Words 9.30

Words Twice a Week        9.30

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.

Words twice a week ex-

cept when sunlight on water

calls me from afar.  (Well, from camp!)

Some thoughts on some of the lectionary texts for this Sunday – Proper 22

Job 1.1, 2.1-10

+ Job, the Lord, Satan, and later on, Job’s wife.  

+ Satan, the Satan, Lucifer – is one of the heavenly beings.  (The was a piece on NPR about a book – The Morning Star – or something like that.  Apparently in the folklore of a variety of cultures, Lucifer was connected with Venus, the Morning Star.)  Anyway, here Satan is The Accuser, The Voice of Doubt.  Where do we see that in life today?

+ Satan suggests Job is good because his life is comfortable, God has been good to him. God claims Job is good because God’s goodness has given rise in Job to a love of goodness for it’s own sake.  So between God and Job, the threat that suffering poses can only be overcome by the other party, and through most of the book they don’t talk with each other. They must trust in silence.  God depends on Job to overcome Satan’s accusation.  Does this also describe relationships between humans, between a husband and wife, between a parent and child, between strangers, between nations?  Can we always assume the other has our best interests at heart?

+ “He (Job) still persists in his integrity.”  (2.3)  This is after Job has lost property and children in Ch 1, and commented “The Lord Gives, the Lord takes away, blessed be the name of the Lord.”

+ Satan suggests Job would suffer more in his own body than in the suffering of his children. What do you think?  I think most parents would rather suffer themselves than have the children suffer.  Is this one of the ways Satan differs from God?

+ Job’s wife – “Why persist in your integrity?”  The second time we have heard that phrase. What do you think it means?   The Love People book talks about a “congruent life”.  An authentic life?  A life in harmony with the Creation?

+ Job accepts that good and bad both come from God.  Is that how we think about it?  Might Job have in mind something we might think more as “good and bad both are part of life”? Where does “bad” come from – Satan? God? Life? Humanity?

+ “God’s challenge to the Satan goes beyond action to include motive: Job is not only good, he loves goodness.  The divine claim is not about God but about the effectiveness of God on humanity, which raises the question – Can humans be transformed to love goodness as an end in itself?” - Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary

+ Job’s choices

1) the wife’s – “Curse God and die” would mean Job was trying to manipulate God, being good so God would be good to him”

2) the friends (who will come) – You must have done something to deserve it.  (Kind of the opposite to The sound of Music (Somewhere in my youth or childhood, I must have done something good!)  Still trying to manipulate God – “if only I had not sinned”  or

3) trust God in all things.  God’s goodness has indeed given rise in Job to a love of goodness for it’s own sake.

+ How do we make Job’s choices?

+ We get more of Job in the next couple of weeks!

Psalm 26

+ a prayer for justice and protection for one falsely accused who has indeed “walked in his integrity.”  That phrase again.

+ may have been part of a “Temple ritual”.

+ have you ever felt in sync with the psalmist here?

+ it’s pretty us/me vs them.  Are we good with that, or is the psalmist perhaps fooling himself/herself.  Is that something we might do?

+ vs 8 – “delight in the Temple.”  Could be literal or metaphorical.   If we say “delight in the Church”, what would we mean?

Genesis 2.18-24

+The ”man”/human is alone, and after identifying and naming all the animals, or even all the parts of Creation, is still alone.  (My understanding is that in the ancient languages, “man” and “woman” were not as gender-linked as we take them today.  [I could be wrong, but that’s what I remember somehow.]  How would this story – and life and history itself, be different if “man” had more the female connotation and “woman” more of the male?  We are going to get Jesus on divorce on the gospel, and commentators note we need to be conscious of the divorced and remarried folks in the pews.  Here we need to be conscious of the LGBTQ folks among us.)

+ Anyway, moving on, God puts the “man” to sleep so that the creation/origin of the “woman” will be a mystery to him.

+ And the “man” gives up a rib.  Does having a partner involve giving up something of yourself?  What did you give up, would you give up?

+ These two were originally one flesh, and Mark says will eventually be one again.  Full humanity is found in community – with God, and with others.  Or, can a pet be an adequate, appropriate helper/partner?  Where are you on that?

+ “A man leaves his father and mother and clings to his wife”, or to his several wives as the story continues?

+ Human sexuality is affirmed – it is not the cause/result of “a Fall”.  Human sexuality can be beautiful or harmful, but in itself it is not evil!

Psalm 8

+ “O Lord, our Lord, how wonderful is your name in all the earth….”  Just a really nice psalm – a good one to memorize if you are looking for one.

+ “A bulwark against the foes comes from the babes and infants.”  What’s that about?  Does it connect with the integrity of Job and Ps 26?  Does it have to do with the innocence of children?

