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November 7, 2004 - Year C - Pentecost +22
Wesley White
November 7, 2004
Haggai 1:15b-2:9 or Job 19:23-27a
Psalm 145:1-5, 17-21 or Psalm 98 or Psalm 17:1-9
2 Thessalonians 2:1-5, 13-17
Luke 20:27-38
This should be an interesting week to listen for resurrection images in the midst of the aftermath of the American election. Again and again it will be important to not be taken in by an easy application of spiritual experience to political victories and losses. As per usual, we will tell the real prophets and the true resurrections by the fruits that are born from them.
Wesley White
Luke 20:27-38
We get ourselves in all sorts of difficulties by positing one position on a continuum and investing it with so much truth that everything has to emanate from it. Political parties are like that. The wedge issues of war, marriage, the parentheses of life (birth & death), what is good for an idolatrous economy is good for a faithful individual, clear skies, and welfare as a common right all come to ignoble ends when asked to bear more than their frameworks can stand.
Here we find ourselves mixing cultural niceties of marriage with relationships beyond our knowing, off in the realm of speculation. We try to force the unknown into our known at our own peril and the peril of others.
While I am not satisfied with Jesus' formulation, he at least doesn't let the assumptions of the question tie him down and distinguishes what we know from what we don't know.
Tomorrow we will find out how many folks have bought lines from one party or another about the meaning of life in our time and projecting that into the future. A much more exciting time can be had if we begin to raise questions about the meaning of life beyond the limitations of our current so-called realities and begin reshaping our present in that light.
So what question do you think will trump all other questions?
What question has been giving you fits and causing cognitive dissonance in your life?
Wesley White
2 Thessalonians 2:1-5, 13-17
It is interesting to listen to these words in the context of an election, particularly one that is a statistical dead-heat (as far as has been reported).
Has a rebellion come? Was it by the incumbent? By the challenger?
Is the lawless one revealed? Is it the incumbent or the challenger?
Who has the temerity to declare themselves as God, a maker of no mistakes? The incumbent? The challenger?
[then we miss the apocalyptic section about the big lie, the powerful delusion, and the pleasure of falseness]
We return to an image of the successful campaign manager calling out to their political base to hold fast to their tradition and vote according to it.
The end of all this is to bless us with a standardized blessing that for Paul is the equivalent of "God bless America."
- - -
How, then, does this play out today from Dixville Notch/Absentee/Early balloters to closing time in Hawaii? Will we find comfort for our hearts and strength for good work in such a contentious activity as a seemingly 50/50 election?
It would be fun for someone to do a riff on a theology of election using the 2004 presidential campaign. I'm not up to it, but someone out there may be.
I suspect there is enough lawlessness and deception to go around and so this is appropriately an exercise in the lesser of two evils. Since that is where we are, instead of trying to turn this reality into an dramatic either/or, savior/heretic, hero/traitor format I hope folks will spend the energy necessary to draw finer distinctions than usual and vote accordingly. Triumphalism, the cover for the necessity of evil, has never lasted any longer than an empire and might even be a factor in their/our eventual fall.
As for me and my house we claim evil enough has been done and a fresh start on acknowledging the need for repentance/conversion is in order. How is it in your house?
Wesley White
Psalm 145:1-5, 17-21 or Psalm 98 or Psalm 17:1-9
Elections often turn on the wrong questions. Sometimes those questions are simply missed and sometimes they are deliberately miscast if raised. The Psalms talk less about the election process and look to a desired end, regardless of who is elected.
A key criterion for leaders behavior and systems they support, according to the Psalmists, is intimately tied up with justice. We will see how leaders newly elected, leaders staying in their position, and leaders yet to be will actually live up to this high calling.
17:1 - Hear a just cause (will our leaders listen?)
17:2 - let your eyes see the right (will our leaders look?)
17:4 - avoid the ways of the violent (whether preemptive or "just"?)
17:8 - guard (the measure of a just society is how the poor are treated)
98:3 - remember steadfast love and faithfulness (do it, don't just talk it)
98:4 - break forth into joyous song (for all the above and the following)
98:9 - GOD is present to judge righteousness and equity (no other political entity is up to this standard)
145:7 - glory and wonder come from abundant goodness and righteousness
145:8-9 - steadfast love and compassion measure grace and mercy
145:14 - the falling are upheld, the bowed down are raised
145:15 - the hungry are fed
145:17 - justice and kindness are GOD's right and left hands
145:20 - love grows to the stars of the sky, wickedness shrivels from the land of the living
145:21 - justice leads to blessing, forever and ever.
