My Blog

“Knock, Knock” “Who’s There?” Well, who IS?? Palm Sunday is a time for people of every generation to really identify the Lord, and perhaps to say who the Lord ISN’T. Someone has said that without Palm Sunday, the Gospels are merely interesting history, This weekend gives the disciple reason to express his or her belief, to acknowledge that Jesus of Nazareth is really the Lord.

Portions of PSALM 118 are traditionally part of the liturgy read today. Liturgists may well note that this psalm seems to be a collection of fragments from other Songs: ascents, blessings and thanksgiving are all included here. Verses 22 and 23 remind us that by God’s grace, we DO have a second chance. “God’s steadfast love provides the frame that gets filled in by stories of the life and death of Jesus Christ and of the people who greet him with palms and thanks and HOSHIANNA.” (Martin E. Marty, in FEASTING on the WORD, A 2:148) From what despair and gloom shall we be saved? “Save us from our own failures to follow you. Turn our worlds upside down and, this year, help us to welcome you into our lives a little more completely.” (Stephen Farris, ibid. p.151)

And then, of course, comes the traditional Entry into Jerusalem, recounted this year in MATTHEW 21:1-11. Everyone except the Roman overlords expected Messiah to come and throw off their chains. And did he ever! But just who IS he? NOT a military leader on a white horse; not an industrialist CEO; not a slick salesman telling us that everything’s gonna be all right… “The crowds were saying, ‘This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee'”. Little did they realize the permanence of the Lord in and through all of life. Jesus of Nazareth turns out to be a challenge, both spiritually and politically, to the powers and customs of an imperfect world. The whole point of this well-executed entry was to overturn the ways of the world!

We were redeemed from slavery, and given a new chance to adopt the ways of God. Through the intervening centuries God has shared the grace of Steadfast Love; each has been given a palm branch to welcome the Lord into our hearts and temples.

In the process of unfolding, Horace Brown King

Come join me every Tuesday as we’re confronted by the enormity of the scriptural lessons chosen to be heard on the upcoming weekend–at horacebrownking.com

It seems right and proper, during this blustery March, to write about the Holy Breath (RUACH) of God. We visit this often, in Scriptural stories: in Creation, where God blew a holy breath into the people of mud; at Pentecost, where disciples report that they heard the “sound of a mighty wind”; and in various healing stories in the Gospels. This weekend’s scriptures remind us that God’s Grace blows into history to remove the pollutants and to assure us that a Holy Wind has come to restore and renew.

The story of the Field of Bones (EZEKIEL 37:1-14) is famous for Sunday School pageants and yields a good song, “The toe bone connected to the foot bone…” But restored Israel was still incomplete and lifeless until the prophet is commanded to call in a holy breath from the four winds–and the dead were again alive! Even when the trappings of life are taken away, Death will not have the last word. “Our earth has been fashioned into massive graveyards of dry bones….[internationally, in city streets] all those places lacking food or drink or clothing or shelter or any respect for life….Today we hear a promise only God can give.” (James A. Wallace, FEASTING on the WORD, A 2:125) The moral is that even very dry bones CAN live again, enlivened by the Breath of God.

Paul continues, “If the spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit that dwells in you.” (ROMANS 8:11) Gender issues aside, the Apostle says that all who believe may claim such breath, which is a restorative to life from the deadly collapse of What Used to Be. Some will claim that the generation of the Church is dead–but not necessarily.

And Lazarus (JOHN 11:1-45) now lives! Once safely dead, he’s called back to bemoan the trespasses of the Romans and to live the Old Life. AND to die yet again! The writer plays this story up, introducing Mary & Martha and setting the graveyard scene. Jesus seems pretty confident that his friend will come back to life, since he waited until death had done its work to visit the family at Bethany. John is the only evangelist/Gospel writer to include this, leading us to suspect that it was included here for the express purpose of encouraging his own spiritual community [the Church of 90-something AD].

This audacious claim led Edwin Hatch to write in 1878, “Breathe on me, Breath of God, so shall I never die; but live with thee the perfect life of thine eternity.” Also the poetry of Henry H, Tweedy, in 1935, “Blow, wind of God! With wisdom blow until our minds are free from mists of error, clouds of doubt, which blind our eyes to thee.” “It was never about the bones anyway,” says Dempsy R. Calhoun in FEASTING on the WORD, op. cit. p124, “Rather a glimpse of pure power A reminder of who’s in charge of restoration Real hope lies in the Source” Breathe deeply!

