Matthew 3:1-12

Year A - Advent 2 - Needed Change ²

December 8, 2013

Matthew 3:1-12

In those days, in this day, any day—tomorrow is just a day away. Changing today is our last best opportunity to welcome the fullness of tomorrow or to further limit it.

So, what needs to change today? It won’t be a going back to some idealized past. It will have to do with making a shift in the momentum of the past. It will have to do with making life easier for those with whom we are joined hip and spirit. It will have to do with doing more than waiting. It will have to do with more than not making things worse.

Remember that the wilderness outside the boundary of promise is the locus of John’s work. It is also to be the locus of our work. Standing inside a promised land makes it too easy to hold on to the limited power and privilege we have managed to rise to. Inside the promise raises our fear level that we may lose the little we have. Outside the boundary makes it easier to hear, “Be not afraid—proceed to bear “good fruit” just because you can.

Here ends today’s comment.

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To encourage you to consider purchasing our new book, Wrestling Year A: Connecting Sunday Readings with Lived Experience here is the comment for this pericope from this new resource:

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Here are two responses to the nearness of heaven come to earth:

• Repent

• Receive the “fire” of Holy Spirit

Question: Is this a necessary sequence? Repentance is required for Holy Spirit fire? Is it an implied prerequisite to, “Follow me”.

Regardless of how that is responded to, there is a basic duality here of gathered wheat or burned and scattered chaff that seems negated by Pentecost and a Holy Spirit that simply tells of Wonder, cutting through all language divisions.

Question: On what basis would a Holy Spirit not be conferred? Preordination? Resistance?

Whatever form of Holy Spirit is received, there is encouragement here to live well, fruitfully.

Question: All this may be helpful at the beginning of a movement. What happens after years, decades, millennia of there being no discernible connection between repentance and good fruits, between Holy Spirit fire and abominations? How do these play as part of a play filled with heart-warming trees, creches, and noels?

This passage may have other helpful attributes, but it mostly helps us reflect on a past presence of G*D, not one still before us. At this point it would be more helpful to reflect on the genealogy that begins Matthew and to draw it from the point of Jesus through Pentecost to the present time and ask questions of what folks faced in their day and how they persevered. In anticipating a new heaven and a new earth we could use those reminders and a discerning of our current situation that we might persevere until a surprising new presence becomes known to us.

Question: Given what you know about the lived situations and culture around you, how evangelistic is this passage? Is it only for an insider?

A note from the Wesley Study Bible: “Wesley connects this ‘fire’ with ‘love’.… (Notes 3:11)”. Is this some sort of “tough love”? Does this modify the passage enough to suggest that John has a limited view of Holy Spirit and fire/love that will also show up when he sends his disciples to see what Jesus is up to? If there is room for modification because this is more about a projection of John than an experience with Jesus, what does that mean about how you would preach this in the context of this year?

Advent brings a choice

Year A - Advent 1 - Needed Change ^[1]

December 1, 2013

don’t know

don’t care

dayenu

it is enough

awake or asleep

away is away

so glad to be

here or anywhere

as long as we are moving

toward healthier peace

Alaska or Onalaska

here is here

swords

plows

foreground

background

one carries the other

as potential

shalt not

all those acts

but mostly

remember

a neighbor loved

is a law surpassed

this is the advent

we’ve been waiting for

surprise

it is here

now will we

choose to live

Romans 13:11-14

Year A - Advent 1 - Needed Change ^[1]

December 1, 2013

Romans 13:11-14

Thanksgiving has become a day of attempted satiation. We stuff ourselves with every manner of thing in hopes of being fulfilled. However, every rule we set up about how we will know we are cared for, falls apart on the rocks of an actual relationship. Eventually we confess that food will not satisfy. Then, another year later, we try it again.

It turns out that Paul shares with us this Thanksgiving sentiment:

Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law - the doing away with the law. 

So, first, do no harm.

Of course hot on the heels of this is a need to actually do some good. In American politics it is immigration that best reveals how far from a communal thanksgiving we are. Our immigration policies and lack of reform both do harm and refrain from doing good. In other places this will be revealed differently.

For now, be thankful you are still able to hope that Neighb*rs will love one another. Then, take a deep breath for you know that this love has no other better starting place than with you.

Thanks for giving your love away. Love is law fulfilled and set aside.

Psalm 122

Year A - Advent 1 - Needed Change ^[1]

December 1, 2013

Psalm 122

The New Community Bible comments: “It is a fact that true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth (Jn 4:21), but they are still flesh and blood and God often waits for them at the end of a march without which their effort would not have been a real one.”

We do affirm the engagement of our bodies in life. Direct action is not just a social change tactic, but one of living life to the full. We engage in spirit, truth, flesh, blood, and more. Taking any of them away leads us to an ending with a whimper, not a bang. To find your engagement in life is finding a spoonful of Mary Poppins' medicine—it helps every aspect of life when there are expected and unexpected consequences in an unfated universe.

Shifting Advent to a waiting game that we will win or lose “at the end of a march” is to denigrate the communal nature of creation and its impetus to call out “Let it be”. 

Isaiah 2:1–5

Year A - Advent 1 - Needed Change ^[1]

December 1, 2013

Isaiah 2:1–5

This year I am going to be looking at two recent bibles:

The Common English Study Bible
and
The New Community Bible: The International Catholic Edition (commentary reflects a Liberation Theology perspective from the Philippines and I admit a bias for a bible that emphasizes community).

Here are comments regarding justice coming from temple [CEV] and community [NCB] that you might fruitfully reflect on as you rub them together.

The same oracle (a form of prophetic speech) is also found in Micah 4:1-3, but the conclusions in Isaiah 2:5 and Micah 4:4 differ. Whereas in Micah 1:24 God’s own people were viewed as God’s enemies, here enemy nations become God’s own people, coming to the temple for divine instruction. I contrast to Micah 1:12, where the temple was trampled by unjust worshippers, now it is the source of justice. Such hopeful portrayals of Jerusalem occupy key points in Isaiah (Isa 4:2–6; 12:1–6; 33:20–24;40:1–2, 9–10; 62:1; 66:7–14, 18–23). [CEB]

It is true that the Church has many unattractive aspects: her institutions, her hierarchy; her paralyzing traditions are no more exempt from error and scandals that were those of the Jewish community. Perhaps we fail to discern the profound riches which the Church develops in sincere believers. In the world, they are those who keep the fire that Christ lit burning, and who create a network of more human relationships and more authentic life around them.
     In the final analysis, this is what prepares for the coming of the “new creature.” Isaiah alone has done more for human progress than all the kings of Assyria with their armies, their victories and their laws. This leaven of authentic civilization is what, one day, will be placed “on the high mountains”, or “on a lampstand” to enlighten the world. (See Mt 4:14.) [NCB]

How is it that swords are transformed into plows? 

   Divine instruction? 

   Authentic civilization? 

   Would you list a third option? 

Are these just spelling differences for the same dynamic?

Come, let us walk together to create light.

