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March 7, 2004 - Year C - Lent 2
Wesley White
March 7, 2004
Genesis 15:1-12, 17-18
Psalm 27
Philippians 3:17 - 4:1
Luke 13:31-35 or Luke 9:28-36
It may be interesting to consider the difference between the code or ritual of covenant and the intangible or metaphoric nature of example.
Wesley White
Luke 13:31-35
Made in GOD's image -- who does not come in the name of the Lord? Given the various described behaviors (and thus natures?) of GOD -- who does not come in the name of the Lord?
Note that there are ancient manuscripts that read only, "...you will not see me until you say, Blessed..."
This is a clearer saying that takes it out of some imponderable time to come that will wrench a blessing from us, almost against our will.
This is a clearer saying that points to the way in which our attitudes define our behaviors and we are in charge of and responsible for the same.
During Lent we are called to practice blessing-language until it becomes second nature to us. This puts us in the good company of Jesus and the saints of all faiths who bless and bless until they are a blessing. This is at least as attractive as the preaching of faith until we have faith to preach.
Want in on the Jesus thing? Bless.
Wesley White
Philippians 3:17 - 4:1
What we read as "join in imitating me" might also be read from the Greek as "Become co-imitators with me of Christ." (NISB)
This reads much better in terms of the Body of Christ in its many parts. Co-imitators would have us each operating in our arena without having to do the same and say the same. For instance, the foot could imitate what Jesus would do, walking along with folks while the hand could imitate what Jesus would do, healing through touch. Both are needed.
The tricky part for us is when the hand tries to direct the foot to go certain places or the foot doesn't factor in a stop for the hand to reach deep into another's life.
Being co-imitators of Christ is like being a co-creator with GOD. These partnerships are crucial for our own transformation and that of the world. May brother eye and sister ear help uncle foot and aunt hand comprehend a call to move and reach, and to pause and touch.
In our journey to the imitation of Christ it is important to expand that into being part of a larger co-imitation process.
Wesley White
Psalm 27
"Do not give me up to the will of my adversaries, for false witnesses have risen against me, and the are breathing out violence. // I believe that I shall see the goodness...." (vs 12-13x, NRSV)
Patience, strength, and courage come at the interface between the fear and the seeing of something different. There is a great dynamism between verses 12 and 13 that is only indicated by a stanza change.
What is it that goes on in your life between the fear and the hope? Is that usually a moment or a much longer time? Do you have a strategy for the shift or is it yet a mystery?
Which stanza do you find operating in you today? Is it the fear pleading or the goodness believing? Are you ready for that to shift? Our experience is that it does shift that there is another dynamic space between the end of the psalm and its beginning. What are you doing to assist the shift or live in the middle of it?
I always find it mysterious and amazing how transformation goes on in the silence of space between stanzas in life. May your space, this day, bear much good fruit and ground you in the more.
Wesley White
Genesis 15:1-12, 17-18
With Noah's covenant we hear about animals coming together, two by two and seven by seven. Here in Abram's covenant we hear about animals dividing half by half.
To get to the promised covenant Abram passed again through the primordial darkness in a sleep so deep it is as though formless and void had never left.
This seems rather natural after complaint and seemingly worthless slaughter. After all this and waiting and struggling with the birds of prey pecking liverishly on one who yearned for light only to find it fading quickly.
The dark rises from the deeps. Will it ever dissipate? And then the guiding light which will later guide the Exodus party and bake their manna and the flaming sword barring eternity shifts to a flaming torch and trust bears its fruit at life's nadir.
So how are the promises, you understand to be on their way, coming along? How might we aid one another in keeping on, even to nightmare-ville and beyond?
And so we have travelled from vision to futile task to nightmare to fulfillment. Keep trusting the world will finally turn 'round right. In that trust keep acting prophetically and progressively toward a next earth and heaven.
Wesley White
Philippians 3:17 - 4:1
The cross of Christ comes in a variety of designer colors. It is one of those Rorschach tests that tells us more about ourselves than it does about the object viewed.
