Matthew 16:21-28

Year A - Pentecost +12 or Community Practice ¹²

August 31, 2014

Matthew 16:21-28

Remember to check out what went on before this text. That was the stimulus for this text and what is going on from there.

“God forbid it, Lord!” is one of those interesting lines for what it says and doesn’t say about the nature of G*D. It is as if Jesus got close enough to the disciples on a stormy sea and they were to exclaim, “Jesus Christ! Don’t scare us like that.” (If you remember, Jesus went on to say, “OK. I’ll scare you differently next time.”)

Well, here is a next time. Peter was scared enough, frightened enough, fearful enough, anxious enough, protective enough to want to hold Jesus close and rock him forever and ever (and, of course, be rocked by Jesus). [Note: there was no preconceived intention to play on the Peter/Rock connection, it was simply noticed as it came around.]

At the first scare Peter was invited on to the water, here Peter is dismissed. Make of it what you will.

This denial passage is not all it has been cracked up to be. It is not a penitential directive to get us to be reduced, but a reminder that our negative fear and our positive protectiveness, both, can keep us from paying attention to our work. A clearer way to say it would be, “Don’t deny the world your gift. Put everything else down and follow where it leads.”

I expect this jotting has taken at least one too many leaps. It would be appropriate to hope for better on the next posting.

Romans 12:9-21

Pentecost +11 or Community Practice ¹¹
August 24, 2014

Romans 12:9-21

backbone

love be genuine

hold fast to what is good

love be mutual

show honor

zeal be ardent

rejoice

hope

be patient

persevere

contribute

extend hospitality

bless

associate with the lowly

live peaceably

do this

overcome

Matthew 16:13-20

Pentecost +11 or Community Practice ¹¹
August 24, 2014

Matthew 16:13-20

Interpretation of the data can be spun in any number of directions. And yet one way of looking at it begins to make more sense than other views. This is an everlasting issue seen these days in how data regarding weather changes is understood. Are you an affirmer of human effect on the environment or a denier?

How is it that the disciples sorted through eternal questions to settle on Jesus as a messiah? They would have known the measuring rod of ridding Israel of the Romans and establishing political/economic/military dominance as keys to such an affirmation and yet there is so little that could be used to document this as Jesus' self understanding.

We could go back to the set-up question about the "Son of Man". This title was quickly and easily connected with new and old heroes. When asked about their current hero, how could the disciples not give a title and "Messiah" would express their cultural desire.

How might we respond in this day to a question of how we identify our desire with Jesus? There will be a strong contingent wanting to do the Christian dominionist thing of conqueror. There will be some who want to keep Jesus very spiritual. Others will stake out a variety of other understandings.

For now we are back in a pre-Pentecost struggle of power against power, placing our bets, and investing our energies to be on the winning side. Rather than take this affirmation as a resting place or rocky foundation, we might better look at it as one stage of development that must be worked through in order to move on.

Eventually, stage by stage, we come to larger visions. If we hearken back to Pentecost at this point we might respond that Jesus is an opener of closed doors and a re-binder of people who have been divided by experiences expressed in different languages. These mercies will lead us toward a continued engagement with the world rather than an overcoming of it.

For the moment erase all this certainty of triumph and rocks and keys. Be a bit more lowly in your desire and simply say that Jesus is one teaching me to more clearly see G*D within my life and within the lives of others, including those so easily and temporarily called an enemy. For the moment consider the function of an alchemist who has found the transformational element of mercy, not condemnation. This cannot be captured in a title, but a movement.

Psalm 124

Pentecost +11 or Community Practice ¹¹
August 24, 2014

Psalm 124

Here is a link to a paraphrase of Psalm 124 in light of the dread of the day. The comment is recommended to you as well, but the the particular focus here is found by scrolling down to the paraphrase by Jim Taylor.

http://edges.canadahomepage.net/2014/08/20/1831/

Exodus 1:8 - 2:10

Pentecost +11 or Community Practice ¹¹
August 24, 2014

Exodus 1:8 - 2:10

Consider Ferguson, MO in the news today. You can substitute any conflictual situation if you are still uncomfortable facing the realities of endemic racism. Eventually, though, all these breaking relationship based on one criterion or another will be seen as the same issue.

Here The New Revised Standard Version names our malady, "Dread".

Our friends at Merriam-Webster helpfully define Dread as:

1 a :  to fear greatly
   b archaic :  to regard with awe

If we move from the archaic to the present we see a shift away from trust in steadfast love. The King James translation affirms that we are to fear G*D, to regard G*D with awe. Now, without the awe of having mercy visited upon us regardless of our deserving, we turn an abundance of mercy into a lack of it and fear one another, fear greatly.

This is helpful in that it gives us a clearer place to stand to begin the Pentecostal work of sharing wonders openly on the street rather than sharing fear in a locked room. What is the cultural dread that keeps both brutal and silent killing (both physical and spiritual violence) rolling on without ever being surfaced and dealt with? Where we had abundance we now have scarcity. What revisioning needs to go on in your community?

Romans 11:1-2a, 29-32

Pentecost +10 or Community Practice ¹⁰
August 17, 2014

Romans 11:1-2a, 29-32

Gifts, even those of G*D, are not irrevocable. Some do have one calling, one gift to actualize, during their time on earth. Some move from calling to calling,  gift to gift. There is no accounting for calls and gifts. Any model that posits one understanding will eventually run aground on its own rules. Gifts and calls are beyond our control.

Claiming irrevocability is as short-sighted as claiming incompatibility. It just doesn't hold up in the light of mercy regarding disobedience. It is mercy that is the larger category, not disobedience.

When we get this relationship wrong all manner of wrongs are perpetrated on people—some to themselves and some to others.

Return to the part left out of this pericope to see examples of how what was discarded has been grafted in, how mercy is always being extended past our limits. We are thankful for mercy received. Let us be as thankful for being able to extend mercy by premeditatedly giving it away.

Psalm 133

Year A - Pentecost +10 or Community Practice ¹⁰

August 17, 2014

Psalm 133

It is good when we have a spot of unity in the midst of our many differences. A question is whether that unity is large enough to hold us together. Our track record is that our differences are stronger than our unity. As a result separation is always adversarial.

Sometimes we claim that we are after an amicable separation so the differences might each be able to thrive in a way not currently possible as they tussle with each other for power and control of some magic 51% to impose their difference on another. This is particularly hypocritical when one of the differences is that of being able to hurt through discrimination another person or group of persons.

Unity is a good goal but mostly we have ways of trying to adjust to our differences by claiming we have a lock on the unity mechanism. If only those others would see things our way we would be unified.

The United Methodist Church is currently facing an “amicable separation” fiasco where every plan put forward by the religious right to separate has one fatal flaw. Whenever the concept of harm to another enters the conversation all their fine rhetoric and imagined processes fall apart. The separation then is seen for the issue of power and privilege that it is. This is evidence that the church is not unified regarding the presence of G*D in Jesus’ teachings. Without the keys of “this is how others will know you are my disciples: how you love one another” and “have you not learned G*D wants mercy for neighbors, not sacrifice”. As long as every other spot of agreement falls when these are not present, unity is not really on the agenda. 

It is not hard to identify that the hard spot of unity is love and mercy in a world where people are hard to love and our desire to be justified is more satisfying than the work of mercy.

