inno 90: pass it on – passalo 1) un fuoco inizio ha da una piccola

GIORNATA DI EVANGELIZZAZIONE
Ottavo circuito delle Chiese metodiste e valdesi
Lettura Salmo 95
Venite, cantiamo con gioia al Signore, acclamiamo alla
rocca della nostra salvezza! Presentiamoci a Lui con lodi,
celebriamolo con Salmi! (Versetti 1- 2)
Canto dell’Assemblea:
Venite tutti, gloria al Dio d’amore,
Venite tutti, le lodi a Lui intoniamo,
Venite tutti, gloria al Dio d’amore,
Vieni ci chiama il Signor!
Poiché il Signore è un Dio grande, un gran Re sopra tutti gli
dei. Nelle sue mani sono le profondità della terra, e le altezze
dei monti sono sue. Suo è il mare, perché Egli l’ha fatto, e le
sue mani hanno plasmato la terra asciutta. (Versetti 3 -5)
Canto dell’Assemblea inno ‘Venite tutti’
Venite, adoriamo e inchiniamoci, inginocchiamoci davanti al
Signore, che ci ha fatti. Poich’Egli è il nostro Dio, e noi siamo il
popolo di cui ha cura, e il gregge che la sua mano conduce.
( Versetti 6 – 7)
INNO 4:
SIAM GRATI A TE, SIGNOR
NOW THANK WE ALL OUR GOD
1) Now thank we all our God,
With heart and hands and voices,
Who wondrous things has done,
In whom this world rejoices
Who from hour mothers’ arms
has blessed us on our way
with countless gifts of love,
and still is ours to day.
2) O Padre di bontà,
ai figli che hai chiamati
da’ fede e santità;
a Te sian consacrati.
Li guidi la tua man
In ogni lor sentier,
del tuo voler sovran
zelanti messagger!
INNO 90: PASS IT ON – PASSALO
1) UN FUOCO INIZIO HA DA UNA PICCOLA
SCINTILLA E TUTTO DOPO UN PO’ SI ACCENDE
E POI SFAVILLA. COSI’ L’AMOR DI DIO,
QUANDO
IN
TE
VERRA’
ACCETTALO,
ACCETTALO, ACCETTALO E VIVRAI!
2) WHAT A WONDROUS TIME IS SPRING, WHEN
ALL THE TREES ARE FLOWERS START THEIR
BLOOMING. THAT’S HOW IT IS WITH GOD’S
LOVE ONCE YOU’VE EXPERRIENCED IT; YOU
WANT TO SING, IT’S FRESH LIKE SPRING, YOU
WANT TO PASS IT ON.
Judges 11:29-40
Dear sisters and dear brothers,
Here we are confronted with a text that often has been used to highlight
the essential difference between the God of the New Testament, a God of
mercy and grace, and the God of the Old Testament, a vengeful and cruel
God.
And besides reading quickly track it is not that the impression can be
drawn?
The Lord grant victory to the leader Jephthah over the Ammonites and he
reciprocate by offering to God his due for having respected the pact! And
who makes the cost? The young and innocent daughter of Jephthah.
In fact one of the main character of the story is this young woman,
sacrificed by a man, her father, on the altar of religion!
But who is this young woman? Her know that it is devout and obedient
daughter. And then? And then pretty much anything ...
Here I would like to reflect with you on what is missing in this story.
In this story, it lacks the figure of the mother: a woman who is a guide and
support for this young woman, especially at a juncture so difficult. And
sometimes reflecting on the internal dynamics of the female gender, or in
cases of violence against minors, is not it true that mothers are as absent,
pale figures of what they should be, if not accomplice in the violence ?!
And what else there isn’t in this story? The name of the girl!!
The girl sacrificed would seem not even receive the honor of being
remembered by her name.
Actually, the biblical passage seems to make a different choice: it isn’t the
name that give her the honor, it isn’t the kinship with the winner leader
Jephthah making she worthy of honor, but her personal choice to accept
the sacrifice!
We, indeed, should remember and honor the many women raped and
killed by men who are close to them! Not so much their names but the
sense, or rather non-sense, of their sacrifice!
And so we come to those who if not completely absent, is like a fleeting
presence only in this passage: God!
