There's spiritual exercise tooThroughout 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, April 8th: Psalm 70; Isaiah 50:4-9a; John 13:21-32; and Hebrews 12:1-3. I would encourage you to read these short selections as part of your Lenten practice.
Lent is holy. Holy Week is holier. And tomorrow we begin the holiest part of Holy Week. I hope we choose to take advantage of this forced down-time to better appreciate the sacred events that will come in the quick succession of the Last Supper, the institution of Holy Communion, Jesus’ arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane, His trial and torture, the crucifixion, His burial in the tomb owned by Joseph of Arimathea, and also, lastly, gloriously, the discovery of the empty tomb and Jesus’ resurrection. I’ve read that practiced runners are finding their usual routes unusually crowded of late. People locked in place have discovered the joy and therapy of a walk or a jog (I think dogs count the pandemic as a blessing. My beast, for example, hasn’t had this many walks ever.). Others who had paid for gym memberships are now exercising outdoors while the indoor facilities are closed. People are taking a bad situation and making it a little better by discovering exercise again. There are more people out there than ever before because of the shutdown. It’s a bit of a silver lining to a dark cloud. It is not unfamiliar to speak of prayer, church, Bible reading and the such as spiritual exercises. As people are rediscovering the blessings of physical exercise with their unexpected and unwanted downtime, let us also take advantage of this unfortunate lull by delving into the spiritual importance of these days ahead of us. As it is written in today’s Isaiah passage: “Morning by morning [God] wakens – wakens my ear to listen as those who are taught.” It is a blessing to be renewed by our faith – every day. So let’s fill-up those spiritual pathways just like all those joggers are clogging paths and trails. Let’s take our spiritual exercise just as seriously as all those people in shorts and sweats. Let’s work at getting more spiritually healthy and fit. I know we’re locked in place and isolated from each other, but just like Zoom can bring us together in “the cloud” for worship, Bible study and Sunday School, let our social distancing give us the chance to be a part of “so great a cloud of witnesses” as is mentioned in Hebrews today. Let us “surround” each other with this spiritual cloud that doesn’t need to follow the COVID-19 guidelines. Let our power of prayer, worship and learning waken us every day and surround us all day. Let us renew ourselves and each other by diving-in and truly becoming engaged in our observance of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday and Easter. I invite you to join us for our live-stream Maundy Thursday Service at 7PM. The church building will be open from noon to 3PM on Good Friday for private prayer and meditation. Please practice social distancing if there are others in the building with you. On Easter we will not be able to gather for our Sunrise Service, but we will celebrate the glorious mystery of the empty tomb with an on-line worship Service at 10AM. I invite you and I encourage you to join us for all of these “spiritual exercises” that are only a day away.
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Could Jesus have really said this?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 Tuesday, April 7th: Psalm 71:1-14; Isaiah 49:1-7; John 12:20-36; and 1 Corinthians 1:18-31. I would encourage you to read these short selections as part of your Lenten practice.
In the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible that I read, Luke 23:34 is printed within double-brackets ([[ … ]]) and it is footnoted. The footnote shares with the reader that this verse is absent in some “ancient authorities.” Joseph Fitzmyer, writing in the Anchor Bible Commentary on this passage, counts 23:34 as an interruption in the flow of the crucifixion account, and for this reason considers it a later addition to the original Lucan text. Furthermore, he argues that there is no clear referent to Jesus’ words. To whom is Jesus referring, Fitzmyer asks. He then contrasts the impassive crowd of people who “stood by” (23:35) with the active taunts of “the leaders” (23:35), “the soldiers” (23:36), and “one of the criminals” (23:39). These three give voice to a major theological theme in Luke – salvation. All three taunt Jesus for His acclamation as Saviour. Remember even those recent shouts of “Hosanna!”, which is Hebrew for “Save, we pray.” In a most unexpected way, Jesus’ tortured death is precisely the final act of Jesus as Saviour. When Jesus chooses not to save Himself, He saves all others. I would argue that 23:34 does not interrupt the flow of the crucifixion account, nor is it a statement floating without anchor. I hear in the words “‘Father, forgive them for they do not know what they are doing,’” Jesus’ plea for mercy for everyone who cannot see salvation offered when Jesus refuses to save Himself. This includes the three active taunts of the religious authorities, the soldiers and the criminal, but it also includes the indifference of “the people [who] stood by watching.” Jesus does not die only for those who recognize Him as Saviour. Jesus dies for everyone. Fitzmyer holds that 23:34 is a later addition based on Stephen’s prayer in Acts 7:60b or even Eusebius’ story of the stoning of James the Just from two and a half to three centuries later. It seems to me much more logical to assume that the accounts associated with Jesus’ followers are modeled after Jesus’ example rather than vice-versa. With this said, I believe that 23:34 is a contested passage not because