Perhaps it would be a good idea to give some background on the patriarchal dates. Most range in the Bronze age from 2,000 to 1,500 BCE or so. Some see these as containing some oral history, and some don’t. Some sites don’t seem to be occupied in early periods, and Beersheba doesn’t seem ot exist until 1200. Some think it is an elaboration of a story of nomadic people longing for a stable home. Abraham sites are linked to areas of later Israelite strength. Abraham’s relatives share name with northwest Mesopotamia. Nuzi laws, tigirs Valley do show some linkages with patriarchal traditions, but people often gerate similar customs.

1. The issue of calling is here. Why Abram? Why not someone else?

2. Abram means high father. Maybe it’s a name of another God? It’s ironic at least point,as he and Sarai are childless.. I gather Sarai is similar in meaning to Sarah, a female leader.

3. Blessing and greatness concern the call. We move from the primeval viewpoint of Genesis to a focus on one man and a family.

4. That great name is a gift, the opposite of the attempt to seize greatness in the Babel story.

5. Curses in the primeval account are now turned to blessing through Abram

6. We forget often that Abram is completing the work of his father, Terah. (the current occupant of the White House may have thought that he was completing his father’s work in Iraq.)

7. He ends up at a cultic place. Moreh has a sense of teaching, directing

8. Abram builds an altar there, so right away we have religious conflict

9. Abram moves in stages toward the south Sometimes God’s call works out in stages, not all at once.

10. Placing dates on this is hazardous.

Noah and Second Creation Gen. 6-9

Noah’s story is a second creation story. God was fed up with the flaws in the good creation, especially corruption and violence. Violence contradicts the order and harmony of creation. Corruption is a more difficult term. For me, it is something that rots away from the inside out. In Bible study on Thursday, it was noted that a corrupted purpose turns everything upside down, like flipping over a toy box. . More to the point God’s heart is broken to see what happened to the great vision of creation. It seems like an act of terrible violence, but it is more a return to primeval chaos, a disorder world to fit its disordered condition. God will start again, but this start is at the cost of terrible destruction, of wiping away almost all God had done. .

God doesn’t start from a fresh slate. God grew attached to living creatures. To lose the created earth would be an incalculable loss. So, God goes through great pains to save them from utter destruction. This will be the first of many small groups standing for the whole of the people, the first remnant group. An entire ecology exists on the ark, only 8 people and animals, with enough to eat. Male and female makes sure that the seed for new life lives on the ark. It’s even made in the style of what they knew of a world of sky, earth, and the underworld. It’s the creation shrunk down to a box of wood, a future for the world in a boat beset by the storming chaos before creation itself. Notice that it is not only clean but unclean animals, not only useful livestock but the wild animals, of no clear use to us. Again, we are not the center of the natural world in this second creation. God withdraws the protection of the dome of sky and the floodwater rush in. Noah made it, and he is assigned the same task as Adam, to tend the earth, but now it’s a box he made. So, it’s more than a cute zoo. God seals the ark before the flood, a tender gesture similar to God sealing over the side of Adam when Eve was brought forth, so that human life could continue. This time, it would continue with Noah and his family.

Moses was saved in a basket of reeds on the waters of the Nile, but the word is ark. That time, the hope for an enslaved people would ride on one baby, and the kindness of the enemy. In the movie Prince of Egypt, they do a nice job of following the frail little craft down the dangerous river, until it settles near the daughter of the king. that Moses, in time, will go through his own sea of troubles, yet he will part the red Sea and then see it flood the oncoming army of Egypt. God continues to take enormous chances with us, to underscore how much God values our freedom, how much honor our role in creation to tend and keep the good earth.

We do well to think of the church as an ark, floating in a sea of troubles. Kingston is designed to look like the inside of a hold of a ship. Sometimes, it feels as if we are adrift, with no rudder on the ship. God continues to be a God of salvation. God keeps us afloat, although now the ark numbers in the billions. God cannot bear the thought of us being lost to the violence and corruption of this world, so the church keeps us afloat until our recreation in heaven. In the baptismal liturgy, the little bit of water we use contains mention of the flood of Noah. The baptismal flood becomes a sign of salvation. In our baptism we are made right with God, just like Noah. We walk the same road as Christ. God remembered Noah. God remembers us. God continues to hold back the chaos that threatens the order of creation. I hope we can live out Noah’s name and rest in God’s providence.

