Sermon Notes Lk. 15, Jer. 4:22-28 Sept 15

Our youngest daughter, now 21, told me once that people her age have the resurgence of

Disney pictures such as Mulan or Lion King as a deep part of their mental landscape. In a similar

way, a deep stream flows beneath the Bible, and it carries with it the ancient idea of chaos, or

what we would call random activity. that entropy, that decline toward formless disorder from

science class was thought to always lurk at the door of God’s good harmony. In other words,

God;’s creation is a bulwark against a life of no meaning or purpose.Yes, chaos was defeated,

but it was still in the shadows, waiting for another opportunity to strike, like Voldemort in the early

harry potter books.( 2010 sermon on eureka))

You see, even the first orderly creation account has elements of the ancient near eastern notion

that the waters of a primordial chaotic beginning were at the victims of a mastery by power over

them.Not that long ago, we read Ps. 82 where God is either given powr or take sit over a lesser

pantheon of divine beings.Underneath many biblical notions is a god who sets boundaries

around the continuing power of death, uncertainty, even malevolence against hte order of life

itself.Sin touches on this basic order when it is perceived as a rebellion against god’s

boundary-setting.As I am working on this we hav emoved form a bbile study on Wednesday

morning to a consideration of Reformed tradition basics. One of those is that God continually is

at work sustaining and preserving the created order. Put differently, we can see that creation

itself is a fragile as the precious environment of this pretty blue marble sitting in the black void of

space.

Jeremiah uses an anti-creation account to try to get out the shattering events he could perceive

hurtling toward his people, his nation.I would say that chaos is anything that alters or threatens

what we see as the narrative arc of our lives.At the same time, we enocunter a glimmer of hope,

in that god;s commitment to the good creationis too full to make a completer end to it all. It brings

about the chilling question if God’s power seems to be fading, the great divine warrior may be

losing a step against younger, more aggressive rivals.

that same daughter like to hide in the pants of a clothing store, and with my heart in my mouth I

would slowly call out to her until I heard her giggle and I could breathe again. I told some of you

that I got stranded in Yellowstone as my bus could not go through the smoke at night, so I was

lucky to get a cabin, except it was really dark, so i was so relieved ot finally find it and find a

shower and a bed.I think of Archimedes discovering a principle of specific gravity in the tub and

running out crying eureka, i have found it and it became the cry of the gold fields in our country

years and years later.

It may be one of the great test of friendship or community to be able to celebrate someone’s

good fortune. It’s hard for us to even grasp celebrating the discovery of the lost coin with the

woman. Being lost is not so easy in an era of GPS. It seems all the more easy to feel lost amidst

the choices we encounter and to seek purpose for all we can or should do. It hit me hard on a

walk this week that the story jesus tells speaks of God feeling lost as the divine searches for

the lsot. Maybe we could even speak of our own sense of God as the lsot coin that we seek.

OT Notes Jer. 4:11-12, 22-28

A good while ago, i used a VHS tape with Walter brueggemann that did a good job on this passage.

1) First, notice the anti-creation theme of this passage, as it is a return to the pre-creation chaos, as if genesis 1 is being reversed.

2) As usual, even here, at the end of the unit, God cannot bear to make a "full end" of the work of creation.

3) It seems here that nature itself will mourn the moral turn of humanity. In some cultures, sin is like a stain on the entire environment, and this sounds similar to me.

4) I suppose one could link the threat of climate change to a passage such as this.

5) A lot of the business futurist material that seems to captivate ecclesial leaders sees the creative potential in chaos, but jeremiah does not seem to share this  rosy imagining.What are the negative consequences of choas/anarchy/shaking of the foundations?

6) Does this passage affect your idea of development of apocalyptic material?

Week of September 8 devotional points

Sunday-Ps.139 is today’s reading. Let’s look a moment at the line “I am fearfully and wonderfully made.” In a culture that dissects body image, isn’t this a glorious thing to hear? what part of your body are you most proud and least happy with? what part of your emotions a and mind are fearfully and wonderfully made? Are you able to say the same thing about others whom you encounter?

