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July 4, 2004 - Year C - Pentecost +5
Wesley White
July 4, 2004
2 Kings 5:1-14 or Isaiah 66:10-14
Psalm 30 or Psalm 66:1-9
Galatians 6:(1-6), 7-16
Luke 10:1-11, 16-20
Every passage of scripture can be read through the eyes of the reigning paradigm or an alternative. This week we bring eyes particularly attuned to the political realities of power and war, of changing regimes for ourselves and for others.
How might we constantly update our working for the good of all? Commonwealth questions are uncommonly difficult. As we improve in one area of our communal life we institutionalize it and it becomes a drag on other needed changes. What is a child to do amid such adult behavior?
Keep praying and working for peace and mercy.
Wesley White
Luke 10:1-11, 16-20
Where does Jesus intend to be this week?
I presume your response included an area near you. Jesus intends to be in your neighborhood this week.
How, then, prepare for, be aware of, Jesus' presence?
First, recognize that another has also been sent ahead to work with you. Though the laborers may be few, they are each significant. As aware as you desire to be regarding Jesus' presence, are you also investing as much energy in being aware of your partner, sister or brother, who is also desiring to be aware of Jesus and you?
Second, no matter what the previous relationship with this other person, if any, it is time to recognize there is no class, status, possession, or wisdom criterion that is to get in the way of your working together. Neither of you will have purse, bag, sandals, or anything else that will get in the way of preparing for the People of Peace than to have that word, "Peace," ready and able to spring from your lips.
This, then, is the password of identification of you to find one another - the speaking and receiving of Peace that binds you together in the work of Peace. First, be Peace. Second, share Peace. Third, receive the blessing of Peace. Or, as John Wesley learned, preach peace until you have it and then preach peace because you have it.
Wesley White
Galatians 6:(1-6), 7-16
"Even the circumcised do not themselves obey the law, but they want you to be circumcised so that they may boast about your flesh" is an interesting line after General Conference.
In the various denominational agonies regarding human sexuality, we need to recognize that the legalists and literalists among us are not as legal or literal as they claim. Mostly they want to be seen in that light so they may boast about your vote.
I was encouraged to hear some begin to say (of course, too late for those injured by the decisions), "I think we may have followed Maxie Dunham (insert your own favorite religious rightist/legalist) once too often." May we finally get back to understanding that each of these church fights are about power and control of one over another and that "neither this issue or that is anything; but a new creation is everything!"
In light of our physical move from this appointment in the morning, neither here or there is the issue — it is a new creation, whether here or there.
Wesley White
Psalm 30 or Psalm 66:1-9
Lift with the legs. Carry that box to the moving van. Let your legs help you put it down. Check the pedometer. Repeat.
In this form moving is pretty routine, boring, repetitive, deadly.
Can it be seen as a dance? How would Arthur Murray have choreographed this move?
The psalmist talks of turning our mourning, our everydayness, into dancing or (as the same word is translated in 29:9) a whirl.
Whirling - Dancing - Moving
We move from midnight weeping to morning joy, from noontime seas to crossing a river at dusk into a new land. And there was evening and morning, the next day.
What labor will you transform by whirling it about in your imagination until you can see a dance?
Wesley White
2 Kings 5:1-14 or Isaiah 66:10-14
This starts a six day period without a computer connection in our home. Should I cheat and get on AOL for six days and then drop it without paying for that service?
In this time of exile will there be unexpected healing from a source today as unexpected as a young female captive/slave then? Will there be resistance to doing things longhand (the more difficult way) and sneaker-netting that to the office? Will this enhance the rejoicing when connections are back up and running?
How do we evaluate the state of affairs in which we find ourselves?
We do so like our expectations to be met. Our healing ought to be done in the most majestic of fashions - in a mighty river (near home of course where our enemies will see how blessed we are). Our homecoming ought to be on our timeline.
What expectations do you have about how you can function in the world? Have you tested those expectations lately? This might be a good time to see what can be done without and to rejoice that we don't really need all the niceties our station in life deserves or is entitled to.
Wesley White
Galatians 6:(1-6), 7-16
As we rail against the nay-sayers of the world, the limiters of love's expressions, it would behoove us to do so in a spirit of gentleness.
