Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Sept 4 devotions

Sunday Ps. 149 is an exuberant hymn of praise that continues to close the psalter with praise., especially in the first stanza. There we see music and dancing together in the worship. I must admit that I am not the biggest fan of liturgical dance in church, but it inarguably a most powerful human response in religious life. I want to emphasize v. 4. God takes delight in us. I love that notion of god taking pleasure in us, who we are, what we do, what we say, in our very existence.

Monday Providence John Calvin had a deep view of God’s providence. Not for him was a distant god who let nature take its course, but an active God who worked through creation all of the time. Calvin realized that so many things hit us that seem random or fortuitous, but he saw that as the failure of our sight and imagination, or he placed it as a secret plan of God whose rationale could be revealed at some later date. For him God’s care is personal and individual, not impersonal or generic. God touches each life personally, with great care.

Tuesday-Some days seem to drag, and some days seem overloaded.Sometimes it is merely a perceptual issue, and we haven;t taken the time to [lace the burdens into some sort of priority list. Sometimes it can be a signal that too many things are hitting us that we do not feel as if we have any control or say in them. sometimes, we are already stressed, and one more thing on the to do list feels like the straw that broke the camel’s back. pray out your burdens; share them.

Wednesday- The bishop of London spoke well at the royal wedding. “”the more we go beyond ourselves and in love, the more we become our true selves and our spiritual beauty is more fully revealed.” It was good that in the extravaganza of wedding details, the religious nature of the service came shining through his words. Marriage does not fuse 2 selves into one clump. It honors a relationship where the two selves remain distinct but the relationship grows with them. When we light a unity candle, we keep the flames of the other two candles burning brightly.

Thursday feeling nervous before a big event. it is a sign that we care. I've heard actors and preacher both say that when they don;t feel nervous before an engagement, that is a sign that it is time to quit. Of course, the nerves can leave us stammering, uncertain, and definitely not at our best. Scripture repeatedly says fear not, but sometimes words seem inadequate.Sometimes our imagination can help us there and if we rehearse an upcoming scene we feel as if we have some rational mastery over it. remember God and the communion of saints are with you.

Friday In his nomination speech Jimmy Carter quoted Bob Dylan-about “one not busy being born is busy dying.” Being born to me would me being open to life and its possibilities and surprises and busy dying would strike me as being in a rut, closed off from possibilities and others, even the best parts of oneself. Baptism is the Christian rite for us busy being born in grace daily.

Saturday-Frustration affects us when we are already stressed and especially when we are looking for a result. We may be hoping or worse, expecting, that the result will appear quickly, easily, efficiently, and effectively.The urge to blame someone or something rises up in us like a geyser. Sometimes, we lose a good sense of time. Most things do not need to be done right now. We push ourselves into crisis mode for adrenaline. Look at the Mary and Martha story.

Saturday, August 27, 2011

Rom. 12:9-21, Ex. 3:1-15 August 28 Sermon Notes

I have some writing projects that I work on as time and energy and inspiration permit. One is a longer effort to put together a 365 day grief devotional from scriptural passages. So, I gravitate to passages that deal with suffering as part of that work. Also, everyone suffers to some degree all during life from a welter of causes. I am called to the pastorate. Why should I have to go through the hassles of cataract procedures and a cancer diagnosis when I have better things to do? As Jesus said, the rain falls on us all. Nature does not discriminate on the basis of vocation.

God has an ineffable name, perhaps in the revelation to Moses at the burning bush. it is clear however that this god responds to human needs, perhaps especially the human cry. Yes, the Hebrews have a fourfold cry, but God responds in a fourfold way.As Janzen notes, god may be hidden, but God is hidden within the suffering. Moses is on holy ground, but it a hospitable ground of security and safety.The holy allows us to reconnect to the past as present and prologue, not history.God acts here.

