Aug. 26 sermon notes Eph. 6:10-20, I Kings 8

Eph 6 draws images from Isaiah and non-violent spiritual struggle.Instead of weapons, the writer of ephesians uses the prophet of the distant past as a resource to examine the present-day work of god. In this sermon, in this place, we continue that holy work. Weapons of virtue. With one set of eyes we walk into a fight naked, unarmed, defenseless. How many divisions has the Pope, Stalin famously asked. With the eyes of faith, we are bristling with weapons, offensive and defensive, suited for the battle we wage.These are the weapons of a militant non-violence. We have seen examples of this arrayed against real power, satyagraha of Gandhi and the King civil rights approach of facing down dogs with the security of prayer, of Le Chambon in France where a pastor, Trocme urged them to resist the violence being waged against their conscience. The people of Le Chambon saved between 3 to 5 thousand people. They hid folks in houses and convents and schools, faked ID cards, even smuggled people in Switzerland.. When the Gestapo came looking, they had secure places in the forest for people to hide. Others in the resistance attacked them for being non-violent, but they persisted. Solomon’s offers a great prayer for the new temple.I still think it is a template for a dedication of some great deed, such as when this sanctuary was dedicated after years of labor to rebuild after a fire.Its emphasis is on the presence of God in this center of worship, center of the life of the people. Will God indeed dwell on earth? Even the highest heaven cannot contain God, he prays. The temple is a place of God’s relentless focus. It is a place of forgivenss for a whole people.It is a place ot plead for deliverance against natural forces. It is an open place for all. Certainly God saw Le Chambon as a sanctuary. For Christians, God indeed dwells on earth in the person of Jesus Christ. God indeed dwells on earth through the church, body of Christ. As we used to say the church provides hands and feet for the work of God in Jesus Christ. The good Huguenots, Reformed French Christians, the heirs of Calvin prayed and heard the word of God in their small sanctuaries. the walls of the sanctuary expanded out into the hamlet, into the farms and huts of people who saved the lives of strangers.Surely God was present with those villagers who risked their lives, to act as Good Samaritans. Surely they created a place of deliverance from the unnatural forces of nazi hatred and Vichy acquiescence. Solomon’s prayer was answered not only for the temple in jerusalem for the his children’s children when the Temple was again destroyed. Notice that Ephesians is clear that our enemies are less physical than manifestations of powers behind evil actions:the force of beliefs, ideologies, the powers that can capture a mind, heart, and spirit.Look at these weapons of virtues:truth fights falsehood, righteousness fights any bad relationship, anything that makes someone a thing, an object; mwe walk on shoes of peace not combat boots; faith is not a hammer here to beat someone into submission but a shield of protection against evil’s taunts, weapons, and lures. Salvation is a helmet not a weapon to protect against the blows that hit us all.The only weapon mentioned here is the sword of the word of god, of scripture, of preaching and prophecy, of the living Word, the message of God Incarnate Jesus Christ.He turned his back on violence and lent it to the violence of his killers. Yet, when all of their weapons of war lie rusting or on display in museums, his message of non-violent weapons of love lives still.

OT Notes song of solomon 2:8-13

1) What a nice time for this to reappear, after lots of summer weddings. 2) I still am taken with Phyllis Trible in God and the Rhetoric of Sexuality on the love poem, but one can find much excellent material on this. 3) One could go the old route of reading it as spiritual allegory. See for instance the set of 86 or so sermons by Bernard of Clairvaux. 4) I love the mutuality in this section of the letter, for that matter throughout the letter. 5) If there is even a hint of seeing sexuality as dirty in this poem, I cannot find it. 6) For a long time, I have held that these are young lovers,, with all of that leaping. Then the loving description of body parts would not be written by the late middle-aged or elderly. unless one has a thing for sagging flesh. 7) In our section we are treated to sight and sound as well as fragrance. this could be a great entryway into our senses and maybe the addition of a spiritual sense or a sixth sense. 8) One could be led into a poetic disquisition on the erotic and why the church is so poor in dealing with it. 9) should every church service feel like a wedding, at least in part? On Assumption Day recently, a local Catholic church had a long service as a novice became a bride of Christ, as in the sound of Music scene.