1. Please note that this is more of a cosmic catastrophe, of a crack in the dome that kept the waters from the earth. This is not a cute children’s story alone.

2. Violence is at the heart of God’s response with corruption ( Is.24:20) Cration itself is corrupt (6:12)Water cleanses corruption.

3. Many see signs of 2 distinct stories being conflated here see notes in NISB at 17, for instance.

4. Pay some attention to the word, ark, box, tebah. It is Moses’s basket, as well. A different word for ark then takes over in the bible.

5. Fretheim, God in Creation, sees God as grieiving more than angry,79. That is in the section immediately preceding where the lectionary starts. Still, you are the boss of the readings and can edit as you see fit.

6. Brown, in Ethos of the cosmos,p.55 notes the 3 stories of the ark is a world in miniature of earth, sky firmament amidst the swirling waters

7. This is a return to chaos before Gen. 1. This is a new start. Two by two allowed for the sustaining of life.

8. Again, the earth will be repopulated. The threat of emptiness again dispelled.

9. The flood is in the baptism liturgy. What do you make of that?

10. Noah means rest’ shem=name’Ham=hot,warm;Japheth=expansion

Sermon Mt. 6:25-34

The Hoosier work ethic is a powerful force. When a problem arises, Hoosiers figure that we can work harder to get through it. Hoosiers hearing Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount would not have an easy time of it. It does not see work as a panacea for all problems. Now I don’t think Jesus is saying that we should expect things to be handed to us. It does say that anxiety is not helpful for many situations. It even impedes our work. We get into a pattern of thinking that worry=concern=caring=love. Anxiety appears when we sense a lack of control, a sense of threat, little support, and a fear of being deprived of something, of losing something we value.

Lately, much work focuses on the congregation as a system of interlocking people that acts as a unit, not just a collection of individuals. Sometimes, the systems work smoothly and in a healthy way. At other times, they can be dysfunctional. One of the culprits is how we handle anxiety. Anxiety can take over our day. Anxiety is contagious. When anxiety builds, it looks to be heard. Then it tends to build in order that the concerns are taken seriously. It can become a formidable weapon or threat. We won’t do something, as it would upset someone. Anxiety appears as looking for a scapegoat, or becoming fault-finding as a focus for energy.

How can we try to dampen the voltage, to remain calm and try to help bring calmness to situation? A light touch helps a bit. I don’t mean making fun of the person or the situation. It is a sense that this too may pass, a perspective that knows that this storm will be weathered. When we are trying to defuse anxiety, it rarely helps to tell people to calm down. It does help to tell yourself to calm down. Imagine yourself as an anchor for a ship in harbor. If we seek to understand points of view, instead of trying to change them right away, that sometimes calms the person and the view of the situation.

Sometimes we get so accustomed to worrying that we worry and have to find something to get worried about. David Burns suggests a simple procedure for dealing with anxiety. Make three columns on a sheet of paper. Write your thoughts and feelings of anxiety. Notice where they could be distorted. Then write a rational response to the distorted thought. For instance, if you find yourself thinking that things always go wrong, cite instances where they don’t.

Let me suggest a similar approach to prayer. Often our prayers in anxiety pray for the situation to end or the anxiety to be lifted. Those are fine. Here’s another way. Take a passage of Scripture such as the one from Isaiah we just read. Imagine that as you pray God is as caring about you as a mother with a nursing child. Another way is to seek a change in perspective in prayer. In its way, our Isaiah passage does that. God does nto grow anxious but does respond to the feeling but puts it into a new frame for understanding. Thank God for the gifts you receive that you did not work for. Use prayer as a tool to follow the Burns method. If you feel God has forgotten you, go through examples where that is not the case. Imagine yourself in the stormy boat with Jesus. Then as you anxiously try to rouse Jesus, with the waves crashing in, hear Jesus say “peace be still.” Live in that quiet for a while. As Jesus said, tomorrow has troubles enough of its own. “Be still and know that I am God.” A sense of prayerful calmness can be a great help to fight our anxieties in anxious times.

I recently enjoyed a new book in the library, American Made, by Nick Taylor. It's the story of the WPA, a public works program during the Depression. In a time of booming "relief" rolls, the government made a decision to support work projects instead of the dole, and a country was transformed. our country's short history. what about the public purposes of our nation along with national defense?

