Author: laurenlarkin

Free To Be For You

Psalm 139:1-4 Lord, you have searched me out and known me; you know my sitting down and my rising up; you discern my thoughts from afar. You trace my journeys and my resting-places and are acquainted with all my ways. Indeed, there is not a word on my lips, but you, O Lord, know it altogether. You press upon me behind and before and lay your hand upon me.

Introduction

Last week we were brought into the presence of a very big event initiated by a divine word, “Let there be light!” At this command, the universe was thrust in to the divine light of order and basked in the magnificence of divine approval, “It is good.” The divine word pulled the lightness from the darkness, and set the earth into its fluctuation between day and night, forever dancing and never crossing, one bowing to the other as it cedes the stage to the other.

This week our attention turns to something much smaller, but no less magnificent: our own bodies. We, inside and out, are cosmic miracles, bipedal universes, worlds thrust and caught between illumination and obscurity. We are beautiful creatures composed of paradox, reflecting the paradoxical nature of our Creator: we are soft and firm, we are rational and irrational, we are strict and lenient, we are happy and sad, we are exciting and boring, we know who we are and we have yet to be introduced to ourselves, we are marvels and unexceptional. We crave inclusion and seclusion, we want love but not that much, we want approval but, again, not that much. We are complex and simple. You’re amazing. Whether you feel it or not, you’re amazing, fearfully and wonderfully made, valued at a great price. You are worthy in your skin to be loved as you are, just as you are.

You are so amazing but yet caution must be employed with ourselves, with our bodies, with our minds. While we are amazing, (I’ll never back down from that sentiment), we are very vulnerable creatures. We are prone to being misled, lied to, fooled, lured, and carried away by fear, threat, and intimidation, pulled into a sea of the billows and waves of charlatans and con-artists selling cures, and liquid mythologies only to take proceeds from eager believers while leaving nothing but saccharine syrup. Most of all, we can be swept away by our own notions of our freedom and liberation, becoming drunk on autonomy run amok.

This is why Paul says,

1 Corinthians 6:12-20

“All things are permitted to me,” but not all things are helpful. “All things are permitted to me,” but I, I will not be ruled by them. “Food [is] for digestion, and digestion [is] for food,” and God will abolish both one and the other. Now, the body is not for idolatry, but for the Lord and the Lord for the body. And God both raised the Lord and will raise us up according to the power of God. Have you not yet known that our bodies are members of Christ? (1 Cor 6:12-15a)[1]

While the historicity of Christianity has proven itself very capable at absolutely destroying the bodily alterity and autonomy, I must call attention to the fact that this isn’t Paul’s fault. Corinthians is one of my favorite collections of letters because of how well both the body and the self are held in high regard. Not only the body of the individual, but also the body corporate. Let’s look.

Paul begins by quoting some colloquialisms that came to him (most likely) from Corinth. Both, “All things are permitted to me,” and “Food [is] for digestion, and digestion [is] for food,” are considered to be quotations from other letters sent to Paul. So, Paul jumps in contending directly with what he’s heard and challenges it based on hindering and helpful terminology with a good dose of “freedom from” and “freedom for.” For Paul, the Christian has real and total liberty in Christ but that can only go so far. While many actions can be helpful, they are so only until they become hindering to both the one doing the action or the neighbor. In other words, both individuality and community matters, neither is to be victor over the other.[2]

Now, I know we’re raised to think that w’are the masters of not only our own domains but also of our destinies. But the reality is, we’re not. As mentioned last week, there is much we can plan and much that will happen this year that falls very wide of any plan we ever made ever. So, while I have a robust amount of freedom, I must always be aware that I’m not in this alone, and that my freedom can end up being someone else’s captivity. For Paul, Christians are expected to walk and talk differently, for they’ve been liberated from themselves to be captive to their neighbor, and all of it by faith in Christ working out in loving action. To say it doctrinally, we are to live resurrection lives now[3]and that means living into the divinely gifted glory of our beautiful bodies (in alignment, inner and outer) and in unity with other humans and especially with God through Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit.

This is why Paul spends time talking about uniting our bodies to “idolatry.” Should we, in our liberty, just unite our bodies to anything, even things of idolatry because we are justified by faith in Christ with God by the power of Holy Spirit? Paul says, μη γενοιτο! The reason? Because, essentially, you are not your own as you may (like to) think, you can’t just do what you want.[4] Then, after exhorting the Corinthians to FLEE IDOLATRY! (v. 18a), Paul says, “Have you not known that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, which you have from God? You are not your own, you were purchased with honor; now, glorify God in your body,” (vv. 19-20).

But what has this to do with hindering and helping, freedom from and freedom for? Well, it comes down to making absolutes and maxims about individual freedom and liberty that conflict with the liberty and freedom of the neighbor. According to Paul, that I’m a Christian united to Christ by faith, in union with God, filled with the divine Spirit and Love, means I must take into consideration (always) my community, my neighbor, the other hoomans living here with me (whether the ones produced by my own body, whom I know intimately, or the ones I’ve never encountered with my body and whose names I may never know). I am not an island, I am not my own, I am now, according to Paul, yoked to Christ and the Spirit burdened with the light yoke of just loving other people as they are, where they are; it is not for me to conform others to my ideological orientations or force neighbors to get in line with my program.[5] Rather, I’m to serve my neighbor by my faith in Christ working itself out in love to the wellbeing of my neighbor. I am to see my actions as not only helping or hindering me, but also whether or not they might be helping or hindering my neighbors both near and far. For their wellbeing is linked to my own, knowing that in doing this I, too, will benefit as my neighbor thrives in abundance that is also mine.

Conclusion

Beloved, you are fearfully and wonderfully made. Your body is amazing. It is so amazing that our sacred text exhorts you to care for it, treat it well, to honor it, and use it to bring God glory because it’s the temple of the Holy Spirit. What you do to/with your body is important, it matters, our actions towards ourselves should emphasize that divine gift of love, life, and liberation gifted to us by God through Christ and the Spirit. And, this exhortation extends beyond only what you do with your body and moves toward the neighbor, taking their body into account, valuing it, considering it worthy, honoring it, making sure to hold it in regard because their body matters, too. Let us remember these ones are also the beloved of God, purchased with honor by Christ’s body, and temples of the Holy Spirit, loved by God, the same God who us first as we are, where we are.

In other words, “let us love because God in Christ loved us first,” (1 Jn 4:19).

[1] All translations mine unless otherwise noted

[2] Anthony C. Thiselton, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, NIGTC, eds. I. Howard Marshall and Donald A. Hagner (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000), 462. “The issue for Paul is what helps and what hinders in constituting credible corporate Christian identity as a community in corporate solidarity with Christ. Both a theology of identity and an ethic of social or interpersonal relations are aspects of the unity…at issue. If freedom  or liberty is absolutized without qualification it brings bondage, or at least threatening constraints, to the competing freedoms of others. But part of the grammar of union with Christ is to share Christ’s concern for the well-being of the other, and to let go of his or her own freedoms in order to liberation the other. The ‘mind of Christ’ (2:16) has to be relearned and rediscovered at Corinth, not least as a basis for ethics and lifestyle.”

[3] Thiselton, Corinthians, 463. “The σῶμα is not to be equated with the κοιλία, but somatic life is absorbed and transformed in the resurrection of the σῶμα in such a way that continuity as well as change characterizes the relation between the present σῶμα, i.e., present life in its totality, and the resurrection σῶμα, i.e., the transformation of the whole human self as part of the raised corporeity in Christ.”

[4] Thiselton, Corinthians, 476. “The imagery of the purchased slave underpins the point that Christian believers belong to a new master, or owner, to whom they must give account for everything. That the main emphasis falls on this point is correct…”

[5] Thiselton, Corinthians, 478. “Redemption is from a state of jeopardy by a costly act to a new state.”

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The Wind of Love; The Word of Beginning

Psalm 29:10-11 God sits enthroned above the flood; Abba God sits enthroned as King for evermore. God shall give strength to God’s people; Abba God shall give Abba God’s people the blessing of peace.

Introduction

Happy New Year! With the start of the new year, we find ourselves at the very beginning of Genesis. It seems fitting to flow right through advent into Christmas and find us at the very beginning. Due to annual rotations around the sun, we are at another beginning of our earthly revolution; so we are, in a real sense, “In the beginning…” A new year carries so much wonderful and fearful unknown. Finally, a clean slate is here, out with the cluttered one from last year. We have our new canvas, that beloved empty page, and on these surfaces we can write whatever we want… But with all that newness, there is the demand, what will you put down, write, draw, paint? What will you do with this large expanse of anything and everything laid out before you? What will be painted on your canvas that you didn’t put there yourself, what part of the story will be written by someone else?

It’s incredibly liberating and intimidating, this wide-open space presented before us. For me, I am both excited and afraid; this year will pass by carrying its ups and downs and some of it I will foresee and others I will not—that’s how it’s gone before and, I’m guessing, that is how it will continue to go each revolution around the sun. Anything can happen! And, anything can happen… So, in the flux of the paradox of liberating and intimidating, between excited and afraid, where do we find our comfort, peace, that good, good word to still the (good and bad) storms that (could be, might be?) brewing? Well, we go back to the beginning, and listen again…

Genesis 1:1-5

In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.

