Isaiah 12

Pentecost +25 - Year C

Isaiah 12

I like moving away from anger and toward comfort. Whenever such happens, an extravagant response seems to be in order - forgiveness of Self and Neighbors and G*D.

We are all in this together and we all take the consequences of poor choices. We also reap the difficulty of repairing our relationship after digging in our heels with our respective and incompatible choices.

Moving from dealing with an angry G*D to a comforting G*D throws us off our game and we overcompensate from blame for absence to praise. This misses the interrelationship aspect of G*D, Neighbor, and Self.

Perhaps this is all said too soon as Chapter 12's song of thanksgiving is to be "recited in the ideal age" (The Jewish Study Bible). We are certainly not at such an age. Our season of Pentecost began with great hope that we might get there. The first chapters of the the Book of the Acts of the Apostles had people's coming together who would otherwise be discounted by one another. Here at the end of another Church Year we are getting apocalyptic, disappointed that what started out as anti-Babel (universal response to great deeds) has again devolved into threat and a set up for a need to jump back into Advent thinking.

So, yes, in an ideal age my forgiveness will sound like praise. Until then my praise is tempered by the the inability of Self, Neighbor, and G*D to come together. I'll take my blame in this, but I won't excuse others more than myself.

Isaiah 65:17-25

Pentecost +25 - Year C

Isaiah 65:17-25

For what purpose was creation begun? Because G*D said so? To have people have dominion? That all might fall in order for a hero to redeem some of them ("believers")? Even G*D need a Galatea?

Note that a creation of new heavens and a new earth is all wrapped up in the creation of Jerusalem as a joy.

One might surmise that where joy is present new heavens (plural) and earth (singular) pop into being. Joy may be one thing that religion has a most difficult time with because of its obsession with G*D or ultimate authority. Religion needs great seriousness to approach such.

Joy here is defined as justice implemented.

• No more weeping or distress - justice at work, joy results.
• No preventable deaths, early or late - justice at work, joy results.
• No homelessness or hunger for houses will be built and gardens tended - justice at work, joy results. 
• No violence of stealing another's property - justice at work, joy results. 
• No idle idleness for meaningful work is available - justice at work, joy results.
• Labor will sustain one and all - justice at work, joy results.
• A workable community and environment will build a holy mountain - justice at work, joy results.

So, as we close off the joy of a surprise at Pentecost, we might ask whether our joy quotient is higher than it was a year ago. If it is, we are building in a creative direction. If it is not, we are tearing something down. If we let things like an economy or wedge issue raise our anger, but not our joy, we have missed an important learning. G*D is about to create joy and invites us to be glad and rejoice sufficiently to join G*D in so creating.

Luke 21:5-19

Pentecost +25 - Year C

Luke 21:5-19

The end of the church year is fast approaching. It doesn't appear that there is any change to arc of history that we have been on. In America, as analyzed from afar (Canada) by Jim Taylor's "Sharp Edge" column on Election anger, grief resulting from a fall from a tall pedestal is manifesting itself in a nation banging back and forth between poles, not knowing what has happened nor how to change our larger circumstance. And the same is happening to churches within said nation.

The same confusion was evident in the disciples - what's going on? what's the sign of getting back to business as usual or utter collapse? when is something going to come clear?

In Jesus' usual way he says, "Its going to get worse. The only thing you have going for you is deciding where you are going to hitch your star and hang on for dear life."

We are nearly through another Church Year. Has it made a difference for you or anyone else? Now there is something worth grieving over!

We don't have much to say for ourselves as we've been co-opted for so long. Our voice is but a whisper. Issues of individual greed and aspirations to more and more and bigger and bigger have stolen our power of testifying to a better way of living together.

No matter which way you turn, it's not going to be pretty. Remember, love G*D with everything you have, even unto becoming G*D, and love your Neighbor as you would have your Neighbor love you after walking a mile in each other's realities. This remembrance is all you will have until we move through this latest falling apart.

The end of turning last year's advent expectation into ordinary living has again mostly gone bust. There is not much expectation of being able to turn that around in two weeks. Gird your loins. Culpa mea. Endure anyway.

if to go

Pentecost +24 - Year C

if if if

inquiring doubting minds

want to know know know

test test test

hypothetical questions worry

and push push push

what what what

will prove dead is alive

huh huh huh

yikes yikes yikes

a coming enemy is us

ouch ouch ouch

well well well

where is the out - praise

hmm hmm hmm

no no no

more simplicity - please

yes yes yes

so so so

good work and words

ok ok ok

now now now

its ok - good work and words

go go go

2 Thessalonians 2:1-5, 13-17

Pentecost +24 - Year C

2 Thessalonians 2:1-5, 13-17

Don't let anyone tell you that a particular election, day, or event ushers in the the salvation of America, Christianity, or your own soul. Such extravagance of perspective, of punditry, of spin is but a glimpse at the way the satan, the tester, the confuser works - through false ultimates.

We are so gullible for such. After all we are images of G*D who thought Eden was ultimate only to find in the cool of the day how hot-headed such an envisioner can become. Fortunately we can learn.

Thanks be given that our call is not to present perfection, but standing firm and holding fast to a simple task, finding comfort and strength in every good work and word - yours or someone else's.

These little things refresh us, G*D, and creation.
 

Psalm 145:1-5, 17-21

Pentecost +24 - Year C

Psalm 145:1-5, 17-21

Theory: The wicked will be destroyed by G*D.
Response: Warning taken - I will bless G*D forever - and ever.

What we think we understand, we attempt to put into action. We've experienced wickedness in individuals, corporations pretending to be people, and negative campaign political expediency. Overall, the perpetrators don't seem to be destroyed, but rewarded. We had another election, in a long string of elections, that would solve everything by changing the players without changing the way in which the players would interact.

It is as if many found their standard of living to have been reduced or demolished and decided that if G*D is not going to destroy the wicked in the short-run while we continue to get it in the neck, we will bless G*D by taking matters into our own hands, striking out where we can. This is not an issue of wisdom, but, following an old pattern set by G*D, an attempt to apply a structural solution to a relational issue (remember edenic expulsion, universal floods, partisan language, famines, exiles, and more).

This is an excellent example of being blown about by every wind of doctrine. Many do not have the tools to have seen this election coming, much less its ramifications. Many others have taken advantage of those who have put themselves at the mercy of increasingly bitter partisanship and ultimate short-term power. All of us are caught in eddies of an old way of capitalism dying from its own internal contradictions, with no clear successor. We have lost the infrastructure to reestablish jobs that will support a family. Appeals to jobs and further lessening the essential regulatory function of government will fail again, shifting us from a debilitated democracy to an increasing acceptance of fascism. This image shows that critical fault-line:


At issue here is not a particular economic theory or projection. We might well translate the beginning understanding as, "The wicked will be destroyed by whatever is their current economic paradigm". We attempt to hold on to blessing our economic system, whatever it is at the time, until it is simply untenable. One way of mitigating this dynamic is being as clear-eyed as possible about our idols we so practically follow. Our short-term theories of cause and effect are much clearer than that of whatever might be meant by "G*D".

