Queerying 19th after Pentecost C

Suzannah Porter and Brooke McLain musically queery the RCL readings.

How does dealing with the past help to move into the future?

How can scripture strengthen against injustice?

How does proof-texting justify harm?

How do you persist for justice?  How does justice persist against you?

-----

Pace Warfield-May queeries the Tanakh reading.

Tanakh: Jeremiah 31:27-34
²⁷The days are surely coming, says the Becoming One, when I will plant seeds of humans and animals in the two houses of my people, the houses of Israel and Judah.

²⁸And just as I've tended over them to pluck, break down, overthrow, destroy, and bring evil, so I will continue to tend over them to build up and to plant, says the Becoming One.

²⁹In those days there will no longer be the saying, "The apple doesn't fall far from the tree, or the children must have the bad karma of their parents" ³⁰Rather, all shall die for their own harm, the bad apples will remain in the rotten tree that sprouted them."

³¹ The days are surely coming, says the Becoming One, when I will make a new covenant, a new unbreakable promise, with the houses of Israel and Judah. ³²It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I, like a gentle lover, held them by their hand to guide them out of the land of Egypt--a promise that they broke, though I was and remain their committed partner, says the Becoming One. ³³But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Becoming One: I will write my law within them, bind it to their DNA, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be God, their beloved, and they shall be my people, my beloveds. ³⁴No longer shall they have to teach one another, or say to each other, "Know the Becoming One" for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Becoming One; for I will wipe away the barriers that separate them, and remember their harm no more."'

Queeries for the text:
What is the context for this passage?
What is karma?
What would this day to come look like?
What else is written in our DNA?
How does one cheat on God?
What does it mean for God to be your beloved partner?
What barriers separate us from one another?

-----

Rev. Emily E. Ewing queeries the Gospel reading.

Gospel: Luke 18:1-8
Then Jesus told his chosen family a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart. ²He said, “In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor had respect for people. ³In that city there was a widow who kept coming to the judge and saying, ‘Avenge me against my adversary.’ ⁴For a while he refused; but later the judge said to himself, ‘Though I have no fear of God and no respect for anyone, ⁵yet because this widow keeps coming at me, I will avenge her, so that she may not wear me out by continually coming.’” ⁶And the Leader said, “Listen to what the corrupt judge says. ⁷And will not God avenge her favorites who cry to her day and night? Will she delay long in having patience with them? ⁸I tell you, she will quickly grant justice to them. And yet, when the Human One comes, will they find faith on earth?”

Queeries for the text:
What did we skip?
Whose heart is being lost?
What do judges do?
Who neither fears God nor respects people?
Who annoys the powerful?
What happens when you continually come?
What is justice? Who cries to whom for justice? 

What are your queeries?



 

Queerying Advent 2C

River Needham, MA ThM queeries the Tanakh reading.

Tanakh: Malachi 3:1-4
Behold, I am sending My messenger to clear the way before Me, and the Becoming One whom you seek shall come to Her Temple suddenly. As for the angel of the covenant that you desire, they are already coming. But who can endure the day of Her coming, and who can hold out when She appears? For She is like a smelter’s fire and like fuller’s lye. She shall act like a smelter and purger of silver; and she shall purify the descendants of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, so that they shall present offerings in righteousness. Then the offerings of Judah and Jerusalem shall be pleasing to the Becoming One as in the days of yore and in the years of old.

Queeries for the text:
What is in the way?
How will she come to her temple?
Which angel came?
What is lye?
What sacrifices are available?

-----

Rev. Emily E. Ewing queeries the Gospel reading.

Gospel: Luke 3:1-6
In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee, and his brother Philip ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias ruler of Abilene, ²during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Elizabeth and Zechariah in the wilderness.

³John went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, ⁴as it is written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah, “The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Becoming One, make Her paths straight. ⁵Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth; ⁶and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.’”

Queeries for the text:
Where are these places?
How do we situate faith in its historical context?
Who are Elizabeth and Zechariah?
What region is around the Jordan?
Where is it written in Isaiah?
Why should anything be made straight?
How is God invested in accessibility?
What is salvation for flesh?

What are your queeries?

Queerying 15th after Pentecost C

Periodic queerier, River Needham, queeries the Tanakh reading.

Tanakh: Jeremiah 8:18-8:23(9:1)

When in grief I would seek comfort, my heart is sick within me.

“Is not the Becoming One in Zion? Is not her Majesty within her?
 Why then did they anger me with their images, with alien futilities?”

Hark! The outcry of my poor people from the land far and wide:

“Harvest is past, summer is gone, and we have not been saved.”

Because my people are shattered I am shattered;
I am dejected, seized by desolation.
Is there no balm in Gilead?

Can no physician be found?

Why has healing not yet come to my poor people?

Oh, that my head were water, my eyes a fount of tears! Then would I weep day and night for the slain of my poor people.

Queeries for the text:
What do we grieve?
How do we find comfort?
What makes our heart sick?
What is Zion?
What do we need to be saved from? Who will save us?
How are people shattered?
Where does Gilead show up?
Who are the slain of my poor people?

-----

Rev. Emily E. Ewing queeries the Gospel reading.

Gospel: Luke16:1-13

Then Jesus said to the disciples,

“There was a rich man who had a manager,

and charges were brought to him

that the manager was squandering his property.

²So the rich man summoned her and said to her,

‘What is this that I hear about you?
Give me an accounting of your management,

because you cannot be my manager any longer.’

³Then the manager said to herself,

‘What will I do, now that my master is taking the position away from me?

I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg.

⁴I have decided what to do so that,

when I am dismissed as manager,

people may welcome me into their homes.’

⁵So, summoning her master’s debtors one by one, she asked the first,

‘How much do you owe my master?’

⁶Ze answered,

‘A hundred jugs of olive oil.’

She said to zim,

‘Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it fifty.’

⁷Then she asked another,

‘And how much do you owe?’

Fae replied,

‘A hundred containers of wheat.’

She said to faer,

‘Take your bill and make it eighty.’

⁸And her master commended the dishonest manager

because she had acted shrewdly;

for the children of this age are more shrewd

in dealing with their own generation

than are the children of light.

⁹And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth

so that when it is gone, they may welcome you into the everlasting homes.

¹⁰“Whoever is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much;

and whoever is dishonest in a very little is dishonest also in much.

¹¹If then you have not been faithful with the dishonest wealth,

who will entrust to you the true riches?

¹²And if you have not been faithful with what belongs to another,

who will give you what is your own?

¹³No slave can serve two masters;

for a slave will either hate the one and love the other,
or be devoted to the one and despise the other.

You cannot serve God and wealth.”

Queeries for the text:
What did we skip?
How does gender change how we read this?
What kind of manager was this?
How is divide and conquer at work?
How does this manager resist the divide and conquer mentality?
How big is the difference between what is owed and what was borrowed?
What does it mean to act shrew(d)ly?
How does Jesus evaluate and value wealth?
What master do I serve?

What are your queeries?