Biblical Spirituality

Comments on the Book of Job, Part 1

2012-02-15T18:21:00.000-08:00

The Book of Job is perfect for preparing us for Lent. The issues that it raises are perennial and still unsolved. Job bears thinking about. What does it say to you? Here's a poem I wrote about it some years ago:

JOB

The messengers have told me of the natural
Disasters and incredible fatalities

Which fell upon my properties and oh my dear propinquities

My grown-up sons and daughters and their
Children in their infancies

All taken from me now when I had shored up liabilities
And thought myself the happiest man alive.

I cannot stand more messages nor dreary fearful presages
Though nothing’s left to lift from me except disease’s ravages
And this thin thread of life.

My wife, that shrieking woman,
What a person she has been for me

As if her curses meant for me
Could find their way to God.

My friends, they sit away from me
They cannot stand the stench of me

I see what horror looks like in their eyes.

As long as they sit silently
My spirit bides their sympathy

Especially when surprisingly
Their tears splash all too copiously
Down upon their beards.

But now the waiting gets to them
The terror is too much for them

They’re thrown upon
The doctrine of their youth.

And so they take their turns to speak
And ask me now to face myself

And find within this rottenness
The sin which is the source of it

So they might have the pleasure
Of knowing all along.

Do they think I’ve been oblivious
To every single silliness
And all the indiscretions of my youth?

I have counted and berated
And retold and still negated

Petty jealousies and rivalries
And all the sins of flesh;

Or weighing in my memory
Each babe my wife presented me
To see if I’ve preferred one child too much

But my children, they are gone from me
And who has wrecked this wrong on me?

And what the scales which weigh to me
Such punishment as this?

But when my friends are silent
And I sift through all this misery
As if it holds the very sands of life,

I discover deep inside of me
Through torture and calamity

A deep abiding presence which
I do not understand.

And all the words which come at me
And all the speeches made, you see,

And all the stuff that’s written to explain
This morbid life

Evaporate so rapidly
In the furnace of infinity

For that’s what’s here inside of me
And has been, in my agony;

I see it now, the rest is not
For me to understand.

The message then is not
That God delights in senseless suffering,

But through it all and in it all,
He’s here.

Comments on the Book of Esther

2012-02-06T13:38:00.000-08:00

Comments on Esther 1:1-2:18; 3:1-15; 4:1-17; 7:1-10

Biblical Literacy, pages 118-125

It’s hard to believe, isn’t it, that there’s a book in the Bible that doesn’t mention God? The original Hebrew text has no mention of the deity. The translators into the Greek version called the Septuagint, however, added some six passages that do reference God. But the New Revised Standard Version translated from the ancient Hebrew Masoretic text. And so, in our Bibles, there is no reference to God in the Book of Esther.

Purim this year will be celebrated from the evening of March 7 until the evening of March 8. There are several interesting and wonderful Jewish practices surrounding this feast, including fasting from a hour before sunrise until sunset on the day before. Observant Jews will listen to two live readings of the Esther story—one the night of March 7 and one on the day itself. There is the custom of donating to two needy people, and of bringing two dishes of food to a friend (preferably delivered by a third party).

In Jewish schools, the children will dress up, perhaps to commemorate the fact that Esther did not reveal that she was Jewish until the very end. The kids will bring their noisemakers, or gragers, and they will boo and stamp their feet every time the wicked Haman’s name is mentioned in the story. They will eat pastries named after him and have a great time. Their elders will be sure to serve alcohol on Purim and there is an old tale that the ancient rabbis gave everyone permission to drink to excess on Purim.

There are so many fascinating aspects of this story. Why do you think it ended up in the Bible? What parts of the story enthrall you? Is it the ethno-national part—the amazing relationship between the Jews and the Persians—Jews obeying the intransigent Persian law but still keeping a strong sense of their own identities? Is it the transformation of Esther from a young girl who obeys her father into someone willing to marry a gentile, sleep with the king, risk her life for the sake of her people (“if I perish, then I perish”), and finally ends up giving orders to both the King and to her father, Mordecai?

There is a lot going on in this story—not all of it explicit. Only some research will tell you that Haman’s being an Agagite means that he was related to King Agag, leader of the Amalekites, who were longtime enemies of the Israelites. He and Mordecai, leader of the Jews, were set up for conflict by their very ancestry. Both would try to exterminate each other, although the wording of Haman’s edict sounds like genocide, and perhaps the retaliation of Mordecai only sought victory over enemies, not annihilation. Still, in chapter nine, which probably is not read to children, Queen Esther demands her husband hang the ten sons of Haman so their bodies would be subject to public disgrace. These were not pleasant times.

We do much in life with no reference to God. We shop, travel, deal with children, work at our jobs, clean the house, take the car in for maintenance, eat meals, watch TV. Some of us save “God-stuff” for Sundays or funerals. But many commentators through the ages look back on the story of Esther and see God’s hand at work, even if only in the heroics of this beautiful woman. And many of us, looking back on the mundane details of our daily living, can catch a glimpse of a golden thread or of some leather strap to hold onto as life speeds up and lurches around corners. As the wise man puts it: “God comes disguised as our life!”

Comments on Solomon in 1st Kings

2012-01-30T12:29:00.000-08:00

Comments on 1 Kings 3:16-28; 4:29-34; 10:1-9; 11:1-8; 18:17-46; 19:1-18; 2 Kings 2:1-14

Biblical Literacy, pages 109-117

There are gifts and then there are the ways we use them. There are gifts and then the way the culture expects us to use them. For example, in a particular culture, leaders are expected to be uncompromising, never wavering in their judgments, always supporting the people who promoted them, and unwilling to upset the way things have been done in the past.

When we were children, and heard the story of a lamp that, when rubbed, produced a genie who would grant us three wishes, we plotted out what OUR wishes would be if we ever found that lamp. Maybe we would ask for more wishes, since three seems like a very small bucket list. God thought Solomon might ask for a long life, the defeat of his enemies, and unimaginable riches. Instead, Solomon asked for right judgment or wisdom, since he admitted he didn’t know how to rule this vast nation called Israel.

So that’s what he received, and the story of the two prostitutes claiming rights to one living baby proved that this king could not be deceived. Moreover, the Scripture continues, God gave him immense wealth and a long life besides. We, interpreting these stories many centuries later, have since equated great wealth with God’s favor. And we interpreted the baby story as a clever ruse to prevent compromise in situations far removed from the horrendous idea of cutting a child in half!

The Queen of Sheba (from today’s Yemen) came to see for herself, and probably wanted to conclude some trade agreements with this new king. Solomon was now in charge of a federation of nations that had to be reckoned with. She was also rendered breathless at the depth of his knowledge. And he did build a glorious temple out of cedar and cypress.

But to follow Solomon’s story to the end in the Book of Kings is to discover that his great wisdom needed to be salted with a LOT more discernment. It must be very difficult to be wealthy and discerning; to be powerful and still ponder carefully the consequences of your actions. It may be nearly impossible to resist the expectations of your culture. The prophets, like Nathan and Elijah and Elisha did that.

Solomon forgot the prohibitions of Deuteronomy 17: 16-17. He took too many wives, even if the number (700 princesses and 300 concubines) was exaggerated to befit his exalted status, and even if many of these unions were necessitated for political alliances. He bought too many horses, constructed an over-the-top golden throne, and worst of all, he married foreigners and constructed altars for his wives to sacrifice to their gods.

So that was the end of the unified kingdom. Will it be the end of our equating wealth with God’s blessings?

Rev. Richard Rohr, in a recent blog ), describes a Jewish prayer that counts up all their gifts, one by one, and then answers each one with a word that he translates as: “How much is it going to take for us to know that God is with us?” Many of us are shy about enumerating our gifts. But if we approach each day listing the wealth of good things within and around us—such as health, our senses, the air we breathe, the friends and family we can count on, the food, and on and on—we can come to a kind of wisdom, a kind of content in the knowledge that the Lord is with us.

If, on the other hand, we dread each day, the idea from wisdom is to look past our fears, our obligations, our illness and pain and worry, and to count instead the one, two, three, or a hundred good things that might truly be called Blessings. And then we can feel we are breathing in the richness of God.

Comments on King David in 1 and 2 Samuel

2012-01-23T11:30:00.000-08:00

Comments on 1 Samuel 16:14-23; 17:1-58; 18:1-16; 2 Samuel 1:1-27; 11:1-27; 18:1-33

Biblical Literacy, pages 96-109

Whenever you go to a funeral, you always learn something about the deceased that you didn’t know before. When different people speak about him or her, it is amazing how their perspectives differ and their stories change, as if they were turning the prism of someone’s life in the sun, and bright colors were springing out and dancing on the walls.

In reading these passages from the Book of Samuel (originally one book in Hebrew) that are stories about David, itis disconcerting at first to find that they don’t fit together (Dr. Walter Brueggemann says that about all of Scripture). Pieces seem to be missing. We want our childhood hero, who slayed Goliath with a slingshot, to be all of a piece. We don’t want to hear that Elhanan did it in 2 Samuel 21:19. We want to see some resemblance in David's old age to that magnificent impression that Michelangelo left us in Florence.

But then, I guess there will be lots of different stories told at our funerals, too, and many of them will be suppressed out of respect for the surviving relatives. Some will be folklore and not true at all. Not many lives are all of a piece. Not many are free from shadows and wounds and dark places. We just had the ferocious example of Samson In the previous passages from Dr. Beal’s book. Are we shocked more by David’s sending Uriah the Hittite into the front lines to be killed so he can marry Bathsheba or by Samson’s slaughtering a thousand Philistine’s with a jawbone?

