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Lectionary - January 2006 |
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January 1, 2006 - Year B - Christmas 2 Wesley White Isaiah 61:10 - 62:3 A new year rolls around. Is it new or a repeat? Probably some of both. The excitement of the birth is over, the journey from "home" to "home" has cycled through an oppressors census. Now it is on to usual rituals and expected maturing. As we return to our usual routines, do we still expect to grow in wisdom? How might that look in 2006? What needs to be ignored? What paid attention to? There is going to be falling and rising this next year. Are you ready? Ready to take your part in bringing both to pass? If you are looking for redemption of Jerusalem or the Earth or whatever, a helpful starting place is looking for your part in a redemptive process, claiming it, and following where it leads. Wesley White Luke 2:22-40 Even the newest revelation seems to require the oldest of traditions to affirm it. Later we will find Jesus transforming the rituals, but here the folks around Jesus seem to need more than angelic visitations and reports from the shepherd. They need the affirmation of the traditions that will later take second place instead of first. In addition to the angels and shepherd from a few days earlier, we now have Simeon and Anna raising their witness about this babe. There is a sense in which the best clowns need to have the highest skills, be among the best practitioners, of what it is they are spoofing. In this sense Jesus needs the firmest foundation in the rituals and the study of the faith of Israel. With these under his belt he can teach with authority and move beyond the rituals and accumulated wisdom of the people. If Mary and Joseph had been up for following up on the angels and shepherd, reinforced by Simeon and Anna, they might have begun the process of stepping away from what had been. This, apparently, wasn't a possibility for them and so pigeons are sacrificed. For now a question of ourselves and what traditions we still feel necessary for our well-being. What tradition coming up will you be able to walk away from? Will it be New Year's Resolutions, Epiphany Gifting or Assumptions of a heterosexual-only Valentine's Day? Wesley White Galatians 4:4-7 Yesterday we had an opportunity to spend time with our adopted grandson and his parents. Why this child, out of all the millions of children that need a new home? Why the need to raise an image of oneself, when some choose to adopt and some choose not to? "Paul employs the theme of inheritance, introduced in chapter 3, to dissuade the Galatians from becoming circumcised." [ The New Interpreter's Study Bible ] There are other arguments that could be made to not follow the Jewish law of circumcision. So the adoptive role is not unique to the situation and therefore not required. This opens the arena of speculation regarding adoption. In some sense this is simply a welcoming home, as in the tale of the Prodigals. The creation image of G*D was never lost (even if it be rudimentary [elemental] in some, or even all). Prevenient Grace has kept us all within the purview, providence, and provisions of G*D's image. This is a recovenanting as much as it is an adoption. This accords better with the sense of coming to maturity that is Paul's endpoint reason for dismissing circumcision as a requirement. Adoption has a legal feel to it that may or may not get lived out in the formation of a real family. There are poor adopters and adoptees as well as good one. Again and again we need to look beyond the formal relationship to the lived relationship. Wesley White Psalm 148 More than Simeon is looking for an expression of G*D that will be recognizable and establish the dignity of the people, people beyond the rulers. Here all of creation is on tiptoe, the manger scene many times larger. One of the questions regarding our hope, what it is we are looking for, is what we anticipate our response will be to finding evidence of things coming 'round right. Do we expect to be thankful with such evidence? Will we use it to be able to say, "I told you so," to those without the same picture of a preferred future? Will we accept it and humbly, or not, ask for more evidence to corroborate this beginning piece? Another way of addressing this is to wonder about the absence of some folks and how that holds rejoicing at bay. This Psalm is inclusive. Praising is a unifying factor and takes unity to pull off. Who is not on board because they have learned from the rest of us that they are not welcome? It is time to change that message and start by joining them in whatever praise they have that the praise of the rest of creation might be brought to bear and join them in rejoicing. Wesley White Isaiah 61:10 - 62:3 I believe I am praised out for the moment. Suffice it to say, "Hooray for G*D!" Oh, by the way, a big Hooray! for those who go on to include more folks in the Hooray!ing by dealing with the healing issues of salvation. Wesley White Galatians 4:4-7 "When the fullness of time had come" suggests one of those once-for-all moments. Even so it is possible to see the fullness of time as a quality that is ever present. If the cosmologists are right about an ever expanding universe, whizzing in every direction it can whiz, then "fullness" is always present. Suppose for a moment that not