King’s X Revisited (a Steve Orr Easter reflection)

They were just words ... and yet, they were kind of magic.

Think back to your childhood a moment. Do you remember the games we all played ("98, 99, 100. Ready or not, here I come!"), the chants to which we skipped rope ("Down in the valley where the green grass grows ..."), the imperatives we called out ("Ollie, Ollie in-come free!")? Do you remember all those "magic" phrases that everyone just seemed to accept as having authority and that ruled our interactions with one another ("Tag! You're it!")?

When we were kids we said a lot of things —and in a lot of ways— that had meaning to us, then. Sadly, most have not found their way into our adult communications. We had elaborate languages, games, and conducts that made perfect sense to us ... then.

Many were puzzling to the adults who crossed through our wonder years. I think I know why: while some things travel through time ("Ring around the Rosies, pocket full of posies"), some are unique to each generation. Some of our stuff was just not recognizable to adults ... for the very simple reason that it was particular to us.

Still, I think the bigger problem was that adults forget ... maybe on purpose. As we age, we find that the raw honesties of childhood are less and less welcome among our peers. So, we adults let them go.

But some of those terms and phrases hang on; things like "no tag backs" and "King's X." As adults, we recall the power these had during our childhood, while also recognizing that few adult situations will actually bend to their authority. There was a time, though, when calling out "no tag backs" could ward off pulling double duty as "it," and when yelling "King's X!" could bring any game or activity to a complete halt.

We yelled "King's X" when something unanticipated arose, a game-changer if you will. This could be something as simple as a bee flying onto the field. Or, it could be a far more complex situation, such as when some of us realized some others of us were playing by different rules. We stopped whatever we were doing until everyone could agree that it was OK to continue with the game; until the "norm" was either restored or reset.

It is this time of year, and particularly when reading this week’s Lectionary selections where we are focused on crucifixions and resurrections, that the phrase "King's X" returns to the top of my mind. I recall that verse in 1st Corinthians chapter 2 which says of these events: "But the rulers of this world have not understood it; if they had, they would not have crucified our glorious Lord."

I can't help but think those "rulers of this world" wished they could have yelled out "King's X!" when it finally began to sink in what all their evil machinations had actually produced with the crucifixion of Jesus. Their "Game of Graves" had been turned upside down by the resurrection. Not only did they not see it coming, they facilitated it! What they intended for evil, God intended for eternal good.

So, no ... No King's X.

And —just in case it wasn’t clear to them when Jesus rose from the grave, let’s declare it, now— "No do-overs!"


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A somewhat different version of this reflection appeared at Easter 2012.

CHESS PIECE IMAGE: Designed by Freepik from www.flaticon.com
X IMAGE: https://x.company/

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READINGS FOR THE COMING WEEK
Table of Easter Season Readings:
https://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu//lections.php?year=B&season=Easter

Easter (April 1, 2018)
Resurrection of the Lord

Acts 10:34-43
Isaiah 25:6-9
Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24
1 Corinthians 15:1-11
John 20:1-18
Mark 16:1-8
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Friday mornings are a special time for us. And it all happens between 8:00 and 9:00 at the Waco “Egg and I.” DaySpring’s Lectionary Breakfast is the place where we eat, read scripture, pray, kick around ideas, and dig for the answers. Bookend those with coffee and laughter. Very nice.

Blessings,
Steve

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

Alive! (a Lectionary reflection by Steve Orr)

The body on the table is completely covered with a large white sheet. Rain pours in through the hole in the roof. Crooked fingers of lightning lance the sky. The doctor's assistant slowly cranks the table up, up, up toward the opening. When he stops, the body is fully exposed to the elements.

Suddenly, a strike!

Massive arcs of electricity pour into the motionless form. The table is cranked down. There's movement under the sheet!

The doctor screams, "It's Alive!"
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The re-animation of dead flesh has been on people's minds ever since people started dying. But the power to do so never really presented itself. When author Mary Shelley suggested in her 1818 novel, FRANKENSTEIN, that electricity was the way to go, she was just reflecting the science of her day. It's unlikely she pictured the above scene from the 1931 film. And it's equally unlikely she ever envisioned what doctors are doing with electricity, today.

But even with the almost casual use of electrical defibrillators to shock people "back to life" ---we're even considering buying some for our church--- there is still a point beyond which people do not return. And that point was certainly long past when Jesus, in this week's Lectionary selection from John 11, finally came to Bethany. Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days. Not even modern medicine could have brought Lazarus back to life at that point.

