tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-79562483904487309262024-03-04T23:43:26.443-08:00Learning the Heart of God in the Word of GodAs we spend time reading Scripture, we come to know the heart of God through his Word. I enjoy sharing my reflections on the Scriptures that I'm currently reading.Sarahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08134409317988871603noreply@blogger.comBlogger38125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7956248390448730926.post-66620290288624555852013-10-07T05:25:00.004-07:002013-10-07T05:29:17.682-07:00Discovering Hidden Things: Reading the ApocryphaI finished the Old Testament several months ago, and now, after a break from <u>Reading God's Story</u>, it's time to dive back in. But instead of moving on to the New Testament, I'll be reading the Apocrypha first, and my friend Cait will be reading along too. I hope Cait will do a couple of guest posts along the way! Neither of us have ever read the Apocrypha in full, so we are looking forward to better understanding its content and its place in the canon (the list of biblical books considered fully authoritative and inspired by God).<br />
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Soon enough we'll dive into the stories found in these books, but hang in there while I explain some technical things about the Apocrypha. The word "apocrypha" comes from the same word in Greek, which means "hidden things." The Apocryphal books aren't considered part of the true canon of the Bible by (most) Protestants, but they are included in some editions of the Bible (our NRSV has a translation of the Apocrypha). The Catholic church has, I believe, always included the apocryphal texts listed below in their Bible, and they refer to them not as apocryphal but as "deuterocanonical," which means "second book." Which second book? Well, we have copies of the Old Testament texts both in Hebrew (their original language) and later copies of those books in the Greek language (the Greek texts of the Hebrew Bible are called the Septuagint). The Hebrew texts were translated into Greek in the 2nd-3rd centuries BC, because at that time many people spoke Greek and not a lot of people knew Hebrew anymore. The books that most Protestants consider the Apocrypha (listed below) <u>only</u> appear in the Greek versions of the Old Testament, not in the Hebrew versions; because they only appear in the "second version" of the Old Testament, they're called deuterocanonical. Perhaps more than you wanted to know!<br />
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The Apocrypha consists of the following writings:<br />
<ul>
<li>Tobit</li>
<li>Judith</li>
<li>Esther</li>
<li>Wisdom of Solomon</li>
<li>Ecclesiasticus</li>
<li>Baruch</li>
<li>Epistle of Jeremiah</li>
<li>Prayer of Azariah</li>
<li>Susanna</li>
<li>Bel and the Dragon</li>
<li>1 and 2 Maccabees</li>
<li>1 and 2 Esdras</li>
<li>Prayer of Manasseh</li>
</ul>
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There are other lists of texts that are sometimes called apocryphal like The Gospel of Thomas. Those writings are associated with the Bible in their subject matter, or they're supposedly written by a bibical character, but they've never been included in any list of what's considered canonical. A better term for most of them would be <i>pseudepigrapha</i> (which means written under a false name). In our reading of the Apocrypha, we'll be sticking to the first kind of text, the list of books above.<br />
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If you'd like to read along with us, but you don't have an edition of the Bible that includes the Apocrypha, you can find the entire text of those books <a href="http://www.biblestudytools.com/apocrypha/nrsa/">here</a>. You can also try reading it in the NRSV <a href="http://bible.oremus.org/">here</a> on Oremus Bible, but they can only put 120 verses on a webpage at time due to copyright, so it's a little tricky to navigate.<br />
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As I read, I'm looking for answers to the following questions:<br />
<ul>
<li>What themes from canonical Scripture do I see pop up in the apocrypha?</li>
<li>What value do these texts have for us as Christians, even though it's not canonical?</li>
<li>What should we make of an apocryphal text when it comes up in our lectionary (the reading schedule we use in the Episcopal Church)? Should we listen to it in a different way than we do to a canonical text?</li>
<li>How does reading the Apocrypha help us appreciate what it means to read canonical Scripture, the books that are fully considered the Bible?</li>
</ul>
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We'll start at the very beginning - this week's reading is the book of Tobit! Stay tuned.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3a/Rembrandt_-_Tobit_Accusing_Anna_of_Stealing_the_Kid_-_WGA19108.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3a/Rembrandt_-_Tobit_Accusing_Anna_of_Stealing_the_Kid_-_WGA19108.jpg" width="488" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Rembrandt's painting of Tobit with his wife Anna</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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Sarah Puryearhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07514888034425980522noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7956248390448730926.post-32897718093901518162013-03-02T19:24:00.004-08:002013-03-02T19:24:41.126-08:00The Meaning of Jeremiah 29:11<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I have been plugging right along through the Old Testament. I've enjoyed the way that <a href="http://blog.georgehguthrie.com/?page_id=835&preview=true"><i>Reading God's Story</i></a> organizes the prophets, interspersing them between the sections of the historical books written about their day. It has helped me to get a better sense of which prophet prophesied when and where, to which kingdom and during which king's reign. For instance, the writings of Jonah, Amos, and Hosea followed 2 Kings 14-15, which describe the reigns of Amaziah-Ahaz in Judah and Jehoash-Pekah in Israel, the period of time when these three prophets were active. I printed out <a href="http://gallery.thecoads.com/v/Primary-Sources/Kings_and_Prophets_of_Israel_and_Judah.jpg.html">this timeline</a> of the kings and prophets of Israel and Judah and kept it beside me as I read. It was enormously helpful.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I am now reading Jeremiah, known as the weeping prophet. And today my reading reminded me of why it's important to read the Old Testament in a </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lectio_continua" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>lectio continua</i></a><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">style - to read continuously across a book. I arrived at a verse that is much quoted - 29:11. In fact, if you type "Jeremiah" into Google, "Jeremiah 29 11" comes up as the second option. If you polled most Christians about Jeremiah, it would certainly be the most popular verse in the book, and for many Christians, the only verse they are familiar with from Jeremiah.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15.833333015441895px;">"'For I know the plans</span><sup class="crossreference" style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.65em; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: top;" value="(<a href="#cen-NIV-19647A" title="See cross-reference A">A</a>)"></sup><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15.833333015441895px;"> I have for you,' declares the </span><span class="small-caps" style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15.833333015441895px; font-variant: small-caps;">Lord</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15.833333015441895px;">, 'plans to prosper</span><sup class="crossreference" style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.65em; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: top;" value="(<a href="#cen-NIV-19647B" title="See cross-reference B">B</a>)"></sup><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15.833333015441895px;"> you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.'"</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-size: 15.833333015441895px;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white; font-size: 15.833333015441895px;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">(I quote it here in the NIV since that's probably the best known version of this verse.)</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This verse is often quoted as "God's promise to me, myself and I " - God has plans for me, good plans that will lead me into my future. Now, I like that idea as much as the next person, and I believe that it is still a description of God's intentions for us today</span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">.* However, </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">having just read this verse in the context of the historical books and all the accounts of the prophets, having read Jeremiah's dire warnings of destruction and his unheeded calls for a last-minute repentance, and having seen the people of Israel come to such a terrible end, the wrenching sorrow of their unfaithfulness to God, their awful uprooting from the land they loved, and their being cast away to an unknown and pagan land... this verse means more. It means more than "God loves me and wants me to be happy." The astounding, mind-boggling, staggering message of these words is that the end of the world has not come for Israel. God is extending an olive branch to them. God is reaffirming his commitment to his covenant with Israel, even when they have turned their backs on him so thoroughly that judgment finally came upon them in all its fury and fire. God tells them here that they have a future, at the very moment when they surely believed any hopeful future had been snuffed out. </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is a word to a prodigal son. It is a word of grace. Anyone who says the Old Testament is just a message of doom and gloom, of law and judgment, has not read it.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Turning a verse like this into a bumper sticker saps it of its force. It removes the devastation and suffering and hopelessness behind this verse and sanitizes it into just another saccharine saying. If you want to know its meaning, you must know the story out of which it arises. And that is how I feel about the Old Testament too - if you want to know what Jesus means, you have to know the story out of which he arises. And that will be the subject of an upcoming guest post on a friend's blog! Once I get it written and posted, I'll post a link to it.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://uploads8.wikipaintings.org/images/michelangelo/the-prophet-jeremiah-1512.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="http://uploads8.wikipaintings.org/images/michelangelo/the-prophet-jeremiah-1512.jpg" width="512" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">the weeping prophet</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">*though what qualifies as "prosperity" might be vastly different from what we might expect based on the American dream or whatever it is that we think we need these days in order to be happy. I am reading a <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Chance-Die-Life-Legacy-Carmichael/dp/0800730895">biography of missionary Amy Carmichael</a> right now, and the shape of her life was very good according to God's plans for her, yet most of us would shrink away from the very high challenge that she believed was part and parcel of following Jesus.</span>Sarah Puryearhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07514888034425980522noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7956248390448730926.post-42821002780175002912013-02-25T17:44:00.002-08:002013-02-25T18:05:39.468-08:00To Whose Voice Will I Listen During Lent?<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Sermon for First Sunday in Lent, Year C<br />February 17th, 2013<br />St. George’s Episcopal Church, Nashville, TN<br /><br /> Today we enter Lent, the most solemn and penitential season of the church. Lent first developed within the early church as a time of intense preparation for the celebration of the resurrection at Easter. The church sought to imitate Christ in his 40 days in the wilderness, by focusing on “dying to self” through self-examination and penitential acts, as preparation to then enter the “promised land” of new life into which Jesus ushers them through his resurrection, which is celebrated at the end of those 40 days with Easter. This focus on sin and dying to self, while intended to help us find greater freedom and joy in Christ, often seems to take on a spirit of gloominess and guilt.