Wisdom of Solomon 10:15-21
Christmas 2 - Years A, B, C
Thanksgiving - Year A
An interesting line from The Christian Community Bible raises a question of how we are midrashing these days. This is one of the more important tasks to help transition us from our past to our future and to free us from the various constraints of fundamentalism, literalism, or creedalism.
...when a people sticks only to its national culture, without seeing anything beyond, within a short time, it suffocates. God’s revelation to the Jews was not over, but it was necessary to present it in a new way to all people who neither thought nor spoke like the Jews.
The book of Wisdom is the first important effort to express the faith and wisdom of Israel, not only in Greek, but also in a form adapted to Greek culture.
Those of us involved with progressive Christianity must deal with our own midrash processes as we adapt our heritage to a 21st century culture. Keep telling the story you know to be true.
When we look back with 20/20 hindsight, it is easy to discern a Wise presence. What wasn’t understood at the time as wise (fear continued throughout the Exodus) can later be attributed to some good plan. This connects wisdom with thanksgiving.
When we look around us for wisdom to make difficult choices, we find ourselves caught between focal lengths—attempting to apply an appropriate learning from history so we don’t just repeat it and repeat and peering into a dim unknown for a new learning not already in our grab-bag. This connects wisdom with mystery.
When we do thought experiments regarding the future, we find our prejudices coming to the fore. Our assumptions and speculations rev themselves into red-line danger. This connects wisdom with foolishness.
Remember with thanksgiving that G*D has revealed things to the foolish, not the wise. Well what are we to do with Sister Wisdom who is all over the map? Sit back and enjoy the ride? Winnow the results with yet a fifth criterion to measure reality?
Perhaps the best we can do here is to raise our sensitivity to the mute and those struggling to put their reality into communicable language. To whom are you listening and how engaged are you willing to be to wrest meaning from inarticulate groans of creation?
As found in Wrestling Year A: Connecting Sunday Readings with Lived Experience
I must admit to difficulty with an image of rejoicing righteous folks looting godless losers while singing hymns.
In trying to get beyond the part of our make-up that automatically rejoices in our goodness being blessed while the weaknesses of others are cursed (not paying attention to any weaknesses of our own or goodness in others), the best I can do is to recognize that this whole book is a midrash on what has gone on before. In particular this section is traditionally seen as a way to focus on how Wisdom or G*D has been at work shaping history.
An interesting line from The Christian Community Bible raises the question of how we are midrashing these days. I would contend that this is one of the more important tasks to help transition us from our past to our future and to free us from the various constraints of fundamentalism or literalism.
"...when a people sticks only to its national culture, without seeing anything beyond, within a short time, it suffocates. God's revelation to the Jews was not over, but it was necessary to present it in a new way to all people who neither thought nor spoke like the Jews.
"The book of Wisdom is the first important effort to express the faith and wisdom of Israel, not only in Greek, but also in a form adapted to Greek culture." [CCB]
Those of us involved with progressive Christianity must deal with our own midrash processes as we adapt our heritage to a 21st century culture. Keep telling the story you know to be true.
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2003/january2003.html
This is a challenge to begin another important year. This year, if not heaven on earth, when?
One key to fulfilling this challenge is to listen for those who are unable to speak (whether from internal or external constraint). We are to loose their tongues, not to interpret for them.
A second key is to patiently assist the young to move beyond baby-talk to plain speech. We are to assist them to speak for themselves, not to speak for them.
Along this journey of growth there will be discards of power and authority and new possibilities and probabilities for new community.
Happy New Year! There is worthy work ahead of us.
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2004/january2004.html
Wisdom of Solomon 10:15-21 or Psalm 147:12-20
The Psalmist's "he" and Wisdom's "she" run along parallel tracks of action. They each rescue and inflict.
One interesting difference, among several that can be accounted for by their different situations while they were writing, is the way in which the male word declares to and the female opens the mouths of the mute to do the declaring. Some of this can be seen in silent Joseph who is declared unto and simply acts and singing Mary who responds with an affirmation lifting the poor and outcast.
The differences here are less about male or female roles since there are males who declare and males that open and females that open and females who declare. Whether male or female (all are one in larger perspectives) what is at stake is the question of what is needed in a given situation. Are we at the point of needing folks who can speak to and for others or folks who can assist folks to speak their own experience.
This discernment is important because we tend to get caught in roles, even roles of wisdom, and develop a Johnny-One-Note approach to situations. Wisdom can adjust to the need of the time and the need of the future to bring forth what is needed. Without the ability to implement appropriately, wisdom is simply wisdom, but unhelpful, unable to get any traction to affect needed changes.
So are you a "he" or a "she" in your current situation? Have you been the alternative "she" or "he" in other situations? We need those who are persistent, in good times or bad, and those who shift to bring a needed perspective. It is not that one is automatically preferable but that what is needed might be evidenced.
Praise God; affirm Wisdom.
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2005/january2005.html
When we look back with 20/20 hindsight, it is easy to discern a Wise presence. What wasn't understood at the time as wise (remember the fear that continues throughout the Exodus) can later be attributed to some good plan. This connects wisdom with thanksgiving.
When we look around us for wisdom to make difficult choices, we find ourselves caught between focal lengths – attempting to apply an appropriate learning from history that we don't just repeat and repeat and peering into a dim unknown for a new learning not already in our grab-bag. This connects wisdom with mystery.
When we do thought experiments regarding the future, we find our prejudices coming to the fore. Our assumptions and speculations rev themselves into red-line danger. This connects wisdom with foolishness.
Remember with thanksgiving that G*D has revealed things to the foolish, not the wise? Well what are we to do with Sister Wisdom who is all over the map? Sit back and enjoy the ride? Winnow the results with yet a fifth criterion to measure reality?
Perhaps the best we can do here is to raise our sensitivity to the mute and those struggling to put their reality into communicable language. Who are you listening to and how engaged are you willing to be to wrest meaning from inarticulate groans of creation?
Resolution 3: To listen to Wisdom bubbling from below consciousness and to join in the groans of birthing a new year from an old by at least boiling water.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2008_12_01_archive.html
A light shown so brightly folks became disoriented. From whence comes this light as it seems to be everywhere? Is it eternally now or simply a moment in a longer journey? Why does it show you more clearly than it shows me?
In the midst of such disorientation provisional responses seem to add to the discomfort of not being in charge. Eternal answers begin to creep in to cut through the contingencies of life. Prime among these answers is that of privileged space and time.
At first it takes a great deal of energy to wrestle with simply being. Simply think of the years of the stages you have gone through to mature and then to mature some more. In so doing we begin to see it is not our will that prevails and any attempt to guarantee a moment’s calm is to eternally build a wall higher and broader that divides light from dark, one from zero, or me from you.
One important brick in this wall is “victory”. Everything we know and believe must be protected. Everything else is suspect and to be defeated.
These passages express that old understanding of a G*D being evaluated on the basis of that G*D’s military/political victories. Some are able to hold to their G*D even in defeat and when they next are next victorious their belief is multiplied and more rules added to further narrow who is in and who is out.
If light is light, wave and particle, we need to grieve for G*D as well as praise G*D. If light confuses us, imagine how confused we become when the reality of experience continues to simply be present in the midst of our best laid plans. It can help us remember that there is no reward for belief that will allow plundering that which is currently un-belief; “victory” gives no privilege, only obligation. An ever-victorious G*D breeds tyrannical followers.
Light leads everywhere. Even Wise Ones lose their way. Light reminds us to look in palace and manger and then to choose where we will place our bet on Herod or the shepherds.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2014/01/psalm-14712-20-or-wisdom-of-solomon.html