Returning to Romans

This week in A Women's Lectionary for the Whole Church, we have a reading from Romans. It happens to be one of the parts of Romans that has been important to Christians across the centuries. In seminary this spring, we devoted a week to the study of Romans 5: 1-11, which tries to answer the question, “What shall we do to be saved?” Paul’s answer is that we can do nothing, but through Jesus, we have access to God’s grace, and we can be reconciled. God made these arrangements even before humanity knew it wanted to be saved. In other words, the initiative comes from God, not from humans. This passage can be interpreted through the lens of atonement theology: Jesus had to die so that humans can have eternal life.

In Romans 5: 1-11, I can see the power of Paul’s ideas, but I can also see how they have been misused through the ages. I am most distressed by Romans 5: 3-4: “Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; 4 perseverance, character; and character, hope” (NRSV). I read these verses, and I sense a huge history of this passage being used across centuries to tell people not to work to alleviate suffering. Or worse, I see this passage being used to tell people that suffering is actually a positive thing.

I don’t think that Paul would approve of his writing being used this way, of course. I do understand that this passage can be used to give us comfort during the times that suffering does come into our lives. I also think these passages can be dangerous because sometimes (often?), suffering does not bring perseverance, character, and hope. It’s just as likely that suffering breaks a person and for a variety of reasons, recovery isn’t possible.

This theology seems to be a sibling of the “God never sends you more than you can handle.” What do we then say to the person who suffers and doesn’t see themselves as persevering and developing character? What do we say to the person who loses all hope because of the immense suffering they have endured?

I am also troubled by the language of humans being God’s enemies and needing the blood of Jesus to save us from God’s wrath. I understand the centuries of Christian theology that have stemmed from these ideas, but I find substitutionary atonement theology problematic: God, who is so creative in other areas, can't think of any other way to save humanity? The fact that this theology is easy to misuse to manipulate people makes it even more troubling. We know that crucifixion was used for enemies of the state, threats to the Roman empire. Jesus wasn't crucified because of the sins I would commit 2000 years later. Jesus was crucified because worldly authorities saw his teaching as so threatening that it justified this punishment, so that others would take heed and be obedient to the state.

I do see the appeal of God saving humanity without humanity needing to perform actions to prove themselves worthy of saving. I am a Lutheran, and the concept of grace is important to me. But Paul’s theology in Romans has so much potential for misuse that I just can’t escape my feelings of unease as I read this passage.


It's important to realize that Paul wasn't writing for us. Paul thought that Jesus would be returning to earth in a year or two. Does that knowledge change how you see the passage? For a group of seminary students in the spring of 2022, it did. We were able to appreciate the positive parts of Paul's message in a new way.

Return to the Garden

This week, we turn our attention to the creation story in Genesis 3: 1-7. We've heard these stories so often that we often think we know what's there, only to find that it's not. Many of us think that Eve ate an apple, but it wasn't until John Milton wrote Paradise Lost in the year 1674 that Eve eats an apple. If we read all of Genesis, we might be surprised to find two creation stories. In the earliest one, God creates each part of the world and declares it good, and very good. It's in the second creation story, written much later, that we get this story of judgment.

 
Many of us have been taught that this story tells us how evil entered the world, but that's much too simplistic. In her meditation for A Women's Lectionary for the Whole Church, Dr. Wilda C. Gafney says, "In the garden God offers life, provision, knowledge (conditionally) and boundaries. . . . It is useful to consider the serpent apart from the crutch of postbiblical misidentification with Satan. . . . Perhaps rather than 'tempter,' the serpent is 'tester.' What will humanity do in response to boundaries? Test them, bend them, break them" (p. 80).

How would our current life be different if we had been taught to see Eve as someone who tested boundaries, not someone who disobeyed? She makes a choice and faces the consequences. There's a long line of thought that would argue that she makes it possible for full human expression. With the knowledge that she secures for humans, humans have more options--some of them will be wonderful, and some of those options will be horrible. There's a long line of intellectual thought that says that having those options is better than being puppets in a garden.

I think about our approach to Eve, and I compare it to our approach to Jesus. Jesus also broke the rules of his society--and they were rules that God gave the Israelites centuries before Jesus lived among us. But we celebrate Jesus. Eve, on the other hand, has been used to justify the oppression of women, because if she hadn't disobeyed God, we'd all still be happy in the garden. Men have used this argument to prove that they should be in charge. In an essay that appeared decades ago, feminist scholar Phyllis Trible says that men having dominance is a punishment, not the way that life should be. We've taken the punishment and used it to shape our society into a one that is far from what God intended.