We do not come to Genesis looking for scientific fact. These stories of the cosmos’s start by a divine word and light born out of nothingness into somethingness are not supposed to be treated as if a textbook in a lab room, as if it would stand up under scientific scrutiny. These stories are meant to bring comfort to a people lost and wondering if God is still with them, if God cares, if they are still God’s people. If everything you know is currently thrust under the waves of chaos and tumult, it might bring comfort to remember that the entire cosmic event is nestled under the care and concern of God, the very same one who called you, your ancestors, and your ancestor’s ancestors unto God’s self. Genesis 1, from beginning to end, is very much one of those stories, crafted to bring comfort to ears longing for a good word, maybe ears longing to find stable ground after being too long caught between excitement and fear, liberation and intimidation.

Rather than being a story replete with awesome works of power and might, sending shudders of fear and awe down the spines of all who are encountered by the story, Genesis 1 opens with a rather small bang: let there be light! That’s it. That’s all. Light is born into the chaotic darkness[1] by a word spoken. This light is not the sun (created on day 4), it is of a “different order”[2] than what the darkness was that hovered over the surface of the deep. If the darkness was considered chaos, then the light is order. Into chaos, order was summoned to make room within actuality for all things new and possible. From here, the text moves forward and tells us that God “saw” the light and decided it was “good.” But the text doesn’t stop there. God then separated the light from the darkness, literally pulled the two apart and gave each a different name so confusion would never occur again. One, the darkness, was called “night,” and the other, lightness, was called “day.” Never would the two cross paths, like death and life, only one would occupy a particular space and time. By day, things will be illuminated, known, exposed; by night, they will be hidden, lost, cloaked.

Genesis 1 establishes that God is the one who speaks and when this God speaks things happen. Genesis 1 locates God behind all of it: amid the chaos calling forth order, in the tumult summoning peace, in the darkness beckoning lightness. From the depths of the deep to the peak of the summit, God is there. So, as God’s people travel in and out of various territories, at times in exile and in others in return, God will never leave them because God is in it with them—God has been and always will be with God’s people no matter where they find themselves.

Conclusion

As we find ourselves in the twixt of an old year giving way to a new year, between the excitement and fear, between liberation and intimidation let us rest assured that as much as any other time in history from the beginning of the cosmos unto this very year, God is with us, behind it all. God is in your fear and in your excitement; God walks with you in your feelings of liberation and with you in your feelings of intimidation; God is with you in your chaos and in your order, in your plans and in the events you have not planned. God is with you because God is love and love is that wind sweeping over the waters of the deep searching and seeking the beloved to bring them into the light and life of God’s divine liberation.

And later, as we look back on Christmas and ahead to Easter, let us remember that once more will God’s love hover over the waters of the deep in search of the beloved eager to bring them (back) into the light and life of God’s divine liberation. But that story is for another time. For now, there is light and that light is good.

[1] Jon D. Levenson, “Genesis,” The Jewish Study Bible Jewish Publication Society Tanakh Translation. Eds. Adele Berlin and Marc Zvi Brettler (Oxford: OUP, 2004), 13.

[2] Levenson, “Genesis,” 13.

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Summoned as Shepherds

Psalm 96:1-3, 11 Sing to God a new song; sing to Abba God, all the whole earth. Sing to God and bless God’s Name; proclaim the good news of Abba God’s salvation from day to day. Declare God’s glory among the nations and wonders among all peoples. Let the heavens rejoice, and let the earth be glad; let the sea thunder and all that is in it; let the field be joyful and all that is therein.

Introduction

The Psalmist exhorts their audience, “Sing! Sing to God a new song! Sing to Abba God, all the whole earth! Proclaim the good news! Declare God’s glory! Rejoice!” These words beckon cheer and joy, soliciting from the intended audience a response that joins in with the earthly and celestial symphony affirming God’s goodness and greatness. The psalmist beseeches help from the heavens, the seas, the fields, the trees and woods to join in this chorus of praise for God’s glory, power, might, honor, majesty, splendor, and beauty. The psalmist—caught up in the majestic splendor of God’s goodness, righteousness, and truthfulness—invites the cosmos into their celebration, from the peaks of the mountains to the depths of the seas everything is summoned to this banquet and feast of praise and worship.

The psalmist offers us a truly glorious invitation to join in the festivities surrounding God; we are invited to sing a new song. And the only thing I can muster in reply is: in this economy?! Days in and days out, one foot in front of the other, walking slow and steady through a myriad of troubling and disturbing events marking the land and the world…how can I find language for a new song when I’ve lost the language of the old song? Exhaustion wearies the soul and fatigue wearies the bones. So many of us are fighting our overworked nervous systems and rampant anxiety, we’ve run out of energy to make dinner most nights let alone craft a new song. I don’t want this invitation from the psalmist; I don’t have the stamina for such celebration and festivities. In my heart I decline, No, thank you. In my body, I stay home: turn off the lights and bury myself deep into my comforters and try to sleep. I want silence, darkness, stillness; I want to care less, to be less close to despair, to be numb. Sorry, Psalmist, I cannot sing with you; I cannot sing an old song and definitely not a new song.

Then, in the midst of that stillness, the silence, that darkness, succumbing to heavy sleep a still small voice penetrates through it all: oh, dear one, I was not asking you to sing but to listen to a new song…for you…

Luke 2:1-14(15-20)

Now, Shepherds were in that same land living in the fields and guarding over their flocks keeping night guard. And then an angel of the lord stood by them, and the glory of the lord shone around them, and they were afraid with a great fear. And then the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid! For, Behold!, I proclaim good news to you of great joy that will be for all people: today a savior is begotten for you in the city of David who is Christ the Lord. This is a sign for you, you will find a newborn child having been wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger.” And suddenly a great host of angels of heaven appeared with the angel, praising God, and [singing], ‘Glory to God most high and upon earth peace among humanity of [God’s] good pleasure!’”[1]

Luke 2:8-14

Luke begins by telling us a familiar story of Joseph and Mary traveling from Nazareth to Bethlehem to fulfill the demand of a census from Caesar Augustus. We know this story. They are both tired; Mary is very pregnant. They come to the town of David, to Bethlehem, and there’s not one available room for the unwed young couple expecting their first child. Without a room available, the couple finds comfort among animals, straw and hay, and an empty manger. According to Luke, Mary gives birth soon after arriving in the stable.

The birth of the Christ into the world is God coming low to be further in the world. God did not go to palaces and castles; rather God went so low as to be born into meager and rather desperate circumstances. Nothing about Joseph and Mary was particularly unique; they were not married yet, they were not wealthy, they were not royalty, and they were not powerful and privileged. They were simple people in meager circumstances pulling together the bare necessities for their son who was coming into the world, the long promised divine savior of God.[2] I think we forget this part of the story when it’s told year after year; God made God’s self known in flesh, vulnerable and soft flesh, in a stable, in the dirt, among the lowly, among the animals and the poor.

That story is remarkable on its own. But Luke doesn’t stop pressing home his point. The next seen brings us to fields at night and into the world of the shepherds keeping watch over their sheep at night, guarding their flock from predators—both wolves that walked on four legs, and those masquerading as humans walking about on two.[3] These shepherds were downright oppressed under an oppressive regime; this census wasn’t merely about tallying up how many people there were, but, rather, about finding out how much wealth was in the region with an eye to maximize taxes.[4] Thus, this census would create financial havoc for the everyday lives of the shepherds already living (barely) from one day to the next.[5]

So, here they are, the shepherds, cloaked by night and alert for fear of wolves; they are unseen and worried. And then Luke tells us that suddenly! An angel of the lord appeared and brought with them a glory of the lord that engulfed in bright light the field in which they were standing. These humble shepherds froze in fear. But then the angelic visitor spoke, Do not be afraid! For, Behold!, I proclaim to you good news: a savior is begotten for you in the city of David who is Christ the lord! And this announcement wasn’t only a proclamation of good news, but an invitation to come in, come closer, to enter the realm of God’s glory come down low and take hold of the good news. And as if that wasn’t enough, the angel is (suddenly!) accompanied by a great host of heaven who sing to these tired and anxious shepherds,

Glory to God in the highest
and peace upon earth
among humanity of God’s good pleasure!

The whole host of heaven came to these dirty and poor, worried and anxious shepherds dwelling in the dark and on the boarders of despair.[6] Those who were unseen were now seen—seen by the host of heaven. They were drafted into the divine limelight by God[7] to receive the good news and to go. Go and see the savior, the one who will liberate—from sin and oppression[8]—the people, the shepherds, the poor, those meagerly surviving day to day, those shoved off to the fringes of society, those exhausted in soul and fatigued in body, those without a song.

Conclusion

And they went. Luke tells us that as the host of heaven returned to celestial heights, the shepherds, turning one to another, spoke, “Let us go until we reach Bethlehem and see this word that has come into being that the Lord made known to us.” The shepherds dared to go, to obey God, to go into the stable, to see the unwed woman of color who is the mother of God, Jesus the Christ, God come low, Immanuel, God with us. These unknown shepherds were beckoned into the luminescent glory of God and dared to be seen and known by God. They came close, Luke tells us, they found Mary and Joseph, and they saw the infant wrapped in swaddling clothes lying in the manger. Those who were once too dirty to be in God’s presence now not only stood in God’s presence but could reach out and touch God as they were.

Rather than being far off and distant, on Christmas, in the nativity of the Christ, God came low, born a baby, held by the arms of the poor, embraced by the oppressed, surrounded by animals, and resting atop hay, straw, and dirt. God came low on Christmas for no other reason than to bring love and life to God’s beloved, the people of God’s good pleasure, to liberate them from sin and oppression. On Christmas God came low to hang out with those who had lost all their words to give them a new song, to sing over them.

