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Well, who doesn’t?  The poet has said, “Grow mold along with me: the best is yet to be!” (sorry, Liz!)  Some of what keeps life going is the anticipation that the Present Darkness/Boredom/Captivity will someday come to an end.  Soon.  One of my friends usually greets me with “How’s it going?”, an acknowledgement that today’s in process and not at a dead stop.  Taken separately, the scriptures for the coming weekend could stand by themselves; indeed,  their first reading seems to yield no coherence whatsoever.  Yet something impels me to link them under the concept of The Journey.

Haggai, who spoke in or about 520 BC, was one who returned from the Babylonian Exile when the Persians sent them “home”.  But home wasn’t as they had remembered: time and neglect had turned the old sites of prosperity into ruin, including the Temple.  Alas!  The Golden Days of our ancestors will never be the same…  “Get real”, says Haggai.”The latter splendor of this house shall be greater than the former, says the Lord of hosts; and in this place I will give prosperity, says the Lord of hosts.” (2:9)  Is this a political message for those today who want to turn back the clock and “make America great (?) again”?

The household congregations in Thessalonia were quite concerned about Christ’s Second Coming.  Did we miss something?  Have we slept through the revolution?  Today’s pew-sitters have pretty much dismissed this idea, and have little anticipation of an actual apocalypse, despite the movies of Summer.  The author begs the people “not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed, either by spirit or by word or by letter, as though from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord is already here.” (II 2:2)  There’s more to the passage, which dances around a bit–but the benediction, vv.16 & 17, is wonderful!  And timeless…

The Sadducees said there was no afterlife.  Live for today, because when we’re gone, we’re GONE.  (That’s why they’re SAD, You See…)  So some smarties among them asked Jesus about the wife whose husband died, thus his brother dutifully married her.  And then HE died–and all his brothers.  All in all, this hypothetical Typhoid Mary outlived seven husbands!  So in the resurrection, they chortled, whose wife will she be?  (Luke 20:27-38)  Jesus explained that marriage is an Earthly custom, and doesn’t apply in heaven, no matter what Country songs say.  You who wish to spin out the bit about Something Better should be advised to proceed with caution!

And so we wait:  for Friday, for Christmas, for the Wells Fargo wagon…  Hope, being the substance of things not seen, drives us to stay alive to perceive the wonders yet to be  revealed.  I am an idea in the mind of God, in the process of unfolding.

God Bless Us, Every One                            Horace Brown King

My reflections on scriptures appointed for the upcoming week can be found every Tuesday at this spot on Facebook; or at horacebrownking.com

Patience has become a casualty of our transition from an agrarian culture to one of digitalization.  We complain that our computer is too slow when we have to wait more than five seconds for a new screen.  Weather forecasting has become instantaneous; college students rarely wait the allotted ten minutes for a late-arriving professor.  T-shirt slogans advise us to “Keep Calm”….and I growl when I have to stand in line at the check-out.   This weekend’s readings encourage the listener to adopt a greater view of how things unfold.

Habakkuk, however you pronounce it, was a prophet who could have lived about 600 years before Jesus–or he could well be speaking out of the present malaise.  “Why do you make me see wrongdoing and look at trouble?  Destruction and violence are before me; strife and contention arise.  So the law becomes slack and justice never prevails…” (1:3,4a)   We seem to be in a time when the wicked appear to be winning.  We crave God’s response, “For there is still a vision for the appointed time….if it seems to tarry, wait for it.” (2:3)   What?  You mean that there were corruption, ignorance and bigotry in the Old Days, too??

The Second Letter to the Thessalonian Christians, purportedly from Paul, encourages the readers to endure to the end in order to glorify Christ.  “…your faith is growing abundantly, and the love of every one of you for one another is increasing.” (1:3)  The passage contrasts the lasting peace which Christ provides with the less substantial “peace” which worldly muscle enforces.  Such endurance is rarely a quick fix:  long seasons of prayerful empathy with the hurting allow a Holy Vision to develop and become a sure bastion against despair.

