February 1, 2004 - Year C - Epiphany 4

Wesley White

February 1, 2004

Jeremiah 1:4-10
Psalm 71:1-6
1 Corinthians 13:1-13
Luke 4:21-30

Where do you find your sense of groundedness? What allows you to continue on when the good sense of survival or ease would tell you to do a quick back-pedal? May you find opportunity to exercise that sense of wholeness and purpose this week. Let's hear it for the strengthening medicine of saying "no" to evil.

Wesley White

Luke 4:21-30

No prophet is accepted/welcomed in their hometown/hometime.

Consider going back in time to inform yourself of what you now know following a moment of, "If I only knew then what I know now." How welcome would be in your own prior life?

The deal here is to be faithful to the latest insight. Jesus finally got Isaiah and immediately sets about living it. It didn't make any more sense to his past (all those marvelous birth and blessing stories from birth or youth temple story) than it did to his growing up neighbors.

We can play all we want with the confusion between father and Father, but it basically comes down to whether or not Jesus and you and I are faithful to what we now sense is a larger picture.

We can see this building on the past, temptations overcome clear space for the temptations posed by one's community rather than a specific desert spirit, but still something that needs to echo forward rather than backward.

If you and I come to this same place of echoing forward, even if our past isn't as hallowed as Jesus, it is as honorable and prophetic.

Wesley White

1 Corinthians 13:1-13

Prophets come to an end. Prophecies come to an end. Social Religion come to an end.

Tongues come to an end. Knowledge comes to an end. Personal Piety come to an end.

So we might as well live by the best part of each of these and more. Prophets without love might as well have stayed home. Prophecies without love might as well have stayed hidden. Tongues without love might as will have been bit. Knowledge without love might as well have been kept in the dark.

As you think about the use of your spiritual gifts consider the passion with which you live it. Does your passion overwhelm love? Does your passion cool love?

Wesley White

Psalm 71:1-6

What happens when we shift our attention from GOD only to partnering with GOD? It might sound something like this:

Yes, GOD, we are in this together.
We bolster one another past guilt and shame.
Your expansion of love delivers me from small living and
My expansion of love rescues you from bad press.
It is good to listen to one another.
In walking and talking together we find refuge and
Provide refuge.

When the wicked would mishandle us and others
We find our solidarity finds a way through.
Holding one another in hope has gone so deep
We can imagine no time before which it was not so.
Praise for you, praise for me, praise for we.
Hopeful Refuge and Refuge of Hope
We stand together and fall together and rise together.
This is enough.

Wesley White

Jeremiah 1:4-10

Imagine Jeremiah as the new Adam.

Adam is appointed dominion over bird and beast.
Jeremiah is appointed dominion over nation and state.

How effective was Adam? Jeremiah?

Will giving Jesus dominion over heaven and hell get us further?

What is the level of dominion that you are involved with? a tree of life? a new heaven and new earth? and how are you doing?

Perhaps it is sufficient to experience a touch of life and go ahead where you can go ahead.

Wesley White

1 Corinthians 13:1-13

As long as the very next thing said after these wonderful words is not part of the lectionary process, it is interesting to note that love is not the singular winner and still champion in the run-off for the greatest virtue or gift.

Just as there are two greatest commandments, GOD and Neighbor, Love has purpose as well as simple being and is twinned with Prophecy. Let's hear a continuation of the story.

14:1 - Pursue love and strive for the spiritual gifts, and especially that you may prophesy.

14:25 - [Prophecy] discloses the secrets of an unbeliever's heart and brings them to worship/love.

By turning these around we can see the connection between love and prophecy.

Pursue the spiritual gift of prophecy and strive for love.
[Love] discloses the secrets of our hearts and leads us to GOD.

Friends, we don't love without being prophetic. We are not prophetic without loving. Now, let's be about the interplay between these two qualities of a full life.

Wesley White

Luke 4:21-30

The prophecy of old is coming true today that tomorrow may be better.

This is meddling of the highest order. Why should our generation and our town bear the brunt of having things set right. Can you imagine the upset in our fantasies when the increasing gap between have and have-nots is suddenly, without warning, done away with. How can we any longer measure the meaning of life? How will we behave with one another? All control would be gone, chaos would set in. There is a reason the Year of Jubilee was never put into action.