For some of us who are older, the memory of the WPA is of government mistakes and the epithet of people leaning on shovels. Even if partially true, how then did so much get built in that period? What we now call infrastructure: dams, roads, sewers. bridges, was built by people desperate to work. It went beyond that. public works fed the old labor dream of 'bread and roses too.' Recreation facilities abounded from golf courses, to public parks and pools, to hiking trails.

Deep inside, I love the idea of the public getting to share in projects: schools, libraries, parks, where everyone is on equal footing. It makes sense to me that when we build transmission lines for commerce, everyone benefits. We've allowed the public sphere to become a haven for the shoddy, ill-considered, and poorly designed. Public does not have to mean cheap and ill-built. Look at the type of courthouses we have here or in rush county for instance. monuments to the public good, they were built for a future of dreams. When our eldest daughter was very young, I took her to the Toledo Zoo. When we were walking up the stairs, she started singing PWA, PWA. I looked down and the letters were imprinted on the steps she was climbing that allowed her to enjoy a zoo over fifty years later. Murals decorated public buildings. People went to concerts for a dime. Librarians in kentucky went on horseback to deliver books to people off in the hollows. Artisans made the furniture and quilts for lodges.

The environment is a crying need in our time. We've overbuilt the desert waste and so live in fear of fire. Why couldn't we renew a form of the CCC, the Civilian Conservation Corps? When we build new public buildings, maybe we could make sure that they are sound for our environment. Maybe we could make some public buildings laboratories for experimenting with less oil-dependent source of heating and cooling. We spend millions on advanced technical requirements inside college facilities, why not add a bit to it and make them energy-efficient, even energy producing? Why couldn't we build dams and still protect fisheries and produce more hydroelectric power? why couyldn't farm subsidies include ways to use biofuels on the farm to reduce the immense costs of running the machinery?

In a Bible study at Crown Pointe, some of the residents decided that we should look at the book of Acts. Part of its story is the building of community, of a new people with vision and new hope. they even shared their material resources so that, 'no one was in need. " Some of that community building and rebuilding in scripture can motivate us in this new century. The book of Nehemiah is about the construction of the public walls to mark the rebuilding of Jerusalem. Isaiah speaks of mending the breach. We do honor individual achievement, but individuals achievements rest on the shoulders of those who go before us and the social structure that permits us to live and flourish together. Surely we can do better than invest most of technical know-how on ever-sophisticated weapons of death and destruction. It is not good for us to be alone. those words to Adam apply to our roles in society, even in this new century.

Notes on Mt. 6:25-34

1) This passage is a direct assault on Hoosier values, where hard work may well be the highest moral achievement. here hard work isn;t villified, but it is given decidely second place.

2) My sense is in v. 33 that the kingdom should have first place, priorioty, nto the first in a long list of tasks

3)v.34 reminds us that life is nto in our hands alone

4)worry or anxiety is at the center here

5) Is this an assault on money?

6) this starts the phrase little faith when has worry/anxiety added to the span of your lifetime or length of life?

7) do you think about god's providenc3e? Provision?

Notes Is. 49:8-16

I can imagine that the people felt God had forgotten them. If we are correct that this material is exilic or post-exilic, the enemy had won. The temple, the center of the world, the point of access to God, was gone.

God has heard their complaint. God quotes it and responds to it.It is hard to tell is the response is to isrrael or the servant.

We may be in the middle of a piece where the mantle of the servant ahs been taken. The servant is a new Moses for a new exodus, this time, back home.

One could refer to Lamentations to get a good sense of the cry of the people.Indeed tull argues that this section answers the loss of lam. 1;17.

The maternal image jumps out at us. Recall Zion, Jerusalem, the nation, is a widow, or a daughter, in this section

I wonder if a bit of need is here. A nursing mother needs relief with the child.

The milk “lets down.” Nursing mothers speak of that time as a holy moment of serenity in nourishing the new life.this is a good look at the argument style if at this level, how much more so would God.

Patricia Tull has a fine book on this section of Isaiah, Remember the Former Things. See also, Sommer, A Prophet Reads Scripture for more on intertextual readings.See the good reflections in the NIB at 432.Brevard childs has a good recent commentary on Isaiah with intertextual nods

On this Trinity Sunday, the readings ask us to explore God as creator. Many of us find clear traces of God in creation, but its cruelty alarms us. Creation is an act of giving, of making space for others. God assesses it, and evaluates the work as good. This is a fundamental difference with a number of other religions. We do not seek to place the spiritual realm above this good creation. We find traces of God in this world, so we do not flee from it but love and care for it.

