Month: February 2017

Lent 1A: Well, As Tempting As It All Is…

shelliwilliamsLeave a comment

cropped-deserted-road-dtf1973219.jpgOLD TESTAMENT:  Genesis 2:15-17, 3:1-7

Read the passage from Genesis

The Genesis that we know of today was not, obviously, written as a cohesive volume, but rather a composite of various stories from the oral tradition.  Contrary to many people’s belief, it is very, very doubtful that it was written by Moses, but rather many persons that came much later than he did. Most scholars believe that it is a composite of three traditions—Yahwist and Eloist (probably 1000-800 BCE) and the Priestly tradition, which was probably woven together about 587-500 BCE, right in the middle of the world of exile and restoration.  The importance of Genesis is that it makes the first claims about God’s character, God’s relationship to the world, and about God’s relationship to humanity.  It is, then, the very foundation of our beliefs.  Genesis reminds us that God’s work does not occur in a vacuum, but is shaped by the world and the historical setting.

The passage that we read is part of what is called the “second Creation story”.  This is probably written by a Yahwist writer, which recognizes God as God and Creator.  The “first Creation story” is probably a Priestly writing, filled with order and ritual.  The two are not competing but actually function together to provide our account of Creation.  The first account deals with the whole cosmic order of things and the second account deals more with humanity and humanity’s relationship to God.

In our reading, God places humanity in the garden to work and serve the ground and care for it in fulfillment of the command to subdue the earth.  The role given to humanity is a part of the creative process.  But to be a creature entails limits and to honor limits is imperative for the creature to develop as God intends.  There are two trees in the garden, one representing life and one representing death.  To be separated from the tree of life represents the broken nature, which means that death is inevitable.

Then in chapter 3 (we skipped a whole lot of chapter 2 in what we read), the serpent (who, remember, is something God created and that humanity named) is represented as “more crafty”, implying that humans will sometimes be exposed to crafty elements in the world.  And the world’s first temptation occurs…”come on,” the serpent says, “you won’t die…that’s all a farce.  If you eat this, you will be like God.”  Don’t we all want to be like God?  Then the blame game—it was her fault…it was his fault…it was, well there is no one there, so it must be God’s fault.  Notice that the word “sin” doesn’t even appear here, but apparently we humans are beginning to realize what it is!

It’s interesting that we read this passage the first Sunday of Lent.  We just had Ash Wednesday.  We were just reminded that we are dust.  But from dust comes life.  Perhaps this is as much a story about life as it is about death and sin.  After all, as the story goes, they didn’t actually die from eating of the tree.  Or did they?  What was gone was innocence.  What was gone was that unblemished connection to God.  What was gone was that childhood view that nothing could ever go wrong.  There are those whose faith understanding is that we are called to return to the Garden.  Hmmm!  Why would God create this whole incredible universe and then expect us to stay locked in a garden?  The truth was, they did die—they died to themselves.  And God began to show humanity the way home, the way through temptation and exile and wandering in the wilderness.  God began to show humanity what it was like to return.  Our whole faith journey may be more about returning home, returning to God, than about anything else.  Perhaps that’s the point.  I, personally, don’t think we’re headed back to the Garden; I think that was only the beginning.  God has a whole lot more in store for us.

The apparent inevitability of Adam and Eve’s decision makes their story even more compelling.  If God did not want them to eat from the tree, then why did God put it there in the first place?  And who dreamed up that talking snake?  If it was all a test of the first couple’s obedience, then why didn’t God let them work up to it a little?  You know, start off with something less significant, such as “Don’t call me after 9 p.m.” or “Remember to feed the goldfish”?