Jesus didn't leave a good idea alone. He had to go and try to do it. In this way he revealed, just like a sharp, two-edged sword, how far from community we are. We don't love GOD enough to reset our economics. We don't love our neighbor enough to meet them on a level playing field. We don't love ourselves enough to dismiss these barriers but live in fear that there are no built-in markers that will guarantee our present and eternal comfort and excuse our participation in the fullness of life.

Elijah, Elisha, Elisus all yank away our fantasy life and bring us to action that will reveal GOD's spirit that will bind us together in newer and better ways. Later they will be revered. But for the moment they insult us by opening GOD's goodness to strangers, foreigners, non-like-minded believers in what we believe in.

Let's not live for being revered, either now or later. Let's simply live to reset the basis on which we relate to one another, common ground and common vision.

February 8, 2004 - Year C - Epiphany 5

Wesley White

February 8, 2004

Isaiah 6:1-8, (9-13)
Psalm 138
1 Corinthians 15:1-11
Luke 5:1-11

New vocation, new life, new day. What other new experiences, turns, visions will come this week? Of course we don't know. Wouldn't be new, would it?

Stand by. Participate. Anticipate anew.

Wesley White

Luke 5:1-11

In its day Gennesaret was fertility itself. Josephus called it "the ambition of nature". Sort of like Wisconsin being America's Dairyland, even though it isn't any more. But it is helpful to have this picture.

Over time folks have come to know how to take advantage of the fecundity of the land (even extending it to the sea). Techniques were known. For fisher-folk there is a time to mend and care for the nets - when the wind was up during the day. Later they would go out when it was calmer to catch a sufficiency.

Jesus teaches/preaches and says, let's go out at an inopportune time (chronos). Here and now, with a catch too large, it is found that we are living in kairos time.

This causes quite a commotion within Simon and he and others begin a comotion with Jesus.

Thanks for reading here. May you join in the comotion where you are - you extend grace where you are and we will where we are and touching of people's lives will increase.

Look around. You are in Gennesaret right now. The abundance/newness of life is all around. Even at inopportune moments, newness/abundance is the order of the day. Dive in. Dive deep.

Simon got scared at the intersection of chronos and kairos. Perhaps the word of "Don't be afraid" needs to be translated into a dance number. Let's do the time warp as we play back and forth between chronos and kairos.

Wesley White

1 Corinthians 15:1-11

Paul's experience of Jesus was first through the eyes of enmity and then a revelation of the risen Christ. Each one of us is a center of the universe, perceiving life from our experience. So it is very easy to see this whole "dying for us" focus as Paul's explanation of the mechanism that led to the transition he went through in regard to Jesus.

When we move away from Paul's limitations we can see the whole sacrificial atonement process in its limited scope. We can also begin retranslating through our experiences and revelations and reading of scriptures that go beyond the scriptures available to Paul.

Can you imagine the shift in our institutions had Paul written something like: "I hand on to you my priority ranking of my relationship with Jesus: Christ lived to reveal GOD and the fullness of life. His presence healed many and upset the religious and political status quo. All parts of the status quo conspired to exercise their "right" to capital punishment (execution). The fullness of life could not be so summarily curtailed and in the fullness of days was experienced anew by many, including ourselves.

"This fullness is worth participating with to the highest degree through our relationships with GOD and neighbor. This leads us to proclaim the goodness of creation, the presence of GOD and the transformation of life in this life."

It is possible to stop short of this present/future orientation by understanding death to be the purpose of Jesus and a deus ex machina bringing him back around. I simply find this bloody sacrifice too limiting and leading to excuses used by each generation for their "holocaust" of some group or other.

Wesley White

Psalm 138

When our soul or our life has been increased there is a new birth, the old soul or life is no more (yes, except for the memories that live on). Our responses to familiar and unique choices are different from that point on.

The steadfast love of walking together at 3 mph speaks to a key element soul enlargement (I presume it is a good thing that there isn't a pill to engorge our soul). This element is not an inflation of worth, but a being with in the midst of whatever.

