Our pulpit at First Presbyterian is being graced by Alan Meyers of Lindenwood this Sunday and the next. So, I don’t have a chance to work up the material for this Sunday’s readings. Many churches employ a lectionary, a selected group of readings from the Old Testament, the Psalms, an epistle, and a gospel reading over a three year cycle. This week we have a fabulous list from which to choose. All of them pose issues of interpretation. Everyone is laughing at the recent howler: alternate facts. Even when we do agree on facts, we may differ in interpretation of them.
On the face of it the beatitudes (from Latin blessed) are jarring. In Greek (makarios) it means either blessed or happy. It seems as if they all open the heart and mind to the presence of God in different ways in the world, but sometimes listed in places where the word does not seem apt. The very first one says Blessed/happy are the poor (ptochos), the destitute, the helpless, the desperate. Why are they blessed? Not due to their poverty, but this point: they are not separated from God; they are full citizens of God’s kingdom, god’s realm in the world. The same applies to those who mourn. They may feel adrift from God, cast out from the presence of God, but Jesus assures his listeners that they will be comforted. I am troubled by the indefinite future, of course: Does it mean now, soon, at some unspecified point? Nonetheless, I hear a clear word of promise and aspiration there.
Few beatitudes cause the confusion are blessed are the meek. One of the troubles of Bible translation is the shifting meaning of words over time. Words have a range of meaning. Praotes (Gk) means tamed, well suited to a task, fitting, or well-balanced, having one’s feet firmly on the ground.
I Cor. 1:18-31 works with the cross. Paul highlights the same jarring aspect of god’s way in the world. By our standards, the cross makes no rational sense as the vehicle of faith. In our time, that would hold no matter one’s theological position. Further, Paul deconstructs the idea of divine power by pointing to its opposite, the cross. Paul maintains that the very instrument of the death of Jesus, of utter powerlessness, is an instrument of divine power, hidden under its opposite as Luther would say.
In both passages, we can hear an echo of the first step in 12 step recovery programs. They point us toward an acknowledgement of the divine intersecting our experience. They point toward a sense of powerlessness to control a life far too deep and rich to be contained within our tight grasp. They all point us to an aching need for the presence of the divine in this life, but also reaching out beyond our limited grasp.
If you wish a good summary statement of the Bible go to Micah 6:8.In our time it speaks to our obsession with the individual preference and inserts the cause of justice. As I have mentioned before, humility is a needed virtue at a time where inflated, yet tender ego parades about seeking constant support for a personal projected damage. Love mercy it says in many translations. The word (hesed) means steadfast love, lovingkindness. Note well, not self-love, not love of a group or an idea, to love with the compassion, with the passion, of love itself.
As we move through the start of a calendar year, this Sunday’s assigned readings give us a starting point, square one for the Christian journey. At the same time, their depth invites reflection, over and over, the very definition of a classic touchstone.
Saturday, January 28, 2017
column on Is. 58
This Sunday, the Old Testament reading in many
churches is Is. 58. Some Christians routinely issue a calumny against ancient
Judaism that assumes that it was a legalistic religion. Here is a parade
example of its falsehood.
The setting is one where God is answering the
complaints of the people. They are wondering why their worship practice seems
to do little good. They do what they are supposed to, but they feel no closer
to God.
God fires back with a remarkable linkage:
worship and justice. Some wish the church to be a place of solace away from
political squabbles. Some go so far as to say that the spiritual should not
intersect with the political. This does not seem to comport with much of the
biblical material. After all, the 10 Commandments have two tablets, one for the
“vertical” relationship with God and the “horizontal” relationship with each
other. Jesus sees love of God and love of neighbor as inextricably bound
together. Some take this and act as if worship is secondary to the doing of
social good, to be the Salvation Army without the Salvation part. NO,
Christians are called to help make the world look like the world presented
within the stained glass of the sanctuary.
Here are words from a generation or so ago:
“examples are profuse in the life of Jesus as to the political dimensions of
the gospel. Consider Herod's attempt to assassinate the child. Or the healing
episodes in which Jesus directly confronts the demonic powers and their effort
to wreck creation and ruin human life... Jesus is tempted by the power of death
incarnate as the devil in explicit political terms. ... Jesus in the wilderness
was tempted, truly tempted, to become idolatrous of the power of death, thereby
rejecting the very Word of God which constituted his being. He transcends and
repels the temptations and thus enunciates his Lordship in this world now. That
politics is, then, verified in his crucifixion. The politics of the gospel are
the politics of the cross." (Stringfellow, The
Politics of Spirituality, p. 44)
Indeed God turns the table on the worship
practice of fasting and instead makes it a program of social aid (6-7):“to
loose the chains of injustice... to set the oppressed free...to share food with
the hungry and provide the poor wanderer with shelter (NIV). In other words, it
is a prequel to the famous sheep and goats parable of Mt. 25 and the source for
the Roman Catholic corporal works of mercy.
