Another national Presbyterian exam process is complete. Again Facebook is filled with postings by readers of the exams defending the abysmal failure rates on these exams. I was unable to read this year, due to daily radiation therapy, but I continue to be at war with our system and wanted to post some objections. I frankly do not buy the contention that our excellent seminaries are not preparing people to explore the exam questions. The possible exception could be worship and sacrament as I like data on the number of students who have such a course prior to taking the exams.
Most of the folks who read exams have never graded exams at all, or have read our ordination exams for a nubbier of years. The materials given as guidelines fail in a number of ways.
1) They do not serve as guidelines but as models. Graders are sorely tempted to compare exams to the resource material models and fail to then read exams on their own merits.When readers say that the questions were not answered fully, I fear they mean that the responses do not look like the resource material.
2) The resources are lacking in providing a range o9f different approaches to the questions.
3) the resource papers need to provide a variety of sample answers considered adequate. I repeat not perfect, adequate.
4) We have no clear criteria as to what parts of an exam are not adequately covered require a failing grade.
5) Readers routinely admit to overstepping their bounds. They admit to grading on stylistic issues, organizational issues and the like. Again, readers usually lack training sufficient to grade someone down on what are often subjective measures.
6) Readers routinely grade someone down if they disagree with the premise, the method, the style of argument of the exam. Again, the point would be not if a student is agreeing with the reader, we need guidance as to how to judge the quality of the argument, irrespective of the reader’s opinion.
7) We have yet to come to grips with the critical question of the diversity of readers. A student may have to satisfy two professors, or two pastors, or two elders. I hesitate to claim this, but I will anyway. A number of pastors who read exams strike me as frustrated academicians and are determined to judge exams to a standard few can meet. Elders may come in with the discerning tool of thinking if they would like to hear this in their church, not if the response is an adequate one, whether they are attracted to the position of the piece or not.
8) I suspect that these exams require too much, in the time allotted. Increasingly exams are take-home, or group projects, or papers. Time sensitive tests with blue books ar enot as frequent as they once were in professional school.
9) It is high time to question that guilt-reduction notion that the exams are already failures or successes before the readers grade them. Readers bring a world of experience and attitudes toward the test. They interact with the material. They need more help in learning how to evaluate an adequate exam.
Saturday, March 10, 2012
Friday, March 9, 2012
First cut of Num 21:4-9
1) Now we’re talking: snakes in the wilderness. Samuel L. Jackson with Moses.I assume they are fiery serpents, burning serpents, either because of glittering skin, or the burning of the poison of their bites.
2) The best job I have ever seen with our texts today is a sermon by James Kay in Seasons of
Grace. Not only that, he is one of the rare preaching professors who publishes short sermons, actual 12-15 minutes sermons.
3)Recall Dennis Olson’s path in his Birth of the New book.The original generation cannot move from slavery to freedom, so they will fail to reach the Promised Land in favor of a new generation. for their complaining they get killed off.
4) A good sermon could make a distinction between lament prayers and this sort of complaining.
5) I don’t know what to make of the cure not being the snakes being removed but this bronze, shiny image. A really powerful image is looking up at it instead of down at the snakes. Maybe we have a hint of homeopathy and getting a touch of the poison.
6) This image apparently then gets destroyed later in a purge against idolatry by a later king of Israel, Hezekiah. Why this snake would not be a graven image in the first place mystifies me.
7) We are in the middle of some wordplay here. nahash means serpent and nahoshet is brass/bronze/ Isaiah links this to seraphs as fiery serpents in a number of places 14, 30.
Is the image a sort of sympathetic magic so that the shiny serpent image counters the fiery serpent bite? We have some evidence of snake worship in Canaan.
8)I suppose one could make a good study of the serpent’s mythic power throughout Scripture.
I don;t know how far we could go in linking this story with Gen.3
2) The best job I have ever seen with our texts today is a sermon by James Kay in Seasons of
Grace. Not only that, he is one of the rare preaching professors who publishes short sermons, actual 12-15 minutes sermons.
