2 Peter 3:8-15a
Advent 2 - Year B
Often we consider issues of salvation to be issues for mighty striving, for action.
Here the simple action of not over-reacting is being called for. G*D's patience and restraint opens space for us to practice being peace.
Our being peace opens space for others to join in the wholeness and safety of best living.
In this space there is room for us to honor the regularity of prayer of Islam, the emphasis upon good work of Judaism, the meditation of Buddhism, the sanctity of life exhibited by Jainism, the many faces of G*D of Hinduism, the connection to earth creation by Wickans and so much more. These are not threats but part of the way G*D's salvation comes in its own thousand-year day.
Whew, what relief, we can live out of the patience of G*D and learn such restraint in our own time.
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bob (Reader)
Wesley, your insight around patience & restraint is most helpful.
I wonder how one might include the issue of many faiths being part of God's salvation in the context of worship, or is this insight too dangerous to preach?
Such openness has been my understanding for many years now, but many folks are not there yet, & perhaps may never be there, sticking to Jesus as the 'only way'.
Thanks for you posting. It has given me food for thought, & possibly a new tack for Sunday.
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Wesley (Blogger)
I think the concept of something being "too dangerous to preach" is an important one for us to deal with.
In today's world we are being told it is too dangerous to speak of alternatives to war. Jesus found bringing the prophet of old into his present at Nazareth and saying the old has come to pass in his day was dangerous. Moses in going up the mountain for new direction found that to be dangerous as those remaining returned to golden calf days.
A part of the conversation needs to be, "What danger is there in avoiding the known dangers?"
It will be important in facing multiple dangers to both sort through them and to be as wise as serpents while caught in between. Conversation with friends is an important part of the process of sifting and winnowing and discerning.
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2002/december2002.html
Since I am going to be dissolved what sort of person ought I be? - how might I be solved?
While "solved" is not the past tense of "saved" there is a connection. "Solve" is connected to being released.
So, for what am I released before I am separated?
For holiness and godliness, saith Peter.
Wow, really living as though the image of G*D were present right here!
To be released into life is to wait for (to be awake to the moment of) a new heaven and a new earth where righteousness and godliness are at home in me. Ah, sweet release!
And you?
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2002/december2002.html
There is trouble in the world around, there is trouble in the church right here, there is trouble within ourselves. If there weren't this trouble we wouldn't be talking about the patience of G*D and endings of earth and heaven.
So, given that there are troubles everywhere we look and that not looking doesn't do away with the troubles, what is the preeminent work we are to be about. Well, while waiting for G*D to do whatever it is G*D's going to do, there is always the work of "peace".
From The Hidden Gospel: Decoding the Spiritual Message of the Aramaic Jesus by Neil Douglas-Klotz we hear of peace "which remind[s] us of what persists and what dies in our human existence. While the Western definition of the word 'peace' sees it simply as the absence of war or conflict, the Semitic languages see it as something more profound. Both the Hebrew shalom and the Aramaic shalama derive from a verb that means to be fulfilled or complete, to surrender or be delivered, or to die....
"When one greets another with shalom, shalma, or salaam (the Arabic form), it can be an instant of Sabbath. Both people have the opportunity to remember thier origins as beings whose beginning is ultimately a mystery. This remembrance can help clear away a history of offenses given, received, and perceived. It can produce peace on a very deep level, not by invoking certainty or idealism, but by bringing awareness of uncertainty and the ultimate mortality of all forms...."
These words are followed by a body meditation that you may want to institute as an Advent discipline to assist you to be "found at peace".
"Return to a quiet place of breathing awareness, feeling the word shalom or shalama riding on the inhalation and exhalation. With this feeling and word, feel the presence of Hokhmah, Holy Wisdom, and greet each aspect of your inner self that you meet. As much as possible, allow each one to participate in feeling the mysterious origins of the universe. Invite each aspect of your self to a table of bread and wine that can fulfill the ultimate desire of each to bring its purpose into being. As you end the meditation, look into the days immediately ahead of you. In what ways can this greeting and invitation enter your interactions with everyone and everything you meet?"
