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Patience has become a casualty of our transition from an agrarian culture to one of digitalization.  We complain that our computer is too slow when we have to wait more than five seconds for a new screen.  Weather forecasting has become instantaneous; college students rarely wait the allotted ten minutes for a late-arriving professor.  T-shirt slogans advise us to “Keep Calm”….and I growl when I have to stand in line at the check-out.   This weekend’s readings encourage the listener to adopt a greater view of how things unfold.

Habakkuk, however you pronounce it, was a prophet who could have lived about 600 years before Jesus–or he could well be speaking out of the present malaise.  “Why do you make me see wrongdoing and look at trouble?  Destruction and violence are before me; strife and contention arise.  So the law becomes slack and justice never prevails…” (1:3,4a)   We seem to be in a time when the wicked appear to be winning.  We crave God’s response, “For there is still a vision for the appointed time….if it seems to tarry, wait for it.” (2:3)   What?  You mean that there were corruption, ignorance and bigotry in the Old Days, too??

The Second Letter to the Thessalonian Christians, purportedly from Paul, encourages the readers to endure to the end in order to glorify Christ.  “…your faith is growing abundantly, and the love of every one of you for one another is increasing.” (1:3)  The passage contrasts the lasting peace which Christ provides with the less substantial “peace” which worldly muscle enforces.  Such endurance is rarely a quick fix:  long seasons of prayerful empathy with the hurting allow a Holy Vision to develop and become a sure bastion against despair.

Luke’s Gospel story is about Zacchaeus, a man driven up a tree by the crowd (19:1-10).  Z was an outcast because he was a tax-collector, considered a traitor.  Besides, he was Rich.  AND short.  But something impelled him to stand on tiptoe to see this famous teacher and healer–and when the crowd still wouldn’t let him see, he climbed into the lower branches of a fig tree to catch history unfolding before him.  The Good News is that Jesus recognized him, and indulged in his hospitality!  “He too is a son of Abraham.  For the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost.”(19:9-10)  In later years, we can envision Zacchaeus telling his grandchildren, “I was just WAITING for that day!”

My friend Rawn Spearman has endured my bad puns and convoluted anecdotes for some years, now.  When my rambling must seem pointless, he often turns to whomever’s with us to say, “Wait for it…!”    This weekend’s lessons could appear to be rambling, yet underneath is a Holy Reminder to “Wait for it…!”  They give us permission–and direction–to grow our hope even in the midst of alarm and despair.

God Bless Us, Every One.    Horace Brown King

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

My student churches were in Susquehanna County, PA.  Though rapidly becoming suburbanized, there were yet enough old generation seniors who were still running small farms to wax eloquent over The Harvest.  We offered seasonal dinners of excess: turkey, corn dishes of ancient recipe, butternut squash…and pumpkin pie.  Those who didn’t eat until their eyes popped were considered barbaric.  Children were told timeless tales of field clearing, stump burning and stone hauling.  Then we drove recent-year cars home to our televisions and central heating and indoor plumbing…  God has blessed us well!

The Hebrew Bible reading for this weekend allows the prophet Joel to do a bit of waxing, himself (2:23-32).  Here Yahweh is speaking of End Times, when the Bad will be past and the Good will triumph:  “You shall eat in plenty and be satisfied, and praise the name of  the Lord your God, who has dealt wondrously with you.”  The System has been flawed, fer sure–but Justice (and Prosperity) will come at last!  Joel doesn’t disavow the brokenness, but emphasizes how God is restoring a straying culture.

Paul tells Timothy that such a restoration hasn’t much been seen, yet (II 4:6-18). Knowing that he’ll soon die, he keeps looking for his own “crown” and that of coming generations.  (THIS one??)  Some of us die cranky, fearing that Life will never respond to grace and peace.  We who are dying (aren’t we all?) well may cheerfully recollect the hardships of the race while celebrating a Holy Presence which never abandons us!   The good news here is that “in life, in death, we are not alone.  Thanks be to God!”

I can hardly keep my eyes on yours as I read the Gospel, Luke’s account of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector (18:9-14).  Certainly a major evidence of sin in my life is my enduring attitude of arrogance, of smugness.  I’m pretty open towards folks of other races, gender-preference, religion…but oh, those truck drivers on Rt. 17!  And there’s more; plenty more.  The Pennsylvania Dutch say, “All the world is queer but for thee and me; and I’m not so sure about thee…”  My confessions always must begin with enumeration of those I disparage.  How ’bout you?

So harvest-time is a season for counting our blessings, as long as we don’t look down on those we think are less blessed.  All in all, I’ve had a good run, uphill and down; and now I’m enjoying the richness which God has supplied.  I hope that these readings will carve me open for my snarky attitude, and remind me that I’m nothing ‘cept for the tenacious care of the Lord of the Harvest….

