All-Saints A: Thin Places

This Sunday we are using the Lectionary readings for All-Saints so that means that we are actually “skipping” the readings for Proper 27A this year.  The Feast of All Saints is one of the major festivals of the church. In our United Methodist tradition, while we have specific readings for this day, they do change between the lectionary years (A, B, & C)  All-Saints Day (actually dated November 1st), probably dates back as far as 373, when the festival was mentioned in the writings of Ephrem Syrus.  The original emphasis was to honor the saints and martyrs who had no specific commemoration day.  As the festival transitioned to Protestantism (who obviously do not have the plethora of saints of our Roman Catholic and Orthodox brothers and sisters), it became a time of remembrance of those who had passed away in the last year. 

FIRST READING:  Revelation 7: 9-17

The Book of Revelation, which, despite its name, is the most veiled text of all in the Bible, makes great demands on those who read or hear it.  There is usually a temptation to move too quickly to interpret or translate its imagery into something that is more accessible and more easily understood.  To attempt to “decode” Revelation, as if it were Morse code, fails to take the medium that way it was given.  This is not a narrative.  It is not prophecy.  It offers instead a new view of reality.  Those with whom the Revelation was originally shared were much more comfortable with it and the mystery that it holds than we are.  There was not such a need to “prove” or to “figure out” every detailed meaning.  They were satisfied, rather, with the idea that God has been throughout history and will continue to be and that God has a greater vision of what is to come than any one of us can even attempt to imagine.  Isn’t that enough?

Albrecht Bengel was an eighteenth-century commentator, wrote this about Revelation: 

The whole structure of it breathes the art of God, comprising in the most finished compendium, things to come, many, various; near, intermediate, remote; the greatest, the least; terrible, comfortable; old, new; long, short; and these interwoven together, opposite, composite; relative to each other at a small, at a great distance; and therefore sometimes as it were disappearing, broken off, suspended, and afterwards unexpectedly and most seasonably appearing again.  In all its parts it has an admirable variety, with the most exact harmony, beautifully illustrated by those digressions which seem to interrupt it.  In this manner does it display the manifold wisdom of God shining in the economy of the church through so many ages.

In verse 4 (prior to this reading), the writer speaks of 144,000 from the children of Israel who are sealed.  (Just as an aside, this is where the traditions such as The Jehovah’s Witnesses get their number and their notion of “sealing”. But the number is thought to possibly refer to the twelve tribes of Israel times twelve times 1,000.  It connotes an infinite number.)  So, this is a much larger group, a great multitude.  They are identified and distinguished by their relationship with the Lamb.  Clothed in white, they hold palm branches (a symbol of victory) and they sing of salvation.  God is described as “hovering over them”, where God tabernacles and envelopes the people, as the Spirit hovers over Jesus at his baptism.  They are protected with a new freedom from hunger and thirst and the heat of the sun.  (Isaiah 25:8 is fulfilled)  Now this inclusive vision of the eschaton (the end) was a challenge to many late first century believers (when this was probably written) and it continues to be a challenge to many of us.  But these are meant to be words of encouragement.  They are meant to remind us of the ever-present God who walks with us through whatever comes and walks with us to whatever is waiting for us later in our journey.   And who knows?  God has surprised us with who has shown up at the banquet before!

The graciousness of God is evident.  The passage injects a theme of tenderness and comfort, and God’s sustaining promise of enduring witness to Christ in the midst of death and destruction.  The inclusiveness of the vision is striking (which is why it is used as a lection for All Saints Day.)  The multitude includes Jews and all those who have washed their robes in the blood of the Lamb, thereby identifying themselves with the way of the Lamb.

For us, our struggle with Revelation probably has more to do with the fact that we are trying to “figure it out”.  It’s probably meant to be symbolic metaphor and as metaphor it is contingent upon the context in which it was written.  We do not live in the late first century.  Even those of us who are well-versed historians can not appreciate the nuances that existed politically, emotionally, and even spiritually during that time for those who were living it.  We have never met John of Patmos, or whoever the writer was.  It’s a mystery.  But in that mystery, in these things that we do not understand, that do not make sense to us, we might have the gift of ever-so-slightly brushing up against the holy and the sacred and experience even a momentary glimpse of what is to come.  That’s all it is.  And whatever happens between now and when whatever is to come is revealed to us, the Book of Revelation tells us that God walks with us.  The Ancient Celts would have called it a “thin place”, a place where the distance between now and what is to come, between our “earth” and “heaven”, between the ordinary and the sacred becomes so thin that one can almost see through it; indeed, that it is only thinly veiled.  It is those times when one realizes that he or she is indeed on holy ground and that eternity stretches before us. Now we just need to not worry so much about figuring it out and get on with the journey!

a.      What does this passage mean for you?

b.      What image of God does this reading leave for you?

c.       What does the holy and the sacred mean to you?

d.      What are those “thin places” in your life?

