James 3:1-12

Pentecost +15 - Year B

James 3:1-12

Check your eyesight, it may just cleanup your mouth.

To see G*D or a likeness of G*D sets loose a blessing.

Now, go ahead, look around. Dee a likeness of G*D? Feel a blessing moving back and forth, to and from you?

Did you notice a lackness of G*D? Go ahead, let loose a curse.

Now comes a diagnostic tool for the refrigerator door - a scale with "G*D's Likeness" on one end and "G*d's Lackness" on the other. Note your day's location with a dot and a date. After a week, see if you've clustered more toward "Likeness" or "Lackness". After a month or year of recording, your location should be more definable. After a lifetime, may you find blessing after blessing.

Psalm 19

Pentecost +15 - Year B

Psalm 19

A tent as a pit stop for the sun, as a staging area for a beloved, portrays safety, nurture, comfort, strength - a source of joy. Today in the South Dakota "Badlands" a strong wind blew through, dislodging stakes and scattering tent supports. Tent images are various.

Yes, who can detect their errors. One of its corollaries asks, "Who can detect the difficulties of the many systems they are in?"

We find ourselves caught between competing laws and values from the variety of systems we participate in (consciously or not). This Psalm is an attempt to discern one response that will cover a multitude of errors - personal and societal.

When we come upon such a meta-response we want to claim it glorious and holy. But not every situation requires a hammer or judgment. For the "hidden" faults still occurring we may simply need duct tape. Blessings upon your gift of naming what needs changing and your other gift of mercy beyond judgment.

Proverbs 1:20-33

Pentecost +15 - Year B

Who knows the journey Lady Wisdom has taken to bring her message. She and Jonah may want to compare notes. Both end up deep within a city to bring their word of judgment, Lady Wisdom's is wordier.

To continue the comparison we can wonder about what happens after Lady Wisdom brings her message. Does she sit under something more subtantial than a shelter and shade plant? Does a forgiving G*D with an expansive and expanding desire for premeditated mercy still have a last word? Is anger Lady Wisdom's response to mercy - how about you?

Mark 8::27-38

Pentecost +15 - Year B

Mark 8:27-38

When we find stories like this it is sometimes helpful to retell it from end to start and see what new emphasis comes into view.

Here we might hear Jesus asking,"Have you glimpsed glory and holy in me?" As with all folks, even our "enemies", we can probably say, "Yes."

Then comes an intriguing question - do you find yourself ashamed in the presence of glory and holy? All too often we are more scared of our strengths than our weaknesses.

To glimpse glory and holy in another and in ourself is to glimpse a fuller life available to both of us and all. It is appropriate to ask, "What wouldn't you give for such a glimpsed possibility?" Whatever it is that would keep you from recognizing a glimpse of fuller life and moving closer to it will be your fear, your stuck place. This is a wonderful diagnostic tool.

Now we can more fruitfully journey together toward glory and holy by picking up our fear and carrying it with us.

Peter identified his stuckness as being three-fold - suffering, death, and new life (each and all together).

Even so, having glimpsed glory and holy in Jesus and thus maybe in himself, he can name a source of a glimpse of glory and holy as Messiah beyond anything else he had experienced.

So, in whom do you see glory and holy? An iconoc Jesus, yourself, a loved one, an enemy or other? This helps us avoid the confusion, misunderstanding, or inconsistency of Peter and claim our glimpse of glory and holy. This same claiming helps Jesus in his naming of his journey to deal with suffering, death, and new life in light of his glimpse of glory and holy.

Health Care Reform - Now

Pentecost +14 - Year B

Health Care Reform - Now

A couple of weeks ago I wrote a letter to the editor regarding Health Care Reform. Subsequent to that the local interfaith AMOS group asked me to make a presentation at a Rally. In light of the healing stories and the built-in issues regarding healing in Mark 7 - who is eligible for healing and responses to healing - I offer a longer than usual posting, the text of my presentation.

Religion and Health Care Reform
Health Care Rally - Cameron Park, La Crosse, Wisconsin
September 3, 2009

I was born in a hospital named St. Mary's. My wife was trained as a nurse at Baptist Hospital. Our daughter will be doing medical research at St. Jude’s. Around the country there are scores of hospitals that include the name Methodist, Presbyterian and Jewish. In other countries there are hospitals including the designation Islam or Buddhist. This community is blessed with two hospitals: Gundersen Lutheran and Franciscan Skemp (did you catch the religious connections?).

The religious community has been deeply involved with Health Care. Much energy, time, and resources have been invested by religious organizations and religious people to see that their faith meant something more than just words. Even people who claim they are not religious, but spiritual, have a grounding in one or another version of the Golden Rule: Do for others as you would have others do for you.

Twelve years ago, here in La Crosse, I was diagnosed and treated for prostate cancer. That is no longer a health issue in my life. I am thankful for the care I received and a part of expressing my thankfulness is support of others who do not have the resources I was fortunate to have had at that point in my life. Whether through a quick miracle called spontaneous healing or a slow miracle of treatment for a chronic disease, thankfulness arises. Thankfulness is a deeply religious response to life and is prelude to the moral act of compassion.

I expect you have a thankfulness for some aspect of the healing arts.

What I wonder about is the lack of “religious” people to extend their thankfulness. We seem to take our healing as our due and forget to pass on to others a gift we treasure.

Imagine the power that would be set loose should religious people find their voice and let loose their thankfulness.

Our politicians would be overwhelmed with evidence for Health Care Reform far beyond the fear-based behavior of pundits and un-thinking repetition of same by yellers and screamers and disrupters of opportunities to talk together about this important matter.

Our media would find the discontinuity between spending so much of our gross national product on disease-care and having the unhealthiest citizens of any industrialized nation. Even the CIA recognizes we have more infants per hundred die than in Cuba. We get so exercised about the morality of abortion and are so blasé about the morality of infant mortality. These kinds of comparisons and interpretations are far more important than the "he said – he said" reporting we generally get.

Our economists would understand the multiplier-effects of good health and explicitly factor health into their interpretations of some magic invisible hand of the market that seems to be giving all too many people an invisible finger.

Our conversation in the community would shift from dollars to people, from “What is this going to cost me?” to “What is this going to do for me and for someone else?”. Basically we would be reclaiming the religious value of compassion over competition; of community over isolation.

This sort of deep thankfulness is persistent. Should we, for whatever reason, not fully arrive at universal Health-Care-for-All, religions connected with their roots will keep at this task. Just like software goes through version after version, we will continue to work together until Health-Care-for-All is a reality.

Our spiritual formation informs us that Health Care Reform is a perspective through which the interconnectedness of life becomes clear. As we work to bring needed Health Care Reform to America, we will find that care for health will also mean care for plants and animals and air and water – for when they are healthy we are healthy. Health care will also lead us into new reforms in our relationships with one another. For our bodies cannot be healthy without healthy communities free from international conflict, domestic abuse, terrorism, and fears of differences, whether of skin or dialect or sexual orientation. Welcome to a new way of living together based on the morality of promoting health, not just focusing on disease or difference. This is important because health-care systems are not just policy choices but expressions of national and religious character and values.

To engage the morality of Health-Care-for-All is not easy. We need the wisdom of all of us together, not just a bright idea of one or the other of us. I am thankful for each of you who have put your shoulder to the boulder of an inadequate-health-care-system-for-all and done what you can. I am encouraged to keep doing one-more-thing as I see all the one-more-things you are doing.

I conclude by wondering how we got into the situation where religion has become so focused on miracle and lost its connection with everyday living. Somehow prayer in a crisis has become our standard, not doing the little known ways of staying healthy and whole. We have forgotten that the very symbol of medicine, the rod of Asclepius, the snake entwined staff, connected healing with ancient Gods. Asclepius was a Greek god of medicine and healing. He represented the healing aspect of the medical arts; even his daughter's names remind us of this - translated, they were called “Health”, “Medicine”, “Healing”, “Healthy Glow”, and “Universal Remedy”.

The work of Health Care Reform we are addressing today has roots as old as humanity and we are privileged to be able to move it a next step in our time.

The Hippocratic Oath physicians take is a deeply moral and religious way of encountering life. It begins with remembering Apollo and Asclepius and we are called to remember our own religious icons and values and traditions. A modern translation of the Oath from the Declaration of Geneva avows: “The health of my patient will be my first consideration”. In our case, those of us gathered here might understand that the larger patient of the day is America.

The health of our nation as well as its citizens is at stake and needs to be a first consideration for how we will spend our energy, time, and resources this next month. The time is now for us to reconnect our morality, our religious traditions, and our spirituality with health care reform – Physicians appropriately claim, “The health of my patient will be my first consideration”; You and I, American citizens, properly claim, “The health of my nation will be my first consideration.” As religious and spiritual people, we claim again for our environment, our communities, our families, and our selves, “Health, in all its aspects, will be my first consideration.”

Simply put, without a larger national health our individual health is put in jeopardy. The time is now. The person to act is you - and me. The movement for Health Care Reform, for single-payer, universal coverage, is ours. A source of reform comes from our religious and moral intention of thankfulness, compassion, and caring for others as we would be cared for. Our process is that of AMOS, Advocating - Mobilizing - Organizing in Solidarity for health and wholeness. Out of your thankfulness contact and contact again your political representatives, write and write again letters to the editor, talk and talk again with your neighbors and friends, act and act again and again in large and small ways to have us work together in reconstructing a healthy society physically, mentally, emotionally, and relationally.

