Sermon Notes Ruth 3, 4, Mk. 12:38-44 Nov. 11

November 11, Ruth 3, 4 Mk. 12:38-44 Our readings touch on being widowed. One sign of breaking out of a depression is the capacity to plan for the future.Naomi and Ruth hatch a dangerous plan. it is mostly dangerous because it trusts a male with matters of sexual seduction. In Rabbit is Rich, John Updike sets a scene with a couple surrounded by gold coins. Here Ruth who has been gathering the tailing of the grain on the ground is in a storage facility of grain at the barley harvest. Boaz has the great male name, pillar of strength. It will become the name of one of the pillars of the temple. That means that his descendant will build it.He has grown older, and we do not know how old, but when he thanks her for ignoring the younger men, I would guess he has moved into that terrible age range where he has become invisible to the interests of younger women.She is risking that Boaz will do the right thing and not use Ruth as a mere foreign object to release his desires. Even when Boaz offers to marry her, obstacles appear to make it a binding marriage. Boaz follows the system and gets the go-ahead to marry Ruth. Remember she is from Moab. After the exile, Israel will desperately try to protects its religion and culture, even to the point of breaking up mixed marriages. Phyllis Trible speaks of the bible having love’s lyrics redeemed, and that certainly applies to the story of Ruth. The last person most could imagine is a model of loyalty, the model of trying something daring, and is the ancestor of the great king David. Ruth and Naomi get the salvation of a fresh start. The child is a sign of the fresh start,as Ruth doesn’t have a child mentioned before.Naomi even becomes young again. An empty belly led Naomi and family into Moab. Then she has to return, empty of pockets and empty-hearted. Economic lack marks our other readings as well. The God whom Naomi blames for her plight si the same God who allows her to be young again. Her empty heart can be filled again. She will need no more worry about an empty belly. In her old age she has found abundance. ruth has found a family in a strange land, no more a stranger but a member of it.. Since Ruth has a descendant named King David, then she has a later descendant named Jesus.Since Joseph disappears from the narrative of Jesus, let’s assume that Mary was widowed. Jesus notices a poor widow with particular interest as he looks at the offering from a different perspective. the widow gives all she has left as a sign of her spiritual abundance. Even though others give much more, it does not have nearly the spiritual impact of the widow’s decision.While others would sneer at her tiny offering,Jesus sees it in the immensity of her meager possessions.I wish Jesus would have said more about a system that left a widow in such dire straits, but maybe Jesus and Mark both figure that we readers are sharp enough to question that ourselves. I was raised by a widow, and she poured a lot of herself into that identity and spent much of her life mourning her loss. At the same time, we do not deal with the widowed very well. We quickly tired of their struggles, and we are clumsy in re-integrating them into social settings.the story of Naomi and Ruth is one where God is with the widowed as well as the married, the newborn, the middle aged, and the elderly.God aims always at restoration, toward a happy ending.

Devotions Week of Nov. 11

Sunday Nov. 11-Ps 127-speaks a lot about work in vain, as if it would be meaningless, transitory, useless, even. I love the poetic line of “eating the bread of anxious toil” as that speak sot so many of us who act as if we can live on anxiety instead of security and hope.In down times, we may well wonder what is the us eof it all. In better times, we are reminded that the ocean consists of drop after drop, but each drop also contains an ocean (drawn and changed from Cloud Atlas). Monday-Veterans Day does not sadden me as much as Memorial Day, but I do indeed mark it.I like to honor those who served our country, especially those older survivors of WWII and Korea, as they are more than survivors, they built this country post-war. I continue to struggle with the Christian call to being pacifist with the reality of evil and the necessity for a nation to fight, including for pacifists. I pray that one day we will have few veterans of conflicts. Tuesday-I find bureaucracy frustrating,especially red tape. It’s not that I think I should be immune from rules and regulations,but the rules and regulations seem to get in the way of a desire we may well share. A friend is going through a tough time with fear that a small mistake on her forms for church positions could inhibit the work of the Spirit.At the same time, can mere red tape inhibit the work of the living God? Wednesday-Where does a spirit of restlessness come from? It may be a signal that something is amiss in life. It could be as simple as a plan being disrupted, but a bothersome restlessness seems to me a form of spiritual anxiety. It may well be a sign that I have not spent enough quality time with God in prayer or with the bible, or I have let my spiritual practices fall into some disrepair.In such times, we need to be in communion wiht the God of peace, of shalom, who can tell us, “peace, be still (and know that I am God). Thursday-Usually when I mention patience, I usually make a distinction, biblically, between two words, endurance and long suffering. Today, I want to consider it the way we use the word:to be able to wait placidly, without complaint, without trying to hurry things along.When things go wrong, to be able to cope without exploding seems an element of it as well. It seems the necessary complement to frustration. Friday-We have a wedding rehearsal here. I find them tedious, as I always say women already know what they want to do and men have to b e reminded the next day.Still, it is an expected ritual in a time when we try to reinvent the wheel and avoid ritual as passe.I am glad that we surround a wedding with ritual, and that is is one thing where we invest the ties of family and community through the ages. Saturday-Discernment is an attempt to integrate Christian thoughts and feelings with decision-making. One way is to be alert to our feeling state as we mull and pray over a decision. If something keeps gnawing at you, that may be a signal to rethink one’s position.While some decisions were made at random in Scripture, we are also told to test the spirits (I John) and Acts 15 demonstrates a careful deliberative process.

