Comments on Joshua 2:1-24; 6:1-25; Judges 4:1-22; 11:29-40; 12:1-6
Biblical Literacy, pages 75-84
In our Bible study, we march into 2012 with Joshua, who led the Israelites into the land promised them by God, bringing down the walls of Jericho, occupying the land, conquering the inhabitants who were living there, and dividing it up among the 12 tribes (Joshua 13 and 14).
What, do you suppose, gave them the right to take over this land? What gives anyone the right to take over or annex land? Was it because they were refugees? Was it because the real owner of the land (all of it on this earth) is God, and He gave it to the Israelites? Was it because they were tired of being nomads and wanted to settle down? Were there economic issues as their population recovered from the ‘civil war’ in the desert and from the plagues that decimated them? Or was all of this because – as Dr. Beal suggests – they saw themselves as chosen by God to fulfill their destiny in this place?
These historical books are going to be filled with violence and war—both aggressive war and defensive war—just like our own history, our literature and our movies are. You wouldn’t want your kids to read these stories, to rejoice over the tent spike being driven into Sisera’s head by Jael, or Jephthah killing his daughter to fulfill a vow he made to God because He gave him victory over the Ammonites. Indeed, these were violent times.
As prognosticators make their often cynical predictions for the coming year, we can wonder what these readings have to tell us for the New Year? Dr. Beal laments what happens when humans have taken them as a model, have called themselves ‘God’s chosen ones,’ and then have labeled everyone else as an enemy or an infidel. He suggests we read them instead as a mirror, discovering our personal hard-wiring for violence in this looking glass of scripture. The books reflect back to us our own psyches.
Even in science fiction, like Peter F. Hamilton’s fanciful tale called Judas Unchained, the author can envision wonderful technologies that allow people to travel with the speed of light, to rejuvenate their bodies and minds, to communicate through virtual arrays, to preserve their memories on memory chips that can be implanted in new bodies, but what he cannot envision is a universe at peace.
When James Carroll came to Cleveland to speak about his movie Constantine’s Sword, he showed poignant and disturbing slides of demonstrators (himself among them) being arrested for protesting the war in Vietnam in front of the Pentagon, while inside, his own father was helping to direct the war in defense of our country’s ideals.
What we do know is that our actions have consequences, just like those of the Israelites did. How many times do educators hear after a student fight: “My mother and father told me never to let other kids bully me or push me around. I had to stand up for myself!” The Hebrew Scriptures are a study in bullying and vengeance, in taking what those at the time thought was rightfully theirs.
What a weak character, then, must Jesus seem to many people! --Turning the other cheek, refusing to act out of anger, restoring property, healing, forgiving, letting yourself be killed for your ideals. No wonder people like Constantine could not understand this! Put a cross on your helmet and carry it into battle! God is on our side! Converting people must start with a crusade to wipe out unbelievers; heretics must be burned!
What we cannot tolerate is looking at ourselves in this mirror of violence and seeing that we are the ones who have to convert our swords into ploughshares. We cannot tolerate acknowledging that our enemies are also beloved of God. In 2012, who can join arms and hands and take one step in the direction of peace? That would be a resolution (and a revolution)!
Friday, December 30, 2011
Monday, December 12, 2011
Comments on Excerpts from Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy
Comments on Leviticus 10:1-3; 16:1-34; 25:8-17; Numbers 21: 4-9; 22:22-25; Deuteronomy 6:4-9
Biblical Literacy, pages 67-74
The screening of the movie “for the Bible tells me so” at Heights Christian Church last week raised issues that apply just as well to these texts of the Torah. The main issue—that has meant life or death for many people—is whether you can allow yourself to interpret the Scriptures: to say, this is what it meant then; and this is what it might mean now.
There is a powerful scene in the movie. A mother climbs into the pulpit of a church on Sunday and proclaims to the congregation words to this effect: “Because of how the church interpreted Scripture, my daughter is dead!” Some watchers will undoubtedly cry “unfair!” Everyone is responsible for his/her own actions! Yet, the culture, the actions and the opinions of those around us are so weighty, so moving, that resisting the culture is like trying to stand still when a crowd is rushing toward the exits.
Added to that is the difficulty of trying to put ourselves into the culture of a past generation. Ritual purity—doing things with precise attention to details, to the rules; wearing the right clothes; saying the right words; being prepared with washing, prayer and fasting; offering the rituals at just the right times—was a matter of life and death in that long ago culture. If you didn’t comply; if you were unclean, you could be excluded from the community or even executed. The writer of Leviticus found it important to include the story of poor Aaron’s sons. Few details are given—only that their offering was “unholy,” and so the young men were burned to death by the Lord.
The awe and majesty and unapproachable power of God were so important to the people in those times. Only the purified priests, or the chosen ones like Moses and Aaron and occasionally the elders, could get close. Can you imagine the sights and sounds and smell of the Day of Atonement as described in Leviticus? --All that blood, animal cries, violent thrusts of knives, the smell of entrails; and all of it pleasing to God.
And then there was the scapegoat. The French writer, Rene Girard, has built a philosophy on the concept of scapegoating. Jesus has been designated as ours: “Behold the lamb of God,” the one who bears the sins of the world. It would be an interesting exercise to discuss what sins we’d put on the head of that creature before he was led out into the wilderness. Would we only lay our personal sins on him? Or would we also lay the greed and violence that we in our society cannot seem to restrain and to which we give different names so that they are acceptable to our whole culture?
We’re back to culture. Is it true, as one cynic recently said, that the only motivators for change are greed and fear of violence? Is that why we need to be threatened with this God of the Torah, who will condemn us to fire because of our unholiness?
Or is it that an historical perspective can teach us that humans CAN evolve to a more peaceable kingdom? --That a day of atonement, and especially a year of Jubilee (although NISB states there is no historical evidence that the stipulations surrounding the year of Jubilee were ever followed) can point us in the right direction?
Can we at last be led to love, and to the concept of a loving God? Can we promote a culture of kindness and peace? We close our study of the Pentateuch with the Shema Israel: “Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart…” (Dt. 6:4).
Biblical Literacy, pages 67-74
The screening of the movie “for the Bible tells me so” at Heights Christian Church last week raised issues that apply just as well to these texts of the Torah. The main issue—that has meant life or death for many people—is whether you can allow yourself to interpret the Scriptures: to say, this is what it meant then; and this is what it might mean now.
There is a powerful scene in the movie. A mother climbs into the pulpit of a church on Sunday and proclaims to the congregation words to this effect: “Because of how the church interpreted Scripture, my daughter is dead!” Some watchers will undoubtedly cry “unfair!” Everyone is responsible for his/her own actions! Yet, the culture, the actions and the opinions of those around us are so weighty, so moving, that resisting the culture is like trying to stand still when a crowd is rushing toward the exits.
Added to that is the difficulty of trying to put ourselves into the culture of a past generation. Ritual purity—doing things with precise attention to details, to the rules; wearing the right clothes; saying the right words; being prepared with washing, prayer and fasting; offering the rituals at just the right times—was a matter of life and death in that long ago culture. If you didn’t comply; if you were unclean, you could be excluded from the community or even executed. The writer of Leviticus found it important to include the story of poor Aaron’s sons. Few details are given—only that their offering was “unholy,” and so the young men were burned to death by the Lord.
The awe and majesty and unapproachable power of God were so important to the people in those times. Only the purified priests, or the chosen ones like Moses and Aaron and occasionally the elders, could get close. Can you imagine the sights and sounds and smell of the Day of Atonement as described in Leviticus? --All that blood, animal cries, violent thrusts of knives, the smell of entrails; and all of it pleasing to God.
And then there was the scapegoat. The French writer, Rene Girard, has built a philosophy on the concept of scapegoating. Jesus has been designated as ours: “Behold the lamb of God,” the one who bears the sins of the world. It would be an interesting exercise to discuss what sins we’d put on the head of that creature before he was led out into the wilderness. Would we only lay our personal sins on him? Or would we also lay the greed and violence that we in our society cannot seem to restrain and to which we give different names so that they are acceptable to our whole culture?
We’re back to culture. Is it true, as one cynic recently said, that the only motivators for change are greed and fear of violence? Is that why we need to be threatened with this God of the Torah, who will condemn us to fire because of our unholiness?
Or is it that an historical perspective can teach us that humans CAN evolve to a more peaceable kingdom? --That a day of atonement, and especially a year of Jubilee (although NISB states there is no historical evidence that the stipulations surrounding the year of Jubilee were ever followed) can point us in the right direction?
Can we at last be led to love, and to the concept of a loving God? Can we promote a culture of kindness and peace? We close our study of the Pentateuch with the Shema Israel: “Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart…” (Dt. 6:4).
Monday, November 28, 2011
Comments on Exodus 16-34
Starting Advent by finishing the Book of Exodus and sampling the rest of the Torah is not your regular approach to the Christmas season. And yet…
There’s that journey motif. The Israelites wander through the desert, hungry, thirsty, confronted by enemies, snakes, and their own infidelity and constant distrust that God will help them. They are given a leader, Moses—whose face shines with the presence of God--and his eloquent brother Aaron and their sister Miriam. They are given manna and quail to eat and water from a rock and a caduceus to ward off the serpents (in the book of Numbers). They are given commandments to guide their relationships and keep them from killing and stealing from each other. You could say that they discovered their identity through that long journey and came to a level of belief and trust in God that was much weaker when they started.
Fast forward to Advent, 2011. Can we characterize our living as a journey? Rather than ‘wandering,’ many would feel we are racing, bouncing along from crisis to crisis like the silver balls in an arcade game. Instead of serpents, we can be bitten by the incessant commercials that are crafted for the sole purpose of convincing us that our real need is to buy this or that product.
But there is still a hunger and a thirst, isn’t there—one that no present, no matter how carefully wrapped and thoughtfully purchased, can satisfy? It’s a kind of homesickness, isn’t it? --A yearning for a ‘promised land,’ or maybe for a ‘promised embrace’ of forgiveness and love?
In our contemporary journey, we come to a mountain, too, a place of encampment, of decision. After we’ve opened hundreds and hundreds of presents over the years and still find a yawning opening in our spirits that is not yet filled, we long for someone to speak to us of a loving God.
Hafiz, the 14th century Sufi master, saw himself as such a mediator and guide. “Bump into me more,” he says in The Gift (translated by Daniel Ladinsky). “Listen. Hafiz knows. Nothing evolves us like love.” Moses knew this, too. However, his knowledge did not take away his problems nor make his journey any easier.
So what good WAS this knowledge of Moses, this trust and this faith? Well, it gave his life meaning. He must have felt that all this wandering was getting him somewhere! And where it was getting him was into a deeper relationship with the God of the universe, the giver of manna and water. “Whither thou goest, I shall go.”
Advent occurs any time we stop and reach for God’s hand. We do not pretend that He is coming; we celebrate His presence. We rush along our life’s path like a three-year old running ahead of her mother. Suddenly we remember that we seem to be all alone amid these crowds of frantic shoppers and blaring carols and we remember to stop, reach out, and clasp a loving hand.
NEXT: Beal, pages 67-74.
There’s that journey motif. The Israelites wander through the desert, hungry, thirsty, confronted by enemies, snakes, and their own infidelity and constant distrust that God will help them. They are given a leader, Moses—whose face shines with the presence of God--and his eloquent brother Aaron and their sister Miriam. They are given manna and quail to eat and water from a rock and a caduceus to ward off the serpents (in the book of Numbers). They are given commandments to guide their relationships and keep them from killing and stealing from each other. You could say that they discovered their identity through that long journey and came to a level of belief and trust in God that was much weaker when they started.
Fast forward to Advent, 2011. Can we characterize our living as a journey? Rather than ‘wandering,’ many would feel we are racing, bouncing along from crisis to crisis like the silver balls in an arcade game. Instead of serpents, we can be bitten by the incessant commercials that are crafted for the sole purpose of convincing us that our real need is to buy this or that product.
But there is still a hunger and a thirst, isn’t there—one that no present, no matter how carefully wrapped and thoughtfully purchased, can satisfy? It’s a kind of homesickness, isn’t it? --A yearning for a ‘promised land,’ or maybe for a ‘promised embrace’ of forgiveness and love?
In our contemporary journey, we come to a mountain, too, a place of encampment, of decision. After we’ve opened hundreds and hundreds of presents over the years and still find a yawning opening in our spirits that is not yet filled, we long for someone to speak to us of a loving God.
Hafiz, the 14th century Sufi master, saw himself as such a mediator and guide. “Bump into me more,” he says in The Gift (translated by Daniel Ladinsky). “Listen. Hafiz knows. Nothing evolves us like love.” Moses knew this, too. However, his knowledge did not take away his problems nor make his journey any easier.
So what good WAS this knowledge of Moses, this trust and this faith? Well, it gave his life meaning. He must have felt that all this wandering was getting him somewhere! And where it was getting him was into a deeper relationship with the God of the universe, the giver of manna and water. “Whither thou goest, I shall go.”
Advent occurs any time we stop and reach for God’s hand. We do not pretend that He is coming; we celebrate His presence. We rush along our life’s path like a three-year old running ahead of her mother. Suddenly we remember that we seem to be all alone amid these crowds of frantic shoppers and blaring carols and we remember to stop, reach out, and clasp a loving hand.
NEXT: Beal, pages 67-74.
Monday, November 14, 2011
Comments on Exodus 7:1-24; 11:1-12, 42; 14:1-31; 15: 20-21 Biblical Literacy, pages 48-56
If you think about it long enough, you can understand the Pharaoh of Egypt’s reaction to the ten plagues. First, you have to put yourself in the sandals of someone who grew up in a dynasty, born to run a whole country. His people thought him a god. He had ultimate power. Secondly, consider that he thought nothing about using that power to kill people. It was expected. It’s how he kept order and ensured obedience.
Third, he considered some people as less than human. There were serious class distinctions to be made. And then there were the aliens, the people from another race and geographical location. Finally, there were a people to protect—HIS people. There was an economy built up that was running smoothly. The Israelite slaves were an important part of it. If he let them go free, who would do the work? The economy would collapse. He would be considered ‘soft.’
And so he put up with these plagues. He probably had his magicians act as PR people to blame the extreme conditions on the Israelites. He must have had a version of attack ads even then, spread by heralds and word of mouth. He could NOT relinquish power nor allow himself to be bested by this one-time shepherd who wasn’t even very articulate.
According to the story in Exodus 11, any campaign leveled against the Israelites didn’t work, because “The Lord gave the people favor in the sight of the Egyptians. Moreover, Moses himself was a man of great importance in the land of Egypt, in the sight of Pharaoh’s officials and in the sight of the people.” In fact, the Egyptians GAVE the Israelite women their silver and gold! Maybe this was because the enslaved Israelites had to put up with the plagues just as the Egyptians did. Maybe misery formed bonds?
But these bonds all came to naught, and this is the most difficult passage to understand because the first born of the Egyptians were all killed—not just the Pharaoh’s, but his servants’ first born and the first born of their animals! Surely the animals were innocent? And who caused all this to be done? Is it the same one who in a few short weeks of desert walking, from a mountain called Sinai, will issue commandments forbidding murder and stealing?
It is right here that we come to a crossroads in our biblical spirituality. What we decide right here at this point in the Bible will determine where we go from here. Our idea of God is formed here. How we pray and get God to be on our side with this tremendous power over life and death is decided here. What we judge about the end justifying the means and about the complicity of innocent people in an unjust society and the rightness or wrongness of punishing descendants for what their fathers have done—it all comes to a head right here. A Passover indeed. Just wars and executions and vengeance seem to go down one path here and peace above all and compassionate forgiveness and political compromise go down another.
Is this just a story, or does this story lay out for us some tragic truths about being human that we cannot escape? Is this where we begin to talk about moral development? About what the real meaning of slavery is and what true freedom from it entails and means? Is this where we come to give UP what we understand about God and about whose side He is on, including any lessons that this passage implies? Is this where we ask: Is this who God is, or is this only who the early scripture writers THOUGHT God is?
Is this the place? What do you think?
Next: Beal, pages 56-66.
Third, he considered some people as less than human. There were serious class distinctions to be made. And then there were the aliens, the people from another race and geographical location. Finally, there were a people to protect—HIS people. There was an economy built up that was running smoothly. The Israelite slaves were an important part of it. If he let them go free, who would do the work? The economy would collapse. He would be considered ‘soft.’
And so he put up with these plagues. He probably had his magicians act as PR people to blame the extreme conditions on the Israelites. He must have had a version of attack ads even then, spread by heralds and word of mouth. He could NOT relinquish power nor allow himself to be bested by this one-time shepherd who wasn’t even very articulate.
According to the story in Exodus 11, any campaign leveled against the Israelites didn’t work, because “The Lord gave the people favor in the sight of the Egyptians. Moreover, Moses himself was a man of great importance in the land of Egypt, in the sight of Pharaoh’s officials and in the sight of the people.” In fact, the Egyptians GAVE the Israelite women their silver and gold! Maybe this was because the enslaved Israelites had to put up with the plagues just as the Egyptians did. Maybe misery formed bonds?
But these bonds all came to naught, and this is the most difficult passage to understand because the first born of the Egyptians were all killed—not just the Pharaoh’s, but his servants’ first born and the first born of their animals! Surely the animals were innocent? And who caused all this to be done? Is it the same one who in a few short weeks of desert walking, from a mountain called Sinai, will issue commandments forbidding murder and stealing?
It is right here that we come to a crossroads in our biblical spirituality. What we decide right here at this point in the Bible will determine where we go from here. Our idea of God is formed here. How we pray and get God to be on our side with this tremendous power over life and death is decided here. What we judge about the end justifying the means and about the complicity of innocent people in an unjust society and the rightness or wrongness of punishing descendants for what their fathers have done—it all comes to a head right here. A Passover indeed. Just wars and executions and vengeance seem to go down one path here and peace above all and compassionate forgiveness and political compromise go down another.
Is this just a story, or does this story lay out for us some tragic truths about being human that we cannot escape? Is this where we begin to talk about moral development? About what the real meaning of slavery is and what true freedom from it entails and means? Is this where we come to give UP what we understand about God and about whose side He is on, including any lessons that this passage implies? Is this where we ask: Is this who God is, or is this only who the early scripture writers THOUGHT God is?
Is this the place? What do you think?
Next: Beal, pages 56-66.
