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Our Lady of Guadalupe

At Proclaiming Gospel Justice, The Witness: Feast of Our Lady of Guadelupe (Dec. 13, 2004): La Guadalupaña: María with the Mestizo Face by Richard Bower

On Dec. 13, 2004, Latin American Christians will observe the Feast of Our Lady of Guadelupe, a sacred opportunity to honor an indigenous Virgin Mary. Richard Bower explains how Mary subverts the church and calls us to revolution and justice.

Barbara Brown Taylor: Holy Instincts

At The Christian Century, Barbara Brown Taylor, "Holy Instincts."

"There are all kinds of things wrong with the way we celebrate Christmas. We eat too much, we spend too much, we sentimentalize too much, we worry too much. Those excesses cannot douse the holy instincts that underlie them. We really are hungry. We really do want to give and receive. We really do want to feel deeply, live peaceably, sleep soundly and rise renewed. As the season moves toward its apogee, those of us who believe we know where the instincts lead may do more good by wading into the culture than by separating ourselves from it. God is in the midst of it, after all, still hunting new flesh in which to be born."

Religion, Politics & Moral Values

The transcript from Meet the Press, November 28, 2004, is online at MSNBC: Tim Russert interviews the Reverend Jerry Falwell, the Reverend Richard Land, the Reverend Al Sharpton and the Reverend Jim Wallis. Scroll about 1/3 of the way down the page to find the discussion of religion, politics & moral values.

Crossan on Diane Rehm Show

This Friday, December 10 at 11:00 (EST), John Dominic Crossan will be interviewed on the Diane Rehm Show.

A former Roman Catholic priest and prominent scholar of the historical Jesus talks about one of the New Testament's most influential and controversial figures, the apostle Paul.

Hanukkah

Hanukkah begins today:

Hanukkah and a Rediscovery of Jewish Customs, American Public Media, Speaking of Faith.

Book designer Scott-Martin Kosofsky discovered new facets of Jewish practice and tradition when he adapted a medieval Jewish guidebook called The Book of Customs. He tells us what he learned about the meaning of custom, scripture, and prayer, as well as his insights into what he calls this "surprising" season of Hanukkah.

Hanukkah at BBC Religion & Ethics.

At Beliefnet: December Dilemma.

From banned Merry Christmas signs to arguments over public menorahs and Chrismukkah cards, we offer a look at interfaith struggles and joys.

Matthew 11:2-11 - Advent 3A

Don't miss Dan Clendenin's "Where God Was Homeless," at his Journey with Jesus Foundation site:

"The central plot of the Christmas story is not one of glitz, glitter, conspicuous consumption, and superficial makeovers, but of a God who assumed human flesh and entered our broken world with all of its hells, both deeply personal and tragically global, in order to embrace and redeem us. One of the earliest Christian confessions, known as the Apostles' Creed, affirms that Jesus "descended into hell," which is actually a decidedly Christmas sort of thought."

At his First Thoughts, Bill Loader writes:

"Fairly or unfairly, John and Jesus become paradigms of spirituality or theology, the one, with its focus on threat and warning, concerned that what is right is done; the other, with its focus on people, concerned to bring wholeness and healing. Historically such a contrast is scarcely justified. But within the narratives such tendencies are evident, even though this is least recognisable in Matthew. Still, the answer of Jesus is powerful. It could, of course, mean little more than: tell John about the fantastic miracles; stun him with that! More likely it reflects the prophetic visions which remain the inspiration for the tradition today: tell John about change and transformation in people’s lives. That is what we are here for and that is what excites us. Spiritualities excited by anything else (like the magic of miracles, like overcoming the enemies of God by judgement, like getting all the rules right) miss the point."

Paul Nuechterlein (Girardian Reflections) sees verse 12 as an important key to understanding this passage. Don't miss his exegesis of this verse, and his understanding of biazetai in terms of a mimetic reading of this passage. Nuechterlein stresses the centrality of skandalon in this passage:

"A pinnacle of being scandalized is falling into addiction, a love/hate relationship with the model/obstacle. Has our celebration of Christmas reached the addictive point yet? Has Christmas become a scandal for us? The Christ child is the one who came to free us from such scandals, as long as we aren't scandalized by him. "Blessed is anyone who is not scandalized...."

