Psalm 14
Proper 12 (17) - Year B
Proper 19 (24) - Year C
G*D looks for someone not stupid and comes up empty.
All that is found are useless, unshepherded sheep, taking turns pretending to be a shepherd.
Don't they know anything, all these impostors? Don't they know they can't get away with this -- treating people like a fast-food meal over which they are too busy to pray?
Night is coming for them, and nightmares, for G*D takes the side of victims.
Do you think you can mess with the dreams of the poor? You can't, for G*D makes their dreams come true. [The Message - modified, 14:2-6]
Sounds like there are stupid victimizers and poor victims. What a choice. And each stupid victimizer in turn becomes a poor victim and each poor victim in turn becomes a stupid victimizer. And around and around we go.
O that deliverance would come? [NRSV - modified, 14:7]
We have been in exile and we want to add that 7th verse to be able to hear a promise beyond our situation in life. After all, who wants a choice between stupid and poor, victimizer and victim. Surely there is a better way. Let's live toward it. Come Messiah. Come Lord Jesus. Come, let's live beyond our present limited choices.
PS - This is the double of Psalm 53. In the poetic tradition, doubling is a way of emphasizing something. Why do you think this Psalm is doubled and not some others?
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2003/july2003.html
Psalm 14 or Psalm 51:1-10
Let's see, G*D is with the company of the righteous 99 and not with the wandering corrupt 1.
The wandering corrupt 1 calls out for mercy that would find their heart cleansed from the past and brought back to a place where the future can still be enjoyed.
Will that bleat for mercy make it through the hubbub of praiseful adorers?
As partners with G*D, how will we hear the moan of 1 while patting one another on the back for being part of the chosen who tie G*D to ourselves? How deliberate can we be in listening for the whimpers and mutters of invisible folk who at best might be in the gutters? Won't that intention stain and strain the company of the righteous? And, yet, remembering our own lives, how might we offer a mercy we have received to any and all others?
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2004/september2004.html
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Psalm 14 or Psalm 145:10-18
2 Samuel 11:1-15 or 2 Kings 4:42-44
Ephesians 3:14-21
John 6:1-21
Bathsheba and Jesus were both faced with being taken by force. Their circumstances and options were different. Male and Female, Subject and Master, are significant variations.
Both Bathsheba and Jesus were strengthened that they could live through their respective situations.
Bathsheba acquiesced to force; Jesus withdrew from it. There probably isn't one right response to a test.
Of interest is the use of intermediaries by David and Jesus. There were those who responded to inquiries about Bathsheba and Uriah carrying his own death warrant to Joab, who undertook it. There was Philip who didn't play along, Andrew who did, and the disciples who facilitated a feast.
Questions of how we respond to force come at us every day. Likewise, choices of how we are going to respond to requests from authorities. So, how's today for you? Whose intermediary have you been so far and whose do you anticipate being later today?
- - -
evil requires
accessories
before and after
the fact
under this spreading net
a village smithy stands
strong of arm
stronger of heart
rooted elsewhere
bringing solidarity of port
to those adrift
on the sea
an adult
remembering their child
rich in fish and bread
richer in sharing
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2007_07_01_archive.html
Psalm 14 or Psalm51:1-10
It may be enough to simply refer folks to Psalm 14 from The Message and add a question about my level of rope skipping and singing laughter because G*D and I have taken the side of victims. How are your levels?
Bilious and bloated, they gas, "God is gone."
Their words are poison gas,
fouling the air; they poison
Rivers and skies;
thistles are their cash crop.
God sticks his head out of heaven.
He looks around.
He's looking for someone not stupid—
one man, even, God-expectant,
just one God-ready woman.
He comes up empty. A string
of zeros. Useless, unshepherded
Sheep, taking turns pretending
to be Shepherd.
The ninety and nine
follow their fellow.
Don't they know anything,
all these impostors?
Don't they know
they can't get away with this—
Treating people like a fast-food meal
over which they're too busy to pray?
Night is coming for them, and nightmares,
for God takes the side of victims.
