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May 2, 2004 - Year C - Easter 4
Wesley White
May 2, 2004
Acts 9:36-43
Psalm 23
Revelation 7:9-17
John 10:22-30
Asking silly questions that we really know the response to, but asking anyway, is a part of our life together. We keep trying to trap folks (even in heaven?) by asking questions that aren't questions.
As we go through this week it may be possible to raise some important questions and to see what we thought were important questions were not. Enjoy questioning questions.
A special thanks to those of you who are willing to add into the conversation here as my schedule of posting will be even more erratic than usual over the next two weeks.
Wesley White
John 10:22-30
Today is leaving day for the United Methodist General Conference. In some ways this feels like the Feast of Dedication - in the cold of early December. This cold is not physical but spiritual.
We are about to debate ourselves into winners and losers. We will vie with one another pitting theory and theology against real people's lives and experiences.
The questions before us are revelational and epistemological. How do we know which way to go from here (as differentiated from how do we know which way to go from back then or from some when in the future)? Of course most folks will have their "win at any cost" glasses on and have their heels dug in as they posit the result of conferencing must be this way or that way or we have lost our way.
I am pleased with some of the petitions that begin with the humility to recognize that on some of our hot-button issues we need to begin with a confession that we don't have a common vision. We will see if that approach will be able to stand up to the steam-roller of political reality of one group or another having enough votes to impose their will as though their will were all that was needed to bring us epistemological assurance.
Perhaps the best that the prophetic line can ever expect in these sorts of situations is to hear Jesus' voice, the voice of expansive love in the face of constrictive legislation. We continue to affirm that love cannot be legislated away. Sinners before G*O*D and sinners in the eyes of the church are always in loving hands, whether we recognize it in the moment or not.
The option is to be sinners in the hands of an angry god or cogs somewhere around an indifferent god. Choose you this day which god/G*O*D you live in relationship with.
Wesley White
Revelation 7:9-17
How many folks were on the Mall this past weekend to witness to the importance of reproductive rights? Whose count will you believe -- those who minimize or maximize for their particular purposes? some supposed impartial group using some procedure or other?
How many died of hunger or AIDS this day? How many came to their recognition of a sexual orientation this day? How many lost a job this day? There are official estimates, but let's just say, "a great multitude have experienced a great ordeal."
Another great ordeal is conferencing among Christians. In Pittsburgh the United Methodists are using "water washed spirit born" as a theme. Some will see this as limited to a particular style of washing with particular content. Others will find it opens them to springs of the water of life beyond such limitations.
Will our limitations or openness lead to the wiping away of tears? My sense is that the relief of comfort after ordeal brings the tears, not some eternal punishment or being cut off. What is your sense of the process leading to a refreshing relief?
Wesley White
Revelation 7:9-17
Voting protocol at General Conference was very iffy. Where are the Wisconsin computer folks who are miles ahead of here in regard to thoughtful presentation about these matters.
What connection is there between pushing a button and "crying out in loud voice"?
Wesley White
Psalm 137
Go ahead, sing your song in the face of a coercive system.
So we ask the Judicial Council to make a declaratory decision about self-censorship. Is a statement about one's self incriminatory? The particular regards self-avowal of one's sexual orientation.
Go ahead, sing your song to your own destruction. Of such is the environment that makes martyrs.
For individuals this is a life-and-death issue in this life. For structures this is a death knell in years ahead as the blood of the martyrs eventually comes back to haunt the life of their little ones.
Wesley White
Psalm 137
What would devastate us more than anything?
That key issue is our "Jerusalem" or place of peace. Anything short of that finds us in "Babylon."
At some stage in our life food and hugs are Jerusalem. At others times parents or peers are our our Jerusalem. At still others we find Jerusalem in our work or sexuality or credit card or ....
What is your Jerusalem-Babylon ratio this day?
Wesley White
Psalm 137
How can we sing in a hostile land?
Remembrance is one response.
Today was a difficult day. I lost the first motion I made and was on the losing side of other "cultural war" issues. It's enough to make one want to stop singing.
Then I remember where I come from - a land that lived in harmony - and I remember where I'm headed - an augmented harmony. Now I can remember my work here in a United Methodist version of Babylon. My work is that of Jeru-Salem whether or not it is as it might yet become.
So I will return tomorrow to sing yet another song in Babylon West.
What do you need to remember to keep singing?
Wesley White
Acts 9:36-43
Good Works and Charity have died. All the outer trappings are still around, but the spirit is gone.
Peter and you and I are called to put all these artifacts and those holding on to them out of the room that we might be alone to pray in the presence or absence of that which is gone - Good Works and Charity in a particular person.
Just what happens between prayer in the presence of absence and a life-renewing call remains a mystery. But when that mystery is active and recognizable to us, we are Easter People. Simply calling out that we are such does not make it so.
It is important to pray but also to do so without the trappings.
Can Tabitha or The United Methodist Church live again and shown to the world? Yes.
One way is to put away the trappings accumulated from previous good works and charity - to put our energy toward the poor, disenfranchised, discriminated against that will bear good fruit in their lives.
Wesley White
Acts 9:36-43
Here we are between the conversion of Saul and the conversion of Peter. We have the paralyzed Aeneas and the dead Tabitha. How like life.
We are converted. There is little more rigid than a new convert as they develop the disciplines of the new body. That very conversion becomes the need for continual conversations. But before they can happen we get paralyzed, even unto death, sometimes.
First comes a healing and a resurrection. Then comes a needed next conversion. We've had the beginning conversion of a methodical way to connect people with GOD and a second round with great awakenings and a third conversion with a social gospel. Currently we are paralyzed and dead in regard to the basic of life known as sexuality.
Where is the healing and resurrection coming from next? Obviously we don't know. All that is evident here is that there is no political will on the horizon that will bring it. And so we keep on laying here and lying there about the varieties of faithful ways to live out the variety of sexual orientations. Keep alert for a new conversion to truth about this and other matters left over from a by-gone day.
