Acts 10:34-43
"Baptism" - Year A
Easter Day - Years A, B, C
G*D shows no partiality and in baptism we are called to live in that same image. Our baptismal vows ask us to resist evil in whatever guise it comes. Partiality, particularly unconscious partiality, is a major disguise of evil. Our baptismal vows ask us to affirm Christ as our way to G*D, to impartiality.
This is a definition of the presence and hospitality of a Holy Spirit:
In the beginning was impartiality, and this impartiality was with G*D, and this impartiality was G*D. All things came into being through this impartiality, and without impartiality not one thing came into being. What has come into being in Christ was impartiality, and this welcome to all was and is the light of all people. Impartiality shines in the partial, and the partial did not and has not overcome it.
–WW
As found in Wrestling Year A: Connecting Sunday Readings with Lived Experience
Look, it’s taken awhile. Granted, I’m as slow as a rock, but if I can finally get it, so can anyone. Remember this rock trying to walk on water? Plop. Remember my trying to tell Jesus to get the devil off his back and he tells me, I’m just seeing myself? Remember my running away afraid? Yeah, I got a couple of things confused earlier but they were set-ups, nothing I really thought through or felt on my own.
Now, if I can finally get it, anyone can. All it takes is to finally hear our religious and cultural tradition say, “that was then, this is now.”
We used to think G*D was allergic to shellfish and pork, rather OCD about combining fabrics, and too high-borne to appreciate chipped beef on toast. Turns out we had a partial view of G*D. When you can take a longer look, G*D’s rather impartial.
It seems it sets Jesus spinning in his grave when we start divvying things up. What sets him loose is an appreciation for zero-degrees of separation. Turns out he likes being a judge of that which doesn’t need judging - a pretty good gig if you can get it and you can get it if you try. Hey, somebody should turn this into a song - An Impartial Rag!
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2013/03/acts-1034-43.html
"I am what I am." "Now we are witnesses to everything Jesus did/was/is"
That seems to be the rest of the story.
We are scared and yet, somehow, we witness to G*D's forgiveness as exampled by Jesus. This is an appropriate contemporary response to the Good Friday of long ago. Enough of this witness in church or society will lead you to the same place. We claim this, none-the-less, to be a worthy endeavor.
For what you are -- if not a witness of and for forgiving love?
Amen. Alleluia!
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2003/april2003.html
This whole business of subjection is open to subjectivity. It is as though, when all things are subjected, we will have a quadrennity rather than a trinity. Where we are headed is more like a square than a triangle. This is not only a resurrection of something Paul might talk about as real life for us, but also for G*O*D.
When all things are subjected then the Son will be subjected. G*O*D becomes all in all with G*O*D's images. Creator, Christ, Spirit, Creation.
As Jung has pointed out the trinity is an unstable figure - waiting to gain that next electron and become stable. I like the energy of the unstable isotope as well as the promised sabbath rest when resolved. [Note to self: you don't know enough physics or chemistry to be thus messing about. It would be better to ask someone who knows more before making such connections.]
The connection from this Pauline stuff back to Luke in Acts might be that all "who believe" receive forgiveness. If we can imagine that is a forgiveness of the whole and not just an incident, this "all" is as sinless as our doctrines claim G*O*D to be and worthy of incorporation as a full "side" of a larger figure.
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2004/april2004.html
G*O*D shows no partiality. Period.
Wolves and lambs, sheep and goats, lions and oxen, serpents with apples and with dust, you and me, there shall be no hurt.
Jesus went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed.
We are witnesses of this new way of doing business in Judea and Jerusalem and Gentilia.
And so the last two verses of Acts sum it up: Witness, Feast Together, Forgive. Each of these draw folks closer together and build new relationships. Each adds a bridge across the gaps caused by partiality and restore wholeness.
On the mountain and on the plains Peaceable Living [missing url]is available.
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2004/april2004.html
Partiality is to be tossed out on its ear. Yet, G*O*D's appearance is not to all but only to a chosen few. Apparently our response is the determining factor in regard to G*O*D's presence in our life.
So, who ate and drank with the revived Jesus - the Emmaus folk (Luke 24), 7 of the 11 remaining disciples (John's later addition in chapter 20), perhaps only the 11 alone who were at table, whether eating or not, (Mark's late addition in chapter 16), or the 11 plus their "companions" (Luke 24). And Matthew has no report of post-resurrectional comestibles.
