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Lectionary reading: The ELEVENTH SUNDAY OF ORDINARY TIME - August 16, 2009 SOMETHING STIRS by Larry Patten I read this week’s Lectionary, safely wondering what I’d preach or teach about next Sunday. Safe I feel. After all, I’m on leave-of-absence. I'm not regularly preaching. Whew! When I served a church full-time, when Sundays arrived faster than my dog’s gallop toward the kitchen when she hears the food can opening, I tried to plan ahead. I’d take a personal retreat, or sometimes gather with another colleague, and sketch out the next months and seasons of proclaiming the good news. A hot August day could include pondering along with Jesus’ mother after the shepherds left. A dreary November might re-imagine Magdalene’s early morning sojourn to the tomb. With one Sunday blurring into another, I at least wanted a plan, an outline, an attempt to see the future connections between a snippet from John’s Gospel and a passage from the Psalms and what made them relevant—hopeful or confrontational or both—for the congregation I served. I would succeed. I would fail. Lectionary preaching invites discipline. It forces me to study some of the Bible I’d rather ignore. I stumble through a year, from birth to death to resurrection, always discovering something new. Maybe I buy a recently published commentary where a Greek word is explored that pulls the rug out of my usual way of interpreting a parable. On a day I read about David and Bathsheba, a senator makes headlines for cha-cha-chaing with his mistress in Argentina. I turn the page—Lectionary or Bible—and the old word is new. The never-read-before scriptural story becomes a harsh mirror to understand today’s struggle. But let me be honest; some days I read the Lectionary and am flummoxed. Today’s like that. The Psalm reading feels ho-hum. Been there. Done that. In I Kings, the Old Testament yawn-fest, David has died and son Solomon is reaching for the crown. God Almighty’s all giddy about the new king’s “wise and discerning mind.” Divine praise was heaped on the lad, like a whole bottle of maple syrup on a single pancake. And we know what’s coming. Famously, Solomon will be “Solomon-like” when two women claim the same child. What a discerning dude he’ll be with that decision! And yet, didn’t he wreck the kingdom, felling trees for the temple and burdening the people with taxes? Yes, Solomon’s glory and foibles are relevant for any season’s headlines, but today he makes my mind wander. Ephesians declared concern about drunkenness, about choosing the false spirit of wine over the lively and living Spirit. Yes, capitalize the “S.” But recently, I splashed wine on sautéed mushrooms that really added to the meal’s appeal. Delicious! And also recently, with new friends, I hoisted a glass of red and toasted a shared job done well. Though appropriate for first or twenty-first centuries, I’m just not up to delving into a passage that slams debauchery. Anyhow, wasn’t Jesus bemused that his detractors called him a drunk and a glutton? Take that, Ephesians. And the Gospel? Thank God I’m not preaching John 6:51-58 this Sunday. When I was a child in Sunday school I never had the wits or wisdom to realize how snippy John was about "the Jews." The fourth Gospel’s agenda against “the Jews” was so biased and rancorous and I don’t want to either ignore or grapple with John’s us-and-them baiting. Yep, I’m in a foul mood. And even if I decided to avoid John’s hurtful gift (for wasn’t it John, more than the other Gospels, that encouraged future generations of Christians to rant and rave about “Jews?”), I’m also less-than-enthused with the Lectionary’s repetition of “living bread.” Sentence after sentence, John metaphorically explained why Christ was the true nourishment. Bread, bread. Blah, blah. Crabby me. Nothing in the Lectionary inspires me. Discipline be damned. My only redeeming claim would be that it’s all my fault and not really the Lectionary’s failure. It’s too hot today. I always have issues with Solomon. John just happens to grate me the wrong way and tomorrow will probably be better. I’ll be more open-minded and something within John’s metaphors or redundancy will descend or ascend upon my small “s” spirit and a new way of seeing will be discerned. Still, I’m glad I’m not preaching or teaching the Lectionary this Sunday. Some days are like that, yes? On some days cynicism or exhaustion or dull-wittedness reigns. I wallow. I dither. But I am a Lectionary preacher. Even in the doldrums. Because if I had to preach tomorrow, or an hour from now, I’d look again at the four readings. Solomon still worries me. I fret about John. Ephesians can’t lift my spirit. But something stirs. I read Psalm 111. Again. And again. God is “gracious and merciful . . .” Really? Was the Psalmist declaring that God was and is like that even on my weary, snippy days? Do others feel like I do? What if others, in their discipline of work and family and school, have barely muddled through the week? What if I dared to be honest with my stale and shallow faith and looked out across the pews and, for me and for them, reclaimed God’s grace and mercy in spite of how I—we—momentarily feel? in Peace,
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