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February 5, 2006 - Year B - Epiphany 5
Wesley White
Isaiah 40:21-31
Psalm 147:1-11, 20c
1 Corinthians 9:16-23
Mark 1:29-39
Particularity is something we continually have difficulty with. It runs contrary to our desire for universal meaning. The particulars are always changing and challenging to any system. Exceptions are required and that throws us off our throne of omnipotence and all-knowingness.
When we finally find out we can't escape the particulars we dive into them so deeply that we lose track of our commonality, our inescapable links with one another past all the limits of kith and kin.
This week we do what we can to be open to the warp and woof of life, the common and the particular, the universal and the unique. When we begin to see them woven together we are a step beyond fear being a beginning place of wisdom.
Wesley White
Mark 1:29-39
If you had to narrow the teachings of scripture and tradition down to one and apply it as a salve to the woes of the world, what would it be?
I still hear many bemoaning the lack of blue laws, keeping Sunday clear of clutter and commerce. A variation on this is the way in which the school system has not kept up with keeping Wednesday nights free from activities and homework so there is one less excuse for youth to not participate in some form of Christian education.
Holy time is sensed as having expired.
To return to the days when the schools and businesses took care of the church would also return us to literalisms regarding slavery, women, race, and sexuality. This is not a good compromise if Christ's compassion is going to be operating in our life.
We don't get time handed to us on a plate. We do get to take advantage of opportunities that present themselves at both opportune and inopportune times. We do get to carve out renewal in dark and deserted times.
To rely on some other system to care for us, to ease our control of worship and spiritual growth opportunities, is not healthy. It makes us fat and lazy and expectant of being served, rather than serving. May we follow Jesus and Peter's unnamed mother-in-law in "Diakoneo" without separating its use so when used of women it is translated "serve" and when used of men is translated "deacon". Heal and teach and be renewed wherever you are and whenever you are.
Wesley White
1 Corinthians 9:16-23
An interesting place for resistance - "...if not of my own will, I am entrusted with a commission."
Twenty years ago a preacher friend talked about hearing a call, literally hearing a call, while at walking between college classes. "I want you in ministry with me," were the words he heard. Only after 25 years of being a pastor did he recognize his culture led him to interpret this as "ordained" ministry, because what else could "ministry" mean. Then he had to wrestle with what "ministry" meant for him. But what kind of wrestling could he do with issues of pension and insurance and family and retooling hanging over his head.
I would wish for fewer folks who were sure that their will and G*D's will were in sync, that there would be more wrestling with, and even running away from, a call to preach. In Paul's language they would be preaching death and resurrection, which means preaching counter to our culture that fends off death and doesn't trust resurrection. Then we might get gospel proclamation that challenges more than it comforts, that puts us to work rather than to wealth.
What resistance do you need to reactivate to strengthen the prophetic nature of your preaching, your witnessing in your life's opportunities? Even after 25 years it is worth revisiting how much of our journey has been a path of least resistance and how much more we need to argue with G*D and our particular community of faith.
Wesley White
Psalm 147:1-11, 20c
Would there were a direct correlation between my goodness and my health. A serious cold that I don't usually get has my head full and my heart empty. It has been too many days already. When is the lifting of the downtrodden, coughing, sniffling, can't sleep at night going to be a reality? A memory rather than a present experience?
And for some a depression goes on for decades. And for some dialysis goes on for years. And for some grief goes on for months. Surely hope can live. But when it comes to this one instead of some someone, a week seems plenty long enough to wait for a controllable God that will get me back on top of my game instead of up typing at this wee hour.
How do we sing in this strange land of illness, of betrayal, of limits? By humming somewhere between a bass and a baritone, outside my usual range?
Does the Lord take pleasure in those who aren't up to much hoping, much less fearing? Hope so.
Wesley White
Isaiah 40:21-31
Have you not known? Have you not heard?
Punxsutawney Phil has made it clear.
The weather must be perfect, all the year!
Can Phil compare to G*D?
Even when underground, before sticking a weather eye out for shadowlands, Phil is not hidden from G*D. G*D hibernates not nor rests since one seventh day for seven suns.
Still, Phil, humble prognosticator (several light days below prophet) can reveal the ground of being who we are.
Those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength,
they shall doze in the dark with marmots,
they shall stick their nose out and investigate,
they shall see their shadow and not faint.
So, bless a candle, light it and hold it high. Christmas ends, Easter begins. It is the turning of the year beyond that of a calendar. This is the time for that resolution you've been dreading - the one you will stick to.