We are making our bed and we will lie in it. What we sow, so shall we reap. The option of justice is present. The election has not resolved these issues. Let us continue to live with faith that justice will be served; not arrogance and revenge, no matter how well disguised.
Wesley White
Luke 20:27-38
Who's wife will she be in the resurrection? Our society doesn't permit levirate marriages, but does encourage serial marriages. The same question can be raised about heavenly spouses? Will I be the spouse of my final marriage (sort of like a death-bed conversion) or will I, lottery-like, end up eternally espoused with one of those other losers?
Those who have been in abusive situations cry out for some assurance that heaven won't be hell. Those who have had a healthy relationship desire it to be extended.
In light of American election results, how does this interaction play for those who married (a man and a woman) out of denial of their sexual orientation toward their own gender and finally got that worked out and, by whatever mechanism, are effectively espoused in a man and a man or a woman and a woman relationship? What will the resurrection experience be for them?
To shift gears from the politics of marriage to the marriage of cultural and religious politics, whose party will hold sway in the resurrection? Will we live under a universally mandated, non-party leader like George Washington, a Democratic leader like Franklin Delano Roosevelt, a Republican leader like George W. Bush, a future woman, non-anglo or homosexual leader of some yet unknown party to come?
Jesus takes all these questions of ours about specific details of our years and changes the conversation. A challenge to us is to also see things in a larger light — beyond simply extending a past to intentionally inviting a future not based on a past. This can get to be scarier than fears of immorality or terrorists. And yet we know that this larger picture is so well-spoken by a prophetic Jesus (like the early, "let there be"s) that we can't avoid being a bit more humble about our current biases and a bit more courageously faithful to speak other larger images.
Republican voters, Democrat voters, Green voters, Libertarian voters, other voters, and non-voters — "Where lie life-giving decisions now that not only transcend death, but party?"
Wesley White
Haggai 1:15b-2:9 or Job 19:23-27a
Job cries, "It ain't right." Haggai responds, "'Tis so."
How do you explain the difficulties of life?
Is it personal? Is it corporate? Is it random? Is it tit for tat? Is it just the way it is? Is it choice? Or, could it be, the Church Lady’s explanation for everything is right — Satan?
Is it just a matter of cultic purity?
Are you recognizing your flesh has been destroyed or are you expecting prosperity? Does one lead you to cry out or does the other?
How do you think Job and Haggai would get along? Would Job see Haggai as another of his "friends" who don't get it? Would Haggai see Job as culpable? How might these two converse or must we keep them in separate rooms?
Wesley White
2 Thessalonians 2:1-5, 13-17
Do you hear an election victory speech in here? Hold fast to the traditions we trained you in. Don't let anyone take the blinders off. There is nothing new that will ever change our believing, and thus our thinking. God bless us and God bless ours.
The missing part (verses 6-12) is the consequential part of not engaging with the world and risking our lives being taken by it, but removing ourselves from that interaction as though God were somehow sullied by such contact. This separation (only a choice between red and blue - no rainbow promise here) does energize and work for awhile, but another tradition has it that such unity attempts to build itself into heaven and eventually topples (or so says Babel). In this view the Lawless one is revealed as the enemy we cannot defeat, the one that is us.
The opposite is not equal fervor in an equal but opposite direction, but spiritual jujitsu known at Pentecost. This tradition is one that we need to remember here at the end of an ordinary season. Yes, there are birthings and livings and dyings, but it is the pentecostal spirit that brings any or all of them to loving relationships beyond expectation.
So, let us begin learning how to speak Republican and Literalism that they might better know the power of GOD beyond their limited view. Let us begin learning to speak Radial and Prophetic that we might better know the power of GOD beyond our limited view.
In the face of this challenge may your comfortable heart be strengthened for every work and word needed to reveal falsehood of self and revel in better hope.
Wesley White
Luke 20:27-38
The following quote from a blog by Bill Carroll raises an important question in light of the recent American election - Does having a coherent world-view, regardless of its connection with external realities, trump every other concern? This question leads into the question of how close the Republican's have come to being today's Sadducee?
Does . . . "the reply of Jesus to the Sadducees pass theological muster for you? Jesus asserts the resurrection of the dead on the basis of a loose, and, to our way of thinking, rather incoherent, argument. The Sadducee argument, by contrast, is nearly airtight in its logical rigor. The Word says that she will be passed from one man to another. In the resurrection, whose woman will she be?
"In the history of the Church, there have been many things that have been taken to follow from loyalty to the 'plain sense' of the inspired text. Slavery, the subjugation of women, and violent religious persecution to name a few.
