Sermon Notes I Sam. 17, 2 Cor. 6, Mark 4:35-41

I Sam 17 -18 We spoke of small size last week and now move to a giant.Goliath (name derived from exile or to reveal?) was the size of Robert Wadlow. One of the reasons I love sports is the promise of an upset, that is often called David v. Goliath. 5 smooth stones and the power of the seemingly small- David brings his  brothers provisions, as his father told him, but they put him down,like the runt of the litter, and David responds like an annoyed teen. It is a bit of a jab at militarism.David is handed the armament of Saul but it is like a size 50 suit on a 36 body. (I went to the Middletown yard sales and was crushed when I was going to buy up a lot of shirts, but for once the gentleman was two or three neck sizes bigger than me, if such a thing can be imagined).The valley of Elah lies between them.The united forces of Israel cower in fear of the giant, but a boy without armament faces and brings down the giant. David’s courage comes from God and his own ambition.  David the shepherd notices some tool sin a dry creek bed, some smooth stones, probably unnoticed by anyone else.

2 Cor. 6-Paul rattles off the weapons of righteousness against a flurry of terrible storms. Open wide your hearts-This may not still a natural storm but Paul is convinced these weapons have real power in a stormy world. They seem so small, these non-violent weapons. They are not even 5 smooth stones from a creek bed but small items in our personal quiver.They will fail often, maybe especially in church.virtues such as purity/chaste-long-suffering/forbearance, unfeigned love, kindness-I don't even see how they relate to the terrors inflicted on paul.

Mark 4:35-A terrible storm is a goliath.When faced with goliath we get anxious and want to flee, but there they are in the boat.Fear often paralyzes us as it catches us between fight or flight. Recall that the boat is an early Christian symbol.Jesus a descendant of David, rebukes the wind and tells the sea to simmer down; the first word ("Peace!" in the NRSV)  be silent; the second ("Be still!" in the NRSV)  be muzzled. The word for rebuke is used when Jesus rebukes the unclean spirit in 1:25 (also 3:12 and 9:25). And the unclean spirit in 1:25 is also told to be muzzled. In 1:27, ...Why are you still afraid?" Jesus asks The word translated afraid here might also be translated cowardly (as in Revelation 21:8). In 4:41, the phrase translated awe in the NRSV literally says that the disciples feared a great fear. That great fear, or awe, is understandable in the face of the storm and in the presence of the immense power at the disposal of jesus.  That same fear of 4:41 is felt by the healed woman (Stamper)-At Sundance, a standing ovation at the end seemed more for Rogers himself than the film.  hunched and cold in a tall field, a lone figure fighting the wind. He couldn’t control life’s storms. But he’d show people how to endure them.

We put the VBS children in a carved boat about the length of the boats used in Galilee at the time. One boy stood up at the front and said peace be still, as they remembered an awful storm that  pushed back some of our work there.

I have used peace be still as a mantra for years. In facing pettiness or something truly deliberately hurtful,I use it. That centered stability fights anxiety and gives security.

week of June 24 relfections

Sunday-June 24 Ps. 9:9-20-+is a song of the downtrodden, biblical blues.It expresses the deep frustration of being put down.How do you manage such thoughts and feelings in your spiritual life?

Monday-Integrity has the same root as the words integral and integrated: integritas, which means wholeness and soundness.  To act with integrity means to always be moving toward wholeness and not feeling divided; this is the same meaning as the root of the word monk.  The desert calls us to a singleness of heart and to live from this commitment.” -- Christine Valters Paintner

Tuesday-This is not the power that controls, dictates, and commands. It is the power that heals, reconciles, and unites. It is the power of the Spirit. It is this power of the divine Spirit that Jesus wants to give us. The Spirit indeed empowers us and allows us to be healing presences. When we are filled with that Spirit, we cannot be other than healers. Nouwen?

Wednesday-Pres. Outlook-From 2 Cor. How do we regard no one from a human point of view? How do we walk by faith and not by sight? Notice beauty and signs of hope. Pause to give thanks for them.Why does Jesus talk and teach in parables? Are there ways we could do likewise?When have you been surprised by someone or something and realized that there was more than what you initially saw, thought or assumed?