Friday, November 11, 2011
Comments on Exodus 1:8 – 2:22; 2:23-3:15; 4:1-17; Biblical Literacy, pages 43-48
Leadership is a fascinating concept. If you Google “books on leadership,” you’ll get at almost 600,000 links. You’ll discover the 20 books on leadership that you must read; or the five top books of all time dealing with this topic. There are books by Warren Bennis, Daniel Goleman, James Collins, Peter Drucker, and so on and so on. The titles go from Who Moved My Cheese to biographies of Winston Churchill.
You won’t find the Bible listed as a book to read on leadership. And I doubt you’ll find many references to Moses. Yet there are surely some lessons in leadership that can be learned by considering the story of this outstanding Scriptural character, whose name is forever identified with Exodus, liberation from bondage, mediator between God and man, giver of the law, and pathfinder through the desert.
But first, there are many interesting questions to ask if we want to study leadership. Can leadership be learned? The Ohio Department of Education offers an endorsement on a teacher’s license called “teacher leader;” it requires a Master’s Degree from an approved program and an internship. Six hundred thousand books and countless courses, workshops and lectures imply that leadership, indeed, can be learned.
What do we want in a leader? Do we want a person of vision, who shows us a new way to approach reality and to discover a better future? Or do we want a ‘tweaker,’ as some feel best describes Steve Jobs? Do we want an inventor or do we want someone who can make inventions (what we already have)--better, faster, more efficient and useful? Good questions for these next 12 months during which we will be choosing a leader for our whole country.
Do we want someone who knows what they’re doing right away, and can land the disabled airliner in a river? Or can our leader be someone who has failed many times and has recovered from those failures, and who is still learning? Does our leader have to have impeccable moral character, or can he or she have flaws, even tragic ones? Do we want someone we LIKE or someone we will FOLLOW? Finally, do we want someone who encourages US to become leaders, or would that be terrible since there are already too many chiefs and not enough followers?
The Bible may be the absolutely worst place to study leadership. I suppose the same could be said of Shakespeare’s plays. Take Moses, for example. From the Israelite point of view, he was raised by the enemy—in the very court of the man who had enslaved a whole people! He has a violent temper and kills a man. Then he’s a fugitive. He becomes a lowly shepherd. He admits he doesn’t have the gift of persuasive speech. And he fails miserably again and again as he tries to get the Pharaoh to let the Israelites go.
On the plus side, he learns. From not seeming to know much about God except to take off his sandals and hide his face, he comes to know a great deal. He has courage. He confronts Pharaoh even though he keeps failing; he argues with God; he delegates the speaking to his brother Aaron, but tells him what to do based on his own relationship with God. And he leads a very difficult crowd on a very difficult journey for a LOT of years! Talk about earning a leader endorsement!
If Moses were teaching us leadership, my hunch is that his most powerful and most difficult lesson would be stated in very few words. A whole book would NOT be needed. And those words would be something like: “Stay in touch with God, and be prepared to MOVE.”
You won’t find the Bible listed as a book to read on leadership. And I doubt you’ll find many references to Moses. Yet there are surely some lessons in leadership that can be learned by considering the story of this outstanding Scriptural character, whose name is forever identified with Exodus, liberation from bondage, mediator between God and man, giver of the law, and pathfinder through the desert.
But first, there are many interesting questions to ask if we want to study leadership. Can leadership be learned? The Ohio Department of Education offers an endorsement on a teacher’s license called “teacher leader;” it requires a Master’s Degree from an approved program and an internship. Six hundred thousand books and countless courses, workshops and lectures imply that leadership, indeed, can be learned.
What do we want in a leader? Do we want a person of vision, who shows us a new way to approach reality and to discover a better future? Or do we want a ‘tweaker,’ as some feel best describes Steve Jobs? Do we want an inventor or do we want someone who can make inventions (what we already have)--better, faster, more efficient and useful? Good questions for these next 12 months during which we will be choosing a leader for our whole country.
Do we want someone who knows what they’re doing right away, and can land the disabled airliner in a river? Or can our leader be someone who has failed many times and has recovered from those failures, and who is still learning? Does our leader have to have impeccable moral character, or can he or she have flaws, even tragic ones? Do we want someone we LIKE or someone we will FOLLOW? Finally, do we want someone who encourages US to become leaders, or would that be terrible since there are already too many chiefs and not enough followers?
The Bible may be the absolutely worst place to study leadership. I suppose the same could be said of Shakespeare’s plays. Take Moses, for example. From the Israelite point of view, he was raised by the enemy—in the very court of the man who had enslaved a whole people! He has a violent temper and kills a man. Then he’s a fugitive. He becomes a lowly shepherd. He admits he doesn’t have the gift of persuasive speech. And he fails miserably again and again as he tries to get the Pharaoh to let the Israelites go.
On the plus side, he learns. From not seeming to know much about God except to take off his sandals and hide his face, he comes to know a great deal. He has courage. He confronts Pharaoh even though he keeps failing; he argues with God; he delegates the speaking to his brother Aaron, but tells him what to do based on his own relationship with God. And he leads a very difficult crowd on a very difficult journey for a LOT of years! Talk about earning a leader endorsement!
If Moses were teaching us leadership, my hunch is that his most powerful and most difficult lesson would be stated in very few words. A whole book would NOT be needed. And those words would be something like: “Stay in touch with God, and be prepared to MOVE.”
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
Comments on Genesis 37:3-36; 39:1-23; 45:1-28; 47:1-6, 27-31; 50:15-21 Biblical Literacy, pages 36-43
The stories in Genesis surrounding Jacob’s son, Joseph, are so familiar that all of the morals and applications that can be made have already been formulated. What remains is to taste them.
Tasting requires remembering or imagining as clearly as possible what it feels like to be a son or a daughter who is NOT the favorite of your parents. You have to attempt to grapple with the enormity of jealousy and bitterness and hatred. Or you can think of being betrayed by a lover, passed over for a promotion, fired for a trumped up reason, sniped at and gossiped about by fellow workers.
These emotions, real or imagined, convey what Joseph’s brothers must have felt.
Joseph himself is more difficult to understand. It is easy to immerse yourself in the brothers’ jealousy. It is far more difficult to put yourself in Joseph’s place. Far from being depressed and rendered helpless by being a victim of attempted murder, then sold into slavery, he rises from trouble “like a tree straightens after the rain.” He is eager to help, to use his considerable talents for vision, leadership, and friendship.
He astounds his captors with his accomplishments. He rises to the top of the Pharoah’s household. Even after he is falsely accused of raping the Pharaoh’s wife—after he refused to smirch his benefactor’s hospitality by giving in to his wife’s lust for him—he picks himself up and plays an important role even in the dungeon! What a man!
On top of all this, he receives his brothers without rancor when they come to Egypt begging for food. He does toy with them a bit, but only to get his father and their whole family to come live near him where there is enough food stored up for the survival of them all. He forgives; he weeps with joy to see his father and his perfidious brothers, who can’t believe he’s not going to have them all killed for what they did to him. Joseph is very like the Prodigal Father in the Gospel parable.
Genesis keeps reminding us that “the Lord was with Joseph,” implying that’s why he was so successful. We forget that our belief is that the Lord is with us all, at every step. Joseph gives us a taste of what is possible. We might never realize that what comes naturally after you have been disregarded, passed over, shunned or even imprisoned is NOT the only possibility. There are other choices besides revenge, festering hatred, violence and despair.
Joseph chose to keep walking in the presence of God, relying on That Strength. Many others after him have done the same. We probably know some. They rarely make it into the evening news. But here is one of the first, in the first book of the Bible. It can encourage us—who may feel thrown into a deep well—to give up all that is weighing us down and rise to the light, and use the talents we have, and walk in the presence of God.
NEXT week: pages 43-50
Tasting requires remembering or imagining as clearly as possible what it feels like to be a son or a daughter who is NOT the favorite of your parents. You have to attempt to grapple with the enormity of jealousy and bitterness and hatred. Or you can think of being betrayed by a lover, passed over for a promotion, fired for a trumped up reason, sniped at and gossiped about by fellow workers.
These emotions, real or imagined, convey what Joseph’s brothers must have felt.
Joseph himself is more difficult to understand. It is easy to immerse yourself in the brothers’ jealousy. It is far more difficult to put yourself in Joseph’s place. Far from being depressed and rendered helpless by being a victim of attempted murder, then sold into slavery, he rises from trouble “like a tree straightens after the rain.” He is eager to help, to use his considerable talents for vision, leadership, and friendship.
He astounds his captors with his accomplishments. He rises to the top of the Pharoah’s household. Even after he is falsely accused of raping the Pharaoh’s wife—after he refused to smirch his benefactor’s hospitality by giving in to his wife’s lust for him—he picks himself up and plays an important role even in the dungeon! What a man!
On top of all this, he receives his brothers without rancor when they come to Egypt begging for food. He does toy with them a bit, but only to get his father and their whole family to come live near him where there is enough food stored up for the survival of them all. He forgives; he weeps with joy to see his father and his perfidious brothers, who can’t believe he’s not going to have them all killed for what they did to him. Joseph is very like the Prodigal Father in the Gospel parable.
Genesis keeps reminding us that “the Lord was with Joseph,” implying that’s why he was so successful. We forget that our belief is that the Lord is with us all, at every step. Joseph gives us a taste of what is possible. We might never realize that what comes naturally after you have been disregarded, passed over, shunned or even imprisoned is NOT the only possibility. There are other choices besides revenge, festering hatred, violence and despair.
Joseph chose to keep walking in the presence of God, relying on That Strength. Many others after him have done the same. We probably know some. They rarely make it into the evening news. But here is one of the first, in the first book of the Bible. It can encourage us—who may feel thrown into a deep well—to give up all that is weighing us down and rise to the light, and use the talents we have, and walk in the presence of God.
NEXT week: pages 43-50
Friday, October 28, 2011
Comments on Genesis 22 -- 34; Biblical Literacy Pages 29-36
Commentary on Genesis 22-34
The stories in Biblical Literacy this week are in Genesis, Chapter 22 (The Binding of Isaac), Chapter 28: 10 (Jacob’s Ladder), Chapter 32 (Jacob Wrestling with an Angel), and Chapter 34: (The Rape of Dinah).
The test that Abraham is subjected to by God has long been my most hated story in the bible. I’m sure part of the reason is that I have an only son whom I love dearly. The idea of being asked to kill him for no good reason except to appease a God who likes that kind of sacrifice is abhorrent to me. I’m sure I would have said NO, and failed the test miserably.
Lots of fathers have their sons taken from them by war and accidents and disease and crime and drugs. Can they find consolation in this story? Can they honestly say: It’s only God, testing my faith. Can they be like Job and promise: Even if He kills me and all that is mine, I’ll still remain faithful and loving to Him? I doubt it. This is different. This is the father killing his son because of some moral imperative, some vision, some voice in his head!
Is it enough to say here that ‘God’s ways are not human ways?’
There is a lot of room for discussion here. This is supposed to be the faith by which Abraham was justified (see Romans 4), long before Jesus was born, died and was raised. Maybe Abraham’s faith was such that he didn’t really believe his son would have to die. Maybe he already had certainty about the angel who would stop the knife at the last moment. Maybe he already knew what he would say afterwards to a son who surely would question and be afraid forever of his father who had him tied up like a goat to be slaughtered.
When these thoughts raise the hairs on the back of my neck, I have to shake my head and laugh at myself. Here I am, who am always preaching against taking the bible literally, TAKING IT LITERALLY! Dr. Beal’s book is not called “Biblical Literalness.” And so I have to back off and recognize that this oral tradition that got imprisoned in the Book of Genesis is consistent with an ancient idea of God. This ancient context is of a God who could demand human sacrifice and murder (see the story of Dinah), but who preferred animal sacrifice instead.
When I get caught up in all labyrinthine paths to and from this story, I feel like Jacob in Chapter 32--I am wrestling with God and am wounded. I find myself extremely grateful that we Christians can look to Jesus for new ways to think about and relate to God. Jesus is our Jacob’s ladder, leading us upward to better ideas of God that do not taint Him with our anthropomorphic addiction to violence. And maybe that’s the ultimate message of the Dinah story, too (Jacob’s reaction)—that not all conflict has to be resolved with killing and violence.
Jacob awoke from his dream and his wrestling—wounded, yes, but with a clear idea that “God is in this place.” And we, too, awake from our musings and our struggles through life with the same faith: “God is here, supporting us, urging us toward better and better solutions.”
NEXT week: pages 36-43.
The stories in Biblical Literacy this week are in Genesis, Chapter 22 (The Binding of Isaac), Chapter 28: 10 (Jacob’s Ladder), Chapter 32 (Jacob Wrestling with an Angel), and Chapter 34: (The Rape of Dinah).
The test that Abraham is subjected to by God has long been my most hated story in the bible. I’m sure part of the reason is that I have an only son whom I love dearly. The idea of being asked to kill him for no good reason except to appease a God who likes that kind of sacrifice is abhorrent to me. I’m sure I would have said NO, and failed the test miserably.
Lots of fathers have their sons taken from them by war and accidents and disease and crime and drugs. Can they find consolation in this story? Can they honestly say: It’s only God, testing my faith. Can they be like Job and promise: Even if He kills me and all that is mine, I’ll still remain faithful and loving to Him? I doubt it. This is different. This is the father killing his son because of some moral imperative, some vision, some voice in his head!
Is it enough to say here that ‘God’s ways are not human ways?’
There is a lot of room for discussion here. This is supposed to be the faith by which Abraham was justified (see Romans 4), long before Jesus was born, died and was raised. Maybe Abraham’s faith was such that he didn’t really believe his son would have to die. Maybe he already had certainty about the angel who would stop the knife at the last moment. Maybe he already knew what he would say afterwards to a son who surely would question and be afraid forever of his father who had him tied up like a goat to be slaughtered.
When these thoughts raise the hairs on the back of my neck, I have to shake my head and laugh at myself. Here I am, who am always preaching against taking the bible literally, TAKING IT LITERALLY! Dr. Beal’s book is not called “Biblical Literalness.” And so I have to back off and recognize that this oral tradition that got imprisoned in the Book of Genesis is consistent with an ancient idea of God. This ancient context is of a God who could demand human sacrifice and murder (see the story of Dinah), but who preferred animal sacrifice instead.
When I get caught up in all labyrinthine paths to and from this story, I feel like Jacob in Chapter 32--I am wrestling with God and am wounded. I find myself extremely grateful that we Christians can look to Jesus for new ways to think about and relate to God. Jesus is our Jacob’s ladder, leading us upward to better ideas of God that do not taint Him with our anthropomorphic addiction to violence. And maybe that’s the ultimate message of the Dinah story, too (Jacob’s reaction)—that not all conflict has to be resolved with killing and violence.
Jacob awoke from his dream and his wrestling—wounded, yes, but with a clear idea that “God is in this place.” And we, too, awake from our musings and our struggles through life with the same faith: “God is here, supporting us, urging us toward better and better solutions.”
NEXT week: pages 36-43.
Friday, October 21, 2011
Comments on Genesis 11-19; Biblical Literacy Pages 21-29
Commentary on Genesis 11:1-9, 16:1-6, 18:1-15, and 18:16 – 19:29
There are four stories here: The Tower of Babel, the Birth of Ishmael, the Prediction of the Conception of Isaac, and the Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. Are there any connections between these four?
The New Interpreter’s Study Bible says the Tower of Babel story shows that humans wanted homogeneity, but God wanted diversity! The NISB downplays the human pride and hubris that are usually associated with this tale. Indeed, Genesis seems to take great pains to show the close blood relationships between tribes sired by the same father, and then describe the tensions that also erupt to stand as barriers among them. It’s as if they are saying to each other: “We are related! You are my brothers! And yet we hate each other, are strangers to each other, and must eventually go to war!” Does not this story keep playing out over and over through the centuries?
How people treat one another is pictured as a great concern of the Most High God. As an horrific example, NISB states that the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah is not because of homosexuality, but because of the oppression of the poor and the alien! Abraham can’t find even ten people who are just.
Some think that Sodom and Gomorrah were situated on the southern shores of the Dead Sea, and the turning of Lot’s wife into a pillar of salt explains the actual pillars of salt that can be found in that desolate environment.
D.H. Lawrence refers to Lots’ wife in his anguished poem “She Looks Back,” This is a poem about his regret for a lover and a mother who can’t forget the children she left behind in England, and so can’t relate wholeheartedly to him. The poem can create a new sympathy for Lot’s wife who, like Abraham, can’t forget their friends and relatives in those doomed cities.
With all of this doom and gloom, some laughter is welcome, and Genesis supplies it in the story of Sarah. God is pictured as carrying on with his plan. He is going to bring out the best in these humans, despite their outrageous behavior to each other. Just as there are just and sterling individuals, like Abraham, so also God will cause there to be a whole people who will be a model for other nations and a channel for hope in the world. The flood is behind Him, and Genesis shows again and again that it is the loving action of God that brings about blessing and not the impotent attempts of men.
As modern spiritual writers express this, God loves us more than we can love ourselves. Despite our pushing and shoving, He is always working to bring about our ultimate happiness.
There are four stories here: The Tower of Babel, the Birth of Ishmael, the Prediction of the Conception of Isaac, and the Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. Are there any connections between these four?
The New Interpreter’s Study Bible says the Tower of Babel story shows that humans wanted homogeneity, but God wanted diversity! The NISB downplays the human pride and hubris that are usually associated with this tale. Indeed, Genesis seems to take great pains to show the close blood relationships between tribes sired by the same father, and then describe the tensions that also erupt to stand as barriers among them. It’s as if they are saying to each other: “We are related! You are my brothers! And yet we hate each other, are strangers to each other, and must eventually go to war!” Does not this story keep playing out over and over through the centuries?
How people treat one another is pictured as a great concern of the Most High God. As an horrific example, NISB states that the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah is not because of homosexuality, but because of the oppression of the poor and the alien! Abraham can’t find even ten people who are just.
Some think that Sodom and Gomorrah were situated on the southern shores of the Dead Sea, and the turning of Lot’s wife into a pillar of salt explains the actual pillars of salt that can be found in that desolate environment.
D.H. Lawrence refers to Lots’ wife in his anguished poem “She Looks Back,” This is a poem about his regret for a lover and a mother who can’t forget the children she left behind in England, and so can’t relate wholeheartedly to him. The poem can create a new sympathy for Lot’s wife who, like Abraham, can’t forget their friends and relatives in those doomed cities.