Post election thoughts and a prayer

Before I was called to the pastorate, I taught American government. I rarely read professional political science any more, but I still mix a look at our politics with some degree of objectivity and having policy views at the same time. On that great productivity vacuum, Facebook, I’ve noticed four responses: gushing winners, conciliatory winners, depressed, confused losers, and angry, vicious losers. I don’t know if the edges are even capable of hearing much, so I direct these random thoughts to the middle two groupings. I found this a dispiriting campaign as it was a marketing drive. It often disregarded the truth, time and again. Not only that, data was not used to explain an argument, a narrative, but merely to bolster a position without regard to alternatives. Instead of marketing policies, we marketed candidate image.Marketing campaigns treat voters with contempt. They assume voters are incapable of making rational judgments, so we are fed pablum of images and slogans. The highlight of the campaign for me was President Clinton’s careful marshaling of facts to make a case for the president. I do not mean specific policies, but he respected hsi audience enough to explain things to us. Elections are tricky to campaign as they seem to require that we make retrospective evaluations of results, and also compare competing views of the future. the Romney campaign was strong on evaluation of the economic slump, but very weak on prescriptions for the future, one that was shared by the incumbent.So we were faced with competing aims of blaming but no compelling vision of the way ahead, other than “Forward.” One of the reasons we breathed a collective sigh of relief with the commercials over is that we realized that we were being pandered to, and every voiceover from political action committees reminded us of it.I fear that we are gravitating to media sources that merely confirm our prejudices instead of seeking to get a range of views and opinions. I may be wrong, but I still see American politics as a battle over a vast middle. Maybe I am wrong, and we have grown more polarized into two competing camps, with two competing centers of gravity. I have real concerns about the radicalization of the Republican party in my lifetime. I lived in Indiana for 20 years. Compare Senator Lugar to the candidate Richard Mourdock. Compare John Danforth to Todd Aiken in Missouri.Conservative meant the opposite of flying off the handle, but far too often it can be equated with just that. Maybe this election will make us more humble about claiming God’s will for policy or outcome. How many of us hold to the vulgar Calvinism that God directs minutely actions.Maybe the Catholic bishops will learn that calls for voting a certain way will often fall on deaf ears. Maybe we can come to the point where we do not see God as one of the past and a God is is drawing us all into a new future, a God who responds to human life without controlling God’s free creatures. Religious people throw the word sin out far too liberally for their opponents and far too rarely toward themselves. Perhaps we would do well to accept a chastened sense of our creaturehood, that discerning the hand of God is not automatic but takes real reflection and study over time. I suppose I shall end with a prayer for us to find the spirit of conciliation, to discover the humility of the fallibility of the judgments of self and party and ideology, to truly seek the public interest, to seek common ground as well as dividing lines, that we can still our curses and notice our blessings, individually and together.

OT Notes Ruth 3,4

1) One could look at Ruth as a series of waystations on grief. By this time, hey have made a plan to live. Even with obstacles, the plan works, somewhat like a romance novel, and they live to see a better day. 2) The plan itself is quite bold and depends on the fidelity of Boaz about matters sexual. Can you imagine a bigger leap of faith in someone in that culture, or now for that matter? Further, the plan itself is a sign that they live not in the past but are trying to chart of future. They are not caught in denial but actively being agents of their lives. 3) Boaz will be the name of a pillar of the temple. It goes without saying how many men would love to be named a pillar of strength.It could be in strength is well and God would be the silent subject of the name.That applies to fertility as we know of no children for Ruth, but notice also that God is the one who permits conception here. 4) Another sermon angle is that Naomi becomes young again. She who lamented that the age of childbearing was gone is the nurse maid for her grandchild. 5) One could write a sermon of the background of the great. Ruth is the great grandmother of the great king David. Matthew makes sure that she is mentioned in the linage for Jesus. 6) Ruth stands in the great tradition of inner-Biblical argument. Its very presence stands against the decision of Ezra to push marriage only between the people of Judah after the return.One could perhaps consider a sermon on inter-marriage. Then again are not all marriages the joining of different styles and attitudes of 2 families? 7) One could use this to speak on infertility , in vitro, and adoption perhaps. 8) Notice that the goel, the redeemer has a legal sense here of resotring a family to its tribal inheritance.