Make the most of this day, dig out your CD of Groundhog Day and read the review by Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat. Might this be the ordinary day that is the best day of your life? See yourself through resurrection eyes, making the changes that you need to make because the rest of your games are ultimately frivolous (floating in the sky instead of building on the ground).
Wesley White
1 Corinthians 9:16-23
Martin Buber echoes verse 19 in his book, Good and Evil .
"I am free" follows one in a whirlpool, letting go and catching on to event after event or seeming security after seeming security. Without an anchoring spot the winds of doctrine sweep one away. One form of evil - freedom.
"I made myself a slave" follows another in that same whirlpool, hanging on for dear life to the first support one finds and never letting loose. Without a graceful hand that knows when to hold 'em and when to fold 'em, doctrine turns into a club. One form of evil - slavery.
An older version of a charge to parents at an infant baptism puts before them the challenge that their life "become" the gospel. That wonderful word, "become", works in both maturing and beautifying ways.
To play with these pairs, when we are both free to leave and bound by loyalty we find comeliness (the beauty of a glorious weakness). And, a thing of beauty is a joy - forever.
February 12, 2006 - Year B - Epiphany 6
Wesley White
2 Kings 5:1-14
Psalm 30
1 Corinthians 9:24-27
Mark 1:40-45
Do you do what you do do for a reward?
Well, a word of thanks would be nice.
If you do it for reward, will you then take back what you do if thanks or other recognition is not given in the way you desire it to be shown?
What do you do for either the sheer joy of doing it or because it is what you understand is asked of you to be in touch with a larger meaning of life? Yes, count those ways!
Wesley White
Mark 1:40-45
Translators have to choose which ancient manuscript they will translate from. Does Jesus respond in "pity" or in "anger"? As you know from your own experience there is sometimes only a knife-edge of difference between the two.
Rather than trying to justify a strict constructionist position for one or the other, one way to cut such a Gordian knot is simply to look at Jesus' response. Whether out of pity or anger, Jesus affirms his choice to heal brokenness.
I suppose motivation does makes a difference to the one doing the healing, but the one being healed doesn't seem to care a whit about such.
In turn-about fashion. It doesn't seem to make much difference to Jesus what motivation the healed man had for blabbing about this healing, in direct contravention of his instructions. Whatever the healed one had in mind (presume something good here) the result was Jesus spent more time in the wilderness, beyond town boundaries.
So where do we find intentions being of less consequence than responses? Whether for consistently good reasons or lousy ones, I'd be glad to get the U.S. out of Iraq, we don't need a permanent military base in that region. Again, regardless of where folks would find their justification, I'd be glad to have the U.M.C. and other denominations recant their over-generalized response to human sexuality of homosexual/bad, heterosexual/good. And, whatever the rationale folks need to use, I'd be glad for an unlinking of power with money and violence with redemption.
Wesley White
1 Corinthians 9:24-27
Do you not know that in a race the runners all compete, and everyone receives a prize?
Our competitive environment leads us to think there is only one winner per race. If everyone, then, is going to win (good old universal salvation) then there will be a whole series of races until one race has only one runner. Actually it is this last race that exemplifies all the others. Everyone competes against their own limitations and dreams of what might yet be.
I can still remember being a 440 yard high school record setter and conference champion. That qualified me for the state tournament, where I came in last. Believe it or not, I learned more in that last race than I had in all the previous ones and it held me in good stead when I went to the university and was on the track team.
I didn’t get the perishable gold medal, but the imperishable one of clarity on what goal I was really running for – running to be the best runner I could be and the best learner I could be.
I wonder what Paul would think of the Special Olympics and how that would inform his imagery of faith journeys.
We sometimes set very high goals for everyone that forces everyone to fudge to make themselves seem better than they are. Our religious language actually gets in the way of our spiritual maturity.
Wesley White
Psalm 30
When we remember the dispute between Jesus' response to the leper's request as one of anger or pity, we can play a bit here as we hear G*D's anger being for a moment and G*D's favor/pity for a lifetime.
Often times we hear popular religion getting this the other way around. A basically angry God can be temporarily placated with a bit of repentance, the recitation of dogmatic mantras, or lots of lout praise. When sufficient has been done, God will have pity and we can move on to repeat the cycle because we are very unoriginal sinners who repeat basic sins again and again.
So, how does this model show up in your life? What G*D are you imaging? Are you equal parts of anger and pity? Are you weighted toward anger? Toward pity? Is your current balance one you want to keep or change? Why? So what are you doing to keep or change it?
Wesley White
2 Kings 5:1-14
Ahh, the mighty, still liable to disease, shame, and death. Even in the face of acknowledged disaster, we strive to stave it off with our little perks of power.
