A Month of Holidays Comes to an End

 Next week my school returns to a normal work schedule of 5 day work weeks.  My school now celebrates Jewish holidays, and because of how the holidays fall this year, we haven't had a full week of work days in all of September; our registrar said, "We're following firefighter work schedules in Sept."  

We had Labor Day off and then 2 days for Rosh Hashanah.  The next week, we had Thursday off for Yom Kippur.  We finished the last 2 weeks of September by celebrating Sukkot 1 and 2 on the Tuesday and Wednesday of each week.  It's been glorious.

It's also been a godsend.  I've needed the extra time for the selling the house project.  I can do much of my seminary work from anywhere, but I've needed time to get the house ready for market, and then to do additional packing and moving, and that's work that must be done at the house itself.

On Tuesday, I wrote this Facebook post:  "I am home because my school has a Sukkot holiday today. I am writing about Rahab in Joshua 2 while listening to Carl teach Descartes in his Philosophy class. In some ways, it feels like we've fallen through a hole in time, and we're back at Newberry College, filling our brains with delightful Liberal Arts stuff. Maybe after lunch, we'll go over to the theatre and work on the latest set designs. Or maybe we'll do layout for the student newspaper. We'll do it the old-fashioned way, with Xacto knives."

Then I added some bits:  "And tonight, we'll go over to the radio station to spin the latest vinyl: Radio Free Newberry!"  and "Likely the only time that the Violent Femmes were played on the airwaves in South Carolina back in the 1980's."

And then I had this idea:  "If I was an entrepreneurial sort, I'd create a retirement community that would model a liberal arts undergraduate campus, so we could spend our golden years reliving our Liberal Arts undergrad years."

I finished this way:  "I would pay big bucks to live in such a place, but I would rather move into an already existing place than create one from scratch."

Yes, if I could sum up my perfect life:  classes in the morning to stimulate my intellect, retreat style offerings of arts and crafts projects in the afternoons to keep my creative self happy, and good food and companionship throughout the day.  Then I could go to sleep satisfied, happy in the knowledge that I got to get up and do it all again the next day.

Meditation on This Sunday's Gospel

The readings for Sunday, October 3, 2021:


Genesis 2:18-24

Psalm 8

You adorn us with glory and honor. (Ps. 8:6)

Hebrews 1:1-4; 2:5-12

Mark 10:2-16


If you read the Gospels carefully, you'll realize that Jesus rarely addresses the pressing social issues of our day. Global warming? Nope, he never talks about it. Abortion? Nope. Homosexuality? Not a word: the Bible verses that may address homosexuality, depending on how one interprets certain Greek words, come mainly from the Old Testament and Paul.

But here Jesus talks about divorce. How curious, especially in light of other chapters, where Jesus seems to downplay marriage and family, where he seems to instruct people to abandon their families to follow him. Here he seems to tell husbands and wives that they must stay together, regardless of the circumstances.

Many scholars see the social justice side of Jesus here, the man who cared for the most outcast of society. Almost no one had fewer options than a divorced woman who lived during the time of Jesus. Then, and to a certain extent now, fewer things were more likely to plunge a woman with children into the bottom economic realm of society than divorce or widowhood.

In today’s Gospel reading, we see the concerns of Jesus with the most downtrodden of society: women and children. As our society becomes more and more stratified, we can all use this reminder.

It’s also a reminder that God wants something better for us. God doesn’t want us in societies that are so stratified that we only see people who are just like us. God doesn’t want our personal differences to drive us apart. God doesn’t want us severed apart from each other, if we can avoid it. Even in situations where divorce is the best option, the legacy is one of pain and a variety of new problems. God wants reconciliation.

God also recommends that we approach the world as well-adjusted children do. I think of some of the delightful children I've met through the years. I love to watch young groups of children dance. Their enthusiasm encourages the adults to join in. I love the phase when children learn to draw and they haven't learned to judge yet. I love that sheer delight in the art supplies.

I imagine God is much the same. We've got a wonderful world here, and we often forget how fabulous it is. We get so hung up on all the ways we think the world has gone wrong that we forget what is right. We spend time creating laws to try to control behavior, when we might do better to simply accept people for who they are, which is a major step towards loving them. We want to see the world in strict colors: black, white, no gray. We forget that the world is variegated. If we can leave the land of Law behind and enter the world of Love, we'll see a world washed in color, all of it good.