3)Recall Dennis Olson’s path in his Birth of the New book.The original generation cannot move from slavery to freedom, so they will fail to reach the Promised Land in favor of a new generation. for their complaining they get killed off.
4) A good sermon could make a distinction between lament prayers and this sort of complaining.
5) I don’t know what to make of the cure not being the snakes being removed but this bronze, shiny image. A really powerful image is looking up at it instead of down at the snakes. Maybe we have a hint of homeopathy and getting a touch of the poison.
6) This image apparently then gets destroyed later in a purge against idolatry by a later king of Israel, Hezekiah. Why this snake would not be a graven image in the first place mystifies me.
7) We are in the middle of some wordplay here. nahash means serpent and nahoshet is brass/bronze/ Isaiah links this to seraphs as fiery serpents in a number of places 14, 30.
Is the image a sort of sympathetic magic so that the shiny serpent image counters the fiery serpent bite? We have some evidence of snake worship in Canaan.
8)I suppose one could make a good study of the serpent’s mythic power throughout Scripture.
I don;t know how far we could go in linking this story with Gen.3
Thursday, March 8, 2012
Notes from a facebook posting on the Ten Commandments and romantic Science
I got into a small disagreement on facebook and wanted to write a bit more. Since it’s raining this morning, I can get started as I hate to walk in the rain , especially first thing in the morning.
I reacted against a quick post question that seemed to ally the 10 Commandments with a vague mention of scientific principles. firs tissue was a direct likening of Torah with the 10 Commandments. OK, I suppose the 10 C can be a summary form of Torah, but it means more. It can be the first five books of the OT. 2) It means instruction, teaching and is not limited by any means to explication of the 10C. 3) It can mean in the NT, identity markers that distinguished Jews from the surrounding culture, sabbath, circumcision, kosher. 4) Torah gets summarized in other scriptural points: Micah’s do justice, love mercy, walk humbly before the Lord, or the love god and neighbor approach of Jesus.
Second, I react when ministers casually use science to buttress a religious point. First, we tend to be romantic about nature. We highlight harmony and ignore its terrors. I am going in for daily radiation treatments after prostate surgery and find it difficult to read of the joys of natural life. It includes more than sunsets, but is filled with entropy and death. the cruelty of nature militates against using nature as an ethical base. Trying to follow nature as a guide would not use the 10C as guide.
Third, i react when folks seem to feel that Biblical ethical material needs to be buttressed with romantic views of science. My eyebrows raise when easy attempts are made to link it to vague Eastern notions of karma, so that the 10C then get relegated to being part of a demonstration that these norms fit with a scheme of nature. I especially object when it is allied with points such as it proves that ‘what goes around comes around” when that does not comport with the Christian message of forgiveness. a critical point came when one writer spoke of physics demonstrating a living universe. This is a powerful extension of the Gaia hypothesis, but it threatens to dissolve the distinction between the Creator and the creation. Physicistsin my limited experience do see the lawlike connections in matter, but do not seem to use that as a move into making ethical pronouncements.
Fourth, in context, the 10C are presented as intrinsically important, almost as ‘self-evident” truths.
Fifth, one member of the clergy then tried to elevate the disagreement to one about natural theology. Ps. 19 was used for the point. Calvin of course noted the impact of nature as pointing toward god. He spent most of his time speaking about our blindness to the reality of God, however. In part, nature itself is blind to the nature of God. SO, he insists that not only do we have the spectacles of Scripture but that the revelation of god in Jesus Christ and the impact of the spirit deals with the issue of relying on nature to buttress the impact of the 10C. (See Matthew Boulton’s new book, for instance) Looking for some sort of ethical harmony between nature and the 10C, and using the former to give credence to the latter is, i would guess, precisely the kind of thing that elicited Barth’s famous, No, to natural theology.
