OT notes Ruth 1

1) For me, one of the best treatments of Ruth is still in Trible's God and the Rhetoric of Sexuality. 2) I wonder why it did not get the name Naomi, instead of Ruth. 3) In terms of suffering is not Naomi a female Job,she loses everything due to a famine, lives in a foreign land, loses her two sons, is widowed?Famine is ironic when one lives in Bethlehem, house of bread. 4) That we are in a tale is indicated by the names of her sons:pestilence and tuberculosis.How could they end up healthy with the notion of living out one's name? We make such a fuss over the enacted prophecy name given for Hosea and Gomer's offspring, but these are definitely in the team picture. 5) the story could be a good entry point into speaking on social safety nets. 6) Both Orpah and Ruth do a good thing, even if they are opposite. Orpah could mean neck, or shadow/gloom, or gazelle. Ruth is generally thought to be friend/companion or taken differently a vision of beauty, perhaps pasture 7) Naomi, joy, pleasantness,beauty, delight- gives as good a sense of the years that go by us from youth, not to be recaptured as any short speech anywhere.That strikes me as a rarely used motif for this passage. 8) The great covenant between the two women is a piece of itself. Note that the words come from a foreigner and Moab usually has a poor connotation, save that it could be the burial site of Moses.In its way is this story not a direct assault on the program of purging inter-marriage out of the fear of mixing that was said to be initiated in the post-exilic community by Ezra? 9) Notice how often the word, sub, return, go back appears in this chapter and what can we say with Thomas Wolfe that you can't go home again, or can we? 10) Naomi faces the theodicy issue. She calls herself mara-bitter tears/bitterness/ She says that El Shaddai (God of the mountains but some think it has a connection to breasts, a nurturing god) who has done it. She lays the events right at the divine doorstep.

Halloween column

I haven’t lived in Alton that long, but it does not take long to find our fascination with the otherworldly. At this time of year, so many houses are lavishly and ghoulishly decorated, and all sorts of tours are offered for a taste of some of our many haunted sites.I have met a number of people who tell tales of encounters with the ghostly. Unhappy that Scripture gives but the barest of images for heaven, a small cottage industry treats us to a panoply of near death experience books that give us tours of heaven. I do not doubt that some of the reports are valid to the authors, but I do prefer the open-ended visions of the Bible to a series of well-defined, culturally obvious grand tours of these books. How different are they really from the victorian projections of books such as the Gates Ajar that offered a pleasing familiarity to families who had loved ones lost in the slaughter of the Civil War? I have little patience with those who fear halloween as it may confuse young people. It’s a tle to help us face the reality of death in a cute way. Like all carnival times, it exposes the structures that undergird our familiar world and even holds them up to ridiucle. Good.Nor do I have much patience with the health nannies who scream about indulgence in candy one night a year. I do admire groups that add some additional social meaning such as the old Trick or Treat for UNICEF program. Halloween precedes All Saints Day that recalls the folks in heaven and All Souls Day, where folks were thought to be in the cleansing of purgatory before being among the saints in heaven. So, it is no surprise that it picked up elements from different cultures about the abode of the dead, but with a more sinister shape. Death stalks us all, so Halloween help us to face our fears about death but making fun of the situation of mortality. Rarely do we go through life open, for that makes us vulnerable. We spend a lot of time building up defenses, presenting different personas, different masks to wear for different social situations. Halloween masks invite us to play a different role. for some, we let a different aspect of our personality shine through, Sometimes we project our aspirations, so we may parade around as superheroes. We may honor someone, such as the profusion of political or celebrity masks.Sometimes we face our fears by donning a mask. again, think political masks and the popularity of the Nixon mask. Our culture seems to be dealing with a new round of fascination with the line between life and death. Our youngest daughter took her introduction to rhetoric class through the prism of zombies in the arts. They are walking dead, the name of a popular TV program. The Twilight saga continues on screen soon. I just read a piece by Zaleski in a recent Christian Century where folks are talking about trying to encode our mental connections on to a computer to try to enjoy a sort 6fo virtual immortality. I wonder if death explorations are so popular as death is one of the last frontiers that technology has yet to peer behind. I also wonder if we do not feel as if we are living life to its fullest, so we try to capture a sense of its preciousness by focusing on those who walk the line between life and death. if life does not seem purposeful, then would not immortality bring with it the terror of extended ennui? Halloween is fun; that adds spice to life. That is good enough for me.