Are the women, first witnesses, able to eat with the guys as their companions or only service them?
If the risen Christ is the "first fruit" and he feeds only those who belong to him, partiality and division are reintroduced. Have we gotten anywhere through this suffering stuff, other than to retribution upon the unchosen?
What a pity to limit things to eating and drinking in this life. Where is the hope of Easter in the face of partiality, spoken against but still experienced?
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2004/april2004.html
If you have been raised with Christ, you now show no partiality.
Ouch! and Wow!
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2005/march2005.html
So how are we going to move on? Being open to a new future is the mechanism. Showing no partiality is the energy to move us on.
When impartial we place ourselves in the middle of differences willing to let them inform us. We can see where to apply forgiveness that we receive and where to offer it. There is clarity regarding the dynamic new heaven and new earth and new you and new me and new everything.
When we are seated at the right hand of impartiality, the life that was hidden to us, in our haste to control everything, is both nourished and revealed. Easter reorients our vision of what is possible and energizes us to move in that direction.
May we know more this Easter about impartiality and dynamic possibilities than we did an Easter ago.
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2005/march2005.html
The issue of loving one another is not just a matter of defining our in-group that we will love. The circle will not only be unbroken, but expanded.
From long ago we have heard, experienced, everlasting love. In today's world we still are hearing that this everlasting love shows no partiality. The last can still be first and the first last without either gaining or losing this everlasting love. The victim and the perpetrator can both be loved. Those with and those without a living will are still loved. There is no stopping this unexplainable experience.
Come, let us go, together, to the place of everlasting love - Paradise - right here.
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2005/march2005.html
G*D shows no partiality and in baptism we are called to live in that same image. Our baptismal vows ask us to resist evil in whatever guise it comes. Partiality, particularly unconscious partiality, is a major disguise of evil. Our baptismal vows ask us to affirm Christ as our way to G*D, to impartiality.
This is a definition of the presence of the Holy Spirit: In the beginning was impartiality, and this impartiality was with G*D, and this impartiality was G*D. All things came into being through this impartiality, and without impartiality not one thing came into being. What has come into being in Christ was impartiality, and this impartiality was and is the light of all people. Impartiality shines in the partial, and the partial did not and has not overcome it.
- - -
Evie (Reader)
Wow! That use of impartiality offers terrific perspective on the nature of God. I've never quite known what to do with "the WORD was God." Siding with impartiality seems more concrete, although still murky because it's also subjective as an abstraction. Lots to think about. Thanks
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2005/january2005.html
In his baptism Jesus joins us all in repenting of sins and experiencing the nearness of G*D's presence. It is this "all-ness" that Peter just experienced and is trying to put into language.
Jesus' baptism led him to go about doing good and healing all who were oppressed (whether you think of the devil as personal or structural doesn't make any difference here), for God was with him (Emmanuel was with Emmanuel — all are one and one, all).
Peter has had his baptismal experience with a tablecloth coming from above, instead of a dove. Both Peter and Jesus are living out of an enlarged understanding that what GOD has made clean they are not to dismiss (regardless of what scriptural or traditional rules there are to contrary). Non-kosher and non-saints are no longer nonsense, but the very venue within which they are to work.
So it is that Peter has gone about doing good and healing. And while trying to explain the basis of his experience and remembrance of Jesus' teaching, the Holy Spirit is at work again. When we are living out our baptismal experiences good happens.
The end result is that those who had been religiously held at bay were now included in. I sure wish all those who are baptized by water these days would catch the fever for inclusion that Peter and Jesus did after their respective baptisms. Were that the case the church would certainly be a different place with its confrontation of racism, heterosexism, and war (to mention only three of today's arenas of religious retrenchment).
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2005/january2005.html
G*D shows no partiality . . . in appearing to all.
There is a popular presumption that Jesus' appearances were to a limited number and occurred immediately after Easter. In these passages we find out that those who considered themselves witness of Jesus noted his appearance. It happened with Mary Magdalene, the Emmaus wanderers, the Twelve, more than 500, and later with Saul/Paul. That is a variety of settings, numbers of people, and timings.
Listen again to there being no partiality. As the star of old appeared in the sky, some got it and some didn't. As Jesus lived and taught and wondered/miracled, some got it and some didn't. It would not at all be surprising for Jesus to appear to many (including Peter at the tomb?), some got it and some didn't.