it was added later as Christians became increasingly insular and judgmental, but because of its very authenticity coming from the mouth of a religious radical. It is so shocking that it must have been difficult for some copyists to accept as original. Some Christians, then and now, have great difficulty with Jesus as the universal Saviour. Some would prefer that Jesus’ salvific death be reserved for those “worthy” of it, and even go to the extreme that Jesus’ death be the reason why those who “do not know what they are doing” be condemned because of it. The image below is Marc Chagall’s White Crucifixion. For Jews throughout history, Good Friday was a day filled with terror and death. Judgmental Christians would attack and kill the “Christ killers” in the name of the Jewish Messiah who died for all people. As it is written in today’s passage from Deutero-Isaiah: “‘It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the survivors of Israel; I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.’” Jesus, our Saviour, is Saviour of all. He forgave even the ones who were torturing Him to death and the casual bystanders who merely watched. And in this He leaves His followers a hard lesson, but one that carries the gravitas of a dying man’s last words. Monday of Holy WeekThroughout 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, April 6th: Psalm 36:5-11; Isaiah 42:1-9; John 12:1-11; and Hebrews 9:11-15. I would encourage you to read these short selections as part of your Lenten practice.
It’s Monday of Holy Week. I love the concentration of faith during this especially sacred time. Lent has the ability to fuel my spirit like no other. It’s the focused awareness of how much Jesus loves us that not only sustains my spirituality long into the Pentecost Season, but lifts it up. I once traveled with a group of Sunday School children and youth to the Northfield Mountain Power Station in Erving, Massachusetts. During the night when power generation is cheaper, they pump 5.6 billion gallons of water 700 feet up to a reservoir at the top of the mountain. Then, during the day, when power generation is more expensive, they release that reservoir of water. The flow turns four humongous turbines that generate power to send out on the grid. Trying to maintain the metaphor, the darkness of Lent and especially its culmination in Holy Week is when I can push those spiritual waters up higher and hold them in my soul’s reservoir just like Northfield Mountain pushes the water higher at night. Then, when I need them, I can count on that stored-up spiritual energy to fuel my spirit just like those turbines create energy during the times of greater need. Lent and now Holy Week are not meant to exhaust us, but to enliven us. Give up something for Lent and then that Easter indulgence is extra special. This year because of the COVID-19 shelter in place advisory my daughters won’t be coming home for Easter and we won’t be seeing friends. Usually, however, Sharon cooks up a storm and the house is filled with the delicious fragrances of kielbasa and ham. I choose not to eat meat on Good Friday and the Saturday of Holy Week. It’s a small sacrifice on the day Jesus is crucified and on the day that Jesus lies dead in the grave of Joseph of Arimathea even as those delicious smells make me hungrier than usual. Then, after our Easter worship Service, the kielbasa and ham tastes better than at any other time of the year. This is one of those special rewards after a Lenten sacrifice. But the deeper, more profound Lenten experiences are not meant to be set aside on Easter Sunday. They are meant to carry us higher. The insights and experiences of Lent are to help us grow closer to Jesus, our crucified Saviour. It must have been a heavy weight for Jesus to carry to the cross as He witnessed His nearly total abandonment. On Maundy Thursday we will recall Jesus’ betrayal and desertion by His closest followers, but also, where were all of the people whom He healed, the ones Jesus embraced when everyone else pushed them aside, the crowds who hung on His words of good news. Jesus gave everything He had for them, and now they were gone. I like to think that our Lenten presence helps to right that wrong. It’s theologically convoluted, but I like to think that during Lent and especially during Holy Week that our concentrated spiritual attention helps to ease the anguish of Jesus’ abandonment. This makes no theological sense. Jesus is in heaven’s perfection, but I still like to think back to the battered and isolated Jesus of 2,000 years ago and hope that our faith-lives today may right that wrong. And that personal connection with Christ should not be forgotten when all of the other Lenten “sacrifices” are finished on Easter, that connection should carry us higher. And who is this Christ, this Saviour, whom we approach? Deutero-Isaiah had a glimpse of Him hundreds of years in advance. The prophet shares God’s revelation: “Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights; I have put my spirit upon him; he will bring forth justice to the nations. He will not cry or lift up his voice, or make it heard in the street; a bruised reed he will not break, and a dimly burning wick he will not quench; he will faithfully bring forth justice. … See, the former things have come to pass, and new things I now declare.” Jesus sums-up the “new things” that God declares and we are His privileged followers. May Holy Week not only sustain us in our journey, but carry us higher. He continued onward anywayThroughout 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, April 4th: Psalm 31:9-16; Lamentations 3:55-66; and Mark 10:32-34. I would encourage you to read these short selections as part of your Lenten practice.