only did G*D "send" Christ Jesus, born of a woman, born into a specific context in order to set folks free from the limits of that same context that they might continue maturing and not get caught in a perpetual adolescence, but that G*D has also given direction to you -- born of a woman, born into a specific context with its legalisms, in order to set folks of this day free from the limits of the current blinders to a better future and help them mature into it. "When the fullness of time comes" is a convenient excuse to leave everything in the hands of a master puppeteer who will care for all things. It is a state of mind of a slave, a minor, of romance and a coming prince. "The fullness of time is here", "This is the acceptable day of Jubilee", is the fullest way to live. Enjoy it, though it cut the old duties out from under us. Wesley White Luke 2:22-40 How fortunate, Simeon -- one of so many who are so sure they will see G*D in their life and who claim that surety is completed in one heart-warming moment or other. I am not so sure. Time after time -- justice is delayed, meanness rises to the top. I no longer expect to see the healing of the peoples, but rejoice in the healing of this one or that. The falling all too real: the rising all too distant. Anna's who have so much to say are still not heard. And yet I am called to finish that which has come down to me and to grow further in wisdom. We polish the past and open the future. Hooray for Simeon sure and assured by such a little thing as a baby. Tonight we host our adopted grandson while his parents are off for a relaxing night away. Hooray for us and all who are unsure and still nurture a baby. May we work with the Children's Defense Fund and UNICEF and all others, sure and unsure, who simply care for babies whose strength and wisdom may finally polish off our past and open their own future beyond our wars and rumors of war. To catch a glimpse of such a future read The Fifth Sacred Thing by Starhawk or anything by Ursula LeGuin. For now, join Anna in speaking what you can about re-redemption (going past buying or ransoming to graceful hope in so little). In so doing we honor Christmas, have the energy to enter one more year, and bring our Epiphany gift. January 8, 2006 - Year B - Epiphany 1 Wesley White Genesis 1:1-5 While ordinarily titled The Baptism of the Lord we might also look at these scriptures as another creation story. Whenever we look beyond the form we are dealing with creation. Sometimes this is interpretive creation as in midrash. Sometimes creativity is seeing the new already present in the midst of the present, only covered over in status quo . May our eyes be opened to not only see a star leading, but the consequences following. Wesley White Mark 1:4-11 "We may have here the echo of an oracle of Isaiah: [Isaiah 42:1,4].... The voice, thus pronounces a commission to establish an international rule of justice. How this is to be done is what we must learn from the narrative. But it is already clear that what Jesus is up to is precisely this: the establishment of the just empire of God. Jesus has a political, indeed an imperial mandate. In the bible, spiritual and political matters are not separate things; they are the same thing. The difference is not between politics and spirit, but between a divine and a worldly politics, between justice and oppression, between the politics of God and the politics of idolatry." [The Insurrection of the Crucified: The "Gospel of Mark" as Theological Manifesto by Theodore W. Jennings, Jr.] This is a huge expectation for one to live up to. Like those disappointed on the road to Emmaus, we are finally getting to the disappointment that after 2,000 years the politics of God are still being trumped, in God's name, by the politics of idolatry. A question comes to mind: did Jesus intentionally avoid the prophetic and messianic expectations of an empire of God or did he find the only way possible (spiritual jujitsu) to move through the resistances of his day? How do you hear a call to you to be GOD's beloved? Can it but lead you to risky side of salvation where the temptations, fears, tremblings, and politics are located? What prophetic action grows from your belovedness? what spiritual jujitsu? Surely it is not a beckoning to simply bask in a gauze-wrapped soft-focus slide through life. Wesley White Acts 19:1-7 Here we have a speaking in tongues that would tend to equate it with Pentecost. A difference is that this is an internal speaking, not a sharing of the good news to folks with different languages or cultures. This, in some sense, is a sign of assurance to those folks, like the rainbow to Noah, not an extension of a new covenant. A difficulty comes when a response to baptism becomes legislated as a norm. Different folks have different forms of assurance needed, given, and received. Similar distinctions can be made with the issue of prophesying. If we can get "prophesying" out of the realm of "predicting", we can begin to see a parallel with praising and setting a vision of a preferred future. We can also see prophesying as an extension of "me" and unconcerned about the life context of "you". "Speaking in tongues and prophesy" have some similarities, but also some differences from "speaking in different languages and praising". This leads to the question of how bedrock a matter is baptism. Is it as uniform as