Column On Ideology Over Reality

When I was in my first year of college, I learned about Soviet agriculture under the assumptions of Lysenko. He denied the importance of the gene. Instead, he maintained that acquired characteristics in plants could be transmitted to succeeding generations of plants: nurture over nature, if you will. Pluck leaves off plants, and the descendants of the plant will be leafless. It fit a vulgar Marxist notion that changing conditions could change heredity, a prop for the program of the “new Soviet.” Those scientists who opposed his program were killed over the years.

I plan to go to Glacier National Park next month. When it was launched, one could see over 100 glaciers. Not long ago, travel materials listed 27, and now it is 23. As our youngest said, “you better get there soon; those glaciers are receding faster than your hairline.” The founder of Facebook recently toured the park, but the park’s expert was pulled from the trip. Presumably, he may have spoken truth to a wealthy visitor. Years ago, when I visited the Grand Canyon with our young children, protestors screamed about the park giving the geological age of the layers of rock in the vista, as it conflicted with th4eir notion of the age of the earth according to their ill-considered religious reading of Genesis 1.

A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes. (Charles Spurgeon)
When I was young, I learned about cognitive dissonance. The notion is that we like to have harmony between our attitudes and actual event. His work noted the difficulty religious members felt when a prophecy failed. Think of 7^th Day Adventists speaking of the Great Disappointment when Miller’s prediction of the end of the world in 1844 failed again. Over the years, social psychologists demonstrate that it seems that we are prone to making bad decisions. For instance, David Rapp found that we tend to hold on to inaccurate information easily. We don’t apply critical thinking to it, and the misinformation seems to get lodged in our awareness. It becomes the most easily accessed information, and we give it credence because that is what we recall. sociologist Steven Hoffman, visiting assistant professor at the University at Buffalo. "Rather than search rationally for information that either confirms or disconfirms a particular belief," he says, "people actually seek out information that confirms what they already believe." 

"We refer to this as 'inferred justification,'" says Hoffman. Inferred justification is a sort of backward chain of reasoning. You start with something you believe strongly (the invasion of Iraq was the right move) and work backward to find support for it 

In John’s gospel, Jesus says that the truth shall make us free.. The command against false witness has in its heart to speak the truth. I think of the southern injunction: one should always tell the truth, but you needn’t be telling it all of the time. When we get presented with information in a lecturing, superior tone, we tend to get defensive and reject both the speaker and the message. We can counter our natural disposition toward falsity but trying to grasp a fuller a picture than we have at our disposal. That applies to politics as well as our quick judgments about others without having a better picture of their background and dispositions. An assault on evidence, on reason, on truth itself does not permit us to work together.

Proiv. 22:20-21 Have not I written unto thee excellent things of counsels and knowledge; That I might make thee know the certainty of the words of truth, that thou mightest bring back words of truth to them that send thee?

Sermon Notes July 30 gen. 29, Mt. 13

Gen. 29,7 years seemed like seven days-and the fury of Esau-inversion of the order-Laban gets years of free work Another theme that emerges from the story of Jacob has to do with the relationship between God and Jacob. Though the text does not say this explicitly, it seems that God is working with this flawed man to re-make him. Jacob, after stealing Esau's blessing, is caught in a net of his own making. The deceiver is deceived, and the one who broke the law of the firstborn is caught by another version of it. He gets a taste of his own medicine. Jacob lives in exile from his homeland, and has to work for fourteen years without wages for love of Rachel. All these experiences will help to re-make the shallow young man we first met in Genesis 25 into the father of the nation Israel. That re-shaping will take a dramatic turn, of course, in next week's lesson, the story of Jacob's wrestling with God at the River Jabbok.(Schifferdecker-WP Menn) Many in the congregation will identify with the intense emotions in this family tale of inexplicable preference, deception, competition, and jealousy. Women in particular may resonate with the feeling of being judged by their appearance, the despair due to infertility, or the ecstasy over a baby’s birth, all so poignantly depicted. Leah and Rachel’s central roles in the emergence of the people of Israel highlights women’s agency as an important means through which God continues to work today.Link with kingdom of heaven

Zilpah, her maid, would give Jacob childfren.How many of us doubt we love properly-how many of us doubt if we are loved properly by god or humans? Are we willing to settle/ Are we the ones settled for?

