Category: narrative lectionary

Wine and Sign- Narrative Lectionary, Epiphany 2

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Narrative Lectionary Reflection

January 14, 2018

Read John 2:1-11

Introduction

Epiphany is the season in the church where we talk about the manifestation of Christ in the world.  In the gospel of John, what are called miracles in the other gospels, are called signs here; an act that points to Jesus.

So if Epiphany is about Christ made manifest and John says miracles are signs of who he is, then why is the first miracle/sign taking place at a wedding party?

The Wedding at Cana is one of the most odd stories in the gospels.  It’s not raising someone from the dead or healing someone with leprosy, it’s not even the feeding of the five thousand.  This even takes place at something incredibly ordinary event: a wedding.

But if you look between the line, there is a lot going on here. What matters is not where God is revealed by who God is revealed to.

Let’s look at the Wedding at Cana.

Engaging the Text

 This was the first miraculous sign that Jesus did in Cana of Galilee. He revealed his glory, and his disciples believed in him.

-John 2:11

Before we get into the Scripture, we should talk about the environment that Jesus lived in. The producing of wine by supernatural means was a common story in the Mediterranean world. Indeed, my name, Dennis, translates to Dionysus in Greek which was the god of wine.  The Roman name for Dionysus is Bacchus, which is where we get the word bacchanal. While this story seems odd to our modern ears, when this story was first told/read in ancient times it made perfect sense.

Jesus is at a wedding with his mother and the disciples in the town of Cana in Galilee.  Cana is not heard anywhere else in the gospels.  But the writer of John needs to tell his audience that this is taking place in Cana and in Galilee.  In this case, the location was important.  It was in Galilee where Jesus was welcomed, which is different from Judea, the more cosmopolitan Judea where he was rejected. Galilee is also the place where Jews and Gentiles lived together .  Having his first miracle take place here shows that God in Jesus loves both Jew and Gentile and they have equal standing in the new community that Jesus is creating

The wedding Jesus was at was not like modern weddings.  In the ancient world a wedding could last days.  Someone did not plan to have enough wine for the wedding, and the wine ran out before the party.  Today, someone would run down the local liquor store around the corner. Wine had a special place in that society. Wine was a sign of God’s abundance, of hospitality.  So, when the wine runs short, it means that abundance is limited.  This was a major social faux pas.

John and his mother have an interesting argument about the issue. (the mother of Jesus name, Mary, is never mentioned in John.)  She tells Jesus that the party is out of wine.  Jesus responds that this is not his concern, his time to be revealed has not come.  Mary seems to ignore his complaint as she tells the stewards to do whatever he tells them to do.  For Jesus his time meant that he would be the one that would determine when he would reveal himself.  But his mother believed that he could provide wine.

It is important to note how his mother brackets Jesus’ ministry.  Here, he says “Woman, what does that have to do with me?” When he is on the cross, he sees his mother and tells her,“Woman, here is your son,” meaning John would take care of her from now on.

Jesus relented and asked the stewards to fill six stone jars with water.  The jars were used in Jewish religious rituals. Jesus asked that a servant draw out a sample of the water and give to the head steward.  This was the person that made sure the wedding guests had food and wine so not having wine mean that blame rested with him. The steward never saw the stone jars being filled with water. The steward was confused when he tasted that water that was now wine. Where did it come from?  He was probably also puzzled about why the groom (who was the host) decided to give such good wine at this point in the wedding.  Indeed, he goes to the groom and tells him the following:

The headwaiter called the groom 10 and said, “Everyone serves the good wine first. They bring out the second-rate wine only when the guests are drinking freely. You kept the good wine until now.” 1

-John 2:9-10

This is a long way of saying that the groom was viewed as breaking a major hospitality protocol. It was more common to offer the good wine at first and then bring out the cheap wine when the guests are so drunk they won’t tell the difference.  But Jesus offered the good wine on the third day.

Conclusion

What is the signifigance of this story? Why is Jesus’ first miracle changing water into wine? What does it say about God?

Remember that John doesn’t call what took place a miracle but a sign.  A sign points beyond the act itself to show God.  Jesus creates a huge amount of wine and it is not just any old wine, but very good wine, which is not what you would serve to guests three days in of a wedding feast.  What we see here is a God that gives abundant grace and love.  Notice that it was the servants and not the steward that saw the sign taking place.  Another example of grace. Like the feeding of the 5,000 this event shows a God that gives an abundance of love to all of us. It is a love that has no limit.

In the Old Testament, wine is an example of deliverance from the exile.  This is what Amos 9:13-14 says:

The days are surely coming, says the Lord,
        when the one who plows
        will overtake the one who gathers,
        when the one who crushes grapes
        will overtake the one who sows the seed.
    The mountains will drip wine,
        and all the hills will flow with it.
14 I will improve the circumstances of my people Israel;
        they will rebuild the ruined cities and inhabit them.
    They will plant vineyards and drink their wine;
    and they will make gardens and eat their fruit.

-Amos 9:13-14

So Jesus turning water into wine is a sign of God coming in the form of Jesus to bring salvation and delieverance.

Sociologist and pastor Tony Campolo once shared a story about giving a birthday party for a prostitute named Agnes.  He comes to a restaurant and meets Agnes and learns she never had birthday party and her birthday was the next day. This was her reaction.

Three‐thirty in the morning, in come Agnes and her friends. I’ve got everybody set, everybody ready. As they come through the door, we all yell, “Happy birthday Agnes!” In addition, we start cheering like mad. I’ve never seen anybody so stunned. Her knees buckled. They steadied her and sat her down on the stool. We all started singing, “Happy birthday, happy birthday, happy birthday to you!”

When they brought out the cake, she lost it and started to cry. Harry just stood there with the cake and said, “All right, knock it off, Agnes. Blow out the candles. Come on, blow out the candles.” She tried, but she couldn’t, so he blew out the candles, gave her the knife, and said, “Cut the cake, Agnes.”

She sat there for a long moment and then she said to me, “Mister, is it okay if I don’t cut the cake? What I’d like to do, mister, is take the cake home and show it to my mother. Could I do that?”

I said, “It’s your cake.” She stood up, and I said, “Do you have to do it now?”

She said, “I live two doors down. Let me take the cake home and show it to my mother. I promise you I’ll bring it right back.” And she moved toward the door carrying the cake as though it was the Holy Grail. As she pushed through the crowd and out the door, the door swung slowly shut and there was stunned silence. You talk about an awkward moment. Everyone was motionless. Everyone was still I didn’t know what to say.

The story ends with the owner of the diner chatting with Campolo and wondering who he really is:

Harry leaned over the counter and said, “Campolo, you told me you were a sociologist. You’re no sociologist, you’re a preacher. What kind of church do you belong to?”

In one of those moments when you come up with just the right words, I said, “I belong to a church that throws birthday parties for whores at three‐thirty in the morning.”

I’ll never forget his response. He looked back at me.  “No you don’t, no you don’t.  I would join a church like that!”

We worship a God that can turn water into wine and throw birthday parties for a hooker at three in the morning. Are we ready to see God shower people with God’s grace?

Dennis Sanders is the Pastor at First Christian Church of St. Paul in Mahtomedi, Minnesota. He’s written for various outlets including Christian Century and the Federalist.

Come and See- Narrative Lectionary, Epiphany 1

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Narrative Lectionary Reflection

January 7, 2018

Read John 1: (19-34) 35-51

Introduction

Do you remember when you met a specific friend?  What about a boyfriend/girlfriend, spouse?  You probably wanted to know more about this person and see them again.

Having friends, marrying a spouse all begins with wanting to know more about the person. When you are really into this person, you then want to tell others about this person

We don’t usually think of getting to know someone when it relates to God, as we learned in John1:1-18, God came in human form, in a way that made God relatable. What does it mean to get to know God? How did Jesus change how we connect with God? How do we tell others about meeting Jesus?

Today, we look at Jesus’ calling of the first disciples and what it tells us about God and about what it means to follow Jesus.

Engaging the Text

29 The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! 30 This is the one about whom I said, ‘He who comes after me is really greater than me because he existed before me.’

-John 1:29-30

In the study of the first part of John 1, we said that it was a different birth story than what is found in Luke.  When it comes to Jesus’ baptism (which some churches will be commemorating this Sunday), we see the same pattern showing how different Luke is from the other gospels.  The Synoptic (Matthew, Mark and Luke) show the actually baptism taking place.  In John, we know there is a baptism, but we know this only because John the Baptist is sharing the experience of seeing Jesus be baptized.

