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Lectionary - February 2003 |
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Lectionary - February 2003 |
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2 February 2003 - Year B - Epiphany 4 February 2, 2003 We need to be looking at the longevity of new teachings. There is a half-life for new teachings and life-life for the process leading to new teachings. The teaching is the outward moment of an inward movement. Let's not get caught in the outer form when we could be looking at the life found bubbling from within that will manifest itself in new teaching after new teaching. Wesley White Mark 1:21-28 In his sermon On Zeal John Wesley is clear that if you are participating in one of the works of piety (in this case, teaching) and an opportunity comes to participate in a work of mercy (in this case, healing) there is no way to excuse shifting gears away from piety to mercy without endangering one's connection to GOD's love. Here Jesus gives us an example of this ordering of life. He does not keep on teaching but attends to the healing. And, as any good story would have it, it turns out that Jesus' willingness to respond to the situation at hand leads to emphasizing the teaching he was doing. His walk fit his talk, as we like to rhyme. It was the work of mercy that validated the work of piety. We must not be afraid to shift gears backward and forward as we move through life for it is this very movement that validates every movement. Wesley White 1 Corinthians 8:1-13 All things being equal ... is one of the things that keeps
getting left out. When we leave out the "all things being equal" part we begin to set up rules that simply won't work over the long haul. It's like saying one should always be tolerant. However, when intolerance is acting out, that can't be tolerated. The NRSV ends by saying, "Therefore, if food is a cause of their falling, I will never eat meat, so that I may not cause one of them to fall." How would that sound if we substituted "creedal orthodoxy" for "food"? "Therefore, if creedal orthodoxy is a cause of their falling, I will never think or experience anything beyond what has been thought or experienced before, so that I may not cause one of them to fall." I suspect that neither Paul or Jesus would be pleased with that. So, how do we get behind the scene here to something larger. It may be that we will have to settle for something far smaller - simply remembering we all have our history and biases and we need to care for both the weaker and the stronger. I will do what I can to not cause a weaker to stumble and I will do what I can to not hold back a stronger. I find I am troubled by the weaker/stronger pairing. I'm OK with it in terms of my life with weaker and stronger parts, but it really doesn't help when comparing myself and another. Parts of me are weaker than parts of them and parts are stronger. Can we remember that we are in this together, even in terms of differing understandings of faith, hope, and love? Wesley White Psalm 111 Whether memorials come first - or last - this is a description of Yahweh/GOD that is worthy of emulating. How wonderful to be made in this image - filled with merciful grace and tender love. Presuming we are made in this image, what are we to do with all the war talk? Call up our angels to come to battle other angels? Hold these qualities as worthless in the real world? Find the "fear and trembling" way of a situational pacifist such as Bishop Joseph Sprague writes about in his new book, Affirmations of a Dissenter? May we soon move away from knee jerk responses to defend an administration or to demonize them to the difficult task of acting as a loyal opposition of whatever administration is in office, asking the hard questions and working through both regularized channels and public demonstrations because we remember our faith is ultimately going to be grounded in the grace of mercy and loving acts of tenderness, not national pride limited to the bias of the moment. After all, being in but not of the world, we are called to move beyond the boundaries of nationalism. Wesley White Deuteronomy 18:15-20 A distinction between prophet and false prophet is whether or not the prophet says only what is known. To go beyond what is known is to begin to please some party or another. To begin to please is to lay oneself open to not being able to end that process and never being able to call another to account. This is prophetic idolatry. One of the hardest struggles is to not say know more than one knows. The temptation is always to look good in someone's eyes by adding just a little bit until finally life is simply, as Gallagher would have it, about style. Behind this is some form of manipulation of others through information enhancement. Can you imagine going through a day saying only what you know? No little extras added to a story line, no explaining GOD, no elaborations. In such a way we reveal the world. The book, Being There gives a literary example of not saying more than you know. No matter how simple, there is great authority garnered by not making up what isn't