 |
Lectionary - May 2002 |
| |
Lectionary - May 2002 |
|
5 May 2002 - Year A - 6th Sunday of Easter Wesley White -- May 5, 2002 As we go through this next week - listen to these passages about the openness of the heart of God or about our own hearts being opened to all the variety of creation toward the end of being a community of expressed love. Your comments are welcome here. Hopefully we will be better able to receive the preaching we need and to be in prayer for those who will do what they can to bring these insights alive in the presence of what will be encountered during this week and what can move us beyond the limits encountered during the week. Wesley White From Ralph Milton's online weekly - Rumors. There are the other kind too, unfortunately, who don't ask. They command. There are no pleasantries. Just sharp orders. "Raise your arms. Turn around. Remove your shoes." I think these are in the majority, and I think the folks in charge encourage that kind of military behavior. I have a friend who was fired from an airport security job because she was "too friendly." The passages of scripture we're looking at for next Sunday raise the question about how people live their faith and how we recognize others who live a life of faith. Friendliness and courtesy in the face of a sad necessity would seem to be to be the bare minimum of faithful behavior - simply treating those we encounter as if they are thinking, feeling human beings. I very much dislike the phone calls that usually come at supper time, from people trying to sell you something. My first instinct is to bark some devastating put down into the phone. But I have a daughter who had to work for one of those outfits for awhile because she was desperate for a job. After she told me how she was verbally abused by many who answered their phones, I realized that the person doing the phoning is as much a victim of the system as I was. So now I simply say, "I'm sorry, but I never respond to telephone solicitations." Well it's no big deal, is it? Well yes it is. The prophet asked us to "do justice and love kindness." Kindness is not too much to ask of us, as we go through the many impersonal interactions with others. It's not much. It's a bare beginning. But when we feel so
impotent in the face of the many evils of the world, that is
at least, is a part of the gospel we can live. IF YOU ARE WRITING TO A FRIEND ABOUT RUMORS - Just copy this note to them: RUMORS is free. It comes to your e-mail box every Sunday morning. There are instructions at the end of each issue telling you how to get off the list if you no longer want to receive it. Here's all you do. Send an e-mail to rumors-subscribe@joinhands.com. Don't put anything else in that e-mail. Thanks. Wesley White -- John 14:15-21 The dense theological language in this passage is hard to absorb. It helps me to understand passages like this if I read one sentence at a time, and repeat that sentence (out loud) several times. This is especially true of the second half of verse 19. I wonder if this is where my friend Julian of Norwich got her sense that our essential selves - our souls if you like - are of the same "substance" as God. And our human journey is to be "oned" (reunited) with God. Without that reunion, we are not complete nor (this is the hard part) is God complete. The above is also from Ralph Milton's "Rumors" mentioned in the previous note. Wesley White -- 1 Peter 3:13-22 One Good Friday a number of years ago, we stood on the ground of an Anglican Church, which is located right beside a busy road. Cars whizzed by as we strained to hear the liturgy over the noise. One sentence popped right out for me. "Is it nothing to you, who pass by?" And the answer was quite clear. None of the drivers so much as turned their head to give us a glance. Christians today suffer from the most insidious of persecutions. We are simply ignored. So Bev [Ralph's spouse, a pastor] would like us to look at this passage and ask ourselves what Peter's advice to us might be when "we are met with indifference while living out our understanding of God's love." The above is also from Ralph Milton's "Rumors" mentioned two notes previous. Wesley White -- 1 Peter 3:13-22 "Be ready to speak up and tell anyone who asks why you're living the way you are, and always with the utmost courtesy.... [Jesus] went through it all...to bring us to God." Said as politely as possible, progressive Christians have an experience of the openness of GOD and have a fire lit within them to aid others to also experience the expansiveness of GOD's presence. The polite part of that is that our experience does not