1) Will this family ever learn, the brutal favoritism for Isaac, Jacob, and now Joseph (INCREASE). Think of the complications of the favored son of the favored wife.
2) Important point: instead of seeing Joesph as a brat tattling on his brothers; the grammar permits, indeed leads one, to the reading that the evil report is their gossip and murmurs against Joseph. that is how the word is used in Jeremiah. Joseph is the victim of a campaign against him. This deepens the issue of their being unable to speak peaceably (leshalom) with well-being/health/(healthy regard?) toward him.
3)  the coat may be many-colored, or spangled, or just long-sleeved, but the word is also used about the garment's of royal women. (No, I doubt Jacob had him in women's clothing)
4) Joseph has dreams like his father did. Yet, Jacob rebukes Joseph for a dream that must remind Jacob of his actions toward his elder brother, though twin, Esau. Is the real issue that Jacob may be one bowing? Is this an oedipal conflict too?
5) Joseph is asked to check on the brothers and their welfare (shalom again)
6) Pay attention to Reuben and Judah in birth order and in terms of their action later in the story.
10) See the irony that Ishmael's progeny, he who was disfavored by Abraham, now plays into this larger brotherly struggle-remember Ishmael's mother was an Egyptian slave of Abraham and Sarah.
11) What do you make of Reuben's reaction?
12) The brothers deceive with the robe, just as Jacob deceived his father years before.Note Jacob will grieve all the way down to Sheol. He will change when he goes down to Egypt at the end, but on his way to Sheol. His refusals or inability to be comforted is a good thought for us when we try to place someone's grief on our timetable.

 
Sunday We read of the feeding of the multitude in Mt. 14:13-21 today, July 31.It is an enacted parable on abundance, no? Some people think they the people were induced to share. Others see it as a miracle of abundance where a little is transformed into plenty, with more left over than what they started with. I would like us to consider applying this to our emotional lives. We act as if words and deeds of love are a scarce resource. We want to manage the good within, but in using it we see expansion and abundance, not in measuring them out with a medicine dropper.

Monday- Some people speak of facebook friends. They may feel closer to them than the flesh and blood friends. Virtual reality is making inroads into our minds. I celebrate the idea that the computer connections allow long lost people to emerge in one's life.It is an extension of the idea of the communion of saints, that we are bound together in our baptism across distance and time.

 

Tuesday Anger was our subject last week at the 9:30 bible Study. It was remarkable to hear how people had learned signals of an anger attack welling up and different ways they had learned to cope with anger over the years. A few folks shared how uncomfortable and upsetting they found the anger of others. Anger can be a good internal study. what angers us? Then to use god's question to Jonah, does it do you good to be angry? it may be a good idea to release some anger but constant catharsis only feeds anger. Far better to learn how to cope with it, control it, and channel it.As Scripture says, be angry but do not sin.

 

 

Wednesday The is the 400th anniversary of the King James Version of the bible (KJV). The work was completed by teams of translators working at different universities. Some names are known to us only because they were translators of the Bible, even though they often agreed with Tyndale's earlier translation that was done entirely on his own and often on the run. they were determined to try to get elevated language to emphasize the majesty of God but at the same time to be as good and accurate a translation as they could.

 

Thursday-A Puritan writer spoke of the difficulty of having purity of heart, where one's desires are attuned to God's. "Heart work is hard work," he said.It reflects the words of James on being single-minded for god as opposed to what he calls being double minded, confused about the direction we should take. Yes, we are saved by grace. The task of living as a recipient of that grace is lifelong and difficult. No exploration is as tortuous as the road into the human heart and mind.

 

Friday The psychologist Martin  Seligman has a new book on flourishing.It builds on positive thinking. In his work, people who tend to their relationships, who are engaged by projects, who find meaning in their lives, accomplish something, and look to the good that can happen have a greater sense of well-being. the practices he suggests for attaining these pillars are simple Christian virtues and actions that can be seen in the fruit or gifts of the Spirit or the advice sections at the end of many of the epistles.

Saturday-Avery Brooke prayed:"Remind me o God to take time off, and not to feel guilty when I do." We make hard work a virtue, but can it be the virtue of a good life? Even god took sabbath rest after the creation. With new caffeine products, limited sleep, we push ourselves. Yes, idle hands are the devil's workshop, but so is constant, dutiful busyness. It too weakens our defenses and makes us more prone to mistakes. We need time to rest and refuel, to enjoy this life god has gifted us.

We go through life as if we are on a forced march. What if we went through doing better than trying to make it through another day? Psychology often was content in pointing out our flaws but not helpful in learning to combat them. The dean of positive psychology, Martin Seligman, has a new book in the library called Flourish. I was surprised to read that some of his techniques are being taught to citizens serving in our armed forces. Our perspective does have an impact on how we approach life's joys and down times, major and small choices in our families or at war.

 

He moves from happiness to a sense of well-being in this book. A set of pillars for the approach is termed PERMA, for positive emotion, engagement, relationships, meaning, and accomplishment. Instead of overpraising or overly criticizing anything produced, we can point toward its strengths and chisel away at the weakness. I remember shaking my head at our children's writing teachers filling a page with red marks but not giving them a sense of what good writing looked liked, so they started to see writing as doomed to failure.

