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Faith and Water
"Faith and Water" is the blogspot of Rev. Rachel G. Hackenberg, the pastor of Grace United Church of Christ in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Visit us at www.gracechurchlancaster.org.Rachel Hackenberghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10493276400768920835noreply@blogger.comBlogger185125
Updated: 1 hour 25 min ago
HerStory (on John 7:53 - 8:11)
The subheading in my Bible says, "The Woman Caught in Adultery," but it seems more appropriate to title her story "The Woman Accused of Adultery," because she is only ever accused. The case of adultery is never proven against her, and her alleged affair is not even the point of this encounter between the scribes & Pharisees and Jesus. The point of the confrontation is to test Jesus, so that they might arrest him as a false teacher or a heretical prophet.
They arrest her in an attempt to arrest him.
They accuse her so that they might accuse him.
They spy on her, pull her from the home, stand her in front of all the men who have come to temple that day. They tell everyone to look at her and to secretly imagine how and why she might be sneaking off to have an affair. They make Peeping Toms out of every man in the temple. Then they accuse her without letting her respond ... just to trap Jesus.
"Just look at this betraying woman, Jesus. If you know the laws of Moses well enough to teach in the temple, then tell us what consequence she should face.
"If you are indeed a prophet, one who has come from God to correct the deviant ways of God's chosen people, then start with this woman. We've told you her crime, now prophesy how we should punish her deviance.
"If you are the Christ, the Anointed One, the Son of God come to begin a new kingdom where all are healed and fed and satisfied, then tell us if we should not 'heal' the kingdom by cleansing it of all women such as this.
"Tell us, Jesus, what do you say?"
And Jesus bends down, writes on the ground with his finger.
I wonder if he writes down Leviticus 20:10, "If a man commits adultery with the wife of his neighbor, both the adulterer and the adulteress shall be put to death." Or Deuteronomy 22:22, "If a man is caught lying with the wife of another man, both of them shall die, the man who lay with the woman as well as the woman. So you shall purge evil from Israel." I wonder if he writes these verses down, not to convict the woman of adultery, but to convict the scribes & Pharisees of applying the law of Moses inconsistently in their attempt to trap Jesus.
Maybe that's not what Jesus writes on the ground, because they continue questioning him and pressing him to make a judgment against the woman. "Come on, Teacher, tell us what you would do in this case!" Finally Jesus stands up and says so famously, "Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her."
The woman was merely an object to the scribes & Pharisees, a tool in their attempt to trap and arrest Jesus. She was eye candy for the imagination in the midst of an all-male political scheme. The accusation, the way they brought her out in public, was entirely impersonal and indifferent toward her.
(In contrast, consider how Joseph -- while engaged to Mary -- chooses to handle Mary's pregnancy and assumed affair very personally and privately, with a plan to "dismiss her quietly" per Matthew 1:19.)
But Jesus takes their impersonal and public accusation, flips it, and makes the conversation suddenly very personal to the scribes and Pharisees themselves: "Assess your own life first! If you are faultless, then you can throw a stone." Some versions of this passage say that when Jesus bends down to the ground and begins writing again, he lists the sins of each of the accusers in the dirt!
Either way, his tone is clear: "What have you done? And you? And you? Is your life pure and clean, that you feel you're in a position to judge this woman?! Are you really so determined to trap me, that you can humiliate this woman and not see in her the faces of your own wives or daughters or sisters? How are you able to disconnect yourself from this woman so completely that you feel wholly righteous as you publicly manipulate her life?
"You might as well put her on your TV screen: make her sing for her supper on American Idol, or watch her raise her children on TLC. Hold her up as an item for debate in Congress or as a faceless statistic to discuss in newspaper editorials, because she relies on welfare to get from day to day or she teaches her children to speak her native language as well as the language taught in school. Call her loose if she has more children than you would choose; raise your eyebrows if she chooses not to get married or have kids at all. Ogle at her because she doesn't fit your standards of beauty; ogle at her because she does.
"What is the state of your life," Jesus asks, "that you feel qualified to judge her? To judge him? To turn a critical eye toward someone you don't understand and conclude that your life & your method is better? To objectify the person on the news or the person across the counter or the person you pass on the street?"
We are always judging, always assessing: who is like us and who is not; who fits with us and who does not; who should get our vote on American Idol for their singing talent; who is worth our tax dollars and our government programs; who should be allowed to be a citizen; whose affairs and personal business should make headline news.
We are constantly making value judgments -- perhaps not intentionally or cruelly -- but are we mindful of how often we judge persons and situations each day? Are we paying attention to the many, many ways in which we constantly objectify and cast stones?
But imagine: a world in which Jesus' writing on the ground causes us all to pause and to walk away from our judgments!
Imagine a world in which we stop continually testing Jesus and testing one another to see who is worthy, who is acceptable!
Imagine, a world in which the accused and the stereotyped can walk away in freedom, in which we do not make someone else's road harder to travel, in which we do not humiliate and objectify one another!
Imagine a world in which we accept that Jesus says to us, and to all people, "I do not condemn you. Go your way and live in peace."
Just imagine! Leaving judgment behind and living in peace with the accused, with the accusers. Releasing others from our judgment, and walking in Jesus' grace.
Imagine it!
(From my 7/25/10 sermon at Grace UCC, part of this summer's "HerStory" sermon series.)
They arrest her in an attempt to arrest him.
They accuse her so that they might accuse him.
They spy on her, pull her from the home, stand her in front of all the men who have come to temple that day. They tell everyone to look at her and to secretly imagine how and why she might be sneaking off to have an affair. They make Peeping Toms out of every man in the temple. Then they accuse her without letting her respond ... just to trap Jesus.
"Just look at this betraying woman, Jesus. If you know the laws of Moses well enough to teach in the temple, then tell us what consequence she should face.
"If you are indeed a prophet, one who has come from God to correct the deviant ways of God's chosen people, then start with this woman. We've told you her crime, now prophesy how we should punish her deviance.
"If you are the Christ, the Anointed One, the Son of God come to begin a new kingdom where all are healed and fed and satisfied, then tell us if we should not 'heal' the kingdom by cleansing it of all women such as this.
"Tell us, Jesus, what do you say?"
And Jesus bends down, writes on the ground with his finger.
I wonder if he writes down Leviticus 20:10, "If a man commits adultery with the wife of his neighbor, both the adulterer and the adulteress shall be put to death." Or Deuteronomy 22:22, "If a man is caught lying with the wife of another man, both of them shall die, the man who lay with the woman as well as the woman. So you shall purge evil from Israel." I wonder if he writes these verses down, not to convict the woman of adultery, but to convict the scribes & Pharisees of applying the law of Moses inconsistently in their attempt to trap Jesus.
Maybe that's not what Jesus writes on the ground, because they continue questioning him and pressing him to make a judgment against the woman. "Come on, Teacher, tell us what you would do in this case!" Finally Jesus stands up and says so famously, "Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her."
The woman was merely an object to the scribes & Pharisees, a tool in their attempt to trap and arrest Jesus. She was eye candy for the imagination in the midst of an all-male political scheme. The accusation, the way they brought her out in public, was entirely impersonal and indifferent toward her.
(In contrast, consider how Joseph -- while engaged to Mary -- chooses to handle Mary's pregnancy and assumed affair very personally and privately, with a plan to "dismiss her quietly" per Matthew 1:19.)
But Jesus takes their impersonal and public accusation, flips it, and makes the conversation suddenly very personal to the scribes and Pharisees themselves: "Assess your own life first! If you are faultless, then you can throw a stone." Some versions of this passage say that when Jesus bends down to the ground and begins writing again, he lists the sins of each of the accusers in the dirt!
Either way, his tone is clear: "What have you done? And you? And you? Is your life pure and clean, that you feel you're in a position to judge this woman?! Are you really so determined to trap me, that you can humiliate this woman and not see in her the faces of your own wives or daughters or sisters? How are you able to disconnect yourself from this woman so completely that you feel wholly righteous as you publicly manipulate her life?
"You might as well put her on your TV screen: make her sing for her supper on American Idol, or watch her raise her children on TLC. Hold her up as an item for debate in Congress or as a faceless statistic to discuss in newspaper editorials, because she relies on welfare to get from day to day or she teaches her children to speak her native language as well as the language taught in school. Call her loose if she has more children than you would choose; raise your eyebrows if she chooses not to get married or have kids at all. Ogle at her because she doesn't fit your standards of beauty; ogle at her because she does.
"What is the state of your life," Jesus asks, "that you feel qualified to judge her? To judge him? To turn a critical eye toward someone you don't understand and conclude that your life & your method is better? To objectify the person on the news or the person across the counter or the person you pass on the street?"
We are always judging, always assessing: who is like us and who is not; who fits with us and who does not; who should get our vote on American Idol for their singing talent; who is worth our tax dollars and our government programs; who should be allowed to be a citizen; whose affairs and personal business should make headline news.
We are constantly making value judgments -- perhaps not intentionally or cruelly -- but are we mindful of how often we judge persons and situations each day? Are we paying attention to the many, many ways in which we constantly objectify and cast stones?
But imagine: a world in which Jesus' writing on the ground causes us all to pause and to walk away from our judgments!
Imagine a world in which we stop continually testing Jesus and testing one another to see who is worthy, who is acceptable!
Imagine, a world in which the accused and the stereotyped can walk away in freedom, in which we do not make someone else's road harder to travel, in which we do not humiliate and objectify one another!
