I remember some early Christmases. Our youngest couldn’t count yet but tried to figure out if she had the same presents as her sister. I don’t know if the story is true, but a church bulletin had a note that the self-esteem group should come through the back door.
Ps 123-contempt strikes deeply at our self-regard, self-esteem. we may wonder if they are right. We may absorb some of their venom and see ourselves as lesser.For all of the fun we have made of ways of bolstering self-esteem., it is a demonstrable variable-people who see themselves as capable, as worth the effort, are able to achieve-are more resilient capable of working with others. If God sees us as worthy, so how much credence will we give to the opinion of other people?.When love goes bad, it can curdle into contempt and derision.Our souls, our very life, our very self (soul is not inclusive enough of the whole being=nephesh) is filled not with celebration but ridicule, scorn, contempt.
Deborah and talents of a woman-not getting full co-operation for the group-the people have fallen into a recipient-dependent mode= what economists call the free rider problem for public goods. We don't see the talents in others, especially when stereotypes blind us.
Talents were a large sum of money (15-20 yrs of wages?or more) fear stalks them use what we have hidden talents. I would think that this story became the basis for talents to include our skills.It is lack of self-regard that places the recipient in a difficult situation. All he sees is fear of retribution and relative lack of resources. Remember a talent was a huge amount of money. We are talking Exxon and governmental sums of money here. In other words, he cannot perceive abundance. Combined they prevent him from acting as he should. Liberals may go along a bit with this parable until the end,when they cannot bear the one with the least being punished, but they are often uncomfortable with its emphasis on vast sums of money. They get much happier next week.Conservatives see this as an open invitation to make money, and love that the winners get rewarded though their prudence and industry..
Our youngest daughter has some exegetical skills. Right away, she noticed that in last week’s parable, the women are punished for not being prudent, This week, some is being punished for being careful, perhaps overly prudent.On the other hand, they could have been prudent and used the availability of oil to be ready when they needed it. It was similar to being in MO and getting 2.53 gasoline one fine day.-
How do we act if we believe that God’s way will win, but we have no idea when? How do we live in the interim time? Could it mean that we neither squander nor hoard our resources? enter the joy of your master. What does this mean do you think? How to deal with abundance in the midst of waiting? I T 5-encourage each other and build one another up-how to do that? the great trinity of virtues, faith, hope, and love defend us from attacks.He seems to say that we should keep awake, but that waking or sleeping we are in a fight day or night. Encourage one another-build one another up. when I was young, people were afraid to do much building up-they thought it would make someone proud or even weak. You toughened people up, even berated them.Such serves to internalize the feelings of contempt.Far far better, to help each other discover what we can do.
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