The Day of Pentecost 2020

Acts 2:1-8

¹When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. ²And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. ³Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. ⁴All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.

⁵Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. ⁶And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each. ⁷Amazed and astonished, they asked, "Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? ⁸And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language?

COVID-19

This is the 13^th Sunday in a row we haven't met on the church campus. Our last time physically together was the Eve of the LA Marathon when we gathered for Holden Evening Prayer with an interactive study of Psalm 121, a savory supper of sandwiches and salads—plus our Second Annual Bakeoff. Psalm 121 assures us "The Lord is your keeper" (verse 5a) and "The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in from this time on and forevermore." (verse 8) What better words could there be to start our months apart from one another? …though we didn't realize it until later in the week.


Prayer

God of creation, God of resurrection, God of pentecost, what a time this is! What a time for your Spirit; what a time for your Spirit-filled people! God of life, God of love, we grieve the murder of George Floyd. Pain and death and tired and violence and stereotypes and tokenism and seeing the law cover the perp again with the victims getting nothing again … will make people do things they never imagined they could do.

Spirit is a-movin' all over the land—this Spirit blows where it will; Spirit burns where it will. The wind of pentecost cleans, refreshes, clears, and renews. The fire of pentecost sears, refines, clarifies, and ignites. The Spirit of Pentecost is the Spirit of Freedom, but none of us is free unless all of us are free. The Spirit of Pentecost is the Spirit of Justice, yet not a single individual knows justice until everyone does.

Earth cannot bear the sorrows of too many deaths, too much loss from COVID-19. God, we know you lead the way into the world's future. You will go ahead of us, your Spirit will lead us to the places that are ready for us.

In Jesus' name,
Amen


Recently

The people who assemble the lectionary that provides our scripture readings don't always do everything in order:

• Two weeks ago we heard Jesus' promise in John's gospel to send an advocate, defender, helper, comforter.

• On the second Sunday of Easter, we heard the upper room narrative of Jesus' bestowing the Holy Spirit of life on the gathered assembly—and sending them out!

• Last week we heard Jesus tell his disciples, "You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth." Acts 1:8

The church's year of grace features three major festivals that relate to each Person of the Trinity/Godhead:

• Christmas – Nativity –> Creation
• Resurrection – Easter –> Redemption
• Pentecost – Whitsunday [British Isles term, refers to white robes worn by people being baptized on Pentecost] –> Sanctification / Theosis / Holiness / Deification / Divinization


The Day of Pentecost

• Luke 4:18-19 begins Jesus' public ministry with the HS;
• Luke's book of Acts begins our public ministry with the HS.

Easter is 50 Days; today, the Day of Pentecost is the 50^th day of Easter. Penta = 50. Similar words includes pentagram, pentagon, pentacle, pentatonic.

Scripture reveals countless ways the Holy Spirit always has been present on earth; the Day of Pentecost celebrates the more spectacular manifestations of the Spirit Jesus' followers experienced after Jesus' resurrection and ascension. In his Acts of the Apostles Luke brings us the only scriptural account of the Day of Pentecost; tradition says it began in the same upper room as Jesus' last supper we remember on Maundy Thursday. The Holy Spirit we sometimes refer to as the Third Person of the Trinity is prominent In Luke's gospel and in his Acts of the Apostles. As theologian Jürgen Moltmann explains so well, "…the Holy Spirit is …the creative and life-giving, redeeming and saving God … present in a special way."

• in all of these Day of Pentecost accounts, Spirit is Pneuma rather than the Paraclete Jesus promised in last week's (Easter 7) text from John 16:7. (But in John 16:13 Jesus speaks of the Pneuma=spirit of truth.)
• Luke'a gospel and his Acts of the Apostles use the word Spirit (pneuma in Greek), and not Paraclete/Advocate.
• Pneumatology is the technical word for the branch of theology that's about the person, presence, and activity of the HS.
• The Spirit came to individuals gathered in community, "all together in one place." In the pentecost of our baptism, we receive the Holy Spirit.

In this narrative, everyone from everywhere was in Jerusalem for the Jewish Pentecost. Shavuot, the feast of weeks (Exodus 34:22, Deuteronomy 16:10) is "The day Heaven kissed Earth" as God bestowed the 10 Commandments from Mount Sinai. Like Pentecost, Shavuot refers to seven weeks – "a week of weeks" – after Passover.

• Acts 2:3, 4, 11 "tongues" is glossos – you may know the word glossalalia for speaking in tongues some charismatic churches practice; when we dissect scripture and find a phrase out of line with the rest of the content, we sometimes refer to the added words as a "gloss."

• Acts 2:6, 8 "tongues" is dialect, one of our English words for language.

Everyone heard in their own language. Last year on the Day of Pentecost we discussed the importance of learning other spoken languages, and maybe especially cultural languages. Those "other cultures" sometimes include other sections of the USA. The Spirit of God surrounds and fills all creation. In some senses, the fire and wind of the HS blows away and incinerates differences and barriers of culture, status and religion, gender, age, ethnicity; in a more biblically true sense, the HS rearranges expectations and demands to make room for differences that enrich the entire community.


Considerations

The HS is constantly in action, but to us humans it seems as if sometimes the Spirit nudges us toward greater changes than at other times. The COVID-19 pandemic remains an opportunity for increased scientific research and knowledge. Despite deaths, job losses, and overall economic devastation, this has become a time of phenomenal caring and compassion, one of imaginatively figuring out how to move forward in retail, recreational, and educational venues. Did you notice sales of board games are up? We've learned physical distancing and social distancing are different concepts!

With the sudden(? probably not) eruption of rioting and violence in the wake of an officer sworn to protect peace and justice murdering a civilian …
• Can we learn to understand the language of looting, violence, anger, and torches that are not the fire of pentecost?

None of us approaches human perfection, yet as we claim the righteousness of Jesus Christ…
• How much leeway can we allow for bad behaviors? In what circumstances?

We won't hang red banners from the rafters this year!
• Are you doing anything to make Pentecost 2020 unforgettable?

Specifically related to our life together on Santa Monica Blvd:
• What changes do you imagine the HS nudging – or propelling – us toward between the first Sunday we gather again and (for example) Thanksgiving Day?

• What image(s) of the Holy Spirit particularly resonate(s) with you? Wind? Fire? Dove? Advocate? Peace? Attorney? Comforter? Quilt? Something different?

• Have you especially sensed the Spirit at work in your own life or in your surroundings during the past few months? Or not?


Next Week and Counting

Next Sunday we'll celebrate the Feast of the Holy Trinity / "tri-unity"; after that we'll spend 6 months in a growing, greening segment of Ordinary Time when we count Sundays after the Day of Pentecost. We can be confident our baptism (immersion and filling) with the Holy Spirit of Pentecost will enable us to live as Jesus's crucified and risen presence everywhere we go.

Ascension 2020

COVID-19 #SaferAtHome

Since early March we've been church without walls – as the church always is – but we've been doing it in a very different way. Most of us have been doing our best to accomplish our usual tasks by Staying Safe and Staying Home. With fewer direct service opportunities like serving meals, visiting homebound and sick friends and neighbors, churches all over the world have used this unique opportunity for prayer, scripture study, live and pre-recorded worship and praise. Although I've enjoyed preparing a more formal than usual lesson to blog on Saturdays, I'm looking forward to meeting in real life again soon, and to live, on-campus worship.


Prayer

"Glorious Christ,

you whose divine influence is active at the very heart of matter, and at the dazzling centre where the innumerable fibres of the multiple meet: you whose power is as implacable as the world and as warm as life, you whose forehead is of the whiteness of snow, whose eyes are of fire, and whose feet are brighter than molten gold; you whose hands imprison the stars; you are the first and the last, the living and the dead and the risen again; it is to you to whom our being cries out a desire as vast as the universe: In truth you are our Lord and our God!
Amen."