Monday—From John Philip Newell-“At the beginning of the day/we seek your countenance among us, O God,/in the countless forms of creation all around using the sun's rising glory/in the face of friend and stranger./ Your Presence within every presence/your Light within all light/your Heart at the heart of this moment./May the fresh light of morning wash our sight/that we may see your Life/in every life this day.

Tuesday-We’ve been harvesting tomatoes, and the Farmer’s Market seems to be bursting with them. I like ot make BLTs with the first ones of the season, and then I make sauce and salsa and cook with the rest. Do you have an emotional or spiritual BLTs that you especially like at certain times of the year? When you have an abundance of a spiritual resource how do you use and preserve it?

Wednesday- We will read Jer. 18, with the famous image of God as potter. At the Japanese festival, we saw examples of the way the artists try to capture a fleeting moment in the kiln to be frozen on the pottery in shape or color. It gave me a new angle on the image, where at times god may highlight some part of our experience that we may have not noticed as vital at the time, but divine vision is better than even our hindsight.

Thursday-I went to the Japanese Fest at the MO Botanical gardens on Labor Day. I so admire the persistent care and patience of the culture in approaching beauty through miniscule changes in raking stones or trimming an ornamental bush or arranging some seemingly simple flowers in a pot. Taking time and care with something adds a lot of ourselves to something; it turns an object into a keepsake or a piece into a craft. I like to think that God does craft work with us.

Friday-we will read Philemon this week as well, in one swoop in worship. I like it as it deals with a thorny moral issue in a most subtle way. Paul tries to persuade a slave owner that his new faith should compel him to treat the slave in a wholly new way.He tries to get him to see that he is now part of something larger than his rights and that he should start to see a slave as a brother more than as a commodity. Paul won’t command him, as he is trying to have him see things from a new perspective through his own processes.

Saturday-From Frederick Buechner: “it is not just the saints of the church that we should remember in our prayers, but all the foolish ones and wise ones, the shy ones and overbearing ones, the broken ones and whole ones, the despots and tosspots and crackpots of our lives who, one way or another, have been our particular fathers and mothers and saints, and whom we loved without knowing we loved them and by whom we were helped to whatever little we may have, or ever hope to have, of some kind of seedy sainthood of our own.” go through some of your history and identify the sorts of folks Buechner considers in the import of yo

Sermon Notes September 8 Philemon and jer. 18

I am taken by this story to look at an image of God as an artisan. Notice that the artist does not toss out the clay ( is this of the same material of our creation?) but reworks it. God is an artisan for the creation and transformation of souls. With infinite patience, God continues ot work with us.(Is it like a movie being edited or recut?)At presbytery meeting we saw this happen and learned that a vase is more difficult than a bowl (Use Jocelyn material) In our time the Celtic imagination has caught fire among some in the religious community. the Celtic imagination is one that sees God as permeating all of existence. When we enter into the depths of things;when we notice connections, when we encounter thin places where God’s hand is more apparent.

Instead of seeing God working only through miracle and seeming intrusion into the nature of our history, “Jeremiah sees God at work like a potter, working, reworking, shaping, molding, glazing.I like the image of god as an artisan for a number of reason. Obviously, it picks up the element of creation itself. Second, it is an engaged, hands-on depiction of the work. I seems ot me that a good artist has a piece of the self invested in the work; it is not mere commodity, more than a mere object.at the same time, God the artis tmay not be satisfied with the current stat eof a project and is at working with it to more clsely fit the divine vision, but the artist is also willing to enter into a surprise that may surpass or surprise even the artist’s original conception..

the big difference is that while we are containers of grace and love, utility and spirit, we interact with our maker; we resist and co-operate with the work of the potter. God continues to work with the raw material, shaping and reshaping as the clay of life responds to other influences, pushed and pulled by the forces that shape lives and our screening of them.