Oct 28 Job 42, Mark 10:36-42 Sermon Notes

Oct 28 Job 42 and Mark 10:46-52 Two of our passages tell of men who get a new lease on life.Timaeus means honored or highly prized. Not surprisingly Job means persecuted, even hated.thins get better for both of them. In Luke we encounter the struggle not with a man born blind., Here the son of Timaeus has lost his sight.When he approached Jesus, this demanding , desperate man asks one word,in Greek, anablepo, that I regain my sight, that I see again. It is difficult not to have an attribute, an ability, but to know and lose it is more so, it seems to me.It’s one of the rough things about growing older because memory tells us about a version of ourselves that has faded into memory. For those of us who suffer with headaches, one of the worst is the so called rebound, when you’ve had some relief but then it comes back even worse than before. To lose seems to be more painful than not to have. I always say that the physical is a gateway to the spiritual in the gospels. What would it mean spiritually to see, to lose sight, and then to regain sight? In some respects, it is the religious story of many:raised in the church, falling away from the church, recovering the church. It is a sense of having a compass, losing it, and then finding one’s way again. Can suffering be a gateway to insight? Part of me says no, that it is a poor way to teach any lessons and threatens to destroy its victims. We have just skimmed a bit of the magnificent book of Job in the last month, but we do know that Job had everything and then lost it all. He fights with god about undeserved suffering and god responds with a grand cosmic tour. Now Job responds but more concisely than he has in his complaints. I am aware of few translations that are as widely different as trying to grasp Job’s words in our little passage. Usually it is repent in dust and ashes, as that he is sorry to have ever questioned god. It could be repenting of or from dust and ashes, in other words, he will live again. It could be that he has changed his mind concerning dust and ashes,. In other words he has a new view of human life and death in the grand scheme of things.He had it all, and then in a flash it was gone. so, i could certainly see him saying what's the point, what's the use, everything seems to be nothing but dust and ashes. Here, not only does he get his talk with god, but he is restored. I realize that the loss of his children will be a constant loss, but he does get another family. We are told of their beauty, with names for makeup and scents. I don't know about the lovely Mrs. Job, and his possessions return. Part of the multiple aspects of salvation is restoration. It is a wonderful thing to be restored to a good place. It could be health. I love when people who have knee replacements will speak of the first day in years when their foot hits the floor upon awakening and no pain greets their day. I am convinced that some couples like to fight only because they enjoy making up so much. After all of his struggles Job finds restoration. No, his children cannot come back, but he does get a new family and security again. (Jon van Nuys notes that the names are like the Kardashians). Sometimes it is a victory just to get up in the morning. sometimes we cna look back at how far we have ocme. soemtimes we look around an see a miracle.

