Deuteronomy 30:15-20
6th Sunday after Epiphany - Year A
Proper 18 (23) - Year C
Jesus’ statements “You have heard it said, but ...” remind us that one of G*D’s nicknames is Freedom. After being kidnapped by government forces in the 2011 “Arab Spring”, Wael Ghonim said, “This is not the time to settle scores. Although I have people I want to settle scores with myself. This is not the time to split the pie and enforce ideologies.”
Here is a choice as stark as those between a scripturally heightened rhetoric of “Life and Good” or “Death and Evil” or “Fire and Water”. Here we have “Violence and Retribution” or “Freedom and Cooperation”.
We have heard and lived in cultures of “Power Over” and again we see the gift of “Freedom Growing” from beneath. After remembering an old Egyptian poem,
The Nile can bend and turn,
but what is impossible is
that it would ever dry up.
Professor Mamoun Fandy remarked, “The same is true of the river of freedom that is loose here now. Maybe you can bend it for a while, or turn it, but it is not going to dry up.”
The choice to be free, to hear “you have heard it said, but ...” is basic to life and therefore to G*D and therefore to us as a goal. Not to choose beyond enforced consistency is a hobgoblin of little lives (no matter how large they project themselves).
Simply put, we have not been commanded to side with or be wicked, nor have we been given permission to tear down others to aggrandize one’s self. We are in this together. I rejoice when you can stand tall for the Freedom of G*D [rendered into Olde English as “Kingdom of G*D”] right where you are. It encourages me to stand tall where I am. I’ll do what I can to return the favor.
A G*D of Freedom again sets before us a choice—settle scores or build new blessings.
The Nile can bend and turn,
but what is impossible is
that it would ever dry up.
As found in Wrestling Year A: Connecting Sunday Readings with Lived Experience
When the United Methodist Church looks in the mirror, it ain't pretty!
We see the age spots of regressive theology,
And the wrinkles of deteriorating hope.
We see the scars of division,
And the unsightly bags of tired, sagging disputes.
We see the hunched shoulders of endless exclusions,
And the warts of legalism.
Oh my, the church is in need of an
Extreme Makeover!
Join the CoMotion and let God get under your skin.
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Kairos CoMotion 2005
Extreme Makeover Conference: A New Look for Ourselves, the Church and God
Saturday, March 12, 2005
Lake Street United Methodist Church
337 Lake Street
Eau Claire, Wisconsin
We have invited Rita Nakashima Brock to help with our transformation.
Using Dr. Brock's book, Proverbs of Ashes: Violence, Redemptive Suffering, and the Search for What Saves Us we will put a new face on the Christian doctrine of the Atonement.
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We do hope to see many of you at our one day, regional events. You can go to our Kairos CoMotion website for more information.
Here is a paragraph from our textbook for this event that has connections with this pericope:
"Love is neither transcendence nor undifferentiated union. Love is the wisdom of life that knows when connection can heal and when separation will make life flourish. Love is the capacity to use the powers of holding on and letting go in the service of life. Love is capable of detachment as well as empathy, differentiation as well as union, hierarchy as well as mutuality. Love the guardian of powers. Love directs the use of specific powers, in response to particular circumstances, for the sake of creating, sustaining, or healing life. In every situation, love asks, 'What will serve life?' This means human love comes from a growing wisdom about life itself. If one wants to love, it is life that one must seek to fully know. To love is to choose life."
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2004/september2004.html
To choose or not to choose: that is the question.
On the one hand, everything depends upon this moment. What we decide will echo on forever. What we decide against is stillborn. All of life hangs in the balance - all of heaven holds it breath. What will they decide?
Here it might be good to listen again to that old hymn, "Once to Every Man and Nation" [written by James Russell Lowell in the Boston Courier, December 11, 1845. Lowell wrote these words as a poem protesting America’s war with Mexico]. What decision is now needed regarding America's preemptive war against Iraq and impending one with Iran? Will you choose to choose it? What else has changed within and around us, leading to new choices.
Will you throw a first stone or a last stone or no stone at all? Does it make any difference whether the issue is personal or communal, spiritual or political (not that these pairs can be separated very well)?
On the other hand, a choice doesn't make the slightest difference. We are simply G*D's servants whether we find ourselves with Apollos or Paul or Amy or Janet or performing one function or another. As a simple servant of G*D, just how much choice does a milk-sucking child have?
Now, when to choose to choose or to choose not to choose, aye - that is a good question. When to say Yes! or No! is both imponderably confusing and intuitionally clear.