Wesley White
Revelation 7:9-17
Great multitudes and great ordeals sort of go together. Here there is a great multitude and the Church and Society legislative committee has just come through a great ordeal.
We have struggled with unhelpful leadership from the chair and gotten into one unnecessary confusion after another.
The upshot of it all is a modicum of progress on the very combative and divisive language stating the untruth that homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching.
Politically that bald-faced statement needs to be kept. No, the realm of GOD is not yet present. We are suggesting to the body of the whole additional language about Christians being of differing minds on whether or not that is a true statement.
We had to finally bring in two parliamentarians to get us to move ahead. What a hoot if the Trinity were imaged as three parliamentarians. This may be a new image for the shepherd.
At any rate, we are more obviously being guided toward springs of the water of life - relationships more primary than doctrine. The sabbath and doctrine made for us, not us for them. It has been many years when this has been difficult to see.
Where do you see your life being guided these days?
Wesley White
John 10:22-30
And the question comes to the church as it came to Jesus - "How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly."
Well, our words and works do testify to this question.
Neither are clear to the world, much less to ourselves.
Some sheep follow our words and works. Some do this blindly, some open-eyed to all the openness and narrowness they contain.
Some do not follow our words and works. Some don't ever hear them. Some dismiss them out of hand. Some focus on their flaws.
All in all, we are the Messiah. All in all, we aren't.
So we proceed to do what we can with those who hear - the steadfast and the betrayers, those with eyes on a crack into the future and those gazing lovingly upon continuity with the past, the doctrinals and the relationals.
So, how do you go about identifying Christ - questions, experience, revelation, witness of someone else, peer group decision, ....?
We struggle with this question at General Conference in terms of "making disciples" but a more pertinent question may be whether we are "living messiahs."
May 9, 2004 - Year C - Easter 5
Wesley White
May 9, 2004
Acts 11:1-18
Psalm 148
Revelation 21:1-6
John 13:31-35
New commandments, new revelations, new heaven and earth. May there be a new breath of life flowing from decisions of a lowly UM denomination. You may need some new glasses to see such newness, but look and squint and look again, it is there.
Thomas D'Alessio
Psalm 148: Praising God.
Given the ways of biblical translators, when "LORD" (all caps) appears in the Hebrew Scriptures it is a literary substitute for the name of an ancient near-eastern god that is not supposed be uttered (or, presumably, printed) because it is so holy. The name that cannot be named is often named by the transliterated consonants YHWH, or even blenderized into "Yahweh" or, even more inaccurately, "Jehovah."
I shall name the name, since it is highly specific to a small, ancient, tribal people who lived in a particular time in history, in a particular area we now call the "Middle East," and all this specificity is part of what is chewing on my soul these days.
Given the ways of ancient Hebrew poetry, it seems clear that those for whom YHWH has "raised up a horn" belong to a highly specific subset of the whole created order: they are the people of Israel... and not even all of them, but "those who are close to him" (a "horn" is the symbol of strength and power).
It seems clear from the Psalm that all created things (from sun and moon to sea monsters to trees, kings, princes, women and men) ought to praise the god "YHWH" for their very being, but only those people of (ancient) Israel who are close to YHWH get the special strength and power.
The two lines
"for all his faithful"
"for the people of Israel who are close to Him"
do not refer to two different groups of people. In ancient Hebrew poetry like the Psalms, the repetition is intentional, meant to add emphasis and clarity.
The Psalm is clear, and consistent with most of the rest of the Hebrew Scriptures in it's specificity. For the ancient Hebrews, chosenness was a scriptural given. For the rest of us, it is a remarkable, and maybe even arrogant, presumption, since few of us are ancient Hebrews faithful to the religion of the ancient god YHWH.
How is it that we, living in the 21st century, in techno-industrial North America, so far from the tribal beliefs and ancient values and mores and theologies of the ancient Middle East, presume to claim ourselves as equivalent to that ancient tribal people who wrote prayers about their unique possession of YHWH's strength and power?
Thomas D'Alessio
(filling in during General Conference)
Thomas D'Alessio
Acts 11:1-18 "What has God made clean..."
...we must not call profane.
In the face of strict dietary laws prohibiting the eating of anything "unclean," Peter has a dream about God making to him a large offering of animals of all kinds, and an invitation for him to eat. In response to Peter's protests that he has never violated the dietary laws, that "nothing unclean has ever entered his mouth," God rebukes Peter: "What God has made clean, you must not call profane."
So now it's OK to violate the dietary laws and eat a nice pork roast for dinner? It's OK to for Gentiles to receive the "repentance that leads to life" that had been reserved for those chosen Hebrews? Apparently so. At least for those in the early days of the christian movement that arose from within Judaism.
Conservative Jewish Christians objected to Peter's associating with Gentiles. The "circumcised" in Jerusalem criticized him for eating with them. Peter had to 'splain it to them that God apparently had a different idea from all their cherished legal notions. It probably felt like a slippery slope to those who had gone through all the pain of being circumcised: first, circumcision is no longer necessary, poof, just like that (what a waste of foreskin). Next, you don't even have to be among the apostles and believers to be among God's chosen people. Pretty soon they will be letting women in, and then who knows what next? Maybe Muslims and Buddhists or, horror of horrors, New Agers.
So what about our own sacred writ, The UM Book of Discipline? No matter what legalisms get added to that rulebook this General Conference by those who see redemption through strict obedience to church law, no matter how many church trials there may yet be, might God have a different idea?
Eating pork had once been anathema to Peter: one of the worst insults that could be made to a Jew in Peter's day was that you could see the pork stuck between their teeth. Incompatible with Torah. And God was saying now it's OK.
One of the worst offenses a Torah-abiding, temple-worshipping Judean could make was extending the grace of God to Samaritans, or worse, to those Gentiles. Incompatible with Torah. And God was saying now it's OK.
One of the worst things that could happen in the UMC in our day is that we ordain a "self-avowed, practicing homosexual" person. Incompatible with christian teaching... and what is God saying?
