Ezekiel 37:1-14

1. This vision is directed toward a social resurrection, not a vision of afterlife. I do admit that the graves in v. 12 would lead to such a view.

2. Please go back to the preceding chapter to get a better handle on context; we are involved in land, spirit, and leadership..

3. The valley may well lead the reader back to an early section:3:22-5:17

4. Ruah=spirit/breath/wind. It is not always easy to determine which.

5. The slain brings up a sense of a defeated army.

6. Odell’s newer commentary cites the possibility of the dry bones being part of a covenant curse/treaty violation in other surrounding countries, p. 450

7. The bones recall the creation of Adam in Gen. 2:7

8. One could talk about a dying church, a decaying culture here.

9. Only God can make a tomb a womb.

10. What kills hope? What makes hope live?

11. What dead parts of your life have come to resurrection?

12. The dry bones make one think about the aridity of modern life. The bones come together into a living whole. Our analysis and compartments makes coherent living difficult.

Quick Reaction on Pew Research for Greensburg, IN paper

The major Pew Research on Religion is trumpeted on the news. Much of it isn’t news, as it marks the continuation of the American experiment in the diversity of religious expression. It also shows the remarkable religious character of Americans. Around 84% of Americans are affiliated with a church. For all the cries of rampant secularism, that is a striking figure. That figure has declined since their last major study, but it shows real strength of continuity more than change.

The culture of the marketplace continues to drive American religion, as we act as consumers shopping for something that fits. We have always been a seedbed for new religious movements: from Shakers in the 1700s, to the disciples, Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses in the 19^th century, to the holiness and Pentecostal movements of the last century. A couple of generations ago, people were encouraged to marry within their denomination of origin, but marriages are far more mixed than that now. Americans are much more fluid in terms of religious expression. I was surprised that neither education status nor income levels seem to be correlated to religious attachments.

We may be moving into a phase of “collage religion, ” a mix and match sets of individualized faith selections. Unaffiliated Protestant churches are growing. Much of it is stylistic, instead of the more doctrinal disputes earlier. Rock-based music and casual dress are the new norms. For years churches have used blended musical styles. Think of the classically based preludes and postludes and the simple gospel tunes that are sung by the congregation in the same service. Now we try to blend some of those same gospel tunes with rock music. Catholics spoke of praying the rosary, but I see it as a preparation for prayer, to create a meditative posture for prayer. The dull sameness of the insipid lyrics creates a sentiment among the faithful to prepare for worship through its repetitive nature, so in its way it is rosary through rhythm. I just attended some of a retreat led by a talented Franciscan at St. Mary’s that takes some “new age” materials, positive thinking, and meditation and molds them into new contemporary stew for the seeker. The Presbyterian Book of common Worship liberally cites many sources, and some of its Eucharistic prayers are almost indistinguishable from the forms of the Mass.

I do fear that the changeable nature of faith commitments will have some drawbacks. I don’t know how often faith can “afflict the comfortable” when such an affront could mean switching churches. Loyalty can be a virtue to help us discern the difference between a minor disagreement and something more potent. I’m afraid that churches may be afflicted with paralysis over big decisions out of fear that a number of people will use the decision as a pretext to leave. Instead of a mixed body, churches may become more homogeneous, a type of religious niche market.

The early church faced more grave challenges, of course. It did so by emphasizing that Jesus Christ broke down the walls we are so willing to erect. The early church was determined to have different people with different views learn to live together as a model for others. Expressing voice, dispute, and seeking reconciliation is the preferred path to exit when facing disputes. The church is being swamped by a cultural change of change that threatens to leave us rootless and unattached. Part of me loves the blooming of so much religious expressions; part of me fears we are elevating the trivial as principle.

Both passages have water at the center. Water is a fundamental need of all living things. When something fundamental is threatened we react with anger, and even violence. Our prayers turn into demands or bargains.

We all live in Meribah and Massah at times. The place of contention is always there, and can be as destructive as the incident here. It could be with a boss, at home, at church. It can be directed at a leader, a project, or even God. They complain, but don’t lift a finger to help, like a child expecting Mom to know where their socks have gone. After a while, we start to get used to Meribah, even enjoy, and make sure that conflict is cooking. Water cools the heat of the strife here.

