A few thoughts on a few of the lectionary texts -
Ps 106.1-8, 19-23, 47 A prayer for forgiveness, referencing the golden calf
+1-8 Although God had done marvelous things, the people turned against God at The Sea. God, because of who God is, rescued them anyway.
+19-23 At Horeb, while Moses was on the mountain, the people worshiped the golden calf. God was going to destroy them, but Moses intervened.
+47 “Save us Lord, bring us back from among the nations”. From a time when Israel has been dispersed? The life of faith is a mixture of being in the community and being separated from it. “Going to work and going to church”? How does each influence the other?
+one writer says “vs 3 affirms the moral reliability of the world” Do you agree? Is the world/creation a moral arrangement? Sometimes I think so, sometimes I wonder. Partly maybe it’s a matter of the time horizon. We’ll touch this again with Matthew.
+ The whole psalm is a reviewing of the different times the people sinned/murmured/did not trust. Another writer says “Israel remembers the past and it is not a good memory”. I can identify – usually when I remember it is the times when I screwed up, the times when I was less than what I would have wished. (Sure, there are happy memories too, but often the troubling ones are what comes most easily.) On the other hand, the same writer ways “the ancestors would not have made such a silly exchange (the golden calf for God), but they forgot. So remembering is important. Maybe it’s a matter of “Do you remember what you did or what God did?”
+just a note that vs 48 is probably more of a doxology to conclude the whole “Book IV” of the Psalms (Ps 90-106)
Exodus 32.1-14 The Golden Calf
+so Israel has been camped at Mt Sinai/Horeb ever since Ex 20 when God gave the Ten Words. (And they are going to be there until Num 10.) Moses apparently goes back and forth to receive more of the law. This time he has apparently been gone “a long time”. The people get nervous, afraid, restless. We’ve been gone from (in person) church for a long time. How has it affected us?
+They ask Aaron to “make us a God to protect us”. The advantages of god’s you make yourself – you can control, they are always available, they are (or at least can be) physical, touchable, portable. Disadvantages – well, some of the same things! And then if they spring from you, they are not really going to be able to rescue/save you. Like Einstein said, the solution has to come from outside the problem – or something like that. On the other hand, Margaret Wheatly said “No one is coming to save you, but you have within you the power to save yourselves.” She was talking about a community, rather than an individual. Does that make a difference?
+Aaron made an idol from the people’s offerings. What are our offerings used for, made into?
+The golden calf led to excess and wild behavior, not a careful, thoughtful life. On the other hand, faith in God can sometimes lead to seemingly irrational choices and wild behavior – of a different kind?
+God was ready to destroy, but Moses pleaded – 1) God’s image among the nations (Egyptians) would suffer (a mission issue?), and 2) God’s promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob – (an issue of God’s character – faithfulness, graciousness) One writer says “We are no less capable than Moses to change God’s mind through prayer.” God really does desire conversation, collaboration, and communion more than blind obedience. But note, it is not just because of what we want, rather what God desires and is.
+The role of Moses is 1) to be a channel of divine guidance and strength at a time when the nation so desperately needed it, and 2) to be a patient, courageous voice reminding God that justice without mercy is not just. The point is not that God is indecisive, but that justice is always to be tempered with mercy. So – who does this today?
Phil 4.1-9 “Don’t worry about anything, but pray about everything” vs 6 from CEV
+Nice. But in a time of pandemic? In a time when our government seems to be breaking up? Again, maybe a matter of time horizon – one day it will all be ok? I don’t find that very satisfying. I’m reading Trevor Noah’s memoir of growing up in South Africa – he and his grandmother were at prayer meetings every night of the week. He said even as a child we was special because he could pray in English, which everyone though meant his prayers would go to the top of the list!
+There are edifying and wasteful ways to live/spend the life God gives. We can choose.
+vs 4-7 a list of activities and characteristics of a Christian life. Are you/we feeling it?
+vs 8-9 Christian values
Mt 22.1-14 The Wedding Feast and the Inappropriately Clothed Guest
+yeah – there are issues with this story. Why did the guests refuse the king’s invitation? Why go to the length of beating and killing the servants? The king puts everything on hold to kill the inhabitants and burn the city? (Nice wedding memories for the bride and groom!) Why get upset about a guest who was not clothed right – wasn’t this kind of a “come as you are” event? And finally – how is this in any way like the Kingdom of Heaven, the Time of God’s Peace? Is this king in anyway supposed to be like God?
+Probably 2 or 3 parables have been mushed together here – conflated is the technical term. That might help with some of the logical difficulties. There are two stories – the wedding feast and the guest. In both the king executes (harsh) judgment.
+”Matthew seems more concerned with the meaning of the story for the life of the church than for Jesus’ original hearers. The church, and life in general, is a mixture of good and bad (and violence), and for the time being that remains, but it will not be forever. Like in the story of the Wheat and the Weeds – it is not our business to sort it all out and fix it (ie, destroy the weeds). That’s God’s business and God will do it in God’s time.
+Matthew points out again and again that some are in and some are cast out into “the outer darkness where people wail and gnash their teeth.” Matthew used this phrase six times, the other gospels combined use it only once! Yet, in Matthew’s last scene (on the mountain after the Resurrection) Jesus does not send the doubters (one of Matthew’s cardinal sins) away.
+So again – how is this king like or unlike God?
A Prayer -
God of all the Seasons,
thank you for these days of autumn with their mixture of sun and rain,
sometimes within the same half-hour!
As we remember the past, turn our thoughts more to your goodness and faithfulness
than to our own failures or even our successes.
Draw us closer to each other and to you,
that we might live well the life you offer us.
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