Psalm 107:1-9, 43
Proper 13 (18) - Year C
“Some wandered in desert wastes; G*D led them to an inhabited town.” (verses 5 & 7)
Troubles make the most verdant of places, dry and desolate. Whether those troubles are imposed from the outside or arise from within, we are further and further removed from the source of distancing trouble.
If we look to amass as much as possible for ourselves, it turns to smoke. If we attempt to rule over one other or many, our vanity will soon be visible for all to see.
Our hope is that of returning to community. Sharing and collaborating, two virtues a modern America has ceased to teach. Civics courses are long gone. This is not an elegy for their return as they were for they taught the externals of community, not the deeper joy of embodying them for their own sake (and ours).
In an “inhabited town” we are able to realize the interplay between those with water rights and those thirsty unto death, those with a full pantry and those not able to replenish calories spent to simply survive. Here we learn how well we all can be through sharing and collaboration.
When we are together and forget, we begin moving back into the desert where one more difficult lesson is before us. Those who are wise give heed to sharing and collaboration (behaviors that reveal the presence of steadfast love). Give heed.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2013/07/psalm-1071-9-43.html
Psalm 107:1-9, 43 or Psalm 49:1-12
So, how do we deal with the troubles of the world. Choices are before us. How do we interpret the events of our time, the experiences of our life.
Jim Taylor's comments today in his Soft Edges posting remind us that the issues of not fearing and giving thanks lie within us and beyond us - depending on the framework to which we bring them. What subtle difference are you making in the world by sharing your framework with others?
SUBTLE DIFFERENCES
What's the difference between Heaven and Hell? The difference is not that one is an lush oasis, the other a lake of fire. Those images come to us mostly from the Koran, the biblical book of Revelation, or Dante's Inferno.
The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayam includes the famous description of paradise, "A loaf of bread, a jug of wine, and thou beside me..."
These are, of course, all fanciful figures of speech. No one has ever gone there and come back to tell us about it. The only person documented to have returned from death told us nothing about life on the other side. The gospels record not one word from Jesus about his experiences beyond the tomb.
Rachel Naomi Remen offers a different kind of image, in My Grandfather's Blessing: "In Hell people are seated at a table overflowing with delicious food. But they have splints on their elbows and so they cannot reach their mouths with their spoons. They sit through eternity experiencing a terrible hunger in the midst of abundance. In Heaven people are also seated at a table overflowing with delicious food. They, too, have splints on their elbows and cannot reach their mouths. But, in Heaven, people use their spoons to feed one another."
Remen concludes, "Perhaps Hell is always of our own making. In the end, the difference between Heaven and Hell may only be that in Hell, people have forgotten how to bless one another."
It made we wonder how many other situations could be either Heaven or Hell, depending on very slight differences.
ALTERNATIVE SCENARIOS
Every summer, at about this time, I rant about people who have no difficulty dragging cases of beer and bags of munchies down to the waterfront, but they're too exhausted to drag their empties back out.
So Hell might be a waterfront park, where every person left litter behind. Heaven might be the same park, where everyone cleaned up any trash lying around.
Or Hell might be Highway 97 on a Friday afternoon, where every driver took offence at every other driver's action. Hell would be full of horns honking, fingers flashing, and curses flying. Heaven could be the same stretch of highway, with everyone allowing other drivers into their lane, and cheerfully arriving five minutes late at their destination.
Or another possibility -- Hell could be a religious conference, where everyone was so convinced that they had the only way to Heaven that they shouted down all other viewpoints. In that case, Heaven would be a conference where people listened to each other's faith experiences with respect.
Intriguing images? Yes, but notice something -- nothing puts these ideal conditions, or these horrific conditions, some time in the indefinable future. They're all possible right here, right now.
John Milton, who shaped many of our visions of Hell in Paradise Lost, had Lucifer utter this insight:
"The mind is its own place, and in it self
Can make a Heav'n of Hell, a Hell of Heav'n..."*****************************************
Copyright (c) 2004 by Jim Taylor. Non-profit use in congregations and study groups permitted; all other rights reserved.
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http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2004/august2004.html
Psalm 107:1-9, 43 or Psalm 49:1-12
Steadfast love endures.
This may mean that "a little dab will do you" - sort of like one of those funeral jewelry pieces where you can keep a bit of the cremains of a loved one close to you.
This may mean that you need to constantly enlarge your ability to receive more and more of this steadfast love because it just keeps coming and we can't give it away quickly enough. When we don't keep up with being as steadfast in loving others as G*D is steadfast in loving us that the only way it can be released is with our death.
I don't mean to lessen the lesson about real resources that need to be distributed, but part of the reason we feel we never have enough resources is because we haven't given away enough love.
- - -
mortals cannot abide in their pomp
so says the psalmist
pomp?
I ain't got no stinkin' pomp!
pomp?
sending an escort with myself?
pomp?
with more emphasis upon the escort than myself?
pomp?
with my old beat-up hat?
pomp?
with my distain of all things fashionable?
pomp?
oh, that's my pomp
pomp?
nope, it won't abide
pomp?
nor will I covered in my pomp
pomp?
how 'bout you?
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2007_08_01_archive.html
Let the redeemed give thanks - whether they should have needed to be redeemed or not.
There are folks who are outcast because of their very being, according to one religious source or another. They don't need redeeming for their being and yet they are outcaste (caste-away) far enough to feel that way.
In recent days, comparatively, the ELCA has "redeemed" some of its years of discrimination and loss of pastoral gifts and graces from gay and lesbian sisters and brothers. The Presbyterians, even more recently, are following at their pace. The United Methodist Church still has a goodly way to go to find their strength in using all the gift and graces available to them.
The pastor of a local Reconciling in Christ congregation in the ELCA recently returned from a convention in Minneapolis and I thought part of his newsletter reflection should be shared more widely as we continue to grow in wisdom and give heed to gathering the scattered.
I come away with a new appreciation that much of our Holy Scriptures was written for persons who are on the margins of the world. Here is a small list: Hebrews as slaves in Egypt; Hebrews wandering in the wilderness; the people of Judah in exile in Babylonia; Psalms for all occasions including sadness and loneliness; Lamentations as cries of many hearts; words to Gentiles who were considered unclean and outside God's love; a voice touching the lives of lepers excluded from community; words of acceptance addressing women and children rather than men.
How many times have you come to church wondering if anyone understood how you felt? It could be your sexual identity, your loneliness, your struggles with depression or other emotional health issues, the daily struggle with unrelenting chronic pain, unemployment, struggles with family or spouse or partner, grief at a recent loss. The Word of God is spoken to those who most need God's living presence. The Word of God is not meant just to bless those who are already blessed. It is meant to cut to the heart of our very existence, with our deepest pains and longings heard by God, and to bring us to God's word of new life and new hope in all circumstances. Many who are with us at any worship or gathering are living in the margins or feeling that way.
Which part of you has been marginalized? Who in your larger family has been marginalized? As you give thanks for the expression of G*D's steadfast love in your life, may you know there to be enough to share with others.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2010/07/psalm-1071-9-43.html