Words 3.24

 Words Twice a Week       3.24

So this seems to be turning into Words Once a Week – it’s just that starting from the “Email a Day” experience then into the Words Twice a Week, we have gone through the  year twice, and I keep thinking “Been there, done that”.  And yeah, today was the birthday of Fanny Crosby, which is a big deal, but when you have told the story twice already, it’s hard to fire up to do it again.  So I think we’ll let the Sunday/Monday “Words” ride for a couple more weeks, and see what might develop.  In the meantime, here are some thoughts on some of the lessons for this Sunday, the Fourth in Lent

Joshua 5:9-12  

+ after crossing over the Jordan (on dry land even though it was apparently the rainy season [3.15]!), led by the ark and the priests and the 12 elders, the people celebrate the first passover in the promised land.  Obviously a lot of connections with the first Passover in Egypt, and the Crossing of the Sea.

+ first they had to circumcise all the men who had not been born and not circumcised while they were wandering (and wondering!) in the wilderness.  I don’t know why they didn’t circumcise the babies as they went.  Anyway, after they circumcised the guys, they had to rest and heal.

+ “the reproach of Egypt” – I’m not clear what that’s about.  What do you think?  One writer suggests it’s a declaration of freedom.

+ and they celebrated Passover on the 14th day of the month, exactly on time (Ex 12.18).  And they ate the produce of the land.  Of course who planted the produce?  Well, the peoples they are about to do away with.  So – yeah, problematic.  Kind of like the colonists eating the Native American’s food and then killing them off.  (Calls to mind last week’s word from Paul – “they sat down to eat and rose up to dance!”)

+ and then I love it, if you read on the next paragraph, Joshua comes face to face with “the commander of the Lord’s army”, and lo and behold, the ground he was standing on was holy as well!

+ As we think about the land on which we stand, what comes to mind.  

Psalm 32  

+ “Happy is the one whose sin is forgiven,…when I declared not my sin, my body wasted away.”  Stuff really does weigh on us and keep us from living our best life.

+ “when I acknowledged my sin,...thou dids’t forgive.”  One writer said that you can’t really know the joy of the faith until you take seriously the reality that you are a sinner and are forgiven.  I guess it was this guy named Jerome Ellison -

The relief of being accepted by God as a sinner can never be known by one who never thought himself unaccepted or sinful. And yet today one is always hearing of “good Christians.” There were no good Christians in the first church, only sinners. Peter never let himself or his hearers forget his betrayal in the hour of the cockcrow. James, stung by the memory of his years of stubborn resistance, warned the church members: “Confess your faults to one another.” Today the last place where one can be candid about one’s faults is in church. In a bar, yes; in a church, no. I know; I’ve tried both places.

+ “Be not like a horse or a mule, without understanding”  Well, I would have to say that as a species, we have pretty much behaved more like the horse or mule than not.  It just staggers the mind to think of what could be accomplished with even any small fraction of what we humans have spent on weapons and fighting.  It really does.

+ “Many are the pangs of the wicked” – think so?  Or are they laughing all the way to the bank?

+ vs 11 – be glad, rejoice, shout for joy.  It seems like the essential command, even if you are going down, (as a congregation, as a Christian, as a species, as a country) “shout for joy”.  Why?

2 Corinthians 5:16-21  

+ vs 16 – “we regard no one from a human point of view”.  What’s that mean – that our point of view is no longer just a human one, or that we see others as not just human?

+ “if anyone is in Christ, they are a new creation” – How has/is that worked/working out in your life.

Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32

+ context – two groups, the tax collectors/sinners are coming to hear, the Pharisees/scribes are complaining.  So Jesus tells both groups this parable.

+ in fact he tells three parables, we usually speak of them as the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the lost son, but that does us a disservice.  One writer labels them as the diligent shepherd, the diligent sweeper, and the loving (diligent?) father.  Some folks suggest the shepherd and the sweeper have maybe been inserted here.  We could read right from the tax collectors/sinners and the Pharisees/scribes right to “the loving father of two sons” and it would in some ways be smoother.  The lectionary leaves the shepherd and the sweeper out. Kind of too bad, the sweeper is another female image for God.

