An Interpretive Field Day...or Obstacle Course.

Wow, wow, wow to our readings this week. SO many interpretive choices that we must wrestle with as we read them, things that can both trouble us deeply and lead us to laugh out loud (which I actually did when I learned something new about the Luke reading this week!).

Our readings this week are Psalm 32, 2 Thessalonians 1:1-4, 11-12 and Luke 19:1-10. Read them here...though you may want to go to this site and look up Psalm 32 in its entirety (since we'll be dealing with the whole prayer in worship on Sunday) and look up 2 Thess 1:1-12 in its entirety including the verses the lectionary omits since we'll be addressing that interpretive choice below.

I'll briefly address issues around the 2 Thessalonians reading (though we likely won't be spending much time on this text on Sunday) since a curious tension in these verses was pointed out at Bible Study this past Saturday as something people would like probed a little more fully. In a classic move by those who assembled the Revised Common Lectionary that we (and churches around the world) use to outline our scripture readings each week, the middle portion of the opening greeting and thanksgiving of 2 Thessalonians is cut out of our suggested reading this week. When one looks up these verses, it is no wonder: 2 Thessalonians 1:5-10 includes some of the most vitriolic language in the New Testament--language that sounds much more like the Old Testament God of vengeance than the New Testament God of grace. How do we deal with this omitted text that's at the heart of our passage?

I did some reading, and it seems there are several interpretive approaches we could take to these verses. One interpretation suggests that linking Jesus to such a final and fiery judgment was a way for the writer to help establish Jesus' full divinity--linking Jesus in the Thessalonians' minds to the images they had of God as final arbiter and judge of humanity and giving Jesus full power and authority over all things. Another suggests that this is in line with an ancient letter writing technique of gaining affinity with your audience by identifying with them in their situation--by going off against those who had been the root of the Thessalonians' suffering, the author could find solidarity with them in the midst of their struggle. Another way to encounter these words is to put them in context of the wider book--a book that addressed the fact that many in Thessalonica believed that the last days were already here and were now just sitting around on their rear ends, convinced the end was at any moment. Here the writer is from the beginning setting up the fact that redemption is still to come--and hence the Thessalonians need to keep living toward that not-yet future with faithfulness and expectation. Finally, it's possible that the writer is just furious about what the Thessalonians have had to go through and is letting some of that rage run unchecked before finally reeling it back in and returning to a more "proper" voice of thanksgiving in verses 11-12.

Are those enough interpretive choices for you? Phew. And I'm sure there are tons others I have not even thought of or encountered. For those of you interested in wrestling with this more, I'd recommend reading 2 Thessalonians all the way through (it's a short book)...I think context here is really important, as always--but perhaps even moreso than usual!

There are some really interesting interpretive choices to be made in Psalm 32 and especially in the Luke passage as well...but looking at how long this blog already is, those will have to wait for Sunday or some other time. Here's a teaser, though: who would have believed that there would be something new to learn about the Zacchaeus story after a whole lifetime of doing the story in Vacation Bible School EVERY YEAR that startled me so much I laughed out loud? But...you don't usually read the text in the Greek for Bible School, do you?

Stay tuned on Sunday as we continue this adventure of working to interpret scripture together! In the meantime, I would love to hear your thoughts and comments on the 2 Thessalonians passage...or any of the others, for that matter! Comment away!

Finding Faith in the Midst of it All

Our lectionary texts this week are Jeremiah 2:4-13, Luke 14:1, 7-14, and Hebrews 13:1-8 and 15-16. To give them a read-through, check out this Lectionary Website.

Sometimes when you read scripture, you can tell it is the product of a radically different time; it might talk about kings when you live in a democracy, or use agricultural images whne you live in an urban area, leaving you wondering how you can connect with a narrative that comes from another culture. Othertimes, however, scripture comes to us in ways that sound eerily familiar. As I read our passages for this week, I was struck by the way that the forms of these passages sounded, at times, like they could have been plucked out of scenes from our everyday lives.

Jeremiah's words (well, actually, God's words) take the form of a lawsuit--they could be a Prosecutor's opening address to a jury straight from an episode of Law and Order. God has a great flair for the dramatic; after beginning with an introductory summons (v. 4) that names the "house of Jacob" and "all the families of Israel" as the defendants, God launches right in with a series of rhetorical questions interspersed with evidence of grave offenses. Occasionally God even directs God's language to the jury: "Can you believe this? Have you ever seen anyone with the gaul to do such things?" A judge would probably object to some of God's language as inflammatory, but God is both Prosecutor and Judge in this trial, launching a full investigation into what has happened with God's people, reaching an irrefutable conclusion of the charges that must be leveled: the people have forsaken the Lord and dug out cisterns that will not hold water. The implications of these charges, as we will see as they unfold in the remainder of the book, are grave indeed.