As to Ps. 19. first, I have no issue with seeking linkages between creation and wisdom and torah, as generally employed. I will not see the 10C as embodying torah on its own. Terence Fretheim’s great book on God and Creation shows a relational god in dynamic activity with creation, including law/torah, generally conceived. See especially, for our purposes, his chapter on law and creation, even if he goes a bit far in his analysis of the 10C not having much new to say. Instead of that dynamic interplay of change, we are prone to make the 10C frozen and I fear that trying to tie them to science would only increase that tendency. No one, read Ps. 19 ‘s torah as being the 10C only. Rather it is about god’s communication through nature and its order and with us in our activity in the world. note well its warning in vv. 11-12 on the depths of the human heart in ways Calvin both used and approved. Even science cannot help us from being prone to errorm false assumptions, denial and other hidden faults.
Sixth, casual use of harmony between the 10C and some shards of science allow us to ignore vital work.:examining the meaning of the 10C themselves. Jesus uses the 10C as a frame for a powerful expansion of their scope, externally and internally. It seems to me that we have some excellent resources in the PCUSA adult or confirmation catechisms on the 10C or to work with the impressive extensions done by the Westminster catechism, especially the longer one, with it positive emphasis on the third use of the law.
I reacted against a quick post question that seemed to ally the 10 Commandments with a vague mention of scientific principles. firs tissue was a direct likening of Torah with the 10 Commandments. OK, I suppose the 10 C can be a summary form of Torah, but it means more. It can be the first five books of the OT. 2) It means instruction, teaching and is not limited by any means to explication of the 10C. 3) It can mean in the NT, identity markers that distinguished Jews from the surrounding culture, sabbath, circumcision, kosher. 4) Torah gets summarized in other scriptural points: Micah’s do justice, love mercy, walk humbly before the Lord, or the love god and neighbor approach of Jesus.
Second, I react when ministers casually use science to buttress a religious point. First, we tend to be romantic about nature. We highlight harmony and ignore its terrors. I am going in for daily radiation treatments after prostate surgery and find it difficult to read of the joys of natural life. It includes more than sunsets, but is filled with entropy and death. the cruelty of nature militates against using nature as an ethical base. Trying to follow nature as a guide would not use the 10C as guide.
Third, i react when folks seem to feel that Biblical ethical material needs to be buttressed with romantic views of science. My eyebrows raise when easy attempts are made to link it to vague Eastern notions of karma, so that the 10C then get relegated to being part of a demonstration that these norms fit with a scheme of nature. I especially object when it is allied with points such as it proves that ‘what goes around comes around” when that does not comport with the Christian message of forgiveness. a critical point came when one writer spoke of physics demonstrating a living universe. This is a powerful extension of the Gaia hypothesis, but it threatens to dissolve the distinction between the Creator and the creation. Physicistsin my limited experience do see the lawlike connections in matter, but do not seem to use that as a move into making ethical pronouncements.
Fourth, in context, the 10C are presented as intrinsically important, almost as ‘self-evident” truths.
Fifth, one member of the clergy then tried to elevate the disagreement to one about natural theology. Ps. 19 was used for the point. Calvin of course noted the impact of nature as pointing toward god. He spent most of his time speaking about our blindness to the reality of God, however. In part, nature itself is blind to the nature of God. SO, he insists that not only do we have the spectacles of Scripture but that the revelation of god in Jesus Christ and the impact of the spirit deals with the issue of relying on nature to buttress the impact of the 10C. (See Matthew Boulton’s new book, for instance) Looking for some sort of ethical harmony between nature and the 10C, and using the former to give credence to the latter is, i would guess, precisely the kind of thing that elicited Barth’s famous, No, to natural theology.