Devotions Week of Nov. 4

Sunday November 4-Ps 146 is a left wing psalm from our poor perspective as it emphasizes justice for the core of Hebrew ethics, the widow, the orphan, the stranger, the prisoner, the put down. At the same time, we are warned about putting trust in government above that of the god of heaven and earth. Still, no christian can ignore the clarion call to justice that permeates the Scriptures. Monday- I had the new Christian Century on the train with me, so noted some things in it for devotions again.Recently the liturgical theologian and preacher thomas Long wrote of struggling with marital Christian hymns.If they are taken as walking hand in hand with the powers of war, I would agree. The Bible speaks of a hidden warfare of the spirit where arms are of no avail. that is why Eph. 6:10-20 uses military weapons but for non-violent purposes and means. Tuesday-It is said that Gregory the Great, a charitable pope,came in a vision repeatedly to his successor to be more generous. when he came the fourth time, he hit him in the head with his staff, and his successor died soon after that final vision.It is a constant tension sin’t it. We want a church building to be a proper, respectful place to worship God, but so many needs cry out at the same time. I guess I would hope that a generous orthodoxy will be bound with “glad and generous hearts.” Opne-hearted prayer may well lead to open wallets and pocketbooks. Wednesday-Christine Pohl wrote a provocative piece on kindness as a neglected virtue. She sees it as a simple antidote to the “meanness in the world,” the ruthless push for number one.Kindness can transform even the meanest situation or maybe even person, if only for a I hear echoes of the word, kin, in it, family, or kinder, for child.Kindness is helpful, respectful, and moderate in its scope. of grace. Thursday-Stephanie Paulsell of harvard wrote a piece on St. Therese, the Little Flower. She once said that she was a little soul who could offer God little things, even the tough aggravating work of the laundry.Even when she suffered, even when she felt no joy, she sought to act in loving ways to provide some joy.Michael Plekon has written an interesting look at “saints in our time.” He notes that the writer Patricia Hempl speaks of a rediscovery of God after rejecting her birth faith: “we all form a holy procession from the first days down to the present.”. Friday-Fleming Rutledge is one of the best preachers. ;let alone Episcopalian priests around. In a recent book, she explores Old Testament preaching. She tries to build a bridge to both conservatives and liberals through the OT.She uses the living god of the OT to remind us that God speaks still. She writes of the burning bush as “God’s fierce, dazzling holiness.”I have ot make a note to explore the theme of God and suffering through Is. 28. Saturday- Heidi Neumark wrote a piece on justice as evoked by the story of the widow’s offering in Mk. 12:38-44. jesus notes with admiration that while she gave little in amount, in proportion to her means, it was all she had. She wonders why we continue to permit a system where some have so much and so many have too little.In other words, how do we countenance a system where the widow has but a few coins to slip into the offering?