The Synoptic Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke all tell the story that Jesus forewarned His followers on three separate occasions that He was going to Jerusalem and that there He would be arrested, killed and raised. They simply could not process this information. Their own expectations of Jesus as the Messiah conflicted with Jesus’ prophecy of His death. Their expectations prevented them from hearing Jesus. It was not only Jesus’ closest followers, “the twelve” in today’s reading, who had difficulties. The other pilgrims heading to Jerusalem for the Passover festival were also “afraid.” They may not have been as informed as the Twelve, but they sensed something was amiss. Maybe these others who followed behind were Galileans, neighbours of Jesus, witnesses to His gospel and even His miracles. Something did not feel right. This is why Palm Sunday, which we will observe tomorrow, was so cathartic for them. They yelled “Hosanna,” (“Save we pray”) at the top of their lungs. They welcomed Jesus into David’s capital city, the place of the Temple, the place where God resided on earth. They expected Jesus to usher in the reign of God by the power of God’s army. They praised and honoured Jesus because they saw Him on Palm Sunday as they wanted to see Him, not as Jesus had revealed those three distinct and clear times. This unwillingness to accept Jesus on His terms rather than those of our choosing is the source of moral and spiritual (and even institutional) confusion. We want Jesus to support what we support and to condemn what we condemn. What should happen is that we must look to the example and teaching of Jesus as honestly as we possibly can, and then try our best to live accordingly. Also, I am amazed at Jesus’ resiliency. He knows what lies in wait for Him at the end of His journey, but He also sees the confusion all around Him. It is one thing to die for a cause and trust that others will continue to carry it forward, but Jesus marches onward with no such assurance. He has tried to impress upon His followers that His is a radically new revelation, but now as death nears, He must realize that maybe no one gets it, that no one gets Him. He must fear that His ministry may end with Him. This fear means that His death may end up being meaningless. Jesus, however, continues onward. He is true to Himself. He is faithful to His gospel. He is committed to the will of His Father. He is devoted to us – even if we don’t get it. Paul writes in Romans: “What if some are unfaithful? Will their faithlessness nullify the faithfulness of God? By no means!” (3:3-4a) This is our Saviour. And now as we approach Holy Week, we can right the wrongs of His history. We can listen and we can follow, and we can be the people that Jesus always hoped we would be. Let us walk with Him now. Let us continue to carry onward with the faith. Jesus deserves no less. From Job to JesusThroughout 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, April 3rd: Job 13:13-19; Psalm 31:9-16; and Philippians 1:21-30. I would encourage you to read these short selections as part of your Lenten practice.
