Words 11.18

 Words Twice a Week        11.18, well, 19 by the time I got it done!

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 introductory thoughts on some of the lessons for this Sunday – Christ the King/Reign of Christ.

2 Sam 23.1-7  “Last words of David”

+ “Son of Jesse” and Great grandson of Ruth; “anointed of God” (by Samuel, son of Hannah)

+ context/back-story: in the last several chapters we have had the bit with Absalom, political strife among the tribes, a famine leading to the sacrifice of some of Saul’s people, wars in which David is judged “too old to go into battle.”

+ vs 3 and 4 are actually God’s words about as just and righteous king.  In vs 5 David asks “Is not my house like this?”  Confidence or doubt?  How do confidence and doubt fit together in our faith?  Comparing with the Song of Hannah at the beginning of 1 Samuel, she ends with strong word of protection for David’s line.  David’s song ends a little more conditionally.  As the psalm will say, it depends on the descendants keeping faith.

+ the morning sun and the rain show the cosmic dimensions of justice and power.  Our actions affect the sun and the rain.  Ask the folks in British Columbia!

+ “David rule” is to rule justly, caring for the weak and the poor.  How is that going today?

+ Looking to Advent – there is the quality of “here we go, round again”, but “like the fish in the stream, we are confined to this world of injustice and sin and can little imagine the reign of Christ.  But the realities of God do not come and go, they simply are.”  - Texts for Preaching

Ps 132.1-12 (13-18)

+ David endured hardships (?) but said her would not rest until he had found a dwelling/resting place for God.  Did God need for him to do that?  In fact, didn’t God say God didn’t need David to do that?  What all is involved in finding or assigning a place to God? Where does God dwell/rest?  In human hearts?

+ note that it all depends on David’s sons keeping the covenant.  What does our democracy/civilization depend on?  Are we in danger of losing it?  One writer notes “In a democracy, it is not just the king, but every citizen.”

+ another writer notes “religious reality does not easily match up with political legitimacy.”

+ “After presence/place, it is Torah/obedience that matters.”

+ In what world does it make sense for Mike McCarthy to make an 8 hour speech?  When Abraham Lincoln could say everything that needed to be said in 300 words, 2-3 minutes?

Daniel 7.9-10, 13-14

+ just for fun, because it’s one of “The Night Visions” – sounds like it ought to be a serial on Masterpiece Theatre!

+ note that in vs 1-8 the four beasts appear, in 11-12 the beasts are destroyed.

+ Prophetic visions are generally concerned with immediate issues, apocalyptic visions are concerned with global history and radical transformation – ie, end/completion of things!

+ and apocalyptic visions are generally more exotic – thrones, “white as snow” (in a world without Maytag, what would that suggest?  Someone once noted that I was not a manual laborer because my hands were clean and soft.), fire!, a thousand thousand, and even ten thousand times ten thousand (which is only a hundred million – we’re used to bigger numbers today!)

+ “one like a human being” – what did that mean to Daniel and hearers?  What does it suggest to us – angel? Messiah? Jesus?

Rev 1.4b-8

+ Grace to you and peace from – in other words, this grace and peace rests upon – God who is, was, will be, the Alpha and Omega (from vs 8); and Jesus, faithful witness (passion/crucifixion), first born of the dead (resurrection), and ruler of kings of earth (exaltation).  We would have to say that “ruler of kings of earth” is more _______ than descriptive!  Unless we take it to mean rulers of earth are evaluated by how they live up to Jesus’ words.

+ who loves us, frees us from sin, makes us a kingdom/priests – so that our lives are evaluated against Jesus’ words as well.  Again, in a democracy it is not just the king!

+ he is coming and all will see, some will wail.  Who will that be?

+ “So it is to be.  Amen.” - church’s hope derives from utter confidence that Jesus will return. How do we think about that?

John 18.33-37

+ second scene in Jesus-Pilate conversation.  As always in John, it features irony, misunderstanding.  Again from a week ago (?) - a glimpse beyond what’s going on to what’s really going on.

+ while all others scramble around, Jesus stands firm, calm, poised.  He is in control, especially in this gospel.  No one takes his life – he gives it.

+ Fred Craddock reminds us that while Annas and Ciaphas and Pilate scramble and muddle around, the real trial is with Peter at the charcoal fire.  Jesus talks about Truth and Peter denies that he knows him.

+ Pilate asks “Am I a Jew?” - of course not, but he is casting his lot with the Jewish leaders and will end up boxed in by them.  Note Pilate is going back and forth because the Jewish leaders will not come in to him in order not to be contaminated before Passover, while they scheme to put Jesus to death.

+ Jesus is a king (Pilate will inscribe that on the cross!) but his kingdom is not from/of this world.  IThat does not mean it has no role to play in human affairs, but rather that it’s power, it’s authenticity, comes from somewhere else.  It does not rest on this world’s values.  Where does our government’s power come from?

+ Power and Truth – and “speaking truth to power”.

So Christ the King/Reign of Christ – a time to reflect on who/what rules our lives, and a time to rest in our confidence/hope that God is bringing something about.

Here’s a word from Frederick Buechner on Truth -

A particular truth can be stated in words – that life is better than death and love than hate, that there is a god or is not, that light travels faster than sound and cancer can sometimes be cured if you discover it in time.  But truth itself is another matter, the truth that Pilate asked for, tired and bored and depressed by his long day.  Truth itself cannot be stated.  Truth simply is, and is what is, the good with the bad, the joy with the despair, the presence and absence of God, the swollen eye, the bird pecking the cobbles for crumbs.  Before it is a word, the gospel that is truth is silence, a pregnant silence in its ninth month, and in answer to Pilate’s question, Jesus keeps silent, and even with his hands tied behind him manages somehow to hold silence out like a terrible gift. 

That’s what I got for now…..

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