HOMILETICS

Time 2020-11-02 02:04:11

Web Name: HOMILETICS

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It s been a while -- 50 years.If you are a senior citizen, you might have watched the debut of the long-running soap opera General Hospital. If you are a baby boomer, you might have purchased the first album put out by the Beatles, Please Please Me.If you are a member of Generations X, Y or Z, you weren t even born yet.But if you were a leader of the clergy in Alabama, you would have received a strongly-worded letter from the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. On April 16, 1963, King issued his Letter from Birmingham Jail.The civil rights leader was locked up in the city jail after being arrested for his part in the Birmingham campaign, a nonviolent protest conducted by the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights. King was president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and had been invited by the Alabama Christian Movement to take part in the protest.King wrote his letter on the margins of a newspaper, which was the only paper he could find. Bits and pieces of the letter were carried by his lawyers back to the headquarters of the movement.So why did King write the letter?Eight white Alabama clergymen -- four bishops, three pastors and one rabbi -- had written a statement calling King s efforts unwise and untimely. They agreed that racial segregation was a problem, but that it should be handled in the courts instead of in the streets. These religious leaders rebuked King for being an outsider causing trouble in Birmingham.King responded by saying that he was not an outsider because he had ties to the Alabama Christian Movement. But more importantly, I am in Birmingham because injustice is here. All communities and states are interrelated, he asserted, and injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. ... Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. Therefore, anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider. Alabama clergy leaders were upset because demonstrations were happening in Birmingham. King acknowledged that the demonstrations were unfortunate, but said, it is even more unfortunate that the city s white power structure left the Negro community with no alternative. The church leaders also questioned the timing of the protests. They wanted King to wait and see if a new city administration would improve conditions for blacks. But King responded that for blacks in the United States, the word wait had almost always meant never. They had already been waiting 340 years for their constitutional and God-given rights. Three hundred forty years. That s too long to wait. King was sick and tired of waiting for human authorities to act. It was time to obey God.Not that King was the first to practice civil disobedience. He spoke of the Old Testament s Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, refusing to obey the laws of Nebuchadnezzar ..., Socrates practicing civil disobedience in ancient Greece ..., American patriots participating in the Boston Tea Party ..., and, of course, early Christians facing persecution for their faith.Like Martin Luther King Jr., they knew that they must obey God.Not human authority.The story of Peter and the apostles could easily be labeled Letter From a Jerusalem Jail. They had been arrested for performing numerous healings and for telling the story of Jesus. Their time in jail did not last long, however, because an angel opened the prison doors and brought them out to continue their teaching (Acts 5:12-21). On the day of the apostles trial, the temple police arrested them again, and they were brought to stand before the Jewish council. The high priest questioned them, saying, We gave you strict orders not to teach in [the name of Jesus], yet here you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching and you are determined to bring this man s blood on us (vv. 27-28).In other words, the efforts of the apostles were unwise and untimely. But Peter and the apostles answered, We must obey God rather than any human authority. The God of our ancestors raised up Jesus, whom you had killed by hanging him on a tree. God exalted him at his right hand as Leader and Savior that he might give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins. And we are witnesses to these things, and so is the Holy Spirit whom God has given to those who obey him (vv. 29-32). The apostles decided to obey God, rather than humans. A bold stand for them to take. But how did they know that they were hearing the voice of God?This was a problem for Martin Luther King Jr. as well. After all, the clergy of Birmingham believed that they were obeying God, just like the high priest and council of Jerusalem. And they also had the authority of human beings on their side.King addresses this question head-on. In his Letter from Birmingham Jail, he says that there are two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws, says King. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that an unjust law is no law at all. But how do you know the difference between the two? That s the tough part. A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God, explains King. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. A just law, according to King is: Any law that uplifts human personality. An unjust law is: Any law that degrades human personality. Based on this reasoning, he concludes that all segregation statutes are unjust because segregation distorts the soul and damages the personality. It gives the segregator a false sense of superiority and the segregated a false sense of inferiority. King quotes the theologian Paul Tillich in saying that sin is separation, and then makes the point that segregation is an expression of man s tragic separation, his awful estrangement, his terrible sinfulness. If segregation is sin, then King can justifiably urge his followers to disobey segregation ordinances, for they are morally wrong. Segregation ordinances can be disobeyed because they are unjust laws, codes that are out of harmony with the moral law.Unjust laws are no laws at all.So, go to homileticsonline.com for more work on a sermon idea called Letter from a Jerusalem Jail based on the Acts text.This post written by Henry G. Brinton, author of The Welcoming Congregation (Westminster-John Knox), 2012, Senior Minister of Fairfax Presbyterian Church, Fairfax, Virginia, and frequent contributor to The Washington Post, USA Today, and the Huffington Post online. Friend, John Leonard is a high school music teacher. He recently wrote a story about taking some of his high school musicians to an international competition to Ankara, Turkey, over spring break. As I was reading his article, my thoughts went back to my own time in Turkey with Jeanie, and I recalled, among other things, some of the stories of the Hodja, Nasrudin Hodja – the sage, the holy one. Think of him as Chance the Gardener, played by Peter Sellers in the 1979 film Being There (adapted from a novel by Jerzy Kosiński. Here’s one of his stories:Nasrudin Khodzha said to the people who were gathered at the mosque, Do you know what I m going to say? No, we don t know. Well, if you don t know, I have nothing to say to you. The next time, he asked them again, Do you know what I m going to say? Yes, we know! Well, if you already know, I have nothing to say to you. The next time he asked again, Do you know what I m going to say? Half of the congregation said We know and the other half said, We don t know. And so Nasrudin said, Let those of you who know, tell those of you who don t! So, on EASTER Sunday, you tell that little story and then continue by saying: “Do YOU know what I am going to say to you?”“No, we don’t know,” they will say.“I say to you, Christ is RISEN!”And they will say, “Christ is risen, indeed!”Yesterday was Palm Sunday and it marked the beginning of what Christians call Holy Week. So what does this—exactly—mean?To call something “holy” is to imply that the something is set apart, or consecrated, or sanctified for a specific purpose.We say this is holy week, but let’s get real: do we really care?We’re lucky to get 10% of our congregations out for a Maundy Thursday service. About the same for a Good Friday service. Most churches will not observe both. Of course, Easter Sunday, is arguably the biggest Sunday of the year. No argument there.Many reasons exist for this indifference, no doubt. In the Protestant tradition, we lost many traditions when we left the Catholic church. We are not so keen on the practices of religious obligations. Sure, it’s holy week, but the Catholics and the Orthodox got it covered. We’ve got other things to do.The most holy time of the year for most Christians is not Holy Week, but the entire month of December.This is a season when Christians in lockstep with the culture set apart time, energy and enormous financial resources, to celebrate the holidays, i.e. holy days. At this time, every day we’re thinking about some aspect of this observance: Christian cards, caroling, Christmas parties, shopping, gifts, family gatherings, the Christmas dinner, vacations, trips, and if we can we will get to Christmas Eve service.Ironically, most church do not have a service at all on Christmas Day! And some, a few years ago, when Christmas Day fell on a Sunday, even CANCELLED their Sunday services so people could observe the day with their families! Christmas is about the birth of a baby. Lots of excitement and joy there, to be sure.Holy Week is about the suffering and death of a Savior. Okay. Whatever.So we’re in Holy Week. Might want to think about just what we’re doing to sanctify this week. A writer travels around the world studying the geographical areas where people seem to be the happiest.Why would anyone lie about their golf handicap?If you are promised a year’s supply of ice cream, how much ice cream will you really be getting?When neurosurgeon Eben Alexander found himself in a coma, he experienced things he never thought possible — a journey to the afterlife. Microsoft is one of the most successful companies in history, but it has had some major design flops. That can’t happen to us when we’re “designed by the Spirit.”Homiletics looks at the problem of the “wrong gospel.” Not all “gospels” proclaim the “gospel truth.”Can virtual reality therapy help bring healing to people who suffer with PTSD?In some trading pits of stock exchanges, trading is not done via an electronic means, but rather through voice and hand gestures, system called “open outcry.” Can a mere letter (i.e. correspondence) change history? We’ll offer some examples, including a biblical one.Here are the Scriptures (based on RCL) we deal with in this issue:May 5 Revelation 21:10,22‒22:5May 12 Acts 16:16-34May 19 Psalm 104:24-34, 35bMay 26 Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31June 2 Galatians 1:1-12 Luke 7:1-10June 9 1 Kings 17:8-16, (17-24)June 16 Psalm 5:1-8June 23 1 Kings 19:1-4, (5-7), 8-15a Galatians 3:23-29June 30 Luke 9:51-62Special Installment: Father’s Day, June 16, 2013Proverbs 3:1-12The Other Texts for May-June 2013May 5: Acts 16:9-15; Psalm 67; John 14:23-29May 12: Psalm 97; Revelation 22:12-14, 16-17,20-21; John 17:20-26May 19: Acts 2:1-21; Romans 8:14-17; John 14:8-17, (25-27)May 26: Psalm 8, Romans 5:1-5; John 16:12-15June 30: 2 Kings 2:1-2, 6-14; Psalm 77:1-2, 11-20; Galatians 5:1, 13-25 I came across a story on one of the wire services about a boomerang that once thrown didn’t return to its owner for 25 years.Actually there’s more to the story than that. An American tourist saw this boomerang in the Mount Isa museum in Australia and liked it so much that he lifted it, and got it out of the country. But he was racked with guilt for over 25 years, so much so, that he sent it back to Australia along with a full confession of the crime. He hadn’t known how his mischief would boomerang. The report did say what sort of penalty he was going to face. I suspect the thief wouldn’t care. Not now. He would probably be relieved.Thought this might be a useful story for you to use during Lent. Sin has a way of doing this—returning to us in ways we didn’t expect. I guess during Lent, we’re invited to toss those boomerangs as far as the east is from the west, and Someone’s gonna catch it and not let it come back. It s no secret that we are becoming a nation full of unhealthy people. According to the Centers for Disease Control and prevention, more than a third (35.7%) of Americans are obese. Carrying an unhealthy weight leads to all kinds of related conditions like heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and cancer -- in other words, most of the leading causes of death. In 2008, the medical costs related to obesity in the United States were estimated at $147 billion, or $1,492 more per obese person than a person of normal weight.And yet, despite the constant warnings in the media and the pleading of doctors, obesity rates continue to rise. In 2000, no state had an obesity prevalence over 30 percent, while in 2010, 12 states exceeded that threshold. It s fairly clear that people aren t generally good at doing what s best for their own health regardless of all the debate about healthcare and insurance in the recent election. Some health insurance companies have decided to take another approach, however. Rather than merely continuing to pay the mounting costs, these companies in partnership with doctors and nurses are attempting to help people manage their health, not only through massive doses of information but also through the personal attention of a health coach. (NOTE: How does this work? See Animating Illustrations.) The truth is, of course, that it s hard for us to make changes in our lives strictly by our own will power. The spirit may be willing, after all, but the flesh is weak. Twinkies taste better than tofu, and sometimes we need a partner to figuratively (or even literally) slap that golden sugar bomb out of our hands.Health coaches aren t exactly like football coaches with all the screaming, whistles and pushups, but their technique can be no less effective. All we need is someone to remind us that we don t have to live this way and that better and healthier lives are ahead if we re willing to put in the hard work of taking charge of our own health. That someone is God.Having a partner on the way is always better, since, as the writer of Ecclesiastes puts it, Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil. For if they fall, one will lift up the other; but woe to one who is alone and falls and does not have another to help (4:9-10). The presence of a health coach, even if he or she is only on the other end of a phone line, can make a huge difference in the life of someone who s struggling physically. One recent study by The New England Journal of Medicine revealed that patients with health coaches were able to lose five times more weight than those who tried to lose it on their own. You want to make changes in your health? Get a coach!What s true for our bodies also seems to hold true for our spiritual lives, which makes sense because, as the Bible teaches us, the two are inexorably linked. Health coaching for the soul is as helpful and necessary as the coaching one might get from an insurance company, except in the case of spiritual coaching we re not trying to cut down, but rather trying to fill up on God s spirit and provision for our lives. For more on how this relates to Sunday s OT lesson, see Homiletics Online at www.homileticsonline.com. I read this post from Arianna Huffington this morning: First came the Baby Boomers, then came Generation X. The branding of the subsequent generation was less definitive, ping-ponging between Generation Y and The Millennials. I d like to add a third name: Generation Stress. According to Stress in America, a study commissioned by the American Psychological Association, Millennials are the most stressed demographic. And it s reasonable to assume that higher levels of stress put the Millennials at higher risk for all sorts of destructive downstream consequences, from diabetes and obesity to anxiety and depression. Not surprisingly, work is one of the biggest causes of stress. The job numbers are grim, and even those lucky Millennials that land a decent job often face a workplace rife with destructive definitions of success. So here s hoping that as they advance through the ranks of the workplace, Millennials will do themselves -- and the generation after them (Generation Z?) -- a favor by redefining success.The Millennial Generation may be stressed, and it’s also—arguably—irreligious. And this may be their parents fault. Millennials had parents who didn t make much effort to provide a religious education, model the value of religious devotion, or show their children how faith has a positive effect in helping us cope with the unpleasant aspects of life. So, Millennials were short-changed and now they re twenty-somethings, and gosh, they are not special, they are not getting ribbons, medals and stars and life is hard, and religion doesn t do a darn thing for them. Some make a distinction between “religious” and “spiritual,” a distinction I just LOVE to hear pop up in conversations of which I may be a part. When I hear that someone is spiritual but not religious, I know that it’s likely I am facing a narcissistic egoist for whom religion is inadequate because religion does not place the individual at the center of the universe, but God. Those who prefer to be known as spiritual—but eschew religion (using preceded by “organized”) opt for private, meditative spirituality (PMS) because PMS does not make demands, does not require discipline, does not push one to spiritual maturity and growth. It’s religion that’s handmade and self-serving. This is the Millennial Generation. Spiritual. But Stressed. I am waiting. At the Intercontinental airport in Houston, Texas. I am flying standby and have missed three flights so far. My waiting began at 7 a.m. this morning, and at 4 p.m. it shows no signs of abating.So as I wait, I am thinking about waiting.You can wait for things, like a package to arrive, a taxi to drive by, or the sun to rise. You can wait for people to come to your party, to keep their appointment, to get to church. We can Wait for Fidel, or be Waiting for Godet, and of course, Godet or whomever we re waiting, may not show up. A woman in waiting is waiting for the child to drop--finally.We wait in groups and we wait in lines and we wait in cars. Waiting implies that we re at the mercy of someone else. At Safeway, I am waiting--at the mercy of the little lady at the checkout who s fishing for a tiny change purse at the bottom of her handbag in which she hopes to find a single penny to snare with her arthritically impaired fingers. We wait in doctor s offices for the doctor. We wait at the post office where--although four bay windows were thoughtfully provided for clerks to occupy--they are never fully occupied, even at Christmas. We wait at the DMV to renew a license. Here, we are often given a number, so that we know just where we are in the wait line.Sometimes we re told that waiting is a good thing. We should wait to get married, or wait to buy that flat screen TV until we can afford it, or wait for the ball instead of swinging too early. It s not good to swing early. If you re tired of waiting, you can go to a special place to wait: The Waiting Room. There you can play the Waiting Game, which consists of trying to guess how long you will need to wait before the eschatological event occurs. Waiting is always linked to hope. Perhaps that why Paul Tillich called waiting a metaphor for faith. Why would one wait if there were not the firm belief that the object of one s wait will someday, some hour, materialize? Sometimes we wait when there seems to be no hope. We wait for our wives to quit the boudoir and get into the car for the evening s appointment. We wait for our children s college tuition payments to come to an end. We wait for the Cubs to win the World Series. Waiting is especially hard if you have nothing to do while waiting. That s why Jesus, when talking about waiting, would also talk about working--work for the night is coming. If you don t have anything to do while waiting, life becomes tedious quite easily. I have been reading today a biography of Henry James and have almost finished it. I fear to do