A Preacher’s Ponderings

2 December 2012
First Sunday of Advent
Advent 1C (RCL)
Jeremiah 33:14-16
Psalm 25:1-9
1 Thessalonians 3:9-13
Luke 21:25-36

The readings on the First Sunday of Advent always focus on the “Second Advent” of Christ, the return of the Son of Man. That means the readings often carry a tone of dire calamity soon to come. Not the best day in the liturgical calendar to celebrate a Name Festival (as for Church of the Advent). How does one await dire calamity and rejoice at the same time for the gift of a congregation named Advent?

The early church Continue reading “Awaiting what?”

18 November 2012
Twenty-fifth Sunday after Pentecost
Proper 28B (RCL)
I Samuel 4:1-20
Psalm 16
Hebrews 10:11-25
Mark 13:1-8

I don’t think it overstates the case to say that the destruction of Herod’s Temple in 70 CE provided the defining crisis for both Christianity and Judaism as we know them today. As long as the Second Temple stood, both Jews and Christians (to the extent that it makes sense to use those words before the destruction) could look to the Temple as the focus of their identity. Questions of identity were not forced on either community.

When the Romans destroyed the Temple, identities which had been taken for granted were called into question. In Paul’s day Continue reading “The beginning of the beginning”

11 November 2012
Twenty-fourth Sunday after Pentecost
Proper 17B (RCL)
Ruth 3:1-5; 4:13-17
Psalm 127
Hebrews 9:24-48
Mark 12:38-44

Ruth is a favorite book for many Christians (myself included). It tells such a lovely story, of mother-in-law and daughter-in-law getting along, something as rare then as now. But, it tells this charming story to make a much more important time. I believe that Ruth was written at about the same time as all the other post-Exilic literature was written. Ezra/Nehemiah also falls into this category, as does Leviticus. The Jews returning from Babylon faced the question of Jewish identity: What makes us Jewish. Each Continue reading “God of the small”

4 November 2012
All Saints’ Day (observed)
All Saints’ B(RCL)
Isaiah 25:1-9
Psalm 24
Revelation 21:1-6a
John 11:32-44

I have really enjoyed using the RCL, and dealing with many great stories that the BCP lectionary ignored. I’m not overjoyed with the readings for All Saints’ Day this year, however. All the readings (well, except for the Gospel) are options for funerals. That’s not the happiest way to think about All Saints’ Day. Certainly, funerals are Easter liturgies, as are baptisms, and it is by virtue of our baptism that we are saints, and by virtue of death that we enter the great communion of saints, but it just doesn’t seem very upbeat. I would rather read about the saints casting their crowns around the crystal sea, than about God wiping every tear from the eye.

We also have a particularly weird piece of the Lazarus story. Lazarus Continue reading “All Saints’”

Sunday 28 October 2012
Twenty-second Sunday after Pentecost
Proper 25B (RCL)
Job 42:1-6, 10-17
Psalm 34:1-8, 19-22
Hebrews 7:23-28
Mark 10:46-52

Anyone who has heard me preach for any period of time, knows that the story of the healing of Blind Bartimaeus is one of my favorite Gospel stories. But, I’ll try not to let it monopolize this post!

The reading from Job, especially the inclusion of the prose conclusion to the book almost deflates the power of the poetry that has come before it. Job gets double back on everything. If that is the way the world always worked, we’d but up with sufferings all the time (echoes of Jesus’ promise to Peter that we’ll get back a hundredfold with persecutions). But sometimes the world doesn’t work that way. Some people Continue reading “Master, that I might see . . .”

21 October 2012
Twenty-first Sunday after Pentecost
Proper 24B (RCL)
Job 38:1-7, 34-41
Psalm 104:1-9, 25, 37b
Hebrews 5:1-10
Mark 10:35-45

Throughout the book of Job, Job has been asking for an audience with God. He intends to prove his righteousness before God and especially to his friends. Well, here at last, God shows up and gives Job his audience. Poets, commentators, theologians and ordinary people have always felt God’s response to Job somehow inadequate. Job suffers. God blusters. And significantly, the book does not answer the question, “Why do good people suffer?” I would argue Continue reading “Out of center”

14 October 2012
Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost
Proper 23B (RCL)
Job 23:1-9, 16-17
Psalm 22:1-15
Hebrews 4:12-16
Mark 10:17-31

The passage from Job assigned for this week occurs near the middle of the book. All three of Job’s friends have spoken, and said essentially the same thing — they assume Job has sinned that he is suffering so much, and accuse him of either forgetting the sin or covering it up. They urge him to acknowledge his sinfulness, which comes just with being human, and ask for God’s good favor. Job insists on his own righteousness, and then admits that he cannot find God. All of us have been in Job’s shoes here (if I turn to the left, I do not see God, to the right and God is not there). Of course Continue reading “. . . with persecutions.”

7 October 2012
Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost
Proper 22B (RCL)
Job 1:1; 2:1-10
Psalm 26
Hebrews 1:1-4; 2:5-12
Mark 10:2-16

We have several troubling readings this week. Right of the bat, Job presents us with the problem of God “allowing” Satan to harass Job. Much ink has been spilled over the problem presented by this book. Archibald McLeish wrote the play J.B. Robert Frost explored the story in his “A Masque of Reason.” Rabbi Kushner wrote When Bad Things Happen to Good People as a commentary on the book of Job. So, why does God allow these things? I think the prefatory story is meant as something of a joke. Job had 7000 sheep, 3000 camels, 500 yoke of oxen and 500 she-asses before Satan got a hold of him. Really? At the end of the story, God restores to Job 14,000 sheep, 6,000 camels, 1,000 yoke of oxen and 1,000 she-asses. Really? So Continue reading “Widening the circle”

Lessons for Sunday 16 September 2012
Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost
Proper 19B (RCL)
Proverbs 1:20-33
Psalm 19
James 3:1-12
Mark 8:27-38

Too bad we get this part of Lady Wisdom’s speech in our lectionary, rather than her invitation to the meal. People are only too ready to (mis-)use this piece of her discourse when tragedy happens. In 1993, when the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers flooded in the midwest, people were happy to say it was because various governments had allowed riverboat gambling (I guess God doesn’t like gambling). When Hurricane Katrina damaged New Orleans, it was because our culture had gone soft on gays and lesbians. The difficulty is that Lady Wisdom doesn’t tell us what her reproof looks like. John Prine sings a song written by R. B. Morris, called, “That’s how every empire falls.” The last verse includes the lyrics, “If terror strikes without a warning, there must be something we don’t see.” So, how do we learn to look?

James seems to me like wisdom literature Continue reading “A profitable life?”

9 September 2012
Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost
Proper 18B (RCL)
Proverbs 22:1-2, 8-9, 22-23
Psalm 125
James 2:1-17
Mark 7:24-37

It will be very hard to refrain from preaching a political sermon this week! “Do not afflict the poor because they are poor.” “Don’t show favoritism.” It shouldn’t be hard to guess my political proclivities. But, we are called to preach the gospel, and all need to hear it.

I suppose the most troubling aspect of the scriptures this week is Jesus’ classification of the Syrophoenecian woman as a dog. There Continue reading “Dogs?”