my cup runneth over
| « | July 2007 | » | ||||
 |
||||||
| S | M | T | W | T | F | S |
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 |
| 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 |
| 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 |
| 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 |
| 29 | 30 | 31 | ||||
Therefore I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities for the sake of Christ; for whenever I am weak, then I am strong. - 2 Corinthians 12:10
We should pray without ceasing because we cannot complete anything without God's help. - John Trithemius
Quoted in Essential Monastic Wisdom, by Hugh Feiss
In the early Christian communities, the character of the Jesus movement found expression in the abolition of social distinctions of class, religion, race, and gender. - Mary John Mananzan Quoted in Cry Freedom, by Charles Ringma
All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. - 2 Corinthians 5:18-19
When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet, do not sit down at the place of honor, in case someone more distinguished than you has been invited by your host; and the host who invited both of you may come and say to you, "Give this person your place,' and then in disgrace you would start to take the lowest place. But when you are invited, go and sit down at the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he may say to you, "Friend, move up higher'; then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at the table with you. For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted." - Luke 14:8-11
The Power of Weakness
Proper 9 (year c)
Psalm 30, 2 kings 5.1-14, Luke 10.1-11, 16-20, & Galatians 6.1-16
Luke 10.3-6: Go on your way. See, I am sending you out like lambs into the midst of wolves. Carry no purse, no bag, no sandals; and greet no one on the road. Whatever house you enter, first say, 'Peace to this house!' And if anyone is there who shares in peace, your peace will rest on that person; but if not, it will return to you.
Meditation: ...If you sow to your own flesh, you will reap corruption from the flesh; but if you sow to the Spirit, you will reap eternal life from the Spirit. So let us not grow weary in doing what is right, for we will reap at harvest-time, if we do not give up. So then, whenever we have an opportunity, let us work for the good of all, and especially for those of the family of faith." (Galatians 6.8-10)
Reflection: "Our readings testify to the contagiousness of a lived faith, which not only witnesses to our dependence on God but also enables us to trust more fully in one another." - Michaela Bruzzese
Consider: "Go on your way. See, I am sending you out like lambs into the midst of wolves. Carry no purse, no bag, no sandals;..."
Is Jesus nuts? He tells us to go out perfectly vulnerable! Why would he do that? Doesn't he realize that power is the way of procuring what it is that we want and need? Doesn't he realize that setting up his kingdom would be something that's going to need capital and prestige in order to make it great? Amazing! Doesn't he realize that we will look like fools?
I received an interesting question this week about this mission. There was an obvious struggle within Jesus' earthly ministry, in that there were not a shortage of laws, and truly, his disciples thought that there was a military conquest (to whatever degree they even understood that) to begin, thus ushering in this kingdom. Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem-to the cross, and they are out and about, rallying people to this inauguration. Surely they knew enough to understand that Jesus' kingship was different, and slowly they were able to digest his methods, gaining some understanding. But, underneath, they were still thinking that these are just a means to an end-a bait and switch (maybe) until the "power" of his kingdom was revealed. In short, gaining support through good works, and in the end overthrowing the bad guys, establishing the kingdom through last minute "power." "We Win!"
However, what we find to be true later, is that Jesus wasn't playing bait and switch. He meant it from beginning to end, and the methods that he employed, were kingdom living examples modeled right before them. They were not a way to the Kingdom, but walking in the Kingdom.
It is also interesting, that when Jesus went to the cross, he didn't have his friends with him. They misunderstood the message and the method. When he went to the cross, a struggle ensued within them. Viewing their mission as failed, they were struck with the thought that the movement was aborted.
So, here is the question, when Jesus sent the twelve out earlier, and now as we read, he sends the 70 (or the 72 in earlier manuscripts), we wonder, "what was message that they were actually preaching?" great question. Why didn't most people follow him all the way? Were they preach the wrong message?
Could it be that this was the reason that there were so many (throngs in fact) of people celebrating him as he entered the city--the "triumphal entry" into Jerusalem, as it is now known? More good questions.
I do believe that Jesus was beginning to move toward making a show of evil. It was his time of gathering people, making a show of, and exposing the "powers," selfishness, and sin, for what it truly is. His message (and their message) was obviously the good news of his kingdom, and how close it has come to them. We see hints in relation to what Jesus and his mission truly were, and we, ourselves, have been prepared even down to our shoes, with the preparation of this message--the gospel of peace; the good news of the kingdom. Our reading from Galatians, divides the ideas of what constitutes spirit and what scripture calls flesh.
Today, our power struggle with Jesus, is the breaking of our old paradigms that says that we must be powerful in order to accomplish his will. Jesus hands us the option of a radical surrendering of our strength. God calls our strength "flesh" and when it is employed, the kingdom is not seen. However, if we will forgo our own prerogatives, and our own righteous agendas--assuring that there is nothing in it for us by this world standards--then the message is not tainted, and the kingdom is free to rise above the private fires of difficult lives made worse by the gasoline of purity codes and sin police; free to rise above the ashes of people's lives.
