Year B - Pentecost +19 or Energy to Witness 19
October 4, 2015
Psalm 26
There is a bit of the “methinks they doth protest too much” about this passage. Who amongst us “stands on level ground”? Always we are tilting it this way and that. Think about the gravitational field in space/time. Our gravity disrupts that which we take to be stable.
Altars of sacrifice are inherently bloody places. How, then, does one wash their hands in “innocence” if that simple word also carries “innocent blood” with it?
Is this the psalm of one who has been divorced or one who divorces? Where does the appeal for justification come from? A person who has been injured? A person who has done injury and now seeks assurance of not being injured?
Blessings on you where you stand. May you turn it into a place of blessing.
Wednesday, September 30, 2015
Tuesday, September 29, 2015
Job 1:1, 2:1-10
Year B - Pentecost +19 or Energy to Witness 19
October 4, 2015
Job 1:1, 2:1-10
Job is said to have “not sinned with his lips”. Did he sin with the potsherd?
If we are to receive some “good” from G*D, are to we receive some “bad” with equal detachment? Does scratching an itch equate to not simply receiving it? How can we measure the technical aspect of sin wherein just this step shy of a line we are good to go and our next step takes us over the line and into sin?
Job’s wife seems to be counseling Job to divorce G*D. To read more about Job’s one wife or two wives (Sitidos and Dinah) conflated into one, you might want to try a haggadic story: The Testament of Job.
Remember that in every test there is a non-response escape hatch. Where might a reaching out in blessing be found in Job’s story? (No, it is not the “restoration” at the end where, fairytale-like, they live happily ever after.)
October 4, 2015
Job 1:1, 2:1-10
Job is said to have “not sinned with his lips”. Did he sin with the potsherd?
If we are to receive some “good” from G*D, are to we receive some “bad” with equal detachment? Does scratching an itch equate to not simply receiving it? How can we measure the technical aspect of sin wherein just this step shy of a line we are good to go and our next step takes us over the line and into sin?
Job’s wife seems to be counseling Job to divorce G*D. To read more about Job’s one wife or two wives (Sitidos and Dinah) conflated into one, you might want to try a haggadic story: The Testament of Job.
Remember that in every test there is a non-response escape hatch. Where might a reaching out in blessing be found in Job’s story? (No, it is not the “restoration” at the end where, fairytale-like, they live happily ever after.)
Monday, September 28, 2015
Mark 10:2-16
Year B - Pentecost +19 or Energy to Witness 19
October 4, 2015
Mark 10:2-16
It is always intriguing to try to figure out what goes with what. Choose one connection and others get lost. Choose another and a different set goes missing.
Are the little children connected with divorcing males and females? Are these two separate events that just happen to be back to back rather than commenting one on the other?
For the moment let’s assume a connection. The Pharisees were bringing little children to Jesus as a test. The little children were disguised as divorcers. Jesus reflects on the hardness of heart we all seem to have regarding our desire of others, especially children, to reflect our values. Even G*D has expectations of behavior that will reflect well on G*D.
Whether thinking about children at play shifting the rules even more radically than Calvinball or adults who have found themselves in a different relationship than they signed up for in business or marriage and finding a technical out to a relational issue, Jesus sidesteps the Pharisees and does a sarcastic exaggeration with his own disciples.
What is missing with both the Pharisees and the Disciples is their basic lack of mercy demonstrated with this strange follow-up story of inviting messing-up children of every age and condition to come for a blessing.
No matter what the relational screw-up, a blessing is not only available but proactively welcoming. Imagine Jesus, after dealing with Pharisees and Disciples turning to a divorced couple, both of whom initiated the divorce, and reaching forth his arms to touch and bless them both.
Well, is this one pericope that must be held together or two and one or the other can be proof-texted?
October 4, 2015
Mark 10:2-16
It is always intriguing to try to figure out what goes with what. Choose one connection and others get lost. Choose another and a different set goes missing.
Are the little children connected with divorcing males and females? Are these two separate events that just happen to be back to back rather than commenting one on the other?
For the moment let’s assume a connection. The Pharisees were bringing little children to Jesus as a test. The little children were disguised as divorcers. Jesus reflects on the hardness of heart we all seem to have regarding our desire of others, especially children, to reflect our values. Even G*D has expectations of behavior that will reflect well on G*D.
Whether thinking about children at play shifting the rules even more radically than Calvinball or adults who have found themselves in a different relationship than they signed up for in business or marriage and finding a technical out to a relational issue, Jesus sidesteps the Pharisees and does a sarcastic exaggeration with his own disciples.