As to Ps. 19. first, I have no issue with seeking linkages between creation and wisdom and torah, as generally employed. I will not see the 10C as embodying torah on its own. Terence Fretheim’s great book on God and Creation shows a relational god in dynamic activity with creation, including law/torah, generally conceived. See especially, for our purposes, his chapter on law and creation, even if he goes a bit far in his analysis of the 10C not having much new to say. Instead of that dynamic interplay of change, we are prone to make the 10C frozen and I fear that trying to tie them to science would only increase that tendency. No one, read Ps. 19 ‘s torah as being the 10C only. Rather it is about god’s communication through nature and its order and with us in our activity in the world. note well its warning in vv. 11-12 on the depths of the human heart in ways Calvin both used and approved. Even science cannot help us from being prone to errorm false assumptions, denial and other hidden faults.
Sixth, casual use of harmony between the 10C and some shards of science allow us to ignore vital work.:examining the meaning of the 10C themselves. Jesus uses the 10C as a frame for a powerful expansion of their scope, externally and internally. It seems to me that we have some excellent resources in the PCUSA adult or confirmation catechisms on the 10C or to work with the impressive extensions done by the Westminster catechism, especially the longer one, with it positive emphasis on the third use of the law.
Monday, March 5, 2012
First cut at notes on 10C-Ex. 20
1) We’ve worked on the Ten Commandments before, but I’m not sure if I am going to be too lazy to see what we’ve done before. Again, please get your hands on Patrick Miller’s Ten C for the Interpretation series. Also see the intriguing look at the decalogue by the great ethicist Paul Lehmann. when i was in seminary Harrelson’s book captured a number of folks and it has come out in a new format or edition.I really like Dennis Olson’s look at them in Dt. and the Death of Moses, especially as chapters following the 10C amplify the commandments. (Recall, in Hebrew, they are the 10 words. I think jerome coined the word commandments for them in the Vulgate).
2) first, let’s notice some differences in this batch and the form in Dt. 5.Sabbath and honoring one’s parents, to a lesser degree, come into play immediately.One could use this as a way to introduce repetition in teaching, or re-iteration. I tend to think we cannot usefully talk about them all in a sermon, so please consider picking one or two.
3) Sometimes I wonder how much of this imagines a legal proceeding. Notice oath taking and the command against false witness/perjury. If you are a Republican and mourning the folks running for President, you could pick these two and attack Clinton.
4) While I am on the subject once could use the image of the push to have the Ten C monuments gracing public areas and courthouses in our country.
5) One could also do some legal anthropology and see the not much is different in the second table, with the exception of coveting, but some significant differences seem to come into play with the first tablet.
6) One could also break loose a bit and then look at Moses going back up after the Golden Calf incident.
7) consider looking at how the Larger catechism handles the 10c, especially how it employs the third use of the law to turn them into positive as well as negative guidelines for living. Also the PCUSA Adult Study Catechism does very good work on them, and so cold be good material to open the mind and heart.
8) You may wish to look carefully at some words. for instance, the word, kill/murder seems to me in its use to be closer to homicide, intentional and negligent, in English usage. maybe you could feel brave and move into capital punishment, or abortion (not in the Miller treatise) or just war theory v. pacifist material. A professor at CTS, Indy, Wilma Bailey agrees with the anabaptist formulation that it indeed means kill.
2) first, let’s notice some differences in this batch and the form in Dt. 5.Sabbath and honoring one’s parents, to a lesser degree, come into play immediately.One could use this as a way to introduce repetition in teaching, or re-iteration. I tend to think we cannot usefully talk about them all in a sermon, so please consider picking one or two.
3) Sometimes I wonder how much of this imagines a legal proceeding. Notice oath taking and the command against false witness/perjury. If you are a Republican and mourning the folks running for President, you could pick these two and attack Clinton.
4) While I am on the subject once could use the image of the push to have the Ten C monuments gracing public areas and courthouses in our country.
5) One could also do some legal anthropology and see the not much is different in the second table, with the exception of coveting, but some significant differences seem to come into play with the first tablet.
6) One could also break loose a bit and then look at Moses going back up after the Golden Calf incident.