However, Trible still sees this story as one that can give us hope: “The Yahwist narrative tells us who we are (creatures of equality and mutuality); it tells us who we have become (creatures of oppression); and so it opens possibilities for change, for a return to our true liberation under God” (81).

Meditation on Epiphany 4 in Dr. Wilda C. Gafney's "A Women's Lectionary for the Whole Church"

In my church, we are still working our way through Dr. Wilda C. Gafney's A Women's Lectionary for the Whole Church. This Sunday, we'll explore Epiphany 4, with the Gospel from Luke: Luke 3: 21-23, 31-38. It begins with the story of the baptism of Jesus, with God declaring a status of beloved even before Jesus has done much with his ministry.

It ends with a genealogy. In some ways, it's a similar genealogy to others throughout the Bible. It's a way that humans have always categorized: who belongs to who, who might have trained which offspring, what stories are we part of.

If you read a traditional translation of Luke, you'll notice something about this genealogy: it's as if the men have done this birthing of offspring all by themselves. Dr. Gafney has gone through and added back all the females. It's such a simple change, and yet it is also powerful, radical, and revolutionary. The last entry subverts all of this categorizing: "the child of God."

Gafney explains it best: "The Gospel presents this Jesus as a child of earth, woman-born as were we all, while omitting the women of his lineage. It is one of the chief contradictions of the scriptures that their message of a God who loves beyond categories is bound up in categorical language that minimizes, silences, and often excludes women" (p. 53).

Today let us begin to love as God loves, to declare every part of creation "Good" and "Very good," as God did in the first creation story in Genesis. God looks at creation, and just as God looked at Jesus and declared Jesus beloved, God declares all of creation as worthy of love. In our darkest times, let us remember that God is pleased with us all, just the same way that God is well-pleased with Jesus. Let us love similarly.

Sermon Notes: December 5 Sermon on Mary and Elizabeth

Before we get too much further away from Sunday, let me write up my sermon notes.  We're using Dr. Wilda Gafney's A Women's Lectionary for the Whole Church.  On Sunday, the Gospel reading gave us Mary's visit to Elizabeth.  Here are some of the points I made.

I began by saying that thought about bringing Mary from the creche to serve as a focal point--but what if she breaks?  Of course, a broken Mary also fits into a certain approach, about how God can use us in all of our brokenness.

I talked about this time of year as being one of the only times in the traditional church that we hear about women at all.  Mary has a starring role, often the only starring role for women throughout the church year.  I talked about my experience of church Christmas pageants when I was a child, when every girl wanted to be Mary.  As a tall, blonde girl, I never got to be Mary.  But at least I got to be an angel.  Less lucky children had to be animals in difficult costumes.

Mary and Elizabeth are marginalized in all sorts of ways.  They are women in a patriarchal society, they are Jewish in a Roman society that would see Jews as lesser.  They live far from the center of power.

Mary and Elizabeth are constricted by biology:  biology of being female, biology of being older.

Who would be the best bearer of the message that God wants to get out into the world?  The Roman emperor would be the likely choice:  rich, powerful, a way to spread the message.  But no, God doesn't go with the obvious choice.  In fact, God chooses one of the least obvious choices.

Look at creche Mary:  look how clean and pretty she is.  She would have been much dirtier and raggedy.  Think about Elizabeth, who has failed at the one thing she was supposed to do, which is bear a child.

I talked about my difficulty with the text:  women as incubators.  But it was the first century and the text was written by men.

I talked about this Women's Lectionary project written by Wilda Gafney who tried to correct the male focus of centuries of Christianity:  what would a lectionary with women at the center look like?

Mary and Elizabeth have a longer conversation than the conversation with the angels.  Intergenerational support!  In past years, that aspect of the story would have been the part that spoke to me.

What is speaking to me this year?  God issues invitation to Mary and Elizabeth, and they say "Yes."  And here we are in the 3rd year of the pandemic.  It is a good time to hear this message, of God's invitation.  God appears over and over again, with an invitation to be part of God's creative plan, to be bearers of the miracle.  Often in the most difficult circumstances, God appears with an invitation.

No matter how broken we are, God can create something beautiful.  Even though we're not in the blazing good health of our youth, God invites us to be part of the work of creation.  God asks, and if we say no, God will reappear with an invitation.

I concluded the sermon this way:

Stop listening to the part of your brain that tells you that you're inadequate.  Scripture tells us again and again of God choosing the most unlikely person and doing something miraculous.