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As encouragement to consider purchasing our own commentary, Wrestling Year A: Connecting Sunday Readings with Lived Experience, here is an excerpt:

Wars and rumors of wars continue to abound. Such are convenient control methods to keep us fearful and unthinking. So how do we make a shift that seems so absolutely impossible?
     A key phrase is for us to respond to an invitation to “walk in the light of the Lord”. Among other things, this is a call to live the future as if it were already here. Advent is not just waiting time, but practicing time. Advent: the pre-arrival of a future that we climb aboard. We have seen a better future and, rather than wait for it or expect G*D to bring it about according to some yet undisclosed plan, we begin to implement our part of it in the present. A better future is not based on some future event, but on what we currently do.
     Let us walk in the light of what we posit G*D will be doing—teaching, mediating, transforming implements and attitudes of war into communal feeding and universal health care. Our Advent is proactive waiting. Our waiting is preemptive futuring that breaks free from being caught between practice and actuality, a rock and a hard place.

Matthew 24:36-44

Year A - Advent 1 - Needed Change ^[1]
December 1, 2013
Matthew 24:36-44

The future cannot be foreseen, only lived as it is desired to be.

Remember Noah’s day? It is like that. You build your future in the days available.

Not even Noah knew the import of this as evidenced by his actions after the flood and the subjugation he continued.

We live until we are swept away.

There are those who would warn about unexamined lives and keeping awake and being ready. Unknown in these is what we don’t know. Examining the unknown lacks tools. Keeping awake or ready readily leads to fatigue and plenty of gaps in which not to be ready or awake.

So, a future day will surprise in its suddenness, but not in its preparation. Live well now. In so doing, all shall be well—all manner of things.

Question: What would happen if we didn’t expect judgment/disaster but mercy/grace? As contrasted with living on edge trying to protect what can’t be protected, might we relax into living today as we would want to live tomorrow?

SELAH

Silently, ever so silently,
Enmity comes to an end.
Life and love are recognized
Among all disruptions.
Healing is our hope.

Colossians 1:11-20

Pentecost - Last Sunday - November 24, 2013 - Year C
Colossians 1:11-20

The church claims Jesus as a singularity. As a result of this the church also claims everything must be in conformity to Jesus.

This doesn't quite square with some of Jesus' own sayings such as the rest of us are to do greater things than he did.

As we round out another year of struggling to perfect an old model when such a journey toward wholeness is never-ending, we come to the end of another year with miles to go.

For some this will mean an attempt at further retrenchment into Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. For some it will be a release to finally claim their own singularity. For most, it is just time for Thanksgiving turkey.

Luke 1:68-79

Pentecost Last - November 25, 2013 - Year C
Luke 1:68-79

On this last Sunday of another church year that we wrap in a victory of hierarchy reclaimed, it is important to remember the prophetic tradition rather than the priestly/kingly.

Have you learned a bit more this year about not having enemies, even if they should still have you? If so, know that being thus rescued from being enthralled by our enemies we can simply live in wholeness and mercy all the rest of our days -- long or short.

The appropriate act here is that of forgiveness in the trenches of life, not the raising of a scepter to lord it over.

If we have learned well this past year, there will be a new dawn, a new light, beaming from you to those darkened in one way or another. This is not a lording it over them, but a setting out of a ministry for a next year. Hopefully our evaluation of how things have gone and one thing that still needs doing will energize us to go forward, guiding our feet and the feet of others in a way that will intersect in a present paradise that might be called peace or reality.

Blessings on your evaluation for tests are just around a corner. Today I was able to be part of giving a test to a bureaucratic church body (United Methodist Connectional Table). For the moment they passed and stopped their formalities to give up a morning's agenda to talk about sexuality and even claim it was important for them to speak about it as a body to General Conference. You can read about it here.

Jeremiah 23:1-6

Pentecost Last - November 25, 2013 - Year C
Jeremiah 23:1-6

Context: The United Methodist Church trying Frank Schaefer for celebrating his son's marriage to another male -- son and son-in-law -- a patriarch's dream, except for legalistic religious types appealing to some letter-of-the-law type of "justice" with nary a pinch of human kindness, much less mercy.

How can this passage in this context not be a condemnation of everyone along the way who was swayed to vote for discrimination by some fear of losing members or money or their own privilege?

The shepherd has become the wolf, and a self-devouring one at that.

At times like this it is tempting to wait for a "Lord" who punished folks into exile to become self-dismayed and bring them home (blaming things now on another set of folks). [How do you read G*D gathering back folks G*D had driven away?]

This temptation is unworthy of folks made in an image of steadfast love and merciful justice. We need to call it for what it is, serial injustice upon one officially condemned group after another -- same tactics, different targets.

We need to get over some "Lord" being our righteousness. We have integrity inherent in our bones even if we do cover it up all too often with an overlay of officiousness and expediency. To be zealous for judgment is to be blind to mercy.

A second context is LovePrevailsUMC.com sitting in on a Connectional Table meeting that was so boring the leaders had to plead for an Amen after characterizing Jesus as an "adaptive leader", the latest highest praise a functionary can muster. The whole meeting was sad with members nearly dozing off if not browsing Amazon. Energy was at a minimum and communication was all about branding rather than doing/being.

It is tempting to sic a righteous G*D on such unrighteous waste of time, energy, and resources. Again, this temptation is not creative enough for folks who have tasted of good and evil.

"Woe," cry the shepherds who don't know where new grass is. "Woe," cry the sheep sacrificed one-by-one. "Woe," cries a G*D caught in a self-designed trap.

Luke 23:33-43

Luke 23:33-43 - November 24, 2013 - Year C

23:42 Then he said, "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom."

23:43 He replied, "Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise."

If we weren't so limited by our context we could see these lines in our current context.

Let's work our way backward into our present.

Welcome to another day in Paradise where steadfast-love weds mercy to justice. Look around again. And again. This is Jesus prayer come true; heaven has come on earth. We are partnered with one another, urging one another onward toward a wholeness already known and yet needing bodies and form.

In this Paradise we are loathe to leave behind for a static pig-in-a-poke in some by-and-by, we blink our eyes again and Jesus is truly here. We are encouraged to continue to stand for a merciful justice. Visit Facebook/StandWithFrank as another trial tries to separate that which G*D has joined together.
This is so overwhelming we find ourselves like Peter in the presence of another transfiguration—stammering: "Remember me when . . . ."

Returning to our senses we know ourselves remembered. When knowing we are remembered rather than forcing some remembrance to be repeated and repeated in some weird Groundhog Day, we can move forward together.

Can you look back over this year to remember when you were remembered and you lived a merciful justice? That honors Jesus far more than some heraldic claim that "Jesus is Lord" or trying to leave this Paradise of "joy to the world" and "fear and trembling".

Use this as a time for evaluation of the last year in order to better engage a next year. What finally needs forgiveness in order to participate in merciful justice?

Book is Available

It is now official—the book is available for purchase at the link below and it is time to regather my energies to return to blogging about the lectionary. I am looking forward to starting again tomorrow as we close off another Church Year.

So how has it been since be Advented in 2012? Have we spun wheels? Done any "perfecting" or going on to wholeness? Identified a task that will be worth your life in Year A?

Blessings to you and thanks for reading here.

Wrestling Year A: Connecting Sunday Readings with Lived Experience

Year A Book

I have been a bit erratic with postings these last couple of weeks. There has been a push on to get a book and e-book published. The Title is Wrestling Year A: Connecting Sunday Readings with Lived Experience. Hopefully next week will see me back on my usual Monday to Friday schedule.

Today a proof of the book arrived and I am noting more corrections are needed than I had hoped would be the case. I knew there would be some, but as a first time author am surprised by the number. Anyway, I'm basically pleased with the way it is looking.

