Column on Lincoln religion, fatalism

 When I was a boy, we noted Lincoln’s birthday on the 12^th. We still use the words of the great man to try to buttress our beliefs. Lincoln would be amused at his being proclaimed as an orthodox religious believer. We seem determined to recruit a great person in the service of our beliefs.

Abraham Lincoln never formally joined a church. He did attend Presbyterian churches both in Springfield and in Washington, DC. He was accused of being anti-religious publically in the 1840s. In response, he wrote a carefully parsed notice. While admitting he did not join a church, he stood against holding religion in contempt. At the same time, he could not grasp how religious adherents could have the temerity to be certain of a belief that could not be proven. In other words, Lincoln was humble about the limitations of human power. He was even more humble in our capacity to try to grasp the workings of what he sometimes termed as providence.

While most Americans unthinkingly genuflect at the altar of the doctrine of free will. Lincoln seemed to have substituted the notion of a personal god for an impersonal force, along the lines of a determinism or fatalism. For instance, he thought that prayer was unavailing as nothing could change God’s working in divine necessity for events. The world is far too complex and inter-connected to assume that we are utterly free to make decision as if many forces do not impinge on our decisions. He was unwilling to speak of some sort of pure moral sensibility, as reflecting his Calvinist-Baptist upbringing in Indiana; our decisions are always involved in our own self-interest and prejudices.

When Lincoln quoted Scripture in the great second inaugural address, he echoed words spoken at the funeral of his son Willie by the Rev. Dr. Gurley of New York Ave. Presbyterian church. There the pastor spoke of terrible tragedy as within the hand of a god whose purposes we cannot fathom. “His kingdom ruleth over all. All those events which in anywise affect our condition and happiness are in his hands, and at his disposal. Disease and death are his messengers; they go forth at his bidding, and their fearful work is limited or .extended, according to the good pleasure of His will.” At Lincoln’s funeral again notice the language “ it is our Father in heaven… who permits us to be so suddenly and sorely smitten; and we know that His judgments are right, and that in faithfulness He has afflicted us. In the midst of our rejoicings we needed this stroke, this dealing, this discipline; and therefore He has sent it... Through and beyond all second causes let us look, and see the sovereign permissive agency of the great First Cause. It is His prerogative to bring light out of darkness and good out of evil. …in the light of a clearer day we may yet see that the wrath which planned and perpetuated the death of the President, was overruled by Him whose judgements are unsearchable, and His ways are past finding out.”

Still, Lincoln also saw us as instruments of some sort of divine purpose, and in that role, we apparently have some real power, albeit limited. Having lost two sons and seeing the deaths of thousands upon thousands of people, he seems to have relied on God, as he grasped God, to help assuage the relentless pressures on his heart and mind, his conscience. In some ways, Lincoln could be the patron saint of the spiritual but not religious set, but he clearly struggled long and hard over fundamental issues of ethics, even as he disdained inquiry about matters catechetical. With the theologian Paul Tillich, he exemplified the interplay of faith and probing its depth and edges.  Many of us prefer to be more measured and sedate in our approach to the gospel. Yet here is a hymn that calls forth a response of praise over and over again—twelve times in fact, even if you only sing it through once!

This outburst of praise is consistent with what the writer of Psalm 147 observed. Implied in the swirl of praise is the realization that God has created us and all that exists. 

I Cor 8-Paul on response to judging others to aid community cohesion-sermon notes

Feb. 1 I Cor. 8

Judging others is one of those areas where we say the words but the church does not give nearly enough help in how to do it.In I Corinthians Paul is dealing with a church that seems capable of fighting about almost anything, in other words, they were a typical congregation. All of us feel being in the cross hairs of criticizing and judging.  An offshoot from judging is in the word scrutinize/poke around inside/discern.The Spirit of God gives us insight into spiritual matters. With this special insight, we grasp the patterns of the world.. Earlier, I would see him saying that we scarcely understand ourselves, but claim to know God?

Paul's words on judging center on an intra-religious dispute in the new communities about eating meat that had been used in pagan rites at temples. I realize that it is hard for us to grasp the extent of the difficulty inherent in the controversy over eating some meat, but it is a hot button issue.  We do have a tendency to make matters of principle out of fairly trivial matters. . Kosher food was and is an identity marker in Jewish communities, along with sabbath observance and circumcision. In our time, people make ethical statements as vegans, or in slow foods, or in locally grown foods, foods organically produced, or food without chemical additives, on not eating veal or animals raised in confinement.  This was a trigger/valence issue since it deals directly with the issue of boundary, who is in and who is out.  As the Jewish/Christian sect started to draw more Gentiles, this issue became contentious.  People did not want to give tacit approval or credence to pagan worship by consuming meat offered in their rituals/rites. To what degree would this community, rooted in Judaism, relax its boundaries with the influx of Gentile believers? After all, we consistently raise up matters of personal preference and raise them to the matter of principle. Think of the seemingly trivial reasons people decide to leave their congregation or their broader denomination.

