Counting Stars In a New Light

 

He (the Lord) took him (Abraham) outside and said, “Look up at the sky and count the stars—if indeed you can count them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.” - Genesis 15:5

Ok that's a pretty well known quote and it often gets accompanied with images like my photo (above) of the Milky Way made while camping beside the red deer river. 

But a friend (Hi Richard) pointed out that in Genesis 15:12 we get the line:

As the sun was setting, Abram fell into a deep sleep ...

There is nothing to indicate between Gen 15:5 and 15:12 that this wasn't all on the same day. What if it was daylight? Does that change how we read 15:5?  It is certainly absurd to ask Abraham to count the stars he can not see.

I think it renders 15:5 something like:

Your offspring that you can not see will be numerous like the unseen stars.

or

Your offspring, who are to come will be like the stars which are to come. 

And so after some ancient contract making, and some more prophecy only then can Abraham see the stars he can't hope to count.  For me it deepens the impact of that well known verse, emphasizing the need for trust.

- Peace

Where are the Men?

Chewing on the easter story for our Pre Sunrise Easter Hike; I heard part of the story in a new way.

from Mark 16

When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so they could embalm him. Very early on Sunday morning, as the sun rose, they went to the tomb. They worried out loud to each other, “Who will roll back the stone from the tomb for us?”

In other words: "Where are the men? With them hiding in fear: Who will roll back the stone?"

And so it was that it was the women who first encountered the resurrection.  It was a woman who was the first commissioned evangelist of the good news. "Go to my brothers and tell them..."

- Peace

Armor and Sabbath

Reading Leap Over a Wall by Peterson again. Reading about David and Goliath going over the passage before the famous battle.

Saul answered David, “You can’t go and fight this Philistine. You’re too young and inexperienced—and he’s been at this fighting business since before you were born.”

David said, “I’ve been a shepherd, tending sheep for my father. Whenever a lion or bear came and took a lamb from the flock, I’d go after it, knock it down, and rescue the lamb. If it turned on me, I’d grab it by the throat, wring its neck, and kill it. Lion or bear, it made no difference—I killed it. And I’ll do the same to this Philistine pig who is taunting the troops of God-Alive. God, who delivered me from the teeth of the lion and the claws of the bear, will deliver me from this Philistine.”
Saul said, “Go. And God help you!”

Then Saul outfitted David as a soldier in armor. He put his bronze helmet on his head and belted his sword on him over the armor. David tried to walk but he could hardly budge.
David told Saul, “I can’t even move with all this stuff on me. I’m not used to this.” And he took it all off.

 from 1 Samuel 17 (The Message)

While pondering this passage it struck me that there are parallels in the Gospels.  From the end of Mark 2 for instance:

One Sabbath day he was walking through a field of ripe grain. As his disciples made a path, they pulled off heads of grain. The Pharisees told on them to Jesus: “Look, your disciples are breaking Sabbath rules!”
Jesus said, “Really? Haven’t you ever read what David did when he was hungry, along with those who were with him? How he entered the sanctuary and ate fresh bread off the altar, with the Chief Priest Abiathar right there watching—holy bread that no one but priests were allowed to eat—and handed it out to his companions?” Then Jesus said, “The Sabbath was made to serve us; we weren’t made to serve the Sabbath. The Son of Man is no lackey to the Sabbath. He’s in charge!”

Seems to me both Saul and the Pharisees were working out accepted wisdom, you needed armor to fight, you needed detailed rules to keep the Sabbath.   Yet both were subverting the thing that they were trying to protect.  David wouldn't have won in a traditional armor based fight.  The Pharisees had turned a blessing "take one day a week off -" into a curse.

Do our systems and traditions serve us or do we serve them?  Is Christmas a blessing or a curse?  Does the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution serve it's people or do they offer sacrifices to it?

Just what's running through my head.

 - Peace

Who Are the Sinners Again?

Heard something new in Mark the other day and was surprised I hadn't heard it before.  Mark 14 is a dark passage, betrayal, denial and friends who can't do the simple things like stay awake.

In the middle of this Jesus says “Are you still sleeping and resting? Enough! The hour has come. Look, the Son of Man is delivered into the hands of sinners.   Rise! Let us go! Here comes my betrayer!”

What caught my attention was the term sinners.  While most people know it as religious term,  used to insult people, it's not a term Jesus uses in that way most of the time.  In Mark the word only appears Mark 14 and Mark 2.


Here's how the term Sinners is used in Mark 2

Once again Jesus went out beside the lake. A large crowd came to him, and he began to teach them.  As he walked along, he saw Levi son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax collector’s booth. “Follow me,” Jesus told him, and Levi got up and followed him.

