Week of May 11 Devotional Pts.

Sunday-Ps.23 is the beloved psalm for many. I have little to add today, but I do wish to highlight “the table spread before my enemies.” Religious people still have enemies. I take the line to mean that the enemies are foaming at the mouth to see a banquet prepared for someone they hate.Enemies lurk in the valley of the shadow. Yet Yet, can they stand against the goodness and mercy of God?

Monday-“Prayer is not a way of making use of God; prayer is a way of offering ourselves to God in order that He should be able to make use of us. It may be that one of our great faults in prayer is that we talk too much and listen too little. When prayer is at its highest we wait in silence for God's voice to us; we linger in His presence for His peace and His power to flow over us and around us; we lean back in His everlasting arms and feel the serenity of perfect security in Him.” William Barclay

Tuesday-"Our business in life is less making something of ourselves than finding something worth doing and losing ourselves in it." (William Sloane Coffin) this is a fine definition of vocation, a calling not a job. Wednesday“Where there is devotional music, God is always at hand with His gracious presence.” (Bach) Our church takes understandable pride and pleasure in its musical offerings.Where does the presence of God enter your awareness with sacred or secular music? Does a particular piece of music have particular spiritual resonance for you? Thursday-Dona nobis pacem. Dona nobis pacem.Ralph Vaughan Williams, writing in 1936, produced this simple hymn as his plea for peace by referring to recent wars and during the growing fears of a new one. His text was taken from the poet, Walt Whitman, who wrote in the time of the Civil War, 1861-1865. And to this day, the wars continue. But we continue to join in the song of the ages, "Grant us Peace." We pray for peace not only among the nations but also in our communities, our church, and in our families. It all begins as we receive from the Lord Jesus his promise, "My Peace I leave with you." As we trust in the peace he gives, we have the opportunity to pass on the peace in our words and actions. As we "pass the peace" in our worship, let that be a reminder that passing the peace is also a part of our ministry in daily life. Help us Lord to identify a place in our lives where we join our Lord in answering the prayer, "Dona nobis pacem." In Jesus' name. Amen.Vern Rice Friday-I am polishing a way too long sermon on worship and Acts 2:42-47. Karl Barth saw the essence of theology, thinking the faith, in worship:” the essence of theology (is) lying in the liturgical action of adoration, thanksgiving, and petition.” At its best, worship gives us a pattern of thinking and feeling the faith. Irt gives form, pattern to our often inchoate thoughts about the divine. Saturday-Our youngest should be a graduate of Indiana University today. She is a major in art history and communications.I pray for her in matters social and private. Given my nature, i do fairly well in not worrying too much, but I still worry about both of our daughters still. Her mind’s horizon is so far expanded in her years in college, and I am grateful for her.I hope and pray the world can accept and recognize her gentle soul.

May 11 Sermon notes on worship for Acts 2:42-7

Acts 2:42-47

I fear that we are mistaking style over substance. When folks mention a different style of worship here, I remind them that we have a small informal service Saturday at 6, but they rarely show there. When they continue their complaint, i note that they use entertainment as the analogy they are drawing.

I brought a book for the plane called A More Profound Alleluia. we .use Acts 2 as worship template and gift of the spirit. I just read a defense of contemporary styles of worship as a party, but I do not recall that Scriptural reference, but that may be a fault of a memory that is not as strong as it once was.

What is the result of Pentecost in this story? Worship. What worship elements are mentioned? To me it sounds like a synagogue service.Where do we encounter the spirit in worship, or better put, where does the Spirit encounter us. Of all things, let’s go to the Book of Order. Some of its governing sections have been slimmed down, but not this fairly new revision of how we look at worship[. Let me just pull out some sections and make brief comment on them All time, all space, all matter are created by God and have been hallowed by Jesus Christ. Christian worship, at particular times, in special places, with the use of God’s material gifts, should lead the church into the life of the world to participate in God’s purpose to redeem time, to sanctify space, and to transform material reality for the glory of God.” Hear that ending piece-the glory of God.

