Psalm 78:1-7
Proper 27 (32) - Year A
Incline your ear in this direction to hear an unraveling of the past that we might bequeath more light to future generations.
And when sufficiently riddled, what is to be heard? Hope and don’t forget that which builds community. This is not something gathered by easy pronouncement but worked out in the tangles and perplexion of real life.
Imagine dark places being made plain through riddling enigmas! Isn’t there another way? Perhaps, but nothing is more astute than Edward Albee’s line, “Sometimes it’s necessary to go a long distance out of the way in order to come back a short distance correctly”, and that is the gift of a riddle, a dope slap, a demythologized reperspectivizing.
So where is this leading—to the middle of the Psalm (vss 37–39):
Their hearts were fickle;
they weren’t faithful to covenant.
But G*D, being compassionate,
kept forgiving their sins,
kept avoiding destruction;
took back anger so many times,
wouldn’t stir up all wrath!
G*D kept remembering
that they were just flesh,
just breath that passes
and doesn’t come back.
–WW
What a puzzle G*D is. What an enigma we are. What mystery that there is no difference. What a long way to travel to arrive at a new beginning.
And when sufficiently riddled, what is to be heard? Hope and don’t forget that which builds community. This is not something gathered by easy pronouncement but worked out in the tangles and perplexion of real life.
Imagine dark places being made plain through riddling enigmas! Isn’t there another way? Perhaps, but nothing is more astute than Edward Albee’s line, “Sometimes it’s necessary to go a long distance out of the way in order to come back a short distance correctly”, and that is the gift of a riddle, a dope slap, a demythologized reperspectivizing.
So where is this leading—to the middle of the Psalm (vss 37–39):
Their hearts were fickle;
they weren’t faithful to covenant.
But G*D, being compassionate,
kept forgiving their sins,
kept avoiding destruction;
took back anger so many times,
wouldn’t stir up all wrath!
G*D kept remembering
that they were just flesh,
just breath that passes
and doesn’t come back.
–WW
As found in Wrestling Year A: Connecting Sunday Readings with Lived Experience
"I will speak to you in poetry...." [NJB]
Other translations talk about "proverbs," "parables," "instruction."
All of these are ways of folding the experience of the past into the realities of the present. One way or another we are called to pass on stories of life.
One of my favorite Bible teachers uses the poetic form of haiku to distill the marvels of life, of G*D's presence. What is the art-form that helps you translate our ancestor's experience of G*D to our descendants? If we can see creedal language as an art-form for this translation it would help, but we tend to see it as solidified and only able to be related to in a binary, yes or no, manner.
If creeds tend toward the static rather than the dynamic, what other ways might we witness to the wonders of G*D? Remember, this is the Pentecostal energy - to translate these wonders into other languages - think of tongues as an art-form rather than a validation of your spiritual prowess).
Try an art-form today.
Here is one related to this psalm from the SPAM-ku site
Lunchmeat passed from one
generation to the next:
SPAMily heirloom.
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2002/november2002.html
Psalm 78:1-7 or Wisdom of Solomon 6:17-20 or Psalm 70
Usually we think of a voice as active and an ear as passive. Hear that here it is the voice that is still and the ear that inclines. This reversal is the energy that moves the generations forward as the voice is still ahead and our inclination tilts toward it. We have a choice about continuing to incline toward what the voice still has to say or settling for what we have heard so far. May you choose to listen beyond what has so far been heard that the unheard might yet be heard.
Let's see how Wisdom's theory goes
- desire for instruction leads to keeping laws
- - keeping laws assures immortality
- - - immortality brings us to God
For want of desire, God is lost. What are you desiring so much these days that when you are involved in it you have no notion of time ("peace is when time doesn't matter as it passes")? Choose that which brings forth this lack of sense of time (loving what you are and do), that moves us into divine space.
To incline our desire is to recognize our dissatisfaction with the limits of today. We hear better is yet to come than where we have arrived and feel the present as threat rather than arrival. And so we recognize how far short of immortality we are and how laws do not draw us beyond our present limits but hold us here. We call out, "Come, O God!" - "Come, Messiah!" - "Come Wisdom beyond our present difficulty!"
Choose well in which direction you incline your ear. Does present law or future openness offer a larger God with whom we might play?
