Humble ... and Proud of it (a Steve Orr scripture reflection)

The sign read: “TALKING DOG FOR SALE.” The guy had to stop. Following the owner into the backyard, he finds an ordinary-looking dog.

"You talk?" he asks.

"Yep," the dog replies.

Shocked, and needing some time to recover, he asks, "So, what's your story?"

The dog says, "Well, when I discovered I could talk, I wanted to be useful, so I contacted the CIA. For over eight years, they jetted me from country to country, placing me in rooms with spies and world leaders. Because no one figured a dog would be eavesdropping, I was one of their most valuable spies. But that life takes its toll, and I wasn't getting any younger, so I decided to settle down.

“I got married, had pups, and joined the TSA. Mostly, I just wandered around the airport, hung out near suspicious looking people, and listened. I uncovered some incredible stuff and was awarded a bunch of medals. Now, I'm retired."

The guy is amazed. He asks the owner what he wants for the dog.

"Ten dollars" the guy says.

"Ten dollars? Why are you selling him so cheap?"

"First,” the owner says “he's a liar. I don’t believe he did half that stuff. Second, even if he did do some of it ... well, you heard ... there’s not a shred of humility in him. And who needs an arrogant dog?!”

_________________________

Humility.

Some people believe it’s in short supply. Others? ...not so much.

Some think humility is a good thing, while others think it is a bad thing. Why the conflict? It likely lies in what they mean by the term. And it’s not just “eye of the beholder.” Those who think of “humble” as a kind of mindset —one that leads to improved human interactions— believe the world would be a better place if more people were humble. Recent psychological studies support that view.**

But, those who the term, “humble,” describes their life often view it quite differently. Their humbled circumstance makes them feel excluded, devalued, and even despised. A great deal of the difference could be tied up in just how much choice is involved. Those who choose a humble situation have a much more positive feeling about it. Sadly, there are many “humble” people who have not chosen to be that way.

So, what does scripture say about all this?

While there are, of course, dogs in the Bible, if we want to explore humble circumstance, we’ll have to switch to birds. Witness the humble sparrow. People purchased sparrows to use as sacrifices in the Temple. When Jesus references them during his ministry, he points out that his audience can buy "two for a penny" and "five for two pennies." The Law of Supply and Demand would suggest that, at that price, they must have been very common, indeed.

In this week's scriptures, sparrows and swallows stand in for the common and most humble among us. Psalm 84 declares that at God’s altar even the sparrow finds a home, that the swallow builds a nest, “where she may lay her young.” The meaning: everyone, even the lowliest, even those marked for sacrifice are welcome to rest in God’s house. In the Luke passage, Jesus goes even further to clarify: the humble (like the despised Tax Collector) are far more welcome in God's house than those (like the Pharisee) who are pleased with their own moral performance and who look down on the common people.

If you find yourself feeling like an imposter, feeling that your own complement of shortcomings may overwhelm you, and that you can only cry to God for mercy ... know that God welcomes you as He does the sparrow.

Come and rest. There is always a place for you at God's altar.

_________________________
Parts of this reflection came from one posted in October 2013 entitled The Birds.

**CLICK HERE to read the New York Times article on humility: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/21/health/psychology-humility-pride-behavior.html

_________________________

READINGS FOR THE COMING WEEK
Proper 25 (30) (October 27, 2019)
https://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu//texts.php?id=285

Joel 2:23-32
Psalm 65
Jeremiah 14:7-10, 19-22
Psalm 84:1-7
2 Timothy 4:6-8, 16-18
Luke 18:9-14
_________________________
Join us for food and fellowship on Friday mornings. We meet DaySpring’s Lectionary Breakfast at Our Breakfast Place (formerly the Waco Egg and I restaurant) at 8:00. Everyone is welcome. We excel at eating, reading the Bible, discussing it, and laughing

... in all humility.

Enjoy the week!
Steve

Revisiting the Kessel Run (a Steve Orr Lectionary reflection)

Even scientists can miss the point.