In the process of unfolding, Horace Brown King

Join me every Tuesday at horacebrownking.com to be challenged by the scriptural texts for the upcoming weekend

The common theme in Lent seems to be contrasting The Light with so many signs of prevailing darkness. Most of us are groaning as we read the headlines and watch Rachel Maddow. Is there no perfection, no Balm in Gilead? Lections to be read this upcoming weekend are affirming the ongoing powers of God–if then, why not now? What stance should the Christians adopt as they realize that they’re just not fitting in? Do we “go along to get along”?

The Old Testament reading is from I SAMUEL 16:1-13, the humorous anointing of David to be king succeeding Saul. You may remember that Samuel wanted to appraise all of Jesse’s sons, but none fit the mold God desired. “Oh, yeah, I do have another son; but he’s out with the sheep, and besides, he’s only a little kid.” So David, the Ultimate King, was introduced as being a good shepherd, just what Israel needed. No longer would they stumble in the dark.

And so we attend to EPHESIANS 5:8-14: “For once you were darkness, but now in the Lord, you are light.” Not “were IN”, but the disciple IS darkness or light! Sorta like the old TV Westerns, where the good guys always wore white hats. How can our small posse hold back the juggernaut of complacency and the Devil of the Noonday Sun? I don’t know about you, but I can say truthfully that I’m pretty tired of the battle–I really need to hear these words again. And again. Seems that in Christ, we can apprehend “what is pleasing to the Lord”. For both activist and pew-sitter, our effort for Light reflects that in Christ, we are “woke” from our comfortable drowsiness.

JOHN 9:1-41 is the really well-told story of Jesus healing the man born blind by anointing his eyes with mud made from holy spittle (?) and the dirt of humility (humus). Although this blind man’s ancestors were created perfect, something–genetic, not ethically!–happened to contort light into darkness. Just as God once knelt in the dirt to create humans from Holy Mud, so Jesus completes this work with his timely ministry of anointing. Appearing only in this Gospel, this account may be an edited narrative about how God desires the People to come from Darkness into Light. Unsupported by his community, the local religious system AND his parents, the afflicted man turns to Jesus alone for wholeness. The Pharisees don’t like this, because it makes Jesus the hero and not them! The story appears to announce Jesus as the sole healer and source of seeing clearly.

So many idols control our present systems: militarism, consumerism, ego-centric charities and chicanery in banks… We’re bombarded by Evil in so many forms! “It’s better to light one little candle than to stumble in the dark.”

In the process of unfolding, Horace Brown King

We’re comforted and challenged by the Scripture assigned to the upcoming weekend–join us every Tuesday as we begin to explore it at horacebrownking.com

You can go for many days without food, but your body needs to be hydrated–that is, to drink water. Much of the world’s population is spiritually dry; readings to be heard on the upcoming weekend address this lack of fluid, whether it be a personal faith-crisis or perhaps just ignorance of the availability of Living Water.

EXODUS 17:1-7 recalls the thirst of the desert wanderers under Moses. The people cursed Moses for bringing them out of fertile(?) Egypt into the desert: they were thirsty. But God told Moses to strike the rock of Mt. Horeb with his staff, and sure enough, water poured out! This was before the rag-tag group became the Covenant People; they were still wandering about, trying to discern who they were. The people in the pews hearing this story may well project it onto themselves: “Where in this rocky place will we ever discover Living Water?” Only by God’s intercession, I guess.

The Epistle lesson is from ROMANS 5:1-11. The verse that springs out at me is number 5, “…because love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.” Here again is a reference to the Living Water which God provides, in the image of the Holy Spirit as a hose or channel pouring, not sprinkling, spiritual graces directly into our hearts/bodily centers. “This generosity of God is worth holding up and affirming…..We need to have it poured. We need to drink it in, freely, eagerly, over and over again in order for our lives to move” from suffering to fulfilling hope. (Laird J. Stuart, in FEASTING on the WORD, A 2:90)

You probably know the story of the Woman at the Well, JOHN 4:5-19. Jesus & Company had stopped at Jacob’s Well in Samaria, near Mt. Gerazim. While the group went on into town to buy lunch, Jesus remained at the well, where he was accosted by a local woman. “Give me a drink,” he asked her–a highly unusual experience for a single man to address a woman, especially. a Samaritan. In the ensuing dialogue, Jesus told the woman that if she’d asked HIM, he would’ve given her some Living Water. He said that through him, Living Water would “become in [them] a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.” John tells a good story, this one like so many involving the hearer in knowing the holiness of Jesus. The woman, of course, was converted–and asked to receive the Living Water always…

These occasions can be mere Biblical trivia–unless the hearers in the pews try to put themselves into the picture. Be as it may, the reading of such texts will provide a gulp of freshness to those struggling in their own deserts.

In the process of unfolding, Horace Brown King

Come join me every Tuesday as we’re confronted by Scriptural lections assigned to the upcoming weekend: at horacebrownking.com.