Monday, February 24, 2014

OT Notes Ex. 24:12-18

This passage deserves a  closer look than it often receives.
Janzen has some interesting things to say about it in his little commentary on Exodus (189-190).In the first section we have a communal covenant ceremony. Now it goes farther up the mountain and further into the divine presence.This is an entry way into constructing a tabernacle, a dwelling/tenting place of the presence of God with the people.This is a more democratic religious move as God travels with the people and provides access at times for more direct communication and presence, as in chapter 40.

Torah is law but also teaching. The root has a sense of being thrown, or shooting an arrow, so it can acquire a sense of direction, of pointing something out.

We get a reprise of creation, as moses waits on high for six days and on the sabbath day is called into the full presence. I cannot tell if Joshua remains a bit behind or continues to accompany Moses.How do you repsond to only Moses, apparently, being in the presence with Joshua down a bit, then Aaron and Hur then the elders, then the people.What are your thoughts on such a seeming hierarchy?

Moses is there for the same period of time as the "rain" of the flood and Jesus in his temptation.Why was this forty day period such a staple? the golden calf episode is a reaction to the time period.

The appearance of a consuming/devouring fire continues here.Why is this a picture of the divine glory and its danger to mortals, do you think? It certainly alerts us to the dangers of the domesticated buddy we have made as deity in our time.

James Kay did a fine sermon using different cloud images in Scripture and in our time. Work with some care with the image of a cloud, as in the cloud by day and how a cloud obscures but allows us to be shielded from the rays of direct sunlight.One could go a mystical direction here a sin a cloud of unkowing.

Why do you think Moses had to wait a week? Does it relate to the creation of Israel as a people? Does the sabbath refer to DT.'s view of the sabbath as against slavery and the need for rest? Why did it take forty days to then receive the tablets and the instructions on the tabernacle?


Sunday, February 23, 2014

Sermon Notes 2/23-Mt. 5:38-48, I Cor. 3:16, Lev. 19

Most of us avoid Leviticus as it is a compendium of ritual worship requirements. It is convinced that worship has to be done in a proper way. It is not solely that. As in Is. 58 recently, Leviticus too sees worship in the context of everyday life, of social life. In our passages, it tries to limit feuding so that it would not escalate, a major move in legal ethics. From here Jesus mines his quote about loving the neighbor as oneself. Here in our reading Jesus takes it from the basic foundation of Jewish teaching and extends it. it as if he says anyone can love the neighbor, but I call you to a much higher and difficult even reckless position. Yes Christians do have enemies. They can be the faceless enemies of terrorists or the intimate enemies of a family falling apart.


The rubber hits the road in Christian ethics this morning. Here is Jesus at his most demanding; to love the enemy. I have enough troubling loving the neighbor, and this seems so foreign to our way of thinking. As i was writing this the world was mourning the passing of Nelson Mandela. J. Barrie Shepard said that these are words ‘ that we would much rather leave to someone else to do.’ Human dignity and respect loom ;large here. We are made in the image and likeness of God. Our reading from Paul calls our joining together here in a worship makes us a temple of the spirit. To continue to be a victim of evil or abuse strikes me as denying our God-given self-respect, and at times, the respect due to others..


Walter Wink wrote persuasively that he thought Jesus was urging militant non-violent resistance in a culture based on defending one’s honor, as in dueling. In his view, jesus is saying, OK, I will do what you wish, but I will choose to do even more. It is a form of protest of the powerless. Jesus certainly demonstrated love of enemy in an ultimate sense.


Perhaps, at times, we need to remove ourselves from a situation in order to learn to love the enemy. I would rather see an abused family leave the situation and see the perpetrator in a new light than to be subjected to continuing torment. I don't think we should be martyrs to someone else’s evil or illness. When a marriage is irretrievably broken, instead of remaining in a hell of mutual distaste or perhaps worse, indifference, it may be better to try to reconstruct a life in a different way.   


How to  do this? First admit the position of having an enemy.  Consider the old adage your own worst enemy, a line Springsteen picks up in a warning to a our sense of ethics. Pray for them, not at them but for them. A person prayed for no longer can be merely an object labeled enemy but a person. Can someone truly remain an enemy if we cna pray for them? Can someone remain an enemy if they are placed within the frame of prayer? If prayer is what creates us as a temple of the spirit, are we then not placing the enemy with the sanctuary of prayer?