It is easy to predict that things will continue to fall apart (not just in an African tribe, but everywhere that is touched by empire - American, Christian, or otherwise). A key question for us as we near the end of another church year is, "What does it mean to participate in an economy (physical or spiritual) that focuses on bringing life for all (Luke 20:38) and not just praise or give power to the most violent (whether with a gun or a fountain pen)"? Have we really come through another church year and not come any closer to knowing we are together in our present life and we can't push things off on esoteric speculations about heaven or angry responses against our neighbor. If next year grows out of this year, there is not much to hope for. So, courage, friends, keep it real as best you can - it will have to be enough.
 

Haggai 1:15b - 2:9

Pentecost +24 - Year C

Haggai 1:15b - 2:9

Do you remember the day and time of your awareness of an organizing principle for your life. Early or late, it is a time worthy of remembrance or anticipation.

For Haggai a word of "courage" stands out as an organizing principle in the face of desolation.

Courage allows us to see possibilities (G*D, if you will). Courage remembers promises still to be fulfilled that are worth waiting for and working toward. Courage abides even when fear is on the edge of staking a toe-hold in life. Courage is especially needed when splendor occurs and prosperity threatens to overwhelm our sense of being cared for and willingness to care for others - when it is so easy to lose track of what is important.

Courage is what Haggai needed. What do you need as something you will stake your meaning in life on? Your principle might be something larger or smaller than Haggai's - size of meaning is not an issue here: simply having one, is.
 

Luke 20:27-38

Pentecost +24 - Year C

Luke 20:27-38

A Tea Bagger asks, "There was a stamp tax, and then there were excise taxes, tariffs, and customs duties, and then there were property taxes, and then there were poll taxes, and then there were income taxes. In the tax-free economic recovery of America, which tax should be removed first?"

Jesus responds, "Those who live in this age tax and are taxed, but those worthy of a commonwealth neither tax nor are taxed. Indeed they cannot tax because they are generous with one another like angels and G*D and creation itself. And the fact that the generous participate in a tax-free commonwealth of voluntary shared generosity and hospitality is shown in the ancient of days when establishing a new community was more important than being in charge of the deadly power of money."

How would you write this in terms of a socialist, a soft-headed pinko, a bleeding-heart liberal? Hint: try an extension of rights, ouch. Which right is the pre-eminent one? And what is it that requires us to keep at issues of rights?

What does it mean to "be alive" to an individual? to a community? The on-going interplay between these is as significant as the interplay between our past realities and our theories of the future. It is so difficult to be a purist when we are constantly faced with antidotes to our sureties.
 

choice of words

Pentecost +23 - Year C

help
I've been yelling so long
violence
has been beating hearts forever
wrong
wrong wrong everywhere we look
trouble
troubles nights and days
destruction
from yesterday ruins today
strife
turns to never-ending feud
contention
begins winning at all costs
law
slackens into injustice
wickedness
is at every gate
perversion
skews judgment

stand
and watch anyway
watch
and listen deeply
listen
and write what you hear
write
a heard vision
vision
plain bold large
large
large enough to last to the end
end
of lies of delay of pride
 

2 Thessalonians 1:1-4, 11-12

Pentecost +23 - Year C

2 Thessalonians 1:1-4, 11-12

Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy are able to identify two keys to living as a significant group of people, a covenant group, if you will. Clarity of what it means to grow toward G*D in both individual and corporate arenas stands everyone in good stead. My individual faith encourages and challenges where we as a group place our trust. That which we are discerning together affects where I place meaning in my own life. Growth in all directions is key to a dynamic fellowship, in this case Christian (pre-Constantine). This is a different dynamic than later when formal doctrine will cut some off and homogenize the Church which will lead to authoritarian leadership and a one-right-answer willing to name others as heretic and kill them.

A second key is how we express love for one another. Our neighbors, even those in the "church", are different enough from our self that it is no small matter that we honor one another with our different stages of growth in faith and trust. This is a different dynamic than both of us gazing toward officialdom and trying to measure up to a distant and theoretical way of being in the world.

These dynamics are still worthy ones to search after - growth and love. In fact when they are split from one another we find ourselves splitting from one another. There is no church growth product that will substitute for these basics of growth in meaning (individually and together) and love beyond reflections of our self.

What individual or group within your "church" needs your prayer that these two gifts might surface in their life?

What individual or group outside your "church" needs your prayer that these two gifts might surface in their life?

When growth beyond our current understanding and love beyond our self happen, new hope is born and borne, regardless of religious or non-religious expression/tradition in which they occur.
 

Habakkuk 1:1-4, 2:1-4

Pentecost +23 - Year C

Habakkuk 1:1-4, 2:1-4

The world is going to hell in a handcart. Everyone has their own evidence of the devolution of human community. Some is just fear-mongering and some have evidence. Perverted justice is as good an example as there is. Of course, one person's perversion is another's beauty.

There seems to be no process that can guarantee putting a stop to people's perversity. It doesn't seem there is a technique that will put us on a path to a better tomorrow. All we have is our own integrity. We stand and watch and wait and evaluate and act on what we trust.

So what are you trusting these days? Try this, an end is coming soon, but not soon enough that it will keep me from my responsibility and joy to live as though something better than an end will arrive in its place.
 

Luke 19:1-10

Pentecost +23 - Year C

Luke 19:1-10

Definition of being human ("son of Abraham"): generous toward the poor (at your own expense), honest in relationships within the community (cultural and physical environments), and quick to respond with repentant actions when astray.

We are quick to define people out of their humanity when they are not in accord with a majority or otherwise lack power. We have historically defined people out according to their theology, their clan, their education/status, their gender or orientation, their racial/cultural heritage. Here we hear that humanity has to do with basic community infrastructure of generosity and honesty and intentionality to abide by such. No matter how many above strikes someone has against them regarding their thinking or behaving or being, if they meet these criteria they are in.

It is difficult for us to abide the simplicity of generosity and honesty (both - they can't be traded one for the other) or an ease of return to our common values. We seem to want to make repentance as difficult and painful as possible, but here we see preemptive mercy at work in defining the work of what it means to be human ("Son of Man") - finding and inviting a restoration of ourselves to ourselves.
 

not down to a river but up to a temple

Pentecost +22 - Year C

oh so trusting we are are we
exceptional folk we be
we even have parables
told about us

its true we are not
like other people
who are good enough
we suppose

we fast and fast from fasting
we tithe at least a tithe of a tithe
alms we could do aplenty but
sacrifice is due

would you like a parable
all to your own
of course
not

did you see how we stood out
against a dreary background
that is sad so sad
yes sad

what better to do than praise
for bringing us home
to stand proud
unexiled

whom else is so deserving
than those who deserved
miraculous rescue
whom else

day by day we stand in public
thanking our god
our god
ours

such honor has come our way
and keeps on coming
bringing crowns
forever

a parable is always told of us
did you hear its wonder
yes about us
us
 

2 Timothy 4:6-8, 16-18

Pentecost +22 - Year C

2 Timothy 4:6-8, 16-18

Pharisee: (verses 6-8) As for me, I am a personification of a fast. I have lived accordingly, right to this moment, following every jot and tittle of faith. I have a crown reserved for me in eternity that will be personally handed to me by Jesus himself. Others who do it my way will also get a crown.

Tax Collector: (verses 16-18) I am deserted, unsupported by anyone except Jesus who strengthens me to forgive others before claiming a right to teach forgiveness to those most unlikely to offer it. Through forgiveness I was rescued from biting the heads off those who sneer at me. This rescue from others and myself is worth touting, always. Amen.

