Author: appadmin

28 August 2011
Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost
Proper 17A (RCL)
Exodus 3:1-15
Psalm 105:1-6, 23-26
Romans 12:9-21
Matthew 16:21-28

We have two very startling passages this Sunday: Exodus and Matthew. In the Exodus passage, God says “I have seen the misery of my people. I have heard their cry of distress.” In the whole pantheon of Egypt, was there any god who paid any attention to the goings on of the people? especially enslaved people? Here is the great theological insight of Israel, which we simply take for granted. God notices. And God says, “I have come down,” to do something about the situation. Israel’s faith, or trust, in that attribute of God would be tested again and again: really? God has come down? So is our faith tested again and again. We see plenty of evidence to the contrary.

Second startling passage. Just after Peter has given Jesus his identity as the Christ, Continue reading “I have come down”

21 August 2011
Tenth Sunday after Pentecost
Proper 16A (RCL)
Exodus 1:8-2:10
Psalm 124
Romans 12:1-8
Matthew 16:13-20

The story of the little baby Moses in the Nile River is actually a very humorous story, even though it is set in the midst of political oppression that amounts to genocide. Any number of cultures have a myth of the divine birth of the King. The child destined to become king comes from unknown circumstances, and so his birth is assumed to be divine. In the Mesopotamian cultures, some of those stories involve the king, as an infant, floating down the river. The writer of the story of Moses steals that story and changes it so that the reader of the story knows where the child comes from, even though Pharaoh’s daughter does not. And his birth is divine in the sense that he comes from God’s chosen people, but those despised by the Egyptians. Remembering that this story was put into the Bible while the Jews were in Exile in Babylon (Mesopotamia), the Jews would have smiled knowingly when they heard it.

It has always amazed me that we have the full collection of Hebrew people. Usually the winners write history, Continue reading “Keys to the Kingdom”

24 July 2011
Sixth Sunday after Pentecost
Proper 12A (RCL)
Genesis 29:15-28
Psalm 105:1-11
Romans 8:26-39
Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52

We get to chuckle a little bit at Jacob today. The trickster gets tricked. After cheating his brother, tricking his father, and running for his life, Laban gives him a little of his own treatment. I find the story of Jacob, at least as told in Genesis, very ironic. God must keep God’s promises to Abraham, and Jacob wants to make sure the promises apply to him. He schemes and plots, and sure enough, God honors the divine promise, and Jacob becomes the father of a great nation. But at what cost? He and his brother Esau (Edom) become implacable enemies. Even though Jacob later buys his brother off, and secures a temporary peace, throughout their history, Israel and Edom remain enemies. I wonder if the narrator is suggesting that despite their enmity, if they would remember their history, they are really twins. Israel’s effort to see itself as God’s chosen people costs them the amity of their brothers. Continue reading “In all we do”

17 July 2011
Fifth Sunday after Pentecost
Proper 11A (RCL)
Genesis 28:10-19a
Psalm 139:1-11, 22-23
Romans 8:12-25
Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43

This is one of my favorite parables, but on of my least favorite interpretations. Matthew assigns each element of the parable an interpretation; in other words turns it into an allegory. Matthew’s interpretation of the parable of the weeds and wheat sees the weeds as “bad seed” people (perhaps in the Church) whom God will separate out at the end of the age. So, of course, we should try to be good seed. Perhaps, as Matthew sought to accommodate a growing church, he needed to explain how not everyone could count on being among the children of the kingdom.

But try reading the parable without the interpretation. Continue reading “Weeds?”

10 July 2011

Pentecost IV
Proper 10A (RCL)

Genesis 25:19-14
Psalm 119:105-112
Romans 8:1-11
Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23

Matthew has a tendency to interpret the parables he receives into allegories.  If you read on to the next parable (the weeds among the wheat), you see that he gives each element of the parable an interpretation, turning it into an allegory.  He almost does the same here (of course, in keeping with Mark).  The bits we leave out are not at all nice — the purpose of speaking in parables is precisely to prevent people from understanding the message of the Kingdom.  That sounds to me like the sour grapes of Mark’s community, at the failure of their evangelism.

