For March 30, 2013: the Great Vigil of Easter, Year C

THE LITURGY OF THE WORD: God acts to create and restore the world

The story of Creation: Genesis 1:1-2:2

The Response: Psalm 136:1-9, 23-26

The Flood: Genesis 7:1-5, 11-18, 8:6-18, 9:8-13

The Response: Psalm 46

Israel’s deliverance at the Red Sea: 
Exodus 14:10-31; 15:20-21

The Response: Canticle 8 (Exodus 15:1-6, 11-13, 17-18)

Salvation offered freely to all: 
Isaiah 55:1-11

The Response: Canticle 9: The First Song of Isaiah (Isaiah 12:2-6)

The valley of dry bones: Ezekiel 37:1-14

The Response: Psalm 143

 

AT THE EUCHARIST

The Epistle            Romans 6:3-11

During the weeks of Lent, the readings took into account the somberness of the season but also looked forward to the joy of Easter. The first epistle we read in Easter rings out our joy, as Isaiah puts it, but it also looks back to the suffering that has freed us from sin.

The Response            Psalm 114

The Gospel            Luke 24:1-12

“Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen.”

 

Further thoughts

People in Jesus’ place and time had a pretty good idea what death looked like, what with infant mortality, childhood and adult diseases, death in childbirth, farming accidents, the various ailments associated with old age, and the occasional murders, executions and suicides. Adult women, in particular, knew well what they were supposed to do about it: wash the body (especially if there were blood), treat it with spices against stench, dress it, and straighten the mangled or emaciated limbs in preparation for burial.

They were clearly quite unprepared, however, for the idea of rising from death.

We postmillenials have the advantage of two thousand years of exposure to the idea through scripture, analysis, sermons, and old-fashioned hindsight, but it’s not clear to me that we are really any better prepared for the reality of resurrection than were Jesus’ grieving friends. It’s hard to imagine being resurrected to anything but a life like the one that we now lead, with its dishes to wash and its bills to pay. That’s unsurprising, of course: this is the life we know.

It’s the case, however, that many people who have undergone a near-death experience live differently, at least for a while. They wash the dishes and pay the bills, but—like Scrooge at the end of Dickens’s A Christmas Carol—they live more in the moment, and they are much more mindful of the wonder of the world around them and the people in it.

And we who still stand on this side of the grave—what if we are called to do likewise?

For Feb. 24, 2013: 2 Lent, Year C

The Reading            Genesis 15:1-12,17-18

In today’s first reading, God promises to childless Abram uncountably many descendants and the land between Egypt and Mesopotamia. This promise is sealed by a ceremony familiar to Abram: the parties to a contract would cut an animal in half and walk between the pieces declaring that, should they fail to do their part, they themselves ought to be cut in half. Here the fire pot and the torch represent God.

The Response            Psalm 27

The Epistle            Philippians 3:17-4:1

In the epistle today, Paul warns the Philippians about “enemies of the cross of Christ”. He is referring to those who insisted that Christianity means keeping the law of Moses, especially with regard to food and circumcision. Paul disagrees vigorously: God’s grace is for all of us believers, just as we are.

The Gospel            Luke 13:31-35

Further thoughts

Woven into today’s three readings are the concepts of promises and signs. In Genesis, old Abram receives two extravagant promises from God: he will possess the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea from Mesopotamia in the north to Egypt in the south, and he will have so many descendants he can’t count them. God seals his part of the deal by “walking” between the animals cut in half. Some years later, God extends the covenant and has Abram—now Abraham—seal his part of the deal through circumcising himself and all the males with him, and it is after that that Abram’s wife Sarai finally bears him a son. From that day to this, circumcision has been universal among Jewish men as a mark of their special covenantal relationship with the God of Abraham, along with the complex of special dietary laws that we know as “kosher”.

But in the epistle, along comes Paul to announce that neither the dietary restrictions nor the physical circumcision work to make us righteous; what’s more, bragging about what one is or isn’t or what one does or doesn’t do to be righteous is not only missing the point, it might even be poisoning the well.

For through Jesus’ willing and deliberate gift we are all as circumcised as we need to be and all as punished as we need to be. Whatever else we do should show not our human determination to Do It All Ourselves but our gratitude for the great gift of grace—and our willingness to share the grace with the whole world for which Jesus died.

