This is the third in our
Fall Series
FOLLOW THROUGH
Living Out
The Sermon On The Mount
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Dear All of Us,
Good Morning,
Good Afternoon,
Good Evening,
Good Middle of the Night.
Whatever the time in your
THERE
May it be God Good.
In my Washington, DC
HERE
it's a God Good
Monday morning,
Fall cool and crisp.
Whatever the weather,
Monday morning here means
get the blog rolling.
It's a pleasant routine
become a happy tradition.
Now that opens a segue
to the specialness of
traditions.
We all have them:
- a week at the beach
every summer
- First Communions at seven
- your favorite cake
on birthdays
- always buying a Honda
- Thanksgiving dinner
at your mother-in-law's
The specialness, even sacredness,
of tradition was so soulfully sung
by Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof.
He tells of the villagers trying
to continue their bonding traditions
in the midst of a world
changing around them.
Tradition and change.
We all deal with it.
So did Jesus.
We're at the part of
The Sermon On The Mount
when Jesus locates himself,
and us his followers, in the
Tradition
of the Jewish People,
The Law and the Prophets,
AND
his shifting it and us
into high gear.
Significant change.
Matthew 5:17-20
Jesus, always the Jew,
affirmed
The Law and the Prophets
AND
Played it Forward.
In the process
he let everyone know
the need to get it
Right
way more than the
religious establishment
of his
(and our??)
time.
The Jews were rooted in
The Law and the Prophets
It was their
Tradition.
Jesus,
Jew through and through,
in no way was about
to pull up
those sacred roots.
He was, though,
very definitely
about tending, extending,
their development and growth,
taking them to
new heights of fruition.
His is a
LIVING TRADITION.
He affirmed both
generational continuity
and its development.
It's like producing
priceless wine
from old vines.
Those vines are both
deeply rooted
and vigorously alive
with the new growth
of grapes.
A healthy vine
can neither renounce
its roots nor refuse
fresh growth and fruit.
Neither did Jesus.
LIVING TRADITION
Jesus didn't terminate.
He transcended.
He furthered and fulfilled.
He reinterpreted and enlarged.
"You have heard it said,
but I say unto you..."
He widened the horizon
He moved the focus from
the letter and form
of the law
to its spirit
and
our inner intentions
and motivations.
External religiosity
and/or
correct conformity
to law
is not near enough
nor complete.
Attitude and action
flowing from love
is the way of
The Kingdom
Come and Coming,
with its fresh
and fuller life
here and here after.
Jesus is saying in
other ways and words:
"God is Love"
I John4:8
"You shall love
the Lord your God
with all your heart,
and with all your soul,
and with all your mind.
This is the greatest
and first commandment.
And a second is like it:
'You shall love your neighbor
as yourself.
On these two commandments
hang all the law and prophets."
Matthew 22: 37-40
Jesus built on a good base,
erecting a renewing
spiritual habitation.
LIVING TRADITION
All of this was/is
a mammoth spiritual
Sea Change.
Jesus shook things up
and His Spirit still does.
In our life's journey
we all go through such,
through continual change,
shifting.
So do societies and cultures.
So does spirituality.
So does religion.
In all of these we are
right now in the midst
of a huge shake up.
Just look out the window.
What a help
to follow Jesus.
He shook
the Jewish tradition
to new life.
He opened things up,
built forward
from a solid base.
He didn't demolish.
He developed
and expanded.
That means going from
a set order of things
to a period of disorder
and then moving into a
refreshed and expanded
reorder.
It's no cake walk,
but it does get you
where you need to go.
Please consider
taking time and soul
with the three week series
on
Order Disorder Reorder
Richard Rohr
Daily Meditations
Center for Action
and Contemplation
August 9 - 29, 2020
It applies to our spiritual lives
and just about every other sphere
of individual and shared life.
It talks rootedness,
development, growth.
It talks the pain of disorder
between order and reorder in life,
spiritually and every other "...ly".
In our spiritual living
we are lucky enough
to never stand still.
If we try, we die.
Spiritual living
never comes
to a dead stop.
It is rather a
dynamic progression.
We never "get there".
We're always "getting there".
The present builds on the past
and moves to the future.
It's similar to what Jesus did
with the Jewish Tradition.
He never said it wasn't good.
He did say it wasn't good enough.
It was a mile marker
and we are blessed
with a wide open road
as we travel to Fullness.
What we got as as religion
when we were children was one thing.
There is a lot more to it and to come.
