Contents:
What kind
of God wants sacrifice, whether of infant boys, yearling lambs, or an innocent
man whom the church has named “his Son”? Does our God demand or appreciate
sacrifice? Is sacrifice the best word to articulate the meaning
of the death of Christ?
Gail Ramshaw
Sacrifices
do not sanctify a person, for God stands in no need of sacrifice; but it is
the conscience of the offerer that sanctifies when it is pure, and thus moves
God to accept the offering as from a friend. Inasmuch, then, as the church
offers with single-mindedness, its gift is justly reckoned a pure sacrifice
with God.
Irenaeus
The patriarch
in black takes / candle and knife / like cutlery, / rehearsing under his breath
/ the Benediction
on the Death
of an Only Son.
Isaac stoops
under the raw wood, / carries his father on his back, / candle, velvet and all.
On the woodpile
/ Isaac’s body waits, / as women wait, fever trilling under his skin.
He will remember
the blade’s / white silence,
a lifetime /
under his father’s eyes.
from Chana Bloch, “The Sacrifice”
It is worth
some reflection to try to discern the patterns of this self-maintaining cycle
of human suffering. For a person who feels unvalued, unappreciated and
goalless is not capable of generosity and appreciation of others and therefore,
not capable of empathy and concern with their hunger and their need. In
the strictest sense, such a person needs to be rescued, redeemed, or saved as
much as the starving person whose quality of life is shriveled and brutalized
needs to be rescued, redeemed, or saved. Both are living a life that is
unfree, less than human, and marred by needless suffering. But the fearful
frustration and torture of the physically starving person can only be resolved
by that redemption of the love-starved which consists of a radical conversion
from self-centeredness to engagement with and for others.
Monika Hellwig
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The Bible both assumes the patriarchal
family and criticizes it, and the lectionary presents us with a countercultural
ambivalence about the image and reality of family. The church uses the
language of family both about itself and for its christology. The designation
of Jesus as the son of God the father brings comfort to some Christians and
distress to others.
Gail Ramshaw
As a father cares for his children,
/ so does the Lord care for the God-fearing.
Ps. 103
Our Father, by
whose name / all parenthood is known: / In love divine you claim
each family as
your own. / Bless mothers, fathers, guarding well,
with constant
love as sentinel, / the homes in which your people dwell.
F. Bland Tucker
“Our Father in heaven.”
What is this? With these words God wants to attract us,
so that we believe
he is truly our Father and we are truly his children,
in order that
we may ask him boldly and with complete confidence,
just as loving
children ask their loving father.
Martin Luther, Small Catechism
The family as described in the
Old Testament was to great degree the patriarchal economic unit. It extended
three or four generations, and its primary relationship was the father and eldest
son, who never grew away from his father, but came in time to replace his father
in the ongoing economic situation. In biblical times and until the eighteenth
century, the Western world thought that the male’s sperm contained a homunculus,
a minuscule human, and that the female functioned only as the incubator; therefore,
the infant came literally from the father and was owned by the father, who had
the right of life or death over the babies born into his household. The
role of the woman was to produce sons and so continue the male line, and her
inability to do so usually meant another woman would be introduced into the
household to meet this goal. The Genesis narratives exemplify this desire
of the wife to produce sons for her husband. . . .
The New Testament includes stories
of a surprising number of persons living outside of patriarchal family units:
Jesus himself, Mary of Magdala, James and John, John the Baptist, Paul, to name
a few. The New Testament also indicates that loyalty to Christ may require
a rejection of natural family ties. Identity in the countercultural Christian
community comes to be described in familial terms, this fictive family replacing
the economic or biological family of one’s origin.
Gail Ramshaw
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PLSE (Pastoral Leadership Search Effort -- pronounced “pulse)
wants to help every congregation identify, engage, and empower young leaders
who have the gifts for ordained ministry. NOW IS THE TIME! 50%
of ordained UM clergy in the U.S. are over age 50. Less than 13% of UM clergy
in the U.S. are under age 40.