To help influence positive emotion, he prescribes doing positive things. He speaks of random acts of kindness. One day, fuming in a long post office line to get penny stamps, he decided to change course. He bought ten sheets for ten dollars and announced who needs penny stamps, they're free. It had been a while since he saw so many smiles and felt as good as those few minutes in the post office. He is quick to point out that well-being is deeper than feeling happy, especially because many people are not as basically cheerful as their normal baseline as others. He is not a Pollyanna, but he does believe that we all have resources to help us meet the peaks and valleys of life.

 

In a noteworthy section, he demonstrates that we have a long way to go in treating depression. Following other cognitive work such as David Burns in Feeling Good, Seligman asserts that depressives need to look at how they structure their experiences. They tend to beat themselves up for failures and underestimate achievements. To help counter this, a simple gratitude list of positive experiences during the day can restore some psychological balance.

 

As a pastor, I am struck by how the basic outline of religious behavior toward others under the rubric of love: respect, kindness become part of his scheme for well-being.In other words, he is promoting an embodied spirituality. One could construct a similar book based on the gifts or fruit of the Spirit (Is. 11, Gal. 5). One of the signal contributions of religion is its function to help provide meaning in this life. As the catechism said we are here "to know God and enjoy God's benefits." Meaning in work is vocation, not a job. Our task, as Buechner said, is to find the place where the needs of the world meet our skills and best joys.

 

One can take the Signature Strengths inventory at www.authentichappiness.com. Positive psychology can be easily criticized for downplaying the problems, individual and social, that we all face. I would reply that its methods permits us to face problems and address them, rather than denying them. Instead of decrying being powerless, we can envision engaging our individual and collective power to face up to the challenges of our time. With wagon trains, ordinary faced the American frontier. Still in the grips of the depression, we faced down Hitler and Tojo. The manned American space program is but fifty years old. The constant drone of what we cannot do creates a collective sense of hunkering down instead of what lies ahead. The country that built a rail line across a continent can face issues and crises, real or ginned-up bumper stickers.

!) We are going to spend some time on Proverbs 15 and James   . the Sermon on the Mount looks at anger/wrath/rage at
2) Capps places anger at a very early stage at the toilet training stage, the stage of learning autonomy and will.
3) Should anger be released as a practice? When is anger used as a tool for power?
4) Social psychology indicates that catharsis over time keeps anger alive.
5) What makes you angry?
6) What mood are you in before you get angry?
7) What situations make you vulnerable toward anger?
8) How do you handle angry people? How do you deal with your own anger?

When do unmet expectations lead to anger?

Anger is an excellent diagnostic tool. For instance, it may demonstrate a boundary violation. It can be a blame reaction, or a sign of powerlessness and frustration. "flustrated." It may be a learned, patterned reaction.Farley emphasizes its public justice character. See Peterson on anger in 5 Smooth Stones. Harriet Lerner is excellent on anger. 

Gen. 32:22-31

1) this is a liminal experience.
2) Note the fluid identity of the assailant.
3) why is is the new name Israel, contended with god and prevailed given to this encounter? Has Jacob always been contending with God over blessings and the way to live?
4) the nocturnal struggle needs to end at dawn. Why? Hos. 12:3-4 says Jacob contended with God.
5) Jacob grabs yet another blessing.
6) why is he forbidden the name of the opponent.? I think the opponent could well be Jacob's old self and the new emerging self Israel. To enter into a new self, there at the water, he contends with it as he prepares to face Esau.t is about the very identity of Jacob. the words play around the name the stream is Jabbok from baqaq to empty. The struggle is the rare word abaq. The hip is dislocated yq'.
7) we get etiology with the hip. Is something else going on about finding oneself even after a joint has been displaced? Is the hip a reminder of his dislocation following the threats of Esau? Put differently, has Jacob ever felt at home? Maybe Jacob needed ot be emptied of his old self. If you want to run with baptism here, feel free.
8) Note Jacob calls the place Peniel (face of god) this face will be used toward the forgiving Esau soon.

July 24 Sermon Notes Gen. 29:15-28, Rom. 8:26-39. Mt. 13:31-33, 44-52


Again this week we have an abundance of Scriptural riches to consider. In the gospel, we have a small collection of short parables, not Luke's literary masterpieces but emphatic little illustrations of the kingdom of god, the way of God's intentions and dealings with the world. At first, I want to see this is parallel to the old phrase about acorns and mighty oaks. In the first Shrek movie the prince is said to have an edifice complex, and that does seem to be an American obsession too. When I was at Illinois State they spoke of their band as the biggest college band, not the best, but the biggest. No, here a small seed makes not a towering oak but a mighty shrub.Small is beautiful-so a small seed makes a nice shrub-I love the phrase the greatest of shrubs. Yet,the shrub is good as a shrub-look at what it can do; it appropriate to its identity. Bigger is not always better, but it is alive and well, the shrub.  We look to appropriate size. Is the yeast a corrupting example, an unexpected power, if a measure is 17 pounds, that is some serious bread. does it mean that the kingdom works beneath the surface, in a hidden hand , surreptitious way, or doe sit have a sense of corruption? A little thing like yeast can work some powerful magic.

