Isaiah 40:21-31

Epiphany 4 - Year B

Isaiah 40:21-31

Have you not known? Have you not heard (seen, felt, smelled, tasted, sensed in any way)?

There is more than the circle of earth we run on. Raise your eye and see systems and processes whirling slowly - beyond your control.

This larger universe is available to your moments of faintness and powerlessness. Amazingly, this larger reality, from the inside, rises and we mount higher and walk farther.

This wonderful dynamic makes our very being tardis-like. We are larger on the inside than ever we thought for we are connected to an outside which is more intimate than we had felt possible (AstroCantus).

What have you yet to know? What have you not yet experienced as real? All of that and more is available to you and me, and us together. Let this epiphany not go lightly.
 

Mark 1:29-39

Epiphany 4 - Year B

Mark 1:29-39

In a synagogue and in a home, healing takes place. Any distinction between sacred and secular is false. Everything Is Holy Now

We are just coming off a synagogue story where the result of a healing was amazement. This home story has the result of bringing all who were sick to Jesus - it doesn't matter if they were in synagogue/church earlier or not. A home setting has more flexibility and authority than any institution that carries restrictive rules in its DNA - rules that limit the freedom of G*D to call and gift and heal anyone, period.

After the openness expressed in a home setting, word comes that even more people are seeking all that such freedom has to offer - “Everyone is searching for you.” When was the last time you heard that about a church?

Interestingly, Jesus takes this information and further expands it - from synagogue to a home in a community to more towns. Eventually we understand the expansion goes to the ends of Galilee and then the earth.

Remember here that there is both a message and a healing. They go hand in hand.

Hear again the message: Belovedness and happiness is real and energizing. This is G*D’s presence and is growing. Respond by not being stuck - change your hearts and lives and trust an abundance in you and in all.

Hear again the healing: All who were sick were brought and healed. All.
 

Where?

Epiphany 4 - Year B

they went to Capernaum
the same way
we find ourselves
where we are

they went to synagogue
just because it was sabbath
and teaching occurred
as it does

new sparks flew
not just rote
a new freedom
was flowing

just as unsurprising
as another sabbath
is the presence of
brokenness

what does a new freedom
have to do with brokenness?
is freedom for one
destruction for all others?

if you have to ask
you are blind to the silly
crazy at a creation deep level
lost from your belovedness

and so we stand silent
before a captive
our silence calling
forth depth

such depth of abundance
that brokenness is pushed out
there is no room
where we are not connected

a healer is convulsed
along with the healed
both cry aloud
be whole

amazed? really?
this is creation old
movement
void to an eighth day

what is this?
a new teaching?
no - simply
applied freedom

in Capernaum still
in dark and dreamless streets
you and yours arrive
to freely free
 

1 Corinthians 8:1-13

Epiphany 4 - Year B

1 Corinthians 8:1-13

Now, concerning food sacrificed to idols....
Now, concerning xxxx(anything)xxxx....

It appears any claim to knowing forgets that understanding shifts. Thus it is important to come to grips with what is claimed as a source of authority. Here Paul attributes rules, “what everyone knows”, to G*D.

In this case we are reminded that there are rules and principles beyond an immediate limitation on behavior. These larger meta-understandings come from a relationship named love. Through these we find the courage to enter into a new relationship with food and idols. Through these we find the assurance that we can break our own larger rules on behalf of others - doing so willingly, not coerced.

There is not a way to protect others from falling away from their next best ideal, much less one of their past beliefs. To operate out of false protection of another is simple enabling. It would be more helpful if Paul were to speak out of what one can do with integrity while caring for another rather than taking responsibility for their well-being. In this way I can eat with vegans and vegetarians, with omnivores and advocates of steak tartare, without trying to talk them out of their way or show them up with an alternative menu. We need more honoring of differences-in-doing than attempts at conversion-of-being.

Diets do not bring us close to ultimate reality, though they can help remind us to live out of a sense of fullness, not scarcity. Making others into ourself does not construct a paradise. Freedom to respond beyond rules leads us to the big non-rule - be with others as you would have them be with you.

Now, concerning food or anything else, be strong enough in your conscience to be gentle with the conscience of others.
 

Psalm 111

Epiphany 4 - Year B

Psalm 111

G*D’s got you in the palm of a nonpareil hand and is listening hard for your ultimate respects uttered in extravagant language.

The fearfulness of your position must be recognized and this begins your learning, but does not end it. And the same for G*D.

Presuming you can get through a bias of G*D for fear inspired behavior, there may arise within you both more options. G*D might hear praise echoing and enduring forever and not be as demanding of that particular response from such as yourself. You might practice thankfulness until it permeates every bone in your body and be a natural response to any unnatural occurrence - not because it is demanded, but because it feels so good.

What is your fear-based learning today?
 

Deuteronomy 18:15-20

Epiphany 4 - Year B

Deuteronomy 18:15-20

How straight forward - listen to G*D’s prophet and all will be well for you. If not, of course, it will be all the worse for you. Likewise prophets are to only prophesy what G*D intends. To do otherwise will bring death, obliteration.

This sounds as if it has all the bases covered. Epiphanies will be authorized. How could a prophet system like this go wrong? Well, G*D’s delayed implementation of threats to false prophets seems to have had significant consequences.

It seems as if court prophets, looking out for their own profit, have proliferated over time. There is no shortage of pundits (today’s spelling of prophet). Would that they understood the importance of speaking carefully, lest they be considered heedless and cast away.

Most true prophets end up getting heartburn as they live between the compulsion to speak and a fear to speak beyond what they know. Most false prophets end up prospering under whatever political system they are currently working.

Just know that the next prophet is coming from the people, just like you. And it may well be you. Enjoy the ride.
 

Mark 1:21-28

Epiphany 4 - Year B

Mark 1:21-28

Authority - “meaning the freedom to express one’s powers” (JANT).

Authority is a freedom always available, even in coercive situations. Expressing one’s powers may or may not carry the day in the short-run, but it is always a witness to what you consider to be trustworthy. In this you can be as authoritative as Jesus.

It is worth reflecting on the accusation, “Have you come to destroy us?” Certainly there is a sense in which the answer is, “Yes”. For some who are into security, any modification from their ultimate control, is a death. This is the same dynamic used by those privileged in religious power. They must protect every part of their established tradition for the loss of any one part is experienced as a destruction of all of it.

The new Jewish Annotated New Testament is very clear here: “Although there has been a tendency in the modern period to distinguish Jesus’ healings from those of contemporary Jews and others, this is a theological not historical judgment. The miracles in the Gospels contain the same procedures, healing formulae ..., and demonological lore as the magic of the ancient world.”

Let’s not get caught up in trying to make things more holy than they are and openly stick to the simplicity of a freedom to express a power available in the moment.