We can extend the image of our horizontal level with the letter to Philemon. this is so suggestive for Christian practice. it seems to be a consensus opinion, especially among those under 35 that church people are unbearably judgmental scolds. we are seen as control freaks trying to tell people what to do but fail to do it ourselves. Paul admits that he could try to order Philemon aoubt his slave. Instead, he tries to help him see him as a member of the family in christ, even as he lost a precious commodity. I use the word advisedly, as I do wish that paul would have gone after the slave system, but he does not choose that tack.He admits that Philemon has rights , and he does not mention any rights of the slave. He does try to open the door to Philemon that this faith casts normal life in a new light.Paull is trying to persuade him, not order him about with some degree of subtlety.Sometimes, I see Paul as being quite manipulative, but he does seem to be trying to provide a way out for Philemon and Onesimus.

we have Communion this morning. In god’s hands, a sip of wine and a bit of bread beocme a spiriutal banquet, a wedding feast where everyone is invited and treated as a special guest, as christ is the host of the event.For once the exclusive voices get stilled in the church, as no hierarchy, no test is applied to this family gathering. god sees us as the God’s eye, Communion places us on the road of making a masterpiece, human beings at their best.

Devotional Pts. Week of Sept 1

Sunday-Ps. 81 has a few noteworthy points. it ends with the lovely phrase of sweet honey from the rock., appropriate for a festal hymn. It also is a song of comfort and help as God lifts the burden from shoulders and hands. (when have you felt that?) Even so, God worries that the people seem deaf to the pleas of the path toward god and happiness, but God is a god of freedom and “lets them go to follow their stubborn hearts.” (Again, when have you felt so?)The psalms are so realistic that they realize that festive occasions may well occasion their own pain. 

Monday-“A friend is someone/Who knows where you've been,/Accepts you as you are, 
And still invites you to grow.” (Kent Ira Groff (adapting Ralph Waldo Emerson) I like this quote as it strikes me as combining loyalty but still seeing a friend as having potential to be better, to see them more clearly, perhaps, than they see themselves. Do you, or have you known, a friend such as this? Does Jesus sound like a friend such as this for you?

Tuesday-Every gift we give breaks the barrier between the sacred and the mundane and floods the mundane with the sacred-Miroslav Volf. Anything holy is thought to be kept separate form the everyday. yet, the vehicle for the holy is often everyday material set to a new purpose or meaning. when do you get religious meaning out of secular material? (I often get religious meaning from Springsteen songs, for instance).

Wednesday-We are working on Hosea in the Wednesday class. To get at the depth of god’s fidelity to us, it chooses the image of parent and spouse. Both images are employed to introduce us to the wounds of sin in the heart of God. What other relationships help or cause an obstacle in your understanding of the depth of the divine relationship with humanity?

Thursday-Last week, humility was the theme for worship for a group of visiting clergy. Few people are need of it more than clergy, perhaps. We talk a good game on humility, but then make it a matter of pride. for me, humility refers to its root, being a grounded person. it means being aware of limitations and abilities but keeping them both within balance. who have been models of humilty for you in life or in the arts, such as Attiucs Finch?

Friday-I’ve returned from Yellowstone with a renewed appreciation for the wonders of creation, apart from human utility. Not only the vistas remain with me, but all of the bubbling little thermal features and the springs iwht different colored water that seems to be beauty for its own abundant sake. If you haven’t been there, please consider looking at some photographs of this remarkable place of wonders. Where are some of your favorite natural environments?

Saturday-Summer ended with a lot of activity with festivals in St Louis, from music, to a Greek festival to a Japanese festival. The Bible is filled with references to festival time. Festivals help us to mark time from one season, form one memory to another. they break up the monotony of the everyday. We mark time well with festivals. What are some of your favorites or least favorites?   