Week of August 26 Devotions

Sunday August 26-Ps.84, today’s reading, speaks of the pleasure of worship. It is a demonstration of how dutiful we have become with worship and the low point of our life in prayer together. Worship is the place where the heart finds a home in this prayer (v.4). The next verse says “happy/blessed are those whose heart is a highway to Zion. Where is your heart such a highway to worship? the we can go from strength to strength (v.7). Monday-Our eldest daughter and new son-in-law came to visit recently. It is hard how empty the nest feels when the company leaves. It helps, but only a bit, to realize that god is as near as our latest breath. We are made for company and companionship. By the same token, we cannot be solitary Christians very easily. We require the interaction of the entire body of Christ. Tuesday-“Not worth the trouble” can be a dangerous phrase. It can be dismissive of a person or a project. It is a judgment that invites disrespect. It could also signal that we don’t want to face something troublesome that we should attend to. On the other hand, it is so valuable in not taking a slight or a wrong to seriously. It could be quite accurate, that we are stressing over something insignificant that is diverting us from a more vital matter. Prayer is a vehicle to help us discern the differences when we notice ehta tphrase issuing forth from us. Wednesday-I’ve been working on the book of the Twelve, the Minor Prophets. Hosea uses a marital metaphor to get at the depth of god’s love for Israel. It then follows that it is useful for trying to get across the depth of hurt when sin intrudes. For God, sin has the feel of adultery in a marriage, a cut to the very core of life together. In Ch. 11, God announces that the divine is beyond mere mortals, so that we cannot expect the divine to fit within human categories. For me, that is one of the great cores of the faith. the ineffable God loves us, mere creatures, to the highest degree imaginable. Thursday-I sometimes forget how crippling anxiety can be. It can take over our thoughts, throw our health into a tailspin, and undermine or relationships. Even when we know that Jesus says that worry does not add an inch to the length of our life, we still worry. Anxiety clouds our judgment. It may even choke off our ability to pray easily. Consider using some calming biblical images when anxious. I tend to picture Jesus in Mark 4 on the stormy sea, saying “peace be still” and using it as a mantra but also as an image of serenity. Friday-I wonder about the history of how treasures in heaven, connected to doing good deeds, turned into a pre-requisite for entry into heaven? We speak of grace as unconditional and unearned, but it seems to be a religious cliché that does not sink in. We insist that God is a cosmic auditor who checks the books of our lives and assigns debits and credits to our actions and maybe inaction, fi we are more sophisticated. Saturday-I talked with a spiritually adept person recently who was castigating herself for not facing hardships in a manner she thought she should. she hoped that the depth of her prayer life and scriptural study would sustain her without feeling the pain and anxiety of a series of tough situations. Anything can be safely placed in the envelope of prayer.

A new chapter in Family Life, First Visit

As I have written, our eldest daughter married a couple of months ago. She and her husband visited for the first time as a married couple. It was a good visit, as we mixed tourist activity and staying at home. I appreciate living fairly close to St Louis even more, as I was able to present them with an array of things to do, if they felt so inclined. Her husband lived in Japan as a youngster for a while, so we went to the Botanical Gardens and spent most of our time at the Japanese Gardens. After lunch with one of our daughter’s classmates, we went to the City Gardens. I had yet to visit this random collection of junk and objects of interest in its mad mixture. I noticed that a number of the various tubes. toward the end I sat down with a knot of other exhausted parents. It made my day to hear so many delighted shrieks of girls and boys alike. So many children told their minders: “this is the best place ever.” I loved seeing how our graduate school daughter played and that her genius husband could discover some of the child within him. It warmed my heart to see them at that stage in life together where they reach out to touch each other, a quick caress, a fleeting brush of the hand, as if they are checking to see if they are really here, together. Since he is interested in the ancient Near East, we fed his interest in archaeology by going to Cahokia. they were impressed by the excellent explanatory material, especially on culture and cosmology, in the museum. I was delighted to see grandparents slowing making their way up the Monk’s Mound stairs even more slowly than I as children bounded up them two or three at a time. Since they had energy, something I have read about in physics books, we walked over to the burial site of the euphonious Mound 72. All of that set me to thinking about time. i was walking over the places of many homes in the museum, visited its major ritual place, and walked by a final resting place. How were the residents of Cahokia just like us and how did their family life differ? Did they know how to welcome a new member of the family? How much did their rituals of transition help when a daughter married? In our ritually impoverished age, we feel as if we need to make things up as we go along. These activities help frame time and interaction. I need to learn how to treat my first-in-law in our nuclear family. Outings make more of a safe space. Plus, it gave me an excuse ot give them plenty of room and not feel so intrusive. Our daughter is now married, but I have yet to work through what then should stay the same and what needs to be changed. Our daughter seemed utterly herself, and I was glad. They were really good about helping me plan making food at home or what they were in the mood for if we went out. I was struck how closely they listened to each other and how they seemed connected even when they were both staring at their separate computer screens. Parenthood is learning when to let go and when to hold on. It keeps the center of love and respect even as its focus shifts and grows through time and may well become a parent too, one fine day. In the end, what helps me face having a new son-in-law is the same thought that gave me comfort when our first held our firstborn. We do not do this alone; god is involved fully in this most precious life, this new relationship.

