Zombies! (a special All Saints Day Reflection by Steve Orr)

I just can’t keep zombies off my mind at this time of year, Halloween and all. Even the CDC has zombies on the brain, so to speak.* Though, these days, it’s trendier to call them “the walking dead.” But, of course, they're only fictional. How else would it be? Dead people just do not get up out of their graves and walk away. 

Or do they?

 

My thoughts on the subject undergo a bit of a shift as we round the corner from Halloween (All Hallows Eve) to the next morning: All Saints Day. That’s when we think of the true resurrection. Similar to Dia de los Muertos (the Day of the Dead), All Saints Day is when we honor our loved ones who have died. 

 

This week’s All Saints Day scriptures (especially Revelation and 1 John) refer to the time when Jesus will return. That’s when the saints will gather in heaven, stand before the Throne of God, and we will “be like him.” This is “the resurrection” at which Martha believed she would one day see her dead brother Lazarus. But Jesus told her, “I am the resurrection.” Then, he raised her brother from his grave to rejoin the living—right then.

 

Throughout the New Testament, Jesus and the apostles returned dead people to life. Those previously dead people arose and walked. Perhaps the strangest resurrection episode took place during the three days Jesus was in the grave. Matthew 27:50-53 reports that immediately after Jesus died, graves opened and the “holy ones” returned to life. 

 

They arose. But they were no zombies! 

 

These folk were restored to their lives. After Jesus’ resurrection, these “holy ones” walked into Jerusalem and “appeared to many people.” It was a for-real “Dia de los [walking] Muertos”—another miracle awaiting that first Easter morning to take a stroll.

 

The power of Jesus to raise the dead is so great, it blasted out into graveyards at the moment of His death. When “the resurrection” is present, there is no waiting—people come to life!

 

And now? Now we’re just waiting for Him to return, to be present once more—when the power of “the resurrection” will raise all the dead on a day like no other.

 

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*IMAGE (and The Centers for Disease Control guide to surviving the zombie apocalypse):

https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/6023/cdc_6023_DS1.pdf?download-document-submit=Download

 

About All Saints Day here:

 https://www.cnn.com/2019/11/01/world/all-saints-day-trnd/index.html

 

More about Zombies here:

 https://www.history.com/topics/folklore/history-of-zombies

 

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SCRIPTURES FOR All SAINTS DAY

(November 1, 2023)

Find them here:

https://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu//texts.php?id=166

 

Revelation 7:9-17

Psalm 34:1-10, 22

1 John 3:1-3

Matthew 5:1-12

 

The Audience of God (a Steve Orr scripture reflection)

High up in the church’s choir loft stood a large, combined choir composed of folks from several local churches and from churches as far away as Fort Worth and Dallas, well-dressed men and women—dark suits, white shirts and ties, colorful scarves, long black dresses.

 

We, the audience, had come from all across the United States to hear this choir sing, to see Dr. James Abbington lead, to absorb gospel standards and other pieces of black sacred music, to have our souls refreshed.  

 

To the surprise of most, Dr. Abbington asked us, the audience, to become part of the show. Dr. Abbington changed the dynamic. He wanted us to sing.—Us. The audience.—I marveled at this. He seemed so certain we would just do as he said. What made him think we, the audience, would agree to this? Shouldn’t we be on the receiving end of all this?

 

But we did what he told us to do: belting out such well-known gospel greats as "Oh Happy Day," "Marching to Zion," and "Every Praise (Is to Our God)."  Song after song, we sang. I wondered if this was just a thing he liked to do, the way some rock stars like to tilt the microphone toward the audience so they can chime in on some parts. Maybe this was just his way. But then he said something that put it all in perspective: "According to Kierkegaard, in church, God is the only audience; we are all participants in the worship."

 

I had long held a similar understanding of worship, but I had never heard it said quite that way: “God is the only audience.” I guess that might be debatable. But one thing is not debatable, God is certainly the only audience that matters.

 

Moses forgot this.  