Luke’s Gospel story is about Zacchaeus, a man driven up a tree by the crowd (19:1-10).  Z was an outcast because he was a tax-collector, considered a traitor.  Besides, he was Rich.  AND short.  But something impelled him to stand on tiptoe to see this famous teacher and healer–and when the crowd still wouldn’t let him see, he climbed into the lower branches of a fig tree to catch history unfolding before him.  The Good News is that Jesus recognized him, and indulged in his hospitality!  “He too is a son of Abraham.  For the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost.”(19:9-10)  In later years, we can envision Zacchaeus telling his grandchildren, “I was just WAITING for that day!”

My friend Rawn Spearman has endured my bad puns and convoluted anecdotes for some years, now.  When my rambling must seem pointless, he often turns to whomever’s with us to say, “Wait for it…!”    This weekend’s lessons could appear to be rambling, yet underneath is a Holy Reminder to “Wait for it…!”  They give us permission–and direction–to grow our hope even in the midst of alarm and despair.

God Bless Us, Every One.    Horace Brown King

My musings on the lectionary passages appointed for the upcoming weekend can be found every Tuesday at this space on Facebook; or at horacebrownking.com.

My student churches were in Susquehanna County, PA.  Though rapidly becoming suburbanized, there were yet enough old generation seniors who were still running small farms to wax eloquent over The Harvest.  We offered seasonal dinners of excess: turkey, corn dishes of ancient recipe, butternut squash…and pumpkin pie.  Those who didn’t eat until their eyes popped were considered barbaric.  Children were told timeless tales of field clearing, stump burning and stone hauling.  Then we drove recent-year cars home to our televisions and central heating and indoor plumbing…  God has blessed us well!

The Hebrew Bible reading for this weekend allows the prophet Joel to do a bit of waxing, himself (2:23-32).  Here Yahweh is speaking of End Times, when the Bad will be past and the Good will triumph:  “You shall eat in plenty and be satisfied, and praise the name of  the Lord your God, who has dealt wondrously with you.”  The System has been flawed, fer sure–but Justice (and Prosperity) will come at last!  Joel doesn’t disavow the brokenness, but emphasizes how God is restoring a straying culture.

Paul tells Timothy that such a restoration hasn’t much been seen, yet (II 4:6-18). Knowing that he’ll soon die, he keeps looking for his own “crown” and that of coming generations.  (THIS one??)  Some of us die cranky, fearing that Life will never respond to grace and peace.  We who are dying (aren’t we all?) well may cheerfully recollect the hardships of the race while celebrating a Holy Presence which never abandons us!   The good news here is that “in life, in death, we are not alone.  Thanks be to God!”

I can hardly keep my eyes on yours as I read the Gospel, Luke’s account of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector (18:9-14).  Certainly a major evidence of sin in my life is my enduring attitude of arrogance, of smugness.  I’m pretty open towards folks of other races, gender-preference, religion…but oh, those truck drivers on Rt. 17!  And there’s more; plenty more.  The Pennsylvania Dutch say, “All the world is queer but for thee and me; and I’m not so sure about thee…”  My confessions always must begin with enumeration of those I disparage.  How ’bout you?

So harvest-time is a season for counting our blessings, as long as we don’t look down on those we think are less blessed.  All in all, I’ve had a good run, uphill and down; and now I’m enjoying the richness which God has supplied.  I hope that these readings will carve me open for my snarky attitude, and remind me that I’m nothing ‘cept for the tenacious care of the Lord of the Harvest….

God Bless Us, Every One                          Horace Brown King

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

Sometime in mid-highschool I developed a two-week crush on Leila, a classmate.  When I tried to pursue my romantic inclination, she (alas) replied, “Not at this time”.  I got over it quickly.   But for the remainder of our years together, I’d still ask, “Is it time now, Leila?”  To which she’d reply, “Not yet, Horace!”  This got to be a running gag, and we looked for the most inappropriate times to use it:  at the end of a test, or when a sub was being tested by our group.  When I saw Leila again, at our twenty-year reunion, I was quick to ask, “Is it time now, Leila?”  To which she replied,  “WHAT??”  I guess it’s never the right time….

Jeremiah, “the gloomy prophet”, did have encouragement for the remnant of Judah (31:27-34).  Now that the People have bottomed out, a new covenant is to come from God: “I will put my law WITHIN them, and I will write it on their HEARTS; …they shall ALL know me…for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.”  Is that audacious news, or what!?  When everything we value swirls down the drain, God is gonna intervene?   This new relationship is to be engraved on the hearts, and will turn the Bad Days into good ones.