Imagine a world in which we accept that Jesus says to us, and to all people, "I do not condemn you. Go your way and live in peace."
Just imagine! Leaving judgment behind and living in peace with the accused, with the accusers. Releasing others from our judgment, and walking in Jesus' grace.
Imagine it!
(From my 7/25/10 sermon at Grace UCC, part of this summer's "HerStory" sermon series.)
Categories: CCbloggers
Psalm 23 for a Funeral
A walk "through the valley of the shadow of death" has poetic beauty
that does not resonate with my soul
and I resent being here.
I resist the chasm that is this heartache,
this devastation,
this loss.
I can only assume that the Shepherd's staff supports me
because I haven't fallen face-first
into any pools of still water.
If there are glorious green pastures in the valley
I cannot see them. Death has blinded me.
"Stay with me here, sit with me"
is the only prayer I can muster.
Let the house of the LORD be here
as long as the darkest valley
is my dwelling.
May a stream of oil make a path to find me
until I am healed and renewed
for the journey again.
that does not resonate with my soul
and I resent being here.
I resist the chasm that is this heartache,
this devastation,
this loss.
I can only assume that the Shepherd's staff supports me
because I haven't fallen face-first
into any pools of still water.
If there are glorious green pastures in the valley
I cannot see them. Death has blinded me.
"Stay with me here, sit with me"
is the only prayer I can muster.
Let the house of the LORD be here
as long as the darkest valley
is my dwelling.
May a stream of oil make a path to find me
until I am healed and renewed
for the journey again.
Categories: CCbloggers
My name is Rahab.
I once owned a house in the city of Jericho, a modest place with a view of the countryside and a rooftop patio that was ideal for sleeping outside on warm nights. My home was hardly the best of Jericho's real estate, but it was much more than most women could afford.
I had the good fortune to own this home in Jericho because I am a proficient woman in what is called "the world's oldest profession." There are those who scorn the way that I make money; they tell me that I am guilty of perpetuating original sin. Perhaps. But what really is the first original sin? Nakedness? Sexual desire? Thirst for divine knowledge? Whatever you might understand original sin to be, it seems to me that the result of original sin is loneliness. So I don't think that I continue original sin; my job is to meet the need of sin's consequence. I provide a service to the lonely.
Life has been good to me, as much as it can be. I am a woman with prestige, although you wouldn't know it if you saw me walking down the streets of Jericho. I knew many men there, although they couldn't acknowledge me publicly. I lived comfortably in the city -- not the lap of luxury by any means -- but I was pleased to be able to provide for my father and mother, for my sisters and brothers, and for their families. I consider myself to be a fortunate woman.
I have come to accept the words, the slurs, the innuendos, that people say about me. Do you know that not even my name is my own? Those who will someday write my story have given me this nickname -- Rahab -- which means "wide" or "broad." I am a shapely woman, but that's not the intended nuance of my name. My name is a sexual pun, although I'll save you the embarrassment of an explanation. But when the scribes someday write my story for generations to read, understand that their story is about "a broad." To them, I will always be defined by my prostitution.
Yet there was a day in my life when my profession did not define my essence. There was a day in my life when "laying on the roof" and "tying crimson cords to my window" were not the only activities that historians would record with veiled innuendo. That was the day that two foreigners entered Jericho, and entered my house.
Their business was typical and their money was good, so I was surprised when the king of the city identified them as spies and demanded their extradition from my home. As a businesswoman, the anonymity of my male customers is a vital tool of my trade -- whether dignitary or commoner, spy or servant. So I hid the two foreigners on my roof for the remainder of the night.
A woman's intuition and perception are two of her greatest assets (among others), and I take pride in how I play the game of survival among men. In those days, our city of Jericho was increasingly the object of siege and attack, and although it was good for my business, clearly our city's age of independence was waning. The two spies in my house came from an army that had a reputation of having a strong god on their side. Rumor had it that their god had rescued them from slavery, and moved the waters of a sea for their safe passage. So if this god Yahweh conquered pharaohs and commanded the seas...and the two men in my house were in allegiance with this god...then they were men to negotiate with.
Although I was asking them for a significant favor for myself and my family, a woman in my trade actually holds quite a bit of power with her customers. These two men -- men who could rescue me when Jericho finally fell, men who would not preserve my real name in their storytelling, men who left me at risk of being discovered by my king and charged with treason -- these men and their mission were actually at my disposal. They were men working for their god, yet at that moment, you might say that I was the one working for their god, that I was helping and rescuing those two men on behalf of their god.
You might say that. Or you might just call me "a broad."
And so, with an oath between us, I helped the spies escape from Jericho through my window, with directions for their safe travel through the countryside. When the time came, the army of Yahweh surrounded our city. They marched and blew their horns, and the great Jericho was reduced to rubble and dust. My family was rescued according to the promise of the spies. My father and mother, my sisters and brothers, and their families, were relieved to be saved...from Jericho and ultimately from me, from the shame of my business. They could -- and did -- move on with their lives and settle among the Israelites.
I, on the other hand, disappeared. Survival, after all, is an art in which I am well-trained. Someone once said, "God's women are shrewd. God's women are compassionate. God's women are community-minded. God's women are miracle workers. God's women are creative. God's bodacious wise women are committed. God's bodacious women are wise, especially in times of war."1 I'd like to think that that author was talking about me. Historians might call me a prostitute, but I call myself wise. I am a wise woman whose family survived because of her creativity and shrewdness.
Nowadays, there are those who consider me a matriarch, believe it or not. I have to laugh! They have taken my description and my profession, and turned them into a sanitized name, "Rahab The Prostitute": first name, middle initial, last name. Matthew 1:1-16 considers me a matriarch in the grand lineage of King David and Jesus the Christ. Perhaps I am. Perhaps I "settled down" after my wild days in Jericho, became obedient to a husband, and gave birth to bright-eyed children...who in turn grew up and had their own bright-eyed children who I bounced on my knee and hugged like the best of grandmothers. Or perhaps I am a matriarch of faith, as they say in Hebrews 11, a woman who was so impressed by two men and their army's power that I converted to a belief in their god.
Perhaps you could call me a matriarch. Or you might just call me "a broad."
"I'm not impressed, however, by all this good and posthumous publicity, in fact, religious propaganda. First they make fun of me by nicknaming me 'The Broad'; then they forget about me, only to domesticate me in the service of their ideologies."2 In actuality, my story is like the stories of many women of both biblical times and modern times --
women who are unnamed, mocked, soiled,
and then resurrected as converts, matriarchs and saints.
Women who fit into history only as
the vehicles of sexual sin or the bearers of strong sons.
Women who accompany men,
women who are raped by men,
women who lie to men.
Women who survive.
Women who teach survival to their daughters.
Shiphrah and Puah.
Zipporah and Abigail.
Ruth and Naomi.
Dinah and Tamar.
Women on the street corners and women beside picket fences.
Women who flee and women who fight.
Women behind burkahs and women behind make-up.
Women you might never look twice at.
Women who build and gather for tomorrow.
Women who are working for God
in unexpected ways, in unexpected places.
You might say that.
Or you might just call them "broads."
My sermon at Grace UCC on 7/11/10, part of the "HerStory" sermon series.
1. Hollies, Linda H. Bodacious Womanist Wisdom. Cleveland: The Pilgrim Press, 2003.
2. Brenner, Athalya. I am... Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2005.
I had the good fortune to own this home in Jericho because I am a proficient woman in what is called "the world's oldest profession." There are those who scorn the way that I make money; they tell me that I am guilty of perpetuating original sin. Perhaps. But what really is the first original sin? Nakedness? Sexual desire? Thirst for divine knowledge? Whatever you might understand original sin to be, it seems to me that the result of original sin is loneliness. So I don't think that I continue original sin; my job is to meet the need of sin's consequence. I provide a service to the lonely.
Life has been good to me, as much as it can be. I am a woman with prestige, although you wouldn't know it if you saw me walking down the streets of Jericho. I knew many men there, although they couldn't acknowledge me publicly. I lived comfortably in the city -- not the lap of luxury by any means -- but I was pleased to be able to provide for my father and mother, for my sisters and brothers, and for their families. I consider myself to be a fortunate woman.
I have come to accept the words, the slurs, the innuendos, that people say about me. Do you know that not even my name is my own? Those who will someday write my story have given me this nickname -- Rahab -- which means "wide" or "broad." I am a shapely woman, but that's not the intended nuance of my name. My name is a sexual pun, although I'll save you the embarrassment of an explanation. But when the scribes someday write my story for generations to read, understand that their story is about "a broad." To them, I will always be defined by my prostitution.
Yet there was a day in my life when my profession did not define my essence. There was a day in my life when "laying on the roof" and "tying crimson cords to my window" were not the only activities that historians would record with veiled innuendo. That was the day that two foreigners entered Jericho, and entered my house.
Their business was typical and their money was good, so I was surprised when the king of the city identified them as spies and demanded their extradition from my home. As a businesswoman, the anonymity of my male customers is a vital tool of my trade -- whether dignitary or commoner, spy or servant. So I hid the two foreigners on my roof for the remainder of the night.
A woman's intuition and perception are two of her greatest assets (among others), and I take pride in how I play the game of survival among men. In those days, our city of Jericho was increasingly the object of siege and attack, and although it was good for my business, clearly our city's age of independence was waning. The two spies in my house came from an army that had a reputation of having a strong god on their side. Rumor had it that their god had rescued them from slavery, and moved the waters of a sea for their safe passage. So if this god Yahweh conquered pharaohs and commanded the seas...and the two men in my house were in allegiance with this god...then they were men to negotiate with.