 

In our Genesis story, yeast appears in Uncle Laban. Jacob meets up with his true twin in Uncle Laban. So he struggles with the cheating one being cheated, although later he gets back at Laban. Since  Laban tricks Jacob by switching brides on him,  Jacob works for him for 14 years. Just as Isaac was played for blind, now Jacob is. The old issue of infertility strikes the family of Abraham again. So the two wives bring in reinforcements, their own maids into the marriage, so Jacob has four wives. Now that would challenge even  his abilities at cunning and manipulation. Like the TV show big Love, Jacob must have lived in a version of a soap opera. he extends the family issue of playing favorites by having Rachel be the favored wife. They were trying to earn his love with children, and my guess is that he was playing them off each other, power politics in the tents of Laban. Jacob here portrays the male dream of having women compete for his favors. On the other hand, Jacob's little world is a microcosm of the many complexities of politics in the larger world. President Clinton used to say that the best cannot become the enemy of the good. Again, god can work in the messy world of human affairs, not only the best but a good enough option instead of the abstract culmination of the type (Chasing Amy). Our disquiet about small being good enough, or of wanting more and more stem from an insecurity abut oneself and the future.

 

Paul almost gives us a catalog of the trials that make us fee alone and abandoned in the world, even by God. No, Jesus was assaulted by those same powers. For all our tendency to be judgemental, Paul asks us, who is in a position to condemn? the response is not one of us: only Christ, yet Christ died for us, the seemingly little people in a world marked with the ambition of being number one, and the Jacob and Laban's of the world always fining the one person more manipulative and more clever than they and seeing their best-laid plans lie in ashes at their feet. .When my brother committed suicide almost 22 years ago, this was the passage that I clung to like a piece of wreckage after a shipwreck.  Not cancer, not Alzheimer's, not governmental gridlock , not war. not economic decline, not a broken heart Nothing can separate us from the love of God in Jesus Christ

July 24 Sermon Notes Gen. 29:15-28, Rom. 8:26-39. Mt. 13:31-33, 44-52


Again this week we have an abundance of Scriptural riches to consider. In the gospel, we have a small collection of short parables, not Luke's literary masterpieces but emphatic little illustrations of the kingdom of god, the way of God's intentions and dealings with the world. At first, I want to see this is parallel to the old phrase about acorns and mighty oaks. In the first Shrek movie the prince is said to have an edifice complex, and that does seem to be an American obsession too. When I was at Illinois State they spoke of their band as the biggest college band, not the best, but the biggest. No, here a small seed makes not a towering oak but a mighty shrub.Small is beautiful-so a small seed makes a nice shrub-I love the phrase the greatest of shrubs. Yet,the shrub is good as a shrub-look at what it can do; it appropriate to its identity. Bigger is not always better, but it is alive and well, the shrub.  We look to appropriate size. Is the yeast a corrupting example, an unexpected power, if a measure is 17 pounds, that is some serious bread. does it mean that the kingdom works beneath the surface, in a hidden hand , surreptitious way, or doe sit have a sense of corruption? A little thing like yeast can work some powerful magic.

 

In our Genesis story, yeast appears in Uncle Laban. Jacob meets up with his true twin in Uncle Laban. So he struggles with the cheating one being cheated, although later he gets back at Laban. Since  Laban tricks Jacob by switching brides on him,  Jacob works for him for 14 years. Just as Isaac was played for blind, now Jacob is. The old issue of infertility strikes the family of Abraham again. So the two wives bring in reinforcements, their own maids into the marriage, so Jacob has four wives. Now that would challenge even  his abilities at cunning and manipulation. Like the TV show big Love, Jacob must have lived in a version of a soap opera. he extends the family issue of playing favorites by having Rachel be the favored wife. They were trying to earn his love with children, and my guess is that he was playing them off each other, power politics in the tents of Laban. Jacob here portrays the male dream of having women compete for his favors. On the other hand, Jacob's little world is a microcosm of the many complexities of politics in the larger world. President Clinton used to say that the best cannot become the enemy of the good. Again, god can work in the messy world of human affairs, not only the best but a good enough option instead of the abstract culmination of the type (Chasing Amy). Our disquiet about small being good enough, or of wanting more and more stem from an insecurity abut oneself and the future.

 

Paul almost gives us a catalog of the trials that make us fee alone and abandoned in the world, even by God. No, Jesus was assaulted by those same powers. For all our tendency to be judgemental, Paul asks us, who is in a position to condemn? the response is not one of us: only Christ, yet Christ died for us, the seemingly little people in a world marked with the ambition of being number one, and the Jacob and Laban's of the world always fining the one person more manipulative and more clever than they and seeing their best-laid plans lie in ashes at their feet. .When my brother committed suicide almost 22 years ago, this was the passage that I clung to like a piece of wreckage after a shipwreck.  Not cancer, not Alzheimer's, not governmental gridlock , not war. not economic decline, not a broken heart Nothing can separate us from the love of God in Jesus Christ

Sunday Ps. 105 retells the story of Jacob, Joseph, and Moses the move into and release from, slavery in Egypt. Consider writing a piece retelling another part of Scripture. Consider writing a similar song about the hand of God in your life. If you are really feeling ambitious, how about the hand of God in the life of our country? OK, maybe a piece of history where you are interested.

Monday-I just picked up a book on the great virtue of resilience. the ability to bounce back from defeat or a death is a virtue of real import for life.With our current overpraising of children, I fear that we are giving them a shallow sense of self-worth, but not one that could readily face hardship. It would be my contention that this virtue also comes as a gift from the hand of God, especially when we most need it. I also think that it may be within but so hidden or covered in scar tissue that we don't realize that it is there. I realize that aging may well sap our resilience, but it can be restored.

Tuesday-Anxiety sometimes is worse that what we fear in actuality. a good example is waiting on medical tests, blood work and the like to come through. The results start to weigh on the mind, and then the imagination starts to kick in.,Self-talk helps sometimes. I commend prayer. Admit to God that anxiety has disturbed your placid state. Describe the anxiety. Go through the parade of fears that your would be loath to tell anyone else. Realize that anxiety itself is a drain on one's life energies. Find some good antidotes to anxiety. Know that prayer is surely one.

