Hebrew & Gospel Texts for Sunday 31 October 2021

Deuteronomy 6:1-9       Moses said: Now this is the commandment--the statutes and the ordinances--that the Lord your God charged me to teach you to observe in the land that you are about to cross into and occupy, so that you and your children and your children's children, may fear the Lord your God all the days of your life, and keep all his decrees and his commandments that I am commanding you, so that your days may be long. Hear therefore, O Israel, and observe them diligently, so that it may go well with you, and so that you may multiply greatly in a land flowing with milk and honey, as the Lord, the God of your ancestors, has promised you.

Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart. Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise. Bind them as a sign on your hand, fix them as an emblem on your forehead, and write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

Mark 12:28-34        One of the scribes came near and heard the Saducees disputing with one another, and seeing that Jesus answered them well, he asked him, “Which commandment is the first of all?” Jesus answered, “The first is, ‘Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” Then the scribe said to him, “You are right, Teacher; you have truly said that ‘he is one, and besides him there is no other’; and ‘to love him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the strength,’ and ‘to love one’s neighbor as oneself,’ —this is much more important than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.” When Jesus saw that he answered wisely, he said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” After that no one dared to ask him any question.

Reflection     Both Moses and Jesus preach about the dance of grace in the covenant relationship between God and humankind. First Moses summarizes the Decalogue, the Ten Commandments that the people of God received “On the mountain out of fire” just one chapter earlier in the Hebrew text. (Deut 5.6-18) Between thirteen and sixteen hundred years later Jesus quotes Moses, “Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength,” again summarizing the first five commandments then recaps the last five adding,”You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

The commandments and their summary constitute a bilateral covenant describing how humanity is meant to order life in relationship with God and one another.  Rather than legalistic imperatives, the commandments are actually descriptions of how we are to respond with grace to grace.  Our relationships with God and one another are meant to be articulated in the intimate mutuality of receiving and extending the movement of grace.

So what is grace?  In the Christian tradition grace has meaning beyond the secular understanding of good manners, elegant movements and poise. It means more than a deferment of time as in ‘grace period’ or the address of nobility, “Your Grace.”  In religious parlance grace refers to Divine favor in relationship with humankind. We understand grace as God giving God’s self to us so that we will embody that grace and extend it to others.  Which means, grace is not a thing, not a particular gift, “I thank God for the grace of giving me brown hair and making me short and providing a good medical plan.” No.

Grace is the movement, emergence, becoming of Divinity in and of, with and through each one of us. We are meant to participate in this dance of humanity with divinity and, as with every dance, graceful partners co-operate. The Divine spark at the core of each of us moves as grace inviting us to dance.  It is up to us to choose whether or not we accept the invitation. When we do say “yes,” grace flows to us and through us. We dance.

Although we can do nothing to earn or deserve grace it is our obligation to respond to grace. The eternally generative outpouring of Divine grace summons our unrestrained continuing of its flow through us to others.  Think of it as a dance between the effusion of God’s grace and our grace-filled response, grace upon grace upon grace flowing for the good of all. The  Decalogue as well as the summary of the law are meant to order our lives, essentially give us the dance steps to advance a mutuality of affection and exchange of grace for grace. 

How do we deliberately participate in the flow of grace to us and through us? We begin by recognizing the presence of grace. Acknowledging the kindness, comfort, help, assistance, advantage, aid, profit or goodness of grace flowing to us opens the way for grace to continue to flow through us. Consider it this way. You are a beautifully formed vessel filled with living water but  being preoccupied with the shape of your vessel you fail to notice the water and never open the spout that allows the water to flow. Not only will your neighbors’ thirst not be quenched, soon the living water will be stagnant and evaporate. Grace, like water, intends to flow to us and through us and it does so by our deliberate choice to allow the flow.

Describing the covenant relationship between God and humankind both Moses and Jesus are preaching good news because being in covenant with God and our neighbors elevates our relationships from sparring grounds for grumbling, if not outright war about entitlement, rights and responsibility to jointly generative collaboration where fulfilling our obligations to one another is not a burden but rather the outward and visible expression of the unearned grace poured to us and through us. Shall we dance?

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Hebrew Text & Gospel for Sunday 21 February 2021

Genesis 9:8-17        God said to Noah and to his sons with him, “As for me, I am establishing my covenant with you and your descendants after you, and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the domestic animals, and every animal of the earth with you, as many as came out of the ark. I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.” God said, “This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations: I have set my bow in the clouds, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.” God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant that I have established between me and all flesh that is on the earth.”