It then becomes chilling as it seems to indicate
that the presence of God will become apparent if their social actions change
(v. 9). We rarely think of social sins as blocking our relationship with God.
We rarely feel the need for forgiveness, human or divine, for social sins.
In a time where spirituality is often limited to
the ethereal feelings of an individual, or people of faith are convinced that
faith means following a partisan banner, disengaged from the faith itself,
these are bracing words indeed.
In his new book the New Testament scholar N.T.
Wright sees our basic problem as a steadfast refusal to carry out our mandate
as humans: to see each other as made in the image and likeness of God and to
act like it. IN Isaiah we are called to be repairer of the breach, the restorer
of the streets. That had resonance in the time f Isaiah when the streets of the
once ruined city still needed repair. It has resonance in Alton
Pts. for Feb. 5 Week
Sunday-Ps. 112-This comes close to health and wealth theology at points. I would like to emphasize two points. Fear in v. 1 is probably better put as revere. VV.6-9 speak of the stability of being in right relationship with God and neighbors. Where is your faith most secure?
Monday-Where there is great love there are always miracles. --Willa Cather
Tuesday-“God is already praying in us. Through lectio, we make ourselves available to join this unceasing prayer already happening in our hearts. God is the one who initiates the dialogue. Our practice is to make space to hear this prayer already at work within us.”
.--- Christine Valters Paintner, PhD
Wednesday-Gerard Manley Hopkins. By 'inscape' he means the unified complex of qualities which give each thing its own uniqueness. God expresses God's self through fire, earth, wind, and water, and through many other ways as well. In deepening our relationship to the elements we encounter the face of God. We discover unique aspects to how God works in the world."
Thursday-Merton critiques the "irreversibility of evil," the idea that sin only moves from evil to evil, that it is unforgivable, and that those who commit evil acts are beyond hope and sympathy. Such ideas are simply unChristian. The moral world is flat. There is no moral high ground. Even in the midst of doing good, we fail. And often believing we have failed to act righteously, we unconsciously have accomplished good. Only God is in a position to judge. And while God allows us to participate in God's work of justice and peacemaking, God never relinquishes the Judge's bench, and we never achieve the role of chief prosecutor. Inevitably, we stand in the dock beside the accused. At any moment, the accused and we may exchange places; we are all guilty, all in need of grace. Fortunately, God is more eager to forgive than to punish. Michael Jinkins
Friday-W Paul Jones-courage, the only adequate resolution of our primal predicament, is the road less taken. Courage requires a steadfast, honest gaze at the human condition, but we are paralyzed by the thought of doing it alone. Isolated we come into the world; and isolated we will leave. We experience this specter of primal loneliness either as the fear of rejection (the isolation of not belonging) or as the fear of ridicule (the isolation of not measuring up). Either way, this forces us to try to impress or please others.
Saturday- as Rinkitink heard it, "Never question the truth of what you fail to understand, for the world is filled with wonders." Above all, never question the truth beyond all understanding and surpassing all other wonders that in the long run nothing, not even the world, not even ourselves, can separate us forever from that last and deepest love that glimmers in our dusk like a pearl, like a face.- Originally published in The Sacred Journey
Wednesday, January 25, 2017
Week of Jan. 29 Pts
Sunday-Ps.15 runs through some of the commandments. It is concerned with the use of words at v. 3. How do you use words, in prayer, in self-talk, and to or about others?
Monday-We are tied together in the single garment of destiny, caught in an inescapable network of mutuality. And whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. For some strange reason I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. This is the way God’s universe is made; this is the way it is structured.Martin Luther King, Jr.
Tuesday-God speaks to us through our lives, we often too easily say. Something speaks anyway, spells out some sort of godly or godforsaken meaning to us through the alphabet of our years, but often it takes many years and many further spellings out before we start to glimpse, or think we do, a little of what that meaning is. Even then we glimpse it only dimly, like the first trace of dawn on the rim of night, and even then it is a meaning that we cannot fix and be sure of once and for all because it is always incarnate meaning and thus as alive and changing as we are ourselves alive and changing.
Wednesday-The life of each of us is woven of two threads: the thread of inward development, by which our human and spiritual attitudes are gradually formed; and the thread of outward engagement, by which we always find ourselves at the point where the whole sum of the forces of the universe meet together to work in us the effect which God desires. (Adapted from Teilhard de Chardin,The Divine Milieu). How is the ratio of these two threads in your life?