With all of this doom and gloom, some laughter is welcome, and Genesis supplies it in the story of Sarah. God is pictured as carrying on with his plan. He is going to bring out the best in these humans, despite their outrageous behavior to each other. Just as there are just and sterling individuals, like Abraham, so also God will cause there to be a whole people who will be a model for other nations and a channel for hope in the world. The flood is behind Him, and Genesis shows again and again that it is the loving action of God that brings about blessing and not the impotent attempts of men.
As modern spiritual writers express this, God loves us more than we can love ourselves. Despite our pushing and shoving, He is always working to bring about our ultimate happiness.
Monday, October 10, 2011
Comments on Genesis 4-10; Biblical Literacy 15-21
I attended a reunion of LaGuardias this summer, arranged by my wonderfully gregarious cousins of the southwest metropolitan area. You get quite a feeling of pride and belonging when you enter a group of over 100 people, young and old, kids running around all over the place, and know that all of them have some blood ties to you and you to them.
One of my cousins tried to write down these relationships in the form of a genealogy that stretched at least ten feet long on butcher block paper. But when I looked at it closely, I could see how many mistakes he had in just my own immediate family.
And so I can imagine the mistakes that might have been made when the authors of Genesis attempted to write down their ancestry (through only males, by the way) as it came down to them in several traditions (the Priestly and the Yahwist) about a time existing long before the monarchy in Israel when they were writing—a time that we now call “pre-history.”
As I was about to leave the reunion, one of my cousins called me aside for a private conversation. He had some questions about my father, my uncle and my grandfather that he thought I might know the answers to. Their relationships were important to him.
Similarly, the relationships of Israel to her neighbors were extremely important to her. The Genesis stories are replete with rivalries between brothers, beginning with Cain and Abel, and extending to Joseph and his brothers. And in between were the brothers sired by Noah. The very first story after the departure from Eden involves one brother murdering another. Some brothers get blessed and some get cursed.
God is pictured as experiencing the same anguish that he foretold women would suffer during childbirth when he sees the bottomless pits of evil that his human beings are capable of. And after he “recreates” the world following the Flood, there are lots and lots of examples of war, violence and killing among people who supposedly descended from the same ancestors. But there is also that wonderful image of the “bow” in the sky. The bow was a weapon, sometimes described as a weapon of the gods, but here it is, in beautiful color, offering a promise of peace and an alternative way to solve what seem to be inevitable conflicts among brothers.
In his textbook on educational philosophy (Gutek, G. (2009) New Perspectives on Philosophy and Education), Gerald Gutek has a chapter on “ethnonationalism” which shows how ethnic groups build a common history, purpose, and a great deal of patriotic fervor on the stories of their ancestors and their past history. These stories don’t have to be all that factual; they just are the accepted stories of the tribe or nation. They often convey: “Our family is the best!”
If we can remove ourselves from the need to find Noah’s Ark or to trace the genealogies historically or to place the exact coordinates of the garden of Eden,
we can start to appreciate the spiritual richness of the Genesis stories. They explain about the evil that is in the heart of man; they show examples of working out conflict without violence, and above all, they exhibit a strong faith in a Creator God, who again and again can’t leave these flawed humans alone; can’t bear to destroy them all; wants to be their God and even enter into an agreement with them.
The message ringing through these first chapters of Genesis may still be sounding for us in 2011: “We are brothers and sisters, and there is hope for us all!” Genesis does not offer proof that God exists; it offers an invitation to believe.
One of my cousins tried to write down these relationships in the form of a genealogy that stretched at least ten feet long on butcher block paper. But when I looked at it closely, I could see how many mistakes he had in just my own immediate family.
And so I can imagine the mistakes that might have been made when the authors of Genesis attempted to write down their ancestry (through only males, by the way) as it came down to them in several traditions (the Priestly and the Yahwist) about a time existing long before the monarchy in Israel when they were writing—a time that we now call “pre-history.”
As I was about to leave the reunion, one of my cousins called me aside for a private conversation. He had some questions about my father, my uncle and my grandfather that he thought I might know the answers to. Their relationships were important to him.
Similarly, the relationships of Israel to her neighbors were extremely important to her. The Genesis stories are replete with rivalries between brothers, beginning with Cain and Abel, and extending to Joseph and his brothers. And in between were the brothers sired by Noah. The very first story after the departure from Eden involves one brother murdering another. Some brothers get blessed and some get cursed.
God is pictured as experiencing the same anguish that he foretold women would suffer during childbirth when he sees the bottomless pits of evil that his human beings are capable of. And after he “recreates” the world following the Flood, there are lots and lots of examples of war, violence and killing among people who supposedly descended from the same ancestors. But there is also that wonderful image of the “bow” in the sky. The bow was a weapon, sometimes described as a weapon of the gods, but here it is, in beautiful color, offering a promise of peace and an alternative way to solve what seem to be inevitable conflicts among brothers.
In his textbook on educational philosophy (Gutek, G. (2009) New Perspectives on Philosophy and Education), Gerald Gutek has a chapter on “ethnonationalism” which shows how ethnic groups build a common history, purpose, and a great deal of patriotic fervor on the stories of their ancestors and their past history. These stories don’t have to be all that factual; they just are the accepted stories of the tribe or nation. They often convey: “Our family is the best!”
If we can remove ourselves from the need to find Noah’s Ark or to trace the genealogies historically or to place the exact coordinates of the garden of Eden,
we can start to appreciate the spiritual richness of the Genesis stories. They explain about the evil that is in the heart of man; they show examples of working out conflict without violence, and above all, they exhibit a strong faith in a Creator God, who again and again can’t leave these flawed humans alone; can’t bear to destroy them all; wants to be their God and even enter into an agreement with them.
The message ringing through these first chapters of Genesis may still be sounding for us in 2011: “We are brothers and sisters, and there is hope for us all!” Genesis does not offer proof that God exists; it offers an invitation to believe.
Monday, October 3, 2011
Comments on Genesis 1-3, Biblical Literacy 1-15
Comments for October 9, 2011
It is time to jump right into the first three chapters of the book of Genesis. With the leaves changing color and beginning to fall, it is a fitting metaphor to take a flying leap into the gorgeous shades of meaning that fall out from this wonderful book.
If you watch the first session of Bill Moyers’ Genesis, either by streaming it on Netflix or by going to pbs.org, you will first note that he has assembled a VERY prestigious group of people with whom to carry on this discussion. But they each bring something different from their own knowledge and experience: some know Hebrew and the rabbinic traditions about Genesis; one is an artist and has some incisive things to say about ‘creation.’ One professor had just recovered from a very recent heart attack and so had some comments about the value of life; many were married and were interested in the relationship between Adam and Eve, and between parents and children. All had intense questions about the image of God portrayed in Genesis, and of course they ran into the barbed wire question about the problem of evil.
After an hour’s discussion, the video just fades out. No conclusions are drawn; no take-aways; no homework. It was like watching a creation in miniature—sparks of life erupting from the minds and hearts of these people and illuminating the room, causing other ideas to burst forth like so many bubbles of light. Bill Moyers did ask questions, but usually only to follow up on someone’s observations. In fact, he doesn’t even start the discussion.
Dr. Beal’s book, Biblical Literacy, will be like Moyers’ facilitation. He writes very little. He likes to point out later art, music and literature that have their origin and inspiration from the biblical texts. He relishes the idea of showing us how pervasive words from the Bible are in our everyday speech, and in the speeches and songs of our political and entertainment celebrities. It will be interesting to see if these allusions provoke discussion and to see if we ourselves will be inspired by the scripture.
This is a different way of looking at the Bible, very unlike the heavy academic approach of textual criticism and close, exegetical interpretation. Far less time will be spent in asking who wrote things and when. The arguments of the scholars over disputed readings and authorship will be pushed to the background. The important thing will be to look at the text, swim around in it, and attempt to make meaning.
Genesis is a great place to start. There are things to discuss, such as the image of God that comes through, the relationship of God to us, the position of women, the tree of knowledge, the banishment from Eden, the promise of hope. We may even want to get into whether God was creating out of nothing or simply drawing order out of chaos. We may want to ask if that process is still continuing today, and what our role is in it.
Will we be like a group of middle schoolers discussing sex during recess, not knowing much about it, but feeling free to share their expert opinions? Will it be prudent to ignore any scholarship? Shall we put ourselves back into an age when people did not or could not read to see what fresh insights we come up with? Can we safely ignore sentences like this from the New Interpreter’s Study Bible: “Readers today should understand the structural differences between ancient and modern societies and be careful about using ancient social norms as models for modern ethics” (p. 11)?
We are going to proceed. What jumps out at you as you read these chapters; which colorful leaves you press in the book of your life—these are the important things to bring to our discussion. Then, would it be too bold to say that, like the Creator, we’ll see what happens!
It is time to jump right into the first three chapters of the book of Genesis. With the leaves changing color and beginning to fall, it is a fitting metaphor to take a flying leap into the gorgeous shades of meaning that fall out from this wonderful book.
If you watch the first session of Bill Moyers’ Genesis, either by streaming it on Netflix or by going to pbs.org, you will first note that he has assembled a VERY prestigious group of people with whom to carry on this discussion. But they each bring something different from their own knowledge and experience: some know Hebrew and the rabbinic traditions about Genesis; one is an artist and has some incisive things to say about ‘creation.’ One professor had just recovered from a very recent heart attack and so had some comments about the value of life; many were married and were interested in the relationship between Adam and Eve, and between parents and children. All had intense questions about the image of God portrayed in Genesis, and of course they ran into the barbed wire question about the problem of evil.
After an hour’s discussion, the video just fades out. No conclusions are drawn; no take-aways; no homework. It was like watching a creation in miniature—sparks of life erupting from the minds and hearts of these people and illuminating the room, causing other ideas to burst forth like so many bubbles of light. Bill Moyers did ask questions, but usually only to follow up on someone’s observations. In fact, he doesn’t even start the discussion.
Dr. Beal’s book, Biblical Literacy, will be like Moyers’ facilitation. He writes very little. He likes to point out later art, music and literature that have their origin and inspiration from the biblical texts. He relishes the idea of showing us how pervasive words from the Bible are in our everyday speech, and in the speeches and songs of our political and entertainment celebrities. It will be interesting to see if these allusions provoke discussion and to see if we ourselves will be inspired by the scripture.
This is a different way of looking at the Bible, very unlike the heavy academic approach of textual criticism and close, exegetical interpretation. Far less time will be spent in asking who wrote things and when. The arguments of the scholars over disputed readings and authorship will be pushed to the background. The important thing will be to look at the text, swim around in it, and attempt to make meaning.
Genesis is a great place to start. There are things to discuss, such as the image of God that comes through, the relationship of God to us, the position of women, the tree of knowledge, the banishment from Eden, the promise of hope. We may even want to get into whether God was creating out of nothing or simply drawing order out of chaos. We may want to ask if that process is still continuing today, and what our role is in it.
Will we be like a group of middle schoolers discussing sex during recess, not knowing much about it, but feeling free to share their expert opinions? Will it be prudent to ignore any scholarship? Shall we put ourselves back into an age when people did not or could not read to see what fresh insights we come up with? Can we safely ignore sentences like this from the New Interpreter’s Study Bible: “Readers today should understand the structural differences between ancient and modern societies and be careful about using ancient social norms as models for modern ethics” (p. 11)?
We are going to proceed. What jumps out at you as you read these chapters; which colorful leaves you press in the book of your life—these are the important things to bring to our discussion. Then, would it be too bold to say that, like the Creator, we’ll see what happens!
Saturday, September 3, 2011
A New Year in Bible Study, 2011-2012
For the past three years, we have used the Common Lectionary as the source for our Bible Study. We were thus able to sample a LOT of passages from all of Scripture. One challenge was to tie them together; to see if we could figure out why the compilers of the Lectionary chose those particular passages for the particular Sunday in the church year.
Another advantage of this approach--besides working through the whole Bible in three years--was the close relationship to the liturgical cycles. Often, pastors in whatever church you attended would be preaching on one or two of the four readings the Lectionary chose. This added a perspective and a depth to our discussions. Moreover, online sites such as textweek.com had commentaries on each of the readings published many weeks in advance. You could, therefore, prepare ahead of time for the sermons or the face to face discussions in Bible Study.
It is difficult to give all of that up. But it may be time to back off such in-depth and academic studies of Scripture and return to the Bible we knew and loved as children, a time when we were often held spellbound by the stories from both the Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament.
Dr. Timothy Beal, the Florence Harkness Professor of Religion at Case Western Reserve University, gives us that opportunity with his book, Biblical Literacy: The Essential Bible Stories Everyone Needs to Know, published by Harper One publishers in 2009.
Dr. Beal, who lives in Shaker Heights, Ohio, is a prolific writer. His latest book is titled The Rise and Fall of the Bible: The Unexpected History of an Accidental Book published by Houghton Mifflin in 2011.
But back to Biblical Literacy where you will find stories from nearly every book in the Hebrew Scriptures (he calls it "The Hebrew Bible") and from the New Testament copied into his book using the New Revised Standard Version, along with very brief commentaries in bold type. These commentaries often give some essential background, a salient quote from someone, or highlight something that jumped out at Dr. Beal, including an historical relationship (e.g. a reference to Joseph Haydyn's oratorio, The Creation as a sidebar to the creation story).
Some might say that biblical scholars have ruined the Bible, or have at least put it at arm's length from the understanding of regular people. Beal tries to get back to that old, old approach that "Reading the Bible is not about getting it right. It's about making meaning from it (Introduction, p. xx)." And he loves pointing out how many modern references, sayings, and applications derive their origin and their meaning from these ancient texts.
This will, therefore, be a different approach. We will explore it together with Dr. Beal's help and hopefully use the opportunity to deepen our spirituality, our awareness of the closeness of God.
Another advantage of this approach--besides working through the whole Bible in three years--was the close relationship to the liturgical cycles. Often, pastors in whatever church you attended would be preaching on one or two of the four readings the Lectionary chose. This added a perspective and a depth to our discussions. Moreover, online sites such as textweek.com had commentaries on each of the readings published many weeks in advance. You could, therefore, prepare ahead of time for the sermons or the face to face discussions in Bible Study.
It is difficult to give all of that up. But it may be time to back off such in-depth and academic studies of Scripture and return to the Bible we knew and loved as children, a time when we were often held spellbound by the stories from both the Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament.
Dr. Timothy Beal, the Florence Harkness Professor of Religion at Case Western Reserve University, gives us that opportunity with his book, Biblical Literacy: The Essential Bible Stories Everyone Needs to Know, published by Harper One publishers in 2009.
Dr. Beal, who lives in Shaker Heights, Ohio, is a prolific writer. His latest book is titled The Rise and Fall of the Bible: The Unexpected History of an Accidental Book published by Houghton Mifflin in 2011.
But back to Biblical Literacy where you will find stories from nearly every book in the Hebrew Scriptures (he calls it "The Hebrew Bible") and from the New Testament copied into his book using the New Revised Standard Version, along with very brief commentaries in bold type. These commentaries often give some essential background, a salient quote from someone, or highlight something that jumped out at Dr. Beal, including an historical relationship (e.g. a reference to Joseph Haydyn's oratorio, The Creation as a sidebar to the creation story).
Some might say that biblical scholars have ruined the Bible, or have at least put it at arm's length from the understanding of regular people. Beal tries to get back to that old, old approach that "Reading the Bible is not about getting it right. It's about making meaning from it (Introduction, p. xx)." And he loves pointing out how many modern references, sayings, and applications derive their origin and their meaning from these ancient texts.
This will, therefore, be a different approach. We will explore it together with Dr. Beal's help and hopefully use the opportunity to deepen our spirituality, our awareness of the closeness of God.
Sunday, June 12, 2011
Commentary on Lectionary for June 19, 2011
Trinity Sunday
Genesis 1:1-2:4a; Psalm 8; 2 Corinthians 13:11=13; Matthew 28:16-20
This time after Pentecost is often called “Ordinary Time,” maybe because the lectionary uses ordinal numbers, like “Second Sunday in Ordinary Time.” This year it coincides with the beginning of summer, and I’ll be taking some time off from writing this blog.
In the spiritual life, however, there is no such thing as “ordinary time.” Pentecost changed that idea forever for all believers. The Spirit is working, creating, motivating, driving, getting results. One translation of that opening line in Genesis reads: “The Spirit of God swept over the waters.” Then creation happened, and all humans for all times have been awestruck at the magnitude of it, and the complexity and the beauty of it.
No wonder Psalm 8 is a favorite prayer of many: “O Lord, our Lord, how glorious is your name over all the earth…When I behold your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars which you set in place—What is man that you should be mindful of him?”
In Second Corinthians 13, Paul ends the letter by saying: “Put things in order; listen to my appeal. Live in peace, and the bond of love and peace will be with you.” When I look at my house or my office, the command to “put things in order” is so appropriate. When I look up and out to my community, my state, my country and my world, that is a tall order indeed. It is not an ordinary time. A LOT of people will have to work very hard to make it possible for us to “live in peace.”
We have our work cut out for us. It will not be easy, following this discipleship role. The good news is that we don’t have to do it alone. “Behold, I am with you always,” Jesus promised (Mt. 28:20). How? --Through the presence of His Spirit—the one that works wonders with chaos!
And now we come to the amazing revelation of this first Sunday after Pentecost—the revelation that God is a family: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. "In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit"—that’s how to make disciples of all nations. Introduce them to this family and slowly, slowly they may come to realize what we dare to believe: that we are part of this Divine Family. “Holy Father, keep them in your name…that they may be one, even as we are one; I in them and You in Me...” (John 17:11, 22). He breathed on them and said: “Receive the Holy Spirit” (John 20:22).
What an unfathomable gift! What a way to start this “Extraordinary Time!”
Genesis 1:1-2:4a; Psalm 8; 2 Corinthians 13:11=13; Matthew 28:16-20
This time after Pentecost is often called “Ordinary Time,” maybe because the lectionary uses ordinal numbers, like “Second Sunday in Ordinary Time.” This year it coincides with the beginning of summer, and I’ll be taking some time off from writing this blog.
In the spiritual life, however, there is no such thing as “ordinary time.” Pentecost changed that idea forever for all believers. The Spirit is working, creating, motivating, driving, getting results. One translation of that opening line in Genesis reads: “The Spirit of God swept over the waters.” Then creation happened, and all humans for all times have been awestruck at the magnitude of it, and the complexity and the beauty of it.