Laughter seems appropriate when seeing Naaman struggling with knowing what to do, who to see, and finally listening, no matter how half-heartedly, to a wee slave girl. Naaman must have been feeling particularly vulnerable to listen to one of the mute folks, the underclass, the slaves, the (fill in your own description of the no-accounts).
Even so he struggles to maintain his place, to pay for the non-purchasable, for the priceless. He looks for a healing production worthy of his status. And he gets something open to anyone, anytime.
I wonder if Elisha was also filled with anger and pity while dealing with Naaman. Anger and Pity may be qualities that are not bound by circling exiles or centers of authority.
It would be interesting to have Naaman converse with the unnamed leper before their healings, to have them experience their healing in two different ways, and to reflect together on how they understood what happened to them. This conversation might open up new opportunities for us to hear one another in our various stages of mortality. We might get a better glimpse into where anger needs to be directed and where pity might be liberally applied.
Wesley White
1 Corinthians 9:24-27
In the journey of spiritual maturity (a wonderful, never-ending story), we all compete with ourselves. Each race is to best use a unique set of gifts, experiences, and expectations. When all is said and done the question is how far I have come and how much further I have to go. There is no stage of life from preconception to resurrection where this is not the case. We all can rejoice that we have come thus far. We can all rejoice that we're not done yet.
The only disqualification is that of being unaware that the salvation of one is the salvation of all and vice versa. We disqualify ourselves, we are not disqualified from above (that's where the qualification is already accomplished and from when we might get back in the race to be whole as G*D in Christ in you desires to be whole through a process of having our children, our image, stand on our shoulders and go further).
So, we don't close our eyes and run off in all directions. We sense our call and those called alongside and strike off for the preferred future that yet awaits.
Enjoy your journey. Enjoy the journey of others. Coach others. Receive coaching from others. Becoming who we are (being who I am) is a worthy prize.
Wesley White
Mark 1:40-45
"When it gets too dangerous inside the religious establishment, Jesus stays out in the country. John Wesley did the same thing! Maybe that is where some of us will need to go."
Read more of this Reconciling Ministries Network Devotion.
February 19, 2006 - Year B - Epiphany 7
Wesley White
Isaiah 43:18-25
Psalm 41
2 Corinthians 1:18-22
Mark 2:1-12
Faithfulness is an important category for meaning.
There is a call to be faithful to the past, but not so rigidly that we fail to be faithful to an emerging future.
There is a call to be faithful to neighbors and to G*D without one negating the other.
There is a call to a faithfulness that goes beyond consistency, else we couldn't participate in justice for both the poor and the rich, the strong and the weak.
Wesley White
Mark 2:1-12
"The content of faith is not some or other proposition about Jesus; this Jesus has repeatedly rebuked. The content of faith is rather this holy impatience, this all out, go for broke, determination that the lame be made to walk. . . .
"It is not hard to see why the clear meaning of this episode has been assiduously covered up by ecclesiastical exegesis. The words of Jesus' opponents, 'Only God can forgive sins,' are repeated with mind boggling and pious regularity by those who suppose that they are followers, not of the scholars, but of Jesus! This is possible only by a kind of exegetical slight-of-hand that substitutes the religion of the experts for the word and deed of Jesus. In this, as in so many other respects, the Christian scribes have succeeded in remaking Jesus into the founder of the sort of religious tradition that he meant to abolish! The word and deed of Jesus is as destructive of religious Christianity as it was of religious Judaism." [from The Insurrection of the Crucified by Theodore W. Jennings, Jr.]
Again and again we read these stories from the perspective of giving Jesus more than every benefit of the doubt so we can turn them into propositions about forgiveness rather than faithful deeds. What challenge is present here to your usual way of hurrying through this story because you think you learned it in Sunday School?
Wesley White
2 Corinthians 1:18-22
"Yes!"
"Let there be!"
"Yes!"
"It is good!"
"Yes!"
"G-D is faithful!"
"Yes!"
"Promises to be!"
"Yes!"
"First, Spirit is in our hearts!"
"Yes!"
"G-D establishes us in Christ!"
"Yes!"
"Bring a Friend!"
"Yes!"
"Amen! Yes! Amen!"
Even if you see a glass as half-empty, it is still possible to say, "Yes!" Even if you see the world realistically and note all the ways in which it has gone awry and the ways in which it might yet be redeemed, it is still possible to say, "Yes!" Especially if you see a glass half-full, it is important to say, "Yes!" In each case we are called to actually beyond saying, "Yes!" to living "Yes!" in each situation in which we find ourselves.
We have been affirmed. Let us affirm.
