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Now that I’m Old, I feel more than ever that the Community of YHWH is about offering alternatives.  We’ve been steeped in, yea, overrun by the concepts of winning, being strong and Number One.  Political campaigns are driven by the idea of being better than Those Others, our business and economy thrives on beating down the competition, and our “entertainment” features gunfights and car crashes, often enhanced by super-powers and heroic toughness.  Readings which will be heard in many congregations this weekend offer a totally different–and alien–value structure.

I love the story of Naaman, the Syrian general!  (II Kings 5:1-14)  Despite all his rank and machismo, the guy had leprosy.  His wife’s Jewish maid suggested that he go to Elisha, the prophet of Israel, who could heal him.  So here comes Naaman with chariots and a caravan of wealth, to  King Jehoram, who also is lost in his own successes.  Wrong place, Naaman!  Look to the backwater, if you want to find the Holy!  Elisha isn’t impressed a bit with the huge retinue, but sends him a messenger…which makes Naaman angry.   “Don’t you know that I’m a nabob of Syria?  Come out here and do your thing!  I’ve got better rivers at home than this mudhole of the Jordan!”  Faithful heads prevail, Naaman dunks seven times, and is perfect (at least in body) again.  Bigger isn’t better.

Paul’s concluding words to the Galatian churches (6:1-16) lead off by saying, “My friends, if anyone is detected in a transgression, you who have received the Spirit should restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness.”  I’ve experienced such grace, coming off my mid-life crisis:  I was lovingly coddled and appreciated; and I hope that my ministry through the ensuing years has somehow reflected this healing.  Quick to point out weaknesses and slips, our greater community is lacking in forgiveness and restoration.  “Second-chances” are roundly decried by most of the world:  “shoot-the-wounded” is the rule of the day.  Are today’s Galatians the only ones who dare risk gentle rehabilitation?

Jesus sent out seventy messengers to announce that the Kingdom of God has come near. (Luke 10)  They were to be dependent on their hosts for food and shelter.  No Boy Scouts, they weren’t to take an extra pair of socks “just in case”.  No Glock 9mms, no swords, no pepper spray…  “How foolish!”, chides the world.  No fire from heaven, either; just dust your feet and Move On.  (This Sunday will be the first Sunday at the new appointment for United Methodists.  How much dust will fly??)  “Lambs in the midst of wolves” bear a message of Divine Gentleness.

People who Know How Things Are Done will either scoff or squirm at these lessons.  “That was then, this is now, preacher!”  But I think that systems of intimidation, fear and self-righteousness have been as old as the hills…and current as Faux News.  Some will never get it, yet that shouldn’t stop an alternative to violence and bullying from being projected from the pulpit. On our way to Perfection–being all that we’ve been designed to be–we do well to live in gentleness.

God Bless Us Every One                   Horace Brown King

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

Sometimes it’s hard to get off the porch.  No matter how well we’ve prepared for a trip, whether to Europe or to the grocery, one or both of us have to go back in the house.  I’ve forgotten my hat.  She needs a sweater.  Who HAS the car keys?  I’m always relieved as we roll down the driveway:  at last, we’re on our way!  Scriptures that many of us will hear this weekend address our spirit-journeys, from false starts to setting our face to the goal.

The story from Kings (II,2:1-14)  remembers the Fiery Chariot that swung low to carry Elijah home.  We read that “Elijah & Elisha were on their way from Gilgal.”  And there follows a good bit of narrative about Elisha’s constancy, even though they both knew that Elijah was going past the holy border of the Jordan to die.  But they plodded on, faithful friends to the end.  Elisha had earlier been summoned  from his field by Elijah to serve Yahweh–and he sacrificed his oxen to seal the break from his old routine.  Now, despite the death of his mentor, he picked up the mantle of Life and carried on.  Back into the “territory of God” to continue the confrontation with idolatry.

Paul writes to the churches of Galatia about staying free.  Organizational arguments about circumcision, forms of baptism, celibacy and eating rules threatened to enslave them again.  “Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery” (5:1)  Most Christians agree together about central doctrines; it’s the diddly stuff that keeps us on the porch, unable to embark successfully.  After listing the “works of the flesh”,  he encourages us to travel with the “fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control….If we live by the Spirit, let us also be guided by the Spirit.” (5:22ff)

Richard J. Shaffer, Jr., commenting on Luke 9:51-62, says,  “There comes a time in each one’s journey when it is necessary clearly and unequivocally to declare the depth of that commitment….In order to have true meaning and integrity, it must be our identity; we must recognize and live it in every part of our being.”  (FEASTING on the WORD, C 3:190-192)  “When the days drew near for [Jesus] to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem.”  He knew.  He went with a singleness of purpose.  And we read about three conversations–remember the temptations in the Wilderness?–with folks who were “ready”,  yet had excuses.  The Road had few creature comforts and no home base.  Duties to aging parents keeps us local.  Family has priority.  Some say Jesus was too rough in his answers…or was he merely insisting that we choose?  Say, this is hard!

In the last century I read Tom Oden’s fine book, “On the Way to the Future”.  One of the recurrent lessons he put forth is that “Choice Demands Negation”.  You can’t be in Boston if you’ve chosen to go to Denver.  You can’t have your cake and eat it, too.  Our commitment to one person necessarily excludes other lovers.  Most of us don’t want to talk about our Final Scene:  Bryant Hudson lifted up the obituary which said that the person “died unexpectedly”…really??    On our way there, how shall we live?