In the name of an expansive and expanding Love of Life, the time for Health Care Reform is now!
 

James 2:1-10, (11-13), 14-17

Pentecost +14 - Year B

James 2:1-10, (11-13), 14-17

Ahh, the old joke (or not) about a boss who gets an invisible finger from a demigod of the marketplace and bawls out an employee, who bawls out a partner, who bawls out a kid, who kicks a dog.

“Can’t you track things,” asks James and in so doing asks, “Can’t you break the pattern where you are?”

While appreciating that faith by itself is “dead” if it has no “works,” this does lead us to a new legalism, keeping every jot and tittle of a work ethic and setting all laws as equally valid in all situations. This passage was shaped to lead us to this conclusion. An important antidote to a Protestant Work Ethic and literalistic doctrine is found in the missing section - mercy triumphs over judgment. While James is talking about specific rules in a negative fashion - whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it - we do also need the positive spin of mercy that brings the freedom to intentionally break some rules when they lead to a reduction in love of neighbor.

It is this mercy that will rebalance the world, not equalizing income, but, amazingly, the equalizing of resources does open up new possibilities for mercy to become an organizing principle for human interaction. And around and around we go. A helpful focus here is the connection of loving neighbor with mercy. This helps us deal with those we would otherwise shunt onto the siding of evil. And so a restatement might be, “You shall be merciful with your neighbor as you are merciful with yourself.” This reestablishes a relationship rather than a rule that all too easily slides into whether or not I like my neighbor.
 

Psalm 125

Pentecost +14 - Year B

Psalm 125

“Peace/well-being over Israel!” is a popular sentiment. It comes at the expense of doing away with a tension between those who trust in the Lord (good) and those who don’t (evil) by destroying evil. This sort of peace is a dream. Do you remember any group able to hold their purity over time? They either lose their focus and are caught in their own trap of identified sin or they are not sustainable and fade from view.

A problem arises regarding the way in which peace or well-being (shalom) comes into being and the projected end state. If trust can only be experienced as victory then trust has lost a key component - an uncertainty of outcome. Contrasting the breadth of trust with the narrowness of victory gives a background to some of the technical difficulties and discontinuities within the Psalm itself.

May it be well with Israel! and with every particular! as we work our way toward and beyond one another, rather than away from one another toward only our own.
 

Proverbs 22:1-2, 8-9, 22-23

Pentecost +14 - Year B

Proverbs 22:1-2, 8-9, 22-23

A good name is important. Being able to self-identify is important. When we play games with names we are on dangerous territory. When we identify another contrary to their self-identity we are blaspheming.

Generosity is a blessed event. To share bread or healing or compassion with another is to join their life, to lift both our lives. When we threaten to block generosity or otherwise waste it we are setting ourselves up to loose the gift we have.

Intentionally defend the poor until it becomes second-nature or seemingly unintentional. Defending the poor with their correct human name and modeling generosity, speeds up G*D’s justice since it seems to grind along slowly and through such vehicles as you, and me.

   - Listen to the way people self-identify and use that same language.
   - Be generous and be blessed.
   - Join G*D in coming to the defense of the poor.
 

Mark 7:24-37

Pentecost +14 - Year B

Mark 7:24-37

Tyre - home of Jezebel. Jezebel - dispute with Elijah. Remember Elijah’s fear.

Tyre - place of a classic oppressor of the Jews. Jesus was politically correct in not wanting anyone to know he was there, also practically correct in the economic system of the place.

Together these are a source of tension. Jesus seems caught in history and contemporary economic realities as well as the whole male/female role distinctions of his day. No wonder the first word that comes forth from Jesus is “No!”

Hooray for strong women. This unnamed Syrophoenician woman stands firm, gives as well as she takes. Regardless of the unlikeliness of her knowing about Jesus (unless you posit the invisible women deacons around Jesus all the time but only noted by Mark at the end of his tale) we have this remarkable instance of Jesus repenting of his response.

We, too, are called to standing ground-of-care for sick, regardless of their heritage or relationship to us. This may need a repentance from us, but we have a model for that in Jesus. In light of last week’s emphasis upon what come out of a person, rather than what goes in, this raises interesting questions about Jesus’ initial response and reminds us of his brotherliness more than any god-ness.

If we carry this forward to Jesus’ travel further into Gentile territory and passing back through home territory to another Gentile pole we find a deaf mute. Gentile or Jew? What needs to come out of such a person that was not available for release until now? What needs to come forth from you that was not available until now?

For those who experienced such events, they, too, have something pushing to get out. Yes, astonishment and excitement. More, though, it is a sense of being able to do some something “well”, too. When you see everyday miracles, aren’t you encouraged to participate in one or even to initiate such? With new ears open to the need of the world, may you speak clearly, plainly.

Even if an Archie Bunker Jesus tells you to “stifle”, let the Edith Syrophoenician in you gently and strongly stand for a second chance, stand for healing, stand for grace.

[PS - I have just changed my composition software and wonder if that poses any formatting changes to folks on different systems. If so, please let me know what change occurred. Thanks. Wesley]

wash your hands

Pentecost +13 – Year B

wash your hands

you can't be my beloved
your laving sensibilities
can't be loved

and that is just the tip
of the proverbial iceberg
that would sink me

my beloved should affirm
me in all my current me-ness
and keep me forever

to love you as you are
would be too generous a gift
for me to consider

what then would not be beloved
what then could I be angry about
what then should I do with me

here, let me show you how to wash
your hands, your mouth, your mind
your heart, your soul, you're mine
 

James 1:17-27

Pentecost +13 – Year B

James 1:17-27

How unfair that my anger is not the driving force for a god to righteously slay our common enemies! Well, at least, my enemies.

To compound the unfairness, I am expected to live contrary to my impulses.
     - listen first
     - speak second
     - anger last

I am called to listen deeply enough to see a good work possible in the midst of this particular set of circumstances. I am called to listen well enough to recognize I really am my beloved's beloved. This deep listening rids us of the power-draining desire to be entitled to more than belovedness. Listening this well returns us to our right mind, our imaginative mind, our creative mind.

From Listening comes Action. As in days of yore when, day-by-day, creation was spoken forth, today brings clarity about letting our lives speak what we have heard. This is Freedom like unto G*D's freedom – a freedom to choose mercy, to choose fire this time, to choose blessing. This freedom is prophetic in nature.

When listening and action are in sync, anger is only a motivator to deeper listening and wider action – it is not a resultant behavior.
 

Psalm 45:1-2, 6-9

Pentecost + 13 – Year B

Psalm 45:1-2, 6-9

Somehow a psalm to a king is not up to the standard of a call from a lover.

The movement described here is from our love of righteousness and hate of wickedness to then receiving the anointing or authority of G*D to put such into action.

Consider the difference it would make if that were reversed – that you have already been given the anointing (through creation) and authority (through fruit-eating) needed to be a discerning leader among those you are with. This leadership will clarify and assist making the moral decisions needed in our setting – between good and evil.

At best the lectionary deciders have given us a built-in screen to help us find the real energy of life – lovely lover rather than kingly power.
 

Song of Songs 2:8-13

Pentecost +13 – Year B

Song of Songs 2:8-13

Imagine "Earth was a soup of nothingness, a bottomless emptiness, an inky blackness. God's Spirit brooded like a bird above the watery abyss." [The Message] or "The earth being unformed and void, with darkness over the surface of the deep and a wind from God sweeping over the water." [JPS]

Do you hear a bird or the wind calling, "Arise, my fair and beautiful lover – come forth!"?

If this is your parental lover, how can you do less than return the call to them?
If this is a vocational lover, how can you not risk following?
If this is a personal lover, how can you stay put?
If this is your larger-self lover, how can you but grow again?
If this is the next eight generations, what could hold you back?
If this is simply a bird and a wind, will you not arise?

May the day be here when you hear your call.
May you be ready tomorrow to hear a new or re-newed call.
May return the favor and call creation forth.
 

Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23

Pentecost +13 – Year B

Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23

All or nothing at all! Digital life is a 1 or a 0 and ne'er the twain shall meet. Make a misstep with one rule and you've obliterated them all; there is no slippery-slope here, it's on the cliff or falling to death.

This ancient and still contemporary rule continues to bedevil and defile us to the point of suicide. Who among us can stand? [ - unless, of course, we have resources sufficient to access the "get out of jail free" mechanisms that can reboot us back to some previous set-point, return us to some honorary virginity.]

One of the sections left out, to shorten this reading and keep it uni-focal, is about the way in which our intentions get in the way of our intention. Let's start with an intention to live well. One of the rules for the well-being is my context, my social ecology, is care for parents (literal and figurative) who have gone before, weaken, die, and lead us to prepare for our own work of the day, weakness and death. It is all to easy to claim the resources we would use to care for them as resources we could and should spend on ourselves (forgetting the Russian Nesting Doll image of the generations). This shift from intention to intentions exemplifies a bringing a defilement out of our hearts. It takes no apparent external input to trigger this response.

A question we are left with is whether there is a way around evil intentions.

Here are three conversations with Vivian Paley that give very helpful insights regarding life's larger intention.

The first is a little tricky to get to. First go to episode 27 of This American Life, Cruelty of Children. Click on "Full Episode" and when it has loaded, move the timeline along to minute 46:55. I think you will find the work it takes to get here worth your while as you listen to Vivian talk about the trigger for her book, You Can’t Say You Can’t Play.