No wonder Psalm 8 is a favorite prayer of many: “O Lord, our Lord, how glorious is your name over all the earth…When I behold your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars which you set in place—What is man that you should be mindful of him?”
In Second Corinthians 13, Paul ends the letter by saying: “Put things in order; listen to my appeal. Live in peace, and the bond of love and peace will be with you.” When I look at my house or my office, the command to “put things in order” is so appropriate. When I look up and out to my community, my state, my country and my world, that is a tall order indeed. It is not an ordinary time. A LOT of people will have to work very hard to make it possible for us to “live in peace.”
We have our work cut out for us. It will not be easy, following this discipleship role. The good news is that we don’t have to do it alone. “Behold, I am with you always,” Jesus promised (Mt. 28:20). How? --Through the presence of His Spirit—the one that works wonders with chaos!
And now we come to the amazing revelation of this first Sunday after Pentecost—the revelation that God is a family: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. "In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit"—that’s how to make disciples of all nations. Introduce them to this family and slowly, slowly they may come to realize what we dare to believe: that we are part of this Divine Family. “Holy Father, keep them in your name…that they may be one, even as we are one; I in them and You in Me...” (John 17:11, 22). He breathed on them and said: “Receive the Holy Spirit” (John 20:22).
What an unfathomable gift! What a way to start this “Extraordinary Time!”
Sunday, June 5, 2011
Commentary on Lectionary for June 12, 2011
Commentary on Lectionary for June 12, 2011
Pentecost Sunday
One of the most vivid images for this feast of Pentecost is wind. Wind translates a Greek word that can also be translated “Spirit.” This is the same word used in Hebrew when the wind hovers over the waters at the story of creation in the Book of Genesis. Wind can take a lot of forms for us earthlings. Like the Eskimos do for snow, we have a number of words for it.
We think of the tiny whispering sound that spoke to Elijah of the presence of God (1 Kgs. 19:12). We think of Jesus breathing on the Disciples after his resurrection—the gentleness of a breath and the message of peace.
Then as we know too well from the over 600 confirmed tornadoes that have touched down somewhere in our country in the past two months, there is the 200 mile per hour wind that can wipe away everything in its path like the whirlwind behavior of an angry child, kicking his carefully structured blocks in all directions.
There is a violent wind in the Pentecost story. But instead of sucking out the air in the upper room like a tornado would, it filled the room with new life and allowed tongues as of fire to appear on the Apostles’ heads.
Psalm 104 makes it clear that God’s name has to be attached to all that happens in the world. It assigns Him responsibility for all of creation. But Pentecost shows that a violent wind is turned into a positive energy. It’s the kind of stuff we see when a Joplin, Missouri begins to resuscitate and looks toward the future with hope. When we look at how we have spent our lives or ask that intimidating question: “How is your consciousness?” we may feel we should have it declared a disaster area. Do we dare call on Jesus or on the Spirit that He left for us?
Paul reminds us: “no one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except by the Holy Spirit” (1 Cor. 12:3), and there is some comfort in that. Our posture is to sit and wait, to let prayer happen, to expect the wind to blow away our sins and fears and to bring hope and peace after the most dreadful disasters. If we can believe this, we can “have life in his name” (John 20:31).
Pentecost Sunday
One of the most vivid images for this feast of Pentecost is wind. Wind translates a Greek word that can also be translated “Spirit.” This is the same word used in Hebrew when the wind hovers over the waters at the story of creation in the Book of Genesis. Wind can take a lot of forms for us earthlings. Like the Eskimos do for snow, we have a number of words for it.
We think of the tiny whispering sound that spoke to Elijah of the presence of God (1 Kgs. 19:12). We think of Jesus breathing on the Disciples after his resurrection—the gentleness of a breath and the message of peace.
Then as we know too well from the over 600 confirmed tornadoes that have touched down somewhere in our country in the past two months, there is the 200 mile per hour wind that can wipe away everything in its path like the whirlwind behavior of an angry child, kicking his carefully structured blocks in all directions.
There is a violent wind in the Pentecost story. But instead of sucking out the air in the upper room like a tornado would, it filled the room with new life and allowed tongues as of fire to appear on the Apostles’ heads.
Psalm 104 makes it clear that God’s name has to be attached to all that happens in the world. It assigns Him responsibility for all of creation. But Pentecost shows that a violent wind is turned into a positive energy. It’s the kind of stuff we see when a Joplin, Missouri begins to resuscitate and looks toward the future with hope. When we look at how we have spent our lives or ask that intimidating question: “How is your consciousness?” we may feel we should have it declared a disaster area. Do we dare call on Jesus or on the Spirit that He left for us?
Paul reminds us: “no one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except by the Holy Spirit” (1 Cor. 12:3), and there is some comfort in that. Our posture is to sit and wait, to let prayer happen, to expect the wind to blow away our sins and fears and to bring hope and peace after the most dreadful disasters. If we can believe this, we can “have life in his name” (John 20:31).
Sunday, May 29, 2011
Commentary on Lectionary for June 5, 2011
Easter 7A
Acts 1:6-14; Psalm 68:1-10, 32-25; 1 Peter 4:12-14; 5:6-11; John 17:1-11
So if Jesus rose from the dead, where is He? Why isn’t He still around, perhaps making visits to other countries like the Pope and the U.S. President do? We really NEED Him!
Well, we answer: The reason is that He ascended into heaven! Some people say they have seen him AFTER the Ascension, beginning with Saul, the man from Tarsus, whom many say is responsible for the international spread of what is now called Christianity. There are many other stories of people through the centuries that have had visions of Jesus, though none so compelling as the appearances to the first Apostles. Those Apostles were encouraged to touch him, to eat breakfast with him, to feel his breath on them, to insert fingers into gaping wounds.
But then one day he gathers them together, says two sentences, and disappears into a cloud. The irony is that he had just spoken to them about power. They, of course, wanted to know if now was the time he would restore the kingdom to Israel. That would be such a great event in their eyes, the one thing they were waiting for, the thing that had been foretold. When the Messiah comes, he will restore the kingdom.
So Jesus’s last words on earth were about power and about witnessing. After a few decades of persecution, when they surely experienced that the Greek word for witness is translated “martyr,” they would have to take another look at what power meant.
They may have forgotten that He warned them His kingdom was NOT of this world. This forgetting is understandable, since He taught them to pray “Thy Kingdom come.” And they may have taken a while to remember what sort of power he wielded while on earth. After so many of their number were killed, they may have felt like an ancient version of Beetle Bailey—beaten to a pulp again and again.
The power, it seems, was in getting up and continuing to do good works, tirelessly, one foot after the other, responding to the needs of the least powerful around them. Peter is able to write: “rejoice insofar as you are sharing Christ’s sufferings…7Cast all your anxiety on him, because he cares for you” (1 Peter 4:13, 5:7). So the power from the Spirit Jesus sends is going to be in sticking to your values in the face of serious opposition, devoting your energies to the disadvantaged and downtrodden while being accused of ineffective “do-gooder-ism,” in being dismissed as a serious player in this world where it’s political power and wealth that count.
Jesus has ascended into heaven. Wherever you think heaven is or what ascending to it might mean, the fact remains that He is no longer in the world even in His transfigured form, but we are. And those of us who have been traumatized by apocalyptic stories of rapture and cataclysm and people left behind can hardly take much consolation from the angels’ assurance that He will come again. Luckily, in John’s Gospel, Jesus prays that we may be protected. He can’t mean protected from suffering and death. He must mean protected from losing contact with His Father and from losing our “oneness.” Perhaps, in Him, we can regain it.
And maybe as we mourn the Ascension as the loss of our Master, we can ponder what Barbara Brown Taylor meant in her wonderful book Leaving Church, when she wrote: “I wanted to recover the kind of faith that has nothing to do with being sure what I believe and everything to do with trusting God to catch me though I am not sure of anything” (p. 111).
Acts 1:6-14; Psalm 68:1-10, 32-25; 1 Peter 4:12-14; 5:6-11; John 17:1-11
So if Jesus rose from the dead, where is He? Why isn’t He still around, perhaps making visits to other countries like the Pope and the U.S. President do? We really NEED Him!
Well, we answer: The reason is that He ascended into heaven! Some people say they have seen him AFTER the Ascension, beginning with Saul, the man from Tarsus, whom many say is responsible for the international spread of what is now called Christianity. There are many other stories of people through the centuries that have had visions of Jesus, though none so compelling as the appearances to the first Apostles. Those Apostles were encouraged to touch him, to eat breakfast with him, to feel his breath on them, to insert fingers into gaping wounds.
But then one day he gathers them together, says two sentences, and disappears into a cloud. The irony is that he had just spoken to them about power. They, of course, wanted to know if now was the time he would restore the kingdom to Israel. That would be such a great event in their eyes, the one thing they were waiting for, the thing that had been foretold. When the Messiah comes, he will restore the kingdom.
So Jesus’s last words on earth were about power and about witnessing. After a few decades of persecution, when they surely experienced that the Greek word for witness is translated “martyr,” they would have to take another look at what power meant.
They may have forgotten that He warned them His kingdom was NOT of this world. This forgetting is understandable, since He taught them to pray “Thy Kingdom come.” And they may have taken a while to remember what sort of power he wielded while on earth. After so many of their number were killed, they may have felt like an ancient version of Beetle Bailey—beaten to a pulp again and again.
The power, it seems, was in getting up and continuing to do good works, tirelessly, one foot after the other, responding to the needs of the least powerful around them. Peter is able to write: “rejoice insofar as you are sharing Christ’s sufferings…7Cast all your anxiety on him, because he cares for you” (1 Peter 4:13, 5:7). So the power from the Spirit Jesus sends is going to be in sticking to your values in the face of serious opposition, devoting your energies to the disadvantaged and downtrodden while being accused of ineffective “do-gooder-ism,” in being dismissed as a serious player in this world where it’s political power and wealth that count.
Jesus has ascended into heaven. Wherever you think heaven is or what ascending to it might mean, the fact remains that He is no longer in the world even in His transfigured form, but we are. And those of us who have been traumatized by apocalyptic stories of rapture and cataclysm and people left behind can hardly take much consolation from the angels’ assurance that He will come again. Luckily, in John’s Gospel, Jesus prays that we may be protected. He can’t mean protected from suffering and death. He must mean protected from losing contact with His Father and from losing our “oneness.” Perhaps, in Him, we can regain it.
And maybe as we mourn the Ascension as the loss of our Master, we can ponder what Barbara Brown Taylor meant in her wonderful book Leaving Church, when she wrote: “I wanted to recover the kind of faith that has nothing to do with being sure what I believe and everything to do with trusting God to catch me though I am not sure of anything” (p. 111).
Monday, May 23, 2011
Commentary on Lectionary for May 29, 2011
Easter 6A
Acts 17:22-31; Psalm 66:8-20; 1 Peter 3:13-22; John 14:15-21
The featured speaker at Ursuline College’s graduation this year was an astrophysicist, Dr. Evalyn Gates. She is currently the CEO and Executive Director of the Cleveland Museum of Natural History. One of the points she made to the graduates was that if you consider the earth and all the stars and galaxies we can see, the total mass of them represents only a fraction of the matter in the universe. The reason is that most matter is “Dark Matter,” and we cannot see it. But we search for an understanding of it, and when we do come to more understanding, it will hold answers to many of our questions about energy and the architecture of the universe.
Put more simply, what we can see is only a tiny part of what actually exists.
If you are reading this, you know that the world did not end, as predicted, on May 21, 2011. But, we still have 2012 to look forward to, according to other predictors. At the graduation, Dr. Gates did not mention any of these predictions. She came across as a very positive person, and saw her new position as a way to encourage science education and thus make a difference in the world. She told the graduates: “Follow your passion…Find what you can contribute...Explore… Do not limit yourself by someone else’s lack of imagination.”
Isn’t this exactly what Paul was doing in his speech in front of the Areopagus? Jesus had taught him something about God, and now Paul was teaching his listeners what he had learned. And he used their own statue to an unknown God as his jumping off point. When you live in a perilous, disease-ridden, and fragile world (don’t we all?), and if you believe that there are great forces outside (call them gods) who have power to make things turn out well or badly depending on whether they are pleased with you, then you are very careful to please and appease them. You even offer sacrifice to the “unknown God,” just in case there is one—and for these Athenians, there WAS!
Some might say we have come a long way in understanding the universe and our place in it. Only 20 years ago, we were learning a mnemonic to remember the nine planets. Then Pluto was demoted, and then when astronomers looked farther, they have found 531 planets to date, with another 1200 up for verification. We no longer believe that everything in the universe revolves around the earth, although astronomers have found nothing yet to match its atmosphere.
But how about our understanding of God? Has it evolved? Developed? And then the key question: Do we know God well enough to have a relationship with Him (realizing “He” has no gender)?
What if we reflected on just that first line in today’s reading from John, John 14:15: “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” We could interpret that as meaning, if we haven’t kept his commandments, then he won’t love US. Seems like the opposite of unconditional love. It certainly points to our need for a Helper, an Advocate, a Counselor.
But we can also imagine a mother saying that to a child, a teacher to her students, a spouse to her husband: If you love me, you will do as I say. But wait a second. Jesus may have been referring to the “new” commandment he was just talking about in John 13:34: “…that you love one another. By this, all people will know that you are my disciples…”
What he may have been saying is, if you develop a relationship with me, become full of my Spirit, you will find yourself looking at others in a new, much more positive way, with “gentleness and reverence,” as Peter wrote (1 Peter 2:16). If that should happen, we will indeed be able to sing with the Psalmist: “Come and see what God has done!” (Psalm 66:6). And we will have added light to the dark matter of the universe.
Acts 17:22-31; Psalm 66:8-20; 1 Peter 3:13-22; John 14:15-21
The featured speaker at Ursuline College’s graduation this year was an astrophysicist, Dr. Evalyn Gates. She is currently the CEO and Executive Director of the Cleveland Museum of Natural History. One of the points she made to the graduates was that if you consider the earth and all the stars and galaxies we can see, the total mass of them represents only a fraction of the matter in the universe. The reason is that most matter is “Dark Matter,” and we cannot see it. But we search for an understanding of it, and when we do come to more understanding, it will hold answers to many of our questions about energy and the architecture of the universe.
Put more simply, what we can see is only a tiny part of what actually exists.
If you are reading this, you know that the world did not end, as predicted, on May 21, 2011. But, we still have 2012 to look forward to, according to other predictors. At the graduation, Dr. Gates did not mention any of these predictions. She came across as a very positive person, and saw her new position as a way to encourage science education and thus make a difference in the world. She told the graduates: “Follow your passion…Find what you can contribute...Explore… Do not limit yourself by someone else’s lack of imagination.”
Isn’t this exactly what Paul was doing in his speech in front of the Areopagus? Jesus had taught him something about God, and now Paul was teaching his listeners what he had learned. And he used their own statue to an unknown God as his jumping off point. When you live in a perilous, disease-ridden, and fragile world (don’t we all?), and if you believe that there are great forces outside (call them gods) who have power to make things turn out well or badly depending on whether they are pleased with you, then you are very careful to please and appease them. You even offer sacrifice to the “unknown God,” just in case there is one—and for these Athenians, there WAS!
Some might say we have come a long way in understanding the universe and our place in it. Only 20 years ago, we were learning a mnemonic to remember the nine planets. Then Pluto was demoted, and then when astronomers looked farther, they have found 531 planets to date, with another 1200 up for verification. We no longer believe that everything in the universe revolves around the earth, although astronomers have found nothing yet to match its atmosphere.
But how about our understanding of God? Has it evolved? Developed? And then the key question: Do we know God well enough to have a relationship with Him (realizing “He” has no gender)?
What if we reflected on just that first line in today’s reading from John, John 14:15: “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” We could interpret that as meaning, if we haven’t kept his commandments, then he won’t love US. Seems like the opposite of unconditional love. It certainly points to our need for a Helper, an Advocate, a Counselor.
But we can also imagine a mother saying that to a child, a teacher to her students, a spouse to her husband: If you love me, you will do as I say. But wait a second. Jesus may have been referring to the “new” commandment he was just talking about in John 13:34: “…that you love one another. By this, all people will know that you are my disciples…”
What he may have been saying is, if you develop a relationship with me, become full of my Spirit, you will find yourself looking at others in a new, much more positive way, with “gentleness and reverence,” as Peter wrote (1 Peter 2:16). If that should happen, we will indeed be able to sing with the Psalmist: “Come and see what God has done!” (Psalm 66:6). And we will have added light to the dark matter of the universe.
Monday, May 16, 2011
Commentary on Lectionary for May 22, 2011
Easter 5A
Acts 7:55-60; Psalm 31:1-5, 15-16; 1 Peter 2:2-10; John 14:1-14
John 14: 1-14 is one of the passages taken on by Brian McLaren in his book A New Kind of Christianity because it seems so exclusionary, especially in verse 6: “I am the way, and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” If used as a ‘proof quote,’ this verse seems to imply that those who do not know or accept Jesus (as Lord and Savior?) cannot be in God’s good graces nor among his chosen people. You can carry that thinking to the conclusion that such a person will NOT be in one of the mansions Jesus is preparing for his followers, but will end up in Hell.
McLaren counters this conclusion by having us look closely at the context—that Jesus is responding to Peter’s insistent request that he explain why they can’t go where he is going. He is not talking about all peoples in all places of the globe, but is talking to his followers, hoping they will get it that his body will die and be in a tomb for three days. He also wants them to understand that his Father’s house does not mean heaven. He is most likely referring to the Temple, which John reminds us is a metaphor for His body.
If that is correct, Jesus may be saying that in Him—that is, in God—there are many opportunities for contact, for dwelling, for connection. In the words of Psalm 31: “In you, O Lord, I take refuge.” As a crying baby may unconsciously wish she were back in her Mother’s womb, so we hope for that incorporation into the Being of God: “Into your hand, I commit my spirit” (Ps. 31:6).
McLaren makes an eloquent plea that if we Christians could refrain from considering people of other faiths as outside the good graces of God, we then could “offer Jesus to the world” as a person who through his words and actions could show us all how to save the world from its self-destructive practices and attitudes.
One thing Jesus would tell the world would be to get or remain connected to God in whatever way they think of Him. This being connected with God would certainly be the cornerstone that 1st Peter talks about, and we could even imagine that all peoples of whatever faiths could taste and see ”that the Lord is good.”
