Reformation 2019

Jeremiah 31:31-34

³¹The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. ³²It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt—a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the Lord.

³³But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. ³⁴No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, "Know the Lord," for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.

Along with the day of Pentecost, Reformation is a major – "wear red" – festival of the Holy Spirit. Two years ago we celebrated Reformation 500; we continue in a church that's still reforming—a reforming church that now includes the Roman Catholic branch of Christianity. Martin Luther insisted worship and hymn-singing in the vernacular was a mark of the true church. As a church of the Reformation we also can be a vernacular church in the sense of speaking the common cultural language of the people; we can present Christianity (that's so very other than business as usual, other than status quo) with vocabulary and symbols everyday regular people understand.

Instead of different scriptures for each lectionary year, every year Reformation repeats the same four readings. Today we'll look at the prophet Jeremiah's proclamation of God's new covenant with all creation.

God's covenants or agreements with humanity and with all creation are a prominent feature of the Hebrew Bible or Old Testament and continue into the New Testament / New Covenant scriptures with Jesus Christ, God's ultimate covenant. Covenant comes from co-venire, coming together, and was a familiar concept in the Ancient Near East. Old Testament covenants include Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, David... creation itself was an act of covenant. Last spring on Lent 4 we specifically talked about covenants.

A new anything implies an old one, but this is more a new location than it is a new agreement. We've discussed how the heart in Hebrew biology isn't the location of emotions we consider it in the contemporary, post-enlightenment global west. In Hebrew biology and bible, heart goes beyond will or intention to include reason, wisdom, creativity, discernment, etc. (and also emotion). Jeremiah announces a covenantal word about the neighbor. This new proclamation of God's eternal covenanting relates to creating and sustaining community by following the guidelines God gave the people with the commandments; it will become natural and almost instinctive because it will embodied as part of everyone's being.

The people received the commandments as words of grace in the wilderness on their way to settling in the promised land—not when they reached their destination. The commandments shape the people (that's us!) into rocking an anti-imperial lifestyle, into ruling and governing themselves by considering each other's needs, by not making gods of money, power, fame, or material stuff. God is the ultimate ruler, yet the commandments allow us to live as self-governing people. Maybe particularly with this being Luke's lectionary year that includes a fair amount from Jeremiah, we can view this new covenantal location as an opportunity for neighborology. After all, this newness supremely is about the neighbor, about creating and sustaining community by observing the Ten Words or Commandments of the Sinai covenant.

This new covenant location is an incarnate, enfleshed one. We discussed the role of our hearts in our bodies. Everyone realized when your heart stops beating you're dead. Among other aspects of hearts, Barbara told us a healthy heart is soft and vulnerable. Great image for relating to each other and to our neighbors!

Jeremiah 31:32 – the people broke the Sinai covenant of the ten commandments in a double sense: by shattering the stone tablets they were written on, and by not following them in their daily lives. Verse 33 – God and people literally belong to each other. Verse 34 – God for-gives (the reverse of give) so completely it's as if God totally forgets our wrongdoings.

Luke 22:20 Jesus – "This cup is the new covenant in my blood." This probably was the third cup, the cup of blessing or redemption after the Seder meal. It evoked or re-membered the rescue from Egypt and also referred to Isaiah 53:12 with the servant whose life is poured out.

Pentecost 19C

Genesis 32:22-31

²²The same night Jacob got up and took his two wives Leah and Rachel, his two maids, and his eleven children, and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. ²³He took them and sent them across the stream, and likewise everything that he had. ²⁴Jacob was left alone; and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. ²⁵When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he struck him on the hip socket; and Jacob's hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. ²⁶Then he said, "Let me go, for the day is breaking."

But Jacob said, "I will not let you go, unless you bless me." ²⁷So he said to him, "What is your name?" And he said, "Jacob." ²⁸Then the man said, "You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with humans, and have prevailed." ²⁹Then Jacob asked him, "Please tell me your name." But he said, "Why is it that you ask my name?"

And there he blessed him. ³⁰So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, "For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life is preserved." ³¹The sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel, limping because of his hip.

For today's first reading we're in Genesis, the first book of the bible that means origins or beginnings. As the commentaries warned – and as I cautioned – this story contains a lot of ambiguity and it definitely lacks clarity; despite its wide openness to interpretation, don't try to wrap it up too tightly. This Jacob account is about identity, theophany, and incarnation.

Identity

When we study the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible, we often consider the main identity-formation events for God's people as:

• the liberation account of the 40 years God's people spent in the exodus desert on their way to the promised land as they radically trusted God's provision and

• the freedom in obedience God's gift of the Ten Commandments or Words from Mount Sinai.

Theophany

Theo refers to God, phan is showing, manifesting, revealing, so a theophany is a revelation of God. Earlier this year we had theophanies at Jesus' baptism and transfiguration. Those specifically revealed God as triune, a three-in-one trinity = tri-unity.

This passage includes Hebrew words ending with "el" that indicate a god or divinity.

Incarnation

Christianity is about God's incarnation (embodiment, enfleshment) in Jesus of Nazareth. In this Genesis scripture, the Hebrew word for the person Jacob wrestles with is "man" — a human.

