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….

Words 9/28

So here I am back in business online once again - (note a couple of years of "Words Twice a Week" archived at wordstwiceaweek.blogspot.com)

Words Once A Week 9.28

Some introductory thoughts on some of the lectionary texts for this Sunday - 17^th after Pentecost.

And first off, to give us kind of a running start, here are a few thoughts on last Sunday’s lessons -

Jeremiah 32:1-3a, 6-15 - Jeremiah buys a field.

+ It’s just a nice word that while life was going down the drain all around him, Jeremiah took the time and effort to buy this field. I guess it’s supposed to be a sign of confidence in God’s future; it could maybe also be a word about living with authenticity for the time we have left. Some of the Doomer writers that we used to pay attention to would say even though life (for humans, at least) was pretty much coming to an end, still the thing to do is live with love and kindness, with integrity, for as much as we have left.

+ ”Houses and fields and vineyards shall again be bought in this land.” Nice. How do you feel about it?

Luke 16:19-31 The Rich Man and Lazarus

+ I think in some traditions the rich man is called “Dives” – somehow it means “rich”. There was a nice line in one of the Stewardship reflections about how all that Lazarus had was “his name and his sores.”

+ And yes, we know that the rich man should have done something for Lazarus…

+ I think what is really interesting is at the end when Lazarus is “rocking his soul in the bosom of Abraham”, and the rich man wants Lazarus to come and ease his torment, and Father Abraham says “No can do.” And then the rich man says “Send him to my father’s house to warn my brothers.” And Abraham says “They have Moses and the Prophets…” And the rich man says, “No, but if someone came from the dead they would listen to him” and Abraham says “If they didn’t pay attention to Moses and the prophets, they would not pay attention even if someone came frm among the dead.” I think it’s really interesting to ask “Who do we believe? Who do we trust enough to changer our lives? Who do we listed to – NPR? Fox News? Our doctor? Robert F Kennedy Jr? Rachel Madow? Alex Jones? Do we listen to people we believe or do we believe people we listen to?

And if you were following the Season of Creation lectionary,

Matthew 25.14-30 The Parable of the Talents

+ and again I think the really interesting part is at the end when the Master says to the Slave, “You should have given my money to the bankers, then I would get back what is mine with interest.” For the rich will get richer and the poor will get poorer.” And I though, “Jeeze – would you want to live in a world like that, where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer?” Then I thought – “Hello!…..”

+ How does this square with capitalism?

Now – next Sunday

Lamentations 1:1-6

+ “How lonely sits the city….” Play that off against the pictures from Ukraine!

+ The roads mourn for no one comes to the festivals” – hard to run a tourist economy when no one comes to BluesFest or Art on the Rocks!

+ I would caution against trying to find a word of hope or grace in this passage. (Apparently the lectionary folks tagged Lam 3.19-26 on in case we just really want such a word.) I think there are times and situations when it is just “Lamantations all the way down.” We need to acknowledge that.

Psalm 137 “By the waters of Babylon we sat down and wept when we remembered…”

+ where do you sit down to remember?

+ what do you remember that might cause you to weep?

2 Timothy 1.1-14 Paul writes to Timothy

+ and this is supposed to be one of the more “personal” of Paul’s writings. Maybe less “formally theological”. I might have a better time reading it! We’ll see next week…..

Luke 17:5-10

+ “If you had faith the size of a grain of mustard seed….” (This is in response to the “apostles” request that Jesus increase their faith – for the task ahead of them as they will be “sent with the message”?) The problem is that apparently in Greek you could either read this “if clause” as “If only you had…” or “Since you have …” Scholars seem to differ on which we should hear. I tend to lean towards the latter – “Since you have faith, even if it’s just the size of a mustard seed, it is enough because after all it is God who is actually going to be doing what needs to be done.”

+ And then the whole “Servant/Slave – Master” thing again. How do we feel about that? Does that lead us to think about God? About ourselves? Is God a “Master” and are we “Slaves”?

+ Who cooks the meal after a busy day in your house – or is it easier to order out?

+ Who serves us, and how do we treat them?

+ Who do we serve, and how are we treated?

Well, that’s what I got for now….