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...]

Filed Under: Acts, Featured, New Testament, Uncategorized, YearC Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Good Cop, Bad Cop

Another Revised Common Lectionary Hackjob

January 6, 2013 By 1 Comment

by Mark Stenberg

Gospel Reading: Luke 3:15-22

For Sunday, January 13, 2013: Year C—Baptism of our Lord

Ripping the Revised Common Lectionary folk has become pretty standard fare. Excuse me for piling on, but this week’s gospel text is the RCL at its absolute worst.

The wags over at textweek will tell ya that this is one hack job on the part of the lectionary, shredding a single, carefully told story (Luke 3:1-22) into three bits that simply fail to tell the tale of John the Baptist handing things off to Jesus. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Luke, New Testament, YearC Tagged With: , , , ,

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...]

Filed Under: 2 Samuel, Featured, Old Testament, YearB Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Go Ahead, Judge a Book By Its Title

November 27, 2011 By 11 Comments

The Beginning of the Good News

by Nadia Bolz-Weber

Gospel Reading: Mark 1:1–8

For Sunday, Dec. 4, 2011 Year B—Advent 2

I love that Mark’s gospel starts by saying: “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, son of God.”

Look, Ma, no Verb!

Grammar geeks might notice that there is no verb in that sentence. It’s more like it’s the title of the book: The Beginning of the Good News of Jesus Christ, Son of God. If it were titled just The Good News about Jesus Christ, Son of God then the book might be read as the beginning, middle, and end of the good news. If it had been titled The Beginning of the Good Short Story of Jesus Christ, Son of God then it would not be news. What makes it news is that it is something new that is external to us that we have to be told. The idea that it’s also the beginning suggests much more good stuff to come from this Jesus Christ, Son of God.

Raise Your Mug and Say “Yea!”

The term gospel was the term for the news flash that an announcer proclaimed about a victory that the empire or the king had won. It was a pronouncement of Good News. Something big had happened that had changed everything and this sort of announcement was one that elicited a response.

It’s sort of like if the owner of a crowded bar yells, “Drinks are on the house!” Everyone raises their mugs and says, “Yea!” So here, Mark’s account of the Gospel greets us with surprising gusto as we settle into the second week of Advent—the second week of waiting on the coming of God.

[Read more...]

Filed Under: Featured, Mark, New Testament, YearB Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Christmas, Apocalypse, Rebels and Bell Choirs

November 20, 2011 By 2 Comments

How are we to interrupt this call to follow Jesus from our place of privilege?

by Russell Rathbun

Gospel Reading:  Mark 13:24-37

For Sunday, Nov. 27 , 2011: Year B—Advent 1

The Legions are forming on the edges of the city; the rebels are preparing to defend Jerusalem and the temple. Many in Mark’s community are wondering if this is to be the decisive Messianic battle that turns away the Empire for good and reestablishes David’s throne once and for all.

Should they throw in with the defenders of Jerusalem?

Run for the Hills!

This is a proposed context for the writing of the beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, according to Mark. Chapter 13 can be imagined to be the point where that question is specifically addressed.

Mark’s author pens a sermon of Jesus to provide the answer and Jesus says:  Run!

Run for the hills. When you see the desolating sacrilege (the Roman standard, the eagle), do not defend Jerusalem, give over the Temple to destruction and get out of there.

The Little Apocalypse

The sermon that comprises Mark 13, known as the “Little Apocalypse” (not to be confused with Tori Amos’ Little Earthquakes or la petite mort or the Little Prince, but perhaps sharing some resonance with all three) is a response to the disciple’s astonishment at Jesus’ matter of fact reference to the assured destruction of the temple.

[Read more...]

Filed Under: Featured, Mark, New Testament, YearB Tagged With: , , , , ,

The Empire Cannot Love You

October 9, 2011 By 2 Comments

What belongs to Caesar?

by Russell Rathbun

Gospel Reading: Matthew 22:15-22

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

In the first chapter of Genesis, the Torah teaches that God made Adam, and the human race, in the image of God. What does this mean?

Sanhedrin Sez…

The ancient rabbis taught:

Adam, the first human being, was created as a single person to show forth the greatness of the Ruler who is beyond all rulers, the Blessed Holy One. For if a human ruler [like Caesar, the Roman Emperor who was the ruler in the time and place of the Rabbi’s writing] mints many coins from one mold, they all carry the same image, they all look the same. But the Blessed Holy One shaped all human beings in the Divine Image, as Adam was…and yet not one of them resembles another. (Sanhedrin 38a)

The rabbis drew an analogy between the image a human ruler, Caesar, puts upon the coins of the realm, and the image the Infinite Ruler puts upon the many “coins” of humankind.

Limited Uniformity

The very diversity of human faces shows the unity and infinity of God, whereas the uniformity of imperial coins makes clear the limitations of the power of an emperor.

[Read more...]

Filed Under: Featured, Matthew, New Testament, YearA Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Debt Crisis

August 29, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Loving one another is a call out of the system of the empire.

by Russell Rathbun

Epistle Reading: Romans 13:8-14

For Sunday, Sept. 4 , 2011: Year A—Ordinary 23

When it comes to the neighbor, love can seem so little—a tiny tidbit of concern or a shred of sallow regard.

