textweek

Links to worship and preaching resources for November 7, 2010

Updates to links to resources:
Proper 27 / Ordinary 32 / Pentecost 24
http://www.textweek.com/yearc/properc27.htm
All Saints Day
http://www.textweek.com/yearc/allc.htm
...All Souls Day
http://www.textweek.com/festivals/all_souls.htm

Textweek / ATLAS starting places for Proper 26 - October 31, 2010

Here are some starting places for study at ATLA this week. If you are the graduate of an accredited U.S. theological school, you may have free access to these articles through your school. Check ATLAS access options. You can find full lists of ATLAS recommended articles for this week at The Text This Week's page for this week's texts.

Proper 26C / Ordinary 31C / Pentecost +23
October 31, 2010 

Habakkuk 1:1-4; 2:1-4 

Craven, Toni, "Habakkuk 1:1-11, Between Text and Sermon," Interpretation, 2007.
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A 2007 “Between Text & Sermon” article from Interpretation. “In the prayer of Hab 3:1-19, the prophet petitions YHWH "to remember mercy" (3:2, raKem) in an unforgettable vision of the Holy One's coming—a passage that no Sunday lectionary ever uses and an omission that causes me to wonder. The prophet, the nations, and the entire cosmos are deeply shaken at the coming of YHWH to save the anointed covenant people (3:13). Yet Habakkuk waits quietly for this promised day of calamity to come upon the enemy (3:16; cf. the judgments against the various groups, 2:4^15), vowing, "Though the fig tree does not blossom, and no fruit is on the vines; though the produce of the olive fails and the fields yield no food; though the flock is cut off from the fold and there is no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the LORD; I will exult in the God of my salvation" (3:17-18). Habakkuk teaches us to wait and to survive with joy. Though the community is in disarray and the nations threaten destruction, fidelity and faith give this prophet the vision and courage to call God to action.”

 Keim, Paul, "Singing the Blues," The Christian Century, 2007.
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 “And what of those of us whose home is the immigrants' foreign land? How might this metaphor reshape the moral imagination of us "captors" who offer (or benefit from) labor without dignity and opportunity without hope? Perhaps it could awaken a deeper empathy for those who struggle to make sense of a world turned on its head, as well as stimulating more direct action on their behalf…”

 2 Thessalonians 1:1-12

Adam, A.K.M., "Walk This Way: Repetition, Difference, and the Imitation of Christ," Interpretation, 2001.
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“An ethics of imitation risks trivializing, aggrandizing, and homogenizing the company of disciples. Should followers of Jesus even try to walk this way?”

 Luke 19:1-10 

West, Audrey, "House Calls," The Christian Century, 2007.
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 “Salvation is not about the good or bad labels by which we are known to ourselves or others.”

 Westhelle, Vitor, "Exposing Zacchaeus," The Christian Century, 2006.
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“Grace can come only with repentance, and by allowing ourselves to be exposed to the wounds of the world.”

 Yamasaki, Gary, "Point of View in a Gospel Story: What Difference Does It Make? Luke 19:1-10 as a Test Case," Journal of Biblical Literature, 2006.
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 “An examination of the way in which point of view is manipulated in this episode reveals something quite rare: an account involving Jesus in which he is never the carrier of point of view. Rather, the account is carefully crafted to maintain Zacchaeus in that role for all but a brief moment in the middle of the passage.”

 Thompson, Virgil, "Preaching the Justification of Zacchaeus," Lutheran Quarterly, 2009.
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 “But while the justification of the ungodly may be the soteriological climax of the event of justification it is not its goal. The "telos," as Stuhlmacher goes on to explain, "lies in the achievement of God's justice in heaven and on earth, that is, the reconciliation of the cosmos and the establishment of the basileia tou theou (cf. I Cor 15:28).ms This is the news which the preacher of the divine Word of justification is called to preach, the final judgment of God let out in favor of the ungodly. Nothing other and nothing less, for nothing else will do.”

Luke 19, Zacchaeus at WorkingPreacher

Have you seen David Lose's column about the translation of Luke 19:8, and heard the podcast about this issue? Lose also ties in Zaccheus with Reformation Day. Podcast: http://www.workingpreacher.org/brainwave.aspx?podcast_id=152

2 Timothy 4 "Drink Offering"

Thanks, Boni Quandt for this link to background information about the Drink Offering mentioned in 2 Timothy 4:6

Textweek ATLAS suggestions for October 24, 2010

Here are some starting places for study at ATLA this week. If you are the graduate of an accredited U.S. theological school, you may have free access to these articles through your school. Check ATLAS access options. You can find full lists of ATLAS recommended articles for this week at The Text This Week's page for this week's texts.

Proper 25C / Ordinary 30C / Pentecost +22

October 24, 2010

Luke 18 

West, Audrey, "One-Upsmanship," The Christian Century, 2007.
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 “The gospel of Jesus Christ offers a different way of assessing value, an undoing of these worldly statistical claims to superiority. Neither church growth, nor spirituality, nor outreach, nor diplomas, nor titles, nor even the ability to offer eloquent prayers is the yardstick against which God measures our value as children of God's realm.”