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Mass on the World, 1923

Luke 24:44-53

⁴⁴Then Jesus said to them, "These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you—that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled." ⁴⁵Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, ⁴⁶and he said to them, "Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, ⁴⁷and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. ⁴⁸You are witnesses of these things. ⁴⁹And see, I am sending upon you what my Father promised; so stay here in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high."

⁵⁰Then he led them out as far as Bethany, and, lifting up his hands, he blessed them. ⁵¹While he was blessing them, he withdrew from them and was carried up into heaven. ⁵²And they worshiped him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy; ⁵³and they were continually in the temple blessing God.

Acts 1:4-11

⁴…Jesus ordered them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait there for the promise of the Father. "This," he said, "is what you have heard from me; ⁵for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now."

⁶So when they had come together, they asked him, "Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?" ⁷He replied, "It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority. ⁸But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth."

⁹When he had said this, as they were watching, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. ¹⁰While he was going and they were gazing up toward heaven, suddenly two men in white robes stood by them. ¹¹They said, "Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven."

Ascension – Easter 7

Easter is a season that's a week of weeks, (the biblical number of) 7 times 7. Next Sunday we'll celebrate the Day of Pentecost, the third great Trinitarian festival, that's the 50^th day of Easter—the pentecostal gift of the Holy Spirit enables the church to do the "greater works" Jesus promised. We then move into the green and growing season of Pentecost, a l-o-o-o-n-n-g segment of Ordinary Time when the church really comes into its own.

Today is day 43 of Easter, often commemorated as the Sunday after Ascension Thursday that the church observes on the 40^th day of Easter. For Ascension Day this year, Pastor Peg and Friends posted an Ascension worship and study video anyone can watch any time.

In easy theological terms, ascension, ascendancy, ascent refer to reign, rule, sovereignty, power, authority, stewardship. Not "domination" as people sometimes misinterpret dominion in Genesis 2, but caretaking and responsiveness to the needs of all creation everywhere. Unlike in human governments and organizations, Jesus' authority has no checks and balances. It is supreme. It is absolute.


Luke – Acts

As we prepare for the season of Pentecost and close to six months' focus on our living as Jesus' presence in the world, let's consider both Ascension passages from Luke: the account in the gospel that bears his name, along with his account from the Acts of the Apostles.

Luke 24:⁴⁹ "…I am sending upon you what my Father promised; so stay here in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high."

Acts 1:⁵ "…for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now."

⁶So when they had come together, they asked him, "Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?" ⁷He replied, "It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority. ⁸But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth."

When the disciples ask the resurrected Jesus if now he finally would "restore the kingdom to Israel," he replies, "the question is wrong," and tells them to wait, they will receive power (the Greek is our dynamite word) and then they'll be his witnesses everywhere. What you’ll get is not reclaimed splendors like the Davidic monarchy or the Jerusalem temple! You'll receive the Holy Spirit so you can live as Jesus' presence in the world; from now on, the world will discover Jesus within the church. In other words, Jesus' disciples (that's us!) will be the ones to restore God's reign of love, justice, mercy, and shalom on earth.

Jesus promises us baptism or literal immersion in the Holy Spirit of life; Jesus promises our lives will witness to him, but we don't do this on our own, by ourselves; we accomplish it with the power of God's life with us and within us. In the global reach of the Holy Spirit of Pentecost, we become Jesus' presence on earth and begin restoring God's reign over all creation, as the HS empowers us to walk the talk!


Questions

• What does it mean to be Jesus' witnesses? Think of courtroom testimony.

• When we return to Santa Monica Boulevard, is there any new or renewed ministry you'd like to see happen and/or participate in during the next few months?

• Do you have a sense anything we've been doing will change substantially? I particularly think of the choir and of our own congregational singing. Assuming we'll be arranged 6 feet apart and probably wear face masks for a while…

• I'm also thinking of activities that bring us together in more informal, less structured ways, like craft days and Sunday brunch.

# # #

Easter 6A

John 14:15-21

¹⁵"If you love me, you will keep my commandments. ¹⁶And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate, to be with you forever. ¹⁷This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you.

¹⁸"I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you. ¹⁹In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live. ²⁰On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. ²¹They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me; and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them."

COVID-19 again

Anyone know Carly Simon's song Anticipation?

"We can never know about the days to come, but we think about them anyway."

Whatever the subject or situation, we never know what's next, yet we still think about it. I don't know if "we" in Carly's song is the royal we, the deferential we, or simply every single one of us. (Except when they have actual information from the creator of a song, most song meanings sites make random, often stupid guesses.) In this global corona virus pandemic, there is no us and them. Concerning susceptibility, regarding care for neighbors next door or on the other side of the world, as we look into future days to come, there's only us, we, our, ours. Theirs is ours. What's mine is yours. As disciples of Jesus, can we live and lead during this time of suffering and uncertainty in ways that heal and truly bring us together?

Today's gospel reading assures us we can live and lead and help heal. Together.


Prayer

God of constant presence, God of resurrection promise, we bless you for welcoming our praise and heeding our prayers, for staying alongside us with your steadfast love. Thank you again for first responders and essential workers; please keep them healthy and safe. Thank you for breaking down real and imagined divisions and barriers between them and us. Thank you for the written word that reveals you as God of the promised land, but also as God of wilderness, God of exile, God of pain and loss wherever it happens.

In the name of Jesus, who calls us friends, who in the Holy Spirit of Life calls and enables us to live as comforters to our neighbors.
Amen!

cf: Psalm 66; Acts 17; John 14


Picture



On my oldest blog, desert spirit's fire! I almost never post without at least one picture. This blog's purpose and personality are different, but I couldn't resist an illustration this week. Keep reading!

Easter is 50 Days

The Great Fifty Days of Easter are almost over—Easter is a week of weeks (7 x 7). The sixth Sunday of Easter is day 36 of 50. The third of the church's great trinitarian festivals, the Day of Pentecost, is the fiftieth day of Easter.


John's Gospel

Each of the synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke that view Jesus' ministry in a somewhat similar manner) has its own lectionary year. John's gospel doesn't, although during the shortest gospel Mark's year we hear a lot of John, and for the Great Fifty Days of Easter during all three years the gospel readings are mostly from John.

John is the gospel of God's abiding presence in Jesus Christ. This good news we received from the community gathered around Jesus' beloved disciple John offers ways to live faithfully and fruitfully with speech and action that make a difference in the world. With the gift of the Holy Spirit we receive in baptism, we live as God's abiding, comforting presence in the world.


The Sixth Sunday of Easter

• John chapters 13 through 17 sometimes are known as Jesus' Farewell Discourses.

Today's gospel reading happens in the upper room of Maundy Thursday after Jesus washed the disciples' feet. In this passage, Jesus promises to send "another advocate." Jesus says anyone who loves him will keep the commandments; Jesus promises to love and reveal himself to those who love him. In today's text Jesus promises the gift of the Holy Spirit, but four weeks ago we read about Jesus bestowing the Holy Spirit on the evening of the first Easter Day when we celebrated Easter 2:

• This year's notes from Easter 2

However, the lectionary people scheduled today's scripture about Jesus' Maundy Thursday promise of the gift of the Holy Spirit for late in the season of Easter. Maybe because two weeks from today, we'll celebrate the Day of Pentecost with the account of the Holy Spirit filling the world? By the way, that event also happens in the upper room. The same room as Maundy Thursday and Easter evening? Not sure.


Have You Heard this Story?