We'll know what God knew, way back in Genesis, that the Creation is good, very good.

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.

Sunday's Sermon: The Importance of Reconciliation as Resistance to Empire

My pastor asked me if I would preach yesterday, so I said yes.  We're using the Women's Lectionary by Wil Gafney, and these were the readings:

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

I knew that I would talk about the ways we go astray and the need for redemption.  I did not anticipate that I would utilize the information I got in my seminary class about the Tower of Babel.

That Gospel reading has Jesus saying that if we need to make amends with someone we have wronged, we should go and do it right now.  Even if we're making an offering in the Temple, God can wait--go and make things right with your brother or sister.

I began by asking if anyone needs to leave to go make amends.  I tried to imagine a scenario with the same kind of seriousness:  "You've clocked in at work and remember that you've had a falling out.  You don't wait until after work, you don't clock out, but you leave right away, even if it's a firing offense."

I said that the need for reconciliation is one that Jesus gives us again and again.  And in fact, we see it centuries before Jesus.  Then I said I wanted to bring some information from my seminary class.

I gave the standard interpretation of the Tower of Babel:  humans build a high tower, God feels threatened, God destroys the tower and scatters the people.  But is God really that upset over a tower that's too high?  If they had stopped at 4 stories, would that have been O.K.?

I presented information from my seminary class in the Hebrew Bible.  My professor Denise Dombkowski Hopkins says that the title of this story should really be "The Fortified City."  In her lecture, she talked about the Tower of Babel as one of the signs of empire--people build a tower so that they can see who is coming.  There's an out group and an in group.  God destroys the tower because it lets people create an exclusive society, and God is about inclusivity.

It's also got an anti-empire message.  The stories were compiled by Israelites during the Babylonian Exile, people who had a close up look at the dangers of empire--that only certain people are protected, while others lose everything they love including their homeland.  It's the same lesson of empire that Jesus knew under the Romans, and that we know today.

I tied all of it back to the Gospel by saying that Jesus is always showing us ways to resist these powers of empire, and reconciliation is one of the ways he advocates again and again.  And it's not just reconciliation with like-minded folks.  In a highly polarized era like the one we live in now, in 2021, we need to be reconciling with everyone, even the folks we think of as the ones with crazy, dangerous ideas.  I said, "You know the ones I mean," knowing it might be different for everyone.

I talked, as I usually do, about the inbreaking kingdom of God, the one that we're creating now, not just for when we die.  And reconciliation is one of the primary ways we'll create God's kingdom, right here, right now.

Different Types of Writing for Seminary Class

Along with the seminary classes I'm taking as a student and my administrator work, I'm teaching some English classes online for our local community college.  It's interesting to read the essays written by my students while thinking about my own writing.

I find myself saving every scrap of seminary writing, even as I'm wondering what I plan to do with all this writing.  Some of it makes sense to keep, like the spiritual autobiography I had to write for one class.  But I've also been keeping my Discussion Post responses.

Those of you who teach or take online classes, you already know that the Discussion thread is designed to mimic what happens (ideally) in classroom discussions.  I've been pleased to find out that I have been learning from them.  My own students have a mix when it comes to creating meaningful discussion threads.

At first I saved my responses in case I needed to prove that I did them.  But as the courses have progressed, I've wanted to preserve my insights.  For example, I responded to a classmate this way in a recent thread for my Spiritual Formation class:  

"B___, you used the term 'a seasonal faster' which made me think about disciplines in a different way. I tend to go with the all or nothing approach that several have mentioned in their responses. I wonder if I might have a different experience if I adopted a practice for a season. It would be long enough to see how the discipline meshed or didn't mesh with my personality/life. If it didn't work, I might not beat myself up over it--after all, it was only for a season that I committed."

I'm also thinking about the last time I was in grad school, back when I was working on an MA and  PhD in English.  In some ways, I wrote less during that degree.  We usually had one big paper at the end.  But in my seminary classes, I'm writing shorter pieces, and I'm writing at least one shorter piece per week.  I'm counting my own discussion post as a shorter piece, but interestingly not my response, although I often spend just as much time and brain power and revision time on my response.  