some try to make it or is there room for a variety of experiences claimed as a baptism and an assortment of responses to baptism? Where are the commonalities of "baptism" to be found and where is there room to appreciate a Holy Spirit that moves as the wind, unpredictably. Wesley White Psalm 29 We are called to ascribe (give) glory to G*D. In return G*D is called to ascribe (give) peace to people. G*D gives belovedness in baptism. In return baptism leads us to remember G*D in the midst of the temptations of life. The parallels here are glory/remember and peace/beloved. These can be played with in every encounter in life. Wesley White Genesis 1:1-5 In the Baptism, when G*D began to create belovedness, humans were formless. Then G*D said, "Let there be light "; and there was light. By that light G*D saw what was good and G*D clarified belovedness. G*D called the light Beloved and the darkness G*D called Dream and Possibility. And there was evening dream and there was morning light , the first day. Out of chaos we find belovedness arising. It begins the shaping of the formless. Belovedness is the desire of the formless (Thanks be, G*D's light brings this to light). It is beginning and end, evening and morning. Have you set the belovedness already formlessly present in your heart to work calling forth more belovedness within yourself and others? Have you received the name Beloved? Have you given the name Beloved to another? Have you seen the formless nonsense of the day being resolved into the shape of a beloved preferred future? Big stuff in a big image. Wesley White Acts 19:1-7 Who is it that is your fixed star, your anchored leg of a compass, that allows you to leave well enough in their hands while you pass into an interior region? Who will you trust to watch over your exploring and/or your dying with a formal or understood power of attorney? It is important to have an Apollos or two or three in your life. Be sure to thank them as you travel on. They play the role of John the Baptist in ritualizing your leave-taking, of Barnabas the Encourager, of the attending saints, of G*D naming you Beloved, etc. We really can't do without our Apollos' without withering. Wesley White Mark 1:4-11 John exclaims, "The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me...." This raises a question, "What is power? What is authority?" In this passage, what is invested in the one coming is that of Belovedness. Belovedness is power. Relationship is power. Compassion is power. Healing is power. Teaching is power. Forgiveness, even without repentance, is power. This reversal of our usual attempts at power through a variety of external controls is worthy of a big crack in the cosmic egg, a tearing apart of the fabric of heaven and earth. Instead of an eagle swooping down from heaven to place its talons in the nape of one's neck to drag you where you would otherwise refuse to go, to make a puppet of you, here we have the dove that brings a sign of a new earth (after a flood), a new heaven (one with a rainbow). What are you aware of in your own life that is less than it could be, but it is currently all you are able to do? What sense do you have that there is something better coming? In these ways we follow John and anticipate the best we can do, water baptism, is not the best that can yet be. Let us continue point the way to a better way. January 15, 2006 - Year B - Epiphany 2 Wesley White 1 Samuel 3:1-10, (11-20) The call to new life and new relationships comes at the strangest of times and in the unexpected of places. Are you dozing off during a sermon? A call could come then. Are you just tootling along life's byways? A call could come there. Are you already showing your patriotic allegiance to some state or tradition? A call could come then and there. Are you simply following the path of least resistance in a culture? A call could come there and then. As you pay attention to your schedule for this week, know that you could be called out of some previously scheduled event or, where there is nothing scheduled, a surprise fulfillment may suddenly be visited upon you. Simply anticipate additional growth this week, whether your horoscope suggests it or not. Wesley White John 1:43-51 Discipleship is active, not passive. Jesus finds Philip. Philip finds Nathanael. All of this very much in the mode of "this is the house that Jack built". Presuming you have been found somewhere along the way by Jesus or another disciple descended from Philip, the question before you is which next "Nathanael" you will find. This is not always a simple, straight-forward matter. There may be huge resistances to your invitation to "come and see" that you cannot and should not attempt to overcome. Whether the question is one of a source of goodness or something else, to short circuit the question is to cause the same harm as helping a butterfly from its cocoon - it won't be able to spread its wings and flutter on to continue the species. We need to simply be present and open with our invitation at each opportunity available. "Come and see." "Come and see." "Come and see." "Come and see." Wesley White 1 Corinthians 6:12-20 Here it is helpful to remember the story of Jesus with an adulterous woman (don't forget the man's part - it takes two to adulter). What does it mean to be united with a prostitute? If we are not joined with all people, as was Jesus with prostitutes