OT Notes I Kings 8, August 26

1) This is a marvelous model prayer. it can be adapted, and shortened, for all sorts of dedicatory purposes. 2) Please consider v. 27 Can God indeed dwell on earth.Dwell itself creates a sermon as one goes through its placements. Shakan/dwell is directly linked ot the transfiguration booths/tabernacles. One could use it to speak of the Incarnation. We could consider the issue of the finite containing the infinite. 3) another way to go is that the temple appears to be an axis mundi, a centerpoint, a thin place, an axial portal between heaven and earth. One could also use this as a communion meditation on real presence. 4) the lectionary cuts out 46-53 but it is a deep consideration of prayer, even in the midst of a predicted exile. (If one wants to be historical about it, rest assured that this is a later editorial edition, or the entire prayer comes form the hand of the writers of this section of Kings. 5) v. 10 brings back the cloud from the Exodus story. Again cloud is an image that one could work with in a variety of ways, especially its obscures and shines. If you have a science fiction background, i am sure countless examples come to mind. If one enjoys astronomy photos, one could speak of say the Magellanic cloud. 6)How did people hear v. 25? how would Christians interpret it? 7) 28-30 offer a nice summary of prayer as communication and offer lots of avenues for a sermon on prayer, or the importance of corporate worship, or a sermon on one's sanctuary where the community gathers. I suppose one could go the individualistic route and speak of one's heart as a sanctuary as in the popular song, make me a sanctuary. 8) In a time when we struggle with the notion of the alien, llok at the remarkable inclusion of the alien or the foreigner in 41-43.

Sermon Notes I Kings 3 On Wisdom August 19

August 19 I Kings 3 We know so much. We have data spilling out in all directions. Pundits will examine that treasure trove of information and apply it to the campaigns and seek hints of the national mood. This year in the campaigns, the offices will do data mining as they try to tailor political messages to ever smaller segments of the population who may be open to certain types of messages or policy positions. I wonder if that has been the desire of new presidents or governors over the years, to ask for wisdom. Solomon shows a public leaders heart by looking for a virtue for the public good, not the things of Aladdin's lamp. In the famous serenity prayer, Niebuhr sees wisdom as discerning the difference between the things we can change and those we cannot. recall that he says that we learn to accept the things we cannot change and the courage to change those we can. I would add that wisdom knows what things we should change and what should be left well enough alone. Solomon is asked to make a decision without any evidence other than two conflicting stories. This awful story has Solomon look into the depths of grief, human nature, and madness. His wisdom lies in being able to discern the truth in two utterly incompatible accounts. Wisdom sees into the fullness of human nature, into the depth of things. Wisdom has insight into the human condition, puts things together, synthesizes. Wisdom can keep both the forest and the trees in sight, or at least it has the ability to realize that in focus on one we are in danger of losing sight of the other.Jesus comes at wisdom from an angle. Jesus seems to realize that we cannot absorb wisdom in a gulp. Yes, his very life embodies wisdom, but his teachings seem more indirect. The stories or pithy saying invite us into the path to insight but do not claim to provide it directly. Even the Sermon on the Mount, constructed as a commentary on the 10 Commandments, has the beatitudes offering striking contrary points of view within a normal context of blessing.Sometimes wisdom reveals something that we sense we knew but it was hidden from our awareness. Alyce McKenzie writes winsomely of our crying need for wisdom in a world deluged with information, data, and computer screens by looking to the Proverbs attributed to Solomon and our vast store of sayings. . She sees wisdom involved in a dance between experience and reflection. It seeks to discern some order amid all the chaos of life. It always points toward the maintenance and enjoyment of life. for me, the kicker is that wisdom material realizes that no standard can encapsulate our experience. Life destabilizes are best attempt to him it in, for life itself is borne on wings of unpredictability, and the eruption of the random. Perhaps that is a wise way to approach wisdom: to seek a stable place amidst the chaos and to seek the signs of the new when things seem old and tired.Data can tell us that we can do something. Wisdom tells us if we should pursue it, if it is worth it.Our eldest daughter and her husband Aren came to visit for a few days. Before they married, I wanted to write Saralyn something along the lines of a teacher at their Indiana alma mater, Scott russell Sanders,as he is a wise man. He writes”Wisdom comes, if it comes at all, not only by the accumulation of experience, but also by the letting go, by the paring away of dross until only essential remain...the world appears to be a vast whirl of bits and pieces. Religion (means) to bind back together, as if things have been scattered and now must be gathered again. I find myself pointing to an elusive energy, a shaping power that flashes forth...I favor spirit.

