A Change in Approach

With a new liturgical year comes a new series of comments on the lectionary.

Last year the formula was:

Day 1 – all the lections of Year A
Day 2 – all the lections of Year B
Day 3 – Hebrew lection of Year C
Day 4 – Psalm lection of Year C
Day 5 – Epistle lection of Year C
Day 6 – Gospel lection of Year C

Each written reflection would be followed by a versification or prayer fragment.

As this year begins the formula, so far, is:

Day 1 – comment on Gospel lection of Year A
Day 2 – comment on Hebrew lection of Year A
Day 3 – comment on Psalm lection of Year A
Day 4 – comment on Epistle lection of Year A
Day 5 – miscellaneous comment

As I didn't know before this week just what was going to happen, I was intrigued to find out what this first week has been like. I'll try it for a bit more and will be interested to see how long it stays or how it will change over the course of a year. Life's seasons are gloriously mysterious.

I am also interested in comments about such a change in process as it has unknown meaning and implications I will probably miss without a guiding word from a friendly quarter.

Thanks for your reading and responses.

Wesley White

Thanks also to Kairos CoMotion for stimulating me to this blogging and providing a mask to peek out from behind.

A Cut-Up following William S. Burroughs

Advent 1 – Year A

A Cut-Up following William S. Burroughs

But about that day and hour
Isaiah son of Amoz saw
I was glad
in the light
they said to me, "Let us go."

as the days of Noah
as the highest mountain
the commandments
built as a city bound firmly
thrones for judgment were set up.

out of Zion shall go instruction
one will be taken
one will be left
you shall not
not not

keep awake
walk paths
wake from sleep
live honorably
put on armor

go up
give thanks
know what time it is
love your neighbor
pray for peace

be ready
at an unexpected hour
peace be within you
within your walls
I will seek your good

our feet within your gate
beat swords to plowshares
prosper a broken house
a city, a flood
peace be within you

Romans 13:8-14

Advent 1 – Year A

Romans 13:8-14

The Message reports Romans 13:10 as: "You can't go wrong when you love others. When you add up everything in the law code, the sum total is love."

This advice for the present turns out to be very helpful whether you are looking at things in terms of readiness or envisioning a future where we don't play war anymore.

To be constantly on guard for every little misstep is exhausting. It does, however, make one very proficient in legalistic justifications as per literalistic fundamentalists who know the nth degree of truth about every jot and tittle in Scripture.

Very much like telling the truth eases one's mind (keeping track of multiple story lines and who has what information is tiring), having one golden orientation eases life toward joy and thanksgiving. In this case, instead of trying to live up to all rules all the time, it will be sufficient to focus on one behavior that resolves the rest – love others.

What is unexpected about this approach is that it turn out to be ready for every unexpected occasion. It is not silly liberal claptrap advocated by bleeding hearts. It is the needed following of Jesus' advice to be ready – ready by doing what he did, loving others.

Likewise, what is a world without war but a world of mutual care and love. We see it in the future. It is possible to move in that direction by what we do. Not only can we see it, we can have a hand in both preparing for this world without war and actually participating in it right now.

You can't go wrong when you love others. This is a progressive panacea. Try it, you'll like it. Realistically, you'll eventually like it. Its one difficulty is that it throws everything up for grabs in the shortrun - all our learned rules will band together against it until it becomes an ingrained way of life.

The night is far gone. We have wasted enough time in trying to always be ready and to minutely define a future before actually practicing some of it today. Let us live honorably by putting on the love Jesus had for others.

Psalm 122

Advent 1 – Year A

Psalm 122

To be ready for the unexpected runs the danger of readiness fatigue.

To have a clear vision of what needs to be runs the danger of not being ready for a different future and missing it when it is available.

Both of these dangerous approaches to Advent are needed and both raise a larger danger of setting one against the other in a battle to an unnecessary death. There may be a third way that brings out the best of both. The Psalmist sums up this non-doctrinal formula relationally – "I will seek your good."

The tendency we have in today's world of silent reading is for us to read the Matthew and Isaiah passages as individuals. Strikingly, when Matthew speaks to us of being ready he uses an irregular plural of "you" and Isaiah speaks of the whole house of Jacob as walking together in light. To be progressive in today's world almost requires an ear for the corporate, the community, and not the individual. In time to come this will probably become as perverted as an overblown individualism is today and progressives will be those holding up the importance of a depth of psyche. But, for now, listen first for where the community might be better held together. This is our great need today – an irregular plural.