What is missing with both the Pharisees and the Disciples is their basic lack of mercy demonstrated with this strange follow-up story of inviting messing-up children of every age and condition to come for a blessing.
No matter what the relational screw-up, a blessing is not only available but proactively welcoming. Imagine Jesus, after dealing with Pharisees and Disciples turning to a divorced couple, both of whom initiated the divorce, and reaching forth his arms to touch and bless them both.
Well, is this one pericope that must be held together or two and one or the other can be proof-texted?
Thursday, September 24, 2015
James 5:13-20
Year B - Pentecost +18 or Energy to Witness 18
September 27, 2015
James 5:13-20
The connection between sin and sickness is both direct and beside the point. Being able to distinguish these is a great help. Otherwise we unnecessarily let athlete’s foot develop into gangrene or cut off someone’s hand. This gets acted out politically in regard to policies against immigrants (whether documented or not). Additional socio-political arenas of race, gender, sexual orientation, and other moral arguments reveal some version of group identity (sin) and economic anxiety (sickness).
Of greater interest this time around, we can play with salt/fire and prayer/fervency. You might want to set up a little grid and begin entering words you associate with those words and the way they interact with one another. Eventually they may begin to reveal a current Pentecostal setting overlooked until now and the impetus to engage others in their/our truths/realities/experiences/hopes/helps/and-on-and-on.
Remember that prayer is here an alignment with a future pull on our present. Anything other than this, regardless of whether it is named “prayer” or not, is a distraction and needs to be called out. Prayer is not intense repetition. Prayer is not praise or plea. Prayer is not the use of certain words or forms. Prayer is a healed tomorrow reaching into the sickness of today and offering a reorientation as dramatic as forgiveness (never deserved). A presumption of health in the sickest of us shifts the balance of power. A preoccupation with and preemptive use of mercy stands behind the surface work of prayer.
It is important today, when sin and sickness no longer automatically cohere, to change language from sin and soul to promise and actual lived experience. Little by little we find suffering relieved more energizing than sin categorized and dividing self-from-self and person-from-person and group-from-group.
Should any wander, including yourself, engage prayer to set a larger context into which we might live and move and have our being. Sounds like a lot of prayer is in order, just not claiming, blaming, shaming prayer.
September 27, 2015
James 5:13-20
The connection between sin and sickness is both direct and beside the point. Being able to distinguish these is a great help. Otherwise we unnecessarily let athlete’s foot develop into gangrene or cut off someone’s hand. This gets acted out politically in regard to policies against immigrants (whether documented or not). Additional socio-political arenas of race, gender, sexual orientation, and other moral arguments reveal some version of group identity (sin) and economic anxiety (sickness).
Of greater interest this time around, we can play with salt/fire and prayer/fervency. You might want to set up a little grid and begin entering words you associate with those words and the way they interact with one another. Eventually they may begin to reveal a current Pentecostal setting overlooked until now and the impetus to engage others in their/our truths/realities/experiences/hopes/helps/and-on-and-on.
Remember that prayer is here an alignment with a future pull on our present. Anything other than this, regardless of whether it is named “prayer” or not, is a distraction and needs to be called out. Prayer is not intense repetition. Prayer is not praise or plea. Prayer is not the use of certain words or forms. Prayer is a healed tomorrow reaching into the sickness of today and offering a reorientation as dramatic as forgiveness (never deserved). A presumption of health in the sickest of us shifts the balance of power. A preoccupation with and preemptive use of mercy stands behind the surface work of prayer.
It is important today, when sin and sickness no longer automatically cohere, to change language from sin and soul to promise and actual lived experience. Little by little we find suffering relieved more energizing than sin categorized and dividing self-from-self and person-from-person and group-from-group.
Should any wander, including yourself, engage prayer to set a larger context into which we might live and move and have our being. Sounds like a lot of prayer is in order, just not claiming, blaming, shaming prayer.
Wednesday, September 23, 2015
Psalm 124
Year B - Pentecost +18 or Energy to Witness 18
September 27, 2015
Psalm 124
Where is help placed? It may be we need to ask a prior questions to placement—these would be about time (when is help present?) and energy (how does it bubble?). The Psalmist places help far away, in some G*D who is particularly engaged with me or us.
For those who posit that G*D has a plan, help must already be present, even if delayed past our individual or corporate life. Help is in the entrapment as well as in the release. Playing with “hope” in place of “help” may help clarify this.
