Wisdom Among Us

Today's message was very conversational. This is the manuscript from which I lead the reflection.

BBTaylor, wrote, “John has essentially rewritten the opening verses of Genesis in his prologue, placing the Word with God from the beginning.”(1)

What or Who is the “Word”?

Is “Word” a metaphor? —— 

What does it mean to you that Jesus is referred to as “Word”?

answers

Another scholar pointed out that “All human language about God must of necessity be metaphorical.”(2)                     

What did you think of the children’s book? 

Were those "names" - metaphors for God?

Did you agree or did it push the envelope about God and religions too far for you?   You don’t have to agree, with it or with me…

How about the words we all read together from Sirach…

How does Wisdom compare to God? 

IS WISDOM GOD?

answers

We have spent time with physics and physical concepts this year. Today we will be metaphysical. 

Sometimes we speak about our understanding of God as “trinitarian”. What does that mean?

• 3 in one God
• Experiences of God, Creator/ Redeemer/ Sustainer
• God, Christ, Holy Spirit

why is our language of 3 a problem for some people in other faiths? Some in Islam? Some who are Jews?

Why did Jesus language get him in trouble/ killed?

How or Where does the “WORD” fit in?

Where does WISDOM fit in those 3 expressions of God?

“Clearly Sirach closely identifies Wisdom with God’s own self.”(3)

The beginning of the year is a perfect time to seek God’s wisdom. And the journey to wisdom begins with trying to understand what we can know about God.

Jewish honoring of God’s Name

We get in trouble when we try to define God.

Jewish.. no speak no write…

The beginning of Moses’ story (that we will touch on next week in Big Sunday), includes God’s self-revelation to him. After being told by God to visit Pharaoh with God’s message. Moses says, “If I come to the Israelites and say to them, “The God of your ancestors has sent me to you,” and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?”

God answers, “I AM WHO I AM”, (I AM WHAT I AM OR I WILL BE WHAT I WILL BE)

"tetragrammaton". YHWH 

WHAT DOES OUR BIBLE substitute for YHWH? ="LORD"

The good thing about not saying God’s name is it reminds US to  that the word, God, or any name we use for God, are not God, but merely descriptions that fall woefully short of the fullness of the Divine.

Perhaps that is our first “wisdom takeaway” today. 

Remember that we can’t contain God in a name or any concept we have.

“We can become to tied to certain metaphors—God as shepherd, God as Faith, God as king—that we fail to recognize their imitation We can begin to confuse our metaphors for God’s reality, transforming our words into idols.”(4)

ACOB'S favorite word for God or describing God? = Love

Kendra Hotz also said, “One of the surest ways to break our idolatry and expand our vision of God is to apply the full range of biblical metaphors and images for God, including its feminine imagery. The passage from Sirach can provide an opportunity to reflect on our language about God.”(5)

We reflect today and seek to know God’s wisdom. We might also recall that theologians have spoken of God’s self-revelation in two-ways

1. general revelation - the ways God is made known to us thru the natural world and is accessible to our reason
2. special revelation, the ways God is made known to us by God’s self-revelation, like to Moses, and in the history of Israel and in the life of Jesus. (including his death and resurrection)(6)

(Taylor also points out that the John scripture doesn’t put down the revelation to Moses in favor of the one found in Jesus. Instead, it is one more, a continuing revelation.)(7)

A personal reflection question: re: General Revelation

What General Ways, have you found God? .. thru the natural world and your own reasoning?

(where have you seen God?) me vs. Carl Sagan

As Christians, we see God in Jesus. John’s poetry is one way to describe Jesus, (probably not the first we’d use) yet it helps us add another dimension to the human Jesus that we would otherwise miss.

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. … What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people." Jn 1:4 

We are used to thinking of Jesus as the light of the world. This is why you brought candles to place on our worship center. The light in in your home,—- YOUR light -lights up THIS place - and we are all ENLIGHTENED by the light that is Jesus.

What wisdom has the Light of the World brought to us?

Let’s focus it down to this,

What wisdom does Christianity offer the world?

answers

In the days just past and those ahead, many people will turn to self-help columns and books to assist their New Year’s resolutions. Sirach AND John offer us wisdom that transcend the self-help gurus. 

