Exodus 15:1b-11, 20-21
Easter Vigil - Years A, B, C
I, G*D, have shown mercy, but you have not passed it on. (How can this possibly be dealt with by anything other than annihilation?)
G*D remembers we are dust and a wide, wide, steadfast love comes from this memory. Knowing the frailty and weakness of another can bring forth compassion. (Apparently there is no a reason to give up on anyone, no matter what pain they have caused.)
G*D transforms. A river is dammed. A sea is split. A mountain quakes. (Hurricanes happen.)
G*D transforms. Rocks and flint become pools and springs. (Cities become swamps.)
G*D transforms. Egypt was blessed by Joseph to make it through lean years. (Surprising sources of help are already present.)
G*D transforms. Slaves were made of of Joseph's line. (Are transformations only for our immediate benefit?)
G*D transforms. Slave-masters drown. Former slaves walk dry-shod. (The high are brought low, the lowly raised.)
When does G*D cease transforming?
Where do we place the limits of what is transformation by G*D and what is not?
Right! Still at it, I see.
Now, as G*D's partners, what will we transform?
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2005/september2005.html
Welcome those who are differently oriented in faith. Paul uses Sabbath and Eating Rituals as examples of how those who condense the week into one Sabbath and those who spread it through the week might both do so as an honor to G*D. Likewise with those who honor G*D through their choice of food.
Unfortunately these differences are described as "weaknesses" (as see through the eyes of someone making a choice they think everyone ought to hew to now). Seemingly both could be seen as sources of honor and weakness. An example of bothness gone awry is found in Jesus' story when asked about a persistence of forgiveness. Here the honoring of G*D gives way to entitlement for self.
When a servant is still received (forgiven) in respect to their weakness, this same servant does not participate in such a welcoming when faced with another in a respectively "weak" position.
How radical is my welcoming? - who is included in it?
= = = = = = =
transgressions removed ahead
a welcome road signhope for myself rises
to return to
an original blessing of gooddisgust that it might be
for every Jane and Jack
or my favorite enemy
rises even quickerand quick as a wink
my special welcome sign
becomes a road closed detour
onto winding rutted paths
leading 70x7 times back to this marker
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2007_09_01_archive.html
Do you remember the biggest moral equivalent of a "roadside bomb"? – God and Moses and the Red Sea!
How did you first react to this passage? With joy because you identified with trapped Israelites? With sorrow because of the insanity of persecution?
Have you kept to your first reading or have you found another perspective from which to view such events?
Miriam dances her response? How would you use your body to demonstrate your response?
Was it for such an event as this that cloud and fire had led the Israelites? Are we again proving a God's need for praise? demonstrating the essential weakness of a chosen people needing saving, time after time?
When there is no Truth and Reconciliation process forgiveness is not forthcoming. New life is held in abeyance. So threats continue to be made, lacking any wisdom or different model. In response, a defensive action becomes offensive. And we are set up for further conflict internal (golden calves and rampaging death) and external (seeing giants and committing genocide).
This praise doesn't last all that long. Moses who used a staff to beat water into rock will soon be baited into beating a rock into water. Neither of these grand actions move the story along, we are kept in a retributive and reactive mode.
Let's find something larger to sing about.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2008_09_01_archive.html
We will dance in the morning, wherever we may be. Wherever we look we see Resurrection needed; Resurrection in process; Resurrection acknowledged. Particularly we see this when we consider our own life and those we walk with.
We are our own best example of the multiplicity of new life. An empty grave is no more than one more example. It is next to impossible to make things static. There is an impulse that won’t stop dancing to its own beat. What would be miraculous is for life to freeze in place, immobilized between fear and flight.
Right now we are caught between Absent Saturday and Assured Sunday. Our vigil is urging us onward while we are still afraid and morose. There is something about absence that makes us want to hang on to it all the harder. Yet, we find our grip loosening. Blessings at this in-between place—half-way across. Even as Breathe—3 is working we are anxious and wanting to speed up to the point of hyperventilating. Then we remember the breath over the deep and see it as a gentle call, a lullaby, a soothing of the dark water and pace ourselves to breathe with the rhythm of the wind.
In your caughtness between yesterday and tomorrow, patience. One breath at a time.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2014/04/exodus-151b-13-17-18-vigil.html