thanksgiving column

At this time of year, we sit around tables heaped with food. Someone may ask us to say what we are thankful for, and we may awkwardly reply. In that spirit, I wanted to move out into the public sphere a bit.

When I was an altar boy, I helped with far too many funerals during Vietnam and too many memorial masses for the dead of WWII and Korea, even in a small town. I lived to see a pull out of Vietnam and basically out of Iraq and Afghanistan as well.  War always creates too much destruction of property and people, with often little in return. Even with conflicts, the devastation has grown less. When I was young, we had the drills of hiding under our desks. Later, I heard testimony about fighting and winning nuclear war. Now we have fewer nuclear weapons and the threat is ominous but diminished.

Medicare, Medicaid, and CHIP may be flawed programs, but I am grateful for government help for us to more easily enjoy the miraculous growth of American medicine. The MRI and other scans have eliminated much of the dangerous exploratory surgeries. We have made strides in dealing with heart disease and cancer, the two main threats to longevity in our time. Psychoactive drugs have permitted so many people to be able to engage life more fully.

I am grateful for Ruth Bader Ginsburg. I heard a lecture by her on litigating women’s rights under the equal protection clause. She was the signal legal advocate for gender equality under the law. She is the only justice of the Supreme Court I have seen before they were elevated to the high court. She is a clarion call to the First Amendment rights.

I grew up with TV. Granted, it was black and white and had four snowy channels. Now I enjoy movies and can view pictures easily with DVD and even over the computer links. With the internet, we have evened the educational playing field. Rural folks have access to a world-wide library of material, without having easy access to a great library. With a few clicks I can listen to Springsteen, or the late Dan Fogelberg or Warren Zevon, and hear classical or world music, if I am feeling aspirational. In sports on TV, I am still loyal to the home area Steelers. My favorite sporting event is March Madness hands down. I love the hope for little David schools against Goliath basketball powers. It never fails to live up to my expectations.

Apollo 8 picture of earth continues to be an image that may well be indelible for me. It altered my perspective on the solar system and how fragile our planet appears in the void of space. In an odd way, I am grateful that the Cuyahoga River caught on fire in Cleveland, because it help to propel us from denial to environmental action, and we leave a legacy of a cleaner environment to those who follow us.

In religion, I owe so much to the Presbyterian Confession of 1967. It was my gateway into traditional Protestant faith in a new key. This week, two folks for whom I am grateful Joan and David Marshall, are asking pastors at lunch about a book for which we are thankful. I would cite Douglas John Hall, a Canadian theologian.

The Pilgrims made a compact almost four hundred years ago. Thanksgiving occurs through our connections to each other, the living and the dead.

Nov. 19 Week reflections

I apparently missed these earlier

Sunday Nov.19-Ps.123 emphasizes being ridiculed and looked upon with contempt. Have you had that experience? How have you coped with it? How does religious faith help cope with it?

Monday-"We can call upon our ancestors, the communion of Saints, to support us in our dark journeys. To remember that grief is ancient and that many before us have gleaned wisdom about how to navigate it I find incredibly comforting at times. Another resource we have available to us are our loved ones beyond the veil. Consider calling on their support the next time you feel a wave of grief rising. Ask them to help you hold it with you."--- Christine Valters Paintner,

Tuesday-Any place where we withdraw to meet God in prayer is a place of “secret encounter and reward.” Here we come to know God, and to know ourselves. Here we come to recognize our disordered attachments, to do battle with our most persistent temptations, and to grow in the virtues of obedience, humility and love.-Br. David Vryhof

Wednesday-John Donne-He brought light out of darkness, not out of a lesser light, and he can bring thee summer out of winter, though thou hast no spring. Though in the ways of fortune, understanding, or conscience thou hast been benighted till now, wintered and frozen, clouded and eclipsed, damped and benumbed, smothered and stupefied, now God comes to thee, not as the dawning of the day, not as the bud of the spring, but as the sun at noon.

