Words Twice a Week 11.25
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.
I hope you had a good Thanksgiving. And are ready to start off on a new liturgical year.
Some introductory thoughts and questions on some of the lessons for Sunday – the First Sunday of Advent.
Jeremiah 33.14-16
+ here’s an interesting note – this passage is basically a repetition of Jer 23.5-6. There’s a suggestion that Jer 33 perhaps comes from a later time when disciples of Jeremiah continued his thought and words in new contexts. Kind of like preachers today bringing to life the words of earlier writers. Anyway, what is also interesting is that when we have gone through the whole year and arrive at Christ the King/Reign of Christ Sunday – Nov 20, 2022 – the Old Testament lesson is going to be Jer 23.1-6. What goes around comes around. Or as Martin Reinhardt says in one of his songs – We live in circles and spiral through time. Of course for Christians this plays off against the idea that reality is “heading somewhere” and God will one day get us there.
+ The days are coming when the Lord will fulfill the promise. But those days are not (were not) here yet – Israel was going through hard times. And the above note suggests that there were perhaps a series of “hard times” periods. How about us? What kind of times are going through? Some writers today raise the image of “The Long Descent”. How does that fit in?
+ Is our life shaped by the reality that Jesus has come, or by the hope/expectation that he will come again, or simply by the promise of God to be with us until the end, and in fact to be the One who shapes that end?
+ note the theme of righteousness. God’s promise to David had rested on David’s sons being righteous.
+ What do we do when God’s promises don’t seem to be coming to reality? Wait and hope? Look for other possible meanings? Give up?
+ Before Jeremiah, the “Day of the Lord” was just judgment, a time of fear and sorrow. Jeremiah – in bad times, possibly in jail himself – encouraged people to see it instead as a time of salvation and the coming true of God’s promises. Of course, God’s judgment is always the tragic side of God’s justice.
Psalm 25.1-10
+ I don’t know – a lot of good stuff here, but it just seems to be one statement after another. I’ll have to look up in a book to see what this is all about.
+ ok, it’s an acrostic poem, ie, each line starts with the next letter of the alphabet. I wondered if that was the case.
+ it’s an individual lament in vs 1-7 with response (by the priest/worship leader?) in vs 8-10. If we look agt the whole psalm, vs 15-22 are a return to petitions, but now with having expressed confidence in God. So vs 10-11 are really the center of the psalm, and express the central thought – God is love and faithfulness.
+ ok – that all helps!
+ note it calls on God to remember God’s promises and “remember not” our sinful ways. What does it mean to ask God to remember – do we really think God forgets?
1 Thessalonians 3.9-13
+ Another stewardship passage – How can we thank God enough for you and for all your faithfulness!
+ and a pandemic psalm – if only we could be together face to face!
+ the back story is that Paul had established the church at Thessalonica (? the spell checker doesn’t seem particularly comfortable with this, I guess I could check a dictionary.) only a few months previously. So he is impressed by their faithfulness and enthusiasm but concerned that they are “new believers” facing hard times and persecution. What do you think – is it easier tyo face troubles as a new believer or one with years of experience? And what difference does it make that we have 2000 years of Christian history and tradition behind us?
+ two themes – love and holiness. Love within the community and love for all; ministry and mission. Where are we doing well, where could we do better? And holiness – it is something that comes from God, not just from our efforts. John Wesley expected not to become holy in this life, but to “be made holy”.
Luke 21.25-36
+ There will be signs. What threatening signs do you see today? What hopeful signs? Here’s a nice little piece on signs from Robert Raines – God speaks to us in [God’s] own special sign language – a baby. Not much. A small December child. A baby is birth, beginnings, potential without guarantee. A baby is helpless but not hopeless. A baby is someone to watch. A baby is the future appearing now. Are there baby-signs from God signaling hope to us watchers on the hillside?
+ “When you see these things start to happen” – What “things” or signs would you act on, what would you do?
+ What things suggest that the kingdom of God/Abode of God/Time of God’s Peace is near?
+ “this generation will not pass away before these things happen” – how do we understand that?
+ “Be on guard so that your hearts are not weighed down with...the worries of this life.” Don’t be so concerned with the dangers and threats and sorrows that you miss the sparks of hope? Alternatively, don’t let the seasonal frenzy entrap you so that you miss the real joy.
+ Do you remember, there used to be an outfit called Alternatives who put out Advent materials under the heading Whose Birthday Is It, Anyway? I wonder if they are still in operation.
+ it’s not a very “Christmasy” word!
+ note that Luke places this “apocalyptic discourse” as a public speech in the temple – Matthew and Mark tell it as a private word on the Mount of Olives.
+ apocalyptic – “used unimaginably large language to anticipate unimaginably important events.” How do we deal with the literal language?
+ and how do we think about the connection between the first and second coming – the birth and the “second coming”?
+ and playing off the Thess passage, how do we think about a third “coming” – the “existential coming as Jesus comes into our present reality?
Activity for the week – write a 7 line acrostic prayer (A-G) that reflects the themes of these lessons.
That’s what I got for now…..
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