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PREACHING THE LECTIONARY: THE McGREGOR PAGE
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CURRENT CONTENTS OF THIS PAGE
(Updated June 28, 2009)
--Pentecost 7 – (July 19, 2009)
--Pentecost 6 – (July 12, 2009)
--Pentecost 5 – (July 5, 2009)
--Links
Pentecost 7 – July 19, 2009
2 Samuel 7:1 14a
Ps. 89:20 37
Ephesians 2:11 22
Mark 6:30 34, 53 56
Surprised By God's Promise
God makes a generous promise to David. "When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your ancestors, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come forth from your body, and I will establish his kingdom... I will be a father to him, and he shall be a son to me." (2 Samuel 7:12,14a)
The Psalmist hears a more exuberant promise, outrageous when you stop to think about. "I will establish his line forever, and his throne as long as the heavens endure." (Psalm 89:29)
The outrageousness of the promise in Psalm 89 goes with the outrageousness of the cross. It won't be King Solomon who lays an eternal foundation for David's line. He built a magnificent house for God in Jerusalem, but he missed the mark. He built a temple made by human hands. It would take a different son of David to make good on the promise in the Psalm, one who replaced the temple with his risen body. Only he can lay claim to God's promise: "I will make him the firstborn, the highest of the kings of the earth." (Psalm 89:27) He is highest of the kings for all time because he transcends time. The kings of the earth can't compete with him because they can't get their hands on him. It would be like the earth trying to compete with Saturn.
Paul celebrates the new transcendence of David's descendent: "...in his flesh he has made both groups [Jew and Gentile] into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us." (Ephesians 2: 14) This is how Christ rises above the kings of the earth. He unifies their subjects under his heavenly reign. When our borders disappear, so does the power of the local king. The reign of Christ is like the rise of the Internet in that it dissolves national boundaries and challenges provincial rule.
The subjects of this heavenly king flock to him. "...they hurried there on foot from all the towns and arrived ahead of them. As he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd..." (Mark 6:33-34) Earthly leaders push. Jesus pulls. He draws people to himself. We yearn for the church to draw people the way Jesus does. What if the church could draw Jews and Muslims together in Jerusalem? The vision so exceeds the reality that one wonders at how to hold the two together. When the church gets into a pushing-shoving match in the world, it does not draw the world. Indeed if the church really wants to draw the world to Christ, it has to be transparent to Christ. Christ alone can draw all people to himself.
The risen Lord is the only plausible fulfillment of the promise of God in Psalm 89, the only way the line of David can be eternal and transcendent. David set out to build God a house. But God had a better idea. He would build David a house, not a house made by human hands but a house that over-arches history. No Babylonian army can conquer this house and raze it to the ground. Instead it stands forever in the midst of human history drawing its subjects home. "Joseph also went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the city of David called Bethlehem, because he was descended from the house and family of David. He went to be registered with Mary, to whom he was engaged and who was expecting a child. (Luke 2:4-5)
Thus the promise that the Psalmist heard and proclaimed came true in a way he couldn't have anticipated. Likewise God's promises to us will come true, not as we anticipate, confirming our designs, but rather as God designs, confirming God's glorious creativity.
Pentecost 6 – July 12, 2009
2 Samuel 6:1-19 (Excising the mid portion of this text shows a lack of reverence for the Scripture and a lack of confidence in the
exegetical ability of the preacher. Karl Barth would not approve,
and neither do I.)
Psalm 24
Ephesians 1:3-14
Mark 6:14-29
To The Praise of His Glory
What do John the Baptist and Uzzah have in common? They both fell to a flash of power that transcended them. This happens. Sometimes those who tell the story see the hand of God as primary in the person's demise. Other times the agent is more apparent. Another way to interpret the event is to assign it to fate, "He was in the wrong place at the wrong time." I find it inconsistent to give God the credit for our being "in the right place at the right time" and consign the other to bad luck. No, I'd rather wrestle with the problem of God's hand being in the evil that befalls us as well as the good. Otherwise, our suffering becomes meaningless. I would rather suffer at God's hand then at the hand of a stranger -- or worse, a mindless universe. Satan can be offered as another agent, though not in these Scriptures. If I die because of Satan, I die related to Satan, not to God. I die because Satan has the greater claim on my life. I believe that regardless of how we die, the children of God die in relation to God.
