Words 10.27.22

 Words Once A Week          

Some introductory thoughts on some of the lectionary texts for this Sunday - 21st after Pentecost

Habakkuk 1:1-4; 2:1-4 

+ context – The verses are a conversation between Habukkuk and God.  Habakkuk laments/pleads with God that civilization is coming apart.  Violence, lawlessness, cruelty, crime are all around.  “God, if you are righteous, why is this happening, whjy are you letting this happen?”  God responds (in vs5-11) that God will send the Babylonians (who are already threatening Israel) to destroy (to punish?).  Habakkuk notes (in vs 12-17) that the Babylonians are even worse.  Why would God support them?  As Habukkuk waits (to see) on the watchtower, God replies that he should write the message/vision clearly, simply, “bumpersticker-style” so that even someone running by (escaping from the Babylonians?) could read it – “The future is secure for those who live by faith.”

+ “a world of evil presided over by a righteous God does not admit a solution based on logic.  Rather, insight comes through faith.”  -Texts

+ so where does that leave us?  Do we believe the future is dependable enough for us to (continue to?) live well, kindly, respectfully, law-abiding?  Is that adequate for the folks in Ukraine?  In Haiti?

Psalm 119:137-144    

+ again this acrostic song of praise/thanks for God’s teachings, law, “what you say”.

+ vs 143 – “I am in deep distress, but I love your teachings” – because they reassure me? Distract me? Challenge me?

+ note “righteousness” used five times.

+ so like Habakukk, the psalmist sees righteousness of God, unrighteousness around him/her, and trusts God for the future.  What would it mean for us to do that?  Simply wait?  Work while we wait?  Understand that we don’t see the whole picture (note Swanson on the gospel below)

2 Thessalonians 1:1-4, 11-12  

+ Paul praises Thessalonians for patient faithfulness in trouble, and prays for God’s power to keep them.

+ note vs5-10 identify this as a question about the Parousia, the coming of the time of God’s peace, and if it has come, will come?  And what should be our attitude towards it.

+ “Christianity is not an individualistic existance – we live a life of faith in relation to other believers and in relation to God.  We are called as church to be located in this world, but we have true identity and live in the presence and power of God.”

+ but what is “the power of God”?

+ and just a note that in Greek, vs3-12 is all one long run-on sentence.

Luke 19:1-10

+ Zaccheus was a wee little man…  well, was he?  There has been some scholarly debate about whether “he was short” replies to Zaccheus or to Jesus!  Probably don’t need to take that tooo seriously.

+ However, this is a story that is so familiar and so laden with preconceived notions that it takes some effort to see it clearly.

+ Zaccheus was another of the collaborators with the Roman occupiers, like the tax collector for a week or two back, and like Levi in 5.27.

+ Jericho is Jesus’ last stop before entering Jerusalem.  Just the story of ten servants between Zaccheus and “Go into the village and find a young donkey…”

+ v8  Zaccheus “makes good” – is this why he is saved, or because he was saved?  And here is another little bit that almost leads to to get back to studying Greek – does Zaccheus say “I will give…” or does he say “I am giving…”, and if it is the latter, does that mean he has been doing this all along.  It seems unlikely, but then we come to the story thinking we know it already.  

+ note the rich young ruler (18.18) either didn’t give away his wealth, or gave it away with sadness.  Zacchaus gives “with joy”.  How about us?

+ vs5 – does Jesus say “I want to, I must, I am... Come to your house.”?

+ note Zaccheus starts our seeking Jesus, but then we find out that Jesus has been seeking him all along.

+ Swanson – three ritual spheres  1) separation/exclusion, 2) hospitality, 3) caring for the poor (“binding the creation back together”)

+ so has Zaccheus been caring for the poor all along and is in fact a true son of Abraham, even though we didn’t see it?  Again, unlikely, but still suggests that we do not know who people really are.   Worth thinking about anyway.  And a new take on an old story.

That’s what I got for now……..

Words 10.20.22

 Words Once A Week             10.20.22

Some introductory thoughts on some of the lectionary texts for this Sunday - 20th after Pentecost

Joel 2:23-32 

+ the aftermath of the locust invasion!

+ “the day of the Lord” – typically seen as a time of judgment.  Joel turns it to a day of salvation as well.  Preaching the Revised Common lectionary says the day of the Lord is “not a day as such, but a definite divine event in time, an action by God that determines the character of the world.”

