Study Format:
1. Read passage aloud. What did you notice in the reading? What words or phrase caught your attention?
2. Read passage aloud a second time. What questions would you ask the text?
3. Read passage aloud a third time. What do you hear God calling you to do or be in response to this text?
Interesting Ideas to Consider:
• This section is known as the prologue to John’s Gospel. It differs from the rest of the Gospel in style (the rest, like the other Gospels, is narrative), and introduces vocabulary and images that will be prevalent throughout the rest of the gospel; like life, light and darkness, witness, truth, world, knowledge, acceptance and rejection, children of God, glory, Father and Son.
• Some theologians have speculated that the writer of John’s Gospel drew from early Christian hymnodity for the prologue, similar to the Christ hymn Paul quotes in Philippians 2:6-11. Like a hymn, the prologue evokes rather than explains.
• The prologue consists of four parts
1) v. 1-5, The eternal Word is the Light and Life of Creation
2) v. 6-8, John the Baptist witnesses to the Light
3) v. 9-13, the Light, or Word, came into the World
4) v. 14-18, the Word became flesh and dwells among us
• The Prologue concerns two spheres of God’s presence
1) the eternal, the sphere of the cosmic Word of God
2) the temporal, the sphere of John the Baptist, the world, and the incarnate Word (Word made flesh)
The heart of the prologue, and of John’s gospel itself, is the interaction of these two spheres. The Prologue highlights how Jesus is both beyond time and history and also holds a specific place within time and history. John 1 starts with the eternal Word, but as the Prologue goes on, the Word enters into the time-bound world.
• The Greek phrase that starts 1:1, “In the beginning,” is the same phrase the Septuagint translator used for the beginning of Genesis 1:1.
• Logos, which is translated as “Word,” would be better translated as “message” or “communication.” It is the active experience of communicating. In logos, John used a word familiar to both Greek and Hebrew audiences in a new way that drew from both traditions. In Greek philosophy, the word was used to speak about the creative plan of God that governs the world. In the Hebrew tradition, when God speaks, action follows. God spoke at creation, and the world came into existence. God spoke at Sinai, and the Law was delivered to Moses. It also fits with the Jewish wisdom tradition, Proverbs 8:22-31 speaks of how Wisdom had been with God “before the beginning of the earth.”
• v. 5 “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it” could also be translated “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not understand it.”
• v. 14 “and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” A better translation is “made his dwelling among us.” “To dwell” is related to the word for tabernacle or tent. One modern translator put it this way, “the Word put skin on and moved into the neighborhood.”
• The word “grace” charis shows up four times in the Prologue, and not again in the rest of the Gospel. John establishes the theme of grace, and then illustrates in throughout the rest of the Gospel without ever naming it again. It reminds me of the St. Francis quote “preach the Gospel at all times, and use words if necessary.”
Works Sourced:
O’Day, Gail R. “The Gospel of John.” The New Interpreter’s Bible Volume IX. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1995.
The extraordinary can look so ordinary
Thursday, December 31, 2015
Thursday, December 24, 2015
This Is The Night: A Sermon on Luke 2:1-20
This is the night. The night we have been waiting for. For four weeks we’ve waited and watched and hoped, as the lights on our advent wreath grew brighter and brighter, as the day on the calendar grew nearer and nearer, as the wonder in our hearts grew deeper and deeper. And finally, the night has come. This is the night, the angel told the shepherds, that to us is born, this day, in the city of David, a savior who is the Messiah, the Lord.
This is the night the angel foretold, when he told Zechariah his son would make ready a people prepared for the Lord. This is the night the angel proclaimed, when he told Mary she would bear the Son of God. This is the night Elizabeth exclaimed, when she cried, “Blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.”
This night so humble, this night so mild, this night, in a baby asleep on a girl child’s lap, in heavenly host singing glory to a field of unkempt shepherds, this is the night that we witness the Word of God made flesh come and dwell among us. This is the night that the king of Kings was born.
What child is this, who, laid to rest, on Mary’s lap is sleeping?
Whom angels greet with anthems sweet while shepherds watch are keeping?
This, this is Christ the king, whom shepherds guard and angels sing;
haste, haste to bring him laud, the babe, the son of Mary!
To what humble dwellings, the Lord of Hosts was born. Born not in a palace of silver and gold, born not to parents of wealth and esteem, born not among leaders, kings, priests, or saints. But here in a stable, with sheep and with cows. Here to young parents, unmarried and poor. Here, heralded by shepherds, untrusted and scorned.
This simple birth set the stage for a life of reversal. Even as a man grown with disciples and crowds, he would never stray far from this humble beginning. The child born unwelcome would welcome the children. This child seen by shepherds would shepherd the hungry. He would break bread with sinners and forgive all the hurting. He would heal saddened hearts and give hope in our longing. And then…
This night is not the only night that the world waits in anticipation. Because also wrapped up in the glory of this night is the knowledge that when this baby grew up, his teaching and preaching, the glorious upheaval that this birth foretold; would draw the attention of the authorities. And those powerful players, like powerful players throughout all of history, like powerful players today, would not want in the world a man like this. Would not want in the world someone who told the poor they had value, who told the hurting they were loved, who promised forgiveness to sinners, and grace for all the world. The powers of this world do not want us to know that love is abundant. They want us to live in a world where greed, where shame, where conflict and pain are the forces that matter, because by such forces the powerful retain their power. But Jesus came proclaiming power of a different sort. Jesus came and said that you, exactly who you are, exactly as you are, are the people who whom Christ was born. You who sit here tonight wondering if you have enough, if you are enough. You who question, and doubt, and wonder if such good news could truly be for you, if a God who knows all, who sees all, could truly know, and love, and forgive you, this child born in a manger attests to the power of God’s promise. And for that, because the powers of this world do not want us to know our true worth, this child in a manger would one day face death. He would be brought before powers, crucified, die, and be buried. But then, on a night much like this one, the church again gathers to whisper the promise that this is the night.
Because this child born in a manger would rise from the dead. This child born of Mary would defeat death itself. This birth sung by angels is the birth of new life. All of this, resurrection and heartbreak; despair, hope, and promise; all of this set in motion on this one holy night.
Why lies he in such mean estate where ox and ass are feeding?
Good Christians fear; for sinners here the silent Word is pleading.
Nails, spears shall pierce him through, the cross be borne for me, for you;
hail, hail the Word made flesh, the babe, the son of Mary!
We bring to this child all our fears and our longings, we bring to this child all our hopes and desires. This Child born of Mary is God the incarnate; this child born of Mary is life for the world. The gold he desires is the gold he makes from us, the incense and myrrh is the scent of new life. We can come to this place with our hands and hearts open, for from our very lives, God is making the world.
Do not worry on this night, of the gifts you are bringing. Do not worry what you bring, for you are enough. Come just as you are, be a guest at this banquet, come just as you are to the table of grace. For here, at this table, the Christ child is waiting; here bread and wine are a feast to foretaste. A foretaste of the promise which God is creating; a foretaste of the promise that God has for all.
So bring him incense, gold, and myrrh; come, peasant, king, to own him.
The King of kings salvation brings; let loving hearts enthrone him.
Raise, raise the song on high, the virgin sings her lullaby;
Joy, joy, for Christ is born, the babe, the son of Mary!
This is the night of God born among us; this is the night of our dear Savior’s birth. Tonight above all nights we shout and sing praises, our voices ring loudly with heavenly hosts.
But not too loud. Because tonight we remember a baby is sleeping, tonight we stay silent, we watch and we wait. For on Mary’s lap, the dear Christ Child is sleeping. On Mary’s lap lies Love incarnate.
What child is this, who, laid to rest, on Mary’s lap is sleeping?
Whom angels greet with anthems sweet while shepherds watch are keeping?
This, this is Christ the king, whom shepherds guard and angels sing;
haste, haste to bring him laud, the babe, the son of Mary!
Sermon interspersed with the hymn "What Child is This" by William C. Dix. Taken from Evangelical Lutheran Worship hymn number 296 (Augsburg Fortress: Minneapolis, MN, 2006).
This is the night the angel foretold, when he told Zechariah his son would make ready a people prepared for the Lord. This is the night the angel proclaimed, when he told Mary she would bear the Son of God. This is the night Elizabeth exclaimed, when she cried, “Blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.”
This night so humble, this night so mild, this night, in a baby asleep on a girl child’s lap, in heavenly host singing glory to a field of unkempt shepherds, this is the night that we witness the Word of God made flesh come and dwell among us. This is the night that the king of Kings was born.
What child is this, who, laid to rest, on Mary’s lap is sleeping?
