gathering in light

Interventions in The Gospel of Luke

C. Wess Daniels — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 03:38:09 +0000

Tomorrow we begin a series we’re playfully naming, “Interventions in The Gospel of Luke.” Our reflections will not only draw on the text itself, what it says, what it teaches, but it suggests that by hearing, and re-telling these stories we encounter the text in a way that transforms us. We will be looking at ways in which God, through Jesus, intervened in our world, disrupted the status quo, and problematized the “logic of the world” and contrasted it with the logic of the embodied kingdom of God. We will be discussing how Jesus’ counter-movements of peace, love and hope model for the church how we are to live in the world.

Good stories always connect with the real “stuff of life,” great stories change lives.

Another way the Gospel intervenes is through its re-telling within our own time. Not only was the incarnation of God’s son in the first century an intervention, but as a people formed and bound by the Holy Spirit, when we re-tell these stories, God can, through the text, intervene in our own lives as well (and of course, God acts outside the text as well). My hope is that the Holy Spirit will work in and through the Gospel of Luke this to intervene in our lives and continue to form us into God’s people.

So the two areas these interventions will focus on are ecclesiology and hermeneutics: or the way of living for the church, and the way of interpreting the world following Jesus’ example. So there are at least two ways we’ll approach the Gospel of Luke: ecclesiology and hermeneutics. First, ecclesiology is the study of the church. What does Luke have to say about Jesus, what he did, what he asked his followers to do and how does that relate to the church today? And secondly, hermeneutics is the science of interpretation. In other words, what do we learn about the way Jesus and his followers, including Luke, interpret their world, their culture. How do they diagnose the problems, and how do they respond to those interpretations? What if we embraced their way of interpreting and responding our world, the way they did theirs? The end goal is that God works through these words in a way gives us insight into how to live and interpret the “signs of the times” in a way that helps us navigate our changing world.

In Sum, these two ways focus on: How to live (ecclesiology) and how to understand the world (interpretation/hermeneutics). These go together, they are interwoven.

Finally, In my study this past week on the Gospel I found this lovely quote by Joel Green is too long for a sermon, but felt appropriate here. Green argues that the most pervasive theme in Luke is Salvation, where:

“Salvation is neither ehereal nor merely future, but embraces life in the present, restoring the integrity of human life, revitalizing human communities, setting the cosmos in order, and commissioning the community of God’s people to put God’s grace into practice among themselves and toward ever-widening circles of others. The Third Evangelist knows nothing of such dichotomies as those sometimes drawn between soical and spiritual or individual and communal. Salvation embraces the totality of embodied life, including its social, economic, and politic concerns. For Luke, the God of Isreal is the Great Benefactor whose redemptive purpose is manifest in the career of Jesus, whose message is that this benefaction enables and inspirites new ways for living in the world (J. Green 1997:24-25).

I’ll post notes from Sunday’s reflection early next week.

Plane activities

C. Wess Daniels — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 01:01:45 +0000

Plane activities

Originally uploaded by C. Wess Daniels.

I just checked my blog and saw that I accidentally posted this picture with no text on my site via flickr. So, here’s a little update. We just arrived home (Camas, WA) last night after being gone for almost two weeks. Yesterday, we traveled for almost 12 hours, from the time we left Toledo (where Emily’s folks live) to when we walked into our house. L did great considering the amount of time she had to sit on her parent’s laps while flying. We had a great time being with family, and I really enjoyed my traveling among Quakers in both Greensboro and Barnesville. But it’s nice to be back home, sleeping in our own bed again and getting back to work in the office.

Off and Traveling the Quaker-World-Wide

C. Wess Daniels — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 00:05:55 +0000

Tomorrow morning I leave for North Carolina to attend the Friends Association for Higher Education. FAHE is for all Quakers working in the field of education and so I will be attending largely as one interested in teaching Quaker theology and history. This year I am presenting with two other Quaker academics: Abigail Adams and Jeffery Dudiak. Abigail is a social scientist and Jeff is a philosopher. The workshop we are doing is called:Quakers and the Postmodern: Problems and Promises. For my part of the program, I will be presenting my ethnographic research on one “postmodern” Quaker meeting in order to give some concrete examples for what the other two presenters will have theory and explanations.

Then I will be driving with Jeff (and others?) to Barnesville, Ohio. It is the 50th anniversary of the Quaker Theological Discussion Group. It has been a group focused on keeping the academic backbone of Quakerism alive and is committed to strengthening the Christian legacy of our tradition. I will be among some of my own Quaker heroes and really look forward to this. I am also the respondent to Gerry Guiton’s (from Australia) paper called: The Kingdom of God, the Early Friends and the Future of Quakerism. It should be fun.

Then, after that’s all done, I will meet up with Emily and L, who are already in OH, and go and visit my family for a couple days before heading back to the West.

Advertisement: http://feeds.quakerquaker.org/quaker Visit Quaker Quaker

Lectio Divina and Acts 2:41-47

C. Wess Daniels — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 23:39:00 +0000

This past Sunday we finished up our discussions around Acts 2. For worship, we had a more meditative tempo. The host for Sunday’s worship led the congregation in a simple prayer, shortly after one of the women in the congregation shared about her growing concern for child trafficking in the world, but especially in the Portland/Vancouver area. I found her discussion to be deeply moving.