At a spiritual level, the Massah, the place of testing, is more dangerous. Who are we to put God to the test? Notice this is not a test of the people. God does not like being treated as having demands made. They seem to forget the miracles just performed, and they demand to know how they are going to get the help they need right now. Their thirst threatens their trust. As they learn to become a free people, they are learning about being leaders and followers, and the hand of God. They will venture on to the very presence of God at Sinai and receive the Ten Commandments and the regulations that will mark them as a functioning polity.

Living, spiritual water is a fundamental need. I feel the need to remind us that this woman was no ancient Elizabeth Taylor. She had no choice in either being widowed or divorced. It may well be that she works so hard that she has to be getting water at a hot time of the day. Her relationships have dried up. Her hopes may have dried up. She has to lug heavy water jugs. Now Jesus tells her of an easy source of water. Unlike Nicodemus, she is speaking with Jesus in broad daylight, not under the cover of darkness. She does not make a disagreement the occasion for a fight, either, even though plenty of animosity existed between Jews and Samaritans. Then, unlike Nicodemus, she starts to get it. Not physical water, but the refreshment we all need will bubble up from the inside, our own personal well. Living water is also the water of life, inside and outside. I find it significant that she left her water jar to go tell the news to the folks in town. The spiritual takes precedence of the physical here. Jesus is giving her a spiritual gift of a well to which she can return morning, noon, and night.

I hope that some of the people of Israel could be grateful every time they had a drink of water in the desert as a gift. I hope that the Samaritan woman’s life got easier. Even if it didn’t, I hope she remembered her encounter with a stranger where a drink of water turned into a discussion of the nature of god, that god loved her enough to give her living water. The living water bubbles up within us when we face the Meribahs in our lives and try to handle disputes with some maturity. The living water rushes in when we look at the unused staffs we have in our hands to draw upon help when we need it. The living water pours down when we feel alone and abandoned and someone takes the time to listen to us. The living water washes our eyes and we are able to see the staff in our hand, one that has been there all the time, and we find the capacity to use it. The living water nurtures our trust in God. We know well tht water is a most precious resource, especially after a dry summer. The living water is inexhaustible and always available.

1. To see dominates this passage-Samuel is a seer. Seeing can be physical or insight or noticing things, or understanding things.

2. God looks past appearances

3. Still, David’s appearance is carefully noted, sort of a biblical Tom Brady. I’m not certain if the eyes are attractive or able to see well.

4. Samuel is grieving-but what and for whom? Is it that he was wrong about Saul? Is he sorry for Saul, the nation, or the whole idea of kingship?

5. Notice that David’s brother seems to be a surrogate Saul-Even now, leaders are often tall.

6. David is a symbol of Israel, small yet beloved by God. Notice his name only appears at the end of the quest.

7. Why does God seem to like turning expectations around, such as picking David, the youngest?

8. What are your best features? What is hidden about you that most people don’t notice or recognize?

9. What makes a good leader in your eyes? Are you good at selecting them?

10. Don’t you wish you would get help in making a decision in the way Samuel received help?

11. Names David=beloved; Eliab= God is father; Saul=asked, requested; Samuel=heard of God Jesse=possibly to stand out

Lenten devotion-Week of February 24

Sunday Feb. 24-One of the readings today speaks of Meribah, the place of conflict or contention. Where is Meribah in your life? Do you have multiple Meribahs at home, work, organizations? How do you try to resolve conflicts? Do you seek out Meribah or to avoid it? How can learning to deal with conflict be a good spiritual discipline?

Monday- When we say that someone is a good person, what do we mean? Are they easy to get along with; do they do kind things easily; do we detect a purity in them? Do you consider yourself a good person? Why? Do others, perhaps?

Tuesday- My new Theology Today has an article by the famous preaching teacher David Buttrick on the evocative language of Jesus in the synoptic gospels (the first 3 gospels). He says that Jesus “invites us to live in God’s future ahead of time.” He sees all of the highly charged language of Jesus as influenced by the vision of god changing the world, into one fit for human life. What elements of God’s future impinge on your life now?

Wednesday- John Bowker wrote a set of devotions with the arresting title, A Year to Live. He quotes words of Alcuin “let us love the lasting things of heaven, more than the dying things of earth.” What are some things in your life that should die, such as a regret, a vice, some neurotic guilt? What are some lasting things that you would like to fall in love with?

