Words 5.27

 Words Twice a Week          

If you are more into listening than reading, Words Twice a Week is available, along with other good stuff, as a podcast from St Paul’s Episcopal Church.  Click here.

So here’s a question – Following the Revised Common Lectionary, how many times do we read/hear Genesis 1.1-2.4 (The Story of Creation) during the year?  Two?  Three? More?  Well, except for Year A, we read/hear it exactly once – and that is in the middle of the night for the Easter Vigil.  In year A (last year!) we would also hear/read it this Sunday – Trinity – the first after Pentecost.  I was really surprised, I would have thought we encountered it more than that.  (And I guess I think we should!)  So anyway, even though it is not one of the lessons for this Sunday, here is a nice little piece from Plough on the seven days of Creation -

The Glory of the Creatures: Readings for the Seven Days of Creation (plough.com) 

Now some thoughts on some of the lectionary texts for this Sunday – Trinity   Check back to last Sunday’s Words for a collect!

Psalm 29  Ok- you may recall that this Psalm has fallen out of favor with me.  Check the post for Jan 7, 2021, to refresh your memory.  Basically two things – 1) the psalm portrays God’s power bashing the Creation, which is not how I think about God’s intentions, and 2) I don’t see God acting with this kind of power in the world today anyway.  So, without objection (and seeing none) we are going on to -

Isaiah 6.1-8

+ “in the year that King Uzziah died” – kind of like that way we date things from “the day the music died”. (If only we knew when that was!)

+ actually Uzziah was apparently the last really strong monarch for Judah.  What would the aftermath of such a time be like?  It would be particularly important to look and listen for God’s actions and words in such a time.  Does that resonate with any thing today?

+ v5 Isaiah has a sense of terror at being in the presence of God.  Why?  What do you think you would feel in God’s presence?  If it’s different from what Isaiah felt – why?

+ Isaiah’s vision represents the activity of the Jerusalem Temple.  If you had a similar vision would aspects of the church building and worship service be reflected?  How?

+ what does it mean to be “a people of unclean lips”? - Does that describe us, whatever “us” you want to think about?

+ “the seraph touched my mouth with a live coal” – ouch!  Remember the kung-fu guy (“grasshopper”) picking up the hot brazier and “branding” the image onto his wrists?  Did you ever have a comparable experience as you became a Christian?  I don’t think I did, although I suppose you could think about it in terms of making a choice for some things and against other things, to gather some things and to reject or forgo others?  Can you think of something you committed to forgo as you became Christian?  How was God a part of your “becoming a Christian” experience?

+ one writer suggests the live coal represents God’s justice and compassion.

+ “Holiness” as “separate” or “other”.  Is that a comforting thought, remembering Einstein’s understanding that we can’t solve our problems with the same thinking that caused them?  We’ll encounter this again in Romans (living by the Spirit we become children of God) and in the gospel (flesh can only beget flesh, you must be born again/anew/from above)

+ it’s a “call to be a prophet” for Isaiah.  Do you feel “called”?  Why/How? To What?

+ Ok – hands up – “who will go for us?”  How do you hear that?  How do you respond?

Romans 8.12-17

+ Ch 8 brings Rm 5-8 meditation on grace to a close and prepares for Rm 9-11 where Paul struggles with Israel’s place and fate in the working out of that grace.

+ the Spirit enables us to understand our identity as God’s children.  So do we have a different self understanding from those who have not been somehow touched by the Spirit? How would it differ?  And would there be those who are touched by the Spirit but are not Christian?

+ “if we suffer for Christ” – this is not just health or financial problems.  How do we “suffer for Christ”? Or do we?

John 3.1-17

+ John 3.16 - Just in time for the NBA finals!

+ Nicodemus comes “by night” – and it’s a word that describes a kind of time, not a point or duration.  It’s mysterious, and the conversation is intentionally obscure.  It’s almost like Nicodemus is a straight man.

+ born again, born anew, born from above – which one resonates with you.  Carol Acre, heart and soul of Otter Lake Church, used to end the Happy Birthday song with the verse

  How many have you, only one will not do

  Born again means salvation, how many have you?

+ in vs 12 Jesus switches to plural “you” and Nicodemus fades away.  Do we then fade in?

+ The passage is highly symbolic – it’s not enough to know something, you have to know someone.  With a nod to Bob Dylan, “you gotta serve somebody”.

+ “eternal life is a quality of existence that begins in this life in anticipation of another life.”  I remember from years ago an impoverished farmer in a mission video who said something like “this existence we are now experiencing we do not call living.” 

+ again the idea that flesh can only beget flesh, and if anything is going to significantly change in the human story/experiment, God is going to have to break in.  That happens in Jesus and through the Spirit.

+ a nice line from Fred Craddock to set us up for this Trinity Sunday – “Our text proclaims, what has always been true of God, and what is comforting to hear again: God loves the world; God desires that none perish; God gives the Son that all may live; God has acted in Christ not to condemn but to save.  To trust in this is to have life anew, life eternal.”  Just one little question – is “the world” just the people, or more than that?

Anyway, that’s what I got for now…..

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