Journey

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

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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)

Advent 1A: Just Start Walking

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Light in the darknessOLD TESTAMENT:  Isaiah 2: 1-5

Read the Old Testament Passage

The writings that we know as the Book of Isaiah is more than likely three separate groups of writings.  (1) Chaps. 1-39, probably written about 8th century (bce) (742-701), which more than likely includes the words of the person that we know of as “the Prophet Isaiah”. During the time leading up to the exile, the people had developed a sense of God as creator of the whole world and this is reflected. (2) Chaps. 40-55, probably written at the end of the exile (About 540 bce), reminding the people that God’s word can be trusted for redemption, for recreation, and (3) Chaps. 56-66, which are more than likely Post-exilic, written about 520 bce, when the Jews began reshaping their community after the exile.  When reading the Book of Isaiah, it is important to try to view this without our Christian “hindsight” lens reshaping what it was meant to be (or the idea that the book contains a prophetic telling of the coming of Christ centuries later).  It is a story of God’s deliverance and redemption, but the notion of Christ as the redeemer was imposed by later New Testament writers.

The prophet Isaiah (who probably wrote the words of the passage that we read) was the son of Amoz and was probably active in Jerusalem through most of the 2nd half of the 8th century bce.  This would have been during the reigns of kings Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah.  During most of Isaiah’s lifetime, Judah lived under the threat of Assyrian domination and the conflicts that surrounded that threat.  The writer seemed to see the coming destruction of the temple and the community’s way of life.  During this time, king after king failed to give the people the security and the prosperity that they needed, so the community began to look to the hope of the Messiah, which they believed would come if they could just trust in God.  At this point they saw that they were beginning to lose what they knew.   The passage that we read announces the elevation of Zion and the establishment of peace among all nations.

There is a marked similarity between this passage and Micah 4:1-4.  We’re really not even sure which prophet said it first.  Even though there is no specific claim of authority (such as “thus says the Lord”), there is no doubt that the prophet is doing what he is supposed to do—proclaim the coming reign of God.  The sequence of events is important.  First, the mountain of the Lord’s house (Zion) will be exalted.  This probably should not be taken literally since Mount Zion is really a tiny little hill surrounded by larger ones. Then there will be a holy pilgrimage of all peoples to the mountain. The people will call upon the Lord to teach them new ways.  And the word of Yahweh will go forth from Jerusalem.  Yahweh will then bring about a permanent reign of peace.  Essentially, the writer Isaiah speaks beyond the present.

There is a timelessness to this passage.  It reminds us that our world is not separated from God’s eternity.  What we do is already part of our eternity.  All that we see and all that we are is leading up to this.  This is not some sort of naïve utopian vision laid out by the prophet.  This is not the stuff of dreams.  This is what will be when we are swept into that timelessness, into what is beyond ourselves.  So, what  would it mean to want this so desperately in our deepest selves, to awaken to God’s vision for peace and shalom?

In verse 2, the prophet depicts all the nations streaming toward the holy mountain, all the nations and all the peoples of the earth walking together toward peace and justice and God’s vision of what we were all meant to be.  Maybe this verse is the crux.  Maybe it’s about time we start walking, start following the light of the Lord.

 

  1. What images, for you, does this passage evoke?
  2. What vision of eternity do you have?
  3. What does that mean for you?
  4. What does it mean for our Advent season?

 

 

NEW TESTAMENT:  Romans 13: 11-14

Read the New Testament Passage

The main theme of Romans is that God’s gospel unveils God’s righteousness.  Many Jews of Paul’s day recognized that the story they knew from the Hebrew Scriptures that promised the reign of God had still not concluded.  They believed that their faithfulness to God determined that conclusion but as long as they remained under pagan rule, God’s reign could not come.  So in this letter, Paul concentrates on the Gentile audience, not because he thought the Jews had denied Jesus but because he truly thought that for God’s reign to be ushered in to fullness, the whole world must come into the picture.

The passage that we read is set in the context of knowing what time it is.  For Paul, it is almost daybreak.  The Reign of God is about to be ushered in.  The belief held here is that while the Resurrection of Christ has seen the dawn of a new age, the fullness of the day has yet to come.  Paul assumes, though, that history is reaching its climax.  Here, the “night” depicts the evils of the world.  Paul assumes that the believers will understand what “time” it is—not a chronological, but kairos—God’s time.  He urges readers to move away from what they know into a new life with Christ.

This is one of those passages that is easily sectioned off into “good and bad”, light and darkness”, “the “ins” and the “outs”.  I actually think that’s a dangerous road to traverse.  After all, who says what is good or bad.  Who declares who is in and out?  This Scripture is not meant to divide but rather to wake us up to the Reign of God as it is ushered in.  And the God of all Creation would certainly not leave the darkness behind but gather it into the Light.