Our readiness for the future and our walking a better way in today's light can both be assisted with a reminder that we only get to that better future together. This requires us to seek the good of another in order for either and both of us to progress toward a time of wholeness, of peace.

Imaging Jerusalem as "a place of wholeness" we find it appropriate that those who would pray for peace, as a significant part of wholeness, would prosper, would not learn war anymore, would be ready for an unexpected experience of community beyond any arbitrary decision resulting in some taken and some left behind.

Then we run again into the tension and/or balance of Advent.

For the sake of others I will say, "Peace be within you."
For the sake of G*D "I will seek your good."

May peace be within G*D's place and may we seek the good of others. In these two we find all the law and prophets. In these two we find our past-future and our future-future come together in a very present-future that is quite manageable. We can bless G*D and bless one another – a bit now, a bit more later, and, eventually, with an exclamation point! or three!!!

Isaiah 2:1-5

Advent 1 – Year A

Isaiah 2:1-5

In days to come . . . . In days to come we look for life to be different than it now is. The difference is to be better. That which is still chaotic will become established. All shall be well, all manner of things shall be well. The extraneous parts of life vying for, and thus choking out, attention will find their place within larger pictures and we will live more solidly with one another.

In days to come we expect to see a resolution to life's perplexing questions. That which leads us to conflict will be transformed into consensus. The huge moral question of war will cease to confound us and we will learn peace rather than war. Imagine the transformation of our thinking if we learned stories of peace rather than stories of war. Instead of learning war we would understand it as aberration, its incompatibility with Christian teaching.

But we are not there yet. Wars and rumors of wars continue to abound. Such are convenient control methods to keep us fearful and unthinking. So how do we make a shift that seems so absolutely impossible?

A key phrase is for us to respond to an invitation to "walk in the light of the Lord".

Among other things, this is a call to live the future as if it were already here. In some sense Advent is not waiting time, but practicing time. We have seen a better future and, rather than wait for it or expect G*D to bring it about according to some yet undisclosed plan, we begin to implement our part of it in the present. The way to a better future is not based on some future event, but on what we currently do.

Let us walk in the light of what we posit G*D will be doing – teaching, mediating, transforming implements and attitudes of war into communal feeding and universal health care. Our Advent is proactive waiting. Our waiting is preemptive futuring.

We know where all this is going. Let its breaking news, its Advent, begin now.

While Advent can be waiting, it is also the pre-arrival of the future that we can climb on board. It is this tension between waiting and not waiting, between practice and actuality, between a Coming and a Second Coming, that gives Advent its peculiar energy. To emphasize one side over the other is to deny both.

To focus on a past-future such as Christmas sentimentalizes it to the point of denying its transformative power. To focus on a future-future such as a static utopia devoid of conflict removes a Second Christmas from the realm of our participation in it right now. Our challenge is to work with a present-future birth experience that both births anew and is born anew.

Matthew 24:36-44

Advent 1 – Year A

Matthew 24:36-44

The context and surface style of this passage makes it very easy to jump to apocalyptic end-times. The imagery is stark and dramatic. The theme is judgment.

As we enter a time of preparation we might take our eye off an endgame and put it back on a process of living, regardless of the times, culture, or faith orientation in which such living takes place. We are not waiting for a dividing judgment, but a birth of new hope for a peace that passes our understanding and is for all creation – a peace we can hear sung, no matter how far off, hailing a new creation. Can we be ready in our dark night to hear angels sing? This is what we are preparing for.

A first key is that of letting go of expectations of results. What is coming (whether one uses "Son of Man" lingo or not) goes beyond expectation. It may come this hour; it may not. While we have preferences about the timing of things (speeding up the good stuff and slowing down the bad) the Preacher of Ecclesiastes reminds us that all the various seasons take place within a larger vision - enjoying life and work.

Whether war continues in Iraq in 2008 or ceases or expands to Iran – what are you called to in your place? Whether one country's economy busts or all do – what are you called to in your time? Whether your health holds or you find out the latest worst – what are you called to in your body? Whether your dearest dream expands or dies – what are you called to continue nonetheless?