Where is God in this picture?  God is all over the place.  God is up there, down here, inside my skin and out, God is the web, the energy, the space, the light—not captured in them, as if any of those concepts were more real than what unites them—but revealed in that singular and vast net of relationship that animates everything that is.  God is the web, the connection, the glue, the air between the molecules…As of God’s plan?  You know, whether God has a file I can break into and find out what I should be doing ten years from now?  The more I learn about chaos theory, the more I favor the concept of life with God as a dance instead of a blueprint.  God makes a move, humankind makes a move, then humankind makes a moved based on God’s move.  (From “Waltzing With the God of Chaos”, by Barbara Brown Taylor, in The Life of Meaning:  Reflections on Faith, Doubt, and Repairing the World, ed. by Bob Abernethy and William Bole, p. 47, 48)

NEW TESTAMENT:  1 John 3: 1-3

John Wesley said of the First Epistle of John, “How plain, how full, and how deep a compendium of genuine Christianity!”  Very little can be said with great confidence about the author of these three letters.  The First Epistle of John is written anonymously.  There is some similarity between these epistles and The Gospel According to John, but some point out that it lacks evidence of Semitic style characteristic of the Gospel and appears more “Greek” or Hellenistic in nature.  While most agree that 2 and 3 John are actually letters, the First Epistle of John is not as clear.  They really don’t know how to classify it.  It may even be some sort of commentary on the Gospel According to John itself.

The third chapter is part of a continuous expression of confidence in Christ’s coming.  It expresses a kinship in Christ, a relationship to God.  It encourages a present endurance as preparation for the future and a calling to become perfect in Christ.  There is clear evidence of God’s grace, bestowed freely and undeserved.  And, again, there is the reminder that we do not know everything about God, that we CANNOT know everything about God.  (I mean, really, would you want to?  Where would that leave God then?  Where would that leave our faith?)

There exists in this passage the notion that God’s presence and God’s love is both present and future, already realized and not yet revealed.  So which is it?  Yes…that is the point.  This is the Alpha and the Omega and everything in between.  It is the love that we know now and the love into which we are growing.  Again, don’t try to figure out which it is.  Just live it and live into it.  It has to do with who we are AND what we will be.  Those are not separate things.  In this passage, the writer reminds us that we are God’s children now and always.  God loves us and God wants to be with us.  The earth is God’s family.  We are all God’s children.  We are all growing into what we were created to be—the very image of God—pure and loving and holy.  And when we see that Love in which we were created and in which we live, then it all comes together.  THIS is the sacredness and the holy.  THIS is that wonderful “thin place” where we can see things the way they are meant to be seen.

a.      What does this passage mean for you?

b.      What does it say to you about that becoming perfect in Christ?

c.       So what are we called to know about God?

GOSPEL:  Matthew 5: 1-12

Well, this is the only Scripture this week that we have even a remote idea who the author is!  Most scholars agree that the core of what is known as the Beatitudes goes back to Jesus.  It is essentially a reversal of the usual value system that was in place in the first century.  The Beatitude was present in the Jewish tradition as a form of proclamation found in wisdom and prophetic writings.  They declare an objective reality as the result of a divine act.  Here, the opposite of “blessed” is not unhappy but cursed.

One thing to note is that the form of these Beatitudes use two verbs:  are and will.  Each beatitude begins in the present and moves to future tense.  They are, then expressions of what is already true in the Christian community not, necessarily, for individuals, but in community.  The move to the future tense indicates that the life of the kingdom must wait for ultimate validation until God finishes the new creation.  There is a resistance, then, against Christianity as a philosophy of life that would make one healthy, wealthy, and wise.  It is not a scheme to reduce stress, lose weight, advance one’s career, make one financially successful, or preserve one from illness.  It is, rather, a way of living based on the sure and firm hope that one walks in the way of God and that righteousness and peace will finally prevail.

In Year C of the Lectionary (which we looked at last year), the Lukan version of the Beatitudes are used. There are several differences in the two versions.  In Matthew (the more familiar one), there are nine beatitudes; in Luke, there are four.  The Matthean beatitudes are spoken from a mountain, probably since, as one writing to the Jewish community, this would depict that it was something important.  (Reminiscent of Moses on Mt. Sinai.)  The version told by the writer of Luke is spoken from a “level place” (sometimes called the Sermon on the Plain.  Matthew’s beatitudes are spoken to a “crowd”.  When Jesus speaks in the Lucan version, he speaks specifically to his disciples.  Matthew’s version has no corresponding “woes”.  In Luke, there are four “woes” corresponding to four “blessings”. 

Dietrich Bonhoeffer said this:  Humanly speaking, we could understand and interpret the Sermon on the Mount in a thousand different ways.  Jesus knows only one possibility:  simple surrender and obedience, not interpreting it or applying it, but doing and obeying it.  That is the only way to hear his word.  He does not mean that it is to be discussed as an ideal; he really means us to get on with it.

