My Blog

A group from our congregation is examining Franciscan Spirituality, as interpreted by Fr. Richard Rohr, himself a Franciscan.  The Franciscan motto is ‘Deus Meus et Omnia’, “My God–and All Things.”  The scripture readings many of us will share this weekend seem congruent with this concept of the Holy All:  that we are integrated into Creation, that as we are eager to love we therefore see and participate in goodness and wholeness of that around and within us.  Rohr says that “everything that happens is potentially sacred if you allow it to be.”

You may or may not accept Wisdom of Solomon as “scripture”; it’s part of the Apocrypha, the books between the testaments.  The first chapter includes the verse, “because God did not make death, and [God] does not delight in the death of the living.” (1:13)  We need to hear that God isn’t a vindictive judge, waiting and hoping for violations, and gleefully dismembering the guilty!  In the next chapter we read, “for God created us for incorruption, and made us in the image of [God’s] own eternity.” (2:23)  Maye now I can sit up straight.

We could easily table II Corinthians 8:7-15 as mere housekeeping, as Paul is raising funds for the mother congregation in Jerusalem.  But look at the 9th verse, “For you know the generous act of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich.”  We’re talking about more than money–Jesus has given up his heavenly standing to walk the earth in disguise of a poor man, to ally himself with the exploited and enslaved, to become one with fishermen, carpenters and tax-gatherers.

The Gospel involves two healing stories as told by Mark, in chapter 5, 21 ff.  Jairus, an official of the local synagogue, had a gravely ill little girl, and begged Jesus to come and intercede.  On his way, a long-suffering woman grabbed his robe and was immediately healed!  Jesus felt that something had happened, and Wholeness had come into the woman.  “Daughter, your understanding has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.” (v.34)  This takes “faith” away from an action deserving healing, one reason why I like to call my healing services as SACRAMENTAL.  The rest of the story is that Jairus’ little girl was successfully awakened, a sign of amazement to Mark, and an announcement of God’s intention for the fullness of human life.

I heard recently that a hot-dog vendor was approached by St. Francis.  The saint reportedly told him, “Make me one with everything!”   May it be so with you.

God Bless Us, Every One                 Horace Brown King

Sometimes it’s just too much.  Well-meaning friends can tell us to buck-up, but nobody seen the troubles I seen….  World adversaries are many, but the ogres who threaten most are ‘way too huge to handle.  My parents’ generation thought Nazi-ism was bound to conquer all; my childhood was threatened by Communism, and my own grandchildren must deal with Terrorism.  Big Brother, Big Government, the military-industrial complex all take on huge dimensions–much too risky, impossible even, to take on.  Change can itself assume immense proportions:  it’s dangerous out there.

Is there a word which the Church can speak to those who cower against the dinosaurs?  I saw the trailers to You’reASick Park, and I don’t want to go there.  An old story brings confidence:  David & Goliath is revisited in I Samuel 17:32-49.  All good tales use hyperbole, the contrast of Supreme Power to Extreme Weakness.  Goliath was HUGE to the 98- lb. weakling, David.  But who is to stand in the face of God?  “…that all this assembly may know that the Lord saves not with sword and spear; for the battle is the Lord’s…” (v.47)  Not just for Israelite patriotism, but here the whole world is invited to be comforted and confronted by an ever-present, ever-concerned God.  David put himself on the Front Line.  Nice shot, Davie!

The Hugeness that was bothering the Corinthian congregations was probably Diversity.  Corinth was a seaport town, a trade center, a clearing house for Eastern & Western philosophies–and those who led the Church despaired of finding common threads.  Paul, in his letters, attempted to cheer them (and shame them) with the Common Denominator of Jesus who is the Christ.  Some of the Corinthian believers may have known the old stories of God’s rescue from impossible odds.  Paul tries to make these contemporary when he crows, “See, now is the acceptable time; see, now is the day of salvation!” (II, 6:2)