“God is raising a new generation . . . with gifts for ordained
ministry . . . actively questing for deeper meaning in their lives . . . possessing
passion and a vision for the Christian faith and life . . . for such a time as
this!” (Esther 4:14b)
God is preparing today’s young people to devote their lives to
service. They stand ready for a place where their passions, talents, and gifts
directly meet the world’s needs. We can provide such a place – a space for
them to serve, lead, and respond to the call to live out their love of God and neighbor
as ordained leaders themselves. ( www.theplse.org
)
“Magnificat,” Chana Bloch
1)
Now the fingers and toes are formed, / the doctor says.
Nothing to worry about. Nothing to worry
about.
2)
I will carry my belly to the mountain!
I will bare it to the moon, let the wolves howl,
/ I will wear it forever.
I will hold it up every morning in my ten fingers,
/ crowing / to wake the world.
3) This flutter that comes with me everywhere
/ is my fear
or is it your jointed fingers / is it your feet
4) You are growing yourself / out
of nothing: / there’s nothing
at last I
can / do: I stop / doing: you / are
5) Miles off in the dark, / my dark, / you head
for dry land,
naked, safe / in salt waters. / Tides lap you.
Your breathing / makes me an ark.
The Christian journey is marked by distinctive emphases:
we journey as a community; Christ is the journey by which we travel; the neighbor
in need is the midpoint of the maze. The Christian life is not a solitary
journey toward personal illumination or transformative escape, a lonely search
that might be successful but all too often fails to deliver what we desired.
Here is the good news: We journey together, with all the baptized of past and
present. We search for what we already have – the presence of God and
the cry of the needy. Our goal is ensured, for we
arrive in Christ no matter how far we have traveled. I am accompanied
by all the faithful, surrounded by all the needy, upheld by the triune God.
(Gail Ramshaw)
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Prayer
before Travel:
Lord God our Father and Mother,
you kept Abraham and Sarah in safety throughout the days of their pilgrimage, you
led the children of Israel through the midst of the sea, and by a star you led the
Wise Men to the infant Jesus. Protect us now in this time as we set out to
travel, make our ways safe and our homecomings joyful, and bring us at last to our
heavenly home, where you dwell in glory with your Child and the Holy Spirit, one
God forever.
The word journey is rare in daily speech.
We take trips, or go on hikes, or set out on vacation, or join an expedition, or
move from one residence to another; but none of these is exactly a classic journey.
A journey is a quest, an ordeal, arduous search for a distant goal of enormous significance.
In a journey, the way is uncertain, the road full of dangers. We who drive
along the interstate highway in a comfortable car with food, shelter, and entertainment
readily available may live in constant motion, and yet never experience a genuine
journey.
History gives us a fuller appreciation
for the meaning of journey. We think of those prehistoric movements of entire
peoples to escape enemies or to locate a new food source. Medieval explorers
were ignorant of both their route and their destination. American immigrants
and refugees fled European religious intolerance, political injustice, and economic
hardship. These journeys were not pleasurable jaunts, but were judged as less
horrific than remaining in the present untenable situation. . . .
When we contemplate a classic journey,
we see why many religious traditions invoke the image of the journey to describe
the spiritual quest. To discover and to embrace ultimate reality requires
a continuous and often difficult movement away from what is trivial or evil and
toward what is valuable and good . . . In some traditions, pilgrimage is urged or
required. For pious Muslims, the hajj is both a literal journey to the holy
places of the religion’s founders and a symbol of one’s perpetual journeying from
secular to sacred realities. The physical journey exemplifies the spiritual
journey incumbent on the faithful. (to be continued!)
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“stones and bones,” Lucille Clifton
here is a country where old men / gather in
the capital and
speak their language filled with / stone / their
syllables are chips of bone
they speak of lifting up a creed / while cold
and still there under
their tongue is somebody else’s child / or mine
/ bones and stones
our ears bleed / red and white and blue
“Memorial Day,” William Marr
At Arlington, someone / Unknown goes down
The thousands, the thousands / Who have gone
down in faraway fields
But who won’t die in the heart-- / How do we bury
/ The thousands
Jane Hirshfield, “The
Dead Do Not Want Us Dead”
The dead do not want us dead; / such petty errors
are left for the living.
Nor do they want our mourning. / No gift to
them—not rage, not weeping.
Return one of them, any one of them, to the
earth,
and look: such foolish skipping, / such telling
of bad jokes, such feasting!
Even a cucumber, even a single anise seed: feasting.
