CCBlogs thinking critically, living faithfully

Jeremiah 2:4-13 and Psalm 81:1, 10-16 • Hebrews 13:1-8, 15-16 • 
Luke 14:1, 7-14

Humility, in theory, is an easy concept to grasp.

It is the act or ability of a person to have a modest opinion of one's own abilities and importance. Being Humble is not synonymous with being self-deprecating. A person who is Humble is aware of her / his abilities and does not attempt to show his / herself to be something s/he is not.

But when we take it a step further and think of how the Humility of one person connects to the rest of the world it seems to be a bit more complicated. It doesn't matter if you call it evolution or nature or nurture, as humans we seem to have a drive built in to each of us where we want to prove our abilities and worth as greater than the next person. It seems we all want to show we are special and unique and often we attempt to do that by finding ways to be stronger, faster, more beautiful, smarter, funnier, more serious, more giving, more industrious, cleaner, more efficient, or more spiritual than the next person. And actually, reflecting on our own experience, we often don't even need another person to compare ourselves against.....we (We) often spend a lot of time imagining ourselves and our abilities to be more than they are....and not in a Positive Self Esteem sort of way.

Most of us have a natural tendency to develop in wonderful ways and then, unfortunately,  we somehow cross a line where we lose our place. One of the favorite quotes in our house is "You have obviously forgotten that someone is in charge and it is not you."

Time to time, we all forget that someone is in charge and it is not us. We forget that we did not get to where we are only by our own devices. We forget that where we are today is a product of our families and our friends and the world and God loving us and guiding us and keeping us safe and teaching us and reprimanding us.

Again, call it nature or nurture or evolution or the human condition or sin, but the reality is that it is easy for us to lose our handle on having a Humble view of ourselves and our place in the world.

We are not sure if this is comforting or not, but we can look through scriptures and see examples of folks losing their own grip on Humility and we can see examples of teachers attempting to guide folks in the way of Humility.

In Jeremiah we read one of hundreds of Humility Reminders found given to the people of Israel. Through the mouth / pen of Jeremiah, God mourns that the people have turned their backs on Him even though it was God who brought them to the plentiful land.

It appears a lack of Humility might somehow impede our ability to love those that are important to us. In having too high an esteem of our selves and our abilities, we are actually insulting and hurting those who helped us to get where we are.

In Psalm 81 we read in the words of the Psalmist God again mourning that the the people of Israel would not give themselves over to Him. Instead, God says "I gave them over to their stubborn hearts, to follow their own counsels."

Following our own ways and not allowing ourselves to be in relationship with those that love us appears to do damage to the very ones we love.

In the passage we get from the writer of Hebrews and from the gospel of Luke we get some pretty direct advice and examples on the importance of being Humble. Of course, the writer of Hebrews appears to simply be talking of love. It almost feels like it is this writer's interpretation of the famous section of Paul's letter to the Corinthians that gets so much play at weddings today. This passage in Hebrews is explaining that readers who follow Jesus should love. And when we look at how it is advising its readers to love, it is hard to not see (if followed) how all of these things help a person to maintain Humility....by loving everyone from the stranger to the prisoner to your leaders to Jesus Christ.
And then we get Jesus Christ himself directly telling folks how to maintain practices that help a person to develop Humility. He says, "For all who exalt themselves will be Humbled, and those who Humble themselves will be exalted." The common theme here? We are all going to be Humble either by our choice or by the actions of others.

We are so driven sometimes to be better, faster, smarter, more righteous.  And Jesus' words ring true for Us as well...We've certainly found ourselves Humbled beyond our choice!  And we remember that someone is in charge, and it is not Us.

God,
Help me see
the places where
I can love
rather than to see
the places where
I can win.
Amen.

© matt & laura norvell 2010 www.settingourstones.org
we want to share this with you and hope you'll share with the world;
we simply ask that you let people know where you found these words.
May Grace & Peace be with you.