Whom angels greet with anthems sweet while shepherds watch are keeping?
This, this is Christ the king, whom shepherds guard and angels sing;
haste, haste to bring him laud, the babe, the son of Mary!
To what humble dwellings, the Lord of Hosts was born. Born not in a palace of silver and gold, born not to parents of wealth and esteem, born not among leaders, kings, priests, or saints. But here in a stable, with sheep and with cows. Here to young parents, unmarried and poor. Here, heralded by shepherds, untrusted and scorned.
This simple birth set the stage for a life of reversal. Even as a man grown with disciples and crowds, he would never stray far from this humble beginning. The child born unwelcome would welcome the children. This child seen by shepherds would shepherd the hungry. He would break bread with sinners and forgive all the hurting. He would heal saddened hearts and give hope in our longing. And then…
This night is not the only night that the world waits in anticipation. Because also wrapped up in the glory of this night is the knowledge that when this baby grew up, his teaching and preaching, the glorious upheaval that this birth foretold; would draw the attention of the authorities. And those powerful players, like powerful players throughout all of history, like powerful players today, would not want in the world a man like this. Would not want in the world someone who told the poor they had value, who told the hurting they were loved, who promised forgiveness to sinners, and grace for all the world. The powers of this world do not want us to know that love is abundant. They want us to live in a world where greed, where shame, where conflict and pain are the forces that matter, because by such forces the powerful retain their power. But Jesus came proclaiming power of a different sort. Jesus came and said that you, exactly who you are, exactly as you are, are the people who whom Christ was born. You who sit here tonight wondering if you have enough, if you are enough. You who question, and doubt, and wonder if such good news could truly be for you, if a God who knows all, who sees all, could truly know, and love, and forgive you, this child born in a manger attests to the power of God’s promise. And for that, because the powers of this world do not want us to know our true worth, this child in a manger would one day face death. He would be brought before powers, crucified, die, and be buried. But then, on a night much like this one, the church again gathers to whisper the promise that this is the night.
Because this child born in a manger would rise from the dead. This child born of Mary would defeat death itself. This birth sung by angels is the birth of new life. All of this, resurrection and heartbreak; despair, hope, and promise; all of this set in motion on this one holy night.
Why lies he in such mean estate where ox and ass are feeding?
Good Christians fear; for sinners here the silent Word is pleading.
Nails, spears shall pierce him through, the cross be borne for me, for you;
hail, hail the Word made flesh, the babe, the son of Mary!
We bring to this child all our fears and our longings, we bring to this child all our hopes and desires. This Child born of Mary is God the incarnate; this child born of Mary is life for the world. The gold he desires is the gold he makes from us, the incense and myrrh is the scent of new life. We can come to this place with our hands and hearts open, for from our very lives, God is making the world.
Do not worry on this night, of the gifts you are bringing. Do not worry what you bring, for you are enough. Come just as you are, be a guest at this banquet, come just as you are to the table of grace. For here, at this table, the Christ child is waiting; here bread and wine are a feast to foretaste. A foretaste of the promise which God is creating; a foretaste of the promise that God has for all.
So bring him incense, gold, and myrrh; come, peasant, king, to own him.
The King of kings salvation brings; let loving hearts enthrone him.
Raise, raise the song on high, the virgin sings her lullaby;
Joy, joy, for Christ is born, the babe, the son of Mary!
This is the night of God born among us; this is the night of our dear Savior’s birth. Tonight above all nights we shout and sing praises, our voices ring loudly with heavenly hosts.
But not too loud. Because tonight we remember a baby is sleeping, tonight we stay silent, we watch and we wait. For on Mary’s lap, the dear Christ Child is sleeping. On Mary’s lap lies Love incarnate.
What child is this, who, laid to rest, on Mary’s lap is sleeping?
Whom angels greet with anthems sweet while shepherds watch are keeping?
This, this is Christ the king, whom shepherds guard and angels sing;
haste, haste to bring him laud, the babe, the son of Mary!
Sermon interspersed with the hymn "What Child is This" by William C. Dix. Taken from Evangelical Lutheran Worship hymn number 296 (Augsburg Fortress: Minneapolis, MN, 2006).
Wednesday, December 23, 2015
Conversation Points for Luke 2:1-20
Study Format:
1. Read passage aloud. What did you notice in the reading? What words or phrase caught your attention?
2. Read passage aloud a second time. What questions would you ask the text?
3. Read passage aloud a third time. What do you hear God calling you to do or be in response to this text?
Interesting Ideas to Consider:
• Most of the birth narrative is spent setting context. Trying to place an exact date to the events inevitably breaks down for modern scholars. There is record of a census by Quirinius, but only of Judea. And because censuses were preformed for tax purposes, there would be no need to travel. The importance for Luke, like in chapter 3, is not with historical accuracy. The importance is placing the significance of the birth in relation to world history. Jesus birth is central enough to deserve to be listed among such powerful events as the reign of the emperor.
• Another important context point the census brings to light is the overwhelming power of the empire that it could force an entire nation to uproot itself and travel to its ancestral home. It makes the claim of a new king that much more amazing, and more necessary.
• Augustus was widely acclaimed as a bringer of peace. So by relating the birth as announcing “peace on earth” (Luke 2:14), Luke subtly proclaims Jesus as the true bringer of peace.
• The birth taking place is Bethlehem is important because it links Jesus to David, fulfilling the promises that the Messiah would come from the Davidic line.
• That the angel would first visit shepherds is an important detail in the kind of king Jesus will be. Shepherding was a despised occupation. Shepherds were considered to be shiftless and dishonest. Yet it is too them that the announcement of the birth of the Messiah is first proclaimed.
Works Sourced:
Culpepper, R. Alan. “The Gospel of Luke.” The New Interpreter’s Bible Volume IX. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1995.
1. Read passage aloud. What did you notice in the reading? What words or phrase caught your attention?
2. Read passage aloud a second time. What questions would you ask the text?
3. Read passage aloud a third time. What do you hear God calling you to do or be in response to this text?
Interesting Ideas to Consider:
• Most of the birth narrative is spent setting context. Trying to place an exact date to the events inevitably breaks down for modern scholars. There is record of a census by Quirinius, but only of Judea. And because censuses were preformed for tax purposes, there would be no need to travel. The importance for Luke, like in chapter 3, is not with historical accuracy. The importance is placing the significance of the birth in relation to world history. Jesus birth is central enough to deserve to be listed among such powerful events as the reign of the emperor.
• Another important context point the census brings to light is the overwhelming power of the empire that it could force an entire nation to uproot itself and travel to its ancestral home. It makes the claim of a new king that much more amazing, and more necessary.
• Augustus was widely acclaimed as a bringer of peace. So by relating the birth as announcing “peace on earth” (Luke 2:14), Luke subtly proclaims Jesus as the true bringer of peace.
• The birth taking place is Bethlehem is important because it links Jesus to David, fulfilling the promises that the Messiah would come from the Davidic line.
• That the angel would first visit shepherds is an important detail in the kind of king Jesus will be. Shepherding was a despised occupation. Shepherds were considered to be shiftless and dishonest. Yet it is too them that the announcement of the birth of the Messiah is first proclaimed.
Works Sourced:
Culpepper, R. Alan. “The Gospel of Luke.” The New Interpreter’s Bible Volume IX. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1995.
How Can This Be?: A Sermon on Luke 1:39-56
Our Gospel reading for today drops us in the middle of the story. So in order to understand the wonder of this meeting, let’s start where Luke started, at verse five in Jerusalem, with a minor priest named Zechariah. Zechariah was married to Elizabeth, whom, Luke tells us, is a descendant of Aaron, and thus also a member of the priestly class by birth, not just by marriage. And even though Zechariah and Elizabeth were righteous before God and lived blamelessly according to the commandments, they were, in a time when one’s faith and worth were determined by their offspring, childless. One can only assume this had been heartbreaking to them in their younger years, but they were older now, past childbearing age, and certainly resigned to their fate of being childless.
Until one day, when it was Zechariah’s turn to enter into the sanctuary of the Lord and offer incense. And while he was in there, doing his priestly duty, the angel Gabriel appeared before him. The angel informed him that his prayers had been answered; his wife was to become pregnant and bear a son. Zechariah was incredulous. “How can this be,” he asked. “For I am an old man, and my wife is getting on in years.” Which seems like a polite way to say, “quit kidding around angel, and let me get back to my work.”
