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Lectionary - March 2006 |
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March 1, 2006 - Year B - Ash Wednesday Wesley White March 1, 2006 Joel 2:1-2, 12-17 or Isaiah 58:1-12 The vision we have of where meaning is to be found will directly affect our interaction with other folks. Lent is as much about clarifying where meaning lies, as anything. Behind all the rules and deprivations of popular spirituality is a question about what is most deeply significant. The way we begin a Lenten season is important to the way in which we will probably end it (never discounting a sign or miracle coming our way that we recognize). Wesley White Joel 2:1-2, 12-17 or Isaiah 58:1-12 Fasting clarifies relationships from both sides. In the covenant between G*D and creation it shows grace and mercy that steadfastly persists and releases. It also reveals decisions for justice and freedom for others based on solidarity with the oppressed, hungry, and homeless. As we put our usual support structures at risk, no matter whether for a long or short time, we find ourselves at a "thin place". You may want to browse the article "Where Can I Touch the Edge of Heaven" to get a feel for this out of another spiritual tradition. Wesley White Psalm 51:1-17 When we pay attention, our weaknesses do glare and our strengths do shine. These are in relationship to our whole life, not just some deistic god. If we are to love G*D and neighbor as self, we can't get away from our failures reflecting on G*D and neighbor and self. It is as this point that the issue of enemies can helpfully come in. Here we most clearly see our love and our failure. Here we can begin to fruitfully fast (identify the arena for the fast and see the outcomes of it in our own behavior) from bloodshed and all that it stands for. Whether or not this is some imputed guilt from before conception is rather beside the point. It is sufficient to know that wrong has been done and needs to be set right. As we fast we do so to one over-riding end that holds within it many blessings - restoration of joy and a willing spirit. It is more helpful to fast from guilt and toward willing joy. Wesley White Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21 Practicing piety to be seen practicing piety is a thick spot, not a thin place. It separates paradise and earth by more than the standard three feet. When it goes on long enough, such a callus is built up that we become callous to G*D (the irony, oh, the irony), to neighbor and self (really high quality blowbacks). Yes, a bit more cryptic than usual, but I enjoyed it. March 5, 2006 - Year B - Lent 1 Wesley White March 5, 2006 Genesis 9:8-17 Covenants come in positive form - it is good, you are my beloved. Covenants come in negative form - I won't cut you entirely off. As we begin a Lenten it will be important to identify what covenant we are moving toward and what covenant we are fasting from. Of most interest will be where we think there is a conflict between covenants and where we don't notice that one has taken precedence over another. Wesley White Mark 1:9-15 How would you summarize a turning point in your life? Here it is: beloved, tempted, near. The nearer the presence of G*D is the more easily and clearly we find our own belovedness and our own temptations. This sort of direct correspondence steadfastly offers a new way out of old difficulties. Wesley White 1 Peter 3:18-22 Two important covenants that are worth fasting toward are a good conscience and presence with others. Can you imagine that your fasting will send you to places where folks have found themselves frozen in relationship to the energy of the universe? Whatever was the stimulus for being absent from a growing vitality, folks have given up on a changed or better future. When we fast we are to move into solidarity alongside them, and to bring the warmth of steadfast love, even to the unlikeable, that we might truly feast together. [Dante’s cold is the image here for those who had already died.] Can you imagine that our fasting will not only restore a right relationship with creation, but with your own best gifts and intentions? Whatever has slid into place to make us slippery in accountability needs to be revealed and re-chosen against. When we fast we are to do so that our health be enhanced - physical health, mental health, emotional health, relational health, to mention a few - by linking our intentions with our actions [thus defining a good conscience]. Wesley White Psalm 25:1-10 Can we fast from shame and exultation? Are these the result of not fasting toward a preferred future of steadfast love received and responded to with our own steadfast love? Does the creation image of being created in the image of a creator call us to fast from and toward a variety of covenants so that the image of