Today we started a new study - a look at the book of James. We didn't get very far, but gleaned a few insights - or at least questions.
The book of James is quite different from other New Testament books/letters. In fact Luther did not like this book, calling it an "epistle of straw" because it did not focus on the story of Jesus or the Holy Spirit, but on the people to whom it was addressed. There are no quotes from Jesus - but his teaching is reflected within the text. Apparently, with no written text available at that time, oral tradition was so strong any allusion to the teachings of Christ would be recognized as such, so James didn't need to quote or overtly refer to Jesus in order for the themes to be recognized as being based in them. (according to Richard Peace in the Study Guide for the Book of James published by Serendipity Foundation in 1986.)
We also saw that James seems to have been someone well respected and in authority in the early church. Looking at the story of the Council of Jerusalem in Acts, it was James who seems to have had the final say in what the church would believe/do. According to Richard Peace, even the brevity of the introduction to the writer shows that he was well known - for he did not have to explain who he was or by what authority he made the statements that were about to be made. Tradition has James as the brother of Jesus. We do not know - but we can see he was not a fringe believer but someone central to the early church.
The first chapter of James introduces us to some main themes: Enduring trials/remaining faithful through adversity; wisdom/speach; andthe role of wealth/blessings/generosity in the Christian life. There were a few points that caught us - like what does it mean to be "mature and complete" (James 1:4)? How can we "ask in faith, never doubting (ch 1:6) and not be shaken when the answer seems to be no? What does it mean for us when it says "in the midst of a busy life, they will wither away" (1:11)?
So far we are asking more questions than we are answering. We are seeing little leeway for the unsure, little forgiveness for those with wealth (how wealthy? Do we count?), little understanding for when circumstances get us down. We are hoping that, as we get past the introduction and into the letter itself that we will gain more helpful insights, but for now we are starting to wonder - will this be helpful?
There seem to be many challenges ahead as we dig into the book of James. We hope and pray that we will learn more about who we are meant to be and how we can become those people.
Sunday, 21 April 2013
April 8 - Sapphira
Our final "bad girl" is Sapphira, wife of and co-conspirator with Ananias. Their story is found in Acts 5. Together they decide to sell their land and present a portion of the proceeds to the church as if that portion was the whole. This could, potentially, give them an "in" with the church, where all belongings were being shared. This could make them seem really righteous while allowing them a little nest egg "just in case".
How often are we like that - we want to make a full commitment to God, to Christ, even to the church - but we want a safety net just in case we are wrong and the church/God fails us. In this case it was monetary - but it could be emotionally or in any other way. What are we holding back? What is the price we are paying/going to have to pay because of it?
In this case the cost was dear. Peter was not fooled by the presentation and so gave Ananias, and later Sapphira, the chance to admit they had back some of their money - but neither did - so they ended up falling down dead right there.
For us it may not be so much a physical death - though when what we hold back is our habits/indulgences like overeating, drinking, smoking, drugs etc. perhaps we are hastening our own deaths - but there is a spiritual death that comes each time we come before God pretending to be/bring something we are not. We know deep down that we are not fully committed, and God knows it, and we actually know God knows it - but still we try to fool ourselves and God that we are bringing our whole selves.
How does one give it all? How can one take that leap of faith? I still struggle with that nearly every day but what one doesn't do is pretend to have given more than you have. Peter explains to Ananias that the field was his - he was not obligated to give the proceeds to the church. What he did wrong was making a show of being more pious, more religious, more generous than he really was. He tried to fool not only the church, but God - and that was unacceptable.
But the focus was to be on Sapphira - how does she fit into this? The story makes little distinction between what she did and the actions of her husband. She was a part of the decision to sell the field as well as the decision to hold back some of the proceeds. She had a chance to come clean when Peter asked her - but, not knowing her husband had been struck down, she remained loyal to him rather than being honest with Peter and the church. It is sad to think that the one seemingly functional marriage relationship we have studied ends up this way. Sapphira seems to have had a good relationship with her husband, they worked together and made decisions together. They were loyal to each other. But the decision they made together ended up costing them both their lives. She was not a horrible person - nor even as warped as many we have seen - but she, like so many before and after her, longed for security and put that before faith. Is this not something we all have to fight? We see people who are homeless, people who lose everything, not to the church but to the bank or to the government or to some other creditor - and we do not want that. We want to feel safe.
Somehow we need to get to the point where we can feel safe in God's hands - where we are not relying on our own abilities, possessions, strengths. Somehow we need to let go and come to God with open hands (as Henry Nowen put it), take that leap of faith (as Kierkegaard put it), rest in the promises (as the hymn puts it). However we put it, somehow we need to give our whole selves into God's hands. If we find we cannot let go to that point - we need to recognize it, be honest about it and pray for help, not pretend that we have.