You might be surprised to learn that real scientists can be upset by what is said by fictional characters. In fact, they can get in quite a tizzy about the most arcane things. There are heated debates about the accuracy, and more specifically, the likelihood, of such things.

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

Astronomers and Astrophysicists, everywhere, shuddered.

That can’t possibly be how fast the spaceship made the Kessel Run. A Parsec is just a measurement of distance, not speed (time and distance). One Parsec is roughly 3.26 Light Years (about 19 trillion miles). 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. One theory suggests that Han took a short-cut through a dangerous region of space to reduce the distance, something 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 similar to what happens when we read the words 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’s unlikely there will ever be an answer that is acceptable to everyone. However, Star Wars author, George Lucas, is on record with his answer (there's a note in the script: Han was "obviously lying.") The on-screen reactions to Han's claim, especially by Luke Skywalker, strongly support Lucas' answer.

And who knows better than the author?

We have a similar problem in this week's Gospel of Luke passage, which opens with: "Jesus told them a parable to show them they should always pray and not lose heart.“

What are we supposed to make of the hard-hearted judge and the widow who pesters him? It’s only eight verses, but the debates about the meaning of this parable are, seemingly, infinite. Is the judge God? Are we the widow? Are we supposed to act like the judge? Should we seek justice like the widow; keep pestering until we get our way? Is it important for us to figure out who her adversary is, so we can apply it to our lives? And what is Jesus trying to tell us with that last statement about faith? Or, was the parable told just for the benefit of the twelve apostles, and not for us, at all?

On and on the debates go ... all of it, in my opinion, missing the point.

Jesus indicates the purpose right there in the very first verse. If you read the parable and come away with any other meaning than we "should always pray and not lose heart," then you have drifted from what Jesus meant for His audience to take away from the parable.

And who knows better than the author?


_________________________
A somewhat different version of this reflection appeared in October, 2013 as The Kessel Run.

PHOTO: Created by Steve Orr with Adobe Spark Post
_________________________

READINGS FOR THE COMING WEEK
Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost
Proper 24 (29) (October 20, 2019)
https://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/texts.php?id=284

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

_________________________

DaySpring continues to meet for Lectionary Breakfast every Friday morning at Our Breakfast Place (the former "Egg and I" restaurant). Join us at 8:00 for some excellent earth-based foods and some celestial discussions.

Astrophysicists are welcome, but must limit themselves to language we can all understand. 😜

Enjoy the week!
Steve

Are You An Outlander Fan? (a Steve Orr scripture reflection)

Outlander fans know all about Claire Randall and her exile among people nothing like her ... an exile from which she may never return.

It’s fiction, so none of us fans have a problem accepting that Claire has fallen through time to 18th Century Scotland. Surrounded by Highlanders, and stuck with her clearly British accent, she finds she is branded as a Sassenach, a term used by locals to label outlanders: that is, anyone who is from "away."

She's not one of them and they remind her of it every single day.

Are you an outlander? Do you ever feel like you've been exiled from all that brings you comfort? Do you sometimes find yourself surrounded by folks who seem to all know each other, to have established relationships; to be a tribe, almost ... but not one to which you can belong?

That's so uncomfortable, so filled with rejection it can become unbearable. All of us have had this kind experience, to some degree. At school or on the playground, at work, in the neighborhood, in our towns ... even at church. We don't seem to know the lingo, and, even if we want to assimilate, no one seems interested in helping us. We feel different, and truly, we are different; every aspect of our daily interactions and environment underscores just how different we are.

What are we supposed to do? Keep a stiff upper lip? Remain calm and carry on? Complain about it?

Claire Randall doesn't know if she will ever return to the modern world. Her long-game is to do just that; but until that's possible, she works at finding a way to fit in. As a way to be useful, Claire brings to bear her intelligence and her nursing experience (a "healer" in the parlance of that time). She doesn't ever truly fit in, but she finds ways to actively benefit those who surround her.