God, actually, appears through his Spirit at the beginning of the text: "Then
the Spirit of the Lord came upon Jephthah ..." (v. 29), and then when it
writes: "Jephthah crossed over to the Ammonites to fight against them; and
the Lord gave them into his hand."(v. 32) God gives him the victory and
then disappears from this story.
But what God here doesn’t do is ask for something in return to Jephthah.
It is Jephthah itself that promises the sacrifice in exchange for the victory. It
is he who believes that it’s necessary to give something to God in return for
his services, as if He’s a mercenary of war that must be paid for his dirty
work !!
Moreover, Jephthah thinks he can have the right of life and death over his
subjects, the people of Israel, but it so happens that the person will have to
be sacrificed is precisely his only child!
So you might think that Jephthah is just unlucky or unwise ?!
This story is similar to the story of Euripides "Iphigenia in Tauris" in which
King Agamemnon, to obtain the Goddess favors, decides to sacrifice the
best of the year and the oracle designates the daughter.
Jephthah behaved exactly like a heathen. He has confused God with the
other gods of the time, he did what he did Israel at the time of the Judges
that "do what is evil in the sight of the Lord" (10:6). Believing that God is
maneuverable both purchased by a human sacrifice, however, it is
forbidden by the Torah in Leviticus (Lev. 18:21; 20:2-5). Jephthah is an
example of what happens when we use the name of God to hide our very
personal, human and selfish interests !!
Today is a significant date in our recent history: 11th of September!
We know that path took the story after this date a group of men in the
name of a God who does not exist hit the twin towers in New York, causing
thousands of deaths and a spiral of bloody retaliatory wars, as well as many
restrictions personal freedom in the United States.
Can we deny that God has been used by humans in this matter, as in others
in the past and today by Daesh to advance economic and political interests?
Here is the sin of Jephthah that generated this atrocious sacrifice. And his
daughter has got it right!
The decision to spend his last months of life away from his father, has to
reflect our generation.
We must ask ourselves as believers and citizens as an example we want to
be for our children, as we are using what God puts us first in creation and
how we are living our relationship with Him!
At the same time, I like to think that God, like a good parent, through his
spirit was next to this girl in his last months of life accompanying her
wandering in the mountains away from a human father too selfish!
Amen
(Mirella Manocchio)
Confessiamo la nostra fede:
Noi crediamo in Dio
il cui alito porta il dono della vita;
la cui creatività produce novità dal nulla;
il cui amore ci ha inviato Cristo;
la cui solidarietà accompagna le nostre morti;
la cui potenza ci libera per la risurrezione;
il cui Spirito ci affranca dall’impotenza;
la cui grazia si erge sotto tutto il nostro essere;
la cui unità ci chiama a essere la Chiesa
e a vivere la speranza del Regno.
Amen.
We believe in God
whose breath brings the gift of life;
whose creativity makes newness out of nothing;
whose love sent us the Christ;
whose solidarity accompanies our deaths;
whose power frees us to the resurrection;
whose Spirit liberates us from powerlessness;
whose grace stands under all our beings;
whose unity calls us to be the Church
and to live the hope of the Kingdom.
Matteo 1,18-24
18 La nascita di Gesù Cristo avvenne in questo modo.
Maria, sua madre, era stata promessa sposa a Giuseppe e, prima che
fossero venuti a stare insieme, si trovò incinta per opera dello Spirito
Santo. 19 Giuseppe, suo marito, che era uomo giusto e non voleva
esporla a infamia, si propose di lasciarla segretamente. 20 Ma mentre
aveva queste cose nell'animo, un angelo del Signore gli apparve in
sogno, dicendo: «Giuseppe, figlio di Davide, non temere di prendere
con te Maria, tua moglie; perché ciò che in lei è generato, viene
dallo Spirito Santo. 21 Ella partorirà un figlio, e tu gli porrai nome Gesù,
perché è lui che salverà il suo popolo dai loro peccati».
22 Tutto ciò avvenne, affinché si adempisse quello che era stato
detto dal Signore per mezzo del profeta:
23 «La vergine sarà incinta e partorirà un figlio,
al quale sarà posto nome Emmanuele»,
che tradotto vuol dire: «Dio con noi».