I’ve been blessed to have several coaches whose voices echo through the surrounding clamor.  These Old Teachers cluster about me during crisis; sometimes with words remembered, often with unspoken support.  The Letter which we call II Timothy is an instance like this.  The Mentor passes the torch to a new generation with an admonition to persevere:  “proclaim the message; be persistent whether the time is favorable or unfavorable; convince, rebuke, and encourage, with the utmost patience in teaching.” (4:2)   In my old age, I selfishly hope that I’ve shared a few nuggets of glory with those subjected to my ministry–and I’m genuinely appreciative of all who remind me of the Great Love which over and around us lies….  You know who you are.

Luke is the only evangelist who included the parable of the Unjust Judge (18:1-8).  Even beyond the Jewish community people could relate to hard-hearted authority which abused its position by ignoring the least and lowest.  People everywhere can applaud the persistence of the widow who finally won her case!  (This is NOT what the Kingdom of God is like!)  But in the light of the other readings, the parable is one more instance of a Holy Presence in times both good and bad:  hang in there, don’t give up!  As King Henry purportedly called out, “Once more, dear friends! Into the breach!”

It’s really difficult to take the long view when dragons of daily frustrations snap at us from behind every shadow.  Our knuckles are bloody from rapping at heaven’s door.  We’ve been praying our hearts out:  “Is anybody there?  Does anybody care?”  My ears are itching for these words which reflect the Breath of God, creating and sustaining, blowing over the face of the deep.

God Bless Us, Every One                Horace Brown King

My thoughts on lectionary readings for the upcoming weekend can be found every Tuesday at this spot on Facebook, or at horacebrownking.com.

Something in humanity urges us to define Who We Are by excluding those whom we are not.  Wall-building is an ancient practice of “civilization”:  “Stay off my turf!”  Ruins of Hadrian’s Wall can be seen in Britain, and the Great Wall of China remains as a current marvel of antiquity.  Westerners of the ’50s & ’60s deplored the Berlin Wall, but have little indignation about the one which keeps Palestinians away from ancestral homes in Israel.  I scoff at Trump’s xenophobic rhetoric about keeping “Mexicans” away from the SouthWest–yet in fact, fences and guard-stations already exist.  Americans were sorely seduced when St. Robert Frost wrote, “Good fences do good neighbors make”.

Many of us will be caught up short by the lessons for this weekend.  Jeremiah begins by urging the Exiles in Babylon to Bloom Where They’re Planted (29:4-7).  “Build houses…live in them, plant gardens…take wives…multiply there….Seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find YOUR welfare.”  You must be joking, Jeremiah!  Be happy away from Zion?  Pray for this God-forsaken place?  Does that mean that YHWH is lord HERE, too?  You mean that there’s good news of great joy for ALL the people?

World-citizen Paul is pictured as writing to Timothy, a second-generation preacher, about not getting tripped up by semantics:  “Warn them before God that they are to avoid wrangling over words…” (II 2:14)  He must have caught a premonition that the Church of all ages wastes much time and energy in splitting hairs and adding footnotes to Disciplines.  Our proud posturing has resulted in drawing lines in the sand about who’s Us and who’s Them, unfortunately diluting the love and compassion of Jesus.  Our church buzz-words have themselves become walls.

So ten borderland outcasts approached Jesus, seeking healing and restoration to their community (Luke 17:11-19).  He instructed them to return to the priests–to get their credentials–and Be Whole.  One came back to express thanks, “and he was a Samaritan”.  Good Jews would be doubly offended, for to clean what God had afflicted was blasphemy; and this SAMARITAN!!  Luke proclaims a God Without Borders more than the other evangelists, for traditionally he himself was a traveler with Paul to the frontiers of faith.  This paragraph should be read with an attitude of incredulity, as the teller conveys amazement in such a universal grace.

