Shining with God’s glory

6 March 2011
Last Sunday after Epiphany
Last Epiphany A (RCL)

Exodus 24:12-18
Psalm 2
2 Peter 1:16-21
Matthew 17:1-9

It’s too bad we’re not reading a passage a little earlier in 2 Peter. 2 Peter 1:3-7 reads, “His divine power has bestowed on us everything that makes for life and devotion, through the knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and power. Through these, he has bestowed on us the precious and great promises, so that through them you may come to share in the divine nature, after escaping from the corruption that is in the world because of evil desire. For this very reason, Continue reading “Shining with God’s glory”

Stewards of the mysteries

27 February 2011
Eighth Sunday after Epiphany
Epiphany 8A (RCL)
Isaiah 49:8-16a
Psalm 131
1 Corinthians 4:1-5
Matthew 6:24-34

Paul has been scolding his Corinthian community for partisanship. Some of them have chosen Apollos as their champion, some Paul, some Cephas. I suspect there are Jew/Gentile issues behind these choices. Paul as the apostle to the Gentiles, Cephas as having withdrawn from the Gentile mission (in Antioch) and practicing “judaizing.” I don’t know what camp Apollos represented, but it’s a good Greek name. You can almost hear the arguments in Corinth about whether we ought to observe the law, have complete freedom from it, or somewhere in the middle.

Then, as we get to chapter 4, Paul tells us that a person ought to think of the leaders as servants of Christ and as stewards of the mysteries of God. Continue reading “Stewards of the mysteries”

Be perfect?

20 February 2011
Seventh Sunday after Epiphany
Epiphany 7A (RCL)

Leviticus 19:1-2, 9-18
Psalm 119:33-40
1 Corinthians 3:10-11, 16-23
Matthew 5:38-48

The Book of Leviticus is one of the most puzzling in the Bible. All these rules about what kind of animals can be sacrificed, and how, and for what circumstances. If you house has leprosy, you have to offer a particular form of sacrifice (we wonder what it means for a house to have leprosy — mildew?). But, when Jewish children are learning to read Hebrew, the first book they read is Leviticus. For them, it is about God’s love affair with the world. Really? Ruminant animals with cloven hooves are good to eat, but ruminants without cloven feet or cloven footed animals not ruminant (like pigs) Continue reading “Be perfect?”

God’s foolishness

30 January 2011
Fourth Sunday after Epiphany
Epiphany 4C (RCL)

Micah 6:1-8
Psalm 15
1 Corinthians 1:18-31
Matthew 5:1-12

These lessons all fit together, which is unusual in ordinary time. In Micah, God is entering a lawsuit with God’s people, and calls the moutains and hills to serve as the jury. God reminds them of all that God has done for them, in shorthand. Interesting that the prophet chooses the story of Balak and Balaam. Balak hired Balaam to curse the Hebrews, but Balaam ended up blessing them. Will the curses contained in this book end up as blessing? The people respond, “Well, what do you want from us?” and then comes the lovely expression: Do justice, love kindness and walk humbly with your God. Wouldn’t that be wonderful?

In Corinthians, Continue reading “God’s foolishness”

Behold, the lamb of God

16 January 2011
Second Sunday after Epiphany
Epiphany 2A (RCL)

Isaiah 42:1-9
Psalm 40:1-12
1 Corinthians 1:1-9
John 1:29-42

Wow! I find myself just saying, “Wow!” about these readings. That may be the extent of my sermon on Sunday.

For starters, the Isaiah passage starts out with military imagary — swords, polished arrows, etc. The prophet, speaking in the person of Israel, knows himself to be God’s chosen servant. God has chosen Israel for God’s purposes in the world, and those purposes, at least as far as Israel can see, are military. Israel is God’s sword, and God’s quiver full of arrows. But, says the prophet, for Israel, “I have spent my strength for nothing.” All of that military might has gotten Israel nowhere, in fact worse than nowhere — Exiled in Babylon. What can God possibly mean that Israel is God’s chosen? Well, God says to the prophet, you have misunderstood. I have chosen you, not just to restore Israel, but the whole world. Continue reading “Behold, the lamb of God”

