Luke 15:1-32
Lent 4 - Year C
Grumbling is an opportunity for teaching. Not direct instruction, mind you, but a story or three. Grumbling indicates there is some unresolved matter at hand. Conscience or some other cognitive dissonance is at work wondering how to resolve a current unsolvable paradigm or misunderstood proposition.
How can a good guy associate with not good guys and still remain a good guy?
This disrupts our easy categorization of who is for us and who is against us.
Notice how all three of the stories respond to grumbling by ending with “Rejoice with me, there is found joy on earth and reflected joy in heaven!” This enters under the grumbling level to plant a new vision seed that would be automatically rejected had the grumblers been instructed to “Get a life” or “Snap out of it” or “Don’t go there” or “Don’t worry; be happy”.
So, in the next 24 hours you are likely to meet a grumbler. You probably already know what they are going to grumble about since we are such creatures of habit and cultural memes. Try preparing a story now, so you can use it later.
This is good practice for next Lent when we could participate in a discipline of daily developing and sharing stories to counter the common grumbles of our time and location.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2013/03/luke-151-3-11b-32.html
What might be the height of graciousness? One candidate is that of waiting, waiting for life to come round right.
Part of what makes this a candidate is its simplicity. Judging is hard work unless you have an unrealistic measuring rod that gets applied to every situation and then it ceases to be judging. Far easier to wait, at least for some personality types.
This is an active waiting, though - a standing by the door, waiting to run forward kind of waiting. This is a waiting that anticipates fulfillment and rejoicing - expectation runs so high there is fatted calf after tofu calf ready for feasting (depending on one's dietary needs). This is a waiting that won't second-guess itself in the face of whining and sulking and the bringing back to mind of previous wrongs.
Waiting is a way we are to be with each other and ourselves.
For some this may seem too passive when looked at from the vantage point of the runaway. But even here, they are doing the best they can with what they have. If we are to love a neighbor as ourselves, this gentle graciousness is also appropriate here.
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2004/march2004.html
Jesus eats with sinners. This is the basis of questions and accusations against him.
At the end of the parable before us, there is great feasting going on. The parent-figure feasts with the separated child returned.
Both of these run counter to a cultural norm that tries to fix things, once for all, so we don't have to keep thinking and reconsidering our relationships. It seems that once lost always lost takes precedence all too often over once related always related. The more religious way of putting this is that once a sinner always a sinner is stronger in our behaviors that once saved always saved.
Presuming we can get out of particular rituals or experiences being the measurement of salvation, we might be able to see everything that comes forth from creation as being saved and never losing that quality. It always bubbles up, no matter what error has gone on along the way (by the way, I am not presuming that the routine process of maturity a child go through is an error). When this is so for us we are always waiting for the new to be glimpsed among the old. Now the lost can be found.
Who might you need to eat with? Beyond your need, who needs you to eat with them? This is a worthy spot in which to stand accused and guilty - ready to see new life.
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2004/march2004.html
Grumbling about those with whom Jesus associated continues to rise up. Jesus' response is a story, not capitulation to the grumblers. In fact three stories that move from care for 1:100 sheep, 1:10 coins, and 1:2 children. Regardless of the ratio, care is needed and given. Regardless of the economics involved, care is needed and given.
In this story we hear the lead-in - Jesus welcomes sinners and eats with them. Imagine a pre-Emmaus meal with the youngest son who sinned by breaking any number of family and cultural ties and is eating with the pigs. Even in the slops, Jesus joins those caught in dissolute living and a healing surfaces - a coming to one's self.
In this moment of revelation an injured, lame one rises to be homeward bound. The long story of moving away becomes a short story of coming back.
For both the father and older son, it is as if he had never gone. A father is still generous - in welcome back as well as with resources to go. A brother is still put out - once cheated of a helpmate and resources and now cheated out of recognition and rejoicing.