Gail Wronsky, “O Alive Who Are Dead”
They’re fighting in deserts and caves:
we must conquer / in ourselves / what causes war.
Patience, patience, patience:
we must conquer in ourselves what / causes war.
In snow, some on crags, some in / quicksand. Some whom we
love, / whom we know—
and woundbearings and bloodshed. / Nothing can be so defeating
as inwardly doing nothing.
All poems from Sam Hamill, editor,
Poets Against the War
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Our Doctrinal Standards & General Rules: Articles of Religion
of the Methodist Church
Article I – Of Faith in the Holy Trinity
There is but one
living and true God, everlasting, without body or parts, of infinite power, wisdom,
and goodness; the maker and preserver of all things, both visible and invisible.
And in the unity of this Godhead there are three persons, of one substance, power,
and eternity – the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.
“The Trinity,” from Tissa Balasuriya, Planetary Theology
In Christian
theology the supreme example of persons is the Trinity. Three persons,
yet one God; three who are completely equal to one another, three who know and
love one another eternally and everlastingly. They lack nothing.
Yet their interrelationship is dynamic, communicative, and creative. The
created universe comes into existence as a flowering of their interpersonal
relationships. The Trinity is personal; the Trinity is social. In
the Trinity everything is in common. . . .
The teaching
of Jesus concerning himself, the Father, and the Spirit is also the revelation
of our own personal fulfillment in a concern for others. Humankind is
enveloped in the relationships among the divine persons. . . . It is in working
for others that we truly realize ourselves and become one with God.
The trinitarian
God as revealed in the New Testament is for everyone, and in everyone, in all
times and places, persons, and things. No religion or culture can monopolize
or coopt this all-loving God. . . .
Such an understanding
of Jesus, God the Father, and the Holy Spirit is an authentically Trinitarian
interpretation of the task of human liberation in the world. Relationships
within the Trinity can also be articulated in terms of creative, redemptive,
and inspirational roles in the continuing evolution of humanity and of the universe
toward the ultimate kingdom planned by God for humankind.
I happened across
a metaphor for the Trinity, in Tertullian, of all people, arguably the most curmudgeonly
theologian of all the curmudgeons of the early church. It’s an image of the
Trinity as a plant, with the Father the deep root, the Son as the shoot that breaks
forth into the world, the Spirit as that which spreads beauty and fragrance, “fructifying
the earth with flower and fruit.”
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Pour your Holy Spirit
upon [us all]: the spirit of wisdom and understanding,
the spirit of counsel
and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord,
the spirit of joy
in your presence. (Blessing at Baptism)
You have it in
the Gospel that the angel at a certain time went down into a pond, and the water
was moved. And the one who went down first into the pond was made whole.
What did the angel announce in this type, but the descent of the Holy Spirit,
which would take place in our times to consecrate the waters when invoked by
the sacerdotal prayers? The angel was the herald of the Holy Spirit, because
through spiritual grace medicine was to be applied to the infirmities of our
soul and mind. The Spirit fills all things, and possesses all things,
and operates all things and in all things, just as both God the Father and the
Son operate.
Once upon a
time we captured God and we put God in a box and we put a beautiful velvet curtain
around the box. We placed candles and flowers around the box and we said
to the poor and the dispossessed, “Come! Come and see what we have!
Come and see God!” And they knelt before God in the box. One day,
very long ago, the Spirit in the box turned the key from the inside and she
pushed it open. She looked around in the church and saw that there was
nobody there! They had all gone. Not a soul was in the place.
She said to her herself, “I’m getting out!” The Spirit shot out of the
box. She escaped and she has been sighted a few times since then.
She was last seen with a bag lady in McDonald’s.
The angels are
kind, like waiters, but not very talkative.
No wonder they
gather, like exiles / straining toward faint reports
crackling up from
below -- / war, disaster, stars plunging into the sea.
God, it appears,
is elsewhere, even here.
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The biblical
image of mother is mainly a natural image of birthing and breastfeeding.