steadfast love and faithfulness becomes our own image? If it doesn't so call us, we are intentionally deciding that where we are is good enough, that wholeness takes too much work. One of the tricks here is to finally recognize that no short-term fast for limited goals is going to satisfy. We practice fasting that we might live fasting. In this way fasting really is never away from something as much as it is toward something more desirable than our current limitations. Wesley White Genesis 9:8-17 Covenants change. A prior covenant had folks being vegetarians. Here the covenant shifts to that of being an omnivore (vs 3). This leads to a trick covenant. God covenants with all living things not to drown them out again (maybe a fire next time, but not a flood). Instead we can do one another in. Humans can eat enough chickens that it becomes a commercial enterprise with only a bottom line to care for, not the care of chickens that their legs be strong enough to hold them up. Chickens are slyer than they look. They can't battle themselves out of cages but they can sneak a bird flu through the bar to do in their tormenters. The next generation of chickens will be truly free-range. When was the last time you connected the rainbow with Gaea setting things right, providing justice for chickens? The rainbow is a covenant to fast from flooding. What is the positive corollary to the rainbow? What are we fasting toward here? Has the prettiness/form of the rainbow obscured the function of watering down a prior covenant? Is this an early example of fooling us with forms/titles like Healthy Forests so old growth forests can be cut, Clear Skies to allow more pollution of the air, and Iraqi Freedom to preemptively destroy the infrastructure of another nation? Wesley White 1 Peter 3:18-22 Compare and contrast: "suffered for sins once for all" and "made alive in the spirit." These two phrases may have something to do with fasting from and fasting toward. Some will find themselves drawn toward one or the other. Others will go a third way of being drawn toward both. Doing this reflecting will help us clarify our natural inclinations. Some tend to focus on the past, on suffering, on absolutes. Some tend to focus on the future, on growth, on possibilities. Generally we call them glass half-empty or half-full folks. Some tend to focus lightly on the poles and to gaze gently at the ambiguity of passing moments and persistent motifs. If this reflection is not so much about Jesus as it is about you, how does that affect your Lenten expectations? Wesley White Mark 1:9-15 Just as Joshua and the boys had to take a step into the Jordan before they found it was actually going to back up for them to cross, so Jesus had to leave the baptismal waters to receive the blessing of belovedness. Often we visualize this as a dunking style baptism (though you may be interested in most of the early depictions of this scene show a standing Jesus with water being pour or sprinkled over him). In this we associate the descent of the spirit concomitant with or immediately upon the completion of the baptismal water ritual. Suppose for the moment that the baptismal ritual of John was the baptismal ritual of John and Jesus was simply doing his best to continue paying attention to G*D. Everything went according to plan and it wasn't until Jesus had fully completed the ritual and was stepping back onto dry land that the rainbow insight came that the threat of destruction, even by fire, was really over and done with. Redemptive violence was no longer to be the way of G*D. No wonder he was encouraged and enlivened to proceed to test whether that really was going to be the way (each of the traditional temptations can be read as variations on the theme of violence) and to practice it at the end (in Mark everyone runs away from Jesus' death as it didn't prove a rejection of violence against another would avoid violence done to one and in Luke we hear the sometimes attested words of Jesus to forgive even those who don't understand what they are doing). Is belovedness separable from repentance? Can I still be beloved, though yet unrepentant? Can I call another beloved while they are yet unrepentant? March 12, 2006 - Year B - Lent 2 Wesley White March 12, 2006 Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16 Jim Taylor's Sharp Edges column today is entitled "Contradictory Values." This gives us a lens through which to look at the scriptures for this week. What contradictory values show up in your life. Read Jim's column and browse his archives for further helpful perspectives. Wesley White Mark 8:31-38 or Mark 9:2-9 So what are we to say or not say about the locus of our faith or life. Apparently we talk differently among ourselves than with others. Though, some folks don't seem to be able to make that distinction and have only one speed or one