Wednesday-we are engaged in a new mission project, shoes into water. The idea is that our old shoes are sold and poor people get shoes. The proceeds then go to dig wells and purify water in poor communities. I like ho it links up real needs but also moves to help with the cause of so much illness in the world poor water supply. Public health measures such as this do more than any number of clinics to promote overall health. charity is a cup of cold water to someone in need, but justice provides the way for everybody to be able to get a glass of water.

Thursday-In working in our 7 deadly sins class, I was reminded of 2 words from the Middle Ages in looking at our spiritual troubles, acedia, not being able to care and  tristitia, deep spiritual sadness. Let's call them both spiritual signs of depression. In a striking figure, the early church spoke of being able to find joy as  a sin. In a cynical, bitter age, that certainly is as contemporary as one could desire. Who can help read the paper and sigh, what's the use? With our Jewish religious relatives, we are called to help heal the wounds of this world. In so doing, we help to heal the spiriutal wounds that assail us.

Friday-Hurting the feelings of someone is serious business. Oh, we may be tempted to tell people not to be so sensitive, to toughen up, to learn to take it like an adult. Hurt feelings do hurt relationships. Of course, sometimes we do so out of misspeaking or accident. In that case we just need to talk it through. Sometimes we do have slips of the tongue, and we can apologize. We can all practice the discipline of kind words as a weapon against our easy moves into hurtful words.

Saturday-Recently, someone mentioned being envious of the born-again religious experience. This was a person raised in the church, so his has been an experience of Christian nurture. The older churches may not offer that experience as a projected mark of grace. Instead of infatuation, we offer more the life-long love affair with god. It is a smoother ascent into the realm of the divine. so often, those who had a Road to Damascus moment spend their spiritual energies trying to recapture that moment.

Tuesday July 19 Sloth and diligence. First cut

1) I was tempted not to get around to writing up anything for this unit. it's hilarious that Marty, on of the hardest working scholars ever at the U. of Chicago, wrote this unit.
Capps breaks sloth down into older elements of melancholy and indifference. In later adulthood the crisis is generativity v. stagnation. its virtue is care and vice is indifference. In old age, integrity v. despair is the crisis with wisdom as it virtue and melancholy being the vice. I would be willing to argue that sloth fits well the late childhood state of industry v. inferiority where competence is the virtue and envy seen as the vice.
2) In paragraph 2, he links sloth to acedia and then tristitia-'sadness in the face of spiritual good." Sound like depression to me. I like his addition of indifference to its synonyms.
3) He then makes sloth actively oppositional. later he speaks of turning one's back on others.
4) At page two take some time to consider the outgrowth of sloth by Gregory.
5) If acedia is not caring, or perhaps better being careless, caring would oppose it. to what extent does doing the opposite help fight a habit?
6) When can sloth be a social sin?
7)Marty knows well of sadness as refusal of joy when his wife died and we can read its struggle in Winter of the Heart.
8) Is his being stirred toward empathy a response to sloth, do you think?
9) What do you think of friendship dealing with the vice of isolation and loneliness here?
10) His art therapy idea is brilliant. Are there songs, pictures, movies that stir you?

  OT Notes Gen. 29:15-28
1)Notice that he takes after his mother in helping with the watering.
2) Rachel means  perhaps a ewe or journey, also possibly linked to purity as well-Leah means perhaps weary, maybe delicate  Laban means white but is also related, of all things, to make bricks, as in Gen. 11, may also be linked to moon or  Lebanon and trees?
3) Laban is another Jacob, although worse, if such a thing is possible. Look at the scene when Jacob departs at ch.30-31, and the daughters have learned trickery from 2 masters.
4) The family issue for infertility continues. Also, can you imagine the intrigues with four wives, with two of the wives allied to the sisters? How do you think ti had an impact on the relationship of Leah and Rachel, and their father?
5) Why the trickery with Leah? Would it be just for more free labor? she has "weak" eyes maybe poor in vision, or lighter in color, or delicate, as befitting her name. Rachel is depicted as a stunner.
6) Jacob plays off Isaac's blindness. Now how blind was he really in the tent/ Blind drunk perhaps? Perhaps Leah played Rachel, as Jacob had played Esau?
7) Notice the elder/younger tension playing not only in Esau/Jacob, but now Leah/Rachel. The issue of playing favorites continues.
8) thsi could be a good introduction to the issue of waiting for a long time

The Bible is More Than a Book of Facts

 

The last Sunday in July, many churches will read the story of Jacob wrestling with a mysterious figure at the steam, the Jabbok. Some collect it as part of the story and stop there. That is rarely a good way to go when reading the Bible. After all, the Bible is a collection of material told, shaped, and reshaped over the centuries. Sometimes, I fear that  we don't read it as much as we look for familiar passages to serve as bumper stickers to attach to an issue in life. Reading the Bible for all it's worth is not a "scientific" examination of facts; it is an art form of interpreting language. Far too often, we use the Bible as a hammer, instead of seeing it as a doorway in the another world. Sometimes we come close to making the Bible a sacred object, instead of seeing it as a pointer toward the God whom we worship and that God's constant, unrelenting struggle to bring a fractious humanity on the road to salvation, happiness, peace and justice.