Apparently "the Holy Spirit falls up on them just as it had upon us..." May that spirit come and tell us, before it's too late, "not to make a distinction between them and us" (Acts 11:12), whoever they may be, and whoever we may be.
+ Thomas D'Alessio
... filling in during General Conference.
The views expressed are not those of the Management
and may be considered heterodox and dangerous.
Read at your own risk.
Wesley White
Thanks, Tom.
John 13:31-35
Apparently Jesus went away too soon -- leaving us with a "command" to love one another, based on his modeling of this way-of-life.
The leaving too soon comes from a recognition that we have not followed the command. The modeling was not sufficient for us to catch on. The modeling of the culture has been more effective in separating us.
And yet for Jesus to have stayed longer would have placed us in the position of having the outer form of love without the heart. We would keep the repetition of particular acts without being able to extend that love to an ever new and changing community that brings in folks we never thought we would be invited to be with in a loving relationship.
So, how wide is the word "another"? Is it limited to a faith community? Is it a seedbed for being seen as creation-wide love?
Here is how creation will know we love -- we have come through the cultural temptations not to love and joined Jesus and other divines who walked an expanding way.
And, yes, here at General Conference we have the words and the form of the "command" but not the heart. The culture of power and money continue to be the order of the day. May the far-off refrain of Jesus build as we whisper it to one another until we are able to say it straight out without lapsing into yelling and protesting too much.
Wesley White
John 13:31-35
Into the decision of the General Conference of the United Methodist Church to deny the truth of the differences within the body regarding human sexuality there is still a whisper from of old - "by this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another."
This suggests it is important to be disciples before and "making" of disciples.
What then does it mean to love another.
When young we are hedged round with rules. As maturity occurs those early rules are modified to greater and greater situations where there is more and more ambiguity.
In terms of sexuality The United Methodist Church has acted as though sexuality were immutable according to a myth of human origin. The rules of childhood are simply projected into the aging process. This does keep things "clear" (a key argument) but it loses one's "identity."
To love another is to deal with them where they are and as they may become - real human beings able to grow ever deeper into their identity, relationship with another and others, and to become whole as G*O*D is whole.
Unlove is to fit everyone to one model - no identity, relating from one's self alone, and forever fallen, never to rise again.
And so what is the world going to see about our love of one another? That we don't because we don't honor brothers and sisters of Jesus to have received a different gift from the Holy Spirit.
This is the same process as John Wesley's understanding of spreading holiness abroad, beginning with the church. No inside, no outside.
Wesley White
Revelation 21:1-6
"It is done."
"To the thirsty I will give water as a gift from the spring of the water of life."
"Amen. Come Lord Jesus!"
Whatever "it" is, it's done and still to be done.
Was the Tree of Life barred by flaming swords nurtured by the spring of the water of life? Did that come from the chaotic waters below? Is it a suggestive image regarding the bounding of such chaos into a directed energy - a River of Life - a constrained chaos directed toward an expanding mystery of life?
In the face of seeming defeat of positional belief and loss of identity, revelatory images provide a modicum of relief. We still can catch a new context of our journey toward a new heaven and a new earth: and a journey of a new earth and a new heaven toward us. It appears from our old spot that the distance between has increased. As we cast our spirits toward a longer view we can see that the issue of "life as a gift" is a done deal. So we weep, breathe deep, and keep on being who we were and are and will be.
Identity cannot be legislated away. Death cannot deny identity. Invisibility cannot hold identity.
Wesley White
Psalm 148
The best song of General Conference was the response of Janet Ellinger from the Wisconsin Annual Conference. This shortened version was reported in the Daily Social Questions Bulletin published by the Methodist Federation for Social Action. It is presented in prose fashion but it is poetry of the best kind.
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Identity Theft
We live in a time when we have daily warnings about "identity theft." It occurs to me that The United Methodist Church has participated in identity theft for decades and centuries. We did it because of the beautiful color of people's skin. We did it to others because of their gift of gender. But - it couldn't be done.
The United Methodist Church as continued, since 1972, trying to steal the identity of homosexual persons. We do it as boldly now as we have with others in the past.
Earlier in this conference we were invited to "get our heads out of the sand and into the Gospel." The people this church excludes are people who try our cases in court, teach our children, and work for affordable housing in our communities. They fill our prescriptions, rotate our tires, compose our music, and fix our food. They are senators, plumbers, therapists, nurses, steel workers, day care providers, and more.
And, yes, they baptize our babies and grandbabies. They sit our loved ones in nursing homes, and visit those we love who are in prison. They sit on all levels within and outside of the bar of this General Conference - they are beloved children of God, each one. So, if you read this, I proclaim that this church shall never legislate away your identity. That’s not up for a vote.
I look to the day when we will truly be Christ-bearers in this world – not for our own sake, but rather for the sake of the Gospel. And for the sake of this world’s children.
[in oral presentation, Janet went on to sing the song, “You’ve Got To Be Carefully Taught”]
Wesley White
Acts 11:1-18
Yesterday, with a couple of hours of non-debate, but much parliamentary wrangling, we substituted a multi-layered substitute for a proposal prepared over the previous four years without mention of that longer study. Reconnecting our ministry and resource councils is no more. We have subsequently set the ministry area over the resource area and given that council what I would call an unholy proportion of members to one area of the country. This action, growing out of the reapportionment of General Conference members last time, will further consolidate the Southern religious-right that seems to be most interested in gaining power. The choice here is to listen to a new word regarding G*O*D no longer calling profane or incompatible what they have come to believe is forever profane and incompatible with and unchangeable by G*O*D.
Peter’s vision of an open tablecloth silenced the criticism he received regarding his association with the unclean, profane, incompatible persons of his time and place.
What new vision have you had in today’s images and experiences that might bring the same happy result in our time? I ask because I do not see such here.
With no vision the well-oiled mechanisms of the religious-right moving toward law and away from grace will continue.
The best I have been able to see is the need for a new order within an old establishment. For the moment I am calling it Wrestling Methodism in honor of Peter wrestling with G*O*D regarding a new vision that moves beyond clean and unclean dichotomies to find that the nature and name of G*O*D is love, not law.
