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Lectionary - December 2003 |
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Lectionary - December 2003 |
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December 7, 2003 - Year C - Advent 2 Wesley White December 7, 2003 Malachi 3:1-4 Fire and Earth are the ancient images of what is needed for the preparation process: refine those idols, transform the landscape. What images come to mind, in this day and age, as the needed resources to prepare for a qualitatively different and better future? Wesley White Luke 3:1-6 In the third year of the reign of Emperor Bush, when Arnold was governor of California, and Rummy was ruler of Pre-emption and his sister Condie ruler of Security, and Blair ruler of Britannia, during the high priesthood of Pat and Jerry, the word of God came. The word of GOD comes whenever and wherever repentance and forgiveness are needed, i.e., all the time. The word of GOD is present now, as then. The word of GOD comes through John's methodology of baptism and your method of ______. What is the method of your revealing the need for repentance and forgiveness? You do have a method, don't you? The particular gift/method is quite individual in style. How are you doing it? Are you finding it effective? How do you know? What else might you try? Talk to someone about how they see you revealing the need of the world so it might be recognized and dealt with. Thank you for attending to this huge issue on a Monday. Wesley White Philippians 1:3-11 It is good to be remembered as folks who are interested in knowledge in addition to revelation. The wisdom to tell the difference between good and evil is what allows us to escape from accepting evil and having the courage to do what is good. Way back when this was seen only in terms of negative consequences. Now we know how important that act of joining knowledge to revelation was. Our evidence is not in terms of learning to avoid sin but to dive in and multiply love. It is through this receiving and giving that we move on into what Wesleyans call perfection or wholly harvesting the fullness of life. And so I pray for you and you pray for me, "love forever true." Wesley White Luke 1:68-79 Let's connect verse 72 with 77. "Thus GOD has shown the mercy promised to our ancestors, and has remembered our holy covenant." "... give knowledge of salvation to all people by the forgiveness of their sin." - - - Mercy is extendable over the generations. There is no time boundary to mercy, just as there is no arbitrary numerical limit to it (no 7 or 77 or 7x7). As we have experienced/interpreted life, so we pass it on. The question for us is how do we see our relationship with GOD (has mercy been received by us? - Are we to pass it on to other partners of GOD?). What would be an example in your life of a mercy without a statute of limitation? What would be an example of your modeling, teaching, or edifying others as to their ability to receive forgiveness, even at this late date? Can you do this without actually doing some forgiveness? All of this leads us toward the revealing of tender mercy. This is best done by walking a path of peace, not doctrine (no matter how well phrased). Wesley White Wordsmith's daily posting has quotes. This one came today: "It is a difficult matter to argue with the belly since it has no ears." -Cato The Elder, statesman and writer (234-149 BCE) It would seem the same can be said of doctrine. Once it has listened to the prevailing wisdom of the day and crafted its being, there is no more listening. It is not that it no longer has ears, but that they are not used and whatever is not used is lost. This, of course, is a caricature of doctrine at its worst. It would be helpful to have doctrine continue growing in honesty and to somewhere acknowledge that it has growth spurts and plateaus, just like the human beings who conceived it and gave it suck. Until then doctrine will continue to find it difficult to live in mercy and forgiveness which are always beyond doctrine's limits. Wesley White Malachi 3:1-4 This is a humbling passage for the priests among us (some lay, some clergy). The messenger will clean us up. It is as if regular participation in ritual sacrifice makes the sacrificer unclean. There is a certain deadness that comes with any routine, even holy routine. It becomes second-nature to us and we begin to take for granted what is most mysterious - offerings - offerings that both reveal and cover the presence of GOD in the lives of people. It is so easy to get caught in the mechanism of rightness and so difficult to have this revealed to us and the world. It should probably be mentioned that prophets are just as prone to routine as priests. We get stuck chanting the important phrases of the last protest in the middle of a different situation. We get stuck using the same old tactics and strategies