Thursday-When you remember me, it means that you have carried something of who I am with you, that I have left some mark of who I am on who you are. It means that you can summon me back to your mind even though countless years and miles may stand between us. It means that if we meet again, you will know me. It means that even after I die, you can still see my face and hear my voice and speak to me in your heart. For as long as you remember me, I am never entirely lost.
Friday-The practice of humility is an invitation to allow others to offer us wisdom, to recognize that we don’t always have the answer ourselves. The root of the word humility is humus, which means “of the earth.” To be humble means to be profoundly earthy and grounded, to remember from where we arise and to where we return.”.--- Christine Valters Paintner
Saturday-Michael Jinkins-Whatever we will do we must do in the shadow of the Fall.
Our moral vision will never be whole.Our intentions and motives inevitably will be mixed.
Our complicity in Sin cannot be erased.We can, however, entrust ourselves to the God whose vision and will are true, and whose mercy is everlasting.
Monday, January 23, 2017
Column on Inaugurations
As I write this, Washington is in a frenzy of preparation for the inauguration of President Trump. Inaugurate goes back to Latin. Omens, augurs were consulted when it was a proper time to install someone into a position of public importance In our time, data is the substitute for omens often. We do not peer into the future well. We are uncertain about assessing risks and rewards.
I am glad that we have formal ceremonies for important public events. I even wish that we had more of them, for congress and the Supreme Court for instance.The military is the great bastion of formal ceremony for public demonstration. Since Johnson. Presidents have not worn formal top hats, and we will notice President Trump’s formal style sense. The White House was overrun after Jackson’s first inaugural. A persistent rumor was that the crowd moved outside only after the punch was taken outside. Police had to be called to control the crowd for Lincoln’s party. Our new president has planned his address to be short. William Henry Harrison spoke without a coat or hat for almost two hours. (He died a month later.)
In so many ways the omens are good. We are not at war.The unemployment rate has fallen as we averted an economic meltdown just eight years ago.The air and water are cleaner. Since 1970 we have a 70 percent decrease in major pollutants. Water considered fishable has increased dramatically in my lifetime, a lifetime that includes the Cuyahoga river catching on fire and Lake erie being declared dead to fishing.Educational attainments have moved to where almost one third of our citizens have completed four years of college. Crime has had an alarming uptick but it is paradise compared to a generation ago.In 2014 murders, in a growing population, were at the number in the late sixties.
Of course dark omens lurk. The new president is saddled with low approval ratings, a trump card in negotiations with Congress Since the oil shock of the seventies, wages have remained relatively stagnant for many of us. Global warming continues at an unnatural pace. Poverty rates for African americans are over double of that of whites.
At least the ancients did not trust themselves to try to peer into the future, so they use incantations and omens. We see the omens we wish to see. Given a wealth of data, we choose to ignore it. Sometimes, we “cherry-pick” data to conform to our own predilections.We may be given a set of facts and interpret them differently. We seem to be in a new stage where we ignore data and make claims without evidence. Public life requires reason along with passion.
Lincoln edited a draft of his first address from Sec. Seward. “We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory will swell when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”
Let me close with a prayer. God of all, bless our new president. May he be gifted with health, security, and safety throughout his term. May he discover within himself the virtues required to take on the awful responsibility of this office. May he be given the grace to discern and act upon the public interest.May he receive wise counsel. May peace rest upon our land. May his vision extend to the undiscovered country, the future, and the world we leave our progeny.May he aspire to the very best of our traditions and national identity, and may we grow into our founding promise.
Reflection Pts. week of Jan. 22
January 22-Sunday-Ps. 27 deserves attention over and over. I like how it shifts from different feelings as it goes through its paces.Where does it speak ot you, and where does it not speak to you at this time in life?
Monday-To be ‘whole-hearted’ means to bring our entire selves before God – our intellect, our emotional life, our dreams and intuitions, and our deepest longings. The heart is both active and receptive. The heart listens, but also hears; the heart savors and supplies nourishment to be savored; the heart responds but is also open to the call of others.”
.--- Christine Valters Paintner, PhD
Tuesday-"Many of us don't realize that the call to intimacy with God is possible, or that we are good enough or holy enough for God to love us in this personal way. Yet the Scriptures remind us over and over again that God's love is not earned: it is a gift."— from Weaving Faith and Experience"
Wednesday-Out of so much love for the world, God sends his only Son to seek us out and save us. In English the verbs to save, to salvage, to salve come from the same etymological root. Jesus has come to save us, to salvage our lives, to salve our wounds.-Br. Curtis Almquist
Thursday-“Above all, trust in the slow work of God.” - Teilhard de Chardin
Friday-"Never question the truth of what you fail to understand," the white pearl said when Rinkitink consulted it for the first time, "for the world is filled with wonders." It was great wisdom indeed, and has proved greatly helpful many times since.-Buechner
Saturday-"Someone who cares about what God cares about” is a Jewish quote alan Meyers found that applies to Christians as well, of course.