But the angel would not be so easily dismissed. “I am Gabriel,” the angel replied. “I stand in the presence of God, and I have been sent to speak to you and to bring you this good news. But now, because you did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled in their time, you will become mute, unable to speak, until the day these things occur.” And Zechariah is instantly struck mute, a strange experience for a priest in a patriarchal clerical society, someone who was certainly used to having his voice heard. Zechariah would speak again, at the naming of his son, his mouth would be open, and his first phrase would be “Blessed be the God of Israel.” But for the next nine months, he would be silent. And in that silence Elizabeth, who up to this point has been strangely absent despite the fact that one might argue she has more at stake physically in these events then Zechariah does, finds her voice, proclaiming, “This is what the Lord has done for me.”
And then the story jumps from Jerusalem to Nazareth, where the angel announced another unexpected pregnancy. This time to Mary, a girl as young as Elizabeth was old. Elizabeth had lived a lifetime as a wife of a priest, while Mary was engaged, but not yet married, to a man named Joseph. As a descendant of the house of David, Joseph may have held some esteem in some places, but certainly very little in Gentile Galilee. But Joseph is a bit player in this narrative, merely a name mentioned to set the background. The focus instead is on Mary.
“Greetings, favored one,” the angel said to Mary. “The Lord is with you. You will bear a son and you will name him Jesus. He will be great, and will be called Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David.” And Mary, an unwed girl child from a small backwater community, certainly used to being told what to do, has the exact same response as the experienced and listened to Zechariah. “How can this be?”
But unlike with Zechariah, where the angel responded to his questioning by striking him mute, with Mary the angel responded much differently. He explained. “The Holy Spirit will come upon you,” he told her. “And the power of the Most High will overshadow you. And now your relative Elizabeth will also conceive and bear a son, for nothing is impossible with God.” Instead of silencing her, the angel gives Mary both explanation and evidence. Here’s how it will happen, he told her. And if that isn’t enough, you can go and see Elizabeth, and her pregnancy will show you the truth of my words, the power of the Most High God.
This is where our Gospel reading picks up this morning, with these two different stories coming together. The description starts wide, and then quickly narrows to the point. “Mary set out with haste to a Judean town, in the hill country, where she entered the house of Zechariah, and greeted Elizabeth.” Here we see the reason for the journey, to find her relative Elizabeth, to see if Elizabeth was in fact pregnant, and to know if the words of this angel could possibly be true. And as soon as Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child within her leapt with joy, fulfilling the words the angel had said to Zechariah, that “even before his birth the child would be filled with the Holy Spirit.” And in this greeting and leaping, Elizabeth too was filled with the Holy Spirit and exclaimed, “Blessed are you among women! And why is this happening, that the mother of my Lord comes to me?” Not only is Elizabeth pregnant, as the angel had said she would be, but in an instant she recognized not only that Mary, who could not be more than a few weeks along at this point, was also pregnant, and was bearing the Son of God. This was enough for Mary too to exclaim. And Mary broke out in the beautiful song that we said together this morning, what is known as the Magnificat. Some scholars call the Magnificat the theological reflection of the Gospel story. In this brief song, Mary spoke of a God who not just would, but had already done great things. She recounted God’s saving actions in the past, how God’s mighty arm had led the people from slavery to freedom under Pharaoh and from the Babylonians. She spoke of a God who brought the mighty down from their thrones and uplifted the humble, who filled the hungry and sent the rich away empty, and how all this was the fulfillment of the promises God had made long ago. It is a beautiful song of hope and praise for those who find themselves cast down, that God is already on the side of the weak and downtrodden. It promises that the one who is coming is a king like no other, a king of mercy and grace, of peace and love.
There is temptation in this beautiful song by Mary and in the words of the angel and of Elizabeth, to place Mary up on a pedestal of woman above all women, blessed handmaiden of the Lord, possessor of a level of holiness and humility that can be wondered at but never attained. But remember, Mary is just a girl, a child really, and what the Magnificat really testifies to is not Mary’s weakness but God’s greatness. The Magnificat is true humility because it does not weaken the events of which Mary will be a part, but it recognizes the powerful role that Mary is to play. What Mary models is that humility is not putting ourselves down, it is being the best version of ourselves in honor of the God who created us. This is something we have trouble with as Lutherans, and as people. It is hard to, like Mary did, accept a compliment for who one is. But if God has blessed you with a gift, claim it. It does the world no good to play down who you are, whether you are a singer or kind or the bearer of the Son of God, so claim it, live into it, and embrace that you are more than you thought you could be.
The other thing this story can teach us is that it is ok to question and even to doubt the work that God has for us. Both Mary and Zechariah questioned the angel’s words to them, and the angel’s words came true regardless. These events were not predicated on Mary or Zechariah’s ability to embrace them; they were predicated on the God who set them into motion. But the angel’s response to Zechariah’s question and Mary’s question was different, and I think it comes down to the expected response of the questioner. Zechariah questioned from a place of power and authority, he assumed he would be right. Mary questioned from a place of weakness and vulnerability, she assumed that she was wrong. For his arrogance, Zechariah got a nine month time out, if you will, to contemplate the wonder God had in store for him; while for her uncertainty, Mary got explanation, guidance, and a friend and companion in Elizabeth to walk with her in the strange, uncertain journey ahead.
These different responses offer challenge and hope for us too, in times of certainty and uncertainty. When we are called to tasks which seem above our doing, roles for which we feel unprepared, be that task sharing a gift we didn’t know we had, forgiving someone who has hurt us, or simply walking through another day, we can look to the angel’s response to Zechariah and Mary, and know that God’s will for our lives will be accomplished whether we can believe it or not. And in the times that we are sure that God is wrong, we may find ourselves silenced. But in the times that we are sure we are wrong, we can trust God to provide us forgiveness, hope, and guides along the way who will walk with us in our journey.
In these final days before the Advent, the coming of our Lord, let us remember that this birth is not a story of our past, but a story of our present. For God is still born among us, each and every day, in water and word, in wine and bread, in companionship and faith and community. And like Mary, Elizabeth, and Zechariah, we too are called and equipped to be God-bearers for each other, bringing the promise of the coming hope. Thanks be to God. Amen.
Until one day, when it was Zechariah’s turn to enter into the sanctuary of the Lord and offer incense. And while he was in there, doing his priestly duty, the angel Gabriel appeared before him. The angel informed him that his prayers had been answered; his wife was to become pregnant and bear a son. Zechariah was incredulous. “How can this be,” he asked. “For I am an old man, and my wife is getting on in years.” Which seems like a polite way to say, “quit kidding around angel, and let me get back to my work.”
But the angel would not be so easily dismissed. “I am Gabriel,” the angel replied. “I stand in the presence of God, and I have been sent to speak to you and to bring you this good news. But now, because you did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled in their time, you will become mute, unable to speak, until the day these things occur.” And Zechariah is instantly struck mute, a strange experience for a priest in a patriarchal clerical society, someone who was certainly used to having his voice heard. Zechariah would speak again, at the naming of his son, his mouth would be open, and his first phrase would be “Blessed be the God of Israel.” But for the next nine months, he would be silent. And in that silence Elizabeth, who up to this point has been strangely absent despite the fact that one might argue she has more at stake physically in these events then Zechariah does, finds her voice, proclaiming, “This is what the Lord has done for me.”
And then the story jumps from Jerusalem to Nazareth, where the angel announced another unexpected pregnancy. This time to Mary, a girl as young as Elizabeth was old. Elizabeth had lived a lifetime as a wife of a priest, while Mary was engaged, but not yet married, to a man named Joseph. As a descendant of the house of David, Joseph may have held some esteem in some places, but certainly very little in Gentile Galilee. But Joseph is a bit player in this narrative, merely a name mentioned to set the background. The focus instead is on Mary.
“Greetings, favored one,” the angel said to Mary. “The Lord is with you. You will bear a son and you will name him Jesus. He will be great, and will be called Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David.” And Mary, an unwed girl child from a small backwater community, certainly used to being told what to do, has the exact same response as the experienced and listened to Zechariah. “How can this be?”
But unlike with Zechariah, where the angel responded to his questioning by striking him mute, with Mary the angel responded much differently. He explained. “The Holy Spirit will come upon you,” he told her. “And the power of the Most High will overshadow you. And now your relative Elizabeth will also conceive and bear a son, for nothing is impossible with God.” Instead of silencing her, the angel gives Mary both explanation and evidence. Here’s how it will happen, he told her. And if that isn’t enough, you can go and see Elizabeth, and her pregnancy will show you the truth of my words, the power of the Most High God.
