Pentecost

posted on May 17, 2012 by Musings

An except from Companion to the Book of Common Worship (Geneva Press, 2003, 117-119).

…on the Day of Pentecost, we celebrate God’s gift of Holy Spirit which draws us together as one people, helps us to comprehend what God is doing in the world, and empowers us to proclaim, in word and in deed, God’s plan of reconciling all people in the name of Christ (Ephesians 1:10).

Without the gift of the Spirit, Christ’s church dries up and withers away, and we are left with only our broken selves. With the gift of the Spirit, all things are possible. A spirit-filled community of faith opens eyes to needs in the world and sees its missing as God’s new people. The Day of Pentecost is the climax of the Great Fifty Days of Easter, celebrating as it does the gift of the Spirit to the body of Christ — the church.

Join the Conversation (No Comments)

Filed under: Bible, Community

Holocaust

posted on April 22, 2012 by Musings

It is impossible to think about the Holocaust.  It is impossible not to think about it.  Nothing in history equals the horror of it.  There is no way to imagine it.  There is no way to speak of it without diminishing it.  Thousands upon thousands were taken away in Nazi Germany during World War II.  They were gassed.   Their corpses were burned.  Many were old men.  Many were small children.  Many were women.  They were charged with nothing except being Jews.  In the end there were apparently something like six million of them who died, six thousand thousands.

Anyone who claims to believe in an all-powerful, all-loving God without taking into account this devastating evidence either that God is indifferent or powerless, or that there is no God at all, is playing games.

Anyone who claims to believe in the inevitable perfectibility of the human race without taking this into account is ether a fool or a lunatic.

That many of the people who took part in the killings were professing Christians, not to mention many more who knew about the killings but did nothing to interfere, is a scandal the church of Christ perhaps does not deserve to survive.

For people who don’t believe in God, suffering can be understood simply as part of the way the world works.  The Holocaust is no more than an extreme example of the barbarities that human beings have been perpetrating on each other since the start.  For people who do believe in God, it must remain always a dark and awful mystery.

If Love itself is really at the heart of all, how can such things happen?  What do such things mean?  The Old Testament speaks of the elusive figure of the Suffering Servant, who though ”despised and rejected of men” and brutally misused, has nonetheless willingly “borne our griefs and carried our sorrows” and thereby won an extraordinary victory in which we all somehow share.  (Isaiah 52:13-53:12).  The New Testament speaks of the cross, part of whose meaning is that even out of the worst the world can do, God is able to bring about the best.

But all such explanations sound pale and inadequate before the gas chambers of Buchenwald and Ravesbrück and the ovens of Treblinka.

Excerpt from Beyond Words by Frederick Buechner

Join the Conversation (No Comments)

Filed under: Bible

“All Shall be Well”

posted on April 8, 2012 by Musings

“Resurrection” COPYRIGHT DANIEL BONNELL WWW.BONNELLART.COM

The writer and minister Frederick Buechner speaks about the Easter message. From: An Interview with Frederick Buechner.

The essential message is that nothing, no horror can happen that can permanently, irrevocably quench the presence of holiness that is always there “underneath the everlasting arms.” No matter what dreadful things take place, that remains the heart of reality. There is that wonderful thing from the British saint, Julian of Norwich: “All shall be well, and all manner of things will be well.” That somehow remains true no matter what. That’s, I think, the message of Easter.

Join the Conversation (No Comments)

Filed under: Bible, Faith

‘Crucify Him’

posted on April 6, 2012 by Musings

Excerpt from the article “Stuck with Each Other” by Thomas W. Currie in the Spring 2012 issue of Insights, the faculty journal of Austin Seminary.

W.H. Auden thought it highly unlikely that any of us would have found Jesus attractive on our own terms. Both disciple and Pharisee knew what it was like to be on the receiving end of Jesus’ rebukes, especially when they sought to enlist him in support of their agendas. In so many ways, he was the wrong person, a thought that occurred to both Peter and Judas. Luke and Matthew make it clear, even in their birth narratives, that the child born in Bethlehem was not the Savior the world either wanted or expected….

In another place, Auden writes that if a person is asked why he or she believes in Jesus Christ, he or she can give no better answer than to say, “‘I believe … because He is in every respect the opposite of what He would be if I could make him in my own image.’ Thus, if a Christian is asked: ‘Why Jesus and not Socrates or Buddha or Confucius or Mahomet?’ perhaps all he can say is: ‘None of the others arouse all sides of my being to cry ‘Crucify Him.’”

Auden’s point is that we are never saved by the one we want, the one we deem suitable for the task, the one we would choose, but rather by one whose freedom to love scandalizes us, “constraining” our agendas, drawing us out of ourselves and into the strange polity of his body. There, “in him” whom we have not chosen, we find ourselves stuck with others whom we have not chosen, but without whom Jesus does not give us himself. To be saved by the wrong person is to be saved in and with the wrong people, a scandal that continues to offend and is regularly displayed in the sacrament of baptism.