Like Paul, we are much ourselves - wearing our tragic and comedic masks in quick succession.
 

Psalm 65

Pentecost +22 - Year C

Psalm 65

"We shall be satisfied with the goodness of your house, your holy temple" because such are imputed to us.

Can we as happily affirm that we are satisfied with the goodness of our "house", our community, our extended human family, our own body "temple"?

Might we claim abundance comes from a satisfaction with the interrelationship between G*D's house, our house, our neighbor's house? Does creation blossom as a result of how well our houses are open to one another?

Let's back up a moment, is creation blossoming? OK, now, why not? Have we effectively exiled one another from our lives or accepted exile from the lives of others? Pharisees and Tax Collectors, Exiled and Returnees, You and G*D and myself - mirrored images still looking for a home.
 

Joel 2:23-32

Pentecost +22 - Year C

Joel 2:23-32

A tide has turned and we are glad and rejoicing. In retrospect, all that business about swarming locusts doesn't seem so bad. We are going to eat plenty again and that makes all the difference - we'll forget anything that might endanger our next meal, even out-of-proportion responses against us - there will be no talk of reparations from us.

So goes the portrayal of a change in fortune. Being caught between an avenging G*D and a make-it-up-to-them G*D keeps us so off stride that we are thankful for any glimmer of hope, like those whose emotions are tied to any external, such as the volatile movement of stock exchanges.

In this place of being pinged and then ponged, we forget our partnership with G*D and stand grateful for a moment of respite. We became dependent upon the "name of the Lord" and called and called for it to be for our benefit.

It is in the pride of being those who called upon the "name of the Lord" that we lose our humility and again fail the test. In finally claiming our humility we are overly convinced that we are not able to claim our partnership with G*D and wait for a providential moment, an opportunity for survival.

Can you dream beyond this either/or approach of accusation and requital? Do you still dream and envision a partnership with G*D and Neighbor? Culturally, we seem to be in need of a demanding G*D to deal with our reluctant neighborliness and recalcitrant neighbors - approaching either G*D or Neighbor, on our own, seems more than we are capable of. A sense of partnership with either or both - priceless.
 

Luke 18:9-14

Pentecost +22 - Year C

Luke 18:9-14

Neither righteousness nor self-righteousness (externally it is difficult to tell the two apart) is an easy nut to crack. Confronting it mostly sets it more firmly in its ways. Telling a story can sometimes help, a la Jimmy Stewart roles. Even here, though, a story, more often than not, is time-delayed in its effectiveness.

Here a story is told and you will have to decide its effectiveness. Imagine telling this story on the steps of any legislative body. Who will hear it as affirmation of themselves, humble folk that they are, and who will hear it as a condemnation of the other other, prideful bastards that they be. Yes, that’s right, heads-I’m-innocent and tails-you’re-guilty.

That’s the easy setting. How does this story sound on your steps?

Finally, a question comes about justification - did the Pharisee add a merciful act to his repertoire of fasting and tithing? Would that make any difference? Did the tax collector raise his rates, for who could deserve that more than such a humble person?

Is justification your personal gift or a communal responsibility?
 

Pray All Ways

Pentecost +21 - Year C

pray always
pray all ways
especially the way
rejected as prayer

dreams are prayers
as well as rituals
whether formal or not
housing our hopes

work is prayer
giving feedback
to our experiments
in understanding

community prayer
individual prayer
play back and forth
night and noon

all the while we pray
we breathe out and in
calling and called
everyone belongs

in belonging we find
kindness added to fair
regardless of justice delayed
or covenants unmade

with assurance felt
or trust decided
we pray until prayer is but
working dreams working

2 Timothy 3:14 - 4:5

Pentecost +21 - Year C

2 Timothy 3:14 - 4:5


"All scripture is inspired. . . ." Mine, certainly. Yours, certainly, Theirs, certainly.

The purpose of scripture or prayer or dreaming is to be "proficient, equipped for every good work".

Paul sees everything through his converted eyes, but it doesn't take much imagination to know that if I've been converted once, I can be so again and be just as passionate about the next "real truth" as this one. So the quotes above do stand out, not as religion specific, but the best wisdom of each of them.

If we also broaden Paul's encouragement to Timothy in the last part of this pericope, we can see the value of persistence and education. We are to keep at what we know until it is time for us to move to our next learning. We are to keep learning or we cease being effectively persistent and become merely rote. These are matters that pertain to every faith tradition and stage of life.

Our danger point is that of modern-day fundamentalism (and other -isms, whatever their disguise) that seems incapable of learning, requires a fealty of conformity to the past, and is willing to cut off its own for the transgression of not being in lockstep. For further explication of this issue of narcissism you may be interested in an article in Rolling Stone, Matt Tiabbi on the Tea Party.

Our point of opportunity is that of an openness and expectation of learning that will move us beyond where we are, measuring ourselves against our hope rather than our accomplishments, and intentionally looking to increase the community.

Inasmuch as this week has focused a bit on prayer let me conclude by indicating a blessing that allows one to not only walk a mile in another's life, but to pray their prayers, dream their dreams. If you are a conscious prayer, this is a week in which you might practice prayer forms from different traditions. If you are not a conscious prayer, this is a week in which you might try shaping your yearning, for something larger or better than we currently experience in our common life, into words. Both avenues will assist you to be proficient in every good work and model for others the possibility for such in their own life.
 

Psalm 119:97-104

Pentecost +21 - Year C

Psalm 119:97-104

We sharpen our wits against that which isn't very witty. A justice-seeking widow against a judge out for their own. The next generation against the present one. Wisdom against the law.

In this case the law is sweet for what it reveals, my understanding has value beyond allegiance to accumulated knowing. It is not that the law is sweet in itself for law is always too little, too late, reactive or preemptively restrictive, constraining a better tomorrow from influencing today.

We practice having eyes that will see beyond the approved limits of the day - to receive revelation beyond what has been revealed. Keep your eye ready, a subtle opening to better living doesn't last long (but, fortunately, it keeps coming around). It is important to be ready to walk through legal walls by using a mantra - no, not "Open sesame", but "I am who I am and will be who I will be no matter that I have been who I have been". A bit on the longish order, but what could be left out?
 

Jeremiah 31:27-34

Pentecost +21 - Year C

Jeremiah 31:27-34

Note the lack of difference between:

"The parents have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth have been set on edge" and
"The leaders have eaten sour grapes, and the community's teeth have been set on edge".

Unfortunately, the solution to this is not to do a pendulum swing and have everyone dying for their own sins, their own sourness. This shift passes right over the interface and interrelationship of our communal and our individual selves. This avoidance also shows up in the imagery of everyone knowing the same larger reality, G*D, if you will. It misses that we also need one another to be able to work through the perpetual disagreements that rise with one generation following another, each having a different experience base. Even within a generation there are varying understandings of personality type, gifts and abilities, any number of entitlements, and basic political power theories. Without entering into an admittedly difficult interrelationship with both G*D and Neighbor, self and others, we either harden ourselves into authoritarianism or participate in constant blame.

This little story is about more than Atlas Shrugged type individual responsibility or some grand cult in lockstep from the inside out. It raises questions about our being persistent and hopeful "widows" at one point in our life and "unjust judges" in another as seasons of experience and generations succeed one another. What covenant do you see following the one proposed here, as it takes into account this covenant's failure point of pride at having G*D's law within one, G*D defined as "on my side"?
 