Behold, my servant

9 January 2011
First Sunday after Epiphany
(Baptism of Our Lord)
Epiphany 1A (RCL)

Isaiah 42:1-9
Psalm 29
Acts 10:34-43
Matthew 3:13-17

I have come to think that each of the Gospels was written and used primarily as baptismal instruction. They were intended to be heard, and all at once. Imagine hearing a Gospel read from cover to cover, while you waited in the dark to be baptized. At the beginning of each gospel is a reference to baptism, and then again at the end (in Matthew, particularly clear — go and make disciples, baptizing). So, as you listened to this, it would begin to dawn on you, this was your story. The spirit came to rest on you. You would be tempted, etc. You would become “christianos” — little christ.

So, those heavenly words are addressed to us: This is my child, my chosen, in whom I am well pleased. Takes us right back to all of the Isaiah servant songs. I have called you in righteousness and kept you. I have given you as a light for the nations, to bring forth justice on the earth. Yikes!

The baptismal community is to shine God’s righteousness to the world. That’s how we live as community, and we bring it about for all. Did any of us ever really think of our baptism in that way? Or was it just a “get out of hell free card”?

What does it mean to be God’s chosen? It’s not always comfortable.

The desert way

12 December 2010
Third Sunday of Advent
Advent 3A (RCL)

Isaiah 35:1-10
Psalm 146:4-9
James 5:7-10
Matthew 11:2-11

Isaiah paints a lovely image of the people’s return from Exile. Unlike the forty years spent wandering in the desert on the way from Egypt to the promised land, this time, on the return from Babylon, not even a fool could get lost. And the desert will blossom, with water aplenty — no more striking rocks to get water. If that was a spectacular thing (the Exodus), wait until you see this, the prophet is saying.

Metaphorically, Continue reading “The desert way”

I must stay with you today

31 October 2010
Twenty-third Sunday after Pentecost
Proper 26C (RCL)

Habakkuk 1:1-4; 2:1-4
Psalm 119:137-144
2 Thessalonians 1:1-4, 11-12
Luke 19:1-10

There is a major problem with the translations we have of this passage from the Gospel. Zacchaeus makes his statements about giving away half his goods and repaying anyone whom he has defrauded in the present indicative, not in the future tense or subjunctive mood. A good way of translating the sentence would be, “Zacchaeus stood there and said to the Lord, “Look here, I give the half of what belongs to me to the beggars, and if I have defrauded anyone, I pay them back fourfold.” Continue reading “I must stay with you today”

Persistence

17 October 2010
Twenty-first Sunday after Pentecost
Proper 24C (RCL)

Jeremiah 31:27-34
Psalm 119:97-104
2 Timothy 3:14 — 4:5
Luke 18:1-8

During the 1970s and 80s, during the “Dirty War” in Argentina, the “Mothers of the Disappeared” marched silently around the Plaza de Mayo in Beunos Aires with pictures of their disappeared children. Their silent witness eventually shamed the world, and helped to bring down the military junta in Argentina. The Mothers held there last march in 2006, saying that government was no longer indifferent to the fate of the disappeared, and was in fact trying to find Continue reading “Persistence”

Foreign born

10 October 2010
Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost
Proper 23 (RCL)

Jeremiah 29:1, 4-7
Psalm 66:1-11
2 Timothy 2:8-15
Luke 17:11-19

The passage from Jeremiah must have been tremendously troubling for those who received it. Jeremiah had been a bit of a pest to the establishment in Jerusalem — all his gloom and doom predictions. And, of course, things came out just as he had said. Now, here they were in Exile (the elites, at any rate), and Jeremiah is telling them to build houses, have families, settle down — to accommodate, after excoriating them for accommodating while they were in Jerusalem. He is encouraging them to mingle into the population in Babylon, to do like immigrants have always had to do, live in the host culture, without making too much of a distinction. Take wives, have sons, take wives for your sons, give your daughters in marriage. Really?

The passage in Luke concerns the ten lepers, Continue reading “Foreign born”