Some things CAN be explained. Too bad the deceased are not there to do so if the stories turn ugly. Saul has this wonderful relationship with David when he has him play the lyre during his terrifying bo uts of illness; but then he doesn’t seem to know who he is when he first goes out against the Philistines, and then Saul tries to kill David a short time later. All this can be explained, I guess, by Saul’s deteriorating mental condition, especially since the favor of God left him and God rejects him from being king over Israel.

What may be the preposterous truth in these passages is that God does not give up on his people. He works through imperfect people, through strangers and non-Israelites, through adulterers and murderers and unfaithful, angry, blasphemous people! The sins and weaknesses of a Samson, a Saul, and a David have serious consequences—despite attempts of repentance, fasting and prayer (David’s child that he conceived with Bathsheba, dies, as Nathan foretold). But God will not be thwarted. Solomon is born, and so, eventually, ages and ages in the future, is Jesus—from the line of David!

Some good will come of this creation!

Comments on Judges, Ruth, and 1 Samuel

2012-01-09T15:37:00.000-08:00

Comments on Judges 14:1-16:31; Ruth 1:6-17; 3:1:13; 1 Samuel 8:1-22

Biblical Literacy, pages 74-96

If we were to smash a bottle of champagne against the hull of a ship that will carry us across the turbulent seas of the 21st century, we might call the ship “Collaboration.” Many writers say there is just too much information and too many obstacles that have to be overcome for one person to effectively lead. Leadership today, they maintain, requires a team working from the same vision and aligned with the same standards and headed for the same port. Technology helps make such collaboration possible. The best ideas can be nurtured wherever they are born, and can spread like viruses over the whole world.

Yet there seems to be another strong force lurking like the opposite pole of a magnet in the anatomy of the human psyche. We long for a powerful leader, male or female, a Samson or a Ruth. We dissect leadership in our books and conversations; we study memoirs; we probe like Delilah to find the secrets of the leader’s power and strength. We erect statues, write history, sing songs, award Nobel and Pulitzer prizes. –And we follow their advice. Give us a king, we demand—someone wise and powerful to tell us what to do--and we will follow him!

The Israelites—despite the warnings of Samuel—and despite the examples of the many Judges who served them well—wanted a king. So they got kings. In one listing of the kings from both the north and the south when the kingdom of Israel was divided into Israel and Judah, there were 40 kings listed and 30 of them were labeled ‘bad,’ ‘mostly bad,’ ‘wicked’ or ‘the worst’ by one commentator; i.e., as NOT GOOD for their people.

The truly strong and powerful people of the Hebrew Scriptures knew where their power came from: it came from God. Samson did not rely on his growing hair before collapsing the castle that had a thousand Philistines dancing on the roof; he relied on God’s hearing his final prayer.

What a contrast Jesus is to these historical ideas about leadership and power! We still cannot give up calling him Christ the King and chanting that his kingdom will never end and praying at least once a week “Thy Kingdom come,” but it is VERY difficult to keep in mind the kind of power he modeled for us. If we call him King, we’d better be sure what kind of King we are thinking of.

If that ship that is carrying us into the squalls of the 21st century were called “Meekness” or “Humility,” or “Service,” would we come on board? How many of us will find our greatest joy this year in giving UP power, turning the other cheek, forgiving, serving the under-served, and being content to swim in the sea of God’s love?

Comments on Joshua, Judges

2011-12-30T16:26:00.000-08:00

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)!

Comments on Excerpts from Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy

2011-12-12T10:25:00.000-08:00

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).

Comments on Exodus 16-34

2011-11-28T08:13:00.000-08:00

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.

Comments on Exodus 7:1-24; 11:1-12, 42; 14:1-31; 15: 20-21 Biblical Literacy, pages 48-56

2011-11-14T11:59:00.000-08:00

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.

Comments on Exodus 1:8 – 2:22; 2:23-3:15; 4:1-17; Biblical Literacy, pages 43-48

2011-11-11T11:50:00.000-08:00

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.”

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

2011-11-02T16:14:00.000-07:00

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

Comments on Genesis 22 -- 34; Biblical Literacy Pages 29-36

2011-10-28T16:29:00.000-07:00

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.

Comments on Genesis 11-19; Biblical Literacy Pages 21-29

2011-10-21T14:09:00.000-07:00

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.

Comments on Genesis 4-10; Biblical Literacy 15-21

2011-10-10T13:19:00.000-07:00

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.

Comments on Genesis 1-3, Biblical Literacy 1-15

2011-10-03T11:54:00.000-07:00

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!

A New Year in Bible Study, 2011-2012

2011-09-03T09:55:00.000-07:00

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.

Commentary on Lectionary for June 19, 2011

2011-06-12T16:06:00.000-07:00

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!”

Commentary on Lectionary for June 12, 2011

2011-06-05T20:07:00.001-07:00

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).

Commentary on Lectionary for June 5, 2011

2011-05-29T09:26:00.000-07:00

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).

Commentary on Lectionary for May 29, 2011

2011-05-23T14:56:00.000-07:00

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.

Commentary on Lectionary for May 22, 2011

2011-05-16T16:18:00.000-07:00

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.

Commentary on Lectionary for May 15, 2011

2011-05-14T10:09:00.000-07:00

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)

Commentary on Lectionary for May 8, 2011

2011-05-02T10:24:00.000-07:00

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.

Commentary on Lectionary for May 1, 2011

2011-04-25T11:20:00.000-07:00

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.”

Commentary on Lectionary for April 24, 2011

2011-04-17T19:20:00.000-07:00

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. “

Commentary on Lectionary for April 17, 2011

2011-04-10T13:03:00.000-07:00

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?

Commentary on Lectionary for April 10, 2011

2011-04-03T14:27:00.000-07:00

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!

Commentary on Lectionary for April 3, 2011

2011-03-27T13:15:00.000-07:00

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.

Commentary on Lectionary for March 27, 2011

2011-03-20T13:57:00.000-07:00

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.

Commentary on Lectionary for March 20, 2011

2011-03-13T12:46:00.000-07:00

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.

Commentary on Lectionary for March 13, 2011

2011-03-06T11:53:00.000-08:00

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.

Commentary on Lectionary for March 6, 2011

2011-02-28T07:50:00.000-08:00

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.”

Commentary on Lectionary for February 27, 2011

2011-02-21T08:35:00.000-08:00

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.

Commentary on Lectionary for February 20, 2011

2011-02-13T15:55:00.000-08:00

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.

Commentary on Lectionary for February 13, 2011

2011-02-07T14:22:00.000-08:00

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.

Commentary on Lectionary for February 6, 2011

2011-01-30T16:42:00.000-08:00

Epiphany 5A

Isaiah 58:1-12; Psalm 112: 1-10; 1 Corinthians 2:1-16; Matthew 5:13-20

If we were to give our children advice about money, what would it be? Make enough money so you don’t have to worry about it? Make enough so that you donate to worthy causes, build hospitals, fund research? Make enough to free your children to use their talents for humanity and not spend all their time in non-creative employment that leaves them tired and unable to invent, initiate and discover?

There is a so-called theology of prosperity out there—a belief that Scripture promises wealth and prosperity to all those who keep the commandments and are judged to be righteous. Psalm 112 in today’s readings may be partially responsible for this theology. “Happy the man who fears the Lord, who greatly delights in his commands…Wealth and riches shall be in his house…” (Psalm 112:1,3).

And the passage from Isaiah contains a similar promise, but only to those who take care of the poor, the hungry, the naked: “Then the Lord will guide you always and give you plenty even on the parched land” (Isaiah 58:11).

What a joy it would be to win the lottery! Would prayer help? Would some sort of sacrifice to God help? Just tell me what to do in order that I may be freed from worries about employment and mortgages and medications and retirement?

Accumulate money! Is this the sole wisdom we want to impart to our children?
If we turn to the author of 1 Corinthians for an answer, it will be quite different from what we might expect. If we are asking Paul for answers in our quest for comfort and happiness, he will point us toward wisdom, all right, but a “mysterious, hidden wisdom” (1 Cor. 2: 7). It seems as if counting money and stacking gold coins is NOT what the Spirit of God is leading us to appreciate. Paul suggests that only those who have the mind of Christ have true wisdom.

Matthew describes that mind in the Sermon on the Mount. The words reflect a wisdom that comes from being connected to God and His presence. Then everything looks different. Once we have this vision, we become “lights to the world,” fit to be put on a lampstand so that others can see (Matthew 5:15). The words are delivered by a man who is able to look at fishermen and say: “Follow me,” and they drop their careers and their livelihood to do so. The man is sufficient. He fills up emptiness, dampens fears, and makes money much less important. Wealth, it turns out, is for helping those who don’t have any.

Commentary on Lectionary for January 30, 2011

2011-01-24T14:07:00.000-08:00

Epiphany 4A

Micah 6:1-8; Psalm 15; 1 Corinthians 1:18-31; Matthew 5:1-12

A week after our President’s State of the Union address, opening Micah’s book to chapter six is like reading God’s State of the World address. Through Micah, God reminds the people of all He has done for them and asks: “What have I done unto thee? And wherein have I wearied thee?”

In our contemporary world, it is enlightening to review the scriptural passage from Numbers 22 to 24 that Micah references. Balak, king of Moab, asks Balaam to come and curse the burgeoning population of Israelites who are encroaching on Moabite territory. But Balaam’s first allegiance is to God, and there is no way he is going to curse a people whom God is blessing. In our world where business as usual often includes bribes and “incentives,” Balaam stands as one who refuses wealth and honor from Balak rather than go against his internal values of loyalty and honesty. He was lucky he didn’t get killed.

Jesus DID get killed. His values were not those of the power structure around him, nor could he find a place for himself in the cozy relationship the Jewish and Roman authorities had with each other. On the contrary, he elevated the values of meekness, poverty of spirit, thirst for justice, peacemaking, and so on in what we have come to call the “beatitudes.”

