The Word Spoken

Hebrews 1:1-4New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

Long ago God spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom he also created the worlds. He is the reflection of God’s glory and the exact imprint of God’s very being, and he sustains all things by his powerful word. When he had made purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs.

This passage from Hebrews is rich and ripe with theological images.  Here we can see a connection to the opening of the gospel of John: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being."

Literally, God "spoke" Jesus to us.  When we want to know what it is God has to say, it is Jesus.  

God created the worlds through Jesus.

God sustains all things through Jesus.

Jesus is the imprint of God's very being. (imprint, like words on a page...)

We live in a time where we have phrases like "talk is cheap" and when words are thrown around carelessly through social media.

Yet also in a time where people don't seem to have meaningful conversations.  Where words have become emoticons or anonymous jabs on website message boards.

Yet God gave us the most meaningful conversation there is through Jesus.

As we wait for the coming of Christmas, we wait for words that heal and love and bind together.

This Christmas, may we hear the Word of God spoken in love and may we spread that Word ever outward!  Amen

A Merry Christmas to all!  Taking a break off for Christmas and New Year's.  Will return on January 5th.

Elijah

Malachi 4:5-6New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

Lo, I will send you the prophet Elijah before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes. He will turn the hearts of parents to their children and the hearts of children to their parents, so that I will not come and strike the land with a curse.

AND

Mark 9:9-13New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

As they were coming down the mountain, he ordered them to tell no one about what they had seen, until after the Son of Man had risen from the dead. So they kept the matter to themselves, questioning what this rising from the dead could mean. Then they asked him, “Why do the scribes say that Elijah must come first?” He said to them, “Elijah is indeed coming first to restore all things. How then is it written about the Son of Man, that he is to go through many sufferings and be treated with contempt? But I tell you that Elijah has come, and they did to him whatever they pleased, as it is written about him.”

I include both passages today because yesterday we saw Elijah taken back from the whirlwind, and today, from Malachi and from Jesus we see that in this Advent, this season of waiting, Elijah serves as a harbinger of what is to come.

In the gospels, John the Baptist is linked directly to Elijah - the one who is coming to restore all things.  

In the Mark reading, Jesus says both that Elijah IS coming, but also that Elijah HAS come.

And that, I think, is a perfect understanding of not only Advent, but our faith story.

It speaks to the "both now AND not yet" aspect of God that is sometimes hard to imagine.  It speaks not just of God's coming to the world, but also of God's continuing activity both now and in the future.

It speaks of a God who operates in "Kairos" time - God's time, as opposed to our linear "Chronos" time.

We wait in Advent for the Incarnate God come to earth in the form of a helpless infant: an event that we look forward to in celebration, but also back to as having happened.  And we look ahead, knowing that God is always moving forward and that there is still to come a time when all things will be restored.

Come Lord Jesus.  Come now.  Come again.  And thank you for coming already.  Amen.

Spirit

2 Kings 2:9-14New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

When they had crossed, Elijah said to Elisha, “Tell me what I may do for you, before I am taken from you.” Elisha said, “Please let me inherit a double share of your spirit.” He responded, “You have asked a hard thing; yet, if you see me as I am being taken from you, it will be granted you; if not, it will not.” As they continued walking and talking, a chariot of fire and horses of fire separated the two of them, and Elijah ascended in a whirlwind into heaven. Elisha kept watching and crying out, “Father, father! The chariots of Israel and its horsemen!” But when he could no longer see him, he grasped his own clothes and tore them in two pieces.

He picked up the mantle of Elijah that had fallen from him, and went back and stood on the bank of the Jordan. He took the mantle of Elijah that had fallen from him, and struck the water, saying, “Where is the Lord, the God of Elijah?” When he had struck the water, the water was parted to the one side and to the other, and Elisha went over.

When I was in Seminary, especially near the beginning, I remember feeling awed by how much my professors seemed to know. I remember thinking that they had to have more faith than I could possibly understand.

I felt that way when I heard sermons that really blew me away.  "I could never do that." I thought.

There are days still when I ask myself whether I am really ready for the call God has given me.

Elisha had to be a bit nervous himself to be the follower of the great Elijah.  Was he ready?

