Put Your Sword in its Sheath

From frantic to patient, from fighter to fisher.

April 8, 2013 By 2 Comments

By Debbie Blue

Gospel Reading: John 21: 1-19

For Sunday, April 4, 2013: Year C—Easter 3

Personally, I’m relieved that the disciples decide to go fishing here in the epilogue of John’s dense and sometimes difficult to read text.

Going Fishing

The Gospel for Easter 3C is a good story (whoever may have written it)—almost breezy and funny in comparison to some of the more arduous discourses the author takes us through.

Many good readers take this fishing trip to be an indication that the disciples have failed in their call to be disciples—they are going back to what they know (fishing), instead of moving forward as disciples. But the disciples aren’t actually fisherman in the gospel of John, or at any rate the author doesn’t mention this as their vocation. Maybe they aren’t regressing—maybe they are relaxing. [Read more...]

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Surface, Depth and History

Must every bright light have a dark cloud?

April 8, 2013 By 2 Comments

By Debbie Blue

New Testament Reading: Act 9: 1-6 (7-20)

For Sunday, April 4, 2013: Year C—Easter 3

It’s Influential Man Sunday, with Peter and Paul as the focal characters.

The texts for today could be read as the stories that justify their place in determining the course of Christianity. It’s a good day (I think), to wonder what the story would be like with a different focus, with a few more voices—what about Tabitha who, according to Luke, was herself raised from the dead? Ah well.

Why Paul?

What we get is Peter and Paul (mostly.) Almost half the books in the New Testament are attributed to Paul (if not written by him) and half of Acts is given over to his deeds and words. Paul did the theology that has shaped much of Christian thought, though he didn’t walk with Jesus, or eat his fish and bread.

Paul doesn’t talk that much about what Jesus taught, he interprets the meaning of the death and resurrection of Christ. Was it good theology? Why Paul? [Read more...]

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Mary, Mother of God

December 11, 2011 By 4 Comments

Temple of flesh and blood

By Debbie Blue

Gospel Reading: Luke 1:26-38

For Sunday, December 18, 2011: Year B—Advent 4

I’m never sure how a story as wild and pagan sounding, a story that resonates with myths way older than Christianity, a story with traces of fertility goddesses, Egyptian sun gods etc., etc., makes it into our Christmas celebrations so calmly that we hardly blink.

Patriarchal fundamentalist households admit the pregnant mother, birthing god into their households at Christmas. So do syncretistic Brazilian jungle cults and uptight Swedish Lutherans. It’s so outrageous, and beautiful, and somehow unifying.

A Bold and Remarkable Narrative

In terms of the religious institution: The earliest followers of Yahweh (as both Biblical and archeological evidence suggests) worshipped both male and female aspects of their divinity. The Queen of Heaven was especially popular—the “Consort of Yahweh,”  the “Beloved Mother,” the “Companion at Birth.”

But she really bothered the folks that were trying to solidify monotheism. Early editors of the scripture much maligned her and fairly successfully rid the official Hebrew religion of her presence. The Deuteronomists were pretty adamant about cleansing the temple of her worship. Her traces, however, remain throughout the Biblical texts.

A Temple of Flesh and Blood

It’s astonishing that in the story of the gospel of Jesus Christ right off, first thing, God becomes incarnate through the womb of the mother. The purists would be going crazy! Though they tried and tried to keep the “Queen of Heaven” out of the purified Temple, in this story Mary’s womb becomes the Temple out of which Yahweh will emerge clothed in flesh. Is is a very shocking turn for the Scripture to take. Shocking and beautiful.

Read Luke 1:26-38 side by side with the 2 Samuel text. I’m not sure how the lectionariers meant it, but it seems like a meaningful juxtaposition of texts. The Samuel text is all men and kings and structures and power—they want to build a house for God? They imagine it is amongst these things. Mary becomes the “house” that will build “god” out of her cells and blood—in her womb, with her breast milk. Solomon (the King) does build the temple and keeps it close to the heart of empire (locking God in if you will). Mary (the peasant girl) births God into the world and then lets go.

[Read more...]

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David, King of Empire

December 11, 2011 By 1 Comment

House of cedar and gold.

By Debbie Blue

Old Testament Reading: 2 Samuel 7:1-16

 For Sunday, October 18, 2011: Year B—Advent 4

“Now when the king was settled in his house…” Seems like an archetypal opening line. Now, of course, something will come to unsettle him—trolls or witches, a bathing woman, possibly God.

We Love Kings

David is the figure that represents the shift from dynamic prophet leaders of a nomadic faith to sedentary monarchs, imperial reality. The people begin to long for something a little more refined than 12 tribes. They want to be like other nations with a powerful man to lead them. God had been explicit; in choosing a king they reject God. God warns them that the king will take their freedom, make them slaves.