This is so hard, I do realize. I am much better at plotting revenge than loving the  enemy. Methodists and their progeny misperceive the end of this passage. Perfect means whole and complete, fitting a purpose like a glove, not without fault.It comes from the same root as our word for being oriented toward a end product or goal, the way we use the word as in a perfect fit. When we make a step to not only loving hte neighbort, but loving the enemy, we place our lives in conformity to the highest aspirations of christ. Our words and deeds become a perfect fit.




Saturday, February 22, 2014

Devotional pts for week of Feb. 23

Sunday-We continue our look at the longest psalm, 119:33-40.  At v. 37 we ask God to turn eyes away from the meaningless, the fruitless, the useless and to give life in the ways of God. Just before I typed this, i was wasting time on that great vacuum of energy, Facebook. I am not so Calvinistic that I wish every moment to s be spent in prayer or in something useful and empowering, but I do note how much time I fritter away, and then how quick I am to say that I do not have time for something.

Monday-"Friendship is a deep oneness that develops when two people, speaking the truth in love to one another, journey together to the same horizon." -- Timothy Keller-Who were your best friends? Who are your best friends? Does your friendship reflect Keller’s quote? What horizons do friends seek together? Does that “deep oneness” then threaten to merge two distinct people so that they do not learn how to share differences? I notice how many people get “defriended” on Facebook due to religious and partisan political differences.

Tuesday-Frederick Buechner-Pilate's case is different and worse. For him, it was not so much the terrible thing he'd done as the wonderful thing he'd proved incapable of doing. He could have stuck to his guns and resisted the pressure, and told the chief priests to go to hell, where they were obviously heading anyway. He could have spared the man's life. Or if that is asking too much, he could have spared him at least the scourging and catcalls and the appalling way he died

Wednesday-Dan Moseley-”Future is possibility if we don't become locked in the pain of the past.” We do nurture the pain of the past like a fragile flower, like a seedling in a garden. We do allow the past far more control over us than we should. that is true in grief, especially when we begin to enshrine our grief in frozen moments in time, but in maintaining grudges as well. Christians are called to be people f of the Easter dawn, to eye the future with confidence.

Thursday- how stubborn and slow my nature is. And how I keep confusing myself and complicating things for myself by useless twisting and turning. What I need most of all is the grace to really accept God as He gives Himself to me in every situation." (Thomas Merton) I certainly share this issue with the great monk of Kentucky. It is a valuable spiritual reminder that God is with me in the midst of turmoil and confusion. I do not face difficult situations alone.

Friday-Walking on the icy walkways on Presidents’ Day,  thought of how temptation can be like an icy spot. You are walking on what looks to be safe and smooth pavement. then you hit patch and slip up without warning. In my view temptation is more like that than as we imagine a deliberate choice, where we weigh options and consequences with care. No, they slip us up, often at our weak point at that moment.

Saturday-"For the true sufferer, the theologian of the cross has good news—news, mind you, not solutions. It is the good news that, in the Crucified One, God has simply willed to force the curse to be a blessing, that the Crucified has, thus, borne our very suffering, that this suffering cannot destroy God’s choice about us but, rather, points to God’s preference to save the weak, broken, and poor, and to resurrect the dead.” Douglas John Hall

column on George Washington and religion

Presidents’ Day includes Washington’s Birthday of the 22nd, as it falls between the older celebrations of Lincoln and Washington. I hold few people in higher esteem, not because he was perfect, but that his aspirations in public life were so high, and they lasted a lifetime. I wish to take a brief look at his views on religion and the public realm.

As did many, he held to religion as a basic foundation for a republic. In his Farewell Address, he offered.  “Reason and experience both forbid us to expect, that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle. It is substantially true, that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government. The rule, indeed, extends with more or less force to every species of free government. Who, that is a sincere friend to it, can look with indifference upon attempts to shake the foundation of the fabric?”  In communications with Indian tribes, he offered Christian religion as a benefit of their interaction with white culture.