Likewise the impetus to help lies within. This within-ness comports well with “being made in G*D’s image”. The help with which we help one another is as valuable and more regularly present than awaiting some future events which we might label as help or hope being revealed. This revelation will have help and hope as lying within a community and individual.
Remember what release feels like? This goes beyond who is for or against us. It sometimes is an enemy who helps and we are relieved. Sometimes it is family that rises up with healing in its wings and we are encouraged to move from being helped to helping, from being blessed to blessing.
May help and hope bubble deep within your life and overflow your life that we may find additional people with whom we might mutually expand space for one another.
September 27, 2015
Psalm 124
Where is help placed? It may be we need to ask a prior questions to placement—these would be about time (when is help present?) and energy (how does it bubble?). The Psalmist places help far away, in some G*D who is particularly engaged with me or us.
For those who posit that G*D has a plan, help must already be present, even if delayed past our individual or corporate life. Help is in the entrapment as well as in the release. Playing with “hope” in place of “help” may help clarify this.
Likewise the impetus to help lies within. This within-ness comports well with “being made in G*D’s image”. The help with which we help one another is as valuable and more regularly present than awaiting some future events which we might label as help or hope being revealed. This revelation will have help and hope as lying within a community and individual.
Remember what release feels like? This goes beyond who is for or against us. It sometimes is an enemy who helps and we are relieved. Sometimes it is family that rises up with healing in its wings and we are encouraged to move from being helped to helping, from being blessed to blessing.
May help and hope bubble deep within your life and overflow your life that we may find additional people with whom we might mutually expand space for one another.
Tuesday, September 22, 2015
Esther 7:1-6, 9-10; 9:20-22
Year B - Pentecost +18 or Energy to Witness 18
September 27, 2015
Some have said we are defined by our enemies.
Are we so consumed by our fight or flight response to perceived enemies that we cannot determine whether they are (Esther) or are not (Mark) enemies? We accuse (Mark) and avoid (Esther) as long as ever we can.
We are greatly aided by someone who will call us to account. Telling us to back off (Mark) or be bold (Esther). Knowing when to hold enemies accountable (Esther) and when to join forces with them (Mark) is a sign of wisdom.
So what have you been doing with your enemy? Hang them high? Rejoice in whatever good work they actually do? (Now, be generous in this.)
How’s that working for you? Time to try the other model or keep on some more?
Monday, September 21, 2015
Mark 9:38-50
Year B - Pentecost +18 or Energy to Witness 18
September 27, 2015
1) From the New Community Bible: “The community of Jesus must reject the temptation to exclusivism and groupism. They cannot claim to be the exclusive dispensers of God’s gifts. God, who is the source of every good, can make use of anyone to bestow his blessings. Just as Jesus ruled out personal arrogance (9:33-37), he now rules out group arrogance.”
2) Try this sequence:
- Everyone will be salted with fire. (A Pentecost reference?)
- Salt is a good thing; but if it loses its saltiness . . . . (Fire is a good thing; but if it loses its journey to the street and being shared, how can you make it fire again?)
- Have salt in yourselves and be at peace with one another. (A Pentecost reference?)
What group are you part of or stand with? There’s a fire there.
How do salt and fire lose their identity? Arrogance (to claim or seize without justification) loses our place as we claim the space others are gifted to hold.
The sharing of salt is an ancient sign of hospitality. Again from New Community Bible: [Verse 50] “speaks of preserving the salt of hospitality and friendship in their day-to-day life. This has to be a distinctive mark of the disciples of Christ, the loss of which will make them worthless.”
Thursday, September 17, 2015
James 3:13-4:3, 7-8a
Year B - Pentecost +17 or Energy to Witness 17
September 20, 2015
Wisdom from above and cravings from within is a model worthy of Paul in all its dualistic majesty. At least one way we have of experiencing this reverses the model so we find wisdom is our natural state and what visits us from above/beyond are all those not-us temptations. Neither of these move us along as there is always one more source of blame.
Another way of talking about this is simply to draw near. May above and within draw near to one another.
A measure of this drawing near is how we attend to the vulnerable (including those aspects of our own life that have been and remain vulnerable to discounting and discarding). In days of yore the mantra for this was “widows and orphans”. In today’s world with Social Security and a variety of more and less successful “safety nets” there are a host of substitutes. One going on in my neck of the woods regards homelessness (internal refugees within our capitalist/maximized-profit economy and class/caste culture). In the gospel pericope we might have Jesus setting a homeless person in the midst of privilege-debating disciples.