God Bless Us, Every One                            Horace Brown King

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

Well, I WAS thinking about “Lord & Tailor”.  I’m always overdressed, somehow obsessed with being able to afford “nice” clothes.  The guys I hung with in college were fussily careful about how we dressed, and would critique each others’ apparel for appropriateness.  Scriptures for this weekend have an underlying thread (!) about garments: do we hide in them?  or do they identify us with our faith and integrity?

The prophet Elijah was on the lam.  He had done in Jezebel’s prophets of the Baal, and was she ever mad!  “Where can I hide?  I’m all alone!”, said he.  Where else but back to the origins, Mt. Horeb/Sinai.  When he at last got there, God asked, “What are you doing HERE, don’t you have an assigned place?”  (I Kings 19:9)  “Let me show you something that may give you courage,” said the Lord…and so there came a windstorm; and an earthquake!; and then a mighty fire–and finally, a sound of sheer silence which overwhelmed Elijah so that he wrapped his face in his famous mantle.  Clothed in God at last!

Some have said that the Third Chapter of Galatians contains “Paul in a nutshell”.  He effectively  wrecks wrath’s walls by declaring all are equal in Christ.  I especially like verse 27: “As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.”  Paul’s letters are full of references to being identified by our togs, sometimes specialized items such as the whole armor of God.  In another place, we’re exhorted to shed our old rags of sinfulness to don our gay apparel.  In a period in which a person would wear the same old clothes for years (that’s all they had), thoughts of a new wardrobe were pretty welcome!  Ah, the first Easter parade….

Luke’s Gospel, chapter 8, tells about a guy on The Other Side of the Sea of Galilee who lived naked in the tombs because he had a legion of demons.  No one could control him until Jesus removed his demons into a herd of pigs–which immediately drowned themselves in the lake, to the outrage of their Syrian owners.  “Then people came out to see what had happened, and when they came to Jesus, they found the man from whom the demons had gone sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind.” (v.35)  From Adam ‘n’ Eve to the young man with Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane to the host of white-robed saints in heavenly places, it seems that clothing (or lack thereof) gives opportunity for personal conversation with One who is both Beyond yet EverNear.

In the summer of my tenth year, I was proud to burst when I was handed my Little League uniform!  I wasn’t very good–but I was On the Team!   In Jr. High, I got to wear a scrumptious band uniform:  red, with a shiny gold braid on the coat and a big red stripe running….  When I visit the hospital I almost always wear a clerical collar:  the staff and patients know why I’m there and who I represent.  Despite the temperature, I prefer to robe and wear an elder’s stole, when I lead worship.  Yet I’ll shuffle off this mortal coil naked as the day I was born…and not as cute.

God Bless Us, Every One             Horace Brown King

My thoughts upon scripture lessons for the upcoming weekend can be found every Tuesday at this spot on Facebook; or at horacebrownking.com

I’ve always thought myself a law-abiding person.  Well, with a 5 mph margin for speed limits.  I don’t bounce checks intentionally, nor do I jay-walk…most often.  I play by the rules, ‘cept for occasions which would benefit me.  I’m aghast by society’s willingness to create mayhem against tribes and nations far away; and I say “boy’s will be boys” when my friends admit to harmless (?) and anonymous pranks.  In short, I revere and uphold all law that doesn’t pinch me too much!

This weekend’s scriptures address the absolutism of The Law, as seen both civilly and morally.  I Kings 21 tells the story about how Ahab seized the vineyard of Naboth, his neighbor, by falsely accusing him of treason & blasphemy–punishable by stoning to death.  The prophet Elijah, one of the only perceived voices of Godly ethic, called him to accountability for his evil; and Ahab, taking a page from Adam of old, blamed his wife!  (Cherchez la femme)   Besides, as she said, Ahab was The King!

The passage from Galatians 2:15-21 is a very wordy musing of St. Paul about ethics and the law.  “We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners [!!!]; yet we know that a person is justified not by the works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ.”  ‘Twas hard for this Pharisee to move from the absolutism of the Jewish law into a situational morality where Right was that action/belief which showed the greatest love.  We need to read  the paragraphs before these to appreciate the ongoing disagreement between Paul–who extended Grace to the non-Jews–and Peter & Co., who upheld the Jewishness of the Christian movement.

The Gospel is Luke’s remembrance of the fancy dinner where a “woman of the city” poured perfume all over Jesus’ feet, and wiped them with her hair!  Simon, the prissy host, was offended, as were all the “good” people.  After all, convention (and MAYBE the law) discriminated because she was a woman, and a fallen one at that.   Hearers are now left to judge for themselves between Jesus and The Law, a common demand of the gospels.

Back in the last century, we seminarians debated Joseph Fletcher’s concept of Situational Ethics.  In the 50 ensuing years, I’ve found that “doing the right thing” isn’t very simple–and can be immensely frustrating.  These readings will undoubtedly lift more questions than answers: thanks be to God!

God Bless Us, Every One           Horace Brown King

A personal note:  as I returned from Annual Conference on Saturday, I mused that 50 years ago, in 1966, I exited a similar Conference newly appointed to a student pastorate at the small yet vital Methodist congregations of Clifford& Lenoxville PA.  I celebrate the journey, and what God has done with me during the intervening years!

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