Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, our readings leave me wondering about what makes God tick.
In our first reading, God exacts justice for Solomon’s unfaithfulness, but God does it sort of like a prosecutor in a plea bargain.
I will deprive you of the kingdom … but not during your lifetime It is your son whom I will deprive … but I won’t take away the whole kingdom.
1 Kings 11:11-13
What’s going on with God in this reading? Well, it’s more like “What’s going on with the writer as s/he tries, retrospectively, to interpret God’s role in Israel’s history?”
The passage is much more than a report on exchanges between God and Solomon.
It is a testament to Israel’s unwavering faith that God is intimately involved in their lives. In every circumstance, the believing community returns to the fact that experience leads to God and not away from Him.
So “Solomon … had TURNED his heart to strange gods” BUT God had not turned from Solomon. Nor would God EVER turn because God has CHOSEN Israel.
In our Gospel, the Syrophoenician woman tries to get the favor of Jesus to turn toward her. And actually, Jesus sounds pretty mean and stingy about it.
Again the writer Mark is portraying, retrospectively, a significant time in Christ’s ministry. Jesus has really gone into hiding in a remote place. Apparently, he wants space to figure some things out. The story indicates that one of those things might be whether or not his ministry should embrace the Gentiles.
The persistence of this woman’s faith is a turning point for Jesus Who evolved, as we all do, in his understanding of his sacred role and meaning in the world.
These passages encourage us to constantly turn toward God Who lives our life with us. Day to day, our lives change and challenge us. But throughout, we must stay centered on our God who does not change. This sacred relationship is essential to our spiritual growth. As we become bigger in heart and soul, so does our concept of God and what God’s hope is for us.
Poetry: All this “turning” brought to mind some favorites lines from T.S. Eliot
At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless; Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is, But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity, Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards, Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point, There would be no dance, and there is only the dance.
Today, in Mercy, the Queen of Sheba visits Solomon. It’s another Solomon story worthy of the big screen where, in fact, it has been loosely fictionalized and adulterated many times.
Many trusted scripture scholars question the historicity of the story. Several agree that Solomon never rose to the kind of material glory described in the passage. The two books of Kings were written 500 years after Solomon lived. In many aspects, the writings offer a reflection on the meaning of his reign in Israel’s covenanted life rather than a strict account of his life.
So what might we glean from today’s passage on the mysterious queen. The story demonstrates that Solomon is so accomplished that a revered leader will come to learn from him. Once she arrives, she is overwhelmed by his material successes and strength. Solomon has constructed a dominant, rich and subservient culture.
But wait. Is there a bit of ironic judgement and, perhaps, prophetic reminder woven into the Queen’s accolades? Shifting the focus from an increasingly arrogant Solomon back to Israel’s God, she says:
Blessed be the LORD, your God, whom it has pleased to place you on the throne of Israel. In his enduring love for Israel, the LORD has made you king to carry out judgment and justice
1 Kings 10:7-8
In fact, the great wealth and power of Solomon’s kingdom was built, not on justice and judgement, but on the backs of the poor and excluded. For example, Walter Brueggemann says this:
(Solomon’s kingdom) … was an economy of extraction that regularly transferred wealth from subsistence farmers to the elite in Jerusalem, who lived off the surplus and the device and the strategy for that extraction was an exploitative tax system.
When the Biblical scribe puts the words judgment and justice into the Queen’s remarks, it may be intended to forecast the miserable end Solomon will meet because he has abandoned his responsibilities to care for all the people according the the Lord’s covenant.
This glorious, shining realm which so impressed the Queen is a kingdom built on corruption, greed, militarism, and manipulation of the poor.
The lessons for our world are obvious.
As Jesus tells us in today’s Gospel, it doesn’t matter whether we’re gilded in gold on the outside and spin our words in glorious promises. What matters are the true intentions of our hearts and the compassionate actions they inspire:
But what comes out of the person, that is what defiles him. From within, from the heart, come evil thoughts, unchastity, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, licentiousness, envy, blasphemy, arrogance, folly.