+ Robert Ferrar Capon notes that all three stories end with a party!

+ and we note that we stand with both groups/sons – in our sinfulness and in our smug self-assurance.

+ grace offends fairness

+ we all know this story pretty well, in vact maybe even too well.  But note that the father (God?) had two sons, loved two sons, went out to two sons, and was generous to two sons. The father goes out to the older son, does not disagree or belittle him, extends generosity to the “son who was lost within the household” just as he did to the “son who was lost outside the household.”

+ the younger son’s decline compared to the father’s extravagant welcome - “sinners can return, but to bread and water, not the fatted calf.”  And “does not forgiving look very much like condoning?”

+ Fred Craddock notes that the father twice says “this my son/this your brother was dead and is alive; he was lost and is found.”  Craddock says following the rule of “end stress” (ie, putting the most important term at the end of the sentence) you would expect “he was lost and is found; he was dead and is alive.”  Reversing the terms suggests that there is a condition worse than death – being lost; and a condition better than life – to be found.”  I think that is worth thinking about for a while.  We were watching an episode of Wallender, and there was this attractive young woman who had tried to commit suicide, and in the hospital afterwards Wallender is saying how it must be confusing, and she must be feeling this or that or the other, and she looks at him and says – “It’s not that complicated – I just didn’t want to be alive any more.”

+ again, Paul said if anyone is in Christ, they are a new creation.  Not just that they are alive, but they are found.  How does that strike you?  

+ the legalities of the situation – apparently the younger son would have inherited 1/3 of the farm and the older son would have gotten 2/3.  So when the father essentially “drops dead” at the beginning of the story, did the older son get his 2/3’s.  Did the old man hang around and not let the older son really take over?  Richard Swanson looks at this story through the lens of birth order characteristics.  He asks – how long do you think the younger son will hang around before asking for another chunk of the farm to sell and waste?  And whose farm is it at that point?  Would the father give away another 1/3 of what rightfully belongs to the older son? What actually belongs to you?

+ Robert Farrar Capon sees this as a “veritable festival of death”!  (He is big on death as all that you have to do to get into heaven/God’s party.)  The father basically drops dead at the beginning, the younger son realizes he’s dead when he is envying the pigs, the older son refuses to die and so is in danger of missing the party.

+ he (Capon) also notes that “confession is subsequent to forgiveness”.  The younger son has his prayer of confession all memorized, but before he can give it, the father has come to him, embraced him and kissed him.  We used to sometimes have the words of assurance/forgiveness before the prayer of confession.  It is only when we know that we are loved and will be forgiven, and maybe even experience that forgiveness, that we are able to confess our deepest sins.  How do you think about that?

Here’s a prayer from the lectionary website – I think I would fiddle with it a bit to more obviously reflect both sons (both sides of our humanity) but it seems like a good place to start

Eternal lover of our wayward race,

we praise you for your ever-open door.

You open your arms to accept us

even before we turn to meet your welcome; 

you invite us to forgiveness 

even before our hearts are softened to repentance.

Hold before us the image of our humanity made new, 

that we may live in Jesus Christ, 

the model and the pioneer of your new creation. Amen.

That’s what I got for now…..

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Words 3.17

 Words Twice a Week       3.17

Wait a minute – what happened to 3.13?  Well, it didn’t happen, that’s what!  Sorry.

Here’s some thoughts on some of the lectionary texts for this Sunday – Third in Lent

Isaiah 55. 1-9

+ and just because today is St Patrick’s Day, years ago I rewrote this passage into “Old Irish Priest-speak”!  I’ll try to get it inserted.

+ + +

+ "Come buy wine and milk without money and without price.  Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy?” What do you spend your money on that doesn’t satisfy?  What do you labor for that really isn’t worth it?  Some of this is pocketbook issues, some is lifestyle?

