Author: ppadmin

Lamentations’ call to arms

A poem inspired by the book of Lamentations (especially chapter three)

by Ken Sehested

Turn off (what passes for) the news.
Boycott the season’s electoral charades.
Don’t give in to Pokémon’s promise of
“augmented reality.” Attend instead to
unmitigated reality: bloodied, stricken
and strewn. Offer grief the hearing it
demands, the voice it obliges, and
the risk it assumes.

When not even Wendell Berry’s “peace
of wild things” will suffice—the wilderness
itself being salted and assaulted—turn to
the Lamentator’s naked confession for
uttering the heart’s howling confusion
amid terror’s ambush.

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Justice and peace will kiss

A litany for worship, inspired by Psalm 85

by Ken Sehested

All glory to you, Gracious One, who smiles on the earth, restoring the fortunes of our ancestors.

In your presence, the weight of shame is lifted, and we are drenched in pardon.

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Prayers while throwing stuff

Pondering grief from Baghdad to Baton Rouge, Medina to Minneapolis, Dhaka to Dallas (and points in between)

by Ken Sehested

We each pray for different
reasons in different seasons,
too often steady-headed,
manners-minded, when
indelicacy is now needed
        —prayers while throwing
        stuff against the wall—
whether in rapture or in rage,
banging against the cage of
knock-off propriety,
boorish pleasantries,
self-referencing piety
when it is precisely this
self-bordered life
that must be breached
if blood-soaked streets
are to stand a chance
in the light of
Judgment Day’s inquest,
crippled heart recoiling
from what it fears,
jaundiced against all
it cannot control,
cheered by death’s leer
and sacred call to arms—
        lest justice be denied!—
but brutal arms they be,
assaulting arms, separating
tissue from bone,
breath from lung,
hands from caress,
babies from breasts,
words from truth,
hopes from healing,
vision from revealing
the ties that bind
        but do not strangle,
the lover’s reach which
        does not entangle,
the wing that shadows
        but never wrangles.

Dare to rave within
Heaven’s hearing!
Scorch the roof of your
mouth with incantation.
Hurl your disquieted heart
at every tranquil caution.
Risk unpleasantry in the
company of angels.
Demand a hearing with
the Most High.
Journey with Job into
the whirlwind’s gale.
Demand an answer:

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The Liberation of Christmas: The Infancy Narratives in Social Context

Richard Horsley (2006), reviewed by Vern Ratzlaff

Another cultural eye opener by Horsley, with the focus and emphasis on the social relationships reflected in the infancy narratives.  Horsley does not deal with the theological issue of the incarnation in the infancy narratives, but explores the ‘salvation embodied in Jesus in its historical context of concrete political, economic and religious relationships’ (p xii).  Horsley’s treatment emphasizes that Luke 1 & 2 reflect a Palestinian Jewish milieu (p 15).  He then claims that ‘our usual hearing of the Christmas story misses or avoids the politico-economic as well as the religio-cultural conflict (p 22). In his chapter on ‘Caesar and Census’ he quotes Roman poets whose language about Caesar is remarkably similar to the words found in Luke (‘saviour’, ‘lord’, ‘euaggelion’).  Another chapter explores the interaction with Herod, the Roman client king, and another section deals with the role of peasants in Palestine under Roman control. 

Horsley’s most fascinating treatment is in the chapter, ‘A Modern Analogy’, where he explores the significance of the infancy narrative to a church that is in league with Herod, not with a peasant couple, a church whose government is a recapitulation of the Roman empire working through client regimes and political repression.  The infancy narratives find their story retold in the repressive history of Central America that the new Roman emperor supports (or at least did).  The historical tradition of the infancy narrative is a reflection of today’s empire.

Vern Ratzlaff is a pastor and professor of historical theology at Lutheran Theological Seminary in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada.