There will be more information about the book and e-book as it becomes available. For the moment, sending energy in this direction for the completion of this particular is welcomed and appreciated.

Wesley
wwhite (at) wesleyspace (dot) net

Psalm 119:97-104

Pentecost +22 — Year C

Psalm 119:97-104

Misreading alert—a first glance at the pericope found this, “Oh, how I love your law! It is my medication all day long.”

Two reading leap to mind. One is a curative one. Struggling with the meaning of commands with some presumption of importance can lead one out of a morass of confusion. A path can be discerned. A second one is a masking one. To too quickly toss chemicals into a living system can make it dependent (like land on fertilizer) and cover the underlying cause of dis-ease. A status quo won’t be questioned.

If some newfangled medication automatically displaces a tried and true folk remedy, there do need to be some questions asked about unintended consequences (that long list of dire results listed at the end of a sunny commercial). It is also important to not simply lose the folk remedy for when the new goes bust or further study of it might bring forth something even better.

Medicated thinking can lead one to greater clarity of boundaries and it can erase them all so only I have a true understanding and anything you have to offer is false in every way.

Blessings on your use of a community heritage such as the bible, quran, vedas, etc. as helpful meditation medicine that moves you and all along a clearer path to common goods.

- - - - - - -

Here's a resource from John Wesley and his concern with physical health as well as spiritual health: Primitive Physick.

Jeremiah 31:27-34

Pentecost +22 — Year C

Jeremiah 31:27-34

While it sounds like a good thing to be responsible for one’s own actions and consequences therefrom, there is a significant loss of responsibility for the common good of the community. Yes, it can be posited that what is best for each is for the best for all to take place. However, to break a dynamic tension between an individual and their community predictably opens several doors to dysfunction for both an individual and their larger context.

Foremost among the difficulties is a lack of a feedback loop which allows folks to plausibly deny their actions carry any sin for they are thick with G*D.

It would be interesting to have a conversation about covenants. It won’t be long before it is recognized that we each have multiple covenants. The same is true for groups as small as friends and as large as one multi-national group against another multi-national group. Where these covenants rub up against one another there is a weakening of integrity. Some of us have more weak spots than others, but the number is basically immaterial. One is sufficient to cause trouble for all.

It is helpful to remember these words in their context and to remember that we have our own current context where we periodically need to remember to engage the other side of whichever individual/communal pendulum swing we are on at the moment.

It won’t be long after Jeremiah's message when this whole section will need to be repeated with the position of individual and community reversed for there is an eternal dance between me and thee and us’ns and y’all.

We need to do a better job of wrestling with our multiple covenants and applying the many, varied, and even conflictual gifts all needed at the same time to make reasonable decisions better enough to last a traditional 7 generations long.

Blessings on dealing with your complicity in the social sins of your cohort as well as your own personal sins. One exacerbates the other and addressing any of them will likely start in bailiwick of the other. This is a much more difficult and worthwhile encounter than leaving it to G*D to bail us out of our latest Egypt or to take over our internal guidance system with the excuse that it is what is best for us.

Luke 18:1-8

Pentecost +22 — Year C

Luke 18:1-8

How do you play between importuning G*D for justice and being persistent and creative in your own part of claiming justice for yourself and/or someone else?

Now, why would Jesus tell this story about a probably years long struggle for justice until the judge was worn out from dealing with it? Presumably he recognized that G*D’s “quickness” in matters of justice wasn’t very quick in human lives and required partnership with us rather than snapping some metaphoric fingers to have it miraculously appear. Magic justice turns out to be very little justice at all.

We might translate “pray” as “do what needs doing”. Prayer here is not just crying out, but acting to make a difference. There is a big divide between those who see a need for social action and those who are caught up in privilege enough to advise closet prayer. If you are going to pray for someone, do it in their face. Otherwise it is spiritual gossip.

So, yes, G*D delays participation in overt justice-making until those who note injustice engage it directly. Praying about something so as to tell G*D what to do, even to pray for G*D’s will to be done, does not endear us to G*D.

Have you lost your heart to live lively and so all that’s left is mumbling prayer? I hope not. So raise a glass to widows everywhere and rejoin the on-going party of assurance and belovedness and just plain kindness. If you are familiar with ballots that show a picture of a candidate or the logo of a political party, be sure to check the widow iconography after disclosing your cause in the streets and investing your time and resources to have us live better together. Hooray for disruptive widows.

Though

Pentecost +21 — Year C

Though

on the way

to our expected goal

there are calls to pause

along the way to practice

what we preach

Jerusalem will be

a personal transformation

to even newer life

from heavy to light

from ow to ah

but we’re not there

yet

it can be offered

to others

though

in fact Jerusalem

is here now

where prophet meets priest

where thanks is given

instead of further sacrifice

journey expectations

find refreshment

encouragement

along the way

sufficient to continue

so onward

again assured

an exile’s home

is a strong pull

forward

2 Timothy 2:8-15

Pentecost +21 — Year C

2 Timothy 2:8-15

All words are imprisoning. Event as they leap to mind from their metaphoric ground to break new ground, they return to rest providing support for subsequent leaps beyond them.

How noble Paul can be as he sets the good of a select set of others above his own inconvenience. Presuming Paul to understand himself as a chosen one, no matter how thorn infested or out of time he may be, to work for other chosen ones is a limited and limiting understanding of resurrectional and pentecostal power.

We can’t seem to not be in a battle over words. From an earlier “Let it be” to the latest “Let it not be” guiding sentiment of government defunders we struggle to define all else in light of me. This sophomoric argument that everyone else is but playing a part in my dream has significant consequences when it turns out we are not dreaming but in the midst of a much larger and longer story.

Any attempt at interpreting some message of truth is full of stumbling blocks. Here it turns out that a beginning spot of rising up and descending down takes second place to a “faithful saying” that rallies like-to-like in a common defensive position rewarding loyalty.

Knowing only a few of my own limits and how easily movable are boundaries, I have great sympathy for these 8 verses plucked from a larger work as they note a grand transformational moment that keeps sliding back into a creed of exclusiveness after its burst of new life.

May we simply live together for, like it or not, we die. This carries a different sense that trying to avoid our death by positing a dreamy eternity and reinforcing a limited chosenness.

Psalm 66:1-12

Pentecost +21 — Year C

Psalm 66:1-12

Expressing joy is deep work requiring a strong base. Before going further you can strengthen your base:

• breathe in for a slow count of 5
• hold for another slow count of 5
• exhale slowly and fully through a count of 5
• hold empty for a final slow count of 5

Repeat and repeat until your center becomes clear, beloved.

Here is the beginning of a field of joyful murmuring underlying periodic louder expressions.

From here we engage tests of our joy, whether from internal temptation or external turmoil. These tests temper us as is steel from of old, in fire and water.

We are free to be joy. There are no limits to expressions of joy other than our fear of self and/or others. Whether at home or in exile we breathe easy until we can breathe no more and in both breath and its cessation is our connection with the depths of creation’s continuity.

Jeremiah 29:1, 4-7

Pentecost +21 — Year C

Jeremiah 29:1, 4-7

Displaced. Exiled. Refugee. These words and more like them are artifacts of cruelty trampling community. They essentially say, “You must be done away with that I might flourish.” These are zero-sum game categories.

Jeremiah recognizes the reality of what we do to our selves and one another. There is no getting around the political, economic, and military realities of power and its lack.

