OT Notes Ps. 148, I Sam. 2:18-20, 26 for 12/30

Ps.148

1) this fits with the hymns with lines such as “let heven and nature sing.”

2) Sea monsters catch my attention. We meet tannin, the dragon/serpent. I lean decisively toward the mythic here and detect the echoes of ancient Near East religious accounts that reach back to the chaos of their creation accounts. the deep, tehom, is related to the great void as in tohu and bohu of Gen. 1. We may be in the realm of the response to Job where the fearsome beast is of similar station to other wild creatures in this account. See Jon Levenson for a good look at the persistence of chaos as evil in the biblical architecture.

3) Clearly this is a clarion call to the connected nature of the created world. It could be a good text for evolution Sunday initiative of the Clergy Letter project in February as well.

4)  At the end, horn is a symbol of strength and power. Think of the oak branch held by the dwarf prince in the new move, The Hobbit.

5) the Greeks spoke of the music of the spheres. I would bet that osme musical person has set Hubble space telescope pictures to music.

6) I keep going back to a piece in Interpretation on the costly loss of praise. In contemporary worship, we impose a sense of praise, but it is not evoked. Why is praise so hard to come by in our time?

7) What is particularly human about praise to God?

8) Note the word created in v. 5. Notice the boundary issue. As the new year approaches one could use bara, create, as the movement of something new. Do you think the psalmist is reflecting its language?

I Sam. 2:18-20, 26.

1) we have already worked with Hannah, but this section is easily ignored. Someone with some artistic flai could do a compassionate first person account of her thoughts and feelings making and presenting the robe and then saying goodby until next year. A lot of us said goodbye to family after we feel as if they hjust came in during the holidays, so it oculd be a most heart-redning aspect of the sermon if one so chose.

2) Hannah sacrificed her son to the temple service. Like a grandma catching up with growth in mittens, she makes his linen ephod, a sort of priestly apron for him, but the ephod is more ceremonial and elaborate in the description that I am sure all have memorized in Ex. 285-14. My Polish ancestors would give a huge shirt to a child and say, “for growth.” the image is a good one, what do we grow into?

3) Even though Eli is a failed priest in some respects, think Diary of a country Priest, the blessing is certainly is a potent one for Elkanah and Hannah.

4) Although it is skipped, one could extend the reading into a consideration of being a parent. Look to Home by Marilynne Robinson for a fine sue of the thought.,

5) Please note the similarity to the description of Samuel and the boy Jesus by Luke at the end of ch. 2.

6) given CT shooting, this could be the start of an excellent view on our hopes for children and their rearing and education.

Christmas Eve Sermon Notes 2012

Ann Weems wrote: "we wait in December darkness." .Many of us have ambivalent feelings at Christmas. Try as we might, we keep looking for more in the season than anything is capable of giving. What helped the Grinch who stole Christmas was the realization that Christmas was not wrapped up in the tinsel, but that the tinsel was a shining symbol of people able to celebrate the season of love and giving. John goes beyond Bethlehem in his account of the Incarnation and echoes Genesis and goes back to the beginning of , well, everything. He says that the wisdom, the plan, the vision of God for creation is present in this Jesus born on some long ago far away day we designate as Christmas John uses the great Christmas image of darkness that fits us perfectly as the days are just starting to grow longer now in the bleak winter. Bill Adams told a story years ago about a Christmas pageant where the shepherds processed, elegantly clad in flannel bathrobes and towel headdress. One moved to Joseph and said, well Joe when do you pass out the cigars. People tried to stifle their laughter but that only made it worse. The angel above the scene fell off her chair and took all of the sets with her. The only thing of the pageant that survived was the light bulb placed in the manger to represent the light of the world.
 
God chooses to make a dwelling, a place to stay, to rest, inside a human being named Jesus, one of us. God works from the inside out. God dwelt among us, not far off, but within our condition. Ann Weems also wrote: 'in each human heart lies a Bethlehem." In being born in Bethlehem, Christ allows Bethlehem, as the hymn says, to be born in us this day. I love how it imagines us as mangers:. when meek souls shall receive him still-the dear child enters in. …abide in us, O Lord Emmanuel. It imagines that while Jesus had no room in the inn, we provide plenty of room for Jesus within us and among us in the manger we call church.
Soldiers in harm's way miss the home fires of simple family gatherings and traditions and conjure up the memories frame by frame in their minds. They think of the two year old who gets an expensive present and then plays with the box.
 
Andy Rooney said that one of the most glorious messes ever made is on the living room floor on Christmas...don't clean it up too quickly. Yes, the holidays can be messy, a lot like a stable, perhaps. We all live within a manger of grace, of God's good gifts to us. All of us are shepherds who witness to the miracle once more. We are called to tend the Christmas spirit, that moves from Grinch to human being, from Scrooge to Uncle Scrooge. Cynthia Rigby  said "in particular moments finite creatures realize their participation in the artistry of God." Lots of folks perform artistry at the table, with decorations, with wrappings of presents. Of greater skill would be those who open our tight fists to generosity, to extend an open hand in greeting, to embrace the prodigal returned home.

We speak easily of Christ in our hearts. The incarnation is not about feelings alone but the very matrix of life. Auden wrote remember in a stable, for once in our lives, everyone became a You and no one an it. The people in the manger scenes glow because they reflect the best of human beings and then let their light shine. We arrive here, swathed in the early evening darkness. Rest and reflect in the arc of the readings of god’s engagement with this good earth. Leave bathed in the light of these words, these melodies. God bless the singing and playing of Silent Night by candlelight. No matter how cold the evening, it warms the heart and gives us some light along the way.   May all of us honor the Christ within, the God with us, in this season.

Sermon Notes Lk 1:45-55, Micah 5 12/23

Off and on, I have been working on essays on the Book of the Twelve, the so called Minor Prophets. So we come to Micah. This is one of the earliest linkages of a messiah figure with peace. How I crave peace. I was born after the right after the Korean conflict, so Vietnam dominated our childhood.How I hoped that the new millennium would presage better days, and that was met with 9/11. We are finally out of Iraq and hope to be out of Afghanistan in a couple more years, and we live with a drumbeat of domestic massacres.. I can go with an interpretation that does see peace emerging from the birthplace of David, but it could also be that peace will not emerge full blown from the halls of power, Jerusalem, Washington D.C. or Beijing, but could grow from a small place of little account. After all, it is little Cindy Lou who melts the heart of the Grinch. Peace is both personal and structural, private and public. Seemingly small acts can  help create a more peaceful world.At the same time, how my heart leapt when the last U.S. soldier left Iraq. Even though ti left a sour taste in my mouth, how relieved I was when the last soldier left the seemingly endless struggle of Vietnam.I still thrill to see the old pictures of soldiers sweeping folks up in their arms when WWII was over.    