This is where our Gospel reading picks up this morning, with these two different stories coming together. The description starts wide, and then quickly narrows to the point. “Mary set out with haste to a Judean town, in the hill country, where she entered the house of Zechariah, and greeted Elizabeth.” Here we see the reason for the journey, to find her relative Elizabeth, to see if Elizabeth was in fact pregnant, and to know if the words of this angel could possibly be true. And as soon as Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child within her leapt with joy, fulfilling the words the angel had said to Zechariah, that “even before his birth the child would be filled with the Holy Spirit.” And in this greeting and leaping, Elizabeth too was filled with the Holy Spirit and exclaimed, “Blessed are you among women! And why is this happening, that the mother of my Lord comes to me?” Not only is Elizabeth pregnant, as the angel had said she would be, but in an instant she recognized not only that Mary, who could not be more than a few weeks along at this point, was also pregnant, and was bearing the Son of God. This was enough for Mary too to exclaim. And Mary broke out in the beautiful song that we said together this morning, what is known as the Magnificat. Some scholars call the Magnificat the theological reflection of the Gospel story. In this brief song, Mary spoke of a God who not just would, but had already done great things. She recounted God’s saving actions in the past, how God’s mighty arm had led the people from slavery to freedom under Pharaoh and from the Babylonians. She spoke of a God who brought the mighty down from their thrones and uplifted the humble, who filled the hungry and sent the rich away empty, and how all this was the fulfillment of the promises God had made long ago. It is a beautiful song of hope and praise for those who find themselves cast down, that God is already on the side of the weak and downtrodden. It promises that the one who is coming is a king like no other, a king of mercy and grace, of peace and love.
There is temptation in this beautiful song by Mary and in the words of the angel and of Elizabeth, to place Mary up on a pedestal of woman above all women, blessed handmaiden of the Lord, possessor of a level of holiness and humility that can be wondered at but never attained. But remember, Mary is just a girl, a child really, and what the Magnificat really testifies to is not Mary’s weakness but God’s greatness. The Magnificat is true humility because it does not weaken the events of which Mary will be a part, but it recognizes the powerful role that Mary is to play. What Mary models is that humility is not putting ourselves down, it is being the best version of ourselves in honor of the God who created us. This is something we have trouble with as Lutherans, and as people. It is hard to, like Mary did, accept a compliment for who one is. But if God has blessed you with a gift, claim it. It does the world no good to play down who you are, whether you are a singer or kind or the bearer of the Son of God, so claim it, live into it, and embrace that you are more than you thought you could be.
The other thing this story can teach us is that it is ok to question and even to doubt the work that God has for us. Both Mary and Zechariah questioned the angel’s words to them, and the angel’s words came true regardless. These events were not predicated on Mary or Zechariah’s ability to embrace them; they were predicated on the God who set them into motion. But the angel’s response to Zechariah’s question and Mary’s question was different, and I think it comes down to the expected response of the questioner. Zechariah questioned from a place of power and authority, he assumed he would be right. Mary questioned from a place of weakness and vulnerability, she assumed that she was wrong. For his arrogance, Zechariah got a nine month time out, if you will, to contemplate the wonder God had in store for him; while for her uncertainty, Mary got explanation, guidance, and a friend and companion in Elizabeth to walk with her in the strange, uncertain journey ahead.
These different responses offer challenge and hope for us too, in times of certainty and uncertainty. When we are called to tasks which seem above our doing, roles for which we feel unprepared, be that task sharing a gift we didn’t know we had, forgiving someone who has hurt us, or simply walking through another day, we can look to the angel’s response to Zechariah and Mary, and know that God’s will for our lives will be accomplished whether we can believe it or not. And in the times that we are sure that God is wrong, we may find ourselves silenced. But in the times that we are sure we are wrong, we can trust God to provide us forgiveness, hope, and guides along the way who will walk with us in our journey.
In these final days before the Advent, the coming of our Lord, let us remember that this birth is not a story of our past, but a story of our present. For God is still born among us, each and every day, in water and word, in wine and bread, in companionship and faith and community. And like Mary, Elizabeth, and Zechariah, we too are called and equipped to be God-bearers for each other, bringing the promise of the coming hope. Thanks be to God. Amen.
Thursday, December 17, 2015
Conversation Points for Luke 1:39-56
Study Format:
1. Read passage aloud. What did you notice in the reading? What words or phrase caught your attention?
2. Read passage aloud a second time. What questions would you ask the text?
3. Read passage aloud a third time. What do you hear God calling you to do or be in response to this text?
Interesting Ideas to Consider:
• In this section the two storylines, the angel’s announcement to Zechariah that his wife would bear a son, and the angel’s announcement to Mary that she would bear a son, come together.
• Several parts of this story fulfill the signs described in the encounter between Zechariah and the angel Gabriel. 1) Zechariah is speechless, 2) Elizabeth conceived, and now 3) the child leapt at the approach of Mary, fulfilling Luke 1:15 that “even before his birth the child would be filled with the Holy Spirit.”
• In Luke’s Gospel, the coming of the Holy Spirit always indicates action. When the Holy Spirit comes upon someone, they are transformed. Example Acts 2:1-20.
• The story says Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit, alerting us to her next words as words from God. That Mary and the child will be blessed, that Mary is the “mother of my Lord,” that the movement of her own child is a leap of joy, and a beatitude to Mary for her faith and that the promise to her would be fulfilled.
• The Magnificat, Mary’s response to Elizabeth is a theological reflection on the meaning of the incarnation in Luke. It contains echoes of the song of Hannah in 1 Sam 2:1-10. It also draws from other biblical imagery, like the mighty hand of God leading Israel through the wilderness.
Works Sourced:
Culpepper, R. Alan. “The Gospel of Luke.” The New Interpreter’s Bible Volume IX. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1995.
1. Read passage aloud. What did you notice in the reading? What words or phrase caught your attention?
2. Read passage aloud a second time. What questions would you ask the text?
3. Read passage aloud a third time. What do you hear God calling you to do or be in response to this text?
Interesting Ideas to Consider:
• In this section the two storylines, the angel’s announcement to Zechariah that his wife would bear a son, and the angel’s announcement to Mary that she would bear a son, come together.
• Several parts of this story fulfill the signs described in the encounter between Zechariah and the angel Gabriel. 1) Zechariah is speechless, 2) Elizabeth conceived, and now 3) the child leapt at the approach of Mary, fulfilling Luke 1:15 that “even before his birth the child would be filled with the Holy Spirit.”
• In Luke’s Gospel, the coming of the Holy Spirit always indicates action. When the Holy Spirit comes upon someone, they are transformed. Example Acts 2:1-20.
• The story says Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit, alerting us to her next words as words from God. That Mary and the child will be blessed, that Mary is the “mother of my Lord,” that the movement of her own child is a leap of joy, and a beatitude to Mary for her faith and that the promise to her would be fulfilled.
• The Magnificat, Mary’s response to Elizabeth is a theological reflection on the meaning of the incarnation in Luke. It contains echoes of the song of Hannah in 1 Sam 2:1-10. It also draws from other biblical imagery, like the mighty hand of God leading Israel through the wilderness.
Works Sourced:
Culpepper, R. Alan. “The Gospel of Luke.” The New Interpreter’s Bible Volume IX. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1995.
Monday, December 14, 2015
John the Baptist: Crazy Uncle or Wise Old Mentor: A Sermon on Luke 3:7-18
Who taught John the Baptist to preach? I mean, seriously, “You brood of vipers!”? How many of you would stick around if I began every sermon by yelling at you and calling you names? In all the books on evangelism and church growth that I’ve read, not one of them recommended calling people snakes as a great tool to win friends and influence people.
We don’t ever quite know what to do with John the Baptist. He shows up every Advent, just as the holiday season is ramping up to its most frenzied state of joy and shopping and merriment. Only this voice in the wilderness is not singing a joyous song of praise to announce the birth of the sweet, baby coming Messiah. No, this voice is angry! He is a wild man in the wilderness blaring insults, hollering about stones turning to children, and warning people to beware the fiery wrath to come. John the Baptist does not get much play in commercialized Christmas. Instead he gets dismissed, pushed to the side, like that one weird uncle everyone tries to ignore. You know, the one who always gets drunk at family gatherings and starts spouting conspiracy theories. Think about it. No one sells holiday greeting cards with angry staff-wielding wild men on the front and “Get ready, you brood of vipers” printed inside.
And, truthfully, I think our holidays are the poorer for it. I’ve spent the last couple weeks immersed in these words from John the Baptist, and I have to say, I’ve come to really feel a deep fondness for the fellow. I’ve come to wonder if John the Baptist is maybe not that one crazy uncle, but is in fact that crusty but wise old mentor who loves us so much that he wants more for us than we believe we are capable of and who refuses to let us settle for less than our best. So let’s take a deeper look into these words from John the Baptist, and see how this sermon really is, as the writer of Luke called it, “the good news to the people.”