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happy those
who are able to decide
after the fact
Monday-morning quarterback
after the fact
but happier still those
who decide
with an eye to the future
before the fact
that will become an after fact
to move toward a preferred tomorrow
before its factness
is highly satisfying here
decisions take on deep meaning
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2007_02_01_archive.html
Choice is inherent in life. There isn't one without the other. Here it is too easy to get caught up with only one end of a choice spectrum, that of humans (individual and communal), while ignoring choices of G*D.
At one point G*D is out of choices - G*D can only respond to our actions in their like manners. If we do "good", G*D does "good". If we don't, G*D doesn't. There is here no choice of steadfast love, regardless of the stimulus, simply stimulus and response.
At another point G*D becomes preemptive. G*D chooses to warn that G*D is getting into a non-choice - responding to "bad" with bigger "bad".
Go ahead. Choose. As an individual your choice may make no difference as the community around can and does make opposite choices. You are likely to get caught up in their choices and smashed, perhaps to be recast. And, yet, one choice is significant. Remember again the 100th monkey. </a>
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Sarah nor her husband could choose for me
Rebekah nor her husband could choose for me
Leah and Rachel nor their husband could choose for meI cannot choose
for son and daughter
that descendants will liveI can choose
to live that they might
choosesometimes I choose life prosperity
death and adversity
and more and lessfor self
for neighbor
for G*Dwhat a tangled web we weave
when first we choose
and choose again
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Anonymous responded to this when first posted...
The first thing that catches my attention in the Jeremiah passage is the coupling of "come" and "go" which introduces for me the theme of call and answer.
Something/Someone (Divine?) calls and we respond. We approach or gather together as community, then we go or scatter to be the community witnessing. I/We draw inward in order to become aware, and then we go to neighbor, other lands to share awareness and build the community, which in turn gathers and scatters.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2007_09_01_archive.html
Deuteronomy 30:15-20 and Sirach 15:15-20
Jesus' "You have heard it said, but . . ." statements remind us that G*D's nickname is Freedom. Today's New York Times reviews the last 14 days in Egypt. Key is a statement by the newly released Wael Ghonim. After being kidnapped by government forces and held for 12 days he said, "This is not the time to settle scores. Although I have people I want to settle scores with myself. This is not the time to split the pie and enforce ideologies."
Here is a choice as stark as those between the scripturally heightened rhetoric of "Life and Good" or "Death and Evil" or "Fire and Water". Here we have "Violence and Retribution" or "Freedom and Cooperation".
We have heard and lived in cultures of "Power Over" and again we see the gift of "Freedom Growing" from beneath. After remembering an old Egyptian poem, "The Nile can bend and turn, but what is impossible is that it would ever dry up", Professor Mamoun Fandy remarked, "The same is true of the river of freedom that is loose here now. Maybe you can bend it for a while, or turn it, but it is not going to dry up."
The choice to be free, to hear "you have heard it said, but . . ." is basic to life and therefore to G*D and therefore to us as a goal. To not choose beyond enforced consistency is the hobgoblin of little lives (no matter how large they project themselves).
Simply put, we have not been commanded to side with or be wicked, nor have we been given permission to tear down others to aggrandize our self. We are in this together. I rejoice when you can stand tall for the Freedom of G*D [rendered into olde english as "Kingdom of G*D] right where you are. It encourages me to stand tall where I am. I'll do what I can to return the favor.
A G*D of Freedom again sets before us a choice, settle scores or build new blessings.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2011/02/deuteronomy-3015-20-and-sirach-1515-20.html
Deuteronomy 30:15—See, I have set before you today life and prosperity, death and adversity.
Sirach 15:15—If you choose, you can keep the commandments, and to act faithfully is a matter of your own choice.
Deuteronomy 30:19b—Choose life so that you and your descendants may live.
This seems so simple, so linear. In reality it is difficult to see choices as we are so constrained by our culture and experiences. There is so much outside our attention that we seldom come to a clear choice.
Even when we hear, “But I say to you . . .”, which clarifies that there is now a choice to be made, our go-to position seems to be, “I’ve never done it that way before” (which means I don’t see the choice you are claiming is present).
If it is a matter of life or death, how do teach each other and continue learning about the reality around and about that pushes us through a current understanding to an expanded vision? Until we realize we are our own worst enemy when it comes to choosing, we won’t put in place those processes whereby we keep open to a new option that deepens our own spirit and draws us closer together.
Blessings on having the eyes of a Magi to see a new star and choose to follow.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2014/02/deuteronomy-3015-20-sirach1515-20.html