Jan 22 Sermon Notes
Is 9, extend? Obvious link to Mt.
Mtt 4:12-23 start- the kingdom of heaven has come near-nearer than what we could imagine-he sounds like John here darkness light motif form the quote follow me, not a coercive command but more of an invitation, no? As the days are growing longer again, we have images of light amid the winter cold and darkness. When Jesus' ministry is threatened, he sometimes withdraws from the threat to a place of relative safety.We can assume Jesus sought solace and strength in prayer.the verb is typically used in Matthew when there is movement from one place to another in the face of threatening circumstances.
Of course we read of light after epiphany. Light v. darkness is a core metaphor for the faith."a great light" (Matthew 4:16-17).The followers of Jesus who continue to his light in the world by their own (collective) way of life. Jesus' proclamation that the realm (kingdom) of heaven has come near is the first flicker of a light that will grow and burn among his followers
Jesus calls people as they are, from where they are. Nonetheless, they follow: as they are, from where they are, being who they are. As is true for the followers of Jesus who come after them, the meaning of their choice will unfold only over time.Their light will grow over time, not diminish.Jesus is not content for us to remain as we are, to stay in the repetition that we are special, unique, gifted. Jesus assumes self-esteem and works from it.
God's call invites and empowers a different way to live, to drain the swamp, to begin agiain..Jesus starts out in being baptized by John. It does not look like an inaugural ball. When the news comes to him about John's arrest Jesus withdraws to Galilee, where he calls his first disciples, and he must choose how to respond. but for now Jesus pulls away in order to carry out his ministry of proclamation in and around Galilee.In other words we need down time as well as energy for action in spirutal life.Now he will preach the Sermon on the Mount, heal, and teach what it means to be the Messiah who is "God with us." Those first disciples moved into a whole new way of living, might have preferred to keep their jobs, to remain with their families, to stay with the life that they knew. When they see Jesus and hear his words to them, they make a different choice, however; they take a risk, step out in faith, leave behind that which is comfortable and secure. They choose to follow Jesus.In our baptism we are taken into a new community. We become citizens of a new regime, or if you will, we have dual citizenship, our political one and our spiriutal one. That spritual one oftne inersects with the work of the political, the physical, the everyday world wher ethe Spirit breathes life, insporiation, and yes, light into our lvies.(West-working Preacher).
As Jesus moves into a new chapter, he prays. We have the 150 model prayers in the psalms. ps 27, light salvation protection/hiding then lifted up. It finds solace and strength in the presence of god in prayer at the temple. Week after week we offer that promise here at Sabbath worship. I love the candor of the prayer. Notice shift at 7-it speaks of a real need, an ache for the presence of god It has the sense of being absent from a great love. We close with its great ending
Sunday, January 15, 2017
column on MLK
When I was a boy, for some reason I watched the news. I recall that I thought the two smartest people in the world were Adlai Stevenson and Martin Luther King, since I did not understand them. As I grew older, I knew King was right, even as the folks in our village railed against him. We are approaching 50 years since the assassination of Martin Luther King. For over thirty years, after struggle, President Ronald Reagan signed the bill to honor him on the third Monday in January. In my lifetime we have come so far in human civil rights. We have a smaller list of firsts in the highest positions in our country, most notably a two term president who steps down soon. Look a a child struggle when they learn of mandatory segregation in our country. We have far to go, but the laws have affected the hearts and minds of americans toward a movement toward equality. Poverty remains unacceptably high. Its brother, violence, afflicts too many communities.
King was a modern day prophet. I want to be clear here. He spoke from a religious frame of reference to the conditions of his life and times. He spoke truth to power. His vision of the future opened a way for present action. He did not speak down to his listeners from a position of superiority.At the same time, he used the power of rhetoric to move us toward self-reflection and to action. He did not divide us into friends and enemies. Instead he called us to our better angels. He asked us all to transcend our limitations as citizens, as children made in the image and likeness of God. for him prejudice was a denial of that basic religious tenet, “a blatant denial” of it.
