Sermon Notes June 10 Mark 3:20-35

June 10 Mk. 3:2--35, 2 Cor. 4:13-5:1 At the end of the week, I go into Indianapolis and help out for our eldest daughter’s wedding. Not only will that mean that I will feel even more a fossil than usual when I see all of the friends of the couple, but it means dealing with family, including her father-in law to be whom I’ve not met.. Family gatherings are usually a mixture of enjoyment and annoyance. It is heartening then to have Mark’s gospel indicate some dissonance in what i would picture as the harmonious family of Jesus. This would seem to add credence to the suspicion that Jesus lived a relatively normal life until his baptism by John at the Jordan propelled him into a new role as a travelling rabbi. What caused the confusion? first, the townspeople have called them in as they fear that jesus has lost his mind. Maybe, the family expected Jesus to be a craftsman, like his father Joseph. Maybe they could not wrap their minds around a sudden move into becoming a religious figure. Maybe they were trying to protect him from fear of what could happen to a religious figure on the rise in restive Galilee. We do not get a hint of them acclaiming this apparently new-found decision into the itinerant ministry of teaching and healing. We have a lot of work to do in considering church leadership and political leadership 3,000 years aftersaul.. Usually we import our understandings of other leadership models from other parts of our lives. Usually, we tend to see leadership as being in control, exercising power over others. Part of leadership is empathy and loyalty. Yet, Paul speaks of suffering as a slight momentary affliction.It is a matter of perspective isn’t it? It is especially poignant when it is our suffering or someone else’s. The Thornberrys spoke a while ago of watching the old NBC miniseries on the Holocaust. They praised its decision to follow a family's connections to that horror because it could be more easily grasped. Otherwise, the sheer enormity of the issue renders us mute, numb, and powerless. When it directly strikes us, we feel its full weight. Jack is being born into a new extended church family this morning. His name comes from John, God is gracious.He shares a biblical name with the one who baptized jesus and one of the three of the inner circle of disciples who witnessed the transfiguration and accompanied him to the garden to pray before his death. I would think it also emerged by way of the french name, Jacques, from the names Jacob and James.I only bring that up because the book of Acts indicates that james, the brother of the Jesus, led a church group in Jerusalem. James is listed in two gospels as a brother, or relative, of Jesus. He was part of the immense struggle in deciding if converts to christianity should follow all of the requirements of Judaism of the time. while Jack’ family of origin may be well-nigh perfect, he is being welcomed into a most imperfect institution, the church. We speak casually about church family. It is clear that we carry some of our family good points and less desirable traits and actions into the function or dysfunction of church.People who see power as control at home try to control elsewhere. All families are imperfect;In the nuclear family, or extended family church family: we are called to practice forbearance toward each other.

Devotions Week of June 10

June 10-Ps. 138 is today’s selection for worship. In v. 3, God has “increased my strength of soul.” What constitutes strength of soul do you think? What spiritual attributes would it include? Surely it moves beyond the spiritual alone. How would strength of soul fit strength of character, or a sense of self? What would weakness of soul appear to be? Monday These words come from Kent Ira Groff, a pastor and spiritual writer. “People are literally dying of loneliness. We can do something now to name this demon that makes orphans out of bright beautiful people in lonely office parties, community events and congregations… look for the isolated person in a social gathering, leave the ninety-nine to find the one; do task-talk elsewhere. Treat the newcomer as if they were dying tomorrow and may need a word with you today.” Tuesday-Scott Russell Sanders writes wonderful essays. In Hunting for Hope, he writes: ‘beauty feeds us from the same source that created us. It reminds us of the shaping power that reaches through the flower stem and through our own hands…by giving us a taste of the kinship between our own small minds and the great Mind of the Cosmos, beauty reassures us that we are exactly and wonderfully made.” Wednesday-Rita Nakashima Brock has started a project for veterans called the Soul Repair Center. I love the name and its goals. It sickens me that we send people off to war so willingly and somehow worry about pennies when they come home and need services. War damages the whole person, and it can warp the very self of a soldier. I pray for every imaginable blessing for her project and the recent decision of the VA to provide a lot more treatment possibilities’ for our exhausted soldiers returning home when they don’t recognize themselves any longer. Thursday-I am scheduled to be on the road today. Summer is a time for travels. I love the phrase travelling mercies, recently made more popular by the writer Anne Lamott. What trips do you have for your “bucket list?” what were some of your best trips? What were moments of travelling mercies? What protections do you find yourself praying for? What elements of travelling do you require mercies for most assuredly? Friday-I’m doing a speech on a Supreme Court case that involved the Alton RR in the 1930s and connecting it to the health care case before the SCOTUS right now. It led me to thinking about healing in the New Testament. Sometimes the word emerges as therapy, to make well. Sometimes, it is the same word as save. In both cases, I am drawn to their wide ambit. They include physical healing of course, but they seem to point to us as totalities, mind, heart, body and soul together. Saturday-Our daughter’s wedding is scheduled for today. I am trying to write her a proper, formal letter. Already, I have flashed back to some of the letting go moments of parenthood, first babysitter, first day in pre-school, riding a bike. I wonder if god looks at us in a similar fashion. For liberty, Christ has set us free says Paul. That is the liberty of love, but at times, it can be a painful freedom. For the church isn’t baptism, not only a sacrament of rebirth, but the first of many times we say, ‘off you go into the world?”