+ context – note that this is the epilogue of Is 40-55 (often referred to as “Second Isaiah”, which started with “Comfort, comfort my people...”).  The people are in exile in Babylon, “far away” from home, “promised land”, and temple, and God?  The prophet announces the Good News that their separation, suffering, is coming to an end, new life is just over the horizon. Do we feel like COVID is coming to an end?  That “normality” might be just over the horizon? Of course God is not calling the people to just go back to the way things were before – that was what got them into this mess in the first place.  (vs 7 – let the wicked forsake their way…)  We long to get back to the way things were, but then again, there are some things that were not so good about the way things were and need to be changed.  What can you think of that needs to be changed?

+ one writer notes that the lesson should really be extended to vs 11 or even 13, so that it ends with images of God’s closeness, not God’s distance!  Makes sense – when we’ve been doing the canticle in Morning Prayer, it continues to vs 11.  

+ and why don’t we flock to God’s offer of new life?  It calls to my mind the invitation to the Wedding Feast/Great Banquet and the RSVP “Pray hold me excused, I cannot come.”

+ God will make (another?) covenant – touching on the image of David.  One writer finds this kind of interesting because the Davidic dynasty had kind of disintegrated.  I guess the thought is more theological than political.  Don’t you wish we could focus more on the theological than the political these days!

+ just a note that the images shifts from eating to hearing in vs 3.

+ the rain and snow have come down from heaven – now it’s time for sunshine and warmth! Where do you hear God’s word in life today?  What effect does it have?   Is it accomplishing God’s purpose?

+ “We shall go out in joy” – is that how we leave home?  Church?  The table?  The mountain and the hills are singing, along with Julie Andrews!

+ Cypress instead of thorns, myrtle instead of brier – veggies instead of crabgrass or goutweed?

Luke 13:1-9

+ context: “at that very time” – Jesus has just talked about casting fire on the earth, about setting father against son, daughter against mother, about settling with your accuser on the way to the magistrate.

+ the Galileans who suffered (well, died) because of human cruelty; the 18 Jerusalem dwellers on whom the tower fell died from natural causes – Jesus says don’t focus on the why or on the who (us or them) – the fact is “you will all likewise perish”.

+ note both groups died suddenly – they didn’t have time to repent.

+ English author Graham Greene wrote a book about whether there was time to repent “between the saddle and the ground” – or something like that.  I read it for a class in college.  Don’t really remember the book, just the phrase.  

+ “Unless you repent” – even if you repent, you are going to die, but maybe not perish?  Is there a difference?

+ if you link this with the parable that follows, the issue is not so much the living or dying, but the reality that judgment, the end, comes and the time to repent/change is limited.

+ both of the “killings” of verses 1-4 happened in Jerusalem, where Jesus is headed, and the time is running out.

+ “Jesus does not dispute or affirm the connection between sin and suffering.  He simply says “We will all perish likewise, unless we repent.”

+ Fred Craddock summarizes – “God’s mercy is still talking to God’s judgment.”

That’s what I got for now…..

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Words 3.10

 Words Twice a Week       3.10

Some thoughts on some of the lectionary texts for this Sunday – Second in Lent

And how is lent going for you?  I am actually doing some of this at the library.  First time in 2 years that I have sat down and logged in from there.  And I have been doing Morning Prayer with a church in New York, and maybe now with some people at St Paul’s.

Genesis 15:1-12, 17-18  

+ So ok, whenever we encounter this idea that God is “giving the land” it is somewhat problematical.  There are already others living in that land.  In fact, the lectionary tactfully stops just before vs19-21 which list the current inhabitants.  So how do you “give the land” to someone (Abram and Sarai? Israel? New World colonizers?) without “taking the land” from someone else.  And how are we with that?  How do the Native Americans hear this?  We were discussing an article on Wendell Berry in The New Yorker with some friends -

Despite Berry’s veneration of his ancestors, he can be unsparing about their sins. “I am forever being crept up on and newly startled by the realization that my people established themselves here by killing or driving out the original possessors, by the awareness that people were once bought and sold here by my people, by the sense of the violence they have done to their own kind and to each other and to the earth,” he wrote in his 1968 essay “A Native Hill.”  He saw the rapacious practices of modern agribusiness, Big Coal, the military-industrial complex, and Wall Street as the perpetuation of “some intransigent destructiveness” that drove the European settlers in America.