Oct. 28 Devotions

October 28 Sunday-Ps 34 This time I was struck by the words-this poor soul cried, and was heard by the Lord. I remember that Jackie Gleason had a character called the poor soul. Do you know a poor soul? When does your soul feel poor? How do you manage to climb out of that feeling? How have you helped another poor soul? Monday- In my October 3 Christian Century one can find a treasure trove of material, a reason I continue to subscribe to it. A regular columnist, Carol Zaleski, a professor at Smith, wrote an interesting piece of the search for extending our “lives” digitally. Already some plans are being drawn up to try to preserve the connections in the brain in the hope that our experience could then be encoded in a computer chip and we could exist as a mix of robot and human being. Star Trek had an episode where Spock’s brain was hooked ot a massive computer, and we may be facing such possibilities one day. All that being said, how do you imagine heaven and immortality? Tuesday-the same issue has an article on a young man who started serving soup and bread to the hungry once a week to get some folks in a bar. A woman said” every time I do soup, you’re bringing people together and creating community over something beautiful.” I don’t know how much “community” such a place serves, but it does create some common bonds of the people who bring soup and help to serve it. It does make me think how the basic Christian sacrament is sharing the bread of life and the cup of salvation around a table. Wednesday-I just went to a Presbytery training on racism that was most dispiriting, as it focused on blame. The philosopher Martha Nussbaum has a new book on fighting intolerance born of fear. She speaks of developing a sympathetic imagination to help us try, really try to put ourselves in the place and situation of another. In so doing, we are not so quick to judge others. What differences tend to trigger your intolerance? where have you grown more tolerant over the years? Thursday-All Saints Day honors those in heaven. It started to commemorate Christian martyr and was celebrated in the Easter season, but in the West it took this date when a special chapel to martyrs was consecrated. I just received a note from a friend who has a hard time with her husband’s death falling so close to All Saints Day. this day may god honor your tears, your regrets, and your pain. may god give you comfort as you need it at this stage of your life. May we look forward to a grand family reunion one day with God. Friday-All Souls Day floated around but over the years was connected to this date. While all saints remembered the saints in heaven, this day marked those in purgatory. Obviously, Protestants abandoned this notion, but I do not have any problems with another day to recall the dead. Especially, we could use it to pray over our regrets and resentments that we still hold toward the deceased. Saturday-Garrett Keizer writes thoughtful pieces on a variety of topics, such as anger. Now he has a new book on noise. Silence is hard to come by in our noisy world. I also think we fear silence, so we cover the silence with a constant sonic background. where do you crave silence, and where do you find it?

OT notes Job 42

Somehow I seem to not have posted OT notes properly. I will try to make sure they are properly posted, until I slack off yet again. 1) Job 42 returns us to the prose envelope of the poetic portion, the preacher and interpreter should decide if the poetry portion is to be included within this frame or not. the critical issue would be the line about the friends not speaking properly as has the servant Job. After all, all they have done in the prose section is to sit quietly with their friend. 2) Next, the issue is how to translate v. 6. It can be variously translated. look at the NIB list for a good start. I tend to go with- I repent concerning dust and ashes- I move from dust and ashes- as in Job changes toward his view of mortality and mortals, or that he moves from his posture toward living again. 3) the happy ending asks an important question. Is getting twice as much as previously a way of making up for the trouble? Especially, are children replaceable? 4) Notice, even with the splicing in the lectionary, Job has prayed for his friends who have not spoken rightly of god. I would assume that means that their defense, based on a simple reward punishment scheme is wrong. Therefore, so is our attempt to follow this same trite path. 5) I never really noticed that all who know Job (inlcuding Mrs Job??) comfort and console him over his troubles. 6) John Van Nuys ahs a pungent way of putting things. He compares Job;s daughters to the Kardashians. (He knows about them as he reads People in his physical therapy waiting room)Jemimah means little dove (Arabic)-Keziah may refer to cinnamon and the final name means possibly shiny eye make-up, how about mascara? Let's be clear here. I fthe closing prose includes material from the poetry then Job's argument with god is praised; Job's integrity is intact (contra at least a piece in Princeton Seminary Bulletin by Newsom), and the defense of the friends, the basic theodicy route is wrong.