 

In this week’s Deuteronomy selection, God shows Moses the Promised Land—and then reminds Moses that he will not be entering it. 

 

All because Moses forgot just who was the most important audience. 

 

At one pivotal juncture in their journey through the wilderness, angered at the bickering Israelites, Moses struck the rock with his staff to get the water they needed. In doing so, he disobeyed God's instruction to get that water by speaking to the rock. And he paid the price. Afterword, GOD said to Moses and Aaron, “Because you didn’t trust me, didn’t treat me with holy reverence in front of the People of Israel, you two aren’t going to lead this company into the land that I am giving them” (Numbers 20:12).

 

No matter where we sit or stand in the house of meeting, when we act as though we or someone else is the audience, we forget a basic truth about worship: We are not, in fact, the audience.  

 

God is the only audience.

 

 

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When I first wrote about this in 2014, I had just attended at Baylor University an extraordinary gathering of academics committed to the study and preservation of Black Gospel Music. The concert we came to hear—and ended up participating in—was the capstone of that conference. It’s pretty much impossible to sing Gospel and not feel close to God. What a blessing that was. 

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PHOTO: Steve Orr

 

 

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I hope you can join us Friday morning for DaySpring’s Lectionary Breakfast. We meet on Zoom** and in the Function Room of Our Breakfast Place (8:00-9:00). It’s a great hour of food, fellowship, scripture, and laughter. 

 

No one will ask you to sing. 😱

 

Blessings,

Steve

 

 **Contact me for the Zoom link:

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89947678414

NOTE: Zoom allows you to mute the camera and the microphone if you don’t wish to be seen or heard.

 

SCRIPTURES FOR SUNDAY AND THE COMING WEEK

Find them here:

https://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/texts.php?id=165

 

Print them from here:

https://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/pdf//Ax_Proper25.pdf

 

Deuteronomy 34:1-12

Psalm 90:1-6, 13-17

Leviticus 19:1-2, 15-18

Psalm 1

1 Thessalonians 2:1-8

Matthew 22:34-46

Proper 25 (30) (October 29, 2023)

 

Rise in Perfect Light (a Steve Orr scripture reflection)

Though my soul may set in darkness, it will rise in perfect light. 

I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night.*

 

That’s an excerpt from a poem, which on one level is about an old astronomer who, moments from the end of his life, charges his pupil to continue to pursue "the service of our science." On another level, a not-quite-so-obvious message: the old astronomer's love of God's creation.

 

The old astronomer spent a lifetime staring into the night sky, long enough to lose his fear of the night, long enough to understand something profound. Even though he was surrounded by the night, he could live as in the day. That’s because he had learned something which could benefit us all. The night is just another piece of the day, and the only piece of the day when we can see the light of other suns.

 

The entire poem points toward something the old astronomer tells his pupil in the final line. No matter how vast that darkness, how uncharted the way, "God will mercifully guide me on my way amongst the stars."

 

Like Moses speaking with God in this week’s Exodus passage, the old astronomer understood that the journey is meaningless if God does not go with us. And, conversely, if God is with us, there is nothing to fear, not even the unknowns of the night. 

 

This week’s Isaiah selection declares: "I am GOD, the only God there is. I form light and create darkness; I make harmonies and create discords. I, GOD, do all these things." And one line from Psalm 96 sums it all up: "For all the gods of the peoples are idols, but the LORD made the heavens."

It all belongs to God: the vastness of the universe, all the unknowns, all the light of distant suns, and all the darkness. As long as we are in the presence of the Lord, none of us need be fearful of the night. We, too, will rise in perfect light. 

 

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PHOTO:

https://nasa.tumblr.com/post/150688852794/zodiac/amp

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* The Old Astronomer to His Pupil

   —Sarah Williams (English poet, 1837–1868)

 

Read the entire poem here: 

https://en.m.wikisource.org/wiki/Twilight_Hours_(1868)/The_Old_Astronomer

Listen to the audio version here: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcEctIemPHE

 

Join us Friday morning at 8:00 for DaySpring’s Lectionary Breakfast. It’s a pleasant hour on Zoom** and at Our Breakfast Place. We eat, read scripture, catch up with each other, and toss sermon ideas at the pastor. 

