Staying on course
Commentary
Once a course is charted the necessity is to stay on it, especially in unfamiliar waters. In Greek mythology the singing of the sirens would lure mariners off course and to shipwreck. In German legend it was the Lorelei whose songs enticed sailors to veer from the course and crash into a reef in the Rhine.
Each reading for today has something to do with being off or on course. In the Sinai Covenant God had charted the course for the Israelites. When they ceased being nomads and became settled farmers in Canaan they were lured off course by the local deities and their alluring promises. Hosea's prophetic eye discerned the reefs ahead and called for a return to the right course.
There are always singers of alluring songs in the marketplace. In the epistle reading we hear in the background the songs of assorted religious troubadours whose lyrics many found attractive. The writer to the Colossians was raising the warning flag: the gospel was being distorted. The gospel reading contains the Lukan version of the Lord's Prayer. The community of faith is given a prayer in which the course is charted for church and disciple. In Greek myth, Orpheus, the musician, had a beautiful and captivating voice. The sailors lashed him to the prow and there he sang, his voice catching the attention of the crew and keeping the ship on course. In the barque of Peter, the church, we have the presence and the words of the crucified and risen Lord.
Sermon Seeds In The Lessons
Hosea 1:2-10
The last two weeks in Amos we encountered the tenderness of austerity. Now in Hosea we meet the austerity of tenderness. The milieu of Amos was the rugged countryside, that of Hosea was domestic. Both were steeped in and dearly prized the Covenant tradition of Israel. Amos called for justice. Hosea called for faithfulness, loving-kindness, and devotion, "For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings" (6:6). These words are at the heart of Hosea's message and were quoted by Jesus in his own defense (Matthew 9:13).
Multiple images of God surface in Hosea's poetic language. In this particular reading God's relation to Israel is described in terms of the covenant of marriage. God is the husband of the prostituted and promiscuous community. In a startling prophetic sign Hosea takes a shrine prostitute as wife to reinforce the insight he has received and dramatize the Divine indictment of the community of faith.
In preaching from this reading some attention needs to be given to the way many Israelites blended into Canaanite religion. Shrines of the indigenous Canaanites were devoted to a god named Hadad, commonly called Baal, which means owner, lord, husband. The cultic rites involved sexual rites which imitated Baal's fertilization of the land via rain. Israelite men visited the sacred prostitutes and women offered themselves to that service. For both it was a way of insuring the ongoing fertility of the land and their own prosperity. Hosea's indictment of the community gone off course has to be understood against this background. The Lord who spoke through Hosea was the true husband of Israel, her Sustainer whose covenant involved not magical rites but the moral structure of the covenant.
Understood this way the charge of whoredom takes on a much wider application. The image of marriage and covenant is prominent in the New Testament images of Jesus as the bridegroom and church as his bride. The covenant with Israel called for justice, mercy, love, the knowledge of God, and fidelity. In their place were injustice, indifference, eroticism, I/it relationships, and infidelity. At the heart of the church's covenant with her Lord is a total claim upon our lives in the service of the Kingdom. In what ways can we prostitute ourselves?
Colossians 2:6-15, 16-19
Colossae was one of a cluster of cities in the Lyycus valley in Asia Minor. This letter was also to be shared with the church in Laodicea. It is of interest to note that Colossae was the home of Philemon and Onesimus. From Paul's letter to Philemon we learn that the church met at his house.
These house churches encouraged a family-like style but there was also a potential for divisions to arise. The writer of the espistle is aware of this potential. He warns the congregation to resist those who would arrogate to themselves the authority to condemn and disqualify others. He is aware there are travelling preachers abroad who teach flattering esoteric versions of the gospel as well as cut-rate versions. The Lorelei is singing and the songs are attractive to many. "O, what a goodly outside falsehood hath!" So spoke Anthony to Bassanio in Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice (Act 1, Scene 3).
The writer does not exactly define the heresies infiltrating the churches. Some seem to have been promoting Gnostic ideas and others dietary and ritualistic practices. Alternate versions of the gospel always abound around us. We are indebted to the author of Colossians for giving us some clues by which we can tell when we are off course.
1. He warns us against divisive elitists who condemn and disqualify others both within and outside the church.
2. He warns us against quick-fix religion. His warning about the worship of angels is of interest (2:18). So much for the current infatuation with guardian angels.
3. He warns us against proclaiming a Jesus without a cross and to guard against a Gnosticism that substitutes esoteric knowledge or manipulative techniques for the gospel.
