vacation and time column

Lately I take vacation time somewhere warm in January or February. First, it is a pleasure to escape the cold for a bit. Vacations give me the sense of freedom from a rut. The sheer diversion can be a powerful restorative. At the same time, vacation time gives perspective on changes within and without.

This year it was a cruise from New Orleans. I had never visited there and had always wanted to. I did the usual beignets at Café du Monde and tried some gumbo, but the gumbo in Stagger Inn Again in Edwardsville is better. Bourbon Street was in fine ribald form. Its aftereffects are obvious, as large numbers of homeless sleep on porches and panhandling seems to be a desperate sign on most streets in the French Quarter. For me the city Park was a wonder in size and beauty, including its outdoor sculpture garden and fine art museum.

We then travelled to Mayan Country of Mexico, Belize, and Roatan, Honduras. I have travelled very little outside our country, so stark contrasts emerged, along with the familiar guilt of a traveler. Spectacular beaches collide with the specter of poverty, rural or urban. I saw the terrible effect of British colonialism in Belize, where only recently have Mennonite farmers brought sustainable food to the country. A lush country had previously imported much of its food. Travelling in a deep-hulled boat, we were able to see the rich abundant life on the coral reef.

Every since I was little, I had wanted to see Mayan temples. I received a better sense of where religion often shares a symbol and where different traditions depart. It is easy to forget that the Old Testament is rooted in more primitive culture as well as technology. I was intrigued that the ceiba tree, a tree of life, is the base of the ordering of gods in their system. It has a sense of being a figure of the heavenly realm and the underworld as well. They had a solar calendar, but a single year existed within a long series of cycles that pulse in thousands of years.

While we were gone, the president gave his final state of the union message. We have moved a long way from the impending economic disaster when he was inaugurated. The business model approach to government is poisoning the water supply of Flint Michigan to third world levels. Just as Americans belittle the residents of poor countries, it seems that the officials of Michigan belittled the residents who were coping with dangerously polluted water. The flood waters receded in our area- but help continues to be needed for rebuilding in badly affected areas. The Presbyterian Disaster Assistance team was one of many assessing needs and providing advice and services. We had a number of St Louis Cardinal fans on board, and all seemed resigned to the Rams leaving the city.

While we were in Belize, an American tourist was murdered. Back here in Alton an 11 year old was shot down. The day I returned we had a Martin Luther King Day rally. The sound of old civil rights anthems, prayers for peace and some chants echoed in the church. I heard precious little about violence. 50 years after the great civil rights revolution in law, we continue to see our fellow citizens locked in poverty, seemingly trapped in a system and a culture that provides nothing but obstacles toward advancement.

It is good to return home. That may be why it always seems to get back home than it does to reach a destination. Augustine long ago told us that our hearts are restless until they find rest and security in the true home of the soul, God. From God, no vacation is needed.

Sermon Notes Jan. 24 Neh. 8 I cor. 12

Neh. 8 I Cor 12:12-131,Lk.4:14-21

Nehemiah built the ruins of Jerusalem into a city worthy of the name. We have the river lined with too many rusting hulks of industry, and St Louis has the interstate bordering far too many abandoned ruined buildings.St Louis dreamed of building a new stadium in an old site near the river. Right here, we have the Stratford, Grand, post office and the YMCA standing empty for too long. I so admire the wedding shop at the corner by the Frews for renewing that corner and then Elijah Ps opening along the same thoroughfare.Nehemiah knew well that physical structures matter in a community.

Obstacles always occur. One of the reason I treasure this book is its flurry of obstacles that get in the way of his plans and work. Nehemiah makes the most of his limited resources.Impediments, predictable and surprising, afflict his goal, but he stays on course and gets the wall rebuilt.