God’s guidance to the exiled Israelites in this week's Lectionary, can benefit us, as well. They were outlanders in every sense; language, culture, societal position. God’s message through Jeremiah was about how to act while their exile remained in place. What a treasure! At last they knew what God expected of them while they were being outlanders; true strangers in a strange land.

Get married, have children. Encourage your children to marry and have children. Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat the produce. In other words, settle in. Of most importance, though: “Seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare."

When circumstance (or other people) make us sassenachs and outlanders, we must not let that immobilize us. We must keep living as best we can; growing, flourishing ... settle in and bloom where we’re planted.

And most importantly, we must seek the best for those among whom we are the sassenachs and outlanders. Even going so far as to pray to God for their well-being. Their welfare is our welfare.

That's loving your neighbor as yourself.


________________________
PHOTO - https://www.harpersbazaar.com/culture/film-tv/a12454737/outlander-season-3-episode-3-review/

A different version of this reflection appeared in October 2016 as Sassenachs and Outlanders.

_________________________

READINGS FOR THE COMING WEEK
Proper 23 (28) (October 13, 2019)
HTTPS://LECTIONARY.LIBRARY.VANDERBILT.EDU//TEXTS.PHP?ID=283

Jeremiah 29:1, 4-7
Psalm 66:1-12
2 Kings 5:1-3, 7-15c
Psalm 111
2 Timothy 2:8-15
Luke 17:11-19
_________________________


This Friday morning would be a great time for you to join us at Dayspring’s Lectionary Breakfast. We start at 8:00, sharing our mealtime at Our Breakfast Place (formerly the Waco "Egg and I" restauran). We continue with scripture, discussion, and some of the best fellowship anywhere. We're supposed to leave at 9:00, and some do, but some stay longer.

It's that good.

Blessings,
Steve

Yesterday (a Steve Orr scripture reflection)

The recent film, Yesterday, is about Jack Malik, a would-be rocker who remembers the Beatles. The problem: he has miraculously awakened to a world where he is apparently the only person who remembers them.

In an early scene, Jack, still unaware of what has transpired, sings “Yesterday” to some of his friends. They are stunned. The song is far better than anything Jack has ever written. They are bowled over by the sense of longing the song so perfectly conveys through both lyrics and music. Yet, they assume it’s his song since they’ve never heard it before. As I watched the scene, and listened to actor Himesh Patel sing, I found I could easily imagine that I, too, was hearing it for the first time.

“Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away.
Now it looks as though they're here to stay.
Oh, I believe in yesterday.

Suddenly, I'm not half the man I used to be.
There's a shadow hanging over me.”

And there it was: a deep, deep desire to, somehow, turn back the clock, to travel back in time to something and somewhere that could no longer be.

Would you like to travel to the past?

Time is like a river ... or so Einstein thought. He believed it flowed; sped up and slowed down. His contemporaries thought time might have banks like a river, that the past was back there ... just out of sight, around a bend. They believed that if someone had great desire to do so, really wanted to go, he or she could travel back the way the "river" had come, back around the bend, so to speak, to the past. They could "return" to a place and time to which they may never have even been before; likely a place/time only their ancestors had known.

As strange as it may sound, this is the theme tying together several of this week's scriptures. Not time-travel, per se, but the almost overwhelming desire to return to the past. This is particularly true of Psalm 137 where the Psalmist captures the laments of the Israelites, enslaved by Babylon and exiled far from home (Don't read this one to young children; the ending is very harsh). It is also reflected in the first passage from Lamentations. To fully appreciate the overwhelming sadness of their situation, their longing to return, listen to this song ("Babylon") from the TV show, Mad Men: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TsVCjykMHVw&app=desktop

The real problem, of course, is not the years, and it's not the miles, but rather the distance one has traveled from God. The Israelites mourned for Israel, not fully grasping that Israel was nothing without its relationship to God. That's why they were in exile in the first place: they had drifted away from God and needed time and circumstance to teach them that lesson.