32 John testified, “I saw the Spirit coming down from heaven like a dove, and it rested on him. 33 Even I didn’t recognize him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘The one on whom you see the Spirit coming down and resting is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’ 34 I have seen and testified that this one is God’s Son.”

-John 1:32-34

So, why don’t we see the baptism?  The writer of John never says so, but there might be a reason that this event is shared by one’s account and not by showing the actual event.  The point might be not to show the event, but to see one who witness the event tell others.  This is a theme throughout the book of John where a character will tell others what they experienced. 

That witness has an effect.  In verse 35, John the Baptist sees Jesus and again calls him the lamb of God.  Standing nearby are two disciples who hear what John says and follow Jesus.  Maybe the reason we have the scene where John is recounting the baptism is that these disciples heard it and when John says it again, their curiosity is piqued.   In John, one “hears” about Jesus before “seeing” him and that is followed by “believing” and finally “witnessing.”  The two disciples heard about Jesus from John.  When they see Jesus, they really “see” him, maybe not at this point as the Christ, but as someone they need to know better.  This is indicated in verse 38. Jesus asks them “What are you looking for?”  The two never answer the question, but instead respond with another question “Rabbi, where are you staying?”  The Greek word for staying is menein, which means abide.  The point in using menein is to indicate that the disciples want to have an intimate friendship with Jesus.

Throughout the rest of chapter one we see the same pattern of what we would now call discipleship: some receives a witness about Jesus and they in turn become witnesses of Christ. John witnesses to the two disiciples and they in turn become witnesses to their brothers, Peter and Nathaniel.

In meeting Jesus, people recognize who Jesus is.  New disciples have a name to describe who he is: Rabbi in verse 38, the Messiah in verse 41, the son of God in verse 49 and the king of Israel in verse 51. While they use these titles, that doesn’t mean they totally understand Jesus.  In fact, throughout the Gospel of John, people will struggle in trying to understand the identity of Jesus.

That might be why we have this little interlude about Nathaniel. His brother Phillip tells Nate about Jesus, but Nathaniel doesn’t immediately follow Jesus.  He responds by saying, “Can anything good come from Nazareth?” This shows that not everyone “gets” Jesus because of their preconceived notions.  Nathaniel thought Galilee and Nazareth represented the backwater a forgotten part of Israel. The Pharisees in chapter 9 and Martha in chapter 11  and others discounted Jesus because of how they had already viewed Jesus.

Jesus ends the text by saying in verse 51 the heavens will open up and God’s angels will rise and fall with he Christ.  That’s a 1st century version of saying, “You Ain’t See Nothin’ Yet.”

Conclusion

Most Christians who are part of the Mainline Protestant tradition tend to be allergic to evangelism.  As theologian David Lose notes, people either have seen it done rather poorly (think the person who harranges people) or because we have learned not to talk about religion in polite company.

But today’s passage is basically evangelism.  The people who witness Jesus aren’t pushing their views on others, instead they are simply telling what happened in their lives.  It was up to those who heard to do something with this.

In our modern age, we as Christians are to be on the look out for what God is doing in our world and then be willing to tell others. Here is how Lose describes it:

 

And that may be the larger point of this story from the Fourth Gospel — that when it comes to our relationship with Jesus, our primary job is to see and share. Not threaten, not coerce, not intimidate, not woo or wheedle or plead, but simply to see and share.

John the Baptist does that here. He sees the dove descend upon Jesus and tells others what he sees. That’s it. Andrew later does the same. He tells his brother what he and John’s other disciples saw — the person they believe is the Messiah — and invites Peter to come along and see for himself.

Could it be that simple? At its heart, evangelism is noticing what God is doing in our lives, sharing that with others, and inviting them to come and see for themselves.

Why do I think that? Because this isn’t only what John the Baptist does, and it’s not only what Andrew does. It’s also what Jesus does. When Jesus notices some of John’s disciples following him, he asks them what they are looking for. They, in turn, ask where he is staying. He doesn’t give an answer. He doesn’t question further. All he does in response is make an invitation: “Come and see.”

Notice. Share. Invite. These are the three elements of evangelism, sharing the good news of what God has done and is still doing through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ for us and all the world.

What keeps us you from sharing that you have seen Jesus?  How could it make a difference in your community? 

One note about evangelism and today’s text.  Sometimes sharing the gospel is presented as a one-time event.  That the disciples who listened to Jesus found all the answers. When Nathaniel gives his snarky response to his brother Philip, Philip responds by saying that “we have found him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote,” (verse 45). The verb tense used in the Greek is in the perfect tense which means you don’t meet Jesus once, but over and over again.

The 1987 song by the group U2, “I’ll Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For,” was a song that some pastors criticized because it seemed he didn’t really find Jesus.

But as writer John Jay Alvaro wrote it isn’t realistic to think that meeting Jesus once answers every question you have. He shares what it means to keep looking even when you’ve found Jesus:

I have a white little schnauzer at home. He has been with us for many years, most of our marriage and before the kids arrived. He is a fixture in the house, until he is not. Lately my kids have been leaving the back door open, and Albie the schnauzer slips out. Sometimes it will be up to an hour before we realize that he is gone. We always find him, but lately it has felt like we are looking for him a lot. He takes off down an alley or finds a new friend to walk beside for a bit. People around our neighborhood recognize him in part because they have found him in their yards, content to be in the sun and grass.

Every time my son finds a new treasure in the driveway or buried in some drawer, I know that it is only a matter of time before we are looking for his new precious-but-lost item. He will carry a shiny rock everywhere, until he sets it down and forgets to pick it back up. I have torn apart every room looking for a fragment of glass he is convinced is a space crystal. Losing his treasures is part of his having them.

Who are you looking for? Come and see.

Dennis Sanders is the Pastor at First Christian Church of St. Paul in Mahtomedi, Minnesota. He’s written for various outlets including Christian Century and the Federalist.

Time and Space- Narrative Lectionary, Advent 4

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Narrative Lectionary Reflection

December 24,  2017

Read John 1:1-18

Introduction

When we think of the Christmas story in the Bible, we tend to think of the story presented in Luke 2. This is the text that Linus memorizes in the Charlie Brown Christmas Story.  It’s the story of Mary, Joseph and the Shepherds.

But there is another Christmas story out there.  But there is no Mary, no Joseph, no shepherd, no choir of angels.  Instead we hear about abstract things like the word, “logos.” It’s a cosmic story that allows you to see the birth of Jesus in a more expanded way. The first 18 verses of John is a prologue that sets up the rest of the book and also sets up the why of Jesus’ coming to earth.  Today, we look at the opening chapters of the book of John.

Engaging the Text

The Word became flesh
    and made his home among us.
We have seen his glory,
    glory like that of a father’s only son,
        full of grace and truth.

John 1:14

The birth story found in Luke is one that is grounded in time and space.  Look at the first passage in Luke 2:

In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered. 2 This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. 3 All went to their own towns to be registered.

-Luke 2:1-3

Luke places Jesus is a specific context; we know that Augustus is the emperor of the Roman Empire. We know that Quirinius is the governor of Syria.  We also know that a census is being taken and Joseph has to go to Bethlehem to be counted.

Now look at the first passages in the book of John:

In the beginning was the Word
    and the Word was with God
    and the Word was God.

-John 1:1

We know that something is beginning, but we don’t know when this is happening.  John starts the gospel outside of time and space.  This is a reminder of the nature of God; someone that transcends space and time.

When we hear that phrase, “In the beginning,” the writer is intentionally recalling those first few words in Genesis. The writer then goes to say that this Word or logos was present at the creation. The writer is trying to get the point across that what is going to happen in the following pages is as big as the creation.

One way to look at this chapter is to see it as if you are looking at something through a telescope.  You can see something at one viewpoint and if you magnify it you will see more things that weren’t seen before. That’s what is happening here: we start with the cosmic and then we move closer to the created order in verses 3-5.

About the word “Word.”  In greek the word is translated as logos. Logos was a word and concept that people in the first century found familiar. This logos was present with God at the creation and shares the very life of God. The Logos and God are very close to each other even though they are two personalities.

Verse 5 shows us that the Logos is not just an abstract thought, but also gives life.  A word, a thought can actually give light and life to humanity.

Starting at verse 6, we focus not on Jesus, but his cousin, John.  While they are different, they are also the same. The greek verb egeneto (was made) is used to talk about both John and Jesus. But while they both talk about God’s mission to bring salvation, verse 8 tells us that John the Baptist only bears witness to the light while Jesus is the Light. In essence, John the Baptist is the lamp- only Jesus is the Light. This reminds us how the other gospels present John before Jesus which is how they demonstrate that John the Baptist is the witness to the Light and not the light himself.

