Words Twice a Week 2.10
Some thoughts on some of the lessons for this Sunday – Sixth after Epiphany
Jer 17.5-10
+ trust in mortals vs trust in God. How does this play out in real life? When do we trust in God or trust in ourselves, in human leaders? What different things do we do, what different decisions do we make? When we get to Luke and the power radiating out from Jesus, some people would suggest the faith experience has gotten watered down.
+ “God tests the mind, searches the heart, so that each gets what they deserve.” Does it really say that? If so, how would that sit with you? Do you see that working out in real life?
+ “trust” is not belief in propositions, but commitment, devotion.
+ the two choices lead to two consequences or “rewards” – an arid life as a shrub or an abundant life as a tree!
+ one writer notes “the seductions of human self-sufficiency”. I feel much better about stuff I can do myself than stuff I have to ask for help with.
+ vs9 The heart is devious above all else…Well that’s a really unhappy lesson for the day before Valentines Day!!! For Jeremiah, the heart is a figure for all that is right or wrong with human will and conduct. And he sees the heart laced with evil – greed, fear, longing for power, self-centeredness, “me first”… How does that fit with telling someone you love that they are in your heart? Of course the heart is also laced with love, caring, self-giving, etc. It’s like the two wolves - which one do we listen to. But it is more than that – God will cleanse and heal the broken heart and the sin-sick soul.
+ the tree image – something of a two way experience, trees also gather water.
Psalm 1
+ nice progression – “follow the advice of the wicked, take the path that sinners tread, and finally sit down and settle in with the scoffers” – if we listen to the Law instead, we avoid that progression.
+ where do we “take advice from”?
+ “meditating on the Law day and night” – what would that look like? What about football, what about tv shows, novels, poetry, dance, drama, work(!) – in short – life?
+ trees and water – a two way thing. Trees “gather” water.
+ scholars suggest Ps 1 is something of a heading for the whole book, and that probably Jeremiah influenced it, that the psalmist wrote a poem extending the lines from Jeremiah.
+ if so, it would be important to consider what the psalmist means by “happy”. The happy person is one who is open to God’s guidance/Torah/instruction and thus finds reliable resources for life in all circumstances.
+ several writers note that “taken in isolation” both Jeremiah and Psalm 1 “fail the test of empirical observation”. (As do Jesus’ words below. There is an eschatological cast to this. ”Today these words have been fulfilled in your hearing.” The Kingdom of God/The Time of God’s Peace” is both today and to come. How do we think about that, talk about that? This is NOT an easily answered question!!)
+ the chaff – do we see this happening, or will it really take some kind of a divine intrusion? (and if so, does it really matter?) And note that the chaff here simply blows away. There’s nothing about any fire. Here’s a prayer
Eternal God,
we sink our toes down deep into your mercy and grace,
and draw life from you like a tree by the water.
In your world,
chaff became simply the building blocks of new soil.
In our world, chaff too often becomes waste.
Help us think about this. Amen.
1 Cor 15.12-20
+ Jesus raised, resurrection of the dead – how do we think about these things?
Luke 6.17-26
+ so much has happened in these last few weeks in our reading of the Gospel of Luke -
After Jesus preached in the synagogue (our reading from two weeks ago)
+ he cast out a demon in the synagogue
+ he healed Simon’s mother in law (wait a minute – we haven’t met any Simon yet!)
+ he did more exorcisms and healings (they were an overlapping categories in that day.)
+ when people entreated him to stay with them he said “I must preach to other cities…”
Then in last week’s reading, the large crowd and the miraculous catch of fish and the call of Simon (although there really wasn’t any “call”, Jesus just said “This is the way life is going to be…”) Then
+ he healed a leper
+ he healed the paralytic lowered down through the roof.
+ he teamed up with Levi the tax collector
+ he talked about not putting new patches on old garments, new wine in old wineskins
+ he and the disciples “picked grain on the sabbath”
+ he healed a man on the sabbath in the synagogue
(obviously all of this stirred up the Pharisees who were watching him)
+ he went up the mountain to pray and chose 12 of the disciples (learners, followers) to be apostles (one who are/will be sent out).
So then he comes down to a level place where the crowds are, and the disciples/apostles are with him, and he heals and preaches.
+ the image of power going out from Jesus – almost a Tolkien kind of thing. One writer notes “the charged atmosphere” of vs17-19. Is that how we come to church, to Jesus? Where/when/how do we perceive the saving/healing power of God? How do we think about prayers for healing? Another writer notes that Jesus first healed everyone and then preached to them.
+ four blessings, four woes. And in Luke, they are not “dressed up” as they are in Matthew. Luke doesn’t talk about the “poor in spirit” (hey, that could be me) – he talks about “the poor”. Richard Swanson does this fantastic job of making this clear – “Some would interpret poverty as if it were symbolic and hunger as if it sere some kind of abstract metaphor for wanting to be more “godlike.”...Sometimes just by playing on the embarrassing fact of life that everyone thinks of themselves as relatively impoverished when measured on the scale of the “truly wealthy.” ...Or themselves as the “healthy wealthy” as opposed to the “arrogant wealthy”! Jesus says that the poor are blessed and so are the hungry. He doesn’t say anything about “feeling poor” or “feeling hungry”. He’s talking about actual poverty and actual pit-of-the-stomach hunger. If you don’t have either one, you aren’t included in the blessing. How strange.”
+ Fred Craddock notes that there is no contingency, no urging, no exhortations to act in one way or another. These are not proverbs, or even predictions. On the lips of Jesus they are “performative.” In other words, they are changing the world. Again there is an eschatological cast over all of these lessons – this is what is happening because God is doing something. What does God need to do to make these words square with our reality.
+ again, note that the poor have the time of God’s peace “now”; the hungry, the sad “will be” filled, comforted. Does that make a difference? The Time of God’s Peace is future but it is also now. It is always “today” for Jesus’ followers. This is not about “pie in the sky” it is about the Time of God’s Peace in our midst now.
+ so how can we think about this in more than just Feeding America? What kind of a world would make sense of what Jesus says? What prayer would you say to encompass these thoughts?
That’s what I got for now…..
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