In parallel to Sweet Honey in the Rock's song about Greed, I’ve been wondering how I can talk about mercy, sing about mercy, live within mercy. Do you have any report from your own experience about living mercifully in a context where there are people who will never love you and who desire your destruction?

http://youtu.be/RLQ_KvYDpRA

Matthew 15:(10-20), 21-28

Year A - Pentecost +10 or Community Practice ¹⁰

August 17, 2014

Matthew 15:(10-20), 21-28

As clear as we can be about the processes of life—

• What is processed internally and let go can be a benefit to the environment. Yay, fertilizer.

• What is not processed internally but released to be processed outside can be a detriment to relationships. Boo, privilege that thinks we can get away with some “truth wrapped in love”.

— it doesn’t always become the basis of our actions.

Here Jesus is clear that heart junk let loose on others is far worse than setting down the junk of tradition held so dear by some.

In the blink of an eye the junk of Jesus’ acculturated heart is let loose on a Canaanite woman. When called on it, Jesus affirms his prejudice. Direct action by the Canaanite woman finally broke through by reminding Jesus of the great hypocrisy — by definition my view is correct and yours is not.

At stake in a post Pentecostal time is whether or not our newer traditions are just as time-bound as those we have wiggled out of. Our question is whether we will take the time needed to reflect, recognize we have been caught being as bound as those we escaped from and we need to substitute basic mercy for our first-response in order that our secondary and tertiary response might have room to come forth and recognize “great faith” where once we could only point a finger and say, “Wrong!”

If this passage doesn’t ask a community to assist one another to better see their common hypocrisy, it has not taken advantage of its opportunity. May you pay attention to your interactions with others and do better.

Romans 10:5-15

Year A - Pentecost +9 or Community Practice ⁹

August 10, 2014

Romans 10:5-15

Searching for meaning? Well, it’s not going to be found over there. Meaning is always tied up with current experience that we either choose to move further into or further away from by deliberately designing new experiences.

Salvation or wholeness is not to be found in any particular affirmation with either heart or lips. It is a moving target that continues to extend our engagement one moment longer to look at the present through the lens of whatever is next and then to adjust again.

So what good news are you sensing coming your way? Can you hear the hoofbeats of a very intentional rider coming with a new pair of glasses that you might catch a better glimpse of your life? If you can, are you taking a step in that direction or poising to run like the dickens lest you have the information you need to change where you are in the world? This approach-avoidance choice is a part of the glass half-full/half-empty hard wiring we have. Fortunately the wiring can be re-wired.

You might want to take a good look at your feet and thank them for bringing you this far along. Regardless of whether they still have health and strength to get you one more step, they have brought you this far. From here other modes of transportation are available to spread the good news you have within.

This good news is not about everyone becoming a lock-step creedalist, but about setting one another one notch freer. With or without hammer-toes or diabetes sores, thank those beautiful feet for doing their best to carry a beautiful soul.

Psalm 105:1-6,16-22, 45b

Year A - Pentecost +9 or Community Practice ⁹

August 10, 2014

Psalm 105:1-6,16-22, 45b

Looking back we are able to discern a variety of paths that were open to us. In particular we can track how what looked like a disaster had a wee crack through which escape was possible.

Having that same clarity in the present is much more difficult. The options can’t really be weighed against one another. Every chart we make to list pluses and minuses is colored by our desires and is thus very untrustworthy. It is not much better when it comes to the future. We can catch a glimpse of how we might be different, but applying it in the present with any certainty is highly problematic.

All in all, we can revision history but not clearly vision the present. This is to say that application of history can’t be counted on. Whether we know our past or not, the weight of life is to repeat what we have done.

Our work is the difficult work of learning enough to teach, teaching it, and learning from our teaching how to better teach.

Blessings to you in sorting through your possibilities, picking a path, and proceeding long enough to make one more course adjustment.

Genesis 37:1-28

Year A - Pentecost +9 or Community Practice ⁹

August 10, 2014

Genesis 37:1-28

For mere pieces of silver do we betray. We do it consciously and unconsciously. 

Consciously we pass legislation that advantage a few against the many. Consciously we sell armaments to both sides of a conflict, telling them “you and them fight” and then picking up the spoils after the gingham cat and the calico dog have torn one another to pieces.

Unconsciously we don’t attend to the polluting of ground and groundwater until it is too late and we have to declare another environmental disaster site. As long as it is profitable for someone we are willing to put everyone at risk. Unconsciously we dismiss people from our view. Native peoples are removed to reservations until we find mineral resources on the very land despised as worthless and only good for a more-or-less concentration camp. When we find worth where didn’t expect to find it, we then remove the invisible ones one step further.

Look at Ukraine, Afghanistan, Iran, Israel/Palestine, Lake Erie, Fracking earthquakes and chemical injections, exploding oil trains, spilled pipelines, institutionalized poverty, decaying infrastructure, “black sheep” in families, people declared “incompatible” with one limited category or another, and the list goes on and on.

Where have we not thrown a sister or a brother or a friend away to bolster our own position or self-image?

Where is the prayer needed to put life into a clearer perspective that allows mercy to temper our rush to judgment and forgiveness to beckon forth and resolve our fear, our prejudice, our preference for short-term gain and long-term decay?

Matthew 14:22-33

Year A - Pentecost +9 or Community Practice ⁹

August 10, 2014

Matthew 14:22-33

Earlier the Disciples had wanted to dismiss the crowd before feeding them. Here Jesus finally dismisses the crowd after they were fed.

This same dynamic is too often present today. Faithful disciples who have settled into their pattern of privilege, no matter how marginalized they may feel, set up conscious and unconscious pre-dismissal criteria. It is as if they really do expect folks to self-deport from their experience.

Just as they had earlier projected their limitations upon the crowd, they project on to the storm all their fear and tremblings, multiplying them to mis-see what was before their very eyes. Again, so many disciples are not able to agree on the effect of storms upon others, only themselves. It is so easy to fall into a persecuted mentality.

It appears the only way through our projections is to actually go through them to be able to look back and see them for what they were, barriers to growth. And so the limits placed upon community and communal miracles need to be experienced before they can enter into a new understanding. The limits placed by our emotions need to be acknowledged before we can step forward to ask questions and test them as accurate.

Two keys:

• Can we acknowledge the needs of and harm done to others or will we continue to deny the same and use our privilege to dismiss them from our awareness?

• Can we move beyond our limits to hear a new word of, “Come”?

Of course we will then have do deal with our tendency to then enshrine our expanded understanding and shrink the rest of the world to fit it. Yes, larger, but still too small.

Blessings to you as you practice first saying, “Welcome” and biting your dismissive tongue. Blessings to you as you practice responding to and invitation to grow, no matter how slightly.

Romans 9:1-5

Pentecost +8 or Community Practice ⁸

August 3, 2014

Romans 9:1-5

A dilemma of a "weeping executioner": my internals and externals still aren't matching up. Neither my solitary weeping nor my public execution of duties resolves my plight.

Oh how I wish I could assist those being harmed without losing my job. I'm more compassionate in my job than others even if my job is to not be compassionate. And if I lose my job there are those who are dependent upon me and I will be letting them down, which isn't fair.

Oh how I wish I could resolve the harm being done by me without the reality that if I withhold my hand someone else will take my place and I will be the one to whom harm is done.

