17 Feb 19
Psalm 1
You would expect the first psalm to
be somehow special, and you would be correct.
In many translations, it is known only as a pre-amble to the book of
Psalms and Psalm 2 is actually the first Psalm.
As the preamble it calls the singers
to sing the psalms as if they were meditations on the laws of God.
In this theology life is simple:
Blessings follow Wisdom, and
Tragedy follows arrogance.
Watch for this pattern: verses 1-3: Blessing follow Wisdom, then 4-5:
tragedy follows arrogance. The psalm will
close with the same frame: B/W T/A.
The word blessed used in the first
verse is not an external kind of blessing, like for example winning a lottery
or being with family or going to camp.
It is a sense of internal peace that facilitates walking through life,
regardless of the externals. The happy
one avoids internalizing the negativity of the world by finding home in God’s
wisdom and experiences a kind of calmness from within.
Indeed this psalm is about basic
decisions of life in simple contrasts.
There is fruit in the wisdom of God and there is barrenness in the way
of those who listen to no one. How do
wish to be…at peace or troubled?
Listen carefully to the Word of God.
Jeremiah 17:5-10
Like the psalm, this ancient reading
offers a choice between two ways.
Because I don’t like to think in terms of black and white, I believe
there are continuums on both sides of these experiences: happiness or
miseries. Many scholars believe Jeremiah
has used Psalm 1 for this writing.
Jeremiah has used a very old formula
which reflects both the miseries of life and its joys, both of which we all
experience to one degree or another sometimes daily. The words used could be: blessings and
curses, joys and miseries, laughter and tears.
Jeremiah likes the words cursed and blessed.
At the end of this reading, you will
hear him confessed the human
mind and heart is too complicated for any one person to understand,
leaving only the creator to be the entity which fully understands human kind.
This last bit about the deceitful
heart is very interesting. Jeremiah is
noted for his use of the word heart as the center of the human soul. For him the corrupted human heart can be
turned around but only in response to God’s love. Earlier Jeremiah writes of this
transformation in this most powerful way:
“Circumcise yourselves to the Lord, remove the foreskin of your hearts.”
Jeremiah 17
Luke 6: 17-26
Jesus taught his lessons after
making some kind of spectacle attracting lots of onlookers. He then, usually around food, told stories of
offered pithy memorable one liners.
For example: if I were to ask you to
finish this one liner: Blessed are the
poor… most of you would say: for they
will inherit the earth. Matthew offers a
long list of these pithy sayings and we know that list as the Sermon on the
Mount. Luke’s version is known as the Sermon on the Plain. Neither events likely took place; most likely
as believed by most scholars both authors collected together the short pithy
memorable sentences into one place.
Here again we meet the ancient
pattern found in psalms and in Jeremiah:
blessings and curses. We have
come to call these the beatitudes and the woes.
By the way Luke adds the woes, making his version more in line with the
ancient practices.
You have to love the symmetry of
this reading. Each target of the
blessings is balanced by the target of the woe begotten. Watch for this pairing:
Poor/rich
Hungry/full
Weep/laugh
The hated/the
praised
The other element worth noting is
the tense used: the present state and then its future. The poor now will have a better life, hungry
now will be satiated, the rich now will be impoverished etc.
Luke 6
17 Feb 19
Psalm 1, Jeremiah 17:5-10
Luke 6: 17-26
How Can Mercy be a Bad thing?
Triune God,
you are our giver, our gift, and our power to give. Be with us now as we
un-wrap the wonder of your word, and seek to be a blessing to the world. Amen.
How can
Mercy be a bad thing? The mercy or
compassion that we find in the gospels is very precise and it will provoke push
back. The hostility that Jesus provoked
with these beatitudes and woes was a major factor contributing to his death.
Jesus had
great empathy and major hope for those living below the poverty lines: the poor,
the hungry, the depressed, and the marginalized. His empathy and hope scratched the people,
where they itched, living in the farming lands and small villages of Galilee.