For the moment consider it as a symbol or metaphor for the whole process of life and death and more life. In that sense it is a synecdoche or metonymy (since I have a hard time distinguishing the two, I note them both).
So often we literalize the cross as though that were the end-all and be-all of the story. You may want to think about why Paul talks so much about cross when his experience is that of the risen Christ. Beyond that you may want to think about why readers of Paul pick up on the details rather than the sweep of his commentary.
Here it may be better to pick up on the transformation mentioned in verse 21 rather than get caught in the no-win conversation about the passion of the christ. What needs transformation in your life, the life of your congregation, and the life of the world? Let's be about that and leave the enemies as enemies as long as they need, knowing that they too will be transformed (we just never know when the sit-ins and marriages of same gender folk will reach the critical mass to transform our culture or when our enemies will finally wake to new life).
Wesley White
Luke 9:28-36
As we babble on there comes a cloud. Cloud coming down! Cloud coming down!
As we babble we have no clue about the big picture. All we can see is, "Cloud coming down!" And that ain't good.
Clouds can lead in the day if they are a ways away. But a cloud coming from above rather than from ahead is a terrifying thing. Tornados come that way - right toward us instead of leading us from here.
From a babbling brook to the strongest wind we move from frying pan into fire.
What is hardest to do when so caught between chaos on the inside and the outside? Is chaos squared exponentially more chaos or is chaos simply chaos as an infinity? With that kind of a question added to the experienced swirling of life is it any wonder that "listening" is the needed thing, the hard thing.
Find yourself babbling? Find the rest of the world babbling? Find yourself being a blowhard in the midst of a storm that blows harder? - - - listen.
The part that got left out that would help us here is the usual messenger formula of "Don't be afraid." That would help us listen to the instruction to listen.
So how is your listening going today?
March 14, 2004 - Year C - Lent 3
Wesley White
March 14, 2004
Isaiah 55:1-9
Psalm 63:1-8
1 Corinthians 10:1-13
Luke 13:1-9
Who are we? The thirsty, the 8-glasses a day people? Those who have had things fall on them, the unscathed? Ones with honored ancestors, or those with skeletons in their closets?
Making such distinctions will clarify our equal need to move on from where we are and not get stuck on either side of the human/divine condition.
Wesley White
Luke 13:1-9
NISB Note: "People who can interpret the present (12:56) ought to see in it a call to live lives characterized not by sterility but by fruitful productiveness (13:6-9)."
Key to every prophetic utterance is clarity about the present - what is now going on will have consequences. The "true" prophet is the one who best sees the present and thus is able to project the consequence.
With this clarity about the present comes the insight about what it is that really needs to change. This clarity is energizing in the moment and protective of future generations.
Are you at the generative stage of life? Look clearly at what is currently going on without being fooled by cultural cliches and make the changes, the repentance, needed that good fruit will be coming forth next year, in due season.
Wesley White
1 Corinthians 10:1-13
An intriguing piece on the power of example. In an interview the other day Amy Tan was telling of the time her mother took her to the funeral of a friend (I forget the age, but young) and telling Amy that was what happened when little girls didn't wash their fruit (because Amy wasn't washing her fruit enough to suit her mother).
The Israelites were baptized and drank water from the rock of Christ. But God was displeased with them so God got rid of them. Let that be a lesson to you. Don't do anything beyond what you are told. Just, don't!
Watch out!
Oh, yes, you, of course, God likes you and you won't fail the test. You'll always be given a cheat sheet to find the loophole needed.
Talk about your stressful information. Talk about your setup for failure.
So, what part of this will most people hear?
Experience is that out of this mishmash people remember the line about not being tested beyond your strength. How many times have you heard that line used as a source of comfort in the midst of uncertainty. As a result you would never cry out, "My GOD, my GOD, why have you forsaken me!"
This can be used whenever we can't find the meaning of an event but don't want to stay in a questioning mode. It's a great short-circuiting technique so we don't have to experience a dark night of the soul. Every day, in every way we are able to stockpile "Get out of jail" cards.
Wesley White
Psalm 63:1-8
"My soul clings to you; your right hand upholds me."