And so Paul, Jesus’s follower, talks about a whole different idea of wisdom. It is NOT the kind of wisdom you can get from a power retreat led by a motivational speaker. Paul readily admits that the wisdom aspired to by followers of Jesus is going to look at lot like foolishness. What could be more foolish than—in the words of Psalm 15—NOT to lend out money for usurious interest? –NOT to slander others with your tongue on, say, radio and TV talk shows? --NOT to accept any bribes against the innocent? (Ps. 15:5).

It is easy to read these passages and cast further blame on those who are today before judges or are already in prison. It is more difficult to ask what we ourselves have contributed to a culture that makes these crimes possible or even desirable (if you don’t get caught). Or we might ask for lessons in practicing the beatitudes and applying them in our lives, which could complicate our lives tremendously, and open us up to ridicule as people who are really foolish.

Or we could seek to practice every day and have as our mantra those most famous and oft-quoted words of Micah pertaining to what the Lord requires of us: “..Only to do the right and to love goodness, and to walk humbly with your God” (Micah 6:8).

Commentary on Lectionary for January 23, 2011

2011-01-17T09:59:00.000-08:00

Epiphany 3A

Isaiah 9:1-4; Psalm 27:1, 4-9; 1 Corinthians 1:10-18; Matthew 4:12-23

I still vividly remember, some months after our family had moved to another city, that our 8-year old son said balefully one day: “I want to go home!” His friends, his school, his comfort level were in a different place. The Psalmist reminded me of him when he, too, cried pitifully: “One thing I ask of the Lord; this I seek: to dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life…and contemplate his Temple” (Psalm 27:4.

I suppose it wasn’t the place so much as the people. We get so attached. Jesus had such magnetism that he only had to say “Come follow me and I will make you fishers of men,” and Andrew and Peter left their nets. In the first letter to the Corinthians, Paul talks of people who were attached to him, or to Apollos or to Cephas or even to Christ.

Isaiah envisioned a time when Zebulon and Naphtali would be taken back from the grasp of Tiglath-Pileser who had conquered these lands, and the people could feel once again they were home and the North and South—the land of the twelve tribes of Jacob--could be one nation again. For Isaiah, the new King Hezekiah might have been the one to bring this about. In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus went down from the high country of Nazareth to the lands of Zebulon and Naphtali, to Capernaum by the Sea of Galilee which is north of Nazareth. And Matthew in hindsight knows that in doing so he fulfilled the dream of Isaiah that these two territories would “see a great light.”

The light was there, in the message: “the kingdom of heaven has come near.” The hard part was to understand that this was NOT the kingdom everyone had in mind, that as our life’s days gallop toward their end, we can never go home again, but we can BE at home; we can contemplate his Temple—because we have learned it is not a brick and mortar edifice.

We always make a big thing out of the first apostles leaving everything and following Jesus. But we forget what they gained—that fellowship, that friendship, that sense of purpose and of meaning for their lives. I keep remembering that touching passage in Matthew 17, after Jesus is transfigured before Peter, James and John, Peter said: “Lord it is good for us to be here,” and wanted to make three tents so they could stay for a long time. Home at last!

Some say that in Jewish tradition, Zebulon had a “symbiotic relationship” with Issachar, perhaps providing for them financially so they could study the Torah. They certainly had tribal allegiance; they fought side by side on the battlefield, and in that vivid passage from Judges 4, Deborah had Barak call an army together to pursue Sisera, they were willing to give their lives.

As we look at our own roles, we see how tribal we still are; pillars of our community, citizens of our country, strong advocates for our parties, willing to work hard and even die for our families, staunch members of our professional associations and unions, willing to go to bat for fellow employees, serving our church in its numerous initiatives to care for the needy. We may be feminists, club members, card-carrying associates, hobbyists, belongers to internet groups and fierce Face book friends.

But, again, the hard part is to hear Paul in 1 Corinthians cautioning against division because of these tribal belongings and affiliations. Think wider and bigger, he seems to be saying. [In Christ],”there can be neither Jew nor Greek, there can be neither bond nor free, there can be no male and female; for ye all are one” (Galatians3:28). Our attachment is to the God of Jesus Christ. Our home is in Him.

Commentary on Lectionary for January 16, 2011

2011-01-09T13:31:00.000-08:00

Epiphany 2A

Isaiah 49:1-7; Psalm 40:1-11; 1 Corinthians 1:1-9; John 1:29-34

The New Interpreter’s Study Bible says that 1 Cor. 1:9 indicates that “the trustworthiness of God guarantees that God is on the believers’ side” (p. 2039). As I watched the Rose Bowl this year, until I found out that Texas Christian University was a Disciples of Christ University, I was playfully and sarcastically wondering if the players were told in the locker room that God was on their side and the other team was evil to be vanquished. After I looked up TCU and found out they were a Disciples of Christ University, my prejudice and assumption shifted: Disciples would never hold that opinion of their opponents! Note that in both cases, I really had NO idea of what was said in the locker room to motivate the players.

With all of the college bowl games, the playoffs and the upcoming Super Bowl, many people must be praying for God to be on their side. Very little blood will be shed, although injuries are common. In ancient days and modern wars, football teams are and were analogs for armies and on battlefields blood flows freely and people (mostly young as those kids on the gridiron) die. Each army hopes that God is on their side.

Second Isaiah knew that God was on his side. He believed that God had called him from the womb; that God nominated him as His servant. So He was going to lead Israel to victory. Jacob (whose name was changed to Israel) would win. Moreover, the Lord says this is “too light a thing...to restore the preserved of Israel: I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles…” (Is. 49: 6). And so the task gets bumped up from saving a nation to saving the world!

The Psalmist knew that God was on HIS side. If he could be patient, he would come out on top. In fact, God would set his feet upon a rock; he would draw him “up from the desolate pit.”

John’s Gospel has Jesus being silent and John pointing to him as the Son of God: “After me comes a man who ranks ahead of me because he was before me.” John takes a back seat, builds up his cousin, acknowledges his better, and knows from listening to the Sprit who will lead to victory.

It turns out that God is on EVERYONE’S side. Isaiah, the Servant to Come, John the Baptist, the Psalmist, Jesus all worked to bring about the peaceable kingdom. It turns out we are all chosen, you and me, too, to “set the captives free” and to exit whatever captivity we are in to resettle our kingdom, which has been devastated by wars and greed and neglect. If we are disciples of this God en-fleshed in Jesus and follow His way, then we are called to victory in this battle to transform our world into His peaceable kingdom.

Commentary on Lectionary for January 9, 2011

2011-01-03T17:39:00.000-08:00

Third Sunday after Christmas: Baptism of Jesus

Isaiah 42:1-9; Psalm 29; Acts 10:34-43; Matthew 3:13-17

Some churches will celebrate the Epiphany today, although the traditional date for its celebration is on January 6th. And there is much magic to the idea of these three wise men from the east following a star, bringing their symbolic gifts and evading the machinations of the paranoid king. Some families have waited until January 6 to place the three wise men and their camels in their crèches under the Christmas tree. As the tradition developed, the wise men became kings, depicted with crowns and adding to the manger story by offering homage to this new little king of kings.

These readings for the Baptism of Jesus continue to make it very clear that when we use the word “King” in connection with Jesus, we are talking about quite a different concept from what our reading about kings in history would lead us to expect.

A sardonic indication about what a different kind of king Jesus will be, is immediately apparent in Matthew 12:1 in that Jesus doesn’t want anyone to broadcast who he is. Long before Jesus lived, in the first of the servant songs in Isaiah, the prophet tells of a person upheld by God who will “bring forth justice to the nations,” but who “will not cry or lift up his voice or make it heard in the street” (Is. 42:1-2). Matthew, in chapter 12, paraphrases this very passage from Isaiah and applies it to Jesus. Now what kind of a king does not want his voice heard? Does not want his power acknowledged? Does not want obeisance and obedience?

It has to be someone who is totally comfortable with who he is, who doesn’t need the trappings of wealth or power to shore up his identity. It has to be someone who is in touch with the Spirit of God, is inebriated with God’s breath, and is confident that he can breathe this same life into others, causing them to live, to be free like prisoners walking out of jail, to see like blind people who have recovered their sight (Is. 42:5-7.

Psalm 29 celebrates this kind of kingship. The voice of the Lord thunders. The psalm is full of storm imagery. If we can imagine what it would be like to see a tornado twist trees and tear off their tops or uproot them outright; If we know how lightening can light a forest fire that will clear acres. If we can read about tsunamis taller than buildings; then we can understand that all we have done to make ourselves feel at home on this earth and to be comfortable, can be taken away in an instant. Our theories and explanations of how things work are like heavenly beings that we create to serve our security needs. But only one being is worthy of our whole trust. Only one will be there for us when all else fails, and it is the Lord. And THAT’S kingship!

In his last speech in Acts, Peter speaks of the power of Jesus. It was, he says, the power to do good and to heal “all who were oppressed by the devil” (Acts 10:38). God was sending a message through Jesus: it was a message of peace (Acts 10:36). And Peter has come to understand that this message was for everyone, not just Jews.

In his baptism as related by Matthew, Jesus accepts his role as someone the Spirit was going to work through to be a reconciler and a peacemaker. He let himself be used for this purpose, God’s purpose, and so can we.

Commentary on Lectionary for January 2, 2011

2010-12-27T20:06:00.000-08:00

Second Sunday after Christmas

Jeremiah 31:7-14; Psalm 147:12-20; Ephesians 1:3-14; John 1:1-18

My wife and I, our grown son and daughter, our son-in-law and our two-week old granddaughter celebrated Christmas Eve in Buffalo, New York, attending a service at Trinity Episcopal Church on Delaware Avenue.