This smacks, as the May 17 issue of The Christian Century makes clear, of a very bad word for some Evangelical Christians: “Universalism.” The word implies that everyone or nearly everyone will be saved. If that’s the case, the critics proclaim, then there is no need for the Church, for Jesus, or for His Cross.
Those who are so accused, however, would strongly maintain that it is absolutely NOT true. Jesus is supremely necessary. Where else would we have such an example, such a Way to follow towards peace and justice, such words of challenge, consolation, and wisdom? Who else would give the world such hope, and call so many to collaborate with him in saving it? And where else would we believers learn what to think of God?
He calls us from darkness into “his marvelous light.” And—without denying others’ right to their own beliefs—we are proud to let our light shine into whatever darkness lies upon the earth.
Acts 7:55-60; Psalm 31:1-5, 15-16; 1 Peter 2:2-10; John 14:1-14
John 14: 1-14 is one of the passages taken on by Brian McLaren in his book A New Kind of Christianity because it seems so exclusionary, especially in verse 6: “I am the way, and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” If used as a ‘proof quote,’ this verse seems to imply that those who do not know or accept Jesus (as Lord and Savior?) cannot be in God’s good graces nor among his chosen people. You can carry that thinking to the conclusion that such a person will NOT be in one of the mansions Jesus is preparing for his followers, but will end up in Hell.
McLaren counters this conclusion by having us look closely at the context—that Jesus is responding to Peter’s insistent request that he explain why they can’t go where he is going. He is not talking about all peoples in all places of the globe, but is talking to his followers, hoping they will get it that his body will die and be in a tomb for three days. He also wants them to understand that his Father’s house does not mean heaven. He is most likely referring to the Temple, which John reminds us is a metaphor for His body.
If that is correct, Jesus may be saying that in Him—that is, in God—there are many opportunities for contact, for dwelling, for connection. In the words of Psalm 31: “In you, O Lord, I take refuge.” As a crying baby may unconsciously wish she were back in her Mother’s womb, so we hope for that incorporation into the Being of God: “Into your hand, I commit my spirit” (Ps. 31:6).
McLaren makes an eloquent plea that if we Christians could refrain from considering people of other faiths as outside the good graces of God, we then could “offer Jesus to the world” as a person who through his words and actions could show us all how to save the world from its self-destructive practices and attitudes.
One thing Jesus would tell the world would be to get or remain connected to God in whatever way they think of Him. This being connected with God would certainly be the cornerstone that 1st Peter talks about, and we could even imagine that all peoples of whatever faiths could taste and see ”that the Lord is good.”
This smacks, as the May 17 issue of The Christian Century makes clear, of a very bad word for some Evangelical Christians: “Universalism.” The word implies that everyone or nearly everyone will be saved. If that’s the case, the critics proclaim, then there is no need for the Church, for Jesus, or for His Cross.
Those who are so accused, however, would strongly maintain that it is absolutely NOT true. Jesus is supremely necessary. Where else would we have such an example, such a Way to follow towards peace and justice, such words of challenge, consolation, and wisdom? Who else would give the world such hope, and call so many to collaborate with him in saving it? And where else would we believers learn what to think of God?
He calls us from darkness into “his marvelous light.” And—without denying others’ right to their own beliefs—we are proud to let our light shine into whatever darkness lies upon the earth.
Saturday, May 14, 2011
Commentary on Lectionary for May 15, 2011
Easter 4A
Acts 2:42-47; Psalm 23, 1 Peter 2:19-25; John 10:1-10
I am preaching this Sunday and so I’ll just summarize here. The sermon title is “Kicking it up a Notch” because I’ve always been impressed that Chef Emeril can make something taste entirely different by adding a few ingredients or cooking it differently or re-envisioning the dish entirely.
I combine Emeril with Karen Armstrong (now there’s a match made in heaven!) because of Karen’s introduction of the Charter of Compassion to all of us and her mandate to “kick every Scripture passage up a notch” (my quote, not hers) if it does not result in compassion.
Today's passage that will need this turn toward compassion is the one from John, since so much of John’s Gospel has been used by Scripture quoters and apologists to exclude and condemn nonbelievers in Jesus Christ. The passages have also been used for centuries by missionaries and proselytizers in their sincere efforts to save non-Christians from eternal torment in hell.
And so how do we deal with such passages? I imagine that when Chef Emeril’s program comes on the Food Channel, some people immediately turn it off. Their vision of what food preparation should be, that may come from how their Mother or Father cooked, does not include any of the methods nor ingredients Emeril uses. And so to sign on to the Charter of Compassion will be very difficult for those who feel religion’s primary purpose is to sort sheep from goats and blow chaff away from wheat. They may also believe that every word of Scripture is inspired by God and cannot be interpreted beyond its literal meaning. They refuse to quibble about what literal means nor to acknowledge that a translation is already an interpretation.
But some others are willing and able to wrestle with a passage like this, to coax compassion out of it, and to let themselves be “wounded” by God’s message as Jacob was wounded in his wrestling match with the Angel in Genesis 32.
John’s Gospel makes the point over and over that Jesus is the embodiment of God; that he shows us what God is like. Those of us who believe in Jesus have that belief as our “Good News.” But just as there was a development in the mentality of those first Christians, who were all Jews, so also there can be and is a development in the mentality of modern day Christians. The Jews came to understand that you didn’t have to become a Jew in order to be a chosen member of this new community. In fact, you didn’t have to observe the law and the practices described in the Torah in order to be beloved of God.
And so development occurs in Christian circles as well over the centuries. People get freed from literalism and start thinking: “Wait a minute! Jesus Himself says later in this same passage: ‘I have sheep that are NOT of this fold.’” But they’re still able to hear His voice. Why can’t people who don’t know about Jesus but DO know about God, hear God’s voice in its many different guises—from nature to Allah to Buddha to simple goodness in their fellow people?
Does this mean that it doesn’t matter what you believe? Absolutely not. But it MAY mean that to discover God is to discover Jesus, no matter where or how or who. “Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God is ONE.” No wonder compassion is common to all religions—compassion is of God. “Surely goodness and mercy will follow me, all the days of my life and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord my whole life long” (Ps. 23:6)
Acts 2:42-47; Psalm 23, 1 Peter 2:19-25; John 10:1-10
I am preaching this Sunday and so I’ll just summarize here. The sermon title is “Kicking it up a Notch” because I’ve always been impressed that Chef Emeril can make something taste entirely different by adding a few ingredients or cooking it differently or re-envisioning the dish entirely.
I combine Emeril with Karen Armstrong (now there’s a match made in heaven!) because of Karen’s introduction of the Charter of Compassion to all of us and her mandate to “kick every Scripture passage up a notch” (my quote, not hers) if it does not result in compassion.
Today's passage that will need this turn toward compassion is the one from John, since so much of John’s Gospel has been used by Scripture quoters and apologists to exclude and condemn nonbelievers in Jesus Christ. The passages have also been used for centuries by missionaries and proselytizers in their sincere efforts to save non-Christians from eternal torment in hell.
And so how do we deal with such passages? I imagine that when Chef Emeril’s program comes on the Food Channel, some people immediately turn it off. Their vision of what food preparation should be, that may come from how their Mother or Father cooked, does not include any of the methods nor ingredients Emeril uses. And so to sign on to the Charter of Compassion will be very difficult for those who feel religion’s primary purpose is to sort sheep from goats and blow chaff away from wheat. They may also believe that every word of Scripture is inspired by God and cannot be interpreted beyond its literal meaning. They refuse to quibble about what literal means nor to acknowledge that a translation is already an interpretation.
But some others are willing and able to wrestle with a passage like this, to coax compassion out of it, and to let themselves be “wounded” by God’s message as Jacob was wounded in his wrestling match with the Angel in Genesis 32.
John’s Gospel makes the point over and over that Jesus is the embodiment of God; that he shows us what God is like. Those of us who believe in Jesus have that belief as our “Good News.” But just as there was a development in the mentality of those first Christians, who were all Jews, so also there can be and is a development in the mentality of modern day Christians. The Jews came to understand that you didn’t have to become a Jew in order to be a chosen member of this new community. In fact, you didn’t have to observe the law and the practices described in the Torah in order to be beloved of God.
And so development occurs in Christian circles as well over the centuries. People get freed from literalism and start thinking: “Wait a minute! Jesus Himself says later in this same passage: ‘I have sheep that are NOT of this fold.’” But they’re still able to hear His voice. Why can’t people who don’t know about Jesus but DO know about God, hear God’s voice in its many different guises—from nature to Allah to Buddha to simple goodness in their fellow people?
Does this mean that it doesn’t matter what you believe? Absolutely not. But it MAY mean that to discover God is to discover Jesus, no matter where or how or who. “Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God is ONE.” No wonder compassion is common to all religions—compassion is of God. “Surely goodness and mercy will follow me, all the days of my life and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord my whole life long” (Ps. 23:6)
Monday, May 2, 2011
Commentary on Lectionary for May 8, 2011
Easter 3A
Acts 2:14a, 36-41; Psalm 116:1-4, 12-19; 1 Peter 1:17-23; Luke 24:13-35
The weather this past April makes a fitting context for today’s readings. Howling wind, downed trees, power outages and so many tornadoes that ravaged so many parts of our country. All of us were calling friends or acquaintances to make sure they were okay. Some people in those states went down into their basements and came up to find their houses and all their belongings flattened and strewn over what used to be their neighborhood.
“Only one thing is permanent,” my wife reminded me, “and that’s God.” In a second, all of our goods can look like a department sale after Black Friday—all of those brand new, stylish clothes now looking like so much trash strewn about everywhere.
1 Peter has the same sentiment as my wife’s: “23You have been born anew, not of perishable but of imperishable seed, through the living and enduring word of God.”
In a way, it’s encouraging that these readings speak to how difficult it was then—and is now—to believe in the Resurrection of Jesus (see Acts 14:2). People didn’t recognize him—neither Mary at the tomb nor those two walking disconsolately toward Emmaus. The disciples thought he was a ghost.
The Scripture writers go to great lengths to “prove” Jesus arose (he appeared to his disciples—to people who would recognize him immediately--and then to “500 brothers at once” according to Paul (1 Cor. 15:6). He had people touch him, notably Thomas. He dispelled doubts. He even ate some broiled fish. He broke bread just as he did at his last supper.
The writers also take great pains to tie Jesus’s life to the Old Testament prophecies concerning the Messiah, the Anointed, the One Who Was to Come, even (in John) to the “I AM.” They remember the Exodus and tout Jesus as the new Lamb, whose blood enables God to Pass Over their sins. They claim that He lives on in this world—even after His ascension—through His Spirit. This Spirit is a creative force similar to the Spirit that hovered over the waters in Genesis. What the Spirit brings is new life.
Apparently, the new life means turning AWAY from selfish pursuits and turning TOWARDS the needs of your fellow human beings, as Peter says, in “genuine mutual love.” With this new life comes great hope. Like the Psalmist, we could sing: “8For you have delivered my soul from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling. 9I walk before the Lord in the land of the living” (Ps. 116). Not only could Jesus’s followers find new ways of structuring communities that prevented an unequal and unjust distribution of wealth (see Acts 2:42-47), but also they began to understand that their physical deaths were not synonymous with the end of life!
These understandings did not descend upon their heads full blown at Pentecost. They developed slowly, with difficulty, amid persecution, and…they are STILL developing. For example, they began to understand that they could reach out to and take Gentiles into their communities. And today we are beginning to understand that people who have never known Jesus can still be saved! Consider this sentiment from the 14th century non-Christian Persian Sufi Master, Hafiz:
If one
Is afraid of losing anything
They [sic]have not looked into the Friend’s eyes;
They have forgotten God’s
Promise (The Gift, p. 146).
What we followers of Jesus have and cherish is the Good News that Jesus came to share with us; that we might never have known without him; and that we are willing to share with anyone, anywhere, anytime. And this Good News is news about who God is and how much he loves us, forgives us, and is STILL WITH US, present and accessible. We do not have to make a career out of condemning those who do not know Jesus, or who reject one or other of our images of him. We can cherish his words: “I have sheep that are not of this fold (John 10:16).” We can see his Spirit everywhere, working, creating, saving, renewing.
--Permanently working, in all kinds of weather.
Acts 2:14a, 36-41; Psalm 116:1-4, 12-19; 1 Peter 1:17-23; Luke 24:13-35
The weather this past April makes a fitting context for today’s readings. Howling wind, downed trees, power outages and so many tornadoes that ravaged so many parts of our country. All of us were calling friends or acquaintances to make sure they were okay. Some people in those states went down into their basements and came up to find their houses and all their belongings flattened and strewn over what used to be their neighborhood.
“Only one thing is permanent,” my wife reminded me, “and that’s God.” In a second, all of our goods can look like a department sale after Black Friday—all of those brand new, stylish clothes now looking like so much trash strewn about everywhere.
1 Peter has the same sentiment as my wife’s: “23You have been born anew, not of perishable but of imperishable seed, through the living and enduring word of God.”
In a way, it’s encouraging that these readings speak to how difficult it was then—and is now—to believe in the Resurrection of Jesus (see Acts 14:2). People didn’t recognize him—neither Mary at the tomb nor those two walking disconsolately toward Emmaus. The disciples thought he was a ghost.
The Scripture writers go to great lengths to “prove” Jesus arose (he appeared to his disciples—to people who would recognize him immediately--and then to “500 brothers at once” according to Paul (1 Cor. 15:6). He had people touch him, notably Thomas. He dispelled doubts. He even ate some broiled fish. He broke bread just as he did at his last supper.
The writers also take great pains to tie Jesus’s life to the Old Testament prophecies concerning the Messiah, the Anointed, the One Who Was to Come, even (in John) to the “I AM.” They remember the Exodus and tout Jesus as the new Lamb, whose blood enables God to Pass Over their sins. They claim that He lives on in this world—even after His ascension—through His Spirit. This Spirit is a creative force similar to the Spirit that hovered over the waters in Genesis. What the Spirit brings is new life.
Apparently, the new life means turning AWAY from selfish pursuits and turning TOWARDS the needs of your fellow human beings, as Peter says, in “genuine mutual love.” With this new life comes great hope. Like the Psalmist, we could sing: “8For you have delivered my soul from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling. 9I walk before the Lord in the land of the living” (Ps. 116). Not only could Jesus’s followers find new ways of structuring communities that prevented an unequal and unjust distribution of wealth (see Acts 2:42-47), but also they began to understand that their physical deaths were not synonymous with the end of life!
These understandings did not descend upon their heads full blown at Pentecost. They developed slowly, with difficulty, amid persecution, and…they are STILL developing. For example, they began to understand that they could reach out to and take Gentiles into their communities. And today we are beginning to understand that people who have never known Jesus can still be saved! Consider this sentiment from the 14th century non-Christian Persian Sufi Master, Hafiz:
If one
Is afraid of losing anything
They [sic]have not looked into the Friend’s eyes;
They have forgotten God’s
Promise (The Gift, p. 146).
What we followers of Jesus have and cherish is the Good News that Jesus came to share with us; that we might never have known without him; and that we are willing to share with anyone, anywhere, anytime. And this Good News is news about who God is and how much he loves us, forgives us, and is STILL WITH US, present and accessible. We do not have to make a career out of condemning those who do not know Jesus, or who reject one or other of our images of him. We can cherish his words: “I have sheep that are not of this fold (John 10:16).” We can see his Spirit everywhere, working, creating, saving, renewing.
--Permanently working, in all kinds of weather.
Monday, April 25, 2011
Commentary on Lectionary for May 1, 2011
Easter 2
Acts 2:14a-22-32; Psalm 16; 1 Peter 1:3-9; John 20:19-31
The week after Easter the developers of the lectionary put these readings before the Christian community. One or more of them will be proclaimed in hundreds or probably thousands of churches around the world.
Most will hear Peter’s sermon that he delivered after the great commotion in Jerusalem when the mighty wind threatened to blow apart the upper room and the Apostles who saw tongues of fire on the heads of their colleagues now began to speak and act with such exuberance that people thought they had been drinking.
Other churches will choose the Resurrection story that contains the story of doubting Thomas. A few might hear Peter’s letter exhorting new followers of Jesus to have hope and confidence in their salvation, and to follow in Jesus’s way. Finally the Psalm, when it is sung, will usually be used as a bridge between readings. And this psalm is full of joy because of God’s protection.
All of the readings seem focused on cementing our faith and hope in the risen Jesus, even if we are initially doubters, like Thomas.
Although Peter seems to be quoting the prophet Joel to explain the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, which was obvious to those anywhere near that upper room, Peter can’t resist continuing with Joel’s apocalyptic language that would probably scare everyone to death and make them WANT to call upon the name of Jesus (and repent, of course), if that would save them.
These portents in Joel become more imminent when we read of two eminent scientists who just last month predicted the end of the earth as we know it, citing over-population, environmental degradation, and the statistical probability of getting hit by an asteroid. It doesn’t really matter, does it, since physical death is already inescapable. But the belief that Jesus has overcome that final end and beckons us through its tunnel to life and joy on the other side is what makes the celebration of Easter so essential. The Resurrection allows us to sing Psalm 16 in our own time with this added meaning.
But we might want to pause a minute at the Thomas story. Thomas epitomizes those of us who are struggling with belief, are mesmerized by inconsistencies in Scripture and in the interpretation of it, and are rendered catatonic by the clash of post-modern times with the ancient holy words. Some people who have thought deeply about it are consoled that it wasn’t enough for Thomas to hear testimonies from his closest friends and fellow Apostles. He had to touch the suffering, the wounds.
The promises of salvation and eternal life might only get clarified when we have experienced suffering, even the internal suffering of doubt and confusion or the dark night of disbelief. In the agony of physical and mental pain, the words of Psalm 16 take on a new meaning: “Protect me, O God, for in you I take refuge…I have no good apart from you.”
Acts 2:14a-22-32; Psalm 16; 1 Peter 1:3-9; John 20:19-31
The week after Easter the developers of the lectionary put these readings before the Christian community. One or more of them will be proclaimed in hundreds or probably thousands of churches around the world.
Most will hear Peter’s sermon that he delivered after the great commotion in Jerusalem when the mighty wind threatened to blow apart the upper room and the Apostles who saw tongues of fire on the heads of their colleagues now began to speak and act with such exuberance that people thought they had been drinking.