Paul begins by stipulating that some of the arguments are indeed correct. Yes, God is one. Yes, we pay no heed to idols. Paul knows full well the weight of biblical tradition against honoring an idol. Paul makes his concern the formation and maintenance of Christian community. Paul is looking for ties of cohesion instead of the splintering nature of dissent. Unlike our time, he is less concerned with exit strategies and protest resignations and spinning off new groups. All Christians have knowledge, not just the in-group. A sense of superior knowledge causes arrogance, but love upbuilds. Yet, they live in a culture filled with idols and the gods whom they represent. What's the problem, they know better than to ascribe importance to mere idols. Let the weak ones get built up. No, love builds up, not puffs up, no matter who we are.. So, should love take on a mantle of being supercilious toward those with whom we disagree?  Can we look down on anyone when we are gazing through the eyes of love? Love extended to the weak ones should be the norm. For Americans, to say that it's my right tends to stop any discussion. Does failing to assert a right make one too passive?  At 8:11-13, look at how Paul uses family language to get at basic equality and respect. As Bruce Springsteen sings, "we take care of our own."  Paul goes to the point of saying that he would forgo meat, period, if it caused one person to stumble. At this point, he is becoming an example of foregoing his personal liberty and knowledge to accommodate the perceived needs of others in the community who are more easily swayed and "scandalized" than is he.

Quotes and Pts. to Ponder

Sunday-Ps. 111 is an acrostic, so lines start with letters of the alphabet(in Hebrew). Mostly it links god’s actions with the description of God’s character from Ex. 34.At the end, it oculd just as well read, the reverenc eof the Lord is th ebeginning of wisdom. How do you interpret that? Notice that it is the start of the journey toward wisdom, not its conclusion.

Monday-we learn that we must balance our Christian freedom against the needs of those we serve: that's part of being in community. The rule of love is not intended to inhibit us. It is intended to enrich and enhance human life for each of us and for those around us. From God Pause

Tuesday-A consideration of the old hymn Jesus Calls Us-”When we sing Isaiah's words, "bind up the broken hearted ones and comfort those who mourn," we are reminded that a new light has arrived for those who have no imagination for such a far reaching God, one who willingly connects with the hell and pain of grief and loss. We sing of the prophet's vision—God's light comes with the power to unlock prison doors of the innocent, to transcend tragedy and the systems of oppression that so often confine us and dash our hopes and dreams..Matthew A. Maas

Wednesday-"The more conception of God, the more self; the more self, the more conception of God," Søren Kierkegaard wrote in Sickness Unto Death. Notice some areas of your own self-awareness that lead you to a deepening awareness of God. Example: If you're a risk-taker, how does that thrust you on God's love? If you play it safe, how does that lead you to need God to challenge you?

Wednesday-A good deed is never lost; he who sows courtesy reaps friendship, and he who plants kindness gathers love."– St. Basil the Great.

Thursday-Rabbis have said the miracle was not the burning bush--but rather that Moses turned aside to look!(Exodus 3:3-3).Mindfulness. In the poem below, for us "plucking blackberries" might mean checking our electronic Blackberries or Smart Phones instead of paying attention to a sunset or another person's countenance!  

Friday- We all belong together. That is the way God made us...Our sin is only and always to pull asunder what God has joined together.” W. S. Coffin

Saturday-If we could read the secret history of those we would like to punish,we would find in each life a suffering and a sorrow enough to disarm all of our hostility. -Longfellow

thoughts on American Sniper

Jesus was a pacifist. So the church has struggled with war for centuries. The movie American Sniper has become a point of contention. It seems to permit more than a bit of a projection for those who supported the war in Iraq and those who opposed it. We read a lot into it based on our preconceptions about the war.  Second, it continues the issue of looking at private and public life. Third, it continues our difficulty with the post modern blurring of fact and fiction. I frankly don’t grasp those who expect a movie to be a documentary.

This is perhaps the best-made film by a director in his eighties. Some of the scenes are shown from Kyle’s point of view, and that tends to build identification with his character. One feels the deadly strain of close quarter’s urban combat. Lots of cross cutting and editing build momentum in the combat scenes, and the scenes move at a crawl when he is struggling to make a decision to fire. It highlights the limitations placed on troops in a situation such as Iraq with no clear objectives or tactics for one to declare victory. In other words, the film shows savagery on all sides.

