Isaiah 6:1-13

Pentecost +1 - Year B

Isaiah 6:1-13

In the year that Jesus died, we experienced an astral spirit nicknamed, “Holy”, in a locked room. Seraphs in the form of winged fire rested upon us. The foundation shook and smoke filled the room.

Our first response was being lost. Jesus Crucified, ourselves overcome.

Then a voice from the flame joined my voice, “Our waiting is fullfilled. Power has arrived. Our fears departed, our weeping blotted up.” Between the two — a third voice came — a voice in another language. And together the voices of flame and self and the unknown started on a journey. “We’re ready as we’ll ever be. Let’s go.”

Without comprehending we began listening and encouraging more listening. We ignored our mind’s babble, paused our ear's attending to a beckoning siren, softened our eye’s search for a next shiny bauble. And we found a healing in an expansive and expanding company of diverse voices.

Cities have lain waste long enough. Exiles have been away long enough. Let’s talk. Let’s re-decide to use all the gifts available, discarding none. The least voice adds to our common wisdom. We go forth to learn other experiences, other ways to say, “L’chaim!” We find ourselves returned from Babel to Paradise.

John 3:1-17

Pentecost +1 - Year B

John 3:1-17

Loyal Oppositionist, Nicodemus, visits in the night. A conversation ensues.

“We know you teach a way of G*D.”

“In the midst of all the miracles going on, claimed and unclaimed, this is indeed high praise. Y’all must have had a ‘new-birth’ experience to discern this.”

“Did not!”

“Then your praise was false.”

“What?”

“Don’t you know how you give yourself away? How then can you receive a new teaching?”

“Umm.”

“Lord love a duck -- and also you and yours. Remember life is not a zero sum game. Differences are not a reason for condemnation. The goal is health, internals bound to externals. Think about it. We’ll meet again.”

- - -

Of course this is all told in self-referential Johannine-speak. If you were to listen to the wind blowing where it will, you might have heard this shorter version. Is it less inspiring?

If you listened carefully, you might also have heard a non-conditional statement of verses 16 and 17, “G*D loves the world. All are beloved and are to work together to make the world healthy.”

never forget

Pentecost - Year B

promised

a spirit of truth

implied

current disconnect

process

broken isolation

realized

return to community

and so we progress

through wind and fire

to experience 

a lack of sin

in the face of 

intentional dialogue

a resurrected revelation

“life is good”

an abundance of thanks

keep us focused

pointing connection

with a better future

still hidden

yet underway

discrimination put down

discernment enjoined

even so never forget

there’s more to bear

beyond correcting wrong

is building aright

while fearfully caught

a door is unlocked

voices are raised

ears are engaged

deeds are shown

lives are connected

even so never forget

there’s more to bear

our beloved clay

so us so now

holds many shapes

unto a new day

through an astonished past

and bewildered present

hand in hand

we sculpt next steps

into a mysterous mountain

and a deep blue sea

to listen together

to what will be

Romans 8:22-27

Pentecost - Year B

Romans 8:22-27

With birthing images galore we might hear verse 26 as: “...the Spirit helps us in our gestation periods.”

In the midst of all the busy-ness of life it is sometimes difficult to see ourselves as still gestating, not yet ready for birthing. Our innate narcissism and sense of privilege doesn’t know when we are out of our league, inarticulate, waiting, growing. And so a sense of preveniency is good to have to wrap around and remind ourselves that we are being interceded for by many friends, ancestors, descendants, and all of a still-laboring creation.

Pentecost is another name for yet another birth opportunity flooded with the blood of birthing and one last great push and whoosh of breath exhaled. Let’s see if this next birthing can have us rebuilding alongside one another and call it G*D at work or, more simply, expectant hope.

Psalm 104:24-34, 35b

Ordinarily the following response would have been a comment under yesterday's blog. I so enjoyed (if that is the right term) it that I wanted to be sure it had the formatting available here and not in the comment section. Thanks, Tom!

= = = = = = =

Psalm 104:24-34, 35b

Are “sinners” and the “wicked” part of the manifold works? Where then lies their being excluded and if they are excluded, who will protest when it is our turn? What feels good from a privileged position now cannot be guaranteed.

No wonder someone feels like they must continually sing praise. Might a bit of a lapse bring being lumped with those sinners we cared not a whit for? This is dangerous territory when we stop to consider some imaginary gap between creation and sin and whether praise can bridge it.

Continually singing praise to keep something you don't want from happening is kinda like a filibuster (or OCD), but hey, after all, it's not the singing praise all day that gets to me, it's the incessant asking me to chip in $5 or $10. (I will admit that the other day I found myself humming "row, row, row your boat" instead of "onward christian soldiers" but then I immediately thought of River Jordan and figured I was safe.)

Ever since that "Cherubim United" decision, G*DPAC has been asking daily for my money to help counter the massive wicked-anonymous-donor million$ that have been funding those divisive attack ads against praise-singing bridgers. The Children of Light appear to be grossly out-spent by the Children of Wickedness and Sin. We've lapsed. We've been lumped with the uncared-for not-a-whits, commodified, dis-informed, bought and sold and discarded until the next election cycle. We must fight back! Let the wicked be consumed! And if you are one of the wicked, send in your money to us before you get consumed and your name will be put in a redemption lottery (more $$$ means more chances!).

Praise alone can no longer bridge the imaginary gap between creation and sin.

Your generous contribution will!

Which side are you on!

Skip the praise! Today it takes money - lots of money - to bridge that imaginary gap. Please chip in $5 or $10 today! 

And don't worry, we'll ask you again tomorrow!

We're re-defining the word "pray" (as in "unceasing") to include monetary expressions of praise and thanksgiving!

How manifold are YOUR works?????? (For your convenience we have pre-filled the contribution form.)

[x]  Yes! Accept my generous non-deductable donation of [ ]$50  [ ]$100  [x]$500 [ ]other today!

[x]  Yes! I want to be sure to keep my place on the right side of things. 

      Make my contribution recurring

          __  daily

          __  weekly

          __  monthly

          x   all of the above

[x]  Yes! for only $15 more, please send me an endless-loop praise cd of "onward righteous rowboats" which I can keep running 24/7.

[x]  Yes! I want to join the Occupy G*D movement ahead of time: I agree to be pre-occupied.

[x]  Yes!

P.S.

By the way, anyone interested in doing a grassrooots recall of G*D? I'm not sure how many signatures we need on the petition but this is not the Creation I know and love, not the Creation I signed up for. All those outsider sinning wickeds... and whose bright idea was flesh-eating bacteria? I mean, talk about imaginary gap - creation might as well BE sin.

For now imagine the wind blowing ships hither and yon. Imagine them tacking into and running with the wind. When wind interacts with life, there are all these little decisions to make. Blessings on your hearing a new wind blow and responding well no matter from whence it arises.

And why, why, WHY is the answer always blowin' in the wind? it's just not right. I'm figuring a recall will be easier than impeachment, but hey, what do you all think?

Tom

Psalm 104:24-34, 35b

Pentecost - Year B

Psalm 104:24-34, 35b

Always be a bit suspect when something is left out. This section of the Psalm begins, “...how manifold are your works!” Then, at the end, leaves out “Let sinners be consumed from the earth, and let the wicked be no more.”

Are “sinners” and the “wicked” part of the manifold works? Where then lies their being excluded and if they are excluded, who will protest when it is our turn? What feels good from a privileged position now cannot be guaranteed.

No wonder someone feels like they must continually sing praise. Might a bit of a lapse bring being lumped with those sinners we cared not a whit for? This is dangerous territory when we stop to consider some imaginary gap between creation and sin and whether praise can bridge it.

For now imagine the wind blowing ships hither and yon. Imagine them tacking into and running with the wind. When wind interacts with life, there are all these little decisions to make. Blessings on your hearing a new wind blow and responding well no matter from whence it arises.

Acts 2:1-21

Pentecost - Year B

Acts 2:1-21

Can you imagine Pentecost without everyone being together? That seems to be what we have turned it into. Instead of being able to speak in the native tongue of others, there is an insistence that my formulation of G*D’s deeds of power is the only creditable one - so you learn my language.