But Jesus could ... and did.

Only the power of God can put life back into a dead body. The word for that is "resurrection" (literally, rise again). When Jesus told Martha "I am the resurrection and the life," she understood what He meant. She may have thought it an audacious claim to make, but it was not unclear.

And we understand him, too. Scripture makes clear what Jesus is saying: "I am life. I'm not just some magi who can wield some magic or other appropriated power to reanimate dead flesh. Life happens because of me; it comes from me. People live and move and have their being in me."

The fictional Dr. Frankenstein shouts "It's alive!" (in the movie, at least) because he has used electricity to reanimate the assembled parts of dead people. But our God doesn't need body parts. He can, like in this week's Ezekiel passage, use mere bones!

God declares, "I am life!" He fills us with that life, promising that each of us will one day walk from the grave like Lazarus, individual and whole, loosed from our constraining bonds ...

Alive!

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READINGS FOR THE COMING WEEK
Fifth Sunday in Lent (April 2, 2017)
http://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/

Ezekiel 37:1-14
Psalm 130
Romans 8:6-11
John 11:1-45

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Life moves pretty fast. Pause for an hour: join us Friday morning for Lectionary Breakfast. We've been meeting in the back room at the Waco "Egg and I" restaurant for some time, now. The fun starts at 8:00 and is supposed to stop at 9:00 ... and sometimes it does.

Food, fun, fellowship, prayer, scripture, and the free flow of ideas. What an hour!

Full of life.

Blessings,
Steve
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More about the movie, Frankenstein, can be found at: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0021884/

More about the novel, Frankenstein, can be found at: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankenstein

Photo Credit: Odishasuntimes.com

Conquistador (a Lectionary reflection by Steve Orr)

In the novel, Conquistador, S. M. Stirling tells an exciting and thought-provoking tale of a North America that never saw the arrival of Europeans. Through a clever device, he has his characters travel from 1946 California to another California, one that is filled with various Native American groups, none of whom has ever seen a Caucasian.

Many adventures ensue for these "conquistadors" and the many men and women who followed them from our world to that still unsullied new one. There were no highways, no man-made aquifers, no super cities (LA, for instance). There was no smog.

The early crossovers, these Conquistadors from "FirstSide," made the most of the pristine nature of things; they brought over horse's, camped out, went hunting. Eventually, they hatched a plan to mine precious metals from what they knew, from FirstSide history, to be untouched sources. They used it to build wealth back on FirstSide. Their goal? To establish an infrastructure that would keep that new "new world" (and the gateway to it) secret, to maintain its treasures for themselves and their progeny.

And in time, they succeeded. For that story, and the challenges they faced from FirstSide in the 21st Century, you'll need to read the book.

One of the many aspects that puzzled these new invaders was how the newly discovered "new world" came to be. How could it be that that history contained no European discovery of the Americas? It took many years, but they eventually saw enough of the new world to piece together the chain of events. I won't go into that, but suffice to say it started with Alexander the Great not dying in 323 B.C.E.

One of the twists posited by the author is that this changed timeline led to Christianity never forming. He lays it out quite logically, and without any sympathy that I could detect.

In this week's Lectionary scriptures, there are two resurrections: one facilitated by Elijah and one performed by Jesus. Both involved raising the sons of widows. Both freshly alive young men were returned to their mothers and received with joy. Both acts led to people drawing closer to God.

How strange to think that someone could imagine a world where redemption lay forever beyond the reach of humankind, where salvation was not even a concept, much less a reality, where the conqueror of death never came.

Here on FirstSide, in our real world, Jesus came from another world to walk ours. Over two millennia ago, he conquered something far more important than a country or even a continent. By bringing life in the form of himself, he conquered all that separates us from God.

He is our conquistador.

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READINGS FOR THE COMING WEEK
http://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/

Third Sunday after Pentecost
Proper 5 (10) (June 5, 2016)

1 Kings 17:8-16, (17-24)
Psalm 146
1 Kings 17:17-24
Psalm 30
Galatians 1:11-24
Luke 7:11-17

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We are more than conquerors. Join us Friday mornings for Lectionary Breakfast and find out why. Still meeting at 8:00 at the Waco "Egg and I" restaurant.

Walk-ins welcome.

Enjoy the week!
Steve

King's X?

