Isaiah 63:7-9
Christmas 1 - Year A
A reflection on what it means to be an image of G*D is always in order.
G*D’s gracious deeds keep boiling down to one—loving kindness. Each time we think we have found another facet to G*D it is the same old one—loving kindness. Each time we get discouraged with humanity (all the various inhumanities only define what humanity is not) we find that our base line continues to be our imaging loving kindness.
Surely Israel is G*D’s people and they will not deal falsely! What hopefulness G*D has in the face of nearly constant betrayal. It would be so easy to give in to a base line of betrayal as our identity (Garden, Cain, and onward).
Surely we are G*D’s people and we will not deal falsely! What apparent folly this is in light of what we do to one another. Can we suspend our disbelief enough to know that all this is a play and wherever we strut, we will eventually put such façade behind us and reveal the denouement toward which we have always been moving— loving kindness
In the end, this is not a result of a particular message or messenger. No matter how you would want to massage it, redemption is always recognized within loving kindness. This is what has lifted and carried us all these days. This is what lifts and carries us today. This is what will continue to lift and carry.
So, having again thrown back a curtain, will we live more closely and daily with loving kindness? While birth happens, will Birth Happen to us that we will more closely walk our image until there is Emmanuel (G*D/Us), a logical and experiential extension of Emmanuel (G*D/Jesus).
This revelation of Emmanuel comes not from paring away until some kernel is revealed. Rather, it is an extension of our base line into every mundane part of our life, every gracious deed.
G*D’s gracious deeds keep boiling down to one—loving kindness. Each time we think we have found another facet to G*D it is the same old one—loving kindness. Each time we get discouraged with humanity (all the various inhumanities only define what humanity is not) we find that our base line continues to be our imaging loving kindness.
Surely Israel is G*D’s people and they will not deal falsely! What hopefulness G*D has in the face of nearly constant betrayal. It would be so easy to give in to a base line of betrayal as our identity (Garden, Cain, and onward).
Surely we are G*D’s people and we will not deal falsely! What apparent folly this is in light of what we do to one another. Can we suspend our disbelief enough to know that all this is a play and wherever we strut, we will eventually put such façade behind us and reveal the denouement toward which we have always been moving— loving kindness
In the end, this is not a result of a particular message or messenger. No matter how you would want to massage it, redemption is always recognized within loving kindness. This is what has lifted and carried us all these days. This is what lifts and carries us today. This is what will continue to lift and carry.
So, having again thrown back a curtain, will we live more closely and daily with loving kindness? While birth happens, will Birth Happen to us that we will more closely walk our image until there is Emmanuel (G*D/Us), a logical and experiential extension of Emmanuel (G*D/Jesus).
This revelation of Emmanuel comes not from paring away until some kernel is revealed. Rather, it is an extension of our base line into every mundane part of our life, every gracious deed.
As found in Wrestling Year A: Connecting Sunday Readings with Lived Experience
Surely we will not deal falsely. Surely we will not.
Well, surely we will. Surely, we. Surely.
And so we begin another communal lament.
Having experienced the real presence, how could we ever be false again. And, yet....
We "we'd" all over the place.
Will the love and pity that once redeemed remain steadfast? is the absence of the presence momentary or eternal? Having been carried we wriggled and scriggled until we got down and now we cry to be picked back up again. Falseness or not?
If we only looked at these three verses, what could ever go awry? But if we read on we find the skewed.
Having had Christmas what could ever go awry?
And here we are, not having to live very long past Christmas to know the continued need for compassion and mercy. We need it and others need it from us. What a deal! What an opportunity!
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2004/december2004.html
Isaiah 63:7-9
Psalm 148
Hebrews 2:10-18
Matthew 2:13-23
There is an image still being held - we will not deal falsely. In the meantime we cause distress and need healing.
Are you holding an image of the one who sanctifies being so yoked with the one who is sanctified that they have all things in common, that they are able to take turns sanctifiying until who knows where sanctification first began or will ever end?
Dealing falsely is shown in what we search for and how we respond to false dealing. Herod searched for destruction; Rachel for restitution. Neither found consolation, healing, safety, salvation, sanctifying. Herod's destruction finds him dead. Rachel's weeping finds her isolated.
Joseph's avoidance of death for Jesus as a babe doesn't avoid death on a cross by Herod's successors. False dealing lives on and on, generation and reign to generation and reign. Eventually the serpent's wisdom turns into an innocent dove and at that point vulnerability to false dealing cannot be avoided or further delayed. Ramah still weeps over how our spirits continue to be killed by one another.
And yet, to see one another as those who "will not deal falsely" is background to every sanctifying event, to every experience beyond fear of death. Those who find themselves with this vision refuse to out-Herod Herod or to out-weep Rachel. As a brother or sisters with sisters and brothers we work to transform the false within ourselves and allow the result to echo, "Peace on Earth . . . ."