and tarring with the same blame. It is so easy to get caught in the mechanism of rightness and so difficult to have this revealed to us and the world. And those who find their sense of security by staking out the middle ground saying a pox on both priest and prophet - what of them? Well, that's no better. The messenger comes to all. The messenger comes to Jew and Gentile, rich and poor, slave and free, male and female, regardless of sexual orientation or political clout. You better watch out; you better not pout. I'm telling you why - Messenger is coming to town. Amen. Wesley White Philippians 1:3-11 Verses 6 & 7 -- I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work among you will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ. It is right for me to think this way about all of you, because you hold me in your heart [or, because I hold you in my heart]. There it is, the wonderful complementary - I in you and you in me. Might this be the good work that will bring us to completion? So how does this work with folks who, for whatever reason, don't see eye-to-eye, much less experience heart -to-heart or work hand-in-hand? If the enmity between folks is still present since resurrection; if GOD, Jesus, Whomever still has not come to rule with an iron fist and to plan a given future right out in the open, then this gives us a clue about process in the face of folks who don't get what we get and ourselves who don't get what others have gotten. We are not going to "completion" without gentleness, compassion and imprisonment. Yes, imprisonment, for that grounds the reality of prayers for love. Wesley White Luke 3:1-6 If you were to go into the wilderness today, where would it be. Where are folks in exile? Where are folks desert-ed? This is where John hears GOD. This is where you will hear GOD. Then we begin in the low dry land to find the trickle of living water. Here the word of repentance can be heard in a clearer way than when surrounded by the trappings of power, religious, economic, military, etc. What sin do exiled, desert-ed people need to have forgiven? What change in direction do they need to make. Perhaps one thing is to stop thinking about themselves as exiled or desert-ed. Repent from not seeing GOD present in exile. Repent from not standing for your exiled self, your lonely desert-ed self. Repent from not making a pro-active choice about your relationship to power and hanging your head. Having heard GOD's voice in the wilderness, John proceeds to cry out, where he is, what he has heard - Prepare. Repent from being unprepared - prepare, do the work, and see salvation. December 14, 2003 - Year C - Advent 3 Wesley White December 14, 2003 Zephaniah 3:14-20 Rejoice! We are not stuck in disaster or habit. Wesley White Luke 3:7-18 What question do you have of John? What loophole are you seeking to find that will allow your greed to continue? If you have not heard the sermonette in song by Sweet Honey in the Rock entitled Greed - run out and get a copy. Follow that link to find the words, which, while powerful, lack the tonalities to sink it deep within your soul. Isn't it amazing how this counter-cultural perspective is recognized as being Messiah-like. Be bold in continuing to put forward John's vision. Being a disciple of John is a good starting point to being a fellow-traveller with Jesus. Wesley White Philippians 4:4-7 A variety of translations for verse 5: Let your gentleness be known to everyone - NRSV Make it as clear as you can to all you meet that you're on their side, working with them and not against them - The Message Let your good sense be obvious to everybody - NJB May everyone experience your gentle and understanding heart - CCB Different emphases that would appeal to different folks. The one that makes me struggle the most is the last one. It is the nuances of "experience" that challenge me. Knowledge and clarity and obviousness are also desirable, but the experience of the deep places of life seems to have more power and more fear than the headier words. I am also struck with The Message that talks about being on the side of another. That is an interesting application of gentleness. You can be seen as "gentle" when folks see you working with them. The difficulty I have is the way in which that can get lost when their "side" or their "work" runs counter to the inclusive nature of GOD and ministry of Jesus. In this case, how do you distinguish between being gentle and being co-opted? How do you react to the different translations? Wesley White Isaiah 12:2-6 "pull up buckets of water from the wells of salvation" (vs3) Where do you find your vital force to be sustained? All through scripture, wells play an important part. Many relationships and insights come at wells. A related image is that of the old pump that needs to be primed before it would gush forth. If you want to pursue this image there is a wonderful