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With Robert Fulgham, lots of life-rules were learned in Kindergarten or earlier.  Hold hands while crossing the street, and only cross at the corner.  Eat with your mouth closed.  Don ‘t hit or bite.  Always play nice, and tell the truth.  If you can’t say nice things, don’t say anything at all.  Parents, grandparents, teachers and other life-coaches repeat these cultural mores until we’re respectable children.  Later, we learn rules that are more cynic:  “nice guys finish last”; “finders keepers, losers weepers”; “what they don’t know won’t hurt them”.   Scripture readings we’ll hear this Sunday confront us with questions of ethical integrity, amplified through the Resurrection of Jesus.

During the Season of Easter  (the 50 days ’til Pentecost) Luke’s account of how believers were affected — the Acts of the Apostles — is read.  This week’s lesson, Acts 5:27-32, sets the theme with Peter and other Apostles openly teaching about Jesus’ resurrection despite being officially silenced by the authorities.  “We must obey God rather than any human authority.”(v.29)  Their bold acts of civil disobedience go against “the Rules for Nice People” and are contrary to the accepted patterns of Good Citizenship!  This conflict between civil regulations and a well-considered and documented protest has challenged the Church from rejection of military service in the Roman Legions to the selling of indulgences and other bribery in the Middle Ages, from the abolition of slavery to the ordination of women and acceptance of LGBT believers in more current times.  Have the Rules changed?  Or do we just understand Jesus better…?

More reactionary stuff comes in the Second Lesson, Revelation 1:4-8.  Jesus here is identified as “the ruler of the kings of the earth”, and who “made us to be a kingdom”.  Penned by a political exile, John’s Revelation describes a NEW heaven and a NEW earth which is beyond the terrors expected as the Old is purged!  Filled with admittedly confusing imagery which seems quite foreign to our Twenty-First Century experience, the narrative becomes a dream-like wandering through the alternative universe, the one ruled and filled by the God-like, as opposed to “Babylon”, archetype of the venial and manipulative.

The Gospel is John’s remembrance of Jesus’ appearance to his pals (20:19-31).  Former rules of locked doors and panic were dispelled: “Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you.'”  They were falling apart–and he offered them Peace!  For some reason, Thomas wasn’t there and couldn’t accept the New Rules about Life Beyond Death:  “Unless I see the mark of the nails…I will not believe.”  (Don’t be so smug: Thom was speaking for ALL of us who’re trying to adjust to the New.)  And the summation of the New Rules?  “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”

We United Methodists learned in confirmation class how to sort out the Rules, how to discern what God really  wants us to be about.  John Wesley offered his Quadrilateral, four tests of Holy intent:  Scripture, Tradition, Experience & Reason.  Is our proposed path congruent with Biblical teaching and practice?  Is this path something that our spiritual ancestors have explored?  Has the Holy Spirit spoken to our hearts about this matter?  And does it make “sense”, as we attempt to live with integrity?   Easter tells us that the Old Rules may be incomplete, and that there’s a new definition to maintain our life-bearing community.

God Bless Us, Every One                Horace Brown King

My thoughts on Biblical readings for the upcoming weekend can be found every Tuesday at this space on Facebook, or at horacebrownking.com

It’s quiet, here in the park.  Wisps of dust half-heartedly remember yesterday’s excitement.  No kids loudly discovering plastic eggs.  A candy wrapper blows about, left from Sunrise Service.  Inside the sanctuary it’s also quiet.  A few partly-digested Alleluias linger in the choir loft.  There’s a stain on the carpet from little Devon’s unfortunate over-indulgence in Easter candy.  The church dreams in dozy memory of yesterday’s grandeur….  Easter has been here.

Yesterday we joined Isaiah in a vision of God’s Perfection (65:17-25).  Heaven and earth is to be renewed, and the Holy City will be free of weeping and mourning.  Everyone will enjoy his or her own stuff:  no alien bullies will raid their best larders!  “They shall be offspring blessed by the Lord–and their descendants as well.”   Even wolves, lions and lambs will co-exist:  for the Lord has redeemed God’s People.

Having been touched by Resurrection, we hear tales of the Acts of the Apostles during these weeks of Eastertide.  Peter had been summoned  to the house of Cornelius, a Gentile, to tell about Jesus.  Without clever elaboration he told about Jesus’ life and holy works, his passion and crucifixion.  “But God raised him on the third day and allowed him to appear.”(10:40)   The Church was being formed by visionaries who dared ridicule and worse by telling how God has designed Life Beyond Death.  Though few of them dare believe it,  many will be at our Easter assemblies for relief from the deadliness of hate & fear, greed & anger which permeate our nation today.

