1 Corinthians 9:16-23
Epiphany 5 - Year B
This journey of "becoming" someone we are not in order for us to be who we really are, proclaimers and sharers of good news, is a most excellent one.
One picture is that of a mole who enters an organization with the intent to undermine it.
Another picture is that of someone who comes to learn first and teach second. We walk a mile in someone's shoes before offering a prescription for their "bunion."
With either picture a beginning posture of humility is real and intentional. This lets us really care for others and really progress ourselves toward the blessing of open compassion.
So, who have you shied away from in recent days? Eugene Peterson's list of people who have a hard time hearing a progressive word leading into a more open space includes: "religious, nonreligious, meticulous moralists, loose-living immoralists, the defeated, the demoralized."
It is time to return for one more attempt to understand them so well (rather than just their surface presentation of themselves) that we can see who they can become. It is time for us to know ourselves so well (beyond our rosy picture of our intentions) that we can do what we do to live what we proclaim.
Today we are called back underground that we might be raised to new life.
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2003/february2003.html
An interesting place for resistance - "...if not of my own will, I am entrusted with a commission."
Twenty years ago a preacher friend talked about hearing a call, literally hearing a call, while at walking between college classes. "I want you in ministry with me," were the words he heard. Only after 25 years of being a pastor did he recognize his culture led him to interpret this as "ordained" ministry, because what else could "ministry" mean. Then he had to wrestle with what "ministry" meant for him. But what kind of wrestling could he do with issues of pension and insurance and family and retooling hanging over his head.
I would wish for fewer folks who were sure that their will and G*D's will were in sync, that there would be more wrestling with, and even running away from, a call to preach. In Paul's language they would be preaching death and resurrection, which means preaching counter to our culture that fends off death and doesn't trust resurrection. Then we might get gospel proclamation that challenges more than it comforts, that puts us to work rather than to wealth.
What resistance do you need to reactivate to strengthen the prophetic nature of your preaching, your witnessing in your life's opportunities? Even after 25 years it is worth revisiting how much of our journey has been a path of least resistance and how much more we need to argue with G*D and our particular community of faith.
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2006/february2006.html
Martin Buber echoes verse 19 in his book, Good and Evil.
"I am free" follows one in a whirlpool, letting go and catching on to event after event or seeming security after seeming security. Without an anchoring spot the winds of doctrine sweep one away. One form of evil - freedom.
"I made myself a slave" follows another in that same whirlpool, hanging on for dear life to the first support one finds and never letting loose. Without a graceful hand that knows when to hold 'em and when to fold 'em, doctrine turns into a club. One form of evil - slavery.
An older version of a charge to parents at an infant baptism puts before them the challenge that their life "become" the gospel. That wonderful word, "become", works in both maturing and beautifying ways.
To play with these pairs, when we are both free to leave and bound by loyalty we find comeliness (the beauty of a glorious weakness). And, a thing of beauty is a joy - forever.
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2006/february2006.html
Though there is a tendency to attribute power to that which is greater, longer, wider, deeper, power that is implacable and must be bowed down to, it is important to see an on-going vitality of steadfast eternity. Time, Creation, G*D are powerful in relationship to grasshoppers, slaves, or frail (various images of humans). But to stop with that distinction is to dismiss everything in favor of some one thing.
In these passages a key dynamic is not the distance between the great and the small, but the willingness of the powerful to energize the less powerful. This might be called silly as it adds to entropy (at least in a closed system) but it might also be envisioned as the only perpetual energy mechanism there is, one that passes on energy in an open environment.
Our tendency is to look at a given cycle of rising and falling, rather than an on-going stream of life. When looking cyclically we get into law issues such as this interesting one: "(though I am not free from God's law but am under Christ's law)". When looking on-goingly we can see patterns of connection between our predecessors and our descendants, our selves and others, one religious, economic, or political system and another.
Here we proclaim a connection of intentional interaction between every disparate moment and rejoice in time's flow that supports us and encourages us and engages us to join the flow. Rejoice in every evidence of power coming to the faint, being received, and passed on.
- - -
haven't you heard
has your heart not known
it is not what gets stored up that counts
but what passes throughhearts get attacked
with storage blockages
they faint and fail
in need of new flowas we pass through
we store of loose
set your heart on this choice
that others might also hear
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2007_01_01_archive.html
Given that you gotta serve somebody (click on the first "listen" triangle) there is a key question of what are you going to get out of such service. Will it simply be survival in the face of coercive baptism or other threat of death? How about some deemed sufficient amount of the coin of the realm? A promise of insurance, whether health or eternity? A degree of importance from celebrity or being a Friend Of ____?
Paul's reward of "pleasure" [The Message] from proclaiming good stuff is pretty humbling in light of all the conflicting desires we have. He claims that he doesn't just want to talk about a better way, but wants to be in on energizing it. His service is to model his proclamation in his living.
It is this issue of meaning of life or explicit vocation that extends Jesus' wilderness prayer regarding his perceived task. Instead of serving the sick in one location he expands his service to teaching and healing in a wider arena. For some, their prayer would move them in exactly the other direction – a particular ministry in a localized setting. It is not that one is right or wrong, as an ideal, but that one's prayer call be clear and followed – simply for the pleasure of it.
I wish John Wesley, when he stole a Covenant Service that over time shows up as the following, would have added a word about it being our pleasure to do another's pleasure (G*D or Neighbor) to these powerful words:
I am no longer my own, but yours.
Put me to what you will, rank me with whom you will.
Put me to doing, put me to suffering.
Let me be employed for you or laid aside for you,
exalted for you or brought low by you.
Let me be full, let me be empty.
Let me have all things, let me have nothing.
I freely and heartily yield all things to thy pleasure and disposal.
Our "pleasure to participate" is different enough from "freely and heartily yielding" to be noted. One thing adding our pleasure does is to square the pleasure – mine and yours.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2009_02_01_archive.html
If I proclaim the gospel, this gives me no leg up. Likewise, if I focus healings, I am no farther ahead of anyone else. Whatever my claim to fame, it is a false comfort if I believe it.
What does benefit me by grounding me deeper in the reality of gifts, is simply using those at my disposal. When freely used, by me and for others, great common-wealth is generated.
Again, to do what I do for even the good cause of winning over someone, is to lose my focus. My best is simply my best, regardless of what its effectiveness for some other goal might be. An old song goes, “do what you do do well”. May you do do well and laugh at scatological humor and smile abundantly.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2012/02/1-corinthians-916-23.html