Thursday-"One fruit of contemplation is that we slowly become more conscious of everything as a sacred vessel, each person and object, each moment in time is a dwelling place for the Holy Presence.”--- Christine Valters Paintner,

Friday-Vincent van Gogh-If only we try to live sincerely, it will go well with us, even though we are certain to experience real sorrow, and great disappointments, and will also probably commit great faults and do wrong things. But it certainly is true that it is better to be high-spirited – even though one makes more mistakes – than to be narrow-minded and all too prudent. It is good to love many things, for therein lies the true strength; and whosoever loves much performs much, and can accomplish much; and what is done in love, is well done.

Saturday-Geese appear high over us,pass, and the sky closes. Abandon,

as in love or sleep, holds them to their way, clear, in the ancient faith: what we need is here. And we pray, not for new earth or heaven, but to be quiet in heart, and in eye clear. What we need is here.   *Wendell Berry,

Christ the King Column

This Sunday is Christ the King, and it marks the end of the church year. I get annoyed at Christmas bumping up against Thanksgiving in the cultural calendar, but here we have the end of a year a month before Dec. 31.

This is a relatively new church doliday. Its origin is with Pope Pius  in 1925. Mussolini's fascism was already on the rise. The Roman church found its secular position weak and unrespected. He wanted to remind Christians that Christ is Lord of our hearts and minds and souls no matter who is the temporal, secular power.

Of course, my Reformed tradition sees the messianic work of Jesus as going through the three anointed figures in Scripture: priest, prophet, and king. Just a few years later, the Barmen Declaration  demanded not only dignity for the church but reminded Christians of the dangerous alliance of church and state.

I always have a bit of trouble with this day as an American, as I have an immediate pre-rational objection to the very word and notion of a king.

So as the church years end, we look to a cosmic Christ on this day. We look at Christ as Lord of the cosmos.

Not long ago,I heard on the radio about a NASA staffer of long service. Lately he has the sad task of answering mail from folks concerned that the book of Revelation indicates that a mysterious planet was to hit us  at the end of September, no October, no November. As a Christian, i am embarrassed by the attempt to make the Bible of recipe book for the end of the ages. Even so, I have some sympathy for it. While the older long-established churches have kept quiet about the end time texts at this time of year, other folks have been pounded  with a nice chart that describes the end of the age. The chart of Darby in the 19th century foresaw a series of calamities. That means that calamities as to be welcomed as a sign of God’s impending action. When people feel powerless, they look for a divine hand, a powerful hand, to carry them to a new and better world.

Instead Jesus Christ show us this: Jürgen Moltmann, The Way of Jesus Christ, 110: “There are no miracles on the road of his passion. On the cross he dies in forsakenness by God and man. Or is this the greatest of all the miracles, the all-embracing healing? ‘He bore our sicknesses and took upon himself our pains … and through his wounds we are healed’ (Isa. 53:4, 5). This was how the gospels saw it. So Jesus heals not only through ‘power’ and ‘authority’ but also through his suffering and helplessness.” As Luther would say, we find divine authority  hidden under its expected opposite.

The eminent theologian Brian Gerrish speaks instead of Christ the queen and king maker. Following the hoe that Israel would become a “kingdom of priests” he asserts that under Christ’s reign we have the equality of all, as in Paul’s great words in Gal. 3:37-8.

At the same time, this day is a salutary reminder of the expectations God has of political leaders. Most of all, they are to promote justice. There is a public political word: justice. If we are to be a world of justice, all of us are being handed the responsibility to help make this a more just place, a place fit for human beings.

In the end, Christ is the Lord of life, the King of creation. Again, Moltmann points us to a God whose vision is a celebration of life, into an anxious waiting for annihilation.

Reflections Week of Nov. 26

Sunday-Ps.100- was a favorite among Reformed churches.We still use a tune, old hundreth in churches from Calvin’s melodist, Louis Bourgeois. It is a classic psalm of praise. Consider rewriting it in your own way to give fulsome praise..

Monday-"Creativity necessitates struggle which is part of what makes it so powerful. In our creative endeavors, we often become keenly aware of the inner voices which sabotage our best efforts." --- Christine Valters Paintner

Tuesday-God... the cherisher of joy, the Lord of laughter, whose are all glories, all hopes, who loves everything, and hates nothing but selfishness, which he will not have in his kingdom.George MacDonald

Wednesday-When the angel returns to me/ in the harsh truth of last morning, will she ask/ what have I endured, treasured, and sparked?  Will she ask what have I hidden away/ and what made visible? ---Christine Valters Paintner\

Thursday-Thomas Merton

Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy. That is not our business and, in fact, it is nobody’s business. What we are asked to do is to love, and this love itself will render both ourselves and our neighbors worthy if anything can.

