17 Pentecost, a p 21, October 1, 2017
Exodus 17:1-7 Psalm 78:1-4, 12-16
Philippians 2:1-13 Matthew 21:23-32
Lectionary Link
What is the way in which we human being deal with inter-species relationships? How do you regard interaction with your pet animals? Do you think that there is real communication? Obviously there is touch, seeing, hearing, smelling that happens with our pets. We think that we have them trained to voice commands and schedules and behaviors. If we were able to ask them, they probably would say, "watch this.....I bet I can make my master do whatever I want." When we say that our pet understands us and there is significant communication, are we merely projecting human characteristics onto animal behaviors? This projection technique is called anthropomorphism: Treating humans as though they shared in some way human behavioral traits.
But what about human relationships with Alien life such as the creatures who pilot the UFO's and the ones which drive the tourist trade in Roswell, New Mexico. Scientists send out signals into outer space trying to make contact with other life forms. We wonder if there are aliens, will we be able to share enough likeness with them to be able to interact or translate our different life perspectives.
When it comes to the Great Being of God, how to we regard the human relationship with God. Are we more like being "God's pets" or is God more like an Alien life form?
In the Christian faith we confess the incarnation of God in Jesus Christ. Incarnation comes from the Gospel of John, where it is written that the Word was made flesh and dwelled with us. John Gospel also said that Word was with God and the Word was God.
This understanding is found the letter to Philippians in the Christological hymn regarding Christ. What does Jesus Christ represent? He represents that the Word became flesh. Communication about the existence and reality of God was made known to human beings. The best way for human beings to know that the life of God is not an alien life form, would be for the life of God to be reduce, funneled or translated into human language and behaviors. So Jesus was what God would look like in human society. The behaviors of Jesus were the body language of God to human beings.
St. Paul said that Christ as the eternal Word did not regard equality with God something to be grasped. Something has to emanate from God and become knowable by human beings who are not God. Jesus Christ is the belief that someone is total bilingual in the language of God and in the language of human beings for real and significant and adequate communication to take place so that human beings can respond and elevate their behavior to what is godly and not just beastly. Jesus came to teach humanity to be godly human.
The main belief behind the Bible is that the Great Plenitude whom we have come to know as God communicates with us in many ways but in Jesus Christ God was expressed in the fullest human way. But Jesus Christ represents the emptying of God as God alone into God becoming known within human experience. Jesus is understanding the emptying of God as God into God as human and identifying with the depths of human experience. The deepest depth of human experience is death. And Jesus is God being emptied even into the human experience of death.
Why is this important? Is this just theological mumbo jumbo? I think it is significant because it reveals the unavoidable way that we understand God. How's so? We understand God in human ways? We anthropomorphize God. We limit and empty the great God into human experience and we do so because we want to elevate human speaking and acting to our very best behaviors. No matter what one calls God, no matter what one regards to be revelation, and even if one is an atheist or agnostic, one translates the Mystery of Greatness and what one does not know into what one knows. Such a translation is unavoidable. The Christian belief about Jesus Christ is the effort to be honest about Great Mystery and God in human experience. We, humans, accept human experience as the valid way to come to know God and the great mysteries of the world.
If the Word is with God and if the Word is God and if the Word becomes emptied into the bodily life of Jesus Christ even to his death and resurrection, what is the purpose of all of this?
I think it is the best way to inform us about the best of human behaviors. It seems so easy to be selfish and competitive; what is it that inspires us to live beyond selfishness? It is the sense that we have an identity with a Higher Power and that Higher Power chooses to identity with us and be with us.
The issue for the people of Israel in the wilderness was this: Is God really with us? And Moses was trying to show them that he as their leader and intercessor was proof that God was with them. And God's presence was given in the provision of water.
In our Gospel reading again there were questions about whether God was with humanity. Do you think that John the Baptist and his baptism was a sign of God's authority and presence? What was the result of John's baptism? People's lives were changed. People's behavior's were changed because a new commitment to God.
So how can we know that God is with us? We know that God is with us when the deeds of our lives prove that we have emptied our selfish egos and become people of sympathy and compassion as was seen in the life of Jesus. Let the same mind that was in Christ be in you.
The parable of Jesus that we read today indicates that there were religious people who knew the right words and promises to make, but they did not follow through with their behaviors. At the same time there were publicans and sinners who did not know the right religious words and did not know to make religious vows, but they encountered the life of Jesus and they performed the deeds of repentance, sympathy and compassion even when they didn't have a religious heritage to give them the appearance of being religious. People could come to have the mind of Christ even when they did not have a religious heritage.
So what are the Gospel insights for you and me today? Do we believe the traces of the Higher Power of God intersects our lives in ways that helps us unify our hearts, our words and our action to be more like the compassion and sympathy of Jesus Christ?
