Words 7.8

 Words Twice a Week          7.8

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.

And if you are wondering what to do with the rest of that can of SPAM, you could try SPAMcakes.  Fry a thin slice of SPAM on both sides, then pour pancake batter all around the edge of it.  Flip carefully when the pancake part is ready.  Eat with maple syrup, or a syrup of your choice.  They are really pretty good, the saltiness of the SPAM combining nicely with the sweetness of the syrup.  That’s my recipe for the week -

Now, some thoughts on some of the lessons for this Sunday – Proper 10

2 Samuel 6:1-5, 12b-19

+ so David has the crown/anointment, and the capital city – Jerusalem.  Now he needs the religious icon (the Ark) to solidify Israel as a Jewish state.  How do we feel about that?  Is it good to join religion and government, or keep them separate, or mix them somehow?  Interesting stories this week about Chinese politicians visiting communist party historic sites.

+ “dancing before the Lord” – what images come to mind?  Is this dancing for joy, or reverence, or fear, or passion?  When it says “David danced with all his might” I always thought it was out of fear, but maybe joy?

+ do we do anything like “dancing” before the Lord?  Praying? Singing? Genuflecting? Raising our hands to pray? Speaking in tongues?  Would a jazz service fit this mold?  What if anything do we do with the same passion as David dancing?

+ and it skips over the part about Uzza steadying the Ark and being struck dead by God.  Is that what happened, or do we chicken out and say “Maybe he just was so moved that he had a heart attack and died”?  What thoughts come to mind – that God doesn’t need our help? That some things are too holy/sacred for us to mess with, or that we mess with them at our own peril?  Would climate, genetic engineering, be a couple of those things?

+ the Ark represents God’s sole leadership of Israel and God’s ability to move with Israel, not be locked into any one location or building.  So this time of change is going to be risky.  One writer notes that change (in worship practice, attitudes, understandings) is inevitable, but that human motivation must not be the sole criteria and that change must be undertaking with much fear and trembling – and dancing?!

+ note the story climaxes in kind of a Eucharistic meal – with David serving a priest.  Issues there?

+ finally, it says David’s wife (one of them!), Michal, daughter of Saul, saw David dancing and despised him, whereas before she had risked her life for him.  Is it just that he ends up essentially naked?  Or that he has taken other wives?  We don’t know.

Psalm 24

+ “who shall ascend – those with clean hands, pure hearts, and who have not lifted up their souls to what is false, and who do not swear deceitfully”  Is this us?

+ in what ways do we “lift our souls up” to what is false or unworthy or inauthentic?  Would money, power, pride come into play?

Amos 7.7-15

+ starts with one of Amos’ visions – a “plumb line”.  Ok, we are not completely sure what that means.  (When I say “we”, I mean “scholars who are thus not able to tell me!)  Somehow it seems to represent some kind of a judgment on the Northern Kingdom and implies the destruction, downfall of same.

+ then the interaction between Amos and Amaziah, priest of Baal, who suggests Amos is in it for the money, and Amos replies “I am no prophet, or a prophet’s son, but a herdsman and dresser of fig trees, and the Lord took me and said ‘Prophesy to my people.’”  Wow.

Psalm 85:8-13

+ just some really nice words – “that God’s glory might dwell in our land.”  Steadfast love, faithfulness (from above), righteousness (from the ground), and peace.

+ “our land will yield it’s increase” - and the squirrels and the rabbits will get it!

Mark 6.14-29

+ the death of John the Messenger/Forerunner/Baptist.  As well as being a riveting story, a few things to note – it’s sandwiched between the sending out of the disciples and their (successful!) return; it’s the only story in Mark not about Jesus or the disciples; although Mark is the shortest gospel, it is the longest treatment of John’s death.

+ and the similarities between John/Jesus and Herod/Pilate – “Each (John and Jesus) innocently suffers at the hands of a vacillating political figure.  Herod and Pilate both see good in the accused men brought before them, and left to themselves both would choose freedom over capital punishment.  Yet, because of their own weaknesses, both let themselves be trapped by external circumstances and permit a violent death.  In both stories disciples come, take the body, and place it in a tomb.”  Mark writes about the passion and death of John, but wants us to be thinking about Jesus!

+ another reason for the Messianic Secret?

+ Herod feared John, was perplexed, but liked to listen to him.  Are there similar situations in your life?

+ the daughter dancing and then receiving the head on the platter – it’s a pretty graphic image.  At least I always picture a sweet, young, lovely, innocent girl.

+ it was Jesus and the disciples “doing mighty deeds” that leads to this whole flashback and foreshadowing.  “Thus, Mark reminds us that the power to do miracles is not the true significance of Jesus; rather, we truly grasp the meaning of the person and work of Jesus when we focus on his death on the cross.”

That’s what I got for now…..

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