Acts 4:5-12
Easter 4 - Year B
How is it you do what you do?
It is important to affirm your presence without blame or shame. Let your "yes" be yes and your "no" be no. Health for yourself and others is tied up with this ability to be self-differentiated.
Just how necessary is to extend the response beyond the identification of Jesus in verse 10? It doesn't appear that the accusations of rejection and positing an assertion that there is only one way, were effective in changing the hearts and minds of those so accused. Yes, they were quiet for the moment, but that is as much fear of the crowds as it is the boldness of Peter and John. The joy of this moment of triumph of escaping arrest was not translatable into a moment of triumph of reconciliation and new life for all involved.
May we not be satisfied with simply ourselves getting off. May we find the way to assist everyone to listen to GOD and to rejoice in every good deed, regardless of from whence the wind has blown such blessing. We might want to remember Mark 9:38-41 here.
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2003/may2003.html
Definitions define. "I am the definer", to modify a phrase.
Is my life taken or given? I am the definer.
Are my actions loving or not? I am the definer.
Am I walking through a dark valley or a green pasture? I am the definer.
Is this healing from Jesus or spontaneous regeneration? I am the definer.
Are all definitions equal, dictionary-wise? Are all definitions up for grab, Humpty Dumpty-wise? Where does my definition end and yours begin? Can I define you out if you define me in?
What needs better defining in your life and in the life of the community of faith and of living that you participate in?
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2006/may2006.html
A "good shepherd" has the power and responsibility to know when to lay down their life and when to pick it up.
Followers of a "good shepherd" don't always get the power of this ambiguity. Some will claim the shepherd can only pick up life and so everyone must give up their life in the light of the shepherd's life. This will keep them from an ability to lay down their life for others. Seemingly, they can see only a crook as a mighty scepter.
Other followers make exactly the other error, that the shepherd must at all times and in all places, lay down (even if this is an active action against violence, it is still a laying down).
What we are still seeking is wisdom on how these fit together in our lives and in our times.
One beginning spot understands that goodness and mercy are ever present. This gives direction to our picking up and laying down of life. At which point does one reveal the background of goodness and mercy through a contrasting action and at which point does the other polarity kick in to better reveal a field of goodness and mercy against which everything else makes better sense? It is here we always find ourselves. Do we zap a fig tree or allow a rich, young ruler to go further down a dark path?
- - -
resurrectional power reveals
our basic bent in life
to narrow life down
one unique resurrection
to open life up
resurrection as commonplace
to see resurrection for Jesus
and claim it only for him
runs us afoul other sheep
claimed as part of all
runs us afoul of others who also
reduce resurrection to one
to see resurrection as ours
authorized and encouraged
by this resurrected Jesus
for the sake of lost sheep
ordains us transformers
of resurrection to resurrections
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2007_04_01_archive.html
What an openness to life! Teaching (being led forth), Fellowship, Feasting, and Communicating within and beyond - these are still key elements in a healthy community - whether of one faith or another.
These four qualities bind a community closely enough together that trust of their most prized possessions (even survival) to one another can take place. Without this vital communitarian impetus organic growth doesn't take place. Oh, there can be surface unity, but the lack of deep trust will eventually shine through and fracture will show.
In today's untrusting environment where winning and losing metaphors abound, what Teaching is most needed that would lead us toward trust? What Fellowship and Feasting? What Prayers? Note that teaching toward trust is different than teaching toward a particular doctrine.
There are undoubtedly many responses to these questions. Instead of waiting to come up with one grand theory of everything, you and I are encouraged to Teach, Fellowship, Feast, and Pray as best we can, leaving any later form of such to such a time.
- - -
called to endurance
is a strange gift
to receive
in a world valuing
this quarter's bottom line
only in light of the next
endurance will best be seen
in light of the flighty
expedient choices of today
which reveal the long-term
values worth investing in
today for tomorrow's sake
to pile value high
pack it down and heap it higher
is still a long-term strategy
with a proven track record
sustainability trumps a Vegas hit
enduring and guarding life
so our ancestors found
again and again and again
forgetting this teaching imperils life
hoarding goods and celebrations
to the fewest possible number entitled
diminishes possibilities
so our descendants call out
again and again and again
to be included in the bounty of life
and so we endure today
with ancestral solidarity
received and passed on
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2007_04_01_archive.html
Again with the proclamation, not the action.
Prelude Note: in verse 4 we hear of 5,000 people responding when Peter and John speak about "resurrection from the dead". The scene is one of arrest by "Priests, Temple Captain, and Sadducees" in the presence of these 5,000. At this point in the story we are still carrying on the tradition of Jesus regarding a rejection of violence. Scripturally it is difficult to condone violence in Jesus' name.
Remembering the adversarial nature of a trial setting, it is easy to understand Peter's advocacy for "Jesus Only". Setting the narrowness of the assertion about Jesus aside for the moment, what is not easy is our own response to the questions, "Who put you in charge here? What business do you have doing what you do?" [The Message] or "By what power or by what name did you do what you did?" [NRSV]
We sometimes find ourselves surprised at being effective in a healing and needing to come up with a reason for it, a surmise about how to replicate it. On these occasions it is probably best to be a bit tentative. After some experiences we can begin to be a bit more secure about some elements of healing, but it is a mistake to think that healing is only science and not art.
Behind this utilitarian response to the questions, there is the larger question of why we bother to engage the attempt to make the present better.
Verse 13 begins to move toward a response of "boldness" being what we need – a boldness to proclaim while G*D acts (vss 29-30). As you work with your response, you may find that proclamation is not a stand-alone unit. We need to reclaim our partnership with G*D in action and be a bit more tentative about the proclamation – a Living God is pretty hard to pin down to one mode of validation.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2009_04_01_archive.html
High-priests of every time have the power to make suspects stand in their midst to be grilled. “Explain yourselves,” they demand, “why aren’t you like us?”
Here at General Conference the same dynamic has been going on for 40 years. Suspects are still standing in the midst of the currently orthodox. “Explain yourselves,” is still being demanded. “Prove that you are of G*D, for in our scriptures you are an abomination, heretical.” Then it was Peter and John who were suspect; today it is the descenants of Peter and John who suspect anyone associated with the GLBT community.
Ah, what power does to confuse us and to forget formative experiences. Would that those who have the power, the votes, had the good sense to accept the mystery of G*D-at-work. Then it was a most unexpected healing of an individual. Now it is a very expected variation in human sexuality.
In both cases the hierarchy (including the swaying middle) has set its limit of accessibility. It has defined G*D so narrowly that they cannot but be set into a tizzy if healing or acceptability is extended further than is profitable. Institutional survival takes precedence of all else.
Imagine, if you will, an investigation into reality instead of an escape into blame. How would that have looked like then? And now?
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2012/04/acts-45-12.html