Adam and Eve were still trying to remember the names of things when they were presented with their first moral choice.  Their skin had barely dried off yet.  They made the wrong choice, but there is hardly a human being alive who does not understand why.  Innocence is so fragile, so curious, so DUMB.  Choosing God cannot be the same thing as staying innocent.  If it is, then, there is no hope for any of us.  (Barbara Brown Taylor, in Speaking of Sin:  The Lost Language of Salvation, p. 46-47)

 

  1. What does this passage mean for you?
  2. What part of the responsibility in this tale’s IS God’s?
  3. What does the word “sin” mean to you?
  4. What do you think is the point of this story?

 

 

NEW TESTAMENT:  Romans 5: 12-19

Read the passage from The Letter to the Romans

Most scholars agree that the Letter to the Romans was almost certainly written by Paul.  In fact, many would call it his masterpiece.  N.T. Wright makes the case that anyone who claims to understand Romans fully is, almost by definition, mistaken.  He describes it as a “symphonic composition”.  The overarching theme is essentially “God’s Righteousness”.

In the passage that we read, Paul compares Adam and Christ.  Now this probably implies that Paul believed that there literally was an Adam and Eve, who had been given a commandment by God and broke it. He depicts Adam as a “type” of Christ; essentially that Adam (literally meaning, “human”) bore at least some of Christ’s characteristics.  But, for Paul, the original Adam and this “new Adam” (this new humanity) were under two reigns—one that makes its subjects sinners and the other that makes its subjects righteous.  This passage is filled with the news of grace, the undeserved gift of abundant life. The cross is not mentioned but there is still an allusion to the atonement and Christ’s salvific reign over humanity.

This passage dismisses the implication that we are “only human”.  Christ was human, remember?  Christ came not to show us how to be divine but to show us how to be human—a “new humanity” depicted by Jesus Christ.  If the humanity of Christ was the way being human should look, then maybe our shortcomings do not make us “only human” but, rather “inhumane”, not really human at all, not really made in the image of God.

This whole journey is not about becoming God or even becoming divine.  It is not about getting some reward or arriving at some far off place to which we are destined to go.  This journey is about becoming human, fully human, the way of being human that Christ showed us.  For when we become human, then we will be who God calls us to be and we will know God as God desires.  Being human is knowing that God is God and that we are God’s creation, made in the very image of God to be a reflection of God.  We are God’s creation that God loves more than life itself.  (And God saw that it was good.)

 

  1. What does this passage mean for you?
  2. What does it say about sin for you?
  3. What do you think of this whole idea of the “new Adam” or the “new humanity”?
  4. What does being human mean to you?

 

 

GOSPEL:  Matthew 4: 1-11

Read the passage from The Gospel According to Matthew

Jesus came from Galilee for the purpose of being baptized and now he is led by the Spirit to be tempted.  It is all part of the divine plan, part of his obedience to God.  He goes out to prepare himself for his ministry. The period of forty days and forty nights is reminiscent of Moses’ forty days and nights.  You’ll note the tempter’s use of the word “if”. He wasn’t trying to raise doubts in Jesus’ mind.  He was trying to get Jesus to prove who he was.

Jesus is tempted where he is most vulnerable.  He is tempted to guarantee having what we need, to shift attention away from purpose.  He is tempted to possess. Think about how famished Jesus really was. All Jesus has to do is say the word and he would have what he so desperately needs.  Then, he is tempted by his desire of affirmation by God, the desire to impress.  We all want to be liked; we all want to be validated.  After all, he was just beginning his ministry…this would be a guarantee that they would LIKE him.  Finally, he was tempted with the desire to be in control or to have glory or recognition.  Think what Jesus could do if he had control and glory.  Think how much more powerful his ministry would be.  Henri Nouwen says that the temptations are to be relevant, spectacular, and powerful.

