Luke 24:44-53; Acts 1:1-11

Ascension – Year B

Luke 24:44-53; Acts 1:1-11

On this day of remembering ascension we do well to pay attention to footnotes.

* Other ancient authorities lack "and was carried up into heaven" (Lk 24:51).

* Other ancient authorities lack "worshiped him, and" (Lk 24:52

And so we read: "Then Jesus led them out as far as Bethany, and, lifting up his hands, he blessed them. While he was blessing them, he withdrew from them. And they returned to Jerusalem with great joy; and they were continually in the temple blessing God."

This moves us to the same sort of abrupt ending of Mark that cries out for something more. This is a good place for Luke to end his story of Jesus and then to pick it up again to begin his story of Church.

This reading also helps us see the issue of "blessing" without the confusion heaven adds to this and almost every conversation of which it is a part.

Acts begins with a remembrance of Jesus speaking with the disciples for forty days about the presence of G*D, the freedom of G*D, the mercy of G*D, the new-beginning of G*D, partnership with G*D (or if you must, the kingdom of G*D).

This conversation reminds the disciples that they are still not experiencing these gifts of presence, freedom, mercy, new beginnings, or partnership. So the hinge question, "Lord, is this the time when you will restore the king-dom to Israel?" This question represents the failure of the disciples to stand with Jesus rather than under him.

Confirming this is their response to Jesus being lifted up and out of sight (still without heaven being mentioned). They gawk upward. Two strangers need to remind them that Jesus will return in the same way, inexplicably, and if they keep avoiding one another and the world around them, they will have missed the next opportunity to, unexplainedly, share their experience of an amazedly unexplainable G*D.

To put the two passages together - It is time for us to rise, as workers/saviors of the world, to throw off our chains of gazing in the wrong direction, and to be a blessing.
 

1 John 5:9-13

Easter 7 – Year B

1 John 5:9-13

Let's see, I am supposed to believe the human testimony of the writer of 1 John, but even more I am to believe the testimony of my experience of Jesus. This puts me in a particular bind - if 1 John corresponds to my experience, does that give it or me greater credence all along the way? This evidence is circular.

Might we say with 1 John that eternal life is in Jesus or say with our experience of Jesus that such life is in G*D. Is G*D stepping back, forcing Jesus to be the bearer and gatekeeper of eternal life? How do we reconcile the witness of scripture as commonly received with the gift of our own spirit base?

In some sense 1 John is propaganda (yes, these writing are as well) to which I sometimes respond, "Speak for yourself. As for me and my house, we arrive at a sense of life larger than life with the gift of creation and re-creation, not propositions about a "Son of God". Statements about a source of eternal life is one thing and showing one lives from that perspective is quite another.
 

Psalm 1

Easter 7 – Year B

Psalm 1

Happy delight: an excellent starting place.

Yielding fruit in your time: the time for this is always now.

These two let us know we are moving toward the great better not yet arrived.

In this psalm there is a fine play between the joy of creation and the joy of participation. When these two are active we anticipate joy beyond joy yet to come.

Remember your joys. Live your joys. Anticipate your joys.

Then take the next quantum leap:
remember joy; live joy; anticipate joy.

No matter what order you proceed through this trinity of joy you will find yourself embarking on the other aspects of love.

An excellent start to the Psalms; an excellent start, period. Now that it has begun, keep it rolling.
 

Acts 1:15-17, 26

Easter 7 – Year B

Acts 1:15-17, 26

Yes, leadership development through a prayer process is still possible.

We can learn something from every leadership attempt and we can help folks grow. Imagine, if you will, a new cycle of leadership selection in whatever group you are a part of. This year, however, you are going to follow this Biblical model of leader selection.

First, put everyone (yes, everyone, not just those deemed appropriate by some criterion or another). Spend some time in prayer that the right leadership for the year will be forthcoming (not the perfect leadership – the right leadership that we can learn from).

Start with what you consider to be the humblest team/committee/whatever and draw out an appropriate number of people for it. The last one selected will be the convener of the group.

Continue until you come to whatever is considered to be the key position and finally draw out the person who will be named.

Use this as your starting point. At a minimum, view this as you would making a decision by flipping a coin – not so much trusting the coin as investigating your response to what turns up. It may lead you to a new appreciation of what it means to be community and to rely upon the least as a way to greatness (whatever that might mean to you).

Presuming you will try it, reflect on these questions after completing the process. What surprised you about viewing someone in a different position than usual? Would you be willing to trust this process over time (perhaps in a given year you might have to learn what not to do as well as what might be done)?

This is as valid a process as a group of nominators sitting around talking about what they know about folks – there is always more to know than we know.

Try it, you may like it.
 

John 17:6-19

Easter 7 – Year B

John 17:6-19

To what and whom are you to reveal what you know of G*D?
By whom and what has G*D been revealed to you?

Both aspects of revelation are important to keep clear. Both will lead to a sense of assurance, protection, if you will.

Creation, once upon a time and still, has revealed G*D. My thanks for this gift is to protect creation.

Imagination, large and small, has revealed G*D. My thanks for this gift is to protect imagination wherever it appears and regardless of the person doing the imagining.

Relationships, intimate and accidental, have revealed G*D. My thanks for this gift is to protect relationships near and far, mine and yours.

You catch the pattern. What would you add that has brought revelation of G*D to you and are you likewise committed to protecting these important sources of life?
 

beyond logic

Easter 6 – Year B

beyond logic

as . . . so . . . : therefore . . .
makes it sound so definitive
here are the facts
as I have been loved
greatly
so I love you
greatly
therefore stay
where I can love you
stay with my commands
loving commandments
of course

if . . . then . . .
keeps it sounding authoritative
if you just stay
obeying commands
following commandments
abiding loyally
then you'll
abide loyally
follow commandments
obey commands

can you hear joy in these logics
is it bubbling up
about to arrive
if only
is this the way to friendship
or a polite cover for indenture
chosen without choosing
appointed

appointed for productivity
not for planned obsolescence
but for long term fruit
fruit to eat
seeds to plant
plants to tend
harvests to reap
fruit to eat

ask what you will
this is what you'll get
fruit to eat
enjoy
enjoy wholly
holy joy
 

1 John 5:1-9

Easter 6 – Year B

1 John 5:1-9

We are still dealing with a lot of conquering language in service to matters of love and faith. One really needs to dig pretty hard to avoid the surface connections of one's "faith" (read belief system rather than active experience) conquering every other faith. We do have a difficult time being a gracious image of a gracious G*D.

If the Johannine community is having difficulty and "love one another" is the healing balm needed, this passage seems to set the stage for the community having a schism (another?) as arguments about what constitutes victory or conquering are inherent in the text.

Where would you put a moderating word in edgewise?
 

Psalm 98

Easter 6 – Year B

Psalm 98

The word "victory" shows up three times in the NRSV in the first three verses. In our current ears this sets us up to hear this psalm militarily, not relationally.

Imagine what some word substitutions for "victory" could do for us. First they would put us in a better position to hear the action of G*D at end of the psalm to be the healthy, positives of righteousness and equity. Victory doesn't really get us to that spot.

Here then are some words that we might substitute for "victory":
     - partnership
     - love
     - friendship
     - joy
     - relationship

The whole "victory" approach leads us to the dead-ends of "Truth" with a capital "T", Orthodoxy that emphasizes style of reporting a G*D experience rather than the experience itself, and Creeds that purport to be the last creed needed because it is the best we can do today.

If joy is to be expressed because of the presence of G*D, it needs something larger than a victory that we know will always be ephemeral, partial, and the set up to more conflict.
 

Acts 10:44-48

Easter 6 – Year B

Acts 10:44-48

Wouldn't you know it! Just when we thought we had an unrepeatable experience that would set us apart for all time and give evidence of our worthiness, along come these least-likely folks to replicate our experience.

Choice: Accept or resist this reality.

Hopefully when we return from our exalted moment we re-enter everyday living with a difference. We have learned that nothing is impossible and that not only includes us, but all. Here is a real opportunity for all boats to rise. The Market will never do that, but a new spirit can.

Instead of continuing to presume upon our elevated status as a spirit-touched person, we are renewed enough to join Jesus in not presuming upon our status with G*D. We can meet folks between our experiences and grow further together than we ever dreamed. We are also renewed enough to affirm our status with G*D. We can encourage and be encouraged to grow further together than we ever dreamed.

We'll stay on together for a bit and then move on and return and move on. See your life as a dance. This takes some distance and perspective over the long haul. But see your pirouette, your lift, your two-stepping/jive/samba/ waltz/free-style dance of a lifetime. Change partners and allemande left. Break out your tutu and pas de deux as you ready to move from position one to Arabesque.

Ready or not, here comes baptismal water. A sprinkle or a tsunami of baptismal water. Baptismal water approved by others or not. Beyond objection, baptismal water flows and flows.
 

John 15:9-17

Easter 6 – Year B

John 15:9-17

Institutionally, United Methodists are called to "make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world."

This passage from John clarifies that we are not to make servants of Jesus Christ. But if we are to make friends of Jesus Christ there are additional questions to be asked.

Can you "make" friends? What does that take?

Have you experienced bringing your various friends together and found that they thus became friends of one another?

Would this be primarily about our motivation – what would you do for a friend, for Jesus? Lay down your life? What difference would being a disciple or a friend bring to a motivation and consequence-in-living.

Would this be primarily about expansion of Jesus' friends (as if he was incapable of being someone's friend on his own) and so we become the proverbial and catalytic best friend who gets left behind when new connections are made between your best friend and another (sound like a familiar movie plot)?

How would it change a congregation to be made up of friends of J rather than disciples of Jesus?