Jesus was
not the last to touch the people subjected to abuse of a rigid class structure
with empathy and hope. The preaching of John Wesley, a founder of
the Methodist church, in 1775, touched the hearts of hardened dirt poor, much abused
mine labourers of Somerset England. Wesley
empathised with these working people so much so, he could offer hope that life
did not have to stay that way. Wesley
said: “I know how bad your lives are today, and yet I know how much better they
will be.” He taught with empathy and
hope. That hope translated into social
changes that addressing the worst atrocities of the Industrial revolution of
1800. It is said Wesley emphasized so
well tears of connection and hope created white streaks down their black coal dust covered faces.
Wesley’s mercy; based in the gospel teachings, met with significant hostility
from privileged people in high places who wanted the poor to keep their mouths
shut and their heads bowed.
Wesley
preached about a future of dignity for miners, freedom not servitude,
participation and not submission. His
music and voice spoke words for all and the wealthy privileged few hated him.
Recall the sermon on the plain: Jesus empathises and wins the hearts of those
poor now, by calling for major transformation of the system to bring about a
much better future. He warns the privileged
that this compassionate transformation, if they resist it will in time come
back to bite them hard. “Woe to the
rich, for they will be brought down.” We
know that that preaching for mercy met huge resistance among the privileged,
then… perhaps does it not do so today in some places?
This was
the good news for the people of Galilee, but not so much for the rich families
unless the rich families found another way.
We find, I believe, in the sermon on the plain, like with Wesley a
partnership of hope that goes beyond understanding. In other words we see the mystical hand of
the Holy Spirit as preached by Jesus and experienced by Wesley.
I cannot
but think about the laid off Canadian
GM workers and the
record profits reported by GM which are attributed to this labour decision.
This week a
voice cried out in empathy and pointed to a future that must be different: Notice the way this is worded: the empathy is now, the hope is in the
future, just like the beatitudes and the woes in Luke’s gospel.
“I go (today)
to visit the GM workers as a gesture of solidarity. At some point (in the future), basic human
decencies will kick in and companies will be loyal to the people that support
them.”
You may
have noticed this tidbit offered this week, by, of all people this man: “Sting”. He revealed he grew up in Wallsend, England, just as the
ship building industry collapsed and he experienced the heart ache and
suffering of long time loyal workers, including his father. This is a genuine source of his empathy.
And why is
he optimistic with hope for a better future?
He said this: “I have to be hopeful, otherwise
I will do nothing.”
In other theological
words: if God gave up on the poor, they would never inherit the land. If God gave up on the hungry, they would
never be filled. Alternatively if God
never warned the rich, they will never change the world. If God never warned those with full bellies,
they will never want a better way.
All our readings
today carry this ancient chant: empathy now and hope for the future. Jesus preaches on the plains; Wesley preaches to the miners, and Sting
sings in Oshawa.
What a
living God we have! God has not given
up, despite all the foibles and chaos of the human race. I think it goes back to the creation word of
God. And God created humankind and saw
that it was very very good. Poor or
rich, all creatures can work for the vision of God earth as it is in heaven.
What should
or could we do with this? We can touch,
our neighbours, our family and friends in difficulty with jobs, or illness, or
hunger, or depression by empathy. We can
then teach the hope of a better time to come.
We can remind
our neighbours, our family and friends in privilege with money, fitness, full
bellies, and great spirits by our empathy.
Then we can teach the more excellent way for all in the future.
Speaking of
teachers, we have amongst our volunteers who live and teach with empathy-in-the-present
and hope-for-the-future. So while we are
considering our homework to do the same, let us extend our gratitude to our
teachers. From our education pillar
these are the amazing teachers amongst us.
Let us sing the two verses of our next hymn, “Will you come and follow
me?” which will give our people time to come up from the down stairs.
10 Feb 2019
Psalm 138
Our Psalm reading is
clearly a psalm of thanksgiving. It
shows up at the end of the fourth book of Psalms as a summary psalm to assist
the reader transit to the final chapter of the psalms.
The reader is
grateful that the horrible period of refugeeism to Babylon is over, and yet is
also aware that chaos and danger lurks in the background…watch for the words:
“trouble” and “foes”.
