SECOND FROM LAST FRIDAY OF THE KINGDOM
15 November 2013
Readings:
Key Verses:
2 Sam. 22:26-27: “With the merciful you will show yourself merciful. With the perfect… you will show yourself perfect. With the pure you will show yourself pure. With the crooked you will show yourself shrewd.”
Matt. 7:8: Jesus said, “Everyone who asks receives. He who seeks finds. To him who knocks it will be opened.”
Reflection
In the 1989 Canadian film Jésus de Montréal, Friar Leclerc (Gilles Pelletier) enlists a group of actors headed by Daniel (Lothaire Bluteau) to modernize his summer Passion Play. The result is a fascinating audience-interactive portrayal of current biblical scholarship’s discoveries and conjectures about the historical Jesus, and the world in which he lived. Obviously this does not sit well with the Catholic priest, nor with his superiors. Exasperated, he lectures Daniel:
“Are you out of your mind? Christ, the natural son of a Roman soldier? The Virgin Mary, an unwed mother? Are you crazy?”
Daniel attempts to defend his production: “In the Bible…” but Leclerc cuts him off:
“It can be made to say anything! I know… from experience.”
The Bible is a complicated series of texts, written down over a millennium, some of whose stories go back to undatable oral tradition; whose books weren’t all intended to be sewn together into one continuous narrative. For most of history, only scholars and priests—both Jewish and Christian—had access to the text. They often guarded it from the general public, I think, less out of a selfish sense of superiority, or a desire to perpetuate ignorance, but more because of its complexity, because, in the wrong hands, “it can be made to say anything”.
Nowadays, first with the printing press and then the internet, just about anyone (including myself) can be a biblical commentator. People read and see what they want in it—and we all know what sorts of things people can come up with. Who agrees or disagrees with whom, then, dictates the next denominational split—leaving the faithful with a “we’re right, you’re wrong” kind of attitude.
And yet, “God is not the author of confusion, but of peace” (1 Cor. 14:33, KJV). We can see this in today’s first reading from the Second Book of Samuel. God meets us right where we are, as we are: mercy with mercy; perfection with perfection; purity with purity; and—get this—crookedness with shrewdness. Yes, even to those whose intentions are less than honest, God will still show himself, shrewdly using their dishonesty, their crookedness and corruption against them, to bring them down, to humble them—and we know what Jesus said about those who humble themselves (Matt. 23:12).
God stops at nothing to reach us, to exalt us into his goodness and peace. There are probably endless ways to read and understand the hundreds of voices in Scripture, but through all of these, God still has some tricks up his sleeve (so to speak) to show us—all of us. And in like manner, God works through our countless confusions of culture, race, tradition, social views, politics, and religious denomination, giving all of us one calling: keep asking, keep searching, keep knocking. The promise is likewise the same: we will receive, we will find, the door will be opened—right where we are.
Prayer of the Day
Almighty God,
your word is a lamp for our feet,
and a light upon our path.
Grant that by patient study of the Scriptures,
we may follow more closely
the way that you set before us;
through Jesus Christ, your Son, our Lord,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God now and forever.
Amen.
—Collect for the Ninth Sunday after Pentecost in A New Zealand Prayer Book, pp. 634-5.
Hymn: “O you who hear all prayer”
(Words: John Burton, Jr. 1824; adapted by Joseph A. Soltero, 2013
Tune: ‘Naphtali’, H.T. Leslie)
O you who hear all prayer;
Attend our humble cry,
And let your servants share
Your blessing from on high.
We plead the promise of your Word:
Grant us your Holy Spirit, Lord.
If earthly parents hear
Their children when they cry;
If they, with love sincere
Their children’s needs supply,
Much more will you your love display,
And answer when your children pray.
O send your Spirit down
On all the nations, Lord,
With great success to crown
The preaching of your Word.
That all may feel the heav’nly flame,
And all unite to praise your Name.
O may that sacred fire,
Descending from above,
Our quickened hearts inspire
With fervent zeal and love,
Enlighten our beclouded eyes,
And teach our earth-bound souls to rise.
Then shall your kingdom come
Among our fallen race,
And earth at last become
The temple of your grace,
Whence pure devotion shall ascend,
And songs of praise, till time shall end.
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