Ultimately, the great Solomon misses the boat on this. May his story help us not to do the same.
Poetry: The Queen of Sheba – Hadewijch (English version by Mother Columba Hart. Original Language – Dutch)
Hadewijch — often called Hadewijch of Brabant or sometimes Hadewijch of Antwerp — lived in the 13th century in what is now Belgium. She is rightly called one of the greatest names in medieval Flemish and Dutch literature.
Little can be said for certain about the life of Hadewijch. Unlike many other women mystics of the time, no biography was written about her, so all we know is what scholars have been able to deduce from her writings themselves.
Hadewijch was probably the head of a Beguine community. The Beguines were a sect of devout women in Belgium, Holland, Germany and northern France. Beguines did not take vows, but they gathered together to live in simplicity and service. Many Beguines were mystics and poets of the highest order.
The Queen of Sheba Came to Solomon; That was in order to gain wisdom. When she had found him, indeed, His wonders streamed upon her so suddenly That she melted in contemplation. She gave him all, And the gift robbed her Of everything she had within -- In both heart and mind, Nothing remained: Everything was engulfed in love.
Music: Music: La Reine de Saba (The Queen of Sheba) – Raymond LeFevre
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, in our readings, both Solomon and Jesus seek a quiet place to pray, reflect, recenter, and commune with God.
Solomon went to Gibeon to sacrifice there, because that was the most renowned high place. Upon its altar Solomon offered a thousand burnt offerings. In Gibeon the LORD appeared to Solomon in a dream at night. God said, “Ask something of me and I will give it to you.”
1 Kings 3:4
Dream of Solomon – Luca Giordano
Solomon’s retreat is characterized by his sincere humility and gratitude. In this, his first documented encounter with God, Solomon hits a homer in relationship. God is pleased with Solomon’s self-abnegating request for only wisdom to benefit others.
O LORD, my God, you have made me, your servant, king to succeed my father David; but I am a mere youth, not knowing at all how to act. I serve you in the midst of the people whom you have chosen, a people so vast that it cannot be numbered or counted. Give your servant, therefore, an understanding heart to judge your people and to distinguish right from wrong. For who is able to govern this vast people of yours?”
1 Kings 3:7-9
In his prayer, Solomon has been able to get himself out of the way in order to really see and hear God – to fully receive God’s Presence in his life.
In our Gospel, Jesus seeks retreat for himself and his disciples because of the pressures of their ministries and the recent gut-punch news of John the Baptist’s execution.
Turns out, they don’t really get much of a chance for a “holy chill”. As with many of us, the responsibilities are so pressing that they conspire to find us no matter what.
So they went off in the boat by themselves to a deserted place. People saw them leaving and many came to know about it. They hastened there on foot from all the towns and arrived at the place before them.
When Jesus disembarked and saw the vast crowd, his heart was moved with pity for them, for they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things.
Mark 6: 32-34
We too, like Solomon and Jesus, need times of retreat and dedicated prayer in our lives. But sometimes, our responsibilities and work follow us as we attempt to find that sacred space.
How can we free ourselves for such spiritual renewal? By planning, asking for assistance, disciplining our time and choices. But the key is that we really have to want that precious deserted place for meeting God in a special way.
These “retreats” must be a way of life for us, consistent choices to bring our busy lives before God, humbly open our hearts, and ask to see ourselves in a new and graced way.
Our “going off to rest awhile” in God can be as short as a few minutes morning and evening, or as long as a 30 day retreat. But they must be a consistent and disciplined desire of our hearts.
“Discipline” may seem like a hard word for it, especially if we think of our high school demerits when we hear that word🤪 But remember, without disciple music would be just noise, art would be just scribble, dance would be contortion, and conversation would be babble.
