Month: August 2013

Proper 17C: Come, Sit Next to Me

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Banquet TableFIRST LESSON: Jeremiah 2: 4-13

So, this is part of the “plucking up and plowing down” that we read of last week, apparently.  The second chapter of Jeremiah starts by going back to the time of the Exodus out of Egypt, when God idyllically delivered God’s people from bondage.  But here, God is sort of cross-examining Israel, asking them what exactly went wrong. At first reading, it sounds like the ancestors wandered away from God.  But, reading on, it is clear that they found nothing wrong with God.  The ancestors are being held out as faithful witnesses for God for more recent generations.

These ancestors did not need to ask “Where was God”, because their faith remained in God even through places of wilderness and darkness.  Eventually, God did bring Israel into the “land of plenty”.  But those recent generations who settled in the Promised Land, with everything for which to give thanks, did not respond with thanks.  Instead, they defiled the land and did not seek God.  They stupidly refused what God offered them and were foolish enough to ask where God was when God was right there all along.

Now remember that this is set in the context of the Sinai covenant, a mutual covenant between God and Israel.  But Israel has defaulted on its obligations.  They did not listen to the stories that they were supposed to remember, the stories of the God that led their ancestors out of the wilderness so that the current generation could have what it has.  Even the priests have forgotten the story, the ones who are supposed to lead the remembering.  There is a sharp contrast here between life that is “worthy” and life that is “worthless” (i.e. empty or vain).  Israel has exchanged the practices that construct a God-given life of true worth for a flimsy human structure based on questionable political alliances and religious compromises.  They had, rather, spent their days “keeping up with” those around them and had forgotten what it meant to participate in God’s redeeming work.

Walter Brueggemann has observed that what they had not spoken was the story of who they were as the people of God. They became worthless in serving worthless gods because they had not recounted the story of God’s actions in their history in creating them as a people. Several passages in the Torah instruct the people to retell the story of God’s deliverance in the Exodus to their children. In fact, those instructions are often cast as answers to questions: “When your children ask in time to come . . . then you shall tell them . . .” Even today, in modern Jewish Passover services that celebrate this event as the defining moment of God’s revelation to his people, the story of the exodus begins with a child asking questions.  Instead, they had chosen to turn away from the God who gave them the Promised Land.

The point is that part of being faithful witnesses is to ask the right questions.  That was the problem.  The people and even the religious leaders had quit asking questions.  They had quit asking, as generations before them had done, the question “Where is God?”  Where is God in my life?  Where is God in my family?  Where is God in my work?  Where is God in what I desire?  Where is God in every aspect of my being?  Perhaps we have the same problem.  After all, do we talk more about God or about what we do (or should do) to deserve God or find God or be with God?  This is a call to return, to return to the God who created us, who walks with us, and who continually and forever compels us to be better than we are, to be the one that God calls us to be.  Maybe our biggest problem is that we, like those who came before us about whom the prophet Jeremiah writes, are so sure of ourselves that we have quit listening, that we have quit asking questions of God and waiting for a response.  Or maybe something in our theology tells us that we must act like we’re sure, act like we’re faithful, and never question.

I think that when people find out that you went to seminary, they assume that you have all the answers.  Sorry, I guess I missed the class with all the answers!  The truth is, seminary doesn’t give you answers; it rather teaches you how to ask the questions.  And what you come to know is that faith is not about knowing; it’s more about trusting God enough to not need all the answers.  It’s about asking, always asking the questions so that God can respond in the way that God does.  And it’s about believing that somewhere in the depths of our questions and our confusions is an ever-present God who is God not just over the right answers but all of life itself. 

 1)      What is your response to this passage?

2)      What for you is the distinction between a life of “worth” and a life of “worthlessness”?

3)      What is so important about telling these stories and passing them along?

4)      How does this passage speak to us today?

5)      Where is God….?

NEW TESTAMENT: Hebrews 13:1-8, 15-16

The author of Hebrews, in concluding this treatise (not really a letter), offers guidance regarding the shared life in the Christian community. As members of that community, people of faith are expected to “show hospitality to strangers”, to extol mutual love in these early faith communities. Inns existed, but because they were frequented by prostitutes and bandits, travelers generally stayed with other persons of faith.  They took care of each other.  This probably refers to the love within these communities rather than a broader love of all humanity.  In other words, this was a love of brothers and sisters in Christ.  Perhaps you will entertain “angels”, as Abraham did at Mamre: he looked after three men who were either angels or God himself.

This hospitality is one way that this love becomes real.  And taking care of each other providing havens of safety was the way that the Gospel would be spread.

