My Blog

We continue on with our speculative questions of “Why Do Bad Things Happen to Nice People?” You’ve asked, I’ve asked, convinced of our virtue. Scripture portions to be heard this upcoming weekend claim God’s desire of Perfection: God has given us Wholeness in Creation, but human nature has been seen in the way we’ve deviated from accepting this exalted state. These occasions are rich in naming Wholeness as a given.

Many of us do not recognize the WISDOM of SOLOMON AS “real” scripture, because it’s a part of the Apocryphal writings of the Old Testament. Yet here it is, 1:13-15, 2:23-24. The author–probably a Greek-speaking Jew from Egypt–is lifting up the permanence between God and humanity as opposed to the escapism of the transient worshiper. (“Eat, drink, and be merry: gather rosebuds while you still can.”) The book insists that life didn’t come as a matter of chance, and that death isn’t the last word. “…God did not make death, and [God] does not delight in the death of the living.” If we take a long view of human life, then the surrounding injustice becomes more terrible, more personal. More than being saved from death, we are enriched by claiming our immortality.

St. Paul, or someone on his team, is speaking in II CORINTHIANS 8:7-15 about money…or is he? We’ve understood that these verses refer to the charitable gifts by the Churches to aid the work in Jerusalem; yet between the lines is a concern for the unity of the People of Christ, an acknowledgment that we’re all in the same boat. The Corinthian’s “…deepest need is to share their abundance with brothers and sisters who are less materially blessed.” (John T. McFadden, FEASTING on the WORD, B 3:186) What does this have to do with healing? Everything, for it is affirmation that the entire body is connected by Divine design.

MARK 5:25-34 tells about Jesus’ encounter with a seriously hemmorhaging woman–she had spent all her money for the last twelve years trying to get this to stop, and was now desperate. She may have been a Gentile, and an unclean woman–but she touched Jesus’ cloak and the bleeding ceased! Fearing rebuke, she confessed everything; but Jesus spoke to her of faith in the God of Health. She understood that bodily functions were not an affliction, but that as a daughter of God she had the right to perfection! Do we still believe even when physical healing is slow? Do we still recognize that God’s Plan includes our prayers?

Over the years, I’ve offered many services of Sacramental Healing. In all of these, there were many who were disappointed that crutches were not immediately discarded, or that skin rashes didn’t immediately disappear. Yet as one who was personally cured of a mysterious swelling of the pancreas, I can affirm that Wholeness/Healing is a process, and that Divine Intervention is really a proclamation of our own created perfection. Genesis 1:31 tells us that “God saw everything that {God} had made, and behold, it was very good.”

In the process of unfolding, Horace Brown King

Please join us every Tuesday to unpack the scriptural texts to be heard on the upcoming weekend; and please share this with a friend! horacebrownking.com

Theologians call it the question of Theodicy. But most of us ask it anyway: “Why do bad things happen to good people?” Scriptures to be heard on the upcoming weekend begin to address this, or at least acknowledge that it’s a human/God sort of misunderstanding about “reward”. Those who sit in the pews need to know that they’re not the only ones asking this question, but God-fearing people from ancient times join them in questioning morals & ethics.

Our friend JOB, not a patient man, spends most of his story in complaining to God. His flocks and belongings have been taken, and his family are non-supportive. Complain, complain, complain! “Why me, Lord? I’ve been good!” And finally YHWH breaks the silence: “So where were YOU when I called up substance from Chaos? And locked up the sea and its monsters?” (38:1-11) Job cannot see beyond his nose, focusing on perceived injustice instead of God’s dazzling glory. “The chaos is still there, but so is God. And that is enough.”(Leane Pearce Reed, FEASTING on the WORD, B 3:151)

The author of II CORINTHIANS 6:1-13 lists the persecutions of Paul as his own: “Afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labor, sleepless nights, hunger…” But he’s still alive! And God’s in charge! “The former things have passed away.” “True joy grows not from the absence of hardships but from knowing God’s grace even within that hardship.” (John T. McFadden, ibid., 162)

MARK 4:25-41 tells (another) story about Jesus asleep in the storm-tossed boat while his friends try valiantly to sail on. “Hey, wake up and help us bail!” But God-in-Christ does better than that, he restores Peace to the elements and the chaos. There will be stormy winds, yet they do not have the final say; our lives are often tossed by one calamity after another, but God sees us through. “I’ve been good!”, we shout–nonetheless, injustice raises its ugly head to sock us whether or not we deserve it. And some of this passage can be realized as we join the disciples in asking, “Who is this?”

“(God) commanded and raised the stormy wind, which lifted up the waves of the sea. They mounted up to heaven, they went down to the depths; their courage melted away in their calamity… Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble, and he brought them out from their distress…. Let them extoll him in the congregation of the people, and praise him in the assembly of the elders. –from Psalm 107

In the process of unfolding, Horace Brown King

Please share this with your friends, and come join us every Tuesday to contemplate scriptural passages to be read on the upcoming weekend during worship; at horacebrownking.com

Scriptures you will hear on the upcoming weekend serve to remind us that God is full of surprises, and that just when we think all is lost, a God who thinks & plans outside the box becomes vital even during seasons of change and despair. The prophets who have spoken these words are using our inbuilt hope to point out how God marvelously makes things grow into symbols of the Kingdom.

