Meditation on a positive view of scribes . Matthew 13.52 and Jeremiah 36

Matthew 13:52 and Jeremiah 36
And he said to them, "Therefore every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like a householder who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old."

A meditation by the Rev. Theodore Gill, senior editor, WCC Communication

One verse in the 13th chapter of Matthew contains a complete parable,
a parable with the most positive view of “scribes”
to be found in the gospel according to Saint Matthew.
Elsewhere, in Matthew 23, we encounter the series of denunciations that begin,
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!”

Yet, it turns out, there is such a thing as a scribe trained for the kingdom of heaven,
and many New Testament scholars believe that this is how the author/editor who stands behind our canon’s first gospel understood the role of gospel-writer or evangelist:
The person who is called to tell the story, and record it, must balance
the impact on the community of contemporary developments and trends – “what is new” – with history, the lessons of scripture and tradition – “what is old”.

In the time of Jesus the position of “scribe”
had evolved to one of scholarship and pedagogy,
centering on interpretation and practical application of Torah, the law of Moses.
Luke uses a different term to describe the office of scribe: “a doctor of the law”.

But the word had other connotations at other times –
following the return from exile in the days of Ezra and Nehemiah,
the scribe was an official of the royal court in Jerusalem.
Earlier still, a scribe – sofer in Hebrew – was simply someone who was literate,
capable of reading and writing, and therefore of copying texts or taking dictation.

In the 36th chapter of Jeremiah, we see that Baruch is something more than that,
more than an office clerk or administrative assistant to the prophet.
In fact, Baruch was Jeremiah’s communication secretary –
not merely writing up the details of the boss’s visions but publishing them abroad,
representing the prophet in public, taking much of the heat for Jeremiah’s positions.
And in Jeremiah 36, Baruch does appear in public repeatedly – until
sympathetic courtiers advise him to go into hiding, if he and Jeremiah have any sense.
One of these courtiers, Elishama, is described as ha-sofer, the king’s scribe.
Baruch and Elishama, two communication secretaries, representing different interests;
one warns the other to lay low, if he wishes to avoid prison or worse.
So there was honour among professional communicators, at least in this case.

Of course, Baruch would have been interested in audience reaction to his release,
although reader surveys were not terribly sophisticated in those days.
He heard a variety of people insisting that his scroll was fit for the king,
and he conveys to us later reports of just how the king received his work.
After each three or four columns of prophesy were read,
the king took a particular type of knife that was one of the scribe’s own tools,
cut off the latest strip from the scroll, and threw it into the fire.

Some officials there in the royal winter apartment dared to object to this sacrilege,
and Baruch preserves their names for posterity.
A loyal audience is worth remembering.

The book of Jeremiah assumes that there was a proper response expected
after the scroll had been produced and presented to the people and to the ruler.
I suppose that all communication secretaries harbour such expectations,
and may even worry that doom awaits all concerned
when the world and its leaders turn deaf ears to the message.

But our focus has been on one particular chapter in Jeremiah,
telling of events that happened well before the dire ending of Jehoiakim’s reign.
The end of this chapter is less apocalyptic, but no less world-transforming:
“Then Jeremiah took another scroll and gave it to his communication secretary,
Baruch son of Neriah, who wrote on it…all the words of the scroll
that the king had burned in the fire; and many similar words were added to them.”

So the scroll of prophecy was not lost;
the task of communication was undertaken once more,
no matter how unwelcome the message or the messengers.
Inevitably, accounts of the latest events, new prophetic visions
“and many similar words” were added to the flow of information:
For every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like
the master of a household who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old.

Let us pray.

Living Word,
give us true vision,
bless us with the skills and talents we require,
grant us persistence,
so that we may serve your church
and the world may seek your kingdom;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.

This meditation was given at the prayers which opened which opened the meeting of the press officers network of Euroepean churches - PONEC. The Meeting began in the Ecumenical Centre chapel and continued in the Cartigny Centre in the Genevan countrside.

copyright (c) Theodore Gill/WCC

Sermonette on Tenemos Esperanza - holding on to hope by Jane Stranz

Sermonette preached on Monday 30 June 2008 in the Ecumenical Centre Geneva
Praying through the ecumenical prayer cycle for Bolivia, Chile and Peru

Texts Psalm 69 and Mathew 10 24 -32
Picture by Andre Jordan from If You’re Happy and You know it


Don’t let go…

The Psalmist says:
More in number than the hairs of my head
are those who hate me without cause;

And Christ in the gospel teaches:
Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground unperceived by your Father. And even the hairs of your head are all counted. So do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows.