The third part of today’s text deals with the identity of Jesus.  Verse one is where we first see the word, logos.  In verse 14, the meaning of logos changes.  In chapter 1, logos is beyond time and space, in verse 14 logos becomes time-bound and enters the life of a human.  This is where we are introduced to a whole new concept, the very reason we celebrate Christmas: the Incarnation.

The Incarnation is at the very heart of the gospel of John.  John shows how God choses to express Godself through a human being.  What was once eternal and outside of time is now about life and death.

When the word “flesh” is used (the greek word is sarx) in relation to Jesus, it saying something about what Jesus is doing.  Jesus becoming enfleshed means that the logos chooses to become weak, frail and vulnerable.  The good news of the incarnation is that the God that was inaccessible, now has come to live with a fallen humanity.

Starting with verse 14, John concludes his text in a song praising Jesus. We learn the why of the Incarnation: to make God known. We also learn that the Son and Father have a relationship, a sense of intimacy.  (Father is not relating to God’s gender, but to the relationship between Jesus and God.)

Conclusion

Luke and John look at the coming of Jesus in different ways.  Luke talks about Mary and Joseph, a pregnancy, a census that the Romans wanted, and having to give birth to baby in smelly stable.  Everything here is somewhat mundane, everyday.  Yes, there is that whole angel thing with the shepherd, but even the shepherds were so plain.  Luke’s story is about people, places and things.  It’s concrete.  John on the other hand, is a whole different animal.  Where things are finite and ordinary in Luke, John tends to deal with the infinite.  “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God,” says John 1:1.  There is no Mary, no Joseph, no shepherds, no angels.  Instead we have talk about the Word or Logos, about being rejected by people, about the Word being around since the beginning of time.  In the midst of all this, verse 14 talks about the Word, the cosmic, the infinite taking on flesh and living among humanity.

Think about that for a moment.  The infinite got involved with the finite.  Here’s what John 1:14 says according to the Message translation of the Bible:

The Word became flesh and blood,
   and moved into the neighborhood.
We saw the glory with our own eyes,
   the one-of-a-kind glory,
   like Father, like Son,
Generous inside and out,
true from start to finish.
-John 1:14 (Message version)

This is what Christmas is about.  God, the infinite, the all powerful and all knowing, became a helpless baby.  God loved creation so much God decided to become one of us, to accept the limits of being human.  God became Immanuel, God with us, by becoming one of us. God moved into the neighborhood.

As we get together with family and friends during the holidays, remember this: Christmas is about God getting involved in the life of the world for its salvation.  God is about moving into our hearts and joining us in the good and the bad. Charles Wesley expressed this in his carol “Hark, the Herald Angels Sing.”  The third verse explains this wonderfully:

Hail the heav’n-born Prince of Peace!
Hail the Son of Righteousness!
Light and life to all He brings
Ris’n with healing in His wings
Mild He lays His glory by
Born that man no more may die
Born to raise the sons of earth
Born to give them second birth
Hark! The herald angels sing
“Glory to the newborn King!”

God has moved in. Merry Christmas.

Dennis Sanders is the Pastor at First Christian Church of St. Paul in Mahtomedi, Minnesota. He’s written for various outlets including Christian Century and the Federalist.

Come and Get It!- Narrative Lectionary, Advent 3

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Narrative Lectionary Reflection

December 17,  2017

Read Isaiah 55:1-13

Introduction

Food seems to be a major theme that runs throughout the Bible.  Earlier in the season, we heard the story of how God provided manna to the people of Israel as they traveled to the Promised Land.

The sense of journey is also a theme in the Bible.  There was the journey to the promised land.  Now we hear the time of exile and the journey back.

In today’s text we see those two themes coming together.  There is a lot of talk about a feast for the people in the context of getting ready or coming back to Israel.  God calls the people then and today to come to the feast. Today we talk about the people of Israel joining the feast of God.

Engaging the Text

Seek the Lord when he can still be found;
    call him while he is yet near.

Isaiah 55:6

The book of Isaiah is actually 3 books in one.  First Isaiah includes the first 39 chapters and talks about life in the Southern Kingdom of Judah before it fell to Babylon.  Second Isaiah is from chapter 40 to 55 and deals with the exile in Babylon and later Persia.  Third Isaiah goes from chapter 56 to the end, chapter 66 and deals with the time when the Jews returned to their homeland.  So chapter 55 is taking place during the exile, but in some cases, the exile was close to ending.  They had spent time in Babylon who did not treat the Jews with respect and then when Babylon fell, they lived in exile in Persia.  Their new king, Cyrus, is a more inclusive person, allowing for the conquered peoples to worship their own God.  

Chapter 55 are also the closing words of the writer of Second Isaiah.  The last words in any document are going to have a punch, something that the writer wants the readers to remember.  That’s what we encounter in this passage.

In Jeremiah 29, God speaks through the prophet that the newly exiled Israelites are to make a life in Babylon.  God would bring the people back to the Israel, but not right now.  In this passage, we can see that now is the time to come home. The people are to come back to Jerusalem where God will give the returning exiles a feast.  Bread, milk, water, all of this will be given to the people- and there is nothing that they have to do to receive it (any early understanding of grace). A meal can be a sign of coming home and this is what is happening here; God is leading the people home where they can have a hot meal after a time of trauma.

The food is also a covenant.  God is establishing a new covenant with David, meaning the Davidic dynasty.  At least that is what it should have been.  God isn’t talking about a restoration of the royalty, but the covenant is now with the entire people of Israel. The covenant is not with one person, but with the whole people and the feast is a sign of that bond between God and Israel.

But as they enter Jerusalem, they are also called to change their lives.  Note that God doesn’t say, “change your ways and I will feed you,” God gives the meal no matter what.  But if they enter God’s presence, they should change their ways.  Notice that the word “wicked” is used in verse 7.  Theologian Walter Brueggeman thinks it is not referring to disobedience but to something else related to the exile:

“The wicked,” I suggest, are not disobedient people in general. In context, they are those who are so settled in Babylon and so accommodated to imperial ways that they have no intention of making a positive response to Yahweh’s invitation to homecoming. That is, they have no “thought” of enacting Jewish passion for Jerusalem. To “return” to Yahweh here means to embrace fully the future that Yahweh is now offering. This “return” is not simply a spiritual resolve but the embrace of a new hope and a new historical possibility that entails a dramatic reorientation of life in political, public categories. Those who have excessively accommodated the empire are indeed to be pardoned. But pardon requires serious resolve for a reordered life commitment.

So God’s action calls for a response. God calls the people to repent, to change their ways and follow God. They were used to the ways of Babylon, but that time is now over and it is time to come home.

Conclusion

16 When Herod knew the magi had fooled him, he grew very angry. He sent soldiers to kill all the children in Bethlehem and in all the surrounding territory who were two years old and younger, according to the time that he had learned from the magi.

-Matthew 2:16

While the writer is not thinking about Jesus or the church (and it is important to remember that), Christians can look at this passage and see how it can relate.  The meal in the chapter sound a lot like communion. We are offered a meal and we do this with the bread and the wine. There is nothing we have to do to accept this meal, but it is a sign of God’s grace.  God grace can drive us to a response, to seek to live righteously.

In the 1997 document The Use and Means of Grace, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America explains what communion is all about; gathering for a meal, the confession of sins and our need for God:

 

The simple order of our liturgy of Holy Communion , represented in the worship books of our church, is that which has been used by generations of Christians. We gather in song and prayer, confessing ou r need of God. We read the Scriptures and hear them preached. We profess our faith and pray for the world, sealing our prayers with a sign of peace . We gather an offering for the poor and for the mission of the Church . We set our table with bread and wine, give thanks and praise to God, pro – claiming Jesus Christ, and eat and drink. We hear the blessing of God and are sent out in mission to the world .

The people of Israel were called by God to come home to a marvelous feast and learn again the ways of God. We are also called home each week to a feast where we also learn the ways of God and seek to be Christ’s people in the world, drawing everyone to Jesus.

Dennis Sanders is the Pastor at First Christian Church of St. Paul in Mahtomedi, Minnesota. He’s written for various outlets including Christian Century and the Federalist.