Oh how I wish I could get beyond wishing and have an analysis of the situation that wasn't so small. As it is I can't really see beyond myself and, if I could, that would be even more scary than staying in this place of cognitive and emotional dissonance.

It seems all that is left are pieces of left-overs. I am one of those pieces left lying around after a great thing has passed by. Yes, I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart! It is either tomorrow or suicide.

Psalm 17:1-7, 15

Pentecost +8 or Community Practice ⁸

August 3, 2014

Psalm 17:1-7, 15

Disciples: "Send them away."

Individuals within the crowd being sent away: "Hear a just cause."

Here is a tension from time immemorial. Those who have theirs will find a way, one way or another, to keep and expand what they have. If they need to build walls to protect their investment, they will. If they need to hire guards to protect the walls, they will. If they need to design surveillance to watch the guards, they will. Simply, they will do what they need to do.

Here early disciples and later church live and move and have their being-control of resources and people are but one resource.

On the other side stand those who have been harmed in one way or another. Everything they have tried has been thwarted by themselves or others, usually others (whether the other of culture and society or the other of one or more individuals). There is nothing left but an appeal for justice and when mercy has not been active and justice is a last appeal there is usually not a good outcome.

When things finally come to this place of last resort we do put all our chickens in one basket: "As for me . . . I will have to trust some unseen future because there is nothing that has been left untried here."

The question that has been bequeathed to you and me is which side of this dynamic we find ourselves.

Usually it has been a mixed bag for us. On one divide we are on one side and on another we are on the other. The old "seamless garment" ideal doesn't easily get put on. Our little privileges keep poking through.

Nonetheless, what's a disciple to do these days but to recognize their own limits, put down their institutional protections, and join a prayer to be freed from deceit, their own as well as that of their church, nation, family, or other privilege generating body.

Genesis 32:22-31

Year A - Pentecost +8 or Community Practice ⁸

July 27, 2014

Genesis 32:22-31

Into the midst of trepidation that all we knew was coming to an end, our past had caught up with us and there was to be no choosing of doors to escape, Jacob has a dream realer than real.

A wrestling ensues. The battle was lost with a broken hip and no way to leverage any foot upon a strong foundation. There was only limping around an altar of past success.

The contest had gone on long enough that evening was becoming morning. In the end there is an end to wrestling. In this end is neither victory nor defeat, but blessing.

We are renamed, reoriented, reanimated. Imagine what it would be like in your world if word finally came to you, “you have striven with G*D and Neighb*r, and have prevailed.”

In prevailing we, too, would want to know a name to rename. Though a name is not revealed here, Charles Wesley later penned a poem, “Wrestling Jacob”, turned into a hymn, “Come, O Thou Traveler Unknown” (386 and 387 in The United Methodist Hymnal of 1989). Here Charles’ conclusion is, “thy nature and thy name is Love.” Though not included in current versions of the hymn, the 14th and concluding stanza runs:

Lame as I am, I take the prey,
hell, earth, and sin with ease overcome;
I leap for joy, pursue my way,
and as a bounding hart fly home,
through all eternity to prove
thy nature, and thy name is Love.

A challenge to us in these days of discouragement of wars and rumors of war and great community splits happening and threatened, is to reveal in our life the nature and name of Love that will not let us go nor escape our grasp, even should the night darken or the morning come.

- - - - - - -

You are encouraged to read Thy Nature & Thy Name Is Love: Wesleyan and Process Theologies in Dialogue, Edited by Bryan P. Stone & Thomas Jay Oord.

Matthew 14:13-21

Year A - Pentecost +8 or Community Practice ⁸

July 27, 2014

Matthew 14:13-21

One unrealistic expectation of a lectionary is that folks will know what comes before and after a particular passage. Having only a slice of the larger story leads us into a literalistic approach to the words selected. A pericope comes with an implied moral.

As we hear the transition words that begin this segment,“On hearing this. . . .”, we need to remember what has just gone on: Baptizer John has just been beheaded.

In the concluding action we can hear a reprise of Jesus in the wilderness after his baptism. With no bread around he was tempted to turn stones into bread and did his Jesus judo by saying we don’t live by bread alone and that he had “bread” unknown to others. Now, with “nothing” to eat for 5,013 men (no “women and children first” here) the disciples respond “we have but enough for ourselves”. 

It is not until we get down to not having enough for ourselves that we begin to trust an alternative reality. The Disciples hadn’t hit bottom yet, they were just on the fringes of wilderness, not immersed in it.

Can you hear Jesus saying a different blessing than the expected one, “The Body of John has been broken for us, let us break into a fast in remembrance of him.” And the five loaves and two fish were taken to all. And the people, one by one, remembered they had sustenance previously unknown. [Note: this does not speak to those amazing details of multiplication or eating or left-overs, only to a blessing beyond standard blessings that reframes where we are, who we are, and what might yet be possible.]

From here we can go on to a dry place with water all around and an invitation to “Courage” and a bidding to “Come”.

Romans 8:26-39

Year A - Pentecost +7 or Community Practice ⁷

July 27, 2014

Romans 8:26-39

We plant weeds in our own prayer and life. No wonder we don’t know how to pray. We get all mixed up about what it means to work toward a larger common good.

Take a look at today. If today is what was predestined from a hundred years or generations ago, surely something has gone awry. It suggests that even a sighing Spirit has a spotty prayer record.

So what can be said about the parables of life? Not much. Discernment about which one to use when is still an important task. Nonetheless, we do put down markers that reflect what it is we trust or are convinced about. In our better times, we live up to the hope they imply.

What are you convinced about? Your value? Your part in larger pictures? Just showing up is nine-tenths of the job? You are not as lonely as our tendency to separate would lead us to believe? Love wins in the end, even if you die rejecting that premise? Mustard happens?

Psalm 105:1-11, 45

Year A - Pentecost +7 or Community Practice ⁷

July 27, 2014

Psalm 105:1-11, 45

imagine praise of another 

as sowing a small 

mustard seed 

of encouragement 

into their life

in time 

will grow 

confidence 

to welcome strangers

from another realm

with them

comes fertilizer

to grow

into further

praise

each to the other

will cede

to the other

a new

inheritance

Genesis 29:15-28

Year A - Pentecost +7 or Community Practice ⁷

July 27, 2014

Genesis 29:15-28

Jacob’s life is like Leah that Laban sowed in Jacob’s life.

The Presence of G*D is like expectation that rises whenever Rachel is thought of. Her grace and beauty leavens all of Jacob’s life.

Tomorrow’s Promise is found and hidden in Today, in Rachel. Jacob invests twice to be with his treasure. He would have done it a third time had that been necessary.

Our Goal is worth the circuitous search for it. When our “Rachel” is found, we gladly sell any time we have to have a moment.

Eventually  every Leah and Rachel enters our life. In their presence we recognize that both are part of our story and we cannot consign any part to a fiery dust-heap of a sanitized history. Everything will be made whole or well again.

Jacob and you and I are in training for Tomorrow. Our gift box of treasures is quite varied. Sometimes we pull out a cautionary tale and sometime one of great unimagined surprise.

Jacob’s life of new and old, tricks that push forward and hold back, rascal children and thoughtful, rolls on in his time and continues to invite us into the kind of intentional and happenstance experiences that make up a life.

Now, how would you identify a key moment in your life and have that be an example or parable of the Presence or Freedom of G*D?

Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52

Year A - Pentecost +7 or Community Practice ⁷

July 27, 2014

Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52

It was just a moment ago we heard that a sower sowed “good” seed and someone else sowed “weed” seed or invasive species. The wisdom of that moment was to let them both grow until harvest and to then separate them.

Here it seems a sower sowed mustard in their own wheat field. What sense does it make to sow mustard among the wheat?

Well, remember this is a parable and we only compare them to one another within the closing rubric of this pericope: we are to bring out of our treasured experiences that which is new and what is old according to the situation at hand. Attend to the situation to reduce the misapplication of a favorite saying. 

For now rejoice that even a weed can be a symbol of the presence of G*D. In some sense this story is a direct challenge and counter to the privilege of mighty cedar trees. Here a mustard holds birds just like a cedar. All flighty persons are welcome to settle. That is you and me and all.

The New Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible says the mustard in question is “almost certainly” Brasica nigra (the black mustard) with a seed about 0.1 inches in diameter that in ideal conditions can grow to 15 feet tall with a stem as thick as a human arm. Of course parables don’t need to deal with “almost” certainties to make a point. If they were it would have to be recognized that in usual circumstances, the plant’s tendency to go limp in the heat of the day wouldn’t be an ideal nesting place. The certainties would also get us into the sexuality of the plant wherein the flowers are hermaphrodite (have both male and female organs). The plant is self-fertile. This wouldn’t play well with the “one man, one woman” crowd but does opens up a whole new understanding of “heavenly realms”.

For the moment, imagine the presence of G*D portrayed as a humble garden herb instead of an imperial tree already mighty, high and lifted up. Here is an opportunity to add flavor to life, not to overpower it. May we go and do likewise.

Romans 8:12-25

Year A - Pentecost +6 or Community Practice ⁶

July 20, 2014

Romans 8:12-25

Yesterday there was to have been a meeting hosted by the leadership of The United Methodist Church’s Connectional Table and the Executive Committee of the Council of Bishops that invited 3 groups advocating for a release of mission and ministry in The United Methodist Church by removing the fearful language that categorically discriminates against LGBTQ United Methodists and 3 groups attempting to maintain and strengthen the current restrictive legislation. Additionally there was 1 group invited that represents the 100 largest United Methodist congregations.

The result was that the only  the first 3 groups arrived (Love Prevails, Methodist Federation for Social Action, and Reconciling Ministries Network).

The agenda was pitiful and still was tried to be carried out when less than half of the invitees bothered to show up and they were all folks who had had to gird their loins to be present, one more time in the face of those who desire their exile and will go to any lengths to achieve purity at the expense of another’s very life.

If you want to focus on groaning currently going on, that can be done at quite a distance with news about shooting down a public airliner or a ground invasion of Gaza. For those in The United Methodist Church, it will be important to attend to your groaning sisters and brothers and a variety of gender identities lest your concern for those far away is undercut by your lack of concern for those near by. In other situations the undercutting would go the other way, but today, in The United Methodist Church, the delay in honoring our baptized LGBTQ siblings affects every part of the denomination.

Join the groaning that there is so much trickle-down fear and cowardice from church leadership and the need is so great for trickle-up courage from everyday folk. Attend to this video report after the above fiasco of a meeting where absence was yet another face and form of violence.

http://loveprevailsumc.com/2014/07/18/reflections-on-july-18th-meeting/

Then you might appreciate this reflection by on the video report by Jeanne Knepper, one of many LGBTQ saints, that speaks to a watchful and waiting hope: 

Trickle up, trickle through, trickle, trickle moves the water as it undercuts, as it undermines, as it overwhelms the dam, the damn dam. And when the water gushes through, when the Spirit flows, the dam believers will wonder, "Why didn't we see this coming??" Because, fearful friends, you were afraid to go near the water, the water of Life, offered so very freely, for so many years. Love Prevails.

  

Psalm 139:1-12, 23-24

Year A - Pentecost +6 or Community Practice ⁶

July 20, 2014

Psalm 139:1-12, 23-24

Given the parable of the wheat and weeds, does G*D search us to distinguish our various parts and judge one against another? To hem us in, fore and aft, would seem to be an attempt to de-weed us.

That question is one starting point to further question a deistic formulation of a divinely controlling busy-body. How easy does the gospel lesson lie with this psalm?

It would seem to be more comfortable in relationship to the ladder image in Genesis. The ascending and descending going on wherever the ladder might be planted is indicative of it being located at all points and we just periodically notice it.

https://www.osha.gov/FedReg_osha_gif/FED20100524img13.jpg

Are angels constrained by OSHA constraints on angles?

Genesis 28:10-19a

Year A - Pentecost +6 or Community Practice ⁶

July 20, 2014

Genesis 28:10-19a

Where the “ladder” is set is a place of wheat and tares, seed and weed. It can be meta-geographical location—a previous Garden of Eden, a present Garden of Your Life, or a next Revelational Garden. Wherever set, it gives shape to the ascending and descending aspects of life.

What do you image as the work of ascending or descending such a metaphoric ladder? A usual response might entail something about sin or prayer, but for the moment consider a simpler and more complex dynamic of an on-going creation larger than sin or prayer.

You are invited to take this ladder with you wherever you might go—“Know a creative process we shorthand as G*D is with you wherever you go. It will not leave, no matter how we try to escape our part in it, and will continue to trouble us with a word or a sign.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-O5NoCyxg6c

Susan Werner - Did Trouble Me

Found on her CD: The Gospel Truth

Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43

Year A - Pentecost +6 or Community Practice ⁶

July 20, 2014

Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43

Because the presence of heaven come on earth is so elusive, there is parable after parable to try to clarify how much of it is present and how much yet to come. It is almost as if such a state were a constructed new element, present for a moment but O so evanescent. It is as elusive and temporary as John Wesley’s sense of “perfection”—here but for a moment before knowing that even a mature wholeness presages yet more to come.

So, once upon a time there was a sowing and in days yet to come there will be a harvest.

In the meantime we don’t go about purifying the field for to do so will leave it barren. Those who attempt the impossible task of stopping growth will ultimately be disappointed for the impetus of creation is always onward.

It is worth a moment of time to reflect on healthy and unhealthy seed—that which we differentiate by “seed” and “weed”, though both come from seed. In today’s church there is no more important overcoming of differentiation than that of that seed called “sex”. This gets us into an important category of “us”.

In every expression of sex there are healthy and unhealthy behaviors. It is a false split to name one expression healthy and another unhealthy. This is an attempt to turn relationship into technique and is bound to eventually be seen for the falsity it contains.

When we finally get around to the healthy/unhealthy distinction we will find our definition of who is in and out is broadened. It will have an effect on all the other discriminations of gender, race, culture, language, national origin, signage (cross, crescent, star, yin-yang, etc.), and the like. Regardless of who won the first World Cup or that latest, we can learn a larger “us” of soccer fan beyond support of any particular team.

High on the list of important scriptures hidden inside larger units is verse 30a: Let both of them grow together. This runs the short-run danger of weeds entirely choking out the non-weed seeds. It relies on a promise that health and wholeness will come through.

Without getting into the burning, which is not ours to do this early in the harvest game, let’s focus on being the best seeds we can be regardless of our degree of male, intersex, or female genitalia or affectional preference within any of those physical realities. How can we be the best seed available within whatever racial, cultural, national, language subset we happen to begin in. This is what we have to work with, not judging harvests.

