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I often sing the song about Lizzie Borden, who allegedly hacked her parents to death with an axe.  “Now it wasn’t done for malice, and it wasn’t done for spite, and it wasn’t done because the lady wasn’t very bright…She had always done exactly what her Ma & Papa bid; they said, ‘Lizzie, cut it out!’–and that’s exactly what she did!”  Not surprising, then, that the scripture for the coming weekend addresses the need to excise the unGodly from our lives.  Ginger Gaines-Cirelli reminds us that “our inward posture centers on God and resists all that is NOT God, resists all that is counter to the ways of God revealed through Jesus.” (CIRCUIT RIDER, August/Sept. 2018)

The Book of Esther needs to be read all at once, or at least condensed to the narrative.  The prescribed lesson is 7:1-6, 9-10; 9:20-22; it may be more useful to select other verses, since the story won’t appear again this year.  But the core of it addresses the unwitting  genocide of the Jews by King Ahasuerus, ruler in Persia a few centuries BC.  Righteousness eventually won, and the arrogant Haman got a taste of his own medicine.  This is a folk-story, not a God-story: it makes a nice morality for those who persevere in their cause–and in the end, the evil was excised “and they lived happily (?) ever after”.

The last verses of James’ letter (5:13-20) call the congregation to the centrality of God’s power.  The sick and the sinful will be restored to wholeness, and the family will be healed by those who bring home the lost sheep.  There are some specific remedies for brokenness:  pray for one another, sing holy songs, engage and accept the virtues of the elders, share faith and folly with others of like mind and situation who are also on this spiritual journey.  Can we cut out the self-serving wisdom of the world and allow community building to replace it?

Jesus’ words in Mark 9:38-50 are unnerving, calling us to cut away the offending body-part which may separate us from God’s fullness.  If Jesus isn’t speaking in hyperbole, I’m in real trouble, having few working parts left!  Modern medicine, though, has been doing this:  if a patient has cancer, gangrene, or certain diabetic conditions they experience a surgery which saves their body even while unhealthy segments are removed.  This goes well with a previous call to ego-denial, announcing that the righteousness of God must be taken seriously above other rewarding quests.

Such surgery is always painful.  Giving up something we treasure frightens us, yet the resulting health of the Whole Body increases our prosperity of the quality of life.  Pearl Maria Barros  gives the benediction:  “The good news is that grace is also a way of being in the world.  Grace comes to us every time we ‘cut off’ our problematic behaviors by acknowledging them and then replace them with those that lead us closer to God and to each other.” (SOJOURNERS, September/October 2018)             “Slam the door and lock and latch it:  here comes Lizzie with a brand-new hatchet!”

God Bless Us, Every One                                  Horace Brown King

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

I don’t like “Yield” signs.  They always remind me that some traffic is more important than my momentary errand.  They remind me that someone else has the right-of-way.  They don’t coddle my ego with false affirmations of my obvious worth, and they make me wait even though my present project is urgently changing and renewing the world.  Single-handedly.  I don’t Yield very well.  Two of this weekend’s scriptures lift up the virtues of Yielding while they smack down our grandiose persons who dote upon being Number One.  Owww!

Generations of power-people have misused Proverbs 31:10-31 to idolize “the perfect woman/wife” at the expense of those who don’t measure up.  Weird Al Yankovich has a song which says, “You’re not perfect, but you’re good enough for now”.  Then there’s the movie of THE STEPFORD WIVES, where robots replaced actual women.  The reading brings us  nice thoughts, of course, but these tend to both lionize the Ideal and put down real women with all their human complexities.  The final verse helps to save it:  “Give her a share in the fruit of her hands, and let her work praise her in the city gates.”  Can I and my fellow chauvinists yield our self-importance?

St. James speaks about bitter envy and selfish ambition:  “do not be boastful and false to the truth.”  (3:13-4:3)  These things are unspiritual and evil, leading to “disorder and wickedness of every kind”.  “But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy.”  This indicates that such traits are God-given, and the Believer is exhorted to receive and imitate them.  Can I lock my Ego in a closet, along with my Evil Twin?   Or does that just deny my humanity?

Mark 9:30-37 recounts two instances where the Disciples didn’t know what to say!  The first verses tell of Jesus constant reminder of his betrayal, death & resurrection; but they didn’t understand, and were afraid to ask.  Later, at home, Jesus asked them what they were discussing on the road; but they were silent with shame, since they were arguing about which of them was “the greatest”.  From Ozymandius to Cassius Clay/Muhammed Ali to POTUS #45,  our tendency is to proclaim our greatness.  It makes us feel good.  But “whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.”  !!!   Can we learn to yield?

Seems as though those darned yellow triangles are all over!  Not only at busy intersections, they seem to pop up wherever my daily smugness carries me.  I guess I really need these reminders that my traffic is neither more important nor less so than that of those sharing my space.  (“MY” space??)  My spiritual practice du jour might be to yield my agenda to God–and those created in a Divine Image.  Lord, that’s hard!