This friendship talk is supposedly to strengthen our love of one another. How's that working out for Jesus? Has this tactic worked?

We might profitably play with these intersections between servant-friend-lover. On which boundary are you finding your work these days?
 

swing slow . . .

Easter 5 – Year B

swing slow . . .

resurrection comes dropping slow
honey molasses slow
slow enough
when awareness dawns
it seems as if it had sprinted
all the way from creation to now

in the mystery of transition
from winter to harvest
we find confusion aplenty
of all our previous categories
of up and down and in and out
fast and slow and back and forth

from graves closed and open
we wonder about pruning
just how much needs to go on
to roll a stone way
to lay clothes aside
to become an anonymous gardener

is it this thought
that action
a future or a past
a name or a title
resources or hope
how much more

is this yearning for pruning
a suicide wish
a commitment to growth
simply a shedding of skin
or many meta-s at once
angelically visiting from thither and yon

fear relief feels tectonically paced
in minds less long-lived
may persistence erode
fear of pain of death
until slowness is sweet
again
 

1 John 4:7-21

Easter 5 – Year B

1 John 4:7-21

Want G*D to be recognizable within your life?

"Love" another, each other, one another, others.

G*D's love lives in us and our love lives in G*D.

Now, if only we could figure out what this "love" is.

Is it "bearing fruit"?

Is it "shared understanding"?

Is it "happy, happy, joy, joy"?

Is it "participation in a great congregation"?

Is it "confession"?

Is it "response to being 'loved'"?

All of the above and more?
None of the above?
 

Psalm 22:25-31

Easter 5 – Year B

Psalm 22:25-31

What is missing from this section of the Psalm is the context in which it began – forsakenness, worminess, unhumanness, scorned, despised, mocked. Without this starting point we have an unbalanced power of positive thinking.

When all you can hear is "bow down – bow down – bow down; worship – worship – worship", beware. There may well be a helpful relationship being referenced, but it may also be a set up for a new forsakenness, worminess, unhumanness, and set up to be scorned, despised, and mocked anew. Take at least one second-look to see what is going on when faced with a single dictum and take the time needed to evaluate its value.
 

Acts 8:26-40

Easter 5 – Year B

Acts 8:26-40

Inquiring minds want to know what horsepower chariot Philip had to contend with. Had the chariot pulled into a fast-falafel joint and reading passed the time (1 horse power)? Did the Ethiopian have a driver so he could read as they bounced along (several horse power)? Whatever it was, apparently Philip had an angelic booster on his side or at his back. Please, no Jr. Hi. jokes about backside boosters. Apparently Philip was in good enough shape that he could run and talk at the same time.

I often scratch my head about understanding what is understood. Said understanding always seems to come with a particular perspective, not an alternative one. When you hear Isaiah being pondered, I presume readers of these notes automatically think, "Jesus is what needs talking about here." But, with a head scratch, maybe they don't always go to that default?

Fortunately Philip arrived just in time to hear this particular portion of Isaiah. Some other sections would have presented a bit more hermeneutic alakazam to connect Jesus in such a way that a request for Jesus-authorized baptism would be the logical response by this Ethiopian eunuch fellow-traveler of YHWH.

It is this at-just-a-right-moment phenomenon that is of the most interest today. Providence is a powerful, sometimes too powerful, perspective. Even though we don't hear of it, one might presume that an angel of the Lord was preveniently whispering in the Ethiopian's ear to set off at just the right time for Philip to intersect his reading at a particular point in Isaiah. There are a lot of variables the angels had to attend to along the way, the speed of the horses, construction zones, thieves along the way, Dramamine's precursor, etc.

Providential moments can be seen as fated or an opportunity to make the most of an opportunity. Around these parts we tend toward the latter. This means our search for meaning can show up running along side and that we can strike up a conversation in the most unconventional of places and among the most unlikely of folk. The folks caught up overmuch in angels plotting ahead can miss an opportunity to engage an unaware angel. Whether you see life through the lens of "the hand of G*D" or "a god-damn fluke", may you be open to receive and to proclaim good news, where e'er ye be.
 

John 15:1-8

Easter 5 – Year B

John 15:1-8

We have a friend who comes to prune bushes because we can't bring ourselves to cut off enough to be beneficial. A quick look at derivations pushes the verb "prune" back to a round and rolling wheel. When left unpruned all the little fiddly bits start sticking out, impeding progress.

A second word to play with in this regard is "abide". It heads us back to wait, trust, believe.

Between active pruning and active waiting we find the creative tension that will allow us to move past condemnation of the pruning process or the waiting. In our current United Methodist iteration there are those who would castrate or prune the GLBTQ community from a larger vine, with nary a thought for the gift of fruit they bear. There are those of the GLBTQ community who would closet or prune the fruit of themselves from a larger vine. We have gone through this cycle before with various power plays – poverty, slavery, women, doctrine, culture, tradition, etc.

A Malvina Reynolds song, Magic Penny, with these lyrics, "Love is something if you give it away, you end up having more" brings us a new look at this passage. Imagine if it is love that is pruned in order to have more love (what does this do to the image of burning up branches?). Imagine if we waited for the fruit of love we have trusted to grow into the action of belief (what does this do to the image of a parochial glory?).
 

I abides

Easter 4 – Year B

I yam what I yam
and that’s all what I yam
a last resort spinach guzzler
come to save the day
if necessary
please say it ain’t necessarily so

now I lay me down to sleep
a rock in the gateway
astral projecting
elsewhere in creation
all the way back to creation
I be loved and be loving

some call me good
some a dirty shepherd
some Netzer
and some not at all
so I’ll just abide
whether called or no

one shepherd one flock
sometime one
sometime the other
together no wants
separate Death Valleys
a comfort way open

well
sometime deep
sometime artesian
yes
sometime comfortable
sometime not

now you see me
now you don’t
shepherd of this flock
and shepherd of that
knowing all
known not at all

welcome to my world
rejected stone
table setter
the fall and rise
of Reginald Perrin
or Nazareth Jesus

so stand we all
so say we all
healthy and whole
once fearful
but an oasis met
canteen filled

little kid
second-childhood kid
wise kid
and silly
abide abide
love abides

1 John 3:16-24

Easter 4 – Year B

1 John 3:16-24

While love has a sacrificial aspect to it (it’s not all about me), it must be asked whether sacrifice is its hallmark.

Stinginess is certainly a sign that any love available is being blocked from rising to the surface. It does not follow from this that love is absent when not evidenced, ultimately lost or controlling of G*D if not immediately passed on, or based on obedience.

I suspect the community had some reason for looking beyond word or speech, as a grounding of mutual love, to the abstracts of truth and action. I expect they had their share of disappointment and betrayal by smooth-talkers. Eventually, though, they do know that loving one another (loving all creation) is important, no matter what the response and whether or not it is commandable.

Perhaps it will suffice to note a connection between the particular and the general, physical and spiritual love. To be dependent, one upon the other, or to consistently choose an independence of one modality over the other, does not bring the interdependent, holistic experience of being loved and loving. If we were to leave Jesus out of this, the writer could still have arrived at the point from purely Jewish sources (which of course they did by referencing Jesus).

May you be bold in restoring the world by receiving your belovedness, your image of G*Dness, and encouraging those qualities within those you meet along the way.

= = = = = = =

In Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Lessons for Transforming Evil in Soul and Society by Matthew Fox we hear the following about the “Fifth Chakra: Prophecy” and find a connection with “love in truth and action” that goes beyond sacrifice of life and obedience:

“This chakra represents the throat and the expressing of one’s truth and wisdom. The throat lies between the heart and the mind chakras. Truth comes from both heart and mind. This chakra is also the prophetic chakra. The throat is the trumpet that speaks our truth, as the prophets also spoke out (the meaning of prophetein in Greek) their truth. . . .

“It is my experience, in listening to stories of people over the past two decades, that many people are having dreams about their throats. This is especially true of women and of gay people, and I think the meaning is that these people are finding their voice after having had it taken away for many centuries. They are on a search for their true voice. . . .

“The prophetic call is to speak out to interfere with what we see is obstructing what we deeply believe in. This chakra recovers the sense of the ‘holy word’ that we are called to speak regularly in our lives. . . .”

May your deep belief be spoken/lived this day.

Psalm 23

Easter 4 – Year B

Psalm 23

How dark is dark? Darker than a soul’s despair? Darker than midnight down in a cypress swamp? Darker than before light bursts on the scene?

Some of these darknesses are post-event – a sin-sick soul. Darkness is pain and death.

Some of these darknesses are present – midnight is but a marker of time and a swamp is a marker of location. Darkness here does not carry an emotional overlay beyond this time, this space.

Some of these darknesses are prelude – a fertile flow of various circumstances undefined. Darkness here is ready for a creative spark.

The shift from one kind of darkness to light is different in each case. Sometimes we are able to shift from post-event to prelude to light without having to spend time simply cataloging circumstances. Sometimes we find ourselves shifting through all three forms of darkness, like an atom in Brownian motion, and not finding a light at the end of our undeterminable tunnel. Sometimes we don’t even know there is darkness abounding as we float on our obliviousness. Sometimes we are in light and our context defines it away.

The significance of rod and staff, feasts, reconciliation, and abundance is different in each case. Our assurance of goodness and mercy being our milieu also varies according to the source, duration, and depth of our dark experience.

Blessings upon your particular darkness. Take Psalm 23 and call me before morning.

Acts 4:5-12

Easter 4 – Year B

Acts 4:5-12

Again with the proclamation, not the action.

