Reading: I Kings 18:20-39
The contest between the power of Baal and the power of God on Mount Carmel
Uh oh! It's 11:55 pm. I won't finish this thursdaythought before Friday. Best intentions...
And that's the background to the reading this week -- best intentions that go awry.
Way back at the end of Exodus, just before the people of Israel first enter the land of Canaan (the promised land), Moses tells them to decide once and for all whether to worship and serve Yahweh -- the God who has freed them from slavery and led them through the wilderness, or Baal and other gods of fertility and prosperity that the other people already in the land will be worshipping.
Of course they say, "Yahweh!"
But then they move into Canaan, start settling in, find out who Baal really is ... and find it hard not to slide into worship of him.
Because Baal is hard to resist. From my childhood I have an image of the cult of Baal as a pagan, child-sacrificing, primitive kind of thing that now exists only in story books and is hardly believable as something that intelligent people would do. But Baal is really just the god of local fertility and prosperity who promises prosperity and well-being to the home, tribe and homeland of any people willing to sacrifice whatever Baal says needs to be sacrificed. And doesn't that sound like most of our political leadership and discourse today?
So ... over time the people slide into worship of Baal, they displace Yahweh (and Yahweh's focus on justice and right relations among all people and within creation as the most important considerations in nation-building), they make Baal their god, and in this week's story things have come to a head.
The King (Ahab), thinking he's doing what's best for the kingdom, has got into bed with a foreign queen -- good old (or maybe young) Jezebel, and he has also made Baal the official religion of the kingdom. After all, can prosperity be bad? Four hundred and fifty prophets agree with him, and can four hundred and fifty prophets be wrong?
A lone prophet named Elijah, however, says they can be .. and are very wrong and misguided. So a contest is set up on Mount Carmel to see who is really greater and better for kingdom to have as its god -- Baal or Yahweh.
And that's what we'll explore in our worship this week -- the honest appeal of Baal (Ahab really was trying to do the best thing) ... and the challenge always of sticking to the resolution of focusing on what God sees as important.
Thursday, May 30, 2013
Thursday, May 23, 2013
Towards Sunday, May 26, 2013
Readings: Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31 and John 16:12-15
A thought about John 16:
According to polls, increasing numbers of people identify themselves as “spiritual and not religious.” Sometimes church folk think this is “an easy way out” – a way of believing in God without committing to church. But might being spiritual actually be more demanding and life-changing than being religious?
What does it mean to be “spiritual”? At the very least, it means being open to what is beyond the material and measurable, and being willing to live not just by what is measurable and material, but in accord with the deeper reality of the world. And that can be a lot more life-changing than just attending and supporting church – being religious.
Church at its best, of course, helps us develop a true a healthy spiritual life. And being spiritual apart from a religious tradition, at its worst can become pretty vague and self-serving.
So I hope our worship this Sunday is the kind of religious observance that opens us all a few cracks more to the Spirit of true and authentic life.
A thought about Proverbs 8:
The ancient Hebrews do not act as though they have a monopoly on Truth. In their faith-story, they know God specially liberated them from slavery from the Egyptian Empire and in this they know something essential and foundational about God. But they accept that other people and other religious traditions also catch something of the Truth.
In the Book of Proverbs, for instance, they accept many wisdom sayings and images of God from other cultures and traditions, and adopt them as “scripture” alongside their own story – like in Proverbs 8, where they speak of a power alongside God (a feminine figure named Wisdom) through whom God orders the created world and makes it good, and who in turn delights in what is made.
This figure of an “intermediary power” between God and earth is not Hebrew in origin. It appears in a number of other cultural and religious traditions which cannot imagine (a perfect) God being “corrupted” by directly dealing with (an imperfect) earth. The Hebrews do not share that negative view of the earth, but they accept this (foreign) image of “a separate power of God” and they name it Wisdom (in Greek, Sophia), affirming it to be part of God, and in this way expanding their understanding of God and how God works. In the Christian tradition, this “person” or “holy power” of Wisdom is seen by some as the second person of the Trinity that comes to be incarnate in Jesus, and by others as the Holy Spirit.