Grandma couldn't get to church one Sunday, so she asked her granddaughter to listen carefully and tell her what the pastor preached. When granddaughter got home, grandma asked what the pastor talked about. Grandkid replied, "Don't worry! You will get your quilt!"


Presence. Comfort. Accompaniment.

¹⁶"I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate, to be with you forever."

Jesus promises to send the advocate or paraclete, a word for the Holy Spirit that's unique to John.

Para means beside, next to, alongside. Clesis /clete means call, called. Paraclete in Greek is the same as advocate in Latin: ad means beside; vocare means call, called.

Jesus was the first paraclete, the original called-along-side, so he promises to send "another," additional one.

Paraclete / advocate has a legal dimension as public defender, defense attorney, lawyer for the accused. Just as here and now, in Jesus' day if you went to trial and didn't have your own attorney, the court would appoint a paraclete to defend you. Beyond the legal definition, a paraclete is about general comfort, protection, counsel, and guidance—all wrapped up in God's presence the same way a cozy quilt or comforter wraps us up. This paraclete Jesus promises is on our side and has our back. We won't fall!

Translations/interpretations include comforter, helper, advocate, counselor, solicitor, attorney…The Message reads "another friend." Friend implies unranked equality, intimacy, one knows what the other does. Common English Bible [CEB] says companion, someone we break bread with. Ever notice what a leveling experience sharing a meal or a snack with a person is? How eating at the same table often is the start of real friendship? Sitting beside each other at Sunday brunch?

Like a keyboard accompaniment to a vocal or instrumental solo or choir anthem, the Holy Spirit accompanies us. Similar to breaking bread along side a companion (with+bread=com+panion).

King James [KJV] language parallels Jesus promising not to leave us comfort-less after he promises to send another comforter.

• The Comforter will stay with us forever: what does comforter and forever mean for us?

• As people who receive the Holy Spirit at baptism, God calls us to comfort, help, advocate for others. What are some ways that happens? Being a cozy blanket or quilt without hovering too closely and smothering the person?


Comfort, Presence, COVID-19, Resurrection

Especially at this time, everyone in the world needs comfort, solace, and reassurance. Engulfed by a demon that continues to kill too many people, an intruder with a multiplier effect on every aspect of the economy, every corner of our lives, we need help! Comfort! A friend! A defense attorney! And we need new life out of death!

The Holy Spirit that wraps us up in comforting hugs is the Holy Spirit of resurrection that raised Jesus from death to life. To be resurrected? You first need to be dead! Gimme Jesus!

• What does resurrection mean to you?

• Jesus has many titles or names (Savior, Redeemer, Lord, King, Rabbi); what title would you give the Holy Spirit?


Verses 17, 18, 19: Worlds & Orphans

In the New Testament, two different words typically get translated as "world." Here in John 14:17, 19, world/cosmos means this planet, a physical space; it also can refer to people, institutions, and structures that do not know or obey God. John 14:18 – when Jesus promises not to leave us orphans, the Greek is the same as our word for orphan. Orphan is another legal term: a minor without living parents, or someone whose parents have abandoned them.

• Jesus will not leave us orphans or abandon us? What does that promise feel like to you?


Keeping the Commandments

Today's reading from John's Gospel begins and ends with love, commandments, and obedience. The fulfillment of God's promises depends upon God's free, unearned gifts of grace; they also depend upon our obedience.

John 14:¹⁵If you love me, you will keep my commandments.

verses 15, 21 love, love, loved, love = agape, the word for love the NT uses for God's unconditional love

verse 21 appear, make manifest, reveal = same as epiphany

• What does Jesus mean when he tells us he and the Father will love and reveal themselves to those who love him?

• "If you love me…" What is the connection between love and obedience?

For Consideration Now or Later

John 14:¹⁵If you love me, you will keep my commandments.

Martin Luther begins his Small Catechism, traditional preparation for God's gift of First Communion, with the Ten Commandments.

• But aren't the sacraments all about grace, about gift?

• What does it mean to obey Jesus?

• Are Jesus' demands different from or the same as the ten words or commandment of the Sinai Covenant? Why? How?


• Matthew 19:16-22 the rich young ruler

"What must I do to inherit eternal life?" and Jesus answers, "keep the commandments" with the demands of the Sinai covenant.


• Mark 10:17-22 where Jesus tells the rich guy, "You know the commandments" and does a basic short list.

After Jesus sends out the seventies, tells them share the peace; tell people God's reign has come near, shake the dust off; after Satan falling from heaven…


• Luke 10:25-37 Jesus asks the legal eagle, "What do you read in the law?" After the lawyer answers, "love God, neighbor, and self," Jesus responds to "…and who is my neighbor" with the parable of Good Samaritan.

To be saved, made whole, have integrity, be alive as part of the common wealth, we must keep the commandments that are God's working papers or guidelines for our lives together. None of us is fully saved or redeemed until everyone is. No one has fullness of shalom until all creation does.

• What is the connection between obedience and freedom?

• What is the connection between faith and action?

Easter 5A

1 Peter 2:1, 2-10

¹Rid yourselves, therefore, of all malice, and all guile, insincerity, envy, and all slander. ²Like newborn infants, long for the pure, spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow into salvation— ³if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good. ⁴Come to him, a living stone, though rejected by mortals yet chosen and precious in God's sight, and ⁵like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. 

⁶For it stands in scripture: "See, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious; and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame." ⁷To you then who believe, he is precious; but for those who do not believe, "The stone that the builders rejected has become the very head of the corner," ⁸and "A stone that makes them stumble, and a rock that makes them fall." They stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do.

⁹But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. ¹⁰Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

 

COVID-19

With some trails and golf courses now accessible, a few shops offering curbside service to complement supermarkets and big boxes that have stayed open, we still need to #StaySafeStayHome and maintain physical distance outside our homes. On-campus, in-person church meetings will wait a while. As Nancy Pelosi observed, science and medicine are among the ways God acts in our favor and provides for our future.


Prayer

God of refuge, God of resurrection promise—our God who chooses us as your people! As the world continues in lockdown, guide us toward your marvelous light so we can reflect you and brighten our surroundings, so the world will recognize Jesus in us. We ask in the name of Jesus, Amen!

cf: Psalm 31; 1 Peter 2; John 14


1 Peter and 2 Peter – authorship

The pair of letters or epistles 1 Peter and 2 Peter definitely were not written by Peter the Apostle, and most likely the same individual didn't write both. When scholars assess writing, they check out content, context, language (vocabulary, syntax, etc.). Despite many Old Testament quotes and allusions the actual apostle Peter would have known from his studies of scripture, 1 Peter and 2 Peter probably were written to churches formed of mostly gentiles, who wouldn't have been familiar with those texts.

We've discussed how claiming authorship was very different from what it is now; there weren't any copyrights, trademarks, or other legalities to protect a person's creative or inventive output. Using someone else's name was a compliment, and (as Pastor Peg reminded us), a famous person would be more likely to get readers than an unknown would.


Virtually Live on Easter 5

Easter is 50 days, a week of weeks, 7 times 7. Today is the fifth Sunday of Easter, the 29^th day— so Happy Easter, even as this year of grace inclines toward the Day of Pentecost! During our current Revised Common Lectionary (RCL) year A, the second reading for all seven Sundays of Easter is from 1 Peter, but today is the first time this Easter season we're formally studying a reading from 1 Peter. Because of time constraints – brain constraints, too? – most weeks we focus on only one scripture, but 1 Peter and 2 Peter would be an interesting separate in-depth study.


Rocks – Jesus Christ – Us

OT and NT both use many pictures and metaphors for our relationship with God. Some of them describe our relationship to God and our characteristics as Christians by using the same words as it does for Jesus.