The Gospel story fits nicely with David & Goliath.  Mark 4:35-41 tells about Jesus asleep in the boat on the Sea of Galilee, even though an immense storm was raging.  Hyperbole, again:  the terror-stricken disciples in a tiny boat cringed before the Perfect Storm.  It takes audacity to go with the Lord!  David put himself on the Front Line, the Disciples got into a boat for The Other Side.  These are risky places!  Happy ending:  Jesus woke up and quieted the elements, which impressed the travelers. “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”   Once again, God managed what was Huge…

I hated YMCA camp, when I was 10.  One of the opportunities inflicted upon us was spending the night outside in a tent in the woods.  Naturally, the leaders told gruesome horror stories about monsters from the lake who would devour at least one camper every week!  Then came lights out.   After we got drowsy, a light appeared outside the tent wall, and a Terrible Shadow’s sillhouette was seen!!  The brave ones rushed out–to find one of the counselor’s making hand-shadows to scare us!  It worked…it was HUGE!   May they have many nightmares in their nursing-home beds…

God Bless Us, Every One!      Horace Brown King

Some days ago, we went to my favorite store, the Agway, because Marie wanted a hanging basket for the back porch.  While there, I looked around at all sorts of DRY stuff:  little brown & white nuggets, some in packets, some loose.  There were even some dry sticks–twigs?–for sale.  People were actually buying these!  Getting into the spirit of the moment, I too bought what seemed to be paper-wads but were advertized as onions.  Were we all being had?  In Agway we Trust.

Readings for the upcoming weekend begin with a message from God through Ezekiel:  “I myself will take a sprig from the lofty top of a cedar….I myself will plant it on a high and lofty mountain….in order that it may produce boughs and bear fruit, and become a noble cedar.” (17:22-23)   God’s planting will be a haven for all birds, and  “all the trees of the field shall know that I am the Lord.”  We think of this as a message to the Babylonian Exiles–or any oppressed who may wonder where God is.  There’s something comforting about perennial plants:  despite the rockets, despite the rhetoric, they’re coming back, they’re still here.  “The one who has a garden has a future.” (St. Hallmark?)

To read the whole of the assigned Epistle is just too much.  I’d rather limit it to the few verses of II Corinthians 5:6-10.  Paul stridently affirms, “So we are always confident….for we walk by faith, not by sight.”  We think of our spiritual journey through the Cloud of Unknowing:  stepping forth  into a fog-bank from the cave where we had sheltered from the stormy night.  We cannot see the path.  All we can do is to tightly hold the hand of One who Loves Us

St. Mark remembers that Jesus said,  “The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground, and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how.” (4:26-27)  No one does, really; and it’s nice to have a mystery!  We can describe the process, even draw a gene-map and manipulate the breeding–but when all’s said & done, the actual maturity of a plant is a holy occasion.   A few generations ago, our ancestors called it “rogation”, and there was a special Sunday in the fall to rejoice in these agrarian wonders.  “We plow the fields and scatter the good seed on the land.”  “God, Whose Farm is All Creation.”

This morning we had our first strawberries from Marie’s magnificent bed, big and red and sweet!  Roses are again blooming on shoots from stumps that surely seemed dead, earlier this spring.  And for the first time since our welcome rains, little green shoots are appearing in the plot where I buried those paper-wads…  I think they will grow!

“All good gifts around us Are sent from heaven above;                                                                       Then thank the Lord, O thank the Lord for all [God’s] love.    –Matthias Claudius

God Bless Us, Every One               Horace Brown King

Last night, we went to the movies:  The Avengers, with mega-decibles and constantly flashing fights.  After the two long hours, my synapses were completely shot–I could ingest no more explosions, laser fire or topsy-turvy scene changes.  I just wanted OUT.  Fortunately, even immortals come to end of their scripts, and The Avengers regrouped for yet another God-awful foray against Evil. (Coming to a theater near you.)  But for a while,we were indeed immersed in the Big Picture, a whole wall of weird sequences and poorly related visual segues.  Way, way too much….