Romans advice-pick some as a response to suffering We are God's agents in reducing and facing suffering, we continue the earthly work of healing and ease-do not be overcome by evil but overcome it with good-we often read this as a response to an evil person. Perhaps we do well to also read it as a response to the evil things that happen to us that cause suffering. We know that in the midst of a depressive episode, it can be eased by acts of service, to move form the painful zone of one's own darkness into a wider orbit. I think that Paul sees our lives as being lived on holy ground. After all, we are all of us made in the image and likeness of God. I would suggest that in meeting each other, we are in burning bush moments.Paul overturns the world of economic and social competition into a contest of kindness, of showing honor to one another. Notice not being honored but honor others and not being haughty.At the very least we treat each other with respect and courtesy, not from a position of correction but mutual concern. of refusing to drop down to the level of retaliation when injured, but as he puts it, to overcome evil with good. Paul's advice leads us to becoming full actors, full participants in the Christian life, not spectators, or fans as some call it lately.

The ground of suffering is holy ground, for God does some good work there; God's presence is sought and felt there. Suffering and evil exist as brute facts of human existence in this East of Eden world we sometimes call fallen. Nothing drives us to our knees more quickly than even the threat of suffering. we sometimes take it that god abandons us, is absent from us. The cross of Christ is a crucible where Emmanuel is God with us in the hardest times.So we too act. Contribute to the needs of the saints is really sharing and participating in the needs of the saints. In a way it is granting hospitality to those suffering and in pain. To persevere in prayer is for ourselves of course but for others as well. Nothing helps to move someone from the role of enemy as much as finding yourself capable of praying with and for them.

to sum up, whenever we encounter another person, we walk on holy ground. Holy ground exists in places of blessing and bane. Just as we learn basic courtesies, we learn as Christians paths to walk on holy ground, as we try to see the Christ in each, and speak and act accordingly.

Uncertain sight

I write this with my left eye with a patch due to a cataract procedure.Our daughters have been teasing me about being a pirate, but I seem to lack the panache, as one of my favorite Errol Flynn movies is Captain Blood, I suppose.

I am old enough to remember when people were immobilized for six weeks when a cataract was removed. This strikes me as miraculous. While I am so grateful for the advances in medical technology, we have a long way to go in healing our perceptions, or inner sight of the psychological depths and our sight of the world beyond intersecting our own, spiritual sight.

Jesus was a healer. Giving eyesight to the blind was one of his tasks. At this point, I recall that he met a man who asked for one thing with one word in Greek, anablepo, that I regain my sight.
These healings always point to a spiritual dimension. They are often placed around a story where someone misperceives the message of Jesus. In other words, the physical is a gateway to coming t grips with the spiritual. Perhaps the best example is John 9. Jesus heals a blind man on the sabbath. Instead of rejoicing this causes religious consternation and an investigation into the healing. threatened by a new spiritual power, the establishment reacts with veiled threats and coercion. At the end, the man healed is the one who sees Jesus in a new light, while the others are consigned to spiritual shadow.

Paul speaks of us looking at reality with a sort of perceptual cataract due to our limited abilities. “ “We see as through a glass dimly.” It is part of the limitation of being human that we do not see the spiritual, maybe even reality itself, with 20/20 clarity. So much of what we perceive is fostered by and interpreted through our mental frameworks. Some go around wit their radar constantly on the prowl for someone or something, so they can feel aggrieved. Some of us seem blind to how others treat us. We all become quite skilled at turning a blind eye to suffering that requires compassion and aid, as we blame its victims instead.

John Calvin, the prime mover of the wing of the church that became the Reformed groups, spoke of the “spectacles of Scripture.” He meant that we can see the world differently through the lens of the bible. He may also have meant that we may even begin to glimpse the world through the eyes of God, a god’s eye view of the human struggle. In other words, the Bible may come to heal our spiritual blindness and help us to see in ways previously unimagined.

Liturgy in church is our best attempt to frame our experience in a distinct way in the spiritual life. Its order tries to dispel the chaos. Its measured beats are alternatives to the 24/7 madness of the Internet Period. There we first admit that we are dependent, together, on One who is larger than our imagination. There we admit our faults, alone and together, but there too we hear words of absolution, pardon, and grace, The old words take on new life and new resonance as they are heard by us together. Instead of grasping for more, instead of having our hands out, we make an offering to the needs beyond the self. At Communion, we who work and work do receive a gift, with our hands open and not clenched. We always leave with a blessing. At its best, church architecture leads us into a sense of a liminal experience, where our eyes are drawn upward, where we are surrounded in a new symbolic landscape. Going to church helps us to live out the words of Amazing grace, “twas blind, but now I see.”