7) consider looking at how the Larger catechism handles the 10c, especially how it employs the third use of the law to turn them into positive as well as negative guidelines for living. Also the PCUSA Adult Study Catechism does very good work on them, and so cold be good material to open the mind and heart.
8) You may wish to look carefully at some words. for instance, the word, kill/murder seems to me in its use to be closer to homicide, intentional and negligent, in English usage. maybe you could feel brave and move into capital punishment, or abortion (not in the Miller treatise) or just war theory v. pacifist material. A professor at CTS, Indy, Wilma Bailey agrees with the anabaptist formulation that it indeed means kill.
Friday, March 2, 2012
Sermon Notes 3/4/12 Mk.8:31-8
Right after Peter confesses that Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah, Jesus them upturns that magic moment by radically changing the notion of messiah. Jesus take the triumph, the power of the Messianic hope away and replaces it with words about cross, death, and yes rising again.When Peter makes his great testimony of revelation of Jesus as Messiah, he is called Peter, Rocky, but now his name is turned as he is placing rocks in the path of Jesus otward the cross.
Peter is appalled. He knows what the messiah will do: take power, clean up the religious establishment, lead Israel into a new golden age. Now he hears this business of suffering, death, and resurrection. He worries about Jesus and pulls him aside to perhaps exorcise the demon that has touched the mind of Jesus. Jesus turns the tables and calls him Satan. Peter is tempting him without meaning to. Jesus is not chasing after martyrdom. He wants to live, a long, rich, full life. He does not want to have his life end, just as his mission was getting off the ground.
We have to be so careful here. It could easily seem to me that we are expected to chase after suffering, to accept our lot. it is especially dangerous when these verses get used as advice to people in trouble. Countless women have been told that it is their cross to bear under the repeated beatings of their husbands.Countless poor people have been told that poverty is their cross to bear. I remember the elderly ladies climbing the steep hill to our church as they walked maybe a mile to get there. Biedya, biedya, poverty, poverty, poverty they would say. theirs was a voice of resignation. My sense is that the cross seeks to put to death our fear of living, of living fully into this world knowing full well it is full of risk and pain, as well as certainties and joys.
At the same time, we need to be reminded that when we sell the Christian faith as some sort of talisman against the suffering of life, we are selling a bill of goods. Against what they and we would desire, Jesus points toward a life of self-denial and self-sacrifice. We can be grateful daily that we rarely face organized opposition to our religion, but Christians do practice their faith and risk and lose their lives.Reinhold Niebuhr who had connections to Eden Seminary across the river spoke of a logic of the cross. Its divine logic works within human tragedy, suffering, and yes sin. To work from within includes working from within the vast panoply of suffering we endure.
Lenten disciplines are thought to be ways of learning self-denial. I suppose that one could see them as baby steps to being able to follow Christ to the cross. Spiritual practices are deeper than mere duties, mere items on a checklist (see review of Davison Hunter book) They are designed to use the ego’s abilities to drain power away from being egotistical, from making the self the measure of all things. We may not be able to kill off the sin that lurks within, but we do learn to control our impulses. In losing a part of our life, we do gain hold of a sense of eternal life breaking through. that commitment to life Paul sees in Abraham. At 100, Abraham was as good as dead to be an expectant father. God calls into existence a new life all of the time.God is god as God gives life to the dead. After all, God can make the darkest cross shine with light. We are more than a collection of impulses. down deep, we discover resources to face and face down the crosses we bear.
Peter is appalled. He knows what the messiah will do: take power, clean up the religious establishment, lead Israel into a new golden age. Now he hears this business of suffering, death, and resurrection. He worries about Jesus and pulls him aside to perhaps exorcise the demon that has touched the mind of Jesus. Jesus turns the tables and calls him Satan. Peter is tempting him without meaning to. Jesus is not chasing after martyrdom. He wants to live, a long, rich, full life. He does not want to have his life end, just as his mission was getting off the ground.