To our daughter as she marries

Our eldest daughter marries the 16th. Here is a version of a note I sent to her. As I said, I drew inspiration for this note from the IU writer, Scott Russell Sanders. Actually they come from pieces in The Force of Spirit and another collection, Hunting for Hope, as they merged in my mind. I have said before that being a parent means existing in a time tunnel, when moments from the distant past merge not the present, with the future only an occasional daydream.The same girl who at four thought herself the wedding co-ordinator in Lagrange rehearsals, now has planned and acts on a wedding of her own. As I am sure you mother has mentioned, she was in labor a long time with you. With a drug, pitocin, to induce labor, you came into the world in the post-midnight morning after a presidential debate. It was a chilly October day, and I insisted that we take a picture of you from outside the car in your car seat, so you wouldn’t get chilled at something like 12 hours old. On the rare times you slept, i would sneak a peek at you to make sure you were breathing in your sudden quiet, barely breathing myself to catch sight of your chest moving.. One woman in the married student housing complex at Princeton said that she had never seen a father look so proud. She meant it sourly, but I took it as a profound empirical truth. That has never changed, at least on the inside. I look at you and continue to marvel. Being a parent is to fight the desire to enclose a child in an external womb and to let go, bit by bit. I cried when I took you to the babysitter for the first time. I cried when I took you to Montessori pre-school and your small legs could barely make each tall step on the way inside. Our legs are too small to take the steps we climb as adults, but we climb them, nevertheless. I knew you were smart right away, saying baby at around nine months in the mall and noticing the open-mouthed stares of the mothers in the store. You can see a tape when you were not yet four of saying your ABCs while bouncing on the bed. Sanders writes:’No star outshines my daughter.” Justice Jackson once wrote “if there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation...” If there is any fixed star in my family constellation, you are there, our firstborn. I was so taken by how you got so wrapped up in your reading, how the world seem to fall away from you within the orbit of the world you were now inhabiting. At times, I would swear that you shared some literary interests with your mother, but at times, I could catch a glimpse of your mental processes that reminded me of my own. I’ve told you how I felt on a tightrope with you, as your mind and language was so far advanced, but your heart was at the stage of your age. Part of me wants to give some advice, and part of me fears to. After all, I have given counsel on marriages and try to observe good ones, even as I felt a spectator to the dissolution of my own. I have long been fascinated by the work of John Gottman. Placed in a positive frame, he would say to seek to treat Aren with respect. I sense the presence of god in a happy home, and that is my prayer for you. In a way, a marriage has a third party within its bounds already, the relationship itself. As the relationship is nurtured and prized, so shall you both be as well. We rarely come to grips with the depths of our own being, let alone that of another, so keep your eyes open for the surprises and the insights that will come your way over the years. Maybe you were able to witness the transit of Venus recently. I get to escort a different Venus to be presented to an impatient public at the church soon. that too is an event of cosmic importance. I was privileged to be able to witness your birth, cut the umbilical cord, and wash and weigh you at birth. Now I have the chance to witness the birth of a new family. that will be another holy moment in my l