The difference may not be Jesus' appearance, but, like Thomas, our not being ready to acknowledge an appearance that would shift our focus one more time.
Even at this late date, G*D's partiality is not compromised. Easter appearances still are made, even on a Tuesday prior to Easter. Did you notice the "crack in the cosmic egg" just widened a bit. An interview of Joseph Chilton Pearce (author of said crack) casts some light on what is caught and what passes by. Are you keeping your metaphoric education alive?
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2006/april2006.html
Peace is preached through people's lives. Peace was seen in Jesus' life and invites us to preach peace to others as a way of testifying to his preaching and to our call. In peace, Jesus' preaching and our preaching come out the same. There is no partiality when it comes to peace preaching, each is blessed - period.
So we rejoice when we see another blessed with the affirmation that they are beloved. Even though we know it will lead them to the desert, we rejoice that the blessing given will be sufficient for wilderness times and dark nights of souls.
We are able, thus, to also rejoice when we finally catch on to our own blessedness. We receive with gladness and look around to see what test we will be able to meet with it.
Love Peace with all your heart and mind and soul and strength and whatever other little categories might be brought to bear. Love your neighbors blessedness as you love your own.
- - -
we advise
better to be baptized by you
we consent
let it be sowe advise
we consent
better lies there
but we are herewe let it be so
we give up better
we give up advice
we consent
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2006_12_01_archive.html
What is it to "believe in him"?
To experience an acceptance behind any and every partiality.
To know a depth of peace, momentarily or extended.
To not only see the doing of good and healing of oppression, but to know it as not only available, but a participatory sport.
To recognize life beyond death in particularities, not just in general theory.
To participate in passing all of this on to others.
It is not to give assent to creedal statements about Jeeeesus, but to the G*D experience of life that keeps breaking through - breaking through partiality, agitation, oppression, death, and a passive voice.
- - -
culturally culled
religiously refined
we lose a cutting edge
to hack through unknowns
beyond limits of idolatrous taboo
we have found death and it is us
our own perfected ideal enemy
against which we hack away
each time dulling our awareness
to yearn to live again for a first time
death as final eschatology
darkens our conditioned dreams
of fated family and faith
hedging us round
squeezing us smaller
even suicide is no longer a question
we face our own cosmic pity
and plant death's last fruit
until it is enemy no more
seen through and through
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2007_04_01_archive.html
God shows no partiality. There is a time for all things. A time for a feast and a time for destruction. A time for being praised for doing good and a time for being hanged for doing good.
We tend to think in series and if one expectation goes awry, all our expectations are dimmed or deleted. In a series you have hierarchy the first resistance needs to paid attention to and then the next. While the last can stop the whole chain it is generally best to check from first to last to see where the problem is.
God tends to be in parallel. If something goes awry the circuit continues. In parallel it is easier to see where the difficulty is. It is in this way that no partiality be shown. All that is needed is to care for the situation at hand.
The recent March 29, 2006 issue of The Onion carried one of their lovely heretical cartoons[MISSING URL] that had Jesus being crucified on parallel pieces of wood rather than a cross. How else might you look at life the through parallel eyes of no partiality?
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2006/april2006.html
On some mountains vineyards are planted. On some feasts are thrown. Here no hurt is done, even with wolves and lambs together.
Given the way people injure creation, it is a miracle that anything still grows. Gaia is not pleased. Given the way people injure one another, it is a miracle that any feasts are possible. Feuds persist. Given the way people hold on to the past, it is a miracle that new relationship can bridge old enmities.
Sometimes a wolf and sometimes a lamb, all too often an individualist and despoiler of earth, there is a time for confession that in each manifestation I face a stuckness I am not able to get past. My wolf is ravenous. My lamb, a perpetual victim. My self is far more central to life than yours. My gluttonous rape of resources, an unreconstructed pity.
The need for Isaiah's imagery is as real as it is seemingly so far off. No amount of betrayal will interrupt the promise. No amount of expectation will prepare us for a breakthrough of vision into reality - it still comes as a surprise, a vision resurrected is transformative.
- - -
I'm about to create
yep, just about to create
any moment now, I'll create
create a new heaven
come to create a new earth
and it is almost here
create a new earth
pushing on to a new heaven
standby is about to fly
former things won't get in the way
nor will ideals set loose
its all about to come to pass
hold your breath or don't
be on plain or mountain
when it comes it'll come
yes it will be glorious
rejoicing will abound
I am about to create
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2007_04_01_archive.html
No earthquake in Mark. "When they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had already been rolled back."