The writer is also concerned that infidelity and greed can corrupt community life, so those should be avoided. God will look after your needs. (The quotation is God’s words to Joshua, after Moses died.) Emulate the way of life of your past “leaders”, now deceased. Jesus is always the same; the “word of God” that they spoke continues. Be “strengthened” by God’s gift of love, not merely law. Being a believer may involve persecution and even martyrdom; remember and share Jesus’ suffering. Focus on eternal life, not earthly. Offer the “sacrifice” of thanksgiving, made in faith. Lead an exemplary life of faith so your present “leaders” can be proud of you.

Most of us want to live a good life and be good persons.  This passage exhorts us to not neglect to do good and to share what we have.  Sacrifices such as this, according to the writer, are pleasing to God.  The claim here is that one cannot do good alone, but only in the context of this faith community of mutual love.  For this writer, this meant practicing fidelity and sharing one’s resources with each other.  To the writer of Hebrews, worship cannot be real unless it is in the context of doing good and sharing with one another.  After all, we never know who we are welcoming and we never know who we are turning away.  And, truth be told, they are all children of God.  It is through our love and compassion of each other—of all of us–that we truly praise God.  And it is through sharing ourselves with one another, being part of one another, that we know who God is.  Remember, do this in remembrance of me.  It is in that remembering that we receive life.

 1)      What meaning does this passage hold for you?

2)      What does hospitality mean to you?

3)      What do you think of the idea of worship as doing good and sharing with others?

4)      What would this message mean for our 21st century community?

5)      How do we usually look at faith communities as compared to the depiction in this passage?

6)      In what ways is our definition of hospitality different from this depiction in this passage?

GOSPEL: Luke 14:1, 7-14

Here Jesus is not just eating with the unmentionables but with the Pharisees, those who are the leaders in the community. To imagine this we must assume that Jesus must have given the impression that he was an acceptable guest, ie. that he observed Torah strictly. Either Luke is making something up here or he is reflecting what was likely to have been the case: Jesus’ greatest conflicts were with those closest to him: the Pharisees. Why? Probably because they felt betrayed by his behavior. He was observant of Torah but in a radically different way. Still, at least Luke believed his manner of observance still made him acceptable to some leading Pharisees.

Here, we are also confronted by another ‘law’. It is not written law, but rather cultural law and was widely held. Meals are too easily obtained by most of us for us to appreciate their major role in the ancient world. Group meals, whether wedding banquets or communal meals, were an important community event. Jesus is present at such a meal, according to Luke, when he makes these comments.

Among the ‘rules’ for common meals of this kind we often find correct order of seating. There is a place for the most important and the least important and everyone in between. Some groups made a special point of reviewing the pecking order of seating every year. It was a huge thing in first century Palestine.  It is reflected in most meals mentioned in the gospels. Disciples reclining beside Jesus would have a special place. John’s gospel puts the disciple whom Jesus loved into such intimate proximity with Jesus. He lay down with his head close to Jesus’ chest according to John 13:23. Jesus had a corresponding position with God before the incarnation according to John 1:18.

We may smile at those people who always insist on sitting in the same pews or seats in church. But in the ancient world, place was guarded by most even more jealously. Society was strongly hierarchical. There was a place on the ladder. For many it was a matter of survival to make sure they either stayed where they were or climbed higher. Position was not just a matter of individual achievement. It was a community value. It was in some sense given by the group. Your value was inseparable from what others thought about you. Most to be feared was to lose your place, to be embarrassed, to be publicly humiliated by having to take a lower place. Losing face could not be shrugged off as easily as for many of us who have grown up in a strongly individualistic culture. Losing face was almost like losing one’s life.

But here, Jesus instructs the would-be go-getter to avoid putting oneself in the position where a demotion might occur. It is better to play it safe and be shifted up a notch than the reverse.  But the Pharisees were the “good” people of the day.  They were the ones who did everything right, who were always righteous followers of God.

The “banquet” is the clue.  In New Testament theology, it is often used to imply the Reign of God in its fullness.  All are invited, but there are not assigned seats.  We cannot work our way into the banquet or work our way up the table.  In fact, we are to include in our tables the poor, the lame, the disenfranchised, and those on the margins.  And, in true Jesus fashion, we’re supposed to give them our seat and not expect anything in return.  Our seat at the banquet is not the clue to who we are; it is whether or not, like Jesus, we will respond with, “come, sit next to me.”

 1)      What meaning does this passage hold for you?

2)      What does this passage say about hospitality?

3)      Where do you see yourself in this passage?

4)      Who’s on your guest list?