I frankly don’t grasp the complaint that movies should be documentaries. It seems we now go into the theater with the expectation that our opinions need to be confirmed to make them affirmed. Some think it glamorizes war with its sniper hero. For me, the movie depicts the terrors and horrors of war and its aftermath. Rita Nakashima Brock runs a program in Texas dealing with the “moral injury” of those in war who continue to find their ethical compass disoriented. Kyle is shown making decisions about killing a woman or a child if they pose a threat to American soldiers. We want a match between public and private behavior and motives. That is not the case frequently. Pure heroes are rare beings. At any rate, we enter some murky waters trying to isolate his actual viewpoints and those presented in the movie. It may be based on his book, but any movie takes dramatic license to present its story. For that mater, maybe many new outlets should place the statement, “based on actual events” before their broadcasts.

It renewed my fury at those who seem so willing to send young men and women to die but want to pinch pennies for their acclimation to civilian life upon returning. Part of this is our steadfast refusal to see mental and emotional injury fully. We continue to want to blame the victim for lack of will power or strength. When Kyle’s therapist tells him that the VA had lots of people who needed saving, he pointed to a huge number of people wounded in body, mind, and spirit. The very capacity to \wall off emotions in wartime can come back to haunt the returning vet. Yet, the movie shows the obvious pain and despair of many of the returning vets, including the seeming super-human Kyle himself. The all-volunteer force has tamped down protest, as the military does not represent a fuller cross-section of the country.

I thought it showed the immense strain that deployments, especially multiple deployments, take on a family. The stress of joining one’s comrades in arms collides with the guilt of leaving family. The family resents the deployment, even as they honor the obvious risk and sacrifice made in our relatively new volunteer armed forces. It is a fearsome existence to dread every phone call, every knock on the door.

At their best, movies open eyes to new perspectives. American Sniper takes aim at the welter of responses to the long war in Iraq and the longer battle for restoring the lives of those who have borne the weight of war.

Week of Jan. 11 devotional points to consider

Sunday-Ps.29 may well come from another religion and adapted to fit the god of Israel. It is a hymn to god and creation’s power.I wish to highlight its boldness in belief that Israel could take any good prayer and apply it to their God. Our faith is secure enough to find the good and adapt to to our faith without fear, as we believe in a universal God.

Monday-Dwell invites me to make a home, to remain here for a long while, and to deepen into the stories of this place, making them a part of me... What do I want to dwell in? How do I choose to inhabit my days?  Dwell asks me to not to linger in resentment, anxiety, or anger, which have occasionally been some of the shadows lurking inside me these last few months. Dwell asks me to choose joy, possibility, and paradox.Abbey of the Arts

Tuesday-. The flight attendant comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland.""Holland?!?" I dreamed of Italy." -go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language..It's just a different place. It's slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around..... and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had in Italy .you will say "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go."And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away... because the loss of that dream is a very very significant loss.But... if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things ... about Holland.-To some degree, every love in life lands us in Holland, no matter where we thought we were going when we boarded the plane. ..appreciate the reality,rather than to pine for another destination. Michael Jinkins

Wednesday-Lord, let me not only fall down before you in all humility, and worship you with the Magi, but allow me, I beg you, to take you in my arms, like Simeon.  And not only take you in my arms, but to hold you in my bosom, and to lodge you in my heart . . . Let me live in you, let me die in you, let me dwell eternally with you.  For my eyes have seen your salvation.  -- Charles Drelincourt, 1595-1669

Thursday-To love. To be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar disparity of life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all, to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never to forget.-Arundhati Roy

Friday-We look with uncertainty/ beyond the old choices for clear-cut answers

to a softer, more permeable aliveness/ which is every moment/ at the brink of death;

for something new is being born in us/ if we but let it./ We stand at a new doorway,

awaiting that which comes.../ daring to be human creatures,/ vulnerable to the beauty of existence. Learning to love. Anne Hillman

Saturday-"I know now that true charity consists in bearing all of our neighbors’ defects—not being surprised at their weakness, but edified at their smallest virtues."– St. Therese of Lisieux

 

Jan 11 Sermon Notes-Beginnings and Baptism-Gen. 1, Acts 19

Sermon Gen. 1:1-5, Acts 19:1-7

At the beginning of the year, we have readings on beginnings, creation and baptism. It is presented as a theological account. It presents a God of order, of planning, of evaluation. It is an account that always pushes toward the web of life. Since we are not given a source of the first light, let us assume that light is the presence of God in the world. In a sense then, creation is sacramental when we see signs  of God within the patterns of nature.

When the Genesis account was written, the future seemed without form and void. Around the same time, Isaiah hears that God did not make a chaos. God turns disorder into something sensible, most importantly, creation points toward a pattern for life. Genesis chooses the polarity of light and darkness. Chaos is represented by the darkness. As children, we instinctively grasp a fear of darkness and made a world of fears from it. We know: light overcomes darkness.