Other churches will choose the Resurrection story that contains the story of doubting Thomas. A few might hear Peter’s letter exhorting new followers of Jesus to have hope and confidence in their salvation, and to follow in Jesus’s way. Finally the Psalm, when it is sung, will usually be used as a bridge between readings. And this psalm is full of joy because of God’s protection.
All of the readings seem focused on cementing our faith and hope in the risen Jesus, even if we are initially doubters, like Thomas.
Although Peter seems to be quoting the prophet Joel to explain the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, which was obvious to those anywhere near that upper room, Peter can’t resist continuing with Joel’s apocalyptic language that would probably scare everyone to death and make them WANT to call upon the name of Jesus (and repent, of course), if that would save them.
These portents in Joel become more imminent when we read of two eminent scientists who just last month predicted the end of the earth as we know it, citing over-population, environmental degradation, and the statistical probability of getting hit by an asteroid. It doesn’t really matter, does it, since physical death is already inescapable. But the belief that Jesus has overcome that final end and beckons us through its tunnel to life and joy on the other side is what makes the celebration of Easter so essential. The Resurrection allows us to sing Psalm 16 in our own time with this added meaning.
But we might want to pause a minute at the Thomas story. Thomas epitomizes those of us who are struggling with belief, are mesmerized by inconsistencies in Scripture and in the interpretation of it, and are rendered catatonic by the clash of post-modern times with the ancient holy words. Some people who have thought deeply about it are consoled that it wasn’t enough for Thomas to hear testimonies from his closest friends and fellow Apostles. He had to touch the suffering, the wounds.
The promises of salvation and eternal life might only get clarified when we have experienced suffering, even the internal suffering of doubt and confusion or the dark night of disbelief. In the agony of physical and mental pain, the words of Psalm 16 take on a new meaning: “Protect me, O God, for in you I take refuge…I have no good apart from you.”
Sunday, April 17, 2011
Commentary on Lectionary for April 24, 2011
Easter Sunday
Acts 10:34-43; Psalm 118: 1-2, 14-24; Colossians 3:1-4; John 20:1-18
Sermons like Peter’s in Acts 10 may be responsible for the image of Jesus as judge, spending his newly risen life keeping track of all of our sins. In our culture, we would translate this into wearing a wire or using video cameras and then transferring the data to gigantic spreadsheets, with huge red numbers summing up the extent of our failures. After all, Peter said in his sermon: “42: He commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one ordained by God as judge of the living and the dead.”
If it is any consolation, Peter followed this up in his very next sentence with this assurance: “43: All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.”
Brian McLaren (A New Kind of Christianity), however, suggests a different definition of the word “judgment,” one that no one who likes to threaten others with hell, could ever agree to. The usual definition of divine judgment is built around the sorting of sheep and goats in Matthew’s last judgment scene. The goats go into everlasting torment.
But what if we define judgment as: “putting wrong things right;” as meaning “reconciling and restoring, not merely punishing; healing, not merely diagnosing; transforming, not merely exposing; revaluing (or redeeming),not merely evaluating” (McLaren, 203). This definition gives new meaning to Peter’s words that “everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins…” The reason is that believing in him will involve being sensitive to the needs of the poor and disadvantaged; sharing your wealth; loving your enemies and telling everyone there is good news: the world can be changed; there is a force afoot that overcomes death and evil. That force has a name, and it’s the Spirit of Jesus.
Looking at judgment in this way makes it okay to offer your services to God. He will help you make things right. Together, who knows what may be transformed: relationships? Institutions? All of a sudden, we are collaborators in creating the kingdom of God. Our freedom is still intact, as Paul warns in Colossians. We can still do very bad things, even AFTER we have decided for God.
But in this risky life, in which the chances are great we will still be lured to make many mistakes and do downright selfish things, how consoling, heartening, enlivening it is to know that Jesus lives, that he has ascended to his Father and to OUR Father.
We have new cause to sing with the Psalmist: 14The Lord is my strength and my might; he has become my salvation… 17: I shall not die, but I shall live, and recount the deeds of the Lord. “
Acts 10:34-43; Psalm 118: 1-2, 14-24; Colossians 3:1-4; John 20:1-18
Sermons like Peter’s in Acts 10 may be responsible for the image of Jesus as judge, spending his newly risen life keeping track of all of our sins. In our culture, we would translate this into wearing a wire or using video cameras and then transferring the data to gigantic spreadsheets, with huge red numbers summing up the extent of our failures. After all, Peter said in his sermon: “42: He commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one ordained by God as judge of the living and the dead.”
If it is any consolation, Peter followed this up in his very next sentence with this assurance: “43: All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.”
Brian McLaren (A New Kind of Christianity), however, suggests a different definition of the word “judgment,” one that no one who likes to threaten others with hell, could ever agree to. The usual definition of divine judgment is built around the sorting of sheep and goats in Matthew’s last judgment scene. The goats go into everlasting torment.
But what if we define judgment as: “putting wrong things right;” as meaning “reconciling and restoring, not merely punishing; healing, not merely diagnosing; transforming, not merely exposing; revaluing (or redeeming),not merely evaluating” (McLaren, 203). This definition gives new meaning to Peter’s words that “everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins…” The reason is that believing in him will involve being sensitive to the needs of the poor and disadvantaged; sharing your wealth; loving your enemies and telling everyone there is good news: the world can be changed; there is a force afoot that overcomes death and evil. That force has a name, and it’s the Spirit of Jesus.
Looking at judgment in this way makes it okay to offer your services to God. He will help you make things right. Together, who knows what may be transformed: relationships? Institutions? All of a sudden, we are collaborators in creating the kingdom of God. Our freedom is still intact, as Paul warns in Colossians. We can still do very bad things, even AFTER we have decided for God.
But in this risky life, in which the chances are great we will still be lured to make many mistakes and do downright selfish things, how consoling, heartening, enlivening it is to know that Jesus lives, that he has ascended to his Father and to OUR Father.
We have new cause to sing with the Psalmist: 14The Lord is my strength and my might; he has become my salvation… 17: I shall not die, but I shall live, and recount the deeds of the Lord. “
Sunday, April 10, 2011
Commentary on Lectionary for April 17, 2011
Palm Sunday
Isaiah 50:4-9a; Psalm 31: 9-16; Philippians 2:5-11; Matthew 26:14-27:66
It’s the little images, the short phrases in these readings that are intriguing. For example, those first lines of the Isaiah reading: 4The Lord God has given me the tongue of a teacher, that I may know how to sustain the weary with a word. Morning by morning he wakens— wakens my ear to listen as those who are taught. 5The Lord God has opened my ear, and I was not rebellious…
The idea that a teacher can sustain a weary person with a word! What would that word be? Would it be a word of understanding or the kind of praise that sees something deep inside of you that you yourself are only vaguely aware of?
And then Isaiah puts before us this image of having your ear awakened. As we get bombarded with commercials, phone calls, texts, emails and everyone shouting, cajoling, seducing us for our money, we have to put our hands over our ears. I doubt they had such over-stimulation in prophetic times. But they may have needed to have their ears awakened so they could take in a really important message.
And then there’s the Psalmist, who sounds like a depressed paranoid schizophrenic: “I hear the whispering of many— terror all around!— as they scheme together against me, as they plot to take my life. But then he says there’s one person he trusts: the Lord! He pleads for what he imagines—that the Lord’s face may shine upon him. Think about what it means to have someone you trust greet you with a shining face. Would any words be necessary?
Paul says his joy will be complete if we could only be of the same mind and realize that God is at work in all of us. Instead of posturing, needing recognition, needing control, think of Jesus, who gave everything up and took the form of a servant.
Not only that, as Matthew makes clear in the story of his execution, he took the form of one who was deserted by his friends, betrayed by his own disciple. He took the form of a criminal, of one whom the government thought deserved the death penalty. He took the form of bread and wine.
If our own world starts to crumble, what word would sustain us? What face would shine upon us? Can we awaken an ear to hear it? Can we put our ear to the ground to hear the good news that a faith community provides? Can our spirits be like a huge vacuum sucking up enough light and peace to become beacons ourselves?
What if the word is “TRUST” and what if the face is GOD’s?
Isaiah 50:4-9a; Psalm 31: 9-16; Philippians 2:5-11; Matthew 26:14-27:66
It’s the little images, the short phrases in these readings that are intriguing. For example, those first lines of the Isaiah reading: 4The Lord God has given me the tongue of a teacher, that I may know how to sustain the weary with a word. Morning by morning he wakens— wakens my ear to listen as those who are taught. 5The Lord God has opened my ear, and I was not rebellious…
The idea that a teacher can sustain a weary person with a word! What would that word be? Would it be a word of understanding or the kind of praise that sees something deep inside of you that you yourself are only vaguely aware of?
And then Isaiah puts before us this image of having your ear awakened. As we get bombarded with commercials, phone calls, texts, emails and everyone shouting, cajoling, seducing us for our money, we have to put our hands over our ears. I doubt they had such over-stimulation in prophetic times. But they may have needed to have their ears awakened so they could take in a really important message.
And then there’s the Psalmist, who sounds like a depressed paranoid schizophrenic: “I hear the whispering of many— terror all around!— as they scheme together against me, as they plot to take my life. But then he says there’s one person he trusts: the Lord! He pleads for what he imagines—that the Lord’s face may shine upon him. Think about what it means to have someone you trust greet you with a shining face. Would any words be necessary?
Paul says his joy will be complete if we could only be of the same mind and realize that God is at work in all of us. Instead of posturing, needing recognition, needing control, think of Jesus, who gave everything up and took the form of a servant.
Not only that, as Matthew makes clear in the story of his execution, he took the form of one who was deserted by his friends, betrayed by his own disciple. He took the form of a criminal, of one whom the government thought deserved the death penalty. He took the form of bread and wine.
If our own world starts to crumble, what word would sustain us? What face would shine upon us? Can we awaken an ear to hear it? Can we put our ear to the ground to hear the good news that a faith community provides? Can our spirits be like a huge vacuum sucking up enough light and peace to become beacons ourselves?
What if the word is “TRUST” and what if the face is GOD’s?
Sunday, April 3, 2011
Commentary on Lectionary for April 10, 2011
Lent 5A
Ezekiel 37:1-14; Psalm 130; Romans 8:6-11; John 11:1-45
The old saw has it that “in this world nothing can be said to be certain except death and taxes.” I looked in my Oxford Dictionary of Quotations to find out who said that, and , I might have known, it was Ben Franklin. Right under it in the book was his epitaph for himself, which reads: “The body of Benjamin Franklin, printer (Like the cover of an old book, its contents worn out, and stript of its lettering and gilding) lies here, food for worms! Yet the work itself shall not be lost, for it will, as he believed, appear once more in a new and more beautiful edition, corrected and amended by its Author!”
These are appropriate quotes, this close to tax day, and this close to Good Friday. Death abounds in the readings and can be oppressive as we get closer and closer to the execution of the Son of Man. I used to hate Holy Week, with its many readings of the Passion, its somber mood, purple everywhere, silence or hushed whispers, guilt hanging from the rafters of my memory. Like a child whose parent has tragically died, I am sure I killed him.
As we age, things get stripped from us just as Ben Franklin said. Our careers, our memories, our other faculties, friends and relatives, our stamina and health. It takes great act of faith to believe that none of these things are the “real me.” Eckhard Tolle and other contemplatives insist that we can “practice dying,” by letting these little losses go, but also letting them increase our understanding that they were just “gilding and lettering.” Taxes may be a good way to practice dying. In one of his meditations from Everything Belongs, Rev. Richard Rohr writes: “Please don’t get caught in just ‘my’ story, my hurts, my agenda. It’s too small. It’s not the whole You, the Great You.”
And so the message to Ezekiel. What a terrible vision he was given—all of those bones! I wonder if he was so sick he could barely stand. And yet God made him understand they weren’t the whole story. They stood for Israel—seemingly dead, but not forgotten by a God who could put flesh back on them quicker than Ezekiel could make a prophecy.
A similar thing must be said of that strange Lazarus story in John’s Gospel. Jesus is told his friend is ill, yet he delays. He knows Lazarus is going to die and then DOES die. He knows he is going to call him forth from that grave, and yet Jesus weeps when he gets there. He keeps talking about faith, just as Paul does in Romans.
And it’s always troubled me that Lazarus doesn’t STAY raised from the dead. Eventually, he dies again and stays dead this time!
The conclusion has to be that none of this is about death; it’s about life. Faith is the way through—to believe that none of the gilding and lettering is really you; and the wearing out and dying of your body and its melting down to bones and eventually dust have nothing to do with your true essence and destiny. You, I, we, they have been touched by God. We are, as Paul notes, “not in the flesh. We are in the Spirit.” The Spirit cannot die.
Cry out from the scary depths when death and taxes approach, but wait. Bring your guilt down from the rafters, because forgiveness is here and steadfast love and great power to redeem (Ps. 50). We wait because we can’t earn this forgiveness and this love. We wait because we can’t make it happen on our own. We wait in prayer and openness. But we wait with confidence and hope because we know Someone has this foolhardy, undeserved, over-the-top LOVE for us!
Ezekiel 37:1-14; Psalm 130; Romans 8:6-11; John 11:1-45
The old saw has it that “in this world nothing can be said to be certain except death and taxes.” I looked in my Oxford Dictionary of Quotations to find out who said that, and , I might have known, it was Ben Franklin. Right under it in the book was his epitaph for himself, which reads: “The body of Benjamin Franklin, printer (Like the cover of an old book, its contents worn out, and stript of its lettering and gilding) lies here, food for worms! Yet the work itself shall not be lost, for it will, as he believed, appear once more in a new and more beautiful edition, corrected and amended by its Author!”
These are appropriate quotes, this close to tax day, and this close to Good Friday. Death abounds in the readings and can be oppressive as we get closer and closer to the execution of the Son of Man. I used to hate Holy Week, with its many readings of the Passion, its somber mood, purple everywhere, silence or hushed whispers, guilt hanging from the rafters of my memory. Like a child whose parent has tragically died, I am sure I killed him.
As we age, things get stripped from us just as Ben Franklin said. Our careers, our memories, our other faculties, friends and relatives, our stamina and health. It takes great act of faith to believe that none of these things are the “real me.” Eckhard Tolle and other contemplatives insist that we can “practice dying,” by letting these little losses go, but also letting them increase our understanding that they were just “gilding and lettering.” Taxes may be a good way to practice dying. In one of his meditations from Everything Belongs, Rev. Richard Rohr writes: “Please don’t get caught in just ‘my’ story, my hurts, my agenda. It’s too small. It’s not the whole You, the Great You.”
And so the message to Ezekiel. What a terrible vision he was given—all of those bones! I wonder if he was so sick he could barely stand. And yet God made him understand they weren’t the whole story. They stood for Israel—seemingly dead, but not forgotten by a God who could put flesh back on them quicker than Ezekiel could make a prophecy.
A similar thing must be said of that strange Lazarus story in John’s Gospel. Jesus is told his friend is ill, yet he delays. He knows Lazarus is going to die and then DOES die. He knows he is going to call him forth from that grave, and yet Jesus weeps when he gets there. He keeps talking about faith, just as Paul does in Romans.
And it’s always troubled me that Lazarus doesn’t STAY raised from the dead. Eventually, he dies again and stays dead this time!
The conclusion has to be that none of this is about death; it’s about life. Faith is the way through—to believe that none of the gilding and lettering is really you; and the wearing out and dying of your body and its melting down to bones and eventually dust have nothing to do with your true essence and destiny. You, I, we, they have been touched by God. We are, as Paul notes, “not in the flesh. We are in the Spirit.” The Spirit cannot die.
Cry out from the scary depths when death and taxes approach, but wait. Bring your guilt down from the rafters, because forgiveness is here and steadfast love and great power to redeem (Ps. 50). We wait because we can’t earn this forgiveness and this love. We wait because we can’t make it happen on our own. We wait in prayer and openness. But we wait with confidence and hope because we know Someone has this foolhardy, undeserved, over-the-top LOVE for us!
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Commentary on Lectionary for April 3, 2011
Lent 4A
1 Samuel 16:1-13; Psalm 23; Ephesians 5:8-14; John 9:1-41
One of Shakespeare’s favorite themes is the contrast between appearance and reality. “That one may smile and smile and be a villain,” Hamlet says of Gertrude. So many of our images are given (or pushed) on us by advertisers and politicians that it is extremely difficult to know what is real and what is either false or simply unreal. During the NCAA tournament, one has to wonder what being filmed for national TV does to a coach’s pre-game speech and behavior.
The choice of David as King of Israel could not be clearer in its emphasis on reality versus experience. This little shepherd had the courage and the acumen to challenge and defeat Goliath, whom anyone would have bet on to win that battle. And John sets out the same theme, only in terms of blindness. The man born blind is the only one who sees that Jesus is far from being a sinner, and is instead a Prophet.
The Pharisees are trapped in their law and can’t see any way around it. If you work on the Sabbath, you have broken the Law. They felt this law came directly from God. Therefore, anyone who broke this law MUST be a sinner. In their minds, there could be no other conclusion. They were blind to any other possibility.
The question is: what did they miss? What did they not see? Jesus said: Because you say you see, your sin remains. Whoa! Now we’re talking about sin! The Pharisees were raised on the principle that if a person is born blind, then his parents must have committed some sin. Physical ailments or handicaps were always the result of somebody’s sin. Job’s friends spent days trying to convince him of this.
Maybe Psalm 23 has the answer. What the Pharisees missed was “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.” Jesus slowly and persistently shows that obedience to the specifications of the Law that spell out what keeping holy the Sabbath means and define what “work” on the Sabbath is, are not what God meant in the Sinai commandment. We in this part of the U.S. have given up on any societal attempt to keep the Sabbath holy and even if we wanted to, would have to keep our kids out of certain sports because their only practice time is on Sundays. But the need to preserve its holiness remains because such Sabbath rest is a time for us to remember what is truly important, to revive our spirits, and to reconnect with the Lord our Shepherd. This is what the Torah was supposed to be about.
This is not easy to see. The culture grows on us as if we were petri dishes. The appearances trump the realities like a championship bridge team. For us whose cataracts have been slowly growing, Paul starts the process of defining sight as light and blindness as darkness. John will make this transition also, especially in his letters. Jesus is identified as the light of the world. And so Paul has the best advice: “Live as children of light— 9: for the fruit of the light is found in all that is good and right and true. 10: Try to find out what is pleasing to the Lord” (Ephesians 5:9-10).