In the COB, we have discerned particular truths that we can rightly call wisdom.

What wisdom does the COB offer the world?

answers

the COB and this passage in Sirach along with Mennonites and some others, offer the particular insight that wisdom is found in community and that “she occupies herself with serving God.” 

Is this not part of the wisdom the COB has to offer the world?

 YOUR light illuminates THIS church, this congregation. (Individually but even more, collectively)

We focus the wisdom we have found in Christ's community by following Jesus’ teachings and example. He gave himself to and for his community… and ours. He lived in service to the world.

What is our purpose?

What are we here, in this church?

What is it we are to do?

these were the questions the Church Board wrestled with, of course we tend to answer them with the functions that we have known the church to do. Yet it is very important as we begin each year, to look again at why we are here.

“We are invited to be part of a specific kind of community whose purpose is not to enhance the life experience of its members but to serve God.”(8)

The specific tasks we will do in 2016 to live that purpose is some of what we will flesh out at our Church Retreat.

The gift has come to us - God’s gift of “self-revelation” in Jesus, known as the Messiah. Because God reveled God’s self to Israel so they could be a blessing to others. 

and then God was seen in Jesus, a continuing revelation of God… (the light of the world.)

Where is God seen today?….

I trust the answer is..  HERE!

God’s wisdom is here among us!

John concludes the section known as the prologue with these words, “The Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as a only son, full of grace and truth.” (Jn 1:14)

The light is here, we are living in God’s wisdom when we live in Christian community. Your seeking for wisdom begins and ends here. 

We have only to take this light, God’s wisdom, out into the world.

May that be our ONLY mission this year!

The End

footnotes:

 1.Barbara Brown Taylor Feasting on the Word - Homiletical (Louis:WJK,2009)193

2. Kendra G. Hotz Feasting on the Word - Theological (Louis:WJK,2009)174

3. Hotz p.172

4. Hotz p. 174

5. Hotz p. 174

6. Hotz p. 170

7. Taylor p. 189

8. Stephens Lytch Feasting on the Word - Homiletical (Louis:WJK,2009) 173

More of THOSE Days

I’ll guess that you were feeling relieved after the children’s time that finally THIS week we would have some joyful news instead of all those oppressive prophetic texts. You may even had extra hope after the letter to Thessalonians advice to REJOICE ALWAYS. But then Stephen read the Mark text and it sounds a lot like what we’ve been hearing for two weeks in advent. . More about those days!

Do you know the story of the ‘Boy Who Cried Wolf’?  

Tell it, surely you each know a little part. (or you can WIKI it on your phone.) Aesop’s fable

• shepherd boy who repeatedly tricks nearby villagers into thinking a wolf is attacking his flock
• When one actually does appear and the boy again calls for help, 
• the villagers believe that it is another false alarm and the sheep are eaten by the wolf. ^[4][5]

Do you think it is blasphemy to think these prophets are crying wolf?

(answers)

image: Duomo (Grand Duke Cosimo I de' Medici decided to have the dome painted with a representation of The Last Judgment. This enormous work, 3,600 metres² (38 750 ft²) of painted surface, was started in 1568 by Giorgio Vasari and Federico Zuccari and would last till 1579.)

(The other text we could have read has John the Baptist crying out for repentance to people of Galilee. “make way” You remember that story from other advent messages.) 

But prophets weren’t crying wolf back in the days before the exile when they tried to warn the people. —Babylon came and conquered.

And prophets weren’t crying wolf during the exile when they said, God would return God’s people to their land. —a new ruler CYRUS the Great of Persia conquered the Babylonians and allowed the Jews to return home to Israel.

and What about Jesus’ prophetic voice? 

He is often called, “prophet, priest and king”.

Are we still waiting for his prophecies? (answers)

we just heard: “the sun will become dark, and the moon won’t give its light. The stars will fall from the sky, and the planets and other heavenly bodies will be shaken.” — or did that happen the day of his crucifixion? and is it not his coming again that we await?