And here we sit, peering over shepherd shoulders, tippy-toe, eager to see the scene displayed before us. We are a part of those gathered to gaze upon the newborn babe, the Christ, and his mother, Mary. We stand among the menagerie of animals; we stand with the humble shepherds finding their words again for the first time. In them we see ourselves. And, in time, as we listen again and again, as we listen anew to this old, old story, we find our words, too—new words, lifegiving words, love filled words, liberating words. This is God for us, heaven singing over us, God come low to be with us, where we are, as weare.

God comes to us to sing over us tonight, amid our darkness, as we try to numb out the chaos and tumult of a world on fire, as we try to forget the pain of our loss and grief (those far off or gone), and as we collapse in our exhaustion and fatigue. Here, we are taken up into that ancient celestial song of ancient days, interrupted long enough to lift our heads and dare to have hope, faith, joy, and peace. Tonight, the Christ is born anew among us, in our heart, for us. Breathe deep, rest, be comforted, and rejoice. Again, I say, Rejoice.

[1] Translation mine unless otherwise noted

[2] Ernesto Cardenal, The Gospel in Solentiname, trans. by, Donald D. Walsh. Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 2010. 20. “Rebeca spoke: ‘From the moment of his birth, God chose conditions like the poorest person, didn’t he? I don’t think God wants great banquets or a lot of money…’”

[3] Gonzalez, Luke, 33-34. “Given those circumstances, the setting of the shepherds keeping their flocks at night is much less tranquil and romantic. They live out in the fields, suffer all kinds of deprivations and even dangers, in order to protect their flocks. But the census threatens a new danger, a wolf more dangerous than nay four-legged beast, a wolf that will probably decimate their flocks, and whom they cannot fight, for it is too powerful It is not difficult to imagine what would be the talk of such shepherds as they sought to remain awake through the night…the setting itself was one of fear and oppression.”

[4] Gonzalez, Luke, 33. “A census had sinister implications. It was not just counting people in order to see how many they were, and what population trends were. In ancient times, and long thereafter, a census was in fact an inventory of all the wealth of a region—its people, its animals, and its crops—so that the government would be able to tax people to the maximum. A census usually announced greater poverty and exploitation.”

[5] Justo L. Gonzalez, Luke, Belief: A Theological Commentary on the Bible Eds Amy Plantinga Pauw and William C. Placher. Louisville: WJK, 2010. 33. “That is not the setting in which Luke presents the story. The setting is rather that of people living under an oppressive regime…As usual, oppression is not a merely political matter, the concern only of those directly involved in politics. It also reaches the everyday lives of people, as is seen in the very fact that Joseph and Mary have to travel to Bethlehem even though she is about to give birth.”

[6] Cardenal, Solentiname, 26. “Felipe: ‘But the angel didn’t go where the kings was but where the poor people were…’”

[7] Gonzalez, Luke, 34. “One of the ways in which the ‘little people’ manage to survive under oppressive regimes is not to call attention to themselves. They seek to go on with their lives unnoticed by the powerful, who could easily crush them. Now these shepherds are literally in the limelight, and an obviously powerful personage confronts them.”

[8] Gonzalez, Luke, 36. “The ‘saviors’ in the Hebrew Scriptures liberate Israel from its political oppressors so that the people may be free to serve and obey God…But the title ‘Savior’ was also used by rulers who claimed special powers over their subjects…Thus when the angel announces Jesus as ‘Savior,’ his declaration has both political and religious overtones. The child who has been born will free the people from bondage—bondage both to their sins and to their oppressors.”

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Yesterday’s Song; Today’s Peace

Psalm 89:1-2 1 Your love, O God, for ever will I sing; from age to age my mouth will proclaim your faithfulness. For I am persuaded that your love is established for ever; you have set your faithfulness firmly in the heavens.

Introduction

The warmth of the holiday season, the festivity of lights and music, the cheeriness of people, and the fullness of celebrations and feasts solicit our radiant smiles and eager, welcoming hugs. It’s a time of year heralding hope from street corners and twinkling rooftops and yards, fueling faith deep within weary souls, and jumpstarting joy in the bodies of the young and the old—and those captured between—eager to get through the one to many demands of the end of the year.

Though this is true for half of us, I know it’s not true for the other half of us. The same lights and music, cheer, celebrations and feasts do anything but solicit such warm feelings. The holiday season conjures up feelings of sadness and longing over loved ones too far to celebrate with us, record a(nother) year someone won’t our door or sit at our table ushering in grief and sorrow, and spark anxiety and fear at the rising expectations to gather with those who have not always proved themselves safe to be around. Specifically, considering our own moment in history with wars and genocides plaguing our lands, human liberties being stripped away, and life and love being threatened on almost every side, it can be doubly hard to enter that warm season, to have hope, faith, joy… and peace.

Peace seems far off, distant, but a dream of yesteryear, an unfamiliar word, something we thought we knew but may be now we aren’t so sure…But it’s to peace (along with hope, faith, and joy) that Advent calls each of us personally. Hope fuels faith and these procure joy and these three create the space and slow time down long enough for peace. Even now? Yes. Especially now. Even you? Yes. Especially you.

Magnificat

God deposed the rulers and potentates from thrones and exalted the lowly and humble, God filled up the needy with all good things and sent the abounding away empty. God took hold of Israel, God’s child, to call to [their] mind [God’s] mercy, just as God spoke to our elders, to Abraham and to his descendants into eternity. (Lk 1:51-55)[1]

Mary’s words recorded by Luke participate in that still, small, divine voice eager to beckon those feeling exhausted, fatigued, weary, downcast, low, a lacking hope, faith, and joy. This isn’t just a message jotted down or a hymn eloquently penned (though, it might very well be these things!). It’s a prophetic utterance soliciting a harkening to God and a change in direction for all those who hear; it’s a response not only to Mary’s own situation but of Elizabeth, too. It’s in the midst of her visit to Elizabeth—who acknowledges the Savior Mary carries—that causes the space for this song to erupt from Mary’s soul, a song of a poor, oppressed one[2] for the poor, oppressed ones.[3]

Mary’s song articulates that the starting place of God’s divine activity is among the lowly and not those set up high; from the bottom up, God will make God’s self known.[4] And God will bring God’s liberation as God moves through humanity correcting the misplaced emphases on human power in terms of status, wealth, privilege, and might; Mary recognizes God as the one who liberates.[5] And this liberation is an expression of God’s justice; because God is just God will right-side up the upside down world crafted by the kingdom of humanity,[6] leaving equality and equity, peace and justice, mercy and grace in the wake of God’s liberating activity of leveling love and life.[7] This is why we have hope, this is why we have faith (trust), this is why we have joy, and most of all: this is why we have peace. Mary reminds us, that God isn’t aloof and doesn’t remain far off, but the exalted God come low to exalt the lowly.

Conclusion

In the high-middle ages Mary was known as the “‘Madonna of Rogues,’”[8] the one who identified with the lowly, the oppressed, the poor, the hungry, the not-very-significant, the stressed, the anxious, the fearful, those who are bereft of comfort, long to be seen and heard, starving for company and solidarity. She is the one who knows how low God will descend to bring love, life, and liberation into the world, by fulfilling God’s promises through the body broken of an unwed woman of color. She knows those tears you’ve cried, those heartaches you’ve felt, those losses you’ve suffered, those threats you live under.

Mary knows and Mary speaks. She speaks with knowing mercy as one who knows the pain of being human, the sweat of the struggle, the fear of the unknown, the feeling of being reduced to property and easily dismissible. Mary speaks with knowing mercy and walks with you as part of the great cloud of witnesses attesting to the faithfulness of God while promising, according to Dorothee Sölle, “‘I’ll stick by you without reservations or conditions. I’ll stick by you because you are there, because you need me.’”[9] With her song, bursting forth the from her weary and desperate body all those years ago, Mary sings to you today, this morning, because in death she is alive, alive in the one she bore who came to defeat death and destruction, isolation and alienation.[10] She sings to you today and calls to you: Do not give up weary one, God hears you, God sees you, God comes to you, God is coming to you…have hope, have faith, have joy, and have peace…

[1] Translation mine unless otherwise noted

[2] Ernesto Cardenal, The Gospel in Solentiname, trans. Donald D. Walsh (Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 2010) 16. “Teresita: ‘…When she called herself a slave, Mary brought herself closer to the oppressed, I think.’”

[3] Cardenal, Solentiname, 15. “The pregnant Mary had gone to visit her cousin Elizabeth, who also was pregnant. Elizabeth congratulated her because she would be the mother of the Messiah, and Mary broke out singing that song. It is a song to the poor.”

[4] [4] Justo L. Gonzalez Luke, Belief: A Theological Commentary on the Bible, eds Amy Plantinga Pauw and William C. Placher (Louisville: WJK, 2010) 26-7. “Mary sees in her own act of conceiving, and in the child who is to be born out of that act, a sign of the way in which God works. Her song is not like many of the ’praise’ songs of today, proclaiming how great God is. It is a hard-hitting proclamation of a God who overturns the common order of society.”

[5] Cardenal, Solentiname, 16. “‘[Mary] recognizes liberation…We have to do the same thing. Liberation is from sin, that is, from selfishness, from injustice, from misery, from ignorance—from everything that’s oppressive. That liberation is in our wombs too, it seems to me…’”

[6] Cardenal, Solentiname, 17. “And another: ‘She says that God is holy, and that means ‘just.’ The just person who doesn’t offend anybody, the one who doesn’t commit any injustices. God is like this and we should be like him.’”

[7] Cardenal, Solentiname, 19. “The last remark was from Marita: ‘Mary sang here about equality. A society with not social classes. Everyone a like.’”

