February 19, 2013

Today’s Readings:

AM Psalm 45; PM Psalm 47, 48  
Deut. 9:4-12; Heb. 3:1-11; John 2:13-22 

                                      Strega Nona and Psalm 45

¹⁰ Hear, O daughter, consider and incline your ear;
 forget your people and your father’s house,
¹¹   and the king will desire your beauty.
Since he is your lord, bow to him…

¹⁶ In the place of ancestors you, O king,^* shall have sons;
 you will make them princes in all the earth. –Psalm 45

This psalm is said to be an allegory of the heavenly wedding between God (the King) and God’s love for Israel (the bride). I found these words offensive, since they sound sexist to me. How could I find gospel in them?

As a first grade teacher, my students and I listen to, read, and compare and contrast various versions of classic literature every day. We adapt and retell the stores in our own words until they become our own. Taking a clue from my seven-year-olds, I got busy searching for adaptations of this psalm.

First, I found Lutheran Nadia Bolz-Weber explaining that the psalmist makes the king appear a bit “nerdy,” in her opinion. Hear her in an audio here, beginning at about 1:00. http://castroller.com/podcasts/TheEmergentPsalter/1402575

Next, I found Barbara J. Monda’s Rejoice, Beloved Women, which retells the psalm as if it was written by a woman:

Your consort takes his place at your side.  He is clothed in gold but is blind to everything, save your beauty. He renounces all he has just to please you…Your daughters will proliferate…

If God is neither male nor female, it can’t really matter if God is portrayed as a king, or a queen, can it?  It’s refreshing when adaptations turn things on their head!

And finally, in Psalms in Ordinary Voices, edited by Andrea Ayvazian, I read:

I … follow the woman who leads

And follows well,

But is not led

Into forgetting…

I breathe the infinite wind of justice strong and kind to be remembered in all generations.

Given the hundreds of translations and interpretations of the psalms down through the centuries, who can say what the “best” is?  A few days ago, as I was reading aloud to my students Tomie dePaola’s classic, Strega Nona’s Magic Lessons, the main character’s words caught my attention.  The wise witch, Strega Nona, counseled her apprentices about the wisest way to learn magic. I think her words can apply equally to the work I am attempting with this psalm. They can also help in appraising other scripture:

You must learn to see and not to see.

You must learn to remember and to forget;

To be still and to be busy …

But, mostly

 you must be faithful to your work.

Julie Mankowsky

February 18, 2013

Deuteronomy 8:11-20 Hebrews 2:11-18 John 2:1-12

John 2:1-2 …there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding.

John’s Gospel and Genesis begin with the same words: “In the beginning.“ In Genesis God’s Word creates over six days, then the seventh day is reserved for resting and enjoying what had been made - a Sabbath.

John’s Gospel too begins with six days of creating - in the first two days John the Baptist points his disciples away from himself and toward Jesus saying, “Behold, God’s Lamb.“ John directs them away from him and toward Jesus who is shaping a new community of disciples. Over the next four days Jesus calls disciples directly or disciples draw in other disciples. By the sixth day the new community has been fashioned - the followers of Jesus. On the seventh day this new community goes to a wedding feast to celebrate with good wine and good food. When the inferior wine runs out, Jesus - who has been transforming lives - now transforms water into wine. The new creation has begun. Ever since then people have been invited to help reshape the world. We cannot look at the world and wearily say, “This is just the way the world is!” That is too easy and evasive. When we look at the world our antiphon of celebration or regret has to be, “This is the way we have made the world.” It can be remade.

I visited Mt. Vernon years ago and saw the slave quarters where our first president housed his human property. Last month I saw our nation’s First Lady stand alongside her husband as he took the presidential oath. She is the descendent of slaves. We make and can remake our world.

I am sure that you can, as I can, look back and see how so many times life invites or forces us into recreating in some way. We lose a job or are drawn toward a new one and begin again. A relationship ends or changes, and we begin again.

This recreating does not just happen to us individually. It happens in our country when history curves in new directions, and we see situations with new eyes as if for the first time. It may lead us to wonder where our blind spots are now - and what we may be refusing to see now but which may become visible to us later and call out to us to help refashion a situation.

I try to remember that this needing to begin anew is good for us, and I so admire those who keep open to it. Years ago I was asked to visit a woman in her 90’s who had recently moved to Maine from Massachusetts leaving her home of over 40 years to go along with her daughter’s desire to have her close in a retirement home. As this woman and I became acquainted on our first visit, I commented that I imagined this change must have been difficult for her. She smiled and said, “I decided to look upon it as an adventure.” I never forgot her words. When I visited people in that place, I always saved my visit to her until the end because of how good I felt when I walked away from her room and her presence. I often said a silent “Wow!” to myself. In her 90’s and still open to the recreating.