+ “God has sent the autumn and spring rains.”  So – how much do we attribute climate and weather to God, how much to ourselves?  If we attribute drought to human activity, should we hold God responsible for the rain?  How has this idea of God active in creation since humans have pretty much overwhelmed it all?

+ some nice lines about God’s spirit coming to all – sons and daughters, oldsters and young folks.  What dreams and visions do our children have?  How much attention do we pay to them?

+ so the structure of Joel has been a warning, the response (rend your hearts), and redemption.  Nice.

+ 2 creation oracles -

  vs21  tell the soil to celebrate!  I don’t think our farmlands are celebrating, actually.  With pesticides, herbicides, erosion, dust storms.  But if the autumn and spring rains do come, that will help.  I like the image of the desert blooming after a rain!  Grain and oil and wine – sounds like a good lunch to me!

  vs25  Israel will recover from the locusts!  There was a piece (New York Times?) about how there is only one player using an ash bat in the playoffs – partly because of the emerald ash borer!  Are the ash trees recovering?

+ another couple of nice lines about how “God is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.”

+ vs32 – those who call on God...and...those whom God has called.  Life is a conversation.

Psalm 65  

+ We are called to praise God.  We and “all flesh” (vs2).  Does that mean all people?  All animals?  Do animals have cause to praise God, considering the lives they are living, the way human existence has impacted them?

+ Interesting collection of images – God is strong, awesome, powerful, yet experienced in the gentle spring rains and flowering meadows.  Are those conflicting, or can gentle and lovely also be strong?

+ one writer notes the call to praise God can be an important corrective – “often times in our secular culture gratitude is actually self-congratulations.  (See gospel lesson!)

2 Timothy 4:6-8, 16-18  (ok – finally sat down and read it, so here are a few things that came to mind as I read the whole letter)

+ ”Have you been to jail for justice” – it’s a song by Four Shillings Short

+ “I know whom I have believed” - it’s a hymn!

+ “Turn your eyes upon Jesus” – also a hymn

+ “Onward Christian Soldiers” – well, yeah, it’s a hymn too.  Questionable one.

+ Each one tell one – social media?  Paul speaks of “followers who can be trusted to tell others.”  Does that mean “followers who can be trusted” or “trusted to tell others”?  Who do you trust?

+ 2.13  “If we are not faithful, he will still be faithful.”  Does this conflict with 2.12 “he will deny that he knows us” – or is that in fact being faithful, true?

+ “Don’t argue about words” – Ursela K LeGuin writes about playing with words.  Paul in fact spent much of his time arguing?  Was he arguing about ideas, not words? Did he finally come to think arguing didn’t work?

+ “In the last days” – do the last days come from God of do we cause them?  Or what if we cause “last days” to come before God’s “last days” happen?

+ “people will love only themselves and money” – They will be stuck-up.  Anybody come to mind?

+ “All scriptures are inspired by God”, “Everything in them is God’s word” (CEB)  Everything?

+ Preaching  !) correct people, point out sins and 2) cheer them up, patiently teach

+ “They will look for teachers who will tell them what they want to hear.”  Well, that’s why I listen to NPR instead of Fox!

+ Lectionary skips over 9-15, people and places.  But how does God come to us if not through people and places.

+ from PRCL   “Friends and colleagues have abandoned him or are a great distance from him.”  Paul is alone.

Luke 18:9-14    The Tax Collector and the Pharisee

+ another one of these stories that we have heard so often and know so well that it is really hard to actually catch what Jesus might have been saying.  Richard Swanson will help us hear it afresh below.

+ comes right after The Unrighteous Judge and “Will the Son of Man find faith” – so Luke lines up three pray-ers – the widow, the Pharisee, the Tax Collector.

+ Would Jesus’ comment be a surprise?  Who are the Pharisees in your life, The Tax Collectors, or how/when do you behave like either.  Careful now – remember we have heard this story so often that we know who the “good guy” is.  Don’t rush to judge!

+ note there is some question about the Pharisee – was he “standing off by himself” or was he “praying to himself” (and that can be taken a couple of ways.)

+ we notice that the Pharisee details his faithfulness, using a lot of “I’s”; Is he asking for God’s confirmation?

+ the Tax Collector gives a simple confession – no long line of failures!

+ so, Swanson -

  - he notes that as the story begins, the Pharisee would have been the expected hero in Jesus’ day.  The Pharisees had after all preserved the faith during Roman occupation.  And they did it by holding fast to the tradition and rules.  So is he a little boastful, perhaps.  Or perhaps we have put that label on him.

