Running against wind and tide
Commentary
Nautical metaphor can be helpful to the preacher in dealing with the Old Testament and gospel readings today. The words of both were spoken to communities of faith, keepers of the vision of God's new day, in times of adverse wind and tide. I asked a lobsterman friend what was essential when running against both wind and tide. He replied, "You have to keep a strong hand on the wheel and stay on course." Such was the situation in the community around the unknown prophet and later the early church embarking into the stream of history. Both were striving to be faithful to the vision in a time of adverse pressures and contrary winds.
The epistle reading if not used to fuel a sermon should certainly be read with commentary lest some of the phrases be taken out of context and used to endorse a wrong-headed and mean-spirited approach to the issues of poverty and welfare reform. The writer was addressing a peculiar situation in a congregation that was a tiny minority in an ancient culture not our present national issues. Having said that it can also be said that the reading does suggest thoughts about communal responsibility and stewardship.
Sermon Seeds In The Lessons
Isaiah 65:17-25
James D. Smart gives us a scholarly clue to unlocking chapters 65 and 66 of Isaiah. "We have already discovered in many of the earlier chapters evidence of a deep split in the community addressed by Second Isaiah and have identified the opposing parties, the one as a professedly orthodox group that had great confidence in the efficacy of sacrifices and fasting, a tendency toward syncretism in religious practices, and little concern about justice or mercy in human relations, the other as a small prophetic group whose principles had made it an object of scorn and persecution. The former was not above using the courts of justice to rid itself of its critics" (Smart, James D., History and Theology in Second Isaiah, Westminster Press, 1965, page 274). The prophet belongs to the persecuted minority striving to keep alive and be faithful to the vision of God's shalom in the face of adverse winds and tide.
It is important for us to mark the expansive character to the vision of God's new day. The vision is neither triumphalist, nor narrow, nor mean-spirited. There is certainly a way to use this reading in tandem with Luke 21:5-19 which mirrors the minority church striving against antagonistic currents to be faithful to the vision of a new heaven and a new earth.
2 Thessalonians 3:6-13
We simply do not know the reason some members of this congregation were refusing to work. We can guess that it had something to do with their understanding of the return of the Lord. They apparently kept busy by stirring up trouble and freeloading on other members of the church. I am reminded of the words attributed to a delegate who took the floor in a church assembly and said to a pastor who had just finished speaking, "Brother, you remind me of a Texas steer. You do more stomping and snorting and give less milk than any critter I know." Perhaps we've all met the type in one context or another.
Here then is an avenue for voicing some thoughts upon communal responsibility. We hear much about rights these days but not a lot about the equally important word, responsibility. As a resource for personal study, check out Rethinking Rights and Responsibilities, The Moral Bounds of Community by Arthur J. Dyck (Pilgrim Press,1994). Thoughts related to stewardship also open up here, for freeloading, a form of parasitism, is the opposite of stewardship. In what ways do we live off of the contributions of others and put nothing into life in return?
Thinking of the way some statements in this reading could be taken out of context brings to mind these words of Bassanio in Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice.
The world is still deceiv'd with ornament.
In law, what pleas so tainted and corrupt
But, being season'd with a gracious voice,
Obscures the show of evil? In religion,
What damned error but some sober brow
Will bless it and approve it with a text,
Hiding the grossness with fair ornament?
There is no vice so simple but assumes
Some mark of virtue on his outward parts.
(Act 3, Scene 2)
Luke 21:5-19
If the November-December 1994 issue of Emphasis is in your file, pull it out and check this column for November 13 in which there are comments on Mark 13:1-8. Those relating to Mark 13:1-2 will relate well with Luke 21:5-6.
Of particular importance to us right now is the warning to avoid fanatics and fanaticism. "Beware that you are not led astray; for many will come in my name and say, 'I am he!' and 'The time is near!' Do not go after them." There are those who emerge and strut upon the stage of current events in every day and age and talk as if they had a special pipeline to God or are the true interpreters of the Lord's words.
In the days when Germany was still divided by the Iron Curtain, an apocryphal story made the rounds. A fellow from Kansas was traveling to Europe by plane. Being curious and folksy, he tried to start up a conversation with his seat mate. "Where are you from?" he asked. "I am from West Germany," replied the man. The Kansan was quiet for a moment then asked, "What are your politics over there?" Though a bit taken back, the man replied, "Why, I am a Christian Democrat." The Kansan brooded over that for a while then finally looked at his seat mate and said, "Where I come from you can't be both." We get a chuckle out of that story but it goes beyond good-natured ribbing when some enter the political arena and arrogate to their own definitions and political agenda the imprimatur of the Lord. Someone once said that patriotism can be the last refuge of scoundrels. The same can be said of religion.