Prelude Note: in verse 4 we hear of 5,000 people responding when Peter and John speak about “resurrection from the dead”. The scene is one of arrest by “Priests, Temple Captain, and Sadducees” in the presence of these 5,000. At this point in the story we are still carrying on the tradition of Jesus regarding a rejection of violence. Scripturally it is difficult to condone violence in Jesus’ name.

Remembering the adversarial nature of a trial setting, it is easy to understand Peter’s advocacy for “Jesus Only”. Setting the narrowness of the assertion about Jesus aside for the moment, what is not easy is our own response to the questions, “Who put you in charge here? What business do you have doing what you do?” [The Message] or “By what power or by what name did you do what you did?” [NRSV]

We sometimes find ourselves surprised at being effective in a healing and needing to come up with a reason for it, a surmise about how to replicate it. On these occasions it is probably best to be a bit tentative. After some experiences we can begin to be a bit more secure about some elements of healing, but it is a mistake to think that healing is only science and not art.

Behind this utilitarian response to the questions, there is the larger question of why we bother to engage the attempt to make the present better.

Verse 13 begins to move toward a response of “boldness” being what we need – a boldness to proclaim while G*D acts (vss 29-30). As you work with your response, you may find that proclamation is not a stand-alone unit. We need to reclaim our partnership with G*D in action and be a bit more tentative about the proclamation – a Living God is pretty hard to pin down to one mode of validation.

John 10:11-18

Easter 4 – Year B

John 10:11-18

Echoes of Baptism.

I have received authority – the authority of belovedness. I will be cared for, come hell or high water, first wilderness temptation or last crucifixion temptation. In this beloved care I can be bold to choose to pick up more life and to put down more life. The life I put down may not be anywhere equivalent to a life picked up, if similar it is as different as a river stepped into twice; if some other aspect of life is picked up it may not even come close to what was laid down.

This is my birthright as a creature of the cosmos standing at this end of a gene pool – to choose. "Hired hands" and "sheep" still need to move toward healthy choices, but witnessing to choices available to me is important whether the hired hands or the sheep can yet recognize it or follow. This is part of Ezekiel's watcher-on-the-wall heritage – to call out what is seen regardless of other's response.

This authority to choose need not separate us from one another, but further engage us as we see the consequences of a choice farther into the future than usual. With boldness we proceed to choose, to take the consequences, to trust.
 

gentle conversation

gentle conversation

incident
bad incident
dream-breaking incident
universe-shattering incident

walk away from it
run away until
all you can do is walk away
and walk and walk

commiserate
share the pain
relive the pain
wallow in the pain

focus on the loss
obsess on the loss
bathe in the loss
cede

gentle conversation
remembers deeper than before
cede becomes seed
let’s keep on

simple food
after a fast
becomes a feast
awakening

renewed
return to community
draw back to center
run home

tell your story
trigger more stories
collect and build them high
stand on them and laugh

1 John 3:1-8

Easter 3 – Year B

1 John 3:1-8

From The Message:

1 – What marvelous love [ G*D ] has extended to us! Just look at it – we're called children of G*D! That's who we really are, But that's also why the world doesn't recognize us or take us seriously, because it has no idea who [ G*D ] is or what [ G*D's ] up to.

= = = = = = =

So what do G*D's children say about G*D? If we can figure that out then the challenges and responses of the rest of life falls into place. We can then proceed to our own arenas of engagement and be satisfied with what we do and feel.

What we say may not be translatable, but it is of great importance. Others may not get what we are up to as their appreciation of what motivates us falls into a blind spot for them. But we have what it takes to proceed to joy in all things, to fullness of life, even abundant life beyond the appearance of being in death.

So what do you say about G*D? Here a key word is "with".

= = = = = = =

[ side note: This is the lucky 777th posting on this blog - did you find a triple blessing today? :) ]
 

Psalm 4

Easter 3 – Year B

Psalm 4

Here are two alternatives to the closing three verses (6-8).

6          Am I crazy? Am I a fool?
     Some would say so. They doubt you.
7          But I know the peace I felt when you opened your door
     and the warmth when you invited me to share your table.
8          I can let my eyes close.
     In your home, I am at home.

From Everyday Psalms by Jim Taylor

6-7 Why is everyone hungry for more? "More, more," they say.
          "More, more."
          I have God's more-than-enough,
          More joy in one ordinary day

7-8 Than they get in all their shopping sprees.
          At day's end I'm ready for sound sleep,
          For you, God, have put my life back together.

From The Message by Eugene Peterson

When writers and poets get hold of good material it can end up moving in several different directions. Jim's take tends in the direction of the Emmaus story, while Eugene's has more in common with the leaping lame in Acts.

What take do you see? It will be interesting to compare that with what you would have seen a year ago and what you might come to in another year. A literal approach to the Psalms is particularly deadly. May it continue coming alive in your time and may you launch forth from your current place of safety.

honored

honored

This last week the Clergy of our Circuit met for a meal and a farewell to me as I prepare for retirement to the other side of the state. Good food, laughs with fake gifts, and good gifts for camping and reading were shared. One of pastors gifted me with an honor unexpected – my own words reshaped into liturgy. May you experience your own words unexpectedly showing up as liturgy.

The original text included last year's reflection on Emmaus (thus appropriate for this week), and others from May 2006 and January 2007.

Words thrown back in one's face diminish; those lovingly reflected enhance. Thanks, Grace.

Here then is the litany:

ONE: To know and to be known,
            inside out,
            is a great pleasure

ALL: and a great threat.

ONE: (not Wesley's words) Friends in this circle of circuit clergy
            we have begun to know each other, inside out
            We have offered a pleasure and a great threat. . . .
                    (back to Wesley's words)
            We have come to know that with or without power from on high
             Jesus is capable of surprising.

ONE: Jesus becomes recognizable in the breaking of bread and
                  the sharing a cup.
            And, then, like any good catalyst, Jesus leaves unchanged,
            but leaves a changed situation.

ALL: Jesus becomes a new community
            and gives it space to re-form.

ONE: it takes several times around the block

ALL: no only going around once for me

ONE: it takes several times around the block
            and then all at once for no reason at all
            what once was a silent loneliness
            rattles the windows of our rooms

ALL: no only going around once for me
            it takes several times around the block
            what once was a silent loneliness
            rattles the windows of our rooms

WESLEY: rattles the windows of our rooms
            with every timbre of joy

ONE: a few more laps bring an understanding
            of perfection never being perfect
            and wholeness always being whole

ALL: a few more laps sets our eyes anew on
            what might yet be beyond joy

WESLEY: and but a bit further
            lies a funeral barge
            and final words
            still searching for peace
            still praying for souls

ALL: still trusting simply trusting
 

Acts 3:12-26

Easter 3 – Year B

Acts 3:12-26

Who is not lame from limping around a variety of altars? Lameness, even from birth as we deal with our cultural lameness, is a most unoriginal sin. There's not much to it, it's not like soul-searing thievery, murder, adultery. It's pretty lame to be lame.

Here we are without a foot to stand on, still in the midst of community, being carried to our assigned spot. The only thing equal to the gift of being carried where one needs to go is to be able to carry another.

This story, to which Peter adds a lot of interpretation bordering on speculation, is much more an Easter story than the preaching about it.

Imagine a lame culture, a lame individual, and there being a quantum leap from lameness to a lovely deer leaping o'er the hills to its lover. There is a move here from passivity to partnership.

Just live with the first 11 verses without breaking into talk at verse 12 about blame and conversion. Experience again the various shifts you have experienced of seeming to have no choice and then having a choice. It is astonishing. It is also astonishing that we so quickly forget those experiences. When it happens again, we get astonished all over again. See if you can sense the beginning of astonishment before its full-blown arrival and be ready to jump in with both feet. In this way we might lose our lameness come from limping around Lethe's altar of forgetfulness.
 

Luke 24:13-49

Easter 3 – Year B

Luke 24:13-49

Talking to compatriots builds solidarity. If that is all that goes on, it also builds deafness to other perspectives. Whether true-believers or true-disappointees circle their wagons, there is a built-in barrier to hearing another way, even if it may be of assistance.

In this setting, even a spirit-breathed word doesn't illuminate. Jesus can talk until he is blue in the face and not make a dent in the armor of like-talking-to-like.

When faced with these sorts of situations street-theatre is needed – he took bread, blessed, and broke it.

He was recognized. He vanished. Mission accomplished. Who was that masked man?

Now the good part – they returned to other compatriots and were able to introject a new perspective in the old conversation. The two on the road become the presence of Jesus in their old crowd; it was as if Jesus himself stood among them.

Having broken the spell, each can now go forth to other relationships and be witnesses of the reality of suffering and the process of repentance and forgiveness that raises us from simply suffering.

Having received a virtual bread-blessing, may you break it again in solidarity with your neighbors. In this we find peace.
 

en-

among all that might be declared
a friendship of flesh
stands clear
"let there be..."
"from dust of earth..."
"a living soul..."
"blest and blessing..."
"loving G*D and enemy..."
"toward a new earth paradise..."

now we look for a place
to hold the space
of our enfleshed soul
so grounded
so ready to soar further

always ready for an event
to echo our time present
our energy spent
ensouling flesh
"and it is good..."
"forgiven death..."
"with leaves of healing..."

declared entwined
flesh and soul
soul and flesh
partners encouraged

1 John 1-2:5

Easter 2 – Year B

1 John 1-2:5

Truth, in matters of religion, is simply the opinion that has survived. ~Oscar Wilde, writer (1854-1900)

Don't you wish your experience of G*D had come much earlier – earlier enough to have made the political cut of what was in and out of that called scripture? Being in that genre casts a special glow on each and every one of your declarations.

