Faith, Grace, and Hope

Genesis 11:1-9  Now the whole earth had one language and the same words. And as they migrated from the east, they came upon a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there. And they said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly.” And they had brick for stone, and bitumen for mortar. Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves; otherwise we shall be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.” The Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which mortals had built. And the Lord said, “Look, they are one people, and they have all one language; and this is only the beginning of what they will do; nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. Come, let us go down, and confuse their language there, so that they will not understand one another’s speech.” So the Lord scatt...

Originally written for revgalblogpals.org and posted on 3/22/19.  Job 13, Revised Julia Version  Look, I have heard everything you are telling me, “friends”, And your words aren’t new to me. I have the same information that you do; And, frankly, you’re not offering different or better interpretation. I want to speak directly to the Almighty and take up this injustice in  that  conversation.  Y’all… you are looking at my situation and Basically talking out of your rear ends. You’ve got nothing. If you were just quiet, just grieved with me, that would actually a true help, Not whatever it is you’re doing now. Listen real carefully to me now: Is it better to be quiet or To speak about God and turn out to have lied? Unless you are defending the Divine by speaking about Holy Prerogative And Holy Mystery and our own smallness and trust in Holy Grace, it is better to hush up. Do you think God is going to own everything you’ve...

The follower on the Way of Christ understands that there is nothing that did not come from God and that will eventually be either returned to God or rendered moot. Therefore, the follower on the Way is generous with all and to all. Any immigrant who lives with you must be treated as if they were one of your citizens. You must love them as yourself, because you were immigrants in the land of Egypt; I am the Lord your God. (Leviticus 19:34) [Jesus] answered, “Whoever has two shirts must share with the one who has none, and whoever has food must do the same.” (Luke 3:11) Keep loving each other like family. Don’t neglect to open up your homes to guests, because by doing this some have been hosts to angels without knowing it. (Hebrews 13:1-2)

Prompts are from RevGalBlogPals! :) 1. What is your favorite Bible verse? If I'm only picking one, it's Jonah 4:11. I like it enough that I literally made a bumper sticker for it. 9  But God said to Jonah, “Is it right for you to be angry about the bush?” And he said, “Yes, angry enough to die.”  10  Then the  Lord  said, “You are concerned about the bush, for which you did not labor and which you did not grow; it came into being in a night and perished in a night.  11  And should I not be concerned about Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also many animals?” 2. What is your favorite book of the Bible? Judges. I don't think we learn enough from those stories about what happens to as a society increasingly turns away from good leadership and opts for thuggery. Furthermore, we fail to pay attention to the lessons of what happens t...

I've probably read Judges more than most "normal" people. I've read it a lot for someone who hasn't written a dissertation or a commentary on it. I can't escape it. There is something very truth-telling about human history in a book that perpetually shows how things go astray when they "do what is right in their own eyes", believing they have no holding center. They consistently forget God's deliverance and they fail to recognize God as their king. In the midst of the present turmoil, pain over violence at the hands of violent, desperate people in Paris, in Beirut, in Syria, and elsewhere ... the pain is becoming fear and the fear is becoming irrationality. Our best selves are not speaking. We are not acknowledging facts (there are terror cells of the present perpetrators already within our borders plus others), nor are we acknowledging the role fear of the "other" has played in United States history (much less human history). For m...

One: O Lord our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! All: Majestic, magnificent, marvelous, mysterious is our God. One: The angels sing of your glory. All: Children recognize your power. One: Your enemies do not prevail. The fortress of your love lasts forever. All: Majestic, magnificent, marvelous, mysterious is our God. One: When I think of all creation- space, animals, plants, All: People, music, fish, mountains, oceans, and deserts. One: It is more than I can comprehend- that I am born out of the same mind as whales and galaxies. All: Who are we, that you have thought of us, made us, loved us, saved us? One: Majestic, magnificent, marvelous, mysterious is our God. All: You made people- all people, all kinds of people One: You gave people, us, the work of caring for, of stewardship over All: Flocks and herds, fields and forests, lakes and rivers, the wild and the tamed. One: O Lord our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the...