Oh, my, is this tough, or what!
Can we preemptively bear another's burdens without their being ready to bear our own? Well, yes. That is basically how it works. Seldom are we on the same need basis as our sisters and brothers. If we were we might not be able to support another because of our own great need to be supported.
This picture of alternating support is but one picture. There are those who report that they are supported in being able to support another. This has gotten many through difficulties in their life.
Whether you are more of an alternating or simultaneous bearer of burdens, may you do so with gentleness for yourself and those you are supporting.
Those who follow this guide of gentleness — peace be upon you, and mercy, and upon all of GOD's creation.
Wesley White
Luke 10:1-11, 16-20
While doing some routine web browsing (well, routine for me) I periodically run across folks who have used something from these comments. A couple of days ago I found a sermon that referred to a comment from here. Here it is: "How can we "be angry, but do not sin", as our reading today so succinctly encourages us? How do we do so in order to become imitators of God, to in the words of the epistle writer "be kind to one another" – the word for kindness in the Greek, Chraistoi , apparently a pun of Christos, to wit: to be kind is to be like Christ?* [*Thanks go to Wesley White of the website "Kairos CoMotion" for this observation.]
This sort of attribution always begins in a burst of pride followed by a sense of humility as it wasn't so much me saying that as passing on information I had run across that struck a resonating chord with me.
It is appropriate to hear Jesus speak to us in moments of justifying triumph, "Do not rejoice at this, that you were a vehicle of inspiration, but rejoice that you are present with GOD.
This business of being present is one I am still struggling with but it helps me more than being split between "now" and "then," with "then" being more real than "now".
Where is your rejoicing and how does it assist you in engaging the issues of Peace and Mercy that will be seen in contrast to demons of the moment?
After seeing Fahrenheit 9/11 it does seem that some reminder of humility is appropriate in the midst of tomorrow's celebration of the American 4th of July. Another way of coming at this is to remember the Philippine experience and why July 4th is not celebrated as their Independence Day even though the American flag was taken down on that day and the Philippine flag raised.
July 11, 2004 - Year C - Pentecost +6
Wesley White
July 11, 2004
Amos 7:7-17 or Deuteronomy 30:9-14
Psalm 82 or Psalm 25:1-10
Colossians 1:1-14
Luke 10:25-37
How many different ways can you speak about the importance of neighbors?
The plumbline showing the way to eternal life corresponds, 1-to-1, with the neighbor. As the neighbor is able to stand tall and straight we find a faithful guide to to the real "real world."
Wesley White
Luke 10:25-37
In days of yore an important question was that of "eternal life." Often it now seems the question is more of "what do I have to do to get by today?
We can phrase that in terms of getting whiter teeth, a desirable partner, a workable bank account, or other such, but it all boils down to smaller life goals rather than larger ones. We are still trying to find a way to keep the Sabbatical Year from our door.
In Matthew (19:16 ff) and 8 chapters later in Luke this same question has the kicker of "sell your possessions and give the proceeds to the poor". To be aware of our neighbor is going to very quickly lead us to this same conclusion. We will be ready to offer to whatever innkeeper is around a blank check (even an innkeeper as sly as Thenardier in Les Miserables?)
In Mark (12:28 ff) we note a difference when this question is not being asked as a test. In this case the "kingdom" is not far away.
So, are you interested in drawing closer to GOD? There is a definite cost. Face it. Enjoy it.
Wesley White
Colossians 1:1-14
It is quite one thing to be filled with the fruit of faith, completed in the art of forgiveness of sins, and quite another to be on the way toward such within the context of prayers for the journey.
So much of religious life revolves around being blamed for not being good enough and unrealistically using one's own experience as the baseline for the experience of everyone else.
A way to escape the eternal bouncing back and forth between these extremes is to give thanks that we are on a journey that is growing in the midst of the world around.
Who is unceasing in their prayer for you as you travel along? Who are you unceasing in prayer for as they travel along? Where is the locus of the prayers for us together as we travel along? It is probably beyond you or me as we get so caught up in our moments of triumph and deserving to be seated at "God's right hand" that we can't clearly pray for that which is so close to us. Can the church where you are pray for the church where I am and, of course, the other way around as well? If we can't, won't, don't where then is the rescue we so need from the power of "darkness"? Pray, dearest ones, pray!