Stones, rocks, bricks, granite, concrete: hard, heavy, solid, safe, impenetrable, permanent, won't easily decay

Solidness, safety and security of rock, brick, adobe, concrete, or any masonry as walls or building foundations. This is earthquake country! How does initial construction and possible retrofitting affect how we experience the world around us when the ground beneath us and around us shakes? It's common to parallel human insecurity during an earthquake with human insecurities during times our society, family, finances, jobs, income, toilet paper and paper towel supply—everything literally is shaky. No exaggeration!

Remember the 12 January 2010 M7.0 Haiti earthquake that left the country in shambles? Three months later, the M7.2 April 4^th Sierra el Mayor / Easter EQ south of the international border in Baja California caused very little damage—though I can tell you it sounded like a freight train 100+ miles north in San Diego, Alta California. The Easter seismic event caused only minor disruption because contractors in USA and Mexico use rebar that reliably reinforces building materials that to some degree are stable and secure by themselves, but won't endure without added strengthening.

1 Peter 2:⁵like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

Sometimes we over-spiritualize scripture and our lives as Christians. Although that spiritual dimension is essential to our identity as God's people, Judaism and Christianity are highly earthbound and embodied. However, a large sense of this passage from 1 Peter is about our spiritual strengthening – spiritual rebar? – about us, like Jesus Christ, firmly situated where God has placed us. To a limited degree we humans are stable and secure on our own, but we can't last long without reinforcement from the HS and from community.

• 1 Peter 2:4 Jesus, a living stone;

• 1 Peter 2:5 us, like living stones.

What does it mean for each of us as individuals, for us as a community of faith within LA, for any of us as we eventually get to travel outside this region again to be "living stones"? How about writing a poem?


Chosen – Royal – Holy – God's Own

1 Peter 2:⁹But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. ¹⁰Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

Often called a "baptismal hymn" the two verses of 1 Peter 2:9-10 highlight aspects of our baptismal identity.

Word study! What are your own word associations and/or definitions of…

• royal – noble

• priest – mediator

• holy – sanctified, set apart, sacred, consecrated

• nation – ethnicity, people, tribe, generation, population

• God's own people – KJV, "peculiar people" – "special possession" in some translations that echoes a distinctive OT title for God's people

• proclaim – announce, preach, speak, declare, advertise

• mighty acts – "praises" / "excellencies" in some versions

• darkness

• light

• mercy

Easter 4A

COVID-19

The world continues #SaferAtHome with physical distancing, working at home, schooling at home, leaving home only for necessities. How long, O Lord? Thus far state and county tell us through 15^th May; church will be off-campus at least through the end of May.


Prayer

God of unmediated presence,
thank you again for never leaving us.
Thanks for helping us be part of the solution for preventing the spread of this dangerous virus.
Thank you for all the essential workers; please keep them safe and healthy.
Thank you again for widespread digital communication!
In Jesus' name we give you thanks,
Amen!


The Year

So far in the church's year of grace we've experienced Advent – waiting for God's arrival in our midst as a baby in the Bethlehem manger. Then Christmas, the feast of God's Incarnation on earth arrived and we met the infant Jesus. The season of Epiphany showed us God is God of all creation, for all creation. During Lent we revisited Jesus' earthly ministry. During Holy Week we journeyed to the cross with Jesus. The three days of the Triduum – "tri duum" – started with Maundy Thursday, continued to Good Friday, then Easter, Jesus' resurrection from death. Other years we physically gathered and celebrated Easter Vigil, Easter Sunrise, Easter Day, or all three. The lectionary also provides readings for Easter Evening, a wonderful way to close out the day and begin the Great Fifty Days of Easter.


The Season

Easter is a week of weeks, 7x7, and fills about 1/7 of the calendar year. The fiftieth day of Easter is the Day of Pentecost, the third of the church's Trinitarian festivals when we hear about people gathered together in Jerusalem to celebrate the wheat harvest and God's giving the Sinai Covenant / ten words or commandments through Moses. And on Pentecost we hear about the Holy Spirit filling all the people and all the world accompanied by sensory signs of wind and fire.


The Day

Every year the Fourth Sunday (day 22) of Easter is Good Shepherd Sunday, with Psalm 23 as its centerpiece. Most years we hear and sing several beautiful settings of Psalm 23, the Shepherd Psalm. Find your favorite on YouTube!


The Acts of the Apostles

Most Sundays the first reading comes from the Old Testament, but for the Sundays of Easter, the first reading is from the Acts of the Apostles. That's particularly apt because Acts brings us the world-changing, life-transforming activities of the newly birthed church. Hearing from Acts every Sunday also is a bit ironic because the lectionary hasn't yet given us the Day of Pentecost account from Acts 2 that describes the Holy Spirit filling the world accompanied by signs of wind and fire.

Luke who wrote the gospel also wrote the Acts of the Apostles. Luke's gospel is volume 1, Acts is volume 2; people sometimes refer to the pair as Luke-Acts. When we studied Luke's gospel in depth last year, we discovered he emphasizes the Holy Spirit, places everything in historical context, focuses on women and other marginalized populations, loves prayer, makes table fellowship prominent. Acts continues in the same direction.

We've discussed how the oral story-telling tradition took on additions, elaborations, and (especially) interpretations during the process. You know about the distinction between real and ideal? Most scholars assume Acts records some events as they really happened along with others that could occur when the Holy Spirit fills world and people. The title of one of Jürgen Moltmann's books is The Church in the Power of the Spirit. The church – that's us! – still lives, breathes, serves, and hopes in the power of the pentecostal spirit of life, the spirit of resurrection from the dead.

Acts 2:41, 42-47

⁴¹they gladly received the word Peter preached and three thousand were baptized on that day!

⁴²They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. ⁴³Awe came upon everyone, because many wonders and signs were being done by the apostles. ⁴⁴All who believed were together and had all things in common; ⁴⁵they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. ⁴⁶Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, ⁴⁷praising God and having the goodwill of all the people. And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.

Today's first reading officially begins with verse 42 and a description of Christian community, but I added 2:41 because it tells about the baptism of 3,000 people! You can describe the book of Acts as a blueprint or roadmap for living out our baptism—how, then, shall we live baptized?

2:42 "They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers."

Learning the words and interpretation of scripture, gathering with others, food, and prayer. Most scholars agree "breaking of bread" refers to the Lord's Supper, probably in what looks to us like a late twentieth century home church context. But without a doubt it also means routinely sharing food so no one has too much or too little, everyone has enough.

2:44 "all who believed were together and had all things in common."

Common ownership of goods and assets, selling stuff to provide for people in need may seem way "beyond" ideal. Even if we've done some anthropology field work or ministered in non-mainstream settings, most of us still tend to interpret scripture from a contemporary western viewpoint. However, in some rural communities and in many less-developed countries, fluid ownership of everything – "what's mine is yours as long as I don't need it right now and you do" – isn't uncommon.

Speaking of real / ideal, later in Acts, Luke writes about discord, persecution, disagreements, fractured relationships, things not going well. All in all, he doesn't present only an ideal, but wisely includes real situations that need resolution.

Koinonia is the Greek word often translated as fellowship. We get our multiple meaning English word common from koinonia. Routine, mundane, ordinary (also with meanings of well-arranged, commonplace, and others), jointly held...


Looking Ahead

Although we'll gather virtually at least through the month of May / Day of Pentecost, we still don't know when we'll return to campus.

Teaching – fellowship – breaking of bread – prayers – awe – all things in common

How well does today's reading describe church as you've experienced it?

• In our own West LA context?
• Other churches you've attended or where you've been involved?
• Churches you've read about?

