19th Sunday after Pentecost
Habakkuk 1:1-4; 2:1-4; Psalm 37:1-9; 2 Timothy 1:1-14; Luke 17:5-10
Both Habakkuk and the Psalmist are asking the same question about their life situations: What’s going on here? Why are we being so oppressed? Why are those oppressing us seeming to PROSPER? Aren’t WE the chosen ones, the beloved of the all-powerful God?
Habakkuk complains to God about this and asks for an answer. God’s answer is: Wait for the vision. You need to have a vision. And in chapter 3, the vision seems to be that God will arrive like a house of fire and level everything in a grand display of retributive justice.
The Psalmist, however, keeps saying: “Be not vexed!” “Do not fret.” Wait for the Lord. In verse 10, the Psalmist assures us that the wicked will “be no more.” Again and again the just, the meek, are assured that they will win, and their winning will translate into possession of the land.
Does the Old Testament vision change in the New Testament? In Luke 17, Jesus acknowledges the evil that even is directed at children and causes them to ‘stumble.’ He hates it. But right after his saying about millstones tied around the necks of those who corrupt little ones, another saying calls for forgiveness. And then he moves on to talk about faith. His vision is of his disciples having faith, even as small as a mustard seed. The vision is that all of the evil in the world cannot cause you to lose faith and once possessed of this gift, you have the power to change things, even impossible things, as difficult to move as trees (Luke) or mountains (Mark). In another place, Jesus makes it clear that 'winning' over evil will not be a matter of acreage, but of transformation.
The Pauline author’s last words to Timothy in his second letter are similar: stay close to God and cowardice won’t get control of you in the face of wickedness. You will be transformed.
Maybe it’s a mistake to attempt to tie these four readings together. But the creators of the lectionary did it in presenting them to us on this Sunday. I mean, we could also ask: is the Old Testament connected with the New Testament? Are the sacraments connected with the commandments? Are the letters connected to the Gospels? --In many ways, yes. Do our attempts to live as people of faith run in separate channels?
No. More and more spiritual leaders are fighting dualistic thinking and trying to get back to that single vision, that unity which is epitomized in Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Sunday, September 26, 2010
Monday, September 20, 2010
Commentary on Lectionary for September 26, 2010
18th Sunday after Pentecost
Amos 6:1a, 4-7, Psalm 146, 1 Timothy 6:6-19, Luke 16:19-31
A lot in the book of Amos is about God’s anger, including this passage. A website named enterthebible.org states, “Without the concept of God's anger, God's love is an empty concept.” What do you think of that? According to this website, God hates oppressors. The concept of God as a hater is a cherished one, paradoxically, as long as WE can decide whom He should hate. Some of the religious people in Jesus’ time felt that Jesus should hate the tax collectors and prostitutes and sinners, as they did. But he didn’t. And that’s the problem. “You’ve got to be taught to hate the world…you’ve got to be carefully taught”—remember that musical?
So back to Amos. Why do we assign an emotion like anger to God? --Because we cannot conceive of a Being who is always loving, who loves everyone, whose very essence is love. That sounds too namby/ pamby, too naïve, too touchy-feely, too IMPOSSIBLE. We are outraged at what people do to other people—just think of the scams and greed and bribes and corruption that have hurt so many. It makes us furious! Open your spam email and count the number of emails that are asking you to wire money somewhere to claim your winnings, and the sheer number of them and the gall of them make you furious that people would use this technology that has such potential for good, to defraud innocent people. Just read about war and the atrocities that seem to accompany war like kissing cousins. They make us all want to don the mantle of prophecy and to throw oracles like lightning bolts against the perpetrators of such evil.
What some preachers say is that God gets angry because he loves us. But when a loved one is truly angry with us, especially when He has the power to disintegrate us, it doesn’t feel much like love. And if we change our behavior because we are scared stiff of eternal damnation, fire, burning flesh and all the other terrible punishments we have been threatened with in our misguided youth, it is VERY difficult to see those as love, and then in middle age—bent over with guilt--to turn around in love toward that person who has threatened us “within an inch of our lives.“ The prodigal son didn’t return, according to scripture, because he feared thunderbolts from on high. He returned because he recognized the beneficence of his father, even toward that father’s hired hands.