We read this in this week of All-Saints Sunday because it is about that New Creation that God has shown us.  It is a Creation that, again, is both already and not yet.  It has already begun and we are called to its work (to, as Bonhoeffer said, “get on with it”).  It is different from the things of this life—a Holy Reversal, of sorts.  And there is a future tense to it.  We walk in hope.  Blessing is just up ahead.  But blessing here is not meant to be something that we get as a reward for doing all these things.  As you know, God is much more nuanced than that.  It’s, rather, undeserved, unmerited.  Blessing is grace.  This is not God dangling some sort of treat in front of us to make sure that we run the right traps.  This is God revealing a vision of what will be—a life of comfort, abundance, mercy, and God’s ever-abiding Presence.  It’s what is here for us now and what we will always have.  We just have to learn to see things in a different way.  Once again, it’s about paradox.  We read it and we think we have it figured out.  In this world, “blessed” often means having wealth, or security, or ease of life.  It often means that things are going well.  But “blessedness” for Christ has nothing to do with the quality of this life at all.  It is about being one with God and one with others.  Perhaps being Christian, itself, is about being paradox, about looking at the world in a different way and being open to seeing things one has never seen before.  Perhaps being Christian is about daring to call oneself “blessed”.

                                                              i.      What does this passage mean for you?

                                                            ii.      What is the most difficult Beatitude for you to grasp?

                                                          iii.      How does this passage speak to our world today?

                                                          iv.      What does it mean to you to be “blessed”?

                                                            v.      Why do you think this passage is appropriate for our All-Saints reading?

Some Quotes for Further Reflection:

The future belongs to those who give the next generation reason for hope. (Pierre Teilhard de Chardin)

The saints are those who, in some partial way, embody—literally incarnate—the challenge of faith in their time and place.  In doing so, they open a path that others might follow.  (Robert Ellsberg)

The past takes us forward.  (Diana Butler Bass) 

Closing

As we discussed, All-Saints is about both today and tomorrow.  And we are thankful for those who have come before us, who have walked this same journey that we travel now.  We are all part of the same conversation that began when God spoke Creation into existence.  As we celebrate the memories of those who have gone before us, let us also honor their memories by journeying with hope and courage toward the one that we have been called to be and the One that calls us home.

For those who walked with us, this is a prayer.

For those who have gone ahead, this is a blessing.

For those who touched and tended us, who lingered with us while they lived, this is a thanksgiving.

For those who journey still with us in the shadows of awareness, in the crevices of memory, in the landscape of our dreams, this is a benediction.  Amen.

                                                                        (Jan L. Richardson, in In Wisdom’s Path, p. 124)

Proper 26A, Ordinary 31A: Crossing Over

OLD TESTAMENT:  Joshua 3: 7-17

The Jordan River, February, 2010

This passage is in essence Joshua’s commissioning.  After Moses’ death, it is Joshua’s calling to lead the people.  He is the successor to Moses and the chosen of YWHW.  And now it is Joshua that leads the Israelites across the Jordan and into a new land.  The crossing of the Jordan was indeed significant.  After all this time, all this wandering, all these years of uncertainty and trepidation, they were crossing over.  It was as if it was all starting to make sense.  And yet there had to be some uncertainty there.  I mean, it wasn’t a perfect situation.  The leader that they had trusted for so many years had been replaced by another—one about whom they were excited and yet he was untested.  They didn’t know how things would go.  And, “Promised” or not, this was a new land, a new place.  Change was all around them.  So in this passage, God “exalts” Joshua.  In essence, Joshua has a resume’ to present to the people.

But coming into the land, there seems to be a problem.  There are other peoples living there.  Now, the idea of driving out those who were there before them is bothersome for us, to say the least.  I guess we could chalk it up to historical and cultural context.  Or we can read the sentence again and consider the context in which it is written and see it a little bit differently.  The text doesn’t say that God is killing these “others” or blowing them up.  The text says that the living God will drive from before you the Canaanites, the Hittites, etc…etc…I don’t know.  Maybe it’s a way of saying that the Lord will lead you to live with these people and still remember who and whose you are.  Maybe God is promising that, as compared with the times of slavery in Egypt when you were completely swept into a culture and a way of worshipping that wasn’t yours, that this time, in this land, the Promise of “Chosenness” will hold.  God will figuratively drive from before you the ways of the Canaanites, the Hittites, etc…etc…In THIS land, you will be who you are called to be.  And, as a reminder, God calls Joshua to direct the entrance of the Ark of the Covenant into this land.    