When we can't be together physically

• How have you read or studied scripture, been taught by others online, in printed books and devotionals, by connections you instinctively make from your own memory and experience?
• Have you participated in church and/ or in other online communities?
• Shared meals in some way?
• Prayed together, either out loud at home, on the phone, or using prayers posted outline?
• Where have you experienced awe recently and a while ago? In nature? Gathered with other people at church? At a concert?

• Has anything about our current way of being church particularly blessed you? Or not?
• What do you miss most about not being in the same space on Sundays?

Easter 3A

Luke 24:13-35

¹³Now on that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, ¹⁴and talking with each other about all these things that had happened. ¹⁵While they were talking and discussing, Jesus himself came near and went with them, ¹⁶but their eyes were kept from recognizing him. ¹⁷And he said to them, "What are you discussing with each other while you walk along?" They stood still, looking sad. ¹⁸Then one of them, whose name was Cleopas, answered him, "Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem who does not know the things that have taken place there in these days?" ¹⁹He asked them, "What things?" They replied, "The things about Jesus of Nazareth, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, ²⁰and how our chief priests and leaders handed him over to be condemned to death and crucified him. ²¹But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things took place. ²²Moreover, some women of our group astounded us. They were at the tomb early this morning, ²³and when they did not find his body there, they came back and told us that they had indeed seen a vision of angels who said that he was alive. ²⁴Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said; but they did not see him."

²⁵Then he said to them, "Oh, how foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared! ²⁶Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his glory?" ²⁷Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures. ²⁸As they came near the village to which they were going, he walked ahead as if he were going on. ²⁹But they urged him strongly, saying, "Stay with us, because it is almost evening and the day is now nearly over." So he went in to stay with them.

³⁰When he was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. ³¹Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him; and he vanished from their sight. ³²They said to each other, "Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?" ³³That same hour they got up and returned to Jerusalem; and they found the eleven and their companions gathered together. ³⁴They were saying, "The Lord has risen indeed, and he has appeared to Simon!" ³⁵Then they told what had happened on the road, and how he had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread.

COVID-19 lockdown

#SaferAtHome continues all over the world. Everyone hopes physical distancing with life fully integrated under one roof will result in declining infection rates and an eventual return to ... what we'd known as recently as earlier in 2020. Although I'm enjoying preparing a weekly reflection to blog each Saturday, being back on campus for live discussions will feel better than good.


Prayer

God of resurrection hope, God of our everyday doubts, thank you for accompanying us everywhere, and especially "thank you" for staying in quarantine with us. Thank you again for all the first responders, health care heroes, essential community workers. And for technology that helps us connect!

In the name of Jesus Christ, crucified, risen, and with us always—
Amen!


Scripture Unfolds

The gospels were written down more than a generation after Jesus' death; up until then, people sometimes told about, occasionally wrote about, their experiences with him. We've discussed how the dynamic, fluid oral tradition wasn't simply a memorized rote retelling, but took on additions, elaborations, and (especially) interpretations during the process; as a result, besides observable happenings, scripture includes perspectives that add density and meaning.


Easter Evening

Emmaus was a common place name that probably came from a Semitic word meaning warm spring; as Luke explains, this particular Emmaus probably was (the biblical number of!) seven miles from Jerusalem. Today's travelers along the way incident from St. Luke always is the appointed gospel for Easter evening—together with the Feast of Fat things from Isaiah 25:6-9. Last week we heard about two consecutive Sunday evenings in the upper room from St. John, the first from Easter evening. Which really happened on resurrection Sunday evening? Several simultaneously? Despite gentile physician Luke's attention to Jewish history and world history that starts as he places his gospel right here right now, two millennia ago the post-enlightenment discipline of doing history by uncovering and interpreting sources hadn't evolved, so history in the bible makes different assumptions than Western Civ 101, World History 100, or History of Science 380 at the University or Community College all default to. Best guess is all these events occurred quite early in Jesus' post-resurrection ministry.


Showing the Story






• First image is The Hospitality of Abraham / Abraham's Visitors. Andrei Rublev drew this trinitarian icon of the Genesis 18:1-15 narrative of Abraham's three visitors. The side of the table closest to us is wide open—a place for each of us at God's table of grace! [A couple hours after posting: I just realized this is my own photo of "Abraham's Visitors" above the credence table at one of my Previous City / San Diego churches. I copied the code from my main blog, but didn't think to look at the entire picture.]

• Next, Emmaus Road by contemporary artist He Qi illustrates the Easter evening conversational encounter along the road from Jerusalem to Emmaus.

• You've probably noticed the third, brightly colored Supper at Emmaus painting by He Qi that moves around the church parish hall accompanied by a photo of Pastor Ittu with the artist? After the two travelers invite Jesus-as-stranger to stay with them for the evening, they meet the risen Christ as simultaneously guest and host. There, also, Jesus welcomes us with an open seat on our side of the table. Art by Rembrandt, Caravaggio, and many others depict this event.


Telling the Story

Easter is a week of weeks, a season of 50 days that fills about 1/7 of the year. This is Day 15, the third Sunday of Easter and we're stuck in a global pandemic, a virus that has affected "all the people" in some way or another. Feels more like death than life. Everything around us seems deadly.

Conversation partners Cleopas and friend had known real-life Jesus; they knew the authorities had sentenced him to death. Jesus had been crucified. Jesus was dead. They'd heard about an empty tomb, and heard rumors an empty grave might mean Jesus no longer was dead, but they hadn't experienced resurrected Jesus themselves. Like most, they'd probably imagined Israel's redeemer would bring lavish opulence of a restored Davidic monarchy, or something similarly ostentatious. So apparently this Jesus was not the promised Messiah, after all? But they "had hoped."

Cleopas and companion once "had hoped" but now despaired because it's already the third day after Jesus' death (their calendar considered a day or part of a day as an entire day, thus the third day). If Jesus of Nazareth was The Redeemer, why would he die? Where was God's promised redemption in all this?

Christianity's Easter faith is about hope. With Cleopas and friend, we've learned to live in hope despite being surrounded by death and destruction. Along with Cleopas and friend, we tend easily to give up hope, to make assumptions based on appearances. In addition, humans don't need to have achieved much chronology to realize Easter doesn't mean the end of loss, disappointment, and death.

• Luke 24:25-27
And then Jesus himself tells the story, including the part about the Messiah needing to suffer before being raised to glory...


Being the Story

Two Sundays ago the church celebrated an Easter unlike any Easter we've known. In early March, the church left the building, but not in our usual way of returning to home and work after gathering around word and sacrament, enjoying a tasty brunch, and then living as Jesus' presence wherever we ventured. The church left the building because the authorities told us to, placing countless restrictions on where and how any non-essential personnel could go. The first Sunday after the first full moon after the vernal equinox came and went. But it never felt like Easter. We didn't gather on Saturday to polish the silver, to hang white bunting from the ceiling, to arrange flowers. Those of us who don't consider it Easter without Easter Vigil and/or Easter Sunrise services (I need both, I really and truly do) didn't get those, either. It didn't feel like Easter. It still doesn't feel like Easter. We keep getting updates of county-wide and worldwide COVID-19 cases and deaths. It feels more like the empty devastation of Friday evening, of all day Saturday, as if death reigns, as if the Day of Resurrection never broke into history with the reality of new life, the death of death.

Every scriptural mention of bread, wine, or water isn't necessarily a sacrament! But every instance of creation's good gifts provides sacramental evidence of God's presence, God's abundance, God's promised future. Like travelers from Jerusalem to suburban Emmaus, we recognize Jesus our invited guest who then becomes our host when he welcomes us by taking, blessing, breaking, and giving the bread that's his body, the sustenance that becomes our lives.