known. I sometime think this is the other side of entitlement that leads to each of the seven deadly sins. By simply slightly inflating the situations of life we lose touch with the presence of GOD. Wesley White 1 Corinthians 8:1-13 It would be so loverly to have Paul think with us after we sent a letter to him instead of listening in on a conversation between others. It would be about issues of our day (the obscene/obese use of food as an idol of our culture?) and we would be able to know what was in reference to our letter and what was Paul adding things we hadn't asked about. As it is, we get confused about process and tend to claim it all by Paul. Given these difficulties, how can we read the first verse aloud? The NIV has it, "Now about food sacrificed to idols: We know that we all possess knowledge.* Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up." Their *footnote indicates, "Or, 'We all possess knowledge,' as you say" This would put them more in tune with the NRSV which reads, "Now concerning food sacrificed to idols: we know that 'all of us possess knowledge.' Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up." Some of the commentators indicate that this is call and response,
all in one verse. Can you hear Paul slightly mocking the line from the Corinthians (just to get their attention, of course) as he quotes from their letter "all of us possess knowledge." and then more seriously stating where that perception begins to break down - when knowledge begins to be used as a club against another - "You can't eat that because I don't like it." or "Here, put on this sweater, I'm cold." or "I'm heterosexual and you're not, so you change." or "I know you got weapons even if I can't find them, so I'll bomb you, anyway." or "etc." So Paul makes the distinction, "Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up" and in that we have the rest of the story. If the church could again hear this distinction we might get out of the doctrinal battles and express the love we are called to have for one another and thus make our little witness effective. 9 February 2003 - Year B - Epiphany 5 Wesley White February 9, 2003 Isaiah 40:21-31 In the midst of wearying situations we find sustenance. As
we move through this next week we will find that doing good is
tiring as well as energizing. How can we encourage one another
when we have strength and how can we be encouraged when we are
lagging? What sustains you this week? Wesley White Mark 1:29-39 I have mentioned before a line from the hymn Wounded World that Cries for Healing - "tax and tithe are for a purpose." Likewise, healing is for a purpose. We receive the gift of healing not just to feel better but to be revived and resurrected in meaning. When this larger component is missing and we feel better, we better speak about curing. As people who have been healed of the limitations of literalism (we begin there but are not constrained to end there) we need to find our purpose for this healing. So how will you let your healing be shown this week? No, this does not mean going out to find someone to convict of literalism, but to simply feed those whose presence we are in a better balanced meal of meaning - or a wider palate with which to paint the face of GOD - or your favorite metaphor of life. Yes, it does mean doing that which is at hand. Take advantage of the opportunities you have to expand the conversation of life. The mother-in-law never was named and you may never get a name for what you do, but she did respond by doing what she could to add to the joy of life. May we do the same. Wesley White 1 Corinthians 9:16-23 This journey of "becoming" someone we are not in order for us to be who we really are, proclaimers and sharers of good news, is a most excellent one. One picture is that of a mole who enters an organization with
the intent to undermine it. With either picture a beginning posture of humility is real and intentional. This lets us really care for others and really progress ourselves toward the blessing of open compassion. So, who have you shied away from in recent days? Eugene Peterson's list of people who have a hard time hearing a progressive word leading into a more open space includes: "religious, nonreligious, meticulous moralists, loose-living immoralists, the defeated, the demoralized." It is time to return for one more attempt to understand them so well (rather than just their surface presentation of themselves) that we can see who they can become. It is time for us to know ourselves so well (beyond our rosy picture of our intentions) that we can do what we do to live what we proclaim. Today we are called back underground that we might be raised to new life. Wesley White Psalm 147:1-11, 20c Verses 5 & 6 put together what is often broken apart in today's church (probably the church in any day). Our Lord is great, all-powerful, In the first we hear the praise refrain, Our God is an awesome God. In the second we hear the involvement in social justice. For some reason we tend to bounce back and forth between these two and set them up in antagonism to one another. The praise folks don't get the peace with justice