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2005/november2005.html
Psalm 78:1-7 or Wisdom of Solomon 6:17-20 or Psalm 70
Joshua 24:1-3a, 14-25 or Wisdom of Solomon 6:12-16 or Amos 5:18-22
1 Thessalonians 4:13-18
Matthew 25:1-13
Wisdom requires decisions made in the moment, in this day. To wait for more information is not as wise as acting on what is now known and adding to what is known as we go along and making appropriate corrections, including recantations, to and of prior decisions.
What do you know of "bridegroom" behavior? How do you then plan and decide about their inconstancy?
What do you know of "bridegroom" forgiveness? How does this change your plans and decisions?
What do you know of "bridegroom" justice and righteous? Does this confirm or change your plans based on what you know about the forgiveness of same?
= = = = = = =
alas for you
who desire the day to come
without having made
the needed decisions of this day
to desire without planning
is driving without
seatbelt or helmet
damn silly
to desire without deciding
is counting chickens
before they are hatched
worthless
no amount of ritual
incantation or sacrifice
will atone for innocent desire
none
plan for extravagant justice
decide for expansive righteousness
for this is saving music to the ear
beautiful
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2007_11_01_archive.html
Dark sayings from the past do echo down the corridor of time. They bring with them a sense of stability and a constraint of limits. With a sense of steadfastness, there is also a repetition of generations, one after another, as differentiated from a standing on the shoulders of ancestors to travel further.
In contrast are sources of hope and trust that beckon us into space beyond where we have been. Yes, remember the stories, the scope of history within this moment is set, but know that they simply set the stage and give the opportunity for a new incarnation.
Some of this was expressed ever so much better in last night's acceptance speech of the U.S. Presidency by Barack Obama.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2008_11_01_archive.html
Beware - I’m about to parablize you.
The word mashal, here translated “parable” comes with this set of ways to use it:
a. proverb, proverbial saying, aphorism
b. byword
c. similitude, parable
d. poem
e. sentences of ethical wisdom, ethical maxims
and apparently goes back to an earlier marshal - in some original sense of superiority in mental action which suggests:
to rule, have dominion, reign
a. (Qal) to rule, have dominion
b. (Hiphil)
1. to cause to rule
2. to exercise dominion
How is this dominion to happen? by way of a parallel, a “dark saying”. The Hebrew behind this is chiydah which translated could also mean:
riddle, difficult question, parable, enigmatic saying or question, perplexing saying or question
a. riddle (dark obscure utterance)
b. riddle, enigma (to be guessed)
c. perplexing questions (difficult)
d. double dealing (with 'havin')
So, incline your ear in this direction to hear the unraveling of the past that we might bequeath more light to future generations.
And when sufficiently riddled, what is to be heard? Hope and don’t forget that which builds community. This is not something gathered by easy pronouncement but worked out in the tangles and perplexion of real life.
Imagine dark places being made plain through riddling enigmas! Isn’t there another way? Perhaps, but nothing is more astute than Edward Albee’s line, “Sometimes it's necessary to go a long distance out of the way in order to come back a short distance correctly” and that is the gift of a riddle, a dope slap, a demythologized reperspectivizing.
So where is this leading - to the middle of the Psalm (vss 37-39):
Their hearts were fickle;
they weren’t faithful to covenant.
But G*D, being compassionate,
kept forgiving their sins,
kept avoiding destruction;
took back anger so many times,
wouldn’t stir up all wrath!
G*D kept remembering
that they were just flesh,
just breath that passes
and doesn’t come back.
What a puzzle G*D is. What an enigma we are. What mystery that there is no difference. What a long way to travel to arrive at a new beginning.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2011/11/psalm-781-7.html
Opening one's mouth to give a word of wisdom is to open one's self to channeling the dark days of the past that are wont to regather and repeat their dystrophy. Wisdom is always growing out of our experience, not revealed unbidden from some above.
This is election day. At question is whether folks are able to remember far enough back to where we have tried attractive avenues only to have them again disappoint. The persistence of attractive-but-false decisions is quite remarkable--almost as if they are constituent of creation.
The "dark saying" is--What can go wrong, will. So lighten up and make the affirmations yet and always available to you.
Out of a remembrance of darkness will come a hopeful word that we will cut through the darkness more easily and quickly this time and place a stronger warning sign for future generations.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2014/11/psalm-781-7.html