For October 7, 2012: Proper 22, Year B

The Reading            Genesis 2:18-24

In last week’s Old Testament reading, Moses cried out for relief in dealing with the Israelites, and God sent a committee. Today’s reading takes us back to the beginning of all things: in God’s view, it is no better for the first human to be alone than it is for God. Interestingly it is the creation of woman that makes humans unique.

The Response            Psalm 8

The Epistle            Hebrews 1:1-4; 2:5-12

The letter to the Hebrews, which we read over the next few weeks, is less a letter than it is a tract that sets out demonstrate to first-century Jews how Jesus is the Messiah and fulfiller of the promises in the Old Testament. The quotation in today’s reading is from Psalm 8.

The Gospel            Mark 10:2-16

 

Further thoughts

Divorce—the ending of a marriage by a legal process—has become more and more common in today’s society. The scars that it leaves are properly to be lamented; most of us know and perhaps have sided with a spouse who has been left; some of us have been the spouse who was left or the spouse who left, and too many among us have been the children of a divorcing couple who could not keep their bitterness and anger to themselves. Jesus reminds us that neither marriage nor divorce is to be undertaken lightly, and, though the reminder can be painful, it is salutary.

It is both familiar and appropriate to take the Old Testament text and the gospel together as explaining and approving marriage as part of God’s design for human life. Perhaps, though, they and the epistle are also making a larger point. When the Old Testament tells us that woman was created from man, it tells us that God prizes our distinctivenesses: to hark back to the earlier account in Genesis, God has created each and every one of us in God’s image. It may also be telling us that each of us is created part of all the others. I am a part of you and you are a part of me, and you and I are each a part of people we will never meet, because through God every human being carries the imprint of all human beings. From this it follows that it should matter to me if you are hungry or cold or sad or fearful or in the dark, and it should matter enough to me to do what I can to feed you, warm you, cheer you, or bring you light. For me to turn my back on you amounts to a kind of divorce: you will learn from it, as children of bitter divorces do, that there are questions that are not to be asked and kinds of help you deserve that are not to be gained in your interaction through me, and this closed door may well hamper you in your other dealings.

To turn and seek and serve Christ in someone who has ignored or even scorned me can be painful. To turn and seek and serve Christ in someone I have ignored or scorned can be both painful and shame-inducing. Nevertheless, Jesus whom we all crucified calls me to do exactly that. In so doing I help build up the body of Christ, grace by grace and soul by soul.

For June 10, 2012: Proper 5, Year B

The Reading            Genesis 3:8-15

We all know the story of Adam and Eve, right? Serpent tempts Eve with apple, Eve tempts poor Adam, and voila! Original Sin. It’s incredibly familiar—but wait. First, the fruit was no apple. Second, the snake is not necessarily Satan. How else might the lesson not be what we’ve always thought it is?

The Response            Psalm 130

The Epistle            2 Corinthians 4:13-5:1

In today’s reading from the second letter to the church at Corinth, Paul looks forward from the “slight momentary affliction” of life in a failing body to the glory of eternal life with the risen Jesus. Before that, though, Paul’s concern is here and now as he works and prays for God’s grace to extend throughout this world.

The Gospel            Mark 3:20-35

 

Further thoughts

On a warm Sunday afternoon a quarter-century ago, a girl of 10 was sobbing helplessly. Neither her parents nor the young woman in whose lap she huddled nor the dozen other adults in the tiny apartment had the heart to stop her. Word had come that morning that a couple whom they all esteemed as family, whose oldest son was (and still is) the girl’s great friend, had gone to awaken their beautiful four-month-old baby boy for Mass and found him dead. As the girl wept, her brother played on the floor with a wooden train set. Something made the little fellow crow with glee, at which the girl burst out, “I wish I weren’t grown up enough to have to know this!” She had consciousness that her little brother didn’t; often that was good, but in this case, it hurt.

Today’s readings all deal in limits and boundaries. A boundary marks the point at which something that was not, is or something that is, ceases to be: ownership is a boundary (“mine” vs. “not mine”), and so is a law, and so are birth and death and creation. As Genesis opens, God has no rest until God creates that which is not God, which is the universe. Then in today’s reading, the man and the woman cross a boundary set by God and meet consequences that, like the girl’s, hurt—but they also cross a boundary of knowledge like the one that separated the girl’s consciousness from that of her brother, and like the one that distinguished her parents’ consciousness from hers. Paul refuses to be bound by the limits of his frail human body as he strives toward the goal of bringing more and more people within the extent of God’s grace. Jesus bids us rethink the boundaries between “insane” and “sane”, between “demon-possessed” and “Spirit-filled”, and between “enemy” and “friend”; in the process he demonstrates for us a radically expanded definition of “family”.