and tax collectors, we are not able to be of one body and spirit with them as we move toward their resurrection, and ours. It is all too easy to use this passage as a division between us and them. But, insofar as Paul also knows we do the things we don't want to and vice versa, we need to be careful here not to draw too broad a caricature of a sinner (one that doesn't have a face like our own) lest you give into a temptation to throw a first stone. As a temple of the Holy Spirit, a keeper of the token of Belovedness given and received in baptism, continue being brought back to your best image of a preferred future and enter again upon that path without judgment of self or others. It is this forward imaging that moves us best, not a tight control upon that which is ultimately mysterious and transformable. Wesley White Psalm 139:1-6, 13-18 The end of verse 18 - "I come to the end--I am still with you" and "I awake--I am still with you" is reflective of the creation story. It is evening (end), it is morning (awake), it is good (still with you). Somehow or other, this comes to be felt a privileged position that would allow us to dismiss other parts of creation--also still with G*D. So the Psalm continues on to perfect hatred, rather than wholistic pleasure. Somehow or other, this hatred is supposed to confirm that one is with G*D. How fundamentalistic, how certain, regardless of the religious tradition one is in. Now comes the tricky part, to be satisfied with each evening and morning. May this participation in the evolutionary process gentle us. No matter the evolutionary path, we are still with G*D so we might as well start enjoying the journey rather than cutting it off at some arbitrary creedal point, or other. History (evening) is in the making. The forming days (morning) can already be had. Both, as dichotomous as they appear--are still with G*D. How do we not prejudge the days yet forming, though not yet existing, and simply say "Thanks" and "Welcome"? Wesley White 1 Samuel 3:1-10, (11-20) An old story tells of a farmer who had a mule for sale. He claimed that this mule would obey any command it was given. One prospective customer was somewhat leery of this claim and decided to put the farmer and his mule to the test. So he said to the mule, "Sit down." But the mule just stood there. "Sit!" the customer yelled, but nothing happened. He turned to the farmer and said, "You claim this mule will do anything it is told, but I can't get the mule to sit down." The farmer just smiled. He reached down and picked up a two-by-four, then walked over and hit the mule in the head. "Sit," he said. And the mule sat right down. Turning to the shocked customer, he said, "first you have to get his attention." [This version found here.] Sometimes a "bolt from the blue" conversion happens when we finally hear something for the “first time”. Chinese water torture is the popular name for a fictional method of water torture in which water is slowly dripped on to a person's forehead, driving the victim insane . This form of torture was first described under a different name by Hippolytus de Marsiliis in Italy in the 16th century . Supposedly the torture in dripping water is the slow rate at which the water flows. The victim can almost predict when the next drop will fall and a sense of tension builds up. When the drop finally does fall, a sense of shock and relief follows, only to be replaced with more tension about the next drop. The release of tension (no matter how small it is) prevents the victim from withdrawing inside himself. As this does not require interaction on the part of the torturer it can be done continuously. [Wikipedia article] Sometimes, degree by degree, a shift in awareness, direction, and behavior happens. Whether you hear a call the first time, a third time, or a forty-ninth time, rejoice greatly for you are now joined to the great prophetic tradition of revealing the real state of affairs and helping people change course as its consequences become clearer and clearer. Don't forget this same process is applied to the state politics as well as religious politics. Wesley White 1 Corinthians 6:12-20 "We are not our own," presupposes both community in general and active community in particular. There are, oh, so many who would take this as a way of beginning to act on behalf of someone else, to use it to take over that someone else by claiming it is in their best interest. And, oh, so many who avoid taking responsibility for themselves, for that is somone else’s obligation. This is how we get into all manner of difficulties from simple misunderstanding to war. Our body (their soul) is a temple that requires their mind (our idea) to be the organizing principle. The Spiritual Formation Bible puts it this way: "The bread of sincerity and truth that Paul advises us to eat nourishes the spirit much like a loaf of bread satisfies hunger. What happens, then, when sexual immorality replaces integrity? When overindulgence replaces self-control? The body is not separate from the soul; what nourishes one nourishes the other. What destroys or degrades one destroys or degrades the other. "If you were asked to speak to young people in your church about sexual immorality and the sanctity of marriage, how might you paraphrase or expand the argument Paul gives here? How much of your own lecture do you need to hear?" How do we talk