Jeremiah 1:4-10 and Psalm 71:1-6  • 
Isaiah 58:9b-14 and Psalm 103:1-8  • 
Hebrews 12:18-29  • 
Luke 13:10-17

True confession time.

Writing these reflections each week is tough.  Sometimes it is a grind.  When we started almost three years ago, we were enthusiastic...we looked weeks ahead.  We were often done by Sunday afternoon the week prior.  We had robust conversations over the texts at dinner, on walks, before we dozed off.  But slowly, life slipped in and it has gotten progressively more difficult to sit down each week and make time for really thinking about how the text speaks to us.  Somewhere about Advent during this Year C, we both thought about quitting.  But we'd been at it for two years and we wanted to see the three year cycle through to completion.

This summer it has been super hard.  Oh, you've noticed.  Sometimes you don't get a reflection until Friday!  Not so much time for YOU to reflect then, is there? Sometimes you don't get a reflection at all!  After our week of vacation, we couldn't muster the strength or discipline for facing the text.  We called it a second week of vacation.

But if you've been watching the text over the past several weeks, you also know that we are moving into the calls experienced by the prophets.  Somehow, these texts are speaking right to the struggle we're having today with this discipline of writing each week about the text.  And in some ways, it is this struggle with call that brings us back each week. And probably for another full three-year lectionary cycle.  You see, we feel pretty strongly called to engage these texts from different points in our life.  And starting in Advent, we'll be back in Year A - and life for us has changed SIGNIFICANTLY in that time. We've both moved, at least twice.  We've changed jobs.  We've bought a house and a car.  We've gotten married.  We've vacationed with the kids as a real family.  So there is a pretty good chance that we're bringing new life experience in the Kingdom to these readings for another three years.

So let's dive into the text that helps us recognize that.

The text from Jeremiah is a call story.  God calls to Jeremiah and Jeremiah protests that he lacks experience and sophistication to do what he's being asked to do.  Now, perhaps you have this experience.  God doesn't very easily take NO for an answer once God's called you.  Whatever you are called to has this way of continuing to surface.  God takes a pretty active role in Jeremiah's decision.  Jeremiah tells of the Lord reaching out and touching his mouth...literally putting God's words there for Jeremiah to speak.  God goes on to make it very clear that Jeremiah is charged with great responsibility - "I appoint you over nations and over kingdoms, to pluck up and to pull down, to destroy and to overthrow, and to build and to plant."  In some ways, Jeremiah is being called to be part of a new creation.

The accompanying Psalm praises God for protection since birth, and pairs well with the Lord's words to Jeremiah, "Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you..." 

Throughout Isaiah 58, the prophet calls the Israelites to authentic service to God rather than ritual.  Essentially, the promise is of the Lord's guidance if only we will feed the hungry and tend to the needy.  If you look at the prophecy closely, not only does the prophet promise God's protection, but also the restoration of Israel.  Responding to our various calls makes the world a better place - but imagine it being even better than better.  Better than what we currently envision as "good."  Kingdom on earth as in heaven, perhaps.

The accompanying Psalm is a praise Psalm that includes an often quoted revelation about how the psalmist understood God...the Lord is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.  Now we've read a lot of Hebrew scripture this summer in which God seems pretty angry.  But true to the covenant with the Israelites, the Lord keeps returning to them...and expects the people to keep returning to God.  Is God patient with our failed recognition or acceptance of the things God calls us too?  Given our tendency toward procrastination or cluelessness at times, we sure hope so!
The reading from Hebrews continues from reflections of the faithfulness of Abraham, Isaac, Moses, Sarah, Rahab and many other Israelite "heroes" toward an encouragement to recognize the gift that we receive in God's grace.  Christians refer to Jesus' death and resurrection as a sign of a new covenant relationship with God.  As in days of old, we are called to keep returning to relationship with God.  Life changes.  We stumble and stray and make mistakes.  But we can return.  If we miss a call, perhaps another will surface.  God loves us.  And it would seem God waits for us.  But in recognition of that, this letter encourages the community to give thanks with reverence and awe. 