Wesley White
Psalm 41
Even though verses 6-7 may refer to the construction of worthless idols, there is still a word of encouragement here. Whether the friends of the paralyzed one had built Jesus into a healing idol in their minds or not, they caught the Markan sense of faith - persevere through challenging times - in the phrases they probably used back and forth between one another, "Take courage!" and "It is good."
The dynamic is true for us whether we use it in regard to our-one-true-faith or something we are only hoping-against-hope for. We work to support one another even if we have a vision of G*D supporting us, all and each. We don't just sit back and wait in silence, but we charge against barriers to wholeness. If "The Lord" acts first, wonderful, but we won't wait to find that out.
Charge! (That's just another way to spell "faith".)
Wesley White
Psalm 41 Correction
If you wondered where the comments about Psalm 41 were coming from, they came from Isaiah 41. Ahh, the joy of stress that affects one's perception. If these comments can't even be trusted to be in the correct book, how can they be trusted at all.
I still stand by the comments but would confess they are misattributed. So, make up your own comment about Psalm 41.
If you would care to look at Psalm 41: 6-7 it would still be possible to reflect on the way that even those who love G*D find ways to whisper incorrect doctrines and imagine the worst of God. All of this paralyzes their spirit, if not their body, as they attempt to protect G*D's good name and freeze G*D into being the same today as yesterday, as though today were not different from yesterday and as though G*D were not alive.
Believers need as much on-going forgiveness as those we name as sinners.
Wesley White
Isaiah 43:18-25
Remember good-old Jesus, teaching away in the synagogue. Then comes a load of sin through the roof. This is an opportunity to keep on teaching and rebuke the interruption. It is also a time to remember Isaiah 43:24-25: you have burdened me with your sins but I blot out your transgressions for my own sake, to be consistent with my own teaching, my own image.
What do you do with the loads of sin that come your way to interrupt an otherwise wonderful life? It is so easy to keep holding folks sins against them and so hard to move on, to remember not such sin, to help folks stand without the props of certainty and socio-religio-politico-trappings.
Even when sinned against, G*D forgives. What do you do when sinned against?
Wesley White
2 Corinthians 1:18-22
"For all that has been, thanks. For all that will be, yes." [Dag Hammarskjold]
The "yes" of promises made and implied still needs the "amen" of implementation.
The "yes" of promises re-evaluated and then set aside could use the "whew" of relief.
The "yes" of promises re-evaluated and reconfirmed anticipates an "amen and amen" of getting on the stick of implementation.
Promises don't just sit around waiting. As messages they are massaged along the way. This might let us off the hook of acting as we wait to see whether the promise was a flash-in-the-pan or persistent. If we use it in this fashion we will lose the joy of partnering with the future. So, even though the "yes" of promises is yet a bit indefinite, jump in with as many feet as you have available. Even a tip-toeing toward tomorrow is better than being firmly planted in what all too quickly turns to the cement of deeds that follow us into eternity.
Wesley White
Mark 2:1-12
There are times when I am the paralyzed one. It is then necessary for me to trust my friends to carry me along.
There are times when I am one of many who help to carry someone who is paralyzed in one way or another. It is good to be in concert when doing this as folks pulling in different directions are helpful neither to the other carriers (in a good way) or to the one being carried.
As we continue with this passage, it is important to remember the action implied in miracles involving faith. Whether the faith is on the part of the healer, the friends, or the ill, it is a faith that refuses to stand down from an understanding that the future can be different than the present.
May you be steadfast in your future orientation.
February 26, 2006 - Year B - Epiphany Last/Transfiguration
Wesley White
2 Kings 2:1-12
Psalm 50:1-6
2 Corinthians 4:3-6
Mark 9:2-9
It is so easy for Christ to be veiled. We fear to tell the truth we know and reduce it to the truth an institution knows. We are in the presence of light that brings together all our relevant past and illumines a direction from here and have no idea how to translate such an experience into language for ourselves or any one else. We fear that judgment is going to be condemnatory, not forgiving and we lose track of the presence of a G*D of steadfast love. We look for a double share of grace and turn it to our own advantage, hiding, not revealing, Christ.
Wesley White
Mark 9:2-9
In a conversation last night we tried to get away from a mechanistic approach to faith of "making disciples". This simply doesn't accord with our experience of forgiveness and grace. As we looked at the dynamics of our faith journey we found. oh, so many, temptations to constrain the presence of G*D, whether through Jesus or not. One of the biggest temptations we acknowledged is a sense of control or entitlement to "make" someone.
A shorthand way of articulating a dynamic vision statement that would call us into a better future turned out, for this evening, to be, "revealing Christ".
