This weekend would be a great time for the with-it preacher or class leader to talk about Zombies! After all, many of our acquaintances drag their way through the week like The Living Dead; those who multi-task have the opportunity of dying regularly and often! They walk among us. There’re lots of movies, comics and sit-coms around to spin and reinforce gripping horror…do the forces of Good/Life always win? (Will I preach about Zombies? Not a ghost of a chance.)
Hosea 1:2:10 begins our journey into the Absurd. Although it’s probably too long to read in entirety, your hearers should be encouraged to read the whole story , through chapter 3. This is scripture because it’s an analogy of how God continues to love us to life, despite our death-courting habits. A great story: Hosea is told to marry a whore. Three children are born–maybe Hosea is the father, yet maybe not–and are given names which are in themselves messages to the people. “God sows” comes first, and is quickly followed by “Show no mercy” and “Not My people”. Bitter days! God is an offended ruler, a betrayed husband and a disappointed parent. The People of God have become unfaithful by their worship of idols, their alliances with non-Jewish nations and their involvement in shady materialism.
As we stand with heads hung, embarassed and shuffling, there comes a Holy Word from St. Paul, Colossians 2:6-15. “When you were buried with [Jesus] in baptism, you were also raised with him through faith in the power of God, who raised him from the dead. And when you were dead in trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive together with him, when he forgave us all our trespasses, erasing the record that stood against us with its legal demands.” The old contract which indicts our failures was nailed to the cross, and a covenant of Life bursts from our death. Richard L. Eslinger says that “the old Egyptians within us lie dead in the sea. But we Israelites now come up out of the water freed from bondage to sin and death, forgiven and healed.” (FEASTING on the WORD, C 3:285)
Luke’s Gospel (11:1-13) is a three-for-one teaching on prayer. Each segment could be lifted up by itself, yet together they offer a continuity which courts insight and imagination. Segment One is The Lord’s Prayer, a formula which has endured in intimacy through the centuries. Segment Two is the parable about the persistent friend who beats on the door until his need is met. Segment Three seems more in continuity with our thread of a Loving Parent who rescues us from a living death: “if you, then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask?”
Our society may be dead in the water. Many individuals drag through their days without claiming the wonder therein. Senior church-members take a grisly pleasure in the perceived death of their congregation. The audacious news for today is that God still lives despite and beyond our perverse mortality! I’ve gotta believe that I’m not on track to being a Zombie!
God Bless Us, Every One Horace Brown King
My ramblings on lectionary readings for the upcoming weekend can be found every Tuesday at this space on Facebook, or at horacebrownking.com
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