The second link is about cheating. Vivian talks with Susan Stamburg

Thirdly, Vivian is on the Diane Rehm Show talking about her book The Kindness of Children.
 

Driftless

Pentecost +12 – Year B

Bonus reference: reflecting on the disciples/followers having difficulty with Jesus' comments and perspectives on life in all its fullness, when I heard this quote today from David Rhodes' 2008 novel, Driftless, it seemed to sum up a good bit of the difficulties we have. In this setting the disciples are cows, not sheep, and July [book's protagonist] is Jesus.

"Something had frightened them, and July stood in the opening and searched for an explanation – a pack of dogs, perhaps. But he could see nothing, and indeed it wasn't always possible to identify the reason for a herd's agitation. Like the fear that often seizes a human society, it sometimes had no tangible cause. Given the social nature of animals, an errant yet terrifying idea could flare up in a single limbic system and spread into the surrounding neighborhood, communicated with the speed of a startled flock of birds. Before long, a climate of fear was established, perpetuated through the psyche's network of instinctual rumor."

As you can imagine this take can be applied to any number of issues within religious institutions and the public commonweal. This book comes highly recommended.
 

unsettled together

Pentecost +12 – Year B

tough teachings
upset our settled thought

is becoming G*D
a tough teaching for you

is being a sinful worm
a tough teaching for you

are images of flesh and blood
tough teachings

how about real spiritual eternal life
a tough teaching

practical politics
teaches toughness

transforming trust
also teaches

preferential healthcare
global economy
global warming
movable wars
unsettle

may we settle in
to unsettlement
and make the most of our upset
together
 

Ephesians 6:10-20

Pentecost +12 – Year B

Ephesians 6:10-20

Remember what benefit sword and spear and armor were to Goliath and Achilles. Come to think of it do your remember feeling secure at some point and then you didn't. All these images of protecting life stumble over themselves.

Paul might also have said you have put the belt of power around your waist – take it off that truth might speak to power. You've covered your heart with money – remove it that you might experience again elemental righteousness. You've shod your feet with other people's moccasins and sweatshop socks – take them off that a peace that passes understanding might run free again. You've created a shield of insurance to return cash for life – put it down that faith again might blossom and grow and hold you in the palm of its hand. You've erected a tinfoil helmet of the latest talking points and memes that bring nothing but cognitive dissonance – lift it off, lighten your thoughts, bask again in decisions that lead to greater long-term wholeness.

Thus stripped of our usual manifestations of entitlement, prayer becomes our bread and breath.

Psalm 84

Pentecost +12 – Year B

Psalm 84

Verse 2 - Lovely, Heb "yedidot," is not just "beautiful" but "beloved." There is almost a mystical quality in the intensity of the psalmist's desire (with his entire being, v.3) to be in God's presence. [Note from The Jewish Study Bible]

On your pilgrimage to the center of your faith/being, what is a beloved person, moment, event, etc. that would be a marker of what you are aiming the rest of your life toward re-membering again and again in each new moment?

To find this kind of loveliness triggers a trust that such is a worthy intention to which we might put our longing, our yearning, from this time forward.
 

1 Kings 8: (1, 6, 10-11), 22-30, 41-43

Pentecost +12 – Year B

1 Kings 8: (1, 6, 10-11), 22-30, 41-43

While glad the committee putting the camel of a lectionary together tried to give a bit of context for Solomon's ego-centric prayer beginning at verse 22 (prayed in the presence of all the people), it is revealing that the parts they left in only spoke of the leaders and priests of Israel. Overlooked was verse 2, which begins, "All the people of Israel assembled. . . ." Once again the people are an invisible background against which the history of power and privilege plays.

Even in the midst of a rule-giving prayer there are signs of something larger breaking through. If a foreigner comes and prays, their prayer is to be heard. Ostensibly this shows all the more G*D's glory (that even foreigners will find their way to honoring our god). Deeper than glory is the process of the last coming first and a learning that will be needed all too soon in the annals of history – it is the Israelites who will be strangers in a foreign land and it will be their prayers, as foreigners, that they will pray will be heard.

To hear these little hints ahead of time helps us remember all the people and not just the leaders and priests. They build the groundwork for hearing important information that we will later need. May you remember the presence of the foreigner, know your own foreign-ness, and give direction to G*D as only a foreigner can.
 

John 6:56-69

Pentecost +12 – Year B

John 6:56-69

G*D
G*D and me
G*D and me and you

G*D
I ate G*D
Join me in eating G*D

"This teaching is difficult; who can accept it?"

"Offended? [dope slap] I'm talkin' spirit here! A spirit of life, not just existence."

[pause]

"Offended enough to leave?"

[some/most? wander away]

"Guess not; don't want to go through this coming-to-believe stuff again."

= = = = = = =

So what is keeping you hanging around this spirit-talk and sometimes spirit-living? Too tired to leave? (wonderful song by Louise Taylor) Committed, come-hell-or-high-water, no matter what the cognitive dissonance, to stick to your current beliefs?

Let's drink to one another with our eyes. [spoken] [sung]
 

Eating, Drinking, Smelling, Breathing

Pentecost +11 – Year B

Imagine a cascade of life-giving substance flowing toward you. In Shikasta, by Doris Lessing, this is called SOWF – Substance-Of-We-Feeling. A question in our life and in her book is how such a Living (Flowing) Gift seems to miss its mark and we feel starved?

Part of a response is our lack of imagination to see more life available than we think or feel we experience. To help with our imagination we need to shift images of eating away from chomping and masticating stuff to finding a larger energy available through and after these technologies.

In the gospel lesson we run into the literal matter of cannibalism. Until we can get around that, we won't catch what is going on with Jesus and better follow the path he opened. (It also means we won't be able to take our place in leading so Jesus and others can draft on us – Do you follow the Tour de France or NASCAR enough to sense that pull and be willing to sometimes be the puller?).

To Eat Jesus (as opposed to Eat at Jesus') is to feed where he feeds to ingest hope and transform it into an energy of love. To Drink Jesus is to be reinvigorated with the electrolytes of life – those little moments of encouragement and glimpses into something larger. Perhaps we need to start with Smelling Jesus in the same way that even before we see the presentation of a sustaining meal, we catch a whiff of something wonderful this way come. (This is related to Breathing Jesus as referenced in this poem by Judyth Hill, Waging Peace.)

This is the bread and drink we need – flesh and hope. Blessings upon your next meal that will feed you beyond simply being fed.
 

Ephesians 5:15-20

Pentecost +11 – Year B

Ephesians 5:15-20

Here is a contrast: Ephesians 5:15-20 and American Health Conflict.

Use your head. Make the most of every chance you get to remember the forgotten single-payer option. These are desperate times as evidenced by the desperation of so many working against their own best long-term interest.

Don't live carelessly, naively, absently in regard to the issues of the day. Make sure you can see a larger picture than the media portrays.
 

Psalm 111

Pentecost +11 – Year B

Psalm 111

The Process and Faith Lectionary Commentary notes how low the United States falls on scales of happiness and well-being while claiming to be the best in everything. It proceeds to suggest some ways, based on this week's lectionary, in which we might move toward Wisdom, the "Love" (better translation today than "fear") of Life. They write:

"Then, what brings wisdom and the joy that goes with it? While there is no one path to well-being, today’s passages point us in the right direction, and do so in a holistic manner. Today’s preacher might focus on the following wisdom-giving spiritual practices either in her or his sermon or in an adult education opportunity:

"Wisdom emerges from discerning what is important in life, by seeking the “bread of life,” God’s soul food, rather than superficial fast food that only satisfies us briefly. (John 6) Guidance comes when we ask for it; when we take time to reflect on what we truly desire in life and for our communities.

"Wisdom is experienced by listening to God’s presence in dreams and other non-rational experiences – moments of synchronicity, insight, and inspiration emerge when we take seriously the divine wisdom of the unconscious. (1 Kings 3;3-14)

"Wisdom arises from awe at the grandeur of the universe and the guiding, loving presence of God in all things. (Psalm 111)

"Wisdom comes from mindfulness and alertness. (Ephesians 5:18)

"Wisdom comes from “making the most of the time,” that is, living with intentionality, awareness, and openness. (Ephesians 5:16)

"Wisdom comes from living by spiritual affirmations, that is, by practicing “hymns and spiritual songs among yourselves, singing and making melody to God in your hearts.” (Ephesians 5:19) Spiritual affirmations, such as “Nothing can separate us from the love of God,” “My God will satisfy all my needs,” “I am the light of the world,” or “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me,” focus our attention on God’s presence in our lives, open us to greater resources for personal and social transformation, and heal negativity, both conscious and unconscious. Our theology is formed as much by what we sing as what we hear or say; accordingly, take time to sing your faith. (For more on the life transforming power of affirmations and hymns, see Bruce Epperly, The Power of Affirmative Faith, Chalice Press and Holy Adventure: 41 Days of Audacious Living, Upper Room)

"Wisdom comes from gratitude, the virtue of interconnectedness that joins us with God and all creation. (Ephesians 5:20) Thanksgiving reminds us that we are all in this together. Just as we have received grace upon grace from others, and prosper as a result of the efforts of others, our calling is to be bountiful in our care for others. God’s abundance calls us to live abundantly in our generosity to others."

= = = = = = =

Now comes the question of your experience/revelation – Would you add another description of the beginning of Wisdom? If you were to lay these seven (plus your additions) out in a row on a sheet of paper and put a scale next to it and rank your participation in journeying with Wisdom through that modality you might find something interesting.