+ and I love the line in The Sentence by Louise Erdrich – it’s about a Native American bookstore and one of the women who works there, who whenever someone starts to tell her about how “one of their ancestors befriended the Indians and the Indians were appreciative”, she replies with “So he gave the land back?”  No, he didn’t!

+ vs2,3  Seems to be a little confusion – just who does Abram think will be his heir?  Probably an indication that a couple of strands of tradition have been woven together.  Who are our/your heirs? What kind of a land are we leaving them?  There was a story on some news website (maybe Grist) about an “exurb” in Arizona that will have no water after the first of next year!  (They are using water haulers from a nearby city whose contract is being terminated.)

+ and it says “Abram believed God” – this is different from “believing in” God.  Which is easier – to believe God or to believe in God?  In the Morning Prayer lesson this morning we had the story of the man lowered down through the roof, and Jesus said to the Pharisees – “which is easier – to say your sins are forgiven or pick up your mat and go home?”  Do you ever have trouble “believing God”?  “Believing in God”?

+ vs9-17 this ritual.  Ancient, kind of weird.  Here’s kind of an off the wall thought – Genesis is going to go on and in the next couple of chapters talk about circumcision as the sign of the covenant.  We often use the terminology “cutting a covenant”.  Could this vision of animals from the Creation being cut in two be a suggestion of some kind of circumcision that God does?

+ Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary suggests that a covenant is not about a relationship, but about God’s obligation to Abram.  So now God is not free, salvation is secure because God is not free to abandon it.

+ On the other hand, God made a covenant with Adam, and with Noah.  Maybe the difference lies in that after those two covenants, the humans really screwed things up, and that God chose Abram and Sarai to be kind of the last chance at a restart before giving up on the whole human experiment?  Abram and Sarai are blessed to be a blessing – if their blessing doesn’t somehow extend to the rest of the humans? The creation? It will be “game over”.

+ vs6 “and he reckoned it to him as righteousness.”  -  The standard understanding is that God reckoned it to Abram as righteousness.  If we did think about “cutting a covenant” also establishing a relationship, could we also think of it as Abram reckoned it to God as righteousness.  (The pronouns would apparently allow either.)  How would you think about that?

+ one writer suggests this whole passage is about the difference between what God has promised and what we are experiencing.  Well, I can sure see lots of examples of that!

Psalm 27  

+ vs1-6 the psalmist expressed his/her belief in God, vs7-12 are a prayer to God, and vs13-14 again express trust, confidence in God.

+ nice words in the psalm – “The Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear…”

+ “evildoers, adversaries, foes” – who are these people for you.

+ “Hide not thy face from me…”  How does this square with the Isaiah’s fear that no one can see God and live?

+ “I believe that I shall see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.”  Not just in heaven, the sweet by and by.  Where do you see the goodness of the Lord here and now?

+ vs13-14  “Be strong, wait for the Lord” – again the difference between what God has promised and what we are experiencing.  How do we deal with that?  I mean in a situation like Ukraine – 

Luke 13:31-35

+ “at that very hour…”  well Jesus has been talking about with people about how they will see Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and the prophets in the Kingdom of Heaven, but they themselves will be cast out, about how many will come from all over, but some who are first will be last, some who are last will be first.  And now come some Pharisees…

+ so are the Pharisees friends or opponents?  (note that right after this Jesus goes to have dinner with one of the Pharisees.)  Are they looking out for Jesus, or are they looking out for themselves and they just want Jesus out of their neighborhood, out of their hair?  Who would we like to just clear out of our neighborhood – people who are experiencing houselessness? Drug dealers? People tossing their wealth and power around?

+ Jesus is in Galilee, on his way to Jerusalem, and they warn him about Herod, ruler of Galilee.  Part of Jesus’ answer is that he doesn’t have to worry about Herod, because as a prophet he is going to die in Jerusalem and as such is safe from any threat by Herod.