All of this makes me think. I used to think that when the church was gifted with the Holy Spirit (Acts 2, the Pentecost story) we were being given something special that the rest of the world doesn’t have. Now, especially with the Proverbs 8 image of Holy Wisdom being at the heart of the cosmos and of the history of the earth and its people from before the beginning, I wonder if the gift we are given is the freedom to be open to the spiritual wisdom that resides in the cosmos, in the earth, and in all its peoples. I wonder if we’ll have a chance to taste this freedom in worship this Sunday.
A thought about John 16:
According to polls, increasing numbers of people identify themselves as “spiritual and not religious.” Sometimes church folk think this is “an easy way out” – a way of believing in God without committing to church. But might being spiritual actually be more demanding and life-changing than being religious?
What does it mean to be “spiritual”? At the very least, it means being open to what is beyond the material and measurable, and being willing to live not just by what is measurable and material, but in accord with the deeper reality of the world. And that can be a lot more life-changing than just attending and supporting church – being religious.
Church at its best, of course, helps us develop a true a healthy spiritual life. And being spiritual apart from a religious tradition, at its worst can become pretty vague and self-serving.
So I hope our worship this Sunday is the kind of religious observance that opens us all a few cracks more to the Spirit of true and authentic life.
A thought about Proverbs 8:
The ancient Hebrews do not act as though they have a monopoly on Truth. In their faith-story, they know God specially liberated them from slavery from the Egyptian Empire and in this they know something essential and foundational about God. But they accept that other people and other religious traditions also catch something of the Truth.
In the Book of Proverbs, for instance, they accept many wisdom sayings and images of God from other cultures and traditions, and adopt them as “scripture” alongside their own story – like in Proverbs 8, where they speak of a power alongside God (a feminine figure named Wisdom) through whom God orders the created world and makes it good, and who in turn delights in what is made.
This figure of an “intermediary power” between God and earth is not Hebrew in origin. It appears in a number of other cultural and religious traditions which cannot imagine (a perfect) God being “corrupted” by directly dealing with (an imperfect) earth. The Hebrews do not share that negative view of the earth, but they accept this (foreign) image of “a separate power of God” and they name it Wisdom (in Greek, Sophia), affirming it to be part of God, and in this way expanding their understanding of God and how God works. In the Christian tradition, this “person” or “holy power” of Wisdom is seen by some as the second person of the Trinity that comes to be incarnate in Jesus, and by others as the Holy Spirit.
All of this makes me think. I used to think that when the church was gifted with the Holy Spirit (Acts 2, the Pentecost story) we were being given something special that the rest of the world doesn’t have. Now, especially with the Proverbs 8 image of Holy Wisdom being at the heart of the cosmos and of the history of the earth and its people from before the beginning, I wonder if the gift we are given is the freedom to be open to the spiritual wisdom that resides in the cosmos, in the earth, and in all its peoples. I wonder if we’ll have a chance to taste this freedom in worship this Sunday.
Thursday, May 16, 2013
A step closer to Pentecost Sunday
Following up on the first post (see below) about the difference between the gift of the Spirit as narrated in Acts 2 and the Spirit-led life as discussed in the Letters to the Corinthians and the Ephesians ...
Acts 2 is a story of the Christian community's first explosive entrance onto the public stage in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost. Pentecost was a minor feast-day for the Jews -- a harvest festival at which the first-fruits of the year's new harvest are offered to God, in gratitude for what God has brought to fruition.
As the Christians celebrate the day, though, for them it takes on larger significance. Reflecting on the gift of Christ and their own life in Christ, they come to see that all of God's work in the life of the world is now coming to fruition -- that in Christ and his followers the age-old promises of new life, of freedom from sin, of the redemption of humanity, and of a mature humanity living in the image of God are all coming to be. Seeds sown all through human history are now coming to fruit, and the crop of a new humanity is beginning to appear in the world.