August 19 Week Devotions

August 19-Ps.111-“the great works of the Lord are studied by all who delight in them.” For many Jews, to study the works of the Lord are a delight and aspiration. Christians have been resistant to that message. On the rare times we do work with religious material, it tends to be of a romantic, popular sort. When is the last time you read a serious piece of religious reflection? when was the last time you studied, pored over, Scripture? Monday- Kent Ira Groff wrote this week on diminishment. The word caught my eye. We live in a time of diminished expectations. We live in a time of diminished vision. I just heard a radio piece where a professor of political thought said that her students are astonished at the scope and confidence of social theorist a generation ago. One things I prize about Presbyterians is adherence to a magnificent God, not one put easily in a small box of our devising. After all, who wants to worship a diminished deity? Tuesday-We had an interesting moment in Bible class about the point or moral of a story finishes our look at a passage. I suppose that we can draw a vital lesson from a story, but one of the shining lights of story is that it works on multiple levels and pushes us to consider more than one point as we reflect on them. Look at Jonah. I sit not more than a fish story/ Is it not more than a story about making a response t9o the call of god? Does it not open doors to considerations of forgiveness, creation, prayer, and death itself? Wednesday-I flipped through a book on wishful thinking at the library recently. The author argues that we have moved our magical thinking to technology as a panacea. When facing a problem, we shrug our shoulders and figure that technology can handle it. We laugh at the magical thinking of children and primitive cultures, but we have merely transferred the wishful thinking to a new source. How do you distinguish prayer from wishful thinking? Thursday-Shared experience helps make a community, even negative ones. I told both of our daughters that they will make more friends in a poor college class as you have a common enemy. One of the reasons that church outings and projects are good ideas is that they build community through shared effort. Shared experience becomes a glue for community, as it guides us into common purpose and common effort. It can be a form of prayer in action. Friday-No Biblical book emphasizes justice as resolutely as Amos. It is one of the earlier books in the entire Bible. When it imagines punishment for the sins of Israel, it is injustice that garners the attention. It blasts the complacency of wealth, its self-satisfaction and blindness (ch.6). Look at the beginning of chapter four and see if it does not give a chill in 2012 America. Saturday-I had a difficult evening recently, as in quick succession I learned that an elderly gentleman killed himself in front of his visiting grandchildren, and then an old friend was a possible suicide as she stepped out in front of a city bus. I tend to look at suicide as an outcome of mental illness, not a rational choice, not a moral filing. In that light, I see God’s compassion pouring over a suicide and family and friends in the same way as when cancer or diabetes strikes down a life.