Dem Bones- Narrative Lectionary, Advent 2

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Narrative Lectionary Reflection

December 10,  2017

Read Ezekiel 37:1-14

Introduction

Popular culture has a fascination with the living dead. Television shows like the Walking Dead and Fear of the Walking Dead are popular. There are zombies onthe big screen as well: World War Z, Warm Bodies, Shaun of the Dead to name a few. Cities around the world host Zombie Walks where thousands of people, walk, I mean shamble around town dressed up in their best zombie gear. In 2012 about 7000 people took part in the Zombie Pub Crawl in St. Paul, Minnesota. Zombies a thing.

So, why are zombies so hot? Maybe it’s a way of dealing with death. It could reflects our fears of illness, especially the fear of some virus threatens humanity. Maybe it’s about the how thin is the wall between civilized order and chaotic violence.

Today’s text of the prophet Ezekiel and the Valley of the Dry Bones looks like the zombie story since those that were dead are revivified. But this passage isn’t talking about the Walking Dead, but life, real life coming from death. It is about restoration even when all hope was lost.  Today, we look at one of the oddest texts in he Bible.  Welcome to the Valley of the Dry Bones.

 

Engaging the Text

He said to me, “Mortal, can these bones live?” I answered, “O Lord God, you know.”

Ezekiel 37:3

Ezekiel is a contemporary of Jeremiah.  While Jeremiah is a prophet during the last days of the Southern Kingdom, Ezekiel is the prophet during exile. The book covers a period between 593 BCE and 573 BCE- dark days for the Jewish people. When the book opens, Judah is basically a colony of Babylon.  However, when the vassal king in Judah, Zedekiah leads a failed rebellion, Babylon sends forces to Jerusalem and destroys the city including the temple in 587 BCE.  Judah ceases to be an independent entity and significant numbers of the population is sent to live in Babylon proper.  So, when chapter 37 opens, the Jews are away from their homeland which no longer exists and the temple, which was the center of Jewish life has been destroyed.  There is no sense of hope- only death.

These forced immigrants felt that their culture was dying if not dead. And they had good reason to fear this; a century earlier, the Northern Kingdom of Israel was also invaded and a chunk of their people were taken. These Jews began to intermarry with the local population and basically dissapeared. So those who were now in exile began to believe that they were cut off from God; there was no hope whatsoever.

The prophet Ezekiel has a vision where he is in a valley filled with bones. Now this is even worse than a zombie. There is no body, just bones. Death is all around. There is no hope. Assyrian reliefs seems to show that it was customary to allow bodies slain on the field to remain where they fell.  The bodies would rot and carrion birds would strip away the flesh.  So it wasn’t simply an image of bones, but images of bodies in various stages of decay. These dried bones mirrored how the exilic community felt; dried up, dead.

But God has a different message and God uses this vision to communicate that to Ezekiel. God asks Ezekiel if these bones could live. I can imagine the prophet shrugging his shoulders and saying to God, “only you know, God.” God tells Ezekiel that he will knit the bones together, adding muscles and then skin. God was going to make these bones live. Soon, the valley is filled with bodies. Just one problem: they had no breath in them, which means that the bodies were, you guessed it- zombies.

It was common in the Middle Eastern culture of this time that bodies were not alive until they had an animating spirit. Ezekiel prophesies to the Spirit and God then calls the “ruach” or breath or spirit and the bodies begin to breathe. Life has come where there was death.

What this means for the Jews in Babylon is that God  and only God could revive the people of Israel.  Only God could bring back that which was dead.

Also, there was no talk that if the community tried really hard, things could come back.  The passage is very clear that things won’t be like it was.  All we know is that God will restore God’s people.  This is the promise that God gives to Ezekiel and to the exilic community.

 

Conclusion

16 When Herod knew the magi had fooled him, he grew very angry. He sent soldiers to kill all the children in Bethlehem and in all the surrounding territory who were two years old and younger, according to the time that he had learned from the magi.

-Matthew 2:16

When I think about this passage and the message it brings, a few hopeless situations come to mind. I think of my hometown of Flint, Michigan that is reeling after the collapse of the auto industry and the subsequent water crisis.  There is a lot of sense of loss and the hope, the wish that things could be like it was back in the 1970s, when the town had twice the population and you could see trucks of cars made in factories in the city head to other parts of the country.

But restoration isn’t reproduction.  The restoration of my hometown means it won’t make it like what Flint was like 40 years ago.  So it is with Israel.  The people in Babylon won’t go back to “normal.” But God will bring restoration and new life.

But it is also important to remember that this story is also a story of shock and horror.  I know of someone whose family were refugees from the killing fields of Cambodia in the 1970s.  Refugees have a longing for home, but knowing the horror they just left, the refugees know they have to make their home in a new culture.  David G. Garber explains that what seems like a passage of hope has within it, a sense of remembering a deadly and horrific past:

 We forget that Ezekiel himself was taken into exile in 597 BCE, that he heard reports of his religious institution being corrupted without the proper oversight of the priesthood, and that his status had been reduced from a prominent position as a future priest in Jerusalem to that of a temple-less priest in exile.  We forget the death of his wife and God’s command for him not to mourn her as an example for the exilic community not to mourn the loss of the Temple (24:16-24). 

More importantly, we forget the historical trauma that accompanied this exile. We forget that the Babylonians tortured the inhabitants of Jerusalem with siege warfare that lasted almost two years, leading to famine, disease, and despair (2 Kings 25:3). We forget how they destroyed the city of Jerusalem, razed the temple to the ground, killed many of its inhabitants, and forced the rest to migrate to Babylon. Over and over again, in the texts we refuse to read from the book of Ezekiel, the prophet offers imagery that testifies to and metaphorically represents the multiple traumas that the community faced under the realities of ancient Near Eastern warfare.

While many of us read Ezekiel 37 as a beautiful passage, it is also horrifying. It is horrifying because it calls the reader to remember, confront, and testify to the devastating events that led to the valley filled with dry bones in the first place. Its beauty, however, manifests itself with the possibility that even in this landscape full of death, a hope for renewed life remains. Ezekiel prophesies to the bones that soon reanimate, with newly formed sinews knitting the bones together as living flesh and skin envelop them (verse 8). In a scene that recalls the breath of God entering the first human in Genesis 2, the prophet then commands the four winds and the same breath of God enters the reanimated bodies that live once more (verse 10). 

The miracle of this vision does not simply lie in its theatricality. The true miracle is that it occurs after the community has faced such devastating loss. Yet, the familiarity of this text can tempt preachers and teachers to reduce the miraculous to cliché. We can often turn it into a promise for new life on individual and communal levels without taking seriously the situations and circumstances that have lead to the initial death.

Like refugees from places like Syria or Cambodia or Rwanda, there is a sense of hope, the people can’t forget the horror that that population went through. Restoration can only happen when there is loss. God doesn’t want the Jews to forget the hard times, God does want to give the people a future filled with hope.

The dry bones tale reminds us that God doesn’t forget God’s people. We are remembered by God. We are restored by God. What we as a community must do is have eyes to see and ears to hear where God’s Spirit is at work; in our lives, in this faith community and in the world. Let’s look for life and trust that God will bring us from death into life.

Dennis Sanders is the Pastor at First Christian Church of St. Paul in Mahtomedi, Minnesota. He’s written for various outlets including Christian Century and the Federalist.

Through the Fire- Narrative Lectionary, Advent 1

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Narrative Lectionary Reflection

December 3,  2017

Read Daniel 3:1-30

Introduction

If you grew up in church you knew two stories from the book of Daniel: Daniel in the Lion’s Den and The Three Men in the Fiery Furnace. You know that in both cases, a king  throws Daniel and his friends in different perils only to see them not the meet the fate that was intended.

As kids, such stories mezmorized us.  How could three men not get burned by the fire?  How could someone like Daniel not become a lion’s lunch?

This is an odd text to begin Advent.  We are waiting for the Christchild and here we get a story of a crazy king that’s mad that he is not getting the proper praise from his subjects. That said, this is a story that in some ways repeats itself in the birth of Christ when another crazy king is jealous that a tiny baby might take his place.  Advent is a time to not just prepare for Jesus, put to prepare for the one who is greater than any earthly ruler, even if that ruler thinks he’s all that.

We now hear a story of three young men who refuse to submit to the king, a king who sees himself as a God and a God that tells everyone including the king who is really in charge.  Let’s hear the story of Shadrach, Mesach and Abendego as the face the Fiery Furnace.

Engaging the Text

If our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the furnace of blazing fire and out of your hand, O king, let him deliver us.

