The Devil Tried to Make Me Do It

So, isn’t the devil a hindrance to understating what evil really is?

February 11, 2013 By 2 Comments

by Russell Rathbun

Gospel Reading: Luke 4:1-13

For Sunday, February 17, 2013—Lent 1

Let us begin Lent with a test.

The Holy Spirit fills Jesus up, leads him into the wilderness and then apparently leaves him there in the hands of the devil. The devil? Who is this devil? This is how we want to start Lent, by talking about the devil?

The Devil’s In the Details

There are of course a lot of Lent sermons you could give about temptation and how Lent is a time to redouble your efforts not to give into temptation just like Jesus, but that is not really very good theology. [Read more...]

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THQ’n the Season

How do you prepare for something you could never conceive of?

February 11, 2013 By 1 Comment

by Russell Rathbun

Epistle Reading: Romans 10:8b-13

For Sunday, February 17, 2013—Lent 1

The position of the Gospel and the Epistle posts are intentionally flipped this week in that this post serves as both an introduction and a challenge.

We are moving into the season of contemplation and self-examination, if not the season of preparation for baptism as it was in the early church. Still it remains a season for renewal of our baptismal vows, in principal, and for forming deeper commitments, relationships, and understandings.

It’s a season for drawing “nearer my God to Thee.” [Read more...]

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The Elusiveness of Unity

May 29, 2011 By 12 Comments

What does it mean when even Jesus’ prayer hasn’t been answered?

by Danielle Shroyer

Gospel Reading: John 17:1-11

For Sunday, June 5, 2011:  Year A—Easter 7

Here’s the issue I have with John’s Jesus: he’s verbose. And Jesus, it seems to me from all the other gospels and the basic sense I get about him, was not one of those people who droned on and on because he loved the sound of his own voice. We know plenty of people like that. I wonder if John may have been like that, but Jesus? Jesus is the guy who always says less than you wished he would. He’s the guy who can bring your entire paradigm down with a one-liner. He’s not, in my opinion, someone who spouts ten minutes of repetitive dialogue like a monologue from a bad indie movie.

I bring this to your attention because you may think John makes Jesus sound a little bit like that in chapter 17. I may tend to agree with you. However, we will all try to move on and envision Jesus praying this prayer in his more edited, standard laser-to-your-heart-before-you-count-to-three-kind-of-way.

Game Time

So the first thing we need to remember is that Jesus isn’t that guy—the one with the luxury to be verbose. Who he is in this passage is someone who’s got a very limited amount of time left to teach his disciples. He’s in the middle of an eleventh hour crash course on “everything you need to know before all goes berserk between Good Friday and Easter.” It’s game time, and in this moment Jesus offers up a prayer for his followers, mindful of what they will have to endure (and with an eye toward all of us who will come long after them). The prayer itself is a teaching moment too, emphasizing some key points in John’s Gospel: 1) God and Jesus are mutually glorifying each other like two mirrors reflecting light back and forth, 2) eternal life is knowing God, and 3) Jesus’ disciples know that he is sent from God.

After all of those introductory, clarifying (maybe a bit circumlocutory but we are trying to get past it) comments are made, Jesus lays his prayer out there in true zinger-like fashion: “Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one.”

Houston, we have a problem

Let’s just let that hang in the air for a moment.

We don’t have to get to Martin Luther, or even to the East/West schism of 1054, to know that Christian unity hasn’t lived up to Jesus’ prayer for us. Peter bailed on Jesus and his friends just a chapter later. Paul and Barnabas parted ways halfway through the Book of Acts. And us? If you checked the

[Read more...]

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Renounce the Delusion

March 27, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Can we experience the Lenten journey if we think we already know where it ends?

by Russell Rathbun

Old Testament Reading: 1 Samuel 16:1-13

For Sunday, April 3, 2011: Year A – Lent 4

The Lord really keeps Samuel busy. He is always sending Sam on this or that errand, a lot of the time with messages that are certain to be poorly received. After working with the Lord all that time Samuel might have got used to questionable journeys with unexpected outcomes. Still, when the Lord tells him it is time to head out to anoint a new king, Samuel is scared.

Cover Story for a Call

Go to Jesse the Bethlehemite and anoint a new king from among his sons? Samuel says, in exasperation. If Saul finds out he will kill me. But the Lord comes up with a cover story that satisfies Samuel, so he goes to Jesse’s. His sons present themselves one by one to Samuel, and in spite of Samuel being impressed; the Lord passes on all seven of them. Samuel asks, are you sure that’s everyone?

David, the kid, out with the sheep was not even called in, was not even considered by Jesse until asked. When David finally arrives, as surprised as the rest of his family that he was called out of the fields, the Lord tells Samuel, he’s the one.

Called Into the Unknown

The Lenten texts are full of people being called into unexpected and unknown situations. As many times as I have questioned what the lectionary-ers chose, I think they have gotten it right in this Year A cycle of readings.

