Justice Delayed 2.0

Indeed or Kinda, Sorta

March 25, 2013 By 1 Comment

by Russell Rathbun

Gospel Reading (Take 2): Luke 24:1-12

For Sunday, March 31, 2013—Easter Sunday

Luke’s Jesus said more than he would rise on the third day rise again. Jesus said he came to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.

Why didn’t he follow through on that promise too?

Indeed!

“Christ is risen,” which is short hand for the world has been redeemed, death has been overcome, all that Jesus told us would happen through out the story, has happened. All the questions have been answered. Jesus, our savior wins. [Read more...]

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Wisdom and Justice

What do our prayers say about us?

August 19, 2012 By 14 Comments

by Nanette Sawyer

Old Testament Reading:  1 Kings 8: 1, 6, 10-11, 22-30, 41-43

For Sunday, August 26, 2012: Year B—Ordinary 21

King Solomon is a good man. He is admired and admirable, for the most part—a celebrated king. Sure, he does a few things that are hard for me to accept—like killing people to secure his kingship per the instructions of his father, King David. I don’t take that as an example of how we should be in the world, I just take that as a reflection of how the world is, and how a human being can be.

Solomon’s wisdom, for which he is famous, is reflected in his prayers at the dedication of the temple. Once again, like his first interaction with God, he doesn’t ask for riches or long life for himself. He doesn’t even ask for victory in battle. In his first interaction with God, he asks for wisdom. At the dedication of the temple, he asks for justice and for God’s presence with the people, that God would hear them. (Be sure to read the whole prayer, the middle of which is left out of the lectionary portion.) [Read more...]

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The Burden of a Not-So-Burdensome Commandment

May 6, 2012 By 2 Comments

Living Out Love In the Real World.

by Jodi-Renee Adams

Epistle Reading:  1 John 5.1-6

For Sunday, May 23, Year B − Easter 6

John insists in a kind of circular argument that if you are a child of GOD then you are yourself full of GOD’s love and sharing that with the world.

According to the, so-called, favored disciple, there’s evidence for this great adoption. The evidence of our relationship is found in our obedience to GOD’s commands which, according to the guy who was tortured by the Romans, aren’t too heavy to carry out.

My Yoke is Easy and My Burden is Light.

In an ever-flowing prose, John keeps trying to find new ways to talk about this great, new Christian ethos. The way the words repeat, the ideas tumble over themselves, you almost get the impression that he’s bubbling over with a kind of urgency and excitement and concern.

It makes sense. But it’s not as cut and dried as it may seem at first read: “These are GOD’s children—those who keep his commandments. And GOD’s commands are not too heavy. And they’ll completely give us victory over this crazy world. So let’s totally be like Jesus.”

But here’s the thing: GOD’s command, if I’m not mistaken, is to love GOD with all my heart, mind, and strength and to love my neighbor as myself. Not to quibble with the best friend of the Messiah, but I’ve never found it easy to do either of those things; and if “easy” doesn’t seem to be the way the word strikes you, I imagine that “burdensome” feels even less on the nose.

Overwhelming versus Overcoming

Let’s be honest, loving well – especially the neighbors – is often a really burdensome task. At least it maybe is for me and this is now my confession to all of you.

Yet John makes this promise: this love is how we overcome the world, i.e. all of the things that stand in opposition to the kingdom of GOD, all of the things that scream out the opposites of humility, shalom, beauty, generosity, justice, mercy.

The powerful, almost military, language feels like a real paradox here. When I read words like victory, overcoming, conquering, I get images of subduing something or someone, of exerting power to gain advantage; words that, ironically, remind me of what the world stands for.

But there’s another way overcoming happens

[Read more...]

Filed Under: 1 John, Featured, New Testament, YearB Tagged With: , , , , ,

Buying Access to God’s Healing

February 6, 2012 By 5 Comments

Why does this business of healing have to be a business?

by Michael Danner

Old Testament Reading: 2 Kings 5:1-14

For Sunday, Feb. 12, 2012; Year B—Epiphany 6

When I read, or hear, a healing story, I tend to take the perspective of those who have not experienced healing. Don’t get me wrong, I can celebrate your healing with you in all faith, sincerity and joy! What I can’t do is stop thinking about what it means to those who haven’t been healed.

Here and Now

My questioning disposition not only pertains to supernatural healings, but also the healing that comes through traditional medicine.

When I celebrate your successful open heart surgery with you, and ponder the cost of such miraculous interventions, I can’t help but think of those without access to basic health care who die of preventable diseases. I find it troubling that we can’t do better. I wonder why money, power, privilege and politics have to play such a big part in healing!

Then and There

Imagine my surprise when I read, again, the story of Naaman. Yes, it’s a story of healing. But then, as now, it’s also a story of money, politics, power and privilege.

[Read more...]

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Repurposing the Promise of Release

December 4, 2011 By Leave a Comment

How long can we continue to push God’s promise of justice into the future? 

by Russell Rathbun

Old Testament Reading: Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11

For Sunday, Dec. 11 , 2011: Year B—Advent 3

Jesus quotes this Isaiah text in Luke 4:16 as sort of his mission statement. And it seems like really Good News. The Lord has anointed Jesus to bring this good news the oppressed, the brokenhearted, the captives, and the prisoners. The year of the Lord’s favor has arrived.