Up to the rooftops, friends. In the midst of our hunger for compassion, may we again close our eyes to lift up our eyes to a new tablecloth about to be put in our midst.
Vicki Smith
Wesley, your musings often provide food for thought and/or a creative springboard in my sermon preparation. Thank you for sharing the process. Today I am grateful, too, that you have posted your reactions to the activity of General Conference. It is a sign of hope for me that not all who are there are more pre-occupied with the politics of power than with seeking and discerning the work of the Spirit for such a time as this. Perhaps it will encourage you to know that not all Southerners stand on the "right" side.
Joseph
It is always interesting to see who says they identify with Peter and that "the other side" (left, right or middle) is the party of the circumcisers. It might just be the other way around in the mind of God.
D'Alessio
Peter thought he knew what was in the mind of God, but he'd been dead wrong about several important things in his ministry career so I don't know how much to believe what he says.
What's more, I have observed that our Bible appears to be quite adaptable to every point of view. Its perspectives are easily and often appropriated by anyone. Its (sub)texts have been used to justify any and every behavior imaginable, and some that should not ever be even imagined.
Joseph
May we all claim that God calls us ALL to grow beyond our boundaries, for surely there is room for all to grow in Christ. Peace Joseph
Wesley White
Revelation 21:1-6
Usually I have considered a new heaven and a new earth as a more graceful location than where we currently find ourselves. It had a glow about it.
With the shift at General Conference from the descendants of John Wesley’s Armenian tradition to the descendants of George Whitefield’s Calvinist tradition, I experience this “new heaven and new earth” to be more predestinarian and legalistic, more focused on sanctification than prevenient grace – worm language than perfection language.
For a brief summary of this distinction go to this page.
This “new heaven and new earth” does not feel as though there will be a wiping away of tears, but the creation of more tears.
It will be important to attend to identifying and receiving the refreshment of the water of life regardless of how old is this latest shift.
How do you refresh yourself when all about you goes awry?
VSmith
My reply to Wesley's posting on 5/6 was my first ever and this will likely be my last ever attempt at dialogue in this type of context. It's hard enough when you can look one another in the eye! Here words are too easily twisted and misinterpreted and motives too easily projected upon the speaker by others.
Wesley, posting on 5/6/04, wrote:
"This action, growing out of the reapportionment of General Conference members last time, will further consolidate the Southern religious-right that seems to be most interested in gaining power."
It was to this that I responded. The politics of power do seem to dominate UM conferencing (and the Church Universal) at all levels these days. Identifying with Peter or anyone else was the farthest thing from my mind. Suggesting - perhaps not explicitly enough - that not all Southerners can be lumped together as religious right wingers was neither a condemnation of anyone nor a claim to have exclusive or superior access to the mind of God, but rather a statement about the diversity of voices that are present yet so frequently overlooked by each and all of us - including those who sincerely want to and think they are speaking from a nonjudgmental stance - as we attempt to engage in the difficult task of Christian conferencing. We draw lines, take sides, form rank and do battle while sizing each other up as potential allies or enemies, assigning an "identity" to the other rather than seeking to know the other or to welcome the stranger. We're more interested in proving our point or arguing our case than we are in learning from or encouraging each other, or, heaven forbid, seeking discernment together.
So now I think I'll just take my marbles and go home. When I get there I'll add a few more tears to the bottle as I lament the delay in the coming of that graceful new heaven and new earth.
Wesley White
Vicki -
Thanks for trying the dialogue process. It is certainly far from perfect in that it misses all the body language and other relational cues that we usually rely on.
My quick attempts to connect what I was experiencing at General Conference with the lections certainly left something to be desired. Being married to a Southerner and having lived and worked there, you are most correct that there is not a way to lump them together as religious right-wingers. At the same time. The sociological reality is that the decisions at General Conference are increasingly being driven by the South and its response to the Southern Baptist Church. The new Common Table that will take the place of our General Council on Ministries is dramatically oriented toward the South in terms of personnel on it. The theological dialogue also comes out of the contact with the more literal-oriented Southern Baptists of the modern era.
There is no question in my mind that the politics of the church are currently best viewed through the lens of the organizing skills of Good News, Confessing Movement, and Institute for Religion and Democracy. I think last Friday's (I think since the last two weeks have run together) New York Times had an excellent article outlining how we have come to the open planning to divide The United Methodist Church (amicably, of course) and how that is intended by these groups to be played out between now and the next General Conference.
Whether we like it or not there are sides and a part of Christian Conferencing is the clarification of these differing gifts or perspectives on where G*O*D is moving in our midst and how we are responding to G*O*D's movement and that of one another.
I am pleased that we finally have this issue out in the open as it has been lurking behind the scenes for decades and festering. Now we can better talk with one another about our relationship and the values of moving toward a unitive organization based on purity of doctrine or a multivalent organization based on compassion or some dynamic range between the two.
I join you in weeping at the delay of "that graceful new heaven and new earth." Additionally, I trust you and I and others will continue to engage in catching its vision and engaging our implementing actions to strengthen its presence.
It is good to finally be home again and not to to have a fuller than full schedule to contend with. It is also good to get back to a computer keyboard I can use when the mood strikes and to respond more promptly to messages. Dealing with the time limitations of those available for delegates at General Conference and the one available in the hotel was frustrating.
Wesley White
John 13:31-35
Now we have been glorified!
After all was said and done at General Conference there was a time of communion offered by the Common Ground groups advocating for the truth of a statement that church members are not of one understanding in regard to other orientations than a strict heterosexual one (not to mention the diversity within that orientation).
The members of the Body of Christ present shared again the unity of approaching G*O*D through the path Jesus also walked of the revelation of being a partner of G*O*D in a commonwealth already present, if not realized.
We still stand. There is no legislation, misunderstanding or crucifixion that keeps this revelational experience of standing from us.
We continue to be loved and to love. We continue to receive glory and to offer it to others.
