Starry, Starry Night (a Lectionary reflection by Steve Orr)

I think Vincent Van Gogh would understand.

He planned on a career in ministry, like his Calvinist father and others in the family. He even was a missionary for a short time. Sadly for Van Gogh, but to the enrichment of many, none of his ministry attempts worked out. In life, he was considered a madman and a failure. He couldn't keep a job. For the final few years of his life, he lived on a small allowance from his brother. On the positive side, though, the 2100 pieces of art he produced included 860 oil paintings.

So why is it I think he would understand? Because he had to face blank canvases.

Sometimes you find yourself facing a blank. If writing, that may be a blank page. If painting, that may be a blank canvas. Or, for most of us, it just may be that spot we sometimes come to where we just don't know what to do next. Whether you call it writers block, or painters block (or whatever painters call it), or just decision block, it comes down to the same thing ... not making a commitment.

You didn't expect that, did you?

You thought I was going to say "fear" or "confusion," or something about lacking confidence; maybe make an appeal to a muse. True, there are always challenges to be faced, but the root problem is one of commitment. I love what Van Gogh said about it:

"Many painters are afraid in front of the blank canvas, but the blank canvas is afraid of the real, passionate painter who dares and who has broken the spell of “you can’t” once and for all. Life itself, too, is forever turning an infinitely vacant, dispiriting blank side towards man on which nothing appears, any more than it does on a blank canvas. But no matter how vacant and vain, how dead life may appear to be, the man of faith, of energy, of warmth, who knows something, will not be put off so easily."

I chose to write about Van Gogh, today, because, faced with a blank canvas ... he started painting. He believed action was better than inaction, that it would lead him, eventually, to the painting he wanted to produce. And I chose Van Gogh because, despite all of his successes and failures, despite his rejection of formal religion, and despite his mental illness, he continued to consider Jesus central to his life.

That was a commitment he never relinquished.

When you read this week's Lectionary scriptures, you will find they have common threads running through them: being true to God, being humble, giving to the needy ("...the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind."), consoling the imprisioned, doing good at every opportunity.

In his art, Van Gogh faced down the blanks he encountered by taking action. We can do the same with our faith walks. We don't have to wait for inspiration to strike us, for a visitation from some muse, or even an ideal meteorological condition; we can just start. Someday, we will look back and see a path where we had only seen a blank when we first walked it.

There is much to do. So, slap some paint on that canvas and get going.
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READINGS FOR THE COMING WEEK
Proper 17 (22) (August 28, 2016)



Jeremiah 2:4-13
Psalm 81:1, 10-16
Proverbs 25:6-7
Psalm 112
Hebrews 13:1-8, 15-16
Luke 14:1, 7-14
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Join us for great food, interesting discussions, and a time in the scriptures. Lectionary Breakfast meets Friday mornings at 8:00 at the Waco "Egg and I" restaurant. We wrap up around 9:00.

Blessings,
Steve

Shake It Off (a Lectionary reflection by Steve Orr)

Duckwater.

That's the word we came up with when we were kids. It was our shorthand for those times when our peers were calling us names or otherwise "putting us down." What we meant whenever we said that to someone, our coded message if you will, was: "let it roll off your back like water off a duck."

Some things are just not worthy of our emotional investment. We deny them power over us by treating them as something that has about as much sticking power as water sliding off a duck. To quote from a recent movie, sometimes you just need to, "Let it go." As a current pop star might put it: just shake it off.

Pick your mechanism. Choose the idiom that works for you. However we do it, we need to, somehow, separate what is not important from what is. In fact, if we haven't done so, yet, we need to start emphasizing what is truly important in every aspect of our existence. And, at some point, we need to give zero time to those matters which are really only distractions from what actually matters.

In this week's Lectionary selection from the book of Hebrews, the writer talks about the time when God will shake off the created realm so that all that remains is the eternal.

As we prepare for that time, we need to keep moving ourselves away from what is only temporary and toward what is everlasting; to behold the only things that truly matter, and to shed what only seems, and only momentarily, consequential.

Duckwater.
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READINGS FOR THE COMING WEEK
Proper 16 (21) (August 21, 2016

Jeremiah 1:4-10
Psalm 71:1-6
Isaiah 58:9b-14
Psalm 103:1-8
Hebrews 12:18-29
Luke 13:10-17
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We would love for you to join us Friday morning for Lectionary Breakfast. We meet at 8:00 at the Waco "Egg and I" restaurant for an hour of scripture, discussion, tasty food, and lasting sustenance.

Blessings!
Steve

Expecting Justice? (a Lectionary reflection by Steve Orr)

We went to his office expecting Justice.

That was not a crazy thing to think, under the circumstances. My classmate and I had an interesting situation, but not a new one. These kinds of things happen from time to time, even to the best of people. Mistakes can be, and are, made. We're all human.

The situation: on the midterm exam, we both had answered the same question the same way. But, on my paper the answer was marked as correct. While on my classmate's paper, the same answer was marked as incorrect. To our thinking, the professor need only fix the mark on my classmate's paper and then adjust his overall midterm grade.

That is not how it went.

At first, once we had provided him the two exams and explained the problem, he just looked at us. At us, not at the exams. That silent stare of his lasted long enough to begin to feel uncomfortable. Then, still not looking at the exams, he said to us, "I don't change grades. You know this. I have stated this on several occasions. In fact, I make that announcement before every exam." [To be fair, what he always told us was, "I don't negotiate grades." I guess we were naive, but this didn't seem, at least to us, to fall under the term, "negotiate." This was an error, made either by him or by his grader. All we were asking was for a simple correction.]

