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“The demonic is a way to talk about the reign of sin in our society and our lives, a system of sinfulness that rejects what is good for our neighbor and us. Sin is a power around us, invading our lives, possessing us, holding us captive, imprisoning all of us in a cage the size of the world.”–writes Isaac S. Villegas (SOJOURNERS January ’21:49) Lessons for the upcoming weekend are not just about the demonic but the authority of God and God’s Spokespersons to banish such brokenness and to restore right relationships with the divine. Hearers who may be overwhelmed by negative systems within themselves and the world in which they live are encouraged to rejoice in the nearness of God’s Kingdom. Even now.

The Hebrew Testament gives us words purported to have been issued by Moses, as he was ready to move on (Deuteronomy 18:15-20). He reminded the People of Wandering that “the Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet…” This/these person(s) would not only speak for God, but would become a window through which the light of God would shine. St. Francis is attributed with saying, ” Preach constantly. Use words when you must.” The prophets among us are those whose actions point the disgruntled towards the Holy.

St. Paul’s First Collection of words to the Corinthians, 8:1-13, deals only superficially with the gastric habits of the Corinthian congregation. Perhaps there was a question–did someone tattle?–about the propriety of reusing “sacrificed” food; but the larger question raises about the “reality” of idols. “Nonsense,” we read between the lines, “there are no other gods”. Well, yeah–but there are plenty of DISTRACTIONS! If not food regulations, what other traditions are standing between us and Godliness? “Everything is legal,” of course; but if our pleasures and vices cause someone else to mis-read Righteousness, then we should listen to our scruples. How does the Church respond to the surrounding culture? Can we who’ve succumbed to the glitz & glory of capitalism/materialism/nationalism hope to center back? Only through Christ.

Mark’s Gospel is always very concise. After calling some fisher-folks, Jesus attended synagogue at Capernaum and “taught them as one having authority”. And of course there was a man “with an unclean spirit” there, and Jesus called the demonic out of him. (Self confession: this happens to me almost every worship service.) Mark presents the cosmic confrontation of the Creatures of Darkness vs. the Authority of Light–which is really the Gospel in a nutshell. When Jesus walks into the room, the powers recognize that the boundaries between Heaven & Earth have again been shattered…and lives are transformed.

Meanwhile, we plod long our way, step by step, groaning about the trials & temptations with which we put up. Ah, where is God? Perhaps nearer than we think or appreciate; and the everyday prophet is calling, Amos-like, to banish our idols and allow this proactive God to rearrange the furniture in our hopeful houses…

In the process of unfolding, Horace Brown King

The record of my encounter with Scripture assigned to the upcoming weekend can be found every Tuesday at this spot on Facebook; or at horacebrownking.com

In the process of unfolding, Horace Brown King

My observations of lessons to be read this upcoming weekend can be found every Tuesday at this spot on Facebook; or at horacebrownking.com

Since I’m deaf as a post, an alarm clock does me no good whatsoever. However, I can count on it waking Marie, who elbows me into a foggy state of awareness. I suppose that I represent most of the known world, at least America, which is too sleepy or deaf to hear the alarms all around. Scripture read this upcoming weekend gives three occasions for waking earth “from its haunted sleep”–reminding sleepers then and now that God’s Presence is all around.

Our Hebrew experience is a quixotic tale of “Jonah”, the Good Jew who didn’t want to go to the sewer called Nineveh–the Assyrian capital–and so he ran the other way. Unsuccessfully. After his fishy adventure, God told him to get on with it; and so we find Jonah (3:1-5) in the streets of Nineveh shouting God’s message: “40 days until calamity!” Now here’s the miracle: the Ninevites BELIEVED Jonah! This unwilling prophet turned out to be the Assyrian alarm clock: they repented, and God didn’t destroy them! I guess that Divine Will includes for us to talk to our “enemies”…

St. Paul cuts right to the chase with the Corinthians (I, 7:29-31). “The appointed time has grown short….For the present form of this world is passing away.” Some have read this as an invitation to expect an immediate advent of Christ, the escahaton. Many generations later, I’d rather think that God has already re-worked Creation daily to move past our human scrambles for power & prestige, to announce that there’s already a new system in place if only people would wake up and participate in it! Paul is reminding the church to put aside earthly customs in order to prioritize Christ’s mission and to concentrate their vision on a new horizon quietly unfolding. In fact, Paul says, the present system just doesn’t work any more.

Near the beginning of Mark’s Gospel, 1;14-20, we hear Jesus’ call to discipleship, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near”. Another alarm. The Old is past, and the New has come–Happy New Year! “The King is Dead; Long Live the King!” Simon, Andrew, James & John all follow him “immediately” (Mark’s operative time-frame) Their allegiance to the family business and support has changed to participating in this new system of the kingdom of God. Theirs was a holy moment (Aha! an Epiphany!) of recognizing eternal values, even if this was a game-changer. Did they remember this holy heartburn during the hard times of being persecuted, reviled and martyred? What will happen to people who get caught up in the awareness that the kingdom of God system is really working?

These Scripture lessons could degenerate into theological speculation, or a nostalgic trip into Antiquity. Yet they’re fresh as this morning’s donuts to people who’ve caught the gleam of the Kingdom, those who’re on the brink of re-arranging their lives and priorities to defer to Eternity in our midst. Isaac S. Villegas reminds us that “the question for us is how we will love our neighbors as the present order passes away.” (SOJOURNERS, January ’21:49)

“We do not fully sense the divinity around us,” writes Lawrence Wood in FEASTING on the WORD (B 1:243). “Exhaustion has so dulled our hearts, minds and souls that we can work all day in the temple but never hear God.” Yep. The air around me is filled with words that are angry, resigned or nostalgic. My senses are over- stimulated with the wasteland of political demise and celebrity overkill. Readings for this upcoming weekend honor our guilty rat-race while reminding us that a spoken and lively Word can come to resource us and draw us onward to our next spiritual plateau.

