Joel 2:23-32
Proper 25 (30) - Year C
Joel 2:23-32 or Sirach 35:12-17 or Jeremiah 14:7-10, 19-22
No matter what desolation and abandonment is experienced, still G*D is in our midst.
And so those words of prophesy that allow us to change from our current path, those retellings of a dream of a better way of living, and those poems of vision leading us beyond the current and limiting traps of a reduced picture of what is possible -- all move us beyond survival issues to participation in a call to redeem the injustice shown to widow and orphan.
Prophesies, dreams, and visions are real processes, not shortcuts (like a bribe), to better living. They identify the poor and identify with the poor and identify the arena of mutual ministry with the poor. They confront the idolatry of each and every economic and political formula.
As elections grow closer, do not forget to share your prophesy, dream, and vision in regard to our present and future. This is not to further any particular party or person as they all will disappoint at some point, but to hold for yourself and the rest of us a creative way through to a time of healing in the face of each and every terror. This is living and hoping and faithing and loving worth the doing.
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2004/october2004.html
Joel 2:23-32 or Sirach 35:12-17 or Jeremiah 14:7-10, 19-22
Ya gotta love formulas. According to Grandpa: G*D gives once, generously, and we return it in the fashion it was given, generously. Once this test or tit-for-tat has been accomplished, G*D repays sevenfold. An unspoken understanding is that such increased generosity will be increased in return. Pretty soon we will be given and giving seventy times seven times to one another.
Don't forget, says Grandad, this generosity is not just in goodies, but in justice. If you make that mistake, and don't expand your generosity into the arena of justice, you have just broken the cycle of generosity and your ability to bless as you have been blessed is diminishing. At first imperceptibly, but eventually it can't be ignored.
- - -
afterward
always later
spirit is poured out
on all
foreverit takes a special eye
to see the presence
of an afterward already
active in the midst
of no accounts and slavesstill waiting
for afterwards
to lift you out
of yesterday
carpe diem
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2007_10_01_archive.html
A tide has turned and we are glad and rejoicing. In retrospect, all that business about swarming locusts doesn't seem so bad. We are going to eat plenty again and that makes all the difference - we'll forget anything that might endanger our next meal, even out-of-proportion responses against us - there will be no talk of reparations from us.
So goes the portrayal of a change in fortune. Being caught between an avenging G*D and a make-it-up-to-them G*D keeps us so off stride that we are thankful for any glimmer of hope, like those whose emotions are tied to any external, such as the volatile movement of stock exchanges.
In this place of being pinged and then ponged, we forget our partnership with G*D and stand grateful for a moment of respite. We became dependent upon the "name of the Lord" and called and called for it to be for our benefit.
It is in the pride of being those who called upon the "name of the Lord" that we lose our humility and again fail the test. In finally claiming our humility we are overly convinced that we are not able to claim our partnership with G*D and wait for a providential moment, an opportunity for survival.
Can you dream beyond this either/or approach of accusation and requital? Do you still dream and envision a partnership with G*D and Neighbor? Culturally, we seem to be in need of a demanding G*D to deal with our reluctant neighborliness and recalcitrant neighbors - approaching either G*D or Neighbor, on our own, seems more than we are capable of. A sense of partnership with either or both - priceless.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2010/10/joel-223-32.html