Luke 18:1-8

Pentecost +21 - Year C

Luke 18:1-8

Hot on the heels of a week of dreaming comes one that starts with prayer. Define the difference between a dream and a prayer and spelling will be a major category. We dream for better, we pray for better - not just for ourselves or some, but all of creation (anything less is that much less worthy of it name).

At issue is "justice" - seemingly almost in hand, but never quite, like dreams and prayer, that need persistence and hope (combined - and this is more than a spelling difference).

The widow's hopeful persistence is, itself, a prayer form - even if there is never a religious word uttered. Trying to limit prayer to G*D and Church is like trying to return the jar Pandora opened to never-having-been-opened.

Listen to what the unjust judge said. In listening, hear that G*D is not interested in prayers asking for an intercession with the unjust. G*D is saying, "Get out there and do something about what you think you are praying about."

Oh, folks so wanted to hear Jesus going on to suggest that G*D was open to manipulation by prayer and would eventually, no matter whether early or late, bring injustice to heel, that they wrote it in. Even if this is accurately recorded, there is still the matter of whether attempts to pray G*D to a particular action is faithful praying. To put it all on G*D may be to lose our faith, our ability to trust that our participation in transforming life toward justice, day in and day out, has a worth of its own.

As you take a look around at issues needing more justice anticipated and applied, can you see your action as prayer, regardless of the form it takes? From time to time we will use one of the traditional prayer forms to re-energize our participation, but our prayers can never be constrained by a particular idiosyncratic religious tradition(s). Can you redefine your justice issues and actions as prayers offered by a descendent of our ancestral aunt, St. Widow of Importuning?
 

manifest latency

Pentecost +20 - Year C

a leader says
you are leprous
begone
only silky skinned
need apply

a leader says
you are leprous
return
every burlaped skin
is needed

a leader says
my power
depends on your
disappearance
from earth

a leader says
my power
depends on your
voluntary presence
and yours

a leader says
support me or else
exile unending
will be our fate
your fault

a leader says
support one another
where you are
change will come
welfare blossom

a leader says
praise me
early and late
neverending
fearless leader

a leader says
remember who you are
what has happened
how everyone
can play their part

a leader says
no wrangling
here's the way
only one way
understand

a leader says
do your best
tell your truth
hear another's
go ahead

a leader says
dreams are dangerous
they go beyond
my control
into chaos

a leader says
dreams are delightful
they bring tomorrow
to better today
from its dark deep

a leader says
a leader says
and between the two
death and life
chosen by you
 

2 Timothy 2:3-15

Pentecost +20 - Year C

2 Timothy 2:3-15

"Good soldier" imagery poses some problems.

No one serving in the army gets entangled in everyday affairs [military contract bribes].

The soldier's aim is to please the enlisting officer [fragging].

No athlete is crowned without competing according to the rules [steroids].

The farmer who does the work ought to have the first share of the crop [migrants].

Church people are to avoid wrangling over words ["self-avowed practicing homosexuals"]

There are none of these fine-sounding sayings from the Farmer's Almanac that can't be subverted. Simply stating them, doesn't make them real. They are utopian dreams. Staking an argument on them doesn't get very far and eventually leads us to our present bumper-sticker politics, dividing us from one another.

Finally this whole passages comes down to simply the 15th verse:
Do your best to present yourself to G*D, an unashamed advocate of telling the truth you know and honoring the truth others tell.

More than that brings us to verses 16-17a from The Message: "Stay clear of pious talk that is only talk. Words are not mere words, you know. If they are not backed by a godly life, they accumulate as poison in the soul." Pious talk, aphoristic talk, either/or talk is an easy way to speak, but, if the only way to talk, turns into simplistic, unrealistic, dreamistic poison talk.
 

Psalm 66:1-12

Pentecost +20 - Year C

Psalm 66:1-12

"The theme of this psalm is not obvious . . . .", The Jewish Study Bible. So we continue the mystery of dreams. "The exodus-conquest theme may hint at the theme of the return from exile and re-entrance to Judah (... a common symbol for the return in postexilic times...)", ibid.

Praise G*D.

1. We have been kept among the living while bad things happen to ordinary people.
   
2. We have been tested by fire.
   
3. We have been grounded like a bird in a net, trapped with no way out.
   
4. We have been subdued.

          - - - (dream-like jump) - - -

11. We have come to a spacious, prosperous place.

When we can't explain the various incongruities of life we are tempted to put it all on G*D - the pains and the joys, the testings and the blessings. None of this "proves" G*D. What lies behind our insistence on making sense of the world, even if it takes projecting experiences onto G*D? It would seem we are still in the midst of a dream.

Keep singing a better tomorrow. When we find ourselves there, perhaps then we will see beyond our multiplicities of experience and better understand this and other praise psalms.
 

Jeremiah 29:1-7

Pentecost +20 - Year C

Jeremiah 29:1-7

We dismiss folks by calling them dreamers, out of touch with reality. Jeremiah's letter recommending people flourish where they are, opens him to the accusation of being a dreamer.

Does Jeremiah not know our human response to having a perk taken away from us? We are supposed to get angry and work assiduously to regain the privilege and garner more! Or so says our Snake Self when not in healing mode.

In exile many perks are taken away. And it is not just the quantity of loss but the quality. Our native tongue and all the memories it carries is lost. Our favorite seasonings, not to mention our favorite foods, are lost. Relationships, standing, and class are all lost. Some losses bind us to the past.

As we attempt to get our minds and hearts around questions of subversion of our vanquishers, our enemies, along comes this dreamer, Jeremiah, with his letter asking us to simply flourish where we are - fearful and lost. At bottom Jeremiah dreams for us a different present and future than we have for ourself. Our vision is to continue the past, to return to where we were and the power we had. Jeremiah's dream is about cutting the immigrant's nightmare down to size by noting all the reality of loss and moving on. Some losses open us to the future.

Whatever has been lost, has been lost. Spending energy on it in regret and grief, in fantasies of revenge and return, turn out to be counter-productive. The loss cannot be put back together again, no matter how many king's horses and king's men are put to the task. All that is left for us is to put our best toward a better tomorrow for our captors as well as ourselves. If we are in it for only ourselves, we will simply repeat the cycle of violent competition and a zero-sum power game.

For what are you being called, counter-intuitively, to help flourish by remaining true to what is better for all and not just yourself?
 

Luke 17:1-19

Pentecost +20 - Year C

Luke 17:1-19

The space between wake and sleep where drowsing, active-dreaming, springs to life is a critical creative space. Here the interface between Samaria and Galilee is just as creative. You might want to consider where a creative interface is for you - it may be geographical or relational, perhaps it is is an art form or a time of day - and intentionally and regularly engage it.

Here, in the in-between, the least likely avenue to spiritual growth shows up. In this case, outcast lepers come out of nowhere [where in real life would lepers be waiting just inside the boundaries of a village - wouldn't you expect them to be at some remove?]. Lepers become judges at the gate and might bring an appeal for healing from any number of perspectives. Here the healing rubric is, "mercy" and raises a question of whether the dreamer will be mercy-full - full enough to have it overflow.

In this dreamtime, a community of lepers could be made up of Jews and Samaritans. Their common exile binds them together in much the same way that folks from differing religious groups have more in common with those with similar experiences in a different religious group and be in closer accord with them than with someone else from their religious group who hasn't arrived at a similar values package.