The church has used the mother image to describe baptism and life in the church,
as though God is father and the church is mother. Some contemporary Christians,
hoping to balance the Bible’s androcentric imagery, now refer to God as mother.
n
Gail Ramshaw
The metaphor
of God as mother is built not upon stereotypes of maternal tenderness, softness,
pity and sentimentality, but upon the female experience of gestation, birth,
and lactation. This experience in most animals, including human beings,
engenders not attributes of weakness and passivity but qualities contributing
to the active defense of the young so that they may not only exist but be nourished
and grow. In the picture of God as mother, God is angry because what comes
from her being and belongs to her lacks the food and other necessities to grow
and flourish. The mother-God as creator is necessarily judge, at the very
basic level of condemning as the primary (though not the only) sin the inequitable
distribution of basic necessities for the continuation of life in its many forms.
n
Sallie McFague
Blessed be the works of your hands, O Holy One.
Blessed be these hands that have touched life.
Blessed be these hands that have nurtured creativity.
Blessed be these hands that have held pain.
Blessed be these hands that have embraced with passion.
Blessed be these hands that have tended gardens.
Blessed be these hands that have closed in anger.
Blessed be these hands that have planted new seeds.
Blessed be these hands that have harvested ripe fields.
Blessed be these hands that have cleaned, washed, mopped, scrubbed.
Blessed be these hands that have become knotty with age.
Blessed be these hands that are wrinkled and scarred from doing justice.
Blessed are these hands that have reached out and been received.
Blessed be these hands that hold the promise of the future.
Blessed be the works of your hands, O Holy One.
-- Diann Neu
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“Not by Biology, but by Love,”
Carolyn Progue, Calgary, Canada
I will not leave you orphaned. – Jesus, John 14:18.
Saying goodbye is hard sometimes. Saying farewell to people
we love who are leaving home, going on a long journey, or dying can be painful.
As John reflects on the life and death of Jesus, he writes about Jesus saying
goodbye to his friends. There is tenderness and sadness, bewilderment and reassurance.
John quotes Jesus saying, “I will not leave you orphaned.” It is as if this
33-year-old man is a father. But Jesus is not a father.
When Jesus chooses to call God “Abba” (Daddy), and when he chooses to speak
as a parent to his friends (for who but a parent could orphan someone?) he demonstrates
that family is more than a mother, father, and kids. He encourages us to open
our eyes to families that are created not by biology but by love.
When I was young, living in the far north, I became a foster mother for a beautiful
six-week-old boy. Foster parents were told not to “become attached” to babies.
These days congregations are rich in the diversity of families created by love.
Children don’t have a choice in who their family will be, but the church has
a choice about whether or not to make some children (and their adults) feel
orphaned or part of the family.
Some children live in families where there are two mothers or two fathers. Others
live with one parent, extended family member, or friend. Adoptive parents may
or may not have the same race as their chosen child. Blended families are common.
Some children may attend church school alternate Sundays because they are with
their “other” parent on rotating weekends. (Prizes for attendance would make
these children uncomfortable.) Some children are never adopted, but live in
group homes or foster homes, still others, live on the street or in shelters.
We are blessed indeed when they find their way to churches that teach us more
about what a family is . . . .
Recognition of various families-by-love can go a long way toward making children
of
“non-nuclear” families feel welcome.
When we take time to learn something about the families in our congregation,
we may feel inspired to look for stories or biblical references to families
that reflect diversity. For example, Hannah presents her son to Eli in a stunning
story of foster care; Moses is adopted; Ruth leaves her birth mother to become
daughter to Naomi.
In John’s story, Jesus knows his time on earth is ending. His compassion is
deep; his friends will feel fearful and confused. But, like a parent who loves
his children, he offers reassurance. With the Spirit of Truth, that Advocate
Jesus promised, may we pass on love and assurance to each person, and by our
attitude and actions help all God’s children feel part of the family.
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“spring song,” Lucille Clifton
the green of Jesus / is breaking the ground
and the sweet / smell of delicious Jesus
is opening the house / and the dance of Jesus music
has hold of the air and / the world is turning
in the body of Jesus and / the future is possible
The ancient world offers many examples
of the garden as the symbol of abundant life. In some stories, the deities
reside in a garden; in others, the original human paradise was a garden, with
convenient food and plentiful water. In the Qur’an, heaven is described
as a magnificent garden. The hanging gardens of Babylon symbolized the
superiority of its culture . . . Some monarchs owned a spectacular garden, its
walled luxuriance a demonstration of the wealth of the crown and a constant
reminder of the distance between the life of privilege and the peasants’ daily
grind. Usually the garden included a fountain in its center . . . Egyptian
tomb paintings often showed houses with gardens . . . .