It was a tricycle that got us started.
Our transport had to change
if we were to get on our way in life.
So, there was the exciting freight
of learning to ride a two wheeler.
That got us along farther and faster.
Then again the exciting freight
of learning to drive a car.
And so it goes in our
spiritual living/progression.
We move from an ordered way
to the disorder of letting go of it
(or having it taken from us),
to a new, a reordered moment -
and that for only a while.
As a kid some learned to make
The Stations of the Cross.
Comes the day when
one doesn't so much do the
fourteen "stations" in church.
One lives them out in relationship,
at work, at home, soul deep -
wherever one is "stationed"
in the dynamic progression to
FULLNESS
"The only thing that
doesn't change
is change itself."
Heraclitus
"When I was a child,
I spoke as a child,
I thought like a child,
I reasoned as a child; when
I became an adult,
I put an end to childish ways.
I Corinthians 13: 11
Our spiritual living is in tandem
with what Jesus did in furthering
The Jewish Tradition.
We are party to
order, disorder and reorder
again and always in this dynamic
LIVING TRADITION.
We do well to see and sense
what and how Jesus did that
and does that a plenty in our
Right Now.
Jesus reordered.
He enlarged the Jewish tradition.
He deepened and elevated it.
He gives a host of examples
and guidance in the rest of
The Sermon On The Mount.
Matthew 5:21 - 7:29
These are the rich new growth.
They are right at home,
everyday, out on the street,
busts of divine new life
on the vine of our living
spiritual tradition.
Tended are things like:
- anger and degrading others
- sexual purity and realness
- divorce
- truthfulness
- overcoming evil with good
- love of enemies
- a way to give alms that counts
- praying that actually is
- forgiving - a "giving for"
- fasting forward
- heart treasure
- inner light
- wealth that can't wither
- keeping the holy whole
- our ask and God's largess
- The Golden Rule
- the narrow road to Real
- heads up - know by fruits
- talk less - act more
DO
God's Will
- hearers and doers
- build on Rock Reality.
Beautiful, Dynamic
Living Tradition.
You know what?
The Summer Series
become
This Fall Series
Might just become
Our Winter Series!!
There's so much here.
It's so doggone good!
Jesus is a change agent.
He builds on the best,
opens it in an expanse
of growth to fullness.
He invites us
to change,
to come along
with him in this
LIVING TRADITION.
So good for us
to share together here in
this wonderous expanse.
Every Godness,
John Frank
******
PRAY AND PONDER
The Message
provides a refreshing translation
of the scriptures
in contemporary speak.
"Don't suppose for a minute
that I have come to demolish
the Scriptures - either
God's Law or the Prophets.
I'm not here to demolish
but to complete.
I am going to put it all together,
pull it all together
in a vast panorama.
God's Law is more real and lasting
than the stars in the sky
and the ground at your feet.
Long after stars burn out
and earth wears out,
God's Law will be
alive and working.
Trivialize even the smallest item
in God's Law and you will only
have trivialized yourself.
But take it seriously,
show the way for others,
and you will find honor in the kingdom.
Unless you do far better
than the Pharisees
in the matters of right living,
you won't know the first thing
about entering the kingdom."
Matthew 5:17-20
In view of this scripture,
and the three quoted above
in the body of the blog:
- What do I hear in my heart?
- What direction/redirection
do these words invite?
- What do these scriptures
say to my soul about
the passion and commitment
of my spiritual living?
- What do these scriptures mean
in terms of things I need
to stop and things I need to start?
- What do these scriptures reveal
about our culture and society?
- What are the "best practices"
I can live in our culture and society?
- Where am I at the moment:
are things in order,
being disordered,
growing into a refreshed reorder?
Matthew 5: 17- 20
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A Happy Hearty Welcome
to all joining us for the first time.
Over the past almost four years
we have had folks join us
on and off from eighty nine countries.
Last week we had
our first ever visits from
Curacao.
A special Welcome to you!
"How good and pleasant
it is when brethren
dwell together in unity"
Psalm 133
******
Thanks to all who have shared
"frankly speaking"
with family and friends.
- it is posted online
each Thursday mid-day,
east coast USA time
johnfrankshares.blogspot.com
- there is automatic email delivery
on Fridays - the sign up
is top right above
- all past postings are available at
Blog Archive
right column here.
Say, how about we all go fiddle
on the roof with Tevye this week?
Old Timers like me would do well,
though, to fiddle from the front porch!!
SEE YOU NEXT WEEK!
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