2 Samuel 5:1-5, 9-10

Proper 9 (14) - Year B

Israel and Judah are both ruled by David and yet they remain Israel and Judah. There is one Davidic kingdom and yet they remain Israel and Judah. For 33 years David rules over Israel and Judah and always they are Israel and Judah.

Is this an intractable divide or an acknowledgment of individuation within a larger system? Can we claim this is simply the way life is and that those who follow another coming from David's city will continue to remain Orthodox and Roman, Roman and Protestant of various orders and denominations?

Yet we have this drive to be seen as having the best response to the ah, sweet mysteries of life. Though I might be willing to acknowledge another if they first allowed my identity, there is this reverse expectation that if I acknowledge their right to be then they will, in turn, acknowledge mine. When this doesn't happen I am doubly frustrated with not being affirmed simply for being and not being responded to when for a moment I have the good grace to accept another.

Ah, Israel and Judah, there is so much still to learn about being a new creation.

http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2003/july2003.html

 

 

To keep us from being too inflated or elated we are given a thorn - hometown. Here people changed our diapers. Here people saw the bad haircut we gave ourself. Here errors in judgment as we moved through the stages of life are laughed about every holiday. Here people join in expecting to honor a conquering hero to return home.

Out of his own experience at Nazareth, Jesus sends out the twelve and ourselves. They and we find places as humbling as a hometown and new places that become our hometown.

Whether needing refuge and defense or providing such (opportunity for repentance), we stretch our walk with G*D to include folks for whom we are a thorn and folks who are a thorn for ourselves. Mutuality is not just support, but also correction.

- - -

in season or out
learning is in order

learning to live
without surprises

we will receive
hometown adulation

along with
hometown rejection

both are unrealistic
no surprise here

caught up to seventh heaven
or caught on a thorn

in season or out
teaching is in order

http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2007_07_01_archive.html

 

 

David became greater and greater, for the Lord, God of hosts, was with him. Contrast that with the gospel lesson that Jesus became lesser and lesser. It was the disciples that were growing greater.

Difference? Jesus was in his hometown; David was at Hebron and went to make Jerusalem “his” city.

Being of the same blood and bone and flesh can cut two ways: to lift you up or bring you down. The context of response by the community makes all the difference. This is an opportunity to evaluate the tone of your various communities and to decide where you want to put your time and energy. Where do you need to hold hope in the midst of a discouraging word? Where do you need to move on or you will get caught in privilege and prestige issues?

In either case, you might be intrigued enough about building from the outside in, as David is reported to have done. As Walter Brueggemann comments, “An effective government, then as now, maintains a working social order, protects people from external threats, keeps the economy functioning and makes the trains run on time.” What are the social order issues that protect it? Healthcare for all can be understood as one of the bulwarks - if the general welfare is not in place all the common defense you can generate will not be sufficient to keep you from crumbling inside.

Note the order Brueggemann uses - working social order —> protection from external threats —> functioning economy —> efficiency. If you try to do these in reverse order there will be problem after problem. Now look at the preamble to the US Constitution and think about what a strict constructionist might set as their order: We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, —> establish justice, —> insure domestic tranquility, —> provide for the common defense, —> promote the general welfare, —> and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. How do you compare and contrast these and what is a key work for you to engage?

http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2012/07/2-samuel-51-5-9-10.html