the adventures of retirement
Nice walk this morning, before the gale gets going here. Blustery around one or two showers, but basically quite pleasant. Saw a couple of roe deer at Old House – they seem to be more common sight now.
In Sunday’s Lectionary, how do you even start on loving your enemies (an odd word, reminiscent of the Sheldon Cooper character, but nevertheless reflecting a reality in personal relationships as well as social and national ones)?
…Pray for them maybe.
Thank you J for delicious cheese and vegetable thing yesterday! … complete with stretch marks.
From Sunday’s Lectionary, Psalm 37 – “Do not fret because of the wicked; do not be envious of wrongdoers, for they will soon fade like the grass, and wither like the green herb.”
Or will they fade? What happens when it’s the wrongdoers that write the history? Our job as Christians (amongst others) is to create a community in which doing the right thing* is honoured, and make our own contribution to the histories through conversations and social media and so on.
* …and of course to engage in the serious conversations, prayer, and consideration of the gospel which are sometimes needed before we even know what the right thing is.
Also in the Lectionary, Luke’s gospel, Jesus says ‘do not judge’ and ‘do not condemn’. But it’s hard when it seems to me that some people ( not everyone) are very certainly lying, and bearing in mind that Jesus himself criticised some powerful people. What can the word ‘judge’ here mean? Some really nasty pieces of work have even claimed to be Christian to further their ambitions. Well I’m pretty certain that it’s not my place to say they are not Christians. It’s even less my place to say that God doesn’t love them. But that doesn’t mean that I can’t say when I believe they are doing and speaking wrong.
According to Sunday’s lectionary, it seems that the Christians in Corinth had been making statements/asking awkward questions about life after death. On reading the letter Paul writes in reply, 1 Corinthians, I’m not sure I completely understand what he is saying, especially about the ‘physical’ and the ‘spiritual’. I have two takeaways, I think. One: it will be better – we won’t be dragged down by the broken bits of our humanity. Two: how could we really understand it anyway? – it has to be something in some way beyond our knowing.
It’s raining. And I probably shouldn’t have been so optimistic about the weather before J went to the Post Office.
From next Sunday’s lectionary…
“Do to others as you would have them do to you.”
“Do to others as you would have them do to you.”
From next Sunday’s lectionary… “But I say to you that listen, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.” The feeling sometimes called love is well-nigh impossible in such circumstances. But maybe those practical actions, the blessing, the praying, however hard, can be a beginning. What is an ‘enemy’ anyway? Is it different from an oppressor or an abuser? Is there an implied parity of power? You might be able to pray for an abuser, but not live with them.
And now this, “If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also; and from anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt.” Other versions of this refer to the Roman occupying forces. You might even see this as a kind of nonviolent challenge to the empire – a deliberate confusing of the way these things normally go.
In tomorrow’s lectionary, it says in Jeremiah, “Thus says the LORD: Cursed are those who trust in mere mortals and make mere flesh their strength, whose hearts turn away from the LORD. … Blessed are those who trust in the LORD, whose trust is the LORD.”
I start by saying, yes, great, we should all get our priorities right – get our guidance from God.
Then I say, but hang on a minute, does that mean that we should trust every nonsense ‘prophet’ over science, where for example science says vaccination is good for controlling COVID?
Then I say, of course it doesn’t mean that. (For example not everyone claiming to speak for God does speak for God.)
But what does it mean then?
Interpreting the Bible can be tricky – I suggest that in this case we let science do what science does – show us the facts insofar as they can be known with a reasonably high probability – science is a great collaborative effort which for me bears some of the marks of a kingdom-enterprise (working for a higher ideal, unafraid of the truth, trying to lay aside vanity in order to look into how things really are). … And let God do what God does – (amongst other things) show us what are the important things in life – that other people matter, that we have cause to worship, (for me) that the person Jesus shows us the truth of God; and so on.
Let science do what science does and let God do what God does – sadly in this pandemic we’ve often failed to do both.
…using a camera with unreliable focus to take pictures of moving deer behind trees in the semi-darkness. Still – here is at least evidence that they hang around the Trail.
Also, as Paul writes in Sunday’s lectionary, Christ is alive. When the community that meets in his name is filled with his love and life, he is visibly alive. When the community that meets in his name is abusive, it’s like trying to crucify him all over again.
Also…
I can’t explain why this comes to me when I watch TV adverts for health and education products. After all, there have always been private tutors, and private hospitals.
Yet I am still deeply disturbed to see these corporations making profits from our national inadequacies.
