I John 3:16-24 notes

1) Love in v. 16 is defined as a remarkable capacity of self-giving or martyrdom, or the comradeship of the battlefield. 2) v. 17 is a direct shot at the resumption of the greed is good notion, or a return to the Social Darwinism earlier in the 20th century that seems to be in ascendance. It also applies to the conditions/structures of justice, not just charity or philanthropy. 3)Again, how do you react to little children.what would be a less annoying equivalent in today's time? the linkage of faith and action certainly corresponds to James. 4)Notice that love is the standard of judgment by god. Notice too that John has boldness and reassurance, not guilt and shame. God rises above condemnation, especially self-condemnation. 5) v. 23 is John's golden rule. 6)The dense nature of abiding in this letter is exemplified by v. 24.we may disentangle this thicket, or we could emphasize its interconnected, communal, entwined nature, a good antidote to our rampant individualism.

I John 3:1-7 notes

1) This apparently did not post correctly, so back at it. Look carefully at what he means children of God. Work on ways of speaking about it and its impact. 2) Note well that we can an element of theosis here, something being discussed more in Protestant circles, but the Orthodox family has examined it for quite some time. (theology today has had a number of articles on it over the years) 3)Sin here is difficult. The word, harmatia+=missing the mark but the verb has a sense of doing, putting that into practice. How could that be, given its meaning of missing the mark. would one deliberately miss the mark? Harmatia sounds more like incapacity or built-in limitation more than choice to me. 4) How can missing the mark be lawless, a direct translation, or perhaps not lawful.In European classic sociology, anomie means normless, at sea. So perhaps it could be termed without law, lacking law/direction/standards/guidance. To what degree does this fit our 21st Century context? 5)v.6 is quite strong. it pushes us to consider the depth of abiding in the Revealed One the One who takes away sin. Again, notice the linkage of sin as having blind spots/ignorance toward the reality of Jesus. 6) I hear a lot that people who do wrong say they are still a good person. john seems to have no patience for that. If you do good, you are good, if you don;'t you're not,.Character is revealed by behavior.

Aprill 22 Sermon Lk. 24:36-48, I John 3:1-7, Acts 3:12-19

When we recite the Creed we confirm belief in the resurrection of the body.When my mother was in an assisted living center a lady who was then in her nineties told me that ministers do not speak enough about the afterlife, note she did not say Hell alone, but heaven also. She said that the afterlife was mentioned in funerals, but she was too upset to hear it well then. (Before she died, she asked her family to ask me to assist in her funeral). In our confessions we also speak of an immortal soul, and it is not at all clear to me that we are affirming the same thing I don’t want to get into an argument about when and how we go to heaven after death. Let’s imagine we are in geometry class and we will have an axiom:when we die we enter into God’s eternal time, where past, present, and future merge. After all, it is in Luke’s gospel that he tells the bandit on the cross this day you shall be with me in Paradise. Second axiom, Jesus is a pointer for our resurrection life. In contrast to John’s story last week, , everybody in Luke seems to be Thomas in their understanding. In the time of Jesus it was another given: that ghosts/spirits can’t eat. Ghosts could not be touched or touch others. So when he asks for something to eat, we are in a new frame of reference. Third assertion, it is dangerous for Christians to separate body, mind, heart and soul as completely distinct entities. We are ensouled bodies, or embodied souls. Our very selves are a mix of these features in our lives. We know this when we speak of something being psychosomatic. For us this resurrection picture seems to mean that we will be ourselves, our restored selves, our best selves in heaven. We will carry within this embodied life: feelings and thoughts and relationships intact.It seems that the phsycial life we have experienced will perdure. Jesus says “see that I am myself.” This resurrection of the body raises as many questions as it may settle. If we eat as resurrected selves, what about bathroom? Maybe heaven will be a place where the men’s rooms are as nice as the women’s bathrooms. Maybe men will finally find better aim in heaven. Seriously, jesus is recognized as himself. Held in the memory and embrace of the divine, we will be recognized, and maybe, at long last, we will recognize ourselves a shte beloved of god, precious gifts of God, part of God’s age old working and reworking to make this world and the world to come a good place. I John makes the wonderful assertion that we are children of God. John indicates that we learn to live within the life and light of Jesus Christ. In time, we start to resemble the life of Christ in our attitudes and actions. So often, I hear people say that temptations do not seem as potent as they age. They attribute it to the wisdom of experience and the aging process, but John would say that we are being conformed to christ. That status is rendered from love. a good way to approach resurrection is to ask: will the love of God for us stop upon our deaths? In Acts Luke’s account has the author of life killed. Death does not close the page of the life of Jesus, and through that life, our lives too will persist in a new way. We are family. could the creator of all life, the giver of new birth, dismiss our lives? Can we really believe that God can ignore the bonds of family? So precious are we, god enfolds our lives into the Author of Life.

