“The end of a melody is not its goal"Throughout the year, the Southern New England Conference of the United Church of Christ produces the Daily Lectionary for use by churches. These are the suggested readings for Friday, March 12th: Psalm 107:1-3, 17-22; Daniel 12:5-13; and Ephesians 1:7-14. I would encourage you to read these short selections as part of your Lenten practice.
Today is our fourth Lenten Friday. Lent is a time to prepare ourselves to approach the cross humbly and lovingly, and Lenten Fridays accentuate the discipline of this spiritual journey. There are many redemption theologies based on the cross of Christ, but in today’s Ephesians reading we encounter one that I find especially meaningful. I remember when Mel Gibson’s Passion of the Christ movie was first released. I chose to not watch because to separate Jesus’ death from His life is to distort its meaning. It misrepresents the cross as distinct from the lived gospel of Jesus. The philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche once wrote: “The end of a melody is not its goal: but nonetheless, had the melody not reached its end, it would not have reached its goal either.” The death of Jesus is the climactic conclusion of the life of Jesus. It is as meaningful to separate the cross from Jesus’ life as it is to read the last lines of a novel and imagine that they make sense. Today’s Ephesians passage unites Jesus’ Incarnation, His life, with the cross. The biblical phrase that aroused Christian thought was “gather up all things in [Christ].” The outstanding Greek verb was άνακεφαλαιώσις (anakephalaiosis) in 3:10. The passage reads: “With all wisdom and insight [God] has made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure that he set forth in Christ, as a plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.” This is called the recapitulation view of atonement. In this theology of our salvation, Christ is seen as the new Adam who succeeds where Adam failed. He recapitulates, He re-states, God’s act of creation. Christ undoes the wrong that Adam did and because of His union with humanity Jesus gathers up “all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth,” and unites them with God. In the Adam story, creation is separated from the Creator. In Jesus there is an overriding re-creation that gathers up all creation once again and reunites it with God. Jesus’ Incarnation, the Son of God emptying Himself of His divinity (Philippians 2:5-8) and taking on the fullness of human nature, re-sanctifies all of creation. The cross is not the goal of Jesus’ life, in the imagery of Nietzsche, but it is the final statement of Jesus’ life, and without it Jesus’ life would not have reached its goal, the goal of gathering up all creation in Him. On this fourth Lenten Friday, I hope that this ancient idea of the recapitulation of all things (τά πάντα, ta panta) in Christ gives us each fertile ground for meditation. It is a magnificently hope-filled theology that in the “fullness of time” (πληρώματος τών καιρών, pleromatos ton kairon) all creation will be restored to its rightful place in union with its Creator. And the cross stands as the culmination of Jesus’ saving life. If you’d like, here is the link to the Massachusetts Conference’s daily reading schedule: www.macucc.org/lectionary.
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From rainbow to crossThroughout the year, the Southern New England Conference of the United Church of Christ produces the Daily Lectionary for use by churches. These are the suggested readings for Thursday, March 11th: Genesis 9:8-17; Psalm 107:1-3, 17-22; and Ephesians 1:3-6. I would encourage you to read these short selections as part of your Lenten practice.