It's a daylight meeting so, please, no telescopes.

 

Blessings,

Steve

 

 **Contact me for the Zoom link

NOTE: Zoom allows you to mute the camera and the microphone if you don’t wish to be seen or heard.

 

SCRIPTURES FOR SUNDAY AND THE COMING WEEK

Find them here:

https://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/texts.php?id=164

 

Print them from here:

https://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/pdf//Ax_Proper24.pdf

 

Exodus 33:12-23

Psalm 99

Isaiah 45:1-7

Psalm 96:1-9, (10-13)

1 Thessalonians 1:1-10

Matthew 22:15-22

Proper 24 (29) (October 22, 2023) 

Facts Not Presently in Evidence (a Steve Orr scripture reflection)

The casual observer might have thought I was driving through a desert in southwest United States. 

They wouldn’t have been wrong. 

There were breathtaking mountain views, sculpted cliff-sides, high, jagged peaks—paved highways winding their way through the connecting valleys. All around me were signs of desert life: cacti, scrub, and juniper—dry ground and dry air.  

But—it was also a seabed. 

 

Turn back the clock 265 million years and where I was driving was far beneath the waves. I was driving on dry land and, simultaneously, the bed of the Permian Sea. It can be a bit disorienting to juggle those two thoughts.

 

This week’s scriptures are all about such things: perceptions and perspectives. I wonder if this kind of confusion might account for the behavior of God’s chosen people. God told the Israelites: I will deliver you from Pharaoh, will go before you, will provide for your needs, will drive out the peoples living in the Promised Land so you can occupy it—Plan A, if you will.

Jacob's descendants kept insisting they knew better than God—their Plan B. They kept returning to the worship of the Egyptian gods. They fought battles to take the Promised Land.  They wanted a king of their own (Exodus 32 and Psalm 106). 

 

God kept reminding them: I brought you out of Egypt; I will provide for you. God performed miracle after miracle to do it. God kept trying to keep their hearts pointed at Him. And yet, year by year, they moved further and further away. When they went into battle without God’s approval, they lost. When their king disobeyed, God replaced that king with His own choice. God's prophets kept reminding them of Plan A: Trust God for your needs, and trust God to handle your enemies.

 

God can see it all, understands fully. God asks us to trust Him when it comes to facts not presently in evidence. This week’s passages revolve around this idea of trusting God, depending on God’s promises, having faith that what God has told us is the truth (Isaiah 25). 

 

Jesus and those He sent keep pointing us back to God's Plan A: Love your enemies and pray for them, trust God with your concerns (Philippians 4). Instead of filling our minds with things like revenge, God points us to the best thoughts, the kind of thoughts we can think all day every day—if we're not busy planning the downfall of our enemies!

 

For some reason, though, we humans keep insisting there must be a Plan B—the plan we come up with that is not God's plan. Why do we do that?

 

If we’re driving through the Big Bend area of Texas, what we see are mountains, valleys, cacti, scrub brush, and desert life. But if we’re willing to allow a different perspective—to believe what we’ve been told—we can also see something from a different time: an ocean teeming with aquatic life.   

 

God has a better perspective from which to see all that is true and real, much of which we cannot perceive. And so, God asks us to trust in His plan, to believe what we’ve been told, to stop trying to live our own Plan B.

We, too, can choose to follow Plan A.

 

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PHOTO (and Info about the Permian Sea):

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/when-texas-was-bottom-sea-180953653/

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On Friday morning, we gather on Zoom** and at Our Breakfast Place for DaySpring’s Lectionary Breakfast. Join us at 8:00 for Bible, prayer, discussion, and laughter. 

