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…..

Comments are moderated – by me – and may take a day to appear