So one formula is that our soul enlarges in direct proportion to our participation in the enlargement of another's soul, whether that other be GOD or Neighbor. There is no private soul enlargement, only social soul enlargement.

Wesley White

Isaiah 6:1-8, (9-13)

Comment 1: To be a messenger without a message seems strange. So to stop at verse 8 seems strange. Let's be a little careful with that later section, though. It has been used in anti-semitic way since very early on in the Christian experience.

Comment 2: Verse 5 is intriguing because of the variety of ways in which it has come to us in English. In particular, the issue of "seeing" GOD/Yahweh Sabaoth/etc.

I am doomed for my own eyes have seen [Revised English - early in verse]
for mine eyes have seen [King James - late in verse]
and my eyes have seen [New International]
yet my eyes have seen [New Revised Standard]

Little 3-letter words lead me in different directions.

for gives an explanation, early or late, for the claim to be unclean.

and increases the sense of uncleanness.

yet suggests that uncleanness is not the last word.

Different folks are drawn to different ways of looking at this business of seeing.

My preference is "yet." The past and present may not be all I had desired, even so I am not automatically excluded. Now I can see the unseeable and this will make all the difference for the future.

The little word "yet" brings to my mind another little 3-letter word, "but." Things can be different. These are important words for prophets who don't give up. An experience of "yet" in the midst of life brings a word of real choice. The Christian Community Bible comments, "From then on, Isaiah will know and will say that it is necessary to choose...."

We have not spoken effectively about the choices before us. Yet we persevere.

This all prefaces verse 13 - yet stumps are holy seeds. If you can catch a glimpse of GOD in a lowly stump as well as high and lifted up, now you are seeing more clearly and are able to take that more wholistic message so the choice of living new and now becomes more desirable.

Unclean, hopeless stumps, arise. You have nothing to lose.

Wesley White

1 Corinthians 15:1-11

By the grace of GOD I am who I am.

Who's that? I am!

Indeed, me too!

No matter what anyone else may say, I am.

May you be one, too.

Wesley White

Luke 5:1-11

Boats are to be filled. Boats are to take that filling to where it is needed. Boats are to be off-loaded. Boats are to be refilled. Boats are to return. Boats are to be off-loaded with new goods. Boats are to be refilled to journey forth again. And periodically they need to be refitted.

Jesus fills Simon's boat. The boat is set off to be available to the crowd. Jesus off-loads his message. There is a need for filling again and the fish come to give sustenance that the words might be energized. The fish-laden boats come to the people. The boat that is Simon is made ready for a longer cycle of journeying - from fish to folk. And periodically this all needs to be refitted by prayer and other wilderness experiences (including storms).

Where are you these days with being a boat (a nave)? Is that a lonely journey or one filled with companions? Are you just noticing there is a word that catches your curiosity? Have you been entranced by the whole story? Are you still being filled? Are you energized to do what you understand? Are you ready to join a convoy - a congregation with meaning? Are you ready to be refitted?

"Convoy" is related to convey and "means": a: to bear from one place to another; especially : to move in a continuous stream or mass b: to impart or communicate by statement, suggestion, gesture, or appearance d: to transfer or deliver to another especially by a sealed writing e: to cause to pass from one place or person to another. [edited by deletion]

Wesley White

Luke 6:17-26

"Disciples" come in all shapes and sizes and every other category you can think of. It is easy to think in terms of absolute categories with this litany of blessings and woes. You either measure up or you don't.

Another way of coming at this is to take it as a teaching on prayer, even as the disciples at another time asked for a model for that. Here is a model that talks about externals being related, one to one, with internals.

As we know we are not only part of a diverse community but we are diverse within ourselves. Some parts of us are more mature than others. Can we see this as a model on which to hone ourselves rather than a static good or evil? Each time we come to it, we need to find that growing edge that needs sharpening, clarifying, changing.

How do poverty, hunger and sorrow participate in a miracle of being shared with? How do riches, satiation, and giddiness participation in the miracle of sharing?

