Category Archives: Monday Morning Exegete

Please pass the voodoo chicken

Posted on by Sare

Alrighty folks.  This one came from this week’s Exegete.

Appropriate music to listen in the background: True Blood Sountrack, London Calling, or the Tallis Scholars.

Appropriate accent to affect in head while reading: Generic Southern.

This, on St. Paul’s commentary to the church at Corinth, concerning whether or not to eat meat sacrificed to other gods… (1 Corinthians 8:1-13)

Once upon a time there was a Voodoo Chicken.  It was known as Voodoo Chicken because it was used in a vaudun ritual, but you know, it was also marinated afterwards in the most mouthwatering fashion.  And you know, a dinner party is a dinner party.  You can’t fault your host for their odd taste in religious piety when they serve mouthwateringly good roasted chicken.  Some of us like to say a little, unobtrusive blessing over our food, but to each their own, right?  And since we all know (in our separate religions) that ours is the only right one, there’s no harm in letting other people attempt to invoke a god that doesn’t actually exist, so live and let live. And pass the chicken.

This is all well and good when you’re surrounded by people who are firm in their faith, whatever that faith may be.  The Vauduns know that eating the Voodoo Chicken will bring them closer to fine, and the Christians know that the Vauduns really know how to roast a chicken or twelve, and that their own understanding of God requires neither chicken nor lack of chicken for Divine Union.

However, it all goes to hell in a hand basket but quick when you’ve got newbies in your midst.  Newbies get a little rabid, you know, and they’re really clear about wanting to get things Perfectly Correct and Appropriate.  It really hits the fan when your newbie is their oldie.  Then you’ve got someone looking at your enjoyment of the damn chicken (whose not actually damned, just damned inconvenient) and their knee jerk reaction is that you’re getting a little closer to fine, when it’s really just the seasonings.  Now, these newbies know it’s not Divine Union, because our God doesn’t go in for Chicken.  This is about the time that the confusion and resentment sets in.  Perhaps there’s even some serious doubt about the bigger things of life – they are newbies, remember.

So, you know. Practice discretion.  Not because there’s anything wrong with the Om Nommy goodness of the Vaudun’s chicken dinners, but because in the long run, is your gastronomical satisfaction really worth causing that much angst amongst the newbies? Give the Voodoo Chicken a pass while they’re in the room, for heaven’s sake.   You can always have some next week.

What if the USA were a truly Christian nation?

Posted on by Sare

This isn’t a rhetorical question, nor is it a desire for the USA to become a one-religion state.  That’s just silly talk.  But I hear a lot of discourse, and most of it conservative, and it bemoans and bewails the fact that the USA was supposed to be a Christian nation (one nation under God, etc, etc), and now they’re not letting us pray in schools or display the 10 commandments in the courthouse.  Intentions of the founding fathers aside for a moment (you might be amused to hear about Jefferson’s personal theology, not to mention his reader’s digest version of the bible, but that’s another blogpost for another day), I’d like to posit an interesting juxtaposition for your consideration, care of the calendar and the makers of the Revised Common Lectionary. Continue reading →

Issue-by-Issue

Posted on by Sare

It was pointed out to me by one of my CREDO-mates that an issue-by-issue sort of thing for the Monday Morning Exegete might go well.  You know, for people who really like it, but won’t use it every single week.  All you periodic preachers out there are thusly served: The Exegete can now be ordered/delivered on a periodic basis.  So, come and get your exegesis, hot off the presses.  Let me know which weeks you want, and at the end of the month you’ll get an invoice for only the ones you’ve requested.  If you’ve got my email address, of course you can simply shoot me a request for whichever dates you need.  Alternately, you can check out this nifty page with the even niftier form and fill it out as often as you need to.

Et voila!  Exegesis when  you need it, and not when you don’t.

Monday Morning Exegete Cover Art

Posted on by Sare

You know, not only is the Monday Morning Exegete dead useful and chockful of research and insight, it’s also awfully pretty.  After doing it for a month, I’m no less excited every Monday when I sit down and roll up my sleeves.  Go figure–I might be a church geek.  Anyway, I wanted to share some of the pretty with you.

Issue 1, Volume 1The Monday Morning Exegete Presents 8th Sunday of Epiphany, Cover

This was my first effort as a monday morning exegete and was for the penultimate Sunday of Epiphany.  This first time it took me an entire week to produce, but now that I’ve got the kinks out of the system I can do it in one very full day.

One of the main themes of this issue was taken from the portion of Isaiah assigned to that Sunday, “See, I have you inscribed on the palms of my hands,” God says of his people, and he said this by way of saying that he would never, not ever, not slightly or even a little bit forget us.  God with his love tattooed, or if you prefer, etched, on his hands… that’s kind of a compelling image, don’t you think?  And so I found pictures – a woman with Henna on her fingers to make her hands more beautiful, someone with ‘Sweden Forever’ tattooed on their arm to proclaim a lifelong devotion, and Boston’s Holocaust Memorial which includes among other things, the following: “My number is 174517.  I will carry the tattoo on my left arm until I die.”  Tattoos… clearly they are used for all sorts of different things.

The wordstudy of this issue is ‘oligopistos’, meaning ‘of little faith’ in Greek.  I chose this word because the collect (prayer) for the day directly connects fear with faithlessness: “Protect us from faithless fears and worldly anxieties…” Isaiah is all about God’s refusal to forget us, the Psalm is about resting in God, the Epistle about being in this deep and trustworthy relationship with God, and the Gospel is about choosing God or choosing worldly fears and wealth which seems to hinge on faith, or lack thereof.  Curious?

Continue reading →

The Monday Morning Exegete

Posted on by Sare

So, what is all of this exegetical nonsense, anyway?  If you’ve been following along on Twitter and you’re not a #chuchgeek yourself, it’s probably just a word your eyes have glossed over.  Or, if you’re my sister Rose, it’s a word you’ve gone and looked up.  (Bless her heart, she’s very supportive of me.)

The Monday Morning Exegete Presents: Lent 3

So, exegesis is an in depth study and interpretation of a text, especially the bible.  An exegete is one who does exegesis.  When I started this weekly endeavor–me spending all day on Monday doing exegesis on the following Sunday’s readings and then making it super duper pretty and sending it out to people who have a paid subscription–I was chatting with my friend and colleague Phil.  He pointed out that I had an unfair advantage in the production of such a thing, as I went to a seminary that actually required of its students not one exegesis, but many.  (And oh, how we bitched.  But we did it anyway.)  It’s true.  My seminary, Virginia Theological Seminary, has many faults ::cough::liturgy::cough:: but let me tell you, biblical studies isn’t one of them.

So, I’m doing this thing.  I’m calling it The Monday Morning Exegete, for perhaps some obvious reasons.  It’s for normal people who find the Bible scary, daunting, out of date, or just plain confusing.  It’s for parishes who want reasonably researched and insightful blurbs for their weekly newsletters.  It’s for preachers who have never preached on this passage before, or who have already preached on it four times.  It’s a jumping off point for conversation groups–the ones at the coffee shop, or the ones in your head.

It’s $20/month, but if you’re interested, drop me a line and I’ll set you up for a month for free and you can check it out yourself.  And just because I love you, and I’m not above shameless self-promotion, here’s this week’s Monday Morning Exegete.