Lectionary 13 B - Lamentations 3:22-23

Lamentations 3:22-33

Lamentations is not the happiest book in the Bible. It may be the most honest. The good news is that honesty does not need to be happy and that is comforting, at least to the degree we accept what it says as true. So Lamentations can proclaim God’s never ceasing love and mercies while keeping the parenthesis in place -(there may yet be hope) vs. 29. Wes Word, a Fort Worth, TX singer songwriter, sings it this way, “Tomorrow is just another yesterday – don’t worry ‘cause it’s all over soon.” I suppose you could hear that as a depressing commentary on life but when you wed it to his comment “we are the community we create” it is really an invitation to live fully into the day that exists between tomorrow and yesterday. So we wait quietly (or maybe not so quietly) for the Lord to act trusting that in the life between the forever tomorrow and all our yesterdays the community God has created in the Christ, through us, for the world is abiding grace, confident hope, enduring love.

Lectionary 12 B - Mark 4:35-41

Mark 4:35-41

It was Jesus’ idea to sail across the lake but it was the disciples who took him in the boat “just as he was.” It’s an odd thing to say but perhaps explains why Jesus is sleeping in the stern while the disciples struggle to keep the boat from sinking. Just before setting out to sea Jesus was teaching all day. Before that he was hemmed in by crowds trying to touch him for healing. He was “outed” as the “Son of God” by demonic spirits and at the same time accused by Pharisees of being in league with the devil. And to top it off his own mother told him to stop acting like a lunatic. No wonder he needed a nap. But “just as he was” is more than a reference to how he was at that moment. Jesus is the “where were you when I laid the earth’s foundations” (Job 38:4) and yet cannot keep his eyes open in the center of a cyclone. He is weakened and wearied by wearing human flesh, not as a garment one can take off and send to the cleaners, but real life flesh and blood, skin and bone, muscle and sinew, organs and beating heart. When the storm causes the disciple’s courage to melt away and they “stagger and reel like drunkards at their wit’s end” (Psalm 107:27) they wake the One “just as he was” to question his motives and ability. “Don’t you care..?” means they want and need him to be more than “just as he was.” Maybe we do as well? Perhaps we’d prefer a superman Jesus who swoops in to save us or a supermarket Jesus who provides for all our needs or a problem solving Jesus who resolves all our dilemmas. I’m not saying Jesus doesn’t save or provide or address dilemmas. Jesus stills the storm for the disciples and for us is a very present help in times of trouble. (Psalm 46) But an equal if not greater truth is that Jesus became just as we are so that we might become just as he was. Or better, maybe it means we can be like Jesus and be “just as we are” at the same time? Frail and foolish and yet filled with faith that on a good day might even still a storm or two for people who are perishing.

Lectionary 12 B - 2 Corinthians 6:1-13

2 Corinthians 6:1-13

If the contentious Corinthians were not the proverbial “thorn” in Paul’s flesh they were certainly a pain in the you know what. And yet his heart “wide open” is willing to endure ridicule and rejection for the sake of these people puffed up with pride who have accepted the grace of God in vain. Not that Paul is without fault. Lord knows he can be arrogant and rude, but in this case I believe he is genuine in his affection and his desire that the grace of God overcome the obstacle the Corinthian Christians have put in its way. That’s because unity within the body of Christ is essential to the mission of the church. So it is with us when relationships within the body of Christ are strained and divisions and dissent cause us to close our hearts to one another. But if we recognize that today is the acceptable time, today is the day of salvation, then the temporal matters over which we might argue lose their importance and we are able to live the freedom found in the grace of God. That means we live today in the way we will when all things are made new. There will be no divisions in the forever future. The vast multitude of every race and language will sing the same song and eat from the same table on the holy mountain and no one will be greater or less than anyone else. The church is meant to be a reflection of that future so that those outside the church will come to believe that the Lord has listened to them as well and the acceptable time is always now, the day of salvation always available.

