Living word by word

son of Timaeus, son of Timaeus

    I just love this Sunday's Gospel (the ordinary one from Mark 10, not the Reformation Sunday text)-- which makes it a hard text to preach because I hardly know where to start and where to stop.

   For example, the intriguing significance of his name, repeated in the text. Timaeus is not a Hebrew name. It's the name of a Platonic dialogue. I'm persuaded by the argument, elaborated in Gordon Lathrop's Holy Ground,  that Mark is arguing here for a fundamental "hole in the cosmology" of a worldview that excludes the blind and begging. This blind man sees something about Jesus that no one else does, and he is granted his wish for vision -- quite a contrast to all the preceding stories about disciples who want to be the greatest, and rich men who can tick off their righteousness points.

  We're confirming a couple very bright and wonderful young people this Sunday, and I often wonder about what this text means for the children of Timaeus, us thoughtful privileged types, who pray every day that our children never end up lost, begging, desperate. We want them to continue as they are -- bright, successful, self-reliant. But Mark suggests that its these types who are really blind.

  But it's hard to throw this juicy point about Bartimaeus' name into a sermon, especially if you can't assume people know anything about Plato, or the rest of Mark's Gospel, for that matter. So I leave it here for you all.  Some Sundays I am so jealous of pastors whose congregations allow them to preach for 30-50 minutes.

Reformation Sunday blog, part 1

When I am made Queen of the World, my first decree will be to ban passwords. Or fix internet security with great haste, or something like that.

Unless you're one of those people who only uses a computer to check one email account  once a week, you know the problem (and if that's the case, you're probably not reading this):  every freakin' site on the Web now wants you to create a "personal account" -- which really only means you need a password. So you use your usual password, say, your parents wedding anniversary, but they want letters and numbers, so you add your initials, but no, it has to be eight characters long, so you add a 01. Fine.

But then you do the same thing for your other email account, your bank, amazon, facebook, and five other things, only they each have slightly different rules, so now you have 4 different passwords.

No problem, your obsequious, overly helpful computer says, "Do you want me to remember that?" Sure!!

That's fine, until the day Sir Obsequious has issues, and you have to use someone else's computer. And now you can't remember any of the passwords. Locked out from your own secure, "personal" accounts.

The experts say we ought to be changing our passwords every 6 months or so. And don't use anything someone else would know. And don't use the same one for everything.

I tried doing an update of my passwords once, but then I couldn't remember half the sites that required them, so now half of my sites have one of 4 new passwords, and half have one of 4 old passwords.. . .

The answer might be to write them down -- but isn't that insecure?

So if I use good security, I can't manage my own accounts.

And if I use bad security, well, nothing's secure.

It's kind of like Jesus. Every time we think we have the right password, he changes the rules. Got the 10 commandments down? Good, now go sell everything you own. Think you're on the inner circle? Good, now notice how the disciples are the ones constantly getting it wrong.

We want to be on the inside, but Jesus keeps moving to the outside. We want to know the secret codes, and Jesus keeps giving 'em away to the wrong people.

Nothing's secure with him, and I simply cannot manage my personal accounts.  

But maybe Jesus isn't into personal accounts.

That was Gospel

Don't miss Nadia's awesome sermon which she preached at ECLC on Sunday. You can also get the audio at our site. It was grace-filled, embodied, Lutheran from beginning to end.

I only wish we could also have captured the conversation held during adult forum, led by Seth Donovan and Nadia Bolz-Weber, about confession. I wasn't there, but I keep hearing about it.

Lectionary Blog 18B

I've not been in a blogging mode lately: the complexity of the lives of people with school-age kids is starting to sink in for me this year. Our 2nd grader has a startling amount of stuff to track. Thanks to those of you who -- for whatever reason -- still check in on us now.

One could preach a whole sermon this week on "books of the Bible theologians think don't belong there." Esther and James both have their detractors. But wow, plenty one could say about both.

Or one could preach a whole sermon on Psalm 19.