Thursday Bonhoeffer wrote:” everything that we can rightly ask and expect from God is to be found in Jesus Christ…we can demand nothing and ask for everything. God has said Yes and Amen in Jesus (2 Cor.1:20). This Yes and Amen is the only solid ground on which we stand.” When does your image of God differ from your image of Jesus? We often imagine god saying a gigantic No to us. What does God affirm in our lives? What does God affirm in your life?

Friday- Taking frustrations out on the wrong people can be a deadly sin for relationships. Sometimes we do it for the sheer proximity, but sometimes we treat them badly because we know they will put up with such behavior, at least for a while. Do you try to make it up to the person you wronged by lashing out at them due to your frustration? How do you react when someone lashes out at you for no apparent reason?

Saturday- Jude is usually cited for its beautiful blessing at its close. Today I picked up on its images in v.12 of ‘waterless clouds” and “fruitless trees.” Sometimes it does feel like our effort does not amount to much. Are there waterless clouds in your life that you keep wanting to make rain? Is there a tree in your life that you would be better off not waiting on fruit any longer?

Both Abram and Nicodemus are on an uncertain journey: Abram, later Abraham in geography, and Nicodemus within. Both know that are going to pull up stakes. Both are taking a shot in the dark. Is it a fresh start for Abram? Can we, should we try to erase a history? Can any move erase the past? As Joe Louis said, you can run but you cannot hide. Both offered the blessing of a fresh start. Few things sound so promising as a fresh start when things seem stale and routine. What are they being asked to risk, to give up, to lose? Is Abram going through an entire change and Nicodemus is looking for a partial one?

This is one of the great examples of John working on the physical and spiritual planes and people trying to stick with one at a time. Jesus speaks of being born again, born anew, born from above to see and enter the kingdom, the realm, the way of God, but wasn’t Nicodemus already of citizen of God’s world? Now he is told about seeing and entering it as if he is a stranger. Water and spirit usher in the new age.They offer a new point of departure, not a conclusion. Jesus then shifts to an image that we lift up/exalt a bronze serpent of healing, just like the symbol at the pharmacy. Last week the serpent is a symbol of sly, malign intelligence. Loving light or the dark is our movement into the way of God. At the same time we do well to be careful we don’t privilege certain personal experiences over the cross, especially when we have decided what is to be called born again or born from above.

God’s way in both of these stories is a bit elusive and shadowy. We don’t know why God picks Abram at all, just as we don’t know why God calls on us during our lives. We don’t know if Nicodemus is a seeker of wisdom, an investigator of Jesus, but he is left baffled and confused by Jesus’s deflection of his questions. Life and prayer rarely give us clear answers to the questions that pop up within us. In our rich and complex lives, what makes us think that we are owed simple explanations and simpler answers?

Abram becomes Abraham of course. He does live in the Promised Land and becomes rich, so many blessings come his way. He goes through many family trials. He lives on the move, and he dies after a long, full life. Nicodemus appears in a few places in John’s gospel. He defends Jesus against a guilty until proven innocent attack in the council. After the crucifixion, he is there with Joseph and bringing a large amount of spices to help with the anointing of the body. It seems that he is no longer a shadow supporter of Jesus but a disciple in the open. Both of his actions show that his spiritual pilgrimage continues. When we discover ourselves reflected in their stories, we are a long way down the road of a living Bible and a living God.

In the end of course, our Promised Land is heaven. That is the end of our search here. In the meantime, we too can see and enter the kingdom every day. Part of it would be going into the unknown, but knowing that we go with God. Being able to see blessings is part of living a kingdom life. I would go so far as to say that the sheer newness of the experience is part of being born again, born from above. When we hear our sins are forgiven, we are a new creation, born from above. What a relief to know heaven doesn’t hold a grudge. When we place our own travel through life and connect it to the biblical story and the way of God in the world, this life becomes a Promised Land.

Sunday February 17-Football is over (sigh). Football fans easily spend 6 hours a week on watching games. No, I am not criticizing that. I will ask what will we do with that new-found amount of time? During Lent what would you propose would be a spiritually uplifting use of those hours? Are you planning to use them in different ways?

