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Proper 27C: Whole Lot of Shakin’ Going On

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Scrabble lettersOLD TESTAMENT:  Haggai 1:15b-2:9

To read the Old Testament Lectionary text, click here

Little is known about the man for whom the book of Haggai is named.  There is no family name or other information provided.  The only other place that he is mentioned is in Ezra.  There is a suggestion that possibly his family connections would have been problematic if they were announced or the lack of information may simply be meant to focus more on the divine authority by which the prophet spoke.  One thing that can be said for certain is that he was remembered as a prophet with authority.  The name, in Hebrew, means “make a pilgrimage” or, possibly, “observe a pilgrimage feast”. 

The work of the prophet Haggai is concentrated between August, 520 BCE, and December of that same year, the second year of the reign of Persian King Darius.  Most scholars agree on these dates and believe that the book was at least compiled before 515 BCE, when the work on the Temple initiated at Haggai’s urging was completed. (If it was truly compiled this soon after the original words of the prophet, this would indeed add even more integrity and authenticity to the writings.)  Jerusalem, the major market and trading center of the region was still recovering from the devastation that had occurred nearly 70 years before at the beginning of the time of exile.  There were limited resources and more and more the wealthy seemed to usurp those resources from the poor.

When families had been exiled in 587 BCE, their land had been taken by the people who remained.  When they returned, conflicts over the land arose.  So a system was instituted whereby people were identified by their genealogical line from tribal times, which then linked the returning deportees with their distant relatives who had stayed behind.  This was the institution by which land was redistributed and some measure of stability returned.  But this also meant that there was no longer a society defined by national borders.  The community was instead organized into landholding collectives with the Temple of the Lord as its administrative, economic, and religious center.

Since life was essentially organized around the Temple, there was a great need for the center to be rebuilt.  Haggai’s brief articles contain a very straightforward message:  a summons to Judean Jews in the sixth-century BCE to rebuild the temple of Jerusalem, so that YHWH could be honored and the people blessed.  Haggai gives two reasons for rebuilding the temple: the people were building their own houses and had put off the building of the Lord’s house and the increased wealth and better fortune that they were experiencing was, in Haggai’s eyes, apparently a sign of YHWH’s sovereignty.  Other reasons for rebuilding this glorious temple of God was that it would insure the faith community by giving it a foundation and a focus as well as the fact that it was an out and out question of stewardship.  It insured that the people’s priorities were as they should be.

You might be familiar, in particular, with verses 6 and 7.  It’s the basis for the movement “Thus Saith the Lord” in Handel’s Messiah.  These verses suggest dramatic action initiated by God.   “Shake”, here does not imply a term of destruction, but, rather a term of transformation.  God’s intervention may be understood as being brought by human beings.  The text emphasizes that God will bring about the return of the items in the temple and rearrange them, indeed, “shake them up” in order to create a new and more splendid temple.  It’s like God is saying…OK, I brought you back, I delivered you, now you need to grow up and take notice.  You need to realize from where you came and to whom you belong.  I’m about to do a new thing, but you need to pay attention.  I’m going to shake the heavens and the earth, renewing life and restoring everything to the way it should be.

Dr. John Holbert points out that Haggai did not just want a new temple for his own sake.  As he says, “the bricks and mortar of any building have no meaning apart from the conviction that God has brought us out of the bondage of Egypt and remains with us still. No matter what this building looks like, God is here, and God is working… The next time we gaze at our own temples, our churches, our houses of worship, we ought not judge them on the size of their steeples, the splendor of their pipe organs, or the grandeur and number of their classrooms. Do they speak to the world that God is there? Do they shout the truth of the freedom-making God? Only on those bases can any such places be judged.” (“Giving Old Haggai a New Look”, John C. Holbert, available at http://www.patheos.com/Resources/Additional-Resources/Giving-Old-Haggai-a-New-Look-Reflections-on-Haggai.html, accessed 1 November, 2013.)