The truth is that Jesus was human and was tempted by typical human temptations.  It is what we all want.  Fred Craddock says that “temptation indicates strength”.  (Boy, I am REALLY strong!)  And, yet, we are often uneasy with the whole idea of Jesus being tempted.  After all, he was Jesus.  He should have been above all that, right?  Each temptation invites Jesus to turn away from trust in God in a different way.  So maybe this wasn’t about the temptation at all, but was rather a lesson in trust, in perseverance, in resistance of those things that will surely get in the way of our lives.  There is an emptiness in all of us that must be filled.  We are met each and every day with offerings of things with which to fill it.  Jesus affirmed that, yes, we would be met with these temptations, and, that, yes, God’s deepest desire is that our emptiness be filled with God.  To be Christian or, actually, to be human, is to realize that that emptiness will never be filled without God.  It is that for which it is made.  And, really, what good would Jesus have really done us if he had been above it all, if he had never be tempted at all?  Where would we be then?  Jesus did not come to be a superhero above all that comes about; Jesus came as a human—as a you, as a me.  Jesus came not so that we would be perfect but so that we would see what we were missing.  After all, being relevant, or spectacular, or powerful are really overrated.  Relevancy is short-lived; “spectacularness” is hard to maintain (after all, don’t you sometimes just want to go around in your warm-ups with no makeup?); and, as Lord Acton would tell, us, “power corrupts”.  Jesus wasn’t showing us how NOT to be tempted; Jesus was just putting relevancy, spectacularness, and power in their proper places.  Because, after all, when they’re gone, God is still waiting for us to return home.

 

  1. What does this passage mean for you?
  2. What meaning does this shed on temptation for you?
  3. What light does this bring to the whole idea of being human?

 

 

Some Quotes for Further Reflection:

 

All sins are attempts to fill voids. (Simone Weil)

While we exert ourselves to grow beyond our humanity, to leave the human behind us, God becomes human; and we must recognize that God will that we be human, real human beings.  While we distinguish between pious and godless, good and evil, noble and base, God loves real people without distinction. (Dietrich Bonhoeffer)

Lent calls each of us to renew our ongoing commitment to the implications of the Resurrection in our own lives, here and now.  But that demands both the healing of the soul and the honing of the soul, both penance and faith, both a purging of what is superfluous in our lives and the heightening, the intensifying, of what is meaningful. (Joan Chittister)

Closing

 

Blessing for Ash Wednesday

So let the ashes come as beginning and not as end;
the first sign but not the final. Let them rest upon you
as invocation and invitation, and let them take you
the way that ashes know to go.

May they mark you with the memory of fire and of the life that came before the burning:
the life that rises and returns and finds its way again.

See what shimmers amid their darkness, what endures within their dust.
See how they draw us toward the mystery that will consume but not destroy,
that will blossom from the blazing, that will scorch us with its joy.  Amen.

(Prayer by Jan Richardson, in “The Memory of Ashes”, March 6, 2011, available at http://paintedprayerbook.com/, accessed 8 March, 2011)

Transfiguration A: Transcendence

shelliwilliams1 Comment

Fog on mountaintopOLD TESTAMENT:  Exodus 24: 12-18

Read the passage from Exodus

According to tradition, the Book of Exodus is known as “the Second Book of Moses”.  The major themes of Exodus are identified as liberation, law, covenant, and presence.  The presence of God is exceedingly important.  God’s presence is seen as life-giving glory being concretely present in the world.  The assumption is that God yearns to be present, but that requires a community of generous faith, emptied of the worldly culture around it, which gives its best skills, disciplines, and goods for the housing of the holy.  The main theme of the passage that we read is communion in the presence of God.  This is prior to the making of the covenant.  We just have to bask in God’s overwhelming and exuding presence. The preceding verses have God inviting Moses back up the mountain.

Now…some background…in the understanding of this early community of faith, God was not to be seen.  God was the great I AM, one whose name could not be said, one whose power could not be beheld, one whose presence could not be seen. (It is in some way a better way to think of God—“lost in wonder and awe”– than the way we often view God as a great vending machine ready to tend to all of our wants and needs!  After all, it seems that it would be harder to take the great I AM for granted!)  But here, if one saw God, one died…But here God was!