Prosper Munatsi, who was here in the ecumenical centre last week, has not let go
He returned to Zimbabwe on Thursday last week where he continues to lead the Student Christian Movement – encouraging others also to hold onto hope.

It is not easy to hold on to hope
It’s such a fragile, vulnerable thing

You may think that your enemies are more numerous than the hairs on your head
This sense of being encircled may make you give up
Take you down to the pit of despair

But actually God will care for and uphold you,
And the Gospel promise is that this is an intimate care
which knows you are of vastly more value even than lowly sparrows
and which knows the number of hairs on our heads.

Prosper’s decision not to remain silent but simply to continue forwards in hope
spoke deeply to me over the past week of the spirituality of resistance we mention so often in many of our meetings.
His hope and the hope of so many others around the world is based on the firm conviction that each and every human being is precious, counted and cared for by a loving God.

It was this same hope and conviction that inspired Bishop Federico Pagura.
Even at the height of military dictatorship in Argentina he held on to hope and the belief in human dignity and a God who loves and cares for each of us with deep compassion

Although I don’t speak Spanish his wonderful hymn Tenemos esperanza speaks to me deeply of what a Christian spirituality of resistance should be
With its glorious tango rhythm full of energy, speed and also discipline
A pas de deux for and of the people
Deeply rooted in the values of the gospel,
rooted too in the current and future struggles of the people where they and we are now.

As we give thanks for the overcoming of the military dictatorships in so many Latin American countries
We recognize too that it took time, it was hard
– people disappeared and died and are grieved for to this day.
That time also speaks to us of resistance and of holding on to hope.

In Andre Jordan’s childish picture on our service sheets this morning
We can see how hope is fragile
If we let go it will blow away and be a distant memory up in the clouds
The image shows how hope needs to be held onto at ground level
Jordan knows about this in a profoundly personal way.
He draws to overcome, to some extent, very deep and repeated attacks of depression.

Hope needs to be rooted, held on to
in each of our many cultures,
and in our own lives

This is how a long distance spirituality of resistance can begin to take shape in our lives, in our churches, in our world.

Hold on to hope.

Tenemos Esperanza!


Copyright (c) WCC/Jane Stranz

How can we know the way? - A sermon by Jane Stranz on John 14

Sermon on John 14 1-14
preached by Jane Stranz in the Ecumenical Centre chapel on 21 April

How can we know the way?

"How can we know the way"
in the gospel reading we've just listened to the question comes from Thomas,
who will later be called doubting Thomas
I can quite understand why he asks Jesus this question -
John's gospel is never very straightforward! -
And Jesus' farewell discourses and conversations with his disciples are both very long and particularly complex, with many depths and layers of meaning
Thomas' question: “How can we know the way?” Seems to be a cri de coeur
- please I don't understand?
- I'm frightened, are you going to die?
- you seem to be saying goodbye and telling us to go somewhere?
- but how can we know that way?

Jesus replies in two ways
Firstly he says
I am the way

Part of me really wishes that we had a digital recording of those words to try and get behind the tone and meaning – even if not many of us here this morning would be able to understand Aramaic

So did Jesus say:

I am the way, or
I am the way
I am the way
I am the way ?

(several sermons could be preached on each of those ways of emphasizing the phrase)

His second response to Thomas' question actually precedes or prefigures the question
We find it in the previous chapter to our reading this morning
At the Passover meal at which this long last conversation takes place
Jesus washes his disciples feet
He prepares their feet for the way ahead
It's a gentle and humble preparation
It nourishes their way ahead – in the same way that the Eucharistic bread and wine in the other gospels is also nourishment.

This physical caring for their feet at their last meal together
Is a powerful way of caring spiritually for the path they will have to tread.
Without him …
It gives them something real to remember
As they also remember his words
I am the WAY

And the path that lies before the disciples is a labyrinthine way
of grief, betrayal, death,
of a crown of thorns and denial and cocks crowing in the dawn and a cross...