Wesley White
Psalm 82 or Psalm 25:1-10
82:5 They have neither knowledge nor understanding, they walk around in darkness; all the foundations of the earth are shaken.
25:5 Make me to know your ways, O Lord; teach me your paths.
These fifth verses give us the interesting interplay between "they" and "me". In so doing they bring us back to questions of the neighbor and to the journey of faith. So easy it is to blame them and to recognize we, at least, are on the right path even if we haven't yet arrived.
What way keeps the foundations secure? For those focusing on ourselves going in "the right" direction, the issue is mercy and love. For those focusing on others headed in "the wrong" direction, it is justice. Often times we conflate all this into one big mishmash of mercylovejustice, applying mercy where justice is needed and justice where love is to shine through.
A part of the hard work we have before us is that of knowing that Psalm 25 is Psalm 25 and Psalm 82 is Psalm 82. A key role of the prophetic life is that of clarity, clarity, clarity. In our line of work this is as much a truism as is location, location, location.
May we know what we don't know and test faith in the midst of fear and trembling.
Wesley White
Amos 7:7-17 or Deuteronomy 30:9-14
A plumbline (A 7:8) is in your mouth and in your heart for you to observe (D 30:14).
So often we think of the rules of the game of life being set from the outside as though creation were from the outside in, mud-to-breath, when it might be thought of from the inside out, word-to-image.
As we proceed to love our neighbor, as our self, we find the plumbline becoming clearer. This is different than the plumbline becoming better defined and then being able to better love.
The practical application of this escapes me for now. Nonetheless, it is comforting to know that the measuring rod of good living is not foreign, but constituent to our being. While we don't always live up to this standard within - it is what allows conversion (at whatever speed) and activates the assurance of forgiveness. The mystery of what finally makes the connection of ourselves to ourselves, our mouths with our hearts, our works with our faith seems to be ever larger.
For now we simply leave it with encouragement to observe the gift within yourself and to encourage others to so observe their life. To do so with integrity builds the common wealth that gives a courage to finally love GOD with all that is available, to love neighbors as family, to love a community we were called to rather than was called to us, and to love those we once labeled as enemy. In this way we find how we, too, will "so love the world."
Wesley White
Colossians 1:1-14
Joyful Endurance. What a pairing.
This keeps us on track that future hope might already bear fruit and grow within the present world. The sense of thankful completion or wholeness joins with the hard work of growing, day-by-day, in, through and among a world still incomplete and strewn with shards.
This is the loveliness that is Epaphras' teaching. The journey to redemptive forgiveness (rather than redemptive suffering) is through Joyful Endurance. Try it, you might like it. It is a taste worth acquiring.
Wesley White
Luke 10:25-37
Hearing and Doing. Another lovely pairing.
Who among us cannot come out with words of wisdom. We know the patter. Formative language runs through every culture in one meme or another.
We hear and can repeat the basics of the accumulated wisdom. We know what's right and wrong. That's built into us.
But there are so many differing and conflictive pressures upon what we hear. Sometimes these are simply too much for us to simply do what we hear. We find ourselves giving more heed to lesser words. We find ourselves choosing alternative directions for no better reason than "because". We ignore what we hear figuring we can beat out a better path, construct a better mouse trap.
For whatever reason, our hearing of "pity", "mercy" and "kindness" seem to be the last things we will try, even though they, also, are built in to us.
As we draw nigh to Sunday, Resurrection Day, the First Day, may we tune our hearing the whisper of a plumbline stilling itself in direct line with mercy.
July 18, 2004 - Year C - Pentecost +7
Wesley White
July 18, 2004
Amos 8:1-12 or Genesis 18:1-10a
Psalm 52 or Psalm 15
Colossians 1:15-28
Luke 10:38-42
How would you distinguish between Martha and Mary, first-fruit and summer-fruit, blameless walker and worker of treachery, a laugher at new birth and a mourner of the end?