 

The stories, poems, and proverbs  may shine a new light on us, our virtues and vices. It may help us to discover ourselves, or our condition may be found in its pages. Read yourself into the story as an observer; pay attention to your senses: the sights and sounds, the fragrance, the the feel, the food. In the Jacob narrative, one could say that Jacob is wrestling with two alternative futures. One would be the way life will continue to be if he relies on deception as his primary way to manipulate people. The second would be the new emerging self, a self seen by God, that could make Jacob a new person, with a new name, Israel, the patriarch of a people. There at the shores of a river, Jacob is being born again.

As one reads, take the place of different characters and note your reaction, your thoughts, through them. This is not the only way to read the story, of course, but it does illustrate that we can bring different angles of vision to more fully appreciate the depths of these ancient classic accounts. Respect the genres.This is not a book of facts like the old World Almanac, or an account that emphasizes accuracy.The translations make all of the Bible sound the same, but they were not written in Hebrew and Greek that way. To mirror the richness of human experience, we get a variety of styles and approaches.

 

The Biblical imagination has us look through it as a pair of glasses. It then gives us a new way to approach culture. Instead of fearing, say, the Harry Potter books and movies, we can smile at how it may complement the biblical or religious thoughts or feelings in a new way. We can look at the scar on Harry's forehead and think, "oh, that is similar to the mark of the cross we make on someone's forehead in baptism", and consider it as a mark of love. That opening of the mind to images rebounds back to Bible reading. Jacob's new name Israel has the sense of wrestling/contending with God, and maybe we think of the movie, The Wrestler's, search. At times, reading Scripture can be a wrestling match between our interpretations being challenged or confirmed. I am consistently enlightened that the same scripture passages speak in remarkably different way depending on the circumstances in which I read them, whether it is my own state of mind, or differing situations. The Bible creates a world of its own. that world serves to question and even judge our assumptions and desires. When we read the Bible, pray with the Bible, we become part of a dialog, a conversation, yes. a struggle, that has persisted through millennia.

 

We have a treasure between the covers of a book. Sometimes ti releases its riches easily, but sometimes it takes care and effort, perhaps a lifetime to have some emerge from its pages.

 

Jacob is on the run. He stops to rest with a stone for a pillow. Then he dreams  of a ramp with angels moving up an down, messengers /messages moving up and down He will carry the promise of Abraham even though he tried to grab it by unseemly means. Jacob has a dream. Maybe God couldn't get through his defenses any other way. Even though he stole the birthright and blessing, God reveals that the will be the one to carry the promise to Abraham, the promise of fertility given at the dawn of creation. God will work through such a one as Jacob, on the run from his rightly furious brother. Moreover, God says that he will be with Jacob, will keep him wherever he goes,  and will not leave him. God does not only work with the obviously good and pious. Instead God seems to always be weaving and reweaving human action to a fabric that advances the goal of God for human well-being and redemption. Bethel means house of God. Bethel is in all) of us.

 

The parables are quick angelic messages of the ways of heaven on earth. The wheat and weeds grow together in life. At first, the wheat and the weed, darnel, are indistinguishable from one another, so farmers usually left them alone until they could be told apart. Indeed, the story was told that the weed existed from the time of Noah; it was wheat that had gone astray. Only at harvest time are they handled differently. The farmer fears that destroying the weeds will destroy the crop as well. In this life, we are mistaken to look for perfection, for we live in a mixed field always. Indeed, I would push the image further and say that all of us have wheat and weed mixed together inside of us and in the farm we call society. Augustine famously called the church a mixed body. The work of judging separation at the harvest is not for us. Remember it is the one who runs the harvest who decides between the wheat and the weeds, not us. In early farming, it was laborious separation where women would carefully separate the two by color.  Oh one more thing, the darnel is poisonous if consumed. Sometimes the religious imagination gets dualistic, in or out, good or bad. The parable reminds us that life is rarely so simple. Indeed that very predilection could be a weed in our own spiritual gardens.

 

Paul's image is also in an apocalyptic vein He looks to the end also clearly as a beginning. He sees the evil in the world as afflicting all creation weed mixed with wheat. He attributes some of the pain we experience as birth pangs, labor pains, for the birth not only of a new self in Christ but that the entire  creation is moving to a new stage, giving birth to a new promise. Yes, creation groans in pain with us, but its pain presages a new age, one we pray without the many causes of pain in our world. or at least one without weeds. For Paul, the old ways are passing away in favor of the new age of the kingdom of heaven. In an odd way, we live within a time of seedtime and harvest mixed together.

 

One theme that ties our readings together this morning is hope. "Hope is a thing with feathers" said Emily Dickinson. Hope does not fly so high that it is blind to reality. Hope does fly over the difficulties of life; it flies over the rough weather and sees the sun above. Hope flies in spite of, not because of troubles. Hope is not chained to the illusion that things have to remain the same.

Gen. 28:10-19(- 22)  July 17 First Cut

 

1) God works with all sorts of folks, even the manipulative Jacobs of the world.

2) God's message comes in a dream, maybe to keep away from the cunning of Jacob's rational faculty.

3) what do you make of someone who uses a stone for a pillow?

4) Is the ream to presage a new future to Jacob.

5( Even though he is on the run; he is also out to find a bride, a new beginning. Is the promise of presence an answer to some hole in the soul of Jacob? presence, keeping, return, not leave,: are they not linked?

6) angels means messenger in both Hebrew and Greek. is there a message contained in the ladder itself? What do you make of gate of heaven? Is this a thin place, where we touch the divine more readily?

