I was thinking that reading the Gospels and talking about them with some friends during Lent would be a good way of preparing for Easter. Granted I should have started this process much sooner than I did, but I think we still have time to get something organized. I was thinking that we would divide the Gospels into sections such that we could focus on two or three sections per week and take turns writing the main post for each section. Then we all would comment. I certainly don't think of this project as an exclusive thing, so if you think of anyone who would enjoy this or benefit from it or contribute to it, bring them in. For that reason (and because as a rule I don't plan longterm), I don't want to get to far ahead of myself with this in case some people come on board midway through, but I'll figure out the sections by Monday evening and take the first one. My post for the first reading should be up on Wednesday or Thursday.
And I'm sure that some of you have noticed that I'm unable to set up an online journal without a Gerard Manley Hopkins-inspired title. This one comes from stanza 35 of The Wreck of the Deutschland. I'll refrain from quoting it here, but you can look it up if you're interested.
4 comments:
Now, now, let's not be stingy (altho I can't seem to make the spacing work correctly):
Dame, at our door
Drowned, and among our shoals,
Remember us in the roads, the heaven-haven of the Reward:
Our King back, oh, upon English souls!
Let him easter in us, be a dayspring to the dimness of us, be a crimson-cresseted east,
More brightening her, rare-dear Britain, as his reign rolls,
Pride, rose, prince, hero of us, high-priest,
Our hearts’ charity’s hearth’s fire, our thoughts’ chivalry’s throng’s Lord.
I layed off in part because the English stuff is confusing out of context, and I was afraid I would try to explain the context. Also the "Dame" is not who you think she is if you haven't read the thirty-four preceding stanzas. Can't beat that ending though.
Interesting that when we look at this book we go for the message about resurrection in a book that on gives this a few paragraphs...it's funny how ultimate hope grabs our attention. I didn't look at the story too clearly, but it seems to spend more time on the betrayal by Peter than on the death of Jesus.
What is obvious is that this is a story set for five sermons. And the center one contains the central teaching. I think this is an ancient chiastic narrative set in classic rabbinic style (also the book of James fits this pattern...and maybe the Apocalypsis as well).
Given this possibility I wonder if one is truly able to bring "new things from the old"?
Thanks for the chance to think out loud.
Maybe it is because if there is hope for Peter, there is hope for all of us - maybe the whole gospel is to tell us that (as the beginning of Matthew shows) there is hope for all of humanity in the worst of their pain and shortcomings as the created beings they wanted to be.
I was just teaching today, and we were considering what difference it makes to people for their pain within to go upward and connect them to relationship, rather than go inside and distance them from relationship with others.
It was so obvious that Jesus came to bring relationship and comfort to all who grieve and mourn. Unfortunately, I was teaching in a class where I could not bring in the teachings for scripture - it seemed very incomplete. *sigh*
Thank you for the invite, Rika!
Post a Comment