There are a lot of instructions in this passage.  There was a definite intention to get this right.  You see, it wasn’t just any old box that was being carried into this place.  This was the Ark of the Covenant.  It held the holy scrolls and, in essence, the holiness of these people.  It was the tangible reminder of who they were.  It has been painstakingly carried with them for all those years.  Some would surmise that the Ark finally had a home, a stable place where it would always be.  Now we don’t get this from this small part of the larger story, but the twelve men that were chosen from the twelve tribes were not just fodder for the parade.  In the next chapter, these men piled up twelve large boulders at the very spot where the priests had stood with the Ark of the Covenant as the waters stopped flowing so that the people could cross over on dry land.  The stones were part of their identity.  It was these twelve tribes coming together and claiming who they were.  And the Ark that they had carried for years was a reminder that God’s Presence had always been with them, delivering them, redeeming them, and showing mercy.  They are not “locking in” the Ark of the Covenant.  (In fact, perhaps the place itself is not as important to God as the reminder to tell the story.  If the PLACE was important, then I don’t think it would have been moved and destroyed so many times in the centuries that would come after this.)  They are embracing it as God’s Presence among them.  They are claiming their identity as part of this universal priesthood of all believers.

And so, now, the entire nation crosses over the Jordan.  They enter a new life, a life of Promise and hope, a life to which they have journeyed for years.  Now it is time to live into this new life. 

a.      What is your response to this passage?

b.      What do you think was meant by the notion of “driving out” others?

c.       How can this passage speak to us and to our time?

d.      What image of God is present in this passage for you?

NEW TESTAMENT:  1 Thessalonians 2: 9-13

Remember that in our previous readings of Paul’s letter to the church at Thessalonica, Paul exhorted them to be strong, to hold on to their faith, even in the midst of conflict and persecution.  We are told that the Thessalonians accepted what they heard not as a “human word” but as “God’s Word.”  And yet, the letter also affirms that the Word is at work in the Thessalonian church as believers.  Essentially, this Word of God is not just floating up in the air somewhere, but becomes incarnate in this world, becomes the Living Christ in this world as believers in it live it out in their life and in their work.  This Word of God was heard as a witness to God’s work in the world, to God’s work in Jesus Christ.  It was a witness that was heard from Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy who also spoke words of encouragement just as they proclaimed the Word of God.

On some level, some of this passage could almost be taken as Paul’s touting of himself and his compatriots who witnessed to the people. There are some commentators that think that perhaps Paul was responding to previous criticism (of which we have read before) that he and his companions preached for their own gain—either financial or to achieve a higher status within the society.  This is once again a reminder that that was not the case.  Paul is working to structure a case for his and his disciples’ integrity.  He is saying again that he has done everything he has done and everything he can do to encourage these believers in the faith.  And then he is affirming them for accepting the words the way they were intended—not for ill-gotten gains but as a witness to the Word of God that should be lived out in their lives.

In a previous reading from the First Letter to the Church at Thessalonica, you’ll remember that Paul talked about a “mothering nurse” as a nurturing care toward the people.  Here, he uses the image of a father with his children, laying out a relationship that includes guidance and integrity.  They are both relational images.  It reminds us that living out this witness is about living in relationship with God and with one another, encouraging each other, loving each other, and guiding each other in the faith.  It is also a reminder that as children of God, we are all related, all inter-connected.  Take that a step future and it can also be taken as a reminder that everything we do affects others.  How many times to do we provide encouragement or guidance when we don’t even realize we are doing it?  How many times do we provide compassion and nurturing when we don’t even think about it?  (And, I suppose, how many times to we neglect to provide those things because we do not realize how someone is looking to us for direction?)  It’s more than just being a “good example”.  It’s realizing that everything we do and everything we are is done within this community of which we are a part.  Witnessing to and living out the Word of God means living in relationship with one another.

In the commentary, Feasting on the Word, Susan Marie Smith writes that “finally, Paul says to the Thessalonians that God ‘calls you into his own kingdom and glory’.  God calls us as a people.  The faith community is invited into the reign of God.  Professor Morris Weigelt in an address at Nazarene Theological Seminary (May 9, 2009) has expressed our corporate nature in this clever way:  ‘We can no longer ask, ‘Who am I?’ We must rather ask, ‘Who am we?’’  Will the congregation claim this invitation to unity, and to live proleptically (that means “with anticipation”) in God’s realm even now?  It is not just the leaders who are called (ekklesia), and who are sent (apostallein).  It is all the faithful.  In a church no longer with the easy superiority of Christendom—that is, a church not unlike that of Paul’s day—perhaps the people need to be reminded that the Thessalonians were folks just like us.  It is we who are called to proclaim and to live the reign of God.”

a.      What meaning does this passage hold for you?

b.      What does it mean to you to “witness” to the Word of God?

c.       How can this speak to us today and the way we relate to one another in our own society?

d.      What does it mean to say that we are the ones called to proclaim and to live the reign of God?

e.      What does it mean to claim that we do that “with anticipation”?

f.        I asked this in our discussion of a previous reading of Paul’s writing:  What sort of letter would Paul write to our community or our society?