Friday- We don’t really begin to live into our own power until we have grown wise enough to recognize our limitations as well."--- Christine Valters Paintner, PhD

Saturday-Jesus appeals to the dead. Tell those who feel as if dead that Jesus is theirs. To those who feel worthless, whose life seems of no value, say: “Your life must be worth something, since Jesus has come into it. Yes, from out of the world of the dead, new life can be born in you.Source: Everyone Belongs to God

Christ the king Sermon Notes Mt. 25:31, Eph. 1, Ezek.34

Nov. 26-Ezek 34, Bob Dylan's song catches the sense of this first part of our text effectively:

Come senators, congressmen Please heed the call Don't stand in the doorway Don't block up the hall… There's a battle outside And it is a ragin' It'll soon shake your windows And rattle your walls For the times they are a changin'. The people's leaders have failed but there is a search and rescue operation going on. Everyone knows the story Jesus told about the good shepherd who went in search of the one sheep that was lost (Luke 15:3-7). Now, says Ezekiel, just such an operation is going on.

The Lord, the Good Shepherd, has not forsaken those who are scattered in the gloom and darkness of exile, but is searching them out. That God will rescue them and bring them home (13-14). That God will make them to lie down in green pastures and will be their caring Shepherd (15-16). And they will be fed with justice (Hebrew, mishpat) which is the final, climatic word in this saying in both the Hebrew and English.

Justice (mishpat) is the expected response of God's people to what God has done for them (Isaiah 5:1-7). It is a response which is not static but dynamic (Amos 5:21-14; Micah 6:6-8) and which involves taking up the cause of the powerless -- represented by the widow, the orphan and the poor (Isaiah 1:17; 21-26; 10:1-4). In our time, as in Isaiah's, the special responsibility for those in positions of public responsibility is care for the powerless (Isaiah 10:1-4; Bob Dylan's song).(Klein)Justice means that God holds power accountable. The "shepherd" metaphor takes an ironic turn in verses 20-22: God's judgment will fall on those sheep that harm the weaker sheep. Here Ezekiel satirizes any complacency on the part of "sheep" who might have dared to become overconfident in the images of God's loving care. God will tend these sheep, all right! Those who belong to God are those who do the will of God (Matthew 12:50, Mark 3:35), and it is never God's will that believers injure one another, jockey for advantage, or exploit resources that should be for all.sharpe

Xt, the king and queen maker from Ex. 19 Eph. 1 cosmic christ

Mt 25:31 Just Like last week, I think this is less about ethical norms than about kingdom vision. It is not about doing or not doing acts of charity, -    Mother Teresa vision of seeing the christ in those whom she served.It ou touches on what Luther called vocation, in our callings in life, are we seeing Christ in our work?kingdom ethics not self-serving (see Hays) the "good works" has less to do with ethical actions than with living a life of mercy in which the Son of Man is revealed -- if only on the last day. This entails, for the believing community, a considerable change in self-perception. Rather than considering themselves holders or keepers of the mystery of God (in their liturgy, in their works, in their piety), they discover that God is always already outside the circle they draw and the boundaries they create. Mission itself becomes redefined when we consider the move outwards as a move towards God! The community is sent out from the Lord's Supper as body of Christ only to discover that the body of Christ is already waiting for the community in those suffering in the world. Then, in yet another Gospel reversal, it would appear that the judgment we are all subject to is not one from on high but a judgment that is spoken through the need of our neighbor.Lange

Sermon Notes for Nov. 12-I Thes. 4, Mt. 25:1-13

Nov. 12-Josh 24  abad= worship and serve-reaffirm recommit

Grief -death-as we close the church year, our readings move toward  as the end-end times-close of the story-

I Thes 4:13 Herron-two thousand years later, we continue to look for signs that can assure us that God has not forgotten us, that we will not be 'left behind', that we will not be separated forever from those who have already died.  perhaps all we really need is simply the assurance that the power and the promise described by that scenario is real. How do we know this is real, real enough to offer us the hope we need to get by each day?