The initial sign of the fruition of all God's work through the ages is the disciples' ability to speak to people in the city about God in their own languages. They are able to speak in ways that others can understand, and to bring people of all nationalities and languages together in understanding the work and good will of God.
And this must still be what the Christian church and Christian mission are about -- to be un-doing the confusion and tribal division that has blighted human life and endeavour through all its history (see Gen 10 and the Tower of Babel), and helping all the world to come together in understanding God's love and good will.
But how is it accomplished? What is the means?
When the Christian community first burst on the scene, it was with an irresistible, ecstatic, irrational gift of being able to speak in any foreign language that was needed. But as amazing and earth-shaking as that gift was, its effect was not great. The world was not all converted. After the first flash, The Christian movement became just one among other religious movements, each with its own wonders, miracles and moments of glory.
So what can have lasting effect?
The Letters to the Corinthians and the Ephesians show how the church wrestled with this question, and that the answer they discerned was the importance of the gifts and the fruit of the Spirit in the day-in, day-out lives of the church and its members. Putting aside the ecstatic and exceptional gift of their first great burst onto the scene, the church saw the importance of the day-in, day-out actions of God's good will that church members would perform in the community, and the day-in, day-out growth of godliness in their character.
This, the church realizes, is the first-fruit of the harvest -- the beginning of the new humanity, and that our godly actions and character (the signs of God's Spirit at work within us) are what will speak to all the world in the way they are able to hear.
So, the question: what godly actions and character do we reveal? What of the love and good will of God for all life, does the world hear in our actions and character?
Acts 2 is a story of the Christian community's first explosive entrance onto the public stage in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost. Pentecost was a minor feast-day for the Jews -- a harvest festival at which the first-fruits of the year's new harvest are offered to God, in gratitude for what God has brought to fruition.
As the Christians celebrate the day, though, for them it takes on larger significance. Reflecting on the gift of Christ and their own life in Christ, they come to see that all of God's work in the life of the world is now coming to fruition -- that in Christ and his followers the age-old promises of new life, of freedom from sin, of the redemption of humanity, and of a mature humanity living in the image of God are all coming to be. Seeds sown all through human history are now coming to fruit, and the crop of a new humanity is beginning to appear in the world.
The initial sign of the fruition of all God's work through the ages is the disciples' ability to speak to people in the city about God in their own languages. They are able to speak in ways that others can understand, and to bring people of all nationalities and languages together in understanding the work and good will of God.
And this must still be what the Christian church and Christian mission are about -- to be un-doing the confusion and tribal division that has blighted human life and endeavour through all its history (see Gen 10 and the Tower of Babel), and helping all the world to come together in understanding God's love and good will.
But how is it accomplished? What is the means?
When the Christian community first burst on the scene, it was with an irresistible, ecstatic, irrational gift of being able to speak in any foreign language that was needed. But as amazing and earth-shaking as that gift was, its effect was not great. The world was not all converted. After the first flash, The Christian movement became just one among other religious movements, each with its own wonders, miracles and moments of glory.
So what can have lasting effect?
The Letters to the Corinthians and the Ephesians show how the church wrestled with this question, and that the answer they discerned was the importance of the gifts and the fruit of the Spirit in the day-in, day-out lives of the church and its members. Putting aside the ecstatic and exceptional gift of their first great burst onto the scene, the church saw the importance of the day-in, day-out actions of God's good will that church members would perform in the community, and the day-in, day-out growth of godliness in their character.
This, the church realizes, is the first-fruit of the harvest -- the beginning of the new humanity, and that our godly actions and character (the signs of God's Spirit at work within us) are what will speak to all the world in the way they are able to hear.