<br /><br /> The Reverend Jay Sidebotham, rector of Church of the Holy Spirit in Lake Forest, Illinois and popular church cartoonist, captures this common sentiment about Lent when he considers how the greeting card industry might go about creating a new line of greeting cards for the season of Lent. He offers a few suggestions of what such cards might say to get you into the spirit of the season: “Vino, sugar, coffee cup, now’s the time to give it up!” or “Think Lent is a downer? It’s really an acronym: Let’s End Negative Thinking!” or “If you think your life’s a bust, just remember you are dust.” The man on the cover of the third card looks gloomily up at the smudge of ashes on his forehead and says, “Thanks a lot.” Father Jay admits at the top of this cartoon that perhaps the time for this idea has not yet come. But Lent can come across as a dreary time of remembering just how bad we are to the point of wallowing in it. As we stand here, perched on the edge of this season, it is a good time to ask, What is Lent about? If it’s not supposed to simply be a long drag through the mud or a slog through the catalog of our sins, how does this season edify?<br /><a href="https://www.cpg.org/global/online-resources/cartoons/advent-and-lent/" target="_blank"><img border="0" height="366" src="https://www.cpg.org/default/cache/file/8A98BA21-B0D2-C19D-9103928AF96D1077.jpg" width="640" /></a><br /><br /><br /> To begin answering those questions, we look at Jesus in our gospel reading for today, out in a desolate wilderness. Just prior to this, Jesus has gone out to John at the River Jordan and been baptized by him; and when he came up from the water, there was the voice from heaven saying about him, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” Before launching into his full-blown ministry, Jesus retreats into the wilderness for a time of fasting, of prayer. He is alone, hungry, and thirsty. On top of all of that discomfort, he is being bothered by the devil, who sees this as the perfect time to test Jesus and throw him off track. Satan crafts three temptations that, if successful, would radically distort Jesus’ focus from his Father’s mission to his own worldly gain. Satan encourages Jesus to give into his desire for physical satisfaction, for world domination, and to attract attention and adoration from people. Satan never offers anything for free; however; each temptation comes at a cost. Like a good salesman, Satan doesn’t dwell on the price, but the trade-off is that Jesus must forfeit his trust in and his allegiance to his Father in heaven. At the root, each of these temptations seeks to undermine Jesus’ relationship with his Father. Out there in the wilderness, when times are tough, when all his external sources of comfort are gone, when the glorious pronouncement that he is God’s beloved son might be fading in his ears, Jesus must decide whose voice to listen to and believe, the voice of Satan, or the voice of his Father that he heard at the Jordan River.<br /><br /> It is clear from his responses to Satan that Jesus chooses to listen to the voice of his Father, for he responds each time with the words of Scripture: “Man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that comes from the mouth of God”; “Worship the Lord your God and serve him only;” “Do not put the Lord your God to the test.” We see Jesus has received and accepted the affirmation of his Father, “This is my Son, my Beloved.” His sonship is so central to his sense of self that he is able to withstand the temptations of the Devil. He trusts that as God’s beloved Son, his Father will provide him with the food, the strength, and the protection that he needs, without resorting to the lures of the devil.<br /><br /> I suspect that the gloominess that can prevail during Lent is a symptom of forgetting the voice of God and letting that other voice speak into our hearts. When we are in the wilderness, we too, like Jesus, must decide which of those two voices we will believe. We might expect the voice of God and the voice of Satan to sound starkly different. But Satan is a sneaky little devil, who has figured out that twisting the truth just so is a pathetically easy way to confuse us and get us off track. Satan has a favorite tactic that pairs very nicely with temptation – the tactic of accusation, seeking to undermine our sense of identity and security in the Father’s love. Satan has found that temptation works best when he precedes it with a round of accusations, knowing that when we feel hopeless or useless, we are more likely to succumb to a temptation that seems to temporarily relieve the burden of our sin. If we are feeling insecure about ourselves, we are more likely to reach for food, or power, or fame in order to feel better about ourselves, to shore up our crumbling sense of identity and self-worth. Those accusations might sound like this: “You’re such a sinner that God couldn’t love you. There’s no hope for you. If people knew everything about you, they’d abandon you. You’ll never change.” People of God, when we feel crushed by guilt and believe that there is no recourse for our sin, that is not the voice of God. That is the voice of the accuser, who comes to kill and steal and destroy. He accuses us, trying to push us deeper into the slough of despondency and despair, where we believe that we are beyond the reach of God’s grace. He has figured out that if he can’t tempt us with visions of world domination or mass approval, he can lure us into one of the most subtle forms of idolatry, the idolatry of focusing obsessively on our sin, which leads us away from God’s mercy and reaps only despair.<br /><br /> We must never confuse that voice for the voice of God, or for the message of the gospel. In the midst of self-examination and repentance, we are called to remember the voice of our Father throughout Lent, which echoes what he said about Jesus – “You are sealed with the Holy Spirit and marked as Christ’s own forever.” God’s voice tells us that we are his children, rooted in the Father’s love.<br /><br /> This does not mean that God brushes off our sin or ignores it. The conviction of God is like a sword that cuts cleanly between the truth and the lies and obfuscation of sin; it speaks a truth that we cannot escape. The key is that the conviction of the Holy Spirit is always swiftly followed by a word of grace. It never leaves us hopeless. That is why the liturgy gives us the comfortable words immediately after the confession and absolution – to make sure that our recognition of our sin is always paired with the word of grace and hope. Immediately after we confess, we hear the voice of God in Christ say, “For I so loved the world that I sent my only Son... Come unto me, and I will give you rest and relief from your burdens.”<br /><br /> One of the most famous conversion stories is that of John Newton, who was a slave trader in the 18th century and wrote the famous hymn “Amazing Grace.” I was interested to learn that Newton was not a completely godless person his whole life until his conversion; rather, in his childhood and young adulthood, he tried many times to reform himself and be a better person, but those efforts were always short-lived, and eventually he gave himself over to the sin with which he had struggled. Many years later, he was a captain of a ship that transported slaves across the Atlantic. One night his long struggle with sin and righteousness came to a breaking point when a great storm on the sea threatened to capsize his boat. He tried everything he could to save the ship, but knowing that they might not survive, he said to one of his shipmates, "If this will not work, the Lord have mercy upon us!" His own words caught him by surprise, and he thought to himself, "’Mercy! What mercy can there be for me?’ This was the first desire I had breathed for mercy for many years!"<br /><br /> After a few hours, the water had left the hold of the boat, and Newton realized that they might not sink after all and saw God at work in their rescue. He said, "I thought I saw the hand of God displayed in our favor. I began to pray. I could not utter the prayer of faith. I could not draw near to a reconciled God and call him Father. My prayer for mercy was like the cry of the ravens, which yet the Lord does not disdain to hear. In the gospel I saw at least a chance of hope, but on every other side I was surrounded with black, unfathomable despair." At that moment when Newton realized the depths of his sin and his distance from God, he could have succumbed to the voice of the accuser – surely God couldn’t love me, I’m too far gone down this road – the response from God was not deeper guilt but a sign of hope and of forgiveness to which he clung with all his heart. As he describes that event’s significance later, he says, “On that day the Lord came from on high and delivered me out of deep waters."<br /><br /> In life we also enter deep waters and wildernesses of our own; times when we are dogged by voices of accusation and of temptation. When our sin feels like a heavy burden, may we not forget to look up and see grace hanging on the cross for us in the person of Christ. In the presence of Christ, we have the strength to look our own sin squarely in the face and repent, knowing that no matter how bad it gets or how far we fall, no matter how loving and holy and good we become; regardless of the spiritual heights or depths we attain in life, our salvation has never rested on our being good enough, not even for a nanosecond. Jesus has gone before us, and though he was tempted in every way as we are, he did not sin but instead won for us the victory. He stood in for us at every turn and remained faithful to his Father, not simply for himself, but so that we might become righteous through him.<br /><br /> Friends, as we enter this Lent, I invite you to see it as a mirror before which we stand, entering into a time of self-examination guided by the light of the Holy Spirit; but may we never forget that the mirror has these words written across it, “Beloved child of God, bought with the blood of Christ.”</span>Sarahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08134409317988871603noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7956248390448730926.post-70191569552152928582013-01-02T06:38:00.002-08:002013-01-02T06:38:25.236-08:00"He has spoken through the prophets"Finishing up the first half of the Bible was a little depressing. 2 Kings and 2 Chronicles turns into a long litany of one king after another in Israel and in Judah; a few of them follow God's ways, but most of them don't. It is hard to keep them straight too, since many of them have very similar names (Jehoram, Jehu, Jehoahaz, Joash, Jeroboam, another Jeroboam, Amaziah, Azariah (also referred to as Uzziah)... I have found it very helpful to print out a timeline chart of the kings to use when the going gets tough. I have printed out <a href="http://gallery.thecoads.com/d/629-2/Kings_and_Prophets_of_Israel_and_Judah.jpg" target="_blank">this one</a>; I believe the chart itself comes from a published study Bible, but I'm not sure which one.<br />
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This chart is especially helpful because it also lists the prophets alongside the kings, so you can see when they were prophesying. At the end of week 26, we begin reading the prophets. I have avoided looking ahead to see how <a href="http://www.georgehguthrie.com/" target="_blank">George Guthrie</a> has organized the Bible so that I will be surprised along the way, but it looks like the rest of the content of Kings/Chronicles will be set besides the prophets who were prophesying at the time. We have read about many prophets up until this point - Elijah, Elisha, etc - but now we move to those that have entire books named after them, starting with Jonah and then moving on to the prophet Amos. Traditionally, the prophets are divided into two categories - the major prophets (long prophetic books) and the minor prophets (shorter books). So far we have read two of the minor prophets first - Jonah and Amos - because chronologically they prophesied first of the 17 prophets who have a book with their name. 2 down, 15 to go!<br />
