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William Sloane Coffin writes, “No church should ever dismiss, demean, or in any way deny the awesomeness of death, nor the fear of it that eats away at the heart of each of us.”  (CREDO, p.172)  As uncomfortable as it is, the readings for this weekend speak not only about dying but try to give a divine view of how death fits into a lively Creation.  We can’t deny death, for its part of life–but will Christians be obsessed with death and  paralyzed by it?

We turn to the Wisdom of Solomon (1:13-15, 2:23-24), part of the Old Testament apocrypha.  Immediately we hear, “because God did not make death, [God] does not delight in the death of the living…and the dominion of Hades is not on earth.”  Penned by a hellenistic Jew, perhaps a resident of Alexandria, the text harkens back to the Genesis account of a Creator who breathes Life.  “God created us for incorruption, and made us in the image of his own eternity”–but the devil made death in a fit of spite!  Ernest G. Clarke adds, “The writer was striving to prove that there is more to living than this mortal, restrictive life which all [persons] live.  He was impelled to discuss immortality while acknowledging that by nature [we] are mortal.” (CAMBRIDGE BIBLE COMMENTARY :11)

What in the world can we do with the Epistle, II Corinthians 8:7-15?  It’s about Paul’s collection for the relief of the Jerusalem Church, and “a fair balance between your present abundance and their need”.  I suppose that we could make a sermon about economic equality:  when death knocks on the door, we can’t take it with us.  Other than that, I can’t find much of a thread.

Mark’s Gospel account, 5:21-43, tells the story of two women that were healed–one by touching Jesus’s cloak, and the other by a direct touch by Jesus.  You may want to use this as comparison, which would be quite appropriate.  I think that I’ll address the main story of Jairus’ daughter:  giving her up for dead, the neighbors assumed the worst, and wanted no part of Jesus’ intercession.  They, like us, have left God out of the equation.  Jesus’ message here (and ours) is that there is yet life in the midst of death!

The first thing I read in the paper is the column of obituary.  They died, and I didn’t!  Some of those folks are old, and full of years; others are yet young, and I hope that they didn’t give up on life too soon.  It’s pretty audacious for the Church and its teachers to speak about God’s desire for Life when so many are dying!  An old adage says that a river is shallow until it knows its limits at the shoreline.  “In life, in death, in life beyond death, we are not alone.  Thanks be to God!”

God Bless Us, Every One                           Horace Brown King

My inner exploration of Scripture lessons assigned to the upcoming weekend can be found every Tuesday at this spot on Facebook; or at horacebrownking.com.

What could possibly be chaotic about a beautiful Summer Day?  Picnics and family reunions beckon, baseball games on the IPad go unwatched as we snooze on the terrace…  And yet there’s no joy in Mudville:  snappy bosses, malicious divorces, illnesses of various kinds insert their claws into our serendipity–and we begin to question God.  “Where’ve you BEEN?!  Can’t you see that we’re dyin’ here??”  Today’s lessons will speak to far too many; will they help the present malaise?

The one who reads the passage from Job (38:1-11) needs to give a brief synopsis:  Job is a good guy, a “righteous man”, yet his family/property/fortune has been destroyed by a devilish plague of bad happenings.  “But I’ve been GOOD!  Why do bad things happen to good people?”  Why, indeed?  It takes a while for Job to look beyond his cultural legalism to see the cosmic elements of Creation.  When he begins to open himself to omnipotence, he can finally hear the majestic poetry of the text.  God has limited the chaos-monster:  “Thus far shall you come, and no farther, and here shall your proud waves be stopped.”

The Epistle, II Corinthians 6:1-13, is characteristically oblique.  What’s more, there’s little take-home wisdom.  Yet there is a feeling of urgency–“now is the acceptable time; see, now is the day of salvation!”  And there’s an exhortation to open their hearts wide.  In between, Paul tells of the chaos he’s survived, with the implication that God has rescued him, so why not YOU?  There really are limits to the rages of the sea.

Mark describes Jesus’ missionary journeys around the Sea of Galilee in 4:35-41.  He wants to go to The Other Side, the land of the Gentiles.  (Isn’t there always Another Side?)  On the way, the capricious weather of Galilee threatens to swamp their boat –and Jesus is asleep!  Seasoned sailors though they were, they angrily woke Jesus:  “Don’t you care that we’re drowning here??”  Still unsure about Lordly power, they figured they had nothing to lose.  And they probably needed the catharthis of angry shouting to clean out their senses for a word from God!  (So did Job.)  So once again God limited the waves and tamed the chaos-monster…

Job, Paul & the Disciples all faced the daily threats and the immensity of the Creator’s power which once made order out of chaos.  Leanne Pearce Reed concludes (FEASTING on the WORD, B 3:151),  “The chaos is still there, but so is God.  And that is enough.”