John’s Gospel (20:1-18) is familiar, so read it with wide-eyed astonishment.  Mary (Magdelene?  of Bethany?) is angered not to find Jesus where she’d last seen him.  Peter & John shrugged their shoulders at what was hard to comprehend–and went home.  Mary hung around, but still couldn’t invest in a Resurrected Lord.  Finally she accepted the New Work of God.  Finally she dared Tomorrow.  Her message to the disciples and to the rest of us who hope beyond hope is that Jesus will meet us on The Day After.

As a jaded old preacher, I’ve struggled over the years to inject something memorable or even clever into the Easter Story.  I’ve not succeeded.  Yet the world-weary have  gathered to sing “Christ the Lord is Ris’n Today” to bolster their courage, and strain to once again hear a long-cherished message…even in the Valley of the Shadow of Death. And the Day After Easter will hear its echoes in the Halls of Commerce, the corridors of the schools and the hungry streets of the lonely–

The Lord is Risen!  He is Risen Indeed!

God Bless Us, Every One                      Horace Brown King

My musings on the announced readings for the upcoming weekend can be found every Tuesday at this space on Facebook, or at horacebrownking.com

Relax.  I’m not going to talk that much about “The Sinner of St. Ambrose”, St. Augustine.  Suffice it to know that St. Gus’ life was about his struggle–and guilt– of trying to be IN the world, and not OF it.  Haunted by his bon vivant  early days, he crafted many fine sermons and texts about his ultimate assumption of a Christ-like lifestyle.

So we’re approaching Palm Sunday, as we remember Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem:  a story of commitment amidst the commerce, of Holy Vision beyond today’s demands, of hope despite cynic headlines.  Is this contemporary, or what!?  Some congregations will include the Passion Story of later Holy Week; I’ve chosen to confine my thoughts to the  “Triumphal Entry”.
We’re set up by the reading of Psalm 118, a Psalm of Ascents for pilgrims to the Temple to sing.  “This is the gate of the Lord; The righteous shall enter through it.” (v.20)  Were not the UNrighteous welcome?  Probably not.  “The stone that the builders rejected (Jesus?) has become the chief cornerstone.”  This must have given ol’ Augustine quite a bit of comfort!  “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord…”  (This doesn’t examine old baggage, does it?!)  “O give thanks to the Lord, for [God] is good, for [God’s] steadfast love endures forever.”

All of the Gospels record the Palm Sunday epic–though some details differ.  Matthew & Mark, for instance, make a point of making the steed a donkey, just as Zechariah had announced.  Luke, a Gentile, cared little about linking to the Hebrew Bible; so we here see a colt.  Matthew & Mark saw palm fronds as a political statement (sort of like shamrocks to the Irish); Luke ignores them completely.  Yet all include an ascription  of Messianic salvation:  “Blessed is the king/one who comes in the name of the Lord!”  Jesus was frustrated to tears by the carelessness of Zion–but he broke in anyway.  Just as he’s been frustrated to tears by the carelessness of Augustine & me–but he broke in anyway…  What’s at YOUR gates?

The Evangel today proclaims a God who uses unlikely instruments, even flouting City of Man wisdom.  God is yet creating with material that confounds local codes and raises the eyebrows of the genteel.  We who stand in the gate are urged forward to a vision of how things shall yet be.  Where will this parade lead us??

Peter Brown, in his biography AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO, writes “The citizens of Jerusalem also depended on this world, but they became distinct from Babylon by their capacity to yearn for something else:  ‘Now let us hear, brothers, let us hear and sing; let us pine for the City where we are citizens….By pining, we are already there; we have already cast our hope, like an anchor, on that coast.  I sing of somewhere else, not of here:  for I sing with my heart, not my flesh.  The citizens of Babylon hear the sound of the flesh, the Founder of Jerusalem hears the tune of our hearts.'” (page 314)

God Bless us, every one                        Horace Brown King

My musings on Lectionary readings for the upcoming weekend can be found every Tuesday at this space on Facebook; or at horacebrownking.com

In Ninth Grade, I was somehow chosen for the Ninth Grade Basketball team–despite being nearsighted, scrawny and short.  Pickins’ were slim, that year.  I desperately wanted a pair of kneepads, but I knew that household money was tight.  My mom told me, “I’ll make a way”.  And she did.  You also probably remember a time or two when a parent Made a Way even though the solution appeared improbable.  Scripture readings for this Fifth Sunday in Lent present unexpected ways that God moves us through and beyond improbable situations.