about and listen to community relationships beyond various codes of behavior punishable by guilt, exile, or penal punishment? Wesley White John 1:43-51 There is a surprise in finding and being found. This comes from the experience and resignation to it that that which is desired will remain only a desire. When such arrives, from whatever direction, even if sought diligently, there is surprise, joy and thanksgiving. Just prior to this accounting, Andrew, one of John the Baptist's disciples, found Jesus and went on to find his brother Simon Peter. Andrew experienced the two great commandments in this finding, God and neighbor (even if G*D show up as Jesus and neighbor as brother). Now, Jesus finds Philip and Philip finds Nathanael. There is unexpectedness and even resistance in the being found. Earlier Jesus has responded, "Come and see" in regard to how he was living. Now, Philip repeats this gentle invitation unladen by promises and cant. You've got questions, we've got experiences. Let's see how they inform one another. May we continue this tradition in our invitational approaches. Simply say what you've found, what happened when you were found, and invite others to, "come and see" what they may find and to explore their experience of being found. January 22, 2006 - Year B - Epiphany 3 Wesley White Jonah 3:1-5, 10 "Waiting is half of our story." [You can hear a snippet of The Prodigal by Joe Wise here. The whole song and cd Show Me Your Smile is a favorite] We await the result of our desire. We await in silence. We await a preferred future. We await a call. Wait well. Wesley White Mark 1:14-20 After Baptizer John was arrested, Jesus, away from the Jordan, back in Galilee, began preaching the same message as John. Comment 1: Jesus is focused on the nearness and the activity of G*D, not himself. As John points to Jesus, Jesus points to G*D. This awareness of G*D calls for a shifting of gears. Comment 2: Jesus calls folks away from the water. We are going not going to be fishing among the baptized, but among those flopping around on land straining for a breath of oxygenated water (creation water, flowing water, living water). Wesley White 1 Corinthians 7:29-31 The present form of the world is passing away. So, what's new? How tightly we will hang on to that which is passing and how lightly we will hold any new beginnings entrusted to us? These questions move us into solidarity with our Buddhist sisters and brothers. Their gift of open-eyed detachment will aid us into a radical openness to what we experience as the expansive and expanding love of G*D. What has been weighing you down these days? What has been heightening your anxiety? Let's look at these situations again, this time through eyes focused on the presence of G*D in the midst of these and every event. Wesley White Psalm 62:5-12 Not only is G*D a refuge for us, but the very silence of waiting for GODot is a holy place of renewal. In silence we reconfirm our hope for a preferred future already birthed among us and growing, no matter how imperceptibly. In silence we find a place of solidity. If the silence cannot rob us of it, nothing can. In silence we can become disoriented (any sensory deprivation can do this) and so if we find that place of security in silence we can hold it in the midst of every other temptation to forget who we are. In silence we find what is trustworthy and what is not. Silence tunes our ear to wrong notes so no matter how subtle the propaganda we can notice it and bring it to light. (Ahh the interplay of senses from sound to sight.) In silence we find our unity and permission for our uniqueness. Enjoy extending your silent time an extra five minutes this day and, perhaps, ten tomorrow. Wesley White Jonah 3:1-5, 10 Good old G*D, making redecisions according to the actions of the folks. Talk about your process G*D-ology. Sure is a good thing that G*D waited long enough for this response. Imagine G*D's deadline for Ninevah being a day earlier. Of course a case can be made for an predetermined God who knew the folks would turn as soon as Jonah opened his mouth. Life can be seen as but a row of dominoes to be toppled in an exact sequence of moves. Ultimately this is rather boring. There is a line from Edward Albee's The Zoo Story, that is apropos here -- "sometimes you have to go a long way out of your way to come back a short distance correctly." Sometimes our waiting takes the form of a long way of activity in one direction to get a gravity slingshot's worth of energy to actually arrive at a place of success beyond one's greatest fears. I suspect we all have similar stories to tell. It is amazing how short the "correct" distance is. It could certainly be longer in physical measurement but experienced as being a short way. When in the groove distance is a non-barrier. Wesley White 1 Corinthians 7:29-31 And just what happens to people who deny, repress, avoid their participation in relationships? their connection with their emotions, such as mourning and rejoicing? their connection with society as represented by an engagement with the current economy? their connection with the thought patterns of a culture? Are they thereby mechanically, automatically kept from some distress or anxiety that Paul bookends this pericope as his major reason for so behaving? Is there not a blessing available for those who have a vocation to these parts of