Psalm 50:1-8, 22-23

Proper 14 (19) - Year C


Some folks appreciate a firm boundary more than others. For those that do, marking such a boundary with fire helps keep it in sight and at a distance.

Here the boundary may be seen as beauty—a beauty of interconnections; a beauty of wholeness; a beauty of creation and creativity.

Within this boundary there are two complementary responses. One is a basic thankfulness that is large enough to be attached to any particular form of that thanks (sacrifice of old or some more contemporary ritual expression of it). A second is that of action based on that thankfulness or gratitude—a move from beauty to beauty, as a frozen beauty looses presence to become object.

When these two (thankfulness and responsiveness) get covered over by whatever seems to offer greater control or power or falter in the face of an interpreted false step, there will be a consequence. Here that is imaged as having taken our eye off of gratitude and embodying that. The result is having wandered too close to the fiery boundary and perhaps even crossing it and not knowing how to return.

May you be blessed this day with a clear vision of the beauty of life, your part in it, and many expressions of thankfulness.

http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2013/08/psalm-501-8-22-23.html

 


 

Psalm 50:1-8, 22-23 or Psalm 33:12-22

G*D among us, calling upon the heavens and earth as a source of authority to judge.

G*D in the heavens, looking down upon us, appealed to by us.

As we play back and forth between the location of G*D we might also play with our own location. Are we after being high and lifted up, the greatest of the disciples, the most favored of nations, the sacrificers of others? Are we after being servants, the one's who offer their lives for others, the cross-bearers, the thanksgiving givers?

Here we have an interplay between the prophets and the priests whose hearts, while intended to be oriented in the same direction, lead them to different realms of authority and thus different realms of action.

Ironically the active role of thanksgiving shifts out of its usual categories. The prophets shift the focus to thanksgiving and away from sacrifice as a way of exhibiting thanksgiving. The priests shift the focus to sacrifice intended to eventually lead to thanksgiving as a state of being.

Prophets claim the way to peace is peace, the way to thanksgiving is thanksgiving.

Priests claim the way to peace is war, the way to thanksgiving is sacrifice.

These are highly overdrawn caricatures as there are always false prophets around as well as priests of integrity. They do call for us to think about them again and to use the everyday issue of location as a meditation/contemplation opportunity to reflect on where we are standing and to what end. May we continue to grow in wisdom as we look about us from our current location and courageously move on to see things from a different perspective.

http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2004/august2004.html

 


 

Psalm 50:1-8, 22-23 or Psalm 33:12-22

A centering point of Psalm 50 is verse 14. Without it the beginning and the end fall apart. This center is "a feast of kept promises", "a 'sacrifice' of thanksgiving".

Just as a king is not saved by a great military (death comes to all), so a relationship with G*D is not saved by much spilling of blood. Rather, hope (more specifically, actually living in hope or having hope live in you) on the part of both G*D and you is the basis for the steadfast love toward which we seem to have a genetic predisposition.

Hope fulfilled is evidenced by kept promises and constant thankfulness.

- - -

o what a wrathful G-O-D
with all the emphases
upon purity separation
puppet obedience

what a joy and relief
if only one emphasis
was removed
and we dealt with G-O-D

and so much more
when one-by-one
such specialness
is sacrificed

G-O-D can still be steadfast
in love and distinction
even plain old G-O-D
has presence aplenty

eventually we might even
speak a title GOD
and leave room
for mystery G*D

and wonder of wonders
how far the wrath can be removed
when we find ourselves
moving to wholeness

dreaming of unity
with creative forces
we find we change
distance to welcome

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

 


 

Time to stand and deliver - no not robbery, or hard work and a positive attitude, or a birthing technique - thanksgiving as participation in life.

This thanksgiving way of life ought to be sufficient by itself. Does it really need some quid pro quo of salvation to improve it or make it worth doing?

No, thanksgiving doesn't need any frosting to make it palatable - it is, in a very real sense the whole of a dessert course. At the end of a meal or a day, it is thanksgiving moments that are retained in the memory and satisfy the soul. So often we begin days and meals with high expectations we shape into ritualized thanksgiving. But until they have been concretized and brought home in dessert and dream time, they are but techniques designed to soothe sound and fury (see verse 3).

Yes, start with a blessing but don't end until it has been transformed into a thanksgiving.

http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2010/08/psalm-501-8-22-23.html