song by John McCutcheon, Water From Another Time. Prime your pump by remembering your heroes - that is another well, the well of memories and dreams. How do you draw upon your past, give thanks in the present, and apply both to the future? Wesley White Zephaniah 3:14-20 I like verse 19, a part of the conclusion of every prophetic utterance - a word of hope. So what hope are you holding out or are you just carping. It is so easy for prophets to start and stop with the "woe be unto you" perspective. If we don't have a word of hope we are pseudo-prophets. Verse 19 does continue the woes to the oppressors. Verse 19 also speaks shifting the focus of the lame and outcast (Israel/Jerusalem) from shame to praise. In verse 20 this hope become a picture of home. (just one little letter away from where we are - from the dream of hope to the experience of home) Rejoice lame Jerusalem. Rejoice outcast Israel. Rejoice any who experience lameness and being cast out. You've clicked your heels together many more than three times. Now we are coming to, to find our home again for the first time. Wesley White Philippians 4:4-7 Verse 4 has a word that can be known as "rejoice" or as "farewell." The New English Bible holds these together so it is not rejoicing alone or farewell alone - "Farewell, I wish you joy in the Lord." CAIRETE combines a parting benediction with an exhortation to cheerfulness. Ann Reed has a song, "Even in Reunion" on her "Hole in the Day" CD. The refrain is "Even in reunion there is parting." This is a good way of putting this ancient word to use in a modern context. As we come to the close of the year I pray we might find rejoicing. Our rejoicing is ever so much more poignant when we are reminded of how frail it is. This is part of the bitter-sweet nature of a time of turning from ever shorter days to ever longer ones and from one time marker to another. Are you "free" now? If you are true to following a way to GOD you will find yourself getting in trouble with those who have settled for less. Imprisonment is coming. Are you "tied up" now? If you pay attention you can rejoice in everything, even this, and find a way beyond. Cairete to you. Wesley White Luke 3:7-18 "Don't say we have Abraham as our ancestor." Ah, the issue of entitlement. It shows itself all over the place. On the basis of some perception, in this case ancestorship, we are freed from all constraints of community participation. We are a special case with all the rights and privileges that attend such. This issue does not go away. The crowd could give away to Goodwill what they consider to be their extra clothing and then find themselves entitled to claim something as obvious as feeling good about their charily and now worthy of some particular perquisite. Tax collectors could live by the letter of the law and find themselves entitled because they are a righteous individual in an unrighteous system and are due a perk for their restraint, but they need to see that they have also restrained themselves from calling an occupying government into further question. Soldiers carry with them an aura of power and violence; so they do not have to go out of their way to extort cooperation because it is preemptively given. If they act as quietly as possible they still carry a big stick that entitles them to, at any time, act as big as their stick even if they didn't double-dip the economy beyond their wages and pension. Now comes the hard part for prophets such as John and Jesus and me and you. We can be so smug in being able to see and describe the entitlement of others and to prescribe a next step that may open them to all the hazards and joys of community. This smugness of simply being a forerunner or a model of a new way of living with GOD and one another is fertile ground for further temptation to ever more subtle forms of entitlement. Even subsequent imprisonment and death at the hands of the most entitled of the entitled is not assurance of having escaped the clutches of entitlement due a martyr. Check your own sense of what you think you are due, what that is based on, and what the next entitlement might be if you successfully negotiated the inherent dangers of this one. Blessings upon you, we're in this together (but if we then raise the stakes to what we are together entitled to, we may have jumped from the frying pay into the fire). December 21, 2003 - Year C - Advent 4 Wesley White December 21, 2003 Micah 5:2-5a A magnificent life. Coming to see our own meaning. Did you know you were in a Frank Capra movie? Wesley White Luke 1:39-55 And why has it happened that we recognize the presence of GOD in the strangest of confining times? Happenstance? Fate? Partner? Earned? Blessed are you who live out of an expectation of fulfillment. And then the question comes, what are you expecting? To know this is to be filled with joy. If your vocation of prophet does not