Do you sometimes feel that almost overwhelming sense of melancholy for a time and place in the past? Could it be that what you really desire is a closer relationship with God? The selections from Lamentations 3, Habakkuk, and Psalm 37 provide us some relief and point us toward some true solutions to our longing.

As believers, we have a different situation than those exiled Israelites. As we find underscored in the Second Timothy passage, we have the Holy Spirit flowing within us, connecting us to God in ways we cannot even fully understand. Like a river, it brings life and nourishment to us. And when we feel ourselves drifting from God, we can pray in that Spirit for whatever is needed to fully reconnect us.

For Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever. No time-travel needed.

__________________________

PHOTO: Adobe Spark Post

Jack Malik sings Yesterday: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QlAZniSQ9mY&app=desktop

How Paul McCartney Wrote Yesterday: https://www.esquiremag.ph/culture/music/beatles-yesterday-history-a1926-20190913-lfrm

A somewhat different version of this, (Would you like to travel to the past?), appeared in 2016.

_________________________

READINGS FOR THE COMING WEEK
Proper 22 (27) (October 6, 2019)
https://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu//texts.php?id=282

Lamentations 1:1-6
Lamentations 3:19-26 or Psalm 137
Habakkuk 1:1-4; 2:1-4
Psalm 37:1-9
2 Timothy 1:1-14
Luke 17:5-10

_________________________

Join us if you can, Friday morning, at Lectionary Breakfast. We still gather at Our Breakfast Place (formerly the Waco "Egg and I" restaurant). We start at 8:00 and wrap things up about an hour later. The food is good, but the scripture, discussion, fellowship, and laughter are better.

Enjoy the week!
Steve

Revisiting a Dead End (a Steve Orr scripture reflection)

A dead end can be a negative or a positive, depending on your viewpoint. But it can mean real trouble when you come upon one, unexpectedly.

Call it what you will —caving, spelunking ... crazy— exploring under the earth is a pastime that just draws some people. My friend and I were two of those people. We had done our planning, assembled our gear, and were presently deep under the earth.

How deep? I don't know. All I know is that we had been going steadily downward the whole time. We started out walking. Then, we had to crouch a bit. Soon enough, we were crawling on all fours.

And always on a slight decline.

Eventually, the cave ceiling became so low the only practical thing to do was to lie down. For most of that journey, we crawled along with just enough room to use our legs and arms to push/pull us. That wasn't so difficult. Even though it was slight, the incline was downward. There was still room to turn over on our backs whenever we wanted to take a break.

The payoff for all of this? The massive "cave of crystals" rumor said we would find at the end of the tunnel. Others had been there before us, and had promised the experience was well worth all the trouble. So on we went. In time, the tunnel dimensions grew pretty tight. We lost the ability to turn over on our backs; just too narrow. There was just enough ceiling height for us and our gear.

Yogi Berra famously said, “When you come to a fork in the road, take it.” We eventually found ourselves at just such a point. Left? Right? Like many of life’s choices, the two tunnels before us bore nothing to indicate the best way. For no particular reason, we chose the left tunnel.

We had been told that the last stretch was a bit more of an decline, the end of which would be an opening into the large cave. We got pretty excited when the tunnel turned even more downward ... until we came to the wall.

Dead end.

So there we were, one in front of the other, heads down, feet up. At this point, the tunnel was too tight for us to turn around. We hadn't found the crystal cave. We couldn't go forward. We were out of options. We just wanted to give up.

Are you feeling that claustrophobia? That sense of failure? No room to maneuver? Nowhere to turn? Stuck between a rock and a hard place?

The Hebrew word for this kind of situation is "tzoros." It's the word for trouble. Its literal meanings are dire straits, nowhere to turn, between a rock and a hard place, no room to maneuver, out of options, no margin.