Daniel 3:17

Daniel is written during the exile of the Southern Kingdom.  Large chunks of Jewish society were taken from Judah and ended up in Babylon, ruled by King Nebuchadnezzar. Daniel was written the second century BCE, about 400 years after these events took place.  It was written when Antiochus Epiphanes ruled Israel and had outlawed Judaism in attempt to Hellenize Israel.  His rule lead to the Maccabean Revolt, which overthrew the Seleucid Empire and allowed Israel to be independent for a time.

But the story takes place in the 500s BCE.  Many of the Jews started to settle down, realizing they would be in Babylon for a while.  They started to take part in Babylonian society.  Among them were four young Jews; Daniel and his friends, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah.  All of them took part in the Babylonian government.  The Jews of that time decided for themselves how much of the alien society they would accomodate to.  For example, Daniel is always referred to by his Hebrew name (he did have a Babylonian name; Belteshazzar), but his friends changed their names to Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.

Our text opens with the king deciding to make a statue.  The idea might have come from a dream that Daniel interpreted for him. Found in chapter 2, Nebachanezzar has a dream that he asks his diviners to figure out.  When they couldn’t, Daniel was able to step in.  The king’s dream was about a statue:

You were looking, O king, and lo! there was a great statue. This statue was huge, its brilliance extraordinary; it was standing before you, and its appearance was frightening. 32 The head of that statue was of fine gold, its chest and arms of silver, its middle and thighs of bronze, 33 its legs of iron, its feet partly of iron and partly of clay. 34 As you looked on, a stone was cut out, not by human hands, and it struck the statue on its feet of iron and clay and broke them in pieces. 35 Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver, and the gold, were all broken in pieces and became like the chaff of the summer threshing floors; and the wind carried them away, so that not a trace of them could be found. But the stone that struck the statue became a great mountain and filled the whole earth.

-Daniel 2:31-34

Daniel explains what the dream is all about.  This dream should have given the king pause, but instead it might have made him foolhardy (if he wasn’t already). Daniel tells him the head of the statue represents the king himself while the other parts represent other nations:

“This was the dream; now we will tell the king its interpretation. 37 You, O king, the king of kings—to whom the God of heaven has given the kingdom, the power, the might, and the glory, 38 into whose hand he has given human beings, wherever they live, the wild animals of the field, and the birds of the air, and whom he has established as ruler over them all—you are the head of gold. 39 After you shall arise another kingdom inferior to yours, and yet a third kingdom of bronze, which shall rule over the whole earth. 40 And there shall be a fourth kingdom, strong as iron; just as iron crushes and smashes everything,[b] it shall crush and shatter all these. 41 As you saw the feet and toes partly of potter’s clay and partly of iron, it shall be a divided kingdom; but some of the strength of iron shall be in it, as you saw the iron mixed with the clay. 42 As the toes of the feet were part iron and part clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong and partly brittle. 43 As you saw the iron mixed with clay, so will they mix with one another in marriage,[c] but they will not hold together, just as iron does not mix with clay. 44 And in the days of those kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that shall never be destroyed, nor shall this kingdom be left to another people. It shall crush all these kingdoms and bring them to an end, and it shall stand forever; 45 just as you saw that a stone was cut from the mountain not by hands, and that it crushed the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver, and the gold. The great God has informed the king what shall be hereafter. The dream is certain, and its interpretation trustworthy.”

-Daniel 2:39-45

 

Some scholars think that Nebachanezzar only heard what he wanted to hear.  He might have heard that the head of gold represented him and then stopped listening to him.  This might have given the king an idea. The statue itself seems odd; it is about 90 feet tall and 9 feet wide.  It’s seems like more of an obelisk than a statue of the king himself.  That said, the text doesn’t really tell us anything that definitive about the statue.  What we do know is probably why he built the statue.  In this case, Nebuchadnezzar followed the tradition of Babylonian kings erecting statues that represented the king.

The writer of the text likes to use humor to show how absurd the whole mess is.  In verse 3, the writer talks about all of the officials that are called to meet with the king and it is an inclusive list that the writer notes twice.  Later the writer includes talk of the use of various instruments in calling the people to bow down to the statue. In both situations, this shows the diversity of the Babylonian empire.  It is large and diverse, including a number of different cultures.  But the joke is that even in all of this diversity, everyone has to be bow down to the statue.  Diversity is celebrated only in the context of conformity.

As said before, we have no idea if the statue represented himself or a god.  What really matters authority. It is the king’s authority that is at stake and failure to bow down at the sound of, name your musical instrument, carries with it the penalty of death. The issue at hand is who is “Lord,” Nebuchadnezzar or Israel’s God?

When people hear he sound everyone bows down- execept three people: Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.  The Chaldean diviners see this and point this out to the king.  Was this an act of xenophobia?  Probably, in the book of Esther, Mordecai angers Haman, the villian of the story for not bowing down to him.

Upon hearing that three men didn’t bow to the statue, the king is enraged- something that is considered rather common with Nebuchadnezzar. The king brings the three to meet with him. Nebuchadnezzar gives the three Hebrews an ultimatum: either bow down to the statue or get thrown in a furnace.  He then says something to the three that very well could be directed at God: “who is the god that will deliver you out of my hands?”

Nebuchadnezzar is throwing down the gauntlet: he is the powerful one and no god can challenge him.

This is where we get to the kernel of the text:  Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego answer the king in a way that tells the king who is in charge (and it’s not him). They answer Nebuchadnezzar by using his name, not his title as everyone else does. They tell the king that their God is able to deliver them from the fire, but even if that doesn’t happen, they will not bow to the statue which they view as an idol. They will remain faithful to God, no matter the cost.  When they say that God might not save them, they are not saying that they doubt God.  They believe in God no matter what is the outcome.

The three men are thrown into the furnace, which so hot that even the executioners that placed the men in the furnace died.  When the king looks into see if the men are being burned up, Nebuchadnezzar sees not three, but four men in the furnace.  We never know if this is God or an angel or something else.  What we do know is that God is present with the three men in the fire. Indeed, fire in the Old Testament is sometimes associated with the presence of God.

The king orders the three men to come out and they do, with no smell of smoke or singed hair. Upon seeing this Nebuchadnezzar adresses the three as “servants of the most high God.” The king realizes, at least in this instance of the sovereignty of God.  Nebuchadnezzar had asked what god could save Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. He got his answer.

Conclusion

16 When Herod knew the magi had fooled him, he grew very angry. He sent soldiers to kill all the children in Bethlehem and in all the surrounding territory who were two years old and younger, according to the time that he had learned from the magi.

-Matthew 2:16

This is not the first time a king challenges God’s authority.  In Matthew, we see the story where a number of Wise Men come from the East to seek the Christchild. They ask King Herod where this king might be located.  This worried the king.  He probably felt this challenged his power and of course it did.  When the Magi learn that the baby Jesus is in Bethlehem, they go to worship him. The Magi refuse to tell the king where Jesus was and in response, he orders every boy under the age of two to be killed.

In a modern story, during the waning days of World War II, UK Prime Minister Winston Churchill told Soviet leader Joseph Stalin to get the Vatican’s opinion regarding the future of Eastern Europe.  To which Stalin responded: “How many divisions does the Pope have?” Stalin understood power. He had tanks and soldiers.  The Pope had none of these and wasn’t important.

In 1989, millions marched peacefully accross Eastern Europe to protest Soviet domination and in favor democracy. Stalin had his answer to what divisions the Pope had.

There are always powers that seek to replace God.  We are always tempted to give allegiance to something other than God. This temptation did not escape the Jews, remember the worship of the Golden Calf.

There is a saying that goes “Jesus is Lord and Caesar is not.”  Who rules in our lives? If we say God is Lord, how far are we willing to obey?  Would we be able to face our own fiery furnaces?

What we do know is that when we face those trials, God is with us, through the fire.

Christmas has to give an answer to those dealing with pain and unhappiness.  It has to tell everyone that God is here, with us, in the good times and in the bad times.

Dennis Sanders is the Pastor at First Christian Church of St. Paul in Mahtomedi, Minnesota. He’s written for various outlets including Christian Century and the Federalist.

Blasphemous Rumors- Narrative Lectionary, Pentecost 24

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Narrative Lectionary Reflection

November 19, 2017

Read Isaiah 9:1-7

Introduction

You get the phone call from your sister in law. She and your brother are pregnant and will have a little baby.  From then on, as the baby inside of her grows and grows, everyone waits expectantly.  Your sister-in-law shares sonogram photos of the baby, as the child slowly develops. And then the day comes.  You get to hold your new niece for the first time as she naps.