Lewis- the union of those who have died with those who mourn their passing, hama which means "at the same time" or "together" and the preposition syn ("with"), recalls verse 14, "God will bring with him those who have died," and will be used again at the end of the verse, "and so we will be with the Lord forever." All will be "snatched up" ("seize," "carry off") toward a meeting with the Lord in the air. This is about comfort (parakaleō), , what the Lord provides and will provide even in his absence, the function of apocalyptic,- vision of consolation, he locates the act of consolation within the community as an ongoing (present imperative) expression of hope.-.Through these small things, lived day by day, the power and presence of God becomes real, as real as Christ coming down out of the sky, and offers me hope to face each new day with courage.

Mt 25:1-Saunders With whom do we identify in a story? The girls’ pleas for entrance are met with a stone cold rebuke from the groom: “I don’t know you.” The door stays shut. Sometimes, we shut the door ourselves and never notice that we can enter into god’s realm. As we have nodded and laughed at the foolish maidens, we too became fools.We forget about God. We are no more ready for this ending than the girls. We realize that, like them, we are vulnerable, out of touch with the time, sleeping through life, busy, busy, busy, thinking everything is okay. We may have identified with the wise maidens, but now we know that we, too, are on the other side of the door.This is what the kingdom of heaven is like?

Yes. The point of the parable is not to confirm our comfortable sense of insiders and outsiders, righteous and unrighteous, wise and foolish, but to move us to a place where we have the possibility of discovering once again our common humanity.Wise and foolish reside in each one of us. More than this, God’s coming can never be timed (Matthew 24:42-44, 50). God, in fact, is always coming to us, but never on our terms, according to our calendar, or in line with our expectations.

They are merely the first to stumble and sleep their way through the advent of God’s reign. But at the end of this Gospel, Jesus promises to be with them, with us, nonetheless. The crucified and risen Lord of all creation is already here with us -- always with us -- but we greet him by  weeks-Readers today may find themselves secretly sympathetic to the foolish maidens.  To live in vigilance means for the disciples to do the tasks that they have been appointed to do in preparation for the Master's coming. In Matthew's Gospel, those tasks include being prepared so we can be welcoming the stranger, feeding the hungry, visiting the sick and imprisoned (25:31-46), and making disciples in all the world (28:19-20).

Week of Nov. 12

Sunday Nov.19-Ps.123 emphasizes being ridiculed and looked upon with contempt. Have you had that experience? How have you coped with it? How does religious faith help cope with it?

Monday-"We can call upon our ancestors, the communion of Saints, to support us in our dark journeys. To remember that grief is ancient and that many before us have gleaned wisdom about how to navigate it I find incredibly comforting at times. Another resource we have available to us are our loved ones beyond the veil. Consider calling on their support the next time you feel a wave of grief rising. Ask them to help you hold it with you."--- Christine Valters Paintner,

Tuesday-Any place where we withdraw to meet God in prayer is a place of “secret encounter and reward.” Here we come to know God, and to know ourselves. Here we come to recognize our disordered attachments, to do battle with our most persistent temptations, and to grow in the virtues of obedience, humility and love.-Br. David Vryhof

Wednesday-John Donne-He brought light out of darkness, not out of a lesser light, and he can bring thee summer out of winter, though thou hast no spring. Though in the ways of fortune, understanding, or conscience thou hast been benighted till now, wintered and frozen, clouded and eclipsed, damped and benumbed, smothered and stupefied, now God comes to thee, not as the dawning of the day, not as the bud of the spring, but as the sun at noon.

Thursday-"One fruit of contemplation is that we slowly become more conscious of everything as a sacred vessel, each person and object, each moment in time is a dwelling place for the Holy Presence.”--- Christine Valters Paintner,

Friday-Vincent van Gogh-If only we try to live sincerely, it will go well with us, even though we are certain to experience real sorrow, and great disappointments, and will also probably commit great faults and do wrong things. But it certainly is true that it is better to be high-spirited – even though one makes more mistakes – than to be narrow-minded and all too prudent. It is good to love many things, for therein lies the true strength; and whosoever loves much performs much, and can accomplish much; and what is done in love, is well done.