Sermon Notes Ruth 1-Nov 4

Ruth 1-November 4, 2012 Naomi is the female version of Job. Death stalks her in this first chapter. (she lives out, in this chapter, the opposite of her name joy, pleasantness, beautiful,delightful) She flees with her family during a famine, so leaves the now ironically named Bethlehem, house of bread, and settles in Moab. That is usually enemy territory in Scripture, and it is the place of the burial of Moses.Will it be the burial place for her family and her faith? Her sons marry local girls. Their names predict trouble as they are named sickness/pestilence and tuberculosis.Then she is widowed. Then as Vice President Biden says, the crushing loss of having her two sons pre-decease her falls upon this widow. We are given no reason for the calamity that touches Naomi’s family. In response, Naomi cannot accept her name any longer. Instead she says to call her Marah, bitterness, bitter tears. She lays the blame on her plight directly at the feet of God. She speaks of leaving full and returning empty. Wait, she left because of an empty belly. So, it seems she means her life was full, a husband and two sons. Even having enough to eat loses its importance in the face of such terrible loss. Now what to do in those pre Social Security days? Time to trudge back home alone, and see what will be. My sense is that she is going back home to die. People in the age group of my mother would say that they did not want to be a burden to their children, or to anyone, really. Naomi knows her youth has long since fled; her future is clouded at best. She does move, however; she will not be a passive recipient of death closing in on her. She urges her daughters-in-law to try to find new lives. She places no burdens of the past on them, no demands for loyalty.Orpah (Back of the neck, but also perhaps fawn) makes the decision to stay home, and that is a good decision. Ruth ( friend, companion, but could be pasture or even longing) wants to stay, and Naomi resists, and Ruth responds with a fundamental declaration of loyalty to her.(I think of the Marc Cohn song, True Companion). I’ve wondered why the book is named for ruth and not Naomi. this pledge, this oath, this tontine shows why. Israel opens up to others in this book and finds humanity, grace, and nobility across a border. This people could find the assurance and confidence to name a book for a foreign, female protagonist in ancient times. This story is also a version of the Good Samaritan. Then as now ethnic prejudice existed. Could anything good come out of Moab? Now this daughter of Moab, who apparently worshipped the gods of Moab, demonstrates a spectacular loyalty. She lives out the meaning of loving one’s neighbor as oneself that sums up biblical human relations. This daughter of supposed perdition supports herself and her mother-in-law. She is the human embodiment of the steadfast love of God. On this first sunday after All Saints Day, we read of death and the decision toward life. n the end, this is a book about facing grief. Naomi faces it squarely: the angry and bitter feelings. she faces the so called secondary losses of the change in status that accompany loss. She somehow finds the strength to move into an unknowable future. she does not live in the past but draws the shards of a life together to face the future in spite of her loss.together, They choose to live.

Friday column for All Souls Day and purgatory

I write for November 2, All Souls Day. I was raised in a most traditional Roman Catholic background, and this day was stressed as part of a piece with All Saints Day. I am now a Protestant pastor, and one of the doctrines on which some of us disagree is the doctrine of purgatory as shared with some older Protestant traditions.It deals with a basic religious desire: we want to arrogate to ourselves the decision to who is in heaven or hell. Basically, purgatory is seen as an intermediate, in-between state after death. The saints among us, in a blessed relationship with God and others, enter into heaven after death. Those on the opposite end of the spectrum are to suffer the pain of separation from God or perhaps annihilation or in some views, eternal punishment, in Hell. Given the long practice of prayers for the dead, purgatory seems to be an emerging notion. (One of the spiritual works of mercy we were taught was to pray for the living and dead). It also reflects a sense about holiness, that some of us, many of us, would require a continuing transformation of our orientation toward life and the good to be able to bear the sacred precincts. OK, if you insist, some of us would sully the purity of heaven: just go through jokes on St Peter in the receiving line of entering heaven. The doctrine has been reformed within the Roman Catholic Church in Vatican II and following years. Purgatory did reflect a fundamental issue about heaven itself. If Hell was to be seen as punishment, after a sort of criminal trial of one’s life, then was heaven a sort of civil court award, for good behaviors? Heavenly crowns for good deeds started to morph into a pre-condition for entering Heaven. So, purgatory developed a sense of doing time as well as being purified before entering heaven. This seemed to be particularly aimed at a sense of satisfying the demands of justice ofr venial sins, the disorder and disordered acts that we all struggle with in our lives. Indulgences were for acts beyond their intrinsic goodness; they could be vehicles to use as credits for time served in purgatory for ourselves or others. They could help balance the ledger. (Again, this is the older model here described, and through a Protestant prism).When I was a boy in Catholic school, we learned math through indulgences. “If one obtained 3 days indulgence from purgatory when you entered church and dipped one’s hand in the holy water and made the sign of the cross, how many days would one enjoy away from purgatory if one went to church the whole week?” I am convinced that one of the reasons, Catholic school kids do well on standardized tests is their early exposure to big words. Not only were there discrete indulgences, one could obtain a plenary indulgence for a particularly meaningful good deed. I recall my confusion when I tried to consider how one could obtain more than one plenary indulgence. How could one add to a surfeit of grace? In the end, most Christians struggle with the entire idea of salvation. We find it so hard to perceive that first it is about the whole of our existence, in this world and the world to come. Second, it is a gift of God’s grace for us. It is better perceived as healing sin sick souls than in a frame of reward and punishments. It is more than a ticket to heaven; it is entry into a new way of life in this world, a new way of seeing God, each other, and ourselves.It is a recognition that we are part of the same family; we are all in the same boat. God is constantly at work for that healing for all God’s children.