7) Yes this is etiology, but it is also enacted prayer. Bethel=house of God. It places a prior claim on a city, granted. It also places a claim on the meaning of a sacred stone, a sacred site. Notice the tithe slipping in here.

8) What do you think of a vow that puts a condition on a previous promise? Where does it add to the promise?

Greed moved to July 12 group Second Cut (more may be in the offing) Is greed not gluttony for possessions instead of food? If so, then deadly sins have to be seen for their objects as well as their sources and effects.

 

Surely this is an acutely American sin. relate advertising to greed.
Where is the drive behind the lure of possessions? Why does retail therapy work, even for a time?
Where is it anti-social? How does greed affect our natural environment?
What does it do to the emotions and the soul? (Include relationships)

How is greed related to hoarding?

Is there such a thing as societal greed? Is the American dream about anything other than more possessions than one's parents?

How does generosity start to counter greed? If greed emerges from a consideration of personal deficit, where does generosity emerge?

 

Capps puts greed with the play stage of say a four year old. It is connected with the building of a sense of initiative and a sense of purpose , and perhaps dedication. He links it to being ruthless. I must admit that I do not have a good handle on this linkage, so the following are guesses/conjectures.Somehow greed seeks to deal with guilt. Guilt is the sense of doing something wrong by transgressing a boundary, of doing something wrong, as opposed to shame, a more general sense of not measuring up, of being wrong oneself, than in being in the wrong. Greed tries to abolish limits by wanting it all, even when one has more than one needs. it becomes a compulsion for more but it limited to the symbolic realm of things possessed than taken in, gluttony, or lust, person as a thing. greed is the flip side of initiative in that the child's mind and body can work toward objectives, toward a purpose, a hsared one. Now a child can play together with others. guilt may impede those relationships. Gree insists that one should be the boss, the possessor of things acquired by this new-found initiative.  It does withdraw energy from relationships. We rarely think of misers as good with people. things try to replace people. Without an overarching deep meaning structure, without a project worthy of vocation, we substitute acquisition of things. (think of the rules of acquisition of Quark in Deep Space Nine). It hopes that one will be admired for one's possessions.

Greed moved to July 12 group Second Cut (more may be in the offing)

 

Surely this is an acutely American sin. relate advertising to greed.
Where is the drive behind the lure of possessions? Why does retail therapy work, even for a time?
Where is it anti-social? How does greed affect our natural environment?
What does it do to the emotions and the soul? (Include relationships)

How is greed related to hoarding?

Is there such a thing as societal greed? Is the American dream about anything other than more possessions than one's parents?

How does generosity start to counter greed? If greed emerges from a consideration of personal deficit, where does generosity emerge?

 

Capps puts greed with the play stage of say a four year old. 5t is connected with the building of a sense of initiative and a sense of purpose , and perhaps dedication. He links it to being ruthless.I must admit that I do not have a good handle on this linkage, so the following are guesses/conjectures.Somehow greed seeks ot deal with guilt. Guilt is the sense of doing something wrong by transgressing a boundary, of doing something wrong, as opposed ot shame, a more general sense of not measuring up, of being wrong oneself, than in being in the wrong. Greed tries to abolish limits by wanting it all, even when one has more than one needs. it becomes a compulsion for more but it limited to the symbolic realm of things possessed than taken in, gluttony, or lust, person as a thing. It does withdraw energy from relationships. We rarely think of misers as good with people. things try to replace people. Without an overarching deep meaning structure, without a project worthy of vocation, we substitute acquisition of things. (think of the rules of acquisition of Quark in Deep Space Nine). It hopes that one will be admired for one's possessions.

All families have their ups and downs. All families follow some predictable patterns. At times, families carry from one generation to the next some of those patterns.  

 

Here we are placed in the age old quandary of nature v. nurture. The issue of infertility affects this family, as well as Abraham and saran, and will continue to affect them. Isaac prays and is answered more quickly than his parents. Still, an answered prayer may create problems of its own-continuing problem of carrying the promise is not limited to fertility. Even in the womb, the twins seem to be at each other, so much so that Rebecca utters a prayer of desperation.

 How much is Isaac fooled. He is playing the fool or is he truly being fooled. In other words, he is playing Rebecca and Jacob for fools?  he is allowing them to be so terribly clever but knows what they want all the time?  Is he blind to their machinations. After ll, he was younger than Ishmael and he was the chosen favorite. Why not now? Does he secretly agree that Jacob should receive the blessing? What has happened to his marriage with Rebecca that she feels such secrets and machinations are in order? Why haven;t they talked this over? Have they grown so far apart Patterns can change. or be maintained. It is a good thing to be conscious of them. When they don;t promote the health of the system, then they should be changed. That will always meet with resistance. over the years? She is definitely the crafty Laban's sister after all. Her son will find out more about that sooner than she would like.
personal and national-why put it in a national narrative? Esau is depicted as a natural person, unreflective, living in the moment. Jacob is reflected as  crafty and conniving,

civilized is how I would translate tam in this instance, not physically adventurous.
youngest displacing the oldest Jacob is smooth of skin but a smooth talker as well. does he not lose the stolen birthright? In this story a type of karmic principle seems to be at play.

 

Part of this is a little harmless fun poking at its near neighbor Edom. it laughs at it s supposed ancestor as a brute. How much did they inherit his qualities? Remarkably, it pokes fun at itself as a cunning younger brother, younger twin. Jacob is cooking something up-describe types of people name means grabby stew story-mmm red stuff, play on his name linked to Edom is he too stupid to handle the birthright?