I’m a Utopian, admittedly, and I suppose that erasing all the lines on the map would lead to anarchy.  Yet I follow John Wesley’s purported reminder that “the world is my parish”, and become impatient with the slowness of the world to equalize the imbalances of justice and economics.  The afore-mentioned Robert Frost began his selfish poem, “Something there is that doesn’t like a wall.”  If Nature and history are making some gains at destroying our barriers, Disciples may also accrue hope for proclaiming a Universal God into our current turf-wars…

God Bless Us, Every One                         Horace Brown King

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

Summer is finally giving up, and it’s time to cut back the rosebushes.  I’m not good at this, either cutting too long or too short.  Mostly I’m too tender, wondering if the plants are screaming in pain.  But then I’m left with a springtime tangle of spent canes.  Most plants, I’m told, actually enjoy being pruned!  Sounds masochistic to me.  Next summer’s blooms are evidently dependent upon this fall’s zeal:  spare the rod and spoil the rose…  Passages to be read in your worship-space this weekend dwell with God’s being part of our lives even while said lives are falling apart.

Lamentations is a book we skip over between Jeremiah–its purported author–and the “minor” prophets.  Historically, this is a lament over the wreck of Jerusalem (and the Chosen People) after the Babylonian desolation.  A survivor speaks of this post-trauma community experience:  “How lonely sits the city that once was full of people!…like a widow…a princess…she weeps bitterly in the night….Her princes have become like stags that find no pasture.”  (1:1-6)  Can we deal with this awful change?  Will Zion Be Great again?  Things aren’t like they were when I was a lad…  Does Yahweh still have our back?

Generations later, there’s still trouble.  “Paul” is pictured as writing from prison to “Timothy”, a protege.  (Detour, if you will, to Bonhoeffer’s “Letters from Prison” and Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail”)  In the middle of the confusion there do appear signposts to mark the way (II 1:1-14):  Adhere to what you’ve been taught; know that Christ Jesus overflows with love; and “guard the good treasure entrusted to you, with the help of the Holy Spirit LIVING IN US.”  Keep your sunny side up, kid, “for God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline.”

My Pastor, Michelle Bogue-Trost, calls them the “duh-ciples”.  They certainly ask dumb questions–which is good, otherwise I’d have to ask them myself.  Luke 17:5-10 could be read in a snarky way, because they asked Jesus to “increase their faith”.  If they went to seminary with me, they’d have learned that Faith is from the INside, our response to the wonders of Grace.  But Jesus reassured them that even their microscopic smidgen of Faith can cause world-changing events  There’s no purpose in a briny mulberry tree; but there are many gigantic frontiers of justice, peace and the healing of the nations which could be credited to the incarnate faith community.  “Faith cannot be measured, only enacted”, says Kimberly Bracken Long in FEASTING on the WORD, C 4:144.

The immediate challenge to our hearers is a choice:  to mourn the “Good” Old familiar Days–or to embrace where our faith-journey is unfolding, even if the Old Guard should be imprisoned by our dream-dragons while the Young Turks blaze new trails.  I think I’ll go out now and cut back the rose bushes.  ‘Way back…

God Bless Us, Every One                         Horace Brown King

My thoughts on scriptures to be heard on the upcoming weekend can be found every Tuesday at this space on Facebook, or at horacebrownking.com

“What,” I asked Marie, “will Rachel Maddow and Lawrence O’Brien do after the election?”   But there’ll still be administrative silliness and inequity of justice to pillory when the current beasts are tamed and the earth tumbles through another spin-cycle.  Church-goers and other spiritual folks may turn to Biblical holy-history to renew a comforting perspective of Divine Tenacity:  the idols of each generation tarnish and crumble.  Don’t they…?

The weekend’s scriptures address idolatry in general and materialism in particular.  Jeremiah has been under house-arrest in 586 BC, ten years AFTER Babylon’s forces have taken leading citizens into forced exile.  Now the same troops are knocking at the gates AGAIN!  When will these troubles cease?  When will we “Be Great Again”?  Of all things!  In the midst of fear and despair, Jeremiah buys a field! (32:1-15)  His aide, Baruch, is instructed to keep the deed intact no matter what destruction occurs:  this story of long-range investment needs to be told to ensuing generations.  “For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel:  houses and fields and vineyards shall again be bought in this land.”  In a way, Jeremiah redeems the Portion as an analogy of how God redeems the Whole.

The fatherly advice to Timothy (6:6-19) warns him away from idolatry, especially that of materialism.  “In their eagerness to be rich some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pains.”  The better alternatives should be offered in contrast:  righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance, gentleness.  Christian allegiance is to God alone–excluding pension plans, the Alma Mater’s football team, family ties; and yes, civic government.  Boy, is this subversive!  But riches don’t have to be evil or self-serving:  those who have affluence “are to do good, to be rich in good works, generous, and ready to share, thus storing up for themselves the treasure of a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of the life that really is life.”