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2005/december2005.html
How do you measure waiting? What connection does it have to time? The dictionary says "waiting" comes from older words of "watching" and "awake". Might waiting be a directional focus rather than a moment by moment experience which, after awhile, wears us out to the point we falter in our waiting.
Waiting, old-school, awakens us to that which is being watched for. It is not a question of how long until it is here, full-blown, but whether we are paying attention to catch a glimpse of it. In this regard waiting is very similar to hoping for things yet unseen.
It takes a great deal of hope to wait creatively, to wait peacefully.
So, what are you hoping for, waiting for? A new heaven and new earth? For righteousness to be lived, to be at home, rather than wandering as a potential? Either of these will have an effect of closing off, dissolving, our current situation. And either of these will shift our perspective affect, assisting us to see a new heaven in the old earth and a present righteousness yet able to be drawn from current injustice.
If you are interested in a cartoon about time check out ReverendFun.
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2005/december2005.html
2 Peter 3:8-15a
Isaiah 40:1-11
Psalm 85:1-2, 8-13
Mark 1:1-8
Cry out!
What shall I cry?
Here is G*D
. . . a shepherd.
What a let down.
Still want to hear what this shepherd G*D has to say? It won't be doctrinal, but will place us smack-dab in the middle of the realities of life.
Enjoy being between:
salvation and fear
faithfulness and righteousness
waiting for and hastening
waiting for new heavens and earth and striving for peace
time not being slow but patient
Of such matters do shepherds have the time and space to contemplate what it means to both have a penalty paid and to yet be preparing a new creation in a wilderness all too present.
Non-shepherds keep trying to resolve these matters and lose the spark of life they set off when they come in contact with one another.
This is not as high flown as Year A, not as packed. Slow enough to appreciate waiting for the pieces to come together.
- - -
Lift up your voice - with strength
Baaaaaa!
We will be fed, gathered, carried, gentled.
Aaaaaaa!Aaaaaaa! Baaaaaa! Baaaaaa! Aaaaaaa!
What a rhyme scheme - AbbaPieces -
faithfulness
righteousness
- Peace is
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2006_12_01_archive.html
It's about time!
This is an aha moment. Here is an example of that in the realm of teaching.
This is a gotcha moment. Felt trapped with one day feeling like a thousand? You must be related to Sarah Palin. Such things are not of G*D, but it must be someone else's fault! There'll be hell to pay.
Between these two lie a multitude of other moments that reveal how we are doing on scales of holiness and godliness that we might better look at as a scale of revelation regarding heaven on earth that is already and not yet here (a variation on a once and future life).
Enjoy your time as the two of you roll along in synch and out.
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Magdaline (Reader) said...
I don't comment every day, Wesley, but I surely do appreciate your work here. Such poetic, prophetic insights.
My continued thanks.
Wesley White said...
Thank you for the affirmation.
May you have enough gall left to be revealed as brazen boldness coupled with impudent assurance and insolence.
Wesley
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2008_12_01_archive.html
When the expectation of a quick eschaton fails to appear - there needs to be an explanation. So it is that we hear about the mutability of time. Somewhere between today and a millenium from now, what we believe will actually become what happens. So strong is belief that it will look to change the very structure of creation and demand the impossible.
So it is not that G*D lost the track on an endless plain of no valley nor mountain, it is that that G*D has deliberately not asked the way so you can have sufficient time to repent, since you obviously haven’t yet gotten it right or G*D would have come. It can’t be that we got the start of Paradise re-entered wrong (that it will come when G*D is good and ready) or that we misunderstood our part in Paradise (claiming its presence through our interactions). No, the delay is intentional so we can get right with G*D.
If we take the justification of G*D and time out of our calculus, it will become clearer that we just don’t want to take on the principalities and power, to hone ourselves against them, and reshape our current time and circumstance into a desired Paradise. It is so much easier to await some future change done to us. So we claim a delay in Paradise is G*D oriented, when it more accurately is about our delay, not some patience of G*D.
Advent is not just four weeks before Christmas or some indeterminate time before an eschaton. Advent is our present opportunity to incarnate Paradise. Whether hinted at or embodied in wholeness, Paradise is our goal, not just a moment known as Christmas.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2011/12/2-peter-38-15a.html