Psalm 34:1-8

Proper 14 (19) - Year C


How does the angel set up a circle of protection around you? That is probably a clue about a gift you have or the way you might help to set up a circle of protection for others?

Is this space for you to choose a way you hadn't seen before because you were so busy fleeing or battling with some difficulty that options had flown away from the flurry of your preoccupation?

Or did the angel do your work for you?

As you have experienced deliverance, know there are some others (not all others) who will need your witness and presence to aid them. Often times this is a process of like calling to like - the addict to the addict approach. Pay attention to how you were cared for and learn and pass it on.

http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2003/august2003.html

 


 

Psalm 34:1-8 or Psalm 130
2 Samuel 18:5-9, 15, 31-33 or 1 Kings 19:4-8
Ephesians 4:25-5:2
John 6:35, 41-51

Somehow our desire and greed for life has gone bitterly astray. We run until we are surprised by a noose disguised as a tree; until we fall exhausted of all reserve; until we find ourself in the disinterested grasp of despair; until our waiting only brings forth more waiting.

So it has been for us and for all of our image (read G*D). The imitation of our own image imagines another way beyond the stillness of an overly humid day with a hazy gray sky hanging featureless over our heads.

This alternative presses back against the anger of unmet desire and greed - limiting it to this day, this moment; presses back against our thieving actions until they come out another side as sharing. In shorthand, we "live in love" and shift our experience from claiming others as our daily bread to being such daily bread - unconcerned for cosmic, heavenly authority for so being, and simply believing/claiming/acting eternally in each moment available.

- - -

["-- Who can tell truth from falsehood any more?
I say it, and you feel it in your hearts:
no man or woman on this big small earth."
- e.e. cummings]

am I not
but the gene pool
of mother and father
narrowed down
to one option
masquerading
as all other options

am I not
a feast
for generations to come
opening a broadening way
willing one form
to dive deep
into each next

http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2007_08_01_archive.html

 


 

Psalm 34:2-15 or Psalm 137

"I will bless the Lord at all times." (34:1)
"How could we sing the Lord's song in a foreign land?" (137:4)

"I sought the Lord, and was answered." (34:4)
"Remember, O Lord, against the Edomites." (137:7)

"Keep your tongue from evil." (34:13)
"Happy shall they be who take your little ones and dash them against the rock!" (137:9)

There are so many different realities experienced and expressed in psalms. The same is true in church music. How do we keep open to the wide variety of hymns and praises?

I would like for the church to be able to see that any good love song can be sung in church. It takes next to no work to translate a good popular love song into a religious context. How might we find our way to use songs with theological language in them and songs that demonstrate theology without using the official church lingo?

Having thus declared, I show my age. I just looked up Billboard's Top 10. It appears I have been passed by. Lyrics aren't where its at. There was some meat in the lament at number 8, "Where is the Love."

How do we sing the Lord's song in the foreign land of American pop culture? Who would know to ask for such a thing?

http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2003/august2003.html