life? Did not Jesus return a boy to his widowed mother, a daughter to her parents? Did not Jesus enter into weeping and feasting for the bridegroom is present, not just coming? Did not Jesus counsel paying taxes and accept the welfare or charity of many? Did not Jesus use the thought patterns as a basis for his parables that begin to shift those thoughts, not deny their presence? For what purpose would you disengage from life? For some supposed more life? To attempt to reduce your anxiety? For what purpose would you engage more deeply with life? For some supposed more life? To attempt to fill your life? See if you can apply this quote from Paul Tillich's, "An Ontology of Anxiety," The Courage to Be. "Fear, as opposed to anxiety, has a definite object (as most authors agree), which can be faced, analyzed, attacked, endured. One can act upon it, and in acting upon it participate in it--even if in the form of struggle. In this way one can take it into one's self-affirmation. Courage can meet every object of fear, because it is an object and makes participation possible. Courage can take the fear produced by a definite object into itself, because this object, however frightful it may be, has a side with which it participates in us and we in it. One could say that as long as there is an object of fear, love in the sense of participation can conquer fear. But this is not so with anxiety, because anxiety has no object, or rather, in a paradoxical phrase, its object is the negation of every object. Therefore participation, struggle, and love with respect to it are impossible. He who is in anxiety is, insofar as it is mere anxiety, delivered to it without help." Wesley White Mark 1:14-20 The time has come. "Of course there are those for whom all this exuberant urgency is rather too much. We have become more or less content with the normal ways of marking time, of waiting out our lives. We postpone all our commitments supposing that it's not the right time. And so we make our peace with the way things are, with the mind-numbing tale of human inhumanity, of hope deferred and longing forgotten. And so we are likely to find all this joyous urgency rather suspect and more than a little annoying. And so long as this is true for us we can hear no gospel. Perhaps that is why the ones who most readily respond to this 'good news' are those who have nothing left to lose." [The Insurrrection of the Crucified: The "Gospel of Mark" as Theological Manifesto by Theodore W. Jennings, Jr.] Look around. Do you really have anything more to lose? The time has come! January 29, 2006 - Year B - Epiphany 4 Wesley White Deuteronomy 18:15-20 What is our relationship with our various realities? How do we interact with demons, what are they to us. What about the survival issues of food and clothing? G*D is another aspect of living that we need to figure out about how we are going to be in covenant with one another. One of the more exciting challenges is that of new leadership and seeing the best of the past in something just coming into being. As we go through the week it will be helpful to consider what we have to do with that which presents itself. Do we affirm it? deny it? classify it? ignore it? use it to our own ends? give thanks? Wesley White Mark 1:21-28 Listen to Theodore Jennings as he writes in The Insurrection of the Crucified : "...it is precisely the demonic that testifies to the identity of Jesus as the 'holy one of God.' This is a messianic title formally similar to the assertion that Jesus is the Christ or the Lord. Thus, the confession of the unclean spirit is precisely that confession by which the Christian movement thought to distinguish itself from all unbelief. Indeed, Paul had put forward (or appropriated for his own purposes) the claim that '...no one can say that "Jesus is Lord" except by the holy spirit' (1 Corinthians 12:3). this criterion is utterly overthrown by Mark's narrative, not only here but throughout the gospel. The danger which lurks in Paul's use of this criterion is that if it is taken literally it leads to a view of faith which is merely ideological. By placing the Christian confession here in the mouth of the unclean spirit, Mark demonstrates that the mere confession that Jesus is Lord, Christ, or 'holy one of God' is by no means an adequate definition of faith. It may just as well be demonic. Those who loudly proclaim the 'lordship of Christ' may, for all their 'spirituality,' be demonic. The test of an authentic confession is not ideological, or theological but, as we shall see, practical." Now, how practical are the words you use to describe the world and your hope in the midst of this world? Do they beg all manner of questions? Do they sidestep a confrontation? Do they absolve you of needing to make a radical decision? Wesley White 1 Corinthians 8:1-13 One of the frustrations of language, and, in a perverse way, joys, is the way in which we can't say everything at once. Language is the equivalent of time in the old saw that G*D made time so everything wouldn't happen at once. Yes, the strong have an obligation to the weak. What isn't said here is that the strong have no obligation when the weak card is played to tempt the strong out of their strength. Here is a fun playing with language as you play with Paul's language. It comes from the "Quick-Start Guide" in The Sufi Book of Life by Neil Douglas-Klotz. "A Note