KCM Lectionary Blog Restart

As previously announced. The KCM Lectionary Blog has currently suspended active posting because its author is working on another project that officially begins Sunday, November 27, 2016. You are invited to follow.

Wilderness Urgency According to Mark is Wesley White's next project. The imagery of wilderness in both its danger and retreat/renewal aspects has occurred enough that Wesley finally paid attention. The particular stimuli for this particular were repeated nudgings from memories of Mark and the latest American political season. Mark does not lay out 3 orderly temptations in the wilderness. He only indicates there were testings there and those testings seem to keep cropping up all the way to and including the end of the story where people run away from renewal (and, yet, find a good message in one another).
     In WildernessUrgency Wesley will look at the Gospel According to Mark, verse by verse. Postings of this slow daily walk through Mark will contain a next verse in Mark from the OpenEnglishBible followed by a stanzaic response from Wesley and comments that will attend to both technical details and contemporary relevance. [Note: the stanzas have no punctuation so read them aloud to see where the words would like to relate to one another.]

You are welcome to follow along and comment in two ways:

1. There will be a daily posting at WildernessUrgency.org. You are welcome to visit there, read, and comment.

2. I am also experimenting with a MailChimp sending of the daily posting to those who would like to receive it as an email. To try this process that can be unsubscribed from at any time, go to:
eepurl.com/cqvRmT and enter your name and email.
     As indicated, this is an experiment. If it doesn't work there are other processes that might function for those desiring an email rather than going to a website. Let me know if you sign-up and either don't receive any emails or they come in an unusable format.

Thank you for your support through the last 14 years. Here's a picture I took in the Badlands, South Dakota to encourage you in the midst of whatever state of wilderness is currently engaging you.

Yes, deserts can bloom.

You are called to join the blooming.

Share the belovedness that is yours.

Wesley

End of this Lection - Notice of a New Project

This Lectionary blog has come to its end. There will be a new set of writings about "Wilderness Urgency According to Mark" coming soon.

When that notice is ready it will be posted here and announced elsewhere.

Many thanks for your attending here over the past 15 years.

Luke 10:25-37

Year C - Pentecost⁺⁸ or Community Practice⁺⁸

July 10, 2016

Luke 10:25-37

“Legal experts” are like children pushing and pulling to find the limits of their situation. Limits here are both minimum and maximum. If I am going to plan a trajectory toward some goal or desire—in this case something called “eternal life”—what will describe how little and how much I need to do to achieve this outcome. Not attending to a basic entrance fee or overdoing the good to the point of whatever “works righteousness” is would both disqualify one.

So, is this your question or not. In a culture of “None” religion we are more likely to hear this spoken of in terms of self-actualization or manifestation language. This reverses the classic striving to arrive at eternity to a question of how to attract eternity into my sphere.

A question about questions is a necessary starting point for a pericope responding to a question. Did Jesus help with setting a minimum limit to enter eternity? Did he leave us with additional questions to engage our potential disengagement from both dogma and experience, scripture and story?

In good Socratic fashion Jesus responds with a question that pushes the lawyer and ourselves—what is the basis of your interpretation of what is going on around you? This has and will haunt us beyond our sophomore bull-sessions, limit-explorations.

Note the temptation to settle into extending what we consider to be right, fair, limiting. Only now is a story appropriate (after dealing with a legalist’s question with a legal question).

Still we are left with a question: which response was neighborly?

Everyone seems to know it is the third person in a story that becomes the hero. In this case the qualifying quality of the hero is that of “mercy”.

Now the invitation with an implied next question. “Go and do likewise (show mercy to all your relatives).”

“How is that working for you?”

= = = = = = =

Now that you have tried premeditated mercy, your report or next question is . . . ?

Luke 10:1-11, 16-20

Year C - Pentecost⁺⁷ or Community Practice⁺⁷

July 3, 2016

Luke 10:1-11, 16-20

A next try for Jesus Messengers.

We have just heard of post-Transfigurational attempts to live out Jesus’ focus on engaging G*D closely enough that it will change the way we interact with one another. First a failed healing (9:40). This is followed with failed learning by failing to ask clarifying questions (9:45) and vying for institutional bragging rights of succession (9:46). There is an attempt to blame another so I’ll look better (9:49). Last week it was messengers sent ahead to reprise the blame game with harm being added to accusation and excuses aplenty (9:51-62).