stuff, and vice versa. There is the transcendent GOD and the immanent GOD. The GOD beyond the stars and the GOD grounded in being. The work before us is the mystery of both/and rather than either/or. As we proceed it is important to invite in and even search out the polarity where we are more uncomfortable. This is not to abandon the gift given us in our natural inclinations, but to experience the uncomfortable humility of living and dying for all of life and not just our own. Wesley White Isaiah 40:21-31 Paying attention to sources of energy rather than drains of reserve is always tricky business in the midst of many distractions. Here it is trying to settle into a new housing/home setting and new job setting. There are so many things yet unpacked and so many new tasks to attend to. It is difficult to pay attention to the basics of abundance when the fate of Sisyphus seems so attendant. How do we pay attention to happiness while surrounded by distractions? Albert Camus put it this way: "I leave Sisyphus at the
foot of the mountain! One always finds one's burden again. But
Sisyphus teaches the higher fidelity that negates the gods and
raises rocks. He too concludes that all is well. This universe
henceforth without a master seems to him neither sterile nor
futile. Each atom of that stone, each mineral flake of that night
filled mountain, in itself forms a world. The struggle itself
toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must
imagine Sisyphus happy." Sisyphus at the bottom of the hill seems like a strange way to get to eagle's wings, but it is the journey of this day. May we conclude that all is well in the midst of our distractions and breathe deep again. Wesley White Mark 1:29-39 So why was Jesus preaching in the holy places and casting out demons? Because what was being preached was not setting people free. This source of the binding of humankind into the bondage of what used to be holy rather than what is now needed for holiness and preparing for what will be needed for holiness is the source of all the various bondages from military and economic occupation to the way we treat one another in our families. A most radical transformation takes place when outmoded holiness is confronted. It sets free an opportunity for heaven to come on earth, again. And again. For this Jesus came. For this you and I come. For this it is intended that we all come. Be bound by the holiness of this day, not yesterday, and so be unbound. Wesley White Following up on the Sisyphus image and imagining him "happy," can we go further and imagine him having learned from pushing stones how to lead stones up the mountain and to do so by a variety of paths (each path best for that stone)? To play with this image I encourage you to read the whole of this article. 16 February 2003 - Year B - Epiphany 6 Wesley White February 16, 2003 2 Kings 5:1-14 I'm going to be caught up in a week-long continuing education event. These texts talk a lot about the physical issues of healing (moving toward wholeness). Hopefully that won't crop up in my life and I can focus on the intellectual issues of healing. What area of healing will you be dealing with this week? What area will you have to deal with in someone else's life? Greg Brown has a lovely little song about his daughters having a cold in which he prays, "let them get better so I can get better, too." Wesley White Mark 1:40-45 Speaking of lepers, generically, the Community Christian Bible reflects: "The Good News does not remain mere words but it effects a change. From now on, they will no longer be marginalized people." When given the choice between battling words and effecting a change, choose change. When given a choice between effecting a change for those already privileged and those still marginalized, choose the marginalized. Such choices in life are seldom either easy or clear. None-the-less, we are called to choose. So, make your list of those you can identify as the marginalized (it will probably contain people you are not comfortable with and even an enemy or two). However, be bold and choose their healing even if it causes you to become, in your turn, marginalized by being pushed to the hedges and byways. Bob Herbert's column in the 2/10/03 NYTimes points in one important direction where better choices need to be made. After false rumors brought out 2,000 applicants for assembly work, causing a traffic jam, he writes: "A front-page headline in The New York Times last Thursday said, "Hiring in Nation Hits Worst Slump in Nearly 20 Years." Two million jobs have vanished in the last two years. "Joblessness is right up there with war and terror as an ingredient contributing to the high national anxiety. If you want to see desperation close up, look at the eyes of the increasing numbers of breadwinners who can't find work.... "As Tuesday's fiasco in Chicago demonstrated, the situation is much worse than official unemployment statistics would indicate. The government reported on Friday that the jobless rate had slipped to 5.7 percent in January, but few economists believed that was the beginning of any substantial improvement. "The official jobless