more fulfilling life. While

fruit is singular,  this is what the harvest looks like. I think of Ezekiel looking toward a renewed Eden where the tree of life would supply fruit all through the year. here it is clearly inner, spiritual fruit. While love and self-discipline frame the list Paul does not provide a list of rules and even dos and don'ts. Instead, he presents them  both as a way of life. In Theology today an article speaks of the appeal of people joining monastic communities again. Really, the rules are quite simple, but they yearn for a way to learn to live together and with God in a structured way, where the bright lines of family life, work life, and recreation blur together.

 

Yesterday, I officiated at 2 community services for people in their nineties. in both instances, the family remembered and missed seemingly small things about them, laughter and enthusiasm. If we take a step back, Paul's virtue list looks a lot like a description of learning to be happy. the vice list looks like a recipe for making yourself and those around you miserable. Fruit emerges on its own, but it does require cultivation. Perhaps one way is to take one piece of Paul list of spiritual fruit a week, or a month. That way it would be a year's project, as in the Ezekiel image. . Ask yourself how a thought or action aligns itself with the particular virtue.

 

Let me try it another way. Elijah uses a mantle as a symbolic gesture when Elisha is called to be a prophet, and then he hands it over as a sign of authority to his former assistant. Sometimes, parents try to force a mantle on to us. sometimes it is just assumed that we will grow up to follow their dreams. Paul used a baptismal image of wearing a new garment to symbolize our new way of life in Christ. Think of the life in the Spirit as wearing one or all of the virtues. We used to have a saying that clothes made the person, back when dress was more formal than today. Wearing a virtue , inhabiting its space, will help mold us into the kind of person who embodies a particular virtue and takes off its corresponding vice. We can grow into the virtue, as we grew into a pair of hand me down clothes or my stomach wants to grow into whatever size belt I expand to.Keeping the virtue of peace around us in a conscious way could well help us on our road to becoming a more peaceful person. Filling our minds and hearts with thsoe virtues as aspirations gives us  a wonderful goal in life: to be happy and to make life better for those around us.

 

 

Bible Group for June 27 reading

 

1) I think this reads well for any transition period, especially interim pastors, but any time we face a succession issue. Max Weber, in viewing leadership, thought that the succession issue was a special problem for charismatic leaders.

2) Someone may want us to carry a mantle that we do not want a part of. i remember how many parents were trying to force their kids into law or medicine, or sports.

3) We rightly focus on Elisha, but consider what it is like for a person handing over their mantle of experience, authority, vocation, position.

4) i can think of no better example of the river as a liminal marker than this one that also marks the boundary between life and death.this is where Moses died, perhaps why they are together in the Transfiguration.

5) We often say that we want to die quickly, but that prevents saying goodbye. Even with the chances, it is hard for them to say goodbye.

6) It is likely that wanting a double share of the spirit is closer to the eldest 2/3 inheritance more than 2X whatever charisma that Elijah has.

7) Elijah=God is Jah and Elisha-God helps/saves/delivers. The close names allow another working on the Moses/Joshua theme.

8) i would assume the chariots are part of the divine army/host. The taking up of Elijah obviously elicits thoughts of ascension a la Enoch in Genesis. that is why he becomes an end time figure.

Sermon June 20-I Kings 191-15, Lk.8:26-39

 

Fear and facing fear touches both of these passages. One is running for his life and the other runs around within his confused life. In the restoration of a demoniac we see a man brought back to health. Demon possession was a manifestation of a social disorder internalized. Demons were always looking for a point of entry, and the ancient world was full of charms and potent sayings to try to ward them off. When we sneeze, we still say God bless you as an ancient variant of this belief.

The story is set in  a place of fear with a possessed person with unclean pigs and unclean tomb, as life should not be in contact with death. As Pope John Paul II said often, we exist within a culture of death. In a wonderful irony, the evil demon knows Jesus before good does.

The name Legion cannot be an accident, as it was the name for a large contingent of Roman forces. In another irony, the demon horde that holds the man prisoner does not want to be imprisoned in the abyss. the man has been stripped of his life; all he is a mob of forces and he has lost himself.

 

In our time, mental illness has all sorts of scary stigmas. In trying to honor their rights, we may well have consigned them to crying out in the tombs of homelessness. Perhaps we need to consider making it easier to commit to a proper facility as a public policy tool.

Demons get fooled and die with the instrument of their salvation, and I bet that this received chortles from its ancient hearers.In the face of the power of Jesus, in the face of their social structure being changed, they ask Jesus to leave. Demoniac works back home, as he has found a home. After his restoration, he becomes an evangelist who gets to spread the message as an agent of Jesus in new territory.

 

Elijah runs after his great victory.Maybe he was willing to rely on God in the great contest with the priests of Baal, but a personal threat is another matter entirely. God knows he needs physical rest and refreshment. In the midst of work, everybody can use and deserves a vacation.  We all can use a break from worries and duties. that's why the Sabbath was instituted as a weekly vacation not only from work but the cares of the week. He sounds like Jonah ready to die. With refreshment, only then he is able to have spiritual uplift. It is another reminder that our lives are of a piece. The spiritual and the physical rely on one another; they are interdependent, bound together. Then, he gets the expected elements of the presence of god there at the mountain of God, the place of the 10 Commandments, Sinai: all of the storm and thunder, fire and smoke. This time God is not present in those physical signs. He reaches that special place of prayer and meditation: silence. The silence or small sound leads to a voice-then he is to go back to work after his 40 day wilderness sojourn. Elijah receives physical help and spiritual healing that allow him to continue to do hos work in the world.

 

When I was a boy, one was taught to say that I'm not afraid. We teach children not to be afraid or to be very afraid of strangers now. The healthier way is to admit fear and then how to cope with fear. Fear keeps us from doing the important work of our lives, inner and outer. We can repress or deny it, but the path toward wholeness is one where we learn to face the fear and move on with our lives.