Whether the lepers were all Jews except for one Samaritan or all Samaritans, sending Samaritans to Jewish priests would have no meaning to the Samaritan. It takes an especially active dream to have a/the Samaritan return to Jesus, as though to a priest, to say "Thank you", to offer "Praise/Sacrifice" for completed healing.

And so, in a daze, Jesus reflects that a faithful, trusting, relationship - regardless of its religious orientation - is a source of healing. Quite a dream - healing goes beyond ritual, expectation, or privileged religious affiliation. The faith of a faithless person is a wonder to behold.

May you dream strong dreams of new ways of being together. This sort of dreaming will lead you to situations as equally strange as Jesus and the lepers - all healed, mysteriously on a hidden journey, even if through ways passing strange and beyond our usual sense of reality's limits. As you enact your new, strong dream, may you hear, "Go, on your way; your dream has made you well."
 

imagine more

Pentecost +19 - Year C

you don't need more
trust, hope, memory, opportunity
but more imagination
wouldn't hurt

imagine the energy
grass growing through cement
mustard seed-sized faith
juggling mulberry trees

imagine the integrity
in serving one another
telling truth today
investing in tomorrow

imagine laments forgiven
songs of old sung again
foundations rebuilt
villages honoring children

imagine continuing conversions
ancestors still alive in hearts
gifts rekindled for common wealth
forgiveness defining faith and love

energy aplenty
integrity deep - deep
forgiveness ready at hand
conversion tying past to future

we don't need more
unless imagination has died
mouldered by marketing
surrendered to entitlement
 

2 Timothy 1:1-14

Pentecost +19 - Year C

2 Timothy 1:1-14

I remind you to rekindle the forgiving gift of G*D that is within you. [vs.6]

Don't be a coward and let it go for nothing. [vs 7]

Be not ashamed of forgiving, even those who don't know what they do. [vs 8]

You have a holy calling to further G*D's expansive and expanding love. [vs 9]

Fragile life can be strengthened well into the future through forgiveness unto resurrection. [vs 10]

This reception of forgiveness is worth building a life on. [vs 11]

Trust the forgiveness you have received on your Damascus Road. [vs 12]

Hold to the standards of trust and love. [vs 13]

Guard these standards that reveal the Holy Spirit in each one. [vs 14]

- - -

How do you read these words in our day? How do you keep this pericope from being all about salvaging past doctrines and never getting to trust an on-going conversion through the reception of forgiveness and then being radical in extending forgiveness to anyone and everyone?
 

Psalm 137

Pentecost +19 - Year C

Psalm 137

Remembering forgiveness unlimited, we now weep at what has been lost. The music of our lives that brought us to dancing together, has been lost.

In this strange unforgiving space we are asked to sing of forgiveness out of a reserve we do not have and we find we have lost the words - we don't want to forgive our captors. Our good right hand of fellowship through restored community has withered.

No matter how we intend to honor our heritage of forgiveness, the words just don't seem to come - our mouth is dry.

Our lack of forgiveness has us wishing harm not only upon our current enemies but all their children, not just the first-born.

Yes, we are in Babylon. Weeping. Unforgiven and unforgiving.

To return to health we need this lament. May we see what we have done and are doing to ourselves and not take that out on others. Let us Remember Forgiveness and build Zion anew right here in the middle of Babylon - it is a reliable, long-term, tool still available to refugees from Eden and Everywhere.
 

Lamentations 1:1-6

Pentecost +19 - Year C

Lamentations 1:1-6

How lonely sits a city that once was full of forgiving and forgiven people. How like a bereaved spouse, enslaved by depression. Bitter tears are wept; no comfort is afforded. Friends have become enemies. The felt experience is that of exile, suffering, servitude, and sleepless stumbling.

Even the roads to the city mourn for there is no festival of forgiveness to draw people together. Priests falter, children grieve, it is bitterness all around. Transgressions remain transgressions and a multitude suffer for want of forgiveness.

Lament wherever you are, this fate does not wear out or run down - it waits for a first moment of fierce rectitude that excuses a next and next. Where preemptive mercy and forgiveness falter, self-inflicted disaster eventually destroys every empire built on market greed and self-righteous revenge.
 

Luke 17:5-10

Pentecost +19 - Year C

Luke 17:5-10

[verse 4] "You must forgive!" ~ Jesus [4 BCE - ?]

[verse 5] In response to this dicta, Jesus' friends responded with equal intensity, "Increase our trust!" (our ability to persistently forgive before, during, and after repentance has been requested).

[verse 6] If we are not careful what follows is seen only in terms of religious jargon regarding "faith." In light of the action of forgiveness, we only "do what we ought to do" when we forgive. The mulberry talk and slave/master imagery can take us pretty far afield if they are not linked more closely than the NRSV heading of this section, "Some Sayings of Jesus". These might be isolated sayings but these sayings take on greater significance if they are recognized as reordering our community life. This reordering is very difficult work for the injuries and difficulties we want to heal are so deeply rooted and grow back so quickly that we need to practice the trust involved with forgiveness and, then, practice it some more.
 

better now?

Pentecost +18 - Year C

a future projected
is a present in need
of a changed past

our accretions
can do us in
immobilizing

imagine again
how differently
we might have decided

there were choices
whether felt or not
our response was not necessary

imaging again
we have more choices
than we are willing to make

we know this
from our dreams
of justice implemented

while fearful
in the present
seek also contentment

when these inform
one another
new choices arrive

not only choices
but new refuges
new authority

changed expectations
change behaviors
toward one another

even Abraham
will follow Lazarus
with a cup of water

in the name
of a better future
we live better now
 

1 Timothy 6:6-19

Pentecost +18 - Year C

1 Timothy 6:6-19

Enough can be enough when it comes to food and shelter and money. More than enough, though, gets in the way of other qualities where enough is never enough.

Has there been enough kindness shown yet? How about enough peace experienced or justice enacted? Will there ever be enough consideration given to the poor? What is the limit of an expansive and expanding love?

When we begin trading in commodities it turns out that enough is never enough. We are measured by an ever expanding base of quantity and coming up short of the elusive enough. This understanding leaks over into the qualities of life of which there really never is enough and we will cut any of their corners in order to receive more of the marketable goodies we desire.

Since those arenas in which enough will never be enough to deal with the latest reality are so important and so vulnerable to subversion, it is important to address the issue of how to deal with matters where enough can really be enough. Here the quality of the day is not a sense of authority to order arbitrary limits on enough or to find a refuge of off-shore tax exempt storage of commodities to add to enough. What is needed is a sense of contentment able to see through the masquerade of adequate diets and housing and income playing the pity game and needing just one little bite more, an extra room, or 10% more income.

Researchers tell us that it is not an absolute amount of money that brings "happiness", but where your money ranks in comparison with others. Simply having more than so-and-so brings the happiness of status, fleeting as it is. This however is not the kind of contentment that needs consideration. Here we have a reference to the Buddhist understanding of non-attachment - being content apart from the standard measuring tools. Contentment is a spiritual gift much needed in today's world of warring words setting family member against family member.

Better than, "Don't worry, be happy" is "In all things, contentment".
 