So, the question: what godly actions and character do we reveal? What of the love and good will of God for all life, does the world hear in our actions and character?
Towards Pentecost Sunday (May 19, 2013)
Reading: Acts 2:1-4, 17-18
The story in Acts 2 makes God's gift of Holy Spirit to the followers of Jesus seem very exceptional -- a once-in-a-lifetime experience of the Christian church. Wind from heaven, tongues of fire, and foreign languages are not every-Sunday happenings. Nor do we want them to be.
But other teachings (e.g. I Corinthians 12:4-27, and 14:26b, and Galatians 5:22-26) help open our eyes to the on-going presence and evidence of God's Spirit in things we do and in ways we are -- not only Sunday, but every day. These passages make being Spirit-filled seem attractive and desirable.
A year-and-a-half ago when the church Council identified three priorities of our congregation, the first we identified is that "we welcome people into Christian community."
This started out as welcoming people "into community." But because church is not just any community, we amended it to "spiritual community". Then because there are many kinds of spiritual community, we amended it again to "Christian community."
I wonder if we should have made it "Christian spiritual community"? Do we lose or miss something by not mentioning the Spirit in any way?
Because it might be possible to claim Christ as our guide to God and to human life, without really opening ourselves to what God wants us to do and how God wants us to be by the Holy Spirit given to us. It might be possible to want to follow Christ, without letting ourselves be drawn into action beyond our means and into real transformation of who we are.
"A Song of Faith," the 2006 United Church statement of faith, says that "the church has not always lived up to its vision; it requires the Spirit to reorient it..."
My guess is that we can open ourselves to God's Spirit on Sunday, without having wind and fire immediately threaten our renovated Upper Room. God willing, we will feel and be renewed by something.
What does openness to the Spirit mean to you? Have you seen it in your church life?
The story in Acts 2 makes God's gift of Holy Spirit to the followers of Jesus seem very exceptional -- a once-in-a-lifetime experience of the Christian church. Wind from heaven, tongues of fire, and foreign languages are not every-Sunday happenings. Nor do we want them to be.
But other teachings (e.g. I Corinthians 12:4-27, and 14:26b, and Galatians 5:22-26) help open our eyes to the on-going presence and evidence of God's Spirit in things we do and in ways we are -- not only Sunday, but every day. These passages make being Spirit-filled seem attractive and desirable.
A year-and-a-half ago when the church Council identified three priorities of our congregation, the first we identified is that "we welcome people into Christian community."
This started out as welcoming people "into community." But because church is not just any community, we amended it to "spiritual community". Then because there are many kinds of spiritual community, we amended it again to "Christian community."
I wonder if we should have made it "Christian spiritual community"? Do we lose or miss something by not mentioning the Spirit in any way?
Because it might be possible to claim Christ as our guide to God and to human life, without really opening ourselves to what God wants us to do and how God wants us to be by the Holy Spirit given to us. It might be possible to want to follow Christ, without letting ourselves be drawn into action beyond our means and into real transformation of who we are.
"A Song of Faith," the 2006 United Church statement of faith, says that "the church has not always lived up to its vision; it requires the Spirit to reorient it..."
My guess is that we can open ourselves to God's Spirit on Sunday, without having wind and fire immediately threaten our renovated Upper Room. God willing, we will feel and be renewed by something.
What does openness to the Spirit mean to you? Have you seen it in your church life?
Tuesday, May 07, 2013
Towards Mothers' Day (May 12, 2013)
Mothers' Day
As I approach Mothers' Day this year, two sentences stand out.
One, "I don't know how she does it" is something my wife exclaims about our daughter at home with a 19-month-old monkey-child daughter and a 6-month-old carry-me-please son. The other, "it takes a village to raise a child" is a reminder we all have heard many times about the importance of good community life for the healthy nurture of children.
Although some mothers may really "do it" alone, most rely on and benefit from a pretty good network of help and support, including wider family, friends, church-based and neighbourhood-based support groups, day care, books and parenting research and resources, as well as husband and other children.