If we are not about this business of working on the relationships between blessings and woes we are not hearing the call to a full life in the process of being healed but looking at this detail and that and judging while using the wrong tools - like trying to measure the starry, starry night with the tools of the quantum world.

How can this "this and that" approach guide us beyond "this and that" thinking?

Wesley White

1 Corinthians 15:12-20

All this propositional proclamation leaves my head spinning.

Might one say, "in truth Christ has been raised" instead of "in fact Christ has been raised"? This gets us out of a lot of unnecessary binds in regard to proofs engaging my experience against your experience.

As long as I'm changing things around, I would suggest that more folks ought to live in this life as though they hoped in Christ and then let the eternity question take care of itself. It is honorable, not pitiable, to live in the life we are in. Paul's direction here pushes us back into earning our way or so having our eye on heaven that we overlook the needs of the moment.

Give me a couple of folks who are intent on living (hoping) Christ right now, striving to imitate his focus on a loving GOD, and I'll take them over thousands gathered to gaze at the prosperity of now and ever. This is more than enough, not something over which to sorrow.

Wesley White

Psalm 1

Trees planted by water do well, if they are trees that will do well beside water.

Presumably we will do well if we are located near a source of a resource that will nourish us.

Some folks are nurtured in a desert environment and some on the sea. What would you say was a key source of needed resources for you. Might it be your sacred texts, both communal and individual? Might it be your tradition, both common and unique?

Having identified such resources as are needed, what are you doing to care for receiving them?

Here a monthly retreat day is well in order. The days have been windy and drying. A good soaking will do wonders. If a good soaking is also in order for you, may you do something about that. If you are well soaked, may you put it to good use.

- - - - -

Water and Wind: Blessing and Curse. Wind and Water: Blessing and Curse.

Water to nurture the flowering and seeding process, wind to disperse the seed to where it is needed: Blessing.

Water to flood, wind to tear asunder: Curse.

Mix and match to your heart's content, and the content of many hearts.

Wesley White

Jeremiah 17:5-10

Above all know this, your heart is devious. We are as much a puzzle to ourselves as we are to others and to GOD.

As such we live and breathe skepticism and cynicism. We test and are tested.

The blessing in all this finds open places in which to place a new root and be ever more firmly anchored. The curse in this all this finds nothing but shifting sands that elude and cover-over.

And so, in our extremity, we are blind to the coming of relief and, in our satiation, deaf to the cries the presence of need.

We yearn for insight that releases and awareness that commits.

In all this we pray GOD will respond out of mercy, not wrath, as we puzzle our way through life. We pray GOD will deal with us from GOD's best, not our worst. We pray the same for ourselves and our neighbors. We pray . . . .

Wesley White

1 Corinthians 15:12-20

Those who have fallen asleep, like Nicodemus at night, can still be awoken, raised again, born anew - pulled from above, pushed from below, encouraged from alongside.

Christ is that metaphor that reveals for us this resurrection/born-again motion that assures the past does not simply keep rolling on like some irresistible caisson but can change by degrees or quantum leap.

So who or what has been this sort of Christ-change for you this week?

Wesley White

Luke 6:17-26

Dealing with prophets is a litmus test. Can you listen beyond your own immediate benefit?

When we recognize our experience is but one of six-and-one-half trillion-and-counting experiences we find one form of our poverty. Here we find we can be citizens of an alternative known traditionally as "kingdom of GOD" rather than being the biggest frog in our own pond.

When we know enough to know how little we know we open the possibility of learning a bit more. Here we find one form of our hunger for More (an alternative spelling of GOD?).

When we turn up our empathetic receptors our tears do come more readily, but also our sense of the incongruous and the presence of small steps is sharpened to the point of laughter without being trapped in despair.

With this kind of appreciation for experience, learning, and perspective we can deal with all that is involved in shifting from then to now to when.

The flip-side of this is milking all other experiences to validate our own, to be satisfied with knowing as an alternative to understanding, and to use laughing-at as a weapon of preemptive control.

This kind of approach freezes us into one-way people - out for more (note case change) - for rich is never rich enough, satisfied is never satisfied enough, and control is never in enough control.