Ps. 105 or 128, Rom. 8:26-39, God reweaves/works toward the good

Mt. 13:31-33.44-52 see Long Our two parables are expressions of the conviction that meaning resides principally in God and in the world to come, and they encourage us to understand everything else in their light. This is consistent with what we find throughout the gospels, wherein Jesus views earth from the vantage point of heaven and interprets the present by projecting himself into the future and then looking back. The world's chief values are not intrinsic but extrinsic; they reside in the God who is above the world and within the world and waiting at its end.Persuaded that the true nature of things is not obvious, Jesus sets out, in word and deed, to fracture the hypnotic hold of life-as-it-has-always-been. r. Because he sanctions not the world as it is (where the kingdom is obscure) but only the world as it should be, when the kingdom will be all in all, he dislikes the default setting of our ordinary consciousness, whose defect is precisely that it accepts the present world as the real world. He is disconcerted that we see without seeing and fail to strive to enter through the narrow gate and that we are so wedded to everyday life and find so much comfort in material trinkets and the unstable circumstances of fleeting lives. (Allison) The dominion of God may not always appear to be succeeding in the world, and even the Church itself is a mixed bag of good and evil, but in the end, God will sort things out. One day The evil will perish, and the righteous will be part of God's bountiful and glorious harvest.Hoffman Pres outlook-

If the kingdom of heaven, the rule and reign of God right here and now, is like a mustard seed -  tiny, easily overlooked, hidden away in the deep soil, but eventually will invasively explode -  perhaps I might say that the kingdom of heaven is like a computer virus: unknown until it blows up your hard drive and your day-to-day routines are upended as a result. Or how about this? If the kingdom of heaven is like a massive amount of yeast - unseen, but powerful - that eventually produces enough bread to feed a huge crowd, then I might say the kingdom of heaven, God's presence and will, is like an antibiotic: silent and unseen, but active, life-saving and history-altering. God's presence and power at work in the world even when people fail to notice it until that time it is unmistakable and transformative. The kingdom of heaven is here even when we fail to perceive it. These first two parables remind us to trust the salvific, exponential expanse of God's reign even, especially, when it appears that nothing at all is happening and there are no places for the birds to nest and no bread to feed the hungry crowds. The kingdom of heaven is already present and coming. When we happen upon the presence of God or search and find God, we give up anything and everything for the sake of that relationship. Nothing is more precious or valuable to us than participating in the kingdom of heaven that's been revealed to us, whether we were looking for it or not. There is a great deal of variety in the kingdom of heaven, not so much about the one correct answer, as many paths to the right relationship to the one true God. We may discover God, we may look for God, we may get accidentally caught up in God's broad net; no matter, for we are still part of the kingdom of heaven, the one we can be certain is present and powerful and growing and sure to provide home and sustenance for more of creation that we can imagine.

Week of July 30 reflections

Sunday-Ps. 105:3-5.Select , please, just one of these verses. For me, , it is v. 4 on divine presence. I have learned to seek it in the everyday as well as in Biblie, a vision, a great action. There I find the security of an unfailingly loving presence.

Monday-But out of his own unhappiness, man is always eager to point out his neighbor’s faults. ~ Kierkegaard

Tuesday-“Seemingly insignificant choices are like seemingly trivial seeds. Once planted, they root and grow and spread into something tremendous. Imagine the prickly weeds some choices amount to over time and be careful not to plant them.” ― Richelle E. Goodrich, Making Wishes

Wednesday-Thornton Wilder-Soon we shall die and all memory of those we have known will have left the earth, and we ourselves shall be loved for a while and forgotten. But the love will have been enough; all those impulses of love return to the love that made them. Even memory is not necessary for love. There is a land of the living and a land of the dead and the bridge is love, the only survival, the only meaning.

Thursday-To paraphrase Emerson: A friend is someone who knows where you've been, accepts you as you are, and still invites you to grow."*How can I be open to the transforming rhythm of coming and going of a friend?*How can I cultivate my friendship with God? Ira Groff

Friday-Mother Teresa-If you are searching for God and do not know where to begin, learn to pray. Take the trouble to pray every day. You can pray anytime, anywhere. You can pray at work – work doesn’t have to stop prayer and prayer doesn’t have to stop work. Tell him everything; talk to him. He is our father; he is father to us all, whatever religion we are. We are all created by God, we are his children. We have to put our trust in him and love him, believe in him, and work for him. If we pray, we will get all the answers we need

Saturday-Rainer Maria Rilke-To love is good, too: love being difficult. For one human being to love another: that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks, the ultimate, the last test and proof, the work for which all other work is but preparation.

Column on wheat and Weeds parable

Last week, many churches read the famous parable of the sower and the seed and its later explanation of the parable-This week the basic image gets extended, (Mt. 13:24-30, 36-43) and it is given an explanation as well. First, let’s clear away some underbrush. The kingdom of heaven is not only entrance into God’s dwelling place after we die. It is the totality of God’s vision for and god’s way in the world now. It is the alternative to a new way, a paradigm shift fi you will, from our culture, our ideas, our common sense. A weed, darnel, looks like wheat when growing, so one cannot easily discern the wheat from the weed.It is put in an apocalyptic setting, at the end of the age.