"Any Christian effort to read the Holy Scriptures seriously must reckon with the ways in which Jesus felt free to read the Bible. And his judgment on the Sadducees: 'You are wrong, because you know neither the scriptures nor the power of God.'"
How free are you to read the Bible? Is this kind of freedom allowed to Jesus' followers or has Jesus' reading become a constraint instead of a loosening for ourselves? As we go into the next four years when our recently elected president promises to expend the political capital he has (and probably excitedly willing to go into political capital deficit doing so) how does this Bible-reading freedom of Jesus make itself manifest?
To be able to talk about this freedom, live this freedom, trust this freedom is to build the base and connections for honesty of all kinds. In and of itself it is not a political guarantee of anything but it will help us all be more honest about the what choices are being made and what is masquerading as a choice. For me, more radical than any of the parties, not at home in any of them, this freedom for an open future will help clarify and correct each of the contending views.
- - -
One of my favorite sources is the online Wikipedia. Their article on Sadducees contains this description. See where you think it fits in today's world.
"It is claimed that the Sadducees denied the immortality of the soul , and are discussed in this light in the New Testament debating the matter with Jesus , and that they denied the existence of spirits or angels .
"They rejected the rabbis' interpretation of the Torah , and are presented as denying that any of the Hebrew Bible, apart from the Torah, is authoritative. As to the Torah itself, the Sadducees are presented as interpreting it literally and rigorously on subjects it directly covers, while rejecting the Rabbinic traditions that mitigate the harsher penalties or aim at preventing unintentional rule-breaking."
November 14, 2004 - Year C - Pentecost +23
Wesley White
November 14, 2004
Isaiah 65:17-25 or Malachi 4:1-2a
Isaiah 12 or Psalm 98
2 Thessalonians 3:6-13
Luke 21:5-19
What are you seeing this week? Can you see beyond danger to opportunity? Can you see beyond despair to energy for good? Can you see beyond the thrill of victory to steadfastness? Can you see beyond a child's death to a mountain of peace?
Wesley White
Luke 21:5-19
What in today's world seems to be an Irresistible Force or an Immovable Object?
The beauty of such power will tumble of its own internal attempts at consistency or be thrown down by the erosion of guerillas or the rising up of revolution.
It turns out that GOD does not exert an irresistible force upon us, so we become puppets, or defend some immovable object as eternal truth. In our attempts to do so we show how far we have strayed from issues of living change - keeping faith alive in the midst of changing times by adapting changing ways.
Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose. Freedom's just another word for enduring, for the sake of soul-living. Freedom's just another word for listening for and speaking wisdom at an auspicious time.
GOD's freedom to create and recreate, to live and forgive, slips out of the grasp of Irresistible Forces and slides around the blocks of Immovable Objects? Those same qualities are available to all who see beyond the surface beauty of power. Let us be creative truth-tellers in the midst of our trials (you did recognize you are the accused in today's world, didn't you?).
Wesley White
2 Thessalonians 3:6-13
Examples to imitate can be transformative (also painful for the model when folks aren't ready to take up the challenge to follow).
The examples I am looking for these days are those that don't whine. My sense is that we have developed a culture that is quite digital. The 0's and 1's in this case are accusation and whining. As soon as one is caught in one position or the other there is a switch that is thrown and the opposite comes into play.
Winners and losers all whine. It has become a technique as pervasive as perpetual war was to the folks of "War is Peace; Freedom is Slavery; Ignorance is Strength" 1984 .
Simply doing one's work, listening and following the promptings of expansive love and earning a living that allows one to intentionally give most of it away are models worth investing in and showing forth to a world intent on getting its own way, even if it has to throw a tantrum or injure itself.
Be not weary in simply doing, earning, being, giving.
Wesley White
Isaiah 12 or Psalm 98
We are often more ready to sing a new song or to say thanks after there has been some evidence of a significant change or freedom where before there was only resignation and restriction.
Before that we are in the land of hope and faith and love, but quietly so. Perhaps we can hum a line, but a full-throated song or statement simply seems out of place.
So what are you using as evidence that allows you to sing out. Are you fortunate enough to have practiced singing thanks so you can do it at the drop of a hat or in the face of even worse disaster than you have so far known? Are you one who needs piles and piles of evidence, and even then doubt it will hold, and so, at best, can whisper a bit? Some of these differences among us can be attributed to personality, experiences, and expectations. Some goes beyond any explanation.
May the day be soon upon us when we can agree and participate in the singing of praise, the avowal of transformation.