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- - -
Wednesday, September 16, 2015
Psalm 1
Year B - Pentecost +17 or Energy to Witness 17
September 20, 2015
Happy are those who do not argue “greatness”,
their own or another’s.
Their delight is in the presence of i s ness.
In this presence they LMB:
Live, Move, Be.
Like healthy trees they are
nurtured and fruitful—
each in its turn
and each together.
Those not so delighted
chafe, chaff-blasted,
eroding everyone’s safety.
Both stand within a larger delight
clarifying and welcoming
a new day.
- - - - - - -
Tuesday, September 15, 2015
Proverbs 31:10-31
Year B - Pentecost +17 or Energy to Witness 17
September 20, 2015
A welcomed child who can find?
They are far more precious than jewels.
The heart of a community trusts this one,
and will have no lack of gain.
It takes a child . . .
to raise a village.
A child who is welcomed is a blessing.
They share the fruit of their gifts
and their life brings life from others.
= = = = = = =
A basic choice
or
read its history here
Monday, September 14, 2015
Mark 9:30-37
Year B - Pentecost +17 or Energy to Witness 17
September 20, 2015
They went on from an experience connecting a compassionate exorcism with prayer beyond a “Do it, G*D” or other form of proof of self-importance. In going on there comes forth a variation on this kind of praying into wholeness.
Jesus teaches about consequences for a life lived in unity and future community. There is a resistance to wholeness so strong that it poisons any who would approach. A hero/heroine’s quest finds it deconstruction of all that has been presumed. It is this forest of thorns that needs passage.
From the outside this cannot be understood. We have a difficult enough time navigating our own journey, much less understand someone else’s. This does not mean, however, that attempts to do so are to be avoided. And here the disciples walk up to the thorny thicket and retreat, asking no questions that would lead them to even more difficult choices/quests.
Rather than ask the Rabbi, the Teacher, the one they claim as Wise, they fall back on an ancient tradition of spoken and unspoken ranking of power. Claims and resentments for claims break into patterns visible to anyone paying attention.
Thus a mysterious parallelism:
A healing prayer is the healing of a child.
The welcoming of a child is welcoming of healing.
A prayer is a child set loose to grow and laugh.
Thursday, September 10, 2015
James 3:1-12
Year B - Pentecost +15 or Energy to Witness 15
September 13, 2015
From the same heart and mouth come a blessing and a curse, a spring and a slough.
This is our reality. No matter how we hedge ourselves round with rule and regulation, law (stick) and grace (carrot), we find our teaching but an extension of our biases, our discipleship a Procrustean Bed for seekers.
James, stuck between Hebrews and 1 Peter, searches for an internal purity/unity that is revealed in one context after another as one or more blessings: peaceful, gentle, revealing, filled with mercy and acts of goodness, fair, and/or genuine (3:17). With an example of the first to trigger additional examples for the remainder of the list: Peace sows the seed of Justice in the very act of Peace (3:18) [Want Justice? Practice Peace.]
Here then (after the pericope ends) we cycle back through the impossibilities of discipleship:
- follow your gifts to your consequence and thus lead the rest of us
- claiming your life only comes in emptying/losing your life
- to reveal glory, shame is carved away
= = = = = = =
Wednesday, September 09, 2015
Psalm 19
Year B - Pentecost +15 or Energy to Witness 15
September 13, 2015
I intend the words of my mouth to correspond with the meditation of my heart to reveal blessings from the past and hope for the future connected with mercy in the present. In this the movement of life is revealed—not accepted, lived.
This will not be done in the absence of dominionists of every stripe. Here we find the testing of realized eschatology. Not looking for purity or innocence, but clarification.
Without these the rift between intention and deed widens. Here hidden slidings-past of the tectonics of competing covenants are revealed and welcomed.
We find, not reward, but satisfaction that integrity has been honored and new seeds planted to bear fruit beyond a first a first crop to evolve into a next needed gift.
- - - - - - -
Thus we move from verse 14 to 13 to 12 to 11. The whole of the first 10 verses subsumed under the category of pleasing some external dominion exerting deity that needs warning against. You did note the construct of verse 11 that warns us into a reward meant to keep us in our place for rewards are not freeing but pay-offs or bribes for staying in place.
= = = = = = =
Tuesday, September 08, 2015
Proverbs 1:20-33
Year B - Pentecost +15 or Energy to Witness 15
September 13, 2015
How long, O simple ones, will you love being simple and not ask, “Who am I? Who are you? Who are we?” as well as, “Who am I not? Who are you not? Who are we not?”