When you consider “discipline”, think instead of the elegant balance of a beautiful dance and let God lead, or of the sweet perfection of glorious music and let God sing to you.
Prose: A treasured thought of the Jesuit Pedro Arrupe suggests itself here:
Nothing is more practical than
finding God, than
falling in Love
in a quite absolute, final way.
What you are in love with,
what seizes your imagination, will affect everything.
It will decide
what will get you out of bed in the morning,
what you do with your evenings,
how you spend your weekends,
what you read, whom you know,
what breaks your heart,
and what amazes you with joy and gratitude.
Fall in Love, stay in love,
and it will decide everything.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, “journey” is a central theme. David takes his final journey after commissioning his son Solomon as his successor. In our Gospel, Jesus commissions the disciples for their first missionary journey.
Each of these journeys has its own “baggage requirements”.
David’s situation is easy and can be stated in a phrase we are all familiar with:
“You can’t take it with you.”
The writer of Job expresses the same sentiment:
And Job said, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return. The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.”
Job 1:2
Back in my early days of business flying, when there were no baggage fees, some passengers took everything but the kitchen sink on their journeys. I have a clear picture of petite women, and a few guys, hauling suitcases bigger than themselves over to the check-in counter.
So often in life we carry a lot of baggage, both material and mental, that we don’t need. Some of it is good stuff we just can’t part with, and some of it is junk we should have tossed long ago. The point is that it’s all weight we don’t need if we want to reach our desired destination easily.
Jesus drives that point home to his disciples in today’s Gospel:
He instructed them to take nothing for the journey but a walking stick – no food, no sack, no money in their belts.
Now that’s a pretty stringent packing list! So what might it mean for our spiritual journey?
Let’s ask ourselves this:
What weighs me down from being a loving, generous, joyful, just and merciful person?
Are there things I won’t let go of because I am fearful, insecure, or selfish?
When the disciples heeded Jesus’s advice, their ensuing freedom made them capable of miracles. Might such courage do the same thing for us?
Poetry: let it go – e.e. cummings
let it go – the smashed word broken open vow or the oath cracked length wise – let it go it was sworn to go
let them go – the truthful liars and the false fair friends and the boths and neithers – you must let them go they were born to go
let all go – the big small middling tall bigger really the biggest and all things – let all go dear
so comes love
Music: Have a little fun this morning with this great old country song. Apologies to all grammarians who will spot the blatant contradiction in the title!
I Wouldn’t Take Nothing for My Journey Now – Goodman Revival
Refrain: Well, I wouldn’t take nothin’ for my journey now Gotta make it to Heaven somehow Though the devil tempt me and he tried to turn me around He’s offered everything that’s got a name All the wealth I want and worldly fame If I could still I wouldn’t take nothin’ for my journey now
Well, I started out travellin’ for the Lord many years ago I’ve had a lot of heartache and I met a lot of grief and woe But when I would stumble then I would humble down And there I’d say, I wouldn’t take nothin’ for my journey now
Oh, there’s nothin’ in this world that’ll ever take the place of God’s love All the silver and gold wouldn’t buy a touch from above When the soul needs healin’ and I begin to feelin’ His power Then I can say, thank the Lord, I wouldn’t take nothing for my journey now
Oh, I wouldn’t take nothin’ for my journey now Gotta make it to Heaven somehow Though the devil tempts me and he tried to turn me around He’s offered everything that’s got a name All the wealth I want and worldly fame If I could still I wouldn’t take nothin’ for my journey now.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with Psalm 90 along with readings that are both beautiful and poignant.
In our first passage, we drink from Wisdom’s sweet nectar. This book, written about fifty years before Christ’s birth, is the work of an unnamed Jewish poet and scholar. At points, as in today’s segment, the writer assumes the persona of Solomon, speaking in his name.
We know from the Book of Kings, chapter 3, that Solomon, as a young king, led a faithful and righteous life. Because of this, God offered Solomon “whatever you want me to give you.”