Now it’s easy to see: “Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil for you are with me; your rod and your staff— they comfort me“ (Psalm 23:4). We are meant to see God through Jesus.
1 Samuel 16:1-13; Psalm 23; Ephesians 5:8-14; John 9:1-41
One of Shakespeare’s favorite themes is the contrast between appearance and reality. “That one may smile and smile and be a villain,” Hamlet says of Gertrude. So many of our images are given (or pushed) on us by advertisers and politicians that it is extremely difficult to know what is real and what is either false or simply unreal. During the NCAA tournament, one has to wonder what being filmed for national TV does to a coach’s pre-game speech and behavior.
The choice of David as King of Israel could not be clearer in its emphasis on reality versus experience. This little shepherd had the courage and the acumen to challenge and defeat Goliath, whom anyone would have bet on to win that battle. And John sets out the same theme, only in terms of blindness. The man born blind is the only one who sees that Jesus is far from being a sinner, and is instead a Prophet.
The Pharisees are trapped in their law and can’t see any way around it. If you work on the Sabbath, you have broken the Law. They felt this law came directly from God. Therefore, anyone who broke this law MUST be a sinner. In their minds, there could be no other conclusion. They were blind to any other possibility.
The question is: what did they miss? What did they not see? Jesus said: Because you say you see, your sin remains. Whoa! Now we’re talking about sin! The Pharisees were raised on the principle that if a person is born blind, then his parents must have committed some sin. Physical ailments or handicaps were always the result of somebody’s sin. Job’s friends spent days trying to convince him of this.
Maybe Psalm 23 has the answer. What the Pharisees missed was “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.” Jesus slowly and persistently shows that obedience to the specifications of the Law that spell out what keeping holy the Sabbath means and define what “work” on the Sabbath is, are not what God meant in the Sinai commandment. We in this part of the U.S. have given up on any societal attempt to keep the Sabbath holy and even if we wanted to, would have to keep our kids out of certain sports because their only practice time is on Sundays. But the need to preserve its holiness remains because such Sabbath rest is a time for us to remember what is truly important, to revive our spirits, and to reconnect with the Lord our Shepherd. This is what the Torah was supposed to be about.
This is not easy to see. The culture grows on us as if we were petri dishes. The appearances trump the realities like a championship bridge team. For us whose cataracts have been slowly growing, Paul starts the process of defining sight as light and blindness as darkness. John will make this transition also, especially in his letters. Jesus is identified as the light of the world. And so Paul has the best advice: “Live as children of light— 9: for the fruit of the light is found in all that is good and right and true. 10: Try to find out what is pleasing to the Lord” (Ephesians 5:9-10).
Now it’s easy to see: “Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil for you are with me; your rod and your staff— they comfort me“ (Psalm 23:4). We are meant to see God through Jesus.
Sunday, March 20, 2011
Commentary on Lectionary for March 27, 2011
Lent 3A
Exodus 17:1-7; Psalm 95; Romans 5:1-11; John 4:5-42
The subject is water. We can go a lot of days without food, but very few without water. The Israelites in the desert were thirsty. They were probably dying of thirst. They complained, and both God and Moses took exception to their cries. God took care of them and made water flow from a rock, but Moses still called the place Massah and Meribah because of their rebellion, and the Psalmist still remembers that and cautioned his readers against a similar complaint. “Do not harden your hearts,” the Psalmist sings, “as at Meribah, as on the day at Massah in the wilderness, 9when your ancestors tested me, and put me to the proof, though they had seen my work.“ It appears that being desperately thirsty is no reason to doubt the protection of God. This is a God who loathed a whole generation for forty years and swore they would never enter into His rest. (Psalm 95:8-11).
Then there’s the episode at Jacob’s well with Jesus and the Samaritan women. So many taboos were broken there (a man talking to a woman; a Jew talking to a Samaritan; a single man talking to a divorced woman) that the apostles didn’t even ask what was going on. And He stayed there for two days! Jesus told the Samaritan woman that water was not the reason he came to the well, and water was not the thing that would quench her real thirst. That is, not physical water, H2O, the kind that washes away dirt. Was he talking about the kind of water that washes away sin? That’s baptismal water.
You have to wonder what kind of thirst prompted the espousal of five husbands. I doubt it was lust. I could imagine it was a thirst for intimacy and the union of hearts and spirits. When intimacy happens, it becomes easier to envision what heaven might be like.
What is Jesus implying? --The good news is that adultery and non-Jewishness and what else(?) are NOT impediments to achieving intimacy with God? As usual, it is Paul in his letter to the Romans who throws a wrench into the works. Paul writes that perhaps you might find someone who would give his life for a really good person. But Jesus died for the ungodly! He reconciled us while we were enemies! This certainly turns our image of God on its head. We start having to think of God as “Christ-like!”
All that loathing over people who were demanding water after they had been freed from captivity now seems anthropomorphic , like talking about God’s hands or eyes or eagle’s wings. And so back to water. Water is essential for life. Water is important for cleansing. It is a great symbol for rebirth into the way of Jesus. First be born, then be sustained by the bread and wine that are symbols of what He did to show his love for us. Baptism, says Scripture scholar Dr. Walter Brueggemann, means that we are willing to walk in His way. “Don’t only wash my feet,” Peter ends up saying at the Last Supper, “wash all of me.” In other words, I need to be transformed into someone I am not yet. Spit on some dust and wash my eyes with it, because I am not yet seeing things correctly.
Lent is full of hope that the God who can produce water in a desert, call it out of a rock, can also soften and change hearts. As the woman from Samaria found out at the well, He wants to. Give him any excuse to stay in your life, and he will.
Exodus 17:1-7; Psalm 95; Romans 5:1-11; John 4:5-42
The subject is water. We can go a lot of days without food, but very few without water. The Israelites in the desert were thirsty. They were probably dying of thirst. They complained, and both God and Moses took exception to their cries. God took care of them and made water flow from a rock, but Moses still called the place Massah and Meribah because of their rebellion, and the Psalmist still remembers that and cautioned his readers against a similar complaint. “Do not harden your hearts,” the Psalmist sings, “as at Meribah, as on the day at Massah in the wilderness, 9when your ancestors tested me, and put me to the proof, though they had seen my work.“ It appears that being desperately thirsty is no reason to doubt the protection of God. This is a God who loathed a whole generation for forty years and swore they would never enter into His rest. (Psalm 95:8-11).
Then there’s the episode at Jacob’s well with Jesus and the Samaritan women. So many taboos were broken there (a man talking to a woman; a Jew talking to a Samaritan; a single man talking to a divorced woman) that the apostles didn’t even ask what was going on. And He stayed there for two days! Jesus told the Samaritan woman that water was not the reason he came to the well, and water was not the thing that would quench her real thirst. That is, not physical water, H2O, the kind that washes away dirt. Was he talking about the kind of water that washes away sin? That’s baptismal water.
You have to wonder what kind of thirst prompted the espousal of five husbands. I doubt it was lust. I could imagine it was a thirst for intimacy and the union of hearts and spirits. When intimacy happens, it becomes easier to envision what heaven might be like.
What is Jesus implying? --The good news is that adultery and non-Jewishness and what else(?) are NOT impediments to achieving intimacy with God? As usual, it is Paul in his letter to the Romans who throws a wrench into the works. Paul writes that perhaps you might find someone who would give his life for a really good person. But Jesus died for the ungodly! He reconciled us while we were enemies! This certainly turns our image of God on its head. We start having to think of God as “Christ-like!”
All that loathing over people who were demanding water after they had been freed from captivity now seems anthropomorphic , like talking about God’s hands or eyes or eagle’s wings. And so back to water. Water is essential for life. Water is important for cleansing. It is a great symbol for rebirth into the way of Jesus. First be born, then be sustained by the bread and wine that are symbols of what He did to show his love for us. Baptism, says Scripture scholar Dr. Walter Brueggemann, means that we are willing to walk in His way. “Don’t only wash my feet,” Peter ends up saying at the Last Supper, “wash all of me.” In other words, I need to be transformed into someone I am not yet. Spit on some dust and wash my eyes with it, because I am not yet seeing things correctly.
Lent is full of hope that the God who can produce water in a desert, call it out of a rock, can also soften and change hearts. As the woman from Samaria found out at the well, He wants to. Give him any excuse to stay in your life, and he will.
Sunday, March 13, 2011
Commentary on Lectionary for March 20, 2011
Lent 2A
Genesis 12:1-4a; Psalm 121; Romans 4:1-5, 13-17; John 3:1-17
Travel in the days of Abraham must have been a life-threatening experience. Slow, too. It couldn’t have been much better in Jesus’ time, although the roads would have been much better because of the Roman Empire’s efforts at building them. Even today, travel is difficult. It is a great act of faith on the part of Muslims who fulfill their duty and their dream of traveling to Mecca.
When the Israelites traveled to Jerusalem, to their beloved Zion, to worship at the Temple, they took courage from singing Psalm 121. Choirs sing part of it today: “He watching over Israel slumbers not nor sleeps (Mendelsohn’s Elijah).” The Psalm promises the guidance and protection of the Lord. However, it can’t mean that. Bad things happen on journeys. Travellers sometimes don’t make it or suffer delays, accidents, injury. Our past winter offered piles of data. Not everything is weather related. Some of the evils related to travel are man-made. And so with our journey through life—it is fraught with perils, many of them man-made, plus natural disasters.
Paul gives a lot of credit to Abraham because of his faith. One way of saying this is: Abraham would have believed Psalm 121. He just left. He went on a perilous journey. He trusted that—even if bad things happened (and they did), God would support him (and He did). Paul is adamant that Abraham’s faith was not activated by circumcision, nor did it arise AFTER he was promised the land, the blessing and all of those descendants. In modern terms, he had faith BEFORE he was baptized.
The very same thing happened in one of the stories from the Acts of the Apostles: people who were listening to Peter’s message received the Holy Spirit BEFORE they were baptized (Acts 10:44). The issue might be framed as one of travel. How far must one travel to get connected to God? The answer is: Not far, because this God is seeking to get connected to YOU. Just turning and looking is enough.
In Jesus’ meeting with Nicodemus, Jesus calls this being “reborn.” New life flows into you like water. It’s the reason Jesus came: so that everyone can experience new life, not just those who have some mark on them like circumcision, or even baptism. God wants to connect with EVERYONE. He sent His Son, not to condemn the world, but to save it.
And if Jesus is the travel agent, he says: Turn in my direction. Take steps. Try to block out your fears of travel. I’ll be with you. Have faith as you begin this journey. Even in the middle of the night, when you are sweating with anxiety, I’ll be awake and ready to listen to your cries.
Genesis 12:1-4a; Psalm 121; Romans 4:1-5, 13-17; John 3:1-17
Travel in the days of Abraham must have been a life-threatening experience. Slow, too. It couldn’t have been much better in Jesus’ time, although the roads would have been much better because of the Roman Empire’s efforts at building them. Even today, travel is difficult. It is a great act of faith on the part of Muslims who fulfill their duty and their dream of traveling to Mecca.
When the Israelites traveled to Jerusalem, to their beloved Zion, to worship at the Temple, they took courage from singing Psalm 121. Choirs sing part of it today: “He watching over Israel slumbers not nor sleeps (Mendelsohn’s Elijah).” The Psalm promises the guidance and protection of the Lord. However, it can’t mean that. Bad things happen on journeys. Travellers sometimes don’t make it or suffer delays, accidents, injury. Our past winter offered piles of data. Not everything is weather related. Some of the evils related to travel are man-made. And so with our journey through life—it is fraught with perils, many of them man-made, plus natural disasters.
Paul gives a lot of credit to Abraham because of his faith. One way of saying this is: Abraham would have believed Psalm 121. He just left. He went on a perilous journey. He trusted that—even if bad things happened (and they did), God would support him (and He did). Paul is adamant that Abraham’s faith was not activated by circumcision, nor did it arise AFTER he was promised the land, the blessing and all of those descendants. In modern terms, he had faith BEFORE he was baptized.
The very same thing happened in one of the stories from the Acts of the Apostles: people who were listening to Peter’s message received the Holy Spirit BEFORE they were baptized (Acts 10:44). The issue might be framed as one of travel. How far must one travel to get connected to God? The answer is: Not far, because this God is seeking to get connected to YOU. Just turning and looking is enough.
In Jesus’ meeting with Nicodemus, Jesus calls this being “reborn.” New life flows into you like water. It’s the reason Jesus came: so that everyone can experience new life, not just those who have some mark on them like circumcision, or even baptism. God wants to connect with EVERYONE. He sent His Son, not to condemn the world, but to save it.
And if Jesus is the travel agent, he says: Turn in my direction. Take steps. Try to block out your fears of travel. I’ll be with you. Have faith as you begin this journey. Even in the middle of the night, when you are sweating with anxiety, I’ll be awake and ready to listen to your cries.
Sunday, March 6, 2011
Commentary on Lectionary for March 13, 2011
Lent 1A
Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7; Psalm 32; Romans 5:12-19; Matthew 4:1-11
Whenever the economy crashes, we go looking for what went wrong. It isn’t long before we discover that some individuals, some people of leadership and power, wanted MORE, wanted it NOW, and did risky things without regard for ethics or who might get hurt. Pretty soon these behaviors became the thing to do, because everybody was doing them, and to hold oneself as the “Goody Two-Shoes” who wasn’t going along would be labeled as naïve idealism indeed. It would not have persuaded your stockholders.
On the cosmic level, when we look around and see how beautiful the world is; as we watch a baby learn to smile, and look for the first shoots of crocus that have been growing under the snow, it is only natural to ask how all this beauty got here and what went wrong with this beautiful world so that there is so much pain and war and death in it now.
We do not have to look long before we find what went wrong. There are lots of creation stories in the lore of the ancient cultures and religions of the world. But none is so elegant and masterful as this one from Genesis. It explains what happened.
The One who created it all and called it Good—this beautiful mess of trees and mountains and butterflies and dolphins and ostriches—seemed to make a huge mistake. He put a measure of freedom into everything. So even molecules and subatomic particles have a waywardness about them and can mutate and do quite unexpected things…Not to mention humans, who were free to eat of the fruit of that one tree even though instructed not to.
This waywardness, this freedom to follow bad advice, is the start of our downhill path according to Genesis. We are NOT good at obedience, especially when our passions and emotions are excited. We get arrogant. We think we can do whatever we want to get whatever we want. Look way back in Isaiah 14:13 for this expression of human pride: “You said in your heart: ‘I will ascend to the heavens; I will raise my throne above the stars of God; I will sit enthroned on the mount of assembly, on the utmost heights of Mount Zabulon. I will ascend above the tops of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.’”
And so in Genesis, the Creator God, spells out for his humans what the consequences of this arrogance are. There is a fratricide in the very next chapter. Notice that neither Adam nor Eve confesses their sin, except to blame someone else and finally the serpent. In Psalm 32, the person is called “blessed” or “happy” whose sin is forgiven. In verse 5, the person acknowledges his sin and advises everyone to pray (for forgiveness?) at a time when God “may be found.”
Note also that the Genesis story offers an image of God as a tailor, making clothes for the naked couple to cover their embarrassment. Then consider the words of Paul, who offers Jesus as a second Adam, one who gets it right, and knows how to use freedom and how to “walk humbly before God.” This is the Jesus who does NOT succumb to the temptations to want more, want it now, and do whatever it takes to get comfort, wealth and power.
His forty days of prayer and fasting in the desert are forever after our paradigm for Lent, for redirecting our steps towards true freedom and enlightenment. As the Psalm implies, the first step might be to acknowledge our need to be in that desert, reflecting on our utter dependence on our wonderful, benevolent, Creator God. It’s a place where He may be found.
Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7; Psalm 32; Romans 5:12-19; Matthew 4:1-11
Whenever the economy crashes, we go looking for what went wrong. It isn’t long before we discover that some individuals, some people of leadership and power, wanted MORE, wanted it NOW, and did risky things without regard for ethics or who might get hurt. Pretty soon these behaviors became the thing to do, because everybody was doing them, and to hold oneself as the “Goody Two-Shoes” who wasn’t going along would be labeled as naïve idealism indeed. It would not have persuaded your stockholders.
On the cosmic level, when we look around and see how beautiful the world is; as we watch a baby learn to smile, and look for the first shoots of crocus that have been growing under the snow, it is only natural to ask how all this beauty got here and what went wrong with this beautiful world so that there is so much pain and war and death in it now.
We do not have to look long before we find what went wrong. There are lots of creation stories in the lore of the ancient cultures and religions of the world. But none is so elegant and masterful as this one from Genesis. It explains what happened.
The One who created it all and called it Good—this beautiful mess of trees and mountains and butterflies and dolphins and ostriches—seemed to make a huge mistake. He put a measure of freedom into everything. So even molecules and subatomic particles have a waywardness about them and can mutate and do quite unexpected things…Not to mention humans, who were free to eat of the fruit of that one tree even though instructed not to.
This waywardness, this freedom to follow bad advice, is the start of our downhill path according to Genesis. We are NOT good at obedience, especially when our passions and emotions are excited. We get arrogant. We think we can do whatever we want to get whatever we want. Look way back in Isaiah 14:13 for this expression of human pride: “You said in your heart: ‘I will ascend to the heavens; I will raise my throne above the stars of God; I will sit enthroned on the mount of assembly, on the utmost heights of Mount Zabulon. I will ascend above the tops of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.’”
And so in Genesis, the Creator God, spells out for his humans what the consequences of this arrogance are. There is a fratricide in the very next chapter. Notice that neither Adam nor Eve confesses their sin, except to blame someone else and finally the serpent. In Psalm 32, the person is called “blessed” or “happy” whose sin is forgiven. In verse 5, the person acknowledges his sin and advises everyone to pray (for forgiveness?) at a time when God “may be found.”
Note also that the Genesis story offers an image of God as a tailor, making clothes for the naked couple to cover their embarrassment. Then consider the words of Paul, who offers Jesus as a second Adam, one who gets it right, and knows how to use freedom and how to “walk humbly before God.” This is the Jesus who does NOT succumb to the temptations to want more, want it now, and do whatever it takes to get comfort, wealth and power.
His forty days of prayer and fasting in the desert are forever after our paradigm for Lent, for redirecting our steps towards true freedom and enlightenment. As the Psalm implies, the first step might be to acknowledge our need to be in that desert, reflecting on our utter dependence on our wonderful, benevolent, Creator God. It’s a place where He may be found.
