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Lectionary - September 2005 |
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September 4, 2005 - Year A - Pentecost +16 Wesley White September 4, 2005 Exodus 12:1-14 or Ezekiel 33:7-11 It is difficult to keep paying attention. Catching a glimpse of the dangers inside the community is particularly difficult. We huddle in individual households, we talk behind one another's backs, we let one another go so easily. Whether we talk first of forgiveness or freedom, we don't easily come to these until injury and slavery are well inflicted and institutionalized. May we be blessed with catching our distancing of one another early and persist in steadfast actions that acknowledge the presence of GOD, that catalyze freedom and forgiveness. Wesley White Matthew 18:15-20 It is not the desire of GOD that any be lost. So says 18:14. That is sometimes so much easier to hear in regard to "unbelievers" (of course that means, not believing in what I believe in, not that others don't believe). So we are intentional and manipulative in missionary work to get folks to believe as we do. Let's believe for a moment that we have been successful in our strategies and implementations to have uniformity of belief. We quickly learn that unbelief is not a solution to the human condition. What are we going to do when one of our very own believers “sins” against another believer? Well, first, recognize that believers are not equally humble and willing to admit that their belief might not cover their behavior - check out any addictive facility that deals with clergy and other religious and ask whether belief is a support for addiction. Response, Yep. Second, we need to recognize a need that goes beyond uniformity of belief to that of uniformity of behavior (mine, of course, being the standard). In some sense it takes two to sin. Just as there is a question about the sound of trees falling in the forest, so we need to ask how we know we have been sinned against. (No, I am not interested in justifying or excusing behavior, but to be aware of my own sensitivity to be sinned against - some have their sense of being sinned against set on high.) Third, whether or not reintegration into the community is effected in our time frame of acceptable return, we still affirm that it is not the desire of GOD that any be lost. Beyond our intentions against another or the receiving of behaviors against us, beyond our being processed into or out of community, we find that there is no magic technique that has more strength than a basic understanding that it is not the desire of GOD that any be lost. If this is our desire as GOD's partner as well, then we keep working on ourselves and with others to make those very practical decisions that go beyond belief and behavior to finding that spot where so many have found life - seeing the nature and the identify of GOD as love. Wesley White Romans 13:8-14 Just before this (verses 1-7) we have heard the wonders of government (of course we need the warnings of Revelations 13) and how we are to go along with the law of the land, as it is ultimately from GOD. That is always a dangerous position that forever slides over to tyranny. Mixing church with state seldom is anything other than a temporary help for a technical matter as it keeps sliding away from a partnership to bless over into a conspiracy of self-interest. It is this common wisdom of "my religion/country, love it or leave it" that will be dealt a mortal blow as we read on Here we hear a different story. It is not the law of the land that fulfills GOD's law, but the act of loving another (whether that is a legal love or not). So it is now incumbent upon us to know what's what. What's up is expanding the limiting laws of the land that advantage some to the disadvantage of others (darkness) and to bring the light of a loving life to enlighten our personal hypocrisies and our communal discriminations and choose against them. This appeal to love is worth provoking in one another. It is worth holding on to in the face of a temptation to legalisms that oversimplify the variations of life. Wesley White Psalm 149 or Psalm 119:33-40 Let's see, what shall we do with disputes on a national level? Ahh, Praise God and Pass the Ammunition! Be ready to exile and/or execute them! On both the personal and the national levels we find this option to divide and separate. Whether there is actual power to do so, the imprecations are indicative of intention should such power be present. Often it is helpful to rub scripture against scripture to see what unconsuming fire will be lit. Here we turn to Ps 119. Turn my eyes from looking at vanities - - and what is more vain than being judge of another's sin? Give me life in your ways - - work on self is more productive than that on others. I have longed for your precepts - - as some ask, God who? Which precept/God are you looking at? Might it be the righteous one of forgiveness or that of double pre-retribution? Wesley White Exodus 12:1-14 or Ezekiel 33:7-11 We watch for different things at different times. Our watching grows out of a particular past, is influenced by what is going on around us, and anticipates a future. In each of these ways our what we look for and what we see is shaped and constrained. When we watch inward to avoid a danger going door-to-door we begin to set up a particular community that will have strengths and weaknesses based on what is experienced. When we watch outward to avoid a danger on the horizon we set up a related community that will have strengths and weaknesses based on what is