Pentecost +21 Sunday – A

Pentecost +21 Sunday – A

Years A
Exodus 32:12-23 or Isaiah 45:1-7
Psalm 99 or Psalm 96:1-9, (10-13)
1 Thessalonians 1:1-10
Matthew 22:15-22

Here's the deal G*D .... "Let me know who's with me"; "Show me your glory."

To which G*D says, "Nope." G*D claims all corners -- to make "weal and woe," to be "forgiving and avenging." There will be no bargains struck.

Here's the deal Jesus .... "Do we pay taxes?"

To which Jesus says, "Good try, but nope. Your perception that a question can be composed to both prove your own worth and to diminish your own responsibility will never come 'round right. It will fall of its own weight."

In spending so much time in trying to trap a perceived opponent, there is not sufficient time to get ourselves out of effectively colluding with the oppressors we are in bed with. In this day and age American religious find themselves battling each other and thus avoiding the realities that they are colluding with their own elected oppressors who balk not at preemptive war and keeping insurance from children and everything in between. For another look at this, check out Frank Rich's column, The 'Good Germans' Among Us.

= = = = = = =

to set out to trap another
is the surest way to be caught
steering god the way of our ammunition

in thus getting caught
in our own attempt to trap another
we are set up for Jesus' jujitsu theology

when our trap's premise
is exposed we fly head over heels
bowing before our previous blind spot

now comes the revelation
malice's short-run effectiveness
will ever reveal its long-run fallacy