Blessings on growing together—within yourself and between yourself and another and others.

Romans 8:1-11

Year A - Pentecost +5 or Community Practice ⁵

July 13, 2014

Romans 8:1-11

A seed sown and eaten by a bird will go through that bird and become fertilizer for another seed at another location. Not a very efficient system, but consistent with profligate sowing.

How is this like Jesus’ teachings running through you?

Seed sown on rocky ground does a bit of growing before failing and yet that very failure is added to, seed by seed, until fertile soil overlays the rock. Not a very fast system, but consistent with a natural evolution of an environment as well well as natural life processes of an individual.

How is this like Jesus’ teachings slowly growing within until their evidence is unmistakable?

Seed sown amid tall and virile weeds has the toughest job of all. It is safe from predators gobbling it quickly and shaded from desiccation. These very mechanisms that might seem so ideal are eventually seen as unhealthy constraints. Cultures focused on safety from particular dangers bring their own death. Not only can’t birds sneak into a weedy patch, but the weeds block needed sun and suck up needed water with deeper and wider roots. The result is the same, though different. From too much sun to too little; from no water to water available but not accessible. 

How is this like Jesus’ teachings that clarify the dangers of too many laws springing up?

These variant readings complicate Paul’s attempt to simplify relationships and thus do an injustice to the dynamism of Spirit. Christ simply sows and seeds even when the results seem so lacking. To measure things dualistically (...you are not in the flesh, you are in the spirit ... no Spirit, no connection....) is to miss the mystery of resurrection, the power of pentecost, and the joy of everyday everydayness where everything is interconnected, not separated out.

I suspect that what folks see as failed seeds tickles G*D’s fancy as a different scale is used—being sown vs. cultural success. Here abundance in the sowing is far more evocative than even a hundred fold increase of some portion of the planting. To set our minds on the things of fleshy seeds and how they serve even in dying is a process to raise Spirit and decrease privilege.

Psalm 119:105-112

Year A - Pentecost +5 or Community Practice ⁵

July 13, 2014

Psalm 119:105-112

Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.

Hearing echoes of past mercy, experiencing opportunities to pass it on, and anticipating a more expansive mercy than can currently be lived, are seeds promising abundant growth far beyond the limits of this day.

I have sworn an oath and confirmed it, to observe your righteous ordinances.

I see the wisdom of and confirm the process of sowing seeds of steadfast love regardless of how they are received. This is a helpful guide to life.

I am severely afflicted; give me life, O LORD, according to your word.

In this process I am grieved that it is a process and not a guaranteed technique leading to ease. For now this reminder leads me back to engaging life with a gentler hand.

Accept my offerings of praise, O LORD, and teach me your ordinances.

I am also grateful for a reminder of a larger perspective that pulls me toward a healthier relationship with difficulties.

I hold my life in my hand continually, but I do not forget your law.

I am ready to dive deeper into the contingencies of life as a remembrance of a yet better way to come shapes and reshapes current boundaries.

The wicked have laid a snare for me, but I do not stray from your precepts.

There is a strange and curious attractant that requires clear discernment to wend one’s way through the snares of those who will never love us and yet are those whom we should love.*

Your decrees are my heritage forever; they are the joy of my heart.

No matter how I try to wiggle out of it, the sowing process is real. Better joy in the heart of reality than certainty in a land of speculation.

I incline my heart to perform your statutes forever, to the end.

And so I commit myself, once again, to a creative impetus that knows no end but a continual investment in life.

* “Forgiveness” by Susan Werner on her CD Gospel Truth 

Genesis 25:19-34

Year A - Pentecost +5 or Community Practice ⁵

July 13, 2014

Genesis 25:19-34

In light of the parable of the sower we would claim the problem was that Rebekah was some blackbird she-devil, ultra-frigid, or shallow beyond belief. Obviously barrenness is a situation that calls out for a prayer that will call out G*D. 

If we were to take a second look, beyond our culture’s male privilege, we might see low motile sperm that did not have vitality traced back shock to a newly hormonal Isaac all but sacrificed. His body’s reaction, “I’m never going to try that with a child, no children for me.”

Here the storyline is that such that Isaac had a conversion experience to wanting a child or at least wanting Rebekah to not be embarrassed by not having a child and a prayer was more than answered. It was as if G*D says, “OK, you want to play games around conception, here’s a trick for you.”

In usual circumstances sowing millions of sperm get you a yield of (1) one. Here it doubled that, but still pretty profligate sowing. If it was prayer, perhaps we can say (1) one prayer yielded a yield of (2) two. When “division” is factored in, we may be at a final yield of (1/2) one-half.

So where does all this silly playing around get us, beyond a doctoral thesis? First, that parables are tricky when applied to a particular situation. Second, we still attribute qualities to physical characteristics (ginger ruddiness) or situations that call forth a nickname (Jealous Jacob).

From almost sacrificed Isaac we get Jacob, whose sons almost sacrificed one of their own. And how much further have we grown in our divisions and sacrifice of one another? Consider the schism talk in The United Methodist Church and its sacrifice of LGBTQ persons.

Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23

Year A - Pentecost +5 or Community Practice ⁵

July 13, 2014

Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23

What a great day! I think I’ll get me a few rays here on the beach.

Whoa! Where’d all these folks come from?

Hey there, what’s up?

You're hungry for another story? 

Oh, not a bedtime story, but a waking up story. 

Well, OK. 

Let me think.

Try this one. “Once upon a time, a sower went out to sow. . . . Let anyone who wants to wake up, listen. 

Here’s what’s real, there is no guarantee in life, no technique that will work every time. We are messy people in the midst of a messy world. Everything is still developing. Some things work and some don’t. Engage anyway.

Some of your work will go down a dark hole. Some of what you attempt will seem fruitful at first, but fade over time from lack of your own trust in it. Likewise some of your attempts will fade because of external factors out of your control that indicate you sowed at the wrong time or place. And, believe it or not, some of your growth will nurture and be nurtured by others and actually make a difference for now and for generations.

In the midst of uncertainty, engage anyway. This story is has no ending other than your waking up and engaging. So, off you go to practice. Come back again some time to let me know how it went. No matter how dark or faded, some of what you do will be crucially important.

Hmm, not a bad story. A few more rays for energy and it’ll be time for me to practice what I preach.

Ahh.

Romans 7:15-25a

Year A - Pentecost +4 or Community Practice ⁴

July 6, 2014

Romans 7:15-25a

First a reference: A Wretched Man: A Novel of Paul the Apostle uses contemporary Pauline studies to look again at Paul. The novel form allows for additional context for key phrases and ideas from Paul.

Second: There is no rule against doing good. While “good” can get one in temporary trouble, its long-term arc is to benefit both oneself and generations to come. Sometimes it only assists others, but that’s good.

Don’t get too dualistic here between spiritual law and fleshy sin. Even G*D has done things that have needed repentance and a resolution to not do that again. Note the interplay between these idealized states and continue the work set out at Pentecost to move from our fear, our wretchedness, and move into a polyglot (some would say sinful) community to better wrestle out how we care for weary ones. Do we give them our yoke or teach them to find their own?

Psalm 45:10-17

Year A - Pentecost +4 or Community Practice ⁴

July 6, 2014

Psalm 45:10-17

Just why this pericope is here may simply be the reference to Tyre. A Roman Catholic tradition ties these sorts of royal psalms to some desired “kingship” for Jesus.