Monday, February 28, 2011
Commentary on Lectionary for March 6, 2011
Epiphany 9A
Exodus 24:12-18; Psalm 99; 2 Peter 1:16-21; Matthew 17:1-9
Here is absolutely the wrong question to ask after you read the story of the Transfiguration in Matthew’s Gospel: How did Peter, James and John know that Jesus was talking with Moses and Elijah? In our day, we could say: “We saw you on TV when you went up that mountain and came down with those tablets.” Or: “We saw the pictures of your chariot going up to heaven on your Facebook page; someone took a picture with her cell phone and posted it on your wall.”
There were no newspapers, no photographs, no archives. But Matthew says Moses and Elijah were talking with Jesus. How did he know? It’s the wrong question. It doesn’t have an answer. The better question is: What does the passage mean? What does it call us to?
It calls us to remember the reading from Exodus 24—that trip up Mount Sinai that Moses was called to, even though the thing was smoking and on fire. But out of that trip came 10 rules which, if observed, would go a long way toward helping people live in happiness and peace. And Elijah? The legend was that he didn’t die and would come back again. After this passage, Jesus says he has already come and people missed him! He must have been referring to John the Baptist.
Peter’s second letter reinforces the importance of prophets. Elijah was a prophet. He was one of those who spoke for God. He made sure that God was not forgotten or relegated to second place. This was, after all, the God who invited Moses to come up the mountain and receive that precious document, the beginning of the Mosaic Law.
So where does Jesus fit in? He doesn’t. He is no ordinary man. The Transfiguration shows the three Apostles that suffering and death will not be the end of him nor of us! And the voice enjoins the Apostles to “listen to Him!” The message is that He has words for life, and for eternal life.
And so it turns out that the amazing thing is NOT that Jesus was talking to Moses and Elijah and NOT that there was a voice from heaven, apparently from God, saying that “This is my beloved son.” The amazing thing is that He is among us, one of us. When the Apostles recover from the voice and the cloud and the proximity of the divine, they walked down the mountain into their daily lives and Jesus told them to act as if nothing had happened.
But they remembered—not immediately, but after the awful event. Two of them wrote letters. One wrote a gospel. And His gospel started with the voice, the Word, and reinforced the amazing fact: “The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us.”
Exodus 24:12-18; Psalm 99; 2 Peter 1:16-21; Matthew 17:1-9
Here is absolutely the wrong question to ask after you read the story of the Transfiguration in Matthew’s Gospel: How did Peter, James and John know that Jesus was talking with Moses and Elijah? In our day, we could say: “We saw you on TV when you went up that mountain and came down with those tablets.” Or: “We saw the pictures of your chariot going up to heaven on your Facebook page; someone took a picture with her cell phone and posted it on your wall.”
There were no newspapers, no photographs, no archives. But Matthew says Moses and Elijah were talking with Jesus. How did he know? It’s the wrong question. It doesn’t have an answer. The better question is: What does the passage mean? What does it call us to?
It calls us to remember the reading from Exodus 24—that trip up Mount Sinai that Moses was called to, even though the thing was smoking and on fire. But out of that trip came 10 rules which, if observed, would go a long way toward helping people live in happiness and peace. And Elijah? The legend was that he didn’t die and would come back again. After this passage, Jesus says he has already come and people missed him! He must have been referring to John the Baptist.
Peter’s second letter reinforces the importance of prophets. Elijah was a prophet. He was one of those who spoke for God. He made sure that God was not forgotten or relegated to second place. This was, after all, the God who invited Moses to come up the mountain and receive that precious document, the beginning of the Mosaic Law.
So where does Jesus fit in? He doesn’t. He is no ordinary man. The Transfiguration shows the three Apostles that suffering and death will not be the end of him nor of us! And the voice enjoins the Apostles to “listen to Him!” The message is that He has words for life, and for eternal life.
And so it turns out that the amazing thing is NOT that Jesus was talking to Moses and Elijah and NOT that there was a voice from heaven, apparently from God, saying that “This is my beloved son.” The amazing thing is that He is among us, one of us. When the Apostles recover from the voice and the cloud and the proximity of the divine, they walked down the mountain into their daily lives and Jesus told them to act as if nothing had happened.
But they remembered—not immediately, but after the awful event. Two of them wrote letters. One wrote a gospel. And His gospel started with the voice, the Word, and reinforced the amazing fact: “The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us.”
Monday, February 21, 2011
Commentary on Lectionary for February 27, 2011
Epiphany 8A
Isaiah 49:8-16a; Psalm 131; 1 Corinthians 4:1-5, 16-23; Matthew 6:24-34
You can just imagine someone of wealth, power and position talking to someone who criticizes him or her: “Do you know to WHOM you are talking?” “Do you know who I am?” It seems that the more money some people accumulate, the more years they remain in office, the more power their position offers, the more separated they become and the more arrogant.
This is NOT a law of nature or a necessary progression from weakness to despotism. There are many examples of leaders who are both sensitive to the plight of others and generous with their time, attention and resources.
The readings today, however, seem determined to turn our normal way of looking at things upside down. They present a very different paradigm. Isaiah talks about mountains being turned into roads and the desolate getting heritages. The prisoners are freed, the mountains—now roads—are singing, and the very people who thought God had forsaken them are told their names are inscribed on the palms of His hands! God is pictured as a mother who in no way will forget the child who has only just stopped nursing at her breasts.
Psalm 131 exults in the fact that the singer is not thinking grandiose thoughts (about mountains, perhaps? Or great wealth?), but instead is calm and quiet, “like a weaned child with its mother.” In 1 Corinthians, Paul refuses the positions of judge and even of innocence. He prefers to think of himself as a steward of the mysteries of God. The only commendation He wants is one from God. Prestige is not his issue; he doesn’t NEED people to say they are his followers.
And finally, Jesus in Matthew’s Gospel, puts it baldly: “You cannot serve God and money.” And serving God means to stop worrying about all the things we all worry about: food, drink, clothing, security. In blowing up the first rungs of Maslow’s hierarchy of human needs, Jesus seems to be turning mountains into roads (or ladders into sidewalks?) in order to make our journey through life easier. The only way that promises to be effective for staving off worry is to live in the present, the now, and to keep your mind from dwelling on tomorrow, the future.
As every mystical and contemplative writer will tell you, focusing on the present is easier said than done. It takes practice. Moreover, it takes a leap of faith, like diving into a divine pool and hoping it is filled with warm love. Practice usually takes the form of daily meditation, a simple, quieting meditation aimed at intention, listening, turning off our frenzied thinking and opening a way, a door for God.
God knows what we need, what we truly need, because God knows who we truly are.
Isaiah 49:8-16a; Psalm 131; 1 Corinthians 4:1-5, 16-23; Matthew 6:24-34
You can just imagine someone of wealth, power and position talking to someone who criticizes him or her: “Do you know to WHOM you are talking?” “Do you know who I am?” It seems that the more money some people accumulate, the more years they remain in office, the more power their position offers, the more separated they become and the more arrogant.
This is NOT a law of nature or a necessary progression from weakness to despotism. There are many examples of leaders who are both sensitive to the plight of others and generous with their time, attention and resources.
The readings today, however, seem determined to turn our normal way of looking at things upside down. They present a very different paradigm. Isaiah talks about mountains being turned into roads and the desolate getting heritages. The prisoners are freed, the mountains—now roads—are singing, and the very people who thought God had forsaken them are told their names are inscribed on the palms of His hands! God is pictured as a mother who in no way will forget the child who has only just stopped nursing at her breasts.
Psalm 131 exults in the fact that the singer is not thinking grandiose thoughts (about mountains, perhaps? Or great wealth?), but instead is calm and quiet, “like a weaned child with its mother.” In 1 Corinthians, Paul refuses the positions of judge and even of innocence. He prefers to think of himself as a steward of the mysteries of God. The only commendation He wants is one from God. Prestige is not his issue; he doesn’t NEED people to say they are his followers.
And finally, Jesus in Matthew’s Gospel, puts it baldly: “You cannot serve God and money.” And serving God means to stop worrying about all the things we all worry about: food, drink, clothing, security. In blowing up the first rungs of Maslow’s hierarchy of human needs, Jesus seems to be turning mountains into roads (or ladders into sidewalks?) in order to make our journey through life easier. The only way that promises to be effective for staving off worry is to live in the present, the now, and to keep your mind from dwelling on tomorrow, the future.
As every mystical and contemplative writer will tell you, focusing on the present is easier said than done. It takes practice. Moreover, it takes a leap of faith, like diving into a divine pool and hoping it is filled with warm love. Practice usually takes the form of daily meditation, a simple, quieting meditation aimed at intention, listening, turning off our frenzied thinking and opening a way, a door for God.
God knows what we need, what we truly need, because God knows who we truly are.
Sunday, February 13, 2011
Commentary on Lectionary for February 20, 2011
Epiphany 7A
Leviticus 190:1-2, 9-18; Psalm 119: 33-40; 1 Corinthians 3:10-11, 16-23; Matthew 5:38-48
In this age of reality shows, today’s Scripture might be advertised as “The Extreme Challenge.” The irony is that all of us have already been chosen as participants in this show, “for as long as we shall live.”
The challenge is right there in Leviticus, the third book of the Pentateuch, in chapter 19, which is one of the chapters that make up “The Holiness Code,” and has been called the apex of ethical teachings in the Old Testament (The New Interpreters Study Bible). Here it is, already in verse 2: “Be holy, for I, the Lord your God, am holy.”
In Matthew 5, after raising the Mosaic Law “up a notch” or two or three, Jesus repeats this ancient command: “…you must be made perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.”
All those who are perfect, please raise your hand. Those who always offer the other cheek when kicked in the face, those who have given more than they were asked for, those who have never shown resistance to injury, those who pray every day for those that hate them and gossip about them and stab them in the back, those who love their enemies and let the light of their countenance shine on all the bad people, please step forward and receive your “perfect” certificate.
We have to water this stuff down, right? Even the Psalmist in the portion of Psalm 119 that is sung today asks for God’s help in keeping His law. He knows all too well the danger of stepping off the edge and losing the respect of the community and of cultivating what Ken Wilbur calls “The small self” (Grace and Grit) or ego instead of the “Large Self’ or God within us. We might make this Psalm our daily prayer, especially the verse that prays for understanding (Ps. 119:34): “Give me understanding, that I may keep your law and observe it with my whole heart” (NRSV).
Or we can use it as the foundation of our acting and speaking. Paul quotes from the dry bones chapter of Ezekiel, in which God says He wants to “dwell” with His people (Ez. 37:27). He implies that this is precisely what God has done in Jesus: He has come to dwell with us. He has made us His temple. And if we keep Him as our foundation, we’ll find ourselves going way beyond the Old Testament laws and giving ourselves up for others, as He did.
In a speech he recently broadcast in a teleconference from the Trinity Institute in New York, biblical scholar Dr. Walter Brueggemann made the astonishing statement that even after lifetimes of study, scholars of the Bible know that it doesn’t all fit together. And so he asked if Scripture gives us any foundation, or a place to stand, as we practice our faith in today’s world. His answer was that it does, but only if we stop asking “did such and such really happen,” and begin asking, “To what does this Scripture call us? What are we being asked to imagine?”
Perfection may be the answer. –A perfect God Who is for us and with us and in us.
Leviticus 190:1-2, 9-18; Psalm 119: 33-40; 1 Corinthians 3:10-11, 16-23; Matthew 5:38-48
In this age of reality shows, today’s Scripture might be advertised as “The Extreme Challenge.” The irony is that all of us have already been chosen as participants in this show, “for as long as we shall live.”
The challenge is right there in Leviticus, the third book of the Pentateuch, in chapter 19, which is one of the chapters that make up “The Holiness Code,” and has been called the apex of ethical teachings in the Old Testament (The New Interpreters Study Bible). Here it is, already in verse 2: “Be holy, for I, the Lord your God, am holy.”
In Matthew 5, after raising the Mosaic Law “up a notch” or two or three, Jesus repeats this ancient command: “…you must be made perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.”
All those who are perfect, please raise your hand. Those who always offer the other cheek when kicked in the face, those who have given more than they were asked for, those who have never shown resistance to injury, those who pray every day for those that hate them and gossip about them and stab them in the back, those who love their enemies and let the light of their countenance shine on all the bad people, please step forward and receive your “perfect” certificate.
We have to water this stuff down, right? Even the Psalmist in the portion of Psalm 119 that is sung today asks for God’s help in keeping His law. He knows all too well the danger of stepping off the edge and losing the respect of the community and of cultivating what Ken Wilbur calls “The small self” (Grace and Grit) or ego instead of the “Large Self’ or God within us. We might make this Psalm our daily prayer, especially the verse that prays for understanding (Ps. 119:34): “Give me understanding, that I may keep your law and observe it with my whole heart” (NRSV).
Or we can use it as the foundation of our acting and speaking. Paul quotes from the dry bones chapter of Ezekiel, in which God says He wants to “dwell” with His people (Ez. 37:27). He implies that this is precisely what God has done in Jesus: He has come to dwell with us. He has made us His temple. And if we keep Him as our foundation, we’ll find ourselves going way beyond the Old Testament laws and giving ourselves up for others, as He did.
In a speech he recently broadcast in a teleconference from the Trinity Institute in New York, biblical scholar Dr. Walter Brueggemann made the astonishing statement that even after lifetimes of study, scholars of the Bible know that it doesn’t all fit together. And so he asked if Scripture gives us any foundation, or a place to stand, as we practice our faith in today’s world. His answer was that it does, but only if we stop asking “did such and such really happen,” and begin asking, “To what does this Scripture call us? What are we being asked to imagine?”
Perfection may be the answer. –A perfect God Who is for us and with us and in us.
Monday, February 7, 2011
Commentary on Lectionary for February 13, 2011
Epiphany 6A
Deuteronomy 30:15-20; Psalm 119: 1-8; 1 Corinthians 3:1-9; Matthew 5:21-37
If there ever was a clear statement of conditional love, it is here in the book of the second law, Deuteronomy 30:16: “If you obey the commandments of the Lord, your God, which I enjoin on you today, loving him, and walking in his ways, and keeping his commandments, statutes and decrees, you will live and grow numerous, and the Lord, your God, will bless you in the land you are entering to occupy.” IF!…
It seems the equation is to choose life by adoring and serving the God of Israel, and adoring Him means to observe his law. To do otherwise is to choose death. And this passage today in worship is followed by the longest Psalm in the Psalter—176 verses—and every one of them contains a reference to—guess what?—The LAW! Psalm 119 is a meditation on the Torah.
For us Americans, the law is often looked at as constraining our freedoms. We “lay down the law” to our children. We seek to change the law or have it interpreted in our favor. We want to lay the law on criminals and have them prosecuted “to the fullest extent” of it. But Psalm 119 is a paean in praise of the law. It’s seen as a great gift of God; it cries out for full commitment to it. It is a point of pride to keep one’s eyes fixed on it. To find the law is to find God. With the law in your mind and in your practice, you know where you are and in what direction you are going.
The law enables us to live together; it can elevate our living together to another, more spiritual plane. We fear the chaos that can result from anarchy. Maybe that’s why Paul in 1 Corinthians 3 is so upset that the Corinthians are quarreling with each other. He accuses them of acting just like everyone else in that culture, instead of living according to the Spirit, as Jesus made possible and as he (and Apollos and Cephas) preached.
But the truly amazing reading today is the one from Matthew, still within the Sermon on the Mount. What’s amazing is that Jesus changes the law. He lays out a vision for a community (a kingdom, if you will) that considers anger as bad as murder, and the oppression of males over females as unacceptable, and abrogates any need to take oaths, because this new community is built on honesty and integrity.
A new law has just been promulgated. Only how do we reconcile it with unconditional love? One answer is to consider as the Psalmist did, that this new law is also a place to meet God, to achieve happiness, to experience love and all the joys of family. And to those of us who have not been faithful to Jesus’ new law, the answers may be in the story he told of the Prodigal Father, or in his own actions on the cross.
We are only headed in the wrong direction if we keep walking that way.
Deuteronomy 30:15-20; Psalm 119: 1-8; 1 Corinthians 3:1-9; Matthew 5:21-37
If there ever was a clear statement of conditional love, it is here in the book of the second law, Deuteronomy 30:16: “If you obey the commandments of the Lord, your God, which I enjoin on you today, loving him, and walking in his ways, and keeping his commandments, statutes and decrees, you will live and grow numerous, and the Lord, your God, will bless you in the land you are entering to occupy.” IF!…
It seems the equation is to choose life by adoring and serving the God of Israel, and adoring Him means to observe his law. To do otherwise is to choose death. And this passage today in worship is followed by the longest Psalm in the Psalter—176 verses—and every one of them contains a reference to—guess what?—The LAW! Psalm 119 is a meditation on the Torah.
For us Americans, the law is often looked at as constraining our freedoms. We “lay down the law” to our children. We seek to change the law or have it interpreted in our favor. We want to lay the law on criminals and have them prosecuted “to the fullest extent” of it. But Psalm 119 is a paean in praise of the law. It’s seen as a great gift of God; it cries out for full commitment to it. It is a point of pride to keep one’s eyes fixed on it. To find the law is to find God. With the law in your mind and in your practice, you know where you are and in what direction you are going.
The law enables us to live together; it can elevate our living together to another, more spiritual plane. We fear the chaos that can result from anarchy. Maybe that’s why Paul in 1 Corinthians 3 is so upset that the Corinthians are quarreling with each other. He accuses them of acting just like everyone else in that culture, instead of living according to the Spirit, as Jesus made possible and as he (and Apollos and Cephas) preached.
But the truly amazing reading today is the one from Matthew, still within the Sermon on the Mount. What’s amazing is that Jesus changes the law. He lays out a vision for a community (a kingdom, if you will) that considers anger as bad as murder, and the oppression of males over females as unacceptable, and abrogates any need to take oaths, because this new community is built on honesty and integrity.
A new law has just been promulgated. Only how do we reconcile it with unconditional love? One answer is to consider as the Psalmist did, that this new law is also a place to meet God, to achieve happiness, to experience love and all the joys of family. And to those of us who have not been faithful to Jesus’ new law, the answers may be in the story he told of the Prodigal Father, or in his own actions on the cross.
We are only headed in the wrong direction if we keep walking that way.
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