Month: September 2022

2^nd 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

25thSept2022 26thSUNinORDINARY C

1. AMOS6:1,4-7

• Read 5:1-6.14! Aloud&slowly! Empathise with both TheShouter&TheShoutedAt!
• But so outlandish&hysterical&remote-in-time&space! Not-cool! Not our-world!
• Who are the ‘socio-religious’Shouters&ShoutedAt in my local church? &So-what?
• What ‘alien’ socio-political institutions are Christians consorting-with? (vv1-3)
• ‘Joseph!’ Rachel’sFirstBorn! DreamerEntrepreneurSaviour! TheBelovedPeople!
• ‘TheRevelryIsOver!’ Who ever thought (apart from Amoses), it’d happen to them?

2. THE PSALM 145:6-10

• Read 145(146) 1-10! If you’re Yahweh, Prince, or Poor, who can you trust?
• ‘JusticeFoodFreedomSightDignityLoveSecuritySustenance!’: Yes, but for-whom?
• In IrishChurch&Society, what 20Groups or Individuals do I ‘class as wicked’?
• ‘TheLord/Yahweh!’ A strictly-potential-dynamic, a possibility, yearning to be
• valued&incarnated, that all oppressed should be appropriately ‘freed’!

3. 1TIM6:11-16

• Read 6:1-21! But does the ‘blessing given to slavery’ vitiate all the rest?
• Will mere exhortation release me from anxiety about Money&Honour&Health?
• How has desire to control dissent&controversy affected TheChristianChurches?
• In an era of ‘privatised religion’, how will the call to ‘witness’ be received?
• Why did ‘TheEarlyChurch’ fervently anticipate an imminent ‘Return-of-Jesus’?
• For what competencies&Qualities are bishops chosen? &How is this decided?

4. LK16:19-31

• How do I understand&picture the circumstances of HisStorytelling? How He
• derived&introduced them? Whether He ‘explained’ them? Who ‘remembered’?
• But has ‘exhorting&explaining” since then, usurped the ‘storytelling’ & ‘action’?
• This neglected story-of-the-Lord! Which of the three male characters is most significant?
• Which is not passive or blasé? Which is my ‘role-model’?
• Why is the ‘poor man’ made so much of, though he’s apparently totally inert?
• Why is ‘Abraham’ so seemingly harsh&vindictive&self-righteous?

5. The presence& action of the BlessedOne, is it like this?

Too late I’ve realised how I’ve lived my whole life, birth to death, in a state of total

passivity! always looking to others to feed or protect or value me! letting dogs&angels use me for their own ends! I suppose I’d fallen into that habit of decrepitude from necessity&self-interest from the womb really, &then failed to see how my life was deeply blighted! not because I was a poor scabby beggar, but the passivity! so it was with an inundation of joy&horror&rage&combustion that the precious knowledge leapt on me, not long after my death! I was in a blessed place, at peace, but at the same time, as I now see it, typically passive I overheard a most ungracious conversation between a desperate sinner & a self-righteous saint, in which I was mentioned in a strange&striking fashion! like lightning, heaven-touched-me-with-realisation! I was enlightened! for the first time ever, I chose to act! I left that blessed prison, though not without a pang! &now wander through the worlds! yes to the cost, yes to the harsh grace, forever!

6. RIDDLE Which is most acceptable nowadays? TheProphet TheEnslaved

TheWellHeeled ThePatriarch TheSanctimonious TheOrator

ThePerformer TheAscetic TheMystic TheChristian?

Refections and comments can be emailed to adbi@chokmah.ie

Sunday 18^th September 2022 (’01) 25thSUNinORDINARY C

1. AMOS8.4-7

• Read 8:1-14! A vision of ‘Fruit” &A sombre smouldering spiteful Word-of-Yahweh­ against-TheNorth! Wailing Siience Darkness Famine Delirium Destitution!
• If this excerpt is not addressed to us, why bother to listen or respond? Unless to tut- tut about Amos’ or Yahweh’s obsessive rage, or TheNortherners’ complacency?
• What if I need Marxist or anti-globalist thinking to mediate Amos’ truth?
• In 30word , as a member of G7 or G8, how’d I respond to Amos’ truth?

2 THE PSALM ll2 1-2, 4-8 (Surely v9?)

• Read 112(113) 1-9′ But is He seated perhaps a little too high to reach them?
• Unless ‘Christians’ become HIsHeart&Hands&Feet’ An unpalatable paradigm’
• ‘WithThePrinces’: What signs that such anarchic action is valued or encouraged?
• &Who in my loca1 church is advocating on embodying this ‘egalitarian ethic’?
• Essentially since our ‘spirituality’ risks being self regarding&xenophobic’
• What would have to happen, were 112 7-9 to become our local church’s AIM?

3 1TIM2 1-8 (&Surely vv9-15, with appropriate irony )

• Read 2 1-15! Revealing the power-structure&pecking-order in that church’
• What about this writer’s portentous ‘exegesis’ of ‘Adam&Eve’? Does this tendentious ‘exegesis’ (or ‘exsegesis’) then generate the social order? Or, vice-versa?
• If ‘woman is saved through childbearing’ (non-married too?), what of men?
• How is all of this ‘explanation’ linked with the controversy about ‘Women’sOrders ‘?
• What is the central core of this carefully-manicured excerpt”
• ‘NoAngerOrArgument” But what else have ‘men’ contributed to ‘Christianity’?
• 4. LK16.l-13

• Read 16 1-31! Listen, baby’ If I don’t look after numero uno. who else will?
• ‘Child-of-ThisWorld or Child-ofLight!‘. Which-is-what? &Which-am-I?
• ‘Trust!’. What is this overused word, in-truth? Which 5People do I truly trust?
• Which 3People truly trust me?
• From 100p, what goes to God Market Media State Poor Chapel Family Friends