2 Kings 2:9-12 9  When they had crossed, Elijah said to Elisha, “Tell me what I may do for you, before I am taken from you.” Elisha said, “Please let me inherit a double share of your spirit.”  10  He responded, “You have asked a hard thing; yet, if you see me as I am being taken from you, it will be granted you; if not, it will not.”  11  As they continued walking and talking, a chariot of fire and horses of fire separated the two of them, and Elijah ascended in a whirlwind into heaven.  12  Elisha kept watching and crying out, “Father, father! The chariots of Israel and its horsemen!” But when he could no longer see him, he grasped his own clothes and tore them in two pieces. What would a “double share” of the spirit of a modern prophet or saint look like? The one who received a double share of the spirit of Dietrich Bonhoeffer would likely not rest while there were unjust governments in the world. A double share of Rosa Parks would mean resis...

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Fourth Sunday in Advent: Malachi 3-4 (Narrative Lectionary)                         This time of year I think a lot about the fact that I had two Jewish grandparents whom I knew and loved. I had four Jewish great-grandparents who died before I was born, whose parents came from Eastern Europe to escape the horrific persecution of Jews. From my Jewish grandparents came my mother who came to know and believe in Christ in her mid-twenties, but still shared with her children some of the celebrations of her youth- Chanukah, Passover, Sabbath.             This time of year, when we all reflect on families, I think of the Chanukahs of my youth and I think about the people who came before my great-grandparents. My family tree with many branches cut short on one side because of the violence against Jews in Russia and Eastern Europe in the 19 th and 20 th centuries. W...

A Sermon on Hosea 6:1-6, 11:1-9 Who knows anything about Hosea (the book or the prophet)? Hosea is a prophet in the Northern Kingdom, probably just a little more than seven hundred years before Jesus is born. The Northern Kingdom of Israel, remember, has more money, more tribes and more power, but it doesn’t have the Davidic line (the line of kings descending from David). During the time of Hosea’s prophecies, the Assyrians will come and conquer the Northern Kingdom and carry them off into exile. One of the reasons we don’t get a whole lot of Hosea is because the book can cause a lot of indigestion. There are two main metaphors in the book: a husband/wife metaphor and a parent/child metaphor. In that first one, the husband/wife metaphor, God is the faithful husband and Israel is the unfaithful wife, deserving of punishment- possibly death. While we can understand a metaphor of idolatry as adultery, we don’t always think about the fact that in ancient Israel, there w...

Lent 4, Year A 3 April 2011 Genesis 19:1-11, Psalm 23, Matthew 10:5-15 What are your first thoughts when you think of Sodom and Gomorrah?             What comes right before this passage? Abraham gets heavenly visitors, hosts them and learns that God has a son in store from him. Abraham can’t do enough for his heavenly visitors. Then the Lord talks to Abraham about the plans to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah. Abraham attempts to intercede for the cities and finally God agrees not to destroy the cities if there are ten righteous men to be found.             Then we have today’s passage. Are there any righteous men there? According to the passage, “all the men from every part of the city of Sodom- both young and old- surrounded the house.” The passage draws us in so that we can make the decision that Abraham is asking God to make, “Are there 10 righteous men in thi...

Tonight I was reflecting on the prophet Samuel at the beginning of 1 Samuel 16. God asks Samuel how long he intends to grieve for Saul. If you only pick up in the middle of Samuel, it's easy to forget that Saul is still alive at this point. He's just departed so greatly from God's vision (and Samuel's) for him, that God is asking Samuel to get out his anointing kit and go get another king for Israel. Grieving someone who is still living is hard and painful. In this Lenten season, I told myself I wanted to focus on forgiveness with regard to a specific situation in my life. In 2009, I had a couple very traumatic life events and someone to whom I was very close abruptly left my life without explanation or goodbye. I haven't heard from or seen this person since. I've been picking at the scab over this emotional wound. Playing over the events in my mind, wondering what I could have changed, what I should have anticipated, what was my fault, what wasn't. ...

In our current world, “friending” is a verb and is sometimes applied to someone you know in passing. Perhaps more than in passing, but not always someone you know well. Consequently, as our use of a word changes, our understanding of the relating concept changes as well. As “friends” become more casual, it’s easy to forget the role real friends play in our lives, the closeness we can have with them, the pain we can feel at their betrayal, the true mourning we experience at their loss. When I think of the word friend, abstractly, I think of Anne Frank referring to Kitty (the addressee of her diary) as her bosom friend, which leads my thoughts to the Beloved Disciple (unnamed) reclining against Jesus at the last supper- a bosom friend, indeed. Friends give us support, a place to vent, a new audience for our laughter and stories, a shoulder to cry on, a place to be ourselves. Even the most introverted among us has one or two people with whom to share. In the Bible, there are...