Finally, in Luke's gospel, we read about Jesus healing in the synagogue on the Sabbath.  This isn't the first time he's found himself caught up in a controversy with the religious leaders about what he should or should not be doing on the Sabbath.  Do you ever find yourself in that spot where there are layers of rules, and what you feel is the right thing to do really is forbidden or not generally acceptable?  It sort of reminds us of the conversation we had at KC recently about how to serve our homeless brothers and sisters.  I mean, there are social workers telling us not to give the homeless person on the corner money.  And sometimes, a few dollars in their pocket will really make the difference.  There are all of these shades of gray. Call feels that way sometimes, too.  Recently, we've felt pretty called to speak out against the anger and controversy brewing over the construction of a Muslim community center near the site of the World Trade Center attack.  There are people who will tell us that by supporting our fellow Muslim citizens in their quest for a community center that we are being insensitive to the families who lost loved ones there.  It seems like a personal no-win situation.  And sometimes we're called into sticky spots like that. But it's hard to listen when it isn't comfortable.  Ugh.

And so...on this journey for us through "Proper 16," it feels all about call.  We feel called.  It's not always really clear.  It's not always really easy.  We don't always feel well-equipped. But if we're faithful, we know that God is with us, right?  That maybe in our faithful response, we shed a little light on the Kingdom, right? 

God,
put your words
into my mouth
that I may speak
your Kingdom
into being...
Amen.

© matt & laura norvell 2010 www.settingourstones.org
we want to share this with you and hope you'll share with the world;
we simply ask that you let people know where you found these words.
May Grace & Peace be with you.

• Isaiah 5:1-7 

• Psalm 80:1-2, 8-19  
 

• Hebrews 11:29-12:2  

• Luke 12:49-56

Do you have a vision for personal success and achievement that pulls you forward?  Maybe you are a goal-setter?   A list maker.  A caster of vision.
Perhaps you have studied a self-help books - Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, The Purpose Driven Life, A New Earth.  
Both of us have lived in spots of time where we were pretty driven to measure life (explicitly OUR life) against a very material ruler - the right job, the right clothes, the right house, the right friends, the right restaurants, the right vodka.  And really, those self-help books had some pretty handy tools for getting us to where we wanted to be - good solid guidance.
But over the past few years we had to examine our defined destination.  We can't really blame the guidance system for getting us exactly where we wanted to go.  But where we were going wasn't really making the universe a better place (even if it was a divine place to be us!).
As we read through the passages for this week, we felt a little tension between expectation and resulting judgment.  And that got us thinking - is it possible that our expectations lead us astray?  I mean, I suppose we could use those same self-help books for other goals, right?  For improving the environment, achieving global peace, eliminating poverty and hunger? Could we use those books very specifically for seeking the Kingdom of God?
The passage from Isaiah is a prophecy of God's judgment of Israel.  We were caught by the language of expectancy - God's expectation for Israel - "When I expected it to yield grapes, why did it yield wild grapes."  It's hard to be disappointed without an expectation.  And once we have an expectation, it seems pretty easy to be disappointed.  The prophet tells us that where God expected to see justice, instead there was bloodshed;  where God expected righteousness, there were cries.  [Geek break:  Read the language in a good study bible.  There is actually a pretty brilliant play on words in Hebrew for those interested - mishpat (justice) and mispach (bloodshed) - tsedaqah (righteousness) and tse' aqah (cry of the oppressed).  These writers really worked on this stuff! And we miss some of it in translation.]
The Psalmist is responding to God's judgment with some indignation.  Why would God make it possible for others to destroy God's own chosen people?  The petition is for restoration - for a return to favor that will save the people of Israel.
Go back to that good study bible and read ALL of Luke 12 as a single unit - and then move into Luke 13.  Jesus really gets his preach on in this chapter.  He's really working this gathered crowd.  Beginning with a teaching on discipleship, he continues to warn against needless worry, moves on to encouraging watchfulness and then frames his own ministry as one of judgement and division.  He ends all of this by calling for repentance.  Preach it.  In the selection for this week, after telling people about how he has been brought to divide, he goes on to say something very interesting.  "When you see a cloud rising in the west, you immediately say, 'It is going to rain'; and so it happens...You know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky, but why do you not know how to interpret the present time?"  Wow.  You've got the ability - why are you misusing it so?  Damning, isn't it?
And then, if we finish with the passage from Hebrews, we are encouraged to lay aside every weight that clings to us and to run the race before us with perseverance.  Now after reading Isaiah and Luke, we read this with eyes that draw us back to our expectations.  Is it possible that our own expectations are the very thing that weighs us down?