 Some Quotes for Further Reflection:

Humanity did not invent God, but developed faith to meet a God who is already there. (Edna St. Vincent Millay)

Hospitality invites to prayer before it checks credentials, welcomes to the table before administering the entrance exam. (Patrick Henry)

What do I mean “open to God?”  I mean…a courageous and confident hospitality expressed in all directions…I mean an openness which is in the deepest sense a creative and dynamic receptivity—the ability to receive, to accept, to become. (Samuel H. Miller)

 Closing

Let us be bread blessed by the Lord, broken and shared, life for the world.

Let us be wine, love freely poured.  Let us be one in the Lord. Amen.

(“Let Us Be Bread”, Thomas Porter, The Faith We Sing # 2260)

Proper 16C: Keeping Sabbath

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Lighting Sabbath Candles, by Barry Kester
Lighting Sabbath Candles, by Barry Kester

FIRST LESSON:  Jeremiah 1: 4-10

This passage begins a series of readings from the prophet Jeremiah.  Compared to other prophetic books, we seem to know a good deal about the prophet Jeremiah. There are sections of material in the book which appear to be biographical or autobiographical in nature. According to the information in the book, the prophet Jeremiah began his activity in 628 BCE, the 13th year of king Josiah. He saw out the reigns of five Judean kings, from Josiah to the end of Zedekiah. He was a priest from the town of Anathoth, of a Levitic family claiming descent from Moses. According to the book, Jeremiah had a disciple Baruch who acted as scribe. The prose sections of the book have sometimes been attributed to Baruch.

This is an account of Jeremiah’s call to be a prophet. This account is told in a formulaic way. It follows a pattern present also in the stories of the call of other servants of God, such as Moses. Elements of this pattern include: the context of conversation, divine initiative, a protest, divine reassurance, and some act of commissioning and the message. It is as if God doesn’t want to call on people who are so sure of themselves and the trajectory of their lives that they do not listen. The call is initiated by God or God’s word; it never comes from human initiative. The use of the pattern to describe these different experiences of quite different characters, points to the community aspect of these calls. They may appear to us to be quite personal experiences, but until there is a ‘public’ description of a call in language that is publicly recognizable as just that, there is no call. Prophetic authority only exists when it is publicly acknowledged, when the power of God behind a word of judgment or hope within public life is recognized by the community of faith itself.

The call is wrapped up in six verbs—“pluck up”, “pull down”, “destroy”, and “overthrow”, and then “build” and “plant”.  We don’t really know when this call was heard or when it was recognized, but it shapes Jeremiah and it shapes the people who listen to the message.  We are a people called to tear down that which is destructive, which is not part of the Kingdom that God is calling us to build and build the rest into what God calls it to be.

In his response to this call, the prophet will meet strong opposition to his calling. I’m sure at times he will question it and wonder what in the world he is doing or even, perhaps, if he had gotten the whole thing wrong.  There will resistance from others to this plucking up and overthrowing, and others which will resist the building and planting. Jeremiah will need courage in the performance of his prophetic duty. He will be called on to speak to the leaders of the nation. He will encounter the strong criticism of other prophets and leaders of the temple. His call will be costly. Yet as it unfolds the word he is to pass on, the word which fills his mouth, will prove the only hope for this people. He will be delivered, as is promised, and the people to whom he proclaims this word will finally be delivered.

Recall the words of the poet:

Sometimes when the river is ice
Ask me mistakes I have made;
Ask me whether what I have done
Is my life.

Parker Palmer tells of the time he went to a college to lead a workshop on teaching. Early on, he was warned about the curmudgeonly Professor X. Professor X would come to the workshop, he was told, but likely only to debunk whatever was said. As the workshop began, Palmer asked the teachers to tell the group about a mentor, someone who had taught them how to teach. The teachers related many stories, moving stories. After several people had gone, Professor X began to speak, not in the cranky tones his colleagues were used to hearing, but in a voice full of sadness and regret. He confessed that for twenty years he had been trying to mimic his mentor’s teaching style-the results had been disastrous. His teaching wasn’t working because he was trying to be someone he was not. Twenty years into his career it was just starting to dawn on Professor X that what he was doing was not his life.

 Ask me whether what I have done is my life. (From “What’s My Life”, a sermon by Rev. Dr. Kimberleigh Buchanan, available at http://day1.org/478-whats_my_life, accessed 18 August, 2010.)

 I was reminded of this as we talked about what God intends for each of our lives:

 Years ago, my brother had begun training his Labrador Retrievers to respond as hunting dogs and together they participated in what are called “hunt tests” in which the dogs have an opportunity to receive a title sanctioned by the American Kennel Club.  Now I love dogs but guns and shooting ducks and mud and weeds and swamps are not really my thing.  But one day I went to go watch my brother’s young dog Maggie do whatever it was she was supposed to do.  I didn’t really understand it.  Truth be told, it really made no sense to me at all.  I just went to support Donnie and Maggie.