have a component of out-and-out joy, it may be time to take another look at the color of your parachute. Prophecy is not an easy road and can be entered for all manner of bogus reasons. But when it fits, it's magnificent. As you proceed through this week it would be helpful to jot some daily notes. How did you this day magnify the subtle presence of GOD that someone else might glimpse it? And tomorrow, what did you catch moving in your peripheral vision and how did you help direct your attention and that of someone else toward it? And so on through the week - note how your soul magnifies the gentlest of touches into an ever stronger presence. What is the dynamic-tension for your soul that will turn you from a 97 pound weakling to prophetic guide? One suggestion is that of setting your eye for the realities of this day against your expectation of the promise of a better tomorrow. Living between these worlds (in but not of them) grows the mercy needed to continue prophesying truth to power. Wesley White Hebrews 10:5-10 Does GOD have a backup plan for the backup plan known as Christ? A first plan is done away with in favor of the second. Once even GOD starts down that slippery slope of a new plan, there is little turning back. The options are quickly narrowed to disavow the second in favor of the first or be ready to move on to third and fourth plans. If many plans causes a headache, one out is the doctrinal that goes back only as far as is needed to justify a static universe. What to do if many plans are seen as a matter of course? We can always look for a connection between a multitude of plans. One might follow on previous ones as more information is gathered and acted upon. Does resurrection become a third plan after taking a Christmas body? or isn't the body part the second plan because it is only precursor to the real second plan of resurrection? Does Pentecost become the third or fourth plan, depending on how you count? Where does your life fit into this pattern? Are you some untold millionth plan, individually, or some much smaller number plan that goes by generations? In this household, plans are generated by the fistful and changed nearly as fast as they are generated. And this is being made in the image of GOD? How is it in your household? Wesley White Luke 1:47-55 or Psalm 80:1-7 I'll be called blessed. (Lk 1:48) Come to save us. (Ps80:2) Do you sense that you are already blessed and that blessing will be made visible to others? Do you sense that there is still some action that needs to be completed before our blessing can be acknowledged? This is a significant branching on a decision tree. It is almost as if they belong to different species. Do you flip-flop back and forth between these two? Are they pretty equally balanced, canceling each other out? Is one of these definitely more prominent than the other? How do you see others in your family, your congregation, your nation? Are you part of the majority around you or do you bring an alternative perspective? My sense is that Mary's response comes from the prophetic tradition and the Psalmist is here reflecting the priestly approach. I don't want to push this very far, but it might be interesting to chart how your day and week go. Where have you found yourself between these polarities? Were there similarities of experience that might match up to your living out of blessing or saving language? Wesley White Psalm 80:1-7 or Luke 1:47-55 "Let your face shine." (Psalm 80:3&7) God "looked with favor." (Luke 1:48) Whether or corporate or individual there is a looked for light of openness at the end of our tunnels. When all we see the reality of our frailty and hunger that seems to darken every horizon we strain toward - comes a smile, a token. Just like when very thirsty it is best not to guzzle, so when darkened it is often helpful to first find a glow before glory. While we can look back to Moses' face shining too brightly and favors one could do without (a pregnancy here, a crucifixion there), we would do well to first look for the spots already glowing, before they break into full streaming light. We look for the beginning stages of great reversals that we might nurture them along. For some reason all this leads me to explore separating peace and justice. While there is a connection and an influence back and forth they are not best seen as flip sides of a coin but two different realities. Justice looks to the restoration of community and Peace to the creativity of an individual. Hence, peace has to do with presence, with shining faces, and justice with showing favor. Wesley White Micah 5:2-5a What is the length of labor? For some minutes and for some days. This promise in the face of a siege would be a word of encouragement in that situation. As time passes and the eventual fall of the city occurs a note in the NISB suggests, "this text became an excellent candidate for