Remember the eighth day we talked about for Easter Sunday? Jesus' resurrection happens on the first day of the week, a first day that's also the eighth day, the (surprise!) first day of a new creation—and it's the third day Cleopas mentions. Two thousand years later, we still live in the eighth day theology of God's redemptive re-creation of all that's been broken, discarded, decayed—everything that's no longer alive. As we continue to wait and watch through this long, long Saturday, God promises Easter will happen.


God Sightings

"God sightings! What? I thought God's presence was hidden."

• Matthew 28
⁷Then go quickly and tell his disciples, "He has been raised from the dead, and indeed he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him.' This is my message for you." ... ¹⁰Then Jesus said to them, "Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me."

• Luke 24
²⁸As they came near the village to which they were going, he walked ahead as if he were going on.

Jesus goes ahead into places and situations before we do. Jesus will meet us when we get there? The women's testimony of the stone rolled away and the empty grave is true. Jesus will meet you when you get there; he'll already be there by the time you arrive. Yes! Jesus went to Galilee before his disciples did—they would see him there because he previously had arrived. A God-sighting?

But I thought God's presence was hidden!

Yes, it often is! Look at the Bethlehem manger. Look at the cross. Isn't Jesus' identity and presence hidden in the stranger Cleopas and friend don't immediately recognize, even though they've previously known Jesus, though they've just recently been talking about him? They (suddenly! an aha! moment God-sighting!) recognize Jesus as he takes bread, blesses it, breaks it, and gives them the bread that's his body, the bread that's basic life sustenance. Jesus, born in Bethlehem, little town of House of Bread.

Like Cleopas and friend, we've learned to recognize Jesus as the guest we invite, the guest who becomes our host when he takes, blesses, breaks, and gives us the bread that's his body, that becomes part of our lives. And then we go out and continue to trust the story, to tell the story! Death is not the end.

• Do you know this song?

I'm gonna sit at the welcome table
I'm gonna sit at the welcome table, one of these days
I'm gonna eat at the welcome table, one of these days!
I'm gonna eat at the welcome table,
I'm gonna feast on milk and honey,
I'm gonna feast on milk and honey, one of these days!

I'm going to eat at the welcome table...

Oh, yes, we did! And we will again!

Easter 2A

John 20:19-31

¹⁹When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you." ²⁰After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. ²¹Jesus said to them again, "Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you." ²²When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit. ²³If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained."

²⁴But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. ²⁵So the other disciples told him, "We have seen the Lord." But he said to them, "Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe."

²⁶A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you." ²⁷Then he said to Thomas, "Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe." ²⁸Thomas answered him, "My Lord and my God!"

²⁹Jesus said to him, "Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe." ³⁰Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. ³¹But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.

COVID-19, still

With #SaferAtHome #StaySafeStayHome effective at least through mid-May, I'll keep emailing my notes on Saturdays. My blogs aren't as interesting or fluid as after our live discussion, but they're better organized. Overall? Not better, not worse—only different.


Prayer

God of resurrection hope,
The gloriously surprising season of Easter continues to weave through the devastating season of global pandemic that surprised all of us.

God of resurrection joy!
Thank you for the responders, healthcare, and other essential workers who make it possible for others to stay safe, stay home. And thank you for providing virtual ways to connect socially in spite of necessary physical distancing.

God of our future,
We know you have gone before us into the frontlines, and into the hidden places of this worldwide uncertainty. Sometimes we imagine we have chosen you, but we know you first chose us and in the power and presence of the Holy Spirit, you show us the path of life is the way of the cross and the empty tomb.

In the name of Jesus, crucified, risen, and with us always.
Amen.

cf: Psalm 16; 1 Peter 1:3-9; John 20:19-31


Easter Day and Bright Week

• Easter is 50 days—a week of weeks (7 x 7). The Day of Pentecost is the fiftieth day of Easter! This year Pentecost will be on May 31^st. Where will we be then?

• The day of resurrection is the day after the Sabbath; the first day of the new week also is eighth day of the old week and the beginning of a new creation.

• Many baptismal fonts are octagonal with 8 sides to help demonstrate our baptism as a new creation Into Jesus' death and resurrection.

• Especially Orthodox churches celebrate the seven days from Easter Sunday through Easter Saturday as Bright Week, and consider the entire week a single day, the first day of the new creation.

• As we discussed for Easter Day, the new creation is not pristine, but carries scars from our old, deadly pasts. Today's reading from John shows us Jesus' scars.


The Second Sunday of Easter

Although the gospel according to John doesn't get its own lectionary year, every Sunday during the fifty days of Easter we hear a passage from John. Every Second Sunday of Easter the gospel reading is this 2-part narrative of Jesus coming to his followers through closed doors, bestowing gifts of peace, enlivening them with the Holy Spirit (along with the office of the keys or forgiveness), sending them out, and the famous incident about Thomas.

The word peace occurs 3 times in 12 verses.The peace Jesus brings is not what English language calls irenic peace, or simple absence of conflict. From Jesus we receive the fullness of shalom, a radically grounded, expansive peace that's redemption, integrity, wholeness, for all creation. However, (ironically) we get our English irenic from the Greek word the gospel-writer John uses.

The doors were locked, but even locked doors cannot prevent the risen Christ from entering a space and being with us. Closed, locked: Greek word is the same and means it's hard to get in. Just as Jesus went to find the apostles, Jesus seeks us out and finds us where we are. "Fear of the Jews?" Probably refers to those who killed Jesus, because after all, Jesus' disciples were Jewish.

After speaking peace on the assembly, Jesus breathes on them. The only other biblical occurrence of this Greek word for breathe is in a translation of Genesis 2:7 "And God formed the man (a-dam) of dust of the ground, breathed into his nostrils, and the human became a living being." Humans carry the breath, spirit, wind [words have the same root] of the Divine within them.

John 20:21 "Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you."

• How would you react if someone entered a room despite closed or locked doors and windows? Please remember! This is Jesus' physical, bodily presence.
• What about closed, locked doors and gates? Here in the city? In rural areas? Locked churches? Closing the doors of our own lives and hearts?
• What does "peace be with you" mean in the uncertainty and high anxieties of this pandemic?
• Does "I send you" remind you of any other scriptures? ...Moses, Amos, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Jonah, Apostles, Jesus…
• Where does God send us?


Thomas

In today's reading, Jesus' disciples experience the risen Jesus twice: first on Easter evening and then one week later. (Starting with third paragraph), Jesus' disciples gather again at the same place; this time Thomas is with them. This vignette famously gets called "doubting Thomas," but many commentators point out calling him a doubter gives Thomas a bad rap. He simply wants the same experience everyone else has had.

Although in John's gospel Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead prior to his own trial and execution, because Lazarus would die again, it wasn't quite the same as Jesus' resurrection. At the time the community gathered around the beloved disciple John wrote this down, Gnostic trends and influences that denied the reality of the body were making rounds. If physical bodies weren't actually real, they wouldn't be able to actually die. Maybe Thomas doesn't question resurrection from the dead, but cannot imagine the scandal of crucifixion and death?! And burial? His disciples didn't see simply a photograph or a dream-like apparition of Jesus; his followers experienced Jesus of Nazareth in his earthly body, now resurrected.

As we discussed during Lent, theology of the cross is about God's own self-revelation, especially in Christ crucified. Thomas insisted on seeing and feeling the "marks of the nails" of crucifixion and death. Thomas needed Jesus' resurrection – and death – to become part of his own body, his senses, his entire being.

We've discussed that in John's gospel, believing and trusting means abiding (resting, taking safe repose) in Jesus. It's not reciting a creed or confession, "I believe in God…" though doctrine absolutely is important. John is the gospel of abiding presence. In a similar way, sin in John's gospel is not so much transgression of or lack of conformity to the law of God (as the Westminster Catechism describes sin), but a lack of abiding, a lack of trusting relationship with Jesus.