A lovely image. Does the parent or the child get the most out of being held breast to breast? That's probably the wrong question to ask as they get different things from the same encounter - from each according to their love; to each according to their need.
What these days is your soul clinging to? Is it returning the favor of upholding you?
What these days are you upholding that is in the clinging stage of life?
How it is when parting comes? Do we contemplate the other in various moments? Do we sing about having become accustomed to their face? Do we faint when we consider the distance between?
I am presuming these have their correspondences in the life of each part of the relationship. Do think GOD meditates on you when you have gone down the road with half the inheritance? Do you think GOD is directing the music of the spheres to sing you a lullaby when you are in a strange bed? Do you think GOD faints from desire for you?
This interdependence and mutual admiration is worth looking at.
Wesley White
Isaiah 55:1-9
"My thoughts are not your thoughts," says GOD.
It is not that they couldn't be, but that they aren't.
When are we living up to our being GOD's image?
When are we living up to being co-creators (care givers of creation)?
When are we living up to being one with GOD - and Jesus and Buddha and Muhammad and Confucius and Rumi and Krishna and e.e. cummings and Martin Luther King, Jr. and Ghandi and Joan Chittister and Thich Naht Hanh and whomever and more?
When are we living up to thinking beyond Jew and Gentile, female and male, slave and free, homosexual and heterosexual and multisexual, near and far, up and down.
All these and more are available - so seek while this larger, expansive thinking can be found or it will take a conversion of cosmic proportions to shift into seeing the dance of both foreground and background. To see beyond our first interpretation is to begin to think like GOD and gives us the energy to speak up, as did Abraham for Sodom and Moses for enslaved Israelites and Jesus for Crucifiers.
Wesley White
1 Corinthians 10:1-13
I do not want you to be unaware, brothers and sisters, that our ancestors were all under the economy, and all passed through war, and were acculturated into America in the economy and the war, and all ate the same democratic food, and all drank the same democratic drink. For they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was civic religion. Nevertheless, God was not pleased with most of them, and they were struck down in the wilderness.
Every attempt at this sort of updating is dated and biased. Yet, it is important to know where the dialogue needs to take place between our spiritual heritage and our current living conditions. How would you put it and what difference will it make?
Was their being struck down something we can be helped by or not? If we were to compare this to the twin towers of Pilate's Power and Siloam, what would Jesus make of them being struck down by his papa? They really had it coming to them, but what happens to us is just happenstance?
Blessings upon our trying to make sense of this for ourselves, much less trying to help others make sense of it. Your comment?
Wesley White
Luke 13:1-9
If we crank the dying motif back we first hear about it in Eden when we are told the result of taking in the knowledge of good and evil will result in dying. No it won't, says the one from the chaos beneath the flat earth.
Well it does and it doesn't. It doesn't mean physical death but relational death. This play is so tricky for us as we think we are tracking down one path only to find the real issue was no where near as evident as we thought. No more walking in the cool of the evening to revel in simply being together. No more dealing with the real stuff of life but always having to force a meaning when such only gets in the way. No more seeing to productivity and commodification as the key key-to-life.
We find ourselves separated from creation, community, and commerce and needing to get beyond shame, blame, and fame. The art in this is saying "no" to first glimpses, immediate reactions, and waiting for the fullness of time.
One way of evaluating this is the response of the gardner - investment, mercy, hope - alongside accountability. This tension holds us in good stead in every situation I know about where there is disagreement. Keep holding one another and investing in a dialogue but have it move productively forward, stasis, like war, is not healthy for figs or other living things.
March 21, 2004 - Year C - Lent 4
Wesley White
March 21, 2004
Joshua 5:9-12
Psalm 32
2 Corinthians 5:16-21
Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32
Are we ready to shift gears from lost to found? This is tough for folks who feel they still have something to lose and don't have an inkling about the freedom found after bottoming out. Losers of the world unite! We have nothing else to lose so let's get better.
Wesley White
Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32
What might be the height of graciousness? One candidate is that of waiting, waiting for life to come round right.