Do you think you can mess
with the dreams of the poor?
You can't, for God
makes their dreams come true.
Is there anyone around to save Israel?
Yes. God is around; God turns life around.
Turned-around Jacob skips rope,
turned-around Israel sings laughter.
- - -
shape a genesis week
from the chaos of my life*
let there be light
shining into that which I do not know
of myself or beyond
let there be separations
dividing out water from water
clarifying otherwise confusion
let there be gatherings
of like portions into weight of substance
enough precipitate to work with
let there be distinctions
where shadows and mystery
play every evening and morning
let there be more than expected
out of basic structure
more life than was imaginable
let there be life upon
as well as life within
even life for care-takers
let there be pause
cessation to affirm forever
a goodness unbelieved
let there be a recapitulation
of goodness goodness
finding its way every way
let there be a rebirth
now and ever of my birth
and G*D's birth
let there be a new genesis
from within and beyond
every previous let be
let there be dancing on Sabbath
let there be Sabbath in dance
let there be "let there be"- - - -
* from Psalm 51:10, The Message
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2007_09_01_archive.html
Behavior shapes thinking and thinking shapes behavior. We have known this for a long, long time. So how do we learn to pass a test that comes around every time we might "assist the plans of the poor"?
There is an article about learning in Tuesday's New York Times, Forget What You Know About Good Study Habits that suggests:
- We change our location of study so the same material is presented in a variety of settings. We need to assist the plans of the poor in our family settings, friendship circles, work places, political conversations, etc. To limit our advocacy to one arena is to only study in one place. Our retention of the issue and our effective engagement lessens if we only address this matter at, say, the macro political level or at, perhaps, the personal.
- We mix our studies together in the same way an athlete will vary their training for strength and endurance and quickness and particular skill drills. There are many aspects to assisting the plans of the poor and we are called to engage our assistance from personal, sociological, economic, political, educational, etc angles. Each facet will have something to add to our learning.
- We use wider comparisons and fewer intensive immersions. Our brain and heart can pick up underlying patterns when we see the plans of the poor through the lens of ethnic women, white males with a privileged way, hungry children, etc. Each time we look again, we appreciate more deeply the way poverty is entrenched and how we seek to personally avoid it, even at the cost of someone else being poor.
- We space our learnings rather than cram. Each time we revisit an task such as assisting the plans of the poor we find we have forgotten something and need to relearn a part of our world and work. This makes forgetting a part of long-term remembering. Each time we are surprised that poverty is so stark and pervasive, we have an opportunity to re-learn our place on G*D's side.
- We seek out tests. The heightened engagement with a test assists us in learning. Like Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, "testing not only measures knowledge but changes it - happily in the direction of more certainty, not less." This is not teaching to the test, but using tests to reinforce the learning - there is a significant difference. A key part of the test is where we find ourselves - face-to-face with the poor or just talking about them.
- We need to pay attention our motivations, who are we are trying to please by learning how to assist the plans of the poor and for whom are we trying please by avoiding or failing this test?
Anyway, intentional foolishness does us no long-term good (for ourself or anyone else). There are ways of shifting to wisdom. Let's help one another so shift. The plans of the poor are a catalyst that will return us to a healing community and the fortunes of all will rise as we engage and implement those plans.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2010/09/psalm-14.html
Position One: No one does good. All have gone astray.
Position Two: There is a company of the righteous — the poor.
Position Three: The fortune of the poor/Jacob/Israel will be restored, goodness restored.
This sounds like a good deal for the now poor. They will receive from those who have devoured them economically. They will switch places.
Now the tricky question, will the newly poor, those previous rascals, ’fess up that they weren’t good partners but now they will be? Further, will G*D and the former poor welcome them back to a journey of freedom (deliverance, if you will)?
Jesus has had a revival, David will soon be rebounding, why shouldn’t today’s breakers of community for their own profit also be restored. Victims we will always have with us. What then is the work of restoration with such a moveable target as former o’erseers and the poor now reversed? Stay nimble, my friend, that all might know safety and sufficiency.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2012/07/psalm-14.html