I am here today to encourage us--because so many of us are tired, so many of us are thinking of all the opportunities we missed, all the ways we've screwed up, all the things that are left undone--we have declared ourselves barren, and God comes to us to say, "I am doing a new thing.  Come and be part of this new thing I am doing."

I encourage us to use the words of Mary to say yes:  let it be with me according to what you have described.

Sermon Notes: Dying, Dried Up, Dessicated, and How to Prime the Pump

Yesterday, I preached the sermon.  I knew that it would be a variation of this blog post.  But it went in a different direction, one that made me happy--and more important, I preached the sermon that I needed to hear.  

We had more children in church (2 families), so I did less with the King David and the young, beautiful woman brought in to make him feel like a man again.  I did talk about this picture of a once powerful man who lies dying, and those around him are trying to make him engaged again, with a new girlfriend or political intrigue.  But instead, he lies dying.  All of us, no matter how strong, will one day lie dying.

And then I transitioned to the Gospel lesson.  I said, "And the sad fact is that some of us will have died already, years before our physical death."  I was surprised to see people nodding.  

I talked about the offer from Jesus, that offer of living water, that promise that streams of living water will flow from us once we've drunk.  I said, "And you may be wondering when that is going to happen exactly.  You may be feeling dried out, desiccated.  You may be thinking that Jesus was making this promise to other people, not to you."

I talked about the gospel being short on lessons about what we need to do to get those springs of living water flowing again.  I suggested that we pray.  I said, "And you may be saying, 'Lady, did you not hear me?  I have nothing left.  How do I pray?"

I suggested using the words that Jesus gave us for just this very day, when we have no words left to pray:  the Lord's Prayer, Jesus, have mercy on me, a poor sinner, that kind of thing.  I also suggested that we add 3 prayers to our day, and that if we haven't been praying, we start.

This end to my sermon came to me in the minutes before the service started, as I thought about the thorny problem of me giving advice about getting our springs flowing again, since I'm feeling pretty dried out in many areas of my life, and my spouse and I had been having a tough week-end, with disappointments that we were handling with less grace than I would like.  The title of a book by Anne Lamotte came to me.

I suggested that we pray the three most common prayers:  Help, Thanks, Wow.  I suggested that we pray for those who need help, even if it's us.  Then I talked about the importance of gratitude and how it can transform us.  I know that it's a bit of a cliche now, but I did keep a gratitude journal for a time, long before Oprah did it, and I can attest to how it shifts one's attitude.  I also reminded us all of how important it is to say "Wow."  We live in a world full of wonders, but it's easy to stay in our ruts.  I talked about my own experience on a walk that morning, a walk of gray clouds and a sunrise behind the clouds.  I was hoping for a rainbow to give me hope, as rainbows do.  I turned in the direction of where a rainbow would be, and nope.  But then when I turned around, there was a beautiful rosy glow, even though the sun was rising over there.  I imagined God saying, "Hey, anyone can create a rainbow.  But look at this beautiful arrangement of clouds that won't happen again in your lifetime.  Look at what I did with these colors."

I concluded by saying, "So, if you are feeling dried out, if you are feeling like Jesus was talking to somebody else, rest assured, he was not.  Remember these three prayers:  help, thanks, wow."

When we got home, my spouse watched the recording of the service that had been livestreamed, as he always does.  He's analyzing the choir, and his performance, but he did invite me to hear the sermon again.  I was impressed with how well it flowed, particularly since I changed its approach at the last minute.  But I was most moved by how much I preached the sermon I needed to hear.

And I suspect I wasn't the only one who needed to hear it.

Meditation on This Sunday's Gospel in a "A Women's Lectionary for the Whole Church"

The readings for this Sunday:

1 Kings 1:  1-5, 11-18, 29-31

Psalm 90:  1-10, 12

Colossians 2:  9-14

John 7:  37-44

In today's Gospel, we see Jesus offering himself as living water, and we see the varying responses to him.  Some see him as an important prophet, and some go as far as to declare him the Messiah.  But others question his background: where he's from?  They hearken back to the teachings that prepared people to look for a Messiah that would look like the mighty King David.

By this time, they've forgotten about David's faults. David is seen, by them and by us, as one of Israel's greatest kings.  But Dr. Wilda Gafney's A Women's Lectionary for the Whole Church shows us that while David had military strengths, that power came at great cost, particularly for women in his life.  In today's selection of readings, we realize that even the greatest ruler will be old and impotent eventually.  Jesus offers us a power that is more permanent.