Perhaps, then, this Genesis story is less about the wickedness of human beings than it is about the urge—inherited from our Father—to know and to make and to both create and transcend boundaries. Being God is beyond our grasp: who but God could take a personal interest in each and every atom in the universe, let alone bear the burden of balancing the best interests of all creatures great and small? Within our own God-given spheres, however, we can listen and learn and allow the boundaries of our families to expand, and in so doing we live out the kingdom of God among us.

For March 11, 2012: Third Sunday in Lent, Year B

The Reading            Genesis 22:1-14 instead of Exodus 20:1-17

The reading from Genesis last week showed us the covenant through which God promised Abraham and Sarah their long-awaited son. This week Abraham is obliged to choose between the life of that son and obeying the command of the God who gave him.  It is a difficult story.

The Epistle            1 Corinthians 1:18-25

The first letter to the Corinthians addresses a church community in conflict: the groups that Paul calls “the Jews” and “the Greeks” have different ideas about many things, including who and what God must be. Their ideas of God are too small, however—and so are ours.

 

Further thoughts

For this Sunday’s Old Testament lesson, the Revised Common Lectionary has scheduled Exodus 20:1-17, the Ten Commandments. It resonates with today’s psalm on the power and magnificence of God and God’s decrees; it plays fairly well with the epistle to a community that is struggling to reconcile law and grace, and it works with the gospel as Jesus breaks some social conventions for the sake of the honor of God’s house.

Instead, we have Genesis 22:1-18; in English we call it “the Sacrifice of Isaac”, though it might go better under the Hebrew name Akidah, which means ‘binding’. Whatever its name, this reading is much harder to square with the celebratory tone of Psalm 19. How well it comports with the other readings depends on how one interprets it (and them, though to a lesser extent)—and its interpretation has been hotly debated over the centuries.

Commentators who take the Akidah at face value—Abraham giving the ultimate proof of his obedience—generally see it as prefiguring the sacrifice of Jesus, though the parallel is shaky as regards the consent of the victim, the identity of the wielder of the knife, the availability of a substitute, and even the whole affair as test.

Other commentators balk at the idea of a God who expects a human parent to knife his own offspring; some of these see in the passage a vivid way to forbid child sacrifice, which was widely practiced at the time, and a few suggest that Abraham—who had successfully confronted God to save the inhabitants of Sodom—failed God’s test by obeying when he ought to have resisted. This leaves us, however, with Abraham in a double bind: obey God but kill the son, or save the son but defy God.

A handful of commentators note that the text contains a misstatement and a significant silence. God calls Isaac Abraham’s only son—but Abraham has had another son in Ishmael, albeit a son he has expelled into the wilderness. The silence is that of Sarah: Isaac is indeed her only son, named by God for her laughter, but here she is not only voiceless but invisible. Did Abraham, gauging her probable reaction, keep her in the dark?

Perhaps this is where the Akidah connects with the epistle. Perhaps the signs and wisdom of Paul are demonstrations of power and esoteric secrets, and the call of Christ is to radical openness so that the love and counsel of the community can keep an individual from going off the rails.

Or perhaps Genesis 22:1-18 is simply a brutal, difficult text.

For March 4, 2012: Second Sunday in Lent, Year B

The Reading    Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16
On the first Sunday of Lent, last Sunday, we heard God’s first covenant with humanity, symbolized by the rainbow. Today’s reading recounts the second covenant: God promising that childless Abram and Sarai, despite their age, will have a son, and giving them new names—Abraham and Sarah—in token of the promise.

The Epistle    Romans 4:13-25
The letter to the Romans is written to a church community of Jews and Gentiles; some of the Romans might not have known about God’s covenant with Abraham, and others who knew about it might have misunderstood how it works. It is explained here for both as a matter not of what we do but of God’s unfathomable and unstoppable grace.

