Romans 12:1-8

Proper 16 (21) - Year A

Freedom. We cannot speak of GOD without speaking of freedom. We cannot speak of Jesus without speaking of freedom.

Freedom, in Eugene Peterson's The Message, is imaged in this way: "So since we find ourselves fashioned into all these excellently formed and marvelously functioning parts in Christ's body, let's just go ahead and be what we were made to be, without enviously or pridefully comparing ourselves with each other, or trying to be something we aren't."

Within the context of love and glory we are free to be.

Within the context of the principalities and powers, the culture around us, freedom cuts us loose. Our perception is not confined to fitting in. The "collateral damage" all around us can be heard and responded to as we are freed from the immaturity of being the measuring rod or wanting what we want when we want it.

Freedom compels us to enjoy going beyond the ethics of the moment to measure life within the intention of creation echoing through eternity.

We are free to live with peace, in peace, through peace, by peace, toward peace. When we are afraid we can hear the angel say, "Peace." We can hear this as encouragement to find freedom and live abundantly.

http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2002/august2002.html

 

 

Ahh, a sweet renewal of our minds! What else is both so fearful and so freshening?

We are asked to do this in light of that which offers a larger meaning than we have so far known. This is talked about in shorthand as the desire of GOD. The longer version contains many stories and fits and starts toward a next plateau.

May we appeal to each other to not be conformed to this present time. It is this opening that is so crucial to moving into renewal. First, discontent, cognitive dissonance, then renewal -- a vision beyond and energy and community to transform it from vision to practice.

This growth pattern is a part of the grace of humility, personal and communal. Thanks be for being knocked down a peg or two regarding our surety of the present. Thanks be for friends of sober judgment who encounter us in our low moments and clear our eyes to look higher than ever before.

http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2005/august2005.html

 

 

Individually we are members of one another. Ouch.

This means my well-being is tied up with yours and vice versa. It means your captivity limits my own living. None are saved, whole, well, until all are.

And, yet, we are called to live forward from the future rather than from this present. We are called to live well in them midst of captivity. We are called to use our experiences and promises of wellness to model freedom for the captive parts of our common living.

It is possible to live this call, to live ahead of our times, to help the rest of ourself to take advantage of the ever present opportunity to change for the better. This is not pop positive-thinking, this is very practical living toward salvation.

http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2005/august2005.html

 

 

There are many gifts. In the Moses story there are folks who have the gifts of disobedience, secrecy, complicity, adventure, subversion from within, etc.

In the Jesus story there are gifts of Baptist John, Elijah, Jeremiah, and other prophets that help to define who Jesus is and isn't.

Likewise there are gifts in each of our lives as we interact with those closest to us, those we yet name enemy, those whose challenge and/or support feed us to become more than we currently are.

There is no one else's story to tell but our own. So the disciples were told not to tell the gift of Jesus, for that was for him to reveal. So no one else will tell the secret of who you are, it is yours to reveal and this is a good time to reveal it.

Are you someone whose gift of compassion will not allow you to go along with the dicta of society? Are you a gift willing to give birth to something new even in the face of overwhelming evidence that such is not desired? Are you willing to be practical enough to let go of your child and gift it another space where it might yet grow, knowing your own space is too risky for it? Are you gifted to reach out to the forbidden and make it your own? Are you willing to participate in the irony of life that flourishes within your own unironic life?

- - -

how shrewd we are
as we look around
to the dangers
and opportunities
to enhance our power

our very shrewdness
turns all too readily
to ruthlessness
we only perceive
as extra shrewd

being so shrewd
we fail to find
the irony in ruthlessness
that destroys
its beginning shrewdness

somehow it is never our fault
that what we have set in motion
will come back to haunt us
through the very structures
of our elite electedness

we move from "us"
who are fearful
to restrictions
that fall apart
at the next "I"

http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2007_08_01_archive.html

 

Function is a difficult matter in a setting where expectations run high. Here we are called to think locally in order to act globally.

If we try to monitor that which is beyond us (with the best of intentions to make it run more smoothly) we lose functionality.

If we let another care for that which is usually ours (it is easier to just get along with strong-willed people rather than standing up for what is ours) we lose functionality.

This is a family systems issue – to know our boundary, our call, our gift.

So, here's the deal, we grow up by settling down to the maturity of being who we are, simply who we are. The way to function well is to function well.

In so doing we find our self, we find one another, we find G*D.

http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2008_08_01_archive.html

 

 

Who do you say that I am? Who do you say you are? When tracking well we say we are members of one another. Which part of a “Son of God” are you? Pinkie, Pate, Patella? 

We receive meaning from the body as a whole as well as from our particular locus. We all hold the keys to love and life. There is no holiness but social holiness!

If there is one corrective to today’s resurgence of fundamentalism (one part is more important that another part) it is this sense of universal social holiness where none will be redeemed until all are. This plays out in economics as well as in theology. You might think of a tax as a binding principle that keeps us together even as death drives us apart.

There is a cost to a body of many parts. Each part cannot maximize its own wealth (its predominance among the many) but must play and pay its part. The greater the perception of the part, the more it costs to be a part of the whole.

To wrestle with the purpose of taxes is valuable community building. To put taxes beyond our decision-making is the same as putting G*D beyond our current time and space (no pie in the sky, by and by). Taxes do for a healthy community what serving one another does for the body of Christ. Taxes will always be with us, not because they are imposed from the outside, but because they are a constituent part of being in community. We need to talk about them more.

http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2011/08/romans-121-8.html