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Lectionary - April 2003 |
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Lectionary - April 2003 |
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6 April 2003 - Year B - Lent 5 Wesley White April 6, 2003 Jeremiah 31:31-34 To be known and accepted is a significant part of sensing there is meaning in life beyond one's current situation. To know and accept is a significant ministry in the context of a world that so quickly spins out of control. What would help you know you are accepted and accept that you are known? What skill base do you need to develop that others will more easily recognize that you know and accept them? These are difficult, and yet significant, places to put one's energy. Wesley White John 12:20-33 Fair warning to those desiring to experience GOD's presence in Jesus or some other form - it will lead you to transformation. If there is some doubt about that being what you are after, it would be better not to so seek. Will you later be able to take back your commitment to follow through - your death? Sure, but it will take a reneging on your quest to live in this hour. Some folks wanted to see Jesus and he warned about what happens if folks really see him. When folks want to see you, do you warn them about the dangers they are about to face - a meaning in life that leads to rebirth and all the attendant consequences? If you aren't warning folks, might it be that you have left open your option for GOD to save you from yourself being transformed. This can be seen as a challenge to receive GOD's glory in our frail forms. To want to see Jesus is to want to bear glory and that is a large want that needs more than interest in celebrity. Wesley White Hebrews 5:5-10 Commentary from the Christian Community Bible: "It is helpful to look at the role of Christ, the High Priest, at the time the Church is reminding us that all the faithful are associated with the priestly role of Christ. We must represent humanity before God; we are consecrated to God for that purpose. "When we celebrate the Eucharist, along with the offering of our own lives, we present to God all the work and life of the world. In the Eucharist we thank God in the name of everyone. In daily life, we must be the instruments of the grace of God, by being people who promote truth, encourage love and establish peaceful relationships." --- Imagine what it would be like for you to be co-High-Priest, representing humanity. Does this shift your understanding of eucharist and its hierarchical processes? Wesley White Psalm 51:1-12 There is a serenity in this Psalm even though it is about the difficult and, some would say, intractable presence of a negative force, a rejection of the light and self-surrender and a denial of suffering. At some point we become ready for a new relationship with ourself, with GOD, with all. We probably talk about that for some time and mouth the very same words for some considerable piece of time. Then, miraculously, this possibility of the new becomes real for us. Peterson's translation of verse 10 reads, "God, make a fresh start in me, shape a Genesis week from the chaos of my life." This becomes the sign (verse 12) of our participation in the larger presence of creation's goodness and the gift of being able to again choose. The determination of the negative falls in the face of restoration joy through the healing of receiving forgiveness and gives way to the storehouse of a generous generativity. In this moment we are ready to re-engage the world, as a wounded healer, as a healed wound-er. To return to the intention of creation and claim it as available right now is part of the progressive, prophetic tradition. What would be different if this became the lens through which the other texts of the week were seen? Wesley White Jeremiah 31:31-34 Interesting imagery with this business of GOD carving the law on hearts. That's pretty close contact. One might almost say that GOD has curled up within our hearts and is there, closer than our breath. The imprint of GOD is that forgiveness. When forgiveness is covered up by the plaque of easy living, of taking in more than is needed, of not exercising the gift of "remembering no more," then the carving on the heart gets filled in and makes it unreadable. Exercise your forgiveness, keep GOD alive and flexible and beating within you. Lon A Rycraft I find the words of Psalm 51:6 helpful in making a connection, "You desire truth in the inward being, therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart." May we turn ourselves inside out to taste the spin of truth today. Wesley White Hebrews 5:5-10 Verse 11 indicates there is much that needs to be said about the imagery of Jesus as High Priest. So what needs thinking about here? Jesus was not a ladder-climber. He did what he did for the sake of the doing, not to result in a higher salary, obtain a more prestigious title, or be more effective. That's pretty counter-cultural. For us it may even be more affrontive than the issue of suffering. We can explain bad things happening to good people, but we have a hard time being that good person if we are not striving for more. PS - it is easy to spell Melchizedek if you remember the Micky Mouse song. Try it ... MEL...CHI...ZED..EK, Melchizedek, forever hold his banner high.... Wesley White John 12:20-33 As a seed or a cutting falls to ground [baptism] and is fruitfully raised up, grain or grape, it/we become Christ's body willing to be broken and Christ's blood forgivingly shed [communion]. A part of the mystery is how this happens all the time and at the same time. I fall as you are raised and fall again as I again am raised - the community of faith. As we hear echoes of Transfiguration and Gethsemane in each moment, may we rejoice in GOD's direction of the whole of creation towards a progressive growth in maturity. 