More specifically, he took care that chaplains were available in the Continental Army. He thought that they could induce greater discipline among the troops and help to instill courage and bravery in their facing a superior foe. When Congress offered days of fasting and thanksgiving, he acceded to the proclamations.
By no means, did he support religious discrimination. in his famous letter to one of the few synagogues in the United States, he wrote: “"May the Children of the Stock of Abraham, who dwell in this land, continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other Inhabitants; while every one shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree, and there shall be none to make him afraid." In the same letter we find:  “for happily the Government of the United States gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens, in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.”
In doing work at Mt. Vernon, he specified that he was seeking good workers, no matter their ethnicity of faith. While he was a committed Episcopalian, baptized as an infant, a longtime member of the church governing board while at home, , he would attend church maybe one third of the Sundays when he was home, but he did not receive Communion. On the other hand, several people report seeing him deep in prayer during his morning devotions. He strikes me as someone who kept his religious observations more private than public.
While he may not have been utterly orthodox in his faith and practice, he certainly had a deep belief in divine Providence. He did not believe that God was distant from human affairs. Indeed he saw a god touching the course of history. He did admit that the reasons for the working of divine providence were inscrutable.  Of course, his belief in providence as an explanatory factor makes some sense. How did the fledgling rebellion defeat the great power of Great Britain? How did the collection of talent at the Constitutional Convention occur?
Yet, it was not Providence but Washington’s decision to work very hard to manage to free his personal slaves within the strictures of Virginia law. Few did so, and he must have realized that here too he was acting as a role model. (See An Imperfect God).


When Washington died, hagiography started in earnest. The father of his country took on some aspects of the fatherhood of the divine. Shrines popped up where Washington visited. Look at the picture where Washington is elevated in an apotheosis into the sky, as an assumption into heaven.

Monday, February 17, 2014

OT Notes. Lev. 19:1-2, 9-18

Since this book is on ritual, we  rarely use it in Protestant circles.Obviously some of our reading is similar to the Decalogue, so it is a sort of commentary on it, just as the one Jesus gives in the Sermon on the Mount.

2) Holy usually means to be set apart for a special purpose. God's holiness q was of such a distinction and power that mere mortals could not approach the divine presence. Something more has to be going on as the Decalogue commandments are shared by most people, so I do not see how this renders the people to be in  a new classification. Look at how social life dominates this description of holiness. Why?

at. 9, look at the concern for the poor, and please notice the concern for the stranger,the ger, the traveller, the alien. What analogies could we draw to our current economic practices?

3 At 13, look at how the command to not steal expands into defrauding. Then look at the issue of a day's pay for a day;'s work to be immediate. Why would this be important? How could we draw an analogy to the suggestion to try the old populist approach of postal banks?

4) disability demonstrates flaw in creation, no? How does respect for hte disabled get connected to reverence (fear) of God?

5) v. 15 on justice offers the empirical assessment of justice toward the poor in our time as well, both where it is honored and in the breach.

6) The question was posed to Jesus, who is the neighbor? Here it seems to be the general form of all of those groups and people one encounters in the course of everyday life.Look at the grammar of the love your neighbor line. doesn;t it say more along the line of love to/for the neighbor, but my grammar is insufficient to do more than wonder about it.While I am at it, the o word love does not appear all that frequently in the OT. What an interesting choice of a word after all of the injunctions toward social honesty.
 What does it mean to you to hate in the heart?

v. 18 stands against the stupid stereotype of the OT as primitive violence. Like many law codes, it is trying to keep feuds from escalating. To what degree do stand your ground laws turn against this idea? To what extent do victim impact statements try to influence vengeance in the hands of the state for victims, instead of a general evenhanded approach to justice?

Sunday, February 16, 2014

Sermon Notes Dt. 30:15-20 Mt. 5:21-3

Feb. 16 Mt. 5:21-37
In many ways,the entire wisdom tradition of Scripture as a long set of commentary on our verses from Deuteronomy, this stark choice between the way of life and the culture of death.I keep wondering if anyone is capable of living this way, of coming at life from these angles. No matter how much analysis or therapy we handle, no matter how much spiritual direction, my sense is that our intentions are a thick mixture of mixed motive and intentions.The new movie the Past gives us a good example of how what we do is interpreted differently by others and may well be hidden from ourselves. Jesus points to the way of life of God as a compelling commentary on the 10 Commandments. In this section of the sermon on the mount Jesus goes directly to the core of Christian ethics. Yes, of course, he uses the 10 commandments  as a touchstone for human ethics, but only to move well past them to the very root of human sin. He uses them as a baseline, not a standard to seek.After all, most legal system have similar basic calls for respecting human life and interaction.

