Luke 6:17-26
Epiphany 6 - Year C
"Disciples" come in all shapes and sizes and every other category you can think of. It is easy to think in terms of absolute categories with this litany of blessings and woes. You either measure up or you don't.
Another way of coming at this is to take it as a teaching on prayer, even as the disciples at another time asked for a model for that. Here is a model that talks about externals being related, one to one, with internals.
As we know we are not only part of a diverse community but we are diverse within ourselves. Some parts of us are more mature than others. Can we see this as a model on which to hone ourselves rather than a static good or evil? Each time we come to it, we need to find that growing edge that needs sharpening, clarifying, changing.
How do poverty, hunger and sorrow participate in a miracle of being shared with? How do riches, satiation, and giddiness participation in the miracle of sharing?
If we are not about this business of working on the relationships between blessings and woes we are not hearing the call to a full life in the process of being healed but looking at this detail and that and judging while using the wrong tools - like trying to measure the starry, starry night with the tools of the quantum world.
How can this "this and that" approach guide us beyond "this and that" thinking?
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2004/february2004.html
Dealing with prophets is a litmus test. Can you listen beyond your own immediate benefit?
When we recognize our experience is but one of six-and-one-half billion-and-counting experiences we find one form of our poverty. Here we find we can be citizens of an alternative known traditionally as "kingdom of GOD" rather than being the biggest frog in our own pond.
When we know enough to know how little we know we open the possibility of learning a bit more. Here we find one form of our hunger for More (an alternative spelling of G*D?).
When we turn up our empathetic receptors our tears do come more readily, but also our sense of the incongruous and the presence of small steps is sharpened to the point of laughter without being trapped in despair.
With this kind of appreciation for experience, learning, and perspective we can deal with all that is involved in shifting from then to now to when.
The flip-side of this is milking all other experiences to validate our own, to be satisfied with knowing as an alternative to understanding, and to use laughing-at as a weapon of preemptive control.
This kind of approach freezes us into one-way people - out for more (note case change) - for rich is never rich enough, satisfied is never satisfied enough, and control is never in enough control.
With this perspective we keep projecting present profit into eternal profit and claiming that current benefits are a working out of previous benefits. The issue here is turning relative advantage into structured advantage. Whomever espouses such is our bosom buddy. However this position has historically always led to the downfall of regimes for it never adequately accounts for the eventuality of revolution beyond the ken of wealth and resources and control.
These blessings and woes are not simply individual, but social as well. They are no easier for us today than they were when heard by the church as words of Jesus. These words are spoken to the generic disciples, to you and me and our congregations. They are words of encouragement (blessing) and correction (woe).
Only true prophets can hold these together. False prophets err on the side of good news or bad news, both out of touch with larger experiences.
According to the world population counter link above there are now more people than when this musing began. Does that mean our claim to resources has shrunk or our claim for privilege has increased? What do you think prophets would say?
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Joe (Reader)
Great site! I think your notation of six and one-half trillion should be six and one-half billion with a B rather than with a T. But a few trillion here and a few trillion there, who would notice the difference! ;)
But I loved the counters at the population site you gave us!
Thanks!
Peace and blessings,
Joe
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2004/february2004.html
I have appreciated the translations that say to the poor, hungry, sorrowing, reviled - "You are not cursed." When we leave it simply as "blessed are you", the affirmation soon becomes enough for the sayer to do. While one statement (you are not cursed) may be implied within the other (you are blessed), they touch different parts of us.
To be blessed means I'm in need of blessing and the question is whether that blessing is sufficient to cover what needs covering. There is something clearer about not being cursed.
At other times I am aware of not being cursed, but without the motivation to do anything about that state and I stand in need of a good blessing to free a direction of engagement.
How do you play back and forth between being blessed and not being cursed?
Within this may be some hints about the healing process. Some of those who came needed a vaccination of blessing to hold them through every diseased scene they will pass through. Others needed a seal of approval only received through a proclamation that they are not cursed. The healing arts really are an art form - knowing where to apply what.
Amid the crowd who came to hear and be touched, those looking for a word found themselves spoken to and those looking for a touch found themselves embraced.
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Nationalism is militant hatred. It is not love of our countrymen: that, which denotes good citizenship, philanthropy, practical religion, should go by the name of patriotism. Nationalism is passionate xenophobia. It is fanatical, as all forms of idol-worship are bound to be. And fanaticism - l'infame denounced by Voltaire - obliterates or reverses the distinction between good and evil. Patriotism, the desire to work for the common weal, can be, must be, reasonable: "My country, may she be right!" Nationalism spurns reason: "Right or wrong, my country."
Albert L. Guerard, The Paradoxes of Nationalism.
let me have all things
let me have nothing
so goes a covenant service
let me be blessed
let me not be cursed
so goes plain speaking
my fear of woe
my fear of not being blessed
are revealed in possession
yes, all is mine
yes, all will be mine
are revealed in present desire
weal or woe
blessing or curse
show which nation we are part of
welcome or restraint
healing or captivity
distinguish good from evil
blessing for me
blessing for all
one calls forth the other
a curse for you
a curses for all
one compounds the other