at the end mercy

Pentecost +26 - Year C

ready or not 

King Jesus reigns 

and life is still falling apart.

apparently

"Jesus is Lord"

doesn't solve everything

we've had a year

and 2,000+ years

still no paradise in sight

not knowing what is going on

is as popular as ever

as is gambling power

so "Doom" and "Woe" to leaders

repeating what doesn't work

until all are scattered

paradise is over the horizon

and unremembered

never begun in this moment

justice

righteousness

divided

time's coming

time's nearly up

light a candle for mercy's sake

forgiveness offering

paradise opening

reconciliation extending

in whatever order we work

every background field reveals

variations on humble mercy

Advent Reflections

I have developed a daily Advent Reflection for the Wisconsin United Methodist Federation for Social Action based on comments from this blog on the last Year A Cycle. If you are interested in adding this to your Advent Practice, it is available as both a PDF print piece and a daily online reading. Advent Reflections 2010.

If you are interested in the 2010 Advent Reflections or the previous 9 years of Advent Reflections by a variety of authors, you can go to http://www.wumfsa.org/reflections/lentadventindex.html

It is helpful to know how widely these Advent Reflections went. You are invited to report its use to me.

Colossians 1:11-20

Pentecost +26 - Year C

Colossians 1:11-20

There are a lot of words here. It is parallel to the obsequiousness used by any servant fearing they might be overheard. To try to cut through the fog of images, all good, all the time, we'll focus on: "what is a reconciling mechanism that will reconcile all things?"

Here is a quote from David Buttrick in The Mystery and the Passion that points in a helpful direction:

God's mercy is not merely therapy for a few individuals beset by guilt....God does not dole out mercy like cookies only for good, repentant children. God's mercy is not conditioned by our response. God is mercy. So, wide is wider than we guess.... Our calling is to live in mercy.... Recalling God's unmerited mercy ... we absolve one another, enacting the good news. 'In Jesus Christ,' we say, 'we are forgiven.' So we look into each other's eyes without illusions; we are sinners all. Yet we embrace each other in the mercy, the wide, wide mercy of God.

To the extent that Jesus participates in mercy, he is revelatory of G*D. To the extent that a Church participates in mercy, it is revelatory of G*D. To the extent that you or I participate in mercy, we are revelatory of G*D. To the extent G*D participates in mercy, G*D is revelatory of creation's purpose.

Every internal and external difference is bridgeable, but only in a way that transforms both ends of a divide as mercy is a two-way street, a mutual embrace.

Here is a "king" at work, modeling mercy. Here is a "servant" at work, modeling mercy. Here is what we might have learned this past year - to model mercy. Apparently there is more to learn as the mercy quotient in the world continues to get short shrift compared to power, revenge, anger, and competition.

So, King Jesus; so, Queen Church; so, Prince or Princess You; so, Brother Paul; drop all the fancy words and doctrinal constructs and get on with clarifying mercy. Reconciliation isn't through blood itself but a response of mercy wherever and whenever blood is spilt - a merciful, "forgive them, they don't know what they are doing" and a getting up to keep at that wide, wide mercy work of welcoming and working together. Everything else is accruing righteousness for oneself and giving up that same self to be on some perceived winning side.

Luke 1:68-79

Pentecost +26 - Year C

Luke 1:68-79

"And you, child, will be called a prophet of the Most High; for you will go before G*D to prepare G*D's ways, to give knowledge of wholeness to people through forgiveness of sins."

This charge to all who are dedicated, blessed, baptized, is an ordination to the work of communal and environmental peace. Take your authority and prepare G*D's way.

If you can't yet see yourself following in the ways of Jesus' peace, can you see yourself following in the way of John's prophecy that is oriented toward that same peace? It may be that you sense your call to the ways of peace follows after neither Jesus nor John. Whatever you see as a model is your call to demonstrate that you understand that it is not a starting point that is our measure, but our ending point of a way of peace. Blessings on your awareness and your follow-through.

Again, listen to this liturgy and see how it applies in your life:

"And you, child, will be called a prophet of the Most High; for you will go before G*D to prepare G*D's ways, to give knowledge of wholeness to people through forgiveness of sins."

 

Jeremiah 23:1-6

Pentecost +26 - Year C

Jeremiah 23:1-6

Everyone is welcome but the leaders of flocks (congregations, denominations) have not done well with keeping up with the variety of creation that is to be welcomed. The huge temptation is to start and stop with ourselves and those like us. Anyone else is welcome to do their best to meet this impossible mark, but when they don't the body is divided over a non-identity (me and mine, not the wideness of G*D's mercy).

The promise is that new shepherds will be raised up from the outcasts and that their experience of being outcast will mean a special sensitivity to other outcasts and none shall be missing. Well, time and time again, new leaders have claimed mandates, thought their technique universal, and otherwise fallen into the same trap as their predecessors.

