Words Twice a Week 7.15
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Shepherd images weave themselves through today’s readings – even Psalm 23. The Catcher in the Rye was published on 7.16.1951. Is that a shepherd image?
2 Samuel 7.1-14a
+ this story comes at the high point of David’s life – after he has united the nation, moved the Ark to Jerusalem, and dealt with external threats, and before his serious troubles begin!
+ we meet Nathan for the first time and come to trust him. This will be important when Nathan comes again to confront David over Bathsheba!
+ David lives at Mar-A-Lago and the Ark is in a Winnebago parked at Walmart?
+ actually the Ark is in a tent, as we saw last week, signifying that God can take care of God’s self without any help from humans, thank you very much; and that God can/will move with the people wherever they go/are. God is not bound to a single place. We may encounter God in “our building” (or our tradition) but that does not mean God is not also elsewhere. Or perhaps even a more significant question – how are we the church beyond “the people who worship in our building.”?
+ “God will chose a place for the people” – Well, how has that worked out? What else might it mean?
+ “House” as dynasty. Only the whole monarchy thing has not worked out so well so far.
+ a “pious motivation to do something which does not in fact represent God’s wishes” is a form of blindness. Back to Abraham – God does not want blind adherence, God wants conversation, communion, “going out for coffee”! Does doing the liturgy week after week help or hinder this?
Jeremiah 23.1-6
+ Previous shepherds have not attended to the flock, but God will raise a branch from David’s tree.
+ vs1-4 are a word to the flock, first a judgment on the shepherds and second a word of salvation – God will attend to them and raise up good shepherds.
+ vs5-6 promise salvation from David’s line.
+ “King” is an ideal, but rooted in flesh and blood. It has not worked out well for Israel, even if we keep calling him a “shepherd”!
Ps 23
+ why do you suppose this psalm has become probably the most famous and well loved – the form or the content?
+ “a table in the midst of our enemies” – how do you picture that? Is it different if “we” are the poor or the rich? Are we called to share with our enemies from this table?
Mark 6.30-34, 53-56
+ a couple of not too exciting stories that surround a couple of fantastic ones – feeding the 5000 and walking on water!
+ in vs 30-34 the disciples return successfully (Mark even promotes them to “apostles”, although this is the only place he uses that term!). And the 12 are not so good in the two intervening stories.
+ Jesus leads them to a quiet place, but still the crowds find them. Jesus saw they were like sheep without a shepherd. How does it feel to be “like sheep without a shepherd”? How does it feel to be faced with a bunch of people who are “like sheep without a shepherd”?
+ we all need times to be alone – where do you go? What are “lonely places” for you? (National parks? Which are now apparently getting crowded!) Are there times when it is less appealing to be in a lonely place? What do you do then?
+ in the first story Jesus teaches the people, in the second he heals. How are the two the same? Different?
That’s what I got for now…..
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