Today is our penultimate Lenten Friday. Our Lenten journey is entering the final stretch. Hopefully, we have taken the time to meditate upon the mystery of our “crucified God” in the words of Jurgen Moltmann. As we continue forward, the church presents us with a passage from Job. Job is a familiar story. It is an entire biblical book dedicated to theodicy, the contemplation of how to reconcile a good God with the prevalence of evil, accident, disease and death in the world. Job’s suffering is inexplicable, which is the final message of this Old Testament book. As you read through the Bible, the original message is that God sends suffering and death as divine punishment for sins known and unknown. Continue reading and you can hear the people of God beginning to recognize the dissonance between their actions and their situation in life. When their nation and Temple are destroyed, when they are murdered in their streets by conquering armies, when they are deported as a homeless people, they realize that this is too extreme a punishment to blame on God. In exile they encounter other religions that play on the idea of good vs. evil. The Jewish people adopt this duality and begin to teach that it is not God behind such horrendous destruction, but that there are evil forces in the world counter-acting God’s reign. Satan is found in the first two chapters of Job, in one chapter of the Prophet Zechariah, and a poignant, single revision in 1 Chronicles. Satan is nowhere else found in the Old Testament. Then Satan explodes on the scene in the New Testament. In the Old Testament, Satan is an accuser, like a prosecutor in a heavenly courtroom. In the New Testament, Satan has become the personified evil who deliberately and powerfully counteracts God and specifically God’s Messiah. Jesus lived almost 600 years after the fall of Jerusalem, and the Jews still remained nationless. Their land had been passed from Babylonians, to Persians, to Greeks and to Romans. The Roman Empire must have seemed invincible at the time of Jesus. The general religious mood was that there had to be a powerful evil force to cause all of this for centuries on end. They turned to apocalyptic thought, that God would have to intervene powerfully and personally in order to defeat this supernatural evil, that God’s Messiah would be a conquering hero. Then came the humble, peaceful Jesus. Then came His violent crucifixion and death. And Job’s theme of inexplicable suffering reached its absurd pinnacle. The conquering Messiah was tortured to death by Israel's enemies. Absurd if suffering and death must be evaluated as the punishment or absence of God. What if God is with us regardless of the accidents, the human against human violence that plagues us, and even our mortality. What if we looked at our suffering Messiah, our “crucified God,” as does Paul: “The message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God. … Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified …” (1 Corinthians 1:18, 22-23a) What if “Christ crucified” is the invincible power of God in Christ to be with us always, regardless of what the world may indiscriminately throw at us or that people may intentionally throw at us? What if Jesus’ cruel demise is the “power of God” to be at-one with us always no matter what? Maybe Jesus’ own suffering and death with us and as us is God’s answer to the problem of theodicy. May our next to last Lenten Friday give us the time to think about the cross as God’s ineffable love as the explanation for inexplicable suffering. Seeing like God seesThroughout 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, April 2nd: 1 Samuel 16:11-13; Psalm 31:9-16; and Philippians 1:1-11. I would encourage you to read these short selections as part of your Lenten practice.
I love the story of David’s anointing that is shared today. The call and ascension of David is a confused story because it is the combination of multiple stories. The first account told is that David was brought into King Saul’s service to play the lyre when Saul was tormented by “an evil spirit from the Lord.” (1 Samuel 16:14) He was chosen because he was “skillful in playing, a man of valor, a warrior …” (16:18) In the next chapter, however, we hear the familiar story of David and Goliath, and David is anything but a warrior. He is an untested and unknown youth. “‘Whose son is this young man?’” asks Saul incongruently. The accuracy of the accounts is not the main point of these stories. Their purpose is. The “facts” are in service of the “truths.” For example, I’m waiting for Amazon to deliver my copy of Fathers and Sons by Ivan Turgenev. I read this novel back in high school. (I thank Professor Thomas Roberts of my alma mater, Smith College, for his help in tracking down this title.) One of the main characters, Bazarov, believes in nothing. Life is absolutely meaningless. And he confronts every other character in the novel with his insistence on this point. Then, at the end of the novel he dies from a small wound and an even smaller infection. He challenged everything including the grand and respected, but his death was at the hands of the smallest bit of reality. I thought this would be a good read during the COVID-19 pandemic’s shelter in place. I’m hoping to find “truths” even though the story’s “facts” are clearly fictional. Likewise, the “truths” of David’s call to greatness, however told, are that they are unexpected, but guided by God. In today’s passage, Samuel is sent to the home of Jesse to anoint God’s chosen successor to Saul. Jesse marches out all of his sons. Samuel had been