so, because I will then have to buy an airport novel to pass my time--some book with a title like, Press Me to Thy Bosum, Dearest Love. I am also writing this blog. This has consumed, so far, all of 14 minutes.Waiting is hard work. It takes a lot of energy. People who have spent a day waiting and not doing a darn thing report being utterly exhausted. Sometimes it is less tiring to work, than it is to wait.Waiting can be enervating, which is why the word in Isaiah is so promising: They who wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings like eagles. They shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint. So I wait. Weary, but waiting. There’s a lot of waiting during Lent. You’re waiting for it to end. You’re waiting for a payoff. You’re waiting for the Resurrection. You’re waiting for spiritual growth. And then you realize this is not waiting at all. It’s life. It’s joy. It’s opportunity. It’s blessing. “All good things come to those who wait.” —Heinzt ketchup commercial, circa 1980s. Happy Valentines, people! Been traveling again, and can’t always find a moment to collect my thoughts to post here. Still haven’t. But I wanted to check in and say “Hi.” Since I last wrote, the Pope has resigned—no pope has relinquished power in more than 600 years, and when that pope did, he was dealing with rivals claiming the papacy. So this is big news. I read a bit of one column in which the writer hopes the Cardinals will select someone over 50 but under 65. We need someone, he says, with fresh ideas. Really? What fresh ideas? Since when does a pope have fresh ideas? Well, I guess Pope John XIII had a few.And Mardi Gras comes and goes, as well as Ash Wednesday, and the beginning of Lent. And this Sunday is the first Sunday of Lent. Wow, I’m hardly over my New Year’s Day hang over. And today is Valentine’s Day. My wife is flying in from travels; we got a hotel room booked in this lay over city, and tomorrow I put her on a plane for home, I join her in a week or so. We’re missing our two birthdays that fall in that time frame so tonight we’re having dinner, celebrating Valentine’s Day, and our birthdays.Well, enough about us! Haha!Thanks for your patience. Hope you have a blessed Sunday. From a variety of Internet sources: A lecturer, when explaining stress management to an audience, raised a glass of water and asked, How heavy is this glass of water? Answers called out ranged from 20g to 500g. The lecturer replied, The absolute weight doesn’t matter. It depends on how long I try to hold it. If I hold it for a minute, that’s not a problem If I hold it for an hour, I’ll have an ache in my right arm. If I hold it for a day, you’ll have to call an ambulance. In each case, it’s the same weight, but the longer I hold it, the heavier it becomes. He continued, And that’s the way it is with stress management. If we carry our burdens all the time, sooner or later, as the burden becomes increasingly heavy, we won’t be able to carry on. As with the glass of water, you have to put it down for a while and rest before holding it again. When we’re refreshed, we can carry on with the burden. So, before you return home tonight, put the burden of work down. Don’t carry it home. You can pick it up tomorrow. Whatever burdens you’re carrying now, let them down for a moment if you can. Relax; pick them up later after you’ve rested. Life is short Enjoy it! And then he shared some ways of dealing with the burdens of life:Accept that some days you’re the pigeon, and some days you’re the statue. Always keep your words soft and sweet, just in case you have to eat them. Always read stuff that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it. Drive carefully. It’s not only cars that can be recalled by their maker. If you can’t be kind, at least have the decency to be vague. If you lend someone $20 and never see that person again, it was probably worth it. It may be that your sole purpose in life is simply to serve as a warning to others. Never buy a car you can’t push. Never put both feet in your mouth at the same time, because then you won’t have a leg to stand on. Nobody cares if you can’t dance well. Just get up and dance. Since it’s the early worm that gets eaten by the bird, sleep late. The second mouse gets the cheese. When everything’s coming your way, you’re in the wrong lane. Birthdays are good for you. The more you have, the longer you live. You may be only one person in the world, but you may also be the world to one person. Some mistakes are too much fun to only make once. We could learn a lot from crayons. Some are sharp, some are pretty and some are dull. Some have weird names, and all are different colors, but they all have to live in the same box. A truly happy person is one who can enjoy the scenery on a detour. Full disclosure. I hate tipping. I understand that the way things are set up in some industries, if the staff is going to make a decent wage, they need to be tipped. Wait staff make their living via the support of their customers. I get it. That doesn’t mean I like it. I’d prefer to pay more for meals, and have the restaurant pay their employees a decent wage. I am sure it’s more complicated than that, but that’s my feeling.And—lest you’ve already jumped to the conclusion that I am a heartless dweeb—let me disclose that I have two daughters, both of whom worked for a time as waiters. Daughter No. 1, was a college freshman, and she lasted one week. She said to me on the phone: “Dad I don’t take orders from no one.” She’s never waited tables since. Daughter No. 2 has excellent people skills and has used that to her advantage. She waited tables, was hostess for an upscale restaurant, and did pretty well for herself. She left the industry some time ago. But I digress…where was I? Oh yes.I was going to say something about the size of the tip: Used to be that 10% was standard. Perhaps there was a day when the percentage of the total bill was lower, but I remember the days when a 10% tip was a good tip. Then, it was 15% for a while. Then 18%. Now, 20% of your dining bill is the expected amount of the tip. My question is: Where does it stop? At 30%, 35%? I don’t know. Maybe someone in the industry has an answer to that.Anyway, we pastors are human. We can get irritated with stuff, and now, thanks to the Internet, YouTube and ubiquitous camera and recording devices, news spreads fast. So I feel sorry for this pastor whose name has been plastered all over the media because she objected to the automatic 18% tip assessed to her, and I think it was because she was part of a group, or the wait staff thought she was. So she writes a note in which she says something to the effect that God only asks for 10%, how come she has to pay 18% to her server? It was a silly comment, and it has embarrassed the pastor no end. The wait person took a photo of her note and plastered all over online, and then she herself got fired for doing so. (This story is easy to find online by searching with “pastor + tipping.” You can read one account here.) Ah, dear! Last Sunday in church, before asked for the ushers to come forward to collect the offering, I shared this little anecdote, and then announced that the 10% tithe had just been raised to 18% and that God loves happy givers. Haha! (I don’t know how that affected the collection take that morning.)Here’s the thing, my fellow preachers: This caused a sensation for two reasons. A) The note writer was a pastor, and B) she brought God into the conversation about tipping. If either A or B is not true, this probably does not even get noticed. A. She is a pastor. We are judge by a higher standard. Pastors do not begrudge the wait staff a living wage. Pastors should be the best tippers in the world. Pastors should not leave evangelistic tracts in lieu of a tip, thinking to save a soul rather than to feed the body. Pastors should not appear to be parsimonious cheapskate whiners. God loves happy givers, whether we’re giving to the church, to Save the Children, or to Save the Waiter. Let’s do it cheerfully, please! If we can’t do that, then my advice is to stay home and open a box of Mac n’ Cheese, dice up some SPAM and call it good. B. She brought God into the conversation when she wrote: “I give God 10%...why do you get 18%.” Well, it was such a silly, silly statement to make, that reasonable Christians around the world are gritting their teeth and rolling their eyes. One of their own has done something stupid—AGAIN—as if we don’t already live in a culture that is hostile to Christianity above all other religions of the world. The thing is, when we’re talking about God and what is God’s and what is ours, my friends, GOD REQUIRES IT ALL, NOT JUST 10%. The question is: how much of what God has blessed me with, should I keep for myself? Pastors need to remember that we live quite public lives. That’s never been as true as it is these days. We’ve got to behave like we’re the second coming of Mother Teresa at all times.Better, the second coming of Jesus himself.And remember that Jesus once said: “Render unto your server what is your server’s and unto God what is God’s.” For some reason when the game clock runs out on the Super Bowl I always feel as though the calendar has run down as well. There’s a seasonal time shift when the game concludes. Everything that was autumn is past, New Year’s game are over … something’s done, completed. And we now start anew and have to shift gears.But what? This is such an odd time of the year—February-March. The football season is over, the holidays are past. You got Valentine’s Day, and the Oscars and March Madness. Some people get excited about Spring Training. Basketball championships will not begin until early June. So what to do, what to do? The Super Bowl winds down and now all I feel like doing is to wrap myself up in comfortable blanket of ennui until … well, what?The “what” I guess, is Ash Wednesday. This funny little religious observance actually does snap me to attention. It reminds me of my relationship with God. It reminds me that I have religious and humanitarian obligations that transcend Hallmark holidays or big stage athletic contests. I take the ashes and carry for a day a symbol of my mortality and the brevity of life, and