In an unfamiliar city, I had a difficult time finding a parking place, then turned wrong and headed toward the nearest steeple, thinking it was Trinity. But people were coming OUT of the church, and I asked one of them why she was heading in the wrong direction. She looked at me strangely, and muttered something about leaving the church. But my family was in there, so I resolutely headed toward the entrance out of which more and more people were exiting. I assumed that the service was so crowded they were being denied admittance!

Only when I got to the doorway did I see the sign stating it was St. Louis Catholic Church, NOT Trinity Episcopal. How embarrassing, I thought, as my wife dialed my cell phone to see what was taking me so long!

When I finally got to Trinity, the procession was ready to go down the aisle of a darkened church. Some children in costume were gathered around a furry donkey-looking creature that I assumed was on wheels and they would pull it down the aisle. But then I turned left and saw the Llama, who was rolling its eyes. I quickly turned and looked back at the donkey, and his ears were definitely twitching. They were alive! And the donkey was processing down the center aisle with a crowd of children to dramatize the birth of Jesus. The Llama was a camel-stand-in, because he came later when the youthful narrators talked about the Magi and three youngsters proudly acted their roles as wise men with gifts.

Everyone was invited to communion. If my two-week old granddaughter was on solid food, I think she would have been invited to partake of the bread and wine. At one point in the service many of the children in the congregation brought wrapped presents up to the altar. The pastor made the point these gifts were not for him, but for poor families in the community. Some of them were in big boxes and looked expensive. I saw a skateboard in plastic!

As I approached the altar for communion, an elderly woman was pushing a man about the same age in a wheelchair.

So, you might ask, what does any of this have to do with the readings today? --Just that a number of them make the point that God is calling people together. Jeremiah portrays God as calling his people back from exile, and not only the healthy, but the poor and lame and pregnant are also being called. Psalm 147 says that Yahweh “gathers together the outcasts of Israel” (Ps. 147:2).

And here we all were in Trinity Episcopal—we from Cleveland and others from who knows where. We, the old parents, and their grandchild who was celebrating her two week birthday. We gave each other a sign of peace, we shook hands with strangers and told people about the baby and they smiled and rejoiced with us. We were in the same place as the man in the wheelchair and prayed for him. We heard the nativity story and were admonished to share it with our children and grandchildren again and again.

The pastor told a story about feeling very poor in his first church rectory, but he used to regularly give money to a poor man named Ritchie, and Ritchie showed up with his girlfriend around Christmas time when the pastor was feeling depressed about his church and his personal finances. He always gave the man some money although he had little himself. But this night, he invited the Ritchie into his home for the first time, and the man saw the pastor’s Christmas tree and the presents under the tree for his family, and the poor man marveled at how beautiful it all was, and how beautiful the rectory was and what a joy it must be to have a family, and the pastor’s perspective changed that night as he saw his life through the poor man’s eyes. And that’s what he challenged us, his listeners, to do: to listen to the poor and the stranger and to allow them and this Christmas story to change our perspective by looking at our lives from their perspective.

In Ephesians, Paul talks about our inheritance. This story, of God with us, of the Word made flesh, is that inheritance, isn’t it? We can unpack it and cherish it, no matter how spatially challenged we are and what church we are leaving or trying to get into. And today we read the famous beginning of John’s gospel: “In the beginning was the Word…” It recalls the book of Genesis. Scholars say that one translation of the Greek word logos (the Word) is “the explanation.”

As we think of all the myths and stories humans have constructed to explain our scary universe, it is so comforting this season to read John, substituting the word “explanation” for the “Word.” “In the beginning was the explanation…and the explanation was with God and the explanation was God… and the explanation become flesh and made his dwelling with us.” What a Christmas gift: the explanation! No wonder the Psalm ends with Praise: Praise Yahweh!

Commentary on Lectionary for December 26, 2010

2010-12-23T15:04:00.000-08:00

First Sunday after Christmas

Isaiah 63:7-9; Psalm 148; Hebrews 2:10-18; Matthew 2:13-23

When Christmas is on a Saturday, many people will miss these readings for the first Sunday after Christmas. And they’ll be glad they did, because the one from Matthew tells a gruesome tale of a king murdering children two years old and under. It seems almost unfair for God to send an angel to warn Joseph to take the child to Egypt, but then no one warns the Mothers in and around Bethlehem and their children are slaughtered.

What a savage time, we think! But Matthew writes that not only Herod was afraid when the wise men came looking for a King, but “all Jerusalem with him” (Mt. 2:3). Their neighbors to the east had already proven themselves aggressive enemies, so Herod may have been taking no chances in ordering this pre-emptive strike against a possible threat in the distant future. And the irony is that Herod died before anyone could tell whether his action was necessary to preserve the powers that be. History would not vindicate him. The destruction of the Temple would come from Rome.

Anyhow, Matthew’s main purpose seems NOT to have been to tell horrible stories, but to link Jesus to the Old Testament prophecies, to Micah and Jeremiah and Isaiah. He wants to make it perfectly clear: this is the one who was foretold.

And the creators of the lectionary readings did the same thing: the Isaiah reading comes from a chapter that pictures God as dressed in crimson because he has killed so many of Israel’s enemies. But the chosen verses are those that make the point that God didn’t send an angel to save his people: it was “his presence that saved them; his love and pity redeemed them” (Is. 63:9).

The letter to the Hebrews quotes Psalm 22, which also contains so many violent images, as directly applying to Jesus. And the point of that passage is that this God who created everything came to us in human form, sharing all of our sufferings, a victim of our violence, so that He could help us get beyond our pain and relax in his presence.

As the New Testament writers look back on the first Christmas and the life of Jesus, they seem to be saying, “Yes, yes, we know that life is full of powerful men who will do anything to preserve their status; we know there are nations who want our land and our resources and will kill to get them; we know even children have a high mortality rate and sometimes die horrible deaths, but the thing we want to tell you is not that—that’s old news. The thing we want to tell you is that something new has happened; someone has entered our nasty realities to help us, to save us from all of this. We have VERY good news for you! Go pray Psalm 148 and call upon all of creation to praise the God who has come to join us!”

Now here’s the thing, and it will bear repeating throughout this new church year: the nasty things are not going to stop. The reading from Matthew is proof of that. Prayers will still go unanswered. Disaster and heartache and tears are all around. But with his presence, his grace and his help, we can align ourselves with the reality that is underneath all temporary forms, find our peace in it, and start our eternal life now. We won’t always be successful in this “alignment,” but some day we may swim through our tears and find joy.

Commentary on Lectionary for December 19, 2010

2010-12-14T09:08:00.000-08:00

Fourth Sunday of Advent

Isaiah 7:10-16; Psalm 80:1-7, 17-19; Romans 1:1-17; Matthew 1:18-24

You can imagine one of the prophets or the person who wrote Psalm 80 getting out of bed (whatever ‘bed’ meant in those days) and looking around perhaps at a whirling sandstorm, then remembering that the Assyrians were already killing people and kidnapping others, and you can imagine that person looking up at the sky and saying: “God, where are you? You promised! You planted this strong and wonderful vine called Israel and now you are NOT taking care of it! Where are you?”

All of us can imagine ourselves doing and saying the same thing in our own version of sandstorms and threatening attacks. Maybe accusing God of being a bad gardener is healthier than giving in to severe depression and giving up, as if there WERE no God.

Maybe we should ask for a sign…or pray to recognize a sign that has already been given. In the Isaiah reading, Ahaz did not want to ask for a sign because he had already made up his mind and decided what he was going to do—and it did not include God. Ahaz was going to ally himself with the enemy, the Assyrians who were already destroying the northern kingdom and eventually would conquer Samaria in 722 BCE.

God gave him a sign: a young woman would bear a child and call him Immanuel, which means God is with us! In other words, God was saying to Ahaz: You do not NEED the Assyrians. You just need to recognize and have confidence in the presence of God.

Joseph, Mary’s husband, got it. Maybe he needed a message from an angel in a dream, but he ended up trusting enough to take an unmarried pregnant woman as his wife.

It is very difficult for us to crawl out from under the covers each day and watch the morning’s news and find God in any of it. The meeting of God with reality, with day to day ‘stuff,’ is rarely perceived and believed. Those who profess to perceive His presence are often on the edge of sanity themselves and prone to make outlandish statements concerning what God is telling them to do.

We need a sign to discern whether our perception of Immanuel is true or false, real or fanatical. Many “saints” –like Paul--throughout the ages have pointed to peace and a quiet joy as being two of those signs. The surface of life may be chaotic and violent; the depths are still and silent. I think such saints have had their times of yelling at God, accusing Him of desertion, but have come to this desert place, this place of presence which often feels like absence. Perhaps it is best called a space, a space in which He dwells, God with us.

Commentary on Lectionary for December 12, 2010

2010-12-05T15:56:00.000-08:00

Third Sunday of Advent

Isaiah 35:1-10; Psalm 146:5-10 or Luke 1:47-55; James 5:7-10; Matthew 11:2-11

I can tell, as soon as I sit down to meditate, if I am not at peace. My breathing gives me away; and that feeling in my stomach. No use pretending. The temptation is to make the meditation a wrestling match, like Jacob’s famous match in Genesis 32. --Fight hard to keep the anxious thoughts at bay, to empty my mind of them, to NOT let fear take me over.

And how surprising it is to discover how little the event is that can throw me out of peace, that can dis-ease me! It can be a single word, or a look, or even a silence when I expected a response. Or it can be a doctor’s appointment, an unwelcome task or warning, a traffic ticket, or even a downturn in the stock market.