We often forget that he was an ordained minister. Until the end of his young life, at 39, he served churches. Granted, they had a pastor with a doctorate in Christian ethics, but his adult life was spent in study and service to the church. Yes, he had serious moral failings, as many of us do, if we are truthful to ourselves. Before his congregation in 1967, he said, “when I delve into the inner chambers of my own being, I end up saying, Lord, be merciful to me a sinner.”...I want to be a good man, and I want to hear a voice saying I take you in and bless you because you tried.”
For a while our hideous social violence was on a decline, but lately we all notice an alarming increase in crimes of violence. Following Reinhold Niebuhr (trained at Eden Seminary) and of course Gandhi, he renounced violence and sought non-violent struggle as the means toward the stride toward freedom. “Future generations will be the recipients of a desolate night of bitterness, and our chief legacy to them will be an endless reign of meaningless chaos.” Instead his consistent aim was a “beloved community.” He held firmly to a vision of reconciliation, of integration that would reflect such a community.
I’ve written previously of his deep religious experience in prayer after yet another threat to the lives of him and his family was made. He prayed that he came to the end where he could not face it alone any more. He felt the presence of the Divine as “the quiet assurance of an inner voice.” At the same time, he would heartily concur with the Pope on prayer as mobilization. “Prayer is a marvelous and necessary supplement of our feeble efforts, but it is a dangerous substitute….that god should do everything leads inevitably to a callous misuse of prayer.” Throughout his foreshortened life, prayer was the impetus to allow him to do the work of a lifetime.
sermon notes for Jan. 15,2017
Jan. 15 Is. 49, Ps. 40 I Cor. 1, John 1:29
Is 49 servant song-early call-moth as weapon-labor for nothing- v. 6 too light a thing light to the nations Holy One Redeemer from captivity from slavery how far does passage extend??
Ps 40, v.6-8 God calls unlikely servants and, perhaps more importantly, how often those servants do not recognize themselves as such. New song great things and small things are accounted for in the memory of God.
I cor 1-9 thanks for you-every in what ways has the faith enriched you?spiritual gift God is faithful we are often thankful for things or for family in general, but how often are we thankful for particular people in our lives?
John 1:29 lamb of god who takes away the sin of the world-lambs were not sacrifices In John, he is killed on the day when the Passover Lamb is sacrificed (for a helpful chart on this, In fact, Jesus clearly and repeatedly states that he lays down his life of his own accord. He has the power to lay it down and the power to take it up again (10:17-18). No, John simply piles up metaphors on Jesus to impress upon you the significance, identity, and ultimacy of Jesus. He is simultaneously the Lamb of God and the Good Shepherd (chapter 10) who knows his sheep and who asked Peter to feed his lambs (chapter 21).The Greek verb is meno: abide, remain, endure, continue, dwell, in the sense of permanence or stability. John the Baptist recognizes Jesus when the Holy Spirit remains (meno) upon him (John 1:32). He promises that he will abide (meno) in those who abide (meno) in him (John 15:4-10). Wherever Jesus stays (meno), people have the opportunity to believe (John 4:40; 10:40)
Epiphany linked to sight clearly here.seeing" found in this short pericope: blepo (1:29); ide (1:29, 36); theaomai(1:32, 38); orao/eidon (1:33-34, 39, ); emblepo (1:36, 42). The combined weight of so many references gives added emphasis to Jesus' answer: "Come and see."If you want to know the word made flesh, come and see Jesus. If you want to know what love is like, come and see Jesus. Everett Fox notes that a translator might choose to use a dash rather than a comma at this point (“God himself will provide the lamb for a burnt offering -- my son”) to capture in English the irony of the Hebrew sentence.1 recall the blood on the lintel-The paschal sacrifice belongs to the "shelamim," thus forming one of the sacrifices in which the meal is the principal part and indicates the community between God and man. It is really a house or family sacrifice, and each household is regarded as constituting a small community in itself, not only because the lamb is eaten at home, but also because every member of the family is obliged to partake of the meal, The fact that the paschal lamb might be killed only at the central sanctuary of Jerusalem, on the other hand, implies that each household was but a member of the larger community; What matters, I think, is that the phrase “lamb of God” does not point easily and simply to a single symbolic referent. Rather, it weaves this chance encounter with Jesus into the whole variegated tapestry of Jewish Scripture. The lamb is eaten, w for sin-revealed mediated vision of the baptism name change as change of ID-Baptizes with the holy spirit. In our tradition spirit baptism occurs within the sacrament of baptism.I realize that baptism has little relevance for us, except in some minds it is a talisman against going to Hell. It seems so small and insignificant as we have lost the power of symbol and ritual.
Friday, January 13, 2017
Pts. for reflection-week of Jan. 15
Sunday-Ps. 40 deserves attention over and over. In the new year, look at v. 3. Where would you like a new song?