Part of what makes this a candidate is its simplicity. Judging is hard work unless you have an unrealistic measuring rod that gets applied to every situation and then it ceases to be judging. Far easier to wait, at least for some personality types.
This is an active waiting, though - a standing by the door, waiting to run forward kind of waiting. This is a waiting that anticipates fulfillment and rejoicing - expectation runs so high there is fatted calf after tofu calf ready for feasting (depending on one's dietary needs). This is a waiting that won't second-guess itself in the face of whining and sulking and the bringing back to mind of previous wrongs.
Waiting is a way we are to be with each other and ourselves.
For some this may seem too passive when looked at from the vantage point of the runaway. But even here, they are doing the best they can with what they have. If we are to love a neighbor as ourselves, this gentle graciousness is also appropriate here.
Wesley White
2 Corinthians 5:16-21
There is some good antinomian, revelational, and enthusiastic stuff here that is fun for Arminians of several stripes. This is often looked upon in personal terms, when I get Jesus my previous behaviors change and I only do what Jesus would do. He's my limit.
If we take this to be the body of Christ, the church, that is being talked about, what then of creeds and traditions and all the rest of the institutional stuff? What is the new sense of an everywhere GOD instead of an interventionaist God?
Whether being spoken of in personal or institutional terms, the focal point is that of relationships. It is not so much whether there is an orthodox reconciliation process, but is reconciliation, renewal of relationship, happening. Where is Saint Alinsky when we need him?
One of the old things that might pass away is the last verse. Is it not sufficient to say that it is in Christ (all of Christ, not just the sacrifice for sin) that reconciliation can be glimpsed. Might one be bold enough to say that it is in Christ that God is reconciling God with Christ; it is in the world that God is reconciling God with the world; it is in you and me that God is reconciling God with you and me?
Now there is a new God. The old God has passed away. We give evidence that reconciliation is possible. Look and do so in your way. When this reconciliation is taking place we say Christ is present. When it is not taking place we can say Christ has not been received. Christ might be considered a supporting cheerleader for reconciliation, not the focal point of the scene. It takes a strong Jesus to stand back from the limelight and push us forward to demonstrate how well and in how many ways reconciliation can take place.
The hope is that we are getting better and better about equating what it means to be human with what it means to be reconciling. Some have come far enough already to know that to be human is to be reconcilers - blessed are they. This is a needed next evolutionary step. May the hundredth reconciling monkey jump into the human bloodstream even more quickly and pervasively than HIV.
Wesley White
Psalm 32
Of the seven penitential Psalms, six are laments and this one a thanksgiving. It breaks the pattern in the same way that silence is broken.
When the silence of evasion, camouflaging our behavioral intentions, and the experienced pressure that squeezes shaped sponges into a little cube get to the implosion point we find the trigger of "making a clean breast of our failures" crucial to loosen our tongue to rejoice in forgiveness, to scrub our face clean, and to expand to our intended size.
It might be helpful to look at sin through anorexic eyes as that is one form of its lived outcome in our lives. Treatment is no clearer here than how we generally deal with sin and its attendant relapses or backslidings.
I especially like the response to our claiming God as a "hiding place" where we can be preserved from trouble with no effort of our own -- "Hey, I'm teachin' ya the way to go - get outta here!"
Perhaps that is part of the message the prodigal youngest heard as he hid away in a pig pen - The first step to what is being taught is to get out of where you are. Then it is to make amends. Beyond that is mystery.
Wesley White
Joshua 5:9-12
In good times and in bad times the constant expression of a GOD who was present was manna. If the Israelites were extra good, there was no extra manna. If they were extra trying, there was no less manna.
That same process is present with the younger son and with you and me. God is no more present or absent in response to our living well or poorly.
However, when it is possible to care for ourselves, we are to do so. After the constancy of survival food even unleavened bread and parched grain we come to a feast, as tasty as a "fatted calf."
Now for the rest of the story - living together in ordinary lives. This will prove to be difficult. This is still difficult. We interpret experience and divide meaning up into various size parcels. We have trouble waiting for one another. We have trouble rejoicing with one another.