Young Samuel was the apprentice to Eli, the chief priest at Shiloh, the principle worship-center of the Jewish people before Jerusalem. In the middle of the night, when all the earth was quiet, God’s Voice came to Samuel (I Samuel 3:1-20) telling him to tell Eli that his (Eli’s) family was to be quenched because of their careless attitude towards the Holy. Troubled by this rarely-heard Voice, Samuel later claimed this moment as his own epiphany: “As Samuel grew up, the Lord was with him and let none of his words fall to the ground.” Seems to me that God wasn’t observed because everyone was too busy and preoccupied, sometimes even with good stuff. As Isaac S. Villegas has written, “[Meaningful dialogue with God] is patience in the darkness of night, listening for a voice.”(SOJOURNERS, January 2021, page 49)

The Epistle is Paul’s cautionary words to the Corinthians, 6:12-20–and to us, their cosmopolitan heirs. The passage could be simplified into a polemic against commercial sex, but it seems as though there’s a deeper meaning: don’t profane what God has created to be wonderful! In an allegory, Paul speaks of a lasting relationship being much superior to a momentary gasp. If divinity is all around us, why trade off seeing and reveling in this for a peep-show? Here is the issue with what’s “lawful” versus participation in a sense of Ongoing Creation. Our insistence upon individual “freedoms” has sheltered our eyes from the appreciation of God’s Work all around us.

So why has Jesus traveled to Bethsaida? Just to pick up a couple of disciples? According to John 1:43-51, Jesus saw Nathaniel “under the fig tree”, a figure of speech for a place/attitude of introspection. In other words, Nathaniel was ready! “But you don’t know the half of it,” the Lord replies. “Good” can come not only from Nazareth, but from the slums of Tehran/old tenements of Lower East Side/the Fort Apache of your own neighborhood. Creation’s glory exceeds both what we know and what we hopefully imagine. Nathaniel’s “lack of guile” may well reflect the “you get what you see” presentation of the person touched by Christ.

Perhaps these cold days of January are good for hunkering down–at a socially safe distance–by our campfires to tell the tales of God’s ongoing Creation. In the words of Pastor Michelle, “where have you seen God at work this week?” Contemplative people can affirm that divinity exists all around us; we’re called to hear and see and participate in the many gifts that God has brought.

In the process of unfolding, Horace Brown King

Biblical texts for the upcoming weekend slap me in the face every Tuesday at this spot on Facebook; or at horacebrownking.com

During my first year at seminary, I had opportunity to baptize a baby–my first such experience. Being pretty anxious about this, I practiced all week on the cat. The cat did not like this. This upcoming Sunday is considered the Baptism of Christ–a time not just to consider the mysteries of this sacrament, but to affirm God’s presence in our own “rescue” from deep waters. “…the Spirit of God swoops down–the Holy Spirit like the dove who returns to Noah on the ark with an olive leaf, a sign of life. This Spirit is like a bird at the beginning of Genesis who hovers over the waters, who broods over the oceans.” (Isaac S. Villegas, SOJOURNERS, Jan. ’21: 49)

Genesis 1:1-5 begins us, literally. “A wind from God swept over the face of the waters.” Remember that Palestine was landlocked, and our earliest ancestors feared the “chaos” of the sea. Creation stories included Tiamet and Leviathan, sea-monsters of disorder; and relied upon the super-human (God?) to put them in their places and thus make Creation safe for humanity and “lesser” creatures… The Deep represents all that would drown our direction or wreck the harbors of our safety from terror. The waves are seen as “natural” forces, as opposed to a holy order. In Baptism, the Believer submits to this ritual capsize in order to live out the redeeming salvation of being brought through the storms by God.

In Acts 19:1-7, we find Paul traveling into Ephesus, a major port in Asia Minor. There he meets a dozen or so disciples who’re familiar with John the Baptizer’s immersion for cleaning away sins and turning from them; but they hadn’t actively known the Holy Spirit. Paul baptized them in the name of Jesus and “the Holy Spirit came upon them…” with attendant signs. These signs would seem to indicate to the rest of us that when the Spirit hits, we have little option but to proclaim God’s grace by word and action.

Which brings us to the actual account of Jesus’ baptism as remembered by Mark in the First Chapter of his gospel, verses 4-11. For the first time in Mark’s gospel, Jesus appears “from Nazareth” (quite a hike!) and is baptized by John. “And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved…'” Was this dove and Voice for Jesus alone, to reinforce his conviction of Messiahood? Matthew’s Gospel account makes this more public. Whatever, this was a further stage in the redemption story of God’s great care for humans: what was begun when the Spirit originally calmed the chaos has now been personalized in the individual of Jesus and those who bear his message of grace. He saw the heavens torn apart–“The baptism of Jesus tears through the border between heaven and earth. The Greek verb here is SCHIZOMENOUS, having to do with gashing something open, ripping apart. God slashes through the sky.” (Villegas, op.cit. page 48)

Who can define this mystery? The more I write, the more muddy my words seem to get. Perhaps it’s best to bask in its wonder, to remember our own baptism and be glad.

In the process of unfolding, Horace Brown King

My brooding on passages of Scripture assigned to the upcoming weekend can be enjoined every Tuesday at this spot on Facebook; or at horacebrownking.com