gracefullbible

People of God studying in Scripture 202.

Again on May 9 we will be talking about the Gospel of John. Daniel will be starting when he gets there. Start food ASAP. I will be a Kiwanis Board meeting that night and will arrive ASAP.

Remember to read John as YOU as the beloved disciple that you are!

dave

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Previous announcement:

The Adult Bible Study Class, Scripture 202, New Testament, will postponed the session “Jesus According to John” to next Wednesday, May 9 beginning with a fellowship meal at 6:00 pm.

This study is being held at Grace Episcopal Church Parish Hall, 341 Washington, Traverse City, Michigan. The church is located across from the Grand Traverse County Courthouse.  See www.gracetc.org or more information.

I like goats.  I like bulls.  I had one as a kid that I hand raised.  What a sacrifice that must have been for the people of Israel to bring an animal that was so essential for life and often a part of the family!  I know that there is a larger component about how God cares about the life of worship, but I am tired of reading about the sacrifices.

On the other hand, it is good to read the law and realize how little of it I actually break on a daily basis.

Have you ever experienced such wondrous sights as the last few days of readings?  I think my eyes, trained by labcoats and repeatable conclusions, are almost incapable of seeing such things.  I have to have new eyes to see the lame healed and a burning lamp pierce the terrifying darkness of Abraham’s vision.  Could I read the covenant written in such blood?

I do think Abraham is one tough character.  I want to use profanity here.  I mean to be circumcised at a hundred years old, or even just as a man.  I think the slaves had the worst deal, though.  They didn’t get a heritage out of it, just pain and an otherwise decent boss.  My heart is always torn by Hagar’s story.  She is given, i.e. treated as property, from her mistress to her master and when she conceives is mistreated, abused, and flees.  The promise of her son becoming head of many nations doesn’t really cover it to me, but then a mother’s heart is a different place.

Can you imagine the Spirit coming in this way to us at Grace?  The church is full of prayers invoking the Spirit, but I wonder if we could hear the wind at the door or see flames as of tongues?  I pray that the Breath of God would breathe on us and fill us in such a way.  Give us ears to hear, O God, and eyes to see.

daniel+

Well, the readings of the last two days cover the range of what we call “Salvation History” in the business.  Humanity falls, Cain murders, then Lamech, and Noah.  God is fascinating in these stories.  God tells Adam and Eve that they can’t eat of the fruit or they will die, on that day.  The serpent says, no dice.  And the serpent is right.  God curses humanity.  God curses the ground and the serpent.  But God doesn’t kill Adam or Eve.  They don’t die that day.  You could take the route that they become mortal that day, but the indication of the story is that mortality was the plan all along.  God removes the tree of life, less they eat that and become immortal.  But I think that something else is happening.

God is discovering/revealed as merciful.  Also frustrated, angry, and even inconsistent.  But God is merciful.  The promise to Noah is striking from today, For human hearts are inclined to evil, even so I will not curse the earth and destroy everything again.  The seasons and weeks and days will continue, anyway.  God is merciful, loving even to the cost of frustration, anger, and even cursing the goodness of creation.  It is interesting to see God’s temperament in the narrative as God discovers his own nature as loving beyond his anger.

Then Matthew and Acts show the cards God is holding.  God will redeem humanity through a son and his followers.  The surprise is that God loves to such a degree that he will set aside sin in a self-sacrificing act of incarnation and death, humiliation and annihilation, dying for that unfulfilled warning back at the beginning, to set us free to be what we were intended.

God made us to take care of creation and one another.  Stewards of the house of God.  And instead we Genesis ourselves.  So God indwells us in Pentecost and gives us a new heart.  What are you doing with this one?  I still have work to do.

Luckily, God speaks my language.

As we studied to the Hebrew tradition of kings, in their various failures and successes, I proposed that in Christ we are called to be a “royal priesthood”, kings and queens, heirs of God’s kingdom or rule.

So what makes a good king?  To pursue God, of course.

But we also looked at the King archetype, and I admitted that I had studied this for my own benefit in looking for an image of maturity and fulness as a man in Christ.  So what should a king do in a room with others?

First off a king in Christ is a servant to others, we don’t wear ermine, we wear towels.

But a king should set boundaries, provide order, lead in vitality, and give identity.

We set boundaries by holding to the ethics and limits of Scripture and Jesus’ teachings.  We recognize that not everything is available to us, and so we hold the boundaries of our common life.  This saves time and energy and makes life easier and less messy.

So we also provide order.  Do you know those people who walk into a room and it seems like things go more smoothly?  Things order themselves around some people.  We should strive to be this way, and we do so by building up our internal order.

We give life.  We make things live.  Projects, people, and anything else.  We give life away instead of hoarding it, because as a king I know that my life is the life of my people and territory.  See the Fischer King for a wonderful play on this idea.

Finally we give identity.  We have an identity in Christ that is set beyond our ability to keep it.  We keep it by how we live, but it is a free gift.  What if we gave that gift to others?  That is the final and greatest gift of a royal priesthood.

Here are the series of questions that the Very Rev Daniel P. Richards uses when approaching a text…

Literary

• Who is speaking? To Whom?
• What is the message?
• What genre is this?

Historical

• When and where?
• Who is the author? Known or unknown?
• What is the setting and context?

Theological

• Who, what, where is God in this text?
• Where is the Gospel of Christ in this text?
• What is the Spirit doing/saying in me as I engage this text?

Wednesday, September 14, 2011 A.D.

Last week’s reflection time out of Joshua and Judges, after some really great questions, was “Who are your heroes of the faith?”

The amazing thing about the Hebrew Bible is that the heroes are also anti-heroes for the most part.  Samson is a dense jock and lusty egomaniac, for example.  The kings all have their short comings, including Moses.  This helps actually when we ask who our heroes are, to not have to have them be flawless or angelic.

Who are your heroes of the faith?  Who showed you what it was like to follow Christ?

I often think of the people who paid a cost for their following.  Are your parents heroes for you?  Are your children?  What about that . . .

Heroes teach us how to live, often without ever saying a word of instruction.  But I always think of teachers too, and mentors like Gil, Rebecca, Terri, and Tom, the people who took the time to shape me as a minister of the gospel.

Peace,

daniel+

Some basic ideas with Covenant:

A covenant is not exactly like a contract.  A contract is broken if one party does not meet the demands of the contract.  A covenant though is binding until the covenant is fulfilled or completed.  ”You shall be my God, and we shall be your people,” has no end date.

If we are to understand how a covenant binds, we must look at how the people wander away from God time and time again throughout the history of Israel and Judah, and yet God continues to return to them again and again.  In a contract, God would simply be done with them when they left, but God has bound himself to them in a covenant.

This irrevocability is part of why marriage is so binding, and why I think divorces so damaging.  The covenant remains binding until death.  This means that a good divorce is a death.  That new “nephesh” one flesh of Genesis has to die for the couple to be otherwise.  Having children keeps it alive.  That is why Jesus was so strong about divorce.  It affects how we are able to comprehend our covenant with God.

When marriage is just a contract that is broken and therefore unbinding, adultery becomes rampant because no one can be a perfect spouse.  Instead we are bound by a covenant that remains.

Finally, all of this is to say that we are bound, single or married, to God in Christ through our baptismal covenant.  How does that bind you?