10 |
  9 |
  8 |
  7 |
  6 |
  5 |
  4 |
  3 |
  2 |
  1 |
 0 |__________________________________
         W1   W2   W3   W4   W5   W6   W7   W?   W?

Would this lead you to delve deeper into your current channels of Wisdom or intentionally move into another realm?
 

1 Kings 2:10-12, 3:3-14

Pentecost +11 – Year B

1 Kings 2:10-12, 3:3-14

Leaving out verses 2:11-3:2 dramatically changes the nature of this passage. What we miss is all the very practical political consolidation work Solomon did upon becoming King in Israel. Do read these details because the question coming to Solomon about what he desires takes on a different tone than if we just read the high-minded request for wisdom without this important context.

It is evident from the elided material that Solomon is a very accomplished accumulator of power and that takes a kind of wisdom, a conniving. Solomon knows very well how to "go out or come in", to move around the political realities of his time.

Without the historical references, "wisdom" is some ethereal, spiritual, state unconnected to the real world. With them, we see how Solomon plays G*D for a sucker in the same way he does his rivals. There is nothing like sucking-up to G*D or Jesus or Spirit or Nation or Boss or Family or my bad habits to get them off my case.

It won't be long, however, before even sagacious old Solomon comes up against death and G*D and dissolution of power. So read this pericope with a big grain of salt. If you read it as currently cut and pasted, there is real danger that one's preaching will be superficial and one's listeners lied to.
 

John 6:51-58

Pentecost +11 – Year B

John 6:51-58

Eat me!

In today's world, these five letters and two words are hurled at another to reduce them, to put one's self in a position of power.

In Alice's world they serve a function to expand or reduce one's body, depending on circumstances. Knowing only the outside, we are brought to a kind of magic. Life happens, but we are not one with it – always it takes a magic elixir of dieting or carb loading to see us through our fairytale situation.

In Jesus' world this is high poetry bringing us to a better spot than commonsense would allow. Here is a breaking of barriers that sends new sparks of creation cascading and lighting our dark caughtness. These five loaves and two fish are an enlarging catalyst bringing us to a new perspective. They are the equivalent of "Let it be!".

And so the choice before us:
     - swear, diminish another
     - magic, wait on external solutions
     - create, a new place to stand and state, "I am".
 

Don't want to die?

Pentecost +10 – Year B

Don't want to die?

There are a few options open. Jesus suggests "eating" his "bread". Obviously there are going to be a number of interpretations of this kind of talk. Of most fun is remembering something else we might eat and thus not die – a tree-of-life that is well-guarded lest we return to sample it.

There is a sense in which that tree is still off limits. It is not for us to grasp, lest we do so for any wrong reason. Even a Living and Expansively Loving G*D seems to not let go of royal prerogatives, something once said is forever said. So how to get a tree-of-life reconnected to our lives without it becoming so common that we lose track of its value (like we do so easily of nature and its otherness)? Esther's story returns – a new vehicle (law) is put in place that essentially preempts a former vehicle (law) without doing away with it.

For G*D so loved, that bread was sent. Jesus brings not Promethean fire but Tree-of-Life seeds. Jesus followers are like Little Red Hens who receive said seed, plant it in the "stuff" of life (you can be more graphic here if you want to), nurture it, harvest a mystery of more seeds, disciplinedly grind it, bake it, and, unlike the hen, share it. In this whole cycle we find life and more life.

This is a long way around for the Tree-of-Life to escape its confine, but Life will out.

On the other hand you may want to investigate:

- Leaving a legacy

- A Live Forever Diet

- Investing in Cryonics
 

Ephesians 4:25-5:2

Pentecost +10 – Year B

Ephesians 4:25-5:2

We can be very cruel in what we say to one another and justify such by claiming we are speaking the truth to our neighbor (see verse 25). By the time we get to verse 32 it becomes clear that the ending bracket to this section is a way of defining truth – being kind (gentle), tenderhearted (sensitive), and forgiving. When these actions are present we know we are also in the presence of truth.

This is not a robust, doctrinaire Christianity that is setting out to make the world in its image. This is an extravagantly loving Christianity that imitates Christ imitating G*D. This imitation is the setting loose of a creative word that attempts to see what we might yet do together that will take us beyond where we have come so far. When a time of conflict arises between these forms of Christianity, we might expect that the doctrinaire will have the power and willingness to use it to shape others. This is often true in the short-run. As has been noted, however, the arc of love is long and persistent. Note how often doctrine needs to be restated, this is evidence of its limitation. There is no limit to an expansive love.

Between the bracket of "truth" and that of "kindness, sensitivity, and forgiveness" any number of examples can be used. It may be about thieves or spouses or drunkards or any of the other behavioral examples Paul uses. These are moveable examples in the midst of brackets about larger categories of truth or reverence or strength or . . . .
 

Psalm 130

Pentecost +10 – Year B

Psalm 130

Ah, sweet anticipation!

If you read The Neverending Story (the two color print version) or Momo by Michael Ende (and of course you will run right out to do so) an encroaching dark is the depth from which the Psalmist cries.

This dark is offset by a coming to terms with one's own power and an appreciation of time. This is a preemptive forgiveness that brightens one's eye for both the availability of the moment to be significant and a morning brightness to be considered as real, not a false dawn.

When our anticipation meets our power, the redemption available from steadfast love breaks the bounds of the personal and encompasses the communal. Our seemingly small and brave decisions have immense opportunity to affect a whole community. What joy to be able to participate in such a larger redemption.

This may be an equation that is the moral equivalent of e=mc(squared). r=pa(squared) or redemption equals power times the square of anticipation.

Do you think there is a downside to this equation – like, with radiation, an atomic bomb versus a cancer therapy? Imagine a stereotypic TV preacher using this formula for their own aggrandizement. Is there a boundary that would be appropriate to put in place around this formula to both enhance it and lessen an opportunity for misuse? [Might it be an intentional, communal anticipation of a day when such would no longer be needed?]
 

2 Samuel 18:5-33

Pentecost +10 – Year B

2 Samuel 18:5-33

Let's back up a bit to 14:25-26. "No one in all Israel was so admired for his beauty as Absalom; from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head he was without blemish. When he cut his hair – he had to have it cut every year, for it grew too heavy for him – the hair of his head weighed two hundred shekels by the royal weight."

Absalom's outer beauty went to his head. From the time David did not punish Amnon for raping Tamar (Absalom's sister), Absalom plots revenge upon both Amnon and David – "I'll be a real king". Absalom succeeds in killing Amnon but is finally killed in a revolt against David, caught by his own beautiful and bountiful hair.

David would not discipline Amnon and did not grieve with Tamar. Now he weeps for Absalom. Remember when he wept for his dying son (offspring from his adultery with Bathsheba) and then simply went on without weeping when that son actually died?

How is it we are such a mass of contradictions? Do David's genes seem to be in you as well? Privileged by G*D and yet unable to build upon that? May we be given the gift of seeing more of the consequences of our own behavior and engaging in the difficult parts of life regarding them now, rather than mourning them later.

This "we" is both royal-we-speak, meaning individuals, and whole communities. You will have to answer for yourself and together we need to have better conversations as we answer to suicide by environmental degradation and war for fear of terror and other.

Finally, what irony will show up in your obituary? What unexpected source will weep for you? Will any response made to these questions actually lead to a change in community participation?
 

John 6:35, 41-51

Pentecost +10 – Year B

John 6:35, 41-51

As we read the poetic language of John, it is important to remember Jesus as teacher, mentor, and leader of disciples. This will continue to ground us as we listen in on images of bread, life, eternity, and magnetism.

Jesus, as sage and wise one, has enough teaching to chew on that a follower will always have a next syllabus. To come and live with Jesus will be fulfilling whether or not you buy the "bread" identifier.

As you read this passage it will be helpful to translate "taught" and "come" as "drawn to", "believes" as "lives with", "eternal" as "present", and "raised" as "revealed". Go ahead, mark your bible – cross out words and write in new ones.

As you reflect on the way this passage now reads, there are two additional perspectives to add.

The first is, "I have come from heaven." The next time someone asks where you are from, use this line. Our identified starting place is important and if you don't see G*D (euphemism, "heaven") as part of your start you are likely to settle for coming from Madison or somewhere else and be bound by its limitations, your pedigree. In some sense, our start is what magnetically aligns us with our best intention and allows us to be drawn by it. For John our start is pre-creation.

Secondly, "bread from heaven" is an extension of the creation tale of a by-passed tree-of-life (that one may eat of it and not die) we have been guarded against. Imagine, a walking tree-of-life pursuing us even East of Eden as we are hesitant to glance back at it lest we are tempted to run back only to be sent away. At some point our moving ahead will intersect a tree-of-life and we will better recognize the good and evil we thought so desirable to know and set out on a journey less traveled – presently being drawn by G*D to become our part of G*D - from before creation to right now.
 

August Report

As promised, this first week of August is report time. I have found me putting my hand back to a lectionary comment plow. This is apparently a helpful tool to me, for me to explore life. Accordingly, I'll pick it back up for a while (though I am finding my schedule of writing isn't yet set and there may be a herky-jerky timing to these postings). Those of you who receive this can decide whether this point of shifting is a good spot for you to remove yourself from the list that sends these postings to you (the info is at the end of each posting) or to let me know you would like off.