Join the Conversation (No Comments)

Filed under: Bible, Lent

“Take; this is my body.”

posted on April 5, 2012 by Musings

The Last Supper by Salvador Dalí from http://www.dali-gallery.com/images/works/1955_01.jpg

While they were eating, he took a loaf of bread, and after blessing it he broke it, gave it to them, and said, “Take; this is my body.” Then he took a cup, and after giving thanks he gave it to them, and all of them drank from it. He said to them, “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many. Truly I tell you, I will never again drink of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God.”

Mark 14:22-25

Join the Conversation (No Comments)

Filed under: Bible, Lent

Hope that into the world the King does come

posted on March 31, 2012 by Musings

From Hope in a Room Called Remember by Frederick Buechner

When Jesus of Nazareth rode into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday and his followers cried out, “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord,” the Pharisees went to Jesus and told him to put an end to their blasphemies, and Jesus said to them, “I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out.”

This church. The church on the other side of town, the other side of the world. All churches everywhere. The day will come when they will all lie in ruins, every last one of them. The day will come when all the voices that were ever raised in them, including our own, will be permanently stilled. But when that day comes, I believe that the tumbled stones will cry aloud of the great, deep hope that down through the centuries has been the one reason for having churches at all and is the one reason we have for coming to this one now: the hope that into the world the King does come. And in the name of the Lord. And is always coming, blessed be he. And will come afire with glory, at the end of time.

In the meantime, King Jesus, we offer all churches to you as you offer them to us. Make thyself known in them. Make thy will done in them. Make our stone hearts cry out thy kingship. Make us holy and human at last that we may do the work of thy love.

Painting by Giotto di Bondone (c. 1267–1337), better known simply as Giotto, was an Italian painter and architect from Florence.

Join the Conversation (No Comments)

Filed under: Bible, Lent

Annunciation Sunday – March 25

posted on March 24, 2012 by Musings

COPYRIGHT DANIEL BONNELL   WWW.BONNELLART.COM

“Behold, I am the hand maid of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.”
Luke 1:38

Nine months before Christmas, the Church’s Lenten journey pauses on March 25 to remember the Annunciation and Mary’s “yes” to God’s gracious act of becoming “God with us” in Jesus Christ.  But Lent is far gone, and so we remember not only the 15 year old girl, who stands at the beginning of the Gospel story, but also the almost 50 year old woman who stands at the foot of the cross.  Wrapped up in this remembrance is the mystery of the Incarnation, Christ’s decision, out of love for us, to empty himself, as Paul puts it, “taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness.  And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross.”

This short poem by Jane Kenyon captures some of this remembrance of Mary as the first disciple and the mystery of the Incarnation.

Looking at Stars

by Jane Kenyon from Let Evening Come

The God of curved space, the dry
God, is not going to help us, but the son
whose blood spattered
the hem of his mother’s robe.

Join the Conversation (No Comments)

Filed under: Bible, Christmas, Lent

Our Reformed Heritage and Lent

posted on February 18, 2012 by Musings

As Presbyterians, we are relative new-comers to celebrating the liturgical seasons of the church year, including the season of Lent. Musings this month will be looking at Lent, its history and purpose, and at Lenten spiritual disciplines in particular.

To get us started, we are considering an article Yes and No: Lent and the Reformed Faith Today by John D. Witvliet from the website of the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship.  It is a brief history of Lent in the reformed churches. Excerpts are below.  At the end of the article, Witvliet asks the following questions, which are good food for thought.

1. What kind of worship service do you associate with Lent? Is it any different than worship at any other time of year?
2. What do you think about using spiritual disciplines during Lent, such as fasting or other means of giving something up?
3. How does self-denial and self-giving love tie into preparation for baptism or remembrance of your baptism?
4. Is it a good idea to “adopt Lent as an identifiable season of preparation for Easter”? Why or why not?
5. How can we put Jesus at the center of how we mark time?

Excerpts from Yes and No: Lent and the Reformed Faith Today

Our Recent Practice

For the past three generations, Christian Reformed congregations have typically been warm to sermon series on Jesus’ suffering and death, rather cool to too much emphasis on spiritual disciplines including fasting and prayer, and downright cold to other traditions that grew up around Lent: Mardi Gras parties, fish on Fridays, and setting aside the word “Alleluia” during Lenten worship (until Easter morning). This is why, for example, the 1987 Psalter Hymnal’s section on Lent focuses almost exclusively on Jesus’ suffering and death.

Fourth-Century Innovation – A link between baptism and Lent emerged

…..But that created a challenge: How was the church supposed to ensure that people who wanted to be baptized were serious about Jesus? And what did the church need to do to shape these new Christian lives? ……

So the church developed a 40-day course of preparation for baptism—a time of Bible study, catechism study (that’s right—catechism study 1,200 years before John Calvin), and spiritual disciplines including prayer and fasting. This was a super-charged “40-day spiritual adventure” or “40 days of purpose” (both are modern riffs on an ancient idea). The idea was that during those 40 days believers should be either preparing for their own baptism or encouraging someone who was preparing for baptism…….