Although I was asking them for a significant favor for myself and my family, a woman in my trade actually holds quite a bit of power with her customers. These two men -- men who could rescue me when Jericho finally fell, men who would not preserve my real name in their storytelling, men who left me at risk of being discovered by my king and charged with treason -- these men and their mission were actually at my disposal. They were men working for their god, yet at that moment, you might say that I was the one working for their god, that I was helping and rescuing those two men on behalf of their god.
You might say that. Or you might just call me "a broad."
And so, with an oath between us, I helped the spies escape from Jericho through my window, with directions for their safe travel through the countryside. When the time came, the army of Yahweh surrounded our city. They marched and blew their horns, and the great Jericho was reduced to rubble and dust. My family was rescued according to the promise of the spies. My father and mother, my sisters and brothers, and their families, were relieved to be saved...from Jericho and ultimately from me, from the shame of my business. They could -- and did -- move on with their lives and settle among the Israelites.
I, on the other hand, disappeared. Survival, after all, is an art in which I am well-trained. Someone once said, "God's women are shrewd. God's women are compassionate. God's women are community-minded. God's women are miracle workers. God's women are creative. God's bodacious wise women are committed. God's bodacious women are wise, especially in times of war."1 I'd like to think that that author was talking about me. Historians might call me a prostitute, but I call myself wise. I am a wise woman whose family survived because of her creativity and shrewdness.
Nowadays, there are those who consider me a matriarch, believe it or not. I have to laugh! They have taken my description and my profession, and turned them into a sanitized name, "Rahab The Prostitute": first name, middle initial, last name. Matthew 1:1-16 considers me a matriarch in the grand lineage of King David and Jesus the Christ. Perhaps I am. Perhaps I "settled down" after my wild days in Jericho, became obedient to a husband, and gave birth to bright-eyed children...who in turn grew up and had their own bright-eyed children who I bounced on my knee and hugged like the best of grandmothers. Or perhaps I am a matriarch of faith, as they say in Hebrews 11, a woman who was so impressed by two men and their army's power that I converted to a belief in their god.
Perhaps you could call me a matriarch. Or you might just call me "a broad."
"I'm not impressed, however, by all this good and posthumous publicity, in fact, religious propaganda. First they make fun of me by nicknaming me 'The Broad'; then they forget about me, only to domesticate me in the service of their ideologies."2 In actuality, my story is like the stories of many women of both biblical times and modern times --
women who are unnamed, mocked, soiled,
and then resurrected as converts, matriarchs and saints.
Women who fit into history only as
the vehicles of sexual sin or the bearers of strong sons.
Women who accompany men,
women who are raped by men,
women who lie to men.
Women who survive.
Women who teach survival to their daughters.
Shiphrah and Puah.
Zipporah and Abigail.
Ruth and Naomi.
Dinah and Tamar.
Women on the street corners and women beside picket fences.
Women who flee and women who fight.
Women behind burkahs and women behind make-up.
Women you might never look twice at.
Women who build and gather for tomorrow.
Women who are working for God
in unexpected ways, in unexpected places.
You might say that.
Or you might just call them "broads."
My sermon at Grace UCC on 7/11/10, part of the "HerStory" sermon series.
1. Hollies, Linda H. Bodacious Womanist Wisdom. Cleveland: The Pilgrim Press, 2003.
2. Brenner, Athalya. I am... Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2005.
Categories: CCbloggers
You are too beautiful
O Holy and Eternal Wonder,
How beautiful is the hem of your robe
watering the earth with beads of dew
as you stroll across creation at dawn!
How sweet is your perfume
borne by the gentle breeze
full of summer flowers and pine sap and morning hush!
How lovely is your kiss of greeting
to the trees whose spirits dance with praise,
even to the groundhog that pauses to stand in salute!
How glorious is the fog that subdues your glory
as you shine -- fiercely blazing with the rising sun --
full of delight and blessing and joy for the new day!
How surprising, how magnificent, is the whir of your wings
as you rush about like the robin to check on your young
and see to the daily sustenance of those you love!
O Most Divine, how enchanting and wonderful you are!
How beautiful is the hem of your robe
watering the earth with beads of dew
as you stroll across creation at dawn!
How sweet is your perfume
borne by the gentle breeze
full of summer flowers and pine sap and morning hush!
How lovely is your kiss of greeting
to the trees whose spirits dance with praise,
even to the groundhog that pauses to stand in salute!
How glorious is the fog that subdues your glory
as you shine -- fiercely blazing with the rising sun --
full of delight and blessing and joy for the new day!
How surprising, how magnificent, is the whir of your wings
as you rush about like the robin to check on your young
and see to the daily sustenance of those you love!
O Most Divine, how enchanting and wonderful you are!
Categories: CCbloggers
Holy Life :: Wholly Life
The space between life and death, between beginnings and endings, is so close -- much closer than our sterilized places for dying and our pastel-printed places for birthing attempt to convey.
Holy Life, both particled and boundless,
be present in these moments
of meeting and leaving,
living and dying,
changing,
embracing.
Bless the ones who cleave together
as new journeys begin:
arms around one another to brace for death,
hands clasped together to create union,
small body cradled to nurture and parent.
Let the stages of our lives
not be separated in your Life
despite how they are partitioned
by our funeral homes
and wedding chapels,
blue/pink nurseries,
NICUs and ICUs.
Teach us to understand
growing and sharing
and losing and dying and
creating and starting
as one,
as whole,
within our body's atoms and our life's plans.
Holy Life, both particled and boundless,
be present in these moments
of meeting and leaving,
living and dying,
changing,
embracing.
Bless the ones who cleave together
as new journeys begin:
arms around one another to brace for death,
hands clasped together to create union,
small body cradled to nurture and parent.
Let the stages of our lives
not be separated in your Life
despite how they are partitioned
by our funeral homes
and wedding chapels,
blue/pink nurseries,
NICUs and ICUs.
Teach us to understand
growing and sharing
and losing and dying and
creating and starting
as one,
as whole,
within our body's atoms and our life's plans.
Categories: CCbloggers
Isaiah 65:1-9
Like a lone eagle screeching for its mate,
Like an abandoned lover crying on her pillow,
The voice of the LORD comes in a wail:
Here I am! Here I am!
Aren't you seeking me?
Didn't you call me
just now
from your place of prayer?
Oh. I see.
You are kneeling
in the sanctuaries of banks,
trying to find shelter for your life
(shelter from your life)
giving alms to the wealthy
and begging pardon
from the elite and the powerful.
I misheard you
when you called out,
"My God! My God!"
You were invoking my name
to lament a disaster,
not to confess or realign
your life's alliances
to death
and devastation
wherever they bring you gain.
I am ready to be sought out,
but you who have turned your backs
may not like who finds me:
those fighting for goodness in life
while you dismiss them with the trash;
those creating a new and divergent way
in defiance of your sanctified systems;
those striving to be present where they are
rather than planning and manipulating
to get to where they are not!
So this is my judgment:
you will struggle to find me --
not because I am absent,
but because you are distracted and conflicted.
Even so, I am here.
I am here,
if you will come.
Like an abandoned lover crying on her pillow,
The voice of the LORD comes in a wail:
Here I am! Here I am!
Aren't you seeking me?
Didn't you call me
just now
from your place of prayer?
Oh. I see.
You are kneeling
in the sanctuaries of banks,
trying to find shelter for your life
(shelter from your life)
giving alms to the wealthy
and begging pardon
from the elite and the powerful.
I misheard you
when you called out,
"My God! My God!"
You were invoking my name
to lament a disaster,
not to confess or realign
your life's alliances
to death
and devastation
wherever they bring you gain.
I am ready to be sought out,
but you who have turned your backs
may not like who finds me:
those fighting for goodness in life
while you dismiss them with the trash;
those creating a new and divergent way
in defiance of your sanctified systems;
those striving to be present where they are
rather than planning and manipulating
to get to where they are not!
So this is my judgment:
you will struggle to find me --
not because I am absent,
but because you are distracted and conflicted.
Even so, I am here.
I am here,
if you will come.
Categories: CCbloggers
What Good is Power (1 Kings 21:1-21)
As we enter the story in 1 Kings 21, we find that King Ahab is pouting from the events in chapter 20: Ahab led Israel into battle against the kingdom of Aram, and although Israel beat Aram, Elijah came and criticized Ahab for making a treaty that God did not approve of. So -- in the last verse of chapter twenty -- "the king of Israel set out toward home, resentful and sullen, and came to Samaria."
Resting and pouting in his palace, King Ahab looks out and sees the beautiful, rolling, fruitful hills of a vineyard owned by Naboth from the town of Jezreel. Immediately, Ahab wants the vineyard; this is the only thing that can satisfy him after the latest reprimand from Elijah.
(knock, knock) "Naboth, give me your vineyard, so that I may have it for a vegetable garden, because it is near my house. I will give you a better vineyard for it, or if you prefer, I will give you its value in money. A new vineyard, or cash. Either way, I'm the king, I have the right to whatever I want, and everything has its price. So I fully expect, good citizen Naboth, that you will concede to my superior plan for how to use your land."