By placing God as the center of life,
the writer feels safe from the ongoing chaos as much as he feels gratitude for
the deliverance from the refugee camp.
The beautiful art in
this psalm is located by a frame placed around the inner message and we can see
the frame in the repetition of the phrase: “Your steadfast love” at the
beginning and then again at the end. You
might also look for, in the short middle section that there are 3 reasons for
the felt gratitude. Why is he grateful? Watch for these words:
The writer is grateful because God
emboldens, answers, and looks kindly.
I Corinthians 15:1-11
In all of
Paul’s authentic letters, he starts with the assumption that seeds of the teachings
of Christ, after the crucifixion sprouted a full grown plant. He writes about this most aggressively in the
next reading.
Paul came
to believe this due to his own intimate encounter with God on the road to
Damascus. He understood his encounter
was only one of many appearances of Jesus beginning with Peter and indeed
continues from one generation to the next.
Paul’s encounter was merely the latest in an on-going-phenomena.
The
Corinthians to whom Paul writes, like most Jews gave little or no thought to
resurrection as if resurrection meant a return to life from the once dead. While they understood the Jesus was once dead,
then returned to life, they did not think rising for the actual dead was a
theology applicable to their own individual human lives.
But that
gives the unique death and resurrection of Jesus its sustaining hold to the
believers. As Paul points out: anything
less than holding firm to the knowledge that the full grown plant of Jesus
theology comes from its dormant inert dead-looking seed would render the
Christian faith empty.
Luke 5:1-10
Most of us
grew up believing that this story was the miracle that brought Simon. James and
John to give up everything, abandon Zebedee, and follow Jesus.
And yet a
closer look and there is so much more.
We know today that fishing was a carefully controlled industry. The boats were built and maintained by a
wealthier class of land owners. Small partnerships
were formed to rent these boats and fish.
Fishermen essentially had nothing, and the youngest members of the crew,
Simon, James and John would have had nothing to give up. Staying on the boats would mean they had
little future. Following Jesus gave them
a chance at a better life. And while
they left Zebedee’s employ, there is no indication they had rejected their
father or would be leaving him without crew.
Finally, leaving behind their possessions would be the law of the
sea. Jumping ship was legally penalized
by forfeiture of the catch and their personal gear on the ship. Furthermore it was no big deal as other than
this catch of fish, they had little or nothing on the ship in the first place.
Understanding
these social realities of fishermen in the time of Jesus renders much of the
popular understanding as naďve as any bedtime children’s story.
That means that
if this story is to teach anything, its meaning has to be found in the power of
parallel meanings, a parabolic story. Modern
theologians have refocused on three aspects of the story and I have underlined
them for you. They are:
1. Doing
something that flies in the face of human trust and logic (like fishing a
fished out sea)
2. The
over-abundance of fish (too heavy for the crew)
3. Leaving
their share of the catch for Zebedee and other fellow crew members (left
everything).
10 Feb 19
Psalm 138; I
Corinthians 15:1-11; Luke 5:1-10
Until our nets break
O Majesty and Mercy, open us
to wonder that we may be surprised by the greatness that awaits us in the
smallest bud, the earliest sunrise, or the unexpected invitation from a
neighbour. Let us always be expected to
find your love incarnating among us in new ways. Amen.
From the call of Simon, James and
John, in Luke we get these two lines: they caught such a large number of fish that
their nets began to break. They filled both boats so full that they began to sink. It is actually easier to see this as a
magical event than to deal with its theological truth.
Let me explain. The economy of our Western democratized
society holds to this principle:
There is not enough to go around. We must work to get as much of the pie as we
can but when it is gone it is gone, and we could starve. There is not enough to
go around.
At this core this is our
capitalistic system of consumerism. This system has indeed become the most
successful economic engine of civilizations and been in play for the last 500
years. Its governing principle is
scarcity and the scarcity principle was entrenched in modern economics by the
great Scot Adam Smith in
his book The Wealth of nations, published in 1776.
In the past two hundred years of industrialization,
money is used to compensate for work.
Such economics was officially defined as: “the study the relationship between the end results and the
scarcity of means”. In simple
terms: markets are driven by supply and demand.