Thursday- Our self-centeredness must be reckoned for the enemy it is. God cannot squeeze into a self-centered heart.Source: So Who’s Afraid of Birthdays

Friday-You will no longer feel the need to measure up to anything or anyone, because your love for God, to whom you belong, will make you stand firm.…Happy and secure are those who have given their whole heart to God. How simple this is if we but look to Jesus, God’s Son and our brother, whose pure heart reaches out to us.Source: The God Who Heals

Saturday-"The early monks longed, as most of us do, to live in a way that was unburdened by anxiety and fear. All of their spiritual practices were in service to this ultimate goal. They longed to be healed of the internal divisions that kept them from seeing the abundant grace freely offered moment by moment which could be seen by gazing on the icon of creation. To live in paradise in the midst of this world means to see things differently which only comes through practice.” -- Christine Valters Paintner

week of June 17 reflection pts

Sunday-Ps.20  Two verses jump out. At the start one pleads for help in the day of trouble and it comes from the sanctuary. Toward the end, it takes the usual view against militarism. Some take pride in chariots, but the faith is in the name of the Lord. where do you see non-violent power?

Monday-Sophie Scholl-People believe that we live in the end times, and many terrible signs make such a belief all too credible. But isn’t it irrelevant? Don’t we all realize that, no matter when we live, God can call us at a moment’s notice?

Tuesday-Bonhoeffer-Don’t be surprised at the difficulty of faith, if there is some part of your life where you are consciously resisting or disobeying the commandment of Jesus. Is there some part of your life which you are refusing to surrender at his behest, some sinful passion, maybe, or some animosity, some hope, perhaps your ambition or your reason?

Wednesday-“Grace is a gift offered freely that helps us to return to alignment with our Self and the divine.” -- Christine Valters Paintner

Thursday-Nouwen-Prayer is the gift of the Spirit. Often we wonder how to pray, when to pray, and what to pray. We can become very concerned about methods and techniques of prayer. But finally it is not we who pray but the Spirit who prays in us.

Friday-Abbey of the Arts-No matter how far I stray from my practice, there is always an invitation to begin again. Not just each day, but each moment offers us the chance to lay a new foundation."

Saturday-Merton-"Actually one decides one's life by responding to a word that is not well defined, easily explicable, safely accounted for. One decides to love in the face of the unaccountable void, and from the void comes the unaccountable truth. By this truth one's existence is sustained in peace - until the truth is too firmly grasped and too clearly accounted for. Then one is relying on words - i.e. on his own understanding and his own ingenuity in interpreting existence and its 'signs.' Then one is lost - has to be found once again in the patient 'Void.'"*

June 17 Sermon Notes I Sam. 15, mark 4, 2 Cor. 5

June 17-I Sam. 15:34-16:13 Samuel took it personally when the people demanded a king. He knew that it would cause all sorts of new problems. ,Samuel grieved over Saul’s failure to follow divine edicts.Saul and Samuel  are said not to see each other again Maybe his madness was becoming apparent. Remember that Samuel did not wish a king in the first place but the people wanted this man who stood head and shoulders above them -issue of book by its cover - and insight blinded by the light-Israel not chosen for size but David is handsome? But he is the youngest. Samuel is sent on a undercover mission to find a new king.The villagers are concerned when Samuel shows up as he has recently killed a foreign ruler with his sword. Saul felt small in his own eyes according to Samuel.

Ps. 20, line about militarism

2Cor 5:6-17 E Johnson- We are tempted to view worldly success as a sign of God's favor, and conversely, to view weakness and suffering as a sign of God's absence or even God's punishment.God chooses vulnerability, weakness, suffering, and death in order to bring new life.Not appearance but heart-not live for oneself but for Christ. God places the greatest value on our service to others, even when service means suffering and rejection.-indeed it is a new creation  Ml 4:26-34 Kingdom grows in its orderly procession-seed has a powerpack of energy to emerge for the soil God works with the small, god works with appropriate size-mustard seed-greatest of shrubs-it does grow within its purview and niche-We want things of size and stature-indeed we tend to select the taller candidate still-some folks go on trips and stop to see the largest ball of twine-perhaps it is only the past itself, which is always smaller than one had believed.” ― David Markson,Great things are done by a series of small things brought together. Vincent Van Gogh

Small is limiting-After all, the kingdom, god’s way in the world is an earth shaking event that is apparent in things large and small.

