[Uucf-bible] readings for Sunday and discussion

[RevRonRobinson at aol.com]

from the lectionary. see _www.textweek.com_ (http://www.textweek.com)  for 
more. 
1. Have always been moved by the spiritual lessons  below--the always 
incomplete nature of our existence, Moses seeing the promised  land but not being 
able to enter in to it. Something deep and profound there  about the finite 
nature of humanity, even the "powerful" ones like Moses, which  is how I tend to 
read all that power and might and expansiveness language there  too. I often 
feel at my age of 54 as one who is seeing the new world but knows I  won't live 
in it at least as fully as those younger; what writer Len Sweet  refers to 
about the postmodern world and those native to it and those who are as  immigrants 
first generation to it. 
Deuteronomy 34:1-12
 
34Then Moses went up from the plains of Moab to Mount  Nebo, to the top of 
Pisgah, which is opposite Jericho, and the Lord showed him the whole land: 
Gilead as far as Dan, 2all Naphtali, the land of Ephraim and Manasseh, all the land 
of  Judah as far as the Western Sea, 3the Negeb, and the  Plain—that is, the 
valley of Jericho, the city of palm trees—as far as Zoar.  4The Lord said to 
him, “This is the  land of which I swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, 
saying, ‘I will give  it to your descendants’; I have let you see it with your 
eyes, but you shall not  cross over there.”  
5Then Moses, the servant of the Lord, died there in the land of Moab, at the 
Lord’s command.  6He was buried in a valley in the land of Moab, opposite  
Beth-peor, but no one knows his burial place to this day. 7Moses was one hundred 
twenty years old when he died; his sight  was unimpaired and his vigor had not 
abated. 8The Israelites  wept for Moses in the plains of Moab thirty days; 
then the period of mourning  for Moses was ended.  
9Joshua son of Nun was full of the spirit of wisdom,  because Moses had laid 
his hands on him; and the Israelites obeyed him, doing as  the Lord had 
commanded Moses. 10Never  since has there arisen a prophet in Israel like Moses, 
whom the Lord knew face to face. 11He was unequaled  for all the signs and 
wonders that the Lord sent him to  perform in the land of Egypt, against Pharaoh and 
all his servants and his  entire land, 12and for all the mighty deeds and all 
the  terrifying displays of power that Moses performed in the sight of all 
Israel.  
2. Okay, so I am a lover of Paul; here is one of those reasons and  
particularly it seems for those of us in the sphere of UU Christianity, a small  
marginal group committed to, as Paul puts it here in one of the earliest  sections 
of the New Testament's oldest letter, the gospel of God, not to please  
mortals, Lord knows we don't often please other Christians or other UUs, etc.  but we 
have, as he says, been entrusted with the message. And yet Paul's words  are 
themselves about moving beyond the "message" as some kind of proclamation,  
and is in keeping with his penchant for language of the body and unity and  
healing, here talking about becoming as mothers to one another (one recent  book 
by a feminist theologian is called Paul the Mother) and giving of our  selves.  
Thessalonians 2:1-8 
 
2You yourselves know, brothers and sisters, that our  coming to you was not 
in vain, 2but though we had already  suffered and been shamefully mistreated at 
Philippi, as you know, we had courage  in our God to declare to you the 
gospel of God in spite of great opposition.  3For our appeal does not spring from 
deceit or impure  motives or trickery, 4but just as we have been approved by  
God to be entrusted with the message of the gospel, even so we speak, not to  
please mortals, but to please God who tests our hearts. 5As  you know and as 
God is our witness, we never came with words of flattery or with  a pretext for 
greed; 6nor did we seek praise from mortals,  whether from you or from others, 
 
7though we might have made demands as apostles of Christ.  But we were gentle 
among you, like a nurse tenderly caring for her own children.  8So deeply do 
we care for you that we are determined to  share with you not only the gospel 
of God but also our own selves, because you  have become very dear to us.  
3. And then the gospel lesson from Matthew. So what do you make of this  
exchange :)? I might be a little wary of testing Jesus too if I got a question  
back like he gives the lawyer, and what kind of a test was it anyway to just ask 
 Jesus which commandment is the greatest? I suspect in Matthew here there is 
a  lot of that undercurrent of synagogue and "church" separating as was going 
on at  the time Matthew was written, some arguing that the Messiah needed to 
be  understood differently now that the Temple was destroyed and the kingships 
were  destroyed, that Jesus as a special son of God now redefined Messiah from 
ideas  of being a new David. But not for sure at all. Still there is 
something about  the passage that keeps pulling me back toward it.  
Matthew 22:34-46
 
34When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the  Sadducees, they gathered 
together, 35and one of them, a  lawyer, asked him a question to test him. 36“
Teacher, which  commandment in the law is the greatest?” 37He said to him,  “’
You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, 
 and with all your mind.’ 38This is the greatest and first  commandment. 
39And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your  neighbor as yourself.’ 40On 
these two commandments hang all  the law and the prophets.”  
41Now while the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus  asked them this 
question: 42“What do you think of the  Messiah? Whose son is he?” They said to 
him, “The son of David.” 43He said to them, “How is it then that David by the 
Spirit calls  him Lord, saying, 44‘The Lord said to my Lord, “Sit at my  right 
hand, until I put your enemies under your feet”’? 45If  David thus calls him 
Lord, how can he be his son?” 46No one  was able to give him an answer, nor 
from that day did anyone dare to ask him any  more questions.  
Is there a thread that ties these together some way?  
thanks and blessings, Ron



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