Jesus pictures God’s good world as under assault, this time a covert, sophisticated assault by evil. God in this story does not cause the evil.Thomas Long, one of the leading preachers and teachers in our country retired recently.He devoted a chapter to this parable in his book, What Shall We Say. He sees it as an introduction to thinking about theodicy, the thorny question of God and suffering.I haven’t noticed that the parable starts with question we all may ask about the cause of trouble and evil in the world. We do not receive an explanation,but we do get an answer that evil, not God, is its cause.

Long also sees the parable has given a trace of vision of God’s power.God does choose to clear up the matter at the end, but God’s power is not one of uprooting, of coercion, of waving a wizard’s wand. God works with the world as it is and works to draw good out of it at an appropriate time and place.

Augustine picked up this image of weeds and wheat  in his notion that the church itself is a mixed community, not a perfect one.Elizabeth Johnson reads it as a partial parable  about “judge not.” Maybe  some  "weeders" in Matthew's congregation wanted to purify the community by ripping out the weeds. Maybe it had romantic people who thought that the weeds would turn into wheat; the weeds weren't really bad after all. The  parable tells us that  rooting  out the weeds will only do more damage to the good  crop. In part, this is where churches get the reputation of being judgmental, heedless weeding. As soon as you hear someone say, ‘what kind of church would we be if we permit…” then we are in the world of this parable.Some Christians have the nerve pronounce judgment on people and see them as destined for  damnation.  Jesus makes clear that we simply cannot be certain who is "in" or who is "out." In fact, God's judgment about these matters may take many by surprise . Thank God it is not up to us! We can leave the weeding to the angels, and get on with our task, our calling, to help with God’s garden, east of Eden. Sometimes, it gets interpreted as being willing to let evil go unabated, as fighting it would do more harm than good.  In some instances, this may well be correct. I think of the statement during Vietnam: “we had to destroy the village in order to save it.” The parable then leads us to an examination of the virtue of humility. We have a hard time being able to determine weed from what in our mixed up world. We do not judge consequences well.

God works in ways large and small. God’s time frame differs from ours. Mature faith realizes what a complicated, complex, situation we all share.

Sermon Notes July 23-Gen. 28, Mt. 13:24

July 26-Gen. 28,God works through us. We are the raw material for god’s continuing action.God's promises, promises that are fulfilled in spite of and even through the less-than-admirable actions of the human beings in the story. Though Jacob is a liar and a trickster, God graciously gives him the blessing God gave to Abraham and to Isaac. In addition, God promises to be with him and to bring him back to his homeland. -starts to be fulfilled through  Laban's trickery and the rivalry that develops between Leah and Rachel.. Though the text does not say this explicitly, it seems that God is working with this flawed man to re-make him. Jacob, after stealing Esau's blessing, is caught in a net of his own making. The deceiver will be  deceived, and the one who broke the law of the firstborn is caught by another version of it from Uncle Laban.. All these experiences will help to re-make the shallow young man we first met in Genesis 25 into the father of the nation Israel. may be a dream quest at a cultic site-same idea as an axis for the temple-movement goes both ways- has he always needed God- or is this a realization?- the last is negative will not abandon/forsake is that what motivates him? Trust v. anxiety? Even though he stole his birthright/blessing, he adds to God’s promise and makes it conditional. Jacob has control issues, but who can predict the future-unforeseen event and consequence happen all of the time; it does not seem to me that god treats us a puppets on a string-

Mt. 13:24-30, 36-43- kingdom of heaven is not only entrance into God’s dwelling place after we die. It is the totality of God’s vision for and god’s way in the world now. It is the alternative to a new way, a paradigm shift fi you will, from our culture, our ideas, our common sense. A weed, darnel, looks like wheat when growing, so one cannot easily discern the wheat from the weed.It is put in an apocalyptic setting, at the end of the age.

Jesus pictures God’s good world as under assault, this time a covert, sophisticated assault by evil. God in this story does not cause the evil..I haven’t noticed that the parable starts with question we all may ask about the cause of trouble and evil in the world. We do not receive an explanation,but we do get an answer that evil, not God, is its cause. Long also sees the parable has given a trace of vision of God’s power.God does choose to clear up the matter at the end, but God’s power is not one of uprooting, of coercion, of waving a wizard’s wand. God works with the world as it is and works to draw good out of it at an appropriate time and place.

Jesus makes clear that we simply cannot be certain who is "in" or who is "out." In fact, God's judgment about these matters may take many by surprise . Thank God it is not up to us! We can leave the weeding to the angels, and get on with our task, our calling, to help with God’s garden, east of Eden. The parable then leads us to an examination of the virtue of humility. We have a hard time being able to determine weed from what in our mixed up world. God works in ways large and small. God works on the wheat and weeds within the soul and within us. God’s time frame differs from ours. Mature faith realizes what a complicated, complex, situation we all share.

week of July 23 reflections

July 23-  Sunday-Ps. 139 is a powerful prayer in so many ways. I was always reminded of it when I read Runaway bunny to the children. The image of God as watchful is a threat when in the wrong and a sense of protective parenting when we are in the right. How do you imagine the ever-present god?