believable. Each has its place. One of the issues of the day is whether we look inward or outward. There is much to be said about hurricanes and a party people looking inward and sentinels looking outward who do not widen their horizon to encompass an inevitable event. Yesterday I helped clean up after a tornado a half hour from here. Yesterday I thought it silly to attempt to clean up after hurricane Katrina. I could see new life coming back after the tornado but I couldn't see the worth of forcing habitation in a reverse Red Sea setting where the waters are set to roll over instead of part (we don't live constantly in a miracle, we cross over and move on). Some of the same issues are alive and well between nations (Iraq, et. al., and USA, et. smaller al.) and between humans (sexuality being a key one in these days - fast and pray for Hearts on Fire being held this weekend). Are you looking inward or outward on these and other issues closer to your home? Are you paying attention to details filled with devils or horizons of hope? Are you acting on what you see and helping to shape new communities? Are you hunkering down for a long haul or starting to move toward a known issue and engage it directly? Is this part of self-preservation or investment in others? Obviously these are not mutually exclusive positions but they do shape our basic responses to one another and others. Wesley White Romans 13:8-14 New Orleans is a testing ground for the care shown one another. This test is for individuals such as myself and for institutions such as churches and schools and for governments large and small. When felt survival needs come around, what happens to organizing principles of loving one another and details in that of various “commandments” and such virtues as honor? If there was any doubt about the preoccupation every level has with its own benefit (always leaving somone else’s benefit to fend for itself) it has been revealed in the consequence of decision made years ago, by the current administration, and still by each of us. The consequence shows up in the Lord of the Flies or Mosquitoes or whatever fashion. Another way to put it is the invisible hand of Capitalism has been shown, the one that demands inequity to amass the most capital possible. Where then does this passage fit in? What mercies of GOD have we experienced that would hold us in good stead should we find ourselves as dramatically cut off as those left in New Orleans (revealing how undramatically folks have consistently been cut off up to this time)? Now that the covers have been thrown back and we see the consequence of knowing all manner of things which are inevitable and deciding to not keep up resources to care for them, will there be a shift in orientation? Will we see the callousness of paying off the rich with tax breaks when the result is so directly tied to such consequences? We can but hope a result is a new and larger appreciation for the progressive/prophetic perspective we have yearned for. I don’t usually agree with David Brooks but his editorial in the New York Times yesterday deserves a longer quoting: The Storm After the Storm “Hurricanes come in two waves. First comes the rainstorm, and then comes what the historian John Barry calls the "human storm" - the recriminations, the political conflict and the battle over compensation. Floods wash away the surface of society, the settled way things have been done. They expose the underlying power structures, the injustices, the patterns of corruption and the unacknowledged inequalities. When you look back over the meteorological turbulence in this nation's history, it's striking how often political turbulence followed. “In 1889 in Pennsylvania, a great flood washed away much of Johnstown.... The flood was so abnormal that the country seemed to have trouble grasping what had happened. The national media were filled with wild exaggerations and fabrications.... Prejudices were let loose. “Then, as David McCullough notes in "The Johnstown Flood," public fury turned on the Pittsburgh millionaires whose club's fishing pond had emptied on the town. The Chicago Herald depicted the millionaires as Roman aristocrats, seeking pleasure while the poor died like beasts in the Coliseum. “Even before the flood, public resentment was building against the newly rich industrialists. Protests were growing against the trusts, against industrialization and against the new concentrations of wealth. The Johnstown flood crystallized popular anger, for the fishing club was indeed partly to blame. Public reaction to the disaster helped set the stage for the progressive movement and the trust-busting that was to come. “In 1900, another great storm hit the U.S., killing over 6,000 people in Galveston, Tex. The storm exposed racial animosities.... “Then in 1927, the great Mississippi flood rumbled down upon New Orleans. As Barry writes in his account, "Rising Tide," the disaster ripped the veil off the genteel, feudal relations between whites and blacks, and revealed the festering iniquities. Blacks were rounded up into work camps and held by armed guards. They were prevented from leaving as the waters rose.... The racist violence that followed the floods helped persuade many blacks to move north. “Civic leaders intentionally flooded poor and middle-class areas to ease the water's pressure on the city, and then reneged on promises to compensate those whose homes were destroyed. That helped fuel the populist anger that led to Huey Long's success. Across the country people demanded that the federal government get involved in disaster relief, helping