Pentecost +15 Sunday – C1
Years C
Jeremiah 18:1-11 or Deuteronomy 30:15-20
Choice is inherent in life. There isn't one without the other. Here it is too easy to get caught up with only one end of a choice spectrum, that of humans (individual and communal), while ignoring choices of G*D.
At one point G*D is out of choices - G*D can only respond to our actions in their like manners. If we do "good", G*D does "good". If we don't, G*D doesn't. There is here no choice of steadfast love, regardless of the stimulus, simply stimulus and response.
At another point G*D becomes preemptive. G*D chooses to warn that G*D is getting into a non-choice - responding to "bad" with bigger "bad".
Go ahead. Choose. As an individual your choice may make no difference as the community around can and does make opposite choices. You are likely to get caught up in their choices and smashed, perhaps to be recast. And, yet, one choice is significant. Remember again the 100th monkey.
= = = = = = =
Sarah nor her husband could choose for me
Rebekah nor her husband could choose for me
Leah and Rachel nor their husband could choose for me
I cannot choose
for son and daughter
that descendants will live
I can choose
to live that they might
choose
sometimes I choose life prosperity
death and adversity
and more and less
for self
for neighbor
for G*D
what a tangled web we weave
when first we choose
and choose again
The first thing that catches my attention in the Jeremiah passage is the coupling of "come" and "go" which introduces for me the theme of call and answer.
ReplyDeleteSomething/Someone (Divine?) calls and we respond. We approach or gather together as community, then we go or scatter to be the community witnessing. I/We draw inward in order to become aware, and then we go to neighbor, other lands to share awareness and build the community, which in turn gathers and scatters.