GOSPEL:  Matthew 23:1-12

Once again, we have a passage with Jesus confronting the “powers that be” of the first-century Jewish society.  Keep in mind, though, that Jesus was Jewish.  (Contrary to what we sometimes allow ourselves to think, Jesus was never a “Christian”!)  So with that said, this sort of becomes a family conflict.

But Jesus begins by acknowledging their power and authority.  “Sitting on Moses’ seat” implies that he saw them as the ones in the position of teaching and interpreting the Torah and that they were to be followed.  But then he quickly tells his hearers not to do what they do.  Apparently, what they were teaching and how they were living were not aligned with one another.  Jesus claims that they are interpreting Scripture in a way that it was not mean to be interpreted and were, in essence, laying needless and unsupportable “burdens” on those who followed them.  They were interpreting Scripture in a way that was never intended.  For instance, the interpretation of what should happen in order to observe the Sabbath or ritualistic purity codes might have been impossible for the poor to follow.  The Pharisees were interpreting Biblical law in such a way that further marginalized the marginal in the society and in many ways made religious practices abusive rather than transformative. 

Jesus then takes on the Pharisees desire for honor and status.  They want to put themselves in a place of honor and wear elaborate prayer shawls to call attention to themselves and how “holy” they are.  What Jesus was saying was that the honor, the prestige, the place of status should all belong to God.  We are all disciples, all students of the teachings of God and we are called to humble ourselves before God.

Once again, it was a reversal of the norm.  These learned rabbis were used to being on the top of society.  They were used to having their teachings heard, probably even memorized and put to heart.  They were used to being exalted.  And now Jesus is saying that it is humility that is the greatest, that one who recognizes his or her place before God and exalts God, will, indeed be a witness to the Word of God.

As for burdens, if we truly “take on” the yoke of God’s word, then the law will live itself out within our lives.  It will not be looked upon as a burden or something that we need to do to “prove” ourselves worthy of God.  And if there are those who are expecting others to somehow do specific things to “prove” their love or their worthiness of God, then they just don’t get it.  It’s not about us; it’s about God.  God is God; we are not.  Jesus was in no way being “disloyal” to the Torah; in fact, he was being true to it.  Jesus’ notion of the “Law” was not burdensome; in fact, it was life-giving.  It brought freedom rather than constraint; it brought love rather than rules; it brought life rather than death.  It, again, is a reversal of the norms of this world.  And Jesus probably was NOT “anti-Pharisee” the way some of us would like to believe.  They were part of his “family”, remember.  And they had probably started out with good intentions, wanting to serve God, wanting to help others understand the Torah.  But somewhere along the way, it became about them rather than about God.  It probably happens to the best of us!

Rick Morley says it like this:  The faith that Jesus taught has immediate implications. It’s about today, and it’s about tomorrow. To hijack the message of Jesus and turn it into getting us something at some time down the road is to turn Christianity into a narcissistic cult. And that’s the very opposite of the faith that Jesus teaches. It’s not about us. It’s not about accumulating wealth nor stability for ourselves, it’s about us loving God and our neighbor with all we have and with all we are. (From “Going to Hell, Getting Saved”, by Rick Morley, also available at http://www.rickmorley.com/archives/1082?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=its-not-about-me-a-reflection-on-matthew-231-12. )

I think this passage provides a good check of our own religion, the way we practice and live out our faith.  I guess if I were to put it simply in the context of my own Christian faith tradition, I would say that “religion without spirituality” is practicing the religion about Jesus.  It sounds good, but it doesn’t have any depth, no engagement.  And “spirituality without religion” has a good possibility of becoming the religion about myself.  I think they need to come together—both spiritual religion and religious spirituality.  Then one will have the opportunity to practice the religion of Jesus.  I think that is the way we get out of ourselves and become one with God in a real and authentic way.  You cannot practice religion for religion’s sake.  That would certainly be the death of your being.  You need to somehow breathe life into it.  That’s where spirituality comes in.  Together they are religiosity on life support—a practice of faith, an embrace of the faith community, a recognition of one’s call to help and serve others, all with the Spirit of God, the life of your being, breathed into onself. 

a.      What meaning does this passage hold for you?

b.      What does it mean for you to think of the Law, the Torah, the teachings of the faith as “life-giving” rather than binding rules?

c.       How can this passage speak to us today and the way religion is looked at in our society?

d.      How would you respond to the increasingly-popular claim of being “spiritual but not religious.”?

Some Quotes for Further Reflection:

We must love them both, those whose opinions we share, and those whose opinions we reject, for both have labored in the search for truth, and both have helped us in the finding of it. (Thomas Aquinas, 13^th century)

It may be that when we no longer know what to do, we have to our real work.  And when we no longer know which way to go, we have begun our real journey. (Wendell Berry)

Christianity is not being destroyed by the confusions and concussions of the time; it is being discovered. (Hugh E. Brown)

Closing

Close with prayer.