“Prayer is at the heart of worship. In prayer, through the Holy Spirit, people seek after and are found by the one true God who has been revealed in Jesus Christ. They listen and wait upon God, call God by name, remember God’s gracious acts, and offer themselves to God. Prayer may be spoken, sung, offered in silence, or enacted. Prayer grows out of the center of a person’s life in response to the Spirit. Prayer is shaped by the Word of God in Scripture and by the life of the community of faith. Prayer issues in commitment to join God’s work in the world. “

I went to church and sat through sermons. I understand the antipathy toward them, but I am mystified by the frequency of complaints about 15 minutes. In a Bible Study I attend at times, a gentleman never fails to strike out at sermons as long and boring, and another never fails to mention that he did not get much out of them and his appalling ignorance about Scripture proves it .  People went to college and hear sometimes 1 ½ hour lectures but don't get the grief of sermons. At their base, in our tradition they  try to make a passage clear. I offered to run some sermon preparation groups where we study the passages beforehand but we have no takers.

worship as the flock together’

I Peter (w/ living stones?) Perhaps some of our antipathy to worship comes from a poor grasp of it. this is a plea to consider doing some sessions on our worship style as a study.

The glory of God is the living man, but the life of man is the vision of God', says St. Irenaeus, getting to the heart of what happens when man meets God on the mountain or  in the wilderness. Ultimately, it is the very life of man, man himself as living righteously, that is the true worship of God, but life only becomes real life when it receives its form from looking toward God.” ― Pope Benedict XVI, The Spirit of the Liturgy

Mother's Day 2014

God is on our side as a mother is on our side

God says Yes to us as a mother embraces our virtues

No proper training exists for the role

so we rely on instinct, learnings, and prayers.

God too must be able to let go and hold on without

being cloying or too distant

Mothers struggle to keep close

without smothering or too much worry.

God is described as a fierce mother bear in Hosea 13..

Jesus uses an image of an anxious mother hen.

Dt. 32 uses the image of a safe secure place

to bring new life into the world.

The church has been called a mother.

The church swaddles infans, guides us, provides a place

where we can be assured of hearing, welcome home.

God knows what it is like to be called at all times.

Mothers hear the plea of a sick or hurt child

With infinite patience they help us

learn to be civilized, to date, to drive

Does God, too, care more for

us than for the self?

Mother surely know that fierce sense of love.

Hesed in Hebrew has a sense of loyal love, unbreakable love.

do we ever see a better example of it than in mothers?

They stitch up cuts and clothes

After all, they are teaching us

that much of daily life is mending and patching

Not only do they mend broken toys

they help mend a broken heart and a scuffed ego

That care moves seamlessly generation to generation.

Mothers endure in life and in memory.

So may stimuli,

a hint of fragrance, a word, a thought

bring them to us in utter clarity.

All mothers are held in the divine embrace.

Column draft on free expression

Like most folks, the Sterling Affair with the Los Angeles Clippers basketball team left me feeling uneasy. This new embarrassment  does provide an opportunity to consider a number of vexsome issues.

First, I am committed to free expression. A number of comments continue to make an elementary error. The First Amendment applies to governmental strictures (through the Fourteenth Amendment). As far as the government is concerned we can “say anything we want” but that does not apply in the private sphere. Under  the First Amendment, only imminently dangerous speech connected to an act can be punished. Such limitations do not apply to private groups. I am concerned that speech seems to be more readily punished than, say discriminatory acts. To what degree should we be able to contract away free expression rights in our country at all? Do we need to think through talking about free expression when it can be punished to the degree it is by the NBA in this instance? Maybe this tawdry mess can get us started in a national conversation about the degree to which speech should be punished in private settings.Is a huge fineand a ban an appropriate remedy for his language as levied by a private agency, the NBA?

Second, I have some real privacy concerns. If pushed, I suppose that i would make a distinction between public speech and private speech. I do not understand how we can use surreptitious phone tapes, transfer them to a third party, then have them broadcast, and be punished for private speech.We do not know who released the tape and for what purpose, other than a hefty reward from TMZ. . Do we have no expectation of privacy in this new age of technology? Does punishment for released private conversation start to move us in the direction of thought police, not by the government but by private entities?  When should public outcry be used as a decision to punish someone in their business affairs? what recourse does Mr. Sterling have for violation of his privacy when such a boatload of punishment hits him? Commissioner silver merely dismissed such concerns since they were publicized, that make shtat a public matter. I am not sure it is so easy. Certainly no governmental agency could respond so flippantly.

