A Fresh Perspective

Job’s patience gives way to defiance, which in turn leads to the objections and complaints of Job’s three friends. In his defiance Job questions and even curses God. Job’s friends come to God’s defense and urge Job to repent of his sin. They, like Job in the beginning, are entrenched in a theology of reward and retribution. They believe all this is all happening to Job because he has sinned. That’s how they understand life to work. They assume Job’s misfortune is due to God’s punishment. While this dialogue and argument back and forth between Job and his friends is going on, God is silent. Then, after all is said, God shows up. God speaks. The writers says, “Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind.” Do you find that interesting? Out of a whirlwind, out of a tornado God speaks. Maybe one aspect of God speaking out of a whirlwind is to say that God speaks however God chooses to speak – to anyone and in any way God wants. No one can pin God in or figure God out or claim to k...

In the opening chapters of Genesis there are two creation stories arising out of different times and contexts in Israel’s history. The story from which I am reading today extends from 1:1 to 2:4a. Most likely this story emerged around the sixth century BCE and was originally addressed to a community of exiles. Just as the Gospel of John begins with a poem about the Word made flesh, Genesis begins with a poem about creation. This is not history or science; it’s what some scholars call “metaphorical narrative.” It’s parable and poetry. I am not going to read the whole story. Our OT reading for this Sunday, which is my sermon text, is from the opening part of this story. I am reading 1:1-5. In a Gary Larson cartoon a wagon train is under siege by Indians. A couple of fiery arrows hit the wagons, and they burst into flames. One cowboy turns to another and says, “Hey! They’re lighting their arrows! Can they do that?” Sometimes when life shoots fiery arrows at us and the wagons in which...

I know what it is like to be afraid on the water. I was nine or ten years old and my dad took me with him on a fishing trip with a work buddy. At the time we had a small boat with a 50 horse power motor. We were at Lake Cumberland catching crappie. It had been a good evening. We were in a school of crappie when dark clouds began to gather. Of course, we didn’t want to leave and stayed on the lake too long. The storm came on us quick and we were taking in some water trying to get back across the lake. Then the motor died. I had never seen my father afraid. The look of fear on his face terrified me. I can still remember those feelings of fright. Fortunately, they were able to get it started back without too much delay. But I will never forget the fear I felt at that moment even though it was so very long ago.  The disciples are caught in a storm. The waves and wind are against them, beating up against their small vessel. And then they see something or someone coming toward...

The Gospel reading this year (Year C) for the first Sunday of Advent was Luke 21:25–36. My Lectionary study group didn’t want anything to do with preaching that text, instead they decided to focus on the reading from Jeremiah. This text in Luke is part of a larger apocalyptic passage linking the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans with the apocalyptic discourse of the coming of the Son of Man. If we can get past the apocalyptic worldview that dominated the first century Jewish world and the sensationalism and literalism of modern day apocalyptic interpretations like those expressed in the Left Behind books, this passage yields some profound spiritual truths. Apocalyptic language is great poetry, and if we can read apocalyptic texts with a poet’s mind and heart and imagination, these texts can bring forth life. Jesus chided the religious authorities of his day for their failure to see the signs of the inbreaking reign of God. These were signs of healing and restoring grace...

In Jean Vanier’s wonderful book, Becoming Human , he quotes the African-American writer Patricia Raybon about how the oppression she experienced in the United States had taught her to hate white people. She writes:  “I hated them because they have lynched and lied and jailed and poisoned and neglected and discarded and excluded and exploited countless cultures and communities with such blatant intent or indifference as to humanly defy belief or understanding.” But then she goes on to talk about how she came to recognize that her hatred, no matter how justified, was eating away her identity and self-respect. It blinded her to the gestures of hospitality and friendship a white girl in high school offered her. She realized that instead of waiting for whites to repent of the atrocities they had inflicted on blacks and ask forgiveness, she needed to ask forgiveness for her own hatred, for her inability to see a white person as a person and not just as part of a race of oppres...