Luke’s Gospel, 16:19-31, is the familiar story of the Rich Man & Lazarus, told to those who were lovers of money (see vv.14ff).  On the surface this seems to say that by ‘n’ by roles reverse, that what goes ’round comes ’round.  Not to be ignored is The Great Chasm, which can be crossed only by the bridge of Christ, and that only in THIS life.  The “haves” are to embrace justice while there’s still time…  Abraham pointedly tells the ones now suffering due to their carelessness with their stuff, You Only Live Once.”

Norman Podhoretz says that a Prophet is one whom God has lifted up to confront the idol(s).  Many prophets are needed to speak against our prevailing culture of “America First”, which is a way of saying “me-first and too bad about you.”  Jeremiah’s property transaction records are to be retained intact, even within the earthen vessel of the Church.  These are investments in the future, beginning here & now.

God Bless Us, Every One                          Horace Brown King

My thoughts about lectionary readings for the coming weekend can b e found every Tuesday at this spot on Facebook, or at horacebrownking.com

LONG ago, an “established” preacher told us about three necessary ingredients of a sermon: identify the brokenness (sin, injustice); tell about Jesus, the alternative; and discuss how we might therefore live with integrity.  Ah, there’s the challenge!  How shall I live with integrity with one foot in the City of God, one foot in the City of Man (sic)?

Jeremiah’s oracle (8:18-9-1) could well be called a psalm of lament.  Here God moans over “the cry of my poor people from far and wide”.   There must be no balm in Gilead, no physician there; the health of God’s people has not been restored.  Present-day hearers must admit that at least SOME days our  culture leaves us feeling broken and frustrated.  Is there any plausible hope for both the victim and the victimizer?

Those of us who believe in predestination can write this off more easily:  “Some folks are gonna be like that.  We can’t do anything about it.”  Not so, says Paul to Timothy (2:1-7).  Here is an urging to include EVERYONE in our intercessions and thanksgivings!   Even kings and Those Who Would be King, crooked administrators and public servants  who feather their own nests!   God “desires EVERYONE to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.”  !!

Jesus’ parable of the Crooked Manager–Luke 16:1-13–is troublesome.  Knowing that his employment is over, this guy makes friends for himself by altering their bills; AND the Rich Employer commends him!  Is there then virtue in shady dealings?  That’s the Way of the World, Jesus said, and are you any different?  Our economic systems often conflict with our ethics:  news stories and political campaigns celebrate job creation as the only value.  Unethical?  Insensitive?  Let someone else deal with that…

The Gospel is Good News because it presents a pro-active God who takes genuine interest in the well-being of Creation.  Not just in the National Parks, but on Main Street AND on Wall Street.  These readings seem to urge us toward faithfulness to a Holy Image built into us and all humanity…despite the rhetoric of wealth-at-any-cost.

God Bless Us, Every One                           Horace Brown King

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

Summertime movies almost always deal with The End of The World.  Either by tidal waves, the nuclear rays of Dr. Evil, or the attack of aliens and/or sharks–things as we know them dissolve into terror.  It must be a universal phobia.  “Wars & rumors of wars” send the populace into a tizzy!  Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio?  Or Mighty Mouse, or Captain America??   Some will listen carefully to the weekend scriptures: hoping for a word of Grace; or perversely reveling in God’s peevish response to a yet-imperfect humanity…

Jeremiah doesn’t paint a pretty picture (4:11-12, 22-28).  A devastating desert wind will scorch everything in its path,  repealing the Goodness of Creation.  The Wind of God which once brought forth Life and Order now becomes an agent of Holy Frustration, withering the fruitful land and driving away birdsong and shelter.  As Israel has rejected YHWH’s  generous purpose, so does a divine creative Word pull away from its prosperity.  “Because of this the earth shall mourn, and the heavens above grow black…”

The Timothy Letters present the passage of wise experience from an Elder (Paul?) to his wet-behind-the- ears apprentice.  We Old Guys often measure our worth, at this point of life, by the sagacity we can share with the Whippersnappers, whether they want it or not.  In I, 1:12-13a, “Paul” reminds Timothy of his own checkered past: “a blasphemer, a persecutor, and a man of violence”.   BUT (13b-14) “I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief, and the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.”  The Apostle “welcomes us into his heart through its broken places and fervently hopes that we see something of ourselves in desperate need of God’s grace through Christ.”  (Matt Matthews, in FEASTING on the WORD, C 4:67)  We are helped in telling our tale by the shared experience of those who’ve been waylaid by the Gospel and lived to tell about it….