reinterpretation by applying it to Jesus." We are always searching for meaning and will attach it where where we can. An old image or a new vision both can be used to try to make sense of what is going on around us at the moment. A part of our work is doing this mining for meaning in an honorable way. In this Christmas season, which genealogy do we use and will we get folks who are into that activity battling one another about which one is the more accurate, the truer? Do we look at birth from a cosmic point of view with John or track the angels and Joseph in Matthew or the angels and Mary in Luke or throw it all up and go for baptism in Mark? Which gives us the encouragement we need in the midst of whatever siege we are experiencing? With what lens do we use fulfilled and unfulfilled words of life and transition? If you were to apply this to today's world of church and human realities what would you pull out of your bag of memories and apply? What little, no-account place or person or event might be lifted up to bring forth hope for capitols and and homeless on their streets, for corporations and individuals? Wesley White Luke 1:39-55 What boldness! My soul, yes, my soul, magnifies the Lord. Oh, I know this is supposed to be about GOD, but can you begin to imagine the difference it would make if your very life was seen by you as clarifying the presence of GOD. This is the life of Jesus, he showed us a close-up view of GOD. It wasn't about him, but his showing GOD, magnifying GOD, revealing GOD already present, but beyond the eyese of our work-a-day world. This is Mary work, this is Jesus work, this is your work and my work. When we magnify GOD for those in power, they finally catch on that they are not as big as they thought they were. When we magnify GOD for those out of power, they finally catch on that they are of much more worth than they thought they were. Consider for a few seconds, what does it mean to magnify GOD? Have you seen that as your job description. How would it be for the church to not stop at making disciples of or for Jesus Christ, but simply imitate his self-avowed task allow us to see GOD much closer than we had thought possible, to magnify GOD? Let us join Mary and Jesus in magnifying GOD so all can see, so all can repent of their supposed grandness or their ill-conceived notion of worthlessness, so all might experience the largesse of mercy, finally, mercy. December 28, 2003 - Year C - Christmas 1 Wesley White December 28, 2003 1 Samuel 2:18-20, 26 Everyone knows that Christmas is for children. Aren't they cute as they wait for presents from all-knowing parents who set the rules about gifts -- how much can be afforded, what is appropriate, how much appreciation is to be returned, etc. What happens when we begin to experience Christmas as being a gift from a child. In what way would Christmas change if we changed our political language from "no child left behind," something leaders are responsible for, to "any child can lead us," something deep within each person that can keep growing? Wesley White Luke 2:41-52 Jesus listened to and asked questions of. Suppose that Jesus listened to you, really listened to you. What question would Jesus ask you that would reveal yourself to yourself, would reveal you to the rest of the world? Is it any wonder that we hide from being real with Jesus behind holy words and constructs? If we didn't it would be one-on-one with GOD. We would need to wrestle much more closely with GOD because Jesus would hear our fantasies and ask us why they were so powerful in our life that we couldn't stand for GOD anywhere and anytime we were. Can we live as though the Holy were really listening to our deep heart's core? Yes, but it takes all we have and all our supportive community has to open our hearts, our minds, our doors to the marvel of having been heard, really heard, and being able, in turn, to ask questions of one another and the culture we swim in. Wesley White Colossians 3:12-17 I am just beginning a conference level responsibility/opportunity with the Conference United Methodist Youth. After one meeting it is encouraging to say that the gifts/skills/behavioral outcomes of compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience are alive and well in our youth. It is tempting to assert that the knowledge of goodness is genetically present. The trick all along the way is to nurture such qualities in the midst of the curves that life tosses our way. As the questions come and important experiences pile up, it does become easy to let these virtues go as if they were nothing. One of the important works of community is to keep these choices in the forefront of our attention. Too often they are taken for granted or take second place in evaluating an event. In both cases they soon become invisible, even to ourselves, and domino-like take third place and then fourth, fifth, and, too