Out of this glory we can affirm that everyone is doing the best they can, given the various experiences, teachings/learnings, and limitations we live with. This best still finds itself being wounded and wounding others.
May glory be understood as a subcategory of mercy. May it be received and offered.
May 16, 2004 - Year C - Easter 6
Wesley White
May 16, 2004
Acts 16:9-15
Psalm 67
Revelation 21:10 - 22:5
John 14:23-29 or John 5:1-9
Being called away or being called forth - banishing temples or riding the waves of the water of life - the paralysis that has held us captive has been graciously blessed outside the anticipated boundaries. We have no excuse for not moving on.
Wesley White
John 14:23-29 or John 5:1-9
Peace beyond the world's ability to give is a great gift indeed. One of the places this breaks into the open is when the relational precedes the institutional.
The in-valids, the in-compatibles, are imaged as waiting for some validation, some invitation to come along and join in. (This is not an entirely helpful image for many are not so waiting, but claiming that very language is invalid and incompatible with their experience of a peace and wholeness that far exceeds the artificial limit of being defined by another.)
Then we see the transformation of the Sabbath from rules against (in-valid, in-compatible) to simply a background against which to see the freedom of G*O*D at work all around us.
Those who had been knocked down, time after time, by folks discrediting them until they had no more reason to stand and claim the needed healing, found themselves standing as though it were the most natural thing in the world and, picking up a memento of their dark night, they trundle off to see what else this boundary-breaking peace that is no standardized concept will offer.
Knowing what we do about miracles, the standing is less miraculous than the walking off. Wouldn't you be tempted to stick around and simply follow, follow, follow? Here, however, the person, full of peace, follows the new pattern of Sabbath-breaking in order to reveal the miracle of a fullness of life right smack dab in the middle of constraints.
Where are you hearing the Helper cry out, "Over here, quick, listen, see, remember, a new thing!"?
What keeps you open to that cry so you won't miss it?
Wesley White
I have found Tom Ehrich's comments to be helpful to my journey. If you try them and appreciate them, you can subscribe via the link at the end of this posting.
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Differences
ON A JOURNEY: Meditations on God in daily life
May 10, 2004
Jesus answered him, “Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.” (John 14.23, from the Gospel for next Sunday)
By Tom Ehrich
Now that Methodists have joined other denominations in dancing close to schism over sexuality, the question arises: Can the center possibly hold?
Also, why doesn’t the sexuality issue run out of steam, as liturgical revision did?
Perhaps sexuality is a stalking horse for other issues, both personal and institutional. Perhaps sexuality is a symbol for all that seems wrong and dangerous, or right and life-giving, about modern religion. Perhaps sexuality is a final line in the sand, expressing cumulative resentment over issues we stopped debating but didn’t resolve, such as women’s changing roles or 1960s cultural rebellion. Perhaps sexuality is the perfect wedge issue, opening the way for a power grab.
I see two other possibilities. One is that this issue exposes a fundamental flaw in American Christianity, namely, we don’t have an operative paradigm for who we are.
Despite our slogans, we aren’t “family,” for healthy families argue but remain intact. We aren’t “community,” for community seeks common ground and shared sacrifice.
Despite our creed, American Christianity has never been “one,” in Paul’s sense of “being of one mind.” Or “holy,” in the Biblical sense of awe and wonder before God. Or “catholic,” in the sense of all-embracing. Or “apostolic,” in the sense of being sent out to do what Jesus did. We seem more intent on gathering briefly with the like-minded and getting our way.
Secondly, the sexuality issue reveals fundamental differences in the ways we think about faith. For example, how do you read the first line of this week’s Gospel: “Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them.”
Do you hear an “or else”? Was Jesus saying, If you love Jesus and obey his word, God will love you; and if you don’t, God won’t love you? Or was Jesus saying something different? For example: Loving Jesus will lead to keeping his word, because love transforms the will; and God also will love, either because that is God’s nature or because God’s will also is being transformed by the Son.
I’m not saying one is right and the other wrong, but they certainly are different. One looks to set boundaries, to name the conditions for attaining a desired end, and to manage a settled community, in the way cities define streets. The other looks at possibilities, promises and expansiveness, and imagines something beyond the mountain.
One values adherence to community norms, because the alternative is mob and madness. The other values change and challenge, because what we know couldn’t possibly be God’s destination.
One looks back to inherited wisdom and history’s often bitter lessons. The other sees all knowledge as emerging and evolving.
Every argument brings forth bigots and brigands, the lazy and loutish, shallow and shouting. But let’s imagine that this argument isn’t degeneracy in action, rather an honorable, albeit acidic, difference of opinion, worldview and thought-process. Let’s imagine that one’s opponent isn’t a bad person.
What could we do better? First, we could stop demonizing each other. None of us is so perfectly attuned to the mind of God that we can pass judgment.
Second, we could look at our Sunday School class or Sunday assembly, and say, “These people are dear to me. I must not put this asunder. Whatever they do at convention, I have a duty to my faith friends.”
Third, we could seek larger perspective, not to “correct” our views, but to turn down our volume.
Fourth, we could ask with all innocence and neediness what “one, holy, catholic and apostolic” actually would look like. If not what we have, then what?
Finally, we could understand that God’s love is the foundation for all that matters. Not right opinion, not victory in religious war, but mercy, compassion, healing, acceptance and hope.
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“On a Journey” meditations are e-mailed seven days a week to interested readers. For correspondence write tehrich@earthlink.net. Or visit www.onajourney.org.
Wesley White
Revelation 21:10 - 22:5
Babel's tower arises from our midst to the heavens. Here the heavenly Jerusalem (Jerusalem renewed) descends into our midst.
Someday we will get this act of partnership, this desire for being together, together that the same time we reach to G*O*D, G*O*D reaches toward us. When these hands touch we find them both washed by the Water of Life. On the wrists of both grow Trees of Life bearing fruit of twelve tribes whose seeds will lead us back to a new dynamic story falling and rising toward yet another new heaven and earth.