Isaiah of Babylon reminds the Exiles of previous miraculous interventions, such as the parting of the Re(e)d Sea.(43:16-17)  But you ain’t seen nothin’ yet!  God’s works are always bigger and better than last time!  “I am about to do a new thing….I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.”(v.19)  Once, God made a path through the sea and provided dry land where the water was.  But now, in the second exodus from an alien culture, the Holy Path will lead through the driest of land and water will be discovered where all was wilderness!  “Isaiah predicts different performances by the same actors, different dramas by the same author.”  (David L. Bartlett, FEASTING on the WORD, C 2:125)

The Epistle is from Paul’s writings to the Church at Philippi,  his first European flock.  (3:4-14)  Like the Prophet, he begins by recounting the past:  he was a “perfect” example of the Complete Jewish practitioner (vv.4-6).  Well and good…yet in Christ he found such fulfillment that the earlier honors of his life were put behind him “as rubbish”.  God is doing a New Thing, Making a Way, and so Paul presses on “toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.”

John tells the story of Jesus at dinner with his good friends Lazarus, Martha & Mary at Bethany, about 3 miles outside the Jerusalem city gates. (12:1ff)  John’s Gospel is the only one to tell of this family–why is that?  At any rate, Mary anoints Jesus for his burial, drowning his feet with expensive perfume and wiping his feet with her hair!  Everyone’s surprised by this exotic extravagance–Mary explains that Jesus is God’s New Way, and knowing him involves his death and burial.  After this, the Old Way is seen to pale before the glories yet to be revealed!

Our “job” during Lent is to remember where we’ve been and celebrate it…and then to let it go, to make room for the ever-new presence which we can and should anticipate.

God Bless Us, Every One!               Horace Brown King

Liturgical question for this Sunday:  What comes after the Recessional Hymn?          Answer:  The folks who didn’t set their clocks ahead.                                                   –from the internet

My thoughts about lectionary readings for the upcoming weekend can be found every
Tuesday at this spot on Facebook; or at horacebrownking.com

A lot of folks don’t like change.  Many of us mourn the death of the familiar–especially when things have been going pretty well for us.  The present American political “campaign” bears this out:  major candidates are intent upon leading us back to The Good Old Days, and voters who’re angry and scared are egging them on.  Of course, there are those who WELCOME change, because things have gotta improve…  Myself, I’m glad for new medical procedures and digitalization, smart cars and medical coverage for all…

Scriptures which you’ll hear read this weekend present God’s doings as a work in progress.  We begin by hearing about the Israelites  finally camping in the plain of Jericho after their 40-year trek to the Promised Land.  (Joshua 5:9-`12)  How did they  know that something new was afoot?  “…The Israelites no longer had manna; they ate the crops of the land of Canaan that year.”  What a change THAT was!  What did the Back to Egypt Committee say?

St.Paul reminds the Corinthian congregations of the changed vision which comes as Christ is known and embraced. (II 5:16-21)  “So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation:  everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!”  Lent is our journey from Old to New, an affirmation that God is still shuffling the deck.  Paul himself had become an allegory of change:  Bad Ol’ Saul had been zapped into Good Ol’ Paul!  The congregations are to become a “ferment of hope…letting God’s future break into the world.”  (Dirk G. Lange, in FEASTING on the WORD, C 2:115)

The Gospel is the well-beloved story of the Prodigal Son, actually the Prodigal Father, in the 15th Chapter of Luke’s remembrance.  You recall how the Second Child asked for his share of the family farm and went far away to seek his fortune.  Things didn’t go very well; and at bottom, he decided to tuck his tail between his legs and go home to his Father’s mercy.  O Frabjous Day!  Dad had kept the door unlocked and the porch light on, and ran to welcome him back!  Disgusted, the drab Number One Son said, “Isn’t that just like the old man!  He’s gonna take back my dumb brother!”  Can people change?   Seems to me like one of the main tenets of the Church.

So every day is a New Adventure in God’s Grace!  What’ll happen next?  “In the community of the church, we look at our pilgrim companions as new creations….The challenge posed to each and every community is discovering the presence of God already active, already acting in the lives of each member.” (Lange, ibid. p.113)

ER physician:  “How’s that kid who swallowed the dollar bill?”    Nurse: “There’s no change yet.”

God Bless Us, Every One                Horace Brown King

My musings upon lectionary passages for the upcoming weekend can be found every Tuesday at this space on Facebook; or at horacebrownking.com.