Words Twice a Week 1.6
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.
Here are some thoughts on some of the lessons we might encounter today (The Epiphany) and this Sunday – First after the Epiphany/Baptism of Jesus.
Isaiah 43.1-7
+ words to a people lost in exile? Entering the third year of a pandemic? Facing the breakdown of community and culture and institutions?
+ the backstory in Is 42.18-25 – Israel is suffering because it is in fact God who has been against them. Isaiah now says “Don’t be afraid” because God will no longer be against them. Why? Because God created this people for intimate communion/relationship and that requires fear to be banished. You can’t be close with someone you are afraid of!
+ “God has rescued us” – this is something that has already happened(?) and will make a difference in the future. We can think about what it must have meant to original hearers – how do we think about what it means for us today?
+ vs4 – God gave up nations – what does that mean?
+ the sons and daughters are created to bring honor to God. How do we help with that? How do we hinder it? When we tolerate a world in which sons and daughters live in poverty, hungry and homeless, growing up malnourished if they grow up at all?
+ vs1 “I have called you by name” and vs7 “they are called by my name.” Those who are redeemed are also claimed. Nice.
+ How Firm a Foundation – and “I’ll never, no never, no never, forsake.” Just a nice, powerful hymn. I remember hearing one of our first Black female (United Methodist) bishops finishing up a sermon by moving back and forth across the room reciting it, along with half the congregation. Moving.
Isaiah 60.1-6
+ “God’s glory will appear over you.” God’s glory “on the way down to us” or God’s glory “emanating from a faithful people”? Probably the one and then the other, at least in the original saying/hearing.
+ vs5 “See and be radiant; your heart shall thrill and rejoice (swell with pride – CEV)”. Does that go with vs4 and the sons and daughters arriving, or with the rest of vs5&6 – the abundance of the seas and the wealth of the nations? If it’s the sons and daughters – what about the (your) sons and daughters causes your heart to swell with pride? And have you let them know? And if it’s the abundance of the sea and the wealth of the nations that causes your heart to swell with pride – hmmm.
+ Of course, scholars suggest this part of Isaiah (Third Isaiah, they call it) comes from a time after the return from Exile, when the Temple is rebuilt, but the people are still living I a certain poverty. So how would different peoples hear it today?
+ the world in darkness; the coming light. What thoughts, ideas, issues come to your mind?
+ “Arise” – an imperative or an invitation. Or both?
Psalm 29 – Don’t like this psalm. If you’ve followed WTAW for any length of time, you’ve probably heard about that already.
Here’s what I wrote last year -
Ok, I don’t really like Psalm 29. I used to, I used to think it was really cool. We read it adding one more group of people with each verse so it got louder and louder and ended with a great crash. I always wanted to get a couple of tympani (kettle drums, we used to call them) to end with. But then I read this article (“Rescuing Earth from a Storm God, Ps 29 and 96-97”, by Norman C Habel [he was one of the moving forces behind the “Season of Creation” that many churches observe towards the end of the Season after Pentecost] and Geraldine Avent) about how Ps 29 portrays God as (ecologically, environmentally) violent and destructive, and how Ps 96.7 – Ps 97.6 has a similar theme and structure, but presents God as “creating, nurturing, restoring”. “In Ps 29 Earth is reduced to a battered object; in the second hymn (Ps 96, 97) Earth becomes a subject, a “thou” who rejoices and celebrates...In terms of the eco-justice principles reflected in our approach, Psalm 29 devalues Earth by treating it as a domain for divine power plays, while Psalms 96-97 acclaim the participation of – and consequent valuing of – the entire Earth community in a rich response to YHWH’s advent. It is especially obvious that the first psalm negates and silences the voice of Earth while the second makes the voices of Earth and the wider Earth community (a community that includes everything from the fish of the sea and the trees of the forest to the skies above and all peoples below) central to its call to celebrate.” So ever since I’ve had issues with Ps 29.
Years ago I did a series called “Earthwords – Creation flavored Thoughts on the Lectionary Texts.“ Here’s what I wrote in 2010 – (there’s a little bit of overlap – feel free to skip it all if you’re tired of this rant!)