Yes acorns grow into mighty oaks-they also grow into shrubs-they also grow into weeds. WE are a blip on the cosmic screen. The church has existed for far less time than civilization let alone our emergence into becoming human.Humility is the virtue that stands against our seemingly limitless capacity to strain against limits.We live in a niche of time and space.Church life comes from the Spirit but is is part of the incarnation so it is lived on a human scale with all of its attendant hopes and foibles. boy, no longer little, told his friends to watch out, that he was going to do something "really big" the next day at school, and the next day at school he took his gun and his ammo and his earplugs and shot eight classmates who had clustered for a prayer meeting. Three died, and they were still children, almost. The shootings took place in West Paducah, Kentucky, and when Mister Rogers heard about them, he said, "Oh, wouldn't the world be a different place if he had said, 'I'm going to do something really little tomorrow,'" and he decided to dedicate a week of the Neighborhood to the theme "Little and Big." He wanted to tell children that what starts out little can sometimes become big, and so that could devote themselves to little dreams without feeling bad about them.

We are going to receive communion-such a small thing, the little cracker our president calls it, yet is the latch that opens into heaven itself.As Christians we hold that god's love is not anchored in heaven, but here with us, in this world.

Father day column 2018

Father’s Day was sometimes troubling for me. My father was killed in a seafaring accident before I was three, so I have no memory of him. When our daughters were born, I would realize that I was able to see them grow up in a way that he was not permitted. I soon learned the father’s day is not in the same league as Mother’s day. The card selection is smaller. I have not seen much anxiety over a present for Dad in any way close to the hand wringing over a Mother’s day present. Fathers are considered fashion victims, yet a standard present is a tie or socks or worse, stylish underwear.

The fine writer Michael Chabon has written on being a father recently. “The handy thing about being a father is that the historic standard is so pitifully low.” In part he means that 20^th Century fatherhood was making a living and having the mother be the emotional center of a well-run household, a delegation model. John Wooden said that being a role model is the most powerful form of educating…too often fathers neglect it because they get so caught up in making a living they forget to make a life.”  With the advent of two earner families, fathers have often adjusted to much more responsibility.

Biblical fathers, especially in Genesis, are not successful. Instead, they continue dysfunctional traditions, one generation to the next. On the other hand, Proverbs is filled with sage advice about being a father. “Hear, O sons, a father's instruction; and be attentive, that you may gain insight; for I give you good precepts. Do not forsake my teaching. When I was a son with my father, tender, the only one in the sight of my mother, he “taught me, and said to me, ‘Let your heart hold fast my words; keep my commandments, and live. Get wisdom; get insight. Do not forget, and do not turn away from the words of my mouth. Do not forsake her, and she will keep you; love her, and she will guard you. (Prov. 4) “Listen to your father who gave you life, and do not despise your mother when she is old” (Prov.23:22) (Notice that wisdom is portrayed as female and is the cardinal virtue). Umberto Eco surmises that “what we become depends on what our fathers teach us at odd moments, when they aren’t trying to teach us. We are formed by little scraps of wisdom.”

The notion of the fatherhood of God has slipped in recent times, and we are always in danger of externalizing our notion of human fathers to the divine realm. Yet, the fatherhood model of God is a complex one, not an imprimatur on child-rearing practices. Still, it carries with it a hint of respect and awe. Aspiration is connected to our emulation of a father. “Sometimes I think my father is an accordion. When he looks at me and smiles and breathes, I hear the notes.” (Markus Zusak).

While we prize activities with a father and words of wisdom, some of us have the difficult gift of seeing a father move into old age. It challenges our view of them from childhood. It is a striking introduction to our own mortality, our own transience. After all, honor the father is a commandment for adults, not a hammer for a disobedient child. We come to realize, as adults, the hidden depths, the hidden history of an often taciturn father. Perhaps the most valuable words of a father is letting us know of their pride in us. Perhaps, the most poignant of reciprocity is telling them of our pride in them.