message. Internally we say extravagant things. Here we speak of Messiah and Satan on a first name basis. Externally we don't get ahead of their experience unless we want to sow destructive seeds. A frustration is that on the inside of too many congregations we no longer talk the extravagant talk. We are so easily hurt, so spiritually fragile that we dare not talk about the emperor being naked or a text being evocative. Check out what you talk about and with whom. Where do you press points? Where do you push the boundaries? Wesley White Romans 4:13-25 We are not always consistent about our presentation of law and faith. We sure do like to be able to use the law to our advantage and so we work hard at wordsmithing (yuk on that construct) public statements of the religious organizations we are a part of. We understand that what is said and how it is said are related matters, but no matter how smoothly a harsh statement is made it is still hurtful. So we work hard at what is said. At the same time, when the law is not to our advantage we tend to swing over to faith talk so we can proceed to act in accord with our conscience. Hoping against hope we legislate, legislate, legislate. Hopefully we will get it said clearly enough to change lives. Reckoning faith as righteousness is a last resort of those who are out of resorts to legislation. Faith acts as if lives were already changed. In what arenas are you a lawist and in which a gracist? Wesley White Psalm 22:23-31 Praise of G*D is given for actions of release, freedom, and care for the poor, the earth, the dead. Praise is never devoid of specific actions. Praise is not just praise, but praise comes in response to care-full behaviors. In this light, praise is not just oral praise based on intellectual constructs or emotional/personality typologies, but also has a healthy dose of emulating behavior. If G*D is to be praised for matters of deliverance, are we not called to participate in deliverance of others and creation from the bondages they find themselves in? Our highest praise, then, is an imitation of G*D's intentions and actions. So, praise well by your choices to be a partner in releasing the memory of folks gone by, forgiving the lives of people right now, and setting up a deliverance of those yet to be present. As we participate in these actions we exponentially increase the quality and quantity of praise. Wesley White Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16 Anytime we get into conditional covenants (the proof of the covenant is in some improbable future) we find ourselves conflicted. How long do we stay with hope? How soon do we fall on our face laughing that we ever considered being a party to this farce? Of course we can always fall back on the equally difficult to prove issues of testing (we are just being tested so never think twice) and plans (God has a plan in mind that will come to pass simply because it is God's plan and God is all powerful and unchanging). Of the two testing is the easier concept, but neither is very satisfactory and require an inordinate amount of denial of experience. Abram and Sarai did pretty well, all things considered, with hanging in there well past any reasonable time frame to see a promised result. There was a little side-track through Hagar to the side (but how can we honestly dismiss Hagar and Ishmael so - only if we are so captured by some storyline that what happens to people doesn't matter as long as God comes out of it smelling like a rose). Here then is the covenantal conflict - between our love of G*D and our love of neighbor. Wesley White Romans 4:13-25 The New Interpreter's Study Bible has this excursus: "Abraham is cited more frequently in Paul's letters than any other historical figure except Jesus. By Paul's day, Abraham was honored as the quintessential believer who had worshiped the one true God in the midst of idolatrous peoples. His stature had been embellished by legend, miracles, and quasi-deification; and his grave in Hebron was regarded as a holy place. Rabbis taught that God ordained Torah 'for Abraham's sake' and that he kept it perfectly even before it was given on Mt. Sinai. A eulogy to Abraham in Sirach 44:19-21 claims that he had no equal in glory . Abraham was a bold choice on Paul's part because Jewish rabbis taught that Abraham had been justified because of works. Paul demonstrates that Abraham was justified apart from both law and works, and thus was proof of justification by faith." Again competing forces show up. Abraham/Jesus. Law/Grace. Works/Faith. It is easy to go for one of a pair rather than both. A part of the practicality United Methodists claim in their theology is the bothness of covenants, of starting points and outcomes. Seeing the connections between seeming choices actually enhances both parts of a choice. May you continue to appreciate such