This reflects "John's paradoxically dual emphasis through the book. There are pictures of exclusion: So sinners and nothing sinful will enter the city (21:8, 27; 22:3, 14-15). There are also pictures of transformation and ultimate inclusion: The city is not for the "faithful few" but is inconceivably large (21:16); the kings and nations of the earth will be there (21:24-26); the nations are not only destroyed (19:15; 20:7-9) but finally are also healed, walk by God's light, and bring their gifts to God (20:24-26; 22:2). The city has walls and gates that function as the boundary markers to separate insiders from outsiders, but the gates are never closed (21:12-14, 21, 25)." [NISB]
Wesley White
Psalm 67
May GOD continue to bless us!
And may we continue being a blessing as we find ourselves called into and out of various ministries.
And so we move around the circle of life:
May GOD be Gracious in Blessing
GOD has graciously blessed us with equity and plenty
May GOD continue to Bless
Whether you are on the front end of yearning for blessing, in the midst of it, or closing off one cycle to leap with fear and trembling into another - may the gift of Peace bloom and grow - bloom and grow, forever.
Wesley White
Acts 16:9-15
Here is an opportunity to tie two weeks of lection together. If we add in next week's passage from Acts 16:16-34 we hear of two women. It is helpful to hear their stories together as well as each of their stories.
The School of Christian Mission Study, Jesus and Courageous Women suggests:
"The author of Acts next presents the story of the slave girl, a parallel image to Lydia’s story, to further show the universal nature of the Gospel. While Lydia is an independent woman of means, the slave girl is the property of masters unwilling to hear the Gospel. Her value to her masters is her gift of clairvoyance. Then she hears the promise of a greater gift -- the Gospel of Jesus Christ. A woman enslaved not only by her social status but by her age and her gender, was so overcome by the message of the grace of Christ, her faith broke the chains of servitude."
If we were to focus only on Lydia we might find some assistance in the image of her "household." Today's culture war over "family" (defined by what it excludes instead of what it includes) would be aided by returning to the image of a "household." The "household" contains all manner of relationships that expand to more than two generations and hold together folks of differing status.
Would it aid your congregation to consider it a "household" instead of a "family"? What would be freed up by this change?
Wesley White
Revelation 21:10 - 22:5
Rest well now. Soon and very soon there will be no night for ever and ever.
We are in over my head at this point, talking about something so different from our experience. It is difficult to know just where to pick up to catch a glimpse of what beyond the world this might signify.
We sleep in utero, we sleep through all the various stages of life that try to strut along, we sleep the big sleep past physical life. Then we image things as, pythonesque, something completely different. What would the life of Brian look like here in the Jerusalem from above instead of the Jerusalem below?
I must admit that the kind of static imagery here, including the constant light, doesn't hold much sway over me. Is it that my life is too stable and predictable and so I look for diversity? Is this to speak only to those facing turmoil who dream about stability and final victory?
I suspect that the place where these perspectives meet is with there being no temple in the city. For those seeking stability this throws mystery into the mix. For those seeing variability this restricts the picture to a constancy beyond buildings.
Even if we give light its due, how would a visual artist deal with constant light? Would they want screens to bring shade? Would it be light from every direction so no shadows would be present to mar a scene or make it interesting? Would it be blinding if oriented in one direction and diffuse if looking in another? Would light still behave as though it were wave or particle and in so doing begin again the thesis and antithesis that would lead to a synthesis of a new heaven and a new earth and a new G*O*D?
Wesley White
John 5:1-9 or John 14:23-29
Do you want to be better? Will it! Thus says the Positivist.
Do you want to be better? Take a first step, says Jesus.
We get caught looking at completed actions while still in the midst of action and claiming that only the complete is what is real while the steps along the way aren't good enough.
Was the man made well by Jesus giving his encouraging word? Was the man made well by his acting? I can imagine a war being fought between these questions. I can imagine that war being quite bitter because the words and action were made holy by their context of Sabbath. We can't simply use human words in such a setting, much less living out their consequence lest we subtract something vital and profane the sacred.
Somehow we keep constraining the Advocate, a Holy Spirit, from acting as it will to teach us beyond our bounded, sacred language. We keep missing this Helper because it does not speak the language we expect (other) but only speaks within our every-day (here-and-now) language.
Even being clued in that all of this is going to take place in a different manner than the world works, we miss it because it challenges our world that perpetually combines power and tradition as its religious mantra.
The Friend reminds us to care for and set people free in the midst of a structure that cares for and maintains itself first. The religious world needs to constantly hear this and that is why John Wesley, talking about spreading "scriptural holiness" across the land, appended the necessary caveat that it "begin with the church" and its tendency to raise itself over everything else with its own Sharia-Sabbatarian limitations.
May 23, 2004 - Year C - Easter 7
Wesley White
May 23, 2004
Acts 16:16-34
Psalm 97
Revelation 22:12-14, 16-17, 20-21
John 17:20-26
All's well that ends well. The story of Easter comes to a close. Unity and completion are the watchwords of the day. Not even bars will bar the way.
Wesley White
Around and around we go.
Being one with another has its own value and being one along are techniques for faith extension.
We already have what we need for unity - love is that context. If I am loved and you are loved what is it that keeps us from loving one another? Well, all manner of things. It is far easier to have a false unity based on singing "Blest be the tie that binds" while acting in such a way that our binding only blinds us to those who are left out.
If we do actually move toward a unity that witnesses to the world that every part of our whole experience is assured that it has enough "substance of we" feeling, then this unity puts a stamp on our advertising our connection with an even more glorious future than we have had of a glorious past.
When we show our unity we can hear the overdub, "I am Jesus, and I approve this message."
Even as we are not yet a "beloved community" together we can affirm that is a desired goal as we mourn its distance from our reality and rejoice when steps toward it can be glimpsed. May you keep affirming the message you are.
Wesley White
Revelation 22:12-14, 16-17, 20-21
Everyone's work gets repaid. According to some reports this gets done according to a formula of beginning with those who worked less to those who worked more.
This formula is based on - "Come, all of you."
Come, a wage of daily bread for you, and you, and you.
