Brian’s Reflection: Sunday, March 18, 2012

[ on the Readings for Lent IV, Year B, Revised Common Lectionary ]

[ The full Readings can be found at:

http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearB_RCL/Lent/BLent4_RCL.html

Any quotes, except for the Collect, are from The Message ]

The liturgical year has an “ordered-ness” about it. Starts with the Reign of God (Advent) and marches right on to Full Life in the Spirit of God (the long Pentecost season – I don’t like it being called “Ordinary Time” ; I must be getting crotchety in my advancing age!… though I suppose Life in the Spirit is supposed, like living in the Reign of God, to be the “ordinary norm”). “Death and Resurrection” is the “ordinary” path to Life, as the Gospel presents it. Lent keeps lifting up the heightened vision, the pattern, before us in the person of Jesus.

The Gospel of John today says something very compelling: " This is the crisis we're in: God-light streamed into the world, but men and women everywhere ran for the darkness. They went for the darkness because they were not really interested in pleasing God. Everyone who makes a practice of doing evil, addicted to denial and illusion, hates God-light and won't come near it, fearing a painful exposure. But anyone working and living in truth and reality welcomes God-light so the work can be seen for the God-work it is."

As you hear this Gospel tomorrow, perhaps think of the passage about the 7 demons that were cast out of a person and the inner space “swept clean” …. but soon that inner space was invaded by many more. The teaching here is meant to remind us to check what our “inner space” looks like. Is it “addicted to denial and illusion” and not liking exposure? It can happen easily to any of us! Spiritually healthy are aware of this. We always have to be vigilant about sweeping the inner space clean ….. and not leaving it empty but filled with God-light, and with the active intention to live in “truth and reality”. This requires vigilance.

The writer of the letter to the church in Ephesus boldly reminds us of our propensity for being lazy about the state of our hearts/souls/inner life! But he goes on to remind of the generous love of God (as does the Psalmist this morning) … reminding us that inner light is always available. Jesus is the shining Reality of that light.

Moses chastises the People for failing, in their freedom, to recall that a generous and loving and freeing God is at the heart of their lives (and reminds them of God’s covenant love). I really don’t know why the writer of Deuteronomy chose the symbol of the Snake raised up to recall them to health. But, I find it interesting, psychologically and spiritually, that the antidote to the “snakebite” is to gaze upon a similar “creature”. Whatever else it may portend, I think we are being reminded here that there is a resemblance between Dark and Light Within … recall the Psalmist saying “Darkness and Light to You are both alike”. In other words, there is a hint that spiritual darkness is often found in the shadows of the human Ego … but that Light is to be found in overlaying that shadow with the Divine Shadow … and the Christ is our Alter-Ego.

I find the Collect imagery beautiful! Jesus is “the true bread which gives life to the world: Evermore give us this bread, that he may live in us, and we in him the true bread which gives life to the world: Evermore give us this bread, that he may live in us, and we in him…” . “Bread” … think of all the references in the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures: Methuselah “offering bread and wine”; God sending manna in the wilderness; King David eating the “Shew-bread”; the Passover bread; Jesus speaking of the Passover Bread and Wine as His “Body and Blood”; Paul gathering the Christian community around the sharing of the Bread and Wine; WE gathering to merge God with ourselves in the elements of the Bread and Wine/Body and Blood of Christ … ALL of them Life-giving.

May worship tomorrow be full of the Wonder of a generous God. And may it remind us that we are called to be generous Givers of Life … of Light, not Darkness … to each other and to the World.

Brian+

Brian’s Reflection: Friday, March 16, 2012

Everybody, my friend, everybody lives for something better to come.

That's why we want to be considerate of every man – Who knows what's in him, why he was born and what he can do?

Maxim Gorky, Russian novelist & short-story writer;
he was born on this date, 1868, at Nizhny Novgorod.


We Human Beings are, in my observation, a remarkably optimistic lot. All Hell can be breaking loose - like the World today - but we think it will get better. Well I remember all those men and women with AIDS for whom I had the privilege to minister! It was horrible in those early days, and most of them dealt with dreadful things. Yet, most lived and hoped for a better tomorrow.

Often religion shifts this Hope to what comes after this Life. Well, OK; I can see the possible usefulness of this. But, I like and prefer Gorky’s focus on this earthly Life. I think that this is what God desires, reflected in ideas of “the Kingdom” and “on Earth as it is in Heaven”.

One of the central principles of the Gospel is To Serve our fellow human beings. Jesus made it very clear that He came “not to be served, but to serve”.

I’m with Gorky. I want to strive to be considerate of every person I know … to think, when I see them, “What’s in this person? Why was she or he born? What can she or he do?”

And help.

Brian+

Brian’s Reflection: Thursday, March 15, 2012

[ The Ides ]

It is not women's liberation,
it is women's and men's liberation.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Associate Justice
of the US Supreme Court; she was born
on this date, 1933, at Brooklyn NY


Is this “theological”. Oh yes … in spades!