Or, one could preach a whole sermon on cutting off limbs, fire, brimstone and millstones. Is Jesus really that sadistic?  I've talked to preachers who are really worried that far too many Christians still take these words literally, and don't understand the rhetorical device of exaggeration that Jesus is using.  I don't know that we need to worry that much. I mean, "shock value" is pretty much the only value in 80% of today's video games, action films and reality TV. We understand that sometimes people just want to get our attention.

After several weeks of hearing Jesus talk about the cross in Mark's Gospel, and several weeks of the disciples' disputing it, ignoring him, or changing the subject, I think the two vignettes in this week's gospel call us to finally look in the mirror.

The disciples are worried about "those people," and the fact that their ministry might detract from Jesus' ministry. Jesus, clearly, is not worried.

What does concern him is the ways we get in our own way, and the ways we cause others to stumble.

This is a text that keeps us professional ministry types up at night. I mean, who does not worry that, however inadvertently, we have caused someone else to stumble in their faith? The ways in which we who represent "the church" can unwittingly offend, confuse, bore, wound or ignore others are astounding. It doesn't matter that we don't mean to -- at least Jesus doesn't say it's the thought that counts.

Don't let anything --even your very own sense of wholeness -- stand between you and the kingdom of God. And don't ever stand between someone else and the kingdom either.

Even without the exaggerated violence, these are tough words indeed.

Lectionary Blog: Lectionary 16B

    I don't often preach more than one text, but this week I can't resist:

    I've been reading Barbara Brown Taylor's An Altar in the World, and she has a lovely chapter on 'getting lost,' so I'm pondering how much we made need to be more lost than we usually are.

     In the Gospel a few weeks ago Jesus was in his hometown, among people who thought they knew all too well who he was. They had Jesus stashed away  in their

"Nazareth

box" – we know his family, we know his vocation – and they would not let him out.

    And Mark tells us, he could do no work of power there

 

            But in today’s Gospel amidst all this moving around and crowds following Jesus even though he’s tired and just trying to rest, he heals and heals and heals.

            Here, amidst all these hurting people, who are like sheep without a shepherd, he heals them even if they touch the hem of his garment.

 

        Jesus’ power is amazing – but maybe it needs us to be a little lost. It works best in the cracked and broken places in our lives.

         If, as Ephesians says, God has broken down walls and is building a new dwelling place, it's no wonder the church is messy and full of debris. Maybe it needs the spaces within us and between us to let it in.

 

        Maybe the cracks in our economy are exactly what God needs right now. Maybe the broken places in your  life – whether  your retirement plans, your career, even your health – maybe those are exactly the places where Jesus can do some water damage – so before you go sealing it up, ask yourself if that wall belongs there in the first place.

 

    Ephesians says that the Spirit is creating a dwelling place in us – not just in me, but in us – in the space between us – this is the the spiritual dwelling place.  Perhaps it’s exactly in these cracks that God comes to dwell.

Pre-sabbath fun.

OK, this is fun: Radical Torah syncs R.E.M.s Automatic for the People with the pre-Shabbat psalmody -- including Psalm 98.

And the best line:
        I’m not claiming that R.E.M. had this sequence of psalms in mind when they wrote Automatic for             the People, and I’m certainly not claiming that the psalmist foretold the works of R.E.M. But I’m             asserting my postmodern right to not care.

Happy Friday Everyone!

lectionary blog Easter 6B: Psalm 98

 

I had the odd experience  this month of having something I wrote wrongly attributed to someone else. It was a book review for Alban Institute's Congregations magazine, so I guess I can be grateful that it wasn’t the most original piece I’ve written. But I looked in the magazine and there was someone else’s name at the bottom. And the then  the book review next to it, for a book I've never read, had my name on it. Very strange.

 

But it sounds like I may have been critical of this other book in the same way that the reviewer named Pamela Fickenscher might have been. The author did a tour of U.S. churches, a sort of mystery shopper deal, and like most of us she had her list of criteria for what a “good church” looked like. She claimed she wanted a place that didn’t care about her politics, but then criticized churches whose politics seemed different from hers. She claimed she wanted a place with little hierarchy and lots of member input in every decision, but she wanted great music and a transcendent worship experience.