+ “today, tomorrow, the third day” – obviously calls to mind the crucifixion and resurrection, but is probably here just meant to suggest that time is limited, doom is impending, for Jesus, for those in Jerusalem, and for us.  It reminds me of the wine running out at the wedding in Cana, and after the wine runs out there is the water, but what about when the water runs out….  How is climate change impending?  Or I was reading a piece about the 50th anniversary of Limits to Growth which pointed to the problem of resource depletion.  Richard Swanson suggests lent is a time to take seriously the ways we steal from the earth rather than sprout from it!  Whoa – I like that.

+ “Jerusalem – killing the prophets and stoning those who are sent to you” – I don’t know, did Jesus just come up with this, or is he quoting some proverb.  Kind of like what do we do to people who run for office, or serve on school boards, or public health officers….

+ “I would have gathered your children as a hen under her wings” – one female image of God, and one source of the hymn Thy Holy Wings Dear Savior, spread gently over me….

+ “I must go on my way” – I think this is the “It is necessary” term that points to God’s will.

+ Jerusalem – one writer notes the irony that the city that houses God’s Temple also houses a persistent refusal to hear God’s Word.  How does that resonate with us in our world, in our church, in our thoughts and beliefs?

+ “Your house is forsaken” (RSV) or “Your house is left to you. (NRSV)  in either case, you are on your own!

+ when will someone say “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord”?  The entry into Jerusalem?  Well, actually in Luke they say “Blessed is the King who comes in the name…”  Make a difference?  Are they still refusing to hear God’s Word?  When do we say “Blessed is the one….”  I know, in the “Holy, holy, holy..” in the communion prayer.  Any other times?

That’s what I got for now…..

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Words 3.6

 Words Twice a Week       3.6

Kind of rough this week, but that’s life sometimes.  Anyway, Neil Sedaka’s birthday.  That’s got to perk us up a bit!

Some days from the church calendar -

Mar 8  Geoffrey Anketell Studdert Kennedy   He was an Anglican priest and poet.  During the First World War he got the nickname Woodbine Willie for handing out Woodbine cigarettes to the soldiers he met.  He wrote a poem called Indifference.  Another called Roses in December.

Mar 10  Harriet Tubman   Born into slavery, she escaped and subsequently made some 13 missions to rescue approximately 70 enslaved people, including family and friends, using the Underground Railroad.  At the turn of the 20th century, Tubman became heavily involved with the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church in Auburn. In 1903, she donated a parcel of real estate she owned to the church, under the instruction that it be made into a home for "aged and indigent colored people".[ The home did not open for another five years, and Tubman was dismayed when the church ordered residents to pay a $100 entrance fee. She said: "[T]hey make a rule that nobody should come in without they have a hundred dollars. Now I wanted to make a rule that nobody should come in unless they didn't have no money at all."

Mar 13  James Theodore Holly - was the first African-American bishop in the Protestant Episcopal Church, and spent most of his episcopal career as missionary bishop of Haiti.  He was ordained a priest on 2 January 1856 in New Haven, Connecticut. He co-founded the Protestant Episcopal Society for Promoting the Extension of the Church Among Colored People, which worked to have the General Convention adopt a position against slavery and eventually became the Union of Black Episcopalians.

And some days from the world/earth calendar

Mar 7 

+ Bloody Sunday  1965

Mar 8

+ CD’s were introduced in 1979.  Does anyone remember what cd’s are?

+ The Hitchhiker”s Guide to the Galaxy’s first episode was broadcast in 1978

+ Raymonde de Larouche became the first woman with a pilot’s license in 1910 at age 27.  She died at age 36 when her plane crashed in northern France.

Mar 9

+ It’s Barbie’s birthday – she went on sale in 1959

+ the electron microscope was invented in 1931 – changed the way we see things – like viruses!

+ birthday of Vyacheslav Molotov   (1890)  He was a strong supporter of Stalin, and involved in many atrocities.  The “cocktail” had been used in several other wars, but was essentially named by the Finns during the Winter War of 1939.

Mar 10  

+ first telephone call (1876)  – ________________ called ____________ and said “______”

+ most destructive bombing raid hits Tokyo – 1945.  About 100,000 civilians died in the fires caused by U.S. Airforce incendiary bombing.

Mar 11

+ Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in Japan - 2011

+ 1990 – Lithuania becomes first Soviet republic to declare independence.

