The Bricklayer (a Lectionary reflection by Steve Orr)

Recently, I recounted an oft told story about two men working with bricks. One was surly and perceived his work as only laying bricks. The other was joyful and perceived his work as building a cathedral. The story is often told as a way to illustrate that a positive attitude toward work can do wonders. We come away from the story thinking better of the "Cathedral man" than of the man who is simply laying brick. The story is designed to have that effect, to convey the idea that the surly bricklayer is missing something very important.

There is an another important point, however, that I never hear anyone state: the QUALITY of the surly man's work is never questioned. In fact, based on what we know, attitudes aside, when the two men finish their work, there will be a cathedral where once there was none.

There is nothing to say that we must always be happy, whistle while we work, or sing, "Hi ho, hi ho; it's off to work we go" every morning. Sometimes, maybe often, we just aren't in the mood for all that. Who knows, maybe the surly bricklayer was just having a bad day. All other factors aside, what matters in the final evaluation is the answer to this question: did each do his job correctly? If the answer is "yes," then, the cathedral gets built.

That brings me to this week's passage from Romans. People sometimes refer to this as the OTHER Love Passage, sort of lumping it with 1st Corinthians 13. But, these two passages could hardly be more different. The Corinthian passage is definitely the "Cathedral" perspective on love, while the Romans passage is, without doubt, the brick-by-brick approach. Corinthians provides us with the broad strokes about love, while Romans gives us the day-to-day nuts & bolts we need to put it into practice.

Perhaps you have wondered exactly HOW love is patient, is kind, does not envy, does not boast, is not proud, does not dishonor others, is not self-seeking, is not easily angered, keeps no record of wrongs, does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth, always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. The next time it crosses your mind to wonder about the PRACTICE of loving, jump over to Romans 12:9-21.

Then, you just DO IT, one brick at a time.

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http://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu

READINGS FOR THE COMING WEEK
Proper 17 (22) (August 31 through September 6, 2014)

Exodus 3:1-15
Psalm 105:1-6, 23-26, 45b
Jeremiah 15:15-21
Psalm 26:1-8
Romans 12:9-21
Matthew 16:21-28

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Don't miss this opportunity to "discuss the sermon in advance" (so to speak) at Lectionary Breakfast. As usual, we will gather Friday morning at the Waco "Egg and I" restaurant at 8:00 for food, fellowship, and thrashing about in the Bible.

It's not holy ground; so, please, keep your shoes on. :-)

Enjoy the week!
Steve


Stephen C. Orr
Sent from my iPhone

How We Spend Our Days (a Lectionary reflection by Steve Orr)

"How we spend our days is . . . how we spend our lives."
--Annie Dillard, The Writing Life

There is a story told about a Nobleman who comes upon a construction site. It goes something like this: He sees that the two laborers have distinctly different demeanors. One has a sour expression on his face, moves slowly, and appears to want to be anywhere else. The second man could not be more different. His face holds a radiant smile; there is the appearance of purpose in his movements, and he is singing! Curious, the nobleman asks the first man what he is doing. The surly answer: laying brick. Crossing to the second man, the nobleman asks the same question. The joyful answer: building a cathedral.

Lately, I have been reacquainting myself with Annie Dillard. I'm re-reading Holy the Firm, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, and, of course, The Writing Life. When I go a few years without "checking in" on Ms. Dillard, I find I sometimes have forgotten just how insightful she is.

And I don't find anyone writing about our inner life, our place in creation, and the state of our spirits quite like she does. Witness this selection from The Writing Life, the longer version of the above quote:

"How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour, and that one, is what we are doing. A schedule defends from chaos and whim. It is a net for catching days. It is a scaffolding on which a worker can stand and labor with both hands at sections of time. A schedule is a mock-up of reason and order—willed, faked, and so brought into being; it is a peace and a haven set into the wreck of time; it is a lifeboat on which you find yourself, decades later, still living."

It often comes as a shock to people that their day-in-day-out life IS their life. It might not seem like it in the moment, but what you do with each day accumulates into your entire life. All of us long for things that are not part of our every day lives --that's why many of us have bucket lists-- but when all is totaled up, it is what we actually DO, not what we long for, that becomes our life. A tapestry is, at its most basics, a bunch of threads.

The lives lived by Shiphrah and Puah, the Hebrew midwives we meet in this week's Exodus passage, might seem pretty unspectacular to an outside observer. Their work was to help deliver babies. Day in and day out, year in and year out. And yet, it is to these two women that came the challenge: do as told . . . or DARE to thwart the plans of Pharaoh to kill all the male Hebrew babies.

Who stands up to the most powerful man on the planet?

These two, that's who. Two childless women; childless in a culture that, at best, pities barren women, and at worst shuns them. Their desire for children so strong that they did the next best thing: help others to have them. What was already, in many ways, a life of service, becomes far more important in the face of the Pharaoh's decree.

Each new day, each new birth, added to the ones before, culminating into something I doubt either saw coming: a life in service to God. By continuing to help bring Hebrew babies into this world, they jeopardized their livelihood . . . and their very lives. God honored those lives. In time, because they feared God more than Pharaoh, God gave them families of their own.

Alan Lakein famously asked, "What is the best use of my time, right now?" My answer: creating the building blocks of my life, day by day, moment by moment, crafting them into a life worth living.

What we do each day becomes our life. HOW we live each day becomes our legacy.

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I hope you can join us, Friday morning, for Lectionary Breakfast. We still meet at 8:00 at the Waco "Egg and I." LB ends at 9:00, but the glow lasts ALL DAY :-)

Enjoy the week!
Steve

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http://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu

READINGS FOR THE COMING WEEK
Proper 16 (21) (August 24, 2014)

Exodus 1:8-2:10
Psalm 124
Isaiah 51:1-6
Psalm 138
Romans 12:1-8
Matthew 16:13-20