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.
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