 1)      This issue of stewardship is a big one.  What actually belongs to us?

2)      In what ways should we perhaps redefine the word “ours”?  What gets in the way of our redefinition of that word?

3)      So, in the context of Haggai’s writings, what does the term “shake” mean for you here?

4)      What is your notion of the view of the temple (or even our temple) here?

 NEW TESTAMENT:  2 Thessalonians 2:1-5, 13-17

 

The Second Letter to the Thessalonians reflects a general concern for the church’s stability in the face of mounting hostility from its neighbors.  It also has a concern about the end times, so the writer crafts a letter to encourage the believers not to veer from truth or tradition.  The focus is on both the present and the future.  There is general agreement that this letter was not written by Paul but, interestingly enough, most think that 1 Thessalonians was.  There is a difference in form and style from Paul’s writings.

In the passage that we read today, it begins with the writer refuting the unfounded claim that the day of the Lord had already “appeared”, that indeed Christ had already returned.  Now you’ve got to remember that this was during a time of rampant “apocalyptic fever”.  They were still convinced that Jesus’ words that he would “return” meant imminently if not immediately and they were desperate to not miss it.  Now, just for some background, Paul had founded this church in Thessalonica, a wealthy and prosperous port city.  After only three weeks of a sort of whirlwind preaching tour, Paul had moved so many people to embrace the Christian movement, that the Jews sort of became alarmed.  They had this new hope and if, as they were now convinced, Jesus had already returned, the hope was unfounded. 

In verse 2, the NRSV warns against being “quickly shaken in mind or alarmed.”  A better translation is probably more like “shock the church suddenly” or “repeatedly agitate”.   Essentially, the writer is trying to ease what was essentially a needless panic driving some to despair that the Lord had come.  Those who were standing on the corner screaming “repent the end is near” where, in the writer’s mind, just causing a ruckus. 

The passage ends with verses 13-17 as a reminder of what God has done and a thankful response. It seems to quell all the questions, all the tricks, all the attempts to catch Jesus and insure the power of those who were so worried about him. So, the writer asks the church to do what he initially asked—stand fast and hold fast to the traditions that they know.  In other words, just be who you are, just be children of God, the children that God called you to be.  Stop the arguing; stop the power-plays; just be.

 a.      So what meaning does this passage hold for us?

 b      What does the tern “shake” mean for you in this context?

 c.       What would it mean for you to experience this so-called “apocalyptic fever”, thinking that Jesus’ return was imminent?  What have we lost of that notion?

 d.      What message does this Scripture hold for our time and for the church of today?

 GOSPEL:  Luke 20: 27-38

To read the Lectionary Gospel text, click here

This is the only place in the Gospel According to Luke where the Saduccees appear.  They were a Jewish group that was closely aligned with the priestly classes and aristocracy.  They rejected the oral tradition (including the writings of the prophets and the Wisdom writings), denied the belief in Resurrection or angels, and emphasized free will.  Because of these somewhat unique beliefs as compared to the society in which they lived, there was always an ongoing debate between the Pharisees and the Saducees over many issues (resurrection, in particular).

So in an effort to prove their own beliefs, their question assumes the practice of levirate marriage, which required that if a man died without children, his brother was obligated to take his wife and have children with her in the first brother’s honor.  This insured the perpetuation of property within the immediate family and security for the brother’s widow.  The term is derived from the Latin, levir, which means “brother-in-law”. 

Keep in mind the time.  This is late in the Gospel; the time is drawing to a close.  Jesus is, for all practical purposes, on the way to the cross.  This is their moment to encounter this man; this is their time to be right.  But in the passage, it is said that Jesus explains that life in the resurrection will not simply be a continuation of life as we know it.  (By grounding it in the Law of Moses, he is using the Saduccees own teachings to support what he is saying, to support the notion that even at this very moment, the world is beginning to shake.)