---

Context: in high anxiety, literal fear and trembling, Jacob is on the way to meet up with Esau, maybe even reconcile with him. Jacob is not traveling light! His entourage includes his spouses and kids; he is bringing dozens of animals as gifts for Esau. This happens after his famous "Jacob's ladder dream" that leads to his naming a place or location—Bethel, or house (beth) of God (el).

Jacob has crept away from his retinue off to a quiet place by himself, beside the Jabbok (note how j-b-k echo the letters in Jacob's name), a stream or tributary of the Jordan River. Night falls (the sky gets dark), and somehow Jacob and a stranger encounter each other in an actual physical and verbal battle.

In the cultures of the bible, names described people and places to a far greater extent than they do for us today. Barbara reminded us how (among other devious events) Jacob stole his older fraternal twin Esau's birthright. The ongoing Genesis narrative reveals(!) a lot about Jacob, whose name can mean trickster, conniver, supplanter.

32:27 the stranger asks Jacob's name ... 32:28 and then renames him. First part of "Isra" has several possible meanings that include strive, contend, fight; the "el" ending is about God. Not only the NT with Jesus but also places in the OT bring us God incarnate, enfleshed, embodied. Jacob recognized the stranger as God, and named that place with the "el" suffix.

Here we have a type of death and resurrection with Jacob shedding his old name, assuming a new one.

Until the homecoming from Babylonian exile when they became Jews, God's people claimed the name Israel as those who trusted God so, who lived so intimately intertwined with the God of heaven and earth, they fully lived into the name as they dared battle, contend with, challenge, fight with God.

As Pastor Peg pointed out, Jacob didn't suddenly become the ultimate good guy! From the start, his entire story was vital in God's dealings with the nation of Israel, and shows how God *even* uses us with our imperfections and our frequent three steps forward, two steps backward attitudes and behaviors.

Read ahead to Genesis 33 and find out what happens what Jacob/Israel and Esau meet each other again! It's a really good one!

Pentecost 18C

2 Timothy 2:8-15

⁸Remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, a descendant of David—that is my gospel, ⁹for which I suffer hardship, even to the point of being chained like a criminal. But the word of God is not chained. ¹⁰Therefore I endure everything for the sake of the elect, so that they may also obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus, with eternal glory. ¹¹The saying is sure: If we have died with him, we will also live with him; ¹²if we endure, we will also reign with him; if we deny him, he will also deny us; ¹³if we are faithless, he remains faithful— for he cannot deny himself. ¹⁴Remind them of this, and warn them before God that they are to avoid wrangling over words, which does no good but only ruins those who are listening. ¹⁵Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved by him, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly explaining the word of truth.

We started with a very short version...

...of my intro to the pastoral epistles and the Timothy letters from three years ago, 2016.

The two Timothy letters and the epistle to Titus sometimes are called the Pastoral Epistles. [side note: "pastoral" means rural.] The apostle Paul definitely did not write them. 1 and 2 Timothy contain vocabulary and syntax Paul never used; some of the words are in no other NT document.

Authorship and literary conventions were very different in the first and second centuries, without our well-developed and very legally-tinged concepts of copyright, intellectual property, and reuse rights. What we'd call "false attribution" was no big deal back then; it could be a compliment to a colleague, classmate, or teacher; it simply could indicate the author's attempt to continue writing in the style of the person cited as author; it could lead to wider readership if people thought someone famous was the author. The person who pulled together these letters – probably around the start of the second century – wrote them as Paul's final summary discourse with reflections and advice: "Concluding Unscientific Postscript."

The pastoral letters emphasize emerging church structure and organization, "ecclesiology," =the word about the church. As soon as you have many people with similar goals and purposes you need organization. We find requirements for bishops/overseers, deacons, widows—"Church Ladies". We read about laying on of hands, which would be ordination, commissioning, consecration of people called to public, vocational ministry. The Timothy letters refer to immortality—a Greek or Hellenistic concept that implies lack of death. Resurrection from the dead is the biblical reality; you need to die in order to be resurrected!

Content

2:8 Remember Jesus Christ, raised from the Dead—for the Apostle Paul, the gospel, the good news is death and resurrection. Though Paul didn't compose this letter, it bears some marks of his theology and this is a strong one.

2:9b But the word of God is not chained. This may have been a prison or captivity letter as we find in Paul's Philippians letter, later on from Martin Luther at Wartburg Castle, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Martin Luther King, Jr., Nelson Mandela, and many less-renowned individuals, thus the "chain" reference. God's word is not in handcuffs and shackles, not in a county jail cell or in a federal prison. The written word and Jesus Christ the incarnate Word are not captive to geography or culture or nation (thus no national flag in the worship area), not limited by any time or any place; they are wired for every time and every place. God's word is free-range, has no boundaries or borders.

However, we get to interpret/conceptualize and contextualize the word for this place, this time, and especially for where our neighbors and newcomers to church find themselves. The NRSV Bible we generally use is a revision of the RSV where this verse says, "The word of God is not fettered." So poetic!

2:11-13 probably is a hymn already known to the recipients of the letter, similar to the hymn inserted into Philippians that tells us Christ Jesus did not count equality with God something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant....

