Zephaniah 1:7, 12-18
Proper 28 (33) - Year A
Hear these words from Eugene Peterson's introduction to Zephaniah and join the "choir of prophets."
"Because the root of the solid spiritual life is embedded in a relationship between people and God, it is easy to develop the misunderstanding that my spiritual life is something personal between God and me -- a private thing to be nurtured by prayers and singing, spiritual readings that comfort and inspire, and worship with like-minded friends. If we think this way for very long, we will assume that the way we treat the people we don't like or who don't like us has nothing to do with God.
"That's when the prophets step in and interrupt us, insisting, 'Everything you do or think or feel has to do with God. Every person you meet has to do with God.' We live in a vast world of interconnectedness, and the connections have consequences, either in things or in people -- and all the consequences come together in God. The biblical phrase for the coming together of the consequences is Judgment Day.
"We can't be reminded too often or too forcefully of this reckoning. Zephaniah's voice in the choir of prophets sustains the intensity, the urgency."
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2002/november2002.html
Zephaniah 1:7, 12-18 or Judges 4:1-7
We often wait for G*D to get things set up for us. We spend our time and energy attempting to get ourselves in the right position to take advantage of G*D's setup. This attempted readiness seems, more often than not, to have some ritualistic element to it according to the wisdom of the day about how to get on G*D's good side.
Barak had it easy. Just go and wait and G*D will manage to have events conspire in your favor. We continue to look for this sort of intervention -- that G*D has things finally set up for us to win (no lottery odds for us, we want to know G*D is not just on our side, but has actually arranged for us to win in the short-run - none of this pie in the sky, by and by, stuff).
We find it very easy to be over-reliant upon G*D, exempting ourselves from any responsibility for the events of life. We "rest complacently on our dregs". We can also fall into despair that allows us to simply keep on keeping on in the easiest manner possible -- G*D not seeming to do anything, either healing or violent.
Finally the United Methodist Bishops are moving beyond waiting for some deus ex machina and publicly fulfilling some of their teaching function. They recently spoke against a Judicial Council decision denying membership to those who are homosexual read here and are now standing against the Iraq War read here. A question comes about our willingness to join them and push these matters further, with no assurance that G*D's setup is complete.
Are we willing to do our part to partner with G*D -- to encourage, push, G*D along and even go so far as to set things up for G*D? Where does G*D behavior become our behavior and where do we need to join saints of old shaming G*D into doing what is right?
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2005/november2005.html
Zephaniah 1:7, 12-18 or Judges 4;1-7
Psalm 123 or Psalm 90:1-12
1 Thessalonians 5:1-11
Matthew 25:14-30
Life has been given into our hands. Some have received one gift; some another.
What to do with gifts is a perennial issue. The way we use a gift this year may be different than the way we were called to use it last year. It is difficult to keep up with a Living G*D.
The doing of evil may be as simple as continuing to use a gift in a manner no longer called for. Persistence of evil might be seen as a persistence of behavior beyond its time with no new listening, learning, or living.
It is this persistence of past talents that can be the same as burying them in the past and protecting them from being invested in the present and future. Thank goodness for communities that continue to challenge and support us in our use of gifts - for challenging us when we keep repeating ourselves past usefulness and for stimulating and encouraging us to new uses of given gifts.
- - -
a thousand years
swept away like a dream
and we complain
we bewail
we are at wit's end
the pull of habit
is strong
persistent
insistent
desired
even if there is new grass
growing through cement
we cling to our cement
claiming it to be life
in the presence of real life
may the light of day
keep us from SAD
cast a beam upon our path
warm our waning days
and lead us to one another
a thousand days
pfftt
gone
no regret
today's enough