Monday-Edith Stein was a Jewish convert to Catholicism. She escaped the Nazis once, but they caught up to her in Holland. To make sense of suffering she tried to see it as redemptive, as part of the cross of Jesus Christ. She saw that as a spiritual seed taking root. As it grows, it starts to determine what we do and don’t do, maybe even what we like and don’t like. How has suffering affected your personality, your sympathy, your view of God? Do you think that suffering can have a redemptive character, or is it always destructive?

Tuesday-In the new Christian Century, Walter Breuggemann review a new translation of the Psalms: “the poetic imagination cherishes the concrete…when the repertoire shrinks to the overworn and familiar…faith shrinks to mere convenient truth…the God we speak is the God we get.” Where do your prayers get a bit tired or formulaic? Where do thye achieve a new level of fresh power? Where could you get more concrete or physical about your prayers, and when are they too abstract or ethereal?

Wednesday- Scott Russell Sanders writes “power surges through bone and rain and everything. The search for communion with this power has run like a bright thread through all my days.” It is not a stretch to see this power of nature as the hand of God, a connection in all of nature. How do you commune with the hand of God in nature? Where do you see the hand of God in nature?

Thursday-Stress can motivate us, but too much of it can turn into a vice. A healthy spiritual practice would be to get a handle on stress, to discern the level that is good and unhealthy. Do you react to emotional stress in a different way than when under physical stress? What stress is hard for you to handle? What are your best coping strategies for stress?

Friday George Washington’s birthday used to be celebrated today. Of all his great work, I go back to his decision to free his slaves. That was no easy task, as the law in Virginia required a large sum of money to be set aside for each freed slave. He had a gift for withdrawing control, to allow democracy to grow. That generosity of vision would extend to slaves, and he worked hard to make sure that his will would be a testament to freedom for everyone. (See An Imperfect God for the story)

Saturday-Nahum’s vehemence against Assyria is not on most top ten scripture lists. It puts the thirst for vengeance into the hands of God. We may not like to admit it, but we may find ourselves fantasizing about revenge on those who have harmed us: nations, groups, or a person. We find precious little grace in Nahum, but we do get a glimpse of the depths of hatred that grows when we are victims of power and might.

Notes on Ex. 17:1-7 Feb.24 OT Reading

1. Their journey in stages is a good image for a sermon or a spiritual growth group. One could use something on the order of Erikson’s stages in life or Fowler’s faith stages. One could name stages in one’s journey.

2. The names are significant- meribah would be place of contention, quarrel, dispute, or even a more formal proceeding. The Hebrew “rib” has the sense of a covenant lawsuit in prophets. Massah elides the n in nasa to try, to test, to tempt similar to the Greek word peirasmos, so place of tempting, testing, trying

3. What places in our lives could we name places of contention or testing? What churches should be called Meribah church?

4. Intertextual allusion is clear in I Cor. 10 where Paul speaks of the rock but links it to Christ.

5. Janzen in his commentary on Exodus finds a link of the water to Torah from 15:22-27. If the water flows from Horeb/Sinai (desert/drought/wasteland), then it is built as the commandments are given there in Ex. 20 He goes on to link this to Jesus as embodied Torah or wisdom in John’s gospel and the spirit in chs. 6 and 7.

6. Putting God to the test or proof is a constant temptation, especially in praying for healing. Perhaps we get a sense of it in the petition in the Lord’s prayer where we need to be saved from the temptation of putting God to the test/trial

7. This is a stellar example of leaders being blamed for issues beyond their control. Notice the staff that brought trouble for Egypt can bring blessing to Israel.

8. The speed of the complaints, not long after the journey through the red Sea is a cardinal example of what have you done for us lately?

9. The murmurs get picked up in the gospels when people Tellunah comes from a sense of being obstinate, of staying with a point. Notice that word shows up-grumble/murmur/complain against Jesus in Luke 15:2. (gogguzo) or disgogguzo (in a crowd)

Lenten devotions for the Week of February 10, 2008

Sunday, Feb. 10-We start the first Sunday in Lent with Communion. The elders show great wisdom there. In the early church, people studied hard during Lent to receive their first Communion on Easter. For a church of the baptized saints, it recovers the meaning of Lent as springtime. Communion prepares the ground for our Lenten observances. It reminds me of a barn-raising, where the community gets together to build a proper receptacle for the harvest and shelter from the storm.