Third, it seems that we leapt to the conclusion that the tape was legitimate. Even if it was his voice on the tape, could it not have been manufactured from scraps of previous conversations and then smoothed into a narrative as choppy as an ordinary conversation? Again that conclusion was reached due to a sorry history of discriminatory acts and and speech.

Fourth, where was I when someone openly has mistresses in this country while still being married? I realize that in other countries men have dual families, but the point seemed to me to keep one;s affairs private.I have heard some people say that it permitted the wealthy, but not other classes.

Race continues to percolate through  our national life in so many ways. Most would agree with Commissioner Silver that racism continues to be a moral stain within the human heart and as a country. Racial code words are the stock in trade of what passes for political discourse in our country. It is not at all clear to me How is racist speech more deserving  of punishment than racist acts? Mr. Sterling seemed to have a primary concern of his mistress, herself of mixed race, publically being in the presence of non-whites. When we wish to hid, shame is at its core. Equality is an aspiration for many of us, but a solid core of racism exists both structurally and in the recesses of the dark corners of our own hearts and minds. Is racist opinion to be countered by other opinion, or shall we let it fester in the shadows, as we seek to forbid it in speech, public or private?

Notes I Peter 2:19-25, some very preliminary musings

This is usually on the OT. with Eastertide, we are in Acts. I have nothing new to say on Ps. 23, so i decided ot work a bit with the Peter passage.
This is a good example of ripping out of context. this is directed at slaves, but we carefully excise the preceding verse.Ron Allen of CTS avoided the downsizing of faculty in Indianapolis. He writes of preaching against the passage. This may be an example of that necessity.
Whether directed at slaves or not, this passage comes very very close to glorifying suffering as a godly act.Suffering may strengthen some people, but it serves to destroy many more. I just saw Railway Man, and I see little that torture by the Japanese did for the English soldiers in the film.
Further, right wing Christians have taken to picturing themselves as an oppressed minority awaiting martyrdom...in America.
Granted, Peter is speaking of unjust suffering to be borne when we have no choice in the matter. Note that he concludes with a statement on a proper judge at the end.We get a direct allusion to Isaiah's suffering servant in the quote from 53:9 (in Greek).
Some admire the stoic resignation to suffering in silence. i wonder if the religious response is rather to lament.
I wonder what Peter means when he says that Jesus bore our sins upon his body on the cross/ or carried up our sins in his body? Is it an allusion ot an sacrificial ritual?
V.25, i do not know how well the sheep image works in our time and place. What would be other wayws of speaking of hte shepherd and guardian of souls?
I am struck by the inmag eof going astray. i heard someone in bible class going on and on aobut sin as choice, but that misses much of its power, no? does one deliberatley "go astray?"

Emmaus sermon notes may 4

May 3 Luke 24:13-35 I Peter 1:17-23

Cleopas and one unnamed man are walking. Both are looking sad. It is a difficult thing to pour your hopes onto someone a or some cause and see it turn to ashes. It hurts, and it pushes some into bars and some into depression.These two men on the road are  struggling to come to grips with death of Jesus even though they had heard of resurrection. To me they sound like people who are mourning a loss. to me they are trying to make sense of  a terrible injustice. they are given clues to unravel their loss through a tour of the Scripture.When we have a choir procession, Nancy carries a heavy Bible. We touch four readings from the common lectionary week after week. They offer in a way a dual invitation-they are discussing-tossing back and forth religious ideas and responses, but then they make a full offer of hospitality for Jesus to stay with them and then find Jesus in Communion for Easter-no communion until they offer hospitality.

I do not know if they failed to recognize Jesus as he was incognito or disguised or if they could not recognize him as they could not believe their eyes. After all he was crucified, dead,and buried, as we say in the Creed.They are met on the road by a  stranger but in the end they have seen Jesus.They then turn right around and head back.TFind Jesus in part through the scriptures, as I Peter puts it the living and enduring (abiding)word (logos) of God.You can tell it is a living word as the living Jesus re-interprets it.It endures not only through time, not only through different situations and encounters, but it remains, abides wihtin us. this passage is one of the reasons a our tradition  conjoins Word and sacrament. we see the bible as a precondition for the reception and understanding of the sacraments.