quite suddenly—it’s surprising—it doesn’t matter so much who’s getting that Best Actor Oscar or who won the Super Bowl. Still interesting social tidbits to be sure, but … well, they’re just not really important, are they?So, another nine days to Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent and the journey to Resurrection Day on March 31. Life is picking up. Things to do, people to help, friends to make, friends to keep, children to love, and old people to cherish. Lots to do.So cast off thy blanket, thou sluggard! San Francisco lost. Get over it. Time to move on to Things That Matter. There’s a kingdom to announce, there is good news to proclaim. And that’s why we have been placed in this alien land—time to get back to our mission. The evangelical pollster research organization, The Barna Group, released a study more than seven years in the making, involving interviews with more than 40,000 people that reveals the most “Bible-minded” (BM) cities in the U.S. as well as the least “Bible-minded” cities. (The study was commissioned by the American Bible Society.) The most BM city is Knoxville, Tennessee, and the least BM city is Providence, Rhode Island.And what exactly is “Bible-mindedness?” According to the Barna Group website, “ Individuals who report reading the Bible in a typical week and who strongly assert the Bible is accurate in the principles it teaches are considered to be Bible-minded. This definition captures action and attitude—those who both engage and esteem the Christian scriptures. The rankings thus reflect an overall openness or resistance to the Bible in the country’s largest markets.” You can read the full report here.This study continues to reflect a trend that’s been going on for some 50 years now, i.e. the movement toward a post-Christian, post-religious world in which faith values play an increasingly minor role in both our public and private lives. And—one could argue by conducting a brief overview of what’s been going on over the last 50 years, that the trend has not been a healthy one for us on many levels.This is not an argument for a cozier relationship between church and state. This is a lament that somewhere people have lost faith in faith. And some of the blame can be placed squarely on the backs of us preachers and priests—we’ve abused children, we’ve cheated on spouses, we’ve had highly public affairs, we’ve engaged in financial misdeeds, we’ve embraced political agendas that are polarizing and so on. If we, the shepherds have been so faithless, so un-mindful of biblical teachings, can it be any surprise that the public has become disinterested and that they are seeking to find the truth elsewhere?We preachers need to be Bible-minded. We need to live as though the teachings of the Bible have a binding and meaningful relationship to the way we live. Okay, I don t often pass on e-mail re-treads, but I chuckled at this one. And since it s Friday, let s have a laugh going into the weekend. Here we go:I have been in many places, but I ve never been in Cahoots. Apparently, you can t go alone. You have to be in Cahoots with someone. I ve also never been in Cognito. I hear no one recognizes you there.I have, however, been in Sane. They don t have an airport; you have to be driven there. I have made several trips there, thanks to my friends, family and work.I would like to go to Conclusions, but you have to jump, and I m not too much on physical activity anymore.I have also been in Doubt. That is a sad place to go, and I try not to visit there too often. I ve been in Flexible, but only when it was very important to stand firm.Sometimes I m in Capable, and I go there more often as I m getting older.One of my favorite places to be is in Suspense! It really gets the adrenalin flowing and pumps up the old heart! At my age I need all the stimuli I can get!I may have been in Continent, and I don t remember what country I was in. It s an age thing. Everyone has an opinion about Lance Armstrong and last’s week’s confession. Some have argued that it was too little, too late. Others have suggested that it was motivated purely by the specter of a subpoena in which he’d be sworn to tell the truth making him criminally liable if he lied; or, that he was motivated by the hope that in the wake of a confession, he’d have an opportunity to compete again in at least a few events. These skeptics believe that were there no compelling external reason, Armstrong would continue to be Armstrong intoning the same mantra he has for years, i.e. people have it in for him, he’s never failed a test, and so on. Armstrong, say these critics, would not have confessed unless he believed that a confession would benefit Lance Armstrong, and that denials were ultimately hurting Lance Armstrong. And, it’s all about Lance Armstrong.A few have reflected on the bifurcated nature of the human being—i.e. we do good, we do bad. Clearly, Armstrong’s battle with cancer, his LiveStrong organization have provided inspiration for many people. Don’t we all, say these commentators, have our strengths and weaknesses? Doesn’t the good come with the bad?Some have lamented the general lack of integrity in our culture. Of these Politicians, Preachers, and Performers are the biggest sinners. Politicians—do you want a list?—begin by denying—then admitting—to wrongdoing, usually some kind of illicit sexual behavior. Preachers: same story. And Performers, whether McGuire, Sosa, Armstrong and a host of others, also seem unwilling to take responsibility. Can you think of a politician, preacher or performer who did wrong, and before the media got a whiff of it, came right out at confessed it and pledged to change his or her ways? No, you can’t.So, we have a right to bemoan a culture in which there seems to be no integrity (—although, there are thousands in each of these categories, who are good, decent and upstanding people, people of integrity. These are people who do not face the problem of whether to confess now or later. ) This in turn makes us, the public, rightly cynical. When suspicious events are reported, we’re more likely now to believe that a person is guilty, rather than innocent, and that’s really too bad.What I found curious about the Armstrong matter is Armstrong’s choice of a confessor, i.e. Oprah Winfrey. He chose to confess in a highly publicized media event. He chose to confess to an entertainment maven. Seems odd to me. Did he think that if he’d gathered a group of the people against whom he had sinned, that the world would not have known about it? Did he think that if he written a letter to the governing bodies in his sport outlining the nature and extent of his transgressions that no one would know? And, for that matter, is it important that anyone beyond the parties involved, know about it? Why didn’t he simply call for a press conference, go to the podium, read a statement, take some questions and call it good?What was it about confessing to Oprah that was so attractive? Why was it important for him to use that particular medium to air his smelly laundry?The Bible says that we should confess our sins one to another, and to God—the human and divine dimension in play. By “one another,” the Bible means that we should confess to those most affected by our behavior. If we live in a community of faith in which certain covenantal relationships have been embraced either implicitly or explicitly, then it is to that community that confession should be made.Armstrong didn’t need to confess to me (I guess he could argue that he needed to confess to his “fans”)—he needed to confess to his rivals, people like Floyd Landis, et al., the people he wronged; people like the organizers of the Tour de France and other governing bodies. As for God, he won’t be confessing to God, because Armstrong does not believe in God. This is a matter of public record. So, he went on television to tell the truth, “So help me, Oprah.” It was probably hard for him to say what he said, even to Oprah. But it should have been harder. It would have been harder if—after his first doping transgression, he’d come clean and said, “You know what—I crossed the line. Here’s what I did.” But he chose the easy way, and stayed silent.It would have been harder if he’d gone on Oprah with Landis and some of his rivals and laid it out for them, and expressed his remorse.Sometimes, it’s hard to do the right thing. And I’m not sure Armstrong has done the right thing, even now. One more post regarding Wheatley’s work (see previous post).When she writes about being willing to be disturbed, she discusses the implication of that event in which we are surprisingly disturbed. Why are we disturbed? What does it mean? What does it reveal? She writes: “Lately, I’ve been listening for what surprises me. What did I just hear that startled me? This isn’t easy—I’m accustomed to sitting there nodding my head to those saying things I agree with. But when I notice what surprises me., I’m able to see my own views more clearly, including my beliefs and assumptions.“Noticing what surprises and disturbs me has been a very useful way to see invisible beliefs. If what you say surprises me, I must have been assuming something else was true. If what you say disturbs me, I must believe something contrary to you. My shock at your position exposes my own position. When I hear myself saying ‘How could anyone believe something like that?’ a light comes on for me to see my own beliefs. These moments are great gifts. If I can see my beliefs and assumptions, I can decide whether I still value them.”There are many of us in this country who would like to see the rhetoric toned down. We’d like to see a culture of manners, at least conversational manners, reintroduced. For this to happen, the art of listening is a skill which we’re going to need to sharpen. Unfortunately, we don’t like to listen because if we actually listen, we might then need to change—and change is uncomfortable. To change is to move, as Wheatley notes, into a world of uncertainly.But without a willingness to listen, to be disturbed, to be confused, to be uncomfortable, we also not likely to be creative. “Great ideas and inventions miraculously appear in the space of not knowing,” Wheatley writes. She says, “We have the opportunity many times a day, every day, to be the one who listens to other, curious rather than certain.” This is a positive benefit, she says, because it is not important to be joined at the head; it’s more important to be joined at the heart. I ran across a handout which was distributed to participants in a weekend seminar dealing with issues of conflict resolution, group communication dynamics and the like. The two page handout was an excerpt from a book written by Margaret J. Wheatley called Turning to one another: Simple Conversations to Restore Hope to the Future (SF: Berrett-Koshler Publishers, Inc, 2002). Wheatley writes, “As we work together to restore hope to the future, we need to include a new and strange ally — our willingness to be disturbed. Our willingness to have our beliefs and ideas challenged by what others think. No one person or perspective can give us the answers we need to the problems of today. Paradoxically, we can only find those answers by admitting we don’t know. We have to be willing to let go of our certainty and expect ourselves to be confused for a time.