As you look back at your own life-journey (not always "spiritual") can you identify those times when your eye had been downcast, but, when you did, accidentally or hopefully, look up, it was obvious the dragon's maw no longer awaited you?
These are important markers, individually and communally, when we are then able to enter the tomb we so feared or were resigned to.
As in Mark, we may find even these subsequent experiences to be as frightening in their reality as they had been in their expectation. We may yet run afraid, away. But always there is a remembrance of a stone having rolled away and we can regroup to move beyond a next fear.
The ending of Mark is a marker for us in this process. Just how many endings there are to the resurrectional story, no one will ever know. They don't end with the recorded accretion of endings in Mark. We are still adding new endings to this old story. One way or another, fear never has the last word.
What we know as the original ending of Mark begs for completion in our lives. We have hurried (then and then and then) onward through this story that had no beginning and has no end. We have run right up to and past the last word of "afraid" and found ourselves hanging over an existential abyss - How'd we get here? What are we going to do now? Will this be the last word?
Mark's masterpiece has a masterpiece of an ending that tosses the salvation of G*D and Creation right back to us. Are you going to run forever, away, or stand over your nothing left and trust again, build again, live again?
- - -
so a new heaven and new earth
are about to be created
will this creation be a partnership
or a wholly-owned subsidiary
if without remembrance
will it long endure
without labor's seeming vanity
where resurrection's blessing
as came death so comes life
through you and me and us
choose this day
a last fruit - a first
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2007_04_01_archive.html
Acts 10:34-43 or Jeremiah 31:1-6
Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24
Colossians 3:1-4 or Acts 10:34-43
John 20:1-18 or Matthew 28:1-10
Matthew's image of an earthquake is important to shake us loose from our expectations and fears. Is there anything more to look forward to? How is the blockage ahead ever going to be taken care of?
Even Jeremiah's wonderful image of being built anew and dancing merrily carries with it an earthquake's worth of transition that will be tempted by and returned to bygone days of the sword instead of grace.
Paul's great assumption that "if" we have been raised with Christ we will seek the things above, causes an earthquake in our lives and the life of our communities that will need continual choice between a building upon the past and attempts to have the past build upon the present. What do we do with still being on the earth, but not of it?
Or another earthquake image of Peter's that there is no more partiality. We have built our lives and decision-making on how we might get to be those for whom partiality, privilege will redound their benefits to us.
It will take a resurrectional earthquake to roll away our expectations and fears to move us into a new perspective and better communal behaviors. Even though we might idealize this as a good thing, it will always mean a change of life (read, sacrifice) to enact and the earthquake itself may scare us more than the resurrectional opportunity it reveals.
- - -
this is a day
holding the tectonic plates
of our lives in place
regardless of the stress
it places upon us
to keep things from falling apart
this is a day
we yearn for sweet release
even a release that shakes foundations
relieving unrealistic expectations
controlling our lives
spending our resources on security
this is a day
of resistance to change
of dreaming heaven on earth
unknowing clouds dim our eye
to unseen consequences
hidden beneath our next step
this is a day
to rejoice and be glad in
to dance merrily
on the graves
within and around
trusting this day
this is a day
like all days
infamous and usual
ready and unready
for an earthquake opening
tombs and joy
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2007_04_01_archive.html
Insight, when it finally dawns, is wonderful to behold. "I truly understand, now, finally, that G*D shows no partiality!"
That's a life time of work for some folks, while others arrive there more quickly they still have to decide how to live it out for insight is not per se action. I can perceive a cross without bearing it.
In keeping with a focus on Saturday's Grave time, it is important to see a dynamic of new possibility going on under our noses, beneath the ground of our being. How does Peter finally come to the insight about impartiality?
Here is a story from the Wesley Study Bible that pushes at the same point: When a young person felt the call to become a missionary, they felt privileged to study and thought it their responsibility to take G*D to other people. The story of Peter and Cornelius teaches us just the opposite. Cornelius is a Gentile and yet G*D gives him the vision to seek Peter. This is an example of the Wesleyan doctrine of prevenient grace – of G*D loving us even before we know G*D. Now that young person who became a missionary is much more humble in their mission theology and sees G*D at work around the world – well in advance of a missionary visit. [note: slightly modified according to my biases regarding language]
To be impartial is not to be lacking in passion. It is to affirm that new life is available to everyone, regardless of track-record or prospects. In this resurrections are taking place daily. Be ready to enjoin and enjoy the one already coming your way.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2009_04_01_archive.html
"By the grace of God I am what I am." By extension I am what have been and will be. This is no whitewashing of past betrayals and killings, of present betrayals and dislocations, or ability to withstand coming temptations to betray and do away with.
