1 Peter 1:17-23
Easter 3 - Year A
It is easy to turn to one another and have a pity party. There is enough that goes awry in any day that we could take the rest of the time to go back over and over an injustice or to plan and plan how to avoid this same event from ever happening again. Surely you see it in others. Sound familiar in your life?
A trick here is to recognize the awry will have its time and place to shine and claim victory and power. Even so, we can let it go its way while we pay attention to that which is ever so much more satisfying -- expressing mutual love, from the heart, for one another and for the awry. In touch with a spirit of new life we are able, again and again, to draw a larger circle of life than anger, embarrassment, and fear would expect from us.
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2005/april2005.html
I appreciate the way in which Peter uses Jesus as a vehicle whereby we might ground our faith and hope on GOD. All too often we get caught up with Jesus rising by his own bootstraps, nepotism, or intrinsic worth.
In seeing the arc of Jesus' story we can come to trust G*D's presence with him, and, by extension, with us.
This "trust," rather than some construct we call "truth," allows the gift of mutual love.
Trust on even when those about you are untrustworthy! It's the Jesus way.
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2005/april2005.html
1 Peter 1:17-23
Acts 2:1-4a, 36-41
Psalm 116:1-4, 12-19
Luke 24:13-35
"Save yourself from this corrupt generation." So goes the appeal in every troubled time.
The question is not so much an us/them mentality or saved/unsaved designations. Those are constantly changing according to experience and willingness to have same. Rather, how does one be in while not of the world (and it's lesser known counterpart which is just as important - to be of while not in the world)? This question comes from the little word "from" [apo in the Greek] that has two definitions:
1) from - "of separation"
2) in - "of origin"
So it might also read, "Save yourself within your originating generation."
In particular this is a question of intention or direction. Does saving oneself mean oneself alone or does it mean that saving oneself entails the salvation of all?
Repentance and Baptism are very much like a Sabbath. Is the Sabbath made for us or are we made for the Sabbath? Sabbath, Repentance, and Baptism (and other Sacraments) are best considered as stimuli for the reestablishment of community that has fractured. They are mediational tools. They are vehicles for saving a generation.
- - -
purified truth in angry hands
is dangerous to one and all
such truth becomes organized
for its own sake, not yoursgrowing truth in hopeful hands
builds genuine mutual love
among differing generations
for their sake, not minecooperative truth in faithful hands
grows heart-deep love in our midst
binding our differences with balm
for healing wounds, including yoursbirthed anew from perfect to whole
fractures perish in a new light
living enduring inviting feasts
for bountiful living, including mine
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2007_04_01_archive.html
Destined from long ago and yet not revealed. So runs a description of Jesus and each one of us.
In this in-between time we find the basics of hope and trust are constituent elements that combine and recombine in a multitude of ways with the common experiences we have – common as in O-so-usual and common to our various interconnections.
So we find ourselves born and reborn along any number of routes from here to there. Every journey is an Emmaus journey, just waiting for trust dashed to return in hope and vice versa.
The day's journey, ever so short in distance is so long in ending. May peace attend us along the way until we awake again, turn again, and go on humming and singing.
It is so easy for this deeper journey to be short-circuited by such suspicious things as precious blood and contrived perfection in some artificial obedience. May we move into and past the limitations of deeds marking our worth.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2008_04_01_archive.html
Do you think this was something that Jesus told the folks on their way to Emmaus? Would this creedal language get through to them better than Jesus’ recounting of the prophetic story from Moses onward? I doubt it.
Perhaps the antidote to creedal language is not a counter-creed, but communal experience. Might we redo verse 23 as the key to this section:
23 - “You have been born anew, not of either some difficult to define perishable or imperishable seed, but through the living and enduring presence of G*D in the mystery of a communal meal.”
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2011/05/1-peter-117-23.html
What do you trust and how have you come to that trust?
One model is that of having had a mentor, a model, a pioneer to follow, a cultural tradition born into or adopted. One is to have some articulatable god to obey or partnering G*D to engage. One is to catch a larger vision such as impartiality in an entitled world.
Even here in an Easter season there are echoes of an Absent Saturday, a stone-closed and stone-cold tomb. You are still in a time of exile. We are not yet living a paradise into existence but waiting for some kingdom to descend upon us with all its weight and burden.
If in the midst of an exile of partiality, what would it be to invoke a G*D of impartiality? Is this to leave a playing field tilted toward the wealthy and powerful? That is one form of impartiality—to allow some disembodied hand of the market to prevail at every turn in denial of every person disadvantaged or environment reduced to a corporate profit. Might this impartiality be an intentional tilting of relationships through a last-resort Jubilee mechanism or an anticipatory participation in right relationships?
As we deal with our limits and fears, lift your eyes again to the impartiality needed to love one another deeply from the heart. Impartiality is not devoid of heart, but lives deeply therein.
To accomplish this it will be necessary to also strip all passages such as this of their covering language of separation regarding ransom (not impartial) or defect-free (not impartial) or purity through obedience (not impartial) or truth (not impartial) or imperishability (not impartial).
While in exile from earthly paradise, hold to an impartial view of trusting relationships based on loving deeply from the heart. All the religious language in the world can’t cover this.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2014/05/1-peter-117-23.html