SUN20NOV2022 (’01): OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST UNIVERSAL KING
1. 2SAM5:1-3
- Read 5:1-6.23! David’s establishment as king in Jerusalem!
- How dis ‘Yahweh’ actually point to David? (read !SAM16:1-13?)
- How are bishops(&other church-leaders) pointed-to &assessed?
- How was/is ‘ThePresence-of-Yahweh’ created established tested subverted?
- Or was ‘ThePresence-of-Yahweh’ a euphemism for ‘male authority‘, as embodied in tribal elders, prophetic brotherhoods, temple priesthoods, royal courts….
- What made David-of-Jerusalem such a deeply-cherished biblical icon?
2. THE PSALM. 121:1-5
- Read 121(1220:1-9! A GoingUp YahwehSong for Jerusalem’s Shalom/Peace!
- ‘Shalom!’ What glimpse here of the ingredients of biblical ‘peace’?
- ‘God’sHouse/David’sHouse!’ In my local church, how do the religious & the political claims-to-power collaborate? &What of financial&media power?
- ‘Thrones-of-Judgement!’: How is ‘justice&equity’ assured to each in the local church?
- Or is that one ignored, or left to the vested interests of the other-arenas-of-power?
- ‘Strongly Compact!’ Necessary in a city ever liable to siege! But will a striving for it in our contemporaryChurch engender unimaginitive&unfruitful authoritarianism?
3. COL1:12-20
- ‘SaintsLightPlaceFreedomForgiveness!: Keystones of this writer’s ‘good news’!
- That intriguing&sparkling & yet opaque-as-Golgotha ChristSong!
Let me first&foremost chant this, more than once with a friend!
How is this related to TheLogosChant of JN1:1-18?
What 7Layers-of-Reality can I glimpse in this ChristSong?
How much of it is being realised&tested&repressed in my local church?
Isn’t all of ot somehow recapitulated in the unsurrenderable image, ‘Body’?
4. LK23:35-43
- ‘Save!’ Playing on the name ‘Jesus/Yeshua/YeHoshua/YahwehSave!’
- Is there a certain repression of the horror of’Crucifixion’, &emphasis on His’Regality’?
- What significant problematics are being mooted?
Who actually encompassed Jesus’Death? &Who can witness it?
The apparently shameful defeat of the great charismatic hero from TheNorth?
The relation of Jesus, especially in death, to Jewish Faith&Hope?
The imagining that Jesus, in death, was more a ‘King’ than ever!
The need for impartial testimony to the ‘innocence’ of ‘Lamb?Jesus’!
5. The presence&action of the BlessedOne, is it like this?
Amen! Asa I fitfully struggle for sips of precious breath, as I vainly push away, oh abba sustain me, wave-on-wave-on-wave of never-anticipated pain, oh sweet body, oh the mother, hands feet thighs, oh fire-of-thirst more than those who walked in that furnace-of-hatred’s-tyranny! Oh my head, crowned like Absalom, teeth&claws of some desert demon’ &How will I not succumb? &How will I not blaspheme&curse-the-name?even a moment’s strong defiance, worth perhaps any loss of punishment! Oh the cruel mockery of the titulus, ‘King! King!’ What I always glimpsed in their hungry eyes, &fled-from, &warned my own disciples against! Oh the people’s thirst for a king! Oh the hunger for an emperor! Old Samuel knew, &warned the zealots! But who ever heeded old Samuel?
RIDDLE But what sort of king? IntrudsiveDictator? ProphetShepherd?
PrivelegedFromAlways? ListeningFriend? StrugglerFor TheTotalWeave?
Refections and comments can be emailed to adbi@chokmah.ie