The promise of a child is in many ways a symbol of hope.  It is a sign of new life arising.  In today’s text we learn about a promised birth that will change things for the better in Judah, the Southern Kingdom.  They learn that even in the darkest times, hope is always there springing to life.

Today, we hear the words from the prophet Isaiah.

Engaging the Text

The people who walked in darkness
    have seen a great light;
those who lived in a land of deep darkness—
    on them light has shined.

Isaiah 9:2 

This passage is one of the most well known in the Bible.  If you have every heard Handel’s Messiah, you have heard this passage.  Handel wrote the Messiah with Jesus in mind.  But the writer had someone else in mind. So let’s dig in.

Sometimes one of the best ways to understand a passage is by reading what is not there.  That’s the case in chapter 9.  What is not written in this passage is the diplomatic intrigue that is taking place among the many nations.

The ruler of the Southern Kingdom around the time of this writing was Ahaz who is considered one of the worst kings that ever ruled Judah. During his reign the great empire of Assyria was moving westward.  The Northren Kingdom and Syria entered into an alliance and invaded Judah.  Ahaz made his first mistake by appealing to the king of Assyria. Instead of trusting in God, he trusted in power, in this case the power of Assyria.  Israel and Syria were destroyed, but now the Southern Kingdom was basically a vassal state, meaning Assyria now truly controlled the kingdom.

It was during this time that God is judging the two kingdoms of the Israelites.  In 9:1 we hear that ” God cursed the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali.”  This means that God has throughly judged Israel.  There is no more chances for repentance.

The Southern Kingdom, Judah was also going to be judged, but God still has hope.  In 9:2 this is where we hear about the people in darkneness, Judah who have seen a great light.

Verses 3 and 4 talk about the end of some kind of military oppression. It could be about Assyria, but it could also be about the Syrian-Israelite coalition. When they invaded Judah, the not only took spoil, but some 200,000 people to Samaria.

The harbinger of this prophecy is found in verse 6 where a child is to be born.  Most people believe the writer was referring to the son of Ahaz; Hezekiah. This child is a sign of God being with the people of Israel, Emmanuel.  Hezekiah was a good king and brought about various reforms.

However, Hezekiah was only human, which meant he would fall short of the prophecy about him. Eventually, Judah will be defeated by Babylon and the majority of the population sent into exile.  At that point, the prophecy changes to a future king that will being deliverance.

In chapter 7 we are told that the promised one is going to be named Immanuel or God With Us. For the people of Israel, it was a reminder that God would not forsake them even during exile.  For Christians, we have come to understand Immanuel as Jesus who comes to bring light to a dark world.

Conclusion

I don’t want to start any blasphemous rumours
But I think that God’s got a sick sense of humor
And when I die I expect to find Him laughing
-Blasphemous Rumors, Depeche Mode, 1984

Those are the lyrics of a song called “Blasphemous Rumors” by the British New Wave band Depeche Mode.  It’s an interesting song, because it takes on the topic of suffering and where faith intersects.  In the song, we hear of a young girl trying to commit suicide, failing at first and then succeeding and another girl who became a committed Christian only to end up in a accident that left her on life support until the decision was made to turn the machine off.

At first glance this song seems to denounce God for not stopping the evil that overtook these two women. But maybe this song is a song of complaint and questioning.  Why does evil exist in this world?  How can a good God allow such bad things to happen?

Ahaz is worried about the Northern Kingdom of Israel and Syria who are threatening Judah.  God tells Ahaz to not worry.  God even offers a sign, a woman would give birth to a child and by the time that kid could eat solid food, the two agressive kingdoms would be gone.  This baby would have a name, Immanuel, or God With Us.  Now that’s a sign.  God will be with Ahaz in this dark time.  It’s wonderful, except Ahaz didn’t think so.  Instead of believing that God was with him, he sought an alliance with Assyria.  The result wasn’t so good, because Judah ended up being a vassal state of Assyria.  

We sometimes wonder if we are alone in the world.  These passages remind us that we are never alone: God is with us all the time.

That’s a message of hope the world needs to hear.  Those facing the loss of a loved one through death, those dealing with a cancer diagnosis, the town that hears the factory is closing leaving many people without jobs in the coming year, all of these people need to hear that God is with them. That oppression will end. 

This passage is usually heard on Christmas Eve and it makes sense, since in the passage we talk about light and darkness and the winter solstice will have just taken place.

The wider culture sees Christmas as a time to buy presents and maybe have a party.  But that’s not what Christmas is all about.  It is about the coming of God into the world, our world.  It’s when God dares to get involved in this world, full of pain and chaos and offer grace, redemption and hope.  Christmas is about God being with us.

Christmas has to give an answer to those dealing with pain and unhappiness.  It has to tell everyone that God is here, with us, in the good times and in the bad times.

Dennis Sanders is the Pastor at First Christian Church of St. Paul in Mahtomedi, Minnesota. He’s written for various outlets including Christian Century and the Federalist.

On The Run- Narrative Lectionary, Pentecost 22

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Narrative Lectionary Reflection

November 5, 2017

Read 1 Kings 19:1-18

 

 

Introduction

A few years ago, the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, held the first annual cat video festival.  They hosted the event in the Sculpture Garden near the museum and for several hours showed nothing but YouTube videos of cats.  Believe it or not, 10,000 people showed up on an August evening to watch these videos.  The whole event event got a write-up in the New York Times.

The winner of that event went a video featuring Henri the cat. Henri is a cat with ennui.

In video, Henri who is a tuxedo cat, look longingly into the camera while depressing piano music plays in the background.  The films are in black and white and Henri speaks in French with subtitles showing up on the bottom of the screen.  Henri asks existential questions on the meaning of life, quoting Camus whenever the need arises.  He drops angst filled phrases like, “The 15 hours a day I sleep have no effect. I awake to the same tedium.”  He learns some important things as he questions his existence: things like the whipped cream in the bathroom isn’t whipped cream and that sometimes the cat door is closed.

It’s funny because the last being that you’d think to have an existential crisis would be a house cat.

Today’s text is also an existential journey.  That said, the person asking the existential question isn’t the main character, Elijah, but God.  

Today, we talk about the prophet Elijah, on the run.

Engaging the Text

Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done, how he had killed all Baal’s prophets with the sword. 2 Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah with this message: “May the gods do whatever they want to me if by this time tomorrow I haven’t made your life like the life of one of them.”

1 Kings 19:1-2

 

A little background here.  We have moved from Solomon to King Ahab.  In between, the kingdom of Israel split into a Northern and a Southern Kingdom.  Today’s text takes place in the Northern Kingdom.

King Ahab is considered one of the worst kings in both kingdoms.  He marries Jezebel,  a Phoenician princess. Ahab had a temple built for Baal and other places were set up for people to worship this new god. Jezebel worked to make sure the prophets of Yahweh were persecuted.

In chapter 18, there is a showdown between the prophets of Baal, and Elijah. Elijah decides to challenge King Ahab to prove whose God is bigger.  First up, the prophets of Baal pray for their god to send fire on their offering.  Nothing happens.  Then it was Elijah’s turn.  He prays to God and God answers, powerfully burning the offering, including the altar. Elijah is then able to persuade the people to capture the false prophets have them killed.  When Jezebel hears of this, she swears vengeance against Elijah. 

Now, after such a dramatic event, one that he won, you would think Elijah would have been confident in God.  He would be able to stand up to Ahab and Jezebel, telling them to do their worse.

Instead, he takes his servant and high tails it out of town.

Why does Elijah run? He won the argument, Baal’s prophets were dead, he was the winner. What made him able to face Ahab, but flee when Jezebel threatens him?

It’s important to note that Jezebel is a true believer.  After all that has happened to shake her faith, she still swears by here gods in 19:2.  Elijah wasn’t prepared for this. He is shocked and instead of thinking theologically, he responds emotionally. In short, Elijah faces a crisis of faith. 

Elijah’s flight is reminiscent of Jonah’s attempt to flee away from God.  There were differences though. Jonah hated the Ninevites, the people he was called by God to preach to.  Elijah basically gets scared.  But in both cases, God has to bring God’s prophets back on the path of faithfulness.

Elijah walks in the desert until he sat under a tree hoping to die.  But instead of death, a messenger comes and tells him to eat some food that had been mysteriously prepared for him. This happens one more time. The gift of food is a reminder of what God had done for the Israelites in the past.  It was a reminder that just as God fed the Israelites in the desert with quail and manna, God would take care of Elijah.  Elijah needed the food not just to fill his belly but to remember who God is and what God has done.  Remembering the past is a way to remember who he was and what he needed to do.