We have to be so careful here. It could easily seem to me that we are expected to chase after suffering, to accept our lot. it is especially dangerous when these verses get used as advice to people in trouble. Countless women have been told that it is their cross to bear under the repeated beatings of their husbands.Countless poor people have been told that poverty is their cross to bear. I remember the elderly ladies climbing the steep hill to our church as they walked maybe a mile to get there. Biedya, biedya, poverty, poverty, poverty they would say. theirs was a voice of resignation. My sense is that the cross seeks to put to death our fear of living, of living fully into this world knowing full well it is full of risk and pain, as well as certainties and joys.
At the same time, we need to be reminded that when we sell the Christian faith as some sort of talisman against the suffering of life, we are selling a bill of goods. Against what they and we would desire, Jesus points toward a life of self-denial and self-sacrifice. We can be grateful daily that we rarely face organized opposition to our religion, but Christians do practice their faith and risk and lose their lives.Reinhold Niebuhr who had connections to Eden Seminary across the river spoke of a logic of the cross. Its divine logic works within human tragedy, suffering, and yes sin. To work from within includes working from within the vast panoply of suffering we endure.
Lenten disciplines are thought to be ways of learning self-denial. I suppose that one could see them as baby steps to being able to follow Christ to the cross. Spiritual practices are deeper than mere duties, mere items on a checklist (see review of Davison Hunter book) They are designed to use the ego’s abilities to drain power away from being egotistical, from making the self the measure of all things. We may not be able to kill off the sin that lurks within, but we do learn to control our impulses. In losing a part of our life, we do gain hold of a sense of eternal life breaking through. that commitment to life Paul sees in Abraham. At 100, Abraham was as good as dead to be an expectant father. God calls into existence a new life all of the time.God is god as God gives life to the dead. After all, God can make the darkest cross shine with light. We are more than a collection of impulses. down deep, we discover resources to face and face down the crosses we bear.
Devotions-week of March 4
Sunday March 4-Ps. 22 is one of the great penitential laments. Jesus quotes its start on the cross. Read it, and make a chart comparing it to the Passion account, and it seems to have a number of points of contact. Feeling forsaken is a great spiritual emptiness. Whenever it strikes, may you be filled with the love and comfort of God.
Monday-Memory is powerful and fallible. Isaiah has contradictory advice on it by telling us to remember the former things and remember not the former things. That strikes me as an excellent spiritual exercise. What memories deserve to be dead and buried? What memories deserve to be tended and kept as fresh as the first daffodil of spring?
Tuesday-Instead of giving something up for Lent, consider trying some new spiritual practice. Do a spiritual inventory and decide if you wish to work on a weak spot or to bolster an older strong virtue. Try another way. Are you more introverted or extroverted? Consider either appealing to that weight of your personality, as we are all a mix of the two poles. You may want to try something our of your comfort zone and appeal to that other side of your preferences.
Wednesday-Beneath the Cross is a standard Lenten hymn. Consider reading it as a religious poem and then maybe sing it softly to yourself. The Scot Elizabeth Clephane wrote the lyrics. Although she was a frail woman, she was called sunbeam, due to her unfailing cheerfulness, in her community near the home of Sir Walter Scott. Notice how willing she is able to transpose her pain on to the cross.
Thursday-This is International Women’s Day. It is dedicated to rural women this year. When you think about it, many biblical heroines were rural women. Consider reading the book of Ruth again. (Calm down, remember, it’s only four chapters). What do you consider the special joys and challenges of rural living? It’s followed by the World Day of Prayer on the theme, “Let justice prevail” from Amos 5. Justice is about structure, not individual acts of charity. It imagines a world where we are treated fairly. In my lifetime, we have made great strides toward justice in our own land. Our eyes are open to the unfairness across the globe. Justice is on the march.