Jesus really said very little on the subject of life after death or Resurrection.  (In fact, recent scholars agree that there is no real basis for Jesus saying this at all, but that it probably was in line with his way of thinking.)  There is definitely a mystery of the unknown and the limitations of our own understanding.  Essentially, life beyond death is God’s gift, just as life now is.  As “children of God”, we are also “children of the Resurrection”.  All are alive to God.  There is no room in God’s Kingdom for possession.  (It’s also saying, then, that no person is “owned” or “claimed” by another—all are children of God).

It is interesting that Jesus doesn’t really directly answer them.  Instead, he takes that protective circle of belief that they had so carefully formed around them and splits it apart.  Their question was a not a search for the truth.  They don’t want an answer; they want to prove they’re right.  Rainer Marie Rilke said, Love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language.  Richard Rohr, in Everything Belongs, says it like this:  If you understand it, things are just as they are.  If you don’t understand it, things are just as they are.  The mystery is to be ready to receive things just as they are and be ready to let them teach us.  That’s the mystery.

This is one of those weeks that all the Scriptures really do sort of fit together.  If I were to write a sermon, the title would probably be something like “A Whole Lot of Shakin’ Goin’ On”.  All three Scriptures deal with looking at the world differently, with letting God show you what it’s meant to be.  As we said, the name Haggai means “to make a pilgrimage”.  What does that mean?  Think about it a pilgrim is not a visitor—a pilgrim is one who has traversed to another place and is trying his or her best to carve a being and a life out of it.  A pilgrim is one who is ready to see things anew, to actually see what is already there, and then make it a part of his or her life.  As Richard Rohr said, “God is always bigger than the boxes we build for God, so do not waste too much time protecting the boxes.”

 a.      So what meaning does this passage hold for us?

 b.      This notion of the levirate marriage is odd for us.  And, yet, how does I play into our own faith interpretation?

 c.       What does it mean, then, to love the questions or love the mystery?

  

Some Quotes for Further Reflection:

The whole future of the Earth, as of religion, seems to me to depend on the awakening of our faith in the future. (Pierre Teilhard de Chardin)

Prayer is hope’s breathing.  When we stop praying, we stop hoping.  (Dom Pedro Casaldaliga)

 Unless one says good-bye to what one loves, and unless one travels to completely new territories, one can expect merely a long wearing away of oneself and eventual distinction. (Jean Dubuffet)

Closing

We are strange conundrums of faithfulness and fickleness.  We cleave to you in all the ways that we are able.  We count on you and intend our lives to be lived for you, and then we find ourselves among your people who are always seeking elsewhere and otherwise.

 So we give thanks that you are the God who yearns and waits for us, and that our connection to you is always from your side, and that it is because of your goodness that neither life nor death nor angels nor principalities nor heights nor depths nor anything in creation can separate us from you.  We give you thanks for your faithfulness, so much more durable than ours.  Amen.

“The God who yearns and waits for us”, from Awed to Heaven, Rooted in Earth:  Prayers of Walter Brueggemann, p. 135.

All-Saints C: The Past Takes us Forward

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Gravestone of Owen Shannon (1762-1839), Old Methodist Cemetery, Montgomery, TX (my great-great-great-great grandfather)
Gravestone of Owen Shannon (1762-1839), Old Methodist Cemetery, Montgomery, TX (my great-great-great-great grandfather)

OLD TESTAMENT:  Daniel 7: 1-3, 15-18

To read the Old Testament Lectionary Text, click here.

The Book of Daniel is believed by most scholars to be the most recently authored Old Testament book (probably 167-164 bce).  The dating is pretty reliable because it has so many references to specific historical events.  The time was one of intense suffering for the Jewish people under Antiochus IV Epiphanes, who attempted to eradicate Judaism and replace it with purely Greek practices.  He eventually committed the “Abomination of Desolation” by sacrificing a pig on the altar at the Temple in Jerusalem.  He was eventually driven out of Judea by the Maccabees, a period that is celebrated by the festival of Hanukah.

