Acts 1:6-14

Easter 7 – Year A

Acts 1:6-14

Not knowing the time is endemic to life and yet we spend so much time trying to figure it out, to get a leg up, a foot in the door ahead of everyone else. So it is we find ourselves doing a lot of standing around trying to peer into the future when the future is being birthed by our actions in the present – and the future doesn’t look so good when it is based on anticipation instead of intentionality.

Somehow we have become distracted and do our future-casting rather than attend to the matters at hand. Part of this may be fear, but a good bit of it may simply be the laziness engendered by privilege.

At General Conference today there was a bit of a sea change. The religious-right was not able to hold their usual stranglehold on elections. While some of this is in the nature of a rhythm of change, it must be noted the years of faithful witness many progressives have made to reveal how a drive for power by the religious-right had supplanted their stated desire for renewal.

Several other votes signaled a new dynamic that may lead to better working together- as the diversity that was the disciples lived together in a single room. Of course we will have to see what tomorrow brings (nothing is beyond the attempt of folks who have felt power and now see it slipping from their grasp even as they pull all the old tricks out of every bag they know). But, for now, it is time to get on with life and stop standing around.

PS – on another time-related note, we cannot continue meeting from 8 am to after 11 pm with only meal breaks and expect that good decisions will be made. The opposite of standing and looking is having a nose to the grindstone. Neither serve well the health of a single body or a body of the whole.