[8] Soelle, Strength of the Weak, 45. , “[Mary] was known as the ‘madonna of rogues,’ which is to say the madonna of the impoverished rural proletariat, who could not help being at odds with the increasingly stringent laws that defined and protected property.”

[9] Soelle, The Strength of the Weak: Toward a Christian Feminist Identity, trans. Robert and Rita Kimber (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1984) 45. “…Mary embodied Mercy, or what we usually call ‘charity.’…What I mean to say is that Mary rejects ‘performance’ as a measure of human value. I will not stick by you, she says, because you are handsome, clever, successful, musical, potent, or whatever. I’ll stick by you without reservations or conditions. I’ll stick by you because you are there, because you need me. Her unconditional acceptance is that of a mother who cannot exchange her child in the store if she finds it doesn’t suit her.”

[10] Soelle, Strength of the Weak, 46. “The little Madonna who spoke of liberation in the passage quoted form Luke is not made of plaster or plastic. She is very much alive, alive in the history of all who are oppressed, alive in the history of women.”

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The Far God Brought Near

audio forthcoming….

Psalm 100:2, 4 Know this: God is God; God has made us, and we’re Abba God’s; we’re God’s people and the sheep of God’s pasture. God is good; God’s mercy is everlasting; and Abba God’s faithfulness endures from age to age.

Introduction

God lives at the end of infinity; God finds God’s home in the finite. God is the first movement; God is the last movement. God is immortal; but then God is mortal. God is beyond the stars; God is the very twinkle in the eye of the one who loves you. God is so far; but also? God is so near. God is here but only because God is not here, too. It’s hard to speak succinctly about God.

Dorothee Sölle refers to God as the “far-near God.” Grand-humble; royal-common; immaterial-material; here-there; far-near. These paradoxical statements keep God just in our grasp and just outside of it. To declare that God is “far” and only “far” is to objectify God and force God into a (far) corner thus (ironically) to make God small, figured out, caged, folded up like an origami God and stuck in a wallet. And we cannot render God strictly close as God is only near, never far. In this equation God becomes (logically) too small, no different than that voice in your head, your conscience, and ceases to be God because there is no distinction between your inner person and God—the confusion here becomes dastardly when one’s own wishes and desires are mistaken for God’s (acts of violence, narcissistic manipulation, etc.).

To speak of God is to speak in paradox, holding as one two statements appearing to be antithetical while seeing they deeply relate as one existing in the other. (Death in life, life in death.) Here is where the letter of Ephesians shines, for me. The language employed by the author of Ephesians plays with the stretchiness of paradox like the way a womb can expand to comfort and nourish the entire life held within its embrace.

Ephesians 1:15-23

On account of this I also heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and the love toward all the holy ones. I do not cease being thankful concerning you mentioning [you] when making my prayers, so that the God of the Lord Jesus Christ, the progenitor of glory, maybe give you a spirit of wisdom and a revelation in knowledge of God…[1]

Eph. 1:15-16

The author of Ephesians writes this section in single sentence,[2] peppered with small-big, near-far statements about God. The author commends the Ephesian Christians for their faith and that this faith leads them to love outwardly. Their inward faith renders them turned outward and not inward, toward their neighbors; smallness located in bigness. Then the author brings together their own thankfulness for the Ephesian Christians in tight correlation to their prayers to God. This gratitude for these Christians weaves its way into Paul’s prayers eliminating the distance between the two; nearness located in farness. Then the author brings to the fore that this God who is the source of glory is also the one who gives of God’s own spirit of wisdom to those who believer, granting them a revelation in knowledge of God. Something big in something small in something big. It is God in Christ in the Spirit that participates through Paul into the Ephesian Christians in the Church. [3] The big in the small and the small in the big; the far in the near and the near in the far.

…the eyes of your heart having been enlightened in order that you behold what hope there is of God’s calling, what wealth of God’s inheritance in the holy ones, and that which is beyond the greatness of God’s strength in us, the ones who believe according to the activity of God’s might of strength.

Eph. 1:18-19

Again, the author of Ephesians continues with these big-small, far-near statements. It’s the God who acted in Christ—way back when—who calls now; God’s far voice comes near, divine soundwaves beckoning down long hallways of history taking those who hear from any era into the Christ who lived and died and rose again as if that then was and is now. In this way God still acts now not as an historical event still working itself out, but as a current event in our lives; the far-near God, the historical-current God.

Better yet, it is the historical-current-future God speaking to God’s historical-current-future church, granting wisdom and knowledge of God’s self according to the context of the believers, as they are and where they are, as they all await their inheritance by their hope. [4] And this hope that lays hold of God’s historical promise currently spoken to them while trusting God will fulfill that promise in their future, is not only a sentiment. This hope informs and forms the Ephesian Christians’ praxis in the world (evidenced in their love for their neighbor mentioned at the outset).[5]

This God worked out in Christ by raising him from the dead and making him to sit on God’s righthand in the heavens high above all rule and authority and power and domain while being named above all names, not only in eternity but also in this coming one. And, God “subjected all things under his feet,” placing him as head above all things in the church. Wherever his body is there he is the fullness of all fulfilling.

Eph. 1:20-23

And here at the end of our passage, the bigness of God resides in the smallness of those who are called; the far God is near to the ecclesia, the called ones. Here, the church is in Christ by faith and yet this Christ is the one who fills the church.[6] The great Christ, the one who is above all powers and authorities and domains and names and who sits at the righthand of God is the same one who is present in the small church and shows up where this small, fragile, vulnerable, and humble body is by faith in the power of the holy Spirit, participating in his self-witness. The small church carries the big burden that is the light yoke of faith in Christ, bringing Christ and thus God with them in their praxis in the world by faith manifesting as love toward the neighbor.

Conclusion

God is the far-near God, the big-small God, the here-there God, the infinite-finite God. The largeness of God is also God’s intimate closeness, farness that is nearness, the immaterial that ends in the material; the divine that intersects with the human.

But what does this have to do with us? Well, we are wrapped up in this great big-smallness, this far-nearness. And we are not only wrapped up in it but brought further in to God to be closer to the neighbor, bringing this far-near, big-small God closer to those who have been deprived of access to God. This is the witness of the church in the world: God for us, God for you, God for me. We, the church, are called in our faith to be as Christ in the world bringing God’s love, life, and liberation to those who are trapped under the principalities and powers of kingdom of humanity.[7]

Beloved, Christ witnessed God into the world; after Christ ascended, the divine Holy Spirit came to make the church God’s witness of God in the world in Christ’s name as Christ’s body, bringing the world and its inhabitants into the manifold grace and mercy of God. We are called and inspired to bring the big God into the smallest recesses of the earth, into the hearts of those who are crying out because of oppression and marginalization. We are filled by Christ with Christ to bring the far God near to those who suffer under alienation and isolation. Because where the body of Christ goes, there Christ goes, there the far-near, big-small God goes.

[1] Translation mine unless otherwise noted

[2] Markus Barth, Ephesians, The Anchor Bible (Garden City: Double Day, 1974. 160. “…Eph 1:15-23 has the form of one long sentence.”

[3] Barth, Ephesians, 160. “The main agents are God, the Spirit, and the Messiah. The apostle, the saints, and the church are mentioned in tun.”

[4] Barth, Ephesians, 160. “Again, the action of God is not limited to the past. Rather the faith, prayer, and community of the saints are related to that God who is still pouring out his Spirit, increasing knowledge, proving his might over all power, filling the church and the world. The saints are still to attain to an heirdom which lies before them; their faith (and love) cannot be genuine unless it is a hope relying on God who has made a promise, gives hope, and will keep his word.”

[5] Barth, Ephesians, 163. “…’wisdom’ and ‘knowledge’ imparted by the Spirit are not limited to perception, learning, and theoretical insight, but show the wise man how to live. It is characteristic that knowledge cannot exist without growth and expansion. A knower remains a learner, and knowledge will always seek to give others a share in its contents.”

[6] Barth, Ephesians, 160. “Thus the end leads back to the beginning, a reference to the communion of saints. But while the saints were described at the beginning as being ‘in Christ,’ at the end Christ seems to be portrayed as the one who is filling them.”

[7] Barth, Ephesians, 176. “…the message of Ephesians is concerned less with the salvation of the individual soul than with the peace between man, his fellow man and God, i.e. less with private piety than with the social character s of the church and its mission to the world.”

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Lovingly Awaiting the Bridegroom

Psalm 78:5, 7 God gave God’s decrees to Jacob and established a law for Israel, and commanded them to teach their children…So that they might put their trust in God, and not forget the deeds of God, but keep Abba God’s commandments…

Introduction

If you’ve been around, then you’ve probably heard the phrase, “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” It’s a great colloquialism; one bringing comfort to those who may feel they themselves are unlovely. Yet, as great and comforting as it could be, the phrase is often shrugged off. Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, blah bla blah, I know… Much like your teen giving a hard-eye-roll when you, once again, tell them they are so handsome and  beautiful.

Why don’t we believe this?

Because the world and our society tell us differently. We’re regularly bombarded with images and messages (implicit and explicit) telling us we don’t measure up. In this war between us and a myriad of industries, our bodies are the battle ground and all too often we are ready to let our psyches and souls be dragged off as prisoners of war. So, we don’t believe that beauty can actually be in the eye of the one who deems us beautiful because we don’t deem ourselves beautiful, wonderful, fleshy miracles, daily breaking boundaries of possible and impossible.

