1 Peter 2:2-10

Easter 5 - Year A

You may remember from reading our reports that this was the text for Bishop Judy Craig's remarks. It would be good to go back and read them again.

For now consider that as Eugene Peterson translates it, "... you are the ones chosen by God...to do [God's] work and speak out for [God], to tell others of the night-and-day difference [God] made for you -- from nothing to something, from rejected to accepted."

As you tell about your witness of transformation you encourage others to find their transformation. For too long Progressive Christians, who have a particular sensitivity to the variety of transformations available to somethingness and acceptability, have failed to give their affirmation. Let us claim our holiness and value the holiness in others.

http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2002/april2002.html

If we are hungry we will eat most anything, including dirt. It doesn't matter what we taste as long as it seems as if it is helping fill the void. We may long for the tastiest and most nutritious foods, but, given the circumstances of scarcity most folks experience or are taught, we settle for what can be scrounged, we don't hold out for better.

The same seems to be true about religion, faith, spiritual matters. We may have tasted a moment of the expansive love of G*D but find that our experiences and learnings, overall, cause us to doubt that such really occurred and not to strive after more.

A part of our work is to continue witnessing to the goodness of life and constructing new vehicles for dissemination of recognitions of such goodness. This is more than just putting out another Guideposts knockoff or one more volume of Chicken Soup. It is going to take the same energy, dedication, and creativity that it takes to organize a union in a company town.

http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2005/april2005.html

"Once you were not, now you are." This conversion experience is very powerful. It can set us apart from other and get us in to "I'm OK, you're defective" decision-making that leads to crusades, witch-burnings, inquisitions, and other creedal or religious-right theocracies. There are signs that we are moving back into one of these cycles.

The antidote to this pridefulness of self (that we all to easily deflect into pride in our God who is always right and needs us to be "his" hammer or enforcer) is the very next line here that is so hard to hear -- "Once you knew not mercy, now you do." Every opportunity for mercy (even if it comes in the form of Greek widows who are not receiving their share in a community that affirms "all received according to their need") pulls us that much closer together in our living, not in our goose-stepping. Mercy can get us in trouble like it did for Jesus and Stephen, but it is the kind of trouble we can't do without.

Merciful ones arise! You have nothing to lose. Period.

http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2005/april2005.html

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Wesley (Blogger)

"50 miles of elbow room" is a line from an old gospel hymn from the 1920's. There is a sense of spaciousness here. Iris Dement's version ends with this verse.

Oh, when the gates swing wide on the other side,
Just beyond the sunset sea.
There'll be room to spare as we enter there.
There'll be room for you and room for me.
Oh, for the gates are wide on the other side,
Where the fairest flowers bloom.
On the right hand and on the left hand,
Fifty miles of elbow room.

What a blessing that GOD has not rejected my prayer or your prayer -- that there is room for you and room for me.

That was your prayer, wasn't it, that there would be room for all?

http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2005/may2005.html

1 Peter 2:2-10
Acts 7:55-60
Psalm 31:1-5, 15-16
John 14:1-4

Which is the greater work?

1) "Do not hold this sin against them"
2) "Do not let me be put to shame"

1) "Let your face shine upon me"
2) "Deliver me from my enemies"

1) Jesus' way is the way, truth, life!
2) Jesus is the way, truth life!

There are many dwelling places.

1) Are you preparing a place for others?
2) Is a place being prepared for you?

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god's own person, I
calling from darkness
called from darkness
mercy-less once
mercy-full now

expressing this call
evidencing this mercy
belief becomes life
works become greater
god's own person, you

god's own person, we
facing deliverance
agreeing to ask
agreeing to glorify
agreeing to participate

gazing toward paradise
unbelievable connections are made
forgiveness after forgiveness
even for
god's own I/you/we

http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2007_04_01_archive.html

One way of living is to be between a rock and a hard place. This is not a recommended place to find oneself. However, it is often a perception of where one is, but not a reality.

The flip side of this is to be a living stone wherever you are. With this oxymoron we can begin again.

Imagine supporting new life – a living stone can gather moss.

Imagine computer generated images and what Pixar could do with a living stone.

Imagine how this might be paralleled by a different phrase - a steadfast or compassionate lover.

Imagine a living stone, dismissing the idolatry of destiny, saying, "So sorry, here let me help you up so you can try life again," when someone stumbled across it.

Imagine the witness, "Once I was just a stone, now I'm a living stone, a merciful stone."

Imagine picking yourself up and skipping yourself across a pond setting off ripples of joy in the lives of others.

This image is originally said of Jesus, but as disciples setting out to follow a way leading to a transformation of the world, it is an image we might use for ourselves.

Let's form a band – Rolling Living Stones.

Let's recognize ourselves as members of Living Stone Congregation.

http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2008_04_01_archive.html

G*D, cornerstones, spiritual life, etc., etc. are all in the eye of the beholder.

Destiny? Fate? Original Sin? Circumstance? Nature? Nurture? Training? all can be attributed to actions and their short-term consequences (if any).

Of course assigning meaning is a dangerous path to travel down. It is awfully easy to assign anyone who does life differently to one scrapheap or another and claim it to be their fate. It is likewise all too easy to move from judging people to assigning a date and time for an end-time. Likewise, how hard it is to not pat ourselves on the back and claim G*D is on our side, we’ve been blessed, and so the inescapable conclusion is that we are predestined as part of an elite 144,000 out of all the people who ever lived.

Two important keys wrap around this passage:

Verse 3: “If indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good” you will be able to escape the destiny mode.

Verse 10b: ...once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy” and if such change can be mine, it can be anyone’s at anytime.

Remembering these bookends may help put what comes between them in a better light. Without these comforting arms we get pretty privileged and exude exceptionalism.

http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2011/05/1-peter-22-10.html

Newborns need nurture. The drive to receive such is innate. Without it there arises a great wail eventually followed by great silence.

Presence and absence is one set of poles around which we organize our life. Verse 3, “if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good”, reminds us that not just any contact is helpful. Have you been nurtured by goodness and grown in such? Have you been nurtured by suspicion and grown in such?

Depending on the direction of the nurture we find our lives with one set of rooms expansive enough to nurture others or another set of rooms surrounded by a moat to protect us from others.

Those who have been nurtured positively by Christianity can stand in that affirmation to openly engage those who have been nurtured positively in other traditions and have everyone benefit. Those nurtured negatively, if they remain within Christianity, will insist that everyone needs to be seen in the light of their limitations. This is an extension of verse 7, “To you then who believe, he is precious; but for those who do not believe, ‘The stone that the builders rejected has become the very head of the corner’”.

For more about this perspective I would refer you to Brian McLaren’s book, Why did Jesus, Moses, the Buddha, and Mohammed Cross the Road?

http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2014/05/1-peter-22-10.html