Jeremiah 20:7-13
Proper 7 (12) - Year A
Fightings and fears go on inside as well as outside.
Do I speak? Do I keep silence? Do I mutter?
Do I push away? Do I embrace? Do I stand still?
The list of ways in which we polarize our choices or make them immaterial goes on and on.
Jekyll and Hyde we are.
What is the weak within us that needs strengthening?
What is the evil within us that needs deliverance?
We can use small groups and focus groups and self-help techniques and large bootstraps to pull on, but they all come up short.
When caught and stymied in our approach/avoidance modes it seems the last thing we will try is singing. Do you hum? Do you whistle? Are you aware of what tunes you are using? In the midst of every confusion it is probably important to consciously sing to G*D for the saving of the weak from the wicked. Even though we don't yet see how, it is happening and we have a part in the saving.
The next time you find yourself battling yourself, try this question: Who is being hurt? Then take their side for G*D is already saving them and you might as well join in on that side. Of course you will have to throw out any false harm arguments being used by the principalities and power trying to keep you from seeing the real harm (like all those shills who say we can't yet tell if global warming is real, so we don't have to do anything about it, or the harm done can't be undone, so we don't have to stop doing additional harm).
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2002/june2002.html
Jeremiah 20:7-13 or Genesis 21:8-21
Does G*D know everything, including the future, or is G*D still inventing, creating, growing into new life? An old, old question.
Does G*D already know Ishmael will be rescued by G*D and so sending Hagar and Ishmael cavalierly onward is but an opportunity to have G*D be seen in a better light, later?
Does G*D agree with laughing Sarah who is no longer laughing about Ishmael's playing? ("Laughing" can be an euphemism that would make them lovers and "playing" can stand for sexual activity that would be the cause for banishment.) Then is it only after hearing Ishmael's cries (but not Hagar's?) that G*D wakes to the enormity of the consequence for the permission-giving already done?
How do you play this one, from G*D's perspective? Do Abel and a Flood finally dawn on G*D and a rainbow sparkle? Was it in G*D's cards all along? Is Ishmael's inheritance claim upon G*D primary or secondary, a given or an afterthought?
How does this play out within the institutional church? Is it the role of priests to play Sarah and cast out those with whom they disagree or accuse of one heresy or another? Consider how prophets are cared for in the same way as Ishmael -- seen as second-class rather than first-born and cast out, but, crying, cared for.
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2005/june2005.html
Jeremiah 20:7-13 or Genesis 21:8-21
Psalm 86:1-10, 16-17 or Psalm 69:7-18
Romans 6:1b-11
Matthew 10:24-39
How do I arrive at a place of "fearing not"? A significant view of this is the magical concept of correspondence - if I am like something else, then I am that something else. This is similar to much of the self-help therapies. In each case it is important to identify the specific correspondence and run with that one little thing in expectation that it will grow into a fuller identity or protection.
"It is enough for the disciple to be like the teacher, and the slave like the master." In what way does this happen without a disciple becoming a teacher or a slave, a master? Is this perpetual adolescence?
"Everyone who therefore acknowledges me before others, I also will acknowledge before my Father in heaven." What are the limits of acknowledgement? Is it naming only? How much emulation or becoming of Christ in one's own setting is needed for acknowledgement?
"For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his." What death is a death like his? Is it the form of crucifixion? Is it looking beyond the current principalities and powers until they unite to legally murder? And what happens if you live like him, rather than die like him?
"Cast out this slave woman with her son; for the son of this slave woman shall not inherit along with my son Isaac." When did Sarah stop laughing? What died in her? What fear rose up? It is one thing to begin to move from disciple to teacher, slave to master, and quite another to move from teacher to disciple and master to slave. Again we see limits of external correspondence.
- - -
finding our fearless place
pushes us beyond the surface
where crosses around necks
are protective amulets
saving one from so living
that a cross come to our back
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2007_06_01_archive.html
An interesting distinction between Pentecostalists (original?) speaking across languages and cultures to find a common spot of wonder regarding G*D and Prophets (original?) speaking within a language/culture/religion to note where we have lost our commonness, “Violence and destruction!”
Prophets recognize when we have again shut ourselves up in dark rooms filled with fear of the loss of “our” life and the needed antidote of advocating for the life of “others”. It is at the point of the other that we can “Sing praise”.
Whether with the ancient prophets, a later Pentecost, or today’s experience of wonder and other, we move from fear to flame and wind to word.
Singing praise today?