<html><body>The second part for Sunday.<div><br></div><div>Bob</div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> Jesus wasn’t trying to banish one group or another. He simply wanted everyone to get attention as children of God, made in God’s image.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> My mind was grabbed by a statement in a review of a concert in New York City the other week.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> “A perfect table, a cabinet maker once told (critic Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim) isn’t one that draws attention to itself: It just makes the rest of the room look right.” <sup>1</sup> When the soprano soloist began to sing, she made everyone else sound good. There was none of this, “Look at me. See how great I am.” to her.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> The critic wasn’t saying that the soloist was holding back, nor was she saying that she pushed herself out ahead of the orchestra, the choir and the other soloists. The critic was saying that the soprano soloist got it just right. She knew that she had abilities and she shared them. Yet she did it in such a way that everyone else was able to be heard properly, every other musician was able to shine also. As the cabinet maker put it, a perfect balance was found.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> Who knows what happened when the seating plan at the dinner was switched in Jesus’ story. Parables can’t be pushed too far. But it could well have been that the host said to the other, “You know, you and I haven’t had a chance to talk in quite a while, and I’d like to hear what you’re thinking about the election; or the weather; or the extraordinarily high pollen count this year.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> Who knows what they discussed. All that mattered was that an opportunity was offered and was taken. And, in order for that to come about, someone who’d made presumptions had to be displaced.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> I suppose that one of the morals of this passage is to ask what, where, why, how the host would like me to do or to be.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> The host in Jesus’ story, we can assume, </span><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">is God, so we need to check in, to be in the habit of asking God continually to give us the insight to know where we should be, how we should speak or act, when we should step forward and when we should step back. And when this has become second nature, this conferring with God, then we may find ourselves more and more aware of how differently we’re called to live compared with the norms of society.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> Brother David Vryhof wrote, “In prayer, the Spirit reveals to us the ways of God, ways which often are in opposition to the ways of the world around us.” <sup>2</sup><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> The situation in Louisiana and other crisis points has awakened many people – or reawakened them – to understand how interrelated we are, and how “Me first”</span><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> and “My needs are more important than yours” have no place until the needs of all are heard and evaluated.</span><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> “When an event like the </span><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/17/us/louisiana-flooding.html" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; color: windowtext; text-decoration: none;">flooding in Louisiana</span></a><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> takes place, destroying homes and disrupting and ending lives, media coverage shifts to a sober note. But (wrote a religion commentator) the images of destruction and film reels of heroic rescuers suggest another, disconcerting dimension to catastrophe: disaster is a form of entertainment. It focuses attention, concentrates minds, and stimulates emotions. This is true in fiction, from <i>The War of the Worlds</i> to <i>The Walking Dead</i>. It’s also true in reality, where popular consciousness always seems fixed on one end-times scenario or the other, …<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> “On the screen and in reality, the cocktail of horror, empathy, and heroism is magnetic.” <sup>3</sup><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> Why <b><u>DO</u></b> we stare at what the reported referred to as “the cocktail of horror”? Why, for instance, did I and my friends stare, and take such delight, in the discomfort of our acquaintance in the University Chapel? Why did we stoke the fires of discomfort with that insertion in the student newspaper? We <b><u>DID</u></b> know him. Why didn’t we commiserate with him on the unfortunate action he’d taken that morning? Why didn’t we take him out to lunch? Why didn’t we sit and talk, or go for a walk, or find out more about him than we knew already? That would have been the Christian thing to do.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> “The evil out there, (Daniel J. Clarke and Stefan Dercon suggest in their recent book ‘Dull Disasters’), is not the zombie apocalypse, or the alien invasion, or even climate change, but the fascination with apocalypse and disaster itself.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> “Clarke and Dercon tell a story about how our love of disaster is itself a kind of quiet, but dangerous, disaster.” <sup>4</sup><o:p></o:p></span></p><h1 style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-weight: normal;"> Clarke and Dercon’s book, by the way, has in the interesting subtitle “<span class="a-size-extra-large"><span style="color: rgb(17, 17, 17);">How planning ahead will make a difference”. You might say that thinking like that might have helped my acquaintance, and me and my friends.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></h1><h1 style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><span class="a-size-extra-large"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(17, 17, 17); font-weight: normal;"> If all of us want to try to avoid disasters, if we want to find Jesus not furrowing His brow at us for pushing people around, for strutting our own stuff, then perhaps now would be a good time and place to start thinking about how we behave.<o:p></o:p></span></span></h1><h1 style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><span class="a-size-extra-large"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(17, 17, 17); font-weight: normal;"> And, hey, for starters, let’s remember that quirky quote of Jesus”, “The last shall be first”! We don’t have to worry about being pushy. There’s no point in trying to take the best seat in the house. Jesus simply wants us to be there. That will be enough.<o:p></o:p></span></span></h1><h1 style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><span class="a-size-extra-large"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(17, 17, 17); font-weight: normal;"> We can, we must, mature.<o:p></o:p></span></span></h1><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">NOTES:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoFootnoteText" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 15.3333px;">[1]</span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> “<i>At Mostly Mozart; A Self-effacing Magnetism”</i> by Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim. New York Times, 21<sup>st</sup> August, 2016 </span><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/22/arts/music/at-mostly-mozart-a-self-effacing-magnetism.html"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/22/arts/music/at-mostly-mozart-a-self-effacing-magnetism.html</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoFootnoteText" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoFootnoteText" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">2</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> <i>“Revelation”</i> at <i>“Brother, Give us a Word”</i> by Brother David Vryhof, SSJE </span><a href="http://ssje.org/word/?p=12931"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">http://ssje.org/word/?p=12931</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoFootnoteText" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">3</span></span><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span><i><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">“Come hell or high Water: How the melodrama if disaster leaves us vulnerable” by Noah Berlatsky. August 17, 2016 </span></i><a href="http://religiondispatches.org/how-the-melodrama-of-disaster-leaves-us-vulnerable/"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">http://religiondispatches.org/how-the-melodrama-of-disaster-leaves-us-vulnerable/</span></a><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">4</span></span><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> Noah Berlotsy, Op. cit. <i>“Dull Disasters”,</i> Daniel J. Clarke and Stefan Dercon, Oxford University Press, Oxford. © 2016 </span><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Dull-Disasters-planning-ahead-difference/dp/0198785577">https://www.amazon.com/Dull-Disasters-planning-ahead-difference/dp/0198785577</a></span><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p></div></div><div><br></div></body></html>