Reset Button

Jesus via Isaiah is referencing Leviticus 25’s description of the Year of Jubilee. This is commanded to take place every fiftieth year. During this amazing year, justice and equanimity is supposed to reign. All debts are forgiven; the captives go free; the prisoners are released; and nobody does any work.

The Year of Jubilee was designed to be a sort of social reset button. It is a control against the amassing of wealth and power—an acknowledgement of and correction to our tendencies toward corruption. When too much is controlled by too few, it usually turns out very bad for the many.

Push the Button or Push it Off?

This does seem like good news, like miraculous news.

The only problem is that there is no record of it ever happening. Perhaps it is because the few with the wealth and power where the ones responsible for declaring the Year of Jubilee.

[Read more...]

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This Branch Is Slower than Christmas

November 28, 2010 By 15 Comments

Why is the stump of Jesse taking so long to fill the whole world with the knowledge of God?

by Danielle Shroyer

Old Testament Reading: Isaiah 11:1-10

For Sunday, December 5, 2010 Year A - Advent 2

Picture it: Sicily, 1928. (Golden Girls fans, you’re welcome.) Actually, the picture happened last year, at my son’s kindergarten Christmas program. There they all were, five- and six-year-olds, fidgeting on risers and fumbling with their little Christmas collars, big smiles on their faces and unashamed voices booming forth, singing, “You be the lion strong and wild, I’ll be the lamb, meek and mild; we’ll live together happily, ‘cause that’s how it ought to be.”

This passage from Isaiah has always been one of my favorites. It illustrates many of the deepest hopes I hold, the ones where our world will be filled not with pain and destruction but with righteousness and justice, that day when a little child shall lead us up to that holy mountain because we are ready, finally, to turn in our damaging ways for the way of the Lord.

Can we raise the banners yet?

At Advent, we Jesus-types declare our bold hopes for the world to the world. Go tell it on the mountain, we say, over the hills and everywhere! “Let earth receive her King!”, we sing.

Indeed, the first two stanzas of our Isaiah text leave us no reason to hold back our enthusiasm. In Advent we proclaim that Isaiah’s words have been made manifest through the Christ child, the branch growing forth from the tree of Jesse. And those of us who follow this Christ child affirm that yes, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding and the fear of the Lord rested upon his shoulders. We affirm that he has judged the poor with righteousness. We know all too well how, through those convicting parables, the words of his mouth have assailed us in all our shadowed places. We say all of this with holiday cheer and merriment, even, because we believe it’s the best thing — he’s the best thing — that has happened to us.

But then we get to the third stanza, the part about the lions and the lambs and the child-friendly snakes. There is a chasm the size of Texas between those two stanzas. There is a black hole of despair just waiting for us, daring us to try to make the jump. It’s all death eaters and dementors down there, sucking the life right out.

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A Deceptive God?

September 6, 2010 By Leave a Comment

If God is so anguished over our suffering, why does God allow it? Shouldn’t God be protecting us?

by Nanette Sawyer

Old Testament Reading: Jeremiah 4:11-12, 22-28

For Sunday, September 12, 2010: Year C – Ordinary 24

“Ah, Lord God, how utterly you have deceived this people and Jerusalem, saying, ‘It shall be well with you,’ even while the sword is at the throat!” The prophet Jeremiah lobs this accusation at God in the verse right before this week’s lection begins.

Is God a Deceiver?

Sometimes it feels like God betrays us. God claims to love us, yet why do we end up feeling abandoned? How could a loving God let us suffer as we do? Or allow evil to continue in the world?

This story in Jeremiah recounts the destruction of the earth so complete that it resembles the un-creation of the world. While God created the heavens and the earth out of a formless void and brought forth light with a word in the beginning of Genesis, here in Jeremiah God turns the earth into a “waste and void” and removes light from the heavens. God’s “fierce anger” has mythic proportions, as God undoes the creation, removing people from the land and birds from the sky. Plants are gone and cities are destroyed, leaving only desert, a wasteland.

I don’t know about you, but I get uncomfortable when mere humans are angry with me. Divine anger is overwhelming. There is some relief in Jeremiah 4:27, but it seems plopped into the middle of the story out of nowhere. Scholars believe it was inserted in later copies of the story, and I find that likely. Apparently there were others who were a bit uncomfortable by the degree of destruction in this story.

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Threats from Heaven

July 12, 2010 By 4 Comments

When is injustice so unspeakable that it demands violent response?

by Russell Rathbun

Old Testament Reading: Amos 8:1-12

For Sunday, July 18, 2010: Year C, Ordinary 16

The book of Amos contains the famous articulation of God’s call for justice, “Let justice roll down like water, and righteousness like an ever—flowing stream” (Amos 5:24). It’s been quoted by Martin Luther King Jr., Jim Wallis, and countless others. It appears on bumper stickers, t-shirts and coffee mugs. What they usually fail to point out, however, is that God’s water of justice was sent to drown God’s children.

Prosperity…on the Backs of the Poor and Powerless

The Prophet Amos is called in a time of relative prosperity for Israel, but like most times of prosperity it is brought about on the backs of the poor and powerless. In chapter 8 God tells Amos that God is so outraged by the way the poor are treated that there is no more mercy for them — only wrath. God shows him a basket of ripe summer fruit to illustrate that his wrath is fully ripened and is ready blow. Because God’s children have “trampled on the needy, and bring to ruin the poor of the land,” God says, “the end has come upon my people Israel; I will never again pass their way. The songs of the temple shall become wailing in that day……The dead bodies shall be many, cast out in every place.”

[Read more...]

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