Today’s readings give hope to the unpeaceful, the overwhelmed, and the suffering: all that will be turned around. Isaiah says it to the exiled: Not only will you come back from Babylon to your beloved Judah, you will do it on a highway—a SAFE highway, and one that belies the fact that it is in the middle of a desert because there will be water and blooms!

My daughter, on her way to India, had to land in Jordan and stay the night. She couldn’t get over what she saw when she looked out of the window of the hotel the next morning: nothing but desert! And yet when we visited my son in Arizona last May we saw cacti in bloom—a beautiful sight. The difference was, of course, WATER.

And so what will make peace bloom once again within us? It is the coming of God into our lives, as subtly as a gentle hand laying a wet cloth on our fevered forehead, or as dramatic as being thrown from our horse. John the Baptizer in Matthew thinks it is happening in his time. He sends his followers to ask Jesus: “Are you the one or should we look for another?” And Jesus answers, in effect, “Go tell John what you have heard and seen: everyone is getting healed; suffering is being alleviated; what is lacking is being reversed!” It’s a new, a different kind of Exodus—from dread and pain to peace and joy.

But, we respond, like a child whose sore finger has just been kissed: “How come it doesn’t feel better NOW?” James has an answer in today’s excerpt: Wait for it! Or as he puts it: “Be patient, therefore, beloved, until the coming of the Lord.” James points back to prophets like Isaiah, who prophesied the return from exile that took years to be realized, and we will soon hear those wonderful words from the book of consolation: “Comfort , comfort my people! (Is. 40:1)”

And so I sit for meditation, in peace or un-peace, and I wait as patiently as I can, sipping confidence from these preachers of the word, these singers of God’s works, like Mary in Luke, suffering the discomforts of her pregnancy yet able to sing to her cousin Elizabeth: “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant.”

I take the breath into my body and feel its presence there, and wait. The message was clear: Where you are doesn’t matter—in desert or in chaos. Wait for Him. He will find you.

Commentary on Lectionary for December 5, 2010

2010-11-29T13:38:00.000-08:00

Second Sunday of Advent

Isaiah 11:1-10; Psalm 72:1-7, 18-19; Romans 15:4-13; Matthew 3:1-12

The first two readings have to do with the ideal king. We in the U.S. have a hard time imagining what it would be like to have a king, especially one whose main concern is the poor. It is difficult to find a single king in all of history who made the poor his chief concern—unless you are talking about Jesus, of course, and recognize Him as a “king.”

Besides the incredible biblical assumption that someone in power would care about the poor, the other issue that defies belief is the peaceable kingdom that the painter Edward Hicks illustrated from these words of Isaiah. If the wolf and the lion lie down with the lambs and the calves, they will starve to death. We speak of them being “hard wired” to kill and eat. They are predators. Some say we humans are hard wired, too, to protect our families and property, to expand our reach through war.

In her book Prodigal Summer, Barbara Kingsolver makes a strong case that predators such as the coyote must be allowed to survive or the world will be overrun by rodents. We have all learned that the accidental or purposeful introduction of species where they are not found naturally has often led to disastrous consequences for the environment.

Amid this talk of kings and predators, Matthew’s gospel portrays John the Baptist talking about Jesus as a powerful figure, someone who will thrash about with his pitchfork and send people into “unquenchable fire.” Ever after, preachers can use that quote to try to scare people into righteousness. Unfortunately, righteousness often meant a public confession followed by hefty contributions to the preacher’s organization.

However, when Jesus begins his ministry, He gives very little evidence of a winnowing fork, and instead He associates and appears to LOVE the people that the righteous condemned. And so He shows Himself the kind of king that Isaiah and the Psalm were talking about. The people He befriended, lifted up, cured and healed, were most often people who were poor. They were lacking in the eyes of the elite.

And so we come to the big questions: Is Jesus someone who would relate to you? Would He understand you? Would He LIKE you? Would you like Him or even love Him? If yes, is that because you are blameless and have perfectly observed all the commandments from your youth?

No worries. Jesus gave a clue right from the beginning that he was separating himself from the establishment. He went to the river Jordan to be baptized by John, this upstart who eventually was executed by the current King. Then He begins showing a shocking favoritism to those whom Isaiah calls “the meek of the earth” (Is. 11: 4).

And so this is the way Jesus demonstrated for us what He meant by a “spirit of Wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and fear of the Lord” (Is. 11:2). And we are still hoping, in the waning weeks of 2010, to walk in His way and so bring to our world those gifts of His Spirit.

Commentary on Lectionary for November 28, 2010

2010-11-24T12:07:00.000-08:00

Isaiah 2:1-5; Psalm 122; Romans 13:11-14; Matthew 24:36-44

Advent begins, a period of making room for the Presence of God in our lives. There is a stillness, a joyful anticipation about this liturgical season. In the Christian tradition, Advent has been likened to a journey, a trip to Bethlehem, as if we were wise men and, having had some star, some illumination that convinced us that something stupendous has happened on this earth, we set out to follow that light wherever it leads.

No wonder Psalm 122, one of the “ascent psalms,” speaks about the joy of going up to Jerusalem along with all the tribes of the Lord, and hearing proclaimed from that holy city the word “Shalom”—“Peace be within you!” Isaiah (2:1-5) and Micah (4:1-3) proclaim the same thing: the wonderful invitation to climb the Lord’s mountain to get instruction in God’s ways. And what do they hear? --That there will be an end to war and amid all the violence of clashing armies and rival kings, the one God will stand secure, bring peace, and be worthy of our praise.

At this time of year, our Islamic brethren have just made the haaj to Mecca. More than two million people, dressed simply, obliterating external signs of wealth or class, are fulfilling one of Islam’s pillars, the visit to this holy place, a purifying journey, a chance to commune with God.

Advent also begins the frantic rush toward Christmas. Instead of a peaceful pilgrimage to the holy places, many of us in this country fight each other for merchandise at Black Friday prices. People get trampled; violence erupts; politeness is discarded; incivility reigns. For those in-store guards watching for theft on monitors, it must be a terrible scene that unfolds before them and a sorry commentary on what we humans can become. And the saddest part is that our economy needs to be fed with a huge amount of purchasing each year, and so merchants try to extend black Friday backwards from the day after Thanksgiving, even trying to rename that traditional day of giving thanks, ‘gray Thursday.’

Can you imagine Paul of Tarsus standing at the doors of a mall or a Wal-Mart saying, as he does in Romans 13:13-14: “Let us live honorably…not in quarreling and jealousy…make no provision for the desires of the flesh!” --Certainly ignored; probably trampled.

So what’s the point? Is it wrong to want to give gifts, to seek bargains, to make Christmas lists? I don’t know. We are caught up in a culture and an economic system that says: of course not. We are caught up in a crowd heading in one direction and are pushed along whether we dig in our heels or not. Maybe the best we can do is to heed Jesus’ words that we don’t know when God will come, will try to reach us, will take us to Himself. “Stay awake, therefore! You cannot know the day your Lord is coming” (Mt. 24:42). The experience of His Presence is the most precious gift we will ever receive.

Maybe in the midst of the frenetic activity before Christmas, we can carve out a little bit of time each day to read Psalm 122 and hear its message of peace. Shalom!

Commentary on Lectionary for November 21, 2010

2010-11-14T14:00:00.000-08:00

Jeremiah 23:1-6; Psalm 46; Colossians 1:11-20; Luke 23:33-43

If you have lived through any type of natural disaster—for example, a volcanic eruption with fiery lava raining down on you as you flee, or a serious earthquake, or a tsunami with a 30 foot wave coming toward you or a war—apocalyptic writing must have a special meaning for you. When your body gives out or the earth shakes, it must seem as if nothing is stable. –And ultimately, nothing is stable.

Scriptural readings such as those last week can fill a person with great fear. So today’s readings are a welcome turn, as if we have awakened the morning after a storm and the sun is shining, making everything look fresh and beautiful. In last week’s readings, God is seen as a terrible avenger of all the evil mankind continues to do.

Today the prophet Jeremiah speaks harshly to the kings of Israel, whom he blames for scattering God’s people. But then He has God promising to bring them back, to gather them together, acting as a good shepherd after his flock has been frightened into flight by a pack of wolves.

Psalm 46 continues this portrait. God is a refuge, not a cause of fear. God is the place where we go when our knees are shaking and our faces pale, “even though mountains slip into the heart of the sea; though its waters roar and foam.” No earthquake can shatter this confidence because “God is in the midst of her…The Lord of hosts is with us.” What a wonderful juxtaposition of verse 8 with verse 9! God is pictured as one who “has wrought desolations in the earth,” but then the very next line makes it seem as if his “desolations” are breaking apart weapons and causing war to cease.

We can almost see the Psalm writer putting his finger to his lips and saying to us who are cowering and frantic: “Sh-h-h! Be still and know that I am God.” Or as one translation has it: “Cease striving and know that I am God.” It is a wonderful contemplative moment when you can get your mind to stop and your body to relax, and you follow your breath in and out as you grow still and let all your tasks, all your fears, and all that is happening get sucked into the stillness and peace of God.

It is almost jarring, this close to Advent, to read the Gospel passage from Luke that has Jesus on the cross talking to the man crucified next to him. Here is a thief, someone who has broken the law of God, probably not just once, and here is Jesus offering him forgiveness. It reminds me of the story of a psychiatrist who worked with a criminal on his deathbed and the man said just before dying: “Thank you for giving me life.”

Paul explicitly makes Jesus the person who fulfills God’s promise way back in Jeremiah’s time and the Psalmist’s time: He is God with us. He “rescued us from the domain of darkness” (Col. 1:13). Not only that, but he reconciled all things in himself. He didn’t meet violence with violence. He met it with forgiveness. What followed was peace and new life. And those are the gifts held out to us again and again as we read the scriptures. Cease striving, relax in his presence, carry this connection into your dealing with the world and with others, and then the earthquakes will come, but they won’t matter.