After all this Jesus tries girding the disciples in nothing but one another. This seems to have had some effect as they report out of joy rather than status. Apparently healings are now possible and there is a brief respite from the internecine behavior previously evidenced (and still evident today).

End of the story here is, “Rejoice in nothing.” Read that again. Again.

Know that what follows (10:21-24) is Jesus’ closet prayer that the slow-of-head-and-heart had a moment of glimpsing something larger—the importance of nothing. We won’t get to this in the lectionary in a following week, so it will be important to acknowledge here that this gets turned from insight into a doctrine of exclusiveness, contrary to the parentheses of “nothing” that bracket this story. This is fair warning to warn that triumphalism lurks everywhere and is a dead-end—attractive but idolatrous.

Luke 9:51-62

Year C - Pentecost⁺⁶ or Community Practice⁺⁶

June 26, 2016

Luke 9:51-62

This pericope will be the text of my final Sunday time at a 9-month return to the pastoral ministry. 

"As the time approached when Wesley was to be re-retired, he determined to follow a vision of Peace Beyond Understanding too easily translated into religious idolatry of place. "Who knows whether I will be more preaching to myself or to the congregation.

The messengers developed from a 9-month run (some leaving, some joining in) will be entering known difficulties that will put them on edge and doubt their work of preparation. Their temptation will be that of every thwarted suitor or missionary: consign an ideal but reluctant beloved to whatever is meant by hell.

By our very ardor we are spoken to as sternly as we desired to strike others. It will be important to spend time here imaging what “stern words” Jesus used. As quiet as those words may have been (remember how proactive Jesus was with the Gerasene and how gently he left that land when rejected), they were remembered as very bracing indeed. What is more important than winning or revenge? Of such did Jesus speak?

The following interactions reinforce a difficulty with dealing with a weak Jesus not needing an American style of fantasized success: power, money, fame. These reprise the mistake of the messengers asked to prepare a community for a non-Messiah.

First we hear, “I’ll follow by preparing a way.” And Jesus says, “You prepared for the wrong thing. There is no expectation of results or you will be as disappointed as pigs in non-houses make of sticks.

Secondly, we hear Jesus repeating the request to be messengers, none-the-less. And the erstwhile messengers are revealed in their priority to meet social norms before their work of preparation beyond the limits of today. It is to this subtle idolatry of comfortability that Jesus reminds us that there is no returning to any past glory to arrive at new life. Burial is no way to get to resurrection. Resurrection is a state of being ready in this moment, not the painting of a pre-numbered outline. "Your preparation for me is to tell of your own healing and already resurrection in the midst of a dead culture."

In good story-telling fashion, we return to point one and bring in point two. This drives home the message that there is no going home again (Yes, browse your Thomas Wolfe again), there is no stopping of time, particularly with Jesus, for anything that smacks of settling for this reward, that contingency, or some other partiality.

Friends, we don’t stop to settle scores. We advance where we can, We take our lumps. We continue telling new stories until they arrive and build a framework for a next tale less full of sound and fury.

= = = = = = =

time creeps up

on silent paws

as we prepare

for what can’t be

prepared for

in final moments

we set our answer

to a misheard call

mistaking endings

for a begining

and in this mismatch

have ready excuses

why prepartions

need not engage

our life’s story

we miss an arc

and settle for storm

disappointed preparations

follow following and more

preparations anew

Galatians 2:15-21

Year C - Pentecost⁺⁴ or Community Practice⁺⁴

June 12, 2016

Galatians 2:15-21

The faithfulness of Jesus here equates to the grace of G*D. Faithfulness is thus parallel to Grace. This is a worthy comparison to contemplate over time.

Play with the 60’s song I Fought the Law and the Law Won. Is this the same as Paul’s, “I died to the Law through the Law...” This loss could very well be a crucifixion similar to every other conversion experience that moves from what appears to be a losing proposition to an expected winning side.

