Fifth Sunday after Epiphany – B

Years B
Isaiah 40:21-31
Psalm 147:1-11, 20c
1 Corinthians 9:16-23
Mark 1:29-39

Though there is a tendency to attribute power to that which is greater, longer, wider, deeper, power that is implacable and must be bowed down to, it is important to see an on-going vitality of steadfast eternity. Time, Creation, G*D are powerful in relationship to grasshoppers, slaves, or frail (various images of humans). But to stop with that distinction is to dismiss everything in favor of some one thing.

In these passages a key dynamic is not the distance between the great and the small, but the willingness of the powerful to energize the less powerful. This might be called silly as it adds to entropy (at least in a closed system) but it might also be envisioned as the only perpetual energy mechanism there is, one that passes on energy in an open environment.

Our tendency is to look at a given cycle of rising and falling, rather than an on-going stream of life. When looking cyclically we get into law issues such as this interesting one: "(though I am not free from God's law but am under Christ's law)". When looking on-goingly we can see patterns of connection between our predecessors and our descendants, our selves and others, one religious, economic, or political system and another.

Here we proclaim a connection of intentional interaction between every disparate moment and rejoice in time's flow that supports us and encourages us and engages us to join the flow. Rejoice in every evidence of power coming to the faint, being received, and passed on.

= = = = = = =

haven't you heard
has your heart not known
it is not what gets stored up that counts
but what passes through

hearts get attacked
with storage blockages
they faint and fail
in need of new flow

as we pass through
we store of loose
set your heart on this choice
that others might also hear