But then I sigh; and with a piece of Scripture,
Tell them that God bids us do good for evil:
And thus I clothe my naked villainy
With odd ends stol'n of holy writ;
And seem a saint when most I play the devil.
(Shakespeare, King Richard III, Act 1, Scene 3)
The epistle reading if not used to fuel a sermon should certainly be read with commentary lest some of the phrases be taken out of context and used to endorse a wrong-headed and mean-spirited approach to the issues of poverty and welfare reform. The writer was addressing a peculiar situation in a congregation that was a tiny minority in an ancient culture not our present national issues. Having said that it can also be said that the reading does suggest thoughts about communal responsibility and stewardship.
Sermon Seeds In The Lessons
Isaiah 65:17-25
James D. Smart gives us a scholarly clue to unlocking chapters 65 and 66 of Isaiah. "We have already discovered in many of the earlier chapters evidence of a deep split in the community addressed by Second Isaiah and have identified the opposing parties, the one as a professedly orthodox group that had great confidence in the efficacy of sacrifices and fasting, a tendency toward syncretism in religious practices, and little concern about justice or mercy in human relations, the other as a small prophetic group whose principles had made it an object of scorn and persecution. The former was not above using the courts of justice to rid itself of its critics" (Smart, James D., History and Theology in Second Isaiah, Westminster Press, 1965, page 274). The prophet belongs to the persecuted minority striving to keep alive and be faithful to the vision of God's shalom in the face of adverse winds and tide.
It is important for us to mark the expansive character to the vision of God's new day. The vision is neither triumphalist, nor narrow, nor mean-spirited. There is certainly a way to use this reading in tandem with Luke 21:5-19 which mirrors the minority church striving against antagonistic currents to be faithful to the vision of a new heaven and a new earth.
2 Thessalonians 3:6-13
We simply do not know the reason some members of this congregation were refusing to work. We can guess that it had something to do with their understanding of the return of the Lord. They apparently kept busy by stirring up trouble and freeloading on other members of the church. I am reminded of the words attributed to a delegate who took the floor in a church assembly and said to a pastor who had just finished speaking, "Brother, you remind me of a Texas steer. You do more stomping and snorting and give less milk than any critter I know." Perhaps we've all met the type in one context or another.
Here then is an avenue for voicing some thoughts upon communal responsibility. We hear much about rights these days but not a lot about the equally important word, responsibility. As a resource for personal study, check out Rethinking Rights and Responsibilities, The Moral Bounds of Community by Arthur J. Dyck (Pilgrim Press,1994). Thoughts related to stewardship also open up here, for freeloading, a form of parasitism, is the opposite of stewardship. In what ways do we live off of the contributions of others and put nothing into life in return?
Thinking of the way some statements in this reading could be taken out of context brings to mind these words of Bassanio in Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice.
The world is still deceiv'd with ornament.
In law, what pleas so tainted and corrupt
But, being season'd with a gracious voice,
Obscures the show of evil? In religion,
What damned error but some sober brow
Will bless it and approve it with a text,
Hiding the grossness with fair ornament?
There is no vice so simple but assumes
Some mark of virtue on his outward parts.
(Act 3, Scene 2)
Luke 21:5-19
If the November-December 1994 issue of Emphasis is in your file, pull it out and check this column for November 13 in which there are comments on Mark 13:1-8. Those relating to Mark 13:1-2 will relate well with Luke 21:5-6.
Of particular importance to us right now is the warning to avoid fanatics and fanaticism. "Beware that you are not led astray; for many will come in my name and say, 'I am he!' and 'The time is near!' Do not go after them." There are those who emerge and strut upon the stage of current events in every day and age and talk as if they had a special pipeline to God or are the true interpreters of the Lord's words.
In the days when Germany was still divided by the Iron Curtain, an apocryphal story made the rounds. A fellow from Kansas was traveling to Europe by plane. Being curious and folksy, he tried to start up a conversation with his seat mate. "Where are you from?" he asked. "I am from West Germany," replied the man. The Kansan was quiet for a moment then asked, "What are your politics over there?" Though a bit taken back, the man replied, "Why, I am a Christian Democrat." The Kansan brooded over that for a while then finally looked at his seat mate and said, "Where I come from you can't be both." We get a chuckle out of that story but it goes beyond good-natured ribbing when some enter the political arena and arrogate to their own definitions and political agenda the imprimatur of the Lord. Someone once said that patriotism can be the last refuge of scoundrels. The same can be said of religion.
But then I sigh; and with a piece of Scripture,
Tell them that God bids us do good for evil:
And thus I clothe my naked villainy
With odd ends stol'n of holy writ;
And seem a saint when most I play the devil.
(Shakespeare, King Richard III, Act 1, Scene 3)