Luke’s  account retells Jesus’ two stories about the finding of a lost sheep and also of a lost coin (15:1-10).  The immediate symbols are of a thorough God who searches high and low for the missing and presumed valuable.  The corollary is that this action restores the set to its original wholeness, and thus proclaims an intended Perfection.  Those who sit in pews or study-chairs are familiar with their quest for Oneness.  They have an inkling that “Sin” is a rip in the Web of Life.  Here is a proactive God trying time and again to mend the Holy Fabric which is Creation!  “Salvation” is a churchy and overused word which is really a Wholeness in and with God.  Thankfully, the Savior isn’t content with “close enough”.

My life falls somewhere between the Hallmark Channel and Sci-Fi’s End of the World.  By and large, I’ve experienced many Happy Endings!  A few church-people exult in saying, “See!  I TOLD you so!” when change and decay seem to be in charge.  And yet the overview of holy-history bears out God’s unwearied Presence, adjusting and searching and chasing these recalcitrant humans…

God Bless Us, Every One                           Horace Brown King

My thoughts about lectionary passages for the upcoming weekend can be found each Tuesday at this spot on Facebook, or at horacebrownking.com.

Always a topic for spiritual debate, we argue with ourselves (in the dark hours of the morning) how present God Is.  Humanists will declare that God is on a cloud far away, chortling at the antics and tragedies within His ant-farm, Planet Earth.  Evangelicals will claim an ever-present God who meddles in our squabbles and affairs with a great deal of interest in the outcome.  This weekend’s scriptures explore these dynamics, and provide a mat upon which to wrestle with our souls…

Jeremiah 18:1-11 recalls an object-lesson trip to a potter’s workshop, where the potter tweaked the clay on his wheel.  Doggone!  This just isn’t looking right:  let’s wreck it and begin again.  And another vessel began to take shape.  SO…is the Master Potter gonna start from scratch with an unruly Creation?  (That approach didn’t work particulary well with Noah.)  Jonathan Edwards and the Puritan Fathers scared our ancestors umoral by saying we were “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.”  But note this:  the Potter didn’t discard the work in progress, he re-worked the same clay!  Amid the Hebrew  scripture’s despair over the Nation, is there an inkling of Grace?

Paul’s letter to Philemon is almost tongue-in-cheek!   “Remember who YOU were, as you’re dealing with this escaped (but reformed?) slave.”  The reading by itself leaves many loose ends:  it needs to be unpacked as to how God has been tweaking both Master and Slave, refining a would-be perfect Kingdom.   Some have used this brief passage to either support or vilify slavery.  Some have attempted to formulize when situation is more applicable than Law.  And this is fine; but the bottom line is how Grace develops, spin by spin, whirrled without end.

The Gospel, Luke 14:25-33, doesn’t recognize Gentle Jesus, Meek & Mild.  THIS Jesus announces that his Presence will cause division–not with other cultures & races, but within our own house!  He says that there’s a cost to following his Lordship, so we’d better check our resources before we begin!  The preacher may well be sorely tempted to tweak this hard message to make it more palatable.  Don’t.  Pew-sitters need to hear that the Journey is tough…and as this is accepted, perhaps they’ll find strength in knowing that other holy travelers also must deal with How Close and How Often God appears.

Hearing all this, what shall we be?  There seems to be an encouragement across the board to divest the things which separate us from the Holy; and not to throw them completely away, but to recast them in a form which fits more neatly into Kingdom-plans.  At my point of life, I’m frustrated by trying to DO.  Perhaps I’m calmer when I accept what God is tweaking in me and all around me.  Bring on the Change!

God Bless Us, Every One.       Horace Brown King

My musing on scripture readings for the upcoming weekend can be found every Tuesday at this spot on Facebook; or at horacebrownking.com