"Tight lines" is a blessing fishermen offer each other, a wish for lines taut with the weight of good fish. May God grant that the lines written here be taut with His blessings.
Wednesday, 29 October 2008 | |||
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Humble Folk | |||
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We approach the Sunday on which we will celebrate All Saints
Day (November 1) this year. November 2 is actually All Souls Day in the
Catholic and Anglican calendars. I'll leave the curious to research the
distinction between the two feasts. In any case I decided not to follow the All Saints readings this year, but instead to find an All Saints theme in the assigned readings for the Sunday. Matthew 23:1-12 is a bit harsh in its condemnation of the teachers of the law and Pharisees, but it offers a great description of the humble character of God's saints. I got stuck on verse 9 a bit today. It's typically used to castigate the Roman Catholic practice of referring to clergy as "father," which Anglicans and Orthodox do as well. But if we take it with absolute literalness, we would have to hear Jesus as prohibiting the title even for our natural fathers, and in the next verse prohibiting the title "teacher" for any Christian. But that of course runs counter even to Protestant practice. It's clear that people in the New Testament church were known as teachers and there are a couple clear instances of New Testament writers using the term "father" without qualm. Paul did so in I Corinthians 4:15. Thus the stricture against these titles is not an absolute rule, but a rhetorical device aimed at the kind of spirit of equality and brotherhood (verse 8) which is to exist in the Christian community. It does not mean there are no leaders, teachers or authorities in the church, but that when these positions are held they are to be places of service rather than places from which to command honor. Now, let us all tremblingly pray for God to teach us those hard lessons which lead to real humility. In the meantime we can be inspired (and humbled) by considering the examples of humility that have been given to us in saints and martyrs who've gone before. | |||
Sunday, 26 October 2008 | |||
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Incandescent Icons | |||
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I've been on a study retreat in northern Arizona this last week and will not be home to preach this morning, so there has been no post about today's sermon. Part of my retreat has been to read Gerald Sittser's fine book on the history of Christian spirituality, Water from a Deep Well. As I read the chapter entitled "Holy Heroes" on the iconography and biography of saints, I was helped further in understanding the Eastern church's use of icons by Sittser's simple explanation. The unreality of the icons is deliberate, striving to show spiritual realities through visual symbols. In particular the icons of saints strive to show the image of God restored in human lives through the work of Christ. One symbol of that restored image in the saint is a luminosity that appears to come from within the portrait rather than, more realistically in a physical sense, from without. This represents the divine life of Christ shining out through the humble human life of the saint. I was struck by the thought that such divine luminosity shining in human life is often the only way we can perceive God, who is invisible, of course, to ordinary sight. Until we enter enternity, we need Christ shining in others around us in order to truly see Him. Then I remembered that this way of seeing God's light in the physical lives of His people is not that different from our perception of physical light. Sunlight would be invisible, but for it's reflection from and entrance into all the various mediums by which we perceive it, whether air or water, or more solid objects. When we speak of seeing beautiful sunlight, we are actually seeing it made visible through some other physical object(s). So on a hike I took in the Inner Basin of the San Francisco peaks, I took this photo of a couple aspen trees in full golden fall glory. They were the only 2 trees which had not lost their leaves in groves of thousands, so they stood out spectacularly. I realized the way they shone with the light of the sun was a perfect picture of the way a Christian's holy life can shine with divine light in the midst of a dark world. The fragile and delicate leaves are only the medium by which the beauty of the sun is revealed. May we learn to cultivate such lives. | |||
Tuesday, 14 October 2008 | |||
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Tax Time | |||
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Once again there is a radical tax deduction measure from
Bill Sizemore on the Oregon ballot. Measure 59 would have Oregon join
only 3 other states that make federal taxes fully deductible on one's
state tax return. The problem is that it would reduce state revenues by
over a billion dollars and would lead to cuts in needed public services.