With this perspective we keep projecting present profit into eternal profit and claiming that current benefits are a working out of previous benefits. The issue here is turning relative advantage into structured advantage. Whomever espouses such is our bosom buddy. However this position has historically always led to the downfall of regimes for it never adequately accounts for the eventuality of revolution beyond the ken of wealth and resources and control.

These blessings and woes are not simply individual, but social as well. They are no easier for us today than they were when heard by the church as words of Jesus. These words are spoken to the generic disciples, to you and me and our congregations. They are words of encouragement (blessing) and correction (woe).

Only true prophets can hold these together. False prophets err on the side of good news or bad news, both out of touch with larger experiences.

According to the world population counter link above there are now more people than when this musing began. Does that mean our claim to resources has shrunk or our claim for privilege has increased? What do you think prophets would say?

Joe Parrish

Great site! I think your notation of six and one-half trillion should be six and one-half billion with a B rather than with a T. But a few trillion here and a few trillion there, who would notice the difference! ;)
But I loved the counters at the population site you gave us!
Thanks!
Peace and blessings,
Joe
St. John's Episcopal, Elizabeth, NJ
February 14, 2004
JoeParrish@compuserve.com
www.forministry.com/07201SJEC

February 22, 2004 - Year C - Epiphany 7 and Transfiguration

Wesley White

February 22, 2004

Epiphany - Last
Genesis 45:3-11,15
Psalm 37:1-11, 39-40
1 Corinthians 15:35-38, 42-50
Luke 6:27-38

Epiphany - Transfiguration
Exodus 34:29-35
Psalm 99
2 Corinthians 3:12 - 4:2
Luke 9:28-36, (37-43)

What a choice for the day. Just another evidence that there is nothing common about common. Even a revised common doesn't get us all the way to common.

But this also gives us an opportunity to play between passages we might not otherwise set alongside one another.

Wesley White

Luke 6:27-38
Luke 9:28-36, (37-43)

Loving others = transfiguration of self
Loving enemies = transfiguration of self
Not judging = transfiguration of self
Forgiving = transfiguration of self
Giving generously = transfiguration of self

The pattern is established. This is the way we participate in the largest of exoduses or journeys - that to life in all its fullness.

Looking for the outcome of living lightly? -- follow the teachings, the way.

Enjoy this handful (five digits) of a new pentalogue as you participate in them. If the destination is worth enjoying, so is the travel.

Wesley White , 2/17/2004 8:13:07 AM

1 Corinthians 15:35-38, 42-50
2 Corinthians 3:12 - 4:2

We do not invest the future, we sow the present into the freedom of GOD to see what fruit will be brought forth, thirty-fold, sixty-fold, or one-hundred-fold.

As we honorably deal with the hand that has been dealt us (metaphorically, the hand of Adam/Eve) we anticipate living an image of their ancestral descendant, Messiah Jesus.

This present-to-future is the movement of the Spirit that is GOD's freedom. In this movement is the corollary that the veil is removed that we might see clearly how we came along the path that once was quite mysterious to us. This veil is lifted. And from one degree to the next we find another veil of the meaning of the past lifted.

Invest today that tomorrow might grow and you'll get to see a new path through the past. This is fun and maturing stuff. Enjoy it as you go - revel in seeing GOD with you as you go - sort of like backing into the future by looking in the mirrors rather than over your shoulder.

Wesley White

Genesis 45:3-11,15
Exodus 34:29-35

Concern about relationships draws people together.

Concern about laws pushes people away.

Tears and glory are two of the continuing realities in our lives and the life of the church. There is an appropriate ratio of these for each situation. The general rule of thumb, however, is that compassion is on the high side of the ratio while structural stability is on the low side.

Do you see folks as family or subjects?

Do you experience yourself as part of GOD's family or one of GOD's subjects?

What is the feeling tone of restoring a dysfunctional family (even if it is claimed that such was intended by GOD - oh, yes, intended to do good)? What is the feeling tone of setting up rules by which some of the family will be sent away or killed because they don't consistently life up to the highest of ideals?

A difficulty that needs to be faced is what to do with the inherent exclusivity in taking care of one's own above caring for all? A second difficulty is what to do with the universality of a structure focused on exclusivity of rules that are for us?