Friday-Vice has an old fashion ring to it. It usually shows up as the opposite of virtue, another old-fashioned word. In our day, a vice has lost some of its moral connection. We usually speak of eating something bad for our weight as a vice, or a temptation for that matter. Would you say you struggle with a moral vice? What are your, oh, top three virtues?
Saturday-In our frenetic society, Sabbath keeping may be one of the most difficult spiritual practices. it has fallen by the wayside in much of Protestant experience, even going to church every week seems to be optional. Our busyness reflects a business mentality that time is money and must be filled with efficient and effective practices. Dorothy Bass wonders if we need to re-introduce Sabbath slowly. Consider doing no job tasks on the Sabbath time, from say 6PM Saturday to 6PM Sunday or all day Sunday, or no bill paying, no church committee meetings.
Monday-Memory is powerful and fallible. Isaiah has contradictory advice on it by telling us to remember the former things and remember not the former things. That strikes me as an excellent spiritual exercise. What memories deserve to be dead and buried? What memories deserve to be tended and kept as fresh as the first daffodil of spring?
Tuesday-Instead of giving something up for Lent, consider trying some new spiritual practice. Do a spiritual inventory and decide if you wish to work on a weak spot or to bolster an older strong virtue. Try another way. Are you more introverted or extroverted? Consider either appealing to that weight of your personality, as we are all a mix of the two poles. You may want to try something our of your comfort zone and appeal to that other side of your preferences.
Wednesday-Beneath the Cross is a standard Lenten hymn. Consider reading it as a religious poem and then maybe sing it softly to yourself. The Scot Elizabeth Clephane wrote the lyrics. Although she was a frail woman, she was called sunbeam, due to her unfailing cheerfulness, in her community near the home of Sir Walter Scott. Notice how willing she is able to transpose her pain on to the cross.
Thursday-This is International Women’s Day. It is dedicated to rural women this year. When you think about it, many biblical heroines were rural women. Consider reading the book of Ruth again. (Calm down, remember, it’s only four chapters). What do you consider the special joys and challenges of rural living? It’s followed by the World Day of Prayer on the theme, “Let justice prevail” from Amos 5. Justice is about structure, not individual acts of charity. It imagines a world where we are treated fairly. In my lifetime, we have made great strides toward justice in our own land. Our eyes are open to the unfairness across the globe. Justice is on the march.
Friday-Vice has an old fashion ring to it. It usually shows up as the opposite of virtue, another old-fashioned word. In our day, a vice has lost some of its moral connection. We usually speak of eating something bad for our weight as a vice, or a temptation for that matter. Would you say you struggle with a moral vice? What are your, oh, top three virtues?
Saturday-In our frenetic society, Sabbath keeping may be one of the most difficult spiritual practices. it has fallen by the wayside in much of Protestant experience, even going to church every week seems to be optional. Our busyness reflects a business mentality that time is money and must be filled with efficient and effective practices. Dorothy Bass wonders if we need to re-introduce Sabbath slowly. Consider doing no job tasks on the Sabbath time, from say 6PM Saturday to 6PM Sunday or all day Sunday, or no bill paying, no church committee meetings.
Column on World Day of Prayer
Today is the date selected for the World Day of Prayer. Its theme is : “let justice prevail” from Amos 5. (It also reminds me of the legal maxim that justice should be done though the heavens fall.” This year a group of women from Malaysia took the reins of the liturgy and prayers for this international event. Its consistent message is for “informed prayer and prayerful action” as inextricably bound in their view. This worldwide movement started with some Americans, one a Presbyterian from New York who made the call for it and two Baptist women who started it rolling. The prayers are composed from a different country every year. The women share information about their country. It is thought that we are then drawn into their struggle as we learn. So, this day of prayer is not generic generalities, glittering spiritual atmospherics, but based in street-level experience.