The Book of Daniel is set during the time of Antiochus IV and the persecution of the Jewish people and the message essentially is one of hope and belief that this time of crisis will pass, the forces of evil will be overthrown, and God’s kingdom will be established once and for all.  When all this occurs, the righteous will triumph.

In Chapter 7, where our reading is, there is a shift from the King’s dream to Daniel’s dream and this is sometimes looked upon as the heart or center of the entire book.  It recounts a dream of deliverance, which are usually associated with situations of negative political rule, such as the rule of Belshazaar.  Dreams are images of what could be, an act of faith that looks past the world around us.  It is interesting to note here that apparently Daniel is not only capable of interpreting others’ dreams but also his own.

Some scholars suggest that this is the first event in the series that follows, implying that the four winds of heaven are actually the catalyst that brings forth the beasts from the deep and that God initiates that action.  There is no indication that the beasts rise at God’s request, but are simply part of the chaos that ensues.

The sea is a symbol of chaos and the four beasts represent the different world empires that have conquered the Jewish people and other nations.  (Perhaps, the Babylonians, the Medes, the Persians, and the Greeks.)  The ten horns on the fourth beast symbolize the rulers of the Greek empire or provinces and the “little horn” (verse 8) is probably Antiochus himself.

Verse 15-18 is actually a summary of the whole vision that is told in more detail throughout Chapter 7.  Daniel is, of course, confused by his own dream and seeks an interpreter, where he gets a summary of the whole vision:  The worldly powers will arise but God will conquer them all and God’s kingdom will be everlasting.  In essence, the “saints of the Most High”, as many translations read, will eventually emerge victorious and the evil forces threatening Israel will be destroyed.  The conflict and its results are certain.  This promise of the victory of the saints is probably the reason the passage was selected as the first reading for this All Saints Day.

The crucial thing to remember when reading apocalyptic literature is that it is not a prediction about the future but an interpretation of present events written in coded language, which, obviously, would have made more sense in the context in which it was written.  You have to remember that studies of eschatology, or “last things”, for Judaism referred to the coming of the Messiah.  Christianity, on the other hand, sees it as something that has begun but has not yet come to completion.

In an essay entitled “Waltzing with the God of Chaos”, Barbara Brown Taylor writes:

 Where is God in this picture?  God is all over the place.  God is up there, down here, inside my skin and out.  God is the web, the energy, the space, the light—not captured in them, as if any of those concepts were more real than what unites them—but revealed in that singular and vast net of relationship that animates everything that is.  God is the web, the connection, the glue, the air between the molecules…

            As for God’s plan?  You know, whether God has a file I can break into and find out what I should be doing ten years from now?  The more I learn about chaos theory, the more I favor the concept of life with God as a dance instead of a blueprint.  God makes a move, humankind makes a move, then humankind makes a move based on God’s move…

            In a lot of ways, to read science is to be tempted to become a deist—to believe in a clock-maker God who sets things in motion and wishes the creatures luck.  But I’m a Christian, which means I’m schooled in paradox.  I’m schooled in the opposite of any truth being another great truth.  And so I live in the paradox of this God who seems to have set things in motion and yet is still involved.  There’s some evidence that things are random to a point, and yet, I have experience of some spirit that seems to direct my feet at times.  So I’m stuck with both of these, and I’ve somehow got to live into the paradox of that.  They may not fit together, but I’m stuck with the two. (From “Waltzing With the God of Chaos”, by Barbara Brown Taylor, in The Life of Meaning:  Reflections on Faith, Doubt, and Repairing the World, p. 47-50.)

a.      So what, then, does this have to do with us?

b.      What does this speak to you about God’s actions?

c.       What image of God does this reading leave for you?