Exodus 12:1-14

1) The liberation affects time itself, as it now is the first month of the year. In a way, it reminds me of Anderson’s OT textbook, as it starts with the Exodus as it examines the Scriptures. This is a great example of the Priestly material backdating things to give an air of legitimacy to current practice. The agricultural calendar was an autumn calendar, not a spring starting one.
2)The ritual is interesting as it is done in households but care is taken to do things at the same time. One can find all sortd of traditional or contemporary interpretations of the meaning of the different prescribed foods at Passover. Please recall the Last Supper is done as a Passover meal in the synoptic gospels.
3) In blood was thought to be life, so it is an appropriate thing to ward off the Destroyer.
4) It prefigures travelling food in haste. This is a different sort of ritual feat.
5) Notice that Egypt’s curse now turns back on it.
6) Notice too that this is a day to remember, an ordinance into the future. Many note that slave time is the same thing day after day, but God is up to something new. The past is no longer prologue but an event to be celebrated, not regretted. The future is pried open here.
7) I wonder if this observance marked a change from circumcision. It is not for males only, but for families. this is a new people who share this feast in family units. Blood appears in both, linked to life and death itself.At Passover the family units compose a congregation says the text, a people gathered, a people called.

Wednesday, August 24, 2011

August 21 Sermon Notes Ex. 1-Ex, 2:8, Rom. 12:1-8

We've gone through some highlights of the story of Abraham's family in Genesis. now that family has grown numerous, just as God had promised. As time has passed that blessing is perceived as threat by a new Egyptian monarch. the move to becoming a people now becomes the oppression of the new people who can trace their beginnings to Abraham. In dealing with these rich texts, I am emphasizing the keys of the kingdom and Paul's word of being not conformed to this world.

The keys to the kingdom relate to rabbinic authority of permissible and impermissible- locking doors or opening them-rules of the house.
Puah and Shiphrah both names deal with light and brightness declare what they will not countenance. it is a remarkable thing to have those names r3ead in the course of the centuries maybe over 30, they were not conformed to this world and its power structures.When asked by the ruler of Egypt about the seeming abundance of Hebrew children, they outwit him by using his own prejudice against him. They act of of civil disobedience, even at the risk of their lives. Mother of Moses is a new Noah, making an ark, a little ark to put her boy on the water to save him, even though the ruler has ordered it, the life-giving Nile, to be an instrument of destruction for the babies. To protect life, all the women in this account Egyptian and Hebrew defy the orders of the ruler. They claim the keys of the kingdom to declare what line they will not cross.

Be not conformed but transformed-Amish way? Over the years they have gone through a lot of stress and strain over buttons or the type of permissible wheels on a buggy I respect their marks of a community, but I suppose I prefer a cultural non-conformity to the culture when it seems to stand against the gospel message. Niebuhr's church transforming culture He had different models how the church reflects the surrounding culture, or the way of having the church oppose the culture.He saw the transforming image as best-suited ot the kingdom of god images used by and enacted by Jesus. I suppose we cold call it thinking and living outside the box, the box that culture creates and maintains to but blinders on our perspective and even consideration of the the different.
who do you say that I am

Those two Hebrew midwives did so at great risk. Let me close with a far different example. I grew up south of Pittsburgh and Fred Rogers was on TV always for us. He was ordained by the Pittsburgh Presbytery to be Mister Rogers. He wanted to respect children and was a figure of fun to so many. He prayed two hours every day for the many requests that poured into his office. He would make a point of visiting a child when he was on a business trip. He met a mute autistic boy who would first only speak to the TV with him. What impact this gentle fool for Christ had. I love the story of his deciding to take the subway in New York on a business trip and the whole car joined in singing the neighborhood song. His car was stolen in Pittsburgh once. Days later, it was returned in the exact spot with a note on the windshield, if we knew it was your car we never would have touched it. On that same NY trip, a man saw him and shouted, it's mister rogers, I have ot buy a lottery ticket; this has to be my lucky day. (See the Tom Junod story in esquire and his eulogy for Fred Rogers as well).

August 21 Devotions

Sunday Ps. 124 speaks clearly of enemies but in actual but also mythic context. By the latter I mean seeing the world as reflecting a battle between good and evil From what trouble have you escaped? When have you been able to “fly away” from trouble?Have you been the cause of trouble?

