Hark! Good News!
11 Dec 2011 4 Comments
in Advent, Isaiah, Jesus, John, Luke, Thessalonians Tags: Advent, Biblical essay, Isaiah, John, Luke
There aren’t many people who can’t tell you exactly how many days there are left before Christmas. That’s because time is running, and there is still so much to do. Menus to be finalized, food to be bought, baking to get done, presents to be bought and wrapped, cards to address, decorating to finish.
And so we limp into our places of worship this Sunday, and what an uplifting message we get. Just exactly when we need it.
And it comes, with a fanfare of trumpets blaring.
Listen. You can hear them.
Just like in movies of the times of merry old England, and certainly in those times in Rome when the Emperor was about to arrive, the trumpets were heard upon the ramparts.
The Good News is on its way! Rejoice, we hear again and again. Rejoice. We have been blessed with a God who listens and who responds to our call.
From Isaiah we are told that glad tidings come to the poor, the brokenhearted will be healed, the prisoners will be released. In the Magnificat, Mary rejoices that God will fill the hungry with good things and will have mercy on every generation. Paul says we all will be made perfect because our God is faithful and it will be accomplished.
John reminds us that we may believe all this because John the Baptist told us so. He told us that he was the one coming to announce the coming of the Light.
Such an important word “the Light.”
Such a word was known to Jews. Light was knowledge of the Lord, yet here it is used in a new way. Light is God and that God is coming among us to perfect us, and to heal and to have mercy. God as Light will teach us.
John the Baptist may indeed be a prophet of the Good News. But Paul warns, “test everything, retain what is good”. Paul is of course speaking after the fact, and is reminding us that we know what Jesus taught. Examine all that is given by so-called prophets in that light. Retain what is good. In other words, lay everything that is preached to you alongside the teaching of the Light, and keep only that which aligns with the Master’s teaching.
Would that that occurred today.
Today, we unfortunately have a plethora of spokespersons for the Light. And too many of them, sad so say, have messages that in the end serve to further other agendas. They seek to serve political parties or perceived ingrained beliefs that may have little or in some cases, nothing to do with what our Master taught.
When someone tries to tell you that Jesus would be for a certain economic ideology, by twisting a parable or taking a sentence all too literally, beware. Test everything. When someone attempts to tell you that Jesus would be of this or that position in regards some sexual moray, beware. Test everything.
Prophets abound even today. And some are indeed listening to God, but some are not. Retain what is good.
Test against what the Light proclaims. What is warm and life-giving? What opens up for all to see? What offers hope, healing, mercy? What on the other hand is dark, divisive, and fearful? Reject it as not light.
Indeed, this is GOOD NEWS!
It is this good news that will carry us through the days and hours to come. It is this which sustains us through real and perceived obstacles and the dark. A new day is dawning. Come to the Light!
Amen.
Is 61:1-2a, 10-11 Lk 1: 46-48, 49-50, 53-54 1Thes 5: 16-24 Jn 1: 6-8, 19-28
Related articles
- 12/10: Weekend Readings/Reflection (unitedbyfaith.wordpress.com)
- 3rd Sunday of Advent (johnmsfs.wordpress.com)
- Guadete Sunday 2011 – Gospel Reading at Mass (catholicglasses.com)
Pastoring 101
30 Oct 2011 4 Comments
in Bible Essays, Fundamentalism, God, Malachi, Matthew, Teaching, Thessalonians Tags: God, Malachi, Matthew, Pastoring, teacher, Thessalonicans
Often it is hard to figure out why certain readings are put together. Not so today. Today we have a veritable teachers manual of what a good pastor is.
I am reminded that a week or so ago, I watched part of a “Family Values” summit here in Iowa. Of course all the major GOP candidates came to speak.
Each speaker, candidate or local politico, invoked God, acknowledging that first and foremost each and every person there looked to God as their true leader.
They then went about talking against marriage equality, and against universal health care, and against a worker’s right to unionize, and against EPA standards that protect our water and air. God
And I saw the audience nod and look to each other and smile, always reassuring each other that this indeed was God’s will–the things they were for and those they were against.