- Janice M. Schuyler

　

　

February 17, 2013

 AM Psalm 63:1-8(9-11), 98; PM Psalm 103   
Deut. 8:1-10; 1 Cor. 1:17-31; Mark 2:18-22

Jesus’ analogies of the patched cloak and the wineskins always capture my imagination.  I have had enough experience with sewing and laundry to envision the patched cloak.  I’ve never seen a wineskin in action, but I can just imagine the bursting skin in my mind’s eye.  Great images!  And so, what is Jesus teaching us about navigating the juncture of old and new? 

I honor the scriptures as I’m sure all of you do.  It’s just something my parents and my community taught me to do.  But there are times when my values are challenged by two opposing (yet linked) ideologies.  At one end of the spectrum, the scriptures are reverenced to the point of being frozen in time.  You just don’t tamper with them.  At the other end is the question, “Why do you listen to the same old stories week after week, year after year, to the exclusion of everything else?”  The old and the new. 

When I imagine these ancient texts as “reverenced to the point of being frozen,” then I can see them as an old cloak or wineskin.  Why are we still using them? Why try to apply them to our new way of looking at the world?  They will just get ripped apart!  Maybe we should set them aside and focus instead on something more modern and fitting with our culture.

But in this passage, Jesus was not talking about the scriptures.  Instead, he was talking about our response to the scriptures.  I believe he was telling his followers that the Word of God is alive!  We can’t let it get trapped into our old traditions and frozen in time.  It will be useless to us.  Instead we need to let it move and grow and draw us into new ways of responding to the world around us.  Those of us who love the scriptures feel the presence of the Holy Spirit in them making them alive, and because of that, they are always being made new!  

- Sue B.     

February 16, 2013

In the reading from Deuteronomy, the issue of underestimating one’s self-worth is addressed. Numerous times in the Bible God comes to individuals and tells them of a task that they must accomplish. Moses is referenced in this reading; he did not believe in his ability to affect change for his people. However, God saw his worth and instructed him on how to become a great leader. As I am facing the end of my time in high school and the end of my adolescence, I must evaluate how I can help to spread God’s word in my life. In order for me to do this effectively I must trust in God to know how I can best help him in his purpose and believe in my ability to affect change and do good things. This is the faith that allowed Moses to bring the Hebrews out of slavery, allowed Mary to trust in God and bear his son as a young teenage girl, and Noah to build an ark of incredible size at the risk of losing everyone he cared for. These individuals are remembered for their trust in God even though their task was seemingly impossible. I hope that I can apply this level of faith into my life as I enter the “real world.”

Jacqueline

February 15, 2013

Psalm 95; Deut. 7:12-16; Titus 2:1-15; John 1:35-42

During the Lenten season we try to prepare ourselves for His death and His victorious resurrection through prayer, penance, repentance, almsgiving, and self-denial. All of these are very important, but it seems we compartmentalize the actions by season. When I read today’s readings I couldn’t help but think they referred to other actions that prepare us, not just for Holy Week, but for the struggles we face as Christians.

In the Psalm I felt that practicing more praise and humility toward God was the message. I believe the psalm reminds us we owe everything to God—but not as a people to their King but as a flock to their Shepherd. A king rules over his people while a shepherd cares for his flock; I think the distinction is obvious. We are all precious in his sight and he always treats us as such, even during the pains of life. For His unwavering love and the gifts He gives us daily, He deserves nothing less than our praise and humility.

When I read Deuteronomy the readings spoke to me of a promised future that is one blessing after another. It’s a reward for following His covenant with Noah that extends to all of us. He asked Noah to do a task that was impossible in Noah’s sight, but if Noah did, God would honor him and his family. Even though we describe it as His covenant I believe it is our covenant. A covenant is like a treaty, alliance or pact; there’s always two sides. None of us have been asked to build Arks, but I for one can think of Christian challenges/ requested actions that have been almost as difficult. Seeing Christ in all our brothers and sisters, remembering our duty to the least of our society, and do these things with Love at all times. I know that for me sometimes these duties can be like building an Ark. If we can do these things, what lays ahead of us sounds like the Love that is beyond our understanding.

Within Titus I see teachings on the expectations God has of us to each other. I see a trinity of relationships between us, our neighbors and God. God cares about our salvation, and then in turn we need to care about the salvation of others. Not only does God list what he wants, but in no uncertain terms we’re told to “exhort and reprove with all authority.” I believe the strength of these terms are to emphasize their importance of these actions if we are to be Christian leaders, not permission to jump up on the Soapbox, talk down to and command others. God knows and we are told, if we speak and act without love we’ll become the banging gong and clanging cymbals we’ve been warned about.