Saturday-Geese appear high over us,pass, and the sky closes. Abandon,

as in love or sleep, holds them to their way, clear, in the ancient faith: what we need is here. And we pray, not for new earth or heaven, but to be quiet in heart, and in eye clear. What we need is here.   *Wendell Berry,

ReflectionsR

Nov. 5 All Saints Sunday I John 3, Mt. 5, Rev. 7

Nov. 5 sunday of All Saints-Rev. 7:9 taylor The saints, the martyred saints, stand before God's throne and worship God. God, in turn, will shelter them. The word translated as shelter is the word that also is translated as dwell (21:3, e.g.). God's presence, God's shekinah in Old Testament terms,from the word for a desert tent,  will remain with them.  In a world in which subsistence was the normal pattern of life, the vision of no more hunger or thirst communicated at a visceral level. Relief from the sun and from heat reflects life in the Middle East.

In the final verse, John once more plays with language and images. It is the Lamb who will be the shepherd (also in 12:5, 19:15) who leads God's people to the "springs of the water of life." "And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes" (see also 21:1-4). I assume those are tears of sadness, but not of joy, perhaps.

Heaven-place, a dimension where we are alive in god, with god and in contact with the myriad of others there in the divine presence. I don;t imagine it to be as in Eastern religions. an absorption into the divine where are lives are erased but treasured, cherished as a keepsake here.It is to live in the reality described in I John.

I John 3:1-3 The church need not gaze wistfully for a “someday” to come in order to be itself. There is no need to wait until there are more members, or more resources, or more of whatever we might believe is necessary.The church is comprised of the  are children of God. Already. Today. Now.West To abide in Christ is to be fully anointed by his truthful teaching (2:27). To be a child of God is a divine vocation, articulating the depth of God's love for us (3:1a).The church's integrity wells up from, and is channeled by, God's calling (3:1b; 3:3). To be a saint is to live in the same love by which God has loved us (3:16-18; 4:7-12). On the Sunday of All Saints we give thanks to God for those who have abided in divine love, who have educated us in love "because he first loved us" (4:19). We belong  to that company of saints, called to "walk in the light as he himself is in the light [and to] have fellowship with one another" (1:7).Black

-Until that day, the Beatitudes stand as a daring act of protest against the current order. Jesus cannot very well insist that we be poor in spirit, but he can show us how to look upon such people with new eyes, and so gain entrance to a new world. On All Saints Day, the Beatitudes tell us that we are blessed not because we are blessed with good fortune, but because nothing separates us from god.. These beatitudes would seem to be better avoided at times, but they touch all of us at some point.The current regime seeks to sweep aside those Jesus declares blessed of God, but we discover  a new reality. When we learn to recognize such people as blessed -- to call them saints -- we pledge our allegiance to that new world even as we participate in its realization.Blessed are the well-connected, for their aspirations will not go unnoticed.Blessed are you when you know what you want, and go after it with everything you’ve got, for God helps those who help themselves.If we are honest, we must admit that the world Jesus asserts as fact, is not the world to which we aspire and proclaim.

In Alton, the Halloween decorations have been up and will stay up for the foreseeable future.  This Halloween was the 500^th anniversary of Luther’s debate with the church. November 1 was All Saints Day; Hispanics honor the Day of the Dead with elaborate celebration. Some Christians honor All Souls day to consider those in purgatory. That notion helped to prompt Luther’s reform agenda that would include the bible. 

Basically, purgatory is an intermediate state of the afterlife where souls pay a penalty for their sins. Its occupants need to be purified, purged of sin’s penalties, before entering heaven.  Following II Maccabees 12:39-46, the Roman Catholic Church holds that our prayers and good deeds can speed the process along. It therefore maintains our links to the deceased as an example of prayer moving beyond the veil of this world. Luther’s basic issue was that prayers became a matter of commerce in that one paid for viewing a relic that could ease one’s time in purgatory. Over the years, his views changed, and he denied even the existence of that intermediate state.

He removed the Scriptural support for the doctrine by relegating some books in the Bible to a lesser status. Luther found himself unable to bow to the authority of princes, prelates, or even longstanding church tradition. He attempted to make the bible his lodestar. At times, this could lead to him using one and only one passage to make a point and to lose other Scriptural references.