 

Friedrichsen, Timothy A., "The Temple, a Pharisee, a Tax Collector, and the Kingdom of God: Rereading a Jesus Parable (Luke 18:10-14a)," Journal of Biblical Literature, 2005.
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 Expectations, even those connected with the temple, do not obligate the kingdom of God. With this parable (and other parables), Jesus ushers in ‘the complete, radical, polar reversal of accepted human judgment, even or especially of religious judgment. . . . What, in other words, if God does not play the game by our rules?’”

 Harrison, Stephanie, "The Case of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector: Justification and Social Location in Luke's Gospel," Currents in Theology and Mission, 2005.
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“For Luke, justification involves two different things for two different groups of people. For those with power, wealth, or status, justification involves repentance, or a turning back to God's ways of mercy (not separation). However, for those without power, wealth, or status—in other words, those who are completely marginalized— justification is part of God's mercy being shown to them because humans are not doing it. For this group, acknowledging or accepting God is enough.”

Holmgren, Fredrick C., "The Pharisee and the Tax Collector, Luke 18:9-14 and Deuteronomy 26:1-15" Interpretation, 1994.
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An Interpretation “Between Text and Sermon” article from 1994. “This portrayal of the tax collector, like that of the Pharisee, is hyperbole; nevertheless, it may speak to us of the danger of a "one-note" theology. People who go about lamenting their sinfulness may manage, at times, to slide away from responsibility for their actions because, as they say, "We are only sinners saved by grace." Approached in this way, religion becomes too simply the celebration of God's grace, which is an emotional substitute for the call to do what is found in the teaching of the prophets and Jesus.”

 

 Hamm, Dennis, S.J., "The Tamid Service in Luke-Acts: The Cultic Background behind Luke's Theology of Worship," The Catholic Biblical Quarterly, 2003.
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The section on this text begins on page 223. “According to this example story, to be righteous or justified means to have entered into the spirit of the Tamid liturgy; and the spirit of that liturgy surely entails the sentiments of the prayers prescribed for the priests: the Ten Commandments, the Shema (Deut 6:4-9; 11:13-21; Num 15:37-41), and one of the Eighteen Benedictions (see m. Tarn. 5.1).”

 

 2 Timothy 4 

Brueggemann, Walter, "Disputed Present, Assured Future," The Christian Century, 1992.
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“In these three readings we meet in turn a faithful servant of the church (the epistle reading), a protesting, endangered believer (the Psalm), and a city under assault (the Old Testament reading). Everybody is in trouble. In all three cases, all three situations take Yahweh into account. Were it not for Yahweh and faith in the God of Israel, life would be safer, less complicated and

less dangerous. Life without Yahweh might indeed be preferable, but it is not available.”

 

 Jeremiah 14

 

Avioz, Michael, "The Call for Revenge in Jeremiah's Complaints," Vetus Testamentum, 2005.
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 Abstract: “This article deals with the troublesome issue of Jeremiah's calls for revenge in the so-called 'Jeremiah's laments' (Jer xi-xx). Such calls are strange due to the fact Israelite prophets are usually conceived as intercessors. After surveying the different views and criticizing them, the author offers three solutions to the problem. Instead of focusing on our moral judgment of Jeremiah's calls for revenge, the author tries to show how they were interpreted by the author of the book of Jeremiah. Jeremiah's calls are designed according to the principle of measure for measure; the prophet is described as God's messenger who is worthy of being protected; and finally Jeremiah is conceived as trying to let justice be shown.”

 

Willis, John T., "Dialogue between Prophet and Audience as a Rhetorical Device in the Book of Jeremiah," Journal for the Study of the Old Testament, 1985.
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 “The purpose of the present study is to emphasize the presence of a third factor which has a bearing on the structure of the book of Jeremiah, a rhetorical device appearing with some degree of regularity in the book, namely, dialogue, in particular, dialogue between the prophet and his audience; and to stress that it should be taken into consideration in studying the structure of this book.”

Luke 18:9-14

This week I'm starting with "Just Worship," Kate Huey, SAMUEL ucc.org: Sermon Seeds, lectionary citations, weekly theme, lectionary texts, bulletin back page, 2010. "The hook in this story may be our own temptation to identify ...with the tax collector and not the Pharisee, even though the Pharisee may resemble many more of us in many more ways than we would like to think, in the life of the church and in our society." Any thoughts about this article or opening thoughts about the parable?

Textweek: Proper 26C / Ordinary 31C / Pentecost +23 October 24, 2010

Updates have been completed to links to resources for Proper 26C / Ordinary 31C / Pentecost +23, October 24, 2010. http://www.textweek.com/yearc/properc26.htm . Updates will continue throughout the week.

Suzanne Guthrie's Prayers & Meditations for Oct 17, 2010

"Let Me Go Steadily On," Suzanne Guthrie, At the Edge of the Enclosure, prayers and meditations, 2010. Many are finding useful thoughts here. (How) do these thoughts affect your reading of these texts within your own situation and that of your communities?

No Country for Old Men and Proper 24C

I've seen this link a number of places. Again, how do you read? Does this bring up parallels between this week's text and your own understandings and congregations?

Error Correction: Textweek Luke 18:1-8 ATLAS link

Weaver, Dorothy Jean, "Between Text & Sermon, Luke 18:1-8," Interpretation, 2002.
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