What this country needs, say some, is more sermons that tell it like it is and threaten people with the fire and brimstone that would make Amos happy. This “anything goes” culture has got to go, they clamor. I agree. But for me, the way it will be transformed, is not by threats. It COULD happen by consequences. The consequences of selfish and oppressive, dishonest and violent behavior can certainly rain down upon our heads. These are NOT God-caused. These are the results of cheating, defrauding, oppressing. The poor may rise up. The FBI may come with handcuffs and chains. The people may unite in demanding an end to corruption. But anyone experiencing these just consequences for terrible, egotistic acts, can turn to God and KNOW that He loves. He cannot do otherwise. He does not know how to hate because He is positive and hate is negative; He is good and hate is evil; He is light and hate is darkness—you get the idea.
As Richard Rohr writes in The Naked Now, p. 60: “We already know far more than Jesus or Buddha ever knew, but the great difference is that they knew what they did know from a different level and from a different way. The same powerful scripture text that brings a loving person to even greater love will be mangled and misused by a fearful or egocentric person.”
Psalm 146 reminds us on whose side God is: He sides with the oppressed, the needy, the poor. He sides with those who rely on Him. Again the point seems to be to open ourselves to the experience, the love, of God. The Pauline letter to Timothy states it boldly: set our hopes on God, because to set them on money is to trip on the root of a LOT of evils—all of which lead to unhappiness and an unfulfilled life.
I had a chance recently and passed it up. A waitress in a restaurant I was in dropped a dish and it broke. The manager made a big and loud point of the fact that this expense would be deducted from the young woman’s pay. At first, I thought he was kidding. But then he repeated it and I thought: this woman is being paid close to minimum wage. I make much more than that. Why don’t I go back and offer her the $5 that will be deducted from her pay? After all, it was an accident. She hadn’t thrown the dish against the wall (or at the head of her employer). But I didn’t do it. I walked out. I felt it was none of my business and I might make things worse. But now I regret it. People underestimate, I’ve learned, the happiness that comes from being generous and giving money away. I resolved to go back when there is a next time.
Jesus’ story in Luke 16 about the Rich Man and Lazarus has given me nightmares. Is this how I treat the poor? Yes, I donate to the Cleveland Foodbank and to other charities, but is that enough? Stop. Does this parable make it clear that Jesus could not possibly love ME? --Because I have too much money? –Because I am not generous enough? –Because I have not given enough of it away? I have not travelled to foreign countries to establish schools and clinics and distribution points. I have not risked my life… Stop. The solution for us who are relatively wealthy is to acknowledge its irrelevance to happiness; to become needy in spirit; to cast our material cares on the Lord; to hope—not in our wise investments—but in His presence.
And so I come to the greatest test of my faith, and it is this one test question: “Can God possibly love ME?” Those who know, who are ‘experts’ in prayer, gurus of the spirit say: God cannot NOT love you. He IS love. And so, I imagine he might just see me there, climbed up in my tree with all its branches of fear and guilt and attachments, and he might look up and say: “Come down. I want to eat supper with you.”
Amos 6:1a, 4-7, Psalm 146, 1 Timothy 6:6-19, Luke 16:19-31
A lot in the book of Amos is about God’s anger, including this passage. A website named enterthebible.org states, “Without the concept of God's anger, God's love is an empty concept.” What do you think of that? According to this website, God hates oppressors. The concept of God as a hater is a cherished one, paradoxically, as long as WE can decide whom He should hate. Some of the religious people in Jesus’ time felt that Jesus should hate the tax collectors and prostitutes and sinners, as they did. But he didn’t. And that’s the problem. “You’ve got to be taught to hate the world…you’ve got to be carefully taught”—remember that musical?
