Thursday, January 27, 2022                                      (today’s lectionary)
We’re going on a bear hunt
Nothing is hidden except to be made visible; nothing is secret except to come to light.
Jesus then says:
Anyone who has ears to hear ought to hear.
Jesus shares God’s wisdom with his disciples, and they share it with us. If the disciples fail to proclaim the Good News, then others will, because it WILL be made visible, it will NOT stay secret or hidden.
But.
Take care what you hear. And therefore, take care about what you say and how you say it. I don’t claim to know answers to many spiritual or theological questions, so I should not speak as if I do. When I proclaim the Good News, as I must, I should proclaim my story and what I believe, not as someone else’s truth but as mine. As I follow this instruction of Jesus, his words grow strong inside me like sweet green plants beside the water.
The measure with which you measure will be measured out to you, and still more will be given to you.
There are many ways to live, and after much is said and done, many ways to age. (Like fine wine, or like rotten apples, for example.) Erik Erikson’s 8 stages of development end with what he calls “maturity.” Each of his developmental stages involves a conflict, and the last one pits “integrity vs despair.”
How then shall we live? I want to live so that there’s some foundation for a final sense of integrity. How do I do that … well, that’s always the question, isn’t it? More and more, I think trusting God to love me, loving God and listening to God makes for the strongest foundation.
To the one who has, more will be given; from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away.
Potty Time With Elmo sits on a table right beside Jasper’s little white living room toilet in our apartment. The potty chair is just his size. In the book Elmo might be learning this new skill himself, but he’s also teaching his cuddly friend, Baby David. Yes, really!
Oh, well, I guess I can learn a few new skills as I get older. Jasper certainly thinks so; he loves his cuddly Baby David. And I am sure God loves me too, as he watches his little Baby David grow up to be a big boy.
I was named after David in the bible, and my name does mean “beloved.” Mom and Dad gave me that much firm foundation from the beginning. Even so, there was plenty of struggle and conflict and confusion for me, as there is for all of us.
Lord, remember David and all his anxious care.
David sought any and every way to worship God and honor those he anointed. When he became King David, those efforts only intensified.
He swore an oath to the Lord: I will not enter the house where I live, nor lie on the couch where I sleep; I will give my eyes no sleep, my eyelids no rest until I find a home for the Lord.
David’s poetry carried him only so far, though. As he himself wrote in the despair and confession of Psalm 51, “My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit. A broken and contrite heart, you O Lord, will not despise.”
I think David knew this as truth: that to get to integrity, you must go through despair, not over it, not under it, not around it, but through it.
(2 Samuel 7, Psalm 132, Psalm 119, Mark 4)
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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