Yet nervous or not, Elisha shows marked confidence.  He asks for a double share of Elijah's spirit.

Now, admittedly, this isn't one of the easiest requests to interpret.  Yet, it is easy to see from the text that Elisha is bold to ask it.

And perhaps it also gives us a hint that Elisha knows where his confidence comes from.

The Spirit of God.

God gave Elijah the spirit.  God gave it to Elisha as well.

And that Spirit has been given to us.

That call from God comes not just to seminary professors or great preachers.  It comes to each of us, and each of us has been equipped with the same Spirit.  

It makes everything possible.

It gives us confidence.

It lifts us up when we feel unworthy.

It moves mountains and parts waters.

Imagine what that Spirit can accomplish in you!

Holy Spirit come.  Lead me down paths you have prepared for me.  Amen.

Armor of God

Ephesians 6:10-17 New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his power. Put on the whole armor of God, so that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God, so that you may be able to withstand on that evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm. Stand therefore, and fasten the belt of truth around your waist, and put on the breastplate of righteousness. As shoes for your feet put on whatever will make you ready to proclaim the gospel of peace. With all of these, take the shield of faith, with which you will be able to quench all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

This has not ever been one of my favorite passages.  For the reason why, you need look no further than this: a Sunday school coloring page of the "whole armor of God."  (link here:  http://www.kidssundayschool.com/1070/gradeschool/put-on-the-full-armor-of-god.php)

There's just something not right to me to be giving children a coloring page of a Roman warrior - who was likely to use that sword as a weapon of violence against the occupied people - as part of a lesson about God.

It makes me realize that perhaps we have many outdated images and understandings of God that no longer work for our 21st century lives of faith.  For Paul and the first century Christians, this image of the armor of God was understandable as a subversive dismantling (maybe) of the Roman soldiers who occupied their land.

Even while I may bemoan this warrior like imagery of God, we nevertheless still do understand it, don't we?  God protects us - much like a soldier dresses for battle, so we put on Christ to protect us and prepare us for our lives.  And I'll admit: knowing that God is still giving me the strength I need to withstand assaults from any side, is comforting.

There are, however, other images I'd like better.  Yet it is perhaps important to remember that no image or metaphor for God is complete.  They all ultimately fall short, whether it is this warlike image or whether it is Jesus as the mother hen. In the end, God is bigger than any of our words or images can conjure.

And that perhaps is itself ultimately the most comforting thing of all.  That I cannot define God simply in my own terms.

God of all, thank you for images that help bring me closer to you, but remind me always to remember that you are far more than any image my mind can come up with.  Amen.

Good News

Isaiah 61:1-4New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

The spirit of the Lord God is upon me,
    because the Lord has anointed me;
he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed,
    to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives,
    and release to the prisoners;
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor,
    and the day of vengeance of our God;
    to comfort all who mourn;
to provide for those who mourn in Zion—
    to give them a garland instead of ashes,
the oil of gladness instead of mourning,
    the mantle of praise instead of a faint spirit.
They will be called oaks of righteousness,
    the planting of the Lord, to display his glory.
They shall build up the ancient ruins,
    they shall raise up the former devastations;
they shall repair the ruined cities,
    the devastations of many generations.

If this passage sounds familiar, it is because it is the passage Jesus quotes in the Gospel of Luke when he reads from the scroll in the temple and says  "Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing." 

Two years ago was the shooting at Sandy Hook where innocents lost their lives. God seeks comfort for those who still mourn.

Sunday is also Black Lives Matter Sunday, a day to be reminded that there are still oppressed people in our country and the good news is for them as well.

There are still captives who are needing to be freed.

There are still prisoners needing to be released.

There are still those in mourning who need comforting.

There are still ruined cities needing to be rebuilt.

And yet through all of that, God dwells in the midst.  With the mourning.  With the captives.  With the oppressed.

The good news has come into the world, despite all of the ways we often miss it. 

In this season of Advent, what are the ways you can wait for that Good News with intention and hope?  In what ways can you be good news to those who need it?

God of all, as I wait for your coming, help me to be good news to those who need it.  Amen.