Friday Column on the MO Right to Pray Amendment

Across the river, the voters of Missouri overwhelmingly passed an amendment t0 the state constitution termed the ‘right to pray’ amendment. I note a part that says that a student cannot be compelled to perform an assignment contrary to their religious beliefs. As a religious person, I am so tired of being thrown into the same pool as the authors and supports of this type of material. I want to be clear. I do support the existence of parochial religious schools. I reject the increasing claims that the public should fund these private institutions even as they provide the vital public function of education. Second, I reject the notion that public money should support religious training, or the inculcation of religious doctrine in basic subjects, but in particular natural science. My guess is that the authors of the amendment want to protect students from right wing churches from being exposed to science requirements that do not accord with their interpretation of Gen. 1. It is my fond hope that students from pacifist churches will refuse to go along with assignments supporting warfare, and for Catholic students to protest the Protestant slant of the instances of religious issues in history books. I just read a new biography of James Madison from our fine Hayner Library. Madison and Jefferson were both proud that they passed a separation of church and state law in the Virginia legislature. In his defense of the bill, Madison wrote: “we assert for ourselves a freedom to embrace, to profess and to observe the Religion which we believe to be of divine origin, we cannot deny an equal freedom to those whose minds have not yet yielded to the evidence which has convinced us. If this freedom be abused, it is an offence against God, not against man: To God, therefore, not to man, must an account of it be rendered. As the Bill violates equality by subjecting some to peculiar burdens, so it violates the same principle, by granting to others peculiar exemptions.” In the oldest piece of the Presbyterian constitution, passed the same year as the Federal Constitution, we read: “We do not even wish to see nay religious constitution aided by the civil power, further than may be necessary for protection and security, and at the same time, be equal and common to others.” Twenty years ago, the court reviewed some of the religion clause case law in Lee v. Wiseman. The Court found: In Engel v. Vitale, 370 U.S. 421 (1962), the Court considered for the first time the constitutionality of prayer in a public school. Students said aloud a short prayer selected by the State Board of Regents: Almighty God, we acknowledge our dependence upon Thee, and we beg Thy blessings upon us, our parents, our teachers and our Country. Id. at 422. Justice Black, writing for the Court, again made clear that the First Amendment forbids the use of the power or prestige of the government to control, support, or influence the religious beliefs and practices of the American people. Although the prayer was "denominationally neutral," and "its observance on the part of the students [was] voluntary," id. at 430, the Court found that it violated this essential precept of the Establishment Clause. Separation of church and state is intended to protect both religious activity from state intrusion and the state from religious attempts to impose an orthodoxy. Merely claiming a religious exemption does not create a zone outside the basic needs of the public: health, safety, and welfare. A free society permits a multiplicity of ideas, even those uncomfortable for the interpretations of certain religious segments of our land. It is difficult for me to see how the education of our people is served to permit a zone of silence be established for religious censorship of ideas.

OT Notes I Kings 2:10-12, 3:3-14

OT Notes I Kings 2:10-12, 3:3-14 1) Wisdom isn't too big a topic, but it is an important one.who were and are wise ones in your life? 2)What is the difference between wisdom and intelligence? How is wisdom similar and dissimilar t0 emotional intelligence? 3) I do note that in David's godfather style address to Solomon, he refers to Solomon's wisdom. 4) In this Aladdin story, Solomon asks for wisdom. What would you ask for with one wish? My sense is that the question itself could make good sermon fodder. 5) what inhibits wisdom in our time? i am thinking about time for reflection and a preference for the surface instead of depth. 6)In the story, Solomon's wisdom shows insight into human nature and its patterns. What field of study in our time may contribute to wisdom? 7) What does it say about the church that pastors seek wisdom from all of these business leadership books that dot so many shelves? 8) what are other valuable virtues for a leader along with wisdom? 9) How does age bring wisdom or not? My grandmother spoke of old souls who possessed wisdom as youths.

August 12 Sermon Notes @ Samuel 18, Eph. 4:25-5:2

August 12 -2 Samuel 18. Eph 4:225-5:2 In Highway Patrolman, Bruce Springsteen sings of two brothers. One is a police officer and one criminal. Toward the end of the song, the patrolman considers his conflicting impulses and lets his brother flee across the Canadian border. “Man turns his back on his family, well he just ain’t no good.” Of ocurse, he is angry chasing his brother in trouble again, but another set of feeligns captures the highway patrolman. Eph. on anger quotes Psalm 4 .(see Lerner-) Anger needs to be acknowledged. Denying its presence seems to tend to feed it, and it runs underground and pops up at unexpected moments. I have heard some couples say that we have never gone to bed angry. (Here I shall pause a moment to let people write in their own jokes). Anger needs to be handled with care and does not need to be nurtured. It does not need to simmer on the stove. Words and deeds done in anger can be so destructive to a relationship. If anger is allowed to fester, unacknowledged, it can poison a relationship as surely as a misdeed. The letter goes further and urges us to get rid of/put away/ bitterness, rage, malice,wrangling/brawling and slander. Notice some are internal vices, some are expressed in word, some in physical action. they are forms of anger. We learn to accept that anger arises, indeed, it is a good diagnosis into our hot buttons. the test is how that anger gets channelled, controlled, and used. I don’t hear the phrases as much but we used to say to fly off the handle, or count to ten when angry, hothead. We try too hard to give vent to anger and not enough trying to keep it from getting the best of us. Nathan predicted family dissolution in response to David’s destruction of Uriah’s family. In part Absalom’s insolent rebellion stems from David’s failure to properly avenge Absalom’s sister when she was raped by another of David’s sons, Amnon. Absalom’s act of revenge got him exile, so his anger seethed and he started to plot his father’s downfall. David’s sympathy for Absalom seems to overwhelm any other feelings, as we note the seeming absence of anger in David. what we witness is heartbreak. We don’t get a hint that he is angry at a full scale rebellion by his son. A civil war has started, and his general is furious that his personal concern for his son outweighs his public grief for a divided nation. I wonder if Jesus used this story as a bit of a model for the prodigal story. There too the father is scanning the horizon for the lost son. In our story, the fretful king paces on a wall , but this time he is not scoping out a Bathsheba bathing. From the tower spies messengers but not a returning son. Maybe David cannot be angry as he reflects on his failures as a parent, as a king, as a man. Quite simply, he cannot forget that Absalom is his son. Faulkner wrote a novel inspired by our reading, Absalom., Absalom. In any age, are there more heartbreaking words than would that I have died instead of you, my son, my son. Could those very words been uttered by God on Calvary? What the OT called God’s wrath is another word for speaking of God’s heartbreak.Can you not hear God saying o my son, my son, would that I had died instead of you, my sin, mys? Do we not hear the echoes of that heavenly cry when we review the circumstances of the last Supper and its aftermath? what would it say of God to not be angry at what we do to each other? Over and over, that anger does not get the last word, but restoration does.