Unfettered capitalism encourages the unlimited desire to consume and
accumulate far more than one could ever use in a lifetime, creating human made
scarcities. It encourages greed on world-wide
scales.
Basing all our modernity on the
principle of scarcity has become pragmatically attractive; blasphemous to
challenge, it works very well, and yet in the long run becomes a destroyer of
souls.
It has spawned unlimited rape of the earth. It encourages the building of walls. It encourages uprisings and violence. It leaves people terrified they will not
have enough for retirement. It traps people in unsavoury relationships. Even with all its benefits to the world,
capitalism is the anti-thesis to the alternative system of the gospel.
What is the gospel solution? When the mother of Jesus complains the
wedding wine was about to run out, Jesus showed her an abundance of wine. When the disciples complained they could not feed
the 5,000, Jesus showed them an abundance of food. When
people showed him anxiety he pointed to the trust the lilies had in God of abundance.
When the fishermen lamented the
lack of fish, Jesus shows them plenty of fish in the sea.
The economics of our Jesus is based not in the principle of scarcity but
rather in the principle of abundance. God’s creation, Jesus taught
holds an abundance of resources to sustain all life, including the feeding of a
human population, provided those resources are accessed and distributed in a socially
equitable, just, and compassionate way.
And therein lays the problem: it
is easy to say we believe in the economics of abundance, but we live in an
economy principled in scarcity. It is so
difficult to imagine the alternative that when the President of the United
States raised the word socialism on Tuesday, he did so as if socialism was
Satanic. It is really difficult to embrace
the Jesus principle of abundance despite all its strong supporting biblical
evidence and the clarity of Jesus teaching.
The economics of Jesus are hard
to embrace; the economics of Jesus provoked hostility among the wealthiest Jewish
families, a certain rich young man, and the Roman commanders in charge of
Israel because they had so much to lose.
That hostility led to the Kangaroo court and the execution of the
Nazarene.
Could Jesus economics also be playing a part in the
increased world trade protectionism, Brexit, civil unrest in Venezuela,
resistance to immigration, riots in Paris, and the American-Mexican Wall
standoff?
Let that question be our homework
to ponder when these news items invade our homes.
Let us ponder when we hear dire warnings
from the most powerful and the richest about the dangers of alternatives. Let us ponder that question when the richest
people on earth demonizes too much government, or demonizes social safety
structures, or demonizes social medical care, demonizes immigration, or
demonizes impoverished war weary families caravanning towards the ideals of
Western successful democracies. Let us
ponder this question when those who hold most of the world’s wealth defend
their production. After all there is no
scarcity at Pfizer, Exxon, Bell, or General Motors.
In our reflections, let us also remember
an amazing inexplicable progress of the vision of the Nazarene. Jesus teachings continue to transform the
mythological economics of scarcity. Millions
more people, today, all connected world-wide, are devoted to the vision of the
Nazarene which says there is, in fact an abundance of freedom, motivations for work, money, jobs,
and hospitality. What is needed
is the equitable access and distribution of those things on scales not yet
realized.
Since I believe in the message of
Easter, as hard as that is; I must also believe that the alternative taught by
Jesus of Nazareth is slowly penetrating the human race despite all the warnings
and resistance.
I must also believe that the wisdom
of the Holy Spirit is impacting the stubborn hostility to the economics of
abundance.
Is that part of the complex hope
of Easter? I, for one, like to so
believe.
Your word encourage us to
try again and so we cast our hopes in
deeper waters, assured we will find nourishment for all.
In the
presence of your Spirit and each other, you open our eyes, ears, and
hearts. O God send us out in a state of openness, so that we may be surprised by the
abundance in your creation.
3 Feb 19
Psalm 71: 1-7
This psalm is unique as it is the
only psalm that has no credit line, although it is closely linked to psalm 70
and really should be studied together.
It has the flavour of a weeping
psalm, lamenting the horrible life of the refugee fleeing their land where
their indestructible sacred temple has been destroyed. It also expects God, who was once the midwife
to humanity to step up once again to protect the Israeli nations from the
wicked and the cruel.
