Waxing Theological

3-26-17 (Lent 4A) 1 Samuel 16:1-13; John 9:1-41 Blind, But Now I See One of the most painful experiences I have ever had was the day we learned that a part of Caleb’s brain hadn’t developed the way it was supposed to.  Officially, it’s called Dandy-Walker Malformation - that was the name that the doctor told us in the ultrasound room before offering his condolences and ushering us into another room to meet with a genetics counselor.  At the time, however, it was a mixture of having the rug pulled out from under us and having a bucket of ice-water dumped over our heads.  We didn’t know really anything about what it would mean for us or for our son, but what we did know was that suddenly everything in our world had changed - every image we’d painted for ourselves of our child was suddenly shattered and was going to be replaced with something different. As we drove home that day, the question on our minds was an awful lot like the question on the lips of t...

3-19-17 (Lent 3A) Romans 5:1-11; John 4:5-42 Siren Songs and Samaritan Struggles In Homer’s epic greek poem The Odyssey, the hero Odysseus and his men are trying to return home.  A part of their journey takes them past the land of some dangerous creatures called sirens.  The sirens were dangerous because they sang a song that was so alluring, so compelling, that it caused any sailors who passed by them and heard it to go dashing to their deaths on the rocks as they irresistibly tried to follow the sound of the singing.  Odysseus wanted to know what their song sounded like, but at the same time, he didn’t want to risk death, either for himself or for his crew.  So he came up with a pretty clever, though still dangerous, solution: he ordered his crew to tie him to the mast of their ship so that he could hear the sirens singing but not do anything about it, and then the crew were given explicit orders to plug their ears with beeswax and then to focus on thei...

3-12-17 (Lent 2A) Romans 4:1-5, 13-17; John 3:1-17 Church 3:16 If I were to stop you suddenly and randomly in the produce section at County Market, and ask you off the top of your head to quote a Bible verse off the top of your head, without any preparation, any time to genuinely think… what would that verse be?  Nine times out of ten, I’d bet any amount of money that your go-to answer would be John 3:16. For God so loved the world… By far, this is one of the most memorized scripture verses in the Christian tradition - it speaks in just about every denomination, every tradition, every experience.  And while it’s one of many such verses that fit this description, it’s commonly referred to as the “Gospel in a nutshell.”  It contains the basic message of God’s love, the significance of Jesus’ sacrifice, and our own call to faithful response in the light Christ’s salvation for us. While it’s likely the first verse that a lot of us may have memoriz...

3-5-17 (Lent 1A) Genesis 2:15-17, 3:1-7; Matthew 4:1-11 The Devil Went Down to Jordan Do you ever stop and wonder just how much of your theology and biblical understanding is shaped by Charlie Daniels?  It sounds like a weird question, I know… but take a second and think about it again. When you hear the familiar story told that serves as the entire foundation for this season of Lent, what do you envision?  Do you hear the jangle of guitar strings as the opening chords play and old Charlie starts singing “The Devil went down to Jordan, he was looking for a soul to steal?”  OK so maybe not quite that on the money… but when you think about the ways this has been dramatized over the years, the art that has come out, the ways we have let this scen play out in our imaginations over the generations, it’s easy to see this scene as an epic showdown between good and evil, Satan doing everything in his power to trip up Jesus, Jesus staying stoic and stalwart, refus...