Here we need to re-appropriate our ignorance of a larger wisdom. We need to appreciate that we don't know any of the larger pictures. The angels don't know it yet, either. Neither does Jesus. This frees us to simply enjoy life and do our work. By extension this ignorance is corporate as well as individual. So we can enjoy together and work together. How is it where you are?

By this ignorance (a refusal to be trapped by fuzzy Gnosticism) I don't mean stupidity. Rather, a detachment of our actions from our expectations. Simply put, what's a good thing to do, whether we are here or not in any given hour? Does this mean reducing the carbon footprint we have as individuals and congregations? What witness to a better hope, a larger future, and a more expansive love will we participate in? Will we sing this song and dance this melody in good times and bad?

Since we can't be ready 24/7, we perhaps can be open to enjoying and to a next good work, regardless of the context we find ourselves. Amazingly, this simplifying puts us in the good company of the saints who are urging us on to stop our political and religious games, to cease our military aggression and economic exploitation, and to calm our excited entitlements.

Advent comes as a gift of waiting wherein we might practice avoiding all expected hours and joining Jesus and all the other saints in feasting with other saints and sinners and providing healing touches and speaking forth healing words to one another. Four weeks may just be long enough to make some progress as individuals and congregations in this process of holiness.

Advent Devotional Available

Advent Devotional Available

If you do not already have a devotional guide through Advent and Christmas, I recommend the one from the Wisconsin United Methodist Federation for Social Action.

You can access it for daily reading online or download of a PDF for printing out.

Whether you use this or not, blessings upon your creative waiting.

Advent Devotional

Pentecost +26 Sunday – C4

Pentecost +26 Sunday – C4

Years C
Luke 23:33-43

When all else is stripped from G*D, there is yet steadfast love.
When all else is stripped from Jesus, there is yet forgiveness.

What is there when all else is stripped from you?

Here it is that you will find your joy, your willingness, your paradise.

= = = = = = =

we have come through
a long long time
whether eons or milliseconds
this long time is beyond
our timing of time

this year for instance
we circled again
themes of creation
of salvation
in a time of liturgy

starting with waiting
a strange place to start
a silence before do-re-mi
we reach a longed for place
Forgiveness Paradise

having arrived
we note its fragility
our resistance
when push comes to shove
and we set out again

how many revolutions
of wheels and self
before we stop
resisting such a paradise
and move with it beyond it

Pentecost +26 Sunday – C3

Pentecost +26 Sunday – C3

Years C
Colossians 1:11-20

I have appreciated Peterson's The Message take on this passage. I like being prayed for in such a manner that I will be given a wise mind and spirit to help me understand the ways in which G*D works. Examples of G*D at work are found in the subsequent prayers.

- that we will live well, as G*D lives well
- that we will persist in living well, as G*D persists
- that we will find living well leading to joy, as does G*D

A key piece of evidence that these prayers are finding fertile ground in us, that we are part of "a resurrection parade", comes with the image of spaciousness. We, too, become, like Jesus, "so spacious, so roomy that everything of G*D finds its proper place in us. Not only that, but all the broken and dislocated pieces of the universe – people and things, animals and atoms – get properly fixed and fit together in vibrant harmonies with ourselves." (modified a bit)

This movement toward an expansive and expanding love is worthy of present and future thanks.

= = = = = = =

we have redemption
available
anytime anywhere
forgiveness

Pentecost +26 Sunday – C2

Pentecost +26 Sunday – C2

Years C
Luke 1:68-79 or Psalm46

To be a preparer of a better way is indeed a high calling. It is one within the reach of everyone.

Sometimes we strive for some better part, to be the hero/heroine of whatever situation we are in. Sometimes that is not only possible, but achievable. For a given time and place, we are the obvious catalyst to move things along. More often we would do better to cast around for simply a next baby step that someone else will be able to build on, bring to fruition.

It is amazing how often this role of the preparer of a better future revolves around issues of forgiveness. Time and again the gift of radical forgiveness is needed to clear space for a better time. It is this forgiveness that provides a better picture of salvation and ways in which it might become clearer and stronger in our living.