Job 38 Oct 21 Sermon Notes

partially. The Divine One won;t be questioned by Job ,but he will give Job a remarkable gift, a tour of the cosmos. In the 19th century, young wealthy Americans would get to go on a Grand Tour of Europe. People go on cruises to get away from it all. I notice on Facebook that people are constantly posting pictures of getaways as their ideal, but they rarely post pictures of their own home. Realizing that Job has become terribly depressed, God want to move him away from dwelling on the injustice of his troubles. No one in the history of the world could go on a similar tour of the wonders of the universe as can we. From the micro world of the virus, to the quantum world of physics to the immensity revealed by the Hubble telescope peering into time’s galactic distance, worlds unfold before us. Out of this tour, Job learns some powerful positions. 1) the world does not revolve around human beings alone. 2) The world is complex and is not structured only for human well-being alone. 3) We are connected to a vast and complicated universe. Its interlocking nature concerns God as much as the needs of an individual. recall the movie with Jim Carrey, Bruce Almighty, obtaining divine power and he is unable to process all of the conflicting demands that are pouring in from earth. 4) Human notions of value do not necessarily apply to God. Notice how God lifts up the wild v. the domesticated animals. The rain falls where crops do not grow. I’ve noticed that when people speak of God in creation, they usually bring up a pretty sunrise, but I rarely hear about adulation of a mosquito or manure. Even Leviathan, the great sea monster, the very symbol of all that is uncertain, chaotic, destructive of the created order somehow fits within creation and God even delights in its display. God seems to have a soft spot for the untamed majesty of nature, but that means it may well be inimical to human beings. Did some of you watch Wild Kingdom, where Marlon would be safe and sound while Jim was getting strangled by a python? Bill McKibben writes that God finds creation to be of unbearable beauty.5) Our field of vision is not nearly as wide as the Creator of the universe. We cannot get the field of divine optics through our weak eyes. A friend of mine went out at 1 in the morning to look at the Perseid meteor shower and it was enough to remind her that “it is not all about me.” Copernicus gave us a new view of our place in the cosmos, that we circled the sun. Really, most of us could use the inner Copernican revolution to come to realize that the world does not revolve around us, the sun does not rise and set on us. Climbing up the old four mile trail in Yosemite, I was level with the top of a tree, and a raven cried out. Maybe it was protecting young, or it was speaking to me out of a Poe poem, nevermore, nevermore, should you even try this climb, (you house of flab.) When we are down and depressed, we tend to do a bit of dwelling inward. God changes the perspective for Job and gives him a different view, an expansive view. Job sees his troubles, but also the world around him in all its dizzying complexity. That change allows Job to go on. He can expect blessings, but not immunity from the trials life brings us, He then can see a God not in terms of simple cause and effect, but involved in a most complex world.

Devotional Notes Week of Oct. 21

Sunday-Ps.104 will be heard through a hymn (224, blue book) today in church. (the advantages of practicing with the choir). It is a fulsome hymn of creation. Consider writing out a list of ten elements of creation that inspire awe. After going through the grandeur of creation, the hymn asks God to rejoice in this creation. What elements of creation give god cause for joy, do you think? When does God rejoice in you? Monday-One of our members is soon to run a marathon. I sat across from two pastors who are running the same route in STL. It hit me hard that the spiritual life is a marathon and a sprint. Sometimes we need to run from or toward something now and fast. Usually, we are putting one foot in front of another moving toward a far distant finish line. What are the virtues needed for spiritual sprints and spiritual marathons? Tuesday-I start moderating the session meeting for another congregation today. I like the idea in our church that pastors moderate meetings, as the pastor seeks to draw out the ideas and response from the representatives of the congregation, the elders. I think that it limits a pastor trying to use it as an extension of one’s own ideas. I tend to dislike meetings but do admit tha the Spirit moves in and through them constantly. What church board decisions stand out in your mind over the years? Wednesday-I read the new Jesse Stone novel. It’s noteworthy only because the whole Robert B. Parker franchise has continued with different authors taking over his different main characters. It made me think of the “deposit of faith” of the church, where members of each generation hand down the faith and try to be faithful to its author. What are the primary signs of finding and holding true to the deposit of faith in 2012? Thursday-I’ve started the new novel by Michael Chabon, Telegraph Avenue. The man is a master of language. Just in the opening section he speaks of “skateboard wheels unraveling against the asphalt.” Part of me thinks that sermons and devotions should be models of clarity, but at other times, I do prize something that is more than clear but elegant. Do you have favorite religious writers, poets, lyric writers? Do certain writers tend to give you moments of religious insight? . Friday-I was present for a disappointing lecture, more of a loosely structured memoir, by Bishop Robinson in STL recently. I was reminded that the church has a long way to go in dealing with conflict as he recounted death threats against him and his family when he was to be consecrated as bishop in his church. Why is the church often so poor at dealing with conflict? What have you learned about resolving conflict peacefully over the years? Saturday-Last Saturday I went to the official unveiling a large mural at the new site of the Farmer’s Market. I so admire creative people. I do see their inspiration as Spirit-derived, just as the word itself shows. The world can be ugly, and people who add to its store of beauty are treasures. think of some creative people you know and some works you admire. Please consider issuing a prayer of thanks for them.Do you gravitate more toward music or the visual arts? Do you use your preferences to enhance the beauty of your spiritual life?