enhancement without being overwhelmed by it. Wesley White Mark 8:31-38 or Mark 9:2-9 Get behind me, Satan! Come alongside me, Moses and Elijah! The disciples refuse to hear of difficulties and get flustered to the point of gibbering. This is the response of the Satan in any religious tradition -- taking statements to the extreme and limiting the glory of clarity. We find this in any imperial, authoritarian, or fascist system. Getting caught between "civilization and backwardness" is not a new story. You may want to watch this video of Dr. Wafa Sultan. Do you see Jesus in a teaching moment in this clip? How might we call the great reformers to our side to be willing to "look toward Jerusalem" and say what needs to be said even if it leads to suffering and death? How can we be quiet about the consequences of violent systems without taking on an irrelevant martyr-complex? Satan, Moses, Elijah, or Jesus -- lets say what needs to be said as clearly as we can. It probably takes more than cryptic little snippets such as these reflections. Where in the world do we speak beyond ourselves? March 19, 2006 - Year B - Lent 3 Wesley White March 19, 2006 Exodus 20:1-17 This week we might look at what clarifies the blockages of life. How do various limits help and restrict spiritual growth? Where does freedom help or restrict spiritual growth? What linkages do you find between religious, personal, economic, political arenas of your life? Wesley White John 2:13-22 One of the best stewardship analysis tools is a record of spending -- checkbook registers (if anyone still uses them instead of a bank statement) and credit card bills. Here we begin to see what a person's priorities are. "Show me the money," is not just a cry for "more," but an admission of applied values. Here we find money to also be an excellent gauge of one's sacrificial life. Where do you put down coins of the realm to assuage your guilt and shame? Compare that amount with a tithe of your income. How does that work for you? One of the dynamics that can be at work here is a focus on the external behaviors and our willingness to own up to any number of peccadilloes to avoid awareness of an unmentionable/unforgivable sin. Imagine, if you will, Jesus cleansing your checking account. If you can so imagine, you may be up to being able to hear a bit more about a resurrection for your life in this world after conversion from the suffering (shame) and death (guilt) of your past/present. Wesley White 1 Corinthians 1:18-25 The message about the cross is foolishness. The message about the 10-to-613 commandments is foolishness. The message about loving G*D, self, neighbor, enemy is foolishness. The message about negotiating from strength is foolishness. The message about preemptive violence is foolishness The message about tax relief for the rich is foolishness. Foolishness, like beauty, seems to be in the eye of the beholder. So, what foolishness are you intentionally participating in these days and what foolishness are you illuminating as long-term stupidity. By our foolishnesses are we known. Wesley White Psalm 19 In the face of law upon decree upon precept upon commandment upon fear upon ordinance there is still plenty of room for things to fall into the gaps of what is not yet covered and a new law or decree or etc. A God of the gaps is not very satisfying. Living just waiting to be caught at something you hadn't anticipated is not a satisfying was to spend time. A reset to clear whatever went awry in a code too cumbersome track down is a good thing. A reset for whatever has gone astray is important to keep the system in good working order. Sometimes we find our drive filled with spyware and it needs to be cleansed. Little-by-little, Jesus found that money took over the sacrificial system and a reset was needed. Little-by-little, Moses found that a sense of trusting I-AM was covered over by concerns about what was left behind and all the different ways in which neighborliness went out the window erased erased the community building he was doing and a reset was needed. Chase moneychangers. Reset. Bring ten words. Reset. In this lenten season may you find your reset process to be blessed. Wesley White Exodus 20:1-17 The spiritual growth commandment is #4 - participate in Sabbath. In resting or trusting in the image of creation we find both the awe of being a partner with YHWH and the humility of being in solidarity with our neighbors. This is the spot where we learn more about ourselves in relationship to G*D and Neighbor. It is this opportunity to at once rub up against both the One Who Is and sisters and brothers that we find the spark of life being fanned into a flame. Without Sabbath there is no partnership, just our task to name and take dominion. Without Sabbath there is no larger context within which to structure our social relationships for