Naboth reacts so strongly that he swears an oath to God in front of the king: "The LORD forbid it!" (Today we would say, "I'll be damned if I ever allow that to happen!") He says to Ahab, "I will never give you my ancestral inheritance. This is the land of my father and of his father and of our ancestral fathers before that. This is the inheritance of my sons. It is the livelihood of our family, the daily sustenance for my wife and children. This is my piece of God's promise to Abraham that the people of Israel would someday have their own land. From Abraham, that promise was passed to Isaac, and then to Jacob, and from Jacob to the twelve sons who are the twelve tribes of Israel. This land is my piece of God's promise and it is the life of my family. The rules of our culture require that land can only be passed within families, from father to son in each generation. The LORD forbid that I should break that rule, and treat this land -- this vineyard -- as a bartering tool for wealth, rather than as a blessing from God."
Ahab returns to his palace, stares out the window at the tantalizingly unavailable vineyard, and resumes his pout. Because what good is being king if you cannot get what you want when you want it? What good is money if you cannot buy quick-and-easy happiness? What good is power if you cannot use it to persuade and convince and lobby your way into getting the rules changed just for you? How dare Naboth quote the rules of Israel to the king, when Ahab has the power to pay a scribe to accidentally omit that rule from the scriptures while copying a new set of scrolls?!
So Ahab takes the advice of Queen Jezebel to start a smear campaign against Naboth, convincing the elders and the nobles to falsely accuse Naboth. The elders whisper, "Naboth cursed God," while the nobles spread a rumor, "Naboth cursed the king." A public outcry against Naboth is crafted so that only two "scoundrels" (21:10) are obviously involved as false witnesses and therefore can be linked to his death. Only two scoundrels directly responsible, while a whole cast of conspirators is behind the plot! In fact, so many people have washed their hands clean of the mess -- nobles and elders, legislators and religious leaders, heads of state and business CEOs, plus crowds of citizens who buy into the lies -- that when all is said and done,
no one knows just quite how the rumors got started
or how a man came to be stoned to death;
no one seems to know how the explosion of violence first happened
or how a plan wasn't in place to prevent such a disaster;
just like nobody knows how many hundreds of thousands of gallons
of oil are being poured into the waters and wetlands,
or just who should take the blame for it,
because everybody has scrubbed their hands raw to get them clean of the whole mess. And all that we are left knowing is that there's too much blood and oil staining the ground all around us.
But what good is power if you cannot persuade the public that you are not responsible? So no one claims responsibility for Naboth's death. And the stones are left to cry out as Ahab takes possession of the vineyard.
What good is power?
The LORD sends Elijah to King Ahab to implicate Ahab in this death and to warn of the gory consequences that will come to him: "In the place where the dogs licked up the blood of Naboth, dogs will also lick up your blood. Disaster will come upon you, Ahab, and upon your son, because you sold yourself to do what is evil in the sight of the LORD."
Yes, there is Ahab's power. Yes, there is the power of kings and governments and religious authorities and business executives. Yes, there is the power of money to buy public opinion, and to buy new rules, and to buy a way out of lawsuits, and to buy enough soap to wash oil off of birds and fish and microscopic sea life and plants that are dying...and then tell people that you've done all you can.
There is Ahab's power.
And then, there is God's power.
Even if we don't particularly like the image here of God promising that Ahab's blood will be spilled and licked up by the dogs; even if we shy away from contemplating that God has the authority to sit in judgment as well as in mercy; even if we get mad and rail against God for the state of the world or the state of the environment or the state of our lives...even so, there is God's power.
And what good is God's power if it is not used (in part) to compel Elijah to name evil and to accuse evil and to resist evil? What good is God's power if it cannot persuade you and me to participate with Elijah in calling out evil and actively working to make a change for the better? What good is God's power if it does not move us to work for justice & healing in the very places where blood and oil have been spilled?
What good is the power of the presence of the Holy Spirit in you and in me and in this congregation and in our sister churches and among Christians around the world if the power of the presence of the Holy Spirit only means that we live nice & polite lives?
What good is the beautiful, life-giving, powerful, stunning nearness of God if we only renew our strength just enough to live our own lives, and we don't also take the courage to be bold in mounting up with wings like eagles, running without growing weary, walking without growing faint?
What good is listening to God in our daily devotions if we still settle into the rejected and complacent belief that men and money have more power than God to impact the world?
What good is power?
God's power. Not our power -- we should be careful to keep that clear in our minds. God's power! Thine is the kingdom and the power, forever. "Great is the LORD and mighty in power; God's understanding is infinite:
who lifts up the downtrodden,
who heals the brokenhearted,
who casts the wicked to the ground,
who determines the number of the stars
and gives them all their names." (from Psalm 147)
Who else has such power?! Who else has the power to give you strength for making it through the worst of your days, and then surprises you with a moment of laughter or sudden beauty? Who else knows that you lie awake at 2am, and still challenges you & nips at your heels to incite you to fully engage in life when the day dawns? By whose Spirit is your spirit stirred with restlessness and anger when you see images of wars and blockades and oil-covered birds and town-destroying floods?
And I don't know who you blame for all the messes that we could name -- that's a conversation for another time -- but the more important question is whether you and I think that power means evil going unchecked...or if, just possibly, power means evil being resisted for the sake of God's love for all the earth.
Howard Thurman wrote: "There is no need to fear evil. There is every need to understand what it does, how it operates in the world, what it draws upon to sustain itself. We must not shrink from the knowledge of the evilness of evil... It is just as important as ever to attend to the little graces by which the dignity of our lives is maintained and sustained. Birds still sing; the stars continue to cast their gentle gleam, and the heart is still inspired by the kind word and the gracious deed... To drink in the beauty that is within reach, to clothe one's life with simple deeds of kindness, to keep alive a sensitiveness to the movement of the spirit of God -- this is, as always, the ultimate answer." (excerpt of "Life Goes On" in Meditations of the Heart; from Beacon Press, 1953)
What good is the power of God if we fear evil and shy away from responding to it?
What good is the power of Jesus standing up to the temple authorities, or Elijah standing up to government authority, if we do not join their protest?
What good is the power and presence of the Holy Spirit if you, if I, if we remain convinced that situations are hopeless and war is inevitable and power is intrinsically corrupt, and we cannot claim the Spirited power -- the Spirit-full power -- to do the "little graces" as Howard Thurman calls them; to do the everyday graces and to see the everyday beauties and to rejoice over the everyday miracles and to resist the everyday evils in such a way
that God's power might multiply
into transformative,
life-giving,
still-unseen possibilities?!!
What good is the power of God in you or in me?
Perhaps we should find out.
(My sermon from 6/13/10 at Grace United Church of Christ.)
Resting and pouting in his palace, King Ahab looks out and sees the beautiful, rolling, fruitful hills of a vineyard owned by Naboth from the town of Jezreel. Immediately, Ahab wants the vineyard; this is the only thing that can satisfy him after the latest reprimand from Elijah.
(knock, knock) "Naboth, give me your vineyard, so that I may have it for a vegetable garden, because it is near my house. I will give you a better vineyard for it, or if you prefer, I will give you its value in money. A new vineyard, or cash. Either way, I'm the king, I have the right to whatever I want, and everything has its price. So I fully expect, good citizen Naboth, that you will concede to my superior plan for how to use your land."
Naboth reacts so strongly that he swears an oath to God in front of the king: "The LORD forbid it!" (Today we would say, "I'll be damned if I ever allow that to happen!") He says to Ahab, "I will never give you my ancestral inheritance. This is the land of my father and of his father and of our ancestral fathers before that. This is the inheritance of my sons. It is the livelihood of our family, the daily sustenance for my wife and children. This is my piece of God's promise to Abraham that the people of Israel would someday have their own land. From Abraham, that promise was passed to Isaac, and then to Jacob, and from Jacob to the twelve sons who are the twelve tribes of Israel. This land is my piece of God's promise and it is the life of my family. The rules of our culture require that land can only be passed within families, from father to son in each generation. The LORD forbid that I should break that rule, and treat this land -- this vineyard -- as a bartering tool for wealth, rather than as a blessing from God."
Ahab returns to his palace, stares out the window at the tantalizingly unavailable vineyard, and resumes his pout. Because what good is being king if you cannot get what you want when you want it? What good is money if you cannot buy quick-and-easy happiness? What good is power if you cannot use it to persuade and convince and lobby your way into getting the rules changed just for you? How dare Naboth quote the rules of Israel to the king, when Ahab has the power to pay a scribe to accidentally omit that rule from the scriptures while copying a new set of scrolls?!
So Ahab takes the advice of Queen Jezebel to start a smear campaign against Naboth, convincing the elders and the nobles to falsely accuse Naboth. The elders whisper, "Naboth cursed God," while the nobles spread a rumor, "Naboth cursed the king." A public outcry against Naboth is crafted so that only two "scoundrels" (21:10) are obviously involved as false witnesses and therefore can be linked to his death. Only two scoundrels directly responsible, while a whole cast of conspirators is behind the plot! In fact, so many people have washed their hands clean of the mess -- nobles and elders, legislators and religious leaders, heads of state and business CEOs, plus crowds of citizens who buy into the lies -- that when all is said and done,
no one knows just quite how the rumors got started
or how a man came to be stoned to death;
no one seems to know how the explosion of violence first happened
or how a plan wasn't in place to prevent such a disaster;
just like nobody knows how many hundreds of thousands of gallons
of oil are being poured into the waters and wetlands,
or just who should take the blame for it,
because everybody has scrubbed their hands raw to get them clean of the whole mess. And all that we are left knowing is that there's too much blood and oil staining the ground all around us.