Mary certainly has an ambivalent reaction to peace. to find some peace, she goes off to visit her expectant cousin Elizabeth.Even Micah might regard them as hillbillies.She avoids the swirl of talk that would accompany a story of a miracle birth.She may well need some peace and quiet to come to grips with the birth. All expectant parents do, as the enormity of the gift hits them, but can you imagine the pressures weighing on her?>

Her prayer is not a peaceful one in the sense of absence of conflict between the classes. She envisions a more peaceful age in the broaders sense of shalom. Not for Mary is the sweet inner peace we so crave. Not for Mary is the pregnant hope that we can all get along. To Mary, she represents a new order for the ages, a slogan on our money. She wants reversal; she sounds like a first century member of Occupy Jerusalem. She sees the child to be born to her as the emblem of people being treated the way they should be: with dignity and respect. Mary seems less enamored of the idea of Scrooge finding generosity than of the Tiny Tims of the world rising up. Major change undergirds this prayer of hers.My guess is that she would see justice being the pre-condition for peace, not peaceful hearts sowing seeds for justice.For Mary the times they are a changing, a train;s a coming.

Still, inner peace too is part of shalom, I think, as a condition for living out the days we have to us in a full way.Surely the path of Jesus Christ is a path of peace.Many Jews hold that Messiah will come to usher in a time of peace, so the First Advent for some of our Jewish spiritual relations reflects our second Advent vision.Mary;s son was committed to peace, even as he seemed to court conflict with his message, and it would lead to the cross. In that sense, the shadow of the cross obscures the light of the manger. All of the bloodshed in our time soaks the hay around the creche. Silent Night beckons, for quiet within,and the guns to be stilled together.

12/21 Friday Column

My favorite Christmas song is O Holy Night. i got to hear pieces of it being rehearsed for our Christmas eve lessons and carols service. I heard it after the horrors of last Friday, so the words, “ the weary world rejoices” jumped out at me this year. We get weary after working hard for a long time with little tangible result. It’s a combination of being physically and emotionally spent.
Christmas is a time of balm and restoration for the weary. Our two daughters came to visit this week, so we had an early Christmas set of celebrations. Our new son-in-law came as well, so I got to learn to be more open for the holidays. Our younger daughter reminded me that I had better prepare a stocking for him as well as the girls, and he was most helpful in telling of some likes and dislikes, as I dislike having people feel pressured , and I like to get them presents that they may well appreciate and enjoy.

Of course expectations of Christmas perfection often collide with reality. While they were out watching the Hobbit, I made dinner and had two grease fires due to the goose and a crack in my roasting pan.I had more smoke going on than  teenagers covering up weed with incense in their room. Families have an innate capacity of pressing buttons, so visits are often fraught with tension and hurt feelings. Attic gremlins turn lights into constricted  balls of wire. In bad economic times, we may share Clark Griswold’s disappointment that a hoped for christmas bonus is the apple butter of the month club.Christmas dinner tastes a bit bitter when we look at the empty places around the table.We may even wear a hideous Christmas sweater to commemorate the addled aunt who gave it years ago.Over the years we have been careful to add some traditions in our household. We honor our different ethnic traditions; we have foods that have a religious significance; the girls get a book and a T-shirt in their stocking.Christmas music fills the house, now often from their ipods. We usually read some Christmas picture books, and I recited one on the way to Effingham in the windstorm that hit yesterday afternoon.  

The Holy Family has been frozen in our minds in Christmas cards, creches, and carols. Our families rarely approach that image of calm and peace.If we take the Incarnation seriously, Jesus was born into a regular family, with all of the stresses, strains, joys, and laughter of any family.As Emmanuel, God with us,Jesus does represent the divine “veiled in flesh.” At the same time, the Incarnation is being enmeshed with what we go through in life. it is not God in an elaborate masquerade for the holiday.Living with us, living a human life, Jesus can both sympathize and empathize with us.

Another carol buzzing about in my mind is O Little Town. Luke’s story says that there was no room in the inn. They were then forced to use a feeding trough for a cradle. The lyrics of the carol ask us to be living mangers, our lives the Nativity scene. Christmas is all about the birth of the new. To what extent do we provide hospitality for the Christmas spirit, the presence of the divine inside of us. The Grinches of Fox news look to create a problem every Christmas with various greetings of the season. Rather, the point should be the degree to which we learn and open hospitality to the presence of God in our own spirits and in our social spaces.This Christmas, my prayer would be for us to see ourselves and each other as mangers for the “ Christ to be born in us today...to abide with us.”

Ps. 80:1-7 OT notes

Ps. 80:1-7
why do we not preach on psalms more?
1) save us-This could be a good time to consider the depth of the word salvation. Woith the feast of the Incarnation approaching, it could be a good time to talk about its senses in this world, as well as the world to come.enthroned upon the cherubim-ark image from Ex. 25, is it a cosmic one as well?.

2) restore- this is repeated, always an important sign in Hebrew. face shine note how it works off the Aaronic blessing

3) fed with bread of tears is a most arresting image-who is fed with that bread right now?

4) angry=  smoke pouring out of nostrils (like a bull/dragon?) We moderns would not deign to use such a natural image, would we? What are some images of God that we use that may be sneered at as primitive in the future?How do you think God would be smoking mad with prayers? How do you interpret the angry/smoking hot God today? would it be their content or the context, as in Amos of prayers without justice?

5)Scorn in v. 6 is from Syriac, while the Hebrew would be  contention or strife (madon) a favored word in Proverbs..

6) One could play a bit with Asaph and maybe even make up a good story.

7) Limburg reminded me that the shepherd image is frequent in the Asaph psalms in the the seventies in particular.

Micah 5:2-5 notes

Micah 5:2-5  second cut
We should be reminded that this passage is maddening to translate, and we deal with the push to link it to christmas with the Matthew citation for the Magi.
1)As usual in apocalyptic  pieces, this description of a better future is in contrast to issues of punishment and judgment, even if it is not full blown apocalyptic visionary work. I suppose that it could be referring to a birth of a royal child as in Is. 7,8. I would tend toward going back to Micah 4’s relation of labor and apply it toward a more apocalyptic birth pangs reading. Not only will pain not last forever, but better times are coming.

2) Of course, one could emphasize that the immense God is one who seems to like to work at small scale. of a Bethlehem.. One could talk of the "butterfly effect"
I am not sure of ephrathah/fruitful. I assume it is a place name, maybe a clan name,but do not grasp it use i here clearly.

3) I don't have a good notion  why mosel=ruler is used and not king. Still God reigns, not kings.Is it reflecting some continuing disquiet with the monarchy, or being sick of the terrible rulers under which they suffer. To dwell securely itself would be a good sermon topic. Be careful to avoid the notion, not in the text, that to dwell securely would mean only some sort of spiritual security. After all shalom=well-being, health, wholeness, not only inner spiritual peace. This will be peace could refer to what just preceded, what will come next,as a demonstrative pointer,or I suppose, both.

4) The shepherd imagery is often used for leaders. This time he will be a "good shepherd.'I don;t know if people have already heard too much about the shepherd image or not, especially its political connotations/. I would note that this messianic text does not use hte word in the passage. Some would read v.2 as of old as referring to Jesus, maybe even pre-existence and not the promise itself.

5) In history this goes back to David, around 300 years. Christians see it as taking 700 years to come to pass. I see a tinge of exilic material here, but that will not happen for some time, unless we are seeing some insertions over time.

6) I tend to read this less as direct prophecy of Jesus and more in line with the apocalyptic themes in 4:9-10, for instance, as Paul does in Rom. 8 It uses the pain of birth as a prelude to a miracle to come.