"G*D is light and in him (sic) there is no darkness." I take it that G*D's previously reported repentance and placing all responsibility in an image to take the rap for any darkness doesn't count. It is quite an opinion.

"If we walk in the light as he (sic) himself (sic) is in the light, we have fellowship with one another." It sounds as if Jesus came for the light-bearing, not "sinners". It sounds as if fellowship, friendship, community must hide any non-light from one another.

Thank you John, whichever you might be, for writing in order to keep me from sin. So far that hasn't happened, but maybe today. In the meantime I need less a juridical advocate than a companion encouraging us both to do the best we can, to be courageous enough to take the results of so living, and to continue toward wholeness rather than stop and claim perfection in our current condition or opinion.

Psalm 133

Easter 2 – Year B

Psalm 133

Though but a small song, one that can be hummed all life long.

!! How very good !! and pleasant it is !! when kindred live together !! in unity !!

It is an anointing to bring one closer to G*D and G*D closer to G*D and G*D closer to another.

It is a refreshment from the very edge of our reach, and beyond, that comes to our center as a blessing beyond any expected.

Unity here is not uniform, but that of pressing boundary and center, present and mystery, self and other together well enough to have them keep their identities and yet be inextricably partnered.
 

Acts 4:23-37

Easter 2 – Year B

Acts 4:23-37

Friends are private places safe from harm where privacy of self is not a main value. Friends are in life with us, heart and soul. Friendship is the oneness promised in the Shema – Hear this, God is a Friend – and affirmed by Jesus – I call you Friends, not servants.

Where do you travel when there is amazing news to tell? A sorrow too deep for the keeping? To someone, somewhere, where sharing is honorable! where mutual sharing is a joy!

When who-bodies and where-places give evidence of this sort of welcome and hospitality we might say a resurrection has occurred. Hie thee hence!

Song Link Clarification

After posting the comment on John it became clear that the reference to the music needed an additional word. If you are interested in the "Song of the Seals", after arriving at the site it will be important to click on the little triangle next to number 6 - Song of the Seals. Of course you are welcome to listen to the whole album, but it was that track that was intended to be referenced.

Click here for album and then click 6 for Song of the Seals.

John 20:19-31

Easter 2 – Year B

John 20:19-31

Shifting gears from Mark and its abrupt ending with three women running away, scared and silent, we turn to John's storyline following a triumphant Jesus who was above his own crucifixion.

Rather than meeting the disciples in Galilee as per Mark, here Jesus preemptively visits ten fearful men hiding behind closed doors.

Since they didn't hear it from a messenger, as the Marys and Salome did in Mark, Jesus is his own messenger, his own heavenly host, announcing peace in a most dramatic fashion.

Even though this passage is traditionally thought of as about Doubting or Absent Thomas, we might consider it on John's terms – it is about Jesus, Peace, Forgiveness, and Sign-Stories (preludes to commissioning or putting the disciples back in the game) of real and eternal life, not the skittery, temporary picture they had been living out of (literally, living out of).

Jumping from Mark's completely incomplete story to John's neat wrap gives a moment of disorientation. Hopefully, with our corpus callosum intact, we can see both these stories and rub them together for sparks adding to our benefit rather than have them be mutually exclusive.

On a day after Sabbath, Mark roils the deep before a creating and John moves with breath over the dark and creation not only lingers but goes on again. [Here is the music that inspired this paragraph – one of my all-time favorites and so I think it is worth four-and-a-half minutes of your time.]
 

1 Corinthians 15:1-11

Easter – Year B

1 Corinthians 15:1-11

How do we get beyond what has been handed on to us? Here the business of tradition keeps alive the sacrificial motif as basic to faith. What else have we come to "believe" because it has simply been around and found ourselves in its midst?

Conversion mania of being more faithful than the faithful is a phenomenon that deepens hearsay into eye-witness reports. You can almost bet that the ever more righteous who show it by being even more righteous than the current most righteous, will devolve the gift of life into reward for themselves. No matter how slyly Paul protests that it is just the grace of god that has enlightened him, his passing on what he had been taught as a good sacrificial Pharisee is not helpful or excusable. In terms of counter-espionage, Paul might be considered a double-agent or mole as well as by his current sobriquet of saint.

Easter pushes us beyond what has been handed on to us. There is a new reality afoot. Follow the clues of Jesus' faithfulness and you will not find a sacrificial utilitarianism, but an obliviousness to sacrifice through radical hospitality with those traditionally left out.
 

Acts 10:34-43

Easter – Year B

Acts 10:34-43

Insight, when it finally dawns, is wonderful to behold. "I truly understand, now, finally, that G*D shows no partiality!"

That's a life time of work for some folks, while others arrive there more quickly they still have to decide how to live it out for insight is not per se action. I can perceive a cross without bearing it.

In keeping with a focus on Saturday's Grave time, it is important to see a dynamic of new possibility going on under our noses, beneath the ground of our being. How does Peter finally come to the insight about impartiality?

Here is a story from the Wesley Study Bible that pushes at the same point: When a young person felt the call to become a missionary, they felt privileged to study and thought it their responsibility to take G*D to other people. The story of Peter and Cornelius teaches us just the opposite. Cornelius is a Gentile and yet G*D gives him the vision to seek Peter. This is an example of the Wesleyan doctrine of prevenient grace – of G*D loving us even before we know G*D. Now that young person who became a missionary is much more humble in their mission theology and sees G*D at work around the world – well in advance of a missionary visit. [note: slightly modified according to my biases regarding language]

To be impartial is not to be lacking in passion. It is to affirm that new life is available to everyone, regardless of track-record or prospects. In this resurrections are taking place daily. Be ready to enjoin and enjoy the one already coming your way.
 

Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24

Easter – Year B

Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24

18 - The Lord has punished me severely, but he did not give me over to death.

19 - Open to me the gates of righteousness,
        that I may enter through them and give thanks to the Lord.

20 - This is the gate of the Lord; the righteous shall enter through it.

- - - - - - -

Punishment does not lead to thanksgiving. Its unremittingness doesn't leave room for thanks. There is no growth available here.

Amazingly a gate beyond punishment, often thought worse, that of death, does offer a new kind of room. In this fashion death can become a blessed advisor. Whatever kind of death is considered, it is a gate to set things right.

Let us turn our face toward whatever Jerusalem mean for Jesus, including a city of peace beyond punishment and more particularly beyond death wherein new life is raised.

This is a strange kind of process to bet on. Will I be raised through such a gate or simply lie amouldering among the leaves so brown?

Death is a gate of the Lord. Abandon hope. Fear and trembling abide. This is a new way of living. Enjoy.

= = = = = = =

In Speaking of Faith: Why Religion Matters and How to Talk About It, Krista Tippett remembers a conversation with Thick Nhat Hanh that surprised her when he spoke about the kingdom of God – "He could not imagine the kingdom of God to be a place without suffering, he says. For how then, would we learn to be compassionate? This is a striking Buddhist inversion of the Christian preoccupation with the problem of evil."

In this same way we cannot imagine Christianity with only the resurrection of Easter and no death of Good Friday. Nonetheless, we are able to abstract this enough that it not affect our own life.
 

Isaiah 25:1-10

Easter – Year B

Isaiah 25:1-10

This is a looser than usual connection to the lectionary.

Cities are extensions of individuals. There are patterns that occur. The boom-town phenomenon is one sort of city. Sometimes they develop more than their original impetus of economic mono-culture and continue, mostly not.

Cities with a long history have come and gone. How many Jerichos have archeologists found? Why does New Orleans stay functional? What will happen with Fargo when Canada rebounds another inch from its glacial compression and the Red River basin returns to a lake?

We might think about cities and migrations in terms of resurrection. After awhile cities fail and immigrants are incorporated into the genetics and other strata of a culture. There is a fading, a dying. But periodically there is a rebirth, a feast is re-established.

Waiting and salvation seem to be on unaligned sine waves. Even were they synchronized there would still be a waiting and a fulfillment. It is obvious that death has not been swallowed up – see to what lengths the church and individuals will go to deny death and set up protections against death. Somehow we keep thinking that G*D really will defeat death once and for all. This rings false from the beginning. Just try to imagine any vitality in a creation without death or G*D without Death – soon implacable stasis, a state worse than death, sets in.

It is this reality of death that leads us, time and again, to a gift of resurrection, not its surety. We all like a next breath too much to look forward to resurrection being a gift and not a given. For all our preaching about Easter qua Easter, Good Friday still is its straight-man. Without Good Friday, Easter's punch-line wouldn't ring true.
 

Mark 16:1-8

Easter – Year B

Mark 16:1-8

Mary, Mary, and Salome, now representing the discipleship narrative once held by James, John, and Peter, were practical to wait until Sunday dawn to go to a tomb. Tombs are dark enough in daylight and to do so after dark would add difficulty to difficulty. They were not practical in their uncertainty about being able to get in when they got there. Where was Martha who would have organized this expedition so they would know they could enter when they arrived?

Well, it turned out the spirit of Martha had been on duty after all – the door was open and they walked right in.

I suppose they might have known that things were already falling apart in their orderly world when the stone had been moved. It doesn't begin to sink in, though, until they enter to find another transfigured figure who transfixed them with words unimagined – "Jesus ain't here, he's on the way to Galilee. Tell those behind you that Jesus has gone on ahead of you (sort of a John the Baptizer reprise)."

Well, what now? Our question about the stone sure had a response we weren't looking for. Now there too many more questions suddenly swirling within. We can't even talk to one another yet.

When practical and caring women go quiet, look out – gestation is taking place and birth will come in its own time.