Do they work on different scales or are they part of a continuum? The way in which we categorize will lead to different decisions and different communities. Again, are they primarily digital and discrete or analog and amalgams.
This week in the United Methodist Church there will be the election of Bishops. The lenses brought by the delegates may have more to do with the elections than anything else. Is the democratic political process inherently a better way to do business than the drawing of straws prayer process when Matthias was chosen as a holder of a twelfth apostleship? Could we be United Methodists, given the trajectory of our heritage, and elect otherwise than we do?
Wesley White
Luke 10:38-42
We are often setting up one person or group against another. Here is an interesting article about Shifting Spirituality? What Newcomers Are Looking For that demonstrates some of the tension within the household of faith and how differing gifts can bring dissension, not the common good. Using this model, do we get a picture of Jesus choosing current church members over newcomers?
As you reflect on Martha and Mary it would be helpful to move it out of the "head" or "servant" duality. The model here fits all manner of disputes.
A question to be asked regards Jesus' seeming choice one gift over another or one expression of a gift. Is this really all about Jesus who was at that moment ready to teach rather than ready to eat? If Martha could have held her tongue for another half-hour would Jesus have been ready to say, "You're right, Martha. Mary, its time to help out as I'm getting hungry."
What else do we know about life that we can bring to this scene?
Wesley White
Psalm 52 or 15
Within the tradition of a common lectionary there are still choices to be made. A movie still playing in a theater near you, Spiderman 2, the issue of choice is a key element – choices made and choices given.
Deceit and Integrity are holographic choices. Each is repeated in each part (replicated inward). Each brings pressure upon the next decision to carry it on (rippling outward).
And yet these habituated patterns are no guarantee of consistency. They help, but do not assure. Conversion and domino slippage do occur.
So, today, it is again a day of choosing what will further shape our common life. Here, yesterday, nominations were made to general decision-making bodies. Today the first formal introduction of and ballot for the United Methodist episcopacy will take place. By our choices will we be known.
Wesley White
Colossians 1:15-28
One who follows Christ's way is to do greater, "wholier", living and it so so live their way to a cross. In so being they are also an image of a visibly invisible GOD.
All who follow a way to GOD are a place where reconciliation occurs -- reconciliation within oneself, between ourself and another/others, in relationship to GOD. Integrity, honor and joy (parallels to faith, hope and love?) become lived experience, not simply opportunities.
This is the "whole story" (instead of the overused and currently ill-defined, over-assumed "good news" or "gospel"). GOD and Creation are being reconciled through me, through you, through us. This is a a second-birthing that we feel topologically as we twist back upon ourselves to return to a new dimension. Reconciliation has a painful component to it, but ends in such great fun that we would be about no other business.
Wesley White
Amos 8:1-12 or Genesis 18:1-10a
There is a time for everything – mourning the death of a child and the anticipation of a child – a season of harvest and a season of planting. Whether the child or the crop bears much or little, whether the child or the crop elicits dread or hope – there is the working out, through all the little details, of rejoicing or regret.
In the game of foreground/background, comparison/contrast, where we can measure one against the other and see things in the other’s light that would not otherwise be seen, even mixed metaphors have their place.
How do you hold the fragility of a particular harvest, the short-lived summer-fruit so quick to spoil, alongside a beginning of generations, in all their persistence? Here, as we go about the election of people to an office of episcopacy, a part of the personnel question to be addressed has to do with whether, in the life of an individual, election will be the culmination of their career (harvested and already beginning to lose vitality) or the initiation of a generational influence (setting in motion new vitality in the faith gene pool).
How is life in your skin? Beyond the question of age, are you summer fruit or a sower of seed for a next generation?
Wesley White
Colossians 1:15-28
Hope has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven. It is this hope we are pleased to join in proclaiming.
It is very easy to focus on the proclamation part, rather than the hope – the form instead of the function, the image without the content. In so doing we easily slide over into supremacy language – saying more about hope (still not very visible) than hope will bear. Here the passage begins with dramatic propositions of faith and ends with servant/hope language.
Paul’s famous trinity of faith/hope/love is here differently ordered. First we hear an expression of love – reconciliation. This is followed by secure and steadfast faith and unswerving hope – both grounded in that first love.