August 12 Week Devotional Notes

Sunday August 12 Ps.130-I can think of few better lament openings than “out of the depths.” Prof. Anderson named a book on the psalms after that line. It oucl dmean depth of feeling ro thought or spirit, or the depths of dark depression, I suppose.It could be the depths of despair or the surprise of a new perspective on one’s place in teh world. Out of those depths, the deep Divine One hears us. From those depths, the steadfast love of God enters in. If need be, it lifts us to a higher place, filled with light. Monday-We had not one but two flats on I-70 recently.It is a mark of being a minister that my thoughts ran to times in our lives when our spirits get two flats on the same same strtch of road.We all face frustrations on our spirutal road. Sometimes, we need roadside assistance, in the form of a helping hand or good word, or listening ear. We may wish that our prayers get answered with the alacrity of On-star, but often our prayers cannot receive instantaneous help. Tuesday-All you can eat buffets are a challenge to both my appetite, perhaps gluttony, and my frugality where I want “to get my money’s worth.” In communion, we get just a little, but we hold that it is more than enough. That bit of bread and cup represent a spiritual banquet. Why? the very life of christ enters into our lives. We are incorporated into the very life of Christ.That little taste of the elements is enough to taste the very love of God. Wednesday-Jocelyn and I saw Moonrise Kingdom, an odd film. One of the hardships of ministry is that as soon as i see a movie I start making spiritual connections. One is that Bruce Willis is gifted at portraying someone lost and depressed and that made me think of he pain of loneliness for so many.It is a look at the intensity of love, maybe puppy love, of twleve year old pen pals who want to run away to a ne wlife. We just read Jonah 1 where he is off to Tarshish, a sort of Shangri-La. where would that be for you? Thursday-Jocelyn and I went to Cahokia, as we were fairly close that day. It is a challenge ot the imagination to picture a huge complex there less than a thousand years ago, that the Monk’s Mound was topped with a temple and the lodging for the chief.It’s probably a lot closer to the early Israelite kingdom that our movie-inspired views. It made me also think of the fragility of great power and kingdoms, so that mounds of earth are all that is left. Friday-At breakfast recently, a woman started to unload her struggle that her adopted daughter had gone to see her birth mother as she was soon to turn nineteen. She was so afraid that she would lose favor in the sight of the girl she raised from a little child. Her eyes brimmed with tears as did mine, when she spoke of her gratitude that the birth mother gave her some of the baby pictures. Saturday-On her visit,Jocelyn and I saw the King and I. I had forgotten the struggles of the king as expressed in the song, It’s a Puzzlement. it is so hard for us to try to absorb the shock of the new.I is just as hard for us to admit our puzzlement and uncertainty.Just like the king, we have trouble absorbing the rush of innovation and the protection of deeply held beliefs and values. What features of contemporary life are difficult to handle? Which ones do you embrace easily?