5 The presence&action of the BlessedOne, is it like this?

One day, ThcPractisingSceptic launched the conversation on a strong note’ ‘Have you ever considered the story of TheWastefulButCunningSteward, as throwing light on yourChurch’s extreme ambivalent relation to money?’ Now TheOfficialBelever sallied forth belligerently’ ‘I utterly scorn&reject an your rancid&typically jaundiced insinuations about TheBody-of-Christ!’ ‘For example, clerical disquiet at falling collections ”A total fiction ”&The refusal to place ThePoor squarely at the head of church priority.. ‘ ‘Another slander ‘ ‘&Most of all, the encouragement of christians to be saves, both of God&Mammon ‘ ‘Well ‘ ‘ sordid laissezfaire that contradicts Christ’s own fearsome declaration in Lukc16” ‘It suits you, of course, to quote TheLord ‘ ‘Not at all! I never do so without reluctance’ But it suits you to ignore the thrust of my words with your weak disclaimer’ Think carefully’ Money is the iceberg against which TheBark-of-Peter has fatally struck.!!’

6. RIDDLE ThePoor!

A rhetorical ‘mother-of-pearl’?

An increasingly-threatening political petard?

The key to religio-planetary wisdom?

Refections and comments can be emailed to adbi@chokmah.ie

Sunday 11th September 2022 (’01) • 24thSUNinORDINARY • C

1. EXOD32 7-11, 13-14

• Theomissionof3212^! Pious softmindedness? Problem in apologetics or theodicy?
• Desire not to have any jarring word that might disturb the dogmatic slumber of all?
  • Read 32.1-35′ TheBull-of-Gold’ But how did Aaron–thePriest escape the ‘plague’?
  • Why are ‘thepeople’ blamed&puinshed for what was Aaron’s collusive sin?
  • Is this another e’\’.ample of ‘double-standardism’? (Read NUM12! &Growl”)
  • This active Yahweh/MosesDebate’ itsequivalent in mvlocalchurch?
  • How are the variantperspectiveson‘IrishPaganSocietv‘ in active-dialogue”

2. THE PSALM 50·3-4, 12-13, 17, 19 (Another unlovinghatchet-job’)

• Read 50(51)·1-19′ A Lugnaquilla of ‘TempleSpirtuality” Great!
• In 1OO words, intuit&re-express this from my own experience of Aloneness Stain AncesteralGuilt Callowness Crushedness Asphyxia GlumnessDumbness Disallusion’
• Has the traditional ‘Therapy-of-TheLost’ been largelyforfeitedbyTheChurches?
• &Is this linked with the official ‘churchpolemic’against‘NewAge&Cults’?
• Why was the versatile spectrum of ‘ChristHealing’ in disciples allowedJ to atrophy?
• What is even preciouser-than-heaven? Wholeness–on–Earth, &of-Earth!

3 1TIM112-17

• Read 1.3-20′ What is The5ProngedCrisis at large in Timothy’s local church?
• How do I understand, ‘HeCameToSaveSinners!’? Weren’t they already being ‘saved’ in mainstream Judaism” Or, has the phrase a ‘hidden meaning’?
• What assures me, thatIhave-been,am–being,orwill–be,‘saved’?
• &If TheOtherGods are irresistably&simultaneouslyoffering‘salvation’?
• In what ways has ‘grace’ flowed in me, as ‘afully-paid–up-disciple’?

4. LK15 1-32 (A fine large helping’)

• In what sense are‘sinners‘thepriority in myChurch? &In–what–sense-not”
• What is theaccceptedmeaningof‘sinnner’ (in homilies etc) in my local church”
• ‘Lost&Found-m-TheLocalChurch’‘

Who (Sheep/Coin/YoungerSon) are presently‘lost’ inanyway?

What is beingdone (ornot) In regard to them? &By whom”

What ‘resources&opportunities‘ are being sought? Or squandered?

Is joy-at-the-return–of-theLost either resented? Or begrudged”

5 The presence&achon of the BlessedOne, is it like this?

‘Well, Gertie, drink to me only’ We got the prodigal son again above this mornin’…’

‘Y’r man, is it, that walked outa th’ boat?’ ‘No, remember, he wasted ‘is substance

livin’-righteously-‘ ‘Oh-‘-‘His-oul’-fella-sol’ thewhole-place, lock-stock-&bardle’-an!.,- wait f’r it, gave th’ young fella, th’ prodigal, that 1s, about 20grand t’ go ‘way an’ kick

up ‘is heels” ‘Begod, my fella ‘s always goin’ on about ..’ ‘But he ran through th’ bread in a week or ten days. .’ ‘Typical little ‘ ‘An’ listen, went back wi’ this sob story,_an’ th’ oul’ fell.- was all over ‘im ‘ ‘God, th’ slob ..’ ‘Head a’ wit says, that’s th’ way th’ man-above ‘s like! all over ya if y’ come back, no matter what y’ve done” ‘What? are y’ sure? th’ man-above? a’ y’ all right? all over ya?’ ‘Gertie, a’m on’y quotin’ th’ man’ an’ he’s on’y sayin’ is stuff ‘ ‘Cissie, that’s what I mean’ God, y’ve got me goin” A’m gonna check this out’ An’ I will, even if I’ve t’ ask th’ man-above meself .’Oh ‘

6. RIDDLE Which is actually the most important for me? Being Sinner, Saved, Disciple, or Lost?

Refections and comments can be emailed to adbi@chokmah.ie