Jeremiah also recognizes the reality of looking beyond a current balance of power. Since power is always being subverted from within, Jeremiah looks forward by essentially saying, “Flourishing where you are is the best investment you can make in a better future.”

This passage will need much further parsing as it could be used to justify cultural slavery and personal abuse. Part of the trouble we get in with scripture is how it can be manipulated to justify situations other than the one from which it arose. For the moment, if you always have your weather-eye open, close it for space for a long view; if you use a dream-eye to avoid another loss of worth, open it to see whether escape or subversion is available.

Can you both flourish and subvert (take a step to be elsewhere or toward a changed circumstance)? Yes. So, may you flourish no matter what degree of subversion of power is available to you. If you want to read more about a contemporary version of flourishing and subversion when exiled from your religious home, try LovePrevailsUMC.com.

Luke 17:11-19

Pentecost +21 — Year C

Luke 17:11-19

Two notices here.

First, Lepers are an excluded people. It matters not what other identity they could also carry, their exclusion is an identity that supersedes any other. A nation of excluded folks within a nation is a crack in the foundation of that nation. This excluded nation does continually raise a cry from the margin. A prophet/priest does periodically come to release.

As a prophet, Jesus announces freedom. It is as though he said more fully, “Go show yourselves to exclusionary priests who are the gatekeepers of privileged inclusion.” This points toward “outing” one’s self—claiming a place at the table.

While still categorically excluded it is difficult to reveal one’s claim on community. Before an exclusion is excluded it is surprising that even one in ten claimed their belovedness, their basic wholeness, their inherent belonging in the face of categorical discrimination. Being a pioneer in claiming one’s self in the face of exclusion is difficult, difficult work.

Second, once one knows they are whole, not just a person in form but through-and-through, Joy is released. This is shown here with nine out of ten still needing an external validation and obviously not getting such from a discriminating priest. They are not heard of again. Here one comes to a prophet/priest claiming their own with thanksgiving. Indeed, trust is their password—I trust I am whole. [Note: From the discriminating side, Welcome is a sign of a healthy priest.]

Another synonym for faith is following one’s bliss. For an expression of a Leper returning you might get your own T-shirt by one who is still a Leper in The United Methodist Church that categorically excludes gifted and called lesbian women and gay men from ordained ministry simply on the basis of their sexual orientation. Rev. Amy DeLong was tried by the exclusionary priests of her denomination and is still present because of enough prophet/priest on the trial court. You can still support inclusion by purchasing one of her T-shirts

at Love Prevails Store

If you are preaching on this text, what would you think about wearing this T-shirt instead of a robe or other professional attire? Would you use this as bulletin cover or video image to preach on?

Lamentations 1:1-6; 3:19-26

Pentecost +20 — Year C

World Communion Sunday

Lamentations 1:1-6; 3:19-26

A rewrite —

How lonely sits a church that once was full of people! How isolated and barren! How small and irrelevant after such numbers and influence! A once shining beacon is now an overly protected flame safe from wind—only to have no source of fuel.

There is a great bitterness within—a divided self with comfort limited to true believers. Friends and potential friends must first prove their loyalty and do so again and again for fear they will eventually reveal a flaw in a self-contained and unambiguous system.

Yes, exile has come, the center has not held and takes more and more work to sustain. What once honored its many differences and gifts has splintered, each looking to confirm its own before affirming another. The very surety of parity desired now comes back to bite far harder than the labor needed to bind compassion to every-day varieties of lived experience.

False enthusiasm keeps deep joy at bay. No matter how loudly we sing the same song it can’t be loosed from walls of silence intended to protect those within—turning the sanctuary into an echo-chamber with naught to offer beyond. Priests groan; youth grieve; blame grows.

Without turning differences into community, we are controlled by denied differences defining a small and smaller realm of participation. More and more discrimination to protect an ever smaller range of acceptable behavior transgresses G*D’s prerogative for steadfast love, especially relevant in the midst of creation’s variety. The descendants of Eden have again scattered themselves through a failed hubris of building a babbling code of “holiness” within a larger Holiness all around. We have been bound by the eternal enemy of self-magnification.

A grandeur of Spirit has departed the construct of Church. Starving the body has us hearing voices of danger in every direction. Finally we sit down alone feeling as persecuted as we have persecuted.

- - -

In this silence we feed on our shame of trusting our blame of all that wasn’t yet us to keep us pure. Our digital approach to holiness in an analogic abundance failed. Where is hope now?

Is steadfast love trustworthy after all? Are mercies we claim sharable with those we don’t like?

If love and mercy are new every morning, we can dare to lift our eyes from blame and join in seeking their application in our infinite variety.

Our surety striving let us down, again. Let us rest in hope beyond uniformed peace. Let us seek a common good beyond today’s limits. Let us live in communion beyond control.

Luke 17:5-10

Pentecost +20 — Year C

Luke 17:5-10

It takes a good deal of trust that forgiveness is the way to go. This is particularly true when it appears that forgiveness is not an effective tool to change the behavior of someone else.

If there is not a change in another’s behavior after we have forgiven them for an incident, we have a built-in excuse to not try that again and pull out a countervailing power. When even that doesn’t work there is only escalation left—a hand for a fingernail, an arm for a hand, a life for a felt slight.

No wonder the disciples asked for a sign worthy of their greater trust—that their reservoir of forgiveness would not run dry.

Jesus does not give such a sign. Instead he refocuses on seeing there is no lower limit to an innate ability to be engaged in a relationship to understand, modify, and transcend previous behaviors.

The second part of this passage is problematic as it is based on “earthly” behavior in need of a “heavenly” reconstruction. It is important to not be satisfied with a master-servant example when it comes to basic relationship dynamics.

If we stop here we justify abusive relationships.

Homework: How would you improve this passage by substituting some other example or an additional image to reinforce that we have sufficient resources to forgive without tying that to behavior control or privilege within a relationship?

periodic bread

Pentecost +19 — Year C

daily bread is a dream

for countless millions

were it only one

weeping would be in order

weeping cleans the eye

for compassion to enter

banquets to be open

open sores closed

for now we are stuck

unbalanced

mistaking plenty

as effect from our cause

we are stuck to a whirlwind

feeding on its own

until its moment gone

a rainbow left standing

too late we worry about our own

having not cared about others

we are invisible to ourselves

too self-satisfied to be warned

when warning is ignored

there is no easy fix

commonality in death

is all that’s left

too late smart

threats block change

follow G*D out of any garden

weeping all the way

laughing all the way

for old irony

brings sufficient insight

to change from within

- - - - - - -

I Cannot Sleep by Malvina Reynolds

     Lyrics

     Bilingual song

We Have Fed You All for a Thousand Years

     Song (click “show more” for lyrics)

1 Timothy 6:6-19

Pentecost +19 — Year C

1 Timothy 6:6-19

Fight the good fight.

This is where we wrestle with what to trust. Here it is phrased in terms of eternity, which is just one of many pen names of G*D. After filtering out all the highfalutin attributions of immortality, unapproachable light, and the like, strive to give life. This is the measure of value to be used in evaluating whether we have dealt honorably with our opportunities.

So what can be trusted in your life? Because of one experience or another or many is there anything trustable? If not, I’m sorry to have not striven well enough for you. If you suspect there might be something trustable, then comes the testing of it. The witness of the generations is that economic systems come and go so whatever “rich” means is both uncertain and never attainable as there will never be enough riches to take uncertainty out of the equation. The same holds true with applicable commandments and cultural norms. Blessings on sorting through the appearances to bedrock, foundational values.