Think of the possibilities for this young man, just on the cusp of kingship! Power, wealth, longevity, peace, prosperity, political dominance – all the things we are inclined to covet in this world.
But Solomon prays instead for wisdom, as described in today’s reading:
Beyond health and comeliness I loved her, and I chose to have her rather than the light, because the splendor of her never yields to sleep.
Our Gospel tells of a young man offered an opportunity similar to Solomon’s. Already living a faithful life, he wants to go deeper into God’s heart.
Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said to him,
“You are lacking in one thing. Go, sell what you have, and give to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.”
But this young man, unlike Solomon, cannot accept the invitation to this deep place of love and devotion. Instead, he goes away sad. It makes me sad, too, whenever I read these verses. I always wish that, after a few steps, he had turned around and shouted, “Yes! I will do what you ask. I love God that much. Help me!”
Like these young men, we have a deep desire to live within God’s love. But are we walking toward that love or away from it? Most of us don’t say an outright “No” to God’s invitation. Instead, we are distracted, lazy, or just not paying attention to the the whispers of grace.
Let’s pray today’s powerful Psalm 90 to open our minds and hearts to God’s hope for us.
Poetry: Based on Psalm 90 – Christine Robinson
We have come out of the Earth and to the Earth we return Our lives are but a flash in the light of Eternity. We are like beautiful flowers which live only a day. We might live 70 years—more if our strength holds. So much work and hardship! How quickly the time passes.
Teach us then, to value our days to treat each one as a sacred trust. Fill our hearts with wisdom. and a love for our lives. In spite of all the grief and suffering May we be always glad of this precious gift And hallow the good in each day.
Today, in Mercy, our readings leave me wondering about what makes God tick.
In our first reading, God exacts justice for Solomon’s unfaithfulness, but He does it sort of like a prosecutor in a plea bargain.
I will deprive you of the kingdom … but not during your lifetime It is your son whom I will deprive … but I won’t take away the whole kingdom.
What’s going on with God in this reading? Well, it’s more like “What’s going on with the writer as he tries, retrospectively, to interpret God’s role in Israel’s history?”
The passage is much more than a report on exchanges between God and Solomon.
It is a testament to Israel’s unwavering faith that God is intimately involved in their lives. In every circumstance, the believing community returns to the fact that experience leads to God and not away from Him.
So “Solomon … had TURNED his heart to strange gods” BUT God had not turned from Solomon. Nor would God EVER turn because God has CHOSEN Israel.
In our Gospel, the Syrophoenician woman tries to get the favor of Jesus to turn toward her. And actually, Jesus sounds pretty mean and stingy about it.
Again the writer Mark is portraying, retrospectively, a significant time in Christ’s ministry. Jesus has really gone into hiding in a remote place. Apparently, he wants space to figure some things out. The story indicates that one of those things might be whether or not his ministry should embrace the Gentiles.
The persistence of this woman’s faith is a turning point for Jesus Who evolved, as we all do, in his understanding of his sacred role and meaning in the world.
These passages encourage us to constantly turn toward God Who lives our life with us. Such conversation helps us to grow spiritually. As we become bigger in heart and soul, so does our concept of God and what God’s hope is for us.
Music: Perfect Wisdom of Our God – The Gettys (See poem after music video)
All this “turning” brought to mind some favorites lines from T.S. Eliot:
At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless; Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is, But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity, Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards, Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point, There would be no dance, and there is only the dance.
I happened across a website where Eliot himself reads “Burnt Norton”, the poem from which these lines are taken. Eliot fans might enjoy this. Eliot’s poems take time and work as well as simple reading. But the effort is so worth it!
Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future
And time future contained in time past.
If all time is eternally present
All time is unredeemable.
What might have been is an abstraction
Remaining a perpetual possibility
Only in a world of speculation.
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.
Footfalls echo in the memory
Down the passage which we did not take
Towards the door we never opened
Into the rose-garden. My words echo
Thus, in your mind.