trump the experience of others. GOD is larger than our experience and we rejoice when people are aided to their own experience of GOD, whether that be through the gift of progressive Christianity or through some other gate. Our key concern is not that our way is validated by others, but that everyone come to the joy of GOD's presence. We look forward to growing through the witness of other's experiences and that we might, in thankful return, be a source, stimulus, or catalyst of their continued growth. We are living the way we do for we have found it fruitful and desire to share it with others that GOD might be ever more clearly encountered. Wesley White -- John 14:15-21 I will not leave you orphaned...at that moment you will know absolutely that GOD and Jesus and you and I are one. Others will know that GOD and Jesus and they and we are one when there is evidence of our loving one another. This external validation of faith is important. How do we come to share love in a visible way? One avenue is that of recognizing we have not been left bereft. Our existential loneliness, while still real, ceases to be the deciding factor about our dealings with one another. The over-riding reality we begin to live from is this business of not being orphaned. Today we celebrated a wedding that almost didn't happen because of a stroke 6 months ago. This is wedding was a joy. No wonder we image Jesus and the Church as a married couple - we've all had a stroke and are still in the process of relearning life, but we are not orphaned - we are embraced into a new oneness. Pray for all who feel their orphanedness, be present with them whether they are as near as your family or caught in present pain in Bethlehem or anticipated pain in Iraq. Pray for leaders who forget their orphanedness and that of others and cause more. 12 May 2002 - Year A - 7th Sunday of Easter Wesley White -- Time to look toward the cultural icon of Mother?s Day through
the four-fold lens of Wait - Praise - Suffer - Pray May 12, 2002 Wesley White -- John 17:1-11 "... guard them as they pursue this life that you have conferred as a gift...." How is the gift of "pursuing" life different from "receiving" life? How is "life conferred as a gift" different from "by the power of the name"? As we pay attention to the import, the connotation, of words we find those translations that open us to new life or attempt to repeat some wonderful moment. The progressive movement risks looking at the pursuit of life rather than risking the repeated reception of received revelation. There is risk in both direction - the risk of not enough grounding and community and the risk of too much grounding and community. While we will probably never outlive this tension and choice of risks, we are called to be honest about the gift of pursuit, the going on to perfection, that has been given to us. It is not the only gift or the highest ranking gift, but it is what God has invested us with and we must honor it by living it as graciously and as directly as we can and to honestly witness to its strengths and weaknesses. Wesley White -- Acts 1:6-14 "You Galileans! (United Methodists?!) - why do you just stand here looking up at an empty sky? This very Jesus who was taken up from among you to heaven will come as certainly--and mysteriously--as he left." [The Message] After a couple of days of fever I have a different sense of staring at an empty sky. A fever that saps energy is not only difficult to live through, but its aftermath takes awhile to rebound from. A part of the mystery is where we are denominationally and ecumenically with the fever of fundamentalism and creedalism heating the system in a most unproductive manner - leaving us staring at an empty sky. Are we still in the delusional stage of this fever thinking that if only we can get things understood and said the right way all will be right? Are we beginning to come out of this bout of illness but sapped of energy and uncertain which way to turn to give evidence of Mark and Luke's remembrance where ascension led to going everywhere preaching or returning to Jerusalem bursting with joy? Whether still in the throes or the aftermath of religious fever, let us pray for one another for support which brings us to the joy of praising GOD for healing our connexion. May we know the joy of preaching Jesus' prayer that we display his advocacy of living with GOD, not repeating time-bound conventions. Wesley White -- 1 Peter 5:6-11 "So be content with who you are, and don't put on airs.... Live carefree before God; [God] is most careful with you." [The Message] Being content with who one is brings with it