Pentecost +13 Sunday – A

Pentecost +13 Sunday – A

Years A
Exodus 1:8-2:10 or Isaiah 51:1-6
Psalm 124 or Psalm 138
Romans 12:1-8
Matthew 16:13-20

There are many gifts. In the Moses story there are folks who have the gifts of disobedience, secrecy, complicity, adventure, subversion from within, etc.

In the Jesus story there are gifts of Baptist John, Elijah, Jeremiah, and other prophets that help to define who Jesus is and isn't.

Likewise there are gifts in each of our lives as we interact with those closest to us, those we yet name enemy, those whose challenge and/or support feed us to become more than we currently are.

There is no one else's story to tell but our own. So the disciples were told not to tell the gift of Jesus, for that was for him to reveal. So no one else will tell the secret of who you are, it is yours to reveal and this is a good time to reveal it.

Are you someone whose gift of compassion will not allow you to go along with the dicta of society? Are you a gift willing to give birth to something new even in the face of overwhelming evidence that such is not desired? Are you willing to be practical enough to let go of your child and gift it another space where it might yet grow, knowing your own space is too risky for it? Are you gifted to reach out to the forbidden and make it your own? Are you willing to participate in the irony of life that flourishes within your own unironic life?

= = = = = = =

how shrewd we are
as we look around
to the dangers
and opportunities
to enhance our power

our very shrewdness
turns all too readily
to ruthlessness
we only perceive
as extra shrewd

being so shrewd
we fail to find
the irony in ruthlessness
that destroys
its beginning shrewdness

somehow it is never our fault
that what we have set in motion
will come back to haunt us
through the very structures
of our elite electedness

we move from "us"
who are fearful
to restrictions
that fall apart
at the next "I"