The Pauline epistles have a similar sense of our being "in Christ," in the apostle Paul's terminology.


Philippians 3

⁹and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but one that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith. ¹⁰I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, ¹¹if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead.

From Graham Kendrick'a paraphrase of this in his song, "Knowing You":

Oh, to know the power of Your risen life,
and to know You in Your suffering,
to become like You in Your death,
My Lord, so with You to live and never die.

• How do you feel about of Thomas' needing or demanding physical evidence?
• What spiritual, physical, or natural expressions of God's presence do we find in our lives?
• What does having the Holy Spirit in your life mean for you every day?

Holy Saturday 2020

Lamentations 3

¹I am one who has seen affliction
      under the rod of God's wrath;
²he has driven and brought me
      into darkness without any light;
³against me alone he turns his hand,
      again and again, all day long.

⁴He has made my flesh and my skin waste away,
      and broken my bones;
⁵he has besieged and enveloped me
      with bitterness and tribulation;
⁶he has made me sit in darkness
      like the dead of long ago.

⁷He has walled me about so that I cannot escape;
      he has put heavy chains on me;
⁸though I call and cry for help,
      he shuts out my prayer;
⁹he has blocked my ways with hewn stones,
      he has made my paths crooked.

¹⁹The thought of my affliction and my homelessness
      is wormwood and gall!
²⁰My soul continually thinks of it
      and is bowed down within me.
²¹But this I call to mind,
      and therefore I have hope:

²²The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases,
      his mercies never come to an end;
²³they are new every morning;
      great is your faithfulness.
²⁴"The Lord is my portion," says my soul,
      "therefore I will hope in him."

Good Friday 2020

The second part [40-55] of the 66-chapter long book of Isaiah contains four Servant Songs; the church reads backwards and identifies the servant as Jesus Christ, though the original servant may have been the nation Israel, the writer of these words, or someone else. The lectionary schedules these during Holy Week. In these Good Friday readings you will hear music from Handel's Messiah!


• 42:1-9 Monday in Holy Week
• 49:1-7 [8-13] Tuesday in Holy Week
• 50:4-9a Wednesday in Holy Week
• 52:13-53:12 Good Friday

Isaiah 52:13-53:12

¹³See, my servant shall prosper; he shall be exalted and lifted up, and shall be very high. ¹⁴Just as there were many who were astonished at him —so marred was his appearance, beyond human semblance, and his form beyond that of mortals— ¹⁵so he shall startle many nations; kings shall shut their mouths because of him; for that which had not been told them they shall see, and that which they had not heard they shall contemplate.

53:¹Who has believed what we have heard? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? ²For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. ³He was despised and rejected by others; a man of suffering and acquainted with infirmity; and as one from whom others hide their faces he was despised, and we held him of no account. ⁴Surely he has borne our infirmities and carried our diseases; yet we accounted him stricken, struck down by God, and afflicted. ⁵But he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed.

⁶All we like sheep have gone astray; we have all turned to our own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. ⁷He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth.

⁸By a perversion of justice he was taken away. Who could have imagined his future? For he was cut off from the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people. ⁹They made his grave with the wicked and his tomb with the rich, although he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth. ¹⁰Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him with pain. When you make his life an offering for sin, he shall see his offspring, and shall prolong his days; through him the will of the Lord shall prosper.

¹¹Out of his anguish he shall see light; he shall find satisfaction through his knowledge. The righteous one, my servant, shall make many righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities. ¹²Therefore I will allot him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he poured out himself to death, and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.

Resurrection 2020

Matthew 28:1-10

¹After the sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb. ²And suddenly there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord, descending from heaven, came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. ³His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing white as snow. ⁴For fear of him the guards shook and became like dead men. ⁵But the angel said to the women, "Do not be afraid; I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. ⁶He is not here; for he has come to life again, even as he said. Come, see the place where he lay. ⁷Then go quickly and tell his disciples, "He has been raised from the dead, and indeed he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him.' This is my message for you."

⁸So they left the tomb quickly with fear and great joy, and ran to tell his disciples. ⁹Suddenly Jesus met them and said, "Greetings!" And they came to him, took hold of his feet, and worshiped him. ¹⁰Then Jesus said to them, "Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me."

Prayer

This is the feast of victory for all creation, alleluia!

Loving God of earth and heaven—God of resurrection!
We rejoice in this new day you have made and given us.

Jesus has died
Jesus has been buried
Christ has been raised from the grave...
and opened the gates of heaven, alleluia!

You have brought former things to pass
And you have made all things new, alleluia!

God of resurrection!
We know there's more to come!
Easter day is only the beginning.

Praise and glory, endlessly throughout eternity,
In the name of the crucified and risen One,
Alleluia, Amen, Alleluia!!!


COVID-19

Someone on twitter said Lent 2020 had been the Lentiest Lent they'd ever lented. Every year, slow-moving, reflective Lent segues into the Day of Resurrection, a feast so splendiferous the church celebrates it for fifty days. And...? Amidst this ongoing pandemic, the world can bear no more. We think we know "the rest of the story" because we testify to God as God of life, but – for some reason – resurrection always surprises us. Still. There's more to come! Easter day is only the beginning.


The Eighth Day

Matthew 28:2 There was a "great earthquake" at Jesus' resurrection. And Matthew 27:51 tells us there was a great earthquake when Jesus died! The Greek for earthquake is the same seismic word we relate to the earth moving underneath us and around us. What would Earthquake Lady Lucy Jones say? What do we say when life becomes unsettled? When events unsettle us? What do we do?

Matthew 28:1"After the sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb..."

Jesus' resurrection happens on the first day of the week, a first day that's also the eighth day. Resurrection on day 8 stretches a week beyond its conventional boundaries to make that eighth day the (surprise!) first day of a new creation. (No little kid would reply "eight!" when we ask how many days are in a week.) Although the NT doesn't mandate a particular day or hour for Christian worship, most churches hold their main services on Sundays, or on Saturdays the vigil of Sunday, because Jesus rose on the 8^th day.

Two thousand years later, we still live in the eighth day theology of God's redemptive re-creation of all that's been broken, discarded, decayed—everything that's no longer alive. As we trust God's action of re-creating and redeeming, we live in hope-filled confidence the Holy Spirit will use us to help redeem and recreate.

To be resurrected? Persons, institutions, structures, organizations, ideas, nature, all need to be dead. Jesus shows us the new creation is not pristine. The risen Jesus Christ had scars and he didn't try to hide them. Isn't that incredibly comforting? Jesus had scars in his Eastered life. Isn't that another reason to trust God's apparently impossible future?

There's more to come! Easter dawn is only the beginning.


Easter is 50 Days

Even as we live every day with eighth day hope, excitement, and newness, before long we'll celebrate the 50^th day of Easter that completes a week of weeks (7 weeks of 7 days) as the day of Pentecost. Commemorating the Spirit of Resurrection filling the world, Pentecost is the third of the church's great trinitarian festivals.

But two millennia have passed since Jesus' Resurrection and since that first Pentecost recorded in the Acts of the Apostles. We look around and see hatred, poverty, and injustice. We still experience disappointments, sickness, dying, and death. Grief. Tears. We go online or turn on the TV and COVID-19 hits us hard. We know agricultural seasons of fallowness, tilling, planting, growing, and harvest cycle continuously, yet our theology tells us Easter, the historical time and place event of Jesus Christ's resurrection – that eighth day that's also the first day of the new creation – marked the end of death and dying, theoretically concluded ongoing cycles of poverty, illness, injustice.