Commentary on Lectionary for November 14, 2010

2010-11-08T09:00:00.000-08:00

Mal 4:1-2a; Psalm 98; 2 Thessalonians 3:6-13; Luke 21:5-19

We often use Scripture to find out who God is. In these last readings of the Church year, it’s almost as if God returns the favor, and shows us who WE are. Visit any historical museum, and you will see evidence of countless years of war, weapons development, bigger and better, science, knowledge, huge sums of money used to promote killing in the name of freedom, peace, and righteousness. One war sows the seeds for the next.

And so we can understand the apocalypse and apocalyptic writing. God is telling us what we sometimes refuse to believe, even after all of the violence: nothing in this universe is permanent, and something in us wants to destroy it all. The U.S. and Russia are even now in negotiations about how many mass destructive devices they will keep to destroy each other. And some of our politicians want to derail these negotiations so that we can build MORE bombs than other superpowers. In this, they say, is our security. Any other approach, they imply, is naïve.

Into all this conflict and tribulation, a Prince of Peace has come, with a whole different view of what power is and in what direction to go if we are looking for peace. God first sent prophets like Malachi (whose name means “my messenger”). Prophesying in the 5th century BCE, Malachi might have said: Yes, you have rebuilt the Temple, but your rules for worship harm and manipulate people; your leaders are corrupt, and you continue to oppress the widows and the poor as well as reject aliens. How can you be freed from all of this without some kind of purification? It will not be pleasant, but it will be healing, like an astringent salve on a wound. It is so difficult to take up the cause of the poor and oppressed, and to fight for justice because we know we will be persecuted.

God sends his son, Jesus, the embodiment of the divine. He doesn’t come with guns blazing, flame throwers clearing the way like some Schwarzenegger action film. We’re talking a manger here, and fishermen, lepers, donkeys to ride on, a crown of thorns, and a painful and shameful death.

And now, even after Jesus’ coming, says the author of 2 Thessalonians, we need a second coming because we didn’t get His message the first time. Or we’ve gotten weary trying to do what is right. Or we’ve become distracted by the budget, and have forgotten to pull together and work to help one another and those outside our circles who are in need.

Jesus’ words in Luke remind us what our world is like and what we can expect of corruptible forms. Natural disasters have and will come. We don’t know how to live without violence. The message here, I think, before we can seriously look at where Jesus needs to come again and how we can help make this second coming happen, is that we need to treat these tribulations as a purifying process. He will be with us, urging us to hang in there with faith and to wait to feel his presence, a presence so all-consumingly wonderful that we will consider the pain of getting to it trivial.

Like the Psalmist, even while we are being purified, we will only think praise, of making a joyful noise, of using all of the instruments we know how to play and then calling upon all creation to join us: “Let the sea roar…let the rivers clap their hands…let the mountains sing” (Ps. 98:7-8).

Commentary on Lectionary for November 7, 2010

2010-10-31T17:13:00.000-07:00

Job 19:23-27a; Psalm 17:1-9; 2 Thessalonians 2:1-5, 13-17; Luke 20:27-38

The worldwide news is always full of disasters, which is certainly not surprising, since nothing in this universe is permanent. Still, you can’t help but wonder about how God can love and care for an individual, since so many people live and die each day. I read that the tsunami in Indonesia last year killed over 200,000 people! Thanks to the internet, we can access a world population clock. Here’s what it showed on October 31:

U.S.: 310,606,330
World: 6,878,635,170
21:29 UTC (EST+5) Oct 31, 2010

If we are all brothers and sisters, how can God love ME, when I have nearly 7 billion siblings? Such thinking is a bit humbling to our egos.

In the reading from 2 Thessalonians, Paul was dealing with a community really upset by the rumor that the second coming of the Lord had already occurred and that they had been left behind! In a way, they are like Job, as if saying: “Here I am, sitting out here scratching my diseased body, and the favor of the Lord is somewhere else!” Job finds within himself the faith to say: No. “I know that my Redeemer lives and that at last…after my skin has been thus destroyed, then in my flesh I shall see God…” (Job 19:25-26).

If you believe that the world will end in 2012, you can smile at the prediction that your health care benefits will run out in 2014.

To the Thessalonians, Paul not only condemns the rumors as false, he says, in effect: “How could the Lord leave you behind, when you are His beloved ones? You are special to Him, ‘first fruits’ of His Resurrection!” “But,” they might ask as we do today, “what about the Second Coming? Don’t I get to laugh at all those predictions of calamity after 2012 because that will be AFTER the Second Coming.”

Dare we interpret what Paul and Job are implying? “Forget about the Second Coming, because you are beloved of God!” Rest in His love. Laugh at calamity. Find the deep peace that can be within you when your skin may be abscessed but your heart sees the reality of God’s presence. This is a coming of God to you, only He’s always been there, but it is so surprising to become aware of His presence that it may appear to you that He has just arrived.

The Psalmist has such faith. He does not hesitate to address the Lord, and expects an answer. He also expects that God looks upon him as a precious individual: “Keep me as the apple of your eye; hide me in the shadow of your wings from the wicked…” (Ps.17: 8-9).

And so we come back to Jesus’ words in Luke’s Gospel: “God is not the God of the dead but of the living. All are alive for him” (Luke 20:38).

I asked my wife the other day: “How many galaxies do you think there are?” [She has to put up with such questions from me now and then, now that our children are grown]. I looked up the answer on the NASA site. It reported that the Hubble Space Telescope estimated in 1999 that there were 125 billion of them. Astronomers estimate that small galaxies have between a million and a billion stars in them. Big ones have billions of stars. Such thinking usually leads us to Psalm 8 (“What is man that you should be mindful of him?”), but it can also lead us to be completely in awe of our own belief that the creator of all this didn’t pass us by, does not ignore us, is as close to us as life itself. As in last week’s story about Zaccheus, we hear him pause by whatever tree we are up in and invite us to dinner.

Commentary on Lectionary for October 31, 2010

2010-10-25T17:09:00.000-07:00

Isaiah 1:10-18; Psalm 32:1-7; 2 Thessalonians 1:1-4, 11-12; Luke 19:1-10

At our moving Taize service this month, a reading from James 5:16 counseled us to “confess [our] sins to one another so that [we] may be healed.” We have to load this advice up with complications, because we have issues of trust and confidentiality; people may gossip (“Do you know what Joe DID when he was younger?”); and some relationships will not survive confessions of infidelity and betrayal. But if you do find someone who knows all your sins and still accepts and loves you, it is a marvelous thing, and you can almost feel the healing.

Only once in my life was I in the exactly the right place in front of a grove of pine trees and the cones were at just the right state of ripeness so that when the sun came out, I could hear them popping open…That’s what I imagine the healing is like.

In the reading from Isaiah today, the prophet is brutal in detailing God’s disgust at Judah’s hypocrisy at observing rituals and festivals while acting unjustly, especially toward the wronged, the widows, and the orphans. Yet after telling the Israelites “Though you pray the more, I will not listen,” God promises through His prophet: “Let us set things right…Though your sins be like scarlet, they may become white as snow…” --Interesting choice of words. Not: “IF you set things right, THEN I’ll forgive your sins…” More like a collaborative effort: You’ll need my help to set things right; or I’ll help you set things right.

In 2 Thessalonians 1:11, Paul may be expressing this same promise of help from God when he prays that “our God may make you worthy of his call.”

The Psalmist sings the joy of acknowledging one’s sins and experiencing the great serenity of God’s forgiveness. God is portrayed as One Who reaches into our stress, our floods of distress, and shows us how to get out of it and to find shelter in Him.

Even in next week’s selection from Luke, where the Sadducees present Jesus with a far-fetched problem involving seven brothers marrying the same woman and then dying, Jesus speaks of a different reality, of a realm to which prayer can take us, of a shelter that has no weak walls, and of a life that knows no end. And that life, by implication, is where Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob reside and where our departed dear ones are, too.

Commentary on Lectionary for October 24, 2010

2010-10-18T13:30:00.000-07:00

Jeremiah 14:7-10, 19 – 22; Psalm 84:1-7; 2 Timothy 4:6-8, 16-18; Luke 18:9-14

Two women came to my door this week, wanting to talk about God and the Bible. I told them I probably wouldn’t read their literature, but they left it anyway. As I was about to throw it away, I noticed that one of the ladies had included a hand-written letter with the literature. This I read, admiring the deep-seated beliefs that prompted them to approach strangers and put up with so much rejection in the hope that someday someone would listen to their interpretation of the Scriptures and be saved.

The letter directed me to Matthew 6:9-13, which is the Our Father, and then went on-in the spirit of the Book of Revelation—to describe what a paradise there will be on earth for those who, I assume, are among the chosen saved ones.

Our reading from the gospel for today is not in Matthew, but in Luke. There are two people in the story, both men, both at the Temple to pray. They are not praying the Our Father. Jesus says the one is a Pharisee and he is grateful for his rigorous observance of the Law. He is thankful he is not like the rest of men. Then there’s a tax collector. He knows where he stands in terms of Temple worship and observance of the law. He doesn’t have the “points,” the good works, the evidence of largess, that could possibly gain God’s or his religion's favor. And so he beats his chest and asks for mercy. And something happens to him. He goes home “exalted.” Wouldn’t a synonym for that be “exhilarated,” “touched by God?”

As David Lose from Luther Seminary in Minnesota writes, this parable is ultimately not about a Pharisee and a Tax Collector, or about self-righteousness and humility—it’s about God and how He breaks down class distinctions and religious distinctions and how he usually comes down on the side of those who ARE down. The very next passage in Luke is about children—to such, Jesus says, the kingdom of God belongs.