In this last moment of the year we might cast our hearts and minds back over the past year to see the proportion of our experience that found us humbly preparing a better way compared to those moments where we were a final capstone put in place. My hunch is that we will all find ourselves more often in the role of preparer. Now that we have cast back, we might be able to more forthrightly and joyfully fill more of that role in the year ahead. This will lead to a greater fulfillment by this time next year.

= = = = = = =

there is a river
whose streams make glad
habitations of the heart
whose strong flow
sees us through to dawn

streams pre-river
sea post-river
play their part
along a way
of new life

gathering
holding
connected
river-wise
courageous

Pentecost +26 Sunday – C1

Pentecost +26 Sunday – C1

Years C
Jeremiah 23:1-6

On the cusp of one year leading to another it is time to look back and raise some general questions. These questions can be responded to on personal, cultic, and national levels.

What flocks have we scattered? Did we avoid doing bad things?

What remnant has been gathered? Did we do good things?

What connection with G*D did we nurture? Did we attend exercises of justice and righteousness?

= = = = = = =

whose honey-bunch are you
whose betrayer are you
whose dearie are you
whose loyal opposition are you
whose worst nightmare are you
whose defender are you
whose ignorer are you
whose righteousness are you

Pentecost +26 Sunday – B

Pentecost +26 Sunday – B

Years B
2 Samuel 23:1-7 or Daniel 7:9-10, 13-14
Psalm 132:1-18 or Psalm 93
Revelation 1:4b-8
John 18:33-37

So, who are you? We need to listen to other's perception of us. There will be some truth there. It will give us a clue about who we have been, are, or might yet become.

For this to be most helpful it is good to have some idea that we are fulfilling a meaningful interaction with the other and with a community larger than our immediate community. With this larger perspective we can take other perceptions and not battle them. Sometimes we can even claim them (probably to the consternation of those who were trying to get our goat).

I am who I was born to be. This is a deep truth each of us have access to. When we do connect with it, it is amazing what power is set free within and through us.

Here is an empowering exercise. Stand in front of a proverbial mirror and say aloud, until it is firmly stated, "For this I was born – to testify to wholeness." Stating this truth continues our completion and emboldens us to assist others to arrive at a similar spot for themselves. This is leadership.

= = = = = = =

where did I come from
alpha
where am I going
omega

right now I'm between
mu and nu
I am glad to be here
me and you

for this I was born
for this I will die
in the meantime
we enjoy between times

we are and were
and are yet were-ing
to a new witness
all are loved free

look up and down
jump and kneel
remember and anticipate
amen and amen

Pentecost +26 Sunday – A

Pentecost +26 Sunday – A

Years A
Ezekiel 34:11-16, 20-24
Psalm 100 or Psalm 95:1-7a
Ephesians 1:15-23
Matthew 25:31-46

With the eyes of your heart enlightened, hope lives in you.

Hope that you will be unscattered and hope that you can help return folks who have been pushed out. Such hope rises to the surface, becoming conscious. From there it is but a matter of applying courage to implement it.

And so, at the end of a long year, we are left with hope. After all the disappointments, we are left with hope. Even in the presence of current and in the anticipation of judgments now and yet, we are left with hope.

= = = = = = =

hope revealed
shyly and boldly
pokes its head out
to reveal its heart
in deeds of loving kindness

a bit of feast here
a tun of fun there
a goodwill stop also
a visit when all seemed lost
so hope travels

as we have been done unto
we are thankful
thankful enough
to hope to do well
to do well unto

Pentecost +25 Sunday – C4

Pentecost +25 Sunday – C4

Years C
Luke21:5-19

"By your endurance you will gain your souls." Sometimes it sounds as if soul-gaining were still in doubt and dependent upon our decision to endure. Is that your understanding of gaining your soul? If so, what is this "endurance" you are to participate in? Is it more than simply a passage of time.

In light of other parts of this passage and a focus upon thanksgiving, it might be that we can retranslate "endurance" as "persistent in present thanksgiving."

There are supposedly many dangers yet ahead, perhaps more than we have already passed through. Each difficulty brings an opportunity to witness, to testify. Our testimony regards our endurance. What is it that keeps you keeping on in the face of travail and betrayal?