Would you rather make a pastoral call on Uzzah's wife and children to say that his death was just one of those things that happens occasionally when a person tries to steady the arc, a million to one chance -- or come to say that the anger of the Lord "was kindled against him?" -- a tough choice. It is tough because we always want to represent God in a winsome way. More important, is that we represent God truthfully. Was God angry? Or, was God off duty when it happened? Or, is there a dispassionate side to God's power, God's provision for the consequences of our actions apart from our intentions? I wouldn't presume to tell his wife more than I know, but I wouldn't withhold the truth I do know. She is going to blame God anyway. Better she should remember that God's anger does not endure like God's faithfulness. There are people in our audience who are wrestling with the memory of dreadful loss, not limited to death. If we forbid them from wrestling with God, how will they ever find blessing?
Is God powerful only to save, not to destroy? Psalm 24 and our Ephesians passage celebrate God's power to save. The story from Samuel and Mark invite us to ponder God's power to destroy. Oh, yes, it was Herod's order, but that order would never have come had it not been for God's calling John to preach. Can the one who knows all things not bear some responsibility for all things? The way John died fits his calling and his obedience to that call. Is it bad that he died that way rather than some other way?
The one who has all the power to save or destroy us has chosen to save us -- not, the one who only has the power to save us has managed to snatch us from the one who does have the power to destroy us. It is the mystery of God's choosing grace over judgment... It is the mystery of God choosing us... It is the mystery of God's choosing us for grace over judgment in Christ Jesus that is the Gospel. “He destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace that he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved.” (Eph. 1:5-6)
Pentecost 5 – July 5, 2009
2 Samuel 5:1-5, 9-10
Psalm 48
2 Corinthians 12:2-10
Mark 6:1-13
Responding with Faith
The account of David's taking Jerusalem from the Jebusites is a national celebration in the same sense that the story of the defeat of the British by the Colonists is a national celebration. Some are embarrassed by the stories. "David had said on that day, 'Whoever would strike down the Jebusites, let him get up the water shaft to attack the lame and the blind, those whom David hates.' Therefore it is said, 'The blind and the lame shall not come into the house.'" (2 Samuel 5:8)
Apparently there was no “Israelites With Disabilities Act” then. Although the reference to lame and blind was a play on the Jebusite taunt, who knows what the sensitivity was to persons with disabilities? It is clear what their sensitivity was to Jebusites -- none. In 1776 our sensitivity to the human needs of "Red Coats" was low, to say nothing of the "Red Skins." So, shall we be too embarrassed to celebrate these points in history that turned so dramatically to our favor and redound to our glory and prosperity? Shall we shrink from celebrating before the Lord and giving God the credit because of the moral ambiguity of human history?
For God to endorse, even promote, human events is for God to participate in our sinfulness. When God promised Abraham the possession of a land, God had entered the realm of our sinfulness. The Canaanites thought it was their land. Native Americans thought this was their land. Our ancestors were sure that God had given the land to them. Were they right? If we say they were wrong, if we say God is above such land grabbing, then do we not also deny that our country has any special responsibility to God for the gift of the land? We are not, then, a chosen nation commissioned by God to bless the world. We are free to embrace the self-righteous position that follows:
We decry the self-centered brutality of the birth and expansion of this nation, but we claim all the wealth and power that accrues to us because of it. We deny any league with God that led this nation to preeminence in the world and therefore deny any responsibility to God for our behavior.
That is just great, very enlightened, the kind of "enlightened" position that a future generation will view just as this way of thinking views preceding generations.
I hear some preachers reclaiming the self-righteousness of the past as they interpret our history and our present theologically. They talk as if the transition to secularism had never happened, or having happened can be undone by ranting. If we are to link God and country in a way that glorifies God, our efforts will have to mold the future, not mimic the past. We can be sure that it will not be a popular message, the Word of God to the United States about the United States. It will be like the scroll that Ezekiel had to eat and would rather have just eaten than have proclaimed to "a rebellious people." Preachers will be like Paul, straining to maintain credibility with a finicky church. Jesus brought a theological interpretation of the present that his hometown could not abide; therefore, he could do no "deed of power" among them. How will God do any mighty work with America again unless the preacher interprets both our history and our present as a part of God's call and God's work? This is a mystery not to be taken on uncritically, but critically needed to renew a spirit of hope and faith.
Roland McGregor, United Methodist Pastor
Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA
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