Monday- I saw a disturbing movie over the weekend, There Will Be Blood. It is a darker Citizen Kane, a look at a successful man who knows nothing but economic competition. Instead of Rosebud, his last words are I’m finished, perhaps a play on the words of the dying Jesus, “it is finished.” It is an almost unflinching look at the reality of original sin. Sometimes, it takes fiction to remind us of the dark side of human nature, as we grow numb from its daily depiction on the news/.

Tuesday-Lincoln’s birthday was marked today when I was young. In his desk a small piece was discovered, a Meditation on the Divine Will. He wonders if God’s purpose is different than both North and South, but still we act to put that purpose into effect. Look at how deeply he delves into the issue, instead of the easy way of seeing God on our side. It was a private musing that would show up in the Second Inaugural, but Lincoln would not use God as a decoration for a campaign speech.

Wednesday- Richard Lischer’s Open Secrets is a memoir of his first parish in Southern Illinois. He muses on their best window, a Trinity window. It lines up the Father, Son, and spirit with highways of interconnected lines that would show off different lights as the sun moved during the day. When you have a chance, look at the windows in Springhill and how geometry makes links to the Trinity.

Thursday-Valentine’s Day filled me with a bit of dread, as I was never clear that I was getting the “right thing.” It is good to have a holiday dedicated to romantic love. What message did the church give you about romantic love? What should be the message of the church toward romantic love? What Valentine message could you write to God today?

Friday-This year, I’m planning to select Biblical passages from less used books. Today let’s look at 3 John v. 2. I love the end. Even as he prays for their health, he knows that “it is well with your soul.” It turns into a great Lenten question; is it well with your soul? Beyond, health and wealth, even family, is it well with your soul? How do you discern that evaluation?

Saturday-If you like the idea of Lenten abstinence, how about foregoing gossip until Easter? Gossip greases the interplay of community, but it also poisons its well of good feeling. Gossip makes people objects of amused recounting of foibles. How often do we gossip about someone’s sterling qualities? Gossip usually tries to bring someone’s reputation down to size, a smaller one to fit all of us who gossip.

Sermon on Gen. 3:1-7 and Rom 5:12-17 February 10, 2008

The Adam and Eve section responds to the plight of us all. Why do we so often move away from the source of our happiness? Why do we spoil so many things?

It doesn’t take much for the couple to move from innocence to experience. The serpent merely needs to ask some tricky questions. In this story, Adam definitely married up. Eve is the speaker with the serpent. Her mistake is in using her intelligence to deal with the serpent’s questions. Her trust is broken in God by making God the object of her speculation. Part of the temptation is to be like God, maybe to take away some of God for oneself. We push at boundaries, at rules and regulations, chafe at them, even when they are good ones. I think of Eve and Adam this morning as a version of Jane and Tarzan. He passively, maybe oafishly, takes the fruit from her. His trust, if it is trust, in her is misplaced. It is as if we are not fit for an Eden; we want or need to try to make one on our own.

Eve is attracted to the fruit of the tree by its appearance. The appearance of Communion is aided by the special serving ware, but it is unimpressive. It reminds me of our children’s laughter during the holidays that it must be a special time, because out come the cloth napkins. They take and eat the food of the tree. Jesus offered the communion elements, the bread of life and the cup of salvation, here grape juice instead of apple juice.

Paul sees Adam as representative of all humanity. He sees Jesus Christ as the representative for a new humanity, He sees human nature as died up in old death-dealing ways. The new humanity is involved in a life-giving spectacle far beyond the cold calculus of the wages of sin. God’s mercies overwhelm potential punishments. Paul shifts the focus from the one prohibition of Eden and sees all of the yeses God makes to us.

No one is worthy to receive Communion; human beings are flawed. Over time, Presbyterians opened up this sacrament to all. It is God’s good gift to us. As the Book of Order says: “ it is not a right conferred on the worthy, but a privilege given to the undeserving who come in faith, repentance, and love.” Here in communion the living Jesus Christ offers himself to us here in the open, not in the hidden recesses of the garden. Instead of tricky questions, we receive this morning. We are placed back into an Eden of trust. We take and eat in trust this morning.