EZEKIEL 17:22-24 propounds a riddle: how can a tender twig take root and turn into a magnificent tree? “It does proclaim the prophetic Word that God’s sovereignty is comprehensive, transcendent, and inclusive of all other sovereignties.” (John Rollefson, in FEASTING on the WORD, B 3:124) Despite the political intrigues of Judah/the US, God will introduce a righteous branch which will spread so that all the birds will find their place there. Every kind; All are Welcome; all means all. God is in the process each day of overthrowing old expectations in favor of renewed signs of the Kingdom. Is Mary’s Canticle (Luke 1) coming yet to pass?

The Apostle Paul dares to speak about this understanding in his collection of letters bundled under the rubric of II CORINTHIANS. In 5:6-17 he submits that “the love of Christ urges us on” as he marvels at the unexpected workings of the Holy in our hearts. There’s a new way of seeing the Other as a kindred Child of God. “So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation; everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!” Outside the box…

In MARK 4:26-34, Jesus tells two parables about How God Works, even in minute seeds. He speaks of the dryness of a seed, apparently dead; yet this seed contains Life and miraculously transmits the power of the fertile earth to a mighty plant–even the tiniest seed known will turn into a great tree. (My mother had earrings and a choker holding a “mustard seed”–c’mon, didn’t yours?) I suppose that it’s easier to keep and display a mustard seed than consign it to the risky growth that’s enclosed. Don E. Saliers contends that “These are hope-filled parables. God will not fail to fulfill the promise of salvation.” (ibid., B 3:142) The stories are not about judgment, or getting their just deserts; they’re about the ongoing steadfast love of the Creator who pronounced everything Good.

I often leave the room during the nightly news: it’s weird and sickening. Yet the responsive reading for the day is Psalm 92: The righteous flourish like the palm tree, and grow like a cedar in Lebanon. They are planted in the house of the Lord; They flourish in the courts of our God… Keep on gardening, let your neighbors marvel and be glad!

In the process of unfolding, Horace Brown King

Bring your friends, if you have any, to our discussion of Lectionary Scripture to be read during worship on the upcoming weekend. (It’s OK to share my grasping thoughts with others!) Every Tuesday at horacebrownking.com.

Scripture to be read this weekend serves to remind us (me) that evil continues to raise its head; or, in this case, the temptation to fall out with God is prevalent among God’s Creatures. It’s easy to say, “The devil made me do it”, but this disregards our own responsibility to choose. These readings deal with our proclivity to point our fingers at others/situations–and shun our ownership of our faults. It’s also easy to laugh at the old foibles of persons or groups long ago–but each reading should cause us to evaluate our own lives…

You undoubtedly remember the conversation between God and Adam & Eve in the Garden of Eden, GENESIS 3:8-15. God has come inquiring of their health & well-being; but they hid themselves (in clothes?) because they were nakedly transparent. (This is one reason why some folks don’t go to church.) “Did you eat the fruit I told you not to?” “Well…the woman YOU gave me…” “Wait a minute, it was the SNAKE!” And since the snake has no fingers, the buck stopped there. From eons later, we could contrast the disorder of Early Man & Woman to how nice things’ll be in Jesus’ Kingdom. Will we really return to this innocence, this naivete? Or will the Ultimate Kingdom incorporate our experience as The Broken?

The apostle Paul speaks to some of the disenfranchised in his Second Letter to the CORINTHIANS 4:13-18. I had an old Welsh friend who would stop at my office regularly on Tuesdays to join my secretary and me in a cup of tea. His parting speech always would include, “Thanks for the next, I’m sure of this one”. So Paul values the coming days more than the current ones; “because we look not at what can be seen but what cannot be seen…” Not double-speak, but a looking forward to that which Jesus has promised. A body, a tent, a building, a garment. But until then, we wait in anticipation and try to live before God in integrity.

And MARK 3:20-35 ties this together: Jesus seems to be out of his mind in the current milieu, and we are also. The temptations and glitz of the present are not worth comparing to what awaits us in the future. Jesus is neither the Lord of the Flies nor Satan, for a house divided cannot stand. Still, the powers of evil tweak at us, daring us to hurt ourselves and others, maybe even GOD.

My favorite sign is a sticker that my acquaintance affixed to her French horn case: “Spit Happens!” As long as we perform in the arena of the earth we’re subjected to the niddling power of temptation: to be stronger, to be better than, to win at all costs… The person On Their Way is one who knows that pitfalls lie ahead, yet holds onto the vision.

In the process of unfolding, Horace Brown King

It’s OK to share this with your friends. Who knows? Maybe they also will look forward to Tuesdays, when we explore lectionary readings for the upcoming weekend; at horacebrownking.com