Our Gospel text for today comes right on the heels of the text from last week. Last week we heard how in the middle of the reign of all these rich and powerful rulers, the word of God came to John, son of Zechariah, and he went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, as was written in the book of Isaiah. This morning we hear the results of John’s proclamations. Crowds began gathering in the Judean wilderness, flocking to hear this wild and strange prophet, and to be baptized by him in the Jordan. John should be happy, right? This seems like exactly what he was trying to accomplish. But instead he denounced the crowds, “you brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?” Um, you did, John. You went throughout the whole region proclaiming a baptism of repentance, and here are folk to be baptized, what did you expect them to do?
But what I think John was cautioning against here, is seeing this baptism of repentance as some sort of “get out of jail free” card, instead of the radical reorientation of life that it is. I think John was concerned that the crowd saw baptism like a rainy day fund, something you get done and then stick on a shelf until you need it, and then you are free to just go about your normal life. But remember, the Greek word for repentance is metanoia, which means to literally be turned around and set off in another direction. When John told the crowd to “bear fruit worthy of repentance,” he didn’t mean the crowd had to bear fruit in order to earn their repentance. He meant that if they had truly received repentance, the proof of that repentance would be in the fruit that they bore. For good fruit is the only possible response to repentance. When Martin Luther first started preaching a message of salvation by grace through faith as a gift from God, that there was nothing that humanity could do to earn God’s grace, he got a lot of pushback from the religious community afraid that without the threat of having to earn salvation, people would stop living rightly. They argued that it was only the threat of damnation that kept people in check. No, Luther argued, in fact the opposite was true. If people realized that God loved them so much exactly as they were, then the gratitude they would feel for this free gift of grace would so transform them that they could not help but do good works. And those good works would be better and more true for being done from a place of gratitude rather than a place of obligation.
But you have to know you received a gift in order to respond out of gratitude to it. Which is the point John was trying to get across to the crowd when he cautioned, “do not say to yourselves, ‘we have Abraham as our ancestor,’ for God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham.” Don’t think, John said to the crowd, that you deserve repentance by virtue of birthright. This is a gift freely given by God and there is nothing you can do to earn it or be worthy of it. John wanted the crowd to get out of its own way, so it could be transformed by the promise of repentance God had for them.
So what then do we do? The crowd asked John. How then shall we live? And John told them. John gave them clear, concrete ethical ways of living. He didn’t tell them “the ax is lying at the foot of the tree, so tough luck for you, suckers,” and then mic drop and walk away. No, he spelled it out for them. If you have two coats, share with someone who has none. If you have food, share it. If you’re a tax collector, do your job and collect taxes, but don’t take advantage of people and collect more than your share. If you’re a soldier, be a soldier, don’t be a bully. These are hard words, but they’re not impossible. It is hard to cut through the greed, pride, or our own fear to admit that we have more than enough and can afford to give some away. We know it, the crowd knew it, and John knew it. But after tearing the crowd down with all the ways they fell short, John built them back up with these clear concrete examples of what it meant to bear good fruit, so they could have hope. So they could know they were not simply rotten trees waiting for the ax, but that within them was the potential for a bountiful harvest, and they could be about the work of bearing good fruit.
And then John got to the third part of his sermon, the reason for all this baptizing and fruit bearing. The reason this message from John makes its way into our Advent lectionary. John told the crowds that the “one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”
Jesus is coming. That is what we celebrate at Christmas, what we wait for in Advent, the coming of Christ in our midst. And John wanted the crowd gathered at the Jordan to be ready for the coming of Christ among them. Not because Jesus needed them to be ready to herald his coming. Not because the crowd could make themselves any more or less worthy of earning Christ’s love. But because John knew that when they came face to face with the living God, they would want to be ready, and he wanted them to feel the best, most prepared, most ready for the moment that they could. He wanted them to be able to stand before God with their heads held high, not because God needed them to, but because it would make the crowd feel proud to live in ways that were honoring to God.
I thought a lot about John’s final metaphor for the coming of Christ, this one about how Christ would come with his winnowing fork in hand to clear the threshing floor. How he would separate the wheat from the chaff, and the wheat he would gather in his barns but the chaff would burn with unquenchable fire. Wheat is the hearty part of the crop, while chaff is the excess that needs to be shaken off before the wheat can be stored and consumed. So, to the best of my limited knowledge of old farming practices, the way they were separated was by throwing the grain into the air. The wheat was heavy and it would fall back to the barn floor, but the chaff was light and the winds would blow it away. It is a temptation to read this text as a description of two different groups of people, wheat people and chaff people. To assume that John is cautioning that Jesus will come to separate the wheat people from the chaff people, saving the wheat people, the people doing God’s work, and punishing the chaff people, the weak, lazy people who have not earned their keep. But when I examine my own soul in the way that John challenged the crowd to do, I find the answer more complicated than that. I find within myself both wheat and chaff, both the desire to do God’s work and the weakness, boasting, fear, and pride that John cautioned the crowd against. And what John seems to be saying here, and what I’ve experienced to be true, is that the Holy Spirit comes blowing through us, like a mighty wind, like a refiners fire, and burns out all of the parts of ourselves that are chaff, leaving the best parts of ourselves behind. It is painful to have the chaff burned away. To admit our faults, our guilts, our pride, and our shame. To have laid open our sin and our brokenness, the ways we fail and fall short, as we say in the confession and forgiveness, the things we have done and the things we have failed to do. But also, isn’t that what we want at Advent, isn’t that the thing that keeps us coming back again and again, to the font and to the table, this promise that God can remake us, that God can redeem us, that God is even now working in our lives with forgiveness and grace and love to make from us the precious, blessed children of God that God has created us to be?
And so, like that crusty but wise old mentor who sees in us more potential than we can see in ourselves, John challenges us this Advent to begin the process of separating the wheat from the chaff, of seeing in ourselves the ways we fall short, and in finding strength we didn’t know we had to begin to bear fruit worthy of the incredible gift we have given. Because God is already at work within us, creating these new people from us. We know it to be true. We’ve experienced this forgiveness time and time again. But what a gift to get to be a part of this great transformation. Amen.
We don’t ever quite know what to do with John the Baptist. He shows up every Advent, just as the holiday season is ramping up to its most frenzied state of joy and shopping and merriment. Only this voice in the wilderness is not singing a joyous song of praise to announce the birth of the sweet, baby coming Messiah. No, this voice is angry! He is a wild man in the wilderness blaring insults, hollering about stones turning to children, and warning people to beware the fiery wrath to come. John the Baptist does not get much play in commercialized Christmas. Instead he gets dismissed, pushed to the side, like that one weird uncle everyone tries to ignore. You know, the one who always gets drunk at family gatherings and starts spouting conspiracy theories. Think about it. No one sells holiday greeting cards with angry staff-wielding wild men on the front and “Get ready, you brood of vipers” printed inside.
And, truthfully, I think our holidays are the poorer for it. I’ve spent the last couple weeks immersed in these words from John the Baptist, and I have to say, I’ve come to really feel a deep fondness for the fellow. I’ve come to wonder if John the Baptist is maybe not that one crazy uncle, but is in fact that crusty but wise old mentor who loves us so much that he wants more for us than we believe we are capable of and who refuses to let us settle for less than our best. So let’s take a deeper look into these words from John the Baptist, and see how this sermon really is, as the writer of Luke called it, “the good news to the people.”
Our Gospel text for today comes right on the heels of the text from last week. Last week we heard how in the middle of the reign of all these rich and powerful rulers, the word of God came to John, son of Zechariah, and he went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, as was written in the book of Isaiah. This morning we hear the results of John’s proclamations. Crowds began gathering in the Judean wilderness, flocking to hear this wild and strange prophet, and to be baptized by him in the Jordan. John should be happy, right? This seems like exactly what he was trying to accomplish. But instead he denounced the crowds, “you brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?” Um, you did, John. You went throughout the whole region proclaiming a baptism of repentance, and here are folk to be baptized, what did you expect them to do?