7) One could look at Bethlehem, house of bread. A then and now approach could work. One could plumb its association with David and Ruth

8) The way we approach this text is a great example that we have the world of context, when this was composed and edited, but it also creates a world within its pages as well that frees it from context, but we alos read the words from our vantage pt, and that changes the reading, so there is the world behind the text, the world of the text, and the world in front of the text.  

We are in ancient territory here, the late eighth century. perhaps he was working at the same time as early Isaiah material. His work is known to Jeremiah (see 26:18-19).

Sermon notes Dec. 16-Zeph. 3;`14-20, Phil. 4:4-7, Is.12

Dec. 16, 2012 Zeph. 3:14-20 Phil. 4:4-7, Is. 12
End time material has a sunny side as well as one of foreboding, with a Advent joy and Advent hope Presbyterians may be vulnerable to the advances of right wing views on the end times, or maybe better put the consummation of God’s hopes, God’s vision for creation for a couple of reasons. One we don’t engage in Bible Study nearly enough, so we feel we are shaky ground. Two, we do not have the narrative overlay, the cookbook setting for  end times material that others embrace. In fact our southern branch declared such an approach to be heresy. Third,  we have not done a good job in getting folks a framework for apocalyptic material, and indeed, often ignore it when it does appear in the readings.

When we are thinking more of the infant Jesus  in our hearts and minds, I love one way to read a line in Zephaniah. with serious translation issues. It could mean that God will quiet you in his love. Immediately, I imagine a parent soothing a squalling infant, the very thing that the swaddling is supposed to help.(remember the look on the first Lady’s face when the President calmed a squalling infant?) Another way to read and translate the passage would be as the NRSV does, to renew us in the love of God.Either way, is a wonderful Advent image, to be quieted in our hectic pace. We could also see this time as starting to grasp a love of abundance, that flows and flows, with no end in sight, instead of our careful micrometer measurements of a size of hearts we fear grows two sizes too large instead of being too small for our lives.

The Incarnation is a proof of how good delight sin humanity. Here the Creator of all, the bringer of the end times as new beginning lives in a newborn at Christmas time. At this time of year, hear those words fully. God delights in us. god delights in each one of us. We are a gift to God, not only gifts from God. that may be one of the best spiritual presents we can receive, to hear and accept this verse that closes the vision of Zephaniah. His name is a bit obscure. He could be a visionary of things hidden by god, but this can also mean kept for safe keeping, treasured. I think of company coming in our house that if we touched something for them them it was on pain of death. That may well of been my introduction to the sacred, those guest towels, those things set out for company.

Phil 4:4-7 the Lord is near.We could take that to mean that the consummation of all things is on the calendar, or that the presence of God is as close as every breath.We can take it as an extension of the very notion of Emmanuel, god with us, in every condition of our lives, and in its most apparent in the birth of Jesus.The Lord is near to calm and quiet unquiet souls with noisy, frenetic lives. I p[icture Mary and joseph calming the babe of Behtlehem. I picture god saying there , there to us in the everlasting arms.

Is. 12 draw water with joy from the well of salvation.See the image of abundance there;imagine  the water is pure and deep and refreshing.The well of salvation is  Christmas spirit.We could use the mighty Mississippi down the hill from us, big enough to support barges.We then canuse the other translation of Zephaniah, to be renewed in god’s love.

Devotions week of Dec 16

Sunday Is. 12 ends the first section of the prophet’s words with a wonderful sort of hymn. I love the image of drawing deep from the well of salvation. Can’t you picture a well in a desrt oasis? You draw the bucket into the bracing water and lift it up to bring life in the dry ife. What dry parts of your soul does salvation quench?

Monday-Quiet pervades our mental picture of Bethlehem, but we are surrounded by noise and confusion at this time of year.Msay I suggest getting disciplined about carving out some quiet time during Advent to allow yourself to commune with god, your thoughts, the best parts of yourself.A quiet environment can help quiet the drumbeat of anxiety that seems to pervade life today.

Tuesday-I just notice how the first three chapters of Luke build on the political and religious scene, but the special attention to the rulers. I almost imagine it as a shot from the air with a voiceover and then settling in on Bethlehem or Nazareth. Luke adds more and more detail to the political context of the life and mission of the Baptist and of Jesus. Take a look at the political and religious context of when and where you were born and where you have lived through continuity and change over the years.

Wednesday-Phil 4:4-7 is a good reading for Advent.Let’s just take the verse, the Lord is near. It could be taken to mean near in time, but it could also mean near in locale. Indeed with the Incarnation and the indwelling spirit, we could say that the presence of the Lord is as near as our next breath.We then have no need for a second Advent as it is present with us in our baptismal life.

Thursday-Let’s look at some more boring biblical detail, Matthew’s deivison of the ancestors of Jesus.Some important figures are there,including well known women with involving stories. this year I am struck by names that barely register at all in v13-16, after the deportation to Babylon.We only know that Matthan is the grandfather of Joseph, and the name means gift or hope of the Lord. yes Jesus has royal lineage, but his lineage is also quite quotidian.In other words, jesus bears the great and the seemingly insignificant into his ancestry, for God love without partiality.

Friday-Steve Shoemaker posted a short poem on Facebook on the manger recently. It reminded me that the word we translate as inn, is closer to guest room, the upper room of the Last Supper. The one known to be the bread of life was laid in a feeding trough for animals. He was placed there for there was not guest room, a room where the first Communion would be held.Look again at O Little child of Bethlehem and ask yourself how we act as mangers for the presence of Christ. If that is accepted, how to we feed others?

Saturday-I got the urge to review some christmas picture books and the one I checked out was A Christmas Tree for Pym. I  love the little girl’s desire for a Christmas tree to brighten their woodland cottage and her use of nature to decorate it; how they come to grips with the absence of her mother,how they both grow. What are   favorite Christmas picture books or stories?

Friday Column-quick response to the school massacre.

As I was going to send my column to the office, the news broke about a school shooting back East. Once again anguished cries of loss break our Advent season. The birth of Jesus led to the slaughter of the innocents in Matthew. Once again, their screams resound and drown out the songs of peace, even from the angels.

Obviously, we love guns in this county more than we love our children. The church, the very emblem of peace in a time of peace, will sit silent as usual. Heaven forfend that the NRA becomes offended. We may offer needful words of grief, even solace and comfort. I don’t feel that at the moment. I feel cold rage at the spasm of murders that we permit to continue year after year. No country approaches ours in this type of bloodletting that seems to becoming routine.

Personally, I am convinced that the dissent had it right in its opposition to the Supreme ‘court discovering a person's right to bear arms under the Second amendment. Yet, it is now the law of the land. Still, we may not be able then to ban certain classes of weapons, surely we can regulate them more effectively than we currently do. I realize that the political radical right has edged toward the mainstream. I realize that the fantasy many carry about a militia would be turned against our own democratically elected government. Gun culture undercuts our common security, our general welfare, our domestic tranquility of the constitution's preamble.

My prayer life moves toward cursing psalms and psalms of lament, of pain, such as the basic Ps. 13. I need to be reminded that God can hear every part of my life, including negative, fierce emotions and thoughts. Even the worst of our personal feelings can be wrapped in an envelope of prayer. Otherwise, I fear for my very soul.