What I like most about these shorter pieces is that it keeps me engaged with the material on a weekly basis.  I don't remember feeling that way in my MA and PhD program--it was racing from one big chunk of reading to another.  We had lots of discussions, but not as much short writing.  If I was taking onground seminary classes, I wonder if I would be doing the same amount of weekly writing.

This past week, I've done a type of writing that I've never done before.  Here was the assignment for New Testament class:  "Make 15 good observations about Matthew 5-7 and 26-28." My teacher went on to clarify:

3. What constitutes a substantial observation?

a. Something that strikes you as important, interesting, exciting, or scandalous (but note: you must explain in detail why it is you find it to be such).

b. A word you don’t understand— though you must express your attempts to figure it out yourself. Don’t just write, “What’s a ____?” An observation must be more substantive than that.

c. A key word or idea that is emphasized or repeated, or perhaps a word mentioned in the section assigned that you know to be a key word or idea for the letter or author. Again, spell out the repetition or emphasis by describing how it functions in the verses under consideration.

d. Something you noticed about the formal or rhetorical elements of the passage.

e. A significant difference noted while comparing English translations.

→ Key point: observations should include more than one sentence and must not leave me wondering what it is you’re observing. Think “substantial.”

I found that this assignment led me to much deeper reading of the Gospel than I might usually do, even though the observation was fairly short.  Here's one of the ones I wrote:

 (Matthew 5:42) Jesus also instructs us not to refuse anyone who wants to borrow from us. He doesn’t specify what is being borrowed. Is this evidence of Jesus wanting to create us to be more communal creatures? Is this practice to help us detach from possessions?

Like I said, the exercise made me think about a familiar text in different ways.  It makes me wonder if something similar could be done for students/texts in other settings.

Well onward to the kind of writing I like least:  my administrator writing of accreditation documents.

Meditation on This Sunday's Gospel

The readings for Sunday, September 26, 2021:

Numbers 11:4-6, 10-16, 24-29

Psalm 19:7-14

The commandment of the LORD gives light to the eyes. (Ps. 19:8)

James 5:13-20

Mark 9:38-50

Here we have another Gospel that reminds us again that Jesus is not the warm, fuzzy Jesus that the modern church often depicts. This Gospel is harsh. Cut off my hand? Just because it offended me? What happened to forgiving 70 times 7?

Again and again, Jesus reminds us that we often let ourselves off the hook too easily. We don't require enough of ourselves. How many of us really do forgive 70 times, much less that 7 times more again? Too many of us won’t even forgive once, much less again and again. We refuse to begin the work of reconciliation, which is one of our main tasks in this world.

We're supposed to be the seasoning of the world, but too many of us do absolutely nothing. We close our ears to the cries of the oppressed. We continue to focus on our own agendas.  We tell ourselves we'll save the ones around us--but do we? 

We behave in ways that would make our beliefs unattractive to the nonbeliever. Every time we gossip, lie, cheat, steal, or give in to our darkest natures, the world is watching. Our hypocrisy endangers us all on so many levels.

We move into the part of Mark where Jesus must realize that he's in great danger. He offers challenges to the larger domination system that controls the Earth. Jesus understands how many forces dominate us: both the secular ruling system, as well as the larger idea of a set of powers that keeps us from God's goodness, not to mention our own beliefs which hinder us. Jesus refuses to back down. He must know what will happen. The book of Mark, always apocalyptic in tone, becomes more so.

We see those echoes in the planetary calendar too. We’ve seen a seasonal shift, as we leave summer behind and autumn arrives. Once we drove home from work in broad sunlight. Now we squint into the gathering twilight. The produce sections in our grocery stores offer sturdier fruits and vegetables, like the gourds that remind us of the need to prepare for a harsh season ahead.

We have so many reminders that time is short. Like Ash Wednesday, these times remind us that the years go by quickly and that we must continue to atone for all ways we’ve fallen short. We can be better. We must be better.

Time is short. We don't have much of it on earth, and Jesus always pulls us back to that existential fact. If we don't have much time, we're pressured to make the most of what we have. We have a huge task, one not likely to be completed in our lifetimes. Still, that's no reason not to get started building the Kingdom where the last will be first.

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.