to set the stage for the New Deal. The local civic elite turned insular and reactionary, and New Orleans never really recovered its preflood vibrancy. “We'd like to think that the stories of hurricanes and floods are always stories of people rallying together to give aid and comfort. And, indeed, each of America's great floods has prompted a popular response both generous and inspiring. But floods are also civic examinations. Amid all the stories that recur with every disaster - tales of sudden death and miraculous survival, the displacement and the disease - there is also the testing. “Civic arrangements work or they fail. Leaders are found worthy or wanting. What's happening in New Orleans and Mississippi today is a human tragedy. But take a close look at the people you see wandering, devastated, around New Orleans: they are predominantly black and poor. The political disturbances are still to come.” Wesley White Matthew 18:15-20 It sounds so simple, so straight-forward and fair, this process of judiciously proceeding in matters of conflict. It is seldom seen to work as easily as described because of all sorts of pressures on complainant and defendant. We do need more assistance from JustPeace and other intentional restorative justice and conflict resolution processes. This vignette brings all manner of real life difficulties. Two days ago my role as symbol of the church was railed against by someone whom I had not met before and the police eventually had to take away for evaluation. Among the complaints of how the church had forced them to be damned was the locking of our doors when there was no regular business going on. They also had their finger on the greed that will be the downfall of this and every system and how the church had abandoned the poor. These accusations of having been sinned against are accurate, no matter the source or the number of witnesses. So often we read this passage as though we were the good guy who had been sinned against, have rallied a couple of witnesses of our righteousness, and had the power to stay while they were exiled. But this outline of a process takes on a whole new meaning when we consider that we are the ones doing the sinning. Just how willing are we to change our ways when confronted by our complicity in injustice? No wonder we don't even hear the cry of tens and hundreds of thousands of witnesses against our sin. We would loose our place. These words from an introduction to John Wesley's sermon 87, "On the Danger of Riches", comes at this from another, but, related, angle to describe a breakdown in this "scriptural process": "Many, if not most, of the newly rich Methodists were stubbornly, though quietly, unconvinced that their affluence, in and of itself, was a fatal inlet to sin. Thus it was that they simply ignored Wesley's insistence that they part with all but their 'necessaries and conveniences'. Moreover, their views had lately been fortified by the immense influence of Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations (1776). this turn of events was, for Wesley, both perplexing and frustrating. "Something of this mood is suggested by the fact that the very first 'original sermon' published in the Arminian Magazine is this one [ On The Dangers of Riches ]. It had been written in the late autumn of 1780 and appeared in the January and February installments of Vo. IV (1781) without a title. That was subsequently added when he included it in his "Sermons on Several Occasions", VII. On April 16, 1783, in Dublin, he preached from the same text. In 1788, he wrote and published yet another sermon, ' On Riches '. Then, in the very last year of his life, he wrote out yet another anguished warning on, ' The Danger of Increasing Riches '. If this trio of 'late sermons' is added to ' Sermon on the Mount: VIII' ; ' The Use of Money '; and ' The Good Steward '; and if these are then placed alongside the other frequent blasts against riches in other sermons and other writings, an interesting generalization suggests itself: surplus accumulation leads Wesley's inventory of sins of praxis. It was, in his eyes, an offense before God and man, an urgent and dire peril to any Christian's profession and hope of salvation. This is in clear contrast to the notion, proffered by the Puritans, but approved by others, that honestly earned wealth is a sign and measure of divine favor. What is interesting is that Wesley's economic radicalism on this point has been ignored, not only by most Methodists, but by the economic historians as well." Separation from the experience of life of the poor leads to complaints aplenty against one more tax cut or other "benefit" to widen the gap of what "common good" means. Now it is the one with the witnesses who is sent, bound, away. We are in the midst of community mourning, not for wind and water, but for sin revealed and unconfessed. September 11, 2005 - Year A - Pentecost +17 Wesley White September 11, 2005 Exodus 14:19-31 or Genesis 50:15-21 This day will have much echoing "terror". Just to remind us -- 9/11/2005 is but one of many events and focus on any one unbalances us. On this day we might also remember these other September 11 events: 146 - Septimius Severus born, Gibbon blamed him for start of Rome's decay and fall When we narrow our perspective down to one event or one interpretation of an event we narrow ourselves and our option. This narrowing also opens us to manipulation by this party or that. Being aware of this will help us deal with better evaluating responses to hurricanes and courts and other stormy places. Wesley White Matthew 18:21-35 I was struck