The Billion Dollar Giveaway (a Steve Orr scripture reflection)

I was offended. It was supposed to be a celebration, and they were ruining it!

We had accomplished something truly amazing. Having crossed the $2 Billion point in our efforts, our leadership was taking a day to celebrate our accomplishments. Bigwigs flew out from the main office. They took photos of us holding a giant $2 Billion check. We were being touted in the news.

It should have been a perfect day. And yet, detractors in our own office had dubbed our accomplishment “the billion dollar giveaway.” Sniping from the wings, it seemed to me. It wasn’t their accomplishment, so they intended to ruin it for the rest of us. I mean ... come on ... there were cookies and cake in the break room!

I was in a state. No telling what I was saying out loud. It was at this point my boss gently guided me into his office and closed the door. He told me to calm down. He then shocked me by putting a name to my behavior.

Aesthetic outrage.

Yep, that’s right. He was telling me that the whisper campaign of our fifth-column naysayers, while possibly a violation of decorum, had no impact on the substance of our gathering. We had, in fact, accomplished the very thing we were celebrating. In other words, my outrage had no real substance. I had no real reason to be offended.

Wait. What? But ... But they ... Oh.

Slowly it began to sink in. He was correct. My response was to some superficial matter and had completely ignored the substance of the event. I was offended at their violation of what I perceived as the rules of proper conduct. Until he made me see it, I had lost track of what was truly important.

Jesus ran into a similar mindset in this week’s scripture from Luke. He healed a woman while at church! To our modern sensibilities, this may seem absolutely the right place and time, but not so to the leader of the Synagogue. He was offended. How dare Jesus ... or anyone ... say or do anything to breach the decorum of the Sabbath! — There are rules, people! — In his view, all that healing should take place on one of the other six days.

But Jesus came back with inescapable logic. Not a person there would leave their farm animals bound on a Sabbath, unable to have access to water. How does that stack up against providing much needed relief to a human on the same day?

What we make room for in our spiritual space is, not surprisingly, personal. And also no surprise, we give ourselves some latitude. The downside of this is that, sometimes (often?), we don’t allow the same leeway in the spiritual space of others ... particularly if what they do breeches our definition of decorum.

You may find that some people prefer the traditional pieces of worship to the actual work of worship. Nothing Jesus said that day was new, and it wasn’t news to His audience. For centuries, the Prophets had been telling God’s people that the work of worship — attending to the needs of the poor, the widowed, the orphaned, the imprisoned ...and the ill — was more important to God than the sacrifices and festivals ... even though God had instructed them to do those things, too.

The acts of worship have meaning and purpose. They are not, however, satisfactory on their own. Like Jesus, we must become attuned to the needs of those near us — our neighbors, if you will — and act on that knowledge in a timely manner: do the actual work of worship.

Even if it causes a bit of aesthetic outrage along the way.


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Photo: “Leading An Ox to Water” by Steve Orr

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READINGS FOR THE COMING WEEK
Proper 16 (21) (August 25, 2019)
https://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu//texts.php?id=276

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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Join us Friday morning at Our Breakfast Place (formerly The Egg and I) for DaySpring’s Lectionary Breakfast. An hour of food, scripture, and discussion starts at 8:00am. It’s a wonderful way to launch the weekend.

Blessings,
Steve

The Friendly Home (a Lectionary reflection by Steve Orr)

I had my first lesson on orphans in the Third Grade; when I struck up a conversation with Bill. We stood around on the playground of Andrew Jackson Elementary, sensing that recess was coming to a close. We knew we would soon be told to line up, so most of us gathered near the big wood and glass doors that led back into the building.

Bill had carroty red hair, cut in a burr, and more freckles on his face than I had ever seen in my brief life. He was shorter than most of the people in our class, girls included, and that was made obvious by the expanse of blue jean double-rolled into a huge cuff where his stubby legs met his feet.

I don't recall what conversational path brought me to the question that day, but I clearly remember what happened when I asked Bill, "And where is YOUR house?"

Everyone stopped talking.

And Bill looked stricken.

Is it just me or did anyone else feel that you were woefully uninformed as you made your way through school? I often had this feeling that OTHER children's parents must tell them things. It seemed I was always the one to ask the awkward question or speak the unspeakable. I sometimes felt as if I had been dressed in oversized rubber boots and sent to walk through delicate flowers.

So, while Bill walk away, Becky turned to me and, with as much exasperation as a Third Grade girl can muster, whisper-hissed, "He lives at The Friendly Home."

"The Friendly Home" meant nothing to me, but I had the sense to wait until I got home to ask about it. It was at supper that I learned we had an orphanage there in my hometown of Paducah, Kentucky, and that some of the children who lived there attended our school.

Based on my reading of "Little Orphan Annie" stories, I thought orphans were children who did not have parents. It was some years before I learned the term could have a much broader meaning than I had gleaned from reading the Sunday funnies. Quite by accident I later learned that children living at The Friendly Home might, in fact, actually HAVE one or more parents. This was much more difficult for my parents to explain to me.

In time, of course, I did come to understand that circumstances arise from which the best solution is to separate parents and their children, as horrible as that sounds. But the circumstance that struck me as the saddest was when parents voluntarily abandoned their children. I just could not grasp how someone could "give up" their child. Still later in life, I came to understand that sometimes parents "give up" their children without ever physically separating for them; that "abandonment" can happen when parents stop caring about their children even though they continue to live in the same home.

With all of this as background, I was a bit shocked to read in one of this week's Lectionary passages that, "Even if my father and mother abandon me, the Lord will hold me close." (Psalms 27:10 NLT).

But, that's great news, right? It is wonderfully comforting to know that God wants us even when others don't. So, where is the shock?

It is in the phrase at the very beginning of the Psalm: "Of David."

David? Shepherd David? Songwriter David? Giant-killer David? KING David?! Why would David write about being abandoned by his parents? There is nothing in scripture to suggest David was an orphan or that he ever lived in an orphanage. Quite the opposite; father, mother, and several siblings. So where does he get the basis for verse 10?

I think I know. David was the least in his family, in more ways than one; he was the youngest, and, based on his father's response when the prophet Samuel asked Jesse to present his sons, the last thing on his father's mind. His brothers also treated David as someone of little value in the "real" world. Yes, I think that, even though he lived at home in his youth, David understood abandonment.

You can be an orphan without living at The Friendly Home.

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http://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu

READINGS FOR THE COMING WEEK
Second Sunday in Lent (February 24, 2013)
Genesis 15:1-12, 17-18
Psalm 27
Philippians 3:17-4:1
Luke 13:31-35 or Luke 9:28-36, (37-43a)

We're just starting into the season of Lent. Join us one of these Friday mornings (8:00 a.m.) at "The Egg and I" in Waco for some delicious breakfast and some equally tasty conversation about the scriptures.

Enjoy the week!
Steve