God Bless Us, Every One                          Horace Brown King

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

Sometime in mid-highschool I developed a two-week crush on Leila, a classmate.  When I tried to pursue my romantic inclination, she (alas) replied, “Not at this time”.  I got over it quickly.   But for the remainder of our years together, I’d still ask, “Is it time now, Leila?”  To which she’d reply, “Not yet, Horace!”  This got to be a running gag, and we looked for the most inappropriate times to use it:  at the end of a test, or when a sub was being tested by our group.  When I saw Leila again, at our twenty-year reunion, I was quick to ask, “Is it time now, Leila?”  To which she replied,  “WHAT??”  I guess it’s never the right time….

Jeremiah, “the gloomy prophet”, did have encouragement for the remnant of Judah (31:27-34).  Now that the People have bottomed out, a new covenant is to come from God: “I will put my law WITHIN them, and I will write it on their HEARTS; …they shall ALL know me…for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.”  Is that audacious news, or what!?  When everything we value swirls down the drain, God is gonna intervene?   This new relationship is to be engraved on the hearts, and will turn the Bad Days into good ones.

I’ve been blessed to have several coaches whose voices echo through the surrounding clamor.  These Old Teachers cluster about me during crisis; sometimes with words remembered, often with unspoken support.  The Letter which we call II Timothy is an instance like this.  The Mentor passes the torch to a new generation with an admonition to persevere:  “proclaim the message; be persistent whether the time is favorable or unfavorable; convince, rebuke, and encourage, with the utmost patience in teaching.” (4:2)   In my old age, I selfishly hope that I’ve shared a few nuggets of glory with those subjected to my ministry–and I’m genuinely appreciative of all who remind me of the Great Love which over and around us lies….  You know who you are.

Luke is the only evangelist who included the parable of the Unjust Judge (18:1-8).  Even beyond the Jewish community people could relate to hard-hearted authority which abused its position by ignoring the least and lowest.  People everywhere can applaud the persistence of the widow who finally won her case!  (This is NOT what the Kingdom of God is like!)  But in the light of the other readings, the parable is one more instance of a Holy Presence in times both good and bad:  hang in there, don’t give up!  As King Henry purportedly called out, “Once more, dear friends! Into the breach!”

It’s really difficult to take the long view when dragons of daily frustrations snap at us from behind every shadow.  Our knuckles are bloody from rapping at heaven’s door.  We’ve been praying our hearts out:  “Is anybody there?  Does anybody care?”  My ears are itching for these words which reflect the Breath of God, creating and sustaining, blowing over the face of the deep.

God Bless Us, Every One                Horace Brown King

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

Something in humanity urges us to define Who We Are by excluding those whom we are not.  Wall-building is an ancient practice of “civilization”:  “Stay off my turf!”  Ruins of Hadrian’s Wall can be seen in Britain, and the Great Wall of China remains as a current marvel of antiquity.  Westerners of the ’50s & ’60s deplored the Berlin Wall, but have little indignation about the one which keeps Palestinians away from ancestral homes in Israel.  I scoff at Trump’s xenophobic rhetoric about keeping “Mexicans” away from the SouthWest–yet in fact, fences and guard-stations already exist.  Americans were sorely seduced when St. Robert Frost wrote, “Good fences do good neighbors make”.

Many of us will be caught up short by the lessons for this weekend.  Jeremiah begins by urging the Exiles in Babylon to Bloom Where They’re Planted (29:4-7).  “Build houses…live in them, plant gardens…take wives…multiply there….Seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find YOUR welfare.”  You must be joking, Jeremiah!  Be happy away from Zion?  Pray for this God-forsaken place?  Does that mean that YHWH is lord HERE, too?  You mean that there’s good news of great joy for ALL the people?

World-citizen Paul is pictured as writing to Timothy, a second-generation preacher, about not getting tripped up by semantics:  “Warn them before God that they are to avoid wrangling over words…” (II 2:14)  He must have caught a premonition that the Church of all ages wastes much time and energy in splitting hairs and adding footnotes to Disciplines.  Our proud posturing has resulted in drawing lines in the sand about who’s Us and who’s Them, unfortunately diluting the love and compassion of Jesus.  Our church buzz-words have themselves become walls.

So ten borderland outcasts approached Jesus, seeking healing and restoration to their community (Luke 17:11-19).  He instructed them to return to the priests–to get their credentials–and Be Whole.  One came back to express thanks, “and he was a Samaritan”.  Good Jews would be doubly offended, for to clean what God had afflicted was blasphemy; and this SAMARITAN!!  Luke proclaims a God Without Borders more than the other evangelists, for traditionally he himself was a traveler with Paul to the frontiers of faith.  This paragraph should be read with an attitude of incredulity, as the teller conveys amazement in such a universal grace.

I’m a Utopian, admittedly, and I suppose that erasing all the lines on the map would lead to anarchy.  Yet I follow John Wesley’s purported reminder that “the world is my parish”, and become impatient with the slowness of the world to equalize the imbalances of justice and economics.  The afore-mentioned Robert Frost began his selfish poem, “Something there is that doesn’t like a wall.”  If Nature and history are making some gains at destroying our barriers, Disciples may also accrue hope for proclaiming a Universal God into our current turf-wars…

God Bless Us, Every One                         Horace Brown King

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