  - the Tax Collector was a collaborator with the occupying forces.  What does that bring to mind?

  - Swanson notes that both were honest and correct in their self-descriptions, and that there is no suggestion that either would change.  The Pharisee went home to continue his ultra-faithfulness, the Tax Collector went home to continue to collaborate with the occupying forces. They were both probably fairly well dressed, fairly secure in their lives.

 - so the Pharisee’s fault is – he sees a separation between himself and the Tax Collector, even though they are both Jews, both of the host of Israel.  The Pharisee “fractures the host of Israel”, just what the “divide and conquer” occupiers want him to do.

+ and it also connects with Jesus’ question about faith on earth.  

+ so how does that resonate with our political environment today?  Is “the other side” doing the “divide and conquer” routine or is it the forces of evil that are doing it to all of us?

That’s what I got for now……..

Words 10.13.22

 Words Once A Week          10.13.22

Some introductory thoughts on some of the lectionary texts for this Sunday – Nineteenth after Pentecost

Jeremiah 31:27-34 

+ “sowing with the seed of humans and of animals” – interesting concept.  We plucked up the weeds and sowed our garden beds with the seed of a cover crop – rye.  We’re not sure if we are going to garden next year or just let it all lie fallow, but sooner or later with will dig in the cover crop and sow with the seed of tomatoes and beans, and potatoes and onions and squash and more.

+ from Texts for Preaching, “the land will again teem with both animal and human life.”  Well, a report on NPR said that according to World Wildlife Fund, animal populations have declined by 69% since 1970.

+ Jeremiah turns the “Day of the Lord” image from destruction (Amos) to blessing.

+ “The parents have eaten...and the children’s teeth…”  Seems to me that our kids and grandkids are still going to suffer from our climate actions, and political actions, and economic actions.

+ this “New Covenant”.  Is it really different from the “Old Covenant”?  How, besides the fact that it will be “written on the heart”?  And what’s that mean when it’s at home?  Has God written anything on your heart?

Psalm 119:97-104  

+ ok, psalm 119, a big long acrostic where most stanzas mention 7 or 8 different terms for the law.

+ the importance of knowing God’s law/vision/rules for having a happy life.  What else is it important to know – cultural practices, social expectations, etc.  What happens with folks to deviate from the practices and expectations, even if they are doing it in harmony with God’s law?

+ How has knowing God’s law made your life different?  Would following God’s law lead to a happy, pleasant, meaningful life?

+ “for the psalmist, happiness means being connected to ther true source of life.”

+ “true knowledge is not achieved through detachment and ‘objectivity’. Rather, the wisdom that ultimately matters begins with passionate involvement with God and commitment to God’s values.”  When we were going to war with Iraq, we were encouraged to “trust the people who knew things.”  But we as people of faith also know things, and maybe even more important things.

Alternate track

Genesis 32:22-31 and Psalm 121  

Wrestling Jacob – “Come, O thou Traveler unknown….”  Charles Wesley hymn

And “I lift up my eyes to the hills….”

Both really nice.

2 Timothy 3:14-4:5  Getting ready to read it tomorrow.

Luke 18:1-8   This judge

+ what do you think – dishonest, corrupt, wicked, malleable?  What word would you use? One writer notes that if the judge “does not respect one person over another”, that kind of sounds like a “just” judge!  What about “gracious”?  What kind of a world would this judge shape?

+ one writer calls this a “delightful and humorous story”, and talks about how the faithful would sometimes see their world in terms of the widow, sometimes in terms of the judge.  Do you see one or the other in your world?

+ a line in Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary – “the point of the parable is clear”. Wait – if the point is clear, either it’s not a parable or we haven’t paid enough attention to it. The interesting stories/parables are the ones that aren’t particularly clear!

+ literary context – note that this comes a little ways after 17.20 where the Pharisees ask when the Kingdom of God/the Time of God’s Peace will come.  The faithful have been praying “Thy kingdom come” for a long time.  It’s important to keep praying, Jesus says, even though the Kingdom doesn’t really seem to be getting here!  

+ And that it is followed by the Tax Collector and the Pharisee, and some other stories about people doing not just saying.  One writer says if you want to know who a person is and what they believe, watch their feet not their mouths.

+ ok, we don't get those last two points if we are just reading off the website or the bulletin insert. Important to now and then actually get out the book!

+ “Prayer is the occasion for honesty about oneself and generosity about others.”