I am guessing that the assailant was mentally ill. For me, then, forgiveness isn’t as much of an issue as he did not make rational choices. So the moral calculus of fault and personal responsibility is not likely at play. When are we going to come to the conclusion to keep guns out of the hands of the mentally unstable? I do not want us to return to the days of warehousing the mentally ill. Yet, we have neglected our duty to replace the old large scale facilities with smaller, more humane facilities. A good fraction of our homeless population is mentally ill. We have gotten to the point where our basic line of mental health delivery is the jail.It is virtually impossible for family members or friends to commit someone to a facility. States such as Virginia have loosened the level of proof a bit for people who are not operating  in a way that permits them to be able to function in society. Medications are a good start but we rely on them without sufficient care for their eventual health and for security for society.

Once again political leaders will rally and act as pastors to a broken hearted people; memorials will be created. We will see the pictures of the young lives snuffed out on our screens for a while. That storm will pass. We know full well that another one will come, sooner rather than later.I doubt that this latest massacre will lead to revulsion where we finally say that enough is enough. We will continue to  bury children as sacrifices before the idol worship of guns. We will all require a forgiving God of the social sin of gun violence that mars our homes, streets, and schools every day. For the rest of the season, may the guns go silent. May people be able to sleep in safety and security to honor the Prince of Peace.

OT Notes Dec. 16 Zeph. 3:14-20

Zephaniah=hidden/protected/kept safe by god

3:15 the Lord is in your midst has it returned?) Advent looks toward the incarnation, the Lord in the midst of human life itself.the judgemnets are taken away and better times, restoration is ahead
(Most consider the end of Zeph to be a later piece). Like so many apocalyptic  books, Zephaniah does not end on a downbeat note.I am fascinated how differently v.17 will quiet you or be silent or renew you in his love.3:17 is translated.in the masoretic text has be silent in love, by seeing the root as hrs,and the NIV has to quiet you in love, but the NRSV has renew you in love, by going with the Greek translation that assume hds. (In Hebrew script, the r is rounded just as in English script, but the d is written at a  ninety degree angle, and sometimes they can easily be mistaken for each other).. Zephaniah's name may have the sense of God sheltering us.  Yes, we can be  in difficult times, but it does not always have to be that way. End times vision give purpose, a goal, a compass point to our travels. When your heart gets broken, you are engulfed by the sheer weight of pain. You cannot imagine that you will feel better again. You will. One day you will be able to rejoice again, to see the rainbow and not only the rain, again. Ministry needs a future orientation, beyond the brute tyranny of the way things are but imagine the way things could or should be. Is v. could be, what if. It is good not to live in the future, but the future does give us direction and energy to work toward its shape. Bonhoeffer said "the will of God is not a system of rules established at the outset, but a living will, the grace of God that is new every morning."

I love this image of God rejoicing, even singing a song over us. think of it . I think of Wisdom rejoicing in Prov. 8   .God rejoices over you.  Is it classical or country, Mozart or Mellencamp? Does heaven sing Christmas carols? God rejoices over us when we are doing good, and for the sheer unique fact of your existence.

I sometimes, well often,  picture God as basically disappointed in me and the church in general, so I would picture God singling laments or the divine equivalent of a break up song. Does the music have words? What type of music is it?  So then, when does God sing the blues? Song lifts us beyond mere prose; the music lifts us to a different place. The translation in the next line is uncertain. The NIV has God to quiet us, like a mother soothing a hurt child, there, there, or is God quiet, silent, by no longer issuing condemnation, or even the quiet of people comfortable with each other? In the Greek translation it is renewing in God's love? How does that work? Does Advent serve to renew God's love? Maybe in our tired struggles to stay afloat instead of being overwhelmed, we get the strength we need when we no longer can do it all on our own.

I notice that many visions of the future are dystopian. The future is a projection screen for our fears, our dread, as well ashopes and dreams.In our younger daughter’s college class, one can take classes that use zombies as a theme. What to do in a zombie apocalypse is familiar in the pop culture world. So many Halloween costumes basically make death worthy of ridicule. I do wonder about the hold the living dead seem to have in popular culture. is it a projection that we suspect we are not living fully or well?

Our passage moves from the hiding impulse of shame to the public sense of being admired in the outside world. Please notice who is part of the festival parade: the lame and the outcast. We are getting a picture of membership in the messianic banquet, no?     Nogalski asks (7490 if the ending is about the end of the punishments/disasters or the mourning over them. (then see MIc.4:6-7 and p. 750).

this section marks another instance of working with Lady/Dame Zion material.

Is. 12 Notes for Dec. 16

1) See Patricia Tull’s wonderful commentary in the Smyth and Helwys series on Isaiah. The open format suits her, plus she writes exceedingly well. She is alert to intertextual features as an additional factor.Here, (246) she notes a linkage to the Song of the Sea. and Ps. 118:14,21.
2) From early days, the church heard a distinct sound of baptism in v. 3-Baptism as a link to Advent strikes me as an opportunity we rarely use.when I wa son CPM, I was always amazed at how poor the excellent candidates would do on the sacramental portion of their statements of faith, so I would suppose that afflicts congregations as well. In addition, one could work with the image of water in a variety of ways as well, including that water is turning to ice at this time of the year in many places.
3)not be afraid-this uses a fairly rare word for being afraid (pahadu, Ps. 78:53.has become my salvation     Ps. this pslamic allusion provides an opportunity to preach on songs of Advent or songs of Christmas for that matter, and draw some points form the hymns of the season.Again (268) Tull notices that  the voices in this song extend the voice of the seraphs in ch. 6
4) Zion theology is always problematic with its linkage of church and state and such a specific emphasis on the location of divine presence. Where does it continue to show up in our time?
5) Holy One growing in popularity as a name for God-along with the gender neutral pt-why is that do you think?
6) Sukhot has a water ceremony. We call this Tabernacles in English.Recall Peter wanted to build a booth/tabernacle at Transifguration. Is not baby jesus a tabernacle fo rth epresenc eof the divine?
7) this is a song of praise and thanksgiving. I have read pieces on the loss of lament and praise over the years. What of thanksgiving? Is it often perfunctory? Thanksgiving does not come easily to me, and I learned it by reading and rewriting thanksgiving psalms to a small extent.One could also come at it from the opposite angle of complaint by talking about the struggle of drawing up water form a well or preparing people to say thank you when they are not happy with a Christmas present. i saw a commercial where a gentleman goes into blissful reverie just thinking that his teenaged daughter is just a wee bit grateful for her haul of presents.Why are hte new songs of praise so unfailingly dull? Do they not fall into the artistic trap of demanding a certain feeling instead of eliciting it?

Dec. 9 Week Devotions

Sunday December 9-We do not have a given psalm to work from, so i picked the reading from Phil. 1 today.v3 and v. 9 stand out to me today. “I thank God every time I remember you.”  Who can we truly say that about? What would it take for us to be able to say that about our fellow church members?It  concludes “May love overflow more and more.” What a wonderful blessing, as far too often we act as if love has to be measured in small doses that would challenge a careful pharmacist.

Monday- This is taken from Kent Ira Groff’s material on the internet-“Ivan Illich, who trained educators in linguistic and intercultural awareness, writes, "It takes more time and effort and delicacy to learn the silence of a people than to learn its sounds.... The learning of the grammar of silence is an art much more difficult to learn than the grammar of sounds." A Pueblo friend tells me it's the same in her Native culture: listen for the truth by attending to the silences. In a noisy world, spending time praying in honest to God silence is a paradoxical and profound way to practice listening with your neighbor.”

