188: Proper 23C (October 9, 2016)

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188: Proper 23C (October 9, 2016)
Voice in the Wilderness: Bryan Odeen, 2 Timothy 2:8-15
Gospel Reading: Luke 17:11-19 9 out of 10 lepers don’t thank Jesus
Second Reading: Jeremiah 29:1, 4-7 Jeremiah’s letter to the exiles.
Psalm Nugget: Psalm 66:1-12 Richard Bruxvoort Colligan (psalmimmersion.com, @pomopsalmist, Patreon)

Voice in the Wilderness: Bryan Odeen, 2 Timothy 2:8-15
Twitter: @BryanOdeen
BryanOdeen.wordpress.com

Featured Musician - “Cold Weather,” by The Great IndoorsTwitter: @TGI_Music
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/greatindoorsmusic/?fref=ts

Episode 188 Proper 23, Year C - (October 9, 2016)
Hello and welcome to the Pulpit Fiction Podcast, the lectionary podcast for preachers, seekers and Bible geeks. This is episode 188 for Sunday October 9, 2016, Proper 23, Year C.

Introduction and Check-in  

  • Crazy times
  • Columbus Day

    • "The soldiers mowed down dozens with point-blank volleys, loosed the dogs to rip open limbs and bellies, chased fleeing Indians into the bush to skewer them on sword and pike, and 'with God's aid soon gained a complete victory, killing many Indians and capturing others who were also killed.' " - Ferdinand Columbus’ biography of his father (according to Sale, Kirkpatrick (1991). The Conquest of Paradise: Christopher Columbus and the Columbian Legacy)
    • "In the name of the Holy Trinity, we can send from here all the slaves and brazil-wood which could be sold," Columbus wrote to Ferdinand and Isabella in 1496. "In Castile, Portugal, Aragon,.. . and the Canary Islands they need many slaves, and I do not think they get enough from Guinea." He viewed the Indian death rate optimistically: "Although they die now, they will not always die. The Negroes and Canary Islanders died at first."
    • Columbus wrote a friend in 1500, "A hundred castellanoes are as easily obtained for a woman as for a farm, and it is very general and there are plenty of dealers who go about looking for girls; those from nine to ten are now in demand."

Voice in the Wilderness: Bryan Odeen, 2 Timothy 2:8-15

Featured Musician - “Cold Weather,” by The Great Indoors

DONATE: www.pulpitfiction.us/donate

  • Cindy Martinson
  • Liv Gibbons - “You Rock”

Gospel Reading:  Luke 17:11-19 9 out of 10 lepers don’t thank Jesus
Bible Study

  • Leprosy

    • probably was not actual leprosy but a skin malady - is this important to bring up?
    • Healing - both physical restoration and social restoration - lepers are returned to the community
  • What is important?

    • Not religious orthodoxy
    • Not cultural acceptance
    • Orthopraxis- giving thanks
    • Once again, the Samaritan is lifted up as the hero of faith.  The one in ten that gives thanks.

      • Focus is on the Samaritan as an outsider, foreigner

        • In the land between Samaria and Jerusalem
      • More than just saying “thank you,” this is an outpouring of worship that shows us the Samaritan is the only one that gets the full benefit of Jesus’ healing.  The others are healed, yes.  This is the one that is “saved”.
      • “The passage confronts us with more than a push for common courtesy of saying our thank-yous.  It gives us an outsider whose unrestrained and spontaneous appreciation dramatizes the essence of faith and who disrupts an otherwise easy perception that we know who the real insiders are.” (Charles Cousar, Texts for Preaching, Year C)
  • “Your faith has made you well”

    • Wasn’t the Samaritan already made well?
    • There is a difference between "being cured" and being "made well"
    • It was not his faith in the healing power of God- it was his thanksgiving
    • Do we remember that God is the source of blessing
    • Can God be the source of blessing and not the source of woe (even via passivity)?
    • Faith is something lived - in thankfulness
  • Focal verbs

    • Return - hypostrepho
    • Give Praise - doxazo
    • Prostate - fall on the face
    • Give Thanks - eucharisto
    • Framing in Luke