June 3 Devotions

Trinity Sunday-Ps. 29 may well be lifted directly from the worship of the people of Canaan, as we have found some evidence of hymns that sound similar at places such as Ras Shamra in present day Lebanon. Go through some prayers of other faiths and adapt them to Christian usage. We are followers of the Truth, so we need have no fear of contamination but may feel free to explore meaningful approaches to God from different streams of faith. Monday-When our children graduated high school, I did breathe a sigh of real relief. Even as they are adults, though, I still worry. I wonder if God’s concern for us mutates into worry? We use the parental image of God routinely. Too often, we have used it as an image of correction. Is not the struggle sometimes similar? As parents we are caught between guidance and encouraging freedom and self-awareness and responsibility. Being a parent is always a difficult task. Tuesday-Janet Riley is being kind enough to let me use a piece of her yard for a vegetable garden. Recently, I thinned out some plants, always a difficult thing for me to do, to weed, always an annoying thing to do, and to reseed. I don't know why some patches of ground seem more resistant to seed than others. Where in your life does the Christian message take root and gorw easily? Where have you needed to reseed the message? Wednesday-In my new Christian Century, Craig Barnes has a nice piece on the presence of God extending from formal worship to the annual chili banquet in the church hall. He means that God is as fully present in the shared comforts and concerns in the fellowship hall meal as in the sanctuary. As he says, “we yearn to find jesus the Savior on laundry day.” Christianity is an incarnational faith as it sees the hand of God, the presence of god in the everyday. Indeed, when we call ourselves temple of the Spirit, our bodies, our everyday lives, are sanctuaries. Thursday-At Reformed Roundtable, we spoke a bit about God intervening in natural life. Part of me resists it, as arbitrary and intrusive, but part of me welcomes it as part of God's constant but not discrete acts of providence. I made the long drive to Indianapolis and had some narrow misses.Some of those were not averted by my skill or alertness, but more like an intuition.Think about times you have escaped narrowly, where it seems an accident was avoided, when the pieces fell into place. Friday-I am considering doing a book on the book of the twelves, the minor prophets. Of course, they are called minor due to their length compared to the three major prophetic books. In part their name has consigned them to be considered of minor scriptural importance, and that is a loss for the community of faith. For example, the image of thge divine in Hosea 11 and Jonah 4 are important elements of the character of divinity. Saturday-Yard Sales/Garage Sales seem popular at this time of year. Sometimes they are fundraisers, but I wonder if we should use the idea internally and have a yard sale of the clutter we keep inside. What crowds out our growth in other areas may well require that we create some space. What are some spiritual keepsakes that you could not part with? What would be baggage that you need to lose?

I Sam. 8 notes

I Sam. 8 is a marvelous subversive reading against monarchy. Perhaps one could extend it to power, political, economic social. The urge to be like other nations seems to be the opposite of the call to be a holy nation. Yet, it emerges from Samuel’s failure as a parent that matches Eli’s. The search for a successor shows that the faith in a charismatic leader appearing has faded. At the same time, God works within their decision but David is god’s choice after all, and the people learn to ratify it. 2) Note the people want a king for fighting their battles. One could point to our volunteer military that has permitted us to wage seemingly endless was in Iraq and Afghanistan. 3) What do you think of God’ s response to the people at v.22? 4) Dig into God’s feelings at v. 7 5) When do we blithely march into situations we have been warned about? 6) Should America prance about with its sense of divine favor after reading this passage? 7) How should Israel be and not be like other nations with its vocation as a blessing Gen. 12, and the claim to be a kingdom of priests (Exodus 19)? 8) Notice that the verb take dominates the warnings v. 18 has cry out, as with the king of Egypt? Notice God will not answer.