In order to stress community, Paul reinforces the three key words, “arrange” (12:24), “suffer,” and “rejoice” (12:26) The Greek preposition syn (meaning “with” or “together,” as in the w“symphony”) is prefixed to each of these key verbs. It is as if to underscore the assertion that our oneness is a matter of God’s design. From creation God has “mixed us all together,” that we might suffer and rejoice together in a mutual harmony.

Now we meet even one more key insight of the body language as Paul develops it for the Corinthians. The body is composed of many parts and each part has an important function. Weight is added in the assertion that all of this is by God’s design...interrelation of the weaker and stronger members of the body. Because “God has arranged the body, giving greater honor to the inferior member,” (12:24) we are led to imagine and discover the implications of the members’ mutual “care for one another” (12:25) mutual edification of a community, a body of which Christ is also a part, through the mutual care for one another in both the sufferings and the successes of life.(see James Boyce). The critical language has its focus on working together. That was the theme of the march on MLK Day here just this past week and perhaps the theme of the gathering on the 12th concerning the closing of the old coal-fired power plant. It is not easy for us to hear. Yes we are called to be responsible adult, rep sponsible individuals. At the same time we are tied together in society, in community, in a congregation. Some things we do not do well alone. we require a common purpose with common effort.Congregation renaissance requires the guidance of god and the joint vision and effort of a congregation.We have a Nehemiah task before us for first Presbyterian Church.

The Vitality Group wishes to focus on emphasizing our identity as a formal worship center, a beacon for sophisticated liturgical worship. We could have moved from out location a quarter century ago, but we decided to stay in the heart of Alton.At this point that means touching our community with a variety of servies and information on programs in the disparate stew that marks Madison county social services. It seems as if we have a wall around us that we need to dismantle, of folks either not knowing u of us, hence varieties of advertising/getting our name out and a misperception about our life and work here. When I first came here, we read from John’s gospel where Jesus says come and see. That,I am convinced, will open the door for people to join with us and give us a launching pad for a new future beyond our best dreams.

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Week of Jan,. 24 devotional pts

Sunday-Ps. 19 is perhaps the great creation psalm. The psalmist sees order in the moral universe as well as in the created order. What most impresses you of the order in creation? What most impresses you about order in the moral universe?  

Monday-God does not dole out suffering in some kind of cosmic test for rewards we do not understand."--- Christine Valters Painter, PhD,

Tuesday-Turning water into wine, Jesus enhanced people's joy rather than merely removing a source of their grief. That's what Epiphany is about.

Wednesday-As people who are both "of faith" and "with questions," we often look for signs from God to help us understand and to give us a sense that God is with us. An important aspect of the Apostle Paul's familiar counsel about the gifts of the Spirit is its reminder that God is with us in visible ways.

Thursday-"Teach us to know that if we are to be successful stewards, we must be your servants. We know that we cannot solve the many difficulties which beset your people. But you can. We cannot reconcile people whose prejudices and narrow-sighted self-interest prevent brotherhood. But you can. We cannot infuse hope in those who despair. But you can." (Jordan, Eloquent Thunder, p. 68)

Friday-Henri Nouwen-As soon as someone accuses me or criticizes me, as soon as I am rejected, left alone, or abandoned, I find myself thinking, “Well, that proves once again that I am a nobody.” … [My dark side says,] I am no good… I deserve to be pushed aside, forgotten, rejected, and abandoned.” How do you fight this dark side? How does god’s acceptance of you help?

Saturday-Howard Rice and Lamar Williamson Jr.O God, inexhaustible source of all good things, we bless thee for the gifts of thy love. Grant that we may hear thy word with a real desire to receive what it promises and to practice what it commands. Engrave it not only on our minds but in our hearts, and transform us by thy Spirit into the image of thy Son, making us contemplate thy glory in the clear mirror of the gospel.

New Year's column

As this piece is being sent to the editor, the New Year is just on the horizon, and the old year is tottering to its conclusion. Some of us greet the New Year with a set of resolutions. Some of them are attempts at trying something new. Others are attempts to try to bring back the past, especially the weight on the scale.