It was so muddy that the only way to get into the test was with my brother’s four-wheel drive pick-up and then we had to walk about another half mile or so to go watch the test itself.  We stood and waited and I just listened to the early morning quiet.  Maggie and Donnie were standing at the end of this huge piece of flooded pasture land.  Then the quiet was interrupted by a gun shot followed by something falling into the water.  Maggie did not move.  She watched her destination and then when Donnie said “Maggie”, she took off toward it.  And I had the wonderful blessing of watching the most magnificent piece of Creation that I had ever seen.  With ears laid back and her whole body in connected motion, Maggie seemed to skim the shallow water, never veering from or taking her eyes off the mark.  What I realized was that Maggie was not acting out of obedience to Donnie or what he had taught her; she was being who she was supposed to be in the very deepest part of her being.

Living out one’s call from God is not easy.  Truth be told, I’m pretty sure that it’s not meant to be.  Some of it makes no sense in light of how we see the world.  I mean, really, look at Jeremiah.  Wouldn’t it have been a whole lot easier to just pull out the pastoral side of himself and tell these people what a great job they were doing being the people of God?  But instead, he became what God called him to be in the deepest part of his being.  He became who he was created to be.  And God saw that it was good.

1)      What is your response to this passage?

2)      What is it that you are called to  “pluck down”?

3)      What is it that you are called to “build up”?

4)      Why do you think there is almost always a denial of a call before the acceptance?

5)      What do you think of the notion of God knowing you before you were?

6)      What does it mean to you to do with your life what God intends?

 

NEW TESTAMENT:  Hebrews 12:18-29

“This is your final warning!”  Throughout this book of Hebrews, the unknown writer has been warning us against neglecting our salvation, against neglecting our relationship with God.  Toward the end of the writing, there is one last warning issued.

The writer uses a contrast to issue this warning.  Two mountains, Sinai and Zion provide the basis for comparison.  The writer reminds us first of the experience of the Israelites at Sinai: the flames of fire, the mist and gloom, the trumpet blast, and a Voice too terrible to endure. But we have not come to worship at this frightening, inaccessible, isolated mountain. Instead, we have come to MountZion, the heavenly Jerusalem. A marvelous company gathers in this city of the living God. There are countless angels who have come to join in celebration and worship. There is the congregation of the first-born, the brothers and sisters of Jesus the firstborn. There are the spirits of righteous people. There is Jesus, who mediates a new covenant making possible a new access to God and divine blessing.

The writer interprets the prophetic word to refer to a global destruction of created things (“what is shaken”) so that eternal things (“what cannot be shaken”) may remain. For us, this shaking, painful as it is, is a moment of crisis that reorients our lives. As a result of this process of judgment, we lose the things that can be shaken—all that is temporary. But in the midst of such cataclysmic trial, there is good news because that which cannot be shaken abides. Most importantly, what abides is God’s unshakable kingdom—a kingdom we are receiving even now due to the new and living way to God that Jesus has opened for us. That awareness leads to joy and thankfulness because we participate in the eternal realm and reign of God. Through our participation in that kingdom, we may worship God aright, with reverence and awe, knowing our God is a consuming fire who burns away the ephemeral things of our lives and purifies the precious gold that abides.

The “final warning” is that we need to remember this and not get so wrapped up in what sustains us now, in what fulfills our life today.  There is something more.

1)      What meaning does this passage hold for you?

2)      What are those things in our lives that should be lost in this “shaking” and reorienting?

3)      What should be kept?

4)      What do you think of the image of God as a “consuming fire”?

5)      What is bothersome about this passage?

 

 GOSPEL:  Luke 13:10-17

While this appears on the surface to be another healing passage, it is probably more about Sabbath, about what it means and what it doesn’t mean.  We first encounter the Sabbath at its very Creation.  But many of us read the beginning of the second chapter of Genesis as sort of a pretty poetic “wrap up” to the whole Creation account. But the Sabbath is much, much more.  This divine resting is part of the created order.  This divine act of blessing the Sabbath is God’s act of giving power to the temporal order; it is the honoring of the cycle of work and rest that is part of the implicit rhythm of Creation.  God did not stop working at Creation to lay down and take a nap.  God rather created the Sabbath that we might embrace all that had been created.  Essentially, the Sabbath is the climax of all there is.  And so, we are given the commandment to “remember the Sabbath” or to “observe the Sabbath”, depending on where you’re reading, not because it’s a rule but because it’s part of who we are.