A significant question is what movement is going on with this am-ness of mine? Is it showing that I haven't learned anything from the past, that I have stopped learning in the present so my future will be stuck right here? Is it turning G*D's steadfast love into vanity, vanity, all is vanity?
On this Good Friday we recognize am-ness, all the sordid joy of it. We are with Christ on a cross, we are with all those who die this day from hunger and violence. We are with Christ on a cross, we are with all those who live non-violence in the face of violence. We are with the soldiers poking dead bodies, we are with our friend Fred Brancel and the others who went to prison yesterday for crossing the line at the School of the Assassins to protest the training of those who create and poke at dead bodies. We are with those who betray and run and those who stand afar and witness. We are with a cry so deep it tears open every barrier that has kept sacred and secular apart. We are with so many different am-nesses.
May we help support one another to not have our am-ness be in vain.
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2006/april2006.html
It would seem that there is a problem - the phrase "shows no partiality" is immediately followed by the word "but". It sounds as though there is a partiality about to arrive. In this case, partiality is based on whether one currently and consistently fears God and does what God says is right.
This is the usual way of the world and the world sees itself in the image of God, so this is understood to be the partiality of God.
How to get out of this bind between "no partiality" and "but"?
Look again at verse 38 – God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power – as a result Jesus (God in disguise) went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil.
If folk in this or any nation are not up to doing good, G*D is. If folk in this or any nation aren't up to loving, healing is still available to them.
The very bind God sets up G*D subverts.
May it be so with us - that the very bind we set up to entrap others into being like ourselves will find itself subverted by the better-angel of forgiveness already winging its way within ourselves. We are witnesses of forgiveness and know the prophets stopped too soon when the suggestion is made that forgiveness is limited by belief.
Beloved, do justice – forgive the yet unforgiven.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2008_01_01_archive.html
"G*D shows no partiality."
"G*D preaches peace/wholeness through people like Jesus Christ."
"That message spread."
"We are witnesses of peace/wholeness in Jesus Christ."
"We preach peace/wholeness/forgiveness."
Note that the living of peace/wholeness/forgiveness (preaching) of Jesus is picked up and carried on by others, down to this day. An amazing part of Easter is not just the preaching of Jesus qua Jesus, but how that has been continued through your life and mine. As we live peace/wholeness/forgiveness, we join a line of prophets, including Jesus (remember impartiality), who bring a word of correction to a crooked world - not of condemnation, but transformation.
G*D lives/preaches impartial peace/wholeness.
Jesus lives/preaches impartial peace/wholeness.
You and I live/preach impartial peace/wholeness.
Others live/preach impartial peace/wholeness.
Keep at it - it is completable.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2010/03/acts-1034-43.html
G*D shows no partiality - except, of course, to us.
G*D "allowed" Jesus (that rambunctious child in need of learning propriety regarding spreading grace willy-nilly) to appear to us, to the chosen. And Jesus (having apparently learned his religious etiquette) is set to judge lack of grace.
Forgiveness is no longer individually received through ritual or communally received on an annual basis. Now it is a Jesus commodity, part of his conglomerate, his corporation.
Peter had a wonderfully expansive insight and then backed off extending it past those he had personally encountered.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2011/01/acts-1034-43.html
So where does the switch happen in this bait and switch passage?
Doing - anyone who does what is right is acceptable to G*D.
Doing - G*D anointed Jesus and he went about doing good and healing.
Believing - we preach that everyone who believes in Jesus is forgiven in his name.
A first response would be that the switch comes with a resurection of Jesus. Somehow this was no longer about doing what is right or good or healing. It is now about how special we preachers, we Jesus followers/believers, are. It is this privileged position of saying what G*D means that shifts the conversation from control over oneself (doing good) to power over another (what do you believe). It seems nothing, not even resurrection, can avoid the possibility of being corrupted.
