Today's Scripture Readings
Wisdom 2: 1-24 (NRSV)
John 7: 1-30 (NRSV)
Blog Reflection
As we begin to draw closer to Holy Week, we will notice that the Scripture readings get quite severe in their stories of Jesus' clash with the people of his time. We will read of how the tensions between Jesus and his enemies grows more intense. Jesus' Passion is drawing closer with each passing day.
It is very important not to get side tracked into anti-Semitism. It was the sins of all of us that crucified Jesus. Not the Jewish people or their religion. They are characters in the story. They are part of the narrative. What the people do in these Gospel accounts are things that so many of us do to one another at some point in our lives. How many of us have held in our systems a grudge against someone so severe, that we would do just about anything we could to get them out of our way? I think all of us can be pretty good at passive aggression, by simply sending a message to someone via any means other than our saying it directly.
This account of Jesus' conversation takes place during the Festival of Booths. This Festival was very similar to our Thanksgiving Day in the United States. A day when we gather our harvest and give thanks to God for the abundance we have received. We are not sure if the "brothers" written about are in fact his related brothers or brothers in the Jewish Faith with which he was associating. Jesus teaches in the Temple and that his words are not his own but those of God. There are Jews (again those who were not accepting Jesus, not the Jews themselves), who are accusing him of healing and working on the Sabbath day. Jesus confronts them, because they can circumcise on the Sabbath, yet, they are hounding Jesus for healing on the same occasion. Jesus challenges his hearers, by insisting that if they are not listening to him, then they probably do not know who sent him. Just as with many other texts in John, it ends with "his hour had not yet come."
In Wisdom 2: 12-24, there is an obvious plot to take down someone who is "righteous". The entire reading appears to be a group of people who are seeing someone very different, who is confusing things for them. The point of their discussion is to do something about it. This is from the part of Wisdom by which the wicked hold a just person before the throne of God. It is not until later in 5:5 that they will realize what a mistake they have made. The just one will be called a child of God for having done what is right in the eyes of God. Yet, the Lectionary for today also includes verses 15-22 of Psalm 34 in which the Psalmist proclaims that God is with those who are righteous, near to the brokenhearted and ransoms the lives of those who serve God.
These last days of Lent are difficult. We find ourselves longing for Easter. That is what Lent is suppose to do. We are doing something right. But, we are not there yet. Like it or not, we still have to go through Holy Week and be brought up to Good Friday. We still have to face the ugly that has yet to happen in this season. May be for some of us, it is right in front of us, and we are wanting to pay it no attention.
As difficult as the Scripture readings are, I do believe they speak to us about our work as progressive Christians who are working for the dignity, inclusion and equality of marginalized persons including LGBT in the Church and society.
When we are doing the work of hospitality and reconciliation, we are going to face the zealousness of those who disagree with us. We will be and are being accused of "preaching perverted doctrines." Why? Because they are different than what people have been taught before. People like having things comfortable. They don't like to be told that they have been getting it wrong. They will seek to discredit us, demean us and attempt to get us off track. Many of us are called "homosexual activists who are trying to corrupt the minds of children and others." As we see in Jesus' time, they called him a blasphemer. Yet, Jesus continues speaking the word of God and doing what God sent him to do. Jesus gives credit to God as the one who sent him, and it is God's work that he does and speaks. So, we must do the same.
The work of hospitality and reconciliation, seeking to uphold the dignity of every human person is God's work given to us through our common Baptism. Our acts of penance and self-denial are opportunities to bring us closer to God through Jesus, to pray not only for the redemption of our sins, but those of others. We can use them as occasions to pray against the violence of racism that is at the heart of the Trayvon Martin murder. To pray for the conversion of those working to take marriage equality away from LGBT people all across the country, and to justify spiritual and religious based violence and bigotry. Even if they all work against us, we still have the obligation to speak the truth about God's unconditional and all-inclusive love for all people. We must not allow those with evil in their minds and hearts to persuade us away from doing what is right by God and the Holy Spirit.
If our readings point us to anything, they remind us that as Jesus draws closer to his Passion and death, and so do we. All of us will one day face the reality of our mortality. "Remember, from dust you came, and to dust you shall return" we all heard on Ash Wednesday. The fact of our own death approaching, and the hope that we have in Jesus Christ, needs to inspire us to seeking justice, peace and defending the dignity of all human beings. Even though Jesus knew that what he was doing would result in his death, he kept on going, doing God's will. We too, knowing full well that what we are doing is difficult and will bring us results that are less than pleasant in some cases, must still keep on doing what God empowers us to do. Lent and the Cross are about giving up ourselves in service of God and our neighbor, as we seek to prepare our hearts to experience the resurrection of Easter Day.
Prayers
Wisdom 2: 1-24 (NRSV)
For they reasoned unsoundly, saying to themselves,
‘Short and sorrowful is our life,
and there is no remedy when a life comes to its end,
and no one has been known to return from Hades.
For we were born by mere chance,
and hereafter we shall be as though we had never been,
for the breath in our nostrils is smoke,
and reason is a spark kindled by the beating of our hearts;
when it is extinguished, the body will turn to ashes,
and the spirit will dissolve like empty air.