Tuesday-This is a most generous time of year. As we open our pockets to family and friends, we open them to the poor. charity is always a risk as gifts are fungible, and we do not control what folks do with the money. We take the chance that money goes to the “deserving” and undeserving” poor. At this time of year, we wonder if Mary and Joseph had any money for the “inn” and were left in desperate hope that someone would take them in.Ssomeone’s heart and imagination was large enough to offer shelter.

Wednesday-”sleep in heavenly peace.” What are some of the ingredients of peace that allow sound sleep. First could be acceptance of forgiveness. Regrets and guilt dog us all to some degree. God has turned the page from recrimination to reconciliation is a comfort, no? Second, we may realize that not everything is our responsibility. Realizing that in the end, the world is in god’s hands may soften anxiety a bit.

Thursday-While we talk a good game on spiritual quiet time, this is a hectic time of year. We feel pressured and put upon. I have to be careful with the flood of help requests that continue here at church and then go home to requests for help that look like bills with an invoice.It does give me a feeling of purpose and benevolence to help the needy, but my mood soon sours when I deterct claims of demand. My supposed generous heart then shrinks into a microscopic dot.

Friday-Felipe Martinez shared this piece by his friend   Steve Plank-“It seems that waiting/is what I most often do-waiting to feel closer to You,/waiting for my prayer life to mature,/waiting to be spiritual. I wait for others to do what they should,/even when I cannot do what I know I must.” Waiting can be a useless idling, or a time of preparation, sometimes feverish preparation if an expected event is cruising toward us on a shortened calendar.  

Saturday-I started to get some Christmas cards together. The only time I contact some of these folks is at the holiday. I am not sure how long how should send a card when it doesn;t receive a response in a couple of years. Are they the gospel in miniature, as they share good news on note paper? Do we, should, we, include spiritual growth and crises as part of our missives? What sort of messages do you most appreciate? Consider the gospel readings of the Nativity as a Christmas card from heaven itself.

Dec. 9 Sermon Notes Phil. 1:3-11, L. 1:68-78

December 9 Lk. 1:68-78, I Phil 1:3-11
The news on Monday was of a royal Advent, as the beautiful duchess of Cambridge is expecting a child. Christmas is for children, we hear. With all the fuss about children at this time of year, it is especially hard for couples facing infertility. Our prayer in Luke  this morning was a culmination of the birth of John the Baptist to an ordinary  priestly family.For a long time, Elizabeth and Zechariah had planned for and hoped for a family. their family remained the two of them. The years passed. People whispered and sometimes out loud that they must have some secret sin to bring on infertility. Now in their old age, Elizabeth  was expecting.Their son’s  name is the male form of Hannah, Grace, Favor, whom we read not long ago. While the people had spoken ill of them, they do at least share in the joy of now having a miracle child.In Zechariah-I am always drawn to its beautiful closing words. Zechariah lives out his name because he speaks of God remembering, calling to mind, the promises made to the people, not to this couple alone..

Advent waiting is a curious mixture of active and passive.Of course, we cannot control any divine timetable when the consummation of god’s vision could be announced or seen. At the same time, we are agents for God’s work to make human life more properly human. I think a couple needs a full nine months to adjust to the idea of a new life coming into their lives, especially a couple who have waited as long as Zechariah and Elizabeth. I am the least mechanical person on earth, so figuring out how to get the crib put up with that sliding section was a real challenge for me.

Not long after thanksgiving we have this marvelous expression of thanksgiving for the people of Philippi and repeats the fulsome thanksgiving of last week’s epistle.,This is an appropriate time to give thanks for you at Alton, First. A good Advent idea is thinking about spiritual and relationship gifts we can give each other. A great gift idea is an expression of thanks to folks in life not only for what they do, but for who they are. In a new movie Perks of Being a Wallflower, the lead , Charlie, is astonished when his new friends propose a toast to him. “What did I do?”

At the end of his magnificent prayer, Zechariah speaks of  the tender mercies of our God. (see the great film Tender Mercies). So often, our deepest conception of God is a harsh one. Zechariah’s God notices both large scale injustice and the cries of a couple. We so want the holiday season to be happy and bright, but death does not take a holiday. He envisions his son helping to give light to those who sit in darkness, those  in the shadow of death. Last week we sang of death’s dark shadow being put to flight , finally, he prays to guide our feet in the way of peace. For inner peace, we rush about and refuse to find a moment for spiritual respite or comfort.We click on the news and hear of war and rumors of war constantly, including the country where Jesus lived. A yearning for peace in its various guises is part of Advent preparation.In this season of peace we continue at war in Afghanistan even as we are now mercifully extricated form Iraq. the land of Jesus continues to live in the shadow of violence and death every single day.How we pray for the Advent of peace. when we seem unable to find its path, may the light of the God of peace help us to discover the path to the most tender of mercies, peace.

Friday column Advent 2

Advent is a dual season of the church year. One part looks toward the advent, the arrival, of god’s vision for the world coming into sharper focus. The other element, of course, is the first Advent, the arrival of Jesus, an event most Christians celebrate on December 25^th. Older, more established Protestant denominations, along with our Roman Catholic sisters and brothers, do not try to put our calendar on to the divine timetable. Our trouble is that American religious expression has a decided overlay of just such a reading of Scripture that sees a timetable emerge from disparate Scriptural passages. Older religious American expression finds itself in a position where they feel defensive about a traditional biblical interpretation as opposed to a relatively novel approach to trying to predict “the end times.” I will be blunt. All such predictions have been wrong, but that signal embarrassment does not stop folks from continuing to play the game. It is picked up in secular culture with the Mayan calendar guess that this year will mark time’send.

Instead of fanciful crystal ball predictions, mainstream Christians emphasize, with the gospels, that the advent of Jesus marks the decisive turn of history. All apocalyptic material means is an unveiling, a lifting of the lid of history, a revelation. The end is the culmination of the vision of god, not its annihilation. Almost all Scriptural references are images that speak of the dislocation of the death knell of the old way of the world, and the thrilling novelty of restoration and the shock of the new of the divine vision being played out more fully in our world.

In that sense, so many of our beloved Christmas stories are revelations about the way God would want the world to be. They are apocalyptic stories. I watched a lot of the Christmas shows when I was a child, and even now sometimes. The progenitor of all of them is A Christmas Carol ( I still like the 1951 version the best).  Scrooge’s dream is an apocalyptic vision that takes in the past, the present, and the future. Scrooge sees  the world in a new way and is converted to living out that vision.

The Grinch lives on isolation and envy of happiness, as his heart is two sizes too small. The innocence of a child melts that cold heart and allows it to grow four sizes too big.

Even Rudolph is a lesson in tolerance and acceptance of differences as the3 biased undergo a conversion. Of course, a Charlie Brown Christmas is a direct look at the Christmas blues, how even a pathetic tree can be made glorious, and even presents the gospel itself with Linus under a spotlight.

All of these cultural touchstones are effective pieces of the gospel. They provide us a way to look into our own lives and the way we could live through the safe mirror of fiction, especially children’s stories. For me, they give better insight into the biblical picture of god’s designs for our world than the charts and fevered code breaking of those who gleefully await an end of the world as we know it (with a bow to REM).