Victor Hugo has a great line in Les Miserables where he says sin is like gravity-it is the thing that holds us down. It seems like we could add Misdirected Expectations to that list. Of course if what we have written here is true, it puts a lot of emphasis on discernment, doesn't it? And discernment, while usually a step in the average self-help book, doesn't get a lot of emphasis because it is not the sexy and exciting part of the success formula. And the interesting thing we have learned in our own lives is that discernment of direction may be the most important part of the process.

How do you discern where you are going? What helps you discern your expectations for yourself? How do the communities you are a part of (family, work, church, etc) discern corporate expectations?

This prayer of Thomas Merton never seems to wear out.....

My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going.
I do not see the road ahead of me.
I cannot know for certain where it will end.
Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so.
But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you.
And I hope I have that desire in all I am doing.
I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.
And I know that if I do this, You will lead me by the right road.
Though I may know nothing about it.
Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death.
I will not fear, for you are ever with me. And you will never leave me to face my struggles alone.


© matt & laura norvell 2010 www.settingourstones.org
we want to share this with you and hope you'll share with the world;
we simply ask that you let people know where you found these words.
May Grace & Peace be with you

• Hosea 1:2-10 and Psalm 85 •
• Genesis 18:20-32 and Psalm 138 •
• Colossians 2:6-15, (16-19) •
• Luke 11:1-13

So this feels dangerous to ask. In fact, we do not really want to either ask the question or think about the possible answers.....but, unfortunately, we have to bring it up: does God hold an entire group (i.e. nation, state, denomination, church, community, family) on the basis of the actions of it's individual members?

[See? We told you this might be uncomfortable]

This week we get some really charged passages from the Hebrew scriptures. The passage from Hosea offers an awful and definite condemnation on the people of Israel because of their actions...more specifically, "for the land commits great whoredom by forsaking the LORD." Now, when we read this passage (which isn't long) we see that this message of punishment is couched in a continued promise of continuance. In the last verse we have here we God saying the people of Israel will still be like the sand of the sea and children of the living God, etc. But that comes after some threats of ALL of the people of Israel being punished.

This question is similarly pursued in the passage from Genesis. It is the story of God planning to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah and Abraham trying to negotiate with God on behalf of the few righteous men that might be present in those towns. It appears that in this instance, two entire towns / cities are going to be destroyed because of their "grave sin." Notice, it does not say that the people of those towns will "get theirs in the end" or that they will have to face their actions on "judgment day". This story shows some people that will be destroyed fairly quickly as a result of their behavior. But then, with Abraham's probing questions, God does seem to relent. If there can be found a "critical mass" of righteousness, the community will be spared.

Were the circumstances different for them since Israel is God's Chosen People? Or might these same circumstances apply to us?

Psalm 85 continues to tell this story in a slightly different way. It remembers how their people were restored and forgiven and pardoned before, but that God is currently "angry" with them right now. There is a lot of faith that God will preserve them again in the future, but that in their current situation all of their people are suffering punishment.