King's X?
(a brief Lectionary reflection by Steve Orr)

Think back to your childhood a moment.  That's further back for some of us than for others, so I'll give you some time here ;-)

Do you remember the games you played ("98, 99, 100.  Ready or not, here I come!"), the chants to which you skipped rope ("Down in the valley where the green grass grows ..."), the phrases you called out ("Ollie, Ollie in-come free!").  And do you remember all the "magic" phrases that everyone just seemed to accept as having authority and that ruled our interactions with one another ("Tag!  You're it!"). 

When we were kids we said a lot of things and in a lot of ways that had meaning to us, then, but, which have not always found their way into our adult communications.  We had elaborate languages, games, and conducts that made perfect sense to us ... then.  Many of these were puzzling to our parents and other adults who crossed through our wonder years.  I think they were puzzling partly because while some things travel through time ("Ring around the Rosie, pocket full of posies"), each generation has some things that are unique.  Some of it was just not recognizable to adults because it was particular to us.  Still, I think the bigger problem was that adults forget.  As we age, we find that those raw honesties of childhood are not welcome among our peers.  And so, we adults let them go.

But some of those terms and phrases hang on; things like "no tag backs" and "King's X."  As adults we recall the power these had during our childhood, while also recognizing that few adult situations will bend to their authority.  There was a time, though, when calling out "no tag backs" could ward off pulling double duty as "it" and when yelling "King's X!" could bring any game or activity to a complete halt.

We yelled "King's X" when something unanticipated arose, a game-changer if you will.  This could be something as simple as a bee flying onto the field.  Or, it could be a far more complex situation, such as when some of us realized some others of us were playing by different rules.  We stopped whatever we were doing until everyone could agree that it was OK to continue with the game; until the "norm" was either restored or reset.

It is this time of year, when we are focused on crucifixions and resurrections, that the phrase "King's X" always come to my mind.  I recall that verse in 1st Corinthians: "No, the wisdom we speak of is the mystery of God—his plan that was previously hidden, even though he made it for our ultimate glory before the world began.  But the rulers of this world have not understood it; if they had, they would not have crucified our glorious Lord." (1 Corinthians 2:7, 8 NLT).

I can't help but think those "rulers of this world" wished they could have yelled out "King's X!" when it finally began to sink in what all their evil machinations had ACTUALLY produced.  Their "Game of Graves" had been turned upside down.  What they intended for evil, God intended for eternal good.  Not only did they not see it coming, they facilitated it!

So, no.  No "King's X."  And, just in case it didn't come clear to them when Jesus rose from the grave, "No do-overs!"

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READINGS FOR THE COMING WEEK
http://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/

Acts 10:34-43 or Isaiah 25:6-9
Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24
1 Corinthians 15:1-11
John 20:1-18 or Mark 16:1-8

Psalm 114
1 Corinthians 5:6b-8 
Luke 24:13-49

We're getting together for breakfast Friday morning at 8:00 at Cafe Cappuccino (downtown Waco on 6th, near the Courthouse).  Join us!  It's a feast for body and soul.

Enjoy the week!
Steve

Walking Dead

Walking Dead (a brief Lectionary Reflection by Steve Orr)

Having had empty tombs on my mind of late, I am reminded of something that occurred my senior year in high school.  That spring two friends and I went on a camping trip...  

It was no longer full dark, but the sun had yet to rise as we set out that Monday morning in a small skiff.  We launched from where our main street, Broadway, met the water ... right at the confluence of the Ohio and Tennessee rivers.

Our little boat sat very low in the water; laden with the three of us, plus the food, clothing, and camping gear we were going to need that week.  We motored away from the concrete apron, slipped between Owens Island and the shore, and soon ducked south onto the Tennessee River.  Along about noon that first day, we locked through the Dam into Kentucky Lake, an enormous reservoir stretching southward through western Kentucky and onward into western Tennessee.  

These reflections are supposed to be brief; so, instead of burdening you with our day-by-day itinerary, let me just say that it was every boy's dream trip.  We spent the week camping, boating, fishing, exploring, swapping tales around campfires ... all of it pegged to a two position clock: sunrise, sunset.  Very Tom and Huck.

Our second day we decided to explore one of the islands that dotted the lake.  We packed up our gear and headed out to what the map said was Cherokee Island.  We found a narrow stretch of beach on one side, grounded our boat, and did a little reconnaissance.  A short walk from the beach we found a wide spot in a circle of trees that would serve quite well as a campsite.  We anchored the boat to a tree near the water and hauled our gear inland.  We had the camp set up and the evening meal sputtering in the frying pan in short order.  Night closed in quickly.

