Honey, I’m home!
Gentle readers, greetings after the summer break. Thank you to those who said they’d missed these weekly musings – I feel very wanted. 😊 To those who didn’t even notice, I’m glad you had a full and fun summer, and I’ll just go a cry quietly in a corner. 😂
I have been busy writing the first draft of a book (yay!) and taking my three daughters hither, thither, and thence. Tomorrow, I’m off to Madrid with my eldest for a few days before school term starts with a vengeance. Then add a silent (!) retreat one weekend, a trip to Cardiff taking the youngest daughter to uni, and my own uni starting immediately after. (In case you have not heard, I’m doing a masters at Ripon College Cuddesdon, Oxford as my clergy training – woo hoo!) Yes, September is all go!
But for now, here are some thoughts for next week’s lectionary readings.
Jeremiah 4:11-12, 22-28 and Psalm 14 OR Exodus 32:7-14 and Psalm 51:1-10
1 Timothy 1:12-17, Luke 15:1-10
Unusually for the RCL, there is a common theme in all six passages! Yes, whether you are following the thematically-linked OT passages or the read-through-a-book ones, there is a thread running through all and the NT too. OK, It’s a pretty common theme in scripture, so don’t claim a miracle just yet, but still worth noting. So note it, I shall.
Jeremiah 4 is the passage that first caught my eye. “At that time it will be said to this people and to Jerusalem: A hot wind comes from me out of the bare heights in the desert toward the daughter of my people, not to winnow or cleanse, a wind too strong for that.”
I live near a wind farm (more of these, please) and I’ve noticed that when the wind is too strong, they’re turned off because too high a wind would damage them. Jeremiah is talking about a wind like this: so strong it breaks things. In fact, it breaks everything! Look at the next few verses and you’ll see creation being rolled backwards. Chaos, no light, no people, no birds, no fruitful land and, finally, all turns black as if the first word of creation were unsaid. Wow! Powerful passage!
And why? Checkout Psalm 14: “Fools say in their hearts, “There is no God.” They are corrupt; they do abominable deeds; there is no one who does good. The LORD looks down from heaven on humankind to see if there are any who are wise, who seek after God. They have all gone astray; they are all alike perverse; there is no one who does good, no, not one.”
Again, creation being undone. These humans, made in the image of God, brought to life with God’s very breath/spirit, have rejected their God-given nature and turned aside to, well, pretty much anything except God. It’s Eden all over again. But Genesis 3 this time.
Important note: You know that adam doesn’t mean ‘man’, as in adult male human, right? Initially, the Hebrew word is a common noun that just means person; not a proper noun, not the name of a bloke. Here’s the definition:
אָדָם (a.dam) (noun common singular either gender absolute )
Meaning
1a) man, human being
1b) man, mankind (much more frequently intended sense in OT)
1c) Adam, first man
So Gen 1:26, “Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have …” is better translated, “Then God said, “Let us make humanity in our image.” You notice it’s a plural noun in the second part of the verse. God wasn’t planning one single human male called Adam, he was planning a people called adams.
Why is this important? Because we are adams. We are people. The stuff God said to the first of the adams in Eden, he also says to the rest of us adams now. And when we turn away from our work as stewards of creation, our relationships as each other’s keepers, or our status as God’s image here on earth, we become like the Fool who says, “there is no God’.
And that brings us neatly to Exodus 32 and one of the most foolish episodes in the whole foolish story of God’s foolish people (I include myself in that definition). Having been rescued by God’s generous good nature and kindliness, the people of Israel go and make a bloomin’ golden calf idol! And then – oh yes, it gets worse – they thank the idol for saving them!!! Face palm much? (cartoon from reverendfun)
They took to good things that God had given them and gave thanks to someone else. If that’s not rejecting the relationship that God had with his people in Eden, I don’t know what is.
BTW, I love it that God does the classic parents’ thing of calling the kids ‘your son’ or ‘your daughter’ when they’re being naughty! “The LORD said to Moses, ‘Go down at once! Your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have acted perversely’.” Arf Arf!!
And then we have Psalm 51. After that level of idiocity, there’s no other response really, is there? “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me.” That’s a good prayer that I, for one, need to have on my lips far more often.
But then – Hallelujah! – We have 1 Timothy 1 and the wonderful, “The saying is sure and worthy of full acceptance; that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.” Amen and Amen and Amen! God knew we were going to mess it up. God knew we’d leave the garden, and he made a way back for us. What a wonderful God we serve. 😍
And to make sure we get the message and remember it, Jesus told three memorable parables in Luke 15: The Lost Sheep [click here for a bundle of sheepy resources], The Lost Coin and The Lost Son. Yes, the sheep is stupid to have wandered off. But sheep are like that. And the shepherd doesn’t sit in his hut berating the waywardness of sheep, he gets off his backside and goes to find it.
This is what separates Christianity from other faiths. All other religions are a way to find God. In Christianity, God comes to find us. Re-creation. It’s back to Eden and God walking in the garden in the cool of the day. But this time, the garden is in Revelation, not Genesis, and we walk with him, and he will wipe every tear from our eye.
The Reflectionary 