This lection deliberately leaves out the other perspective of a warning to all outsiders and "incompatibiles" that they will not only not receive any daily bread but that which they still had as leftovers would be removed from them.
Without trying to get into the ways in which we pick and choose what we see and hear or render invisible from scripture and life, how would you want the story of faith to pause before being picked up through your experience and witness?
Wesley White
Psalm 97
"Let the many coastlines be glad!"
Let them be glad in the midst of being changed from glory into glory - from blue to bluer to bluest. Volcanoes, earthquakes, and melting mountains are all part of the process.
When we talk of the many coastlines we are not talking of only our relaxing beach or invigorating headland. We are also talking of other nation's coastlines which are just as beautiful and bracing.
Here we come to find not just this coast or that coast rejoicing in itself, but each and all rejoicing in an encompassing earth.
Wesley White
Acts 16:16-34
The prison doors open and out they come. The prison doors open and out they don't come. Apparently the key element is not the prison doors. We are not determined by how prison doors work or don't work.
How would you respond to people who did not escape their difficulty at the first opportunity? Surely tradition and previous experience says, "Open doors? Go out!" But here a concern for the larger tradition and experience means we need to play against previous interpretations of the situation.
A result of this is that the jailer became baptized, perhaps wanting to have the same assurance that he noted in those he was to be intimidating. Instilling fear is nowhere near as fun and exciting as evidencing assurance.
If the lection were to continue we would hear that folks not only did not try to escape at the earliest possible moment but stood their ground within the prison, refusing to come out.
In today's world there is a need to again pay attention to such extreme examples of fidelity to cause. Listen again to Martin Luther King, Jr. in his Letter from a Birmingham Jail : "But as I continued to think about the matter I gradually gained a bit of satisfaction from being considered an extremist. Was not Jesus an extremist for love -- "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, pray for them that despitefully use you." Was not Amos an extremist for justice -- "Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream." Was not Paul an extremist for the gospel of Jesus Christ -- "I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus." Was not Martin Luther an extremist -- "Here I stand; I can do none other so help me God." Was not John Bunyan an extremist -- "I will stay in jail to the end of my days before I make a butchery of my conscience." Was not Abraham Lincoln an extremist -- "This nation cannot survive half slave and half free." Was not Thomas Jefferson an extremist -- "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal." So the question is not whether we will be extremist but what kind of extremist will we be. Will we be extremists for hate or will we be extremists for love? Will we be extremists for the preservation of injustice--or will we be extremists for the cause of justice? In that dramatic scene on Calvary's hill, three men were crucified. We must not forget that all three were crucified for the same crime--the crime of extremism. Two were extremists for immorality, and thusly fell below their environment. The other, Jesus Christ, was an extremist for love, truth and goodness, and thereby rose above his environment. So, after all, maybe the South, the nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists."
For what would you "stay in jail until the end of your days"?
Wesley White
Revelation 22:12-14, 16-17, 20-21
"The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all the saints. Amen."
"The grace of the Lord Jesus be with the saints. Amen."
"The grace of the Lord Jesus be with with all. Amen."
"The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all the saints."
How many different ancient authorities are needed to realize that we are dealing with mystery here at the end as well as all the journey long?
Perhaps we might simply say, "The grace of the Lord Jesus is."
Blessed Be Being! Yours! Mine! Ours! All!
What a wonderfully indeterminate way to close this part of the story that continues into your life and mine.
Wesley White
John 17:20-26
Jesus continues to pray on behalf of you and me and the folks who we influence to pay attention to the commonwealth of creation, the "kingdom of GOD".
We are being prayed for as we follow the example of Jesus that questions every past rule still hanging around in light of larger expressions of GOD's presence to come. We are being prayed for as we follow the example of Jesus in going beyond the limits of rules past to open up new avenues of inquiry that will lead us to a more inclusive future. We are being prayed for.
Pause.
Is that true for you, that you are being prayed for by Jesus? by Jesus' body, the Church?
Pause.
Is it true for you, that GOD responds to Jesus' prayer for you? that GOD's Spirit responds to Jesus' prayer for you?
Pause.
If it is true, will you continue, no matter what world or church say about or do to you, to shine a light on the presence of GOD, on the love of Jesus, on the comfort of the the Holy Spirit, on the persistence of the Church, on the community of Believers Beyond Belief, on a creation partnering with all the above, and more, to work out the wholeness of life in fear and trembling, joy and peace?
Pause.
Your decision is requested and awaited.
Lon A Rycraft
Aloha Wesley,
Mahalo, thank you, for reminding me to reread Martin's letter.
Praying for Peace, Lon
May 30, 2004 - Year C - Pentecost
Wesley White
May 30, 2004
Acts 2:1-21
Psalm 104:24-34, 35b
Romans 8:14-17
John 14:8-17, (25-27)
Spirit creates something new. It moves beyond what was and what is to what will be. It is not catchable but it is catching.
Wesley White
John 14:8-17, (25-27)
Advocate -> Helper -> Friend -> Interpreter ->
As we move from 40 -> 50 in days, years, or whatever, there is a maturing process that goes on and we begin to from simply having come through to a time of going-on, a time of "Wait ... there's more!"
This marks a shift from self to community. We move-on from simply having a mechanism whereby we can remember and apply Jesus' life to our own. This simply draws us nearer to Jesus' "mission" from last week -- revealing the who and how of GOD.
The going-on connects us to that which is not ourself, whose image we do not claim -- to our neighbor. We are able to apply what we now know or are assured of GOD. This runs far deeper than excusing them because we understand them to the wonder of advocating, helping, befriending, and interpreting their life, in their words, using their paradigms.
This is a long way around to a peace we couldn't get at any other way -- being closer drawn to GOD and Neighbor. What a surprise to us to receive a gift only to find it to be a gift that grows. This is a gift unlike other gifts that spin down and finally, only lie there.