Our name will be forgotten in time,
and no one will remember our works;
our life will pass away like the traces of a cloud,
and be scattered like mist
that is chased by the rays of the sun
and overcome by its heat.
For our allotted time is the passing of a shadow,
and there is no return from our death,
because it is sealed up and no one turns back.
‘Come, therefore, let us enjoy the good things that exist,
and make use of the creation to the full as in youth.
Let us take our fill of costly wine and perfumes,
and let no flower of spring pass us by.
Let us crown ourselves with rosebuds before they wither.
Let none of us fail to share in our revelry;
everywhere let us leave signs of enjoyment,
because this is our portion, and this our lot.
Let us oppress the righteous poor man;
let us not spare the widow
or regard the grey hairs of the aged.
But let our might be our law of right,
for what is weak proves itself to be useless.
‘Let us lie in wait for the righteous man,
because he is inconvenient to us and opposes our actions;
he reproaches us for sins against the law,
and accuses us of sins against our training.
He professes to have knowledge of God,
and calls himself a child of the Lord.
He became to us a reproof of our thoughts;
the very sight of him is a burden to us,
because his manner of life is unlike that of others,
and his ways are strange.
We are considered by him as something base,
and he avoids our ways as unclean;
he calls the last end of the righteous happy,
and boasts that God is his father.
Let us see if his words are true,
and let us test what will happen at the end of his life;
for if the righteous man is God’s child, he will help him,
and will deliver him from the hand of his adversaries.
Let us test him with insult and torture,
so that we may find out how gentle he is,
and make trial of his forbearance.
Let us condemn him to a shameful death,
for, according to what he says, he will be protected.’
Thus they reasoned, but they were led astray,
for their wickedness blinded them,
and they did not know the secret purposes of God,
nor hoped for the wages of holiness,
nor discerned the prize for blameless souls;
for God created us for incorruption,
and made us in the image of his own eternity,
but through the devil’s envy death entered the world,
and those who belong to his company experience it.
John 7: 1-30 (NRSV)
After this Jesus went about in Galilee. He did not wish to go about in Judea because the Jews were looking for an opportunity to kill him. Now the Jewish festival of Booths was near. So his brothers said to him,
‘Leave here and go to Judea so that your disciples also may see the works you are doing; for no one who wants to be widely known acts in secret. If you do these things, show yourself to the world.’ (For not even his brothers believed in him.) Jesus said to them, ‘My time has not yet come, but your time is always here. The world cannot hate you, but it hates me because I testify against it that its works are evil. Go to the festival yourselves. I am not going to this festival, for my time has not yet fully come.’ After saying this, he remained in Galilee.
But after his brothers had gone to the festival, then he also went, not publicly but as it were in secret. The Jews were looking for him at the festival and saying, ‘Where is he?’ And there was considerable complaining about him among the crowds. While some were saying, ‘He is a good man’, others were saying, ‘No, he is deceiving the crowd.’ Yet no one would speak openly about him for fear of the Jews.
About the middle of the festival Jesus went up into the temple and began to teach. The Jews were astonished at it, saying, ‘How does this man have such learning, when he has never been taught?’ Then Jesus answered them, ‘My teaching is not mine but his who sent me. Anyone who resolves to do the will of God will know whether the teaching is from God or whether I am speaking on my own. Those who speak on their own seek their own glory; but the one who seeks the glory of him who sent him is true, and there is nothing false in him.
‘Did not Moses give you the law? Yet none of you keeps the law. Why are you looking for an opportunity to kill me?’ The crowd answered, ‘You have a demon! Who is trying to kill you?’ Jesus answered them, ‘I performed one work, and all of you are astonished. Moses gave you circumcision (it is, of course, not from Moses, but from the patriarchs), and you circumcise a man on the sabbath. If a man receives circumcision on the sabbath in order that the law of Moses may not be broken, are you angry with me because I healed a man’s whole body on the sabbath? Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgement.’
Now some of the people of Jerusalem were saying, ‘Is not this the man whom they are trying to kill? And here he is, speaking openly, but they say nothing to him! Can it be that the authorities really know that this is the Messiah? Yet we know where this man is from; but when the Messiah comes, no one will know where he is from.’ Then Jesus cried out as he was teaching in the temple, ‘You know me, and you know where I am from. I have not come on my own. But the one who sent me is true, and you do not know him. I know him, because I am from him, and he sent me.’ Then they tried to arrest him, but no one laid hands on him, because his hour had not yet come.
Blog Reflection
As we begin to draw closer to Holy Week, we will notice that the Scripture readings get quite severe in their stories of Jesus' clash with the people of his time. We will read of how the tensions between Jesus and his enemies grows more intense. Jesus' Passion is drawing closer with each passing day.
It is very important not to get side tracked into anti-Semitism. It was the sins of all of us that crucified Jesus. Not the Jewish people or their religion. They are characters in the story. They are part of the narrative. What the people do in these Gospel accounts are things that so many of us do to one another at some point in our lives. How many of us have held in our systems a grudge against someone so severe, that we would do just about anything we could to get them out of our way? I think all of us can be pretty good at passive aggression, by simply sending a message to someone via any means other than our saying it directly.