Wesley White
Isaiah 65:17-25 or Malachi 4:1-2a
Promises of what GOD is about to do throws into stark relief the experiences of our present. Why would we need such grand promises of things were so iffy right now?
Are these promises still active or have they been fulfilled in Jesus? How about both active and fulfilled?
Behind every picture (no matter how projected?) lies its doppelganger.
America's (SuperPower Extraordinaire) claiming its state-of-the-art health system has some hard time measuring up in quality-of-life areas or even having some areas show up in the morality conversations of so-called "pro-lifers".
For instance infant mortality. Look at this ranking that puts America 35th in the world. Note which countries are above and below that, and by how much. What will it take to have the "anti-abortion" group plan with the "health care" group?
Another chart compares infant mortality with life expectancy. Note how the lower the infant mortality the longer the life expectancy. The two seem to be related in just that way.
Picking up on that correlation, look at the hullabaloo we are having about Social Security and the pressure longer-living has upon our economy. Imagine keeping our same idolatry of a particular instance of economic theory and experiencing the exception to the rule being that everyone breaks the 100-year mark. No wonder we are not questioning infant mortality. Think again if you think we have a political/economic problem today and in the nearer future — there is worse on the way because we have lost track of the picture, the dream, the promise and keep stalling the changes needed and avoiding the choices/decisions that would move us toward a needed quantum leap beyond what is to what will be — all manner of things will be well.
From this simplistic look, we are as far from a peaceful mountain as we are from all the other "now and then" formulations. So what to do?
Might as well live today as we expect to live tomorrow — better, or, more strongly, wonderfully. I will listen to hear about your going about your life leaping like a calf from the stall.
Enough stalling, let's get on with life.
Wesley White
2 Thessalonians 3:6-13
Paul writes of one part of a rubber-band cycle. He commands us not to be stretched in regard to holding together a body of believers. If there are "lazy" believers satisfied with their cultural accommodation to a radical faith willing to be crucified, right here, right now, they ought to have the tie that binds us slipped off them.
Unfortunately it is exactly that stretching that enlivens those who have decided that they are truer to Paul than others. With the relaxation of said rubber-band, there is an separation that will bring out the excesses/weakness of their pride at being Paul's Jesus People. You may see some of that going on around you as "true Republicans" control the power in the administrative, legislative, and judicial branches and decide to slip the connection with those "idle Democrats". You may also see it in various family abuse situations where connections with the wider world are loosened.
The flip side is to find additional rubber-bands in other areas than explicit faith to stretch around one another that we might have a closer connection with one another. The value here is found in a quote from today's email from Wordsmith — "The mind is but a barren soil; a soil which is soon exhausted, and will produce no crop, or only one, unless it be continually fertilized and enriched with foreign matter." -Joshua Reynolds, painter (1723-1792)
Not only a mind, but a faith, needs the kind of fertilization that comes from intentional connection. A graphic example of this is found at one or two election map sites that don't look at the past American election through the eyes of the electoral college, winner takes all, but on the basis of percentage of voters for the two top candidates.
While we are tempted by Paul's red and blue approach to faith development, and it does have its place, as a general rule, Jesus' more inclusive understanding, picked up by Paul in their being no longer any male/female/Gentile/Jew/Master/Slave/etc. distinctions that pull us apart, does a more consistent job of bringing a faith to fruitful expression and joy.
November 21, 2004 - Year C - Reign of Christ
Wesley White
November 21, 2004
Jeremiah 23:1-6
Luke 1:68-79 or Psalm 46
Colossians 1:11-20
Luke 23:33-43
The rain of Christ droppeth soft upon the heart, beckoning forth the dry seeds of hopeful love that, with faithful steadfastness, will break into flower, fruit, and seed against the drouth of fear expressed as entitlement to rain.
Listen for this growth, not a static, eternal victory from some dogmatic deus ex machina.
Wesley White
Luke 23:33-43
How far is it from the Paradise of here-and-now to the Paradise of there-and-when?
I am struck by how often folks ask for prayer as though it would be something I would do on their behalf somewhere down the line and how surprised they are when I ask, "Would it be alright to pray now?"
I am struck by how often folks don't make the connection between their vote and voice today and the way life will be for all of us, particularly the poor, in days to come.
There seems to be a disconnect between now and any other time, whether past or future. With that disconnect comes an opening for the best-talked, the one who appeals to the lowest common denominator or our largest fears to guide us in directions directly contrary to our own best self-interest.
How I wish Jesus had replied to the criminal next to him, "Truly I tell you, we are in Paradise, now and ever."