+ God has made humans “little lower than God” (what does that mean?) and gave (gives?) humans dominion over all.  Was that a good idea of God’s part?  Are the sheep and oxen and travelers along the paths of the sea comforted and reassured by our dominion?  A piece on the radio this morning about species going extinct because we have destroyed their habitat.

+ One note from the Hebrews lesson (Heb 1.1-4, 2.5-12): in 2.8 the writer says “as of yet we do not see everything in subjection to the humans” – should we find that reassuring?

Mark 10.2-16

+ again, Jesus and the disciples are “on the way”, learning about the Christian way/life.  And again, Jesus teaches publicly, then privately, then the disciples screw up!

+ again, a sensitivity towards those who have divorced and remarried.  There was a delightfully faithful young woman in one of my churches, who had been divorced, and who as she took her turn at being a reader, at least twice was assigned to read this lesson!  It was difficult.  And then there were some couples in our churches where we all hoped the woman would divorce her husband.  And maybe some the other way around!  How has the idea of divorce changed in your experience, if it has?

+ The Pharisees quote Duet 24 which acknowledged that divorce was a reality and told “how” to divorce.  Jesus pushes the conversation back to Gen 1,2 and talks instead about marriage.  He frames it in terms of God’s will, not human experience.  One writer says essentially our divorces indicate our divorce from God’s will – but I’m not sure about that.

+ In chapter 9 Jesus had talked about greatness while holding a child before them.  Now the disciples want to sent them away.  “These are men who argued over greatness and who had an appetite for power.”

+ So what is it about the children?  “Two parts of Jesus’ angry retort to the disciples need highlighting. -

1) “It is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs.”  The disciples have bought into ancient society’s valuation of children – they are not important.  Children have no status and no rights, and thus their presence is a nuisance.  Jesus sees things differently.  In fact, the rule of God (what I like to call the Time of God’s Peace) belongs to persons like this – powerless, vulnerable, weak persons, who are often deemed a nuisance.  In rejecting the children, the disciples have not just made a slight error of judgment – they have missed the whole point of Jesus’ ministry.  And

2) “Whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.”  Not only do the children serve as poignant examples of those for whom the rule of God is intended, but also their manner of receiving it becomes the model for adults.  The weight in 10.15 clearly falls on the verb “receive,” which rules out the sentimental drivel (I like that!) about the innocence or naivety of children, often offered as explanation of this verse.  (In fact, I was going to suggest just that!)  The text does not idealize any particular characteristic of children. Instead it talks about the receiving of the kingdom by powerless persons, who have no claims to stake out and no demands to make.  The rule of God (again, as I like to say “the Time of God’s Peace”) comes as pure, unadulterated grace, to hungry people at the crossroads and in the byways of life who are invited to attend a scrumptious banquet, and to children without status.  They have no excuses to give, no dowries to offer, no bargaining chips.  They are eager to be taken up into Jesus’ arms and be blessed.”  - Texts for Preaching

+ So who would that be today?  Where do we fit into that picture?  “Adulterated” – that’s an interesting word!

A prayer -

Dear God,

it is so hard for us “adulterated” ones

to accept and welcome a Time of Peace

that rests on grace and not power.

With our eyes fixed on Jesus, 

may we find the will-power to give up our claims,

and to lay our demands along with our burdens and swords and shields

down by the riverside,

and wait quietly for Jesus to take us in his arms

and bless us.

That’s what I got for now…..

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Words 9.19

 Words Twice a Week        9.19

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.

Today -

+ Washington’s farewell address was published as an open letter to American citizens.  “In 6,086 words his address seeks to encourage the nation to respect and maintain the Constitution, warning that a party system — not yet the governmental standard operating procedure — would reduce the nation to infighting.  (Really?)  He urged Americans to relinquish their personal or geographical interests for the good of the national interest, warning that "designing men" would try to distract them from their larger common views by highlighting their smaller, local differences. "You cannot shield yourselves too much against the jealousies and heartburnings which spring from these misrepresentations; they tend to render alien to each other those who ought to be bound together by fraternal affection," he wrote.   (Think so?)  (from Garison Keillor’s Writer’s Almanac, italics mine)

Also today

+ In 1819, John Keats wrote To Autumn. He died a couple of years later, after having written only 54 poems.  He felt 1819 was a loss, but it was the year he wrote most of his greatest poetry.

Some days from the church year -

Sept 20  John Coleridge Patteson  He was an Anglican Bishop, and a missionary to the South Sea Islands.  He learned 23 of the islands more than 1,000 languages.  He worked against the slave trade, which was illegal but “blackbirders” still procured laborers by deception and force.  He was killed on Sept 20, 1871, though it is not sure if he was mistaken for a “blackbirder” (he would recruit young men to leave and study in Western settings), or if he upset the “blackbirders”, or if he just ran afoul of local customs.