A question for Paul is why the issue of righteousness remains so important if we are working by grace rather than law. Grace doesn’t line up as well with righteousness as does Law.

Psalm 5:1-8

Year C - Pentecost⁺⁴ or Community Practice⁺⁴

June 12, 2016

Psalm 5:1-8

A Psalm for the Flutes. Flutes are ancient instruments of hearing again a creative breath moving over the deep in tones too precious to be turned into everyday words. Here we move from groans to clarity by way of the lens of enemies.

Consider the gift of your enemies that refine your being. Can you hear that far-off song hailing yet another creation? Thank a flautist for momentarily embodying this ancient tune and do your very best to return these weary and wobbly words to a breath over a hole.

For the moment I will refrain from adding one more word about this portion of Psalm the Fifth. Listen behind the words.

1 Kings 21:1-21a

Year C - Pentecost⁺⁴ or Community Practice⁺⁴

June 12, 2016

1 Kings 21:1-21a

When was the last time a king wanted someone’s vineyard to turn it into a vegetable garden? I don’t know of anyone who has suggested that Ahab was vegan. Ordinarily we would expect a king to commandeer any number of humble gardens to be torn up for the production of an award-winning wine.

This is a fine lead into yet another reversal wherein Ahab is undone and all his feasts will be consumed by others. It is important to hear this all the way to the end of verse 21 and not stop with a generalized judgment.

For all those in and out of pulpits—be sure to emphasize verses 20-21. This is the prelude to redemptive preaching—finally, nothing is hidden. May the confession shared on Sunday be recognizable in the real world of Monday through Saturday. Confessional code-language is not confessional.

Ahab sounds surprised, “So you’ve found me, my old enemy!” Yes, a sharp eye finds us where we thought we were safe. All the parsing and excusing we have done has come to naught. We have been found out and there is no escape; no grading on a curve; no do-overs.

No matter how well we think we have covered our tracks, we are the reason we were found. Our elan vital has been encumbered by our very attempts to guarantee our importance and success (idolatry) and we have no more energy to take another step. We are at the end of our rope and we know it. Whether we are caught with an evil evil, or karma has burst upon us, or we’ve lost our compassion and don’t know where to find it, we and our descendants are out of luck.

Ahab and those associated with him will not know what hit them.

And, yet, reversals are not done. When we read a bit further we find Ahab appearing as a traditional penitent. The very threat and judgment made against Ahab is delayed. Its a wonder that Elijah doesn’t pull a Jonah and become angry at G*D’s seeming mercy even after pronouncing doom.

- - - - - - -

How do you compare the woman in Luke and Ahab here? Do these stories lead to different or similar forgiveness? Just be careful here, for as you respond you will then have to enter a third comparison with yourself added in. Does this addition change your assessment of forgiveness?

Luke 7:36-8:3

Year C - Pentecost⁺⁴ or Community Practice⁺⁴
June 12, 2016

Luke 7:36-8:3

One of the organizations I participate in is Love Prevails, which has as its intention to disclose(t), divest, disrupt The United Methodist Church with the purpose of removing its sinful language (“homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching”) from the Book of Discipline.

In this 3-D behavior, Love Prevails is seen as sinful by this institution for it raises uncomfortable question through dis-orderly action. Who gets to label whom or what as sinful is a part of an on-going dispute that is generally won by an institution, only to have it repent of misrepresenting sin a century or more later.

To put any emphasis on the woman in the story as a sinner is to side with the institution. To use it in worship or a sermon fails to communicate the energy of the story. All too many will buy the hearing of “sinner” as her descriptor as a fact. Just because Jesus has the word “sinner” also put in his mouth is not warrant to continue the falsehood. Note simply in Chapter 8 that women were always a part of Jesus band and so had no trouble learning where Jesus was. The storyteller could have cast this quite differently as a planned disruptive event intended to divest the institution from its forgiveness monopoly by disclosing an open availability of community life together (where forgiveness, like mercy, must always be presumed).

Try substituting different ways of describing the woman: “audacious”, “purple-wearing”, “in cahoots with Jesus”, “purposefully disruptive”, “wise one”, “saint”, etc. See what this does to Jesus’ response if he doesn’t buy into the institutional sin language. Might we hear him first say, “Thank you” or “Well done” or “Fear not” or simply “Live in peace” without tacking faith on as faith was also lacking as a category in the story from Nain last week?