What questions are taking root in you? What has surprised you into silence that it might become you? [Note: remember to read the phrase, "become you" in several ways.] Eventually you will "go ahead" too, so enjoy the growth going on now and the going ahead will be more joyous.

= = = = = = =

In today's WUMFSA reading of Say to This Mountain: Mark’s Story of Discipleship by Ched Myers, Marie Dennis, Joseph Nangle, OFM, Cynthia Moe-Lobeda, and Stuart Taylor we hear:
     ". . . as the reader buckles under the weight of this ignominious end, Mark tells a curious story.
     "In a parenthetical comment, we learn about a "young man" who flees with the other disciples (14:51). This naked flight symbolizes the shame of the discipleship community, leaving behind a "linen cloth." The garment will reappear as the burial wrap of Jesus (see 15:46), and the young man will reappear in Jesus' empty tomb, fully clothed in white robes (see 16:5). We shall see that this transformation of clothing, as in Jesus' transfiguration (9:3ff), represents both a promise and challenge to the reader."

How are you tying various parts of this story together?
 

Stations of the Cross

Good Friday – Year B

Stepping outside the lectionary process for a moment –

From Say to This Mountain: Mark’s Story of Discipleship, by Ched Myers, Marie Dennis, Joseph Nangle, OFM, Cynthia Moe-Lobeda, and Stuart Taylor:

"We might legitimately approach this cross with all those who have dared hope for a better world, especially those who have been crushed struggling for a justice that seems forever deferred, and demand an explanation. For who of us is prepared to accept that this is the way to liberation?
     "Attempting to face that question, many Christians who struggle for human rights have appropriated the ritual of Via Crucis (Way of the Cross) in new and creative ways. Whereas traditionally the "Stations of the Cross" offered the believer personal meditations on Jesus' trial, suffering, crucifixion, death, and burial – all designed for spiritual contemplation – now the same "Stations" are given a much broader scope.
     "These alternative liturgies have as their goal a linking of Jesus' journey to Golgotha with the enormous suffering, both personal and social, represented in public places. Those who lead such modern variations of this ancient ritual are often themselves either victims or healers of the social evils being cited. Let us walk through a typical Via Crucis, which might be held in the U.S. capital city." [The authors then append a written description of the "Stations" in Washington, D.C.]

Here is a visual, liberation theology oriented Via Crucis online that may be more immediately usable in a congregational setting in prelude to next year providing a Via Crucis in whatever community we find ourself.

Strength of Conviction

Palm Sunday – Year B

Palm branches were the "Yes We Can" advertisements of their day. If palm branches can be political placards, what can't be.

A part of our spirit energy is to open our eyes to the usually invisible symbols of our time. What political message is a "Forclosed" letter giving? What about reports regarding percentage of graduates in a school system? Infant mortality and numbers of people incarcerated are other political signs to be waved, not waived.

Here we are using "political" in its broadest term of decision-making process. If the "Romans" of that or any day have come or are on the horizon, what options are open, which are not, and why would we put any in the "not open" category if faithfulness to a larger vision is important. A near-the-end-of-Lent reflection on whether we are willing to take the consequences of our belief is still in order.

No matter how many palms are waving it won't be long before they morph into fists waving. Eventually we will have to face the strength of our conviction (both that brought against us and that rising from within).
 

Philippians 2:1-11 (12-13)

Palm Sunday – Year B

Philippians 2:1-11 (12-13)

This is another passage in which it is helpful to read it aft to fore.

G*D is at work in you, for pleasure – yours and G*D's. There will be fear and trembling involved with this pleasure called "salvation". It will include being recognized as G*Dly, which is a pleasure of "glory".

Are you ready for such exaltation, such pleasure? It will be revealed to you in completing what it means for you to be in human form, filling that form with abundant living. It is as worth living as human as it is to live as G*D, there is no competition between them. Let this be fulfilled in you.

Be interested in others living their life, it will encourage you to live yours. This humility will enhance your life in community. Beware those selfish, ambitious, conceited images that would put us into competition of there being only one good. To complete the pleasure of "joy", sympathy, compassion, sharing, and love will console and encourage you to participate in Christing – revealing in oneself the joy and glory of salvation – living sacred and secular, human and divine, as one.
 

Psalm 118:1-2, 19-29

Palm Sunday – Year B

Psalm 118:1-2, 19-29

Figure it this way: The righteous get to go in through the gate of righteousness. I'm righteous, so open to me the gate of righteousness that I may enter.

Then be open enough to consider you considered incorrectly. Steadfast love doesn't work on such a simplistic one-to-one correspondence. That is much too much too boring.

Note that there are gates upon gates of righteousness. One for your form of righteousness, sure enough, and other for mine and still others for others. All gates are the right gate – some are more easily recognized than others, but there are far more abundant gates than folks to go through. This is the Lord's doing; it is marvelous in our eyes.

When our calculations turn out to be too small, think again, return to this passage and be reminded of steadfast love.
 

Isaiah 50:4-9

Palm Sunday – Year B

Isaiah 50:4-9

For Palm Sunday only two lections are listed. I am filling in the remaining texts from the Passion Sunday listing. I wonder why this is so, but not enough to get to the bottom of it.

Teachers know how to sustain weary students with a word of encouragement. Lest we take that too literally, words of encouragement are also symbols in action.

There is nothing that will disgrace a student whose ear has been stimulated by an encouraging word. They are as flint in their pursuit of wisdom, even to the point of entering a lion's den, as long as they can be in the presence of their teacher's word.

So ride on O students, come and look at what we thought we knew. Look around and see if there be any wisdom left. If not, ride on, again. Ride on with friends and fellow students and fellow teachers. Ride on, sustained and sustaining. Ride on to new community and new wisdom. Ride on without mourning, just ride on.
 

Mark 11:1-11

Palm Sunday – Year B

Mark 11:1-11

Humility is not prized in domination systems (sucking up in hope of finding the leverage for a coup, is).

We are talking planes of existence here that slide by one another with little to no contact. We approach Jerusalem (really the Temple) and make choices about the mode in which we will arrive – a beast of burden, not a charger of triumph.

Of course there are those who are blind to such a choice and still see the charger, even with a colt in front of their eyes. Here is a reverse case of the Emperor's New Clothes. Folks are not able to see humility for the log of domination in their eye. No mater how Jesus says he is not a Messiah in the military/economic/political sense, he is still so perceived.

When Jesus finally arrives at the Temple, there is nothing to see for one who has their eye set on a larger future. No matter how much Jesus looks around, it is too late, any glory once present, has faded.

What is your symbol of humility and non-violence in these days? Regardless of whether others recognize it or not, you will know what you are about.

What are we looking for in these days? Look around - its gone from the places we thought it might be and we are called to see a new manger. If its not where you are looking, head off with your friends to further build community.
 

hazelnut dream

Lent 5 – Year B

hazelnut dream

do it for me
  o priestly king
yes for me
  o kingly priest
high and lifted
  mysterioso
lift me high
  so o so high
and show me mercy
  baking it deep within
so o so deep
  to be never lost
so o so deep
  I'll never need ask
do it for me
  o priestly king
yes for me
  you kingly priest
- - - - - - - - - - - - - -
a hazelnut dreams
dreams so deep
a cascade of generations
unmasked arise
from once and always roots
growing through this frail hand
down to magma's heart
bursting up to not burn a bush
flowing onward
"set free, set free"
- - - - - - - - - - - - - -
nuts o priest
nuts o king
I am not the least
o hear me sing
justice for not just us
mercy that all may see
creation in a hazelnut

Hebrews 5:(1-4), 5-10

Lent 5 – Year B

Hebrews 5:(1-4), 5-10

A priori problem: Every high priest selected to represent men and women before God and offer sacrifices for their sins . . . . Says who? Why is the sacrificial aspect of a priest the most important one?

How many high priests are in the order of Melchizedek? How many such mature priests came before and after Jesus' ordination? How is it that none of them are heard of as entries to temporal or eternal salvation? This seems, more and more, to be a preconceived idea that was wrapped around Jesus and no matter how helpful it was to some at the time, it has been more in the way than helpful in the long run.

Melchizedek, as priest and king, seems to be two things Jesus, in the gospels, had a great deal of trouble with. Now, in anticipation of Constantine, Jesus is officially powerful. But, I guess if God decrees it's OK, then I'll have to relearn everything – what a brave new world where learning to unlearn and relearn takes place by decree. Is aversion therapy the kind of learning we need if sacrificing priest (as a disciple this is our aspiration) are to deal gently with the difficult spots of life?

It may be that we'll have to start a new Christian sect – The Church of the Ancient Order of Melchizedek. Come, mature your faith through suffering now to achieve life later.

Wouldn't you know, someone beat us to it:
http://www.holisticwebs.com/workshop/ordination.html
http://www.melchizedekusa.com/order_of_melchizedek.htm
 

Psalm 51:1-12

Lent 5 – Year B

Psalm 51:1-12

Restoration is a good thing. If forgiveness is a way to such, how do our usual nice images of forgiveness match up with a chest-pounding culpa mea, purging draught of hyssop, and crushing of bones?

There is a strain of our tradition that indicates these confessional penances are necessary preludes to forgiveness, that we won't receive said forgiveness if we have not been sufficiently abased.

There is a strain of our tradition that substitutes Jesus' humiliation and passion for our own, paving the way for us to be redeemed and without which restoration would not be possible.

There is also a mystical strand that can visualize no amount of suffering, even Jesus', to atone for the slightest of relational breakages. There is here an ever-present possibility of a translation from wherever we are to someplace incomprehensibly better, beyond what just bringing us back to ground zero could never imagine. Heart change is heart change, not a tit-for-tat game.

