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.”
Monday, February 28, 2011
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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