In America, and in many other “places” including Islamic and Judaic as well as Mormon, Evangelical and Pentecostal and Roman Catholic Christianity, Scripture is interpreted through the lens of Patriarchy. So let me be clear: Patriarchy is a construct of male politics … not of God, not of Jesus, as I understand it in my heart and mind, and through forty years of theological reflection and of reflection.

Wagner understood the Reality. Zeus and Hera were the Male and Female aspects of the human construct of Deity. Both had power … and both strove to exert their power. At optimal they were equal … though at times one “ascended” and at times the other. That is the way the process goes … but the underlying Reality remains Equality.

The full nature of Humanity is manifest in Male and Female together. Neither is inferior. And Humanity is “created in the image of God”. “Liberation” can’t be for one without the other. If Male is not liberated, then Female is not … and vice versa. Madam Ginsburg has hit the proverbial nail on the head. May I add a bit of personal agenda/insight here? : Gayfolk are symbols of the need to see this Unity in the perceived Duality.

If Woman and Man are not equal, they are neither of them free to be who they are. Just look around the World today and see the horror that is created when we get this wrong. Men denied their true nature; women demeaned and excluded from making the full contribution to our shared humanity and World civilization. Not only is there pain and sorrow, there is the retardation of spiritual growth … a wallowing in diminished Humanity.

Get the point??

Let’s move forward. Peace lies there.

Brian+

Brian’s Reflection: Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Nothing is ever the same as they said it was.

Diane Arbus, photographer, social commentator;
she was born on this date, March 14, 1923
[ 23 years before I was … my God! ]
[ And today I saw a doc who was born in 1970 …
24 years before I was … my God! ]


“They”. That should be a warning. The reality is that there is always an anonymous “they” who seem to control (or be fighting to control) what Life is or should be. I completely and adamantly disagree. We should not give the “theys” that power. “They” are often anti-Life, anti-Freedom, anti-Diversity. And usually closed to the fact that Life expands day by day… that that’s the very nature of Life.

I think that this is the very character of Life … it is “never the same as they said it was”. If it were the same, that would be Death, stasis. Life is meant to change, open, develop. The great symbol of this is Jesus: He constantly demanded Change. Constantly He pointed out what gave Life and what denied Life.

I rejoice that “nothing is ever the same as they said it was”. People – usually people with a personal power gain to make - say it’s brutal, tribal, divided, etc. I completely disagree. That’s what many would have us think. But people like Jesus come along and challenge that assumption, that teaching. Jesus says simply: LOVE. And if we will do that, we instantly discover that Life is tender, Shared, One. To do this would be only to manifest what, at the core, we all know: we are One human family in the context of the mystery of Love.

Diane challenges us. Look at each human being … and find yourself in that person.

Believe me, from my experience: each of us is there in the other.

Brian+

Brian’s Reflection: Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Each of us has a fire in our hearts for something.
It’s our goal in life to find it and keep it lit.

Mary Lou Retton, the first American woman to win an
Olympic Gold Medal in gymnastics, Los Angeles, 1984


I think Mary Lou’s right about the “fire in our hearts for something”. I think what that fire is is to Become Ourself. It may indeed be that we all have a “passion” to accomplish some unique goal or to accomplish some unique deed. But those are but symbols … signs of the ultimate longing to know and live out who we Are. I deeply believe that this is ‘God’s Plan’ for us.

There is a force working against the achievement of that goal. It is a kind of spiritual entropy. To put it another way, it is what I would call a “low doctrine” of what it is to be Human. And may I be bold to say that this “low doctrine” lies at the heart of a certain persistent Christian (as well as other) theology … and to me most obnoxious in the pervasive theology of the 1928 Episcopal Book of Common Prayer … one which thank God I missed, having joined the Order of the Holy Cross in 1967 when they had begun to use the new liturgical forms then just published by the Episcopal Church in preparation for what was to become the BCP 1979.

The 1928 BCP had us groveling before God, beating our breasts as sinners, proclaiming our “unworthiness to gather up the crumbs under Thy table” like cringing dogs … even as we were supposedly in the midst of the Community of the Redeemed. The 1979 BCP was to yank us out of that wallowing in sin, reminding us in that felicitous and theologically sound understanding that God has made us “worthy to stand before you”. We were reminded that our “passion” is to be one with God … for which Jesus so powerfully prayed, and in that Unity to act as one with God in Love.

The goal to which Mary Lou points is the passion to be One with God, in Her love, Compassion, Mercy, and Justice … to be a living flame of that Oneness. After all, “passion” derives from the Latin root ‘to suffer with’ … reminding us, as does Jesus’ Passion, that the fire in our hearts is to be in loving solidarity with all our sisters and brothers in the Godly path of Love.

The “fire” is the same for us all … though each of us will manifest it in our own way.

May each of us find it, and keep it lit.

Brian+

Brian’s Reflection: Monday, March 12, 2012

I had nothing to offer anybody except my own confusion.

Jack Kerouac, author, political philosopher; he was

born on this date, 1922 in Lowell MA [he died at age 47]

Confusion. What a relief! Both to recognize one has it, and to see it is an important tool towards becoming whole. It’s also very helpful for getting free from a lot of things that inhibit our growth.