God Bless Us, Every One                          Horace Brown King

My encounters with scriptural passages assigned to the upcoming weekend can be found every Tuesday at this spot on Facebook; or at horacebrownking.com

Word, words, words.  From the talking heads on MSNBC to the empty inquiries about our friends’ health, we’re deluged by ’em!  Parents can’t wait for their offspring to talk–which they will do constantly until they’re teenagers who only communicate by texting.  Some people were born with a silver spoon in their mouths; I was evidently born with my FOOT in my mouth!  Scripture for the coming weekend reminds all of us to speak only with caution, because people can get hurt.

The Hebrew Scripture, Proverbs 1:20-33, brings us words of Holy Wisdom: “at the busiest corner she cries out…”  Wisdom laments that the “simple ones” haven’t absorbed her counsel; the resultant panic, calamity and distress will remain unpitied by One who said, “I told you so!”  What grace there is can be found in the final verse of the reading:  “but those who listen to me will be secure and will live at ease, without dread of disaster.”  I find it ironic that a word can be both painful and helpful.  Do we have choices of voices?

There’s no Christology as such in the Epistle of James 3:1-12.  “Right speech” is one of the three marks of true religion outlined earlier, along with the care of widows and orphans and keeping unstained by the world.  James marvels that so small a thing as a human tongue has so much power!   The undomesticated tongue is called “a restless evil, full of deadly poison”.  “With it we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse those who are made in the likeness of God.  From the same mouth come blessing and cursing.”  The writer isn’t speaking of daily profanity–the words I say when I pinch my finger in a door–but the disrespect we offer others.  You know: jokes about another race or ethnicity; deflating the puffed-up; making allowances for the less-educated; impatience with the fat, the blind, the deaf.  This passage is inviting the Church to be counter-cultural in the way we perceive and talk about “Them”.

Today we explore again Jesus’ question, “Who do people say that I am?”  as remembered by Mark.  Peter, spokespersons for the Disciples and the rest of us, gives a good answer: “You are the Messiah”.  But shortly after, he goes all worldly on Jesus, “rebuking” him for claiming his death & resurrection–for which he himself is rebuked.  Again an oral encounter which shakes the universe!  Our tendency is to speak with a forked tongue…

Pearl Maria Barros asks, “In a world in which we are constantly bombarded with information–some of it beautiful and much of it terrifying–how do we witness to Christ?” (SOJOURNERS, September-October 2018)  Our words can add to or detract from the Kingdom of God…As the sign says, “O Lord, make my words soft and tender, for I may have to eat them tomorrow”.

God Bless Us, Every One                                 Horace Brown King

Come watch me wrestle with words and the Word of the Lord every Tuesday at this spot on Facebook; or at horacebrownking.com

When the Church speaks about HEALING, we need to be sure that what is meant is WHOLENESS of body, mind & spirit.  Often a specific condition or disease is overcome; but even where a “thorn in the flesh” remains, a healing sense of being whole in God’s love is instigated.   Some will say that Death is an ultimate healing.  My own understanding is that healing is sacramental:  that is, it’s a loving in-breaking of Grace to an alien system.  Readings for this weekend speak about Wholeness extended to all, whatever their situation in life.  (If you’re interested in knowing more about Sacramental Healing, the Order of St. Luke the Physician has many good resources; or my favorite golden-oldie,  Morton Kelsey’s HEALING AND CHRISTIANITY, Harper & Row, 1973.)

Selected snippets from Proverbs 2 (1-2, 8-9, 22-23) introduce a sense of God’s purpose for a whole society:  “The rich and the poor have this in common: the Lord is the maker of them all.”  These aphorisms go beyond personal morality to the maintenance of a sensitive community.  Susan T. Henry-Crowe reminds us of some current language which makes barriers:  “immigrants”, “aliens”, “rednecks”, “white trash”, and “losers” are but a few labels which destroy equality.  Where do these ancient moralisms help us to join together their theological claim with our current world?  If we do not advocate for the “others”, do we betray the family of God?

James letter introduces us to the parable of the prejudiced usher (2:1-17).  Two persons may enter a congregation, one ostensibly a Big Spender and the other noticeably ragged.  The fancy dresser gets the best seat in the house, while the street-person is lucky to sit on a footstool!  This is hardly a demonstration of Godly living, says James.  “If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill’, and yet you do not supply their bodily needs  what is the good of that?”  It does require a special effort by each established member to welcome a newby and weave them into the fabric of the congregation…

The Gospel, Mark 7:24-37, tells two healing stories, both of which happened outside Jewish territory to Gentiles.  Also, both involved third-parties making the connection to Jesus.  Many of us have torn apart the story of Jesus’ seeming unwillingness to heal the daughter of the woman of Tyre, and the happy ending of their conversation.  Since I’m deaf as a post myself, I resonate with the deaf man whose friends besought Jesus for healing.  Again, Grace is poured out on the outsiders irrespective of their beliefs or worthiness.

I’m always amazed at what I learn from the insight of everyday people.  IF I can tear myself away from my book-lined study to hob-nob with folks at the Village Diner or the waiting room of the walk-in clinic, I receive witness and blessing of life which is unfolding by Gods’ Grace all around!  Perhaps this sort of divine encounter will bring ME wholeness, as well?

God Bless Us, Every One                        Horace Brown King

My thoughts about Scripture readings assigned to the upcoming weekend can be found every Tuesday at this space on Facebook; or at horacebrownking.com