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<a href="http://ourrabbijesus.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Prophets.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://ourrabbijesus.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Prophets.jpg" width="215" /></a>Abraham Heschel's book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Prophets-Perennial-Classics-Abraham-Heschel/dp/0060936991" target="_blank">The Prophets</a> serves as a wonderful companion to reading the prophetic books. Heschel was a 20th century Jewish theologian who wrote beautifully about the prophetic role - what the prophet is doing and why he says what he says and speaks in the way that he speaks. Heschel begins the introduction in this way: "This book is about some of the most disturbing people who have ever lived: the men whose inspiration brought the Bible into being - the men whose image is our refuge in distress, and whose voice and vision sustain our faith." It's a wonderful book with rich descriptions of the prophets, whose behavior and visions can seem strange to us. They may seem no less strange to you after reading Heschel, but he sheds light on the prophetic calling, and I can't help but use the word "beautiful" again to describe his manner of writing. I'm looking forward to rereading the other 15 prophets and being reminded of their intense message of God's love and of God's disappointment over his people's rejection of him.Sarahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08134409317988871603noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7956248390448730926.post-41329453228998942482012-12-11T06:45:00.005-08:002012-12-11T06:45:58.707-08:00beginning again with Kings & ChroniclesIt is December 11th, and I'm at the end of week 24 in Reading God's Story, which means that I've read just about half of the Bible this year, rather than the whole thing. I've toyed with the idea of starting over in January back in Genesis since I didn't meet my goal in 2012, but I think that is just perfectionism talking! I've decided instead to read through the end of week 26 by the end of December, which is exactly half way through Reading God's Story - since there are 52 weeks total. Then I'll begin with week 27 on Tuesday, January 1st.<br />
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Right now I'm reading about the break-up of the kingdom of Israel after the reign of Solomon, which is great timing, because that is also what we are studying in our middle school Sunday School classes at St. George's. (We are using a great curriculum this year called <a href="http://www.thestory.com/home" target="_blank">The Story</a>.) This is a stretch in Kings and Chronicles where there are very few stories that most people would be familiar with, perhaps with the exception of the prophet Elijah. In preparing for Sunday School last week, I realized that if someone had asked me to tell them this part of the story from memory, I would have had lots of gaps and errors! I have been pondering why we don't tell the stories from this part of the Bible as much as others. I wonder if it's because they are fairly grim; reading litanies of one bad king after another isn't much fun.<br />
<br />
I decided to do a little research and see how often these stories turn up in the Revised Common Lectionary - the three year reading schedule we use in our services in the Episcopal Church. A quick look at the <a href="http://www.lectionarypage.net/ReverseLectionary.html#1Kings" target="_blank">Reverse Lectionary</a>, which lists all the RCL readings in biblical order, shows that we never read Chronicles during our Sunday services. Not once. We read a fair bit from 1 Kings but only passages about either Solomon or Elijah. We read from 2 Kings 5 times, but only 3 passages (we read a couple of them twice). The first is Elijah being taken up and Elisha receiving his mantle, the second is Elisha's miracle of feeding 100 men with 20 loaves of bread (sadly skipping over Elisha's encounter with the Shunammite widow and the raising of her son in chapter 4), and the third is the cleansing of Naaman. The rest of 2 Kings goes untold. The story of the dividing of the kingdom into two, the fall of Israel, and the fall of Jerusalem is not included. We do have a few readings from Lamentations, which references the fall of Jerusalem, but the narrative from the historical books is omitted.<br />
<br />
The good news is that the lectionary is not the be all and end all. Contrary to the mindset in much of the Episcopal ethos, we can pick up a Bible on our own and read these books for ourselves! The Reformation has indeed occurred, thanks be to God :) However, I suspect the omission of these stories from the lectionary reflects a belief that these stories aren't as significant or palatable or easily understood as other stories in the Bible. That's too bad, because I would love to give a sermon on the fall of Jerusalem or on King Josiah. I am looking forward to rediscovering the stories of Kings and Chronicles over the next few weeks.<br />
<br />
If you've fallen behind this year, perhaps you'll consider joining me halfway through and starting up on January 1st!Sarahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08134409317988871603noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7956248390448730926.post-83329275509732625212012-12-02T20:55:00.003-08:002012-12-03T06:49:05.820-08:00Redemption Stories<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana;">Sarah
Puryear<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana;">St.
George’s Episcopal Church, Nashville, Tennessee<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana;">December
2<sup>nd</sup>, 2012<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana;">Advent
I, Year C<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana;">This December, I’m really excited to see the movie
version of the musical Les Miserables. Victor Hugo, who wrote the story of Les
Miserables, captures the power and beauty of redemption better than perhaps any
other story outside of the Bible. Jean Valjean was caught stealing a loaf of
bread to feed his sister’s children and was sent to work on a prison gang for
nineteen long years. At last he is released on parole; he is bitter at the way he has
been treated but hopeful that freedom will grant him a new chance at life. Yet
he finds himself the object of others’ scorn and distrust when he tries to find
honest work. The only kindness he finds comes from a bishop who welcomes him into
his home and gives him food and a warm place to stay. When the bishop goes to
sleep, though, Valjean steals the bishop’s silverware and flees the house,
intending to sell the silver to make some money. But his plans go awry when the
police catch him and drag him back to the bishop’s house to verify his crime. Whereas
the “justice system” condemned him harshly and unfairly for stealing out of
desperation and hunger, this bishop has every right to condemn him for stealing
his valuables. If he owed nineteen years for a loaf of bread, his sentence for
stealing silver would surely equal the rest of his life on earth. And yet when
the police show up with Valjean on his doorstep, the bishop replies, “I gave that
silver to him as a gift. But why did you leave the best behind? You forgot to
take the candlesticks that I gave you as well.” And the bishop hands Valjean
his silver candlesticks as the police look on confused and deflated. Valjean is
stunned, unable to make sense of this twist of fate. The bishop says to him, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana;">“Remember
this my brother, see in this some higher plan<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana;">You
must use this precious silver to become an honest man<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana;">By
the witness of the martyrs, by the passion and the blood<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana;">God
has raised you out of darkness, I have bought your soul for God”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana;">That
last line has always struck me as a strong and sobering thing to say to someone
else; if someone told me that they had bought my soul for God, I’m not sure
whether I would feel relief or fear. That line frames what the bishop has done
for Valjean as an act of redemption. To redeem is to buy someone back out of
captivity, usually by paying a ransom, and set them free. The bishop bought Valjean back out of a life of
bitterness and theft and gave him over to God. This act of love breaks through
the hard shell that prison formed around Valjean’s heart, and he begins to see
the possibility of a new way of life. Instead of going back to crime, he turns
his life around and becomes a respected man in the community, and throughout
the rest of his life he “pays forward” his own redemption by extending mercy
and love to others – to a little girl caught in slavery, to a group of
idealistic revolutionaries, and even to his most hardened enemy.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana;">Today in our Old Testament story we hear another
story of redemption, this one through the prophet Jeremiah. Of all the Old
Testament prophets, Jeremiah had one of the toughest assignments. By his time,
the land of Israel had been divided into two kingdoms, north and south. </span><span style="font-family: Verdana; line-height: 150%;">Jeremiah
lived in the southern kingdom called Judah, which included the city of
Jerusalem. The people in the south had already watched in horror as the Assyrians
swooped in and conquered the northern kingdom of Israel. In Jeremiah’s time,
his people found themselves attacked by the Babylonian troops and feared that
the same fate would befall them – destruction, devastation, and deportment to a
foreign land.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana;">Jeremiah gave the prophecy that we heard today at the
time when the city Jerusalem was surrounded and besieged by the Babylonian
troops. The people were on the edge of the worst imaginable thing happening - they
faced the prospect of being handed over to their enemies, abandoned by their
God for their disobedience, and forever wiped off the face of the earth. Jeremiah
himself was in an even tougher spot personally. The king had imprisoned
Jeremiah in the courtyard of the palace guard because his message was a
distinctly unpleasant one. Jeremiah had warned that Jerusalem would indeed fall
to Babylon, and its people would be taken away into exile because of their
unfaithfulness to God. The king wanted Jeremiah to give fake messages of hope,
which Jeremiah wasn’t willing to do.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana;">While Jeremiah wasn’t one to sugarcoat the
devastating message God gave him, his message didn’t end there. Jeremiah wasn’t
just a doomsday prophet. He also gave the people the following message from
God: “The days are surely coming when I will fulfill the promise I made to the
house of Israel and the house of Judah.” Jeremiah sounds a note of hope amidst
the threat of great darkness, telling the people that despite what was going on
around them, and what they were about to endure, God has neither forgotten nor retracted
his promises in the face of the people’s unfaithfulness to him. He will honor
his promise to David, which was that his descendants would sit on the throne of
Israel, and that his house would never come to an end. He will redeem his
people; God will buy back his people who are in captivity and give them a
Messiah who will rule over them justly in their own land.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana;">Advent is a time for remembering redemption stories
like these because, as Jesus says to his disciples in our gospel reading for
today, that “our redemption is drawing near.” We anticipate the birth of the
Messiah, that moment when God fulfills the promise he gave to Jeremiah, when he
sends that Son of David to rule faithfully and justly over his people. And in
that anticipation our Old Testament readings are often prophecies during times of
darkness, of need, of estrangement that laid bare the people’s need for God…
that sparked a deep longing for their Messiah... that caused them to yearn for
the time of their redemption to draw near. Facing our great need for God helps
us to prepare and rejoice more fully when Christ does appear. It magnifies for
us what God has done for us in Christ; it helps to enter more fully into the
celebration that Christ our peace is finally here. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana;">During this Advent season, I encourage you to ask
yourself, what in my life lays bare my need for God this Advent season?
What sparks for me a longing for Christ’s presence? Where do I need a fresh
infusion of hope? It doesn’t have to be something as serious as facing life in
prison or exile in a foreign land; it is simply any part of you that yearns to
leave behind captivity to any other god or power besides the true God, whether
the captivity of a broken relationship, of anxiety, of depression, of a addiction,
of an eating disorder, of long-held grief or anger or unforgiveness or any
other besetting sin – and find freedom.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana;">Connecting with these places where we need
redemption can be very scary. We may prefer to pretend that we have it under
control, that it’s really not so bad, that we can handle this burden for
another month or another year or another Christmas season. But at some point we
do reach the end of our rope just like Valjean, just like the people of Israel.