Note that the first part of this extended sermon has not yet mentioned Jesus. Pentecost is a universalized experience and without that expansiveness would not have had the effect it did.

The communal nature of Pentecosts has deep roots. Remember Tobit 2:1-2 where enjoying and sharing a feast completes the rejoicing. If you go on to verse 3 ff. there is a presaging that here also it won’t be long before the joy of this moment seems very fragile and sorrow arrives.

The practice of counting seven times seven weeks (or years) and then having a Jubilee time is time-honored. For a moment, step back from Easter as an individual event and see Pentecost as a time of consolidating our individual responses to crucifixion/resurrection or dashed-hopes/hope-aglimmering and moving toward economic justice, a meeting with foreigners and the poor. If it is just motivation for a party, we’ll take it, but hope that that party has redemptive qualities beyond feeling good (not to discount feeling good).

What is a vision? - What is a prophesy? - Where is a community? - that will transform us again to pilgrims covenanted together across our divides and moving together toward creating a paradise among us?

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

Pentecost - Year B

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

Between "...none of you asks me, "Where are you going?"" and  "I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now....the spirit of truth...will declare to you the things that are to come" are questions of sin and righteousness. What is sin? What is righteousness? What does Jesus' journey have to do with making a judgment about such?

These are questions that are fraught with uncertainty. Our limited vision has proved to be wrong, time after time. Why would we think that suddenly we are now getting it right?

If we are so consistently short-sighted about sin, continually thinking it has to do with our particular aversions, might we not need to put the idea of sin down for a while? If we have such variation in what it is that G*D desires, developing one creed after another, might we not need to set categorical righteousness aside for a bit. In both cases we will probably find ourselves sliding back into some meta-wrongs and meta-rights, but we may also be able to see them anew - with all their glorious limitations in addition to their aspirations to ultimacy.

How did the world get sin wrong? Perhaps we hear here that Jesus is not really about sin but determining what is trustworthy and following wherever that leads.

How did the world get righteousness wrong? Perhaps we need to hear that it isn't about moments of revelation but a larger journey toward joining with G*D in a healthy way and it is unhelpful to do agreed upon righteousness when we might simply connect self with creation.

How did the world get judgment wrong? Perhaps we need to hear that judgment is not about right and wrong, something Satan loves to confuse, but about how well our current behavior accords with healthier living. Judgment is not so much between A and B (though that is a helpful marketing, design tool) as it is comparing both to C.

It is time to consider again whether or not our current judgments about sin and righteousness are getting in the way of developing healthy temperaments.

Noh Theatre

Easter 7 - Year B

making meaning known to others

is quite a bother

eventually I must speak on behalf of those

who don’t quite know

and in this disappointing moment

more is lost than won

an intermediary can guard but not grow

and meaning goes

demanding structure determine personnel

masks need and gift

claiming we reap more than we sow

we say more than we know

soon it comes down to me us and them

elect and condemned

1 John 5:9-13

Easter 7 - Year B

1 John 5:9-13

“Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.”

And who arbitrates who has the “Son” and who doesn’t. Since the days of Constantine, the church institutional is the decider. This is a power position. No wonder church and state are so intimately intertwined — each using the other to its ends that become closer and closer together.

At stake here is something called “eternal life”. That’s big. At least it sounds so. If you are out for it and the arbiter is the church you are willing to cover your conscience in order to follow where it leads. A few shady thoughts, doctrines, actions can be excused in light of eternity.

Why an indefinite length of time as time is a desirable, I don’t know. More ticks and tocks, in and of themselves, do not appeal. In a loving context, time is luminous. Listen to a few sentences from The New Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible about the word here translated “eternal”.

The basic sense of the Greek word aiōn is the relative time associated with something, such as a person’s life or a generation in the sense of an “age” or an “era.”... It may refer to an indefinite past or future, often with prepositional constructions; e.g., “from of old”, “before the ages”, “forever”.... Similarly, they may also have the sense of “in perpetuity” ... Aiōn as the time of the world elides with a notion of the “world” itself. ... Thus, in the NRSV, aiōn is also translated “world”.

Imagine how differently we might approach this passage if we were talking about G*D giving us the world or G*D giving us this generation. To see this passage as some heavenly eternity does a disservice to more energetic translations that wouldn’t have us sit back and talk about Jesus. We could be doing what Jesus did, take advantage of the time given a person to draw near to G*D and to Neighbor. We could be asking what it means to honor the world as we honor Jesus rather than crucify the environment as Jesus was crucified, for the sake of power.

May you know you have your life in which to shape meaning. May you know your life to be invested in your generation, your era, your time and context. May you know your life to be connected with both past and future, but neither being your end-all or be-all.

Psalm 1

Easter 7 - Year B

Psalm 1

Delight in law is not in its minutiae and restrictions, but in opening possibilities to a larger future. At stake here is not law qua law, but an ability to engage the experiences of life and learn. [Note: The usual translation of “law” is better understood as “instruction” or “opportunity for learning”.]

Delight is having a source of sustenance and refreshment as well as a result in participating in the future through fruit able to reproduce. Image yourself as a tree – what does that entail and are those universal needs that need protecting wherever law becomes restrictive and discriminatory.

This delight in learning and growing, experiencing and passing on, are available whether we walk, stand, or sit. No matter our current state of affairs, blessedness is available.

Acts 1:15-17, 21-26

Easter 7 - Year B

Acts 1:15-17, 21-26

So often we define ourselves against someone or someones. We are not as bad as they, so we must be good.

At least Judas was still seen as one of the twelve, even as Thomas was after his desire for personal confirmation in addition to the witness of the other 10. This leaves room for me and for you when we have done our own betrayal or evidenced our own deep questions of authority.

Back then there was magic in numbers. There probably still is. And so more magic was used to determine who would be added for the purpose of some desired number. Neither Justus nor Matthias seemed to have anything going for them other than having hung around for long enough. Sometimes that is all we have going for us, longevity.

So why would G*D shave the dice to favor Matthias, of whom we nevermore hear? No good reason. Why are you where you are, with the opportunities you have? No good reason, so go ahead and make the best of it.

And what of Justus? Was he humble enough to get back in line? Did he pack up and leave, as so many others had done over the years? Did he pick up a third alias?

These are probably the wrong questions to be asking and so let’s return to numerology. Should any Christian Community be larger than 12? This size can engage one another and fruitfully have both a Peter and a Judas in it. Larger gets into voting folks out or pressuring them to not be themselves. Imagine what limiting a congregation to 12 might mean for freeing up resources (no building needed); for engaging the world prophetically (what other option would there be); and for attending to the mystery of a community together (folks called together, not a social club).

John 17:6-19

Easter 7 - Year B

John 17:6-19

To connect with G*D is to run the risk of privilege. We can circularly assert that those who hear our version of G*D already belonged to G*D as G*D’s slaves and those who are already G*D’s property are the ones who respond.

It is not a far jump to then argue that everything is being done for these special ones and they have an inside track, a protected path, a guarded life, a safe journey and end.

By the time we get to sanctification, holiness of living, it becomes a question of belief, of truth, of doctrine, not a maturation of spirit or a wholeness of vision connected with behavior.

Why would we not pray for those not part of my group? Why would we take responsibility away from believers and put it all on Jesus?

Are we protected for ourselves alone or are we protected in order to be able to risk on behalf of self and others? Are you a Christian for the perk of some imagined salvation or to engage the world and reveal it as beloved creation?

This passage is a most troublesome construct that gets us in more trouble than it resolves.

Simon Says

Easter 6 - Year B

as . . .

so I have . . .

if . . .

I will . . .

that my joy . . .

your joy . . .

love one another . . .

friends . . .

known . . .

chosen . . .

fruitful . . .

ask . . .

1 John 5:1-6

Easter 6 - Year B

1 John 5:1-6

All manner of a priori statements here. The biggest of them is that our faith is the source of victory. Somehow belief in Jesus as the preeminent one born of G*D trumps everything and is the answer to everything. Some preexistent truth that has been labeled Spirit, validates this. This puts the Spirit in the same position as a concierge who validates a parking token.