That's the word in this week's Lectionary selection from Psalm 91 where God says, "Those who love me, I will deliver; I will protect those who know my name. When they call to me, I will answer them; I will be with them in trouble, I will rescue them and honor them." (NRSV Psalm 91:14-15)

Some trouble is expected. But more often than not, we don’t see it coming. Regardless whether we expected it or were caught off guard, what a difference it makes to not be alone! My friend and I were able to discuss our situation, cheer each other up, and go about the business of moving ourselves, backwards, to the junction. It took a little longer, but our wrong turn helped us know which was the right turn. And taking the right tunnel led us to the crystal cave.

God knows when we are in trouble (tzoros) and will be with us in it. Anne Lamott gets at this in Traveling Mercies: "This is the most profound spiritual truth I know: that even when we're most sure that love can't conquer all, it seems to anyway. It goes down into the rat hole with us . . . and there it swells and comforts. It gives us second winds, third winds, hundredth winds." That is God's response to no margin, to dire straits, to "out of options," to trouble so bad it needs a special word to describe it.

God goes down into it with us. God meets us at the dead end ... even if we’re revisiting that dead end. No matter how much tzoros we’re in, God's expansive (and expanding) love truly can conquer all.

_________________________
PHOTO: https://www.theurbanlist.com/sunshinecoast/a-list/queenslands-caves

A different version of this reflection appeared in September 2016 as Dead End.

Link to Anne Lamott’s Traveling Mercies: https://smile.amazon.com/Traveling-Mercies-Some-Thoughts-Faith/dp/0385496095/ref=sr_1_1?crid=HS72A167N5OE&keywords=traveling+mercies+by+anne+lamott&qid=1569534211&sprefix=Traveling+m%2Caps%2C316&sr=8-1
_________________________

READINGS FOR THE COMING WEEK
Proper 21 (26) (September 29, 2019)
https://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu//texts.php?id=281

Jeremiah 32:1-3a, 6-15
Psalm 91:1-6, 14-16
Amos 6:1a, 4-7
Psalm 146
1 Timothy 6:6-19
Luke 16:19-31
_________________________

Join us Friday morning for Lectionary Breakfast. We meet at 8:00 at the Waco "Egg and I" restaurant for an interesting hour of food, scripture, and fellowship.

Blessings,
Steve

Imitating the Streetwise Manager (a Steve Orr scripture reflection)

Wait. Jesus wants us to be like this guy?!

After experiencing a banking crisis as a banker, I opted to work for a federal banking agency. People all over the country were struggling with what to do when their local bank closed its doors ... often, forever. I decided I would rather resolve banking crises than be pummeled by them.

Times of crisis, particularly those related to money, give rise to many interesting things, one of which is “debt forgiveness.” Now, perhaps you’re thinking, “Why would anyone who is owed money want to forgive that debt? Wouldn’t they want it all paid back?” Yes, surprising no one (I hope), people who lend money would like to have their money back. But, in tough times, even the well intentioned may lack the resources to repay all of what they, in good faith, borrowed. My employer’s view: half a loaf is better than none. Better, in our thinking, to forgive some of the debt than to collect none of it. And so, we sometimes allowed people to “write down” their indebtedness to a lower amount.

We forgave some of their debt.

That brings me to the streetwise manager in the parable Jesus tells in Luke. Upon getting caught squandering his employer’s money, he is fired. To soften the impact of this abrupt change in his soft life, he forgives a portion of the debt owed his employer by some major debtors. He allowed them to reduce their debt for his own benefit, not his employer’s. His hope was to be welcomed into their homes once his employer cut him loose.

It was a shrewd move.

Shockingly, Jesus wants us to imitate the guy!

Read what Jesus told his disciples (from THE MESSAGE): ““Now here’s a surprise: The master praised the crooked manager! And why? Because he knew how to look after himself. Streetwise people are smarter in this regard than law-abiding citizens. They are on constant alert, looking for angles, surviving by their wits. I want you to be smart in the same way —but for what is right— using every adversity to stimulate you to creative survival, to concentrate your attention on the bare essentials, so you’ll live, really live, and not complacently just get by on good behavior.””
(‭‭Luke‬ ‭16:8-9‬ ‭MSG‬‬ - https://www.bible.com/bible/97/luk.16.8-9.msg)

To be clear, Jesus is not advocating we be dishonest like the self-centered manager, but rather to be smart and alert as we traverse this life. Jesus doesn’t call us to a life of passivity. We are to be actively seeking, every day, opportunities to do good, to do right.