To not glance behind the curtain is to accept the consequence of not doing so. Stop dreading. Ask.
= = = = = = =
Monday, September 07, 2015
Mark 8:27-38
Year B - Pentecost +15 or Energy to Witness 15
September 13, 2015
If this were a scary movie the discordant music would sharpen and the shadows darken. Danger lurks here.
Who do people say I am? Who do you say I am? What do your responses say about you?
We find the responses to the community question to be as scattered as the community.
We find the responses to the personal question to be culturally relevant and couched in terms of where popular hope is placed.
We find that both of those are beside the point because any one or combination of them is going to be less than significant.
Here’s the deal. Anyone on a Way toward a larger G*D is going to undergo suffering because of the limitations of the first two categories (people and person). There is simply going to be a quantum differences and the dissonance that sets up will be untenable to most and they will attempt to do away with anyone beyond their current plateau. In particular this will come from the religious and political leaders of the day (no matter what the day or the system in current vogue).
Those on the way will hear, “Get behind me Satan!”, as a result of their living by a larger perspective. In turn they call out “No, you get behind me, Satan!” and the divide widens.
A result is talking past one another we call parabolic language. Those who have ears to hear, will; those who don’t, won’t. Plateaued folks will gain their entire realm before they dare look elsewhere. The consequences of not being able to move on will have to become as great a looking death in the face before they will be taken seriously. There are too many court experts/scientists/prophets bringing their questionable questions to the fore that will keep fooling folks into avoiding consequences until they are past redeeming and we must push on because we have destroyed our current base of operations.
This really doesn’t have anything to do with shame or glory or angels. It has everything to do with being so tied into our present that nothing can be seen but the power of the current principalities and a projection of power to counter it.
Here is spiritual jujitsu. Who am I? I can’t be named; I am who I am. Who are you beyond your name, rank, and serial number?
= = = = = = =
Thursday, September 03, 2015
James 2:1-10, (11-13), 14-17
Year B - Pentecost +15 or Energy to Witness 15
September 6, 2015
James 2:1-10, (11-13), 14-17
September 6, 2015
James 2:1-10, (11-13), 14-17
Mercy triumphs over judgment.
Mercy triumphs over judgment.
Mercy triumphs over judgment.
Mercy triumphs over judgment.
Mercy triumphs over judgment.
= = = = = = =
Wednesday, September 02, 2015
Psalm 125 or Psalm 124
Year B - Pentecost +15 or Energy to Witness 15
September 6, 2015
Which is the stronger statement for you?
1) Trust.
2) If our G*D were not with us we wouldn't have made it.
Is one for an anonymous Syrophoenician woman (culturally inferior) and one for an anonymous deaf man (physically inferior)? Are they interchangeable?
As you look at Psalms 125 and 124, do you have a preference of which leads to which? Are they interchangeable?
Looking at the first question again, any change in your response?
Tuesday, September 01, 2015
Proverbs 22:1-2, 8-9, 22-23
Year B - Pentecost +15 or Energy to Witness 15
September 6, 2015
Measurement is tricky business. We can fairly easily measure twice and put studs 16 inches apart. We can equally easily measure in-place studs to see that they meet building codes or need to be redone.
It is not so easy to measure results of interactions, particularly those that are not immediately obvious. Measuring the effect of time doesn't take into account interacting actions or shifting/subsequent measuring criterion. We can expect a result coming after 7 times of forgiveness and when it doesn't we feel justified in giving up on that process and shifting to one mode of "tough love" or another. It is difficult for us to hold to a course of action over time for implementation of love is always tough. Our attention wanders and we find ourselves mistaking "tough love" for "love that is tough". In this confusion we lose concentration about the advocacy that is needed in times of injustice and what appreciation of an act's inherent value is available in times of generosity.
8Whoever sows injustice will reap calamity,
and the rod of anger will fail.
9Those who are generous are blessed,
for they share their bread with the poor.
We need external consciences to continue reminding us we can travel into spaces we have learned to label as "strange" or "dangerous" and be generous with our lives. May you cultivate your external conscience to bolster yours when it falters on its own. May you be willing to claim your ability to be an external conscience whether invited or not (bearing in mind its difficulties when a presumed right to direct kicks in).
Measuring injustice can be done. Measuring a consequence to fit is unlikely to be fitting. Measuring "enough" for one's self is tricky business given our desires. Measuring "enough" for others takes more trust than is usually shared.
= = = = = = =
= = = = = = =
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