What would it mean to see today as Paradise. Surely we are not that much worse that some edenic once-upon-a-time constructed as an overlay on chaos with tree tests, loneliness not assuaged by a rib-mate, eternal stewardship regarding what has been entrusted to us, and snakes full of political promises.
What would it mean to see today as Paradise and have that connected with all the nostalgia of Paradise Past and all the dreams of Paradise yet winging its way from a future new heaven and new earth?
What would it means to see life as Paradise and death as Paradise? Might it begin to bind together the various disconnects in our life? My suspicion is that it would.
Dave Stratton , 11/15/2004 8:28:18 AM
I know this is a negative theme, and in the long run will not fly, but it might generate some additional thoughts.
Thinking of people who do not see the disconnects, I started to repy with the phrase "apparently not"!
Don't they see their thirst for war just breeds war? Apparently not! etc.
Don't they see that love and compassion- even praying for their enemies is what Jesus did? Apparently not!
Wesley White
Colossians 1:11-20
The introduction to Colossians in the New Interpreter's Study Bible says "Most interpreters believe that the problem [the folks at Colossae had] was acknowledging, if not actually worshiping, heavenly powers associated with the stars."
This leads Paul to insert a hymn (1:15-20) "extolling Christ in cosmological rather than soteriological (salvation-oriented) terms, but which could impress a congregation like that at Colossae without compromising the integrity of his own position."
Using another's language, imagery, memes without compromising one's integrity is tricky business. It is also very important business in today's world (well, actually, any day's world).
For comparison purposes, check out the November 3rd Theses regarding the Democratic Party. How to speak to be heard without giving up ones "values" is a huge question for Paul, the church, political parties, and you and me.
If Paul can pull this off (as I think a case can be made that Jesus pulled off this same willingness to risk being compromised) so can we.
In this light, hear again these words, "May you be made strong with all the strength that comes from GOD's glory, and may you be prepared to endure everything with patience, while joyfully giving thanks...."
Wesley White
Luke 1:68-79 or Psalm 46
Some translations have GOD responsible for desolations and devastations on earth [NRSV, NIV, HCSB ]. Others begin to widen the scope to also include wonders [AMP]. Some go all the way to the wonders, talking about marvels, flowers, and trees [MSG].
In this context desolation seems most helpful as the passage goes on to claim that GOD causes wars to cease. This is a desolation to our business as usual processes. What would we do without war? We would be thrown back into chaos with simply too many options. War short-circuits options and turns life into limited options of this or that winner or loser. We would be devastated without war, it binds together our own desire for control and knowledge that God is on our side.
What is the mechanism whereby GOD brings such desolation over the loss of desolation? Is it found in being still - Elijah-like? Is it Zechariah's understanding of knowledge of salvation by way of forgiveness? Is it Isaiah's beautiful, peaceful feet on the mountain good-newsing about GOD reigning? Is it the consequence of John's preparation by way of a call for repentance and baptism?
If there is a connection between the action of GOD and that of humans, it may behoove us to show in our day the mercy promised our ancestors to come our way. We all come from the metaphoric house of David, we all have a part to play as savior, healer in our day. With mercy, forgiveness, good news, we continue in the face of whatever discouragement pops up. Dawn has broken. We can see a bit more than before what is already present, solidifying, through those rosy fingers, from promise to fulfillment.
Standing in the dawn of GOD's reign we find Christ's crown offered to us as a Holy Grail. And like Jesus' humility to empty himself of claiming it, we are emboldened to pass it on. An uncrowned Christ is the only king worth being kin to.
Wesley White
Jeremiah 23:1-6
Is a righteous king the same as a benevolent dictator? Our experience of the latter is not very good. This equivalency is mostly the spin from inside the power structure rather than the results from outside. Unless you posit a great deal of external evil to which the king must respond and return evil for evil, thus becoming the evil they oppose, a question has to be asked why there are no continuing empires of righteousness?
We may need to remember that the title of King is not one that Jesus uses. It is used by the Magi as an extension of what they knew about the way the world works, through such political power. It is placed upon him by the Romans as a taunt. While taunts can become affirmed, see Methodist tradition, they are usually just an example of a political dirty trick - notice the way the word "liberal" has become a swear word instead of a descriptive word.
Jesus uses images of kings as part of his teaching, moving folks from where they are to a better, wider place. John records Jesus as moving away when folks wanted to make him king.
In front of Pilate Jesus is recorded as testifying to something called "truth" rather than continue a conversation about kingship.
How scary is it for to think of a shepherd, a king, Jesus, being with us rather than leading us?