We are not dealing with pure poles here and so the question of transfiguration comes in between as care becomes a spiritual discipline and sabbath rules can be abrogated to care for self or another. What seems like a choice between Joseph's transfiguration and that of Moses raises the question of finding the clarity spot for your own transfiguration.

How would the conversation on the mountain been different if Moses and Joseph showed up instead of Moses and Elijah?

If you were to pick two of your formative folks to stand by you as you begin the next part of your journey, your exodus, who would they be?

Wesley White

2 Corinthians 3:12 - 4:2
1 Corinthians 15:35-38, 42-50

Hope leads to boldness!

Hope that doesn't lead to boldness is wishful thinking.

So what is the more that you are hoping? Does it go as far as resurrection? Yes, your resurrection.

Now, with your eye firmly fixed on such hope that brings boldness, go ahead - bold away!

What will that boldness lead to in your own spiritual disciplines that will go beyond a Lenten trial period?

What will that boldness lead to in your own family (however you define that)?

What will that boldness lead to in your own congregation and denomination/one-true-church/sect/etc.?

What will that boldness lead to in your culture, particularly in its political, economic, and educational life?

What will that boldness lead to in your experience of GOD?

Where is an extreme makeover needed? When will you be about that business because you have emboldening hope?

Wesley White

Luke 9:28-36, (37-43)
Luke 6:27-38

Peter was tired, able to see the tradition, but tired enough not to know what to do with it other than institutionalize it, build a box around it.

We are tired enough to catch a glimpse of the power of loving our enemies. It is part of our tradition. But we are tired enough not to know what to do with it other than let it fade into the background as we build a box out of loving those who love us that is so strong that the love of enemies simply doesn't have any time or space in which to operate.

We are likewise tired in regard to judging. It is so difficult to keep our eyes open and so we doze in front of justice and listen only for that which reflects ourself or to let the continuation of what's best for ourself take control of the outcome.

As if we weren't tired enough ordinarily, if those two additional personal and political demands don't put us all the way to sleep, then the economic one will. We simply have irrational responses to the appropriate interactions between ourselves and our economic system.

Good night. Ignoring the best of our tradition in favor of second best is more effective than counting sheep. We have to work so hard to avoid the best that we babble and snore.

February 29, 2004 - Year C - Lent 1

Wesley White

February 29, 2004

Deuteronomy 26:1-11
Psalm 91:1-2, 9-16
Romans 10:8b-13
Luke 4:1-13

Prosperity enough to tithe is a temptation.
Presumed security, even GOD's, is a temptation.
Where else will temptation be recognized.

Actually the recognition is a starting point to refute it. It's those pesky unrecognized temptations that give them most difficulty.

Wesley White

Luke 4:1-13

In Lent our 40 days in the wilderness does not include Sundays. I wonder if Jesus had any holidays.

How do you imagine the 40 days going. Were there ravens that brought a bit of sustenance? Was Jesus also a survivalist and able to fend for himself?

On to the fasting part.

Presume for a moment that today's wilderness is a culture of consumerism. The central organizing principle of this religious wilderness is Economic Growth.

What would be the response to the powerful economic temptations of today?

Here are 6 as found in an article by Jay McDaniel and John L. Farthing in the book Thy Nature and Thy Name is Love: Wesleyan and Process Theologies in Dialogue:

1. sharing with others
2. freedom from inordinate attachments
3. freedom from affluence
4. freedom for the poor
5. freedom for simplicity
6. freedom for the present moment.

All of these relate to fasting.

These ideas were challenging in John Wesley's time and they are challenging in ours.

McDaniel and Farthing also write:
"We might also imagine consumerism as having its doctrines and creeds. Its doctrine of creation would be that the earth is real estate to be bought and sold in the marketplace and that other living beings -- animals, for example -- are mere commodities for human use. Its doctrine of human existence would be that we are skin-encapsulated egos cut off from the world by the boundaries of our skin, whose primary purpose is to ' have our needs met.' and its basic creeds would be 'bigger is better,' 'faster is better,' 'more is better,' and 'you can have it all.' Admittedly, our caricature is negative and cynical. Still, we think there is truth in it. If we are entering an age of Economism, then there does seem to ban ideology -- a set of attitudes and values -- that functions like a religion: that is, a way of organizing the whole of life, inner and outer. Thus, a serious question emerges: Can middle-class Christians in high-income countries, who have been so deeply co-opted into the ideology of consumerism, nevertheless find resources within their heritage, past and present, for critical and creative response to this lifestyle and its accompanying religion?"