Lord God, your love has called us here, as we, by love, for love were made; your living likeness still we bear, though marred, dishonored, disobeyed; we come, with all our heart and mind, your call to hear, your love to find.

Lord God, in Christ you call our name, and then receive us as your wown; not through some merit, right, or claim, but by your gracious love alone; we strain to glimpse your mercy seat, and find you kneeling at our feet.

Lord God, in Christ you set us free your life to live, your joy to share; give us your Spirit’s liberty to turn from guild and dull despair, and offer all that faith can do, while love is making all things new.  Amen  (Brian Wren, 1973, “The United Methodist Hymnal”, # 579) 

Proper 25A, Ordinary 30A: Legacy

OLD TESTAMENT:  Deuteronomy 34: 1-12
We begin this week’s passage with Moses looking out over the horizon toward the Promised Land.  It says he was one hundred twenty years old.  Now, putting aside the fact that our current calendar and our current way of tabulating age was not in place, I think we at least get the message that Moses was nearing the end of his life.  And as he looked out over the land, he reflected on the Divine Promise that had been so much a part of his life.

The Israelites are about to enter the Promised Land.  They have wandered for forty years.  (We skipped a lot of chapters in the Lectionary!)  Most of the original generation is gone.  Moses has been their leader; really, the only leader that they’ve ever known.  And I’m sure they are getting concerned about who would replace him.  How could they go on?  But look how Moses responds to their concerns.  He knows it’s not about him.  (THAT is what is probably the mark of a great leader, when you come to think about it!  Think about all of those leaders in our history that were instruments of vision and change but that never experienced that change themselves.  They’re called prophets. )  He reminds them of the promise.  Look, see there…everything for which we’ve worked, everything toward which we’ve journeyed, everything for which we’ve dreamed…there it is.  It was a sort of sermon, a calling to belief, a reminder to the people of who and whose they were.  This is Moses’ legacy.

Moses never actually entered the Promised Land.  He would die here in Moab and be buried somewhere in this valley.  There are some that would think that a shame that Moses would come all this way and then never see his dream to fruition.  Maybe that was the whole point.  This was Moses’ calling.  He was to lead the journey.  He was to lead the people into seeing what the Promise held, what the covenant meant in their lives.  Moses did not need completion—just faith.  Moses was entrusted with the vision to hand off to the people.  And just before his death, Moses got something that he probably never dreamed he would even receive—a glimpse, just a glimpse of the Promised Land.   

The Israelites mourned his death with the deep and profound grief that one would mourn a family member, a patriarch, one who had led them through so much in their lives, and who had been such an instrumental part in the change that they had experienced.  After the period of mourning, they would embrace their new leader, Joshua, the son of Nun, who Moses had hand-picked.  The text says that Moses had “laid his hands on Joshua”.  It was an anointing of sorts.  We Methodists might call it his ordination.  “Go now and take thou authority…”  Moses would never be forgotten but it was time to move from this place and carry that legacy that he had left them with them  into the Promised Land.

We are given glimpses all the time of the Divine Promise.  Most of us just spend too much time trying to figure out how to see it all through.  When will that Promise, that cherished glimpse of the holy and the sacred be enough?  When we will realized that God’s vision transcends us all?

a.      What is your response to this passage?
b.      How would you reflect on Moses’ leadership?
c.       How would you reflect on Moses’ faith?
d.      What does this passage say about God?
e.       How does this passage speak to our world today?

This saga of exodus and wilderness wandering is well known to us. It shaped our lives, formed our attitudes, made a deep imprint on our feelings. We cannot talk about freedom in the Western world without remembering this event. Promise, hope, and expectancy grew out of that exodus movement and wilderness experience.

The parallel of this wilderness promise to our time is obvious. In a real sense, we must now move through a wilderness as real as the Sinai wastes and ever more threatening. Ours is a perilous journey through the uncharted and unexplored reaches of a new age, a newcoming millennium.

Consider for a moment the wilderness in which we have wandered the past forty years, rebellion against leadership, cold wars and hot wars, natural disasters, ethnic cleansings. Unbridled lawlessness and senseless violence in city, town, and country has produced a jungle where no life is safe and no home secure. In these desert times, the old visions have faded in too many lives and the new vision isn't clear. We build idols like the golden calf to enshrine some forgotten memory while we forget the God of our fathers and mothers and create new gods to our liking.

How do we state clearly what we believe? What quality will mark the 21st-century Christian life? Where does the church go now? We've traveled through the broad, howling desert of the late 20th century and strange to say, like the ancient Hebrews, we stand now on the edge of promise. There lies before us a choice of despair or hope, hypnotic fear or energizing courage.

The 20th century has produced a number of leaders in the likeness of Moses--Ghandi in India, Martin Luther King, Jr., in America, Nelson Mandela in South Africa, among others.

