Stuff Michael Meeks is doing

Up with the baby; packed stuff, off to Rachel's for breakfast, and onto Cambray baptist church. A reasonable sermon by Pasta Smuts, back to Tim's via a handy sandwich shop; bid thanks & fare-well, and drove home; tired.
Attacked the plumbing - pipe clips on skirting, floor, wall, more lengths cut - some bending misadventures before the secret of nice 90degree bends began to dawn on me.
Listened to a pleasant Gordon sermon A holy kiss on on 1 Cor 16:19-24.
- Don't get over excited by literary conventions, if a girl writes, Yours faithfully - not necessarily yours. Thus we have to understand the norm to grasp the ending of 1 Cor.
- Hammering home the point - do everything in love - writing to a divided and factionalized church.
- The convention in Paul's day - Graeco-Roman letters for a span of 400 years around here, frozen in literary conventions; thousands of examples very similar. Either abrupt endings, or greetings from loved ones with the author, directed to loved ones with the recipients - typically family members or very close friends. Also, often a personal thing - since many letters written by scribes - like a signature. Close - wishing health / well-being etc. fare-well.
- The churches in the province of Asia send you greetings - used to a life-long friend or two; Paul has a huge family of God in mind; and at the time was in Ephesus the hub of the province of Asia.
- Aquilla and Priscilla greet you warmly in the Lord - they came from Corinth with Paul to Ephesus - in the literary mould - but warm and deep; and so does the church that meets in their house - a 'Church' is not a building but people in relationship with Jesus.
- Re-inforcing the points he's made over and over again - he insists that Christians recognise they belong to a world-wide fellowship; I believe in the holy catholic church - catholic in it's true sense: true/universal.
- I Paul write this greeting in my own hand similarly in other letters.
- Going on, he deviates from the prosper/fare- well/good-luck formula The grace of the Lord Jesus be to you: grace - Gods Riches At Christ's Expense.
- Lots of sten rebukes / painful corrections in 1 Cor. the last word is: My love to all of you in Christ Jesus - ends with love, the motivation for it all.
- So - the two problems:
  - Too little love ? If anyone does not love the Lord - a curse be on him. Come O Lord - seems strange. cf. 1 Cor. 4 When we are cursed we bless. Paul, James condemn cursing. Translation problem: the word is anathema - talking about people who call themselves Christians but do not love Christ - as earlier in the letter.
  - Too much love ? Greet one another with a holy kiss - plain Greek; the history of interpretation of this text is amazing.
    - C 2nd: Justin Martyr a ritualized act - part of the official liturgy between prayer and the Lord's supper. The passage no-where suggests ritualisation.
    - C 3rd: segregate the sexes for kissing.
    - C 4th: segregate the clergy from leity kissing each other.
    - Later - got rid of the facial kiss - kissing the hand.
    - C 13th - moving to objects - minister would kiss a tablet and they would pass it around the pews.
    - The Armenian church - just bowing instead.
    - Nowadays - kissing was perhaps a peace sign - shaking hands often used instead.
  - Kissing is not and was not normal behavior for people who are not family members / in love. 5 times in the new testament people are told to kiss each other. In our text 2nd Cor 13:12, Rom 16:16, 1 Thes 5:5, 1 Peter 5:14 Greet one another with a kiss of love.
  - Keeps saying a Holy kiss - Tertulian: very hard for women whose husbands had not converted; church talking about love and kissing each other - rumours about orgies - the world's gutter minds; can not concieve of love without carnality.
  - Christians are for committed relationships with people, of the same sex even; where women and men love each other and are, affectionate. The world hears love and thinks sex.
  - The bible gives lots of examples of kissing - almost all in the context of family: never just casual or meaningless / prefunctory. Judas betrayed Jesus with a kiss - it's possible to be manipulative / hypocritical with this.
  - Jacob kisses his grandsons - and embraced them on his death-bed. Joseph kisses Jacob as he dies. Kissing after reconcilliation, Jacob/Esau - brothers wanting to kill the other; Easu ran to him and kissed him, wept. The parable of the prodigal son - his Father saw him and was filled with compassion ... ran to him, threw his arms around him and kissed him.
  - The world needs more such love, dying for touch, community and fellowship that's palpable. Dr Rene Spitz 20 years ago wrote about orphanages, where little children: well fed, cared for, were dying regularly from an unknown wasting disease (marasmus). Dr Henry Chapin discovered that the children needed to be held - so they would hire other people - who would hold the babies, stroke them etc. Death from the wasting disease dropped to almost zero.
  - Touch deprevation; Harlow's Infant chimpanzees experiments - fascinating. We're more than monkeys - but not less; we need touch.
- When the world thinks it needs more sex, the bible says it needs more love.
- If you have children - you need to love them / hug them - Gordon's children much bigger then him; difficult but worthwhile.
- In the family of God, shake hands in a way that communicates your deep concern, when you hug do so in a way that shows God's love; kiss where acceptable with care and affection. We love because he first loved us.

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Stuff Michael Meeks is doing

2004-02-15: Sunday