God is orderly but offers freedom. For the rabbis, this is essential to fight the Babylonian creation story as one of conflict between the gods. This is a harmonious account, where God’s word alone is the active agent, not bloodshed. The clear aim of creation is life, to fill the empty wasteland. God is not a God of death, but a God of life. Almost immediately, God creates life. God makes that life self-generating over the generations. Life will create life. God does not care for a world devoid of life. We used to speak of providence a good bit. God creates the conditions for life to continue and maintain itself. DNA arranges 4 elements: carbon, oxygen, nitrogen and hydrogen into four proteins that pair up. All life is connected by the patterns of those pairs.

Even with the careful distinctions God makes, we see a God of connection. God continues to relate to creation. In our doctrine, God continues to labor over creation, to allow it to continue against the continuing threats of disintegration and chaos. To the rabbis, God’s orderliness is a clue to moral life. Chaos is a threat to moral life. God overcomes chaos. God did not make the world a mess (Carol Reger). Creation is a sign for us to keep order and harmony within our own personal and social structures. The rabbis also said what is last in operation is first in intention. Since we are the last living beings, perhaps we were firs tin intention. Earth permits human life. It does not have to be so. The earth could be a lifeless rock like the other planets in our solar system. Earth’s delicate balance permits life and permits human life. Not only did God give space for creation. God gives creation room to develop, room to grow.

God is artistic. The first thing God does with the earth is to give it form. God uses basic forms of symmetry for many living things. Look at the crystalline structure of rock, what allows a diamond to gleam so beautifully. At the same time, God obviously has created the conditions for a remarkable diversity of color, of shape and size. Out of a small number of elements, god has created the processes for a constant dance of light and color, shapes and sizes.

God respects and enjoys all of creation. One tool of help is built into the first story of creation, the Sabbath. Again, if Sabbath is the culmination of the week of creation then it is God’s intention to create all of this to give space and room to enjoy it. As the Psalmist reminds us, what are human beings in significance when we look at the great expanse of the universe? Yet, out of the entire universe, we know that God granted us the obligation to tend this earthly garden to the best of our ability. For barely a few thousand years of civilization, God marks us out for this task. Somehow out of all the cosmos, Jesus Christ represents the divine for us on this small marble of a planet. God finds it worthwhile to offer us a chance out of the mess we make of the world entrusted to us. God is willing to exert much energy, creativity, and effort on us in all of creation.

Pentecost Sermon Jn.20:19-23, Num 11

We usually read the story of Pentecost, but I decided to use the other readings, as we know the story well. Actually, I could not face another reading of the Acts account this year. In John, Pentecost comes right after Easter. The Risen Jesus breathed the Spirit of new life into the disciples, just as God breathed life into Adam in Genesis 2, just as the breath of resurrection life entered into Jesus. Recall that the word for Spirit is the same as breeze, air, or breath. In other words, Jesus inspirited them. Jesus had died demonstrating the depth of God’s forgiveness. After the resurrection, he extends the gift. Forgiveness is a Pentecost moment, a classic spiritual activity for the new life of the Spirit. It certainly seems to be of a spiritual quality, as the spirit of revenge seems to come much more naturally to us. It is a great example of Christians being reformed to become different types of human beings. Almost immediately Adam’s descendant, Lamech, swears revenge seven times. We are called to be agents of forgiveness seventy times seven. Forgiveness breathes the spirit of new life into a relationship dying from neglect or hurt.

For the former slaves, power was the whip and enforced labor. It was control. Moses is ready to burn out, as he feels responsible for everything that happens. His feelings are similar to overtaxed mothers. They continued the idea of power as a limited resource as one person goes off to Moses to tell of the prophetic words of Medad and Eldad. Joshua is in line. This threat must be stopped. For him power is a zero-sum game of winners and losers. Power divided is power lost for him. Moses knows better. Through the Spirt we see that God is interested in living freedom, not the dead hand of control. God is a comforter, a helper, an advocate for us, not against our growth and maturation.

The Spirit’s idea of power is more democratic, in order to teach them to become free adults. Spirit does not stand on ceremony, the Book of Order, or position. It opens up for everybody. We do not know why Eldad and Medad are not where they are supposed to be. Medad and Eldad both names have the sense of receiving love and affection. Those names are telling, as we see that God’s love is not reserved especially for a chosen few but liberally spreads out to everyone. The spirit is generous and open.