Monday-Had an interesting discussion in morning Bible class-(note it moves to Wednesday mornings at 9:30 as I will teach at Lewis and Clark on Tuesday) on Romans 2 and judge not. we all know the saying but what does it mean? Do me it means to convict someone on one’s own. what’s the standard? Our own ideas. Do we ever judge someone positively? When you were in school were you ever praised with “constructive criticism’? It is not our place to judge, but god’s. Our perspective is too self-interested, too distorted to judge by God’s own standard.

Tuesday -Pride has long been considered a particularly deadly sin. First let’s be careful with words. don’t confuse it with pride in oneself or one’s work, more like arrogance, maybe even narcissism, a leering superiority that looks down on everybody. Arrogance removes us from the central issue of human life:we are not gods but we think we should be.

Wednesday Alan Thames, Executive Presbyter of whitewater Valley, posted a great quote recently on facebook. “Ours is not the task of fixing the whole world at once, but to stretch out to help mend a part of it within reach. Any small calm thing one soul can do for another soul will help immensely.” recently I prayed that we feel called to help heal the world but feel like we do social triage. god gathers up the pieces of our small acts and words of kindness and those help to compose the world of God’s own creation.

Thursday-I grew up in a small town. Facebook is being flooded with memories of it from the fifties to the seventies or eighties I would guess. I don’t seem to remember nearly as much as the people posting memories. Think of some funny childhood stories. who were some characters where you grew up? who were your best and worst teachers and why? How did you spend time with your friends? what were your church experiences like? From there, have you changed a lot or are you basically the same person? where did you shake the dust off your feet and what did you make sure to retain from your hometown?

Friday Romans 12 shows the impossibility of reading the Bible literally. Paul work off a literal interpretation when he says we offer ourselves as a living sacrifice (offering). clearly he means that the way we live out our lives is a communication to god that should be of the perfect quality fo the old animal sacrifices. what have you done in the past week that would be a fitting gift to god?What words have you offered that would be a proper sacrifice to the divine One?

Saturday Were people as touchy thirty years ago as they seem to be today?I don’t remember people almost itching to take offense at an innocent remark, almost as if they are looking to take offense. With all of our talk about self-esteem, it seems to me that we are more brittle than before. If we but recall that we are baptized, full members of the household of God, would that help? What things are you perhaps overly touchy about? Does that happen under stress?

Notes on Ex. 3:1-15

Ex. 3: 1-15

1) One of the main points here is the name of God. I’m partial that it is close to a a causative in Hebrew so it is the one who causes to be, in other words, Creator. I am who I am does sound like Popeye, but one could make it more majestic The Existing One. Others see the name as causing actions in this world. If you are feeling ambitious this may be a good time to consider immanence and transcendence or a removed god v. an active one v. a responsive one. As Fretheim insists, this is a a relational god. Now is God intervening from the outside or is God operating within this framework, as in ground of being v. a sky god?

2) the idea of Holy ground is picked up by Gordon Lathrop in his trilogy. Where is holy ground in your life? Does anything inspire awe in our time? Notice the promise will be to come back to the holy mountain Horeb/Sinai to worship. It now makes sense why Moses is of the tribe of Levi. So the entire event of the exodus from Egypt, before the wilderness wandering, is framed by worship. Can suffering be holy ground? Is any encounter with human beings holy ground? (See the new book on administrative ethics Where two or More are Gathered)

3) Notice that God hears and responds. This is not Calvin’s imperial divinity who thunders orders and manipulates events. God hears their cries. God knows their troubles. Yet, God will act through Moses not by fiat.

4) Can it be an accident that Moses moves from a shepherd of a herd to a herd of people?

5) why is it emphasized that the bush is not consumed?

6) I have seen all sorts of ideas for the meaning of Jethro. (OK, get Jethro from the Beverley Hillbillies or the old rock group out of mind) Look how this important figure is not a Hebrew.

Monday, August 15, 2011

1)OK what we will do is take some illustrative quotes to work on the first half on Romans as broken down by our author.