The stores have been filled with Christmas music, and at least two local stations have been playing carols since Thanksgiving. May I suggest a careful look at O Little Town of Bethlehem. Read or listen carefully to the last two verses. Look at how it imagines the second advent of Christ being intensely personal, as being born again in us. It imagines us as walking mangers, for Emmanuel, God with us. Now there is an apocalyptic vision.

Sermon Notes first sunday Advent Lk. 21:25-36

Dec. 2, First Sunday in Advent Lk. 21; 25-36
Here we are at the start of the church year, in the midst of the holiday season. In I Thes. we just heard Paul write, “how can we thank you enough.” It sounds like a family hoping for everyone to be able to get together for the holidays. Part of our holiday preparations is to try to make things nice for a family gathering. So often, we make things beautiful for company, but we bring out the everyday materials for family. At the holidays, family get treated as honored guests, and maybe that is the way it should be.We keep checking the time, even though we know when to expect them. maybe we haunt the airport and keep checking the flight status on the boards.After 2000 years of waiting for God’s purposes to come to fruition, it is difficult indeed to yearn for it. Yet yearn for the vision of a better world remains with us still. (for what should we be ungrateful)

Again , we heard in Luke: do not be weighed down by dissipations and worries, yet be alert.Being weighed down dampens our senses and thoughts. We get blinded by all of our preparations and parties to the point of christmas. Advent itself barely registers on our awareness. Again, Advent is the start of the church year. So it looks to the Second Advent of Christ when the new creation comes into view, and the first Advent of Christmas. We start the church year with a look toward the advent of Christ.

We often give short shrift to the apocalyptic material at the beginning and end of the church year. We so want to bring in  the story of Christmas and avoid the fearsome descriptions of apocalyptic material. We may want Christmas songs in church to match the secular celebration of Christmas that seems to start right after Thanksgiving to match at least two local FM stations. I want to be clear here. In my view, the birth of Jesus Christ is an end time event in Scripture. it marks the closing of a chapter of human history and the dawn of a new age, a divine opening. the new age is pictured with what becomes a familiar vocabulary of ages of Scripture to announce the shaking up of the old and expected ways of doing things when God’s vision  enters the scene. We are less familiar with the material and its vocabulary from other parts of Scripture. Basically, it uses tropes of dark, danger, derailment of the ordinary along with morning light and manifold, manifest presence of God in a new full way. When our children were little they could tell when a dreaded commercial was coming by the music and camera change in the program. When I was young, romantic scenes were signalled by a soft muted trumpet and then the flickers of a candle, a lantern, or a volcano erupting.

At times, the church has played around with trying to predict the return of Christ on a calendar, but it became popular in this country only with adoption of material from John Nelson Darby in the mid 1800s. How did  the church survived all those years without reading Biblical material as a guide? I will be blunt. None of us can know with certainty the hour of our own demise. When we pass away, i assert that we enter into God’s divine time that is not managed by a digital clock but the flux of eternity.I am willing to bet that all of us will face eternity before some possible image of annihilation that is not the Scripture’s message in the first place.Rahner: “ time becomes what it is supposed to be...no longer the bleak empty succession of moments...but redeemed, as it gathers into the future, a focal point that co-ordinates the living present with the eternal future.”

OT Notes Mal. 3:1-4

Malachi 3:1-4, an Advent reading
1) this section answers the question at 2:17.It is a theodicy question-how have we wearied the Lord? where is the God of justice? They are rightfully furious that it seems as if evildoers are good in the eyes of God and God is pleased with them.this is stronger than Hab. 1:13 on the seeming inactivity and silence of god before evil.Just as love in absent in 1:12m, so is justice.
2)Is messenger human or an angel, especially since the name of the book is that of my messenger? Is the messenger a purifier of the temple, a la Dead Sea Scrolls and then God comes in v. 5? Dating of this passage is uncertain, but most place it in the Persian period.
3)Is the day of coming justice or judgement or both? How one translates this indicates how one sees the Day of the Lord.
4) Is the messenger like that of Isaiah 40:3 paving the way for the great king?
5)Some hear an echo to Ex. 23:20
6) the temple is once again the portal for the presence of God
7) Reflect on your acceptance or rejection of the image of refining as suffering.How do you see purification here and elsewhere? does the metaphor work well today? If so, why? If not, why not?
8) I'm uncertain if the offerings are in righteousness (right relations) or right offerings.
9) Notice that intent may well be indicative if an offering is pleasing. Note then it is not legalistic.Note too the expectations that the Levites need purification as an antecedent to popular cleansing.
10) How much do you want to bring this into line with Advent themes? Certainly the gospels line up the messenger with John the Baptist.
11) What is the nature of the covenant here, do you think? We may be seeing some cute wordplay here with covenant- berit and the separating metallurgical agent- borit (3:2).
12) days of old and former years (related to former things in Isaiah?)olam has a sense of eternity. This could be a really good preaching entry point or wedge.
13) Notice the lectionary skips over judgement in its frequent fear of using punishment texts but one could go further to to look at judgment, both negative, immediately following, and notice in vv 16-18.

Week of Dec. 2 Devotions

unday Dec. 4 -Ps. 85 has long been a favorite of mine, especially its tender ending. I picture the ending verses as righteousness (right relations) and peace as separated lovers who see each other again after a long absence, like the reunion scene in Russia in Reds. They are intertwined concepts. They should not be strangers. When have you seen them come together in your life? Where do you wish so much for them to come together?

Monday -Carly Simon sang that anticipation is keeping me waiting.” Another word for anticipation could be expectancy. I'm doing an on-line Advent series through the Upper Room of Nashville, and they are stressing this aspect of Advent. What are you anticipating in your life? What can you hardly wait for? What do you crave in your spiritual life? Are you half afraid of desiring some virute, some change, some dream?

Tuesday-Pause. In the midst of all of the expectations, pause. Take a little break.  Breathe deeply and fully for a bit. Pray a quick prayer: breathe on me breath of God. Take a moment and examine your to do list. What could be eliminated, not lessened, eliminated? All during Advent, consider taking a mini Sabbath, a pause to collect and refresh.

Wednesday-Different virtues abound as celebrating Advent has expanded. I have seen peace, purity,joy, or consolation among others as the Second Sunday's virtues. We, through
Christian Ed’s good offices, have selected peace as the theme for the candle.Open a newspaper and pray for peace in the troubled lands. Pray for peace in communities ripped by violence. Consider praying for inner peace in oneself. Pray for inner peace to enter those whose hearts and minds are filled with rage and hate, even of themselves.

Thursday-The New York Times always asks its readers to consider the neediest at the time of year. Notice: not the needy, the neediest. Yes, we are right in helping out those in need of financial assistance. In this rich country, my mind goes toward a different definition of the neediest: maybe the mentally ill, or the heartbroken and the lonely. They too require Christmas gifts, but they are far different than what can be placed in the red buckets at WalMart.

Friday- Joseph gets short shrift. After all, he is the main character in Matthew’s Christmas story. When i was a child, we were taught that Joseph was very old. (Only later, did I figure out that they could protect Mary’s status as virgin that way). We imagine him as a carpenter, but the Greek word could cover any manual craftsman. In children’s stories, Joseph is usually pictured as an extraordinarily kind and wise father, an exemplar. maybe he was, so Jesus could use paternal language so easily in addressing God, his heavenly Father.