Sept 21  Saint Matthew, Matthew the Apostle, Matthew the Evangelist  It’s not completely clear if all these persons were one and the same.  He might have been Levi, the tax collector.  Whoever wrote “his” gospel, we are grateful for it!  He is the patron saint of accountants; Salerno, Italy; bankers; tax collectors; perfumers(?); civil servants.

Sept 23  Thecla   Ok – she was an early virgin martyr.  Her story is pretty remarkable, including the following - “She was sentenced to be eaten by wild beasts, but was again saved by a series of miracles, when the female beasts (lionesses in particular) protected her against her male aggressors.”

Sept 24  Anna Alexander – she was the first African-American deaconess in the Episcopal Church.  She served in the Diocese of Georgia.

Sept 25  Lancelot Andrewes  He was a bishop and scholar during the riegns of elizabeth I and James I.  He oversaw the production of the King James Version of the Bible.  Ok – masculine language, obscure words, and all the rest – it still has some of the most moving passages in the English language!

And some days from the earth/world calendar -

Sept 20

+ Jean Sibelius died in 1957.  We know him for Finlandia, to which we sing This is My Song, and Be Still My Soul.

+ Billie Jean King beat Bobby Riggs in the “Battle of the Sexes”.  I watched it.  Cecile B DeMille would have been proud.

+ George RR Martin was born in 1948 to write (and did he ever finish?) A Song of Fire and Ice (The Game of Thrones).  I read the first book, skipped the rest.  He killed off the characters I liked.  Time Magazine called him “the American Tolkien”.

+ George W Bush declared the War on Terror in 2001 – how has that worked out?  Well, it’s a much more complicated issue than that flippant comment suggests.  

Sept 21

+ JRR Tolkien’s The Hobbit was published in 1937.  A good book, but a three part movie?  Come on.

+ Sir Allen Lane was born in 1902.  He founded Penguin Books.  “The legend goes that on a train journey back from visiting Agatha Christie in 1934, Lane found himself on an Exeter station platform with nothing available worth reading. He conceived of paperback editions of literature of proven quality which would be cheap enough to be sold from a vending machine; the first was set up outside Henderson's in Charing Cross Road and dubbed the "Penguincubator".

+ The “Yes, Virginia, There is a Santa Clause” letter and response were printed in the New York Sun in 1897.  Why the heck was she worried about Santa Clause in September?

Sept 23

+ The Phantom of the Opera began as a newspaper serial in 1909.

+ Now – do you believe this – Nintendo, creator of  Mario, Donkey Kong, The Legend of Zelda, Pokémon, Kirby, Metroid, Fire Emblem, Animal Crossing, Splatoon, Star Fox, Xenoblade Chronicles, and Super Smash Bros, was founded in 1889.  What?  That’s right, they made handmade “hanafuda” playing cards.

Sept 24 

+ Integration of Little Rock High School.  On the morning of September 23, 1957, the nine Black high school students faced an angry mob of over 1,000 Whites in front of Central High School who were protesting the integration project.  As the students were escorted inside by the Little Rock police, violence escalated, and they were removed from the school. The next day, Eisenhower ordered the 1,200-man 327th Airborne Battle Group of the U.S. Army's 101st Airborne Division from Fort Campbell, Kentucky, to escort the nine students into the school. By the same order, he federalized the entire 10,000-man Arkansas National Guard, in order to remove them from the control of Governor Faubus.  As Melba Pattillo Beals, one of the nine students, wrote in her diary, "After three full days inside Central [High School], I know that integration is a much bigger word than I thought."  - Wikipedia  We’ve been there.  There is a really good National Historical Site Interpretive Center.

Sept 25

+ William Faulkner was born in 1897, known for his short stories and long sentences!

+ Sequoia National Park was founded in 1890.  It included 5 of the largest 10 trees in the world, which are now being wrapped in protective foil to protect them from the fire.  Check here for current updates.

+ Sandra Day O’Connor was sworn in as first female Supreme Court Justice in 1981.   RBG was the first woman to Lie in State in 2020.

Sept 26

+ Shays’ Rebellion in 1786, the first internal armed conflict (in the US).  Hopefully Jan 6 is the last.

+ TS Eliot was born in 1889.  He was a poet and an editor.  Apparently someone said most editors are failed writers.  He replied, “Yes, so are most writers.”  He wrote The Waste Land, The Hollow Men, Ash Wednesday, Murder in the Cathedral, and The Cocktail Party, among others.

+ George Gershwin was born in 1898.

+ And, aren’t you glad you made it all the way to the end – this is apparently National Pancake Day!  (Wait a minute – I thought that was back in February?) This day was originally called Lumberjack day and was founded by bloggers Marianne Ways and Colleen Venable. It later gained popularity after a bakery, Junior's Cheesecake, adopted it. Although it shares the same name, it is not to be confused with the other Pancake Day, which is celebrated before Ash Wednesday. National Pancake Day is celebrated annually on September 26th.  Here’s more than you want to know about it.  Note 62% of Americans prefer maple syrup on ‘em.  So darn, Jane Brody has a recipe for something like Davy Crockett Pancakes that looked really good, but the book is at camp.  I’ll try to update on Wednesday, when I come back. 