      • Luke 2:20 - Shepherds after visiting the infant Jesus
      • Luke 24:52 - Disciples after witnessing the ascension
  • Faith as a life of thanksgiving

    • Thankfulness for being cured of dis-ease
    • Thankfulness for being present in the midst of dis-ease
    • If we take the presence and loving nature of God seriously- can we be anything other than thankful?
    • Not faithful/thankful

      • we deserve it - about time
      • What needs to be cured next?
  • “Worship is certainly at the heart of the Christian life, and the story of the one who returns to give thanks points us to that truth. God promises to be at work in the world, in our church, in our lives; so we cannot but give thanks.” - Kimberly Bracken Long, Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary - Feasting on the Word – Year C, Volume 4: Season After Pentecost 2 (Propers 17-Reign of Christ).
  • The importance of giving thanks

    • Do you write thank you notes?
  • Prayers:

    • Anne Lamott: 2 favorite prayers

      • morning: “Help me, Help me, Help me”
      • evening: “Thank you, Thank you, Thank you”
      • Doxology - “Praise God from whom all blessings flow…”
    • Meister Eckhart - “If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is "Thank you"' it will be enough”
    • Eucharistic Thanksgiving Prayer - “Let us give thanks to the Lord our God. It is right to give our thanks and praise. Eternal God, holy and mighty, it is truly right and our greatest joy to give you thanks and praise, and to worship you in every place where your glory abides.”

Sermon Thoughts and Questions:

  • Thankfulness as a way of being- as a church how do we model being a thankful people?
  • Is not returning and giving praise and thanks the center of our faith?

    • We return to God- thankful for what we have received
    • How are these central to our worship? Our programs? Our church life? Our Evangelism?

Psalm Nugget: Psalm 66:1-12 with Richard Bruxvoort Colligan (psalmimmersion.com, @pomopsalmist, Patreon)

Second Reading: Jeremiah 29:1, 4-7 Jeremiah’s letter to the exiles
Initial Thoughts

  • Good edit by the lectionary. Verses 2 could be read - explains setting and what the nature of the exile. Verse 3 is clerical information.
  • Whole letters goes until verse 23 - Read the whole thing

    • It includes one of the most famous lines from Jeremiah 29:11 “For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope.” Most people do not realize that this verse is sent to a people in the midst of exile. It is usually used in times of comfort to explain why things are going so good. Those who quote it often leave out the 70 years of exile part.

Bible Study

  • Literary Context

    • Part of a larger letter, telling the exiles to settle in for the long haul.
    • Chap 28 - Jeremiah has a debate with Hananiah. Hananiah says that the exile will last two years. Jeremiah: “that sounds great, but I don’t think so. I guess we’ll see.” Then Hananiah dies (which is a proof that he is wrong, Deuteronomy 18:20 ‘But any prophet who speaks in the name of other gods, or who presumes to speak in my name a word that I have not commanded the prophet to speak - that prophet shall die.’)
    • After this debate comes chapter 29, when Jeremiah tells the exiles to settle in for an extended stay in Babylon.
    • Next week’s reading is Jeremiah 31:27-34, which is the making of a new covenant of restoration.
  • Verses 2-3 in today’s terms: “Our national government has just collapsed as the result of an invading foreign power. There is no remnant of the military. There is no government. The President, First Lady,Cabinet and Congress have all been exiled. All of the artists in New York and steelworkers in Pittsburgh were separated from their families and exiled as well.” (Wil Gafney, Working Preacher)
  • Differing readings of verses 4-7: Is it simply instructions to not stir up trouble when they’re gone, or is it a defiant stance to remain faithful because God is a God of all, and that even Babylonians may be blessed and used by Yahweh?

    • “Much controversy surrounds this material. Some read this in a very minimalistic fashion in which the Israelites are just being given advice for how to survive. Any resemblance to material min Deuteronomy is superficial. There is no universalism present in this material, and the Israelites are only supposed to be living in the land of Israel… I disagree with this viewpoint”  (Garrett Galvin, Working Preacher)
    • For God to tell the exiles to work for the good of Babylon is an incredible statement. It reveals the nature of God, who is the God of even the Babylonians.
    • There is a universal law of humanity that is revealed. The peace of Babylon is peace for the exiles as well.