Remembering manna and feasting, let us do what we can to stop lording it over (Canaan) and being lorded over (Egypt). Getting beyond our squabbles may be the hardest work yet for us - harder than slavery for others, harder than pity for self - just plain ordinary living with all its errors and breakthroughs.
Wesley White
2 Corinthians 5:16-21
To be a new "creation" in Christ sounds similar to heaven come on earth. There is something different here than before.
This difference is described in terms of reconciliation.
As you look around your life and this earth can you see why the issue of reconciliation is emblematic of newness?
At least one perspective is that new creations continue creating or, put another way, a chain reaction needs to start somewhere.
We are following the first plan to be made in the GODS image as creative partners when we act to reconcile ourselves and others, setting loose the energy of the nature of love. In some sense the gods had to be reconciled to get to that image without dividing it into this image and that.
Our source and end is found in reconciliation. It is a high moment in life and in every renewal of life. It is even important on a physical level as two different genetic strands become reconciled in a child (viable in some way as the irreconcilable differences are not viable and are lost to view before even being noted).
Wesley White
Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32
Jesus eats with sinners. This is the basis of questions and accusations against him.
At the end of the parable before us, there is great feasting going on. The parent-figure feasts with the separated child returned.
Both of these run counter to a cultural norm that tries to fix things, once for all, so we don't have to keep thinking and reconsidering our relationships. It seems that once lost always lost takes precedence all too often over once related always related. The more religious way of putting this is that once a sinner always a sinner is stronger in our behaviors that once saved always saved.
Presuming we can get out of particular rituals or experiences being the measurement of salvation, we might be able to see everything that comes forth from creation as being saved and never losing that quality. It always bubbles up, no matter what error has gone on along the way (by the way, I am not presuming that the routine process of maturity a child go through is an error). When this is so for us we are always waiting for the new to be glimpsed among the old. Now the lost can be found.
Who might you need to eat with? Beyond your need, who needs you to eat with them? This is a worthy spot in which to stand accused and guilty - ready to see new life.
March 28, 2004 - Year C - Lent 5
Wesley White
March 28, 2004
Isaiah 43:16-21
Psalm 126 or Psalm 119:9-16
Philippians 3:4b-14
John 12:1-8
What would you say is your authority for acting, whether in accord with accepted tradition or varying from it? An extension of this question is about our authority to give our flesh to resurrection in expectation of a newness of life.
Wesley White
John 12:1-8
Mary is a prodigal daughter. She wanders away from the cultural norm. What a wastrel of time and resources she is -- sitting at feet, anointing feet.
Judas is an elder son. He complains about having his share reduced whenever prodigal behavior is present. What a linear thinker and believer in a zero-sum game of life.
Mostly I've wondered about Lazarus. Apparently once dead is not always dead. There are some questions, though about once raised, always raised. We learn in the next section that there were those who were going to test this out by killing him.
How was Lazarus in this scene? Mary probably had not anointed his feet in anticipation of his "day of burial," so how was it to see this happen with someone else? Was he loved the less, as evidenced by the expenditure of at least resources (and maybe time) not being directed toward him?
Is Lazarus just a marker here with no other part to play?
Where do you see the prodigal parent in this scene?
Wesley White
Philippians 3:4b-14
In verse 9 are we dealing with righteousness that comes "through faith in Christ" or "through the faith of Christ"? The translational decision is important as we look at the desired outcome - resurrection of Paul from the dead.
This is what he presses onward toward. If it is the call of God in Christ Jesus that is the potential energizing of the accomplished goal of resurrection, this might help us choose the NRSV footnote instead of its primary translation.
In this light it is both appropriate to empty oneself of past credentials and to fill oneself with living in the present differently than before because the future is already cared for - GOD in Christ Jesus is replicable in Paul's life, my life, your life, and the life of all.
In light of the acquittal of Karen Dammann it is tempting to suggest that she placed more stock in the faith of Christ working in her life and the life of the church than she did in her own faith in Christ. In this way, whichever way the temporal decision went (prison or beating - to use Paul's experiences), she would still be on an upward path toward resurrection. More simply put, either way a participation in a full life of abundance would be a guiding principle. To rely only on our own faith is to leave us open to the vagaries of experience -- sometimes we're up and sometimes we're down.