Can those who believe Jesus is related to G*D, believe also that everyone else is also so related? If they can, they are larger than belief, they are compassionate. If they can’t, they are smaller than the experience available to them, they are dogmatic.

Compare verses 6-8 from the NRSV with The Message:

“This is the one who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ, not with the water only but with the water and the blood. And the Spirit is the one that testifies, for the Spirit is the truth. There are three that testify: the Spirit and the water and the blood, and these three agree.” [NRSV}

“Jesus—the Divine Christ! He experienced a life-giving birth and a death-killing death. Not only birth from the womb, but baptismal birth of his ministry and sacrificial death. And all the while the Spirit is confirming the truth, the reality of God's presence at Jesus' baptism and crucifixion, bringing those occasions alive for us. A triple testimony: the Spirit, the Baptism, the Crucifixion. And the three in perfect agreement.” [Message]

Now, you try to put into words what these constructs do that a simple, “The Universe, G*D, if you will, engages life - respond”, does not do.

Might this quote attributed to Albert Einstein help us connect with a larger circle of Jesus’ birth and death as well as our own and others we relate with or are at odds with? - “We are part of the whole which we call the universe, but it is an optical delusion of our mind that we think we are separate. This separateness is like a prison for us. Our job is to widen the circle of our compassion so we feel connected with all people and situations.”

Psalm 98

Easter 6 - Year B

Psalm 98

To judge is to engage in discernment.

Where is righteousness?

Where is equity?

When will judgment take place? Well, now and now and now again.

Want to be well judged? Judge well where righteousness and equity might be revealed and reveal them through your actions.

Acts 10:44-48

Easter 6 - Year B

Acts 10:44-48

Gifts bear the most fruit when done in community. “While Peter was still speaking”.... the uncircumcised, the alien, the outcast, the pagan, the unclean, the unacceptable are revealed as human as any circumcised, native, in-group, pious, clean and worthy of my peers. They, too, are open to and active in thanksgiving.

And then a testing question to those in control, with privilege, will we withhold “inherent worth” from those we had labeled as beyond grace by virtue of their community or choice? If we will, for how long? If we won’t, why not now?

This same testing question comes again and again as we peel back the layers of our prejudice to reveal the next person or group that sets our teeth just a little bit on edge or raises the hair on the back of our neck just a tad.

I am less impressed with Peter’s preaching than I am with his application of grace beyond authorized lines. We have so many fine preachers who can get a crowd riled up, even speaking in tongues, but who can’t make the practical application of the universal nature of G*D’s generosity beyond our limits.

John 15:9-17

Easter 6 - Year B

John 15:9-17

In John 13 we hear the importance of “loving one another” - it is the preeminent sign of community. Those who do so reflect their connection with wholeness. In the Christian community this is being a disciple of Jesus, one who loves those Jesus loves. Of course this quickly becomes a universal stance toward all people and all of creation as we are all relatives of one another.

Here we again hear about “loving one another”. This is not about being an attractant to church - others seeing our love for one another and coming to wonder and give an offering to keep us going. At the first level this is simply a way to live, whether a disciple of Jesus or not. All manner of folks offer themselves to others - to show what they know and understand.

A more dangerous level is reading this too literally, as though only Jesus’ disciples can love, follow this command, or that love is outcome based - that we will love as long as we are getting what we want.

There is also a circularity here - I am giving you a command to love one another so that you will love one another as you can’t do it without being commanded. Can a commanded love be love?

Back to a more helpful reading, your gifts will bear the most fruit when done in community. Therefore love one another and prosper.

both

Easter 5 - Year B

vineyards need care

vine growers

vines grown

interrelate

we abide

together

in one another

connected

I am vine

you are branches

I am a branch

you are vine

here is soil

here is water

wide knowledge

deep understanding

bold action

does not miss

freedom’s opportunity

to love

love’s possibility

focuses attention

on implementation

everywhere

1 John 4:7-21

Easter 5 - Year B

1 John 4:7-21

“Those who say, “I love God,” and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen. The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also.” (verses 20-21)

What is the freedom of G*D? Do others have that same freedom? If so, how does that change our relationship with them?

There will be those who claim that only G*D has freedom.

There will be those who claim that everyone has freedom.

There will be those who claim that no one has freedom.

There are other claims as well.

What do you claim?

Psalm 22:25-31

Easter 5 - Year B

Psalm 22:25-31

Dominion? Rule? Bow down? Serve?

Or, the poor shall eat and be satisfied!

Which is more praiseful?

Acts 8:26-40

Easter 5 - Year B

Acts 8:26-40

And so we were led to go toward the south that goes down from Wisconsin to the Florida Keys. There was the United Methodist Church in Tampa, seated in General Conference, debating what it meant to be transformed into disciples of Jesus. Actually it was more about making others into ourselves. We heard so many different interpretations of scripture that it became a babel of confused theologies. At one point 44% voted that Grace was not available to all - John Wesley wept; John Calvin winked.

Unspoken was the question, “How can I understand? Where is a reliable voice in the midst of so many voices?"

The good news is that there is a reliable lens through which we might hear the depths of a religious tradition call out to us.

At General Conference human identity issues measure every vote. What will divestment from Israel mean for Palestinians? What does ordination have to do with sexual orientation? Who benefits from a concentration of power into the hands of the pious? How much of a budget belongs to the poor?

And we left Tampa with these questions unasked. Baptisms deferred rather than offered. It was if we were never there.

May the spirit prepare better questions for the United Methodist Church to ask.

John 15:1-8

Easter 5 - Year B

John 15:1-8

By this is G*D revealed - that good fruits appear through people's lives. There is no doctrine or higher thought that can substitute for direct action. Nothing less than giving evidence of growing will do. This is not something that can await another day or a sufficient guarantee of results.

Here at General Conference there is a sense that we are dealing with an utopian situation, we legislate as though the whole world awaits our decision as an undoubtable revelation of salvation, health and wholeness, for all and for all time. Again the very presence of G*D gets in the way of a reasonable next step in favor of some unattainable ultimate. There is no humility available in deciding by a majority vote. There comes only resolve to not have our time-bound idea be beaten next time around.

It is most difficult to wait for fruit to appear when people are literally dying because of the felt theological pain of those who use the Bible (any revelatory mechanism) as a chain for others, a Procrustean bed with them as the ideal.

Who does not abide within the gift of creation? This is not the kind of abiding that can be legislated. To limit abiding to a particular take is to miss the entire point. There are none that cannot bear more fruit, more G*D, more self.

forward the good

Easter 4 - Year B

the good
care

good shepherds
good politicians
good artists

the good
partner

good bench warmers
good bee keepers
good prophets

the good
expand

good communities
good families
good hearts

the good
volunteer

good resources
good energy
good time

the good
empower

...
 

1 John 3:16-24

Easter 4 - Year B

1 John 3:16-24

Today at General Conference there was to be a time of “Holy Conferencing”. Because of debates over Rules this began late. There were technical snafus that also got in the way of a number of groups. Gil Rendle had some helpful words about changes in church and culture in the last years that could and should lead us to look again at what it means to be in mission in a world that is asking similar questions but coming up with a whole variety of responses (this is different from just a short time ago when we had the same answer to the same question). Unfortunately there were time issues that were a convenient excuse to not process our various conversations.

This passage would have been helpful to have reviewed before intentionally deeper conversation than usual. What does it mean to lay down one’s life for another? If Jesus could do it, why can’t his followers? It is difficult to intigrate truth and action and to know this frailty is important to dealing with our differences. How do we get beyond our feelings that have tied us to G*D in such dogmatic ways? We keep confusing loving another with desiring for them to reflect our self.

Without a serious attempt to abide in another and to have that reciprocated, there is no conferencing—supposedly “holy” or not.

Acts 4:5-12

Easter 4 - Year B

Acts 4:5-12

High-priests of every time have the power to make suspects stand in their midst to be grilled. “Explain yourselves,” they demand, “why aren’t you like us?”