Sermon Notes Sept 1 Jer. 2, Lk 14, Heb. 13

I saw an internet entry that bemoaned our Jeremiah reading as it was not cheery enough. Where do we get the idea that Scripture  need sto be cheery in the face of a hard, difficult life? God is beside the divine self here. God is mystified that the people would abandon the god of all for lesser deities. They traded the fountain of water for cheap cisterns whose cracks will not hold  rainwater.

In a way, God is mystified that we are inhospitable to the presence, but we seem to be willing to set out our best china for lesser guests.Jeremiah will move to a fairly frequent Old Testament attempt to get at the depth of God’s hurt:marital infidelity. In our wedding vows, we promise that we will open our heart, our body to one partner. when those vows are broken, the other partner feels betrayed,hurt, angry, but also mystified. We sometimes speak easily of God feeling distant or absent. we may reserve speaking of the nearness of the divine for special moments. the truth is of course that we exist awash in the presence of God as fully a sthe ociean exists for a fish.

We are familiar with the word, xenophobia, the fear of strangers. We have instilled it into our children and we are sorely tempted to try to put a protective cocoon around ourselves in the midst of a global environment.  It seems to be a constant human temptation to sort out insiders from outsiders. Hospitality is a deliberate choice to fight that mentality and tries to treat others as a guest, even in-laws.

A number of movies play with the idea of angels unaware.Warren Beatty used an old movie as a template for Heaven can wait, Wings of desire was remade with Nicholas Cage. The Preahcr’s Wife has the same theme, but I want to mention an Israeli movie, ushp[izim, something I’m sure you’ve seen repeatedly. During a festival that stresses hospitality, an Orthodox couple, struggling emotionally and financially, takes in some escaped crooks, the most unlikely angels of all time.

Hospitality requires some humility, i think.Jesus argues against the cultural assumption of his time to scramble about looking to get one step ahead on the ladder, to acquire to new patrons and new folks obligated to us.We still have a bit of this with the seating charts composed at wedding receptions. Humility allows us to both offer and accept hospitality. Humility allow sus to place the needs of a guest there. So often we mistake humility for humiliation. Jesus realizes this and notice how one who is seeking to move up is humiliated, but honor comes to one who is well rooted in place. and attitude of one’s limitations. Humiliating experiences tend to stick with us, and memory allows us to almost experience the pain afresh.

The truth is that we are often inhospitable to each other and God. Its reason may be part of the opposite of humility: pride.We may do everything according to protocol but still not invite God or someone into the depth of the course of a life together. We may well prefer a spiritual life that keeps Gpd at a safe remove, at a safe distance, that the God who envelops a life.(see John philip newell) At its best, a worship service structures different elements of becoming hospitable to the presence of God throughout the day or even the course of our lives from its beginning through its end. As Paul wrote Jesus humbled himself to walk our path.He both offered and received hospitality, as befits the One whom he called father who is unfailingly hospitable to us

OT Notes Jer. 18

How does this famous image touch on our emphasis on God’s providence and governance? What does it say aobut god’s plan that os many regard as control?What doe sit say about the responsive God?

1) I have long been interested in this metaphor, as God is protrayed as an artisan.

2) As in Is. 5,. God seems surprised that the work is not coming out as planned and needs reworked, just as the potter has to reshape a product.

3) Our youngest daughter has done ceramics, and it is not easy. One could use different elements of it, shaping firing, glazing to talk about different pieces of the life cycle or different parts of the human personality, or social life.

4) Let’s be clear, reworking still uses the clay. It is not a far step from us being made of potting soil to the clay of a potter’s work. the possibility of change is clear as usual.

5) How does the image of God as artisan affect your view of the persoan and work of God?

6) I don;t like the passivbity of the clay image. Put differently we pariticpate in our working and reworking; we are not mere objects of work but beings with degrees of freedom.

7) One could go a long way in comparing the cracked cisterns of our sole work and theis image of pottery. One copuld easily move to Paul’s idea of us being mere earthen vessels.

8) What do our pots of life hold and what gets poured out?