Ok - Wednesday update - it's not Davy Crockett Pancakes, it's gingerbread pancakes as served at Fess Parker's (ie, "Davy Crockett") restaurant in California. Here's the recipe -

I kind of made it once - didn't have instant coffee or apple juice concentrate.  They were good.

Meanwhile, here is her recipe for a hearty pancake mix.  The Frugal Gourmet suggests adding 3-4 Tbs of peanut butter and a little warm water to the batter.  Sounds good to me!  Or blueberries.  I was never big on chocolate chips.  You?

That’s what I got for now…..

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Words 9.16

 Words Twice a Week        9.16

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.

Some thoughts on some of the lectionary texts for this week – Proper 20

Proverbs 30.10-31

+ The Good Wife!  First and foremost, while we enjoy this reading, it is quite problematic.  It comes from a patriarchal culture, and places unrealistically high expectations on the wife, while her husband spends time (doing what?) with the elders at the gate.  The “Love People, Use Things” book encourages us to lower expectations but raise standards.  He notes John Wooden telling his players to spend less time looking at the scoreboard, and focus more on playing well.  So anyway, the Texts for Preaching book suggests it is “astonishing” that the passage is even in the lectionary!

+ it’s an acrostic, so there isn’t really too much in the way of structure.  Note that it is the second half of “an oracle” by King Lemuel’s mother.  Kind of like Polonius to Laertes!

+ one possible way is to identify Wisdom as the wife.  Wisdom has been personified through the book of Proverbs, and here at the end she is brought into the intimate relationship of wife. 

Psalm 1

+ I just love the first verse – happy are those who do not follow the advice of the wicked, or even worse, walk along with them, or still worse, sit down and settle in with them!

+ a life lived in indifference to God’s teaching, separated from the Law, will not end in happiness and well-being.

+ from Texts – the study of Torah is not just embracing rules; it is a playful, courageous interpretive act where the community must decide dimensions of God’s commands in new circumstances.  Again, the Love People book notes that life changes, what worked for us yesterday may not work for us tomorrow.  Where would you say some of the biggest issues of interpretation lie for us today – Abortion?  Sexuality?  Wealth inequality issues?  Political tribalism?  Climate?  Population?

+ “there is a moral shape to life in the world and those who ignore it, the wicked, are not so much “bad people”, they are simply inconsequential, like the chaff.”  You agree?  Love People suggests that on a long enough time line, pain is temporary.  Well, maybe….

+ who “stands” in the congregation of the righteous today?  Who do we listen to?  Who do we (try to, at least) ignore?

+ the tree standing by the water – powerful image in these drought weary times.

Jeremiah 11.18-20

+ kind of an odd little passage, in some ways.  Jeremiah says “I did not know it was against me that they devised schemes…”.  What did he think was going on?  Who do we see as “against us”?  Is it too much to read this in terms of anti-vaccination issues?

+ It has the nice line “like a gentle lamb led to the slaughter…”

+ Jeremiah commits his cause to the Lord.  What do we commit to the Lord?

+ How might this passage be heard by an Afghan interpreter trying to get out?

Mark 9.30-37

+ Jesus and the 12 are “on the way” – 1) on the way to Jerusalem and the crucifixion, and 2) modeling the life, the journey, of faithful discipleship.

+ note the focus in Jesus’ words is mainly on the suffering and crucifixion.  The resurrection is mentioned, but almost as an afterthought.  It fits the general theme of this gospel, which ends with the disciples silent and afraid.  That’s also where they are in this story!  How much of our attention is on the crucifixion, how much on the resurrection?  How many folks show up for Easter service as compared with those for Good Friday? 

+ “who is the greatest”, and what should they expect?  Preaching The Revised Common Lectionary notes a poll of tithers in a mainline denomination – 90% expected to “get something back – snappy sermons, rousing choral anthems, smooth pastoral visits, etc.”

+ even after their failure, Jesus continues to instruct those who are called and commissioned.

+ the disciples (often) find Jesus’ words baffling.  Are we so sure we understand them?  What would be some of his more confusing statements for you?

+ those who would be great must be servants, welcoming the powerless.  How well are we doing at that?  Who is missing from our picture?  Why?  Is there anything we could do about that?  Let’s get down to the nitty-gritty – are the poor ever going to show up in our church building or service?

+ How might this passage be heard by someone unemployed, homeless, hungry – especially with kids?

That’s what I got for now…..

Comments are moderated – by me – and may take a day to appear

Words 9.3

 Heading to camp - may get something done, or maybe not! We'll just have to see!