Acts 17:22-31
Easter 6 - Year A
Can you see how extremely religious another person is? This is a part of the test of being progressive.
Another part of being progressive is that of interpreting the religiosity of ourselves and others into the larger arena of the yet unknown. So often this works the other way around -- we take some unknown and force it to fit into our sensibility; we insist on making meaning before meaning can be understood.
Since we are progressive we ought not think that religion is tangible or statable based on the imagination and needs of this or any previous day. It is this concretization of religion that needs repenting of. It is this solidification of religion that misses the mark of wholeness (being right with one's self and others).
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2005/may2005.html
"Now, who will harm you if you are eager to do what is good?" (1 Peter 3:13)
It's probably that old unknown God Paul stumbled upon and defined in one way. Unfortunately, unknowns are multivalent. They can roughly slouch in many directions, not just Bethlehem or Empty Tombs (to mention one set of parentheses).
It may even be that Advocate of a Spirit of truth, not receivable by the world.
In these instances we find harm set in opposition to good, very Greek. Our Hebrew Psalter brings another perspective that harm is not from something other than "our" God, but is directly related to G*D. We are tested and tried, burdened, trampled, overcome, and, yet, brought to a spacious place beyond such duality. [Yes, there is a duality here of ourself and G*D that needs to be furthered looked at on another day.]
How do you understand your own state of being these days? Particularly if you are finding it confused or adversarial?
- - -
praying without iniquity
a heartfelt desire
trips me up every time
for steadfast love continues
too rooted for one
with a head full of cloudsmaking up offering after offering
I plot an acceptable sacrifice
of property or guilt
attributing it to this god or that
searching for someone to receive
that which I don't understand
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2007_05_01_archive.html
Paul notes how religious folks are. Indeed, we don’t seem to be able to help ourselves from doing religion. It is a handy way to try to pass on to others any numinous experiences we have had.
A difficulty comes when our religious attempt to articulate a larger reality begins to take itself too seriously and restrict any further experience of a more expansive way of living. Religion starts with a helpful impetus - to share - and little-by-little puts up road-blocks to something new to share. So Paul notes the impetus and notes that the shrines established after the first experience no longer carry life forward.
The processes Paul indicates are still worthy ones. Working within space and time we are shaped into search engines for that which we may become. Searching for, groping for, finding even, even becoming what we find is identifiable with what it means to live and move and have being.
And so, identify your current shrine and begin to step outside its limits. Repent. Break the power of denial. Say No to that which claims your soul for itself. Upset the status quo.
In anticipation of another later saint: Religious people throw off your chains. All you have to lose is stale air, dirty water, and shiny objects that distract you from loving life.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2011/05/acts-1722-31.html
To not be orphaned, but adopted is one gift. To have clarity about who your ancestors are, is another.
There are many orphans who have a drive to find out who their parents are and who their lineage includes. Some are able to find out and some are not. And, of course, there are some for whom the tracing of their physical heritage is a non-issue.
Here Paul is saying, you have been orphaned without even knowing it and you do have a semi-conscious drive to find out about it. Elseway have an altar to an Unknown?
Paul offers to shorten the quest for knowing the unknown by naming a G*D in whose image we have been created to be creators.
All is well up to verse 29 when Paul forces attendance to a great rollout of a new brand. The force comes through a required repentance for not having been able to previously know the unknown. The sales clincher is supposed to be a man raised from the dead by this G*D.
Of interest is what the difference is between gold, silver, stone, resurrection as an idol or as a thin place that reveals our sense of loss has been turned to being found. Yes, there is an awkward shift between our sense of lostness and our experience of being found. Messing around in this awkwardness promises an avenue to new insight about ourselves and others.