My Nonsense
Old Testament reading for Sunday, September 9:
Proverbs 22:1-2, 8-9, 22-23 King James Version (KJV)
1 A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches, and loving favour rather than silver and gold.
2 The rich and poor meet together: the Lord is the maker of them all.
8 He that soweth iniquity shall reap vanity: and the rod of his anger shall fail.
9 He that hath a bountiful eye shall be blessed; for he giveth of his bread to the poor.
22 Rob not the poor, because he is poor: neither oppress the afflicted in the gate:
23 For the Lord will plead their cause, and spoil the soul of those that spoiled them.
And the responsive psalm:
Psalm 125 King James Version (KJV)
1 They that trust in the Lord shall be as mount Zion, which cannot be removed, but abideth for ever.
2 As the mountains are round about Jerusalem, so the Lord is round about his people from henceforth even for ever.
3 For the rod of the wicked shall not rest upon the lot of the righteous; lest the righteous put forth their hands unto iniquity.
4 Do good, O Lord, unto those that be good, and to them that are upright in their hearts.
5 As for such as turn aside unto their crooked ways, the Lord shall lead them forth with the workers of iniquity: but peace shall be upon Israel.
Seldom does our lectionary take us into the Book of Proverbs, and not many folks know much about it or indeed are interested. Only once in my years of Bible study with groups did the members of a group ask to study Proverbs, and they were young people, middle-schoolers. As an elective at Holy Nativity Episcopal School some years ago, I offered a Senior Bible Seminar for eighth graders only. It was meant to be limited to six to eight students, about an ideal size for a seminar group; but more than half of the senior class signed up, almost unmanageable, but we did it anyway.
The Senior Bible Seminar was in addition to my regular Religion & Ethics course which was mandatory for everyone until one parent stepped forward and forbade that her child participate in the study of Harry Potter we were having that year as our third year of studying and discussing modern fantasy fiction with Christian overtones and undercurrents. So rather than have that one student out of seventy-five middle-schoolers sit in the library during religion class, we offered an elective.
We began with study of one book of the Bible to get it going, then after that, the class together decided what to study. At one point they said they didn’t know anything about Proverbs, so we did that -- genre, history, organization, contents. It’s a fascinating collection of wisdom.
Working with the Middle School students those years, and in the building where I myself had been in the same grades and same classrooms a half-century earlier, was a highlight of all my years of ordained ministry. The school, and the building, and the students have been the very center of my heart.
As it turned out, as has unfortunately been my lifelong habit in work that I enjoyed, I loaded up my schedule beyond what was reasonable -- in that case serving simultaneously as School Chaplain and as Middle School Religion & Ethics teacher at HNES and as Vicar of St. Thomas by the Sea Episcopal Church, Laguna Beach. It became an overload for me such that I had to cut back. However, I do maintain connections, serving year t0 year as Financial Aid Administrator for the school, and through the Holy Nativity School Foundation serving happily as the school’s “landlord” of sorts!
One must be conscious and aware of one’s work habits. During our fourteen years at Trinity Episcopal Church, Apalachicola, I noticed that about every three or four years I would have become overloaded with ministry projects, EfM, Cursillo, high school PTA president, Franklin County representative for Gulf Coast College, adjunct professor for the college’s religion courses in Apalachicola and Carrabelle, Rotary Club, city Library Board, Book Club, Florida Seafood Festival board of directors (a working board) -- that I had to back off and resign from everything I was doing that wasn’t specifically parish, until I would realize that it had built up again. About a three to four year cycle.
My rector today is a wise man who cautions me not to let this happen, as it had overwhelmingly by the middle of 2010. So, my workload limit for the 2012-13 Fall Spring season is adult Bible study only, three classes, all three studying and discussing the exact same subject so that there’s only one “preparation,” and preaching about one Sunday in three as scheduled. It is, for me, the ideal retirement.
And writing my +Time blog post as the early morning means of stirring the brain and hopefully annoying someone, anyone.
So, what did all this have to do with the Proverbs reading and Psalm 125 --
Nothing. A jumping off point for a wandering mind. Otherwise, nada.
But then the Proverbs reading and the Psalm don't seem to have much to do with anything else either.
TW+