Pentecost 12

Today's lessons are about identity and purpose.

Let's begin with the alternative OT Lesson.
Moses was an escape artist from the day of his birth. First he was concealed at birth to escape the ordered extermination of all Hebrew Males; then after growing up in the palace as the adopted son of the Pharaoh's daughter, remember Moses and the Bullrushes?, he rediscovers his Hebrew roots and goes to see his people leading to the killing of an Egyptian overseer; escaping to Midian he finds favour with Jethro the priest and marries his daughter Zipporah; content to mind his father-in-law's sheep and goats he is jerked out of his pastoral existance by the Burning Bush at which point begins the ultimate escape saga--The Exodus.

Moses' was no ordinary family. His older sister Mirian was capable of speaking up to the Crown Princess of Egypt and brazenly deceiving her to save her brother's life. His older brother Aaron was a priest and prophet. Through them the tribe of Levi became identified as the priestly clan. But Moses was a reluctant hero ever filled with feelings of self-doubt and inadequacy. His reticence in public speaking led to Aaron becoming his mouthpiece. However it was the education he received in the palace that gave Moses the tools to lead his people. His inferiority complex and lack of self-confidence was with him throughout his long journey to the promised land. Constantly he complained to God about the Israelites' lack of faith in his leadership and in God's promises. Repeatedly he returned to God for reassurance spending so much time on Mount Sinai that the people rebelled in his absence. The lesson here is that God chooses the people for the job, heroes are made not born.
Jeremiah is another reluctant prophet. He complains that on God's behalf  he has become an outcast among his own people, reviled and isolated. God's reply:

Jer 15:19  Then the LORD told me: Stop talking like a fool! If you turn back to me and speak my message, I will let you be my prophet once again. I hope the people of Judah will accept what you say. But you can ignore their threats, *
Jer 15:20  because I am making you strong, like a bronze wall. They are evil and violent, but when they attack,
Jer 15:21  I will be there to rescue you. I, the LORD, have spoken.

In our Psalm King David shares in self-doubt and asks for reassurance as well.

In Romans the Epistle writer adjures the faithful to be steadfast in that faith, to do God's work among their number, and:

Rom 12:21  Don't let evil defeat you, but defeat evil with good.

And so we come to the Gospel. It was last Sunday that Peter blurted out his revelation as to Christ's true identity. Today we must face up to the realities involved in that calling. It is that same Peter who would deny that a loving God would require such a sacrifice from his beloved Rabbi to which he receives the rebuke:

Get Thee behind me Satan. You're in my way because you think like everyone else and not like God.

Again, God chose fishermen and peasants, men of the people to be his messengers to the downtrodden. The authorities of the day and those in power and positions of leadership were threatened by his message and feared Jesus' attack on the status quo. It was they who recognized him as a threat to their positions in the community and saw to his conviction and execution. It is this eventuality for which Jesus is preparing his Disciples.

Once more it is to be seen that God uses the raw material at his disposal to attain his ends. These men were not special, it was God's calling that made them special. It should also be obvious that the interpretation in Matthew was written with the benefit of hindsight. At the time those surrounding Jesus would have shared the opinion that Peter spoke up and voiced.

At 33 in his day Jesus was an old man. Most men did not live to be twice that age in his time.  The cynic in me says that Jesus needed to die at the height of his powers, had he lived to reach old age and his dotage his impact would have lost much of its power. Had he avoided the very public arrival in Jerusalem  he might have lived to reach old age. But that was not the purpose for which he was born.

So finally, it is one thing to know intellectially what is necessary. Many are gifted with great intellect and learning. But it is having the faith to act upon that knowledge and the courage to suffer the consequences that makes great leaders.

The Story of Joseph--Alternate OT Lessons Pentecost 2014

The story of Jacob’s son Joseph is pivotal to all Jewish history and creed. For it was he who was instrumental in bringing his father and 11 brothers to Egypt where they eventually fell into slavery necessitating the rise of Moses, the deliverance from Egypt, the wanderings in the Sinai, the giving of the Law and Israel’s rebirth as a monotheist culture.

Jacob was a momma’s boy who followed his scheming mother’s prompting to steal his elder brother’s birthright. The son of his favourite wife, Rachel, Joseph too was a dreamer and a schemer who must have fondly reminded his aging father of his youthful self for he favoured him and showered gifts on him. Possessed of great vanity and self-importance the seventeen-year-old Joseph angered his older brothers who, when Joseph was sent to check up on them, plotted to murder him and take his bloodied long-sleeved coat to his father. Reuben’s scruples could not abide this deed so Joseph was thrown into a dry pit and sold by Judah to traders in Reuben’s absence who in turn traded him to a servant of Pharaoh in Egypt. The torn and bloodied long-sleeved robe was still presented to Jacob. So God uses less than perfect models to attain his ends.