When Luther was under protective custody by Elector Frederick, he used his time to begin the huge task of translating the bible in German. He wanted to make the bible more accessible to his fellow Germans. He began with the New Testament, as his Greek was fairly good, and he had access to a critical edition from Erasmus, the scholar. He wanted it to sound fairly conversational. In so doing, he essentially invented the literary German language. It was similar to the impact of the King James Version of the bible on our ear for English. Indeed his translation influenced the early English translator, Tyndale, and his great work had a marked influence on the KJV in 1611, about a century after Luther moved form Latin to his native tongue.

His translation struggled to make a classical language sound like his contemporary language. He took the liberty of making sure that the words of Scripture reflected his theological suppositions, as when he added the word alone to the doctrine of grace. (Rom. 3:28) Desert people may know chameleon, but Luther changed it to a familiar weasel.

His constant hope was that the Bible should move the reader toward Christ, our Savior, not a severe, strict judge. That instrumental movement allows us to embrace a God of love.  He saw the Bible as the “manger of Christ for us.” If a Scripture did not so move one to the gifts and mercies of God, he discounted it. He thought the epistle of James, with its emphasis on faith in action, lessened the grace of god and placed a notion of redeeming human effort into our minds. So, it was ‘an epistle of straw.”

 “The Holy Scriptures cannot be penetrated by study and talent is most certain. Therefore your first duty is to begin to pray, and to this affect that if it please God to accomplish something for His glory- not for yours or any other person’s- he very graciously grants you a true understanding of His words. ..You must, therefore, completely despair of your own industry and ability and rely solely on the inspiration of the Spirit.”  In other words, even interpreting the bible is a gift of god’s communication to us.

Reflections for Week of Nov. 5

Sunday-Ps. 107 starts the last book of the psalms. It seems to extend the exodus to the current conditions of trouble and, at the end, continues to seek signs of blessings. Have you had an exodus experience? I sit a spiritual habit to pray in times of troubles but also to be alert to blessings?

Monday-Something of the light of God already lies deep in each of our hearts. At times, this is to be felt only in a deep longing for goodness, justice, purity, or faithfulness. But if such a longing turns to faith, we will find God. The early Christians said that if we seek God we will find him, because he is everywhere. There is no boundary that cannot be crossed, no hindrance that cannot be overcome, to find him. We cannot excuse ourselves for not finding faith. If we knock at the door, it will open. E. Arnold (Plough)

Tuesday-Christine Valters Paintner, PhD -On acedia-What do you do when you realize that your spiritual practice is waning? Do you judge yourself critically, distancing yourself even further from your deep longings for peace and rest? Or can you follow in the footsteps of the monks who knew that the only response to acedia is to continue to practice?

Wednesday-"The soul seeks the ultimate unity or oneness of the world, which is conceived variously as a spiritual or an intellectual entity. The soul seeks this One, which is permanence, unity, foundation of the universe, Being beyond all being, ultimate Mind. Its method of seeking is to strip itself of all distractions that turn the attention to anything lower in the scale of value, that is, everything not the One." (Chadwick, Cassian, p. 3).

Thursday-Philip Britts-Work requires a lively inner life. To straggle along with empty hearts is just as disastrous as to carry on with empty stomachs. We will be most productive in work if we are mentally and spiritually active; searching and struggling for clarity in all questions, and always seeking a deeper understanding of what it means to follow Jesus. Friday-As we grow older we have more and more people to remember, people who have died before us. It is very important to remember those who have loved us and those we have loved. Remembering them means letting their spirits inspire us in our daily lives. They can become part of our spiritual communities and gently help us as we make decisions on our journeys. Parents, spouses, children, and friends can become true spiritual companions after they have died. Sometimes they can become even more intimate to us after death than when they were with us in life. Remembering the dead is choosing their ongoing companionship.—Henri J. M. Nouwen, B

Saturday-Tolkein-in God's kingdom the presence of the greatest does not depress the small...The Christian has still to work, with mind as well as body, to suffer, hope, and die; but he may now perceive that all his bents and faculties have a purpose, which can be redeemed.