+ “The parable is not a commitment that God will gie us what we want, unless what we want is in line with the character of God.”  The widow wanted justice, and that’s what she got.

+ the punctuation is a little unclear.  Swanson translates something like

Jesus said -

  Hear what the unjust judge says -

   “God will never avenge the chosen ones,

    God will surely delay over them.”

  I say to you, 

   “God will avenge them quickly”.

  But when the son of man comes, will he find faithfulness on earth?

+ so after all of the talk about when and how long, the real question is “will the faithful persevere?”

That’s what I got for now……(time to read 2 Timothy!)..

Words 10.6.22

 Words Once A Week        10.6.22

Some introductory thoughts on some of the lectionary texts for this Sunday -

Jeremiah 29:1, 4-7  “Seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you...”

+ this is such a cool passage.  Jeremiah says to the people in exile, far from home both spatially and temporally – “Might as well unpack and settle in – you are going to be there a long time.  Your well being will depend on the well being on the city.

+ on a webinar last night about Creation and Re-creation, they were saying focus on the local environment and situation.  Is your city going to flood?  Will there be vultures to enable “sky-burial”?  (There might not be – in some locations they are “functionally extinct”!)

+ what about the church – should we go on being the way we have been, or seek our well-being in the well-being of the community?  (Yes, I think we do that to a certain extent now, but more often I think we feel that we should do something for the community, because we are good, strong, stable, healthy, ???, and we could help the community be like that also.)

+ plant gardens so you will have something to eat – when the California aquifers dry up?

+ Jeremiah reminds the people that God has sent them where they are in exile.  Do we have the sense that God has sent us here?  How does that make a difference?

+ the Jewish people survived their stay in exile.  Why?  How?  How are we (Christians, Church folk) doing at surviving our stay in life today, COVID exile, cultural changes?  

+ Jeremiah said “No one is coming to set you free.  If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is!”  What sounds “too good to be true” in our world today?

+ “build” and “plant” – part of God’s original commission to Jeremiah.

+ when should the people of God resist tyranny and when should they unpack and settle in? How would this sound to Ukrainian ears?

Psalm 66:1-12 

+ “make a joyful noise to the Lord” (vs1) because “God [“you” – note the change in person between 2nd and 3rd throughout the poem] has brought us out to this spacious place.”(vs12)

+ does your life feel appropriately “spacious”?  Sometimes mine feels closed in, sometimes too empty.

+ God turned the sea into dry land.  We’re turning the rivers into dry land, and turning the land (coastlands, anyway) into seas.

+ God’s eyes keep watch on the nations (vs7).  How is that working out between Russia and Ukraine?

+ “Say to God – ‘your enemies cringe before you.’”  Is that how God wants to be known?

+ note that the issue for God is not just the liberation of Israel, but rather that God be renown through all Creation.

Alternate Old Testament reading   2 Kings 5:1-3, 7-15c      Naaman, who had leprosy but washed in the Jordan

+ “Let’s go down to the river to pray, studying about them good old days…”

+ ok – there is a bunch more in that lesson, but that’s for another day!

2 Timothy 2:8-15  

+ ok – haven’t read it yet.  Two more weeks - maybe next week.

Luke 17:11-19   Ten people healed of loprosy, and only a Samaritan said “thanks”.

+ Say thanks!!!

+ the story could be another lesson for the apostles who asked “Increase our faith.”  The Samaritan had no real faith, he just hoped? Trusted?  Although the words about “on the way to Jerusalem” somewhat separates this from what went before.

+ not all who are helped by Jesus come to faith.  The Samaritan simply says thanks.  No comment about his faith.

+ the story is unique to Luke – “Dear and Glorious Physician”?

+ could be seen as a 2 part story.  1) healing: Jesus treats them as already healed, and the healing occurs as they obey his words to go to the priest.  (Odd action for the Samaritan!) And 2) the salvation of a foreigner.  What is it about the Samaritan’s story – just being thankful? The passion and excitement he shows?  Do we express a similar excitement at being saved? Why not?

+ Swanson notes that the 10 found community in their uncleanness, and that being cleansed fractures that community, at least for the Samaritan.  Where do people find community today? What supports that?  What fractures it?

+ “What is the cash value of ‘unclean’”?  Swanson as he notes that this is a “cleansing story”, not a “healing story”.  Is there a difference?  Seems like it’s worth thinking more about.  Who is “unclean” today?  Who is “foreign”?  Is there a cash value?

That’s what I got for now….