by this graphic that shows the 7x.... conversation standing as background to all our interactions, whether individual or corporate. Sometimes we think this issue of forgiveness is one that only works on a personal level. The International Monetary Fund is only one of the places where a background of forgiveness needs to be seen. In fact its very work seems to set up the need for later forgiveness of debts. The aftermath of Hurricane Katrina provides evidence of the underbelly of capitalism that constantly stands in need of forgiveness for what it does to the poorest and loneliest of people and to the environment in which they live. Where else would it be helpful in your context to carry a mental image of Jesus' conversation with Peter about forgiveness? To keep this as the background against which our foregrounds are measured would both relieve us of burdens we accumulated as we moved through the past and direct our decisions toward a better future for all. Wesley White Romans 14:1-12 This is my beloved's birthday. She has a large enough perspective on life that where most folks would claim it is their "X" birthday, she claims "X+1" and says she has completed "X" years, but prefers living in "X+1". It is this kind of larger perspective that aids us when it comes time to be tempted to judge. Can we join my beloved in one of her favorite pronouncements, "They're doing the best they can with what they have"? This openness to that which is beyond our current seeing aids us in hanging in there, nonetheless. Just as she remembers Jung remembering Erasmus, "Called or not, GOD is present", just so we can see the presence of more than the surface. This brings a larger sense of time and a greater opportunity for growing with and forgiving. I am thankful to have her as a compassionate presence (she has even promised to nominate me for sainthood right after she strangles me). I pray you have your own compassionate presence to ground your temptations to judge too quickly and strongly. I pray you will be that compassionate presence, grounding the temptation of others to judge too quickly and strongly. It is appropriate for us to all help one another stand and to intercede on behalf of another when they fall that we might all be accountable in the present -- letting future accountabilities care for themselves. As you might guess, such openness comes from knowing the dark side of life without being overcome by it, but I'll wait to see what scripture comes around this time next year to get into that. ("Presuming, of course, I or we or you make it that far," as she would say, "in the meantime let evil rest and choose compassion" - see what I mean about a larger perspective being a source of grace so we can make more of the present than folks who are narrowly focused and day-trading their way along through time?) Wesley White Psalm 114 or Exodus 15:1b-11, 20-21 or Psalm 103:(1-7), 8-13 I, GOD, have shown mercy, but you have not passed it on. (How can this possibly be countered by anything other than annihilation?) GOD remembers we are dust, a wide, wide, steadfast love comes from this memory. Knowing the frailty and weakness of another can bring forth compassion. (Apparently there is no a reason to give up on anyone, no matter what the pain they have caused.) GOD transforms. A river is dammed. A sea is split. A mountain quakes. (Hurricanes happen.) GOD transforms. Rocks and flint become pools and springs. (Cities become swamps.) GOD transforms. Egypt was blessed by Joseph to make it through lean years. (Surprising sources of help are already present.) GOD transforms. Slaves were made of of Joseph's line. (Are transformations only for our immediate benefit?) GOD transforms. Slave-masters drown. Former slaves walk dry-shod. (The high are brought low, the lowly raised.) When does GOD cease transforming? Where do we place the limits of what is transformation by GOD and what is not? Right! Still at it, I see. Now, as GOD's partners, what will we transform? Wesley White Exodus 14:19-31 or Genesis 50:15-21 "Even though you intended it for harm, GOD intended it for good," so says Joseph. How does that work for the the next generations? How does that work for the first born - first dead? How does that work for Pharaoh's charioteers? How does that work for citizens of New Orleans? It seems that we need to own up to harm being harm before we can claim whatever good happens along. The current American administration seems incapable of owning up to its harm and so whatever good might be available is covered up by coverups. How does the harm/good combination work for you? Wise ones can find blessings under any number of rocks but that doesn't mean the rock isn't there or that the rock was required for the blessing. This is sort of like the expected result of the President led review of its own administration of a disaster -- "The results were harmful, but the effort and intentions were good." This whole approach is very close to trying to comfort a bereft parent by saying GOD wanted another little angel in heaven. This pronouncement of an attempt to always keep GOD in a good light is perhaps alright as a personal statement about a person's experience of the past in light of a now better present, but it is fraught with theological danger when moved into the communal arena. Here we are on a bit more solid ground when prophets announce that present behaviors are harmful and there will be a consequence for them that will do away with them to later allow good to flourish. It is not too late to announce: the administration claims they intended it for good, but GOD has