Column on New Harriet Lerner book on marriage

One of the privileges of ministry is officiating at weddings. One of the chores of ministry is struggling to do pre-marital work with couples. Over time, I wish to speak about conflict, role expectations, personality style, money, time, and family background. I try to underscore all of the resources available for couples and that their pitfalls in relationships are shared by most of us. I scan resource books at times. I have long admired the work of Harriet Lerner, especially her books Dance of anger and Dance of Intimacy. She just released a very easy to read book called Marriage Rules. One of the things I appreciate is her willingness to use the work of John Gottman. he has analyzed thousands of interactions between couples. Over time, he has identified for major trouble signs in a relationship. First, he notices that good relationships have a ratio of 5:1 levels of praise to criticism or complaint. Just that piece of data is enough to send chills along the spine of most of us in relationship. Along the same line, when one feel compelled to criticize, we should take aim at the behavior and not label the whole person. It is preferable to say: “it annoys me when you leave your gym socks on the floor to: “you are such a slob,” or “what is wrong with you?” Quite simply she asks us to cut down the amount and volume of our criticism. She recalls working with a couple who had vicious fights in their marriage. they then were hosts for a well-mannered, important British visitor for two months in their home. It was a great time for their marriage. she suggested that they continue to imagine they had a respected guest in their home more often, to tone down their fights. After all, the relationship itself should always be viewed as a respected guest in the home. Second, contempt- is corrosive to relationship. It undermines the sense of loyalty and togetherness. It assumes a superior/inferior role that may well doom a healthy, growing relationship. This is often signalled by facial expression, tone of voice, and body postures as much as words or deeds. Third, in response to barrage of criticism, most of us get defensive. At other times, we figure the best defense is a good offense and we go on the attack-. Complaints about us get translated into assaults on the partner in the relationship in hopes that they will be put on the defensive and let us alone. In either case, the issues and behavior don’t get resolved. “Well, what about you” can be a real deterrent to any meaningful work toward resolving an issue. Defensiveness is often a sure way to get a small point escalating into a full-blown confrontation or fight in no time. Finally, when things get out of whack, and the push and pull of a relationship gets strained, one or both folks in the relationship start to distance from each other: sexually, emotionally, or mentally. A difficult point is when one partner stonewalls any attempt at communication. Lerner offers some well-hone wisdom when she asks couple to honor and respect repair attempts, even if they are clumsy or not what we would want or do. If we reject them or criticize them, we fall into real danger of creating a chasm that no bridge can cross. I dislike the phrase, working on a marriage, as it sounds mechanical. I prefer organic images such as tending its garden. It is heightened if we consider each other precious plants within that garden. The blessing on a marriage require respect for each partner within it. To learn to use the right approach and attitudes respects that blessed relationship and allows it to blossom and flourish.

Trinity Sunday 2012 Is. 6, Ps. 29, John 3:1-17

Really, every Sunday is Trinity Sunday. At the same time, I think we could classify churches by their frequent reference to the Creator God, Jesus, or the Holy Spirit. Our liturgical prayers teach us about the Trinitarian God, but I find myself usually gravitating to God the Creator in an disproportionate degree. Our reading from Isaiah is one of being awestruck in a vision of the divine. It is a good reminder for preachers and those in religious teaching that we can never, as mortals, attempt to put God in a box of our own construction. Seraphim could be fearsome creatures, not the attractive angels of romantic artists. This vision of God is a temple vision after all. We dwell within the hem of God’s robe. god gives us space, gives us room to live. The words about the freedom of the spirit is a sterling reminder for us not to get too hung up on doctrinal niceties for all human attempts to describe the divine are approximations at best. The divine bursts all categories and boundaries, including our attempts at describing Trinity. Isaiah sees God’s glory in a temple vision, but a vision nonetheless. At the same time, Isaiah’s religious imagination is enriched by temple worship and a full engagement with Scripture. This day points us to our continuing quest to love god in our hearts, but with our minds and imaginations as well. Ps.29 is a hymn to creation and seems to be a mixture of other faiths and other cultures. It appropriates the words of other faiths with all of its riches and dangers since they are confident in their faith. The presence of God, the gravitas, the weightiness of the Holy One is kabod. Our worship, our formal worship, is an attempt to honor that kabod., to take real care for word and music to develop a theme each sunday.That accommodating God suffuses the world of nature as nature’s God-The previous generation of biblical scholars saw Israel’s faith in God. With our environmental awareness, we have recovered much of the biblical material of God’s continuing care for the creation of all nature, not just human beings. Again, the world is God’s not ours. Again, we live within the folds of God’s robes filling the earth. Jim Sinclair has spoken of his view that emphasis on the Spirit is our task for 21st Century. We learn who God is by God’s actions. For Christians, we see God decisively in Jesus Christ. The work of god that binds together past, present, and future is the work of the Spirit of Christ. The loving bonds that propel us into a new future is the work of the Spirit. Instead of falling head over heels in abstract speculation, we look to the life of Jesus. Once again the story of Nicodemus shows up in our readings. We see that creation and new creation is the work of the God of the three, the god of the One. When it moves into the commentary or narration we get a great glimpse of the eternal divine vision.The Trinity is no detached god, but one intimately connected and involved with us. It is a picture of a restless God, always on the lookout for sparking new life, new growth, in ways that fit the needs of those whom God so loves. Without struggling with unfamiliar philosophical language, we do well to approach the Trinity this way: aspect of divine love in action. Those acts of love are always connected, born of the same impulse. A number of us here are offspring, parents, and spouses, three dimensions of human love.God is a god of interconnections, of relationships, all aspects of love.