There has been a lot written about the Kingdom of God, this place where God dwells and to which our earthly journey leads. Where is it? When Jesus tells us it is “not of this world,” and lets us conclude that neither the Pharisee nor the tax collector needed to go to the Temple to find God, we can now understand today’s Psalm in non-localized terms: “How lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord of hosts?” We can sing it using Braham’s haunting melody in his Requiem, and feel a full measure of His Peace. Truly “a day in your courts is better than a thousand elsewhere.” It keeps us going back to try prayer again and again, even during the desert times of our lives.

I can’t thank God for not attracting me or causing me to be born into a religion that goes door to door. But I can know that He loves those who are on BOTH sides of those doors. The way I read this parable, the point is NOT that the Pharisee is going to hell. The point is that the way to pray, to get in touch with God, is simply to throw out all you think you’ve done to deserve His Presence, and to just make room for Him. And if you want to use words, those of both the Our Father or the prayer of the tax collector will suffice. You can even complain loudly as the widow did before the unjust judge, or the people in Jeremiah’s time who did not at all like how God was dealing with them, but concluded by admitting, much like the tax collector’s prayer implied: “We set our hope on you.”

Commentary on Lectionary for October 17, 2010

2010-10-11T11:55:00.000-07:00

Genesis 32:22-31; Jeremiah 31:27-34; Psalm 121:1-8; 2 Timothy 3:14-4:5; Luke 18:1-8

I am writing this from Tucson, where Psalm 121 seems especially appropriate. In every direction you look, there are mountains: the Catalinas, the Santa Ritas, the Tucsons, and the Rincons. If you journeyed into them, you would indeed need to call upon the Lord for help, because there are mountain lions, rattlesnakes, scorpions, tarantulas, and the ever present scorching sun sucking up every drop of moisture. Going back to work after a wonderful vacation must feel a little like encountering those critters.

The Psalmist promises: "He who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep." --Israel--that name given to Jacob after he wrestled all night with a man he later recognized as God ("I have seen the face of God and lived!"). In Genesis 32, Jacob, too, was traveling and was afraid because his brother Esau was close on his heels with 400 men--Esau, whom he had cheated out of his inheritance. The knowledge that if harm came to Jacob and his family, it was his own fault, must have tasted bitter.

And that's the message Jeremiah was communicating to the descendants of that same Israel: the Babylonians are coming! Our civilization is unraveling, and much of this has been brought upon ourselves because we have lost our way.

2 Timothy puts a solution in focus for all of these travelers: the living word of God, the word that Jeremiah prophesied is written on our hearts, can remind us of the direction we should be taking. These sacred, ancient words can remind us with whom we are wrestling--not as proof texts, not as weapons, but as a powerful wind blowing the dust from our path and gently but powerfully turning us toward the places where His Spirit waits. The awfully wondrous fact is that God has given us freedom and so He does not guarantee himself a win every time. We usually manage to withhold some piece of dross within ourselves, yet even though we can never win this struggle with God, we limp along with the marvelous knowledge that we have been touched by Him!

He blesses us and continues to listen to us. He apparently wants us to continue our journey through life, with all its scorpions and snakes, with the confidence that--unlike the judge in Luke 18--his help will come to us and abide with us, especially when we side with the widows and victims of injustice.

Commentary on Lectionary for October 10, 2010

2010-10-04T10:53:00.000-07:00

20th Sunday after Pentecost

2 Kings 5:1-3, 7-15c; Psalm 111; 2 Timothy 2:8-15; Luke 17:11-19

Two themes tie these readings together this Sunday: leprosy and thanksgiving. Second Kings tells the story of Naaman’s healing from leprosy by the prophet Elisha. Naaman knew to go into Jewish territory for a cure because his wife’s servant girl was from Israel and she knew of the prophet’s powers. The cure led to Naaman’s promise to worship only Israel’s true God (although he confessed he would still have to accompany his own King to the temple of Rimmon; but he asked forgiveness for that ahead of time)! The story gets ‘curiouser and curiouser’ when Elisha’s servant Gehazi commits a little greedy deceit in order to get some of the riches Naaman brought with him (and offered to Elisha, by the way, but he wouldn’t take anything). So Elisha curses Gehazi and the servant ends up getting Naaman’s leprosy!

The Psalm is one of thanksgiving for all the great and wondrous things our God does for us and provides for us (such as food and the law). This thanksgiving, says the Psalmist, he will proclaim publicly, in the assembly, for all to hear.

Luke’s Gospel is the story of Jesus curing ten lepers and having only one—the Samaritan—come back to thank him. The ten weren’t cured instantly. Jesus sent them off to the priests so they could be certified as free of leprosy and thus regain their ability to mix with their families and society. It was while they were traveling to the priests that they became cleansed of the leprosy. The Samaritan returned to fall at Jesus feet, giving thanks to him, and Jesus remarked that he was the only one to do so, and pointed out that he was a ‘foreigner.’ Jesus tells him to stand up and go; his faith has made him well (one commentator points out that the Greek word really means, “your faith has saved you”).

Only Second Timothy is outside of the two themes, probably because we are working our way straight through this letter at the same time as we are progressing through Luke. If we were to make a connection, we might say that Paul does not want Timothy to be like Elisha’s servant, but to stand by Paul as Paul stands by Jesus, to have the courage to endure hardships, imprisonment, whatever—for the sake of others. They are to LIVE the Gospel and not just “wrangle about words.”

How apply all of this? To practice staying connected to the divine, as Jesus did and as Paul did, cures us of our leprosy—all the bad stuff that eats away at us, imprisons us and makes us unfit for transforming society. Staying connected with God’s real presence lets us live thankful lives. His touch makes us free enough of our structures, our bondage, that—like the Samaritan--we can return in gratitude to the One who loves us. Our job is to give God room to touch us. I don’t know how to do that without daily prayer, daily practice of quieting our minds, saying our mantra, making room for thanks.

Commentary on Lectionary for October 3, 2010

2010-09-26T12:33:00.000-07:00

19th Sunday after Pentecost

Habakkuk 1:1-4; 2:1-4; Psalm 37:1-9; 2 Timothy 1:1-14; Luke 17:5-10

Both Habakkuk and the Psalmist are asking the same question about their life situations: What’s going on here? Why are we being so oppressed? Why are those oppressing us seeming to PROSPER? Aren’t WE the chosen ones, the beloved of the all-powerful God?

Habakkuk complains to God about this and asks for an answer. God’s answer is: Wait for the vision. You need to have a vision. And in chapter 3, the vision seems to be that God will arrive like a house of fire and level everything in a grand display of retributive justice.

The Psalmist, however, keeps saying: “Be not vexed!” “Do not fret.” Wait for the Lord. In verse 10, the Psalmist assures us that the wicked will “be no more.” Again and again the just, the meek, are assured that they will win, and their winning will translate into possession of the land.

Does the Old Testament vision change in the New Testament? In Luke 17, Jesus acknowledges the evil that even is directed at children and causes them to ‘stumble.’ He hates it. But right after his saying about millstones tied around the necks of those who corrupt little ones, another saying calls for forgiveness. And then he moves on to talk about faith. His vision is of his disciples having faith, even as small as a mustard seed. The vision is that all of the evil in the world cannot cause you to lose faith and once possessed of this gift, you have the power to change things, even impossible things, as difficult to move as trees (Luke) or mountains (Mark). In another place, Jesus makes it clear that 'winning' over evil will not be a matter of acreage, but of transformation.

The Pauline author’s last words to Timothy in his second letter are similar: stay close to God and cowardice won’t get control of you in the face of wickedness. You will be transformed.

Maybe it’s a mistake to attempt to tie these four readings together. But the creators of the lectionary did it in presenting them to us on this Sunday. I mean, we could also ask: is the Old Testament connected with the New Testament? Are the sacraments connected with the commandments? Are the letters connected to the Gospels? --In many ways, yes. Do our attempts to live as people of faith run in separate channels?

No. More and more spiritual leaders are fighting dualistic thinking and trying to get back to that single vision, that unity which is epitomized in Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Commentary on Lectionary for September 26, 2010

2010-09-20T13:44:00.000-07:00

18th Sunday after Pentecost

Amos 6:1a, 4-7, Psalm 146, 1 Timothy 6:6-19, Luke 16:19-31

A lot in the book of Amos is about God’s anger, including this passage. A website named enterthebible.org states, “Without the concept of God's anger, God's love is an empty concept.” What do you think of that? According to this website, God hates oppressors. The concept of God as a hater is a cherished one, paradoxically, as long as WE can decide whom He should hate. Some of the religious people in Jesus’ time felt that Jesus should hate the tax collectors and prostitutes and sinners, as they did. But he didn’t. And that’s the problem. “You’ve got to be taught to hate the world…you’ve got to be carefully taught”—remember that musical?

So back to Amos. Why do we assign an emotion like anger to God? --Because we cannot conceive of a Being who is always loving, who loves everyone, whose very essence is love. That sounds too namby/ pamby, too naïve, too touchy-feely, too IMPOSSIBLE. We are outraged at what people do to other people—just think of the scams and greed and bribes and corruption that have hurt so many. It makes us furious! Open your spam email and count the number of emails that are asking you to wire money somewhere to claim your winnings, and the sheer number of them and the gall of them make you furious that people would use this technology that has such potential for good, to defraud innocent people. Just read about war and the atrocities that seem to accompany war like kissing cousins. They make us all want to don the mantle of prophecy and to throw oracles like lightning bolts against the perpetrators of such evil.