“We weren’t trained to admit we don’t know. Most of us were taught to sound certain and confident, to state our opinion as if it were true. We haven’t been rewarded for being confused. Or for asking more questions rather than giving quick answers.”I like Wheatley’s suggestion that most of us probably need to be willing to be disturbed. However, I don’t think she’s suggesting — perhaps it’s not even possible — that we embrace disturbance as the leit motif of our existence. I don’t want to be, or to be known as, a disturbed individual. But I am willing to be pushed out of my comfort zone with regard to certain areas of my belief system. There are some beliefs, however, that I don’t want disturbed, and I am quite happy with that.This is not to suggest that these “protected” areas—tenets and dogmas that are non-negotiable or untouchable—are being protected because I think they are vulnerable to criticism, that they’d collapse under the weight of scrutiny. No, they’re protected right now because I am disturbed on so many other levels and concerning so many other issues. I can handle only so much disturbance! Know what I mean? For example, I am a theist. I am really comfortable with that. Do you want to talk to me about it, challenge me, debate, argue with me? Fine. But I am not really open to changing my view or position. It’s closed. I believe in God. I got other things in this complex world right now that are pushing around my pre-conceived ideas, biases and prejudices. You’re not going to disturb me about my faith in God. Not going to happen. So, like you, I have topics, dogmas and beliefs on which I ve hung a “DO NOT DISTURB” sign. Not only am I a theist, I am also a Christian. I am not a vegan and never will be. I don’t want to be told about the dangers of eating red meat or drinking diet soda. You can’t convince me that Downton Abbey is good television. I believe the Cubs are going to win the pennant someday. I am a PC person, not a MAC person, and that’s not going to change. And on a couple big ticket political issues, my opinion is formed—in concrete.But, engage me on most other issues, and I am willing to be informed and disturbed. And here’s the thing: It’s being willing to be disturbed on the little stuff that comes up day-to-day at home or at work or school that’s important. In your relationships, can you be pushed, jogged, nudged, challenged—without reacting defensively?As preachers, we are called to disturb. No argument there. But we also need to remember that not everyone is ready to be disturbed about everything and about everything all the time. Sometimes, we got to give it a rest. There’s a time to sing a lullaby, and there’s a time to blow a trumpet. And we also need to give people the right to hang a “DO NOT DISTURB” sign and honor that—unless the building’s on fire. In such cases, speaking metaphorically, we need not only to disturb, but intervene. And that’s another discussion … Perhaps you’ve already noticed that the new issue of HOMILETICS is online and has been for a few days. Here’s a few things you’ll find when you check out the new issue: You’ve heard about life coaches, and personal trainers, but a new niche market is emerging for “health coaches.”It took the Rover more than eight months to get from the earth to Mars. That’s a long wait for the scientists invested in the project. Waiting is not easy — for anyone.Are Facebook friends posting photos of old objects wondering if you remember what they were used for? What’s going on?Are you afflicted with the FOMO syndrome?Fifty years ago, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., penned his “letter from Birmingham jail.” About 2,000 years ago, the apostles also sent a message to the authorities — from a Jerusalem jail.This year marks the 100th anniversary of the first performance of the gospel hymn, “The Old Rugged Cross.”Here are the Scriptures we treat in the March-April, 2013, issue of Homiletics:March 3 Isaiah 55:1-9March 3 Luke 13:1-9March 10 2 Corinthians 5:16-21March 17 Isaiah 43:16-21March 24 Luke 19:28-40March 29 John 18:1‒19:42March 31 1 Corinthians 15:19-26April 7 Acts 5:27-32April 14 Psalm 30April 14 Revelation 5:11-14April 21 Acts 9:36-43April 28 Acts 11:1-18Special Installment: Good Friday, March 29, 2013The Other Texts for March-April 2013March 10: Joshua 5:9-12; Psalm 32; Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32March 17: Psalm 126; Philippians 3:4b-14; John 12:1-8April 7: Psalm 118:14-29; Revelation 1:4-8; John 20:19-31April 21: Psalm 23; Revelation 7:9-17; John 10:22-30April 28: Psalm 148; Revelation 21:1-6; John 13:31-35 That God is not a Christian is one of those truths which is so self-evident that to repeat it seems as silly as saying “The sun does not set in the east.” It is self-evident because, as Adler once said, it s impossible to believe the opposite, i.e. that the sun does set in the east. God is not a Christian. It s not possible to believe that God is a Christian. God is God, whole and self-contained and transcends labels, sects, religions, geography, politics and so forth. God is not a Democrat; God is not an American. God is not a Christian. And of course, God is not a Hindu, Jew, Buddhist, Jain, Shinto, Sikh, and so on.The expression pops up in 2010 as the title of a book by Bishop Carlton Pearson: God Is Not a Christian, Nor a Jew, Muslim, Hindu...: God Dwells with Us, in Us, Around Us, as Us (Atria Books). It surfaces the following year as the title of a book by the celebrated Archbishop of South Africa, Desmond Tutu: God Is Not a Christian: And Other Provocations (HarperOne). And now in a recent article on the Huffington Post (you can read it here), the expression comes up again. This time the discussion is adapted from a 2012 book by the Dalai Lama and Victor Chan: THE WISDOM OF COMPASSION: Stories of Remarkable Encounters and Timeless Insights (Riverhead Books). The title of this online post is: “God Is Not a Christian: Desmond Tutu And The Dalai Lama s Extraordinary Talk On God And Religion”In this post, the two religious leaders chat and banter for an audience, and at one point the diminutive archbishop says: “The glory about God is that God is a mystery. God is actually quite incredible in many ways. But God allows us to misunderstand her”—at this, the audience went wild; the applause was loud and spontaneous—“but also to understand her.”“I’ve frequently said I’m glad I’m not God,” Tutu continued. “But I’m also glad God is God. He can watch us speak, spread hatred, in his name. Apartheid was for a long time justified by the church. We do the same when we say all those awful things we say about gays and lesbians. We speak on behalf of a God of love.“The God that I worship is an omnipotent God,” Tutu intoned, opening his arms wide. He paused to let this sink in. Then he said, sotto voce, “He is also incredibly, totally impotent. The God that I worship is almighty, and also incredibly weak.“He can sit there and watch me make a wrong choice. Now, if I was God,” he said as the hall burst into laughter, “and I saw, for instance, this one is going to make a choice that is going to destroy his family, I’d probably snuff him out.“But the glory of God is actually mind-blowing. He can sit and not intervene because he has such an incredible, incredible reverence for my autonomy. He is prepared to let me go to hell. Freely. Rather than compel me to go to heaven.“He weeps when he sees us do the things that we do to one another. But he does not send lightning bolts to destroy the ungodly. And that is fantastic. God says, ‘I can’t force you. I beg you, please for your own sake, make the right choice. I beg you.’