Dr. King's leadership in the non-violent movement for racial equality and human dignity is seen by many as a 20th-century expression which parallels in microcosm that of Moses. In King's final sermon, "I've Been to the Mountain Top," he said, "God has allowed me to go up to the mountain and I've looked over and I've seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight that we as a people will get to the Promised Land. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord."

Dr. King, like Moses, was denied the chance to enter a hoped-for promised land of freedom and justice for all. The day following his last sermon on a balcony outside his hotel room the crack of a rifle and an assassin's bullet tragically ended King's life and stilled his eloquent voice. But the dream of Martin Luther King, Jr., is not dead. His life and witness will remain forever a testament as one of the greatest of the 20th century.

We have moved through generations of racial tension and conflict, a wilderness of disruption and discord. Yet we stand now at the edge of God's promise. At the end of the wilderness journey lies the promised land. I pray we shall not turn back into the desert lest we face another generation of terror or aimlessness, of fear and despair.

God invites us to enter a promised land where there is mutual acceptance, peace as a way of life, religion as encounter with a God who loves city and suburbs which move from jungle to neighborhood. Can we now begin to claim God's promise? (From “Through the Wilderness to Promise”, a sermon by Rev. Dr. William K. Quick, available at http://day1.org/713-through_the_wilderness_to_promise, accessed 15 October, 2011.)

NEW TESTAMENT:  1 Thessalonians 2: 1-8

First Thessalonians is thought by most scholars to be the oldest epistle in the New Testament.  So, there’s sort of an underlying question of what exactly it means to be an apostle, to be a member of this Christ community, that seems to be working itself out.  These were not easy times.  The early Christians were being shunned and mistreated throughout the region.  Paul was trying desperately to get them to hold onto their newfound faith even in the face of such fierce opposition.  And he was citing his own ministry and the courage that he had had before God.  He affirms the people in their ministry as those “approved by God”.  It is a way of reminding the people that they are called to be God’s people even in light of the difficulties that this world might bring.

The idea of God “testing our hearts” is probably difficult for many of us.  Does that mean that what these first century hearers were enduring and the difficulties that we may have are a “test”?  But remember that testing is a theme that we see over and over in the Hebrew tradition.  And again, maybe testing is more like a “chemical test”—a mode of change--rather than a math test.  It’s not that there is a right or wrong answer, per se.  But this is God’s way of building us up, of changing us into the people that we are called to be.  I don’t think God sends us suffering—God just helps us journey through it to the promise at the end.

Paul goes on to remind people that he and his followers were not seeking honor or flattery.  In other words, contrary to some of the “false preachers” of that day (and ours!), they were not in it for money or fame or status.  Rather, Paul uses the image of a compassionate nurse who is caring toward everyone.  But toward his or her own children, the nurse’s caring goes even beyond the expected.  It is such a deep and profound sense of compassion and tenderness that the nurse is willing to do absolutely anything for that child.  It is THAT level of compassion and caring that Paul felt for these new believers.  This was not a “right or wrong” answer for which they were being tested.  Paul was so called to help them be who God was calling them to be that he was willing to walk through anything with them to see that that happened. 

Paul did not just start a Christian community and then leave them to their own devices.  He loved them.  He wanted to see them become who they were called to be.  And as Christians, we are all called to be like that toward each other.  This is not an individual “test” or “race” that we are trying to complete.  It is the vision of God that we are called to show to all.  We are one body—the Body of Christ.  We are interconnected at a deeper level than any of us can probably even fathom.  We are called to care for one another.  But we are also called to encourage one another, to lead one another, and to be with one another through the journey.

The truth is that this life of living and witnessing to the Gospel of Jesus Christ is a difficult life.  We were never promised an easy road.  Like Moses, our journey is one that meanders and winds as we strain through perilous mountains and morose valleys, sometimes having to cross even treacherous gulfs.  Paul knows this.  He has lived it.  And he is reminding the believers in Thessalonica of that very thing.  Because if we just persevere on the journey, the glimpse of the Promise Land is always in sight. 

a.      What meaning does this passage hold for you?
b.      What insights do you have about the notion of God “testing our hearts”?
c.       How are Paul’s words relevant today?
d.      What does this say about the faith community and what, as a community, it is called to be?
e.       How does this passage speak to leadership?

GOSPEL:  Matthew 22: 34-46

This passage comes as part of a long dispute between Jesus and what seems to be everyone else—Pharisees, Sadducees, lawyers, chief priests, and even the disciples.  The question that the lawyer poses to Jesus is, of course, to test him.  After all, Jesus was a teacher, a rabbi.  He should be able to give the right answer.  This was one of the final challenges to his authority.  In the context of the Gospel by the writer known as Matthew, this is Jesus’ last encounter with those who saw it as their role to protect the tradition of the first century Jewish religion.  After this, the Gospel moves into the judgment of Jesus and then on toward the Passion and Resurrection of Christ.  In a way, this was the final test, sort of a pop quiz that they thought would surely trip Jesus up once and for all.  (So, is that your FINAL answer?)