revealed it as harmful evil. Wesley White Romans 14:1-12 You gotta love the way in which the one in charge of the imagery can pick and choose what to show and what not to show. That is currently going on with attempts to block the worst of the pictures from New Orleans, just as it was attempted with the caskets of dead soldiers being deplaned or any other less than adulatory portrayal of the one in power. Here you might look up Isaiah 49:18 and 45:23 to see how the line, "As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow...." has been pasted together. If we were to do the same with this passage we might be able to quote Paul, "For to this end Christ died and lived again, that God might welcome those seen as 'other'." (14:9, 3) As always it is important to judge what we read in the newspaper and in the Bible against what we understand to be a larger story. To read only what is on the page does a disservice to all concerned. How are you putting things together this week? Wesley White Matthew 18:21-35 By what criterion will you decide that it is time to shift gears from forgiveness to punishment for particular behaviors? How close to you does it have to be before this shift from the ideal to the actual becomes evident? In Matthew things shift all too quickly from steadfast love to gnashing of teeth. Is this a model we find to be helpful, practical, real? Are some behaviors worth 491 forgivenesses in a nanosecond and then out comes the retribution? It is this shift away from forgiveness to that which pushes folks back into an exile intended to separate forever that is worth meditating on. Is the king here King Herod or King Jesus? How has the church used this over the years to shun individuals and crusade against infidels? A modern midrash on this passage may be found in the dismissal of FEMA over the New Orleans relief effort. At first loyalty issues (you can read it merciful issues, if you want) take priority but when the king's policies are revealed (an intention to get as much material/power as possible) at a secondary level it doesn't take long for the king to persecute the one modeling the intention/behavior at the top. This shift insulates the king and scapegoats the underling. This reading shifts the behavior from forgiving from the heart to finding leverage over another to have them do your bidding. I find this all too easy a reading. We live as though GOD were petulant and ready to stomp us, and this story may help reveal our ambivalence about GOD. Read with care. September 18, 2005 - Year A - Pentecost +18 Wesley White September 18, 2005 Exodus 16:2-15 or Jonah 3:10 - 4:11 Privilege is an on-going question for people. We strive for it and and then get stuck on it. It becomes our "tar baby" . Usually we are not as fleet of humility as Brer Rabbit and would pridefully prefer the tar baby to the briar patch. We will hold our own "entitlement" just as long as we can. This week will challenge our usual ways of doing business and help us challenge business as usual from our prideful leaders lacking in expertise other than propaganda in its negative sense. Wesley White Matthew 20:1-16 Male, mostly Caucasian, heterosexual, educated, Protestant . . . . So run but a few of my privileges. Simply being born into this USofA culture brings a boatload of advantage baggage. In my case I can claim that I've been hard at work and persevered, so I am worthy of a little extra in my paycheck. Musically, Lou and Peter Berryman have yet another delightful song out explaining class differences, the refrain of which goes: "Hard work and perseverance, I ought to get an extra star in my crown for this accident of birth and circumstance. No affirmative action in my life, thank you. No consideration of the accident of the birth and circumstance of anyone else - - particularly "ladies", "colored", "homos", "retards" or "non-Bible believers" . . . . The upshot of this is that I get first claim on what is fair or unfair and it is unfair to not get paid more than one of these johnny-come-latelies. Since God is supposed to be fair and my not getting paid more is not fair, God doesn't have the prerogative to lump us all together and pay us all the same. Because God is supposed to be fair, the first ought to be first and the last deserve to be last. Its a good thing we came along this early in the week to keep those with a tendency to a liberal bias on the straight and narrow of appropriate privilege -- progressive prophets deserve better than we get. Want another dose of class warfare -- check out responses to hurricane relief. Too little, too late (who's going to care), promise jobs for everyone (they're too dumb to do the math), pay workers below scale no matter how hard they work (Trent Lott needs to get a better house back than he lost so the Royal W can go visit), pin medals on incompetent cronies (we're first, they're last), "etc., etc., etc." as says another king. Wesley White Philippians 1:21-30 v.27 - Simply live as citizens of a new commonwealth, pointed toward GOD, as was Jesus, so, whether I am with you or not, come hell or high water, I will know we are striving together. Not so simple, this. Dual allegiances and survival issues cloud the issue, as do inherent privileges so difficult to cast off. Is it better to go and be with GOD or stick around and be with y'all? Is it my physical life or spiritual life that is at stake as a result of my behavior? Is it the privilege I currently have that I need to wrestle with or the privilege I still secretly desire that shapes my interactions? To have one foot in here and now and another in what is