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Pulpit Fiction Podcast


Dec 9, 2013

SHOW NOTES -  12/15/2013


Opening Music: 12 Days by Straight No Chaser

For Sunday, December 15
Episode 41
Welcome to the Pulpit Fiction Podcast.  This is the podcast for those that looked up Ezekiel 25:17, and were sorely disappointed. This is episode 41 for Sunday December 15, Advent 3A. We will be discussing: 
Matthew 11:2-11 - Are you the One?
Isaiah 35:1-10 - The Highway in the Wilderness

Check-in

Primary Scripture - Matthew 11:2-11 - Are you the One?

  • Confusion between Jesus and John the Baptist
    • Matthew 16:13-20
    • No Newspapers or media
    • Proclamation of repentance and new life to all people
    • Sadducees, Pharisees, Zealots, Essenes, poor carpenters.
  • Who is the One we are to follow?
    • Powerful - nope
    • Strong - nope
    • big words- no
    • isolating - no
    • actions that speak for themselves- yes
    • compassionate - yes
    • healing - yes
    • reconciling - yes
    • liberating - yes
  • Jesus proclaims himself as the one to be waited for
    • John is not needed to proclaim anymore- just to follow the One
    • Clear allusion to Isaiah 61 (the passage also quoted in Luke 4)
    • The blind see, the deaf hear, the poor have good news...but children are still being massacred in their schools- we aren’t there yet
  • John the Baptist might be happy for the lepers, lame, deaf and blind, but he is still in prison- where is his good news?
  • Even the greatest on Earth are less than the Least of Heaven
    • Powerful message to celebrity preachers

Secondary scripture - Isaiah 35:1-10 - The Highway in the Wilderness

  • “Bridge between First and Second Isaiah” (Frank Yamada in Working Preacher).
    • Possibly same author as Second Isaiah, but not easy to figure out.  Christopher Seitz’s commentary in Interpretation: Isaiah deals almost exclusively with these issues.
    • Comes after a string of dire warnings of the nations falling (like Edom in ch 34. Edom lies southeast of Judah and the Dead Sea.)
    • Points to the vision in 40:3 “Make level a highway in the wilderness for our God…”
  • Two Parts 
    • vv 1-7: “Coming of the God” includes chiasm.
      • Creation - Humanity - God - Humanity - Creation
        • a (vv 1-2) Transforming the desert and wilderness
        • b (v 3) Transforming weak bodies
        • c (v 4) God comes.
        • b’ (vv 5-6a) Transforming weak bodies
        • c’ (vv 6b-7) Transforming the desert and wilderness (Brueggemann detailed this chiasm, but most interpreters see it as a focal point of this passage.  Texts for Preaching, Year A)
      • At the center of the chiasm is “God who saves”
        • “With a vengeance and divine retribution”
          • Allow it to be God’s vengeance and Divine retribution, not ours.  In other words, we don’t know what that looks like.  In our limited, sinful mind, we almost automatically go to violence, but it is not left up to us to decide what this means.  What we do know is that the weak and vulnerable are saved.
        • “this text helps us understand what it means to "be saved" in the Bible-not at all something that pertains only to individual souls, but rather a transformation of humanity and creation that enables all to sing together in present and eternal joy.” (Fred Gaiser in Working Preacher)
    • vv 8-10 “Return of the People”
      • There is no salvation apart from the community
      • Individual salvation is not a concept that Isaiah understands.
      • Path is safe
        • Even for fools
        • No predators
      • “The Holy Way”
        • Early Christians called followers of the Way.
        • Will we walk the Holy Way?
        • Will we notice the great things that are happening in our midst?
          • Can we see?
          • Can we hear?
          • Can we leap?
          • Can we sing?

Closing - 
TY: listeners
Opening Music: 12 Days by Straight No Chaser
Transition Music: “Purple Rain”  covered by Dekoor Close Harmony
Theme Music: Dick Dale and the Deltones “Misirlou”
TY: Closing music, Paul and Storm, “Oh No”

Contact us/ Leave comments: 
Shout outs:  Leanne Finamore, Jenee Woodard, Andrew Karrmonn @andrewkarrmonn 
Pulpitfiction.us, @pulpitfpodcast, facebook.com/pulpitfictioniTunes,
show@pulpitfiction.us.