Matthew 9:35-10:8, (9-26)
Proper 6 (11) - Year A
While we are being sent with purpose in mind, we are also given charge of choices and decisions about how we are going to be along the way. Am I going to do the innocent as a lamb bit or play the cynic snake? Here we are asked to do both.
Perhaps it is easier to simply have one standard response with which to engage the world. To mix these qualities is to both make it more difficult on ourselves as we either trust to be led to the appropriate application for the situation or work to define the situation we are facing and apply the appropriate modality. To mix these qualities is to leave ourselves open to the charge of inconsistency.
Do you find yourself mostly responding out of the sheep or snake approach to life? What would you have to give up to move into having these be your right and left hands, your left and right brain, to use each in its own time?
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2005/june2005.html
"When people realize it is the living God you are presenting and not some idol that makes them feel good, they are going to turn on you, even people in your own family. There is a great irony here: proclaiming so much love, experiencing so much hate! But don't quit. Don't cave in. It is all well worth it in the end. It is not success you are after in such times but survival.Be survivors! Before you've run out of options, the Son of Man will have arrived. [verses 22-23, The Message]
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1. "When people realize it is the living God you are presenting and not some idol that makes them feel good, they are going to turn on you, even people in your own family."
How do you see your life in relation to GOD? Are you "presenting" GOD or "representing" GOD? This is worth your meditation/contemplation for a whole week.
2. "There is a great irony here: proclaiming so much love, experiencing so much hate!"
This may even go beyond irony to reality. What did you expect when you first connected with a living GOD? (Was there not fear within yourself so you too needed to hear, "Peace, be not afraid.") Why would that same response not be present in others? Now that you've considered it and tried to live with a living GOD, can you imagine anything other than this irony/reality?
3. "But don't quit. Don't cave in. It is all well worth it in the end. It is not success you are after in such times but survival. Be survivors! Before you've run out of options, the Son of Man will have arrived."
The word "survival" means "to really live". In common American English these have different feeling levels. To survive is to squeak by, to just barely make it - "whew, I survived." To really live is filled with a voluptuous joy.
The sense here is more of survival in the midst of fleeing from persecution, but remember that there is something very important about really living even while fleeing. Without some sense of present as well as future fullness of life, ultimately mere survival is no survival at all. Where is your search for meaning taking you and how do you share that without injuring others' search?
Merciful Heavens! May it come on earth....
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2002/june2002.html
The injustice is plentiful, but the progressive prophets are few. Sound familiar? It should. This is the journey we have been on -- taking on step forward, two steps back, four steps forward, four steps back, three steps forward, etc.
Recognition of Paradise Present is our theme song, in good times and bad. Whether the sick are "cured" or not, the presence of healing is available. Whether the dead are "resuscitated" or not, the presence of resurrection is available. Whether evil, personal or corporate, is put in its place or not, the presence of cleansing is available.
Imagine again the Garden of Gethsemane scene with Jesus praying until sweat, like blood, seeped out of him. Just so much did Jesus attempt to avoid the "not's" of life.
Just that much energy is needed for the harvest. Gird your loins and joyfully jump in. Take no money of the realm, luggage, or a staff to lean on, but go to harvest Paradise present right now.
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2005/june2005.html
While we are being sent with purpose in mind, we are also given charge of choices and decisions about how we are going to be along the way. Am I going to do the innocent as a lamb bit or play the cynic snake? Here we are asked to do both.
Perhaps it is easier to simply have one standard response with which to engage the world. To mix these qualities is to both make it more difficult on ourselves as we either trust to be led to the appropriate application for the situation or work to define the situation we are facing and apply the appropriate modality. To mix these qualities is to leave ourselves open to the charge of inconsistency.
Do you find yourself mostly responding out of the sheep or snake approach to life? What would you have to give up to move into having these be your right and left hands, your left and right brain, to use each in its own time?
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2005/june2005.html
What might be the good news of the presence of G*D? We hear about proclamations and healings, but the good news standing behind them is that of compassion for folks who are harassed and helpless, confused and aimless.
The field in need of compassion is huge, larger than one would hope. It takes all the compassion I have, and then some. It takes all the compassion a village has at its disposal. Villages that raise compassionate children, still find the need for this gift to be too big, never-ending. A danger is compassion-fatigue and so it is important to travel with support (as mentioned elsewhere as being sent two-by-two).
So, really, Jesus sends those who had experienced his compassion out to be compassionate. The way their compassion was acted out and reported on repeated the external tasks of witnessing and making whole, but the real good news was simply folks being present with folks in a compassionate manner.
Of course compassion is a political act and counter-cultural act in today’s world (beware of those claiming to be compassionate too glibly) and so one does need to keep alert to the resistant forces. This is not to shy away from them, but to judiciously decide where to engage and where to wait (both being compassionate responses when paid attention to).
Truly, when we are acting compassionately we are in the presence of an incarnation of G*D, a beloved one, and it turns out to be us. In this presence the code language comes true, the “Son of Man” has come again. Go forth to be compassionate and let the rest fall where it may.