And after the cross an even stranger path begins
bringing news of an empty tomb and a risen Rabouni who speaks to Mary
The most complex path to tread will be the path from the empty tomb to bear witness to the transforming extraordinary good news of resurrection

The good news of death overcome,
of fatalism transformed,
of joy restored

We know how hard that way of resurrection is when we hear words like
Iraq, Zimbabwe, Tibet...
Or words like sex abuse, weapons of mass destruction, murder, domestic violence

And yet although our lists of words which speak of death are long and even seemingly endless
the resurrection calls us to tread the path
of belief in hope
in transformation
in overcoming evil and violence

In this paradox we can sense something of what Julia Esquivel calls the menace or threat of resurrection

This week Christians following the Julian calendar are starting Holy Week
While those of us following the Gregorian calendar are already beginning the fifth week of Easter time
This week because of the way the church calendars fall – with a very early Easter for one and a later one in the other – passion and resurrection are one
Today’s text from John’s gospel which takes us back to before the cross and passion, yet clearly offers hope for the resurrection, shows us that the resurrection way is a way backwards and forwards, an iterative path between suffering and hope.
Perhaps resurrection can only be borne witness to in the midst of a suffering world.

And that speaks to us of our own labyrinthine Ecumenical journey – backwards and forwards
Resurrection calls us out of the tombs of resignation and despair
To bear witness to truth, life and unity
Christ is our path
He continually offers words of encouragement for the way
“Let your hearts not be troubled …
In my Father’s house there are many mansions, many dwelling places …
I am the way.”

A short Maundy Thursday sermon on John 13.1-15 for World Water Day

A short Maundy Thursday sermon on John 13.1-15 for World Water Day

Water Passion and Betrayal...
Water Passion and commitment…
Bread, water and wine

Judas does it with a kiss
Pilate does it by publicly washing his hands
Hoping that such ritual political cleanliness will prove it wasn’t his fault
The Chief Priests and the authorities plot and scheme, set traps, try to buy off his friends and incite the crowd to call for blood
And the crowd do it by shrieking in glee and passion “crucify him!”
(Of all these we only ever hear of Judas feeling unbearable guilt...)

Betrayal…

In the end they come with spears and swords in the night

Truth and integrity won’t stand much of a chance

The bowl and the towel are symbols of that truth, integrity and resistance

Jesus takes responsibility
The great leader becomes a foot-washing humble slave
The teacher does not run away or hide
He takes responsibility in a very personal and intimate way for his disciples
and their future

Passion…

There is beautiful intimacy and caring in the way Jesus washes and cares for their feet.
There’s some obstinacy and focus too in the way he says “no, this is the way I must do it”
Kneeling there to wash his friends' feet, this is his priority,
his passion and cross are not far away,
yet he takes time to do this unessential, essential, caring thing.

Commitment…

The flogging and mocking and the crown of thorns and the cross will break his human body and spirit.
The friends will be alone, their feet will tread the path without him, but not one step will be taken without a deep memory of this intimate final washing by the master.

From that time forwards every time they wash one another's feet, every time they serve others sacrificially in the world they will remember him cleansing and cooling their aching feet and pains with water, their master kneeling before them in humility.

In remembrance of that profound act of caring and service we also seek to follow Christ today as we care, heal and serve.

Jesus' first miracle in John's gospel is to turn water into wine.
Dead on the cross, water and blood pour from his side when it is pierced by the soldier's spear. That water is a sign of the body's agony and breakdown in death and speaks deeply of Christ's humanity and life offered up.

Later risen from the dead he will call his disciples to conquer the deep and make a miraculous catch of fish from the waters.

As we meditate Christ's passion,
As we meditate these signs of sacrament before us
As we meditate his deeply personal service of others,

We reflect on our own service of others.

We also seek to understand and enter into the suffering of so many in our world whose right to be human is being undermined by their daily struggle for access to clean water.

So are we going to follow Christ source of living waters
and take up the cloth and the bowl
or will we follow Pilate and wash our hands?

Copyright: WCC/Jane Stranz

Meditation on "discerning the body" in the words of institution in 1 Corinthians 11. 17-29, by Theodore A. Gill

The following meditation on the words of institution in 1 Corinthians 11: 17-29 was given by Theodore Gill at morning prayers on Wednesday April 5th 2008
Bible Reading ~ 1 Corinthians 11: 17-29
Now in the following instructions I do not commend you, because when you come together it is not for the better but for the worse. For, to begin with, when you come together as a church, I hear that there are divisions among you; and to some extent I believe it. Indeed, there have to be factions among you, for only so will it become clear who among you are genuine. When you come together, it is not really to eat the Lord’s supper. For when the time comes to eat, each of you goes ahead with your own supper, and one goes hungry and another becomes drunk. What! Do you not have homes to eat and drink in? Or do you show contempt for the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing? What should I say to you? Should I commend you? In this matter I do not commend you!
For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took a loaf of bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, "This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me." In the same way he took the cup also, after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me." For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.
Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be answerable for the body and blood of the Lord. Examine yourselves, and only then eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For all who eat and drink without discerning the body, eat and drink judgment against themselves.