2:1-5, 3:22, 4:16-20, 5:3-5, 6:1-5, 7:21-23, 8:26-7

Saturday, August 13, 2011

Notes Ex. 1:8-2:10
1)A play may be made between not knowing Joseph and his wisdom and using a different tactic, shrewdness, in dealing with the numerous Israelites.Notice that be frutiful and multiply has turned into a curse as aliens.
2) The issues of resident aliens in our time is obvious.
3) Egypt, a land of plenty, is being governed by a scarcity ethic and its ally fear.
4)Janzen in Exodus p. 18 finds a linguistic parallel to the tower of Babel story.
5) Not only do the Egyptians employ brutal labor policies, they ask midwives to kill the male babies. It is impressive that their names are kept for us, when the Egyptian princes are left unnamed. Shiphrah-brightness, Puah=brilliance-so both deal with light -Can't you see how oppressed people would love that two midwives dared to fool the king in this way. I just read that King James I disapproved of this action and disliked the Geneva Bible notes approving it.
6) Moses comes from the priestly tribe. (Levi=attached)
7) Moses =son in Egyptian but mosheh in Hebrew means to draw out. The basket that is drawn from the nile is the same word as ark of Noah or the ark of the tabernacle, it could be a box, a container as well.
Ministers see so many people who are ill. We are dangerous on health issues, because we see so much illness, and we start to think we know something about it. Other than being on medicine for high blood pressure and cholesterol, my health has been pretty good: no hospital stays, no surgeries. Yesterday, I was diagnosed with prostate cancer.

First, gentlemen, please keep up your blood work. My manual prostate exams have always been good. (Not the process, the result). My PSA number is well below the threshold of concern. The number has been rising and my doctor had me promise to do more blood work before I moved to Alton. So, after going through the delightful biopsy procedure, akin to being violated by an alien probe, the results came back: 4 of the 12 samples have cancer cells.

Second, I am struck by how we often take news in character. I think I take after my mother who took big things well but made mountains out of molehills. Our older daughter marries next spring. She knew I would put off her requisite dance lessons for the father-daughter dance. She ordered me to take them this summer, with the kind phrase,: “Dad, you’ll do the least damage to the waltz.” I had much more anxiety over my fourth dance lesson than I did getting the results of the biopsies. (Of course, that could also be that the dance instructor is stunningly attractive).

I would like to think that I took the news with relative calm, so far, because it is part of God’s healing touch. I see God’s hand in daily life. I see God working together with the doctors, nurses, technicians, and pathologists, who have brought me to this point. Healing is a shared endeavor in god’s world. I do not see how a god who punishes with illness fits the God of Jesus Christ. Instead, I see that the same wisdom, same incarnate :logic” of God in Jesus Christ (John 1:14) also spills out into and for all of us, body, mind, heart and soul. In other words, the truth of science reveals truths about God’s creation, including its “fallen” aspects such as cancer.

I am grateful that I am somewhat serene about the news, as it allows my mind to gain a better sense of options and outcomes. The more upset we get, the harder it is for us to weigh options and make decisions, when we are working through a storm of emotions. I consider it nothing less than a gift from above, so that my energies can focus on healing and making good decisions toward that end.

Already, I see a change in perspective starting to percolate. Faced with the reality of vulnerability to illness, I may well tend to wish some issues that could seem to warrant some anxiety fade off into the distance. I’m going to need to be careful in not snapping at people who are being deliberately obstinate, cruel, or constantly aggrieved, as my patience will be tested more personally than usual. I’m going have to be careful that this walk in the outskirts of the valley of the shadow won't foreshorten my perspective on the future and how difficult it is to shape it with others. It reinforces my long-tome devotion to our daughters, even as they need distance as they are in the midst of forming their own lives and identities.

All in all, it intensifies my sense that if we accept and cherish life as a gift, then our expectations and desires fall into place more easily. Yes, it is a fragile gift, but a gift nonetheless.The prospect of heaven does not change my desire to hold on to this precious gift for as long as possible.
Sunday-We read Romans 11 sections today, the 14th. V. 29 “God’s gifts and call are irrevocable.” I love the strength of that affirmation. God makes promises that are honored. God is reliable. God will not call back what god has given. too often, we get anxious about a more tricky god who acts more like a dishonest official than the creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer of all. Put differently, place some confidence in your baptism, where God chose you to be part of the whole household of God.

