Genesis 45:3-11, 15 Psalm 37:1-12, 41-42
1 Corinthians 15:35-38,42-50 Luke 6:27-38
Lectionary Link
You and I are language users, and what does this mean? It means that we make meanings. To have language is always to be at the task of coming to meanings of our lives.
One of the big questions of meaning has to do with our continuity. We notice so many endings, the endings like deaths, and we wonder about continuity.
And so, we create meaning as a way to preserve ourselves. We create our story to pass on to preserve ourselves in the world which survives us. And this is what it means to be biblical people. The people of the past received the great oral stories from the pre-historical times, and they began to weave them with the events which were happening to the people of Israel. And at some point they did not want the story to remain simply an oral story, because if people died the oral tradition would be broken, so the story came to writing and to text as a technology of memory. In the writings, people and community could continue to live into the future.
Jacob and Joseph are figures from the pre-history oral period of history. Jacob had his name changed to Israel, and his sons and Joseph’s son became the twelve tribes of Israel. The story of Jacob and Israel is a story of having land and being in exile from it, and keeping the story of community and land alive even when in exile.
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob came from Chaldean roots but were given Promised Land in their covenant with God. So, how was the land of Jacob lost and how did the people of Israel end up in Egypt to be prepared for the really big Exodus event?
This is explained in the story of Joseph. Joseph was the precocious, first son of Jacob and Jacob’s favorite wife, Rachel. He was a dreamer and as daddy’s favorite, he was given a special coat many colors which he paraded in, in front of his brothers, while he told them his dreams about how all of them would someday bow down to him. They were not amused; they were tired of his boasting, so they arranged to fake his death by a wild animal. They smeared animal blood on Joseph’s cost and showed Jacob, who was left to grieve the apparent loss his son. Meanwhile, Joseph was taken by slave traders to Egypt, and through his cleverness and his ability to interpret dreams, Joseph rose to become the chief administrator of the Pharoah. He oversaw the entire agriculture economy during a severe famine. This widespread famine brought Joseph’s brothers to Egypt for grain, and Joseph knew who they were, and he manipulated to get them to bring Jacob and the entire family into Egypt to survive the famine. Joseph proclaimed his forgiveness, and he proclaimed the providence of God in all of the seeming misadventures caused by his jealous brothers. He said to them, “So it was not you who sent me here, but God…” The story of Joseph is a story of radical forgiveness and reconciliation that reveals the providence of God in the lives of God’s people.
The beatitudes from the Gospel of Luke are for people who did not have a Promised Land. The words of the beatitude arise for a people who lived after Jerusalem had been destroyed and the people who followed Jesus were scattered to live in the cities controlled by the Roman Emperor.
We cannot fully understand the beatitudes unless we understand the Promised Land of the early churches. What was their Promised Land.? It was heaven, an other-worldly place, that they would be ushered into when the day of the Lord was to arrive at any moment.
Why settle in if the Lord’s Day is soon? The beatitudes were the martial arts program of living for people who had no power in the Roman Empire and who waited in their temporary locations until they would be able to enter their promised land when the Lord’s Day would come.
Beatitude living is how one impresses one’s oppressors, so that one doesn’t get killed by being filled with rage and resisting. We should be able to appreciate why Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr., adopted the non-violent method of resistance of the beatitudes. For the early followers of Jesus, it was a matter of surviving until the rescue of the Day of the Lord. And so, live in such a way that one could attract other people to be ready for this Day of the Lord.
The earliest New Testament writing is St. Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians. Members of the Thessalonian church were worried that some of their members had died before the day of the Lord, so they worried about their faithful departed who did not live to see that day. Paul comforted them with his understanding of resurrection lifestyle. In the Epistle that we’ve read today, Paul further tries to articulate the meaning of our future continuity as people in the new reality of the afterlife.
Can we appreciate how different our context is today as we read these writings which derived from such radically different experiences and different understandings of impending future life?
First of us, we are not oppressed people by the Empire. We are the Empire. We have called ourselves Christians and have ancestors who long held slaves. Our country was founded upon the major economy of holding slaves. The slaves were those who were required to live the practices of the beatitudes to survive. To survive they had to be graciously compliant slaves, to gain the favor of their masters and to avoid threats to their lives. We are also Christian peoples who conquered native peoples and drove them from their land. We called them enemies, and what does, “loving our enemies” mean if we made them enemies through our domination.
You and I live in the two thousand years of waiting for the Lord’s day, which has not happened. We’ve become very settled in for the very long haul.
So, how can you and I honestly appropriate the beatitudes and the writings of Paul about the resurrection?
First, we need to repent of our oppressive empire behaviors toward people who have borne the brunt of oppression and who have continued to suffer the lack of fully meaningful restoration of equal justice for their lives.
To be beatitude Christians today means that we must be those who are against any form of oppression. The beatitude behaviors of kindness are behaviors which seek to establish an equality in the distributions of the blessings of life to all people. And to this beatitude lifestyle we need to be committed.
And what about resurrection life? If the image of God upon our lives means that there is something incorruptible about us, then we need to live with hope that such incorruption will be able to reconstitute all of us in a future order which will allow us the chance to finally get our act together with God and with each other.
Let us seek to live beatitude ideals while we are alive; and let us hope that the time of the resurrection is on our side to finish what love asks of us in our lives. Amen.