If you need justification for any alternative reading, return to the verse just before this pericope, 7:35, “Wisdom is available in all her children/friends”. We are now dealing with a wise woman.

Galatians 1:11-24

Year C - Pentecost⁺³ or Community Practice⁺³

June 5, 2016

Galatians 1:11-24

The more militant one is in a single tradition, the more one is set up to overthrow it as there is no end to militancy than revolution.

That to which one is militantly opposed becomes the next best opportunity to be hyper-militant. There is not much a convert won’t do to prove the importance of their conversion. This new arena is also where one can rise to the top most quickly without competing with layer upon layer of tradition.

The credentialing process in a new endeavor is relatively easy to navigate—just claim it. Even where you aren’t known, claims about you can be used. The current political indeterminacy is a good place where we can simply plug and play any name you would care to put in place of Paul.

All of this is to raise a question from earlier: how many layers deep is the origin of “gospel”?

Is it not like an onion-shaped Rorschach game? Whatever layer you come to is never a beginning word. As long as it is a layer, it isn’t a beginning. Beginnings do not exist but insist on being revealed. Blessings on your humble militancy or militant humility that must jump categories or mold where it is.

Psalm 146

Year C - Pentecost⁺³ or Community Practice⁺³

June 5, 2016

Psalm 146

Focus on verses 6–9.

G*D (if G*D is definable) is not capturable by any detail or action. Every attempt to say what G*D is or is not is idolatrous. Even to say “maker of heaven and earth” is to fall prey to a conditionality for G*D. If G*D does not make what we project as a duality of heaven and earth, is G*D no longer G*D?

This also holds for our categorial imperative of faithfulness. When things break our way is G*D a micromanager to receive praise and if events go astray from our desire is that a test? Measuring never-ending time is a fool’s errand.

Justice qua justice may come close to something that can’t be broken apart and yet examples of justice are always prone to interpretation and contextualization. An insistent justice cannot be reduced to one or another position of hunger or prisoner release or anything else. Anything other than a justice not tied to a detail is a twisting and turning to justify our current understanding of fairness that breaks our way.

As we focus on praise it is important to remember that this is our category from the perspective of our past enthrallment with patriarchy and kings. Imagine G*D desireless of praise. What would that do to your theology?

1 Kings 17:8-24

Year C - Pentecost⁺³ or Community Practice⁺³
June 5, 2016

1 Kings 17:8-24

We are dealing here with a very high theology of G*D. This G*D meddles. Well at least as the storyline goes. We, of course, are able to mediate this G*D. We listen for a call. We go where we are sent. We carry assurance that some plan will see us through. We bump into a bump and draw this to G*D’s attention with every expectation that our assessment of the situation is what is going on. So we act and, hooray, everything works out better than could be expected. As a result our assurance is confirmed, we really are G*D’s right hand.

Imagine for a moment what this story would be without the affirmation that G*D’s “word” is in our mouth, that we represent G*D. How difficult will it be to let that go? How trapped we are in our transactions!

This is a very strong and evocative story that easily catches at our imagination. Now imagine you didn’t have an imagination. Can you see how this story tricks us into thinking more about G*D and less about Neighb*r? If those two are to be intimately intertwined we will need to lose most of the story: Elijah heard, “Go to Zarephath near Sidon, not that other one.” The son of a widow died. Elijah walks the boy down from the upper room and returns him to his mother. Elijah next heard, “Go to Ahab.” And on we go.

Luke 7:11-17

Year C - Pentecost⁺³ or Community Practice⁺³

June 5, 2016

Luke 7:11-17

Last week we heard, “What a surprise! Never have I seen such faith in Israel as in this Centurion.”

This week we hear nothing about faith at all and the ante is upped from healing a distant servant to a near-at-hand resurrection of a widow’s son (presumably an Israelite woman). There are those who would have this be a second-hand resurrection known as a resuscitation because another death is already on the way—discount such protective-of-Jesus devices.