Prophets aren’t the bad guys…. they are God’s guys. (and they are not all guys at that as we leaned playing the prophet memory game this morning.) 

ASK: What do prophets tell us? (variety)

Prophets tell us about “God’s ..preference for protecting and lifting up the lowly, the suffering, and the oppressed.” 

AND when enough time has gone by without justice for ALL. . . (and when God says ALL, God really means ALL, no exceptions allowed)  OR

When too much time has gone by, prophets are sent to warn people about an END…to injustice. 

Sometimes even THE END. 

“Prophets say what no one wants to hear, what no one wants to believe.” Scholar Deborah Black wrote, “They point in directions that no one wants to look. They hear God -when everybody else has concluded God is silent.” 

They see God where nobody else would guess God is present, 

they FEEL GOD.”

(we said in SS) 

“They dream God’s dreams and utter wake-up calls, 

they hope God’s hopes and announce a new future; 

they will God’s will and live it against all odds.. 

They sing God’s song and sometimes interrupt the program with a change of tune.” Which is what we heard in Zephaniah: 

“Don’t fear, Zion.

Don’t let your hands fall.

 The LORD your God is in your midst"

Isn’t THIS the good news, for God’s people? 

IT is GOOD NEWS that oppression, killing, injustice WILL come to an end.

(wouldn’t we like to hear such good news tomorrow at the Vigil that remembers the Sandy Hook killings?)

The reason we sometimes question whether the prophets speak good news—- is we know that we are implicated in the IN-justice. 

(why it’s hard to hear their words)

But God has also sent people to tell us FEAR NOT.

image - “FEAR NOT - tidings of Good News to all people”

What did the angel Gabriel say to Mary before announcing the news?

“do not be afraid"

What was the first thing the angels told the shepherds the night they announced Jesus’ birth?

“Fear Not!” 

“‘Do not fear’ is repeated over and over again (WHY?) —-because human beings are afraid of many things.” 

So there is good news in all these prophetic words and I am sure that has been your Advent question all month. What IS the Good News? 

but this is it, it begins with Do not fear and moves to Jesus’ words:

• we don’t and won’t know the day or hour…so act like it will be tomorrow

The other Good News is ALSO found the words of Zephaniah heard today, in fact he interrupts his prophecy of judgment to tell us 

• God SINGS over us. 
• God rejoices in us. 

God may have high expectations for God’s people, certainly,  but God also accompanies us on our journeys helping us - when we ask. 

How then shall we live? How shall we live as we wait? - 

(how live if God is rejoicing over you? how live if Christ is coming again tomorrow? how live everyday and ANY day?)

This is the question that John’s hearers asked.  As did many people who heard and actually listened to the prophetic word over time. —- 

The Thessalonians letter holds our answer - 

We live REJOICING. Rejoice always!

 begin conclusion

REJOICE! God is looking over your shoulder. ….

REJOICE! you are not alone.

God right beside us —-even as we send off those bills and hope there is enough left for gas this week.

REJOICE! God is right beside us as we make choices; 

as we choose the cable show, surf the internet, hang out with friends, talk to co-workers.

God is even looking over our shoulder as we decide what to pledge and whether to volunteer. 

REJOICE! God with us as we vote, as we peacefully protest, 

God is WITH US influencing the actions of our church and world.

Every day, in MANY ways, (sometimes too slow and sometime incredibly fast)—-God is transforming us and society with us to make us ready for when Christ comes again.

image - God With Us

This is GOOD NEWS!

IS it not a joy to know that God IS with us - changing us?

Even IF and when the end comes, God IS with us.

It is the message shared thru 

   all the Bible stories; 

in the prophetic word, 

in the coming of Jesus, … [all these witnesses] tell us about God’s Vision for humanity, God’s plan to bring all God’s people together again…God’s vision for God’s alternative future called the Kingdom of God.

It is GOOD NEWS because “God’s presence among the people is animating, [in that] God rejoices with them, renews them, and exalts over them.” wrote one scholar, Jennifer Ayers. 