But what good is power if you cannot persuade the public that you are not responsible? So no one claims responsibility for Naboth's death. And the stones are left to cry out as Ahab takes possession of the vineyard.
What good is power?
The LORD sends Elijah to King Ahab to implicate Ahab in this death and to warn of the gory consequences that will come to him: "In the place where the dogs licked up the blood of Naboth, dogs will also lick up your blood. Disaster will come upon you, Ahab, and upon your son, because you sold yourself to do what is evil in the sight of the LORD."
Yes, there is Ahab's power. Yes, there is the power of kings and governments and religious authorities and business executives. Yes, there is the power of money to buy public opinion, and to buy new rules, and to buy a way out of lawsuits, and to buy enough soap to wash oil off of birds and fish and microscopic sea life and plants that are dying...and then tell people that you've done all you can.
There is Ahab's power.
And then, there is God's power.
Even if we don't particularly like the image here of God promising that Ahab's blood will be spilled and licked up by the dogs; even if we shy away from contemplating that God has the authority to sit in judgment as well as in mercy; even if we get mad and rail against God for the state of the world or the state of the environment or the state of our lives...even so, there is God's power.
And what good is God's power if it is not used (in part) to compel Elijah to name evil and to accuse evil and to resist evil? What good is God's power if it cannot persuade you and me to participate with Elijah in calling out evil and actively working to make a change for the better? What good is God's power if it does not move us to work for justice & healing in the very places where blood and oil have been spilled?
What good is the power of the presence of the Holy Spirit in you and in me and in this congregation and in our sister churches and among Christians around the world if the power of the presence of the Holy Spirit only means that we live nice & polite lives?
What good is the beautiful, life-giving, powerful, stunning nearness of God if we only renew our strength just enough to live our own lives, and we don't also take the courage to be bold in mounting up with wings like eagles, running without growing weary, walking without growing faint?
What good is listening to God in our daily devotions if we still settle into the rejected and complacent belief that men and money have more power than God to impact the world?
What good is power?
God's power. Not our power -- we should be careful to keep that clear in our minds. God's power! Thine is the kingdom and the power, forever. "Great is the LORD and mighty in power; God's understanding is infinite:
who lifts up the downtrodden,
who heals the brokenhearted,
who casts the wicked to the ground,
who determines the number of the stars
and gives them all their names." (from Psalm 147)
Who else has such power?! Who else has the power to give you strength for making it through the worst of your days, and then surprises you with a moment of laughter or sudden beauty? Who else knows that you lie awake at 2am, and still challenges you & nips at your heels to incite you to fully engage in life when the day dawns? By whose Spirit is your spirit stirred with restlessness and anger when you see images of wars and blockades and oil-covered birds and town-destroying floods?
And I don't know who you blame for all the messes that we could name -- that's a conversation for another time -- but the more important question is whether you and I think that power means evil going unchecked...or if, just possibly, power means evil being resisted for the sake of God's love for all the earth.
Howard Thurman wrote: "There is no need to fear evil. There is every need to understand what it does, how it operates in the world, what it draws upon to sustain itself. We must not shrink from the knowledge of the evilness of evil... It is just as important as ever to attend to the little graces by which the dignity of our lives is maintained and sustained. Birds still sing; the stars continue to cast their gentle gleam, and the heart is still inspired by the kind word and the gracious deed... To drink in the beauty that is within reach, to clothe one's life with simple deeds of kindness, to keep alive a sensitiveness to the movement of the spirit of God -- this is, as always, the ultimate answer." (excerpt of "Life Goes On" in Meditations of the Heart; from Beacon Press, 1953)
What good is the power of God if we fear evil and shy away from responding to it?
What good is the power of Jesus standing up to the temple authorities, or Elijah standing up to government authority, if we do not join their protest?
What good is the power and presence of the Holy Spirit if you, if I, if we remain convinced that situations are hopeless and war is inevitable and power is intrinsically corrupt, and we cannot claim the Spirited power -- the Spirit-full power -- to do the "little graces" as Howard Thurman calls them; to do the everyday graces and to see the everyday beauties and to rejoice over the everyday miracles and to resist the everyday evils in such a way
that God's power might multiply
into transformative,
life-giving,
still-unseen possibilities?!!
What good is the power of God in you or in me?
Perhaps we should find out.
(My sermon from 6/13/10 at Grace United Church of Christ.)
Categories: CCbloggers
What Good is Power (1 Kings 21:1-21)
As we enter the story in 1 Kings 21, we find that King Ahab is pouting from the events in chapter 20: Ahab led Israel into battle against the kingdom of Aram, and although Israel beat Aram, Elijah came and criticized Ahab for making a treaty that God did not approve of. So -- in the last verse of chapter twenty -- "the king of Israel set out toward home, resentful and sullen, and came to Samaria."
Resting and pouting in his palace, King Ahab looks out and sees the beautiful, rolling, fruitful hills of a vineyard owned by Naboth from the town of Jezreel. Immediately, Ahab wants the vineyard; this is the only thing that can satisfy him after the latest reprimand from Elijah.
(knock, knock) "Naboth, give me your vineyard, so that I may have it for a vegetable garden, because it is near my house. I will give you a better vineyard for it, or if you prefer, I will give you its value in money. A new vineyard, or cash. Either way, I'm the king, I have the right to whatever I want, and everything has its price. So I fully expect, good citizen Naboth, that you will concede to my superior plan for how to use your land."
Naboth reacts so strongly that he swears an oath to God in front of the king: "The LORD forbid it!" (Today we would say, "I'll be damned if I ever allow that to happen!") He says to Ahab, "I will never give you my ancestral inheritance. This is the land of my father and of his father and of our ancestral fathers before that. This is the inheritance of my sons. It is the livelihood of our family, the daily sustenance for my wife and children. This is my piece of God's promise to Abraham that the people of Israel would someday have their own land. From Abraham, that promise was passed to Isaac, and then to Jacob, and from Jacob to the twelve sons who are the twelve tribes of Israel. This land is my piece of God's promise and it is the life of my family. The rules of our culture require that land can only be passed within families, from father to son in each generation. The LORD forbid that I should break that rule, and treat this land -- this vineyard -- as a bartering tool for wealth, rather than as a blessing from God."
Ahab returns to his palace, stares out the window at the tantalizingly unavailable vineyard, and resumes his pout. Because what good is being king if you cannot get what you want when you want it? What good is money if you cannot buy quick-and-easy happiness? What good is power if you cannot use it to persuade and convince and lobby your way into getting the rules changed just for you? How dare Naboth quote the rules of Israel to the king, when Ahab has the power to pay a scribe to accidentally omit that rule from the scriptures while copying a new set of scrolls?!
So Ahab takes the advice of Queen Jezebel to start a smear campaign against Naboth, convincing the elders and the nobles to falsely accuse Naboth. The elders whisper, "Naboth cursed God," while the nobles spread a rumor, "Naboth cursed the king." A public outcry against Naboth is crafted so that only two "scoundrels" (21:10) are obviously involved as false witnesses and therefore can be linked to his death. Only two scoundrels directly responsible, while a whole cast of conspirators is behind the plot! In fact, so many people have washed their hands clean of the mess -- nobles and elders, legislators and religious leaders, heads of state and business CEOs, plus crowds of citizens who buy into the lies -- that when all is said and done,
no one knows just quite how the rumors got started
or how a man came to be stoned to death;
no one seems to know how the explosion of violence first happened
or how a plan wasn't in place to prevent such a disaster;
just like nobody knows how many hundreds of thousands of gallons
of oil are being poured into the waters and wetlands,
or just who should take the blame for it,
because everybody has scrubbed their hands raw to get them clean of the whole mess. And all that we are left knowing is that there's too much blood and oil staining the ground all around us.
But what good is power if you cannot persuade the public that you are not responsible? So no one claims responsibility for Naboth's death. And the stones are left to cry out as Ahab takes possession of the vineyard.
What good is power?
The LORD sends Elijah to King Ahab to implicate Ahab in this death and to warn of the gory consequences that will come to him: "In the place where the dogs licked up the blood of Naboth, dogs will also lick up your blood. Disaster will come upon you, Ahab, and upon your son, because you sold yourself to do what is evil in the sight of the LORD."
Yes, there is Ahab's power. Yes, there is the power of kings and governments and religious authorities and business executives. Yes, there is the power of money to buy public opinion, and to buy new rules, and to buy a way out of lawsuits, and to buy enough soap to wash oil off of birds and fish and microscopic sea life and plants that are dying...and then tell people that you've done all you can.
There is Ahab's power.
And then, there is God's power.
Even if we don't particularly like the image here of God promising that Ahab's blood will be spilled and licked up by the dogs; even if we shy away from contemplating that God has the authority to sit in judgment as well as in mercy; even if we get mad and rail against God for the state of the world or the state of the environment or the state of our lives...even so, there is God's power.
And what good is God's power if it is not used (in part) to compel Elijah to name evil and to accuse evil and to resist evil? What good is God's power if it cannot persuade you and me to participate with Elijah in calling out evil and actively working to make a change for the better? What good is God's power if it does not move us to work for justice & healing in the very places where blood and oil have been spilled?
What good is the power of the presence of the Holy Spirit in you and in me and in this congregation and in our sister churches and among Christians around the world if the power of the presence of the Holy Spirit only means that we live nice & polite lives?