If you are up to it, I'd be interested in any reflections you have about the continuity or discontinuity of style and content. I expect that I'll see different things as a retired pastor, but that I may not catch the shift until you mention it.

Peace enough to grow - to you and yours.

Wesley

John 6:24-35

Pentecost +9 – Year B

John 6:24-35

What must we do
to be a practitioner
of G*D?

So many different
ways of being practical,
which way to go?

Monkey see, monkey do
is an ancient model -
show us G*D.

Practice your performance
here and now
with us and ours.

Do it again
and again
again

Hop to -
our perfection
is in your hands.

Eat bread.
Be bread.
Share bread

Trick Alert!
That's not doing,
that's being.
 

Ephesians 4:1-16

Pentecost +9 – Year B

Ephesians 4:1-16

I, a practitioner, invite you toward a life worthy of a calling to humility and gentleness, patient bearing with one another in love, and maintaining a Spirit of unity in bonds of peace. [verses 1-3, edited]

It is those who walk the talk who are able to intentionally model the interconnections between body, spirit, and hope. Whether on the way up (sprouting, birthing) or on the way down (wilting, dying) we have a gift to live out. Whether we do or not is quite another matter.

The gifts we have come to and those yet to come are never quite categorical. In fact they usually are in the process of breaking categories. Without crossing lines our gifts are no more life-giving than only talking holy happy talk. We are called to take a long view, not like children seeing everything through the lens of their stage of life. A part of this long view is speaking love truthfully and growing up as did Jesus, with an eye on G*D's presence with every ligament of creation. Wherever those two ways of living come together, we have the high calling of "practitioner of life".
 

Psalm 51:1-12

Pentecost +9 – Year B

Psalm 51:1-12

Jim Taylor's Everyday Psalms begins:
     1      Scrub me clean, Lord.
     Rub me down gently;
     By your touch, show how much you love me;
     Flush away my failures;

I appreciate the tangibleness Jim brings to this Psalm.

Clean hearts are not a magical re-virginization of our intentions, but the soaking and scrubbing clean of very real messiness. This restoration is different than, "Wow! Forgiveness. That was interesting." This is not a matter of getting our head right and our heart will follow.

Looking back at John and Samuel, can you find the tangibleness to bread and consequences? We are not looking so much at a fresh start as a renewal within the journey we have always been on. By the end of the Psalm we are rebuilding and repairing broken walls. Our location is alright, Paradise is a good place to be, but we need to revision condemnation and sacrifice and move from a touch that destroys to a touch that loves deeper than failure.

This is an issue key for Christians, as the Jewish Study Bible notes regarding verse 7:
"So extreme are the psalmist's guilt feelings that he sees himself as sinful even before birth; in other words, he is, by nature, a sinful being. The idea of the inherent sinfulness of humans is rarely expressed in the Bible, except for Gen. 8:21 … (see also Job 25:4). Christianity developed the notion of original sin."

Do we want to return to the tradition of Jesus or continue following the accumulating doctrines of Christian institutionalism? What might yet happen should we dial back the extreme of inappropriate guilt?
 

2 Samuel 11:26-12:15

Pentecost + 9 – Year B

2 Samuel 11:26-12:15

Presuming G*D's level of involvement with David – Teacher's Pet – there is no reason not to presume G*D's level of involvement with a new born – Moral Lesson – or with G*D's level of involvement with you – _______.

A question to be asked: If sin is not the last word, forgiveness is, how does that apply to a baby as well as to David?

Are we here into an earlier version of blood atonement? If so how do parse out whether this is G*D speaking or Nathan's understanding (like all of us getting some things spot on while wildly missing the mark on something else)? Is this something still being worked out with G*D, like a flood? Might G*D not also repent of this (particularly seeing how poorly the rest of the children turned out) tit-for-tat response and later disavow it when dealing with another baby – Jesus (to live in the midst of the messiness of life, not to die as a moral lesson or doctrinal point)?

As you wrestle with this passage can you see forgiveness as a larger word than sin, not just for David, but also Baby ben David? Does forgiveness really take us further than scapegoats and mandatory atonement? In a community's life as well as in an individual's?
 

John 6:24-35

Pentecost +9 – Year B

John 6:24-35

[Note: This is not a sign of a restart here. Given the quote posted from Saving Jesus from the Church and a campfire last night, the following reflection was made after noting this observation from the day:

dragonfly
caught between
invisible pong paddles

Now, without further ado, a conversation hesitantly continued.]

We wake up one day missing a sense of well-being, control, meaning, fullness.

Where might it have gone? Where to look?

Having been as far away as a prodigal can get, we backtrack our GPS waypoints (noting that we had forgotten to enter some crucial data along the way) to home base. In Jesus' life home base would be Capernaum or Jerusalem or in any city or on the way to one. Having lost Prosperity Gospel Jesus, where to find him?

For a moment we had re-found a past source of present comfort and hope for perhaps tomorrow. Now we wonder how much we might have missed from its first blush to our recognition of missing it. Teacher, is there an assignment we need complete to catch up? How long had our entitled gift been waiting for us? How far ahead of us has it moved? How far behind have we fallen?

These surface concerns of greed are all too readily readable by anyone, but ourself, in our behavior. We know we are caught when we wake up to find ourselves eating our seed-corn – giving up everything for one more serving of gourmet slop – our inner-Esau showing through.

Like any kid caught, we claim our right to one more piece of pie, one more slice of jam-laden toast, one more freshly baked cookie. Manna is our perceived birthright.

May we look deeper into the present to find a willingness to stop yo-yo-ing between ancient glory and anticipated privilege.

When is now, where is here.
 

Saving Jesus from the Church

While setting up a new-to-us house with all the little surprises that come with that endeavor, I just finished a new book that I recommend: Saving Jesus from the Church: How to Stop Worshiping Christ and Start Following Jesus, by Robin R. Meyers.

The chapter titles give a good overview of the perspective of the author:
Prologue: A Preacher's Nightmare: Am I a Christian?
One: Jesus the Teacher, Not the Savior
Two: Faith as Being, Not Belief
Three: The Cross as Futility, Not Forgiveness
Four: Easter as Presence, Not Proof
Five: Original Blessing, Not Original Sin
Six: Christianity as Compassion, Not Condemnation
Seven: Discipleship as Obedience, Not Observance
Eight: Justice as Covenant, Not Control
Nine: Prosperity as Dangerous, Not Divine
Ten: Religion as Relationship, Not Righteousness
Epilogue: A Preacher's Dream: Faith as Following Jesus

In keeping with the main direction of this blog, here is a paragraph from the book that you might appreciate:

Faith itself is a relationship, and scripture cannot be objectified without destroying that relationship. We continue to speak of a "battle for the Bible," when in fact the Bible is a conversation. We overhear it at a great distance, translated (and corrupted) from foreign tongues, and spoken by those who never imagined us as the intended audience. It is always wise to remember that not a single word of the Bible was written for you or for me – so how can we be having a "battle" over it? One only competes for what one wishes to possess, yet how does one "possess" a conversation? We can only listen carefully and thoughtfully and in the posture of one who, in search of wisdom, is listening through a keyhole to the distant echoes of a love affair. [p. 205]
 

A People's History of Christianity

While away on a road trip I picked up a copy of a new book, A People's History of Christianity: The Other Side of the Story by Diana Butler Bass. I recommend it.

The structure of the book follows a quote from Professor Joseph Stewart-Sicking, "I can't separate devotion from ethics." From my United Methodist tradition, this is a familiar combination that sets off sparks of new life – John Wesley spoke and came to live from a polarity he framed as "acts of piety" and "acts of mercy."

Part 1 – The Way, Early Christianity, 100-500
Christianity as a Way of Life
Devotion: The Love of God
Ethics: The Love of Neighbor

Part 2 – The Cathedral, Medieval Christianity, 500-1450
Christianity as Spiritual Architecture
Devotion: Paradise Restored
Ethics: Who Is My Neighbor

Part 3 – The Word, Reformation Christianity, 1450-1650
Christianity as Living Words
Devotion: Speaking of Faith
Ethics: Walking the Talk

Part 4 – The Quest, Modern Christianity, 1650-1945
Christianity as a Quest for Truth
Devotion: The Quest for Light
Ethics: Kingdom Quest

Part 5 – The River, Contemporary Christianity, 1945-Now
Christianity as Navigation
Devotion: Stepping into the River
Ethics: Universal Hospitality

Throughout the book are many stories of folks who have addressed the issues of devotion and ethics in their context – sometimes prophetically reminding the church institutional of its growing one-sidedness and sometimes stretching a settled orthodoxy through new insight and behavior.

I leave this recommendation with a paragraph near the end of the book, "In Seattle Anne Holmes Redding described universal hospitality as 'making connections of the heart across humanly devised lines of separation. Cooperating with God's healing work in self, other, community, and world. Hearing and responding to the groans of creation. Basically falling in love with all the 'wrong' folks. Helping Jesus be a bridge rather than a barrier."

Blessings upon your bridge-work. [That's bridge-work, not bridgework, though if you need a blessing for that as well, consider it given.]
 

An Interruption

Pentecost +4 – Year B

An Interruption

We are moving to another side, from full-time intentional interim/transitional ministry to retirement.

One of the realities of this is an interruption in routine. As we move from the eastern side of Wisconsin to the western side the first of next week it will take a bit to get computers set up again and my laptop is old enough to not have wireless in it. There are also some travel plans in the offing and so I expect to not be posting here until August.