24 Giuseppe, destatosi dal sonno, fece come l'angelo del Signore gli
aveva comandato e prese con sé sua moglie;
We have in the Gospels two different accounts of the Annunciation of
Jesus’ birth.
In the gospel according to Luke, Mary is the main character: she’s the
one receiving the announcement from the angel. That’s the most
famous story, the one we are used to see in many different paintings
throughout the history of arts. In the account of the gospel according
to Matthew we have just listened to, the announcement of the angel
is delivered to Joseph. It is a much less famous Annunciation, and less
celebrated, but it is as much as important in the history of salvation.
If we read the two gospels together, we understand that in order for
Jesus to come to this world – in order for God’s plan to get in motion –
it takes a man and a woman like many others (like us here!) to say
“yes”: it takes a small man and a small woman to be father and
mother to the Messiah of Israel, savior of the world.
Yes, because Jesus, like any other baby, needs protection and love
and care. God does not work his plan of salvation through
extraordinary means and deeds: he does it through us human beings.
He chooses our weakness, our smallness. He wants to use our
cooperation.
But God’s thoughts are not our thoughts, and his ways are not our
ways. Jesus’ birth does not happen according to the Law. It is
irregular, anomalous, even scandalous compared to the normal way
of society. Everything would have been so much simple if that kid was
conceived in due time, by a normal family – meaning a couple
regularly married. That way, respectability would have been saved:
Mary and Joseph would not have been through so many problems,
and the story would have been simple and easy.
But that’s not the case: already before being born, Jesus starts to
bring disarray in the life of people. The angel announces to Mary that,
in order to answer to her God’s call, she will have to disobey the rules
for women of her society: a fiancée was bound to fidelity to her
intended groom, and an irregular pregnancy exposed her to shame,
isolation, and even death by stoning.
And Joseph’s situation is no less dramatic: he discovers his fiancée is
carrying a baby, but not from him, and their life project as a couple
and as a family is destroyed. He must have felt astonishment,
disappointment, despair, even rage, and fear for the scandal, and
maybe desire for revenge… How must a man act is such a situation?
We men are terribly fragile when exposed to this kind of wounds. We
end up turning love into hate. We end up hurting badly, very badly,
our partner – and also ourselves.
But Joseph – Matthew writes – is “a righteous man”, abiding by the
Law. When he is hit by this discomforting situation, he tries to make
sense of it through God’s law as it was understood and codified in
that time. That Law stated that a woman in Mary’s condition was to
be repudiated. And Joseph wants to abide by the Law – but he also
knows that his God is also the God of the stranger, the orphan and
the widow, defending the right of the weak and the vulnerable.
Joseph reflects on his responsibility towards the Law, and his
responsibility towards Mary. And he comes up to a conclusion. He is
going to obey the Law and leave Mary, but he is not going to expose
her to the general despise with a charge and a public trial.
It is at this point, while Joseph is reflecting on all this, that the angel of
the Lord appears in his dream:
“Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for
the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son,
and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their
sins."
Joseph may well think it is just a dream. He could keep on struggling
with his thoughts. But he decides to stop and believe the angel and
his message. And his faith in this incredible revelation takes him
beyond the Law’s ties. His faith takes him where he couldn’t go with
his bare forces: he will not only safeguard Mary from disgrace; he will
take her with him and marry her. He will face shame and scandal
together with her. He will take that child as his own, and he will give
him the name that means “God saves”.
Thanks to this small man and this small woman, Israel’s Messiah, the
savior of the world, will have a father and a mother and will walk his
path on this earth. What was a shame and a scandal for the world is
unveiled as God’s chosen way to fulfill his plan of salvation.
Dear sisters, dear brothers, Joseph and Mary’s story is a story about
love and freedom. Freedom from prejudice, from social belonging,
from male and female stereotypes. A freedom born and rooted in the
faith in God’s promises. And today, this very same freedom comes to
every single one of us as a gift, as a call to change and to newness of
life. We, like Mary and Joseph, are called to follow our vocation and
make room for life, and in doing so break the prejudices, the social
belongings, the stereotypes that imprison us.
May the Lord help us embracing this gift, living up to it, and making it
a blessing for us and for the others. In Jesus’ name (Guido Armellini)