My prayer for each of us is that we will know that we are encountered by the Higher Power of God's Spirit in the circumstances of our lives to enable us to be transformed to feel, speak and act in the way of the compassion of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Exodus 17:1-7 Psalm 78:1-4, 12-16
Philippians 2:1-13 Matthew 21:23-32
Lectionary Link
What is the way in which we human being deal with inter-species relationships? How do you regard interaction with your pet animals? Do you think that there is real communication? Obviously there is touch, seeing, hearing, smelling that happens with our pets. We think that we have them trained to voice commands and schedules and behaviors. If we were able to ask them, they probably would say, "watch this.....I bet I can make my master do whatever I want." When we say that our pet understands us and there is significant communication, are we merely projecting human characteristics onto animal behaviors? This projection technique is called anthropomorphism: Treating humans as though they shared in some way human behavioral traits.
But what about human relationships with Alien life such as the creatures who pilot the UFO's and the ones which drive the tourist trade in Roswell, New Mexico. Scientists send out signals into outer space trying to make contact with other life forms. We wonder if there are aliens, will we be able to share enough likeness with them to be able to interact or translate our different life perspectives.
When it comes to the Great Being of God, how to we regard the human relationship with God. Are we more like being "God's pets" or is God more like an Alien life form?
In the Christian faith we confess the incarnation of God in Jesus Christ. Incarnation comes from the Gospel of John, where it is written that the Word was made flesh and dwelled with us. John Gospel also said that Word was with God and the Word was God.
This understanding is found the letter to Philippians in the Christological hymn regarding Christ. What does Jesus Christ represent? He represents that the Word became flesh. Communication about the existence and reality of God was made known to human beings. The best way for human beings to know that the life of God is not an alien life form, would be for the life of God to be reduce, funneled or translated into human language and behaviors. So Jesus was what God would look like in human society. The behaviors of Jesus were the body language of God to human beings.
St. Paul said that Christ as the eternal Word did not regard equality with God something to be grasped. Something has to emanate from God and become knowable by human beings who are not God. Jesus Christ is the belief that someone is total bilingual in the language of God and in the language of human beings for real and significant and adequate communication to take place so that human beings can respond and elevate their behavior to what is godly and not just beastly. Jesus came to teach humanity to be godly human.
The main belief behind the Bible is that the Great Plenitude whom we have come to know as God communicates with us in many ways but in Jesus Christ God was expressed in the fullest human way. But Jesus Christ represents the emptying of God as God alone into God becoming known within human experience. Jesus is understanding the emptying of God as God into God as human and identifying with the depths of human experience. The deepest depth of human experience is death. And Jesus is God being emptied even into the human experience of death.
Why is this important? Is this just theological mumbo jumbo? I think it is significant because it reveals the unavoidable way that we understand God. How's so? We understand God in human ways? We anthropomorphize God. We limit and empty the great God into human experience and we do so because we want to elevate human speaking and acting to our very best behaviors. No matter what one calls God, no matter what one regards to be revelation, and even if one is an atheist or agnostic, one translates the Mystery of Greatness and what one does not know into what one knows. Such a translation is unavoidable. The Christian belief about Jesus Christ is the effort to be honest about Great Mystery and God in human experience. We, humans, accept human experience as the valid way to come to know God and the great mysteries of the world.
If the Word is with God and if the Word is God and if the Word becomes emptied into the bodily life of Jesus Christ even to his death and resurrection, what is the purpose of all of this?
I think it is the best way to inform us about the best of human behaviors. It seems so easy to be selfish and competitive; what is it that inspires us to live beyond selfishness? It is the sense that we have an identity with a Higher Power and that Higher Power chooses to identity with us and be with us.
The issue for the people of Israel in the wilderness was this: Is God really with us? And Moses was trying to show them that he as their leader and intercessor was proof that God was with them. And God's presence was given in the provision of water.
In our Gospel reading again there were questions about whether God was with humanity. Do you think that John the Baptist and his baptism was a sign of God's authority and presence? What was the result of John's baptism? People's lives were changed. People's behavior's were changed because a new commitment to God.
So how can we know that God is with us? We know that God is with us when the deeds of our lives prove that we have emptied our selfish egos and become people of sympathy and compassion as was seen in the life of Jesus. Let the same mind that was in Christ be in you.
The parable of Jesus that we read today indicates that there were religious people who knew the right words and promises to make, but they did not follow through with their behaviors. At the same time there were publicans and sinners who did not know the right religious words and did not know to make religious vows, but they encountered the life of Jesus and they performed the deeds of repentance, sympathy and compassion even when they didn't have a religious heritage to give them the appearance of being religious. People could come to have the mind of Christ even when they did not have a religious heritage.
So what are the Gospel insights for you and me today? Do we believe the traces of the Higher Power of God intersects our lives in ways that helps us unify our hearts, our words and our action to be more like the compassion and sympathy of Jesus Christ?
My prayer for each of us is that we will know that we are encountered by the Higher Power of God's Spirit in the circumstances of our lives to enable us to be transformed to feel, speak and act in the way of the compassion of Jesus Christ. Amen.
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