Monday-We simply cannot move or remove ourselves from the circle of God’s love and God’s life; and God, with all the time in the world, waits for each of us to realize this and acknowledge this. -Br. Curtis Almquist

Tuesday-Jung-“It all depends on how we look at things, and not on how things are in themselves. The least of things with a meaning is worth more in life than the greatest of things without it.”

Wednesday-Eleanor Roosevelt-Now, more than ever, we must proclaim, “The Lord is at hand!” We are part of this, quietly and actively, through our faith and expectation. It is enough for us to know that God is weaving his design in the warp and weft of the world. His goal will be reached, not just for this or that person, but for everyone.

Thursday-”I walk, all day,across the heaven-verging field. (Mary Oliver)

Friday-This world, this reality, revealed by God speaking to us, is not the kind of world to which we are accustomed. It is not a neat and tidy world in which we are in control- there is mystery everywhere that takes considerable getting used to, and until we do, it scares us. —Eugene Peterson

Saturday-Perhaps the way to lasting inner and outer harmony is through the conscious, sacred, indwelling partnership of Mary and Martha. Inner Mary and Martha must make peace with one another and honor and respect their two distinct charisms: Mary, the introverted, reflective, and prayerful, contemplative, and Martha, the extroverted, diligent, and active, taskmaster.Through sacred awareness and the commitment to daily sacred practices, it’s possible to encourage the archetypal presence of Mary and Martha to work together. Their collaboration increases the potential to bring balance to life’s aspects of being and doing.Abbey of the Arts

column on the depth of individual lives

One of the things I appreciate about the Alton area is the amount and quality of music, often free music, available. In listening to artists, but trying never to dance, I ran into an elderly gentleman who would dance with younger ladies or, if he were so inclined, would gracefully saunter along to the music by himself. We called him black hat, as he usually wore one. We chatted on occasion, and every once in while a powerful intelligence would peek through his practiced routines. I hadn’t seen him for a while, and J. Christopher Vaught of Mondinband, posted on Facebook a notice of his death. Then, I was led into another world of understanding.

He was a scientist. He had a master’s degree in genetics from Notre Dame. He had a medical degree form Wayne State, and his PhD was in neonatal anatomy from Ohio State. In other words, he was one of the best-educated people I have ever met. He worked at the VA and as a pathologist and medical examiner for years. He wrote books on pathology and authored around 100 scholarly articles. He was married for years, and he and his wife raised ten children. He was a runner and played a number of musical instruments. That explained his fascination with guitar styles that he would relay at some length.

Not long ago, I noticed that Lewis and Clark named a building near St Patrick’s church, near St. Claire’s, after Scott Bibb. Since I moved here in 2011, I take it for granted that I know little of Alton history. It did not take me long to find out about him. He had two school age children. Illinois had passed a law prohibiting school segregation in 1874. (After all, Illinois had a set of “Black Code” laws prior to the 14^th amendment.). By the time his children were school age, in the late 19^th century, Alton built 2 new schools for African-American children. His children were told not to attend the nearby Washington school, but a new school, the Lovejoy school, that was assigned to children of color. (Note the name: a school intended for separation was name for the great abolitionist.) While white children entered the school, the police stopped African-American children from entering their previous school and directed them to the segregated school.

Mr. Bibb went to court and lost a jury trial. His case was appealed to the Illinois Supreme Court. This issue went on for 7 cases and 5 appellate decisions. Over and over Alton schools and the courts refused to follow the order of the Illinois supreme court. In the last lost appeal, the city officials insisted that the ruling could apply on the named plaintiffs, Mr. Bibb’s children. The residents being pushed to the new segregated schools launched protest, raised money for the court fight, and even boycotted the schools to which they were being forced to attend.

We do not realize the depth of ordinary people. Indeed, most people remain an utter mystery to us. Even family members, maybe especially family members, get lost is n a haze of role, ritual, and vague recollection.  We all harbor depths unfathomed. I just officiated at a funeral. We have it in our power to record family histories, to appreciate the depth and scope of our lives. Story Corps has a set of guidelines for families to collect oral histories. May we live into our eulogies? Memorials for Dr. Corrigan can be made to the Salesian missions, and I would think that Lewis and Clark would be grateful for donations made to its Bibb Center, a fitting memorial to a man who fought so long to have educational opportunity available to all citizens. May our lives be worthy of memorials as well.

