DAY OF THE [walking] DEAD (a Steve Orr Lectionary Reflection)

On the screen, the decaying not-quite-dead move inexorably forward on a shuffling parody of human walking. The plucky heroes and heroines episodically run to various hiding places, but can never seem to actually shake the tide of zombies following them. What’s tips them off? Sound? Smell? Something about truly live humans draws these “walking dead” to their hiding places with unerring accuracy

... or it could be just the movie’s plot.

That is how we tend to think of the “walking dead,” though: Zombies. How else would it be? Dead people do not get up out of their graves and just walk away ... like nothing ever happened to them.

Or do they?

In a week packed with Halloween, All Saints Day, Dia De Los Muertos, and the 500th Anniversary of Protestantism; what’s a person to write about? Well, I guess some people are going to write about Martin Luther, the Wittenberg door, and the Reformation. But, as you probably already noticed, I’m going to write about dead people ... and walking.

All of the All Saints Day Lectionary readings reference that time when Jesus will return, when we will “be like him,” when the saints will gather in heaven and stand before the Throne of God. This is “the resurrection” at which Martha believed she would once again see her dead brother Lazarus. But Jesus tells her, “I am the resurrection.” Then, he proceeds to raise her brother from his grave to rejoin the living, right then.

When “the resurrection” is standing right next to you, there is no need to wait for the last day for people to return to life. Throughout the New Testament, we see Jesus (and, later, the apostles) return dead people to life ... and those people walk. But the strangest resurrection episode takes place during the three days in which Jesus is dead (Matthew 27:50-53). Immediately after Jesus died, graves opened and the “holy ones” returned to life. But that’s not the end of it: after Jesus’ resurrection, these “holy ones” walked into Jerusalem and “appeared to many people.”

It was a for-real “dia de los [walking] muertos”; another miracle awaiting that first Easter morning to take a stroll.

Shocking!

I’m certain it was even more shocking, then, when some of them encountered people they had known in their previous life. Accepting that the power of Jesus to raise the dead was so great that it blasted out into graveyards at the moment of his death, I note that it wasn’t everyone who came back to life. Who, then, were these so-called “holy ones”? Don’t think of them as ascetics who had lived their lives in retreat from the culture of their day.

No.

The Jewish understanding of holiness was not a passive one, but rather a very active one. Yes, “holy ones” were to be separate and distinct. But they were expected to interact with their culture, permeating it like light ... or perhaps, salt. To be “in the world, but not of the world,” to borrow a phrase we often hear, even in these most post-modern times, to describe how christians are supposed to live out our spiritual walk —to walk the walk, nor just talk the talk— until we reach our destination.

To —in much the way we are to love God— love our neighbors as ourselves ... our holy selves.

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Table of Readings: https://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu//lections.php?year=A&season=Season%20after%20Pentecost


READINGS FOR THE COMING WEEK
All Saints Day (November 1, 2017)

Revelation 7:9-17
Psalm 34:1-10, 22
1 John 3:1-3
Matthew 5:1-12

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PROPER 26(31) November 5, 2017

Joshua 3:7-17
Psalm 107:1-7, 33-37
Micah 3:5-12
Psalm 43
1 Thessalonians 2:9-13
Matthew 23:1-12

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Photo credit: The link is to a fun zombie-based —and amazingly accurate— representation of how to actually manage your time while balancing the urgent vs the important. http://www.livehard.co.uk/important-vs-urgent-time-management-zombie-apocalypse-style/

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Can you join us Friday morning at Lectionary Breakfast? We gather at 8:00 in the “Waco “Egg and I” function room (at the back, around the side) for food, fellowship, prayer ... and some quality time hammering out how to use the scriptures to ensure we walk the walk, not just talk the talk.

Blessings,
Steve

Blended Families (a brief Lectionary reflection by Steve Orr)

The first time I saw the phrase "blended family" in print I was a little confused by it. As I read the article, though, I quickly understood what they meant: two existing families that attempt the very challenging process of melding into a new one. I admire those who attempt it and am in awe of those who succeed.

But, before the context of the article made plain their meaning of "blended family," I initially thought: "Isn't that redundant? What other kind of families would there be?"

All families come with a unique family culture. Families that live right next door to each other are as different as apples and oranges. And families from different parts of the country or the globe are as different as mountains and oceans. So, anytime two people from different families decide to form one of their own, it is an attempt to blend those different family cultures into one household.

It's a blended family we see in this week's Lectionary selection from the book of Ruth. A Jewish family moves to Moab because of a drought in Israel. Their sons then marry local women, and, as often happens in families, these three women become widows. Naomi, the mother-in-law, decides to return home to Israel, presumably because the law of God requires Israelites to help widows . . . Or maybe she's just lonely for home.

People often quote from this part of the story. You hear it at weddings in the songs, in the vows. And many laud Ruth, rightly so, for being the kind of person who would declare to Naomi: “Don’t entreat me to leave you, and to return from following after you, for where you go, I will go; and where you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God my God; (Ruth 1:16 WEB). It gives me a thrill every time I read that passage.

But let's don't miss something momentous here: Ruth said those words, but she said them to her MOTHER-IN-LAW. Let's face it, even in the best of situations, relations between a person and his/her in-laws can be challenging. It's an extraordinary declaration in any circumstance, but even more so between in-laws.

And what does that tell us about Naomi? Here is a woman who lived out the spirit of the commandment to "love your neighbor as yourself." She clearly understood it as applying to "those who are nearby." Something to think about. How wonderful it would be to have someone declare the same of us.

And where did this declaration lead? What eventually happened to this blended family?

It's a short book :-)

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READINGS FOR THIS WEEK
http://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu

Proper 26 (31) (November 4, 2012)
Ruth 1:1-18
Psalm 146
Deuteronomy 6:1-9
Psalm 119:1-8
Hebrews 9:11-14
Mark 12:28-34

Join us Friday if you can. We're still meeting at Cafe Cappuccino (downtown Waco on 6th, near the Courthouse) at 8:00 a.m. We eat a delicious breakfast (cooked when you order) and then we try to figure out how to apply these scripture passages to our actual lives.

Join us. We're neighborly ;-)

Enjoy the week!
Steve