June 10 Sermon Notes 2Cor. 4:13-5:1, I Sam. 8, Mk. 3:20-35

I Sam. 8, Samuel fails with his children as did Eli, and his sons are corrupt. Assumptions and expectations may deceive .The  desire for a king emerges from a desire to replace Samuel and God with a leader such as others have.People who were under the thumb of a pharaoh who have been warned want a king.

Ps. 138, 2 Cor. 4:13-5:1 Sometimes I have heard people say that they do not understand how people face death with their faith. Today Paul has us consider that  face sufferings in this life. Many of our co-religionists do not touch Paul here, because it doesn't fit on a bumper sticker.. They hold that bad things are deserved punishment from God, but they hold without blinking an eye that they deserve only blessings as Christians.  In 2 Corinthians 4:16, Paul acknowledges the frailty of our human existence.  The "outer nature" is subject to all the sufferings of this present age -- beatings, shipwrecks, afflictions, and trials.  This outer nature parallels earthen vessels, so it can hold junk or a treasure. Jesus dealt with an outer physical nature of a hard life too.

The "inner nature" is what God is doing in us that makes the "life of Jesus" also "visible in our bodies" (4:10).  This "inner nature" is God enacting transformation (3:18), bringing life (4:12), and shining light in our hearts (4:6). God's work is ongoing -- renewing everyday, even when it is not immediately apparent (4:18).  

The frailty of humanity is not newsworthy.  What is truly amazing is that Paul can say in the midst of hardship that there is hope.  Whatever happens to the body,the "inner nature" is what God is doing in us that makes the "life of Jesus" also "visible in our bodies" (4:10).  God will rectify his body. It is in this God whom Paul places his unwavering hope.Amidst real hardships , Paul hopes in God's work. He knows that the God who is at work in his mortal body is the same God who resurrected Jesus from the dead.   Hope is not optimism. It is a conviction that things will improve despite evidence ot the contrary.It is a faith pinned on the future being different.Carla Works |

Mk. 3:20-35 Stamper-Jesus is coming to plunder Satan's household and bring about his end,   crowd is pressing in to see him and touch him, urgently and desperately.The ones who should be in the best position to see Jesus as himself fail to see it and attribute it to evil.the family of Jesus is alarmed at his message and mission and fear for him.Apparently they were not prepared for this shift in a life’s work that occurs after his baptism by John. Jesus recasts family into the new movement.His family may well be pushed from the center of his life..We also are claimed by him as his sisters and brothers and mother, no longer outsiders at a distance, but holders of the secrets of the kingdom, drawn into the inner circle of the mystery and love of God. In an early episode of Mister Rogers King friday decides he needs a wall for security. He almost misses out on a birthday cake as he has the chef cut it into little pieces.King Friday fears people are out to get him.Early in PBS, he was asked to testify before the imperious John Pastore. He had been elected to congress in the Depression, served as an attorney general office and the governor’s office in RI and had been a Senator for years.Inner nature and outer nature the same.

Reflection Pts for Week of June 10

Sunday-June 10-Ps.138 is not in my ever-failing memory bank. I like its line (v.3) you have increased my strength of soul. Where is your soul weak or strong?

Monday-Philip Britts-Sonnet I-How often do we miss the fainter note/Or fail to see the more exquisite hue,Blind to the tiny streamlet at our feet,/Eyes fixed upon some other, further view./What chimes of harmonies escape our ears,/How many rainbows must elude our sight,/We see a field but do not see the grass,/Each blade a miracle of shade and light. /How then to keep the greater end in eye/And watch the sunlight on the distant peak,/And yet not tread on any leaf of love,/Nor miss a word the eager children speak?/Ah, what demand upon the narrow heart,To seek the whole, yet not ignore the part./1947

Tuesday-Thresholds can be uneasy places, often frightening. They demand that we step across to a place and way of being different than what we have accepted until now. They demand that we awaken, again and again, to all the ways we allow ourselves to fall asleep." -- Christine Valters Paintner, PhD

Wednesday-Jim Forest-Humility is not a denial of my value as a human being but rather seeing myself in relationship to God. Humility results from being in a state of gratitude rather than envy, resentment, or bitterness. Do I boast about myself? Do I respect others? Do I listen with attention and a readiness to learn? Do I resent good advice? Do I accept correction with gratitude? Or do I defend myself even when I am in the wrong?