Blessings,

Steve

 

 **Contact me for the Zoom link

NOTE: Zoom allows you to mute the camera and the microphone if you don’t wish to be seen or heard.

 

SCRIPTURES FOR SUNDAY AND THE COMING WEEK

Find them here:

https://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/texts.php?id=163

 

Print them from here:

https://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/pdf//Ax_Proper23.pdf

 

Exodus 32:1-14

Psalm 106:1-6, 19-23

Isaiah 25:1-9

Psalm 23

Philippians 4:1-9

Matthew 22:1-14

Proper 23 (28) (October 15, 2023)

I’ll Stand By You (a Steve Orr Lectionary reflection)

Nothing you confess could make me love you less—I’ll stand by you.

That lyric really grabbed me the very first time I heard it. Since then, I always stop and listen to Chrissie Hynde and The Pretenders sing “I'll Stand By You.” The lyrics express something my soul responds to. They speak to something deep within me.

 

Have you heard it?* 

“I’ll Stand By You” is about someone struggling with some of life’s most difficult challenges. It’s about experiencing deep sadness, suppressing anger, encountering the darkness of this world—some of it within oneself. That’s hard stuff, stuff most of us at least recognize, stuff we may even have experienced ourselves. If that were the whole song, it would be very sad, indeed. 

 

But there’s more. The lyrics pair each hard thing with a response. 

 

The song is sung by a person who loves the one facing all those problems. The singer’s responses? When you’re sad, don’t be ashamed to cry. Let me into your sadness with you. When you’re angry, don’t hold it all inside. Come talk to me about it: I get angry, too. And when that darkness falls on you? I’m not afraid to go into your darkest place. And, most important, I will stay in there with you. I will never desert you. 

 

Over and over, the singer declares: No matter what you suffer, no matter what you’ve done, “Nothing you confess could make me love you less. I’ll stand by you.” If that sounds to you like loving your neighbor the way Jesus taught, I think you’re getting to the heart of the matter.

 

This week's Exodus passage is, on one level, all about the Ten Commandments. But you can’t rightly divide those few verses from the entire story of God’s involvement with the Children of Israel. Until the time of Jesus, most viewed God’s commandments as restrictions—a long, long list of “don'ts.” But when we view them through the lens of Jesus defining the greatest commandments, we see that all of them are, one way or the other, about love: loving God and loving our neighbors.

 

Something happened when I first heard that song. I immediately knew two things. First, I was not that kind of person. Second, I very much wanted to become that kind of person. Kurt Kaiser, one of the cornerstones of modern Christian music, once told me: “You can live your entire life by a wonderful lyric.” I took that to heart and decided to make “I’ll Stand By You” my wonderful lyric to live by.

 

Can I do that? It comes down to whether I can love God, willingly receive love from God, and then love others with the love poured into me by God. That’s been and will likely continue to be a challenge. But, while I’m growing in that direction, there is one thing I can do: If you need me, I’ll stand by you. 

 

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IMAGE: Adobe Express

* Chrissie Hynde and The Pretenders sing “I’ll Stand By You” (video with lyrics):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ca5WJ8zWVTs

 

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Friday morning is DaySpring’s Lectionary Breakfast! Join us at 8:00 for an amazing hour of scripture, fellowship, prayer, and food. We're still on Zoom** and in person at Our Breakfast Place. 

 

The food costs, but the laughter is free.

 

Blessings,

Steve

 

 **Contact me for the Zoom link

NOTE: Zoom allows you to mute the camera and the microphone if you don’t wish to be seen or heard.

 

SCRIPTURES FOR SUNDAY AND THE COMING WEEK

 

Find them here:

https://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/texts.php?id=162

 

Print them from here:

https://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/pdf//Ax_Proper22.pdf

 

Exodus 20:1-4, 7-9, 12-20

Psalm 19

Isaiah 5:1-7

Psalm 80:7-15

Philippians 3:4b-14

Matthew 21:33-46

Proper 22 (27) (October 8, 2023)