“When you do the right thing, God forgets about God’s divine dignity and he rushes and embraces you. ‘You came back, you came back. I love you. Oh how wonderful, you came back.’” We are in Epiphany season now and yesterday the pastor, who normally bakes an Epiphany cake and brings it to church for the kiddies, didn’t have time as she arrived back in town from a long trip only the day before. So she improvised and had the kids comes up front where she presided at a table on which were small placards and markers and instructed the children on the tradition of blessing the house at Epiphany and how this was written and the placard placed over the door of the home.So she did this, and the kids wrote, and then the pastor handed out brownies, “Epiphany brownies” and she said she had hidden things in these brownies, like—raisons in some of them, nuts in others, and in one brownie, there was a baby Jesus. And sure enough, one child soon discover the baby Jesus and he was revealed, the brownie stripped away, and the child gave the baby Jesus to the pastor.Anyway, so now we’re in Epiphany and for some reason I thought of Martin Buber s Ich und Du, usually translated I and Thou in which he famously suggests that humans approach their existence in two ways, an I-It construction which is the world of sensory impressions and experience; and/or the I-Thou configuration, in which we experience life in terms of relationships without limits. Whereas the I-It expression of existence is accessed through sensory perception, the I-Thou relationship is experienced only via the mind and the spirit.Epiphany is a good time to re-read Buber because his thought links well to the idea of unveiling that which is hidden, and the beginning of new relationship or dimension, the Divine to the Human and the Human to the Divine.Actually, Carson McCuller’s got me thinking along these lines through her book The Member of the Wedding, published 1945. I just finished reading it. The main character of the book is Frankie Addams, who is 12 years old and feels “unjoined” to everything. While other girls her age belong to this club or that, she’s not a member of anything, and is not sure what it is that excludes her. And she doesn’t understand why her black (“colored”) maid is likewise excluded and marginalized. So Frankie longs to belong, and when her older brother and his girlfriend announce their engagement, Frankie realizes how much she loves the idea of the wedding, because she belongs to it, and her brother and his new wife are the “we of you and me.” The three of them, she imagines, will live happily ever after. It would be awful to live life without someone or someones who become our “we.” To not ever be able to say “we” would be a life without relationship, a life of isolation. But to use the first person plural to expression many relationship—that implies a rich and meaningful life.Epiphany, then, can be an opportunity in our journey to Ash Wednesday, to rediscover the hidden or under-appreciated “we’s” in our life, or the “Thou’s” as Buber puts it. The good news is that Jesus Christ is revealed as the ultimate You of we and me, and that further, the Church can provide on a human level a forum, context or venue in which I-Thou and you-we-me relationships can be formed. This similarity of thought in McCullers and Buber is so striking that I wonder if McCullers read Martin Buber’s work. It was written in 1923 I think, but wasn’t translated into English until 1937. McCullers published her book in 1945, but it took her five years to write it, meaning she started work on the book only three years after Buber s work appeared in English. So the connection is clearly possible, and the I-Thou thought would have been a novel idea at that time. The year is only two days old, but so far it’s been pretty good. I’ve been with family. I’ve talked to family. And I’m feeling healthy.And the country’s leaders have managed to steer us away from the fiscal cliff, apparently. So that’s good news, isn’t it?And as a Denver Broncos fan, I look forward to the AFC teams stopping by to visit—hoping to get to the Super Bowl in New Orleans. Unfortunately, they will be out-Manninged and Manning-handled on the field and out-John Foxed on the sidelined. And if you’re Veronica Larin, the ex-wife of former Italian P.M. Silvio Berlusconi, you’ve got to be very happy right now. Only a few days ago, a judge awarded you an alimony settlement in which your skirt-chasing husband has to pay you $48 million a year, which comes out to about $130,000 A DAY. ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY THOUSAND DOLLARS A DAY!!!!!! I don’t even want to imagine how many wells in Africa could be dug for that kind of money, or schools and hospitals built, or teachers hired in the third world, or small businesses established and so on. It would make me throw up.So a subscriber writes the other day about the Homiletics material coming up for this Sunday. “Why am I the way I am?” Or, “Who am I anyway — really?”We’re only a couple of days into the new year and it’s a safe bet that we’ve asked some version of these questions. “I am the way I am because I don’t exercise and I eat three cheeseburgers every week and wash it down with a 64 ounce Big Gulp soda” (not in New York City, of course). Who am I? Our answers will vary, but we might say on this first Sunday of the year, “I am an overfed, under-exercised human being who spends too much on fuel for the three vehicles I own, who’s too materialistic and too busy making money to support my habits, not to speak of supporting the spouse, kids, dogs and cats.” On the first Sunday of the new year it’s tempting for us to talk about new year’s resolutions — you know, all those things people promise to do or stop doing in the coming year that will make their life better, improve their health, etc. Some psychologists, however, tell us that all this talk about resolutions is really a waste of time. The reason for this is that we can’t fundamentally change our behavior until we fundamentally understand who we are, and who we are is shaped by what we believe. You want to make big changes in your life? You have to be willing to dig deeper into your whole belief system and your reason for existence. It’s not helpful to resolve to go to the gym, for example, when you haven’t dealt with the reasons why the couch is so important to your life. Resolutions, then, are about what you’ll do, but real change comes as a result of knowing who you are. What do you fundamentally believe about yourself, about the world, about God, and how does that belief shape your behavior? Getting down to that level of introspection and self-awareness can really lead you somewhere beyond January 1. Anyway, back to this subscriber, he writes to say that there’s a good reference in the new film version of Les Miserables where Jean Valjean twice asks the question, Why am I? He does this early in the film and again toward the end. So thanks for this input.I hope you all have a blessed year, and I look forward to chatting with you here. Just a short greeting on this the feast day for the Nativity of our Lord. While we celebrate, the wise men are still far from Bethlehem... even so, perhaps, today.Evelyn Waugh put this prayer into the mouth of St. Helena, mother of the Emperor Constantine. It is addressed to the three Wise Men who came to Jesus. Like me, ... you were late in coming. The shepherds were here long before; even the cattle. They had joined the chorus of angels before you were on your way .... How laboriously you came, taking sights and calculating where the shepherds had run barefoot! How odd you looked on the road, attended by what outlandish liveries, laden with such preposterous gifts! You came at length to the final stage of your pilgrimage and the great star stood still above you. What did you do? You stopped to call on King Herod. Deadly exchange of compliments in which there began that unended war of mobs and magistrates against the innocent! Yet you came and were not turned away. You too found room before the manger. Your gifts were not needed, but they were accepted and put carefully by, for they were brought with love. In that new order of charity that had just come to life, there was room for you too. You were not lower in the eyes of the holy family than the ox or the ass. You are my especial patrons, ... and patrons of all latecomers, of all who have a tedious journey to make to the truth, of all who are confused with knowledge and speculation, of all who through politeness make themselves partners in guilt, of all who stand in danger by reason of their talents. Dear Cousins, pray for me, ... and for my poor overloaded son. May he, too, before the end find kneeling space in the straw. Pray for the great, lest they perish utterly .... For his sake who did not reject your curious gifts, pray always for all the learned, the oblique, the delicate. Let them not be quite forgotten at the Throne of God when the simple come into their kingdom. Evelyn Waugh, Helena (London: Chapman and Hall, 1950), 239. First I apologize for being away from the blog for a while. Been traveling. But I wish you all a Merry Christmas and trust your next few days will be meaningful for you spiritually—your relationship with God, and emotionally—your time with your families and friends.While traveling, I had occasion to exit a vast subway system several times using long escalators. As I rode the stairs up to the light of day, a soft feminine voice crooned over a speaker somewhere: “Please stand firm and hold on to the handrail.”I should let you develop the metaphor, but I think that’s good advice for life. Stand firm … and … hang on!!!Perhaps a motto for 2013? As we celebrate Advent and Christmas, we re fully aware of where God s love is leading us. The love might begin in the softly starlit manger, but it inevitably will lead to the harsh noonday sun reflecting on the Cross. God knows this, of course, but does not shy away from the pain that is coming. God s extravagant love is demonstrated in God s willingness to give sacrificially. God bestows the most precious gift, God s Son, knowing that this offering will not be appreciated, honored, or at times, even recognized. Yet God also sings, can t regret what I did for love, as this love which is freely given is leading God s beloved children home. The price is great, almost beyond measure. The gift of Christmas is that God looks at the cost without blinking. God does indeed care enough to send the very best. The best is the gift of Christ, this bundle of love wrapped in cloths hastily assembled in the lowliest of birth places. It s the gift -- that makes the angels sing, the shepherds run to attention, the magi travel to worship and adore and it s the gift that continues to bless us even today.God s love is an always love; the psalmist assures us that God is steadfast in devotion and faithfulness. This covenant is reminiscent of a marriage vow; the divine promise is to be faithful until parted by death and even beyond. This is not a conditional love. It is not a careful love. There is no prenuptial agreement here. This is dive in, take no prisoners, head-over-heels, no-holds-barred kind of love. God is willing to give Jesus the beloved on behalf of this fickle, unappreciative world. This is what God would do for love: God will offer that which is most precious.The ferocity and strength of this love should bring to mind the pledge, spoken or unspoken, of parents across the globe when they catch the first glimpse of their newborn child. In that instant an unbreakable bond is formed with the understood vow, I will always be there for you. It is