the well-being of all concerned. This is even acknowledged within the Lenten timing. Our Sunday Sabbath is exempt from Lenten disciplines. It is here that we enter into the larger realm of meaning - partnership with G*D and solidarity with small and large communities. Here is an image that might be helpful in further meditating on this so the nature and name of G*D is not Commander in Chief, but "Thy nature and thy name is Love". Wesley White 1 Corinthians 1:18-25 There is a temptation here to see our proclamation of "Christ crucified" as trumping all other proclamations, including the proclamation of creation, "It is good", and the proclamation of resurrection, "Peace be with you". There is a temptation here to view our finally getting the irony of G*D's weakest being G*D's strength as the fundamental piece of authority to make us extra wise and able to triumph over all other stages of faith. An important corrective comes four verses later (29), "so that no one might boast in the presence of God" or preempt G*D's freedom and lord it over one's neighbors. Look back on church history and count the ways in which pride in the cross has led to war and torture. G*D's foolishness in using this spiritual jujitsu of weakness against strength is very tricky for us to use and usually shows our foolishness as foolishness, not wisdom. Saints are able to carry this off, but we never trust them to actually lead us in this wisdom until they are safely dead. Wesley White John 2:13-22 What is an acceptable sacrifice in an urban setting? From days of yore the standard was something of your livelihood - a sheaf of wheat, a lambkin. Tradition kept those items going as appropriate sacrifices even past the time when folks had a connection with them and their attachment to one's survival. To keep an archaic system running it now takes the intermediary of money. Now urban folks could buy their farm produce and we could pretend all was still in balance. Sacrifice, however is never based on the externals, but the internal dynamic of friendship. One will lay dow their life for a friend. This is the covenant, our friendship with GOD. Buying a sacrifice is like getting your friend a gift certificate instead of paying attention to their likes and dislikes and gifting them with something that took thought and time. It was the disciples who tried to do religious talk about this scene. They remembered language like, "zeal for God's house". Ahh, the assumptions and projections that remembrance conjures. The religious leaders at least asked "Why?" and expected an explanation. Jesus' picture is his connection with life as it might be. This is a reconnection of sacrifice with lives, not money. This is a reconnection of my life with all the parts of meaning and a willingness to take on meaning through one's own life, not the structures that have been handed down. A challenge to us is to connect with the leaders and institutions of our day with this same sense of personal, even physical, identification and direct action to reset the agenda so our rituals reflect our experience, not the experience of folks in days gone bye or on the terms of religious, political, economic or other isolated leaders. March 26, 2006 - Year B - Lent 4 Wesley White March 26, 2006 Numbers 21:4-9 What do you see as the cause of the ill-health of your various systems - personal, familial, congregational, communal, national, environmental? By your analysis will come your own sign and action for healing? How does looking upon Jesus Christ heal? How do you become a sign of healing? Wesley White John 3:14-21 The New Interpreter's Study Bible notes: "'Eternal life' does not speak of immortality or a future life in heaven, but is a metaphor for living now in the unending presence of God." I have used this quote before and think it quite to the point at every point along the way. We tend to get so caught up in ultimates that we lose track of the importance of the temporal. It is not until we have dealt with such a small thing as the present presence of G*D that we will be entrusted with the larger thing of a future presence. In some systems this means there never will come a future because we are always where we are. This is another way of getting at the presence of paradise instead of the distance of heaven. Pray with me: For the gift of practicing the presence of G*D, thanks. For the perseverance to continue practicing, thanks. Wesley White Ephesians 2:1-10 If we look at this passage through the eyes of folks in the snake-pit of Numbers 21, the issue of being saved through faith in Jesus can be connected to being healed through looking at a bronze serpent. Now how do you do your parallelism? Is "being saved" connected with looking (activity) or bronze serpent (object)? Which connects with "faith"? When it comes to Jesus, do you primarily pair him with salvation