+ Douglas Adams was born in 1952.   He went on to write the above mentioned Hitchhiker’s Guide...

+ Rupert Murcock was born in 1931.  He went on to be the force behind Fox News, and others.

Mar 12

+ Hitler’s army invaded Austria in 1938

+ Gandhi embarked on his Salt March in 1930

+ Moscow became the capital of Russia, supplanting St Petersburg.

Mar 13

+ Uranus was discovered in 1781.  It’s the third largest (by radius) planet in the solar system, and the butt of high school (and sometimes adult bloggers!) jokes!

+ Neil Sedaka was born in 1939.  Breaking Up Is Hard To Do, Calendar girl, Stairway to Heaven, Happy Birthday Sweet Sixteen, and more.  He was a founding member of The Tokens (The Lion Sleeps Tonight)!  On a 1965 episode of the quiz show I've Got a Secret, Sedaka's secret was that he was to represent the United States at the 1966 Tchaikovsky classical piano competition in Moscow. Unaware of Sedaka's secret, panelist Henry Morgan challenged Sedaka with the fact that the Soviet bureaucracy had outlawed rock 'n' roll music, and that any Western music young Russians wanted had to be smuggled into the country. Once Sedaka's secret had been revealed, he impressed the show's panelists with his performance of Frederic Chopin's "Fantaisie Impromptu".  Morgan's warning turned out to be prescient, however: despite Sedaka's classical roots, his "other" life as a pop star spurred the Soviet Union to disqualify him from entering the competition.

+ Susan B Anthony died in 1906. 

That’s what I got for now…..

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Words 3.3

 Words Twice a Week       3.3.22

Three, three the rivals, two, two the lily-white boys...

And when we got to Contrast Coffee to pick up crepes for Shrove Tuesday, turns out they shut the crepe maker off at 3pm.  So we ended up with pizza and we still have our Contrast gift cards!  Then when we got to church for Ash Wed, the power went off at 6:50.  (I was supposed to be zooming it out.  No electricity, no internet, no zoom!  Ash Wednesday by candlelight.  How did it all go for you?  And are you “doing anything for lent”?  I’ve been zooming morning prayer with a church in New York.

Ok- then some thoughts on the lectionary texts for this Sunday – First Sunday in Lent.  And here’s an interesting little fact – There are Sundays “of” Advent and Easter, Sundays “after” Christmas, (the) Epiphany, and Pentecost, but there are Sundays “in” Lent!

Psalm 91:1-2, 9-16  

+ a nice psalm of being able to trust in God for protection.  “And God will raise you up….”

+ on the other hand, how are the folks in Ukraine hearing this today?  “No scourge shall come near your tent.”

+ or the people who have had family or friends die from COVID?  

+ “You will tread on the lion and the adder, the young lion and the serpent you will trample under foot.” - Ok, not sure what that is about.

+ “I will answer them; I will be with them in trouble, I will rescue them and honor them.  With long life I will satisfy them, and show them my salvation.”  How much of that do you see happening in your life? In the world around us?  I guess the “I will be with them”, maybe the “I will answer them”.  I don’t know about the “rescue” and “long life”.  I read someplace that history(reality) and theology get intermingled in our hymns.  Maybe that’s what is happening here.

Deuteronomy 26:1-11  

+ One of my favorite lines – “A wandering Aramean was my father (ancestor)…”; regardless of what it means, I just like the way it speaks, sounds.

+ These are some of the directions God is giving to the people (through Moses) for when they get into the promised land.  This one is pretty nice – others are not so much.  The verse just before this one says “You shall blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven; you shall not forget.”  (Amalek was the guy Israel was fighting when Moses had to lift up his arms so they would prevail.   Ex 17)

+ and whenever we meet the idea of God giving the land to someone, it is problematic.  What about the people who are living there already?  And who does God give the land to – the Israelites? The humans? The whole of Creation?  (We’ll face this issue again next week!)

+ nonetheless, the idea here is that the land is a gift from God, and so we give the first of the harvest to God in thanksgiving, and to “guarantee the rest of the harvest”?