Something interesting happens when we make the shift to the scriptures of the New Testament. Both Paul and Jesus continue to talk to groups of people about their behavior, but a couple of things are different: first, there is not as much emphasis on how all of the people will be destroyed or punished because of the actions of a few, and connected to that idea there seems to be a lot more emphasis on individual responsibility to the message they have received.

For example, Paul continues with his message to the Colossians where he is lining out what it means to live as a follower of Jesus....he offers details on personal conduct and also some greater (more philosophical) instruction of how they should think of themselves and their relationship with God.

And Jesus also points people toward thinking of their individual responsibilities for their relationships to God. This is one of the passages where Jesus teaches the disciples how to pray. We have come today to call this The Lord's Prayer. It was a big deal for him to teach this prayer because it is an unusually personal and direct way for the average person to communicate with God.

And so, what do we do with all of this? Are these stories different? Can we all be individually responsible and also still be corporately responsible? If we are corporately responsible for our actions, what do we do to make sure our entire city is not wiped away because of the actions of others? If we are all individually responsible, to what extent do we need to bother ourselves with the behaviors of others? Even absent God's action, is it possible that the way we live, the choices we make, the lives we live affect those around us in life-altering ways? Good and bad life-altering ways?

God,
we give thanks for our created uniqueness
and as for the wisdom and patience
and grace and mercy
to add our one-ness to the whole
in ways that move your Kingdom
forward, not back.
Amen


© matt & laura norvell 2010 www.settingourstones.org
we want to share this with you and hope you'll share with the world;
we simply ask that you let people know where you found these words.
May Grace & Peace be with you

Amos 8:1-12 and Psalm 52  • 
Genesis 18:1-10a and Psalm 15  • 
Colossians 1:15-28  • 
Luke 10:38-42
 
It's Complicated.
 
In the world of Facebook (a social networking tool on the internet where people post information about their lives and keep track of other people they may or may not know), "It's Complicated" is a relationship status. You know, like Married, Single, In An Open Relationship (seriously), and It's Complicated.
 
There is something to be said for "It's Complicated." It says a lot.  It doesn't say too much.  It leaves room for speculation and interpretation.  Surely each of us has had a relationship best described as "It's Complicated." 
 
And this week, this is our response to the lectionary. It's Complicated - both from a base level reading and integration of the various stories and from the things it says about our relationship with God, with Christ, with the Divine, with one another.  It's Complicated.  Back in May we talked about God being complicated, but this week, we're feeling it much bigger than that.  IT'S Complicated. 
 
This is a week when it pays to remember that we bring our own life experience with us into the reading of any biblical text.  Our life, our experience, our witness of God at work in the world will affect the way we read the stories, the way we understand these stories, the way we apply these stories to our current circumstance.  For us this week, these readings drew heavily on our experiences with current events - the oil spill in the Gulf, the state of political gridlock our country seems to be finding itself in, the economy, the environment.  They also drew heavily on our frantic need to please those around us.  And it drew on our sense of being unable to crack some elusive faith code that makes knowing and understanding all things somehow easy.
 
And running with that chaotic, It's Complicated sense of things, we chose to read both of the Hebrew scriptures for this week.  Sometimes we are gluttons.  And God spoke to us in both of them.  It's Complicated.  Right?
 
The prophet Amos can't see anything but a basket of summer fruit.  Isn't that a spectacular sight?  Imagine some mangoes and some apricots and some pomegranates and some almonds (we're trying to think Mediterranean).  It's a lovely vision.  And the Lord responds with a pretty harsh response.  He doesn't tell Amos he's wrong, but he does reinterpret what it might symbolize.  The Lord is finished with Israel, frustrated by the greed and the lack of care for creation.  That basket of summer fruit represents the peak, and it's all downhill from there.  Fall and winter, kaput.  The Lord describes darkness at noon (uncanny to read during an eclipse week), feasts turned into mourning, sackcloth on every body.  Reading this through our lens of experience and understanding today, it's not hard to see some parallels.  We are a nation that has been perhaps "fat, dumb and happy."  We've been drawing on our summer fruit, plucking it off the trees.  And now, we are facing some difficult times.  Did God make it so?  We don't necessarily believe that - we tend to believe that we as a society have created our own chaos.  How does that make us feel?  About ourselves? About God?  It's Complicated. 
 