 Here at General Conference the same dynamic has been going on for 40 years. Suspects are still standing in the midst of the currently orthodox. “Explain yourselves,” is still being demanded. “Prove that you are of G*D, for in our scriptures you are an abomination, heretical.” Then it was Peter and John who were suspect; today it is the descenants of Peter and John who suspect anyone associated with the GLBT community.

Ah, what power does to confuse us and to forget formative experiences. Would that those who have the power, the votes, had the good sense to accept the mystery of G*D-at-work. Then it was a most unexpected healing of an individual. Now it is a very expected variation in human sexuality.

In both cases the hierarchy (including the swaying middle) has set its limit of accessibility. It has defined G*D so narrowly that they cannot but be set into a tizzy if healing or acceptability is extended further than is profitable. Institutional survival takes precedence of all else.

Imagine, if you will, an investigation into reality instead of an escape into blame. How would that have looked like then? And now?

Psalm 23

Easter 4 - Year B

Psalm 23

What do good friends do for one another?

One thing is that they care for their friend when their friend can’t seem to care for themselves. They comfort, with strength, not just dismiss the severity of the matter to the person concerned. All too often we deny another’s experience, but a good friend continues to affirm, to lead, to feed, and to bless by facing the felt reality of their friend.

This sort of goodness and mercy, of beauty and love, is incalculable for it continues connections and allows us to live together through dark days as well as bright.

At General Conference we constantly run into folks who are out for themselves first, last, and only. Here is a report from Dan Dick’s United Methodeviations blog on activities that shows the presence of an anti-Psalm 23 friendship:

This church is God’s and we are merely privileged to take part in it. Yet, we so readily claim “my” church as though we have an entitled and proprietary right to it (and others do not). I eavesdropped on a conversation where a woman was energetically explaining to her companion that a group (I don’t know who specifically she was referring to) was “out to destroy the church.” She went on to claim that “they” won’t listen to anyone and “we” have to make sure “they” don’t get their way… I am pretty sure this is not the best attitude with which to enter General Conference. Just a thought.

John 10:11-18

Easter 4 - Year B

John 10:11-18

Shepherds and sheep are mutually dependent upon one another. This is an ancient and deep relationship. They have an investment in one another’s well-being.

It is the investment that they have in one another that defines each of them.

We have often used this in a hierarchical model of G*D directs (has a plan for) Jesus. Jesus, in turn, directs (has a plan for) us (his sheep).

Listen again for the issue of inclusion (I have other sheep beyond this flock) and investment (I lay down my life for sheep far and near). While listening, take advantage of the opportunity to evaluate how your day is going in regard to inclusion beyond your usual contacts and your investment in larger living that will take your energy and resources to move relationships toward mutuality.

The United Methodist Church erroneously claims that baptized, gifted, and called gays and lesbians may not be ordained. Today I’ll be carrying a sign, still to be written, that will say something like:

It is right, and a good and joyful thing,

that GLBTIQ UMs
always and everywhere give thanks to G*D
by praying

The Great Thanksgiving

Too subtle?

Preparation

Easter 3 - Year B

The  postings this week have been interrupted with preparation and travel to the 2012 General Conference of the United Methodist Church in Tampa, Florida. Given the energy expenditure at this international gathering to legislate the "method" of this denomination for the next 4 years, there may be additional outages over the next two weeks.

It is often in the interruptions of life that life pokes its head a bit further out of its hiddenness. So, relish these interruptions and what comes out of silence to you.

Practically, I am specifically at General Conference as an advocate for the dismantling of 40 years of discrimination against the GLBTIQ community. The UMC has falsely said, "Homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching." Apparently the UMC has a limited understanding of teaching—the literal interpretation of a smattering of scripture passages without their context.

If you are interested in following this General Conference through a bit of my eyes, you can go to LoveOnTrial.org. While there you can help support Rev. Amy DeLong and her witness at General Conference by going to the "Donate" page.

Time to get back to some late-minute preparations.

1 John 3:1-7

Easter 3 - Year B

1 John 3:1-7

See what G*D has offered through creation—partnership. This is what we are: Partners.

When we are not known, G*D is not known. When G*D’s expansive and expanding love is not known, we are not known.

How the hiddenness of life will be revealed is still a mystery. When we have glimpses of healthy life we see how we are partnered with one another, G*D, and all of creation. This is the essence of hope—that life will be revealed.

This is a good place to leave things without having to go on to talk of sin, guilt, and lawlessness. Each of these hide our basic partnership. Our work is not to pile on reasons why we can’t participate in revolutionary revelation. Don’t let anyone fool you into these judgments that only spiral downward. Note, rather, what is harmful and don’t do it; what is helpful and do it. In this is our partnership with all and our health.

Psalm 4

Easter 3 - Year B

Psalm 4

Answer me!
You answered before!
Do it again!

   How long will you love vanity?
   How long will you seek after what you want to hear?
   Is this what I look like—shameful?

I know I’m worthily faithful!
I’ve been set apart, privileged!
So why aren’t I getting an answer, only a provisional response??

   You really are disturbed, but you you don’t have to go awry.
   It seems you have lost track of what is trustworthy.
   Spend more time in dreamland.

Oh.
Gladness is not dependent upon answers.
I can sleep in peace, and do.

Acts 3:12-26

Easter 3 - Year B

Acts 3:12-26

Bait and switch is an ancient tradition. Come for the miracle and stay for the doctrine.

To document this, read what just went before this pericope. Here it sounds as if the man healed was the one with faith in Jesus. But remember that the lame man was only asking for alms, as he had done for all his life. It was Peter who enters Jesus into the conversation. It was Peter who enters faith in Christ into the scene. It was Peter who said, “I have no silver or gold, but what I have I give you; in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, stand up and walk” [emphasis added].

Peter continues this switch as he turns to those observing this event and claims his, Peter’s, faith is the only blessed one available. Believe with me or you will be utterly rooted out. This is precursor to Constantine enforcing one particular strand of Christianity into the only orthodoxy available.

The Message puts the dynamic at work here as, “When Peter saw he had a congregation, he addressed the people.” Ahh, were Peter simply to have dealt with a lame man, we would never have gotten this apology for orthodoxy that makes heretics out of equally faithful folks, just differently faithful. Without this apology we might again pay attention to the wild variety of gifts and calls and miracles and signs and faith available at different times and stages of life and opportunities for experience.
 

Luke 24:13-49

Easter 3 - Year B

Luke 24:13-49

“A stranger in Jerusalem” would be a good title for a book. Knowing what others don’t is the equivalent of having questions others don’t - like the proverbial Martian visiting earth.

Notice the lack of overt evangelism here. Jesus walks with folks. Jesus listens to folks try to understand the not-understandable. He does reflect out loud about expected consequences (labeled as scriptural here, but simply a reality check that could be posited even without previous prophets).

Jesus’ comments captured their imagination, but it was the fellowship that confirmed it in their hearts. When this “click” happens the source becomes invisible in the same way that air is invisible to us and yet is all around and within, giving life, or water is for fish.

Note that it is while the travelers were sharing their moment of enlightenment that fellowship (loving one another) would confirm or dismiss any particular doctrinal formulation. Enlightenment also holds a mystery symbolized by a shift in attention. Jesus shifts from invisible background to visible foreground and back to invisible—just like in any good illusion.

As if to confirm the primacy of fellowship, Jesus moves his generic “Peace” language to “let’s get real” language - touch, feast, repentance, and forgiveness.

We need to be in touch, to eat together, to mutually correct courses and preemptively forgive. It is important to begin where we are. In this case, Jerusalem. In our case, church. If we are not in close enough contact to touch and feast we won’t be able to share in repentance and forgiveness. Without these the church loses contact with the world and there is no message or preaching that will trump these basics for more than a moment.

Remember John Wesley’s old purpose statement and its particular locus:
     Question: What may we reasonably believe to be God’s design in raising up the Preachers called Methodists?
     Response: Not to form any new sect; but to reform the nation, particularly the Church; and to spread scriptural holiness over the land.