Given the reality of interruptions and how novelty can rearrange patterns, there is the possibility that this particular sharing of thoughts is finished. We will see. The most I will commit to at this point is having a message on the first week in August 2009 to give an update of plans.

Thank you to those who have contacted us over time.

May you take something to eat as you arise again to life and use the energy to actually "do what you do do well".

take care
  dream strong
  smile gentle
and so go well.

Wesley
 

2 Corinthians 8:7-15

Pentecost +4 – Year B

2 Corinthians 8:7-15

We just completed a successful Capital Fund Campaign. Our scripture theme was 8:12 (CEV) – "It doesn't matter how much you have. What matters is how much you are willing to give from what you have."

The practical use of this passage is thus validated. A part of every encounter with the holy includes, but goes beyond the practical. For instance, the very folks who responded well to verse 12 would have a most difficult time with verses 13-15. Their individual/personal concept of fair stops short of a communal vision of fair. If it should come to actually sharing their surplus and having their deficit covered by others, there would be great grumbling about "socialism". Corporate welfare seems to be alright, but not sharing with the poor. A capital campaign to benefit themselves seems to be alright, but a straight up equivalent for the poor is out of the question, and these are good and generous people. Without lessening our tendency to greed, part of the difficulty is the inability of the whole system to adequately frame the issue.

This is a difficult concept for disciples of any era – from perceptions of Cain regarding Abel, to responses to a woman anointing Jesus, to commitments by Ananias and Sapphira, to any who are hearers but not doers, to the Laodiceans, to prosperity preachers, to profit-first economists, to you and me.

It is so difficult to see what we can do and so easy to see what we can't do. From there it is no stretch at all to cocoon ourselves. Come quickly disaster. Come strongly enough that we will learn.
 

Psalm 130

Pentecost +4 – Year B

Psalm 130

In keeping with freedom from bondage we hear here of forgiveness – one of those wonderful mysteries that can free two through one act.

When forgiveness becomes our habit, rather than a periodic act of last resort, we find the kind of wholeness implied in worship – the return of worth-ship, worthiness to a broken, partial, bondaged life. When forgiveness and wholeness are not the result of worship, worship is present only in spelling and will take your money and leave you worse off than before.

Hope and be unafraid. Hope expresses steadfast love. Hope is powerful and redeeming. Hope is forgiveness enacted.
 

2 Samuel 1:1, 17-27

Pentecost +4 – Year B

2 Samuel 1:1, 17-27

My sorrow is the greatest sorrow. Had I the power, you would moan and cry out my loss.

I would probably not return the favor and attempt to see through your eyes or walk even a block in your moccasins.

These issues of loss are certainly, to use a quote of the day, opportunities for positive motivation (see reference). By synecdoche, David's grief came to be a national grief – like the Bush/Cheney response to folks attempting to terrorize with airplanes became a universalizing of personal response.

All of us would like to universalize our experience. Often we are able to do so, at least with our coterie. It is this attempt that leads us all into harm's way, preparing the universalizing mighty to fall. In just a moment longer David's lust will have the same universal nature as his sorrow and lead to more death. The danger of privilege-of-feeling moves from arena to arena. Eventually parents fall into the trap over their children and the medically impoverished can go to any extreme.

Truly my sorrow is a significant sorrow. As truly, my sorrow is only one of many. Misused it becomes constrictive for others and myself. Used well it becomes a wounding turned healing.
 

Mark 5:21-43

Pentecost +4 – Year B

Mark 5:21-43

Continuing the parabolic nature of actions as well as words, Jesus again crosses to "the other side." That would seem to make this side the other side. Once the disorientation settles a bit we see that folks are bound here as well as there.

A Gerasene demoniac; a woman with a twelve-year-long hemorrhage; a girl bedridden to never arise again. Bondaged, one and all. Ched Meyer's ground-breaking work – Binding the Strong Man – could also have been titled Releasing the Other Side.

The demonic from the other other-side is privileged to deal directly with his experience of blessing and mercy. Folks on this other-side seem to always have to filter it through faith language and in so doing distance themselves from their experience (individually to go in peace; communally to be silenced).

Yes, different occasions require different duties, consistency is not all that great a virtue, but note how the energy drops when "faith" enters as a primary way of engaging life. It turns life over to someone else, ordinary life is returned to as the end-all and be-all of our engagement.

A storm erupts for the disciples on the way to the other other-side. A storm is set up to erupt for Jesus after returning to this other-side and will commence immediately hence in Nazareth.

If you have experienced a blessing of freedom arrived, tell it. Life is not just a matter of "our" faith and if it is strong enough we'll get what is desired and be satisfied until a next moment of crisis. To cut the faith talk and go with the experience base is to re-create the joy and energy of finding ourself in G*D's image (healed and released, whether cured or not – imprisoned or not).
 

Pentecost +3 – Year B

Did Jesus' followers moan this poem's antecedent as he slept through a ship bucking the wave?
Did the Philistines chant so upon Goliath's fall?
Did Paul see the Corinthians as fallen, needing a revival of the heart?

O CAPTAIN! MY CAPTAIN!
by Walt Whitman

I.
O CAPTAIN! my captain! our fearful trip is done;
. . . .
     But O heart! heart! heart!
     O the bleeding drops of red!
     Where on the deck my captain lies,
          Fallen cold and dead.

II.
O captain! my captain! rise up and hear the bells;
. . . .
     O Captain! dear father!
     This arm beneath your head;
     It is some dream that on the deck
          You’ve fallen cold and dead.

III.
My captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still
. . . .
     Exult, O shores! and ring, O bells!
     But I, with silent tread,
     Walk the spot my captain lies
          Fallen cold and dead.

Upon arising, a word of peace and challenge from Jesus. Would Goliath ever offer such? Paul, too, has his poem seeing more in the Corinthians than they yet see in themselves. Who commissions you to be a "poem"? Is part of your "peace" no master, no God? On the sea of chaos we dream our fears and they melt our realities. Only O Love will float our boat.

TO YOU
by Walt Whitman

WHOEVER you are, I fear you are walking the walks of dreams,
I fear these supposed realities are to melt from under your feet
         and hands,
Even now your features, joys, speech, house, trade, manners,
         troubles, follies, costume, crimes, dissipate away from you,
Your true soul and body appear before me,
They stand forth out of affairs, out of commerce, shops, work,
         farms, clothes, the house, buying, selling, eating, drinking,
         suffering, dying.

Whoever you are, now I place my hand upon you, that you be my
         poem,
I whisper with my lips close to your ear,
I have loved many women and men, but I love none better than
         you.

O I have been dilatory and dumb,
I should have made my way straight to you long ago,
I should have blabb'd nothing but you, I should have chanted
         nothing but you.

I will leave all and come and make the hymns of you,
None has understood you, but I understand you,
None has done justice to you, you have not done justice to your-
         self,
None but has found you imperfect, I only find no imperfection in
         you,
None but would subordinate you, I only am he who will never
         consent to subordinate you,
I only am he who places over you no master, owner, better, God,
         beyond what waits intrinsically in yourself.

. . . .

 

2 Corinthians 6:1-13

Pentecost +3 – Year B

2 Corinthians 6:1-13

There is a time for everything under the sun – Paul's been reading his Ecclesiastes again – now is the acceptable time to commend myself/ourselves as G*D's partner(s) whether right or left-handed, honored or dishonored, anonymous or famous for more than 15 minutes.

Of course paying attention to the details of how that partnership gets enacted will be of the utmost importance. Will truth be told and hearts opened more consistently than not? In hard times; tough times; bad times; beaten, jailed, and mobbed times; working times, fasting times will we recognize our companionship with G*D and one another? Or is our partnership with G*D only acknowledged in smooth times.

When such truth and hearts grow, Expansive and Expanding Love grins all over itself and the rest of creation. We might even want to go past an emerging church into a Spacious Church. Wouldn't you rejoice to be a part of a Sixth-Degree-of-Separation Spacious Church?
 

Psalm 9

Pentecost +3 – Year B

Psalm 9

It seems the very snare we set for others is the one we ourselves get caught in. The very pride we have in something well-done becomes our downfall, minimally as a trap to keep on doing the same thing over and over again.

The very desire to go away with Jesus ends up in a storm. Goliath’s reliance upon violence returns violence. Again and again we are our own worst enemy.

Our challenge is to not let this rest in an arena of judgment, but to find a way or two, no matter how teensy, twisty, or hidden, to what we experience as deliverance – becoming our own best friend.

A hint here is that of singing praise. This is an expansive praise launched from creation and extended beyond the miracle of the present into an anticipation of hope forever. This is not the kind of praise that expects a return, is obligatory or a hedge against judgment.

With large praise we are opened to see small avenues of opportunity that open to a larger picture. In a Wisconsin United Methodist Federation for Social Action meeting tonight we heard about community organizing from folks in ESTHER in Appleton who are doing social justice work and growing in it. Their training, expertise, relationship building, passion, persistence, and celebration each adds a shine to the work of living and exemplifying G*D’s presence and deeds among people and deep within the environment.

Social Justice is praise solidified into action, is joy set free.

1 Samuel 17:(1a, 4-11, 19-23), 32-49

Pentecost + 3 – Year B

1 Samuel 17:(1a, 4-11, 19-23), 32-49

What to do in the face of assured destruction? We are not talking here about mutual assured destruction (MAD) that was the basis of the cold war arms race, but just assured destruction. When the world is after your head and there is no way out – what to do?