figures are deceptive because they don't count people who have stopped looking for work. The ranks of these so-called discouraged workers have grown by more than a million since last summer. "Another enormously difficult problem is the hard core of jobless, undereducated young people, ages 16 to 24, who are roaming the streets with nothing constructive to do. There are 5.5 million of these out-of-school, out-of-work youngsters, and that number is growing. "If the Bush administration has any real plans for dealing with the nation's employment problems, it is keeping them very carefully concealed. The president insists he's concerned and said again on Friday, "We will not be satisfied until this economy grows fast enough to employ every man and woman who seeks a job." "He's got a long way to go, and his only proposed remedy [choice, ww] - ever more tax cuts for the wealthy - is not likely to get him there." Wesley White 1 Corinthians 9:24-27 Running without being disqualified is not all that easy. It is so easy to step outside a lane, to push when tired, to retaliate for being cut off, etc. Even if we are not disqualified it is difficult to win. It is too easy for us to focus on winning rather than training when we hear this passage. Our culture honors winning but ignores training. How does winning connect with a GOD who refuses to let us get so far away we cannot turn toward GOD? Paul has just spoken of the great service of being a servant of all. And then we get the image of not coming in last, but first. We need to be careful here to not get so caught up in these four verses using imagery of winning without noting we are winning servanthood. I remember winning our conference 440 yard race while in high school. This qualified me for the state tournament where I came in dead last. The next year my school record was eclipsed. Even while striving for my best, it was soon gone. An early lesson in what lasts. What story do you have that reminds you of the importance of running your race well and yet to not be bound by the outcome? Wesley White Psalm 30 "What point is there in my death, my going down to the
abyss? "Some Pharisees in the crowd said to [Jesus], 'Master, reprove your disciples,' but he answered, 'I tell you, if these keep silence, the stones will cry out." [Luke 19:40 NJB] Smashing these together - "I tell you, if my disciples die, dust will proclaim the miracle of life." Have people been telling you to self-censor yourself, to commit psychological hari-kiri? Just grin, knock the dust off your feet, and continue your life. Death will take care of itself and GOD will take care of the dust. While dust can be seen as being of no account, it is also possible to read dust quite positively and creatively. This can be seen as a rallying cry to do what we can do and to do what we do do well. There is no point to being silent when we have been given a message of a new life of openness and fullness. Wesley White 2 Kings 5:1-14 It takes a village to heal a person. In this village there are those in need of healing. Those who have an inside track to a process that leads to healing. Those who facilitate getting to the right spot for healing. Those who are resistant to images of healing because of the bind it puts them in. Those who have a point to be made through the healing process. Those who need to be in charge of their own healing. Those who can talk truth to power. Those who are healed who need to validate their healing through some shift of gift to commodity to be bought and sold. Those who take advantage of the healed. How is it in your village. Are folks mobilized to teach about healing and point a direction where it might be found? Are folks ready to provide the openness needed to allow a new way of understanding? Are folks prepared to give up their control of the healing processes? Where does some form of universal health care fit into your village? How do we deal with the regularization of healing we might simply call curing and how do we set free the gift of healing beyond the limit of cure? Is healing to prove something to enemies, free for all (including enemies), and/or limited to one's own kind? Having been through this with an individual focus, how do we begin to talk about the healing of systems. Katherine Hawker II Kings and Mark 1:40-45 I'm struck by the desire for healing in these stories. Clearly they claim God's preferential option for healing, but I wonder if it's an option we share. On the one hand, we spend $1.1 trillion on healthcare. On the other hand, we spend a $50 billion on cigarettes, $100 billion on alcohol and $110 billion on fast food. Canadians have a 92% seatbelt use and almost half the traffic fatalities. We claim to want to healing, but we choose prisons over schools,
war over peace. Wesley White Katherine - Indeed, to be in need of healing is at least to that extent to be poor. For folks who have the eyes to see a preferential treatment for the poor it is a helpful image to see a preferential treatment for healing. The tricky part is to not see an infusion of money as a panacea for poverty or the presence of cure as automatically leading to healing. Thanks for the shift in language, that's helpful to me. Wesley White 1 Corinthians 9:24-27 We struggle with or train ourselves to have our skills coordinate