Wesley White
Romans 8:14-17
Here is a new paraphrase from Jim Taylor:
"[8.14] We call Christ the Son of God. If you live by God’s spirit, then you too are a child of God. Children do not need to fear loving parents. So having Christ’s spirit in you will not incite fear, or guilt, or self-loathing. Rather, it is like being welcomed into a winning team, a joyful home, a great performance.
"In our prayers, we address God as a loving parent. The words we use shape our thoughts and images. So when we speak of Christ as God’s son, we affirm that when we are adopted as God’s children, we too are God’s heirs, just like him. In God’s family, there are no favorites. All God’s children are equal. As we share Christ’s sufferings, we will also share his glory."
If you are interested in more, here is Jim's promo and how to get your free study copy:
"In a study group, I found that the only way I could grasp some of Paul's convoluted reasoning was to rewrite the text in my own words. I'm not really sure that my words are any clearer than, say, Eugene Peterson's paraphrase in "The Message," but they are different in two specific ways.
Peterson and others stay with Paul's historical struggle over the reluctance of the Jews, his own people, to accept Jesus as the Messiah. That emphasis, it seems to me, perpetuates the possibility of anti-Semitism. It's also not what Paul would be arguing today. Today, the distinction between Jews and Gentiles would probably be replaced by a distinction between nominal Christians inside the church, and "seekers" out side it. So I have rephrased in those terms.
I also believe that if Paul were writing today, he would make use of quotations from the Gospels -- which of course were written down after he wrote his letters -- rather than using quotations only from the only Scriptures he had available, which we call the Old Testament.
If you would like a copy of my paraphrase of Romans for your own use, just send an e-mail request, to jimt@quixotic.ca . I will send you back an electronic attachment, in either Word 2000 format, or Rich Text Format if you prefer.
Wesley White
Psalm 104:24-34, 35b
"When you take away their breath" -- they die.
"When you send forth your breath" --they are created.
What is it like to be part of the respiration of GOD? One approach is to play on being made in GOD's image, how intentional is your breath? So it goes: inhale/exhale, die/created. Rejoice in whatever moment is yours. It's enough.
The New Interpreter's Study Bible comments: "... the psalmist wonderfully presents a picture of a world entirely dependent on God's sustaining presence, showing just how fragile and precarious the existence and order of the universe are. Even so, there is no hint that God is likely to withdraw the divine hand and let all lapse into dust. The world is safe and secure, as are all it inhabitants, because God has willed and planned that it be so. God does not merely hold the world intact: God makes it all new; God pours out the divine Spirit, and all things are re-created. Here is a remarkable picture of continuous creation by God."
I can buy the "continuous creation" but am not at all sure how that plays against "will" and "plan." How do you see the connection? In light of Pentecostal movement and being called into and called out of ministries and life, how do these elements hold together for you? What do you have to give up of breathing to get to planning and how much willingness must be allowed to blow away in the presence of a breath of life?
Wesley White
Acts 2:1-21
Comparison of Pentecost with Babel is pretty standard fare. In the first instance an attempt is made to bring all resources to a still-point -- many building blocks to one city, a many-parted city to one point towering above it. What seemed so linear ends in confusion. Communication dissolves; purpose devolves. A wayward wind yearns to wander.
Having wandered there is an equal but opposite yearning to-gather. Having experienced the danger of unity there is no overcoming life's babel. Communication differences are not dissolved into one tongue, purpose is not reinstated, but thanksgiving is.
Through all this the learning is a need for a different gift -- prophecy. Here it is described as a "wrath to come", perhaps in hope that folks would use that as a motivation to flee such as prophecy is intended to change current behavior.
Alternatively, we might focus on this model of distributed communication as a key to what GOD's will on earth, from heaven, might look like. Our yearning is not to avoid Babel, but to enact Pentecostal communication. The stronger this yearning the more diversity we can deal with, the stronger the bonds between multitudes in multiples of 3,000s.
Should the yearning be stronger for avoidance, the less diversity we can deal with and the weaker the bonds between peoples.
For the best action, enact Acts.
Wesley White
Romans 8:14-17
What else besides "Abba! Father!" might signify our relationship with G*O*D?
Would "Partner!" do it sometimes?
How about "Beloved!"?
Where would "Friend! Advocate! Helper! Interpreter!" fit into things?
And those five big cries of "Who? What? Where? When? How?"??
Where might "Estranged! Enemy! Accuser! Tester!" fit into our perceptions of our relationship?
Is there any cry or acclamation or affirmation or whatever that we can make that won't witness to our relationship with G*O*D? It tells us where we are and where we have come from and begins to suggest where we might proceed. This is important information as we learn how to speak "the expansive love of G*O*D". The same may be true here as is true in our learning to speak any other language. Every attempt can be helpful in learning to speak the language of those around us whether they are dear to us yet or not.
Wesley White
John 14:8-17, (25-27)
A commandment to participate in the More of life, the doing of greater things comes to us in this sort of way from the Miriam-Webster Online Dictionary:
"Command" Etymology: Middle English comanden , from Middle French comander , from (assumed) Vulgar Latin commandare , alteration of Latin commendare to commit to one's charge -- more at COMMEND
"Commend" Etymology: Middle English, from Latin commendare , from com - + mandare to entrust -- more at MANDATE
"Mandate" Etymology: Middle French & Latin; Middle French mandat , from Latin mandatum , from neuter of mandatus , past participle of mandare to entrust, enjoin, probably irregular from manus hand + - dere to put -- more at MANUAL, DO
"Manual" Etymology: Middle English manuel, from Middle French, from Latin manualis , from manus hand; akin to Old English mund hand and perhaps to Greek marE hand
"Do" Etymology: Middle English don , from Old English dOn ; akin to Old High German tuon to do, Latin - dere to put, facere to make, do, Greek tithenai to place, set
Given a question from my beloved, "Why does my word always require my flesh?", what is your connecting line of language that excuses and separates your belief from your doing?
This is pretty clear language that we keep slipping away from. Are we who believe actually expanding and building on what we have been given or simply huddling together and reinforcing what has happened? Our believing without our doing is no different than having faith without works.
Come Holy Spirit, connect our insides and our outsides.
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