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

What Got You Here Won't Get You There (a Lectionary reflection by Steve Orr)

We know what that means. We do.

Different parts of a journey are approached differently. Different phases of a process require different actions. If you use a map to travel across the plains, you wouldn't use the same map to cross the mountains. Different terrain, different map. When it's time to harvest, a farmer would not use the planting routine to harvest the crops. You plant one way and harvest another.

When Marshall Goldsmith wrote the book, What Got You Here a Won't Get You There, he applied this same understanding to career advancement. He explained that the processes people employ for making it as a worker in the working world do not apply to positions of management. This was not Goldsmith's way to brand managers as non-workers. Rather, it was an acknowledgment that the worker and the manager have different jobs; different uses of their time, different objectives; different tools.

In short, the book's title.

The book was aimed at people who either are in, or aspire to, management. It lays out a map, if you will, of milestones such persons must achieve. It explains that some of the old must give way to the new; that if not, the person will not succeed on this new journey.

The Hebrews selection in this week's Lectionary scripture addresses a similar situation faced by those who desire a relationship with God. The Hebrew writer succinctly sums up much of what Jesus tried to communicate to Israel's leaders; the Priests, scribes, Pharisees, and teachers of the law.

“The old plan was only a hint of the good things in the new plan. Since that old “law plan” wasn’t complete in itself, it couldn’t complete those who followed it. No matter how many sacrifices were offered year after year, they never added up to a complete solution. If they had, the worshipers would have gone merrily on their way, no longer dragged down by their sins. But instead of removing awareness of sin, when those animal sacrifices were repeated over and over they actually heightened awareness and guilt. The plain fact is that bull and goat blood can’t get rid of sin.

"That is what is meant by this prophecy, put in the mouth of Christ: You don’t want sacrifices and offerings year after year; you’ve prepared a body for me for a sacrifice. It’s not fragrance and smoke from the altar that whet your appetite. So I said, “I’m here to do it your way, O God, the way it’s described in your Book.” When he said, “You don’t want sacrifices and offerings,” he was referring to practices according to the old plan. When he added, “I’m here to do it your way,” he set aside the first in order to enact the new plan— God’s way—by which we are made fit for God by the once-for-all sacrifice of Jesus.”
(‭‭Hebrews‬ ‭10:1-10‬ ‭MSG‬‬. http://bible.com/97/heb.10.1-10.msg)

The old way, the way they clung to, was no longer viable. They would have to change if they wanted to be one of God's people. What had brought them to that point— the Law —could not get them any further. Jesus came in the fullness of time to fulfill the Law. It was done.

It's as if Jesus was telling them: what got you here won't get you there.
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READINGS FOR THE COMING WEEK
http://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/

Fourth Sunday of Advent (December 20, 2015)
Micah 5:2-5a
Psalm 80:1-7
Hebrews 10:5-10
Luke 1:39-45, (46-55)