And when we do, no matter where our need for redemption lies, God says to us, “I
want to start a work of redemption in your life. I want to bring beautiful
things out of your brokenness and set you on a new path. I want to remind you when
Christmas comes of the hope you have in Christ, hope for mercy and forgiveness
and a new life.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana;">During this Advent season, may God begin or
continue a redemption story in your own life. And may we hear God speaking this
promise to us, also from the book of Jeremiah: “I have loved you with an
everlasting love; I have drawn you with loving-kindness. I will build you up
again and you will be rebuilt. Again you will take up your tambourines and go
out to dance with the joyful.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<!--EndFragment-->Sarahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08134409317988871603noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7956248390448730926.post-51306198921681581152012-09-07T04:16:00.000-07:002012-09-08T05:07:49.676-07:00books of wisdomI am reading Proverbs at the moment in Reading God's Story. Proverbs is wisdom literature, full of advice about how to live wisely. I've been struck by all the verses about the power of our words:<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">"Life and death are in the power of the tongue,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">and those who love it will eat its fruit."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">- Proverbs 18:21</span><br />
<br />
I'm struck by it in part because we are reading the book of James over the next several weeks at church right now. James is said to be the wisdom literature of the New Testament. I think James sums up the message of wisdom literature best when he says:<br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Charis SIL', charis, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15.833333015441895px;">"Who is wise and understanding among you? Let them show it</span><sup class="crossreference" style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Charis SIL', charis, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.65em; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: top;" value="(<a href="#cen-NIV-30333P" title="See cross-reference P">P</a>)"></sup><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Charis SIL', charis, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15.833333015441895px;"> by their good life, by deeds</span><sup class="crossreference" style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Charis SIL', charis, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.65em; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: top;" value="(<a href="#cen-NIV-30333Q" title="See cross-reference Q">Q</a>)"></sup><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Charis SIL', charis, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15.833333015441895px;"> done in the humility that comes from wisdom." - James 3:13</span><br />
<br />
<br />
He too emphasizes the power of our words:<br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Charis SIL', charis, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"The tongue also is a fire,</span><sup class="crossreference" style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Charis SIL', charis, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: top;" value="(<a href="#cen-NIV-30326J" title="See cross-reference J">J</a>)"></sup><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Charis SIL', charis, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole body,</span><sup class="crossreference" style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Charis SIL', charis, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: top;" value="(<a href="#cen-NIV-30326K" title="See cross-reference K">K</a>)"></sup><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Charis SIL', charis, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> sets the whole course of one’s life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell." - James 3:6</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Charis SIL', charis, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15.833333015441895px;"><br />
</span>It is interesting to read James alongside the Proverbs and see how their view on the wise life correspond to each other. At the same time, James has a new angle on wisdom due to the teachings of Jesus, which he incorporates those into his writing as well:<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">"Let your yes be yes and your no be no."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">"Can both fresh water and salt water flow from the same spring?"</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">"Do not merely listen to the word and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says."</span><br />
<br />
Today I'm thinking about the power of my words, which I can use to either bless or curse. James says that we are to use them to bless, using a wisdom that comes down from heaven to us from God, just as every good gift comes from him:<br />
<br />
<span style="background-color: white;">"</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Charis SIL', charis, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15.833333015441895px;">But the wisdom that comes from heaven</span><sup class="crossreference" style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Charis SIL', charis, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.65em; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: top;" value="(<a href="#cen-NIV-30337W" title="See cross-reference W">W</a>)"></sup><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Charis SIL', charis, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15.833333015441895px;"> is first of all pure; then peace-loving,</span><sup class="crossreference" style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Charis SIL', charis, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.65em; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: top;" value="(<a href="#cen-NIV-30337X" title="See cross-reference X">X</a>)"></sup><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Charis SIL', charis, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15.833333015441895px;">considerate, submissive, full of mercy</span><sup class="crossreference" style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Charis SIL', charis, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.65em; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: top;" value="(<a href="#cen-NIV-30337Y" title="See cross-reference Y">Y</a>)"></sup><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Charis SIL', charis, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15.833333015441895px;"> and good fruit, impartial and sincere." - James 3:17</span>Sarahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08134409317988871603noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7956248390448730926.post-70549582099600858182012-08-29T09:39:00.001-07:002012-08-29T09:39:42.524-07:00more from Proverbs on joy<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">A joyful heart is good medicine,</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">But a broken spirit dries up the bones.
</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I learned a little song when I was a kid with the lyrics from this verse from Proverbs - "a merry heart doeth good like a medicine" (that's the KJV translation). I remember thinking at the time that it was a weird thing to say, because most kids don't like taking their medicine. But I</span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> get the feeling that joy isn't the kind of medicine you make a face about when you take it though later it makes you feel better; it is good for you every step of the way. </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Joy is a good remedy for whatever ails your spirit.</span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">On the other hand, when our spirit is broken, the effects pervade our whole being, even our bodies. I have discovered that personally in dealing with chronic pain over the past couple of years. I am doing much better now, but I had to learn that our emotions and our bodies are much more tightly connected than I would have ever thought before. I find that music, especially praise and worship music, helps to lift my spirits and bring me the medicine of joy. What makes you joyful?</span>Sarahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08134409317988871603noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7956248390448730926.post-29332790697973094952012-08-27T05:34:00.001-07:002012-08-27T05:34:11.697-07:00"A cheerful heart has a continual feast"CS Lewis says that "Joy is the serious business of heaven." The stereotypical Christian is probably someone who is a bit uptight, prudish, and humorless. CS Lewis turns that idea on its head and says that joy is the mark of the true Christian. I love this verse in the title from Proverbs 15:15. The joyful person had a continual, movable feast that goes with them wherever they go. Their joy isn't dependent upon where they are, what they have, or how things seem to be going, because they take joy in what is unchangeable - that by the power of the Spirit, they can draw near to God in each and every moment of their day and give thanks, seek wisdom, and to ask for help. May we live in that kind of joy today.<br />
<br />
"The Joyful Christian," a collection of readings by CS Lewis.<br />
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0684823772<br />
<br />
<div class="separator"style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFrrzF8C6aq9qjH_oU8gIkHdJpEzIPx5SLusekUOc9QV-oIurhYkW-r5gssT737t06mjlU8HqPyXKXLQs6yHqMiLo-LWavzKFxzpe2N74uXzPH5aHgQKegWASYB-NkCjkmhpUGQegc3ik_/s640/blogger-image-1803173554.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFrrzF8C6aq9qjH_oU8gIkHdJpEzIPx5SLusekUOc9QV-oIurhYkW-r5gssT737t06mjlU8HqPyXKXLQs6yHqMiLo-LWavzKFxzpe2N74uXzPH5aHgQKegWASYB-NkCjkmhpUGQegc3ik_/s640/blogger-image-1803173554.jpg" /></a></div>Sarahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08134409317988871603noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7956248390448730926.post-81189257992175570042012-05-10T05:54:00.004-07:002012-05-10T05:54:57.562-07:00Finding the Big Story in the Psalms<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So far Reading God's Story has spread out the psalms over the course of David's life. I have enjoyed seeing the psalms connected to events in his life, such as Psalms 35, 54, 63 placed after 1 Samuel 27, at which point David has gone to live with the Philistines in order to flee Saul's jealousy and wrath. Verses like "ruthless people are trying to kill me - people without regard for God" take on added meaning when you have just read about the way Saul has treated David. Many of the Psalms are situational; they are the psalmist's prayer to God based on his circumstances. The placement of the Psalms in RGS helps us to see how David does just that, crying out to God in the midst of persecution.</span>
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Other Psalms help us see the "big story" of the Bible. Psalm 78 looks all the way back to Israel's journey in the wilderness, the miracles God did for them there, and their unending demands and complaints against God. </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It contrasts God's enduring faithfulness to his people and their lack of faith in his provision. It describes what happened once they reached the land; the people turned to idolatry and God in his anger abandoned them to their ways. They lost the ark of the covenant in battle; their young men were killed; their enemies triumphed over them. But that did not last forever; God beat back their enemies. T</span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">he psalm leads all the way to the events I am reading about right now - God's choice of </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">David to be their shepherd.</span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span>
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">--------------</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There is a wonderful music group in Durham, NC called Folk Psalm. They set the psalms to music. They played for us at Duke Divinity School a few times. </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Here is a video about their music and ministry:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">http://www.faithandleadership.com/multimedia/sing-praises-god</span>
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Here is their website:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">http://www.folkpsalm.com/</span>Sarahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08134409317988871603noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7956248390448730926.post-31797803021768584752012-05-07T05:37:00.000-07:002012-05-08T06:36:03.478-07:00the Chronic(what?)cles of Israel<div>
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Chronicles starts out with a bang, doesn't it? Kidding :) It is tough going slogging through all those lists in the first 9 chapters of Chronicles (so it's nice that RGS spaces them out over several days). The genealogies is helpful because they give us a review and overview of the "big story" so far in the Bible - Adam, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and all of his sons. There are also glimpses of the unusual twists and turns that the story has taken - sometimes the line takes a very untraditional twist. Whereas we would expect the line to continue after Jacob with Reuben, his firstborn, instead it goes through the fourth-born son, Judah. All 3 of Judah's son born by his wife die, so the line continues on through the child Judah has with his *daughter-in-law* Tamar. Again, we see that God does not insist upon a perfect, proper, pure genealogy; he accomplishes his work despite and even through the messiness of human behavior and relationships. At the beginning of Chronicles, the concern here is to </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">trace the genealogical line from Adam to David. As Christians, this takes on added significance, because we will see the gospel writers using genealogies to show how that same line eventually leads to Jesus.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The story of David is told in two different places in the Old Testament. We began reading about it in Samuel, but now we are also reading it on a parallel track in Chronicles. Whereas Samuel gives that full picture of David I described earlier, Chronicles does not mention the sin, the brokenness, the mistakes in David's life. It is a more idealized picture of David as the Messianic king. It's therefore important to read both books in order to get a fuller portrait of David.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If you want to learn more about Chronicles, I just discovered that the introductions to each book of the Bible in the NIV study Bible are </span><a href="http://www.biblica.com/niv/study-bible/" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;" target="_blank">available online for free</a><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">. </span><a href="http://www.biblica.com/niv/study-bible/1-chronicles/" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;" target="_blank">Here</a><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> is the one on 1 Chronicles.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">(title of this blog post is a take on Andy Samberg's "Lazy Sunday" video on SNL.)</span></span></div>Sarahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08134409317988871603noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7956248390448730926.post-12850895473380654352012-05-03T20:51:00.002-07:002012-05-03T20:51:34.388-07:00Using Blue Letter Bible<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">One of the my goals with this blog is help you connect with resources that deepen your understanding of the text. <a href="http://www.blueletterbible.org/" target="_blank">Blue Letter Bible</a> is my favorite website for digging into the Hebrew and Greek words of the original text of the Bible and understanding what those words meant in their original context. Don't worry, you do not need to know Greek in order to learn a lot through this website.</span>