Sermon Notes July 16 Gen. 25, Mt. 13, Rom. 8:1-11

Gen.25 God's promises, promises that are fulfilled in spite of and even through the less-than-admirable actions of the human beings in the story. Though Jacob is a liar and a trickster, God graciously gives him the blessing God gave to Abraham and to Isaac. In addition, God promises to be with him and to bring him back to his homeland. The scene at Bethel is a profound illustration of God's grace. God's  promise to Abraham that he will be the father of a "great nation" starts to be fulfilled through  Laban's trickery and the rivalry that develops between Leah and Rachel. Another theme that emerges from the story of Jacob has to do with the relationship between God and Jacob. Though the text does not say this explicitly, it seems that God is working with this flawed man to re-make him. Jacob, after stealing Esau's blessing, is caught in a net of his own making. The deceiver will be  deceived, and the one who broke the law of the firstborn is caught by another version of it from Uncle Laban.. All these experiences will help to re-make the shallow young man we first met in Genesis 25 into the father of the nation Israel. Many in the congregation will identify with the intense emotions in this family tale of inexplicable preference, deception, competition, and jealousy. he despair due to infertility, or the ecstasy over a baby’s birth, all so poignantly depicted. women’s agency as an important means through which God continues to work today.Menn continuing issue of fertility for 20 years-things are not all right within the womb-Cain and Abel-river runs through it-tam integrity of self-beyond good and evil-god redeems with the raw material at hand. It appears that favoritism again rears its head. Isaac loves Esau, the eldest, the hunter, and Rebecca loves the quiet, domesticated son. Maybe they were pulled by what they saw in the sons, what they saw in themselve sor missed in themselves, or even in their relationship? Israel is having some fun with these stories. Esau is portrayed as the father of the land of Edom/red, and hairy Esau is a p word play on Mt. Seir of Edom, a land of pride in their intellect.I love that Israel can also look at its progenitor as a deceitful, tricky younger mama’s favorite brother, who hunted for human foibles to get ahead instead of wild game in the fields.

Rom. 8:1-11, Jervis Paul is seeking to help his hearers leave behind their old identities which were shaped by the structures of sin and death.They are living in this alternative cosmos because they have believed and so been brought into Christ.Being “in Christ” means that believers are not ruled by the path of  sin, not ruled by death. Believers have been transported to a new place where life and not death is in charge. The very spirit of christ lives within.Freed from the social and self-imposed shackles that bind us from being our best, true selves.Right relationships with each other and God are opened up.

Mt. 13:1-9, 18-23 sower seed soil fertility issue again in a spiritual vein through the physical Johnson-Jesus  endorses extravagant generosity in sowing the word, even in perilous places. Though we may wonder about the wisdom or efficiency of his methods, Jesus promises that the end result will be a bumper crop.god can use different sorts of seed for god's purposes. (GMO seeds) "Discerning the conditions behind the soils in which we are planted and choose to plant ourselves is a matter of life and death." (Christian Century for June 21, 2017

July 16 Week Reflections

Sunday-Ps. 119:105-112 could easily be missed in the  midst of this long, long prayer. In what ways is the message of God a light for you? How do you hold your life (or soul, perhaps)  in your hand and seek to follow God? When have you been afflicted? Where does your heart incline, in what direction(s)?

Monday-"God can be reached and held by means of love, but by means of thought, never."

~ The Cloud of Unknowing a 14-century spiritual guide's text on contemplative prayer

Tuesday-Albert Einstein-Each of us is here for a brief sojourn; for what purpose he knows not, though he sometimes thinks he feels it. But from the viewpoint of daily life – without going deeper – we exist for each other; in the first place, for those on whose smiles and welfare all our happiness depends, and next, for all those unknown to us personally, with whose destinies we are bound up by the tie of sympathy. A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life depends on the labors of others, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving.

Wednesday-Mother Maria Skobtsova-The eyes of love will perhaps be able to see how Christ himself departs, quietly and invisibly, from the sanctuary that is protected by a splendid iconostasis. The singing will continue to resound, the clouds of incense will arise, the faithful will be overcome by the ecstatic beauty of the services. But Christ will go out onto the church steps and mingle with the crowd: the poor, the lepers, the desperate, the embittered, the holy fools. Christ will go out into the streets, the prisons, the low haunts and dives. Again and again.

Thursday-Albert Schweitzer-We live in a time when the good faith of peoples is doubted more than ever before. Expressions throwing doubt on the trustworthiness of each other are bandied back and forth.… We cannot continue in this paralyzing mistrust...We must approach them in the spirit that we are human beings, all of us, and that we feel ourselves fitted to feel with each other; to think and will together in the same way.