Where We Live

"Wrangling over words!" The written word can be a bit ambiguous? The spoken word, as well? So God gave us the incarnate word, and continues giving the world an incarnate, enfleshed, living word through us, those baptized into Jesus' death and resurrection. Each of us walks, prays, and talks through responses to our neighbors in this very ethnically and culturally diverse neighborhood. People from all types of backgrounds come to church, join us, often choose to be baptized. We need to be adept at contextualizing, enculturating, translating into their vernacular.

Blessing of the Animals 2019

Job 38:1-11; 16-18

¹Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind:

²"Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?
³Gird up your loins like a man,
I will question you, and you shall declare to me.

⁴"Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?
Tell me, if you have understanding.
⁵Who determined its measurements—surely you know!
Or who stretched the line upon it?
⁶On what were its bases sunk,
or who laid its cornerstone
⁷when the morning stars sang together
and all the heavenly beings shouted for joy?

⁸"Or who shut in the sea with doors
when it burst out from the womb?—
⁹when I made the clouds its garment,
and thick darkness its swaddling band,
¹⁰and prescribed bounds for it,
and set bars and doors,
¹¹and said, 'Thus far shall you come, and no farther,
and here shall your proud waves be stopped'?

¹⁶"Have you entered into the springs of the sea,
or walked in the recesses of the deep?
¹⁷Have the gates of death been revealed to you,
or have you seen the gates of deep darkness?
¹⁸Have you comprehended the expanse of the earth?
Declare, if you know all this."

Blessing of the Animals / Integrity of All Creation

Every year many churches and a few other organizations celebrate a Blessing of the Animals on St Francis of Assisi day on 06 October, or on a Saturday or Sunday near the 6^th.

Just as for previous years, instead of beginning with background for the day and appointed scripture text, I suggested everyone say a little about connections with non-human aspects of creation that especially interested them. Not surprisingly, most of it was about Pets Everyone Has Loved.

Job resides in the Writings section of the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible; in terms of origins, it's probably the oldest book of the bible and most likely circulated widely for a very long time in the dynamic oral tradition before getting written down—and even later on, finally edited into its current form. Final compilation may have even as late as during the Babylonian exile or even later after a remnant returned to Jerusalem and started to rebuild community, religion, and life in general. Job is one of the main books cited for answers to why bad things happen to good people. In the end, God's response to Job turns out to be God is God and we're not.

Today's second reading from Job is one of at least four biblical creation accounts that include Genesis 1 (that we also read), Genesis 2, and Psalm 104. Steve W. received a Lutheran Study Bible when he formally joined the church, and we often have him read its commentary on our current reading, but in Steve's absence Pastor Peg read the LSB's notes that pointed out how this creation account is more playful and casual than any of the others. How fitting for a day when critters come to church!

Michaelmas 2019

Luke 10:17-20

¹⁷The seventy returned with joy, saying, "Lord, in your name even the demons submit to us!" ¹⁸He said to them, "I watched Satan fall from heaven like a flash of lightning. ¹⁹See, I have given you authority to tread on snakes and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy; and nothing will hurt you. ²⁰Nevertheless, do not rejoice at this, that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven."

The context for this very short passage:

Jesus has given instructions for proclaiming the reign of heaven, Kingdom of God on earth. He wisely advises everyone to travel in pairs (just as everyone now has been insisting kids always do on their way to and from school, or going anywhere); Jesus tells them to announce the presence of the Realm of Shalom to all they encounter. They need to accept the hospitality and act as guests of households they visit. Eat whatever people give you! "You are what you eat" – "we are what we eat" – we are our hosts. They and we are one.

Eating "whatever" would have been a major problem for people with religious dietary laws; in Luke Volume 2, his Acts of the Apostles, we read a fame account of God declaring all food that's a gift of creation good:

Acts 10

⁹About noon the following day as they were on their journey and approaching the city, Peter went up on the roof to pray. ¹⁰He became hungry and wanted something to eat, and while the meal was being prepared, he fell into a trance. ¹¹He saw heaven opened and something like a large sheet being let down to earth by its four corners. ¹²It contained all kinds of four-footed animals, as well as reptiles and birds. ¹³Then a voice told him, "Get up, Peter. Kill and eat."
¹⁴"Surely not, Lord!" Peter replied. "I have never eaten anything impure or unclean."
¹⁵The voice spoke to him a second time, "Do not call anything impure that God has made clean."
¹⁶This happened three times, and immediately the sheet was taken back to heaven.

Luke 10:17 – the number 70 combines 7 – the number of perfection and 10 – the number of completion in Hebrew numerology

Luke 10:18 "I watched Satan fall from heaven like a flash of lightning." Jesus declares Satan, the powers of evil, the devil, oppressive imperial structures, ecological degradation, (insert long list here),everything that hinders life no longer has power, authority, staying power, or sovereignty. Jesus holds all power and authority with no checks or balances.

Although we need to live – and work – without fear as God's hands, feet, voices, minds, imaginations, we can trust God already has been at work in the world before God leads us to a particular situation—God has been to our future! That's sometimes called the previousness of God.