Wesley White
Colossians 1:11-20
Here we hear about GOD rescuing and transferring us into "the kingdom of his beloved Son." "Beloved Son," Jesus, speaks about the kingdom of GOD or kingdom of Heaven, not his own. And around we go. Whose kingdom is it and how does it interact with us?
It is good to have both GOD and Jesus humbly identifying this ideal spot with the other. It speaks well of them that they claim it, not for themself, but the other. It gets a little trickier when we hear GOD is in Jesus and Jesus was with GOD in the beginning and is God with us.
Trying to see beyond metaphor without going so deeply into it that it becomes our reality and only stop with its literality is tricky business. To not go that deeply reduces the power of the metaphor. We seem to either be too enmeshed or not taking it seriously enough and so we fear anything other than a strict construction or an over-investment in our imagery.
Do you feel enabled if someone has done something for you? Do you feel called if someone has already ordained your response by rescue or transfer?
Is it be possible for GOD to be pleased without needing a reconciliation at anyone's expense? It would be interesting to do a psychological or emotional or rational or whatever assessment of this 20th verse.
Do you resonate best with the phrase "through him," "God was pleased," "pleased to reconcile," "reconcile...all things," "whether on earth or in heaven," "making peace," "blood," "his cross"?
Rank them in order (1-7) of your connection with the phrase. Take your 7-digit score around to see who else has the same configuration. Who knows, this make take the place of that puny 4-letter Myers/Briggs evaluator.
Dave Stratton
Found this in Girardian Reflections on the Lectionary, and it was too good not share.
James Alison, Raising Abel , pp. 187-188. He quotes the first word from the cross in reflections that also bring in the shepherd imagery from the day's first lesson:
I'm trying to sketch out something much more interesting: in the measure that we learn unconcern about our reputation, in that measure the Father can produce in us the same love which he has for his Son, and the same love which he and his Son have for the human race. Here is where we have to make an imaginative effort, or at least I do. That love is in no way marked by any desire for vindication, for restoring besmirched reputations, for turning the tables of this world, and all that might seem to us to be just and proper, given the horror of the violence of our world. That love loves all that! It loves the persecutors, the scandalized, it loves the depressives and the traitors and the finger pointers. That love doesn't seek a fulminating revelation of what has really been going on as a final vengeance for all the violence, even though we may fear that it will be so. That love is utterly removed from being party to any final settling of accounts. That love, the love which was the inner dynamic of the coming of the Son to the world, of Jesus' historical living out, seeks desperately and insatiably that good and evil may participate in a wedding banquet.
This means that it is the mind fixed on the things that are above which allows the heart to be re-formed in the image of the Father's love, forgiving the traitors, the executioners, the persecutors, the weak, those gone astray, not on account of some ethical demand, or so as to obey some commandment, but quite simply because they are loved, they are delighted in. When Luke has Jesus on the Cross say, "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do" (Lk 23:34), he was not only depicting a Jesus who was effectively revealing the mechanism of death, which includes the blindness of its participants as to what they are doing, nor was it an ethical imperative that Jesus should forgive them so that he might go to his Father 'clean'; rather it was just that, in truth, and without any remorse or sadomasochism, Jesus loved his slayers.
This means that when we are able to stand loose from our reputation, and because of that, from our need to insist on a day of reckoning, the eschatological imagination, the mind fixed on the things that are above, begins to give us the capacity to love human beings without any sort of discrimination, in imitation of that love, quite without rivalry, which the Father has for us. Another way of saying this is to say that there begins to be formed within us something of a shepherd's heart which is deeply moved by humans and human waywardness. Please notice that "heart of a shepherd" means being able to look at wolves in their sheepliness. It is not a question of us fearing that there are many people dressed as sheep who are, in fact, wolves, but, on the contrary, of being able creatively to imagine wolves as, in some, more or less well-hidden part of their lives, in fact, sheep, and to love them as such. Various times in the Gospel the word splangchnidzomai crops up, which we usually translate as 'moved with compassion'. Jesus was moved with compassion by this or that person or situation, or that the multitudes should be like sheep having no shepherd (Mt 9:36). However the word is rather strong, and means a deep commotion of the entrails, a visceral commotion. This is what is so hard to imagine: as we become unhooked from our partisan loves, our searches, our clinging to reputation, with these formed in reaction to this situation or that, there begins to be formed in us that absolutely gratuitous visceral commotion, born outside all reaction, which the ancients called agape, and which is nothing other than the inexplicable love which God has for us in our violence and our scandals. We begin to be able not only to know ourselves loved as human beings, but to be able to love other humans, to love the human race and condition. ( Raising Abel , pp. 187-188)
Wesley White
Luke 23:33-43
Death of prisoners is nothing new. Some are done in legally - sentenced to die. Some are done in illegally - most recent a U.S. Marine shooting a wounded prisoner.