This account of Jesus' conversation takes place during the Festival of Booths. This Festival was very similar to our Thanksgiving Day in the United States. A day when we gather our harvest and give thanks to God for the abundance we have received. We are not sure if the "brothers" written about are in fact his related brothers or brothers in the Jewish Faith with which he was associating. Jesus teaches in the Temple and that his words are not his own but those of God. There are Jews (again those who were not accepting Jesus, not the Jews themselves), who are accusing him of healing and working on the Sabbath day. Jesus confronts them, because they can circumcise on the Sabbath, yet, they are hounding Jesus for healing on the same occasion. Jesus challenges his hearers, by insisting that if they are not listening to him, then they probably do not know who sent him. Just as with many other texts in John, it ends with "his hour had not yet come."
In Wisdom 2: 12-24, there is an obvious plot to take down someone who is "righteous". The entire reading appears to be a group of people who are seeing someone very different, who is confusing things for them. The point of their discussion is to do something about it. This is from the part of Wisdom by which the wicked hold a just person before the throne of God. It is not until later in 5:5 that they will realize what a mistake they have made. The just one will be called a child of God for having done what is right in the eyes of God. Yet, the Lectionary for today also includes verses 15-22 of Psalm 34 in which the Psalmist proclaims that God is with those who are righteous, near to the brokenhearted and ransoms the lives of those who serve God.
These last days of Lent are difficult. We find ourselves longing for Easter. That is what Lent is suppose to do. We are doing something right. But, we are not there yet. Like it or not, we still have to go through Holy Week and be brought up to Good Friday. We still have to face the ugly that has yet to happen in this season. May be for some of us, it is right in front of us, and we are wanting to pay it no attention.
As difficult as the Scripture readings are, I do believe they speak to us about our work as progressive Christians who are working for the dignity, inclusion and equality of marginalized persons including LGBT in the Church and society.
When we are doing the work of hospitality and reconciliation, we are going to face the zealousness of those who disagree with us. We will be and are being accused of "preaching perverted doctrines." Why? Because they are different than what people have been taught before. People like having things comfortable. They don't like to be told that they have been getting it wrong. They will seek to discredit us, demean us and attempt to get us off track. Many of us are called "homosexual activists who are trying to corrupt the minds of children and others." As we see in Jesus' time, they called him a blasphemer. Yet, Jesus continues speaking the word of God and doing what God sent him to do. Jesus gives credit to God as the one who sent him, and it is God's work that he does and speaks. So, we must do the same.
The work of hospitality and reconciliation, seeking to uphold the dignity of every human person is God's work given to us through our common Baptism. Our acts of penance and self-denial are opportunities to bring us closer to God through Jesus, to pray not only for the redemption of our sins, but those of others. We can use them as occasions to pray against the violence of racism that is at the heart of the Trayvon Martin murder. To pray for the conversion of those working to take marriage equality away from LGBT people all across the country, and to justify spiritual and religious based violence and bigotry. Even if they all work against us, we still have the obligation to speak the truth about God's unconditional and all-inclusive love for all people. We must not allow those with evil in their minds and hearts to persuade us away from doing what is right by God and the Holy Spirit.
If our readings point us to anything, they remind us that as Jesus draws closer to his Passion and death, and so do we. All of us will one day face the reality of our mortality. "Remember, from dust you came, and to dust you shall return" we all heard on Ash Wednesday. The fact of our own death approaching, and the hope that we have in Jesus Christ, needs to inspire us to seeking justice, peace and defending the dignity of all human beings. Even though Jesus knew that what he was doing would result in his death, he kept on going, doing God's will. We too, knowing full well that what we are doing is difficult and will bring us results that are less than pleasant in some cases, must still keep on doing what God empowers us to do. Lent and the Cross are about giving up ourselves in service of God and our neighbor, as we seek to prepare our hearts to experience the resurrection of Easter Day.
Prayers
O God, you have given us the Good News of your abounding love in your Son Jesus Christ: So fill our hearts with thankfulness that we may rejoice to proclaim the good tidings we have received; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, One God, for ever and ever. Amen. (Friday of the Fourth Week in Lent. Holy Women, Holy Men, Celebrating the Saints,. p. 58).
Almighty and everlasting God, you hate nothing you have
made and forgive the sins of all who are penitent: Create and
make in us new and contrite hearts, that we, worthily
lamenting our sins and acknowledging our wretchedness,
may obtain of you, the God of all mercy, perfect remission
and forgiveness; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives
and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever
and ever. Amen. (Collect for Ash Wednesday, Book of Common Prayer, p. 217).
Almighty God, whose most dear Son went not up to joy but
first he suffered pain, and entered not into glory before he
was crucified: Mercifully grant that we, walking in the way
of the cross, may find it none other than the way of life and
peace; through the same thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen. (Collect for Friday, Book of Common Prayer, p. 56).
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