OK, many people have followed their marriage vow and remain faithful to their spouse, but for males, as Jimmy Carter, reminded us years ago in a Playboy interview of all places, we are not to look at a woman with lustful eyes. Is it me or would that require not turning on the television or looking at advertisements? Are we moved to go the way of Islamic radicals and have women covered due to the incapacity of men to think past their groins? Jesus knows that most folks have not committed homicide, but goes much further as he isolates its root in rage. He then goes into more detail.Incitements of offense such as calling a name, insulting someone are in the forbidden zone.So Jesus locates evil in the human heart, in attitude that leads to action, much as the command against coveting. In schools, we emphasize behavior, or what seem to be called poor choices. Jesus knew better, as behavior emerges beneath choice often, beneath the rational, into the abode of impulses and desires. Second, he realizes that small acts escalate, or they reveal that same hateful motives that lead to the large sins of the 10 commandments. in his way Jesus is following the rabbinic tradition of putting a fence around the Torah. Anyone who could live like this has no concern about the 10 commandments.Let’s drop down a bit. All of a sudden we are more in line with behavior than inner workings of the human nature.the Quakers are a tradition that does not dare swear an oath by this passage, so the Constitution even explicitly allows them to avoid a religious test for office by making an affirmation, an affirmation of being truthful. If I am following the logic here correctly, Jesus is concerned with a capacity for truth-telling. .Why has this one been  so ignored? Our own Westminster material has a section devoted to the taking of oaths.

When Jesus examines the commandments he sees the path of life as point to us never treating anyone  as less than a valued person made in the image of God. When someone is seen as a mere thing, as a pawn in some scheme, we move to the path of death, then we think and act in ways opposed to the path of life, life enriching, life enhancing ways of being human beings.

I close with a prayerful hope. For a week, may we resemble the Chapel of the Sermon on the Mount as well as being the First Presbyterian Church of Alton, Illinois.



Saturday, February 15, 2014

Draft for Column for second week Feb.

We just noted Darwin’s birthday. we just had a series of dueling presentations on creationism between the Creation Museum’s ken Ham and Bill Nye, the Science guy. Back in Indiana, our daughters attended conservative Christian schools. While they had some good training, some of the perfidious effects of their schooling linger. They were told that it was wrong to question assumptions. They were fed outright lies about natural science and heard them called facts. They were given a remarkably nationalistic view of American history. Indeed, the school pushed out a most talented social studies teacher as she attempted to be more even-handed in her methods.

I consider myself a moderate Christian, but the constant drumbeat of the right wing would make me a liberal in some sets of eyes, I suppose. When the girls were bored in the car on the way home, they would try to get a rise out of me by going through some nonsense in school on biblical interpretation, history, or science. I usually could be counted on to go through the roof on the latter, if I held my tongue on the first two.

Why? First of all, Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, and the life (John 14:6) . I cannot countenance seeing scientific truth disregarded in the name of a different truth. Second, John 1 identifies Jesus as the very logos, word, idea, vision, plan of God. We live in a time when we have uncovered some of the very divine blueprints of creation. I cannot grasp how then we can ignore those findings in the name of the one who embodies the divine plan for all of creation (Col. 1:15-20). Finally, the assertions frankly embarrass me. Being religious cannot mean one leaves one’s mind locked away. I use assertions deliberately, as they do not amount to arguments on evidence, but are a series of rhetorical strategies to deflect a sense of authority from the evidence produced by science. When Bill Nye presented mountains of evidence, Ken Ham was left holding the bible, not as revelation but as some sort of magic card to deflect evidence. It merely gives militant atheists something new to make Christians a laughingstock.

More seriously, I do not comprehend how a group can dare to insist that only the creation account in Gen.1-2:4a can be given priority over other creation themes in the Scripture. Recently, we have been working on creation accounts in the Bible in our Wednesday class. One of the resources is a fine book by William Brown of Columbia Seminary in Georgia. A fine biblical scholar, he obtained a grant to read natural science for a year. The result is his book, Seven Pillars of Creation. Here he has the passages interact with elements of natural science, and he also has the points in the science raise new ways of approaching the texts themselves. (See Ps. 104, Prov. 8,  Job 38-41, for instance).

