QUARANTINE BLOG # 246

December 1, 2020

First of all, Happy Birthday to Mayleigh Grace Sisler.  Seven years old today!

👉  We haven’t done phrase origins in a while, so here are a couple for your consideration:

Get One’s Goat.  This is a 20th century American phrase relating to horse racing.  It used to be common practice for goats to be used to keep restless horses under control – they had a calming effect on the horses and they made them all the more race-ready.  On race days, goats were stolen (“got”) by wily thieves who, expecting the horse to be distressed by the absence of its bearded friend, would then place a bet on it to lose.  Today, if something or someone gets your goat, it annoys, distresses, and irritates you, as if you were a horse whose goat had been stolen.

Well-heeled.  The term “well-heeled” is used to refer to someone both well-off and well-dressed.  Its origins lie in cockfighting.  If a bird was well-heeled, it was in possession of good spurs – sharp and dangerous metal “heels” attached to the back of a cock's foot.  The better the spurs, the more damage could be done.  Today our understanding of the word refers to someone with plenty of money and clothes that reflect it. 

👉  No further comment needed about this next picture (If you haven’t read Lord of the Rings, or watched the movies, that’s Gollum.  If you have read Lord of the Rings, or watched the movies, that’s Gollum).

👉  Just when you thought it was safe to go back to the polls.  Election authorities in Georgia have opened investigations into progressive groups trying to sign up new voters in advance of twin January elections that will determine control of the U.S. Senate, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said on yesterday.  Raffensperger said his office was examining registration efforts by America Votes, Vote Forward and the New Georgia Project.  He said some groups had been encouraging people who lived outside Georgia to register to vote in the state.

👉  McDonald’s fans, this is the one you’ve been waiting for.  I gave you the heads up on November 3, but as a dear friend from days gone by used to say, “The time has came that something must be did.”  Tomorrow the McRib is back.  Yes, the McRib, the seasoned boneless pork, barbecue sauce, onions and pickles on a hoagie-style bun that made its national debut in the early 1980s.  It last came back in October 2019 for a limited run but hasn’t been available nationwide since 2012.  See you in the drive-thru line.

👉  A couple of strips from “Pearls Before Swine.”

👉  She Who Must Be Obeyed installed a sign similar to the one below on the fence at the end of our driveway:

👉  First Tuesday in Advent

Celebrating the New Abundance

And all ate and were filled; and they took up twelve baskets full of broken pieces and of the fish (Mark 6:42-43).

In the Gospel of Mark, in chapter 6, Jesus does one of his most impressive miracles, that is, a transformative event to exhibit the saving power of God that is present in and through his life. It is the narrative of feeding the five thousand people. Mark tells us that Jesus had gone with his disciples apart to pray, but huge crowds followed him. Jesus saw the crowds and reacted in kindness to them. He saw their need, and he was moved by compassion for them. He wanted to make their life better. First he taught them the good news of God’s generous love. And then he fed them ... all five thousand of them.

The disciples didn’t understand, of course, and thought he couldn’t feed such a big crowd. So he took the five loaves and the two fish . . . that is one man’s lunch. He took what was there, but then he acted on what was there in his compassionate, generous way. He turns ordinary food into a sacramental sign of God’s massive goodness and generosity. Mark reports:

Taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them to his disciples to set before the people (Mark 6:41).

The words sound familiar, do they not? His prayer consists in the four big verbs of Holy Communion: “He took, he blessed, he broke, he gave.” Jesus takes the ordinary stuff of life in all its scarcity – two fish and five loaves – and transforms them into God’s self-giving generosity. The outcome was that “all ate and were filled” (v. 42). But that is not all: there were twelve baskets left over, enough bread for all the tribes of Israel.

The church – the disciples – are always a little slow, unwilling to learn what the new data of Jesus means, unwilling to recognize that the world is changed by Jesus, unable to act differently in the new world of Jesus. The disciples seem often to act as though Jesus did not really matter; they act as though the world were still bound in scarcity and anxiety and fearfulness and hoarding.

But let me tell you the news that is proclaimed in Christ’s coming, about which we are reminded at every Communion service: Jesus has turned the world into abundance. God is the gift who keeps on giving, and the people around Jesus are empowered to receive abundance and therefore to act generously.

Every day, all day: it’s still true! “He takes, he blesses, he breaks, he gives.” And we are astonished about the surplus. It is all there for those with eyes to see, with ears to hear, and with hearts to remember. We are recipients of enough and enough and more than enough, enough and enough and more than enough to share. And to be glad in this Giver who keeps on giving . . . endlessly.

God whose giving knows no end, make us glad recipients of your generosity. Give us eyes to see and ears to hear and hearts to remember your abundance, that we might share it with the world. Amen.

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