Waxing Theological

9-21-14 (Proper 20, Ordinary 25 A Semi-Continuous) Exodus 16:2-15; Matthew 20:1-16                                                                     Unfair Wages     “It just isn’t fair!”     Fill in the blank after that point - older brother gets to stay up later than his younger siblings, the classmate whose parents bought him or her a car when they turned 16, but your own parents are making you borrow the station wagon when you want to go out with your friends, the co-worker who gets “employee of the month” because they kissed up to the boss while you did the extra work and they slacked off.     We’ve all felt that sense of imbalance, of things just not being fair.  Sometimes, it’s all we can do to not lose our tempers and scream at the injustices we perceive in our lives.  Something deep within our very essences knows that things ought to be fair, that there’s a balance that needs to be kept, that there’s a way things ought to be… and when that balance is off, it puts us out of

9-14-14 (Proper 19, Ordinary 24A Semi-Continuous) Romans 14:1-12; Matthew 18:21-35                                                          Don’t Forget You’re Forgiven     Every month, our mailbox at home fills up with a handful of envelopes that I wish would just stop coming to us.  These envelopes are important - they’re not just junk mail that I can rip up and throw away, no matter how much I may want to.  Instead, they’re all emblazoned with this terrible, horrible, four letter word that we all probably know and tremble when we hear: BILL.  It’s that time again - there’s the phone bill, the car bill, the student loan bills, the insurance bills, the credit card whose balance never seems to go down, the credit card that only has those few more payments left before we can rack it up again... and so on.     So as I read this parable, I find it all to easy to step right into the servant’s shoes as he’s called before his king to account for his debts.  I imagine him as the guards throw

9-7-14 (Proper 18, Ordinary 23 A Semicontinuous) Exodus 12:1-14; Romans 13:8-14; Matthew 18:15-20                                                                               Ready or Not     It was the first recorded instance of “fast food” in the Bible.  As families gathered around the table on that first Passover evening, they gathered with girded loins - they had their loose clothes tied up around their legs to help them move more quickly.  They had their sandals on their feet and they had staffs in their hands, ready to move at a moment’s notice.  Without the time to bake proper bread, to do anything more than roast a lamb over a fire with bitter herbs, they put the blood of the lamb over their doors, ate their meal together, and waited for God to pass over their houses, to do God’s work in Egypt, and to fulfill the promise that they would escape their slavery in Egypt and be led on to the promised land.     They were a people who were ready, who were waiting… a people who were

8-31-14 (Ordinary 22/Proper 17A - Semicontinuous) Exodus 3:1-15; Matthew 16:21-28                                                                          The Experience     One of the mentors at our gathering in Louisville told a story this week that really captivated me as I reflected on this week’s readings. Photo Credit: Tanya Alexander (freeimages.com)      He told us about a boy who went with his family to Mt. Rainier.  The little boy was excited to climb the mountain with his family, but as they came to the trailhead at the summit, he started to read the sign with the legal notice spelling out the various dangers that he might face on the trail - loose rocks, wild animals, narrow ledges, and more… and being the young boy that he was, he started to feel afraid of following through with his family’s plan.  But also being a young boy, he knew he had to maintain his “image,” and so he didn’t tell his family that he was nervous… he went with the standard “This looks boring.”