Monday- Kind deeds seem to come more easily to many of us than kind words. Maybe we fear that we are sounding false or that we could give someone a swelled ego. Kind words can stick with us, sometimes over a long period of years. We all have the insistent critic in the back of our minds, so it is good to hear external compliments on occasion.

Tuesday -Upset minds often make poor decisions. Upset minds do not take in information very well. Upset minds are prone to hearing things inaccurately and then jumping to conclusions. Rash decisions are often the product of being upset and wanting to get something over, or maybe just because action feels better than feeling powerless. Trying to establish a cam center within and also promoting that within groups will lead to more considered judgment. That does not mean we are not fallible, but it does put the odds for a good decision more in our favor.

Wednesday-”The most overlooked feature of humility is the quiet acceptance of our strengths” writes Ronald Wells. Humility is not being a doormat, not someone who denies that God gives gifts as well as limitations in our personal storehouse of traits. It is not arrogance or false pride or egotism to realize that one has some virtues, abilities or strengths. To let them lie fallow out fo fear of seeming prideful would be more of a sin, I would think. Learn to be able to take a compliment. Try to listen if God’s voice is trying to get a compliment through to you.

Thursday -serenity is a virtue that I prize, probably because I sense it so rarely. i even like the sound of it. I like that a tennis player is named Serena. Spiritually serenity strikes me as being able to rest in God. it strikes me as borne by a confidence in Providence, in god’s constant care. having a sense that God has a hand int he affairs of the world removes a sense of duty and utter responsibility from our shoulders.

Friday- Adam Nicholson wondered if the King James version of tee Bible is so good because so many of the people behind were not, especially King James himself. some were ambitious, always looking for clerical advancement.God can work through imperfect people, all of us. God can work through groups, as through the 6 committees of the Company of translators. So often, what the KJV did was take the good and make it better.

Saturday-Active spirituality applies to many of us who may well admire spiritual contemplatives but for some reason are unable to attain their spiritual level in meditative postures. It may include the physical production of an act of charity, like the Saturday Cafe. It could inquire about questions being raised while reading a Scripture passage. It can be the promotion of certain disciplines to build up a perceived strength or a weakness inside our souls.

Thursday, August 11, 2011

August 14 Mt. 15:21-28, Gen. 45:1-15 (Communion)
We are in the maelstrom of ethnic prejudice, religious differences, gender bias and address. Outsider rude remark where the tables get turned on Jesus by a foreign woman. In this instance Jesus is taught the boundaries of his mission are wide indeed. This may well set up the Great Commission at the end of the gospel. Jesus is in foreign territory. he is dealing with a woman, in public, but she talks like an early Christian, with the titles she uses for Jesus. She may be well off, as her child is on a couch, real furniture, not a pallet. She is a mixture of bold and submissive, someone perhaps used to dealing with power, as the brothers in the Joseph story are not. Members of our presbytery hosted Peruvians here, and we had two gatherings in Alton. A friend of mine, Jennifer Loeb in Indianapolis wonders if Jesus was  tempted with compassion fatigue perhaps? This verbal encounter continues the tradition of wrestling with God.this woman is not going to let go until she does her best to try to save her daughter with the fierce determination that perhaps only god knows as well as a mother.

A rude remark is one thing, but a life upturned is another. Joseph's brothers quake in fear for the retribution, the revenge that is coming their way. The brother Joseph has his dreams fulfilled, and the one sold into slavery now is a ruler in Egypt. They are sure that Joseph will retaliate. Instead he offers them forgiveness. At the end of the book he offers it again, because they fear that only their father's presence is staying his hand against them. Look at what the forgiveness of Joseph is not. Is it forgive and forget. No, in his charade with them, he again shows them the depths of betrayal and the import of being responsible for each other. He has looked for change in their attitude and behavior and has seen it. Is it minimizing the hurt? No, again, they have a sense of the depth of their crime. they do not minimize the wrong done. They do not say that time has healed the wound. Forgiveness is not easy for either party. Both sides need to get a sense of the depth of the offense.
 
Joseph takes after his Uncle Esau and discovers the capacity to forgive in himself. He is able to let go, release the hurt. He did not let the betrayal define him. He was not going to be the eternal victim, forever hurt. On the other hand, he does not retaliate in kind. Second, he does see some change in them. Reconciliation has not been complete. They will fear for their safety after the protective wing of their father is gone. They are brothers again. Joseph/Increase has moved from hostility to success and family bonds. In large part he has done so by being able to see the hand of god working even through human evil.