The Noah story first of all is a story. It is a myth whose purpose is not historical, but pedagogical. It is shared in faith traditions older than the Hebrew Bible. There very well may be seeds of an actual event in the story, but no more than this, definitely not a memory of the entire world flooded and destroyed except for one family and a few animals. Gradually rising sea levels that threatened a community’s known world or even catastrophic events that brought ruin quickly may lie behind the Noah story, but the importance of the story is the story. According to the story, God had tried at creation with Adam and Eve in paradise, and that did not go well. The creation experiment continues with an intellectually liberated humanity but in a struggling environment, and that did not go well. God decides to try a third time with a purer stock of a faithful man – Noah. To do this God must wipe the slate clean. God must destroy the remnants of the first two attempts at creation – thus the flood. But according to the story, it appears that God has regrets after His angry destruction of nearly all life. In the flood story prior to the Hebrew Bible, Utnapishtim offers a sacrifice to the gods after surviving the flood. What follows is not flattering: “The gods smelled the sweet odour of the sacrificial animal and gathered like flies over the sacrifice.” In other words, without sacrifices being offered on earthly altars, the indolent gods were starving. In the Genesis account, Yahweh does not need sacrifices to survive. Rather, Yahweh regrets His act of destruction, and promises instead: “‘I will never again curse the ground because of humankind, for the inclination of the human heart is evil from youth; nor will I ever again destroy every living creature as I have done.'" This change of the divine heart is sealed by the rainbow as told in today’s Genesis selection. According to the story, especially the biblical variants to the original story, God has turned away from destruction as a means of reform. God realizes that we are flawed. God will now work to morally rehabilitate creation. And the path toward the cross is laid. God has chosen to accept in Jesus human life as it is, and to transform it. The Incarnation is God’s embrace of creation not as the Creator, but as a part of it. And Jesus even faces the horrors of the cross, its destruction of life, as God’s willingness to accept that destruction upon Himself rather than to destroy again: “‘… nor will I ever again destroy every living creature as I have done.’” As we pause to meditate upon such a God, such a Saviour, let us join with the author of Ephesians and proclaim: “O give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; for his steadfast love endures forever.” If you’d like, here is the link to the Massachusetts Conference’s daily reading schedule: www.macucc.org/lectionary. Be brave Pandora. Open the jar again.Throughout the year, the Southern New England Conference of the United Church of Christ produces the Daily Lectionary for use by churches. These are the suggested readings for Wednesday, March 10th: Ezra 6:1-16; Psalm 84; and Mark 11:15-19. I would encourage you to read these short selections as part of your Lenten practice.
This evening at 7PM I will take my turn at leading a session of our annual Lenten Discussion Series. (If you would like to attend, send me an email – randyc1897@gmail.com) My topic is “Be brave Pandora. Open the jar again.” It’s about the tenuous relationship between curiosity and faith. Faith is not merely the content of what we believe. Faith is the act of believing. When we say something like “My faith,” this is a reference to our efforts to connect with God. I mean the Creator of everything who also hears our prayers. And yet, somehow, we have allowed this encounter to sometimes become boring and contrived. We are too often not surprised or challenged by faith, and that may have a lot to do with religion’s hesitancy to be questioned. Then, we settle for answers. Have you ever walked through a children’s section of a store? Ever notice how many items are for sale whose purpose is to teach? Ever see how a child will get all excited about the prospect of learning? How the adults with them are equally enthusiastic? That’s a joy. I give so much credit to teachers, parents and students during this year-long pandemic shut-down. Teaching and learning from home in front of a computer screen for this long must be a battle. I know I would not do well at it. Contrast this battle with the joy of the pre-schooler, then apply this to religion. Some people even refer to the practice of religion as an obligation. It must be done and if it’s not then it registers as a sin. This is faith as a battle. It is something you just do or else. Well, is it any wonder that this sort of faith leaves people unmoved? And yet faith is our personal connection with the infinite of God. Faith should be the strongest bastion of curiosity. It should lead us constantly by insights, and then questions, and then insights. There should be the excitement of challenge and exploration in the faith. There should be the religious joy that the Psalmist expresses today. A transporting joy that takes us to new places in the lives of our faith. As a pastor I don’t worry so much about religious questions as I do about religious apathy. Questions won’t kill faith; apathy will. Questions can challenge and advance the faith; apathy drains it of life. I guess people can be scared into heaven, but a fear of unbelief is not the same as the joy of belief. It’s not the same as the excitement of: “My soul longs, indeed it faints for the courts of the Lord; my heart and my flesh sing for joy to the living God.” May our remaining days of Lent help us to find that spiritual enthusiasm that shakes us up and wakes us up, for after all, we are following a crucified God, a wholly unexpected God, so there’s nothing wrong with being surprised. If you’d like, here is the link to the Massachusetts Conference’s daily reading schedule: www.macucc.org/lectionary. Something needed to changeThroughout the year, the Southern New England Conference of the United Church of Christ produces the Daily Lectionary for use by churches. These are the suggested readings for Tuesday, March 9th: 2 Chronicles 29:1-11, 16-19; Psalm 84; and Hebrews 9:23-28. I would encourage you to read these short selections as part of your Lenten practice.