Further thoughts
Following on from week 1, the week 2 Lenten readings call us to continue considering the covenants that God makes with us: we contemplate what we deserve, what we get, and what we do next.
In Genesis, Abram and Sarai are an elderly couple, “as good as dead”, as Paul puts it in the Epistle, their hopes for a son dashed on the rocks of time. They have made alternative arrangements for the future: Abram has named his kinsman Eliezer of Damascus his heir, and Sarai has arranged for Abram to sire an heir by her slave Hagar; this was widely accepted practice for the time, though in this case it has produced a good deal of domestic strain.
Then God makes a new covenant: the heir for which Abram and Sarai have yearned, the child on whose birth they have given up, will be born to them, as God makes of them Abraham and Sarah, parents of millions.
Verse 17, which has been omitted from the lectionary, records Abram’s immediate response: he falls over laughing. Chapter 18 of Genesis, left out of this season’s lections, also gives us Sarai laughing in incredulity as she wonders how, after all the years and all the tears, this promise could possibly come true.
Yet, as Paul tells us, the two of them do believe, sooner rather than later—and it is their faith in God’s promise, not their own virtue, that makes them righteous before God. It is their faith in God’s faithfulness that somehow makes it possible for God’s promise to take hold in their own flesh.
What a staggering thought. What did it take for Abraham and Sarah to forget all the reasons it was crazy to hope long enough to believe God, really, deep down?
And what will it take for us?

For Feb. 26, 2012: First Sunday in Lent, Year B

The Reading            Genesis 9:8-17

As Lent begins, we think about human sin and God’s mercy. Today’s reading comes after the great Flood. We hear God’s promise to all creatures never again to destroy the world, no matter how much our sinfulness grieves God, and the sign of this is the rainbow.

The Epistle            1 Peter 3:18-22

The first letter of Peter, written by a church elder in Rome, makes an explicit link between the great Flood about which we heard in the first reading and baptism. The Flood destroyed disobedient humans. It is sobering to think of baptism as a means through which God moves to drown our disobedience.

 

Further notes

One thinks of baptism as a gentle process: tip a little water from a scallop shell onto a baby’s tender scalp, or at most dip a youth or grownup in the Baptists’ full immersion, whether in a specially built pool or in the wilder water of a river. In either case the person baptized is literally supported. The priest cradles the infant; I for one love to watch a priest whose own family is complete gazing at the child in her arms and getting herself a “baby fix” in the course of administering this delightful sacrament. The Baptist baptism is almost a liturgical dance, and it takes a certain amount of practice to do gracefully: as the pastor and the baptizand stand thigh deep in water, it is the baptizand’s part to relax at the knees and not struggle while the pastor—who may be holding the baptizand’s nostrils shut for him—quickly lays him down into the water and brings him back upright again.

The first letter of Peter tells us that baptism, whatever form it takes, is prefigured by the epic Flood of Noah. Now the reading from Genesis today gives us the end of the process, with God promising never, ever again to destroy the whole world by flood. This promise is the first great covenant between God and humanity. The Flood that gets us this covenant, however, is a violent process.

Did the Flood prefigure baptism by washing away the human propensity to do wrong? I think we know the answer to that. The verses after today’s selection from Genesis tell us that, as soon as the world dried out enough, upright Noah discovered wine, got blind drunk and exposed himself. And things have only gone down the drain since then.

We could instead look at baptism as a kind of epic flood. A huge flood changes the landscape permanently. It sweeps away familiar landmarks, creates new ones and makes new growth possible. It overruns the banks we assign it and astonishes us with its power. Baptism does these things. In baptism is God’s self-binding promise never to destroy the human soul, even when our sin deserves it. Through it is God’s declaration that no other power has the right to condemn us—not a government, not Satan, not the church nor even our own deep shame and guilt—because Jesus is our claim on righteousness. We don’t always recall this as we ought, but let us look to the rainbow and remember.

For Jan. 1, 2011: Lessons and Carols

FIRST READING: Genesis 3:8-15, 17-19
Sinful humans lose the life of Paradise.
SECOND READING: Genesis 22:15-18
God promises that, in the offspring of Abraham, all peoples shall be blessed.
THIRD READING: Isaiah 9:2, 6, 7
The prophet foretells the coming of the Savior.
FOURTH READING: Isaiah 11:1-9
The peace that Christ brings is foreshown.
FIFTH READING: Luke 1:26-35
The angel Gabriel salutes the Blessed Virgin Mary.
SIXTH READING: Luke 2:1-7
We hear of the birth of Jesus.
SEVENTH READING: Luke 2:8-16
The shepherds go to the manger.
EIGHTH READING: Matthew 2:1-11
Wise men seek the Child who has been born.
THE GOSPEL: John 1:1-14
Jesus, the Light of the World.