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I am much more familiar with Greek and will therefore probably use this website more often once we get to the New Testament. </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">(FYI, the Old Testament is written in Hebrew, and the New Testament is written almost entirely in Greek.) However, I want to introduce you to the website now in case you are interested in exploring words from our readings now!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Head to <a href="http://www.blueletterbible.org/" target="_blank">Blue Letter Bible</a> and enter the reference for the text you are studying. You can either enter just the name of the book of the Bible and chapter number, or you can also add the verse number. (I have added screen shots below to help you.) This time I am using BLB to look up John 15, because that is the gospel reading for this coming Sunday and the passage that </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I have been writing about for our church's Easter blog </span><a href="http://livingintojoy.com/" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;" target="_blank">Living Into Joy</a><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9JgLv7RewGbbpww-Lz2yQyuMNbe3OsSNvwr799eCy0GiUwgeSuKG7cTMahw7LNGPpg6YItbrc-SFQpvti1uRkLFI39ob7kZcxRz4QnC1cmvEHSY78xFtnoxQ1UXCfWhyphenhyphenTf5kTCJG-A0nm/s1600/Screen+Shot+2012-05-03+at+10.33.01+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="215" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9JgLv7RewGbbpww-Lz2yQyuMNbe3OsSNvwr799eCy0GiUwgeSuKG7cTMahw7LNGPpg6YItbrc-SFQpvti1uRkLFI39ob7kZcxRz4QnC1cmvEHSY78xFtnoxQ1UXCfWhyphenhyphenTf5kTCJG-A0nm/s400/Screen+Shot+2012-05-03+at+10.33.01+PM.png" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Once you ask BLB to search for that text, you'll see that a screen comes up with the chapter, with each verse listed separately.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You'll see that in the 6 little boxes to the left of each verse, one is labeled "C." That "C" is for "Concordance." Here I am going to choose John 15:11, because I want to look up the word for "joy" in Greek, so I click on the "C" next to verse 11.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Now the verse expands to show me the verse in Greek at the top and then each word in English listed separately with the Greek word to its right along with the Greek word's Strong's Number. (Strong's is a Bible concordance that's been since 1890; Dr. Strong assigned each Greek word a number for reference purposes. If you're interested, you can learn about its history <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strong's_Concordance" target="_blank">here</a>.) To learn more about the Greek word, click on the Strong's number. For example, here I will click on the G5479.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Now a new page opens filled with information about this one word in Greek. It is listed in Greek at the very top in large letters, but then it shows its spelling in English and gives an audio file of its pronunciation. It also gives a detailed definition of how the word is used in the Bible under "Outline of Biblical Usage" and lists how many times the word is used in the New Testament.</span>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If you keep scrolling down that same page, you'll find a listing of all the verses in which that word is used in the New Testament.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is helpful because it saves you the time of looking up each verse either online or in your Bible. I often use this to get a sense of how the same word is used in different contexts across the New Testament, both to see how it's used in similar ways and in different ways.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If you ever wondered what a word meant in its original context, give BLB a whirl and see what you discover. If you have any questions about how to use BLB, please feel free to contact me.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>Sarahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08134409317988871603noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7956248390448730926.post-8376052324355256222012-05-02T06:42:00.002-07:002012-05-02T06:42:37.389-07:00David at last!<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">I love the story of David. After the chaos of Judges and the disappointment of Saul, David emerges as a strong leader anointed by God to take Saul's place. I have been struck this week by just how long it takes David to finally reach the throne. Saul really makes things tough on him. I found it sad after the poignant portrayal of David and Jonathan's friendship, to learn of Jonathan's death through a list of names of Saul's sons who died in battle.</span>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">I love that Scripture portrays David in such an unflinching way. David is the greatest hero in the history of Israel from its time as a nation. The temptation would be to portray only his many strengths and victories, but the text does not shy away from his flaws and mistakes. It tells the whole story. It shows David needing to change his mind, to repent, to amend his life, time and time again. The contrast between David's willingness to change and Saul's repeated failure to change, despite his epiphanies here and there, is striking. In <a href="http://weare3dm.com/" target="_blank">3DM</a> language, I'd say that David chooses to learn from life, but Saul passes over his kairos moments as though they were speed bumps :) David stops, reflects, and asks God is doing in his life and how he can respond to it. Saul admits at times that he's made mistakes and needs to change direction (how many times does he say, "David, you're right, I should really stop trying to kill you!"), but he ends up continuing down the same path, and it leads to his destruction.</span>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">As a resource for those who might want to study the story of David, I would recommend <a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-David-Story-Translation-Commentary/dp/0393320774" target="_blank">Rober Alter's translation</a> of the David story which includes his commentary as well. He shows how this narrative is a cohesive and literarily brilliant one, rather than simply a patchwork of information about David from various literary sources. While his approach is more scholarly than faith-based, Alter's argument that the narrative is cohesive meshes well with the Christian view of the Bible as the inspired word of God.</span> <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><b>Maps in a Digital Age:</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">I have found myself slowing down while reading because I want to have a sense of where in Israel these events are happening. I had been mostly turning to the maps in Reading God's Story, but many places aren't listed on those maps, so I would spend lots of time searching the entire map in vain. I finally hit upon a good solution for me - the <a href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/bible-+/id403758876?mt=8" target="_blank">Glo App</a> on my iPhone. The Glo Bible is software that is packed with information about the Bible set up in an interactive way, so that you can explore maps, timelines, historical information about the Bible. The app has various levels of content that you can purchase, but there is a free version. If you have an iPhone, check it out. When I type in a location name, it immediately shows me the location on a satellite map; I can then click on the name to get more information about the location.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><b>My Progress:</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">I am catching up on my reading and have decided to simply blog about whatever I'm reading instead of trying to catch up before starting to post again. If you're on track and I'm posting about stuff you read a couple weeks ago, my apologies!</span><br />
<br />Sarahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08134409317988871603noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7956248390448730926.post-30010025456684545152012-04-12T15:11:00.004-07:002012-04-12T15:24:49.872-07:00Recap: Judges & Ruth<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My long hiatus is over! Despite our church's focus on resting and listening to God, Lent has been a very busy time for me :)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Judges is a brutal book. I struggled my way through it. Judges tells the story of what happens once the people of Israel have arrived in the Promised Land and (mostly) driven out the people inhabiting it. Just in case you didn't know, once they settle in the land, God's people totally blow it. They devolve into infighting, violence; they get preoccupied with fighting their enemies. </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Throughout Judges, it feels as though we lose the plot. From Exodus through Deuteronomy, we had Moses as the strong leader figure who holds things together. Joshua takes his place. But when we get to Judges, the whole project devolves. The judges are appointed as leaders, but they come and go with varying degrees of faithfulness. While some of them do a great job of leading Israel, none of them seem to have the staying power or level of influence as Moses or Joshua did. To their credit, it is much harder to rally folks when they are spread out across the land rather than journeying together in the wilderness. </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The refrain of the book of Judges is, "In those day there was no king in Israel; everyone did whatever he wanted." Or, as the NASB puts it, "Everyone did what was right in his own eyes."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Following on the heels of Judges is the beautiful little book of Ruth. As I read Ruth,</span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> I took heart, because I saw the thread of God's bigger story surfacing. Amid the chaos of the period of the Judges, we see a little glimmer of hope. We find a story of a young non-Israelite woman who chooses to become part of God's people because of her great love for her mother-in-law. She joins a long line of other non-Israelite women who are grafted into the line of David; Tamar (Genesis 38) and Rahab (Joshua 2) come to mind. Ruth continues the story of the genealogical line that was begun back with Abraham, that we traced through Jacob and Judah. It will result in King David.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My Old Testament professor, Ellen Davis, did a translation of Ruth and commissioned an artist to do woodcuts that correspond to the story. It's a lovely book called </span><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Who-Are-You-My-Daughter/dp/0664223745" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Who Are You, My Daughter?</i></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: center;">Dr. Davis taught us about one of the Hebrew key words of Ruth, </span><i style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: center;">hesed</i><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: center;">. It shows up throughout the book and means "covenant loyalty." Dr. Davis translates it as "acts-of-good-faith" in her book. For instance, in Ruth 1:8, when Naomi says to Ruth, "May the Lord do to you <i>hesed</i> as you have done with the dead and with me," Dr. Davis translates it as "May the Lord do with you acts-of-good-faith." The irony of this book is that a non-Israelite woman, Ruth, is the prime example of </span><i style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: center;">hesed</i><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: center;"> in her loyalty to Naomi at a time when the Israelites themselves have recklessly abandoning the covenant. In saying, "Your people shall be my people, and your God shall be my God," Ruth is binding herself to the covenant people of God. While it is not said explicitly in the book of Ruth, this small story is about God's faithfulness, his </span><i style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: center;">hesed</i><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: center;">, to Israel. Even when the people are turning their backs on him, God is working ahead to provide for his people a redeemer, first in the person of David, later in the person of Christ.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We are reading about David now, and I will write about him next.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>Sarahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08134409317988871603noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7956248390448730926.post-34962122790639637412012-04-06T05:13:00.000-07:002012-04-06T05:13:03.477-07:00The Gospel is Sturdy Enough<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I realize it's been nearly a month since I posted. My apologies. I will pick this back up in Easter, but in the meantime here is a posting for Holy Week - a homily I gave last night at St. George's.</span>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Maundy Thursday 2012 Homily</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">“This is my body broken for you. This is my blood shed for you.