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 Sting (a Lectionary reflection by Steve Orr)

Robert Redford plays Johnny Hooker and Paul Newman plays Henry Gondorf in the film, The Sting. In brief, for those you have yet to see it: the movie is about two con men who swindle an evil mob boss out of half a million dollars during the Great Depression (1930's). They mount the con as revenge for the mob boss murdering their friend. It was nominated for ten Academy Awards and won seven. Redford and Newman were, of course, handsome, debonair, and wholly likable.

Almost everyone has seen it and enjoyed how the complex plot results in the comeuppance of the evil man. Ocean's Eleven (12, 13, etc.) have a similar plot skeleton, as has several stories and movies. We like these stories because we like seeing bad or greedy people get what we believe is due them ---the pain of losing something dear to them (in this case, money)--- and done so in an entertaining way.

What's not to like?

Well, maybe a lot.

In reality, there really was a Gondorf (Fred). He and his brother (Charley) really did work this scam. But they did it for money, not for justice. The actual "sting" was pulled on an Englishman in 1914 who was cheated out of real money: $10,000 (a very large sum in 1914). The Englishmen took his complaint to the real police and Gondorf went to a real prison. The money, of course, was long gone.

In reality, ordinary people are scammed out of their hard earned money every day. They almost never get it back; even if the perpetrators are caught; even if the con artists go to jail. Worse than that (hard to imagine something worse, isn't it?), widows and widowers, the poor, and the homeless are common targets, as well.

Wait. What?!

How can those who are "in need" be targets of scams?

Contrary to the movies, most con artists are heartless criminals with no concern for anyone but themselves. Most will stoop to anything, including murder, to get what they want. And that brings us to this week's Lectionary selection from Mark. Jesus identifies an even lower level of con artist scum.

I'll grant you, there were likely some good "scribes" living and plying their trade in those days, but my money is on Jesus being correct in his charging the greater majority of them with something worse than criminal behavior: using their understanding of God's Law to swindle widows and their families out of the little they had. I know, it's really difficult to believe someone could stoop so low.

Remember, Judas loudly decried the "waste" of the expensive perfume used to anoint Jesus' feet because it could have been sold and the money distributed to the poor. Scripture tells us he didn't mean it, that he just wanted the money placed in the ministry purse so he could embezzle it. That's a man personally selected by Jesus to be one of the original 12.

Yes, sad as it is to contemplate, there are people among us who will swindle us out of our money; using God, Jesus, the Bible ---whatever works--- to move our property from our control the theirs. And they absolutely do not care if their "marks" are already impoverished or hurting from the loss of a loved one. All they care about is whether they can successfully scam the mark.

It's bad enough that these kinds of people walk our streets. It is far worse that they walk the aisles of our churches. They don't just "sting" their marks: they destroy them, wound their faith, and drive them away from God. We have to be alert to these wolves in sheep's clothing. Still. And we need wisdom to discern the wolves from the real sheep. For most of those who have fallen prey to these wolves, there is only one consolation:

Jesus promised “These men will be punished most severely.” (Mark‬ ‭12:40‬ ‭NIV‬)

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READINGS FOR THE COMING WEEK
Proper 27 (32) (November 8, 2015)
First reading and Psalm
Ruth 3:1-5; 4:13-17
Psalm 127
Alternate First reading and Psalm
1 Kings 17:8-16
Psalm 146
Second reading
Hebrews 9:24-28
Gospel
Mark 12:38-44

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Breakfast, scripture, fellowship, and fun. How do you beat that combination? Join is Friday mornings for Lectionary Breakfast at the Waco "Egg and I" restaurant. We meet at 8:00 for about an hour.

I wouldn't steer you wrong.

Enjoy the week!
Steve

The Kessel Run (a Lectionary reflection by Steve Orr)

You might be surprised to learn that real scientists can be upset by what is said by fictional characters.

Oh yes, it's true. In fact, they can get in quite a tizzy about the most arcane things. They get into heated debates about the accuracy, and more specifically, the likelihood, of such things.

Case in point: in Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope (the first movie), Han Solo boasts that his spaceship, the Millennium Falcon, is more than fast enough to meet the needs of Luke and Obi-Wan, claiming, "It's the ship that made the Kessel Run in less than twelve parsecs."

Astronomers everywhere blanched.

A Parsec, it turns out, is a measurement of distance, not time. One Parsec is roughly 3.26 Light Years or 19 trillion miles (that's close enough for our purposes).

So, if Han wasn't bragging about the speed of his ship, what did he mean?

Well, the Internet is FULL of answers.

Many serious scientists have weighed in on this, and their answers run the gamut. A sample: one theory suggests that Han took a short-cut through a dangerous region of space to reduce the distance, went where a more risk-averse pilot would not. Another scientist talked of wormholes (or hyperspace). One even wrote a very learned paper on why it HAD TO BE time-travel.

The situation is somewhat akin to what happens when we read the statements of Jesus, especially when he tells a parable. We often get caught up in the details of the parable, completely missing the reason why Jesus told it.

In the case of Han Solo, it is unlikely there will ever be an answer that is acceptable to everyone. However, George Lucas is on record (there's a note in the script) that Han was "obviously lying." The reactions to Han's claim, especially that of Luke Skywalker, strongly support Lucas' answer.

And who knows better than the author?

In this week's Lectionary passages, we have "the parable of the unjust judge" told by Jesus to his disciples:

"Then Jesus told them a parable to show them they should always pray and not lose heart. He said, “In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor respected people. There was also a widow in that city who kept coming to him and saying, ‘Give me justice against my adversary.’ For a while he refused, but later on he said to himself, ‘Though I neither fear God nor have regard for people, yet because this widow keeps on bothering me, I will give her justice, or in the end she will wear me out by her unending pleas.’” And the Lord said, “Listen to what the unrighteous judge says! Won’t God give justice to his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he delay long to help them? I tell you, he will give them justice speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” (Luke 18:1-8 NET)

The debates about the various particulars associated with this parable are, seemingly, infinite. How much of a role model is that judge for us? Are "we" the widow in the story? Who is her adversary, in "real life?" And what is Jesus trying to tell US with that last statement about faith? On and on.

All of it, in my opinion, missing the point.

If you read it and come away with any conclusion other than we "should always pray and not lose heart," then you have drifted from the purpose of the parable. It's right there in the very first line of the passage.

And who knows better than the author?

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http://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu

READINGS FOR THE COMING WEEK
Proper 24 (29) (October 20, 2013)

Jeremiah 31:27-34
Psalm 119:97-104
Genesis 32:22-31
Psalm 121
2 Timothy 3:14-4:5
Luke 18:1-8

We're continuing to meet for Lectionary Breakfast every Friday morning at the Waco "EGG AND I" restaurant. Join us at 8:00 for some excellent earth-based foods and some celestial discussions.

Astrophysicist are welcome, but must limit themselves to language we can all understand ;-)

Enjoy the week!
Steve