Words Twice a Week 10.15
[should have put this out at 5pm – then it would be 5, 10.15, 20]
Some thoughts on some of the lessons for this Sunday -
Ps 99 The Lord is our King
+ presented in the context of Israel and God making a covenant at Sinai.
+ God sees that fairness and justice are done in Israel. What about outside of Israel? And is that happening? Fairness and Justice are objective, not subjective – would the Palestinians agree that fairness and justice are happening in Israel? (Mixing governments and faith communities there, but then they are kind of mixed, aren’t they? More about this in the gospel.) How we hear this perhaps depends on if we feel like we are being treated with justice or not.
+ God forgives and punishes – just how does that work?
+ How do fairness and justice fit together in our “systemic racism day”?
Exodus 33.12-23 Time to Move On….
+ context; Israel (or the people who are becoming Israel) have been camped at Mt Sinai for a while now as Moses and God speak with each other. But then there was the golden calf incident, and Moses smashed the covenant tablets (and the covenant?). Now God tells them to head for the (“a”?) Promised Land, but that while they will still be God’s people, God himself/herself will not be going with them, because God cannot abide with sinfulness.
+ So Moses begins a conversation. Note Moses makes 3 petitions – to know God’s way, to have God’s presence with them on the journey, and to see God’s glory. The first 2 are mainly Moses speaking and God responding with just a few words. In the third, Moses speaks a few words and God responds with more. Moses has been able to engage God in conversation leading to communion. Does this reflect our prayer patterns and practice?
+ Note that Moses does that by referring to God’s character and history. The “collect” prayer form begins with stating a relevant quality of God. (Almighty God, unto whom all hearts are open...)
+ The Promised Land – is it always somewhere else, in space or in time? How tied are we to this space (our city, our church building or community) or this time? Are we willing to go to some other place or time to be with God?
1 Thessalonians 1.1-10 You are a fine example
+ years ago an older minister was talking about some particular fault or failing; he said, “It’ll ruin your testimony.” I’ve remembered that for 40 years – though I can’t remember what he was talking about!
+ Is there a part of your life that would be a good example to others? A not so good example?
+ I like this line - “Response to the gospel requires action as well as ascent.”
Matthew 22.15-22 Jesus deflects
+ the opponents – Pharisees and Herodians, two diametrically opposed groups (Richard Swanson raises the interesting possibility that the Herodians are really Pharisees in disguise), come to catch Jesus with an “unanswerable question”, like “Have you stopped beating your wife?” He shows his authority by turning the tables on them.
+ writers suggest that the real focus of the passage is the authority of Jesus, and the “Render unto Caesar...” line is really not meant to be as much of the focus as we tend to make it. It is not meant to be a “timeless maxim”. In particular, Jesus does not mean to suggest that God and Caesar are two equal powers each with their own realm. Humans bear God’s image, whatever realm they are in at the time. Church and State are not as clearly separated as we might like them to be. Here are a couple paragraphs from Texts for Preaching…
Another way to put this is to say that the passage does not make God and Caesar to be equals, nor are they symbolic names for separate realms. If so, one could be lead to the notion that the emperor has his realm in which ultimate allegiance can be demanded, and God is relegated to another realm. Quite the opposite is inferred in the text. Humans bear God’s image, and wherever they live and operate – whether in the social, economic, political, or religious realm – they belong to God. Their primary loyalties do not switch when they move out of church and into the voting booth.
Read this way, the text does not solve the question of church and state. It does not answer many lingering issues about Christians’ obligations to the government – taxation, military conscription, and the like – but it does set allegiances into an ultimate and penultimate order. The text is certainly not iconoclastic regarding governments. It gives space to political arrangements, but at the same time it conditions those arrangements by the reminder that not only we, but all God’s children, bear the divine image and therefore belong to God. Furthermore, the text operates subversively in every context in which governments act as if citizens have no higher commitments than to the state. When the divine image is denied and persons are made by political circumstances to be less than human, then the text carries a revolutionary word, a word that has to be spoken to both oppressed and oppressor.
+ so, what does it say to whom today?
+ and what/who holds what authority in your life? I’m reading a book about a father/grandfather who is rich and tries to rule his children and grandchildren’s lives.
I came across this prayer this week -
God, help me to realize that it doesn’t matter what clothes people wear, how they cut their hair, or what color their skin is. We are all the same in your eyes, and with this awareness your children can move forward as a family. Discrimination deprives people of not only their civil rights but their human dignity. To overcome the evil challenges of our life we must turn to Christ, the good news of Jesus. Everyone deserves the love that you taught us to give to each other. I guess I am petitioning you not to miraculously solve a problem but to allow for an individual understanding of the violation against you and your world that blatant prejudice and discrimination commit.
- Nakela Cook, from Dreams Alive: Prayers by Teenagers, St. Mary’s Press, 1991, p.45.
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