Some prisoners scoff at death. Some prisoners weep at death. Some prisoners look for change at death.
These various scenes of violence take place in the context of every war. Some happen before declared war, some during, and some after.
In one way and another faith is implicated in war by giving the go ahead to protect itself in whatever its current manifestation might be. Religion becomes as much a victim of war as are prisoners.
In today's setting you may be interested in looking again at Sojourner's statement "Confessing Christ in a World of Violence." What does it say about the scene with Jesus and criminals being crucified? Points 4 and 5 seem to speak most clearly here.
Next week we begin another cyle of a church year. Will we be any further ahead at this time next year? Perhaps. It is not out of the realm of expectation. A key will be how we deal with the violence of words and actions around us. Is it worth the risk to not only model active non-violence as best we can, but to energetically advocate it for communities as well as individuals?
November 28, 2004 - Year A - Advent 1
Wesley White
November 28, 2004
Isaiah 2:1-5
Psalm 122
Romans 13:11-14
Matthew 24:36-44
Ah, the days to come. Would that they were here.
Well, they are. May we have the vision to see them present and to act as though they were are reality. This is wakefulness.
Wesley White
Matthew 24:36-44
What day and hour are you waiting for?
Democracy in Iraq?
Democrat in the White House?
Demos means again "the common people" not "demons"?
A second coming from on high?
A second birth from above?
A second chance in the current plane?
Well, that time is not known. The choice is only that of being distracted by eating and drinking and personal relationships or being aware enough to do what you can according to the vision given -- whether that be building an ark or buying property in a besieged town or planting a tree or working your work or turning the other cheek or loving an enemy or other seeming impossibilities.
What day and hour are you waiting for if not this day, this hour?
A side benefit to focusing on what can be done rather than on what can't be done is that it reduces the anxiety of waiting at a loved one's side while they die. This breath is enough; this non-breath is enough.
Wesley White
Romans 13:11-14
If salvation is closer to us than our breath, then why the hype about what time it is — just before dawn? Do we or do we not know about kairos? How easily we slip from the little we know about chronos to the much we don't know about kairos.
For us in Kairos CoMotion we trust the expansive love of GOD through thick and thin, through kairos and chronos.
Why would we be any more active than we are because of some seeming deadline? We simply do what we can do. So we morph from multi-state events to regional portions of a state and a camp. Who knows what the next shape is, including being called out of a particular ministry as well as into one. This is all done honorably, listening for the right act in the right moment.
Why would we be any less active than we are because of some seeming deadline we think might be just a tad further off? Again, the listening and acting are the honorable way whether chronos is short or long.
Are we salvation? No. Are we participating in salvation? Yes. In so doing we gratify the deep needs of ourselves and those who benefit from our participation in life. In so doing we are gratified by what others are doing and we benefit from their participation in life.
Wesley White
Psalm 122
Advent: a joyous time. A virtual "Jerusalem" is available. We are there and not there. This may be the best of times.
Our feet are standing in Jerusalem even if our heart is slow or hard and our head is up our butt.
The foundation is present. The past has been prelude to the present and the future is anticipated in as mysterious a fashion as has been the journey from then-to-now. Now-to-when promises as much as we have received.
So pray for the peace of Jerusalem that the rest of us can finally catch up with our feet. May love prosper or bring together the separated parts of ourselves and our worlds.
We've got a foot in the door, now let's close the deal by seeking good - good for GOD, good for ourselves, good for neighbors, good for enemies.
Wesley White
Isaiah 2:1-5
Someday we will desire to come to GOD willing to learn. As for now we yet come trying to teach GOD how to be on our side while claiming that GOD has been on our side all along. It is an interesting process.
Through a learning process we come to find out that when nations are judged between that there will be some World Court decisions that will support us and some that will not. As many are arbitrated for there will be an increasing number of decisions that are not straight forward. A decision here will have ramifications there. We won't always be able to tell the consequences of a decision and so what at first seems like a justification will come back in the next case to bite us. We won't be able to get away from, "what goes around, comes around".