The lawyer who stepped forward could be considered the expert on the Torah, the professional theologian and the resident authority on all things of the faith tradition.  And his purpose was to test Jesus, to trap him into giving an answer that would finally prove that Jesus was not who he had made himself out to be.  For the writer of Matthew, this was a test of the kingdoms pitted against each other—the Kingdom of God against the powers that were in play on earth.  The rabbinic tradition had counted a total of 613 commandments in the Torah, the “Law”.  And even though it was acceptable for rabbis to give summaries of the Law itself, the view was that each one of these commandments held equally important value.  By asking Jesus which law was the greatest, the lawyer was setting a trap.  If Jesus singled out any one law above the other, it would be like dismissing the other 612.  It would be a violation of the Law of Torah.  It would be his final answer, indeed.

But Jesus, in true Jesus fashion has an answer that they were not expecting.  “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.”  The first commandment that Jesus cites is known in Judaism as the Shema, the central prayer of the Jewish faith.  It would be hard to refute.  Found in Deuteronomy (6: 4-9), the commandment that Jesus gives is part of what is found in a mezuzah, the holy parchment affixed to the doorframes of Jewish homes.  It declares not only the belief in the One and Only God but also calls us to a deep and abiding relationship with God.  We are called to love God with our whole heart, a pure and absolute devotion to God as our one and only maker and redeemer.  We are called to love God with our souls, to long for a passionate and engaged love for the One who nurtures and sustains us.  We are called to love God with our minds, not a blind and uninformed faith but one that questions, and learns, and grows into what God envisions us to be.  And we are called to love God with all our strength, every fiber of our being, a full and engaged life lived in the name of Christ our Lord.

But then Jesus comes back and tells us that we “shall love our neighbor as ourself.”  In essence, it seems that Jesus was asked for one commandment and responded with two.  But the writer of Matthew’s Gospel depicts the second as “like” the first.  The Greek word for this does not mean merely similar; it means, rather, that is of equal importance and inseparable from the first.  The great command to love God has as its inseparable counterpart the command to love neighbor.   One cannot understand true and abiding love without a loving relationship with God.  But one cannot realize that relationship with God without loving one’s brothers and sisters and realizing that we are all children of God.  From this standpoint, our mutual and shared humanity becomes part of our relationship with God, as we are swept into the coming of the Kingdom of God for all of Creation.  We are called to love our neighbor as deeply as we love ourselves, to meet our neighbor’s needs as readily as we meet our own, and to seek to understand our neighbor’s dreams and passions just as we vie for what we believe.  We are called to love our neighbor because we love God.  The two commandments are intrinsically intertwined, inescapably linked to one another.  They become reflections of each other in true Trinitarian mutual relationship.  They are of one essence and being.  Our love and compassion for others gives visibility to our love and compassion of God. 

So, the point is that Jesus was not giving us two answers.  And, contrary to what those learned and educated first century theologians may have wanted or tried to assume, I don’t think it was Jesus’ intention to dismiss the other 611 Laws of Torah.  The answer that Jesus gave was what all of Torah was about.  The answer that Jesus gave is what we are all about.  Love of God and Love of neighbor—that is what the Kingdom of God is and when we get to the point where we understand what it means to live into that full and abiding love, then we will understand what living in God’s Kingdom is about. Edward Markquart calls these two-in-one commandments the hinges of a door.  A door cannot work properly with only one hinge, only one range of motion.  It takes both—love of God and love of neighbor working together in one continuous and fluid motion to open the door to the Kingdom of God.

After this, Jesus poses them a question.  Here you go…if the Messiah is the son of the Psalmist David, then how and why would David call him Lord?  No one had an answer.  After all, Jesus had already turned them completely on end with the previous dialogue.  Maybe there were afraid to speak up and be quashed again.  Maybe they were just trying to figure it all out.  Or maybe this was the moment when they actually got it.  The controversies come to an end.  The words stop.  And the drumbeats in Jerusalem begin.

a.      What meaning does this passage hold for you?
b.      What does the “great commandment” mean for you?
c.       How does this speak to our world today?
d.      Why is this so difficult to put these together?

Some Quotes for Further Reflection:

Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn't matter with me now. Because I've been to the mountaintop. And I don't mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land. And I'm happy, tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord. (From “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop”, a speech by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., April 3, 1968. King was assassinated the next day.)

Fools and fanatics are so sure of themselves but wise souls are so full of doubt.(Russell Bertrand)

The rare moment is not the moment when there is something worth looking at, but the moment when we are capable of seeing. (Joseph Wood Krutch)

Closing

Thou who art over us,

Thou who art one of us,
Thou who art;
Give me a pure heart, that I may see thee;
A humble heart, that I may hear thee;
A heart of love, that I may serve thee;
A heart of faith, that I may abide in thee.  Amen .
                                 (Dag Hammerskjold, 20^th cent., UMH # 392)