One Girl In All The World.

So, last week I had some kind of technical difficulty (it might have been with my brain) and my blog post got written but not published.  O.o  I think I'll post-date it, so it will be searchable by when it was supposed to pop up in the lectionary.  And hey, maybe you'll enjoy reading it, even if it is late.

Into every generation, there is a chosen one. One girl in all the world. She alone will wield the strength and skill to stand against the vampires, the demons, and the forces of darkness; To stop the spread of their evil and the swell of their numbers. She is the Slayer.
~The Prophecy of the Slayer

Usually when I try to provide a pop culture illustration of what Roman occupied Israel was like I turn to the setting of Star Wars.  There are so many great parallels there, that I have to wonder if George Lucas didn't have the political realities of that time and place in the back of his head somewhere when he was creating that story.

What Star Wars doesn't have, however, is the powerful echo that the Jewish people must have been hearing when Rome conquered Israel.  To my knowledge, in Star Wars, the fall of Jedi Order was a new and shocking development with no historical precedent.  The Hebrew people had a historical precedent, though.  They had a national and religious catastrophe lurking the history that had to have every man, woman and child thinking "Oh no, not again."

They had Babylon.

I have yet to run across a story in popular culture that has the same political parallels for the Babylonian Exile that Star Wars has for Roman occupied Israel.

But when I think of the prophets of that time, Isaiah, Jeremiah... The all ahead full honesty of them.  The way they stood up to evil, even when it was being perpetrated by their own people.  For some reason, it keeps bringing Buffy the Vampire Slayer to mind.

Maybe it's because the prophets tend to be kind of brash personalities.  Maybe because, like Buffy's special Slayer powers, God's protection allowed them to mouth off against foes who would appear to hold all the cards and get away with it—all in the name of Good, of course.

But more than that, the scriptural focus for this Sunday—a passage from Jeremiah that speaks of God making a new Covenant with the Jewish exiles—reminds me of one the reasons that Buffy was the greatest Slayer of all time.

After all, she was always willing to do a new thing.

A lot of people feel that Buffy jumped the shark before the series ended, and I'll freely admit that the earlier seasons were probably better than the later ones, but I LOVE where it ended. I loved the theme of potentiality—all those girls who could potentially be the next one and only Slayer.  As one by one the potentials are taken out by a hellish evil, they remind me of the Jewish Exiles.  Broken.  Defeated.

Then there's the New Covenant:
this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord:  I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

And that, that reminds me of the new thing that Buffy orchestrated.  The moment when all that potential get's realized.  The moment that changes everything.  No more "One girl in all the world."  No.  Every potential slayer becomes a Slayer in full.

It's enough to make you feel like you can do anything, doesn't it?  Like there's something in your heart that cannot be denied?

Look into your heart.

Be good to each other,
Rev. Josh
031715


Jeremiah 31:31-34

The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt — a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the Lord. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, "Know the Lord," for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.

Psalm 51:1-12

Have mercy on me, O God,
  according to your steadfast love;

according to your abundant mercy
  blot out my transgressions.

Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,
  and cleanse me from my sin.

For I know my transgressions,
  and my sin is ever before me.

Against you, you alone, have I sinned,
  and done what is evil in your sight,

so that you are justified in your sentence
  and blameless when you pass judgment.

Indeed, I was born guilty,
  a sinner when my mother conceived me.

You desire truth in the inward being;
  therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart.

Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean;
  wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.

Let me hear joy and gladness;
  let the bones that you have crushed rejoice.

Hide your face from my sins,
  and blot out all my iniquities.

Create in me a clean heart, O God,
  and put a new and right spirit within me.

Do not cast me away from your presence,
  and do not take your holy spirit from me.

Restore to me the joy of your salvation,
  and sustain in me a willing spirit

Hebrews 5:5-10

So also Christ did not glorify himself in becoming a high priest, but was appointed by the one who said to him, "You are my Son, today I have begotten you"; as he says also in another place, "You are a priest forever, according to the order of Melchizedek." In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to the one who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission. Although he was a Son, he learned obedience through what he suffered; and having been made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him, having been designated by God a high priest according to the order of Melchizedek.

John 12:20-33

Now among those who went up to worship at the festival were some Greeks. They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and said to him, "Sir, we wish to see Jesus." Philip went and told Andrew; then Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus. Jesus answered them, "The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also. Whoever serves me, the Father will honor.

"Now my soul is troubled. And what should I say — 'Father, save me from this hour'? No, it is for this reason that I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name." Then a voice came from heaven, "I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again." The crowd standing there heard it and said that it was thunder. Others said, "An angel has spoken to him." Jesus answered, "This voice has come for your sake, not for mine. Now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself." He said this to indicate the kind of death he was to die.