1 Corinthians 10:1-13

Lent 3 - Year C

We have had our formative experiences, whether individually or generationally. These are wonderful and cumulative. We rejoice.

 

Our formative experiences do not hold up over time. We become accustomed to their presence and they turn into idols. We keep applying their specifics rather than their universality. We use them to justify accumulated power and prestige.

 

Here the specific of sexuality rises up to deny the variability of this gift. Here the presumption that we are the end spot of creation justifies spinning an ancient story for present purposes. Nothing new in this, just that it happened again then and is again now.

 

We are appropriately encouraged to make choices today, as folks have had to make all along the way. During and after the Exodus folks were no more united than were folk then listening to Jesus or now to testimony about him.

 

How do we express the freedom to learn more than has been passed on and how do we care for others whose learning goes in a different direction from ours. This tension is somewhat relieved in hearing the many plurals used here that are too easily limited to individual experience. It is also eased by warnings that our most cherished rituals do not bring with them guarantees to protect us from going aft agley.

 

The poetic reference to a mouse ends with:

Still you are blessed, compared with me!
The present only touches you:
But oh! I backward cast my eye,
On prospects dreary!
And forward, though I cannot see,
I guess and fear!

The way out of our various slaveries to the past and blindnesses to the future remains a mystery to mice and men. Caught between dreariness and fear we set up tests of passed on paradigms (a little more manure) and yet unseen growth (a little more time). May you evaluate your data well; may you help us all evaluate our common data.

 

http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2013/02/1-corinthians-101-13.html

 

 

An intriguing piece on the power of example. In an interview the other day Amy Tan was telling of the time her mother took her to the funeral of a friend (I forget the age, but young) and telling Amy that was what happened when little girls didn't wash their fruit (because Amy wasn't washing her fruit enough to suit her mother).

The Israelites were baptized and drank water from the rock of Christ. But G*D was displeased with them so G*D got rid of them. Let that be a lesson to you. Don't do anything beyond what you are told. Just, don't!

Watch out!

Oh, yes, you, of course, G*D likes you and you won't fail the test. You'll always be given a cheat sheet to find the loophole needed.

Talk about your stressful information. Talk about your setup for failure.

So, what part of this will most people hear?

Experience is that out of this mishmash people remember the line about not being tested beyond your strength. How many times have you heard that line used as a source of comfort in the midst of uncertainty. As a result you would never cry out, "My G*D, my G*D, why have you forsaken me!"

This can be used whenever we can't find the meaning of an event but don't want to stay in a questioning mode. It's a great short-circuiting technique so we don't have to experience a dark night of the soul. Every day, in every way we are able to stockpile "Get out of jail" cards.

http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2004/march2004.html

 

 

I do not want you to be unaware, brothers and sisters, that our ancestors were all under the economy, and all passed through war, and were acculturated into America in the economy and the war, and all ate the same democratic food, and all drank the same democratic drink. For they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was civic religion. Nevertheless, God was not pleased with most of them, and they were struck down in the wilderness.

Every attempt at this sort of updating is dated and biased. Yet, it is important to know where the dialogue needs to take place between our spiritual heritage and our current living conditions. How would you put it and what difference will it make?

Was their being struck down something we can be helped by or not? If we were to compare this to the twin towers of Pilate's Power and Siloam, what would Jesus make of them being struck down by his papa? They really had it coming to them, but what happens to us is just happenstance?

Blessings upon our trying to make sense of this for ourselves, much less trying to help others make sense of it. Your comment?

http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2004/march2004.html

 

 

No safety. No exemption. Not for Moses, Jesus, me, or thee. Herein is a commonality between us.

A part of our test is that of becoming a special pleader. Because of such-and-such-circumstance, we ought to be able to opt out of difficulty with a god-given get-out-of-jail card given the elect - those who won't be tested too much.

There apparently have been folks sated on spirituality who displease a god and they get theirs. We, of course, are capable of learning from their error, not having life in common with them, and enduring through to a special escape pod. What a sunny side of the street we have to ourselves!

I also don't want us to be unaware that this language is common to every cult. No one ever thinks they are in the same boat as those they are distinguishing themselves from. We are always one rung higher on the mast and able to see ever so much further to a safe landing.

That we are in the same boat may be of more importance than our various perspectives from it.

- - -

I would like a spiritual rock
to follow me all my days
one that would hustle forward
just as I needed to sit and stay

I expect I would have a number of names
for my spiritual rock
Christ I'd name it Rocky
a foundation to build on

yes a spiritual rock of my own
that would also go ahead
and pause long enough
to be a perch to farther see

of course I wouldn't want it
to get underfoot
or be a stumbling-block
something seen but not heard

yes indeed a spiritual rock
that would be the ticket
I'd paint it gold
and be the talk of the town

but then when envy set in
I'd paint it invisible
so only I could see it
and merrily go my way

testing a spiritual rock
doesn't take any extraordinary measures
simply take it for granted
just apply it to every other rock

in a shorter time than it would take
for a bird to peck a mountain down
it too would be gone
and I'd come looking for yours

maybe it wasn't a spiritual rock
if it could be so misused
and maybe it was
especially if it were

http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2007_03_01_archive.html

 

 

Remembrance of transformations past is part of preparation for a next transformation. You didn't think this was as good as life gets, did you?

So, screw your awareness to a mental sticking place. With awareness safely in place, remember back to one of your most recent transformations. It may have arisen from the inside or been stimulated from the outside. This is basically immaterial. Give this transformation a name – "fear passage", "famine feast", "mineral water", something that identifies it for you.

With one transformation under your belt, hearken back to an earlier and earlier transformation. It may have been for you alone or for a whole group with which you identified.

Consider transformations others have reported.

By now it should be seen that none of these are unusual and that each one contains unexpected energy for its participants.

With thanks for all the manure and rain you have received and given, we are ready for a next needed transformation - ready to be aware of it and to engage it. Watch out world.

http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2010/03/lent-3-year-c-1-corinthians-101-13.html