Amos 5:18-24

Proper 22 (32) - Year A

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Amos 6:1a, 4-7 or Jeremiah 32:1-3a, 6-15

An <A HREF="http://www.tompaine.com/articles/what_ownership_society.php">Ownership Society</a> can be a political illusion setting people against their own best self-interest. How we deal with economic imagery is important as it goes to the heart of most people's everyday experience.

Jeremiah uses guerilla theater to dramatize the steadfastness of GOD. In a time of great upheaval when it appears that real estate is not going to be a growth industry or a viable investment because all titles are about to go down the drain, Jeremiah sets out to draw attention away from property of the moment to promises to be fulfilled.

Amos takes another tack by urging us to run as far and as fast as possible from the usual temptations of getting stuck in the process of getting more. Who doesn't have dreams of more? What won't we do to get more? In that more we get lost and lose the sense of promise in the morass of property.

So how would you deal with taxes these days -- voluntarily pay extra as a sign of hope or cut them that we might now have more?

http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2004/september2004.html

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Amos 6:1a, 4-7 or Jeremiah 32:1-3a, 6-15

Jeremiah, who prophesized [recognized - paid attention to - the natural consequence of present behavior] exile, was, himself, put into personal exile before the people found a foreign exile. And yet he claimed a part of their community of the future and even invested in it.

It is important to note here that spoken approbation of some aspect of our current reality is not the only thing that is needed. We also need to act out, in as dramatic a form as we can, our participation in what we see as a preferred future. In this case Jeremiah's words and actions run parallel and perpendicular to one another - and at the same time.

It is this friction that brings light. Words alone or actions alone don't have the ability to get a purchase on our imagination that is strong enough to bring change.

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those who become at ease
face a danger of succumbing
to that very ease
the only antidote of which
is a whole different kind
of ease
an ease
no longer needing ease

http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2007_09_01_archive.html