Listening to words not heard by others that see beyond a dim horizon to a new dawn breaking – this is what we testify to. We witness to a thanksgiving that permeates us from nose to toes and flows through us and surrounds us.

When all about is falling down, we see beyond the falling to a new rising – a rising of soul. [Listen to Walela sing Bright Morning Stars.]

= = = = = = =

all beautiful gifts
all gifts to God
rise up tall
to fall below

carefully constructed
carelessly thrown together
all rise up
all fall down

soul attempt
after soul try
rise awhile
fall forever

leaving trails
of thanks behind
the rise
the fall

Pentecost +25 Sunday – C3

Pentecost +25 Sunday – C3

Years C
2 Thessalonians 3:6-13

Here is where having loose boundaries comes in handy. The language being used here is that of "idleness". Given a focus on thanksgiving we might see idleness as a being without thanks or joy. We just don't have the energy, given all we need to do, to spend any more on such frivolities.

We might reflect on the classic sin of sloth or sadness. In this case idleness is lack of thankful joy. Spiritual apathy that discourages us from our holy work of appreciating beauty and expressing thanks is another way to talk about sloth and to see how what is being warned against here is not relaxing, but a choice against life.

Likewise, we can retranslate, "anyone not willing to work" into "anyone not willing to give thanks and do the work of worship isn't worth any more than the result of the mechanics of eating".

And yet again, "do not be weary in doing what is right" is less about morality and more about thanksgiving (a focus of this passage).

= = = = = = =

sometimes we learn
from opposites
better than models

our models come loaded
with literalism and creeds
narrowing our options

comparison brings choice
play and mystery
bearing greater fruit

idling is not staying in place
it is actively refusing
to move ahead

Pentecost +25 Sunday – C2

Pentecost +25 Sunday – C2

Years C
Isaiah 12 or Psalm 98

"You will say in that day: Give thanks…."

Do you trust that day will come? If so why not give thanks now as well as then?

Trust and thanks are antidotes to fear. Trust and thanks are rope and winch lowering and raising a bucket of joy into the wells (plural) of salvation. Trust and thanks free us from the control of anger and fear of anger.

In preparation for a focus on thanks-giving and thanks-living it might be helpful to focus on its twin of trust. Trust lays the groundwork for the courage it takes to sing a new song in an old situation. Trust breaks fear's grip. Trust is another way of spelling salvation from that which looms over us and another way of spelling health or wholeness pulling us past any rough spot we face.

= = = = = = =

I give thanks
you – give thanks!

so we move
from experience
to rote requirements

forgetting
my thanks is mine
forgetting
your thanks is yours

thanks becomes a technique
we apply to intolerable situations
as though going through this motion
we will change the unspeakable
from fearful to our advantage

starting with thanks
we can go anywhere
with strengthened trust
we are truly at home
wherever we are
and whenever

Pentecost +24 Sunday – C3

Pentecost +24 Sunday – C3

Years C
Isaiah 65:17-25 or Malachi 4:1-2a

Hearken back to a conversation G*D was having with whatever heavenly hosts are. Way back at a time of a creation - a creation or two ago.

In such a yesteryear G*D announces, to whomever, an intention for a next creation of heaven and earth, version x.c. In this version, new or renewed features will be featured. Key among them are issues of joy and time and meaning and healthy relationships.

Among the questions before us is whether we are at the end of version x.c and a new healing needs to rise - x.d.

There is still some time to go before we get to version y and z and whatever might be beyond our current ways of measuring. What is not in doubt, though, is a progression that will keep coming to our attention as free-will and gracious love bounce off one another loosing untold additional particles of life that will need to be taken into account with a new version of what we are doing with the process of creation, experience, re-creation.

= = = = = = =

hearkening anticipates
a new tonal relationship
surprising
an expected next note
with a variation
beckoning beyond

not hearkening
traps us in an echo chamber
turning a first harmony
into dissonance beyond hurtful
with its predictable
degradation

hearken anew
newly harken
hark
angels sing
creation begins
worlds go on again

[Try to listen to Jean Redpath sing The Song of the Seals in its entirety.]