After remembering, what greater reform does the church need than a renewal of touch, feast, repentance, forgiveness.
 

holy humor rises

Easter 2 - Year B

holy humor rises quickly
to chuckles and belly-laughs

what was first seen as personal
and unique beyond humanity

soon passes from separated sacredness
to everyday everydayness

resurrection is to be passed forward
calming the fearful where’er they be

closed rooms and dark tombs
are different only in spelling

from out of nowhere and anywhere
a spark glows into laughter

common-good becomes common
as well as good good

joy is doubled as doubts are raised
now able to be dealt with

even as Thomas is Twinned in us
a not seen blesses the not seen

heart and soul prophecy against profits
as they are laid at one another’s feet

when what is mine is also yours
holy humor rises quickly
 

1 John 1:1-2:5

Easter 2 - Year B

1 John 1:1-2:5

Resurrection is communal and experiential. If one of these is lost or subsumed under the other, new life is snuffed aborning.

Our very joy is tied up with space and time with one another as well as striking off on our own. The rhythm of these keeps both alive.

By the time we get to formalizing either our communal mores or individual experience, there is a temptation to universalize our particular set of circumstances. If we claim only light or only dark or only faith or only sin, we are still a long way from breaking through to a new perspective.

What is asked for is not atoning sacrifice. This is loaded language that rings falser than it does true and is ultimately beside the point. What is asked for coherence between our various communities and selves. What is asked for is having both our common endeavors and our individual gifts move us to be one with grandest desires and common tripping points that they might inform one another.
 

Psalm 133

Easter 2 - Year B

Psalm 133

How good and pleasant it is when we live together. It is an anointing of the whole community, in addition to a series of individuals.

It is this living together that reveals an original blessing - a tree of life not forgotten in the midst of all that we come to know.

Have you gotten the message yet? - resurrection is a communal event!
 

Acts 4:32-35

Easter 2 - Year B

Acts 4:32-35

When we are together, but fearful, we are not together.

When we are together, under a word of “Peace”, we are of one heart and soul. Our possessions are each others. Common good means both “common” and “good”.

This is a sign of the resurrection - that the last word to the disciples has become real - “Love one another as I have loved you.”

Resurrection opens our eyes to need, beyond want, and addresses need directly. When resurrection is only a concept, but not a reality, we find all manner of means to cover “need” with “want” and it turns out that my want always trumps your need.
 

John 20:19-31

Easter 2 - Year B

John 20:19-31

It was evening (dark) and the doors were locked (cold stone closed) for fear (death) was present.

These times come to everyone. Usually it is not physical tombs that we are in, but emotional, psychological, societal, or other binds that reduce us to fearful reactions. Fear is more prevalent than death.

Into these times a word of “Peace” is needed to be heard. It may come in any number of forms that shine a light on our current reality and future possibilities. “Wholeness” is reminder that is constantly slipping away from us.

When peace and wholeness are clearly in front of us, we can catch another glimpse of an important purpose of common-good. We have a mission larger than ourselves, larger than our fear. It will allow us to face both life and a consequence of death.

These easter moments of peace and wholeness fit the stereotype of a Holy Spirit at work. But, whatever language, sacred or not, is put on these experiences, we find those moments put down a fulcrum point of peace and we can begin to lever against fear. We put our hand to the plow, so to speak, or into a past wound - keeping it alive in our mind and working to see it is not repeated.

Yes, this episode was repeated, sign after sign, for it is such a difficult one to grasp. As soon as we think we have it corralled, fear breaks out again. Was it that Jesus did many different signs or simply variations on this one? As Jesus was visited in the tomb, so a Spirit of Peace, of Jesus, visits us in our fears that we might have life, abundantly, peacefully, wholly.
 

1 Corinthians 15:1-11

Easter - Year B

1 Corinthians 15:1-11

I am assuming that your behavior was integrous, not hypocritical; steady, not a passing fancy; for good and for good.

Even if you were operating out of a different set of beliefs, it is a grace that we can participate in the building up of a new community. Some have come out of seeing a horrific death and blessed resurrection. Others have come out of following a life well-lived and willingness to accept consequences.

Whichever path has brought you near to one another, remember that G*D is so gracious and generous to each of us for life and death have an eternal relationship. One does not trump the other. May you have G*D-given energy to speak your larger truths and entrust yourself to a vision worthy of pulling you and all into a better future.
 

Hebrews 10:16-25 or Hebrews 4:14-16; 5:7-9

Good Friday - Year B

Hebrews 10:16-25 and Hebrews 4:14-16; 5:7-9

Whether following the United Methodist or Roman Catholic pericope, we have to deal with a reinstitution of a high priesthood as the only vehicle through which we can access G*D’s mercy. For some reason or other mercy cannot be mercy on its own, but only if earned by someone or another.

Mercy is understood to break all the rules for the presence of G*D. Mercy provokes us to additional acts of mercy. Against mercy there are no limitations other than our proclivity to ration and control a G*D careening out of control and being merciful beyond our capacity.

If Jesus can sympathize with weakness, there is no one who will be left out. Jesus learned this from a pagan, Melchizedek, a Syrophenician woman, unnamed, and each and every prophet. Whether we learn mercy from outside or inside a religious tradition, let us affirm our hope, participate in love and good deeds, encourage one another, and identify with those left out.
 

1 Corinthians 11:23-32

Maundy Thursday - Year B

1 Corinthians 11:23-32

Paul passed on what he received. The same is incumbent upon each of us. As generation is added to generation and experience to experience, what have you received? What have you passed on?

Are you proclaiming the building of community through common meals and common good? Are you threatening judgment on any who do so through an “unworthy” manner (meaning not approved by the received knowledge of those in power)?

Yes, examine yourself. Are you still connecting creedal purity with physical health? Are you still using portions of the scripture to shun baptized and communing members for whatever reason?

A common meal is not a formal ritual, it is a multi-valent experience of common life with all the messiness such brings. Feast well. Gather strength to helpfully deal with weakness, including your own.
 

Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24

Easter - Year B

Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24

Continuing with first lines from the psalmist . . . .

On “Maundy” Thursday we hear the psalmist lead off with:
“I love you, YHWH, for you have heard my voice and my supplications.”

On “Good” Friday the lead is:
“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from helping me, from the words of my groaning.”

Now, on “Easter” Sunday in the beginning is:
“I thank you, YHWH, for your goodness! Your love is everlasting.”

To see love when we are heard and love when we are not heard is a great gift that transforms our relationship with G*D, others, creation, this day, and every day.

May your goodness be enhanced by the background love of the universe.
 

Psalm 22

Good Friday - Year B

Psalm 22

On “Maundy” Thursday we hear the psalmist lead off with:
“I love you, YHWH, for you have heard my voice and my supplications.”

On “Good” Friday the lead is:
“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from helping me, from the words of my groaning.”

What a difference a day makes. What day is today for you? Remember the other day is not far behind.

 

Psalm 116:1-2, 12-19

Maundy Thursday - Year B

Psalm 116:1-2, 12-19

Because I have G*D’s ear and G*D has my ear, I will keep our relationship going as long as I live.

And so a toast with a cup of salvation:
     Precious is life
     Blessed is death
     Freedom between
     Brings a House of Hope
     A City of Peace
 

Acts 10:34-43

Easter - Year B

Acts 10:34-43

G*D shows no partiality except for those who fear G*D. From this comes a G*D of the parking place - Praise Jesus, I won’t be walking far today, all is going my way.

Peter doesn’t even have to finish his sermon before folks responded by wanting such partiality to descend upon them. How do you respond to the opportunity to have the largesse of G*D be available to you? No, don’t consider any responsibility, just the privilege.

Easter is a confirmation that you are on the right side, chosen by G*D, and will be blessed with continuation after death. Step right up and drink the kool-aid.

I guess you had to be there. From this distance it is difficult to see how this speech was conversional. Perhaps it had to do with a certain readiness as just before this folks were already kneeling and bowing before Peter. Would that preachers had a Readiness-ometer and would know how to listen to it.
 

