Today is Ash Wednesday. It is the day when Christians begin the season of Lent, a forty day preparation for Easter. Those who take the time to count the days from now until Easter Sunday will note that it actually totals forty-seven days in all. That is because the Lenten season of preparation and fasting does not count the Sundays. Sundays, for us, are always mini-Easter celebrations. For University Hill Congregation this is the twelfth year in which we have marked Lent by creating our own home-made Lenten daily devotional book. In the early years it was a hard-copy printed booklet for use within our congregation. Now it is an online resource used by our congregation and others who join us in the practice of reading, hosting and praying scripture as a means of continuing our formation as faithful witnesses to God's grace revealed in Jesus. You are most welcome to join us in this practice and are invited to spread the word to others who may be interested. Here is the introduction to this year's devotional, along with a link that will take you to it ...
2/12/13
galatians - week one
Once again this year we at University Hill Congregation have co-ordinated our weekly study groups so that all of us are hosting the same scripture together through the season of Lent. Some in our congregation are unable to get to one of the weekly gatherings but still wish to participate. To help them - and others who may be interested in joining in - we post materials related to our conversation here each week. Here is the introductory page for chapter one of Galatians and week one of our congregational conversation ...
with unveiled faces
This sermon owes its structure and content to a sermon on the same texts found in "The Collected Sermons of Walter Brueggemann" (pp. 65ff). While I regularly read sermons and commentaries in preparation for preaching I always find them jumping off points not landing places. In this case, though, I could not imagine a better tribute than to simply borrow Walter's riff on the texts and play it as best as I could. Here are the notes I cribbed and then used in my improvisation ... (thanks Walter!)
marks of the church god is calling into being
An eye opening moment for us in University Hill Congregation came when we were introduced to five marks of Christian communal life. We discovered them in Maria Harris’ book “Fashion Me a People: Curriculum in the Church”. In it Harris testifies that the creation of educational curriculum in congregational life involves a holy participation in God’s fashioning of a people. She posits that the medium which is the material of God’s artistic endeavour in forming the church are a set of forms – or marks – of Christian community that are first named in the book of Acts (Acts 2:42, 44-47): “There we find in one place the most detailed description of the first Christian community doing what will in time become the classical activities of ecclesial ministry: kerygma, proclaiming the word of Jesus’ resurrection; didache, the activity of teaching; liturgia, coming together to pray and re-present Jesus in the breaking of bread; koinonia, or community; and diakonia, caring for those in need”(p. 16).
2/6/13
changed from glory into glory
It is Wednesday. Half-way to Sunday's sermon. At this point in the week I habitually chew on the text for this coming Sunday, meditating on it, fretting, wondering what it is saying to me, to us. This week there is a phrase hidden away in the passage from II Corinthians 3:12-4:2 that intrigues and puzzles me: "And all of us, with unveiled faces, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory into another". I recognize something here. This is the source of an odd phrase in the classic hymn "Love Divine, All Loves Excelling". It is what Charles Wesley alludes to when, in the final verse, he writes "changed from glory into glory". Paul is, speaking of the transformation of the community that focuses its attention on the glory - the energy or presence - of God seen in Jesus. But I am not really sure how to describe these differing degrees of glory. What does a glorious church look like? Are congregations really being transformed - as the King James Version puts it - "from glory to glory"? What evidence is there? Later Paul seems to answer, saying: "So we do not lose heart. Even though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day. For this slight momentary affliction is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all measure, because we look not at what can be seen but at what cannot be seen; for what can be seen is temporary, but what cannot be seen is eternal" (II Cor. 4:16-18). Paul writes to the pastor in me who is tempted to measure glory by what can be seen on the surface of congregational life. He invites eyes that see beneath the surface. He also writes to all of us who live with chronic incurable illness and others who suffer all manner of pain renaming it a "slight momentary affliction" that it is, somehow, preparation for an experience of God's glory that is "beyond all measure". The text is puzzling to me. I am not sure how to give voice to it on Sunday. I am glad it is Wednesday.
2/4/13
glory redefined
The story of the transfiguration of Jesus is dramatic, fantastic, spectacular. In a word, it is glorious. There is Jesus radiating divine energy on the mountain top while speaking with Israel’s most famous prophets – Moses and Elijah. Then comes the cloud of God’s presence and the voice of God adding three words to the ones spoken from heaven at Jesus baptismal anointing: “Listen to him.” And then, in a flash, it is over. No more radiance, no more prophets, no more cloud of presence or voice from heaven. Just Jesus and his trio of apprentices, climbing down, with instructions to say nothing of this “until after the Son of Man has been raised from the dead” (Matt. 17:9).
2/3/13
in a riddle
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| "through a glass darkly" by craig brewer |
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