In Communion we get a glimpse of the surplus of grace that Paul discovers in Jesus Christ. In what ways is this sacrament a feast of life? We eat not at the tree of the knowledge of good and evil but from the tree of life, the bread of life and the cup of salvation. As we live East of Eden we receive food for the soul, for our journey toward God. That journey is made easier when we share with each other, and with God, as we learn that what is mine is often ours. We all have a hunger for more. We are told it is best done all by ourselves. Here we remember that we receive many things as a gift, and that many hands share life. So this is a sacrament of thanksgiving for what we receive, not a reminder for what we don’t have. Let this be your image of the Lenten spiritual walk toward Maundy Thursday, Calvary, and Easter. This morning we feast on the bread of life. Live away from all of the draining of death toward extending this good life.

We think of clouds as the abode of daydreams, of angels, of heaven. Scripture connects the presence of God to a cloud. An English Christian, sometime in the late Middle Ages wrote The Cloud of Unknowing. That cloud of unknowing is the distance between us and God. In the story of Moses, the cloud protects him from the full weight of divine glory but allows him to live within at least some of its radiant fullness. Many years ago, Judy Collins sang Both Sides Now of seeing clouds from both sides, but she really didn’t know clouds at all.

Worship transfigures us. A building transforms a building into a church. In worship we are transported into the world of the Bible, and the Bible is brought directly into our lives. At its best, worship shortens the distance between heaven and earth. We begin to see each other as God sees it. Worship gives us a better view of God and ourselves. Here, simple bread and cup becomes Communion with people all over the world and with the living Christ. Worship gives us new eyes to see. As Jonathan Edwards said: “The appearance of everything was altered, there seemed a calm, sweet cast or appearance of divine glory in almost every living thing.”

Like so many spiritual stories, this one has an ascent and descent motif. Up is part of spiritual ascent, as John of the Cross wrote of the ladder of ascent, we imagine up is closer to God. With Jesus Christ, that image gets disrupted, as being with Jesus is in the presence of the divine on the mountain or in the valley. It extends the presence of Emmanuel, God with us, across the board.

Were the disciples transformed? Maybe not at that moment, but it certainly planted more seeds of coming to grips with the reality of Jesus. They did get a glimpse of what they become in the eternal sight of God in heaven. The disciples get an early view of Easter I bet that their view of time and history changed when they saw Moses and Elijah speaking with Jesus. Still, a cloud obscures. When it’s at ground level we call it fog. They saw that we are not made only for mountaintop spiritual experiences, but for the hard work of being disciples down in the valley below. The writer of the Cloud of Unknowing sees us piercing that cloud not by a method of meditation but by being loving and humble. In other words, the key to the ascent of the disciples was their love and humble following of Jesus, not their spiritual status as masters of meditation.

Transfiguration involves seeing two different ways at the same time. They saw two sides of Jesus in their experience on the mountaintop. In a way, the Christian looks at things as they are, but we also with a spiritual set of glasses. A job can be, at the same, time a calling form God. A talent is also a gift from God. A chore is transmuted into a prayer, a working prayer. Some people call clergy people of God, but the truth is: we all are. Of course, it is one thing to see a spark of divinity in ourselves, but quite another to see it in others, those who seem so different, especially those who have done us harm. The eyes of faith translate a TV show or a movie into a parable of the faith. I went to a good workshop on preaching from Acts after Easter, and the professor asked us to think about links to movies or music or books for every passage we discussed. The eyes of faith can detect the light of God in about anything. Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote:” earth’s crammed with heaven, and every common bush afire with God.”

Lent has an early start this year. As always, we have a season in the church year to plant a spiritual garden that will bloom for Easter and Pentecost. When I was young, we gave something up for Lent. The idea was, and is, that the discipline of privation can be a form of spiritual training, a boot camp for body and soul. I remember a friend agonizing over whether his barbeque potato chips had meat in them. Did it ruin his Lenten program?

Instead of privation, I prefer the notion of doing something for Lent. For instance, we decry materialism, so giving up something can be a teacher of discipline. Still, I prefer that we learn generosity. We need only open the paper or pay attention for a few days, and all sorts of needs spring up. We do well to seek to control a vice, such as our tempers. We could also try to build up a virtue, serenity, endurance, acceptance. With the beginning of a Habitat for Humanity chapter in the county, we can see that doing work to relieve a crying need has clear spiritual impact, with the clear physical change.

