Little Old Me

•May 21, 2013 • 1 Comment

By Victorvictori (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons

Psalm 8 (CEV)

(A psalm by David for the music leader.)

The Wonderful Name of the Lord

8 Our Lord and Ruler,
    your name is wonderful
    everywhere on earth!
You let your glory be seen
    in the heavens above.
2 With praises from children
and from tiny infants,
    you have built a fortress.
It makes your enemies silent,
    and all who turn against you
    are left speechless.

3 I often think of the heavens
    your hands have made,
    and of the moon and stars
    you put in place.
4 Then I ask, “Why do you care
    about us humans?
    Why are you concerned
    for us weaklings?”
5 You made us a little lower
    than you yourself,
    and you have crowned us
    with glory and honor.

6 You let us rule everything
    your hands have made.
And you put all of it
    under our power—
7     the sheep and the cattle,
    and every wild animal,
8     the birds in the sky,
the fish in the sea,
    and all ocean creatures.

9 Our Lord and Ruler,
    your name is wonderful
    everywhere on earth!

God has done some awesome things.  He is mighty and majestic.  He has created the entire universe – and yet he knows and cares about little old me.

I don’t know about you, but I find that mind-blowing and humbling – and I can’t help but come in wonder and praise that God should love me amongst all the other things he has to do.  But that is how important I am to him.

He cares about and loves you.  You are important to him.

Posted in bible, faith, God, Lectionary, Religion, response, Thanksgiving, theology
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Wisdom Calling

•May 20, 2013 • 3 Comments

Wisdom, mural by Robert Lewis Reid. Second Floor, North Corridor. Library of Congress Thomas Jefferson Building, Washington, D.C. Caption underneath reads “KNOWLEDGE COMES BVT WISDOM LINGERS”.

Oh to be wise…

Wisdom is defined as

knowledge of what is true or right coupled with just judgment as to action; sagacity, discernment, or insight.

Very useful and helpful attributes to possess.

In biblical terms, such wisdom would be deemed as following God’s ways, walking in justice, knowing what he would do.

But in Proverbs, Wisdom becomes the personification of those things – and more besides.

Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31 (CEV)

In Praise of Wisdom

8 With great understanding,
    Wisdom is calling out
2     as she stands at the crossroads
    and on every hill.
3 She stands by the city gate
    where everyone enters the city,
    and she shouts:
4 “I am calling out
    to each one of you!

22 From the beginning,
    I was with the Lord.
    I was there before he began
23     to create the earth.
At the very first,
    the Lord gave life to me.
24 When I was born,
    there were no oceans
    or springs of water.
25 My birth was before
mountains were formed
    or hills were put in place.
26 It happened long before God
    had made the earth
    or any of its fields
    or even the dust.

27 I was there when the Lord
    put the heavens in place
    and stretched the sky
    over the surface of the sea.
28 I was with him when he placed
    the clouds in the sky
    and created the springs
    that fill the ocean.
29 I was there when he set
boundaries for the sea
    to make it obey him,
    and when he laid foundations
    to support the earth.

30 I was right beside the Lord,
    helping him plan and build.
I made him happy each day,
    and I was happy at his side.
31     I was pleased with his world
    and pleased with its people.

Wisdom demands attention, calling out loudly to everybody.  This is not a message to be whispered or hidden, but yelled from the rooftops for everyone to hear.

We go on to hear a description of wisdom.  Wisdom as an intrinsic part of who and what God is.

We see Wisdom as God’s life before creation, there with him as everything was put in place.  So are we to understand her as

Spirit of God was hovering over the waters (Genesis 1:2)?

Kenneth T Aitken suggests she was “God’s intimate companion” (p83).  She is as at home with God as she is with human beings living in his world.

Wisdom speaks sense because she was with God from the beginning.  She was “in” on creation.  She understands intrinsically how everything should work.  That is why she is to be listened to, why she has a word for each and every person in the world, regardless of who or what they are.  No one is above her, no one is below her.  She has a unique insight into our world.

Wisdom can be seen as God’s Spirit, God’s voice into where we are – we should be listening to what she is calling – that we might know truth, right and justice.

Lord,
may I hear your voice
speaking truth and right and justice.

Over the noise of life,
over the decisions I have to make,
into relationships
and day-to-day living,
may I hear
all you have to say.

May I know
your ways,
your answers,
your direction,
your life.

Lord,
help me to listen
to you

Posted in bible, faith, God, Holy Spirit, Lectionary, Religion, theology
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You’ve Seen One

•May 16, 2013 • 1 Comment

“If you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all”, is a phrase usually used  to mean they’re all the same, there’s nothing special about them, nothing to distinguish them from any other of the genre.  For example if you’ve seen one rom-com film, you’ve seen them all*.  (*this may or may not be a belief I subscribe to!)

Here that is given a slightly different spin.  Again, jumping ahead slightly to next week and Trinity Sunday, Philip asks Jesus to show them The Father:

John 14:8-17

8 Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father. That is all we need.”

9 Jesus replied:

Philip, I have been with you for a long time. Don’t you know who I am? If you have seen me, you have seen the Father. How can you ask me to show you the Father? 10 Don’t you believe that I am one with the Father and that the Father is one with me? What I say isn’t said on my own. The Father who lives in me does these things.

11 Have faith in me when I say that the Father is one with me and that I am one with the Father. Or else have faith in me simply because of the things I do. 12 I tell you for certain that if you have faith in me, you will do the same things that I am doing. You will do even greater things, now that I am going back to the Father. 13 Ask me, and I will do whatever you ask. This way the Son will bring honor to the Father. 14 I will do whatever you ask me to do.

The Holy Spirit Is Promised

15 Jesus said to his disciples:

If you love me, you will do as I command. 16 Then I will ask the Father to send you the Holy Spirit who will help you and always be with you. 17 The Spirit will show you what is true. The people of this world cannot accept the Spirit, because they don’t see or know him. But you know the Spirit, who is with you and will keep on living in you.

Jesus replies that seeing him is the same as seeing the Father.  They are not poor imitations of one another, or just totally predictable copies of each another – they are as seeing each other because they are as one.  When they see Jesus and what he does, it is what God would do and is doing because he is God – here amongst them.  There is absolutely no difference between them, apart from Jesus being the physical personification of God.

Yet Jesus goes on to promise more than that,

if you have faith in me, you will do the same things that I am doing

Those who follow Jesus are invited to join in the work.  Wow!  Now that is quite some task.  How can we even contemplate doing what Jesus did?  What God does?  We are mere fallible human beings with all our failings, misunderstandings, half-cocked ideas and foibles.  How can we share in doing God’s work?

Jesus tells us how – by he and the Father sending the Holy Spirit to be with us always and help us.

Jesus is God living as a human being in the world, the Holy Spirit is God living in us, equipping us for all that we are asked to do.  I don’t know about you, but I need that…

Posted in bible, faith, God, Holy Spirit, Jesus, Lectionary, Religion, theology
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