God loves the new. Creation itself (Hebrew: bara) is in itself a new act. Whenever the past has a stranglehold on our journey, God looks toward the east, the rising sun.  God brings life out of death’s cold tomb. God creates freshness amidst decay.

Psalms repeatedly tells us to sing to the Lord a new song. Isaiah 43 emphasizes it, in the midst of a dispiriting time when the promises of restoration seemed to lie unfulfilled. -I do a new thing, do you not perceive it? Toward this end, even the heaven and the earth will be made new (Is. 65:17-25 Even Lamentations sees God’s mercies as new every morning (3:22-3). Ezekiel looks toward a time when a new heart will be within us (36:26). In the New Testament, Jesus spoke of the power of the new to burst an old wineskin. Paul breaks into poetry: if anyone in Christ that one is a new creation-the past is finished and gone (2 Cor. 5:17). The Bible’s close has God saying behold I make all things new.

The past can be a drag, a hindrance to development. The ghosts of a misty past continue to haunt us. Its chains entangle our movement. It can blind us to future possibilities and options.

Facing novel situations and changes can be most disconcerting. It takes a stable sense of self and security in community to be able to face the shaking of the foundations. When I was young, Robert Jay Lifton argued for a protean self, one that could change constantly to be able to surf the rapidity of change in our time. (Recall that Proteus is connected to the turbulent changing of the sea). Without a secure sense of self, I would fear that the sheer weight of change could fragment a person.

We have been a country that has embraced newness. Toward the end of the nineteenth century, the historian Turner feared of what would happen to us with the closing of the frontier and its promise of a new start. Our advertising constantly beckons us to the new product.

It seems as if we are stuck in a bit of a rut. The middle class is shrinking a bit and social mobility has grown more difficult. We look to the past as guide and hope for a past revenant, to borrow the new movie title. The future seems to beckon less brightly and may feel more like a looming pall is about to descend. We have become much more averse toward risk than we were.

One way to look at divine providence is that god is constantly at work weaving a new future day after day, epoch after epoch. God bends the arc of history toward a better world, a destiny worth living to see. God is capable of taking the shards of the past and forging them in new ways to fit our day and time. The God of time sees a future that we can scarcely even be led to imagine.

Here is a blessing from John O’Donahue: “may a slow wind work these words/ of love around you/ an invisible cloak/ to mind your life… and though your destination is not yet clear/you can trust the promise of this opening/unfurl yourself into the grace of beginning/that is at one with your life’s desire.”

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week of Jan. 3 Devotional

Sunday-Ps.147:12-20 is the reading for today.this evocation of praise sounds like a natural exclamation of Happy New Year.In a Polish Christmas Eve, each person shares bread with every other persona at table and wishes them peace and prosperity, jsut as this psalm does.

Monday-“If assembling as the Church is, in the most profound sense of the term, the beginning of the eucharistic celebration. . ., then its end and completion is the Church’s entrance into heaven, her fulfillment at the table of Christ, in his kingdom. It is imperative to indicate and to confess this as the sacrament’s end, purpose and fulfillment. . .at the beginning because this ‘end’ also reveals the unity of the eucharist, its order and essence as movement and ascent—as, above all and before all, the sacrament of the kingdom of God.” Alexander Schmemann, “The Eucharist: Sacrament of the Kingdom,” p. 27

Tuesday-"Far from establishing one in unassailable narcissistic security, the way of prayer brings us face-to-face with the shame and indignity of the false self that seeks to live for itself alone and to enjoy the 'consolation of prayer' for its own sake. This 'self' is pure illusion, and ultimately he [or she] who lives for and by such an illusion must end either in disgust or in madness." [Thomas Merton, Contemplative Prayer (New York: Image, 1969/2014),

Wednesday-William Blake, who wrote: "We are put on earth for a little space that we may learn to bear the beams of love."  