What good is the beautiful, life-giving, powerful, stunning nearness of God if we only renew our strength just enough to live our own lives, and we don't also take the courage to be bold in mounting up with wings like eagles, running without growing weary, walking without growing faint?
What good is listening to God in our daily devotions if we still settle into the rejected and complacent belief that men and money have more power than God to impact the world?
What good is power?
God's power. Not our power -- we should be careful to keep that clear in our minds. God's power! Thine is the kingdom and the power, forever. "Great is the LORD and mighty in power; God's understanding is infinite:
who lifts up the downtrodden,
who heals the brokenhearted,
who casts the wicked to the ground,
who determines the number of the stars
and gives them all their names." (from Psalm 147)
Who else has such power?! Who else has the power to give you strength for making it through the worst of your days, and then surprises you with a moment of laughter or sudden beauty? Who else knows that you lie awake at 2am, and still challenges you & nips at your heels to incite you to fully engage in life when the day dawns? By whose Spirit is your spirit stirred with restlessness and anger when you see images of wars and blockades and oil-covered birds and town-destroying floods?
And I don't know who you blame for all the messes that we could name -- that's a conversation for another time -- but the more important question is whether you and I think that power means evil going unchecked...or if, just possibly, power means evil being resisted for the sake of God's love for all the earth.
Howard Thurman wrote: "There is no need to fear evil. There is every need to understand what it does, how it operates in the world, what it draws upon to sustain itself. We must not shrink from the knowledge of the evilness of evil... It is just as important as ever to attend to the little graces by which the dignity of our lives is maintained and sustained. Birds still sing; the stars continue to cast their gentle gleam, and the heart is still inspired by the kind word and the gracious deed... To drink in the beauty that is within reach, to clothe one's life with simple deeds of kindness, to keep alive a sensitiveness to the movement of the spirit of God -- this is, as always, the ultimate answer." (excerpt of "Life Goes On" in Meditations of the Heart; from Beacon Press, 1953)
What good is the power of God if we fear evil and shy away from responding to it?
What good is the power of Jesus standing up to the temple authorities, or Elijah standing up to government authority, if we do not join their protest?
What good is the power and presence of the Holy Spirit if you, if I, if we remain convinced that situations are hopeless and war is inevitable and power is intrinsically corrupt, and we cannot claim the Spirited power -- the Spirit-full power -- to do the "little graces" as Howard Thurman calls them; to do the everyday graces and to see the everyday beauties and to rejoice over the everyday miracles and to resist the everyday evils in such a way
that God's power might multiply
into transformative,
life-giving,
still-unseen possibilities?!!
What good is the power of God in you or in me?
Perhaps we should find out.
(My sermon from 6/13/10 at Grace United Church of Christ.)
Resting and pouting in his palace, King Ahab looks out and sees the beautiful, rolling, fruitful hills of a vineyard owned by Naboth from the town of Jezreel. Immediately, Ahab wants the vineyard; this is the only thing that can satisfy him after the latest reprimand from Elijah.
(knock, knock) "Naboth, give me your vineyard, so that I may have it for a vegetable garden, because it is near my house. I will give you a better vineyard for it, or if you prefer, I will give you its value in money. A new vineyard, or cash. Either way, I'm the king, I have the right to whatever I want, and everything has its price. So I fully expect, good citizen Naboth, that you will concede to my superior plan for how to use your land."
Naboth reacts so strongly that he swears an oath to God in front of the king: "The LORD forbid it!" (Today we would say, "I'll be damned if I ever allow that to happen!") He says to Ahab, "I will never give you my ancestral inheritance. This is the land of my father and of his father and of our ancestral fathers before that. This is the inheritance of my sons. It is the livelihood of our family, the daily sustenance for my wife and children. This is my piece of God's promise to Abraham that the people of Israel would someday have their own land. From Abraham, that promise was passed to Isaac, and then to Jacob, and from Jacob to the twelve sons who are the twelve tribes of Israel. This land is my piece of God's promise and it is the life of my family. The rules of our culture require that land can only be passed within families, from father to son in each generation. The LORD forbid that I should break that rule, and treat this land -- this vineyard -- as a bartering tool for wealth, rather than as a blessing from God."
Ahab returns to his palace, stares out the window at the tantalizingly unavailable vineyard, and resumes his pout. Because what good is being king if you cannot get what you want when you want it? What good is money if you cannot buy quick-and-easy happiness? What good is power if you cannot use it to persuade and convince and lobby your way into getting the rules changed just for you? How dare Naboth quote the rules of Israel to the king, when Ahab has the power to pay a scribe to accidentally omit that rule from the scriptures while copying a new set of scrolls?!
So Ahab takes the advice of Queen Jezebel to start a smear campaign against Naboth, convincing the elders and the nobles to falsely accuse Naboth. The elders whisper, "Naboth cursed God," while the nobles spread a rumor, "Naboth cursed the king." A public outcry against Naboth is crafted so that only two "scoundrels" (21:10) are obviously involved as false witnesses and therefore can be linked to his death. Only two scoundrels directly responsible, while a whole cast of conspirators is behind the plot! In fact, so many people have washed their hands clean of the mess -- nobles and elders, legislators and religious leaders, heads of state and business CEOs, plus crowds of citizens who buy into the lies -- that when all is said and done,
no one knows just quite how the rumors got started
or how a man came to be stoned to death;
no one seems to know how the explosion of violence first happened
or how a plan wasn't in place to prevent such a disaster;
just like nobody knows how many hundreds of thousands of gallons
of oil are being poured into the waters and wetlands,
or just who should take the blame for it,
because everybody has scrubbed their hands raw to get them clean of the whole mess. And all that we are left knowing is that there's too much blood and oil staining the ground all around us.
But what good is power if you cannot persuade the public that you are not responsible? So no one claims responsibility for Naboth's death. And the stones are left to cry out as Ahab takes possession of the vineyard.
What good is power?
The LORD sends Elijah to King Ahab to implicate Ahab in this death and to warn of the gory consequences that will come to him: "In the place where the dogs licked up the blood of Naboth, dogs will also lick up your blood. Disaster will come upon you, Ahab, and upon your son, because you sold yourself to do what is evil in the sight of the LORD."
Yes, there is Ahab's power. Yes, there is the power of kings and governments and religious authorities and business executives. Yes, there is the power of money to buy public opinion, and to buy new rules, and to buy a way out of lawsuits, and to buy enough soap to wash oil off of birds and fish and microscopic sea life and plants that are dying...and then tell people that you've done all you can.
There is Ahab's power.
And then, there is God's power.
Even if we don't particularly like the image here of God promising that Ahab's blood will be spilled and licked up by the dogs; even if we shy away from contemplating that God has the authority to sit in judgment as well as in mercy; even if we get mad and rail against God for the state of the world or the state of the environment or the state of our lives...even so, there is God's power.
And what good is God's power if it is not used (in part) to compel Elijah to name evil and to accuse evil and to resist evil? What good is God's power if it cannot persuade you and me to participate with Elijah in calling out evil and actively working to make a change for the better? What good is God's power if it does not move us to work for justice & healing in the very places where blood and oil have been spilled?
What good is the power of the presence of the Holy Spirit in you and in me and in this congregation and in our sister churches and among Christians around the world if the power of the presence of the Holy Spirit only means that we live nice & polite lives?
What good is the beautiful, life-giving, powerful, stunning nearness of God if we only renew our strength just enough to live our own lives, and we don't also take the courage to be bold in mounting up with wings like eagles, running without growing weary, walking without growing faint?
What good is listening to God in our daily devotions if we still settle into the rejected and complacent belief that men and money have more power than God to impact the world?
What good is power?
God's power. Not our power -- we should be careful to keep that clear in our minds. God's power! Thine is the kingdom and the power, forever. "Great is the LORD and mighty in power; God's understanding is infinite:
who lifts up the downtrodden,
who heals the brokenhearted,
who casts the wicked to the ground,
who determines the number of the stars
and gives them all their names." (from Psalm 147)
Who else has such power?! Who else has the power to give you strength for making it through the worst of your days, and then surprises you with a moment of laughter or sudden beauty? Who else knows that you lie awake at 2am, and still challenges you & nips at your heels to incite you to fully engage in life when the day dawns? By whose Spirit is your spirit stirred with restlessness and anger when you see images of wars and blockades and oil-covered birds and town-destroying floods?
And I don't know who you blame for all the messes that we could name -- that's a conversation for another time -- but the more important question is whether you and I think that power means evil going unchecked...or if, just possibly, power means evil being resisted for the sake of God's love for all the earth.
Howard Thurman wrote: "There is no need to fear evil. There is every need to understand what it does, how it operates in the world, what it draws upon to sustain itself. We must not shrink from the knowledge of the evilness of evil... It is just as important as ever to attend to the little graces by which the dignity of our lives is maintained and sustained. Birds still sing; the stars continue to cast their gentle gleam, and the heart is still inspired by the kind word and the gracious deed... To drink in the beauty that is within reach, to clothe one's life with simple deeds of kindness, to keep alive a sensitiveness to the movement of the spirit of God -- this is, as always, the ultimate answer." (excerpt of "Life Goes On" in Meditations of the Heart; from Beacon Press, 1953)
What good is the power of God if we fear evil and shy away from responding to it?
What good is the power of Jesus standing up to the temple authorities, or Elijah standing up to government authority, if we do not join their protest?