Mark 1:9-15        In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”

And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. He was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him.

Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and b

believe in the good news.

Reflection       Seven years ago my younger brother died of a rare and raging blood cancer. While speaking on the phone to my nephew, my brother’s son, he said, “ Dad is dying right now. I have to go.” With all of the air kicked out of my gut I stumbled outside, dangled my feet in the pool and raged at God. “You better make good on your promise to be with my brother.” And as God is my witness I tell you, on this sun smothered June afternoon with hardly a cloud in the sky a rainbow appeared rising from the Catalinas, a wee bit north of Mount Lemmon. I wept. I wept because I knew that even though my brother had no faith in God and zero use for religion, God was faithful to him and all was well. 

This is the promise, “the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.” Never again will God abandon any one of us. And ever since that June afternoon when in the wake of my brother’s death God’s rainbow affirmed God’s uncompromising promise, during every Memorial Celebration of life that I have had the privilege of celebrating  I have been able to preach Paul’s words to the Romans with unwavering conviction,  “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God … ” (Ro 8.38-39)

God is faithful, even when we are not. As people of God we need this assurance because as soon as we are baptized, as quickly as the priest pours water over our crowns and marks us with holy oil as God’s own forever, like Jesus we are driven directly to the wilderness. We are cast into the wilderness to be tempted by Satan, taunted by wild beasts and also cared for by the angels. Just in case you are wondering what that wilderness looks like, stop and look around. 

The wilderness is the thin ice of existence on which we all skate, the dubious daze and erratic maze of life that we call reality. The wilderness is history’s playground replete with adversity and advantage, blessing and curse, hardship and comfort, pleasure and affliction. You see, just as quickly as we, like Jesus, realize we are God’s beloved, we are driven into the wilderness to be tempted, humbled, refined and compelled along the way to Jerusalem.

“What is the way to Jerusalem?” I believe it is the long walk of life, the mariner’s cruise, the sojourner’s trek, the simple persons shuffle through puzzling days and sleepless nights. For those inclined toward things relating to the Spirit or soul, the walk to Jerusalem is understood as the Spiritual Journey of the lover moving toward union and unity with the Beloved. For the less spiritually inclined the way to Jerusalem may seem to be the road of baseless suffering bent on an arch toward doom. 

When almost all of the earth was destroyed by a flood, God made an everlasting covenant with all that lives, represented by a rainbow bridging earth and sky. This is the good news of God with us through floods, fires, freezes and political sea changes;  through climate catastrophes and pandemics, isolation, desolation as well as consolation. God is faithful, no matter what. So stop wagging your tongues and waving your fingers. Put down your complaints and turn around.  Repent. Believe the good news. God is near. Open the eyes of your heart to see God’s rainbow.

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Hebrew Testament Text for Sunday 20 October 2019

Jeremiah 31:27-34        The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with the seed of humans and the seed of animals. And just as I have watched over them to pluck up and break down, to overthrow, destroy, and bring evil, so I will watch over them to build and to plant, says the Lord. In those days they shall no longer say: "The parents have eaten sour grapes,and the children's teeth are set on edge."But all shall die for their own sins; the teeth of everyone who eats sour grapes shall be set on edge.

The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt-- a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the Lord. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, "Know the Lord," for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.

Reflection       Speaking through the prophet Jeremiah we hear what is arguably the most amazing promise (or covenant) of all time; God’s promise to humanity  “I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, "Know the Lord," for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord.”  

This is the new covenant, the new promise. God’ law is written on our hearts - on everyone’s heart, from the least to the greatest. 

What does it mean that God’s law is written on our hearts? I believe it means if we listen, really listen to our conscience we know when we are thinking or doing rightly and when we are not. Here is the thing, when we are tuned in or listening to God’s law even when circumstances are less than perfect ( which is most of the time), we feel peace, we are at ease, neither second guessing ourselves nor pointing our fingers at others. 

God’s law is the Christ written large within us. Paul puts it this way, “it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me.” (Gal 2.20) Christ is the incarnate revelation of God’s love, once in the flesh of Jesus now in the flesh of all people, “from the least of them to the greatest.” This is the great equalizer. It does not matter our position, our power, our wealth. Our race, religion or politics are irrelevant because God’s law of love revealed in Jesus and meant for all people comes with no conditions (no hidden small print).