So back to Amos. Why do we assign an emotion like anger to God? --Because we cannot conceive of a Being who is always loving, who loves everyone, whose very essence is love. That sounds too namby/ pamby, too naïve, too touchy-feely, too IMPOSSIBLE. We are outraged at what people do to other people—just think of the scams and greed and bribes and corruption that have hurt so many. It makes us furious! Open your spam email and count the number of emails that are asking you to wire money somewhere to claim your winnings, and the sheer number of them and the gall of them make you furious that people would use this technology that has such potential for good, to defraud innocent people. Just read about war and the atrocities that seem to accompany war like kissing cousins. They make us all want to don the mantle of prophecy and to throw oracles like lightning bolts against the perpetrators of such evil.
What some preachers say is that God gets angry because he loves us. But when a loved one is truly angry with us, especially when He has the power to disintegrate us, it doesn’t feel much like love. And if we change our behavior because we are scared stiff of eternal damnation, fire, burning flesh and all the other terrible punishments we have been threatened with in our misguided youth, it is VERY difficult to see those as love, and then in middle age—bent over with guilt--to turn around in love toward that person who has threatened us “within an inch of our lives.“ The prodigal son didn’t return, according to scripture, because he feared thunderbolts from on high. He returned because he recognized the beneficence of his father, even toward that father’s hired hands.
What this country needs, say some, is more sermons that tell it like it is and threaten people with the fire and brimstone that would make Amos happy. This “anything goes” culture has got to go, they clamor. I agree. But for me, the way it will be transformed, is not by threats. It COULD happen by consequences. The consequences of selfish and oppressive, dishonest and violent behavior can certainly rain down upon our heads. These are NOT God-caused. These are the results of cheating, defrauding, oppressing. The poor may rise up. The FBI may come with handcuffs and chains. The people may unite in demanding an end to corruption. But anyone experiencing these just consequences for terrible, egotistic acts, can turn to God and KNOW that He loves. He cannot do otherwise. He does not know how to hate because He is positive and hate is negative; He is good and hate is evil; He is light and hate is darkness—you get the idea.
As Richard Rohr writes in The Naked Now, p. 60: “We already know far more than Jesus or Buddha ever knew, but the great difference is that they knew what they did know from a different level and from a different way. The same powerful scripture text that brings a loving person to even greater love will be mangled and misused by a fearful or egocentric person.”
Psalm 146 reminds us on whose side God is: He sides with the oppressed, the needy, the poor. He sides with those who rely on Him. Again the point seems to be to open ourselves to the experience, the love, of God. The Pauline letter to Timothy states it boldly: set our hopes on God, because to set them on money is to trip on the root of a LOT of evils—all of which lead to unhappiness and an unfulfilled life.
I had a chance recently and passed it up. A waitress in a restaurant I was in dropped a dish and it broke. The manager made a big and loud point of the fact that this expense would be deducted from the young woman’s pay. At first, I thought he was kidding. But then he repeated it and I thought: this woman is being paid close to minimum wage. I make much more than that. Why don’t I go back and offer her the $5 that will be deducted from her pay? After all, it was an accident. She hadn’t thrown the dish against the wall (or at the head of her employer). But I didn’t do it. I walked out. I felt it was none of my business and I might make things worse. But now I regret it. People underestimate, I’ve learned, the happiness that comes from being generous and giving money away. I resolved to go back when there is a next time.
Jesus’ story in Luke 16 about the Rich Man and Lazarus has given me nightmares. Is this how I treat the poor? Yes, I donate to the Cleveland Foodbank and to other charities, but is that enough? Stop. Does this parable make it clear that Jesus could not possibly love ME? --Because I have too much money? –Because I am not generous enough? –Because I have not given enough of it away? I have not travelled to foreign countries to establish schools and clinics and distribution points. I have not risked my life… Stop. The solution for us who are relatively wealthy is to acknowledge its irrelevance to happiness; to become needy in spirit; to cast our material cares on the Lord; to hope—not in our wise investments—but in His presence.
And so I come to the greatest test of my faith, and it is this one test question: “Can God possibly love ME?” Those who know, who are ‘experts’ in prayer, gurus of the spirit say: God cannot NOT love you. He IS love. And so, I imagine he might just see me there, climbed up in my tree with all its branches of fear and guilt and attachments, and he might look up and say: “Come down. I want to eat supper with you.”