For now you may simply want to go back to consider the yoke image, this time for oxen. Weddings hitch two folks so they are not only still their unique persons but that they have joined in common purpose as well.

The Psalm has folks cheering the newly wedded king and queen to bed that there might be “sons” (yes, patriarchal sons).

What would you have the church cheered on to do in this day and age? Would it have something to do with doing a more effective job of engaging those who are weary and still have many a mile to go with their burden? Can this receive as much partying as a wedding and a first post-marital intercourse?

Care for widows and infants would be a better reason to be famous than simple proliferation of numbers.

Genesis 24:34-48, 42-49, 58-67

Year A - Pentecost +4 or Community Practice ⁴

July 6, 2014

Genesis 24:34-48, 42-49, 58-67

And Isaac looked up. It had probably been some time since he had been able to look up. When your father is ready to sacrifice you, something changes in the way you look at the world. We don’t hear about Isaac’s internal conversations. Presumably he knew he was responsible for his half-brother being exiled as well as how he was victimized by his father. It is hard to look up with these pulling you down from the inside.

And Rebekah looked up. A seemingly independent woman now away from the protection of family, wandering with Abraham’s servant, and with a ring on her nose. There has been enough time from leaving Nahor, even with her own servants along, to consider what a change she had committed to. Pondering in the heart makes it difficult to look up. Questions fly; responses escape.

And Isaac was comforted after his mother’s death. And what of Rebekah—at first barren, then birthing babes struggling with one another, then choosing to advantage one child, then disavowed as wife out of Isaac’s fear, and then dies without it being specifically noted?

Both carry heavy loads. Both look up for at least a moment. Both proceed to continue living and growing, playing their part in an evolving story.

What word of good news would you pass on to Isaac and Rebekah at their various stages of life?

Matthew 11:16-30

Year A - Pentecost +4 or Community Practice ⁴

July 6, 2014

Matthew 11:16-30

To what shall we compare our usual systems and structures? A narcissist? Processes that want what they want and that right now.

How shall we talk about a longer-term way; wide where wideness helps and narrow where such assists our way together. A yoke is the image used here.

A yoke can be like that of oxen. Stick your neck here and be yoked to Jesus. What Jesus would do, you will do. Gee. Haw.

A better image of a yoke is that which can be placed across your shoulders to assist you to balance and carry more than you thought you could; more than arms alone could support for any distance. 

Here life is a bit more exciting. Depending on the load and the destination things will be spread out or brought in. Though ancient in design it is modernly ergonomic. A single weight can be distributed. The weight of a whole spiritual life can be divided into acts of piety with G*D on one side and acts of mercy with Neighb*r on the other. Together, balance.

Having difficulty balancing your life? Here, take my yoke. No, no joke. I can make another. Make it your own—use it according to your load, not mine. See, the ease of work. Let there be ... —now where does that fit and what will have to change because of this new word become present?

Got a heavy burden? Who doesn’t? Remember the yoke. It is not a cross to bear; it is a community that carries one another, weeping as well as laughing. It is with this yoke that all is brought in, even the heaviest of burdens such as Tyre and Sidon (well, beside you and me). Carry and be carried—a wonderfully recursive fractal (well, not really as I don’t know what I’m talking about here, but it sounded good). Perhaps someone can give a better mathematical model for a meaning schema. Put that on your yoke and carry it!

Romans 6:12-23

Year A - Pentecost +3 or Community Practice ³

June 29, 2014

Romans 6:12-23

Sin — Righteousness

Death — Eternal Life

And for those of us who continually find ourselves between stops, backsliding from one and frontsliding from the other?

A significant problem I’ve not been able to get around is how to know beforehand the results of an action. There are so many surprises that have come along. Wonderful plans have large and small blowbacks. Intentional meanness clarifies needed changes.

That which is deemed morally righteous in one generation turns 180 degrees and can no longer be abided. Consider a new resource: Bisexuality: Making Visible the Invisible in Faith Communities.

As we move from one new learning to a next (sometimes going back and sometimes further) it is tempting to move from one codification to a next (shifting G*D’s if you will) rather than to learn how to live on the move.

It may be that the wages of surety are death and those of graceful learning are life (eternal or not). Prophets or Priest are the most dangerous to themselves and others when they are too cocky about projecting the present into the future. 

Psalm 13

Year A - Pentecost +3 or Community Practice ³

June 29, 2014

Psalm 13

Are you feeling forgotten? Your cause delayed and betrayed? Your source of authority dismissed? Your social capital steadily reduced and ignored?

Well? One day more?

Enough of those and it is too much. We’ll be dead before seeing satisfaction (as though that were the most valuable of all results).

Shaken to our core we have lost our joy. What we thought was steadfast, isn’t anymore. Perimeters fail before our centers cease to hold.

This is all so real, so everyday. All that is left is that wonderfully contrarian view of hope when hope has been lost. Who knew it was still present? Well, not us, that’s for sure.

And, then, a spark is all it takes to set us aflame yet one more time. May we be that spark for one another for the journey is long and we each have our time of dark where others hold a light for us and we later return the favor.

Priest or Prophet or Poor, all are in need of a cup of water, a spark of hope, a beautiful moment. Pick your gift and apply it wherever possible as we sing together as morning stars still do.

Genesis 22:1-14

Year A - Pentecost +3 or Community Practice ³

June 29, 2014

Genesis 22:1-14

For PETAites, the sacrifice of a ram is not any more desirable than the sacrifice of a human. When a creator demands the sacrifice of a portion of the creation, there are questions to be raised about what is going on. Who has lost faith with whom?

When is a test regarding human relationships ethical. This is not to say it doesn’t regularly go on, but when pausing to think about it how much pain are we willing to expose another to while we are at a distance? Is a false shock to an actor any more or less questionable than a real shock to an innocent? What does it do to both? Well, true, that can’t be measured because we are able to shift what an event means to us. We may even be able to shift our perceptions pharmaceutically with some new PTS medications.

Is this about compartmentalism? Abraham puts G*D in one box that trumps all others? Might it be about breaking compartmentalism? Abraham is willing to concede his initial plan and substitute? Is this the great learning of Abraham as after this we hear of Sarah’s death, Isaac’s marriage, and Abraham’s death?

The Abraham story eventually boils down to learning to not be rigid, even rigid in waiting. It begins with leaving a physical home and ends with leaving a spiritual home that a next generation might have its journey. What remains is the Well of Lahai-roi (25:11). Let us all gather around such a well as we are brought together, separate, rejoin, and are sustained into a next stage of life, a next generation.

Matthew 10:40-42

Year A - Pentecost +3 or Community Practice ³
June 29, 2014
Matthew 10:40-42

We are in life together. We hold more than six degrees of connection within us. Whoever welcomes you, welcomes me and those I know and those who know them. Basically, we don't welcome one other without welcoming all others. We can talk all we want about all-being-all, but if it is not lived out in the welcome of particular people we have not been welcoming and so are not welcome in parts of the cosmos.

As we are still working out of Pentecost, welcome is wider than our temporary divisions of culture, language, or wedge-issue. Without getting into a reward/punishment mode of interacting, imagine the phrase, "None will lose". What might this mean for your level of courage to engage. Might that have been a phrase that blew through a locked room whispering in each ear. No wonder they arose and went into the streets. They were so poor they had nothing to lose. They had already lost all they had, except for their fear. Now with this vision, the fear could be set aside and, lo and behold, they were again a part of everything.