The result of all this arbitration may simply be to give us time to come to our senses. It may be like Matthew 5:25-26 — " . . . say you're out on the street and an old enemy accosts you. Don't lose a minute. Make the first move; make things right with him. After all, if you leave the first move to him, knowing his track record, you're likely to end up in court, maybe even jail. If that happens, you won't get out without a stiff fine." [The Message]
When we finally make things right, even if it is because we give up on an eternal arbitration process, then we not only won't learn war anymore, we will begin to unlearn it — which still takes awhile since we are neither puppets of the Holy or quick studies.
Is it possible to be preemptive in giving up arbitration and simply make things right? Can this be done without being taken advantage of or is that simply part of the deal?
On this Thanksgiving Day in The United States of America — thanks for a picture into which it is worth investing our time and energy. Friends, come, let us walk this way. :)
Wesley White
Romans 13:11-14
Put on the armor of light; put on the Lord Jesus Christ.
Advent is a time of putting on. We put on our imagination of how the world might be better. We put on our intellect to figure out a next step toward that imagination. We put on our experiences to sort out what has been helpful and what has not and changing our patterns in the direction of the helpful. We put on our intentions regarding our relationships with one another and the wholy. We put on all this and more on as the future dawns. That which is coming needs to be welcomed. Advent pulls us onward.
Advent is a time of putting on. We put on pageants of Christmas. We put on angelic heralding. We put on bringing gifts of gold, frankincense, myrrh, and time away from our daily work. We put on awkward pregnancy. We put on redecisions of relationships. We put on all that has come down to us and so we put on baptism and temptation and healing and preaching and teaching and listening and praying and dying and resurrection and service and mission. Advent pushes us onward.
What do you need to put on? for your soul's sake? for your neighbor's sake? for one another's sake? for the sake of enemies? — For God's sake, what do you need to put on?
Wesley White
Matthew 24:36-44
What are we waiting for? This is a sub-text question that is constantly in the background of our lives.
So?
Are you waiting for someone to make a mistake so they will get theirs?
Are you waiting for someone to come through so they will get theirs?
One way of coming at this is to reflect on what we experience as the expectation of others upon ourselves? As a progressive Christian, is the church waiting with a trial when you put a toe across its line? Is the church waiting with nearly bated breath to learn of a new door to enter a more expansive understanding of GOD's presence and love?
Those same questions can be asked of our understanding of what the world around us is expecting from us. How different do you think the church and the world are in their expectation?
I have to admit that most of the time I am expecting to get caught on the other side of the tracks and that the consequence of this is going to be ostracism. Either the real people, the important people, will pack up and move further up the hill or I will be sent packing further away. The gap, like the gap between the rich and the poor, will increase, making it feel like an immediate action rather than one that plods along according to its own internal logic. By extension my temptation is to project that same dynamic upon those I think currently in the wrong.
So we battle for the better turf. Is “better” away from here or exactly here? Is a new heaven and earth a different here or must it be some other there? Are those who get to stay the blessed and the taken away the evil ones; are those who are taken blessed and the left behind cursed?
My bias is a non-separation of sacred and secular, saint and sinner, that here and now is the arena of blessing. Given my bias and/or your bias, is there a third option even more worth waiting for?
Wesley White
This paraphrase is helpful and was offered on the Midrash email conversation.
To subscribe to this free conversation, e-mail: midrash-subscribe@joinhands.com
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Matthew 24:36-44 - A Contemporary Reading
by Brian Donst
One: Jesus says
A: we need to be ready.
One: Jesus says
B: we need to be ready
for incarnation,
for the Word being made flesh,
for God's will being lived out,
for the kingdom of heaven coming near
and making itself known.
He says we need to be ready because when it happens
- and it does,
it's always surprising.
One: Jesus says
A: most of the world still thinks the way it did
in the days of Noah,
when most people thought
things would always stay the same
and nothing would happen
to make things different or new.
They satisfied themselves with what they could get
in the world as it was,
and didn't look for anything more or different.
They were completely innocent
about what God was up to,
and when the Change came
there was no place for them in God's new world.
They were swept away in the Change,
while Noah and his family
- because they were ready,
were left behind to inherit the world
that God wanted to make better.
One: Jesus says
B: this is how it is
when the moment of incarnation comes,
when the Word is made flesh,
when God's will is lived out,
when a flashing glimpse
of the kingdom of heaven appears in our time.
Some, not ready for the Change,
are swept away by it;
others, who are ready,
stand up and take their place
in the new world that God is always bringing to be.
One: Jesus says
A: the Change steals in through the back door of our time
like a thief.
Those who count on things never changing
will lose everything.
Far better that we open our hearts now
to what God wants to do,
so when the Change comes
we are ready for it.
One: Jesus says
B: he wants us to be ready.
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