Afterwards Elijah starts on a journey; he keeps walking and walking and walking. When he finally stops, God asks him an odd question: Why are you here, Elijah?

What’s even stranger is that Elijah never answer God’s question.  Instead,  Elijah talks about how vigilant he was and how he is the last prophet and his life is threatened.  Then God tells him that God is about to pass by. He sees an earthquake,wind and fire, but the passage notes that God was not in any of these events. God comes to Elijah in what is called a “slight whispering sound” or “still small voice” (rsv). Why did God come in this way? A number of scholars think that God deliberately rejected storms because it s association with the Baal which happens to be a god of rain. In a time when the Israelites have divided loyalties between Baal and God and the small voice is a way of stating who God is; not in the loud sounds but in the quiet.

It is in the quiet that God asks again: why are you here? Elijah responds by saying the following:

 “I’ve been very passionate for the Lord God of heavenly forces because the Israelites have abandoned your covenant. They have torn down your altars, and they have murdered your prophets with the sword. I’m the only one left, and now they want to take my life too.”

-1 Kings 19:14

Elijah thinks he is alone.  All of the other prophets were killed by Jezebel.  But God responds:

15 The Lord said to him, “Go back through the desert to Damascus and anoint Hazael as king of Aram. 16 Also anoint Jehu, Nimshi’s son, as king of Israel; and anoint Elisha from Abel-meholah, Shaphat’s son, to succeed you as prophet. 17 Whoever escapes from the sword of Hazael, Jehu will kill. Whoever escapes from the sword of Jehu, Elisha will kill. 18 But I have preserved those who remain in Israel, totaling seven thousand—all those whose knees haven’t bowed down to Baal and whose mouths haven’t kissed him.”

-1 Kings 19:15-18

Elijah thought he was alone and he feared he would be next.  But God does two things. First, God gives him a task to do: to go and anoint the next king of Israel (Northern Kingdom). He is also to anoint Elisha to be his successor as prophet (which was an unusual thing; prophets anointed kings not prophets).  Finally, God tells Elijah that there are 7,000 prophets that haven’t bowed to Baal.  

Conclusion

Why are you here?  This is a question that is asked again and again in everyone’s life.  You can  hear it when you are laid off from our job.  Or when your baby boy dies after being born premature.  It’s heard when you get the cancer diagnosis or when our loved one decides to leave you.  Why are you here? We hear that question and feel it hanging in midair.  We try to search for an answer, but more often than not, we don’t have an answer.

God sustains God’s saints.  In a time of despair where Elijah just wants to die, God comes to offer food, drink and a new mission. We have to acknowledge and trust that our power comes from God and not from our own work.

To follow God means that you will suffer in some way because life on this side of heaven is always a challenge.  But it is in God that we can keep moving forward. Saints are people who are empowered by God to do God’s work.

Theologian Garrett Galvin shows that God is present for God’s disciples in their time of need:

God sends unexpected help to Elijah during his time of great vulnerability. Elijah is able to overcome his great sadness through the care of the angels and the nourishment of their food. This story invites us to see how the Lord has been present to us in difficult moments. It also invites us to view our problems through a lens able to see God’s divine presence in the world. Just as God is clearly present to Elijah in order to help him overcome his travails, we must have the same confidence that God is present and will be present in our lives. We know the whole of the Elijah story and can see this as just a blip in the story. We must also have the awareness that our travails and troubles are far from the whole of our story. Just as God has been present in our past, we must persevere in the hope that God will be present in our future.2

 

Dennis Sanders is the Pastor at First Christian Church of St. Paul in Mahtomedi, Minnesota. He’s written for various outlets including Christian Century and the Federalist.

Indulge?- Pentecost 21

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Narrative Lectionary Reflection

October 29, 2017

1 Kings 5:1-5; 8:1-13

 

 

Introduction

The football stadium sits at the edge of downtown and is ready for the upcoming Superbowl in a few months.  Tens of thousands will cheer for their team, while nearly a billion people worldwide will tune in from their television and computer screens.

The building is impressive. You can’t miss it because it’s a huge edifice and because of it’s advant-garde design. The building is a jewel in the city’s crown, paid for in part by the citizens of the state. Will the people who come to enjoy the game realize who helped pay for the stadium, let alone the people who worked through the cold winters to make the stadium a reality?

Today we talk about Solomon, David’s son who becomes king after David.  David wanted to build a temple to God, but it never happened while he was king.  Solomon is able to do so, but it comes with a cost.

Today we talk about Solomon and the Temple.

Engaging the Text

3 Now the boy Samuel was serving the Lord under Eli. The Lord’s word was rare at that time, and visions weren’t widely known. (1 Samuel 3:3)

  A little background here.  Last week we talked about the annointing of David. Between then and this week, there was a civil war between Saul and David, David becoming officially king, his scandal with Bathsheba and the killing of her husband, David’s death and his son Solomon becoming king.

The building of the Temple for God is usually presented as a good thing and in many ways it was.  But Solomon’s leadership, while exemplary, also contained a lot of ambiguities.  The building of the temple and his rule in general had weak spots and we see it here in very stark detail.

When we start with today’s text, the nation of Israel is at the height of its powers.  Solomon controls a small empire with lands from the Euphrates River (modern day Iraq) to Egypt.

Solomon was also a rich man. He had many chariots and many horses and a lot of other stuff.  All of his subjects had to pay tribute (read tax) to him.

Why are we talking about the size of Israel and tax policy and what does this have to do with the opening of the Temple? For one, it is important to note that while Solomon is considered someone that follows God, he had flaws.  He lived high on the hog and most of his wealth was supported by taxes and it was something that was ultimately frowned upon. Deuteronomy 17 lays down the law for kings:

14 Once you have entered the land the Lord your God is giving you and you have taken possession of it and settled down in it, you might say: “Let’s appoint a king over us, as all our neighboring nations have done.” 15 You can indeed appoint over you a king that the Lord your God selects. You can appoint over you a king who is one of your fellow Israelites. You are not allowed to appoint over you a foreigner who is not one of your fellow Israelites. 16 That granted, the king must not acquire too many horses, and he must not return the people to Egypt in order to acquire more horses, because the Lord told you: “You will never go back by that road again.” 17 The king must not take numerous wives so that his heart doesn’t go astray. Nor can the king acquire too much silver and gold. 18 Instead, when he sits on his royal throne, he himself must write a copy of this Instruction on a scroll in the presence of the levitical priests. 19 That Instruction must remain with him, and he must read in it every day of his life so that he learns to revere the Lord his God by keeping all the words of this Instruction and these regulations, by doing them, 20 by not being overbearing toward his fellow Israelites, and by not deviating even a bit from the commandment. If the king does all that, he will ensure lasting rule in Israel for himself and for his successors.

Common English Bible. (2011). (Dt 17:14–20). Nashville, TN: Common English Bible.

(Deuteronomy 17:14-20)

Take for example the differences between building the Temple for God and Solomon’s own temple.  It took seven years to build the Temple, but it took thirteen years to build his own house.  Does that show that he cared more about his own house, than about God’s house?  A house was also built for his Egyptian wife. Deuteronomy and other laws warned against taking foreign wives because it meant that foreign gods find their way into Israelite life, which is what happened.

It’s also important to know that the people building the temple weren’t always doing it as part of a job. Brent Strawn notes that the temple was built in a way that should have given Solomon pause:

The first is that Solomon instates an immense “work gang” (CEB) to carry out the labor in Lebanon (5:15). The term that is used for this workforce in Hebrew (mas) occurs elsewhere of Israelite workers only in Exodus 1:11, where the Israelites are subject to a brutal and tyrannical pharaoh and his taskmasters (see also Exodus 5:10-14). It is thus very hard to not see in the use of this particular term an extremely negative judgment on the labor in question as well as on how Solomon’s has gone about his temple building project. This suspicion is confirmed later, when the nation divides immediately after Solomon’s death: clearly, the Israelites were not pleased with this forced labor and with their “supervisors” (1 Kings 12:18; 2 Chronicles 10:18). It all seemed a bit too Egyptian, if you asked them.1

There are some good things to focus on when it comes to the temple. A word about the temple itself and a sign of God.  There are two pillars in the temple that are superfluous, they don’t hold anything up. It was a symbol; that God holds the world up, which means the world is secure.