Jesus disappears as quickly as he appears After Easter the presence of Jesus will not be frequent. If we have eyes to see, we can find the elusive hidden Jesus. If we take the passage  we engage Jesus through the study of Scripture. We more fully touch the reality of the risen Jesus in the sacrament of the bread and cup.The elusive Jesus is fully present in the sacrament of Communion. In our tradition the spirit transports us into the presence of Christ.

I love that this resurrection story occurs in the midst of grief and its struggles. I love that they have a Bible Study that is taught by Jesus, and still they do not get the fullness of his presence. When their eyes are opened to the risen Jesus, he disappears again.God remains elusive. Luther spoke repeatedly of a hidden God, hidden in the event of suffering and loss and pain. Mother Teresa spoke of seeing Christ in the face of the poor wretches her order worked to provide a bit of comfort. Jesus is present as a therapist helping someone come to grips with a loss and trying to put a life back together.

I Pet. 1:17-23 (esp22-3) gives us a glimpse of Easter life by speaking of genuine mutual love from the heart. In the midst of our own fragile mortality, one thing endures the word of God. (ch. rhema or logos here)  Here being born anew comes from that enduring a word, a word that Jesus interpreted for them on that lonesome road to Emmaus.That very word is bound to our two sacraments of Easter life, baptism and the Lord’s Supper.The presence of the risen Christ is all around. With eyes of Scriptural focus, of sacramental lenses, we encounter Christ in love, love that is indeed divine, all loves excelling.

Week of May 4 devotions

Sunday-Ps.116 certainly has an Easter sound to it. Try to read it with both Easter eys but also for the  promise of new life here and now. Resurrection hope was a late addition to the Old testament material. V. 8 brings to mind something I rarely think about: eluded troubles. So often we narrowly miss disaster; so often we avoid being hit with a cause of tears and stumbling. Can you note such moments in your life’s graph?

Monday-An elderly gentleman walked slowly as he left the evening worship. He had listened as the congregation sang, "O God Our Help in Ages Past." He took my hand and spoke with tears in his eyes. "That hymn is all I need; it tells me all that I need to know about God." Wayne Radke

Tuesday-Grieving at the empty tomb. We do that, don’t we? Even though the resurrection of Jesus is good news, life comes from death, wildflowers and planted flowers emerge after a cold winter, there is still an awareness of that loss. In someone else’s sermon on Lazarus, the point was made that we would much rather invite Jesus into our tombs, ask him to redecorate and spruce up the place, than to accept the risky proposition of stepping into new life. Anne Lamott

Wednesday-from Abbey of the Arts- Lynn Ungar has a wonderful poem titled "Camas Lilies" in which she writes: "And you — what of your rushed and / useful life? Imagine setting it all down — / papers, plans, appointments, everything, / leaving only a note: "Gone to the fields / to be lovely. Be back when I'm through / with blooming." Spring is a time to set aside some of the plans and open ourselves to our own blooming.

Thursday-Macrina Wiederkehr-The word, SURPRISE, has many meanings and my favorite meaning is, "TAKEN FROM ABOVE."  You are so  filled with amazement and delight that something above you, outside of you, beyond your power, takes hold of you.  Something outside of yourself grasps you and invites you to be a seer. You are taken from above and given a new vision of one particular slice of life.  A presence that you can't explain pulls back the curtain and some kind of revelation takes place.-

Friday-We are all of us judged every day. We are judged by the face that looks back at us from the bathroom mirror. We are judged by the faces of the people we love and by the faces and lives of our children and by our dreams. We are judged by the faces of the people we do not love. Each day finds us at the junction of many roads, and we are judged as much by the roads we have not taken as by the roads we have.Frederick Buechner

Saturday-

I still remember vividly the night we sang the hymn, "Jesus, Savior, Pilot Me." As a young boy who was experiencing the many uncertainties of life, I would often wonder if there was a God who could pilot me. And then I would hear the words of hope in this hymn. They were indeed words of a God who spoke to me, and told me of a God "who stills the sea as a mother calms her child and of a God who commands the boisterous waves to be still." O God, I hear your words that breathe calm in the midst of the waves around me. In the quiet of a place of worship, help me to hear again your strong message of hope. Amen.

Wayne Radke