While Jesus was having dinner at Levi’s house, many tax collectors and sinners were eating with him and his disciples, for there were many who followed him. ¹⁶ When the teachers of the law who were Pharisees saw him eating with the sinners and tax collectors, they asked his disciples: “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?”

 On hearing this, Jesus said to them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

In Mark 2, the "teachers of the law" are up set that Jesus is eating with sinners, tax collectors being the worst kind of sinners for cooperating with Rome.  In Mark 14 it the "chief priests" who are coming to arrest Jesus.  The Gospel is often an inversion, the least being divine, the last being first.  In Mark 14 it's the religious leaders who protested Jesus eating with the wrong type of people, conspiring to commit murder. 

- Peace

Of Torture and Cowardice

Reading the story of The Man Possessed by a Legion of Demons at Xalt a couple of weeks back I was struck by this

What do you want with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? Swear to God that you won't torture me!

Here's what the demons had driven him to:

Night and day among the tombs and in the hills he would cry out and cut himself with stones.

Yet when Jesus comes they cry out not to be tortured. Cowards!

- Peace

We know Bartimaeus by Name

Part of my sermon on Mark 10 compared Bartimaeus the blind beggar with the man often called the 'Rich Young Ruler'.

One detail that escaped me until I was biking home through fish creek. We know Bartimaeus by name, the name of the 'Rich Young Ruler' has been forgotten. I'm sure at the time few would have known Bartimaeus and many would have know the name of the 'Rich Young Ruler'. "This is once again the Great Reversal: Many who are first will end up last, and the last first."

- Peace

One Thing

Mark 10:17-22

As he went out into the street, a man came running up, greeted him with great reverence, and asked, "Good Teacher, what must I do to get eternal life?"

Jesus said, "Why are you calling me good? No one is good, only God. You know the commandments: Don't murder, don't commit adultery, don't steal, don't lie, don't cheat, honor your father and mother."

He said, "Teacher, I have—from my youth—kept them all!"

Jesus looked him hard in the eye—and loved him! He said, "There's one thing left: Go sell whatever you own and give it to the poor. All your wealth will then be heavenly wealth. And come follow me."

The man's face clouded over. This was the last thing he expected to hear, and he walked off with a heavy heart. He was holding on tight to a lot of things, and not about to let go.

I think the one thing in this quote has two parts, give away your wealth and follow me. We tend to focus on the giving up of the wealth in the story cause that's as far as the man in question got. I think the rest of Mark 10 shows a great deal about the follow me and helps make sense of this request.

I'll be following that line of thinking when I preach on Sunday at South Meadows.

Update: I'll also be teaching at Xalt Sunday night. Melissa was scheduled to speak but will be in BC this weekend for a funeral and doesn't know if she'll make it back in time.

- Peace

Rejoice and Mourn

Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn - Romans 12:15.

Those words have come to me the last couple of weeks as we've lost Melissa, I've said good bye to Kris as he's left for Ontario, as Sheona has left for Vancouver as we've celebrated Warren's 40th Birthday. While it's advice we often ignore, we don't want to mourn we want to cheer people up or rain on their parade, I think it's great short hand for community. Community is who you celebrate and mourn with.

Indeed the Romans 12 has a great deal to say about community. Here's a bit:

Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Honor one another above yourselves. Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. Share with God's people who are in need. Practice hospitality.

Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceited.

- Peace

Tempted, it's enough

Mark 1:12-13

At once the Spirit sent him out into the desert, 13and he was in the desert forty days, being tempted by Satan. He was with the wild animals, and angels attended him.

It would be easy to fill in the blanks here with what we know of this time from the other Gospel accounts. There is so much to ponder in those details, about Jesus and the nature of evil. Peterson has some wonderful thoughts in The Jesus Way on just those points.

But I'm trying to hear Mark and he gives such a brief account. Can this be enough?

Jesus was tempted by Satan.

I'm tempted.

In the wilderness

The city isn't tame

Angels attended him

Will I notice them here with us?



Maybe with too much detail I miss the connections.

The Secret

Tonight at Xalt we continued our study of First Peter, looking at chapter 4, verse 19 jumped out at me :

So then, those who suffer according to God's will should commit themselves to their faithful Creator and continue to do good.

It just struck me as the exact opposite of the prosperity gospel, weather in the form of Supply Side Jesus, Wayne Dyer or more recently with the Oprah crowd: The Secret. Suffering according to the will of our faithful Creator, a deep heresy to many.