The angel at the tomb and Jesus both tell everyone not to be afraid. They don't command or demand; they reassure us.

There's more to come! Easter morning is only the beginning.


Jesus Goes Ahead of Us

⁷Then go quickly and tell his disciples, "He has been raised from the dead, and indeed he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him.' This is my message for you." ... ¹⁰Then Jesus said to them, "Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me."

Jesus will go ahead into places and situations before you do. Jesus will meet you when you get there? He'll already be there by the time you arrive. Going before us to prepare for our presence, our ministry there? Yes!

Jesus shows us the new creation is not pristine. The risen Christ had scars and he didn't try to hide them. How about us? Does a reclaimed riverside, neighborhood, or forest show evidence of its past? Yes, but...?

Matthew 28:7 Jesus went to Galilee before his disciples did—they would see him there because he previously had arrived.

Although we need to live – and work – without fear as God's hands, feet, voice, mind, imagination, and heart, 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! Exactly as Jesus promises, God always goes before us before leading us there. God waits for us to get there. We call this the previousness of God, of Jesus, of the Holy Spirit: of the Triune God.

There's more to come! Easter evening is only the beginning.

Maundy Thursday 2020

The Apostle Paul recorded the chronologically earliest account of Jesus' Last Supper–Eucharistic Founding Meal.

1 Corinthians 11:23-26

²³For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took a loaf of bread, ²⁴and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, "This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me."

²⁵In the same way he took the cup also, after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me." ²⁶For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.

Every year for Maundy/Holy Thursday, the gospel reading is John 13:1-17, 31b-35. Here are some excerpts.

John 13:4-8, 14-15; 34-35

⁴Jesus got up from the table, took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself. ⁵Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples' feet and to wipe them with the towel that was tied around him. ⁶He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, "Lord, are you going to wash my feet?" ⁷Jesus answered, "You do not know now what I am doing, but later you will understand." ⁸Peter said to him, "You will never wash my feet." Jesus answered, "Unless I wash you, you have no share with me."

¹⁴"So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. ¹⁵For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you."

³⁴"I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. ³⁵By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another."

love one another – Paul G. Hammer

Jesus, how common can you get? Foot washing, bread, wine!
If you're going to be religious, at least use something special.
No, my friend, I came not to perform special religious rites
But to touch the daily life of everyone
With God's love in the commonest of things.

O.K., water, bread, wine.
But isn't foot washing a bit ridiculous?
And what about "this is my body"?
And "this cup is the new covenant in my blood"?

Foot washing is the work of the commonest servant—I came to serve.
But it points beyond to the "washing" of the cross—
God's self-giving service in me to cleanse away estrangement
And heal the distortions in people's lives.

The bread points to nourishment in that same self-giving of God
At work in my body, that is in me.
And the cup points to the new community drawn together and nourished
In my blood, that is in God's total self-giving in my death.

Do you mean that this common stuff of water, bread and wine
Becomes in you the very focus of God's love for me and for the world?
That there is no excuse for my not loving my common neighbor?
Because you have shown the depth of God's love for me?

You've got it!
But it isn't a love for special occasions.
It has to be that daily love that's as common as water, bread and wine!

Wednesday in Holy Week

The second part [40-55] of the 66-chapter long book of Isaiah contains four Servant Songs; the church reads backwards and identifies the servant as Jesus Christ, though the original servant may have been the nation Israel, the writer of these words, or someone else. The lectionary schedules these during Holy Week.

• 42:1-9 Monday in Holy Week
• 49:1-7 [8-13] Tuesday in Holy Week
• 50:4-9a Wednesday in Holy Week
• 52:13-53:12 Good Friday

⁴The Lord God has given me
      the tongue of a teacher,
that I may know how to sustain
      the weary with a word.
Morning by morning he wakens—
      wakens my ear
      to listen as those who are taught.
⁵The Lord God has opened my ear,
      and I was not rebellious,
      I did not turn backward.
⁶I gave my back to those who struck me,
      and my cheeks to those who pulled out the beard;
I did not hide my face
      from insult and spitting.

⁷The Lord God helps me;
      therefore I have not been disgraced;
therefore I have set my face like flint,
      and I know that I shall not be put to shame;
⁸he who vindicates me is near.
Who will contend with me?
      Let us stand up together.
Who are my adversaries?
      Let them confront me.
⁹It is the Lord God who helps me;
      who will declare me guilty?

Tuesday in Holy Week

The second part [40-55] of the 66-chapter long book of Isaiah contains four Servant Songs; the church reads backwards and identifies the servant as Jesus Christ, though the original servant may have been the nation Israel, the writer of these words, or someone else. The lectionary schedules these during Holy Week.

• 42:1-9 Monday in Holy Week
• 49:1-7 [8-13] Tuesday in Holy Week
• 50:4-9a Wednesday in Holy Week
• 52:13-53:12 Good Friday

Isaiah 49:1-7

¹Listen to me, O coastlands,
      pay attention, you peoples from far away!
The Lord called me before I was born,
      while I was in my mother's womb he named me.
²He made my mouth like a sharp sword,
      in the shadow of his hand he hid me;
he made me a polished arrow,
      in his quiver he hid me away.
³And he said to me, "You are my servant,
      Israel, in whom I will be glorified."
⁴But I said, "I have labored in vain,
      I have spent my strength for nothing and vanity;
yet surely my cause is with the Lord,
      and my reward with my God."

⁵And now the Lord says,
      who formed me in the womb to be his servant,
to bring Jacob back to him,
      and that Israel might be gathered to him,
for I am honored in the sight of the Lord,
      and my God has become my strength—
⁶he says,
"It is too light a thing that you should be my servant
      to raise up the tribes of Jacob
      and to restore the survivors of Israel;
I will give you as a light to the nations,
      that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth."

⁷Thus says the Lord,
      the Redeemer of Israel and his Holy One,
to one deeply despised, abhorred by the nations,
      the slave of rulers,
"Kings shall see and stand up,
      princes, and they shall prostrate themselves,
because of the Lord, who is faithful,
      the Holy One of Israel, who has chosen you."

Monday in Holy Week

The second part [40-55] of the 66-chapter long book of Isaiah contains four Servant Songs; the church reads backwards and identifies the servant as Jesus Christ, though the original servant may have been the nation Israel, the writer of these words, or someone else. The lectionary schedules these during Holy Week.

• 42:1-9 Monday in Holy Week
• 49:1-7 [8-13] Tuesday in Holy Week
• 50:4-9a Wednesday in Holy Week
• 52:13-53:12 Good Friday

Isaiah 42:1-9

¹Here is my servant, whom I uphold,
      my chosen, in whom my soul delights;
I have put my spirit upon him;
      he will bring forth justice to the nations.
²He will not cry or lift up his voice,
      or make it heard in the street;
³a bruised reed he will not break,
      and a dimly burning wick he will not quench;
      he will faithfully bring forth justice.
⁴He will not grow faint or be crushed
      until he has established justice in the earth;
      and the coastlands wait for his teaching.

⁵Thus says God, the Lord,
      who created the heavens and stretched them out,
      who spread out the earth and what comes from it,
who gives breath to the people upon it
      and spirit to those who walk in it:

⁶I am the Lord, I have called you in righteousness,
      I have taken you by the hand and kept you;
I have given you as a covenant to the people,
      a light to the nations,
⁷to open the eyes that are blind,
      to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon,
      from the prison those who sit in darkness.

⁸I am the Lord, that is my name;
      my glory I give to no other,
      nor my praise to idols.
⁹See, the former things have come to pass,
      and new things I now declare;
before they spring forth,
      I tell you of them.