In our reading from second Kings we see a nobody; a girl; the least important; One who is done wrong and still finds the higher road of blessing those who curse. Perhaps she thought that Elisha would call down fire on Naaman, perhaps she thought that he would treat her better if the Prophet would heal him. In either case God's way of blessing was reveled in weakness, regardless of her motive, the kingdom of God came very near to Naaman.
Maybe the lesson for Naaman (and us) is that all of this is, in fact, impossible, if we are independent; strong; self-reliant and able. The little prisoner of war, needed Elisha, Namman needed Elisha, the disciples needed each other, the Galatians needed each other. None of them need a program. They needed the true good news of safety that is contained in true family. They needed a good kingdom.
When has the kingdom of God come near you? Has it come near lately? Have you positioned yourself where it be revealed through you?
We can expend a lot of energy helping people to find God with all the wrong motives--with huge misunderstanding--with our own agenda. But even in spite of our misunderstanding, and our simple mindedness, God finds a way of bursting forth in simplicity, to those he's reaching. I ask us to think, for own sake and reward, if we have made ourselves small enough to apprentice with Jesus in his mission to people in our time.
With whom are you sharing the good news of the end of domination?
Embrace your smallness.
Free to Live as a Slave
Proper 8 (year c)
Psalm 77.1-2, 11-20, 2 Kings 2.1-2, 6-14, Luke 9.51-62 & Galatians 5.1, 13-25
Galatians 5.13 & 14 For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence, but through love become slaves to one another. For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself."Meditation: ...Someone said to him, "I will follow you wherever you go." And Jesus said to him, "Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head." To another he said, "Follow me." But he said, "Lord, first let me go and bury my father." But Jesus said to him, "Let the dead bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God." Another said, "I will follow you, Lord; but let me first say farewell to those at my home." Jesus said to him, "No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God." (Luke 9.57b-62)
Reflection: "To have no place to lay your head is difficult, unsettling - and an essential part of a walk with God. This "liminal space" is a unique spiritual position where human beings hate to be but where the biblical God is always leading us." - Richard Rohr, OFM
Consider: To compound the distinction, Jesus, unlike Elijah, does not permit his followers to say goodbye or even to bury their dead, for "no one who looks to what was left behind is fit for the Kingdom of God." To follow Jesus is to do so wholeheartedly-there is no middle ground.
Paul reminds the Galatians community that they "were called for freedom," which is most fully expressed by the ability "to serve one another through love." He insists that this law is the highest way because it bears the true fruits of "love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control" (Galatians 5:22-23).
James and John's suggestion to punish those who rejected them was a clear indication that they still lived by the flesh. We, too, can easily see where our loyalties lie by the fruits of our actions, especially those directed toward our enemies.
How can we possibly proclaim the good news if we ourselves have not left everything to live it?
Good questions - "What is the relationship between faith and the law?"."
Gerasenes & Galatians - Abrahamic Children
Proper 7 (year c)
Psalm 42, 1 Kings 19.1-15a, Luke 8.26-39, & Galatians 3.23-29
Galatians 3.23 & 24 Now before faith came, we were imprisoned and guarded under the law until faith would be revealed. Therefore the law was our disciplinarian until Christ came, so that we might be justified by faith.
Meditation: But now that faith has come, we are no longer subject to a disciplinarian, for in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.' (Galatians 3.25-28)
Reflection: "Must Gentile Christians adopt Jewish practices? Or does faith in Jesus make the law obsolete? Faced with these questions, Galatians responds with a vision of the law as a guardian until Christ's coming." - Jim Rice
Consider: Good questions posed by Jim Rice, "What is the relationship between faith and the law?" Our early church leaders struggled with these questions as embodied in the letter to the Galatians and even more thoroughly in Paul's letter to the Romans.
In this week's reading, we hear words about Abraham being "saved" by "faith," and that this faith was unfulfilled until the coming of Christ. In between, the law was needed as a guardian to keep us on the right track and save us from veering too far from God's will.
This scripture is translated in very different ways, and the message itself, can become confused by our own theological viewpoint.
We can read in the NRSV that before faith came, we were ‘imprisoned and guarded' under the law, which was our ‘disciplinarian,' while other translations say that the law was our ‘schoolmaster,' ‘custodian,' and ‘guardian.'
Rice points out that the Greek word in question actually referred to a slave who had charge of a child from age 6 to 16, one who accompanied the child to school each day to see that he or she fell into no harm or mischief. Paul is saying that the law is like a caretaker that looked after the people of God until it was no longer needed, replaced by the freedom that comes with faith."