I like to read, but rather than abstaining from reading, but I would rather carve out some time to read quality spiritual material as devotional exercises. I am concerned that we read little quality spiritual material compared to other material. The denominational publishing houses, such as Abingdon, Fortress, or Westminster/John Knox are treasure troves of religious writing. We are called to love god with our minds, but we subsist on a diet of milk and rarely get to the meat, as if we are forever two years of age.

Instead of giving up movies, we could place movies in a spiritual frame. What stories or characters in Scripture would be illuminated with this movie? For instance, Schindler’s list can be seen as a long view of the Good Samaritan. Tender Mercies is a long view of the redemptive power of love. The Bucket List pushes us to consider our own mortality and dreams deferred.

The Brussats work on a spirituality of everyday life. In Spiritual Literacy, they present a variety of quotes and allusions on virtues from A to Z. In their expansive view, the whole of life is charged with spiritual energy. For instance, I hit upon two quotes from Thoreau in his sojourn in the cabin by Walden Pond, “to front only the essential facts of life.” What would those be? One way to explore that dense thicket would be to follow his imperative, “simplify, simplify.” This is coming from someone in the 1840s, so where would we need to simplify today?

One could spend some time with some huge Christian themes, the meaning of the cross and the resurrection. Where could beliefs be strengthened? Where could others or we challenge them? How do they apply to us right now, as individuals and part of communities?

Finally, any Christian spirituality is connected to Scripture. The prophet Ezekiel ate a scroll. Take that image with the Bible. My decided preference is for people to be involved in a group Bible Study. In private, I urge people to take some time with their Bible reading. God over a passage maybe three times, but do so slowly. That loving time will spread out to other parts of daily life. Where are parts of life that you savor, or need to savor? Go and ‘taste and see that the Lord is good.”

OT Reading for Feb. 17, 2008 Gen. 12:1-4

Entry Points for Preaching, Teaching, Spiritual Care

1) Abram's name means father is high or lofty. One could use this as atakeoff for the imporatnce of names when we are knwon by numbers or screen names.

2)He has an unknown journey to an unknown destination. He has already tavelled from Ur to Haran (Syria). We could use this trope to explore a trip or the journey inward. Look at what he leaves: land, birthplace, house.

3)Arts: No Direction Home on Dylan or the multitude of journey motifs, such as Lord of the Rings.

4)History-Ur had already gone through some stages by thsi time and was the capital of a Sumerian ascendancy. Some names from this period fit with other material, such as Nahor.

5)Note the huge swith from a huge canvas to one that has one family as a focus.

6) Why would God pick Abram? why does God call on us?

7) The blessings here may be a switch on the curses of Gen. 3. What is the extent of the blessing? In the NIB Fretheim says it well (425) "promise of blessing moves into the sphere of redemption." Note how God is a partner here giving reciprocity in blessing and curse to those who do well or not by Abram.

8) This is about promise and trust.

February 10, 2008 OT Gen. 3:1-7

Entry Points into the Story for
Preaching, Teaching, Spiritual Care





1) Psychological- The desire to hide is an aspect of shame. Shame is a deeper issue than guilt, of being wrong, instead of doing wrong.
Later, the blame game leaps up. What elcits blame reactions? What pushes us to push off responsibility?


2) Developmental- I think of Irenaeus and the move from innocence to experience. How ws this scene recapitualted in Jesus? In other words, it describes a fall from innocence, but one that would lead toward the maturity of experience.


3) Gender Politics-Adam definitely married up. Eve is the theologian and the speaker. He mutely responds, maybe his name would be Pavlov, today.


4) The serpent does speak truthfully, often. The question itself is the problem. It is most difficult to answer. In so doing, she makes God a figure of analysis and loses relationship. She tries to speak for God. I'm interested in her reply that extends the prohibition and wonder about its rationale.


5) What are some links in books, TV, or movies? Pleasantville comes to mind immediately.



6) The image of seeing is substituted for reflection as she looks at the tree. Notice that even the desire for wisdom has meant sight.



7) See Eve and Pandora in Theology Today, 4/88. James Kugel's The Bible As It Was, ch 2. Bill Moyers. Genesis.



8) the Hebrew words for naked, curse, and sly sound similar. What links would you see in those words? When Eve reports the words fo the serpent, it even sounds like a hiss.



9) A brave, talented preacher could write their own "fall" story.