Given these broad strokes, it is 2 to 1 against Jesus or followers of that model to prevail in the market-place of ideas. The actions-have-consequences crowd have too difficult a time with the joy of salvation being available beyond the mechanics of some holy economy.

The strains requiring recompense for the past before moving ahead are powerful enough to lead mystics to hide away. It is time for our mystical side to cry out, "Ollie, ollie, oxen free – y'all come, it's time to move on.
 

Jeremiah 31:(27-30), 31-34

Lent 5 – Year B

Jeremiah 31:(27-30), 31-34

We will know G*D through forgiveness (31:34). This is the most powerful image in this passage.

The first part of this pericope talks about not having sins passed on to the generations, but each generation and person having immediate feedback or consequences for behavior that is harmful to them and others and creation. This sounds idyllic, but taken just a half-step further leads to greater constraint and self-censorship. To connect behavior to consequences too strongly and quickly may make us obedient puppets but loses the living nature of G*D and ourselves as Partners.

It doesn't take much immediate correction, like an electrified fence, before we shy away from even coming close to it. It may no longer be active, but our past experiences with it have effectively kept us from pushing the boundaries of life. Pavlovian responses, even in the supposed service of G*D are more detrimental than helpful.

So how does G*D's heart become our heart, and vice versa? It comes through the beating process of trial and error and forgiveness received and forgiveness given and trying again. So we stand and walk, so we ride a bicycle, so we build community. Let's get to the heart of the matter – loving kindness revealed in many ways and forgiveness is near the top of its revelatory presence.
 

John 12:20-33 (34-36)

Lent 5 – Year B

John 12:20-33 (34-36)

Ya gotta love this strange Jesus.

Philip and Andrew (in excited unison): Hey, Jesus there's some folks looking for to join up!

Jesus: So? I'm about to die, here. Tell 'em to consider their own death, that's the short course. Invest your life in death, and alakazam, ipso facto, and zoomazoozi here is eternal life in the midst of what was thought only regular ol' life.

Once started, like an easily distractible professor (or one who works by providing all manner of strands until folks can begin weaving some of them together), Jesus mutters on about what a troubled soul he has (oy vey, such trouble has my soul seen!), how he'd just as soon, if it wouldn't be too much trouble, avoid such trouble.

After a moment of high humor and thundering angels where Jesus gets brought up short when asking for a revelation of glory with a revelation that glory was already present (remember that death–eternal-life thing) so get on with living.

Of as much interest as these little gems is the assumption that a Messiah must last forever and keep us in that forever. Such a boring assumption when faced with the excitement of a death–eternal-life connection. No wonder Jesus went and hid away.

What did you think you were signing up for? Forever? Nah. Ain't exciting enough. Try the short course instead, it'll take you much further – right into a paradise of now.
 

look and raise

Lent 4 – Year B

lift your serpent
lift a glass
lift it high

look at mud
look at glory
look it in the eye

see a past
see a hope
see re-al-a-tie

raise a curtain
raise a light
raise some clar-a-tie
 

Ephesians 2:1-10

Lent 4 – Year B

Ephesians 2:1-10

To be rich in mercy is to look around, see what's down, and raise it up.

Mercy has been shown to us and we have grown.

Mercy has been shown by us and we have grown.

I believe this is something to be boasted about. Seeing ourselves as worthy of mercy and able to do works of mercy is no small thing.
 

Psalm 107:1-3, 17-22

Lent 4 – Year B

Psalm 107:1-3, 17-22

The redeemed or freed or those who can peek through those lenses of beauty and belovedness know a gift of perspective on issues that runs alongside them. They are not particularly surprised when consequences come nipping at their heels, when delays of healing occur.

It is a gift of perspective that makes all the difference. To see, both desperate situations and outs that are mysterious enough to be connected with G*D, is a blessing. It is also a gift worth pursuing, a skill set worth developing.

G*D, source of trouble and source of solution (who needs Satan or Seraphim when G*D's at work), is quite a song and quite a singer. I hope you appreciate this kind of music of the spheres as it is so prevalent in life. May you help G*D sing well.
 

Numbers 21:4-9

Lent 4 – Year B

Numbers 21:4-9

The Lord gives and the Lord taketh away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.

Serpents were sent and bit and many died. Artisan Moses was sent and the power of the serpents was abrogated.

Sympathetic magic, yes, but what else? Surely it can't simply be a one-to-one correspondence or we would have folks sticking a dollar or a stock option on a stick to recuperate from being bit by the invisible hand.

- - - - - - -
Why have you brought us out here? To die?
Sure, have some death! Surprised it didn't come from thirst?
Ouch! Got us there.
Tell you what, I didn't bring you out to die.
So?
So, here's another surprise. Moses, what do have you been doing?
See, a sky snake, not one in the grass.
- - - - - - -

Is the bronze snake antidote over the past or antecedent to idolatry (2 Kings 18:4)?

If the pattern is snake, snake lifted, snake idolized – how does Jesus fit into that and is the danger of his being lifted that he will also be idolized?

Looking at this story raises additional questions about both/and. Who are the fiery, poisonous seraphim disguised as snakes and why are they flitting through this story. Did they also attend Jesus in the wilderness? How about being with Adam and Eve at a tree as well as guarding a gate back in? Were they holding the memory of all this within an ark, a promise?

Might they be a helpful clue about needing to look more deeply than the surface – to see life and its consequences and its hope in the wriggly and the static? Perhaps the bronze serpent helped folks see the angelic host even in the snake that bit them and in that deeper view find the resources to go on. What art work helps you see past the surface?
 

John 3:14-21

Lent 4 – Year B

John 3:14-21

From Destroyer to Protector – go Kali Serpent Christ!

"In spite of her seemingly terrible form, Kali is often considered the kindest and most loving of all the Hindu goddesses, as she is regarded by her devotees as the Mother of the whole Universe. And, because of her terrible form she is also often seen as a great protector." [good ol' Wikipedia]

Kali is sometimes described as darkness, as Ultimate Mother. Christ moving over the face of the dark deep is also known as Ultimate Word. Playing here could take up the rest of the day.

Moving on, the new Wesley Study Bible notes, "'So loved' does not mean 'loved so much' but 'loved in this way'; that is, God's love is giving and purposeful – to rescue and give life."

A question for this week is how we understand our having been loved enough to be lifted up as a sign of that love available to others. Though rescuing and giving life are modes open to fatigue, may you travel into your countryside with a gift of baptism – identifying beautiful, beloved people and helping them see that about themselves.

In the destruction of sin a newly birthed saint emerges.

Here is a "Wesleyan Core Term" from the new study Bible: "New Birth: When John Wesley listed the four most important doctrines found in Scripture, new birth was included. The others are original sin, justification by faith, and inward and outward holiness (see Notes, Preface to the OT, ¶18). The inclusion of new birth reveals a very important theme in Wesley's theology, and in all theology that calls itself Wesleyan. Martin Luther, Of course, proclaimed that we are saved by faith alone and his theology of justification became the heartbeat of all Protestantism. But there is a key difference between justification and new birth in Wesley's theology. Not only does Christ forgive us for past sins when we accept him as our savior, he also gives us a new life – a new life to live differently. Not only does Christ deal with the guilt of our sins, he also deals with the root problem that causes us to sin. In Wesley's scheme, new birth is the beginning of the holy life, the beginning of sanctification."

In what way have you been loved; in what way will you love? Will this be a new birth for you or a new birth reaffirmed?
 

Reading Backward Helps Us Read Forward

Lent 3 – Year B

Reading Backward Helps Us Read Forward

John 2:13-22

After Jesus was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered what he had said some three years earlier. From this resurrection they believed the scripture quoted and the Word of G*D that Jesus had become for them.

Remembering, the disciples finally connected Jesus' Resurrection with his Physique and Word. Both the disciples and the religiously observant missed a metaphor connecting temple with body, settling on the 46 years it took to build the temple rather than imagining the 6 days of creation, much less a day of resurrection. At last they could appreciate how Jesus responded to their opening bid for an external sign (temple) by raising them an internal one (body).

Now the disciples recognize the zeal needed for Jesus to live well while facing his consummation – how it was that Jesus was able to see and act when the idolatry of sacrifice commoditized secondary rules and pretended they were primary. So, after taking the time needed to plait a tool to visualize his word, Jesus loudly explained, "Get your stuff out of here and stop turning everything into a shopping mall!" while spilling coins from upended tables, stampeding animals and loosing birds to flippity-flop-and-flutter forth, and chasing money-changing loan sharks to and fro.

All this occurred as status, obliviously quo-ed, neared the presence and echo of Passover freedom returned and neared the presence and anticipation of Resurrection freedom already walking in from the wings. All this occurred from a missed metaphor.

In remembering, the disciples could see Jesus trusting himself to live free while not trusting those lookers-on who had yet catch the breadth and surprise of metaphoric living. Finally, the disciples saw how distrusting they had been and they took another step toward believing they, too, were temples of freedom, metaphors of life.
 

1 Corinthians 1:18-25

Lent 3 – Year B

1 Corinthians 1:18-25

If we only deal with the prescribed verses we end up with propositional statements about G*D and Christ, devoid of connection with us – other than how good they look in comparison to us. OK, OK, G*D's awesome and Jesus is too.

A much greater mystery is opened in verses 26-31 – not just some perfected group who are "The Called", but such frail flowers as you and me are also awesome. Remember we are going to be able to boast that, as part of the "not", we have a part in "reducing to not" things that are. This koan is worth the pondering.

