Luke 13:31-35
Lent 2 - Year C
Dire warnings are all around. Rebecca Ann Parker in her book, “Blessing the World: What Can Save Us Now”, reminds us there are two ways of looking at disaster through an apocalypse lens.
1) We can anticipate an apocalypse and become passive or simply await its arrival to set things straight. 2) We can claim an apocalypse has already occurred and our work is to redeem the current time.
While we usually find ourselves somewhere between a glass more than half empty (anticipating an apocalypse to fill the remainder?) and a glass more than half full (working to remove the rubble and establish community yet available to share the little we have with those who have less?), the addition of perspective on apocalyptic matters does add value to our interpretation of what the next needed thing might or might not be for us.
Jesus is speaking here post-apocryphally – he continues, not in fear of what is to come but in blessing-mode on what has already happened. You can hear the passion for setting things right after they have gone terribly wrong (and aren’t we living in a time when we can say things have gone terribly wrong!). If there is not weeping as we rehearse Jesus’ words about Jerusalem, about our place of living, we have not read them well. This is not a time for a monotone reciting of holy words. Rather our pre-apocryphal resignation or engagement with a post-apocryphal setting will be revealed through the reading of and response to these words: “This place, here, now, arrived at by ignoring/killing prophets and dismissing/stoning those who would bind up wounds! I offer consolation and consolidation as a hen gathers her brood under her wings even as I am isolated/exiled. Yet I proceed in hope that a time will come when you experience a need for blessing to go forward and will remember it is in blessing I have been among you.”
Hopefully we will someday take this symbol of a protective hen
undergirds us and is more powerfully motivating than a cross.
In so doing we will reveal our orientation at the side of G*D mopping up willful and involuntary messes.
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Video bonus of Dominus Flevit
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2013/02/luke-1331-35.html
Made in GOD's image -- who does not come in the name of the Lord? Given the various described behaviors (and thus natures?) of GOD -- who does not come in the name of the Lord?
Note that there are ancient manuscripts that read only, "...you will not see me until you say, Blessed..."
This is a clearer saying that takes it out of some imponderable time to come that will wrench a blessing from us, almost against our will.
This is a clearer saying that points to the way in which our attitudes define our behaviors and we are in charge of and responsible for the same.
During Lent we are called to practice blessing-language until it becomes second nature to us. This puts us in the good company of Jesus and the saints of all faiths who bless and bless until they are a blessing. This is at least as attractive as the preaching of faith until we have faith to preach.
Want in on the Jesus thing? Bless.
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2004/march2004.html
We don't see the best in people (call it Jesus, if you will) until we say, "Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the best." There are a myriad of saints around and about, but we don't recognize them for being caught up in warning others or self-censoring so we will stay out of trouble or . . . .
Our expectations are a huge driver in what we are able to perceive. Are the Pharisees warning Jesus for his sake or their own? We know Jesus has wandered away for a season now and then. Sometimes for regeneration, sometimes to take the heat off so a beheading doesn't come his way. Why not now say, "Thanks" and take a prayer break. Is the downhill run from transfiguration to crucifixion so far along that its momentum can't be broken? If so, what does that say about choice?
Here it might be seen that Jesus is picking a fight with those who have come to warn. Surely it would be good to not automatically pigeon-hole Pharisees as terrorists: never having compassion, always being hyper-doctrinaire.
Even though there is a hair-trigger on this response from Jesus, we do at least arrive at something more than pushing-back or self-pity.
It would be interesting to begin taking this last line about blessing and applying it to a series of other scenes in the scriptures and in our lives. Try it on the neighbor banging on the door for bread for guests. See how it works with Jesus' conversation with his fellow cross-hangers. What about encounters between Saul and David? Is this helpful in Edenic conversations?
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what time is it?
chronologically, that is
http://www.time.gov/
the clock is ticking
now to thenwhat time is it?
kairotically, that is
time to see and speak blessing
the clock is waiting
to start anew
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2007_03_01_archive.html
Thank you, Pharisees, for an honorable warning, even if it does play to your benefit.
Thank you, Jesus, for an honorable persistence and honorable heeding, even if it does play to your demise.
Just as there are a variety of personalities and perspectives, so there are a variety of ways to be honorable.
This passage challenges our honor. What can we say we are doing to transform the world around us? Is Health Care Reform with a Public Option the moral and political equivalent of "casting out demons and performing cures"?
This passage challenges our wisdom. Are we clear when we take a half-a-step forward and "be on our way", even if it is less than optimal? Are we as clear when we take a stand, "in Jerusalem", finally, for we can do no other?
When such becomes clear there is an equal clarity of blessing.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2010/02/luke-1331-35.html