Faith, Grace, and Hope

Cross-posted at RevGalBlogPals as a Friday Prayer. The truncated tree of Leah, Tamar, Rahab, and Ruth shall sprout, New growth shall come from their roots. The spirit of the Lord shall rest on the One who comes,     the spirit of discernment and patience,     the spirit of thoughtfulness and strength,     the spirit of deep awareness of the power of the Lord. The One will find joy in the awe-inspiring work of the Lord. The Messiah shall not judge by what eyes see,     or decide by what ears hear; but the poor will be seen through honest lenses,     and decisions for equity will be made for the humble of heart and spirit; The words of the Savior will cut through the bullshit of worldly powers,     Those who oppose his goodness will be slain by grace. The torso of the One who is to come will be garbed in justice,   ...

Today for Christ the King/Reign of Christ Sunday, I made a slide show of art of the life and ministry of Moses and the life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus. The gospel writers used wrote in ways to make similarities between Jesus and Moses obvious, because a connection to the prophet of freedom lead people to understand what they might expect from Jesus. Of course, he turned out to be so much more than they expected. Jesus is more than a prophet and even more than a king. Here are some rough notes. Moses Jesus Pharaoh orders destruction of all Hebrew baby boys. Moses’s mother saves him by floating him down the river in a basket. (Exodus 1-2) Herod the Great hears tell of a new king, born in Bethlehem. He orders the slaughter of all the babies in the vicinity. (Matthew 2) Moses is adopted by Pharaoh’s daughter, “taken into Egypt”. (Exodus 2) Joseph has a dream in which an angel warns him of the s...

Our adult education class at church is studying Amos. I like it because it feels like sneaking a peek a Jesus' preaching notes. Of course, there are some very uncomfortable moments. Amos comes down hard on those who are focused on the details of religiosity, but ignore the true work of relationship with and response to God. The prophet cries out against those who use others as means to an end, particularly when the end is a lush life, a sexual adventure, a perversion of justice, or simply a picnic with the spoils of oppression. Donald E. Gowan says we must be careful about how we apply Amos's words in a modern context: “Have we the right (or the wisdom and insight) to make a direct application of Amos’s message to any contemporary nation or culture? With injustice still rampant, there is a strong temptation for us to do that, but that should be done with caution… We cannot make direct applications of the prophetic message in order to predict our future, but we can an...

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...

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...