Saturday-This is the 400th   anniversary of the King James Bible. Its careful cadence and tone equals Scripture for many people. Here’s a little project. Compare the KJV  to other Bible versions and set out your likes and dislikes. Pick a passage at random, or compare some favorites to different translations. Do different insights or interpretations emerge as you compare them? Read with a literary eye too. What is appealing about the form, movement, and word choice in different translations?

Friday column on Advent

I was raised Roman Catholic, so the start of the church year, Advent, comes easily to me. Over the years, especially since Vatican II in the 60s, a number of Protestant churches have grown to adopt more and more from the liturgical year. Our reformation traditions argued against this, but for the sake of being ecumenical we have adopted practices that were once more the province of Catholics. I don’t think we have done a good job working with the liturgical year with congregations, and it feels more like an imposition to many. So, I thought I would walk through some of its meaning, as the first Sunday in Advent is December 2.

Immediately, one notices that we don’t agree on the color of the season any more. It usually was a shade of purple, but a deep blue is gaining popularity. Advent precedes Christmas of course, and Lent precedes Easter. Both periods were used to prepare, to prepare with penance and repentance, for two major events on the Christian calendar, and purple was the symbolic color for that activity. The shift to blue shifts the focus from repentance, as part of our aversion to speaking of sin. Second, it opens scope for the creative imagination. Blue is a royal color, so it links the end of the church year, Christ the King, to its start. Third, it heightens the sense of the darkness before the dawn.

Then, we sometimes assign a meaning to each of four candles for each Sunday either to highlight some part of the Christian story or virtue, or something from the readings for the day. Four candles  are in a circle, a symbol of eternity, and evergreen for the perdurance of life itself often is garland.  A Christ candle occupies the center position, to be lit for Christmas itself.

For church planners, Advent is most challenging. The culture is filled with Christmas carols in the malls but not at church. The idea is four Sundays to prepare for the first Advent, the first arrival, of Jesus in Bethlehem, and the Second Arrival, presentation of Jesus at the culmination of the age. I have people call me a Grinch for not singing Christmas songs until the third Sunday in Advent, but the same people want to follow the culture exactly and stop singing Christmas songs right at Christmas. They seem undeterred by the twelve days of Christmas starting at Christmas, as they would much prefer them to end at Christmas, just like the malls. Everybody loves Christmas carols, but Advent hymns are in most people’s top ten list.

A part of me thinks this all is much ado about nothing. At the same time, care with a worship environment tells a story, one that starts to get bred in the marrow. Songs and symbols speak more loudly and clearly than words alone at times. Our failure with Advent has led to the excrescence of left behind theology. It purports to be biblical but is liturgically deficient in its understanding. it grasps only the piece of fear and ending and loses utterly the sense of restoration and new beginnings in apocalyptic material.

In the end, Christians view time itself as God’s creation, and we get to share in it and help manage it wisely. So, we can dare to cut against the secular calendar’s demands, especially with the Sabbath. For Christians, history is not cyclical, not meaningless repetition, but it moves in a direction, as an extension of what we call Providence. Christmas point us to God’s deep involvement in our world, to the point of Incarnation. It did not end there. Advent points us to a glorious time of completion. One fine day, God’s way in the world will be allied with our lives, no longer in opposition but living in sweet heavenly peace. 

OT Notes first sunday Advent 2012 Jer. 33:14-16, Ps. 25:1-10

Jer.33:14-16
this section is not in the Septuagint, so it may be earlier. Would need to check if it is in the DSS, so it could be some sort of addition, or LXX could be edited I suppose, but we usually think shorter material  is closer.to original, this closes the little book of consolation, and that in itself could be a good entry point for Advent.
1) we pick up on Jer. 23:5-6 as an extension of hope.
2) righteous Branch shares  first sounds (ts) with sprout-are we correct in assuming that the sprout comes from something cut off or even chopped down? What are some good images or vignettes that would make clear a sprout emerging from the ashes, such as the phoenix?
3) Please notice the new name of Judah: God is our righteousness-to me righteousness in the OT is relational, but that includes our relations with the least of these: the traditional concern of Jewish ethics, the widow, the alien, the orphan.(A good example of this reading of righteousness is the book Mighty from their Thrones by Walsh).
4) Since 9/11 we read the hope for safety more directly. Of course, crime’s evil power makes us aware of personal safety, as well as the media reports of disasters of all types.
5) The image here obviously is reworked over time. How do Christians cleave to the same image and how have we changed it? We still do not see its promise fulfilled. How do you handle that in Advent? Can we, should we, spiritualize it?
Ps. 25:1-10
We live in a great period of Psalms study with names such as James Limburg, james Mays, our own Giddings-Lovejoy member Clinton McCann, Patrick Miller, William Holladay, and many others who may be connected to the Psalms group meeting in SBL. (I wonder if it says anything about my spirit that I mistype Psalms so frequently? for that matter, I mistype spiritual all the time too)For this psalm, it is an acrostic, so it has a device for easier recognition and recall. Also, it is very much concerned with learning. So, we could use some time to discuss Christian education and learning in differing venues. I was going through some CIFs (church information forms/want ads, in Presbyterian jargon) and noted the small percentage of active CE involvement v. the number of worshippers.
1) This is a plea against real enemies. i tend to read them as internal or external. I tend to include the enemy of cancer as well. At the same time one lifts up soul/nephesh/whole self to god.
2)put to shame is mentioned twice quickly. shame is a sense that we oftne repress or ignore, and it may do us well to reflect on it and its cure in salvation
3) 3-4 have the image of God as teacher, of torah as instruction/teaching more than law
4) 5-6 touch on the divine memory what should god be mindful of in hesed/steadfast love and what God should forget, sins.   
5) v. 10 tells us of the paths of v. 3-6) who are the humble do you think? Is this a virtue we honor in 2012? Do we see humility as a virtue any longer? Can we dare to call most American Christians to be of the humble?7) in v. 8 how does god instruct sinners? In your experience how does god instruct sinners?8) We only have to extend a bit the reading and we get the big three Hebrew words for sin. hata=hamartia =to miss the target-pata=transgressions/rebellion, and guilty -awon- has a sense of being twisted/bent out of shape/pushed down.this is a welcome antidote to our current view of sin as mistake. These views are all much deeper and less cognitive than our current way of speaking of sin.

Christ the King '12 Jn18:33-7

Christ the King 11/25 John 18:33-7
The dust has settled after our major election. So Christ the King Sunday, a political acclamation closes our liturgical year. As a democracy, We have trouble with the word kingdom, so we do well with the word, regime or realm, or even politics or zone, or maybe God’s way in the world.Even so, it conjures up the specter of power, and that troubles me. far too often, it seems that we transfer political power as coercive, as a command over others. Jesus does not seem to engage in power in that way. instead, Jesus seems to relinquish power over others. Instead Jesus seeks to share power and demonstrate how people can discover power within their own lives and spirit.