Isaiah 52:1 - 53:12

Good Friday - Year B

Isaiah 52:1 - 53:12

Another long, long passage. There is much here that has been used for a too easy theory of bloody atonement. It seems as if there is an inherent quality of identity for this servant figure. Overlooked in the “will of the Lord to crush him” is the beginning of verse 8 - the power of regime, of privilege, of violence known as “oppressive judgment” or a “perversion of justice” or “seized by force and condemned”.

We all have a hand in delaying justice, which is denying justice. Our vision of other possibilities than the one we seem trapped in is too limited. In Isaiah all this allusive language is a stand-in for the nation, not an individual. We are called to evaluate our reality from the perspective of community. How are we doing as a people, not just my own sense of persecution? If we can begin to approach life communally, we may be able to do social course correction as well as the personal. This gives us an opportunity to redefine our present in light of where we would like to end up so life is not just G*D’s will, but also our engagement with one another as well as with G*D and creation.

Blessings to your journey to reframe judgment against into intercession for.
 

Exodus 12:1-4, (5-10), 11-14

Maundy Thursday - Year B

Exodus 12:1-4, (5-10), 11-14

Tracking a beginning is very tricky.

Was Jesus’ last Passover meal a beginning or did it begin with his baptism or temptations or miracles or signs or Temple confrontations or showing up the priestly class?

Does Israel’s first month of the year depend on the last of the plagues or did it begin with a babe on the water or a murder or burning bush or a hardened heart?

Where is your marker for your life? Was it an economic turnaround, a lottery ticket, a relationship beginning or ending, a death of a significant person in your life or your own brush with mortality?

Presuming you can identify your own personal turning point, how do you celebrate it? A feast? With cake and candles? And will others carry that on?

Blessings on identifying your beginning point and the point before that. Eventually you’ll get back to a slight moment before a big bang - how mysterious that there is something rather than nothing. Rejoice and move on.
 

Mark 16:1-8

Easter - Year B

Mark 16:1-8

Spices brought late anticipate a stink. But brought, nonetheless. For it is an anointing — an acknowledgment that we also name him Beloved. A baptism of spice, not water.

Spices were brought late and later questions arise, “Who will roll away the stone?”

When looked back on, this question was the easiest problem. The stone that wasn’t there — a mystery. A youngster dressed in the brightness of day, just sitting — a mystery. Don’t be afraid — a mystery. Not dead but raised — a mystery.

And we are caught between a rock and a hard place — Tell; Say Nothing. And we stand between — again and again and again.

Again and again and again — a question comes, “How will I deal with a stone that isn’t there?” Tell or Terror? Aye, there be a question worth wrestling with.
 

John 18:1 - 19:42

Good Friday - Year B

John 18:1 - 19:42

A long, long reading summarized:

Jesus gardened
Judas and soldiers bring broad-band herbicide
I AM me (are YOU you?)

Peter infected by homicide is tone-deaf to Jesus’ teaching
cuts off another’s ear
Again, “get behind me, Tempter”

Jesus bound for trial (jury-rigged)
seen as scapegoat by priests
denied by Peter

Jesus from frying pan to fire
redefines fire
truth beyond fact

Jesus bartered for
Barabbas released
Jesus beaten

a “non-suit” ruling given
but mob politics rules the day
negative campaigning comes to the fore

Jesus handed over to crucifixion
carried his own torture instrument
crucified naked

I AM your son
I AM your mother
enough

meat thermometer read “done”
cooled and put in the freezer
... to be continued
 

John 13:1-35

Maundy Thursday - Year B

John 13:1-35

Once Jesus began washing feet, did he complete the circle? Were Judas’ feet washed as a sign of being loved “to the end”? Presumably so. No one is left out of being loved. Neither before, during, or after any act is one denied love.

Missed communication is par for the course. Not only does Peter get confused, but the rest of the disciples can’t decode the symbols and conversation between Jesus and Judas. There is even a mini-communion time between the two of them before their parting.

Note the brief four-word sentence after this communion variant — “And it was night.”

Night is the beginning of a day’s cycle — and it was night and it was morning, the n-th day.

Night is chaos over the deep, a pre-creation opportunity.

Night is where the church often is. Within the United Methodist Church we are in our 40th year of discriminatory legislation blocking the freedom of G*D to gift and call whom G*D desires for “set-aside” ministry. Perhaps it would be best to discontinue offering regular communion until official discrimination ends. To continue is to tacitly support discrimination with the excuse that it is meaningful to us — forgetting all the folks who cannot participate in offering communion.

The church has betrayed Jesus. And it is night. May General Conference 2012 raise a bit of light by moving away from discriminatory legislation. This would sign we were serious about loving one another as we have been loved by G*D through Jesus.
 

approach

Lent 6 - Year B

closing in
clarifying
choices

symbols
take on
increased
significance

listening
has gone on
deeply enough
to grow into
teaching

emptying
comes round
touching
heaven
to earth
and back

authority
releases
enough
from reined
abundance

a profligate
come home
sings
glory be

blessed
be echoed
hosannas
 

Philippians 2:5-11

Lent 6 - Year B

Philippians 2:5-11

What to do with privilege is an ancient question with ever present significance.

Are teachers privileged? Americans? Wealthy (those who can’t spend what they make and whose money makes more money than they can)? Merciful (revealers of unexpected and undeserved kindness)? Christians?

Is privilege a natural resource to be strip mined? A commodity to be bought or sold or otherwise invested for one type of power or another? In limited supply during a zero-sum game? A gift for oneself or for the benefit of others?

Interesting how humanity is here not privileged (in G*D’s image), but imaged as being slaves (of Satan?, sin?, status quo?). Where did this come from? If humans are made in the image of G*D, when has G*D not been found in human form? Seems there is a wrong question being asked if slavery is the outcome.

At the name of Jesus, a standing ovation and then a getting back to work of living seems more in order than doing a Tebow. We don’t get to confession or affirmation through guilt or creed. If Jesus carries G*D, so can any human. If Jesus can live fully enough to engage current laws in anticipation of their change, so can any human. So give Jesus his due, he revealed a G*D within. To honor this revelation, an appropriate response is not acquiescence but imitation.
 

Psalm 118:1-2, 19-29

Lent 6 - Year B

Psalm 118:1-2, 19-29

Blessed is the one who comes in the name of “the Lord”. In the name of kindness? In the name of mercy? In the name of a questioner? In the name of settled knowledge? In the name of my understanding?

An old song posits that Jesus loves Mrs. Robinson more than she will ever know? Does the same go for any arbitrary acquaintance? Does the same go for aliens and enemies? Is blessedness more universal and unifying than we are willing to admit? Might blessedness be unlimited by any divine or secular authority because it comes with the circumstance of life?

While thankful that I have caught a next layer of meaning, can I be thankful for others whose current understanding of the value of life is so limited that they think it can be given or taken by them? Is there any hope for them or for a relationship that would include them?

Perhaps it is sufficient to simply be thankful for a constant background radiation of inherent blessedness and on-going thankfulness.
 

Isaiah 50:4-9

Lent 6 - Year B

Isaiah 50:4-9

The gift of deep, attentive, appreciative listening is critical to clarify the issues in one’s life and the life of a larger community. Listening is the backbone of being a teacher and leads to new learning, important learning, prophetic learning.

It is important to note what one is listening to as well as how one is listening. What combination of listening to the wisdom of ages gone before, dreaming of days to come, and their transition through the present will best serve?

There will be times when appeal needs to be made to an historical perspective. At other times we will over-ride well-settled precedent that no longer carries energy for new relationships and opt for a wide-eyed dream of a better or more expansive community. And there will be times when all we can do is hold to listening as best we can as we wait for a better question to hear a new word of the past or future to come clear.

This will, though, require us to stand in the midst of opposing teachings without claiming special privilege of having some god on our side. With a waking ear we can wait with others to learn without falling prey to bad-mouthing them or arbitrarily setting them aside as being of no account.

With this kind of listening we will likely hear what needs to be relinquished and what needs to be picked up. Blessings on intentionally practicing your listening skills.
 