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Tonight on this Thursday of Holy Week, we hear the story of the Last Supper, and we recall how Jesus commanded his disciples to remember him by celebrating this special meal together. That Last Supper that Jesus shared with his disciples was also a beginning – it was the First Eucharist, the first of countless celebrations that have happened through history and around the world since the first century, all in remembrance of Him. In our tradition we celebrate the Eucharist every Sunday – in fact, here at St. George's we celebrate the Eucharist every single day. Tonight is a special celebration of the Eucharist, because on this night we celebrate it as part of Holy Week, an intense and focused time when we remember the events of the week leading up to Jesus’ death and resurrection. As I have celebrated the Eucharist this Holy Week, I have noticed that doing so during this special season highlights the theme within the Eucharist of Christ’s physical suffering. We may not think about it every time we hear this, but each week when the liturgy echoes Jesus’ words at that final dinner, “This is my body given for you, this is my blood shed for you,” it points specifically to his physical suffering, to the way that his body was broken and his blood was shed by whips and thorns and nails.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">In our beautiful Eucharist services, with our beautiful altar coverings and robes and silver chalices, it is easy to forget that such a violent and painful story lies behind it. There is absolutely a place for beauty and joy in the Eucharist, because it is not only a remembrance of his “blessed passion and precious death; it is also a celebration of his mighty resurrection and glorious ascension. But on Maundy Thursday we cannot forget that Christ’s suffering and death lies behind the gifts of bread and wine.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">When we delve into the true story of Christ's passion, we do not find the trite and sentimental depiction of Easter that are common in our culture; instead, we find a story of betrayal, injustice, suffering, torture, and death. We may rightfully find it troubling that the story at the center of our faith is one of suffering. In particular, we are likely to feel uncomfortable with the idea that someone else would or should undergo physical suffering for us. I wonder if perhaps that is what stirred some of the discomfort and criticism about the movie The Passion of the Christ being “too violent.” There are plenty of violent, gory movies out there all the time that receive little criticism; but there was something about watching an innocent man suffer so horribly that made people uncomfortable. Perhaps the most discomforting part was that according to the Christian faith, that man was undergoing all of that FOR YOU.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The idea of someone suffering for us is not only rather foreign and unusual to us, but it is an affront to many of our cultural values. We devote so much energy to keeping suffering and death at bay in our lives, and yet in Jesus we see someone voluntarily embrace suffering, which is startling, perhaps even unheard of. We rely so much upon our successes and achievements to define who we are, and yet in Jesus we are told that that his submission to suffering is the means by which we are saved. Jesus’ passion cuts through our self-reliance, our attempts to ward off death, and our reluctance to face the reality of pain in a most unsettling way. And yet the gospel states, quite simply, that “by his wounds we are healed,” that through Christ’s suffering on our behalf, we find healing, freedom, and peace.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">How can we begin to make sense of Christ’s suffering on our behalf from this vantage point? How is his passion “good news” for us? I find that a saying by one of the fathers of the church sheds some light on the mystery of Christ's passion. St. Gregory of Nyssa said, “What Christ has not assumed, He has not healed.” Here “Assume” doesn’t mean to “suppose” or “take for granted”; rather, it means “to take upon oneself.” What Gregory mean is anything which Jesus has not taken on himself cannot be healed. Jesus had to take upon himself the full range of human experience in order to redeem it. Jesus didn’t have to enter into every exact situation that we face; but he plumbed the depths of human misery and sin and despair in those final events before his death, and in doing so redeemed them, shattering their grip over us and subjecting them to his reign and rule.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">We see in Christ’s passion that God has very particular means of dealing with the problem of sin and death in the world, ones that differ from the methods we might have chosen. We might expect an all-mighty God to snap his fingers and fix everything instantly. That would cater to our preferences to avoid pain and receive immediate gratification. But God in his wisdom, chooses another way; he chooses to “assume” what needs healing, to take it upon himself, to vanquish it from the inside out. In Christ’s passion we see the literal meaning of the word “compassion” acted out before us – it literally means to suffer WITH someone. Perhaps the prophet Isaiah described Jesus’ suffering WITH us best when he wrote, “Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">So that’s the theological explanation of why suffering is at the center of our story as Christians – that Christ takes on human suffering and thereby redeems it. But what does that mean for us? What does it really mean for us today that such a story – one of betrayal and heartbreak and suffering and death – is at the center of our faith?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">It means that the gospel is sturdy enough to handle your biggest trials, to absorb all your deepest darkness, to take them all and place them at the foot of the cross. It means that is no problem or trial or suffering or failure that falls outside of the scope of the gospel of Jesus Christ. It means that wherever you are and whatever you are going through, God has been there already. He has been there before you. He knows what it is to be rejected, to be scorned, to be subjected to injustice, to violence. He knows what it is like to have his heart be broken. And because he has been there, he knows how to lead you through it, beyond it, to the life that is on the other side of that suffering.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Tonight we remember that Last Supper, that First Eucharist, that first time Jesus held the bread and wine and told his disciples that they were to now become signs of his suffering love. Every time we celebrate the Eucharist, God offers us those signs of Christ's suffering, the broken bread and the poured out wine. In those elements, we meet again the suffering Savior of whom Isaiah wrote, who says to us tonight:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Surely I took up your pain and bore your suffering;</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> I was pierced for your transgressions;</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> I was crushed for your iniquities;</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> the punishment that brought you peace was laid on me,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> and by my wounds you are healed.</span></div>
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</div>Sarahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08134409317988871603noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7956248390448730926.post-16708423596931020832012-03-09T07:30:00.000-08:002012-03-09T07:30:02.724-08:00intro to Deuteronomy<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Numbers has flown past, and I am beginning Deuteronomy. I thought I'd write briefly and share some basic information about the book for those of you who are reading.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Deutero-nomos literally means in Greek (not Hebrew) "second law." </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In Hebrew the name for this book is devarim, which means "spoken words," taken from the first words of the book, "These are the words..."</span>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Deuteronomy is largely Moses' rehash of what has happened in Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers. Over the course of this book, Moses gives three speeches to the people of Israel, who are on the brink of going into the land that has long been promised to them. Moses knows that he won't be going with them, so this is his lengthy farewell speech. He is clearly concerned to impress upon the people their heritage. This is particularly important because the people whom he addresses were not those who remember coming out of Egypt. Those who were afraid to enter the promised land in Numbers were not allowed to enter the land because of their lack of faith. So these people whom Moses addresses have lived their entire lives wandering in the desert. Most of them probably have no memory themselves of being at Sinai, so Moses reiterates to them the "law" (which is better translated as "instruction" than "law"), and the people reaffirm their covenant with God.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A few things to notice as you read:</span><br />
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<li><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Look for the following key words and verses in Deuteronomy</span></li>
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<li><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Today</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">See</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Heed (or listen)(</span><i style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">shema</i><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> in Hebrew)</span></li>
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<li><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Look for the</span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><i style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Shema</i><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">, Deu. 6:4, which is the central verse of Deuteronomy, and, one could say, of all of the Hebrew Scriptures (extended to verse 9): </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">"Hear, O Israel, the LORD our God, the LORD is One. Love the LORD your God with all your heart and and with all your soul and with all your strength."</span></li>
</ul>
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<li><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Look for times when Moses tells the people, YOU crossed the Exodus. They personally did not, because they weren't alive yet, but there is such a strong</span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> communal dimension to their sense of identity that it is THEIR past, regardless of their individual participation in the Exodus. This becomes an important theme in Christianity, in which time also collapses, and events in the past for which we were not present become the most defining events about us. The Exsultet, sung at the Easter vigil, is a key example of this in our liturgy: "THIS is the night when Christ broke the bonds of death and hell." Technically, in our linear way of thinking, it's not the same night, but liturgically it is, and the benefits of Christ's saving work in the past have become present to us.</span></li>
</ul>Sarahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08134409317988871603noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7956248390448730926.post-27766961652296462502012-03-06T05:04:00.001-08:002012-03-06T05:04:44.617-08:00a snake & a savior<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We just hosted an amazing conference at our church: <a href="http://www.stgeorgesinstitute.org/C3" target="_blank">the C3 conference</a>. Now I am spending the week at another conference of sorts - <a href="http://weare3dm.com/pages/page.asp?page_id=133878" target="_blank">a 3DM learning community</a>. With all this going on, I won't be able to post much this week. But in the meantime, here's one brief thought on Numbers.</span>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Numbers is - surprise! - a challenging book as well. God and the people of Israel are not getting along very well. The story illustrates again and again that the relationship between God and humanity has been profoundly disrupted, and that restoring that relationship is hampered by the people's complaining and lack of trust. </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Numbers 21 describes an outbreak of snakes that come upon the people because of their disobedience.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Charis SIL', charis, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">The LORD said to Moses, “Make a snake and put it up on a pole; anyone who is bitten can look at it and live.” </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Charis SIL', charis, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">So Moses made a bronze snake and put it up on a pole. Then when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the bronze snake, they lived.</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The snake, which was cursed for its craftiness in Genesis 3, in the story of Moses becomes the emblem of health and healing. </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Jesus referenced this story when describing himself and his purpose to Nicodemus in John 3:</span><br />
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<span class="woj" style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Charis SIL', charis, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">"Just as Moses lifted</span><span class="woj" style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Charis SIL', charis, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"> up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up,</span><span class="woj" style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Charis SIL', charis, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><b> </b></span><span class="woj" style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Charis SIL', charis, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.</span><span class="woj" style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Charis SIL', charis, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><b>"</b></span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There is an interesting reversal here; in his crucifixion the Son of God becomes like a snake, which is THE creature that began the unraveling of God's good plans. And as he says in John 12:32:</span>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">"When I am lifted up, I will draw all people to myself."</span><br />