Psalm 91:1-6, 14-16

Pentecost +18 - Year C

Psalm 91:1-6, 14-16

It is helpful to not only know your "authority" (acts of increase in the world), but also your "refuge" (fleeing the world). If these get too close to one another, pride and privilege may rear their heads. In a trinitarian sort of way we need to have our authority, refuge, and contentment (to anticipate tomorrow) all playing nicely with one another and differently based.

Remember your refuge from days past.
Identify your refuge in this day.
Anticipate your refuge in the predictable future.

Within any of these there can be a base from which to do your guerrilla work. Any of these can be a temporary shelter from the consequences of having applied your authority to situations at hand.

A mystery is how we will operate in the not yet, for, here in the middle of the story, evidence of love can get shaky - as well as protection and what we might consider rescue or honor. What used to satisfy our longing for assurance falls apart as another rough beast approaches. In a current uncertainty and our longing for certainty, we are, again and again, trusting where there is no trust at hand and rising from having been treaded upon (various "Tea Party" followers may want to revamp their attempt to avoid being tread upon to what a new community would look like after this particular empire vanishes, is trodden out as a result of having been divided from within).

If a refuge is not providing a re-launching pad of better living together, it is only hedging out particular evils of our day and providing them an opportunity to regroup and come back with more of their friends. So a refuge is not comfort so much as a healing scab and re-learning that we might return to the engagement of life.
 

Jeremiah 32:1-3a, 6-15

Pentecost +18 - Year C

Jeremiah 32:1-3a, 6-15

What timing G*D has! Surrounded by Babylonians. Confined in the Palace. Comes a vision larger than fear, larger than enemies (external and internal), larger than impotency, larger than silence.

Surrounded by external enemies, confined by internal enemies, Jeremiah buys land about to be worthless. This purchase is to be hidden and sealed until a time when it might be returned to the light of day and the equivalent of a Jubilee happens - land is returned to previous owners.

This is a wonderful stewardship story. This is a story for the Palestinians of our day. Jeremiah would recognize their loss of land, hidden and sealed, for a later time. May that later time be a sooner time - blessings and peace upon the latest negotiations.

How far ahead are you seeing? Can you see beyond the downfall of current empire? Your usual investments are going to be worthless. What investment will see you through worthless times to a time of renewal and restoration, restoration and renewal, Jubilee? You did know that Jeremiah is the prophet we need to be listening to today? What, you didn't? It's not too late to get thrown in prison for telling the truth or traveling to Washington D.C., on October 30 for the Rally to Restore Sanity. No, those are not equivalents, but they are related.
 

Luke 16:19-31

Pentecost +18 - Year C

Luke 16:19-31

Can you trace back your sense of where authority lies? There are many overlays that will have to be discarded on such a journey. Before moving further a key decision is whether or not it is sensed that a change is needed. If it is, one does not have to travel any further than their present understandings to be authorized to act. If satisfaction, for whatever reason, has set in, you can track an authority back through many generations to Moses and the prophets or to creation and creator before them and never get to an authority authorizing this particular change.

If we are busy defending "what is" as the end point of time or that it will be too risky to move from what currently is, there is no authority, no matter how miraculous or strong that will do to move us off of our present square.

If we see that change is needed to get to a better place, we can get by with an ordinary understanding such as the one my brother sent today regarding math and history as authorities: "Anyone who mentions tax cuts with deficit reductions are idiots, and should be thinned from the herd. It seems simple math, as well as historic perspective has been lost to the Right wing."

Unnamed rich people, unable to see a poor person, are not good candidates for seeing a needed change. They have come to understand the present rules and to shape them to their attain their privileged positions. So intrenched is this privilege that they try to order Father Abraham (euphemism for G*D) to serve their thirst for surface comfort. Even when called on that, they try to help their own class, unable to see the need to help the poor (which would help heal their own). [Note Paul Krugman's editorial, "The Angry Rich", in today's NYTimes.]

We need to develop a way of looking that used both eyes to have a three-dimensional view of life. What will actually help our own group and others? Helping the rich (trickle-down theory) has yet to do anything to the divisions and to really help the poor not still be the poor. Helping the poor, on the other hand, actually does help the rich return to community. As you choose what charities to give to, what causes to support, look for those that emphasize the least. This is not just for their assistance, but your salvation/wholeness.
 

The Commercial Spirit

Pentecost +17 - Year C

The Commercial Spirit
Meister Eckhart

As long as we look for some kind of pay for what we do, as long as we want to get something from God in some kind of exchange, we are like the merchants. If you want to be rid of the commercial spirit, then by all means do all you can in the way of good works, but do so solely for the praise of God. Live as if you did not exist. Expect and ask nothing in return. Then the merchant inside you will be driven out of the temple God has made. Then God alone dwells there. See! This is how the temple is cleared: when a person thinks only of God and honors God alone. Only such a person is free and genuine.

= = = = = = =

tiny inside merchant
price tagging life
50¢ for learning math
75¢ for a loving partner
$300 for military security

how do you do it
commodify life
$4 for a janitor
$6 for a doctor
$200 for a CEO

it seems to change
with your desires
$10 for Milwaukee Braves memorabilia
$15 for a Winnebago Sightseer
$100 for bypass surgery

until there is nothing left
but to earn twice as much
for half the satisfaction
invested in manipulated chance
with no way around death

a better economist
values differently
$50 for you
$50 for each
$50 for me

sending prophets
to ensure profit
through regulations
beyond desire and
dishonest wealth
 

1 Timothy 2:1-8

Pentecost +17 - Year C

1 Timothy 2:1-8

Pray for everyone. Paul goes on to specifically include praying for people in high places, people who otherwise might not get prayed for. This might be considered to be a prayer for an enemy, someone whose dishonest wealth has led to a dishonest spirituality and a keeping of the one who is praying poorer and poorer.

The emphasis upon "people in high places" is an appropriate reminder that the prayer behind the prayer is revolutionary. It is hard to live a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and dignity with all division and inequality of resources that is required to keep people in high places. The lifestyle they have grown accustomed to and want more of requires some to be physically, psychologically, or socially enslaved, hardly a quiet and peaceable life.

G*D does desire everyone to be saved and to come to the "knowledge of truth" which is that we are called to pray without a prayer behind the prayer of overt argument or passive-aggressive anger at the divisions between us.

While traditionally read as leaders are more sons of God than anyone else and so support them with prayer and praise just like you would a God, we can still hear echoes of a more radical call from G*D and Jesus to break down the dishonesty, the hypocrisy of wealth, and all that supports it.
 

Pentecost +17 - Year C

Psalm 79:1-9

Even when comeuppance has arrived for dishonest wealth or dishonest spirituality, we are still trying to wheedle G*D to be on our side and to return us to our most dishonest time when we had the most wealth or the most comfort in ignoring one another.

Bottom line here is, "Sic 'em God!"

Beneath the bottom line is, "Forgive us so we can get back to our dishonesty."

The pericopes this week have been tough for folks to hear, even folks who are diligent is opening themselves to an examen.

Can you be honest about dishonest wealth in your congregation without it leading to a drop in financial giving? Can your fellowship address dishonest spirituality and keep everyone participating? Odds are, if you are not a leader, your talk about these matters will find you ignored or asked to leave. If you are a leader, confronting dishonesty will bring about less followers and less money. Is getting back to being honest in church too difficult for the moment? When will it get any better? Is it worth doing anyway?