So Moses goes farther up the mountain.  (Now remember too that for these ancient Israelites, the mountain was a source not only of grandeur, but also of divine revelation.  Mountain tops were sacred places.) He is with Joshua, who really plays no part.  It is noted that perhaps the narrator of the event is looking forward to that time when Joshua would be his successor and tries to legitimate that role.  But, finally, Moses is alone and, alone, walks into the cloud.  (Now keep in mind their understanding of seeing God. Their assumption would be that Moses was going to die.—Look at the language…”devouring fire). But here he waits in complete obedience to be addressed and to receive.  Think about this…to those in the world, to those standing and looking up at the mountain, God’s presence resembles a “devouring fire”, something that destructs and devours everything in its path, clearing the path before it.  God’s presence comes in and changes everything…and that is painful.  But, it says, Moses entered the cloud.  He goes where no one has ever gone before.  He leaves the zone of humanness and enters the sphere of God.  And then he stays.  No one thought he would ever return—consumed by that fiery inferno.  For God to come here, Moses must go there!  The truth is, Moses probably got a whole lot more of God than he every really wanted.

The Hebrews understood that no one could see God and live.  They were right.  No one can see God and remain unchanged.  We die to ourselves and emerge in the cloud.  We, too, probably don’t want “all of God”.  We’d rather control the way God enters and affects our lives.  But remember the words of the Isaac Watts hymn:  “Were the whole realm of nature mine, that were an offering far too small; love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all.”

 

  1. What does this passage mean for you?
  2. How would our understanding of God change if we thought of God as the “Great I AM”?
  3. What keeps us from realizing that God’s presence changes everything in our lives rather than merely affirming who we are?
  4. (OK…this is an odd question)…Do we really want as much of God as God is willing to share with us?  Do we really want a God that is “so amazing, so divine” that a relationship with that God “demands my soul, my life, my all?”

 

 

NEW TESTAMENT:  2 Peter 1: 16-21

Read the passage from 2 Peter

Although this epistle is often presented as the work of the Apostle known as Simon Peter, most scholars attribute it to an unknown author writing under the name of Peter.  (Keep in mind the tradition of honoring someone by using their name—this is not plagiarism!)   So this letter is looked upon as pseudonymous.  There doesn’t seem to be any real indication that even the first and second letters of Peter were written by the same author.  They vary quite a bit in style and form.

The recipients of the letter were apparently undesignated churches once addressed by the first letter of Peter as well as some of Paul’s epistles.  The writer was prompted by a presence of false teachers who had convinced weak or new Christians to accept their doctrine that claimed that Christ’s presence and coming was a myth.  To them, God was transcendent and unconcerned with humanity.  The idea of God coming and living in our midst was something that they just couldn’t fathom so they preached against it.  This went against the Apostles’ teaching of living a holy life while one waited for the glory of the coming of Christ; in other words, while one waited for what we humans had already figured out it would look like when God comes.

In the passage that we read, the author refutes this whole incorrect belief with a proof from eyewitness testimony from those who witnessed Jesus’ transfiguration.  This whole problem came about because, in the minds of those in that day, God had not been true to God’s word of Christ’s return.  They thought it was going to be the next week or the next month or certainly by now!  It was easy to turn it into a myth.  (And, I suppose, remains that way for some people.)  But the writer encourages its hearers to remain faithful and build up their own faith.

The truth is, our faith is not a belief in what is said or taught but, rather, a belief in what is.  It is not a faith of following what is said or what is known but in listening to what is, to the God who calls us even now and walks with us down the mountain into the unknown.  It is believing in a God who walks with us into Life.

 

  1. What does this passage mean for you?
  2. What does the concept of Christ’s return mean for you?
  3. What gets in the way of your seeing that come to be in your own life?

