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THE MESSENGER |
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Pastoral Reflections by Pastor Becky Hebert |
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Summer comes and goes too quickly! I hope yours has been as big a blessing as mine. And I still have one get away awaiting me. I will be leaving to visit with my youngest daughter, Rachel, and her husband, Hayan on August 7 and returning on August 12. They live in Houston, TX. All my vacation time has been time spent with family this year, which certainly is one of the reasons my time off has felt like such a blessing and even a curse in its true meaning. In Biblical Interpretation class, we have been looking at the passage in Mark that deals with Jesus cursing a fig tree. So cursing and blessing thoughts have been on my mind this summer. “Jesus comes to a fig tree in leaf, he went to see whether perhaps he would find anything on it. When he came to it, he found nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for figs.” Mk. 11:13 Hence Jesus curses the fig tree saying, in verse 14, “May no one ever eat fruit from you again.” Later, when Jesus and His disciples are walking past the tree again they saw the fig tree withered away to its roots. Then Peter remembered and said to Jesus, “Rabbi, look! The fig that you cursed has withered.” Mk 11: 20-21. Most of us wonder why Jesus would curse a tree that does not have fruit on it because it is not the season for figs. Our lack of understanding stems from an understanding of a curse that differs from biblical understandings. We think of a curse as wishing harm or destruction on someone. When Jesus says it was not the season, He means it was not the season for ripeness. The fig tree is in a season of “unripeness,” in Aramaic, bish. Bish is the Aramaic word translated as evil in the Lord’s Prayer. Bisha means evil or error |
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but in the sense of “unripeness”—meaning that in us, the church, the world that is not ripened, ready; mature, that which delays or diverts us from advancing more fully into God’s heaven on earth. So if you curse someone, you are wishing that the “unripeness,” the evil, that which is holding them back is withered up. Cursing usually carries with it a state of unhappiness because ridding ourselves of “unripeness” is painful work. While blessings bring happiness, alignment, and health for it magnifies that which is ripe in us. For instance, Neil Douglas-Klotz, a scholar of the Aramaic language, says of the first Beatitude, “Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” The Aramaic word meskenaee (poor) encompasses the images of a solid home base or resting point, of a fluid, round, luminous enclosure, and of devotedly holding fast to something—as if one were “poor” for lack of it.”1 So when I tell you my summer has been a big blessing, I am telling you that I found a resting place, a place to be rejuvenated, and that I was ripe enough to know I needed it. And there I was blessed with ridding myself of the toxins that were weighing in and enabled to hold fast to that which is rich and ripe, that which is the kingdom of heaven within and without. Therefore my hope for you is that you have had a blessed summer. That you have been happy and aligned with the One who can take you into the inner kingdom and queendom of heaven. And that there, you were cursed with ridding yourself of “unripeness.” Blessings and Cursings, Pastor Becky |
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St. John's Chapel United Church of Christ
4344 S. Fremont Avenue Springfield, MO 65804-7306
(417) 881-5175 fax (417) 881-1647
www.stjohnschapel.org pastor@stjohnschapel.org sec@stjohnschapel.org
Sunday School—9 am Worship - 10:30 am
Pastor Rev. Becky Hebert
Pastor Emeritus Rev. Robert M. Dohm
Council President Tona Griggs
Vice President Linda Marshak
Board of Christian Education Chair Joyce Burton
Board of Service Ministries Chair Elaine Tebbenkamp
Our Mission Statement:
St. John’s Chapel UCC is called to love unconditionally, seek justice, foster spiritual growth, and embrace diversity of thought and body as taught by Jesus Christ. |
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1Neil Douglas-Klotz, Prayers of the Cosmos, p.48. |