or with faith? I am aware these are intertwined issues, but my experience is that I weight things differently according to my current state of being and active stage of spiritual maturity. I simply find my language changing and, accordingly, my sensibilities, perceived connections, and engagements. For now I appreciate faith being an action (looking toward) not a settled doctrine (bronze serpent). In the same way I acknowledge the way in which Jesus has been turned into hardened forms where we tell Jesus how it is to be Jesus and what he is to do for us. Jesus has become a magical catalyst for having our wants met and a shield against having to change. Wesley White Psalm 107:1-3, 17-22 The redeemed (those who recognize G*D's steadfast love and are able to respond to it instead of react to it) give thanks that steadfast love, beyond any expectation that it would still be there, is yet available. This action of thanks is a spark or flow of energy that comes from a completed circuit. Remember back to your own days and moments of thanksgiving that goes beyond official turning on and off of thanks (a proclaimed national day, a letter to grandma for a birthday gift, etc.). Now can that be turned into anticipation of thanks to come and an intentional working toward that which completes a circuit between steadfast love offered and responsive love returned. When working well this small circuit has become connected with other similar circuits to become a larger presence of steadfast love now awaiting additional responses. Whether an individual sized circuit or a congregational sized circuit, the experience of wholeness leads to a life of activity oriented toward an expansion of thankfulness. Whatever might get in the way of such an expansion is thankfully left behind (read sacrificed). Wesley White Numbers 21:4-9 Snakes were and are symbols of both death and danger and fertility, life, and healing. Around and around goes the snake, tail in mouth. To make a bronze snake is to stop the motion in one state. In theory, the snake here gets caught in healing mode. But even that doesn't stop the cycle. There are reports of this bronze serpent continuing on with the people (see 2 Kings 18:4) and turning into an idol, a source of separation and death. Thus it needs to be cast away as it does the same thing the complaints about lack of food has done in the wilderness, hearkened folks back to what they saw as a preferable time - back to Egypt, back to slavery. The bronze serpent eventually ends up at the same place as the golden calf. The time frame of their getting to the death place is different, but the arc or cycle of meaning is the same. Questions of Jesus coming around from being a source of salvation, healing, wholeness to being an idol spring to mind. What, today, acts as a symbol of healing for the moment but will blowback death? Is it the idol of democracy that will soon raise up worse demagogues than we now have as the fears of the people are exacerbated and played upon? Is it the idol of a free market that never has been free and has always been played by those for whom it is a marker for being successful in society? Is it the idol of settled doctrine that says God was once alive, but has since cease to be a living God that can move on? Wesley White Ephesians 2:1-10 To be raised up with Christ Jesus in the heavenly places sounds good. It will, at the least, show a portion of immeasurable grace by G*D. Whew! We're in. The important addition to this perspective based on a G*D of all time, is a showing of immeasurable grace in present times. To be raised with Christ Jesus in earthly places is of more immediate concern for ourselves (remember the James doctrine, "Faith/Heaven without works/earth is dead!") and for others not included in a limited heaven (remember the Trix doctrine of "Silly Church, Heaven's for everyone!") This present focus is of particular importance if you are one who sees deeds as evidence of spirit. It is all to easy to stop with the heaven talk and never get around to good works which are to be our way of life in this present age. May you be raised to life in this life and trust that whatever life is next will bring its own life. Wesley White John 3:14-21 I am blanking on where I recently ran into information about what has been translated "believes in him". The point being made was that the Greek was not about propositional orientation, but active emulation. It might be said that those who are healed are those who get what Jesus is living about G*D and apply it to their lives. The understanding of what results from this process of living one's faith is revealed in the subsequent verses -- G*D's love of all creation. When it comes to faith or belief, deeds expected by G*D, deeds done in G*D, become the proof of the pudding.
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