Sunday, September 12, 2010
Commentary on Lectionary for September 19, 2010--25C
Amos 8:4-7; Psalm 113; 1 Timothy 2:1-7; Luke 16:1-13
Amos is one of the so-called “minor prophets,” a shepherd (1:1) turned poet and prophet during the prosperous reign of King Jeroboam II in the 8th century BCE. He prophesied in the northern kingdom, called Israel, from one of the royal sanctuaries until he was kicked out by the priest in charge (7:12) because of his harsh oracles.
These few verses are about justice—specifically about not cheating people by using false scales or enslaving them because they owe you some money for sandals. When acquiring money by unjust means is your target, keeping the Sabbath and observing other laws that level the playing field between rich and poor (such as forgiving debts, for example), are simply an unwelcome distraction, a pious nuisance. Corruption becomes a way of doing business. Sound familiar?
Where is God in all this? Amos makes Him out to be an almighty avenger who will exact terrible vengeance on these people who are so proud: “I will make the sun set at midday…I will turn your feasts into mourning…and make every head bald…and bring their day to a bitter end” (Amos 8:9-10). Those verses are outside our reading today, and we can also look outside of Amos’s worldview at a different concept of God. Jesus gives it to us—a God who hates not us, but our pain; a God who cries with the destitute and motivates his lovers to do something about their state.
Remember last week’s Gospel stories about lost sheep and lost coins? True, we are all lost, but once we are found by the Relentless Pursuer (remember The Hound of Heaven?), then we ourselves want to come to the aid of the destitute, to go find some lost sheep, to be sweepers in the dark corners of life.
Psalm 113 talks about God as “above the heavens…enthroned on high,” which may be one of the reasons we look UP when we pray and have an idea of God as “out there” somewhere. Again we can get caught up in the idea of a mighty God wreaking justice by raising “up the lowly from the dust…to seat them with princes.” But if we can get out of the king/power/winners-losers paradigm, we can see God as one for whom everyone is of equal importance—those on the dunghills of life and those in the palaces. Both are called to respond to his love and to take care of each other according to their means (which means the prince has the bigger obligation).
1 Timothy makes this clear: God “wants all men to be saved and come to know the truth” (4). In fact, the Pauline writer implies that the kings and those in authority can do a lot to make it possible for all of us to live “tranquil lives in piety” (2b). And so we should pray for them and thank God for good ones.
In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus tells a story about a wealthy owner who found out his manager was cheating him. Fearing he was going to be fired and out on the street, the manager made friends with those who owed him money by cutting their debts in half. He did what he needed to do, and he was praised for it.
What WE need to do, says Jesus, is to learn that all wealth is temporary. It doesn’t last. In itself, it can’t even make us happy. [Did you see the study that found that after reaching $75,000, more money does NOT increase happiness?] So why do we have it? Should we use it to level the playing field? To look around to see if anyone is destitute and needs it?
Few of us have the courage to do much of that. See the poignant comic strip at: http://www.freethunk.net/russells-teapot/comics-russells-teapot-strip-10.php.The rich young man goes away sad (but still loved!). We may need to do something first. We are lost in all this “stuff;” we need to allow ourselves to be found. Once we experience the God who loves us, there will be no need to serve money.
Amos is one of the so-called “minor prophets,” a shepherd (1:1) turned poet and prophet during the prosperous reign of King Jeroboam II in the 8th century BCE. He prophesied in the northern kingdom, called Israel, from one of the royal sanctuaries until he was kicked out by the priest in charge (7:12) because of his harsh oracles.
These few verses are about justice—specifically about not cheating people by using false scales or enslaving them because they owe you some money for sandals. When acquiring money by unjust means is your target, keeping the Sabbath and observing other laws that level the playing field between rich and poor (such as forgiving debts, for example), are simply an unwelcome distraction, a pious nuisance. Corruption becomes a way of doing business. Sound familiar?
Where is God in all this? Amos makes Him out to be an almighty avenger who will exact terrible vengeance on these people who are so proud: “I will make the sun set at midday…I will turn your feasts into mourning…and make every head bald…and bring their day to a bitter end” (Amos 8:9-10). Those verses are outside our reading today, and we can also look outside of Amos’s worldview at a different concept of God. Jesus gives it to us—a God who hates not us, but our pain; a God who cries with the destitute and motivates his lovers to do something about their state.