In the reading from Genesis, Abraham gathers with three strangers beneath the oaks of Mamre. He hustles to be sure that Sarah is on deck to provide them with a feast.  He quickly slaughters the best calf.  He quickly (quickly?) processes some fresh milk into curds for their enjoyment.  None of this sounds as quick or as easy as a trip to Costco.  He's putting some time and resource into providing hospitality for these strangers.  Why?  Does he think he knows them?  Does he expect something from them in return?  Well...if he wasn't expecting it, he sure got it.  They inquire about Sarah, and then announce that when they return, she will have had a son.  This is one of those pivotal stories - Abraham's line is going to continue (legitimately).  And it provides the necessary plot twists for "the rest of the story."  Now, we don't know that all of Abraham's hospitality was directly related, but we can assume there is a reason the story is told the way that it is.  There is some connection between his keen attention to the stranger and the continuation of his blood line.  What is it?  It's Complicated.
 
And then, we have the familiar Luke story of Mary and Martha.  Mary is sitting and Jesus's feet, deeply engrossed in all that he has to say.  Martha was "distracted by many tasks" and comes to Jesus complaining about Mary the slacker.  Jesus scolds Martha, telling her she is distracted by the wrong things.  He lifts up Mary's choice as the right one.  So setting the story from Genesis beside the story from Luke, we're left with the question of how we set priorities.  How do we know what to focus our efforts upon. How do we know to choose "the better part?"  It's Complicated.
 
And as if things were not Complicated enough, we get a part of our friend Paul's letter to the followers of Jesus in Colosae that opens with, "He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation;for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers--all things have been created through him and for him." Paul is certainly not cowed by topics that might be Complicated. We see this throughout his writings and especially here. He is jumping off in to an attempt to explain the cosmic and eternal and universal and divine relationship of Jesus the Christ to God the Father. Even today, our best minds and our best explainers end up (after saying a lot on what the Trinity is or might be) saying that while we might have some ideas of how this relationship works, we still have to take it on faith that it does exist and it does work. Paul even says he is attempting to explain "a mystery" that has been hidden to all the prior generations. That Relationship Is Complicated. 
 
This is a week of wrestling with these themes.  It seems important to Do the Right Thing at any point in time. Because in some ways, if we don't, we are subject to the vision the Lord shared with Amos.  But it seems that sometimes choosing the right thing is slippery.  It depends on the circumstances, and how we read them and interpret them and understand them.  And that isn't a very accurate science, is it?  It's Complicated.

God, for the places in this life
where things are Truly Complicated,
we ask for wisdom
and discernment
and Peace.
For the places in this life
where we
make
things
Complicated,
remind us that
Someone is in charge
and it
is
not
us.
Amen.

 
© matt & laura norvell 2010 www.settingourstones.org
we want to share this with you and hope you'll share with the world;
we simply ask that you let people know where you found these words.
May Grace & Peace be with you

Amos 7:7-17

Psalm 82

Colossians 1:1-14

Luke 10:25-37  

Judgment.