13 April 2003 - Year B - Lent 6 Wesley White April 13, 2003 Liturgy of Passion Liturgy of Palms So is it passion or palms this week? Can you have one without the other? Wesley White Mark 11:1-11 What an anti-climax. A lot of time to set the scene - approach Jerusalem Then - look around - note it was late - leave for Bethany-over-the-hill. A lot of energy is expended on Palm Sunday. If Jesus were to look in on one of our Palm wavings, would he note that it was too little, too late and take off to fast with friends instead of sticking around. What is it we think we are celebrating when we go the Palm Sunday route? What sort of Palm waving is going on as Americans enter Bagdad? Can we learn anything from Jesus turning away for Bethany after a "triumphant" entry? Wesley White Psalm 118:1-2, 19-29 Steadfast love endures forever. That is wonderful. Stones are steadfast. But when steadfast and rejected it can seem as though it is the rejection that lasts forever, not the love. Might the "gate of the Lord" have something to do with a sense of steadfast love even in the midst of rejection. This goes beyond some a-pathetic, passionless, stiff upper lip. This goes beyond mere hanging on by one's fingernails, survival-mode, gritting of teeth. Woe be to us if there is not a silly grin being worn somewhere in there. So, feeling rejected recently? So? Wesley White Philippians 2:5-11 NRSV: "Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ
Jesus, who...." There is past and present at play here as well as directionality. How do you talk about your relationship with GOD? We can talk about the same GOD that was in Christ Jesus is in you and in me and in all. It is sort of digital. GOD is either present or not. However GOD is with Christ is the same way GOD will be with you or someone else. GOD drops pieces of GODself into everyone and everything. We can talk about differing levels of maturity in Christ Jesus. To the extent you can see GOD in Christ Jesus, you can see GOD in yourself and in me and in others. It is sort of analog. GOD is present to a degree. That degree can be tuned further in or further out. The limiting factor is our vision. GOD never gives us more than we can handle and that includes limiting how much GOD we can handle. Some folk will be drawn to the either/or nature of GOD, some to the both/and. There will even be some who are more comfortable with either/both and/or or/and. Whichever way we go on these interesting permutations, there still needs to be the humility to not claim one's own proclivity as the standard for all people or for all time even for oneself. How easy it is to claim GOD as one's own, or the Gospel one understands, or the denominational polity one can leverage, or .... So what symbol is the equivalent of the colt of old in your life today? Wesley White Isaiah 50:4-9a When we listen we can begin to hear how important sheer volume of speaking is to us. The speculations and attempts we make to make meaning, instead of only saying what we know and labeling our theories as such, become overwhelming. It is as if one's speculation is the latest Babel as we continue to strive to be in charge. Listening beyond our prejudices is a valuable gift. This sort of listening means we are open to learning again and again that we are not GOD - we hear the Word, we are not the Word. [shh, mysteriously, when we so listen, others can hear a Word that is within us but not otherwise able to be heard through the din of self-serving words.] So, since we are helped through listening and learning, helped by GOD, it must be that those who declare guilt have not been listening beyond their prejudice. There you have it, listening - the process by which is revealed GOD's help and our condemnation. Listen and help bring heaven on earth. Don't listen and join the cry of crucifixion. We can't make our condemners listen, but that doesn't excuse us from proceeding to live the best response we can to having been heard by a listening GOD. As we have been heard, so we are to hear. Wesley White Psalm 31:9-16 I hear the whispering of many -- terror all around! If those are the last words we hear from this Psalm, it is a sad song. No wonder we would hedge our bets and get as strong as we can possibly get. Paying attention to that whisper may help one to be as wise as a serpent. Paying overmuch attention to that whisper, so it appears to be a din, will lead one to being a snake and preemptively terrorize. To lead us back toward the innocence of a dove we have to hear about trust and steadfast love, even in the face of terror. As we are hearing a pervasive whisper of terror in Syria, Iran, North Korea, percentage of incarcerated in the USA, racism and all the other isms dividing one from another, and global rape of labor, not to mention all the etceteras -- may we listen deeper to an eternal trust that involves us in living out steadfast love, no matter what else we hear. Wesley White Mark 14:1 - 15:47 We ended the Palm text with going to Bethany. Between the Palm and the Passion text we bounce into Jerusalem and back. Here in the Passion text we begin with Bethany and an anointing. Preparing ourselves and one another for our burials is holy work. Works of Mercy are always available (either side of the grave?). That which is more infrequent (perhaps like Paul's weaker parts) is here more highly honored. We don't spend as much time as we might on the Works of Virtue. This is probably especially true for those of us on the prophetic end of things. This is a pretty amazing state of affairs because our very nature or the gift we have been given leads us so consistently to dying. Instead of focusing quite so much on the "Jesus died for my sins" approach to Good Friday, we might look at what it would take for us to join Jesus and be prepared to so live that others might live and take the consequences of that from every age's world. What anointing do you still need to open your eyes to how o.k. it is to live and die faithful to your nature or gift? This anointing would also allow us to know that it alright to die before we see the completion of our work. May you have your Bethany anointing, and that right soon. 20 April 2003 - Year B - Easter Wesley White April 20, 2003 Acts 10:34-43 or Isaiah 25:6-9 A day of rejoicing is present this and every day. It is interesting to track the world news from lots of different perspectives to see how much rejoicing is going on. How do the standards by which new is measured compare with the measurement of GOD's desires against our desires? What does rejoicing mean in the face of our experience of intentional death and destruction? Wesley White John 20:1-18 I come to the garden alone. We laugh and weep out of our own reference points. "People hate as they love, unreasonably." - William Makepeace Thackeray, novelist (1811-1863) Then we try to hang on to another as our source of laughing and weeping. It is hard to find that point of holding on and letting go. The same is true of congregations and congregations of congregations. We've never done it that way; We've always done it this way - as unreasonable in the aggregate as in the individual loves and hates we nurture. Mary Magdalene is to pass a message on to the brethren who had scattered to their homes. How would it be that she passed on the message entrusted to her? Would she have done it one on one to follow the "I come to the garden alone" model? Would she have gathered them together in a locked room in anticipation of the visitation to come? Once she was about this individual or communal task, how might she have engaged them in wrestling with this ascension business, this larger view than what they knew of simply an empty tomb? Is this not the same kind of task before us - how do we help folks, individually and corporately, wrestle with a larger reference point than our their/our own experience? If so, let us talk together about how that is going. Wesley White Mark 16:1-8 Heads down, deep into their particular worry, the women proceed toward their work of caring for the dead body. What lay before them was a closed tomb. How to open it was their problem. Here is a sample of the outcome usually expected. It is important to click on this link and read it (and perhaps even the "Return to:...." at its immediate end) before continuing to the rest of the comment here. Here the women do go in and do find something scarier. If all you had was Mark's version, instead of the conflation in your head of several stories, would you be scared enough to try to put an ending on it - to have it make sense so you can wrap it neatly up? Isn't Easter at least as messy as Good Friday? Wesley White Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24 "Open for me the gates of saving justice, For those of us who claim Justice to be a key issue in life, we need to keep using that gift as a key to Yahweh's intention for us. Presumably others are given the key of mercy to match that gate of Yahweh. Let's say there are 12 gates to the city. What are they? Justice? How do you identify your gate and honor the upright at other gates? Wesley White , 4/17/2003 9:08:20 AM Isaiah 25:6-9 Universalists arise! We have nothing to lose and a feast to gain. When we set about ensuring that everyone has a seat at the table before ourselves we ensure our own place and get to eat sooner than later. As we wipe away tears so people can catch a glimpse of the table and find their placecard we speed the time when we can sit down to the feast. In the process of assisting shame to be refined into esteem we energize people to come to the table rather than sit immobilized in the ashes. We have nothing to lose by helping others into GOD's presence. We have everything to gain, including turning death from enemy into friendly advisor. When such as ourselves cast out remorse we truly laugh and sing and feast. On Maundy Thursday we have a foretaste that strengthens us to broadcast an invitation list to an even greater feast. And, yes, of course, everyone's invited. Wesley White I Corinthians 15:1-11 or Acts 10:34-43 "I am what I am." "Now we are witnesses to everything Jesus did/was/is" That seems to be the rest of the story. We are scared and yet, somehow, we witness to GOD's forgiveness as exampled by Jesus. This is an appropriate contemporary response to the Good Friday of long ago. Enough of this witness in church or society will lead you to the same place. We claim this, none-the-less, to be a worthy endeavor. For what you are -- if not a witness of and for forgiving love? Amen. Alleluia! Wesley White Mark 16:1-8 How like Mark, who hurries us along from baptism to preaching and healing to crucifixion, to drop us into a non-ending that obviously goes on. If you read Mark in one sitting (quite easy to do) there is a momentum that is built up that pushes us, along with the scared women, to reflect on what we are going to do with our relationship to Jesus. What grieving to we finally need to do to be able to pass on a message of new life? What denial do we need to overcome to finally pass on a message of new life? What ego strength do we need to develop to finally pass on a message of new life? The women obviously came to resolve those or whatever their issues were because we are remembering the story. May you and I encourage one another to finally resolve our issues that we might boldly be willing to live, regardless of the consequences. Hurrah for surprise endings. They involve us and don't just leave us with a story to look at. They cause us to question where we are between the end of the story and is resolution in the lives of the characters and our current situation and its resolution. Surprise endings hurry us on and give us permission to be surprising ourselves. 