Friday-perhaps Christ is nearer to you than He is to me: this I say without shame or guilt because I have learned to rejoice that Jesus is in the world in people who know Him not, that He is at work in them when they think themselves far from Him, and it is my joy to tell you to hope though you think that for you of all hope is impossible. Hope not because you think you can be good, but because God loves us irrespective of our merits and whatever is good in us comes from His love, not from our own doing. Hope because Jesus is with those who are poor and outcasts and perhaps despised even by those who should seek them and care for them most lovingly because they act in God's name. No one on earth has reason to despair of Jesus because Jesus loves man, loves him in his sin, and we too must love man in his sin." (Thomas Merton)

Saturday-Dorothy Day-Paperwork, cleaning the house, dealing with the innumerable visitors who come all through the day, answering the phone, keeping patience and acting intelligently, which is to find some meaning in all that happens – these things, too, are the works of peace.

July 9 Sermon Notes

July 8 Genesis 24:34-38, 42-49, 58-67  one long romantic comedy, perhaps. (see the skipped v. 50-maybe read all) Psalm 45:10-17 or Song of Solomon 2:8-13 , the Song reverses the curses of the Garden of Eden, including the rupturing of the relationship between man and woman.  There is a mutuality about this love that repairs that rupture and places the lovers back into the Garden. (And, indeed, the Song is overflowing with images of lush gardens and abundant fruit; no thorns or thistles here.)     

Gottmann-Love Map – his term for that part of your brain where you store all the relevant information about your partner’s life. Another way of saying this is that these couples have made plenty of room in their minds. They remember each other’s histories, and they keep updating their information as the facts and feelings of their spouse’s world change. They know each other’s goals in life, each other’s worries, each other’s hopes and dreams. From knowledge springs not only love, but the fortitude to weather marital storms.

“They say love conquers all / You can’t start it like a car / You can’t stop it with a gun.”Zevon

Humor in relationships-meant for each other-takes the sting a out of being overly serious-maybe a good relationship is one where we can relax a bit the pull of the man cave as safe space

When Isaac finally appears in the story, he has just returned from a journey to Beer-lahai-roi. It is unclear what Isaac was doing at this well (Gen. 16:7-14 does it have to do with sight?). Isaac’s story  suggests disorientation and grief, following his father's near sacrifice of him (Gen. 22:1-19) and his mother's death (Gen. 23:1-2). In this unconventional love story, it turns out that Isaac had been visiting one well while Rebekah was at a distant well watering camels.WP The death of one generation moves to the promise of a new generation; but to fulfill that promise, Isaac needs a wife. We get this delightful sense that God has opened a path for two people who are made for each other. We are told that Isaac loved her. .(1st time word appear sin the bible)

There is humor here -- Rebekah offers to draw water for the camels, but one camel can drink 20-30 gallons of water at a time, and there are 10 camels! She is not only beautiful, it seems, strong, think Wonder woman. Laban may be appropriately hospitable and pious (24:29-31, 50), but it doesn’t hurt that he has first seen the gold jewelry that Abraham’s servant gave his sister (verse 30). the Hebrew very plainly says that she falls off the camel (verse 64).Isaac took Rebekah into his mother Sarah’s tent and he was “comforted after his mother’s death” (verse 67). In the shadow of death, or the threat of death (chapter 22), love is born, grief is quieted, and the promise of life begins anew.

Bodies can be vehicles for the spiritual. The senses can point us beyond.I want a moment of silence and a moment of prayer/For the love we'll need to make it in the world out there/To want what I have/To take what I'm given, with grace/For this I pray/On my wedding day/On my wedding day/I dream, and my dreams are all glory and light/That's what I've wanted for my life/And if it hasn't always been that way/Well, I can dream and I can pray/On my wedding day/So what makes us any different from all the others/Who have tried and failed before us/Maybe nothing, maybe nothing at all/But I pray we're the lucky ones; I pray we never fall

Column on Trinity church case

Since 1962 and the stop to mandated prayer in public schools, we have lived in a maelstrom of controversy on church and state relations.

The Trinity church case from Missouri seems to be trivial. A church wants a grant to improve its playground. Out of small matters, constitutional consequence emerges.  Is this to be considered an establishment, state-sponsored support of religion. After all, should tax dollars be used to support a variety of religious mission work? Should those activities be funded solely by voluntary contributions?

As soon as the government aids one faith activity, what about aiding  other activities and groups? Can you imagine the outcry from the right if the state supported a playground for an Muslim school? What if Tom Cruise lobbied Congress for aid to the Scientologists? The threat of invidious discrimination becomes very real.

On what grounds did the Supreme Court permit this direct aid to a religious site?  The court read the case as inhibiting the free exercise of religion clause, not the establishment clause. The court sees it as discriminatory against a religious organization, when the standard should be a neutral application of a general benefit for non-profit groups. Further, it applied the strictest standard in holding that the state of Missouri burdens the free exercise of religion. It applied  the standard of individual rights to a religious institution as a whole.

Since 1946 the Court has permitted aid for parochial activities if the same benefit is part of public life, such as riding a school bus, in the “child benefit” approach. Later this could be subsumed under a notion that the purpose and effect of a program was secular, not religious (for instance, see the three pronged test of  Lemon v. Kurtzman, 1971).