 Love that Withholds

Usually I think of loving my neighbor in terms of what I withhold or as some small concession. Like, I won’t flip him off when he cuts in front of me, or I won’t unleash all my vitriol on the world in response to the moronic pronouncements of confident, yet ill informed politicians.

I’ll offer some help if needed, sometime, or maybe I’ll just write a check. But, perhaps, that is a bit less than what is intended when Romans 13 says: owe no one anything, except to love one another.

The Meaning of “Owe”

It is tempting to read these seven verses simply as an admonishment against financial indebtedness and an encouragement to pure living. Well, I should say, it is not tempting for me to read them this way, but I imagine it is tempting to the confident, yet ill-informed politicians on whom I will not unleash my vitriol.

To understand the word owe in material terms is to shrink the gospel, to neuter its revolutionary trajectory.

[Read more...]

Filed Under: Featured, New Testament, Romans, YearA Tagged With: , , , , , ,

The Utopian Church

May 8, 2011 By 15 Comments

What does Acts tell us about what the church should look like today? Anything?

by Russell Rathbun

First Reading: Acts 2:42-47

For Sunday, May 15 , 2011: Year A – Easter 4

Sometimes the Hardest Question is the obvious question.

Acts 2 is infamous in its impotence. It is full of miraculous promise, with power of the Holy Spirit birthing the church; a radical community that upends the social structure in favor of one built on study, fellowship, worship and an equality flowing from love. And it lasts for exactly 5 verses.

Then It Gets Ugly

From the first description of this Spirit-led Utopia in 2:43-47, to the expanded picture of the renunciation of private ownership, unity of heart and soul, and the great grace as its markers in 4:32-37. Then it gets ugly. God kills the first dissenter.

What are we supposed to do with this? Is this brief glimpse at the Utopian church really the way it is supposed to be?

Googling It

Sixty seven million hits on a Google search for “Acts 2 Church” can’t be wrong—that’s over a million entries for every verse. There are Baptist, United Methodist, Lutheran, Pentecostal, Pietiest, Mennonite and no end of independent and evangelical congregations that go by the name Acts 2 Church. There are the “Acts 2 Network,” “How to Be an Acts 2 Church,” “Building an Acts 2 Church,” the “Acts 2 Process”—plus, like a million other attempts at incarnating, reviving or re-establishing the original.

[Read more...]

Filed Under: Acts, Featured, New Testament, YearA Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Exiles in the Empire of Capital

April 25, 2011 By 1 Comment

Is there an oppression and a suffering so internalized that we do not even recognize it as suffering?

by Russell Rathbun

Epistle Reading: 1 Peter 1:3-9

For Sunday, May 1 , 2011: Year A – Easter 2

Grace and peace to you all in exile in the Babylon of the United States, Western Europe, Australia, the Mall of America and those lost on line. My your blindness to your suffering at the hands of Global Capital and vacuous striving be revealed to you, so that you may see that you have been freed through the bodily resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, that utterly abundant life has been given to you. You are Holy because God is Holy.

Where Are We?

Or something like that. The author of 1 Peter is writing to a young Christian church struggling to live out the Empire of God in the midst of the Roman Empire. While many comparisons can be made between ancient Rome and the present dominate Capital empires, the position of the Christian church in these empires is much different. We are not on the bottom we are on the top.

The Nature of Our Faith

This difference has been explored a few times before in this blog, but really bears repeating: Our faith is full of contradictions—I mean that in a good way—full of dialectical truths. Like the one the texts for this Sunday hold out to us. Our faith is utterly dependent on the proclamation that God gets a body, and as God with a body is killed. And further, God with a body defeats death and rises from the dead. It is a profoundly physical foundation our faith has. Yet we have no body.

[Read more...]

Filed Under: 1 Peter, Featured, New Testament, YearA Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Kinda Sad

October 17, 2010 By 1 Comment

Can the privileged citizens of the empire proclaim the gospel of the oppressed?

by Russell Rathbun

Epistle Reading: 2 Timothy 4:6-8, 16-18

For Sunday, Oct. 24, 2010: Year C – Ordinary 30

This is kinda sad. When the Epistle readings are all full of ethical demands and righteous declarations, I find them a bit off-putting and uninspiring. They never really grab me; they turn me off. Not that I always need something zingy in the text to engage me, but I do like something that feels alive.

2 Timothy Feels Alive

After looking at this week’s Epistle lesson, I went back and read the whole letter. It is beautiful and sad. It is Paul, in jail, facing his impending execution.

There is poetry in this letter.

As for me, I am already being poured out as a libation, and the time of my departure has come.

There is a real, vulnerable person here. It is unfortunate that the Lectionariers left out verses 9-15, almost the best part of the whole book. Paul seems a little scared and lonely. He names those who have deserted him.

[Read more...]

Filed Under: 2 Timothy, Featured, New Testament, YearC Tagged With: , , , , , , ,
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