What some preachers say is that God gets angry because he loves us. But when a loved one is truly angry with us, especially when He has the power to disintegrate us, it doesn’t feel much like love. And if we change our behavior because we are scared stiff of eternal damnation, fire, burning flesh and all the other terrible punishments we have been threatened with in our misguided youth, it is VERY difficult to see those as love, and then in middle age—bent over with guilt--to turn around in love toward that person who has threatened us “within an inch of our lives.“ The prodigal son didn’t return, according to scripture, because he feared thunderbolts from on high. He returned because he recognized the beneficence of his father, even toward that father’s hired hands.

What this country needs, say some, is more sermons that tell it like it is and threaten people with the fire and brimstone that would make Amos happy. This “anything goes” culture has got to go, they clamor. I agree. But for me, the way it will be transformed, is not by threats. It COULD happen by consequences. The consequences of selfish and oppressive, dishonest and violent behavior can certainly rain down upon our heads. These are NOT God-caused. These are the results of cheating, defrauding, oppressing. The poor may rise up. The FBI may come with handcuffs and chains. The people may unite in demanding an end to corruption. But anyone experiencing these just consequences for terrible, egotistic acts, can turn to God and KNOW that He loves. He cannot do otherwise. He does not know how to hate because He is positive and hate is negative; He is good and hate is evil; He is light and hate is darkness—you get the idea.

As Richard Rohr writes in The Naked Now, p. 60: “We already know far more than Jesus or Buddha ever knew, but the great difference is that they knew what they did know from a different level and from a different way. The same powerful scripture text that brings a loving person to even greater love will be mangled and misused by a fearful or egocentric person.”

Psalm 146 reminds us on whose side God is: He sides with the oppressed, the needy, the poor. He sides with those who rely on Him. Again the point seems to be to open ourselves to the experience, the love, of God. The Pauline letter to Timothy states it boldly: set our hopes on God, because to set them on money is to trip on the root of a LOT of evils—all of which lead to unhappiness and an unfulfilled life.

I had a chance recently and passed it up. A waitress in a restaurant I was in dropped a dish and it broke. The manager made a big and loud point of the fact that this expense would be deducted from the young woman’s pay. At first, I thought he was kidding. But then he repeated it and I thought: this woman is being paid close to minimum wage. I make much more than that. Why don’t I go back and offer her the $5 that will be deducted from her pay? After all, it was an accident. She hadn’t thrown the dish against the wall (or at the head of her employer). But I didn’t do it. I walked out. I felt it was none of my business and I might make things worse. But now I regret it. People underestimate, I’ve learned, the happiness that comes from being generous and giving money away. I resolved to go back when there is a next time.

Jesus’ story in Luke 16 about the Rich Man and Lazarus has given me nightmares. Is this how I treat the poor? Yes, I donate to the Cleveland Foodbank and to other charities, but is that enough? Stop. Does this parable make it clear that Jesus could not possibly love ME? --Because I have too much money? –Because I am not generous enough? –Because I have not given enough of it away? I have not travelled to foreign countries to establish schools and clinics and distribution points. I have not risked my life… Stop. The solution for us who are relatively wealthy is to acknowledge its irrelevance to happiness; to become needy in spirit; to cast our material cares on the Lord; to hope—not in our wise investments—but in His presence.

And so I come to the greatest test of my faith, and it is this one test question: “Can God possibly love ME?” Those who know, who are ‘experts’ in prayer, gurus of the spirit say: God cannot NOT love you. He IS love. And so, I imagine he might just see me there, climbed up in my tree with all its branches of fear and guilt and attachments, and he might look up and say: “Come down. I want to eat supper with you.”

Commentary on Lectionary for September 19, 2010--25C

2010-09-12T13:37:00.000-07:00

Amos 8:4-7; Psalm 113; 1 Timothy 2:1-7; Luke 16:1-13

Amos is one of the so-called “minor prophets,” a shepherd (1:1) turned poet and prophet during the prosperous reign of King Jeroboam II in the 8th century BCE. He prophesied in the northern kingdom, called Israel, from one of the royal sanctuaries until he was kicked out by the priest in charge (7:12) because of his harsh oracles.

These few verses are about justice—specifically about not cheating people by using false scales or enslaving them because they owe you some money for sandals. When acquiring money by unjust means is your target, keeping the Sabbath and observing other laws that level the playing field between rich and poor (such as forgiving debts, for example), are simply an unwelcome distraction, a pious nuisance. Corruption becomes a way of doing business. Sound familiar?

Where is God in all this? Amos makes Him out to be an almighty avenger who will exact terrible vengeance on these people who are so proud: “I will make the sun set at midday…I will turn your feasts into mourning…and make every head bald…and bring their day to a bitter end” (Amos 8:9-10). Those verses are outside our reading today, and we can also look outside of Amos’s worldview at a different concept of God. Jesus gives it to us—a God who hates not us, but our pain; a God who cries with the destitute and motivates his lovers to do something about their state.

Remember last week’s Gospel stories about lost sheep and lost coins? True, we are all lost, but once we are found by the Relentless Pursuer (remember The Hound of Heaven?), then we ourselves want to come to the aid of the destitute, to go find some lost sheep, to be sweepers in the dark corners of life.

Psalm 113 talks about God as “above the heavens…enthroned on high,” which may be one of the reasons we look UP when we pray and have an idea of God as “out there” somewhere. Again we can get caught up in the idea of a mighty God wreaking justice by raising “up the lowly from the dust…to seat them with princes.” But if we can get out of the king/power/winners-losers paradigm, we can see God as one for whom everyone is of equal importance—those on the dunghills of life and those in the palaces. Both are called to respond to his love and to take care of each other according to their means (which means the prince has the bigger obligation).

1 Timothy makes this clear: God “wants all men to be saved and come to know the truth” (4). In fact, the Pauline writer implies that the kings and those in authority can do a lot to make it possible for all of us to live “tranquil lives in piety” (2b). And so we should pray for them and thank God for good ones.

In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus tells a story about a wealthy owner who found out his manager was cheating him. Fearing he was going to be fired and out on the street, the manager made friends with those who owed him money by cutting their debts in half. He did what he needed to do, and he was praised for it.

What WE need to do, says Jesus, is to learn that all wealth is temporary. It doesn’t last. In itself, it can’t even make us happy. [Did you see the study that found that after reaching $75,000, more money does NOT increase happiness?] So why do we have it? Should we use it to level the playing field? To look around to see if anyone is destitute and needs it?

Few of us have the courage to do much of that. See the poignant comic strip at: http://www.freethunk.net/russells-teapot/comics-russells-teapot-strip-10.php.The rich young man goes away sad (but still loved!). We may need to do something first. We are lost in all this “stuff;” we need to allow ourselves to be found. Once we experience the God who loves us, there will be no need to serve money.

Commentary on Lectionary for September 12, 2010--Ordinary 24C

2010-09-04T10:17:00.000-07:00

16th Sunday after Pentecost

When you are being screamed at by an irate boss, it takes everything in you to keep In touch with an inner self that knows you are a good person and that believes the boss can’t destroy that certitude. Reading Moses’ speech in Deuteronomy 30:15-20 last Sunday required you to keep your balance. If you have been brought up with a terrifying concept of God, this passage will only add to it or throw you back into it.

In those extremely rough days—no electricity, no escape from the heat, little food, scarce water, unclear direction—Moses had a tough time reminding all those people what they were doing and why. “Do you really want to go back there to Egypt? Must I remind you what the situation was really like there? Can you not retain your belief in a God who offers you life In the midst of this difficult journey?” Keep choosing God, Moses seemed to be saying, no matter how hard it gets.

This week’s first reading switches to Exodus 32:7-14. It is a famous story. It’s a story of what can happen when people are led into strange new territory and then the leader disappears. Is he coming back? When? So what do we do now? Aren’t we supposed to be GOING somewhere? You can imagine the bickering, the attempts by one after the other to put forward their ideas. But finally they settle on Aaron, the brother of Moses, as leader, but one they can control.

The people longed for an icon, something tangible, an image. They were willing to pay big money for it—to bring Aaron all their gold and jewelry. Wow! At this point, many preachers will remind us of a long list of things that WE substitute for God. And we squirm in our seats and try not to feel guilty.

But Thomas Keating says that the greatest gift we can give God is to allow Him to love us! He says that we cannot separate His might, His omnipotence, from His mercy, His forgiveness. Makes you wonder what would have happened if Aaron had proclaimed a series of sessions on how to pray and taught people how to use this wilderness experience as a way to contact God, or, better, as a way to let God contact them, each and every person. And the way that’s expressed in this passage from Exodus is that Moses gets God to change His mind about destroying the people. Unfortunately, we take from this passage the idea that we must pray harder, amass points, find someone holy (Jesus?) to intercede with God so that He will change His mind and be forgiving, kind and loving to us. NOT NECESSARY. The message of Jesus is: the Father loves you and wants to be one with you.

Getting to that openness so that His love can fill it can be like a journey through the desert and an exodus from the familiar. And so Psalm 51 is still appropriate: "Create in me [us] a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me [us]." An ‘examination of consciousness’ is still helpful, if—in Eckhard Tolle’s insight—the examination carries us to the knowledge of the Being that is beyond our situational life, beyond our boss’s rants, and beyond space and time.

In 1 Timothy 1:12-17, the Pauline author acknowledges his sinfulness, but explains that he obtained mercy because he did sinful things “ignorantly, in unbelief” (1:13). But many of us don’t have that excuse. However, we do have Jesus’ words from the cross: “Father, forgive them , because they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34). And the Father does just that.

Jesus models the Father’s concern by associating with sinners and telling stories about lost sheep and lost coins. The owners drop everything and everyone to go look (Luke 15: 1-10). And when the owners find the sheep and the coin, there is great rejoicing. And when we are found, there will be great rejoicing!