           

NEW TESTAMENT:  Ephesians 1: 11-23

 

Richard Williams / Carroll Cemetery near Willis, TX. Richard Williams (1808-1876) was my great-great grandfather. One of the headstones is for his daughter, Lelia Jacinto Williams, and is believed to be the oldest legible headstone in Montgomery County, TX
Richard Williams / Carroll Cemetery near Willis, TX. Richard Williams (1808-1876) was my great-great grandfather. One of the headstones is for his daughter, Lelia Jacinto Williams, and is believed to be the oldest legible headstone in Montgomery County, TX

To read the Epistle text assigned by the Lectionary, click here

Most scholars agree that Ephesians is considered what you could call a “Deutero-Pauline” work, implying that it is “second” or “secondary”.  (This would also refer to 2 Thessalonians and Colossians).  These letters were probably written in the 70’s or 80’s.  Paul more than likely died around 60, sometime around Nero’s reign.  So, rather than being written by Paul himself, Ephesians was more than likely written by a follower of Paul, using the format and even the style that Paul employed in his letters.  This is not plagiarism.  In that society, placing someone else’s name on a work was considered the highest form of compliment.

The main purpose of Ephesians, probably written to a Gentile audience, seems to be to remind the believers of their communal identity in their new status in Christ and to urge them to walk in ways that demonstrate this communal identity and unity.  (When you think of it, this idea of “community” would probably have been more difficult for Gentiles to grasp than for the Jews of that time, who had a sense of community embedded in their very being.)  The church here is understood as a Body of Christ that is exalted, which resonates with our understanding of the community of saints here and forever.

It is important to remember that in the New Testament, “saints” refers to all the people of God, rather than the later understanding of it as specific individuals of invincible faith and heroic nature.  Saints are all believers who have been called and have been sanctified, or made holy, in their new relationship with God.  In verse 11, the term “obtain an inheritance” echoes Israel’s destiny to be God’s “lot” or heritage.  Ephesians makes the risen Christ their basis for obtaining this inheritance.  In verse 18, “the riches of the glorious inheritance of the saints” refers to that inheritance that is extended through Christ who God raised from the dead, caused to sit in “heavenly places”, and gave authority over all things.  The reading closes with a reference to the church as the Body of Christ that is triumphant in all things, the point of eschatological fulfillment.  In other words, the Body of Christ is us.

 

a.      What message does this reading hold for you?

b.      What sense of connection to those that have gone before does this give you?

c.       What does it mean for you to have this “inheritance”?

 

GOSPEL:  Luke 6: 20-31

To read the Lectionary Gospel Passage, click here

Traditionally, the All Saints gospel has been the Beatitudes found in Matthew.  But since we are in Year C of the Lectionary, the Lucan version is the gospel of choice for the year.  There are several differences in the two versions:  In Matthew (the more familiar one), there are nine beatitudes; in Luke, there are four. The Matthean beatitudes are spoken from a mountain, probably since, as one writing to the Jewish community, this would depict that it was something important.  (Reminiscent of Moses on Mt.Sinai.)  The version told by the writer of Luke is spoken from a “level place” (sometimes called the Sermon on the Plain).  For Luke, this seems to identify Jesus with the people.  In essence, it gives the impression and sense of Jesus no longer elevated above us but standing here with us.  Matthew’s beatitudes are spoken to a “crowd”.  When Jesus speaks in the Lucan version, he speaks specifically to his disciples, to those who are professing to follow him.  What follows is the standard for which every disciple should strive.  (“You”)

For me, this is very powerful because he’s showing us exactly what to do.  It leaves us no room to morally judge others.  He really wants us to listen to him.  Dietrich Bonhoeffer said this:  Humanly speaking, we could understand and interpret the Sermon on the Mount in a thousand different ways.  Jesus knows only one possibility:  simple surrender and obedience, not interpreting it or applying it, but doing and obeying it.  That is the only way to hear his word.  He does not mean that it is to be discussed as an ideal; he really means us to get on with it.