a blessing that one is also content with who others are. This is not to suggest that there is not learning and teaching to be done, but that the edge is taken off of needing to see that learning and teaching live up to some time-sensitive standard. Reflexively comes the question, "Aren't there limits and laws and standards?" Yes, but they change as we grow. To have one standard good for all time becomes a cage. There are no standards that would limit kindness, charity, compassion, love, justice. Living carefree emphasizes the virtues of life. Living carefully emphasizes the vices of life. May we be pulled by kindness to more kindness. Living this way pushes away harm through the expansion of safety. The reverse is not as true - pushing away evil does not open one to greater hospitality (there is no end to that push and so no time to welcome). Do I find the world works this way? No. Is that the deciding factor for our choice toward carefreeness? No. Wesley White -- Acts 1:6-14 "[The named "apostles"] agreed they were in this for good, completely together in prayer, the women included. Also Jesus' mother...." [The Message] Tomorrow is the cultural icon of Mother's Day. How easy would it have been to have Queen Mary, full of grace, and lots of other words of authority, take over the Jesus story? We could read back into this opportunity all the wonder of immaculate conception and the other goddess images stuck onto Mother Mary. (Note: this is not a complaint about goddess stuff.) There is some evidence that Brother James tried a take-over - why not Mary? But here Mother Mary is not front and center but an "also." The key is being together in prayer, not separated as apostles or women or family. How might we be together in prayer when our very prayer styles get so competitive? I know I tend to mock those prayers that my sensibilities say go overboard in repetition of phrases like, "Lord... I just...." Issues of diversity in prayer and every other community ritual can both bind us too tightly and drive us apart over one little word in a creed. Since we are not at a place where we naturally pray together without anxiously waiting our opportunity to pray the right prayer to show we are in closer contact with the Holy than other lesser pray-ers - it is still appropriate for us to do the preliminary work of praying that we might soon be able to stand the prayers of others so that someday prayer will be less divisive than it currently is. For that prayer to come to pass we may need to listen to the humble word "also" and see ourselves in that category. Pray for me, also, in whatever style you can and I trust GOD will translate it into that which is better than the best we can pray. 19 May 2002 - Year A - Pentecost Wesley White -- As we proceed to next week's lections pay attention to the boundaries that you sense need to be crossed to build and rebuild community with family, friends, strangers, and enemies. It is this purposeful crossing of supposed boundaries that is one mark of Progressive Christians. We find greater gifts in crossing boundaries than in being bound by them. Pentecost is a particularly apt celebration for boundary crossers. Acts 2:1-21 Wesley White -- Acts 2:1-21 "The Holy Spirit spread through their ranks like a wildfire and they started speaking in a number of different languages." What is your mother tongue (to keep the Mother's Day images of yesterday going)? Is it Lower Middle-Class? Native people? Arabic? GLBTQ? Enronese? Sports? American Express? KJV? ...? Can you imagine the turmoil if all these folks who thought they had God's mighty acts cornered began to talk together and honor one another's experience of GOD? This would indeed be a movement of the Spirit to cross all these boundaries at once. We can sometimes handle one boundary at a time in a "some of my best friends are ..." fashion. But to expand the conversation into the area of "some of my enemies used to be ..., but now we see GOD at work in each other" is what might be called miraculous. Pray for a miracle again today. It is worth any wait or prayer we need to invest in it. Wesley White -- 1 Corinthians 12:4-13 "The old labels we once used to identify ourselves - labels like Jew or Greek, slave or free - are no longer useful. We need something larger, more comprehensive." We also need something beyond our new labels. In the scope of church history those who go by the name "evangelical" (with a limited number of meanings to that word) so it would keep out those they identify as "liberal" (even if that liberal would want to self-identify as a person with good news, an evangelist) - this is