“God frees and strengthens the people by being present among them, such that their hands should not ‘grow weak’; 

Zephaniah assures us that God also comes to humanity in the community of faith. (like we experience here this morning) 

God’s presence heals, enlivens, and challenges humanity to LEAN into God’s promises for an alternative future.”

Today’s message IS GOOD NEWS, its the reason for the Pink Candle message of JOY!

the message that Zephaniah interrupts dire predictions to tell us.

REJOICE - 

“The future will be different from the present, 

and from the future that HAD been foreseen.

DO NOT FEAR the LORD your God is in your midst.”

REJOICE!

the end

blessing:

Let us interrupt our lives to REJOICE this week for the LORD our God is in our midst.

Endnotes

1 The Moral Class-book. 1839.

Jump up
^ Original version from myth folklore

 the decree of Cyrus, the ruler of the Persian empire that had conquered the region and granted the Jews the right to worship their God in Jerusalem, wiki - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Return_to_Zion

Jennifer Ryan Ayer Feasting Advent Companion (Louis:WJK,2014)56

Deborah Black Feasting Advent Companion - pastoral (Louis:WJK,2014)56-57

Jennifer Ryan Ayer Feasting Advent Companion (Louis:WJK,2014)56

 Deborah Black - pastoral Feasting Advent Companion (Louis:WJK,2014)57

Purity Prep at Advent II

Elie Weisel, Jewish writer and Nobel Prize winner, tells the story of his mother greeting him EVERY day when he came from school. Every day she asked him the same question. Not ‘What did you do?’ Not ‘What did you learn?’ but she asked him, “Did you have a good question today?”

Once again we gather here to ask and answer questions. We gather as “partners in critical reflection”. 

Today as we recall we are at the beginning of the church year, we have two texts that beg us to reflect on the end… the end of all years… the end of all time.  

Judgment

John  Burgess, one of the scholars I read this week, wrote briefly about the history of humanity. “Christianity with its Judaic roots is a deeply historical religion.” he says. 

“This history begins with God’s creation of the world and ends with 

God’s judgment and re-creation of it.” (The 2 ends of the spectrum of human history.) He was using this comparison to cite Karl Barth who said that Christians live “between the times.”

But my question (the first today) is, 

“Do we accept one end of the history spectrum more than the other?” Let me pick it apart, 

1. there’s God’s creation of the world - Do we accept that as the beginning of OUR story? (Y/N)
2. God’s judgment of the world at the end - Do we accept that God will judge the world and all in it? (Y/N)
3. God’s RE-creation of the world - Do we believe that  God will re-creation, re-storing, re-newing the world at the end of time?

Maybe we have to back up further to answer another question, 

“What is judgment?” - what do we mean by the word?

Jesus told parables about the END of time and judgment. Do you remember?

(review the following stories prior)

1. 10 bridesmaids with oil lamps, half brought extra and had enough to wait, 5 did not and MISSED their opportunity to enter the celebration because they didn’t prepare.
2. Story of master entrusting 3 servants with his wealth. 2 invest and are rewarded. but 1 buried what he was given to invest and it was taken from him and he was punished for not using the opportunity he was given.
3. King divides into sheep and goats… (ask what they remember)

 What DO those stories TELL you about judgment?

Let’s think about what we have heard about judgment through our culture.

What do we typically hear about the end times?

Burgess gives us a reminder of 3 ways: (in case you can’t recall)

Duomo Florence

• 1 line of thinking is the Hal Lindsey, Time LaHaye/Jerry Jenkins “Rapture and Left Behind” model.  What do you know about it?
• 2 another line of thinking is the individual day of judgment at the end of each life. Have you heard that?  (do you think it is likely?)

During the dispute about all

owing the BMC to have a booth on the floor of AC a few years ago, I heard one Elgin employee who wanted to open our welcome say. “I voted the way I did knowing some would judge me harshly, but I am more concerned about facing God on my day of judgment and having to explain why I closed the door to some of God’s children.”

Do you think we will face an individual judgment of what has been good and not so good in our lives?

• 3 An alternate way to understand JUDGMENT is to let the character of Jesus’ language put a claim on us in the here and now. God’s radical claims are meant to cause us to ask GOOD QUESTIONS so that we can view EACH DAY as a day of JUDGMENT. 
• ALL 3 WAYS ARE VALID - there are surely more.