- - -
Rachel wept as thought there was no tomorrow
wept and wept throughout Ramah
wept and wept beyond Ramah
wept and wept for all children
wept and wept for legal and illegal violence
wept and wept through all generations
wept and wept without consolation
finally there is no consolation
no healing, no saving
only weeping
only weeping come sweeping o'er the plain
and then the seeds that were sown in weeping
watered by the tears that ne'er cease to flow
begin to sprout
still no consolation for past distress
still weeping and weeping
no consolation
only clear-eyed, weeping-eyed vision
children will not deal falsely
wept water will part to free
slavery by fear of death
come unconsoled Rachel
come unconsoled weepers of Ramah
come unconsoled friends today
be unconsoled and come
do not deal falsely with hope
weep and hope
do not deal falsely with faith
weep and believe
do not deal falsely with love
weep and love
do not deal falsely with false dealing
weep unconsoled and live
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2006_12_01_archive.html
A reflection on what it means to be an image of G*D is always in order.
G*D's gracious deed keeps boiling down to one – loving kindness. Each time we think we have found another facet to G*D it is the same old one – loving kindness. Each time we get discouraged with humanity (all the various inhumanities do, at least, further define what humanity is not) we find that our base line continues to be our imaging loving kindness.
Surely Israel is G*D's people and they will not deal falsely! What hopefulness G*D has in the face of nearly constant betrayal. It would be so easy to give in to the base line of betrayal (Garden, Abel, and onward) as our identity. Surely we are G*D's people and we will not deal falsely! What apparent folly this is in light of what we do to one another. Can we suspend our disbelief enough to know that all this is a play and wherever we strut, we will eventually put such façade behind us and reveal the denouement toward which we have always been moving - loving kindness
Finally it is not a particular message or messenger, no matter how you would want to massage it, redemption is always around loving kindness. This is what has lifted and carried us all these days. This is what lifts and carries us today. This is what will continue to lift and carry.
So, again having thrown back the curtain, will we live more closely and daily with loving kindness? While birth happens, will Birth Happen to us that we will more closely walk our image until there is Emmanuel (G*D/US), the logical and experiential extension of Emmanuel (G*D/JESUS).
This revelation of Emmanuel comes not from paring away until some kernel is revealed. Rather, it is an extension of our base line into every mundane part of our life, every gracious deed.
- - -
After writing the above and before posting it, I ran across this snippet from Sheer Joy by Matthew Fox:
FOX: Where do you ground your deep conviction that joy and delight are so central to the spiritual experience? I find your teaching to contradict centuries of teaching that told us to begin spiritual practices with purgation.
AQUINAS: God delights. God is always rejoicing and doing so with a single and simple delight. In fact, it is appropriate to say that love and joy are the only human emotions that we can attribute literally to God. Love and joy exist properly in God. They constitute the basis of all attraction – love is the origin and joy is the end result. God is happiness by the divine essence, for God is happy not by acquisition or participation of something else, but by God's essence. On the other hand, human beings are happy, as Boethius says, by participation.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2007_12_01_archive.html
I'm intrigued with the language of:
according to G*D's mercy
and
according to the abundance of G*D's steadfast love.
At first blush we see the salvation of our distress when a certain level of abundance shows up. Mercy is not put off because of anything in particular on our part because G*D seems to prefer to see us as "not dealing falsely" with G*D's mercy - we'll appreciate it and respond to it. Mercy is delayed as a result of a lack of abundance of a desired steadfast-love. When steadfast-love is again abundant, merciful action based upon it will again be engaged.
If we were to extend the passage through the next chapter, we would see that these three little verses are only prelude to a much longer lamentation. From this optimistic beginning, the passage devolves into a complaint about G*D's alternator not charging G*D's level of steadfast love. Being a refugee is no easy matter, even if it is a time of learning and a provider of opportunity to show steadfast-love toward G*D before G*D can show it. We have experienced G*D coming through in the past and we want to remind G*D that intervention in unfairness can be done again.
Given that this passage, standing on its own, devoid of context, is such a happy one, how do you see it playing in Ramah, then or now?
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2010/12/isaiah-637-9.html
An interesting juxtaposition of a slaughter of innocents and gracious deeds of G*D. For extra credit compare and contrast the pericopes of the day without conflating or reconciling them.
For the moment, focus on verse 9.
NRSV:
... in all their distress.
It was no messenger or angel
but his presence that saved them;
in his love and in his pity he redeemed them;
he lifted them up and carried them all the days of old.
The Inclusive Bible:
In all their distress, O God, you were distressed,
and the angel of your Presence saved them;
you redeemed them out of deep love
and profound mercy;
you lifted them up and carried them
from time immemorial.
So, for you, are love and mercy mediated or not? This is as good a measure of our different approaches to life as any scale. One is not inherently better than the other, but they do not live easily with each other. They can inform each other, but are often trying to convince the other experience of the rightness of their way.
As we proceed from Christmas there are a multitude of understandings of such an event or story. It will be interesting to track how this difference shows up in other venues of life. Try substituting “Bible” for angel and see what happens. How about if you substitute “nation” or “money” or another of your favorite virtues?