recent. Likewise the term "progressive" being used on this conversation place - even though it would hearken back to prophets and social holiness of John Wesley and social gospel of Walter Rauschenbusch and liberals of recent years - it, too, is relatively new. Regardless of what term we use at what time in church history there is danger in regarding it as something carved in stone. We are always in need of something larger, more comprehensive. This tension between the way we know ourselves and the way we know others has been with us all along the way. In our own United Methodist tradition it has been the Calvinistic Methodists of Whitfield early and "evangelicals" lately versus the Arminian Methodists of Wesley early and "progressives" lately. As important as these distinction are we still need something larger. Without losing the importance of our particular Arminian gifts how do we enter into conversations with those who would dismiss or annihilate our gifts? May the Spirit of GOD not only be thanked for giving us the gift to use free will to love GOD and neighbor and aspire to perfection in this life, but be appealed to that we be set free from overly defending this basic life-orientation and simply live the gift we are given. Now apply this to Israel and Palestine; Republicans and Democrats; Badgers and Wolverines; and more. Wesley White -- John 20:19-23 Who have progressive Christians been fearful of? Loud people who have clarity about GOD and tell others so, and being like that ourselves. We are so aware of process and doubt that we let a lot of junk about GOD go by without a challenge. We have thought that to be effective we have to fight fire with fire and be as obnoxious as those who think they have a corner on the GOD market. Into this fear comes the word of "Peace to you." We see the crucifixion wounds and know that fear is just fear and we are called to act in the face of fear, to act from the place of peace. Guess what? we, too, can be exuberant in a sense of peace that allows us to re-enter a conversation with GOD from a partner position. This is what it means for us to be sent - to simply use the gifts given us. These gifts come from and result in an ever-widening circle of peace to you, and you, and you .... We don't have to fight the fear-full ones. We simply need to know our peace and live our peace. It was this peace of which Jesus understood himself to be a vessel. It is this peace that as his sisters and brothers we also contain. This peace will continue to be the touchstone of GOD's partners. Pentecost - a day of receiving and passing on the peace of GOD by going beyond our fear into our life. Wesley White -- Psalm 104:24-34, 35b It is always interesting to see what doesn't make the lection. In this Psalm the wisdom of the church was to leave out the sentence (legal sentence or judgment), "Let sinners be consumed from the earth, and let the wicked be no more." This is one of the hallmarks of a progressive movement - being up-front about an agenda of focusing on and rejoicing within the abundance and diversity of GOD's creation. This is not to say that sin is ignored or lessened in its terribleness or impact, but that the blotting out of sin and wickedness would do us all in and so a healthier way for GOD/humanity/creation to go is that of working with sin and wickedness that it might mature into love and community. This is by far the more difficult route to go (far easier to say, "begone" - lost and gone forever - than to say, "bygone" - its in the past now let's live differently). What will it take for us to continue to support and encourage one another to not only cut this sentence out of the lectionary, but to cut it out of our lives? Worth working on, don't you think. Wesley White -- John 20:19-23 Eugene Peterson in "The Message" puts it this way, "If you forgive someone's sins, they're gone for good. If you don't forgive sins, what are you going to do with them?" The first striking thing about this is the question about how sins are to be dealt with they are to be forgiven, no ifs, ands, or buts about it (what can you do with sins if you don't forgive them?). A simple equation that is not so simple because we can come up with every excuse in the book to avoid that one simple response. Standing behind this is the bold statement that forgiveness
transforms sins they are gone, for "good." Is
your life going, for good? Imagine that - out of sin comes good.
Now this is not a straight-forward process and yet as much as
sin abounds, grace abounds the more. Forgiveness is not a forgettable
experience - it is as revolutionary and as explosive as e=mc(2).