Lectionary 11 B - Psalm 107:1-3; 23-32

 

Psalm 107:1-3, 23-32
Psalm 107 is a long song that details the troubles the people of God get into when they rebel against God’s commands. They wandered in desert wastelands, were imprisoned in darkness, afflicted with sickness and set adrift on stormy seas. But when they were humbled by oppression, calamity and sorrow then they cried out to the Lord and every time they did the Lord delivered them. We might not be set adrift on the sea but we experience times when we stagger and real like drunkards and all our skill is to no avail. When hope hangs on by a thread we cry out to the Lord in our distress and whether the storm is stilled or we are, the truth is God is always present with steadfast love and wonderful works that are worthy of thanks and praise

Lectionary 12 B - Job 38:1-11

Job 38:1-11
After 37 chapters Job finally gets his day in the celestial court, although after God’s opening argument Job surrenders and cops a guilty plea, “Surely I’ve spoken of things too great for me to understand.” (Job 42:3) God’s “where were you…” might mean the question is not even ours to ask. It certainly means God doesn’t have to answer our “why?” We, like Job, his wife and his friends, would prefer a more predictable process where we can explain and in that sense control what happens to us. At the very least being the cause of what happens to us means we have someone to blame and in a weird way there is some comfort in that. But when life (i.e. God) refuses to play by any rules we can identify or codify we are tempted to complain bitterly like Job does while protesting his innocence, or hold onto our theologies more tightly like his friends do, or take Job’s wife’s advice and “curse God” (Job 2:9) and let ourselves and faith die. But I think living “I have spoken of things too great for me to understand” allows us to face circumstances beyond our control with a faith that depends fully on the One who was there when the foundations of the earth were laid. And the reason we can live without question or answer is because the God revealed in the cross asked the question for us “My God! My God! Why have forsaken me?” and answered it in “It is finished.” That does not mean we live through sorrow and pain as a prelude to the hymn of heaven but rather that we sing the forever future song in the face of the “light and momentary troubles” (2 Corinthians 6:17) of this life even when they are heavy and drawn out and we must sing through gritted teeth and weeping eye.

Lectionary 11 B - Mark 4:26-34

Mark 4:26-34
I think explaining a parable is like repeating the punch line of a joke and asking “get it?” It never works quite as well because it loses the element of surprise. And so without explaining it I think a parable of the kingdom is like the kingdom in that it is plainly stated and yet remains hidden. It is fully visible in unselfish acts and deeds of kindness that sprout from hearts and minds animated by the wind of the Spirit, especially when like a seed that sprouts it appears out of the dry soil of everyday lives. And yet a good bit of the time it is barely perceived in the same way we have a dream that upon waking lingers for a moment before being erased from our conscious memory. That is because our part is simply to participate in what already is. “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” We pray the reign of God come down wherever and whenever and for whatever reason God so chooses so that we can live it. That happens when human beings get caught up in the mystery of God’s acting out in our world and act and speak in ways that mimic what God does, which is always about life and love. When we participate in what already is the branches of mercy are extended well beyond anything we could imagine or manufacture or explain. Surprise!

Lectionary 11 B - 2 Corinthians 5:6-17

2 Corinthians 5:6-17

Before you get overly concerned (and therefore less than confident) with “all of us must appear before the judgment seat of Christ” read on to verse 14. “The love of Christ urges us on….” When we are motivated by fear of punishment or desire for reward we do not live the life of love even if we are as obedient as is humanly possible. If your first thought upon reading that is I am trying to excuse disobedience you are still thinking in terms of judgment. There is no freedom in that dynamic and therefore no Gospel. Every religion invented by humanity works on the principle of reward for good behavior and punishment for bad. But if we regard Jesus “no longer from a human point of view” – the innocent One died for the guilty multitude - a new creature is born who for the sake of God lives the life of love for others for the sake of love which is to say, God who is love. Now there may eternal consequences for choosing to live otherwise (there are without doubt temporal consequences) but thinking that the sum total of the Christian life is to get to heaven or avoid hell is equally damning because in the end it’s all about you and that means even an act of love is self-serving. So let’s leave the future in God’s hands and trust that in Christ everything has indeed been made new for only then can we be “always confident.”