- Peace

Check Box Theology

It is possible to say more or less all the orthodox Christian affirmations, but to join them up in the wrong story. It's possible to tick the boxes that say Trinity, Incarnation, Atonement, Resurrection, Spirit, Second Coming, and yet it's like a child's follow-the-dots. The great story—and after all the Bible is fundamentally a story—we've got to pay attention to that, rather than abstracting dogmatic points from it. The dogmas matter, they are true, but you have to join them up the right way.

NT Wright

- Peace

The Gnostic conspiracy theory...

The Gnostic conspiracy theory says that orthodoxy hushed up the really exciting thing and promoted this boring sterile thing with Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. And of course there's a great lie underneath that. In the second and third centuries, the people being thrown to the lions and burned at the stake and sawed in two were not the ones reading Thomas and Judas and the Gospel of Philip and the Gospel of Mary. They were the ones reading Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Because the empire is perfectly happy with Gnosticism. Gnosticism poses no threat to the empire. Whereas Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John do. It's the church's shame that in the last 200 years, the church has muzzled Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John and turned them into instruments of a controlling, sterile orthodoxy. But the texts themselves are explosive.

NT Wright

Thanks Bruce!

- Peace

Subversive Poetry in a Postmodern World:

Colossians 1.15-20 Remixed

In an image-saturated world
a world of ubiquitous corporate logos
permeating your consciousness
a world of dehydrated and captive imaginations
in which we are too numbed, satiated and co-opted
to be able to dream of life otherwise
a world in which the empire of global economic affluence
has achieved the monopoly of our imaginations
in this world

Christ is the image of the invisible God
in this world
driven by images with a vengeance

Christ is the image par excellence
the image above all other images
the image that is not a facade
the image that is not trying to sell you anything
the image that refuses to co-opt you

Christ is the image of the invisible God
the image of God
a flesh and blood
here and now
in time and history
with joys and sorrows
image of who God is
the image of God
a flesh and blood
here and now
in time and history
with joys and sorrows
image of who we are called to be
image-bearers of this God

He is the source of a liberated imagination
a sub-version of the empire
because it all starts with him
and it all ends with him
everything
all things
whatever you can imagine
visible and invisible
mountains and atoms
outer space, urban space and cyberspace
whether it be the Pentagon, Disneyland,
Microsoft or AT&T
whether it be the institutionalized power structures
of the state, the academy or the market all
things have been created in him and through him
he is their source, their purpose, their goal
even in their rebellion
even in their idolatry
he is the soveriegn one
their power and authority is derived at best
parasitic at worse

In the face of the empire
in the face of presumptuous claims to sovereignty
in the face of the imperial and idolatrous forces in our lives

Christ is before all things
he is sovereign in life
not the pimped dreams of the global market
not the idolatrous forces of nationalism
not the insatiable desires of a consumerist culture

In the face of a disconnected world
where home is a domain in cyberspace
where neighbourhood is a chat room
where public space is a shopping mall
where information technology promises
a tuned in, reconnected world
all things hold together in Christ
the creation is a deeply personal cosmos
all cohering and interconnected in Jesus

And this sovereignty takes on cultural flesh
And this coherence of all things is socially embodied
in the church
against all odds
against most of the evidence

In a “show me” culture where words alone don’t cut it
the church is
the flesh and blood
here and now
in time and history
with joys and sorrows
embodiment of this Christ
as a body politic
around a common meal
in alternative economic practices
in radical service to the most vulnerable
in refusal to the empire
in love of this creation
the church reimagines the world
in the image of the invisible God

In the face of a disappointed world of betrayal
a world in which all fixed points have proven illusory
a world in which we are anchorless and adrift
Christ is the foundation
the origin
the way
the truth
and the life

In the face of a culture of death
a world of killing fields
a world of the walking dead
Christ is at the head of the resurrection parade
transforming our tears of betrayal into tears of joy
giving us dancing shoes for the resurrection party
And this glittering joker
who has danced in the dragon’s jaws of death
now dances with a dance that is full
of nothing less than the fullness of God
this is the dance of the new creation
this is the dance of life out of death
and in this dance all that was broken
all that was estranged
all that was alienated
all that was dislocated and disconnected
is reconciled
comes home
is healed
and is made whole
everything
all things
whatever you can imagine
visible and invisible
mountains and atoms
outer space, urban space and cyberspace
every inch of creation
every dimension of our lives
all things are reconciled in him

And it all happens on a cross
it all happens at a state execution
where the governor did not commute the sentence
it all happens at the hands of the empire
that has captivated our imaginations
it all happens through blood
not through a power grab by the sovereign one
it all happens in embraced pain
for the sake of others
it all happens on a cross
arms outstretched in embrace
and this is the image of the invisible God
this is the body of Christ

One of three Targums by Brian J. Walsh and Sylvia Keesmaat that form the core of Colossians Remixed.