But what I think John was cautioning against here, is seeing this baptism of repentance as some sort of “get out of jail free” card, instead of the radical reorientation of life that it is. I think John was concerned that the crowd saw baptism like a rainy day fund, something you get done and then stick on a shelf until you need it, and then you are free to just go about your normal life. But remember, the Greek word for repentance is metanoia, which means to literally be turned around and set off in another direction. When John told the crowd to “bear fruit worthy of repentance,” he didn’t mean the crowd had to bear fruit in order to earn their repentance. He meant that if they had truly received repentance, the proof of that repentance would be in the fruit that they bore. For good fruit is the only possible response to repentance. When Martin Luther first started preaching a message of salvation by grace through faith as a gift from God, that there was nothing that humanity could do to earn God’s grace, he got a lot of pushback from the religious community afraid that without the threat of having to earn salvation, people would stop living rightly. They argued that it was only the threat of damnation that kept people in check. No, Luther argued, in fact the opposite was true. If people realized that God loved them so much exactly as they were, then the gratitude they would feel for this free gift of grace would so transform them that they could not help but do good works. And those good works would be better and more true for being done from a place of gratitude rather than a place of obligation.
But you have to know you received a gift in order to respond out of gratitude to it. Which is the point John was trying to get across to the crowd when he cautioned, “do not say to yourselves, ‘we have Abraham as our ancestor,’ for God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham.” Don’t think, John said to the crowd, that you deserve repentance by virtue of birthright. This is a gift freely given by God and there is nothing you can do to earn it or be worthy of it. John wanted the crowd to get out of its own way, so it could be transformed by the promise of repentance God had for them.
So what then do we do? The crowd asked John. How then shall we live? And John told them. John gave them clear, concrete ethical ways of living. He didn’t tell them “the ax is lying at the foot of the tree, so tough luck for you, suckers,” and then mic drop and walk away. No, he spelled it out for them. If you have two coats, share with someone who has none. If you have food, share it. If you’re a tax collector, do your job and collect taxes, but don’t take advantage of people and collect more than your share. If you’re a soldier, be a soldier, don’t be a bully. These are hard words, but they’re not impossible. It is hard to cut through the greed, pride, or our own fear to admit that we have more than enough and can afford to give some away. We know it, the crowd knew it, and John knew it. But after tearing the crowd down with all the ways they fell short, John built them back up with these clear concrete examples of what it meant to bear good fruit, so they could have hope. So they could know they were not simply rotten trees waiting for the ax, but that within them was the potential for a bountiful harvest, and they could be about the work of bearing good fruit.
And then John got to the third part of his sermon, the reason for all this baptizing and fruit bearing. The reason this message from John makes its way into our Advent lectionary. John told the crowds that the “one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”
Jesus is coming. That is what we celebrate at Christmas, what we wait for in Advent, the coming of Christ in our midst. And John wanted the crowd gathered at the Jordan to be ready for the coming of Christ among them. Not because Jesus needed them to be ready to herald his coming. Not because the crowd could make themselves any more or less worthy of earning Christ’s love. But because John knew that when they came face to face with the living God, they would want to be ready, and he wanted them to feel the best, most prepared, most ready for the moment that they could. He wanted them to be able to stand before God with their heads held high, not because God needed them to, but because it would make the crowd feel proud to live in ways that were honoring to God.
I thought a lot about John’s final metaphor for the coming of Christ, this one about how Christ would come with his winnowing fork in hand to clear the threshing floor. How he would separate the wheat from the chaff, and the wheat he would gather in his barns but the chaff would burn with unquenchable fire. Wheat is the hearty part of the crop, while chaff is the excess that needs to be shaken off before the wheat can be stored and consumed. So, to the best of my limited knowledge of old farming practices, the way they were separated was by throwing the grain into the air. The wheat was heavy and it would fall back to the barn floor, but the chaff was light and the winds would blow it away. It is a temptation to read this text as a description of two different groups of people, wheat people and chaff people. To assume that John is cautioning that Jesus will come to separate the wheat people from the chaff people, saving the wheat people, the people doing God’s work, and punishing the chaff people, the weak, lazy people who have not earned their keep. But when I examine my own soul in the way that John challenged the crowd to do, I find the answer more complicated than that. I find within myself both wheat and chaff, both the desire to do God’s work and the weakness, boasting, fear, and pride that John cautioned the crowd against. And what John seems to be saying here, and what I’ve experienced to be true, is that the Holy Spirit comes blowing through us, like a mighty wind, like a refiners fire, and burns out all of the parts of ourselves that are chaff, leaving the best parts of ourselves behind. It is painful to have the chaff burned away. To admit our faults, our guilts, our pride, and our shame. To have laid open our sin and our brokenness, the ways we fail and fall short, as we say in the confession and forgiveness, the things we have done and the things we have failed to do. But also, isn’t that what we want at Advent, isn’t that the thing that keeps us coming back again and again, to the font and to the table, this promise that God can remake us, that God can redeem us, that God is even now working in our lives with forgiveness and grace and love to make from us the precious, blessed children of God that God has created us to be?
And so, like that crusty but wise old mentor who sees in us more potential than we can see in ourselves, John challenges us this Advent to begin the process of separating the wheat from the chaff, of seeing in ourselves the ways we fall short, and in finding strength we didn’t know we had to begin to bear fruit worthy of the incredible gift we have given. Because God is already at work within us, creating these new people from us. We know it to be true. We’ve experienced this forgiveness time and time again. But what a gift to get to be a part of this great transformation. Amen.
Saturday, December 12, 2015
Conversation Points for Luke 3:7-18
Study Format:
1. Read passage aloud. What did you notice in the reading? What words or phrase caught your attention?
2. Read passage aloud a second time. What questions would you ask the text?
3. Read passage aloud a third time. What do you hear God calling you to do or be in response to this text?
Interesting Ideas to Consider:
John develops three distinct themes:
v. 7-9 – Warnings of the coming judgment
• Ethnic background doesn’t promise salvation
• Burning of a rotten tree a prophetic image of judgment
v. 10-14 – Call for ethical reforms
• End of a life-style based on greed and accumulation of material possessions
• Repentance and ethical reform, not revolution. Wealthy should give, not needy should take
v. 15-17 – Announcement of the coming Messiah
• Untying sandals is menial/slave labor
• Spirit and fire – five possible meanings
1) Fire describes the inflaming, purifying work of the Spirit
2) The repentant will receive the Spirit, the unrepentant the judgment of fire
3) Greek “spirit” is the same word as “wind” – could be judgment is “mighty wind and fire”
4) Pentecost reference
5) Eschatological purification – the final judgment will be a refiner’s fire for the repentant and destruction for the unrepentant.
Works Sourced:
Culpepper, R. Alan. “The Gospel of Luke.” The New Interpreter’s Bible Volume IX. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1995.
1. Read passage aloud. What did you notice in the reading? What words or phrase caught your attention?
2. Read passage aloud a second time. What questions would you ask the text?
3. Read passage aloud a third time. What do you hear God calling you to do or be in response to this text?
Interesting Ideas to Consider:
John develops three distinct themes:
v. 7-9 – Warnings of the coming judgment
• Ethnic background doesn’t promise salvation
• Burning of a rotten tree a prophetic image of judgment
v. 10-14 – Call for ethical reforms
• End of a life-style based on greed and accumulation of material possessions
• Repentance and ethical reform, not revolution. Wealthy should give, not needy should take
v. 15-17 – Announcement of the coming Messiah
• Untying sandals is menial/slave labor
• Spirit and fire – five possible meanings
1) Fire describes the inflaming, purifying work of the Spirit
2) The repentant will receive the Spirit, the unrepentant the judgment of fire
3) Greek “spirit” is the same word as “wind” – could be judgment is “mighty wind and fire”
4) Pentecost reference
5) Eschatological purification – the final judgment will be a refiner’s fire for the repentant and destruction for the unrepentant.
Works Sourced:
Culpepper, R. Alan. “The Gospel of Luke.” The New Interpreter’s Bible Volume IX. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1995.
Monday, December 7, 2015
In the Fifteenth Year...: A Sermon on Luke 3:1-6
“In the fifteenth year of the reign of the Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee, and his brother Philip ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias ruler of Abilene, during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John…”
It feels a little bit like one of these things is not like the other in this list of fancy names that kicked off our Gospel reading for this morning. We have Tiberius, Pontius Pilate, Herod of Galilee, Philip of Ituraea, Lysanias of Abilene, Annas, Caiaphas, and John.
John isn’t just out of place here in terms of name fanciness; John is out of place here in rank. Luke opens his Gospel with the intention of writing “an orderly account of the events that have been fulfilled…so that you may know the truth.” This list of leaders is proof of that effort. In the time before a universally accepted calendar system, respectable ancient historians dated events based on who was in power at the time. Offering six different points of reference is a mark of good scholarship; Luke is proving to his audience the accuracy of his account.
Though, let me also step back and remind us that as modern readers it is important not to read too much into dates. Remember that ancient scholars had a different relationship with historical fact than we do in an age of universally accepted calendar dates. At best, Luke’s list of leaders narrows us down to a ten-year period. Pretty good, for an event that happened two-thousand plus years ago, but still not the sort of precise dating that would get you publication in current historical scholarship.