We learn later in the psalm that
these lyrics were likely written by one person, a man, elderly and likely ill
in some way.
Now with all due respect to the writer and the first readers of this
song, we must realize that this song demands much of us. It makes wild swings with four elements:
petitions, expectations of salvation, enemies, and hope. This
psalm actually can be divided up into three clearly visible sections. Today we read the first section.
We’ll see clearly the four elements present in this reading. Psalm 71
Luke 4: 21b-30
Indeed this reading has to set into
the context of the verses that precede it.
The beginning of adulthood for any Jewish youth is at age 13 and is ritualized by
that boy reading in his home synagogue. I
suspect this is the kind of thing that is happening in this story about Jesus
reading at his own synagogue.
This would explain the story and
take into account its variety: admiration, suspicion, and rejection. He reads Isaiah and he read it well, clearly,
confidently and captures its sensation.
The congregation is thrilled at seeing one of their own being no longer
a boy, but a man who is now a son of commandments. Then this daring confident young man, perhaps
even a teenager claims he is the one of God who shall heal the sick, give sight
to those blind, and free the oppressed.
Like young teenagers anywhere and anytime, so often they speak fearlessly
with solutions to all the ills of their time.
But our Jesus is not a normal young
man. We know he is a very astute student
of the stories of the Old Testament. He
noticed that God saved not one of the chosen, through Elijah the Jewish
prophet, but rather an unclean gentile woman from the famine that afflicted
Israel. Jesus also noticed that God
saved through the Jew prophet Elisha healed only one leper amongst the many in
Israel, and that man was Naaman, a pagan from Syria: no Jew was healed, no Jew
was saved.
When this young man, one of their own, pointed out this very unpopular
truth of sacred scriptures that to the assembly they are outraged at his
pertinence, so outraged the want to do him harm.
But being a young teenage, in the
chaos of the crowd, he slips away from their wrath. What a great story: Luke 4: 21
I Corinthians 12:
31b - 13:13
One could easily claim our next
reading is like a priceless piece of art or music. Its rhythm, its rhyme, its simple and
colorful expressions has made this reading one of the most popular. Perhaps most commonly heard at weddings, recited
at churches, it is found hanging in homes, offices and hospitals all over the
world, religious or not.
While we must acknowledge its beauty,
we must not lose sight of its purpose nor for whom it was written. To do so reduces this glorious writing to a
gooey sentimentality which is more related to a simplistic Hallmark Card than
to Jesus. To do so perverts the purpose
of the letter. It was written to promote
the theology that unity in
Christ Jesus trumps everything else.
Written to the fledging new congregation in Corinth about 50 AD, it is
one of the earliest sacred writing about Jesus Christ, predating all four gospels.
The congregants were divided, fighting passionately about which of them
was the most valuable: preacher, healer,
teacher, lawyer, historian, linguist, or theologian? Paul sees this naval gazing debate as a meaningless
waste of time distracting this church from the mission of love that came from
the cross and resurrection of Jesus.
Paul’s word “Love,” repeated here 15 times, is much more than a feeling
between two people’ Love here is an euphemism
for living “in Christ”, which, for Jesus, meant creating a society characterized
by distributed justice, non-violence, plenty, and peace. Without such love, life is as empty as
clanging cymbals.
Experience says that such love seems
way beyond human capability. Paul knew
this and so he added this key often overlooked phrase: I will know God’s love
as God knows my love. He says
in effect that this most excellent way calls for the promised divine-human
partnership.
3 Feb 19
Psalm 71: 1-7, Luke 4: 21b-30, I Corinthians 12: 29b-13
To Whom do you think you are
talking?
Speaker over the waters,
word in the prophets’ mouths, voice from heaven, word made flesh, your word
shapes, guides, claims, and saves us.
Open our hearts to encounter your word with fresh ears and clear eyes,
that our lives might be renewed to serve you with thankful hearts. Amen.
The story of Jesus reading in his
home town has been re-enacted for us by the story from this woman: Rahaf al-Qunun.
Obviously she is very clever, very
articulate, clear eyed and good looking.