"Making disciples" has a feel of the blood and gore approach to atonement. "Revealing Christ" moves us to a creation centered, liberation energized attunement to Christ already present in the best and worst of times and folks. We are not called to create out of whole cloth the next generation of Christians, but to model the presence of G*D-with-us in our own lives. The healing and teaching needed is already present, it needs to be released as we travel with our Eastern Orthodox sisters and brothers toward divinization ( theosis as the backdrop for the Wesleyan tradition of "going on to wholeness") and community (having all things in common). Perhaps just a longer way of living a love with G*D and neighbor and self and enemy.
Try on this "releasing," instead of "making," language for yourself and see how you would complete these sentences:
Christ is released for . . . .
and
Christ is released from . . . .
Was this exercise transfiguring for you?
Wesley White
2 Corinthians 4:3-6
And just how powerful is the "god of this world" that it can blind folks from a "God ... who has shone in our hearts"?
It is all very well to try to make this an external game between divinities, but ultimately it is pretty unsatisfying to have to eternally see good in ourselves and bad in others. Somehow or other we tend toward setting up untenable arguments that are good for bashing, but not for healing. Here predestination is right around the corner. Our good, all powerful God must have allowed others to be condemned to blindness as a lesson to us to keep on the straight and narrow with this God.
This sounds a bit like those lists that claim a good quality for myself when I am behaving poorly and a bad quality for you when you are exhibiting the same behavior. If any of you have access to one of these lists, I'd appreciate getting it. some examples are: I am forceful, you are ruthless; I am fair and balanced, you are partisan.
Wesley White
Psalm 50:1-6
Compare verse 3, "Our God comes and does not keep silence, before him is a devouring fire, and a mighty tempest all around him" with the presence from the cloud in the Transfiguration scene which is not silent about "belovedness".
What connection do you see between a devouring tempest and a beloved child?
Wesley White
2 Kings 2:1-12
Elijah comes and goes and comes again. Jesus comes and goes and comes again. Consider that you are part of this same pattern of coming and going and coming again.
We tend to get all caught up in coming and staying and staying. As long as we have these attachments it will be all too easy to identify with the disciples who want to build some temples where they can stay and stay and stay or with any political group that has an edge it will hone and hone and hone.
The desire we are left with as we leave Epiphany behind is that of moving on. Elisha finally had to let go of Elijah and his own past choices in clothing and pick up Elijah's left-behind cloak. The disciples finally had to let go of Transfiguration and quietly go down the mountain. You and I finally have to use our belovedness and entrust ourselves to leaving our places of established security.
We have come. It is time to go. It is time to trust there will be a coming again and to practice the spiritual disciplines of letting go.
Wesley White
2 Corinthians 4:3-6
Our transfiguration: their blindness. So we set Shi'a against Sunni, evangelical against progressive, democrat against republican, sister against sister, me against myself.
The expected resolution is that they will become us. The reality is that we draw closer to one another and never achieve uniformity.
Let's take the glory shining in our hearts and see through the outstretched arms of a cross the gift of forgiveness that does not demand one to one correspondence in all things, but honors the differences as well as the similarities (and the similarities may be harder to swallow than the differences).
Light your knowledge and offer it in the presence of the light of the knowledge of others.
Wesley White
Mark 9:2-9
Transfiguring moments come in the midst of being kneaded by the experiences of life and the presence of G*D that moves beyond those experiences. I thought the derivation of the word from an image of "kneading" is one that could be played with.
I have kneaded bread. There is a stretching and turning and folding and refolding that is very much like a midlife crisis that comes to re-orient past experiences and future dreams and present circumstances. They get stirred around, moved past one another, placed in different relationships.
Here is Jesus hearkening back to creation’s goodness and baptism’s belovedness. Here is Jesus continuing to ask a question recently on his mind, "what can be given in return for life?" Here is Jesus anticipating the distance of anonymity of death (whirlwinds and who knows where he lies) and the prophetic condemnation to loneliness, forsakenness, and betrayal. Where do belovedness and forsakenness come together? How can any of this be spoken of.
Unlike some whose kneading takes place over years as we muddle through to rise again, Jesus seems to bring these together and to have that shine of risen dough that says its time to go to the oven to see what we're made of. Shine, Jesus, shine. So what, Jesus, so what? Back to living, Jesus, back to living.
Transfiguration is a lovely, shining moment that confirms a direction in life. For some of us our transfigurements confirms a new direction in life, while other are confirmed in continuation. What began as proofing (activating yeast) now has been proved by kneading dough and will soon enough become the bread of life, the staff of life, the stuff of life.
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