Prophet Malachi was sent to warn an ancient people about God’s judgment.

Some of the warnings were good news to them. These were a people long awaiting God to judge and punish their enemies. They sought ‘vindication’  but Malachi said, 

‘sure God is coming.. to judge us ALL’ You’ve been pointing the finger at your enemies and forgetting the fingers that point back at yourself.’ 

“Who can endure the day of his coming?”

Actually these people had become a bit skeptical of God and the promise of judgment. They had waited generations and were no longer convinced anything would happen.  After long centuries of waiting they saw, 

• no divine retribution against their enemies, they saw
• no prosperity for their own community, & no restoration ahead
• We might hear them say, “Surely if God was REALLY coming to judge, we would have seen some sign of it by now?” —- sound a little bit like our day?

When in fact, they had failed to notice their own failures. 

Malachi points to 3 areas where they would be judged.

1. compromised worship - theirs defined in terms of the inadequacy of offerings
2. moral failures - their infidelities in their relationships, and 3rd
3. their failure to institute justice in their society.

Malachi, using the silversmith way of purifying as an image, says, God’s judgment will be a process of purification.. . and FIRE would be involved.

Full Dome Florence wiki pic

After the week we’ve had and the news of each day, I couldn’t help but wonder how we might be judged.. even in those same categories as Malachi pointed out -  in his message from God.

We could examine our worship…

Is our worship so passionate that our offerings adequate by God’s standards?  yes, I do mean our financial giving, & our giving of ourselves? 

or is our worship and giving compromised? (by all the other gods who demand our time, money and our lives…)

We could examine our morality…

Do our moral lives live up to God’s expectation of the way we are to treat each other? Do we honor our covenants that are made with and before God? 

Do we treat our neighbors with the same love as ourselves? 

or do we fall short and claim forgiveness, which is THERE for us, but without really repenting of our infidelities and habits?

AND We could examine our world..

Does our society reflect the justice that God demands?

Surely, we have to admit that our society has failed to offer justice for all.

and

How would God judge a nation where people randomly slay others with easily attained automatic weapons?

Has any of the news this week been acceptable to God?

Do we dare point our finger at others?

Certainly we have developed some ‘good questions’ today and we might appropriately cower a bit to admit that we have grown a society that is far from just.. . (so now what?)

Do we live with an awareness of God’s impending judgment?  

should we? . . .

What would life be like if we did?

I want you to envision the other end of history in the time that remains. Maybe if we can get into our heads what God’s world COULD look like, we will find it easier to work alongside God’s spirit in helping to heal this one.

And imagine a time when God returns and recreates the world. 

What will look different? What will be restored? (use your imagination)

What do you think God would change?

3 minutes 

One more question: What would be different in this church?

(what would God restore here, or birth a new?)

1 minutes

YOUR TAKE-HOME QUESTION:

What will be different in YOUR life?

We need to envision that day and that time, as the prophets said, so that instead of living in fear, we Christians can greet the ‘Day of the Lord’ with hope. Yes hope, because this coming day of restoration has already been inaugurated by Jesus.

The time of God’s justice is a promise for the future AND 

it is the time we live in now… because 

HOW we live into our hope for God’s restoration can change the WAY we LIVE now.

the NOW is where Christ’s spirit helps us work toward realizing the justice that God will someday complete.

One (last) question for you to ponder:

If this IS the time when judgment begins

if this is the beginning of God’s justice, then

What should be the priority of our work? - OUR work, together in this community?  . . .

Jesus reminds us that we won’t know the WHEN. This Gives us hope that we are ‘not supposed to know everything, 

but we are expected to DO something’. 

We are never alone, but we are on God’s team.

(We are the Advent community of Alertness. watching for the end,)

(We are) watching in HOPE, sure that the END is in the same ‘hands’ as the beginning. 

and sure that we exist to participate WITH God in the transforming of all the world, before its final re-creation.

Can we say, with faith, not fear?…  

Come, Lord Jesus, Come!