fierceness like that of a tigress or a mother bear -- I will fight for you, if necessary. I will defend you with my blood, with my life and with all of my spirit. Although this love will seek to protect and promises never to abandon, it does not and cannot promise an absence of danger, loss or stress. There will be foes, enemies and wicked ones who want to do harm. God promises that the love of God will never end; the evil that exists cannot prevail. It s not a gilded path free of pain or sorrow, but rather the accompaniment of faithfulness along a precarious journey; it s the promise of a love that is steadfast, strong and true. We can count on this love, no matter what comes. (--from Homiletics, December 18, 2011) The Homiletics prayer that went out to subscribers yesterday has provoked a good discussion. Most of the responses received here have been positive, and appreciative. Even those who disagree with the “joyless” proposal re Advent 3 were grateful for the effort. Most of those who responded with a different take, are positioning themselves as pastors who must lead a service on Sunday. No way they are not lighting the Candle of Joy. One person wrote, “Now, more than ever, we need to light the candle of joy and remind ourselves of our faith and our hope.”Here’s the thing: This pastor wants to gather his flock and sit down with them, light a Candle of Joy and try to remind themselves of their faith.” What I am suggesting is that the pastor sit down, figuratively, with the PARENTS of these 20 five-and-six year olds, and SIT IN THE DARKNESS WITH THEM and perhaps light a candle of remembrance! Do you think the parents got any sleep Friday night? Do you think they care whether Christians in churches like our might need to be “reminded of their faith and hope” at a time like this?I don’t think so.One person wrote, “The Incarnation provides those who mourn a beacon of light--and dare I say Joy--on which to fix the sight of faith.” Again, this pastor is speaking to the choir. If you are the pastor of any one of these parents, -- really? You’re going to say that to them right now?(This could lead us to a discussion of Flew s Gardner story, or Basil Mitchell s Parable of the Stranger. Statements, in order to be MEANINGFUL must be capable of verification or falsification or they die a death of a thousand qualification. The sun is shining. Why, no it s not, when I go outside, I see the Milky Way and not the sun. It s so dark I have to take off my Raybans. I have to use the flash on my camera, and moreover, stipped to my skivvies and laid on the lawn for two hours and didn t get a sun tan. The sun is not shining Of course, you can come back, with, Well yes it is shining, on the other side of the world. Or, as this pastor said, “The Incarnation provides those who mourn a beacon of light--and dare I say Joy--on which to fix the sight of faith.” Ah, no it doesn t. The sun is not shining, right now, right here on our side of the world. A deranged lad just shot 20 six-year-olds and their parents are writhing in unspeakable anquish. Unless we agree that these shootings are evidence that would tend to falsify the pastor s assertion, the pastor s comment has no meaning. And IF it is such evidence, and I think it is, then we should react to the counter evidence or counter claim and mourn, and not stand with the pastor s assertion. At least not stand with it TODAY.)Sunday is an opportunity to sit with these parents in their darkness, not to nervously wring our hands and say that Well the sun (Son) is shining somewhere. There is no need to be standing in this obvious darkness and try to explain how sunny it is. No need to try to reaffirm our faith and utter platitudes which IF YOU SAID THEM FACE TO FACE TO A PARENT would cause you to likely get punched in the mouth. And you’’d deserve it.Deus absconditus. Sometimes, it would seem that God is hidden, is silent or has fled. We must acknowledge those times. One person wrote: “This horrible sorrow and tragedy provides the perfect opportunity to preach Christ and the promise Zephaniah and all of Scripture give that the day is coming when because of the LORD ‘never again will you fear any harm.’”No, it not the perfect time. Again, preaching to the choir. This sort of thing is not what it means to bear one another’s burdens, or to weep with those who weep.There is a time to shut up. This is one of those times.There is a time for weeping. This is one of those times.There is a time to not to get our theological knickers in a twist. This is one of those times.There is a time not to try making lemonade. This is one of those times.There is a time to keep silence, to sit in the dark, to acknowledge that TODAY God seems to be absent.There is a time to be real, to get real. This is one of those times.One person wrote: “No one misguided, sick, evil person can take away our joy.” Now, pretend you’re saying that to a parent! “Dear parent, no one misguided, sick, evil person can take away our joy.” Are you kidding me? They would likely say something like, “You sick, stupid, $#%^ ^%[email protected]## ! of a person! Get out of my sight!!!” Again, you’d deserve it.I get intent here. But on this Sunday, can we FOR ONCE, JUST NOT TRY to say things that if we said to the people who are really grieving would sound insensitive, outrageous and insulting?There will come a time when these parents may be able to find balance, peace, perhaps even joy.But it’s not coming TODAY. So let’s just sit with them in our churches wherever we are and mourn. Let’s NOT blah blah blah about our faith and hope and joy. There will be time for that… LATER!!!! Hello!?! Not now. LATER!Right now, instead, let’s just shut up and cry, and say, “Yeah, where’s God? Yeah, we get that. We understand. We’re going to sit here with you and we’re going to get through this together.” No joy on the third Sunday of Advent. Yet another massacre of innocents, the killings of twenty kindergarten children at Sandy Hook Elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut. This has become a much too common experience for us, yet we are numb with shock and grief. Sunday is Advent 3, when many churches will have families and children assist in lighting the third Advent candle of Joy. Perhaps you will want to keep that candle dark and extinguished this year, and light instead a Candle of Remembrance and Grief. Yes, I know that the light has overcome the darkness. But in the immediate aftermath of this unspeakable horror, to talk about joy and light is not only bad therapy, but it s bad theology. Sometimes, pastors must be less concerned about standing on a theological point, and more willing to sit with the grieving in their darkness. Now is such a time.To that end, we offer the following as a prayer. Our prayers go out to you as pastors and preachers, as you offer up prayers, counsel and comfort on this Sunday of Sorrow. A Prayer for ComfortGentle, Compassionate, Loving God, Hear the cries of your joyless, sorrowful people.Our prayers go out to the families of Newtown and Sandy Hook Elementary School who have experienced incomprehensible loss. We come to you now with heavy heartsand in deep sorrow. There is no joy on this Advent Sunday of joy,This was a slaughter of innocents,Twenty kindergarten children, perhaps scribbling Christmas cards in crayon for their parents—gunned down. The parents--They’re burdened now with unfathomable grief.Their pain and numbness must be beyond words and thoughts.We cry out and ask WHY God, WHY this carnage at Christmas?As we celebrate a child born in Bethlehem, The lives of children scarcely out of the cradleare snuffed out and gone forever except in our hearts.With the prophet of old we cry out, “Oh that my head were a spring of waterAnd my eyes a fountain of tears!I would weep day and night for the slain of my people…Is there no balm in Gilead? Why then is there no healingFor the wound of my people?”We do not understand. Why Lord? We plead with you for answers. Why? Until we hear from you O God, we cannot light a candle of joy,We light instead a candle of Remembrance, a candle of Grief and Sorrow,And we remember that You weep with us. In the weeping and mourning, may we feel Your Eternal Presence, and may we know Your Comforting Spirit covering us as a warm blanket of peace.In the name of Jesus Christ, who suffered for usAnd who now suffers with us. Amen. Tyler Alred, 17, of Muskogee, Oklahoma, has been sentenced to attend church for 10 years. Here is a recap from The Wired Word (www.thewiredword.com): “Alred had been drinking before he got behind the wheel of a Chevy pickup around 4 a.m. on December 3, with his friend John Luke Dum, 16, as a passenger. When he crashed into a tree, Dum was killed. Two breath tests at the scene showed Alred s blood-alcohol level at 0.06 and 0.07, which is below the 0.08 threshold for drunkenness for adults. But because Alred is underage, he was considered to be driving under the influence of alcohol. At his trial before District Judge Mike Norman, Alred pleaded guilty to manslaughter. “Norman noted that Alred had a good record until that point, but said that the teen used poor judgment, with severe results.“Deciding to give the high school and welding school student a chance, Norman placed Alred on probation, with several conditions, including wearing an ankle bracelet that monitors alcohol consumption, undergoing regular drug and alcohol assessments, graduating from high school and welding school, attending victim-impact panels, speaking on the consequences of drinking and driving, and attending church for 10 years.”The Oklahoma chapter of the ALCU has predictably, yet understandably, objected. I don’t know what the judge was thinking, however well-intentioned his motions.Still, here are some things to consider about this case.1. The judge’s sentence is not punitive in nature, but restorative. 2. The judge rightly perceived that requiring the young man to be in a wholesome context for a long period of time would be a good thing not a bad thing. 