Are you leaning into resurrection? Do you have a different way of expressing your current goal in life? Might this focus on resurrection be a post-modern, beyond the "Christo-logical" [NISB note], equivalent to a beginning organizing principle of Methodism -- escaping the wrath to come. Intriguing to consider: Are you more energized by escape imagery or arrival imagery?
Wesley White
Psalm 126 or Psalm 119:9-16
How can young people keep their way pure?
They can't.
Even hedged in by a law within their heart there come times of weeping. After all, we are make in the image of god's who weep and repent.
So we sometimes wait for perspective that will allow the presence of shouts of joy for coming home again for the first time.
What are the great things G*O*D has done alongside us? Commitment with our whole hearts to one another - a gift beyond our own self. Learning the distinction between wisdom accumulated over the years and idolatry of tradition beat into the present over the years. Affirmation of great things surfacing within ordinary things.
We can reap where we have not sown. Joy in the morning still is present after the tears of the evening. So we keep on.
Wesley White
Isaiah 43:16-21
Do not remember the former things,
or consider the things of old.
I am about to do a new thing;
now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?
There are things of old that are still helpful to us, that help us know there is still a new thing budding among us. Some of the spiritual disciplines of the past remain lively.
There are things of old that are not helpful. Some of the spiritual disciplines of the past have passed their prime. They trap us into the error that the former, golden days are behind us and the best we can do is repeat and repeat. This is quite the vicious circle.
The challenge is to perceive that of the old that continues to set us free for the new thing G*O*D has joined us in bringing forth and to distinguish that from the now old idol, once blessed by G*O*D but now has been left behind.
Blessings abound where the new breaks in. A signal that this is going on is a participation in praise of life. A signal that this is not going on is the rigidity of armor in a situation of flux where swimming is needed and so much floundering is evident.
Wesley White
Philippians 3:4b-14
Today someone wrote to say they had done a Google ranking of sermon preparation sites and my humble wesleyspace.net was currently sitting at #16. That information astounded me. I've stopped putting counters on things and just muddle along. The prize I have been seeking is not #1 in such a ranking. The prize has been my own growth and I seem to learn about such best by seeing what comes out of my fingers at the keyboard. Other folks have other ways to garner insight regarding what they hold to be most important.
So, what is the prize you have been seeking? What goal have you been tracking, in season and out? What is your "God in Christ Jesus" equivalent? Perhaps you put it in exactly those words - perhaps not.
Is there a way to deal with all this resurrectional goal and making it our own that won't fall into the trap of the very next sentence (15) about mature folks being of the same mind (mine) and if you don't you must be immature but you will come around. Yes, you'll come around! Ha ha ha ha ha!
How do you talk about participating in a larger goal than your own in such a way as to not be dismissive of either your own goal or that of others?
Wesley White
John 12:1-8
The liberation theology notes in the Christian Community Bible from the Philippines makes a distinction between giving to the poor and loving the poor.
The poor we will always have with us as long as we consider our relationship with them to be one of giving. Somehow or other I will always steal just a little from the commonwealth so that someone else will remain poorer than I am. As long as the relationship is on a giving/receiving plane it is incumbent upon me to have that bit more so I can continue to give, and thus continue to claim my place as a "giver," even a "cheerful giver."
But to love the poor means that the giving/receiving process goes beyond resources. A key way out of having the financially poor with us is to warp the category so that we are interdependent with one another, not setting up my independence and your dependence upon me. Until we can hear Jesus not predicting that we will always have the poor, thus justifying our giving, rather than loving, we will have missed the point of the passage.
Paul picks up on this with his comment, "Even if I give all my resources, but have not love, who am I?"
The Christian Community Bible puts it, "If we are not among [the poor] we need conversion and true poverty to discover with them the Kingdom."
What would the "general welfare" of the USofA look like if our first order of business were to love the poor?
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