Communion is a sacrament of reconciliation. We take in the forgiving nature of Jesus Christ in to our bloodstream, so that it feeds our ability to forgive and to reconcile. To receive Communion we come with hands open, not clench, not closed into a tight fist. This is a meal served family style,for we are brothers ans sisters here. Joseph saw god's hand in his life. "you meant it for evil, but God meant it for good." Here God takes the evil of the death of Jesus and works it toward good. this is one place where the barriers that separate and divide are broken all the way down.

Saturday, August 6, 2011

August 7 Gen. 37:1-4, 12-28, Mt. 14:22-33
Walking on the water is to me a sign of walking over the powers of death and destruction of chaos and confusion.Impetuous Peter has a classic response. the people waiting on the other side of the lake are in deep water too.  don;t be afraid. We have these odd church terms for architectural features such as the nave of the church. It comes the same root as navigate, referring to a boat. The church was long pictured to be a little ship. Sometimes it gets storm-tossed. Stepping out of the boat is a real issue for Peter and for us. Lord, save me. Excellent prayer. In part, the wood above our heads is to give us the sense of being in the hold of a ship.

Confusion continues to reign in the extended house of Abraham now to the great-grandchildren. Favoritism continues as the first son of the favored wife is now the favorite.The favorite son of Rachel now has a favorite son.  Jealousy and envy now become new emblems of the household.They are unable to speak peaceably, or speak a word of peace and well-being, or even say hello in a civil tone.Recall that the narrator gives extra definition to the names of the brothers.  I need to emphasize a translation issue. It is likely that Joseph did not tattle or issue a report against the brothers; it is more likely that they continue to bad mouth Joseph, as that is the way it reads in other OT accounts. I won;t hazard a guess as to why Joseph tells his dreams, he clearly has not learned ot interpret them, yet. Jacob only rebukes him when he interprets it as meaning that he too will fall under the sway of the son. The younger who stole a birthright and blessing does not want the same to apply to him. Notice the story here. One senses a battle for advantage even in the decision to kill Joseph, as they play a game of then reporting to the father. This is a family that will not learn that playing favorites can be deadly. This family will not learn to speak with each other in order to try to resolve an issue. Jacob saw forgiveness in his brother that he called the face of God, but the lesson has not been transmitted into this blended family of four different wives. Now recall Israel will be enslaved in Egypt in the very next book of the bile. Here the patriarchs plot to put one of their own into slavery and sell their own brother to relatives who themselves descended from the Egyptian slave girl Hagar who had a child by Abraham. They cannot even use the word brother any longer.They see thee dreamer, with that robe, and they lose all perspective. that TV show Big Love has nothing on the book of Genesis. This is 10 against 1. It may reflect on the troubles holding the tribes of Israel together. it could be that this story indicates that we bring family issues on to the public stage.
 
In this house, in the nave of the ship of faith, God does not play favorites.God continues to pay real regard to the dreamers. It used to be said that God protects widows and drunkards. maybe God watches out for the impetuous ones such as Peter who step out of the boat. Here in the security of being in the embrace of God, we can dare step out of the boat, knowing that we can be saved when we need it, and return to its security to do our work together.
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Gen. 45 This is about forgiveness, surely. My favorite book on forgiveness is still David Augsburger- Caring Enough to Forgive/Caring Enough Not to Forgive. Gregory Jones of duke has Embodying Forgiveness.  n approach from a different angle is  one by    Is Human Forgiveness Possible?
1) I just realized that Joseph is as tricky as Laban and Jacob. His teaching tricks and ploys are worthy of them both.We are also back to the old family game of blindness, as he keeps them in the dark about his identity.
2) What meanings can we assign to his loud, loud weeping?
3) This great cry of forgiveness is repeated in ch. 50. it is the great answer to the dolts who insist on drawing a sharp line between OT and NT ethics.
4) Joseph would have been a good Calvinist- look at his view of providence in v. 8
5) Joseph gives them garments, maybe many colored cloaks. Notice his warning in v. 24.
6) One could do a powerful dramatic sermon on Jacob hearing the news about Joseph. Janzen in Abraham p.176 links it to the reaction of Easter.
7) Joseph does not forget. He seeks change in the brothers and sees it. The whole issue with Benjamin is to see if they have experienced moral growth. Notice the willingness to represent the other brothers for protection.

