• I Kings 19: 1-4, (5-7), 8-15a

The ongoing conflict between King Ahab and the Lord’s prophet, Elijah, now escalates to direct confrontation with the Queen, Jezebel, the non-Israelite wife of Ahab who retained devotion to her own god, Baal.  Ahad has told Queen Jezebel of the incident where Elijah humiliated the priests of Baal.  Jezebel vowed revenge.  Elijah fled into the wilderness, distraught.  He went to sleep under a broom tree, but was awakened by an angel who “touched him and said to him, ‘Get up and eat.’ ”  He saw cakes and water and the angel told him to eat for the journey ahead.  Elijah survived forty days and forty nights on the meal miraculously provided to him from nothing.  He journeyed to Horeb (Sinai), “the mount of the Lord.”  When asked why he was tarrying there, Elijah explained his behavior: “I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of Hosts,” even though the Israelites broke their covenant with the Lord, destroyed the places of worship and killed other prophets.  “I am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away.”  The Lord told Elijah to stand on the mountain “for the Lord is about to pass by.”  A violent wind arose, followed by an earthquake, and then by fire, but the voice of the Lord was not present.  And then “a sound of sheer silence.”  Elijah hid his face in his mantle and repeated his explanation of himself to the Lord.  The Lord told him now to resume his journey to Damascus.

• Psalm 42/43

(Although separated in Christian versions of the psalter, Psalms 42 and 43 seem be be actually one psalm.)  At a time in his life when the psalmist feels distanced from the Lord and “the house of God,” he compares his longing to a deer that is so thirsty for water it pants.  Although he is weighed down in his current plight, which includes the hatred of his enemies, he still hopes in God’s “rescuing presence.”  The psalmist now makes his request: “Send forth Your light and Your truth/it is they that will guide me./they will bring me to Your holy mountain/And to Your dwelling.”  There he will sing and acclaim God, the psalmist vows.

OR

• Isaiah 65: 1-9

This excerpt from the grand text of the Book of Isaiah counters any notion that God is disengaged; God will respond to any backslider and will find any way to renew the covenant with him.  The Lord affirms unashamedly an eagerness to be heard and involved, even with those who are indifferent or hostile: “I said, ‘Here I am, here I am….”  After references to practices of several pagan religions, the text quotes the Lord as promising “payment for their actions.”  However, as the aphorism about the potential for new wine from any and every cluster of grapes implies, so the Lord promises to “bring forth descendants from Jacob, and from Judah… my chosen shall inherit it….”

• Psalm 22: 18-27

The psalmist describes those who despise her as wild dogs, or a lion or the horns of a ram.  She counts all “Fearers of the Lord” among the descendants of Jacob and Israel.  The Lord “has not hidden” from them; the Lord has heard them when they “cried out.”  The psalmist has decided she will renew her vows to the Lord “before those who fear” the Lord.  Together “those who seek the Lord, will praise the Lord” and will be  satisfied.

• Galatians 3: 23-29

Paul confronts a problem vexing the early church– the status of various people coming into the church from all kinds of backgrounds– and especially the thorniest problem: faith in Christ vis a vis faith through the Law.  The Law, Paul writes, was a “disciplinarian,” but now “in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith.”  Furthermore, “there is no longer Jew or Greek… slave or free… male or female….”   And, if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring as well, heirs according to the promise.

• Luke 8: 26-39

Jesus and his disciples move on to the next community, “the country of the Gersemes,” and immediately encounter a man “who had demons.”  The man lived naked, among the tombs.  When Jesus confronts the wild man, he shouts, “what have you got to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High?”  The man took Jesus’ command for the unclean spirits to leave him as just more “torment.”  Jesus asked the man his name.  He replied “Legion.”  The “spirits” begged Jesus not to be sent back into “the abyss,” but rather to enter a herd of swine nearby, which Jesus did.  The herd immediately ran “down the steep bank into the lake and was drowned.”  The herdsmen of the swine went into town telling what they had just seen happened.   They looked for Jesus and when they found him they also saw the wild man “sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind.”  (Although Matthew and Mark also tell this story, only Luke describes their reaction characteristically: “and they were seized with great fear.”)  Jesus returned to the boat to leave, the man begged to join the group around Jesus, but Jesus gave him a mission: “return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you.”  Which the man did.

The scriptures still (and always will be!) ahead of human expectations of where, how and with whom God is willing and eager to work.  That excerpt from Isaiah depicts God as open to anyone; always ready to make fine wine from any random bunch of grapes.  The psalmist, in the appointed responsory psalm, recognizes that any who “Fear the Lord” have access to God’s goodness.  Jesus moves into a new community where he pursues a naked, homeless crazy man who initially is hostile: “What have you got to do with me…?”  But Jesus does not give up on the man who, along with everyone else, had given up on him.  Eventually Jesus commissions the man to become a witness with his unique testimony “for how much God has done for you.”  In one of his most expansive moods, Paul declares that the membership rules for this new community– the church– were unlike any community the classical world had ever known, shattering every barrier of race, gender, religious heritage, and even “slave or free….”  “In Christ you are all children of God,”  Paul writes definitively.

In Jesus, Humanity and the Trinity, Kathryn Tanner states anew the still bold scriptural understanding of the true nature of God’s inclusiveness.  She writes:

“In Christ, God is clearly the God of sinners as well as the righteous, of the Gentiles who lack God’s gift of the covenant as well as the Jews who have the benefit of the law, for the suffering as well as the fortunate, indeed the God especially of the former in that they are the ones on the greatest need of Gods gifts.  There is nothing we need to do or to be in particular in order for God to be giving to us.  The distinction between good and bad, between Jew and Gentile– all the distinctions that typically determine the boundaries of human love and concern– fall away in that God gives simply to those in need, in order to address every respect in which they are in need, without concern for anything they especially are or have done to deserve it.” (p. 88)

God is still and always be out front of human expectations.  

And, as far as God is concerned: Any random bunch of grapes will do!

Western Modernity’s investment in “progress” wants to render scripture passe.  Many post-Modern theologians assume just the opposite; that the biblical texts are still ahead and always will be ahead of human expectations because they give testimony to the radical, total love of God for all persons and all creation.  Every person is regarded as already gifted by God, whether she sees herself that way yet or not; (“What have yo got to do with me,” the man who no longer recognized himself as a child of God demanded of Jesus.)  The never-ending task is for each person to discover that claim for himself or herself and to see it just as clearly in every other person.