Readers of Earthwords will remember that I am not particularly enamored with the Psalm. Vs1-2 urge us to "ascribe glory and strength to the Lord", and then the rest of the psalm says the reason is because God is powerful enough to really batter the earth. Is this thunderstorm meant to be a preview of things to come? In a really good piece ("Rescuing Earth from a Storm God: Psalms 29 and 96-97" in The Earth Story in the Psalms and the Prophets) Norman Habel and Geraldine Avent encourage us to see in Psalms 96 and 97 an image of a God whose power is to be intimate with the Earth community and to bring health and blessing rather than violence and destruction.
Form-wise, while the "thunderstorm" format complete with thunderous crack of "Glory" is novel, it doesn't hold up over 20-30 years of repetition. Even the alliterative "flashing forth flames of fire" gets stale after a while. At least that's my take on it. I admit I was rather enamored of the poem when I was just starting out in the ministry, even considered trying to bring in a tympani for the "Glory". Maybe trying to get too cute with it has spoiled it for me…
“Breaking the cedars of Lebanon” - again, it's more impressive to grow a tree than to break one off, he says, looking at the "broken off balsam of Marquette County still drying out decorated in our living room."
“Skipping like a calf or a young wild ox” - a God of powerful love sets all the world "a-skipping"? Or maybe keeps all the world off balance?
“The Lord sits enthroned over it all” - or is the Lord intimately involved with it all? I go more with the latter.
Each Earthwords entry had a prayer – here’s the one from 2010:
Eternal God,
we ascribe to you the power of creation,
we ascribe to you the experience of evolvement.
A gathering of an interconnected Earth community,
we ascribe to you praise and astonishment
for the world you fashion and guide.
Baptize us anew with wonder and wisdom
to find our way within it
to your side.
(Was that supposed to be “involvement?”) Nice either way!)
OK – enough on Ps 29
Matthew 2.1-12
+ The “Wise Men” arrive – although why we call them “wise” is a mystery. They were warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, but shouldn’t they have known better tha to go see Herod in the first place?
+ They went home by a different route – it’s fun to think about going home on different streets. Are there other way we might go home from church, from the manger, differently. The bit above about “skipping like a calf”?
+ as we think about “getting back to life’ after/in this pandemic – how will we live differently?
+ they go home, out of the story, and are not hear from, or of, again. Frederick Buechner tells of a day when he was particularly “down/depressed” and out of nowhere and for no particular reason a friend/acquaintance came uninvited, unexpected from several states away – they spent the day together doing nothing all that significant, and the friend left. And it was one of the most significant, substantial days of Buechner’s life. Has someone ever come unexpectedly into your life bearing a gift and then disappeared?
+ Herod and the innocents. I know it’s not in this lesson, but we know it’s there. Brian Mclaren in We Make The Road By Walking links this to old men sitting safely and sending young men and women into war. Or we could extend it to the well off sacrificing/slaughtering/ignoring the children who are cold, hungry, homeless…
+ a powerful few lines from Fred Craddock – “Herod died, says Matthew, but in a real sense he is still alive, the personification of all the forces arrayed against the way of God’s love and grace in the world. The church should be realistic enough to know he is there and he is powerful; the church should be trusting enough to know he is not finally powerful.” And I would just add that we should recognize and confess that there is some of Herod in each of us, individually and congregationally.
Luke 3:15-17, 21-22
+ It’s not in this lesson – I’m not sure if I mentioned it before or not, but I love the way Tom Key deals with 3.9 – the ax laid to the root – in The Cotton Patch Gospel. He brings out a chainsaw!
+ 3.15-17 is about the one who is coming; 3.21-22 is about the baptism of Jesus. In between, John drops out of the story and ends up in jail. So it never really says who baptized Jesus, and at the same time it foreshadows what those who sign on with Jesus might be up against!
+ It’s interesting to ponder John’s expectations (fire and smoke) and Jesus’ experience – prayer.
+ and again, I know I mentioned it before, but the unquenchable fire – is that a bad/threatening image, or a good/campfire with s’mores kind of a thing?
+ the Holy Spirit – even in these few verses there does not seem to be consistency. Vs16 connects the Holy Spirit with a prophetic, perhaps cataclysmic vision, vs22 connects it with the peaceful communion and relationship between God and Jesus. How do you think about the Holy Spirit?
+ “You are my son” – who heard that? Just Jesus? The whole crowd? Note that as Matthew tells the story, the voice says “This is my son...”
That’s what I got for now…..
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