Sermon Thoughts and Questions

  • “Seek the welfare of [Babylon] where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf.” Praying and working for the enemy is a controversial position. The people have been conquered by Babylon and forced to move. This is the same event that creates the book of Lamentations, longs series of woes, and Psalm 137. Jeremiah is saying “work for the good of Babylon.” Is it difficult to imagine an analogous position in modern times? Can we pray for Russia, ISIS.

    • “Most Western readers will not be able to identify with the originating context of Jeremiah's epistle. Some readers - African Americans descended from abducted Africans, Native Americans living on reservations distant from their ancestral lands - may identify strongly with the exilic context. In the broader American national context, we are war with forces inside and outside of our borders. And God through Jeremiah calls us to pray for those whom we see as our enemies on national and international scales - for those whose religion and culture are different from ours and those who are bent on our destruction.” (Wil Gafney, Working Preacher)
  • How does this affect the way we think about immigrants in our nation? What does it say about how we treat new people in our communities and churches? Are they simply people to be assimilated for our benefit, or are they people who bring rich customs and practices that can transform us and them? “This reading points us toward examining our congregations a little more closely. How aware are we of an immigrant presence in our churches. How do we reach out to these immigrants? As we enter into yet another debate on immigration in our country, Jeremiah has something to say to us. Rather than using the legalistic language of illegal aliens, Jeremiah invites us to see immigrants in a whole new way. Instead of subjecting people to a cost-benefit analysis, Jeremiah sees the immigrant as gift. Jeremiah sees the immigrant as someone destined to make their new society a better place, someone ordered by God in this oracle to contribute to their new society in a lasting way.” (Garrett Galvin, Working Preacher)
  • John Bracke’s summary of Jeremiah in the Discipleship Study Bible, says: “The book of Jeremiah continues to invite our prayerful pondering about what it means to live as God’s people in difficult times. Among the issues raises for people reading this ancient book in the 21st century are:” (the rest is paraphrase)

    • How is God at work in the church attempting to transform the ways we are living as God’s people?
    • How might God be at work in the social and political processes of our world, plucking up and tearing down, building and planting toward the goal of justice and peace in all God’s creation.
    • Which idols Christians now turn seeking security? How are churches working to simply build their own security over working for justice?
    • How are we still overconfident in our place as “God’s people,” without doing the hard work that is required of such a privileged position? Has ‘cheap grace’ infiltrated our churches and preaching?
    • How may we still be contributing to God’s deep grief?

Tasty Wafer of the Week:

CLOSING

  • Thank you listeners

Feedback:

“Greetings - I'm a new listener who just found your fabulous podcast last week. Just wanted to let you know how much I got out of this week's episode.

Specifically, you have completely changed how I think about lamentations and really all of the readings that seem to incite violence in the Bible. I love thinking of it through the lens of honestly offering up our grief and anger to God as a way of speaking our truth and then perhaps letting it go. I love the idea that you are not only allowed but encouraged to be your worst self in front of Him.

I have also personally experienced the during / post prayer breakdown and specifically remember the priest who was sitting with me did not offer me a tissue and instead let me just sit and bawl. I absolutely would have tried to pull myself together but instead I just got it all out. It was really needed and I felt very safe and very allowed to break down.

Many thanks - looking forward to lots more great episodes.

Featured Musician - “Cold Weather,” by The Great Indoors

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Thanks to our Psalms correspondent, Richard Bruxvoort Colligan (psalmimmersion.com, @pomopsalmist). Thank you to Scott Fletcher for our voice bumpers, Dick Dale and the Del Tones for our Theme music (“Misirlou”), Nicolai Heidlas (“Sunday Morning”, "Real Ride" and “Summertime”) and The Steel Wheels for our transition music(“Nola’s First Dance” from their album Lay Down, Lay Low) and Paul and Storm for our closing music (“Oh No”).

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2 Timothy, All, Jeremiah, Luke, Proper 23C, PsalmEric Fistler2 Comments