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<a href="http://www.revilo-oliver.com/Kevin-Strom-personal/Art/Dali_ChristofStJohnoftheCross1951.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="http://www.revilo-oliver.com/Kevin-Strom-personal/Art/Dali_ChristofStJohnoftheCross1951.JPG" width="356" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>Sarahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08134409317988871603noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7956248390448730926.post-34784220421922271832012-03-03T04:01:00.000-08:002012-03-03T04:01:09.202-08:00Reader's Guide to the Bible<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This book arrived a few days ago. If you're reading through the Bible this year, I'd recommend getting it. There is a short (very short) paragraph about the reading for each day along with a reflection question. The book also has fold-out timelines that help you visualize the progress of the overall story. Reading along in this as well as in the Bible will not add much time to your daily habit but will hopefully help make greater sense of what you're reading. George Guthrie also gives helpful suggestions for related passages in the New Testament.</span><br />Sarahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08134409317988871603noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7956248390448730926.post-79062468644097519482012-02-28T06:52:00.001-08:002012-02-28T06:53:26.621-08:00we offer and present unto Thee<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We have finished Leviticus. I found a helpful chart in my NIV Study Bible that I reproduce below, outlining the various kinds of sacrifices described in Leviticus, what was offered, and why they were offered. Then I'd like for us to think about how reading these long descriptions of sacrifices is important and helpful for us as Christians.</span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b><u>Old Testament Sacrifices</u></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>1. Burnt offering</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Leviticus 1; 6:8-13; 8:18-21; 16:24</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><u>Offering</u>: bull, ram or male bird; wholly consumed; no defect</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><u>Purpose</u>: Voluntary act of worship, atonement for unintentional sin in general; expression of devotion, commitment, and complete surrender to God</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>2. Grain offering</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Leviticus 2; 6:14-23</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><u>Offering</u>: Grain, flour, olive oil, incense, bread, salt; accompanied burnt offering and fellowship offering</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><u>Purpose</u>: Voluntary act of worship; recognition of God's provision and goodness; devotion to God</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>3. Fellowship offering</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Leviticus 3; 7:11-34</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><u>Offering</u>: Any animal without defect; variety of breads</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><u>Purpose</u>: Voluntary act of worship; thanksgiving and fellowship (it included a communal meal)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>4. Sin Offering</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Leviticus 4:1-5:13; 6:24-30; 8:14-17; 16:3-22</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><u>Offering</u>:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">1. Young bull (for high priest and congregation)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2. Male goat (for leader)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">3. Female goat or lamb (for common person)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">4. Dove or pigeon (for the poor)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">5. Fine flour (for very poor)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><u>Purpose</u>: Mandatory atonement for specific unintentional sin; confession of sin; forgiveness of sin; cleansing from defilement</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>5. Guilt Offering</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Leviticus 5:14-6:7; 7:1-6</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><u>Offering</u>: Ram or lamb</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><u>Purpose</u>: Mandatory atonement for unintentional sin requiring restitution; cleansing from defilement; make restitution; pay 20% fine</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">After reading over this chart, I had one question: </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What about intentional sin? I expected one of these, such as the guilt offering, to be for intentional sin. Is there no way to atone for intentional sin in the law? The law clearly calls for death in many situations of intentional sin, but does it require death in all cases? Also, What does "unintentional sin" mean? Purely accidental sin (such as, "oops, I didn't see that dead body there, and I bumped into it"), or sin in which the person is not aware of the gravity of their error? </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">(I guess I actually had more than one question!)</span> <span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I will try to find some answers to these questions.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b><u>Parallels in the Christian tradition</u></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As you read Leviticus, you probably asked yourself at least once, How in the world does any of this relate to me or to my faith? The answer is that it relates in deeply profound ways that are not obvious to most of us. The symbols of the sacrificial system continued in altered form in the Christian tradition. </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Understanding the sacrificial system as laid out in Leviticus provides much greater depth of meaning to our own Christian tradition. So many of these ideas make their way into the central story that we remember each Sunday when we gather for worship. Here is where I see these 5 showing up in the Eucharist today:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><u>Grain Offering</u></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We might think of the offertory as simply the time when the ushers pass the plates, and we pony up while the choir serenades us with a lovely song to remind us of how much we like church and want to keep it running :) In our Anglican tradition, however, we still retain the original theological significance of the offertory. </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Originally early Christians would bring wine and homemade bread to church to offer up in thanksgiving to God for Christ. That is why we still have the ushers bring up the bread and wine at communion, though usually the elements are purchased by the church and not brought by home. (I know of some congregations where the bread is still homemade, which is wonderful.)</span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Therefore, the offering is about all of our gifts - not just of money but also of bread and wine - being offered to God. When the priest elevates the host and the cup, he/she is offering it up to God. </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Having read Leviticus, we can see that this offering of bread and wine bears some resemblance to the grain offering, which was made voluntarily in thanksgiving to God.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><u>Fellowship Offering</u></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We can also see echoes of the fellowship offering in the Eucharist, as it is a celebratory meal that we share together in God's presence.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><u><b>Sin and Guilt Offerings</b></u></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">God provides the lamb, just as he did for Abraham on Mount Moriah</span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">. </span><u style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">God</u><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> has provided Christ as the offering for sin and guilt; </span><u style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">we</u><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> provide the bread and wine as an offering of thanksgiving in response to God's provision for us. (Eucharist itself means "to give thanks.") We are not trying to atone for our sins at the Eucharist; we are instead responding to God's gracious initiative.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><u>Burnt Offering</u></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What would be the parallel here? I see it in the words of the Eucharistic prayer Rite I:</span></div>
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">"And here we offer and present unto thee, O Lord, our selves,
our souls and bodies, to be a reasonable, holy, and living
sacrifice unto thee</span><span style="font-family: Sabon;">."</span></span></blockquote>
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<u style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>We</b></u><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> are the burnt offering, but rather than being toasted to a crisp, we are a "living sacrifice," to borrow the words of Romans 12:1. This is what is called an oblation, a prayer of self-dedication. (See the prayer book catechism, page 857.)</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Francisco de Zurbaran's <i>Agnus Dei</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>Sarahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08134409317988871603noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7956248390448730926.post-49589985627647179162012-02-23T06:47:00.005-08:002012-02-23T20:31:58.955-08:00Getting Involved with Leviticus: Part 2<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I discovered something very helpful this morning - the Read the Bible for Life iPhone app, which includes a reading plan for Reading God's Story. </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I downloaded this app when I began this project but found it a little confusing, so I didn't explore what it can do at the time. I still get the feeling I've only figured out about 10% of what the app can do, but it's the 10% that's most helpful to me. You can track your progress in the reading plan and check off the days that you have read. Then you can look up the reading for the day and read it right on your phone and mark it as read. Usually I will read out of my physical Bible, but on days when I have to get to church really early or when I'm away from home, I can stay up to date through this app.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I usually think of Leviticus as dragging along, but with this reading plan it flew by. Now that Leviticus is behind us, you might wondering, what was that all about?</span> <span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I have been reviewing what I learned about Leviticus from Dr. Ellen Davis, and I've gleaned some insights from her that might help us to understand this challenging book.</span>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Whereas the end of Exodus focuses on the building of the tabernacle, Leviticus focuses on the Torah - which is best translated not as "law," as we normally think, but as teaching or instruction. The Torah gives instructions about how Israel should live in and around that tabernacle.</span>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Dr. Davis addressed the difficulty we can have in relating to Leviticus by pointing out that </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">the writers of Leviticus tend to think in symbols. We often use symbols when we are trying to speak about something we can't get a handle on, something that is a mystery. She describes the mystery with which Leviticus wrestles in this way: "How can Israel host the radical presence and dangerous holiness of God? How do we get back into the presence of God without being burnt to a crisp?"</span>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Leviticus gives two answers to that question</span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">: the sacrificial system, and the regulations about purity. If you've been reading Leviticus, you've no doubt noticed that it is loaded with descriptions of both. Both of these are systems of symbols that acknowledge God as the Creator of all material things and the responsibility of humanity to mediate between God and the rest of creation. We saw that humans were given this role of steward and priest back in Genesis 1. Humans blew it in Genesis 3 and failed to live up to their calling. Here we see Israel being called back into that role, but now that role is less simple and straightforward and beautiful than it was intended to be. Now it is fraught with the complications brought about by the unholiness of humanity and creation compared with God's holiness.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There are also several themes begun here in Leviticus that will find their fulfillment in Christ. In particular, the idea of shedding blood as atonement for human life is central to Leviticus and is also central to how we understand what Christ has done for us.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>Sarahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08134409317988871603noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7956248390448730926.post-70381882513674581632012-02-22T06:52:00.002-08:002012-02-22T06:52:26.703-08:00Getting Involved with Leviticus<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We are now smack in the middle of Leviticus.</span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> It's not easy to wade through these long and detailed instructions that may strike us as confusing, random, or harsh. Remember the refrain God continues to give: "Be holy, as I am holy." This is in part about setting apart the Israelites from the people around them. When we get to the book of Hebrews in the New Testament, all of this will make more sense!</span>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I was trying to think of Christian songs that use the language of Exodus/Leviticus. Sandra McCracken and Derek Webb's song "She Must and Shall Go Free" reminded me of what I have been reading - its language about the debt of sin, the shedding of blood for atonement, sins being cast on a scapegoat, and the peace and rest that comes from being right with God.