Pentecost +25 Sunday – B

Pentecost +25 Sunday – B

Years B
1 Samuel 1:4-20 or Daniel 12:1-3
1 Samuel 2:1-10 or Psalm 16
Hebrews 10:11-25
Mark 13:1-8

Look! What a large Enemy!
It will take a trebuchet to do in this large an enemy. One smooth river stone or five stand no chance

Look! What a large Temple!
Nothing could ever bring down such stability. No number of armies with the biggest siege engines could prevail here.

What fantasies we conjure as we face fears and attempt to continue our present course. In both cases we exaggerate our situations. We are at one and the same time too weak and too strong.

Take a second and third look. G*D as rock is an interesting image. G*D enlarges on the way from sling to forehead, becoming irresistible. G*D reduces so temple walls can be stepped over and be no barrier, becoming approachable. G*D as rock is no static image, but is as transformable as any Living reality.

= = = = = = =

lead me astray
please
from solid falsehoods
told with volume enough
to fool all the people all the time

lies that grow
rumor so seemingly so
plausible to irresistible
small lie masquerading
as big truth

lead me astray
from popular memes
so believable everywhere
and all too repeated
in sanctuary space

having connected with god
our least fears
are projected large
upon innocent
children and strangers

of all sadness
this grieves most
unquestioning
big lies hold sway
in holy space

resolution
a willingness
to be provoked
to love
not lie

Pentecost +25 Sunday – A

Pentecost +25 Sunday – A

Years A
Judges 4;1-7 or Zephaniah 1:7, 12-18
Psalm 123 or Psalm 90:1-12
1 Thessalonians 5:1-11
Matthew 25:14-30

Life has been given into our hands. Some have received one gift; some another.

What to do with gifts is a perennial issue. The way we use a gift this year may be different than the way we were called to use it last year. It is difficult to keep up with a Living G*D.

The doing of evil may be as simple as continuing to use a gift in a manner no longer called for. Persistence of evil might be seen as a persistence of behavior beyond its time with no new listening, learning, or living.

It is this persistence of past talents that can be the same as burying them in the past and protecting them from being invested in the present and future. Thank goodness for communities that continue to challenge and support us in our use of gifts - for challenging us when we keep repeating ourselves past usefulness and for stimulating and encouraging us to new uses of given gifts.

= = = = = = =

a thousand years
swept away like a dream
and we complain
we bewail
we are at wit's end

the pull of habit
is strong
persistent
insistent
desired

even if there is new grass
growing through cement
we cling to our cement
claiming it to be life
in the presence of real life

may the light of day
keep us from SAD
cast a beam upon our path
warm our waning days
and lead us to one another

a thousand days
pfftt
gone
no regret
today's enough

Pentecost +24 Sunday – C4

Pentecost +24 Sunday – C4

Years C
Luke 20:27-38

If a pastor moves on from a congregation, another pastor is to come and make them fruitful. After seven pastorates, during a time of Jubilee from pastoring, a question arises as to which congregation do I have responsibility for forever?

Well, it turns out, none-of-the-above is the closest to reality. It was a false concept that an offspring is the end-all and be-all of life. Even having one imputed to one through no action of one's own, doesn't reverse death. To talk of pastoral responsibility for the life of a congregation is in the same arena of false concept.

Whew, finally the woman died. Whew, finally being responsible for another or a group of others died. In the midst of mutuality we can do just fine without an offspring. In the midst of mutuality we can do just fine without a pastor. This is not to say that a child wouldn't bring joy or a pastor wouldn't provide leadership. It is to look more deeply at the details and catch a glimpse of the fragility of the premise we have for so long taken for granted.

Where have you been caught thinking that you are caught in a web not of your own weaving or in a story made up by someone without regard for your character development? Time, then, to remember there is a G*D of the living that goes beyond our limiting rules based on bad science or bad systems. In this remembering it is now possible to move on.

= = = = = = =

children of resurrection
would be a lovely name
for a congregation
wrestling with a living G*D
as they find themselves
born and reborn and re-reborn
shedding skin after skin
growing from within
not compressed from without

child of resurrection
would be a beautiful secret name
for an individual
finding their identity
in being everyone's child
and bearing everyone's child
whether in body
or in metaphor
once or repeatedly

resurrection children
bypass usual fears
of death
as ending
or beginning
or changing
each is permissible
none holds sway
all is alive