We did a few Taize songs and then, after our petitions and thanksgivings, we did Lectio. Here is the intro I gave, followed by the actual flow of the service so you can use it if you would like:

Letio is a way to pray the scriptures. It is letting the Inward Christ speak to us through his inspired and inspiring word. It also gives us space to respond to that word, to allow the word to speak through us. Then as we go you go from worship you “Take a word with you.” The hope is that whatever word you are given you can hang onto it and allow it to shape your life during the week.

Some may find the method of Lectio praying to be limiting, as it follows a certain pattern and restricts one from swerving too far from the intended rhtymn, if this is you I ask for your willingness to experiment. Others may find it freeing to have the guidance and repetition. Hopefully we will all hear the Spirit in a new way. As Quakers we are never locked into any method of worship, rather “We use this method [of praying] only insofar as it actuallyhelps us to do what we want to do” (Basil Penington, xii).

This is a practice for daily prayer, a tool that you can practice at home. It’s not simply about the substance of worship, but the practice of it. In worship, we seek to experience the living Christ, as well as practice how to listen and experience Christ daily. Lectio is one such tool for this.

We will read through this passage three times in a prayerful manner. After each time we will enter into a time of silence. You are welcome sit and pray through this passage in whatever way works best but I encourage you to reflect on the query offered after each reading.

If you feel led to respond vocalling please to not withhold that word from us.

Opening Prayer:

We take this moment together as a community held together by your Holy Spirit to listen and be made aware of your presence within these Words.

O Holy One,

we hear and say so many words,

yet yours is the word we need.

Speak now,

and help us listen;

and, if what we hear is silence,

let it quiet us,

let it disturb us,

let it touch our need,

let it break our pride,

let it shrink our certainties

let it enlarge our wonder. Amen

(Prayer: 137 Sing the Journey (Mennonite Worship Book))

Silence:

First reading of the passage:

“So those who welcomed his message were baptized, and that day about three thousand persons were added. They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.

Awe came upon everyone, because many wonders and signs were being done by the apostles. All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the goodwill of all the people. And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.” (Acts 2:41-47 NRSV).

Silence: Allow a chosen word or phrase from the reading quietly to repeat itself within you.

Sharing: Each person share the word or phrase, without any elaboration.

Second reading of the passage

Silence: Reflect for a few minutes, asking, “What has the Lord said to me in this reading with regard to my life today?”

Sharing: Each person may share briefly: “I hear the Lord saying to me:…”

Third reading of the passage

Silence: Now reflect for a couple of minutes on “I believe the Present Christ is leading me to respond…”

Sharing: Share what came forth in the course of your reflection on this text.”

Closing Prayer.

I really enjoyed this past Sunday’s worship and hearing everyone share the words they were given and what the Lord was saying to them.

Karl Barth on Acts 2:41-47

C. Wess Daniels — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 18:46:48 +0000

This Sunday our meeting for worship will be focusing on the last portion of Acts 2:

“So those who welcomed his message were baptized, and that day about three thousand persons were added. They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.
Awe came upon everyone, because many wonders and signs were being done by the apostles. All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the goodwill of all the people. And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.” (Acts 2:41-47 NRSV).

We will be reflecting on the text following the pattern of Lectio Divina. I look forward to how the Holy Spirit will speak to us through this passage. As I have been studying this week and thinking through this text I found these two quotes from Karl Barth which I deeply appreciate:

The continued existence of the Christian community implies constant “adding” of men [sic] to it ( v. 41). Seen from below, this means that … they enter into and belong to it … To enter into and belong to the Christian community is to step out of blindness and neutrality into the kingdom of God. Those who carry out their decision to join declare that they are aware of the kingdom of God, not as a spectacle which they may attend as spectators, but as an action by which they themselves are summoned to action. They bear witness that it concerns them, and that it does so in such a way that they must confess its occurrence by their own existence… This committal includes the fact that a man does not merely bind himself privately but that in accordance with his conviction he does so publicly, allowing himself to be addressed, together with all those who are in the same position, in the words which Peter was once unwilling to accept: “And thou also wast with Jesus of Nazareth” ( Mk. 1467). With this commitment a man fulfils the affirmation of the existence of the Christian community and thus partakes in its service. (III, 4, p. 491 f. The Active Life.)

What stands out to me specifically about this above text is the focus on entering into the kingdom of God where one is not a spectator but “summoned to action.” He says: “They bear witness that it concerns them, and that it does so in such a way that they must confess its occurrence by their own existence…” Finally, his statement about allowing ourselves to be publicly addressed, “allowing himself to be addressed, together with all those who are in the same position,” spoke to me as a deep call for unity and love among Christians.

Here was the second quote:

In v. 44 f. we read of a bold attempt by the most primitive post-Pentecostal community … There is only one other direct mention of this attempt, in Ac. 51f.. It has often been taken up since in different forms. But in whatever form can it ever have more than the significance of an attempt? It is worth pondering that the venture was at least made. And it will always be inevitable that there should be impulses in this direction wherever the Gospel of Jesus is proclaimed and heard. But it has never happened-least of all in the modern system called “Communism”- that even in smaller circles the way which leads in this direction has been trodden to the end. (IV, 2, p. 178. The Royal Man.)

I like that Barth says, “And it will always be inevitable that there should be impulses in this direction wherever the Gospel of Jesus is proclaimed and heard.” Oh to see this Gospel Order lived out in all our communities.