After the meal, Bruce (our Boy Scout) announced he had to respond to "nature's call."  He grabbed a flashlight and trotted off into the dark.  As we cleaned up, we listened to the sounds of his retreating steps.  Suddenly there was a loud "thump" followed by the sound of Bruce yelling "wo-oh-oh!"  We each grabbed lights and ran in the direction we had seen him go.  We saw there was a path and followed it.  As we rounded a curve we pulled up short before a large, oddly shaped rock.  We could hear Bruce mumbling something from the other side of the rock.  So, stepping off the path and walking around the rock, we found Bruce lying on his back, his head tilted back, looking up at the rock.  On it was carved the name "Goheen" (the word he kept mumbling over and over).

Then the world did that strange little 90 degree turn it sometimes does, and all of a sudden we realized the "rock" was actually a gravestone, that Bruce had flipped over it as he rounded the curve, and that he was at that point lying on a grave!  Bob and I realized this at the same time, but he also had the presence of mind to shine his light around.  What we saw was shocking.  We were surrounded by a collection of gravestones, vaults, and concrete sarcophagi; all in a seriously deteriorated state.  The stones were tilted in various directions, the vaults were broken open, and the sarcophagi lids appeared to have been tossed aside.

As you might expect, we three got little sleep that night.  

The next afternoon (we got a late start, having found we were able to get some sleep once the sun rose), we packed up and left the island behind as we headed to the Ranger Station with a LOT of questions.  

We learned that the islands in the lake had all been hilltop cemeteries prior to the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) damming up the river to create the lake; that while the TVA paid for the relocation of bodies, many families abandoned the gravestones, vaults, etc., because they could not personally afford to have them moved.  The result was what we experienced ... empty graves, empty vaults, empty tombs.

There is something especially unnerving about empty tombs.  Even when you are not standing right by them, you know they are out there ... empty.  You can't help but wonder where the occupant went.  And you can't really relax until you get that question answered.

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READINGS FOR THE COMING WEEK
Second Sunday of Easter (May 1, 2011)
Acts 2:14a, 22-32
Psalm 16
1 Peter 1:3-9
John 20:19-31

If you are in Waco Friday morning, join the crew for breakfast and discussion at 8:00 a.m. at Cafe Cappuccino (downtown on 6, near the Courthouse).

Enjoy!
Steve

Blind Man Healed, Starts Job Hunt

Blind Man Healed, Starts Job Hunt (a brief Lectionary reflection by Steve Orr)

I have always been one of those people who wants to know what came next.  When I would arrive at the end of a story, book, or movie I would find myself trying to sort out what kinds of things would happen in the future.  Do the good guys stay the winners, or does the evil empire "strike back"?  Would it REALLY be "happily ever after"?  Things have changed.  Will the characters relate to one another the way they did earlier in the story?  In the case of fiction, you're going to need a sequel (or at least some fanfic) to find out those answers.  In the case of history,  unless we discover more records, we can't know.  Still, that doesn't keep me from wondering.

I did this last week when we read about Jesus healing the man who had been born blind and had been a beggar all his life.  I can't help but wonder if he, now no longer visually challenged, had to start a job hunt.  Begging was no longer going to work as a means of generating revenue.  Had he been living with his parents all that time?  Probably.  That might continue for a while, but he was probably going to eventually have to move.  On and on.  Change after change.  However it turned out, you can bet his life was no longer the same as it was.

Lazarus ratchets this up several notches.  How do you live your life after you return from four days of being dead?  Do you catch your loved ones staring at you?  Is there a will to contest?  Are you even a legal person anymore?  Of course there is the initial uproar and excitement, but what happens after that?  A week later?  A month?

Do you just resume your former life?   I think not.  And I think there is a lesson here for us, as well.  We may not be healed of our infirmities, may not be raised from the dead to walk back into town and reunite with our friends and families in this world.  But we can have a life-changing encounter with God.  Sure, you can TRY to return to your former life; but when you emerge from an encounter with God, you are not going to be the same.  You are really no longer the person you were.  You can't be.  

So maybe we all need to be asking that question.  What comes next?

READINGS FOR THE COMING WEEK
Fifth Sunday in Lent (April 10, 2011)
Ezekiel 37:1-14
Psalm 130
Romans 8:6-11
John 11:1-45