The Adventurous Lectionary – The Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost – September 20, 2015

The Adventurous Lectionary – The Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost – September 20, 2015

Proverbs 31:1-10
Psalm 1
James 3:13-4:3, 7-8a
Mark 9:30-37

Today’s scriptures invite us to explore what it means to be attuned to God’s vision for your life. Divine wisdom involves reflection on our relationships in the family and in the larger community. Living by God’s vision involves openness to life in all its variety, and involves affirming many norms for human fidelity and spirituality.

It is unlikely that I will be preaching on Proverbs 31 next Sunday. If I do, my approach will be egalitarian in nature. As someone who has been married for nearly 37 years to a competent, capable, wise, and loving woman, I realize that there is no norm for a healthy marriage or a healthy marital partner. Faithful relationships and marriages take many forms. Recently someone asked me how to define a good and faithful marriage. Instead of abstractions, I described what I found transformative in my own marriage. Others might have answered differently. Today we can no longer privilege heterosexual marriages. Love takes many forms and so does fidelity, and the traditional hermetically sealed, nuclear marriage may not be life-affirming in a global age, nor does it promote optimal freedom and creativity. I assume a holy marriage is built on love, trust, and affirmation. It is also built on prayer, freedom, and creativity, and looks outward toward God’s mission. But, all of these relational virtues can be expressed in a variety of ways.

Psalm 1 does not provide a norm for goodness or happiness either. For some, congruence with the law of God means not issuing marriage licenses to gay and lesbian couples or avoiding certain types of art, music, and literature. In contrast, I believe attunement with divine law is multifaceted and not uniform in nature. Still, in a dynamic, interdependent universe, delight in God’s law is not so much a matter of narrow morality or do’s and don’ts but a sense of God’s presence throughout the day. I believe it involves attentiveness to divine wisdom in the movement of galaxies, the rotation of the earth, the health of ecosphere, and the securing of wholeness for all people. Attunement with divine law involves practicing the presence of God in diverse situations and doing something beautiful for God in our personal and corporate relationships.

For the Epistle of James, wisdom involves gentleness of spirit. It is born of kindness to friend and foe alike. Gentleness is grounded for reverence for life in its many forms. Drawing near to God, presumably through prayer and meditation, awakens to God’s vision for our lives as a whole and in moment by moment decisions. We can choose to live mindfully and with self-awareness. Mindful living is cultivated by periodic pauses throughout the day to assess our relationship with God and our overall sense of well-being. It is also cultivated by the daily practice of the “examen,” pausing before retiring to review the day, recalling moments of nearness and distance from God’s vision, praying for forgiveness and illumination, and asking for wisdom during the night – through dreams – and in the day ahead.

Mark’s Gospel invites us to consider the meaning of greatness in terms of relational rather than unilateral power. The greatest among us are those who are committed to service and honoring the least of these. Greatness involves welcoming the children in our midst and giving hospitality to the nuisances and nobodies. (John Dominic Crossan) Just as the greatest of virtues is love, the greatest of people are those who love well, seeking beauty and bringing forth wholeness in their relationships. Love is, as Alfred North Whitehead asserts, oblivious to morals. By that, I believe Whitehead means, that love is often countercultural. Love does not conform to patriarchy or matriarchy, power relationships, possessiveness, but seeks healing and wholeness, freedom and creativity, beauty and growth, for the beloved, whether a child or adult, spouse or friend. Love even may involve sacrifice and suffering to achieve the greatest good and promote beauty of experience. Love is not about “me,” but about “us,” including the non-human world, and may transcend social convention, as Jesus’ love did, to be in congruence with God’s realm.

(For more on today’s scriptures, see Bruce Epperly, Holistic Spirituality: Life-giving Wisdom from the Letter of James and Mark’s Holy Adventure: Preaching Mark’s Gospel for Year B)