Monday-"At the heart of Merton's spirituality is his distinction between our real and false selves. Our false selves are the identities we cultivate in order to function in society with pride and self-possession; our real selves are a deep religious mystery, known entirely only to God. The world cultivates the false self, ignores the real one, and therein lies the great irony of human existence: the more we make of ourselves, the less we actually exist."
Tuesday-Everything in creation carries divine DNA. How could it not? Our identity comes with the manufacturing! Or as Paul so clearly puts it, 'We were chosen in Christ before the world began' Richard Rohr
Wednesday-NT Wright-Of course, in contrast to a world focused on power and image, we operate with weakness and suffering for the sake of others. It is being Jesus for the world, acting in ways consistent with his own manner of life and with His authority exercised in humility and gentleness. In so doing, the powers of this age are robbed of their influence.
Thursday-Faith is like the dream in which the clouds open to show such riches ready to drop upon us that when we wake into the reality of nothing more than common sense, we cry to dream again because the dreaming seems truer than the waking does to the fullness of reality not as we have seen it, to be sure, but as by faith we trust it to be without seeing. Faith is both the dreaming and the crying. Faith is the assurance that the best and holiest dream is true after all. Faith in something — if only in the proposition that life is better than death — is what makes our journeys through time bearable. The Sacred Journey
Friday-In Jesus Christ God broke into the world for everyone, no matter our backgrounds.How will you look for glimpses of the Spirit breaking into our world today? Maybe you’ll get a glimpse as you pay close attention to life as it comes to us.
Saturday-you may in the privacy of the heart take out the album of your own life and search it for the people and places you have loved and learned from yourself, and for those moments in the past — many of them half forgotten —through which you glimpsed, however dimly and fleetingly, the sacredness of your own journey.- The Sacred Journey
Sunday, January 8, 2017
Sermon Notes mix of Baptism of Jesus and Epiphany
January 8 Epiphany and Baptism of Jesus
The readings are constructed for these early days of January we have the beginning of the life of Jesus and the beginning of his public life joined.God's inbreaking presence in Jesus Christ re-orients the internal landscapes of our lives. During Epiphany, we claim once again that we have a living God, incarnate among us, We proclaim a God present in the flesh and bone of Jesus christ who is concerned and involved in our lives..
The Baptized God enters the fullness of life , seeking to heal and save. This God offers a life deep and wide as the river , where light shines into every nook and cranny, It is a way of life that demands much and promises more. It is life abundant,Luke uses the literary device of the bodily form - Spirit had in fact filled Jesus. Bystanders saw the Holy Spirit enter Jesus. They could have confidence, then, that Jesus embodied the life of the Spirit by manifesting the qualities of the realm. ."fulfill all righteousness." is to be in alignment with the will of God.Duty and destiny come together when Jesus stands on the side of the river with sinners and submits to baptism and John, uncomfortable, submerges the divine in the waters of the Jordan... Jesus is explicitly revealed. "This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased." The very Beloved Son of God, sinless though He is, submits to the waters of baptism. Matthew Myer Boulton puts it like this in his book, "God Against Religion": And now comes God the Son, Jesus of Nazareth, the only one among them all who might truly claim to be clean and pure, and he proceeds to get in line with the sinners ... he crosses the Jordan, so to speak, in the opposite direction: from 'clean' to 'sinner,' from insider to outsider...he confirms his solidarity with sinners by submitting to baptism ... ."(Pres. Outlook)
From a more important level, according to Luke, those who repent, are baptized and realize they are empowered by the Spirit to help shape new world , to work the signs of the realm, and to embody the qualities of the realm in their common life.What does baptism reveal about Jesus We were baptized the same as Jesus
To what degree did the Magi get what they were seeing?look at who they tried to deal with
Baptism and enlightenment-initiation But there is more than meets the eye in the identification of these magi as from the “East”. The word used for the “East” in the story, /anatole really means “the rising,” that is, the rising of the sun (our word “orient” comes from a Latin word with the same meaning: oriens). Isaiah’s vision of salvation includes a pilgrimage of the nations, who will come to Israel’s light, to worship the God of Israel. The Gentile magi are to be understood as enacting the fulfillment of this prophecy., and it is easy to see how a star could become a symbol for the Messiah.(Num.24) . (Springsteen’s ending)
perfect at the start of the New Year with the beginning of the public work of Jesus
Gold frankincense and myrrh compared to gifts of the spirit accidental propriety-the gifts of the Magi all fit the elements surrounding the creation of the tabernacle, the locus of
God’s presence when the people were in the wilderness and then entered the Promised Land.