Mothering is a communal and community phenomenon as well as a matter of individual home and household care. As the up-front, hands-on, 24/7 person Mom does stand alone in significant ways; but there is also an active mothering impulse in human community (at its best) that gets acted out around and behind Mom, and at times in Mom's place.
So three questions:
As I approach Mothers' Day this year, two sentences stand out.
One, "I don't know how she does it" is something my wife exclaims about our daughter at home with a 19-month-old monkey-child daughter and a 6-month-old carry-me-please son. The other, "it takes a village to raise a child" is a reminder we all have heard many times about the importance of good community life for the healthy nurture of children.
Although some mothers may really "do it" alone, most rely on and benefit from a pretty good network of help and support, including wider family, friends, church-based and neighbourhood-based support groups, day care, books and parenting research and resources, as well as husband and other children.
Mothering is a communal and community phenomenon as well as a matter of individual home and household care. As the up-front, hands-on, 24/7 person Mom does stand alone in significant ways; but there is also an active mothering impulse in human community (at its best) that gets acted out around and behind Mom, and at times in Mom's place.
So three questions:
1. God
bless Moms, and how can we express gratitude for them?
2. God
bless human community, and how can we participate in the role of providing support around, behind, and even sometimes in
place of other mothers, in helping to care about and care for the children of
our larger community?
3. What
biblical stories or verses come to mind in this regard?
Thursday, May 02, 2013
Toward Easter 6 (May 5, 2013)
Acts 16:6-15
Revelations 21:10-12, 22 - 22:5
This vision was no less contrary to the reality and the ideal of the Roman Empire than it is today to the longing of people who live in fear. It helped the Christian communities of 90 and 95 C.E. to be strong in their commitment to the way of God's kingdom; is this vision as inspiring and encouraging for us today, as it was back then?
We live in a visual culture, and many of the images that have the greatest currency and power in our psyche and society are images of destruction, evil and darkness. Is there currently a dream, a vision, or an image of hope and redemption of Earth that we live by, and can offer the world?
Revelations 21:10-12, 22 - 22:5
What a difference it makes to have a holy dream.
Around 50 C.E. Paul had a dream of taking the Gospel of God's kingdom from Asia into Europe. Up to that point the Christian movement was mostly a regional splinter-group of the Jewish synagogues in the east Mediterranean provinces of the Roman Empire. After dreaming of a call to Macedonia, Paul was able to make Christianity a movement for all the world.
Around 90 or 95 C.E. the Christian movement was facing a nightmare. After a generation of community-planting, evangelism and mission the Christian community remained a minority movement in the Empire, and at times instead of disinterest in what they had to offer there was outright hostility, ridicule and opposition from the culture around them. But then John on the island of Patmos had a dream of the irresistible power of God and the ultimate appearing of the heavenly city on Earth, and he crafted a revitalizing message of hope for Christians of his time -- and of all time.
Ron McCreary, a United Methodist minister in Florida, notes how different the biblical dream of the redeemed city is from the image of what his people want in a city today. In the city God brings to be on Earth:
- no temple or church buildings; just the everywhere-presence of God
- city gates that are always open -- not closed by Homeland Security and fastened tight by Immigration Services
- other nations not obliterated or defeated, but all welcome to bring their own praise and service of God
- the healing of all nations
- the end of curses and darkness in the shining of God
This vision was no less contrary to the reality and the ideal of the Roman Empire than it is today to the longing of people who live in fear. It helped the Christian communities of 90 and 95 C.E. to be strong in their commitment to the way of God's kingdom; is this vision as inspiring and encouraging for us today, as it was back then?
We live in a visual culture, and many of the images that have the greatest currency and power in our psyche and society are images of destruction, evil and darkness. Is there currently a dream, a vision, or an image of hope and redemption of Earth that we live by, and can offer the world?
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