Most of us, of course, do not like to admit confusion. That’s where people like Jack (if I may be so personal; I’ve always felt close to him since I read On the Road when I was young) are such a blessing.

I’m confused by a lot of things. “Christians” who don’t seem to speak or act like The Christ - including myself at times. How you get a voice out of the telephone; music by shining a laser on a metal disc; an Internet site by tapping a little picture on your iPad; why so many people are horribly maimed by war and yet support leaders who embrace force, etc etc etc. Human beings: I doubt even God understands us!

Anyway, it’s a beautiful day in Silver City … sunny and in the 70s for the week ahead, and the juniper pollen has decreased so maybe the wretched sinus drainage and coughing I’ve had for over 2 weeks will slow down. Having a massage today. And Rachmaninoff’s Third Piano Concerto is blasting from my Bose - heaven!

They trump Confusion, in my Life anyway. If you’re confused, give thanks, relax, and let it pry you open today!

Brian+

Brian’s Reflection: Sunday, March 11, 2012

[ On the Weekend, I usually comment on the Readings for the Liturgy in the Episcopal Church. But of course I believe/hope that they contain Wisdom useful to all people, and I try to illustrate that Wisdom.]


.. that we may be defended from all adversities which may happen to the body, and from all evil thoughts which may assault and hurt the soul .. [from the Collect for Lent III]

The Ten Commandments [from Exodus 20]

The statutes of the LORD are just and rejoice the heart; *
the commandment of the LORD is clear and gives light to the eyes. [from Ps. 19]

The message about the cross .. to us who are being saved .. is the power of God [I Cor 1]

Stop making my Father's house a marketplace! [from John 2]

[ The full texts for the Readings for Lent III RCL as used in the Episcopal Church can be found at:

http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearB_RCL/Lent/BLent3_RCL.html ]

It’s Lent. Of course, the readings are focusing us towards Holy Week, and in particularly what we call the Triduum … Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter/The Day of Resurrection. Why? Simply put: to proclaim the life-giving power of Love.

Today’s Readings focus on the primacy of Love over Rules, reminding us that Rules/Commandments which do not lead to a Life of Love as manifested in the Hesed of Yahweh, in the Gospel, in Jesus, and in the Cross must be discarded, renewed, or reshaped for contemporary Life. In the Liturgy today, Christians can’t “hear” these Readings without hearing the quiet voice of Jesus saying to His followers on the day He shared the Passover meal and washed their feet, “I give you a new commandment: Love one another as I have loved you”.

Here’s what I suggest we “look for” on Sunday:

The Collect (Gathering Prayer) speaks of an “almighty” god. I think it’s important to ponder just what “almighty” means when applied to God. The Collect reminds us that God does not prevent us suffering bodily adversities or things which “assault and hurt the soul”. God defends us. God’s unconditional Love pours over us and infuses us … if we permit it. We will always be mortal and vulnerable; but Love “defends” us … the promise is that Love is stronger even than Death … as the Resurrection shouts!

The Ten Commandments: in the time of Moses, these basic Commandments reflected in a clear way the difference between Yahweh and other deities. Yahweh is presented as the God who “shows steadfast love” forever (“to the thousandth generation”). (Don’t get sidetracked by the nastiness part, the “punishing the children”” stuff; in my view, that’s the work of the myth-writers of the time writing in their cultural context.) Worship only Love , no idols … including Commandments. Don’t co-opt God for anything other than Love. Honour ancestors. Do not abuse friends and neighbours. Learn Love, and Do Love.

Ps 19: If God’s commandments inspire Love/Compassion, then of course they will “delight the heart”! To me, America’s right-wing “Christian” types inspire no “delight of the heart” … I see no rooting in Love.

I Corinthians: The Cross is Christianity’s prime symbol/icon … not because it stands for the suffering and death of Jesus, but because it holds up Jesus’ love for God and for God’s people. “There is no greater love than to die for one’s friends” … essentially meaning that we find our deepest self in serving others in Love, as Jesus taught in washing his disciples’ feet. This is not the “World’s” wisdom, but it is God’s Wisdom. (Such love, by the way, includes loving our selves too.) The Cross is not primarily an invitation to die physically; it is an invitation not to let our Egos get in the way of finding the “true wisdom”, the path to Humanity at it’s most superb. The Readings today invite us to ponder the great Mystery of Love … how it is the core reality of God, of us, of Existence.

The Gospel reminds us that all religion deteriorates. The word “religion” is rooted in the Latin verb “religare", to (re)bind to” … like a ligament (same root) binds muscle to bone. Religion is what we do to bind us to the core truth of Love and the God Who represents it. “The Temple” here is a symbol of Religion … and Jesus is portrayed as firmly making the point that the temple religion of His time had deteriorated into a tawdry business. It had become detached from the Love of God. It can happen anytime, to any of us in our religious communities. The Gospel/Jesus today is saying to us all, “Pay attention to your ‘organized religion’; if it does not bind you to the God of Love, to the Way of the Cross, renew it … and your heart as well.”

Blessings.

Brian+