1 Thessalonians 5:16-24
Advent 3 - Year B
"Don't suppress the Spirit, and don't stifle those who have a word from the Master. On the other hand, don't be gullible." [The Message]
Here we are, on the growing edge of church. It is here on the edge that we find the joys and sorrows, the opportunities and dangers, of faith living side-by-side or cheek-by-jowl.
Two ways to avoid the fear and trembling of this position --
-- move back to the settled places of established belief rather than pioneer the wilderness of faith
-- emigrate to some twilight zone where this tension has been resolved by having everything or nothing be accepted.
For now, though, we are called to cheerfully embrace this space and one another. Pray for others on the edge of church. Pray for those in settled and twilight places. Pray your aptitude for thankfulness will reach increasingly more parts of your life and be triggered by a wider set of experiences.
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2002/december2002.html
Test everything! Oh, how wearying to have one's demythologizer constantly on. Diogenes searched for honest folk. Jesus was alert for faith-ful ones. Ann Blair writes of another quest, Mosaic Physics and the Search for a Pious Natural Philosophy in the Late Renaissance.
To test everything presumes being cynical or having something to test against. For the moment, discarding the voice of the cynic who tests everything and finds it always comes up short, lets look at this passage for a standard.
How about constant rejoicing? Have you found someone who does this or in whom you see this capacity? How does this change you if you should find such a someone or if you never do?
Same questions about constant praying?
One search that commends itself by not being limited by what we already know of rejoicing and praying is that for persons open to change, those who do not quench a Spirit of new life. It may be that we don't need to parse things out about who has what, and to what degree they have it, in the present moment. It may be that we do need to develop that old educational approach of teaching how-to-learn rather than settling for teaching current information to pass a not-left-behind test.
In some sense rejoicing and praying in conventional modes closes us to rejoicing and praying in each context. If you don't use a traditional prayer in a liturgical setting, is the prayer heard? If you don't use a standardized breathy, "Lord, just..." extemporaneous sounding prayer in an pentecostal setting, is the prayer heard? How many rejoicing and praying styles do you carry in your spiritual tool-belt? How much room do you have for a new one?
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2005/december2005.html
+ rejoice
+ pray
+ give thanks
- quench spirit
- despise prophets
+ test everything
+ hold fast to good
- evil
= spirit/soul/body kept sound
What equation are you using these days to keep progressing toward wholeness/soundness for self and others?
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2005/december2005.html
= = = = = = =
I Thess. 5:16-24
Luke 1:47-55
John 1:6-8, 19-28
or
Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11
Psalm 126
Gaudete Sunday is a moment of joy while waiting. It plays the same role in Advent as Sunday's do in Lent - a reminder of resurrection. In these lections that joy is connected with justice, renewal, and a voice from the wilderness, calling forth renewal through justice.
Given the devastation of many generations it takes a call from an unexpected source to get through to us regarding the source and location of renewal. These forgotten, avoided, and fearful waste places of life lie across and away from our usual religious Jordan boundaries.
A way in which this shows up is found in Psalm 126.
We can look back:
When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion,
we were like those who dream.
Then our mouth was filled with laughter,
and our tongue with shouts of joy;
then it was said among the nations,
"The Lord has done great things for them."
The Lord has done great things for us,
and we rejoiced.
In our present:
The joy of justice revealed comes to the fore, the straight-jacket of the past with all its apparent fatalism has changed streams in ways we could not predict. We rejoice at having come thus far.
In our present:
The recognition that justice has not yet been completed raises its reality. We yet stand in need of not getting trapped in the fatalism that today will be extended into the future, ad infinitum. We rejoice in anticipation of going further.
We can look ahead:
Restore our fortunes, O Lord,
like the watercourses in the Negeb.
May those who sow in tears
reap with shouts of joy.
Those who go out weeping,
bearing the seed for sowing,
shall come home
with shouts of joy,
carrying their sheaves.
Or, as Paul puts it:
Rejoice always,
pray (be renewed) without ceasing,
give (renewed) thanks in all circumstances;
for this is the will of God
in Christ Jesus
for you.
- - -
where is there not trouble . . .
Darfur, Iraq, Figi . . .
poverty increasing, hunger growing . . .
abusive homes in our community . . .
divided hearts within ourselves . . .
trouble enough for any day,
particularly one after Human Rights Day?
where is there energy to renew
broken dreams, dashed hopes
if not in laughing justice
connecting
re-connecting
restoring
shouting for joy
revived with a flood of justice
we pass this gift forward
shedding light abroad
testing a wasteland voice
echoing
repairing
rejoicing
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2006_12_01_archive.html
Rejoicing is more than mouth music.
Rejoicing acts. Rejoicing acts by testing everything. No presumptions, assumptions, desumptions, resumptions or other sumptuous speculations. Allow the Spirit to roam beyond your current habits of body, mind, spirit, relations. This is the will of G*D – testing and deciding.
Rejoicing discerns. Rejoicing discerns by choosing better, saying "no" to status quo. This is sanctification, mutual love. In the current popularized language of the traditional United Methodist General Rules: Do no harm; do good; stay in love with God.
Rejoicing rejoices. Rejoicing welcomes joy again - body, mind, spirit, and relations. This gladness is the Peace of G*D. In peace we are opened to testing, choosing, welcoming, acting, discerning, rejoicing – living in G*D's image: faithfully. Pursuing happiness? Follow peace.
[Silly Note: Regarding speculation, you may be interested in the lyrics of a Lou and Peter Berryman song, The Speculator (this is something you have to read aloud to get). Click and scroll most of the way down to Disk 2, Track 11. Their accordion/guitar music adds much to the enjoyment of the lyrics, buy the CD.]
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2008_12_01_archive.html
Rejoice, Anticipate, Give - these are ways G*D is revealed and drawn near to.
These qualities of relating keep one grounded and flying high.
Rejoice in opportunities available, even in the most dire of situations. Even Uncle Sol was able to start a worm farm in his demise.
Anticipate an unceasing flow of time. Regardless of how erratic time is, our engagement with it continues. We cast an eye ahead and translate what we see into our work of this day.
Give. Yes, thanks, but ever so much more as well. Give energy where you sense spirit is loosening the grip of the past. Give heed to questions of a current system thinking it is the culmination of creation and claiming there is only fear and chaos beyond current limits of our thinking. A G*D of peace is also a G*D moving ahead for the violence of today is not a good place to rest.
Test everything. Particularly test the tried and true.
Advent is practice time for breathing in (keeping a gleam in your eye), engaging processes of change, and breathing out (participating in the potlatch jubilee of life).
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2011/12/1-thessalonians-516-24.html