Friday Column on Moonrise Kingdom Movie

Our youngest daughter came to visit for a few days and we went to see Moonrise Kingdom. It is a marvel to me that the little girl with whom I watched Disney movies is now an astute observer of media technique and culture. It’s directed by Wes Anderson, who has, let’s call it, a skewed, odd sensibility. The setting is an island with a scout camp in 1965, as a storm approaches. Like many of his movies, it deals in the difficulty of human connection. Two twelve year olds know that they are in love. They run away to a place they call Moonrise Kingdom, as the girl is filled with romantic notions of stories set from the Middle Ages. One of the small troubles of being a minister is that experiences get translated into sermon illustrations or links to matters spiritual. This movie gives a lot of grist for that mill. I had forgotten how gifted Bruce Willis is a playing a gentle, lost character. Indeed, most of the adults seem a bit lost in the movie, especially about dealing with children. The girl has brothers, but they seem to be raising themselves in a cold, regimented household. I forgot how much of a military cast scout camp can have. They walk around as if life has drained the energy of childhood out of them. It is less that they exhibit calm before a storm but that they are utterly becalmed. The adults are lost, and he reminds us that children can be actively cruel. It does not matter if they are in families, in the scouts, or perfect strangers. Reconciliation can occur, however. The scouts realize that they have betrayed their code and discover their humanity in breaking the rules. The parents of the girl can work out, in their stilted way, a commitment to each other. The police officer can discover a way to enlarge his own emotional island. We cannot be islands to each other, for we are made for connection. In the movie About a Boy, the selfish Hugh Grant character would like to remain an island to himself, but he moves to admitting that perhaps he could live with being part of an island chain. Wes Anderson is fascinated by the dream of escape. Part of us cannot help but root for the escapees and against the search parties. I am not educated enough to figure out why Benjamin Britten’s music is such an integral part of the film. I would surmise that the educational component of his introduction to classical music serves as a counterpoint to the relationships in the movie. The orchestra shows how different pieces, although different, can work together. Just as the simple New England sanctuary can become a sanctuary of art, it also becomes a physical sanctuary for people during the storm. Paul famously poses a chasm between the life of the flesh and the life of the spirit. We slip into thinking he means the sins of the flesh, but when he lists troubles, he is usually concerned with vices that can poison human relationships. If placed in Moonrise Kingdom Paul would say that they all demonstrate a spiritless existence and so live enervated, sleepwalking lives. Perhaps no one demonstrates the soulless character of bureaucratic existence more than the woman designated as Social Services. While looking out for the welfare of children, she seems more concerned with creating and following the rules of paperwork. Movies can be gateways to consider the nature of being a human being. They are safe places, sanctuaries, to explore aspects of life together. Even odd, stilted movies cast light on the odd and stilted experience we encounter and create in everyday life.

OT notes 2 Sam. 18

Ch. 18 Absalom-Faulkner uses this for his novel, Absalom, Absalom.One may choose to do some background on David’s failure as a parent, his callous treatment of a daughter, and his loss of political instincts as well. He is living out the curse of God against the Bathsheba episode, even though his life was spared. 2) I think I hear God’s cry on Good Friday, my son, my son, would that I have died instead of you, my son, my son. 3) How the lector reads this story can have varying impact.I think it was Willimon who recalled how males read it with force, but a woman read it with heartbreak. 4) I find this a cinematic story with its searching the horizon, its anxiety, like waiting for a teenaged driver to come home safely.The narrative pacing here is brilliant with the approach of riders on the distance horizon.Robert Alter is insightful here.the reader knows Absalom's fate, so this is like Apollo 13's tension when we know how the sotry will ned. it therefor e forces us to see with David's eyes. 5) At v. 13 the sin has weight, gravitas, more than a stain, but a burden of solid guilt. 6) How is David torn by being father and king here? 7) Where is David rage, shame, pride here? Has his guilt swallowed those up? What happens when we deliberately reflect that Ps. 130 is paired here? 8) this could be a good place to speak of the pain of parents concerning their children, no matter what.