Often, too often, we see prayer as a last resort. At times, it is seen as a pious substitute for action. As I grow older, I see prayer as mobilizing us into action. Without it, we start to rely on our own limited resources and start running on fumes. Burnout is the result of expending energy without receiving more in return through rest and renewal. Recently, I had the privilege of getting to hear a local Lutheran pastor, the Rev. (I’m sure that it should be the utterly revered Reverend) Bill Veith make a presentation on Martin Luther King at the Unitarian Church in Alton. His knowledge of King is extraordinary, and he reminded his rapt listeners that king’s spirituality, his prayer life, enabled to him to carry on his exhausting schedule of work in the thirteen years or so before he was gunned down. He told us the story how King and his family were again threatened, and it was the straw that broke the camel’s back. In his kitchen, he prayed and he received the strength to ‘stand up for righteousness” out of his desperate prayer. He shared some recent work that has collected some of his prayers, testaments of tradition, eloquence, and social justice.
I never thought I would live to see the Soviet Union crumble and people under the boot of a foreign power find freedom again. At times, I think that its sudden disintegration, without a shot being fired, was an answer to prayer. When some good thing happens that I would not predict, I wonder if countless prayers moved heaven to act. I thought south Africa would end up in a maelstrom of violence, but it transferred power to the majority well.
Prayer also puts us in touch with the horizon of hope. I am not a natural optimist, as it seems to me that a moment’s reflection does not indicate that things just improve naturally and irrevocably. As the noted philosopher Bruce Springsteen sang sometimes life is “one step up and two steps back.” Our imaginations get hobbled by fear and failures. Prayer links us to the Source of Wisdom. It links us to the Future One, the God who is laboring to make a better future, a future where human life is respected and made worth living. The connections of prayer may help us break the bonds of our normal ruts and patterns and see things in fresh new ways, as God says, “I make all things new” and “remember not the former things.” Hope is not chained to the present, nor to mere facts. Hope can fly to a distant horizon to “see things that never were and ask why not?” Prayer can ally us with that hope to be a beacon, to guide us to a new and better day.
Often, too often, we see prayer as a last resort. At times, it is seen as a pious substitute for action. As I grow older, I see prayer as mobilizing us into action. Without it, we start to rely on our own limited resources and start running on fumes. Burnout is the result of expending energy without receiving more in return through rest and renewal. Recently, I had the privilege of getting to hear a local Lutheran pastor, the Rev. (I’m sure that it should be the utterly revered Reverend) Bill Veith make a presentation on Martin Luther King at the Unitarian Church in Alton. His knowledge of King is extraordinary, and he reminded his rapt listeners that king’s spirituality, his prayer life, enabled to him to carry on his exhausting schedule of work in the thirteen years or so before he was gunned down. He told us the story how King and his family were again threatened, and it was the straw that broke the camel’s back. In his kitchen, he prayed and he received the strength to ‘stand up for righteousness” out of his desperate prayer. He shared some recent work that has collected some of his prayers, testaments of tradition, eloquence, and social justice.
I never thought I would live to see the Soviet Union crumble and people under the boot of a foreign power find freedom again. At times, I think that its sudden disintegration, without a shot being fired, was an answer to prayer. When some good thing happens that I would not predict, I wonder if countless prayers moved heaven to act. I thought south Africa would end up in a maelstrom of violence, but it transferred power to the majority well.
Prayer also puts us in touch with the horizon of hope. I am not a natural optimist, as it seems to me that a moment’s reflection does not indicate that things just improve naturally and irrevocably. As the noted philosopher Bruce Springsteen sang sometimes life is “one step up and two steps back.” Our imaginations get hobbled by fear and failures. Prayer links us to the Source of Wisdom. It links us to the Future One, the God who is laboring to make a better future, a future where human life is respected and made worth living. The connections of prayer may help us break the bonds of our normal ruts and patterns and see things in fresh new ways, as God says, “I make all things new” and “remember not the former things.” Hope is not chained to the present, nor to mere facts. Hope can fly to a distant horizon to “see things that never were and ask why not?” Prayer can ally us with that hope to be a beacon, to guide us to a new and better day.
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