Our attention is drawn away toward that which brings death and destruction and not on that which brings life, so we cannot to see the truth of our beauty and strength (no matter where you find yourself in this journey from point a to point b). Immersed in this diverted attention, we spend our entire lives focused on how we fall short, forgetting to live liberated and loved, finding ourselves out of oil and out of time, locked out of the feasts and festivals of life .

Matthew 25:1-13

Now, while [the foolish bridesmaids] were away purchasing [olive oil], the bridegroom went to the wedding feast and the prepared bridesmaids entered with him and the door was shut. Now later the remaining bridesmaids came and were saying, “Lord, Lord, open up for us.” But the [bridegroom] answered and said, “Truly I tell you, I do not know you.” [And then Jesus said,] “Therefore, you watch, because you do not know the day or the hour.” [1]

Mt. 25:10-13

Matthew drops us deep into Palestinian culture while dropping a bomb of eschatological judgment. Jesus’s parable of what the kingdom of heaven is, is drawn from “wedding customs in first century Palestine,” where bridesmaids would usher the bridegroom to the house of the bride and then both of them would be paraded to the wedding venue for the ceremony and subsequent feasts. [2] But the hard part (the eschatological bomb) isn’t Jesus’s recourse to historic Palestinian wedding customs; this makes sense. What’s hard is that the bridesmaids are divided into “practically wise” and “foolish.” Separating the main characters of a story into two groups is a well-used ancient literary device used to demand attention and cause inner and outer disruption as the one who hears listens. For one group, it will not end well.[3]

After telling the audience that there are two groups of bridesmaids (one foolish, one practically wise), Jesus explains that these ten bridesmaids took their lamps and went to wait for the bridegroom; but five did not bring any more oil than what they carried in their lamps. Then, all of the bridesmaids fell asleep for the bridegroom was delayed in coming. Then! Now, in the middle of the night an outcry happened: behold! The bridegroom! Come out to meet him! All ten wake up, but five awaken to their flames about to extinguish for lack of oil. Five came prepared. The five lacking oil panic and request help from the other five who are prepared. No avail. The prepared five send the five lacking oil to the market, the amount of oil we have will not suffice for you and us; go to the ones selling so you might purchase [oil] for yourself. Now as the unprepared bridesmaids are off bartering for oil, the bridegroom comes and the festivities commence. The door is shut. And it won’t open again, not even for the remaining five bridesmaids. They are left out in the cold.

Whether or not the prepared bridesmaids shared is not the point of the parable. This parable isn’t even about staying awake.[4] Keeping in mind that all ten bridesmaids fell asleep and all ten woke up at the same time, the point is: preparedness stemming from love. The emphasis falls on the practically wise bridesmaids being prepared and wise, carrying expectant hope of the bridegroom’s arrival at any hour, thus the extra oil.[5] This isn’t the type of cramming and rushing at the last minute, [6] but because of their love[7] the practically wise bridesmaids brought extra so they would be ready. You can’t manufacture that type of love at the last minute, it is there and it is working behind the scenes making the object of love, the beloved, beholden by the eye, the beautiful one, the one longed for and desired.[8] The preparedness of love, in this story, redefines family because of the fixed mutual gaze of the beloved and the lover.[9]

Conclusion

Jesus’s use of this parable is to speak to those who are listening and to refocus their gaze on the true bridegroom: himself. Jesus is eager to draw God’s beloved onto to himself thus unto God, to bring them deep into life, love, and liberation; to enter with them into the great wedding feast, to be celebrated, and rejoiced.[10]

Is God jealous? Yes. Jealous for you, for you to know the depth of how much God loves you. Jealous for those outside of this building to know they are so loved by God. So loved that God will move heaven and earth to be born in Christ in the lap of Mary to write it across the starry night sky. So desired, God will reorder life and death in the resurrection of Christ from the dead to shout it to the ends of the cosmos. So cherished, God by God’s Spirit will draw intimately near to the beloved—transcending God’s self—to show that such meager jars of clay are marvelously and wonderfully made, beautiful, beloved. And all of it to draw the focus away from death and destruction and toward life, love, and liberation; away from all the myths and narratives telling the beloved they are inferior and don’t measure up, need to be this or that, or must deny their own selves to be loved. God draws the beloved’s attention away from that toward true, unyielding, always and forever, never-stopping, never giving up divine love, love for you just as you are.

Beloved, dare to believe God loves you so much and that you know you are the apple of God’s eye, the most beautiful and wonderful thing God’s ever seen (each of you! And all of you together!). Turn your heads to the still small voice calling your name, reminding you how precious you are. Double down. Double down so much that you bring extra oil to be ready for when the Bridegroom comes.

[1] Translation mine unless otherwise noted.

[2] Anna Case-Winters Matthew Belief: A Theological Commentary on the Bible Eds Amy Plantinga Pauw and William C. Placher. Louisville: WJK, 2015. 275. “In wedding customs of first century Palestine, it was common for the bridegroom to be escorted by such a company of bridesmaids/virgins to the home of the bride. They would then escort the couple to the house where the wedding and the wedding feasts were to take place.”

[3] Case-Winters, Matthew, 275. “This contrasting of the ‘wise’ and the ‘foolish’ is an ancient conventional device used in wisdom literature. Jesus uses this device both here and in the Sermon on the Mount where a wise man builds on a rock and a foolish man builds on sand (724-27). … The earlier motif of Jesus as the bridegroom (9:15) and the eschaton as a wedding banquet (22:2) is picked up once again here.”

[4] R. T. France The Gospel of Matthew The New International Commentary on the New Testament. Gen. Ed Joel B. Green. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007. 947. “Why then did the five [foolish] girls miss the feast? It was not that five slept and five stayed awake: v. 5 says explicitly that they all slept and all had to be awakened by the midnight shout. The problem goes back to the preparation they had made before going to sleep.”

[5] Case-Winters, Matthew, 275. “The wise bridesmaids may serve as examples of wisdom and anticipation of the advent of the Messiah. Such a reading is more consistent with the Gospel’s direction and its overall positive portrayal of women.”

[6] France, Matthew, 947. “But the point is simply that readiness, whatever form it takes, is not something that can be achieved by a last-minute adjustment. It depends on long-term provision, and if that has been made, the wise disciple can sleep secure in the knowledge that everything is ready.”

[7] Cardenal, Solentiname, 476. “Oil gives light and joy, and that’s the way love is. Each person is a lamp, but a person without love is a lamp that’s gone out.’”

[8] Ernesto Cardenal The Gospel in Solentiname Translated by, Donald D. Walsh. Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 2010. 476. “Olivia: ‘It’ll be too late to look for it, because love can’t be learned in a day, you learn love all your life, and you teach it to your children, or else you teach your children selfishness. And people that have grown up with a selfish mentality and that belong to a society that’s all selfish, how are they going to change suddenly.’”

[9] France, Matthew, 950. “The comparatively trivial lapse of a failure to be provide with oil has come to symbolize an ultimately false relationship; they are not part of Jesus’ true family (12:50).”

[10] Cardenal, Solentiname, 478. “Oscar: ‘It’s a great joy, man! In a feast we all get together and we share everything that’s there, and we all take part in all the talking and we’re all happy; you’re full of joy. And when we’re all together here, you feel happy, you feel a joy, it’s a kingdom that we’re all sharing in, it’s a little like, like the coming of the bridegroom, I’d say.’”

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Making the Journey a Good One

Psalm 107:1-2 Give thanks to the Lord, for Abba God is good, and God’s mercy endures for ever. Let all those whom the Lord has redeemed proclaim that God redeemed them from the hand of the foe.

Introduction

I don’t know about you, but I think life can be hard. None of us have recourse to the last time we did life, so all of it’s new and carries the mysterious paradox of being helpful and hindering. None of us asked to be born; all of us were born. Now, we’re here. All of us together. In this when, in this where, in this what, in this why, in this how; together for better and for worse.

I don’t know about you but I trip every so often (as in: often); I say the wrong thing, I do the wrong thing, I think the self-condemning thoughts, I hurt someone else, I hurt myself, and trip over which put I’m putting forward. So, even though living can be banal, life itself carries a fantastic amount of pain and personal suffering. (And I’ve not even commented on the real-life struggles that many people have that I don’t have, making this journey even harder.)

We’re all, each of us, trying to get from morning to night, from Sunday to Saturday, from one month to another, from one year to another, from point A to point B as well as we can. Anyone here absolutely killing it on this journey? I’m not, and I have it pretty good. How about you? Aren’t you just trying your best to go from point A to point B to the best of your ability, as a vulnerable and fleshy human, prone to having a troubled and agitated conscience? And if you’re doing that, then maybe your neighbor is, too? So, then, why do we heap up judgment and burdens on others, weighing them down on this already hard-enough journey?

Matthew 23:1-12

Then Jesus spoke to the crowds and to his disciples saying, “The Scribes and the Pharisees are seated on the seat of Moses. Therefore, you do and observe all things as much as they say to you, but do not act according to their works; for they are speaking and not acting. And they bind up heavy and oppressive burdens and add [them] upon the shoulders of the people, but they, they will not wish [to lift] their finger to move these burdens.

Mt. 23:1-4

Matthew tells us Jesus spoke to the crowds and to his disciples. At once, Matthew minimizes the distance between the disciples and the crowd. Why? Because what Jesus is about to say is for everyone; there’s no room for hierarchy in the economy of divine love for the whole world. Therefore, those who follow Christ—disciple or crowd—are all the same.