So, what if we read the parable without Matthew’s (or Mark’s) interpretation.  A sower went out to sow.  Clearly, this man is not a farmer.   Continue reading “Sowing wild oats”

19 June 2011
Trinity Sunday
Trinity A (RCL)
Genesis 1:1 — 2:4
Psalm 8
2 Corinthians 13:11-13
Matthew 28:16-20

A lot of preachers don’t like preaching on the Trinity: perhaps because they know they will never explain it (that’s sort of the point of a mystery, isn’t in?). So, one wonders why the Church developed the doctrine in the first place. What does it explain? There is language that hints at the Trinity in the New Testament, without expressing a completely worked-out doctrine. It’s too bad we don’t read the passage from 1 Corinthians we had last week (12:3ff). I think that is the clearest Trinitarian language in the NT (besides the passage from Matthew we read today — which could be a later insertion). There are varieties of gifts, but one spirit; varieties of services but one master; varieties of work, but on God who energizes everything in everyone.

Continue reading “Communion of Being”

12 June 2011
The Feast of Pentecost
Pentecost A (RCL)
Acts 2:1-21
Psalm 104:25-35, 37b
1 Corinthians 12:3b-13
John 7:37-39

For starters, the NRSV does a hatchet job on this passage from John’s Gospel. Richmond Lattimore translates as follows: “On the last great day of the festival Jesus stood forth and made a declaration, saying: If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. For one who believes in me, as the scripture says, streams of living water shall flow from deep within him. This he said concerning the spirit, of which those who had put their faith in him would partake; but the spirit was not yet because Jesus was not yet glorified.” The NRSV punctuates the Greek so that the phrase “the one who believes” qualifies the one who will drink. That is a strained punctuation. If John is quoting Isaiah 55:1, which he seems to be, there is no qualifier. Everyone who comes will drink freely. So, why limit the waters to those who believe?

And then, secondly, the word which Lattimore translates “deep within” and the NRSV “heart” is “koilia”. It translates roughly “innards.” BUT, in the New Testament, it is used for womb. Continue reading “Living water”

29 May 2011
Sixth Sunday of Easter
Easter 6A (RCL)
Acts 17:22-31
Psalm 66:7-18
1 Peter 3:13-22
John 14:15-21

It’s interesting to think that most of the older folks in our congregations are orphans. We tend to think of orphans as children, but, technically, if your parents have died, you’re an orphan. Of course, Jesus (according to John) delivers these words at his last meal with his friends, who will soon be bereft of him. Losing parents in the order of things (at a good age), I don’t suppose we feel abandoned exactly. A friend of mine observed when her last parent died, that there was now no one between her and death; she was next in line. Maybe that’s the final step of growing up.

Jesus promises his friends they won’t be orphans, Continue reading “Loving the world for God”

1 May 2011
Second Sunday of Easter
Easter 2A (RCL)
Acts 2:14a, 22-32
Psalm 16
1 Peter 1:3-9
John 20:19-31

Our translations of the Bible have perpetrated a big misunderstanding of the story of Thomas. After Jesus has invited Thomas to touch his hands and side, he says to him (in the NRSV), “Do not doubt, but believe.” What Jesus says in the Greek is, “Do not be untrusty, but trusty.” We have come to see doubt as the opposite of faith. This story makes it clear that fear and faith are opposites.

The disciples meet on the evening after Mary Magdalene has encountered the risen Jesus. They lock the doors, “for fear of the Jews.” Continue reading “Be trusty”

10 April 2011
Fifth Sunday in Lent
Lent 5A (RCL)
Ezekiel 37:1-14
Psalm 130
Romans 8:6-11
John 11:1-45

This week’s Gospel lesson is sorta the reverse of last week’s. In last week’s reading, Jesus dropped out of the story after healing the blind man (who never asked to be healed!), until the very end, when he meets up with the blind man again. Most of the action took place between the blind man and various interlocutors. In this week’s lesson, Lazarus doesn’t even enter the story until he comes out of the tomb. Jesus is front and center here.

So, why is that? In the story of the blind man, he helped others see what is important in the relationship to Jesus, where truth is. He takes on the “ego eimi” for himself (Jesus doesn’t say it in that whole miracle — only refers to himself in the third person). So, people entering the Johannine community receive their sight, and become one with Jesus (I and the Father, etc.).

The Lazarus story appears to answer a question about what the resurrected life looks like. It does not look like Lazarus, a resuscitated corpse. Lazarus comes out of the tomb, still wrapped in his burial shroud. When the disciples arrive at Jesus’ tomb, the shroud is lying off to one side, neatly folded up. Jesus appears to Mary under the form of a stranger. So, the resurrected life is something we encounter in the everyday.

Hmm. Jesus delays before coming to heal Lazarus — John’s ironic way of poking fun at other christian communities bothered by the delay of the Parousia?