27 April 2003 - Year B - Easter 2 Wesley White April 27, 2003 Acts 4:32-35 The great swing between doubts and being of one heart and soul together. We continue to work between these polarities. Can't really have one without the other so enjoy your bouncing back and forth and the same happening in whatever community you are a part of. Wesley White John 20:19-31 If you forgive, forgiveness is. If you don't, it isn't. Thomas then comes and says, "Nyah." to their experience. Can the disciples forgive this breach of not only conduct, but relationship? The rest of them apparently learned the art of forgiveness for, a week later, there was Thomas again. If they hadn't learned would Thomas have been with them? This is as great a miracle as the appearance of Jesus with his holes. Wesley White 1 John 1:1 - 2:2 Compare and contrast the image of advocate with that of atoning sacrifice in 2:1-2. A part of the comparison has to do with present and future energy and action for the advocate while the atoning sacrifice has a static past orientation that is just rippling on. Another way to compare is with the advocate being related to our lives and the sacrifice demanding we measure up to its action. It would be interesting to intentionally retranslate atonement language into advocacy language. Who would get angry at that? Who would be invited in where they were previously not welcome? Ed Denham The fact that we believe in a bodily resurrection means that we live in the present, with Christ in the present. The material world is important to God and Advocacy is part of participating in the world in the present. Wesley White Psalm 133 Let's see - GOD's blessing is life forevermore. It does seem helpful to live together in unity rather than
strife for that amount of time. The Spiritual Formation Bible quotes Brother Roger of the Taize community, "A conversion takes place in the very depths of our being when, even though we are rejected or humiliated, we entrust to God, at once, those who have wounded us." And how does this conversion take place for those who do the wounding? The wounded may actually have the easier time in evermore. And as we recognize we are the ones doing the wounding, there are a multitude of levels we have to get through before find our own woundedness that allows us to cease and desist. When we are the wounded we are at a basic level of trust. May we use this image in our prophetic stances - life is too long to have to be the one in charge at all times and in all places. Images of community need to be brought to the forefront whether the setting is private or public. Wesley White Acts 4:32-35 There are those who consider the journey toward divinization beyond human capability. Though I am uncertain where else a journey toward "perfection" might lead. If you are one who is not out to outdo what Jesus did (a limitation on the WWJD approach that tends to keep us repeating good things without going on to better things) it might still be possible to model yourself after Barnabas and model what it really means to commit yourself, heart and body and soul, to the community. What won't you give to make your congregation better? What will you reserve for yourself? This has tremendous ramifications not only for going beyond tithing but for paying more taxes than you need to. When we were war tax resisters we basically double tithed as we gave away a percentage of our taxes that were unbalanced toward common defense issues and away from general welfare issues. The tax penalties meant we also gave more to our local community. And yet we thrived because it brought meaning to our life far beyond the loss of financial resources. What would it mean for you to so much a part of your various communities that the issue was not what was an equitable amount to give, but how can I keep from committing everything to the community and those live in joyful freedom from the minimal greed built into our excuses for survival? Wesley White 1 John 1:1 - 2:2 So why do you share with others where you have found meaning in life and why do you listen to others where they have found meaning? Is it that your joy may be more present? Meaning and joy seem to be bound up with reclaiming the future from the past. This is another way of talking about forgiveness. No longer are we going to be bound by the events of the past. Whether individual or global affronts have been given, the atonement of forgiveness (beyond a mere shedding of blood) transforms life. Forgive and be forgiven -- transform and be transformed. Ahh, what joy! Wesley White John 20:19-31 It is good to see that Thomas is still a part of the group even though he did not have the same experience as the others and called their experience into question by not letting it substitute for his own. Would that the church today had the same grace to incorporate such a variety of religious experiences. Do you really think that those who do not see or experience can come to believe? They can certainly be taught the language of what others have seen and experienced, but can they thus come to believe without doing an injustice to the process whereby the first folks came to their belief? Doesn't this approach come close to a rigid creedalsim that will eventually have to fall apart because it demands more than can be honestly given - assent to a belief structure not experienced. Let's continue to work on expanding the community beyond our comfort level and rejoice when folks come to their own epiphany. |