August 5 Column

Recently a community relations agent for home health care and assistance made a presentation in the office. She set me to thinking about our needs as we grow older. I write this on the anniversary of Medicare in the spate of LBJ legislation. For years the medical establishment had inveighed against “socialized medicine” and predicted no end of dire consequences with it s passage. Their voices were heard, for a while. Then as the program took hold, its polling numbers started to climb and remain high. In the latest contretemps over medical care, an elderly gentleman yelled at his member of Congress “keep your government hands off of my Medicare.” We have more elderly people, due, in part, to better nutrition and increased access to health care. No, it is not a perfect system, but I much prefer looking at reform measures for a system that provides so much security to so many, as opposed to leaving the elderly to the tender mercies of insurance companies, hospital administrators, and charity. With so many people living much longer, but still in need of help and care, we have been slow to face the needs of not only a grandparent generation but of great-grandparents. At some point most of us are going to need some sort of assistance. In my lifetime, I am amazed at the development of retirement centers all over the country. As my mother started to decline, I tried to honor her desire for independence at the same time noting her physical and mental decline. I did a Bible Study and worship there, and while they complained that the food was too plentiful, I used to tease them about why I never heard them being ready to do another load of dishes. We have a long way to go in working through way to help the elderly make it through the obstacles of aging and preserve their desires for autonomy to the extent possible. It breaks my hear tot see people who have cared for themselves and families need to resort to a dependent posture. Perhaps that is the way of things, part of our social responsibilities to the preceding generation. In truth, some of our desire to create proper facilities is the difficulty many have in bringing a grandparent into our homes and try to care for a parent at the same time. I really respect people’s desire to stay in their own homes. At the same time, I wonder if we make too much of that and refuse to look for ways to make it possible to remain in one’s home or to find continuing varieties of options for our elderly. No one can walk into an assisted living center or even large institutions with step down units and think o the poorhouses or dank nursing homes some of us remember from our youthful memory. The many sides of care seem to me to require a social response. It is so hard for a family with young children to care for a parent, in time, knowledge, and money. I am familiar with two remarkable daughters who share the 24 hour care duties for their mother, but at great cost to their work and social lives. They reject being complimented for their acts of duty, born of love, but they soldier on. Some of that sacrifice needs to be shared. The greatest generation, who faced the Great Depression and won WWII, is fading from us. We create a template for succeeding generations to care for the elderly. I pray that we can apply just some of the dedication that I see in the Olympians and a bit of the creativity of creating video games to this clarion call to social justice in our time.

devotions Week of August 5

Sunday Aug 5 Ps 51 is one of the great psalms of penitence, of contrition. Few prayers look into the depths of the human predicament as it does. We are told in a superscription that it is composed in view of Nathan exposing David’s terrible acts after the Bathsheba episode. Where do you need the plea to ‘create in me a clean heart” most fully? Has it changed over the years? Recall that heart has more of a sense of inward being, of the self, than only emotions. (Think of the heart of the matter). Monday-John Hiatt Have a Little Faith “When the road gets dark/ And you can no longer see/ Just let my love throw a spark/ An' have a little faith in me.” This is obviously a plea to someone the singer loves, but could it not be a prayer? Could it not be a word from God to us as we go through life? Tuesday Kent Ira Groff gives the good reminder that we get a little comfortable with the admonition to pray as we can, not as we cannot. He fears that we can get into a rut on the basis of what we say feels comfortable and secure. So, he suggests trying some different things. Perhaps one could try a different prayer posture. Instead of speaking a prayer, we could write one out. We could sing hymns. We could write our own hymn or write new words to a familiar tune. We could sculpt something or meditate on a painting. Wednesday- I love watching the Olympics. I care about sports I never consider, although I do not understand how team handball has not become a gym class staple. It is the dedication, the focus, the exuberance that inspires me. I sense some symbolic action going on when I thrill to someone coming form behind to win. My caring about an event every four years is a testament to our capacity to identify with another and their cause. It shows that we are not only isolated individuals, but social to our core. Thursday-Beauty was the topic of our local Reformed Roundtable. Varieties of the word abound in the Old Testament. Jonathan Edwards, the great American theologian saw beauty as creating delight and creating a yearning for it. He spoke of God’s beauty easily. When we are entranced by the beauties of nature, Edwards says that we see the “emanations of the sweet benevolence of Jesus Christ, shadows of infinite beauty and loveliness.” Friday-Charity is such a problematic practice for me. Part of me is concerned for justice, creating fair structures. Still when someone needs a glass of water, they need immediate aid, they need charity. I also realize that asking for charity is often demeaning. So, I suppose I will see them as two hands of Christ, justice and charity and try to find when one is more appropriate than the other and when they should be joined in common tasks. Saturday-Some days, it is easier to pray than others. Sometimes, it is mood, or circumstance, or a thousand other factors. Pray anyway, and pray as you are able. In lament psalms, the very act of prayer serves as a catharsis that changes a mood form downbeat to hopeful. It may be a signal to change the way we approach God this day. It may be reflective merely of a bad mood or spiritual lethargy. One mark of a mature faith is praying when we don’t feel much like praying.