God’s plan for simplicity would have worked, ‘cept for human ambition.  (Did God know that it wouldn’t work, and set us up for Original Sin?)  “Don’t eat the Fruit of Good & Evil”, God said.  No judging, no evaluation, no weight of morality or extended theological discussions.  But we ate:  and now we know we’re naked and have to hide.  (Genesis 3:8-11)  Richard Rohr says, “What [God]’s trying to keep us from is a lust for certitude, an undue need for explanation, resolution and answers.  Frankly, [these] make biblical faith impossible.”  (THINGS HIDDEN, p.38)

St. Paul reminds the Believers at Corinth, “we look not at what can be seen but at what cannot be seen; for what can be seen is temporary, but what cannot be seen is eternal.” (II Corinthians 4:18)  Some would call this double-speak, but I think that what’s being shown is again the Big Picture.  Our Original Sin vision focuses on the rational and the provable, but persons of Faith are encouraged to revere the mystery and cling to things which we’ll never understand in this life…

Mark’s Gospel remembers when even Jesus’ immediate family thought he was a bit tetched, and came to stage an intervention by taking him home for rest & relaxation.  They were evidently missing the point, for Jesus asked, “Who are my mother and my brothers?  HERE are my mother and my brothers!  Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.”  (3:33-34)  Again, the humans around the Holy tried to limit and confine God’s work to the events and happenings they could understand.

We still do, and the Church is the guiltiest culprit!  How many times have I heard that the Plagues of Moses were predictable phenomena, that the drying of the “Red Sea” was seasonal, that Lazarus was merely in a coma, as were Tabitha and the son of the Widow of Nain.  Bartimeus’ blindness coulda been cured by anyone who took time to wash his eyes, and Naaman’s seven dips in the Jordan set him up for phosphorus cleansing….  Maybe.  If that’s what you have to think to satisfy your scientific bent, go ahead.  But I really go with what the astro-physicist supposedly said after seeing the precise wonders of the universe:  “Wow!  Do it again, God!”

God Bless Us, Every One      Horace Brown King

Trinity Sunday is upon us.  Not an occasion for task-oriented missional preaching, but a time to admit that God’s Person is mysterious, and to let this God BE God.  Since the Age of Enlightenment, we demand rational explanation for all happenings, and thus deprive ourselves of the awe of things beyond.  Readings for this weekend follow up on Pentecost’s experience of the Holy Spirit, yet also take us to new vistas of the sacred.  The preacher’s dilemma is that of how to express flooding wonder in the limitations of human language!

Isaiah tells us of the vision which launched him into a life of confronting idolatry in the sixth chapter of his oracles:  “I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lofty; and the hem of his robe filled the temple.” (v.1)   And it dawns on him, “I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!” (v.5)   Kristin Emery Saldine says it well:  “Prophets are often called to speak the word of the Lord to those who have forgotten the distinction between holy and human….God is holy, we are not….Yet it is this realization that opens Isaiah to the possibility of forgiveness.  He is touched by divine intervention and made clean.”   (FEASTING ON THE WORD, B,3:28)

Fast-forward a bit to Paul’s Letter to the Romans.  Chapter 8 is perhaps the most wisdom-packed unit of Grace there is; verses 12-17 meet our imperfections head-on, yet assure us of a loving God who stands by us to the end.  Our human actions and wills are insufficient, unless they are sustained by the Spirit:  God persists in breaking into our hiding-places and bringing us home.  “It is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God.”  How ’bout THAT?

The Gospel is the account of Jesus meeting with Nicodemus “by night”, John 3:1-17.  Here again is one of those heaven & earth encounters which drive both Testaments.  Like us, Nic wants an explanation; what he gets is a vision of mystery.  My favorite part of this oft-abused passage is verse 17:  “Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”  This saving is through our participation in a holiness which cannot be defined or confined by Reason alone…

St Patrick, they say, explained the Trinity by pointing out the shamrock, with three equal leaves coming from one stem.  St Augustine presented a hard-boiled egg:  a shell, a white band of protein, and a yolk.  Perhaps it’s only through such images that we can begin to approximate those things that are beyond speech. God is holy, we are not.  Egg-zactly…

God Bless Us,Every One           Horace Brown KIng

Pentecost:  Fifty Great Days since Easter, a strong season to ask, “What Now?  What’s God about?”  Weekly readings have explored our reaction to Jesus’ Resurrection as we’ve recounted the experiences of The Apostles.  It’s been a quantum leap between the culture of Then to the culture of Now–is there any similarity, any common denominator of the human condition?  We try to affirm an ubiquity (look it up) of a Holy Presence, maintaining that travelers to the soul present like issues in all places and histories.  So as the Church was “born” on Pentecost, the date also marks our own birth into the fire and wind of belief and disbelief.