4. He warns us not to major in minors like dietary rules or rituals.
Are his warnings valid today? Every now and then we need a jolt from an observant outsider. Check out the provocative book, The American Religion. Here's the author's theme in his own words. "I argue in this book that the American Religion which is so prevalent among us, masks itself as Protestant Christianity yet has ceased to be Christian." (Bloom, Harold. The American Religion, The Emergence Of The Post Christian Nation. Simon and Schuster. 1992)
Luke 11:1-13
The reading begins with the Lukan version of the Lord's Prayer. The prayer by itself suggests multiple possibilities for the preacher. A series of sermons is a possibility. The word of address, Father, leaps right out at us. We know that Jesus used the Aramaic word, Abba, in addressing God. Abba is the intimate language of the Aramaic family like our word, Daddy. The accent is on the intimate and personal nature of our relationship with God. We do not want to miss this crucial point.
The pronouns of the prayer also catch our interest. The vocabulary of community shines forth. Here is an anonymous bit of verse that puts the point nicely.
You cannot say the Lord's prayer
And even once say "I."
You cannot say the Lord's prayer,
And even once say "My."
Nor can you pray the Lord's prayer,
And not pray for another.
For when you ask for daily bread,
You must include that other.
For others are included
In each and every plea.
From beginning to the end of it,
It does not once say "Me."
The phrase, "hallowed be your name," screams for our attention. To hallow the name of God is to make his invisible rule the priority of our lives. We want to note that the petition does not seek the adulation or circulation of the name of God, but the hallowing of God's name. For Jesus the context of prayer is the worshipping community not the public assembly. Jesus had no interest in a pious adulation of the name of God that was void of moral imperative. He encouraged us to engage in individual praying, but in privacy (Matthew 6:5-6).
The course of the church is charted in the prayer: "Your kingdom come." It is not ecclesiastical empire building that we are to be up and about. Jesus does not send us out to campaign for political candidates or promote ourselves, but to care compassionately. Note also the way the plea for daily bread is linked with the petition for forgiveness. Bread does not come directly from God. Between the wheat fields of Kansas and the tables of the world stands the whole gamut of national and international economic and political networks that impact upon distribution. Sin disrupts the system.
Footnotes
If the theme of keeping on course is suggestive, here are two illustrations that will at least be worth filing away. The first is the apocryphal story of the tourist who asked the Maine lobsterman if he knew where all the reefs were along the coast. "Nope!" he answered. "Then how do you keep from hitting them?" asked the tourist. The lobsterman answered, "I know where they ain't."
Here is the second. When Mariner 1 was aimed at Mars and shot into space, it went off course and zoomed into oblivion. One little hyphen was inadvertently left out of the instructions fed into the guidance system and that mistake cost the taxpayers two million dollars. We can think of the words of Jesus entrusted to us as his way of programming the church to keep it on course.
Each reading for today has something to do with being off or on course. In the Sinai Covenant God had charted the course for the Israelites. When they ceased being nomads and became settled farmers in Canaan they were lured off course by the local deities and their alluring promises. Hosea's prophetic eye discerned the reefs ahead and called for a return to the right course.
There are always singers of alluring songs in the marketplace. In the epistle reading we hear in the background the songs of assorted religious troubadours whose lyrics many found attractive. The writer to the Colossians was raising the warning flag: the gospel was being distorted. The gospel reading contains the Lukan version of the Lord's Prayer. The community of faith is given a prayer in which the course is charted for church and disciple. In Greek myth, Orpheus, the musician, had a beautiful and captivating voice. The sailors lashed him to the prow and there he sang, his voice catching the attention of the crew and keeping the ship on course. In the barque of Peter, the church, we have the presence and the words of the crucified and risen Lord.
Sermon Seeds In The Lessons
Hosea 1:2-10
The last two weeks in Amos we encountered the tenderness of austerity. Now in Hosea we meet the austerity of tenderness. The milieu of Amos was the rugged countryside, that of Hosea was domestic. Both were steeped in and dearly prized the Covenant tradition of Israel. Amos called for justice. Hosea called for faithfulness, loving-kindness, and devotion, "For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings" (6:6). These words are at the heart of Hosea's message and were quoted by Jesus in his own defense (Matthew 9:13).
Multiple images of God surface in Hosea's poetic language. In this particular reading God's relation to Israel is described in terms of the covenant of marriage. God is the husband of the prostituted and promiscuous community. In a startling prophetic sign Hosea takes a shrine prostitute as wife to reinforce the insight he has received and dramatize the Divine indictment of the community of faith.
In preaching from this reading some attention needs to be given to the way many Israelites blended into Canaanite religion. Shrines of the indigenous Canaanites were devoted to a god named Hadad, commonly called Baal, which means owner, lord, husband. The cultic rites involved sexual rites which imitated Baal's fertilization of the land via rain. Israelite men visited the sacred prostitutes and women offered themselves to that service. For both it was a way of insuring the ongoing fertility of the land and their own prosperity. Hosea's indictment of the community gone off course has to be understood against this background. The Lord who spoke through Hosea was the true husband of Israel, her Sustainer whose covenant involved not magical rites but the moral structure of the covenant.