Famine in the Middle East is a recurring theme and when it once more returned the brothers are sent to Egypt where it was rumoured grain was to be gotten. In the intervening years Joseph had ingratiated himself with Pharaoh and was in charge of his granaries. Recognizing his brothers Joseph deals harshly with them and plays tricks on them until they bring his young brother Benjamin to him and after revealing himself has them bring Jacob to Egypt as well.

The story continues with the Israelites settling in the Land of Goshen where they were fruitful and multiplied at a rate that alarmed their Egyptian hosts. They are enslaved, then their male offspring ordered killed to deplete their numbers. And so the story continues having begun in June with Abraham taking Isaac to the mount to offer as sacrifice, a tradition common among his Canaanite neighbours. It would seem that the intent is to parallel the development of Christian traditions and teachings with the similar myths that led to the Judaic tradition.

Understanding that the number 40 stood for a long time and not literally that exact figure looking at a map it seems impossible that the Israelites took more than a year or two to complete their journey to the Promised Land. The trip to Mt Horeb or Sinai for example would following the Biblical record have taken c. 44 days. The one important stipulation was that the trip took long enough for attrition, malnutrition, warfare, and disease to wipe out the generation that had been infected by Egyptian Culture and Religion. Moses died within sight of the Promised Land on Mt Nebo, only Joshua and Caleb actually made it all the way.

Pentecost 11 August 24, 2014

Today's Gospel forms the basis for the ordination of priests and pastors and the aurthority given them. The Pope is the bishop of St. Peters and is considered part of a lineage that dates back to St. Peter. He wears the shoes of the fisherman.

Peter or Petros means rock thus Mat_16:18 is in part a play on words.

The OT Lesson in Isaiah talks about our roots, the foundations of our faith. Psalm 138 recognizes God as the rock of our salvation.

The Epistle deals with our identity as Christians. We as members of the church are Jesus' body on Earth.

Peter's confession in today's Gospel settles the question of Christ's identity. Bound up in that question and its answer is the reason for the Disciples following this Rabbi and our reason for being members of his church.

Matthew begins his Gospel by placing Jesus in a gealogical lineage that leads back to Abraham, who our OT Lesson establishes as the root of the Nation Israel and the Jewish Faith. Roots are important to Matthew. Jesus lineage traces from Judah, Jacob's eldest son through Obad and Ruth to King David and finally through his Father Joseph who married Mary.

Abraham's covenant with God binds his descendents to keep the Law and the Prophets who define Israel's relationship with their God.

Psalm 138 is a song of praise to the God who keeps that promise.

Romans 12 defines our identity as members of Christ's body the church.

Pentecost 10 Aug 17, 2014

There are entire fields of discussion surrounding what are thought to be the authentic sayings of Jesus in the New Testament and which were placed in his mouth by the authors to give authority to early Christian Teachings. The first written texts did not appear until 300 years after his death and one must remember that most of his disciples were illiterate fishermen. Most would accept that the sermon on the mount for example is a collection of wisdom sayings and not an actual homily delivered in one sitting. One would better believe that the Pharisees and Sadducees came and recorded what they heard in looking for heresies against Talmudic Law. This as prelude to saying that I don't believe that Jesus actually spoke verse 24 & 26 in Matt 15. I find it significant that this appears in Matthew whose writings were aimed specifically at a Jewish audience.

What I find significant in this story is the fact that a Canaanite woman had a greater grasp of who Jesus was and his mission than his own Disciples.

That this is so is borne out by the pairing of today's Old Testament Lesson with this Text which specifically speaks of drawing foreigners into the fold.

Psalm 67 further reinforces the idea:

Psa 67:1  God, be merciful to us and bless us; look on us with kindness,
Psa 67:2  so that the whole world may know your will; so that all nations may know your salvation.
The Epistle is a snippet from Chapter 11 of the letter to the Romans which is addressed specifically to Gentiles though the version and verses quoted do not make this clear.

Which brings us back to the Gospel. To fully understand what is going on here one must go back and start reading at verse 1 of chapter 15.

The Scribes and Pharisees had indeed been recording the sayings and doings of Jesus and his Disciples. In particular they are criticizing them for not adhering to Rabbinical Laws specifically those dealing with cleanliness and the honouring of parents. Modern science might take issue with a literal interpretation of verse 11 but Jesus is not talking about food, infection and cleanliness as such. Rather he is saying that it is not adherence to the letter of the Law that determines righteousness but our intentions which come from within, from the heart as the text reads.