God’s presence when the people were in the wilderness and then entered the Promised Land.
Reality of magi v. those with the baptist
Saturday, January 7, 2017
Column on Civility
I am fairly confident in knowing that Ron
Mayhew’s title at Main Street Methodist is resident genius. He has challenged
that status by inviting me to help lead a program on civility that starts there
for the community at 7PM on January 12.
It is obvious that our society is less civil and
much more coarse than it once was.We make a laughingstock out of the civility
of older television programs. Part of the change I would attribute
to the expected baleful influence of the baby boom generation. In
prizing authenticity, in celebrating release of emotions, in demanding
informality, we managed to knock away the supports for courtesies in culture.
We have made the boundary between public and private much more permeable and
are willing to flaunt in public what was not acceptable even in private not
long ago. So, we are lost even knowing where the lines are drawn when they are
usually erased.
Second, the rise of social media has exacerbated
the trend. People seem unwilling to think through an issue and much prefer
yelling by writing in all capital letters and personalizing issues. Our
president-elect leads the way in using the 140 character twitter feed as his
preferred mode of discourse. A commitment to self-expression and
disregard for its effect in private or public has lowered the bar
dramatically in terms of merely being polite.
We are far too quick to personalize and label,
even demonize, a person and not pay attention to the issue at hand. As it said
years ago in Getting to Yes, we can separate the person from the issue. If
someone dares to disagree with us, instead of being an unthinking echo of our
preferences, let alone thoughtful positions, we go on the attack against them.
Years ago, the Supreme Court had a fighting words category to limit the scope
of free speech, but those phrases routinely are hurled around.
Folks seem constantly aggrieved and quite
sensitive. It is as if they are hoping that someone will knock away the
invisible chip from their shoulder so that they have a reason to be aggrieved.
We seem to have equated incivility with passion for a cause.
What to do? One answer is reclaiming the word,
respect. John Gottman, the noted marriage researcher, sees signs of
disdain as corrosive to a relationship.
Ron Mayhew strongly identifies listening as a
core value. When we listen to someone, we are often merely waiting for our next
response. “We rarely undergo the discipline of trying to understand as fully as
we can what and why the other person may hold a particular view. Indeed actively
not listening is a sign of disrespect. To listen carefully is a sign that you
take the person seriously.
For Christians, part of the issue may be in our
continuing refusal to follow the injunction of Jesus to judge not. We are more
prone to be uncivil when we judge the person to be unworthy of the courtesy and
respect due to them.
Fruits and gifts of the Spirit-One way for us to
use a guide toward the virtues of civility would be a look at the fruit of the
spirit in Gal. 5:22. To some degree these are virtues that permit the Golden
Rule to flourish. I do wish to emphasize the words kindness (chrestos in NT
Greek). President Bush was vilified for speaking of a kinder, gentler
nation a generation ago.
In Ephesians, the letter speaks of the dividing line of hostility being removed through Jesus Christ. In other words, a new community was being formed in our midst. We deserve better than the vulgarities claimed as personal rights. We need to be better in treating each other with the respect we are owed as creatures made in the image and likeness of God.
Thoughts for Week of Jan. 8
Sunday-Ps.29 probably is a sign of cultural contact with religions in early Israel. It would be similar to adopting some phrases from other faiths or even culture such as “The Force.” Consider rewriting it as an exercise where you draw on other sources to make a prayer.
Monday-Lesslie Newbigin-Nostalgia for the past and fear for the future are equally out of place for the Christian.
Tuesday-"He so loved us that for our sakes he, through whom time was made, was made in time; and he, older by eternity than the world itself, was younger in age than many of his servants in the world; he who made man, was made man; he was given existence by a mother whom he brought into existence; he was carried in the hands which he formed; he nursed at breasts which he filled; he cried like a baby in the manger in speechless infancy - this Word without which human eloquence is speechless." St. Augustine:
Wednesday-Let mystery have its place in you; do not be always turning up your whole soil with the plowshare of self-examination, but leave a little fallow corner in your heart ready for any seed the winds may bring, and reserve a nook of shadow for the passing bird; keep a place in your heart for the unexpected guests, an altar for an unknown God. -Henri-Frederic Ariel
Thursday-Buechner-To try to express in even the most insightful and theologically sophisticated terms the meaning of what God speaks through the events of our lives is as precarious a business as to try to express the meaning of the sound of rain on the roof or the spectacle of the setting sun. But I choose to believe that he speaks nonetheless, and the reason that his words are impossible to capture in human language is of course that they are ultimately always incarnate words. They are words fleshed out in the everydayness no less than in the crises of our own experience.
