Refractions

When Samuel anoints David as king of Israel, he becomes part of a long pattern of contested sovereignty – “regime change”. Saul is still living, and for several more years will act out the role of king. But as of this moment in Jesse’s yard, he is no longer the real king; that authority God has taken from Saul and bestowed on David, because, we are told, Saul has turned his back on the Lord and set up a monument for himself. Regime change is what Eve and Adam attempted in Eden when they seized the fruit of God’s tree. And it’s what’s going on in Libya right now. Who will be king? Who will have power? The question of power – where it comes from, its legitimate uses, who has it – provides a constant rumble rising out of history’s cellar – a tectonic force that reshapes life on the surface, sometimes gradually, often violently.   And there is violence here. Saul will seek David's death. Absalom's violent death will break his Father's heart. Not much of scripture has to do ...

None of us remembers our birth. But most of us can imagine what a trauma it was to leave the warm, humid comfort of the dark and quiet womb and be thrust into the dry, cold, noisy brightness of whatever room.  So when Jesus speaks to Nicodemus of a spiritual birth, I’m inclined to believe that what Jesus asks of Nicodemus is not going to be easy. The gospel account of the exchange between Jesus and Nicodemus is complicated by the writer’s habit of characterizing Jews (in general) and Pharisees (in particular) as obsessed with narrow legalism and driven by judgmental self-righteousness. Evidence suggests that the sect of Pharisees was more complex than the portrait this evangelist paints. Nevertheless, what emerges in Jesus’ encounter with Nicodemus is an exploration of the contested ground between structure (law, judgment) and freedom (Spirit, novelty). That contested ground is not an exclusively Pharisaical or Jewish reality. It is at the heart of a contemporary tension in the f...

“ The first crisis of human stewardship came with our first ancestors’ decision to test the sovereignty of God by consuming the only fruit in the garden reserved exclusively to the Creator. Rejecting stewardship and embracing the illusory promise of sovereign possession of the garden, they initiate a continuing pattern of exploitation, entitlement, violence and destruction that plagues human participation in the life of the earth.”                                           Anglican Church of Canada – Resources for Mission Several weeks ago, Jesus informed us that we have to choose the master we will serve – God or wealth. On Ash Wednesday, we heard his words, “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” Today we read about the “first crisis in human stewardship” in the garden, and ...

My friend Jon Sams says it’s hard to believe in God in a flat place. I don’t know about that – prairie horizons utter powerful and eloquent testimony to the holy. But I do know that biblical mountains (remember Moses at Sinai) are places apart and above – places in which our usual patterns of encounter with the world are suspended. On the mountain we do not take the initiative. We are not in control, or even responsible to see that this or that happens or does not happen. Biblical mountains are a topographical sabbath on which we lay aside the notion that any of us is the author of life’s story. On the mountain, God is the author, the Storyteller who moves the plot forward. So as Jesus leads Peter, James and John up the mountain, we have at least a sneaking suspicion that something is going to happen, that the Storyteller is about to introduce a new direction. Another new direction. We’re all still recovering from the last new direction – in all three synoptic gospels, what preced...