Read again the annual story in Acts 2:1-21.  The Holy Spirit thundered in with tongues of fire and the sound of a rushing wind!  An antidote to human grasping of God and being divided by multiple languages (Genesis 11:1-9), now God grasped humans (!) with mutual understandings despite diverse forms of speech.  (The miracle was not that some could speak, rather that all could hear!)  “All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, ‘What does this mean?'” –an appropriate response to being confronted by God’s Spirit.

The Epistle comes from the Letter to the Romans, chapter 8:  “Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought…” (v.26)  Here again God’s Spirit is recognized as a heavenly guide for those who’re tired of stumbling about in the Cloud of Unknowing.  We do the Spirit an injustice to see this Presence only as assurance of a Safe Ending:  I believe that this Spirit takes us on the most adventurous and scenic route through Creation, causing us to stop and marvel at the view!

John’s Gospel re-visits Jesus’ final admonitions during the Last Supper, 15:26 to 16:15.  The Lord urges them/us to watch for the Advocate who will continue to unfold glimpses of Heaven.  “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth….”  What’s Real??  Can there be a Godly Presence who stands near and helps me to sort out the treasure from the styrene peanuts which surround and hide it?  Emmanuel Y. Lartey (Candler Seminary, Emory University) has some interesting thoughts:  “The Holy Spirit connects the creative genius of the Father with the redemptive love of the Son and the courageous witness of the Church.  There is a bond that keeps history, current experience, and future hope together in Christian faith.” (FEASTING ON THE WORD, B, 3:24)

My best driving vacations have been “blue-liners”:  leaving the Interstates and major routes (red lines) and following the side roads.  Its’ there that you can experience the little museums, the cross-road diners, and hitherto unknown trivia.  What’s even better is to have a friend along who knows where the overlooks are!  It seems good to be amazed and often perplexed by the rich contours of the landscape…  Thanks be to God.  Amen.

God Bless Us, Every One          Horace Brown KIng

What an ambivalent guy I am!  So much of my heart & soul seems caught up in worldly crises: the earthquakes in Nepal, oil-exploration in the Arctic Ocean, new lows of mistrust in Albany,  a continuing fuss about LGBT’s,  what’s shaping up to be a long hot summer in racial confrontations….  I could really go for an extended exile to St. Brendan’s fieldstone hermitage on the Dingle Peninsula, or a little white church singing “This Is My Father’s World” on a sunny morning….  Is there a word from scripture or the pulpit for me and others like me?

The passage from early in The Acts of the Apostles (1:15-26) tells how the first Believers attempted to restore the Christian community broken by the defection of Judas.  Peter, already acting as Pope, convened the discussion by saying, “One of the men who have accompanied us during all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us–one of these must become a witness with us to his resurrection.”  After throwing the dice, they deduced that God was pointing out Matthias–who became an Apostle and was never heard from since!  But the message is that even severely shaken communities can find a wholeness to go on…

How does John’s First Letter (5:9-13) fit with this?  Or does it need to?  The core of it is the “testimony”  that God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. (v.11)  But then the writer continues, “Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.”  Can we really “have” the Son?  Is it like having a merit-badge?  The better question, I think, is not “Do I have the Son?”, but “Does the Son have ME?”  Move over, St. Brendan…

Jesus’ High Priestly prayer continues in the Gospel, John 17:6-19.  I read “those whom you gave me from the world” as referring to the embryonic Church:  a collection of individuals, to be sure, yet having greater value than the mere sum of its parts.  His phrases are filled with “them” and “their”:  the only individual mentioned  is “the one destined to be lost, so that the scripture might be fulfilled.”  There’s a semantic minefield here:  how does the dichotomy of being “apart from the world” square with the earlier affirmation (3:16-17) of God’s LOVE for the world?   Verse 18 may help: “As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world.”  Left Foot, Right Foot..

