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…..
Comments are moderated – by me – and may take a day to appear
No comments:
Post a Comment