Even a day in Carolina couldn't be finer than this—"None will lose". Remember. Proclaim. Remember again.

Romans 6:1b-11

Year A - Pentecost +2 or Community Practice ²

June 22, 2014

Romans  6:1b-11

The value of the cross is not that Jesus died on one in order to save you or anyone, but that it might indicate for us the investment in life we are called to, baptized into—a fullness of life that does not swerve for fear of death. The image of a cross here is not limited to Jesus, but beckons each of us to face death, decide it doesn’t make all that much difference, and proceed to make a larger difference than first imagined.

In this way the cross is not some token of atonement, but a sign of grace.

It is always a little iffy to try to follow Paul’s legal mind too closely. He goes around enough barns to confuse us into a smaller than larger picture of life. Suffice it to say here that grace does abound, regardless of any sin measurement. Asking about this or that kind of sin is simply beside the point. Asking about bounding grace leaping through the various gates of life will be quite sufficient for a vocation or hobby.

I’m not sure where this line came from, but it is worth passing on:

From the church of perpetual astonishment...we shall not cease to be amused. 

Use it in good health.

Psalm 69:7-10, (11-15), 16-18

Year A - Pentecost +2 or Community Practice ²

June 22, 2014

Psalm 69:7-10, (11-15), 16-18

While this Psalm is seemingly chosen to reflect on Jeremiah’s difficult experiences as a prophet. And yet, Jeremiah’s fierce cry that the “Lord is with me” doesn’t quite ring true to a call for redemption. 

Jeremiah seems not to have applied for the job of prophet. There is a component of being called that keeps us from claiming the right to some answer or the privilege of being exempted from any distress. There is no calling out for rescue, there is only proceeding.

Embedded in verse 13 (yes, easily left out) comes a choice:

• “At an acceptable time, O G*D, in the abundance of your steadfast love, answer me.”

or

• “With or without an organizing “answer”, this is an acceptable time to simply proceed in the experience of abundant, steadfast love.”

Our work today is to not work at our call, but to let it loose and follow as best we can.

Psalm 86:1-10, 16-17

Year A - Pentecost +2 or Community Practice ²

June 22, 2014

Psalm 86:1-10, 16-17

We seem to bounce back and forth between our privileged assertions and our discouraged whines. 

When it seems all is right with the world, i.e., I’m getting mine, there is not much room for consideration of the plight of others and we need to be importuned by those our privilege negatively affects.

When one too many strikes against us has happened, i.e., we are feeling worm-low, there is only one thing left for us to do and that to importune some hoped for universal possibility to re-balance the scales.

This is another of the many Psalms that calls out for our sense of privilege, of all being right, to be established or reestablished more securely than ever.

How does it suit you today? 

- - -

Presuming verses 16-17 being a reference to Hagar, might we extend the personal plea at the end to also be a plea from Hagar against Sarah? How does that suit you? Would you hope for more from Hagar? From yourself?

Jeremiah 20:7-13

Year A - Pentecost +2 or Community Practice ²

June 22, 2014

Jeremiah 20:7-13

An interesting distinction between Pentecostalists (original?) speaking across languages and cultures to find a common spot of wonder regarding G*D and Prophets (original?) speaking within a language/culture/religion to note where we have lost our commonness, “Violence and destruction!”

Prophets recognize when we have again shut ourselves up in dark rooms filled with fear of the loss of “our” life and the needed antidote of advocating for the life of “others”. It is at the point of the other that we can “Sing praise”.

Whether with the ancient prophets, a later Pentecost, or today’s experience of wonder and other, we move from fear to flame and wind to word.

Singing praise today?

Genesis 21:8-21

Year A - Pentecost +2 or Community Practice ²

June 22, 2014

Genesis 21:8-21

Imagine Pentecost as a weaning. It was a great feast.

Having remembered, we need to also remember that it wasn’t all that long before our appreciation of wonder able to overcome differences became prey of privilege and the development of creeds to weed out those who are different.

Whether we talk about Sarah and Hagar or any religion, we seem unable to hold our initial wonder but begin to wonder about one another and if they are really as true as they ought to be. In Iraq we hear about Sunni and Shiite. In United Methodism there is talk about an “amicable” separation. How many Catholic orders are there?

Each of these have heard their sense of distress turned to a blessing—“I will make a greatness of them.”

Soon enough there will need to be yet another Pentecost within and between all the various expressions of wonder. How long it will last is a live question. Until then: listen to the experience of others; in turn, tell your own experience; let these experiences wrestle with one another until further clarity grows from each loneliness and we can once again encourage each other in our differences. 

Matthew 10:24-39

Year A - Pentecost +2 or Community Practice ²

June 22, 2014

Matthew 10:24-39

You have heard it said that a disciple is not above their teacher, nor a slave above their owner.

But I say to you: disciple and teacher, slave and owner, are both within each.

Don’t fear those who set one above and one below. Fear, rather, that which separates one from the other as though they were so foreordained.

I simply say, we are connected, you and me. I have come to keep our tensions honest that we might better share with one another. Sons are not fathers, nor mothers, daughters. Even when roles are reversed for one reason or another, they are not equivalents. All are free to choose, whether appreciated for their choice or not.

Whoever does not pick up a connecting point between all things and yet distinguish them, is not yet alive. Regardless of a history more and more limited to death, a cross is but a crude mechanism of both connection and distinguishment.

In this intersecting process of keeping connections and identity related to one another, find the humility to be merciful and so live deeper connections and connexions (Pentecostal witness).

2 Corinthians 13:11-13

Year A - Trinity Sunday or Live Together Sunday

June 15, 2014

2 Corinthians 13:11-13

Finally, “Farewell”.

All our provisional understandings of life, the universe, and everything finally come to, “Farewell”.

All our attempts at order finally cease.

All our mutual appeals, agreements, and living arrangements take their place within the presence of a G*D of love and peace larger than its attendant parts.

Finally, all the variants of life find themselves put into perspective by whatever it means for a larger vision containing all saints’ (everyone’s) collective gifts to embrace us and all. It is this sense of universalism that sets a perspective for all the little theories we travel with for a moment and lay down to travel even further.

Finally, faring well comes to grace, love, and communion. And the greatest of these are the others.

Psalm 8

Year A - Trinity Sunday or Live Together Sunday

June 15, 2014

Psalm 8

From the Bottom Up

9 - O G*D, partner, Wow!

8 - Birds above and fish below sail their course,

7 - beasts near and far continue their way.

6 - We engage all that sets our context

5 - and revel in our connection—

4 - bringing to mind how care-full we are.

3 - Under every light, we open again

2 - to hear a new word beckon a new picture—

1 - tomorrow and today together.

Genesis 1:1–2:4a

Year A - Trinity Sunday or Live Together Sunday

June 15, 2014

Genesis 1:1–2:4a

Pentecost +1

mighty wind

swept through

chaotic fear

scattering

light flickers

in its wake

sparking

combinations

mutations

within and beyond

species

a seventh day

blessing

hallows

on-going processes

generating

generations

within and beyond

one creation

and a next

in this day

bless windy light

Matthew 28:16-20

Year A - Trinity Sunday or Live Together Sunday

June 15, 2014

Matthew 28:16-20

Note that one can worship and doubt at the same time. We are strangely made to be various. Our experiences conflict with one another. One part of our body has one need and another has yet another and so there is the wonderful picture of snacking while sitting on a toilet. Our relationships shape our demeanor while in the presence of different people which is always interesting when our various relationships are in the same space together. Yes, worship and doubt are no strangers to one another.