Paul curses

Philippians 3:7-9New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ. More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but one that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith.

This is one of the verses our curriculum has fun with in Confirmation.  The word, "skubala," translated here as "rubbish" is really not as strong a word as Paul means.  The King James and New English Translation of the Bible came a bit closer by using the term "dung" because "skubala" meant, according to the scholars of the NET, a vulgar term for fecal matter.

Yep.  That's the word Paul meant.

Why is it important that the Apostle Paul could turn a curse word long before Nadia Bolz-Weber came along? 

It's not important just because it means that since there is a curse word in the Bible, we can feel free to "curse boldly."  Instead, I think it's important because it is the only time in scripture this word is used. It's the only time Paul uses it so he uses it the way curse words probably should be used - on a limited basis for great effect.  We've become so conditioned to hearing them so often that in some sense they've lost their meaning. They don't shock us anymore because they are used so often that their power for strong exclamation has been lost.  

Paul isn't being vulgar for vulgarity's sake. Paul is being vulgar intentionally because he knows this word will shock.  He wants to shock.  He wants everyone to now how strongly he feels about this.

He is basically saying: "My life before Christ was _____ (insert vulgar term for fecal matter)."  

He doesn't want there to be any confusion on that point.

Life in Christ is better than anything.  Life in Christ makes what might seem like the best thing in your life to actually fall away as nothing.  

That's how great it is!

As we await the child born in Bethlehem this Advent season, we can think about how radically amazing this coming is.  For Paul, there was literally nothing better.  The parts of his life that he valued most fall away in terms of importance.

As Christmas comes, imagine something that valued coming into your own world.

Come Lord Jesus!  Shine your light into our lives that we might know how wonderful a gift you are to this world in need. Amen.

Faithfulness

Malachi 2:10-17New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

Have we not all one father? Has not one God created us? Why then are we faithless to one another, profaning the covenant of our ancestors? Judah has been faithless, and abomination has been committed in Israel and in Jerusalem; for Judah has profaned the sanctuary of the Lord, which he loves, and has married the daughter of a foreign god. May the Lord cut off from the tents of Jacob anyone who does this—any to witness or answer, or to bring an offering to the Lord of hosts.

And this you do as well: You cover the Lord’s altar with tears, with weeping and groaning because he no longer regards the offering or accepts it with favor at your hand. You ask, “Why does he not?” Because the Lord was a witness between you and the wife of your youth, to whom you have been faithless, though she is your companion and your wife by covenant. Did not one God make her? Both flesh and spirit are his. And what does the one God desire? Godly offspring. So look to yourselves, and do not let anyone be faithless to the wife of his youth. For I hate divorce, says the Lord, the God of Israel, and covering one’s garment with violence, says the Lord of hosts. So take heed to yourselves and do not be faithless.

You have wearied the Lord with your words. Yet you say, “How have we wearied him?” By saying, “All who do evil are good in the sight of the Lord, and he delights in them.” Or by asking, “Where is the God of justice?”

This is a tough passage to read if you are divorced.  But there are several of those in scripture, so perhaps it isn't too surprising.

A lot can be said about what divorce meant then versus what divorce means now.  And I do believe that.  I'm not about to go throwing judgments out against any divorced folks.  I come from a family where divorce became the norm.  I myself have been divorced.  

And I happen to believe God still loves us all.

But I think about my grandparents, and the covenant they made to each other.  I think about how it must have been sad to see all three of their children get divorced and then one of their grandchildren (me) get divorced.

I'm sure there are times they shook their heads and thought to themselves, "We didn't raise them this way."

And they didn't.  They had as beautiful a marriage as I've ever seen.  It was a covenant in every sense of the word.

God says here that God hates divorce.  I believe that as much as I believe that God loves the broken people who get divorced.  I believe also that there are times when divorce becomes the only option and that this passage shouldn't be used as a club over the head to say otherwise.

And yet it is important to remember why God hates divorce.  

God seeks our faithfulness not simply to God's self, but to each other.  God's love is big and deep and wide enough to include all of us - the ALL that this one God created - and so wants our love for each other to be that big and deep and wide enough too.

It is easy to get lost in the law in passages like this.  Don't get divorced, it would say under the law.

