[Uucf-bible] From the lectionary reading for this Sunday

[RevRonRobinson at aol.com]

Hi all. Getting back into the swing of things with Labor Day  around the 
corner. Here are some selections from the common lectionary for this  Sunday for 
your reflection, response. I meant to post from Tom Bandy's new The  Uncommon 
Lectionary for this Sunday but can't put my hands on the book this a.m.  but 
will unless someone else has it and can post a follow-up. 
Don't get to post from Song of Solomon too much so it is great to be able  to 
do so. Here it is Labor Day and we get a reflection about Spring bustin' out; 
 who says the lectionary isn't for the booming southern hemisphere 
Christianity.  But then that is the beauty of the common lectionary as opposed to the  
seeker-sensitive UnCommon Lectionary of Bandy; it takes us out of our normal  
default mode world and into an alternative story, of which as Ivan Illich said, 
 all revolutions are made. 
 
And then there is so much wonderful discussable stuff in the reading from  
Mark. I always like the part about what goes in not defiling us. It is a basic  
underpinning of liberal Christianity that we can be open to finding truth and  
revelation in so many places, that we can trust the world enough to be open 
to  it. Of course I have also come to believe that what we consumes tends to 
consume  or become us. So the line you have to walk and the paradoxes to live 
in. 
blessings, 
Ron
_www.uuchristian.org_ (http://www.uuchristian.org) 
_www.UUChristianFellowship.blogspot.com_ 
(http://www.UUChristianFellowship.blogspot.com) 
 
Song of Solomon 2:8-13 (The  Message)
Look! Listen! There's my lover!  
Do you see him coming?
Vaulting the mountains,  
leaping the hills.
My lover is like a gazelle,  graceful; 
like a young stag, virile.
Look at him there,  on tiptoe at the gate, 
all ears, all eyes—ready!
My  lover has arrived 
and he's speaking to me! 
 
Get up, my dear friend, 
fair and beautiful lover—come  to me!
Look around you: Winter is over; 
the winter  rains are over, gone!
Spring flowers are in blossom all over.  
The whole world's a choir—and singing!
Spring warblers  are filling the forest 
with sweet arpeggios.
Lilacs are  exuberantly purple and perfumed, 
and cherry trees fragrant  with blossoms.
Oh, get up, dear friend, 
my fair and  beautiful lover—come to me!
Come, my shy and modest dove—  
leave your seclusion, come out in the open.
Let me see  your face, 
let me hear your voice.
For your voice is  soothing 
and your face is ravishing. 
 
 
Mark 7:1-23
7Now when the Pharisees and some of the scribes who had  come from Jerusalem 
gathered around him, 2they noticed that  some of his disciples were eating 
with defiled hands, that is, without washing  them. 3(For the Pharisees, and all 
the Jews, do not eat  unless they thoroughly wash their hands, thus observing 
the tradition of the  elders; 4and they do not eat anything from the market 
unless  they wash it; and there are also many other traditions that they 
observe, the  washing of cups, pots, and bronze kettles.) 5So the  Pharisees and the 
scribes asked him, “Why do your disciples not live according  to the tradition 
of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?” 6He said to them, “Isaiah 
prophesied rightly about you  hypocrites, as it is written,  
‘This people honors me with their lips,
but  their hearts are far from me;
7in vain do they worship  me,
teaching human precepts as doctrines.’
8You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition.”   
9Then he said to them, “You have a fine way of rejecting  the commandment of 
God in order to keep your tradition! 10For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and 
your mother’; and,  ‘Whoever speaks evil of father or mother must surely die.’
 11But you say that if anyone tells father or mother, ‘Whatever  support you 
might have had from me is Corban’ (that is, an offering to God)—  12then you 
no longer permit doing anything for a father or  mother, 13thus making void 
the word of God through your  tradition that you have handed on. And you do many 
things like this.”  
14Then he called the crowd again and said to them,  “Listen to me, all of 
you, and understand: 15there is  nothing outside a person that by going in can 
defile, but the things that come  out are what defile.”  
17When he had left the crowd and entered the house, his  disciples asked him 
about the parable. 18He said to them,  “Then do you also fail to understand? 
Do you not see that whatever goes into a  person from outside cannot defile, 
19since it enters, not  the heart but the stomach, and goes out into the sewer?” 
(Thus he declared all  foods clean.) 20And he said, “It is what comes out of 
a  person that defiles. 21For it is from within, from the human  heart, that 
evil intentions come: fornication, theft, murder, 22adultery, avarice, 
wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy,  slander, pride, folly. 23All these evil 
things come from  within, and they defile a person.”