Remember last week’s Gospel stories about lost sheep and lost coins? True, we are all lost, but once we are found by the Relentless Pursuer (remember The Hound of Heaven?), then we ourselves want to come to the aid of the destitute, to go find some lost sheep, to be sweepers in the dark corners of life.
Psalm 113 talks about God as “above the heavens…enthroned on high,” which may be one of the reasons we look UP when we pray and have an idea of God as “out there” somewhere. Again we can get caught up in the idea of a mighty God wreaking justice by raising “up the lowly from the dust…to seat them with princes.” But if we can get out of the king/power/winners-losers paradigm, we can see God as one for whom everyone is of equal importance—those on the dunghills of life and those in the palaces. Both are called to respond to his love and to take care of each other according to their means (which means the prince has the bigger obligation).
1 Timothy makes this clear: God “wants all men to be saved and come to know the truth” (4). In fact, the Pauline writer implies that the kings and those in authority can do a lot to make it possible for all of us to live “tranquil lives in piety” (2b). And so we should pray for them and thank God for good ones.
In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus tells a story about a wealthy owner who found out his manager was cheating him. Fearing he was going to be fired and out on the street, the manager made friends with those who owed him money by cutting their debts in half. He did what he needed to do, and he was praised for it.
What WE need to do, says Jesus, is to learn that all wealth is temporary. It doesn’t last. In itself, it can’t even make us happy. [Did you see the study that found that after reaching $75,000, more money does NOT increase happiness?] So why do we have it? Should we use it to level the playing field? To look around to see if anyone is destitute and needs it?
Few of us have the courage to do much of that. See the poignant comic strip at: http://www.freethunk.net/russells-teapot/comics-russells-teapot-strip-10.php.The rich young man goes away sad (but still loved!). We may need to do something first. We are lost in all this “stuff;” we need to allow ourselves to be found. Once we experience the God who loves us, there will be no need to serve money.
Saturday, September 4, 2010
Commentary on Lectionary for September 12, 2010--Ordinary 24C
16th Sunday after Pentecost
When you are being screamed at by an irate boss, it takes everything in you to keep In touch with an inner self that knows you are a good person and that believes the boss can’t destroy that certitude. Reading Moses’ speech in Deuteronomy 30:15-20 last Sunday required you to keep your balance. If you have been brought up with a terrifying concept of God, this passage will only add to it or throw you back into it.
In those extremely rough days—no electricity, no escape from the heat, little food, scarce water, unclear direction—Moses had a tough time reminding all those people what they were doing and why. “Do you really want to go back there to Egypt? Must I remind you what the situation was really like there? Can you not retain your belief in a God who offers you life In the midst of this difficult journey?” Keep choosing God, Moses seemed to be saying, no matter how hard it gets.
This week’s first reading switches to Exodus 32:7-14. It is a famous story. It’s a story of what can happen when people are led into strange new territory and then the leader disappears. Is he coming back? When? So what do we do now? Aren’t we supposed to be GOING somewhere? You can imagine the bickering, the attempts by one after the other to put forward their ideas. But finally they settle on Aaron, the brother of Moses, as leader, but one they can control.
The people longed for an icon, something tangible, an image. They were willing to pay big money for it—to bring Aaron all their gold and jewelry. Wow! At this point, many preachers will remind us of a long list of things that WE substitute for God. And we squirm in our seats and try not to feel guilty.
But Thomas Keating says that the greatest gift we can give God is to allow Him to love us! He says that we cannot separate His might, His omnipotence, from His mercy, His forgiveness. Makes you wonder what would have happened if Aaron had proclaimed a series of sessions on how to pray and taught people how to use this wilderness experience as a way to contact God, or, better, as a way to let God contact them, each and every person. And the way that’s expressed in this passage from Exodus is that Moses gets God to change His mind about destroying the people. Unfortunately, we take from this passage the idea that we must pray harder, amass points, find someone holy (Jesus?) to intercede with God so that He will change His mind and be forgiving, kind and loving to us. NOT NECESSARY. The message of Jesus is: the Father loves you and wants to be one with you.