What we have expressed here is compassion (all by itself—rather than being tacked on to faith). What is at stake, the impossible, an unconditioned event with no known access to it, is ever so much more than a card to elicit praise.

Catch a glimpse of the difference between the straight-forward description of Yeshua (“Jesus” carries too much baggage with it to be helpful) and that of an awestruck crowd. This event, like all expressions of compassion has no real audience. News is not to be spread. Engaging a G*D not at all concerned with “helping” “US” is plenty work enough. “Praise” and “news” short-circuit our participation in simple compassion that is to simply be lived in whatever moment is available. Such laudable results reduce our disorientation that leads to being simply present.

John13:1-35

Year C - Easter⁵ or Assured⁵

April 24, 2016

John13:1-35

When there is confusion, there is also the possibility of a clarification that will lead us further on.

In this case the disciples appear confused after Jesus gives a teaching, an assurance—”I assure you that whoever receives someone I send receives me, and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me.”

This seems fairly humble and real. Where does the confusion come in?

It seems to be generated at a shift in the action. After the conclusion to the foot-washing scene with the words about “receiving”, there should be more of a stage direction than, “After he said these things, Jesus was deeply disturbed.” How should that "after" be played.

Reading silently can scrunch things up so we don’t feel as significant a break here that begins a parenthetical comment about Judas before returning to the assurance about receiving. Try deleting verses 21-33 and see how it reads.

The disconnect between receiving and loving is unfortunate in a culture that does linear better than tangled. We like our one-liners but miss the way they parallelism can bolster and inform.

I prefer having the sequence be 13:1-21, 34-35, then the disturbance and confusion (21-22) is about the lack of love between the disciples and Jesus (23-33). What is your preference?

Acts 9:1-6. (7-20)

Year C - Easter³ or Assured³

April 10, 2016

Acts 9:1-6. (7-20)

It is easy to claim all differences are made by leaders. It would severely limit this story if it ended with verse 6. To leave it with mere obedience would be a disservice to all of the rest of us.

Things get interesting around verse 10 when Ananias is invited to go to Saul. There is every reason in the book for Ananias to not only ask questions about his assignment, but to actually choose to not do this mission impossible task.

Eventually Ananias does go when G*D indicates Saul is but an “instrument” and will “suffer”. 

Entering on tip-toe, Ananias touches Saul and simply describes the situation, “I came unwillingly so you can see again.” Note here the parallelism of “regain sight” and “filled with Spirit”. One can’t be said without the other being implied. The physical and the spiritual are not separable.

Here sight/spirit happen before baptism, rather than after it in Jesus’ case.

Now, awakened, Saul becomes Paul, reconciled with those for whom he was previously an enemy.

May whatever scales of judgment/justice have kept you from reconciling with those you were previously on the outs with, drop in the face of everyone having already suffered enough.

John 21:1-19

Year C - Easter³ or Assured³

April 10, 2016

John 21:1-19

In Luke the Disciples know up front that they are shifting from fishing for fish to “fishing for people”. The rest of the story is in practise of how to “care for people”. 

In John disciples just shift from Baptizer John to Jesus. The disciples are shown how to care for people. It isn’t until the end of John that we have a reprise of the Lucan call.

Fishing for fish isn’t always easy, even for locals who know the territory. Jesus called out to unsuccessful fishermen to break the pattern they had set up and fish from the other side of the boat. In this shift, a new vision comes. This gets concretized in Luke with “fishers of people” and in John with a ritualized encounter between Jesus and Peter—

Do you love me more than you love fishing?

     Yes.

          Feed lambs/children.

Do you love me?

     Yes.

          Care for my sheep/people.

Do you love me?

     YES!

          Fish for people.

And so it goes around and around:

     Fish/Care —> learn how to do this —> fish/care —> learn more —> fish care ...

John 20:19-31

Year C - Easter² or Assured²

April 3, 2016

John 20:19-31

This chapter began with a similar reference to “the first day of the week”. We have moved from the early morning crying of Mary to the evening doubting of Thomas (passing on the way da guys who came, saw artifacts, and went away believing without any questions).

