A Lenten Blog 2018

Haggai was a  Hebrew  prophet during the building of the  Second Temple  in  Jerusalem , one of the twelve " minor" prophets  in the  Hebrew Bible  and the author of the  Book of Haggai . Along with Zechariah and Malachi he was the first of three post-exilic prophets from the Neo-Babylonian Exile of the House of Judah, who belonged to the period of  Jewish history  which began after the return from  captivity  in  Babylon . Haggai is known for his prophecy in 520 BCE, commanding the Jews to rebuild the Temple. Little is known of his personal history. He may have been one of the  captives taken to Babylon  by  Nebuchadnezzar . Anyway, he began his ministry about sixteen years after the  return of the Jews to Judah  (ca. 520 BCE). The work of rebuilding the  temple  had been stopped through the intrigues of the  Samaritans . After having been suspended for eight...

Peter Walker has done a great job with his commentary on this passage, so I'll simply pick up on an aspect of it that has touched me personally. I do quite a lot of advocacy on different issues of social justice on Facebook. From Adani's high-handed attempts to buy influence, wreck local environments and impoverish local people to Donald Trump's obvious narcissism, from the NSW government contractors' sale of building waste for disposal in Queensland to our unthinking acceptance of more and more plastic packaging, there is some appalling behaviour both abroad and here at home. From time to time I have no doubt gone too far in my criticisms. The rule of thumb is to stick to the issue and not to denigrate people. If you engage in argument ad hominem you have just lost the argument. But even when I've tried to do this I've on occasion earned the ire of some. I've had someone ask whether I hated the previous Australian prime minister. (No! I just disagreed w...

People who spend a lot of time with the Bible develop our own "canon" of Scripture, our own selection of favourite texts. Many people  have heard of John 3.16, "For God so loved the world...", and 1st Corinthians 13, the famous "Love is" chapter. The very first words of the Hebrew Scriptures (aka the Old Testament) might be familiar: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth..." And then there are the Ten Commandments. Most of us probably don't know the "Decalogue" off by heart, but we'd probably remember at least two or three of the commandments. I find the first 3 or 4 commandments about relating to God a bit difficult to distinguish from each other. The first is in verse 3. It's God's claim on primacy in his people's lives. The second follows from it: the Israelites may neither make nor worship idols. And the third is a prohibition on misusing God's name.  Prohibitions, prohibitions! I th...

Psalm 22 is one of quite a number in the psalter whose mood seems to change midstream. It begins dramatically: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" These are some of the words Jesus uttered on the cross, which raises immediately the question of why Jesus quoted scripture in His extremity. After all, this was not a play or a music put on by the local dramatic society. It was the most excruciating form of torture and execution the Romans could devise. The very word "excruciating" is built on "crux", the Latin word meaning "cross". One must assume both that Jesusknew His scriptures very well, and that He did feel that He had been abandoned by God; that the relationship that had sustained him through His years of public ministry, right up to this point, had been breached. Some wonder how a loving God could allow His Son to suffer, then abandon him. Richard Dawkins, for example, has made this point cogently. If this is so then this god Chris...

It’s unfortunate when one makes genuine, unintended mistakes. The good Lord knows that I make plenty of them, including hopping over last Thursday’s reading, which I now will comment on today! But Jacob, the main character of this reading from Genesis 28, set an intentional pattern early in his life of using deception to achieve his ends. A second twin whose name meant “Supplanter”, he grasped his brother Esau’s heel even in the womb. The rivalry, foretold by God to their mother Rebekah, continued outside of her womb when Jacob took advantage of his hungry elder brother’s ill discipline and induced him to exchange his birthright for a “mess of pottage” as older translations memorably put it. Then, egged on by his mother Rebekah, (Why do parents persist in thinking that showing favouritism is a good idea?) Jacob deceived his father, the ageing, blind and foolish Isaac, into bestowing on him rather than on his sibling the blessing of seniority. Cunning Rebekah (her son’s mother!) preva...