Friday-According to the desert tradition, we have forgotten our true worth and the source of that worth; we have fallen asleep to the true nature of life. We have numbed ourselves to the struggles of living. In the desert tradition, sin might be described as this act of forgetting the treasures we each carry simply by virtue of our divine inheritance.”
Saturday-"Body and soul work together to allow us to experience the world and God. The body is integral to how we encounter the world. . . .The five senses, which Hildegard calls 'treasures', become portals to engagement with the world." (revised from.--- Christine Valters Paintner)
Sunday, January 1, 2017
Column on Fences
August Wilson was an American treasure. The new
movie, Fences, is based on his play and his screenplay. It is directed by its
star, Denzel Washington, who would not take on the role until he had played it,
with his co-star, Viola Davis, on Broadway.
The title is a rich metaphor. It starts with a
privacy fence for their small plot of a back yard, but expands to include what
we fence off from each other and from ourselves. It includes the social fences
we construct between race, gender, age, and perhaps most importantly, class
divisions.
It is set in the mid fifties in Pittsburgh Wilson
The father, Troy
Locked into the respectability of working every
day, he feels imprisoned. He realizes that currents of change are sweeping
through the country, but he also knows the strength of countervailing forces.
To relieve that internal struggle, he constantly preaches about the importance
of hard work and learning a trade. Unable to have broken through barriers
himself, he is unwilling to even see that the new generation may be on the cusp
of a new world.
For me, the arts take a situation and character we can recognize and show how connected we are in experience, feeling, and thought. The everyday then transcends the moment and points the way to our common humanity.
Sermon Notes Jan. 1 Mt. 2:13-23, Ps. 148, Heb. 2:9-18, Is. 63:7-9
Jan. 1, 2017 Is. 63:7-9, Mt. 2:13, Heb. 2:1-18
New Year’s Eve has party written on it as we say goodbye to the old year. New Year’s day may have the aftereffects of New Year’s Eve. the big college football games are not centered on this day, and parades don't seem to have the appeal they once did. We have worship in a slightly different manner, in a different locale, with a meal reminiscent of the earliest days of the church meeting in homes.We had some traditional foods in the hope that they would bring good luck.
Is. 63 no angel (but anguish) who did this but the very presence ( in their distress God was distressed) saved- love and mercy redeemed them and carried them like an infant who symbolizes New Year’s- Elisabeth Johnson uses the following powerful metaphor in her book She Who Is that captures this desire well: She says that if you found yourself at the bottom of a deep dark pit with a broken arm, you desperately yearn for a Savior God who can come with a long ladder and a strong flashlight to haul you to safety
Ps 148 brings the psalter closes in a spate of praise. Psalm of creation, fio the utter novelty of creation and God's work, new every morning.No work is permitted on Rosh Hashanah, Jewish New Year.. Much of the day is spent in synagogue In fact, there is a special prayerbook called the machzor used for Rosh Hashanah. Another popular observance during this holiday is eating apples dipped in honey, a symbol of our wish for a sweet new year. We also dip bread in honey at this time of year for the same reason. Another popular practice of the holiday is Tashlikh ("casting off"). We walk to flowing water, such as a creek or river, on the afternoon of the first day and empty our pockets into the river, symbolically casting off our sins. Small pieces of bread are commonly put in the pocket to cast off. The common greeting at this time is L'shanah tovah ("for a good year"). You may notice that the Bible speaks of Rosh Hashanah as occurring on the first day of the seventh month. The first month of the Jewish calendar is Nissan, occurring in March and April
Heb 2.10- who is Jesus Christ brothers and sisters in suffering all God’s offspring- death and the new year- high priest who understands tested/tempted/tried It may be saying that jesus is a pioneer as he points the way through suffering What was the child jesus like with childhood illnesses-how did his folks respond? pásxō – to feel heavy emotion, especially suffering; affected by and experiencing feeling -any part of us that feels strong emotion especially "the capacity to feel suffering" (J. Thayer). The Lord has privileged us to have great capacity for feeling . Indeed, this is inherent because all people are created in the divine image. Note for example how Jesus in His perfect (sinless) humanity keenly felt we have paschal candle upstairs.
Mt 2:13-New Year’s can be bittersweet.Trouble often accompanies any new year. Here the Holy Family is on the run, refugees from Herod. In a way, it is a replay of the experience of Israel move into and escape from Egypt. Suffering of the innocents and the new year Open a newspaper and we will easily find the suffering of innocents.Evil does not respect holidays. The very early life of Jesus is shadowed by the threat of death.Rachel weeping for her children. Grief and the holidays does get heightened. Still, the New Year expects the goodness of God to persist. We will leave here with a blessing as we always do.
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