🐮 Lent 5
Readings: Isaiah 43:16-21; Psalm 126; Philippians 3:4b-14; John 12:1-8.
From the TRNG Room:
Reflection
Hello and welcome to First Formation. This is Brother Logan Isaac broadcasting from Albany, Oregon. This is the recording for Lent five, or the fifth week, or the fifth Sunday in Lent. I'm not recording it at the right time, but I will upload it according to its timestamp. The readings for the fifth Sunday and lent, um, in the.
Oh man. Are we in Luke John? I don't know. Um, are Isaiah 43? Psalm 1 26. Philippians three, and John 12. And as I'm recording this in, well May of 2025, um, the first thing that STA stands out to me, Isaiah 43 16, thus says the Lord, who makes a way in the sea a path in the mighty waters. I've been doing some word studies in Isaiah, specifically Isaiah 61, in Isaiah nine, and Isaiah nine is where Matthew claims Jesus quotes from in his inaugural sermon.
And you can see that in the training room. I'll put a link in the show notes. Um, but Isaiah nine, the English is, you know, it's something like, let me pull it up. But there was no gloom for her that was in anguish in the former time he brought into contempt the land of Zebulon and the Na land of Naftali.
These, the two Norbert Northern tribes who serve as the nominal. Kind of identity for the Northern Tribes and the Northern Kingdom of Israel. Zebulon and Naftali, their longest history, their oldest history can be found in Judges four and five. There were the combat clans that came to the aid of Deborah Barack and ultimately Ja Ale.
And you can read about, I'm not gonna. Put it all in there. But, um, this was the day of Midian where they survive, they win. And it's this, uh, victory song in judges five. And so, Zebulon and Naftali are the northern areas, the the disgraced commando clans who are carried away by the Assyrians before the royal, um, area of Judah and Benjamin.
Um, and the Levitical cities therein ultimately later fell to Babylon. But Zebulon, Naftali are kind of like saying the Samaritans, they're us, but they're no longer like us. That's why in Isaiah nine, they're referred to as the land beyond the Jordan Galilee of the nations. And that's gal Haum. Gal is the military district, and Haum means non-Jew.
So Isaiah nine, whoever's writing this, the the point of. The language is to say the northern tribes are no longer a part of Israel. Um, they are in contempt. They're living in darkness. On, um, the glorious way of the sea or just the way of the sea. And in Greek, the oldest manuscripts we have, the step two again, um, there's this phrase that jumped out at me, which is Hodo Tosa the Way of the Sea.
And this also comes up in Isaiah 43, Hodo and Theasa. Um, the, A way in the sea, a path in the mighty waters. And remember, waters in Genesis are chaotic. We don't know what happened. You know, we're scared, you know, big waves, strong winds, ooh. Um, and the land on the other hand is order and justice and peace in the sea.
You don't know what's gonna happen. Um, but on land you have a little bit more control. Uh, we aren't airborne creatures, so we are stuck either on the surface of the planet or the surface of water liquid, um, that we find in the sea. And I wasn't at, I like. This may feel like a minor thing. Um, but to me, the, the land eon Naftali, the poor of our community, the outcasts of our own community are what the Hebrew scriptures have always been pointing us to.
If we want salvation, go to the poor. I mean, it's, it's that simple. Luke makes it that simple. Blessed are those who are poor. And then Matthew comes along. Who is much more aligned with the Hebraic elements, or I'll, I'll say the Judaizing elements, um, to use Saul's language. And they say, well, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
But, and it's to, it's, uh, a pendulum. Matthew is responding to Luke in saying, yeah, that's true, they're poor, but also like the poor in spirit, like even the rich can be poor. And that's true. But it's most true to say that the poor are blessed because they haven't come to expect any more than what they absolutely need.
They only ask for the things that will get them what they need. If you've ever had someone. Stop and ask you for money for a bus ticket. They're not using it for a bus ticket. They're using it for food. They're using it for something else that will, um, satisfy an appetite that they haven't met, and that appetite might be for food, water, shelter, clothing.
I. But the appetite might also be for an addiction, kind of this false appetite that we create in ourselves. Um, and the readings go on to talk about Psalm 1 26 and remember this, you know, the very end of Lent before we reach Holy Week and Easter when we still don't know, you know, what's at the end of, um.
Easter week, we haven't even seen Holy week. We haven't even lifted our spirits to cry. Hosanna as this wannabe military savior is paraded up the temple mount to the temple grounds. Um, I. And in Saul's letter to the Philippians, the, the Christians in Philippi and military community, um, he boasts in carnality.
I'm confident in the flesh. If you want to throw down, if you need a dick measuring contest and if you are a believer in the Christ as a lot of, um, pseudo foreigners were, um, the only military units in Judea, uh, well, I'll say. In Judea, we're either at the capitol with, at cima, which Jesus never visits or in Jerusalem, and Jerusalem is dark skinned.
