Sometimes I wonder if I will always be finishing my sermons at six o'clock in the morning. I certainly hope not. Well, you are welcome to poke around in my musings. I am using the blog this morning as a place to organize my thoughts. Dunno why, but there you have it. I guess it feels more like a conversation. Anyway, have at it. Share your opinions and thoughts.
Lectionary: Exodus 16:2-4, 9-15 and John 6:24-35...I use the NRSV.
References used: New Interpreter's Bible Commentary on John and alos for the Exodus passage. Sacra Pagina: The Gospel of John by Francis J Moloney, S.D.B. This guy is a genius. It is a good read. American Baptist Quarterly 1985, issue four...There is an article by Joseph Cardinal Bernadin on Peace that I find helpful for what I am trying to accomplish today. Finally, since it is Communion Sunday, I thought I would open up Prayers of the Eucharist: Early and Reformed by Jasper and Cuming.
I was listening to NPR earlier this week. There was an interview with a military pundit who was suggesting that the current strife in Iraq, Lebanon, and Afghanistan would best be understood as WWIV. Yep, IV. WWIII, he suggested, was the Cold War. For some reason this proclamation seemed to bring out the idea that there are events that shape us...that shape generations. The Great Depression, WWII, The Kennedy Assassination, or September 11th could be placed in this category. The traumatic marks us. So, I went looking for these events. Lo and behold, this day is the anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima. That event has shaped many in the US.
To meet that end, there are some news articles I have been exploring. But other than the article about Hiroshima (Thanks, Mark J.), I am not entirely sure if I will use the others at all. They are great, but I dunno.
"Send for Shaw, not Shakespeare"
Shaw believed that the only revolutions which would not lead to counter-revolutions, landing us back to approximately where we had begun, were bloodless revolutions, revolutions that arose through changing the mind of a country by its writers, philosophers, thinkers, men and women of imagination. If you are bombed, for heaven’s sake, do not go blindly bombing back – unless you actually want more bombing, more deaths, indiscriminately all over the place. The way to judge people’s motives is to look at the results of their actions: that is the pragmatist’s philosophy. One of the ironies of history is that in most wars both sides eventually come to resemble each other and impose defeat on themselves. Or as Shaw succinctly put it: “A victory for anybody is a victory for war”."Hostage to Hezbollah
The Mediterranean vocation of Lebanon as a land of enlightenment and commerce may have had its exaggerations and pretense. But set it against the future offered Lebanon by Syria, and by Tehran's theocrats seeking a diplomatic reprieve for themselves by setting Lebanon on fire, and Lebanon's choice should be easy to see.There is this great review about the Iliad.
But who would give up the Iliad for the historical record? Evidence suggests the Homeric epic was transcribed after generations of oral transmission. The historical facts came down through the ages fused into blinding bardic revelation.
So, in a very rough outline, this is what I want to do. I want to share the old NY Times article about dropping the bomb on Hiroshima. I want to tell the story as I, two generations removed, understand it. I will share about how my Elementary School in Florida was a fallout shelter and that there was a map in the school library with possible nuclear targets marked and how long a city had to survive after a strike at those targets. Daytona Beach had thirty-five minutes of life left if Cape Canaveral was struck with a nuclear weapon of the time. That was 1981.
Then I will ask the congregation to tell me something about their own recollections of the era. In what way does this story shape them?
After we muse on this a bit, and I do hope they participate (Dunno what I"ll do if they don't.), I will talk very briefly about September 11th and what it was like to enter seminary immediately following. But most of all I will seek to express how in seminary I learned that the Gospel story is the context for all other stories and not the other way around. There is a tendancy to over-contextualize the Gospel. In essense, it is a good thing to try to figure out the historical context of a Biblical work. That makes good sense. But in the end, the Biblical writers are telling us a story of what gives their life context...God.
John's Gospel is the only Gospel without the Last Supper. There is a footwashing, but there is no communion narrative. In stead, the writer of John uses what he knows of the eucharist to give context to the rest of the story of Jesus. So, Jesus' interpretation of the Exodus passage is shared because of how the Gospel writer wishes us to understand how he now understands his own "Jewish-ness." The writer understands the world to be in God's care and not just the nation of Israel. He understands this beacause Jesus, who is the Word of God and the Bread from Heaven (manna) has died and was resurrected. What sustained Israel in the desert now sustains the world. It is a midrash of sorts.
He shares this, I believe, because he wants his reader to make a choice. In terms of this sermon, he wants the readers to choose which story they will follow. In which narrative do they find their lives? He hopes it is in the context of the Gospel to be certain. But the lesson I am learning in this is that all we do, according to the writer of John, is in the context of the Gospel story...and not the other way around.
So, then Hiroshima is in the context of the Gospel. The stories shared, I want to challenge us to do this, are in the context of the Gospel. As we make meaning of the events that shape us, that shape a nation, can we see that their context is in God?
This is what I am after. It should be an interesting sermon. Keep me in your prayers.
Posted by tripp at August 6, 2006 06:10 AM