We hear here about five smooth stones. Not the jagged ones that would slow down on their way to their target, but smooth ones that fly straight and dive deep. One image of these smooth stones is to consider them as the deep questions that cause a pause and a change of thought, of heart.

Liberation forces have never tried to out-do their adversary on the same level. There needs to be some soul-judo that goes on where an opponent’s strength is turned on themselves.

Goliath had assurance to the max. He was right. He had might. He would rule.

Going against Goliath’s assurance is not a winning tactic. He’ll probably win and feel more assured. The same holds for Goliath’s might. What is left is the issue of being right. This is an entry point for the smooth stones to go to the heart of Goliath’s operating system. To raise a question dampens enthusiasm and brings a moment of hesitation in execution.

Imagine coming to someone in the name of the Lord of Questions. What would that do to your interaction with someone constrained enough in their behavior that they think doing away with you would answer some important question? What would that do to your image of G*D? How would it change your relationship with whatever “Goliath” you are facing.

David put his head to the matter, took out a question, asked it, and struck Goliath on his assumption of right; Goliath took a question to the head and he began to change. (This does need to acknowledge that this is not a magic formula. You may remember the enormous and multiple pain incurred during the Salt March in India and the Civil Right Marches in the United States of America – many were injured and killed, but the questions piled as high as their sacrifice.)

What would you ask Goliath?

* Will a superiority of equipment or widening some stuff-gap assure
     your happiness?
* If you met your match and were defeated, would you still have worth?
* How many people must die before you will know that too many people
     have died?
* What color are my eyes that see productivity, not destruction, still alive
     in you?
* What harm would come if we shared our dreams before you murder
     me? Why don’t you go first.

Now, facing your particular “Goliath”, what five smooth questions would you ask of both “Goliath” and yourself?

Mark 4:35-41

Pentecost +3 – Year B

Mark 4:35-41

Let’s see, Jesus only related to folks through parable (from last week’s pericope). So when Jesus says, “Let’s go across to the other side,” we are in Parableland. As Jesus emulators/rememberers we are to see and hear in parable. Our difficulty is in being consistent with this approach to life.

The disciples, famous for missing the boat, take Jesus aboard as he was. The presumption was that Jesus was being literal this time and so they hopped to and hopped Jesus right on in. Thinking they were on the right tack several boats leave the shore and head across the lake/sea.

Sure enough, along comes a stormy storm to nearly swamp them. Is this storm a parable of the other side? A little thought experiment would have sufficed. They were in a relatively good spot, things were going swimmingly. The other side from where they were is stormy and on the other side of the storm is Peace! Be still! We are called to head off to the next “other side”.

As if this is not enough for the moment, two additional thoughts. Fear and faith are parable related. To learn to see and hear parables wherever you are lessens fear and increases faith. To not so learn is to stay stuck. We might then translate “faith” as an ability to hear and see parables wherever one is.

And, finally, what happened to those other boats?

Ezekiel 17:22-24

Pentecost +2 – Year B

Ezekiel 17:22-24

The small are great; the great, small. This turn around will be home to many.

A majestic cedar dances with a lowly mustard. In both cases, when you have the eyes to see, life blossoms and flourishes.

Birds are a wonderful symbol of our life extended. From Genesis 1:20 onward birds specifically show G*D at work. "Let the waters bring forth swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the dome of the sky." In 1:26 we are to be in relation to the birds – good old "dominion" or "partnership". 7:3 reminds us that the birds are related to "clean animals" that symbolically draw us closer to G*D.

A bird brought a sign of new life after a flood. Job appeals to birds who evidence G*D (12:7). Psalm 78:27 reminds us of the quail in the desert, G*D "rained flesh upon them like dust, winged birds like the sand of the seas". Ecclesiastes 9:12 equates the demise of birds with that of humans.

The prophets continue to find connections between birds and ourselves. Isaiah 31:5 equates birds with G*D partners in creation who watch over it. Jeremiah 4:25 shows how desolate life is becoming with even birds having flown the coop. Ezekiel 31 has the cedars of Lebanon populated by birds as a sign of blessing and Daniel 4 sees a similar great tree at the center of the earth, well nested with birds – signs of restoration. Hosea 4 has a new covenant witnessed by the birds of the air, remembering a first creation covenant.

Matthew 6: "Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?"

Mark 4: "…yet when mustard seed is sown it grows up and becomes the greatest of all shrubs, and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade."

Acts 10: Peter's vision of inclusion includes birds.

Revelation 19: "Then I saw an angel standing in the sun, and with a loud voice he called to all the birds that fly in midheaven, "Come, gather for the great supper of God. . . ." to clear away the decay and make way for a new heaven and a new earth. It would have been a nice touch to have the leaves of the tree of life show the healing of the land by the nesting of birds, but John's vision fell just a bit short of rounding things out.

At any rate – where are the birds in your life nesting these days? In your cedar grandeur? In your mustard weediness? On the horizon? In your soul? Watch for the birds and catch a glimpse of G*D's presence.
 

2 Corinthians 5:1-17

Pentecost +2 – Year B

2 Corinthians 5:1-17

O to be "swallowed up by life." This yearning for dissolution and completedness, for exile and homecoming, all at once, is a mystical approach to being that cuts across all religious singularities. It helpfully gets us out of the way of ourselves and others, but is next to useless as a manipulation technique as such issues fall away.

There is here plenty of opportunity for growth. There is a greater awareness of hearts behind behaviors. Our motivations become clearer to ourselves and more evident to others. Even G*D becomes present and alive to us and those encountering us. This is an energizer.

From being attuned with what lies ahead we find the same disinterested involvement that sets every creation loose. Whether encountering pillars on turtles, circles within circles, a Word calling forth, or the other side of black holes – creation is loosed again.

Past experience indicates we usually soon do our best to tighten creation up again, that we might be in charge. Remember this week the value of looseness. May you gracefully reach and stretch your way through and around the constraints and tightnesses that come up against you.
 

Psalm 20

Pentecost +2 – Year B

Psalm 20

Presume for the moment that anointing is an equal-opportunity event. All have received an anointing. A gift has been received – to each for the benefit of all.

If a given, how does that change the process of calling upon an anointer? Do we anticipate or presume? Do we owe and incur obligation?

If all are anointed, why do some apply it more easily than others? (while on a Greg Brown kick, here are some more lyrics – and the music enhances them immensely.) For some it leads to charging in where an angel would fear to tread. For some there is a quiet confidence and an ability to stand no matter what the circumstances. For some there is disbelief that they are anointed.

Anointing was and is for every person, regardless of their status, inside or outside a Pentecostal room. When anointed, barriers are removed, we can cross the usual barriers (huge among them is that of language or culture). Stand tall, weapons of war will rust. Cross the barriers, before they are taken down. Doing so will add to the impetus to healthily remove our last barriers – until we clearly see one another as anointed.

This is a remarkably self-fulfilling prophecy. See another as anointed and they will begin to so see themselves. Withhold that vision and we will live up to our worst. Inasmuch as free will abides, these are not cause and effect actions, but deep calling to deep.
 

1 Samuel 15:34-16:13

Pentecost +2 – Year B

1 Samuel 15:34-16:13

Ramah – Where Samuel was conceived
Ramah – Samuel persuaded to anoint a king (Saul)
Ramah – Refuge from a last view of Saul
Ramah – Refuge after anointing David
Ramah – Samuel's burial place

Ramah – a high place
Ramah – a place of illicit worship

Ramah – a sanctuary city

Sometimes a place weaves together a number of different life strands. What place keeps cropping up in your life?
 

Mark 4:26-34

Pentecost +2 – Year B

Mark 4:26-34

"The Presence of G*D is as if . . ."

Everywhere we turn we see another "if". Listening to Folk Music on iTunes radio while typing this note brings a multitude of Presences. Remembering the Youth Worship this morning brings more G*D sightings. Anticipating traveling to a new home tomorrow opens us to many "ifs" about new community.

Even before such present/past/future awarenesses, there is prevenient grace behind it all. A new folk song, Never So Far (lyrics) by Greg Brown exemplifies this – we are never so far that love can't find us. Greg will be coming to the Great River Folk Festival in La Crosse, WI (Aug 28, 2009). Let me know if you want to come and crash to attend the festival. For a sneak preview you can listen to the song performed on The Prairie Home Companion, October 21, 2000 here on RealAudio, it begins 2 minutes into the clip. Imagine G*D singing this song to you.

"With many such parables Jesus spoke the word to them, as they were able to hear it." When we enter into "if" space we are better able to hear what we need to hear. Practice whatever technique it is that best gets you to your "if" space.
 

creation's norm

Pentecost +1 (Trinity) – Year B

creation's norm

birth as culmination
birth as initiation

intention and happenstance
brought us this far

intention and interpretation
lead us on

pregnancy is creation's norm
filling and emptying

cries of pain
doxological psalms

yearning and waiting
we birth and are birthed

from above and below
every which way
 

Romans 8:12-17

Pentecost +1 (Trinity) – Year B

Romans 8:12-17

"All who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God." (vs 14)

While "led" usually has a sense of direction about it, perhaps a goose leading goslings, there are also available overtones of time, as in creation preceding but still partnered with creatures. Following the partnership of creation model we might move a bit away from a tendency to an exclusivist view of this passage and say, "All who are in a creation-partnered/adopted relationship with the Spirit of G*D are G*D's kin." A question of whom this leaves out need to be addressed and we can easily respond – no one is left out.