Um, Syrian recruited auxiliary forces, which were not, you know, light skinned, Italian born, quote unquote, um, Romans. They weren't legionaries. These are auxiliary. And so they would have, and many of them. Stood outside the, the local shrines also called synagogues and did a lot of stuff, but they didn't get circumcised.
That was a little bridge too far for a lot of people. Um, but I. The soldiers often were, would wanted to believe, but they couldn't bring themselves to mark it on their flesh and not just any flesh, their penis. Um, and Jesus comes along and Saul backs 'em up saying, look, it's not about circumcision of the flesh, it's about circumcision of the heart.
If you think that you can only be a Jew if you're circumcised, that means women aren't Jews. And that, of course is ridiculous. What the point is, what circumcision is pointing to is not about doing things. It's about being a certain way that allowing this belief system and the justification system, the whole legal imagination of the Hebraic scriptures, is not about the law.
The law serves a different purpose. The law serves to keep us within the boundaries of right living with one another. And so, um, to these very carnal, you know, military families, he says, oh, you wanna, you wanna talk about who's cooler than cool? I mean, I've done it all. I, you know, you think Romans persecuted Christians.
I did it myself. Um. It's important to point out that the powerful must come to the perspective and the position of the powerless. The powerless are not in any obligation to go to the powerful. I mean, I, you can, you can argue against that, like that's fine, but like, that's just where I'm at. Um, if you have less power, you have less responsibility.
If you have more power, you have more responsibility. And if you want a just society, those with more power must engage in the action to bring themselves closer to those without power. That is what God does in Christ God the most powerful, the thing which we. Cannot name, but to call it a God with a big G.
You know, LLL Yan the highest, God, the highest power. That ll Yan, Elohim, Yahweh, they come to the lowest position I. They come to that, the, the runner at the back of the, the, the team, uh, formation and morning pt and say, here, I'm gonna pick you up and we're gonna run together in the front and nobody's gonna go any faster than you can go.
That's what salvation looks like. We were born, we were made to be together with other creatures of the earth. And those who are faster have an obligation to slow themselves the fuck down so that the slowest doesn't get left behind. Um, and that's why in the last reading in John, um. What Judas does wrong is not to think that the poor should have something, but he reduces that relationship, that action to currency instead of your labor doing that.
Your money does it for you. Well, money is a way to. Grease the wheels of success because if you are a usr, if you lend money at interest, or if you take more taxes than you are supposed to from Rome, which is what the tax collectors were doing, you are greasing the wheels. You are taking more than you deserved.
You are taking more than you need, and you are directly affecting the lives of those who are less fortunate than you. So Judas sin is not to say the poor deserve to have nice things. That's not the problem. Judas sin, his mistake is to think that money is our salvation. Why don't we reduce our work to a universal currency?
Do away with representation that money equals work, which is what a rich, capitalistic society wants us to do. Hey, Jeff Bezos and. Elon Musk, they worked just as hard as the rest of this, as as the rest of us bullshit. They do not work as hard as the rest of us. If you don't believe me, invite them to your house and have them show you their hands.
If you don't have hands, crap cracked from working at the dirt, or you know a bad back from sitting all day in front of a computer, I'm sorry. You don't work as hard as the rest of us. You want work to mean something other than what it clearly means. And this is what Judas does. He says, instead of nice things right now for us, the poor, the outcast, which is what Jesus collected around him.
Let's buy our way to goodness. Let's buy our way to justice. I. And that is a fundamental flaw in human imagination, that we can take a thing like work and reduce it to its symbol, which is currency. We have to assume, and we have to remember that a thing is a thing that work really means work, and that good things are only good when you put the work into produce them.
Right, that is reimagining and, um, fulfilling or, um, redeeming the curse from the ground in Genesis, which is that, oh, we're going to toil in order to get the things we want. And Eden, we didn't have to work, but we're not in Eden. Eden was perfect and free. And just the world we live in has forgotten that the world we live in has put out thorns and thistles and we have to deal with that 'cause that's real.
Um, and so the whole reading from Lent five today, um, is a reminder as the whole Bible is to not forget who's and who we are to not forget that work is work and fruit is fruit. And if we want to. Eat. We have to work. That's why James says, you know, if anybody doesn't wanna work, don't let 'em eat. It's kind of, it's kind of simple, really.
Um, but it is deep. And if we want to keep it simple, we'll forget. We'll put the symbols before the things and we'll say that, you know. That. And if when we do that, we can just make up things that don't mean anything. Like the Sadducees are more righteous than the Pharisees, there's their name. But anyway, um, that is the, the reading and the reflection for Lent five.
I'm sorry I did not get these out in a timely manner, but I will be catching up. And so watch this feed for a couple of Catchup podcasts that you can listen to. Um, and time travel. Remember what Lent was and Holy Week was, and I will catch up and then I'll get back into my re regular rhythm.