Luke uses an even more familiar setting to frame his narrative: a meal complete with a lesson in table manners. Anyone who has ever been to a fancy dinner at an important person's house can almost feel the tension in the scene: people jostling in a way they hope others won't notice for the best seats at the table. One brazen person at the table--Jesus--has the gaul to point out the bad table manners of the others, even though, according to Greco-Roman Emily Post, what the people were doing was totally acceptable and even encouraged. Jesus, however, wants to insert another standard of etiquitte--of behavior that reflects the upside-down, non-status seeking values of the Kingdom of God.

In Hebrews, we get a scene that unfolded all over the country the past couple of weeks--it is reminiscent of a parent rolling down the window as they prepare to drive off and leave their firstborn at college, calling out the last minute instructions of the things they really need to know. For 12 chapters Hebrews has been laying out systematic theology for the people; but now the author shifts to the practical things that should be part of the people's lives as a result of their formation. If you're going to survive as the people I've shaped you to be, the author writes, here are the things I hope and pray you will remember to do--that are a byproduct of your careful upbringing.

I love how close to home each of these passages feels in their forms--how linked they are to everyday things like meals and parental instructions, like navigating social settings and entering into legal proceedings. The form of these passages, rooted in everyday life, point us also to their content--for each will teach us about the struggle to live faith in the midst of everyday life. They are passages that speak into the midst of lives that don't stop to give us time to be spiritual and Christian but require us to live and move and respond and pause to ask questions that link us back to God and one another right in the midst of it all.

How do we hold onto faithful living in the midst of it all? Tune in this Sunday as, with the help of Jeremiah and Luke and Hebrews, we ask this question together.

You're Asking For It...

The lyrics of a song by one of my favorite musical artists, Bebo Norman, rang in my head as I read our texts for this week (as well-written songs often do when I read scripture!). In his song "Pull Me Out," Norman asks God a simple question about what is going on, then follows that question up by singing the following line about the way he perceives God's reaction to his question: "And what about the way I said that made you turn around and shake your head like I don't even know what I'm asking for?"

Our scripture lessons for this week (Hosea 1:2-10, Psalm 85, and Luke 11:1-13) all involve the act of asking--requests, demands, questions. But when it comes to asking, how often do we make God turn around and shake God's head like we don't even know what we're asking for?

Somehow, I think we inspire this reaction in God at least once a week in our congregation, in that moment where voices join together out of the quiet following our sharing of joys and concerns to pray together a variation on those words that Jesus taught his disciples when they boldly asked him, "Lord, teach us to pray." The disciples likely had no idea what they were asking for...they thought they were doing what any good disciples did, what John's disciples did when they asked him for a form of prayer that could be uniquely theirs and identify them as their Master's followers. They thought they were following disciple protocol...and maybe, as a bonus, if Jesus taught them to pray, they could be as connected to God as Jesus was in those frequent moments when he communed with the Almighty.

In Luke's rendition of this teachable moment, Jesus gives the disciples an even more stripped down prayer than the one the disciples are given in a similar scene in Matthew (a text that is closer to what we actually pray when we say the Lord's Prayer together--see Matthew 6:9-13). Yet these few simple lines are stunning in their asking. First, look at how Jesus tells them to approach the Creator of the Universe--they are to call him Abba. This is not the formal "Father" of what we pray, but the informal, intimate name of "Daddy." Then they are to ask of him five things--five things that, if granted, could completely change the world. It's interesting how little this prayer has in common with many of the things we offer up for prayer during our joys and concerns time--it's a prayer that focuses much less on our local and individual needs of healing and strength and comfort and offering thanks, and more on God acting to transform the entire cosmos. Hallow your name, God--reveal Yourself in the fullness of who You are. Your kingdom come--make this earth reflect Your nature and Your priorities. Give us this day our daily bread--each and every one of us relies upon you. Forgive us as we forgive others...let your forgiveness and ours mirror one another. And don't let us be tempted by anything that would take our eyes off of you.