One of the points Dr. Brown makes may well be vital to dialogue between the two camps, if the conservative side would ever be interested in such. He ses a sense of wonder, of awe, of grandeur pervading the biblical view of creation and the quest for science toward deeper understanding and explanation. I do not think that creation itself is evidence for the divine. I do hold, with all of my mind and heart, that a religious perspective on creation only deepens a sense of wonder at the immensity and intricacy of the natural world. At its best, religion is a gateway to the numinous, a liminal threshold to a world beyond our senses alone. To see a picture of the Hubble telescope, to see a picture of the newest nearly quantum level microscope is to see a world from a divine point of view. We cannot permit, a particular way of interpreting one bible passage to isolate ourselves from the wonders only our generati

Devotional Notes Week of Feb. 16

Sunday- Ps.119:1-8 is the longest psalm and is about in the middle of many Bibles. It is a long meditation on God’s law, God’s teaching for us to live fully and well. No, it is decidedly not a hymn to religious ritualism. It is a hymn to how the very heart of God is exposed in teaching and divine revelation. What religious teaching is central to you? What lies at the core of your beliefs?What offers such richness that you can return to its truth endlessly?

Monday-It is in the depths of life that we find you/at the heart of this moment/at the center of our soul/deep in the earth and its eternal stirrings./You are the Ground of all being/the Well-Spring of time/Womb of the earth/the Seed-Force of stars./And so at the opening of this day/we wait not for blessings from afar/but for You/the very Soil of our soul/the early freshness of morning/the first Breath of day.(John Philip Newell)

Tuesday-I am working on two small and off putting books in the corpus of the Book of the Twelves, Nahum and Obadiah. Revenge is featured in both. Why does revenge have such a grip on our daydreams and emotions? Why is it so easy to talk ourselves out of forgiving but not so with revenge?

Wednesday-From Abbey of the Arts “if we are to pray from the heart...if your heart is full of bitterness, pray it to its last dregs...pray (any feeling) of the heart into the quiet hands that can hold it like the small bird it is.” I refer a lot to anything can be safely placed in an envelope of prayer, and this part of a poem certainly fits that mold. What are some negative emotions that oculd well be placed into the  prayer that needs to be mentioned and released?

Thursday-Saw the French/Iranian movie, the Past on Sunday. A well-constructed family drama, it keeps adding detail as you watch the interactions of the characters.I was taken by how small acts are read \differently by those involved and how much we read into them. It is also good on showing how we react without much thought and how we little realize why a button is being pushed. Human relations live in a slough of memory and hope and expectations.

Friday- “Thanks be to you, O God.That there are ways of seeing and sensitivities of knowing
hidden deep in the palace of the soul,waiting to be discovered,ready to be set free, thanks be to you.”.(John Philip Newell) In the new Sherlock, he has a mind palace that allows him to access his prodigious memory and to place different bits of data together.If you use htis image, where would your prayer room be and what would it look like?

Saturday-When I was young we celebrated Washington’s birthday as a separate commemoration.While a member of the vestry at his church, he does not strike me as a particularly orthodox Christian, but he was insistent on the ide ao fDivine Providence.I wish to n mark his constant attention to his character and his pulbic image. At the close of his life, he worked carefully within the diffiuclt laws of the stat eof Virginia to manage to free his slavers.

Monday, February 10, 2014

OT Notes Dt. 30:15-20

I like the book Dt. and the Death of Moses a good bit by our professor Dennis Olson at Princeton.To me much of this book is attributed to Moses but written, at times, with a look toward the destruction of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah. does this affect your reading much?

1) I always think of John Paul II and his culture of death/culture of life dichotomy here. Olson sees this section within a covenant liturgy. It is an elaboration of the first Commandment.

2) I need t become more clear on the  difference between statute and ordinance in Scripture. It seems that choq and related words has the sense of an enactment by a council or a greater specificity than a general commandment, but I do not have a sense of it being secular, religious, or both. the word for ordinance seems to be mishpat and related words in the sense of a particular judgment or determination.

3) My notes my my new oxford bible see this as linked to treaty language in the Near East. I am not sure if it is the case or how helpful it is to note that.

4) why are heaven and earth the witness?

5)Life certainly is connected to the promised Land and death  may be an intimation of exile.

6) I have come to see wisdom material, especially in proverbs as related to, a commentary on, the paths of life and death.

7) How does one choose life, emotionally, mentally, socially? What are concrete examples of it?