Within the immensity of God’s creation, Christians like to argue about a truly trivial point. In what mode should baptism be performed? Our Book of Order solves the issue nicely by saying: any mode of water baptism is proper as long as it is approved by session. Baptism is the sacrament of new beginnings, new creation for Christians. Baptism in the Spirit presents issues of mode and source. We link the Spirit and the act of baptism together through Jesus Christ. We may present a candle to the baptized as a sign that Christ, the light of the world, is present in their life. Baptism takes the chaos of human nature and points it to a direction. It transforms a basic element of creation, to signify new birth, a new community. Baptism is a sign of God’s continuing work with creation. Out of the billions of years of creation, God works with the blip on the screen, the time human beings have been on this planet; God works in a new way for the less than two thousand years . It points us to the Christ who “will fulfill God’s purpose in God’s promised future.” When some of the old troubles persist into the new year, we get resentful. God’s new work in creation and in baptism signals that the past does not have to be a chain. We are always being released into a new future. God tears open the heaven to move heaven and earth together.

Once again, God evaluates us and God sees that it is good. As God said at the baptism of Jesus, this is my beloved, in whom I am well-pleased. Once again, God distinguishes one form of life from another: Christian life or not. Christian baptism is a new year’s, new life resolution that lasts a lifetime. Listen to the baptismal promises again. We remember and strengthen our vows on occasion. God marks us all with the sign of baptism, so we are all marked for service to God and each other. When we feel the need to turn a new leaf, the waters of baptism live. In creation and in baptism, it is God who makes the first move toward us in love. The creation gives us glimpses of God. Jesus Christ helps us to see God more clearly and fully. In this new year, we can try to keep God in better focus than in the past. We can try to keep our eyes open to God’s hand with the attention we pay to the moves of the coaches during the playoff games. We live between two creations, nature and baptism. In 2015 , let’s live in both fully.

Sermon Notes I Sam. 3, I Cor. 6-Jan. 18

I Samuel 3:1-10, I Cor 6:12-20 1/18

It tells us something about American sports culture that beer and erectile commercials fund broadcasts,along with a flurry of getting our weight down as a New Year’s resolutions. Come and see says Philip.The body is temple of the Spirit Paul sees the body as a sanctuary, a tabernacle, a temple. God sees fit to make it a dwelling place in this physical life of ours. Glorify God in your body.Notice, God doesn’t disdain the body; God doesn’t want us to rise above these bodies. I heard Tom Hanks talk about losing some weight and he said that we have to take care of the temple.You get to a certain age and to hear your body called a temple is laughable. If it a temple, it’s in ruins, or in need of repair. What would make the body a proper tabernacle? How should we use it to honor God? The physical was good enough for Jesus Christ.

The ancient church feared the body not because it was bad, because pleasures could hide our deep wounds. They found the human heart has many rooms, many chambers, like the part of the second Matrix movie where different deeper architecture comes in.Life can become a search for  pain relief-life often hits exposed nerves- pain distorts our thoughts and feelings.. Farley (Wounding, 2005) sees our complicated lives as distortions. We have drives that distort our search for the good. to play.. In other words, the physical often is a visible sign of something deeper going on. Instead of the clarity of seeing our lives, we often get a distorted view. Sexual union is a holy union-married. Just as we develop muscle memory, we build up spiritual memory. Habit becomes second nature. These bodies are proper dwelling places because they are vehicles for love, the very nature of God, so  precious that these embodied lives will continue on in resurrection.We are dwelling places of the holy One. Just because we can do something, even if we have a right, does that mean we should? We are not our own. Are we called to self indulgence or to act beneficially for all?Can freedom mean surrendering to every whim? Do not some things then gain power over us as obsession or addiction? Paul raises the issue of spiritual intimacy with Christ. Sexual activity is not hooking up alone, but it does create a bond, a union,  a pledge-we then treat someone as if married.

Eli knows well the infirmities of age. He is growing blind, and he probably has come to rely on young Samuel to help him with keeping up the tabernacle area. Sometimes sleep doesn’t come as easily as we age. Sleep is a merciful blindness to the sins of his sons and the curse God has placed on his family. So, it is hard for him to recover when young Samuel rouses him from the deaf and blind territory of sleep. In a way, his physical condition matches his spiritual condition: deaf and blind. Still, he is not utterly disabled. He is a priest and tells Samuel the right words to say to the words in the night. We can try to run from God’s call, in sleep, in denial, in staying out of church, but we cannot hide. As the Psalmist makes clear, God permeates every facet of our existence, and that includes the physical.

We carry out our callings physically. Honor God with your body. How are we to be the hands and feet of Christ? Elsewhere, Paul speaks of us forming Christ. As individuals we bear the indwelling Spirit. Together, we help for m the body of Christ. As Julian of Norwich said, “this is a fair and delectable place, large enough for all. We are right to try to handle special items with care. We don’t handle each other with that same level of respect. Familiarity pushes us to treat others  with an almost casual disregard. Respect gets generated when we see each other as made in the image and likeness of God. Every body is a dwelling place for the divine.