It probably wouldn’t do any good, but they, each of them, would do well to read and pray upon the words chosen for the lessons of this day.
Our good friends who see themselves as righteous and God-abiding are wont to tell us what God wants. Having talked with a good many of these born-agains, I know the litany. Paul, they tell me, (who oddly is quoted by the fundamentalist far more often than Jesus) makes it abundantly clear that the duty of a “good Christian” is to admonish and correct those in error. They would be failing in their duty to remain silent. Silence is acquiescence, quite simply.
When questioned as to the possibility that their truth may not be the truth, they scoff. No way! They assert with all sincerity that God has spoken quite plainly in their translation of the bible (usually the KJV). God does not hide his desires, he states them plainly. There is no need of any learned person to tell them what God says; a person of pure desire will hear the Word correctly. Learned biblical scholars, after all, have a goal: to be paid, and to be held in esteem as better than other interpreters.
Yet, a good deal of biblical space is given over to warnings about false teaching. It is this conundrum that the average fundamentalist faces: how to tell the false from the true. And the answer they have chosen is to trust their own instincts.
Of course that works fine, except that we are human beings who, so psychologists and sociologists tell us, are motivated to believe all manner of things that empirically are provably false. We chose to believe things often because it “works for us” satisfying some need that we may only be dimly aware of.
In Malachi we are warned:
You have turned aside from the way,
and have caused many to falter by your instruction; (Mal 2:8)
In Psalm 131 we learn how to approach God:
O LORD, my heart is not proud,
nor are my eyes haughty;
I busy not myself with great things,
nor with things too sublime for me.
Nay rather, I have stilled and quieted
my soul like a weaned child.
Like a weaned child on its mother’s lap,
so is my soul within me.
In Thessalonians Paul models the perfect Pastor:
We were gentle among you, as a nursing mother cares for her children.
With such affection for you, we were determined to share with you
not only the gospel of God, but our very selves as well,
so dearly beloved had you become to us.
You recall, brothers and sisters, our toil and drudgery.
Working night and day in order not to burden any of you,
we proclaimed to you the gospel of God. (1 Thess 2: 7-9)
And finally, we have Jesus, the Great Teacher who tells us exactly how to be:
“The scribes and the Pharisees
have taken their seat on the chair of Moses.
Therefore, do and observe all things whatsoever they tell you,
but do not follow their example.
For they preach but they do not practice.
They tie up heavy burdens hard to carry
and lay them on people’s shoulders,
but they will not lift a finger to move them.
All their works are performed to be seen.
They widen their phylacteries and lengthen their tassels.
They love places of honor at banquets, seats of honor in synagogues,
greetings in marketplaces, and the salutation ‘Rabbi.’
As for you, do not be called ‘Rabbi.’
You have but one teacher, and you are all brothers.
Call no one on earth your father;
you have but one Father in heaven.
Do not be called ‘Master’;
you have but one master, the Christ.
The greatest among you must be your servant.
Whoever exalts himself will be humbled;
but whoever humbles himself will be exalted.” (Mt. 23: 1-12)
If we would model the Master, we are humble, we assume that we are but children in terms of our knowledge of God’s ways, and we never presume to “teach” others. We lead by the example of our lives, giving our vision of God as we understand, but not as teacher. Rather we are fellow travelers. We don’t have all the answers, and we perceive the spark of God in all our brothers and sisters and eagerly look to them to teach us as well.
We take the warnings seriously, both those of Malachi and all the others found throughout both the Hebrew and New Testament. Things like, “God’s ways are not your ways,” “God sees to the heart” , “Care for the log in your own eye before worrying about the splinter in your neighbors”. These all reference a warning that we mere mortal humans cannot speak for God.
All we can do is to try to live honestly and forthrightly according to the pitifully small understanding we do have.If we can understand on that one thing, then we will shun any idea that we have any basis for telling anyone else what they should do or not. Surely we have the right and duty to separate ourselves from those who hinder us by speaking things that seek to harden hearts and justify mistreatment of others “in the name of God.” But, we are on shifting sands when we take that as a license to teach others the way of righteousness.
Amen.