But Luke is doing something even more important with this account than telling us a date; he is setting for his readers the political framework of the event. The importance for Luke as a respectable first century historian is the context in which John appears. By naming John the Baptist in relation to these men, Luke asserts John as every bit as much of a player on the world’s stage as Tiberius or Caiaphas or Herod. Even the phrasing around John’s call sets his value. “The word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness” follows all the proper structural identifying credentials for the call of a Hebrew prophet. It is the same form used to identify Isaiah, Jeremiah, Hosea, Amos, or any of the other heroes of the faith. Luke’s statements set John as a giant of both religious and political clout.
Which is a crazy claim because nothing else about John screams powerful. The Judean wilderness was not a place of any political value, and the crowds who gathered there poor and inconsequential. This setting is even more unlikely when read along with John’s back story, which we’ll hear in two weeks, how John is the unexpected son of a minor priest and his wife, both faithful and righteous and well past child-bearing years. Herod, who eventually saw John as enough of a threat to kill him, would still have laughed to hear him named in such a list. Tiberius would possibly have never even heard of the Judean wilderness, let alone a minor prophet wandering around it in. And yet Luke places him there, in a list of the powerful, this “voice crying out in the wilderness,” “proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins” and saying, “Prepare the way of the Lord… and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.”
Reading this text in Advent highlights for us the stark unexpectedness of this season. John looks out of place on this list and yet, we no longer know the exact dates of Tiberius’s reign as emperor, or who Lysanias even was, but two-thousand years later we still gather to celebrate that the one who came into the world unexpectedly is still at work in our world today. Advent, like we talked about last week, is not preparation for the remembrance of a historical event, as one might prepare for a birthday party. What we are getting ready for is the birth itself. The coming of Christ into our world. A coming we already experience in water and word, in bread and wine, in life from death and hope in tragedy. Tiberius, Pilate, Herod, and Caiaphas were rulers over a specific group of people for a specific time and place, but the One whose coming John announced is ruler over all flesh, king of all time, salvation for the whole world. Luke places John the Baptist in a specific place and time in order to blow up the entire concept of place and time itself, to show for us a God who not just was, but is and is to come, a God whose presence in the world is not just the fulfillment of promise, but is the promise itself.
It is also fitting that we read this text on the morning that we celebrate Mark’s baptism. Because baptism too is an event that blows up place and time. This text tells us that John the Baptist came proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. This word our English Bible translates to “repentance” is the Greek word metanoia, which literally means turn around, or to be turned around. It does not mean you making the decision to change direction; it is a dramatic physical re-orientation by a source outside of your control. It is to find your entire life picked up, turned completely around, and placed in a totally new and opposite direction of where you were heading. And this radical reorientation affects not just your future; it changes your past as well. As the Psalmist writes, “before I formed you in the womb I knew you.” At Mark’s baptism, we proclaim that Mark is a child of God. We proclaim not just that there never will be, but in fact that there never has been anything that could separate God from Mark. In the unexpected simplicity of water and word, we proclaim the advent, the coming of Christ among us today, making all things new, so that all flesh shall see the salvation of God.
The promises made in the waters of baptism, that we are reoriented, that we are made new and claimed as God’s children, is a promise that we can hold onto for our whole lives. This is a promise we can cling to times when we finds ourselves in the wilderness. When the valleys rage deep, the hills tower high, and the crooked places leave him lost and confused. Because we face those times. We all face times of confusion and struggle, fear and aloneness. And in those times, we can look back to this moment and can rest confident in the promise of the words spoken by John from the prophet Isaiah, that God is already smoothing and filling, lowering and straightening, making a way for salvation to come.
This is a promise we can cling to, but it can be hard to hear sometimes. So the rite of baptism too is a challenge for us, dear people of God. A challenge to be that voice crying out in the wilderness for each other. To be the one urging preparation, offering direction, and promising hope in the midst of wilderness. To pray for Mark, and for Valerie and Mark as they raise him, to walk with them in faith, and to be together a sign of God’s presence.
And so, we could rewrite the beginning of our Gospel reading for this morning to read: In the seventh year of the presidency of Barack Obama, when Rick Snyder was governor of Michigan, and Dave Walters the mayor of Battle Creek, when Craig Satterlee was bishop of the North/West Lower Michigan Synod and Elizabeth Eaton the Bishop of the ELCA, the word of God came to Trinity Lutheran Church in Battle Creek, Michigan and they went into all the region, proclaiming the promise that God’s presence is alive in this world, and all flesh shall see the salvation of God. Amen.
It feels a little bit like one of these things is not like the other in this list of fancy names that kicked off our Gospel reading for this morning. We have Tiberius, Pontius Pilate, Herod of Galilee, Philip of Ituraea, Lysanias of Abilene, Annas, Caiaphas, and John.
John isn’t just out of place here in terms of name fanciness; John is out of place here in rank. Luke opens his Gospel with the intention of writing “an orderly account of the events that have been fulfilled…so that you may know the truth.” This list of leaders is proof of that effort. In the time before a universally accepted calendar system, respectable ancient historians dated events based on who was in power at the time. Offering six different points of reference is a mark of good scholarship; Luke is proving to his audience the accuracy of his account.
Though, let me also step back and remind us that as modern readers it is important not to read too much into dates. Remember that ancient scholars had a different relationship with historical fact than we do in an age of universally accepted calendar dates. At best, Luke’s list of leaders narrows us down to a ten-year period. Pretty good, for an event that happened two-thousand plus years ago, but still not the sort of precise dating that would get you publication in current historical scholarship.
But Luke is doing something even more important with this account than telling us a date; he is setting for his readers the political framework of the event. The importance for Luke as a respectable first century historian is the context in which John appears. By naming John the Baptist in relation to these men, Luke asserts John as every bit as much of a player on the world’s stage as Tiberius or Caiaphas or Herod. Even the phrasing around John’s call sets his value. “The word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness” follows all the proper structural identifying credentials for the call of a Hebrew prophet. It is the same form used to identify Isaiah, Jeremiah, Hosea, Amos, or any of the other heroes of the faith. Luke’s statements set John as a giant of both religious and political clout.
Which is a crazy claim because nothing else about John screams powerful. The Judean wilderness was not a place of any political value, and the crowds who gathered there poor and inconsequential. This setting is even more unlikely when read along with John’s back story, which we’ll hear in two weeks, how John is the unexpected son of a minor priest and his wife, both faithful and righteous and well past child-bearing years. Herod, who eventually saw John as enough of a threat to kill him, would still have laughed to hear him named in such a list. Tiberius would possibly have never even heard of the Judean wilderness, let alone a minor prophet wandering around it in. And yet Luke places him there, in a list of the powerful, this “voice crying out in the wilderness,” “proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins” and saying, “Prepare the way of the Lord… and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.”
Reading this text in Advent highlights for us the stark unexpectedness of this season. John looks out of place on this list and yet, we no longer know the exact dates of Tiberius’s reign as emperor, or who Lysanias even was, but two-thousand years later we still gather to celebrate that the one who came into the world unexpectedly is still at work in our world today. Advent, like we talked about last week, is not preparation for the remembrance of a historical event, as one might prepare for a birthday party. What we are getting ready for is the birth itself. The coming of Christ into our world. A coming we already experience in water and word, in bread and wine, in life from death and hope in tragedy. Tiberius, Pilate, Herod, and Caiaphas were rulers over a specific group of people for a specific time and place, but the One whose coming John announced is ruler over all flesh, king of all time, salvation for the whole world. Luke places John the Baptist in a specific place and time in order to blow up the entire concept of place and time itself, to show for us a God who not just was, but is and is to come, a God whose presence in the world is not just the fulfillment of promise, but is the promise itself.
It is also fitting that we read this text on the morning that we celebrate Mark’s baptism. Because baptism too is an event that blows up place and time. This text tells us that John the Baptist came proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. This word our English Bible translates to “repentance” is the Greek word metanoia, which literally means turn around, or to be turned around. It does not mean you making the decision to change direction; it is a dramatic physical re-orientation by a source outside of your control. It is to find your entire life picked up, turned completely around, and placed in a totally new and opposite direction of where you were heading. And this radical reorientation affects not just your future; it changes your past as well. As the Psalmist writes, “before I formed you in the womb I knew you.” At Mark’s baptism, we proclaim that Mark is a child of God. We proclaim not just that there never will be, but in fact that there never has been anything that could separate God from Mark. In the unexpected simplicity of water and word, we proclaim the advent, the coming of Christ among us today, making all things new, so that all flesh shall see the salvation of God.