In this typically dense Pauline passage two phrases stand out for me: "Hoping against hope", at the beginning of verse 18; and verse 22: "Therefore his faith was reckoned to him as righteousness." The three verses that follow verse 22 are important too, since they include us, the spiritual descendants of Abraham. in the faith and reckoned ("Imputed" is a word sometimes used.) righteousness of our great forefather. In a collaborative task of writing a simple textbook of ecotheology for Indian pastors I'm engaged in at present I got to write the final, theological chapter. The major task of the chapter has to be to discuss hope. Increasing numbers of scientists now believe that humankind has already influenced the climate of planet earth so much that the world has entered another era of geological time. It has been dubbed the "anthropocene era". Some believe  that the most important question for our time, equivalent to "How can I be sav...

I don't know why the designers of the Revised Common Lectionary included Mark 8.31-38 but excluded, at least at this point in the 3 year cycle, the preceding verses 27-30. In theological college 30 plus years ago we just called this whole incident "Caesarea Philippi". At least in Mark's rendition it was depicted as the turning point in the Jesus' public ministry. The villages of Caesarea Philippi lay about 60km north-east of Nazareth, so a long way north in Galilee. Until this point things had been going pretty well for Jesus. Far from prying Jewish religious or Roman military eyes he was having great success healing the sick and preaching His peculiar message that sounded like but simultaneously unlike what people were used to hearing, and feeding his crowds of listeners. But from this point on more and more of Jesus' focus was on Jerusalem in the far south. The key question of the gospel, "Who is Jesus?" was becoming more and more urgent. I'...

For all that the Hebrew Scriptures were written in a context long, long ago and far, far away they sometimes achieve startling currency. Within the last day I read a news article on how Iceland plans to legislate to outlaw male circumcision. It's interesting how often deeply held values collide with each other. Western societies, particularly the Nordic ones, are famous for espousing religious tolerance. However,  Circumcision, as practised upon small boys, is regarded as a form of child abuse today whereas in the time of Israel's patriarchs it was the sign par excellence of belonging to God's (male) people. Being a priest with no surgical skills I am very glad that in Christianity circumcision has been replaced by baptism! If we can get the image of grown men mutilating baby boys out of our minds this passage has much else to give us pause for thought. Primarily it is about covenant. In ancient western Asia covenant was a solemn, binding agreement between two parties, a...

There's lots of discussion about which humans wrote what in the Bible. We don't know for sure whether the title of each gospel correctly identifies its author. People often incorrectly ascribe the letter to the Hebrews to Paul, perhaps because he wrote so many of the New Testament's other letters, and Hebrews, like them, is often difficult reading! In a number of languages the first 5 books of the Hebrew Scriptures - which are together called the "Pentateuch" in English, are called the books of Moses. Yet despite the tradition that Moses set down much more than the 10 Commandments while he was on Mt Sinai, there may be parts of the Pentateuch that pre-date Moses, and parts written during the Babylonian exile, long after Moses. It is also possible that some individual books of the Bible may be the work of more than one person. At a trivial level Paul seems to have dictated some of his letters to an amanuensis. On at least one occasion he signed off himself with ...

One of the longer Psalms of the Psalter, Psalm 105 is a wonderful recounting of Israel's history (from Israel's perspective of course!) of God's provision for Israel. Peter Walker, who has written the With Love to the World commentaries for each daily text for the next 2 weeks, says that the psalm may have originated as liturgical responses for a temple ritual. It outlines the events for which Israel offers it praise. Verses 1-5 enjoins the people to recall God's promises to the patriarchs; to give thanks to God, to call upon His name; to make His deeds known among the people; to sing praises to God; to tell of God's works; to glory in God's holy Name; to rejoice; to seek God's presence continually; and to remember God's wondrous works. This describes the heart of worship well. The remaining verses remind the people of the special relationship that the children of Abraham have with this God, and the covenant which binds God and God's people toge...