Examen your self. Examen one another. Rejoice when you have come through. Change when you have been caught out.
 

Jeremiah 8:18-9:1

Pentecost +17 - Year C

Jeremiah 8:18-9:1

In The Jewish Study Bible the versification is different, 8:18-23. Don't trust any classification system. All of them will too soon lose the poetic soul of the experience written of as they divide, and divide again, a whole experience - dissection cannot find a soul.

Just before these words at hand (8:13-17), Jeremiah is informed of G*D's decision to put an end to the people - to harvest them (and not in a good way).

I like the translation of verse 18 in The Jewish Study Bible. They note the meaning is uncertain, which always give a bit of liberty.

"When in grief I would seek comfort,
My heart is sick within me."

Jeremiah has heard extremely bad news and is looking for an out and only finds tears available to him. And this is confirmed in verse 21:

"Because my people is shattered I am shattered;
I am dejected, seized by desolation."

There is no healing balm available to the poor - the poor in G*D but rich in various idols.

Only weeping is left.

The spiritually poor lose track of G*D and their own Self. This shows up in the way they deal with One Another, Neighbors, and Enemies. They are already in exile before they even know exile to be a vague, far-off possibility that they will not be able to avoid.

Well, Friends of Jeremiah, a dishonest spirit is as troublesome as dishonest wealth. They go together. Whichever comes first, the other is sure to follow. So, given where we are and the predictability of another exile for any nation claiming to be a city on a hill, a beacon, without actually doing the hard work necessary to have us simply be a neighboring city and to only be a steel against which another's flint is struck, it is time to weep.

We are harvesting the accumulation of dishonest wealth and dishonest spirit. This is worth weeping over as we are too far gone to reasonably shift gears. In fact the pace of a coming exile is increasing. Those with ears can hear it grinding and slouching forward. Be not surprised. Simply do the cleansing work of weeping that keeps clear a larger vision beyond this particular desolation and grief:

Peace and Joy abound
take all you need
and a little more
to pass around

 

Luke 16:1-13

Pentecost +17 - Year C

Luke 16:1-13

Given: Wealth is inherently dishonest. To accumulate wealth in our world is to do so at the expense of the poor. No matter what the economic system, there is none that is sacred, discrepancy of wealth requires keeping the poor poor. Remember the kicker, "You cannot serve G*D and wealth".

How then does one make friends through the use of "dishonest wealth"?

Is it to use the same amount of smarts but for what is right (as The Message would have it)? This is to again focus on individual salvation and to lose track that we are all in this together - as G*D's creation, we can't have it otherwise.

Honesty requires that we see our economic lives in light of the well-being of all the people and the environment. Whether you have much or little of the dishonest wealth, if you are not using what you have to look to the well-being of others, your own attempt to bridge the gap between G*D and the Bank (a helpful image from The Message), your own well-being (present and anytime afterward), is diminished.

The process of debt-forgiveness here outlined is still a good one and needs to be further used. You may want to look again at the canceling of international debt as a cause to support (Jubilee: USA Network).
 

a motley crew

Pentecost +16 - Year C

what a motley crew assembles
around a dynamic person
when folk are seen
for who they are
they gather
in abiding hope

powerful people
make gracious hosts
for unexpected guests
seeming to manufacture
more something out of nothing
even from absence beyond nothing

sometimes something is food
and sometimes food beyond food
a healing in and out of time
folks are free to wander away
and be rejoiced over
at every small and large return

poor plans can be improved
beginning intentions strengthened
fears reduced
hopes bolstered
relationships mended
mercy extended

and so Jesus and Jeremiah
Psalmist and Paul and You
and even I
are birthed to new life
nurtured to a next stage
harvesting joy along the way

what a motley crew assembles
in bible, imagination, and here
seeing beyond our differences
of caste and class and past
to what we may yet become
each and all together

for those who wander
and return to wander again
for those who steady
and risk their place
settle in to one another
rest and rise
 

1 Timothy 1:12-17 14

Pentecost + 16 - Year C

1 Timothy 1:12-17 14

How does one save a sinner?

• There is an internal prompting - a prodigal child gets hungry enough to humbly return.
• There is a faithful waiting - a prodigal parent actively scans the horizon for a sign of return.
• There is threat of worse to come - a hot wind is about to blow (talk about your global warming!)
• There is renewal against all odds - fortune happens.
• There is gratitude - mercy is received.

Different sinners respond to different stimuli.

Paul says there was already a saying out and about (perhaps even seeded by Paul himself) that explains Jesus - he's a sinner saver. This matches up nicely with people who consider that they need to be saved in order to arrive at eternal life (a supposed high value goal). Together, mercy offered and mercy received, a strong bond is established.

In every age there are those who don't emphasize eternal life as a major goal. They are far more focused on a present paradise than on a postponed promise. What value might Jesus have if it is not sinner saving for some later time? Is it enough that faith and love that are in Jesus simply were shown to one and all (some able to receive and some not)? This is not conditional, that it needs to be accepted to be fulfilled, but simply what Jesus does and invites others to also do - trust and love.

This passage is tightened up if verses 15 and 16 are deleted. They are tangential to Paul being strengthened (as a current witness, not for eternal life) and praise of a changed life flowing forth.

This also is worthy of acceptance: Jesus lived in this world with abundant mercy, abundant life. Those able to receive it were blessed and shifted from violence to non-violence that the abundance of life might be maximized. This application of mercy to violence brings eventual wholeness - not automatically, but holistically. So it is that Jesus is less about outcome and more about process.

It is helpful to meditate on the difference between Paul's statement of Jesus's mission (saving sinners for eternal life) and John 10:10b, Jesus' understanding of what he was about (abundant life). What is the interplay between abundant life, eternal life, and present life? Obviously abundance can overflow into some forever, but focusing on the overflow isn't quite the same as attending to the regular flow.

A case in point is my mother who finally died last night. Her work attended to the present without much talk about eternity. Each of her children and grandchildren experienced her as being on their side (that's a lot of differences to be affirmed, mercy to be extended). Her goal was to be engaged with the life in front of her and to encourage growth. Not much, perhaps, but well done and people came to overflow their bonds and bounds.

Psalm 14

Pentecost + 16 - Year C

Psalm 14

Behavior shapes thinking and thinking shapes behavior. We have known this for a long, long time. So how do we learn to pass a test that comes around every time we might "assist the plans of the poor"?

There is an article about learning in Tuesday's New York Times, Forget What You Know About Good Study Habits that suggests:

1) We change our location of study so the same material is presented in a variety of settings. We need to assist the plans of the poor in our family settings, friendship circles, work places, political conversations, etc. To limit our advocacy to one arena is to only study in one place. Our retention of the issue and our effective engagement lessens if we only address this matter at, say, the macro political level or at, perhaps, the personal.

2) We mix our studies together in the same way an athlete will vary their training for strength and endurance and quickness and particular skill drills. There are many aspects to assisting the plans of the poor and we are called to engage our assistance from personal, sociological, economic, political, educational, etc angles. Each facet will have something to add to our learning.

3) We use wider comparisons and fewer intensive immersions. Our brain and heart can pick up underlying patterns when we see the plans of the poor through the lens of ethnic women, white males with a privileged way, hungry children, etc. Each time we look again, we appreciate more deeply the way poverty is entrenched and how we seek to personally avoid it, even at the cost of someone else being poor.