with our goals. Put the other way around, we get so caught up in our accustomed ways and ways to deal with problem areas that it is difficult to keep a vision alive or renewed. Whichever way you come at things, the process of linking our internals with our externals and our present with our future takes a lifetime of discipline and discipline redefined. Living in community helps this along as we support and correct one another. I suppose I should add doing so "in love," but that seems so evident and yet so forgetable. Where this week have you spoken more boldly and assuredly
about your future and then been reminded that your practice isn't
matching up with your picture? Is this athletic workout of Paul's the equivalent of healing, binding our incarnate lives with the mystery of eternity and thus bringing wholeness? This binding together is not the strong suit of literalism. That divides us into smaller and smaller segments. It is the strong suit of progressive playing around. This includes in more than can be imagined from any part of our past or present. Wesley White Mark 1:40-45 "If you want to...." This is a wonderful way to put someone in a bind. In regard to the issue of homosexuality in the United Methodist Church, how would it be for a g/l/b or t to say to a Good News or Confessing Movement creedalist, "If you want to, you can include me." Can you imagine them responding, "I want to. Welcome." Herein lies part of the issue between Christ and his Church. A question here is how healing will take place between Christ and Church when Christ would include in and heal beyond the boundaries and Church would exclude and widen the boundaries? [note: it would be easy to confuse healing issues with boundary issues as we might see a creedalist require what they would describe as a "healing" before welcoming - that poor word "healing" needs better clarification in this particular setting. Let's not limit the bounds of healing but find ways to take this story into the rest of our lives.] How we deal with the boundary issues of life is indicative of our place of freedom or constraint. May you keep reaching beyond to touch the untouchable, to turn the community back to them, and to invite them back into community. 23 February 2003 - Year B - Epiphany 7 Wesley White February 23, 2003 Isaiah 43:18-25 As we travel through life we are constantly striving to find the beauty of a universal theory that will explain everything. We have trouble living in the ambiguity of the alternating current of "yes and no" for the direct current of only a grand unifying "yes." Even as we do so we recognize the way in which alternating current is so helpful over long distances. Much good luck to you this week as you wade through ambiguities and certainties. Mike Mulberry Mark 2:1-12 I love this story of communal healing--how friends will go through the roof to bring their friend to Jesus. For his part, Jesus says, "Your (plural) sins (singular) have been forgiven." As a healer and exorcist in Mark, Jesus seems to be about healing the internalized oppression and casting out the Roman legions. Tough to preach to U.S. audiences. Wesley White So how do we preach this one? I will do a part of that through action. Here the sermon of words will be short. A sermon of act will be extended through an invitation to note which friend or situation most needs your bringing them to Jesus, no matter what the obstacle. After a moment of silence, to sort through this, the invitation will be extended to come to the altar and offer your friend or situation to GOD. So often we come to receive the body and life of Jesus - it will be good to come forward not to receive, but to offer. Mike, I'd like to hear how you plan to do the tough work of preaching this moment in your moment. And, yes, this goes for others as well. Wesley White Mark 2:1-12 The Message has a helpful clarifying line. After noting
the two choices of remaining within holy speak or keeping everything
within the language of the world, Jesus says, "Well, just
so it's clear that I'm the Son of Man and authorized to do either,
or both..." We affect that which has been forever and that which just this moment came into being. We can heal through the physical, cellular approach of Western medicine. We can heal through the energy field approach of Eastern medicine. We can heal through nature and spirit. We can heal through touch and word. How many ways there are. In having our eyes opened to that which we have not experienced before, and yet is so beautiful in its presence - In concert with the scripture - we gratefully affirm, "They rubbed their eyes, incredulous - and then praised God, saying, 'We've never seen anything like this!" May you, this day, rub your eyes - an grow in your appreciation of a new way to follow the old desire that all may be saved. Wesley White 2 Corinthians 1:18-22 "I try to be as true to my word as God is to his." [The Message] Is this where you are? Oh, my, this is tricky business that is going