Thursday- Yes ... It could happen any time, tornado, earthquake, Armageddon. It could happen. Or sunshine, love, salvation. It could, you know. That's why we wake and look out -- no guarantees in this life. But some bonuses, like morning, like right now, like noon, like evening. ~ William Stafford ~

Friday-Whatever may be the tensions and the stress of a particular day, there is always lurking close at hand the trailing beauty of forgotten joy or unremembered peace. --Howard Thurman

Saturday-"We resist feeling our pain because our society discourages it. Even without the absence of permission to feel sorrow, how many of us have the time and space it requires to adequately mourn our losses?"--- Christine Valters Paintner, PhD,

sermon Notes John 1, Eph.1

In this second Sunday after christmas we move far from the baby in Bethlehem to a sophisticated view of the Incarnation of God in Jesus Christ. John avoids biology but insists that God’s own logic of love, god’s plan for creation can be seen in the life of Jesus, one of grace and truth

.“God is here. This truth should fill our lives, and every Christmas should be for us a new and special meeting with God, when we allow his light and grace to enter deep into our soul.”

― Josemaría Escrivá, Christ Is Passing by

The word is logos in Greek we use it to show the study or logic of something, or word, logic as thought process.John also draws on the language of "Wisdom" found in another Jewish text from the second century BCE, Sirach. Here, Wisdom is said to make her dwelling (kataskēnō) in Jacob (Sirach 24:8). John uses the same verb root (from skēnoō) in 1:14. A more literal translation might render this verse, "The Word pitched its tent among us," giving the phrase a wonderfully earthy feel. This alternate translation also provides a sense of God's intentionality. God has chosen this place, a place identified not by physical characteristics or geographic boundaries, but by reference to relationship ("among us").Hearon -shakan in Hebrew. Logos can mean word, but it can mean  expressed thought, message, logic, idea, vision. In other words, Jesus communicates God to us in a way we can grasp.In. philosophy- it could be the natural order of the universe or a bridge between divinity and the world. Perhaps John wants to get away from talking about the biology of the Incarnation but to its meaning. Notice that John does not use the word messiah/christ here until the very end of the prologue.It is also connected to the figure of wisdom in the Old Testament. Tillich- logos grasps and shapes reality and in Jesus Christ graphs and shapes what he call the new being away from alienation and estrangement into participating with God’; sway in the world.Barth the logos is God’s determination to be with us no matter what.-Von Balthasar-Jesus is the expression of god’s own life with us.the invisible radiates in the visible-sacrament, a sacred part of the world-it links heaven and earth-it is a looking glass for us-Hall sees it as bridging the gulf between heaven and earth, of showing God’s solidarity with us, of working within the world, within us.Hall-God’s very truth.

Eph 1 is a long sentence in Greek. It struggles to put the event of Jesus Christ into words, for words are frail vessels, but they are what we have. Perhaps, hymns are a better vehicle.It is an explosion of words about the range of meaning concerning jesus Christ."In Christ" every experience is reframed, from our most bracing joys and cherished achievements to our besetting temptations, our most anguished regrets, and our most wounding losses. "In Christ" we are joined to the power and presence of God. "In Christ" we are knit to others who will cry over our dead with us even as they help us sing hymns of resurrection. At the same time, being "in Christ" is no sentimental togetherness. An "in Christ" community has to reckon with the fact that it will be perceived at times as more a threat than a blessing. Part of the community's calling is to be a truth-telling, truth-living reflection of the God who has called it into being.Sally Brown

These large claims are part of the miracle of Christmas. All of this was placed in the hands of Mary and Joseph. All of this depended on the life a a baby far from home and on the run to Egypt. In all likelihood they were a young couple,maybe in their early teens. Beyond biology, yet within the fabric of of human life, this baby has a destiny in the middle of danger and uncertainty.Emmanuel is God with us, as one of us.