No matter how we try to get away from he or how we try to re-read the scriptures from a different point of view, it appears to be soundly present. And no matter now we try to Judge Not Lest We Be Judged, it always seems to show up in us....how about you?
We want to Judge others, we want to Judge ourselves, we want God to Judge others, we want God to Judge us. We see in scripture the ways God Judges folks and we get excited and scared about it all at the same time. It seems like a natural and built in part of who we are and how we operate. We Judge things. We Judge people. We Judge actions. We Judge intentions.
And what are we craving (or scared of) when Judgment is the question? Do we want to know if we are Good Enough? Do we want to know that we are going to "make it".....and do we maybe even want to be assured that others are not "good enough" or are not going to "make it"?
And there is a lot of Judgment that is good. Judgment keeps us alive. It keeps us healthy.
But the Judgment that we often talk about in religious / spiritual / scriptural settings is not focused on eating more vegetables or crossing the street at the appropriate time. Most of the time in these settings we are talking about Judgment between right and wrong, good and bad, divine and evil.
And it appears that the Judgment found in the scriptures is always pretty polarized....but not necessarily in to what appear to be evenly set up groups. For example, in Psalm 82 there is a question of judgment between the Wicked and the Weak. The Wicked seem to be the ones oppressing the Weak. The Wicked are being Judged on their actions against another group and the Weak are being held up and protected because of their vulnerable state. These two groups are not being Judged on the same criteria, and yet they are Judged in the same breath.

In the story of the prophet Amos we get a good, tangible, physical reference to Judgment-a plumb line. A string with a weight on the end that helps to determine when something is in line with its intended path. We don't know for sure Amos's experience as a carpenter, but we do know he was not a 'professional' prophet (there were some in that day...folks who made careers out of prophesying place to place). He was called out of his place as a herdsman and told to share this message of Judgment from God with the power structure of Israel. They tried to shoo him away and get him to go spread his bad news somewhere else, however that only created a more dramatic response from God to the people of Israel.  Amos was sharing with the Israelites that God was displeased with them because they did not 'line up' with the plumb line of God, and because of their behavior (social and religious) their country would be destroyed. [Wow...hopefully this was only true in 8th Century BCE Palestine...it would be terrible today if the personal attitudes and choices and practices of individual citizens might cause an entire government to weaken and fall...we sure are glad this is a 'Bible Story']

The excerpt from Paul's letter to the Colossians is familiar in tone.  It is the opening greeting he writes to many of the churches.  He praises their work, lifts up their goodness and tells them that he prays for their well-being and fruitfulness.  Imagine the pastoral role of caring for these new, delicate communities facing persecution and judgment from the outside.  It would be important to protect the spirit of community - to encourage these young churches toward care and keeping of one another.  Devolving into Judgy places only destroys the community.  Across the Epistles, Paul seems aware and guarding against that - sometimes subtly, sometimes not so much.
In the passage from Luke we see a lawyer wanting to test Jesus a bit about Judgment. He wants Jesus to tell him Exactly what he needs to do to 'inherit eternal life'. When Jesus guides him to the answer that he should love his neighbor, the lawyer (being a good keeper of the law) wanted to parse it out further and know Exactly who his neighbor is. The attempt here seems to be one where the lawyer can know the precise boundaries of his responsibilities so he can 'inherit eternal life' with the greatest efficiency. And so Jesus answers his question with the story of the Samaratian who helped a man beaten half to death by robbers. This story illustrates many things, but it offers less direct Judgment than it seems the lawyer expected. Jesus seems to leave the lawyer with the impression that the only Judgment between people is that there are Those Who Show Mercy and there are Those Who Do Not Show Mercy.
Huh.

That seems to be an easier way to Judge and to understand Judgment, doesn't it?

How do I Inherit Eternal Life?

Show Mercy.

How do I know I am on the side of God?

Show Mercy.

How do I know right over wrong, good over bad, divine over evil?

Show Mercy.

That is simpler than the systems we often create, isn't it?   God, the temptation to measure myself against others is great and it leads me to judging places. Help me to remember that I am created by Your hand and so is my neighbor and so is the one I want to name enemy or nemesis or rival. It is easier to judge than to show mercy, to love the stranger sometimes. Help me to soften my gaze and reach out beyond my safety circle to show mercy and love and not to Judge.

Amen.

© matt & laura norvell 2010 www.settingourstones.org
we want to share this with you and hope you'll share with the world;
we simply ask that you let people know where you found these words.
May Grace & Peace be with you