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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