The first covenant God made with the people consists of a set of rules intending to direct the peoples’ obedience to external authority. This is essentially how we begin to teach our children, using simple rules, the ten commandments. But, to grow into their full humanity we must also provide for the transformation of  their consciousness. I believe that is what it means to cultivate "the seeds of humans."  Through the process of spiritual formation, we nurture the seed of God's love that is planted in our hearts.  All we have to do is turn around and listen.  

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Gospel text for Sunday 13 November 2016

Luke 21:5-19

When some were speaking about the temple, how it was adorned with beautiful stones and gifts dedicated to God, Jesus said, "As for these things that you see, the days will come when not one stone will be left upon another; all will be thrown down.”They asked him, "Teacher, when will this be, and what will be the sign that this is about to take place?" And he said, "Beware that you are not led astray; for many will come in my name and say, `I am he!' and, `The time is near!' Do not go after them.

"When you hear of wars and insurrections, do not be terrified; for these things must take place first, but the end will not follow immediately." Then he said to them, "Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be great earthquakes, and in various places famines and plagues; and there will be dreadful portents and great signs from heaven.

"But before all this occurs, they will arrest you and persecute you; they will hand you over to synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors because of my name. This will give you an opportunity to testify. So make up your minds not to prepare your defense in advance; for I will give you words and a wisdom that none of your opponents will be able to withstand or contradict. You will be betrayed even by parents and brothers, by relatives and friends; and they will put some of you to death. You will be hated by all because of my name. But not a hair of your head will perish. By your endurance you will gain your souls.”

Reflection        Surely we are in no less a time of apocalyptic expectation than were the people listening to Jesus predict the decimation of the temple. Some of us are calling for a radical end of the way things have been. Others fear seismic doom and gloom borne of change. Within families, communities, cities , the Church, relationships are strained if not fatally fractured.

As people of God we are intended to be in loving relationship with God and one another. Most of us have been distracted and like our ancient Jewish ancestors forgotten our covenant with God. We are worried about “when (these terrible things) will be, and what will be the sign that it is about to take place.” Then and now we are asking the wrong questions.

The question is not “How shall we prepare ourselves for disaster;  ‘famine, plague and dreadful portents and great signs from heaven?’” The question is “How shall we live to fulfill our covenant agreement with God? How shall we repent, turn away from our selfishness, entitlement, pride and isolation to follow the way of Jesus by dignifying, caring for and giving ourselves away for the good of all people?” 

If we did live to fulfill our covenant with God there would indeed be an apocalyptic transformation of the world as we know it. And, if we choose to do this, like Jesus and his disciples, we can expect to be misunderstood and suffer along the way.

The good news is, God is with us and we do not have to prepare. We can have confidence because Jesus counseled, we need not be “terrified.” This moment in which we find ourselves is an opportunity to live and reveal the good news that God is with and for all people. “So make up your minds not to prepare your defense in advance; for I will give you words and a wisdom that none of your opponents will be able to withstand or contradict.” We may be hated and betrayed by many folk but we are assured of God’s presence with us… always. 

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Gospel text for Sunday 22 February 2015

Mark 1:9-15        In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. And a voice came from heaven, "You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased."

And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. He was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him.

Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, and saying, "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.”

Reflection    Baptism is the beginning,  the beginning of a new covenant relationship between God and us.  Baptism is the beginning of a new way of being and participating in life. Baptism is all about we, the living body of Christ on earth, the community of beloveds recognized by the way we live for the good of one another.

Being a Christian does not necessarily mean we believe certain things; Jesus‘ birth from a virgin, every word of the Nicene Creed. Being a Christian does not necessarily mean we do certain things; go to church on Sunday, give money to charities, read the Bible every day. 

Being a Christian means following Jesus,  walking the way of the cross, the way of giving our lives to suffer with and for all of humanity. For some of us that means listening when a friend describes their pain for the seven hundredth time. For others it means bringing meals to the homebound, or speaking out against customs, rules or laws that marginalize or oppress groups of people identified as “other;” the disabled, the aged or infirm, people of lesser or more education, resource or intellect, people of a different race or religion or no religion at all. 

For as long as we submit to labeling anyone as ‘other’ we are forgetting our commission and Jesus’ poignant prayer; “Not my will, but your will be done.”

Jesus dove full into life, revealing God’s love for lepers, maniacs reprobates, and “others.” He built no walls. He stretched no fences. By our baptism we are commissioned to likewise, to live and die for one another.

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