So how will things be different? Will the younger son repeat his stunt seventy times seven times? Will he bring new technology from afar and make the land more productive? Will he be a catalyst for a moment of revelation by his brother? Will he find himself slain in a field at Cain's long hand?
Questions can also be asked of changes regarding the father and brother (not to mention invisible mother, servants, the next fatted calf, etc.) - questions hard and hopeful.
- - -
no one gave him anything
neither did she receive assistance
with nothing
from nothing
toward nothing
lost and lone
we finally peel back
what feels like fate
to see an abundance
from which we have come
to which we return
in the ashes
from which we have come
to which we return
in an abundance of ashes
we find not only
ashes of abundance
we find also
new sight
new direction
new energy
new life
we hear also
angels rejoicing
as one in hundred is found
as one in ten is found
as one in two is found
as one unique in all the world is found
and so
pod-suckers
arise
what have we to lose
when there is paradise to gain
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2007_03_01_archive.html
Issues of acceptable loss and collateral damage are perennial. Who among us would leave 99 assets to go looking for a missing one? Not me. You?
Our rejoicing is usually over a profit and the profit off of 99 is not far enough off 100 to spend the time and energy to search for a missing one or to risk having the 99 reduced even further. We would more likely gather folks around to celebrate such a small loss.
The whole premise of redemption doesn't compute in a profit-motive setting. Here everyone is on their own lookout. Lost is lost and gain is gain. Older brothers ought to get theirs first and doubled.
This all works until the time comes when we are wandering or lost. Who will care or look for us? Well, if enough others have been let go and we have been complicit in their loss, there won't be anyone left to look for us. It then is in our best interest to listen again to these three stories and to hear them as prophecy to be engaged with, not "Soupy Soul" illustrations.
Sheep, coins, people, ozone layers, civilian casualties, etc., etc. are all too important to easily let them go. Keep looking for your compassion and, when found, engage it expansively.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2010/03/luke-151-3-11b-32.html
Just how small a percentage makes something invisible or is an acceptable loss or collateral damage? Is it 50% (children), 10% (coins), 1% (sheep), 0% (sparrow/hair)? Homeopathically, is there such a thing as too much dilution?
This last week I received a church newsletter in which the pastor's column echoed the grumbling of the Pharisees and scribes. It seems that, for this pastor, some "original revelation", confirmed by later creedal/legal formulations, should have kept the ELCA and Episcopal Church, and all others, from self-destructing (his analysis) over "homosexuality". He claimed that schism over a mere 1% of the population, gay men and lesbians, wasn't worth the loss of church unity. Yes, I responded as softly as I could [that his work with a majority 99 would bear much good fruit and that my work with a minority of 1 would bear much good fruit] and hope you will continue to respond to such statements that come your way - letting them go by does no one any good.
Definition of "neighbor" seems to be an on-going issue in our lives. We cycle through which group is currently not included in that understanding. How near a dweller does one have to be to be a neighbor? Do they need to have 100% of the same characteristics as myself? How about 75% of a religious belief? 50% of cultural referents? 25% of food preferences? 10% of disposable resources? 1% of humor style? Less than 1% of a political bias? At one point or another we have drawn circles to keep everyone out. How very Jr. Hi. of us. Corporately, a lack of neighborliness keeps us less than the sum of our parts.
The passage moves from grumbling to celebration, rejoicing, and a question for us is how we might do the same - individually and communally?
Where was the turning point for you? Was it in the finding (at the end point)? Was it in the anticipation of a welcoming (that which can't yet be seen)? Somewhere between?
As this is being jotted my mother is completing her journey amidst us. Breathing is erratic. Some are hanging on every breath. Others are away enjoying a beautiful day. Will there still be neighborliness, given different choices, when all is said and done and immediate tears wiped away? Will a blame spot be chosen to set up one way of responding being the right way? Will we appreciate different gifts and needs and stages of faith? Will lamps be lit [resources, time, and energy used] to bring together all those who have been dropped along the way.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2010/09/luke-151-32.html