just, maybe, coming clear is a risky place for faith to be revealed. Given this reality among us, it is perhaps the Christ position -- astraddle choosing points which are charging off in all directions. All the while, mostly consistently, finding a story large enough or contrary enough to keep choosing the best from the past for a better tomorrow. Simple, no. Worth striving for, yes. Uniform, no. Together, yes. Wesley White Psalm 105:1-6, 37-45 or Psalm 145:1-8 When the longest working workers finally figured out that "others" who worked the shortest were getting the same as themselves, their breath was sucked from them as if they had been hit in the solar plexus. It dawned on them that they had just been first-lasted. It was as if Psalm 105:44 had been used against them: "God gave 'them' the lands of the nations, and they took possession of the wealth of the peoples." Whether real or not, what was felt is the equivalent of a loss. The ratio that keeps me entitled to have bragging rights that night had just been re-calibrated. I can't be the one to buy the drinks because all could have their own bottle. After doing the work in the vineyard of extolling and praising GOD all the day long, we find, when we turn to our neighbor, we have praise-fatigue. We've spent so much energy "loving" GOD so much that there isn't any left to rejoice with a neighbor who has received more than anyone might have reasonably expected. Our very praise gets in the way of our fellowship. How ironic. How sad and pitiful we are. So, recognizing this limitation we have, might we find ourselves being better union members. Whether we belong to the union known as AFL or CIO or CHURCH, may we refuse to go to work/praise without those left to fend for themselves. The difficulty with the first workers didn't begin with their recognition of equal pay at the end of the day, but the avoidance of solidarity in the matter of a right-to-work/praise at the beginning of the day. Wesley White Exodus 16:2-15 or Jonah 3:10 - 4:11 In the morning, when some were chosen to work and receive payment, those left behind, unemployed, muttered. No, it doesn't say that, so this is projection. "If only"s were thought and some were spoken aloud. In the morning, when some were not chosen to work and receive payment, those proceeding to the vineyard, employed, rejoiced. Again, projection. "Whew"s were thought and some were spoken aloud. In the evening, when payment was made to the last hired, the one-hour workers, there was rejoicing. "Wow"s were thought and some were spoken aloud. In the evening, when payment was made to the first hired, the twelve-hour workers, there was consternation. "Unfair"s were thought and some were spoken aloud. What comes around, actually came around. This same shifting ground is going on right now with refugees from hurricane Katrina and an "administration". It went on with the folks just starting a trek toward a "promised land" (Exodus) and those who saw their dream of being on the right side of a widening gap between peoples (Jonah). It is going on with you and with me if we pause to reflect rather than just react from one moment to the next. A part of the prophetic nature is to be curmudgeonly. We, too, see great value in returning to a previous value system (it is just that ours, when we are at our best, goes back further). We, too, talk about consequences of present behavior and preach change to avoid it (it is just that we, at our best, expect change to happen and rejoice when it periodically does). We can identify with the desert travelers and the reluctant warners. Hopefully, we are also able to move beyond simple identity to care for drowned charioteers and foreign citizens and others in need. This takes some preaching to the choir to keep one another alert to the compromises we make and to lift our eyes beyond our present situation, to lift our eyes all the way to the shift from first to last and back again. Wesley White Philippians 1:21-30 And I'm hard pressed to know whether to align myself with the lucky or the unfortunate. Do I place my bets on personal responsibility or place my trust a mercy wide enough to accept a death-bed confession? Am I living as though I have a job assured or in the insecurity of being a temp among temps as a “new earth and heaven” is revealed? Am I looking for short-term gain or long-term sustenance? If I had a choice would I choose to be a first worker for the security it gives or a last worker for its surprise ending? Should I rapture myself off to be with Christ or re-enter a mission field to be a Christ? All these, and more, lead us into the realm of the political, the land of communal decision-making. We are called to live our politics in a manner worthy of the good news of first and last being categories for fools. As soon as you have said "first" you have to deal with "last" and vice versa. This is sort of like reverse tag where it seems no one wants to be "it" and yet there is such joy in the reversal of roles. We are all caught in this same struggle for clarity of meaning, action and consequence, that goes beyond a linear assessment. In the end we need to work at what we know -- the gift of being a creature in the midst of a creation filled with mutuality. So, I remain and continue with all of you (and many others) for your progressive joy with the firm expectation that you are remaining so with me. In this we move beyond our vacillation between first and last and find the abundance of a moment between. Wesley White Matthew 20:1-16 Ahh, what a state of affairs -- you meant it for ill and I turned it to good (remember Sir Joseph