I taught political science and still enjoy government and politics  from the sidelines, but I resent and resist partisan politics intruding in worship. Christian ethics do  engage political decisions.I am personally quite strict on separation of church and state, but I rather suspect folks complain about the intrusion of politics into church only when their prejudices and preferences are challenged..My daughter had a good discussion with an old friend, who like her labors under the cloud of being the child of a pastor. Her friend looks at prayer almost soley as a power ploy, to get what he wants, as soon as possible, but typcially of his generation, he want sit yesterday if truth be told. When I look at all of the trouble around, I get annoyed with the very idea of Christ the King Sunday. I grant that it anticipates a time of God’s way finally being established. I accept it as a wonderful image of the future that draws us toward it like a magnet. Still it seems so distant, as I detect but traces of it as it seems to be  in danger of being submerged in a sea of troubles.

I had the privilege of seeing the movie Lincoln last week.It cap[tures some of what I am struggling with. You won’t believe  the effrontery of his advisors. You will see clearly the conflicting expectations and the tightrope he constantly walks.You will see the constant tension between the exigencies of the future and the limits of the possible within the present moments.

I am playing with the idea of a Venn diagram on church and state. Church and state do touch, even intersect, but much of their concerns are different in kind and degree. One circle is formed when Jesus tells Pilate my kingdom is not of this world. I am loath to make too much of a preposition, but here goes. Jesus says of, because he means the source of his kingdom is not here on earth. At the same time, that kingdom does intersect with the earthly political world.The church reflects political decisions in its structure and its decisions. Perhaps nowhere does this get exposed than in the areas the church does not take up or address..That is not a safe place to be. pilate and Herod represent the earthly kingdom. i have long admired David Bowie’s performance as Pontius Pilate where he speaks in a conspiratorial whisper, a sort of ultimate bureaucrat.

I like James Madison’s view that politics can corrupt a religion, but religion can corrupt the work of government as well. I think that the colloquy with Pilate points out the danger of assuming that our particular, partisan political choices are exactly equivalent to the way of God in our world. In the end, power over others by force is a fragile thing. In our lifetime so many dictators have fallen, and even the Soviet Union flew apart.If anything Christ the King tell us of the immense power of divine love and human love to shape a world of our dreams, one day, one fine day.

Devotions-Week of Nov, 25

November 25 Christ the King is difficult for me in some ways. I do like that Roman Catholics pray for their separated brethren on this day. My trouble is the word king as an American. Indeed, I wonder if using the word is a projection onto jesus of our conceptions of what power should look like.How did Jesus use power during his life? How should the church seek to use or renounce power as being coercive instead of empowering?

Monday-This week closes the church year. So, it discloses our arbitrary divisions of time. It is a bold act of the church to refuse to fit its calendar with the secular calendar.When the two conflict, the church seems to lose. It comes to a liturgical conflict soon, when we decide when to start Christmas songs in church when the radio has been playing them since before Thanksgiving.

Tuesday-I saw the wonderful new film Lincoln recently in Edwardsville.I wrote a review for my online column for the Telegraph and on my blog. I don't know if I have ever seen a movie that so well matches nobility with political machinations, private and public grief, and the value and impact of storytelling by Lincoln as much as this film.It’s good that it came out in November for the is one of our secular national saints, and in thanksgiving that such a miraculous man rose to power when he did.

Wednesday-In the Bible, the end usually means not the finish, but the goal or the purpose, as in “the end justifies the means.” When people prattle on about seeing the Bible as predicting some cataclysmic end, they seem to disregard the biblical tension between a conclusion and the new beginning or restoration that almost always accompanies destructive images. May I suggest looking at the end time restoration images and then asking how the new creation would fit with god’s goal/purpose for our world?

Thursday-I don’t remember many times when we have had a full week after Thanksgiving. So, the extra time feels to me an unexpected gift. How to deal with the gift of extra time: in planning and preparation to lessen the feel of hectic wandering , or to let it pass by unnoticed and disregarded? May we allow the spirit of gratitude to pervade this extra week?

Friday-Back in Indiana we had a joint thanksgiving service for our two churches, and we invited the community as well. Some of the hardest working people scheduled time to take a 30 minute break from their duties and have worship together. Those same people put some real thought into the grace before meals as well. Usually, I would volunteer in the hospital chaplaincy, as our girls and I had our big celebration before or after the big day.So, my social work had an ulterior motive, of not facing solitude on a holiday.

Saturday-I heard a number of suggestions this year to use time during the holidays to gather family stories, medical histories, and time to chat about important decisions for the future, such as power of attorney. I applaud the idea fully. I would like to suggest that the gathering of family stories include some memories of religious faith, ritual, and questions over time. When we talk of serious matters, they may well be in a crisis, so this is a time to let a story unwind.

Thoughts on new movie, Lincoln:Friday after Thanksgiving column for Telegraph

I was going to write a screed against Black Friday and the idol of consumerism. I saw Lincoln and that  all changed. I am grateful on this thanksgiving weekend that I was able to see it. As a minister, I hear people say all of the time that they gave up on movies due to their depiction of all forms of vulgarity. Yes, a few vulgar words are spoken in the picture, but Hollywood deserves that  its best be viewed and not only dismissed.  If you have any interest in history at all, please go see this wonderful movie. It may be wise to familiarize yourself with his White House advisors, so you can pick up on some nuance of their words and even their appearance..I usually find political films to be a bit off kilter, but this one takes seriously the moral wieght of the amendment and the necessity of the political machinations of acquiring and counting votes.

The movie deals with the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment in the last months of his term and his life. for our alton readers, i remind us that our own Lyman Trumbull wrote the draft of the Thirteenth Amendment, that abolished slavery in our country.While Trumbull is ignored, the revelation is Tommy Lee Jones as Thaddeus Stevens of Pennsylvania. The Southern revision of history has dominated our textbooks, so he has been painted as a villain, as in Birth of a Nation.Here he is the aging, vigorous leader of the Radical Republican wing of Lincoln’s party.Throughout, we get a sense of the tightrope Lincoln walked over the Constitution, the definition of the war, public opinion, and the divisions between and within the parties in Congress.

I have read a bit of Lincoln biography, but am no Lincoln scholar. Still, Daniel Day Lewis’s performance is as if Abraham Lincoln  rises from the printed page and appears before our eyes. Appreciate so many of his decisions as an actor, how to pitch his voice, how to walk and move as if the weight of the world was on his shoulders, the use of the Irish gift of storytelling. In his portrayal and the great script, Lincoln uses stories for two reasons:to make a point as in a parable, or to relieve the gloom that threatened his very life.

Few portrayals of Lincoln, with the except of the fine made for TV production of years ago with Sam Waterston, do such a good job weaving the personal and public grief of the White House. The Lincolns lost a child i in 1850 and another favored child in the white House in 1862. Mary Todd Lincoln was undone in her grief, but Lincoln knew he had to carry on for the sake of their younger son and for that of the country. So the astounding casualty reports always brought a freshened pang of grief in his own soul too.

The care in the production is astonishing. the sound of church bells is recorded from churches standing in Washington at that time. The sound of a carriage door is taped from a Lincoln carriage in a museum.the light is dim in the offices.

This is the 50th anniversary of the movie set in the segregated South, To Kill a Mockingbird. In an attempt to portray nobility in a human being, Lincoln picks up some of the same feelings.In our section of the theater at least, people wept at the close of the movie and many applauded. President Wilson called movies history written with lightning. Surely, this movie will send people off to learn more about one of our great national figures whose life has merged into myth. This movie does our central national figure proud.