First or last – coming from or leading to – regardless of the order, may these three not finally become propositions, but relationships.
Here two (in my mind, of the most relational Episcopal candidates we are voting for) have been elected. Today begins with the hope that we will elect a third who will best proclaim the holiness of every creature under heaven.
Wesley White
Luke 10:38-42
We elected two new women bishops in the North Central Jurisdiction. I don't know that either of them is the Martha model or the Mary model. They embody both qualities. My experience of them is that they are able to pull out Martha when she is needed and Mary when she is needed.
The story of Martha and Mary is about them both, not one over or under the other. The Storytellers Companion to the Bible: New Testament Women (Vol 13) reminds us that the stories in the Bible are connected to questions and issues of their day. What might we guess about a woman's issue that would have led to Jesus affirming Mary's attention to listening and learning? Might it be that there were those who were trying to relegate women to the bedroom and kitchen? If so, Luke affirms a new relationship between women and the world, one filled with choices to be made, and gives it the authority of Jesus. It seems this issue is still with us and needs to constantly be reaffirmed. Many were amazed that we were able to elect two women. The theory being that the system could only handle one or the other. (And then there are feelings of betrayal going on in the South Central Jurisdiction where not a woman was elected with several excellent candidates.)
The need for vigilance is constant when it comes to power issues within the human family. Racial issues, Women issues, and Sexual Orientation issues are still the "canaries in the mine" that first catch the air being poisoned with separation and entitlement behaviors from the power brokers of this and every day.
Let's hear a good word for Martha and Mary - sisters to one another and to you and me.
July 25, 2004 - Year C - Pentecost +8
Wesley White
July 25, 2004
Hosea 1:2-10 or Genesis 18:20-32
Psalm 85 or Psalm 138
Colossians 2:6-15 (16-19)
Luke 11:1-13
Freedom and revival are companions on the road. Freedom revives. Revivals free.
As we walk this week it may be that we will catch again the connections between these two old friends.
Wesley White
Luke 11:1-13
Two helpful comments from the New Interpreter's Study Bible:
1. "What might be taken as a request for a correct 'technique' of prayer actually turns into a lesson on nurturing a relationship with God. Prayer along these lines would serve as an ongoing catalyst for the formation of persons into a community of faithfulness."
How do you and your congregation use the prayer that has come down to us as a model prayer? Has it become a tradition, a technique? How might this prayer return to its catalytic position within the community?
2. In response to verses 9-10 the commentator remarks, "Everyone is encouraged to recognize God's expansive goodness."
Everyone who has been around a Kairos CoMotion event has heard the phrase, "the expansive love of GOD" used and reused. This is a good conclusion to the image of catalyst that transforms without being used up, able to continue and continue to transform.
= = = = = = =
In the for what it is worth category, here is a bit of what Bartleby and "The American Heritage Book of English Usage" says about catalysts.
"The word catalyst has been in use since the 1600s and comes from Greek katalusis, “dissolution.” If this etymology seems slightly out of sync for a substance that helps other substances come together and react, consider that the term was first used to describe political situations, especially the breaking apart of governments. By the mid-1800s, though, the political meaning had been rendered obsolete and the term had become part of the lexicon of chemists. Today, a catalyst is a substance that increases the rate of a chemical reaction without undergoing any permanent chemical change itself."
Wesley White
Colossians 2:6-15 (16-19)
We are not to let anyone condemn us in matters of food and drink, observing festivals. These personal and experiential issues are not the measure of Christ in our life. Christians can be omnivores, carnivores or vegetarians. Christians can participate in Ramadan, Festival of Booths or Easter (not to mention Solstice, Diwali or Vesak).
We are not to be disqualified by or intimidated into self-abasement. Likewise we are not to be coerced into this belief or that belief about angels dancing on a pin or anything else. Creeds are always behind the times, fighting the tail end of any dispute.
Creation and growth mix clay and breath and all manner of other seeming incompatibilities. To buy into a standardized religion is to chose against the being of Christ and the image of GOD. Both blow where they will, are nonstandard.