But to what purpose
Disturbing the dust on a bowl of rose-leaves
I do not know.
Other echoes
Inhabit the garden. Shall we follow?
Quick, said the bird, find them, find them,
Round the corner. Through the first gate,
Into our first world, shall we follow
The deception of the thrush? Into our first world.
There they were, dignified, invisible,
Moving without pressure, over the dead leaves,
In the autumn heat, through the vibrant air,
And the bird called, in response to
The unheard music hidden in the shrubbery,
And the unseen eyebeam crossed, for the roses
Had the look of flowers that are looked at.
There they were as our guests, accepted and accepting.
So we moved, and they, in a formal pattern,
Along the empty alley, into the box circle,
To look down into the drained pool.
Dry the pool, dry concrete, brown edged,
And the pool was filled with water out of sunlight,
And the lotos rose, quietly, quietly,
The surface glittered out of heart of light,
And they were behind us, reflected in the pool.
Then a cloud passed, and the pool was empty.
Go, said the bird, for the leaves were full of children,
Hidden excitedly, containing laughter.
Go, go, go, said the bird: human kind
Cannot bear very much reality.
Time past and time future
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.
II
Garlic and sapphires in the mud
Clot the bedded axle-tree.
The trilling wire in the blood
Sings below inveterate scars
Appeasing long forgotten wars.
The dance along the artery
The circulation of the lymph
Are figured in the drift of stars
Ascend to summer in the tree
We move above the moving tree
In light upon the figured leaf
And hear upon the sodden floor
Below, the boarhound and the boar
Pursue their pattern as before
But reconciled among the stars.
At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless;
Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is,
But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity,
Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards,
Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point,
There would be no dance, and there is only the dance.
I can only say, there we have been: but I cannot say where.
And I cannot say, how long, for that is to place it in time.
The inner freedom from the practical desire,
The release from action and suffering, release from the inner
And the outer compulsion, yet surrounded
By a grace of sense, a white light still and moving,
Erhebung without motion, concentration
Without elimination, both a new world
And the old made explicit, understood
In the completion of its partial ecstasy,
The resolution of its partial horror.
Yet the enchainment of past and future
Woven in the weakness of the changing body,
Protects mankind from heaven and damnation
Which flesh cannot endure.
Time past and time future
Allow but a little consciousness.
To be conscious is not to be in time
But only in time can the moment in the rose-garden,
The moment in the arbour where the rain beat,
The moment in the draughty church at smokefall
Be remembered; involved with past and future.
Only through time time is conquered.
III
Here is a place of disaffection
Time before and time after
In a dim light: neither daylight
Investing form with lucid stillness
Turning shadow into transient beauty
Wtih slow rotation suggesting permanence
Nor darkness to purify the soul
Emptying the sensual with deprivation
Cleansing affection from the temporal.
Neither plentitude nor vacancy. Only a flicker
Over the strained time-ridden faces
Distracted from distraction by distraction
Filled with fancies and empty of meaning
Tumid apathy with no concentration
Men and bits of paper, whirled by the cold wind
That blows before and after time,
Wind in and out of unwholesome lungs
Time before and time after.
Eructation of unhealthy souls
Into the faded air, the torpid
Driven on the wind that sweeps the gloomy hills of London,
Hampstead and Clerkenwell, Campden and Putney,
Highgate, Primrose and Ludgate. Not here
Not here the darkness, in this twittering world.
Descend lower, descend only
Into the world of perpetual solitude,
World not world, but that which is not world,
Internal darkness, deprivation
And destitution of all property,
Dessication of the world of sense,
Evacuation of the world of fancy,
Inoperancy of the world of spirit;
This is the one way, and the other
Is the same, not in movement
But abstention from movement; while the world moves
In appetency, on its metalled ways
Of time past and time future.
IV
Time and the bell have buried the day,
the black cloud carries the sun away.