1 Corinthians 15:35-38,42-50 Luke 6:27-38
Lectionary Link
You and I are language users, and what does this mean? It means that we make meanings. To have language is always to be at the task of coming to meanings of our lives.
One of the big questions of meaning has to do with our continuity. We notice so many endings, the endings like deaths, and we wonder about continuity.
And so, we create meaning as a way to preserve ourselves. We create our story to pass on to preserve ourselves in the world which survives us. And this is what it means to be biblical people. The people of the past received the great oral stories from the pre-historical times, and they began to weave them with the events which were happening to the people of Israel. And at some point they did not want the story to remain simply an oral story, because if people died the oral tradition would be broken, so the story came to writing and to text as a technology of memory. In the writings, people and community could continue to live into the future.
Jacob and Joseph are figures from the pre-history oral period of history. Jacob had his name changed to Israel, and his sons and Joseph’s son became the twelve tribes of Israel. The story of Jacob and Israel is a story of having land and being in exile from it, and keeping the story of community and land alive even when in exile.
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob came from Chaldean roots but were given Promised Land in their covenant with God. So, how was the land of Jacob lost and how did the people of Israel end up in Egypt to be prepared for the really big Exodus event?
This is explained in the story of Joseph. Joseph was the precocious, first son of Jacob and Jacob’s favorite wife, Rachel. He was a dreamer and as daddy’s favorite, he was given a special coat many colors which he paraded in, in front of his brothers, while he told them his dreams about how all of them would someday bow down to him. They were not amused; they were tired of his boasting, so they arranged to fake his death by a wild animal. They smeared animal blood on Joseph’s cost and showed Jacob, who was left to grieve the apparent loss his son. Meanwhile, Joseph was taken by slave traders to Egypt, and through his cleverness and his ability to interpret dreams, Joseph rose to become the chief administrator of the Pharoah. He oversaw the entire agriculture economy during a severe famine. This widespread famine brought Joseph’s brothers to Egypt for grain, and Joseph knew who they were, and he manipulated to get them to bring Jacob and the entire family into Egypt to survive the famine. Joseph proclaimed his forgiveness, and he proclaimed the providence of God in all of the seeming misadventures caused by his jealous brothers. He said to them, “So it was not you who sent me here, but God…” The story of Joseph is a story of radical forgiveness and reconciliation that reveals the providence of God in the lives of God’s people.
The beatitudes from the Gospel of Luke are for people who did not have a Promised Land. The words of the beatitude arise for a people who lived after Jerusalem had been destroyed and the people who followed Jesus were scattered to live in the cities controlled by the Roman Emperor.
We cannot fully understand the beatitudes unless we understand the Promised Land of the early churches. What was their Promised Land.? It was heaven, an other-worldly place, that they would be ushered into when the day of the Lord was to arrive at any moment.
Why settle in if the Lord’s Day is soon? The beatitudes were the martial arts program of living for people who had no power in the Roman Empire and who waited in their temporary locations until they would be able to enter their promised land when the Lord’s Day would come.
Beatitude living is how one impresses one’s oppressors, so that one doesn’t get killed by being filled with rage and resisting. We should be able to appreciate why Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr., adopted the non-violent method of resistance of the beatitudes. For the early followers of Jesus, it was a matter of surviving until the rescue of the Day of the Lord. And so, live in such a way that one could attract other people to be ready for this Day of the Lord.
The earliest New Testament writing is St. Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians. Members of the Thessalonian church were worried that some of their members had died before the day of the Lord, so they worried about their faithful departed who did not live to see that day. Paul comforted them with his understanding of resurrection lifestyle. In the Epistle that we’ve read today, Paul further tries to articulate the meaning of our future continuity as people in the new reality of the afterlife.
Can we appreciate how different our context is today as we read these writings which derived from such radically different experiences and different understandings of impending future life?
First of us, we are not oppressed people by the Empire. We are the Empire. We have called ourselves Christians and have ancestors who long held slaves. Our country was founded upon the major economy of holding slaves. The slaves were those who were required to live the practices of the beatitudes to survive. To survive they had to be graciously compliant slaves, to gain the favor of their masters and to avoid threats to their lives. We are also Christian peoples who conquered native peoples and drove them from their land. We called them enemies, and what does, “loving our enemies” mean if we made them enemies through our domination.
You and I live in the two thousand years of waiting for the Lord’s day, which has not happened. We’ve become very settled in for the very long haul.
So, how can you and I honestly appropriate the beatitudes and the writings of Paul about the resurrection?
First, we need to repent of our oppressive empire behaviors toward people who have borne the brunt of oppression and who have continued to suffer the lack of fully meaningful restoration of equal justice for their lives.
To be beatitude Christians today means that we must be those who are against any form of oppression. The beatitude behaviors of kindness are behaviors which seek to establish an equality in the distributions of the blessings of life to all people. And to this beatitude lifestyle we need to be committed.
And what about resurrection life? If the image of God upon our lives means that there is something incorruptible about us, then we need to live with hope that such incorruption will be able to reconstitute all of us in a future order which will allow us the chance to finally get our act together with God and with each other.
Let us seek to live beatitude ideals while we are alive; and let us hope that the time of the resurrection is on our side to finish what love asks of us in our lives. Amen.
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