Lectionary 11 B - Psalm 92

Psalm 92:1-4; 12-15
Psalm 92 is listed as a song for the Sabbath day but it is a good thing to give thanks to the Lord every day, morning, noon and night. Or as pop culture icon Spongebob Squarepants sang in Attitude of Gratitude. “Oh, I’ve got a whole new attitude, a lifetime subscription to gratitude…I’m grateful for the life I am living, who knows how long I will have it...” Now you can’t manufacture such an attitude, but you do have the option to decide to live each moment as best you can considering each breath a gift which is how we manage to bear fruit even in our old age.

Lectionary 11 B - Ezekiel 17:22-24

 

Ezekiel 17:22-24
The prophet Ezekiel imagines the Lord as the One who provides shade and shelter and sustenance for all creatures great and small. More to the point, the Great I AM is not far off and removed but intimately involved in the process of planting the noble cedar that produces boughs and fruit. “I myself will take a sprig…” I will set it out...” I will break off a tender one…” I myself will plant it…” In the same way the trees of the field recognize their vitality is determined by the Great “I will accomplish it.” The tall and green tree is brought low and made dry even as the dry and low tree is made green and tall. Not as a preference but as God’s prerogative so that all will have to acknowledge God is master of seed and sun and soil and moisture.  Of course many a North Texan would prefer God dry up every last cedar in sight, especially when the wind blows and the pollen count goes through the roof.

Lectionary 10 B - Mark 3:20-35

Mark 3:20-35

So much for family values! It is clear from the scriptures that Jesus raised a ruckus, and people have been trying to quiet him down ever since. It’s not hard to do. Jesus isn’t around to object to whatever we claim WWJD. Even the church has a vested interest in the status quo, especially where pensions and tax breaks for the clerical class are concerned. But Jesus was a radical for his time and place and upset everyone, even disciples who followed and a family who tried to understand. That’s because Jesus was living the limitless future in the far too constrained present where risking radical love gets you crucified. So how might we be brother and sister and mother to Jesus in our time and place? It might be giving away more than you hold on to or acting with more grace, thinking with less judgment, loving with fewer restrictions. That being said, just getting push back for one’s beliefs is not proof that you and Jesus are on the same page. But if we transform lives like Jesus did – fishermen who become fearless preachers, tax collectors who stop cheating, women who are welcomed as leaders, or a Pharisee who born from above steps out of the shadows – you can bet eternity we are doing the will of God.

Lectionary 10 B - 2 Corinthians 4:13-5:1

2 Corinthians 4 13 – 5:1

2 Corinthians 4:16-18 is found in the occasional services book and suggested for use in times of illness or when one is near death. I tried to read these words to a friend and colleague at Harris Hospital, Fort Worth in July of 2007 a few days before he died and could not manage the words through the tears. Pastor Tom Allan stopped me with a hand on my shoulder and said, “It’s alright Phil. The gospel I preached my whole career was good enough for me then and it’s good enough for me now. I’m not afraid. And when I get to heaven I’ll mention your name.” I can never read these verses without thinking of that day and being eternally grateful for the grace extended to me by one who was infinitely more courageous and faithful than I am, which is why I’m glad Saint Tom intercedes for me even now, though he might need to do more than just mention my name.

Lectionary 10 B - Psalm 130

Psalm 130

I’ve kept watch for more than one morning and as you might know the coming day is always too slow to dawn. That is the nature of waiting while crying from the depths of guilt, or worse, shame. But the psalmist trusts that the sins that are continually accusing us are not counted by the Lord which is why waiting can be endured with hope that with the light of each new day the sins of the past are erased from God’s memory. That is because the steadfast love of God is expressed in plenteous redemption which means there is no limit to the depths God will go to hear and answer our cry.

Lectionary 10 B - Genesis 3:8-15

Genesis 3:8-15

The story of our beginning does not have to be literally true to tell the truth about us. We, like our first parents, would not be satisfied with paradise if there was one tree we were not allowed to touch. And so they believed the lie and acted on it thinking that the One who created them and provided for them was too good to be true. We’ve been living the lie ever since trapped in self-serving ways that are self-destructive, blaming each other and everyone else when we are the ones who are responsible for our own folly. Of course when paradise was lost to the ones created in God’s image it was lost to God as well for when the first humans were cast out of the garden the mercy of God was this – God went with them.