A different Gospel, Matthew, begins with the lineage of Jesus, which includes David.  But this list of ancestors reminds us that being of the lineage of David means that Jesus comes from a line of not just the greatest rulers, but also outcasts, victims, and abusers.  In short, the humanity of Jesus means that he comes from the wide variety of what it means to be human--and Jesus shows us a different way to be human.

Again and again, Jesus tells us that he's coming to usher in a new realm, but it won't be what people have been hoping and praying for.  He's not there to overcome an earthly empire like Rome.  Again and again, Jesus reminds us that far greater powers than earthly empires hold us in a powerful grasp, and that he's here to break us free.  

Jesus continues to offer us living water.  How will we respond?

Autumn Delights: The 2021 Edition

Last night was the first night that we could sit on the balcony without breaking into a sweat.  It wasn't cool by any stretch of the imagination, but it was temperate for the first time.  Yesterday morning, there was a breeze before sunrise, a much more vigorous breeze.  Again, it wasn't a cold breeze, but it was a relief to have any breeze at all.

I spent the past week-end trying to have some autumnal delights, even in the heat.  I walked over to the pumpkin patch of a local church and picked out some pumpkins.  One of the women staffing the patch had a small boy with her, and his delight in the pumpkins was a joy that I wouldn't have had if I hadn't gone to the patch that day.

I needed to buy pumpkins because I wanted to transform the altar at church.  We are using Dr. Wilda Gafney's A Women's Lectionary for the Whole Church, and Sunday's gospel reading was about trees that bear good fruit and how a thorn bush will never bear good fruit.  It was the perfect excuse to buy some apples and pears for this wooden bowl:

And then on Sunday, I created a new vision for the altar, a vision that can take us to Advent, with some changes here and there:

Here's a close up of the right side as you face the altar:

And here is the left side of the altar, the one with the wooden bowl of apples:

I know that I am lucky to be part of a small church that has no altar guild, and so I am free to create these altarscapes.  I am even luckier to be part of a church that appreciates this creative work of mine.  I am sure that there might be a person or two who wishes for an altarscape that is less cluttered, less busy, and if someone wanted to design and create that vision, I would share these opportunities by dividing up the weeks of altar design.

It was a full morning at church, as I was also part of the sermon team.  Our pastor preached on good fruits, and then I took the congregation through a creative exercise.  We have a stash of blank notecards, so we handed each parishioner one as they came in.  I had the congregation write a card to themselves, imagining the voice of God telling them where they are bearing good fruit.  So many of us focus on the ways we are failing, on the thorn bush side of ourselves.  I want people to remember.  I read them the passage from Galatians 5 that explains what good fruit looks like:  But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.  I offered to mail the cards to them later, if they gave them to me--and I did get a stack to mail.  Hurrah!

After a long morning at church, it was good to come home to cook.  On the Smitten Kitchen website, I saw this recipe for a winter squash and spinach pasta bake, and happily, I saw the recipe before I did the grocery shopping I needed to do.  On Sunday afternoon, I made the casserole, and I confess that I had my doubts as I smoothed the gloppy mixture into a 9 x 13 inch pan.  It has to bake for 90 minutes, and it made the house smell delicious.  It tasted as good as it smelled, and it is such an easy preparation:  no sauteeing, no making of separate sauces.  I'll be making this one again, but I'll be making it even easier by using frozen, chopped spinach.  I didn't have fontina cheese, so I used cheddar, which was just fine and cheaper.

We finished the autumnal week-end by working on variations of "Simple Gifts," which I'll be using for devotions for a seminary class this week.  At first, my spouse plucked it on the violin.  Then I suggested that he try playing it with a bow, and it came out in the most amazing way; I'm glad that I was recording.  I decided to go back to the bowl of fruit, so that people would have a visual focus:

It is good to remember that although this autumn has a different set of joys than autumns of the past, there are still joys to be had.  And I have enough perspective to know that in future years, I'll be wistful about these very joys. 

Meditation on This Sunday's Readings in "A Women's Lectionary for the Whole Church"

Readings for Sunday, October 10, 2021

2 Samuel 20:  1-3, 14-22

Psalm 50:  14-23

1 Corinthians 6:  1-6

Mark 6: 1-6

In this Sunday's Gospel, we see Jesus rejected by his hometown.  We may be familiar with the disbelief of the hometown crowd:  they know his family, they've seen Jesus as a child.  There's that sneering tone:  "Who does this guy think that he is?"