When matching this passage up with yesterday’s gospel lesson of community, this is anti-community. This is fall in line. Listen again to the switch in the words of The Message, “But in three days God had him up, alive, and out where he could be seen. Not everyone saw him—he wasn’t put on public display. Witnesses had been carefully handpicked by God beforehand—us!”
So let’s play Thomas Jefferson and take a scissors to the Bible. Imagine deleting verses 41-43. This greatly strengthens the movement of the story.
(34) G*D shows no partiality, so be not partial, (35) simply do what is right. (36) To see the right remember (37) Jesus’s baptism of belovedness and (38) subsequent doing good and healing. (39) When Jesus was hidden, (40) G*D revealed him again - - - (44) The Holy Spirit visited (belovedized) all who heard this . . . .
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2011/04/acts-1034-43.html
G*D shows no partiality except for those who fear G*D. From this comes a G*D of the parking place - Praise Jesus, I won’t be walking far today, all is going my way.
Peter doesn’t even have to finish his sermon before folks responded by wanting such partiality to descend upon them. How do you respond to the opportunity to have the largesse of G*D be available to you? No, don’t consider any responsibility, just the privilege.
Easter is a confirmation that you are on the right side, chosen by G*D, and will be blessed with continuation after death. Step right up and drink the kool-aid.
I guess you had to be there. From this distance it is difficult to see how this speech was conversional. Perhaps it had to do with a certain readiness as just before this folks were already kneeling and bowing before Peter. Would that preachers had a Readiness-ometer and would know how to listen to it.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2012/04/acts-1034-43.html
G*D shows no partiality!
A revolutionary insight that affirms our own belovedness and that of others.
A resurrectional insight that affirms our participation in a message of belovedness.
A prophetic insight that affirms creation’s energy and adjustment of any temporary status quo.
- - -
The Wesley Study Bible carries this “life application”:
When he felt the call to become a missionary, the young man felt that he had been privileged to study and thought it was his responsibility to take God to other people. The story of Peter and Cornelius teaches us just the opposite. Cornelius is a Gentile and yet God gives him the vision to seek Peter. This is an example of the Wesleyan doctrine of prevenient grace—of God loving us even before we know him (sic). Now the young man who became a missionary is much more humble in his mission theology and sees God at work around the world—well in advance of the missionary visit.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2014/01/year-baptism-of-lord-beloved-january-12.html
Talk about your resurrectional vision, Peter’s vision that precedes this speech is a good example of an everyday Easter experience. Its equivalent in science is that of the thought experiment or sudden insight that changes the way we see the world around us. The same sort of breakthrough happens in every arena of life from the relational to manufacturing to music.
At moments in our own life there comes a new understanding equivalent to, “I truly understand that G*D shows no partiality.” These are as unconscious as learning to walk and as intentional as evaluating a vocational choice.
At those wonderful in-between moments where we can see our gifts contributing to the common good by staying where we are and also by moving on to another arena we see G*D’s impartiality. Both are good and our partnership in discernment is needed. (This is different than just climbing the ladder to grasp as a better-for-me than wrestling with a better-for-us or sticking to a first call through thick and thin or innocently pursuing each new opportunity.)
This week has been a week of choices. Did we do Palm or Passion Sunday? Were we sensitized to injustice with plots by the strong, rigged trials, false claims of impartiality or innocence dramatized with washed hands, capital punishment for stealers of class-driven capital, centurion revelations, intentional betrayal and scared, passive betrayal? Did our walk through the week change us so we are different than last Easter?
Each choice carries the potential of being an Easter choice. Is this really an impartial choice? We usually act as though it were as we choose to stay with what we know rather than risk learning something new.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2014/04/acts-1034-43-easter.html
If Easter does not lead to a vision of “no partiality”, “no respecter of privilege”, “treating all alike”, “not playing favorites”, “not considering some to be better than others”, “treal everyone on the same basis”, then it is not Easter.
If Easter is only about “Heaven, later” or “Triumph, now”, we are among people most to be pitied; we will have taken a crack in the cosmic egg and used it for our immediate ends.
10:36 — Jesus preaches a radical peace that grows from repentance and humility.
10:38 — This comes from an interpretation of Baptizer John that focuses on going about doing good.
10:43 — We can join “this” parade by “believing” (that is, actually doing good).
What will be the practical effect of Easter? Ritual bonnets or reform from our various discriminations that keep us from doing good because of who “they” are?
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2014/04/acts-1034-43-easter_17.html