Getting to that openness so that His love can fill it can be like a journey through the desert and an exodus from the familiar. And so Psalm 51 is still appropriate: "Create in me [us] a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me [us]." An ‘examination of consciousness’ is still helpful, if—in Eckhard Tolle’s insight—the examination carries us to the knowledge of the Being that is beyond our situational life, beyond our boss’s rants, and beyond space and time.
In 1 Timothy 1:12-17, the Pauline author acknowledges his sinfulness, but explains that he obtained mercy because he did sinful things “ignorantly, in unbelief” (1:13). But many of us don’t have that excuse. However, we do have Jesus’ words from the cross: “Father, forgive them , because they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34). And the Father does just that.
Jesus models the Father’s concern by associating with sinners and telling stories about lost sheep and lost coins. The owners drop everything and everyone to go look (Luke 15: 1-10). And when the owners find the sheep and the coin, there is great rejoicing. And when we are found, there will be great rejoicing!
When you are being screamed at by an irate boss, it takes everything in you to keep In touch with an inner self that knows you are a good person and that believes the boss can’t destroy that certitude. Reading Moses’ speech in Deuteronomy 30:15-20 last Sunday required you to keep your balance. If you have been brought up with a terrifying concept of God, this passage will only add to it or throw you back into it.
In those extremely rough days—no electricity, no escape from the heat, little food, scarce water, unclear direction—Moses had a tough time reminding all those people what they were doing and why. “Do you really want to go back there to Egypt? Must I remind you what the situation was really like there? Can you not retain your belief in a God who offers you life In the midst of this difficult journey?” Keep choosing God, Moses seemed to be saying, no matter how hard it gets.
This week’s first reading switches to Exodus 32:7-14. It is a famous story. It’s a story of what can happen when people are led into strange new territory and then the leader disappears. Is he coming back? When? So what do we do now? Aren’t we supposed to be GOING somewhere? You can imagine the bickering, the attempts by one after the other to put forward their ideas. But finally they settle on Aaron, the brother of Moses, as leader, but one they can control.
The people longed for an icon, something tangible, an image. They were willing to pay big money for it—to bring Aaron all their gold and jewelry. Wow! At this point, many preachers will remind us of a long list of things that WE substitute for God. And we squirm in our seats and try not to feel guilty.
But Thomas Keating says that the greatest gift we can give God is to allow Him to love us! He says that we cannot separate His might, His omnipotence, from His mercy, His forgiveness. Makes you wonder what would have happened if Aaron had proclaimed a series of sessions on how to pray and taught people how to use this wilderness experience as a way to contact God, or, better, as a way to let God contact them, each and every person. And the way that’s expressed in this passage from Exodus is that Moses gets God to change His mind about destroying the people. Unfortunately, we take from this passage the idea that we must pray harder, amass points, find someone holy (Jesus?) to intercede with God so that He will change His mind and be forgiving, kind and loving to us. NOT NECESSARY. The message of Jesus is: the Father loves you and wants to be one with you.
Getting to that openness so that His love can fill it can be like a journey through the desert and an exodus from the familiar. And so Psalm 51 is still appropriate: "Create in me [us] a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me [us]." An ‘examination of consciousness’ is still helpful, if—in Eckhard Tolle’s insight—the examination carries us to the knowledge of the Being that is beyond our situational life, beyond our boss’s rants, and beyond space and time.
In 1 Timothy 1:12-17, the Pauline author acknowledges his sinfulness, but explains that he obtained mercy because he did sinful things “ignorantly, in unbelief” (1:13). But many of us don’t have that excuse. However, we do have Jesus’ words from the cross: “Father, forgive them , because they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34). And the Father does just that.
Jesus models the Father’s concern by associating with sinners and telling stories about lost sheep and lost coins. The owners drop everything and everyone to go look (Luke 15: 1-10). And when the owners find the sheep and the coin, there is great rejoicing. And when we are found, there will be great rejoicing!
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