Perhaps part of the "scandal" is explored by John Cobb in this week's Process & Faith Lectionary Commentary:

"The focus is once again on hope for the inbreaking of the new. This time the anticipated new is the Second Coming of the Lord. This expectation arose precisely because so many of the ancient hopes were no fulfilled by Jesus. He lived, died, and rose again, but the course of history continued on its way. The apocalyptic expectations interwoven with the historical ones in the Old Testament were not realized. Even such fulfillment as there was of historical expectations fell far short. If the hopes of Israel were to be realized, hopes into which Gentiles had now been drawn, Jesus must return. This time he would not come humbly as a carpenter and die the humiliating death of crucifixion. Instead he would come dramatically on the clouds with hosts of angels to impose his will....

"Those who are wise do not cling to the old forms of hope in new situations. They learn from both the fulfillments and the disappointments. They learn also from the transformations. They formulate their hope in new ways. From Jesus we learn that God is to be found in all that makes for life and healing, and for peace and justice. God does not force these on the world. We can work with God or join in the massive resistance that is so visible in human history. We can participate in Jesus’ faithfulness even in suffering and to death. Or we can participate in the forms of human life that led to crucifying him. No doubt most of us participate in some measure in both. But our hopes now grow out of this understanding of God’s working in us and in the world."

I have posted my own Advent Story about a time when my own hopes (for my son) were transformed. Again this week, although we are supposed to have moved on to joy (!), I continue to think about hope and what it means. I continue to think about the dead-end ways I find myself wanting to write "happily ever after" in terms that are long-sense dead or outgrown, and in doing so, I miss the really good stuff.

At Dylan's Lectionary Blog, Sarah Dylan Breuer also talks about transformation of hope:

"So what kind of Jesus are we expecting will be coming back at the climax of all things? Are we hoping that this next time, or at the last time, Jesus will finally come back as The Terminator? If so, we'll be just as disappointed, if not more so, than John the Baptizer was in Matthew 11. Or is it the Jesus we're longing for, the Jesus our lives as well as our lips confess is coming again to judge the living and the dead, the Jesus whom John's followers were told about?

That's the only Christ there is. That Jesus -- his humble service to the poor, the outcast, and the sinner, his willingness to eat with Pharisees as well as tax collectors and prostitutes, and most of all, his willingness to die on a Roman cross rather than retaliate against those who treated him and his people brutally -- is the judge of the nations, God's final answer to the question of what humanity, at its worst or its best, really deserves, in God's reckoning, in God's time. the extent to which I can finally embrace that truth, the extent to which I can receive others with the kind of generosity with which Jesus received those who came to him, is the extent to which I can understand just how boundless God's generosity, forgiveness, and love are toward someone like me."

What is the salvific scandal in your own life this Advent, or in the life of your congregation? Where is God breaking into the wilderness? What expectations have been thwarted, and what is breaking in through the ruins? Apart from where you thought it would be, where ARE the blind seeing, the lame skipping, the deaf hearing, in your own life and in that of your communities and families?

Advent 2A & Matthew 3:1-12

Check out the sermon by Rev. Bradley Schmeling at Day 1 - "Let Us Have It!" - for some thoughts about judgment and grace/hope:

"I would love to have had John the Baptist's job. Think of how fun it would be to have license to thunder judgment on the deserving. While most of us might wrinkle our brow and talk quietly and earnestly about how difficult it is to speak the judgment of God, we take secret delight in doing it. I'd trade my vestments in a second for some scratchy camel hair, even have a taste of a honey-dipped grasshopper, if I could stand in the pulpit and shout, "You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?" ...

"John the Baptist points to the gap between our rhetoric and our behavior. He's the voice of the Law, showing us our sin and calling us to bear fruit worthy of repentance. Repentance is part of the Christian journey, and it's part of getting ready for Christmas. God is coming and all of us probably need some light shed on our darkness. But if we're going to be really honest this Advent season, we probably need to be honest about our eagerness to judge rather than repent, our willingness to play the role of John the Baptist pointing out the sin of the world and our propensity to enjoy it. What's Christmas without a little complaining about all those Christians who only come to church on Christmas Eve? What's Christmas for the itchy, honey-tongued preacher if not thundering about the materialism and the commercialism of the season?"

Schmeling goes on to talk about the judgment and grace of God - that the same One who does the ultimate judging does the ultimate saving - they come from the same Place. I'm always interested in the relationship between our rhetoric and our actions - the disconnects and the integrations - and I found this sermon helpful in thinking about all of that.

Another perspective on the judgment of John is found in William Loaders' First Thoughts for this week:

"It is an important theme in Matthew that Jesus will be the judge, but something else must happen first which puts it all in a different perspective. In his life and his deeds Jesus models and explains the criteria for the judgement, demonstrating what really matters. The result is a transformation.

