Galatians 4:4-7
"Holy Name" - Years A, B, C
Christmas 1 - Year B
This sounds like a homeopathic remedy or sympathetic/affinity magic.
Gotta send something within the law to help us deal with the shortcomings of the law.
How else might we get to child-of-G*D ness?
To whom might G*D not send the Spirit of Jesus? Are you going to be satisfied with that state of affairs? Does G*D work through other Spirits to help folks experience their connection with G*D, being an heir, even?
This passage is very comforting to folks in the Jesus camp. Hopefully it will not be a curse on others.
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2002/december2002.html
From the Christian Community Bible we read this liberation perspective:
"[Christ] received his whole background from the Law, namely, from the people and the religion of the Old Testament: this Law was highly positive. But time had passed and it was no longer possible to receive the fullness of the divine truth without being redeemed from the yoke of the Law.
"We must see in this a fundamental disposition of the plan of salvation: God saves us by becoming one of us. The same is now true of the Church which saves people, rather than giving to them or 'being interested in them.' And the Church cannot bring them a permanent and transforming salvation if it does not share in their very condition.
"This is the reason why the Lord wants the Third World churches to bear the cross of the people of their continents: their marginalization, their sufferings and humiliations, in order to give them authentic salvation. When they are only middle-class churches following occidental or Roman patterns, Third World people cannot be saved."
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This raises interesting questions about the role of the church in First World countries. Can the church be a vehicle of salvation if it participates in and perpetuates the privilege, accomplishments and power of First World people?
Peterson talks about people being "kidnapped by the law." While under the influence of privileged kidnappers will not the kidnapee take on the values of the kidnapper - (remember Patty Hearst?). The issue is not that we kidnap for a good reason (deprogramming) or for a bad reason (to raise money), but that we kidnap at all. How does the Church kidnap people? This is a significant issue to raise in light of Christmas and the angelic song regarding peace.
How will you enter into the lives of those kidnapped by privilege? for surely you will not let them remain unaware of the limitation of their position. This is huge work that will need all your awareness of being an heir of a larger way.
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2002/december2002.html
Yesterday we had an opportunity to spend time with our adopted grandson and his parents. Why this child, out of all the millions of children that need a new home? Why the need to raise an image of oneself, when some choose to adopt and some choose not to?
"Paul employs the theme of inheritance, introduced in chapter 3, to dissuade the Galatians from becoming circumcised." [ The New Interpreter's Study Bible ] There are other arguments that could be made to not follow the Jewish law of circumcision. So the adoptive role is not unique to the situation and therefore not required. This opens the arena of speculation regarding adoption.
In some sense this is simply a welcoming home, as in the tale of the Prodigals. The creation image of G*D was never lost (even if it be rudimentary [elemental] in some, or even all). Prevenient Grace has kept us all within the purview, providence, and provisions of G*D's image. This is a recovenanting as much as it is an adoption. This accords better with the sense of coming to maturity that is Paul's endpoint reason for dismissing circumcision as a requirement.
Adoption has a legal feel to it that may or may not get lived out in the formation of a real family. There are poor adopters and adoptees as well as good one. Again and again we need to look beyond the formal relationship to the lived relationship.
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2006/january2006.html
"When the fullness of time had come" suggests one of those once-for-all moments. Even so it is possible to see the fullness of time as a quality that is ever present. If the cosmologists are right about an ever expanding universe, whizzing in every direction it can whiz, then "fullness" is always present. Suppose for a moment that not only did G*D "send" Christ Jesus, born of a woman, born into a specific context in order to set folks free from the limits of that same context that they might continue maturing and not get caught in a perpetual adolescence, but that G*D has also given direction to you -- born of a woman, born into a specific context with its legalisms, in order to set folks of this day free from the limits of the current blinders to a better future and help them mature into it.
"When the fullness of time comes" is a convenient excuse to leave everything in the hands of a master puppeteer who will care for all things. It is a state of mind of a slave, a minor, of romance and a coming prince.
"The fullness of time is here", "This is the acceptable day of Jubilee", is the fullest way to live. Enjoy it, though it cut the old duties out from under us.
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2006/january2006.html
"For as the earth brings forth its shoots, and as a garden causes what is sown in it to spring up, so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise to spring up before all the nations." [Isaiah 61:11] An echo of this can be found with Malvina Reynolds' God bless the grass.
Another echo is in Luke's recording of Simeon's experience, "It has been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord's grass growing in the present garden (otherwise translated as the Lord's Messiah).