This pericope uses highly loaded language. G*D again is born in humble dwellings – in your life and mine. That which was lost is found, that which is but straw draws gold to it. And, boast away, something wonderful occurs in this partnership – this embodiment of G*D and divinization of us.

Go ahead, boast away.
 

Psalm 19

Lent 3 – Year B

Psalm 19

What if creation around us is telling the glory of G*D and we have our nose stuck so far inside our economic fears that we can't smell anything beyond decay?

What if time is telling the glory of G*D and we are so caught in fearing a future better, but different, than our modicum of control of the past that we can't experience anything but the disorientation from riding a centrifuge repeating itself ever more quickly?

What if fear is telling the glory of G*D and we are so caught in little preoccupying fears that we miss the mystery of the blessing of fear focusing us and moving us beyond our fears?

What if we miss these gifts and are only left with our errors? Well, we will have missed a gift of being able to act from the basis of resurrection and new life. We will have missed our opportunity to let kings know they are naked and to run idolaters of money and institutional survival far enough out of their comfort zone for them to catch a glimpse of life beyond their usual accumulated patterns of control and power. We will have missed the joy of simply doing what is helpful for the time and space we have available to us.

"What if" can lead us to "what now" and herein we find revival. Go ahead, make your day -- be glory.
 

Exodus 20:1-17

Lent 3 - Year B

Exodus 20:1-17

Today's appended quote from Wordsmith triggered thoughts about fulfilling previous understandings by recasting them: "All men -- whether they go by the name of Americans or Russians or Chinese or British or Malayans or Indians or Africans -- have obligations to one another that transcend their obligations to their sovereign societies." -Norman Cousins, author, editor, journalist and professor (1915-1990).

If we expand the nationalities named to religious groupings - what are the obligations we have to one another that transcends our obligation to our own perspective, our own "decalogue"? Regardless of where we come out in that balance, simply raising this question honors the progressive nature of life.

Exodus 20:1-17

Lent 3 – Year B

Exodus 20:1-17

By what standards will you be known, will the community you are a part of be known? What are the criteria by which you would be willing to risk breaking a rule for which you are known?

Most of us are members of several communities that are not on the same page about the details of membership. This can be confusing. It can make chameleons out of us. It can also allow us to leverage one against another to help broaden the base from which we engage others.

An informative exercise is to list the various communities you belong to from blood/adoptive family to formative high school/college years to employment to nation to religion to environmental niche to . . . . Then indicate what the standards of each group are and what enforcement mechanisms are employed.

This leads to the extension to verse 20 – our desire to have some force between ourselves and the various standards as a way of developing plausible deniability should we be caught not living to the letter of one of the rules and regulations.

What have you developed as a universal ethic that grows out of your various communities? Is this a lowest common denominator ethic that can see you through any of their variations? Is this something beyond them that brings a question or challenge to their way of making a business out of relationships? Another way to ask this question is whether you are part of the priestly function or the prophetic?
 

John 2:13-22

Lent 3 – Year B

John 2:13-22

This week the pericopes have been extended by a couple of verses, following the format of TextWeek. There is hardly a time when an extension doesn't help with a better setting or view of consequences. So, this passage will proceed to verse 25.

John's scene in the temple takes place early in Jesus' ministry (note the difference between the length of his life and ministry as, believe it or not, there is life beyond officially demarcated ministry). Imagine how your interaction with the world would have been different if you had prayerfully taken on the economic/religious powers early in your career.

I expect that you and I would have come closer to living with Joe Hill and Mother Jones, with Paul Robeson and César Chávez, with Dorothy Day and Clarence Jordan. While unrecognized at the time, our life would live on (Joe Hill: "I never died," said he, "Good luck to all of you.").

Even with an earlier intentionality, I expect we would have come to the same economic impasse as our current situation – eternal vigilance does wane, temptation is persistent – but we would be in a better position to deal with disappointment in our magical thinking regarding invisible hands.

The extended three verses remind us not to entrust ourselves to the prevailing ethos. When you stop to think about it, you, too, know what is at stake and how far officialdom falls from that. Make what you can better without an illusion of getting some fame or benefit accrued to you.
 

Messiah rid me of Messiah

Lent 2 – Year B

Peter claims Jesus is Messiah - - - Peter defines limits for Messiah.

One way out of this eternal dilemma is to listen in to a paragraph by Matthew Fox in his now out-of-print book, Wrestling with the Prophets:

- - > It seems to me that religion's future is not in religion as such. Religion has to learn to let go of religion. As Meister Eckhart said in the fourteenth century, "I pray God to rid me of God" in order to rediscover the spirituality that is at the heart of any living, authentic, and healthy religion. Spirituality is the praxis of the heart, the praxis of our living in this world. It means dealing with our inner selves and not just living on the level of our outer selves. < - -
 

Romans 4:13-25

Lent 2 – Year B

Romans 4:13-25

So many promises yet to be fulfilled and so little time, seemingly.

In the in-between-time of promises you are holding on to and their fulfillment are two key understandings. First that our engagement with our basic promise-base is active. There is no suggestion that G*D messed around with Sarah in the same way Mary has been talked about. Apparently Abraham and Sarah were still participating in coitus at 99 and, hopefully, enjoying it. Having made themselves available for a child, even against all known odds, is active faith (as well as fun). May you keep up with your promises by putting yourself in a position to catch them when they come by – and don't forget that active faith is fun.

Second, this interesting phrase of "hoping against hope". In the Hymn/Poem we now know as Jesus, Lover of My Soul there is a verse left out of the current UMHymnal. See what you think about how returning that verse and its hope against hope might change the hymn and your life.

In Temptation by Charles Wesley

Jesus, lover of my soul,
  Let me to thy bosom fly,
While the nearer waters roll,
  While the tempest still is high:
Hide me, O my Savior, hide
  Till the storm of life is past,
Safe into the haven guide,
  O, receive my soul at last!

Other refuge have I none,
  Hangs my helpless soul on thee;
Leave, ah, leave me not alone,
  Still support and comfort me:
All my trust on thee is stayed,
  All my help from thee I bring;
Cover my defenseless head
  With the shadow of thy wing.

Wilt thou not regard my call?
  Wilt thou not accept my prayer?
Lo! I sink, I faint, I fall!
  Lo! on thee I cast my care!
Reach me out thy gracious hand
  While I of thy strength receive,
Hoping against hope I stand,
  Dying, and behold I live!

Thou, O Christ, art all I want;
  More than all in thee I find:
Raise the fallen, cheer the faint,
  Heal the sick and lead the blind!
Just and holy is thy name;
  I am all unrighteousness;
False and full of sin I am,
  Thou art full of truth and grace.

Plenteous grace with thee is found,
  Grace to cover all my sin;
Let the healing streams abound,
  Make and keep me pure within:
Thou of life the fountain art;
  Freely let me take of thee,
Spring thou up within my heart,
  Rise to all eternity!

Secondary to this second point, Hope can be easily spoken of and that kind of hope is more of a wishful thinking. I hope against this kind of hope. Hope that is bone-deep is helpful to rub up against and is more against me than I against it. If it is a honing contest, I will be sharpened by this deep hope and made dull by the wishful stuff. Depending on orientation, hoping against hope is mysterious or exactly what is needed.
 

Psalm 22:23-31

Lent 2 – Year B

Psalm 22:23-31

Verse 29 brings an interesting contrast between translations.

"To him, indeed, shall all who sleep in the earth bow down;
before him shall bow all who go down to the dust,
and I shall live for him." (NRSV)

"All the power-mongers are before him – worshiping!
All the poor and powerless, too – worshiping!
Along with those who never got it together – worshiping!" (The Message)

"All they that be fat upon earth shall eat and worship:
all they that go down to the dust shall bow before him:
and none can keep alive his own soul." (KJV)

"All who are rich and have more than enough
will bow down to you, Lord.
Even those who are dying and almost in the grave
will come and bow down." (CEV)

I'm not enough of a Hebrew scholar to discriminate between these and so I'll just let them talk to one another for awhile more.
 

Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16

Lent 2 - Year B

Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16

I'm intrigued with the difference in tone between the English translations of verse 1c.

"I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be blameless." (NRSV)

"I am The Strong God, live entirely before me, live to the hilt!" (The Message)

In the first case we are to be blameless, either as a result of walking before God who's got an eye on you and so the result will be blameless living, straight-and-narrow living, or simply being in the presence of God will be transformative and blamelessness becomes ingrained and you automatically get your wings.

In the second we are to live life to the hilt. Martin Luther's dictum to "sin boldly" might fit here. Also applicable is John Wesley's, "go on to perfection" (where perfection is not a static perfected-ness, but a dynamic holistic, integrated living). Basically we are mates of Wonderful Life Clarence, Angel Second-class, still working in the messes of life and adding our own.

The one thing this covenant is missing is that of being blessed to be a blessing, from the covenant in Chapter 12. That wider view has here been limited to simple biology of passing on a gene pool that will have authorities in it (huzzah). Oh, yes, there is also the matter of getting circumcision and land along with the covenant. (Read the elided material.)

What has changed the dynamic of blessing to be a blessing, living life to the hilt, into a property transaction, a being blameless? To investigate this change will be helpful Lenten reflection material and also give some insight into the greed (at all levels leading to our current economic mess) that desires more and more while claiming we are uniquely blameless and so are entitled, covenantally, to get more and more.
 

Mark 8:27-38

Lent 2 – Year B

Mark 8:27-38

This longer reading better sets the stage than simply picking things up at verse 31. Beginning even earlier there is a story of a healing of a blind man whose gradual regathering of sight brought him to clarity of vision. Even here Jesus asks that no big deal be made of this event, that the one with new sight should stay out of sight.