Sunday, February 9, 2014

Devotional Pts for Week of Feb. 9

Ps. 112:1-10-On one hand, I have real trouble with material that so easily ascribes blessings alone ot the righteous. On the other hand, look at the attributes of the righteous here and compare htme to the watered down version we may well hear in church after church.

Monday-Empower me to be a bold participant, rather than a timid saint in waiting, in the difficult weariness of now; to exercise the authority of honesty; rather than to defer to power, or deceive to get it; to influence someone for justice, rather than impress anyone for gain; and, by grace, to find treasures of joy, of friendship, of peace hidden in the fields of the daily you give me to plow." (Ted Loder)

Tuesday-”May the love of life fill our hearts.May the love of earth bring joy to heaven.
May the love of self deepen our souls. May the love of neighbour heal our world. As nations, as peoples, as families this day may the love of life heal our world.”-from Praying with the Earth: A Prayerbook for Peace Where can we discover and practice these three elements of love more deeply?

Wednesday-When I was young, we honored Lincoln’s birthday on its own. Lincoln was not an orthodox religious person. at the same time, he probed deeply into the issue of God working in history. Indeed, he had more insight than his contemporaries in theology. He even left a scrap of paper in his diesk on a meditation on the divine will. His great theological effort is the second inaugural address. Read ait again please.

Thursday-”Photography can be an act of silent worship.” --- Christine Valters Paintner (Eyes of the Heart) What are your favorite photos? How have digital cameras changed your photographs? What public photographs have remained in your mind as an important image?

Friday-Bathed in morning light/pray that the lantern of your life/moves gently into all the places/where light is needed.” (Macrina Wiederkehr) A wolrd exists in that word she placed so well, gently. When is light intrusive? When is it welcome? When does it enter into a life gently? The conversionist viewpoint is one of an overwhelming melting of the heart, but her image is a more nurturing one, a nudge into the world of god.


Saturday-the debate between creationist Ken Ham and bill Nye on evolution wa sheld recently. Put simply, I am embarrassed to be associated b with the likes of Hamm. Our Presbyterian denomination seeks to find common ground in science and religion. Just google PCUSA and evolution ot find some statements. Better yet, look at a book we’ve been discussing in class by William Brown, the Seven Pillars of  Creation.

Sermon Notes Is. 58:1-9

I was attending a Bible study, and someone was spouting off that the church should only engage in important spiritual matters, to be apolitical. The reality is” If the church agrees with hme on social matters, then it should speak, but if it disagrees with my take on political matters, then it should remain quiet. The bible takes a different view. Is. 58 is a stunning view of worship. We rightfully take much care in our worship here, to try to have it aspire toward a sense of reverence and formality.


Doing worship with such care has a lurking danger, as do all good things in life. One temptation is that we come to see it more as a play, a performance, with us as the audience, instead of full participants. We can then get seduced into shaving off its full message when we leave the theater, as opposed ot the sanctuary. Yes, we cross into a new world at the sanctuary threshold, but  we go back outsie in the same God-suffused world that the sanctuary service tries to highlight.


Yet here we have the prophet tells us that God is also much involved in having the same sort of care devoted to the the life of one’s society. If I hear these words correctly, God is fully capable of turning a deaf ear to prayers issuing from an unjust society. That is chilling to hear of course. i certainly believe that a forgiving god can forgive societal evils as well as individual ones. Still, it is  a different angle on prayer. Even if the prayers are sincere and emerge from a good person, if htye are stained by social ills, they may go unheard in heaven.


Paul gives me some needed buttressing for our view of worship here and our view of adult education as well. Paul warns us about our limited capacities, so it includes a warning against judging ourselves or others harshly, as our view is limited. Further, Paul warns us about making quick assumptions about who supports and opposes acts of justice if it does not agree with our own policy prescriptions.


We unapologetically offer worship fro grown-ups. Susie does a spectacular job organizing a Vacation bible School style worship for children. It is also oriented to a more sophisticated palate than the recent move toward a more entertainment driven service that appeals to a general audience. We fully realize that we  may not be casting our net wide enough. Our hope is that we can do the best we can within the niche we occupy in the Christian spectrum. That places a greater burden on us to trumpet our particular niche in the worship landscape, especially to those whose tastes and desires would run toward a less exuberant worship style that is trumpeted at present.This is a sterling reminder that concerns for justice are every bit as vital to our worship time as prayers for those who are ill. Sickness in society counts as well.

