Davison's Doodle

On the road with Jesus: lent 2020

“Life moves pretty fast.  If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”(1)

Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of Lent.  It is a day when many Christians remember we are all equal in the end.  You are dust and to dust you shall return.  The story about Jesus has tumbled through time as if we climbed aboard Bill and Ted’s phone booth time machine(2), and followed Jesus from birth to young adult.  Pause, and think about the speed of the story we journey through each year.

Advent’s waiting, candles, magnificat, and wading into hope, peace, joy, and love led shepherds, and some of us, to a manger.

Some of us journeyed with the Magi from far away places in our lives searching for a person, this child, hoping that the epiphany of his presence could help us change our stars.  And when two paths diverged did you take the one less traveled?

Still, some of us fled with Joseph, Mary, and Jesus.  Fled from bad situations.  Fled from feelings to strong to deal with.  Fled from our mistakes, from our neighbors, or fled from ourselves dropping our compass along the way.  Through this migration Jesus has grown.  During the season of Epiphany we meet him in young adulthood.  The once refugee now welcomes as he has been welcomed in a land occupied and yet still home.  This Jesus of Nazareth emerges from the desert to hand us a compass he picked up on his journey.  He is ready to help disciples recalibrate their moral compass with his teaching and by an example he set.

The parables can be effective tools to recalibrate your compass.  These little teaching stories, the ones that scholars think are authentic to Jesus and those attributed to his unofficial biographers, these teaching stories may be the best way to test out your beliefs and practice the way of Jesus against the backdrop of our historical context.  Arguably, it’s always been that way.  You have heard it was said in ancient times that a little child would lead them, well I say to you that our youth are leading us.

Our Regional Youth Council is blogging for lent this year, and once again will turn their attention to the parables of Jesus.  (See a complete list of the parables below.) I asked them to pick two parables: a favorite and one that challenges them.  The assignment: create a devotion about those parables.  Devotions will be posted on Monday morning of each week in Lent and will continue to the Monday of Holy Week.

Join us on the road with Jesus by following my “Old Camp Hat” blog during Lent.

Parables of Jesus

According the the work of the Jesus Seminar, these five parables are probably original to Jesus.(3)

• Leven [Matt 13.33b, Luke 13:20b-21]
• Good Samaritan [Luke 10:30-37]
• Dishonest Steward [Luke 16:1-9]
• Vineyard Laborers [Matthew 20:1=15]
• Mustard Seed [Matthew 13:31b-32 / Mark 4:31-32 / Luke 13:19]

And here is a list of all the parables.

• The Growing Seed: Mark 4:26–29
• The Two Debtors: Luke 7:41–43
• The Lamp under a Bushel: Matthew 5:14–15, Mark 4:21–25, Luke 8:16–18
• Parable of the Good Samaritan, Luke 10:25–37
• The Friend at Night: Luke 11:5–8
• The Rich Fool: Luke 12:16–21
• The Wise and the Foolish Builders: Matthew 7:24–27, Luke 6:46–49
• New Wine into Old Wineskins: Matthew 9:17–17, Mark 2:21–22, Luke 5:37–39
• Parable of the Strong Man: Matthew 12:29–29, Mark 3:27–27, Luke 11:21–22
• Parable of the Sower: Matthew 13:3–9, Mark 4:3–9, Luke 8:5–8
• The Tares: Matthew 13:24–30
• The Barren Fig Tree: Luke 13:6–9
• Parable of the Mustard Seed: Matthew 13:31–32, Mark 4:30–32, Luke 13:18–19
• Leaven: Matthew 13:33–33, Luke 13:20–21
• Parable of the Pearl: Matthew 13:45–46
• Drawing in the Net: Matthew 13:47–50
• The Hidden Treasure: Matthew 13:44–44
• Counting the Cost: Luke 14:28–33
• The Lost Sheep frequently called The Good Shepherd: Matthew 18:10–14, Luke 15:4–6
• The Unforgiving Servant: Matthew 18:23–35
• The Lost Coin: Luke 15:8–9
• Parable of the Prodigal Son: Luke 15:11–32
• The Unjust Steward: Luke 16:1–13
• Rich man and Lazarus: Luke 16:19–31
• The Master and Servant: Luke 17:7–10
• The Unjust Judge: Luke 18:1–9
• Pharisees and the Publican: Luke 18:10–14
• The Workers in the Vineyard: Matthew 20:1–16
• The Two Sons: Matthew 21:28–32
• The Wicked Husbandmen: Matthew 21:33–41, Mark 12:1–9, Luke 20:9–16
• The Great Banquet: Matthew 22:1–14, Luke 14:15–24
• The Budding Fig Tree: Matthew 24:32–35, Mark 13:28–31, Luke 21:29–33
• The Faithful Servant: Matthew 24:42–51, Mark 13:34–37, Luke 12:35–48
• The Ten Virgins: Matthew 25:1–13
• The Talents or Minas: Matthew 25:14–30, Luke 19:12–27
• The Sheep and the Goats: Matthew 25:31–46
• Parable of the Wedding Feast: Luke 14:7–14