The transformation of the past into a new future of today is
linked to the exponent of forgiveness (70x7) which is even greater
than a mere squaring of the speed of light. Want to participate in a building a new kingdom? Forgive. It is the multiplying constant in the gift of life. Forgive God, forgive your neighbor as you forgive yourself, forgive one another, and forgive your enemy. Wesley White -- Acts 2:1-21 The Pentecostalized waiters in a far-off room re-enter regular life with a new agenda living GOD's mighty works (vs11) including GOD's wonderful deed that whoever calls for help will be saved (vs21). One might expect that those who were suddenly empowered would slant things to their advantage (this actually was the experience of the church after Constantine when it was joined at the hip with political and economic power). Here the astounding good news is the old news from the prophets that there is no hierarchy when it comes to salvation. Rather, those who are empowered by the Spirit slant things to the advantage of the disadvantaged, those in need of help. This is stunning good news. May you continue to live it in your own life and in your relations with others. 26 May 2002 - Year A - Proper 3/Ordinary 8/Pentecost +1 Wesley White -- As we prepare for "Trinity" Sunday, how can we play with images of GOD's image and partnership that don't get truncated by some accreted triumphalist orthodoxy? Genesis 1:1-2:4a Wesley White -- Genesis 1:1 - 2:4 As we deal with an image of GOD known as "Trinity" hear these words from Walter Brueggemann. "...the statement about the image of God (vv. 26-27) must be understood in juxtaposition to Israel's resistance to any image of God.... "Within that critique of every religious temptation to idolatry, our text makes a surprising counter-assertion. There is one way in which God is imaged in the world and only one: humanness! This is the only creature, the only part of creation, which discloses to us something about the reality of God. This God is not known through any cast or molten image. God is known peculiarly through this creature who exists in the realm of free history, where power is received, decisions are made, and commitments are honored. God is not imaged in anything fixed but in the freedom of human persons to be faithful and gracious. The contrast between fixed images which are prohibited and human image which is affirmed represents a striking proclamation about God and about humanness." Wesley White -- Genesis 1:1 - 2:4 Here is a "trinity" of pictures about the Sabbath from Walter Brueggemann that may help us rest easier in life. Can you see how to use this when teaching about "Father, Son, and Holy Spirit"? "a. The sabbath discloses something about the God of Israel. The creator does not spend his six days of work in coercion but in faithful invitation. God does not spend the seventh day in exhaustion but in serenity and peace. In contrast to the gods of Babylon, this God is not anxious about his creation but is at ease with the well-being of his rule. "b. The sabbath is a kerygmatic statement about the world. It announces that the world is safely in God's hands. The world will not disintegrate if we stop our efforts. The world relies on God's promises and not on our efforts. The observance of sabbath rest is a break with every effort to achieve, to secure ourselves, and to make the world into our image according to our purposes. "c. The sabbath is a sociological expression of a new humanity willed by God. Sabbath is the end of grasping and therefore the end of exploitation. Sabbath is a day of revolutionary equality in society. On that day all rest equally, regardless of wealth or power or need (Exod. 20:8-11). Of course, the world is not now ordered according to the well-being and equality of sabbath rest. But the keeping of sabbath, in heaven and on earth, is a foretaste and anticipation of how the creation will be when God's way is fully established. Sabbath is an unspoken prayer for the coming of a new sanity shaped by the power and graciousness of God." Wesley White -- Genesis 1:1 - 2:4 The language of "dominion" has long given us fits. Listen to Walter Brueggeman reflect a healthier understanding of this part of the creation story. You might want to reflect on the unhealthy ways the language of the "Trinity" has been used and see if the shepherd image can help redeem it. [father = cares, son = tends, spirit = feeds? or some other configuration of these?] "The 'dominion' here mandated is with reference to the animals. The dominance is that of a shepherd who cares for, tends, and feeds the animals. Or, if transferred to the political arena, the image is that of a shepherd king (cf. Ezek. 34). Thus the task of 'dominion' does not have to do with exploitation and abuse. It has to do with securing the well-being of every other creature and bringing the promise of each to full fruition. (In contrast, Ezek. 34:1-6 offers a caricature of the human shepherd who has misused the imperative of the creator.) "Moreover, a Christian understanding of dominion must be discerned in the way of Jesus of Nazareth (cf. Mark 10:43-44). The one who rules is the one who serves. Lordship means servanthood. It is the task of the shepherd not to control but to lay down his life for the sheep (John 10:11). The human person is ordained over the remainder of creation but for its profit, well-being, and enhancement. The