of the Coat?) and. now, I meant it for good (mercy to all) and you turned it to ill (charges of "unfair!"). Wherein lies the perspective that will free us from our knee-jerk speculations of what an event means? It seems we insist on making meaning even when none exists (unless you are one of those who asserts all things work for good, for whatever reason, or who assert that nothing works out, so Armageddon is constantly upon us). From what perspective might I find myself not relating things to previous states as a given? -- One benefit automatically means all subsequent events ought to be ever more beneficial and I crash when one isn't. -- Having been left behind so many times dooms me to being left behind forever and I fail the knocking opportunity when it arrives. Here the operative perspective is that of generosity. This is how we are to live our political lives. Here following the "General Rules" of early Methodism come in handy, as well as the "Use of Money". First, do no harm -- a generous act, in and of itself First, earn all you can -- that you might be more generous Wesley White Matthew 20:1-16 It is easy to get caught up in nuances between "minimum wage", "prevailing wage", "living wage", and other wage formulations. How might this story look through the lens of the arguments of the past several years of privatizing social security? Or the recently delayed (not good PR timing in the presence of a disaster) attempt to do away with estate taxes? These are only two of many USofA issues of privilege. I'd be glad to hear where this story, that caps that of the rich sorrowing away for their many possessions, hits home in other societies. How does this work in a market economy rather than a labor economy and how might it bring "good news" beyond the "happy news" in today's media/world? If you use this image as a jumping off place, what words do you put in Jesus' mouth? Is he talking to the disappointed left behind folk? Is he talking to the the disappointed first hired folk who didn't get more than they dreamed of? Is he talking to you? September 25, 2005 - Year A - Pentecost +19 Wesley White September 25, 2005 Exodus 17:1-7 or Ezekiel 18:1-4, 25-32 May the "imitation" of Christ be present in the gathered community (plural). In terms of church: How then would we carry on our intradenominational spats? our interdenominational separation? our interfaith ignorance? In terms of family: How then would we carry on our sibling rivalries? our unacknowledged co-dependence? our careful teaching of prejudice? In terms of work, recreation, or any other topic close to your heart: How does this work there? Wesley White Matthew 21:23-32 The authority card is still being played to this day. We recognize it best when it is played against us rather than when we play it. It is a quick and dirty way of cutting conversation and consolidating power. It is short-run effective and long-run deadly to our very desire to use it for good. It is this issue of authority that is played by every interest group and every status quo group that continues to bedevil church and state -- here there is no separation. What we don't usually have is a good response to any accusation that we lack standing to stand where we do. Here Jesus puts folks into the midst of the conundrum [def: a riddle whose answer is or involves a pun] that is found at the intersection of heaven and earth. This is usually a very creative (if scary) place to live. It is the arena where the real questions need to be faced, rather than the covering questions about authority. It is one of the most exciting lines in the prayer taught by Jesus -- come "presence of GOD" on earth as in heaven. It is this interplay between a flawed past trying to perpetuate itself and a better future trying to be birthed that engages every energy we have. Whether Jesus' questioners respond to his question or not doesn't really make any difference. Things eventually end up in the arena of faith being worked out in fear and trembling as well as in joy and peace. So here we are, commissioned simply by being alive or ordained by others to "take authority." We've got it, what will we do with it? That is a question from ourselves to ourselves. Even knowing that we will need to receive forgiveness for having taken authority, take it and apply it as best you can -- with generosity and mercy and saying what you mean and meaning what you say. Wesley White Philippians 2:1-13 Let the same love be in you that was in Christ Jesus, Therefore do we honor him So it is, my beloved, GOD the Lover is at work in you, enabling you to both desire and fulfill all good pleasure. Wesley White Psalm 78:1-4, 12-16 or Psalm 25:1-9 To continue the human / divine intersection for yet another moment. Does one lift up one's own soul, or is one's own soul made to be lifted up by GOD? Where do you put your trust, your authority? This debate has bedeviled us from the beginning. We are free partners authorized to lift up our soul. We are mere creatures under a tight leash. Different folks have different reasons for their orientation -- from being hardwired one way or the other to having formative experiences which have nurtured or pruned their arc of life. I expect most folks here to have some understanding of the both/and approach to living and loving. With identified leanings in one direction or the other we yet affirm the mystery of soul lifting. May you find your soul lifted (howsome'er such occurs) and may you be found lifting the souls of others (by what means are available). Can you see this as an Olympic event and yourself taking the bronze medal in