10/16
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| ...and I did.... |
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| Time to vote |
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| Yes |
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| Know what you are voting for |
On a cold damp morning, I see a short voting line and jump on. A few minutes later it’s done. Biden/Harris on the Working Families Party (Democratic Socialist) line. Outside, I meet two canvassers for a City Council candidate. The young man’s sweatshirt has a platform I can support: Unfuck the world.
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| Morningside heron |
In Morningside Park, it’s not an egret but it is a lone heron stopped by to visit. On the way south? Why so late? What’s the story? Glad to see it…
Tonight our Bible Study is looking at Matthew 5: 1-12, the Sermon on the Mount. (Also found in Luke 6: 20-26 and Gospel of Thomas 54 and 68-9). We hear it in the New Revised Standard Version and Eugene Peterson's The Message. In first responses:
Dion says “Less is more”
Marsha: ‘…Poor in spirit…I sure hope that’s true.”
Amber Lee: “Not trying to control every stage of the development”
Sherryl: “ A little different than the text…only when we step down from judgment do we get it…”
To dig deeper, I point out that in Luke, where the language is more explicit politically, where there are curses (Woe ...= damn you and go to hell), Jesus is addressing the crowd. In Matthew, he has retreated up the mountain (Like Moses: Matthew’s always got his Old Testament paradigm in place) and is addressing only the disciples. (Literally, “learners” …so maybe Presbyterians have teaching elders and learning elders and maybe we are all both…)All through the opening verses he is speaking about those in the the crowd, in the third person. Only at the very end does he speak in the second person in telling the disciples what is in store for them (Blesssed are you....) when they seek to follow him. On this path, rough persecution inevitably lies ahead. Because the Jesus community is a threat to the established order by offering a radical alternative.
+ Blessed means “Happy or “fortunate”
+ “poor in spirit” is literally broken
+ The Kingdom of Heaven is an already and a not yet
+ Those who mourn, and much of this “sermon” comes from Isaiah 61
+ Meek has the connotation of humble or powerless
+ When Jesus speaks of “inheriting the earth,” this is literally the “land” same as was promised Abraham. So far from a future vision, this has existential meaning to the crowds. The powerless shall gain the land, shall possess it.
+Heart is the region of thought, intention and moral disposition
+"Children” is literally “sons of God,” the same as Romans called their emperor and Christians will call Christ, but Jesus makes us all sons and daughters of God, both redivining and dedivining that word.
+ His reward in heaven is also existential in that there is a direct connection between heaven and earth, what happens in one happens in the other.
Traditionally, this "sermon" was thought to be an eschatological metaphor but late scholarship has seen a direct connection between the Torah's establishment of Jubilee and this passage. That Jesus was literally saying it was time to make the Jubilee real. And all that that 7 times 7 plus one year event called for. Just like Isaiah 61. That reboot once every half century. Fresh start. NO wealth passed on generation to generation. Time make it real.
It seems to us that beyond a call to establish a non-violent campaign for social equity and justice, Jesus is saying that the secret of happiness is to open yourself up and accept life as it is and then live out the compassion and integrity of that witness.
We can compare Jesu’ platform with that of the Democrats and Republicans, who have no platform except Trump. And unashamedly so. And compare the blessings of the Beatitudes to the curses of the ubiquitous campaign ads on television. Jesus walks with us through these last anxious days.
We finish with Simon and Garfunkel’s Blessed:
These passages will be read this coming Sunday, All Saints Day…and these blessed, these are the saints…
10/27
A year ago I was performing in a bar in Santiago, Chile, celebrating the lifting of curfew and the ned of a week of estillado, explosion. The Chilesans have just voted overwhelmingly to create a new constitution. Un pueblo undo, jamas sera vencido…Victor Hara, presente..
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| learning we shall not be moved.. |
A school class is sitting outside. A special program about protest. They are learning we shall not be moved…
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| Getting ready for winter |
Restaurants are scrambling to create outdoor shelters for the coming winter…
The baseball season comes to an end. Dodgers win, There was a kind of “if a tree falls in a forest.....” aspect to the whole season…
and still say their names...
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