role of the human person is to see to it that the creation becomes fully the creation willed by God." Wesley White -- Genesis 1:1 - 2:4 One of the places we still have trouble is in the area of sexuality. Here is another way to look at the traditional "trinity" - creation, humanity, community - because if "trinity" doesn't relate to the real parts of our lives, it doesn't relate to anything. The following words are from Walter Brueggemann. "(1) Sexuality is good and is ordained by God as part of creaton. (2) Sexual identity is part of creation, but it is not part of the creator. This text provides no warrant for any notion of the masculinity or feminity or androgyny of God. Sexuality, sexual identity, and sexual function belong not to God's person but to God's will for creation. Because humankind is an image, a modeling, an analogy of God, sexual metaphors are useful for speaking of the mystery of God. But they are ways of reference and not descriptions. The slippage between God and image of God is apparent in sexual language here and elsewhere in the Bible. Sexuality is ordained by God, but it does not characterize God. It belongs to the goodness God intends for creation. (3) The statement of verse 27 is not an easy one. But it is worth noting that humankind is spoken of as singular ("he created him") and plural ("he created them"). This peculiar formula makes an important affirmation. On the one hand humankind is a single entity. All human persons stand in solidarity before God. But on the other hand, humankind is a community, male and female. And none is the full image of God alone. Only in community of humankind is God reflected. God is, according to this bold affirmation, not mirrored as an individual but as a community." Wesley White -- Genesis 1:1 - 2:4 - A Theology of Blessing Continuing the journey with Walter Brueggemann in his book Genesis for the "Interpretation" series, we hear of another important threesome that can be helpfully related to a reflection on the "trinity." [Note: If you don't already have Genesis you may want to pick it up.] "The creation narrative is a statement about the blessing God has ordained into the processes of human life. Three times the term "blessing" is used: of living creatures (v. 22), of human creatures (v. 28), and of the sabbath (2:3). God's action is sometimes regarded as extrinsic to life, essentially alien to it, and even in some tension with it. There is a tendency in some theological traditions to articulate a deep gulf between the goodness of God and the unhealthiness of the world. Sometimes the "otherness" of God is linked to the depravity of the world. Curiously, this is articulated both in some forms of Reformation thought and in Gnostic traditions. But here that gulf is denied. The world itself is a vehicle for the blessings God has ordained in it as an abiding characteristic." "...This liturgy affirms and enacts a blessing in the world that the world cannot reject or refute. It voices a protest against alternative ideologies of our day. i. The declaration of news about our situation is addressed to literalists and rationalists who believe the world is settled, fixed, and without news. This liturgy affirms that God is at work to bring creation to his purpose. ii. The dialectic of nearness (embodying fidelity) and distance (embodying freedom) is offered against every escape into a religious womb of transcendentalism and every escape from the hard obligations of freedom. It is further offered against the deception that we are on our own and can avoid answering the giver of life. iii. The calling of human persons in the vocation of shepherd is offered against an ideology of grasping exploitation and against retreat into irresponsible self-indulgence. It invites a new modeling of humanness after "The Good Shepherd" who does not grasp. iv. The articulation of sabbath as the goal of life is affirmed against all efforts to justify and secure in the name of competence. v. The delight in the goodness and blessing of life is asserted against the view that life is neutral or hostile and that God is an outsider to it all." Wesley White -- Genesis 1:1 - 2:4 Did you ever imagine there were so many connecting spots and helpful teaching images that connect the first creation story with the formulaic "trinity"? Presuming that this section of Genesis is written from the experience of Exile, it is interesting to note the liturgical nature of the poetry. It is as if it "invites the congregation to confess and celebrate the world as God has intended it to be," which is far different than how the world is being experienced. Instead of getting into a my-God-will-eventually-beat-your-God kind of mentality, its rhetorical pattern is a gentle summoning. Walter Brueggemann writes, "The shape of reality can only be understood as the purpose of God. Creation is in principle obedient to the intent of God. This is affirmed even to exiles who have doubted if the world is at all in the purview of God. Creation is what it is because God commands it. But the command is not authoritarian. It is, rather, "let be." God gives permission for creation to be. The appearance of creation is a glad act of embrace of this permit." Do you see traditional explanations of the "trinity" as constraining or permitting? Whether about creation or creed may we find our mode of speech "not as description but lyric, not argumentation but poetry." |