The promises made in the waters of baptism, that we are reoriented, that we are made new and claimed as God’s children, is a promise that we can hold onto for our whole lives. This is a promise we can cling to times when we finds ourselves in the wilderness. When the valleys rage deep, the hills tower high, and the crooked places leave him lost and confused. Because we face those times. We all face times of confusion and struggle, fear and aloneness. And in those times, we can look back to this moment and can rest confident in the promise of the words spoken by John from the prophet Isaiah, that God is already smoothing and filling, lowering and straightening, making a way for salvation to come.
This is a promise we can cling to, but it can be hard to hear sometimes. So the rite of baptism too is a challenge for us, dear people of God. A challenge to be that voice crying out in the wilderness for each other. To be the one urging preparation, offering direction, and promising hope in the midst of wilderness. To pray for Mark, and for Valerie and Mark as they raise him, to walk with them in faith, and to be together a sign of God’s presence.
And so, we could rewrite the beginning of our Gospel reading for this morning to read: In the seventh year of the presidency of Barack Obama, when Rick Snyder was governor of Michigan, and Dave Walters the mayor of Battle Creek, when Craig Satterlee was bishop of the North/West Lower Michigan Synod and Elizabeth Eaton the Bishop of the ELCA, the word of God came to Trinity Lutheran Church in Battle Creek, Michigan and they went into all the region, proclaiming the promise that God’s presence is alive in this world, and all flesh shall see the salvation of God. Amen.
Thursday, December 3, 2015
Conversation Points for Luke 3:1-6
Study Format:
1. Read passage aloud. What did you notice in the reading? What words or phrase caught your attention?
2. Read passage aloud a second time. What questions would you ask the text?
3. Read passage aloud a third time. What do you hear God calling you to do or be in response to this text?
Interesting Ideas to Consider:
• Luke is the most academic of all the Gospel writers. He opens with his intention to write “an orderly account” (Luke 1:3). This passage demonstrates Luke’s dedication to two styles of first century academic writing, Greco-Roman historicity and the call of the Hebrew prophets.
o Greco-Roman history dated events in relation to rulers or the founding of Rome. Luke uses six different chronological vectors: the fifteenth year of the reign of the Emperor Tiberius, Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, Herod was ruler of Galilee, Philip ruler of Ituraea and Trachonitis, Lysanias ruler of Abilene, during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas. However, it is still impossible to place this at an exact date due to the inexactness of ancient calendars. Each of the ancient calendars timed the length of a year differently, so it is impossible to know how long fifteen years was. There is also the question of which year counts the beginning of Tiberius’s reign. The beginning of his co-regency? The point he became sole emperor? The other dates are even less helpful. Pilate was governor over a ten year span, eight of which overlapped with Philip, all of which overlapped with Herod of Galilee. It’s unclear who Lysanias was. And Annas and Caiaphas were not high priest at the same time. Annas was high priest from 6-15 CE and Caiaphas from 18-36 CE. The important thing for us as modern readers is not to place this event in a specific year, but that Luke places a seemingly insignificant minor prophet such as John in a list of the most powerful rulers of the time. Luke is deliberately putting John and Jesus in opposition to the recognized political leadership.
o Hebrew prophets’ calls in scripture all follow a specific formula. 1) “The Word of the Lord came” to or upon 2) the prophet 3) son of (the prophet’s father) 4) in a certain named location 5) “in the days of” the ruling king. [See Isaiah 1:1; Jeremiah 1:1-3; Ezekiel 1:3; Hosea 1:1]. Luke places John in the compendium of prophets. Prophets, remember, are not fortune tellers but truth tellers, they announce the hard realities of injustice that some would rather ignore.
• Luke 3:4-6 is a quote from Isaiah 40:3-5. The book of Isaiah outlines the time before, during, and after the Babylonian exile. Isaiah prophesized that Israel was weak because the leadership was gaining wealth at the hands of the poor, and if they continued in that path they would be conquered by their enemies. In Isaiah 40, the possibility of the Babylonian exile becomes not a threat but a reality. Isaiah 40 then promises that God will be with Israel even as they are in exile and will lead them back home. The wilderness in Isaiah is the Babylonian empire. John’s use of Isaiah is a different context but a similar time. Israel again is under captivity, this time the Romans, and John again is the voice of “one crying out in the wilderness” of God’s continued presence.
Works Sourced:
Bartlett, David L. and Barbara Brown Taylor, eds. Feasting on the Word Year C, Volume 1: Advent through Transfiguration. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009.
Culpepper, R. Alan. “The Gospel of Luke.” The New Interpreter’s Bible Volume IX. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1995.
Jones, Judith. “Commentary on Luke 3:1-6.” Working Preacher. December 6, 2015. < https://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=2702>.
Lose, David. “Advent 2 C: Audacious Historians.” in the Meantime… November 30, 2015. < http://www.davidlose.net/2015/11/advent-2-c-audacious-historians/>.
Seitz, Christopher R. “The Book of Isaiah 40-66.” The New Interpreter’s Bible Volume VI. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 2001.
1. Read passage aloud. What did you notice in the reading? What words or phrase caught your attention?
2. Read passage aloud a second time. What questions would you ask the text?
3. Read passage aloud a third time. What do you hear God calling you to do or be in response to this text?
Interesting Ideas to Consider:
• Luke is the most academic of all the Gospel writers. He opens with his intention to write “an orderly account” (Luke 1:3). This passage demonstrates Luke’s dedication to two styles of first century academic writing, Greco-Roman historicity and the call of the Hebrew prophets.
o Greco-Roman history dated events in relation to rulers or the founding of Rome. Luke uses six different chronological vectors: the fifteenth year of the reign of the Emperor Tiberius, Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, Herod was ruler of Galilee, Philip ruler of Ituraea and Trachonitis, Lysanias ruler of Abilene, during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas. However, it is still impossible to place this at an exact date due to the inexactness of ancient calendars. Each of the ancient calendars timed the length of a year differently, so it is impossible to know how long fifteen years was. There is also the question of which year counts the beginning of Tiberius’s reign. The beginning of his co-regency? The point he became sole emperor? The other dates are even less helpful. Pilate was governor over a ten year span, eight of which overlapped with Philip, all of which overlapped with Herod of Galilee. It’s unclear who Lysanias was. And Annas and Caiaphas were not high priest at the same time. Annas was high priest from 6-15 CE and Caiaphas from 18-36 CE. The important thing for us as modern readers is not to place this event in a specific year, but that Luke places a seemingly insignificant minor prophet such as John in a list of the most powerful rulers of the time. Luke is deliberately putting John and Jesus in opposition to the recognized political leadership.
o Hebrew prophets’ calls in scripture all follow a specific formula. 1) “The Word of the Lord came” to or upon 2) the prophet 3) son of (the prophet’s father) 4) in a certain named location 5) “in the days of” the ruling king. [See Isaiah 1:1; Jeremiah 1:1-3; Ezekiel 1:3; Hosea 1:1]. Luke places John in the compendium of prophets. Prophets, remember, are not fortune tellers but truth tellers, they announce the hard realities of injustice that some would rather ignore.
• Luke 3:4-6 is a quote from Isaiah 40:3-5. The book of Isaiah outlines the time before, during, and after the Babylonian exile. Isaiah prophesized that Israel was weak because the leadership was gaining wealth at the hands of the poor, and if they continued in that path they would be conquered by their enemies. In Isaiah 40, the possibility of the Babylonian exile becomes not a threat but a reality. Isaiah 40 then promises that God will be with Israel even as they are in exile and will lead them back home. The wilderness in Isaiah is the Babylonian empire. John’s use of Isaiah is a different context but a similar time. Israel again is under captivity, this time the Romans, and John again is the voice of “one crying out in the wilderness” of God’s continued presence.
Works Sourced:
Bartlett, David L. and Barbara Brown Taylor, eds. Feasting on the Word Year C, Volume 1: Advent through Transfiguration. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009.
Culpepper, R. Alan. “The Gospel of Luke.” The New Interpreter’s Bible Volume IX. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1995.
Jones, Judith. “Commentary on Luke 3:1-6.” Working Preacher. December 6, 2015. < https://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=2702>.
Lose, David. “Advent 2 C: Audacious Historians.” in the Meantime… November 30, 2015. < http://www.davidlose.net/2015/11/advent-2-c-audacious-historians/>.
Seitz, Christopher R. “The Book of Isaiah 40-66.” The New Interpreter’s Bible Volume VI. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 2001.
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