Mark 11:1-11

Lent 6 - Year B

Mark 11:1-11

They also serve who stand aside when something is needful for the common good. It is so easy to claim life as our property. Sometimes that is another person as they slave invisibly producing what we consume. Sometimes it is fish, birds, or animals that are but bits of our food chain. Sometimes it is the life we cannot see in coal and oil and humus that we co-opt for our desires.

Since the party returns to Bethany for the night, it seems that the colt was from there, rather than from Bethphage. That detail may be important to the “owner” of the colt, but of more import for the purpose of this writing is the dynamic of being able to relinquish.

Palm Sunday can so easily devolve into Hosannas projecting a Power Messiah (revisit your memories of the Power Rangers). It may be important to note the ministry of humility or relinquishment before and after all the Hubbub.
 

undefined but moving

Lent 5 - Year B

have light
believe it
grow in it

good advice
for others
to follow

but heavy
indeed
too heavy

prescriptive
beyond
experience

even Jesus
walked away
weary weary

for light
is as undefined
as G*D

sending
promising poetry
from prophets

demanding
priestly sacrifice
standing afar

light waves
in particles
covenantally whole

G*D enters
and is entered
as mysteriously

grow trust
have light
restore joy
 

Hebrews 5:1-10

Lent 5 - Year B

Hebrews 5:1-10

Priests take folks to God through their gifts and sacrifices — intermediary after intermediary.

Imaging Jesus as a priest, high or low, turns Jesus into a functionary.

Hebrews does us the great injustice of turning Prophet Jesus with a word from G*D into merely a sacrificing priest. This has sown seeds of a hierarchical church, orthodoxy, and creedal standards that keep us tied to the past and oh so slow to repent of each of these methods that ask for continued sacrifice of minorities within and without the church walls.

Want to get your faith energized again? Throw out the priestly imagery of Hebrews and return to Prophet Jesus. We don’t need a perpetual priest, but a present prophet.
 

Psalm 51:1-12

Lent 5 - Year B

Psalm 51:1-12

A question from Soft Edges: “How does one sing of cosmic holiness in a society that seems unable -- or unwilling -- to imagine anything beyond a private and personal God?”

So often this psalm is read as a top-down power arrangement. It is possible to read it differently by adding a choice of focus to the standardized language.

“Have mercy on me, O God, according to a steadfast love [of all creation]; according to an abundant mercy [for all creation] let us start again.”

“Restore to me the joy of [making everyone and everything healthy], and [together] sustaining a willing spirit.”

Each of us can cultivate a steadfast and abundant love/mercy relationship with G*D and all creation. This expansion of individual responses to community and creation deepens our individual experience with that of innumerable others.

This psalm, too easily seen as a me-and-G*D moment, needs to remember the end of the Psalm that begins,

“Do good to Zion [to see all working together]; [together let us] rebuild safety within Jerusalem.”

Of course folks can stick to a personalized contriteness, but can be even more energizing to enter into a partnership with G*D rather than just having an appeasement policy. Blessings to you on seeing love and mercy as issues larger than just identified as being for me/we.
 

Jeremiah 31:27-34

Lent 5 - Year B

Jeremiah 31:27-34

It is so easy to see trouble coming. It doesn’t take much projection of current processes to see that we are walking down a path to great difficulty. It shows up in economics with profit being the be-all and end-all of too many. Educationally, we have been testing to a test that keeps us limited to the past rather than learning how to learn into the future. Spiritually, we divide ourselves into smaller and smaller communities, each claiming truth and power. And the list could go on.

It is a very hopeful outlook to see within the coming falling-apart, a new way of doing business. In this case moving from the cultural and communal to the individual being responsible for their own acts. This hope is not without its dangers. Foremost among them is a reliance upon intuition, some knowing of G*D that isn’t grounded in everyday experience. It is too easy to want our iniquity erased and so go out of our way to put a cart before a horse and claim a knowledge of G*D, even greater than G*D knows, that will guarantee removal of iniquity and arrival at a pearly gate.

In the United States of America we have abused this hope of individual responsibiity and are falling apart into extreme individualism and states-rights. This means that we need to hear hope in a return to another universal way - that we are in life together and have opportunities and responsibilities for one another.

 

John 12:20-33

Lent 5 - Year B

John 12:2-36

What is the chain of command in your faith community to connect inquirers with your source of authority? Would folks know you are in that chain of command and ask for next steps?

In the storyline there is a temptation to make Jesus’ responses into a scary kind of evangelism fit only for saints, not the faint of heart. His response to being asked about some Greeks wanting to have an audience was to talk to his chain of disciples about how hard his work is and to depart, to turn down the request.

We don’t know if the inquirers we a part of later crowds, but on the surface here, they didn’t draw near to Jesus because his soul was troubled, he was out-of-sorts, even grumpy, and out of here.

The passage continues with a reference to all Jesus had given his disciples and they still didn’t get it. This would tend to suggest that what the disciples didn’t get was their own part in salvation history. For some reason they still saw the way to G*D going through channels, works-righteousness, and a top-down structure. Imagine if Philip had said, “What can I help you with, for to see me is to see Jesus?” Disciples are reflections of their modeler. Even more, what if Philip had said, “What can I help you with? Together we can partner with G*D.” As Jesus is to reveal G*D, so we are to reveal G*D. Anything less is to discount our discipleship. You and Philip have choices about bumping people one step closer to a disappearing Jesus or acting out the humble authority of following Jesus all the way to G*D.

gift cycle

Lent 4 - Year B

eyes of faith
trust what they see

bronze snakes
become anti-venom

broken bodies
house healed spirits

belief certifies
deeds and outcomes

incarnation interprets
chaos’ intentionality

and our crisis
is mistrusting our trust

for deep below
belief is transient

faith does falter
certainty stumble

first new glasses
and then new eyes

holy and profane
dive again to the deep

surfacing in new trust
beyond one or the other

beyond volitional choice
into blessed gift
 

Ephesians 2:1-10

Lent 4 - Year B

Ephesians 2:1-10

How we interpret meta-meanings affects our engagement with others (people and systems).

Has there been a radical shift from being children of wrath (posited as who we naturally are) to now being saved through faith in Christ Jesus (proposed as a gift from G*D)? In an either/or world, this is possible. In a both/and environment, this is not so clear.

A part of the difficulty is locating the action. If there is only creature and creator the logical reduction is to either/or, one or the other is the cause of our experienced reality. If there is also a partnership available between the two, a desired outcome of good works will take all the best of both.

If this movement from being dead to being alive is not on-going, we end up being more than “mostly dead”.

May your interpretation of who you are and where you look for energy, be blessed with insight and discernment. May you not stop too soon in your analysis.
 

Psalm 107:1-3, 17-22

Lent 4 - Year B

Psalm 107:1-3, 17-22

Congruence of experience and interpretation is often tricky.

Experience slips and slide away from being pinned down. Memory is famously prone to emphasizing a minor point and elevating it to prominence. Timing is crucial as to when we are open for a conversion interpretation of a previous set of experiences. Are we able to see a new healing while still trapped in a web of debilitating habit of hand and heart? Experiences pile up and our ability to find an organizing principle is notoriously slow and suspect.

Our heads are often set to interpret a next experience only in light of the ethos of the prominent group in our life (past or present, seldom a desired one to come). Having learned that G*D is always the right answer for a pleasant surprise and absolved of pain (except as a set-up for a blessing yet to arrive), we are separated from self and creation/nature. Prevailing ethical standards are ethically suspect when they refuse to allow a second opinion.

So, if you can identify having had a new opening into a preferred future, rejoice, give thanks, and begin living as though tomorrow were already present. When freed from external or internal oppression, develop a steadfast love of your own.

If you can recast a sinful way away from always being particularized and leading to a self-fulfilling prophecy, there will be a background rebalancing of prevenient grace and brokenness. In this reconstituted equation, sparks of paradise will light fires of warmth, not wrath.
 

Numbers 21:4-9

Lent 4 - Year B

Numbers 21:4-9

Impatience was the source of the snake biting and bronze snake raising. Impatience continues to be a source of intra-communal disputes as well as warring against defined enemies. We want answers and we want them now, a simple response is too process-oriented - presuming another response and another, instead of an easy comfort of a once-and-for-all answer.