They don’t care. They want one anyway. So, the text says, they pick a “tall and handsome man” to rule over them. It’s so typical. Though there is hardly a Biblical figure with more grandeur surrounding him than David, beneath the royal narrative is a constant critique of the will to power.

The shift from a nomadic faith to an imperial reality leads the nation to exile. The people (the narrative) almost get lost in the haze of palace intrigue, armies and battles, but God keeps calling the people out of the slavery empire brings. This is kind of a running theme.

To Roam

David settles down in his big ol’ house puts up his feet on his royal footstool and thinks, “let me see now, I should build God a house.”

Is God indignant or just amused? God’s response seems mixed. I like hearing God say “I have not lived in a house, did I ever say build me a house? I’ve been roaming about with you all along, taking care of you. You think I need a house?”

The people may have wanted a king, but God is not going to be confined by royal structures. God remains outside in a tent rather than settling into bastions of power.

[Read more...]

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The Backside of God’s Glory

October 9, 2011 By 6 Comments

What does it mean to see God’s back?

by Russell Rathbun

Old Testament Reading:  Exodus 33:12-23

For Sunday, Oct.16 , 2011: Year A—Ordinary 29

It seems like God and Moses have realized their grand experiment has not worked out that great. The whole thing is kind of a mess.

Rethinking?

After the golden calf debacle and the smashing of the stone tablets, God begins to rethink his involvement.

God clearly feels some obligation, having brought these people out of Egypt and into the dessert, having promised them a land of their own, but God is not really sure God even likes these people.

Rejection?

Maybe it was the rejection.  Like, they don’t really seem that satisfied with the Lord either. As Debbie Blue described in last week’s post, God is kind of scary and distant. God’s not nearly as fun as the golden calf party.

So, God decides that God will not be going with them on the rest of the journey; God will send an angel instead. Moses pleads with God, saying that was not the deal—These are Your people; an angel is not the same; the whole thing won’t work if you don’t come; the people want your Presence. I want your Presence.

[Read more...]

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Murder and Mayhem

October 2, 2011 By 18 Comments

Giving up the whole God-is-a-bastard thing.

By Debbie Blue

Gospel Reading: Matthew 22: 1-14

For Sunday, October 9, 2011: Year A—Ordinary 28

This parable is scary and violent. The king is petty, murderous and arbitrarily cruel. Who would want to go to his party?

Boycott and Resist

But people don’t normally refuse an offer from a king (or Don Corleone)– even an awful paranoid king like Herod the Great who had little babies slaughtered, according to Matthew, executed his wife and sons according to Josephus (Caesar Augustus said, “it is better to be Herod’s pig than his son”). That the characters in this story boycott the king makes them seem a little brave.

Some hearers of this story must have been attracted to the characters that refuse to dance when the king calls. Their kings were minions of the Roman Empire and they weren’t very nice. The way of God’s people has always been to resist the summons of worldly power. I feel a little sorry for the king that no one wanted to come to his party, but he is a bully. I like The Resistance.

Choking on the Fat Calf

But then the rebels disappoint. They treat the king’s slaves shamefully and kill them. No one looks very good in this story. It’s a familiar one.

[Read more...]

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Getting Out of Egypt

October 2, 2011 By 2 Comments

It’s hard to shed the traces of tyranny

By Debbie Blue

Old Testament Reading: Exodus 32: 1-14

For Sunday, October 9, 2011: Year A—Ordinary 28

I can’t really blame the people for enjoying the golden calf. They eat and drink and “play” around it. But if they even “touch the border” of The Mountain where God is (God mentioned a bit earlier) they will be “stoned or shot.” Sinai is a scary place wrapped in smoke and clouds, and God up there is a consuming fire. This God led them out of Egypt, but they don’t trust him yet. It’s not hard to understand why. He’s enigmatic. They are afraid of him. The calf? Well, it’s a statue of a young cow or maybe a young bull—but it’s not threatening to eat them.

Blundering Lovers

God seems to feel pretty bad when he looks down and sees the people enjoying the calf. God says they are a ‘stiff-necked” people, implying a sort of rigidity. They are stuck in some old way of seeing and doing and being, like there hasn’t even been an exodus from Egypt—like all they know of god is statues and tyrants. They don’t have the imagination for a living loving God that can be trusted. They edge in and out of this all during the “sojourn,” claiming God hates them—promised liberation only to lead them out in the wilderness where he will kill them.