As a young girl, she must have brought delight to all who met her. Her upbringing appears to have been in a
healthy caring environment, one which, consciously or unconsciously allowed her
to become the independent courageous teenager we saw on the news.
Then she stood up in her mosque, her
culture, and her family to declare she is a role model for freedom from
oppression by institutional misogyny.
The crowd went wild, threatened to throw her over a cliff, but slipped
away to surface in Taiwan free to teach healing for those she had seen
traumatized: 'I hope my story encourages other women to be brave and
free.'
In our reading Jesus has reached the age of consent, the age of
bar Mitzvah. “Bar
mitzvah” is not a ceremony; it is a stage of growth like puberty. A boy enters bar mitzvah or literally
translated a boy enters his
time as a “son-under-the-law”. At
12 he was still a boy under the responsibility of his parents. In the temple we heard about his charm,
courage, precociousness, and intelligence.
But then as a teenager at least 13 years old, he was treated to be an adult
member of the Jewish community with the responsibilities that come with it.
These responsibilities comprise
-being accountable for one’s own
actions;
-reading well from sacred texts of law
-lead or participate in worship;
-the right to possess personal property
-the right to marry;
-expected to uphold the laws of the
Torah
-to speak truthfully as if under oath
in synagogues
The irony is that according to Luke, when Jesus as a
son-under-the law, behaved with these responsibilities, his own people went
wild. He read well from sacred
scriptures, he led their worship intelligently with the challenges of the
prophets Isaiah, Elijah and Elisha, he believed in the law, took responsibility
for his own faith in action and spoke truth to power.
Jesus testified that he expected himself to role-model the
mission found in his Bible. He pointed
out that the God saved not the Jews but rather the dirty rejected pagans
through the beloved prophets of Elijah and Elisha!
This young man from a lower status family had shamed his
own people with the brave theology of Isaiah’s healing, freedom, and hope. No wonder they cried out: “who does this kid think he is? Is this kid not just some tradesman’s
son? Let’s get him!”
And there it is: the sad way of the
world. Is there not usually hostility
against even the most constructive missions that criticize or threaten those
with invested power? Would not that
hostility be amplified if one of our own young Sunday school students called us
to account?
It takes
courage beyond human understanding to stand up to the adult powerful privileged
knowing full well such a courageous stand will provoke hostility. It still takes a mystical courage to stand up
against the foibles of the privileged because truth will provoke hostility and enemies
will always emerge. Those with privilege
and power outside the mind of God hang on to their places with a tenacity that
is dangerous.
Our mission, should we chose to accept it is to stand
with our Jesus and be able to say: 'I hope my story encourages
others to be brave and free.'
On closing, imagine thinking like the young teenager
Jesus might have thought. Thinking like
any teenager, and yet like no teenager at the same time. I came across this prayer that maybe captures
the mystery upon which Jesus had been meditating:
Bar Mitzvah Time by Diarmuid O’Murchu
Having thought long and hard, my vocation in Life,
The call of the
Spirit to Listen.
I found myself
opening the book of Isaiah
And was drawn to the
place where 'tis written
Chorus:
You're called and
anointed
To bring to the Poor,
The Captive, the
Blind, and Disheartened,
A reign of
empowerment,
Healing and hope;
a new face of God
for enactment
I lay down the
scroll and looked at them all,
Bewildered, amazed,
and uncertain.
How could a
tradesman be so versatile,
Unraveling divine
revelation! CHORUS
Today, in your
midst, this text is fulfilled
Embracing a
prophetic vision.
I wish I was not the
one chosen so,
But I can't abdicate
the decision. CHORUS.
It seemed like too
much for the leaders to take,
A threat to their
status and power.
The prophets of yore
rejecting as well,
I had to acknowledge
my hour. CHORUS.
Their voices rang
loud with anger and rage,
They shuffled me
down to the cliff
While wrangling
broke out in the disparate mob,
I made an escape
rather swift. CHORUS.
I knew this
rejection would frequently rise,
Every time I
promoted the new.
And I knew what
'twould cost to honor the dream,
The Reign of God to
pursue! CHORUS