What good is the power and presence of the Holy Spirit if you, if I, if we remain convinced that situations are hopeless and war is inevitable and power is intrinsically corrupt, and we cannot claim the Spirited power -- the Spirit-full power -- to do the "little graces" as Howard Thurman calls them; to do the everyday graces and to see the everyday beauties and to rejoice over the everyday miracles and to resist the everyday evils in such a way
that God's power might multiply
into transformative,
life-giving,
still-unseen possibilities?!!
What good is the power of God in you or in me?
Perhaps we should find out.
(My sermon from 6/13/10 at Grace United Church of Christ.)
Categories: CCbloggers
What Good is Power (1 Kings 21:1-21)
As we enter the story in 1 Kings 21, we find that King Ahab is pouting from the events in chapter 20: Ahab led Israel into battle against the kingdom of Aram, and although Israel beat Aram, Elijah came and criticized Ahab for making a treaty that God did not approve of. So -- in the last verse of chapter twenty -- "the king of Israel set out toward home, resentful and sullen, and came to Samaria."
Resting and pouting in his palace, King Ahab looks out and sees the beautiful, rolling, fruitful hills of a vineyard owned by Naboth from the town of Jezreel. Immediately, Ahab wants the vineyard; this is the only thing that can satisfy him after the latest reprimand from Elijah.
(knock, knock) "Naboth, give me your vineyard, so that I may have it for a vegetable garden, because it is near my house. I will give you a better vineyard for it, or if you prefer, I will give you its value in money. A new vineyard, or cash. Either way, I'm the king, I have the right to whatever I want, and everything has its price. So I fully expect, good citizen Naboth, that you will concede to my superior plan for how to use your land."
Naboth reacts so strongly that he swears an oath to God in front of the king: "The LORD forbid it!" (Today we would say, "I'll be damned if I ever allow that to happen!") He says to Ahab, "I will never give you my ancestral inheritance. This is the land of my father and of his father and of our ancestral fathers before that. This is the inheritance of my sons. It is the livelihood of our family, the daily sustenance for my wife and children. This is my piece of God's promise to Abraham that the people of Israel would someday have their own land. From Abraham, that promise was passed to Isaac, and then to Jacob, and from Jacob to the twelve sons who are the twelve tribes of Israel. This land is my piece of God's promise and it is the life of my family. The rules of our culture require that land can only be passed within families, from father to son in each generation. The LORD forbid that I should break that rule, and treat this land -- this vineyard -- as a bartering tool for wealth, rather than as a blessing from God."
Ahab returns to his palace, stares out the window at the tantalizingly unavailable vineyard, and resumes his pout. Because what good is being king if you cannot get what you want when you want it? What good is money if you cannot buy quick-and-easy happiness? What good is power if you cannot use it to persuade and convince and lobby your way into getting the rules changed just for you? How dare Naboth quote the rules of Israel to the king, when Ahab has the power to pay a scribe to accidentally omit that rule from the scriptures while copying a new set of scrolls?!
So Ahab takes the advice of Queen Jezebel to start a smear campaign against Naboth, convincing the elders and the nobles to falsely accuse Naboth. The elders whisper, "Naboth cursed God," while the nobles spread a rumor, "Naboth cursed the king." A public outcry against Naboth is crafted so that only two "scoundrels" (21:10) are obviously involved as false witnesses and therefore can be linked to his death. Only two scoundrels directly responsible, while a whole cast of conspirators is behind the plot! In fact, so many people have washed their hands clean of the mess -- nobles and elders, legislators and religious leaders, heads of state and business CEOs, plus crowds of citizens who buy into the lies -- that when all is said and done,
no one knows just quite how the rumors got started
or how a man came to be stoned to death;
no one seems to know how the explosion of violence first happened
or how a plan wasn't in place to prevent such a disaster;
just like nobody knows how many hundreds of thousands of gallons
of oil are being poured into the waters and wetlands,
or just who should take the blame for it,
because everybody has scrubbed their hands raw to get them clean of the whole mess. And all that we are left knowing is that there's too much blood and oil staining the ground all around us.
But what good is power if you cannot persuade the public that you are not responsible? So no one claims responsibility for Naboth's death. And the stones are left to cry out as Ahab takes possession of the vineyard.
What good is power?
The LORD sends Elijah to King Ahab to implicate Ahab in this death and to warn of the gory consequences that will come to him: "In the place where the dogs licked up the blood of Naboth, dogs will also lick up your blood. Disaster will come upon you, Ahab, and upon your son, because you sold yourself to do what is evil in the sight of the LORD."
Yes, there is Ahab's power. Yes, there is the power of kings and governments and religious authorities and business executives. Yes, there is the power of money to buy public opinion, and to buy new rules, and to buy a way out of lawsuits, and to buy enough soap to wash oil off of birds and fish and microscopic sea life and plants that are dying...and then tell people that you've done all you can.
There is Ahab's power.
And then, there is God's power.
Even if we don't particularly like the image here of God promising that Ahab's blood will be spilled and licked up by the dogs; even if we shy away from contemplating that God has the authority to sit in judgment as well as in mercy; even if we get mad and rail against God for the state of the world or the state of the environment or the state of our lives...even so, there is God's power.
And what good is God's power if it is not used (in part) to compel Elijah to name evil and to accuse evil and to resist evil? What good is God's power if it cannot persuade you and me to participate with Elijah in calling out evil and actively working to make a change for the better? What good is God's power if it does not move us to work for justice & healing in the very places where blood and oil have been spilled?
What good is the power of the presence of the Holy Spirit in you and in me and in this congregation and in our sister churches and among Christians around the world if the power of the presence of the Holy Spirit only means that we live nice & polite lives?
What good is the beautiful, life-giving, powerful, stunning nearness of God if we only renew our strength just enough to live our own lives, and we don't also take the courage to be bold in mounting up with wings like eagles, running without growing weary, walking without growing faint?
What good is listening to God in our daily devotions if we still settle into the rejected and complacent belief that men and money have more power than God to impact the world?
What good is power?
God's power. Not our power -- we should be careful to keep that clear in our minds. God's power! Thine is the kingdom and the power, forever. "Great is the LORD and mighty in power; God's understanding is infinite:
who lifts up the downtrodden,
who heals the brokenhearted,
who casts the wicked to the ground,
who determines the number of the stars
and gives them all their names." (from Psalm 147)
Who else has such power?! Who else has the power to give you strength for making it through the worst of your days, and then surprises you with a moment of laughter or sudden beauty? Who else knows that you lie awake at 2am, and still challenges you & nips at your heels to incite you to fully engage in life when the day dawns? By whose Spirit is your spirit stirred with restlessness and anger when you see images of wars and blockades and oil-covered birds and town-destroying floods?
And I don't know who you blame for all the messes that we could name -- that's a conversation for another time -- but the more important question is whether you and I think that power means evil going unchecked...or if, just possibly, power means evil being resisted for the sake of God's love for all the earth.
Howard Thurman wrote: "There is no need to fear evil. There is every need to understand what it does, how it operates in the world, what it draws upon to sustain itself. We must not shrink from the knowledge of the evilness of evil... It is just as important as ever to attend to the little graces by which the dignity of our lives is maintained and sustained. Birds still sing; the stars continue to cast their gentle gleam, and the heart is still inspired by the kind word and the gracious deed... To drink in the beauty that is within reach, to clothe one's life with simple deeds of kindness, to keep alive a sensitiveness to the movement of the spirit of God -- this is, as always, the ultimate answer." (excerpt of "Life Goes On" in Meditations of the Heart; from Beacon Press, 1953)
What good is the power of God if we fear evil and shy away from responding to it?
What good is the power of Jesus standing up to the temple authorities, or Elijah standing up to government authority, if we do not join their protest?
What good is the power and presence of the Holy Spirit if you, if I, if we remain convinced that situations are hopeless and war is inevitable and power is intrinsically corrupt, and we cannot claim the Spirited power -- the Spirit-full power -- to do the "little graces" as Howard Thurman calls them; to do the everyday graces and to see the everyday beauties and to rejoice over the everyday miracles and to resist the everyday evils in such a way
that God's power might multiply
into transformative,
life-giving,
still-unseen possibilities?!!
What good is the power of God in you or in me?
Perhaps we should find out.
(My sermon from 6/13/10 at Grace United Church of Christ.)
Resting and pouting in his palace, King Ahab looks out and sees the beautiful, rolling, fruitful hills of a vineyard owned by Naboth from the town of Jezreel. Immediately, Ahab wants the vineyard; this is the only thing that can satisfy him after the latest reprimand from Elijah.
(knock, knock) "Naboth, give me your vineyard, so that I may have it for a vegetable garden, because it is near my house. I will give you a better vineyard for it, or if you prefer, I will give you its value in money. A new vineyard, or cash. Either way, I'm the king, I have the right to whatever I want, and everything has its price. So I fully expect, good citizen Naboth, that you will concede to my superior plan for how to use your land."
Naboth reacts so strongly that he swears an oath to God in front of the king: "The LORD forbid it!" (Today we would say, "I'll be damned if I ever allow that to happen!") He says to Ahab, "I will never give you my ancestral inheritance. This is the land of my father and of his father and of our ancestral fathers before that. This is the inheritance of my sons. It is the livelihood of our family, the daily sustenance for my wife and children. This is my piece of God's promise to Abraham that the people of Israel would someday have their own land. From Abraham, that promise was passed to Isaac, and then to Jacob, and from Jacob to the twelve sons who are the twelve tribes of Israel. This land is my piece of God's promise and it is the life of my family. The rules of our culture require that land can only be passed within families, from father to son in each generation. The LORD forbid that I should break that rule, and treat this land -- this vineyard -- as a bartering tool for wealth, rather than as a blessing from God."