But in the Gospel passage we read, there are those who forgot this.  In one of his poems, T.S. Eliot said that “we had the experience but missed the meaning.”  This describes it to a tee. They were so worried about Jesus breaking the “rules” of the Sabbath that they forgot compassion; they forgot justice; they forgot who they were; they forgot what the Sabbath was meant to be.  The Sabbath is not merely a list of rules. And Jesus is not merely a keeper of the rules.

The funny thing is, this woman didn’t even ask to be healed, according to the passage. And no one from her family made that request either.  Jesus healed her, set her free from her affliction, because that is who Jesus was.  The story essentially portrays Jesus as keeping the Sabbath because he sees it differently.  If the purpose of the Sabbath is to stop and rest that we might be free to praise God, Jesus heals this woman so that she can do exactly that.  Commentator Sharon Ringe makes the point that “this is not “whether” but “how” to keep the Sabbath.”

The Sabbath is essentially a gift of freedom.  Jesus realized this.   The body-bent woman realized this.  It means freeing one to be with God—freeing us from afflictions, from bent-over bodies, or from starved souls, from clocks and commitments, from tensions and worries.  It means giving us the freedom to looked beyond where we are.  You see, we are all body-bend, whether it be physical, emotional, or spiritual.  We all have afflictions from which we need to be freed.  God can do that.  God does it all the time.  We just have to pay attention and let go so that it can happen.  And then we will experience the freedom that God created us for us.

There is a story of an American traveler on safari in Kenya.  He was loaded down with maps, and timetables, and travel agendas.  Porters from a local tribe were carrying his cumbersome supplies, luggage, and “essential stuff.”  On the first morning, everyone awoke early and traveled fast and went far into the bush.  On the second morning, they all woke very early and traveled very fast and went very far into the bush.  On the third morning, they all woke very early and traveled very fast and went even farther into the bush.  The American seemed please.  But on the fourth morning, the porters refused to move.  They simply sat by a tree.  Their behavior incensed the American.  “This is a waste of valuable time.  Can someone tell me what is going on here?”  The translator answered, “They are waiting for their souls to catch up with their bodies.”

That is what God has given us in the Sabbath—the gift of reconnecting with our soul, the gift of reconnecting with God, the gift of once again realizing what the freedom of life means.  It is the chance to once again stand up straight and praise God for all that we are and all that we will become.  It is the freedom to be what God intended us to be.  Maybe that’s something we ought to put on our “to do list”.

The traditional Jewish Sabbath begins at sundown, the Christian Sabbath with morning worship.  In both, Sabbath time begins with the lighting of candles and a stopping—to welcome the Sabbath in.  Marcia Falk writes that “three generations back my family had only to light a candle and the world parted.  Today, Friday afternoon, I disconnect clocks and phones.  When night fills my house with passages, I begin saving my life.”(Marcia Falk, in Sabbath:  Finding Rest, Renewal, and Delight in our Busy Lives, Wayne Muller (New York, NY:  Bantam Books, 1999), 21.) This is the beginning of sacred time.  This is the beginning of eternity.  This is where we find life.

 1)      What meaning does this passage hold for you?

2)      What is “Sabbath” to you?

3)      What keeps you from “keeping Sabbath”?

4)      What are those things that make us “body-bent” or “soul-starved”?

5)      What do we miss if we miss the Sabbath?

6)      What does it mean to you to wait for your own soul?

7)      What does that mean to you to “find your life”?

Some Quotes for Further Reflection:

God…leads us step by step, from event to event.  Only afterwards, as we look back over the way we have come and reconsider certain important moments in our lives in the light of all that has followed them, or when we survey the whole progress of our lives, do we experience the feeling of having been led without knowing it, the feeling that God has mysteriously guided us.  (Paul Tournier)

Every way of seeing is a way of not seeing. (Alfred North Whitehead)

Unless one learns how to relish the taste of the Sabbath while still in this world, unless one is initiated in the appreciation of eternal life, one will be unable to enjoy the taste of eternity in the world to come.  Sad is the lot of the one who arrives inexperienced and when led to heaven has no power to perceive the beauty of the Sabbath. (Abraham Heschel, The Sabbath, p. 74.)

Closing

 Barukh atah Adonai, Eloheinu, melekh ha’olam

Asher kidishanu b’mitz’votav v’tzivanu

L’had’lik neir shel Shabbat.  Amein

 

Blessed are you, Lord, our God, sovereign of the universe

Who has sanctified us with [these] commandments and commanded us

To light the lights of Shabbat.  Amen.