Some background: Hezekiah’s father was King Ahaz. Not a great dad. It says in 2 Kings: “[Ahaz] even made his son pass through fire …” (16:3) He may have offered one of his sons as a burnt offering to Moloch. This most likely left a bad taste in Hezekiah’s mouth. Ahaz’s capital of Jerusalem was besieged by the kings of Syria and Samaria, Samaria being the other part of the once unified Israel. Ahaz removed treasures from the Jerusalem Temple and sent them to the king of Assyria asking for his intervention. It worked. Damascus fell. Ahaz traveled there to pay his respects to the Assyrian. At Damascus, Ahaz saw a pagan altar that impressed him. He sent a replica to the priests at the Jerusalem Temple and told them to build him such an altar, and they did, in the Temple whose design was revealed to Moses on Sinai. Then the Assyrians turned on Samaria, the other tribes of Israel. They conquered the land and deported its inhabitants, and at the same time deported inhabitants of other regions of the empire to live in Samaria. And this most likely pleased Ahaz, Hezekiah’s father. As soon as Hezekiah assumed the throne upon Ahaz’s death, he instituted a thorough religious reform throughout the land, beginning with the Jerusalem Temple. Even so, the Assyrians who Ahaz had started on the road of conquest toward Jerusalem, continued. They now besieged Jerusalem. Miraculously, they are called away and Jerusalem rejoices. Then Hezekiah becomes deathly ill, and again there is a miraculous delivery. The king recovers. But as with all mortals, Hezekiah dies. His son Manasseh assumes the throne and is far worse than even his grandfather Ahaz. Ahaz ruled for 16 years, Hezekiah for 25, but Manasseh reigned for 55 years. In today’s reading we hear of Hezekiah’s reforms, but we must note that they are bookended by kings who were the definition of unrighteous. The Temple went from corrupt, to holy, to corrupt. Is it any wonder that something needed to change? And did it ever with Jesus Christ. Jesus puts an end to the cycle of sacrifices. He offers Himself once as the perfect sacrifice. There is no longer the need for continual sacrifice. Forever after Jesus, His one perfect offering on the cross suffices. Nothing can be added to what happened on Golgotha. During Lent, we have the opportunity to focus on this fundamental re-ordering of everything, from creation to salvation, that is Jesus crucified. May we find a portion of each day to think about just what the cross means, and especially, what it means to each of us personally. If you’d like, here is the link to the Massachusetts Conference’s daily reading schedule: www.macucc.org/lectionary. God's temple is not place but personThroughout the year, the Southern New England Conference of the United Church of Christ produces the Daily Lectionary for use by churches. These are the suggested readings for Monday, March 8th: 1 Kings 6:1-4, 21-22; Psalm 84; and 1 Corinthians 3:10-23. I would encourage you to read these short selections as part of your Lenten practice.
As we enter a new week, the Daily Lectionary jumps from Mount Sinai to Solomon’s Temple. At Sinai, God had revealed the divine plans for His sanctuary, His tabernacle. It was an impermanent shrine that would travel with a nomadic people. Israel of the Exodus period is an amphictonic league, a people gathered around a shared shrine, but due to their wanderings that shrine needed to be mobile. It needed to be able to be set up and taken down repeatedly. When King David had secured his empire, he thought it appropriate to build Yahweh a more permanent shrine, a temple: “‘See now, I am living in a house of cedar, but the ark of God stays in a tent.’” (1 Samuel 7:2) The king’s prophet Nathan agrees immediately with this plan. It would seem the right thing to do. It would please God. That night, however, God speaks to His prophet and corrects his spiritual instincts: “‘Go and tell my servant David: Thus says the Lord: “Are you the one to build me a house to live in? I have not lived in a house since the day I brought up the people of Israel from Egypt to this day, but I have been moving about in a tent and a tabernacle. Wherever I have moved about among all the people of Israel, did I ever speak a word with any of the tribal leaders of Israel, whom I commanded to shepherd my people Israel, saying, ‘Why have you not built me a house of cedar?’”’” (2 Samuel 7:5-7) Yahweh continues to speak through the prophet Nathan and says, “The Lord will make you [David] a house.” (7:11) Not a vacation house in addition to David’s house of cedar. God will abide among His people not in a building, but through the House of David. In other words, God will abide among us not through a place, not even one drenched in gold, but through the