Tagged: Israel

Romans 11:1-2a, 29-32

This text is used for the Lectionary Year A on August 20, 2017.

I do not think it will be a farfetched assessment to say that we live in a culture in which people desire and seek after the spectacular.  People are looking to buy homes that have eye-catching curb appeal and exude “charm.”  Developers want to build the amusement park that has the “wow” factor to draw in visitors.  Technology companies continue to build “flagship” devices for consumers who desire “premium” gadgets.  The news media is seeking the next spectacle, whether an event or person, to drive up ratings.  It is fair to say that there is an insatiable appetite for the spectacular and many have found ways to cultivate this desire, feed it, and profit from it.  As a marketing website puts it, “Why hire a conference center when you can have a castle?”  It is fair to say that we are all chasing in some ways after the next spectacular thing that will bring happiness or the next dramatic event or encounter that will leave long-lasting impressions.

It may be worth asking how this desire for the spectacular affects believers’ relationship with God.  Thus, it is perhaps not sheer coincidence that our lectionary passage falls in the season between Pentecost and Advent, what Christian tradition has referred to as “Ordinary Time.”  Ordinary Time stands as a corrective to desire for the spectacular and dramatic that our culture is trying to cultivate in us.  Our passage invites us to think about the various ways in which God moves in the ordinary.  In Romans 10, Paul details Israel’s rejection of the gospel.  As Paul sees it, this rejection stems from willful disobedience on the part of Israel to pursue its own path for righteousness based on works, rather than the divinely initiated path that is based on faith.  Thus, while Israel—the people of God—have failed to achieve righteousness, the Gentiles have obtained this righteousness that is based on faith (Romans 10:5-13).  Concerning Israel, however, Paul quotes Isaiah 65:2: “All day long I have held out my hands to a disobedient and contrary people.”

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Jeremiah 31:27-34

This text is used for the Lectionary Year C on October 16th, 2016.

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Friedel Dzubas

This sermon series began two weeks ago in Lamentations 1:1-6 and ends next week in Joel 2:23-32. This series allows the pastor to trace the arc of redemption as told through Israel’s story with God. This is the foundation of Christ’s coming, through which this story finds its fruition and fulfillment. Such a series permits a congregation to re-engage the movement of their own life with God through this story, starting in Lamentations with disorientation over their own sin and its consequences. This confrontation with sin is necessary if a church is to engage in the faithful application of hope toward Joel’s vision of life and land indwelled with the presence of the Spirit.

Last week in Jeremiah 29, the text focused on living in the tension of brokenness and hope. Today’s passage moves from the midst of this tension into the promise that is to come. Here the prophet promises renewed relationship and renewed covenant. This is hope on the move; hope that propels a people into the practice of a future freedom right now in the present. This hope is on the move because God brings renewal. This God-moving renewal establishes relational wholeness. This relational wholeness is expressed in human life together and covenant life with God.

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Jeremiah 29:1, 4-7

This text is used for the Lectionary Year C on October 9th, 2016.

cry of prophet jeremiah on the ruins of-jerusalem 1870This sermon series began last week in Lamentations 1:1-6 and ends in a few weeks in Joel 2:23-32. This allows the pastor the opportunity to trace the arc of redemption as told through Israel’s story with God. This is the foundation of Christ’s coming, through which this story finds its fruition and fulfillment. Such a sermon series allows a congregation to re-engage the movement of their own life with God, starting in Lamentations with disorientation over their own sin and its consequences. This confrontation with sin is necessary if a congregation is to engage in the faithful application of hope toward Joel’s vision of life and land indwelled with the presence of the Spirit.

Therefore, this sermon moves with Israel deeper into the anguish of exile that Jeremiah describes, and initiates anew for God’s people the foundational posture of life with God – hope and faith. Hope and faith are the posture of God’s people that propel them into a world that lacks, a world whose reality remains a pale vision of God’s covenant promises. Jeremiah began his prophetic career at the end of the seventh century, at the close of Assyria’s reign, and he prophesied through the Babylonian conflict and the subsequent exile of God’s people. Although Jeremiah consistently warns of doom for Israel at the hands of Babylon, his book is primarily about hope, the hope of Israel’s restoration. This theme is explained as Jeremiah communicates that Israel’s God is in charge of creation and is eternally faithful to God’s own promises.

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Lamentations 1:1-6

This text is used for the Lectionary Year C on October 2nd, 2016.

 

yaroslavna-s-lament-jpgpinterestlargeLamentations opens with the personification of Jerusalem as a woman widowed, abandoned in death by her husband. Who is her husband? Her husband is YHWH who, though not dead, has given over his people to suffering. The lament announces abandonment, the deep grief of one alone in anguish. This book of poems was likely written soon after the fall of Jerusalem to Babylon, a time when the wounds of sorrow were still raw with hurt. Such an abandonment by God to a foreign power not only weighed the Israelites down with grief over the death of her people; it also called into question God’s place in the pantheon of godly powers. Grief is thus expressed over the physical desolation of the city and the diminishing of YHWH’s covenant faithfulness. Once the symbols of God’s covenant faithfulness: land, temple, and king were now the symbols of all that was lost. Israel’s life with God is now broken, as is their place among the nations. The people of God, the lament asks? Are they the bride of YHWH, a queen among the nations? No, they are now a widow and a slave.

To explicate this point clearly, the Hebrew text uses the word translated “queen” in verse one. This is the same word used for Abraham’s wife, Sara. Jerusalem is no longer the bride of the promise, wed to the fulfillment of God’s covenant to make them a people within the land. Instead, that covenant appears abandoned, as they are abandoned to the grief of exile.
Verse two presents the corporate response of the city, the grieving widow. What is the response of the people in their abandonment? Their response is deep grief. Jerusalem looks in verse two for comfort and love. The nation searches for friends, but none exist. There is only the mocking presence of friends turned to enemies. In whom can Jerusalem put their trust? There is no one present for them.

Verse three describes the torment over Jerusalem’s untethering. Israel’s identity, previously experienced as anchored in the land of promise, is now ripped from under their feet. They are untethered from the land, set adrift in exile and in relation to YHWH. The people of God dwell now among the nations, a people of no place, a people of no Sabbath, no rest within the world.

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