This is not claim or theory. Look around. The reality is overwhelming. Another lesson needs to be learned. This is not a rejoicing end of a Church Year passage that lets us rejoice. It is, once again, a call to recognize that we have gone around the circle from divider to outcast to divider with no particular visible gain.

So, if at the end of our year we can't put the words, "The Lord is our righteousness (welcome)", comfortably in our mouths, what do we put there?

Pity a well-intentioned G*D caught with that G*D's image throughout creation, chasing its tail. Pity a well-intentioned creation doubly caught as in a tarnished mirror. Pity us all, the days may yet be surely coming . . . but they surely are not now.

What will need to change in the coming year that we not end up at the same place. Whatever you come up with is what needs practice during Advent and after.

 

Luke 23:33-43

Pentecost +26 - Year C

Luke 23:33-43

A captain of a ship is to go down with said ship. You are to ride a horse that brought you to your present occasion. Nowhere is it mentioned that we are in this business of leadership, of community fellowship, in order to simply save ourself.

Warnings have been out for quite some time that the powers that be were going to extort their pound of flesh from Jesus (& you?) for subversion of the common-sense of the day.

How might a leader respond at a time of their evident overthrow? Usually they have staked their reputation and life on a particular process and they will keep at it. So it is with Jesus (& you?).

Luke records four last acts of Jesus in this 23rd chapter.

• Jesus stands simply mute before accusation
• Jesus blesses mourners with an affirmation that their experience is real and will be realer
• Jesus blesses an unbaptized, non-creedal request with a promise of welcome
• Jesus commits his past, present, and future into a larger picture

On this last Sunday of another exhausting Church Year (it is hard work to participate in creating a new heaven and a new earth) we come to a final measuring question about our progress and in anticipation of work to be done in another Church Year - welcoming without boundaries.

We know that to do so will be the set up for more Judas opportunities for others, more disappointments, having to go through the same re-education we have gone through before. Imagine the eventual havoc of a thief loose in heaven. Who else might be there, even without a formal welcome this side of a great divide? It just throws everything up for grabs.

We know that to do less will be the set up for our playing Judas in our day.

Since there seems to be no escaping - keep your eye on what you understand Paradise to be about. When others fall by the wayside you can still invite them. When you fall by the wayside you can still be invited. To see through the illusion and ratify the experience of suffering is to set it in a larger context, a part of which is Paradise.

You may want to leave a note for yourself where you will regularly see it as an affirmation of your ongoing work, "I am a door-opener and welcomer of Paradise." It is that upon which you can survive the realities of this past year and upon which you can build for next year.

not one stone

Pentecost +25 - Year C

still have some hope?

everything you see

will fall down

and not just lie there

but be buried

under sixty-six feet

of wind blown sand

still joyful over beauty?

false leaders

promising golden chickens

in every pot

and nary a chipped tooth

or cost to you

just vote them in

still on the full side of a half glass?

empires come

but mostly go

bust

emptying their center

bursting their boundaries

pop

still playing the Glad Game?

the very earth falls apart

cracks beneath

eruptions above

and bodies the same

famine

disease

has Dr. Pangloss prescribed for you?

betrayed by parents

say it isn't so

laughed at by siblings

say it isn't so

executed by friends

it seems so

now without hope?

and my beloved says

when I'm not living in hope

hope still lives in me

who can explain it

who can tell us why

endure

2 Thessalonians 3:6-13

Pentecost +25 - Year C

2 Thessalonians 3:6-13

Jesus who once was heard to say, "Go into all the world", now is commanding that we stay away from fellow followers of Jesus who are of a different class or follow a different Jesus tradition. No longer are they to imitate a Jesus they have experienced, but the Jesus someone else has experienced.

Or we could say that the community of real Jesus followers takes place in a location where there are sufficient jobs for everyone to have one or two or more and that everyone has been healed so they are able to work hours on end. The Church, here, requires a healthy economy or there can only be a few leaders who can command the rest to do Jesus as they do (no, there are not multiple ways of reading that).

We have moved from the feeding of 5,000 at a time a shared meal to feeding one at a time their individually earned meal. In such a short time as it is from the stories of Luke to a letter to Thessalonica, a dramatic difference has happened - moving from an egalitarian, socialist call to have G*D's presence enfleshed in a sharing community, all the way over to a class-based, individualism that has everyone pulling themselves up by their own bootstraps (as if that could happen without cultural and communal rules and securities to protect what has been individually gathered!).

Yes, Advent is needed and is on the horizon. We have moved far away from the early Acts of the Apostles, it is but a dim memory this far along the Church Year. We are much closer to the desolation requiring the birth of a new imagination, a new word. (Don't tell anyone, but more than Church culture rises and falls.) In this brave new world of desperation there are no excuses, no arguments - everyone's on their own. To remember a hope for life to be otherwise seems so distant, so quaint. How might it mysteriously appear this time?

 

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.