There's no need to drag this out. Everything we said that afternoon was for nought. He was firm in his stance, and he never changed my classmate's grade. It was a profoundly disappointing experience, on many levels. He was an excellent Professor, the kind who makes the learning process come alive. To find he had this bizarrely obstinate side to him was a shock. We felt that we had been let down by someone we had, up until that moment, respected.

A strong social bond had been broken.

This experience came back to me as I read through this week's Lectionary scriptures. Most of this week's selections deal with God's shock and disappointment to discover His people had broken covenant, had broken the contract, if you will.

What contract, you ask?

Throughout history, God has repeatedly asked His people to provide justice for the weak, equal treatment for all, help for those in need, to speak God's word faithfully, for leaders (whether religious leaders or otherwise) to not mislead the flocks they shepherded. This list goes on and on. A reductionist might choose "equity" as the word that sums it up. However, I think we do ourselves a disservice to reduce it down.

We are not asked to merely ensure equity exists. We are asked to actively seek it and provide it. It is not enough to just check to see if people are being treated as they should be. God asks us to do something about it. Each of us.

In the Isaiah passage, God is deeply disappointed because "he expected Justice, but saw bloodshed; righteousness, but heard a cry!" When you expect Justice, as did my classmate all those years ago, the disappointment is deep and lasting when you receive the opposite.

You could say, "Oh, it's just a grade, not something significant." But I would suggest it all depends on whether you're on the receiving end or not. Think of it this way: if it was so disappointing for "just a grade," how awful it must be for someone who expects fair treatment ---from the courts, from the marketplace, from the church, from neighbors, from the halls of government--- and finds the opposite, or at best, indifference.

Now you know how God feels about it.

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READINGS FOR THE COMING WEEK
Proper 15 (20) (August 14, 2016)
First reading and Psalm
Isaiah 5:1-7
Psalm 80:1-2, 8-19
Alternate First reading and Psalm
Jeremiah 23:23-29
Psalm 82
Second reading
Hebrews 11:29-12:2
Gospel
Luke 12:49-56
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Join us if you can Friday morning at the Waco "Egg and I" restaurant. Lectionary Breakfast starts at 8:00 and goes for about an hour. We spend our time looking into the mind of God by reading scripture' we visit, discuss, and, yes, laugh.

Enjoy the week!
Steve

To Be or Not To Be (a Lectionary reflection by Steve Orr)

Someone once said, "We are constantly walking out of this life" (If you know who, please let me know. I like to cite with the proper attribution).

I understood this to be something akin to "seize the day," an exhortation to focus fully on what good can be done today and to act accordingly. This, I believe, is an encouragement to not waste time mourning yesterday's lost opportunities, nor, aside from planning to correct them, to dwell on our past poor behaviors.

The same is to be said of the future. Too much thought on it robs us of the time to act in the present. After all, there is only today. To paraphrase scripture: enough bad can occur today; no need to drag it from the past or borrow it from the future.

If we are, in fact, constantly walking out of this life, then we better do some good while we can. I recently read a friend's public apology to someone my friend had wronged. It was impressive, both in its courage and in its honesty. It was a carpe diem kind of thing to do.

But why, you may ask, does this matter? It matters because our citizenship is in heaven and each day we are moving closer to going home.

As I read through this week's Lectionary scripture selections, I noticed that all of them focus on our destination and how we are to live, here, until we arrive there. They say things like, “Learn to do good. Seek justice. Punish those who hurt others. Help the orphans. Stand up for the rights of widows.” (‭‭Isaiah‬ ‭1:17‬ ‭NCV‬‬, http://bible.com/105/isa.1.17.ncv)

Hebrews 11, that great treatise on faith, tells us we are going to a country unlike any on this planet, one prepared by God for those whose faith serves as the actual substance of their hopes and the evidence of what they cannot, as yet, perceive.

And until we arrive in that place prepared for us by God, we must be courageous like my friend, always willing to be humbled if that's what it takes to act as we should while we are still here.

"For every person who makes fun of your beliefs, there is another who needs your compassion.

For every person who lashes out at you for your beliefs, there is another who needs comforting.

For every person who threatens your job, social position, or voice in the public square because of your beliefs, there is another who needs you to stand with them.

For every person who places your very life in danger because of your beliefs, there is another for whom you must intercede. Stand in that gap.

Every time someone treats you like you're the scum of the Earth, thank them. Then be better. Rise above."

We must strive to rise above our circumstances, to fully "be," every time. For we are constantly walking out of this life.

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READINGS FOR THE COMING WEEK
Proper 14 (19) (August 7, 2016)
First reading and Psalm
Isaiah 1:1, 10-20
Psalm 50:1-8, 22-23
Alternate First reading and Psalm
Genesis 15:1-6
Psalm 33:12-22
Second reading
Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16
Gospel
Luke 12:32-40

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I hope you can join us, Friday morning, at Lectionary Breakfast. If not, then I hope you can join with others, elsewhere to share some time in the scriptures. We're still meeting at 8:00 at the Waco "Egg and I" restaurant for a fun and provocative hour.

Blessings,
Steve
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Hamlet cuff links at: http://www.awceramics.co.uk/bespoke/bwgt_gallery.htm