The two religion clauses are set out to work in tandem, but this is a good example of possible conflict between the two clauses. As Laurence Tribe said, voluntarism and separation work together well for the most part. As a Christian I know that Jesus said, “follow me,” without a hint of coercion or aid from the hand of the government. Our history is replete with examples of a thousand blossoms blooming as different groups of people formed religious societies to fit their belief and felt needs over time. We have been a seedbed of religious experimentation and diversity. One of FDR’s four freedoms was freedom of religion, “freedom of every person to worship God in his own way—everywhere in the world.”

Column on Trinity church Case

James Madison was a lifelong supporter of voluntarism and church and state separation. In a letter he wrote: “The settled opinion here is, that religion is essentially distinct from civil Government, and exempt from its cognizance; that a connection between them is injurious to both; that there are causes in the human breast which ensure the perpetuity of religion without the aid of the law; that rival sects, with equal rights, exercise mutual censorships in favor of good morals; that if new sects arise with absurd opinions or over-heated imaginations, the proper remedies lie in time, forbearance, and example; that a legal establishment of religion without a toleration could not be thought of, and with a toleration, is no security for and animosity; and, finally, that these opinions are supported by experience, which has shewn that every relaxation of the alliance between law and religion...no doubt exists that there is much more of religion among us now than there ever was before the change ( of no state support for religion) , and particularly in the sect which enjoyed the legal patronage. This proves rather more than that the law is not necessary to the support of religion.”

Reflection Pts for week of July 9

Sunday-Ps.45 seems to be a royal wedding psalm. If you were writing a wedding prayer for yourself, what would it look like? Would it change for someone else?

Monday-N. T. Wright-Like craftsmen working on a great cathedral, we have each been given instructions about the particular stone we are to spend our lives carving, without knowing or being able to guess where it will take its place within the grand design. We are assured, by the words of Paul and by Jesus’ resurrection as the launch of that new creation, that the work we do is not in vain. That says it all. That is the mandate we need for every act of justice and mercy, every program of ecology, every effort to reflect God’s wise stewardly image into his creation.

Tuesday-Mother Teresa-I feel that we too often focus only on the negative aspect of life – on what is bad. If we were more willing to see the good and the beautiful things that surround us, we would be able to transform our families. From there, we would change our next-door neighbors and then others who live in our neighborhood or city.

Wednesday-...if two of you are gathered together – then there is a whole world, a world of living love. Embrace each other tenderly and praise God, for, if only in you two, his truth has been fulfilled.Source: The Brothers Karamazov

Thursday-“All life is rife with possibilities. Seeds have possibilities, but all their tomorrows are caught by the patterning of their life cycle. Animals have possibilities that are greater than that of a fir tree or a blade of grass. Still, though, for most animals, the pattern of instinct, the patterns of their lives, are very strong. Humanity has a far greater range of possibilities, especially the very young. Who will children grow up to be? Who will they marry, what will they believe, what will they create? Creation is a very powerful seed of possibility.” ― Patricia Briggs

Friday-I believe we will also feel ourselves for the tiny creatures that we are, breathing along with the world's breath. When we do, I believe we may just notice that our breathing is not something separate from, not something apart from, but is but a small expression of, yet a full participation in, the breath of the world.Where it comes from, we do not know, said Jesus, nor where it is going. The Ruach, the Pneuma, the spirit of being itself, the breath God breathes into our nostrils and into the nostrils of nature: this is a mystery that meteorology cannot explain beyond describing how this fullness rushes into that void. But the void makes itself full, and longs to be emptied again if life is to continue. And life itself takes a breath, and gives it away.Jinkins

Saturday-Hospitality means primarily the creation of free space where the stranger can enter and become a friend instead of an enemy. Hospitality is not to change people, but to offer them space where change can take place. It is not to bring men and women over to our side, but to offer freedom not disturbed by dividing lines.”

― Henri J.M. Nouwen,

Column on Declaration and Equality

The fireworks and cookouts celebrate the Declaration of Independence, especially its opening paragraph before the unending list of British governmental issues. Lincoln made constant reference to the Declaration of Independence. Its sentence on equality was his touchstone for the wrong of slavery. It was to the Declaration his four score and seven pointed in the Gettysburg Address. Over time, equality was a reference point for the American experience.

I have puzzled over the meaning of all being created equal in the Declaration for a long time. Richard Brown examines different sectors of society, as they struggled to come to grips with the extent of equality in his book, Self-Evident Truths. (Again, Lincoln recalled from Euclid’s set of proofs “things equal to the same thing are equal to each other.”  Lincoln noted that Euclid called this self-evident.