As you struggle with your trust issues and attendant decisions, there are four interrelated tasks that can be noted for the stewardship of what we do have, whether large or small. With what you do have, 

• apply it to do as much long-term good as possible
• record those acts that they might be remembered in future times of choice
• factor in that just a bit more could be invested in making a change
• again, both intend good and carry it through

Psalm 91:1-6, 14-16

Pentecost +19 — Year C

Psalm 91:1-6, 14-16

It’s the pits when the snare of the fowler and the deadly pestilence we need rescuing from turns out to be our very self. What’s a body to do?

Well, like any good magician this conundrum is put under a gorgeous cloth and an incantation said. There, like chicks under a hen’s wing, a sense of indisputable worth returns and belovedness is known. A transformation from fear to faith occurs.

What comes forth as the winged cloth is pulled back is our self, now assured. The Universe claps with joy at this seeming miracle. And the Universe claps every time it happens. And it happens a lot.

What is the incantation? Usually there is a hefty charge for such information. But having had the cloth pulled back one more time, today I’m hopeful enough to give it away. “I honor you.”

That’s it. Try it.

questions as a way of life

Here is a comic strip that plays well with the Luke and Jeremiah passages this week:

A Day at the Park.

Enjoy.

Jeremiah 32:1-3a, 6-15

Pentecost +19 — Year C

Jeremiah 32:1-3a, 6-15

We ignore verses 3b-5 at our peril. This is where important energy for the passage resides. Without this clear announcement of harm and exile, the action of investing anyway loses its punch.

We are so inured of what little we have that we would never think of anything as foolish as burying our deed to present property going to seed against the great uncertainty of either finding it again or having it carry the day any better than indigenous people's treaties have fared in a colonialist economy.

Without a vision of exile this whole deed scenario loses its way. With it we can see how foolish are hopes of resurrection and to note how much stronger and wider our hope needs to be cast.

In the face of exile, a return: in the face of death, new life (resurrection, reincarnation, re-cycled nutrients, ...).

In light of mini-deaths beyond orgasms, we might yet learn from all the revolutions or stage-transitions we have gone through and willingly invest in a next one. Knowing resources will be available to us on the other side eases our resistance to finally go into our next good night both rejoicing and railing.

Luke 16:19-31

Pentecost +19 - Year C

Luke 16:19-31

Whether ignoring the poor by sticking a nose in a newspaper, attending to Facebook, or listening to your tunes, we have a multitude of ways to compartmentalize our lives. We don't know just what technique for separation this particular rich man used to ignore Lazarus but it seemed to work for him.

Alive or dead, Lazarus didn't make a difference in the economic and political arenas of his world.

Periodically, when circumstances become dire enough for a large enough group, there comes a revolution that would put the ignoring-class in enough hurt to be a warning to future generations of "ignorers". Of course they will also ignore the lessons of their predecessors.

Smashing ignorance and revolution together we find "angels" to be fomenters of revolution leading the currently ignored to a favored position.

Those who do not attend to the prophets won't attend to historical precedent, much less learn from it. Their addiction to short-term personal gain is too all-consuming.

May you be an "angel" this week and for as long as there is not enough for all because of the hoarding of a few.

1 Timothy 2:1-7

Pentecost +18 - Year C 

1 Timothy 2:1-7

Remembering that prayer is more than private words and is connected to decisions to act in regard to those titular “rulers” in your environ—from family through nation to even enemies. If their “leadership” doesn’t lead to quiet and peaceable living (an unfortunate expectation is that it doesn’t), there needs to be an intervention to see if they can finally become shrewd in their dealings with citizens and foreigners.

When the wholeness of individuals and whole societies is at risk, it needs to be brought to the attention of the “leader(s)”. The historical record indicates that it is very difficult for “leader(s)” to have their attention drawn toward dignity for the disenfranchised if they are getting their own and then some.

This is where applied prayer comes in to kick a bit of butt. For this we are sometimes appointed as herald of a revolution. You’ve heard of interventions? That’s what intercessory prayer is about. After negative supplications and positive thanksgiving have been tried, there is intercessory intervention (except it is not at a distance, but up close and personal).

Blessings on your engagement with G*D and Dignity through your supplications, prayers, Intercessions, and thanksgivings.

Psalm 79:1-9

Pentecost +18 - Year C 

Psalm 79:1-9

How is one to practice being shrewd in relationship to finally doing what is right—forgiving debts—if our only technique is to lean back and bay at G*D for help.

An on-going sense of impotence or dependence is not helpful to growing spirits. Even though this is probably part of a process of moving to independence and inter-dependence, it is a phase that is hopefully kept to a minimum. Yes there is value here, but not as much as comes afterward.

There simply comes a time when being rescued, only to repeat our problem because there has been no learning, needs to cease. This dynamic is usually present in multiple places within our life. These reinforce our reluctance to pull out of a dysfunctional system and call it to account. It is also the case that doing so in any one area of our life leads to the possibility of doing so in additional areas. These resistances can also build on one another. This is not a straight-forward proposition that automatically happens and so continual attention and choice is needed.

May you make one more shrewd choice this day, no matter the inconvenience to you or a whole system.

Jeremiah 8:18-9:1

Pentecost +18 - Year C 

Jeremiah 8:18-9:1

After 40+ years of legislated United Methodist discrimination against gays and lesbians based on a false theology/reality of their lives being incompatible with “Christian teaching”, this section of Jeremiah seems all too real.

There comes a time for anger after all the failed attempts to honor the wideness of G*D’s gifts and calls. Building relationships has not changed hearts, scripture analysis has not changed minds, and inclusive legislation has not changed votes. It needs to be recognized that there is no current balm in the United Methodist Church. More church trials are on their way.

Enough weeping! It is time for targeted anger and moving on. Check out three websites for directed action.

Love Prevails

Methodists In New Directions

Reconciling Ministries Network

Regarding full disclosure, I am a part of Love Prevails. I especially encourage you to visit the website, engage, and follow through to:

• Disclose(t) your support of G*D’s gifts and call to LGBTQI people.

• Divest from financial support of a discriminatory system and reinvest in one of the above.

• Disrupt wherever possible the thinking and action of all parts of the institutional church that are silent about the current discrimination and thereby aid and abet it.

I also encourage you to like the Love Prevails Facebook page

May the refusal of gifts and call (slaying the spirit) and complicity in LGBTQI suicides (slaying the body) end practically now and legislatively at the next General Conference.

Luke 16:1-13

Pentecost +18 - Year C 

Luke 16:1-13

As you forgive, so you will be forgiven is a difficult lesson to learn.

We will put it off as long as possible. Case in point: when squandering gifts, yours and others, is finally realized and called we may consider better options. Among these is forgiving debts.

Note that forgiveness is called “shrewd”. This is a healthy way to look at an otherwise fuzzy idea. 

Note further the dictionary definitions of “shrewd”:

1 archaic:  mischievous

Forgiveness throws a wrench in the best laid plans to gain power over, what fun to watch.

2 obsolete:  abusive, shrewish

Heard of heaping coals of kindness upon another?

3 obsolete:  ominous, dangerous

Forgiveness is dangerous to dangerous behavior as it calls for a change on both sides of the equation. It is not dependent upon either a forgiver or one who is forgiven. Forgiveness is simply one of the realities of life and we can either work with it and flourish or work against it and be dead-headed.