Maybe God isn’t quite sure how to proceed with the relationship either. God seems to be a bit of a blundering lover throughout these texts. At moments—gracious and tender, at moment (even Moses points out) he could be perceived as doing evil.

[Read more...]

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Difficult to Read

March 6, 2011 By 3 Comments

Primordial narratives are pretty hard to understand − then add the Church Fathers

By Debbie Blue

Old Testament Reading: Genesis 2:15-17, 3:1-7

For Sunday, March 13, 2011: Year A − First Sunday in Lent

This is a beautiful and sad (maybe, slightly funny?) story. I don’t know. I can’t tell. The weight of interpretation it so heavy here, I find it hard to read. I do know you can’t leave out Genesis 2:18-25.

But, okay, trying

God is super creative—makes the world, like God doesn’t want to be alone. God seems very generous, makes a human and gives the human fish and food and a lush garden to live in and says, “eat freely of all this beauty, except that one tree.” (Maybe its poison, whatever, it will make him die if he eats.) God, not liking to be alone Godself, thinks the human shouldn’t be alone either. The animals are nice but they aren’t really companions the human can be intimate with. So god uses a rib from the first human to make another one. Using the bone God (intimately) sculpts the intimate other.

Misinterpretation

The first human upon seeing the new one, likes “her,” but apparently sees her as derivative: says, “this one shall be called woman for out of man she was taken.” God used one of Adam’s bones, so it could be a bit of a leap on Adam’s part to say she came out of him, but, okay—at any rate they’re naked together and not ashamed. Seems kind of sexy and ecstatic. It would be nice if that lasted awhile.  But, narratively anyway, things are moving along pretty quickly.

[Read more...]

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No Machismo

March 6, 2011 By 4 Comments

Lent vs. The Fitness Industry and pretty much everything that drives commerce.

By Debbie Blue

Gospel Reading: Matthew 4: 1-11

For Sunday, March 13, 2011: Year A − First Sunday in Lent

One very cool thing about the church is that we have this season where we look at death. We start it out by smearing ashes on our foreheads and remembering we are dust and will return to dust. It creates a different vibe than you get from watching American Idol. It’s a nice counter narrative to the infinite narratives that suggest if you do the right thing (take fish oil, post cleverly, exercise in strenuous short outbursts, buy hot shoes, do something outrageous–eat dog cockroaches if you have to on TV) you can avoid insignificance, possibly aging, maybe even death.

Bright Sadness or Blind Happiness

We set aside a season to contemplate what death is, if it has power, how it has power, and what it means that our founding narratives are about a God that becomes human, lives a short fairly inglorious life, and then suffers a humiliating and painful death. The Eastern Orthodox refer to Lent as the season of Bright Sadness. That seems like a good season to have in a culture that insists on happiness—fake, plastic, blind—it doesn’t matter, just please don’t spoil the mood.

The Forties

In the lectionary, the season begins with the story of Jesus’ forty days in the wilderness (Lent is 40 days, it rained 40 days, Moses was on Sinai 40 days, etc) after which he faces the devil. I spent too much time (http://www.textweek.com/art/temptation.htm) looking at some of the ways this scene has been depicted through art history. Sometimes the devil is a beautiful young boy, sometimes he is insect-like with chicken feet. In one sketch he looks like a dandy fellow with a feather jutting from his hat and a picnic basket slung over his arm.  I’m thinking more slick and slippery, Justin Timberlake playing Sean Parker.

[Read more...]

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Miniscule Faith

September 27, 2010 By 2 Comments

Does the gospel ever really get through our heads?

by Debbie Blue

Gospel Reading: Luke 17: 5-10

For Sunday, October 3, 2010: Year C—Ordinary 27

To say that the disciples have thick heads is hardly adequate. Often the disciples behave so oddly in the midst of a narrative that it seems nearly comic (or tragicomic). I’m thinking of the places in the text where Jesus gets a little intense, vulnerable − reveals where the journey’s leading (humiliating death, suffering, leastness) and his disciples react, well, like boys.

Jesus and His Band of Boys

They don’t admit fear or ask questions, or look him in the eyes − they start in with posturing, B.S.; they argue, the text says, about who is the greatest. Is it thick-headedness?

Or is it that the gospel is so unlike what we normally have going on in our heads that it doesn’t compute–like some sensor is blocked or locked? I think this text might be one of those odd-behavior places.

The Tragicomedy

Jesus has just told the parable of the rich man and Lazarus (who has nothing but sores that are licked by dogs). The parable is a graphic illustration of Jesus’ ever-present-in-Luke revelation that what is exalted will be humbled; the last will be first, etc. Then he starts talking about the little ones, and forgiving others, and the boys say, “Increase the size of our faith”

[Read more...]

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