New Creation

Lent 1A: Created to Be Human

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Ashes
Ashes

OLD TESTAMENT:  Genesis 2:15-17, 3:1-7

To read the Lectionary Old Testament passage, click here

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

To read the Lectionary Epistle, click here

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

GOSPEL:  Matthew 4: 1-11

To read the Lectionary Gospel passage, click here

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 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. a.      What does this passage mean for you?
  2. b.      What meaning does this shed on temptation for you?
  3. c.       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)

Epiphany 3A: Finally, The Great Light

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Light in the darknessOLD TESTAMENT: Isaiah 9: 1-4

To read the Old Testament Lectionary passage, click here

This week’s Old Testament passage contains some of the best known lines in the Bible—“The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light.”, “You have increased in joy.”, and (just beyond where we read)…”For a child has been born for us….Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace…” It is part of the final unit of sort of a cluster of writings that began with chapter 6 that deal with events taken to have happened during and immediately following the Syro-Ephraimitic War of c. 734 BCE.
When you read this poem, it is rich in graphic images that depict hope in the midst of despair—darkness and light, or death and life, harkening back to the Creation story. “For God said “Let there be light.” And there was light.” There was life as God spoke it into being. There is a scene of celebration as people shout and sing to this God, as if were the thanksgiving festival at the end of a good harvest or the great joy when a war has ended and a time of peace has begun.

In the eighth century, these words were uttered about the birth of a specific king in Judah, subsequently applied to other kings, and even later to the Christian understanding of the expected Messiah. The central message of the text is that newness and celebration are a sign of hope, grounds for confidence in God’s future. In the prophet’s view, God’s will for justice, righteousness, and peace is made flesh here on this earth.

For the Hebrew hearing these words of the prophet, there is much more of a stark contrast between “what was” and “what will be”, between the “former time” and the future. They had been through years of despair and even desolation and now the promise of something new is being presented. In essence, it is a complete reversal.

a. What does this passage mean for you?
b. What perhaps stands in our own way of sensing the importance of that contrast?
c. We talk a lot about hope. What does that really mean to you?

NEW TESTAMENT: 1 Corinthians 1: 10-18

To read the Lectionary Epistle passage, click here

Last week we look at the opening of this letter to the Corinthian church. This week, the passage continues as Paul begins to appeal directly to the church. This passage is at the beginning of the more than three chapters that Paul uses to set the context of the whole letter. Once again, Paul begs them to be united, to get rid of the divisions that have arisen between them, primarily over definitions of what is “right and wrong”, “righteous and unrighteous”, “moral and immoral”. Like the passage by the prophet Isaiah, Paul wants his readers to reframe their lives and see something in a different way.

First of all, note the terms “brothers and sisters”. Paul clearly assumes that women are included and that they are part of the common ground claimed in Christ. Divisiveness is unthinkable to Paul for those who profess to be “in Christ”. Essentially, he is warning them not to let the “ways of the world” influence who they are. This passage prompts the question of “To whom do you belong?” Paul is warning against those competing allegiances. Paul even goes so far as to knock down the assumption that one is better than the next because of who may have baptized them. It is another affirmation of our baptism, not as a human thing, but as God’s gift of bringing us into oneness with Christ.

For Paul, reconciliation with God must mean reconciliation and unity with others. Paul saw no room for certain loyalties or factions. He actually saw it as a misuse of the power that God offers. For Paul, this unity would have been described as “perfectly united in mind and thought.” Essentially, Paul is making the claim that the church needs to get itself together if it is going to get on with its mission of spreading the power of God in Christ.

a. What does this passage mean for you?
b. How does it speak today to our divisiveness?
c. What do you think the message would be for our own society, for our own church, or for the broader church?
d. Do you think that there is a possibility of unity in today’s world?
e. What definition of “power” do you think Paul would give?

GOSPEL: Matthew 4: 12-23

To read the Gospel Lectionary passage

Last week, we read the “prelude” to Jesus’ ministry. This week, it begins. The writer of this Gospel does not date the beginning in terms of the calendar but, rather, in terms of events in salvation history. There is no real indication as to how much time has passed. Keep in mind that the writer of Matthew’s Gospel is probably of Jewish descent and well-versed in Jewish Torah readings as well as the prophets. It was important to him to confirm Jesus’ valid ministry in the terms in which he had been taught. The writer makes the proclamation of the kingdom of God (which was very important in this Gospel) as the common denominator between Jesus’ ministry and that of the church.

In the first verse, this word “withdrew” is not meant to imply cowardice or self-preservation but a representation of Jesus’ alternate vision of kingship, which is non-violent and non-retaliatory. Once again, the world is being “reframed”. Along those lines, the use of the word “repent” here means “turning around”, in other words reframing and reworking one’s life. The call of the first disciples (according to the writer of The Gospel According to Matthew) is the beginning of the messianic community, the beginning of the church. This is not meant to be a special call to apostleship but a representation of the way every believer is called to Christ.