house, the lineage, of David – not through place, but through person. This, obviously, leads to thoughts of the Messiah. God will dwell among us through Christ Jesus. Paul takes this an unexpected step further. He maintains the imagery that God tabernacles within us in Jesus Christ, the Messiah, but Paul then adds: “For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple.” The universal foundation, however we practice our faith as Christians, whether Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox, whatever, is always going to be Christ, and on top of that foundation stands each and every one of us as believers. The Spirit dwells among us. God tabernacles within us. We are God’s holy temples. Lent leads us to Christ crucified, and Lent leads us, as well, to the revelation that God considers us worth even the life and death of His Son. Let us try to better appreciate the hope that God reveals. Let us strive to live up to what God sees as possible in and through us. Let us be temples not of “straw,” but temples worthy to tabernacle the holiness of God. If you’d like, here is the link to the Massachusetts Conference’s daily reading schedule: www.macucc.org/lectionary. Unseen truthsThroughout the year, the Southern New England Conference of the United Church of Christ produces the Daily Lectionary for use by churches. These are the suggested readings for Saturday, March 6th: Exodus 19:16-25; Psalm 19; and Mark 9:2-8. I would encourage you to read these short selections as part of your Lenten practice. The Daily Lectionary asks us to read Psalm 19 four days in a row. The reason is so that we meditate upon its message, not only read its words. The Psalmist reminds us that revelation surrounds us, but we need to be attentive for it to speak to us. The Psalmist reminds us, as well, that what is specifically religious also has a profundity that rises to the surface only after we give it due attention. Simply going through the motions is insufficient. Faith is the gift from God that allows us to see past the obvious. I have seen only bits and pieces of the Harry Potter series on television, but I do enjoy Platform 9¾. The impenetrable brick pillar is also the portal to a whole other world. Faith is somewhat like this. Read Psalm 19 four days in a row and you’ll see what I mean. Or, think about Jesus’ Transfiguration. The carpenter from Nazareth with dust on His feet and sweat on His brow walks up a mountain and at its height the carpenter is witnessed in the full glory of Jesus’ hidden divinity.
Why share the account of the Transfiguration at this point in the Gospel, and why at this point in Lent? Because it is essential that we know and mediate upon the truth that the same Jesus of Nazareth, hung from the cross as an insurrectionist, is the Son of God. A recurring post-resurrection theme is that Jesus is not recognized. How are we sure that the unrecognizable resurrected Saviour is the Jesus who died on the cross? Because Peter, James and John witnessed Jesus-glorified on the mountain of the Transfiguration before Good Friday and again after the resurrection. It is the Transfiguration that connects the seen and unseen Jesus, the crucified Saviour and risen Lord. Faith is what gives us the chance to see Jesus as so much more than what eyes can see. And Lent gives us the chance to let our eyes adjust to this vision. It gives us the time and the offerings to meditate upon Jesus’ crucifixion and death. So again this Saturday I invite you to join us as church, to come together as people who are trying to see past the obvious, and to appreciate the mystery and wonder of our God. Tomorrow we will read further in the Sinai story as Moses gives Israel the Ten Commandments, and we will marvel as Jesus grows angry and crashes through the Temple marketplace demanding that people stop using His Father’s house as a money-maker. And the sermon on these passages will begin where the Psalmist leaves off: “Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of [our hearts] be acceptable to you, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.” If you would like to join us to share in God’s holy Word and in Holy Communion, please send me an email (randyc1897@gmail.com) and I will send you the login for the Service of the Third Sunday of Lent. If you’d like, here is the link to the Massachusetts Conference’s daily reading schedule: www.macucc.org/lectionary. The otherness of God brought closeThroughout the year, the Southern New England Conference of the United Church of Christ produces the Daily Lectionary for use by churches. These are the suggested readings for Friday, March 5th: Exodus 19:9b-15; Psalm 19; and Acts 7:30-40. I would encourage you to read these short selections as part of your Lenten practice.