Reading the letters of Paul, anachronistically speaking, is often like listening to one side of a telephone conversation. One has to imagine what is being said at the other end of the line. There are moments in early passages of this epistle when we imagine that all is not well at the Corinthian church, but as we reach the section that we know as chapter 11 there is no longer room for doubt. Paul begins to berate the Christians of Corinth for their unabashed disunity, their lack of hospitality – much less charity, their gluttony and drunkenness at the table of the Lord and – most of all – their failure to “discern the body” there.

Often in Christian history, a particular verse or phrase from scripture has been taken up as a cudgel with which to punish those with whom we disagree. Incompetence in “discerning the body”? Surely, later theologians would conclude, Paul had the foresight to offer a word of warning against the coming apostasies of Gnostics, Docetics, Zwinglians, Unitarians, rationalists, myth-and-symbol historians of religion … well, you can fill in the blanks.

But doctrines of transubstantiation, consubstantiation, and the rest lay far in the future. And Paul, though unquestionably interested in the sharing of bread and cup, seems more concerned with the place of each Christian within the community as a whole. Only a little further on in this letter, in the next chapter as we know it, he lays out his understanding of the “body of Christ” in which each believer is a member of the whole, in which all collectively are members one of another. This is not only our relationship in Christ, it is at the heart of our relationship to Christ. In faith, hope and love, in the way we interact with one another, we discern the body of Christ.

The well-to-do who failed to share their food and drink with the less fortunate had no real discernment of the body. It became clear, Paul suggested, that they were not “genuine” in their Christianity. For they emphasized the church’s division. Paul called that contempt, humiliation, unworthiness, the eating and drinking of judgment against oneself. In time, we have come to call similar divisions “ecclesiology”.

But why are we not outraged, as Paul was? Why do we not rage that we will not now, nor shall we ever commend this rending of the body that has some eating and drinking in one corner according to their own richesse, others in another corner glaring suspiciously at the first group, and everyone failing to discern the body of Christ and to make their proper contribution towards the life of the body?

It is only when we are proven worthy members of the body that we are proven genuine in our faith. And when we eat the bread, and drink the cup and embrace our fellow Christians in the discernment that we are members one of another… we proclaim the Lord’s death, until he comes.
Amen.

Copyright: WCC/Theodore Gill

Petite méditation pour la semaine de prière pour l'unité

Le thème de la semaine de prière pour l'unité des chrétiens en 2008 est "Priez sans cesse". Vous pouvez trouvez des resources sur le site du COE.

Le Rassemblément des Eglises Chrétiennes de Genève m'a invité à faire une méditation pour ouvrir une rencontre récente pour préparer ce 100ème anniversaire de la semaine de prière.

"Priez sans cesse"
1 Thess. 5: 17

C’est implacable, impitoyable
Les impératives
Le réveil du matin
Le bruit du téléphone, portable ou fixe,
la course à la prochaine réunion,
le défilé de misère aux infos
Fais ceci, fais cela…
les courriels qui attendent une réponse
la tentation d’acheter, de faire, d’avoir
si tu avais seulement ça tu serais - heureux, belle, sage, riche…

implacable
la publicité pour ce que l’on peut acheter
comment dépenser utilement et inutilement de l’argent
impitoyable
la culpabilité de ne jamais avoir le temps pour faire quoique ce soit
les demandes de faire ceci de faire cela…
les autres ont faim et nous mangeons trop
des enfants et parents qui ont besoin de nous
une copine qui a besoin de parler un peu
implacable
le temps qui passe
les jours d'une vie
les minutes qui ne suffisent pas

Et voila encore une impérative de la Bible
« Priez sans cesse »

A comprendre comme une autre contrainte impitoyable?
Un autre point d'ordre du jour à achever?
Un autre fardeau ?

Ou à recevoir comme une offre gratuite -
De repos, de pause, de sens, de profondeur, de sommeil, de créativité…

Non pas implacable mais éternel - l'amour de Dieu
Non pas impitoyable mais miséricordieuse
L'invitation à offrir son faire et ses frustrations, ses joies et ses peines
A Dieu qui écoute tout, qui transforme tout
Et qui nous donne l'assurance qu'il a toujours du temps pour nous
La prière sans cesse de Dieu a commencé
Bien avant le jour qu'il a dit
"Que la lumière soit"

« Priez sans cesse »
N'est pas une contrainte supplémentaire
Mais une reconnaissance essentielle
De prendre du temps pour nous mêmes et pour notre créateur

Prions alors sans cesse…

copyright 2007, Jane Stranz