4 a: severe, hard [a shrewd knock]

   b: sharp, piercing [a shrewd wind]

Forgiveness cuts to the bone of what it means to Live, to be one with G*D, with steadfastness. Forgiveness simply is; deal with it.

5 a: marked by clever discerning awareness and hardheaded acumen [shrewd common sense]

   b: given to wily and artful ways or dealing [a shrewd operator]

Shrewd forgiveness takes the archaic, obsolete, and current understandings of forgiveness and evaluates its long-term benefit within a communal context.

You can’t honor forgiveness and keep debts to your benefit. Debts must be released lest they fester into entitlement and sin upon sin eventuate.

ouch to awe

Pentecost +17 - Year C 

ouch to awe

lost sheep

lost coins

lost boys

lost opportunity

lost innocence

lost direction

every loss is significant

O—wail it long—O . . .

even nothing can be lost

O . . .

given time monkeys type Shakespeare

given time loss lingers long

an alchemic catalyst

refining lives

our identity so wrapt

with signs for meaning

with loss we are lost

and learn hoarding early

loss by loss

we find more than less

‘til finally

a simple Ah . . .

1 Timothy 1:12-17

Pentecost +17 - Year C 

1 Timothy 1:12-17

How convenient that in matters of belief ignorance is a blessing, whereas in law it is no excuse at all. If that is not a selling point for mercy, I don’t know what is.

How would it change your theology to say that Jesus came into the world to find what is lost? Is too much lost for you when you claim Jesus’ presence requires the presence of a special class of lost—sin?

I wonder if Timothy would feel the same way if he didn’t identify himself as sinner in chief (competing with Paul) but was simply a mediocre sinner. Would he have then made the cut for the Bible?

Does being found while being a big sinner seem more exciting than simply being found after ignoring signs of where you have been and thus not be able to return from wandering on your own? Imagine not having a sliding scale of lostness and a resultant ability to deal honorably with folks regardless of their degree of lostness. I know it would make a difference in my life and I presume it would make a difference in yours.

Jeremiah 4:11-28

Pentecost +17 - Year C 

Jeremiah 4:11-28

Even though it is difficult to break beyond your experience, the values of your community, the paradigms handed to you, to not do so can lead to writhing in soul pain. This is especially true when it comes to major symbols of meaning. Here to proclaim against Jerusalem is to call into question all that is holy. After all, isn’t Jerusalem the sign of religious exceptionalism—our G*D is not only an awesome G*D, but a winning G*D and, did I mention, my G*D.

Those who can only live within current power structures are known as court prophets who tell one another about the way it should be, which is how is currently is, without attending to any cloud on the horizon. A common but ultimately false way to live. We have so many court prophets that we are empty, empty of understanding.

A very neat thing about this passage is that even though all considered holy is abandoned, it is not a full end. Yes, an end, but a necessary beginning point to shed the accretion of lies (especially those mini-truths that go just a tad beyond what can actually be known) that have deafened us to the full range of gifts that can move a community forward. Eventually we will be able to hear all of creation is holy without breaking it into rankings of this is holy, that is less holy, and that isn’t holy at all.

Start mourning now for a next end in your life. It will be as final as final can be. You won’t be able to go back again. Yet (what a wonderful word) Yet this is not a full end, but a final reality that pushes us to journey onward. If you have mourned well, your ears will open to a real and less far-off hymn that hails a new creation.

Luke 15:1-10

Pentecost +17 - Year C 

Luke 15:1-10

Let’s see, Chapter 14 ended with “Let anyone with ears to hear listen!”

Now, Chapter 15 opens, “Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him.”

Just taking those at face-value it might seem as though the folks structurally left out of the religious power loop were the ones best able to listen.

Presuming so, who are the folks who will be listening best in your realm of influence?

If you just run with a religious crowd there may not be anyone, including yourself, who can listen to transformational rejoicing. If everything is aligned, the scriptures and creeds all cohere with no discrepancies, and G*D is in charge—what is there to listen to? Isn’t it just a waste of praise time?

When it comes to the lost, there is no time to lose. Listen for a cry. Find.

Philemon 1-25

Pentecost +16 - Year C 

Philemon 1-25

John Wesley’s last letter was to Britain’s paramount abolitionist, William Wilberforce, who had been converted under his ministry. In it he referred to slavery as “that execrable villainy”. In his Notes Wesley finds here a message that “infinitely transcends all the wisdom of the world. And it gives us a specimen how Christians ought to treat of secular affairs from higher principles.”

What do these higher principles have to do with the slavery of sweatshops and trafficking? What about the enslavement of political processes under a dictator? Where does economic slavery come into living-wage issues and capitalism in general that willingly enslaves the poor for the benefit of excess profit?

Paul tries to use a carrot and stick approach in the relationship between Philemon and Onesimus. We try the same in all the above even though it is seldom systemically helpful. You might want to look at LovePrevailsUMC.com and its emphasis upon Disclose(t), Divest, and Disrupt since building relationships, playing elect the delegate, and legislative processes have not taken overtly discriminatory language against LGBTQI people out of The Book of Discipline. [Yes, join in learning more about and doing those three actions as well as sending money to this organization. Disclaimer: I am one of its founders.]

Extra credit: Read John Wesley’s Thoughts Upon Slavery. Note how little scripture he uses, compared to his usual sermons and his reliance upon experience and grace.

Psalm 139:1-6, 13-18

Pentecost +16 - Year C 

Psalm 139:1-6, 13-18

A part of the fear and wonder of life is the way in which we are shaped and reshaped by transformations of mind and responses to circumstances. We are knit together and periodically are unraveled and reknit—practically snake-like or snail-like.

Even if a frame is known, what is surprising is the geometric fashion in which it scales.

Imagine if you will coming to a last thought of G*D. Might it be related to a first word? Let it be . . . . I am still with you. If “it is good” is a first word and If “steadfast love” is a last word, might “blessed” or “beloved” be a connecting word? If so what might keep us from hearing that for ourselves and hearing it for others until they are able to hear it for themselves? Wrestling with our resistance and our attraction to this procession helps clarify darkness into light.

Jeremiah 18:1-11

Pentecost +16 - Year C 

Jeremiah 18:1-11

This sounds very much like a story from Kafka or one of the dystopian novels. There is a plan or template you are not aware of against which you are constantly being measured. Moment by moment you are being conditioned toward some endpoint. Sometimes you receive positive reinforcement and sometimes negative.

This is not really a learning environment. New occasions continue to come along. A new pot or people is raised up and has a flaw. What is a G*D to do—other than toss it aside, of course. If for whatever reason some flash of beauty might be seen beyond a flaw (or even within it), then it may sit on an honored shelf.

Appreciate this for the profligate creativity present as life is called into existence and claimed to be good. Appreciate this for Kali showing up to knock it all about with too many left hands not know what a right is throwing.

So, G*D can shape and unshape from the outside in response to our shaping and reshaping from the inside. This and $5 gets us where? Where is the on-going relationship that accounts for working together for a common good? In the aftermath of Labor Day this passage is weighted overmuch toward management.

Luke 14:25-33

Pentecost +16 - Year C 

Luke 14:25-33

Identifying the constraints on our willingness to continue growing is an important part of our development, whether that be physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, or any other ____al.