to get us in all sorts of trouble. I suspect that this is what got Jesus in trouble and why some saw him teaching with a new authority and others saw him simply blaspheming. Now, as with Paul, plans don't always work out. Rascally humans do foul up. Tornadoes and blizzards do happen along. This doesn't mean that we were lying or waffling when we promised to be present somewhere along the way and we were prevented or something else to precedence. But rather than look at all the exceptions that are possible, let us remind one another, again and again, of our intention to be true to our word. We don't have to build in every contingent or leave room for an unknown event. Such takes away from our simple integrity to say what we mean. If what we say needs to change because of changed circumstances, we can then say what we mean at that time. This is a call to stray off message - to be truthful about what we cannot do instead of trying to craft some promise pleasing to our hearer's desires. This work of being true to our word is "a sure beginning of what GOD is destined to complete." Without the beginning we don't get to the completion. Practice truth, even to power, and find its joy. Marjorie Murdoch I liked what Mike said about healing internalized oppression - seems to be a pretty good definition of "paralysis" to me. There is a lot of paralysis in the Church and church communities
today, mine being one. Wesley White Psalm 41 From our insides (torn apart by sin), from our outsides (betrayed by best friends) - we need to be put back together, rescued. "You know me inside and out, you hold me together...." Now it is time for a response to this wonder of still being of worth in GOD's eye, no matter what. That response is to mimic GOD. "Dignify those who are down on their luck; you'll feel good - that's what GOD does." This is a wonderful way to honor GOD - honor others with seeing them as dignified and worthy of same. This incredibly difficult simple act of seeing dignity, no matter what, ends up to be the best part of our pursuit of happiness. Why does it takes us so long to catch on and then to learn this behavior so well that it moves from second nature to us to first nature for us? Wesley White Isaiah 43:18-25 "Forget what's happened; don't keep going over old history. Be alert, be present. I'm about to do something new." Here is a place to go to get a whole series of reflections upon the unhelpful responses of claiming the current issues between America and Iraq are parallels to 1939 or 1956. Check it out at The Guardian, Tuesday February 18 2003 Politicians on both sides of the argument over Iraq have been busy rummaging through the history books. The pro-war camp constantly warn against repeating the mistakes of appeasement. The antis claim we are heading for another Suez. But which is the more plausible parallel? Matt Seaton asked a dozen leading historians One of the comments goes like this: "I'm allergic to lazy historical analogies. History never repeats itself, ever. That's its murderous charm. The poet Joseph Brodsky, in his great essay A Profile of Clio, wrote that when history comes, it always takes you by surprise, and that's what I believe, too." Wesley White 2 Corinthians 1:18-22 "In Christ all the promises of GOD have come to be a Yes...." Reflect for a moment on the promises of GOD. Are they equally balanced between constraints and releases? Do they move toward one of those poles, or the other? Is the Yes to a "no" or is it a Yes to a "yes"? As you sense Jesus holding our feet to the fire or holding our hand on a journey, consider whether or not your living is in the same relationship with those around you. Is "...God's Yes and our Yes together, gloriously evident...."? "God strengthens us, and you, to aim at Christ." Aim well! Yes well! Wesley White Mark 2:1-12 Religious folks, some scholars and some not so much, have a whole constellation of rules and regulations about what is officially GOD's domain and what is not. In this story the issue of forgiveness is GOD's alone. Human beings are apparently not sufficiently created in the image of GOD to be able to forgive. Oh, they can pass on a word about forgiveness, but it is not theirs to pronounce on their own authority. What is your locus of authority for forgiveness? In days and chapters to come we will find the disciples specifically invested with the power and gift of forgiveness (John 20:23). As we look at the world around us today, what are we still putting in GOD's arena alone? Are we thus shirking out "duty" as GOD's partners to live out the image of Christ in our situations? Is GOD really the only one who can set aside warring madness? Is GOD really the only one who can soften the heart so we don't daily rape mother earth and we do feed the hungry and clothe the cold? Progressive prophets arise! We have nothing to lose but our chains of conformity to cultural confinement. Rejoice in being GOD's mouthpiece and image. Sing out in that great getting up morning. Intone a completion of the past as it is healed and forgiven and moved beyond. Hum a contentless song that opens us to seeing things we've never imagined. |