 

What she didn’t seem to understand was that being “caught up” in worship is something that necessarily gets us to set aside our lists of criteria, our evaluations, what writers call our “editors mind.” I’m sure brain scientists have a term for this, but checklists and transcendence don’t usually go together.

I'm preaching on Psalm 98 this weekend, and on praise as a dying form of speech. Not praise as in "Good job, God, I approve of what you did there!" but praise in the biblical sense, which gets us over ourselves.

Or, as Kevin Henkes puts it, in Lilly's  Purple Plastic Purse: "'Wow,' [Lilly's teacher]  said. That was all he really could say. 'Wow.' "

Or, Alleluia.

 May you be lost in wonder, love and praise some time this Sunday.

Sunday's comin'. . . lectionary blog

 I love the book of Acts, but  I hate the way the lectionary employs it in the season of Easter. Peter's out-of-context testimonies to the resurrection don't do much for me, and I can't imagine that the 50% of the congregation that will appear on Sunday will get much out of the portion the lectionary appoints.  Acts 10 is too wonderful a story to have it chopped up in this way on a Sunday when we can't possibly do it justice anyway.

 Anyhoo. . . like most preachers I'm focusing on the Gospel this week, but choosing to go with Mark instead of John. Yes, it's a very odd story, but it's oddness is a great starting point, I think. I figure a good number of people who attend on Easter Sunday are NOT showing up for the sermon, and they may resent having to be there at all (But Grandma insisted. . . ). But that's all the more reason not to just reiterate the stuff they already know and act as if this story is anything but very, very strange.

So, Mark it is. The women hear that Christ is raised, and run away, saying nothing to anyone, for they were afraid. But we know, and Mark knows we know, that this is not how it ends.

 I'm moved by what Rob Bell put together in his Nooma "You." He doesn't reference Mark, but this seems to be a case where the sermon does what the text intended, namely to turn the one overhearing the gospel into the gospel. It doesn't end in fear and silence. It ends in testimony.  I can't prove anything to anyone on Sunday morning, but I can bear witness, which is the only way the faith has ever been passed on anyway.

snakes. . . .why did it have to be snakes?: lectionary Lent4B

 The lectionary presents some tough choices this week. Either pick one of two overly familiar texts -- John 3:16 or Ephesians  -- or preach the strange tale of a snake on a pole in Numbers.

I'm going with the snakes, if for no other reason than they evoke real emotion in people. I sent out a message to the congregation asking if anyone owns a pet snake, and if such a person might be able to bring it on Sunday. Within an hour three people replied voicing complete horror at the idea. 

I don't like them either. Make my skin crawl. I think there may be a gene missing in people who aren't creeped out by them.

Snake trivia: what makes snakes different from lizards? There are, in fact, some lizards without legs. The difference is two other things snakes lack: ears and eyelids. They do not hear (just get vibrations from the ground) and cannot blink. Eeeewwww.

And yet, God uses a snake to heal in Numbers, and John uses that pole-with-a-snake as a parallel of Christ lifted up.

The cross is pretty icky too, to put it mildly. How on earth could anything good come of that?

 Apparently, God can use just about anything. Even the creepiest thing on earth. Even the most rotten way human beings treat one another. I don't have to like it. But perhaps it means even the most reptilian brained part of me -- my fears, my self-protection, my laziness -- can also be redeemed.

Holy Spirit playing a joke?; lectionary blog

I've been in a dry spell with blogging lately, and then this week was coming up short on tomorrow's sermon as well. Not to worry, I thought, lots of time at the end of the week.

Then, as if it's the Spirit's little joke, I've been struggling with a very sore back the last couple days. I think I pulled an intercostal  muscle ice skating, so even breathing hurts, and lying down doesn't help either.

So I can't be too hard on Naaman in 2 Kings 5. Yes, he's plagued by his own pride, power and prejudice as well as leprosy. But sickness makes people cranky. I have newfound respect for all my friends and family who live with chronic pain. He wants relief, and wants it now.  To everyone like him, it probably sounds patronizing to give the old line, "But if he gets the quick fix he wants, he won't be healed of his real problem. . ."

I mean leprosy, for God's sake! He's got every right to be impatient.