So let us focus on giving ourselves to God. Let us focus on being honest with God about our struggles - its not like we're fooling anyone anyway - and let work on, not looking like good Christians, but being the Christians we are called to be.
How often are we like that - we want to make a full commitment to God, to Christ, even to the church - but we want a safety net just in case we are wrong and the church/God fails us. In this case it was monetary - but it could be emotionally or in any other way. What are we holding back? What is the price we are paying/going to have to pay because of it?
In this case the cost was dear. Peter was not fooled by the presentation and so gave Ananias, and later Sapphira, the chance to admit they had back some of their money - but neither did - so they ended up falling down dead right there.
For us it may not be so much a physical death - though when what we hold back is our habits/indulgences like overeating, drinking, smoking, drugs etc. perhaps we are hastening our own deaths - but there is a spiritual death that comes each time we come before God pretending to be/bring something we are not. We know deep down that we are not fully committed, and God knows it, and we actually know God knows it - but still we try to fool ourselves and God that we are bringing our whole selves.
How does one give it all? How can one take that leap of faith? I still struggle with that nearly every day but what one doesn't do is pretend to have given more than you have. Peter explains to Ananias that the field was his - he was not obligated to give the proceeds to the church. What he did wrong was making a show of being more pious, more religious, more generous than he really was. He tried to fool not only the church, but God - and that was unacceptable.
But the focus was to be on Sapphira - how does she fit into this? The story makes little distinction between what she did and the actions of her husband. She was a part of the decision to sell the field as well as the decision to hold back some of the proceeds. She had a chance to come clean when Peter asked her - but, not knowing her husband had been struck down, she remained loyal to him rather than being honest with Peter and the church. It is sad to think that the one seemingly functional marriage relationship we have studied ends up this way. Sapphira seems to have had a good relationship with her husband, they worked together and made decisions together. They were loyal to each other. But the decision they made together ended up costing them both their lives. She was not a horrible person - nor even as warped as many we have seen - but she, like so many before and after her, longed for security and put that before faith. Is this not something we all have to fight? We see people who are homeless, people who lose everything, not to the church but to the bank or to the government or to some other creditor - and we do not want that. We want to feel safe.
Somehow we need to get to the point where we can feel safe in God's hands - where we are not relying on our own abilities, possessions, strengths. Somehow we need to let go and come to God with open hands (as Henry Nowen put it), take that leap of faith (as Kierkegaard put it), rest in the promises (as the hymn puts it). However we put it, somehow we need to give our whole selves into God's hands. If we find we cannot let go to that point - we need to recognize it, be honest about it and pray for help, not pretend that we have.
So let us focus on giving ourselves to God. Let us focus on being honest with God about our struggles - its not like we're fooling anyone anyway - and let work on, not looking like good Christians, but being the Christians we are called to be.
Sunday, 7 April 2013
April 1 - Easter Monday musings
We decided to take a day off for Easter Monday - but some of the events of the past week have made me ponder anew about the amazing community of God's family.
On Wednesday I had the opportunity to attend an interfaith symposium on "My religion's answer to world peace". It was fascinating to hear women of different faiths speak of peace and how their faith viewed it. While some spoke more academically and others spoke more personally, each spoke of her understanding of Faith's answer to peace. The women who lead and attended this symposium varied in age, race, occupation and, of course, religion. Yet we gathered together to talk to each other and share this experience of listening to each other and learning more about other faiths while putting faces to faiths and getting to meet other women as friends. We were all different but could meet and learn and even pray together.
On Thursday and Friday I attended inter-Mennonite Passion Week services. People from several Mennonite Congregations gathered to worship God, celebrate communion, and generally ponder and give thanks for Jesus' sacrifice. If asked, we would not agree on a lot of specifics of faith - as to forms of baptism, response to various ethical questions, even to usual style of worship - yet we could come together and have a meaningful time of praising and learning about God together.
I have also been reading a book by Bruxy Cavey, The End of Religion. In one of the earlier chapters he speaks of The Council of Nicaea where 250 bishops gathered as brothers in Christ. They worked at defining their faith through the drawing up of an official creed (The Nicene Creed). Through this process "the group of formerly united-although-diverse Christ-followers could now be officially divided into "orthodox" and "heretics," with the heretics being given the option of exile of death."
These are three of the influences that have reminded me once again that we are called to be the diverse body of Christ on earth - and that God is so much bigger and greater than any human could ever understand.