The format of the Service of Lessons and Carols dates back to the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols devised by Edward White Benson, then Bishop of Truro in southern England, for Christmas Eve 1880. In 1918, shortly after the fighting in World War I ended, Bishop Benson’s order of service was adapted for use at King’s College, Cambridge, in southeastern England, by the Dean of the college chapel, Eric Milner-White. The order of service at King’s College is essentially unchanged since 1919, opening with “Once in Royal David’s City” (the first verse sung solo by a boy chorister), and ends with “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing.” This order with the readings set forth by the Church of England is the basis of the service we will use at St Alban’s, though some of the prayers and lessons are adapted from the originals to correspond more closely with the language of the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible that is in use in the Episcopal Church.
The nine short lessons or readings were chosen to show the story of salvation unfolding, beginning with the fall of humanity and the promise to Abraham, then proceeding through prophecies of Isaiah to the annunciation and birth of Jesus, and concluding with the opening words of the Gospel of John that sketch out who and what Jesus is.
This service is appropriate on January 1 because, this year, it is the only Sunday in Christmas season other than Christmas Day itself, and next Sunday, January 8, is the first Sunday in Epiphany season. In any case, what better way to begin the New Year than to sing praises to the Child who has been born for us, the Light that the darkness cannot overcome?

For Sunday, July 31, 2011: Year A

THE READING    Genesis 32:22-31

In recent readings, Abraham’s grandson Jacob usurped his brother’s birthright, fled for his life as a consequence, and was assured by God in an extraordinary dream that he would be the father of an enormous nation. Taking refuge with his uncle Laban, he was tricked into marrying both of Laban’s daughters. Before today’s reading opens, Jacob has become rich in chattel and children, but he has also finally had enough: it is time to go home and to face the brother he fleeced. On the way, Jacob learns that Esau his brother is coming to meet him with a force of 400 men. Terrified, Jacob sends his family and flocks away, either for their safety or for his. What happens that night, he could not have expected—but he comes away with a name that resonates in history.

 

THE EPISTLE    Romans 9:1-5

Jacob, renamed Israel, received far-reaching promises direct from God about his descendants. In our readings from the book of Romans so far, Paul is insistent that God keeps God’s promises. To the church at Rome—a mixed community of Jews and non-Jews—this posed a problem: has God stopped loving the Jews who choose not to accept the gospel? In today’s reading, a deeply troubled Paul begins to answer that question.

 

COMMENTARY ON PROPER 13, YEAR A

It’s incredibly easy to believe that God’s promises are only for those who are already righteous. The Bible, however, suggests otherwise: it’s full of characters whose character is suspect–whom God nevertheless loves deeply. Jacob is yet another case in the Old Testament: in previous readings we’ve seen him conniving against his brother and deceiving his father, and even when he’s fleeing on account of these bad deeds, God keeps loving Jacob and keeps making extravagantly generous promises to him.

Paul picks up the theme. The promises that God made to the man renamed Israel are the promises that God means to keep with Israel the people–not because Israel is righteous, but because that’s who God is–if only Israel will believe.

For Sunday, July 24, 2011: Year A

THE READING    Genesis 29:15-28
Last week’s reading from Genesis detailed the adventures of Jacob, who, after conning his brother out of his birthright, fled for his life. En route, he had an astonishing dream in which he met God at Bethel. When we next encounter Jacob, he has arrived safely at his uncle Laban’s house. Here he falls in love, makes a deal with the young lady’s father and holds up his end of it for seven years, enjoys his wedding feast—and discovers in the morning that he himself has been conned. As we will see, even through human beings’ bad dealing God can bring about God’s purposes.

 

THE EPISTLE    Romans 8:26-39
In today’s Epistle Paul continues to explain to the church at Rome and to us the same truths that Jacob was slowly learning about how God works: first, God is on our side irrespective of our weakness; second, it is God’s plan that we should grow up to be God’s own children; third, though the going may be (and probably will be) very rough, God loves us absolutely no matter what.