Thursday-Peace is Shalom - well-being of mind, heart, and body, individually and communally. It can exist in the midst of a war-torn world, even in the midst of unresolved problems and increasing human conflicts. Jesus made that peace by giving his life for his brothers and sisters. This is no easy peace, but it is everlasting and it comes from God. Are we willing to give our lives in the service of peace? Friday-“Carolyn Wiley of Roosevelt University reviewed four similar studies of employee motivation conducted in 1946, 1980, 1986, and 1992. In each of the studies, employees were asked to rate the factors that motivated them. Popular answers included ‘interesting work,’ ‘job security,’ ‘good wages,’ and ‘feeling of being in on things.’ Across the studies, which spanned 46 years, only one factor was cited every time as among the top two motivators: ‘full appreciation of work done.’ Saturday-Abbey of the Arts-How many times in our lives do we reach out our hands for a particular purpose, and something else arrives? It is something that may cause discomfort, something we may want to pull away from, but in our wiser moments we know that this is a holy gift we are invited to receive.

Column on Mister rogers

When I was little, before the days of public television, WQED in Pittsburgh ran a children’s show conceived by and starring Fred Rogers, The Children’s Corner. Eventually, it would be broadcast nationally. Fred Rogers was ordained in the Presbytery of Pittsburgh to be Mister Rogers. While he was working on the program he went to one class a term at the Pittsburgh Seminary. During the same time, he did work in child development at Duquesne in Pittsburgh.

A new documentary, Won’t You Be My Neighbor, will be available soon at the Landmark Theatre group in St Louis. When it was shown at the Sundance Festival early this year, it received a standing ovation, where hardened critics applauded with tears in their eyes. I plan to see it, but I doubt it can affect me as deeply as Tom Junod’s masterpiece in Esquire years ago, 1998, that dared to call him a hero on its cover. (It is the inspiration for a movie about Fred Rogers with Tom Hanks as the star).

Fox, of course, had a piece against him, since he was the embodiment of civility and restraint. He was such a “holy fool” that he was more than willing to become the  target of so many jokes, even on SCTV and Saturday Night Live. While Rodney Dangerfield received no respect, Fred Rogers did his best to respect everyone.

Dear Mr. Rogers is a collection of letters sent to him with his responses over the years. One of the first ones asked if he were real, or if he were in a costume like Big Bird. He answered every letter he received from a child. He would visit a child when he took trips for the program, based on letter he received.

Once he visited a teen with cerebral palsy. The boy thought God hated him because some of the caretakers who abused him told him so. He was so nervous when Mister Rogers came to visit that he started hitting himself again, hard. Fred Rogers waited and asked the boy if he would do something for him. The boy typed yes on a screen. The Rev. Rogers asked him to pray for him, could he do that?  Yes, he said and was good to his word. He thought that Fred Rogers was close to God and if asked him to pray that meant God loved the boy too.

I admire him so as he respected his audience of children so. He did not talk down to them but he struggled so to speak at what he perceived was their level of comprehension. What triggers tears in many of us is the image of our missed past. Few aspire to treat even those whom we profess love with the respect and dignity they so richly deserve. Maybe he brings back some of the innocence of childhood before the slights start to dig deep. Maybe he knew that grace could help heal the wounds too long carried. Maybe he treated his audience the way the saw themselves in the recesses of their hearts, as worthy of love, to be accepted as Paul Tillich said.

Fred Rogers was a sacred and secular saint. That does not mean perfection, but it does mean a model toward which we can aspire in our own lives. How would he have used social media, for instance?

I have wondered repeatedly how Jesus would work in a modern era. I have wondered if he would make movies: Sch8indler’s List as an exemplar of the story of the Good Samaritan. Maybe Jesus would have a program for children.

“Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.”

RFK Column

“Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.” Robert Kennedy, quoting Aeschylus on the night of the assassination of Martin Luther King

The night before we were released from St. Procopius grade school, its last graduating class, Robert Kennedy was declared dead. Death hung like a pall over 1968, Martin Luther King, riots, and the Thursday night death tally in Vietnam, when over one hundred young men were dying per week. I think something died in our land that first week of June. I recall being moved by the little knots of people standing by the tracks for his funeral train, even nuns pulled children out of school to pay their respects.