We are discussing if the law has been made obsolete in Christ. We, as "Christians" do have a tendency to want to believe that Jewish-ness is superseded by Christian-ness. Our language implicitly sounds like this and we gravitate to scriptures like Jesus discussing communion, 2 Corinthians 3.6, and Hebrews chapters 8 and 9 (new covenant and better promises) to pose as our scriptural correctness is superior to that of ancient Israel. I suppose that if I were to selectively rest on those scriptures, I would conclude that we, as Christians, are what God desired all along-meaning our way of doing things.
Certainly God did mean for us to be free, and without the stain and guilt of sin, as our religious efforts strain to embrace today, but have we really found freedom in Christ, or have we become a neo-legal covenantal people, simply transplanting old (covenant) laws with a new (covenant) "disciplinarian" and reverting to old ways of governing ourselves with a modern type of purity code(s) disguised as grace, wrapped in church law, government, and discipline (not meaning the disciplines of worship and consecration).
Maybe another way of understanding this idea of old testament law vs. new testament Christ following is to view it as the original intent of all of those Mosaic laws are modeled, and in fact fulfilled (or filled up), in Christ-as He would have said it, "I [Jesus] did not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it.," Or yet another way of viewing this, might be, as Jesus having filled himself up with the scriptures (or the law), thus becoming them - modeling what they have meant all along. We are coming to understand that much of what our modern, traditional understanding of what this means to us is a serious demystifying of the scriptures.
"What it means to us, and in the context of the early church's debates over who was eligible for God's grace, rests very clearly on Paul's summation that there is "neither Jew, nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, that if we truly follow Christ (as expressed in the scriptures), we are safe because he will never lead us into sin, where law will judge us to be guilty. Christ has rendered obsolete the practice of separating and judging on the basis of race, ethnicity, religious lineage, gender, economic status, or class. The human tendency to divide and denigrate is deeply ingrained, but God's way of equality and unity is the new order of things. The consequences of that profound revelation are still unfolding in us today."
Peace!
God's Righteous Dilemma
Proper 6 (year c)
Psalm 5.1-8, 1 Kings 21.1-21a, Luke 7.36-8.3 & Galatians 2.15-21
Galatians 2.19 & 21 For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God. . .
I do not nullify the grace of God; for if justification comes through the law, then Christ died for nothing.
Meditation: "A certain creditor had two debtors; one owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. When they could not pay, he canceled the debts for both of them. Now which of them will love him more?" Simon answered, "I suppose the one for whom he canceled the greater debt." And Jesus said to him, "You have judged rightly." (Luke 7.41-43)
Reflection: "It is nearly impossible for most of us to comprehend a God who forgives without merit, who loves us anyway, who keeps calling us home to the fullness of life that only God can give." - Michaela Bruzzese
Consider: We love law. After all, it is what keeps us honest--working together in a spirit of fairness. Without it there would be anarchy.
Interestingly, the descriptive, terms for heresy means to depart from the commonly agreed upon orthodoxy--the conventional, mutually accepted beliefs, standards, and norms, that we all adhere to, and understand in order to act morally within our shared culture. We have come to believe that heresy is a departure from the law.
In our Psalm this week, we have another pleading with God to uphold the Psalter because he is good, assured of God's mercy toward him. But he ascribes hatred to those "evildoers" (or "heretics") who "lie and boast" and are his enemies. Are they law breakers? Heretics? And what "laws" do they break?
Good questions, but what about Jesus?
In our gospel text, Jesus (a heretic Himself) reaches beyond just law-keeping, to a higher Way, that of senseless mercy, and in so doing, He forces us to wrestle with a dilemma; What is Justice in light of Mercy? Is it God's morality to just keep the orthodoxy, or to find the way, at all costs, to reach beyond law to a place where there truly is nether Jew nor Greek, bond nor free, male nor female; Where our Pharisaical personal rightness is superseded by a deliberate refusal to ascribe justified hatred, opting for unjustified mercy.
Now, when we cannot pay for our law breaking (or law-keeping as it were), having been given cancellation our own dept, how appreciative will we be? (How much have you been forgiven?) Will we love more; will we honor Jesus in the face of a religious culture that wants to personally embrace law-keeping, feeling as though we don't need to do more, or move beyond our simple ability to keep law; that we have simply not violated anything? In what ways should we honor Him? Perhaps by following Him into His work in the world... by this example, touching, and being touched by a religious outcast.
Are you justified because you have obeyed the orthodoxy (reflected by a very little love toward those who are not like you), or do you have a sober judgment of yourself in true appreciation of a very big dept cancellation--exhibited by a very heretical mercy, love, and appreciation, for those God loves? Have you just been religiously right, or sacrificially--heretically--reaching to love with senselessly mercy?
Incidentally, Jesus and this woman are both heretically reaching to save a learned Pharisee from the death of personal religious correctness.
In God's holy perfection, He is not wringing His hands trying to figure out how to be Just and Merciful to His world. In our humanity and sinfulness, we do... Let's try to think in His terms; let's rethink the term Gospel...
Peace!