In the Gospel I consider the action requested is a little more subtle. We’re asked to listen for our call. In the Gospel the disciples are told that there is the Lamb of God. When they ask the Messiah about himself, they are told by Him to “Come and see.” They went without hesitation and became so enlightened in just one afternoon that one of them sought out his brother Simon to tell him about the Messiah. Simon heard that call, came to Jesus and took the first steps as Cephas (Peter). I know that discernment is an important part of our Christian life and it definitely brings us closer to God. Yet when the disciples are called I barely see discernment. I see immediate comprehension based on just listening to Christ and allowing the message to be our discernment. The disciples who did not yet witness the glorification of Christ through the death and resurrection heeded the call immediately. For us who have had it revealed to us, what is our hesitation? What is our call, that’s between each person and God, but if we don’t listen intently I believe we miss huge opportunities to be part of God’s Kingdom here on earth.

                 

Tom W

February 14, 2013

Readings:

AM Psalm 37:1-18; PM Psalm 37:19-42; Deuteronomy 7:6-11; Titus 1:1-16; John 1:29-34

For you are a people holy to the Lord your God; the Lord your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on earth to be his people, his treasured possession.  It was not because you were more numerous than any other people that the Lord set his heart on you and chose you – for you were the fewest of all peoples.  It was because the Lord loved you.

Deuteronomy 7:6-8 (NRSV)

By this time of the new year the gyms that had nary an open treadmill or elliptical machine in early January now aren’t quite as crowded.  Early to mid-February usually finds many people having faltered in their New Year’s resolutions to exercise more and so the gym regulars breathe a sigh of relief as the wait to use equipment declines substantially. 

Typically, we make New Year’s resolutions to improve ourselves and our lives – to make us better and more perfect people.  The advertisements that constantly bombard us in our culture encourage this as they tell us we need to be more of this and less of that in order to achieve the “perfection” that will then make us more popular and more loved by others. 

Growing up, what I knew and learned of the practice of giving up something for Lent came from my Catholic friends since in my Lutheran household the practice of giving up something for Lent was seen as “too Catholic” to take part in.  And so, my early understanding of the Lenten discipline of giving something up for Lent was that the practice was much like a New Year’s resolution.  It was a practice meant to make you a better and more perfect person who would, therefore, be more worthy of God’s love.  Of course, as a good Lutheran, I rejected this as heresy against my knowledge that I was saved by grace through faith and that there was nothing I could do to make God love me more than God already did. :-)

However, as I got older and went to seminary, my understanding of the practice evolved to more than the understanding I had gained in elementary school from my Catholic friends.  I came to see the practice of giving something up for Lent as a way to draw closer to God.  I began to understand that the practice of abstaining from something in Lent is a way to for us to rid ourselves of the things that get in the way of our relationship with the God who has chosen us as God’s own and who loves us more than we can ever comprehend simply because we belong to God.  Sure, giving that thing up might make us a better person, but that isn’t the goal.  The goal is to grow in relationship with God by turning away from that which leads us away from God.  And that can be done by abstaining from something that prevents me from fully living into my relationship with God or it can be done by adding something to my life that will help me to grow deeper in that relationship. 

With this new understanding under my belt, I feel comfortable in not being “too Catholic” if I give something up for Lent today because I now get that it isn’t heretical to who I am as a Lutheran Christian (or a Lutherpalian as I sometimes refer to myself as a Lutheran pastor serving in an Episcopal congregation :-).  I now understand that abstaining from something during Lent isn’t about making God love me more as I become more perfect and, therefore, more worthy of God’s love.  It is about growing in my relationship with the God who has chosen me as God’s treasured possession.  It is about growing in the knowledge and trust that God chose each and every one of us as God’s own people, not because we as a people were the best and most promising people out there – our Deuteronomy reading for the day tells us we were far from that – but because God loves us simply for who we are.  And so this Lent I will take part in a Lenten discipline not to be more perfect, but to live more fully into the perfect love of God who has chosen me as God’s own, imperfect as I may be.

Karen Safstrom

Ash Wednesday

“The word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time …” (Jonah 3:1)

There is a lot of theology in just that one phrase, maybe even enough to take us all the way through Lent. And if you know the story of Jonah it pretty much sums up the whole thing. If you don’t know the story, then a great way to begin Lent is to read it in its entirety, which takes hardly more time than reading to a child at bedtime. In fact, read it in that way: as a good fishing story that no one has yet told you is in the Bible.

So the reason that the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time is because the first time that happened, Jonah ran in precisely the opposite direction from Nineveh. He fled to Tarshish, apparently never having read (or having forgotten) Psalm 139 of The Runaway Bunny. This is why Jonah was the prophet who never really got it; sad, but true.

Jonah did not get the point. But what Jonah and the readers of his story discover is that our God is a God of second (and third and fourth) chances. God will not take away our free will. But God will do what it takes to keep finding us and keep calling us. There is no escaping God, not even at the uttermost parts of the sea. (Psalm 139:8). So the Word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time.

Lent gives you and me an opportunity to “get the point.” Which is what, exactly? That our God is a God of compassion and mercy, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. This is the point of Jonah (the story) and that is the point of the forty days of Lent. And in spite of what Jonah thinks, this really is good news, not just for pagan sailors or the people of Nineveh, but for God’s own people, too. 

Rich Simpson