Understood this way the charge of whoredom takes on a much wider application. The image of marriage and covenant is prominent in the New Testament images of Jesus as the bridegroom and church as his bride. The covenant with Israel called for justice, mercy, love, the knowledge of God, and fidelity. In their place were injustice, indifference, eroticism, I/it relationships, and infidelity. At the heart of the church's covenant with her Lord is a total claim upon our lives in the service of the Kingdom. In what ways can we prostitute ourselves?
Colossians 2:6-15, 16-19
Colossae was one of a cluster of cities in the Lyycus valley in Asia Minor. This letter was also to be shared with the church in Laodicea. It is of interest to note that Colossae was the home of Philemon and Onesimus. From Paul's letter to Philemon we learn that the church met at his house.
These house churches encouraged a family-like style but there was also a potential for divisions to arise. The writer of the espistle is aware of this potential. He warns the congregation to resist those who would arrogate to themselves the authority to condemn and disqualify others. He is aware there are travelling preachers abroad who teach flattering esoteric versions of the gospel as well as cut-rate versions. The Lorelei is singing and the songs are attractive to many. "O, what a goodly outside falsehood hath!" So spoke Anthony to Bassanio in Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice (Act 1, Scene 3).
The writer does not exactly define the heresies infiltrating the churches. Some seem to have been promoting Gnostic ideas and others dietary and ritualistic practices. Alternate versions of the gospel always abound around us. We are indebted to the author of Colossians for giving us some clues by which we can tell when we are off course.
1. He warns us against divisive elitists who condemn and disqualify others both within and outside the church.
2. He warns us against quick-fix religion. His warning about the worship of angels is of interest (2:18). So much for the current infatuation with guardian angels.
3. He warns us against proclaiming a Jesus without a cross and to guard against a Gnosticism that substitutes esoteric knowledge or manipulative techniques for the gospel.
4. He warns us not to major in minors like dietary rules or rituals.
Are his warnings valid today? Every now and then we need a jolt from an observant outsider. Check out the provocative book, The American Religion. Here's the author's theme in his own words. "I argue in this book that the American Religion which is so prevalent among us, masks itself as Protestant Christianity yet has ceased to be Christian." (Bloom, Harold. The American Religion, The Emergence Of The Post Christian Nation. Simon and Schuster. 1992)
Luke 11:1-13
The reading begins with the Lukan version of the Lord's Prayer. The prayer by itself suggests multiple possibilities for the preacher. A series of sermons is a possibility. The word of address, Father, leaps right out at us. We know that Jesus used the Aramaic word, Abba, in addressing God. Abba is the intimate language of the Aramaic family like our word, Daddy. The accent is on the intimate and personal nature of our relationship with God. We do not want to miss this crucial point.
The pronouns of the prayer also catch our interest. The vocabulary of community shines forth. Here is an anonymous bit of verse that puts the point nicely.
You cannot say the Lord's prayer
And even once say "I."
You cannot say the Lord's prayer,
And even once say "My."
Nor can you pray the Lord's prayer,
And not pray for another.
For when you ask for daily bread,
You must include that other.
For others are included
In each and every plea.
From beginning to the end of it,
It does not once say "Me."
The phrase, "hallowed be your name," screams for our attention. To hallow the name of God is to make his invisible rule the priority of our lives. We want to note that the petition does not seek the adulation or circulation of the name of God, but the hallowing of God's name. For Jesus the context of prayer is the worshipping community not the public assembly. Jesus had no interest in a pious adulation of the name of God that was void of moral imperative. He encouraged us to engage in individual praying, but in privacy (Matthew 6:5-6).
The course of the church is charted in the prayer: "Your kingdom come." It is not ecclesiastical empire building that we are to be up and about. Jesus does not send us out to campaign for political candidates or promote ourselves, but to care compassionately. Note also the way the plea for daily bread is linked with the petition for forgiveness. Bread does not come directly from God. Between the wheat fields of Kansas and the tables of the world stands the whole gamut of national and international economic and political networks that impact upon distribution. Sin disrupts the system.
Footnotes
If the theme of keeping on course is suggestive, here are two illustrations that will at least be worth filing away. The first is the apocryphal story of the tourist who asked the Maine lobsterman if he knew where all the reefs were along the coast. "Nope!" he answered. "Then how do you keep from hitting them?" asked the tourist. The lobsterman answered, "I know where they ain't."
Here is the second. When Mariner 1 was aimed at Mars and shot into space, it went off course and zoomed into oblivion. One little hyphen was inadvertently left out of the instructions fed into the guidance system and that mistake cost the taxpayers two million dollars. We can think of the words of Jesus entrusted to us as his way of programming the church to keep it on course.
