Words 5.19

 Words Twice a Week       5.19 (well, 5.20 by the time I got around to it!)

Some thoughts on some of the lectionary texts for this Sunday – Sixth of Easter

Acts 16.9-15   

+ ”The Macedonian call”!  How can you not love a text that includes the Macedonian Call?  Interesting that we have the same sort of vision connected with St Patrick.  I’m trying to think if there are other events that we think of as “a Macedonian call”?

+ note that in vs 6-8 Paul had not been allowed to preach in Asia – ie, he had had no success, God had not brought him success.  How much of what Paul did do we attribute to him? How much to God?  How much of what we do do we attribute to ourselves, accepting either praise or blame?  And how much do we attribute to God?

+ And note that in vs14, it was not that Lydia was so impressed by Paul’s words, but rather that “the Lord opened her heart.”

+ Philippi – a city linked to Alexander the Great (Philip was his father). In Macedonia, a Roman colony.  Paul was a Roman citizen – I remember when we got our passports and it says something like “this person is a citizen of the USA and please treat them accordingly.”  I felt a certain reassurance.  I don’t know if we take Paul’s citizenship as seriously as we should.

+ so now it’s a sabbath, and they go looking for a “place of prayer” – a synagogue?, a more informal riverside park? Outside the gate?  Is there significance to any of that?  “And we spoke to the women who had gathered there.”  The women would be free from work because it’s the sabbath.

+ interesting that the Macedonian call came from a man, but the first convert is a woman.

+ note the “we” in verse 10.  Suggests Luke has joined them?

+ note the ease with which they get to Philippi (in a single verse!).  After ,many false starts and failed attempts in Asia, God is “greasing the rails”(?) as they head for Europe!

+ So finally we get to Lydia, who becomes the first European convert, along with her household.  How do you think of yourself – as a Lydia or as one of her household?

Psalm 67

+ a loose chiastic pattern –

+ vs1,2 similar to vs 6,7; God being gracious and blessing, God’s way/saving power known among the nations, to the ends of the earth.

+ vs3 is the same as vs 5; “let all the peoples praise thee.”  Note 1,2,6,7 are about God, 3 and 5 are addressed to God.

+ which brings us to vs4, the center and somewhat the focus of the poem.  “Let the nations be glad…”  The word of God’s grace is meant to extend beyond the bounds of Israel to all the world.  The good news is that God will judge with equity and that God will guide them.

+ and I wonder if when we say God will “judge with equity” we tend to think of settling a disagreement or a claim, when maybe it means something more like “life differences (financial, social, class, economic, etc) will even out.”

+ the psalm is both a thanksgiving for what God has done and a request for what God will do.

+ “Earth has yielded it’s increase” – Food? People? Resources? Peace and prosperity? What do you hear there?  Has it yielded it with equity, and as God would have it?

Revelation 21.10, 22-22.5

+ note vs 9 – “I will show you the Bride, the wife of the Lamb.”  Why doesn’t the lectionary include that?  And then the stuff in 21.11-21 is the description of the city with it’s walls and gates, made of jewels and pearls (each gate made of a single pearl?), the street was “pure gold, transparent as glass.”(?)  Is this the only reference to the streets of gold?  I’m not sure.

+ anyway – vs10, “the holy city, coming down out of heaven from God.”  This does not mean that after we ruin one creation God will simply give us another.  As Frederick Buechner says about getting into that city, “if you can’t become like a child with eyes full of whatever it is children’s eyes are full of, don’t even think about it.”  A new city needs new people (born again? Born from above?) to populate it!

+ So Come to the city where the lamb is the light, come to the city of God.

         Taste of the tree and the river of life, come to the city of God.

+ No sun or moon, no night – God and the Lamb will provide the light, the vision to live by.

+ and yet plants need night, and so do humans and other animals.  Except those “born from above”?

+ the nations (ie, all peoples) will bring the best of their lives, cultures into the city.

+ nothing unclean, only those written in the Lamb’s Book of Life.  How do we think about that? Are we all written in the book?  What about things we think of as “unclean” – pollution, garbage?  Are they just not going to be there, or are we going to see it all differently?  In other words, how much connection is there with our experience of life and this vision of life “in the City”?

+ And interesting that the arc of creation goes from a garden to a city – although the city looks very much like a park!

+ the tree of life – 12 kinds of fruit, kind of like a “fruit of the month club”!  But the leaves are for the healing of the nations – what would still need to be healed.  Or are there still nations “outside of the city”?

+ Anyway, what do you think?  Would you like to be there?

John 5.1-9

+ another feast of the Jews, another sabbath.

+ this guy by the pool for 38 years(!).  With no one to help him.  Really?  Or maybe he was not all that concerned about or unhappy with his life?  He doesn’t say thanks, he doesn’t seem all that grateful.  Later on, when he finds out who Jesus is, he rats him out to the authorities!

+ link to the Creation (God’s wind/spirit over the water); link to John’s Prologue (the man “knew him not”)

+ the man was in the midst of a multitude – did Jesus heal any of the others?  Why this guy?

+ vs 8  “Rise…..”

John 14.23-29

+ farewell discourse, again with the sheep

+ “I go away, and I will come to you” – a second coming? Universal?  Personal?   How do you hear that?

+ vs31  “Rise...”

That’s what I got for now…..

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