 

 

GOSPEL:  Matthew 17: 1-9

Read the passage from The Gospel According to Matthew

The Greek for “transfigured” is, here, metamorphormai, or “to undergo a metamorphosis”.  In our terms (think of a butterfly—that’s sort of our “go to” symbol.), that means a change in form or character.  Here, Jesus glows with a transcendent glory reserved only for heavenly beings, which implies that he belongs to the divine world or at the very least was being showered and consumed by the very Divine.  The Gospel writer of Matthew depicts Jesus as being together with Moses and Elijah in a scene of transcendent glory, showing Jesus in continuity with the fulfillment of God’s work portrayed by the Old Testament.

As we read in our Old Testament reading, the heavenly voice and presence comes from the cloud.  Matthew has this same image of the cloud.  Peter’s response seems odd to us, almost as if he misses the whole point. (And probably makes us a bit uncomfortable with our own reaction!)  It sounds like he’s trying to control or contain the Christ.  But keep in mind that it was a response from his Jewish understanding.  He was offering lodging—a booth, a tent, a tabernacle—for the holy.  But he needed only to listen.  That is the proper response to such incredible holiness.

And somewhere in the depiction, Moses and Elijah drop out of sight.  In Old Testament Hebrew understanding, the tabernacle was the place where God was.  Here, in this moment, this changes.  Jesus stays with them alone.  Jesus—not Moses, not Elijah–IS the tabernacle, the reality of God’s presence in the world.  The disciples descend down the mountain into the world, full of pain and suffering and injustice.  But God’s presence remains with us.

In the Old Testament passage that we read, Moses descended the mountain with the law; in the depiction of the Transfiguration of Christ, Jesus descends with his own life and body given unto all.  Fred Craddock describes the account of the Transfiguration of Christ as “the shout heard round the world”, the glorious announcement of what happened in Bethlehem years before.  It IS the final Epiphany.

It says, though, that the disciples descended from the mountain.  That is the key.  We are not called to some sort of removed piety.  We must return to the world.  The Transfiguration leads directly into Lent.  Jesus descends and walks toward Jerusalem.  The Transfiguration leads us to Lent and at the same time gives us a taste of Easter glory.  But those who are present are told not to speak of it.  There is something about this that would never have been understood until it was placed in the context of what was to come next and, for now, we know more than those disciples what that is.  Jesus has gone onto Jerusalem.  Our response must be to follow—even into what we know.

 

After a person is baptized in an Episcopal Church, there is a prayer said for the newly baptized, which concludes like this:  “Sustain them, O Lord, in your Holy Spirit. Give them an inquiring and discerning heart, the courage to will and to persevere, a spirit to know and to love you, and the gift of joy and wonder in all your works. Amen.”

The gift of joy and wonder in all your works.  We’ve lost many things over the years. Joy and wonder are two of them. It’s just so hard to conjure up wonder. As a parent, one of the parental goals I have for myself is to raise two girls with a sense of wonder. So, I take them to museums and cathedrals, and point out the intricacies and nuances of what they’re seeing. When I speak of God to them, I not only tell them that Jesus is their friend and with them all the time (which is good), but also that he made the sun, the moon and the stars. And manatee. And flamingos. And Cheetos.  OK, I definitely leave out the Cheetos…

 

As a priest, I try and conjure up for the parish I serve similar awe of the power of God, the minute and amazing details of the scriptures, and the movement of the Holy Spirit through the history of humanity and the Church.  Sometimes I succeed. Sometimes I don’t. I’ve had too many experiences of taking youth into a grand nave of a wondrous, storied, cathedral or abbey… only to find them more interested in looking at their shoes and incoming text messages.  Those moments hurt my heart.

We had a clergy day a few weeks back with Mike Gecan, the author of “Going Public.” He talked about going into his child’s Kindergarten class and seeing a bulletin board illustrating what the students wanted to learn in school that year. Most of the statements were like, “behave,” “learn to sit still,” “follow the rules,” “listen to the teacher better.”