Then Jesus tells the collective, The Scribes and the Pharisees are seated on the seat of Moses. This means they’ve inherited Moses’s role of authority among the people (to teach and lead).[1] However, even though “Jesus shared in many of the concerns of the Pharisees,” Jesus sees things a bit differently.[2] So, Jesus then says, listen to them for they know what they are teaching, but do not follow their lead because they do not do as they command (vv. 3b-4). Here, Jesus illuminates the problem: it’s not enough to sit in the seat of Moses to be a true heir of Moses. If you do not hold yourself to the same standard you preach and teach and load up more oppressive and heavy burdens on the people, you’ve forfeited the role and the seat; Moses brought liberty to the Israelites, not more bondage and captivity.[3] In other words, “Torah should not be burdensome.”[4] So, without asking it, Jesus asks all those who have ears, “Who then is the ‘”true heir” of Moses?’”[5], [6]

The answer to the question is teased out in Jesus’s criticism of some of the Pharisees and Scribes who flaunt not only their actions (v. 5a) but also their garments among the people for the sole purpose of pomp and circumstance—they’re showing off their power and privilege by going about cloaked in robes with long tassels and adorned with broad phylacteries[7] attempting to manufacture respect and honor from the people (v. 5b). And it doesn’t stop there. Jesus goes on to talk about honorific titles. Not only do these certain Scribes and Pharisees take the chief place at dinners and the chief seat in the synagogue, they also expect to be called “Teacher” by the people (vv. 6-7). But Jesus tells the crowd and the disciples, But you, you are not to be called teacher for there is one teacher among you, and you are all siblings… (v. 8). In less words: everyone here is equal, limping together on the path of the same journey from point A to point B.[8]

And then Jesus wraps up the exhortations toward a shared and communal equality among the siblings who follow him, with this last promise, Now the great of you will be the servant of you; and whoever will exalt their own self will be made low and whoever will make their own self low will be exalted. So, what does it mean that those who are listening are to listen to the Pharisees and Scribes but not do what they do? Well, it looks a lot like mutual humility and humbling oneself to serve the neighbor, the one just like you, even if it means avoiding using burdensome titles;[9] this is the opposite of what certain Pharisees and Scribes were doing[10] being more concerned with their own status than with the well-being of the people.[11]

Conclusion

There is no hierarchy among the followers of Christ. In baptism, we all come out of the waters following Jesus on the same level no matter what accolades and earnings we have. This means, as we’re all equal in Christ we’re beckoned to humble ourselves and serve each other. Why? Because we are all busted up and limping along in life, trying desperately to get from point A to point B.

There’s a song by Sia, “Breathe Me,” that speaks to this very thing, it’s worth quoting some of the lyrics here:

Ouch, I have lost myself again
Lost myself and I am nowhere to be found
Yeah, I think that I might break
Lost myself again and I feel unsafe
Be my friend, hold me
Wrap me up, unfold me
I am small and needy
Warm me up and breathe me

I believe this song speaks to the inner world of any human trying desperately to get from point A to point B relatively unscathed and to the best of their ability. So, I wonder, why do we try to make this journey from point A to point B so hard for others and for ourselves? Why do we throw the rocks of judgment and condemnation at fellow travelers? Why do we make life, love, and liberation accessible to an elite few? Why do we dare to ban God—the very God who came low, born of a woman, servant of the poor, died forsaken—from those who need God, allowing God only to be for those who have the right title, robe, and station?

Every one of us here and out there is struggling to make it day to day, none of us has it all together no matter the ease and comfort of material objects. We are all vulnerable, fleshy creatures hanging on from one day to another, with very minimal safety nets that are truly safety nets. All we have, to be honest, is each other; we are only as secure as our community around us, this is why striking out alone doesn’t work in the end.

Beloved, God is with you because I am with you, because those sitting next to you (literally and virtually) are with you. Let us make this journey from point A to point B a good one, a fun one, a celebratory one. Let us walk, run, crawl, hobble, roll all the way there; let us carry and be carried; let us carry along the divine gifts of life, love, and liberation sharing these gifts with our siblings. Beloved, let us pull together and not apart; let us include and not alienate; let us bring God’s mercy and grace to all.

[1] Anna Case-Winters, Matthew, “Belief: A Theological Commentary on the Bible,” Edited by Amy Plantinga Pauw and William C. Placher, (Louisville: WJK, 2015) 265. “‘Moses’ seat’ is a symbol of authority for interpretation of the law as received from God and delivered to the people by Moses. In later synagogue architecture there was a literal ‘seat of Moses,’ and the rabbi would sit on it to give instruction.”

[2] Case-Winters, Matthew, 262. “Jesus shared the concerns of the Pharisees. He was closer to their thinking than to that of the Sadducees or the Essenes. However, he differed from Pharisees in his understanding of the relative importance of such things as ritual purity, tithing, Sabbath, and what he considered to be the ‘weightier matters of the law’ (23:23).” And later Case-Winters writes, “In early rabbinic writings, in fact, Pharisees themselves engage in pointed criticism of those who manifest the flaws that Jesus notes here,” (262-263.).

[3] Ernesto Cardenal, The Gospel in Solentiname Trans. Donald D. Walsh (Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 2010) 446. “I: ‘But it can be good for us if, as Christ says, we put into practice its freedom message that they didn’t put into practice. Moses brought the people out of Egyptian slavery and took them to another land to found a kingdom of freedom, and the chair of Moses means the temple of freedom. Now just like then there are people in that temple preaching the Gospel and defending oppression. What they preach is false, but only because they don’t practice it.”

[4] Case-Winters, Matthew, 263. “Jesus condemnation is directed at religious leaders who, charged the role of leadership, fail miserably. The most frequent charge is that they are hypocrites because ‘they do not practice what they teach’ (23:3). In their teaching they might be termed rigorists. They go further than what the law requires. For example, for them it is ‘not enough to keep the Sabbath ‘in a general way.’ it was necessary to define carefully which weekday activities constituted work and were therefore prohibited on the Sabbath.’ Jesus observes here that they tie up. Heavy burdens, hard to bear. (11:28-30).”

[5] Case-Winters, Matthew, 265. “A question of consequence arises in Jesus’s exhortation to do as the scribes and Pharisees say and not as they do. Are the Scribe’s and Pharisees really the ‘true heirs’ of Moses?”

[6] R. T. France The Gospel of Matthew The New International Commentary on the New Testament. Edited by Joel B. Green. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007) 860. “Their behavior in effect annuls their ‘Mosaic; authority.”

[7] Cardenal, Solentiname, 447. “I: ‘Christ is talking about some adornments called phylacteries short bits of Scripture attached to the sleeves and the forehead, because in one of the books of the Bible it says that the Scripture should always be kept ‘close to the hand and in front of the eyes,’ and they believed that by doing this they were complying.’”

[8] Cardenal, Solentiname, 448. “I: ‘And he’s saying that we’re all equal and that we shouldn’t have any teachers except the one that brings those teachings about revolution.’”

[9] Case-Winters, Matthew, 264-265. “In a dramatic reversal of ordinary expectations, Jesus says, ‘The greatest among you will be your servant’ (v. 11). Members of the new community should not seek heightened status reflected in titles but rather humble themselves and seek to serve—aiming low instead of aiming high (23:11). The use of titles is not conducive to the well-being of the new community. Titles—whether ‘rabbi,’ or ‘father,’ or ‘instructor’ (or ‘Reverend’)—have their dangers, both for those who hold them and for those who call others by these titles.”

[10] Cardenal, Solentiname, 450. “Teresita: ‘Humbling yourself is serving, and the opposite of serving others is to control others.’”

[11] France, Matthew, 862-862. “In contrast with the scribes’ love of human approbation, Jesus calls on those who follow him to avoid honorific titles…They highlight a concern for status which, while taken for granted in secular society …ought not to characterize those who follow Jesus.”

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Illuminated and Awakened

Psalm 90:15-17 Make us glad by the measure of the days that you afflicted us and the years in which we suffered adversity. Show your servants your works and your splendor to their children. May the graciousness of our God be upon us; prosper the work of our hands; prosper our handiwork.

Introduction

Have you gone from pitch dark to bright light? I’m guessing most of us have experienced such a thing. So, you know the pain of that experience. It’s just as painful as having very, very warm comforters yanked off your very, very toasty body in the middle of a winter’s night when the bedroom is real, real chilly. Going from one extreme (darkness, warmth) to another (brightness, cold), hurts, it’s uncomfortable, it’s also startling and fear inducing, soliciting one toward anger (especially at the person who dared to yank your warm blankets off suddenly).

So, I have some bad news: the encounter with God in the event of faith is kind of (read: exactly) going from pitch dark to bright light, or from very warm and comfortable to not so warm and very uncomfortable. You see, the gospel is God’s word of love made known to you in the pitch dark or deep in the recesses of your comforter-cocoon. It flips the light on and lets it shine into unaccustomed eyes; it yanks back the covers and summons the sleeping awake. There’s no dimmer switch on the gospel; there’s no gentle nudge to waken. When it comes to an encounter with God in the proclamation of God’s love for you made known in Christ, it’s a death—not a little bit dead but a full on and total death.

But, get this, I have some good news: where there is illuminating and awakening there is God, so there is love, there is life, and there is liberation. So, if God’s word made manifest in Christ is the word illuminating and summoning those who hear out of darkness and from under cocoons of comfortable, then those who hear are illuminated and summoned by God into God; accepted not rejected and have God’s divine love, life, and liberation to love, live, and liberate in the world by the power of the Holy Spirit.