Will the sunflower turn to us, will the clematis
Stray down, bend to us; tendril and spray
Clutch and cling?
Chill
Fingers of yew be curled
Down on us? After the kingfisher’s wing
Has answered light to light, and is silent, the light is still
At the still point of the turning world.
V
Words move, music moves
Only in time; but that which is only living
Can only die. Words, after speech, reach
Into the silence. Only by the form, the pattern,
Can words or music reach
The stillness, as a Chinese jar still
Moves perpetually in its stillness.
Not the stillness of the violin, while the note lasts,
Not that only, but the co-existence,
Or say that the end precedes the beginning,
And the end and the beginning were always there
Before the beginning and after the end.
And all is always now. Words strain,
Crack and sometimes break, under the burden,
Under the tension, slip, slide, perish,
Will not stay still. Shrieking voices
Scolding, mocking, or merely chattering,
Always assail them. The Word in the desert
Is most attacked by voices of temptation,
The crying shadow in the funeral dance,
The loud lament of the disconsolate chimera.
The detail of the pattern is movement,
As in the figure of the ten stairs.
Desire itself is movement
Not in itself desirable;
Love is itself unmoving,
Only the cause and end of movement,
Timeless, and undesiring
Except in the aspect of time
Caught in the form of limitation
Between un-being and being.
Sudden in a shaft of sunlight
Even while the dust moves
There rises the hidden laughter
Of children in the foliage
Quick now, here, now, always —
Ridiculous the waste sad time
Stretching before and after.
Today, in Mercy, the Queen of Sheba visits Solomon. It’s another Solomon story worthy of the big screen where, in fact, it has been loosely fictionalized and adulterated many times.
Many trusted scripture scholars question the historicity of the story. Several agree that Solomon never rose to the kind of material glory described in the passage. The two books of Kings were written 500 years after Solomon lived. In many aspects, the writings offer a reflection on the meaning of his reign in Israel’s covenanted life rather than a strict account of his life.
So what might we glean from today’s passage on the mysterious queen. The story demonstrates that Solomon is so accomplished that a revered leader will come to learn from him. Once she arrives, she is overwhelmed by his material successes and strength. Solomon has constructed a dominant, rich and subservient culture.
But wait. Is there a bit of ironic judgement and, perhaps,prophetic reminder woven into the Queen’s accolades? Shifting the focus from an increasingly arrogant Solomon back to Israel’s God, she says:
Blessed be the LORD, your God, whom it has pleased to place you on the throne of Israel. In his enduring love for Israel, the LORD has made you king to carry out judgment and justice
In fact, the great wealth and power of Solomon’s kingdom was built, not on justice and judgement, but on the backs of the poor and excluded. For example, Walter Brueggemann says this:
(Solomon’s kingdom) … was an economy of extraction that regularly transferred wealth from subsistence farmers to the elite in Jerusalem, who lived off the surplus and the device and the strategy for that extraction was an exploitative tax system.
When the Biblical scribe puts the words judgment and justice into the Queen’s remarks, it may be intended to forecast the miserable end Solomon will meet because he has abandoned his responsibilities to care for all the people according the the Lord’s covenant.
This glorious, shining realm which so impressed the Queen is a kingdom built on corruption, greed, militarism, and manipulation of the poor.
The lessons for our world are obvious.
As Jesus tells us in today’s Gospel, it doesn’t matter whether we’re gilded in gold on the outside and spin our words in glorious promises. What matters are the true intentions of our hearts and the compassionate actions they inspire:
But what comes out of the person, that is what defiles him. From within, from the heart, come evil thoughts, unchastity, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, licentiousness, envy, blasphemy, arrogance, folly.
Ultimately, the great Solomon misses the boat on this. May his story help us not to do the same.
Also, as we pray, we may want to remember the devastated people of Yemen, the land identified as the historical Sheba. For some background on the current crisis in Yemen, see this article from Catholic Bishops
Lavish Mercy 