William Long equates Advent to an “echo chamber” that heightens our senses, that makes us realize that those small sounds of salvation that we hear are all around us.  Salvation is not something “out there” or, even worse, “up there”.  Whatever you may think that heaven or whatever is next is, it is not way up ahead.  It is not shielded from view.  It is all around us.  The air is thick with its presence.  The only reason it is veiled is that we have too much clouding our view.

 

  1. What does this image of time mean for us?
  2. What does it mean to “lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armor of light?
  3. How can we keep this vision alive more than 2,000 years later?

 

GOSPEL:  Matthew 24: 36-44

Read the Gospel Passage

It is interesting for our first reading of Advent, our first reading of the year, that we would start toward the end of the Gospel According to the Writer Matthew.  That sort of contributes once again to the “timelessness” of it all.  In the passage, the comparison with the days of Noah is probably not talking about wickedness but, rather, the fact that life was going on as normal.  There were no mysterious signs pointing to the approaching judgment.

This particular passage is one that fuels the whole view of modern dispensationalists that understand this as those who are “taken” being temporarily or permanently removed from this world at the rapture.  Matthew does not have this idea in his eschatological understanding.  Those who are “taken” refers to being gathered into the saved community at the eschaton, just as some were taken into the ark.  For Matthew, to be a believer is to endure what is to come; not to escape from it.  Once again, we have the repeating them—Keep alert and watch!

What if the surprise turns out to be that Jesus was here all along, that ahead of time himself, he has been calling and gathering and enlightening and sanctifying all along? Quit guessing—just do it.  (Bonhoeffer—“he really means for us to get on with it.”)

And, again, think back to last week’s Scripture.  We were again given the image of Jesus hanging on the Cross, minutes away from death.  And there, there beside him was the thief.  “But understand this: if the owner of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into. 44Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.” The thief was not left behind but instead was gathered into the Reign of God.  Advent is not waiting to see whether or not you make the cut but rather waking up to the glorious Gathering that is happening all around us.

 

The house lights go off and the footlights come on. Even the chattiest stop chattering as they wait in darkness for the curtain to rise. In the orchestra pit, the violin bows are poised. The conductor has raised his baton. In the silence of a midwinter dusk there is far off in the deeps of it somewhere a sound so faint that for all you can tell it may be only the sound of the silence itself. You hold your breath to listen.

 

You walk up the steps to the front door. The empty windows at either side of it tell you nothing, or almost nothing. For a second you catch a whiff in the air of some fragrance that reminds you of a place you’ve never been and a time you have no words for. You are aware of the beating of your heart.

 

The extraordinary thing that is about to happen is matched only by the extraordinary moment just before it happens. Advent is the name of that moment.

 

The Salvation Army Santa Claus clangs his bell. The sidewalks are so crowded you can hardly move. Exhaust fumes are the chief fragrance in the air, and everybody is as bundled up against any sense of what all the fuss is really about as they are bundled up against the windchill factor.

 

But if you concentrate just for an instant, far off in the deeps of you somewhere you can feel the beating of your heart. For all its madness and lostness, not to mention your own, you can hear the world itself holding its breath.

 

(“Advent”, by Frederick Buechner, available at http://frederickbuechner.com/content/weekly-sermon-illustration-advent.)

 

 

  1. What meaning does this passage hold for you?
  2. Do you read this as a “negative” warning? What effect does that have on the “Good News” of Christ?
  3. What does the idea of “end times” have to do with Advent?
  4. What does the whole notion of being awake mean for you?

 

 

Some Quotes for Further Reflection:

A dreamer is one who can find [his or her] way in the moonlight, and [whose] punishment is that [he or she] sees the dawn before the rest of the world.  (Oscar Wilde)

 

Not only is another world possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing. (Arundhati Roy)

 

We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aid, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn. (Henry David Thoreau)

 

Closing

 

Our God is the One who comes to us in a burning bush, in an angel’s song, in a newborn child.  Our God is the One who cannot be found locked in the church, not even in the sanctuary.  Our God will be where God will be with no constraints, no predictability.  Our God lives where our God lives, and destruction has no power and even death cannot stop the living.  Our God will be born where God will be born, but there is no place to look for the One who comes to us.  When God is ready God will come even to a godforsaken place like a stable in Bethlehem.  Watch…for you know not when God comes.  Watch, that you might be found whenever, wherever God comes. Amen.

 

(Ann Weems, “The Coming of God”, Kneeling in Bethlehem, p. 13.)