Moses felt all alone. For us, God serves as that nursing father who continues to nourish us and support us in our needs. In Communion we receive a form of manna. The Spirit is democratic as Communion. The spirit of God does not always come in tongues of fire, but our tongues taste and receive the bread and the cup. Our wing of the church holds that the spirit brings us into the presence of the living Christ. We ascend toward God; we are lifted up into heart of this sacrament. A nurse doesn’t offer cure, as much as a nurse cares us into restored health. In that sense Communion is medicine for sin-sick souls but also nurses us along in our walk toward a new spirited life. Communion is emblematic of forgiveness, as Jesus started it before his death for forgiveness of sins. Forgiveness has to be part of life as it is lived, not only a memory in the prayers this morning. We need to be nursed along in living better, as we seem to be addicted to unhealthy and unhelpful patterns. So we get nursed along in forgiving and being forgiven. When we receive Communion, we are all Medad and Eldad, as we are loved ones, loved by the God of the universe. In Communion, we see that everyone, no matter their position, no matter who they are, shares the love of the Spirit of God. In baptism, we are all recipients of gifts and fruit of the Spirit.

Acclivity Sermon, 5/4 Jn. 17:1-11, I Peter 5:6-11

We hear folks say the world is in decline, going downhill, or straight to hell, is how one usually hears it. We see it in vulgarity, lowest common denominator approaches in ads and culture. On the other hand, so many things improve: health care, equality, environmental concern If we consider the world on an upward or slope or a downhill slide, it’s a bit of an indicator about our faith stance. Acclivity is a word I found in a crossword: on an upward path. The path to God is pictured as an ascent, up, up, and away.

Ascension Day is 40 days after Easter on a Thursday, so we rarely touch on it in Sunday worship. In its way, it is the last stage of Easter. It must have been hard to accept having Jesus back for 40 days and then have him leave them again. The ascension does mean that Jesus is not in our space any longer. John Calvin sarcastically wrote that the God of all creation should not be viewed as needing a cottage among the planets. Luke speaks of Jesus in a cloud, a biblical symbol for the elusive presence of God. The two speakers reflect resurrection tradition but also the idea that 2 witnesses were needed in the Bible. For the early church to ascend into the presence of God, in the position of authority was the ultimate vindication of the life and work of Jesus. The ascension is particularly moving when we consider it as the opposite of the descent into hell. There Jesus is with us even in the darkness of burial. If we take the idea of descent into hell even more fully, even in the remote world of hell, it cannot be fully absent from the light of Jesus Christ.

Jesus closes his goodbye to the disciples with a long prayer. Jesus has a chance for his last say to the disciples. It’s not in his hands anymore, but he holds his life, and their lives, into the presence of God. Prayer takes what happens to us and lifts it up to the presence of God. Prayer links Jesus to God and links events on earth to plans in heaven. Prayer lifts us up as well. It wraps the commonplace into letters to God. The sheer act of prayer reminds us that we are not in this life alone, so it allays some of the anxiety that Peter wants to protect for us.

Living as Peter requests requires us to keep our eyes on the way of Jesus Christ, the upward way toward our fulfillment and God’s pleasure. First, he even finds a reason to look up within suffering. Again, Jesus Christ, the abandoned one, sits at the right hand of God. Second, things look up when we stay alert here.. Humble yourselves, he says. That does not sound good to most of us, as it sounds suspiciously like humiliate. In the face of God, how can we not be aware of our limits, of being so prone to mistake, especially when we are anxious. Living as best we can here lifts us from earth to the ways of God.. To keep perspective, Peter tells us we need to keep our feet on the ground. I think of climbing up a mountain path, where you need to keep your eyes on the trail, even as you ascend. Peter is aware that evil is predatory, ready to strike, so we need to treat evil accordingly. Yes, we have our ups and downs, but our future lies up in life with God.

Trouble always occurs, for all people, Christian or not. Our passages suggest that we do not have to stay down with our problems. We can rise above them, as we move on an upward glide path toward the ways of God. Jesus knows the depths of our trouble, but he ascended to the right hand of God. Our prayers lift us into that special realm. Finally, Peter tells us that by keeping our feet on the ground, our eyes seek signs of heaven here.