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Wondering Pilgrim

~ the ramblings of a perambulent and often distracted sojourner

Wondering Pilgrim

Monthly Archives: August 2018

Dipping into the Lectionary…

31 Friday Aug 2018

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Let’s see what’s coming up this Sunday, 2nd September 2018…

Song of Songs 2:8-13

affection afterglow backlit blur

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This is from one of the most delightfully sensuous texts in our sacred book – certainly apt for the first weekend of Spring in the lands south of the equator. Eugene Peterson cites the Song of Songs for the intimate language of prayer that points to the bond between YHWH and his chosen. No hard and fast doctrine here – just delight and anticipation in the presence of the Beloved – from one to the other and back.

 

 

 

Psalm 45

art beautiful blur celebration

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Lest one think all sensuosity is locked up in the Song of Songs, Psalm 45 uses similar language filtered through a hymn of praise to king and daughter. One could be forgiven in losing oneself in the ambiguity. Is the praise directed to the king and his court, or maybe it’s God and God’s chosen ones? In the minds of the ancients, the two were often indistinguishable. The king was meant to represent all the aspirations and ethos of the nation Israel who, in their most aware moments, deeply knew that everything they were and had was as a result of being the apple of YHWH’s eye.

James 1:17-27

grayscale photography of man praying on sidewalk with food in front

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Verse 27 is the well-known climax of this text, “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.” This is the outcome of the kind of relationship with the Divine that is spelt out in the earlier Hebrew texts. This text references the good gifts from “the Father of lights” and the reciprocal stance that is the natural result of receiving them – a benevolent stance towards one another, reflecting the love received from the Creator. The task of devotion is to lay aside all that does not express this loving relationship.

Mark 7:1-23

Rubens-Feast_of_Simon_the_PhariseeAnd here is the shadow of all the life, love, goodness and light in the preceding texts. Jesus, in whom all this is embodied, is opposed by the very guardians of this tradition. The problem is they have built so many walls around these precepts that they are no longer recognisable. The harshest words of Jesus are reserved for those who are so dedicated to enforcing the keeping of invented rules and regulations that the essence of receiving the gracious invitation to the fullness of life has become inaccessible.

Something New Under the Sun?

25 Saturday Aug 2018

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Opening_parliament_house_1988     What has been is what will be,
    and what has been done is what will be done;
    there is nothing new under the sun.

Ecclesiastes 1:9 New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

This is the most all-embracing commentary I can find on the very public exposure of the malaise which passes for parliamentary democracy in our Capital these last few days. what usually happens behind closed doors has been out in the open for all to see.

We have a new Prime Minister but the usual optimistic elation is tempered by expressions of public disgust and outrage that emerge from the exhaustion of dealing with an inept process that has, for some time, put party interests above the aspirations of the people.

That the new Prime Minister is a professing and active evangelical Christian is evoking many calls from the Christian community to “get behind this man” with constant prayer and (dare I say) uncritical support. Others from the Christian community will want to continue to call him to account, pressuring him to abandon policies that dehumanise and punish legitimate asylum seekers, debunk the need to address climate change, and diminish welfare support. This is fine – it is democracy at work.

The true call to the Christian community is to ensure that we find our rightful place in the toxic mix that passes for western democracies today. The two activities outlined above do provide the correct role for the church in a difficult political environment.

Prayer – directed with integrity for discernment not only on how to intercede for our public officers but how we ourselves will engage in the democratic processes available to us. We are representatives of a third way. Our agenda is well-expressed in the great texts of Micah and Amos and Mary’s Magnificat. The Beatitudes and the Sermon on the Mount spell out a Christian manifesto.   Informed prayer – public and private – will surround our political leaders and our church communities. Such prayer will enable Christian communities to demonstrate and model the changes they wish to see.

Prophecy – closely linked to prayer and seeking creative ways of being a Nathan to our political leaders. Picking up Eugene Peterson’s ministry of “nay-saying”, prophecy involves a forth-telling that cuts away the dead branches that serve neither “love of neighbour” nor “love of God.” This is a challenge in a neo-liberal climate that elevates the interests of the individual above all else, sometimes cleverly disguising itself as being “good for the other” in the long run.