</span>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I love the <a href="http://www.igracemusic.com/ig3/" target="_blank">stripped down recording of this</a> on the Indelible Grace album to the version on Derek's album with the same name. This live video captures the beauty of their voices together:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"><span style="text-align: left;">Mercy speaks by Jesus' blood</span><br style="text-align: left;" /><span style="text-align: left;">Hear and sing, ye sons of God</span><br style="text-align: left;" /><span style="text-align: left;">Justice satisfied indeed</span><br style="text-align: left;" /><span style="text-align: left;">Christ has full atonement made</span><br style="text-align: left;" /><br style="text-align: left;" /><span style="text-align: left;">Jesus' blood speaks loud and sweet</span><br style="text-align: left;" /><span style="text-align: left;">Here all deity can meet</span><br style="text-align: left;" /><span style="text-align: left;">And without a jarring voice</span><br style="text-align: left;" /><span style="text-align: left;">Welcome Zion to rejoice</span><br style="text-align: left;" /><span style="text-align: left;">Welcome Zion to rejoice</span><br style="text-align: left;" /><br style="text-align: left;" /><span style="text-align: left;">All her debt's been cast on Me</span><br style="text-align: left;" /><span style="text-align: left;">She must and shall go</span><br style="text-align: left;" /><span style="text-align: left;">All her debt's been cast on Me</span><br style="text-align: left;" /><span style="text-align: left;">She must and shall go free</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"><br style="text-align: left;" /><span style="text-align: left;">Peace of conscience, peace with God</span><br style="text-align: left;" /><span style="text-align: left;">We obtain through Jesus' blood</span><br style="text-align: left;" /><span style="text-align: left;">Jesus' blood speaks solid rest</span><br style="text-align: left;" /><span style="text-align: left;">We believe and we are blessed</span><br style="text-align: left;" /><span style="text-align: left;">We believe and we are blessed</span><br style="text-align: left;" /><br style="text-align: left;" /><span style="text-align: left;">All her debt's been cast on Me</span><br style="text-align: left;" /><span style="text-align: left;">She must and shall go free</span><br style="text-align: left;" /><br style="text-align: left;" /><span style="text-align: left;">Should the law against her roar</span><br style="text-align: left;" /><span style="text-align: left;">Jesus' blood still speaks with power</span><br style="text-align: left;" /><span style="text-align: left;">All her debts were cast on Me</span><br style="text-align: left;" /><span style="text-align: left;">She must and shall go free</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I'd like to suggest this book about the Old Testament </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">by Ellen Davis, who was my Old Testament professor in seminary. It's called </span><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Getting-Involved-God-Rediscovering-Testament/dp/1561011975/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1329920693&sr=1-3" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;" target="_blank">Getting Involved With God: Rediscovering the Old Testament</a><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">. The Introduction describes the book well:</span>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">“This is a book about getting, and staying, involved with God—what it takes, what it costs, what it looks and feels like, why anyone would want to do it anyway. It is at the same time a book about reading the Old Testament as a source of Good News and guidance for our life with God. The key piece of Good News that the Old Testament communicates over and over again is that God is involved with us, deeply and irrevocably so.”</span></span>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Dr. Davis is coming to Christ Church Cathedral in downtown Nashville this coming weekend! Unfortunately I am unable to attend any of her lectures. I would encourage anyone who wants to hear a life-giving and fascinating interpretation of Old Testament Scripture to go and listen to her. </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">More information on her visit can be found here:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.christcathedral.org/Education/Symposia">http://www.christcathedral.org/Education/Symposia</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>Sarahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08134409317988871603noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7956248390448730926.post-36576604898936739522012-02-21T09:36:00.001-08:002012-02-21T09:36:46.155-08:00a glimpse of God's splendorI'm plowing through Exodus this week. It is such a mix of different stories - at times the people are blatantly disobedient and God gets downright frustrated with them, and yet at other times the people are moved in their hearts to give their most precious belongings to build a house of worship for God. One of my favorite stories so far is Moses' encounter with God on the mountain in chapter 33, when Moses asks God, "Show me your glory." As I continue to focus on reaching Leviticus, I leave you with this song by Third Day, inspired by Moses' request.<br />
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<br />Sarahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08134409317988871603noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7956248390448730926.post-51826355294670787232012-02-20T05:55:00.002-08:002012-02-20T05:55:37.013-08:00the tabernacle<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">"They are to make a sanctuary for me </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">so I may dwell among them."</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> - Exodus 25:8</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I love this verse. It shows that God, who used to come down to the garden of Eden to walk in the cool of the day, is still working on the same project - getting back to earth so he can be with people. Sin has disrupted the original relationship between God and humankind in such a way that God's holiness - his set-apart-ness - has become a danger to them. It was sad to read in Exodus 20 how the people are afraid of God and don't want to approach him - understandably so, but it is evidence of just how far we've come from Eden. God is still intent, however, on restoring this relationship, as 25:8 illustrates. Throughout Scripture we will see this refrain over and over - I will dwell with them as their God, and they will be my people. That is the ultimate goal of God's mission - not to have little human underlings to do his every bidding, but to share fellowship with his creation.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Exodus takes several chapters to outline extremely detailed instructions about how to build the tabernacle. It is helpful to have a visual of what they are building so we don't get lost in all those details. The mission group I worked with in high school, Teen Missions, has built a life-sized replica of the Old Testament Tabernacle. They did a spectacular job. </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There are a few pictures of it here: </span><a href="http://www.oldtestamenttabernacle.org/" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">http://www.oldtestamenttabernacle.org/</a></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My dear Teen Missions friend, Jessi Mitchell, and I went back and visited boot camp a couple of years ago and stopped by the tabernacle. They have the actual tabernacle as well as the "furniture" that was in it. </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Perhaps this helps you to visualize what the tabernacle would have looked like.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The tabernacle itself; the lavabo and the altar were covered in white sheets when we visited; you can see the white fence around the whole thing; the tabernacle is stored in a huge open barn so ignore the wooden ceiling overhead</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The inside of the tabernacle. To the left you can see the golden lampstand, to the right the table of the showbread, and at the back the incense altar.</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The lampstand up close.</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Holy of Holies with the Ark of the Covenant. Yes, we made it back out alive without tying a cord around our ankles!</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Whether you are back in Exodus like me or up in Leviticus, remember that this part of the Bible can be tough going. Leviticus is the classic place that people's intentions to read the whole Bible get bogged down and clogged up and eventually ended. Keep up the good work, and I'll post more on how to keep the bigger picture in mind as you read these books so the details don't wear us down.</span></div>
</div>Sarahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08134409317988871603noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7956248390448730926.post-32260043226284655332012-02-15T06:12:00.002-08:002012-02-15T06:12:16.836-08:00catching up<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I've been MIA this past week. I am still trying to learn how to balance blogging a few times a week with all the other things I need to do in the mornings. I've gotten about a week behind in my reading. The Israelites just received the Ten Commandments at Sinai.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This raises the question, what's the best way to handle setbacks? When you set out on such a project, how can you deal with bumps in the road without getting defeated and quitting? </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In this case, I'm setting a goal of reading 2 days worth of reading for the next few days until I catch up. The other thing I am trying to remember is to keep pace - because I am reading sections of the Bible I haven't read in forever, I am tempted to stop and explore and go in depth, and this project doesn't really allow for that. I am starting a list of passages/books that I want to go back and reread in greater depth after this year is over.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">While I'm busy catching up, check out this beautiful song by Andrew Peterson called "Pillar of Fire."</span><br />
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<br />Sarahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08134409317988871603noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7956248390448730926.post-50196682747767955262012-02-07T07:11:00.000-08:002012-02-07T07:13:15.258-08:00Bible Resources Galore!<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I have discovered some resources that might be helpful to those of you who are using <i>Reading God's Story</i> this year:</span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Readers-Guide-Bible-Chronological-Reading/dp/1415871051" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: large;">Reader's Guide to the Bible</span></a><br />
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<a href="http://www.bhpublishinggroup.com/readthebible/img/readers-guide.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://www.bhpublishinggroup.com/readthebible/img/readers-guide.jpg" width="146" /></a><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is a reader's guide that complements <i>Reading God's Story</i>. It follows along with the readings for the day and provides commentary on what you're reading. </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It's $10 on Amazon. If you are working your way through Reading God's Story and finding yourself asking a lot of questions, I would recommend it. Caveat, I haven't read this myself yet but am about to order it.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Read-Bible-Life-Understanding-Living/dp/0805464549/ref=pd_luc_sim_01_02_t_lh" target="_blank">Read The Bible for Life</a></span><br />
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<a href="http://www.bhpublishinggroup.com/img/webcovers/9780805464542_cvr_web.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://www.bhpublishinggroup.com/img/webcovers/9780805464542_cvr_web.jpg" width="128" /></a><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This book, written by George Guthrie, creator of <i>Reading God's Story</i>, outlines the "basic tools and attitudes needed to read the Bible more effectively." While the book above helps you to understand what you're reading each day, this book talks more generally about how to read the Bible.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/asin/0310266629/zondervanpublish/103-6641593-7431018" target="_blank">The Essential Bible Companion</a></span>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This book provides just 2 pages of information for each book of the Bible, including historical background, photos, maps, and timelines. You will <u>not</u> get bogged down by the content in this book; it is very user friendly. We have several copies of this book in the St. George's bookstore for those who are in Nashville. On a side note, </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">John Walton was a professor at Wheaton while i was there; I took one class that he team taught with several science professors called "Theories of Origins." That was one of the most unique courses I have ever taken.</span><br />
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<u><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Story-NIV-Bible-Continuing-People/dp/031095097X/ref=dp_ob_title_bk" target="_blank">The Story</a></span></u>
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<a href="http://quenchshops.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/the-story.jpg?w=640" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://quenchshops.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/the-story.jpg?w=640" width="146" /></a><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I haven't read this yet, but I found it in our church bookstore yesterday. It is similar to <i>Reading God's Story</i> in that it tells the grand, overarching story of the Bible. However, this is the abridged version :) Rather then rearranging the entire text of the Bible, The Story pares the content down to its major highlights and crucial turning points. I haven't read this, so I don't yet have an opinion about the editorial choices that they've made. Are any of you familiar with this? It seems like it could be a good way to get an overall grasp of the Bible. There is also a teen version and a kids' version.</span>Sarahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08134409317988871603noreply@blogger.com1