soon, last place. When we get caught up in the political process of winning one for GOD (as if GOD needed such) an appropriate antidote is the application of these manners. What skills have worked for you as you find yourself evaluating this year for growth in wisdom and in years? Has your compassion quotient risen from January to December this year? how about the quality and the quantity of your kindness? the consistency of your humility? the depth of your meekness? and breadth of your patience? Pick one and begin working on a manageable/workable plan to enhance it during this next year. To go into "resolution" time expecting to do it on the fly and have it stick, is silly at best and hypocritical at worst. Work as diligently at defining your resolution as you expect to at fulfilling it. Wesley White Psalm 148 Life is made up of small details and small decisions that add up. Back in Psalm 89, concluding the third of four sections of the Psalms, there was reference to a horn of anointing for David, individual and king. Here that horn of anointing is for Israel, corporate and friend. Surely kings are anointed and surely kings are a source of the need for a savior. Surely the people need a savior and are anointed. So often we find ourselves conflicted about these issues of individual and community, of leaders and people. That very conflict blinds us to the presence of GOD as we focus on issues of power and justice. Who might legitimately use power, a leader or a union of people? Is justice for me really justice for all or just a frame for me to justify getting what I want? Kings, presidents, princes and rulers; folks in their prime, past it and yearning for it (dying and newborn); knowing a Hallelujah relationship with creation sets their context well. For this Christmas Eve day we hear "herald angels" sing, - Hallelujah - a newborn king. You may want to play a bit with this hymn and contrast it with what Charles Wesley first wrote: Hark, how all the welkin rings, Click here to find the rest of the original (scroll down past current hymn). Thank goodness for the gift of community able to build on beginnings. What we now sing has moved beyond a king of hymnody through others altering and arranging what was begun. One source notes: Text: Charles Wesley, 1707-1788; alt. by George Whitefield and others - Music: Felix Mendelssohn; arr. by William H. Cummings. This is an example of anointing horns moving from kings to the people. Let loose your own fledgling attempts to assign meaning and see where others will take them. You will be amazed. Wesley White 1 Samuel 2:18-20, 26 Footnotes are often where the action is. Note verse 20 where the NRSV text reads, "the gift that she made to the Lord" and the footnotes with an alternative reading of "the gift that she asked of the Lord." If we play a bit with the footnote the NISB notes a going back to Samuel's name in 1:20. Saul's name is also found within the letters of "Samuel" which has led some to consider this to have been a beginning birth story for Saul (like the Christmas story is for Jesus) to respond to the question, "Where did his greatness come from?" They go on to note that this is an ironic situation for the "people" in turn "asked of" Samuel for Saul when he was the leader they needed, not Saul. We run into some of that same irony with Christ and Christian. People are always looking for something beyond what is already available to them - loving grace. Here Christians have to keep justifying our existence in terms of the limits of the Christ of the Bible and so few can see that even greater things than Christ's are available through Christians. I'm sure this kind of thinking makes folks just a little skittery and anxious about heresy. The point here is that you are in good company - Samuel was rejected, Jesus was rejected, you are being rejected because of the openness to new life you bring. So, hang in there, literally and figuratively, there are bigger things to be. Here in Christmas is a foretaste of Easter. Wesley White Colossians 3:12-17 There are a lot of lists about how we should be with GOD and one another. A shorthand might be, "Whatever you do, do in the way of Christ Jesus." One of my favorite children albums (weep not for technology gone by, but for the loss of carrying good stuff into the next technology) has a song by Joe Wise with a line, "Do what you do do, well." So here the day after Christmas we are down to it. How might this next year be the year of Peace and Justice and Joy and Wholeness and so much more? Consider the way of Jesus and join in where you can. Wesley White Luke 2:41-52 What of yourself are you most searching for? Been looking in all the wrong places? (see lyrics by Waylon Jennings) Try this interview with Sam Keen in the magazine Spirituality and Health . You do get the magazine regularly, don't you? How does this help you to grow in wisdom? |