First Cut
Pride and Humility from thoughtful Christian series on deadly sins and saving virtues
1) Augustine saw this as the most dangerous of the deadly sins. Do you? Why or why not?
2) The author says pride develops from undeveloped self-esteem. How would that work?
3)  Tell more about Merton's notion of the false self.
4) It sounds  as if the author sees pride as a form of narcissism, no? See Capps, The Depleted Self.
5) How does the pharisee and publican story relate to these themes?
6) How is pride related to judging others?
7) Define humility. The turn to spiritual masters is a danger here. Humility shares a root with human and humus, of the soil, grounded rooted here.
8) How is the incarnation an act of divine humility then?
9)Do you agree that we "climb to heaven by lowering ourselves?"
10) In terms of the two themes, discuss the great African-American maxim that "God does not make junk."
11) Capps places pride in adolescence. The crisis is identity v. role confusion. Obviously he sees the development of a maturing self as affected by the trouble of pride. (Remember he places lust with young adulthood.) Fidelity is the crucial virtue being developed at this stage.

Friday, August 5, 2011


In our morning class, we have been using Thoughtful Christian materials on the traditional seven deadly sins. OK, if you did not go to Catholic school and have them committed to memory they are: gluttony, greed, sloth, lust, anger, envy, and  pride. We are using them as convenient diagnostic devices to examine how sin has a way of infecting our lives. They are certainly convenient categories to examine one's own life and one's own spiritual path and progress. this is a difficult task when advertising feeds on envy as its driving force in its perpetual push toward consuming new goods.
 
Since we just worked with it, let's look at envy. Envy is all about things or qualities  possessed by another. Jealousy is more about people, to me. Jealousy seems to be more about fear of losing what one has, instead of being resentful of what others have. Envy resents what others possess (it should be mine), but misses one's own possessions and achievements as worthy of celebration.

I must admit that I am interested in what drives the seven deadly sins, what are the engines behind them. My old pastoral care teacher, Donald Capps, linked them to the different stages of life posited by the psychologist Erik Erikson. He places envy's origin with the school age issues of industry v. inferiority. School is where we learn the value of work and effort. It is also the place where we see that work alone is not the answer for some deficiencies. We see that there are better-looking, smarter, faster, friendlier people out there. Admiration of those traits can mutate into envy.

Envy seems to be directed at particular things, people or traits, rather than the open-ended thirst for more that is greed. It is destructive to the soul in a variety of ways. Envy wants the things possessed by someone else to be taken from them. Why? They don't deserve it; they should not have it, but I, I, should. Envy wants to drag others down to our level of felt deficiency. So, envy keeps us from rejoicing with others, but it does allow us to rejoice in a downfall, instead of feeling compassion. I distinguish it from jealousy in that I tend to associate jealousy with people more than things. Jealousy seems to me to be about the fear of losing something or someone in one;'s orbit, but envy looks outside one's orbit.

Maybe the best literary view of the effects of envy is Gollum in The Lord of the Rings series. Envy has deformed him from the inside out, so that he has become twisted and torn asunder.
Biblically, look at Saul and David. Saul was both envious and jealous of David, no? Were the religious leaders envious of Jesus? Were not the brothers envious of Joseph's coat? In these cases, envy ends in plotting the murder of those whom envy spies.

Capps sees envy being  countered by a sense of competence and the self-esteem bolstered by competence in the face of seeing others with greater skills. Security in one's being and skills closes the yawning hole that is envy. Traditionally, acts of love and kindness were proffered as the antidotes to envy. Instead of the closed fist of taking, we open the hand in giving. A gift honors the recipient instead of resenting them. If we can add to what they have, the resentment can fade. Acting generous starts to create generous feelings. The mutual respect of the gift then affects the way we look at others and how we view ourselves. The gnawing coveting fades into appreciation and admiration.We then start to realize that we are accepted by God the giver of all good gifts, including our very selves. We start to accept that we are good enough, good enough to give and receive love.