January 18, 2015
John 1:43-51
Six Acts:
1) “I have identified meaning for my time.”
If you want to couch this in traditional religious terms there are plenty of hooks on which to place the authority of your meaning. If you want to be wider-ranging or more inclusive than any particular from the past, that is also available to you.
2) “I see no good coming from that direction.”
No matter what you identify there will soon be a resistance to it by those you are engaging for your meaning is not automatically seen by them as including their meaning. All too often they have experienced people talking this way who want to subsume them under an alien authority. Whatever you raise as a point of meaning will have a “Nazareth” component to someone else.
3) “Come and see.”
Finally we can but invite folks to walk with us. Some will journey for a bit toward our viewing place and leave before arriving. Some will make it all the way to see what we saw and still not see it. Some will get there and see even further wherein we will be the ones seeing some “Nazareth” in their extension that is too much for us.
4) “Here is one not bound by skepticism.”
When this affirmation comes to us our life-story and questions are honored. Our limitations are acknowledged. Our gifts and blessings are affirmed. We can be.
5) “Are you sure?”
Knowing our ability to deceive runs bone deep as we try to justify our self and sneak in to some paradise by the skin of our teeth, this sense of having and being a blessing is more than we can take in.
6) “You are on a Blessing Way.”
This is a next step on a longer journey of mutual provocation to become more human. Welcome.