If Christian communities across the land approach a humble strategy that effectively combines these two activities, there will indeed be “something new under the sun.”

We may even see some change in a parliamentary system that has not seen a Prime Minister complete a term over the last ten years!

A Quick Foray into next Sunday’s RCL

21 Tuesday Aug 2018

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cathedral interior view

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I’m missing engagement with the Revised Common Lectionary. I’ve lived and breathed it the 47 years I was in formal pastoral ministry. So here’s a quick glimpse at what’s coming up this Sunday.

1 Kings 8:(1, 6, 10-11), 22-30, 41-43

A high moment in Israel’s story. Under Solomon’s reign, the first Jerusalem Temple is completed. Solomon’s prayer of dedication eclipses nationalism through a particular petition that the foreigner may find inclusion here – a particularly poignant point as news comes through that Australia’s Home Affairs Minister, the overseer and architect of our notoriously cruel and inhumane “border protection” regime, has resigned.

Psalm 84

This is a hymn of praise often used in the dedication of buildings erected for public worship and draws on the elation of those pilgrims who have ascended the Temple Mount of Jerusalem and entered its courts with praise and thanksgiving. The content of the text, however, draws attention away from bricks and mortar and focuses squarely on the affirmation of being orientated to God’s presence wherever we are.

Ephesians 6:10-20

“Put on the whole armour of God…” I recall the huge Sunday School anniversaries where we children, arrayed on Meccano-like tiers, watched a presenter dress a lifesize cut-out of a Roman soldier with helmet, breastplate, sword, shield and sandals. I think we learned more about ancient battlefield dress than what the metaphors represented – an ever-present alertness and preparedness to give account for the new way of being human together through Christ’s transforming intervention.

John 6:56-69

And so closes the lengthy “I am the Bread of Life” discourse. Jesus has given his hardest and most central teaching, often aligned with the mystery of the Eucharist. We are nourished by consuming Jesus as the Christ totally into our being – symbolised by “eating his flesh.” Not cannibalism, but a total merging of our conscious and unconscious entity with that entity that is Jesus in a way that he actually consumes us through our consent. A hard teaching indeed and many followers leave Jesus at this point. Jesus asks his close circle if they will also leave because of this teaching. Peter replies with the well-known response: ‘Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.’

 

A Welcoming Ragtag Band

05 Sunday Aug 2018

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Schopin, Frederic, 1804-1880; The Children of Israel Crossing the Red SeaYesterday I listened to a Roman Catholic priest address an ecumenical but predominantly Roman Catholic gathering on Baptism and Meditation. In illustrating the practice of meditation (properly “contemplation”) as an act of creating hospitable space for us to become aware of God’s constant hospitality towards us, he described how, following his full observance of the exhausting yet rich rites of Holy Week, including Passion Friday and the Easter Vigil, he sought refuge from liturgy and theology by attending his local Church of Christ, where he could simply “be.” He knew the minister, yet the church was large enough for him to be lost anonymously in the Easter Sunday crowd (or so he believed). Nevertheless, he was overwhelmed by the hospitality offered him as an anonymous visitor. He said this is what it is like to live out of our baptism which has more to do with relationship than correct liturgy and theology!

He reflected on the Hebrew word qahal (translated by the LXX as ekklesia, or in English, “church”) referring to the “ragtag band of slaves escaped from Egypt (through the waters of the Red Sea = baptism) and the journey to the Promised Land.” I discovered that Hebrew commentary on this term is more nuanced, but the history of Christian theology, particularly the African-American emancipation story, reflects such an understanding. The connections become apparent. One of the marks of the qahal was its hospitality to the foreigner in its midst. If the discipline of regular wordless contemplation immerses us in the grace of the Holy One, how can we not be hospitable to the other? How can our worshipping communities not practice this same hospitality?

I felt confirmed in my conviction that the best way Jenny and I can respond to our vocation in this new stage of retirement is to continue to expand the stance of hospitality through whatever opportunities present themselves.

 

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