 

Families develop and fall into patterns, as do many organizations, including churches. Those patterns tend to persist, healthy or not. Family system and playing favorites. What does playing favorites do to a family? The standard line is that we love our children equally but then how is it that children identify the favorite so readily?We don;t learn from previous patterns. We bring ghosts into the room with us. Previous experiences have a way of punching buttons on us.  Replaying the past closes doors and options. (The story of how to cook a a ham.) 
 
God works through even human duplicity toward the truth. does he receive the blessing? Playing favorites damages the perception fo the favorite. it obviously causes resentment and self-doubt in the less favored children. In response to our anxieties, we look for allies. Instead of speaking directly with the person with whom we have an issue, we create a triangle of relationships. this fosters miscommunication and faulty assumptions more than resolution most times. Quite simply, it is wise to praise in public and complain personally and directly. We don;t talk abut people; we speak to them when possible.

The last of the Harry Potter movies will be coming out within a week. For a while, the overly sensitive launched  a campaign against the series, due to its reliance on the old tropes of wizards. they feared that the device meant that it was allied with dark forces. That seems to have simmered down, as new venom gets spewed over new targets.I'm grateful that the series put books into the hands of young people through of all agencies, Scholastic Publishing. I hope that Rowling's fans will be engaged enough to track down some her allusions to christian tradition and in so doing find some new depth in their own journey of faith, one often as perilous as Harry's.
 

For instance, Christians read of the communion of saints in the Apostles' Creed. The series offers a marvelous image for that connection of us all, living and dead. When harry is in battle with Voldemort, the spirits of the dead create a shield around the combatants and those spirits cheer Harry on.  Harry is told that those whom we love and love us never truly leave us. Hers is a bracing tonic against the American notion that salvation is about my, my individual ticket to heaven, alone. Harry , as all of humanity, is not made to be alone. He survives due to his relationships, especially the core group of his tow great and loyal friends, a boy and a girl. The depth of our connections shows itself in grief and the tears of loss. How many readers have been brought to tears by the death of Cedric, the heartbroken cries of his father, and the eulogy made by Dumbledore at the great banquet. On a tombstone she quotes Paul, "the last enemy to be destroyed is death."

Even as she plays games with a horcrux as a piece of a soul, Rowling grasps the importance of the material and the ordinary virtues of everyday life. Harry gets attached to an esired (desire spelled backward)  a device that can reveal inmost longings, so he gets to see his long-lost parents. He is warned "it does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live." She places a Scripture quote on a tombstone:"where your heart is, there your treasure lies."

Above all, the series is a meditation, as is Lord of the Rings, on the power of love v. the love of power. For Rowling, power is allied with fear and is in the embrace of the force of death. the very name of Voldemort is linked ot death.  Love is allied with virtues such as courage and leads to the force of life. Voldemort's hideous version of a Communion ritual uses death as an instrument toward his renewed life. On the other hand, Dumbledore tells Harry "love is the one thing Voldemort does not understand. A love as deep as your mother's for you leaves a mark." it is that love that allows one to face death, to be self-sacrificial, to renounce power over others in making people mere objects.

What religious censors don;t grasp is the eye of faith. The eye of faith can read anything and make it sacramental and find analogies to God, the work of God, and that which opposes god's vision for the world. To try to deny children and adults of the rare opportunity to be greeted into an alternative world of imagining, one that casts light on our own experience, is a crime against the spirit of human, and yes, divine creativity. No matter the power in a wizard's arsenal, Rowling lifts up the virtues that muggles and wizards may share, ones found in the fruit and gifts of the Spirit, ones shared by all human beings at their best, no matter their station.

Gen. 25:19-34
1) Answered prayers don't promote perfection. Both Isaac and Rebekah pray about their children to be, but they fight even in the womb.
2) Surely at least some of this is a joking etiology story, to jest with brother Edom on its origin. On the other hand, waht do we learn aobut Israel to keep this in \its founding stories?
3) I glimpse some Gilgamesh motif here as well. Enkidu bears some resemblance to Esau, and Gilgamesh to Jacob.
3) Jacob's name means grabby,pushy, overtake, at the heel. Esau is related to being hairy se-ar, and to red, adom.
4) I find it remarkable that Israel would not whitewash its founding member but show him to be full of trickery.
5) The birthright must have been alarming in general for the firstborn to get a bigger share, but for twins, in must have stuck in the craw. .
6) so what does it say about God to overturn the rights of the firstborn, a theme in the bible, and to pick such a one as Jacob.
7) One could play the birthright story for comedy turning serious. think of Esau going, red stuff, yum. He throws away a different future for some stew. Was Jacob plotting, or did he react to a situation that presented itself?
8) An intriguing note; Jacob is  called tam, quiet, a homebody, but in Job it means integrity.
9) Notice the decided parental preference here. Isaac had not learned from his own life with Abraham. Why does Rebekah prefer Jacob? Does she see her brother Laban in him? Isaac shows a bit of Esau if his love could be had for some wild game.
10 What factors lead us to being manipulative with our cleverness?
11) This is also a story of nature v. nurutre. where do you come out on that specturm of possibility?

The words of the Declaration of Independence are well-known. We even confuse them with the Constitution. Thomas Jefferson wanted the Declaration of Independence to be clear to all, but he never claimed originality for it. Jefferson's Declaration was the product of a series of revolutions that streamed into the American revolution. Without the technical revolution of the printing press, it would not make sense to publish the causes of the separation to a candid (open-minded world. It thought itself a product of scientific revolutions that would allow us to discern patterns in the 'course of human events" as we discerned pattern in the natural world. His use of the word necessary is a scientific one, of having seen a predictable pattern, as clear as gravity. With its listing of truths, instead of Truth, it reflects the fundamental change of individualism applied to religious orthodoxy.