soul-lifting? Bronze because you're so humble. What would a congregation look like that endeavored to take part in mutual soul-lifting? Wesley White Exodus 17:1-7 or Ezekiel 18:1-4, 25-32 There are so many riddles of life. Is baptism divine or communal? Can a staff that brings bloody water also be a staff that provides drinking water? Do the generations support me or am I the culmination of them? Does God give water to Moses at Meribah to support moving toward "a promised land" and hold Moses back at River Jordan on the eve of entering that land? How we read the story seems to depend on where we are situated. Are we focused on the divine (religiously/priestly) or the human (community/prophetic)? We will come at things differently and be more attuned to one part of the story or another. A grand trick of life is to keep experiencing until we can appreciate both, though at any given time one or the other is more called for. When is hardship of evacuation important and when is the comfort of temporary housing crucial? There is a time and a place for both and either can get in the way if we focus on it at the wrong time. Are we oriented toward anticipation and prevention or on response and band-aids? Both are needed but in differing proportions as time goes by. Am I really on my own before GOD or are we in this together so none will be saved until all are saved? Our understanding of this basic relationship between creature and creator, between GOD and Humanity will go far in determining how we interact between ourselves. Wherein, really, lies the distinction of social sin we all are part of and individual sin we are all part of? Trying to cut this Gordian knot with the sword of individualism is no more satisfying than avoiding it with the club of generational determinism. So many riddles, so few eternal verities. Perhaps the best we can do at the moment is to hear a larger positive intention of GOD to keep dealing in hope when we hear such a lament as, "I have no pleasure in the death of anyone." Wesley White Philippians 2:1-13 As parents we often have to come to that point of entrusting a next generation to learn life in the same way we did, in fear and trembling, in joy and peace, moment by moment. There is no benefit for them to gather the profit of our living without their having learned the lessons that came with that accumulation of wisdom. At some point we need to recognize our presence and our resources will not be sufficient for the next step of spiritual maturity by a following generation. They, too, will need to walk into to an unknown future. In some sense we do them a disservice to ply them with an estate beyond their learning. The whole argument about doing away with an estate tax is to play into the hands of a capitalistic class war and to avoid the wisdom of the saints regarding spiritual growth through the working out of salvation in each person and generation. Hear John Wesley on leaving an estate: "Do not leave it to them to throw away. If you have good reason to believe they would waste what is now in your possession, in gratifying, and thereby increasing, the desire of the flesh, the desire of the eye, or the pride of life; at the peril of theirs and your own soul, do not set these traps in their way. Do not offer your sons or your daughters unto Belial, any more than unto Moloch. Have pity upon them, and remove out of their way what you may easily foresee would increase their sins, and consequently plunge them deeper into everlasting perdition! How amazing then is the infatuation of those parents who think they can never leave their children enough! What! cannot you leave them enough of arrows, firebrands, and death? not enough of foolish and hurtful desires? not enough of pride, lust, ambition, vanity? not enough of everlasting burnings? Poor wretch! thou fearest where no fear is. Surely both thou and they, when ye are lifting up your eyes in hell, will have enough both of "the worm that never dieth," and of "the fire that never shall be quenched!" [Sermon 50, The Use of Money ] With this version of a vow of poverty we put one piece (but there are many others needed) in place that will aid folks to grow into the will and work of "good for all" (GOD and Neighbor as well as Self). Wesley White Matthew 21:23-32 Whether from the left or the right (depending which is in power at the time) we find we are afraid of the crowd in power or we scare the crowd out of power. Whether priest or prophet we are, from time to time, afraid of crowds that crowd around us and crowd out our integrity. We end up with the favorite sayings of all too many kids, "I don't know", "I don't care." And without these we find ourselves captured by that old bugaboo of "I'm bored" which means "I'm powerless" and "I won't act". As we wrestle with the issues of our day it is important to recognize that fringe groups are where the action is. Third parties don't have to win to change the conversation and decisions of the majority. Single-issue groups don't need a majority to make their point. But engagement to the point of challenge is crucial to perceived change becoming actual change. If we are only going to raise questions without having them be strong and persistent enough to challenge current behavior is to play the part of the religious leaders in this encounter. I've seen a recent comment that the abolitionists were never more than one-percent of the population but they stood for something other than decision by poll or majority. We are here, not to tell our authority, but to act on it. Forward. |
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