Hebrews 4:12-16
Proper 23 (28) - Year B
Ah, to arrive at the spot of receiving or taking mercy unto ourselves and to be filled or to find the grace to accept the help needed to move into living as though G*D's presence dwelt among us.
What a wonderful end spot. Here is the community we have been dreaming of. When each knows mercy and is supported we are able to extend mercy to one another and to be of assistance in one another's growth.
Now, how do we get there? At least one beginning spot is to experience the living voice of G*D shooing away all our excuses and resistances to living mercifully with one another and creation. We can no longer live under the illusion of being self-sufficient or in control.
A second beginning spot is like unto it -- its the grace of help that binds us together. Mercy for ourselves and help for others. Mercy for others and help for ourselves. Around and around we go with support and correction and confession and pardon and grief and joy -- all out in the open.
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2003/october2003.html
Hebrews 4:12-16
Job 23:1-9, 16-17 or Amos 5:6-7, 10-15
Psalm 22:1-15 or Psalm 90:12-17
Mark 10:17-31
Job: "Today my complaint is bitter."
Everyman: "What must I do to inherit eternal life."
Both cases call for boldness - a boldness to complain about impoverishment and a boldness to give all our resources to the poor.
While this boldness is spoken of in terms of its result in mercy and grace, the clearer reality is that it is only mercy and grace that allow boldness to flourish and be enacted. To have it be otherwise, in any fashion, would be to give into entitled rights of goodness or rewards for righteous works.
Where we are left is exercising our right to choose, right up to the end, our response to the exigencies of life.
- - -
how hard it is to enter
a realm of experience
requiring only nakednessour bodies and riches
become our definition
we cannot put downwithout them we are nothing
we are definitely last
with no first in sightour windup clockwork
does not go into any good night
gently or easilywe complain and grasp
and gasp to the end
shoving grace asideuntil all that is left
is unrequited forsakenness
and we sputter outmay our difficult days
and persistent riches
recede before a wise heart
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2007_10_01_archive.html
Image the effect of a laparoscopic "word of G*D".
Perhaps closer to our sensibilities is a Star Trek Tricorder.
In either case, bedside manner is still important. Our weaknesses do need sympathy as well as excision or diagnosis.
When we can put together a doctor priest with good medical and people skills, we are emboldened to proceed through whatever trial is present to find the mercy and grace available there, whether or not curing occurs.
Those who claim Jesus is their access to this kind of care are also claimed by others as their access. This passing-it-forward process is hard to beat. Keep at it.