What are we asking for here? It's kind of insane, actually. We're asking for a whole new world...one where God is seen to be who God is, in all God's holiness and intimacy, in all God's judgment and mercy. We're asking not for the ways of our own kingdoms, but of God's. We're asking for bread to be provided for all people, regardless of the cost. We're asking not just for God's forgiveness, but that we might set the standard of gracious forgiveness, being as forgiving of others as we hope God will be of us. We're asking to have our backs turned on the things that turn us from God and our lives wholly refocused on this One.

Congregations around the world say these words together each week just falling unconsciously into their rhythm, into their comfort, into the beauty of voices joined into one...but do we even know what we're asking for? Furthermore, if we really believed God would respond to what we ask, would we be so quick to do so?

Asking is central to what we do when we worship God--we ask for guidance, ask for God's blessing, ask for healing, ask for wisdom, ask for courage to be God's people. But if Jesus' response to the disciples' inquiry is any indication, we'd better be careful what we're asking for...because if we serve a faithful God, we just might get it.

A Tale of Two Neighborhoods

Greetings, Broadneck Blogosphere! It's a joy to be coming alongside of you in this conversation around our worship scriptures, and a joy to gather with many of you each week as we explore God's oh-so-simple-but-so-bafflingly-complicated Word for our lives together in community. I believe that every time we authentically seek to encounter God's Word, we cannot help but be formed and transformed by it...so engage this blog with hope, yet proceed with a proper dose of holy caution:)

Our main scriptures for consideration this week are Amos 7:7-17 and Luke 10:25-37. At first glance, it's hard to imagine two more divergent passages to bring into conversation with one another. The latter, after all, is a passage--the story of the Good Samaritan--so culturally well-known that many states have laws named after it to protect the rights of those who stop to aid stranded motorists. It's one of the handful of biblical stories where even marginal churchgoers could provide you with its high points without the benefit of a text in front of them. The former, meanwhile, is an obscure episode from a prophet so unknown that his words are included in a measly 5 of the 156 weeks of the Revised Common Lectionary (and only on two occasions--this week and next!--is it the primary text rather than an "alternate"). Ask even the most fervent churchgoer to tell you something about Amos, and most would give you a blank stare. Apart from Jonah and his whale, the so-called "Minor Prophets" (the technical name for those whose writings are found between the Old Testament books of Hosea and Malachi) seem aptly named...their writings, filled with archaic language of judgment and doom, are so minor as to not merit much of our attention, in church or in culture.

So why not ditch Amos (and the cavalcade of Minor Prophets we'll encounter over the next few weeks) and just focus on Luke? Well, there are a couple of strong reasons to keep Amos' words in play.

First, this may seem obvious, but the Old Testament prophets did not just speak to societies past; their words, though set in a particular context, still ring true today, because it is the role of the prophet to direct the hearer's attention to the bigger picture. As Craig Smith and Mark Buckley explain in their intro to The Inclusive Hebrew Scriptures, "prophets revive our capacity to feel and draw our attention to what we would rather not see." Prophets, with their sometimes uncomfortable rhetoric, speak to our hardened hearts and reveal our well-cultivated blind spots. Amos does this so beautifully but painfully in today's passage. The kindgom of Israel, which everyone thought was doing SO well, is in actuality a kingdom that has fallen out of step with the plumb line God intended for its design, becoming a curse to its neighbors rather than the blessing to all nations it was intended to be. Such words are painful, but the sort of truth-speaking that is needed even when it causes us to lash back like Amaziah in hopes that these are words we can ignore.

Second, I think we should hold on to Amos because his message is not as far from Luke's as it may seem. Sure, Amos speaks of judgment while Jesus tells a tale of mercy; Amos speaks in strange, almost indecipherable metaphor, while Jesus speaks of people and places with whom the inquisitive lawyer would have been intimately familiar. But in reality, Amos and Luke are both speaking of matters very close to home: matters of what it means to live by the first law given God's people, the declaration that we are to love the Lord our God and love our neighbor as ourselves. Luke and Amos, though separated by time, context, and popularity, together give us a tale of two neighborhoods--one headed for disaster because of its failure to live by God's standards of justice and faithfulness, and one for whom there is still hope if they can realize their neighborhood is far bigger than they'd ever imagined. Both are stories intended to reform, form, and transform their hearers by revealing the heart of God--a heart that seeks to see the divided people God created learn to live in fellowship with one another and their Maker.

These two tales are ones we in the church need to hear...no matter how familiar or unfamiliar they are, no matter how uncomfortable they make us. I hope you'll join us Sunday as we continue the conversation!

Peace,
Abby