But it’s Spring.  The devil of the noon-day sun has me firmly in his grasp.  We planted a grapevine (Marie is determined to grow grapes; how many vines have we planted in parsonage backyards?) and a Rose of Sharon bush.  The strawberries are loaded with blossoms, and chives and mint are terrorizing the herb-beds.  The world and its dysfunction seem far away.  I’ll go sit among                “the virtues of the starlit heaven, the glorious sun’s life-giving ray, the whiteness of the moon at even, the flashing of the lightning free, the whirling wind’s tempestuous shocks, the stable earth, the deep salt sea, around the old eternal rocks.”     For a while.

God Bless Us Every One!              Horace Brown King

Lucy the Infamous Cat knows just where her territory is; and woe to any critter entering therein!  A big part of life is establishing and maintaining boundaries:  residence in a different State means adjusting licenses and perhaps work-visas.  Some lines are more clear:  Foul-lines and baselines govern our sports, our traffic lanes are marked by lines, and we are encouraged at an early age (unfortunately) to color within the lines.  Barriers and fences and dress-codes mark Mine from Thine.  Scripture readings for the upcoming weekend tell us how God thinks outside of the box…

There’s a remarkable, trend-setting occasion recorded in the Acts of the Apostles, chapter 10:  Peter, hungry from fasting, sees a “sheet” from heaven containing various animals; and a voice says, “Peter, kill and eat.”  Being a Good Jew, Peter disdains “the unclean” three times.  (Everything seems to happen to Peter in threes.)  About this time, messengers from the Gentile Centurion Cornelius urge Peter to come to his house and to preach about Jesus!  What to do??  With continued Divine Prodding, he goes, he preaches–and the Holy Spirit arrives…on Gentiles, those guys across the fence!  Yer outta bounds, Peter!

The First Letter of John is way heavy on esoteric loving.   He says, “for the love of God is this,. that we obey his commandments.  And his commandments are not burdensome, for whatever is born of God conquers the world.” (5:3-4)  John’s faith-community has been really good at distinguishing between us good guys and those worldly ones on the other side of the wall.  Some will use this to maintain an elitism complete with passwords and secret ritual–yet I think that John here implies that “love conquers all”, and that God continues to reach across the aisle in gracious compassion.

The Gospel of John gives us the extensive musings of Jesus at The Last Supper.  Here the Lord speaks about commandments (rules or good intentions?) and the resulting intimacy.  “I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father.” (15:15)  Business as usual demands a wide gulf between master & servant (respect, d’y see?), but here’s the Master of All breaking down that separation.  What a precedent that sets!

The post-modern Church needs to be really concerned with wrecking wrath’s walls!  I’m sorry to say that in past times and not so long ago we’ve acted as referees, calling too many Out of Bounds.  If we’re serious about being Reconciling Congregations, it’s an opportunity to grant access and acceptance to those who also have been Created in Sacred Image.

God Bless Us, Every One                    Horace Brown King

We in Greater Binghamton are glad for Spring, for it has brought daffodils, robins–and pothole fixing on Riverside Drive!  As an arrogant American, I’m entitled to smooth streets, not like those of Africa and developing nations.  What’s more, we’ve built what we’ve built by our own ingenuity, strength and foresight!  (So why doesn’t it last?)  Is there anything better than Yankee ingenuity and scientific marvels?  One chapter of “The Gospel according to Peanuts” is entitled, “Savior?  Who needs a Savior?”  Bring on those orange diamond signs that warn, “Men (oops, Humans) at Work”…

Readings for this upcoming weekend continue to bolster those who honestly are trying to find out what The Resurrection means.  We begin with a great story from the Acts of the Apostles, about the Apostle Philip’s visit with a seeking Ethiopian official (8:26-40).  “He asked, ‘Do you understand what you are reading?’  [The official] replied, ‘How can I, unless someone guides me?'”  The beginning of Knowledge is the admission that we can’t do it all ourselves:  we need the Community.  Philip was under direction from God’s initiative, the prerequisite for any success.