Check your language to see if you are talking about giving or asking for an answer or a response. Expectations of ease lead us to attempt to short-circuit reality into utopia.

Imagine the out-of-the-frying-pan-and-into-the-fire comedy here. Such slapstick is almost too much.

Hey, this is taking too long!
     Oh, yeah? Here’s too long and too painful, too.
Hmm, on second thought we’ll take the too long by itself.
     OK, wisdom has begun.

So how might you come to the wisdom to deal with proximal responses instead of final solutions? I’m sure there’s a funny story involved with this shift.
 

John 3:14-21

Lent 4 - Year B

John 3:14-21

Again an issue of what can be trusted raises its fanged head. When the danger seems great enough, that deemed evil or death is nipping at our heels, we are liable to pursue the improbable, if not impossible. How might gazing upon a bronze snake care for the poison a live snake has injected?

This then is the context of famous John 3:16 line about believing to receive a conditioned gift of a positive eternity - something not intrinsic to persons, but given to or withheld from them.

If your greatest fear is a wrath to come, then what became substitutionary atonement theology is the only way to go. Faith becomes a zero-sum game that needs dividing line between up and down.

If we focus more on a scene with Nicodemus and the allusions there, we might hear this retrojected into the conversation. As is as though the whole business of being lifted fills two functions. First, it builds on an assertion that Nicodemus did not understand his own tradition about where belief can come from - fear - and how it needs to be understood as sign and mystery rather than doctrine based on one experience [go get intentionally snake-bit so you can look on a bronze snake and prove G*D]. Second, since you are not ready to receive my experience, I can make the most outrageous claim and it will not add or detract a whit to your willingness to see things differently.

Rather than get caught with the problems of a conditionally loving G*D, it may be more helpful to look at verses 20-21 and the potential of using embarrassment of having one’s hypocrisy (often a great evil in the Christian Scriptures) revealed to others. Here is the antidote to secrets and night-meetings - by your deeds will you be measured, not by what you say and then don’t do. Religious leaders still need to learn this every generation. In our day this shows up around GLBT, immigration, and economic issues. In each case there are scapegoats expelled instead of community broadened and deepened. Some churches have done well to know it isn’t just a matter of looking to a past sign, but paying attention to a present choice to both proclaim love and express it in deed. This is light that illumines all the other born again and bloody atonement excuses to avoid deeds done in G*D’s freedom.

- - -

Fun equivalency: Pinocchio = animated puppet and Jesus = begotten bronze snake.
 

Passover is near

Lent 3 - Year B

Passover is always near
we are so trapped by systems
only an unexpected fire
can start a new journey

I know you
you are Moses
stammering murderer
still excusing yourself

you are to go
to the seat of power
with a full upset of plagues
to bring new health

I know you
you are Jesus
parabolic agitator
still zealously you

you are to go
to the seat of power
upsetting transactions
to raise new life

I know you
you are who you are
I am who I am
we will be . . .

we are to go
to the seat of power
analyze the marketplace
and offer common-wealth
 

1 Corinthians 1:18-25

Lent 3 - Year B

1 Corinthians 1:18-25

Is there no foolish question? How about, Who do people say I am? About the only possible response is another question - Who do you say you are?

When it comes to how we live together, is it foolish or not to need an external force for living morally with one another? What is the effective power of a commandment? Or is it simply a matter of being able to raise a question about choices about to be made?

Are we finally left with the foolishness of silence? One hand clapping, and the like, where foolishness is wisdom and weakness, strength?

In all of these there is the mystery of an alternative choice beyond the limits of our imagination and the traditions which have come down to us. Blessings upon your alternatives, seen and unseen.
 

Psalm 19

Lent 3 - Year B

Psalm 19

Invisible hands, unheard words, and unperceived errors - we live in an unconsciousness around us and within. There are strands of routine, control, and power that swirl us first one way and then another.

Into these voids we use small words and meditations to act like the crow in Aesop’s fable. May our words and meditations bring life to ourselves and others.

 

Exodus 20:1-17

Lent 3 - Year B

Exodus 20:1-17

“I am the G*D who brought you out of the land of Markets.”

From this new beginning we hear about the danger of idols, markets in any form. Their main difficulty is the same as portrayed by this strange G*D - they mix up and confuse jealousy/rejection with steadfast love.

The passage goes on to give other particulars that reveal this same dichotomy in relationship to creation, family, and community.

How easy it is for any little thing to become something for which we are jealous and enter into a zero-sum game to get it or leads us to reject someone or whole groups of someones to protect our own.

How difficult it is to see the larger picture of an expansive and expanding love behind each little thing that pricks our comfort.

Re-imagine each of these insights, sometimes called commandments, in light of your favorite Market. What challenge do they make to your background idol?
 

John 2:13-22

Lent 3 - Year B

John 2:13-22

Market presumes a transactional valuing of life. When that is certified by religion it begins to mark the beginning of what will ultimately move from being an incipient to a full-blown idolatry.

For 13 years the Wisconsin United Methodist Federation for Social Action has read a book for Lent. This year it is Rediscovering Values: On Wall Street, Main Street, and Your Street by Jim Wallis. You can follow along with the reading or review other books at their Lenten website.

Jim Wallis has this to say about this passage:

     A few points about context. This passage is often misunderstood. Jesus’ indignation and anger were not fueled by the buying and selling of goods in the temple. In others words, this passage is not an indictment against church bake sales, and I’m pretty sure even a gift shop in a cathedral is still okay! The passage is about greed, not commerce.
     The story is set during the time of Passover, when pilgrims traveling from distant countries came to worship at the temple in Jerusalem. When they arrived, they were supposed to offer sacrifices, but it would have been impossible for these travelers to bring livestock with them on their long journeys. The merchants and money changers conveniently set up shop in the temple’s outer court to provide these pilgrims with the scripturally mandated animal sacrifies. However, the worshippers were frequently cheated in this marketplace. Greedy money changers inflated the currency rate (only a certain type of coin could be used in the temple), and the merchants had a monopoly on the sacrifice market.
     Interestingly, in his turning over of tables, Jesus specifically targeted the merchants who were selling doves. Doves were the least expensive sacrifice permitted to be offered in the temple and, therefore, were often bought by the poorest of the pilgrims.
     It was a marketplace that took advantage of the poor, who had little other choice. It was a “subprime” marketplace in which a few accumulated great wealth for themselves at the expense of those who could least afford to pay. The money changers had taken a place reserved for the values of God, and used it to put their profits first. No doubt these money changers would have argued that they were only responding to a demand of the market, but Jesus didn’t seem to see it that way. What was happening in the marketplace was a spiritual and moral problem, not just an economic one.

As always prophets are questioned by the establishment for whom all things are working out well. What would be your response if you were caught being a mini-prophet? Might it be similar to Martin Luther who was channelling Jesus when he was questioned - “Here I stand I can do no other”. Somewhere along the way your body will have to come into a conversation about life.
 

travelin' on

Lent 2 - Year B

we travel on
who am I now
who are you now
who are we now
who are they now

we travel on
where have I come from
where have you come from
where have we come from
where have they come from

we travel on
where am I headed
where are you headed
where are we headed
where are they headed

we travel on
story by story
remembrance by remembrance
hope by hope
fear by fear

we travel on
losing and gaining life
ashamed and anointed
promised and promising
consistent and mutating

we travel on
and on
thanking
and on
intending
 

Romans 4:13-25

Lent 2 - Year B

Romans 4:13-25

We all trust in a variety of mechanisms, processes, and theories. At question is whether these “promises” reveal grace or not. If so they will grow over time. If not, they will eventually falter and fail altogether.

If we are interested in participating in a story of creation-long development bearing witness to great fecundity, we will be asking whether or not the basic story-line we are trusting in has room for surprising twists, turns, and reorientations. This openness to mutation is trustworthy and turns out to be our grace, our righteousness.

Lent is an opportunity to remind ourselves where it is we want to be headed - into boring grace, standard grace, everyday grace - far deeper than being amazed at such.