And note the power that their negativity holds:  "And he could do no deed of power there, except on a few sick people laying hands and curing them" (verse 5).  It's a curious turn, since the people acknowledged his wisdom and power just a few verses before this one.  And then they doubt, which affects not only them, but Jesus himself.  He moves along to the next place.

Is this lesson the one we are meant to learn?  If we're not gaining traction, move along?  If we encounter doubt and undercutting of our projects, move along?  What happens if we don't move along?  And how do we know when it's time to leave?

The Gospel reading seems less straight forward when we think about all the people who are named, all the relatives of Jesus.  In his commentary on Mark, Mark for Everyone, N. T. Wright reminds us that many of these relatives will be important in the life of the early church, including his younger brother James.  But in these early chapters of Mark, James is not always on the side of Jesus.  But within the coming decades, James will be part of the team that spreads the Good News that Jesus tries to preach in these early chapters of Mark.

As we consider this Gospel, let us remember that God's timeline is often not a human timeline.  I find it useful to think in terms of chairos time, God's timeline, a time that is separate from chronos (clock) time.  A project that seems impossible today may not be impossible forever.

Meditation on This Sunday's Readings in "A Women's Lectionary for the Whole Church"

The readings for this Sunday, Oct. 3, 2021:

2 Samuel 13:  1-16, 21-22

Psalm 103:  1-17

1 Thessalonians 2:  9-12

Mark 10:  13-16

This Sunday's Gospel will be familiar to those of us who have been going to church awhile.  I think of it as the verses that launched a dozen versions of a sappy picture of Jesus with lots of children gathered round.  In the Sunday Schools of my childhood, those children were dressed in modern clothes.

The ancient world was not a kind or easy place for children, and I know that 21st century children inhabit a harsh world too. Still, I think that modern people have trouble comprehending how much Jesus has come to overturn the various power structures.  Children would have been at the bottom of the power structure of his day--and ours.  And yet, Jesus welcomes them.

The reading from Samuel shows how treacherous the world is when the family structure is set up to protect the powerful.  The rape of King David's daughter is not easy to read, and it's even worse to realize that the rapist is her brother, and the family not only doesn't support her afterward, but the male family members are instrumental in the abuse.  Here, too, modern readers might correctly feel like nothing much has changed.

But the good news of both the readings from the New Testament is that the old order is being dismantled.  God finds us worthy, even if we're like children who have done nothing particularly special, children who have no particular value.  Through this new way, God's way revealed through Jesus, we can find a new family, one who will cherish us and nurture us--just the way that God will cherish us and nurture us.

Meditation on This Sunday's Readings in "A Women's Lectionary for the Whole Church"

The lessons for this Sunday, September 26, 2021
from A Women's Lectionary for the Whole Church by Wilda A. Gafney


2 Samuel 11:2-15
Psalm 32: 1-7
2 Peter 3: 1-4
Matthew 5: 21-26


Dr. Gafney notes, "These lessons address transgression, consequence, and repentance." Happily most of us will not transgress as horribly as King David, whose story we get in the lesson from 2 Samuel. We see David watching a woman bathe, deciding he must have her, having her brought to him, and plotting to have her husband killed. It's a disastrous set of circumstances, and it takes David a long time to realize his mistake. Sadly, I doubt that he sees his mistake through the eyes of the wronged woman, who has no choice, no consent. David spends much of his reign seizing what he wants.

It's what monarchs do, after all, and one of the reasons that God advised against monarchy, both in the times before Saul and since then. But it's not only monarchs who transgress.

Psalm 32 reminds us that we can confess our sin to God to get forgiveness, but Jesus tells us that God's forgiveness is not enough. Nothing is more important than the work of reconciliation with our fellow humans; even if we're worshipping God, if we realize that we've transgressed against one of our neighbors, we must go and make it right. We must repair our relationships.

Notice that this directive is different from the forgiveness behavior that Jesus will preach. In this passage, Jesus addresses the one who has transgressed, not the one who needs to be forgiving. Dr. Gafney calls this approach "a disruption of a power curve; it is not up to a victim to demand justice, nor should it be; rather the moral imperative belongs to the one accused of wrong."

Sadly, we do not live in a world where people are eager to make amends so that we can move towards reconciliation. Not only are people not eager, but many people can't even realize the ways that they've ripped apart the fabric of society, in the way of King David. But whether the transgression be huge or small, Jesus is clear that we must work to make things right.

Imagine how the world would be different, if we heeded that call. Time and time again, Jesus reminds us that although our efforts may feel small, that it is these very efforts that will repair the world.