We see its beginnings already in John. Put negatively, there are no favourites: everyone must be immersed in the waters; everyone must join the transformation. Turned into positive terms, this also means: no one is to be written off as inferior or worthless. Every person matters to God. We are into the logic of love which flows out from the ministry of Jesus, embracing the unloved, including the outcasts, lifting up the fallen, inviting those beyond the pale, finding a place for the sinners. It does not contradict John, but it throws him off balance. The notion is so powerful that compassion will come to be seen as God’s very heart and being, a totally new way of seeing God’s reign and expounding hope. Allowed to run free it even calls into question statements that God will one day stop loving."

The very judgment of the Judges is a judgment ON the judges. Is this what John the Baptist saw when Jesus walked up for baptism? I'm not sure that means that we should not judge. (Whatever that might mean. I'm not certain that it's not just another of those rhetorical scapegoating statements - a judgment about "niceness".) I wonder, though, if it isn't worth the time to consider our own judgments - the REAL ones, not the rhetorical ones or the abstract ones - the LIVED ones - in our own consideration of our own repentance and transformation. Not at all that we don't judge or that there are no standards or whatever we fear about confronting those things in ourselves. But, what DO our own judgments and decisions - the lived ones - tell us about our own Ultimate Beliefs, our own faith and faithfulness? How are we like the Pharisees at the Jordan River - come to judge yet another thing in order to not have to look at ourselves. How do we wait for transformation, expecting it, but not pre-judging what it "must" be? How do we live in faithfulness as we await transformation, knowing that transformation has already come and will come again? How do we relate to the transformations of others, especially when we do not understand them? And what is the place of repentance in all of this?

In his Sermon Preparation Questions this week, Wesley White writes:

"How difficult it is to have expectations awakened. New choices and clearer choices and tougher choices become possible. The stakes are higher and more stark.

These same expectations raise questions. Can we stand to go through the pain of having the chaff knocked off us? Can we stand to lose our wheatiness, amidst a whole batch of bread, even if for the nourishment of creation?"

Real transformation is frightening. Rhetorical, well-ritualed transformation is easier. Do we decide beforehand what our "repentance" is going to look like, and go through motions in order to ease our conscious or fit in with a certain community? Where is God in all of this? Have we decided beforehand - as we do at Christmastime - that we already know the baby in the manger, know exactly who he is and what he wants from us, and it's time to go through repentance motions again? What would repentance and transformation look like to those of us who have done it over and over? What might it look like to be constantly repenting and turning toward God, integrating our sinfulness and our salvation in new ways all of the time - understanding God more fully, and yet realizing that we understand God less than we did before the latest transformation.

At Exegetical Notes, Brian Stoffregen reminds us that, "Literally the Greek (metanoeo) means, 'to change one's mind.' However, given Matthew's emphasis on "bearing fruit," his idea of "repentance" probably goes back to the Hebrew shuv -- "to change one's ways." It involves more than just thinking in a different way."

How do we live repentance outside the walls of the church and outside the temples of our own minds and/or even our own communities of "action"? How do we integrate thought and action in terms of faith? What does it mean to remove these things from the realm of "ideas" and to live them? How do we express these things in ways that are more than just more rhetorical scapegoating?

And what about "divine judgment?" Is it an important Christian concept? Why/how and why/how not? How do we integrate concepts of God's judgment into our real lives without merely scapegoating and becoming the Pharisees at the Jordan River once again? What IS true repentance, true transformation? Do we really want it? In what ways? In what ways do we want to stay as far away from it as possible?

NPR - Faith, Religion & Morality

A Discussion on Faith, Religion & Morality, Part 1, The Travis Smiley Show, November 29, 2004:

"The recent presidential election revived a long-simmering debate about the moral values shared by most Americans and how they are shaped by religion and politics. NPR's Tavis Smiley moderates a weeklong roundtable discussion on faith, religion and morality. On Monday, the focus is on who defines "morality" in America. Panelists include: Bishop Vashti McKenzie, president of the Council of Bishops of the African Methodist Episcopal Church; Bishop Harry Jackson, pastor of Hope Christian Church in College Park, Md.; Rabbi Michael Lerner of the Beyt Tikkun synagogue in San Francisco and editor of Tikkun magazine; and Bishop Noel Jones, pastor of the City of Refuge Church in Gardena, Calif."