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Notes
1. Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, 1986.

2. Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure, 1989.

3. Funk, Robert, et al. The Parables of Jesus: A Report of the Jesus Seminar. Polebridge Press, 1988.

Good News According to . . .

In his book, The Scandalous Gospel of Jesus: What’s So Good About the Good News?, Rev. Dr. Peter Gomes reminds the reader that in the Bible what is good news for some is often bad news for others.

“My course is a survey of how readings of the same constant text have varied over the centuries, from the formation of the canon to our present time, dependent on context and subtext. A community in exile will read differently than a community in apparent full possession of all it surveys, with those who have nothing welcoming the promised overturning of the standing order, and those who have much of this world’s goods not longing for the end of the age. Depending, then, upon how one reads and interprets, either the Bible is a textbook for the status quo, of quiescent pieties and promises, or it is a recipe for social change and transformation. There are churches dedicated to each point of view, each claiming its share of the good news; but what is good news for some is often bad news for somebody else.” 

Are you a person that practices Christianity? Maybe you are Christian-curious or coming back to Christianity after being away or de-churched. I recommend Gomes’ book as a good read, anytime, but especially during Lent. This traditional time in the Christian year when we recognize that Jesus turns his face and his journey through the countryside toward Jerusalem. I don’t think it is so much that he plotted a course on a map as his meandering preaching and healing moved in the general direction of Jerusalem or at least that is what the writers of the gospel narratives and John want us to think.

I digress a moment. We are in an age of Marvel Comics and DC Comics origin stories. Michael Keaton’s Batman introduces Joker, Riddler, and Two Face. The Star Wars franchise kicked off the prequel, an origin story, to aid its reboot. These stories are a staple right now.

Origin stories about heroes and heroines.

Origin stories about anti-heroes, anti-heroines, and villains alike. And these stories about the anti-heroes, anti-heroines, and villains are the ones that give many people anxiety because they ask the viewer to do something that can be painful, “reflect.” Think critically about how a character came to be and behave. Get outside the individualism to see a meta narrative, or several, and consider how systems and communities shape a character’s identity and behavior. It can be a mirror for who we are, what we believe, and how we behave. The “why” is an important component. Empathy. But, if empathy is just a feeling that doesn’t spur action, what good is it? If that empathy doesn’t alter ones behavior or the systems of a community, a church, or a Nation it is just a low, a high, or apathy.

And now down a rabbit hole. Since the turn of the century, humanity is in an age when “feeling” and “believing” are weighted more heavily than ideas and facts. “I believe . . .” I think there can still be some objective facts and Truth, and these can point to how beliefs or feelings are misguided or just wrong. The meta narrative(s) that drive the present in our Nation are splintered. “Out of many, one” is viewed through our particular social group, economic caste, or religious affiliation. Maybe it has always been that way. I want to think better of what America has become. An idea from a Christian education conference many years ago has stuck with me: “When everything matters, nothing matters most.” I’m a GenX’er and that resonates with me as I’ve observed of our changing culture as one standing between Boomers and Millennials. Some, in the halls of power, have figured out what matters most for them and are doing the long work to make it so. Though I don’t believe in hope, one can only hope that those being confirmed to the Federal judiciary will grow, mature, and see the Law through a different lens than their current limited political or religious view. People change for the good.

Back to origin stories. I have decided to read the gospel narratives and John for the coming three years as origin stories for Jesus. This same way of reading can be, will be, applied to the rest of the New Testament. It’s not an exegetical method as much as an intentional way of letting go of tradition’s belief system. So, my discipline for Lent this year is writing my own account of the life and times of Jesus of Nazareth. Yes, handwriting an account.

Hat tip to Rev. Colton Lott for the introduction to using a fountain pen.