Or we can see it as a way to reorient ourselves toward each other: for each of us to treat the other with the kind of love and respect and faith that God has for them and for us.

Faithful God, help us to love each other faithfully and truthfully and with the respect that those who are your creation would merit!  Amen

The eternal now

Psalm 27 New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

Of David.

The Lord is my light and my salvation;
    whom shall I fear?
The Lord is the stronghold of my life;
    of whom shall I be afraid?

When evildoers assail me
    to devour my flesh—
my adversaries and foes—
    they shall stumble and fall.

Though an army encamp against me,
    my heart shall not fear;
though war rise up against me,
    yet I will be confident.

One thing I asked of the Lord,
    that will I seek after:
to live in the house of the Lord
    all the days of my life,
to behold the beauty of the Lord,
    and to inquire in his temple.

For he will hide me in his shelter
    in the day of trouble;
he will conceal me under the cover of his tent;
    he will set me high on a rock.

Now my head is lifted up
    above my enemies all around me,
and I will offer in his tent
    sacrifices with shouts of joy;
I will sing and make melody to the Lord.

Hear, O Lord, when I cry aloud,
    be gracious to me and answer me!
“Come,” my heart says, “seek his face!”
    Your face, Lord, do I seek.
    Do not hide your face from me.

Do not turn your servant away in anger,
    you who have been my help.
Do not cast me off, do not forsake me,
    O God of my salvation!
If my father and mother forsake me,
    the Lord will take me up.

Teach me your way, O Lord,
    and lead me on a level path
    because of my enemies.
Do not give me up to the will of my adversaries,
    for false witnesses have risen against me,
    and they are breathing out violence.

I believe that I shall see the goodness of the Lord
    in the land of the living.
Wait for the Lord;
    be strong, and let your heart take courage;
    wait for the Lord!

One thing about the Psalms - and this Psalm in particular - is that we need to remember the immediacy and the timeliness of them.  When we read a line like "The Lord is my light and my salvation," this isn't referring to someday in heaven.  

This Psalm is grounded in the eternal now.  In this life.  In this world.  

Even in the midst of desperation, David (the Psalmist), is confident.  Is certain.  Is hopeful.

Because it is there in the midst of that, where God saves him.  David knows with confidence that God not only will come, but God is already there.

In advent, like the Psalmist, we wait for the Lord.  But we know that the Lord we wait for is one who will know suffering intimately.  

The Lord we wait for is one who stands with us when we are feeling alone or on the margins of our life.

The Lord we wait for brings light into the darkness.

The Lord we wait for will know all the broken pieces of our lives and be able to save us from them not simply in a distant future, but right now in the midst of them.

And not just now, but all the days of our life.

Holy one, come.  Come and sit with me and lead me through my times of sorrow.  Amen.

Who's at the table?

Acts 11:1-4New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

Now the apostles and the believers who were in Judea heard that the Gentiles had also accepted the word of God. So when Peter went up to Jerusalem, the circumcised believers criticized him, saying, “Why did you go to uncircumcised men and eat with them?” Then Peter began to explain it to them, step by step...

Does this sound familiar?

Does this refrain still echo in our churches today?

Is there anyone you know that if you ate with them, talked to them, loved them, marched for them, married them, spoke up for them, someone would take issue with it?

For these early Christians it's perhaps surprising that they objected to Peter eating with the uncircumcised men, given that it's been such a short time that Jesus has been away.  

Didn't they remember who Jesus used to eat with? 

But 2000 years later, it's still an issue, isn't it? Martin Luther King, Jr. told us that Sunday morning was the most segregated time in America.  

It isn't only race that keeps us from being at the table together, even if it is race right now that seems to be in the news as the main issue keeping many from the table. 

We manage to find all kinds of ways of keeping all kinds of people from the table.

Yet the table that God sets isn't one that is meant to keep people away.  It is instead meant to draw people near.

The circumcised forgot how wide a table Jesus set.  Peter explained it to them again.  And the explaining still goes on today.

Hopefully soon we will all just be able to sit down and eat.

Together.

Lord, you have called us all to the table.  Help us to make room for those who are being kept away.  Amen.