One child said “I want to know why the ocean shines like fire.”  Holy smoke.  I mean HOLY smoke! Now that the kids mentions it… I want to know why the ocean shines like fire too.  There’s a kid who has the gift of joy and wonder in all God’s works.

We can say a lot about the Tranfiguration. And given it’s prevalent use in the lectionary from year to year, we get to say a lot about it.  But, if there’s ever a “WOW” moment in Jesus’ earthly ministry, this is it. Jesus took his three chosen disciples up on a mountain to do many things. One of them, was to blow their sandals off.  And, whatever shortcomings they have, and however paltry Peter’s words are, they at least do the appropriate thing and fall on their faces before the Presence of the Glory of God and His Son.  This is an intimate encounter, for only a few, on an un-named mountaintop. And so, I have to believe that this isn’t just a historical tale of one of Jesus’ afternoon excursions, but is a model of Christian life.

We are to look around and search for those places and events where God knocks our socks off. And we’re to fully soak in the WOW of the moment. And maybe even fall on our faces.  It reminds us of God’s power and glory and splendor. And it reminds us of our appropriate, faithful, response: worship.  And, once we experience wonder – and help others do the same – maybe we can put the incoming-text-message-machines down… and experience joy too.  Why does Jesus shine like fire? Let’s see for ourselves, and invite others along.  When is the last time you let God blow your socks off? (From “A Garden Path”, a blog by R.M.C. Morley, available at http://www.rmcmorley.com/a-garden-path/2011/02/last-epiphany-a-shining-like-fire.html, accessed 1 March, 2011.)

 

  1. What does this passage mean for you?
  2. What does this depiction of God’s presence mean to us?
  3. In what ways, then, should we see the presence of God, or Jesus, differently?
  4. What effect does that have on how we view our own practices of faith?

 

 

Some Quotes for Further Reflection:

People only see what they are prepared to see. (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

All over this magnificent world God calls us to extend [God’s] kingdom of shalom—peace and wholeness—of justice, of goodness, of compassion, of caring, or sharing, of laughter, of joy, of reconciliation.  God is transfiguring the world right this very moment through us because God believes in us and because God loves us.  What can separate us from the love of God?  Nothing.  Absolutely nothing.  And as we share God’s love with our brothers and sisters, God’s other children, there is no tyrant who can resist us, no opposition that cannot be ended, no hunger that cannot be fed, no wound that cannot be healed, no hatred that cannot be turned into love, no dream that cannot be fulfilled.  (Desmond Tutu, God Has a Dream)

Change your ways, give yourself a fresh coat of paint, convert yourself.  Do all this, and you’ll find the cross before it finds you. (Thomas A’ Kempis, The Imitation of Christ)

 

Closing

 

A Prayer for Transfiguration Sunday

Let’s go up the mountain.  Let’s go up to the place where the land meets the sky where the earth touches the heavens, to the place of meeting, to the place of mists, to the place of voices and conversations, to the place of listening:

 

O God, We open our eyes and we see Jesus, the months of ministry transfigured to a beam of light, the light of the world, your light. May your light shine upon us. We open our eyes and we see Moses and Elijah, your word restoring us, showing us the way,
telling a story, your story, his story, our story. May your word speak to us.  We open our eyes and we see mist, the cloud of your presence which assures us of all we do not know
and that we do not need to fear that. Teach us to trust.  We open our eyes and we see Peter’s constructions, his best plans, our best plans, our missing the point, our missing the way.  Forgive our foolishness and sin.

 

We open our eyes and we see Jesus, not casting us off, but leading us down, leading us out – to ministry, to people. Your love endures forever. We open our ears and we hear your voice, ‘This is my beloved Son, listen to him!’ And we give you thanks. Amen

(Prayer by William Loader, 02/2001, available at http://wwwstaff.murdoch.edu.au/~loader/TransfigurationPrayer.htm, accessed 1 March, 2011)