2nd OCT 2022 27thSUNinORDINARY C
1. HAB1:2-3. 2:2-4 (Brief! but if it were allowed to ‘come slowly’…)
Read 1:1-2:20
What maelstrom of emotions is churning in this ‘Mouth-of-Yahweh’?
What is pouring-forth like this, in my local church?
Which 7’Plagues-in-IrishSociety’ do his strictures apply to?
What are ‘AdultChristians’ doing to acknowledge&address these?
Or are we baptised ostriches who think ‘TheOtherGods’ are no longer there”
Or is Habakkuk just shouting ‘wolf’ to keep us all un line?
Or do I still find comfort in the rhetoric of a ‘Holy&InfallibleChurch’?
Is it a matter of sink-or-swim for the awakened adult?
2. THE PSALM 94:1-2, 6-9 (But vv10-11? Wow!)
- Read 94(95): 1-11! Hint of danger beneath the joyful ‘ring-out’!
- Which? Face Yahweh’s MOODS? Embrace Temple’s costlyReassurance?
- In what evident&worthwhile sense are we ‘InHisPaasture&Led ByHisHand’?
- ‘TheTesting-ofYahweh!’: Reads EXOD17:1-7; 321-33:6! NUM14:1-25 etc!
- How is Yahweh (&HisRepresentatives)(who?) being tested nowadays?
- Why is ‘Yahweh’ so constantly ‘angered’ in the ExodusNarratives?
- Why are ‘adult christians’ still implicated in ‘TheGiving&ReceivingOfFlattery’?
3. 2TIM1:6-8, 13-14
- If this excerpt were actually a postcard sent by Jesus!
Whether as a woman ora man, how’d I understand&accept it?
How would I check that it wasn’t a hoax or a virus?
What ‘program of adult education’ is implicit in it?
Write a note in response? Where’d I send it? & Who’d I tell?
4. LK17:5-10
- ‘Faith’ ChurchFormulations? MyLifePatterns? Feelings&Gestures-Holiness?
- But is Jesus’ ‘thaumaturgic’ sort of ‘faith’ politically&ecclesially-correct nowadays?
- What about the ‘master/slave’ ideology, immanent in the attached ‘parable’?
- Have Christians been too blasé about ‘slavery’ of one sort or another?
- including ‘enslavements’ to FantasyComfortSelfRighteousnessParamountGuilt…
5. The presence&action of theBlessedOne, is it like this?
‘Sir! There is a question that pulls at my heart.’ ‘Then speak. Friend. Straight from the heart!’ ‘The storytellers remark, Sir, that you often spoke of masters&slaves.’ ‘Indeed, Friend!. As heaven’s-word does too, on many occasions!’ ‘My question, Sir, is this! As someone from the ends of the earth who is not one of Your people, I wish to know what Your attitude is to the enslavement of other men&women?’ ‘Those who are slaves of TheEvilOne, &of HisSinfulWiles, those, Friend, I struggle in every way to liberate! Those too, who are slaves of human traditions, I try to awaken them to break their clinging chains & run free in the love of the poor! These, Friend, are the cunning enslavements, because to all but a few they seem like piety&truth!’ ‘But, furthermore, Sir, what about the man or woman who by violence or misfortune becomes the property of another? Condemned forever to another’s whims?’ ‘Amen, Friend! I feel your sadness as you speak! But no matter how zealously we struggle for this third great liberation, it will never truly come to pass, unless the first two enslavements are overcome! Amen!!’
RIDDLE Whose exhortations to heed? TheChurch The Media AdultConscience TheGodFather The Friend The CulturalArbiters TheAncestors The Body TheEarth?
Refections and comments can be emailed to adbi@chokmah.ie