4) We space our learnings rather than cram. Each time we revisit an task such as assisting the plans of the poor we find we have forgotten something and need to relearn a part of our world and work. This makes forgetting a part of long-term remembering. Each time we are surprised that poverty is so stark and pervasive, we have an opportunity to re-learn our place on G*D's side.

5) We seek out tests. The heightened engagement with a test assists us in learning. Like Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, "testing not only measures knowledge but changes it - happily in the direction of more certainty, not less." This is not teaching to the test, but using tests to reinforce the learning - there is a significant difference. A key part of the test is where we find ourselves - face-to-face with the poor or just talking about them.

6) We need to pay attention our motivations, who are we are trying to please by learning how to assist the plans of the poor and for whom are we trying please by avoiding or failing this test?

Anyway, intentional foolishness does us no long-term good (for ourself or anyone else). There are ways of shifting to wisdom. Let's help one another so shift. The plans of the poor are a catalyst that will return us to a healing community and the fortunes of all will rise as we engage and implement those plans.
 

Jeremiah 4:11-12, 22-28

Pentecost + 16 - Year C

Jeremiah 4:11-12, 22-28

For what have you "purposed" and refused to turn back?

For those who are reformers and reformers of reformers in a later day, we have moments of putting all our eggs in one basket and claiming that a given decision or action will make all the difference, for eternity. Each time we have done so, we have found we were incorrect. Things can still get much worse than what we take to be the worst. Conversely, in the midst of the most darkness there are sparks being nurtured into flames and new illumination to guide us out of our present trap.

This process of making a particular, or series of particulars, into a universal pronouncement is so familiar to us that we project it on to whatever is our god of the moment. Yes, we would disclaim ever being be tricked by a momentary god, but when tracking our lives (individual and corporate) we find we talk a better game than we live.

It is important to hear, "...yet I will not make a full end." Even as we heighten our present insight into eternal pronouncement, we are called to remember that "this, too, shall pass."

Now, back to work - hold firmly to your current wisdom while also holding it lightly, that it might better inform.
 

Luke 15:1-32

Pentecost + 16 - Year C

Luke 15:1-32

Just how small a percentage makes something invisible or is an acceptable loss or collateral damage? Is it 50% (children), 10% (coins), 1% (sheep), 0% (sparrow/hair)? Homeopathically, is there such a thing as too much dilution?

This last week I received a church newsletter in which the pastor's column echoed the grumbling of the Pharisees and scribes. It seems that, for this pastor, some "original revelation", confirmed by later creedal/legal formulations, should have kept the ELCA and Episcopal Church, and all others, from self-destructing (his analysis) over "homosexuality". He claimed that schism over a mere 1% of the population, gay men and lesbians, wasn't worth the loss of church unity. Yes, I responded as softly as I could [that his work with a majority 99 would bear much good fruit and that my work with a minority of 1 would bear much good fruit] and hope you will continue to respond to such statements that come your way - letting them go by does no one any good.

Definition of "neighbor" seems to be an on-going issue in our lives. We cycle through which group is currently not included in that understanding. How near a dweller does one have to be to be a neighbor? Do they need to have 100% of the same characteristics as myself? How about 75% of a religious belief? 50% of cultural referents? 25% of food preferences? 10% of disposable resources? 1% of humor style? Less than 1% of a political bias? At one point or another we have drawn circles to keep everyone out. How very Jr. Hi. of us. Corporately, a lack of neighborliness keeps us less than the sum of our parts.

The passage moves from grumbling to celebration, rejoicing, and a question for us is how we might do the same - individually and communally?

Where was the turning point for you? Was it in the finding (at the end point)? Was it in the anticipation of a welcoming (that which can't yet be seen)? Somewhere between?

As this is being jotted my mother is completing her journey amidst us. Breathing is erratic. Some are hanging on every breath. Others are away enjoying a beautiful day. Will there still be neighborliness, given different choices, when all is said and done and immediate tears wiped away? Will a blame spot be chosen to set up one way of responding being the right way? Will we appreciate different gifts and needs and stages of faith? Will lamps be lit [resources, time, and energy used] to bring together all those who have been dropped along the way.

Pentecost +15 - Year C

Pentecost +15 - Year C

knitter together
unraveler

we pause
amidst

for knitting - thanks
for unraveling - thanks

for more of the same - yes
and even more - yes

in this flux
we live and move

and have our being
with pump and pause

stone-picker
weeder

resist evil
in every guise

garden-planner
sower

nurture another
with many guides

earn and invest
give and invest

give back
and go on
 

Philemon 1-21

Pentecost +15 - Year C

Philemon 1-21

Verse 6: "I pray that the sharing of your faith may become effective when you perceive all the good that we may do for Christ.

Verse 7: "I have indeed received much joy and encouragement from your love, because the hearts of the saints have been refreshed through you, my brother."

Verse 8: "For this reason, though I am bold enough in Christ to command you to do your duty...."

Verse 21: "Confident of your obedience, I am writing to you, knowing that you will do even more than I say."

How does your expression of trust become "effective"?

Philemon had the specific issue of slavery before him as an arena in which love might be expressed. The particular has to do with one Onesimus. Is Onesimus already one of the saints for Philemon, in which case Paul's admonition, command, isn't needed? Is Onesimus, at best, a second-class saint and the cultural mores take precedence over a new inclusive community? In such a case Paul does need to reframe the range of "neighbor" to Philemon.

This raises issues of the base range of who is considered a saint, who is a neighbor, and is very important and cannot be left to a quiet, patient love, but to a loving command.

There have been all manner of distinctions made as to who is a saint and who is not; who is in and who is out. Paul leaves it at the same place Jesus does - you are to do more and greater things than you have done before, than others are up to at the present time. Whatever the particular current issue dividing the body -- theological (Arminius v. Calvin), identity (sexual orientation), economic (class), cultural (immigration), . . . . -- a question of what is "greater than the status quo" or what passes for common-sense must continually be raised.

= = = = = = =

Yesterday Amy Someone asked about the comment made here three years ago and asked about including it in her sermon. Here is the link to the last comment we made: Philemon, 2007.

Psalm 139:1-6, 13-18

Pentecost +15 - Year C

Psalm 139:1-6, 13-18

Verse 16: Your eyes beheld my unformed substance. In your book were written all the days that were formed for me, when none of them as yet existed. [NRSV]

Imagine you still have "unformed substance".

This is not an easy one, so try it again: Imagine you still have "unformed substance".

Part of the difficulty of this creative pull into new being is that it is found between the many (sands) and the one (I am with you!). That which we might become when we grow up is as open as open can be (all the days) and as sharply drawn as anyone would want (days formed for me).

From this personal moment: our grandchildren, ourselves, and my mother, in the good hands of Hospice, are all beholding our unformed substance. Our days and day are as natural as can be in this day. But if we were caught here forever, how sad. The young ones would not grow in grace. We older ones would only have our alzheimic memories. And the ancient of days would have only darkness.

Imagine you still have "unformed substance". What's next? What's not possible?

= = = = = = =

Verse 16: Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect; and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them. [KJV]

"Unperfect" here refers to an embryonic state in the process of being wrapped or folded together. We might be aided with an on-going appreciation of the unperfect folding and unfolding of stages whether currently in what might be called pre-life, or life, or what might be called post-life.

A blessed "unperfection" or "unformed substance" to you.