His father considered him the runt of the litter and took years for him to accept his son’s abundant talents. To gain his mother’s approval, he was the most devout Catholic of the children. So, he had a dual nature: a “ruthless” side that mirrored his father and a religious side, attracted to the world of the spirit. He would serve Mass at different campaign stops and his family said their daily prayers. That side grew much stronger as he faced his grief at losing a second brother to death.  The side of Catholic social justice grew in those last few years. 

RFK was his brother’s campaign manager and Attorney General, where he walked a political tightrope on civil rights. JFK entrusted him to conduct a negotiation with the Soviet embassy that helped ease the tension of the Cuban Missile Crisis, as he admirably demonstrated in his book 13 Days. On the 26th of October, the Soviet leader made an alluring offer:  removal of missiles in Cuba in exchange for a promise that the United States would never invade Cuba, as well as the removal of U.S.  missiles in Turkey. Robert Kennedy himself actually delivered the United State's message to the Soviet ambassador in Washington, as he accepted the offer but demanded the missile removal had to be secret.

Obviously, he was from a rich family, but he developed a concern for the poverty that beset our land. As Senator, he visited poor areas of his new locale of New York. He toured the Mississippi Delta, where he wiped away tears after venturing into a family’s shack and meeting a child with a distended stomach who was listless from malnourishment. Kennedy traveled to eastern Kentucky’s coal country, where a doctor told Kennedy that 18 percent of the population was underweight and 50 percent suffered from intestinal parasites.

In 1966, the Richard Goodwin helped write a speech for South Africa. “Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.' "

Even though he participated in Vietnam’s escalation, he came to oppose the war: “past error is no excuse for its own perpetration.”

RFK developed a sense of being a citizen of a great country, where all deserved fundamental fairness. That sense if threatened. Perhaps what I lost in 1968 was a sense of optimism about the future, that glowing sense of forward movement that lit our land with JFK. “There are people in every time and every land who want to stop history in its tracks. They fear the future, mistrust the present, and invoke the security of a comfortable past which, in fact, never existed.”

Week of June 3 reflections

Sunday June 3- Ps. 139 speaks of the thoughts of God (vv17-18).  What thoughts of the divine can we grasp? What seem beyond our reach? What sort of religious sense does this inspire within you?

Monday-“The monastic cell is a central concept in the spirituality of the desert fathers and mothers.  This outer cell, which is the room where the monk lives, is a metaphor for the inner cell, a symbol of the deep soul work we are called to do to become fully awake. It is the place where we come into full presence with ourselves and all our inner voices, emotions, and challenges, where we strive to not abandon this soul work through distraction or numbing. It is also the place where we encounter God deep in our hearts.” -- Christine Valters Paintner

Tuesday… a sense of the immense sweep of creation, of the evolutionary process in everything, of how incomprehensible God must necessarily be to be the God of heaven and earth. You can’t fit the Almighty into your intellectual categories. Flannery O’Connor

Wednesday-"Humility invites us to let go of our hold on productivity as the measure of our worth and discover the deeper value of who we are." -- Christine Valters Paintner,

Thursday-Simone Weil-We have to cross the infinite thickness of time and space – and God has to do it first, because he comes to us first. Of the links between God and man, love is the greatest. It is as great as the distance to be crossed. So that the love may be as great as possible, the distance is as great as possible. That is why evil can extend to the extreme limit beyond which the very possibility of good disappears. Evil is permitted to touch this limit. It sometimes seems as though it overpassed it.

Friday-"What is serious to men is often very trivial in the sight of God. What in God might appear to us as 'play' is perhaps what He Himself takes most seriously. At any rate the Lord plays and diverts Himself in the garden of His creation, and if we could let go of our own obsession with what we think is the meaning of it all, we might be able to hear His call and follow Him in His mysterious, cosmic dance." ~ Thomas Merton,

Saturday-“In cultivating photography as a contemplative practice, the camera becomes a tool to develop our ability to see more deeply, clearly, and truly, beneath the surface realities of the world around us and into the sacred presence shimmering in the world.”
 -- Christine Valters Paintner,