With verse 21 Jesus enters an area outside the Jewish tribal lands and encounters the Canaanite woman. To relate this section to what goes before one must remember that contact with a Gentile and in particular a woman would have violated canon law for an orthodox Jewish Rabbi. What follows is Jesus' recognition that it is the woman's faith and not her ethnic origin that sets her apart.

Pentecost 9, 2014

Be Still and know that I am God

Today's lessons contain one of my favourite passages. Elijah is on the run for his life and has spent the night in hiding in a cave after fasting for forty days and forty nights having come to Mount Horeb. He is commanded to go stand on the mountain before the Lord. As he stands there the Lord passes by with an earth-shattering display of power. First a wind so strong it shatters rocks, then an earthquake, and finally a fire, (volcano?). But the Lord was in none of these. It would seem that Elijah had hid from this wrath in his cave as after when the tumult passes he is engulfed in a state of utter silence. Out of the silence Elijah catches the faintest whisper and emerges from the cave with his face wrapped in his cloak.

How many people do you know that are so uncomfortable within their own skins that they require a constant barrage of background noise be it a radio or other listening device or they feel anxious and disoriented? So many are nervous about encountering the sound of their own thoughts. How many young people are constantly online or in contact via one device or another always texting or listening to i-pods or other noise makers to the point that they can't attend a concert without feeling the overpowering need to tweet about it during the event. Too many have a panic attack when they get a low-battery warning.

Prayer is not a one-sided conversation but if we never turn off the world's cacophony we'll never get a chance to hear God's side of it. As in today's Gospel Jesus frequently felt the need to escape the crowds and even his own Disciples for times of solitude, prayer, and meditation. Meanwhile the Disciples are crossing the Sea in a boat and are beset by a sudden squall and in fear of their lives. Imagine their surprise when Jesus appears calmly walking across the water. Peter walks out on the water to join Jesus but he is distracted by the storm and starts sinking.

As our Epistle and Psalm make clear God is always attentive to the needs and prayers of his people but we cannot experience the peace that comes with his presence unless we tune out the worldly clatter and let him in. It is unimportant how we conceive of that Godly presence so long as we experience the sense of well-being that it brings and respond to it in acts of love toward our fellow creatures and the world in which we live for we too must be "a channel of his peace".

Psa 121:1  A Song of Ascents. I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come?
Psa 121:2  My help comes from the LORD, who made heaven and earth.
Psa 121:3  He will not let your foot be moved; he who keeps you will not slumber.
Psa 121:4  Behold, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.
Psa 121:5  The LORD is your keeper; the LORD is your shade on your right hand.
Psa 121:6  The sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night.
Psa 121:7  The LORD will keep you from all evil; he will keep your life.
Psa 121:8  The LORD will keep your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forevermore.

It sounds so simple, but even Elijah failed in his faith to trust in this promise.

Lessons Pentecost 8 2014 August 3

Today we live in a world overpopulated by a factor of over 7 times its carrying capacity. Even so today's lessons reflect the fact that then as now our biggest concern should be the inequality in the sharing of God's Bounty. The wealth of the world is not shared equally among its people. While so many starve in America hundreds are still paid not to grow food, corn is diverted to the production of Ethanol driving up the price of food, a third of the food produced here is discarded before it reaches a supermarket and at least as much is wasted before it reaches our tables or is thrown out uneaten. The twenty-five richest people on earth have more income than the remaining  7 billion.

Poverty and hunger are a constant theme thoughout the Old and New Testament to such a degree that the Lord's Golden Age is described as one in which every good thing will be showered in abundance and hunger will be unknown. Notwithstanding this in Isaiah the point is made that the bread that God gives is more satisfying than earthly bread.

The Psalm affirms our duty to praise and thank God for his bounty and to be stewards of that bounty in ensuring that it is shared with all.

Today's Epistle is off somewhere in left field which brings us to the Gospel. Jesus renown was a fickle master. In the wake of the murder of John the Baptist he attempts to avoid notice by escaping to 'the wilderness' but the crowds follow him and he heals the sick and then feeds them in today's iconic lesson. This gracious act is a mixed blessing as in a world where food is in short supply the crowds know a good thing when they see it and clamour for more. To escape these demands the disciples are dispatched across the water in a boat and "he went up on the mountain by himself to pray." This need to escape the crowds for quiet meditation is a constant throughout the Gospels.

Although today's lesson demonstrates Christ's concern for the physical well-being of those who came to hear him it is to be remembered that Man does not live by bread alone Mat_4:4. The true bread that Christ brought to the world is the Good News, the Gospel he taught. Were we to truly live by those precepts all the world would be clothed and fed.