In other words, Lent was developed in what we now call a “missional context.” It was a pastoral innovation for a time much like our own, where vast numbers of people do not grow up in the church. Lent was the church’s way of saying yes to the free offer of salvation and no to cheap grace—baptism without discipleship.

16th-Century Reform

By the time John Calvin came along, the memory of Lent as a season for shaping new Christians had long faded. Adult baptisms were rare. Just about everyone was baptized as an infant. The Lenten disciplines were still practiced, but they were often imposed by the church in a distorted way as a means of currying favor with God.

So Calvin said yes to the practice he felt his people needed—teaching built around the catechism. But he said no to the season of Lent as too hopelessly superstitious to be of help to his people.

What’s Best Today?

In places where Lent is associated almost exclusively with legalism or superstition, Reformed Christians would be wise to follow Calvin’s lead and say no to Lent. Instead, perhaps pastors should lead congregations through reflections on the theme of “freedom in Christ.”

In other contexts there may be great wisdom in adopting Lent as an identifiable season of preparation for Easter. All of us need to sanctify our calendars and make clear that nothing in the winter and springtime of the year—not Valentine’s Day, not spring break, not March Madness, not even the hockey playoffs—is as important to our identity as Jesus’ death and resurrection………

May God’s Spirit equip us with all “love and spiritual knowledge to discern what is best” (Phil. 1:10).

Join the Conversation (No Comments)

Filed under: Bible

Thee and Thou Hath Spoketh

posted on January 22, 2012 by Musings

In an address to the British Academy, The Archbishop of Canterbury discusses the cultural influence of the language in the King James Version (KJV) of the Bible.  We can appreciate the phrases like “fought the good fight”, “your brother’s keeper” and “a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush”.  But he also lifts up that because the language in the KJV is so distinctive in the modern era, it has been subject of parody.  The Archbishop’s Commentary is below.  It is excerpted from What Should the Word of God Sound Like?

Rather than belaboring the point, we will let Monty Python make the point for us in this clip from The Meaning of Life: Growth and Learning.

One of the most significant things you will have noticed in this anniversary year of the Authorized (King James) Bible (KJB) is that it has not come across simply as a possession of religious believers, which is why in a sense it is treated as belonging to everybody. It has been treated as something which isn’t the preserve of the Church. It’s been discussed — and to a very surprisingly large extent affirmed — as part of a wider cultural legacy. And one of the themes which we’re bound to be thinking about directly and indirectly in the context of this afternoon’s discussion is of course the curious way in which religious language (and religious symbolism in general) escape from their homes. They are, you might say, very disobedient pets. They jump over fences and get into places where you don’t expect them to get, and they produce occasionally very surprising progeny as a result.

————-

The odd thing is that our culture has in some way retained a sense of what a sacred text looks or sounds like even when the Church has been uncertain about it. That’s to say that a vague recollection of the King James Bible is heard – heard more than read perhaps – as striking a particular register in British discourse. People know roughly what you’re doing when you parody the King James Bible even if they’ve never opened it, and neither has the parodist!

Join the Conversation (No Comments)

Filed under: Bible

What Should the Word of God Sound Like?

posted on January 21, 2012 by Musings

In November of 2011, The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, spoke at a British Academy event examining the historical origins of the King James Bible and its literary and cultural influences over the last 400 years.  In his keynote address, Dr Williams explored the dilemma the Church faces in choosing traditional or modern speech in Bible reading and liturgy.

Below are excerpts from the address. The text of the address can be found at What Should the Word of God Sound Like? An audio version can be found at Archbishop’s Keynote Address.

What does sacred English sound like? What does the word of God sound like? And that means acknowledging the awkward fact that modern English largely lacks certain kinds of voice in its repertoire. In earlier centuries English was capable of working with different registers without too much self-consciousness. But we’ve largely lost that unselfconscious capacity to slip between registers, voices or keys in the way we talk publicly, never mind privately. And we’ve largely lost what has been called the ‘language of excess’ in religious utterance, the language of ‘redundancy’.

………

And the hard question for the translator of Scripture these days, is how to find an idiom that still does justice to the strange and the disturbing, both culturally strange and the transcendentally strange. What does the word of God sound like in a context where language itself is so often stripped-down and narrowed? Can we point to, evoke or even articulate the word of God in that environment where our linguistic options are so shrunken? And the answer to that does mean attention to both elements of strangeness that I have mentioned: the cultural and the transcendental. The culturally strange, because of course the Bible is not a book or a collection of books that was written yesterday. And its ‘not-being-written-yesterday-ness’ is an abidingly significant thing about it. It is from another era (several other eras) it is something that speaks to us from a place of human difference. And for those who believe it speaks from a place of more than human difference, there is that second strangeness – the transcendental strangeness to be dealt with and thought through. Translations of the Bible which ignore both of those kinds of strangeness are not actually going to do their work. That’s why translation of the Bible is difficult.

Join the Conversation (No Comments)

Filed under: Bible