Who do people say Jesus is? Well, for sequestering a visionary, crazy might be among the descriptors. Whether this or a prophet or a messiah, Jesus is still proposing anonymity.

In this moment of quiet, with nothing apparent at stake, Jesus teaches about life and life renewed and life eternal. Peter, honoring the quiet takes Jesus aside to, in one form or another, say "no" to some aspect of "life".

Jesus is not willing to honor this Petrine tactic because something, apparently, is at stake – another testing? Peter is seen as a tester, a satan (not necessarily the big Satan [note: this smaller case satan is usually how the U.S. is described, not as the big Satan]) and publicly revealed in that role.

We have all too often experienced that to lose one's life through crucifixion or other collateral means it has been a meaningless loss. We have plenty of experience of folks being gone and it signifying nothing. This taking up one's already lost life is a rallying cry. On what other basis than a larger vision would one risk seeming to be irrelevant? This strange call gives Peter a second chance to go a next step with his Messiah, his strange already lost Messiah. Peter will travel to the Transfiguration (which comes next in Mark, except we covered that two weeks ago – so the scripture that comes after has already come before [shades of Baptizer John's confusing talk about Jesus]) still being a bewildered satan (as aren't we all?).

Will you respond to such a strange rallying cry that calls for your commitment even to the point of being inconsequential? This is a Lenten question worth looking at. Even if we aren't quite up to it in the moment, hang in there with the question, transfiguration, like Brigadoon, can appear out of time and just in the nick of time.
 

Beloved enough

Lent 1 – Year B

Beloved enough
to have an ark-large project capture your imagination
to have a rain bow stop storming at you
to have a shame-based entitlement divide your family

Beloved enough
to call G*D to account
to claim innocence and advanced learning
to shame those treacherous others

Beloved enough
to connect with previous generations
to see behind ritual to resurrection
to have pride of place

Beloved enough
to see a blessing crack in everything
to be sustained in a wilderness
to boldly appropriate a prophet's message
 

1 Peter 3:18-22

Lent 1 – Year B

1 Peter 3:18-22

This passage would benefit from an earlier start – either verse 8 or 13, take your pick.

Starting earlier gives a much better context for talking about suffering. This sets it in the context of a blessing opportunity when mean and nasty things occur (intended and unintended). Otherwise we tend to get into theological and Christological debates with much sound and fury. It is to this blessing business we are called and suffering is a subpoint under that.

It is the blessing opportunity rather than the opportunity to suffer that allows us to engage with gentleness and reverence rather than grouchy retribution.

Start earlier - the lection committee will never know and if they do find out, they may change their plan.
 

Psalm 25:1-10

Lent 1 – Year B

Psalm 25:1-10

Compare verse 10 in the NRSV:
"All the paths of the Lord are steadfast love and faithfulness,
     for those who keep his covenant and his decrees."

with THE MESSAGE:
"From now on every road you travel
Will take you to God.
Follow the Covenant signs;
Read the charted Directions."

Given that the Noah Covenant and some others originate from and are focused on what G*D will do, there isn't much for us to do to keep them as they are G*D's. We can however observe the Covenants made by G*D and use them in navigating life.

There is a feel of exclusiveness in the NRSV that fits well with a chosen-ness, a belovedness, but not so well with passing that blessing on. Even if you don't keep a particular covenant and decree, you are yet on your way to G*D.

So, what covenant signs do you recognize? Are doing more than recognizing them and actually using them?
 

Genesis 9:8-17

Lent 1 – Year B

Genesis 9:8-17

What do you use as a sign of a covenant between yourself and the rest of creation? G*D copyrighted the rainbow for universal covenanting purposes. This still leaves lots of other ways in which you can remind yourself that (positively) you are tied in with everything and that (negatively) you will refrain from being destructive.

My "Camping" model Swiss Army Knife does some of that for me. It reminds me of when G*D tented among us, my enjoyment of living creatures in their element, and tinkering with things to get them back to usefulness. I expect that won't do it for you, so what is your covenantal sign with the rest of creation?
 

Mark 1:9-15

Lent 1 – Year B

Mark 1:9-15

In long years gone ago, while traveling to High School sports games there would be the opening of bus windows and loud singing –
     Everywhere we go people want to know who we are,
     so we tell them, we are MG [school name or initials], mighty, mighty MG.

Last week we were on a mountain top singing this same rowdy ditty transformed to a meditative mantra,
     Everywhere we are we still want to know who we are,
     so we say we are beloved, very, very beloved.
[The cadence changes an emphasis upon "we" and places it upon "are" – will have to consider whether this is helpful or not, but for now I'll let it stand hope someone will clean it up.]

This week, about as low down as we can get on the surface of the earth, we are still singing this love song. You are still singing it from last week, right?

When the dearly beloved was asked a week ago about listening to 38 years of my sermonizing she was quick to respond, "each sermon is new, and yet each sermon is the same." When further queried, the clarification was that each sermon was crafted for its setting, even when preached three times in a row on a Sunday morning, but that it always said the same thing, "We're beloved, now how are we going to transform the world."

Presuming there is more truth than not in such an affirmation, it is amazingly mysterious how many changes can be rung from such a beginning point. So, let's sing it again . . . .
     Everywhere we are we still want to know who we are,
     so we say we are beloved, very, very beloved.
 

Beloved

Epiphany Last – Year B

First read a poem, signup for their daily email service, and then return here.

- - - - - - - -

Too much cannot be made of revisting the mountain-top experience of Jesus – repeating the baptismal introduction of belovedness. Imaginative people have tried to push that belovedness backward toward birth and generational genealogies. They have also picked and chosen episodes after to give evidence of such belovedness.

When all is said and done, belovedness is such an experience that one will let everything else go to have received it. While a bit of belovedness can be anticipated, it is the receiving, yes, the receiving.

Belovedness makes sense of the prophets of old and resurrections yet to be. It is spoken to the ancient ones and those about to walk forward. Belovedness has already been calling, in our day. May we partner with it as the crux of our life and extension of life.

"God is given two chances to speak, a great opportunity for any actor in any story, and God repeats the same line with only minor variations. This indicates either a remarkable lack of imagination, a monumental case of stage fright, or a powerful fixation on a crucial message that must be delivered. While each of these possibilities ought to be explored when developing a way to tell this story, the last seems most promising." [Richard W. Swanson, Provoking the Gospel of Mark: A Storyteller’s Commentary – Year B – The Pilgrim Press, pp. 129-132.]

If you were given a second chance to speak life to life, what word would you use?
 

2 Corinthians 1:18-22 and 4:3-6

Epiphany Last – Year B

2 Corinthians 1:18-22 and 2 Corinthians 4:3-6

To stay in the realm of "Yes and No" is to veil ourselves – not veiling Moses, Jesus, or G*D, but ourselves.

There is the reality that there is always more information coming and our very decision to say either "Yes" or "No" changes the situation. And so we have plenty of excuses of which we might avail ourselves.

Our call is to let the "Yes" and "No" living within us loose. In this a clear "Yes" will brighten the darkness of a veiled "Yes/No" and a clear "No" will shine on nearby paths to identify the darkest down which we need not go. For generations we have tasted the knowledge of "Good" and "Evil". It is time to take that knowledge and put it to work with good energy.

Of course we will need to be gentle with those who get their "Yes" mixed up with their "No" and stick their head where the sun shines not. Likewise our compassion will be with those yet unable to leave the comfort of confusion and who enjoy the speculative play of forever pitting a "Yes" against a "No." Sometimes that gentle compassion will need to be directed toward our own self.

Through whatever fits and starts you need yet to come, let your light shine out of darkness. For my sake, please, shine. I'll do my best to return the favor.
 

Psalm 41 and Psalm 50:1-6

Epiphany Last – Year B

Psalm 41 and Psalm 50:1-6

Zion, perfection of beauty, is filled with those who consider the poor from the perspective of G*D. G*D does not keep silence about such injustice and neither do citizens of Zion.

This is a workable image, but there is still work to be done regarding sacrifice and recompense. I suppose there is an understandable amount of knee-jerk response to having been injured that desires to injure back. It is hard to imagine how poor those who cause poverty are – while having plenty of resources they are poor stewards and participants in a larger creation oriented toward the common good. It is probably also understandable how we would want to see ourselves, poor in so many ways, still part of a favored, separate but faithful group. When looked at with perspective, though, this attempt at forcing our way into an in-group, betrays the image in which we have been made – that was willing to live with such as ourselves as an image. This may be the place for the old line about not belonging to any club that would have me as a member.

Perhaps it is enough to simply end at the beginning: Zion, perfection of beauty, is filled with those who consider the poor from the perspective of G*D and do not keep silence about injustice. Welcome citizen.
 

Isaiah 43:18-25 and 2 Kings 2:1-14

Epiphany Last – Year B

Isaiah 43:18-25 and 2 Kings 2:1-14

Don't hold on to former things /for\ a new thing is springing forth. (Isaiah)

Don't stay behind /for\ double blessings lie ahead. (2 Kings)

With these two summaries (continuing the tension between Epiphany 7 and Epiphany Last) we find moments of transfiguration right on this cusp of past and present/future.

These moments are precious. They are call-moments, direction-setting moments that are within and without what has been seen as a religious context.

So, what does it take to be aware of these opportune times? Well, watching or perceiving. This is difficult work to do alone and just as difficult to do in community. The difficulties are different but equally trying. To put oneself to the test or to be put to the test by another takes audacity, perseverance, humility, vision, hope, and forgiveness (just a beginning half-dozen of qualities needed in an in-between place).

Enjoy your cusp moments today. You'll look back on them with even more joy than you had in anticipating them.