2 Corinthians 4:13-5:1

Year B - Pentecost +2 or Energy to Witness ²

June 7, 2015

2 Corinthians 4:13-5:1

We believe; we speak. All fine and dandy if we are in a relationship with another or others wherein they also believe and speak.

When it comes down to a post-Constantinian Church enraptured by literalism, this model doesn’t fare well because it has lost its communal fairness. Now those who hew most loudly and literally are privileged.

Now it is the church, not the individual that needs to listen as its outer nature is wasting away. Unfortunately with institutions the wearing away of the outer is indicative of a wasting away of the inner as well. This can also be paralleled with nation states (a conglomeration of institutions). Here so much goes into defense, even against its own citizens, that there is nothing left for the general welfare of its citizens, the strength of the nation.

At best the wasting away, the blaspheming, might call forth a renewal of a remnant that can look beyond the self-inflictions of the present, learn, and begin applying what they have learned to both surviving the crash and building from the ashes.

Now, how to turn our current story into a parable that might reach more who are able to be part of remnant and not be lost in the confusion of a time of great waste. This parable will also help folks hold together through a time of rebuilding, to stay focused. (Unfortunately parables don’t work well when ears are captured by one form of greed or another, protecting an economic system becomes more important than protecting people and a green commons.) And so we run through this cycle again, though hopefully better each time.