God Bless Us, Every  One                            Horace Brown King

My ritual drowning in the scriptural passages for the upcoming weekend can be found every Tuesday at this space on Facebook; or at horacebrownking. com

Some years ago, my doctor told me that I should shed a few pounds.  How?  “Go find a gym or fitness center that you like, and join it.”   At my next visit, she said, “You haven’t lost any weight; you’ve actually gained!  Did you join a gym?”  “Oh, yes.”  “Well, how often do you go there?”  “What?  You’ve got to GO there?!”  So this weekend’s scripture lessons are for those of us (most) who’d like to try some heavenly gardening–maybe tomorrow…

For some of us, the announced reading from the Hebrew Bible is a passage from Ezekiel’s oracles, 17:22-24.  The Lord God is planting a twig from a well-developed cedar tree (the fabled Tree of Life?), “in order that it may produce boughs and bear fruit…”  Winged creatures of every kind will find refuge and security in this new tree.  The prophet, as a child of the Babylonian Exile, reminds his hearers that God is still growing a holy tree in Israel:  not only shall the House of David be restored, but Yahweh’s power over all things will reforest the barren hills of the desert.  This is good to hear for the Church of today, seemingly the remnant of decency and justice in a profane and selfish society.

The beginning and the end of the Epistle carry the meat of Paul’s Second Letter to the Corinthian Church (5:6-17).  “So we are always confident; even though we know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord–for we walk by faith, not by sight….So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!”  A gardener must “walk by faith”, because that which is planted is not fully realized ’til the end of the season.  And such gardening re-creates the pristine possibility of useful growth.  So is a garden a friendly apocalypse??

Is it audacious to talk about seeds in the Age of the Microchip?  Mark’s Gospel does (4:26-34) through two parables of Jesus:  the Patient Farmer, who plants his field and waits for God’s good harvest; and the famous Mustard Seed, smallest of all but growing into a majestic and useful shrub.  There’s a built-in plan or system to growth, which happens anyway in spite of our tweaking it.  (Paul later said that “Paul planted and Appollos watered, but God gave the growth.”)  My mother and most of the mothers of my friends had earrings with a single mustard-seed embedded in crystal:  to remind us that even a speck of faith would turn into something spectacular, when given the chance.

Gardening of any sort entails tremendous risk.  What if the clipping didn’t root?  What if the seed found the soil too rocky?  It’s really easier to keep and use what seed we have than to risk next year’s crop-failure.  If you keep your minute seed as jewelry, you’ll always have it…’course, it won’t grow into anything.  Happy digging in the dirt: till–we meet again…

God Bless Us, Every One                            Horace Brown King

My walk through the jungle of Scripture can be found every Tuesday at this spot on Facebook; or at horacebrownking.com

These many Sundays after Pentecost track and affirm the growing conviction of holy strength among those who follow Jesus.  We read again the challenges and comforts which the Holy Spirit blows into our sails:  no longer in the harbor of anticipation, we move into the injustice and selfishness of a material world.  Scriptures for this weekend address the immanent Presence of Divinity, which has (again) broken into the once-familiar world with new visions of what yet may be…

The Book of Beginnings takes us to our progenitors’ realization of their own humanity:  Genesis 3:8-15 describes the Lord God’s disappointment that Creation’s brief moment of perfection has been tarnished.  Adam & Eve acknowledged their nakedness, and God realized that wisdom has been shared as humanity tries to become divine.  Along with Wisdom goes Blame:  “SHE said it was OK!”  “The SNAKE said it was OK!”  The Snake/Dragon continues to terrify humans, personifying Evil and as a scapegoat for our own limited vision.

What is worthy, says Paul to the Corinthian church (II 4:16-18), is that which we see only in the eyes of our soul.  Our stories and dreams, our wishes and our songs, our commitment to another through marriage & procreation–all are not “factual”, but become powerful signs of what we dare imagine.  “So we do not lose heart.  Even though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day.”  A caution, here–Paul is known for his rejection of the physical in favor of the spiritual.  I’d rather read these verses with a holistic sense of God’s Presence in both the seen and the unseen.

Mark’s Gospel account (3:20-35) is evidently inserted here to accent the humanity of Jesus AND his family.  Busy with healing and casting out demons, Jesus is assailed as being possessed himself.  His rebuttal is strictly human; no mention of God is made in this passage.  But how can an unclean spirit cast out another person’s unclean spirit?  Obviously the scribes and even Jesus’ family were seeing only the immediate, whereas Jesus was attempting to point out a Greater Vision of a Perfect Creation.

Each of these readings is an attempt to call the worshiper beyond the moment into a land of greater possibilities.  These are probably not escape-clauses, because reality and all its poignancy is rightly acknowledged.  Yet in the midst of our daily scrabbling in the dust, there’s something refreshing about going on a holy trip where Godly visions become our security and our bliss…

God Bless Us, Every One                             Horace Brown King

My exploration of scripture passages assigned to the upcoming weekend can be found every Tuesday at this spot on Facebook; or at horacebrownking.com