+ so is it a problem when the crops we harvest and present to God are laced with chemicals and GMO’s?  Or when some of the things we might have offered to God no longer exist? Varieties of fruits and vegetables that we have lost?  Food crops that have had the nutrients bred out of them in favor of shelf-life, shipping ability, etc?  Animals that have gone extinct or been substantially modified?  Can we imagine God looking at our offering (if we actually did this!) and saying “What the heck is this?”

+ this obviously remembers God bringing the Israelites out of Egypt.  If we were going to have a similar ritual, what history would we remember?  Is it a little like what we do in communion?

+ If we/you were going to bring some kind of a “harvest of first fruits” of our/your life, what would be in the basket?  And how would we/you present it to God?  Bring it to church?  Burn it in the backyard?  Drop it off at the New Free Store or Room at the Inn?  Depends on what it is, I guess.

+ “and you shall rejoice in all the good that the Lord your God has given to you and to your house – you, and the Levite, and the sojourner (refugee? migrant?) who is among you.”  Israel was always to remember that they had once been migrants.  How would that figure into our story/history?  I like the “you shall rejoice”.  The primary emotion of faith if joy, at least in my mind.

+ one writer noted that the ritual 1) is personal, 2) creates communion, and 3) is reciprocal.  Is that how communion works for us?

Romans 10:8b-13  

+ “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”  Everyone?  Even those we don’t particularly think should get saved?  Those who are insincere, who don’t really mean it?  Who meant it once but then drifted away?  You and me?

Luke 4:1-13

+ In Matthew and Mark Jesus goes right from his baptism to the wilderness.  Luke on the other hand inserts Jesus’ genealogy in between.  Why?  If we notice Luke traces Jesus back to God, as opposed to Matthew who traces Jesus back to David, does that make a difference?  If we notice that the voice at the baptism in Matthew says “This is my son…” where in Mark and Luke the voice says “You are my son…”, does it make a difference?

+ it struck me sometime along the way – what the heck is going on here?

1) some kind of final exam?  No, that would be more like the Passion.

2) some kind of “Native American style vision quest?  Maybe, although Jesus doesn’t really come out of it with any self-description.

3) some kind of “certification exam”? (Richard Swanson)  Again, maybe.

4) Or (me) what if this is Jesus showing up for the first day of class for

       Ministry 101 – Intro to “Son of God in Galilee”

I find that kind of intriguing – what might Jesus have learned in the experience?  What questions might he have started with, left with?  Where would that experience connect with our lives?

+ if you were going into the wilderness, where would it be?

+ temptations – about Jesus’ identity in relation to God, about the means to achieving God’s ends, who do we think we are in relation to God, how are we tempted to use our power to achieve God’s ends?  In particular, would/does sending lethal aid to Ukraine move us towards God’s ends?

+ “The Devil” – not really how we tend to picture someone in popular culture.  Richard Swanson suggests something like a “cosmic building inspector.”  Another writer simply notes that God/Jesus/Love/Good is opposed in this world.  Would “The Opponent” or “The Opposor” be a better label/name?)  How do we image “the power that opposes” in our understanding of reality?    Is it tendencies within ourselves?  Is is external? The bible is certainly clear that it is not a power equivalent to God, but that it is nevertheless very real.

+ there are obviously connections with Gen 3 – might be fun to spend time thinking about that.

+ Fred Craddock notes that the temptations reflect the shape of Jesus’ ministry – it will be 1) personal/social, 2) political, and 3) religious.

+ He also notes that “temptation beckons us to do that about which much good can be said.” - again, lethal aid to Ukraine?

+ Jesus and the opponent throw scripture at each other.  At the lectionary group, David did point out that after several “It is written’s”, Jesus answers with “It is said…”.  Make a difference?  In any case, it shows the danger of just picking out one line and basing everything on it.

+ similarly, Jesus refuses to turn stones into bread, but in just a few chapters he is going to turn a few loaves into enough to feed the multitudes.  How does that work?

+ note that Jesus is guided not just by scripture but also by the Holy Spirit.  How does that work in our lives?  Does it point to a danger in “private spirituality and worship”?

That’s what I got for now…..

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