Some thoughts on some of the lessons for Sunday -
Joshua 3.7-17 Crossing the Jordan
+ this mirrors the Exodus, completing Israel’s Salvation Story of Deliverance from Egypt, wandering/learning/forming in the wilderness, receiving and entering into the Land. It is begun and completed by God. How would you tell your own “Salvation Story”? When did it start? How was God involved?
+ the experience affirms 2 things for Israel – 1) God is with them (in particular with Joshua as the successor to Moses) and 2) God is giving them the land – they are not taking it by their own strength or cleverness. Of course, as we have said over and over, it becomes quite problematic when “God gives them land that “belongs” to someone else!”
Ps 107, 1-7, (8,9)?, 33-37
+ I guess it is supposed to be about Israel wandering in the wilderness, but you really can’t read vs 4-9 (“they wandered in a desert land”) without thinking of immigrants on the southern border, at least I can’t!
+ vs 7 says says essentially they were saved when they reached a town. Is it the assumption that the town would take care of them? That the town would do God’s work?
+ one writer notes that God “redeems” and “gathers” – it could refer to the Exodus (redeem) and the return from the Babylonian Exile (gather). Where do we see God’s people today – more in need of being saved/rescued or of being gathered in? What about you?
+ Rescue here does not begin in God’s attentive love, but in Israel’s voiced complaint. (“They cried to the Lord…”) God responds, but does not make the first move. “A thinking people first must become an out-loud, candid, complaining people.” It takes real faith to complain “out loud”, not just to yourself! Can we complain respectfully?
Matthew 23.1-12 Do what the Pharisees (church leaders) say, but not what they do…
+ Swanson says “First, stop and notice that Jesus says the Pharisees are right.”
+ Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary identifies the issue as “The distance between insight and performance.” Suggesting that we are not really that different, it goes on -
As believers we may be perplexed by he existence of evil in the world, or we may wonder what in the world we can do in God’s name about a host of problems that are so big we cannot begin to correct them. But there are many matters about which we have sufficient clarity to take action. God has commanded us not to kill, but we go on arming ourselves to the teeth. Christ has told us to love our neighbor as ourselves, but we pay farmers not to grow grain while children starve. Christ has told us that if we have two coats and our brother or sister has none that we are to give one away, but we live in a world where homelessness increases by the day. On basic maters such as the provision of food, shelter, clothing, and the making of peace, we fall dreadfully short of the mark to which Christ has pointed us. Clearly our comprehension outdistances our performance, so that we are all too much like the pharisees in Matthew’s Gospel.
And -
Even our modesty tends to be immodest, so we choose the simplicity of elegance rather than the simplicity of charity.
And -
We suffer from the delusion that what we can accomplish can one day comfort us.
+ Henri Nouwen reminds us all that really matters is the relationships we share, and knowing that we are each of us deeply loved.
+ ”The greatest among you is your servant.” Do you hear that as “The one who is greatest should be serving”? Or “Your servant is really the greatest”? Or are they the same? Or that in the Time of God’s Peace, there are no greater and lesser, and that all are servants of each other?
Then just a couple of things to notice from the lessons for All Saints Day, also this Sunday -
(Buechner says “In his holy flirtation with the world, God occasionally drops a handkerchief. These handkerchiefs are called saints.”)
Rev 7.9-17
+ “Who’s that yonder dressed in white….?” Do you hear Peter, Paul, and Mary belting it out?
+ Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb…?
+ The Time of God’s Peace is discontinuous from our time, at least as John sees it. Our experience (suffering, presence of evil) is not the final word, and God really can wash something in red and have it become white! Is that how you see it? What does that mean for our time?
Matthew 5.1-12 Blessed are you….
+ Jesus goes up a mountain, as Moses did, and these beatitudes begin his Sermon on the Mount just as the Ten Words given to Moses begin the giving of the Law through Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.
+ When I look up, what should I see –
Whoa, Sweet Jesus on the mountaintop bringing everybody peace. That’s Harry Chapin in The Cotton Patch Gospel.
+ The “you” is in the plural form in the Greek. These are words for community, not just individuals. Hard when we are essentially living as individual these days, or in small family groupings.
+ note that the first 8 beatitudes are in something of an A/B/A/B/C/D/C/D pattern, starting and ending with “for theirs is the kingdom of heaven”, and the fourth and eighth having a concern for righteousness. They kind of seem to alternate between active and passive, though maybe not all that clearly. The final, ninth beatitude, in a slightly different format emphasizes the beatitude of the persecuted. How do you respond to lists like this?
And here’s a prayer for All Saints from the UM Book of Worship -
We bless your holy name, O God,
for all your servants who, having finished their course,
now rest from their labors.
Give us grace to follow the example of their steadfastness and faithfulness,
to your honor and glory;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
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