If an antidote to doubt is trust, how might it best be established. Here a declaration of authority is used. That didn’t seem to work when Jesus was with the disciples as they continued to argue among themselves as well as with Jesus. Authority doesn’t hold up very well when there is distance between an authoritative pronouncement and the consequences of not jumping on the bandwagon announced. Pretty soon we are in a case of distributed authority where what Jesus says is overlaid with theories, doctrines, and competing authorities of interpretation.

Jesus did leave us with a pretty clear trinitarian starting point for evaluating our gifts and call. It is the old: Love G*D, Love Self, Love Neighb*r. It wasn’t long before Jesus added Love One Another to Self and Love Your Enemies to Neighb*r. We sometimes add Love the Bible, One Doctrine or Another, and Jesus to Love G*D.

The original is an ancient way to extend the dynamic of Original Blessing, Original Insight, and Original Service/Gratitude/Humility.

If talk this day about a doctrine of trinity doesn’t include how it is we live with all our various parts and how we live together with competing, doubt raising, derivations and variations, then it will soon enough fade, unable to even raise a faint doubt.

1 Corinthians 12:3b-13

Year A - Pentecost or Energy to Witness

June 8, 2014

1 Corinthians 12:3b-13

Folks in a Pentecostal room went out to talk about the “power/presence of G*D” and now, a generation plus later, we find what is being talked about is a talking with one another about a literalized title. All talk of how “Lord” is a challenge to the contemporary political/power talk of the Roman Emperor being Lord, is of less import here than the requirement to have a shibboleth and talk to one another instead of those of another language or life-experience group.

Our recommendation is to delete the partial verse of 3b and begin with the Spirit reality that there are varieties of gifts and services and activities that can all work together whether they can agree on “Lord” terminology or not.

For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with our appreciation of Jesus—our expression of relationship with Jesus will be many and also one. If we cannot honor both the variety and the interconnections, we are most to be pitied and will soon enough become a caricature of what it means to be partnered with Jesus.

Psalm 104:24-34, 35b

Year A - Pentecost or Energy to Witness

June 8, 2014

Psalm 104:24-34, 35b

So, what have you experienced?

So, what do you desire to experience?

Between these two is where Pentecostal messages appear. They remind us of how we have experienced G*D and Neighb*r. They remind us of expectations of better experiences with G*D and Neighb*r.

This Psalm might be a base model for you to call to mind your own past and hopes. Where this psalm uses nature images, you can use pictures of your experience.

Numbers 11:24-30

Year A - Pentecost or Energy to Witness

June 8, 2014

Numbers 11:24-30

Prophecy and power travel together. Prophecy can be passed on as Spirit is distributed among the gathered. It can also have tricks played through technical means, as Eldad and Medad had happen to them. They were registered but not at the gathering and prophesied beyond the once-and-done prophesying by the other 68 (numbering in Numbers can get to be tricky).

In another 5 chapters we will have what is referred to as the rebellion of Korah, which might be thought of as a counter-prophesying against Moses. Eldad and Medad are in some sense forerunners of Korah, even though here they are permitted (what are just 2 to get worried about) but when it gets to be 250 an earthquake is called to swallow them.

We are all in the happy time of everyone being able to prophesy. In theory Pentecostal prophesying has a unifying feature to keep everyone on the same page. This doesn’t seem to be true anymore as folks claim the prophet role from every perspective. Now we are back to the interesting time of discerning true prophets from false—those who see connections between today and tomorrow most clearly and those who would cover tomorrow up with today to keep current power inequalities alive and well.

Pentecost doesn’t just take place in a vacuum of Jesus, but in a context of Judaism. How do you play with these?

Acts 2:1-21

Year A - Pentecost or Energy to Witness

June 8, 2014

Acts 2:1-21

Shavuot, Seven Weeks from Passover, plus a day, brings us to 50-cost (no not 50 Cent) or Pentecost. Jesus people are together in a room. Jewish people are together in Jerusalem to celebrate the cloud and flame on Mt. Sinai during the reception of the 10 Words.

The 10 Commandments define a community. Here is what we are and what we are not. On this day of remembrance we hear an additional emphasis upon community. The play here is from words coming to the people to the people go forth with a word.

There is joy and danger in this democratization of the hierarchical Moses story. A joy comes in claiming the power of G*D deeds, to put them in our own mouths. A danger comes in losing the particulars and making them into an individual's claim of authority. While it can feel good to claim a part in G*D’s deeds by naming them, it is easy to have this go to our heads, to become drunk on assumed power—to claim dominion.

Pentecost doesn’t just take place in a closed room or between people, it occurs in the context of a larger history. From one perspective it is a continued usurpation of the Jewish experience of G*D with cherry-picked and oh so subtle modification of the Hebrew scriptures. It is no coincidence that a 50-day variant on Jubilee and challenge to Moses happened when it did. Consider how “deeds of power” trump specific communal behaviors. It is a similar process to what Fox News does in todays’ media with their emphasis upon individual rights and losing touch with communal responsibility.

John 7:37-39

Year A - Pentecost or Energy to Witness

June 8, 2014

John 7:37-39

Pentecost is not parochial. It is all too easy to think that our people have a lock on Spirit.

There seemed to a be certain willy-nilliness about the witnessing that went on as a direct result of tongues of fire stimulating human tongues. This is an implicit working out of, “Let anyone who is thirsty come.”

Of course there is the kicker of subsequent language about believing to be dealt with. It is certainly understandable why the church would want the “believer” language added. It means larger coffers and a control factor over new believers.

This believer talk takes place in the context of early church struggles. We know this from the asides regarding spirit and glorification. Bottom-line is that Jesus is inclusive and the church is exclusive. 

This is not a new phenomenon. A more recent one is the way in which we covered up Nelson Mandela’s revolutionary inclusiveness to talk mostly about how wonderful that he was released and then did so much. We have done the same with every prophet along the way, moving digitally from “Revile them” to “Venerate them” with no transition or recognition of a wholeness and the messiness of their humanity, virtues and flaws. 

For now a question of where on a continuum you take your stand.

Inclusive Pentecost - (1) - - - (2) - - - (3) - - - (4) - - - (5) - Exclusive Pentecost

John 20:19-23

Year A - Pentecost or Energy to Witness

June 8, 2014

John 20:19-23

We so enjoy the story of Thomas à Doubter because we imagine that we would never be so slow. We would have been in the first wave of disciples who, while fearful of the authorities, were so quick to be joyful after seeing the marks of death. Thomas, reasonably, wanted to see such marks for himself.

If we stop the story before Thomas it is very much a proto-Pentecost passage—a closed room, a fearful people, a word of peace/a filling of Spirit, a breath/a wind, a sending, a forgiveness/a building new relationships across old divides of language.

This raises a question, “What today is a proto-tomorrow?” 

“Well, if you want to look at it that way!” - - “Today.”

So this day anticipates a fuller life? Hmm? So, invest more today? Yeah, I guess. Well, invest more forgiveness? OK, “Yes.”

And you?