In religion, at the national level, obviously we have the “wall of separation” in the religious exercise and no establishment clause of the first amendment. Such was not the case at the state level. Bu it by bit states removed support for a particular state religion by 1833. No new state attempted to support a particular religious organization. In the Revolutionary period, mobs drove Baptists out of town in Massachusetts. Non-Protestants could not hold public office. New York denied basic citizenship rights to immigrant Catholics, and Catholics did not hold office there until 1802.

Prof. Brown  has a brilliant idea on equality and class by examining criminal cases. Basically, the system discriminated in homicide  cases. A upper class person was rarely convicted and sentenced for  a the crime against a lower class person. Even-handed justice was sought especially when both parties were from the upper crust. On the other hand, it was considered that a gentleman should be given every benefit of the doubt if the victim would be from the lower class. In a New York trial, a jury was told that a murder  should be reduced to manslaughter as a tenant spoke to the employer as an equal, not with the deference due a person of station.

Equality is an aspiration for many. Its realization is under assault in the public sphere. We have made enormous advances, but many are troubled by the widening gulf of inequality between the haves and have nots. We do not hear about equality of opportunity very much in our time. Almost daily, we hear the rich lauded and the poor put down. Somehow the radical shift in the Republican party has convinced people that the rich are vulnerable and need all sorts of aid.

When I was a young adult, I recall working with John Rawls notion of justice as fairness.  “The first part, fair equality of opportunity, requires that citizens with the same talents and willingness to use them have the same educational and economic opportunities regardless of whether they were born rich or poor. In all parts of society there are to be roughly the same prospects of culture and achievement for those similarly motivated and endowed” Rawls was well aware of differences in individuals, but he was also well-aware that social norms, procedures, and structures benefit some and hamper others.

Scripture tells us that God shows no partiality (Acts 10, Rom. 2). Wilson Carey McWilliams spoke of the Bible as a second voice in American politics. Along with individual rights, he heard in the Bible a call for equality, of community, of friendship, of what we hold in common and what can hold dear together. July 4th reminds us of a our national roots in equality, not only economic, but political and social as well. To be children of God is to realize our common bonds, of respecting each other in that same light.

Sermon Notes July 2

Genesis 22:1-14 I I like to think of this account as a dream, a vision, as Moriah itself is an unknown land. One could view this troubling story as a means of facing and challenging unforeseen and unfair tragedy, a look at the theodicy issue of god and human suffering.. I almost suspect that Abraham faces this trial as he acquiesced to the possible sacrifice of Hagar and Ismael ot the whim of Sarah.The narrative of Genesis 22 offers its readers a safe space for reflection according to which believers may bemoan the fact that human beings end up in impossibly tragic situations; perhaps contemplating why innocent children are killed (or almost killed) for no reason.Why would God ask for the inhuman sacrifice of Isaac?What could be taught here at the mount of teaching/temple site? How could Abraham even consider killing the child of the promise so long prayed for, so long dreamed of?Triple verbs slow down the action just as it was slowed last week with Hagar and Ishmael.- God will see to the lamb (provide) Is this a challenge to the deity? Like the silence of a lamb, Isaac is bound on the altar-( none in most Protestant churches)Abraham sees the ram, just as Hagar last week perceived the well.  Then God, God, swears an a oath.

Surely, Christians find resonance in this story between the one Jesus called Father and himself,especially in Gethsemane.  a song by Bob Dylan on Genesis 22 that makes a connection between fathers sacrificing their children and the countless young sons who were sent to fight and to die .we may sacrifice our children to our own dreams realize dor unrealized.Also in post-holocaust reflection, many of the anguished parents could do little more but ask why God had not intervened when their children were burned in the Shoah?Julia  O'Brien writes, her student "gave her congregation permission that the text had not given Abraham: to weep for the tragic situations of their own lives, for the horrible choices they feel they have no choice but to make." .And yet, this questioning faith, this mourning, about the tragedy that all too often permeates life occurs in a space framed by the underlying belief in the goodness of God who does not want suffering for God's children; a God who will provide. Genesis 22 after all is a story of life coming into a situation of death; a story of redemption; a story of faith in the midst of extreme trauma. It is true that What did this do to Isaac?

it sometimes is difficult to see God's provision and goodness in desperate situations when tragedy strikes. Nevertheless, the text calls upon us to look up and see God's goodness breaking into situations of despair.The true act of faith on the part of Abraham thus is not the blind faith that often has been the dominant message emerging from this text, but rather the ability to recognize God's provision in the ordinary, especially in those circumstances when everything appears to be futile. (Kirkegaard)

and Psalm 13  • is perhaps the model lament as it is simple and covers its basic structure. Lament may well be the best prayer in times of trouble.   When a prayer won’t come: read this one. When you have more energy-rewrite it to fit your mood and situation. I realize that this sort of prayer doesn't speak to the spiritual need and condition of everyone,but it is noteworthy laments comprise a plurality fo the 150 psalms.

Romans 6:12-23 ending • apply to Abraham and Isaac>