At two points in Jesus' own Lenten journey from the carpenter's workshop (we presume) in Nazareth to the open tomb in Jerusalem God the Father gives God the Son massive words of encouragement:  "You are my wonderful son; you make me very glad." Mark has recorded this incident at Jesus' baptism, and at His transfiguration. So often words like these massive affirmations are never exchanged between fathers and sons. Instead, in the words of one sighing onlooker to a broken relationship between a highly successful but emotionally needy son and his dad: "It was all about an ungenerous father and a son looking for affirmation and love." According to NT Wright the whole Christian gospel could be summed up by this: that when God looks at us, us being every baptised and believing Christian, he says to us what He said to Jesus at Jesus' baptism. God sees us not as we are in ourselves but as we are in Jesus Christ. Especially for those who have not had go...

What is this text all about? The previous section in the apostle Peter's first letter can be entitled "The new Way of Life". He gives sage advice on living as God's people. The contrast with their previous way of life, before they became followers of Jesus the Messiah, is stark. I can understand a senior Christian giving sage advice to more junior ones, particularly because this new, tiny movement was under pressure from both Judaism, from which they were emerging, and the Roman empire's multi-ethnic and religious but almost entirely pagan population. In the history of the world, and certainly of the Roman empire, perhaps only Judaism otherwise gave a hint at what the character of God's special community was supposed to look like, and even they got it terribly wrong. So it's no wonder that early Christian leaders, Paul especially but also Peter, James, the writer to the Hebrews, John and no doubt others, wrote letters to the tiny, widely dispersed Christi...

Today we move from considering the words of Joel and Isaiah, two of the great prophets of the Hebrew Scriptures, to Paul, one of history's foremost theologians, church planters, letter writers, pastors, and much, much more. The text is part of a classic passage in world literature. Though it's artificial to do so I'll set my context marker at the beginning of chapter 5. Verses 1-5 liken our earthly bodies to tents that will be destroyed, and our future bodies of the new creation as being like great houses. Having recently listened to the atheist scientist Richard  Dawkins in debate with both Rohan Williams and George Pell I admit that I do not understand how this will be so. But this passage is one of many in the New Testament which describe 'heaven' NOT as 'the place we go when we die' but as 'the place where God has our future bodies already in store for us.' Our current bodies are like tents or clothes, wrote Paul. At some stage after our death...

I'm sorry to say this but our national public life reeks of hypocrisy not unlike what the prophet Isaiah describes in this passage. Apparently, in Israel's public life, fasting was still a common, perhaps  an expected activity. One could not say that is the case in post-modern Australia: "Behold, in the day of your fast you seek your own pleasure,     and oppress all your workers. 4 Behold, you fast only to quarrel and to fight     and to hit with a wicked fist. Fasting like yours this day     will not make your voice to be heard on high. 5 Is such the fast that I choose,     a day for a person to humble himself? Is it to bow down his head like a reed,     and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him? What, in Australia's public life, is a hangover from our more outwardly pious past? Prayers at the beginning of parliament, before the real business of denigration and grasping after power and making use of entitlement beg...

I've had a better idea. Instead of emailing my daily Lenten content to a hundred odd addresses in 4 batches each day throughout Lent, I've created a new blog. I'm calling it "A Lenten Blog 2018", and its address is https://dcrlent2018.blogspot.com.au. My lenten discipline this year is to each day throughout Lent post a new blog entry that comments on the bible passage and commentary for that day in the Uniting Church's bible study resource, "With Love to the World". My comment will be short, and it won't be based on much reading other than the text and the commentary in With Love to the World. Under each blog entry there will be space for comments. I invite discussion. Here we go... Day 1: Wednesday, 14 February, Ash Wednesday Text: Joel 2. 1-2, 12-17 It annoys me a bit that we so easily "cherry pick" parts of a text. It's almost as though editors want to spare readers the nasty bits. I invite you to read verses 3-11 along...