Beauty for Ashes: Intermezzo

Monday, August 8, 2011

Intermezzo

Well friends, instead of the refreshed and renewed energy I was hoping for after my recent vacation, I'm still working through my first serious bout of writer's block and hoping to have something to offer here in a day or two. In the meantime, however, as if sensing my need to write more lightly, to get the juices flowing, my husband suddenly erupted with a concept for another joint-blogging project. It is about as different as can be from anything I do here, or what he and I have done on our other joint-blog, but reflective as can be of the kind of thing Paul and I consider fun. I will say no more. If you are curious, I invite you to visit us here.

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Thoughts to Ponder

“The book of Job is not only a witness to the dignity of suffering and God’s presence in our suffering but also our primary biblical protest against religion that has been reduced to explanations or 'answers'. Many of the answers that Job’s so called friends give him are technically true. But it is the 'technical' part that ruins them. They are answers without personal relationship, intellect without intimacy…On behalf of all of us who have been misled by the platitudes of the nice people who show up to tell us everything is going to be all right if we simply think such and such and do such and such, Job issued an anguished rejoinder. He rejects the kind of advice and teaching that has God all figured out, that provides glib explanations for every circumstance. Job’s honest defiance continues to be the best defense against the clichés of positive thinkers and the prattle of religious small talk.” - Eugene Peterson

“It has become a deplorable custom that the Gospels and the Epistles are treated like law books, in which one is to learn what we are to do, and in which the works of Christ are presented as nothing but an example held before one’s eyes. Wherever this errant opinion remains within the heart, there neither gospel nor epistle can be read usefully and in a Christian way; such readers remain nothing but heathen, as before.” - Martin Luther in kirchenpostille

Matins

In Anglican worship, Psalm 95 is to be read every morning. I've heard it referred to as "the Everday Psalm". So, Why this Psalm? And why every day? It's a direct response to the dead earnest admonition of the writer to the Hebrews: "Take care, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called today, that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. For we share in Christ, if only we hold our first confidence firm to the end, while it is said, 'Today, when you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.'" (Hebrews 3:12-15)

So, before further Scripture is read, before teaching, they hear this Psalm, which is first a call to worship, and second a warning to any who are about to "hear his voice" not to harden their hearts against it:

Psalm 95
O come, let us sing to the LORD;
let us make a joyful noise to
the rock of our salvation!
Let us come into his presence
with thanksgiving;
let us make a joyful noise to
him with songs of praise!
For the LORD is a great God,
and a great King above all gods.
In his hand are the depths of the earth;
the heights of the mountains are his also.
The sea is his, for he made it;
for his hands formed the dry land.

O come, let us worship and bow down,
let us kneel before the LORD, our Maker!
For he is our God,
and we are the people of his pasture,
and the sheep of his hand.

O that today you would hearken to his voice!
Harden not your hearts, as at Meribah,
as on the day at Massah in the wilderness,
when your fathers tested me,
and put me to the proof,
though they had seen my work.
For forty years I loathed that generation
and said, "They are a people who err in heart,
and they do not regard my ways."
Therefore I swore in my anger
that they should not enter my rest.

So, let us join with our Anglican brothers and exhort one another every day, while it is called today not to forget, as Israel did in the wilderness, that our God is a God who is trustworthy and who cares for us; so that none of us will be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.

Beauty for Ashes

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Monday, August 8, 2011

Intermezzo

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