This gives Peter and whichever of the other disciples was known as one Jesus loved (because no one else could or would?) a second chance at not being typical males with their boxes of categories that never touch one another. Of course they blew it. They knew what they knew and were sure as sure about it regardless if they were anywhere near correct or not.

“I/We’ve seen the LORD” is not an easy affirmation to make or witness to share. Depending on which Gospel story being referenced, folks don’t exactly know what they’ve seen when they’ve seen something and, if they finally figure something out, aren’t believed.

Which is to say, the offering of opportunities that might open self and others to experience for themselves is a precious gift to offer. Eventually this gift will come back to haunt as they can now return the favor to you to grow beyond your current understanding. Isn’t that a wonderful sort of karma to participate in—mutual encouragement!

Happy are those who see a larger trust-venue through their own experience without discounting the experience of others. In many ways this actually starts the other way around: First, no discounting of others; Second, no discounting of self. This is a helpful corollary to “love your neighbor as you love yourself”.

Keep truck’n Peter, Thomas and others caught in knowledge-based experience, you may yet follow the trail blazed by cry’n Mary M. 

John 20:1-18

Year C - Easter or Assured

March 27, 2016

John 20:1-18

Continuing the theme of loving partners and Judas as a beloved disciple, isn’t it some form of poetic justice that the greatest doubter, Judas, finally trusted the process Jesus had followed in sharing a better tomorrow in the context of not-so-hot today?

Make of Mary what you will, a physical experiencer of some resurrection, or of a beloved disciple, an experiencer of artifacts of some resurrection, what have you experienced and announced?

When it comes to our participation in the movement from the past to the present to place a claim of not simply repeating what has been and in the movement of the future into the present to plant a seed of a new beginning not fated to remain as it is, a key element is our sense of assurance that a greater inclusion and expansion is currently available to ourself and all. So great is this assurance that it resurrects us into completer and forerunner at one and the same time. Journey well and tell that story.

John 18:1-19:42

Year C - Good Friday or Annihilation Friday

March 25, 2016

John 18:1-19:42

The chief priest questioned Jesus about his disciples and teaching. Here is a better reason for Jesus’ death than any bloody atonement theory. Who Jesus associated with and what Jesus said, and did on earth are far simpler explanations for his death than a “strict father in heaven”.

Anyone you’ve associated with or anything you’ve said or done that would bring a calculated dismissal of you—whether shaming, shunning, imprisonment, or death?

Whatever your response, the question becomes sharper regarding the questions you receive. Can you call a false question false and live with the consequences? In today’s political climate we don’t seem to be able to address either subtle or over-the-top lies.

Whatever your response, the question becomes sharper regarding the responses you make when challenged. Can you hold out when equivalent cries of “Crucify” come or will you just wash your hands (even if you have to change stories to do it)?

Whatever your response, the question becomes sharper regarding your catalytic action of binding parther to partner. Looking back on a life, is there an equivalent experience of binding people into a new family?

- - - - - - -

Speaking of a disciple beloved by Jesus, imagine that it is Judas that is still at the cross, to see Jesus die (all the others have run?). What strange business if Judas is the disciple Jesus has had the most love for (being the neediest of it) and is now bound to Mary. Since John doesn’t tell of Judas’ demise can you think that it finally sank in to the disciples that Jesus last “command” was to love one another and that included Judas who was forgiven even Jesus’ death and remained beloved to the end?

John 13:1-17, 31b-35

Year C - Maundy Thursday or Courage Thursday

March 24, 2016

John 13:1-17, 31b-35

Jesus has already given four “love” commandments (presuming that love can be commanded).

     Love G*D with all ya got,

     Love your Neighb*r as you

     Love your Self, and

     Love your Enemy (meaning they are no longer your enemy though you may be their enemy)

In some sense this is a sequence that moves from easier to harder and it may be important to move through the list in the opposite direction.

Here we come to the most difficult of the love commands: Love each other.

This is the way others will know we are partners with Jesus’ partners as well as with Jesus. It is not that this is unique to Jesus, but that this is the visible evidence of a community of partners. The other four commands tend toward individual behaviors.

This becomes clearer as the evening and next day come around. Folks run. Solidarity crumbles. Creation quakes.