Wesley White
Psalm 85 or Psalm 138
The Lord's Prayer
(paraphrase from the Open Door Community, Atlanta, GA, used in worship at Ebenezer Baptist Church, Atlanta, GA, 5/22/03, during the 2003 Festival of Homiletics Conference)
Interlined with Psalm 85 (NIV-UK)
Our Beloved Friend, who is outside the system,
May your Holy Name be honored by the way we live our lives.
[You showed favour to your land, O LORD; you restored the fortunes of Jacob. You forgave the iniquity of your people and covered all their sins. You set aside all your wrath and turned from your fierce anger.]
Your Beloved Community come, your way be done
inside the system as it is outside the system.
[Restore us again, O God our Saviour, and put away your displeasure towards us. Will you be angry with us for ever? Will you prolong your anger through all generations?]
Give us this day everything we need.
[Will you not revive us again, that your people may rejoice in you? Show us your unfailing love, O LORD, and grant us your salvation.]
Forgive our wrongs as we forgive those who have wronged us.
[I will listen to what God the LORD will say; he promises peace to his people, his saints--but let them not return to folly. Surely his salvation is near those who fear him, that his glory may dwell in our land. ]
Do not bring us to the time of Testing,
but keep us safe from the Evil One.
[Love and faithfulness meet together; righteousness and peace kiss each other. Faithfulness springs forth from the earth, and righteousness looks down from heaven.]
For yours is the Beloved Community,
[The LORD will indeed give what is good, and our land will yield its harvest.]
the power and the glory forever and ever.
[Righteousness goes before him and prepares the way for his steps.]
Amen.
Wesley White
Hosea 1:2-10 or Genesis 18:20-32
What group of people would you love to see wiped away? Does is bear on your political life? religious life? economic life? love life? Presumably their demise will elevate your understanding to the normative.
You may be convinced that there aren't even two people, much less ten, in said group that are worth anything. It may even be that when you really step back and look, there's not a one for whom you would withhold wrath. Genocide is mine, saith the Lord.
Yet, and what a wonderful word that is, "Yet", even from such a derided and defeated people will come a reversal - that which was deemed of no value, becomes, in the words of a popular commercial, "priceless".
This pushes on us. Even as we experience poisonous parents we yet anticipate a time beyond our continual testing of one another. In that anticipation we find again the opportunity to lift our curse and to provide a blessing.
Wesley White
Colossians 2:6-15 (16-19)
See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deceit....
On tonight's NOW with Bill Moyers there was in interview with George Lakoff regarding the framing of issues that is very important. You can read more about this at the NOW website - click on framing the issues at the bottom of the page.
It is amazing how language sets the agenda for the work we do in the world. What key phrases do you need to use over and over again to project the realities you understand and desire? How do you reframe bad theology beyond saying "not" to someone else's "so"?
This is some of the most difficult work there is to do. It is also some of the most crucial. The Word becomes flesh in our words. We can set people free through a reframing. The elemental spirits of the universe need to be transformed. This is what the Lord's Prayer does; this is what Hosea does.
We need to not only care about our not being taken captive, but about others being taken captive. It is important to take part in the day-to-day political realities with the people we are with. There should be a whole year's course in seminary about reframing the comments that are overheard in church. This is holy work. It is also hard work that has a tremendous payoff. Let's continue reframing the discussions around us.
Wesley White
Luke 11:1-13
Where does the Lord's prayer fit in when life is exactly what gets in the way of living? How might this prayer be seen and used to break us free from a religiosity of prayer forms?
You might want to listen to and read what Joan Chittister says about contemplation in the midst of chaos - and consider where this prayer fits amid the various constraints you experience.
We ask to be taught how to pray so we can set that whole area of life away. We will know what it is all about and pass that answer on to all generations. Then, once we know it all, we try it on as magic and, not surprisingly, it doesn't work that way. This prayer pushes us back to relationships.
Jesus' response to the disciple's question gives a model but it is a model that holds within it the seeds of freedom from a model. Also mitigating against it becoming a formula are the images used after the prayer regarding the generosity of GOD already available. Persistently, one prayer at a time, we enter the presence of GOD and one another and experience that availability.
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