Umm, did you mean to/why did you use an Easter reading for Lent?! I received this text and call more than once.
This week’s readings invite us to reflect on the whole of our human story from the dust of our creation to the hope of our redemption, to carry that story with us as we journey through Lent. We sojourning through the Lenten wilderness because we have heard and believed the good news. And perhaps, because we are horror struck at the cost of that gospel. We are preparing for the next forty days to hear and receive that good news with clean hands and hearts. The epistle provides one set of thunderous instructions on how to do so. The psalm offers a portrait of the majesty of God before which we must repent and concludes with the grace of the spirit to renew us and, the whole earth.
Gord Waldie
February 28, 2022 4:40 pmAs I prepare to preach this week and read the Genesis passage I can’t help but notice that it can easily be used to further an agenda claiming the cis-gendered heterosexual folk are what the Creator is creating in these verses. How can we preach this vision of the creation of humanity and take seriously the fact that our LGBTQ+ siblingsrs are equally created in the Divine image (as Genesis 1 would allow us to claim)?
Wil
February 28, 2022 7:12 pmWe do have to start with the understanding that many of those who told and preserved this account thought about people in binary terms reinforced by the binary language through which their world was articulated. And, we can acknowledge that early rabbinic interpreters began to see possibilities in the language that transcended a simple binary. The act of biblical interpretation is an ongoing process that looks back on ancient texts and sees new perspectives. Just as we do not have to read the gospel writers’ perspectives into the prophets in order to honor them, we do not have to read our interpretations into the text in order to honor them. These multiple contextual readings of the same text can and should stand together so the future generations will know that they too can look back and find new meanings for their worlds.
Genevieve Rohret-Navin
March 3, 2022 5:28 pmJust wanted to say thank you for your work. We (at Belong Church in Denver) are using your work during Lent this year (and I am hoping much more through the year!) and I am very excited to share with my congregation this coming Sunday. What a blessing you and your work are to so many congregations.