Amazingly—or not—the obverse of a constraint is a point of growth. We might also say that whoever is willing to love fathers and mothers of any child, the children of any mother or father, and even their loss to one form of death or another, is already a proficient disciple of Jesus.

Likewise we can also look for signs of new life in people that may yet lead them to a cross rather than only keeping a weather-eye peeled for cross-tropic martyrs.

It is as we add these additional ways of measuring life that we can finally see the cost/benefit results of relating our individual lives with those of a larger community. Eventually we understand that a relationship to a community means our very possessions are transformed from mine to ours and in this transformation find an excess value to invest in bringing tomorrow to today—heaven to earth, if you will.

Blessings to you as you account for both sides of your life’s ledger—Yeses and Noes, Debits and Credits, Limits and Possibilities, Neighb*r and S-lf.

Jeremiah 1:4-10

Pentecost +14 - Year C

Jeremiah 1:4-10

We are not stuck where we are. Even though we typically project all possible futures in light of today's limitation, and so settle for a limited tomorrow, this is more connected to our fears than to reality. Again we meet ourselves as our own worst advocate or best enemy who can preemptively disarm our hope.

A new vision and new way of speaking about such is always available.

Here G*D may be appealing to our id more than our super-ego. Reduce your boundary watching and let more energy loose. Dangerous, yes. Necessary for growth, yes. Uncomfortable, yes. Meaningful, yes.

So what boundary excuse have you been using these days? Probably not age, if you are reading this.

One of the best ways around talking ourselves into not proceeding is to gather in a small group able to encourage experiments as well as be in solidarity in the midst of difficult decisions (acknowledging such and working toward addressing them).

Luke 13:10-17

Pentecost +14 - Year C

Luke 13:10-17

Understanding that G*D is an unassailable authority and that Satan is the great tester there are some questions to ask about who is being tested and where authority lies.

The woman? She seems to have remained faithful to her religious duties for 18 years.

The pharisees? They have been consistent about the importance of Sabbath and waiting some brief number of hours would better honor the import of Sabbath.

Jesus? This appears to have been an opportune time for the Satan to return, not with another big test but an ordinary one about patience? Jesus sounds as if he is anticipating the American way of wanting what he wants when he wants it. Is the use of authority qua authority the hammer to pull out for all situations requiring a too?

As always a dearth of information leads to speculation. You may be interested in the series, Provoking the Gospel of __________ by Richard W. Swanson which looks at the Gospels through the lens of theatre. Here is his concluding paragraph:

Did the woman want to be healed on Sabbath and disrupt services? Play the scene assuming that she did. Play it also assuming that she did not. After all, she was still attending synagogue services even though she had been praying (I am sure) for eighteen years for God to straighten her. Sabbath is crucial for faithful Jews. What happens in the scene if she is annoyed at being made the occasion for the Sabbath to be disrupted.

Happy imagining to you.

Survey link

Rats, link to the survey didn't get included in the last post. Here it is.

surveymonkey.com/s/names4god

G*D language survey and instance

The UnitedMethodist Publishing house is taking a survey of people associated with The United Methodist Church regarding the "names of god". I thought readers associated in some way with the UMC might have something to report to them. Our language does shape our practice and there are practices with the UMC standing in need of repentance and reform. Better "god" language would help move beyond the current blockages. Here is the notice of the survey with deadlines and links. It is followed by an example of application.

-------

The General Commission on the Status and Role of Women seeks to better understand United Methodist attitudes about language for God.

This study is designed to be taken by anyone who considers themselves part of a United Methodist Community. All participants, members, leaders, clergy, teachers and seminary professors participating in a United Methodist Congregation or community or otherwise related to The United Methodist Church.

Results of this survey will be used to develop new guidelines for language in worship planning, shape recommendations to the next General Conference, and inform curriculum development.

We want to hear opinions from people holding a variety of perspectives regarding language used for God in The UMC.

Most participants will complete the survey in under 10 minutes.

Your answers will be completely anonymous. Any questions marked with an asterisk (*) require an answer in order to progress through the survey.

If you have any questions about the survey, please contact GCSRW at akrumbach@gcsrw.org or 312-346-4900.

In order to progress through this survey, please use the following navigation buttons:
• Click the Next button to continue to the next page.
• Click the Previous button to return to the previous page.
• Click the Exit the Survey Early button if you need to exit the survey.
• Click the Submit button to submit your survey.

• Questions marked with an asterisk (*) are required.

The link to the survey is: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/names4god
-------

Here is an article showing some of the import of our "spiritual" language:
http://vitalpiety.com/2013/08/14/sin-and-the-christian-life-a-response-to-rachel-held-evans/

Hebrews 11:29 - 12:2

Pentecost +13 - Year C 

Hebrews 11:29 - 12:2

People acted. Presumably they acted on what they understood to be true for them, their faith (since we don’t have faith in that which doesn’t ring true for us). But, bottom-line, people acted.

Given the complexity of communities, there were undoubtedly some who simply acted because others led the way. It wasn’t a faith thing at all for them, just a path of least resistance.

Yet everyone on the winning side is accorded a trophy, faith is attributed to their actions whether they knew it or not. It is this mixed bag of the designated faithful we are called to emulate. They bear witness to actions accomplished and now surround us with encouragement, regardless of faith holding, to participate in the joy and journey of life. Even if you are but a tag-along, do so with all you can muster.

Psalm 80:1-2, 8-19

Pentecost +13 - Year C 

Psalm 80:1-2, 8-19

Who is this “they” who have burned an emblematic vineyard? It is the other part of a sibling squabble.

 What is not addressed is the expected parental/prophetic question, “What did you do that led to their burning the vineyard?” This story is as old as the hills and as recent as any child.

So here we have an attempt to sway the parental unit with partial information, what those others did, and what we promise will be different.

While this represents an all too human game of “You and Them Fight”, it really does need some questions asked.

• What is your part in your circumstance?
• What makes you think you don’t deserve the same recompense?
• What part of your promise can be practiced now to better show your intent for later?
• Why expect G*D to immediately change if you are only going to promise some future change?
• Why would restoration be what you are after? Previous privilege didn’t go so well, what would make you think this will be sufficient to not end up in the same position in another generation? and
• Do you not know that a shining face will reveal yourself as well as another?

Guess what, you could have seen this coming and been proactive in doing something about it. Why the obliviousness? Why the reactivity? Learn! Replant!

Isaiah 5:1-7

Pentecost +13 - Year C 

Isaiah 5:1-7

For a simply ecstatic starting point of cry after cry of “Let it be!” some expectations of being began to emerge from their interactions: Justice/Righteousness.

When what is experienced is bloodshed and a cry of anguish, something is wrong and needs to be set aright. Here the first response (like the first stage of grief, is denial — “Let it not be!”

Of course that is not a response that settles anything.

In the midst of vineyards invading a land of milk and honey, previous bloodshed and cries of anguish had arisen from the previous tennants. Now, instead of overrunning others we are running headlong into one another. Another model is needed.

For the moment image a bi-layer, extended release Mucinex pill:

What might be added to basic justice/righteousness to extend it? Mercy/Forgiveness?

Luke 12:49-56

Pentecost +13 - Year C 

Luke 12:49-56

“I came to bring fire to the earth. . . .” brings a direct line to the current number 1 best seller in hardback non-fiction — Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth by Reza Aslan.