The biblical book that most exploits the
image of the garden is the Song of Songs. The woman and her lover, the
king, meet in a paradise-like garden. The lovers’ ecstasy, like the garden
itself, is richly described with imagery of flowers such as the rose of Sharon
and lily, and trees such as apple, fig, palm, and pomegranate. Not only
is the king’s garden a private walled enclosure, the walled garden serves also
as a metaphor for the female womb and the fecundity of sexual love. Some
interpreters suggest that the Song of Songs presented a critique of the Genesis
tradition, by situating ecstasy, rather than evil, in the garden. (Gail
Ramshaw, Treasures Old and New: Images in the Lectionary)
O come, come away, for the winter is past;
The rain now is over and flowers bloom at
last . . .
O sing, sing for joy, for the time is at
hand;
The turtle-dove calls once again through
our land . . .
O come, on the fig tree there’s fruit to
be found;
The blossoming vine spreads its fragrance
around . . .
Love, love is mind and to love I belong;
Till day breathes anew and the shadows are
gone.
(Song of Songs
2:10-13, 16-17)
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“Housewarming Blessing,” Hazel
Barkham
Our homes should be / places of security, safety, comfort,
/ hospitality, and humor. / They are places where we should / be able
to be ourselves / . . . . Christian people will want / to affirm the presence
of God / in their new home and / commit themselves to realizing / the divine
presence in the sprit / and activities of the home.
Everyone gathers, if possible, in the hall of the house
or flat or in the main room.
Leader: Early on a Sunday morning women discovered that Jesus was
risen. They were given a message for his disciples . . . “He is gone before
you to Galilee.” And he goes before us, too, and is here to greet us,
to welcome us as host.
A cross is place in the middle of the hall or room.
ALL: Christ is here. God is with us.
Leader: This is the place for new beginnings,
but time past is a part of time present. In the past lie causes of joy
and sorrow. Let us acknowledge the past with thankful hearts.
ALL: This home is a place of welcome, a place of celebration, a
place of meeting, a place of joy and sorrow, a place of rest and peace.
Everyone moves to the kitchen.
Leader: What else will this home be?
ALL: This home is a place of work,
the work of head and hands.
Leader: What else is this house/flat?
ALL: This is a part of the church,
the people of God.
Everyone moves to the dining room.
Leader: What else is this home?
ALL: This is a place for sharing –
in worship, in caring, in learning, in eating.
Bread and wine are on the table.
Leader: Gracious God, we offer to you
ourselves, our minds and bodies, our home and possessions, our strengths and
weaknesses, to share in the life and service of your realm. We ask your
blessing on everyone and everything that passes through this home.
ALL: Amen.
All share a meal.
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April 10, 2005
Not available
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April 3, 2005
These things did Thomas
count as real: / The warmth of blood, the chill of steel,
The grain of wood,
the heft of stone, / The last frail twitch of flesh and bone.
The vision of his
skeptic mind / Was keen enough to make him blind
To any unexpected
act / Too large for his small world of fact.
His reasoned certainties
denied / That one could live when one had died,
Until his fingers
read like Braille / The markings of the spear and nail.
Thomas Troeger
Doubt is pain /
too lonely to know / that faith is his / twin brother.
Kahlil Gibran
“The Younger Brother of Thomas”
Thomas didn’t really
touch him. / I would have. / What can you prove just by looking?
Since when is seeing
believing? / They killed my brother’s friend / That’s fact.
And Thomas just went
crazy. / I was there. / It hurt to hear him cry like that.
I don’t want to go crazy
like Thomas has. / And then the story starts:
that Jesus isn’t dead,
/ that he’s been seen / walking through walls,
showing up at supper
time. / But nobody, nobody has touched him.
Thomas didn’t buy it.
/ I wouldn’t have either.
Never listen to an eyewitness.
Get the facts firsthand.
Don’t settle for someone
/ you can’t get a hold of.
But then this ghost or
hoax appeared / and called his name.
Thomas took one look
/ and thought that he’d seen God.
He really didn’t touch
him, see. / But doubting Thomas believes.
It would take more than
that / to convince me.
Doubting runs in the
family.
Heather Murray Elkins
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