Lent is a six-week journey that reflects our complete life’s journey. Lent is a journey that culminates on Black Friday with making the Stations of the Cross. It is a journey of preparation for baptism, of deepening in our faith, both of which are another way of saying Lent is a Journey that ends in death. We don’t know where we are going, were we will end up. As much as we plan or assume the future is unknowable.

[Read more...]

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Creative Sin

March 27, 2011 By 11 Comments

How do we recognize sin when we are unable to see?

by Russell Rathbun

Gospel Reading:  John 9:1-41

For Sunday, April 3, 2011: Year A – Lent 4

The Man Born Blind is driven from the synagogue, found guilty and excommunicated. The Pharisees tried to get a witness to pin it on him, tried to force a confession out of him and in the end settled for guilt by association and their own uncertainty as proof of his sin. Being unable to quiet Jesus, they turn to trying to quiet any would-be followers by threatening them with excommunication.

No Sin Here

Before running into the Man Born Blind, Jesus has just narrowly escaped a rock attack in the temple. But this doesn’t stop Jesus from committing a grave sin right under their noses. His disciples point out the MBB and ask whose sin is responsible for his blindness. There is no sin here, Jesus responds, but through his blindness God’s works will be revealed.

Jesus, without being asked, makes a plaster of mud and saliva applies it to the man’s eyes and has him wash it off. When he does, the creative nature of God’s work is revealed. He sees. Light streams in where there was previously darkness. The rest of this very long narrative pericope is given over to a debate about the nature sin.

The How Question

At issue are the work that Jesus did on the Sabbath (making the plaster) and the work of God that was revealed in bringing light to the Man Born Blind. The Pharisee’s repeatedly ask the question, how Jesus gave him sight. That is, did he perform work on the Sabbath? The neighbors seem out to get Jesus, also. They ask MBB the how question and when he tells them about making the plaster, they immediately turn him in.

It doesn’t just happen to be the Sabbath, the author uses it to make a point about the Pharisees’ understanding of God in contrast to Jesus’. The Pharisees, in John, see God work as restrictive. Jesus sees God’s work as permissive. They see sin as transgressing the restricted, Jesus sees sin as limiting the continuing of God’s work of creation, that work which is imaged from Genesis forward as bringing light into the darkness.

[Read more...]

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A New Hope

March 20, 2011 By 7 Comments

Crying, waiting, hoping.

by Unvirtuous Abbey

 Gospel Reading: Romans 5: 1-11

For Sunday, Mar. 27, 2011: Year A – Lent 3

A friend of mine was recently “vague booking.” I called him and heard his relationship (or lack of relationship) woes. As we spoke, I asked him, “What gives you hope?”

His answer: “I’ll be in Mexico in two weeks.”

Now, that may not be what gives me, or you, hope, but for him, it was the first thing that came to his mind.

Seeing Hope

A few years ago, I worked with a group of people and asked them to submit pictures of what gave them hope. The project was this: “In our digital world, we are challenging you to record hopeful images in life. Where do you see hope in your daily life?”

I received over 100 images from people. Some were edgy, such as a sink in a soup kitchen. Others were of flowers growing through concrete. Some depicted wildlife and outdoor scenes. A young person submitted a group picture with her friends; their togetherness gave her hope. The project generated a lot of emotion.

Living for the Preposterous

Of hope, Cheryl Lawrie of the Uniting Church in Australia says this: “Hope, an encounter that captivates our imagination so we can’t help but become more than who we thought we were, and find ourselves living for something that is all at once preposterous and impossible.”

The recipe for hope, says Paul, is this: suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope. And hope does not disappoint us.

[Read more...]

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Thanking the Woman at the Well

March 20, 2011 By 7 Comments

Who’s the thirsty one here?

by Unvirtuous Abbey

Gospel Reading: John 4: 5-42

For Sunday, Mar. 27, 2011: Year A – Lent 3

“I want to thank the woman at the well,” he said. He was a newcomer to the group of mostly older people who gathered each week to study and read the Bible. He was also a professor and, as he said to the group, a gay man.

Just Good Conversation

Something that attracts me to this story is that there is no “healing,” just good conversation. We’re so used to “sound bite” Jesus that it’s interesting to see the person behind the Messiah. It’s refreshing to think of Jesus sitting beside a 1,200 year old well that was made famous by someone else. This story is divinity and humanity holding hands, laughing back and forth, and even getting a bit testy when the comments hit too close to home; but it’s a conversation held in what becomes mutual respect.

Thomas Moore said, “Heaven is not some impossible, idealized world; it is ordinary life made brilliant by a philosophy of mutual respect.”

A Love Story

That is precisely the perceived problem here: mutual respect. It’s also what is at stake. Because for several reasons, including race, religion, and gender, what Jesus is doing is considered wrong by the people around him who loved him most.

Robert Alter, in The Art of Biblical Narrative talked about Hebrew “type-scenes” in which stock characters would act a certain way every time. In the Hebrew stories, it sometimes happens that when a man meets a woman at a well, they get married. So, if you didn’t know who Jesus was, to Hebrew ears, this was a possible outcome, and was a great way of telling a story.

  [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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