Here are two paragraphs from page 120:

     The Kingdom of God is a call to revolution, plain and simple. And what revolution, especially one fought against an empire whose armies had ravaged the land set aside by God for his chosen people, could be free of violence and bloodshed? If the Kingdom of God is not an ethereal fantasy, how else could it be established upon a land occupied by a massive imperial presence except through the use of force? The prophets, bandits, zealots, and messiahs of Jesus’s time all knew this, which is why they did not hesitate to employ violence in trying to establish God’s rule on earth. The question is, did Jesus feel the same? Did he agree with his fellow messiahs Hezekiah the bandit chief, Judas the Galilean, Menahem, Simon son of Giora, Simon son of Kochba, and the rest, that violence was necessary to bring about the rule of God on earth? Did he follow the zealot doctrine that the land had to be forcibly cleansed of all foreign elements just as God had demanded in the scriptures? 

     There may be no more important question than this for those trying to pry the historical Jesus away from the Christian Christ. The common depiction of Jesus as an inveterate peacemaker who “loved his enemies” and “turned the other cheek” has been built mostly on his portrayal as an apolitical preacher with no interest in or, for that matter, knowledge of the politically turbulent world in which he lived. That picture of Jesus has already been shown to be a complete fabrication. The Jesus of history had a far more complex attitude toward violence. There is no evidence that Jesus himself openly advocated violent actions. But he was certainly no pacifist. “Do not think that I have come to bring peace on earth. I have not come to bring peace, but the sword” (Matthew 10:34 | Luke 12:51).

This passage certainly is a passionate, zealous one. How are you reading it today? How are you interpreting this passage and Jesus in light of it?

I recommend the book to you. There is not any new material here, but Aslan does put together a very readable and persuadable argument that is worth looking at in yet another day of zealotry, imperialism, and generalized terror in and by a security state. 

in summary

Pentecost +12 - Year C 

don’t be afraid

to be generous

to be bold

to be alert

to take it personally

to succeed

be afraid

of routine ritual

of trading evil for good

of presuming justice

defenseless orphans

passivity

rejoice in beauty

what seems extraneous

that holds fast

and reveals honor

abjure faith

built upon obedience

without reason for hope

mistaking this for home

There is no escape

from involvement

other than entitlement

which leads in circles

bless each option

and demand more

Hebrews 11:1-3,8-16

Pentecost +12 - Year C 

Hebrews 11:1-3,8-16

Faith is currently defined in Mirriam-Webster as:

     1) allegiance

     2) belief and trust in

     3) that which is believed

How does this differ from:

     1) assurance of that hoped for

     2) conviction of the unseen

     3) a source of approval

After you have played with the intersections of the connotations of the above, we are then given an example that adds a fourth category:

    4) obedience

Now, against what you first came up with between definitions, play again with “obedience”. How does that change things? Is obedience a matter of faith? When? Under what conditions?

Etymologically, obedience is to be oriented (ob- —toward) what can be (-oedire —heard). What have you heard calling to you this week? Something in the news? A community still to be brought into being by our choices throughout the day?

At stake is what is so firmly grounded in you that whether or not it comes to pass in your lifetime, you will live for it to be available for some generation to come. Remember realized eschatology and be glad.

= = = 

realized eschatology: being engaged in the process of becoming, rather than waiting for external and unknown forces to bring about destruction

For extra credit there is this paper to consider.

Psalm 50:1-8, 22-23

Pentecost +12 - Year C 

Psalm 50:1-8, 22-23

Some folks appreciate a firm boundary more than others. For those that do, marking such a boundary with fire helps keep it in sight and at a distance.

Here the boundary may be seen as beauty—a beauty of interconnections; a beauty of wholeness; a beauty of creation and creativity.

Within this boundary there are two complementary responses. One is a basic thankfulness that is large enough to be attached to any particular form of that thanks (sacrifice of old or some more contemporary ritual expression of it). A second is that of action based on that thankfulness or gratitude—a move from beauty to beauty, as a frozen beauty looses presence to become object.

When these two (thankfulness and responsiveness) get covered over by whatever seems to offer greater control or power or falter in the face of an interpreted false step, there will be a consequence. Here that is imaged as having taken our eye off of gratitude and embodying that. The result is having wandered too close to the fiery boundary and perhaps even crossing it and not knowing how to return.

May you be blessed this day with a clear vision of the beauty of life, your part in it, and many expressions of thankfulness.

Isaiah 1:1, 10-20

Pentecost +12 - Year C 

Isaiah 1:1, 10-20

Refraining from doing harm unto others is hard work. It is much easier to simply cover over a time we snuck a little piece away from someone else with some penitential act. And, wouldn’t you know it, we will bargain for the cheapest possible penance as though our wounding of another doesn’t send ripples through the community beyond an original sin. Cheap penance never fully redresses the issue at hand, just as cheap grace never fully addresses a needed healing. Compensation plus more is a discounted possibility and changes to any structures that cause as much difficulty as individual acts is removed as an option.

This is an habitual pattern within which each generation grows. As such it carries much power.

To break this habit will take more and more folks doing well unto others until several generations have come and gone and a new way becomes the norm.

This is not a matter of following some external rule book that turns us into willing and obedient servants of this theocracy or that. 

We know what is good: be fair, kind, and grounded. If we refuse to acknowledge and learn from these three, we remain stuck and sundered from one another and ourselves. This doesn’t take any external authority to make it more real than a reflection on what we would want done for ourself. This requires an acknowledgement that others won’t know that without our telling them, and so heightens the importance of mutual listening for what another has to say about how they would know they are being welcomed, honored, cared for.

Luke 12:32-48

Pentecost +12 - Year C 

Luke 12:32-48

Want to be healed?

Ante up!

Here it is important to tell the difference between quid pro quo and expected outcome for an anticipated input.

When we lose track of these two dynamics and mistake one for the other, the word “unexpected” may be too mild for the expected results of such confusion.

So, will this be on some final exam or is it for the living now?

Do note that everyone get a beating, for who can read another’s mind or heart? There will be big or small slip-ups. This is simply the way a choice-based reality without sufficient information works.

Rather than read this as a rule to be memorized for a test, it is more helpfully experienced as a mirror. Really, what do you have? Really, what do you need? Really, what do others need? [Pause for consideration and action.] Now, really, what do you still have?

beyond

Pentecost +11 - Year C 

divide their assets

multiply mine

guard against greed

anticipate abundance

back and forth

we dignify dualities

it is time to move on

beyond even both

generous compassion

recognizes neither

we are one

and not done

Colossians 3:1-11

Pentecost +11 - Year C 

Colossians 3:1-11

For those who don’t live in an either/or world, there is no putting to death those parts of us we would disown if we could. We can hedge them round, but those boundaries need to be constantly attended.

It is tricky enough to attend to what we want to do without adding in control issues about what we do not want to do. Here we have the first two of the United Methodist General Rules: Do No Harm; Do Good. What is presumed is some Engagement with G*D.

Escaping some forecast wrath to come used to be a big motivation. This fits well with the lower part of the spiral development model. It is not fitting so well with the Yellow and Turquoise stages.

Imagine for a bit what might be an organizing question for the present day. If not escape, what?

Would enhancing gratitude be an attractor? This, as differentiated from repression of self? If not something in this arena, what then.

I’d like to establish a contest to come up with a significant organizing questions for 2013 and 2014. I don’t have a prize in mind, but this is really one of those contests where the satisfaction is in the participation, not the result. Do send those cards and letters in.