Paul and Silas’ European Adventure

Lydia went on to be a legend and a saint—what happened to the slave girl?

May 6, 2013 By 6 Comments

by Russell Rathbun

New Testament Reading: Acts 16:16-34

For Sunday, May 12, 2013—Easter 7

Wow. This is a pretty exciting story, like worthy of the Homer. It even takes place in the same region as the Iliad and the Odyssey. Except they were written eight hundred years before the book of Acts and Acts is not written in dactylic hexameter—for which I am grateful. Still this is one of the epic-worthy sections of Luke’s follow up to Luke.

A Little More Lydia?

I will quibble with the Lectionari-eers once again and amend their pericope trimming. This story really needs to start in verse fifteen and end with verse forty. Then this reading would be clearly bookended with the references to Lydia and her home. To leave out the Lydia verses in this reading is to miss a critical juxatposition. [Read more...]

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What about the Mystical Union?

Something Went Wrong.

May 6, 2013 By 2 Comments

by Russell Rathbun

Gospel Reading: John 17:20-26

For Sunday, May 12, 2013—Easter 7

The “heart of the Gospel,” the “culmination of John’s message,” where we find all the major themes coming together in Jesus’ “central teaching for the church,” the “summation”—these are the ways that interpreters describe the seventeenth chapter of the fourth gospel, so it must be really important.

The only problem is that it is really confusing and I am not completely sure I know what it means. I don’t mean that, given what it says, I am not sure how to interpret it. I mean, I do not always understand the sentences that are formed by the words which are strung together. [Read more...]

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Justice Delayed 1.0

Indeed or Final Answer

March 25, 2013 By 2 Comments

by Russell Rathbun

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

For Sunday, March 31, 2013—Easter Sunday

It is Easter, and you are loved. The soft insistence of Love has overwhelmed all other possibilities, to become the end, the final answer, the destination, the location for our wonderings and wanderings—

It is Easter and Love is possible. Love is present. It is Easter and you are loved, in an inconceivable, irrevocable, uncanny, prodigious way by God who created us all for this purpose.  God created us so that God could love us. [Read more...]

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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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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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Fruit Trees and Sea Monsters

Orgasmic Praise

December 23, 2012 By Leave a Comment

by Russell Rathbun

Psalm Reading: Psalm 148

For Sunday, December 30, 2012—Christmas 1

I love the over the top feeling in this psalm. It seems like the writer is hyperventilating or tweaking or screaming along some glorious three chord punk rock anthem—praise the Lord, praise the Lord, praise the Lord—yaaaaah.

This is orgasmic praise. In the NRSV translation of this psalm there are eleven exclamation points in fourteen verses. I don’t think I used that many exclamation points in all of this year (I know there is exclamation point creep, due to text and tweets, but that is just not how I was raised). [Read more...]

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Searching for the Teenage Jesus

Spiritual Hangover Sunday

December 23, 2012 By 3 Comments

by Russell Rathbun

Gospel Reading:  Luke 4:21-52

For Sunday, December 30, 2012—Christmas 1

The Sunday after Christmas is the second least attended service of the year; the Sunday after Easter is the first. What’s going on, is it some kind of spiritual hangover?

Congregants have been so jacked on Advent adrenaline (worst band name ever) and worshiped late into the night on Christmas Eve, a little sleep and then one last push to praise our dear savior’s birth, then they spiritually black out. When they finally come too is it all they can barely remember what happened (did I really sing the alto part on O Holy Night?), they have strange programs in their pockets from services they don’t remember attending and their mouth tastes like stale coffee and dry cookie crumbs. [Read more...]

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Whatever God has Pulled Apart

Is there any more meat on those ribs?

October 1, 2012 By Leave a Comment

by Russell Rathbun

Old Testament Reading:  Genesis 2:18-24

For Sunday, Oct. 7, 2012—Ordinary 27

People feel very passionate about marriage. Not their own marriage, of course, other people’s marriages. I think most people probably felt passionate about their own marriages, you know, at some point.

Most people I know seem to prefer their marriage, to, say, not being married to their spouse. They are generally happy, grateful, somewhat content, really-super-one-hundred-percent think it’s worth sticking out—but passionate? Well, occasionally for sure. [Read more...]

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Jesus Questions the Text

Is the Biblical text set in stone?

October 1, 2012 By 2 Comments

by Russell Rathbun

Gospel Reading:  Mark 10:2-16

For Sunday, Oct. 7, 2012—Ordinary 27

When we started this blog, we set out with a clear resolve to take seriously the questions that came up as we read the weekly lectionary texts—that is, hard questions about the text, not life application questions that arise from the text, not the ethical/pastoral, semi-Pelagian, “how then shall I live?” questions.

We really want to nail the sometimes theological, sometimes contextual, text-critical kind of questions—questions about how, what, and why the text means. And in a sincere pseudo-midrashic spirit, to open ourselves to the possibility that often the real questions are found in the texts gaps and fissures. Did I mention the sometimes outrageous? [Read more...]

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