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?

1 Peter 4:12-14; 5:6-11

Year A - 7^th Sunday of Easter or Assured ⁷
June 1, 2014
1 Peter 4:12-14; 5:6-11

Every life and age has to find a way to deal with suffering loss. We come up with all manner of ways to deal with this. Each of the world-wide and indigenous religions have their model such as a once-for-ever earth to heaven or turning wheel to release or some unifying now.

There really is no surprise that life goes awry, that we block one another’s gifts and growth.

What is surprising is that a humility toward our circumstance cuts across all difficulties and opens us to wisdom found beyond our claimed givens. Humility here is not a passive acceptance, but entails a widening awareness through disciplines that narrow distractions and open more room to breathe. This humility will bring us to patient learning/teaching and revolutionary points of decision that here is where we will stand.

Whether our loss be long or our relief be distant, our solidarity in suffering is restorative, supportive, and strengthening. This is a potential core around which all our various perspective can find room for one another. Might you take one more step toward establishing a common cause with one more person who has lost sight of the kindness still possible.

Note: there is an elision in this pericope that does need to be present for us to continue to do good when feeling dismissed. The New Community Bible uses headings for sections. Here at the end of 1 Peter they run: “Suffering as a Christian”, “Advice to the Presbyters”, and “Advice to the Community” before concluding with “Final Greetings”.

It would be instructive to use this three-fold structure in a worship setting. Begin with our commonality of suffering. Use a variety of processes to draw forth not just the easy surface sufferings it is culturally OK to talk about, but those deeper sufferings behind our discomforts. Shift to how church and state have added to those sufferings by imposing theories absent the sufferers at the table. Analyze the disjunctures of prejudice and discrimination that isolate and continue injustice. Shift again to claim the communal power to raise the fallen and return the exiled.

This will all take time. It is not an hour’s worth of work, but a lifetime’s. If we are not intentional in coming as close as we can to some on-going rhythm such as: Suffering caused by privileged leaders can be rectified by a compassionate community—we are institutionalizing further suffering.

Romans 12:9-16b

Year A - Visitation of Mary to Elizabeth or Elizabeth and Mary meet

May 31, 2014

Romans 12:9-16b

In days when there is much talk of schism within The United Methodist Church and an increasing gap between the rich and the poor, there is great disjuncture and disharmony. There is no solution to an intractable tension between self and other. Both are real and both invisible. 

An ever present danger of dealing with an eternal G*D is that we too easily claim our experience of G*D to be eternal. This makes it extremely difficult to carry ourselves lightly and humbly with one another. We take the on/off switch of chaos/creation and extend it into every other part of our personal/corporate theology. This turns the analog of tuning life into the digital of right/wrong. Eventually an awesome G*D requires sinning worms and the church develops its scapegoat of the day.

In our economy it gets to be a false divide between the rich and the middle class. The old false saw about seeing that the rich get theirs and then all boats will rise cannot be re-purposed to securing the middle class. As long as the poor are not the central measuring rod for our economic health there will continue to be fever upon fever and burst bubble after burst bubble. Though difficult for us to get our minds and hearts around, ultimately there is no wealth that is not generated by the poor. Sustainable wealth requires the health of the poor for this is the great untapped pool of resources that is intentionally kept from offering the gifts invested in them. 

Where, in a patriarchal system, are pregnant women meeting? Where, in a capitalist society, are the lowly gathering? Here is where hope will be borne and born. In both instances mercy is remembered and enacted. Where mercy is forgotten the beauty-way fades into mirage and we are truly lost.

Ephesians 1:15-23

Year A - Ascension or Our Turn to Witness

May 29, 2014

Ephesians 1:15-23

Inhale love, exhale thanks.

Again.

This is the fullness that fills all in all.

Since it is all in all, we can also inhale thanks and exhale love.

No matter where one is on this great circle with a still point of thanks or love and every circumference point of love or thanks, we add to its spin and expansion.

Psalm 68:1-10, 32-35

Year A - 7^th Sunday of Easter or Assured ⁷

June 1, 2014

Psalm 68:1-10, 32-35

Need a definition of G*D to help you know where you fit into living as an image of G*D? Verse 5 and 35b offer this: 

     A parent to the orphan

     and protector of the defenseless

     is our G*D, who dwells in wholeness!

     G*D gives power and strength to people.

As we come to the end of our Easter Sundays we are set up for Pentecost and the going forth to all those folks who are different from us. “Orphans” is but one way of describing our separation from one another and “power and strength” but one way of reconnecting by investing these qualities in those others we have previously orphaned.

Bottom line of Easter—don’t just “ascribe” or proclaim awesomeness, but see that those who are marginalized are raised up and included in.

For those interested in such things, track the Inclusive Capitalism Initiative (ICI) that is willing to give a little more to orphans so the basic drive of capitalism can continue to benefit the current winners. Here’s an article that looks at whether such an economic system can actually care for others or just give them a bit more to keep them from acting on what a revolting mess has been made of looking at the world through the eyes of wealth. ICI: noblesse-oblige? or capitalism’s resurrection?

Psalm 113

Year A - Visitation of Mary to Elizabeth or Elizabeth and Mary meet

May 31, 2014

Psalm 113

It is one things to look far down as G*D of all G*D’s observes from afar a faint image. [Verses 5-6]

It is quite another to move beyond observation to engagement. [Verses 7-8]

Mary could have quite easily turned her experience with Gabriel into an observation game. Hmm, how interesting, I’ll just let this be and see what happens.

Instead Mary takes an intentional trip to see another who had a similar experience, though from a desire for a child rather than just having one awkwardly show up. This trip shifts Mary from passive recipient to active participant. An affirmation by another does wonders to set us on the path of our gift, asked for or not and whether or not the general populace would agree. An affirmation can lead to a magnificent job description and the The Magnificat is a magnificent job description for being able to move on from an accepted order of indispensable top dog to disposable mangy cur.

In light of intentional and un-intentional infertility, you might want to either drop verse 9 or modify it outside a cultural expectation of reproduction for reproduction’s sake.

Psalm 47 or 93

Year A - Ascension or Our Turn to Witness

May 29, 2014

Psalm 47 or Psalm 93

“Highness” is emphasized in both Psalms. Whether talking about the quality of being or a title, we have a long heritage of up being better than down. In so many ways the children’s game of King of the Mountain is a model of life. Capturing the high ground brings a tactical  edge (at least until drones came along). We still use some arbitrary moral high ground as a basis from which to whip up the winds of war.

This natural law naturally claims that G*D must be the highest of all highnesses. If we can’t quite get there, we can be associated with that we claim can be at the pinnacle.

As we easily consider ascension as separation from, it might be worth raising a question about any purpose of being above and beyond. Such a position can help question any status quo. When looked at from the perspective of subjected people, the status quo is better than anything worse, even if not as helpful as something else. Coming at life from a generational perspective rather than an individual one allows a questioning of present authority. Ascension can give the distance needed to better evaluate where we have been and come to an insight of where we might yet be. Ascension allows a look over the next range of hills.

This can cut several ways. We may look into a new land and claim there are giants there; retreat! We may also look beyond and see a new community worth all the trouble it takes to get to.

Are you willing to ascend or just leave that to Jesus?