The First Letter of John can be repetitive, so don’t get lost in the rambling.  Chapter 4 tells us again & again to love one another, to become immersed and dissolved in the Easter Community.  “Not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son….We loved because he first loved us.” (vv.11,19)   With such a strong grace, we can no nothing but love the Creator’s handiwork!

“I am the vine, you are the branches”, begins the last of the great I AM teachings, John 15:1-8.  I’ve always liked the picture:  vitality arises from the Ground of Our Being through the roots of the Vine and is distributed through smaller and lesser capillaries to even the tiniest leaf-bud!  (Is it Spring, or what?)  Some will want to explore the warnings to the worthless branches which bear no fruit; OK, but remember that the “successful” branches are pruned as well!  I’d rather talk about the one-way flow of spiritual juices which absolves even the smallest twig from works-righteousness…

“Man proposes, God disposes”.  I dunno who said it first, but I learned it at seminary.  The Rest of the World devotes time to gathering, inventing, conquering and earning–and feels pretty good about being strong, wise & courageous.  And that’s OK, I guess:  today’s monuments are tomorrow’s ruins, and “time makes ancient goods uncouth”.  The recent Easter event shines a brighter light on history, and makes us to know that the things that are decent and right have roots in The Holy and not in my shortened wisdom….   Thanks be to God!

God Bless Us, Every One                     Horace Brown King

Ken Wood, pastor of Holy Nativity Evangelical Lutheran in Endicott, wrote in that church’s newsletter about the Great Fifty Days:  “The spiritual history of these days is the story of Jesus’ followers to ‘resurrection’….We followers of Jesus are to use these great fifty days to recognize what it means to live with resurrection.”  Dare we believe that this Easter-event involves US?  So what’s the catch?  Is salvation really this free?  Readings for this weekend continue the wide-eyed amazement of Jesus’ disciples–and invite us to join with them in Holy Awe.

The Authorities in Jerusalem were indignant when Peter & John offered Jesus’ healing to a beggar!  (He musta been evil, since God made him a beggar.  Why should these Galileans overthrow the established order?  Who do they think they are!?)   Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, “Rulers of the people and elders, if we are questioned today because of a good deed done to someone who was sick and are asked how this man has been healed, let it be known to all of you, and to all the people of Israel, that this man is standing before you in good health by the name of Jesus Christ…” (Acts 4:9-10)  And then he suggests that Wholeness is Salvation!

The First Letter of John is written to give a positive spin to what was then an underground and often illegal movement.  He writes, “…we receive from him whatever we ask, because we obey his commandments and do what pleases him….And this is [God’s] commandment, that we should believe in the name of [God’s] Son Jesus Christ and love one another…” (3:22-23)  William L. Self writes, “Being downcast is not sin, but it is destructive.  Our churches need the encouragement of faith so despair does not take root.”  (Feasting on the Word)  But aren’t there more spiritual acrobatics for us to perform?

Ah, finally:  the sheep.  “I am the Good Shepherd”, Jesus announces.  (John 10:11)  The difference between the Lord and the hired help is that the Shepherd cares enough about keeping the flock whole to jump into the fray to snatch each lamb from the jaws of the wolf!  Even if that means severe wounds; even if the Shepherd should die.  Not because we’re so loveable, but because the Shepherd has power to expend his life where he will…  Conversation point:  what did he mean by saying, “I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold.  I must bring them also…”?  Are these Gentiles?   Or Muslims, or Hindi, or Bhuddist?  Street people, too?  How far shall we take the preceding words of 3:16??

Easter’s wonder is because God has initiated it.  Easter breaks into  the World God Loves without depending upon Hard Work, Perfect Goodness, elaborate rituals or acceptable prayer routines. The result is an ageless community of hopeful sinners struggling to believe that they are beloved.  The Christian symbiosis is the energy flowing around this Flock and its ever-present Shepherd.

God Bless Us,Every One                                Horace Brown King