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2 Sm 7:1-5, 8b-12, 14a, 16
The setting of this first reading is King David's
palace in a time of peace and prosperity. It challenges
our human tnedency to get things "settled in place",
including awe, love, or whatever else we call God.
When King David was settled in his palace, and the
LORD had given him rest from his enemies on every side,
he said to Nathan the prophet,
"Here I am living in a house of cedar, while the ark of
God dwells in a tent!"
Nathan answered the king,
"Go, do whatever you have in mind, for the LORD is with
you."
But that night the LORD spoke to Nathan and said:
"Go, tell my servant David, 'Thus says the LORD:
"Should you build me a house to dwell in? It was I who
took you from the pasture and from the care of the flock
to be commander of my people Israel. I have been with
you wherever you went,
and I have destroyed all your enemies before you. And I
will make you famous like the great ones of the earth.
I will fix a place for my people Israel; I will plant
them so that they may dwell in their place without
further disturbance. Neither shall the wicked continue
to afflict them as they did of old,
since the time I first appointed judges over my people
Israel. I will give you rest from all your enemies.
The LORD also reveals to you that he will establish a
house for you. And when your time comes and you rest
with your ancestors, I will raise up your heir after
you, sprung from your loins, and I will make his kingdom
firm.
I will be a father to him,
and he shall be a son to me.
Your house and your kingdom shall endure forever before
me; your throne shall stand firm forever."
Reading 2 Rom 16:25-27
This reading is actually a brief prayer of praise of
the inexorable Divine who is both powerful and intimate,
personally close and completely beyond our reach.
Brothers and sisters:
To him who can strengthen you, according to my gospel
and the proclamation of Jesus Christ, according to the
revelation of the mystery kept secret for long agesbut
now manifested through the prophetic writings and,
according to the command of the eternal God, made known
to all nations to bring about the obedience of faith, to
the only wise God, through Jesus Christ be glory forever
and ever. Amen.
Gospel Lk 1:26-38
Surprise is often filled with the wind of the Spirit
of evolving love. This classic story remains the epitome
of that reality.
The angel Gabriel was sent from God to a town of
Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man
named Joseph, of the house of David, and the virgin's
name was Mary. And coming to her, he said,
"Hail, full of grace! The Lord is with you."
But she was greatly troubled at what was said and
pondered what sort of greeting this might be.
Then the angel said to her,
"Do not be afraid, Mary,
for you have found favor with God. Behold, you will
conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name
him Jesus.
He will be great and will be called Son of the Most
High,
and the Lord God will give him the throne of David his
father, and he will rule over the house of Jacob
forever,
and of his kingdom there will be no end."
But Mary said to the angel,
"How can this be, since I have no relations with a
man?"
And the angel said to her in reply, "The Holy Spirit
will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will
overshadow you. Therefore the child to be born will be
called holy, the Son of God.
And behold, Elizabeth, your relative, has also conceived
a son in her old age, and this is the sixth month for
her who was called barren; for nothing will be
impossible for God."
Mary said, "Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May
it be done to me according to your word."
Then the angel departed from her.
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An evolutionary outlook begins with
acknowledging that for over 4 billion years the earth has been
transforming from a molten rock into an eventual community of
loving persons. Moving relentlessly from developing a context
for life, to life, to thought, to love, the process is headed
for community. What each of us can contribute to that process
constitutes our grandest decisions. Love itself is evolving,
from animal instinct through various aberrations towards a
shared future the beauty of which we cannot yet imagine.
Intimate loving has a primary place in that movement.
#3 -
Settled in a Palace??
When the Biblical hero David was
"settled in his palace" he didn't know what to do with himself and
felt guilty that he lived in carefully designed comfort relative to
the current symbol of YAHWEH, the arc of the covenant. When he
offered to make a better
place for the arc, he was roundly chastised for his subtle
arrogance. Who is there who can make a place for God?
Evolving love will not be contained. Defining and redefining
dogma, multiplying religious regulations, insisting on precise
spiritual practices, evangelical over-focus on the experience of
conversion--all fail as efforts to capture the spirit of the living
God, YAHWEH, Allah, or any other name given to the relentless
process of evolving love.
As U.S. society and Europe face the end of an overspending era
and reluctantly awaken to realizing that the planet's resources will
not support a lifestyle like ours for everyone, the natural
vulnerability of living comes a bit closer and tries to show itself
more clearly. Buying and surrounding ourselves with neat "stuff"
often keeps the reality of what is truly satisfying submerged. What
is actually fulfilling keeps itself partially veiled in the natural
mysteries of human living.
A vivid example of that fact is found in the phenomenon of
romantic love. It cannot be controlled. It defies prediction and
even very much preparation. It is perpetually confounding. It
delights and flummoxes us day after day. That unpredictable sweep
into romance beckons, promises, rattles, validates, challenges, and
offers temporary ecstasy to most all of us. It even ushers in
satisfaction, consolidation, personal confirmation and fulfillment
to a few. It also slams virtually all of us with frustration so
intense we consider giving up on it entirely. Such experiences of
being passionately loved and needing to change radically in order to
proceed say to us what the angel said to Mary in today's gospel,
"Hail favored one. The
Lord is with you"!! As it was with Mary
that never means an easy ride ahead.
The simple mysteries of life, encounters with beauty that we
cannot control, events of wonder that reflect a Creator beyond
anyone's imagination, a lover intoxicated with our very presence,
the dying process and its partner human birth--these are the
meetings with The Divine unpredictably available to us all. They are
sumptuous in their glory, magnificent in their beauty, and upon
reflection, inexorable in their awe. We can only receive them and
keep ourselves ready as possible to do so.
Most of us humans need to learn over and over again that we
neither control nor even influence the miracles of life. They remain
beyond us, pointing to our own finite being, placed constantly next
to infinite mystery that is merely touchable. This remaining on the
edge of awe is a practice needed especially by pastors, theologians
and other spiritual leaders.
The term “mystic” has its origins from the Latin through the
Greek muein, meaning “close to eyes and mouth”.
CLOSE TO EYES AND MOUTH!
The ancients,delighted and subtly scared by the experience of
placing one’s face close to that of another, noticed by
prompted creation of the word “mystic” to describe it.
Technology’s advances, engineering marvels, academic
sophistication, and refining arts have not diminished the simple awe
of direct, mutual eye contact close up for even a few
seconds--“close to eyes and mouth”. The intimate quality of souls
entwined through faces, when placed near one another even so
briefly, continues to stand as one of life’s delightful and baffling
mysteries.
The term "mystery" generally refers to aspects of life that we
never comprehend, but that continue to unfold the deeper we enter
into them. They inspire awe upon close reflection, but can easily be
taken for granted. And humankind continually attempts to get them in
our grasp. Like the king was tempted to do in the Samuel reading for
today, we build churches and then delude ourselves into feeling
secure in the face of The Beyond as we enter an edifice we built
ourselves.
Romance it seems is one of the Creator’s gifts to persistently
challenge our ability to control, to manage, to capture the beauty
of reality. Both compelling and confounding most lives, erotic
loving confronts our search for permanence, forces us to change,
empathize, to consider the lives of others from a compassionate
point of view.
The mysterious light-heartedness of the Christmas season has long
delighted human hearts with its mysterious warmth and powerful
ability to enkindle sentiment. God incarnate seems to exude from old
stories and uncharacteristically generous hearts. The selfless love
of agape and the extraordinarily, ordinary love of romance, have at
least this in common. They remain unstoppable, unmanageable, and
powerfully compelling. Their mystery won’t go away. They are uniting
all of us, slowly, haltingly, and irreversibly.
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