about 'Bugs.' The book's 'program' has not been de-bugged. Actually, it has been re-bugged. Paradox and foolishness are built in, as is what is deeply serious. Sufism is a living twenty-first century tradition with many different approaches. Expressions in the book such as 'a Sufi would say . . .' or 'the Sufis . . .' should not be taken to imply that there is one unified Sufi way of being or acting. The program is incompatible with any attempts to use it to find a consistent philosophy, metaphysic, or history that can be called 'Sufi.' The programmers take no responsibility for your rational system crashing under these circumstances. Your heart is the browser. Were Christians to follow the Sufis, Paul's cachet would be reduced. I wonder how willing he would be to back off from his standing with the Corinthians. Wesley White Psalm 111 To read this acrostic psalm by itself, without also reading the next acrostic Psalm (112), is to lose one's balance. Here we are marched through the alphabet, seeing G*D in each letter, in all of life. In the next Psalm we are led along the same alphabetical path, seeing people in each letter, in all of life. The two together begin to give us another glimpse into the great foci of life -- loving G*D, loving neighbor, loving self. By extension we also love environments and enemies. If the right-eye, left-brain attends to G*D while the left-eye, right-brain attends to neighbors, self, environment and enemies -- blink as fast as you can, back and forth between your two eyes, until they begin to blur together. This takes great discipline. There is not a lot of meditation time left for more transient issues. Consider this process to be a means of grace that will change our relationship with those more fleeting issues of survival and ego. Attending to this interplay is the beginning of wisdom. Wesley White Deuteronomy 18:15-20 If someone eats food in a way you don't, well, in Rome do as the Romans, eat or don't eat according the weakest link. If someone prophecies in a way you don't, well, forget them, they are to be dead to you. What is it that has switched here? If you can figure that out you will find it still at work in your life and the life of the world. What are the limits of uniformity and of diversity? Wesley White 1 Corinthians 8:1-13 The "values" card has been played for a long time. There seems to always someone who will be injured, no matter which way we go on an issue. I have run into all too many who find their spirit saddened, injured when I speak of the importance of relationship over sexuality (as well as over idol dedicated food). They blame the messenger for their cognitive dissonance regarding sexual orientation. When I am silent, out of concern for their weakness, I injure all those who are being injured by their ignorance. How do we measure our compassion to the weakest and those who are held back by the weakest having the power to distract the conversation. We are currently again engaged in a building program. We are told there will be 10% of the congregation who will never get on board with it and will leave because of it. Does that mean we should back off from this expansion because of the 10%? Does this mean we take an extra year and try to bring that down to 9%? In our care for the limits of one person? Do we drop the planning for the ninety and one of us? This teaching is a very difficult one to apply to one and very hurtful to more if we apply it. Herein we find ourselves trapped in legalisms and political promises, even Pauline promises to always honor another's conscience. What does it mean to love, are there limits to charity? You may want to check out the newest encyclical by the latest Pope, On Christian Love. I wish you better outcomes than I can live with in this dilemma. I see this passage as being about the importance of community and folks need to know their concerns are being heard but also need to know that their concern is not the controlling factor regarding communal decisions. It is time for us all to grow in patience with folks who are not up to speed with such larger issues as, "there is no God but one" and to grow in wisdom, regardless of how reluctant others might be to change at our pace. Wesley White Mark 1:21-28 Fame is not a good thing for Jesus. It is a never-ending trap. To keep fame going requires greater and greater time commitments to fame and resources put into it. To paraphrase the Red Queen, "Now, WITH FAME, you see, it takes all the running YOU can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get more fame, you must run at least twice as fast as that!" No wonder he does what he can to infuse the world with his teaching, not his wonder-working. This is quieter, but deeper. While the healing is a direct outgrowth of his teaching it can't be said, given all the healers around, that a healing will lead to his teaching. As we draw near to Sunday, may the words formally spoken lead to outgrowths of healing. Pick the arena in the world where you think the most healing needs to be present and begin talking in such a way that it will grow. Or simply teach what you can, where you are, and opportunities for healing will come along. Either way remember that Mark begins with the baptismal words, "You are my beloved," and your passing those words along will have great healing power.
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