Note that these fishermen were already doing what they were called to do, they were already acting upon their gifts for this vocation. The address “Follow me”, then, is not to fill a vacuum in their lives, but is intrusive and disruptive, calling them away from their lives, their work, and their family. True discipleship is not just following God; it is changing our lives.

Once again, there is a statement made here about dominant values in our lives. (“To whom do we belong.”) There is also once again a statement made about reframing our lives. But Jesus’ call to each of us begins with what we know. “Follow me, you fishing people, and I will make you fish for people!” God starts where we already are.

And notice that these fishermen were not especially gifted people. In the first century around this lake called Galilee, Simon and Andrew were pretty ordinary. But Jesus asked them to follow anyway. And they went. In fact, the text says they went immediately. They didn’t wait until they had enough money or enough time or enough talent. They just went. And Jesus did not stop himself by assuming that they were too poor or too busy or just too locked into their family business. He just asked. And by asking them, he brought significance into their life. By asking them, he empowered them for ministry. You see, it’s important to ask and it means something to be asked.

These brothers were instead asked to take on the work of discipleship and they ended up with a life that neither of them could have foreseen. Simon would become Peter, the “rock”, one of Jesus’ apostles and ultimately would be made a saint in the tradition of the church. But he needed to be asked.

In this season between Christmastide and Lent, this ordinary time, we are reading accounts of callings and responses. It’s not because we lack some big incarnation or resurrection to carry us through the season. It is rather because it is in our ordinary lives that God finds us and asks us to join in the work. It is in our busyness and our day-to-day struggles that God enters our lives and compels us to put down our nets if only long enough to look up and see the shore. And it is when we are fully convinced that we are not gifted enough or rich enough or young enough or just enough that God shows us how to be someone new. God has asked you to follow. What is your response?

In a sermon on this same text, Richard Zajac tells the story of a young boy who goes into a restaurant with his mother and his grandmother and sits down to order. The waitress took the grandmother’s order, then the mother’s order, and then she turned to the little boy and asked: “What would you like?” The mother immediately said: “Oh, I will order for him.” The waitress, without being overly rude, ignored the mother and again asked the little boy: “What would you like?” The mother once again spoke up: “I will order for him!” The waitress ignored her yet again and asked the little boy one more time: “What would you like?” “I would like a hamburger!” he stammered. “How would you like your hamburger?” asked the waitress. “Would you like it with onion, mustard, and the works?” His mouth now open in amazement, the boy said: “Yes, I would like the works!” The waitress went over to the window and she howled the grandmother’s order, then the mother’s order, and then in a loud voice she said: “And a hamburger with the works!” The little boy turned to his mother in utter astonishment and said: “Gee, Mommy! She thinks I am real!” That waitress, by asking the little boy what he wanted, provided him with status. The asking gave him recognition; it gave him a feeling of importance that he had never had before. (From “Asking”, a sermon by Richard E. Zajac in the books, Life Injections II: Further Connections of Scripture To the Human Experience, available at http://www.sermonsuite.com/content.php?i=788029029&key=t8lpon8elTIzrnex, accessed 18 January, 2011.)

It is, after all, that great light that we were always promised! Those who have been walking in darkness, unable to see, have finally begun to see the dawn.

a. What does this passage mean for you?
b. What does it say to us about our own loyalties?
c. We’ve talked a lot about “reframing” today. What does that mean in the context of our own lives?
d. So what gets in the way of our discipleship?
e. What gets in the way of our inviting others to discipleship?

Some Quotes for Further Reflection:
There are two ways of spreading light—to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it. (Edith Wharton)

We are already one. But we imagine that we are not. And what we have to recover is our original unity. What we have to be is what we are. (Thomas Merton)

Give yourself fully to God. [God] will use you to accomplish great things on the condition that you believe much more in [God’s] love than in your own weakness. (Mother Teresa)

Closing

You are the god who makes extravagant promises. We relish your great promises of fidelity and presence and solidarity, and we exude in them. Only to find out, always too late, that your promise always comes in the midst of a hard, deep call to obedience. You are the God who calls people like us, and the long list of mothers and fathers before us, who trusted the promise enough to keep the call. So we give you thanks that you are a calling God, who calls always to dangerous new places. We pray enough of your grace and mercy among us that we may be among those who believe your promises enough to respond to your call. We pray in the one who embodied your promise and enacted your call, even Jesus. Amen. ((“A Hard, Deep Call to Obedience”, from Searcy’s Awed to Heaven, Rooted in Earth, p. 90)