Matthew’s beatitudes have no corresponding “woes”.  But in Luke, there are four “woes” that correspond to four “blessings”.  The main focus of both versions is not the individual petitions but, rather, a glimpse of what the Kingdom of God should be like.  Essentially, the Kingdom of God will bring about a reversal of fortunes.

In first century society, poverty was not just a plight, but a social shame.  These people were believed to have done something wrong in the eyes of God and were shunned and depicted as “dirty” and “unacceptable”.  Jesus reverses that social order.  The first beatitude describes a way of life, and we, who are not poor—not really—often run to Matthew for relief.  Because we are not poor, this beatitude either mystifies us or leaves us feeling guilty rather than joy.  I’m not sure that we should get so wrapped up in the specific language.  For me, it’s a matter of humility, of emptying our lives and opening them to God’s vision of what the world should be.

Once again, it’s about paradox.  We read it and we think we have it figured out.  In this world, “blessed” often means having wealth, or security, or ease of life.  It often means that things are going well.  But “blessedness” for Christ has nothing to do with the quality of this life at all.  It is about being one with God and one with others.  Perhaps being Christian, itself, is about being paradox, about looking at the world in a different way and being open to seeing things one has never seen before.

Does it make more sense like this?:

 “Blessed are the poor for they already know that God is all they need and are open to receive what God offers; blessed are the hungry for they know where to look for sustenance and they are thankful for small but glorious abundance; blessed are those who weep for they know where to look for comfort and they know how to comfort others; and blessed are those who are hated or excluded or shunned for they truly know what it means to be Christian and to reach out in love.”

 I’m sure you remember all of the accounts and the press coverage of the 2006 shooting in the Amish schoolhouse in Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania.  After the community lost five young girls and had five more that were seriously wounded at the hand of a shooter, the world expected the usual—grief, anger, vengeance, and, most of all, justice.  And while the rest of the country, prompted by the press, responded with shock and anger, the Amish community responded with graciousness, patience, and love.  Instead of being consumed with revenge, this community lavished forgiveness on the killer’s widow, her parents, and the killer’s parents.  In subsequent interviews, the Amish community made it clear that it was not a mandate from their church; it was an expression of their faith.  In their understanding, they could only receive what they could give, for that was the only way that they could grasp what they had been given.  In her column in the “National Catholic Reporter”, Sister Joan Chittister suggested that “it was the Christianity we all profess but which the Amish practiced that left us all stunned.”  She concluded that the Nickel Mines Amish surprised our world the same way the earliest Christians astounded the Roman world:  “simply by being Christian”.

“Being Christian”—perhaps that in and of itself is a paradox.  Perhaps rather than being good, we’re meant to be faithful; rather than being godly, we’re meant to show people who God is; and rather than making sure that the world is filled with justice, perhaps we’re meant to fill it with love, and grace, and hope, and forgiveness, and a vision of something that it’s never seen before.

 

a.      What message does this reading hold for you?

b.      Why is this a difficult passage for us?

c.       In these terms, what does it mean to be “Christian”?

  

Some Quotes for Further Reflection:

The future belongs to those who give the next generation reason for hope. (Pierre Teilhard de Chardin)

 

The saints are those who, in some partial way, embody—literally incarnate—the challenge of faith in their time and place.  In doing so, they open a path that others might follow.  (Robert Ellsberg)

 

The past takes us forward.  (Diana Butler Bass) 

 

 Closing

Think about those who we have lost this year and who we would like to remember.  Think about those with whom you journey.  Think about your own journey.

 For those who walked with us, this is a prayer.

For those who have gone ahead, this is a blessing.

For those who touched and tended us, who lingered with us while they lived, this is a thanksgiving.

For those who journey still with us in the shadows of awareness, in the crevices of memory, in the landscape of our dreams, this is a benediction. (“Feast of All Saints Prayer” from In Wisdom’s Path, by Jan L. Richardson, p. 124)