Jefferson's trinity of rights, but my no means the only ones were life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The pursuit of happiness is sometimes thought to mean a vague, misty yearning. Jefferson uses it about government as well to effect our safety and happiness. For Jefferson, private happiness could find obstacles imposed by the government. Public happiness could be fostered with good government, as measured by social indicators such as educational levels, economic prosperity, and peaceful relations between nations. Notice tha tit is inalienable, one that we cannot give up and remain citizens, remain human.

"All men are created equal." For a slaveholder, the charge of  hypocrisy is obvious. Nonetheless the great phrase of equality would be the rhetorical death knell of slavery, just as Lincoln would show in his speeches. Even at his most prejudiced, he had said all. Notice that this is more than equality before the law; this is a fundamental equality that would and did find fruition in later history. His original draft had a long polemic against the slave trade, edited by congress. Jefferson suffered through the revisions, and for the rest of his life, kept his original to be able to show the changes Congress made in his draft.

The document has its few religious components. Jefferson's declaration had even fewer religious references than the final draft. By no means, can a religious doctrine be thought to be a central tenet of the declaration. It betrays no explicit Christian considerations, but certainly sounds like the removed "watchmaker" god of the deists.In natural rights thought, god the Creator also created the basis for human rights. they help constitute our humanity.  Put simply, the Declaration cannot be used a pretext for the radical right as an engine against the establishment clause of the First Amendment.Jefferson would write a Virginia law in 1777, enacted in 1786,  that would try to keep the state from involving itself in religious matters, and keep the church from using the state as an instrument of control. Still, Congress was modest enough to rely on divine Providence and saw the Supreme judge of the world as part of the audience of r its work. In other words, a higher power than human beings also animates the world.

Thomas Jefferson could have selected many offices and achievements on his tombstone. He skipped president, vice-president,Secretary of State,governor, but he did include the writing of the declaration of Independence. It doesn't take long to read. This July 4th, please consider reading his words again. They help form the political DNA of this country and people seeking freedom all over the globe.John Adams predicted that Independence Day would be one of fireworks and celebrations. Mat it also be one where we return to the very seedbed of American beliefs and measure our progress.

July 3 Sunday-Song of Solomon is the Bible's great response that the world of faith does not cherish romance out of fear or guilt. At ch.4, we are treated to a head to toe praise of the beloved. The effusiveness of the praise makes me think that these are young lovers. Of course, human sexuality creates all sorts of problems, but they are often a better set of problems than empty arms and hearts. The pull toward unison is a powerful one for these isolated bodies we have. The human body is not to be downplayed in the faith but treated with the same respect as the spiritual or emotional. What are your best features? What features do you find most beguiling in others?

July 4-Every year, I try to read at least the beginning and ending of the Declaration of Independence. For devotions, let's focus on some of the religious language of its author and of congress. "Endowed by their Creator' is a powerful statement of rights. Instead of a divine right of kings, Jefferson leans to a political priesthood of all believers where all of us, in the image and likeness of god, have rights, not only as possessions, but capacities in society. The basic rights were inalienable not because they cannot be abridged, but because we cannot give them up. They are part of being human, part of a divine inheritance.

Tuesday Loneliness can attack us in a packed party.It is an urge toward connection that makes loneliness push us to find relationship. So, it is a symptom more than a disease. Einstein said that solitude was prized as he grew older. Solitude is a decision as well as a physical reality. Sometimes, loneliness can be assuaged with prayer. There we are not alone, for God is there, listening as carefully as a therapist, s happy to hear from us as a parent when we call.

Wednesday Wordsworth said  "the wise mind regrets less what age takes away, but more what it leaves behind." In a youth-obsessed culture, we resent and resist the limitations that aging places on us. I suppose it could mean the accumulation of losses of relationships that lie in our past, or it could mean the legacies we leave behind, both positive and negative.

Thursday-When I was considering joining the Presbyterian church, the pastor showed me the confession of 1967. At the end, is says "the church does not identify limited progress with the kingdom of God on earth, nor does it despair in the face of disappointment and defeat." Day by day, bit by bit, the church does it work ot make the world a proper place for human beings to live, to make the world a bit more livable. i so admire the modesty of the confession here, where it does not arrogate itself the power to know god's will precisely. Instead, it keeps its eye on the prize, laboring toward that distant goal.

Friday-Scripts-"All the world's a stage." At times, we act out of lives with a script that has been foisted upon us. Something happens, and the words of someone else seem to jump out of our mouths. It can be a salutary spiritual exercise to write out the means and the ends to which you are drawn. That may well confirm your path, or it could ask for some course alteration. Where in your life do you need a rewrite of the script you have been following. Where does your script get you into trouble, and where does it provide you enjoyment?

Saturday Temperance-We ran out of time to speak much of temperance in our Tuesday morning class that has its current focus, the 7 deadly sins. It is definitely related to phrasing in Scripture on self-control, or perhaps a better translation, self-mastery. That permits us to enjoy in moderation, temperately. When we temper an egg, we moderate the temperature to mix a little hot liquid and then put it in the hot mixture. Just saying no does not always work. learning when to say yes and to say no is the essence of temperance, a more human approach than abstinence, I think.