In this cloning of G*D or holographing of G*D we find strength and courage to be constituent parts of creation. Antidotes to fear (non-creation) abound, the trick is to recognize and use them.

Suffering/Glorification become markers, though not always helpful ones, of how we are doing in relation to fear – standing up and overcoming. But they are after-the-fact descriptions that tend to get us back into an unhelpful spirit/flesh dichotomy rather than deepening our relationship with G*D and One Another.

I expect it is helpful to continue this passage on a bit to the freedom found in labor to birth a new creation. Blessings upon your simply having been created and your even simpler partnership in advancing creation.
 

Psalm 29

Pentecost +1 (Trinity) – Year B

Psalm 29

Trinity really isn't monotheistic. All the talk about relationship within a oneness turns out to be more closely akin to multiple personality disorder.

The Psalmist draws a clear distinction between G*D and Creation/People. There is G*d and there is everything else.

May you experience a tad of majesty rolling throughout the universe(s). May you experience a bit of peace in the midst of thunder.

For now, know the voice of God is not condemnatory – it simply is and is not.
 

Isaiah 6:1-13

Pentecost +1 (Trinity) – Year B

Isaiah 6:1-13

Having a blind spot is nothing new. It's built into the system. Having a recognition of a blind spot and being able to use a gravitational (or other) field to look around leads to amazing revelations. An unseen can be glimpsed.

We can get so caught up with our usual peddling (both routines and trying to sell our particular vision) that a bluebird of happiness flits through unseen. A typical response is one of lostness, wandering, and boredom. Then, when a recognition of something more being present arrives, we are undone.

At any rate, one of the insights of life is not about the grandeur of some high and lifted up artifacts of glory but the being on a journey in the midst of the sublime and mundane all mixed together. "Here am I; I'm on my way."

May your journey continue through city and desert, crowd and retreat, until the twelfeth of never. Eventually G*D and People will recognize one another, even if but less than a tenth part of either remain. Hooray for this First Isaiah and all subsequent Isaiahs, including whatever number Isaiah you are.

Hop on board. Let's journey to release a holy seed from its stump.
 

John 3:1-17

Pentecost +1 (Trinity) – Year B

John 3:1-17

Can G*D be revealed except by the intention of said G*D?

Can G*D be accidental?

Consider these questions in light of your own life and see whether or not the add value to you or whether you consider yourself diminished because of their presence.

For the moment we will simply take it as an opening praise or set-up to an intended sharper question to come. Stipulated: Jesus, you are somehow tapping into G*D to be able to do what you have done.

Let's start there, says Jesus. You've glimpsed some surprising actions/responses going on that don't fit in your current picture. To address these we will need to shift perspectives – seen from above there are no boundaries like the ones you perceive while measuring yourself against the past or one another. From above we are also able to consider a future that surprises – like when you finally get one of those Magic Eye things. (Didn't you just know Jesus would know about stereoscopic free-viewing.)

There is usually more available to us than we have yet caught. One of the constant surprises is how universal Love is – how it moves away from suspicion and condemnation toward larger pictures from above – wholeness/perfection/salvation.

In this model a reductionist approach to arrive at a trinity is once again enlarged to some variation of panentheist holism.
 

Ezekiel 37:1-14

Pentecost – Year B

Ezekiel 37:1-14

One of my favorite images from Nikos Kazantzakis is portraying Holy Spirit as an eagle, not a dove, that swoops down and digs its talons into the back of one's neck and drags you where Holy Spirit desires.

This gives the kind of action needed for Pentecost. It is not a sappy-happy birthday party; it is serious business, transformational for one and all. A response needs to be made, it can't be avoided any longer.

We can't get out of the energy of Pentecost by saying, "Gee, I don't know, what do you think." Eagle Spirit is happening now, so go ahead. Take a deep breath; everything is about to begin.

Bone will knit to bone, separations between languages, cultures, and theologies will be bridged. Creation and re-creation are continuing. Speak and Act: life's dynamic.
 

Romans 8:22-27

Pentecost – Year B

Romans 8:22-27

Pentecost often comes down to wearing red clothes and having red balloons. Brother Paul sees Pentecost type events in terms of labor, with all the blood and pain that is associated thereto. In these terms you can hear wannabe Pentecostalists opting for c-sections and epidurals – anything to avoid the pain of a new thing (that is not a comment about safety needs).

Our joyful expectancy, when push comes to shove, becomes a secondary consideration in the face of what it would mean to actually begin living as though all folks are part of and can get the wonder of G*D. Much easier just to sit and wait or simply keep talking to ourselves in our safe little place with our personal ecstatic experience.

Imagine the room Jesus' Friends were occupying as a dilated cervix and we are being pushed along to an unanticipatable new world. Wind and fire, pain and blood, birthing a new life through the old – seeing all in the midst of the partial – Pentecost.

Bonus read: D. H. Lawrence "New Heaven and Earth". Enjoy your death and rebirth, Pentecost as a condensed Easter Triduum.
 

Psalm 104:24-34, 35b

Pentecost – Year B

Psalm 104:24-34, 35b

Everywhere you look there is a glimpse of the Presence of G*D. That possibility or reality seems to continue to slide away from us, like something thought to be glimpsed out the corner of an eye, only to be dismissed as nothing.

A Pentecost experience is when the blindness is taken from our eyes and we are able to see the Presence of G*D in others and in all. Finally we can speak Mother Earth language, find the mother-tongue of all we encounter. We can take our part in a common song of praise – Wonder.

Blessing Received. Blessing Given.
 

Acts 2:1-21

Pentecost – Year B

Acts 2:1-21

Given the scope of time, ten days from Ascension to Pentecost is pretty good for a slow-mill G*D.

One key is that they were "all together". Apparently Thomas wasn't taking any chances about a second visit and stuck pretty closely to the others. Or, the spirit waited for that one moment in ten days when folks were all together "in one place."

From this distance we tend to get caught up with wind and fire, and miss the "all" set-up.

The word "all" shows up four times and is implied in the passage from Joel that gives the kinds of parentheses that indicate all – sons and daughters, young and old. It is this "all" that might well be thought of as G*D's presence or deeds that are touted (glimpsed and affirmed).

Pentecostal tests that leave someone out, break the "all"ness of Pentecost. As wonderful as folks speaking is that of folks listening. Likewise, the distance between amazement and perplexion (why isn't this a word?) is less than ten days and we need to be careful about making too much of this maturational or experiential difference.

In keeping with St. Augustine's appreciation of Ascension, Pentecost is one logical result of what it means to stop looking toward "heaven" or away from one another. When we are gathered and begin to really see one another, it is a Pentecost and a result of such seeing of an all-ness in this small gathering is energy to find all-ness in a larger setting, one beyond our usual boundaries.

Imagine again, where two or three are gathered and agree – what power there is (yes for good or ill)!

In Jewish tradition, Pentecost is Shavuot – a time of remembrance of the Mosaic Commandments, the Torah. An appreciation of "all" is helpful for both Pentecost and Shavuot.

United Methodists will soon be voting on a change in their constitution that changes a negative approach to its ministry ("without regard to . . .") to a positive one simply saying, "we are in ministry to all persons". Time (more than ten days) will tell if two-thirds of those voting will see this as a Pentecostal moment or if they will hang on to an incremental ministry of including one specially identified group after another as "we" become comfortable with "them" by continuing to note or protest too much that "our ministry" is without regard to "them".
 
 

John 15:26-27; 16:4b-15

Pentecost – Year B

John 15:26-27; 16:4b-15

Going away is so unhandy to our plans based on our current reality. Whether it is Jesus, friend, lover, or enemy – their going away throws us for a loop. Yet, if we don't have some experience of loss, how will we recognize a new opportunity? Arrgh, what a system and what it says about a G*D in our image.

To be blessed by loss is to be open to revisiting our present anew and seeing what we might have gotten awry and what really needs to continue on for a bit. Could we have gotten the whole sin thing wrong (it's not about flesh, but spirit)? Could we have gotten the whole righteousness thing wrong (its not ours to achieve or G*D's to give)? Could we have gotten the whole judgment thing wrong (its not relative or absolute)? Could we have gotten the limits of our knowledge wrong (its not about either the traditions or what we can handle right now)? Could we have gotten glory wrong (its ours by virtue of another or it stands in eternity)?

When we become friends, not servants, we return to the flow of life, of grace – not based on our current creedal understanding but catching clearer glimpses of the Great Better continuing to inch its way into the present and taking root. This shift from the limits of what we already know to an inbreaking of a growing edge can make a helpful difference for us and for others.

So here is the set up for the week – waiting, in the midst of loss, for new and renewed friendship to gel and be released, to gel and be released, to be acted on and lost, to be and not to be – acting, in the midst of loss, of our own power and control, our own strengths and weaknesses, acceptance or rejection by others.

Wait and Act. Enjoy the wrestling.
 

beyond

Easter 7 – Year B

assured we are safe
we proceed into dangerous turf
theirs claimed uniquely theirs

our assurance of safety
all the more dangerous
when spelled infallible

good polls portend election
from whence we change the world
only to wake up unheard of again

safety as sanctity is unsafe
holding its own seed of destruction
perpetually sprouting

believing our own press
we claim eternity
with dusty fingers

to this certainty
we are strangers
who look beyond

not bound by safety nets
swinging trapeze free
glory unbound

a moment above
no matter what's below
flings us forth
 

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.