Messiah often gets narrowed down to one example. A particular one is claimed as true because of the results, as many are named along the way and were found to disappoint. Sometimes, though it is helpful to think of a messianic imperative, that will simply bring to fruition all the potential that has lain fallow.
Taking both these later echoes into account, we might read the vindication/righteousness/justice of Jerusalem to be her finally living up to her name without being distracted by who is occupying her now or promises of sitting at the head of the table of nations.
In the fullness of time we rather see all peoples and all rulers, men and women, old and young - together!
When the fullness of time came G*D seeded the world with grass - a babe and a woman to break through the cement of law to adopt all into a new togetherness.
- - -
god bless
grass
worms
cow fodder
fish food
dropping nutrients
for more
worms
grass
blessing that echoes
through generations
through spacious time
through one life
through all life
through to new blessing
god bless
grass messiahs
wriggly messiahs
dopey messiahs
silent messiahs
lamed-waw messiahs
sacred-cow messiahs
denied messiahs
god bless
one messiah
all messiahs
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2006_12_01_archive.html
On Christmas Day we are looking at a scripture to help us take a next first step to living Christmas on an on-going basis.
The time has arrived, as it always does and is, for redemption to begin and be completed, all in one swell foop (the spoonerism reminds us that this redemption is in a good way not fell/foul).
Perhaps the best we can do is two-fold: One, following Peterson, those of us who have been "kidnapped by the law" can now, two, live not as slave, but an inheritor of expansive, generative, adoptive kindness.
This is something that is good today and tomorrow – free to follow a new and renewed heritage of receiving and passing on blessing, a gift otherwise spelled kindness.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2008_12_01_archive.html
The phrase “under the law” reads in the Greek as simply “under law” or the Jews.
In current parlance, “under the law” carries with it a sense of being oppressed by a heavy thumb of the law on the scale of justice. Here the thumb is not public/governmental, but particular/religious.
In this later sense, an article about law and adoption is in today's New York Times. It appears the Roman Catholic bishops have closed Catholic Charity affiliates rather than comply with a new Illinois state requirement that they include same-sex couples for consideration as potential foster-care and adoptive parents.
The article contains the self-pity of, “In the name of tolerance, we’re not being tolerated.” Additionally there is the wonderful contortion of, “It’s true that the church doesn’t have a First Amendment right to have a government contract, but does have a First Amendment right not to be excluded from a contract based on its religious beliefs.” Why such silliness is not reported as such and simply left to muddy the waters is a journalistic mystery, but there we have it.
These self-serving apologies are especially egregious in light of this reported data: “Catholic Charities affiliates received a total of nearly $2.9 billion a year from the government in 2010, about 62 percent of its annual revenue of $4.67 billion. Only 3 percent came from churches in the diocese (the rest came from in-kind contributions, investments, program fees and community donations).”
This may be a kernel a sermon to be built around as we are still in the season of Joseph’s adoption of Jesus, the affirmation of Simeon, the universality of salvation, and the limitlessness of inclusivity. Just be sure to note your own denomination's hypocrisy, will to power.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2011/12/galatians-44-7_29.html
Ahh, fullness of time. It’s about time. Do you sense time’s fullness in your life?
We might also talk about the birthing of time. A whole new continuum has been birthed with the choices we make. These choices begin to set up a whole new set of relationships with the rest of creation. Want to adopt a new future, adopt a new choice.
I just picked up a new book, The Jewish Annotated New Testament edited by Amy-Jill Levine and Marc Zvi Brettler. Another way to approach this is the reflection on verse 6.
6: Spirit of his son, Paul distinguishes between Christ and God but not between the Spirit and Christ. In the fourth century the Nicene Creed distinguished God the Father, God the Son (Christ), and God the Spirit. This Trinitarian conception is unknown to Paul and is barely attested in the NT. Abba! Father. Rabbinic theology, following biblical precedent, often conceived of God as father and Israel as son or sons. Still, although rabbinic prayer were sometimes directed to “our father in heaven” or “our father our king”, no rabbinic prayers invoke God as Abba, which affects a level of intimacy with the divine that made the rabbis uncomfortable. [references to rabbinic works and scripture deleted]Can you read the New Testament without foisting later conceptual models on it, including your own? While helpful to see how others have dealt with the imponderables of life, there is a freshness available when we have to deal with source material as itself.
I was also intrigued with their observation that the first verses of chapter 4 suggest we are moving on to adulthood, maturity, and in but a few verses the metaphor shifts to being adopted. Try playing with verses 1-2 in comparison with verses 4-5 and see what fits your experience of yourself and your setting.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2011/12/galatians-44-7.html