Looking from the pillars, there was a large basin filled with water. Practically, this is where ceremonial cleansing took place.  But it had another purpose.  For the ancient Middle East, the sea held threatening power.  The water in the basin was a way of saying that the power of the sea is under God’s power; in essence another sign of the goodness of God.

Towards the end of the passage in chapter 8, we are told that a cloud fills the temple.  A cloud was a way of acknowledging God’s presence.  It was a cloud that led the people of Israel as they traveled to the Promised Land.  The cloud shows God is present among the people.

Is the temple a place where God lives?  No, because God is everywhere.  But the temple is a reminder that God is present. John Goldingjay explains why:

So why is Solomon building one? He speaks of building a house for God’s name. It is a way the Old Testament often seeks to square the circle of affirming that God was really present in the midst of Israel while recognizing that this was an unsophisticated idea. The name of a person stands for the person.

Conclusion

Solomon’s temple is considered a great achievement. It comes when the nation is at the height of its powers and it is part of the unfinished dream of David.  But this splendor comes at a cost, not only to Solomon, but to the whole nation.  What did it mean that people were taxed for the temple?  What about the fact that the temple was probably built with slave labor?

The final point to remember is this: God never asked for a temple.  What does it mean that a temple is built for God, that God never asked for?  Is the temple more for Solomon than it is for God?

 

  1. Strawn, Brett. WorkingPreacher.com, October 29, 2017.

  2. Goldingay, J. (2011). 1 and 2 Kings for Everyone (p. 25). Louisville, KY; London: Westminster John Knox Press; Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge.

Dennis Sanders is the Pastor at First Christian Church of St. Paul in Mahtomedi, Minnesota. He’s written for various outlets including Christian Century and the Federalist.

Bad News Samuel- Pentecost 18

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Narrative Lectionary Reflection

October 15, 2017

1 Samuel 3:1-21

 

 

Introduction

We like to use the word prophet enough that we might have lost its true meaning.  We love hearing someone who spouts judgements against your political opponents and the first thing someone will say is that this person is prophetic.

But the problem with that definition of prophetic is that it is hearing things that the listeners agree with.  If you read the Bible, you get a very different impression of a prophet.  Most of the time we learn that prophets say things that people don’t like, sometimes even among the prophets themselves.  Prophets say hard words that can be difficult to hear. No one likes hearing words that tell you how bad you are.  No one wants to be the bearer of bad news.

In today’s text, we see young Samuel hearing the voice of God and Samuel ready to take on his first assignment as a prophet.  It is a message he didn’t want to talk about with his mentor, Eli.

What does it mean to be called by God?  What does it mean to act in a prophetic way?

Today, we look at the call of Samuel.

Engaging the Text

3 Now the boy Samuel was serving the Lord under Eli. The Lord’s word was rare at that time, and visions weren’t widely known. (1 Samuel 3:3)

  A little background here.  Samuel is the son of Hannah.  Hannah was a woman who was barren and wasn’t able to give her husband Elkanah, a son.  She prays to God and God answers, giving her and Elkanah a son named Samuel.  (You can read about Samuel in the October 16, 2016 edition of the Story of God.)

Samuel is now a teen or young adults working as an apprentice for the chief priest, Eli.  Eli is an interesting character that is both sympathetic and pathetic at the same time. Eli is described in verse 2 as being blind or with impaired vision, but it can also describe the state of his soul as well.  He was blind to the problems around him, problems that would lead to his downfall. Eli has a problem with his sons, who were also priests.  The story of the sons of Eli is found in chapter 2 and when they are first described, they viewed as “despicable” men.  What made them so despicable? It was simple greed.  Priests were not paid in money, because there was no money.  They couldn’t work in the fields, but the law made it possible for the priest and his family to live: they were allowed to take a part of the sacrificial animals.  After God’s portion was burnt up, then what was left over could be given to the priest.

The problem with Eli’s sons is that they took more of the meat than was allowed. Here is is how the Bible depicts their theft:

 

12 Now Eli’s sons were despicable men who didn’t know the Lord. 13 This was how the priest was supposed to act with the people: Whenever anyone made a sacrifice, while the meat was boiling, the priest’s assistant would come with a three-pronged fork in hand. 14 He would thrust it into the cauldron or the pot.[c] Whatever the fork brought up, the priest would take for himself. This is how it was done for all the Israelites who came to Shiloh.

15 But with Eli’s sons,[d] even before the fat was burned, the priest’s assistant would come and say to the person offering the sacrifice, “Give the priest some meat to roast. He won’t accept boiled meat from you.”[e] 16 If anyone said, “Let the fat be burned off first, as usual, then take whatever you like for yourself,” the assistant would reply, “No, hand it over now. If not, I’ll take it by force.” 17 The sin of these priestly assistants was very serious in the Lord’s sight because they were disrespecting the Lord’s own offering.

(1 Samuel 2:12-17)

The sons weren’t just guilty of gluttony. They had sex with the women who worked at the temple.  The two men were drunk with power and used it in ways that hurt others and robbed God.

Eli is aware of his son’s dealings and pleads for them to stop, which they  do not.  In the end, Eli and his sons will be punished.  So, why was Eli punished?  It doesn’t seem that Eli was turning a blind eye or didn’t care. He did urge his sons to stop their abuses, but it seems that simply saying something wasn’t enough.  It could be that Eli was passive in his life and not open to listening to God.  Eli’s weakness allowed his sons to continue their corruption and the end is that they will be judged harshly by God.

When we start chapter 3, Samuel is sleeping in the temple, with Eli nearby. He is basically an intern, learning the ropes.  As he is trying to sleep, he hears a voice calling him.  Each time he comes to Eli thinking this is who was calling him. 

Eli didn’t realize at first that this might be God.  Maybe this is why we learn in verse one that the Lord’s words were rare.  Was this for a reason? Was it because of Eli and his sons?  We don’t know. What we do know is that God’s word was not familiar to the people, including Samuel. This explains why Samuel didn’t recognized God’s voice.  When God calls again, Samuel then is able to say that he is open to receive God’s word.

It’s then that Samuel hears the word of God and what a word it is. He gets the message of Eli and his sons’ sin and their upcoming downfall.  After hearing God, he wasn’t able to sleep.  He got up the next morning and attended to his morning duties in order to avoid Eli.  How could he tell his boss that he was going to be punished by God which meant his death?

Finally, Eli asks that Samuel tell him what God said to Samuel and he obliged.  Eli understood what God was saying and accepted it. It is at this moment that the center of gravity shifts.  Eli and his sons still are in power on paper.  But God had chosen Samuel and people would now pay attention to him.

Conclusion

What does it mean to be called? There is a temptation to see it only in the context of the church; being asked to serve as as an usher or something within the walls of the church (this is confusing “call” with “gifts”).  The other misunderstanding is to see it as something that gives you meaning and fulfillment, but call is about something deeper:

there is something odd that has happened over the years to the way we talk in terms of calling and vocation in connection with ministry. Speaking with students often suggests to me that we think of ministry as something that enables us to find fulfillment, as it makes it possible for us to give expression to the gifts God has given us. Discernment thus begins as our seeking to perceive what our gifts are and how we may express them. There’s none of this way of thinking in the Old Testament or the New Testament. Samuel is not called because this will be the way he finds fulfillment (neither is Paul). Given that the connotations of the word “call” have changed, we might do better to use the word “summons” rather than “call” to describe what happens to Samuel or Paul.1

The summoning of Samuel is not about what will give Samuel meaning, it is about God. Does that mean our own desires never filter in?  Probably not.  But God’s call is not conducive to what we desire, but what will fulfill God’s will in the world. 

Another thought is about listening for God.  Today, we can hear folk saying God spoke to them about something as if it were a best friend.  But how are we sure that God is calling?  When can we realize when God is speaking? Eli comes into this by helping Samuel realize that it was God calling.  We listen to God’s voice through a community of faith.  Samuel needed help in discerning God’s voice and Eli stepped in an helped him.

How do we listen to God’s voice today?  How do our churches help us to hear God today?

 

 

  1. Goldingay, J. (2011). 1 and 2 Samuel for Everyone: A Theological Commentary on the Bible (p. 31). Louisville, KY; London: Westminster John Knox Press; Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge.

2. Kruse, Michael. Economic Fallacies: “No Scarcity”, krusekronicle.com, February 26, 2008.

Dennis Sanders is the Pastor at First Christian Church of St. Paul in Mahtomedi, Minnesota. He’s written for various outlets including Christian Century and the Federalist.