1 Thessalonians 2:1-8

For you yourselves perceive, siblings, that our entrance to you has not come by being empty but suffering previously and being insulted—as you beheld in Philippi—we spoke boldly by our God to say to you the good news of God in many struggles. For our comfort [is] not out of deceit and not out of impurity and not in guile, but just as we have been put to the test by God to be trusted [with] the good news, in this way we speak not by means of pleasing human beings but for God the one who puts our hearts to the test.[1]

1 Thess. 2:1-4

Traditionally associated with being authored by Paul, this epistle is written to small churches in Thessalonica—think northern Greece, formerly known as Macedonia. While there’s debate about the authorship of all the letters including this one and its twin, this is not the place for that discussion (and I am not the scholar you are looking for). For now, we’ll just look at the message because it’s a good one; it’s an important one.

Paul—I’m going with tradition here for ease and flow—writes to the Thessalonians a letter of exhortation and encouragement, and some reporting. The letter is filled with references to what has been going on, threaded through with reminders to remain committed to God and the Gospel of Jesus Christ, to continue in the faith, to love one another deeply, and to wait expectantly for the return of Christ. The letter is basically a bold reminder to love as they have been loved. Meandering through the letter, though, are references to the difficulty Paul and his cohorts experience while proclaiming the good news in other territories. (Here, Paul specifically references Philippi.)

This difficulty is worth pointing out, for Paul, while discussing their presence with the Thessalonians. Why? Because even though the Gospel is good news, it isn’t always comfortable. It can be quite comforting to have good news, however this good news—the gospel, the Word of God, Jesus the Christ—isn’t always comfortable because a lot of the work of the gospel is about bringing the one who hears to its—the gospel’s—conclusion. The gospel’s conclusion is nearly (most likely 99.9999% of the time) in opposition to the way the world and the kingdom of humanity operates. In other words, the gospel is offensive especially to those who have grown quite comfortable cloaked in the bliss of the darkness of and snuggled deep within the cocoon of the status quo.

Paul writes further,

For not at any time did we come by words of fawning, just as you have perceived, and not by a pretense of avarice, God witnesses, and not by seeking glory from humanity or from you or from others (having weighty power being as apostles of Christ). But we came vulnerable into the midst of you, like a nurse cherishing her own children. In this way being caused to long for you we were well-pleased to give a share to you not only the good news of God but also of our own souls, because you became our beloved.

1 Thess. 2:5-8

As Paul moves through this portion, he articulates well that he and his group did not come in glory and power to please humans, but came vulnerably into the divine beloved’s midst because of their deep, abiding love for the Thessalonians. Paul proclaimed the gospel because he loves the Thessalonians and in proclaiming this good news, Paul shared not only the gospel but also of his own soul. And here in is the paradox of the gospel in that it illuminates and awakens the one who hears—which is hard to endure—it does so by also anchoring the one who hears in the yoke of love with the lover. The beloved is illuminated and awakened into acceptance and not rejection.

Conclusion

I know that there are very hard moments in the journey with God in Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit. It can feel painful to be suddenly thrust from the security of darkness into the blinding and piercing light; it can be scary to be yanked out of our warm cocoon of comfortability. Yet, when God is in the mix, when Christ is the one turning on the lights and pulling back the covers, you are being ushered into something even better: into the love of God bringing new life by the liberating word of love.

It’s not easy to be faced with the truth of the situation, but you do not face that situation alone, as if it all is now on you to figure out. God is with you for God called you into the light and summoned you out of sleep and into divine love to live a present tense, liberated existence in the world. So summoned and called, you—those who hear—are no longer held captive by narratives bringing death and not life, but you are liberated to call a thing what it is and to move forward and into hard situations without recourse to ignorance or denial, to turning those lights back off or pulling the comforter back over your head.

You are the Beloved; no matter what you are facing right now, you do not face it alone for God is with you, always and forever. You have hope, you have possibility, you have love, you have life, and you have liberation from captivity. And never forget, most of all you have each other and thus you have God in your midst.

[1] Translation mine unless otherwise noted

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Again! I Say Rejoice!

Psalm 106:1-3  Hallelujah! Give thanks to God, for God is good, for God’s mercy endures for ever. Who can declare the mighty acts of God or show forth all God’s praise? Happy are those who act with justice and always do what is right!

Introduction

We’re just ordinary people. We go through our days like so many other people starting first with Sunday and then heading (as fast as we can) to Thursday wherein we slow down a little as we approach Friday and Saturday. Then, we get up on Sunday and repeat the cycle. We go to work; we come home from work. We go to school; we come home from school. We drive to the store; we drive back from the store. Most days we shower, wash and conditioner our hair and get ready for the day. Some of us prefer to find ways to stand out each day; some of us desperately try to either blend in to the group or the wall. All in all, we’re ordinary people, going about our days, trying our best to go from point A to point B, sometimes doing it well and sometimes doing it …. not well. We’re basic people who sometimes look put together and sometimes not so put together. Sometimes we’re strong and sometimes we’re weak, and sometimes we’re weak in our strength and strong in our weakness. We make good choices and bad ones. Our emotional lives can be abstract and complex, but our day to day lives in the world are downright banal; even the most degreed-up of us are just meaty and fleshy bodies existing in the world, meat creatures who probably need to hydrate more.

None of this sounds very uplifting, I know. But would you believe me if I tell you it is the best news to stumble upon and accept? Because here’s the thing: The God who love us and whom we love, that God loves us as simple and basic as we are. No need to gussy up and change; God loves you. No need to make yourself important in the world to get God to love you; God just loves you. Basic, meaty, fleshy, simple: you’re the apple of God’s eye. How do I know? Well the bible tells me so. Specifically, the conclusions of Paul’s letters remind me that in the day in and day out, in the Sunday to Saturday, in the banality of the schedule from one week to another, God loves you as you are, where you are.

Philippians 4:1-9

So then, my beloved and greatly desired siblings, my joy and crowning glory; in this way persevere in the Lord, beloved…At all times, rejoice in the Lord; again, I say rejoice! Let your gentleness be known among all humanity. The Lord is near! Be anxious about nothing; but in all things by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your petitions be made known to God. The peace of God which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. (Phil. 4:1,4-7)[1]

At the end of Philippians, Paul begins his final exhortations and places the real-life context of his readers in the mix. In this particular passage we see a reference to Euodia and Syntyche who are not getting along. After opening up with a warm reminder that the Philippians are his beloved, joy, and crowning glory, Paul exhorts these two women to get along or to share in the same judgment about (something). We do not know what it is they are disagreeing about, but the community’s general fellowship is important to Paul. Most likely, whoever wrote the letter to Paul is the one who mentioned this disagreement; so, Paul deals with it because these two women are his co-workers, with Clement and the rest of the fellow-workers—and together they have labored for the Gospel and they are joined together in companionship by faith and their community together should reflect this love and faith. He loves these people very much, and wants them to have peace, the type of peace that surpasses all understanding.

Then, Paul exhorts the entire congregation of Philippi to rejoice… in all things! Paul does not exhort them to rejoice in just the big things or just the miraculous things, but in all things. The day in and the day out, rejoice! In the regular and predictable, rejoice! In the simple and basic? Rejoice! What about the complex and abstract or the complicated and problematic? Again, I say rejoice! Why rejoice in all things? Well, it’s as simple as life is: God loves you as you are, where you are. So, Again, I say rejoice!

Siblings, lastly, as much is true, as much is honorable, as much is righteous, as much is holy, as much is acceptable, as much is laudable, whatever is good and whatever is praiseworthy, you consider these things. Both the things you learned and received and heard and perceived in me, do these things; and the God of peace will be with you. (Phil. 4:8-9)

Paul concludes by running head long into a litany of exhortations to this humble congregation emphasizing the vulnerability of being fleshy, meat creatures who are often underhydrated: be gentle, for God is near; be not anxious, instead pray to God; let your hearts and minds be guarded by God’s peace; and think on all the good things, the divine gifts of life, love, and liberation; finally, persist in growing and maturing in the faith (trust) in Christ and in love toward the neighbor.

None of these things is all that notable; they’re simple, humble, and unnoteworthy actions—especially according to the world’s standards. These are not the characteristics that get your name in lights, cause you to rise to the top position of your company, or will make you popular in the world. To live this way is to live simply. To live this way is to know who you are and accept who you are, it is the fruit of being justified by faith apart from any work, it is to truly trust that God loves you, that Jesus died on your behalf and was raised to bring you life, and that the Spirit of God is with you every day, in every way, in the depths of your simplicity.

Conclusion

If you’ve been feeling small and insignificant, please know you’re seen. If you’ve been feeling exhausted because of repetitive demands to prove you’re good enough, you’re seen. If you’ve been feeling worried because you no longer feel valued and important, please know you’re seen. You are seen. You are known. You are loved. The Lord is near…near to you. So, trust God who shows you this love in Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit. And then rejoice! In your simplicity, in your banality, in your day in and your day out, in the “normal”, in the “meh”, in the “ho-hum,” in the up and down, rejoice!

You are the beloved, as you are and where you are. Again, I say Rejoice!

[1] Translation mine unless otherwise noted

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Live in Harmony

Psalm 19:13-14 Above all, keep your servant from presumptuous sins; let them not get dominion over me; then shall I be whole and sound… Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, God, my strength and my redeemer.

Introduction

We spent the last weeks listening to Paul (and a little bit to Luther) exhort us to bring our inner and outer natures into alignment with God by faith. We were encouraged to let our hearts dare to believe that God truly does love us as we are and to let that love sink in so deeply that our works toward our neighbor reflect that confidence and trust, that faith by means of loving deeds works itself out oriented toward love, life, liberation.