impressed by the “stature” of the eldest son, Eliab and was ready to anoint. God scolds His prophet and tells him not to judge by “outward appearance.” Rather, “the Lord looks on the heart.” The rest of the sons also fail to excite God. Samuel is bewildered and asks Jesse if there are any other sons. This is when the youngest, David, is brought in from tending the sheep. His “stature” is lacking, but as soon as David walks in the room, Yahweh commands His prophet, “‘Rise and anoint him; for this is the one!’” The message that God does not see as we see but that God looks inward, is a revelation filled with hope. It is a “truth” far more important than the “facts.” I worry about the social and economic divide in the world and in our country. I’m afraid this pandemic and the worldwide recession it has given birth to will only exacerbate the separation. When it hits the poorest nations, how will those people practice social distancing? Our economy struggles forward on the labour of its lower paid workers who must continue to face exposure. The ones living paycheck to paycheck will likely fall deeper into debt and yet I hear stories of corporations like Boeing being cradled (https://www.pogo.org/analysis/2020/03/no-we-shouldnt-bail-out-boeing/). In a world that also threatens doctors with termination if they complain publicly about the failure of their institutions, I see where power accumulates. But there’s always the hope that comes from the “truth” that God does not see the way the world does. God is not impressed by “stature” however that is judged. God looks inward. Our value is not based on our valuables. God cherishes each and every one us so much that even God’s Son dies on the cross for us all. God chastises His prophet to see like God sees. May we do the same so that our world may become fairer and more compassionate, that all God’s creation may be valued. "A little crazy, good crazy"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, April 1st: Psalm 32; Jeremiah 32:1-9, 36-41; and Matthew 22:23-33. I would encourage you to read these short selections as part of your Lenten practice.
So in the spirit of April Fool’s Day let me share a little ditty that an old friend once told me. It has to be heard in the context of today’s Matthew passage. The Sadducees were the aristocratic, priestly families of Jesus’ day. They were rather conservative. They only accepted the authority of the Torah, the first five books of the Hebrew Scriptures. As such, they did not believe in the concept of life after death. It may come as a surprise, but this hope arrives only in later Judaism. This resistance to the belief in the afterlife is behind the question they pose to Jesus in today’s passage. They try to hit Jesus with a “gotcha!” question. Jesus fends it off and reasserts His belief in the resurrection. But in the spirit of April Fool’s Day, the question may be asked why the Sadducees are so dour. The answer being, “They’re sad-you-see because they don’t believe in eternal life.” In all seriousness though, the unwillingness to believe in the hard-to-believe promise of life eternal, can prevent us from making the most of this life. I know this is not true for everyone. There are remarkable atheists who cherish this life all the more because they know that this is it. In our virtual Bible Study Group, we have mentioned The Gilgamesh Epic in regard to our study of Genesis. This is a Babylonian myth that predates Jesus by 2,000 years. It’s been around for a long, long time. Even at the dawn of written literature, humans were already struggling with mortality. Gilgamesh strives to achieve immortality, but the Epic ends with his realization that the best humans can do is live well, accomplish much and be remembered. But for others the hope of life eternal is life-altering. The Rev. Joseph Lowery died on March 27th at the age of 98. He was one of the prominent, African-American ministers who with Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. organized the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. From the late 1950’s, he fought for civil rights in the United States. He serendipitously avoided being blown-up in his hotel room in 1963 when instead he decided to take a late-night train home to see his wife. Later in life he used this and other near-death experiences to describe the heroic work of the people involved in the civil rights movement as “a little crazy, good crazy.” This Minister’s trust in the resurrection empowered him to live life boldly and fearlessly. He faced death threats. An all-white jury fined him half a million dollars leading to the loss of property and car. But he persisted, and his faith gave him the strength to be “a little crazy, good crazy.” In 2009, President Obama awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom. His faith in life eternal allowed him to make this life heroic. He wasn’t sad-you-see. Or look at the example of Jeremiah. God asks much of this prophet. He must preach defeat and destruction to a people fighting a mortal enemy. He is locked away as traitorous. But Jeremiah’s story of purchasing a piece of land while within surrounded Jerusalem, speaks profoundly of his hope. Hope is an amazing gift. No matter the circumstance, no matter how dire, hope can motivate. Think about this as we walk ever closer to Jesus’ cross. Think about its promise of victory even in the face of utter defeat. Think about what the hope of life continuing means for the life we’re in. We’re not sad-you-see. We’re resurrection people! |
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