No worship exists in a vacuum. Part of our worship points a picture of a world that works the way god wants this creation to be  treated. At the same time, Jesus died on the cross for those of us who worship God but live in an unjust society. We do well to seek forgiveness for that. We do well to use this time to repent for that as well.That is a start but it is insufficient. Worship gives us shelter from the storm. It also gives us the courage and energy to face the world in our part in repairing it, in healing it.We may not be able to make a huge impact,   one prayer at a time..

Tuesday, February 4, 2014

OT Notes Is. 58:1-9

I am always mystified at people who call Judaism legalistic and then manage to ignore passages such as this. For me this is at the heart of the pastoral endeavor: to connect worship and life outside the stained glass. Over the years, pastors may grow inured at being stewards of the mysteries. this may be a good opportunity to read material on liturgy, ritual, or the impact of worship.

1) v. 2 is an interesting summons for Americans. We actually believe that we are a called people. Alternately, we pick and choose what are unrighteous actions. Conservative ministers seem to point to the good old days and imagine some moral decline. Others seem to know that a moral decline would push god's hand to an explosive apocalypse.
Still, what a chilling thought that prayers go unheeded due to societal ills.See also v. 9a

2) Who has not wrestled with unanswered prayer if we are being candid?

3) Why do we ignore the religious call to fast?

4) What societal fasting do you think this passage calls us at this moment in national life?

5)Why do we see little evidence of v. 8?


Monday, February 3, 2014

Feb 2 Sermon Notes on Beatitudes

How on earth to even start with such a rich array of passages this morning?


Last year we were invited to select one of the Beatitudes for the community Lenten series. They are  biblical selections that are honored more as a pretty name than in their difficult message. Matthew’s version leans toward the spiritual, at least compared to Luke’s version, so that’s where I will focus attention this morning. We find it especially in the poor in spirit instead of the poor.Yes of course poverty’s condition renders one poor in spirit easily. My sense is that Matthew has the phrase deliberately for all who suffer a poverty in spirit. we take it for granted in a cliche that money can’t buy me love, that wealth does not guarantee happiness. To be poor in spirit is to suffer with a damaged sense of self. It may well create an opening toward God and then discover the healing power of prayer and relationship with God. It reminds me of AA where only in admitting a powerlessness against a demon like alcohol addiction can strenght emerge.


Surely few feel blessed or happy in the experiences which Jesus is using as an example.Jesus  is coming at this material from an interesting angle. Most of the material would suggest that people are feeling punished or abandoned by God in a difficult circumstance. He is saying that they are precisely in the ambit of God’s embrace at those times. Surely anyone would rather not mourn so as to eliminate the need for comfort. It makes no sense to me to try to make a blessing out of a terrible experience. The comfort we receive is such a blessing, but it never, never eliminates the pain of loss in the first place.


When we are poor in spirit we feel distant from God, or we assume God is distant from us in some sort of cosmic game of hide and seek. We get frustrated at times, as we grow impatient for a sign of the presence of God, well often it is more actual physical help as much as the sheer presence  that we often seek. (praus=meek, maybe humble from Micah here. It does not mean meek in the sense of  being weak, passive, a milquetoast, I think was an old phrase. It means tamed, domesticated, well balanced, even, neither too hot nor too cold, the ?goldilocks position of being just right) Put differently, the kingdom of heaven includes more than the usual suspects. it may well include super bowl heroes; it may even include the positive thinking advocates. The kingdom of heaven, the place where God;’s way in the world is made clear includes htose hwo are downcast and downhearted too.


We can use Paul’s passage as a way to help explore this arresting set of phrases. Paul sees our complex God as one of deliberate irony, of astounding reversals. God subverts the use of power with the cross. God subverts the very notion of wisdom with the cross. it’s an elaborate reverse psychology in its way.so Jesus can say tha tthe grieving are blessed by God ofr they are not being punished but will be comforted. for Paul, the decisive entry of god into the world included full immersion into a baptism of suffering.
Put differently, if God were a God of coercive power, of stripping things away to start over, God could and would. Instead God works with an imperfect world as it exists.The Torah stories present that as tried and failed as temptations to god that are dismissed. In Jesus Christ God takes a totally different direction. Instead of removing suffering totally, God enters into it fully in Jesus Christ at the cross.