In all this there was discussion about the law and about God giving us the law to help us love our neighbor as ourselves which is loving God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. Paul was clear the law is meant to serve us, to assist in our maneuvering in the world to the benefit of the neighbor. Paul told us the law is not our mediator between our inner nature and God; when this happens, we become cold and calculating people and rely on obedience caused by fear. The good news is that, according to Paul, with Christ and by faith we are given God as God’s mediator between us and God. Thus, because of Christ there is nothing now between us and God but Christ who is God and the Holy Spirit who is also God. So, we are free to use the law to love our neighbor; the law is in service to us, guiding us, helping us remember and recall our humility before our Creator as a creature and among our neighbors as a fellow creature.

Exodus 20:1-4, 7-9, 12-20

Then God spoke all these words: I am your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; you shall have no other gods before me…Honor your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that your God is giving you. You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. You shall not covet …

Ex. 20:1-3, 12-17a

Recently, the emphasis placed on the law was through Christ’s and Paul’s summary that goes something like this: love God with your enter being and self; and, love your neighbor as yourself. Yet, this summary isn’t new; it’s not an invention of Jesus or Paul. It’s a literal summary of the entire law given to the Israelites through Moses as told here in Exodus 20.

According to Moses’s telling of the tale, the two tablets contain ten statements and are given to the people. These ten statements carry no punishments, so they aren’t really commandments in this strict sense of imperatives carrying threat. Rather, the authority behind them is God’s and obedience was based on divine authority and not the fear of punishment.[1] Now, because God gave Israel this law, this law was “endowed with sanctity” and rendered all law obedience as obedience to God and sin was disobedience involved in “flouting God’s authority.”[2] Thus, these ten statements made God Israel’s king and legislator. [3]

The Decalogue (ten statements) are arranged into two groups: one devoted to loving devotion to God and the other to loving devotion to the neighbor. There’s no hierarchy as if loving God is more important than loving the neighbor; in this equation God cares about your neighbor.[4] Also, the first five words about loving devotion to God contain explanations and exhortation while the second set of five are just ethical requirements lacking the need for explanation.[5] But the two are intimately linked.

Statement One: Love God because God liberated you (Israel) from bondage in Egypt and therefore there is no need to worship any other gods than the one that freed you.[6] There is no denial of the existence of other gods at this point, only Israel is prohibited from worshipping other gods because they did not liberate Israel as did *this* God.[7]

Statement Two: no images made for worship; other images may be fine as depicted throughout the first testament—these aren’t worshipped.[8]

Statement Three: don’t miss use God’s name by swearing falsely by God’s name which demonstrates that you, the one swearing, are not afraid of God’s punishment.[9]

Statement Four: remember/keep the sabbath in this way you, Israel, demonstrate trust in God’s good provision.

Statement Five: honoring father and mother/parents/caregivers is a hinge statement and participates in the longevity of Israel (it is not a personal blessing, but to honor the parents is to participate in the world with respect to God).[10]

Statement Six: Here we have the first full ethical requirement involving the neighbor. Don’t illicitly kill your neighbor. Let them live.[11] (This does not apply to war and criminal justice, in this context.)

Statement Seven: “do not commit adultery” was geared toward married/engaged women voluntarily engaging in relations with someone other than their husband.[12] There’s a lot here that I don’t want to unpack; needless to say, the injunction against adultery is united to neighbor love.

Statement Eight: do not take what belongs to another (theft).

Statement Nine: do not bear false witness against your neighbor; in other words, don’t lie in court to deprive them of something.[13]

Statement Ten: do not covet; in other words, don’t make designs on someone else’s possessions and don’t scheme to manipulate them out of it.[14]

This is the summary of the two tablets of ten statements. They are categorically about loving God with devotion and loving your neighbor with devotion. If one were to perform all these injunctions and prohibitions without love, one would not have the right priority; both God and the neighbor would be a means to an end rather than the law being a means to an end. These ten statements are meant to assist Israel in their journey to right the wrongs of the world, to make the world reflect God’s love, life, and liberation, to shine God’s mercy, grace, and justice into the cosmos.

Conclusion

Through the law we are graciously reminded that we are fellow creatures with other creatures of the earth, especially with our fellow humans; and we are reminded that this link and connection is the very product of God’s love for us and our love for God. So, in honor of Indigenous People’s Day, I want to close with the following Lakota creation myth I believe speaks to this exhortation to be loved so to be love in the world:[15]

There was another world before this one. But the people of that world did not behave themselves. Displeased, the Creating Power set out to make a new world. He sang several songs to bring rain, which poured stronger with each song. As he sang the fourth song, the earth split apart and water gushed up through the many cracks, causing a flood. By the time the rain stopped, all of the people and nearly all of the animals had drowned. Only Kangi the crow survived.

Kangi pleaded with the Creating Power to make him a new place to rest. So the Creating Power decided the time had come to make his new world. From his huge pipe bag, which contained all types of animals and birds, the Creating Power selected four animals known for their ability to remain under water for a long time.

He sent each in turn to retrieve a lump of mud from beneath the floodwaters. First the loon dove deep into the dark waters, but it was unable to reach the bottom. The otter, even with its strong webbed feet, also failed. Next, the beaver used its large flat tail to propel itself deep under the water, but it too brought nothing back. Finally, the Creating Power took the turtle from his pipe bag and urged it to bring back some mud.

Turtle stayed under the water for so long that everyone was sure it had drowned. Then, with a splash, the turtle broke the water’s surface! Mud filled its feet and claws and the cracks between its upper and lower shells. Singing, the Creating Power shaped the mud in his hands and spread it on the water, where it was just big enough for himself and the crow. He then shook two long eagle wing feathers over the mud until earth spread wide and varied, overcoming the waters. Feeling sadness for the dry land, the Creating Power cried tears that became oceans, streams, and lakes. He named the new land Turtle Continent in honor of the turtle who provided the mud from which it was formed.

The Creating Power then took many animals and birds from his great pipe bag and spread them across the Earth. From red, white, black, and yellow earth, he made men and women. The Creating Power gave the people his sacred pipe and told them to live by it. He warned them about the fate of the people who came before them. He promised all would be well if all living things learned to live in harmony. But the world would be destroyed again if they made it bad and ugly.

[1] Jeffrey H. Tigay “Exodus” The Jewish Study Bible Jewish Publication Society Tanakh Translation. Eds. Adele Berlin and Marc Zvi Brettler. Oxford: OUP, 2004. 148. Ex. 20.1-14. “(‘Decalogue,’ form the Latin for ‘ten words,’ or ‘ten statements,’ is a more. Literal rendition of Heb than ‘Then Commandments.’) They are addressed directly to the people. No punishments are stated; obedience is motivated not by fear of punishment but by God’s absolute authority and the people’s desire to live in accordance with His will.”

[2] Tigay, “Exodus” JPS, 148. “This elevated the status of law beyond matters of practicality and endowed it with sanctity. Obedience to law—civil no less than moral and ritual law—became a religious duty; obedience made one holy and crimes were sins, a flouting of God’s authority.”

[3] Tigay, “Exodus” JPS, 148. “Implicit in this biblical view is that God is Israel’s king, hence its legislator.”

[4] Tigay, “Exodus” JPS, 148. “The items in the Decalogue are arranged in two groups. Duties to God come first. Each commandment in this group contains the phrase, ‘the Lord your God.’ The second group contains duties toward fellow humans, which are depicted as being of equal concern to God.”

[5] Tigay, “Exodus” JPS, 148. “The first five are accompanied by explanatory comments or exhortation. The remaining five, as widely recognized ethical requirements, need no such support.”

[6] Tigay, “Exodus” JPS, 148. “This v. [2] lacks an imperative verb and is not itself a commandment but an introduction to the entire Decalogue. The Lord identifies Himself by name to solemnly indicate that His authority stands behind the following stipulations. His authority derives from His freeing Israel from bondage. This v. also serves as the motive clause for the first commandment (v. 3), explaining that since the Lord alone freed Israel from Egypt, He alone is Israel’s God, and the worship of other gods is prohibited.”

[7] Tigay, “Exodus” JPS, 148. “This is not a theological statement denying the existence of other gods…but a behavioral injunction ruling out worship of the other being and objects known as gods…This prohibition, banning the worship of all but one deity, was unique.”

[8] Tigay, “Exodus” JPS, 149. “Only images made for worship are prohibited.”

[9] Tigay, “Exodus” JPS, 149. “The swearer proved his sincerity by invoking punishment from God, who cannot be denied or evaded. A false oath would show contempt for God by implying that the swearer does not fear His punishment.”

[10] Tigay, “Exodus” JPS, 150. “The fifth commandment. Honoring one’s parents is a counterpart to the honor due God; it forms a bridge between duties toward God and toward humans.” And, “Here God applies this condition on a national scale: The right of future generations of Israelites to inherit the land of Israel from their parents is contingent upon honoring them.”

[11] Tigay, “Exodus” JPS, 150. “This refers to illicit killing.”

[12] Tigay, “Exodus” JPS, 150. “In the Bible this refers to voluntary sexual relations between married or engaged woman and a man other than her husband. It did not refer to the extramarital relations of a married man…”

[13] Tigay, “Exodus” JPS, 150. “This covers both false accusation and false testimony in court. False accusation is a means of depriving one’s fellow of what belongs to him, as when the accuser falsely claims ownership of something in another’s possession and he accused cannot disprove it…”

[14] Tigay, “Exodus” JPS, 150-151. “…but the Heb verb sometimes refers to having designs on a desired object, perhaps even to scheming or maneuvering to acquire it…”

[15] Lakota Star Knowledge: http://www.crystalinks.com/nativeamcreation.html

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