3. The judge (whom we must assume is well aware of church-state issues) no doubt made this a part of his sentence because it was a provision that was compatible with the defendant’s faith. There’s no way the judge would have made this a condition of, let’s say, a Jewish defendant’s sentence, or a Muslim’s sentence. (Depending on the situation, it’s possible he might have ordered 10 years of synagogue or mosque.)4. The requirement that the defendant go to church is only one provision of the judge’s sentence.5. It is regrettable that a situation exists in which all parties agree that this young man’s attendance at church services for 10 years is a good thing—yet are (evidently) forbidden by our laws from finding a way to do it.6. The ACLU’s public statement is flawed in several ways. According to The Wired Word, “Brady Henderson, the ACLU of Oklahoma’s legal director, said, ‘Judge Norman’s decision to give this defendant a choice between church and prison cannot be enforced without illegal government intrusion into a young man’s conscience. Not only is this inconsistent with our nation’s fundamental guarantees of freedom of worship, it is also offensive to the very religion it is meant to advance. Acts of faith should come from a freely-made choice to adopt a faith, not from the government giving its citizens an ultimatum to sit either in a pew or a prison cell.’”Let’s consider this seriatum.A. “Judge Norman’s decision to give this defendant a choice between church and prison cannot be enforced without illegal government intrusion into a young man’s conscience.” I do not know if the defendant was given a choice between prison and going to church, but the charge that the sentence is an “intrusion into a young man’s conscience” is patently false.B. “Not only is this inconsistent with our nation’s fundamental guarantees of freedom of worship, it is also offensive to the very religion it is meant to advance.” False assumption. The judge’s ruling does not “mean to advance” any religion. The defendant has a religion and the judge’s ruling in no way either intends or does in fact “advance” a religion that has not already been embraced.C. “Acts of faith should come from a freely-made choice to adopt a faith, not from the government giving its citizens an ultimatum to sit either in a pew or a prison cell.” First, attending a church service is not an act of faith. It is ritual observance. Second, a “freely-made choice” has already been made by the defendant and the judge’s ruling neither advanced or coerced the choice. Third, I am suspicious of the claim that the defendant’s choice was to sit in a pew or a cell, especially since there are other provisions in the sentence besides the church attendance provision.I wonder if the judge could not have offered the defendant a number of options or some wiggle room. Perhaps there could have been a way that church attendance one of several possibilities. Whatever happens in this situation, this is another reminder that we live in a post-Christian culture, and some actions, such as the “drop the myth” ad in Times Square are blatantly anti-Christian. This is our culture. It is the culture in which we preach and lift up the good news. One would wish that the defendant’s church attendance had had a stronger influence on him before he got behind the wheel after drinking. The tragedy his actions caused could have been prevented. Joy to the world! the Lord is come;Let earth receive her King;Let every heart prepare him room,And heaven and nature sing,And heaven and nature sing,And heaven, and heaven, and nature sing.Lots of ink has been used in the past two millennia to discuss the meaning of joy. What can I add to this conversation in this little blog? And what can you, the preacher add to the discussion in your little sermon this coming Sunday?It’s good for a preacher to remember that her or his calling re the preaching event is not to re-invent the wheel. Sometimes it is enough to simply kick the tires, make sure they’re not flat, or to remove the hubcaps and replace them with something different, perhaps a bit more shiny.You could revisit the oft-discussed contrast between happiness and joy. I like the idea that whereas the opposite of happiness is sadness or sorrow, the opposite of joy is anxiety, worry or fear.To say that with the birth of Jesus joy entered the world is to say that when Jesus entered the world, those who cradle the Christ child in their arms, and carry him in their hearts are liberated from anxiety. And in the absence of anxiety and worry, how can one not face each day with unmitigated joy? Joy is what’s left over, when fear and anxiety are removed.We can manipulate our situation to be happy. But joy is something else. You can’t be worry-free by telling yourself not to worry. Freedom from anxiety is a gift that comes to us through faith in Jesus Christ. And when that gift is received, we experience it as joy.When we hear the birds singing outside our window, it sounds joyful. Do bird worry? No, they build their nests, look for their daily food, fly to a higher perch and warble without worry. On this Sunday we recall that of all that the coming of Christ means to us, is certainly means the promise of joy. I need not remind you, the preacher, that in our world these days, those who possess joy, though they may be poor in the eyes of the world, are rich—beyond compare! Advent is a penitential season, or at least it used to be. Thus the inclusion of the gospel pericope for this Sunday, the Second Sunday in Advent. Here s a story:In October, 1989, the city of San Francisco was struck by a powerful earthquake. Huge cracks appeared in the walls of Candlestick Park, where thousands of fans were waiting to watch the third game of the World Series. Sections of freeway twisted and buckled; some collapsed. At least twenty-seven fires broke out across the city; the largest, in the Marina District, consumed dozens of buildings.At the edge of the Marina District, a crowd of curiosity-seekers gathered, watching the firefighters as they battled the flames. After a few minutes of this, a police officer came up to the crowd and began shouting at them. “What have you come to look at?” he said to them. “This is no time to be standing around. There’s been an earthquake. You all have work to do! Go home. Fill your bathtubs with water (if you still have water). Prepare yourselves to live for the next several days without electricity. The sun’s going to set in another hour; your time is running out. The firefighters will do their job here: now you go home and do yours!”That police officer spoke truth, as John the Baptist spoke truth. He spoke with urgency, as John the Baptist spoke with urgency. His message, like John’s, was what the people truly needed to hear.What’s the message we most need to hear, in these ever-shortening days of Advent? Is it a message of spending and partying and conspicuous consumption? Or is it a message of repentance and forgiveness and faithfulness? A journalist assigned to the Jerusalem bureau takes an apartment overlooking the Wailing Wall. Every day when she looks out, she sees an old Jewish man praying vigorously. So, the journalist goes down and introduces herself to the old man.She asks, “You come every day to the wall. How long have you done that and what are you praying for?”The old man replies, “I have come here to pray every day for 25 years. In the morning I pray for world peace and then for the brotherhood of man. I go home have a cup of tea and I come back and pray for the eradication of illness and disease from the earth.”The journalist is amazed. “How does it make you feel to come here every day for 25 years and pray for these things?” she asks.The old man looks at her sadly. “Like I’m talking to a wall.” We all know the feeling.We read of the “Prince of Peace” in Isaiah. In October of every year, the Nobel committee in Oslo announces the recipient of the annual “Nobel Peace Prize.” And yet, the world has rarely, if ever known a period of true peace, except perhaps for the Pax Romana, and that was the peace of a cemetery, i.e. the peace enforced by a global occupying power.So when we come to the second Sunday of the Advent season we talk about peace wistfully, with longing and desire. And when we talk about the Advent peace, usually we raise the problem of peace or the lack of peace in the world today—as though political peace is what the ChristChild of the manger is all about.During Holy Week, don’t we preachers comment on the fact that Jesus comes into Jerusalem welcomed by an excited throng who think that they ve found in Jesus a political savior? Do we not discuss the misplaced expectations the disciples often had of Jesus, i.e. that they thought he was going to establish a political kingdom and do it soon? Do not we preachers explain that the disciples had this all wrong, that Jesus came to establish a kingdom “within” us, and that any political changes were for a future age that would dawn at some unknown time?So then, why do we talk about political peace on the Second Sunday of Advent, when it was peace of a different kind that Jesus hoped to bring to us? This is important because our congregations are FULL or restless and peace-searching people who wonder what it’s all about and in some cases feel as though their backs are against the wall. How can the Prince of Peace bring personal peace to us as we prepare for Advent? Working for peace and justice is the work of the Christian. No argument there. I’m just saying: Let’s not forget the peace of the other kind. Jesus talks about it. “My peace I leave with you, not as the world gives, give I unto you.” Paul says, “Therefore being set right with God, we have peace through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Romans 5:1) He also writes to the Philippians saying, “And may the peace of God which passes all understanding guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus our Lord” (4:7) (There’s an interesting irony in the word “guard,” a military term referring to a garrison or fortress, and the concept of peace). The peace making meeting scheduled for today has been cancelled due to a conflict.”--Church blooper

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Rant, ravings and reflections about faith and culture, heavy on material that could be adapted for use in sermon preparation.

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