Ahab returns to his palace, stares out the window at the tantalizingly unavailable vineyard, and resumes his pout. Because what good is being king if you cannot get what you want when you want it? What good is money if you cannot buy quick-and-easy happiness? What good is power if you cannot use it to persuade and convince and lobby your way into getting the rules changed just for you? How dare Naboth quote the rules of Israel to the king, when Ahab has the power to pay a scribe to accidentally omit that rule from the scriptures while copying a new set of scrolls?!
So Ahab takes the advice of Queen Jezebel to start a smear campaign against Naboth, convincing the elders and the nobles to falsely accuse Naboth. The elders whisper, "Naboth cursed God," while the nobles spread a rumor, "Naboth cursed the king." A public outcry against Naboth is crafted so that only two "scoundrels" (21:10) are obviously involved as false witnesses and therefore can be linked to his death. Only two scoundrels directly responsible, while a whole cast of conspirators is behind the plot! In fact, so many people have washed their hands clean of the mess -- nobles and elders, legislators and religious leaders, heads of state and business CEOs, plus crowds of citizens who buy into the lies -- that when all is said and done,
no one knows just quite how the rumors got started
or how a man came to be stoned to death;
no one seems to know how the explosion of violence first happened
or how a plan wasn't in place to prevent such a disaster;
just like nobody knows how many hundreds of thousands of gallons
of oil are being poured into the waters and wetlands,
or just who should take the blame for it,
because everybody has scrubbed their hands raw to get them clean of the whole mess. And all that we are left knowing is that there's too much blood and oil staining the ground all around us.
But what good is power if you cannot persuade the public that you are not responsible? So no one claims responsibility for Naboth's death. And the stones are left to cry out as Ahab takes possession of the vineyard.
What good is power?
The LORD sends Elijah to King Ahab to implicate Ahab in this death and to warn of the gory consequences that will come to him: "In the place where the dogs licked up the blood of Naboth, dogs will also lick up your blood. Disaster will come upon you, Ahab, and upon your son, because you sold yourself to do what is evil in the sight of the LORD."
Yes, there is Ahab's power. Yes, there is the power of kings and governments and religious authorities and business executives. Yes, there is the power of money to buy public opinion, and to buy new rules, and to buy a way out of lawsuits, and to buy enough soap to wash oil off of birds and fish and microscopic sea life and plants that are dying...and then tell people that you've done all you can.
There is Ahab's power.
And then, there is God's power.
Even if we don't particularly like the image here of God promising that Ahab's blood will be spilled and licked up by the dogs; even if we shy away from contemplating that God has the authority to sit in judgment as well as in mercy; even if we get mad and rail against God for the state of the world or the state of the environment or the state of our lives...even so, there is God's power.
And what good is God's power if it is not used (in part) to compel Elijah to name evil and to accuse evil and to resist evil? What good is God's power if it cannot persuade you and me to participate with Elijah in calling out evil and actively working to make a change for the better? What good is God's power if it does not move us to work for justice & healing in the very places where blood and oil have been spilled?
What good is the power of the presence of the Holy Spirit in you and in me and in this congregation and in our sister churches and among Christians around the world if the power of the presence of the Holy Spirit only means that we live nice & polite lives?
What good is the beautiful, life-giving, powerful, stunning nearness of God if we only renew our strength just enough to live our own lives, and we don't also take the courage to be bold in mounting up with wings like eagles, running without growing weary, walking without growing faint?
What good is listening to God in our daily devotions if we still settle into the rejected and complacent belief that men and money have more power than God to impact the world?
What good is power?
God's power. Not our power -- we should be careful to keep that clear in our minds. God's power! Thine is the kingdom and the power, forever. "Great is the LORD and mighty in power; God's understanding is infinite:
who lifts up the downtrodden,
who heals the brokenhearted,
who casts the wicked to the ground,
who determines the number of the stars
and gives them all their names." (from Psalm 147)
Who else has such power?! Who else has the power to give you strength for making it through the worst of your days, and then surprises you with a moment of laughter or sudden beauty? Who else knows that you lie awake at 2am, and still challenges you & nips at your heels to incite you to fully engage in life when the day dawns? By whose Spirit is your spirit stirred with restlessness and anger when you see images of wars and blockades and oil-covered birds and town-destroying floods?
And I don't know who you blame for all the messes that we could name -- that's a conversation for another time -- but the more important question is whether you and I think that power means evil going unchecked...or if, just possibly, power means evil being resisted for the sake of God's love for all the earth.
Howard Thurman wrote: "There is no need to fear evil. There is every need to understand what it does, how it operates in the world, what it draws upon to sustain itself. We must not shrink from the knowledge of the evilness of evil... It is just as important as ever to attend to the little graces by which the dignity of our lives is maintained and sustained. Birds still sing; the stars continue to cast their gentle gleam, and the heart is still inspired by the kind word and the gracious deed... To drink in the beauty that is within reach, to clothe one's life with simple deeds of kindness, to keep alive a sensitiveness to the movement of the spirit of God -- this is, as always, the ultimate answer." (excerpt of "Life Goes On" in Meditations of the Heart; from Beacon Press, 1953)
What good is the power of God if we fear evil and shy away from responding to it?
What good is the power of Jesus standing up to the temple authorities, or Elijah standing up to government authority, if we do not join their protest?
What good is the power and presence of the Holy Spirit if you, if I, if we remain convinced that situations are hopeless and war is inevitable and power is intrinsically corrupt, and we cannot claim the Spirited power -- the Spirit-full power -- to do the "little graces" as Howard Thurman calls them; to do the everyday graces and to see the everyday beauties and to rejoice over the everyday miracles and to resist the everyday evils in such a way
that God's power might multiply
into transformative,
life-giving,
still-unseen possibilities?!!
What good is the power of God in you or in me?
Perhaps we should find out.
(My sermon from 6/13/10 at Grace United Church of Christ.)
Categories: CCbloggers
In a spirit of faith
With a shout, I claim it:
God's joy is mine!
Today my troubles are over
and the peace of God is here.
Blessed be the Spirit that announces:
"This is the day that the LORD has made";
let my soul rejoice and be glad!
Let me cast off my mourning
and my whining
and my anxious fretting
to celebrate God's faithfulness
already arrived,
not still to come.
So in a spirit of faith, I claim:
justice arrived!
reconciliations made!
hospitality extended!
love unparalleled!
lives renewed!
My God, my Joy, my Daily Bread:
your goodness is not only my claim
but also my life and my call.
May I so live
today.
Today!
God's joy is mine!
Today my troubles are over
and the peace of God is here.
Blessed be the Spirit that announces:
"This is the day that the LORD has made";
let my soul rejoice and be glad!
Let me cast off my mourning
and my whining
and my anxious fretting
to celebrate God's faithfulness
already arrived,
not still to come.
So in a spirit of faith, I claim:
justice arrived!
reconciliations made!
hospitality extended!
love unparalleled!
lives renewed!
My God, my Joy, my Daily Bread:
your goodness is not only my claim
but also my life and my call.
May I so live
today.
Today!
Categories: CCbloggers
Between Us Girls
O Holy Sophia,
Come, sit with me in the silence
and keep vigil with me through the night.
Let's watch the stars rise
and marvel at the shadows;
And when night reaches its deepest moment,
I may ask you to light a candle to encourage me
as I face my fears, face myself.
I'll appreciate your company and comfort
as the wick slowly burns and
sleep evades me,
because I know that you have witnessed silence
at its gentlest (when you hovered over still waters)
and its most fearsome (after the mountains quaked
and the thunder rolled with God's nearness).
O Holy Wisdom Sophia,
teach me your lesson
for meeting silence
without fear.
Come, sit with me in the silence
and keep vigil with me through the night.
Let's watch the stars rise
and marvel at the shadows;
And when night reaches its deepest moment,
I may ask you to light a candle to encourage me
as I face my fears, face myself.
I'll appreciate your company and comfort
as the wick slowly burns and
sleep evades me,
because I know that you have witnessed silence
at its gentlest (when you hovered over still waters)
and its most fearsome (after the mountains quaked
and the thunder rolled with God's nearness).
O Holy Wisdom Sophia,
teach me your lesson
for meeting silence
without fear.
Categories: CCbloggers
For Healing and Resting (India.Arie)
I release all disappointment
from a mental, a physical,
a spiritual and emotional body
'Cause I know that Spirit guides me,
and Love lives inside me
That's why today I take life as it comes.
"Healing" interlude by India.Arie, from her album Voyage to India (2002).
from a mental, a physical,
a spiritual and emotional body
'Cause I know that Spirit guides me,
and Love lives inside me
That's why today I take life as it comes.
"Healing" interlude by India.Arie, from her album Voyage to India (2002).
Categories: CCbloggers
Sunset
So grace abounds
in moments of radiance,
And our lives are enriched.
For the fullness and simplicity
of such a gift, we sing:
Thanks be to God!
in moments of radiance,
And our lives are enriched.
For the fullness and simplicity
of such a gift, we sing:
Thanks be to God!
Categories: CCbloggers