I am pretty sure that no one person has all the answers to who God is and how we should respond to that. The only person that could would have been Jesus - and he tried to teach us through his life, his teachings, his death and his resurrection. Since different groups disagree on what he was saying I would guess we haven't received the message completely correctly either. Yet in spite of our incomplete comprehension and following of Jesus and his message, we often condemn each other for understanding and following differently. Though we are all sinners, we often condemn those who sin differently. We set out to follow, yet often get distracted by judging those who see a different path. We try to set our rules about who is "in" and who is "out" of God's kingdom - but how do we know? Why can't we gather together more often to celebrate what God has done, to learn from each other's perspective and tolerate our differences? When we focus on learning and worship we can come closer to answering Jesus' prayer that we "may experience such perfect unity that the world will know that you [God] sent me [Jesus] and that you love them as much as you love me."(John 17:20-23, NLT). God is so much bigger and greater than you or me, who is to say that we can't both, differences and all, fall under God's loving umbrella of grace?
We are called to be the body of Christ in all its glorious diversity. A Pancreas doesn't look like a foot (as far as I know) but is important for the function of the body. The eyes, ears, nose, tongue, and fingertips are very different from each other, yet together help us distinguish the world around us. We are not a monochromatic duvet cover determined by a single set of right and wrong beliefs but a beautiful, colourful patchwork quilt made with different textures and memories all built in - perhaps even held together by slightly uneven stitches at times but able, together, to provide the service for which it was planned and created. So, too, should we work together, worship together, even when we don't all agree. Let us focus on God, not our differences. Let us Christians focus on Christ who worshipped with the Jews and the gentiles, the "clean" and the "unclean." Let us not work too hard to define exactly who we, as a group, are and what we believe through statements and creeds but let us live out who each of us is called to be so that, together, we can by God's Grace be God's hands & feet, or patchwork quilt, here on earth.
Happy Easter!
On Wednesday I had the opportunity to attend an interfaith symposium on "My religion's answer to world peace". It was fascinating to hear women of different faiths speak of peace and how their faith viewed it. While some spoke more academically and others spoke more personally, each spoke of her understanding of Faith's answer to peace. The women who lead and attended this symposium varied in age, race, occupation and, of course, religion. Yet we gathered together to talk to each other and share this experience of listening to each other and learning more about other faiths while putting faces to faiths and getting to meet other women as friends. We were all different but could meet and learn and even pray together.
On Thursday and Friday I attended inter-Mennonite Passion Week services. People from several Mennonite Congregations gathered to worship God, celebrate communion, and generally ponder and give thanks for Jesus' sacrifice. If asked, we would not agree on a lot of specifics of faith - as to forms of baptism, response to various ethical questions, even to usual style of worship - yet we could come together and have a meaningful time of praising and learning about God together.
I have also been reading a book by Bruxy Cavey, The End of Religion. In one of the earlier chapters he speaks of The Council of Nicaea where 250 bishops gathered as brothers in Christ. They worked at defining their faith through the drawing up of an official creed (The Nicene Creed). Through this process "the group of formerly united-although-diverse Christ-followers could now be officially divided into "orthodox" and "heretics," with the heretics being given the option of exile of death."
These are three of the influences that have reminded me once again that we are called to be the diverse body of Christ on earth - and that God is so much bigger and greater than any human could ever understand.
I am pretty sure that no one person has all the answers to who God is and how we should respond to that. The only person that could would have been Jesus - and he tried to teach us through his life, his teachings, his death and his resurrection. Since different groups disagree on what he was saying I would guess we haven't received the message completely correctly either. Yet in spite of our incomplete comprehension and following of Jesus and his message, we often condemn each other for understanding and following differently. Though we are all sinners, we often condemn those who sin differently. We set out to follow, yet often get distracted by judging those who see a different path. We try to set our rules about who is "in" and who is "out" of God's kingdom - but how do we know? Why can't we gather together more often to celebrate what God has done, to learn from each other's perspective and tolerate our differences? When we focus on learning and worship we can come closer to answering Jesus' prayer that we "may experience such perfect unity that the world will know that you [God] sent me [Jesus] and that you love them as much as you love me."(John 17:20-23, NLT). God is so much bigger and greater than you or me, who is to say that we can't both, differences and all, fall under God's loving umbrella of grace?
We are called to be the body of Christ in all its glorious diversity. A Pancreas doesn't look like a foot (as far as I know) but is important for the function of the body. The eyes, ears, nose, tongue, and fingertips are very different from each other, yet together help us distinguish the world around us. We are not a monochromatic duvet cover determined by a single set of right and wrong beliefs but a beautiful, colourful patchwork quilt made with different textures and memories all built in - perhaps even held together by slightly uneven stitches at times but able, together, to provide the service for which it was planned and created. So, too, should we work together, worship together, even when we don't all agree. Let us focus on God, not our differences. Let us Christians focus on Christ who worshipped with the Jews and the gentiles, the "clean" and the "unclean." Let us not work too hard to define exactly who we, as a group, are and what we believe through statements and creeds but let us live out who each of us is called to be so that, together, we can by God's Grace be God's hands & feet, or patchwork quilt, here on earth.
Happy Easter!
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