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On the Letters of Paul

Bruce Malina & John Pilch (2006), reviewed by Vern Ratzlaff

One of the books I have found most helpful for background in biblical study is Social Science Commentary on the Synoptic Gospels (Malina & Rohrbaugh).  Now Malina has done the same kind of commentary on the letters of Paul, with the seven generally accepted authentic epistles (1 Thessalonians; 1 & 2 Corinthians; Galatians; Romans; Philippians; Philemon).  Malina reminds us that as modern readers we must enter the world of Paul. ‘Modern Christianity in all its forms has little to do with the ancestral expressions in the Jesus groups of Paul’s day’ (p 3).  Malina points out that when we read the Pauline claim that ‘in Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek’, we do so from our modern experience of Jews and non-Jews.  But this is inadequate; in Paul’s day there were no Greeks, since there was no Greek nation, but there were people who accepted Hellenistic values.  Similarly, for a 1st century farmer to say ‘I farmed this plot this year, he is really saying he is a tenant farmer in debt to a patron for seed, using a shallow plow, planting right before rainy season’ (p 5).

A few examples.  When Paul starts his letter to the Thessalonians with ‘to the church of the Thessalonians’ (1:1), ‘church’ translates the Greek ’ekklesia’; it is a Greek word referring to a gathering of the entitled residents of a ‘polis’, Greek for ‘city’.  This is why ‘church’, referring today to institutional christianity, lacks the social identity and calling aspect of ‘ekklesia’, and is better rendered by ‘gathering’—‘church’ as the gathering of those called by G-d. Malina and Pilch identify the cultural and historical details of Paul’s writing to a 1st century ‘gathering’; by the 21st century we have filled the biblical terms with so much theology we find it difficult to see what those terms would have meant to Paul’s readers (eg ‘slavery’, ‘Son of G-d’, patron-client).  A wonderfully illuminating book.

Vern Ratzlaff is a pastor and professor of historical theology at Lutheran Theological Seminary in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada.

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News, views, notes, and quotes

Signs of the Times  •  30 June 2016  •  No. 79

Processional. “America the Beautiful,” performed by Willie Nelson for a video protesting the devastating practice of coal mining by mountaintop removal.

Above. Purple mountains' majesty. Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming.

America the Beautiful. Poet and Wellesley College English professor Katharine Lee Bates wrote her poem “Pikes Peak,” first published in 4 July 1895 edition of The Congregationalist magazine under the title “America,” on a trip to Colorado’s Pike National Park. In 1910 the poem was adapted to a hymn tune by Samuel A. Ward.
        In Bates’ original poem (revised in 1904 and 1911), the third stanza ends with, “Till selfish gain no longer stain, / The banner of the free!” These lines “reflected Bates’ disillusionment with the Gilded Age’s excesses” which produced profound levels of economic inequality in the late 19th century (Lynn Sherr, America the Beautiful: The Stirring True Story Behind Our Nation's Favorite Song).
        The fourth and final stanza of the original poem also contained prophetic announcement, “Till nobler men keep once again / Thy whiter jubilee!” referencing the Torah’s “jubilee” tradition of a profound social renewal movement along with a reference to Revelation 7:14 where those “dressed in white” represent “they who have come out of the great ordeal; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb,” the Lamb being the one who refused violence’s ascendancy, accomplishing salvation’s triumph by abandoning rather than wielding the sword of vengeance.

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This Is My Song

New lyrics to an old song

by Ken Sehested

O Truth Untamed, all boundaries bow before You
All borders bend according to your Word
O grant that every bitter heart be harbored
In sheltered cove, with Mercy’s flag unfurled
Hearken and haste, Desire of every nation
Refresh the heart of hope too long deferred.

Let every mountain call to meadowed valley
And every stream, to ocean grand and wide
Let fertile ground announce the new creation
When all shall come, ’cross every great divide
O bell of liberty ring out for freedom
Break every slaver’s chain, with hope confide

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My Country, ‘Tis of Thee

Alternate lyrics

My country, ‘tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing.
Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim’s pride,
From every mountainside, let freedom ring!

We are a people free, joining in liberty our many throngs.
Through much diversity, grant solidarity,
Turning from enmity in joyful song.

Guiding us in the past, God’s hand has held us fast, God’s pow’r we feel.
May righteousness be claimed, true justice be sustained;
Spirit, with us remain, Christ’s love reveal.

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