In the Exodus passage, God’s holiness is fearsome. It is so terrifyingly other that the presence of God can only be expressed as concealed by a “dense cloud.” The people of Israel must physically clean themselves and their clothing, and they must keep a safe distance away from the place of God’s descent for their safety. At Mount Sinai, God will give Moses instructions for the tabernacle. The tabernacle will be the traveling shrine that will allow God to dwell among the Israelites, but at a safe distance. Biblical scholars propose that we invert the account that the Temple was based on the tabernacle model. Rather, it may be that the Temple model was read back into the murkier age of Exodus’ traveling shrine. The physical layout of the tabernacle may be open to such debate, but the purpose of these shrines seems certain. We are church people. We are in the tradition of Jesus attending the synagogue and sharing in the called community’s worship through prayer and sacred text. The tabernacle/Temple model, on the other hand, kept God at a safe distance. Rather than inviting people in, the purpose of the shrine was to keep God and the people separated. The presence of God was too holy to be approached casually. In 2 Samuel 6, the story is told of David ushering the ark into Jerusalem. With only pious intent, Uzzah reaches out and touches the ark to prevent it from falling off an ox cart. For this breach of protocol God strikes Uzzah dead, and even David grows afraid of allowing God to abide too close. Solomon, David’s son, builds the Jerusalem Temple like a fortress, and deep within the recesses of this divine citadel is where God dwells. This Temple was destroyed in 587 BC by the Babylonians. Herod was in the process of rebuilding a much grander Temple at the time of Jesus. We will hear in Sunday’s Gospel that during Jesus’ ministry the Temple has been under construction for 46 years. This is the Temple that Jesus charges through disrupting the religious marketplace. This is the Temple where the curtain tears in front of the Holy of Holies either before or after Jesus dies on the cross on that first Good Friday. The symbolism of this is that the separation between God and His people has ended. A new, more intimate relationship has begun. Jesus’ faithful completion of His life’s mission and ministry at the cross on Good Friday brings God and us together in a way that was unimaginable to the people at Sinai. God doesn’t dwell in the safe darkness of the Temple. God dwells with us as us in Jesus even at the cost of enduring the cross. The fearsome other of God has been transformed into the compassionate humanity of Jesus. This openness of God to us in Christ cost Jesus His very life. This is what we remember throughout Lent, and especially on these Lenten Fridays. If you’d like, here is the link to the Massachusetts Conference’s daily reading schedule: www.macucc.org/lectionary. The holy ordinaryThroughout the year, the Southern New England Conference of the United Church of Christ produces the Daily Lectionary for use by churches. These are the suggested readings for Thursday, March 4th: Exodus 19:1-9a; Psalm 19; and 1 Peter 2:4-10. I would encourage you to read these short selections as part of your Lenten practice.
There’s a pretty remarkable theme that begins in the Hebrew Bible and crosses the threshold into the New Testament. It is the idea that the holy pervades all of creation. It may be said no more beautifully than in the poetry of the Psalms: “The heavens are telling the glory of God; and the firmament proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours forth speech, and night to night declares knowledge. There is no speech, nor are there words; their voice is not heard; yet their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world.” Looking at me as I type these words is a poster-sized Albert Einstein. The quote he shares is: “I want to know God’s thoughts. The rest are details.” Einstein did not believe in a personal god who you could pray to, but he looked at creation and he was filled with awe and wonder. There was such beauty and wisdom that Einstein needed to rely upon the language of religion. He saw in creation’s order and power the thoughts of God. Math and physics conveyed the how of creation – the details, but even Einstein’s genius turned to God-talk to convey their mystery. I fear that it is an incomplete journey when I hear people tell me that they are moved by nature in a spiritual sense, not unlike Einstein’s “God’s thoughts.” The feeling is honest and authentic, but as the Psalmist writes, these nature inspired feelings “are telling the glory of God.” Nature is the messenger, but we need to reach further for the message, and it may have something to do with the holy that permeates creation, with the divine that reaches out and into everything. At Sinai God tells Israel, “You shall be for me a priestly kingdom and a holy nation.” All of them, not only those who will be called to be priests at the tabernacle, but all of Israel will be a holy nation. In the New Testament, believers are encouraged with the words: “You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people.” I think we can forget that the ordinary is holy. This is why the law at Sinai governed all aspects of Israel’s life because everything ordinary was holy. This is why the earliest Christian preachers reminded those ordinary folk that they were chosen, exalted and holy. Lent is a season during which we are to meditate upon the death of Christ, and it is also a time to mediate upon why Christ was willing to live, suffer and die. It was for us. We matter. We are loved by God more than God loves Himself. This is made clear in the glories of creation and in the death of Christ. Think about how the holy pervades us, and see in that our intimate, personal connection with God. And use Lent to make that connection even stronger. If you’d like, here is the link to the Massachusetts Conference’s daily reading schedule: www.macucc.org/lectionary. |
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