Songbird sets us this Friday Five:
Twenty years ago, I was on a Pastoral Search Committee, and one of the questions we asked the ten candidates we interviewed in the first round was to tell us their three favorite passages of scripture.I loved hearing the variety of verses quoted and even learned some that I didn't know, such as the last line of one of this week's lectionary passages:
He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God? (Micah 6:8)
For today's Friday Five, list your five favorite passages/verses from the Bible and tell us something about why you love them.
1) The Micah passage above is special to me. When I was a teenager my mother cross-stitched a motto for me to have in my room:
Do justly,
love mercy,
Walk humbly with thy God
I don't remember the conversation or circumstance that brought that up, why it was something that was special to me, except that it really encapsulates all the "instructions," in case we should wake up and feel that we can't quite remember them.
2) Hebrews 12:1
Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith.
I made my Cursillo in the early 90's, in the Diocese of Texas (Episcopal). Each Cursillo has a theme drawn from scripture, and ours was the Cursillo of the Great Cloud of Witnesses. Each decuria (table) had a witness/saint as our patron. My group was named for Saint Maximilian Kolbe, who was a Polish friar who offered to die in the place of a stranger while they were both held in the Auschwitz concentration camp. According to the Jewish Virtual Library, where I also found this picture, "He is the patron saint of drug addicts, political prisoners, families, journalists, prisoners and the pro-life movement. Pope John Paul II declared him the “The Patron Saint of Our Difficult Century.” (we still need one in this century...)
Two things about the passage greatly appeal to me. The Great Cloud of Witnesses, to me, includes the people who surround and support me, but also those who have gone before. My Gramma Beth, Aunt Etta Jane, Janet, Tennyson, you've heard the list before. So there is a huge, HUGE cushion of support. And given that, I love the idea of throwing off the things that trouble or hinder us. The image in my mind is of a marathon, where runners stop and get water from cheering volunteers, or those silver reflective thermal blankets. Then they run on! My "volunteers" are the people I mentioned...and the people I love in daily life...and you who read these words.
We put no stumbling block in anyone’s path, so that our ministry will not be discredited. Rather, as servants of God we commend ourselves in every way: in great endurance; in troubles, hardships and distresses; in beatings, imprisonments and riots; in hard work, sleepless nights and hunger; in purity, understanding, patience and kindness; in the Holy Spirit and in sincere love; in truthful speech and in the power of God; with weapons of righteousness in the right hand and in the left; through glory and dishonor, bad report and good report; genuine, yet regarded as impostors; known, yet regarded as unknown; dying, and yet we live on; beaten, and yet not killed; sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; poor, yet making many rich; having nothing, and yet possessing everything.
I have never been a lover of Paul (I'm in recovery for this). And I'm not about glorification or enjoyment of suffering. But I tell you, this passage has schooled me. It has pwned me. Because there are those of you out there, and you know who you are, who have been through the fire and borne the Words of Christ all the way, sometimes not knowing how. One friend in particular brought home this passage to me; through an impossibly long and difficult time she continued to pursue the call God had made to her. At a time when I was wondering if there WAS a God, her continued adherence to that call, despite the rotten things that had happened to her on the way, made me believe. There had to be a God, because that God was CALLING my friend.
There are a lot of you out there who have been through this fire, and how you witness to me. I will say that Paul's "always rejoicing" seems a little bit manic for me...if we are not also sometimes grieving, swearing, crying, hitting the bed with a baseball bat...it's hard to get to rejoicing. Maybe Paul didn't have time to write about that stuff in this verse.
4) Psalm 46, vs. 1-6
1 God is our refuge and strength,
an ever-present help in trouble.
2 Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way
and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea,
3 though its waters roar and foam
and the mountains quake with their surging.
4 There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God,
the holy place where the Most High dwells.
5 God is within her, she will not fall;
God will help her at break of day.
6 Nations are in uproar, kingdoms fall;
he lifts his voice, the earth melts.
Much of my favorite scripture comes to me from songs. There's a lovely, soaring tune I have in my head and these are the words:
There is a river, whose streams make glad
The City of God, the City of God
The Holy Habitation of the Most High,
The City of God, the City of God
God is in the midst of her, she shall not be moved
The Lord of Hosts is with her.
Somehow, as a little girl hearing this song, I got the idea that God was in the midst of ME. Because I was a HER. (Who says gender doesn't make a difference to how we experience scripture!) So the image in my mind is a river flowing through me, that is God. That's a powerful image to create and live in.
5) Psalm 130
1Out of the depths I have cried to You, O LORD.
2Lord, hear my voice!
Let Your ears be attentive
To the voice of my supplications.
3If You, GOD, should mark iniquities,
O God, who could stand?
4But there is forgiveness with You,
That You may be feared.
5I wait for the LORD, my soul does wait,
And in God's word do I hope.
6My soul waits for the Lord
More than the watchmen for the morning;
Indeed, more than the watchmen for the morning.
7O Israel, hope in the LORD;
For with the LORD there is loving-kindness,
And with God is abundant redemption.
8And God will redeem Israel
From all her iniquities.
(MB version)
I love this one because it is the text for "Out of the Deep" for the Rutter Requiem, which I love.
Also, because when I need to cry out of the depths...I know I am not the only one. No, no, no.
And perhaps most for the line, "My soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen for the morning, Indeed, more than watchmen for the morning."
I have a memory of weekday scripture sharing at Canterbury House with Fr. Jeff, Mary Lenn, and Shirley, when that passage jumped out at me for the first time. Watchmen (watchpersons?) have NO DOUBT that the morning will come. Just like me, as I sat at a desk below a west-facing window to type this. It was black, pitch black outside. But the morning has come, as I knew it would
I can see the reflection of the sun rising over the roof of the house next door, and when I drive to work (soon!) I will have to be very careful as I turn at the intersection of Fry and Hickory streets, where the rising sun POURS over the roofs of the Pita Pit, because you cannot.see.anything. And kids going to the University, they jump out into the road, it seems.
I know this will happen. Even if it is raining and there seems to be NO sun, it is there. And it's so good to have a baseline for life. The sun will rise every day. God will be there. In the midst of us.