97% of the tax relief benefits of the measure would go to those with
incomes over $82,000. This is merely the latest in a long series of
Sizemore measures aimed at reducing taxes, regardless of consequences to
public services like schools, etc. One wonders what Sizemore might say to Jesus' affirmation of the right of government to assess taxes in Matthew 22:15-22. A trap about taxes was set for Jesus by Pharisees (religiously conservative and so opposed to the pagan government of Rome over Israel) and Herodians (supportive of Roman government because Rome set the Herods up as kings). Jesus' reply, "Give to Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's," in essence supported both their positions, but probably angered them both by evading the trap. An interpretation that goes back to the church fathers argues that the second half of Jesus' reply calls for the giving of our entire selves to God. The coin Jesus examines belongs to Caesar because it bears Caesar's image. Since human beings bear the image of God, we belong to God. It's clear that the issue of God's ownership supercedes matters of taxation and government ownership. Perhaps there's a message here for us about our priorities as we worry about government intervention in private business. Our priority as Christians is not the limitation of government or the avoidance of taxes. It's the proper rendering of our whole lives and all we possess to God. | |||
Thursday, 09 October 2008 | |||
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Party Clothes | |||
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Appropriate dress does not seem to be near the issue that it
was when I was younger. I and most of my pastor friends have abandoned
coat and tie as standard clothing for our profession, even on Sunday
mornings. Attendance at the opera or symphony used to require dressing
up, but my wife lets me go without a tie these days. Weddings still often
call for formal attire both for wedding party and guests, but I did an
outdoor wedding this summer in which the men wore khaki shorts, white
shirts and pink polka dot ties. The guests came in whatever they pleased,
from suits to jeans and T-shirts. So there's an even larger cultural gap
than there was a few years ago for our understanding of verses 11-14 in
Matthew
22:1-14
..
There's also an interpretive gap in understanding the king's decision to cast out the man who came without wedding clothes. There's a fairly large scholarly tradition maintaining that there is evidence that first century hosts provided banquet garments for guests (Cf. Capon in The Parables of Judgment, Blomberg in The New American Commentary and Gundry in Matthew). Thus the man's failure to be properly attired is akin to the rejection of the invitation in the first part of the parable, a rejection of freely provided grace. However, Snodgrass in Stories with Intents and Carson in The Expositor's Bible Commentary say that the evidence for hosts providing banquet garments in the first century is skimpy at best. Biblical examples, II Kings 10:22 and the father's provision for the prodigal son in Luke 15:22, simply don't match up with the situation in the wedding banquet parable. So if it's not a provided garment of grace that's expected, is it then a requirement for righteousness or good works? In Revelation 19:8, the explanation of the "fine linen" in which the saints are dressed is that it "stands for the righteous acts of the saints." It's always tricky to read the meaning of imagery from one part of Scripture into similar imagery in another part. The Bible is not a code book or theological dictionary, with single, rigid meanings behind each word, phrase or picture. A lion symbolizes Christ in Revelation 5:5 and symbolizes Satan in I Peter 5:8. Klyne Snodgrass argues that we must simply regard the need wedding garment as some sort of preparation for the day of judgment. Once we accept the offer of grace, we are expected to change, to prepare to meet our Lord. Klyne says, "limitless grace. . . brings with it limitless demand." The man who has no garment represents those who take grace for granted, who see it as cheap, who make no response to grace received by a transformation of their lives. It's a tough parable! | |||
Wednesday, 01 October 2008 | |||
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Foreclosure | |||
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The bank doesn't want your house. As the failures of Sallie
Mae and Freddie Mac have shown us, banks really don't want your
house. Foreclosure is a disaster not just for the borrower but for the
lender. Banks do well by loaning money to responsible borrowers who are
faithful in making payments. Foreclosures are money-losers for the bank,
especially in a down real-estate market. Matthew 21:33-46, the parable of the wicked tenants, shows that God also is not keen on foreclosure. Prior to the dire consequence called for by the Jewish leaders themselves in verse 41, the landowner tries very hard to bring his lazy tenants around. In Matthew the story has two sendings of servants, then the son. In Mark's version there are no less than four sendings before the son is dispatched (pun intended). The landowner represents God's constant struggle to bring His people to repentance. The Old Testament is the record of the continual sending of His messengers and their frequent ill-treatment at the hands of His people. This parable should not be read as a story of the handing over of God's blessing from Jews to Gentiles. That interpretation would take it out of its context as a polemic against the Jewish leaders to whom Jesus was talking. It's a story aimed at those among Jews who, in the same spirit as those who rejected the prophets, now reject Jesus, God's Son. Those receiving the kingdom at that point are still Jews. We can see two things in this parable for us as Christians. The first is the amazing perseverance of God in His efforts to redeem us. He spares nothing, including His own Son. The second is a warning about our own Christian responsibility as stewards of the kingdom. I'm not sure what the meaning for us is of the threat to take the kingdom away in verse 43, but there is certainly a strong expectation that we are to bear fruit. | |||
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Profile |
I am the pastor of Valley Covenant Church in Eugene, Oregon. I love to flyfish and hike along the beautiful rivers in our area. I welcome your comments as I share sermon work in progress and occasional other thoughts.
Thank you for visiting this blog. I invite you also to visit my web page.
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