A key way to respond to the temptation of our day is the monastic vow of poverty -- voluntary and intentional fasting in the face of the temptations that have come around at the latest "opportune time."

Wesley White

Romans 10:8b-13

When we deal with the heart we are dealing with deep personal matters. In the heart we do not separate any other resurrection or new life from our own resurrection or new life. In the heart there is no longer not any distinction between that religion and this, one gender and another, or a special or ordinary resurrection.

Too often we have read this as "heart-felt" or my experience is the measure of all things. When we do this, words such as Paul's here become litmus tests and creedal cornerstones.

Another place to look to see how open this is, rather than closed, is the last verse about being saved or helped.

We can read it very openly, "Everyone who calls, 'Help, GOD!' gets help" [The Message]. We can also read it very closed that only those who use the confession of Jesus on their lips will get the help they need - all others need not apply.

Paying attention to the matters of the heart (while seemingly inward looking), in a master feat of topology, opens us to new neighbors and alt.god.

Wesley White

Psalm 91:1-2, 9-16

Hooray - We have the ultimate missile defense shield - GOD.

Safe, whew, finally, we are safe from the scourge of evil.

We can go into any temptation, even where angels fear to tread (dragging them along through their commitment to serve and protect our very toesies). I'm not sure how the angels feel about going where we go, but, Onward!

So now the biggie. Are we going where angels fear to tread or safely sitting on the sideline cheering as a partisan? What are we trusting when we get ourselves in a pickle or beyond our height or power comfort levels? Can we persevere in the midst of temptation to settle down?

Wesley White

Deuteronomy 26:1-11

Verse 11 - NISB note

"The community was not only to remember in its thank-offering what it owed to God, but it was also to renew its sense of community solidarity by ensuring that everyone share in the bounty."

You, together with the priests and aliens, the religious and not, shall celebrate together.

So how would you paraphrase "Aliens" in today's context.

You, together with Palestinian and Israeli?

You, together with married homosexuals and married heterosexual?

You, together with the starving, destitute poor and the rich beyond belief?

You, together with the violent and the non-violent?

You, together with the stupid and the wise?

You, together with _____ and _____?

Wesley White

Romans 10:8b-13

Heart and mouth. John Wesley's Notes on the New Testament record, "Confession here implies the whole of outward, as believing does the root of all inward, religion."

It is so easy to polarize things, to look at them as either/or. One of the experiences Jesus rails against most is that of hypocrisy. When we digitize an analog experience or choose one experience over all other experiences we are masking important moments which could move us to learning how to see beyond the distinctions we so easily and naturally make to being one as Jesus saw himself one with GOD and with me/you/us.

Our work is that of holding the disparate together long enough to see a connecting point between them and then to rejoice that the lost, the separated, has been found and rejoined.

Wesley White

Luke 4:1-13

Temptations lead us to work. When we have come through (or not) a temptation it is not as though temptations are over and done with, once and forever.

Whether successfully countered or not, temptations (and our response) give us material to work with as we proceed to live out what we understand to be the movement and intention of GOD.

That is from verse 14. It helps to let us know what temptations are about.

Part of the reason this is so important is that temptations come at their own opportune time. They come at what is probably our least opportune time. How, out of our weakness, might we rise to the occasion?

At least one response is to spend our time between temptations doing what practice we can to continually and consistently envision the larger significance to daily events. Did you see GOD in your eating and other survival mechanisms today (presuming it isn't a fast day for you)? Did you see GOD in the world today with all its emphasis upon power and control? Did you see GOD in the church today, even in its institutionalness?

If you didn't make that application might we say that the Satan had no reason to tempt you because you had already capitulated? How might you better practice the larger view today that you might be ready for tomorrow's tempting?