April 22 Week Devotions

Sunday April 22-Earth Day is today. This is an example of the secular world teaching the church about its responsibility. Thoughtlessly, the church mirrored the culture about nature as something to be exploited. In other words, we lost the notion of creation. Instead of seeing science as an enemy we do far better to see how it depends our reading of Scripture and bolsters our sense of awe, wonder, and reverence toward the environment. After all, the earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof.” It is not solely for our pillaging. Monday-Both of our daughter are taking some important tests. Evaluation causes anxiety. We go back to be little and ashamed that we do not make the grade. We feel diminished. Even if an assessment is generally laudatory, a rarity I know, we tend to disregard that and expend our energy on the criticism. Judgment day strikes terror in us with the image of god as stern evaluator. Jesus is the judge judged inour place. what assessment tools do you think Jesus employs? Tuesday-I’m staying ahead on sermons and started working on June 24, where Jesus stills the storm. My memory went back to the movie, Good Will Hunting. The therapist has a simple painting of a fisherman rowing in a storm (you can dial it up on the internet) and the young genius finds much meaning in it. When do you feel that way? Where do you find solace? Wednesday-I admire Ir Kent Groff’s book Active Spiriutality. He sends out devotional ideas every week, and he sent a note form AA’s Big Book. “As we go through the day we pause, when agitated or doubtful, and ask for the right thought or action. We constantly remind ourselves we are no longer running the show, humbly saying to ourselves many times each day "Thy will be done."* We are then in much less danger of excitement, fear, anger, worry, self-pity, or foolish decisions. We become much more efficient. We do not tire so easily for we are not burning up energy foolishly as we did when we were trying to arrange life to suit ourselves.” Thursday-No one gets out of life unscathed. Even if we do recognize all sorts of blessings, we all suffer through many trials of various sorts. I am convinced that we make it through those trials only by tapping into the grace and resources of the divine. I look at what people go through and am astonished that they survive, let alone flourish. where have you sensed divine aid in getting you through a time of troubles? Friday-I have an aging-related question. When you were younger, did people whine and complain as much as they do now? Maybe, it is what we complain about, but it seems to me we live in a culture of complaint. What good is complaining? What negative impact does it have on our thought processes, our feelings, our relationships? Saturday-If all goes well, I will visit our eldest daughter this weekend. It is an adjustment visiting with an adult child than when they were under one’s own roof. I wonder if God works to respond to us in different ways as we mature in our spiritual and ethical lives over the years?

Sermon 4/15 thomas

Life and light pervade Easter life. At the start in Genesis, God is shown to be the God of life. Now in the midst of this new creation God demonstrates not only organizing life from nothingness, but from death itself.I John starts with this affirmation, that the word, the message of life was and is present in jesus, the Healing, Teaching, Crucified and Risen One. We get a glimpse of early Christian life. Part of the resurrection life was one of sharing the fulness of life with each other. Is it possible to live a life such as the story in Acts? Still, even if it a utopian vision, it is a Christian Utopian vision, or is it?.We would be tempted to call this a cult, not a community. Easter life is life in community, in this world and the world to come. Along with I John, our gospel reading shows us that the early church was filled with troubles in its early Easter life. Was the resurrection real, or an illusion born of desperate grief and hope? Thomas is disbelieving more than doubting-in my experience doubting is bad in the Christian ethos, as it seems to mean undue skepticism or even wondering about the goodness of God. Doubt is seen to be the opposite of a blind faith, and it can turn sullen and angry when it tries to shut down our questions, our struggles, and wrestling with the faith. Jesus maintains the scars-I usually call them scars, but John depicts them as open wounds. they are the emblem that it really is the Crucified One, the suffering servant of all. As Carrie Newcomer sang of the wants and wounds of the human race-those were still visible in the resurrected Jesus before his friends in this new form. William Temple calls the wounds of Christ credentials before humanity. The resurrected Jesus is the pioneer of our heavenly expectations, I think. Jesus is recognizable, but he can appear through locked doors. The life he lived is carried with him into that next chapter of existence. Maybe even in heaven, it takes some time for healing to be complete. Those wounds are an open prayer for us and to God. Part of Easter life for us here is learning to live with our wounds, allowing them to heal, but not letting us define us. No life can be encapsulated with one story, one incident, one victory, or one wound. When I moved my mother to an assisted living center, some of the ladies found out that I was a minister. They asked me, well coerced me, to offer a class on heaven. they were worried that they would not be recognized by their loved ones and wanted some biblical proofs. they were disappointed that I could offer none, but they did go along with me in looking carefully at the resurrection accounts as a guideline into the resurrected life. Jesus does not castigate Thomas. indeed, he offers him what he said he wanted. Johnny Cash was a religious person with his struggles. in Meet Me in Heaven, with the Carter family, he answered some of our questions and fears about the afterlife. In TV we talk about breaking the wall when a performer winks at the audience or speaks directly to us. here John breaks the wall when Jesus say blessed are those who do not see but believe. Jesus steps out of frame and speaks directly to us. Yes, Scripture always speaks to us, but it is good to hear something directed right at us from the misty past into Eastertide 2012. Every day of our lives is set in Easter light, the hope of the dawn. may we live in that light.