Creative survival: it’s just another way of saying, “Be wise as serpents, harmless as doves.” (Matthew 10:16)

_________________________
PHOTO: Steve Orr

_________________________

READINGS FOR THE COMING WEEK
Proper 20 (25) (September 22, 2019)
https://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu//texts.php?id=280

Jeremiah 8:18-9:1
Psalm 79:1-9
Amos 8:4-7
Psalm 113
1 Timothy 2:1-7
Luke 16:1-13

_______________________

Friday mornings at DaySpring’s Lectionary Breakfast are special. Starting at 8:00, we take an hour to eat, pray, read scripture, and engage us some fascinating discussions. We meet at Our Breakfast Place (formerly Egg and I). You should join us.

Blessings,
Steve

The Second Kick of the Mule (a Steve Orr scripture reflection)

They say we’re supposed to learn from our experiences. They also say “hope springs eternal.”

There’s a scene I like in the movie, Jesse Stone: Lost In Paradise. Police Chief Jesse Stone (played perfectly by Tom Selleck) tries to mend a broken relationship ... but she’s frosty.

AMANDA: “Chief Stone.”
JESSE: “— Jesse.”
AMANDA: “Mr. Fish is waiting for you, Chief Stone.”
JESSE: “I know our last meeting didn't go very well, And I see you're still upset. I'm sorry.”
AMANDA: “I questioned your intentions. You asked me why. And I said I've kissed a few frogs in my day. Are you a frog, Jesse?”
JESSE: “I don't think so. Perhaps you'd let me make it up to you over a cup of coffee.”
AMANDA: “There's no education in the second kick of a mule.”
JESSE: “I see.”
(Key pad beeping)
(Door clicking open)
JESSE: “I'm ... very sorry, Amanda.”
AMANDA: “... ... ... Just coffee.”

What do you think? Should Amanda take Mark Twain’s advice about the mule kick? Or should she take a chance, betting Jesse’s not just another frog with a bogus claim to royalty? In romance, we always want them to be good people. It is our hope they will finally find what they’ve been looking for. But ... experience can be a cruel teacher, and some of us are slow to learn.

That seems to be a theme running in this week’s scriptures. God’s people were supposed to be in a committed relationship with God ... but, over and over, they just kept being drawn away to false gods.

They had spent a lot of years “kissing frogs” before God had Moses lead them out of Egypt. In fact, they kissed frogs for so long, they came to believe that was how things were supposed to be. Perhaps we can understand how they were so easily drawn to those bad boys. It’s a hard habit to break. Still, you have to wonder. It’s not like they did these things in a vacuum. God kept giving them reasons to know that He was the real deal. And, He kept showing how those false gods never delivered; that, at best, they were just frogs claiming a kiss would transform them into princes.

Hopefully, we can read these passages and learn the lessons they teach. There’s no need to subject ourselves to a bunch of lies and liars trying to take God’s place in our lives. We should be able to lean into the teachings of Jesus and the example of the Apostle Paul in this week’s selections.

Because, after all, the saying is true: there really is nothing new to learn in the second kick of a mule.

_________________________
PHOTO: Adobe Spark Post
_________________________

READINGS FOR THE COMING WEEK
Proper 19 (24) (September 15, 2019)
https://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/texts.php?id=279

Jeremiah 4:11-12, 22-28
Psalm 14
Exodus 32:7-14
Psalm 51:1-10
1 Timothy 1:12-17
Luke 15:1-10
_________________________

DaySpring’s Lectionary Breakfast meets Friday morning at Our Breakfast Place (formerly Egg and I). The hour starts at 8:00 and includes food, fellowship, scripture, and a robust exchange of ideas. Plus, there’s always the chance of some possibly inappropriate laughter.

Join us.
Steve