Week of April 15 devotions

unday April 15-Ps. 133 is proof that good prayers can be short. I like it as a grace: “how good and pleasant it is/when kindred live together in unity.” we live in a fractured and divisive time. Unity seems to be felt only with those with whom we feel affinity. we seem at the ready to cause dissension and less sense of cohesion. How do you seek unity? Monday-I just saw an article in the New York Times on a copy of the Mona Lisa housed in a Spanish museum. It was apparently painted by a student of Leonardo as the great artist was working on the portrait. It is made from a slight angle and the brushwork matches that of the master. How does a slight difference in perspective make a difference in how you approach an issue? Tuesday-I was paging through a book by Kathleen Norris, acedia, a spiritual companion of depression.She reviews Dante’s Inferno and bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, and some of Chaucer’s Tales, and they all touch on this malady of not being able to care, of being listless and withdrawn. Love is easily distracted, but it can be slowly poisoned by indifference, apathy, routine, and acedia. How do you nurture your love? Wednesday-Our youngest daughter is an art history major and is in a class on early Christian art. We can be exposed to a world of art with just a click on google images on the computer.For example select artistic renderings of the gospel reading from last Sunday on Thomas or this coming Sunday on Luke 24:36-48 or perhaps better the road to Emmaus story. What coincides with or alters your vision of the narrative? Thursday-Tranquility has a sense of being restful, or being able to rest over something in Latin. I vividly recall the calm that descended when the Apollo astronauts announced: “Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed. “ Our tranquility is easily disturbed by events and situations. Prayer may be a great resource to find an inner tranquility that may rise above circumstance. it opens us to a stable center. Friday-Leon Russell plays at the casino tonight. Two things come to mind. I first became aware of him at George Harrison’s concert for Bangladesh.Even pampered rock stars could decide to use their celebrity toward a noble purpose. The second is that he was in a group of studio musicians called the Wrecking Crew. People my age were often disappointed in live concerts as we were used to hearing these talents on record. Who are some “behind the scenes” people in your life that make a difference in the quality of life? Saturday-Elm Street church has a spaghetti supper today.Sometimes church suppers contain much of a communion service, especially those of which Paul speaks. They are rarely gourmet affairs, but are comfort foods more often than not.Usually, we have an abundance of food.It may well be the only time in the week some oflks do not eat by themselves. As it says in Lord of the Rings: small hands do what they must, while the eyes of the great are elsewhere.”

NRA in St Louis column

I see the National Rifle Association is in the area with an enormous convention of some 70,000 people. Sportsmen get to enjoy acres of sporting goods. I think I saw that our area will get over 35 million dollars in business from this gathering. My problem with the NRA is its political and social agenda. I admire the tenacity, hard work, and grass roots support they have garnered to make their views public and powerful. I continue to be astonished that they have managed to convince the Supreme Court to agree with their long-held assertions that the Second amendment is a personal right, detached from its wording of “a well-regulated militia.” In my view, every Christian has to come to grips with pacifism as the Christian response to violence. I do realize that few Christians are pacifists. In the just war tradition, we follow notions of self defense and protection of the innocent seriously at the individual and social levels. Yes, guns are used in self-defense at least a million times a year. Public safety, however, is a public concern. Civilized societies put violence in the hands of the public authority. Vigilante justice is injustice, as witnessed with the storm in florida and the stand your ground law. The NRA vision of America is a grim one. In reality crime has gone down in this country for some time. In the NRA image, lethal predators lurk around every corner. In reality, we are the longest standing stable democracy in the world. In the NRA vision, citizens are fearful of government tyranny set upon disarming its citizen-hunters. Let’s be reminded of some stubborn, inconvenient things: facts. We have 9500 murders by guns in the last numbers I checked. 100, 000 people are shot every year. 3, 000 children are killed by guns every year, and almost 200 of those are accidents. While guns are used for self-defense, they are much more likely, if kept in the home, to be used in homicide of a relative or a death by accident. Abusers often use their possession of a firearm to cow their victims into submission to their reign of terror. When a gun I sin the home, suicide is often the weapon of choice. Let’s look at the numbers another way. Since 1979, 100,000 children have died from gunshot. Compare that to our losses, our terrible losses, in Iraq and Afghanistan. The plague of AIDS has taken perhaps 600,000 lives from 1985-the middle of the first decade of the new century. At a smaller level, we have massacres in schools and colleges. W ehave had a federal judge murdered and a member of congress disabled in Arizona and not a political peep about controlling gun violence. In our own area, we are urged to have easier weapon access, notwithstanding that such laws led to an increase in gun violence in cities such as Jacksonville, Florida. I fear we live in a time when facts fall fallow on the mental landscape. Instead, we place facts into a narrative of our choosing. When facts don’t fit that framework, we discard, or we accuse the presenters of bias. We seek not information, but to have pre-existing opinions confirmed. Instead of marshalling evidence, we build up our version of interpreting our social world. Increasingly we rely on emotional appeals, outright fantasy, to uncover deep seated prejudices and conceptions. When will we oppose the merchants of death with the political skill they possess and use so well?